The second piece of the getup he put on was the boots. The sturdy boots nearly came up to his knees but added extra protection to his shins and calves. Ian couldn’t tell who made the footwear, as there wasn’t any logo or markings to distinguish the designer. He secured the boots by utilizing a zipper on the side of each boot and laces at each of the feet (to ensure a tight fit). A set of flaps covered both the zipper and laces and remained set in place through the use of snap buttons. Once he finished fastening the boots, he took a brief walk around his room to get a feel for them. He knew he needed to break them in, but he felt they were perfect. Near the heel on the outer sides of each jet black boot was a small golden letter ‘V,’ which he assumed stood for Voltage.
The body of the uniform was made up of the same rubber-like material the pants were made of. The item seemed to Ian somewhat foreign, but he quickly understood how to equip the jerkin. The garment utilized a series of leather straps to tighten and fit to Ian’s build and form. There were a small number of built in plates that offered Ian a small amount of added protection but did not sacrifice his mobility. He could breathe quite freely, despite the fit, and was able to retain a full range of motion in his arms. Across the chest of the jerkin was another albeit larger ‘V.’
Ian selected the black gauntlets he found next in the box and discovered they fit like a dream. They slid on effortlessly and remained light. He tucked the ends of his sleeves into the gauntlets and fastened them through the use of a set of straps on the long gloves. Once secured, Ian checked his dexterity and realized it would take some time to gain complete control of simple objects (such as writing utensils) with the gloves. He also tested his ability to use his lightning based powers and was relieved to find the skills unhindered by the gauntlets.
Ian tucked the bottom of his jerkin into his pants and fastened a belt he found in the box his mother gave him around his waist. He was rather relieved to find the belt was unremarkable, and grateful that there wasn’t a gaudy ‘V’ belt buckle to add to his already somewhat outlandish getup.
The final piece to the costume was the mask. He pressed the item to his face and found it rather malleable. Ian’s mother left a set of two bottles of chemicals and a note that explained how to use the two compounds to get the mask to remain in place and fixed to his face, and how to safely remove it without damaging the mask (or his face). He followed the instructions and fixed the mask to his face. It covered his eyes, eyebrows, and the bridge of his nose and had built-in, tinted lenses to further hide his eyes and to protect his vision from sunlight.
Ian left his bedroom and stopped only briefly in the bathroom to use the mirror to inspect his completed outfit. The costume was, for the most part, completely black with a series of thin golden lines that raced and crisscrossed from his feet to his neck. He smiled and couldn’t believe his mother constructed something so marvelous for him in such a short period of time.
He ran downstairs and showed his mother and friends the final form of his costume. “What do you think?” he asked.
“Great, but you forgot the cape,” Coop said as he pointed to the floor, where the cape lay.
Ian picked it up and noted that Coop took the liberty to not only finish his soup, but his sandwich too. He threw the cape around him and fastened it to his shoulders. The cape was all black with two small gold ‘V’s’ in the corners.
Wally grinned and told Ian he looked better than any other super hero he’d ever seen. “It sure beats the hell—er…it beats the heck out of the Human Titan and Captain Density’s outfits.”
“It’s awesome!” Coop remarked.
Ian’s mother only smiled and told Ian how handsome he looked.
Ian thanked his mom, gave her a great hug, and promised her he would treasure it. He added, “I’m not going to let this rot in my closet. I promise.”
“Good, ‘cause I wanna see that on the news every night once you get your sorry a–” he saw Miss Price’s glare and changed his word choice, “Butt, out of here.”
“You will, I promise.”
---*---
11:34 AM
Bothell, Washington
Rachel still hadn’t seen or heard from Vladimir. None of her friends who shared classes with him had seen him either. A part of her hoped he was only ill and hadn’t been well enough to attend school, but the length of his absence troubled her. She kept the passes to the upcoming Van Gogh exhibit in her bag and eagerly wanted to beg his forgiveness and invite him to accompany her to the event. Rachel desperately wanted their friendship, rather, their courtship to resume and she felt dejected waiting for him to come back to her.
Miss Keller stood at the front of the room and called out attendance. She reached Vladimir’s name and hardly marked him late before the door swung open and he walked in with a wrapped canvas in his hands.
“Mister Dalca,” Keller said as she noted his tardiness, “Would you mind enlightening us as to where you have been for the past week?”
Vladimir walked past her without so much as a word, took his place at the table Rachel occupied on her own in his usual seat, set his canvas down, and after lacing his fingers together set a disillusioned glare upon Miss Keller. He refused to submit himself to acknowledge her query and remained silent, without embarrassment or shame, with his cool gray eyes locked with hers. Rachel thought the moment lasted eternally, though Keller merely cleared her throat and resumed roll call. Rachel glanced at Vladimir who remained stationary and noticed a sort of loathing in his eyes she’d never seen before. It even seemed to have been noted by their instructor, as Rachel believed she heard slight trepidation in their teacher’s voice.
