New Markets - 02 (26 page)

“Give it time, you’ll get used to whatever it is.  If you get a cycle, I hope it works with that as well.”

“Yeah, that’d rock.  A cycle will look cooler at least.”

I chuckled.  “True.  You’ll have to check on a small portable light you can activate for official activity.”

“You mean get a police package on the cycle?”

“No, that’d be bulky I think.  Just enough to warn vehicles around and ahead of you to move out of the way.  Think F.B.I. red and blues on a motorcycle.”

“Wait, I've seen Hellshock's cycle on TV, it has pretty slim lights on it.”  Rael nodded to himself and rubbed his palms together in anticipation.  I knew he’d wanted a motorcycle for some time; this definitely gave him an excuse to get a fast one.

Once we reached the motorsport store it didn’t take long to find the model he desired.  Rael loved martial arts flicks, and in keeping with his dark martial arts theme, he picked out a sleek, yet powerful new Ninja Supersport model.  The color was black, of course.  He was nothing if not predictable.

He checked his earnings on the H.E.R.O. smartphone, and found he’d earned enough with the addition from the commission of the fire scene.  The sales guy was ecstatic about working with a super on a “superbike.”  They even offered to decal it for him if he’d let them put a small logo of theirs on the bike as well.

I tried sitting on a bike, and could tell that I pushed the maximum capacity of the cycle.  I figured I'd best find a large scale before I tested more of them and ended up damaging something.  The thought reminded me of when I slammed my foot directly through my mustang's floor and tore off the driver's door by accident just days ago.

While Rael haggled with the sales manager (who was too interested in dealing with H.E.R.O. agents to stay in his office and negotiate through his sales guy), I called H.E.R.O. headquarters to find out how to register a vehicle under a H.E.R.O. moniker and obtain a license plate.  Due to the odd privacy concerns, all of those details were handled through H.E.R.O. HQ.  It certainly simplified things for us.

After the details were complete and the bike was being modified, Rael and I went to a small diner nearby for a late lunch.  We sat out of the way, but my size and costume still gained us some odd looks and stares from the few patrons of the place.

After we sat down, I brought up, "You know, there's something more to that whole kidnapping thing this morning.  The girl was in fantastic shape for her age, and they had far too many locks and bindings on her.  They went way beyond what they should have needed to hold a teenager."

Rael stared at me a moment with his catlike eyes and nodded, "Okay, let's say there is something more to it.  The weaponry were advanced, and looked like they were made to attack supers, right?"

"Yup.  That bola that hit you and killed that guy had to be putting out far more juice than a normal taser.  Don't forget the cameras positioned around the place, someone else was monitoring it."

"Cameras?  I don’t recall seeing any, but then I woke up on the drive home.  So ... you think it was a test run?  To see how they would do in a fight against some supers?"

"Whoa!  No, I hadn't thought that far out, wow, it makes sense though!"  I banged my fist on the table in my excitement, and the resulting snap didn't sound good.  I ran my hand through my hair. 
Great, more repair bills.

Rael looked underneath the table.  "The top will have to be replaced.  Keep it cool."

I nodded.  I glanced over at the wait station, the cook looked nervous about coming over to us. 
Well, if they don't bring it up I'll have them add a two hundred dollar tip or something to cover it.

Rael returned to our conversation, "Okay, so we might have a test of weaponry against supers, and you think Zena's not normal either.  You think she's a super?"

I nodded again.  "Might be.  Perhaps they figured that a super as bait would work best to bring more supers out of the woodwork, so to speak."

"I don't know, it didn't sound like the guy that shot up Psystar was trying to capture her."

"He got into a bad situation though; maybe he didn't care by that point."

"Could be.  All right, let's see, why would someone need weaponry capable of taking out supers?"

"Either they plan on killing some of us, or capturing us.  Or they are going to hit something big enough that they know supers are going to interfere."

Rael shook his head, "It's got to be capturing.  The bola, needle darts, and that gas canister weren't meant to kill us.  They were for incapacitation."

"Okay, so why would someone want to knock out some supers?"

"Experimentation, perhaps some kind of brainwashing, hmm, a really strange kidnapping scheme."

"What, try to get ransom out of H.E.R.O.?"

"I'm not sure, just throwing ideas out there.  There are some darker possibilities too."

"Like gladiator fights?"

"Yeah, or slavery.  Although organ harvesting would be a possibility for someone mad enough to try organ grafting or such."

"Okay, are there any reasons to kidnap a super that aren't nasty?"

Rael scratched his chin with the side of a claw for a moment.  "What?  Like there are reasons to kidnap anyone else that are okay?"

"Oh, well.  I guess those rare cases you get split parents, but those aren't cool either."

