Deadbolt (IC)

[R. Bluefish]

Echo crumpled the card in her fist. Gas Man, eh? She had a lot of things to mull over - chief among them, a radioactive sewer zombie. That sounded like a lark. I hope it's not actually radioactive. I'm rather attached to my skin.

 

But that was later. Right now, she still had things to do. She stuffed the card into her pocket - best to hang on to that - and, moving as quickly as her exhausted muscles would allow, clambered roughly to her feet. Before she could do anything else, however, a little change of clothes was in order.

 

Anyone inside the coffee shop who was paying attention might have noticed an indistinct blur of motion that flickered in through the back exit, buzzed around Buffy's locker, and was gone in less than an instant. But everyone was too busy trying to figure out who the scar-faced man had been to notice such a strange thing.

 

Back outside in the alley, the blur of motion suddenly halted and resolved into the form of Echo - now properly attired, with her blue-and-silver tights, her identity-obscuring mask, and her ever-stylish white wig. The dramatic effect was ruined somewhat by the fact that she was having to brace one hand against the wall to keep herself upright, and was wheezing audibly. Note to self: don't get gassed. Not fun.

 

She took one last moment to pull herself together, then with a resigned sigh, blurred once more, speeding up the wall towards the rooftops. Once she was on the roof of the building, she crouched there, scanning the street for the Gas Man's van. "Sure, a deal's a deal," she muttered to herself. "But I'm nothing if not a liar." She would be damned if she was going to just leave Longwheel in the tender care of that gassy thug. The radioactive sewer zombie was just going to have to wait its turn.

[Supercape]

GM

 

The Gas Man was long, but Jack Longwheel was fat. By the time the Gas Man hauled him into his armoured van, he was huffing and puffing. 

 

"Its alright folks. Just had too much to drink, thats all..." he explained to a few concerned onlookers on the street. 

 

"I'm taking him back home to nurse a hangover..." he smiled. He was not particularly persuasive, but he was tall and strong, wearing big boots, and had a gritty square jaw. 

 

After a misfire, he started up the van and drove off. It was still easy enough, especially in Freedom Cities traffic, to keep up from the rooftops. 

 

About half an hour of wading through traffic later...

 

Greenbank

 

The railways and buildings were rusted and crumbling. Hobos drank and slowly died. Rats had a splendid time. Real estate was cheap. 

 

And an abandoned depot, still standing, just, was the destination of the Gas Man. 

 

Two badly disguised "Hobos" stood outside. Too clean. Carrying guns. Well nourished. Not drunk. And nodding respectfully at the Gas Man as he drove his van into the decaying building. It had, in the past, apparently been "Purveyor of finest tonic water" owned by "Mr Joseph Fiddlehammer and Sons". If one understood the barely legible, crumbling, faded once-proud sign above the equally zombified building. 

[R. Bluefish]

Echo was doubled over on the rooftop across from the building, clutching her side and wheezing for breath. Seriously, don't get gassed again. When she was fresh, a jog like that would have been nothing but a little bracing exercise. Instead, she felt like she wanted to just lay down and sleep for about three weeks. Her finest moment, this was not.

 

She limped to the edge of the roof and, with a sigh, crouched down, producing a pair of compact binoculars from her utility belt. She surveyed the building cautiously, also using this opportunity to try to catch a breather. Okay. Two obvious goons out front. She paused just long enough to tsk under her breath. Amateurs. They're way too clean to actually be homeless. She moved the binoculars to look at the entrance the Gas Man had driven in through. Nope, too obvious. Nice thing about being me is that I never have to use the door if I don't want to.

 

Biting her lip under her mask, Echo lowered the binoculars. She was...indecisive. On the one hand, the smart thing to do was to retreat and rest. It wouldn't do her any good if she went in there half-cocked and got killed - or even just gassed again. The guy had said he wasn't going to actually hurt Longwheel, only confine him someplace. But...on the other hand, what if he was lying? What if he murdered Longwheel in there, while she was off getting her beauty sleep?

 

She rose, groaning as she did so. It was time for some thrillin' heroics.

