Chapter 12: Help Wanted
"What are you doing here?" asked Halle, lowering her threatening fist.
Kaden failed to answer, instead his eyes wandered over the mess that filled the hallway. "So…are your parents gone?"
"What would know about it?" Halle demanded sharply.
"Mine…mine are too," explained Kaden softly, in a strangely emotionless tone. "They were titans too, um, Beast Boy and Raven. Y'know. The green one and the scary chick."
Alex touched the outside of his pocket, thinking of the photograph he stored there since the night before.
"So, you meeting us was quite a coincidence," commented Halle.
"No, that was no accident. I—I kinda made sure we ran into each other. I just had to meet the kids of Robin and Starfire."
"But why—"
"More to the problems at hand," Alex interrupted, "You said your parents are gone too?"
"Much to a scene like this. Home destroyed. Parents missing. No sign to where they might be except…"
"Except?" Halle prodded with urgency and interest.
Kaden pulled a satchel that had hung around the back of him to his front. "Do you have somewhere we can sit down, it's a long story."
"We were trying to get into—ah—," said Halle, waving her hand behind her vaguely at the steel door placed into the far wall. "I don't what to call it. It leads to like, a secret room with gadgets and our parents superhero stuff. We thought we'd be safe in there, but it's broken and impervious to superpowers…" Halle drifted off, realizing her ramblings and that Kaden wasn't paying attention to her, but had wandered over to the door and was inspecting it, the twins now silently watching him.
Kaden rested his hand on the door about waist height, closed his eyes, and bit his bottom lip as though in deep thought.
"What are you—?" started to ask Alex, but he shut up instantly an indescribable black sort of stuff, very much like the "shield" Kaden had conjured moments ago, consumed the boys hand and the small spot on the door he touched. And a moment later Kaden's hand had disappeared just past the wrist into the door and the black energy and a moment after that the door clicked open, Kaden withdrew his hand, and the black energy disappeared.
"How did you—," started Alex before suddenly cutting off, shaking his head and saying, "Never mind, stupid question."
Together the three pushed the steel door open, although it would have been easily to just let Halle do it.
"Come on." Alex led the other two down the twisting hallway that became darker the further they went.
"This place is creepy," Kaden commented just above a whisper, his voice reverberating strangely against the cold stone walls. Neither of the twins replied. However, when they reached the chamber below and the lights were turned on, Kaden gaped, marveling at the technology and the collection of Teen Titans memorabilia hung on the walls and sitting in glass display cases.
"You said you had information?" Halle interrupted the younger teen's gawking.
Kaden sat himself down on a metal chair, pulling his satchel off his shoulder and plopping it onto the chrome table in front of him. He ripped open the Velcro flap and pulled out a stack of papers.
"What are they?" asked Alex.
"They're information," said Kaden, sifting through the unorganized pile. "I was lucky to salvage them from my apartment, wrecked as it was. See…my parents never gave up being superheroes. They really couldn't. They looked too different to hide…, but that's not the point. They've been tracking this group called "The Strike." It's a hard group to peg; they've been involved in high profile murders, thefts, arson, terrorist activities…all kinds of shit. Their only m.o. is that they leave a mark of two crossing, black lightening bolts on their crimes scenes." He pushed a photograph of the image in front of them.
"We didn't see—" started Alex, but Halle interrupted him.
"That's what that scrouch mark was. I thought it was weirdly shaped…it's just, I was too, well dazed to figure it out."
"It was at my home too. My parents have always been one step behind the Strike for over a year now. Always. Never even catching sight of them, only finding their aftermath. Until..."
"Until…?"
"Gotham. They thought they had finally caught up with them…but it was a trap."
"A trap?"
"They got your parents and mine. Separate, but in the same damn city. They had to planning for so long. No regular criminal could take down my parents. They're experts at being superheroes…this…they weren't…" Kaden chocked off his words and hide his face by titling it down against his chest in a unique display of emotions.
The twins shared a glance as Kaden recomposed himself. It was a loaded look, with the wondering whether or not they should trust him. He held in his possession their only lead and it was pretty plausible at the moment. Plus, he was the child of the other Titans, his powers and appearance very much proving it. It didn't seem they had reason not to trust him. Alex nodded.
"So what do we do from here?" asked Halle.
Kaden looked up at the twins, looking elated and relieved. "Thank God. I thought you were going to kick me out…And I have an idea."
…
It had been a trying day. He had foiled a bank robbery, evacuated apartment that caught on fire, and stop a school bus that's breaks had failed from careening into a busy intersection. A tiring day indeed, but it was worth it…keeping people safe, one day at a time. Although, he had to sadly admit as he slipped from a back alley into his basement apartment decked out in the most advanced technology to both monitor and city and for personal maintenance, that he couldn't save everyone.
