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"I should have asked this first - what was in those fumes?"
"."
"Is it flammable?"
"Not really. Toxic as hell, though."
"You were tied up - that's hard to make look like an accident with no covering explosion; so either your attacker plans to come back, or doesn't care what people think. You said you thought the Obscurant might have done this. Why?"
"I don't know if I think he did it - it's just that he's been in the news lately."
"Hm. Is the original footage still back at your studio?"
"On one of our back-up hard drives, if the bastard hasn't already taken it." Victor turned aside and spoke quietly to Amanda:
"I'm going to go back and look. Call an ambulance for these guys, and keep them safe, but slip away when it gets here. Try to avoid questions," and he was gone. Even without mobile invisibility he was awfully good at that, she thought to herself. Doug, or possibly Andre, was looking up at her with a slightly star-struck expression:
"So you guys are new superheroes in town? I hadn't heard about you."
"We're...uh, freelancers."
"Er...is he your boyfriend?"
"Yes."
"Oh. That's.. nice. For him."
With a respirator mask retrieved from under the seat of his car to filter out the toxic fumes, the studio, though frustratingly disorganized, no longer seemed so maze-like and hallucinatory. The music didn't echo any more than it would have normally, and the monster mannequins were just that. The search, however, proved fruitless - whoever had knocked out Andre and Doug and tied their hands had swept their desktops clean before turning on the gas and leaving them to their deaths - as to who that had been - Victor's foot came down on a toy scorpion he was sure hadn't fallen out of his pockets. Frowning invisibly beneath his mask, he picked it up; it wasn't one of his, but it was meant to look like it was, for someone had given it a coat of fluorescent blue spray paint. He felt sick at that moment, and almost certainly not from the fumes, and left the studio as quickly as he could. Amanda was hanging about as unobtrusively as she could manage, hovering in the shadow of an extension on the building next door.
"This is really not good."
"Tell me about it - somebody is trying to blame this on me - someone who thinks I use plastic scorpions as my calling card. I used scorpions once - once! Honestly - I'm not that clichéd, am I?"
"Honey, someone killed Dr. Vermin."
"What?"
"They suspect you of that one too. I got away when the ambulance showed up but I heard them talking." Victor was about to let loose a stream of curses, but Amanda's frightened expression stopped him short.
"Do you think I did it," he asked gently. Amanda thought about it for a moment.
"No. I haven't known you long, and you've told me you do bad things, but I think if you were really someone who'd kill one of your friends and hang him up in a public square, I'd have noticed something by now."
"They hung him up? He wasn't my friend, exactly, but they hung him up?!" Amanda took his hand.
"We should go before the police get here. Did you find the footage?"
"No. Damn, but whoever did this is competent."
Amanda glanced over at Victor's hands shaking on the wheel of his car. She didn't want to bring up Vermin's death again so soon, but guessed it was vital to keep her partner's sanity to keep him focused on the details of the mystery they had fallen into. Later when the problem was solved, he could break down if he needed to, and she would take care of him.
"When they mentioned the rave footage and you asked if there was anyone recognizable in the background," she began, "I thought maybe this was all about somebody trying to cover up a scandal, and I'm guessing you did too. But if Vermin was killed, it must be about the fones - I don't think he ever had anything to do with the kamerakidz. From what they said, the footage of the fones had the same power as the originals -maybe even more? I think someone must want the footage to use as a drug or a weapon." Victor did not speak, but nodded slowly in agreement as he drove.
"So," she continued, "you know all these super-criminal-people and I don't. Who would do a thing like that?" Victor switched on the police scanner, handed Amanda the laptop and told her numbers and passwords. He talked his theories out to her as they came to him. It helped.
He'd last seen Vermin at five-o'clock yesterday. Doug and Andre hadn't been unconscious long or they wouldn't have been able to bring them out of it. Gangs fought amongst themselves, but they didn't usually go after the freak supervillains. Supervillains who killed each other usually worked alone, for obvious reasons; so they'd begin by assuming that one person was responsible for both attacks. They needed to figure out when Vermin was killed and who was free during that time. Vermin had been an irritant, but he had had no mortal enemies. His death must have been like the attempt on Doug and Andre - to get rid of anyone else who might know how the fones worked.