 

With a muffled thud of displaced air, she was suddenly standing on the roof of the building the Gas Man had entered. Okay, she thought to herself, peering down at the two guards below. Let's do this quiet-like.

Edited June 10, 2016 by R. Bluefish

[Supercape]

GM

 

If the two guards saw or heard Echo, they gave no indication of it. Then again, would they be expecting somebody teleporting onto the roof? Most likely not. 

 

Echo could not hear anything from inside the crumbling building; maybe, with the ear of faith, some shuffling and manhandling. Might be more than the Gasman in the building, might not. 

 

And crumbling the building was. The only visible, open entrance was the main one, by the guards and where the Gas Man had entered. There was a fire escape and a back door, boarded up (although not very well). The windows were almost all broken, and all rotted, and again, haphazardly boarded up with partially rotted wood. 

 

Even the masonry was in poor repair. Large cracks infected its walls, threatening to bring the whole building down. Some of the cracks were so wide, Echo might be able to squeeze through them. 

[R. Bluefish]

Echo watched the guards for a moment, then backed quietly away from the edge of the roof. Even in her exhausted state she could probably take them, but it might make too much noise. And who knew, she might get unlucky and wind up receiving a bullet through the brainpan. Which would put something of a crimp in her rescue efforts.

 

That meant it was time to try to find an alternate means of ingress. She was in luck there, at least. The building looked as if it might as well have been built out of duct tape and straws - if the duct tape had lost its stickiness. Moving to a different part of the roof, she leaned over the edge to inspect the walls. There were cracks you could practically drive a truck through. Well, not a truck - but a skinny superheroine could theoretically fit through if she hadn't been hitting the cheeseburgers too hard lately.

 

Of course, a skinny superheroine who wasn't subject to the laws of physics could eat all the cheeseburgers she wanted. With another muffled whumph, she was inside, without bothering to go through the rigamarole of crossing the intervening space. She immediately drew back to press herself against the wall she had come through, looking around hastily to gather in her new surroundings.

[Supercape]

GM

 

The inside of the building was a crumbling as the outside. In winter, it would have a bleak chill. Now it was dust and unpleasant warmth. Flies and beetles scurried around. A cockroach crumbled underfoot. 

 

The floorboards creaked, but a teleporter could hop and skip over the worst of the rot. 

 

In the ground floor, amongst a peppering of derbis, The Gas Man and a few suited thugs had set up a camp of sort. Provisions, a TV, cards, and the Gas Man's set of grenades. 

 

They pulled Jack onto a makeshift bed. A fifth man, neither thug nor mercenary, peered over him. 

 

"Mmmmhua. Well, he certainly is asleep" he muttered. He had a southern drawl. The man was short, skinny, and unkempt, but seemed to insist on wearing a white lab coat. 

 

"Yeah, well, you make the gas, I knock em out. Thats the deal" shrugged the Gas Man, sitting down and cracking open a beer, feeling pleased with himself. 

 

"We shall have to mmmhua, question him of course. Truth serum. Make him gabble like a madman. Which, technically speaking, is what my drugs will make him mmmhua...." gurgled the scientist, prodding Jack lightly. 

 

"Yeah yeah. Whatever" said the Gas Man, dismisive but perhaps slightly irritated. 

 

"Did you run into any, mmmhua, problems?" asked the Scientist. 

 

"No...easy work. Snatch the yapper, drag him hear, let him sleep it off until they catch the voodoo nuclear zombie. Drag him back, he wakes up, can't remember anything...." lied the Gas Man. 

 

"mmmmhua, indeed...." lied the scientist, his tic extending to his eye as his spoke. 

[R. Bluefish]

Echo dropped into a silent crouch, weighing her options. This complicated matters.

 

She had been planning to just get in, grab Jack, and beat feet. But the presence of Mumbles McLabcoat down there made it a different situation. From the sound of it, he might know something about the dimensional-sewer-zombie-thing, and at this point, she needed every kernel of information she could get. Nabbing him as well and asking him a few pertinent questions might make her job a lot easier in the long run.

