14
"WDTV Channel 2 News, this is Peter MacNichol reporting from Detroit…" The TV anchorman reported. "After seventeen years, Detroit police officers have finally arrested Dennis Oliver Patrick and James Oliver Karlen in Lake Saint Clair off Grosse Point after a nationwide search for the two men. The two men have been wanted since the 1995 murder of eighteen-year-old Detroit student Haylie Reynolds whose body was found in a Chicago storage facility just last year."
Camera footage showed the two men dripping wet being taken into police custody near St. Claire Lake.
"The two men are also believed part of an underground East Coast sex slavery ring and linked to at least fifty-three disappearances of young girls across the Midwest. The FBI believes their arrest could lead to the complete destruction of the ring and possibly solve the whereabouts of countless other girls who vanished, like nineteen year old Bridget Hennessy who vanished November 5, 2005 from Detroit."
The only image they could find of Bridget was a bad picture scanned from her yearbook where Bridget was dressed as a witch for Halloween 1989.
"The men were picked up by the Wayne County Rescue Squad floating on their black Ford van about two miles off shore, but police have refused to answer questions on just how their van ended up so far off shore. A police spokesman claims they drove off a ferry, but several witnesses describe a figure in a red cape floating in the area. Local cameraman Randy Taylor believes he knows the real answer."
"I saw her off Lakeshore Road." Randy was the son of former Detroit TV celebrity, Tim "The Tool-Man" Taylor. He was now a young filmmaker who dabbled in videotaping parties and galas for expensive companies. "I was driving this way…" He gestured the way. "And coming overhead like this, I saw what I thought was a UFO, so I grabbed my video recorder and started filming it, but when I zoomed in on it, I recognized it as an old 1993 Ford Econoline van being carried by its back bumper between ninety and a hundred miles an hour. It went out there and then suddenly dropped. Meanwhile, coming back was this red and blue, maybe violet, form carrying something dark on top of it."
The news played his footage. WDTV-News had purchased the rights to run it for $2,000 but Randy retained the copyright to all images from it. In it, it revealed a small grainy shape flying over two hundred…. maybe three hundred feet, over the highway. It was shaped like a living person, a red shape popping in and out it as it flapped but it never came in completely clear. It looked as if Randy had tried focusing closer and closer, but whatever this figure was, it could distort the air around it. At its closet to the camera, it couldn't be more than a hundred and fifty feet, but it just looked like a large flying glob.
"As most Detroit natives remember, " MacNichol continued. "Between September 2005 and March 2006, there was a rash of so-called Supergirl sightings in the area, around 1,270 in all. Local actress Amber Tisdale would claim credit for the sightings, but was later discredited when she herself had to be rescued by the mysterious heroine. In other news…."
The footage by Randy Taylor went back and forth. It looked as if the famous flying blonde was drunk and floating back and forth on a wire.
"Dude, stop playing with the rewind button!" Raj chastised Howard for playing with the recording.
"Okay, see that…" Howard paused the image on his laptop. "Now, I used a reverse algorithm to undo the distortion around the image, applied spatial software to enhance it and then ran it through a color correction software to re-separate and sharpen the colors… Now, voila! What do you think?"
Raj and Leonard looked at it. It was a closer more enhanced image of the same, but now, it just looked painted over. Leonard looked the image over and sat back again. The guys didn't know what he wanted to hear. It was the same image, but it had been manipulated into a cartoon figure.
"Come on!" Howard was adamantly convinced. "It's Penny! It's as obvious as the nose on your face. You can't deny that shapely figure belongs to anyone else."
"She just looks like Reese Witherspoon to me." Raj answered.
"Howard, give it up…" Leonard stood and lifted himself out of the chair. "You've got to get off this whole "Penny is Supergirl" thing. It's nothing but a sick fantasy with you."
"I agree with Leonard." Sheldon spoke up. "If Penny had the power to fly and do everything she does, I'd know it immediately. There is no way she'd be able to hide a secret identity from me. My brain would deduce it immediately."
