Nothing's Improbable: Investigate

[Westbrook Academy]

((This thread is to be used for fiction relating to the ongoing investigation into the incident at the beginning of the arc. Please see this link for guidelines for this thread. Please PM questions to Mia Cobol (@Wynter Snow) or David Hurt (@JelloMold). Investigate away!))

[Faige Harrison]

Faige bit her lower lip, following Herrera down the hallway almost silently. What was she in trouble for? Her mind raced. Those stink bombs in the school cafeteria weren't directly her fault, how could she have known why they wanted so many cans of tuna-- They reached a door, not the headmaster's office. It simply said "Security."

"Why don't you just tell me what this is all about..." she offered. "I wanna know what I'm in trouble for at least."

"You aren't in trouble, Faige. Come on." He pushed the door aside and let Faige pass him. Inside the room was one other person she recognized but couldn't place.

"This is Mr. Dauchamp, head of security." Mr. Herrera gestured and the man gave a nod. "Given your new abilities, Faige, we want to ask you if you'd review the security tapes for us and see if you can piece together some information on the individual that affected the powers swapping."

Faige nodded, rubbing the back of her neck slowly. "I... I guess I can give it a shot." she said, eyes moving over to the bank of monitors. "I can probably do it faster than you guys anyway."

"That's why we're asking you." Mr. Herrera smiled, walking over to the monitors and turning a comfortable looking office chair around. "You can sit here while you're in. We will lock the door and you will be completely safe."

"Okay, yeah, you guys know I'm gonna go comatose right?"

Mr. Herrera smiled. "We're familiar with your abilities, Faige, after all Donovan Taffer had them before you."

"Okay just... just don't freak out. Some people still freak out." she said, lowering herself into the chair. "Is it accessible through here?" she gestured vaguely to the monitors.

"Yes they are digital files, it should all be ready to go."

"Okay..."

Faige took a deep breath, then reached forward and touched one of the screens with her hand. She never thought she'd get used to the way the transfer felt, the few milliseconds of limbo feeling like hours until she found her consciousness inside the school's security system. It was password protected but all the necessary logging in had already been done for her.

She began to open files, looking at several different cameras POV's at once to isolate the man in the suit and track him from the moment he had appeared in the first room, one of the labs, and then in two more classrooms. According to the timestamps, there was virtually no travel time between stops. He looked a touch unsure of himself after each defeat. He did not appear as confident as Faige assumed he should be. Perhaps some kind of lackey, not the boss.

A text box appeared beside the rolling footage and she noted this for the head master and security head to read.

The last empty class room he entered caused a visible moment of panic to wash over his demeanor before he looked to a bulletin board beside him. Another demeanor shift and his confidence seemed to return as he pressed a few more buttons on what was probably his teleportation device, though it seemed a bit unusual. She zoomed in for a few stills from a couple angles.

Once in the theater, the cameras followed him until the first pulse from his device caused them to flicker and go pixilated. In the theater was, however, the best shot that Faige could get of the man's face and of the device. The camera zoomed in, taking several stills of what looked like a pretty run of the mill office worker type. The device itself, a strange metal cylinder, about a foot long. With the stills on the screen, the text in the box read. "Put my hand on the screen."

Mr. Herrera picked up Faige's hand and touched it to the screen. A few seconds later she sat up and rubbed her face with her hands. "I got what I could, I hope that helps."

"It helps quite a bit." The head master said, offering a hand to help her stand. "You can head back to class now. Thank you again Faige."

She nodded her head and pushed the door with her hand. "Do I have to keep this to myself?" she said, pausing.

"You can let others know what you found. We're a team, after all."

Smiling, she gave a little wave before heading off into the hallway.

[Guillermo Espinosa]

Espy was tired of sitting around. Around him, students were getting use to their new powers, some of them even enjoyed it. But him? He had just gotten his old powers, and even though he couldn’t be normal…he missed them.

Fully convinced that this was a magic thing, Espy made his way to Mr. Maximillian’s office. He knocked on the door, waiting a few minutes to come out.

“Yes?”, said Mr. Maximillian. This was the first time Espy had ever spoken to the mage face to face, he never had any reason to.

“Oh, hey, I’m Guillermo, I was wondering if you had time to answer some questions.”

Maximillian looked him up and down. “Football team, right?”