 

But on the other hand, she was hardly in any shape for a fight. The Gas Man was down there too, and he'd already beaten her once. Not to mention his goons, and for all she knew Mumbles could shoot lightning out of his nostrils or something. Rescuing Jack, she could do. Anything more than that was getting into pretty risky territory.

 

She shook her head. No. In her barely-conscious state, she didn't have the luxury of straying from the objective. Trying to get all fancy might help her long-term, but that wouldn't do her any good if she got captured - or killed - short-term. Stick to the plan, Stein. You'll probably have a hard enough time doing that already.

 

Echo took a deep breath, steeling herself - then, with a whumph, she was cartwheeling through the air above the bed where Longwheel lay. "Hey there, Gassy Man!" One of her hands shot out, snagging Jack by the shirt. "One thing I forgot to tell you back there - I'm a massive liar!" She landed on her feet on the other side of the bed, smoothly swining Jack up to rest across her shoulders. "Comes with the territory, really."

 

No sooner did her feet touch the floor than her very form seemed to stretch and blur, as if she was a recording being played at a different speed than the rest of the world. Accelerating to super-speed as she moved, she leaped forward towards the boarded-up window. Would be nice if I had time to open it. This was probably going to hurt, but what else was new?

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Why ya no good..." shouted the Gasman, livid. 

 

The scientist took a few steps back and dropped his syringe. It landed in his thigh. 

 

"oooh...myyyy....." he mumbled, before falling back into his chair unconscious. Or possibly dead. Things moved too fast. 

 

A few thugs reached for their guns but were simply too slow. The Gas Man had half raised his by the time Echo was off. He couldn't get a shot off, but he did roar his contempt. 

 

"Ya make a fool of me? I'll put the word out, honey! Ya aint's to be trusted! I got mad connects!" he screamed, almost incandescent with rage. 

 

The windows were boarded up, but rotten and fragile. True, Jack was heavy, but Echo was inhumanly strong. The combined mass of Jack and speed of Echo simply meant the window splintered, shattered, and broke with barely a shadow of resistance. Ahead of them, the rusty railroads and crumbling buildings of this region of Freedom City. 

 

[R. Bluefish]

There was a moment of hard impact as the boards smashed against Echo's form, and then she was out. Air rushed past her as she fell, then her legs buckled as they hit the asphalt. She was up and running in an instant, the city stretching and blurring around her as she accelerated past the point of human capability. As she ran, she pushed off from the ground, sailing upwards to run along the rooftops. She didn't feel like getting smeared across someone's windshield today.

 

But where to take him? She didn't love the idea of taking him to her apartment. She had an identity to protect, and rule number one of that was...well, don't reveal your identity. On the other hand...who was she kidding? He'd already seen her without her mask. Hell, he knew where she worked. She had been wearing a nametag.

 

Screw it. They needed somewhere to lay low, and her home was unfortunately as good a place as any. She changed direction, the world rushing past under her feet, Jack an unconscious burden on her shoulders.

 

In Buffy Stein's apartment building, an oddly shaped blur of motion flickered in the entrance, up the stairs, and through the halls, before vanishing into one of the doors. Inside, Buffy stumbled to a halt, wheezing for breath. I hate gas. With labored movements, she laid Jack down on the bed, then just managed to pull off her mask and wig before collapsing on the couch in a semiconscious heap.

[Supercape]

GM

 

The Gas did not wear off all of a sudden, for either Echo or Jack, although it should probably be noted for prosperity that Echo had a more robust constitution in this matter than the rotund Jack, who looked like exercise was a mysterious and distant land. 

 

And so, Jack did not wake bolt upright. He was muttering, muttering about Neutron Industries, about the Russian Four, about Darwin-X, and about the distinctly pale looking staff at the restaurant High Steaks. 

 

He then started opening his eyes, but his eyes did not wish to fully focus yet. He was dimly aware, in a haze, that he was being attended to. 

 

"Wha...no...gas! hmmm...sleepy...wha?...sleepy..." he drifted back to sleep again. 

 

And so he drifted in and out of consciousness. Becoming slightly more lucid each time. 

