Nighthawk: A Superhero Story (closed for Siobhancan99)

[siobhancan99]

"that's ok. Just when you get to prison remember that you had a chance to monologue and you blew it." Monica lashed out with the chain as the drone entered the room. She had three of these things to get through before she got to McCoy and she was getting to McCoy "you at least gonna tell me who your third victim is? make it sporting?"

 

[Halcyon638]

Monica’s chain wrapped tightly around one of the drone’s rotors. It attempted to spin away from her, but a yank turned its stun gun in the wrong direction, sending a bolt shooting harmlessly at the opposite wall.

Another yank of the chain spun the vehicle against the dresser. Its blades shaved a few inches off a model spaceship and bit into the wood before shards of metal went flying and the vehicle crashed to the ground in pieces.

The next drone zipped, stun gun at the ready. Not hesitating, it released the energy, but Monica was able to roll out of the way to avoid it. “You should have stayed out of this,” the voice said. “Now I’m really going to have to hurt you.”

 

[siobhancan99]

"Dude im invulnerable and you're a drone jockey. All you had to do was just tell me your sad story so I could be on my way but nooooooo" Monica lashed out with the chain again. She was glad she'd had the foresight to limit their approaches. "You just had to go this route. Here you are, trashing your house which you're gonna need the equity from to hire a lawyer. You didn't really think this through. I can tell these things cause I'm a superhero. Part of the gig."

 

[Halcyon638]

Monica’s chain bit into the drone’s rotor, making an ear-piercing screech. Swinging the machine, she sent it flying against the nearby window frame, bringing a shower of glass.

The final remaining drone zipped in, the barrel of its machine gun at the ready. The machine spit a barrage of bullets at Monica, but she leapt out of the way, landing not far from the broken window.

 

[siobhancan99]

Rolling under the barrage of fire, Monica came up near the window. She contemplated going out, but the drone was at a disadvantage here. Outside it could kill her at range. She ran forward, grabbing for its undercarriage as she had at the townhouse, aiming to take it and smash it into the floor and disable it. She actually didn't know how bulletproof she was, and she wasn't really keen on finding out so she threw her all into it.

 

[Halcyon638]

Monica managed to get a hand onto the vehicle’s landing gear, but it fought her hard, attempting to angle its rotors to slash into her forearm, forcing her to contort her body and loosen her grip a bit. The thing blasted a stun bolt at her but it sailed over her shoulder.

Grasping it again, she smashed it downward, banging up part of its armored nose. Again, it fought her, launching a hail of bullets toward her this time. Finally, she tightened her grip, turning the vehicle upside down and bringing it crashing to the ground, cracking the armor and splitting the thing in two fragments of circuitry.

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica took a moment to calm down. Her heart was pounding and the feel of fear that she'd pushed into the corners of her mind was given free reign for a moment. SHe leaned against the wall, gathering her wits. Reproaching herself for maybe dying here while Gabi was at home worrying. Not enough to make her quit, of course, but just enough to wallow in a little guilt. She inhaled, then moved to the other side of the house. One drone had taken off after a victim and she had to get that under control. the best way to do that was destroy whatever McCoy was using the control them. Or destroy McCoy. Or both. At the moment though she needed to move swiftly and see if he was in the house at all. She assumed yes, as he had no reason to think anyone was onto him. Also his disgusting room that smelled of middle aged nerd funk and unwashed laundry indicated he was still living here.

"Come out now McCoy before you really piss me off." She shouted as she stalked down the other hallway to check out that wing of the house.

 

[Halcyon638]

Just as the words were slipping from her mouth, McCoy emerged from a room near the other end of the hallway. His eyes widened as he spotted Monica moving toward him, with no other way out. He held his hands out in front of him, as if urging her to stop. “You need to let me go,” he said, his tone a little more agitated than she’d heard from him so far. “There was a fourth drone. I’ve sent it to its target. A nearby target. I’ll call off its kill order, but only once I’m safely out of this house and in my car.”

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica grabbed for McCoy "I have other notions. Things like... using your thumb to open up your phone. or your eye. or whatever. then figuring out how to turn it off myself. See, if you can turn it off from your car that means the device is on you. Probably biometric, so i'll have to leave you alive. I don't have to leave you 'not screaming and begging a god that doesn't exist for the sweet relief of death' though. So maybe you don't make me fuck you up."