“Yea! Have you seen me play?” He felt good to be recognized by one of the staff. It meant he was doing his job.

“You’re wearing a letterman jacket.” Guillermo forgot that he’d taken his jacket from Faige for the day. It was supposed be gameday, but it got postponed. He would have to wear it again tomorrow.

“Oh. Right. Um…alright, so this thing that’s going on…I just wanted to know how much you knew about it…” Espy couldn’t help but think that he should have thought this through further.

“Its not magic. Sure, there was a minor, mystical component to it. But the majority of it…if it’s magic, I would have known for sure.” Mr. Max wiped the sweat of his brow. Clearly he had been at work…that, or doing something extremely inappropriate.

“Ok…thanks.”

Not magic. Has to be tech…I gotta find the IT guy

Espy made his way through the school records, trying to find the senior tech officer. After a few minutes of searching, he pulled the name he needed.

“Jeffrey Singleton.”

----

He made his way to Mr. Singleton’s office, knocking on the door. When it opened, a tall lanky man with stereotypical taped nerd glasses and a pen in his pocket protector.

“Yes can I help you?” He pushed up his glasses as he spoke.

“Uh hey…um…this power-swap thing…do you k—“

Guillermo was quickly interrupted.

“Like I told the last kid, no, I don’t know of any tech that could have done that. No, I don’t know how magic and tech could be combined to do that. And no, I don’t know how the laws of conservation were broken, they just were. Any other questions?”

The door was quickly closed before Espy finished shaking his head. He stood dumbfounded at the door. Clearly the man was overworked, but still…

“Douchebag…” He walked down the halls debating his next move.

Let’s see what the nurses know.

[Twitchcraft]

Brodman didn't like the girl.

It wasn't the flakes of snow that constantly coalesced around her that put him off, either. (Although those were annoying; they'd forced him to meet her in the lobby rather than his computer-filled office.) No, what really rubbed him the wrong way was the fact that she came across as a cop.

She couldn't be more than seventeen, but she was all business. She'd briskly shaken his hand the moment he'd emerged from the elevator and had told him how much she appreciated his help (though her tone suggested that she took his cooperation as little more than her due). She'd gestured him to a couch like she owned the place and had proceeded to lay out papers, photographs and a tablet computer.

Enough was enough, he decided.

"I've already spoken to the police," he said. He put enough emphasis on the last word to ensure that it would be interpreted as the real police. "My time has a certain amount of value, you know."

The girl pushed one of the photographs across to him. It was a grainy black-and-white shot, probably a print-out of some sort. It showed a nondescript man standing in what looked to be an auditorium. Brodman sniffed, caring nothing about either the man or the auditorium.

He started to push the photo back. Something caught his eye, though, and instead he found himself leaning forward. The man had a device on his wrist. Compact, advanced, but still vaguely familiar…

"Didn't show you this, did they?" There was no smugness in the girl's tone, just a flat question.

"No," Brodman murmured, fascinated in spite of himself. He pulled his reading glasses from his pocket and held the photo up to the light. "They were only concerned with whether this fellow -- this is the fellow in question, yes? -- had hacked the Medicom system for his personal use."

"He hadn't, though, had he?"

Brodman shook his head as he exchanged the first photograph for another. "No, as I told the pol -- the other people who came to talk to me, we run a very secure system here at Medicom. We added the device's energy signature to our database just in case, of course. But these --" A frown creased his broad features. "I can't understand why they didn't show me these."

The girl shrugged. "Expect they got some experts of their own."

Brodman huffed a little. As though the FBSA or the PPD's teleportation technicians had as much practical experience in the application of transmaterial technology. The very idea! Medicom handled transports every day, after all! He shuffled the photographs rapidly, assuring himself he'd at least have a glimpse of each one.

"Look as long as you want, sir." The ghost of a smile flickered across the girl's lips. "I, for one, 'preciate the expert eye."

He acknowledged the compliment with what he hoped was a humble bow.

He lingered over the evidence for the better part of an hour. Occasionally the girl would interrupt with a question, but her queries were always intelligent -- surprisingly so, given her jeans-and-t-shirt appearance and that atrocious drawl! -- so he didn't mind that much.

"In summary," he said, tapping the photographs, "I believe we're looking at something new here. Likely a one-off. Quite possibly crafted by the person using it. Who, I should add, is keenly intelligent."