 

"Wha? What happened? Who are you? Who am I? Where are we?" he mumbled at Echo, or more precisely, her alter ego. 

[R. Bluefish]

Buffy half-sat up on the couch, brushing one hand over her exhausted eyes. "Well, to answer those questions in no particular order," she said, "My name's...well, I go by Echo, but at this point I think you can just call me Buffy. You got slipped the ol' respiratory mickey by the Gassy Man, and took a bad face plant. I rescued you and brought you back here." She rose, biting back a groan as she did so, still dressed in her costume minus the mask. "Welcome," she said, spreading her arms with tired theatricality, "to the...hmm...let's call it the Echo Chamber. Not much of a headquarters, I know, but I swear there's an entire hangar hidden behind the fridge there."

 

She walked over to the indicated fridge and pulled it open, taking out a can of high-caffeine energy drink. "Want one? I know I could certainly use a bit of a jump." She popped the top and took a long drink. "I think we should be safe here, at least for a little while. We can't rule out the idea of Gassy Man tracking us here," although hey, he believed my BS, how smart can he be, "so we can't stay here forever. But right now, we may have a minute to actually talk about our...situation. Our nuclear-sewer-zombie situation."

[Supercape]

GM

 

Jack was clearly still light head, full of cobwebs and dust. And sleep, oh yes, sleep. How he wished he could close his eyes, they were as heavy as lead...

 

But no!

 

"Radioactive Zombies?" he said, the mere term keeping him (relatively) alert. 

 

"Gah..I can't think straight...barely know my own name, let alone yours. Get me some coffee!"

 

He paused a moment before giving a wry and friendly smile. 

 

"Sheesh, sorry. Here you are on your time off, having saved my life, and you still get to hear me order coffee!" he chuckled every so faintly. "But still, get me some coffee. And tell me everything!"

 

"And for that matter, tell me what we do about it? I wouldn't know even if I hadn't just be knocked out by sleeping gas..."

[R. Bluefish]

"Hey, I live to serve," said Buffy wryly. She blurred across the kitchen, and when she stilled, a pot of coffee was percolating merrily on the counter. "Forget foiling villains and pulling kittens out of burning buildings - brewing coffee is my real contribution to society."

 

She pulled up a stool and sat beside the bed, resting her arms on her knees. "So, recap for those of us who spent the last few hours in a gas-induced coma. The most information I've been able to glean about what Neutron's after is...well, 'radioactive sewer zombie.' Which isn't the most helpful tidbit in the world, but hey, it's still a lot more than we had before."

 

She continued, ticking the items off on her fingers. "Let's see. Apparently the bad guys sent a team after the...zombie, and only one of them came back. Gassy Man was indeed sent after you to keep you from spilling the beans - and hey, his orders were to capture, not kill, so things are looking up for you. At least," she said, pausing thoughtfully, "I think that's what he said. You gotta understand, he was using a lot of double negatives.

 

"After he kidnapped you," she said, rising to pace around the room, "I tailed him and found where he was holed up. Thrilling heroics ensued and I rescued you. Mainly from some creepy-ass doctor-looking guy who was about to inject you with something. I, uh, think I kinda pissed off the Gas Man, what with lying right to his face and all - but I mean, I couldn't just leave you there. So then, once I had you, I just ran you back here. I run pretty fast."

 

Completing her circuit of the room, she threw herself back down on the stool. "So now, we need to figure out our next course of action. Although," she hesitated, "maybe saying 'we' is a bit presumptuous. You already got gassed and kidnapped over this - you should probably get yourself somewhere safe while you still can. I'll be able to handle things just fine from here on out. Not my first rodeo." It's one of my first rodeos, but I'm trying to instill confidence here.

[Supercape]

GM

 

Slowly, with the aid of some rather masterfully brewed coffee, Jack was slipping back into the world of the awake. 

 

"I'll count my lucky stars I bumped into a superhero in that coffee shop" he said, his wits knitting themselves back into shape. "Otherwise, well...lets not think about otherwise" he said, concentrating on his coffee. 

