Westbrook Academy for Metahumans: Forums

“Can I have a word, Martin?”

Lost in a technical document, it took a few moments for Martin Druce to register the sound of his supervisor’s voice and wave her into the office. Senior Agent Lindsay Wong had been in charge of the Overbrook facility for less than six weeks but she already had a reputation as a 'player’s coach'. Martin still wasn’t used to a boss who came to see you rather than the other way around.

“What can I do for you, Senior Agent Wong?” he asked as he put his notes aside and gestured towards the chair in front of his desk.

“Please call me Lindsay,” she said with an amused smile. She smiled again when Druce stood up while she settled into the chair. She wasn’t used to old-school behaviour and it was especially jarring coming from the very young looking agent in front of her.

“Of course, Lindsay,” he replied with perhaps a slight trace of discomfort. “How can I help you?”

“I need you to cover for Ziggy tomorrow. Nothing special on the schedule. Just field calls from his clients and pass on any reports that require immediate action.”

“Is it just for one day? Is Michael alright?” Martin was already reaching for his PDA to note the extra duty. Michael Zigomanni was what the FBSA called a ‘dispatcher’ but what Heroes typically called a ‘contact’. ‘Client” was the unofficial FBSA term for any licensed Hero assigned to a specific agent.

“Just the one day for you. If it takes longer we’ll bring someone in from Galaxy to take over.” A frown crossed Agent Wong’s face as she continued. “One of his clients was injured yesterday and he’ll be our liaison with PPD for the investigation.”

“Why are we getting involved with a police investigation?” Martin asked out of curiosity. It was standard for FBSA to submit a report and leave the rest to the PPD.

“This is a tricky case. There are inter-agency issues.” Wong’s tone indicated she did not wish to discuss the matter so Druce let it drop.

“I’m on it, ma’am. Is there anything else?” he asked.

“Nothing urgent,” she replied with a smile to lighten the mood. Then she pointed to the pile of documents on his desk. “What do you have there that’s so fascinating?”

“These are the specs for the latest series of training drones.” Martin held up a page featuring a diagram of the M7c. “The first batch shipped from the factory this morning.”

“Are you going to pit them against your students?” Unlike her predecessor, Agent Wong was fascinated by the bureau’s foray into the field of education and took every opportunity to ask questions.

“No, these are specced for combat training. Even with the weapons on low power they dish out a lot of punishment. My kids are good but I’m not trying to kill them.”

“Then you’re nicer than any of my profs from PCU,” joked the senior agent. “I’ll let you get back to your robots then. I’ll be in all day tomorrow if you have any questions on Ziggy’s clients.” She smiled again as she got up and headed for the door. “Later, Martin.”

“Later, ma’am.”

“Lindsay, please. Don’t make me feel old.” Agent Wong was out the door before Martin could correct himself. As soon as the door closed he flipped on his terminal and called up a list of Michael Zigomanni’s clients. In a second window he called up a list of Hero-related police reports for Sunday, July 3rd.

“Information…” he muttered to himself as he prepared a query to find any name matches from one window to the other. “You said too much, Lindsay…”

Lunch hour was nearly over and the teachers were filing out of the lounge to head back to their respective classrooms. Only a few of them bothered to wave to the stern looking man at the corner table working on his laptop. Even after three months there was a distance between Martin Druce and the others who still saw him as a government agent first and a teacher only second. The tall blond former-Hero accepted that reality without bitterness. Despite his youthful appearance he’d been around long enough to know that social barriers were often the hardest to overcome. It didn’t help that most of the faculty weren’t fans of his course. Teaching students about crime-fighting was seen as encouraging them to engage in dangerous and violent behaviour. Druce didn’t disagree. He simply figured the kids were doing it anyway so they might as well learn to do it right.

“How’s it going, Martin?” Druce looked up from his screen to see the school’s headmaster dropping into the seat across from him. Louis Herrera was one of the few staff members to be actively enthusiastic about Druce’s class. Probably because he’d been a young meta himself and knew what it was like to be a cocky teenager with more power than experience. Despite his thinning hair and well-cut suit, Herrera looked like he could still suit up and run a patrol if he wanted. A certain rapport had grown between the two men over the past few months.

“Not bad, Louis,” Martin answered as he moved his laptop aside. “Just putting together an outline for the next field session.”

“That’s next week, right?”

“That’s the plan, assuming the facility is available.” The FBSA’s new training centre was in high demand. Freedom Corps was booking a lot of time to train a fresh batch of Longbow recruits.

“What’s the focus this time?”

“I’m thinking it’s time to throw them into some actual combat scenarios. The trick is managing the challenge level.”

“You told me they breezed through the other sessions,” Herrera smiled, showing a little pride in his students. “Don’t be afraid to put them through their paces. Let them impress you.” The headmaster had examined and even used the facility himself and made certain its safety features were more than sufficient.

“Increasing the difficulty means separating the men from the boys, to coin a phrase.” Druce made a hand-chopping gesture to emphasize his point. “Some of the less powerful students won’t be able to keep up. We’ll be creating a division between the students.”

