Nighthawk: A Superhero Story (closed for Siobhancan99)

[siobhancan99]

Fishing out a zip tie, Monica tied off the woman's ankles. She searched her for a phone or another communication device, assuming that the women had some way to keep in touch. She might be able to draw the other out.

 

[Halcyon638]

The woman was starting to come to, groaning lightly underneath the helmet. Monica located her phone, which was running a voice communication app. Outside, police sirens could be heard. Pulling off the headgear, Monica noticed what appeared to be a built-in Bluetooth device.

Judging from her face, the woman was in her early 30s. She had a round, fleshy face with a slightly crooked nose that appeared to have been broken at some point in the past, and Asian features. Her lower lip was crimson with blood.

 

[siobhancan99]

monica fiddled with the device then cleared her throat "Look, I've got your girlfriend. So you should come down now." She hoisted the asian woman over her shoulder "you're not getting out of here with whatever you came to steal. So how about you surrender now eh?" She started up the steps, hoping she could quickly discern what floor the woman was on. "cops are here. place is surrounded. you can go out in zip ties, or go out in a blaze of glory I guess."

 

[Halcyon638]

There was no response on the headset. Monica listened and looked in vain trying to spot how far up the stairwell the other burglar was. “Lizzie baby,” the woman said on the headset now, “if you’re there…I’ll come back for you. No matter what happens. I always do.”

Some flashlights lit up the stairwell below Monica’s current position.

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica kept moving up. She had to be careful as the light could be the perp, but there's another security guard in play as well, so she couldnt just rush whatever source of light she found. Below were probably the cops "hey. One perp up here" she called down. "zip tied. she's got some sort of shock weapon. Headed up after the second."

 

[Halcyon638]

Monica was far below the burglar on the stairs now, but at a certain point, she heard what sounded like the footsteps stopping and the possible opening of a door above. She was certain, but she guessed the woman had exited the stairwell around the 22nd floor.

Monica finally reached the landing. Sure, enough, the door was just slightly ajar. Making her way into the darkened hall, she saw signage leading to laboratories to both the left and to the right.

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica took a moment to concentrate on listening. she closed her eyes, letting herself just try to hear where the woman could be. if she was stealing something, it was likely to not be that quiet an act. If she could hear something, she'd move swiftly towards the source, if not, she'd start left and make her way down the hall.

 

[Halcyon638]

A distant thump could be heard to the left. Heading in that direction, Monica heard what sounded like the clank of metal against metal. The hallway to her to the entrance to a chemical storage room where a broad-shouldered security guard holding a flashlight was attempting futilely to smash the metal door handle with his pistol. He turned to Monica, holding his gun up, until she identified herself.

“Fuck. I swear to god, she was coming right toward me and then got all, like, see-through like a ghost. I swear. She went in here.”

 

[siobhancan99]

"huh" Well. That wasn't good. She couldn't punch what she couldn't touch "fuck me." She muttered "i'm guessing you don't have any kind of way to open this door huh." She wrinkled her nose, "I'll try it. you know what's in there?" she examined the door, trying to figure out the best way to rip it open or kick it open.

 

[Halcyon638]

“Nah. When the power went out, the door kinda auto-locks,” the guard said. The best method of potentially opening it seemed to be potentially to put her shoulder into it and try the handle as best as she could, though it appeared to be heavily reinforced. “Chemicals and shit. I don’t know.” He shined his light on a sign that read:

WARNING: HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS. LEVEL D OR HIGHER PPE REQUIRED.

“Hopefully no anthrax or something?”

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica sighed "listen if I bust this door open we could probably exposed to some really nasty shit." she put her ear to the door, trying to discern of the ghost woman was even inside the room "and I don't want to kill you, especially if she's just walked out the other side of the room with whatever she came for."

 

[Halcyon638]

The man nodded, taking a few steps back reflexively. Monica couldn’t hear anything through the thick door, though whether it was because of the density of the metal or because there was nothing to be heard was unclear.