 

[Halcyon638]

McCoy simply looked at her as if she was a server listing the day’s specials. “You can do that, but that’ll take time. That’s not something the target necessarily has. Do you want to chance it?” He shrugged slightly. “It’s up to you.”

 

[siobhancan99]

"Oh, cause if I let you into your car you're just gonna be like... oh sure i'll stop my murderous rampage now that you have no leverage. So no it wont take that long." Monica was a superhero, not a super-diplomat. There were few situations that couldn't be solved by punching. At least that's what movies taught her. So she tried it. She balled up her fist and launched it for the guy's gut. "I mean, really if you kill someone else that's on you. If i let you go, youll kill three people and that's on me. So yeah, gonna have to take you out."

 

[Halcyon638]

McCoy let out a cry and toppled to the ground clutching his stomach. He writhed a bit, and his cell phone slid partway out of the left pocket of his visibly stained sweatpants. “Suit…yourself,” he moaned.

 

[siobhancan99]

"I am suiting myself, thank you. I don't need a man to tell me when I can suit myself." She took the phone, then set about trying to open it. depending on how it opened she'd try his thumb or face or whatever. Hopefully it wasn't a code.

 

[Halcyon638]

The phone asked for McCoy’s thumbprint. Grabbing hold of his thin wrist, she was able to place his digit on the screen, opening it. It took her a moment, but then she was able to navigate to an app that appeared to be remoting in to another computer. On the screen, she could see through a slightly grainy camera approaching what appeared to be a small restaurant or bar of some kind. She was able to find a button to turn the drone around.

Outside of McCoy’s home, she heard distant sirens.

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica looked down at McCoy. "Alright. your drone is called off." There was something off about him. She wondered if it wasn't some kind of mind control. Could also be some kind of delusional nerd-obsession thing with a woman. "So why don't you tell me who the third victim is? Linda Zhang. what's her name at the townhouse that I stopped you from killing. Who was number three?"

She crouched, looking down at him. "This is your shot, man. This is your shot to convince me that maybe someone should do something about these people while you're in jail." She had no real intention of carrying out his vengeance, she was more just insanely curious. She checked the app to see if there was an address or gps coordinates he had sent the drone too. Might at least sate her curiosity if he wouldn't.

"You... seem like a guy that once had his shit together. So what the fuck?"

 

[Halcyon638]

The 30-something looked off down the hallway, not meeting her eyes. “The three remaining targets are Liza, Zhang, and the one—she lives in Florida now. Calvino.” The names checked out—Calvino had been the ex-girlfriend to Matt Hennebeck, and was now an influencer living out of state. “There’s…a video on my phone…of the video they spread around the school.”

The man’s brown eyes started to well up a bit. “There was this coffee shop across from First Line. Liza…she was working there. She was…she is the most beautiful, nicest person I’ve ever met. I couldn’t believe she wanted to talk to me. I know she…she was involved in what happened to that girl—Coda. But…she knew she’d done something wrong. She hates herself for it. Wanted to make up for it.”

His eyes grew slightly wider. “This isn’t…Liza’s fault, okay? I know she…she wanted to hurt those people…her friends but…I was the one who talked about the drones. Told her what they could do. If she hadn’t met me, she wouldn’t have done anything. To anyone else. I was…what do they call that? ‘Entrapment?’ It was my fault. She never would have hurt anyone if I…didn’t give her the tools.”

 

[siobhancan99]

"This is about Liza George? Did ... did she ask you to kill her or was that a distraction?" Fuck that was some dark shit, asking your smitten boyfriend to kill you and your friends. Liza George was some grade A top shelf bundle of crazy. This was some shit she'd have to talk to Mel about. She sighed, looking McCoy over. The poor bastard didn't even know he'd been played by a master. Well, Mistress if she was going to use gendered terms but mistress seemed to always carry some tinge of BDSM or adultery about it. Master it was. She sighed and crouched next to McCoy. She could see how it happened. Much younger, pretty thing shares her inner darkness with a smitten tech-nerd loser. McCoy's house screamed virgin. Unwashed laundry, funk, and the USS Enterprise. "McCoy." She shook her head "you killed an innocent man. The councilman had nothing to do with any of this." She stood, looking around. She had to be there when the cops got there, which was risky. But they had to get a McCoy that was still confessional. If she left, he could turn the drones back on and turn them on the cops or send them after Linda Zhang.

"It's gonna come out McCoy. They already have a pretty good idea that this is about her friend group. They'll eventually put the two of you together. Maybe if you plea they will let her off." Truth be told, there was no guarantee Liza had actually asked to die. She waited to see McCoy's response.

