Nighthawk: A Superhero Story (closed for Siobhancan99)

[siobhancan99]

Monica moved back up, looking down at her love. "Yeah you are." She kissed her again, tongue tangling with Gabi's as she laid atop her. She kissed down along her neck again, kissing between her full breasts, making her way down along her flat stomach. she popped the button on her jeans, then paused just above her panties, dragging her tongue along the skin "do you want me to go down on you? or kiss you and finger you?"

 

[Halcyon638]

Gabi let out quiet murmurs of pleasure while Monica’s lips traced a line down her warm skin. The last rays of the sun gave the Latina’s features an almost ethereal quality. “Go down on me, please.” She sat up a bit, a needy intensity to her dark eyes. The lacy trim of her blue pastel panties peeked out beneath her open fly.

 

[siobhancan99]

Tugging Gabi's jeans and panties down, she sat up to get them off her feet. She spread Gabi's legs, laying between them, kissing her way slowly up the girl's thighs. She sighed, letting her breath wash over Gabi's pussy, then dragged her tongue softly along her lips, lapping at her to tease her. She kisses each lip in turn, then slid her tongue along through her slit. She flicked it across the bean of Gabi's clit, then sucked it softly into her mouth. Her tongue swirled around it even as her hands reached for Gabi's, taking them and holding them. Her green eyes looked up into Gabi's lovely face, holding her gaze.

 

[Halcyon638]

Monica could feel the muscles in Gabi’s legs tense as the older girl caressed the soft flesh of her lover’s pussy lips with her tongue. When the blonde’s lips encircled Gabi’s clit, a soft gasp got caught somewhere in the back of the brunette’s throat. “Ohhh. Sweetie.”

Gabi’s elegant fingers grabbed onto Monica’s hands, kneading them. “Fuck…” She whined and rolled her head back on the pillow. Her eyes seemed almost unfocused as she lifted her neck again, then focused in on Monica’s eyes. “That feels so good. I can’t think.” A carefree smile graced her face for a moment until a short moan came out.

 

[siobhancan99]

"then don't think" She grinned and explored her lover, tongue lipping hither and thither, circling just inside Gabi, then slipping back out to lavish gentle attention on her clit. She looked up at her "Let's cuddle after this and fall asleep together." Her soft lips wrapped back to Gabi's clit, her fingers gently squeezed Gabi's in response, and her eyes never left Gabi's beautiful face.

 

[Halcyon638]

Gabi nodded wordlessly, breathing in sharply as Monica’s teeth grazed her sensitive little nub. She kept her eyes on Monica, one hand cupping the back of the blonde girl’s head affectionately, the other occasional fondling and lightly tweaking her own nipple. “Yess. Yes, baby.”

Eventually, Monica could feel her girlfriend’s body shudder with release, followed a few seconds later by a partially stifled wail. Gabi went limp, smiling, then wrapped her arms around the older girl. “Come here,” she said, tugging her toward her.

 

[siobhancan99]

She slipped slowly up, wrapping Gabi up in her strong arms, holding her close and stroking her back gently. "Mi Corazon." She curled her girl in close against her, then closed her eyes and just drank in the feel and smell of her girl against her. Legs tangled, bodies entwined, she felt at peace. She'd cleared up the drone murders, she'd somewhat figured out her summer... she'd talked to Zoe. All her 'to do' list was, temporarily, done and she could just be.

 

[Halcyon638]

6 WEEKS LATER

Monica closed the apartment door behind her and gave the handle a tug towards her while she locked it as the landlord had instructed her. Across the hall in 509, she heard what sounded like a small child throwing a tantrum, though mercifully, the walls in the building seemed pretty soundproof.

A steady downpour greeted her as she made her way to the subway station for the first day of her internship at Vigil. Breaking out her umbrella, she managed to stay dry and arrived at the private security company’s headquarters with a few minutes to spare.

After being given an ID badge, she was directed to a conference room where all of the interns were gathered. There were various tables laid out, each labeled with their respective divisions. Monica spotted a table labeled “Research & Development” and walked across the room, which was filled with about 20 to 30 individuals, most around her age from the looks of it.

There were 3 interns seated at her table. “Caffeine can be a migraine trigger for me, so I have to be really careful,” a young woman with curly black hair and a slight accent said. Her nametag read “Ishani.” “I can’t even have decaf, because even decaf has some caffeine in it.”

“Oh, that sucks,” the girl sitting next to her said in a polite, sympathetic tone. She was tall, with light brown hair put up in a neat bun, and had two crutches propped up aside her chair. Her name tag read “Nelly.”