"Look…" Leonard sighed as he tossed his empty soda can in the recycling bin under the counter then turned to pull another soda from the refrigerator. "Penny works ten hour shifts at the Cheesecake Factory, she goes on auditions trying to become an actress, she spends time with us, she goes on dates… Meanwhile, Supergirl is seen constantly practically twenty-four/seven. When would she have the time?"
"Well, if you put it like that…" Howard sighed a bit and closed his laptop. "Where is Penny now?"
"She's at an audition for a play in Santa Monica."
In the tiny community of Santa Monica, North Carolina, it had been raining nearly constant for three weeks and the creeks were swelling. Residents were in danger of losing their homes as water encroached their backyards. The National Guard was advising people to leave their homes, but several people stayed put where they were thinking they were safe. As the Little Tennessee River rose and Fontana Lake swelled, it was likely it was going to cover up the towns of Santa Monica, Cypress Springs, Hope Springs and the rest down toward Franklin. Flying through the torrent, Bridget scanned the area from several perspectives then attacked the old limestone pit outside nearby Blair Township. The quarry had closed down in 1987, but they had left a nearly hundred foot long chunk cut out of a piece of the local hill. Breaking it at the crest in several places, she broke off a chunk of the limestone underneath as if it was a giant slice of bread and as it started coming down, she moved the huge chunk of limestone over to the Little Tennessee to briefly reroute a portion of the flood into another direction back the way she had come, turning the two hundred foot deep and one mile wide limestone pit into a small lake. When the rain finally seceded the following day, local businessmen purchased the old limestone quarry to build a fishing lodge by it.
In the following few days, the guys started seeing strange coincidences and nuances that seemed just a bit odd. In Germany, the following week, there was an explosion in an industrial plant without any fatalities. Workmen reported seeing a girl in a red cape holding up a chunk of the collapsing roof as employees ran for safety. In Pasadena the next day, Leonard noticed the girl he knew as Penny Parker had a craving for sauerkraut hot dogs. When an abducted French girl near Marseilles turned up claiming a beautiful flying woman in a red cape had rescued her, Sheldon noticed Penny was wearing expensive French boots to pick up her mail. After missing Canadian fugitive Tomas Duquesne was found hanging by his underwear off the chapel of a church in Mexico City, Rajesh noticed Penny sitting and reading a novel in a Mexican restaurant as she ate her lunch. There were all little observations, possibly coincidences. As Leonard had pointed out, Penny did not have the time to possibly have one identity much less two. Howard was meanwhile trying to keep up with all the appearances of the blonde one in the cape on his website. Her flight patterns were all over the place. Her costumes did not stay constant. It was navy blue to dark blue. The symbol on her chest was red on yellow, red on white, red on blue and back to red on yellow with a black border. It was across her chest, to the side off a plunging neckline or it was part of an elaborate pattern with her cape. Witnesses continued to compare her resemblance to famous actresses and female celebrities, particularly Reese Witherspoon, but other witnesses with less than direct glimpses of her said she resembled singer Carrie Underwood, a taller Ashley Tisdale, a blonde Mila Kunis, a younger blonder thinner Kelly Clarkson, a sexed-up version of Kellie Picker, Jessica Simpson with blue eyes, Gwen Stefani in a padded bra or Lady Gaga as a normal blonde. Howard started wondering just how many versions of the Kryptonian goddess he was going to get in the inconsistent accounts. Justin Russo of Waverly Place, New York took that idea a bit further. On his Supergirl Shrine website, he posted a blog about the possibility that there were several Supergirls because it was a phenomenon that affected random blonde girls in the proximity of certain emergencies and criminal accounts. Off that blog, he and Howard then got into a spirited and lively video Internet debate highlighted by Justin's animated histrionics and Howard's cocky hand gestures.
