((Thanks to everyone who reviewed, and thanks to Oldprydefan for Beta'ing again.I suspect I'll manage to put up a chapter every week or so. I hope, anyway. Happy New Years, folks.))
Static Shock: Running in Place
Chapter 2: Frozen
Ebon had never been sure if the warehouse was abandoned. It still had electricity and water, but in the two years he'd used it as a backup hideout he'd never seen a single owner or worker come near it. He'd been reluctant to move anything here and risk being found by accident, but after so much time, the chance to have a hideout with relative amenities was too good to pass up.
So now he was sprawled out on the couch in said warehouse, watching stolen cable and generally feeling pretty good about himself. He and Shiv had been moving furniture from their other hideouts to here, especially the ones he thought Static knew about. They had a surprising amount of stuff when you mixed everything together.
"Hey Ebon!" The warehouse door opened and Shiv walked in, carrying a microwave against his chest. "Guess who I found?" He stepped aside to reveal the former metahuman Kangor.
"Yo Kangor. Didn't think they were gonna let you outta the hospital any time soon." Ebon straightened up in his seat. "You alright?"
"Ya mon, fine. Apparently there's some new thing down at the courthouse, they're lettin' the bang babies off for their crimes if they prove they don't have their powers no more." The former giant-footed metahuman strolled over and collapsed into a chair. He always spoke with that strange accent, and yet Ebon was pretty sure the other teen had never lived anywhere but Dakota.
"Anyway, they did some sorta test, but really it was obvious I'm normal now," Kangor held up his legs, wiggling his normal-sized feet in the air. "So they let me go."
"Really…" Ebon scooped up the remote and turned off the television. "Well, that means that the rest of the cured people will be out too. So all we gotta do…" He leaned forward in his seat, his eyes narrowing. "…is find some way to get all your powers back. If you want them."
"Hey mon, easier said than done." Kangor shifted in his seat. "You blew up the last can of gas last night, right? So, it's gone. If we weren't there…we're stuck."
"We'll see," Ebon settled back into his chair. "We'll see."
"…Go Away!"
Static barely noticed Permafrost's ranting, his attention focused on the six foot long icicles flying towards him. His gloved hand lashed out, a swirl of electricity grabbing a loose piece of metal from a nearby machine and ripping it away, sending it twirling through the frozen projectiles, shattering them.
The metal slammed to the floor with a clatter as he was pelted with chunks of ice, but at least they weren't impaling him. He felt one slam into his forehead and a second into his cheek and just hid his face behind his hands until it stopped.
"Maureen, come on!" Static shoved himself to his feet, pressing his palm against his forehead. Oh yeah, that's bleeding… It was a good thing he had told his father about all this, because he was not going to be able to hide a grievous head wound. "I don't want to fight you! I swear, I didn't want you to get hurt or make you become Permafrost again…" He took a breath, waiting, and a moment later she ice-skated into view again from behind one of the machines, her face a mass of battling emotions. "I didn't even realize you were there."
She let out a growl, her face twisting into an expression of frightening hatred, and Static realized he probably shouldn't have said that. No more telling the attention starved homeless girl you didn't notice her, alright?
Static dove out of the way as another wave of icicles snapped away and flew towards him, pulling out his flying disk as he rolled and leaping up onto it. He'd have a better chance of not getting impaled if he could move around.
"Didn't realize! Didn't see and now I'm stuck and cold and alone and…and…" Permafrost slid out to the middle of the frozen room, her hands balled into fists, eyes narrowed. "And you don't care! You want me to stop so the machines work and everyone else gets to be warm. It's not fair…" Her head dipped down, white hair tumbling forward to cover her face.
Static dropped down towards her, hands held out in front of him, ready for her to attack again. "Maureen, that's not true. I don't want you to stay down here. You should come with me. We can go up there, go back to the church…"
"It's not fair!" Each word was punctuated, practically spit out at him, and when she looked up Static suddenly found himself at the business end of a five foot blizzard. It caught him up before he reacted, spinning him off his disk and blinding him with snow. He lashed out, bursts of energy flying from his hands, trying to hit where she had been, where he thought she had been, and then he slammed into something hard and everything went black.
Richie stared at the computer in front of him, a frown on his perpetually cheerful face. That can't be right.
During the gas explosion the previous night Backpack had acquired a sample of the substance, and Richie was now studying it so that he could come up with a way to recreate it, or to ensure that he could counter any antidote. But something was wrong. He'd seen copies of the original big bang gas, and this was almost identical. But Almost only counts in horse-shoes and hand grenades…
It had to be the same, because the doctor had created the cure from it, and yet it he had already identified two different cell clusters that had not been present in the original. But it had the same effect as the older gas.
"At least, it appears to have the same effect…" He said to himself, flipping to another monitor. He hadn't thought to do a blood test on himself or Static. Really, he had assumed that the gas would just react the same way…which had been mostly right…
He'd have to get some syringes and do a little research. But if this was correct, the gas that had gone off the night before had been different from the first big bang. Which meant the cure might not work.
