The Beacons are Lit (Obuzeti and Curtailed Ambrosia)

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“You sure he’s got a safe?”

“‘Course he’s got a safe. Where else would he keep his money?”

“I ‘unno Frank.” The thug hesitates, uncertain and thinking. His grip on the crowbar was loose, having forgotten all about Frank’s outstretched hand. “...a bank?”

If Leroy weren’t so stupid, Frank almost woulda thought his lackey was smart cracking at him. He took the crowbar from him and tested the weight of it-always a handy tool, them crowbars. Leroy might be catching the heavy end of it, next time he bungles another job. Frank still hadn’t decided. “Types like him don’t trust no bank. Zat where you keep your money? In the bank?”

“Sometimes, ‘til the checks start bouncing.”

“They can throw you in jail for that, you know.” Frank grunts, wedging the flat of the crowbar between the door and jamb. “Happened to my cousin.”

The irony of the statement didn’t occur to either man.

Glass cracked as the metal frame of the door bent outward, the cheery ring of a bell tinkling. No alarm. Frank hadn’t figured on there being one, but it was a relief all the same. He stepped just inside the doorway and peered back into the darkened street from the barred window. Nothing.

“There’s stairs in the back. Mac says he keeps it all up there. Swipe the lockbox under the register right quick and then let’s go.”

“Okay Frank.”

See, agreeable. Maybe he wouldn’t kill him-Leroy would never get any odd ideas about who was in charge, unlike the last asshole. Frank smiled, smug and satisfied. He’d shown him alright. Always scenic, that PoWah River Bridge…

Mood buoyed by the memory, Frank turned to head deeper into the store. Leroy had the lockbox on the counter, was prying at the lock with a screwdriver. “Later Leroy-we grab it on the way out.” The man complied, stowing away his screwdriver to slide the box into the stupid pillowcase he always carried. “C’mon-what we want is upstairs with the old ma-”

The bell jingled.

Frank spun as he raised his crowbar, but the door was already swinging back on itself, another jingle of the bell and a much too noisy clang of the warped metal against the jam. “I saw somethin’ Frank, it went over there-it was right over-”

Frank barely registered the silver and light blue blur before it came right for him-no, past him, an elbow or a fist socking him in the gut as she passed him by, displaced air ruffling his hair and clothes as he curled inward. It didn’t quite knock the air out of him, he was just surprised-and there was Leroy on the floor, the stupid pillow case over his head and his jacket half off and tied at the sleeves.

It was that goddamned hero-before he could think to bolt she was suddenly in the doorway, fully visible and smiling at him. “Midnight snack attack?”

No more than five feet or so, the kid-and she had to be a kid-was sporting oversized silver goggles to hide most of her face, and a costume Frank recognized immediately, something he’d been seeing in recent news reports. Not to mention the older videos back when he had more hair, back when Velocity had been a tall, leggy blonde.

Goddamned sidekicks or somethin’- He cursed, then grabbed a can of dog food to hurl straight for her face. Didn’t work-she flitted away and he took that chance to run, shoulder lowered to bodily shove her aside if he had to-but he didn’t get a step in before he tripped somehow, went crashing to the floor without quite catching himself, face exploding in pain as his nose crunched against the dirty tile. Frank shoved at the floor and shot a glance towards his feet-licorice. One of those long ass candy ropes-he tore his gaze up to her face as she zipped closer, some sort of canister in hand-he'd shove it down her throat.

“You little bitch-”

“Uh huh.” And then she sprayed him, something cold and stinging, something that made him gasp-he tried to crawl away, tried to stay angry-but his limbs were so heavy, all of a sudden, and he was so tired, so very, very tired…


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


“Hm…” Velocity picked up one of the man’s arms before letting it go, the heavy thump and lack of motion making it clear he was out cold. The other one had rolled onto his stomach and was trying to get out of the pillowcase, doing a weird worm crawl thing that, honestly, was kind of funny-if he wasn’t calling out for his friend so desperately, that was.

“Don’t leave me Frank! Don’t leave me!”

“He’s not going anywhere mister, don’t worry. Get you both a ride real soon.”

Silence and heavy breathing over there, the worm crawl abandoned. She considered dosing him too, but honestly-she only had so much of the stuff, who knew how long the coffee maker looking dispenser thing could continue making it for? She didn’t want to have to resort to pepper spray too soon, after all. That stuff was awful.

The stairs creaked, and the heroine glanced up just as an old man was coming down, thin and narrow eyed, clutching a sawn off shotgun she was one hundred percent sure was illegal here.