“So be it,” Herrera said after a moment’s consideration. “They’ll face the same crucible out on the streets. Teaching them to find and accept their limits now, in a controlled environment, could be the single most important take-away from this.”

“’Find’ their limits?” Druce countered with a smile. “First we have to teach them they have limits.”

The Atlas Plaza always felt like a bit of a circus to Martin Druce, especially on a Saturday afternoon in July. You had civilians and tourists milling about snapping pictures and gawking at various brightly or even garishly clad individuals who were only too happy to pose and do tricks for them. It was easy for the former active-service Hero to think of the ‘Plaza Punks’ as performers. The majority of them were here for no other reason than to be seen. The real Hero work was going on elsewhere, and those costumed crime-fighters who were at City Hall on business tended to make their way inside as quickly as possible.

Druce was here on business himself, if not the kind that was going to end up on any official reports. He made his way around to the rear of the building where the crowds were smaller and the Heroes were more likely to be gathered in pairs or small groups. It was one of these small groups he was looking for. The file on Simply Simon said he ran a workshop for teen heroes behind City Hall every Saturday afternoon. Sure enough he spotted the red and yellow garbed hero standing in a circle of adoring teens and pre-teens in what looked like mostly home-made costumes. Simon was animatedly describing a battle with some kind of robots, going so far as to punctuate the explosions with fiery bursts from his hands.

Druce looked at the rapt expressions on the kids’ faces and felt a brief pang of envy. Then he shrugged. There was a time when he was seen as a charismatic and charming Hero. Those days were gone. As always, the pain in his shoulder flared up when he thought of the end of his Hero career. He forced his mind back to the present and sat down to wait for the workshop to finish.

“I suppose you’re here to see me,” Simply Simon said fifteen minutes later as he flopped onto the bench next to Druce. “You have AGENT written across your forehead in big letters, you know. Plus you weren’t laughing at my jokes.”

“Agents are not permitted to laugh,” Martin replied with a straight face. He didn’t say so but he’d been secretly impressed by Simon’s ability to slip in valuable lessons beneath the guise of exciting Hero tales. His own students were too sharp for that sort of thing but it worked very well for the boyish Hero’s younger group. Druce flashed his badge. “Special Agent Martin Druce, FBSA. Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“No problem, what’s up?” The young man smiled good-naturedly. If he was hiding anything, he was doing a very good job of it.

“I need to go over a few details about the incident that led to your injury on the 3rd of this month.” Druce already knew about the injury, of course. Two gunshots to the shoulder. As far as the Agent could see, they were already completely healed. That was Paragon for you. A pair of mutant healers had been volunteering at the Steel Canyon Medical Center that day.

“I was told not to talk about it,” Simon answered after a brief but noticeable pause. For the first time he began to look a little uncomfortable. Druce was expecting this so he played the first of his two cards.

“Did Ziggy tell you that?” he said, keeping his voice relaxed and conversational. “It’s okay, we work together. His office is right next to mine.” Druce was actually senior to Michael Zigomanni but he didn’t want to start talking about rank and authority just yet. If the gag order came from within the FBSA, he’d already said enough to get Simon talking.

“… no. It uh… wasn’t Ziggy.” The young Hero looked really nervous now. Druce considered playing his second card, but decided to stick with the casual play just a bit longer. Simon was little more than a kid himself. The soft touch was best.

“Another agency then? Yeah, sometimes we get in each other’s way. All on the same team, and all that, but you know how it is with miscommunication and red tape.” Druce forced himself to keep smiling, hoping the young man would buy his ‘we’re all one team’ spiel. Government agencies really were a confusing mess to the average citizen. If one in a thousand civilians understood the hierarchy of agents and their jurisdictions and respective authority, Druce would eat his hat. Hell, if one in a thousand agents understood it, he’d do the same.

“Um yeah,” Simon answered with a nod. “They said they were with the… “ He paused. Martin could see he was losing him and decided to take a gamble.

“The NSA, yes?” he finished Simon’s sentence for him and was rewarded with a nod. That was all the kid was going to say though. Druce decided to throw the dice one more time.

“You didn’t happen to talk to an Agent Sung, did you?” he asked, making an effort to maintain a conversational tone. Simon didn’t answer but there was no need. Druce could see recognition in his face.

The pain in his shoulder flared up again.

Pierce Drummond was having fun. Indoor missions weren’t usually his bag but the FBSA training facility was dirty enough to provide plenty of natural material for The Carbonator, as he was known, to do his thing. With a dramatic wave of his arms he caused a swirl of dust to harden around another batch of drones, slowing their movement and causing minor damage to their systems. Then he waded in and started pounding on them with his stone-covered fists.

He wasn’t the first in though. That was Jeremy. Cape waving and sparks flying, the blond dynamo flew into the crowd of drones and sent half of them flying with a thunderous burst.

Somewhere to his left Sondra was giving another batch of drones the evil eye or whatever it was she did. Pierce wished Jeremy hadn’t picked her for their team. He liked having a pretty girl around as much as the next guy but Louis tended to lose focus whenever he caught sight of a skirt.

