(A/N) Hey guys, finally gotten back to updating this fic, and I can promise you that from now until the end of this fic, we will have an update every Thursday, resuming the long ago promised, but never fully delivered, update schedule. We might, also, just to make up for the long delay, due to my end-of-college-year exams, have a few extra chapters here and there. You never know! So, here's the long awaited chapter, written by myself, and featuring the heroes deal with that prison-break, as they attempt to find answers, leads, clues, or any sort of information that will help them gain an edge over the Community.
Enjoy!
Chapter Twenty-Six – The Screen Looker
Dr Gavin Free / Vav
Written by NicKenny
"Big Brother is Watching You." ― George Orwell, 1984
After giving Agent Heyman a detailed report on the blonde girl's car – shouldn't be too hard to find, given that it was tiny, neon purple, and driven by one of the prettiest girls he had ever– Now where had that come from? Vav thought, pushing all memory of the girl out of his mind for the time being. He just hoped that J-Roll would catch her. At least then, he'd know where he could visit her.
Vav paused briefly, slightly concerned at where his train of though was going, and shook his head vigorously in an attempt to clear his thoughts. Who was this girl? he wondered. Why does she have such an effect on me?
X-Ray turned to him and gave him a concerned glance, which Vav ignored, looking away from his partner. He was in control; he wasn't some hormonal teenager, struck dumb by the first pretty girl who looked his way. He was totally in control. He was stone. He knew exactly who and where he was, and what he wanted in life, which was to bring the Community to justice, and protect the innocent people of Achievement City from harm.
However, he couldn't escape the fleeting notion that what he really wanted was the mysterious girl's phone number, and the realisation terrified him.
He barely noticed X-Ray walking up to him, he was so wrapped up in his own thoughts, and he gave a little start when X-Ray placed his hand on Vav's shoulder, forcing him out of his confused mental arguments.
"You okay man?" he asked, worry audible in his voice, and Vav smiled somewhat self-conciously, nodding in return.
"Course I am, just a little rattled. Can't believe that the Community would go this far. Organise a hit on us and a prison break at the same time! They can't get away with this, X-Ray. We've got to make them pay!"
The other hero nodded, smiling grimly, but the hint of concern never left his eyes as he continued to stare at his partner. "You sure you're okay?" he asked again, and Vav fought the urge to roll his eyes.
"Of course I'm sure!" he exclaimed, jumping to his feet and posing heroically. "I'm better than okay, I'm Vav!"
X-Ray stared at him for a moment, his eyes narrowed and critical, before turning away and walking over to Burns and Heyman, muttering "What a loser" under his breath, causing Vav to deflate a little as he watched him leave.
He sighed, arms dropping to his sides, and shook his head wearily. Okay, he admitted, perhaps this wasn't going to be his best day. Stupid hot blonde girls with their purple cars and…hotness!
Briefly, he wondered if he'd ever see the girl again.
Eventually, he joined X-Ray, Burns, Heyman and Iron-Ryan in the courtyard of the prison, as the police and Iron-Ryan's drones began to herd the prisoners back into their cells, until they could transfer them to a more secure facility in Achievement Burgh, allowing them to repair the damaged areas of the prison. It had taken one hell of a hit over the last twenty-four hours.
"So, what's the plan?" he asked, trying to summon up some enthusiasm. The others looked over at him, from their position around a large table, covered in maps of the city. Vav, slowing down time slightly around him, saw a purple trail that Ryan had no doubt charted, using his computer brain, which presumably was the most likely route the girl had taken. Other lines trailed through the city, more work by the huge cyborg, probably attempting to trace the members of the Community who had instigated the break-in into the prison.
Ryan slowly moved into the space, blocking off Vav's line of vision, and the hero smiled, allowing time to speed up to normal around him once again. "We're trying to track the Community's men, but aren't having much luck on that front," the cyborg rumbled. "As of this moment, we have no leads. The best chance we have is to find that girl, but local police have had no look finding any traces of her or her car within the city, so it's logical to believe that she's left the city."
"We haven't had any luck finding her files, either," Burns broke in, his face grave. "Some of the prison's files exist only in hard copies, so I've got a team of men working through them, but Ryan wasn't able to pull anything off their servers, which is…strange. There should be some mention of her, even if it's in relation to phone calls, solitary confinement, visitation information..."
He trailed off, and Vav frowned. "I don't understand, what does that mean?"
"It either means she was a plant, or she was the one they busted out," Burns replied, his face darkening. "That someone either got her in without a trace, probably by erasing all information on her after her incarceration, and then she helped the Community break in, or else that she was the reason they broke in all along, and they just covered their tracks behind them. For all we know, she could be one of them. In fact, I'd say that's more than likely."