 

[siobhancan99]

hmming she nodded to the guy "lets wait a minute, here. if she comes out we deal with her. If she doesn't well. I'm not going to bust open a door of a closet full of poison just to find it empty.. except for the poison." She hmmmed, giving it another minute to see what she could see.

 

[Halcyon638]

The guard nodded. "Sounds like the cops are here," he said at the increasingly loud sirens. Monica and the man waited. "You've seen some weird shit. Do you believe me? About the girl?"

A minute passed, then longer. There was no sound from within. A minute later, the lights suddenly came back on, momentarily blinding her. A low metallic hum could be heard. "Whoa, shit. They fixed them." He pulled out a key card. "This would get you in. If you...want to go in."

 

[BigDog1947]

Love the story. Please keep it going.

 

[siobhancan99]

(thanks bigdog, we are!)

Monica nodded "i fought a guy who turns into metal. A girl that walks through walls well. That tracks." She gestured for him to use the card, then tentatively opened the door, not wanting to disturb any poison in the room. "I'm gonna guess she's long gone though."

 

[Halcyon638]

There was a metallic whir and a beep as the guard’s card slid into the door. He then keyed a sequence of 4 numbers in. A moment later, Monica could open the door. Peeking in, she saw a large, well-maintained laboratory, not dissimilar from the ones she’d seen at HelixCorp’s site upstate.

She didn’t smell anything strange or see anything that suggested chemicals had been released, at least as far as those senses were helpful in detecting them. More signs pointed toward another chemical storage room, also linked to the keycard.

“4113,” the security guard said, glancing down the halls suspiciously.

When Monica made it into the storage room, she noticed signs of the woman’s presence. Specifically, a row of 4 flasks were missing from a row of chemicals. The labels displayed a chemical name half the length of her arm, but she was familiar with the abbreviation: PES-1113. It was the chemical she had pilfered from the HelixCorp site, the one that Sutter determined to be some kind of synthetic chemical meant to make the human body more receptive to gene therapy.

Other than that, there was no other sign the woman had even been there.

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica fumed that she couldn't say she knew what it was that was missing without giving herself away. "Alright. well. She was clearly in here." she sighed "I'm gonna go down and talk to the cops and make sure they know she can walk through walls and to keep a close eye on her paramour." She shifted then gave her burner number from her current phone to the guard "pass that up the chain. If your security people want my help on this they can text. No calls. its not 2010."

 

[Halcyon638]

“Shit,” the guard said. “How do you stop someone like that?”

Moments later, he tapped Monica’s phone number into his own device.

When she made her way down the stairwells again, she spotted a column of SWAT members advancing up the stairs in unison, rifles aimed ahead. The leader of the unit paused as he saw Monica, then signaled for his team to stop. He was a tall, 30-something bearded man with deeply set dark eyes, the name Klubeck on his uniform. “Walk through walls, huh?” he said as Monica explained the situation. “I guess that probably applies to floors, too?”

Speaking into his radio, he said, “I want a room by room search of every floor of this building, top to bottom. That’s every inch of every bathroom stall, breakroom, janitor’s closet, every sad, little cubicle.” Glancing back at Monica he said, “You wanna stick around for the fun?”

 

[siobhancan99]

She was about to say no, but she had to assume that whatever the woman was doing to walk through walls had to be energy intensive as hell, and so there was a chance she was still in the building. If she was, Monica had a responsibility to be present if the shit hit the fan. "yeah. Yeah i'll stick around for this. In case you need me. Look, the woman i caught is her lover. You need to get her the fuck out of here, or use her as bait. you can't leave her unattended though. Best too if you pretend she's being held one place and hold her at another. Might be able to catch her girlfriend when she comes to rescue her."

 

[Halcyon638]

Klubeck nodded. “Your call.” He listened to Monica’s suggestions regarding the other woman. “Makes sense. I’ll kick your suggestions up the chain. Not the kind of thing us meatheads get to decide.”