Speaking of Louis, the pale French boy was already starting to waft to the left. Pierce could barely feel the moisture from the sea of mist that always surrounded his normally clear-headed friend. The guy knew what he was about, though. Sparks flew from the drones around Sondra as Louis soaked their internal circuitry and caused them to short out.

Pierce couldn’t see where Aiden was but he could sure see what he was doing. Half the drones in the nearest group were trying to blast each other, a sure sign that the Fae-touched redhead was playing havoc with their sensors. Every now and then Aiden would blast one with a burst of arcane fire just to mix things up.

The battle was so chaotic that Pierce almost took the head off the designated hostage drone before he realized it wasn’t fighting back. Two seconds later, Jeremy flattened the last of the surrounding guard drones causing the hostage response system to activate.

“I am Miguel. Thank you for rescuing me,” it broadcast in a tinny monotone. “I require assistance exiting this location.” Pierce would have laughed but there were still enemies around and they needed to get this dumb hunk of metal and wires out of the testing area.

“There’s more over here!” he heard Sondra yell from across the room. He turned to see her running through a doorway into an adjoining corridor. Sure enough Louis went flying after her and the sounds of fighting could be heard.

“You dumb bitch!” he screamed in frustration, earning him a disapproving look from his team leader.

“Sandra isn't dumb!” Jeremy said emphatically. “Or the other thing, she's very nice.” Pierce knew he should apologize but there wasn’t time right now.

“They’ve run off on their own,” he said, pointing at the far doorway, hoping Jeremy would understand the seriousness of the situation.

“Oh. We should stay together,” the other boy answered, his frown instantly replaced with a good natured smile. “Let's go help them!” In a flash of golden sparks Jeremy was instantly across the room and out the door, leaving Pierce with a dumbstruck expression on his face. He was about to scream something rude when the hostage drone’s tinny voice interrupted him.

“Warning: Damage registered.”

Pierce spun around to see the vitally important centerpiece of their field test wandering into a crowd of fully activated combat drones all seemingly bent on its immediate destruction. With a cry of “Noooo!” he ploughed into the group himself, trying to divert their attention from the simulated hostage.

“Warning: 25% damage registered.”

A steady stream of fireballs flew into the drones, showing that Aiden at least was still doing his job. Pierce hardened himself and spread his arms in a double-clothesline in an attempt to knock down as many of the attackers as he could. He made some initial progress but wasn’t strong enough to bring down the entire group.

“Warning: 50% damage registered.”

“This is not happening,” Pierce cried as the drones began to pummel him mercilessly with their energy-sheathed fists. Their damage was designed to be non-lethal but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. The rain of supporting fire dropped off as Aiden was forced to evade a volley of energy blasts from the rear rank of drones.

“Warning: 75% damage registered.”

A lucky blow caught Pierce in an unprotected spot and the young mutant fell to his knees with a groan. Aiden managed to incapacitate the attacker with some kind of flash to its visual sensors but two more immediately stepped up to replace it. A well-placed fire blast dropped one but its companion heartlessly slammed an energy fist into Pierce’s face with a smooth mechanical motion. The last thing the frustrated student heard before consciousness faded away was the synthesized voice of the hostage drone.

“Initiating shutdown.”

((Thanks to Sondra for drafting the post and Aiden for his feedback!))

Martin Druce was a busy man. Between his regular duties, his consultant work at the new training facility, and his teaching assignments at Westbrook Academy and Rhode Island State, he didn’t have a lot of free time left for unauthorized investigations.

That meant it was extra frustrating when those investigations hit a brick wall. His quarry had covered its tracks well. Every lead had turned into a dead end. Police reports were marked as classified. So were the medical records from Steel Canyon Medical Centre. The physical evidence had already been shipped to a secure warehouse in Maryland. The crime-scene cleanup had been performed by an NSA team. CC camera footage from the surrounding neighborhood had gone missing. If there were any witnesses, their names and addresses were restricted to those inaccessible police reports.

He considered leaning on Simply Simon again but finally decided against it. The kid was already spooked. Any more pressure and he’d be on the phone to Agent Sung in minutes. The only reason Druce knew he hadn’t made that call already is that a convoy of black SUVs weren’t pulling up outside his office.

The smart play would be to let the entire issue drop. Martin Druce shook his head and decided he must not be as smart as he thought he was. He was down to his last lead, a name, pulled from a copy of an FBSA service log for Sunday, July 3rd. The original file had been edited, of course. Fortunately Druce had downloaded the backups on the 4th before the whitewash had gone into effect. Now, a month later, that foresight had paid off.

The subject was a thin blond man. Forty-three years old according to his file, but with his clear skin and fine features he could pass for thirty. His expression was serious, his eyes ice cold. He was a mutant, a telekineticist renowned for his fine control but lacking in power. He couldn’t lift much more than a needle, but he could use that needle to carve the Lord’s Prayer into the head of a pin. He was also a fully licensed medical doctor and a highly respected surgeon. His name was Donald West.