"If that thing doesn't run off Medicom," said the girl, raising a placating hand as Brodman's expression soured over the implication, "what all would you need ta make it work?"

He ticked the components off on his hand. "A GPS, of course. A computer and the software to translate that GPS data into coordinates for a jaunt. A power source, although whether that's internal or some sort of relay, I couldn't say." He nodded to himself. "The shopping list itself looks simple, I know, but it would require a good deal of resourcefulness."

The girl considered this for a moment. Then she swept the materials into her backpack and rose. "Doctor Brodman, I sure do 'preciate all the help. You've been a godsend, sir. A sure-enough godsend."

She extended her hand, and he took it.

"Well -- yes -- that is -- I appreciate your confidence in me, Ms. Blackburn," he said, surprising himself. The girl nodded crisply. "If you have more questions…"

"Know where to find you. Thank you again, sir."

The snow lingered in the lobby for a good five minutes after she was gone. Brodman didn't mind.

After all, he liked the girl.

[Exo-1 Stryker]

"C'mon Taylor, come jump in my lap. Don't be that way... aww there you go, that's better."

The large black chair was facing away from her when she entered his room.

"Who are you talking to Sydney Walker?"

With that, the chair slowly spun around in dramatic fashion, sunken into it sat Sydney Walker with a strange looking creature sitting in his lap, a metal gauntlet covering his hand as he stroked the feline like creature gently.

"What the hell did you name after me this time?" Taylor shoved a hand on her hip as she gave him an accusing glance.

Sydney looked serious for all of three seconds before he beamed his smile. "It’s a Porcuucat, and I only named it after you because of the obvious resemblance.

The quilled feline looked slightly apprehensive at the new person in the room letting out a small hiss, raising the spines on its back, before relaxing as Sydney carefully rubbed its back with the gauntlet.

"See, tell me she doesn't look exactly like you when you get all mad at something."

The daggers in her eyes only made things worse. "You see, like that, right there!"

Taylor huffed, taking a deep breath. Anyone else she would have pursued it further, but she was smart enough to know banging your head against a brick wall, won't get you anywhere.

"So why exactly do you have a por... porcuucat?"

Syd shrugged "I dunno, seemed like a good idea at the time? Keith down at the lab let me borrow some DNA samples. I keep telling him if he is going to get into mad science he needs a name much scarier than Keith, I mean really, I'm near embarrassed to say it."

"It seemed like a good idea?" Taylor carefully approached the porcuucat, to see if it was friendly.

"Well that and you know the power swap chambers. You gotta start somewhere right? Mad science is a lot harder than it looks. I mean don't get me wrong the money is good, especially if you have a good publisher."

He reached over grabbing a book off his desk, holding it up with his free hand. "Mad Science for Dummies"

"I mean the guy who wrote this. Dr. Barnyard? He's in prison and is still making money off it. But yeah, I'm thinking while Taylor is very cute, it’s a long way off from power transfer with some sort of permanence."

The porcuucat, let out a low hum of a purr as Taylor gently rubbed a quill free area under its chin.

"Basically, I've been looking at this from the wrong direction. Trying to blindly reproduce what the guy did to everyone when I should have been trying to reverse engineer it."

Taylor looked up to him as she knelt, playing with the now seemingly friendly creature, minding the quills. "By reverse engineer it you mean....."

"Right! I need a subject who has been exposed to the process to run tests on."

There was a groan even before the sentence finished. "I told you Sydney Walker, I'm not getting in your fly chamber. Not after you made me watch every version of the movie during that marathon."

There was a snicker as the porcuucat hissed at Taylor "She doesn't like it when you go against my wishes. You'd be wise to remember this Ms. Brenton. There there Taylor, it’s okay."

He went back to stroking its back, seeming to pacify the creature.

"But yeah, I mean this is more hook you up to some things. Draw some blood. Brain scans, anything that can maybe pin point something about what happened, a starting point for it all."

With his free hand, he slid a stack of papers across his desk.

"You want me to sign these, don't you?" her tone was slightly exasperated, as if she had been through something like this before.

"Of course, just your standard consent forms, privacy, possible tests and side effects."

