Signal to Noise
10
"Amy. Amy halp. I'm dyin,'" I groaned. "I'm bleedin' all over."
Amy's response was perhaps a tad more annoyed and lacking of sympathy than I felt this deserved, even as she held my hair while I prayed at the porcelain altar. "Oh no. How terrible."
You know what sucks?
Periods.
Know what really sucks?
Periods, for someone who has never before experienced one (except vicariously through the memories of one's reincarnated? self).
Want to know what absolutely sucks an entire bag of dicks?
Being out in a little black dress with your… friend? Coworker? Barely legal, sexually confused, kind-of-sort-of lesbian hopeful (on her part) girlfriend? Whatever—when it reared its ugly head.
Yeah. My night had not been fun. I may have gotten my hands on a bottle of something alcoholic and blacked out towards the end of it. The next morning was proving to be worse.
Hangover? Check.
Puking? Check.
Still feel like someone took a blender to my insides? Check.
"Medic. I need healin'," I tried again.
Amy snorted. "You brought this on yourself."
"You vowed to do no harm!" I wailed.
"I did? I don't remember taking the Hippocratic Oath. I seem to remember it was the hypocritical oath," Amy hummed. "Besides, you were the one who told me, and I quote, 'Amelia, turn off this goddamn hyper-liver so I can get properly shit-faced.'" I did vaguely remember something like that. "And then, once you got drunk, you got me worked up and didn't have the decency to finish me off before you passed out. And tried to eat my hair."
'God damnit drunk!Claire!' Note to self: Claire's tolerance was low. Very low. Like, 'three beers' low. Something she said registered through the drums pounding in my skull. "Wait. Muh liver. Turn it back on!"
From the corner of my eye, I saw Amy take on a thoughtful pose. "I don't know… Maybe this sort of power wasn't meant for the hands of man." She narrowed her eyes at me and added, "Or girls who get frisky when they're sauced."
"Will trade Tinkertech and sexual favors?" I offered piteously.
"Suffer."
"Game over, man. Game over. GG no re. Blargh—"
"Wow. You look like shit."
Thanks for stating the obvious, Taylor.
"And Amy looks pissed."
Yeah, I had noticed that myself.
"Did… did you guys do it while I was with Uncle Kurt and Aunt Lacey? Is that what this about? Should I give you some space?" Taylor asked. Based on how her lips were twitching, she was enjoying this entirely too much for my liking.
"No," I groaned from my plate of scrambled eggs and toast.
"Yes," Amy answered at the same time.
I turned enough to fix her with one golden eye—the sight of her power felt like a stab directly to my sore brain, so I turned away. "We did not 'do it.' It was a bit of drunken petting. Trust me, if we'd fucked, you'd be walking with a limp and wouldn't be nearly so sour."
"Well, this is what happens when the person who initiates it passes out in the middle," Amy shot back.
"At least it wasn't whiskey dick," I sighed, digging into my eggs. "Fuck this. When I can string together two thoughts, I am Tinkering up a way to turn off periods."
A warm finger touched my unoccupied hand and suddenly, the world was bright and fresh, the drumline in my head had been taken out back and shot twice in the back of the head with a Luger, and I felt something squish/click about where my liver was and my neural interface told me the 'hyper liver' was back up and running. A half laugh/half sob of relief escaped my lips. Amy's voice drew my attention. "I suggest starting by looking into inducing a temporary, artificial menopause without the corresponding hormonal changes. Also, as payment, I get first dibs."
"Uhh," Taylor's spoon clinked against her bowl. "So, what do I have to do to get in that line?"
"Sexual favors seem to be a valid form of payment," a chipper, amused voice called from the stairs. I turned and saw Lisa coming up with a cardboard container bearing coffee and/or hot chocolate. "Put me down for that."
"No," Amy denied.
Lisa rolled her eyes. "Threesome."
Amy shook her head. "No."
"Two words: hate fuck." Lisa's grin was foxy, and only grew wider as Amy actually seemed to be considering it. "So, let's table that discussion for later. What are we doing today?"
Taylor and Amy shared a look, before turning wide, predatory grins on Lisa. "If you're here, you get to join in the morning routine."
"It'll be fun," Amy nodded. "For us."