Richie stared at the screen for a long time before he picked up his Shock-box. "Static, you better come back here. I think I found something important." He tapped at the keyboard, bringing up another screen. "Yo, Static?"
He pressed the force-receive button and yanked his head away from the earpiece as a deluge of screeching interference echoed out. "…Static?" He forced himself to lean closer, eyes closing. It didn't sound like interference…it sounded like wind.
"…ot fair!" The voice was barely audible, but it was definitely female. And if someone female was screaming at Static that meant he found Permafrost. And if he wasn't answering, she was probably destroying him.
"Damn." Richie grabbed his helmet and ran for the door.
Gear hovered down the subway tunnel, watching the small blinking light in the corner of his mask and occasionally tapping at a button on his wrist. He'd built trackers into the new Shock-boxes, and Static's box was still transmitting, which was somewhat reassuring.
Aside from the fact that he wasn't answering, anyway.
The temperature had dropped seventeen degrees since he'd first started down the tunnel, which was not reassuring either. His suit offered him some insulation, as did Static's, but neither of them were capable of dealing with temperatures too far below freezing. Which Permafrost specializes in. This is not a good idea.
"Static, you there?" He'd been trying the Shock-box every five minutes since he'd left the hideout, and while the wind had died out after a couple minutes, he hadn't been able to get anything since then. Which meant Static was unconscious, separated from his Shock-box, or dead. It's not that. He can't be dead.
He almost missed the icicle that was hanging from the tunnel ceiling, ducking at the last second and then drifting into tunnels that had shifted from brown and grey to ice-bleach-white. The walls were frozen, the floor was frozen, even the lights were frozen, casting an eerie blue glow onto everything that made the ice almost look fake.
Gear was eventually stopped by a giant wall of ice where his map said a large room should open up. Static's tracer is on the other side of this wall…He dropped down towards the frozen floor, the rockets from his shoes melting clear a path where he could stand. "Backpack, melt that."
The little robot crawled down off Gear's back and over to the ice wall, its camera extending out to peer at the reflective surface, and then a pair of blowtorches emerged, one from each side, and began melting the ice.
Two minutes later the space was large enough for Gear to crawl through and he did, Backpack leaping back onto him once he was through and they both hovered into the air. The room was like a giant frozen box, everything was covered in a sheen of ice and large piles of snow were heaped up in every corner. The rest of the tunnel entrances seemed to be frozen over as well.
"The tracker is somewhere around here." Gear talked to himself, his voice echoing strangely off the massive frozen walls. He twisted around slowly, the blinking light on his visor finally going solid when he looked at a large pile of snow against the far wall.
"Static!" Gear shot across the room, dropping to his knees right before he got to the frozen mass, gloved hands scooping the snow away and shoving it across the ice. It took about thirty seconds for him to uncover Static, the other superhero was unconscious, sprawled out on his stomach, and his legs were frozen into the ice on the floor from the knees down.
"V! Hold on. Backpack, melt that ice. And be careful!" The little robot dropped off him again, blowtorches out as it began melting through the ice around Static's legs. Gear grabbed Static by the shoulders, shaking him lightly. "Static…come on man, wake up."
The other boy only groaned in response, eyes shifting beneath his lids. At least he's not dead, Gear thought with a sigh of relief, watching as Backpack melted through the ice. When it seemed thin enough, the mechanically-minded superhero grabbed Static under the each arm and hauled him free, the last remnants of the ice shattering around them.
Backpack scurried over to the tunnel they had arrived through, blowtorches out to make the entrance bigger as Gear stood up, holding up the unconscious static under his arms. "Come on V, wake up. You're heavy." He tried to joke, but his heart wasn't in it.
This is bad.
Virgil awoke with a gasp, sitting bolt upright, his hands coming up to ward off the snow and hail before it could slam into his head.
But it never came. And he wasn't cold. What's going on?
He lowered his arms to his lap slowly, peering around. He was back at the gas station, laying on the old brown couch under the window, and he wasn't in his costume anymore. And more importantly, he wasn't about to get killed by a crazy weather witch.
He reached up and tugged down one of the slats on the window blinds, peering out at the city. The sun was almost setting, so he must have been out for at least five hours. Which meant Gear had come and rescued him.
"Richie?" He grabbed the blanket, shoving it off onto the couch as he stood up, stretching. "Bro? What happened?" He glanced down at his clothing…boxers and a t-shirt, but that didn't really matter. "Richie?"
"He's not here."
Virgil whirled around at the female voice coming from the other room, hands balling, a charge racing to his fingers…and found himself face to face with the genetically engineered meta-human Shenice, better known as Shebang. She was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, dressed in jeans and a tank-top, with a smirk on her face. "Nice boxers."
"What are you doing here?" Virgil allowed himself to relax, hands dropping back to his sides. "And where's Richie?" Her comment finally caught his ears and he began looking around for his pants.