"How dare you tell me I don't know what I'm talking about?" Justin yelled into his laptop in New York.
"I can because you don't know what you're talking about." Howard smirked back at him through the computer in his bedroom at home in California. "Look, there's only one Supergirl because when she first started appearing, all her appearances were in Detroit…"
"And that's where the phenomenon started…" Justin disagreed. "But if you take in all her various faces and costumes reported in the media…"
"Various faces and costumes?" Howard scoffed. "You're basing your hypothesis on the misidentification of distracted witnesses…"
"They're not misidentifications!" Justin's voice rose. "Look, I happen to know a bit about…" He started picking his words carefully. "Paranormal activity, and I'm telling you…"
"Paranormal activity?" Howard started chuckling. "I work at CalTech. I've done work for NASA, and there's no evidence that the paranormal even exists! Supergirl is about as paranormal as the white stuff in Oreo cookies." Howard ate the top off an Oreo cookie and sipped some milk at his computer.
"Howard!" A woman's shrill voice screamed behind him. "Who are you talking to?"
"Nobody, ma!" Howard yelled off screen. "Now stop screaming, I'm on my computer!"
"Would you like some more milk?"
"Yes, please!"
"You still live with your mother?" Justin couldn't stop chuckling. "What are you? Forty or something?"
"She lives with me!"
"Hey guys…" Phil Diffy entered the live video chat on his laptop in Pickford, Illinois. "If I may, you guys have both made several valid points, but if I may point out…" A very beautiful blonde came up behind him in his chair.
"Whoa, whoa…." Howard felt a stirring in his hormones. "Diffy, who is that incredible beautiful goddess with you?"
"That's Keely, my girlfriend…" Phil answered.
"Hello…" Keely waved to the faces in Phil's laptop. Both Howard and Justin started picking up and shifting through their Supergirl photos with them. Justin thought he had seen her face somewhere else. Howard was downloading her image to facial comparison software.
"I'm not Supergirl!" Keely realized what they were doing.
"You guys are jerks!" Phil logged out of the video feed.
"No, no… don't go!" Howard opined the chance to see her. "Crap…"
"Look, Howard…" Justin felt a bit deflated. "I'm just saying there has to be something behind the numerous variations of her face and costume in the media. Maybe it's not all one girl…."
"I disagree." Howard continued. "The majority of the sightings are remarkably consistent. A tall beautiful girl of extraordinary presence with a slight resemblance to Reese Witherspoon…."
"Justin…" Another girl appeared in Justin's video feed. "Mom says it's your turn to sweep the shop."
"Who, whoa, whoa…" Howard lit up again. "And who is this shapely brunette vixen I see before me?"
"This is my sister, Alex." Justin rolled his eyes. "Alex, Howard; Howard, Alex…"
"Alex…" Howard tried to sound charming. "So… do you have a boyfriend?" He started downloading her image to a different image collection.
"Yes, and I'm eighteen!"
"Even better…" Howard shined. "You know, I'm going to be in New York for the Science Fiction Convention next month. Would you like to…"
"Dude, this is my sister!" Justin watched his sister walk out of his room. "Justin Russo, out!" He severed the video collection. Howard watched as others started logging off the feed. Bud Bundy from Chicago, Matt McGuire from Los Angeles, Eddie Thomas from San Francisco, Rory Gilmore of Connecticut, Zack Martin from the S.S. Tipton docked in Seattle, Washington, Andy Harridge from Chicago, Derek Venturi of Toronto, actor Chad Dylan Cooper from Hollywood, Jackson Stewart and Lily Truscott of Malibu, Kerry Hennessey of Detroit…
"What?" Howard logged himself out. "It's not like I rubbed myself against her something." He sipped his milk.