"Uh… no thanks?" Lisa shook her head.
Amy's smile was beginning to look like she'd stolen it from Lisa. "But Lisa, I thought you weren't against having Claire ride your ass."
Bottle green eyes met my gold and Lisa winced. "Shit."
"All joking aside," I cut in with a chuckle, "I had plans for today." I saw Taylor mouth something that looked like 'thank God' out of the corner of my eye. "No, Taylor. You are not allowed to skip." And now she was silently cursing at me. "But make it an easy day today. We're going to be recruiting. Lisa, I'm looking for a recent trigger. Cape. Big guy. Brute."
The blonde nodded. "Sounds familiar. I'd heard of something like that in town. Give me a few hours and I'll have a good idea where he'll be based on where and when he's been sighted previously."
"That's our target for tonight. Expansion of our territory is on hold while we build more pylons. Taylor, since Lisa's going to be busy, organize some people to come by and collect some machinery. I'll be having the fabber spit out new fabbers in pieces that can be assembled by normal humans. Tell them to pick a place close to the boat graveyard, then start tearing that shit down and feeding it to the fabbers." Turning to Amy, I asked, "Amelia, you want to help people. I know you find this whole 'kicking people out' thing distasteful." The healer nodded. "Well, how do you like the idea of solving hunger? Ending 'animal cruelty?' Supplying shelter, warmth, and clean water to everyone who wants it?"
A hopeful look crossed Amy's face before she frowned. "Bio-Tinker restrictions—"
Lisa hummed. "Can be circumvented. Can't be self-replicating? Make it sterile, or make it only replicate in a controlled, directed fashion…" She glanced at Taylor. "Give it a brain. Something simple, that Taylor can control. Any reproduction takes place only because she tells it to, and only as much as she tells it to."
"I don't do brains—"
"You're not doing brains. You're making a brain. Entirely different from manipulating one that someone's already using," Lisa argued.
Sighing as Lisa shot down that argument, Amy continued poking holes in my suggestion. "I wouldn't know where to begin, and this isn't a job for one person anyway—"
"So, you collaborate," Lisa suggested. "Claire, you're recruiting, right? Swing through Boston and talk to Blasto. He's a bit… off, but this sort of thing is his bread and butter. And we've got Leet locally. Sure, his stuff tends to fail sometimes, but he generally gets it right the first time—and we only need the first time. He's highly versatile otherwise. Then there's Claire herself, of course. Chariot. Armsmaster. Gearbox. Kid Win. Dragon. We've got enough Tinkers that, if we all pooled our resources, we could completely uplift Brockton Bay… My God, was that your plan, Claire?"
I shrugged. "Maybe. Problem is, any time it's been tried, Ziz has gotten uppity about it." Considering how much I should say, I slowly explained, "Look at what they've done so far. The Endbringers obviously have… I wouldn't call it a mission, so much as instructions. Part of that is to disrupt the economy, trade, and slowly increase the pressure on mankind. Going forward with this might just draw her attention. Or, it might cause enough chaos with the PRT and other groups when they see what we're doing that she's satisfied and turns a blind eye for now."
"You say that like—"
"Lisa. Shut up." I ordered. "Do not finish that sentence." The blonde's eyes had gone very wide and she nodded quickly. "Now, I'm going to take my two hours of Tinker time then head out. Any questions before I go?"
"We're still on for trading sexual favors for that 'no period' thing, right?" Lisa asked, her grin returning.
I sighed. "We'll see."
It was just starting to rain in Boston when I found Blasto and had a talk with him. He had seemed intrigued at the prospect of working with Panacea, especially on designing something as grand in scale as I proposed. Still, he was leery of uprooting himself from Boston and visiting Brockton Bay, even if we promised him shelter under the aegis of our shields. I supposed I would have to give it time to see whether that negotiation bore fruit.
It was pouring down cats and dogs when I hit New York, so hard that when I finally slowed down and dropped below the clouds, I had to cut speed to double digits and rely mostly on scanners for plotting my path. And now, I sat on a roof in the middle of downtown, watching rain hit the sphere of my shields and bead off under the red glare of my lasers, pointed skyward. I didn't have to wait long.
"Wow! You know just how to make a girl feel special," a woman called from where she'd appeared across the roof.