* * * * * * *
John Doe watched the police in the square as they fussed over the rat's flea-bitten corpse. The fat superhero was still snooping around the area. The other two had left separately hours ago, first the sparrow hawk and then the speedster, to search the city. The fat one was smartest. He was patient, sifting the clues instead of running off to strike wildly at an unknown foe; but he was too soft and good-natured. He would not strike a killing blow. That was why Doe was watching him; he would not miss, once he knew where to aim.
Posterchild and the Witness, back at Forensic Five HQ, looked over a map of the Gradient; they drank coffee with soy milk - Posterchild was lactose intolerant. He was no longer really a child; he had turned sixteen the month before, and the team had given him a new, larger costume, but not a new name. The costume hung a bit loose on him - it would likely be at least another year before he filled out enough to wear it properly. He tilted his dark face towards a computer screen and studied it with large, sad eyes. The screen showed close-ups of Vermin on the monument. Unlike a true telepath, Posterchild could recognize faces and expressions even in photographs, but the look on Vermin's dead face puzzled him. It was, so far as he could interpret, a mixture of fear with ecstatic triumph.
"Stephen," Wendy snapped, "get out of my head. I don't need those images in there right now." The close-up of the dead rat wavered in her mind's eye, and faded into the image of a field of green grass which was Stephen's way of apologizing. Then that too faded, leaving her mind clear. The truth was Wendy, out of all the team, was the most disturbed by Vermin's murder, probably because she had always been disturbed by Vermin himself. She wanted to believe that animals, that is to say, birds and beasts, were essentially innocent, even when they were predators - but Vermin had been a beast who talked and acted and committed crimes like a human being, and it shook her faith to think of him.
Just then her earpiece pinged and she looked down at the map before her and began fingering co-ordinates.
"Some sort of attack on a technical studio in the artists' district. Two guys overcome by poisonous gasses - say they were attacked by an invisible assailant, and rescued by an unknown pair. Probably unrelated to all this, but you'd better get someone over there."
Stephen glanced over her shoulder and began directing an image of the map and her jotted-down notes into his teammates' minds.
It was getting on to dawn now, but still too grey and dim for Victor and Amanda to notice that they were being followed, especially when what followed them was not something big and obvious like a car. They noticed nothing until a small dark object hurtled through their rear windscreen, through the car, and into the windshield, cracking it from the inside and sliding to the dashboard. A woman's tiny face, so small it might have been a face reflected in a teaspoon, glared fiercely at Victor from behind the steering wheel. Wings spread threateningly behind her shoulders, and she launched herself at him, but Amanda cut short a scream and threw her left arm protectively in front, while with the other hand she seized control of the steering wheel. Raging, Kestrel (who else could it have been?) flung herself into Amanda's face and Amanda flattened herself back against her car seat. Victor grabbed the wheel again and twisted it viciously to the right. The car swerved, and Amanda fell heavily against him, but the move had its intended effect as Kestrel, mid-air inside the car, was caught off guard by the sudden shift of the vehicle's frame around her and reeled into the rear view mirror with enough force to break it off.
"Out of the car!" Victor hissed and Amanda hastily opened the passenger-side door and staggered out. Kestrel flew through the car's now shattered back window and lit on the roof. For a moment she stood, sizing up Amanda with a twisted smile, hands on her inch-and-a-half wide hips.
"You must be that new player in town," she began, sardonically, "and your boyfriend here, the Obscurant -" she whirled around to leap at Victor who had got out of the car behind her, but he was holding his jacket and at the last moment he stepped aside and whipped it round her like some combination of matador and lepidopterist. The impact of Kestrel into the garment almost pulled him off his feet, but the fabric held and so did he.
"Kevlar," he gasped by way of explanation, "but I could do with a hand -" Suddenly he saw Amanda knocked down by a red and white blur that swept past him and down the street, sparks flying as the Assassin Beetle skidded and slowed prior to changing direction for another pass. Something had to be done. Hardly thinking about it, only knowing that something had to be done, The Obscurant swung his jacket round his head and slingshot Kestrel at her teammate as hard as he could. To his amazed satisfaction, she crashed dead smack centre into Assassin Beetle and flattened him to the pavement.