Bridget had missed the video feed altogether. There had nearly been a bus crash in Montreal, skinhead vandals trying to desecrate a church in Ohio and near tragic disaster at the Indianapolis speedway when a racecar nearly ripped through the spectators, and now she was gliding at a casual fifty miles an hour over the countryside near Louisville, Kentucky. Her visions were not coming as fast as they were they were the last few days. Usually she would get a vision of one big disaster coming up or a series of smaller ones. Sometimes she had precognitive images of events that appeared in her dreams like television broadcasts of future events. If they were intense, she knew they were about to happen, but others like the school fire in California and the terrorist bombing in Manhattan were more vague. They could happen next week or next month. It just depended if the dreams kept returning to give her more details or if they faded away entirely. Judging from their intensity and the chance of tragedy, she could decide if she had to be there or if the local law and rescue forces could handle it. She didn't get very many breaks in this role she played, but she appreciated every moment she got. Outside Louisville, she did a slow ballet pirouette against the starry moonless sky and slowly descended down to the roof of the Old Waverly Hills Sanitarium. The huge tuberculosis hospital was old and derelict, and much like several of the locations she hid spare clothes, it was haunted. No one was going to enter the location looking for the clothes she had left here during the flood in North Carolina the week before. Descending closer, her feet reached down and started scuffing across the top landing where forgotten kids ages ago used to play. No one locked the door on the roof. She started retracing her steps down to the third floor.
On the second floor, Ray Stantz and Egon Spengler from New York Paranormal were filling in for Steve Gonzalez and Dave Tango in teaching amateur teenage ghost hunters. The two of them and their seven students cocked their heads up to the ceiling to the third floor as Bridget walked over their heads. Egon held up his electromagnetic detector. Its needle spiked. Ray counted their kids.
"Everyone's here." He whispered. "Who do you think that is?"
"Whatever it is, it isn't human." Egon answered. He listened to the steps continuing past them above in the dark. He whispered a few instructions to the kids, flipped down his night vision goggles and aimed his heat vision camera ahead of him up the dingy desolate stairs. On the top landing, Bridget heard the creaking stairs and turned around to see what it was. To her heightened senses, the ghosts of this place usually appeared as misty white clouds or persons composed of immaterial substance fading in and out, but whatever this presence was, it had mass. It had weight. It had a camera! Ray leapt out of view and aimed his lens on… empty air.
"Did you see that?" He checked the spot. "Did you see that?" He filmed left and right and into the old ward. "I saw a girl. She was splattered in blood all over. She was red from her ankles up."
"Let me see that…" Egon replayed his footage. There was a split instance of a figure, but she appeared more solid. He froze the single frame to show the kids. "No, that looks more like a cape. It hangs down off her shoulders."
"Where did she go?" One of the two girls asked.
"Hard to tell, she just blinks out." He resolved to split the kids up. "Okay, Jason and Zack, head down there. Brian and Amy, you two head the other way. I'll take Barry and Kris back to the second with me, and Ray, reconnoiter around here with Nick and Brad. Kids, consider this your final exam. Apply everything we've taught you in trying to capture evidence. One hour then everyone meet up at the vans. We're going live." He clapped his hands and everyone split up in their directions. Heading down the stairs of the spooky and derelict structure, Egon radioed his video and tech Victoria "Torry" Imahara in the NYPS van to activate the cameras they had set up in the place. Ten feet over their heads eavesdropping, Bridget stuck her head out from behind a large air duct in the shadows of the ceiling. She had one floor to get to her street clothes in the old operating room in the north wing. Technically, she could do without them, but she was planning on staying in a hotel tonight then appear in her Pasadena apartment in the morning to meet Leonard. She could easily evade their sensors and cameras, but she was going to do it with fun and flair.
"They want ghosts…" She whispered to herself. "I'll give them ghosts. I just want my clothes."
"Cameras live…" Torry switched on and watched the monitors in the van light up before her. They had eight cameras set up; her command in the van gave her two monitors with constant footage. She saw Ray with the two boys in a hallway, Brian and Amy in one of the old offices, Egon and two of the kids descending the stairs. On the third floor, something at the far end of the hall peeked out at the camera.