The chair I was sitting on duplicated, a copy appearing across from me, and a table between them. The bubble of my shields shifted, changing shape and expanding to cover the hardlight table and chairs. "Got a few minutes to talk?" I asked, cutting off the lasers.
A short, curvy, feminine figure slipped through the shield and dropped down into the chair opposite me. She wore a maroon hooded cloak, black body suit, and brown armor of some sort over it—with a sword sheathed at her belt and a shield strapped at her back under the cloak. "You came to town and shined a frickin' Mouse Signal in the sky on my lunch break. How often is it that a hero gets to say someone took a page from 'Batman' just for them? Well, either that, or you were advertising for Disney and I'm at the way wrong table…"
"I'm not with Disney."
"Great! They're still trying to sue me for copyright infringement. Pfft, yeah right," Mouse Protector snorted. "So yeah, for that, I've got a few minutes." Looking over my unmasked face, she asked, "Hey, aren't you—"
I sighed/groaned and a hologram sprang up over the table of Judge Pickett's ruling. "Yes. Yes I am," I answered tiredly.
I caught a flash of a huge, toothy smile under the hooded cloak she wore over that half-mask/helmet thing with the mouse ears. "Awesome! It's always good when the law works for you rather than against you. Congratulations."
"Thanks," I returned her smile, before the nature of my business here wiped the smile from my face. "So, down to serious business."
"Uh oh," Mouse leaned forward in her chair. "This sounds a little serious for me…"
Knowing her reputation and having a good idea of what to expect, I wasn't exactly annoyed by her attitude. Really, it was kind of cute—in a dorky way. "You know your frenemy/booty buddy Ravager?"
Mouse snorted. "What's she done this time?" When I raised an eyebrow, that flash of teeth reappeared. "I like to leave the whole 'did they?' question unanswered. People come to their own conclusions, and it's usually, 'they totally did.' Drives her up a wall."
"Fair enough," I nodded. "As for what she did, well if she hasn't yet, then she's soon planning to contact a certain group of around nine individuals…"
"Oh fuck me," Mouse hissed. "And not in the good way. Jesus, you're joking right?"
I shook my head. "Call it a one-shot precog power that gave me a whole lot of fine details about one possible future. It was… pretty fucking grim. Like, 'editor sent it back because the author went full grimderp' grim."
"That's pretty grim," the older woman mused. Standing up, she paced under the roof of my shields for a moment before finally turning back to me. "I've got to go check this out." She held out a hand, a small smile on her lips as she did. "Thanks for the warning."
I stood, shaking the offered hand. "Good luck."
The curvy girl, not quite a head taller than me, nodded and disappeared. "And that's my good deed for the day," I mused aloud. A small smile pulled at my own lips as I asked, "Enola, did you get it?"
"I did, Master."
"Good," I smirked pulling out my best Mr. Burns impression. "Let's go home. I feel some Tinker time coming in the near future."
Duplicating powers with my Wavelength tech was possible, but not easy. From the scans Enola had taken of Mouse Protector's teleport effect, I had a baseline to work with, but it would take days worth of Tinkering to get it working from what I could tell—all because drunk!John had picked the Thinker drawback for my Tinker power and my progress was hamstrung. Sure, it was still faster than a lot of other Tinkers and overall better, but it wasn't 'snap my fingers' easy. Which was kind of silly in my opinion, if only because picking the ultimate Tinker power should have been a guaranteed easy ride to success.
'Should have picked Broken Limiter, drunk!John. I could've One-Punch'd Simurgh and called it a day by now.'
And because I had seen what pushing your powers past a certain point would do thanks to Coil, I didn't want to risk it, even with Amy helping me recover. Since she didn't do brains, I didn't want to risk giving myself a stroke that she couldn't fix. My own 'heal lasers' were more of a general jack of all trades thing, especially with Amy there to go back over their work and fix any errors—but not nearly good enough to fix a brain without brain damage. So it was that I shelved duplicating Mouse's teleportation for today and instead turned towards something more immediately useful: power armor.
Well, more like hydraulic exo-suits. Simple, easy to maintain and repair, quick to construct, and 100% safe to operate. So easy to use even the military wouldn't find fault with my two step instructions: put it on, press the green button. Even a marine couldn't fuck it up!