Well, that wasn’t really her business, all told.

“Um-good evening, sir. You uh…you call the cops yet?" She tapped at the little smart watch on her right wrist. "Cause I've called the cops.”

“Who’re you?”

“Velocity.”

“I don’t know any velocities lookin’ like you.”

“I’m the newest model. 2.0, you know how it goes.”

He ventured into the store proper, flicked on the lights and squinted through them a moment. She stood a little taller but stayed relaxed, not wanting to LOOK like she was trying too hard-but at the same time totally trying, hoping she looked the part. The silver boots and gloves, the light blue, thick materialled costume that shimmered slightly in the light, the various bits of tools peeking out from the cuffs of her boots-that was all legit. The goggles she’d painted to hide her face, well, little less so-but she liked them well enough.

“You really that new hero? From the radio? The papers?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, that’s me.” The young woman gestured to the snoozing man at her feet, then the quivering one half way out from behind the counter. She laughed a little. “Not in with these two knuckleheads, that’s for sure.”

The old man looked from one to the other before finally lowering the shotgun he’d been clutching. He walked past the one-kicked him in the ribs, which gave her a start-then behind the counter, intent on the lockbox sitting sideways on the counter. He opened it, started counting.

Velocity didn’t really know what to make of his reaction. People were usually…happier? You know what, it didn’t matter-he wasn’t robbed and so long as he didn’t shoot either of these guys, he was free to be whatever he wanted to be. She walked at normal speed to a display of fruit, selected a large red apple.

“It’s all here.” The old man said, blinking as the heroine set the apple down on the counter.

“Yep! All there. Can I buy this?”

“No.” The old man said seriously, leveling a look straight at her.

The heroine hesitated. “No?”

“No you can’t buy that.” The old man asserted as he closed the lock box with a snap. “Can have it.”

“Oh, thanks-but you don’t have to, I got some change right-”

“Eat it or don’t, but you can’t buy it.” The old man said stubbornly, bending to replace the box behind the counter. “This is my shop. I can give away an apple if I want to.”

He was grumpy, but he WAS glad she’d shown up. Velocity grinned, tossing the apple up before catching it again. “You want me to wait until the cops show up?”

“I don’t care. Just eat your apple.” He bent down again, then came back up with a little dish of suckers. “Here.” And he dumped half of them on the counter before turning to shuffle off, another kick to the pillow case wearing man’s ribs, then the sleeping man’s-wow, didn’t even stir-before going to inspect the door. Notably, he was still holding his shotgun. For some reason, the sucker and apple reward warmed her heart more than a thanks would have-Velocity took as big a bite of the apple as she could, then quietly set some coins on the counter as she chewed. Cops weren’t supposed to take freebies, and she imagined heroines probably shouldn’t either.

Between this and the prevention of grand theft auto on that spiffy looking Corvette, it’d been a solid night’s work. Not bad at all for a three hour patrol-all she could really spare tonight, that big test tomorrow. Glancing to the old man and his shotgun, Velocity felt a brief flicker of guilt, thinking about a test when stuff like this was going on, but…

Velocity finished the apple and tossed the core in a nearby trash can, moving on to a sucker next. Red and blue lights-time to shine, then time to get home and study.

Priorities, grades before volunteer work. She wasn’t leaving anything to chance with a professor as harsh as Dr. Goldstein.

 

[Obuzeti]

Corruption in the Chicago PD doesn't leave a paper trail. It's in handoffs in dark alleys, smuggled goods traded from car trunks and lockboxes, and areas marked Clear on the precinct patrol map and glossed over without consideration. Michael Bennett is one of those greasy cogs, swallowing drug shipments in his evidence locker and the back of his cruiser, losing suspects, long hours giving "speeding tickets" on deserted highways where contraband can be traded safely, less a fine to the city's upstanding officers. This is the grease that clogs the cogs. In one of the many deserted industrial parks, Bennett parks his car and meets with the North Kings, a splinter faction of the Latin Kings prison gang that runs Hispanic crime in the area. The office building he parks at is stripped of signage. The gated-off entrance he pushes aside, and ambles inside, cocksure and unworried. Invincible from both sides of the law, Michael thinks he is. So long as no one looks too hard.

And this is where Peter does his best work - hard looks, from a direction no one can see coming.