"Shadow on Camera Five."
"We're near it." Jason Howard was from Baltimore, and Zack Costello was from Philadelphia. Listening to the radio transmissions, they hurried down to the floor to catch it. Opening the door, they crashed harmlessly into a gurney in the doorway.
"Shadow on Camera Six…" Torry saw something race across the hall.
"That's behind us…" Brian Marx was from Nashville, and Amy Abbott was from near New Orleans. They heard a door slam shut behind them and when they spun around, another door slammed shut and startled them.
"Activity on Camera One…" Torry scrutinized the screen. "It looks like a moving wheelchair."
"We can't get out of the stairwell." Jason and Zack headed down the next flight of stairs. "We're heading that way."
"Simultaneous activity on Three and Five." Torry looked closer. "This thing is fast." A sudden face appeared to her and she screamed. Nick Abbott from Savannah had tripped and landed before the camera. Key West native Brad Laurel helped him back up as Ray scanned the area. He heard the location creaking a bit. He saw steps heading back down to the third floor.
"Guys, this way!"
"Dude, where's your radio?" Brad asked Nick.
"Apparition in the morgue." Bridget spoke into Nick's radio in the south wing.
"We can't get out of the stairwell." Jason and Zack hoofed out of breath back up to the third floor. "Every door is blocked."
"Wait," Torry was confused. "That last transmission wasn't me. Guys, we don't have a camera in the morgue!" She watched Camera Seven go out. Egon came down the stairs to the first floor where he had placed Camera Seven himself. With him were Barry Foxworthy and Kris Engvall, both from California, respectively San Diego and Sacramento. He looked around for the camera.
"Camera Seven is missing." Egon reported.
"Camera Seven just came back on." Torry reported. "Correction, it's in the morgue."
"What the heck is going on around here?" Ray and the two kids with him were chasing voices. He turned a corner into another empty ward expecting to find a group of people, but found empty space.
"Guys, " Torry was watching the confused running around. "I think I found Nick's missing radio. It's on camera in the morgue." With everyone else heading together for one location far away from her, Bridget casually strolled to the north operating room. She'd routed and distracted them long enough. She reached to the counter and found empty space. Where was her knapsack? It wasn't where she had left it. She turned around, looked behind the door and scanned the room. As her senses reached out, she felt the earthbound spirits of the location overlapping with the living corporeal persons converging on the dank and deserted morgue looking for answers. The ghosts were barely aware of the living; they just kept doing the same things they had did in life, but one of them knew where Bridget's extra clothes were. Ray had found them on the walk-through during setup.
"No activity." Torry rolled her seat in the van and moved the mysterious pack out of her way. Egon thought a vagrant had left them behind, but Kris recognized the expensive French boots. She did not think they belonged to a vagrant, perhaps another paranormal researcher from TAPS, Everyday Paranormal or the Collinsport Ghost Society. "Things sure settled down quickly…" She listened on her headset as Ray and Egon discussed the strange sudden sequence of distractions. Jason thought there was another person in the place, but Brad wondered why the person could elude them without being seen. As she listened, she felt the van lightly sway left to right. Had the wind picked up? It was gradually rocking. Her attractive Korean features looked around nervously. Was she now being haunted? She heard a rapping on the side of the vehicle.
"Ray," She spoke over the radios; her voice became high when she got scared. "I think it's out here with me." Torry removed her radio headset and motioned to the dashboard, her finger flipped on the headlights facing the dark front veranda of the hospital. As they lights came on, she saw Bridget standing there and screamed her head off loudly through the night. She barely noticed her outfit; she just saw her darkened visage and ran screaming toward the building.
"Sorry, sweetie…." Bridget grabbed her pack before they could find her ID in the bottom. "But these boots were expensive." She pulled her arm through the harness and levitated off her feet, ascending higher and higher until she could see the lights of Louisville in the distance.