 

"Radioactive sewer zombie, huh? Well, I suppose it fits with what I heard. Some kind of moving dimensional anomaly. The reason its moving is that the anomaly is a person!"

 

"Although I don't like the sound of an a zombie. Sounds wrong. Dead wrong" he deadpanned. 

 

"Look, I'm still half asleep. But perhaps I can help. I heard talk about the sewers, and more importantly, heard a name. There is a guy that lives down there, I think. Half rumour. Half mad. Guy called Tin-hat. Guy got screwed by some super-powered boost or something, now his brains are scrambled and he lives on the streets. But he knows the sewers like the back of his hands. Asked me a week ago, I would have said a good chance he is just an urban legend. But then, I heard his name when the Neutron people started talking about tracking him....only put it together now...."

 

He paused. 

 

"Look, you be honest with me, I'll be honest with you..." he said, a bit reluctantly. 

 

"I'm a mutant"

 

He paused. 

 

"Yeah, that's right, fat, out of shape, well past my prime. And I don't know karate" he said, putting up his hands in a mock kung fu gesture. 

 

"I just got one gift. Listening in on people. I can't quite explain it. I can hear things in different places. A roving ear. Its how I get a whole lotta gossip. And its how I get screwed when I publish it. I know its true, but I can't prove it. And I sure don't want anyone knowing I can do it" he said, meaningfully. 

[R. Bluefish]

"Huh." Buffy tilted her head as she scrutinized him, as if she would be able to see his powers if she squinted hard enough. "Super-hearing? That seems...pretty useful, actually. I can see why you went into the line of work that you did. Everybody's powers suit them to something different. You have super-hearing, you become a reporter. You have super-strength, you become a superhero. You're the embodiment of anthropomorphized evil, go into politics. But don't worry," she grinned, "your secret's safe with me, if mine's safe with you. It'd be pretty rich for me to rat out someone's powers.

 

"Now. Tin-hat, huh?" Buffy considered this, draining the rest of her energy drink. "Sounds like a very mentally stable fellow." Sounds like a Mad Max sidekick. "You say he lives in the sewers? Any idea which part?" Delving into the stinking sewer tunnels in search of some tinfoil-hat-wearing weirdo wasn't her idea of a good time, but she had a feeling that the prospect of having a good time kinda went out the window when the poison gas entered the equation.

[Supercape]

GM

 

"The Sewers, the streets, under a bridge, in a cardboard box. Tin-Hat is part of the urban mythology of the hobo population of Freedom City" explained Jack, feeling progressively more awake. 

 

"And no, I don't know how to find him. At least not directly" he conceded. "I mean, I can listen out. Listen out pretty good. Scan the sewers for mumbling. Something human. I can remote-hear, but it doesn't mean my hearing is still that good. I wont pick up the rustling of tin foil" he explained. 

 

"But if we asked on the streets, we might get a better answer. I don't know if you hang around with tramps and the like. I tend to avoid them, I guess. Being a stuck up middle class ass"

 

He took in some more coffee, and stifled a yawn. 

 

"I guess the other thing to do...it's more risky. But clearly Neutron Industries are searching for this guy. Possibly others too. We could follow them..."

[R. Bluefish]

Buffy frowned, weighing her options. "Hmm." She looked down at her hands for a moment, then back up. "We can't risk following Neutron's heels, because we can't risk them getting to him before we do. They've already got a head start on us - we need to find him first. And from the sound of it, that means," she stood with a grunt, "that I need to go have a talk with some homeless people. It's...not my area of expertise, but we're kinda strapped for options at this point."

 

She paused to consider Jack. "You know...you can stop now, if you want. It's only going to get more dangerous from here on out, and you've already taken this thing a lot farther than anyone would ask you to. You should just find somewhere safe to hide until this whole thing blows over. I can take you wherever you need to go."

[Supercape]

GM

 

"I need to go where we find answers" replied Jack, resolutely. He pressed his fingers to his temples. 

 

"If it all goes badly, I couldn't live with myself. Even if I don't know karate, I know Freedom City..."

 

A few coffees later, after nightfall...

