Nighthawk: A Superhero Story (closed for Siobhancan99)

[siobhancan99]

"you're clear" she gestured "go on up before swat gets here." she looked down at George "so. If you want this to stop you're gonna have to make it quick, and tell me what happened to Coda." She crouched to be more eye level with the other woman. She was already tall, looming over her huddled form probably verged on menacing "I just want to keep the collateral damage to a minimum. I hope you can appreciate the fact that your neighbors should be able to live in peace."

 

[Halcyon638]

Koloshenko paused for a moment, then headed up the stairs. George wrapped her bony arms around her chest. “There was this video,” she said, looking off into the far corner of the basement. “There was this video and it blew up. At our school. And Coda—she killed herself because of it.” She looked up at Monica now. “We killed her. And now someone…someone’s not happy.”

Monica could the front door opening along with raised male voices.

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica nodded, "that's about what I figured." She nodded "I think I can tell who. Not that any of you paid enough attention to." She shrugged "I'd ask for protective custody for now." She looked upstairs and then looked around to see if there was a basement window. Usually there was some kind of exit for fire code.

 

[Halcyon638]

Sure enough, Monica spotted a small half-window she could easily squeeze through. George was still staring off into space but lifted her eyes as a hint of moonlight shone through the opening as Monica crawled her way out. “Look up ‘Lindsey Wylde.’ With a ‘y,’” the 24-year-old instructed her.

 

[siobhancan99]

Committing the name to memory, she squeezed out of the hole. That was a surprise. The direction to someone besides Sophie. She was glad she took it easy at that location. She figured she might find that Lindsey worked at first line or had some sort of connection. Making her way between the houses she went back to the sliver, then pulled out her phone and started a search.

 

[Halcyon638]

As the Sliver zipped Monica near her apartment, she found a number of results for Lindsey Wylde. On the first few pages, all of them seemed to be porn: “Lindsey Wylde devours his firm cock on the living room sofa,” “Hot Brunette Lindsey Wylde enjoys two hard cocks,” “Lesbian intern Lindsey Wylde squirting for sexy boss Sandra Saint.”

A little more digging revealed “Lindsey Wylde” to have been an active adult performer in the mid-90s, whose real name was Lindsey Kirkman. Some additional Googling revealed her to be Coda Kirkman’s mother and a 1-time coach of the dance team at Hamon Academy. By the time Monica reached her apartment, she’d been unable to find an address or other current contact information for the woman, with the most recent post invoking her screen name being a Reddit post by a fan who had posted a selfie with her in Germany a few years ago.

 

[siobhancan99]

The plot thickened. This did make her feel like it was maybe still Sophie, unless Lindsey Kirkman was now some sort of engineering prodigy. Or... perhaps married to one. She had to admit Lindsey had been pretty attractive in her heyday. She might have entangled some big wheel at First Line. Sophie remained the best contact. Even if it wasn't her, she might know where Lindsay Wylde ne Kirkman was living these days.

Steering the sliver back to Sophie's, she texted Gabi to say she'd be out most of the night but she'd be back before breakfast and not to wait up.

She could pretty much imagine what happened. Zhang and her friends outed Coda's mom and made life a living hell for the poor girl. Kids were fucked up. Rich kids, in her limited experience with Patterson Lowel, seemed to be the most fucked up.

 

[Halcyon638]

Texting Gabi, Monica saw that she’d received a text from Zoe. “Hey. Is there a chance we could talk in the next couple of days? Hope you both are good.”

When she arrived at Sophie’s house, it was a little past 2:30 in the morning. All of the lights were off except for a faint, flickering light in one of the upstairs rooms. The party down the street had grown silent.

 

[siobhancan99]

Looking at the house and the flickering light, she assumed it was the tv in a bedroom. Someone might be awake. Or someone might be one of those terrible people that sleep with the television on like a philistine. Either way she didn't mind waking that sort of person up, so bold as brass she walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell a number of times.