Martin Druce caught up to him in the parking lot outside the Steel Canyon Medical Centre. “Excuse me, Doctor West. Can I have a word?”

“What can I do for you?” the Doctor replied tersely in a voice that revealed good breeding if not much warmth. He glanced at the nearby bus stop, possibly hoping the other man would take a hint.

“Martin Druce, FBSA,” the agent said briskly as he flashed his badge. “I’d like to ask you a few questions about a shooting incident on July 3rd of this year.”

“That was a month ago. I handle a lot of gunshot cases, you’ll have to be more specific.” The doctor’s impatience had lessened upon seeing Druce’s badge. He now seemed resigned to an extended conversation.

“This was a Hero. Name of Simply Simon. Two shots to the shoulder. You were the ER surgeon that afternoon.”

“Young guy? Red and yellow costume? Curly blond hair?”

“That’s the one.”

“I remember that case. He almost died. One of the bullets was lodged in the bone. I would have killed him pulling it out if there wasn’t another healer keeping him alive.”

“Large caliber rounds?”

“Large rounds definitely, but I don’t recall the exact caliber.” The doctor furrowed his brow trying to remember. “I could find out for you if you really wanted to know.”

“You have a record somewhere?” Druce kept his voice even, concealing his excitement over the possibility that some form of documentation might have escaped the thorough cleaning that surrounded this incident.

“I can do you better than that. I have the actual bullets.” Dr. West concealed some embarrassment as he continued. “I uh… keep a collection of these things.”

It took all of Martin’s self-control to keep from letting out a cheer. Actual physical evidence was more than he’d ever hoped for. He briefly wondered how the Doctor had managed to hang on to them. Presumably the rounds were too fragmented to provide ballistic evidence but the original investigating officer still should have bagged them. Sloppy police work for sure, but Druce could afford to be charitable. Now it was time to try his luck again.

“Do you know who shot him?” Martin kept his voice carefully casual. This was the money question.

“No idea. I was never told,” West answered with a slight shake of his head. Druce nodded in reply, hiding his disappointment. He was hiding more than disappointment though. There was a pause, an only barely noticeable hesitation before the Doctor had answered. And now he was looking at him in a different way. “Excuse me, but what was your name again?”

“Druce. Special Agent Martin Druce.” It was too late to do anything but brazen it out. He handed the Doctor his card and said “Please call me if you remember anything else.”

“I’ll do that.” West took the card and nodded politely. Two minutes later he was comfortably seated on an eastbound bus while Martin Druce clenched his fists and wondered how long he had before the black convoy arrived.

They were waiting for him in the Overbrook car park. He picked out Agent Hardcastle watching the stairwell. McGruder was lounging against a pillar looking bored and making no attempt at concealment. His partner was even more obvious, standing right next to Druce’s car watching him approach.

“Hello Martin,” she said simply as he came to a stop ten feet away.

“Agent Loud,” he replied with a nod.

“There was a time when you called me Jennifer,” she said with a touch of an impish smile.

“There was a time when we were on the same side,” he answered harshly, fighting to suppress the memory of the fresh faced rookie from eight years ago. He could still see bits of her in the hard-nosed NSA agent standing before him now. Even with her black hair pulled back in a severe pony-tail and dark glasses covering her soft blue eyes, there was a hint of the irrepressible enthusiasm that had once endeared her to him. Her bosses were counting on that, of course.

“We’re still on the same side, Martin. If you’re still a loyal American.” Her smile was gone now, but the tone remained light. That was good. It meant this was just a warning chat. He might still have time.

“Don’t question my loyalty, Agent Loud. Or my intelligence.” Druce decided to press the point. The sooner they said their piece, the sooner he could get on with his work. “Say what you’re here to say.”

“Fine then, Special Agent Druce.” She emphasized his title to demonstrate that it was time for business. “You’ve been conducting an unauthorized investigation into an incident outside your jurisdiction. You need to stop immediately.”

“An incident involving a metahuman operating under the direction of an FBSA dispatcher. How is that not within my jurisdiction?”

“It has been deemed a matter of national security. All details are classified well above your current clearance. That’s all you need to know.”

Druce was tempted to say ‘Fine, I’ll stop’ and then walk away just to see her reaction. He knew she wouldn’t buy it though. Another part of him wanted to say ‘You’re not the boss of me’ but there are certain lines you don’t cross when there are trained killers watching your every move. Just because he hadn’t spotted Agent Sanford yet didn’t mean the OpGroup’s top wetwork specialist wasn’t nearby.

“Fine,” he said after a moment’s consideration. “Present me with a documented order signed by the head of your agency and I’ll back off.” Agent Loud actually frowned at his audacity, which meant inside she was probably seething. For all the power and authority her group wielded, often like a club, there were certain things they simply could not do. Admitting their existence in a publically viewable document was one of them.

“What is your problem, Martin?” she demanded. “Why do you keep poking your nose into our business? You know what we’re doing is important.”

“It’s because of the way you do it,” he answered in a carefully neutral tone. “The black ops. The special deals. The people you support in exchange for favors. We don’t need to buy our own liberty at the cost of others.”