“Chocolate, too. Dark chocolate can have a surprising amount of caffeine,” Ishani continued with Nelly nodding in agreement.

The third person at their table was a guy with closely-cropped, fiery red hair and stubble. He was holding a cup of coffee, taking measured sips and glancing around the room. His name tag read “Evan.”

“Milk chocolate doesn’t have at much, but I can’t really do—”

“Hi!” Nelly said as she spotted Monica nearing. She extended an arm a little awkwardly, trying to shake Monica’s hand without getting up. “Sorry for the reach. I would get up, but…I’m Nelly.” There was a barely perceptible twang to her voice.

 

[siobhancan99]

She might be imagining it, but Monica could practically feel the relief from Nelly when someone came by to interrupt the tiresome recitation of foods Ishani couldn't eat. She was waiting for the inevitable revelation Ishani was a vegan. Or gluten free. Or a gluten-free vegan who only ate fair trade vegetables and quinoa. She took Nelly's hand and gave it a firm shake "Monica. Nice to meet you, Nelly."

She folded herself into a chair and relaxed, looking the trio over a moment, from the ginger to the pretty, but so far annoying Ishani, to Nelly. "So where do you all go to school?" She gestured vaguely at the city "I'm at Prospect U. This is my first internship." She was curious about Nelly's accent. Maybe she'd also be from a more rural background. It would be nice to meet someone besides Gabi that was from the hinterlands. It occurred to her though that these could all be upperclassmen so she might still be a bit of an outsider. Still, she was hopeful at least.

 

[Halcyon638]

“Hello. I’m Ishani,” the other female intern said, her tone cordial, if not excessively warm.

“Hey,” the redhead said, offering up his hand as well. “Evan.”

Smiling, Nelly said, “Long way from home here. I go to Tulane.”

“I’m from Georgetown,” Ishani noted.

“I go to school in, uh, PA,” Evan said. “Penn.”

“It’s cool that you live here,” Nelly observed. “Maybe you can give us the grand tour sometime.”

“Are you from here?” Ishani asked Monica. "This area?"

 

[siobhancan99]

"Mr. Ivy league here. We should all be careful" She laughed "I'm not from here. I'm from the middle of god damn nowhere." She gestured vaguely. "I've been living here just this year. Still I can take you to some bars that don't card, in case any of you aren't 21. Just a word to the wise, this isn't a safe town after dark. We even have to have our own vigilante. Ill show you what areas you can go to and where you should be careful. For now don't go anywhere by yourself. Don't take the subway. Get an uber, wait inside for it."

 

[Halcyon638]

Evan blushed a bit. “I’m good at tests,” he offered sheepishly, then the hint of a smile appeared on his face.

“Reppin’ Gurdon, Arkansas,” Nelly said, responding to Monica’s description of her hometown, grinning. The smile brought out an unassuming prettiness to the young woman.

“Oh, no, thank you. Alcohol is a bit of a migraine trigger for me,” Ishani said. “Also, loud music.”

“But what if we want to bump into this vigilante,” Nelly countered. “I mean, getting rescued by a strong chick in a tight costume? Swoon.”

“Don’t you have a girlfriend?” The voice came from a stout guy with wide shoulders, a spiderweb neck tattoo, long-ish black hair, a full beard, and features suggesting he was of Asian descent. He looked out of place in his polo shirt and khakis.

“Hall pass.” Nelly motioned to the guy, who wore nametag labeling him “Wendell.” “Hey, all. This is my new roomie, Wendell. Wendell’s from Texas.”

“S’up, all,” he said. "U-T."

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica grinned "I met her. actually. while jogging." She leaned back in her chair "then she saved my friend Hadley from a serial killer. She's something." She winked at Nelly "could throw you around that's for sure."

She nodded to Wendell. "Is that the longhorns? I can never keep those straight. Aggies and Longhorns." She shrugged "So don't murder me. I know it's like, a whole thing." She shifted a bit in her seat, trying to get comfortable. "Has anyone done this internship before? What can we expect? Or is this the first time around for everyone?"

 

[Halcyon638]

Everyone’s eyes widened at the reference to Hadley. “Oh my god,” Ishani said. “Wow.”

Wendel smiled and waved his hand dismissively, revealing some knuckle tattoos in the process. “Longhorns, but I don’t give a fuck. I was too lazy to apply to anywhere out of state.”

“This is a long way to go for someone who’s lazy,” Ishani observed.