 

[Halcyon638]

There was no response for a minute or two. Eventually, Monica saw a light come on somewhere on the first floor. A second or two later, a curtain moved and an obese, forty-something woman with the same curly dark hair as Sophie appeared in the window. The woman’s eyes widened in alarm and she quickly shut the curtain.

A small dog began to bark.

 

[siobhancan99]

monica sighed and knocked again "hey. I just want to talk to Sophie. I rang the doorbell for fuck's sake so I'm obviously not interested in kicking in your door but I'm also not going away." She banged again "I can shout what I have to say loud enough for the neighbors to hear if that's what you want. I CAN SHOUT SUPER LOUD ABOUT ALL THE THINGS I CAME TO TALK QUIETLY ABOUT IF THAT'S WHAT YOU WANT."

She shook her head "this is what I get for not breaking in."

 

[Halcyon638]

There was silence for a half-minute. Then, the door opened up, Sophie standing there in a t-shirt and yoga pants, sliding the door chain out of the way. “Sophie!” the middle-aged woman said.

“Mom, it’s okay,” the young woman said nonchalantly, “she’s here to talk to me about Coda.” Monica heard the small dog from before yipping in the background.

“Coda?”

Sophie nodded. “Come in.”

“Sophie, it’s—”

“It’s fine, Mom.” Turning her attention back to Monica, the 20-something asked, “That’s why you’re here. Right?”

 

[siobhancan99]

"Yes. That's why I'm here. I mean I'm mostly here to stop innocent people from being caught in the crossfire, but at the heart of it is your friend and what happened to her. So yeah. I'm here to listen to what you have to say about Coda. Please" Monica gestured "why don't we go for a walk or something so we don't keep your mother up. or sit out back."

 

[Halcyon638]

After some more maternal fretting, Sophie somehow convinced her mother to let her sit out back with Monica. She stood, arms folded across her chest inside her jacket sleeves. “Honestly, I thought the cops would have stopped by before you. Middle school BFFs? Studied robotics at Cal Tech? I sorta kinda thought maybe someone was trying to frame me. But then no one went and tipped off the cops or anything, so…” She held her arms out wide and her palms up. The 20-something seemed to be telling the truth thus far judging from her tone and body language.

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica nodded. "It may be that someone IS trying to frame you. Like maybe someone else had a reason to hate the victims. Or Zhang wanted to tie up loose ends. Murdering your former friends by drone does seem a good way to get your skeletons unearthed so maybe it isn't her." She looked over the girl "So who else, besides you, really loved Coda? I know that there had to be either a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Or someone who wanted to be." She shifted her weight forward. "Do you know anyone connected to her that works at First Line? Some kid with a crush. Maybe her dad or stepdad or something?" She considered briefly that Lindsey Kirkman herself might have gone back to school, but she'd be in her 60s probably and a little old to be learning robotics to the point she could make reliable killer drones. She hadn't seen anything about a sibling.

 

[Halcyon638]

Monica could see a change come over the girl’s face as she alluded to Sophie’s love for Coda. A pensive look crossed her features and for a moment, it looked like she was fighting back a tear. “I don’t—that’s the thing. For a while, it was just me and her. We didn’t really…have anyone else. And then after high school started…” A tear rolled down her cheek. “We didn’t really…talk anymore. In high school, I’m sure there were guys or girls who was really into her, but I wouldn’t know.”

The girl shook her head at the mention of a stepfather or father. “Her dad died when she was really young. Her mom had some boyfriends, but no one really long-term. She was really—her mom was really focused on Coda’s dance career. She actually moved out of the country after...after Coda died. She lives in Denmark now. She messages me sometimes. Just checking in, that kind of thing. She's super sweet.”

Sophie thought for a moment. “I don’t know about First Line but…wow. You know, I’m remembering when I interviewed there a year ago after college, one of the interviewers was really interested in this project I’d been working on at Cal Tech involving flight stabilizers for drones. Like, he emailed me some follow up questions after the interview even, and I was like, ‘oh, dang, I’ve got this in the bag.' But then they passed on me. Let me see.”