"Either way, we need information.  Like if any supers have disappeared, or weapons like these have been seen in use."

"I think we should visit H.E.R.O. HQ then."

"Sounds good to me."

We went back to the cycle shop and picked up Rael’s new cycle.  I was mildly amazed at how fast the guys modified it, although the small lights weren’t a huge change, I supposed.

Chapter 12 – Missing Persons

Stephanie’s Viewpoint

The flight was pleasantly quiet on the way to Rikesville.  Perhaps I needed to do this daily just to get away from the cacophony of noise everyone’s thoughts gave me. 

I thought I'd stop by the garage we fought at in the morning, so I flew there first.  There were a few large black SUVs outside with government plates, but apart from that the place was surprisingly empty.

I landed and walked inside.  The garage area was empty, but I surprised a pair of men with F.B.I. jackets working in the office area.

One of them said, "Who're you?  This is an F.B.I. investigation site."

I replied, "I know.  I was in the fight in the garage this morning."

"Oh, you must be Psystar then."

I pulled out my new Homeland Extraordinary Response Organization identification, or H.E.R.O. ID for him.  He glanced at it and nodded.

He said, "There's not much else here.  We're combing the place for prints or other evidence to see if anyone else might have been here with them.  Other than that all the other stuff was taken care of this morning."

"Oh.  Okay.  I thought the agents would still be here."

"No, they'd be back in the office in Metrocity."

"That's right, Agent Willman did say his office was in Metrocity.  Damn it.  Well, was anything interesting found here to work off from?"

"The first batch of evidence is already back in Metrocity.  You'd be better off talking with Agent Willman."

"Thanks, I'll try him then."

I walked out of the garage, crossed my arms and stood looking around.  Nothing unusual came to mind, so I took to the sky again and headed back toward Metrocity.  While in flight I used the H.E.R.O. phone to look up the location of the Metrocity F.B.I. office.

I then noticed that I had missed a text message received a short time ago.  I pulled it up, it was from Rael.

"HERO HQ has no info on missing supers.  They have non-hero supers talking with new supers in hospital.  Working with Willman now."

I called Rael's H.E.R.O. phone at that point.  He quickly answered.  "Hey ‘star."

"Hi, so have you guys found anything else out about this morning?"

"Yeah, apparently they’ve got some supers who do normal jobs and stuff working with the new supers from the hospital, so they know what happened and don't freak out.  Then they are being released one at a time to go home."

"Okay, that sounds good."

"It would be, except that already three of them apparently got home and were kidnapped just after that.  People in the neighborhoods have reported that an armed team entered their houses and ended up taking them away.  Most are saying they thought the team entering looked like a SWAT team, except the vans weren't labeled as SWAT."

"How would someone know who the people even were in the hospital?"

"The F.B.I. are looking into that right now.  Whoever is doing this has some professionals working for them.  Probably both on the team that is doing the kidnapping as well as getting the information on the people."

"Where are you guys now?"

"We're at the F.B.I. headquarters."

"In Metrocity?"

"Is there another one nearby?"

"Hmm, probably not.  Okay, I'll head there then."

 Rael gave me the location of the office and a short time later I landed outside the F.B.I. headquarters.  I slid the phone into my belt as I walked up to the building.  Agent Dunsworth met me in the lobby and brought me to Agent Willman’s office.

Rael, in costume, sat at a chair next to the table.  Lance stood just behind him.  Agent Willman sat at the end of the table.  They had a variety of paperwork and pictures in front of them spread out on the table.

I smiled at the boys, winked at Rael, and shook Agent Willman’s hand.  He offered me a seat, so I sat down on the other side of Rael.  Agent Dunsworth remained standing slightly off to my left.  Both watched me for a moment, they both noticed the smoke stains still on my costume. 
I really need to have a second costume made, between blood stains and smoke I’ll need to start changing mid-day at times.

Agent Willman pushed forward three pictures.  He said, “These three people are metas, released yesterday from the hospital.  They were all kidnapped last night.  These men are likely psychics or blasters.  This woman is likely a brick.”

The woman had very shiny silver skin and black or very dark brown hair.  Rael was thinking that he’d seen her in the emergency room at the hospital when she was first admitted last Saturday evening.

I asked, “Why do you think the men are psychics or blasters?”

“Shrinker kidnapped every visible mutant from the hospital in her attack.  Bricks were labeled in the system due to their body armor and muscle mass on most.”

Lance said, “I still think it’s odd that they are going for a variety.”

Agent Willman said, “Their weaponry appears designed to take down a variety of supers.”

“Or they were hedging their bets against which supers might show up to save that girl.”

Rael said, “Or they want them for different purposes.  Is there any commonality between the people other than them being supers?”