Static Force

Chapter 11: The Calm

News of the battle between Static, Gear and the Special Crimes Unit had now become little more than the hot topic of discussion of the news media and political officials around town. Static's actions had drawn a great deal of criticism and controversy that did little to dissuade the notion that the Meta-Human community was nothing less than lawless thugs. In truth, many of the most outspoken opponents against the anti-Meta-Human legislation had now quite vocally supported the amendment, agreeing the Bang Baby crisis had indeed gone beyond the control of law enforcement.

Since the footage of the battle aired on the afternoon and evening news, Static's team had unintentionally removed themselves from public service. With no feasible options in dealing with the crisis at hand regarding the aggressive policy against Meta-Humans, staying out of the spotlight seemed the best alternative, lest they end up captured or worse.

For that reason alone, Static felt thankful that he had an excuse to disband the team, at least temporally. Everyone had been working so hard over the past couple of months, that burnout was affecting their judgment and morale. With an excuse to take a breather and perhaps decompress, he had no worries that his friends would come to assist him on a moments notice, but now, he'd let the SCU handle Ebon and company for a while.

That was how he had found himself in the Power Pad, the secret base of former hero great Soul Power. The machinery itself was outdated and the car was something more along the lines of a land yacht than a road worthy means of transportation, but he could see the potential it could serve him in the future, once he found the excuse to bring Ritchie down here to revamp the interior. For now, it served as an island amongst a sea of turbulence that he could calm his mind and relax. That was the very reason he brought Permafrost here.

A scared and uncertain young girl, Maureen O'Connor trusted no one, and for good reason. Abandoned by her stepfather after her mother's death, she was forced to fend for herself, something that would have broken most six-year old children. Maureen however, survived despite the odds...and did it all herself as well, without the aid of any possible Good Samaritan. Yet, it caused within her a distance, an emotional void that sheltered her from the world, leaving her with the notion of self-preservation that the only person for her to trust was herself.

"Maureen please," Virgil said again, the same words he'd spoken nearly every minute of the past two hours. "Tell me what happened to you, who did this?"

Like always however, the cringing young teen would merely press herself further into the corner she had designated as her own, trying to vanish from the view of the young man before her.

"I can help you Maureen, but I need you to trust me."

"No, you'll only hurt me. Everyone hurts me." The girl said, the first words spoken since Virgil had brought her here. If nothing else, Virgil felt this would make an applicable home for her, as Mr. Grant had seen fit to equip the Power Pad with it's own small, hidden apartment, most likely for resting up when needed. Though, in order for her to stay here, she would have to trust him, otherwise, she'd more than likely bolt the moment he left, and that would endanger her as well as anyone who crossed her path.

"No one is going to hurt you Maureen. I need you to believe that," he said, taking a tentative step closer.

"You lie..." But before she could object any further, he was on his knees in front of her, his hands firmly holding her shoulders despite the struggle she put up.

"I'm not lying. Maureen, let me help you...please." Virgil pulled the shaking girl close to him, embracing her in the hopes that she would understand his caring desire to give her hope. For her own part, Maureen stopped struggling yet continued to shake despite the quiet reassurances the electrically powered teen whispered, as a single, frosty tear traced its way down her cheek.

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Ebon glided across the surface of the new headquarters, glaring in turn at each of his subordinates, some of which had the decency to look ashamed, though most weren't sure what their inky leader's conundrum was. Those who had not participated in the warehouse raid were privy to only a few scarce details regarding the failure of the operation, Puff and company unwilling to share more than the minimum details.

"You can stop acting like we're a bunch of failures Ebon, it wasn't a total loss." Puff said, her temperament finally getting the better of her as she grew increasingly tired of the dark villains unspoken accusations.

"Did you manage to get the gas Puff?"

"No, but..."

"Then I'd call that a pretty big freaking failure."

"Back off darkman," Hotstreak intervened, his own temper getting the better of him. "I didn't see you at the warehouse getting your carcass handed to you."

Shiv and Jersey shuffled their feet nervously, wondering what had happened at the warehouse that resulted in the defeat of Puff, Hotstreak, Onyx and Slipstream. "Can we stop the arguments for a moment, we got bigger problems." Puff said, breaking off the building confrontation. "We managed to hold 'em off didn't we?"

"From what you've told me Puff, that was about all you could do." Ebon said, taking a deep breath as he studied the group in front of him. "And damn right we got bigger problems...without that gas, we won't be able to make more of it."