“I’m complex.” He sat at the table.

“I did an internship before,” Evan said, “but that was when I thought I wanted to go into epidemiology. I was mainly recording data for lab experiments and doing kind of basic stuff. Cleaning lab equipment, that kind of thing.”

“If movies have taught me anything, it’ll be a lot of getting people coffee until you say some brilliant idea in front of your boss and get promoted to like, head fashion girl or something,” Nelly said.

Aside from Evan, the other three had had no prior internship experience. A little while later, they were led into a room where they were, according to the day’s itinerary, they were to be welcomed by the COO of Vigil, Russell Katis, who Monica had rescued from the anti-AI fanatics.

Monica received a text.

MELANIE: Apologies for the last-minute notice, but can we reschedule tomorrow’s appointment? I need to get Hillary into the vet and tomorrow evening was the earliest they could fit her in.

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica grinned to herself for a moment, thinking she should get a raise for saving the guy. Shame she couldn't reveal that. She sat with the others, waiting for Katis to give his no doubt 'you are the future and we're excited about that' talk for the interns, only to turn them over to departments that resented their presence and didn't know what to do with them. She cracked her back, then looked down at her phone seeing the text. She frowned and texted Mel back "is everything ok?" She liked Mel's cat well enough, it would suck if something was wrong.

 

[Halcyon638]

The salt-and-pepper-haired, professorial-looking Afghanistan vet made his way to the stage and offered the assembled interns his welcome. “Above all, I encourage you to be curious,” Katis advised. “Ask questions. Plenty of questions. We know you’re all bright, enterprising, and talented, but we do not expect you to know everything. So, ask. With one exception.”

He clicked the PowerPoint over a slide to show news stories that featured Monica rescuing him and her earlier efforts to rescue the company’s CEO from Killstreak. The PowerPoint slide was headed with the words “Do you know Nighthawk?”

“I do not know Nighthawk. I do not know Nighthawk’s real name or Insta handle or Zodiac sign. Regarding speculation as to whether she is on the company payroll, I can neither confirm nor deny. Although I will point out that I have my suspicions about Linda Chambers in HR.” He clicked over to an image of a white-haired, smiling woman poorly cut-and-pasted onto the head of an image of Nighthawk, the Dad humor receiving a few chuckles from the newcomers and more from the staff.

“My warmest welcome again to you all. I know you’ll do great work, and it is our privilege to have you as a part of our team.”

After the COO’s speech, Monica received a reply from Melanie as she made her way back to her group.

MELANIE: I hope so. She’s been acting very lethargic the past few days and isn’t really eating or drinking much.

A minute later, the 5 R&D interns were shuffled into the laboratory where they were introduced to Dr. Miguel Bascombe. He looked to be in his early forties, with a neatly trimmed mustache and beard, a shaved head, and thin, verging on gaunt facial features.

“Good morning,” he greeted them, making his way over to shake their hands. “So…Vigil’s best and brightest?” The tone was hard to read, though there were the hints of a smile on his face. Bascombe asked them to introduce themselves, then guided them to one of the workstations.

He held a small, unassuming black metal ball in his hand. “This, right here, is your summer, ladies and gentlemen. It is a highly attuned, remote biometric sensor prototype. Thus far, we have programmed it to gather 64 forms of biometric data at a distance of 811 feet under ideal conditions. As you should anticipate, ideal conditions mean exactly jack shit outside of a laboratory or simulation. It is our responsibility to find a workaround for the inevitable less-than-ideal conditions and to make 64 and 811 seem laughably unambitious by summer’s end.”

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica worried her lip. Here was maybe something that could totally unmask her, and it'd probably be collecting a shitload of data about her to the point where if someone used it on The Nighthawk they'd immediately know they were an intern and definitely not the one on crutches. Maybe they'd think the headache girl was lying the whole time, but it'd be easy enough to rule her out. She covered her nervousness with a joke. "So what are the privacy implications of this? I feel like Jeff Goldblum should be saying something about us wondering if we could when we should have been wondering if we should" She kept her tone light, but focused her attention on the device. She had to learn absolutely every way to thwart this thing so she could build some sort of countermeasure into her suit. This was priority one of the summer. Don't get exposed because you got a fucking job.