“Stop being such a boy scout, Martin! We’re not the bad guys.” Jennifer looked seriously hurt, and seriously angry. “Is that the problem? Are you still trying to be the big Hero? You’re not ‘Supercharge’ anymore, Martin. You’re just a washed up has-been. A bureaucrat with a badge. For god’s sake they’ve got you teaching children now of all things.”

“I hope I do a better job teaching them than I did with you.”

Agent Loud just stared at him for a minute, rage and indignation fighting for control of her face. Then she suddenly smiled and began laughing. “Are you for real, old man? I think you’ve lost your grip on reality. I mean, why else would you be so convinced there’s anything suspicious about this, this incident last month?”

“Because we’re having this conversation.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean ‘methinks the off-the-books government black-ops agency doth protest too much’, that’s what I mean. The incident was nothing. So why go to so much trouble to clean it? You might as well have hung up a sign saying ‘Caution: Unethical operation in progress’.”

“You’re paranoid, Martin.”

“Does that mean you’re not out to get me?”

“I have nothing more to say to you. Stop your investigation now or it will be stopped for you. Understand?”

“You’ve made yourself very clear, Agent Loud.”

“Good-bye then.” She walked away briskly with McGruder in tow. Martin waited until they were out of sight before checking his car’s engine and undercarriage.

Hell yeah, he was paranoid.

He was also on the clock.

It was Agent Loud who gave him the idea, ironically enough. She’d been attempting to mock him by referring to his teaching assignment, but instead he’d felt a sense of pride. It was a cliché but these young people were the future. Many of them would go on to become the next generation of Heroes. Others would leverage their unique abilities to serve society in other ways, like healing or research. Even those destined for perfectly mundane lives were showing incredible discipline by learning to control the powerful and often frightening powers within them.

Martin Druce could only hope that he was doing his part to help each one along on their chosen path.

“Uh, hi?” a tentative-sounding voice interrupted his thoughts and brought him back to the present. Cassandra Finch stood by the door, hesitant to enter the forbidding territory of the teacher’s lounge.

“Hello Miss Finch, thank you for coming,” he said in as welcoming a voice as he could muster. The shy black-haired girl wasn’t one of his Heroes-to-be, but she’d performed well in his class anyway. She also possessed one of those unique abilities he’d been thinking about. That’s why he’d asked her to see him after class. “Please have a seat,” he added, pointing to the chair across the coffee table from where he was sitting.

Cassandra took the indicated seat, probably still nervous about why she was there. She fidgeted with the cuff of her uniform shirt and kept her thoughts to herself. Druce knew he’d have to put her at ease before getting to the point.

“The first thing I want to say is that you’re not in any kind of trouble,” he began. The look of relief on the girl’s face was instant and obvious. Druce went on. “I’ve asked you here in the hopes that you’ll do me a favor. You’re under no obligation to do so.”

“Oh. Uh, okay… I guess?” Cassandra still looked uncomfortable but her curiosity was clearly engaged. It was a start.

Martin reached into his briefcase and pulled out a small jar. Placing it on the table in front of her, he said “I would like to know where the contents of this jar have been.”

Cassandra leaned forward to examine the jar. It was a small 12 oz clear glass container. Inside were a number of metal shavings and fragments. The largest piece was a cylindrical lump no bigger than the tip of her little finger.

“I realize you may get nothing,” Druce continued, “but if you’re willing to…” He was cut off as Cassandra realized what she was looking at.

“Is that… Oh, cool!” The girl’s expression brightened and she finally stopped fidgeting. “I can totally look.” She continued to peer at the bullet fragments in apparent fascination. “Was that in somebody? Or… uh, I guess you don’t know, huh?”

Martin hesitated, unsure whether to answer. Finally he decided to trust her with the truth. “It was. Will that be a problem for you?”

Cassandra started to answer but then stopped and frowned thoughtfully.

“If it helps,” Martin tried to reassure her, “the man who was shot survived.”

The girl regained some of her earlier animation. “I have to try that kind of stuff sometime anywa…” She trailed off, apparently registering what Druce had said.

“He’s fully recovered now.”

“Oh cool.” Cassandra stopped. “I mean, good for him.” She stopped again. There was an uncomfortable pause.

“So will you look?” Druce asked to get things moving again. She nodded and picked up the jar without answering. After removing the lid she set it back on the table and began tugging off one of her gloves.

Martin waited patiently while Cassandra carefully picked up the jar with her still-gloved hand and carefully tipped the contents into her bare one. She took care not to let the jar itself make contact with her exposed skin. Nothing seemed to happen at first, then her eyes went blank and the jar slipped from her hand. A startled Druce reached out involuntarily but the jar landed safely in the girl’s lap.

A minute later she began to blink. “That was kind of anticlimactic,” she said. Noticing the jar was no longer in her hand, she carefully picked it up and set it back on the table.

“Does that mean you didn’t see anything?” Martin was careful to keep any emotion out of his voice.

“Oh no, I did.”

Cassandra held up the hand still containing the bullet fragments. “These were back in the jar on a shelf with a bunch of other jars… like in evidence or something.”