…Yes, I may have taken some inspiration from anime.
Yes, I built a Gantz suit.
"I don't know. It's comfortable, but kind of… revealing," Kurt assessed as we watched him walk around the lab in the test model made to his size. Of course, the test model—like all the ones I'd be giving the Dockworkers after having them step into a scanner that would take their measurements—was not the original Gantz black, but a yellow-and-black hazard pattern.
Lacey, Tattletale, and Weaver followed his movements with their eyes like a pack of starving wolves—well that last one was an assumption based on how her head turned, given that her half-mask hid her eyes. "Uh huh. Yeah, dear," Lacey nodded absently.
Amy rolled her eyes. "Just imagine Piggot in one of these."
That got an immediate reaction as all three women winced and pulled similar disgusted faces. "Ugh," I shuddered. "Damnit, Amy." Turning back to Kurt, I asked, "Other than that? Any problems?"
"None so far," he admitted. "I don't see how you walk around in this kind of thing all day though."
I shrugged. "You get used to it. Come on, grab that cutter and those clamps and let's go see what you can do."
The 'cutter' was essentially a beam rifle, which fired a variable-penetration, low-heat laser powerful enough to easily punch through steel. Its targeting system was a modification of my scanners, output to a holographic display—it would show the target, along with everything behind the target, in the expected range of the beam. Where the two systems overlapped was in the ability to accurately measure the thickness of whatever it was pointed at and change the intensity of the laser to only cut through that, instead of punching out the other end. Moreover, the scanner could detect a human or other living creature and adjust its intensity accordingly, so as to not harm anyone it was pointed at unless Enola enabled the override command.
It was nothing I hadn't made a dozen different variations on before, save that this one was physical, GPS tracked, and locked to only work with approved personnel.
The clamps were only partially new tech. They were essentially molecular magnets, capable of adhering to any surface. Once attached, they could extend a forcefield over the connected surface area and extend an anti-gravity field that would reduce the weight of whatever they were attached to in order to allow for safer transport of material. In other words, I had given the Dockworkers the ability to lift and move debris like Superman moved buses of children.
We found a group of about thirty DWA members waiting for us at the dry section of the ship graveyard. In addition to the roughnecks turning out for the show, Armsmaster had turned up to watch—surprisingly, with a Ward in tow. I hadn't met this one, but considering that he floated over like Marty McFly on a hoverboard, I had a good guess as to who it was even without Claire's memories supplying the answer.
"Hi. I'm Kid Win," he introduced himself, exchanging handshakes with myself and Weaver. Pausing on Tattletale, he asked, "Uh, aren't you Tatt—?"
"Our business partner, engaged in entirely legal business proceedings, with legally acquired assets," I cut him off before he could say anything else, drawing the expected grin from Lisa. "Aren't you supposed to be in school?"
"Uhh," Kid Win tossed a look at Armsmaster, who shook his head once. "Okay, then."
As the demonstration began, Armsmaster approached me and nodded his head off to the side before walking a short distance away and turning enough to keep his eyes on the proceedings. I followed, sidling up next to the much taller man. "What's up?"
"Firstly, regarding what we discussed concerning Dragon's… wardens," he began, and I nodded to show my understanding of who exactly we were discussing. "I believe I have found the location of their current base. I have some paid time off available and am planning a short vacation soon…"
"Road trip?" I asked.
"Road trip."
I nodded. "I need to Tinker up a decent bike, but yeah, I'm game."
"Come by the Rig." I frowned at that. "No foam this time. I'll help you put something together. Perhaps we can invite Kid Win. It would be good for him."
"Fine. I owe you Tinker time anyway. Fair warning though, I've got a pretty shitty downside to my power that I haven't really disclosed. Know how Thinkers get Thinker headaches?" He nodded. "Yeah. I get those. If I push too hard, I get a nosebleed. Any harder and I pass out. I've figured out how to ration my time, but it's still only about eight hours in a day—and it has to be broken up into two hour segments, with two hours of rest between, or I start losing time."
Armsmaster winced. "Well…"
"Could be worse. At least it's not Leet's problem, yeah," I agreed. "With that in mind, it'll probably take a couple of weeks to get everything settled to the point where we can go free the dragon maiden from the evil knight."
