Victoria had told me she hadn't seen Taylor during her flyover last night, and I didn't expect it to do much good even if she had. This wasn't an issue so easily solved, Taylor was a wreck. Going from years of bullying into having the power to see only the darkness in the hearts of men? That would screw up anyone's head. I wonder what she'd seen in mine that convinced her I was a Nazi. I was pretty sure that I didn't hate black people, or Jews, or Asians or whatever.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure we'd notice something like that.
Too right we would, Other Greg. It was par for the course that I didn't understand myself, and outside Thinker assistance would be supremely helpful in deciphering the hormonal recesses of my subconscious. Having two minds didn't help, Other Greg didn't have access to anything I didn't. We were the same person, had the same memories and the same outlooks. Divergences could happen if we were separate for long enough and we were specifically concentrating on different things, but we still shared all memory and knowledge which consolidated as soon as we integrated again.
What I needed was to get access to the Protectorate multiple groups of Thinkers and ask them two questions. 'Am I racist?', and, 'how do I fix Taylor?'
Cool evening air ruffled my hair as I kept pace with Carlos and Chris in what was finally a patrol route that wasn't padded kiddy gloves bullshit. I could easily take like ninety per cent of the capes in the city in a fight, many even at the same time. PRT duty of care be damned, I wanted to be free, and in the event that any danger even showed up I could invisibly run away faster than they could follow.
I'd forced myself to take a secondary, even tertiary, role in the chit chat which was mostly various gossip from Arcadia. They apparently weren't friends at school, which was pretty wild to think about. I mean, it made sense as they were in different years and had completely different social circles, but, still; wouldn't you want to chill with your Wards homies? There were a million ways to make that work without coming close to compromising identities. Crazy.
"Arcadia sounds pretty baller," I chimed in, pressing down the mic button on my earpiece. "I'll transfer in if they ever let me go back to school here."
"Why don't they?" Chris asked. "It's not like Greg is going to be attacked by the Empire, and I'm sure they have to let us go to school."
"My parents signed a thing so I could be schooled on base, and I'm pretty sure I'd stick out too much, dude, my powers are too obvious."
Chris didn't reply for a few seconds, obviously stewing in his embarrassment for asking such a stupid, obvious question. How many jacked, blond teenagers who moved like water were there in Brockton? Dipshit.
We're not doing that anymore remember? Friends.
"That sucks," Carlos interrupted the awkward silence. "Doesn't it get boring being on base by yourself all day?"
"It's not much fun, there's only so much internet surfing you can do before it gets crushingly dull. It's good that my whole music thing is taking off and I can start spending more time on that," I twisted in the air as I leapt between buildings so I could face them. "I have a new song that I'm almost done with, actually. It's one of the wanky PR ones they asked me to make about the ABB slash Empire gang war. I think they just want more donations, honestly. Anyway, I'm thinking 'Unravel' for the title."
I managed to cut myself off before I went into a monologue about the uselessness of the government and how they just wanted to look like they were doing anything when in reality all they wanted to do was line the pockets of their friends with specifically my tax money while the gang war that had hospitalised my mother continued unabated.
"Well, that's good at least," Carlos said. "Keeps you busy."
"And yet I still need more hobbies. What about you guys, what do you get up to besides Wards shit?"
"Look alive, boys!" Missy's voice suddenly cut in over the comms, her being our console overwatch for the evening. "Armsmaster just okayed you to intercept the Undersiders, they were just seen breaking into some building downtown."
Carlos and Chris came to an immediate halt, floating in mid-air while I drifted out of my latest jump onto a street light. Undersiders, eh? The team with two confirmed murderers who weren't shy about hurting people? I guess we were a pretty good match for them, Chris was out of their range and Carlos almost couldn't be debilitated.
"Oh shit, copy that, Vista!" Carlos said, voice cracking in surprise. "Where at?"
"The corner of Cushman and Lewis. Backup's ETA is five minutes."
We turned, me remembering exactly where that intersection was from having looked at the map of the city once and Chris having GPS in his heads up display, Carlos followed our lead and we rocketed away. In order of speed, I was just faster than Carlos, who was faster than Chris, but both of them could fly without being reliant on the rooftop terrain. For once I was the one holding back the pace as Chris gripped Carlos' hand and let himself be dragged faster than his hoverboard could propel. I wasn't holding them back by much, but damn I really needed a bloody flying spell.
Downtown wasn't terribly far from where we were, and moving faster than city traffic in a straight line let us make fantastic time.
"What's the plan, Aegis?" I asked.
There was a few seconds pause. "Armsmaster thinks we're good for it, so you can jump in and smash some heads with me while Chris keeps them under suppressive, right?"
"Absolutely."
The timing was beyond fortuitous, as we closed in on the address they were just leaving. And they obviously didn't know we were coming because they weren't in a special rush. Sure, there was a smooth professional speed to their movements, but nothing to imply they were trying to escape their unavoidable impending arrest.
I hit the ground near them, and in the time it took for their heads to turn my way I had already leapt forward and kicked the one of Hellhound's giant mutant dogs she was sitting astride. The magically enhanced kick blasted it across the pavement and onto the street, clipping the wing mirror off of a parked car, and I caught Hellhound out of the air as she fell in an uncontrolled tumble. In a flash of blue, she was encased in a thick shackle of mana, and safely on the ground.