He'd be nondescript even on close inspection; a black, loose hoodie and jeans, no different from any other high-school loser wandering the streets at night, but there is no such thing as a close inspection for Peter when he's on the job. The eye slides off him; the memory forgets, the mind dulls and wanders away. It's the ultimate stealth trick, to not merely be unseen but to invisible to perception, in all its forms. And while he could chase down politicians and open their black books, find all their dirty secrets, air their laundry, it turns out that doesn't matter so much in the end. There's an endless parade of chumps that want to be in those muddy shoes, trading their integrity down for pennies.

This, though. This matters. A dirty cop is a fungal infection that spreads, a corruption in the law at the ground level. The misery it inflicts and ignores is real and tangible - and more than that, possible to erase. So, Peter draws out his little flashless camera, takes pictures of the plastic baggies that change hands - the license plates - the meet location. His microphone picks up snatches of conversation, gives him more names to follow up on, more targets to hit. Michael Bennett is the first cop this gang's flipped, but they're looking to expand their business. They're asking who's hungry. And Bennett, he's not only hungry, but they've got dirt on him. They've got hooks in, blackmail with their honey. He'll do what they'll say, a scout for their drugs.

Bennett gets back in his car. He drives away. So do his puppeteers, a bunch of stringy twentysomethings with no future and no shits to give. Peter keys his headset as he circles behind a dumpster, glances around to make sure nothing's close enough to be caught in the field, closes his eyes tight, covers his mouth and nose, and parts it just enough to call through the headset. "Got him. Bring me back."

A glimmer of blue, exotic particles shroud his body, before they snap into solidity and shine bright enough to force a squint. When the light fades, he's simply gone.

---

Existence reassembles. Peter blinks rapidly, the flash of light sharp even through his eyelids. His ears pop as air pressure reasserts itself, and he blows out a breath. Teleportation isn't precisely fun, especially if you're exposed in transit, but it's damn convenient. The bunker resolves into view; tacky motorcycle carpet, black tires on green, covers the floor, along with the florescent bar lights overhead. There's a wide set of workout equipment dominating one side of the room with a fan overhead blowing down on Blaise, who's back to whacking his mu ren zhang, the Chinese wooden dummy emitting loud clacks as he slams forearms and elbows into the extended posts.

Of course, all that's on the other side of the clear plastic encircling the blast pan; Blaise's nickname for the teleport pad, so named for the active Claymore facing the emergence point, over the ID pedestal. Peter obligingly puts his hand in the scanner, and when it confirms his identity, the plastic gate slides over and admits him entrance to the rest of the bunker. Marie's at her computer wall, three widescreen monitors displaying different camera fields and scrolling past datapoints, the woman herself processing at her typical blistering speeds.

"Bennett's dirty and looking to hire," Peter says, coming to stand just behind Marie, reaching up underneath his hood - and unclipping the clear plastic mask underneath it shielding his apparently unprotected face. He sets that in an equipment closet set to the side of the display panels, and then proceeds to unbutton his hoodie, revealing sheets of bulletproof, non-Newtonian liquid inserts sown into the fabric, rendering the nondescript outfit better protection than a SWAT suit. "Should we roll him up now or wait to see who he prods at?"

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“Solid work.” Marie notes, not that she had to tell him that. She cross references a set of GPS coordinates, mentally bookmarks her task, then brings Bennett’s public record back up on another screen.

“He’ll have friends and allies on the force. Knowledge of their moral weaknesses.” Marie agrees with her usual succinct, bullet point way of speech. Direct, flat fact. Her eyes narrow on the man’s picture, a flicker of hatred in the dark, usually opaque depths. Marie despises dirty cops near as much as she does anything. The lie they make of their badge, the betrayal of their oaths.

“Watch who he recruits and you’ll be able to bag the uniforms just as corrupt as he is-they just currently lack the opportunity.” Which Bennett would of course be all too happy to give them.

There could be desperate motives behind an officer turning dirty, but Marie never seemed to care. She forgave very little, if anything of ‘scum’. Given what had purportedly happened to her husband, the city she had grown up in and sought to punish for so long-it made sense. She had moved on somewhat, but she had never forgotten.

The brief intensity of emotion passes and Marie gestures to the computer chair beside her, reaches for and takes a sip of her long cold cup of coffee-always black, always oddly decaf-with a grimace. How long had it been sitting there? About as long as Blaise had been at that dummy. Hm.

She glances at the clock and then Blaise, then turned back to Peter. She waits to hear what he has to say.