Taylor cut him off as she read "This page here says you have the right to combine my DNA with the DNA of other creatures to make genetic improvements"

"I just figured, after you saw the Porcuucat, you might be down for that? Plus, you still read these?"

She tossed that page aside, signing the others after reading them. "That right there is the very reason I still read these Sydney Walker."

Sydney slowly turned in his oversized chair, back into the shadows. "I expect you tomorrow, in the lab, so we can begin with the genetic enhancements."

"I did not sign that paper Sydney Walker!" She called out.

"Fine, fine, have it your way. You don't mind if I test you, do you Taylor?"

There was a hiss from the creature followed by a yelp from the boy in the chair. "Stupid quills!"

(Part 2, soon to follow with something actually pertinent to the situation and this thread, I just ended up breaking the story up.)

[Toxstrike]

Jeanette got the text sometime overnight, while she was sleeping. Apparently her brother decided he'd try to help. She didn't expect it, but she made a note to thank him, whether or not it panned out. He found some sort of mutant genius who'd managed to give herself powers, worked for a bit as a hero, then became a researcher in the genetics department at Paragon U.

Even though it was a Saturday, Jeanette took the trip over to the Steel Canyon campus, hoping to at least come away with some way of contacting the former heroine. She asked a few people, who pointed her toward the science building, and a guard, after taking a look at Jeanette's license, allowed her in and gave her directions to the labs, saying the doctor was indeed working.

For her part, Maggie Talic, was indeed a genetics prodigy, and was working on the project of her career, something that got her attention before she gave up her own heroic aspirations. She stared at the readouts, vague blobs to the untrained eye, but a treasure trove of information to her mutant mind. Only the knock at the door of the lab broke her concentration as she catalogued the data.

The barely 20, pink haired scientist opened the door to the lab, "Can I help you?" She spoke quickly. Jeanette was surprised to see her.

"I'm sorry, I'm looking for Dr. Talic. Is she around?" Jeanette tried to peer in around the girl before her, looking for evidence of other people working.

"That's me. You don't look like any of Professor Mand's students. What do you need?" She closed the door slightly behind her, preventing Jeanette from seeing anything inside.

Jeanette swallowed hard, "I was hoping you could help with an investigation. I'm from--"

"I'm not a hero anymore, sorry. Look, you could probably find a bunch of them hanging out in Blyde Square, or even take a trip over to city hall back in Atlas Park. Sorry." She turned around and was taken aback when Jeanette stopped her from closing the door in the high schooler's face.

"No, I need your expertise. I go to a private school for metas and we all had our powers messed with. I was hoping you could help figure out how." Jeanette was stern and looked the doctor in the eyes as she spoke.
Maggie opened the door and let Jeanette in, "Messed with how?" Jeanette started to explain the situation. The interrupted assembly, the waves of energy and how students had swapped or lost powers. The young doctor inquired about the sources of these powers, and seemed genuinely shocked at the wide range of who was affected.

Finally, she replied, "This is bigger than what I could even begin to guess at. But this sounds incredibly dangerous. Tell you what, I'm going to try and get in contact with a few people from my supergroup. I'm sure one of them can help. At least with figuring out how that could be done."

The two exchanged phone numbers, before Jeanette let the young doctor get back to work and left the campus. It might have been a dead end, but she felt better having found a place to start.

[Taylor Brenton]

Part -2-

Sydney pushed on Taylor’s shoulders from behind, trying to urge her into the machine.

“Taylor, I promise you won’t turn into a human fly hybrid. This isn’t even the right machine for that.” She pushed back, a hand on each side of the entrance, keeping her from being shoved inside.

“I told you Sydney Walker, I’m not climbing into any of your machines, not after that stupid porcucat bit me and you said to watch out for any quills sprouting out of my back”

“That was a joke! It was just a joke, you can’t catch porcucat-it-ted-ness! I don’t think at least.” She pushed back against him hard, letting out an exasperated huff.

“I got an extra copy of Modern Warfare 3?” She stopped struggling, looking back over her shoulder.

“You do?” Sydney nodded slow to her.

“Uh huh, and it is yours if you climb in there so I can run a few tests. “ Taylor gave it a long moments thought before letting her hands slowly fall from the entrance to the chamber.

