by Drew Hayes
“Why bother?” Eliza kicked her feet onto the table and sipped her soda. She looked cheerfully unconcerned about the fact that someone was doing his best to spy on them. “Officially speaking, we’re nothing more than college juniors here to get an education. If he’s not connected with someone from Vegas, then what about us is worth looking in on?”
“Perhaps he isn’t interested in us at all; only in the company we keep. My old friends are a subject many people would like to learn more on.”
The jovial look fell right off Eliza’s face. “Are you saying he might be after Vince?”
“Vince, or any of the others,” Nicholas corrected. “It was Mary, after all, who was targeted in our freshman year. Until we know more, I think it’s best if we minimize contact with them.”
“Look, I know you’re not thrilled about me and Vince—”
“Eliza, I allowed you to stay, did I not? How you and a former friend of mine have fornicated isn’t really any of my business. What I am concerned with is keeping my investment safe. Those people represent a tremendous resource if I can make them allies, to say nothing of their usefulness in uncovering my lost-self’s findings. Keeping away from them right now is the smart call, for all of us.”
Her nimble fingers curled against the soft aluminum of the half-full can. She hated him for it, but Nicholas was right. Vince had already endured so much because of her; she couldn’t bear to do something that would make his life even worse. However, that didn’t mean she had to sit in this apartment with a thumb up her ass.
“Get me some bugs, decent ones,” she demanded, setting her drink on the counter. “I’m going on the offensive. When we find out where this dick sleeps, I’ll get us wired for sound.”
“Clumsy as he is, the man has still almost certainly taken countermeasures against just that. I’d be shocked if he doesn’t do his own sweep every night.”
“Then I guess I’ll just have to hide them in a place he won’t look, and while I’m at it, I’ll see what kind of information he’s got squirreled away.” Eliza stood from the couch and walked over to Nicholas. “I can do this. Let me do this. You’ve been gone a long time, and I’ve gotten a whole lot better. Ms. Pips wouldn’t have sent me down if that weren’t true.”
Nicholas considered the proposal carefully. He did loathe operating in the dark with a new enemy, and Eliza was correct that Ms. Pips had significant faith in the girl’s skills. Still, this man was a loose thread who could easily be cut off if he caused something to start unraveling. A mistake might cost them this lead, and there was no guarantee the next one would be so easy to spot.
“I’ll give you what you need, but it’s on you. Win the glory, or shoulder the blame.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Eliza said. She needn’t have bothered speaking; the wild grin that sliced across her face conveyed the sentiment far more effectively.
102.
“Bring on the fashion show!” Violet had made a bag of popcorn, which she now scooped a handful out of and hurled at the bathroom door. Since it was her room she was throwing popcorn in, no one could reasonably object to the mess. “Come on, we want to seeeeeeeee.”
“I’d really feel more comfortable doing this alone.” Camille had to raise her voice to be heard outside the bathroom, but it still managed to maintain its usual soft tones.
“Look, I did my best to sew the fabric that Will made, but I’m not so damn good that I think I got it perfect,” Jill replied, stealing a few bites of Violet’s popcorn. “So get out here, and let me see if I need to make alterations.”
“It appears fine,” Camille said.
“That’s nice, but the fabric isn’t all that stretchy. If I made a mistake, you might pop a seam when you get all active during a fight. And I’m pretty sure you don’t want that to happen, do you?”
The bathroom door opened, and Camille sullenly emerged in her new battle outfit. The color was a dark navy, while the style looked as if someone had sewn a t-shirt and bike shorts together into a onesie. It was extremely tight; however, Jill had managed to pad the fabric a bit in some of the places she knew Camille would want modesty. It made those spots ineffective for power use, but it was a fair trade-off in that it allowed the damage absorber to deal with actually being seen in the garment.
“Damn girl, you look good.” Violet showed her ultimate sign of fashion approval by not throwing popcorn. “And it’s not even that slutty. If anything, it looks like an extra-covering swimsuit.”