Having shifted her attention to him and pausing what she had been doing, she was a least a little bit approachable, though the woman overall wasn’t anything he wasn’t used to. Wearing slightly oversized, dark grey sweats and a pair of nondescript slip-on shoes, she was far removed from the imposing Kevlar costume and cloak that hung on a lit panel of her old equipment. Not her idea, and she’s still not sure how Art had managed to set that up. The League had paid for that costume, and somewhere in those old headquarters she’s sure were her steel toed boots and the kneepads that had broken more than their fair share of enemy bones.

Marie Rivera-not that she used that last name anywhere, anymore- was a Hispanic woman with an olive skintone and dark brown, nearly black eyes that didn’t tend to reveal much-watchful and suspicious, they also didn’t miss much. She had thick, loosely curled hair cut just above her shoulders, and couldn’t be more than a handful inches over five feet were she able to stand. She kept her upper body toned, still had some power in her arms and shoulders, her back-but her once powerful legs were next to useless, broken and scarred as they were, and a good chunk missing out of the one. They weren’t on display very often.

Despite the chair and her smaller statue, Marie still managed to have immense presence. Her intensity, her sheer force of will made her seem bigger than she is. Never seemed to relax, rarely slept more than a handful of hours at a time-the faint circles under her eyes spoke to that. She wasn’t on the streets of Samson or running alongside parahumans anymore, but she had never given up the fight-it seemed to be the only thing she really had.

These days, at the very least (according to others, anyway) she wasn’t down here alone, though Art had gotten a cat for the place not long after she’d taken up residence. Marie was pretty sure he had been concerned she’d go crazy without another living thing around, and while she largely hated cats, Jasper was alright. Sam would have liked her. Maybe that was part of why she'd tolerated the sleek black cat in the first place.

 

[Obuzeti]

Peter takes the seat - a rolling chair that he promptly slides over to a pinboard against one wall as he fiddles out his phone and starts sending data to a nearby printer. "Did a search on his high school records, came up with three classmates that live within a couple streets of him who also work the force. I'd have to cross-reference the precinct records, but I'd bet they're who he'll go for first. We'll need to dig up some metadata to establish patterns we can follow, but it shouldn't be hard to wrap up this operation with another week or two of work."

The printer spits out a trio of photographs that Peter promptly takes up to pin to the board; Bennett himself, and then his contact from the North Kings; one Oscar Pena, with a rap sheet a foot long, various misdemeanors and assaults, a lifer in the gang, one of the patsies that trades in and out of jail to move goods. He reports to Angel Castamirez in MCC North Block, the local King leader, which would give the Kings a strong foothold in the outside world - they've already got prison guards turned, that's a never-ending war, but having a patrol officer flipped means that he could pass goods back through their law-toadies and give an unbroken line of contraband. Smuggling isn't, itself, a problem, but the use the Kings put it to makes it an issue: honey-trapping new members with luxuries rare between bars and tormenting those that resist, spreading their recruitment drives through entire prison wings. Best to pluck this weed before it gets rooted.

He rolls back his chair with the photographs now pinned up; blows out a breath, glancing over it. The pinboard is just one of five around the office, one for each major gang in the area (the Doves, the Kings, and the Crips), with another for what few villains are willing to operate within Elias's state, and then a final one for what little information they can pry out of Cid's connections - which isn't strictly necessary, but he gives Peter a nasty gut feeling and Marie's taught him to trust that. It's a heavy, never-ending workload, but tonight's the sort of night that chips away at the wall of criminality that's swallowed the Midwest.
He purses his lips and shakes his head, puts it aside. No time to go back out tonight. Instead he toes open a mini-fridge set beneath a computer desk and plucks out his own batch of peach tea, popping the sealable rim and taking a sip. The relaxing flavor smacks into his mouth like a playful slap and rocks him back in his chair a little, but it soothes him.

"Anything else happen while I was out?" he asks with a sigh. He's been on Bennett's tail for almost ten hours, and the fringe headache from using his powers so long begins to settle now that he's let go of it. "Didn't hear anything over the radio, except the new girl dropping off a couple thieves. The new, uh, Velocity."

Blaise laughs, in the background, an ugly, grating sound. The hard clonk of trained flesh meeting wood echoes around the room as he delivers a particularly vicious blow. "She's not. And she's cruising to get hurt, playing solo instead of turning the gear in."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“Efficient.” Marie doesn’t sound impressed, she almost never does-but the single word does have a ring of approval to it. She doesn’t offer anything further, only listens. She’s accustomed to Peter’s competence, his talent with investigation. He was an excellent detective. His search for the truth, and with a far purer intent than anything Marie’s ever known-was something to be admired.

He would be great, someday. He was already great.