“So help me Sydney, if I end up with an extra limb or something, I’m going to use it to beat you to death. “

“Relax, this chamber doesn’t do anything like that. That one over there has a better chance of doing that. Or was it the other way around?” Taylor went to protest, but the door quickly sealed as she banged on the glass window her voice muffled slightly, but clear enough to hear.

“I know where you sleep!” Sydney hopped over to the control panel, trying not to make eye contact as he let out a snicker.

“I’m teasing, I’m teasing! We didn’t find anything from the standard tests… which makes sense since you’ve already been through those.”

“Then why the hell did you feel the need to have my arm pricked by 3 needles!” She banged on the glass again, glaring at him. He shrugged as he turned a few dials, pulling a lever as the machine started to make a whirling sound.

“I guess I really didn’t need to. Stop moving!” Taylor crossed her arms over her chest, narrowing her eyes at him as the whirling turned into a hum, red lights flashing before a blue intense looking beam appeared above her head.

“Syyyyyd?” she asked in a worried tone. “Is here a reason why what’s above my head looks like that chamber out of the original Resident Evil Movie?”

“You mean the one that sliced the squad to bits one by one until it screwed over the last guy with that web of beams? Nah. It does look like it though, doesn’t it!”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Streams of data flowed across his three monitors, as he’d occasionally bring up another window with a specific chain of data, looking at it more carefully.

“This is good hot cocoa, I’m kind of surprised, Walker.”

“What can I say, the acetylene torch toasts a mean marshmallow. Plus add a shot of dark roast to kick up the caffeine in it and you are set.”

“You have a coffee maker in your lab?” Syd looked around, laughing a bit.

“I built 4 Exo suits, I’m pretty sure I can handle a cup of coffee with everything I have here. Plus I’d have felt bad making you go get some after you lost all that blood.” Taylor punched his arm with that.

“Which I didn’t need to do!” He rubbed his arm a bit.

“Hey, I said I was sorry. Besides, better to test it for myself just to make sure they didn’t miss anything.” She was about to respond before he sat his drink down, both hands rapidly tapping keys at the keyboard.

“Hey, wait, hold on. What’s this?” Taylor leaned up with him to look.

“What is it?”

“See this here? It looks like you are glowing, only not on a visible spectrum. You are putting off an energy signature that, huh. I wonder if….” He slid his chair back across the floor to another table, digging out a few pieces of equipment. Taylor followed close behind him.

“What is it? Am I like an infrared tracker or something?” Syd held up a finger, like she had given him another idea, sliding his chair across the floor to another bin, pulling out another small device.

“Isn’t that the ghost tracker you were going to… how did you put it.. “donate to the dumbasses at ghost hunters, so we can get it off the air and bring back Battle Star Galactica?” which by the way, did you ever hear back from them?” Sydney grumbled as he slid back to the other table.

“They thanked me for my concern and gave me tickets to some wrestling thing." He pulled out a tray of tools, setting to work, Taylor leaning over his shoulder.

“This is going to be one of those things where you don’t tell me what you are doing, isn’t it?”

The device now finished sat on the table, it looked sort of like a complicated control for a remote control plane. In the center, what looked to be a display taken from a GPS unit. Taylor sat hunched over in a chair, possibly passed out while playing her DS. Hours ago, giving up watching Sydney trying to construct whatever he had set his mind too.
Sydney laughed madly as he held it up, causing Taylor to sit up quickly, looking around to see what had happened.

“It’s so simple! Okay actually it’s the opposite of simple, but I think we have a lead.” Taylor threw her jacket over her shoulders, pulling her legs up onto the chair .

“What time is it? Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”
Sydney yelled out: “Probably! Let’s go get some food before curfew!” With that, he put the device down flipping it off and walked towards the door. “Are you coming?”

[Jason Dumarr]

-Warning: language, violence.-

Carl pushed past a stack of mold-covered palettes as he sought refuge in the old warehouse. The King’s Garment works had historically been Skull territory, but this latest deal was going to give the small group of Outcasts a foothold in the row. Of course, a couple patrolling capes had come in made a mess of things, but Carl had a plan. He figured that if he could grab some of the merchandise and slip out the back, he could still make a profit.

“You know, this warehouse isn’t that big. Not too many places to hide.”

The voice startled Carl, and he careened right into the piled crates. He reached out to the nearest container, its contents strewn before him. Grabbing an automatic rifle, he stumbled to his feet. As he turned, the rifle was ripped from his grasp by a hero-suited teen. The color drained from him as the youth snapped the weapon over his knee.