A frown pulled at his lips. "Secondly, somewhat related. Gearbox has gone missing."
I turned, sending him a concerned look. "When was this and why am I just now hearing about it?"
"This morning, shortly after one. Her signal was lost during a late patrol, in what has—in the wake of Coil's death—become a contested zone between E88, ABB, and Merchants. The Protectorate are keeping it quiet for now, but we're spreading the word out to local Independents to be on the lookout," he explained. "No one has yet claimed responsibility for her disappearance."
Crossing my arms, I gave it some thought. 'Not the way E88 usually does things in canon, but I won't rule them out. Definitely something ABB or Merchants would do, however. She's a Tinker though, so unless she went out unarmed…'
"What equipment did she take with her? Was there any sort of contact with Console about an engagement?" I asked.
"A Tinkered Ford Falcon XB—"
I snorted. "The Mad Max special? Why am I not surprised."
"In addition to light power armor based on my own designs. The Falcon had bays for missiles, rockets, and guns but the PRT refused to allow her to deploy with anything but low powered lasers and plasma weapons. Additionally, it carried her personal weapons for use with her power armor," Armsmaster supplied. Claire's memories told me that was a Tinkered up sledge hammer that made Harley Quinn's look small by comparison and a sidearm that could switch between various types of rounds, from containment, to disabling, to lethal. "There were no transmissions, nor was there any sign of signal jamming."
"So, whoever did it, they hit her hard and fast enough that she never saw it coming—never had a chance to fight back," I pointed out, earning a nod.
"That is the most likely assumption. It also rules out many of the local players. The Dragons would have drawn more attention. Skidmark doesn't have anything capable of it. Very few capes in the Empire have that kind of power," Armsmaster assessed. "I suspect outside interference."
"Maybe," I shrugged. "Still getting a handle on the cape scene, so I'll concede to your experience here. Personally though, call it a hunch, I think it was a local. Just haven't worked out which one yet." If Lung and Ryuu had gotten Bakuda, the bomb Tinker could have done it easily. 'That's another one… Maybe I can recruit her? On the other hand, no. She's 'bag of cats' crazy, and getting to her before Lung wouldn't solve that. She'd probably shit nukes if I showed her up.'
"I'll have Weaver start poking around. Maybe we can turn up something," I suggested. "In the meantime, how's tomorrow morning sound for Tinkering? I could come by around ten or so."
Armsmaster nodded. "I'll make the necessary arrangements. Come to the helipad at the top of the rig. The force screen will open as you approach."
The demonstration concluded with Tattletale talking over details for getting the DWA members outfitted with power suits. I updated Weaver on the Gearbox situation and asked that she look into it, while looking for Browbeat tonight. As for me, I figured I'd look into it my own way…
"Hey guys."
"Shit, cape!" one of the men on the street below shouted as the group of five mundanes plus parahuman turned around. Two of the mundanes had shaved heads and tattoos of a certain inclination and all of them were visibly armed. The parahuman was white. White hair, white eyes—not even an iris, just white. His power spoke of… 'Causality reversal? Limited to every 4.3 seconds and stuck in a set state. Weird.'
"Just here to talk," I called as I neared.
The cape, who I assumed was Alabaster, held up a hand to his cohorts motioning for them to lower their weapons as he took in my floating form, arms crossed. "And what do you want to talk about?"
"Well," I dropped the last two or so yards, coming to a hover at his eye level, "you see, I'm looking for someone. Blonde, huge…" I made a motion over my own breasts, emphasizing a much larger set of proportions, "assets, likes cars. Last seen around 1 a.m. this morning, about two blocks that way." I pointed in the direction the E88 members were heading. "Gearbox, one of the Protectorate Tinkers. You wouldn't happen to have seen her, or heard of her whereabouts, would you?"
"Does that sound like the Empire's modus operandi to you?" the white cape asked.
I shrugged. "Not necessarily. Then again, Armsmaster argued just this morning that it didn't sound like any of the local gangs either and he suspected someone from out of town. But even if you're both right, it doesn't hurt to turn over every stone, now does it? And if you don't know, maybe you know someone who might know something?"