Vladimir released his trance and closed his eyes for a moment before he asked Rachel how her day had been. She took a breath as she told him it was fine in a quiet voice. He untied the faded green wrapping and revealed what Rachel believed was one of the most breathtaking landscape paintings she’d ever seen. It wasn’t Seattle, as he said he originally planned to paint, but what Rachel guessed was Romania, though she remained uncertain. Vladimir used a good deal of earth tones, so much so that Rachel saw a complete lack of blues, greens, and purples. The land seemed desolate, as if it were a late autumn, slightly before a winter snow would blanket the land and transform it into something cold and barren. There were still leaves in the trees, though few, and the land seemed somewhat unnatural. Rachel assumed Vladimir’s influence removed whatever life he could have presented in the work.
“Your drawing is wonderful,” Vladimir whispered to her as he folded the paper wrapping he had used to cover his painting and set it aside on the end of the table.
Rachel’s drawing was of a view they had of Lake Washington on their bus ride to Seattle a week earlier. Most of what could have been detailed was blurred, which was her intent from the start, as it gave the illusion of motion in her work.
Vladimir took a breath, as to comment on her work further, but Rachel stopped him and told him she won the passes to the select preview of the Van Gogh exhibit.
He seemed surprised and asked when she found out.
“It was a few days ago,” she told him. “And I wanted to ask you to join me.” Vladimir tried to decline the offer, but she wouldn’t let him. “Please, just go with me as a friend, alright?”
Vladimir felt that he should still refuse, as the incident was fresh in his mind. He didn’t want to over step his bounds, but he accepted nevertheless.
---*---
4:50 PM
Baltimore, Maryland
Bryce Maguire walked through the station with a few documents in hand. He studied them once more as he approached Chief Johnson’s office. With a breath, he knocked and waited for the call to enter. Johnson glanced up and asked what he wanted. Bryce cleared his throat and started by telling him Sara Knowles was dead.
“Who?”
“Our sixteenth victim,” reported the officer. He placed a part of the papers he’d brought with him before the Chief.
Johnson examined
them briefly and told him to take a seat. “So who was she exactly?”
“She was somewhat of a local celebrity,” Bryce told him, “That is, at least in the world of fashion. But this is interesting, since we now know that Cladis doesn’t seem to care about social status.”
“Yes, but we could have assumed that from when he killed the mayor’s daughter, remember?”
Bryce’s face reddened slightly before he moved their conversation forward. “Detective Felton and I, well, I rather overheard Detective Felton speaking with the victim’s close friends who confirmed that Miss Knowles did in fact gain her own power shortly before her demise.”
“And is there any reason why I’m talking to you right now instead of him?”
“He, uh, well he asked me to relay it to you while he’s out with Sergeant Murdock on another case,” Bryce informed him.
Johnson returned his focus to the document and asked what the victim’s ability was.
“She could change the color of anything she touched,” he reported.
Johnson scratched at his moustache, “That’s kind of a useless power if you ask me…Why would Cladis want to kill someone with that power?”
“I don’t think the power matters all that much, just so long as there is one. And, well that brings me to my next point.” Bryce set the remaining papers on the chief’s desk. “I believe we found a pattern sir.”
Chief Johnson set the other paper aside and inspected the new pages Bryce gave him.
“The pattern begins with the first victim, Red Irons, who had O positive blood, and from there the victims follow an A, B and AB positive pattern before the next set of O, A, B, and AB negative blood types, at which point the pattern returns to O positive and recycles.”
Johnson scrutinized the list of victims alongside the pattern and checked the officer’s work. “How on earth did all of you manage to see this?”
“I, well, I was going through the files and happened to notice a few irregularities in the document, namely not all of the victims had all of the same fields, missing blood types, job histories, schools attended…and, well, I thought to update it and that’s when I noticed the pattern.”
The chief looked at him and asked, “You discovered this? By yourself?”
Maguire reminded him that he wasn’t the only one who helped compile the list. “But yes, I did, I guess.”
“Good work,” he said with a nod. “What’s the next blood type?”
“O positive.”
Johnson reclined in his chair and rubbed his forehead. “Then we’ve got what? Four days to find one specific person with O positive blood?”
“That seems to be the case.”
He took a deep breath and asked him to let the others know about his find if he hadn’t already. “I guess the only thing there is to say is good luck.”
Bryce told him they’d do their best and rushed out of his office to find the others.