“Don’t give me that look. It’s not exactly like you had a permit for that.”

Carl balled his fist and called upon his fledgling metahuman powers, covering it in a sheath of rock. Rather than a pithy retort, he answered the would-be hero with his tried and true haymaker. He was done playing around.
As it so happened, so was JD. Dipping beneath the Outcast’s fist, he let the blow sail harmlessly over his head. He then sprung forward, driving his knee into the larger man’s stomach. Carl nearly doubled over, but scraped enough energy together for another wild swing. This time, JD pushed the blow across his body and pushed up sharply, dislocating the man’s shoulder with an audible pop. Before Carl could finish shouting out in pain, the boy smashed him in the face with an open palm, dropping him soundly to the floor.

Carl grunted as JD lifted his head off the warehouse floor. Looking the teenager over, noting his scaled appearance, he barely had the energy to summon up a curse.

“F…fuckin’ freak.”

JD smirked before he spoke, slapping the zip-cuffs on Carl’s wrists.

“You’re as mutant as I am, so let’s just cut it. I want some information. You’re going to tell me, or things are going to get rough.”

Carl coughed as he laughed out his response.

“Bullshit. You’re a cape, and a kid. You won’t kill me. So cut the crap and arrest me.”

The smirk disappeared, and was replaced by a fanged grimace.

“No, I won’t kill you. But who said anything about arresting you?”

JD snapped the Zig tag off of the cuffs and tossed it to the floor. Carl crooked an eyebrow, then grunted as the youth lifted him bodily.

“What the hell are you doing?“

Holding Carl by his jacket, JD charged the back wall, and used the unfortunate Outcast to smash out the window. Carl screamed as he felt himself in freefall for a split second, cut short as he jerked to a halt, held by his leg.

“Wha- Jesus Christ! You can’t! you said you wouldn’t-“

“Kill you.” JD interrupted. “And I won’t. This is a pretty short fall, fifteen feet, tops. Sure, you’ll probably roll an ankle, maybe break a leg. Now take a look down there.”

JD indicated the spillway that led into the darkened sewers beyond.

“That’s Vahzilok territory, friend. And with the aforementioned broken leg? Just how fast do you think you’ll be able to run?”

Carl was shaking from terror and pain, the blood rushing to his head making him dizzy. His voice breaking, he began to plead.”

“I don’t…I’m not in charge! Jesus…don’t drop me! Please!”

JD pulled him closer.

“Then tell me what I want to know. I need to know about a gadget peddler. Been making the circuit, selling weird science tech. Looks like a regular guy, wears a worn suit. Name like Protz, or something. Ring any bells?”

“I don’t…I don’t know….”

JD didn’t let him slip more than two inches, but it was enough to set Carl practically into hysterics.

“Oh god, no! I…I think that…Yes! There’s…there’s a guy named Potts! Dr. Potts…..”

“And..?”

Carl swallowed and tried to keep from losing it completely.

“He…he’s supposed to have some deal set up with..with the Freakshow…they said they ordered some 'B1G k4b00m’ machine from him…he’s supposed to deliver it any day. That’s all I know, I swear!”

JD pulled him in and tossed him to the floor.

“Don’t worry, Carl, I believe you. You can relax, now.”

A quick blow to the temple laid Carl out cold, and JD hoisted the man, delivering him to the officers arriving outside. Shaking a bit from what he’d just done, the boy steeled himself and mounted his bike. Revving the engine, he headed straight back to campus with purpose. He had a name, he had a delivery order. It was a long way from a guarantee, but it was something. It was something to bring to Hererra, and that’s just what he intended to do.

[Brodi Andrews]

[A website's address has been delivered to some of the students at the Westbrook Academy. A private website laying within the school's server. A website dedicated to collecting clues and facts.]



(Assume you got it if you wanted it. Those who were at the meeting last night would get one. However, if you couldn't make it and still want to be part of this organized effort, we can finger wave it!)

[Exo-1 Stryker]

Pt. 3

Sydney sat in the small room outside Herrera's office with the device he had spent the better part of the weekend building and improving, beside him, Taylor played with her DS on top of a folder full of papers. She let out a long yawn, sinking lower into her chair, the early morning call to meet him before classes start not going over all that well. The two of them sat there for the better part of twenty minutes before Mr Herrera stepped out of his office.