It’s an odd experience watching him develop and grow in real time, a foreign, unfamiliar feeling she mulls over here and there. Alone, she sometimes looks one or two of the boards over before bed. She’s not sure why-she knows most of what’s on them.

“Few notes on the ticker tape.” Marie’s name for a report Art liked to generate, a way to boil down some of what Marie was doing into a more legible, useful overview. Well, some of what Marie was doing, anyway. It also connected various things any one of them had flagged recently, news, and occasional hero outings and going ons.

Then the girl in South Bend is mentioned, and Blaise cuts in with a bark more than a laugh. That caustic outlook is something they both share, and something Marie understands. She finishes the last of her cold coffee as a clicking sound is heard, before a neutral, softened male voice filled the space with a mechanical lilt.

”I see no reason for her to give up what must have surely been given to her, Blaise. The moniker came from the people, not the heroine herself. Though I do believe she was quoted at various times adding a ‘2.0' and a 'the second’.” It wasn't entirely obvious given the monotonous way of speaking, but there was humor from the AI at the end there, it sounded like.

Marie finishes the coffee just as he stops speaking, sets the cup in her lap before lowering her hands to the wheels of her sport racing chair and heading for the kitchenette. ”Blaise is right. She’s reckless, and overly reliant on her powers.” Not uncommon, and back when she was still putting the fear of God into the scum in Samson, usually exactly how she was able to drive the metahuman villains out. No one was invincible. Well. Very few were, anyway.

”But she’s active and apparently had some sort of connection to Laura Mansfield-I want to know what that was.” In addition to Lana, Laura had been Sam’s best friend. Marie had never met her, only planned for her back when…well.

When she thought the League might become a problem.

That was a long time ago.

Laura was gone by the time she had joined the Front, and it and all other League subsidiaries agreed to stay out of her cesspit-and unspokenly, out of her way-not that they ever went there in the first place.

”Speedsters are useful, and rare. If she proves to have any staying power-” Or grit. ”She could be an invaluable resource for Moore’s outfit.” Tectonic didn’t find her any more palatable-but Marie didn’t give a damn. Peter and Blaise were allowed their preferences, and that was it-Moore would do what she told him to do, this wasn’t a democracy.

”Ms. Mansfield’s technology was an offshoot of what the League was using at the time of her Catalysis. Unfortunately, this means I do not have a way to directly contact her successor.”

”Strong word.” Marie says flatly as she washes her cup. Still, food for thought. They might engineer a test of some sort before making contact, like they had with the Myers twins. It just didn’t feel like the right time, not yet.

 

[Obuzeti]

Peter acknowledges the compliment with a nod. Neither of them are the effusive type - and he's learned from watching others that she's much softer with him than others. He harbors a few suspicions why - she's never mentioned family, and their matched fervor for justice is probably the closest affirmation of her own code she's found among the League. But these are unnecessary addenda; people react poorly to being observed, most of time.

Unless it's romantic. Then people get weird. Peter wrinkles his nose.

Instead of pursuing that line of thought, Peter rolls his chair over to the ticker tape, perched on it in that peculiar crowlike fashion that comes natural to him. A quick scan reveals a few additional notes he adds to his pinboard - arrests, spots of local crime activity, Velocity's latest adventures. He's got a heatmap of her latest actions, and while her range is appropriately extensive for a speedster, she's very clearly a suburban girl instead of a city-bound apartment dweller; encounters are almost 60% higher in the south borough, despite Sixty-fifth to Broadsman streets downtown being the crime center of the area. Moreover, her patrol nights start there and move outwards in a spiral pattern or a crosshatch, depending on what Peter guesses is her mood. She's thorough, but not particularly deft.

"She is going to get hurt," Peter says, lips pursing. "The original Velocity worked with a team and practiced with them regularly. Speed will get her through the garden variety of criminal, but if some of Mansfield's archenemies surface - the odds aren't good."

He taps his fingers on the desk several times, then rolls over to the workbench where he, Marie, and Art collaborate on their tech designs. Art does most of the fine manufacting and tooling, to be sure, he's the Tinker, but he tends to not understand the need for ergonomic design or basic additions like straps or handles - superfluous complexity is his flaw, and together they manage to streamline his concepts into strong protoypes. "If we don't have communication, then we trace her. Art, you have any microbugs?"