---*---
4:57 PM
Bothell, Washington
Drake casually leaned against his kitchen counter while he worked on a massive card castle. The project didn’t take much effort on his part, as he could slow time down and adjust and readjust every card until the structure was flawless. He had all of the time in the world but found himself bored and depressed instead of excited, invigorated, and out in the world. There wasn’t much for him to do, even when he was in another country. Time still moved on, he could see an entire nation in a matter of a split second if he wanted to, but what that left him was nothing more than massive amounts of time to waste on nothing more than games, and even those bored him.
Drake waited for Sho to finish up his day at work and call him with a brief update on their pseudo-investigation. He continued to check his watch and wait for the call while he finished his castle. It stood nearly three feet high and upon its completion Drake simply let it fall to pieces by removing one of the lowest cards.
Sho finally called and Drake didn’t hesitate to answer in Japanese, “
“
“
“” Sho quickly cut him off. Drake only laughed though. “
“
“
“
Sho read them off from a list, “”
“
“”
“
“
Drake told him that it was what they were looking for. “
“
“
Sho told him he’d continue to investigate before he hung up.
Drake put his phone away in his pocket while he walked over to his brown U-shaped couch, took a seat, retrieved his laptop from underneath the sofa, and logged on. After he checked his email he made his way onto the REFOIA database under the username eternal_hourglass. His list of contacts was limited to only Sho and Jessica, but he expected it to rapidly expand after he truly began to delve into the database. As he’d only been a member of REFOIA for a few days his list of followed topics, events, and people was limited. He noticed that Jessica was online and set up a chat with her
[eternal_hourglass has joined]
[jess_VII has joined]
eternal_hourglass: Hey Jess, how have you been?
jess_VII: Drake, I saw you on the news a few days ago.
jess_VII: Do you really have a power?
eternal_hourglass: Hahaha…I do, but I’ll show you another time. I don’t want to talk over the internet about something like that.
jess_VII: Oh
eternal_hourglass: So, you never sent me that video about Ghost.
jess_VII: I told you, it was removed.
eternal_hourglass: Really? That doesn’t sound like REFOIA…
jess_VII: I know. Let me see if I can find it.
[balt_raven00 has joined]
[mhanzo40 has joined]
eternal_hourglass: Wow, the group is really filling up.
balt_raven00: who r u?
mhanzo40: If you read back a bit, you’d know that he knows Jessica.
mhanzo40: And if my guess is correct he’s Drake Winchester.
eternal_hourglass: Yeah, actually…
eternal_hourglass: How’d you figure that out?
mhanzo40: I already know that Jessica is somewhere around the age of seventeen or eighteen and lives in western part of Washington state, which is where you live.
mhanzo40: After mentioning that she saw you on the news and the mention of ‘your ability’ it was quite clear…
mhanzo40: She also mentioned your name.
eternal_hourglass: Oh…yeah.
eternal_hourglass: Who are you?
mhanzo40: I’m mhanzo40 for now.
balt_raven00: none of us kno who he is.
balt_raven00: hes rather secretive.
eternal_hourglass: What about you? (@balt_raven00)
eternal_hourglass: Are you actually in Baltimore?
balt_raven00: yes, why?
eternal_hourglass: What do you know about Cladis?
balt_raven00: what do u know?
eternal_hourglass: I only know what I can find on REFOIA.
balt_raven00: well I wouldnt believe evryhting on here
balt_raven00: everything*
mhanzo40: How can you claim that though? Everything on REFOIA is pulled directly from computers, phones, gaming consoles, the web, etc. and analyzed for factuality before it’s even added to this database.
mhanzo40: How could REFOIA be wrong?
balt_raven00: its not that they’re wrong, they just dont kno everything
mhanzo40: Which makes you a cop then.
[balt_raven00 has left group]
mhanzo40: Hmm…That was easier than I’d thought it’d be…
jess_VII: what was?
mhanzo52: Nothing, just getting the truth out of him.
eternal_hourglass: So who are you? (@mhanzo40)
mhanzo52: I’m not the super hero Hanzo, if that’s what you’re wondering.
eternal_hourglass: Oh, I was hoping you would be…
mhanzo40: So what’re we going to talk about?
eternal_hourglass: I don’t know, but I have to get going.
eternal_hourglass: I need to make some calls.
jess_VII: about what?
eternal_hourglass: For a small get-together.
eternal_hourglass: Y’know, me, Nick, and Jordan.
eternal_hourglass: you’re more than welcome to join us if you’d like to.
eternal_hourglass: (I’d offer you as well @mhanzo40, but I don’t know who/where you are).
jess_VII: I’ll pass.
mhanzo40: Thanks for considering me, ha ha.
Impact (Book 1): Regenesis Page 47