Martin nodded. He already knew what she’d seen but allowed her to continue.

“And this guy practically in a movie thief costume stuck the jar in a bag.” She used her free hand to gesture to her face. “He had one of those face masks and everything.”

The thing about a black costume and mask, Druce thought to himself, is that everyone sees a thief, but usually that’s all they’ll see. He suppressed a smile and asked “So you wouldn’t be able to identify him?”

Cassandra frowned. “Probably not. I mean, just from his build, and that’s not really enough…”

“That’s alright,” he cut in, hoping to distract her from any further attempt to identify the thief. “He’s not the one I’m interested in anyway.” Martin kept his tone light, but inside he was disappointed. The seeing didn’t go back far enough. He needed her to see the bullets before they were fired. Then it hit him.

Bullets. She was reading fragments from two bullets. Druce didn’t know much about Cassandra’s ability but it seemed reasonable that trying to read two objects at once would reveal only their shared history.

“Would you be willing to try again?” he asked.

“Uh, sure, I guess.” She sounded a little skeptical, but certainly willing to try. Good enough.

“What you’re holding is actually the remains of two separate bullets,” he explained. “One of them is entirely shattered, but you can see that the other is still relatively intact.” Cassandra studied the fragments as he spoke, re-evaluating what she was looking at based on this new information. “What I’d like you to do is read only that largest piece.”

It took a bit of careful juggling, but Cassandra was able to get all of the other bullet fragments back into the jar without dropping any or accidently touching the container to her bare skin. She then gingerly transferred the remaining piece back to her bare hand, turning it over and peering at it. Suddenly her hand tightened around the bullet and her eyes once again went blank.

The seeing took longer this time. Martin balanced his impatience against the likelihood of a longer seeing yielding more information. Even so, the wait was interminable. He could feel the clock ticking on his investigation and even on his career. He’d crossed a line to get his hands on this evidence. If it couldn’t be converted into some kind of solid lead, he was literally out of options and probably out of time.

Finally Cassandra snapped out of her trance, blinking rapidly and then rubbing at her eyes with her free hand. Anxious as he was to hear what she’d seen, Druce waited for her to speak first.

“Okay…” she began.

“You saw something?” Patience had its limits.

“Yeah,” she went on, too focused on recalling what she’d seen to register any rudeness. “There was a guy loading a rifle… I’m not really sure what kind.” Druce allowed himself to relax slightly. This was an encouraging start. “In a warehouse, and there were a lot of other men there too, all in these blue-grey uniforms and helmets like…” Here she paused, trying to find words to describe them. “Uh, like those aerodynamic bicycle ones?”

Cassandra used her free hand in an attempt to pantomime the shape of the helmets. Druce simply nodded. A picture was beginning to form in his mind but he wanted to hear more.

“We’ll get back to that,” he said in what he hoped was an encouraging tone. “Anything else?”

“They’re all getting ready for something, loading weapons and stuff.” She described the action in present tense, painting a surprisingly vivid picture. “Some of them have jetpacks, and the one with this bullet activates his and flies up through the ceiling. I guess it was open already.”

“Did he exit the building?” Martin could barely hide his growing excitement. If Cassandra could pinpoint the location of this warehouse, or even better, the man’s ultimate destination, he’d have enough information to begin building a case.

“I could kind of make out some skyscrapers, like Steel Canyon… probably the eastern part? Maybe. I’d have to look.” She paused, possibly comparing her seeing to her own memories of the city skyline. Then she gave her head a slight shake and continued. “He kept going, but it must have been right at sunrise.” She rubbed at her eyes again. “I got it straight in the face.”

Caught up in her telling, Druce almost winced himself. It wasn’t exactly an address, but eastern Steel Canyon was a reasonably sized target area. The sunrise putting close to an exact time to the seeing was a massive stroke of luck, possibly even more important than identifying the exact location. He motioned for Cassandra to continue but she just shook her head.

“That was it.”

Martin closed his eyes and took a moment to calm his nerves. He had to consider this a success. It wasn’t all he could have hoped for but it was far more than he’d realistically expected. The girl had dealt him a new set of cards, now it was his job to turn them into a winning hand. He opened his eyes and smiled at her.

“First off, thank you very much, Miss Finch. You’ve been very helpful.”

Cassandra tipped the bullet back into the jar and smiled. “You’re welcome.” She checked her hand for stray bullet bits before pulling her glove back on.

“Thanks, I’ll take that.” Martin picked up the jar, carefully replaced the lid, and returned it to his briefcase. “Now if you’ll just do one last thing for me…” He flipped his laptop open and quickly called up an image from his reference library. Then he swung the machine around so Cassandra could see the screen. “The men you saw, did they look anything like this?”

She nodded without hesitation. “Exactly like that.”

“Thank you very much. You’ve been a great help, Miss Finch.”

“Thanks for letting me try,” she said uncertainly.

“You did great.”

“So that’s it?”

Druce smiled at the girl’s attempt to hide her eagerness to escape from the teacher’s lounge. “That’s it. You can go now.”