"Richie's running an errand, something about the Big Bang gas, but he called me and asked me to come watch you. He sounded really worried." Shenice pushed away from the door and walked across the room, scooping up a pair of jeans from a chair and tossing them to him. "Did you really get frozen to the floor?"
Virgil caught the pants and turned away from her to pull them on. "I don't remember. Maureen…Permafrost…launched like, an entire blizzard at me. I must have passed out." He shook his head, twisting back to her once his pants were secure. "I guess Richie came and found me, or else I'd still be down there. If he said I was frozen to the floor…then I was frozen to the floor."
"Permafrost, huh? I think I've heard of her. She went nuts at Christmas, right? Froze a power station and a mall?" Shenice sat down in the chair that Virgil's jeans had been on. "But Richie said you convinced her to stop doing stuff like this."
"I thought I did." With a sigh, Virgil settled back onto the couch, his eyes on the floor. "And she's not nuts. Well…she is nuts but not like…crazy nuts. More like neglected nuts…I don't think we can really understand it, you know? She's been living on her own for years."
"She's had it rough, sure. But that's no reason for her to attack you." Shenice shook her head quickly, her voice serious. "You can't pity her if she's going to attack you. She'll win, then. Hell, she already won. I bet you were trying to get through to her when she did it, weren't you?"
Virgil shifted a bit and sighed. "Yeah, I was. But I had to try! I couldn't just attack her." He leaned back and folded his hands. "It doesn't matter, though. She's angry at me, so she's not going to attack anyone else."
"Why's she angry at you? You helped her out before." Shenice sounded confused, but Virgil couldn't blame her. She'd always had a very black and white view of the world.
"Apparently she saw me at the docks last night and came to talk to me, I don't know why." Virgil frowned, staring at his shoes, his eyes distant. "She must have been near the ship when the gas went off, and she got her powers back. I think the people at the shelter must have chased her away, I'm not sure, but with her powers gone she probably thought she could go back."
"So…she's pretty angry that they're back." Virgil almost laughed. "I think I would be too, in a situation like that." He stood up, suddenly realizing just how tired he was but ignoring it. "Anyway, what did you say Richie was doing? Something about the bang gas?"
"He told me he was going to see the doctor who made the cure. He was talking about getting a sample 'of the original.' I'm not really sure what he meant." She smiled a little. "He left almost as soon as I got here, so I didn't have time to ask too many questions."
"The original…" With a shake of his head Virgil turned to peer out the window again, lifting his arms to lean heavily against the counter. "If he means the original big bang gas, then that means what we got hit with last night was different. But that doesn't make any sense." His voice trailed off.
"Come lay down again, Virg. I don't think you're supposed to be walking around after being frozen." Shenice stood and headed over, grabbing his arm and gently but firmly pulling him back towards the couch. "Richie'll tell you what he means when he gets back."
"…So, that's everything." Gear reached out to take the sample slide back from Doctor Todd and tucked it into the storage slot on Backpack. "If the gas on the ship was changed somehow, I don't think your cure is going to work on it."
"Gear, this doesn't make any sense. The sample that Ebon took was the one I used to create the cure. It can't be different from the original bang gas." The doctor shook his head, moving across the room and pulling a clipboard from a slot on the wall, flipping back through several pages.
"Well, you saw for yourself they are different. I'm guessing that whatever changed the gas was on the boat though, or else it was somehow caused by Ebon and Hotstreak fighting." Gear could feel himself pulling away mentally, his mind trying to wrap itself around the problem. He forced himself to focus. "But that's not the point. I need to know where you got the gas, I need to see if I can get another sample."
"That was the last one, Gear." Doctor Todd shook his head sadly.
"Well, tell me anyway. It doesn't hurt if I check, right?"
"Well," he stared at the clipboard for another long moment and then nodded. "Fine, but…you can't tell them you got it from me." He took a breath. "I got the sample from Alva. He told me to tell everyone it was the last, but I don't know if it really was."
"Alva? That's impossible." Gear said instantly. Static had destroyed Alva's research material. Once Alva's son, calling himself Omnifarious, had used up the remaining Big Bang gas that the company had, Alva should not have been able to create any more.
"Impossible or not, that's where I received my sample." The clipboard was set down. "Is Alva the company where the gas was originally made? I mean, I assumed it was but I wasn't going to say anything about it. Not when he was willing to supply me with research materials."
"Yes, they were. Anyway, thank you." Gear smiled at the doctor. "I'll get back to you when I know an-" A black fist flashed out from the wall and slammed into Gear's face, sending him spinning off his feet and crashing into the desk.
"Yeah, thanks Doc." Ebon melted off the wall, his posture relaxed, superior. "You've been a big help." His hand shot out and crashed into Gear again as the superhero tried to stand, slamming him hard into the desk again, and leaving him to slump unconscious to the floor.
To be continued…