 

[Halcyon638]

“Great question,” Bascombe said. “This device is being designed for use in very specific settings for very specific purposes—namely, securing particular spaces. Let’s say you’re a pop star who’s been getting threatening letters from some wacko who thinks you’re married to him with five kids. The instant he steps foot in the arena, security would flag him. Or some psycho who wants to shoot up a venue. We can track heart rate, heightened cortisol levels, a whole host of data that the algorithm can flag as needed to pre-screen potential threats. All the other data collected from that stadium or wherever is purged instantly unless it raises any alarm bells.”

He placed the metal ball down and folded his arms over his chest. “Obviously, there’s potential for the tech to be abused, but you could say that about any tech.”

 

[siobhancan99]

"So is it not for maass marketing then? It's like a proprietary device we use for people that are using our services?" That made her relax a little. She was hoping the answer was yes. She was also cognizant of the fact that she was talking a lot and she hoped that was alright. She looked it over "So what's our role in all this?" She was curious as to how they, as interns, fit into the picture. She was more curious ass to how she could figure out a countermeasure. It was all honestly fascinating.

 

[Halcyon638]

Bascombe nodded. That is correct…Monica?” he said, looking at her nametag. A wry smile cracked his lips. “If we wanted to use this for marketing purposes, all we’d need to do is make some mind-numbingly dumb but addictive app, and people would just hand us their biometric data on a silver platter.”

He walked over to a laptop, clicked a few buttons, and brought up displays on the monitors showing an array of engineering schematics, data points, and other technical information that Monica gleaned was derived from various tests of the product. “You will be assisting myself and the other members of the R&D team in a variety of capacities, from collating and analyzing data, to carrying out tests, to, potentially, working through design problems. I’ve been told that you all are capable of such tasks. Is that true?”

“Absolutely,” Wendell responded, while Ishani, Evan, and Nelly nodded.

“Are there any more questions?”

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica nodded. That was good. She still had to be careful though. Working out the limitations of this thing was stil a priority, just not a full on panic priority. She shook her head, trying not to be the try hard that was talking all the time. She leaned back against a desk, half sitting on it and waiting to see what the assignment was, or who she'd be working with or whatever.

 

[Halcyon638]

A few minutes later, Bascombe began walking them through how to access their laptops, having them log into one of the programs they would be using regularly as they settled into their desks. Monica was familiar with it from one of her engineering courses.

The group settled into their seats and started their work, which to begin with, mostly involved reviewing the device’s design schematic in detail and familiarizing themselves with some of the field tests that had been run. Monica expected the level of ingenuity and precision she found in the engineering, but it was still awe-inspiring to see how the device had been designed and constructed.

After a bus afternoon, Monica arrived back at her apartment building a little past 5:15 PM. The hallways were mercifully air-conditioned after a balmy subway ride. She was digging her keys out when she noticed what appeared to be a doll or action figure’s bright pink sandal lying on its side between her door and 509 across the hall.

Her cell phone chimed.

MELANIE: I should be able to meet with you any time on Wednesday or Thursday. Just let me know.

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica hmmmed. "Let's do wednesday." She texted, then she retrieved the doll shoe and went inside. She realized she had no idea what was good in this neighborhood and what wasn't, so she ordered a small pizza and a dozen wings from a local joint, with a 2 liter of Dr. Pepper. If the wings were shitty she could eat the pizza. if the pizza was shitty she could eat the wings. if both sucked... she hadn't really counted the money she got from the lawfirm, but when she deposited it in her bank she knew it was considerable. So if the pizza and wings sucked she'd get chinese.She thought about maybe taking herself out for a steak. She'd never been somewhere fancy like that. Cottersville wasn't exactly full of places like Barclay's prime or anything. still that felt like the kind of place you share with someone, not the kind of food you eat by yourself in your bathrobe while watching "love is blind" by yourself in your sad bachelorette apartment.

That was definitely just regular takeout ambience. Before she made herself slouchy, though, she walked over across the hall to 509 and knocked.

 

[Halcyon638]

“Just a sec,” a male voice called from somewhere within the apartment. A few moments later, the door opened. A 30-something man dressed in a blue plaid button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up opened the door. He had closely cropped, sandy hair. “Hello?” he said, a look of mild confusion on his face. Spotting the pink plastic sandal, a gleam of recognition appeared in his copper-hued eyes. “Wait. You’re kidding me. Where did you find this?”

 

[siobhancan99]

Laughing she passed it over "it was in the hallway between our doors." She smiled "I heard someone having a bad day earlier that seemed to be the right age to own the doll this goes to. So I took the chance." She gestured over her shoulder "I live across the hall. I moved in this weekend. I'm just here for the summer its like a whole sublet situation." She shifted a little "monica. by the way."