Cassandra hopped up. “Cool. Um, see you in class, I guess?”

“Take care, Miss Finch.” As she was leaving he spun his laptop around and looked once again at the image he’d called up.

‘So…’ he thought to himself. ‘Sky Raiders. Very interesting.’

He shut down the machine and began packing his things. There was work to do.

There was a time when you could just walk in here, but fortunes change and once forgotten men rise again to prominence and the attention that comes with it. Martin Druce had to flash his badge to get into the parking garage. There was another uniformed guard at the elevator. This one had to phone upstairs before passing him through. That gave the FBSA agent time to think.

It shouldn’t have come to this. His agency should have had all the resources he needed. Just to go through the motions, Martin had checked the FBSA database first. Sure enough, the file listing the names of all Sky Raiders taken into custody on July 3rd, 2011 was flagged as Classified. He’d need written authorization from an Assistant Director or higher to even look at it. He briefly wondered whether Agent Sung had a mole in the FBSA or if she’d simply had her Director bully his into compliance.

The guard put down his phone and waved Druce towards the elevator. Martin pressed the button and waited for the World War II era lift to make its way down to the garage. He liked old buildings, possibly because they made him feel young. He wondered if the man he was here to see felt the same way.

Old things had value, but new things had their uses too. With the agency’s data unavailable to him, Druce had once again turned to his laptop and the unauthorized backups he’d downloaded on the Fourth. It took a few hours to make sense of the cryptic file names and locate the information he needed, but eventually he was able to put together a list. There were fourteen names on it, all members of the Sky Raiders and all arrested in Steel Canyon on the 3rd of July. Nine of the arrests were credited to Hero Designation Simply Simon, the other five to various PPD officers.

The elevator door opened and Martin politely allowed two elderly women to exit before he entered. After assuring himself that no one else was waiting to board, he pressed the button to take him to the eleventh floor. Eleven was a significant number because that was how many of the names from his list appeared in the Zig’s records. The other three had simply vanished. This surprised Druce because even the NSA shouldn’t have the authority to tamper with Department of Justice files. If they did, all fourteen names would have been missing. It barely mattered. Each of the eleven men had been released on July 6th and all charges against them had been dropped. Sung’s fingerprints were all over that.

Martin’s shoulder erupted in stabs of pain as he stepped out of the elevator. He briefly considered popping one of the pills from the bottle in his pocket but quickly dismissed the thought. In the seven years since they’d been prescribed, he’d yet to take even one. He was on his fourth bottle now, all unopened. He’d seen too many good men and good women lose themselves to addiction. He’d rather deal with the pain than face the possibility of losing control.

He’d already lost control of his investigation, not to mention his temper when his last lead had proved useless. It was a good thing the office was empty when his contact at Ziggursky sent him a copy of the release records. His requisition for a new phone simply said ‘accidental damage’. He’d covered the hole in the wall with a painting.

His class the next morning, this morning, had been all about teamwork. He’d emphasized the importance of combining efforts and not taking on more than you can handle. He’d reminded his students of their experiences in the field sessions. Teams that worked together had succeeded easily. Those that separated and tried to function as individuals usually failed. Communication was stressed, as well as the value of shared planning. “If you ever think even for a moment that you might be in over your head,” he’d closed with, “never, never be afraid to ask for help.”

It was time to take his own advice.

The guards in the hall were expecting him. Druce paid them little mind as he walked up to the door marked ‘1103’ and gave it a sharp rap using the ornate knocker. A minute later the door was opened by a tough looking older man with a bald head and a lit cigar sticking out of his mouth. He wore khakis and a crisp white shirt with no tie.

“What do you want, kid?” he asked in a gruff but not entirely unfriendly voice.

“Special Agent Martin Druce, FBSA” Martin answered respectfully. “If you have a moment, General Aarons, I’d like to talk to you about the Sky Raiders…”

Special Agent Martin Druce tapped his pencil on his desk and looked at the clock once again. It was quarter past six. Exactly five minutes after the last time he’d looked and close to two hours since he’d arrived at the office after rushing back from the Academy. General Aarons had promised to send him a package this afternoon and by most reckonings afternoon was already over.

He tapped his pencil again.

“Can we talk, Martin?” Senior Agent Lindsay Wong stood in his doorway with a worried expression on her face. Druce put the pencil down and politely waved his supervisor towards his spare chair.

“What can I do for you, ma’a… Lindsay?” It was getting a little easier to use her first name. He supposed she was wearing him down with her relentless cheerfulness. That’s why it surprised him to see her looking so nervous.

She uncharacteristically shut the door behind her before taking the offered chair. Then she hesitated, looking around the room and frowning as if she wasn’t sure how to begin. Finally she looked him straight in the eye and said “Is everything okay?”

“Sure, everything’s fine,” he answered quickly. Martin put on his best poker face but inside he wasn’t comfortable with where this was going.

“There’s not anything going on that… you’d like to talk about, is there?” Lindsay looked like she’d rather be anywhere else, but she was responsible for everything that happened in this office and that included him.