"You know...since I've known you Ebon, all you ever talk about is making a bigger Big Bang," Shiv said, his usual cackle absent from his voice. "Why do you want more Bang Babies anyway?"

"With more of the gas, I'm going to turn our beloved city leaders into Meta-humans. Let's see how they like being freaks. See how they like it when the whole city turns against them." Ebon paused, his harsh words coming in a mere whisper in the importance of the following statement. "They ain't above fear."

"What about that guy you mentioned earlier then...Gear?" Jersey asked. "If we can't get any more of the gas to reactivate that Tech guy you were talking about, then he may be the next best thing."

"Yeah...but Static and his cronies have gone underground since a lot of this mess started." Hotstreak began, his skin smoldering in response to his trademark anger. "Even if we could nab him, we can't find him."

Ebon looked at the pyromaniac with something akin to triumph as he nodded his head. "Then we'll need something...a act of reckless abandon so big it brings Static and crew out of the woodwork. We'll grab Gear then."

"What about Alva?" Puff added, bobbing up and down on the currents of air as she addressed the shadow master.

"If Alva wants in on our action, if he interferes with us again...then its war."

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Talon moved about nervously in the office of Mr. Hawkins, trying to avert the fatherly gaze the elderly man had fixed upon her, as if she were a child in need of a stern lecture. Of course, she was both, a child and in need of said lecture, but that did not ease the growing fear of judgment she felt coming from the man.

She had been at the community center now for nearly a month, living in the as of yet unoccupied dorms. Yet in that time she had recognized Mr. Hawkins as both a kind and stern figure who, despite her hideous appearance, treated her like any other person. She revered that about him. That did not, however, stop the nervousness she felt when approaching a potentially sensitive subject, as she had prepared to discuss with the older man now.

She had seen the tension over the past week build within the director, and knowing the source of that unease as well. She also felt a great sense of duty to help him through it as well, as he put forth every effort to help her; however addressing it with him was what was proving so difficult. She moved nervously again, feeling the kindly eyes following her.

"Teresa?" Mr. Hawkins finally began, as if his own prompting would erase all of her apprehensions that built within the young woman. "Is there something you wanted to talk to me about?"

Stopping her sporadic, often jerky pacing, Talon closed her eyes and moved to his desk, picking up the family picture that sat facing the head of the Civic Center, a constant reminder of why he struggled so hard with so many troubled teens. Examining the photo before nodding her head once in confirmation, Talon turned her eyes towards the gentle figure sitting opposite her. "I...just wanted to know how you're doing."

Brow wrinkling with confusion, Mr. Hawkins felt more of the story was left unsaid; else the feathered Bang Baby would not be so nervous. "I'm fine Teresa, but I have the feeling your not. Mind telling me what's really on your mind?"

Talon shifted her weight nervously once more before taking the seat across from Mr. Hawkins. "You know, he really is a great guy."

Robert stared at the mutated teen a moment before following her gaze to the photograph, realizing she was addressing the young man pictured smiling at the camera that forever immortalized the scene. "You mean Virgil? Yes, he's quite a remarkable young man. But I wasn't aware you knew him. I'd have thought you'd have gone to Eastside school district."

Another heavy sigh before she continued. This was harder than she thought, and that realization didn't strengthen her resolve any. "Well, I do know him...but not as Virgil."

A single eyebrow raised in Talon's direction, a mixture of confusion and fear echoing from the older man's rigid posture. "You know?"

Shrugging her shoulders slightly, Talon returned to picking up the portrait. "It wasn't hard to figure out. I noticed it first time I was in your office. The girl, your daughter...Sharon...was what tipped it off." Another pause, and another bated breath as she felt she was confessing to something terrible. "When we rescued her from the foundry, she called Static 'Baby brother'. Then, when I saw her in the photograph with you and him...I figured it out. Besides, he has your eyes."

Stealing a glance at the older man, she tried to read some degree of accusation from his eyes, and when she received none, she continued. "I didn't say anything at first, because...well, people have always tried to use me. I thought, well I guess I didn't trust any of you enough so I figured I'd use it as leverage if I ever needed that knowledge."

"So why tell me now then?" Robert asked, a slight, knowing smile parting his kindly features, probing for information from the young woman in a gentle effort to prompt her further.

"Well...I guess part of it, well a large part of it anyway was how you helped mama. You gave her a job here; let her work in a place where she is treated with respect, as an actual person. You even made me tell her about me. She still gets a bit nervous looking at me, but she always hugs me...and I forgot how much I missed that."