He starts with simple tripwire - then uses the 3D model printer station to add glochids: barbed, rear-facing spines at the microscopic level that will hook into any kind of fabric or skin. They're not long enough to penetrate skin and be painful, but it will stick like glue. Better yet, he hollows the inside of the thread to make it easier to break off, and fills it with a fine adhesive. With luck, she might not even notice hitting the wire. "Put some tracers on this, spaced evenly. I'll dot the heatmap alleys and see if we can't find her residence. Then we can send a letter or a visitor or something."

Blaise shrugs, still pounding at his dummy. "Let her face her foes. The crucible is how resolve is forged."

"I don't fancy giving someone like Rush the first turn with the hammer," Peter says, somewhat dryly, and Blaise tilts his head and concedes the point with a nod.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Marie frowns internally, but it doesn’t reach her face. Dark and unreadable eyes merely watch the overhead monitor as Peter sets himself to design, then flick to Blaise as the exchange continues, his sentiment echoing her own.

Peter’s counterpoint sways her the same as it does Blaise however-or at leasts adds validity to his actions. The mention of Rush makes her eyes narrow, the former vigilante starting back down the wall bordering their individual quarters. Rachel McCullogh, Mistress Rush-with her sexpot purple costume and penchant for sadism. Mansfield-and she was sure it’d been Mansfield-should have left her to rot in that Russian gulag. It wasn’t right the bitch was alive and able bodied enough to pose a potential problem to anyone of the new generation. That she’d been able to retire ‘rehabilitated’ in the years after Velocity’s disappearance just for having strategically turned on her fellow villains...that was a level of bullshit worthy of Samson’s corruption, and not something she would have signed for had she been involved with anything League at the time.

The hateful anger feels good, but it’s also not very productive. Lana had hated her too-it had been one of the few things they’d agreed on, and Marie chooses to think of that instead. Mostly because she needs to sleep, and another deep dive search wouldn’t net her anything more than it had before.

Probably.

“McCullogh’s competitive streak was with Mansfield. Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if the girl eventually draws her out, the bigger her online footprint becomes.”

They have their counter in the form of Blaise. To be fair Blaise could be considered a counter for most anything, but with how versatile and dangerous a psychotic speedster was it’s still something of particular note. Marie would prefer to depend on a trap however.

”Going to bed-wake me if you decide to go out again before Blaise’s Menounos mission.” She doubted he would, given the length of time he’d already been burning his powers, but she says it anyway. Upon reaching her door and certainly as an afterthought, Marie offers a further, somewhat awkward- ”Goodnight.”

Maybe she’d go on that deep dive anyway, what the hell.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The clever traps are tripped all over the city, some in rapid succession and others slightly more spaced out but all within a few hours of each other as this new Velocity conducts a lightning fast patrol. Despite this, none of them had stuck. Old League data contained reports of a protective aura speed force channelers intuitively generated. This was something Laura had actually learned to weaponize but whether the rookie could or not was yet to be seen. Still, it was useful to know the rookie might have that potential.

No movement for the trackers…and then there was.

The camera feed at first seemed like all the others-a shimmering blur zipped through the trap and kept on going, scattering the barbed nano trackers into the dust cut aside in her wake and taking none of them with her.

This time though…this time she came back. A full thirty five seconds later the girl suddenly materialized at one end of the alley, returning from wherever she’d raced off to-perhaps having to find the spot again, or maybe she had just been that ‘slow’ processing what she thought she had seen. That she had seen it at all, moving at those speeds…

The speedster’s form turned fuzzy, looked slightly out of focus despite her standing still-and then sharpened again as she walked-at normal speed-back down the alley, head down and her eyes maybe scanning the ground from behind the silver steampunk looking goggles.
Sleek black hair in a short sporty ponytail. Russet brown skin with a bit of a red undertone. Slim but athletic, petite. A pert nose with a flat bridge. Perhaps her most distinctive feature was her mouth-she had full lips that weren’t very wide, and they were reminiscent of a little bow when she wasn’t flashing that million dollar smile or giving that grinning salute.

Like now, when she’s frowning.

Her head tilts as she crouches down on one side of the alley, silver gloved fingers picking up a broken piece of the line she had briefly seen, had run through. She finds another one, then gathers up a third and forth before puzzling over them. They break easily in her hands, and don’t have a purpose that she can figure. She flits to one wall, studies the area it had been attached. Then the opposite, same thing. After a few more minutes of looking the alleyway over, she gives up. Disappearing only to reappear with a broom and dustpan of all things, the speedster sweeps the dirty alley mostly clean before disposing of everything in a convenient metal trashcan. There didn’t seem to be much point to that-maybe a lark.