“I don’t like parading around in a swimsuit,” Camille reminded her friend.
“You won’t be parading in this either,” Jill said. “It’s for use in combat, meaning worst-case scenario is that your opponent gets caught up in ogling, and you can get in a surprise attack. Now, come over here so I can check the stitches.”
Camille obeyed, walking over to her friend and putting up her arms, allowing for thorough examination.
“How did Will ever crack this thing, anyway? To me, that looks like regular fabric,” Violet said.
“I didn’t entirely understand, either, to be honest. He said that, along with especially conductive materials, it had something to do with making the fabric super-porous, so that, even though it looks solid, there’s still flesh on flesh contact,” Camille said.
Jill turned the smaller girl around, examining the seams along the shoulders and armpits, places most likely to give out due to stretching or acrobatics. While Will handled the tech of Jill's suit, she’d been the one who had to learn to sew everything together. “Lift your arms higher, all the way over your head.”
As Camille obliged, Violet took one of her fingernails and scraped it carefully down her own forearm. She had to shift the density a bit, but soon, it began to leave the faintest trail of blood across her skin. That done, she reached over with a hand still coated in popcorn butter and carefully pushed an index finger against Camille’s ribcage.
“Feels like solid cloth to me. Let’s give it a test run.”
The small girl closed her eyes, a bit grateful to slip into her mind amidst all the poking and prodding. She could feel the connection to Violet, not as vibrant as it would be with pure skin-on-skin contact, but there all the same. With a push of willpower Camille drew the recent injury into herself, casting it into the well of suffering that housed all the other broken bones and torn flesh she’d accumulated throughout the years.
A quick flick of light raced across Violet’s arm, and the scratch was gone. She pulled her hand away from Camille and used it to scoop more popcorn. “Yup, still works.”
“My brother might be a stick in the mud, but you can always count on his inventions to work. Well, at least the ones he’s willing to show other people.” Jill finished her examination, gently pushing Camille’s arms down to a resting position. “It seems like everything will hold; I got the measurements spot-on. That said, there’s no real way to be certain until you test it out under extreme conditions.”
“Do you need me to do some stretching or something?”
Jill shook her head. “You’re way more active when you fight; you rely a lot on size and maneuverability. If we want to be sure you won’t pop something loose and accidentally put on a show, then we need to check how it holds up in a real battle.”
“I’ll take her on,” Violet offered. “Even if it does get shredded, she doesn’t have anything I haven’t seen on myself. At least, I hope not. Camille seems like the type who might be hiding a vestigial tail or something.”
“If I were, you’d definitely see it in this thing,” Camille replied. She appreciated the padding Jill had built in; there was just no way around leaving most of the ensemble skintight. Not if she wanted to use her power through it.
“Then maybe it’s weird birthmarks, or scars. Oh, oh, I know! Tattoos. I bet under that pristine act, you’re inked like the Sunday paper,” Violet said.
“You caught me: I’ve got seven lower-back tattoos. They stack all the way to my ribcage.”
&nb
sp; “See, I know that’s a lie, because I saw you in the sports bra and shorts,” Violet countered.
“Following a conversation with you two is exhausting,” Jill said. “And as a heads-up, I’ll be in the sparring match as well. Violet can hit you up close, and I’ll stick to ranged attacks. We want to see as full a spectrum of motion as possible.”
“I figured you’d be there anyway, since you’re the one who has to see what breaks and what causes it,” Camille said.
“Glad we’re all on the same page. Combat cells should be empty this evening, so give me a minute to go grab my suit, and we can head over to a lift location.”
“Do you ever wonder what normal girls do on weeknights?” Violet asked, finishing off her bowl of popcorn. “I can’t imagine they gear up to try and knock the crap out of one another.”
“No, I suppose they probably don’t,” Jill agreed, briefly pausing her walk to the door.