Brushing away the tear that slid down her cheek, Talon continued. "People don't often like to touch me when I look like this...they're afraid I'll hurt them I guess, or catch some disease. I forgot how much I missed it.

"But that's not all either. It's because you don't treat me like a monster either...and you don't judge me for all the things I've done. So I wanted you to know that I know about Static, and that I'll never betray that trust you've given me. I only wish I met you a few years ago. Then maybe I wouldn't have turned up in the mess I was in."

Smiling kindly at the young woman, Robert reached across the desk and took her hand, giving it a gentle, reassuring squeeze. "It's not just knowing about a problem that's enough, a person has to want to fix it before they move can beyond it. For what it's worth Teresa, I think you're going to be fine."

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Gear sat at the cluttered desk located in the deserted gas station, his fingers flying over the keyboard at near invisible speed as he continued to hack into the financial records of many of the prominent business leaders of Dakota. For the most part, the activity was nothing more than an exercise in futility, but he had to play his hunch to the end.

Currently he was following a surprisingly suspicious series of transactions of a large amount of money that seemed to be laundered through various banks and organizations, each a known or suspected front for Alva Industries. But it wasn't the source of the money he tracked that he sought, he knew that without verifying the information, it was the final destination...and that was proving most difficult, for when he finally found what be believed to be the end point, a new transaction was discovered.

It bewildered even his super-powered brain at the nearly invisible transfers that, to the common eye, would appear as nothing more than inter-business transactions. However, with each end transaction that would be documented, small amounts of money would be filtered from the exchange, only to be replaced in larger quantities by the next front company. It was the alternating cycle of the filtering and replacement of funds that left Gear pondering the nature of what he was exploring. This was extremely clever, as it was the dummy corporations that had extracted the finances before transferring the funds to one of Alva's legitimate companies to filter back in the missing money. The process was virtually untraceable by Anti-Trust Investigators, as it would appear the finances themselves were nothing more than a slush fund to filter into various branches of Alva Industries.

However, the money filtered from the slush fund was the real mystery, as it seemed to have disappeared from the bank records, the funds themselves small enough that it would not draw suspicion, meaning Alva either embezzled from his own companies, or did something with the funds he'd rather have kept a secret. Though the amount of money was insignificant enough that even Gear was tempted to initially overlook it, it was the frequency that caused him to begin examining it with more intent.

At this point, Gear abandoned the rabbit hunt for the missing funds and decided for fun to hack into Alva's mainframe computer network. Though it wasn't an easy task to be sure, as Alva was the proud owner of a Cray computer, the very same network the Batman himself trusted. After a few brief moments, Gear found his way in with minimal resistance, realizing with some amusement and an equal amount of admiration for the computer network that a genuine hacker without his intelligence would never have broken the encryption.

Gear worked his way around system; bouncing his search in various locations through the network in the effort to avoid detection when he found the file he believed would solve the mystery of the absent finances he investigated. The large file itself required his hacking services once again, and though the folder was deftly massive, he read the contents with relative speed, all the while downloading the report into Backpack's extended memory for backup purposes.

Gear's expression changed drastically as he scanned the report, making a mental note to review it in more detail with Backpack's copy. The dossier listed and examined a great deal of information and added light to the conspiracy he felt was the root of all the problems in Dakota, but not even his most lurid fantasies of cloak and dagger activities would touch the details outlined in the report.

Finishing his own read through, Gear quickly exited the program and backed out of Alva's network. He had no doubt the Cray would recognize the unsolicited download he performed, but he couldn't worry about that now. Everything it seemed had gone from bad to worse, and as he raised a shaky hand to run it nervously through his hair, Gear stared wide-eyed at the realization as his super-quickened mind caught up with the information his brain processed, and the ramifications he now understood.

"Oh dear God."

-To be continued

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A/N: Yes...an evil cliffhanger. Perhaps the worst I've done yet. Hee hee hee. I also must apologize for potential formatting errors. For some reason, doesn't like us separating sections...I can't figure out what best way to use so I'm trying something else, yet again. If this doesn't work, please drop me a line to let me know how best to separate sections so as not to have them all run together. If this works, don't worry about it.  Again, reviews are always welcomed and as I'm sure you figured by the ending, and though a lot of you begged me to make things better for our heroes, easy leads to boring stories. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...Evil. Thanks for your reviews and support everyone. You guys are great.