"You asked to see me Mr Walker? What can I do for you this morning?"

Sydney stood up quickly, cradling the device in his arms. "I found something you should take a look at."

Herrera looked him over a moment, catching the sincerity in his voice "Very well, step into my office and we can talk."

He opened the door for the two of them, as Sydney nudged Taylor away from her game. She looked up with an "Oh" before tucking it away and grabbing the folder to follow him in.

Sydney made his way right over to the desk in the room, finding a spot with enough space to set the device up.

"What have you got there?" Herrera asked in a calm tone.

Taylor almost winced, expecting Sydney to fly off the handle about asking for an explanation before he was ready to give one, but the outburst never came.

"I know a lot of people have been looking for clues in whatever ineffective way lesser..." he paused to clear his throat "They've been looking for clues hoping to find something that will lead them find the man responsible for transferring abilities on campus, as well as taking a few. I figured look into possibly recreating the science but three porcu..."

Taylor nudged him. "But I really didn't have much of a place to start, so I thought maybe I could reverse engineer it in some way after scanning Taylor here with, well, some scanners I had mainly for my suits but they do a lot more than that."

Herrera seemed patient to listen to the information being given, splitting his attention between Sydney and the device on the desk.

"Anyway, the data is all there." Sydney motioned to the folder Taylor held "But it won't be much help recreating the process. Way outside what I can do, what I did find however was a very specific energy signature that Taylor now emits. It doesn't seem to have any ties to her actual abilities and it’s certainly not something that was there before. It’s not something you'd likely pick up in an X-Ray or MRI, more like a specific wave frequency that would…"

Taylor nudged him again. "Right, something that I imagine most normal methods of testing wouldn't pick up on. So I thought maybe I could pick up some sort of trail because, well it’s pretty unnatural in the sense that there might be a few laws being broken."

Sydney reached over, turning the device on, the screen from what looked to be a stripped down GPS lighting up with a zoomed in map of Paragon. After flipping a switch, it started to emit a quiet ping, as a circle spread out from their current location. Adjusting a few dials, a small red blip started to form in between pings.

"Okay, that right there is Taylor, if we zoom out, you'll see all these other red dots are located on campus, and they would be the affected students here."

Herrera almost had a small glimmer of hope in his eyes, if he could take it one step further; they might possibly have a lead. He watched carefully, listening to the explanation.

"I ran into some problems yesterday, trying to boost the radius with... well what I had originally built so I had to make a few improvements, but yeah! Um if you could maybe sign for some tech I had to buy, because I had to take it out of my super suit budget and it’s already pretty tight as..." Taylor this time shot her elbow into his side.

"Right! So with a few... expensive upgrades, I was able to boost the signal on the TBT-0013 and came up with this."

He mouthed "Taylor Brenton Tracker" to her and she shot him a look, all the while his fingers rapidly tuning the device to read a larger area while the screen zoomed out.

"So we are here, and the smaller dots near the area would be students at or around campus. But we are definitely getting a signature here, here, and here. And a feint one here and here. Luckily, I left the core program to the GPS, soooooo" he pressed a few buttons on the screen as Taylor took a closer look at it.

"There would be the street addresses of the blips."

"Is that my GPS from my truck?"

Sydney winced a bit, stepping closer to Herrera's side, who had taken on a more serious expression looking at the locations on the map.

There was a gleam in Mr. Herrera's eye and a smile crossed his face as he started to copy down the addresses before Sydney offered him a print out. This was a lead - a solid lead with a physical address to investigate.

"You did the right thing, Mr. Walker." Mr. Herrera said, clamping a hand down on Sydney's shoulder. Syd looked taken back as he glanced at the headmaster's hand, before looking at Taylor who offered a shrug by way of condolences. "Bringing this to my attention was the right thing to do." The last thing Mr. Herrera wanted was a band of students going rogue and getting in over their heads.

"Well, yes." Sydney said, skirting out from the man's grip. "I figured we'd hold off on setting up some surveillance and perhaps some reconaissance until you were brought up to speed."

"Its good that you did." Mr. Hererra nodded, mentally picking a few students to help with the task. "We're going to look into it. Together."