"Evac! Evac, Evac, Evac, Eva-"
Tattletale's wild screech was cut off by the thick smoke so black it looked like a two-dimensional object as it spewed from under Grue's bike leathers. I met it with a deluge of my blue smoke, the two fluffy smoke banks melding seamlessly into each other and over both groups. Sound vanished, leaving me in pitch black with only my heartbeat and breath and the feel of solid ground underfoot to keep me aware.
Grue's smoke dampened mine? I lunged for where Regent had been, fingers swiping on air as I felt around for something solid. My fingertip touched cloth and mana poured out to encase-
The Undersiders all slumped to the ground in unison, Grue's cover smoke fading away into the night breeze. I dismissed my smoke to get a proper look at what had just happened.
Grue, Tattletale, Regent and Hellhound had turned into RealDolls, Hellhound's still shackled by my spell, each dressed in crude facsimile of their Cape outfits. The mutant dogs looked to be slowly melting into puddles of meat.
"What the fuck?"
I turned to look at Aegis as he floated down, "I think they might have teleported?"
"And been replaced by sex dolls?" he scoffed, putting a hand to his comms. "Win, can you come have a look at this?"
Chris floated down, holstering his spark pistols, and stepped off his hoverboard. "It's over already? What happened?"
"We think they might have done some kind of switch-teleport, can you take some readings?"
"Yeah, just give me…" Chris pressed at a few points on his left arm guard, prompting a series of blue lines to appear and spit out his scanner. He gingerly knelt beside the sex dolls and waved his scanner over them, which made dial-up internet and Geiger counter noises. He inspected the screen. "I'm getting dimensional residue, so, teleported. Since when could they do that?"
"Coil's mercs have tinker guns," Carlos said, shrugging and putting a hand to his ear. "Maybe from him? Vista, Win says they got away by teleporting."
"It only makes sense," I spoke into my own communicator. "Tattletale shouted 'evac' a bunch of times when I kicked Hellhound's dog. Also, can you write it up that I winged a car mirror when I did that? License plate six nine nine two L H."
It was a little surprising how quickly they escaped, but considering they were about two seconds away from all being arrested I couldn't fault them.
Quest 'Undeciders' complete!
Reward: 15 000xp
You have levelled up!
Ah, excellent. That last level had taken a while. I hadn't been getting many of my usual quests again until quite recently. The quest power clearly worked off of my subconscious to some degree, and I hadn't been in the best place recently. Very demotivated.
I'd managed to keep up with the gym out of sheer habit, though increases in strength and vitality were becoming increasingly difficult to come by now, it had taken roughly the same amount of time to get from four to thirty-five as it had to hit forty-five, which I had gotten to yesterday. It was so much effort that I was seriously considering putting my points into one just to hit fifty so I could quit lifting so much. But, in the end, that was a mental trap and I was much better off upping my dexterity or intelligence and working for the others.
"How did you hit a car with that?"
"I kicked the dog into the car, it was awesome."
"It's almost a shame that I didn't get to do anything," Carlos said, feet finally touching the ground as he alighted. "They vanished, like, the second we got here."
"Well, that's their whole deal right? They're good at running."
Carlos clicked his tongue, "so it would seem."
I wandered over to the building they were assumedly robbing, the door of which was still open. I equipped a pair of sterile gloves and pushed my way inside, making sure to scout ahead with a cloud of mana just in case Victor was hiding in a shadowy corner.
There was nobody in the foyer, the reception desk empty and the computer screen off. My smoke crept up the stairwell to the left, hidden behind an alcove, and I followed it quietly, blending into the shadow. The empty stairs led up to an office, rows of desks empty and off, a single room at the back lit by the fluorescent bar light, a pot plant throwing a spiked shadow onto the floor.
My smoke flowed under the door and, over human shapes.
"We have bodies," I barked into the comms. "In the building upstairs."
"Dammit, Dark Smoke, don't wander off!" Carlos hissed. "I'm coming, wait for me."
"Roger that."
I felt one of them wriggle, and muffled shouting started up from inside the room.
"They're live," I said to Carlos, then called out loud. "Please remain calm, I'm Dark Smoke Puncher, with the Protectorate. We've got help coming, it won't even be a minute and we'll have you out of there, ok? So don't you even worry."
They struggled harder and yelled more muffled yells. Carlos barreled out of the stairwell behind me.
"Hold on, it might be a trap."
"What is it?"
"When I said I was Protectorate they didn't react right," I whispered. "It's just a feeling, but maybe we should wait for the bomb squad or something."
"Yeah?" he whispered back, floating up to get a better view inside the office. He drifted back down next to me. "How many are you counting?"
"Six, all tied up."
"Shit. Yeah, we're waiting for that backup," he floated back into the stairwell, with me in tow. "Vista, what's the ETA on our backup? Tell them we've got six hostages, possible trap. Bomb squad on Thinker advisement."
"Oh, shit, hang on, I'll patch them into our line. Can you go through that again?"
We came off the stairs, crossed the foyer and exited back onto the street as the wail of sirens started coming in. I'd say it was going to be a long night, but we all clocked off in half an hour. The perks of being a Ward.