Vav felt his heart drop at the thought that the girl was a member of the Community, and frowned, trying to disguise his emotions, feeling Iron-Ryan's gaze focusing on him in particular. He met the cyborg's eyes – or rather, eye, given that he was unsure whether or not you could include an optical receiver unit, or whatever Ryan's other "eye" actually was – and his frown deepened, but, to his embarrassment, he was the first to look away. So much for being stone.
"So we've got nothing," X-Ray summarized, looking grave. "Absolutely fucking squat!"
Vav met his eyes, and a silent moment of understanding passed between them. "Not quite nothing," Vav replied slowly, as though putting a great deal of thought into his words. "We've still got a few tricks up our sleeves."
Vav stopped outside the door, his eyebrows raised in an unspoken question. X-Ray glanced at him briefly before raising his hand to his glasses, activating the switch, and stared at the wall in front of him for a moment, before clicking the switch once more and nodding to Vav, telling him all he needed to know.
He's in there.
Vav smiled slightly to himself as he took a step back, before kicking the door down in one swift movement. The two strode inside, their eyes quickly adjusting to the gloom within, only to widen slightly as they picked out the form of Denecour, a shotgun in his hands. Alarm bells immediately began to ring inside their respective heads – superheroes or not, they weren't invulnerable to bullets.
"Whoa there, man, it's okay, it's just us," X-Ray murmured soothingly, and recognition dawned in Denecour's bleary eyes, and his grip on the gun loosened slightly.
"Wha-what the fu-fuck are you two doing, smashing my door down?" he asked, confused, having clearly been woken up by the heroes' entrance.
X-Ray and Vav glanced at each other, still all too aware of the shotgun in Denecour's hands, and decided that honesty was the best policy for the time being.
"Jail break, we're here looking for answers," X-Ray summed up tiredly, his eyes flickering from Denecour's own, back to the shotgun, back again, and so on, as he spoke. "The Feds and Iron-Ryan have nothing, so we were hoping that you might be able to give us some info."
There was a brief, tense moment of silence, as Denecour weighed up his options, and then he nodded slowly to himself, lowering the shotgun. "Well, why didn't you jus–"
He barely had time to begin before Vav crashed into him, knocking him to the ground and interrupting him mid-sentence. The shotgun went sailing across the room, and X-Ray leapt on it, twirling around and pointing it in the direction of its owner, who has currently pinned onto the stained wooden floor of his apartment by Vav.
"When the fucking hell did you get a shotgun?!" X-Ray exclaimed furiously, as Denecour groaned between Vav's weight, whose hands gripped his shoulders tightly and painfully.
"Ugh," he gasped, still winded from the Vav's tackle a moment earlier, and he wheezed for a moment, trying to get his breath back. "I bought it a few weeks back. Heard that the Community were looking for me, after I tipped you onto that assassin of theirs when Kerbal Gunnerz snuffed it. Thankfully, only a handful of guys know where I live, and I'm pretty sure I can trust 'em, but you never can be too careful."
Vav glanced over at X-Ray, still pinning Denecour to the ground, and his partner gave a slight nod, lowering the shotgun. After a brief moment of hesitation, Vav followed his lead, getting up off Denecour and hoisting him up from the ground.
"You got a licence for it?" he asked, not yet having let go of the information broker, who simply laughed to himself at the question.
"Of course I don't have a goddamn licence for it!" he replied, shaking his head. "Then I'd have to leave an address, creating a trail the Community could track me with, and all the other bastards who want me dead could too. I reckoned I'd keep my head low until you two had dealt with them, and 'til then, I keep Kdin here next to me at all times."
Another brief pause, then Vav ventured a thought that troubled him. "You…you named the shotgun?"
Denecour looked nonplussed. "Oh no, Kdin's my male lover."
Again, another brief, but more awkward, pause, before he sighed and shook his head. "Of course it's the shotgun, you idiots. Do you see anyone else here? And why shouldn't I name it? At least it's not a stupid as 'X-Ray' or 'Vav'!"
X-Ray coughed, interrupting Vav before he could open his mouth in reply. "I think we're getting a bit side-tracked here. We don't care about the shotgun, just don't point it at us in the future."
The information broker snorted. "Then don't kick my door down! All you've got to do is fucking knock! I thought you had come to kill me! You're just lucky I didn't decide to let a few rounds loose before checking to see who it was, on the off chance that it was you two! AND I THINK THAT SAYS A LOT ABOUT OUR FRIENDSHIP!"
Rant over, the smaller man glared at the two heroes, before looking down mournfully at his shattered door, in four or five pieces across his floor.
Vav twisted his mouth glumly and shrugged. "I don't know if you'd call us…friends, you know? More like…people who whale on you until you tell us what we want to know, and then we leave you be until next time."
He paused, and was struck by the revelation that perhaps that's what Denecour, with his ridiculously named shotgun, considered a friend. He frowned, and felt more than a little bit sorry for the other man.
"Do you want us to get a new door for you?" he asked, trying to sound as friendly as possible. "I mean, you can just give me the apartment number of a person you don't like, and I could tear it off its hinges easily, and bring it down for you. We'd replace the numbers and no one would ever know?"