 

[Halcyon638]

“Liza…started getting scared.” He sat up now, partly, still clutching his stomach and grimacing. “It was…my idea to send the drones after her. To throw the cops’ scent off. Not try to kill her, just...make it look good. She didn’t…she didn’t want to kill herself. We were going to…run away when it was all done. Start a new life. ”

The programmer looked down again as she brought up the councilman’s murder. “That was—I didn’t mean to do that. I…I panicked. He didn’t deserve to die.”

Monica could hear the sirens seemingly on the street leading to the home.

 

[siobhancan99]

"She put me on to you. She told me to look into Coda. That led me to you." She gestured "come on, stand up. you're gonna have to go face the police. This is suburbia and you know. Things can get dicey so lets make sure they can see your hands when you tell them you're coming out." She offered him a hand up "come on now. Let's get you in to talk to these nice cops. If you confess maybe they won't look at your girlfriend." She was going to have some words with Goodman, that was for damn sure. She wondered if Kolashenko was there. Honestly though, Goodman's house was wrecked. they probably had her put up somewhere. At least she knew, now. The story made total sense. Well not total sense. It was crazy as fuck but it was crazy in a way consistent with human behavior.

 

[Halcyon638]

There were two cop cars in the driveway now. 4 officers made their way into the home as McCoy got to his feet and put his hands in the air.

A hulking 30-something cop with a thin layer of blonde hair was at the lead and turned his gun first on Monica, then on the programmer. “Alright! Someone better tell me what the fuck is going on here and fast.”

“I…would like to confess to a murder,” McCoy said. “Murders.”

The large cop looked a bit disappointed at McCoy’s cooperative stance. Another cop hauled out his handcuffs and made his way up the stairs.

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica provided the phone and showed the cops how he controlled the drones, then advised them to call prospect city and pick up Liza.

She made it home late, and had a long hot shower after cleaning the inside of her armor. She walked to her room, then stopped and slipped into Gabi's room. She sat, watching her girlfriend curled up with Thadeus T. Bear, and slipped in behind her. She wrapped her arm over Gabi and nestled in against her back. "I'm home baby" She whispered. She didn't know if Gabi registered her presence or not, but she knew her girl worried and with this investigation having come to an end she wanted her to wake up in Monica's arms. She wanted her to have that certainty that Monica was coming home at all. She closed her eyes and pressed in tighter, wondering if she was selfish for trying to have both things in her life.

 

[Halcyon638]

“Mi querida,” Gabi said as Monica snuggled in, her eyes still closed. She let out a quiet, contented sigh and pulled the blanket up over the both of them. It took Monica some time to come down from the adrenaline rush, but having her girlfriend’s sleeping form nestled against her helped.

The next morning was Monica’s early morning, but Gabi got up with her to fit in a jog before the older girl had to head to Computer Science. Monica’s nocturnal exploits were all over the news; Liza George had been taken into custody not soon after she’d placed the phone call.

Monica had received another text:

Zoe: Hey. Did I do something wrong? If I did, please please just tell me. Hope you are okay.

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica groaned and texted back "No. not at all. I wanted to talk to Gabi about some things before I texted back and then every fucking time I thought about texting there was some fire here to put out. I don't know if you've been following my insta, but aside from going to NY we haven't been doing shit. What's up?"

 

[Halcyon638]

Zoe didn’t respond before Monica had to head out to her Intro. to Computer Science course. It was an unseasonably warm late April day, hitting the low 70s. It appeared that half the university had decided to take the day off to toss frisbees, lounge on the grass, and mingle on Greek houses’ lawns. As she strolled into the humid classroom, Zoe replied.

ZOE: I had wanted to talk to you, but it sounds like you’ve got a lot going on. Don’t worry about it.

As Monica settled into her seat, she received a mass email from Jonah Tompkins, the Internship Coordinator at Vigil. The email contained information about available apartments in the city and provided information for a Discord channel the interns could join if they wanted to coordinate regarding arranging housing together.

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica looked at the email and decided to talkj to Gabi about her summer plans. After that she bit the bullet and called Zoe. She had been fucking the girl off quite a bit, so a call seemed the appropriate thing to do. Plus she had a good excuse. She would just be honest about the fact that she thought Gabi and Zoe had feelings for each other and she felt weird. Honesty was good. She just kept telling herself that.