The men exchanged looks and shrugs. "I'm afraid not," Alabaster denied. Moving slowly, he pulled out his phone. "May I?" I nodded and he turned, walking a few feet away as he placed a call. After a few minutes, he put the phone away and walked back. "Some associates report a heated altercation between the ABB and Merchants around that time, though none of them were around to witness the end of it. One seemed to remember hearing several small explosions followed by a large explosion as they left the area. Later sojourns through the area showed broken windows up to a hundred yards from the intersection."
"I see," I murmured. If they were to be believed, it would rule out the Empire. Key word being 'if.'
I could see the reasoning—sit back and pop a cold one while the ABB and the Merchants duke it out, they'd have no dog in that fight. That, or call in backup and wait to ambush the victor. Of course, if there were capes involved—Oni Lee, Mush, or Skidmark—then backing off made even more sense. The presence of bombs, especially bombs big enough to blow out windows a hundred yards from the epicenter, pointed towards no one's favorite bomb Tinker being involved. Maybe.
'Definitely need to give the place a look over, assuming there's anything worth looking at left on scene after PRT, cops, gangs, and civvies have been all over it,' I mused.
"Thanks for the intel," I nodded, turning to head down to the scene of the disappearance. As it turned out, trying the polite approach tended to work better than opening up with fists. 'That is, assuming I can trust anything out of their mouths. Well, same problem anywhere you go as far as gangs are concerned, really. Trust them to lie to help themselves and that's it.'
Alabaster coughed once, drawing my attention back to him. "Kaiser wishes to have a word with you. Somer's Rock is well-known neutral ground. You may name the time, or decline if you so wish."
"I'd like to say no, but… Day after tomorrow. Noon, if that works within his schedule. If not, six," I answered. I had a feeling it was about the docks and/or the trainyard. "Message me on PHO to confirm—my handle is 'Azazel.'" Getting the 'verified cape' tag wasn't all that hard, given it only required a picture of me doing something cape-y. Dragon—sorry, Tin_Mother, had even done me the favor of… requisitioning without restitution or compensation some poor edgelord's nick and wiping its comment history for me.
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I believe I'll go give the scene a look over. I'm going to assume all of those guns are legally owned and you're enthusiastic supporters of the Second Amendment on your way to a range or to clean them, since I haven't seen you engaged in criminal activity. It may take me a good half hour to finish up. If I don't hear any gunshots in that time, I'll assume you've all made it safely to your destination and move on," I said, getting a nod of understanding from Alabaster.
In other words, 'I'm busy. Fuck off for today. Don't give me a reason.' I could deal with them later. Finding the likely kidnapped Tinker came first.
I shot down the street, quickly finding the intersection where Gearbox had been waylaid. As Alabaster said, the windows of buildings and parked cars that had been there overnight were all blown out or at least cracked. Hovering over the intersection, I saw places where the asphalt had melted or burned off entirely. Divots were missing in the street, sidewalk, and surfaces of surrounding buildings where bullets had hit—though some of that reminded me more of grenade damage I had seen pictures of on the internet. There was one big hole in the ground, near the far side of the street, a few yards away from the biggest section of burned/melted asphalt was.
My Investigation skill pointed out firing angles for all of the little divots of gunfire, giving me an idea where everyone had been standing—assuming this was all done at once and not over a longer period of time, which it told me was more likely. It also showed me that the crater was likely from some sort of rocket or RPG, pointed out the skid marks and scrapes where it looked like metal had scored the asphalt as a vehicle came to rest… right over the burned/melted road.
'So, she was shot by something big there, the car spun around, then caught fire. Doesn't tell me much, but does give me a direction to look in, at least,' I decided.
I took to the air and flew over towards the source of the blast, spotting a set of tire tracks where it looked like someone had burned rubber. Moderately fresh, because there were still pieces of rubber on the ground. Following the general direction of the tracks, the first intersection I came to, there was a set of skids where the vehicle made a hard right and slid through the intersection. Moving further up the street for the next ten blocks gave me nothing to work with—the trail went cold.
Pulling up my phone interface, I sent a text to Weaver with the intersection where the car turned off and told her to start the search there. With that done, I scattered my drones around me, tapped into their feed, and moved deeper into the city.
"Where is she?"
Smack!
"[Unintelligible Chinese screaming]!"