She leaves-and she leaves with a small piece of barbed plastic unknowingly fixed to the oversized cuff of one silver glove, nano trackers firmly affixed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Quiet night-she’d busted up what had looked like-and had been-a drug deal going bad before either side could kill the other, and that was pretty much all there’d been unless she counted the occasional jaywalker. Maybe it was picking and choosing what laws to enforce, but she wasn’t about to take up lecturing litterbugs and people just crossing the street, nevermind the local ordinances. It was kind of beneath the mantle, she sort of figures.

And what was with that prank? Least she thinks it was a prank-something someone had clearly set up, maybe a leftover from Laugh Fest or something. And they did do that Art Hop over there once a month, maybe it’d been part of an installation piece someone hadn’t taken completely down? Bunch of plastic branches strewn across an alleyway? Maybe a kind of obstacle course…? She’d done an escape room with yarn ‘lasers’ you had to crawl around, once.

It’s not really worth thinking about, she just found it weird.

Velocity darts in and out of alleyways as she circles the block, checking that the coast was clear before zipping over the crumbling stoop of a nondescript, clearly abandoned house set behind a likewise abandoned car mechanic garage. Both had been built in maybe the sixties, and both were still held in trust for one Laura Mansfield missing over a decade now.

Through the dust and down the concrete stairs to the basement, the heroine still has energy for days-but now she’s falling out of the ‘superhero’ mindset, settling for the night. She pulls the pen flashlight out of the cuff of her boot and shines it under the stairs. She moves a stack of crates slightly away from the heavy floor vault door they mostly concealed-and gave the attached crank several hundred thousand turns before popping it open with a hiss of the seal. With the familiarity of one who had done it many more times than she actually had, the heroine swings her legs down onto the rungs of a long steel ladder, then begins to descend into a space lit far below with sterile white fluorescents. It’s a climb, but she always takes it at regular speed-if she fell down here, no one would know about it for a long time, if ever.

No thanks.

She touches down and turns her back to it, stretches her arms over her head as she walks through a short connecting tunnel and into the brighter, larger room beyond it-a piece of unused subway tunnel, a drop on the right without tracks and a large expanse of concrete on the left, space she sometimes used to play tennis with the far wall, bricked off ages before she or even her predecessor had been born.

A rattle of light fixtures and a rumble beneath her feet as a subway passes on the other side of the wall that lined the empty track-but once it passes it’s silent save for the faint buzzing of the lights overhead.

She hooks her thumb beneath the nosepiece of her oversized goggles and slides them up over her hairline, revealing the dark, single lidded and almond shaped eyes that spoke to her obvious Filipino heritage. She’s once again Jenna Paige, local law school student and part-time barista, a small town all star athlete that had originally gotten into school on a tennis scholarship.

She heads for the single other feature of the space-a green door with a frosted glass window at the top, the entrance to what had maybe been intended as a superintendent or ticket master’s office, space Laura Mansfield had converted into a small personal lab. It was there the machine that crafted up her suit still stood, as well as a desk and computer containing old League files, a cot for apparent long nights running experiments, and then a lot of other equipment Jenna didn’t yet know the purpose of, and wasn’t sure would ever be all that relevant to her.

Her only additions currently were the tennis balls littering the subway station space, her tennis racket, and then a fluffy purple comforter for when she sometimes stayed over, opting to study here rather than back in her honors dorm. Far as secret hide outs go though, this one was pretty cool.

 

[Obuzeti]

The crisp rustle of plastic, snapping against felt. The clatter of chips and dice, the crackle of the rake rasping as it hauls a hoard in. The universe rustles in Jenna's ears for a moment, whispers possibility and opportunity. The curtain parts and she sees behind the stage, into the gears and the number generators, the chill, brass heart of the numbers game. The roulette spins and the ball teeters on the edge.

A hand comes down - and raps on the tiled wall by the entrance to Jenna's makeshift lair. Gloved, black leather. Long white sleeves that snap, a green vest over a beige undershirt with a high collar, lining tucked in, long slacks and sleek black leather shoes that click decisively against the subway floor. Not an inch of skin is exposed, not even the face, hidden behind a full-head mask with a long heron's beak, graceful curved ivory beneath glittering moonstone eyes. Frills of lace pad the space between collar and mask, an almost Victorian touch, delicate and white. Its hands are folded and even at his waist around a thickly-bound tome, chains run through the spine and joined at his waist, glittering and pale like bone. Two rings rest on both ring fingers, silver and unadorned.

It breathes, slow. Silver eyes stare at Jenna. That birdlike head cocks, slow and inquisitive.