* * * * * * *
"."
"Is it flammable?"
"Not really. Toxic as hell, though."
"You were tied up - that's hard to make look like an accident with no covering explosion; so either your attacker plans to come back, or doesn't care what people think. You said you thought the Obscurant might have done this. Why?"
"I don't know if I think he did it - it's just that he's been in the news lately."
"Hm. Is the original footage still back at your studio?"
"On one of our back-up hard drives, if the bastard hasn't already taken it." Victor turned aside and spoke quietly to Amanda:
"I'm going to go back and look. Call an ambulance for these guys, and keep them safe, but slip away when it gets here. Try to avoid questions," and he was gone. Even without mobile invisibility he was awfully good at that, she thought to herself. Doug, or possibly Andre, was looking up at her with a slightly star-struck expression:
"So you guys are new superheroes in town? I hadn't heard about you."
"We're...uh, freelancers."
"Er...is he your boyfriend?"
"Yes."
"Oh. That's.. nice. For him."
With a respirator mask retrieved from under the seat of his car to filter out the toxic fumes, the studio, though frustratingly disorganized, no longer seemed so maze-like and hallucinatory. The music didn't echo any more than it would have normally, and the monster mannequins were just that. The search, however, proved fruitless - whoever had knocked out Andre and Doug and tied their hands had swept their desktops clean before turning on the gas and leaving them to their deaths - as to who that had been - Victor's foot came down on a toy scorpion he was sure hadn't fallen out of his pockets. Frowning invisibly beneath his mask, he picked it up; it wasn't one of his, but it was meant to look like it was, for someone had given it a coat of fluorescent blue spray paint. He felt sick at that moment, and almost certainly not from the fumes, and left the studio as quickly as he could. Amanda was hanging about as unobtrusively as she could manage, hovering in the shadow of an extension on the building next door.
"This is really not good."
"Tell me about it - somebody is trying to blame this on me - someone who thinks I use plastic scorpions as my calling card. I used scorpions once - once! Honestly - I'm not that clichéd, am I?"
"Honey, someone killed Dr. Vermin."
"What?"
"They suspect you of that one too. I got away when the ambulance showed up but I heard them talking." Victor was about to let loose a stream of curses, but Amanda's frightened expression stopped him short.
"Do you think I did it," he asked gently. Amanda thought about it for a moment.
"No. I haven't known you long, and you've told me you do bad things, but I think if you were really someone who'd kill one of your friends and hang him up in a public square, I'd have noticed something by now."
"They hung him up? He wasn't my friend, exactly, but they hung him up?!" Amanda took his hand.
"We should go before the police get here. Did you find the footage?"
"No. Damn, but whoever did this is competent."
Amanda glanced over at Victor's hands shaking on the wheel of his car. She didn't want to bring up Vermin's death again so soon, but guessed it was vital to keep her partner's sanity to keep him focused on the details of the mystery they had fallen into. Later when the problem was solved, he could break down if he needed to, and she would take care of him.
"When they mentioned the rave footage and you asked if there was anyone recognizable in the background," she began, "I thought maybe this was all about somebody trying to cover up a scandal, and I'm guessing you did too. But if Vermin was killed, it must be about the fones - I don't think he ever had anything to do with the kamerakidz. From what they said, the footage of the fones had the same power as the originals -maybe even more? I think someone must want the footage to use as a drug or a weapon." Victor did not speak, but nodded slowly in agreement as he drove.
"So," she continued, "you know all these super-criminal-people and I don't. Who would do a thing like that?" Victor switched on the police scanner, handed Amanda the laptop and told her numbers and passwords. He talked his theories out to her as they came to him. It helped.
He'd last seen Vermin at five-o'clock yesterday. Doug and Andre hadn't been unconscious long or they wouldn't have been able to bring them out of it. Gangs fought amongst themselves, but they didn't usually go after the freak supervillains. Supervillains who killed each other usually worked alone, for obvious reasons; so they'd begin by assuming that one person was responsible for both attacks. They needed to figure out when Vermin was killed and who was free during that time. Vermin had been an irritant, but he had had no mortal enemies. His death must have been like the attempt on Doug and Andre - to get rid of anyone else who might know how the fones worked.