Shortly after, he and his team began their sweep. From the look and sounds of it, it was slow, methodical, painstaking work. After a while, as fatigue began to set in, Monica heard a pair of gunshots from several stories below. Klubeck spoke into his comms device. “You got her? She’s down?” He paused. “Alive? Over.”

He glanced over at Monica. “We got her. From the sounds of it, she’s not going to be walking through any walls any time soon.”

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica hmmmed "i doubt it. Also be careful. she stole something crazy from that locker. Not sure what it was but it had poison control messages all over it." she moved towards the stairs, bounding down them "she could be playing possum, getting her gear to recharge so she can sink through the floor, so be careful."

 

[Halcyon638]

“Noted,” Klubeck said. “We’ll see if she’s got some tech on her that we can take away, ‘cause if she’s a ghost…well, we can’t exactly cuff her.”

It was well past 2 AM when Monica stepped foot in her apartment. Fortunately, Wednesday was her relatively late start day, with her and Gabi kicking off the morning with Calc II. As they killed some time before class, the bio major said, “You still up to going to Ian and Eve’s show tonight? I have to work until 8 but I can meet you there.”

It was still early, so there was only vague news about the break-in attempt at HelixCorp the night before, though it did report that two suspects were currently in custody. Monica received a text from her father. “So. Any chance I’ll get to see my daughter any time around her birthday?”

Gabi had, more than a month ago, already called dibs on Monica’s actual birthday with a Friday night date and with a Saturday party.

 

[siobhancan99]

"plans with Gabi. How's the weekend before or after? or you can come party like its 1999, and by that I mean you're college appropriate. lol." She texted back. "Yeah we can go see Ian and Eve. How are they doing anyway? I'm glad one of our couples actually hooked up."

She also checked in with Hads, asking if she needed any help with her father, then packed up her stuff so she could get to class. On the way, she checked the news for any more mention of the supers caught in the Helix labs.

 

[Halcyon638]

Monica’s father texted back, “The weekend after would be good. That would work better for Kat, too. Did you want me to come pick you up to come home? Or stay in town?”

Gabi looked up from scanning her notes from their previous class session. “I think they’re good! They’ve posted some cute pics.” Grinning, she said, “I gotta give you all the credit on that one. You're the one who nudged Eve!"

Afterwards, Monica and Gabi walked hand-in-hand across the campus as a light late-March rain fell. Monica received a text from Hadley: “Thanks for checking in. Dad’s been in kind of rough shape lately mood-wise because of the cognitive stuff, and they also don’t know how much of his depression is because of the actual TBI and how much is him being out of work because of the cognitive stuff. I’ve been trying to spend more time with him but I am def looking forward to the show tonight. I need to hear some sweet sweet ringing in my ears.”

It was more than Hadley had shared in a while, and made Monica wonder whether there were some things she felt more comfortable texting about than giving voice. “Catch you later, carino,” Gabi said, kissing Monica’s cheek as she made her way to her Bio. II course while Monica headed to her Computational Methods in Engineering class.

She spotted a news story about the burglars.

HOSPITALIZED SUSPECT IN HELIXCORP BURGLARY IS MILLIONAIRE HEIRESS

A burglary suspect who was seriously wounded by police has been identified as Tasya Seriyev, 28, only daughter of multimillionaire Prospect City financier Alik Seriyev. The younger Seriyev is accused of having broken into HelixCorp headquarters and attempting to steal highly valuable, proprietary biochemicals. Also accused of the same act is Elizabeth Coleridge, 33, previously of Lincoln, Nebraska, who is believed to be Tasya Seriyev’s romantic partner. Both women are now accused of a series of crimes, including the theft of an electricity manipulating device from the InnoVenture corporation, burglarizing the R&T Bank in Preston Center, and numerous other break-ins. Seriyev is also suspected of having broken Coleridge out of the Lyle County Women’s Correctional Facility in November of last year. Seriyev was a renowned Russian gymnast who emigrated from Russia in 2017 following her father’s persecution by the Putin administration. Both Coleridge and Seriyev are reportedly being held at a government facility following their arrest late Tuesday after the two suspects encountered the vigilante known as Nighthawk.