Rather than speak, paper rustles as he opens that tremendous book. The pages rustle and pass, aged and tough like leather. It comes to rest on a tally of numbers, a list of times and events, an itinerary of times past. The computer flickers, its speakers spark to life -

Bright light city gonna set my soul
set my soul on fire

- the dulcet tones of Elvis singing Viva Las Vegas echoing around the empty subway terminal, over the whistle of an untuned radio, dim and in the distance. The air hums, low and static-filled.

It doesn't speak. Instead, a piece of paper slides out of that thick tome, clasped in perfect-white gloved fingers, and is proffered to Jenna. It's . . . a notice of arrears. An unpaid balance of karmic debt, owed by Rush to the current holder of the Velocity pseudonym and commercial identity? Due in twenty minutes from now?

Rather than answer any kind of question, the bird-headed figure instead proffers a second card with a number sketched simply across it, and a round communicator walkie-talkie thing that - looks awfully familiar.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Jenna slows as she turns the knob to her inherited hideout, head tipping slightly as the strange sensation settles on the back of her prickling neck, kind of like...what...?

!

They'd been waiting for her-she doesn't even see them when she first walks in, too distracted-but then they knock, and Jenna about hits the ceiling.

Startled and VERY alarmed, the girl yanks her goggles back into place so fast she scrapes her forehead, concealing her deer-in-the-headlights stare but not the shocked 'o' of her lips.

The heroine's form becomes hazy as she vibrates on instinct, the new Velocity making minute movements in place at speed in order to better assess the situation-and fast. Who the heck is THIS guy? She's seen a lot of costumes, all the hero worshiping she did as a kid-but this one takes the cake, looking like both a period piece and something admittedly a bit out of a bad dream. No skin showing, no face, no eyes-surely there's a person under there, but for all she knew he was another ghost.

She doesn't see any obvious weapons, and he's alone. She can handle one guy, Halloween spook or not-and worse comes to worst-she can always run.

He'd knocked on the wall-wanted her to see him. He had to know about this place somehow-old friend of Miss Laura's? Possibly old enemy? He doesn't look like a 'good guy', but maybe that's her personal biases at play. Alright, fine-they could talk. Never hurts to talk right?

The heroine's image sharpens as she stops her micromovements, slightly uneasy to lose the fast perception but having to in order to talk and be understood, as well as understand in turn. Extreme slow motion speech-not as decipherable as you'd think.

Having recovered enough to rally some bravado, The petite woman's grinning smile blooms, though an astute observer would note the edges of it aren't firm-she's still a little unsure, cautious.

"Take it you missed the train, huh? Well another's not going to be by any time soon pal, sorry." She tenses as he opens the book, smile fixing slightly.

Then the song erupts from the aging computer, and the speedster finds herself flitting towards the opposite side of the room and behind something before she stops to even think about it. There had only been the briefest glimmers of that light blue costume before she rematerializes over there, poking her head out as she recognizes the noise for what it was-Elvis.

Jenna laughs before she can stop herself, covering her mouth and sheepishly shaking her head as she ventures back out from behind the covered equipment. It's still the second weirdest encounter she's ever experienced, but nobody that comes in violence plays an Elvis song first.

"Sorry I just-no one's been down here but me you know? Least that's what I thought, given all the dust.". She doesn't have anything to offer him, and she'd feel a little ruder about it if he had a mask that'd let him eat or drink. "But hey, how are you? And WHO are you? I don't recognize your costume?"

But the bird man doesn't say anything, just offers up a piece of paper from his book.

"Thanks, I think. So uh-how did you get down here exactly?"

She gives the note a distracted glance-and double takes on the name Rush. Everything else doesn't really make any sense-Arrears, Karmic Debt, Twenty minutes-what? Even the Rush part doesn't really make sense-she had been rehabilitated, that wasn't a moniker in use anymore.

And thank God.

"Sorry, but what am I looking at here?"

He still doesn't talk. Jenna's starting to find it unnerving.

"You know it's kind of impolite to show up to somebody's secret base with a bill and then give them the silent treat...oh."

Jenna sees the communicator and...there's that feeling of familiarity, again, the one that led her to this building and this base, the things she somehow knows without remembering how she came to know them.

She absently reaches out to accept the device, looking down at it thoughtfully. "Where did you...?"

Without having to hunt for it Jenna turns the dial to change channels- the clicking noise sounds familiar too, from a faint dream or in passing somewhere.

She glances back up, kind of uncertain-and then shrugs and presses the talk button. "Hello?"