* * * * * * *
John Doe watched the police in the square as they fussed over the rat's flea-bitten corpse. The fat superhero was still snooping around the area. The other two had left separately hours ago, first the sparrow hawk and then the speedster, to search the city. The fat one was smartest. He was patient, sifting the clues instead of running off to strike wildly at an unknown foe; but he was too soft and good-natured. He would not strike a killing blow. That was why Doe was watching him; he would not miss, once he knew where to aim.
Posterchild and the Witness, back at Forensic Five HQ, looked over a map of the Gradient; they drank coffee with soy milk - Posterchild was lactose intolerant. He was no longer really a child; he had turned sixteen the month before, and the team had given him a new, larger costume, but not a new name. The costume hung a bit loose on him - it would likely be at least another year before he filled out enough to wear it properly. He tilted his dark face towards a computer screen and studied it with large, sad eyes. The screen showed close-ups of Vermin on the monument. Unlike a true telepath, Posterchild could recognize faces and expressions even in photographs, but the look on Vermin's dead face puzzled him. It was, so far as he could interpret, a mixture of fear with ecstatic triumph.
"Stephen," Wendy snapped, "get out of my head. I don't need those images in there right now." The close-up of the dead rat wavered in her mind's eye, and faded into the image of a field of green grass which was Stephen's way of apologizing. Then that too faded, leaving her mind clear. The truth was Wendy, out of all the team, was the most disturbed by Vermin's murder, probably because she had always been disturbed by Vermin himself. She wanted to believe that animals, that is to say, birds and beasts, were essentially innocent, even when they were predators - but Vermin had been a beast who talked and acted and committed crimes like a human being, and it shook her faith to think of him.
Just then her earpiece pinged and she looked down at the map before her and began fingering co-ordinates.
"Some sort of attack on a technical studio in the artists' district. Two guys overcome by poisonous gasses - say they were attacked by an invisible assailant, and rescued by an unknown pair. Probably unrelated to all this, but you'd better get someone over there."
Stephen glanced over her shoulder and began directing an image of the map and her jotted-down notes into his teammates' minds.
It was getting on to dawn now, but still too grey and dim for Victor and Amanda to notice that they were being followed, especially when what followed them was not something big and obvious like a car. They noticed nothing until a small dark object hurtled through their rear windscreen, through the car, and into the windshield, cracking it from the inside and sliding to the dashboard. A woman's tiny face, so small it might have been a face reflected in a teaspoon, glared fiercely at Victor from behind the steering wheel. Wings spread threateningly behind her shoulders, and she launched herself at him, but Amanda cut short a scream and threw her left arm protectively in front, while with the other hand she seized control of the steering wheel. Raging, Kestrel (who else could it have been?) flung herself into Amanda's face and Amanda flattened herself back against her car seat. Victor grabbed the wheel again and twisted it viciously to the right. The car swerved, and Amanda fell heavily against him, but the move had its intended effect as Kestrel, mid-air inside the car, was caught off guard by the sudden shift of the vehicle's frame around her and reeled into the rear view mirror with enough force to break it off.
"Out of the car!" Victor hissed and Amanda hastily opened the passenger-side door and staggered out. Kestrel flew through the car's now shattered back window and lit on the roof. For a moment she stood, sizing up Amanda with a twisted smile, hands on her inch-and-a-half wide hips.
"You must be that new player in town," she began, sardonically, "and your boyfriend here, the Obscurant -" she whirled around to leap at Victor who had got out of the car behind her, but he was holding his jacket and at the last moment he stepped aside and whipped it round her like some combination of matador and lepidopterist. The impact of Kestrel into the garment almost pulled him off his feet, but the fabric held and so did he.
"Kevlar," he gasped by way of explanation, "but I could do with a hand -" Suddenly he saw Amanda knocked down by a red and white blur that swept past him and down the street, sparks flying as the Assassin Beetle skidded and slowed prior to changing direction for another pass. Something had to be done. Hardly thinking about it, only knowing that something had to be done, The Obscurant swung his jacket round his head and slingshot Kestrel at her teammate as hard as he could. To his amazed satisfaction, she crashed dead smack centre into Assassin Beetle and flattened him to the pavement.
* * * * * * *