"Speak American!" Smack! "Where." Smack! "Is." Smack! "Gearbox?" Smack!
"[More unintelligible Chinese screaming]!"
"Enola, make a note: Tinker up a translation algorithm," I grunted, smacking the bandanna wearing ABB member again for good measure.
"Noted, Master," Enola agreed.
Shaking the ABB ganger, I said, "Now look, buddy. You'd better start spitting out answers in English real goddamn quick." I let go of his collar, holding it with one hand while I held the other up. The tip of my index finger began to glow an ominous, death ray laser red. I moved it down to point to his junk. "Or your family tree's going to get burned down to the roots. Get my point?"
"I NO KNOW NOTHING! I SWEAL! I HOME IN BED WITH FRU RAST NIGHT!"
Well, it was Engurishu, but at least it was understandable.
"You know," a familiar voice called from above me. A familiar, female voice, tinged with the sort of parental annoyance of long suffering from dealing with a particularly unruly child. "This is not how I expected our reunion to go, Claire."
I looked up to find Lady Photon looking down on me with… with disappointment. Surprisingly, that stung.
"Still not my mom, Sarah," I rolled my eyes, bringing my hand up and shooting the ABB mook between the eyes. He went limp in my grip and I dropped him, where he collapsed to the ground a yard under us like a sack of potatoes. "He'll wake up in an hour or so with a few bruises and wet pants. That's all."
"Did you have to beat him?" she asked, arms crossed under her impressive breasts.
"Can we take this somewhere a little more private?" I asked, gesturing upwards. When she nodded, I took off, hitting 100 within the first ten feet before coming to a dead stop at roof level. I had time to sit down on the edge of the roof and wait before she finally came level with me. "Now then. I don't know about you, but I don't consider an open-handed slap that didn't break anything, knock anything loose, or even bust a lip 'beating' someone. Chastising, disciplining, spanking, humiliating, or emasculating depending on the circumstances? Sure. But not beating. The laser only put him to sleep. And, I didn't even dangle him from the roof like I'd initially wanted—too risky that I'd actually drop him."
"I wouldn't call smacking around random ABB members an effective means of finding a target, either," Sarah sighed, floating over to join me in sitting on the edge of the roof. Her shoulder leaned against mine and she continued. "I understand how you feel—more than most, really. The guy in the school, now a female Tinker's gone missing and you're worried she'd been kidnapped and used—"
"Sarah, if I wanted revenge, they'd be dead. I could raze this entire section of the city to the ground in the blink of an eye if I wanted. Double Dragon wouldn't have a chance to ramp up, Lee couldn't get close enough to kamikaze me, nothing would stop it. All I'd have to do is go pull Enola's heart out and let it go. Boom. The ABB get reintroduced to Hiroshima and Nagasaki." I sighed, kicking my feet and leaning back to look up at the clouds—that rain from this morning should be here soon.
"I haven't done that. Don't plan to. I'm not lashing out because I'm seeing some punk's face any time I look at an Asian. I'm hunting gang leaders and working my way up the ladder. Someone knows something about this morning, and I'm going to find out who and what. If I have to get a little rough with some punks, then so be it. They chose the life," I shrugged. "Evidence I found this morning led me here, to the most likely suspects."
Sarah sent me a long, searching look before pulling out her phone. "Vicky sent me a text. There's a thread up on PHO speculating that you're consorting with the Empire. Someone posted it after recording your meeting with Alabaster earlier tonight. There's no audio, so people are making up their own stories about what happened. Now this," she turned the phone around and loaded a video—shot with a potato at a distance—which showed me smacking around an Asian and shooting him in the head with a laser, then 'running away' from Lady Photon, according to the thread. "They're saying you didn't beat up the Empire, but you're willing to beat up Asians…"
"Of course," I rolled my eyes. "It has nothing to do with the fact that the 'Nazis' didn't shoot at me, didn't run, and answered my questions as politely as could be expected in the situation. Or the fact that the poor, defenseless Asian who didn't do nothing ran when I dropped in and said hello, then pulled a gun and shot at me when I followed, politely asking him to stop and explaining that I just wanted to talk all the while. And he almost hit his buddies behind me in the process! Fucking morons. Hang on."