“My classes at Westbrook wrapped up today, and I think you’re fully up to date on the developments with the Training Center… “. He did his best to act clueless, but clearly someone had tipped her off to his extra-curricular activities. It was inconvenient, but in a strange way it also demonstrated that he could trust her. If she was Sung’s mole, she’d have said nothing or else come in hard and shut him down. Instead it sounded more like she was concerned for him.

He hated betraying a good boss.

“Nothing like that,” she waved him off before he could list the remainder of his duties. “I meant… anything going on with you? Is anything troubling you? Personal problems, issues around the office, job stress, stuff like that. You know you can come to me about anything, right?” Her tone was serious but also compassionate. Martin got a real sense of being reached out to, not just as superior to subordinate but an offer of friendship.

He hated betraying a good person.

“That’s good to know, I’ll keep that in mind.” His tone was brisk. His face gave away nothing. Inside he felt like a bastard. He knew that if he messed up, he was probably taking her down with him. She was responsible for his actions, and by failing to rein him in right now, she was unknowingly putting her own career in jeopardy.

Lindsay looked like she was about to say more when a knock interrupted her. She pursed her lips thoughtfully, then stood up and walked to the door. With her hand on the doorknob she stopped and looked back at Druce.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Martin,” she said. Then she opened the door and left, pausing only to smile at the spandex-clad man waiting outside.

“Come on in,” Martin sat back in his chair and made a welcoming gesture to the newcomer. The Hero’s costume was blue and gold with a striking white cape. Druce didn’t recognize him.

“Special Agent Druce?” He had a European accent, possibly Swedish. In his hands was a square brown package about the size of a cigar box. Martin eyed it with interest.

“That’s me. What can I do for you?”

“My name is Njordhammar. I was told to deliver this to you.” He held the box out tentatively.

“Thanks a lot, I’ll take that,” Martin stood up and took the package, taking care not to betray his eagerness. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“No, that’s all. I’ll uh… see you around.” Njordhammer made a hasty exit, probably glad to put this job behind him. No doubt General Aarons had told him the package was important but no Hero ever liked running this kind of errand.

Druce had the box open before the door finished closing. Inside was a data disk which he quickly inserted into his laptop and began copying to his hard drive. The first file was conveniently named READTHISFIRST.doc which was clear enough. Martin opened the file and read the General’s summary of the disk’s contents. Most of the files contained data on all known Sky Raider operations, both domestic and abroad, for the past eight years. The others contained U.S. Military and Vanguard reports on projected future Sky Raider activities. All of this was potentially useful, but it was the note at the bottom of the document that was of immediate interest.

General Aarons had provided the address of the office where the Sky Raiders kept their personnel records. He’d known about it for months but had preferred to have it watched rather than raid the place and reveal how much he knew about their operations. He was sacrificing a chip by sharing this information with Druce and the FBSA agent appreciated that. It was a sound play, though. These records would lead him to his missing eleven troopers, and with any one of them in hand, he could force out the truth about Sung’s involvement with their organization.

Druce grabbed his field bag and practically ran for the elevators. This would be a simple job. The office was a front operation in Galaxy City, but security would have to be light in such a public location. No need to worry about heavily armed guards and advanced robots. He was mentally planning his route when he practically ran over Agent Wong in the lobby.

“Whoa there, Martin, can I give you a lift?” she said with an amused grin, no sign of her earlier uneasiness showing. Druce stopped and gaped. He was embarrassed about almost hitting her, but more dumbfounded by her casual offer. Did she really know where he was going? Was she actually offering to help? He realized almost instantly that was impossible but not fast enough to keep the momentary confusion from showing on his face.

“The budget meeting?” she went on, still looking amused. “You haven’t forgotten, have you? The Director is anxious to hear your report on the Drone program.” Druce mentally cursed, then silently berated himself for losing track of the date. Fortunately the report was ready, but he hated putting off his mission for even a few hours.

“No, I’m ready,” he said slowly. “A ride would be great. I just realized I forgot my briefcase. Let me head up to the office and get it. I’ll meet you in the carpark.”

Lindsay smiled and agreed with his plan. She continued outside while he turned and made his way back to the elevators feeling largely deflated. He was just about to press the up button when another voice caught his attention.

“Hiya Mister Druce!”

Martin turned to see Pierce Drummond, one of his Westbrook students, standing a few feet away in full patrol gear. He wasn’t alone. The floating mist-shrouded boy to his left was Louis Duschesne and a few feet farther back was Sondra Blake, a grey-skinned girl dressed all in black and white.

“Hi Pierce. What can I do for you?” He tried to be polite. The young elemental manipulator was one of his most enthusiastic pupils.

“We’re here to run the last exercise again.” The boy sounded eager to go and Louis was nodding his head energetically. “We want to set a record time!” Druce was about to wish them luck when another idea popped into his head. These three might be teenagers, but they were also provisionally-licensed Heroes and all were reasonably competent. Surely they could handle a simple retrieval mission?

“That sounds great, but I have another idea,” he answered with an encouraging smile. “How would you three like to earn some extra credit?”