 

It was not hard to find hobos in Freedom City. One just had to know the right streets. Jack had insisted on coming. Out of loyalty to Echo, perhaps. But the old hack was obstinate; he would not take no for an answer. 

 

"Just cover my ass and do something heroic if I get shot, yeah?" was his only condition. 

 

The word on the street, often given freely, sometimes given with a small show of "charity", be that a coffee, a donut, or cash, was pretty much the same. Tin Hat was some veteran, got experimented on by the army, or aliens, some evil scientist, or Toy Boy (depending on whom you asked), and fried his brain. Lived down in the sewers, and swore blind that AEGIS, or UNISON, or the KGB, or aliens (Depending on whom you asked), was putting thoughts into his head. Hence, he wore a hat made of tin foil. 

 

Very paranoid, possibly dangerous. One thing that there was agreement on was that Tin Hat was a mean fighter. Sure, he might not carry an automatic rifle like in his old days, but he had a reputation for being an almost inhumanly tough and strong streetfighter. One with whom you should not mess. 

[R. Bluefish]

Echo's usually-reliable information-gathering skills had let her down in this case. Even when working together with Jack, the most they had been able to divine was that Tin Hat supposedly haunted Greenbank. Or, more specifically, the sewers beneath Greenbank - if the rumors were to be believed. She had been hoping to glean something a bit more precise than that - something that would spare her the necessity of searching an entire neighborhood's worth of sewers in one night - but such was the life of a C-list superhero.

 

With a slight grunt, she stooped to grip the edges of the manhole cover before her. Hanging around Greenbank late at night was usually ill-advised, but for one person with kickass powers and one person with less-kickass-but-still-useful-in-a-limited-capacity powers, it wasn't much of a concern. Without so much as a grunt, she pried the manhole cover off and set it aside, then produced a small flashlight from her utility belt and shined it inside cautiously. "So," she asked, feigning casualness, "just how good is your super-hearing dealie? Are you going to be able to ping this guy if we so much as get within five blocks of him, or am I going to need to break out the time-dilation and just search the whole neighborhood? Because I have a feeling that whatever stains I pick up down there are never going to wash out of my super-suit, and I'd like to limit my exposure if at all possible."

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Satan's Ass! What is that stench?" swore Jack, furiously. He had a good question, for the smell of the sewers was not for the faint of the nose. 

 

"I always knew I would end up totally in the sh---wait!" he interrupted himself, pressing a finger to an ear. 

 

"I can hear something. Somebody walking, no...more than one person, surely. Three or four, at a guess. Through the...well...through the stuff that you get in sewers. Not talking...might just be sewer maintenance. Might not be. In any case, its our best bet!" he concluded, still keeping his ears open. 

 

He peered down, into the black sewers. They had picked up two high powered flashlights from a DIY store on the way. Jack had insisted. And two small back up ones, just in case. He had bought some cotton wool, too. 

 

And proceeded to jam two pieces up his nose. 

 

"I grew up on a farm. Used this when we were mucking out..." he explained, nasally. 

 

And below, the dark, smelly, and moist sewers beckoned...

[R. Bluefish]

Echo looked from the gaping sewer below, to the cotton in Jack's hand, then back to the sewer, then grabbed the wool from his hand. "Yeah, I think you may be on to something there." She ripped off two small pieces and lifted up her mask to stick them up her nostrils. "Honestly, this should probably be a standard component of super-suits. Mask, tights, cape, nose plugs. Might prevent a lot of problems. Maybe I wouldn't have been gassed as badly!"

 

Gingerly, she lowered herself into the manhole, then dropped down into the sewer tunnel. "Ugh." Even with the nose plugs, the stench made her gag. She fixed her mask back in place for a little extra protection. Gotta get some of that mint gel cops use for crime scenes on TV. Looking up at Jack, she waved. "Come on, it's great down here. Clears your sinuses like nobody's business."

 

Shining her flashlight around warily, she continued. "So you grew up on a farm, huh? Where? Never really figured you for the overalls-pitchfork-and-big-straw-hat type."