She picked up her phone and scrolled through. His name was McCoy. Devin McCoy.”

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica nodded. "Well." She sat back and looked up at the sky a moment. "Every time I think I have a handle on this thing, there's another twist.How old was this McCoy? Would he have been old enough for Lindsay? Young enough to have been into Coda? I mean. Someone at first line has to have some personal connection to this thing. YOu don't go full on 'I know what you did last summer' to a group of people you've never met and have no grudge against." She thought "maybe he has a connection to Zhang though. Or just one of the others. Found out what they did to Coda, is covering the murder of one of them by murdering all of them."

She shifted a little "I don't know if you're in danger or not, but if you have any time off you can use... might be a good idea to take a week away."

 

[Halcyon638]

There was a sound overhead. Sophie tensed up, eyes widening a bit. A few moments later, they spotted a passenger jet passing above.

“I guess…30s? Early or mid if I had to guess. Definitely too old for Coda. Lindsey…I mean, she looks really good for her age, but she left Prospect City not long after Coda…after she died.”

Sophie broke down now. “I’m sorry. I thought I was…not over it, but I thought I’d…moved on, but this whole…thing is just…really, really hard. I don’t know if you knew what they did to her, but…they—her ‘friends’—found out Lindsey used to do porn, and then they had Matt—who Coda was totally in love with—do a reaction video to one of Lindsey’s videos and then spread it around the school. Who the fuck does that? And the worst part…I mean, the worst part is Coda’s dead, but…she didn’t come to me with any of this. Because we weren’t friends anymore. Officially. But I would have…if I hadn’t seen her for 20 years and she showed up on my door at 4:00 in the morning, I would have hugged her and talked to her and told her it was going to be okay, and we would have…” She was overcome by sobs now.

She sighed deeply. “A connection…to one of them makes sense. Whoever’s doing this, whether it’s McCoy or somebody else at First Line. I may be completely wrong about him. It just this weird detail that I never gave a second thought to. But maybe he knows something. I don’t know.”

Sophie nodded. “I have friends back in Cali I can stay with if I have to.”

 

[siobhancan99]

She was never sure if she was in a place to comfort people while being faceless and wearing body armor. She reached over and squeezed Sophie's arm "We never really appreciate what we have till it's gone." She let the girl cry for a moment, then let go of her shoulder.

"Just in case, it might be worth it to head out of town. If the guy from First Line is behind this, he might want to cover his tracks." Monica sighed. "Alright. Guess I get to look into this guy now." She stood "are... you going to be ok? Do you need anything?" She felt sort of lame here. As Monica she could commiserate. She could share her own grief, let the girl process hers. As the Nighthawk she was too worried if she shared anything personal it might lead people back to her other life. She had to be invulnerable and inviolate.

 

[Halcyon638]

Sophie sniffled and nodded. “Yeah. I’ll be okay. I’ve been doubling up my appointments with my therapist since this…whole thing started back up again.”

She glanced back at her house. “I should…go back in. Before my mom decides to freak out and call in the National Guard or something. Oh. Um, if you need my phone number for anything…I can give you it. I don’t know. I’m pretty good with robots.”

It was now a quarter to three.

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica gave the girl her burner phone "I don't answer it unless I'm working but if it is night and you have crazy drones coming after you or something. I'm here for you." She inhaled and exhaled. Sophie's grief was too much like her own, in a way, for her to be comfortable. Thinking about Tom and the fact they should have been making robots together was too raw in the moment, too real. She inhaled, then exhaled slowly "Anyway. If you need a you know... masked heroine for some reason." She shrugged, not trusting her voice much longer. She waved and headed back to the sliver, letting herself break down over Tom, robots, her mixed feelings over whether she should even be pursuing whoever was behind this. Still, she didn't KNOW that the guy had a good reason to be avenging Coda Kirkman.

Heading back to the apartment she had a shower and hit the sack, getting up in the morning to see what she could find out about her new target.

 

[Halcyon638]

As Monica began her search on her phone, she noticed the lingering text message from Zoey from the night before.