Denecour glanced up at him, his eyes narrowed, clearly unaccustomed to acts of kindness. "No," he replied, his voice curt. "Leave it. I know a guy who'll get me another one, and fix the hinges for me, free of charge. He owes me."
"He 'owes' you?" X-Ray asked, his voice betraying his poorly concealed doubt.
"Well, unless he wants those pictures of him screwing his sister-in-law sent to his wife, he will. Crazy things people keep on their hard drives, phones, flash drives and whatnot. In this day and age, that's just asking for someone to find. He's just lucky that I'm such a nice and understanding guy.
"Yeah…" X-Ray began. "'Lucky'."
Denecour stared at him for a moment, before realising that X-Ray was still holding his shotgun, albeit in a non-threatening way, and any attempt at going up against the superhero certainly wouldn't go well for him. He sighed, before shrugging and straightening up.
"Now what the hell did you two want?" he asked, somewhat gruffly, before flopping down on a dilapidated sofa. "I trust it wasn't just for the pleasure of breaking down my door, waking me up, and assaulting me, was it?"
"There was a break in at the prison, less than twelve hours ago. As far as we know, no one escaped, other than the attackers and a blonde woman who may or may not have been affiliated with them," X-Ray informed him, business-like as ever. "That's all we've got. They've covered their tracks completely. We believe the Community orchestrated it, but other than a possible lead to Bullet-Beard, we've got no proof."
"Bullet-Beard?" Denecour asked suddenly, intrigued.
"Yep," X-Ray replied, nodding. "He hired a group of bikers to carry out a hit on Vav and myself. Made it worth their while too, quite a lot of money involved."
Vav bristled at the memory of it. The fact that X-Ray had been worth more still irritated him. When he finally got his hands on those Community mongs he'd teach them who was worth what.
"Well," X-Ray added, "he and another guy ordered the hit, at least. Some dude wearing a mask, or a balaclava or something, according to the dude Vav interrogated…Hey, are you okay man?"
This last sentence was uttered in response to Denecour's sudden gasp, as he paled and sagged back into the sofa. "Son of a bitch!" he murmured, twitching like crazy as his hands searched through his pockets, coming out with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, and he quickly helped himself to one, using it to slow down his breathing as he fell into a moment of nicotine-induced bliss.
"What's going on?" Vav asked, after a few seconds of silence. "Who's the guy in the mask? What's the big deal?"
Denecour chuckled to himself. "Oh god, kid, you have no fucking idea. That dude…that dude is not someone you want to mess with. If I were you, I think I'd consider getting out of the superhero business."
"Right, but who is he?!"
The smaller man looked around warily, appearing fully alert for the first time since their conversation began. "I…I don't feel comfortable talking about it here. I'll need some time to get some stuff together, some info, some things I've had hidden away for years. But I can give you a lead on the Community in the meantime, if you're up for it?"
"Always!" Vav and X-Ray spoke together, before glancing at each other and smiling somewhat sheepishly at their mental symmetry.
"I've heard that some sort of cargo delivery is going to happen tonight, around midnight, on the docks. Weapons of some kind, heavy stuff. Like they're preparing for a war or something. I hadn't connected it to Community up until now, but if…if Shadlz is involved, then things are going to get bad real quick. Shipment of this size, they've gotta have some sort of key player present. You go in and intercept it, and you'll find yourself some bad guys."
X-Ray nodded, and tossed the shotgun over to Denecour, who deftly caught it. "Okay, thanks. You sure you'll be safe out here, if the Community are looking for you? We can get you FBI-protection, hell, we could get you on a witness-protection program, out of the city, start-a-new-life sorta thing?"
His suggestion was met with a snort of derision. "What? Leave the city? This place is my goddamn home! You see that?!" he exclaimed, pointing to a door on the far wall, which the two heroes knew led to another room, given over to computers and hard drives of all kinds of techie nerdiness, that would probably give Iron-Ryan a massive cyborg boner just to see. "You know what's in there? They can't touch me in my own city, not me, not Caleb Denecour, the Screen Looker! You guys might be superheroes outside, but in cyberspace, I'm the goddamn real deal! So let them come, if they want to. They won't get the better of me."
The heroes nodded, and turned to leave. "Send the exact time and location that this drop-off's meant to occur at to me, okay?" X-Ray asked, and Denecour muttered something undoubtedly foul in response.
As they clambered down the metal staircase, the two mused over the Screen Looker's reactions, and the information he had passed onto them.
"You know," Vav began, somewhat hesitantly, as in the back of his mind he was aware that any one of the CCTV cameras on the building could be watching them for Denecour at this exact moment, and the entire apartment block could very well be rigged with hidden microphones. "That guy really needs to get himself a hobby, sooner or later. Something outdoorsy."
"Like Ultimate Frisbee?"
"Exactly!"