A few months back there had been some very…strange attacks. Neither the police nor Cyborg were able to catch the villains responsible, no, they never even caught sight of them. There had been arson and violent theft. People died. It was horrible. All that was left behind that even linked the scenes of mayhem was a symbol of two lightening bolts, crossing each other to form a jagged 'X'. And then….they stopped. Rumors drifted that similar attacks had been occurring in the neighboring city. Cyborg had had half a mind to follow them, to track them…but his other half told him to stay and protect the city he had sworn to protect.
Cyborg sighed as he checked the energy gage in his arm. He was still at half-charged, despite the trying day, thanks to the new equipment he had been continuing to develop for self-improvement and maintenance. Not playing video games or eating pizza in his free time gave him for time to actually work.
"Okay, I'll monitor the city, heaven forbid anything else nearly catastrophic happen today, before I boot down for the night," said Cyborg aloud, although no one was around to hear. No one had been around to hear it for a long time now.
Sitting down, Cyborg hooked up a thick, metal-plated wire from his shoulder into the chrome desk, allowing him to not even have to use a keyboard, but just will the computer's actions. Monitors around him instantly flashed to life with scenes from the city being played out on them.
Everything was undisturbed for a while, in fact, Cyborg's human part was fighting the urge to drift off to sleep…but then…Well, he felt it before any physical signs were visible, drifting through his robotic body. If he had been more conscious he might have been able to stop it. It traveled through his circuits to the computer desk before he could pull the wire out. The screens went black. After a few moments of darkness and cursing, the main, center monitor lit up and was filled up with static.
"Victor Stone?" came a questioning voice.
"Who are you?" was Cyborg's biting reply.
"That doesn't matter now," said the voice quickly, Cyborg was surprised by how young the voice sounded. No average hacker could break through his defenses, but Cyborg was forced to remember how young Gizmo had been. "Just listen. You're in danger."
"Are you trying to threaten me?"
"No, warn you. There's this criminal group called 'The Strike'," the snowstorm screen was replaced by an image of two crossing lightening bolts.
"So that's what those punks call themselves!" said Cyborg aloud in instant recognition.
"You're familiar with them, then? Well, that makes things easier. We have reason to believe that they may be coming after you."
"What reasons? And whose 'we'?"
"Look, I can't get into that right now," said the voice, this time sounding more urgent, and a bit desperate. "If we meet in person, we can explain better…more."
Cyborg bit his lip before replying, "When? Where?"
"We'll find you." With that final statement the screens went black again. A few seconds later, images of the city flickered back onto the monitors. Cyborg fingers flew over the keyboard, attempting to track the hackers, but all trace was gone. If only he hadn't been distracted and tried to trace the signal while the kid was talking.
Only after a few moments' thoughts over the ominous words, the warning, information about 'the Strike', and the imminent meeting with informants unknown, did Cyborg realize how familiar, yet unidentifiable, the voice had sounded.
…
"So how exactly are we going to get to Cyborg. He's half way across the country?" asked Alex, leaning back his computer chair. "And why were you the only one allowed to talk during that interview?"
"And why didn't you tell him who we were?" added Halle. "Or what had happened to our parents?"
"Woe, woe…one question at a time please. I can only think so fast," complained Kaden. The twins shut up and looked at the boy expectantly. "Alex's questions first. You're rich kids. I figured you had a private jet or something...no?" The twins shook their heads to the negative. "Well we can still buy plan tickets and by we, I mean you two. If all else falls, hitchhiking, or we can commandeer a car or—"
"Okay, next question," Alex interrupted the younger teen's tirade.
"I know the most, so that's why I got to talk. I didn't tell him who were we because, would he have believed us anyway? And I didn't tell him about our parents because…well, I didn't want him to run off or avoid us. Either for self-protection or…"
"Or…?" prompted Halle.
"Something happened to the Titans. I don't know what; my parents never talk about it. They were a team. They were friends. Something happened and then they weren't anymore. They stopped talking to each other completely. What if he didn't care? What if he didn't want to help us because of some old resentment?…I wasn't willing to take that risk, not yet. We have a better chance convincing him face to face."
Halle and Alex were silent. They had only recently been familiarized with their parents' superhero pasts. They hadn't even thought why the Titans weren't Titans anymore.
Alex cleared his throat. "I'll get three tickets for the first flight out. Halle you go pack. Kaden, you…do something useful."
"Yeah, I'll get right on that," Kaden said sarcastically, his voicing echoing off the walls as he followed Halle up the twisting path to the main house. "It's not like it was my outrageously brilliant idea to us the old Titans communicator to track down Cyborg…nooo, not all."
…