“Sounds like their loss.” Camille treated her friend to a rare expression of confidence, even going so far as to try and pop her knuckles the way she’d seen Roy do countless times. It failed miserably, but the sentiment was still appreciated. “Normal has got nothing on us.”
103.
Smitt’s security was good, better than his tailing work by far. Had Eliza been enrolled in Professor Pendleton’s course, he’d have complimented the patience she showed in doing her research before busting in. Many would have gauged the man by a single aspect of his skill set, mistakenly forgetting that people are oddly-designed creatures who may show more talent in some facets of life than others. She had done no such thing.
The initial alarms hadn’t been difficult to circumvent, nor had the various cameras that were set up along the apartment’s hallways. To a girl who’d spent the last five years in Vegas, avoiding a set of only two cameras was child’s play. It was equally easy for her to pick the deadbolts barring Smitt’s door. The tricky part was the electronic lock, which had no keyhole; instead, it responded to a clicker on Smitt’s keychain, only unlocking when it received the appropriate electronic signal. Eliza gave a mental tip of her hat to him for coming up with such an effective countermeasure; however, it was far from the sort of thing that would stop her.
One of the reasons no one in Vegas employed such means was because that sort of tech could easily be monitored. Grabbing a scanner from their equipment stash had been easy; the tough part was waiting in the bushes until Smitt came home and used his clicker.
As she twirled open the deadbolts and deactivated the electronic lock with her pirated signal, Eliza wondered for the umpteenth time who really had the better tech: Heroes, or criminals. Sure, the Heroes had the ostentatious stuff, but in her time working under Ms. Pips’ organization she’d yet to see a technological hurdle that they couldn’t clear. Perhaps it was all a matter of controlling people’s perceptions. Heroes flaunted the gadgets and gear their tech-geniuses provided, but the smart criminals hid theirs away like a murderer in the family. No one wanted to advertise having a tech-Super on the payroll; all it did was put you on the wrong people’s radar.
Eliza moved carefully into the foyer, eyes sweeping a familiar scene. She’d watched Smitt for days, observing everything he did when walking in. From what she could tell, there was only one trap that required immediate deactivation. Moving at a brisk stroll, she stepped into the living room and flipped up the head of a stuffed crow that sat on Smitt’s mantle. It moved easily, the hidden hinge letting the bird’s skull swing upward to reveal a keypad. With nimble fingers, she punched in the code Smitt used every night, deactivating whatever alarm or trap would spring without it. It had taken her days to find the right angle of observation through his window to see the code, but like most things, it had just boiled down to patience and determination.
Now safe, Eliza turned her attention to the real task at hand: finding out who Smitt was, and what he wanted. To some, the latter might seem the more important task, but Eliza had been trained by Ms. Pips. She knew the value of understanding a person, of learning what they wanted, what they feared. What they loved. These were strings a skilled player could strum, leading to any outcome they might desire. Those tasks she left to people like Nicholas; they required an amount of ruthlessness that she hadn’t yet achieved. That she, in her deepest heart, hoped she never would achieve.
Smitt’s computer was the easiest part; Eliza merely popped a jump-drive into his desktop and let the programs installed do their work. These would first install key-logging software, as well as put any camera or microphone hardware under their control. After that, they would begin gathering up all of the files stored in the hard drive. There would almost certainly be nothing of value on it—only a fool kept things in such an easily breached location—but it never hurt to roll the dice that he might be stupid.
While the computer was being scanned, Eliza did a sweep over the rest of the apartment. She found no pictures, notes, or even mementos that seemed personal. Smitt was either truly dedicated to the lonely life his job necessitated, or he was a master of keeping things buried. Eliza kept digging, going through all of the standard hiding spots she knew to check, hoping to find something useful. Along the way, she slipped in the occasional listening device. They wouldn’t go undiscovered for long, Smitt kept his home too bare and easy to sweep, but hopefully, they’d get what they needed quickly.