I smoothed out my face into something a little less furious and closer to simply annoyed. Then I narrowed my third person camera to straight ahead, projected the current time and date as a glowing red hologram, and took a picture of Sarah and myself sitting on the roof, shoulders touching. Next, I cut and edited the feed from my cameras of the two encounters—blurring the faces of the mooks, both Empire and ABB, and leaving only Alabaster and the 'victim' untouched. Then I uploaded the videos and picture to a service for that and dug through PHO to find the thread in question, before posting a reply.
Azazel (Verified Cape): So, just to clear up any questions about what's happened so far tonight—and put out fires caused by speculation based on absolute potato camera phone footage—here is a link to my encounter with members of the Empire, and here is the same for the ABB.
Notice a difference?
Funny how the guys with guns who didn't shoot at me didn't get roughed up, but the guy with the gun who did shoot at me and nearly hit his friends behind me did.
And this is the immediate aftermath thereof.
I didn't run away from Lady Photon, we went upstairs to get away from prying potato-cameras. Next time someone has some question about something I've done, why not try asking before jumping to conclusions? I record everything now, just in case of another Shadow Stalker incident. If you ask, odds are good I'll provide video.
That posted, I tapped Sarah's phone. "There you go. Problem solved. God I fucking hate optics and PR."
Sarah sighed, one arm moving around my back and pulling me into a hug against her side while she put away her phone. "It's part of the game, if you want to play. As a hero, you can't just walk up to 'bad guys' and talk to them, or everyone will automatically assume you're colluding."
"Cops do it all the time. It's called 'information gathering,'" I pointed out.
The blonde beside me nodded. "Yes. And they have badges. We don't. We're not police. Because we're 'heroes,' people expect us to behave a certain way. To act as though the world were black and white, when it's not."
"It's fucking stupid."
Sarah chuckled. "It really is. Throwing race and politics on top of it is like throwing gas on a fire—and this city is a tinderbox, waiting for a spark. The best thing you can do right now is not be seen with known gangs or villains, unless it's unquestionable that you're fighting them. I get that you want to help. I'm worried for her too. But you aren't an established hero with a well-known reputation. One of the protectorate could get away with what you're doing, or one of New Wave. But not you, Claire. I know it seems stupid, that just talking things out seems like the most sensible option, but that's not what people expect to see when you wear the costume. Even with that attempted kangaroo court proceeding making the news, a lot of people still think you're…"
"A ticking time bomb?"
"Yeah," she winced. "Especially with your involvement in the Docks takeover and lockdown. You need to do something beyond reproach. Something indisputably good."
Shaking my head, I argued, "We both know real life isn't that convenient, and no amount of puppies saved from trees is going to sway public opinion."
"You could lay low for a while?" Sarah suggested.
"No," I denied. "At least sticking to my guns will show that I'm firm in my convictions. That I'm going to do whatever I need to to get shit done, whether people like it or not. If I go hide under a rock, I may as well admit idiots on the internet were right. Besides, give these people an inch and they won't be satisfied taking a mile." Shaking my head, I added, "Give it a few months and the media circus will blow over. Something new will come along and I'll be old news. Even the internet wackos won't touch it then."
The blonde nodded, conceding the point. "True. Well, if you need help, you know where to find me." A mischievous grin crossed her lips as she said, "Now that I've got that out of the way, why don't you tell me about this picture that has Vicky so riled up?"
"Oh, that?" I asked, hiding my smirk. "Nothing much. Just a smooch. It was a heat of the moment thing."
"Mhmm. Tell me more. Do I need to give you 'the talk?'"
Looking down, I said, "I think I'm a bit lacking in the required components for the standard talk to apply."
'Sadly. Maybe Amy could… Nah. That'd screw up all sorts of brain chemistry. Claire was born a girl. Even if Amy could make a complete X-to-Y conversion, she doesn't do brains, and this one's been steeped in estrogen for years. I don't think even space whale magic has an instant fix for this. Still, couldn't hurt to ask… Worst she could do is say no.'
I considered it for a moment, then revised that statement. 'No, the worst she could do is say yes, give me a cock and only a cock, and then laugh as I'm stuck as some sort of would-be futa thing with decorative useless dangly bits that can't actually get up. And she totally would, if only to take pictures and laugh.'