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Neither did I. Hated it. Nothing to listen in on" replied Jack, gingerly wading through the sewer. Even with his "trick", the smell was noxious. His flashlight swept through the sewer walls. There was the odd rat, and every now again, more than the odd one. Perhaps, if one was feeling spooked and paranoid, there was the odd other thing that slithered through the muck. It would probably behove one's nerves not to look too closely at those. 

 

"Move to the city soon as a could. Carved myself a Job as a journalist, mainly on account of my snooping ears" he explained. "Started at the bottom, worked my way up. Pretty soon I was actually quite good at what I did, not just bluffing my way with my secret ability. But, like pretty much every journalist I knew, got burned out, cynical. Drank too much, ate too much, smoked too much. And you know about the coffee" he said, in a friendly way. "Practically live on the stuff. Can't sleep" he yawned. "But might be more to that than just coffee. Like, guilt maybe. Cynical, bitter guilt about a cynical, bitter job" he sighed. 

 

"To be honest, this is the first time in years I'm not cynical. At least, not so cynical. Might get sucked into a zombie dimension. But at least I feel like this is honest work. Just like mucking out the stables"

 

He spared himself a moment, and turned his flashlight on Echo. 

 

"What's your story?"

 

 

[R. Bluefish]

Echo frowned, absentmindedly shielding her eyes from the light with one hand. "Oh, nothing special. The usual, really. I wouldn't want to bore you with the details."

 

She hesitated, then sighed. "There was a version of me from a parallel universe who developed powers and visited a different parallel universe, then went psycho and killed the version of me that was living there, whereupon she absorbed her latent powers. Then she started just repeatedly hopping universes to murder...well, me-slash-herself, so she would keep getting stronger, until she ran into a version of me who was able to escape to our universe and warn me before dying." She brushed a strand of white hair behind her ear. "So then I absorbed her powers - hence my modest bag of tricks - and took up her name, because I...I don't know, wanted to honor that sacrifice somehow. But someday evil-me is probably going to come here and try to kill me, and I'll almost definitely die." Trying to cover her discomfort, she tossed her flashlight up into the air and caught it nimbly behind her back. "Live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse, right?"

 

The stink in the air was already permeating her improvised nose plugs further. She saw Jack looking at her and managed a smile - although it was hidden by her mask. "Yeah, I know, right? I usually just tell people I was bitten by a radioactive physicist."

[Supercape]

GM

 

Jack did his best to try and follow. 

 

"That's a whole lot of mad ya got yourself there, Buf...I mean, Echo..." he replied. He was training himself to use the right name in the right circumstance. He was getting pretty good at it. 

 

"But I wouldn't recommend dying young. I always considered dying has a pretty undesirable consequence, Namely, being dead. You wont much care what you look like when you are dead. And, hate to break it to you, but corpses don't look pretty after a few days. No matter how much make up you put on em. As we may find out if this radioactive zombie thing is true. Which, I kind of hope not. But then, something worse will surely pop up..."

 

"I'd stick with the radioactive physicist story. And, now I come to think of it, by the time this little escapade is over, you might just have that very thing happen to you...wait...!"

 

He paused a moment, pointing his flashlight down. 

 

"Can you see in the dark? I hear them...must be four of them...splashing....going to intersect them...." he explained. He pointed at his flashlight, questioningly. In this near total darkness, the lights could be seen easily...

[R. Bluefish]

Well, dying ain't exactly Plan A. Echo squinted into the impenetrable darkness, lowering her voice. "Night vision is not in my bag of tricks, more's the pity." She looked down at their flashlights. Should try to sweet-talk somebody into installing night-vision goggles in my mask. Setting her teeth, she clicked her light off. "Go dark. It's no good them seeing us before we see them." Gripping Jack by the arm as she spoke, she drew him back into one of the adjoining tunnels. Darkness alone wouldn't be enough to hide them if whoever-it-was had thought to bring goggles of their own.

 

"If things start happening," she hissed into his ear, "just run away or hit the dirt. Let me handle it. Because there's a decent chance that I'm going to be beating some people up in a second."