It was in one of the last spots that she finally came up aces. Smitt had an older model television, the type that wasn’t compressed into a perfectly flat screen. Eliza might have overlooked it, had the screws on the back not shown signs of their paint being stripped away. With great care, she removed the rear portion, pulling it off to reveal a set of files and a portable hard drive taped to an out-of-the-way section.
“Hello there.” Eliza’s voice was practically a purr as she delicately touched the two objects. The air around her other hand shimmered for a moment, and then a duplicate set of items appeared clutched in her fingers. Eliza set those down and went about re-attaching the television’s rear. The last thing she needed was to tip off Smitt that she’d found his hidey-hole.
The objects she’d created would last three days, or until she dismissed them. Unlike many duplicators, Eliza’s copies were perfect. They could be altered, tested, even broken into pieces, yet each would still refuse to dissolve. Even the data on the hard drive would be identical to its originator. This talent, along with the fact that her copies didn’t need to stay in proximity to her, were what made Eliza such a valued asset in Ms. Pips’ organization. No one could create a forgery like Eliza Tracey, because hers were effectively the real deal.
When the television was whole, Eliza checked her watch. She still had plenty of time before Smitt would come back, but the sooner she got out of there, the better. A quick glance told her the jump drive had finished its work, since it was now flashing green. Still, despite the inclination to go while time was on her side, Eliza couldn’t resist opening one of the files she’d duplicated. Perhaps she was hoping to gain some perspective on this man called Smitt; perhaps it was sheer curiosity.
As soon as she flipped to the first page, Eliza’s heart began to pound. Vince’s face stared back at her, a picture of him taken as he walked between classes. Her fingers danced through the file’s contents, unveiling notes tracking his daily activities. Observations, schedules, pictures; all of it centered around one silver-haired student. Nicholas had been right. Smitt didn’t care about them. He was after Vince.
Eliza slammed the file shut, stuffing it and the hard drive into her backpack. She hurried over and grabbed the jump drive, all the while desperately working against the sudden desire to torch everything this man owned. That was not the way they did things. That was not the way she’d been trained. Bouts of impulse and anger were fleeting; they led to temporary solutions. He wasn’t going to get off with something as simple as an apartment fire. When they took down Smitt, it would be in a way that he could never come back from.
And when that day c
ame, Eliza no longer had any inclination to let Nicholas be the one turning the screws.
104.
The sudden pounding on the front door of Melbrook made everyone except Chad jump. Alice, Hershel, and Vince all exchanged glances, each mentally preparing for whatever insane task or problem was going to burst through their door next.
“Guys, it's Alex,” Mary informed them, not even looking up from the book she was reading as she sat on the couch.
“Is something wrong?” Vince asked.
“No. Now go let him in before he kicks the door down.”
Hershel obliged, leaving the room and returning with Alex, who was nearly vibrating with excitement. The shaggy-haired young man was hopping excitedly from foot to foot, scarcely able to contain his evident joy.
“Did you guys see? Did you see it yet?”
“See what? Is there an announcement about the upcoming test?” Chad’s interest perked up at the possibility of HCP information.
“What? No, who cares about that? The new Star Puncher trailer just got released online! It’s coming out in February, which means we only have like three months to prepare.” Alex’s voice nearly sparked with energy as he spoke.
Most of the dorm greeted this news with disinterest or confusion, but one Melbrook resident nearly lost his ability to stand upon hearing Alex’s words.
“No. Freaking. Way.” Hershel's eyes were wide, and his words filled with awe. “Are you sure this isn’t another hoax? We had that fake trailer three years ago.”
Alex shook his head so quickly that there was no way he didn’t give himself a headache. “That was my first thought too, so I went right to the studio’s site. They had the trailer loaded up, as well as information about the release. This is the real damn deal, no question about it.”
“Excuse me,” Vince said, interrupting as politely as he could. “Could someone explain what this Star Puncher thing is? I grew up without seeing most movies and television.”