The search for McCoy proved difficult, partly because of the sheer number of people who shared the same name. She eventually found some information about a Devin McCoy who worked at First Line.

He was a 34-year-old, studious-looking black man in glasses who had graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology and had the title of Robotics Engineer at First Line. She found a list of a few journal articles he’d authored as a grad student, none of which seemed to bear any direct relation to the drone tech she’d encountered.

There was also a record of a 3-bedroom home purchased by McCoy 2 years ago in a small town about an hour outside of Prospect City. Other than that, Monica’s search was coming up empty.

Gabi came in from her morning jog wearing a ponytail and looking distractingly hot in her tight black leggings. “This is for you, carino.” She kissed Monica’s forehead and handed her a bag containing a freshly baked, sizeable muffin. “Did I wake you up this morning when I was getting ready?” she asked in an apologetic tone.

 

[siobhancan99]

'maybe if I just ignore this it will go away' She thought, for a moment, about the text. She groaned and covered her face in her hands. No, Zoe deserved better. And really if Gabi wanted Zoe... maybe she should just give in. Compromise. that's what couples did right? She should really talk to Mel but Mel would probably tell her to be polite and caring but firm and say no. She rubbed her temples and sat back.

Shifting her focus, she reviewed what she knew about McCoy. He didn't seem to have any ties at all to Coda Kirkman. He had, however, just bought a property. Maybe he had a tie to Zhang. Maybe Zhang didn't sleep well at night worrying her mean girl bullshit would ruin her image. Could be he was just an assassin. Or a deluded boyfriend. Something to think about. She wondered if she could get someone to look and see who the agent was on his house. Maybe today was the day to drop in on a law firm about her idea for controlling her image rights. She had class too. After a semester of light activity she was racing towards finals. She couldn't afford to blow it off.

When Gabi came in she wrapped her up in her arms, glad for the distraction. She kissed her temple "no I was dead to the world. I was out late, trying to figure out this drone thing." She laid out everything she had for her girlfriend. "Any thoughts? I could really use your perspective on this." They also needed to talk about Zoe, but work and maybe a quick snuggle first.

 

[Halcyon638]

Gabi listened as Monica talked through the case, stroking Monica’s hair and reacting in horror as the older girl laid out the details of what had happened to Coda Kirkman. “God. That’s so horrible.” She squeezed Monica tightly. "I can't even imagine..." The brunette trailed off and instead she rested her head on her girlfriend's shoulder.

“It sounds like you’re following up on all the leads that are out there. I definitely would have looked into the girl you checked out last night, and it sounds like you were right—like, with the guilt making her turn to drugs and all that. I mean, it sounds like you even got ahead of the cops on the whole connection with Sophie thing.” She stroked her chin thoughtfully.

“So…if this Devin guy’s not on, like, social media, but he’s connected to someone in the friend group, he’s gotta show up in one of their feeds, right? I mean, when you were searching them before, you weren’t looking for him.”

They began scrolling through social media feeds again. Monica was able to reuse much of her own search history to bring up images and posts relating to the Hamon Academy grads.

“There he is!”

Sure enough, Devin McCoy was in one of the photos taken by Violet Zhang at an upscale bar. In it, he sported a forced, awkward smile standing in between Rachel Kelleher, the first victim and councilman’s mistress, and Liza George. The two women were also sporting smiles, though only Kelleher’s seemed genuine. McCoy’s arms were around their backs as they huddled in for the picture. It was the only photo taken of the evening, at least in terms of what was posted.

“Hmm. Do you think he was there with one of them?”

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica hmmed "Maybe he found out about what happened to Coda Kirkman and decided to cover up his murder of just one of them by making it seem like a bigger thing. He's too old for Coda, too young for her mom." She ran her hand over Gabi's ass "What if... he was there with our first victim? maybe things were going to hell. Then when he had to kill the councilman too he came up with this plan?" She dragged her nails along Gabi's back "let's look back from this date and see who he might have been there with. See if there's someone that might have been his real target all along."