Futuristic 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑹𝑬𝑽𝑶𝑳𝑼𝑻𝑰𝑶𝑵 𝑪𝑶𝑴𝑬𝑺 𝑰𝑵 𝑵𝑬𝑶𝑵

[leviathan.]

vxnilla ​

the revolution comes in

NEN.

​

 

[leviathan.]

.

.

.

CHAPTER ONE.

the war will not be televised.

The moon in New York Republic, in all her pale glory, is always inevitably drowned out by the neon-slick fire shot through the entire metropolis, blazing reds and pinks and electric blues like a technicolor sunrise. Skyscrapers gleam against a smokescreen sky, glass spires against bullet black, edged in reflected light and biting wind. The Empire State Building, in its third reconstruction since the HK Event, sticks out like a sore thumb on the skyline, half scrolling holographic panel and half stripped skeleton, night workers sitting like carrion crows on the rawboned beams. Times Square® is a crush of human activity, maglev and foot traffic in a precarious balancing act on account of the pedestrian crosses being in complete disrepair and, more importantly, studded with sidewalk tolls.

It is dead of night in the city-state that never sleeps and true to form, everyone is awake.

Well—any Yorker worth two bits anyway, the ones who make camp in fire escapes during the summer heat, the ones who rebuilt their home in the old streets after the riots, the ones who've loved and lost and grieved and killed in the city, in her streets—not the fuckers up high in their twice-rebuilt brownstones— modeled like the ones pre-Event, safely behind seven layers of cybersecurity and six layers of reputation—untouchable and, of course, asleep.

A certain subset of the New York populace all have the same reason for staying up late. For clearing their strained schedules for an hour, having their coworker cover their graveyard shift, for rushing to their apartments and double-locking their doors before pouring themselves a drink.

That reason comes on the airwaves with a pop-crackle, midnight sharp, dulcet tones digitally modified beyond recognition.

In New York Republic, where everything on your holoscreen's been through seventeen different censors and the media's under the thumb of good old Uncle Sam or the gangs (sometimes both), radio is for the revolutionaries.

“You’re listening to 98.7, Old York Underground, the last free station in all the Republic. All night, every night.”

A familiar intro plays out on dial-ups, amateurs, even handmade crank broadcasts all around the city as curtains are drawn shut and the volume dials are turned way down—the city’s CCTV just added enhanced audio receivers, and no one can be too safe.

There's been a crackdown on illegal radio—Mayor Norton and his cronies aren't stupid, and they've swept the bulk of the activity under the rug, their targets rotting in Rikers or conveniently disappeared.

The mayor usually gets what he wants.

No one knows how the Underground manages to elude him and his frankly terrifying reach, but they've been doing it for seven years and it doesn't look like they're going to stop anytime soon.

“To start things off, we’ve got the latest from the police scanner—Local police forces are roaming the streets in yet another enforced curfew, days after the Butcher resurfaces to 'terrorize' our Republic once more. Hope you’re all safe in your homes, dear listeners. You know how Old York’s finest get after dark.”

Somewhere in the Warehouse District, down by New Koreatown, a man drags himself into a side-alley, hand clutching his side to staunch the blood flow as his wound gapes wider at every movement. His platinum blonde hair and poet's face, once the subject of constant media adulation, is now twisted in pain as he breathes shallow, miserable breaths, bracing against a scum-lined wall.

"Between you and me, listeners, I think that this citywide 'curfew' is a load of bull. After all, we're not the targets here, are we? We've all seen the signs round town. We know who he's going after next, and it's sure as hell not us."

The damn posters are everywhere. Even as the man lay bleeding out, he can see, out of the corner of his eye, his own face staring back at him with a camera-ready smile and flat eyes. The streets are fucking papered over with them. He can't escape—that photo of him from god knows what corporate event, with block letters printed out under.

YOU'RE NEXT.

His vision's starting to fade and he's hyperventilating, light-headed, but he has the presence of mind to rip off a piece of his suit (it's nano-mesh, the finest grade, but the person that did this to him seemed to tear through the bonds like tissue as if it was no better than cloth) and fashion a makeshift tourniquet before heaving himself onto his side and, with trembling fingers, turning on his transmitter to make a call.

There's a chance he'll die before they get here—he can feel it, the warm, tingling flow of internal blood loss making him heady with vertigo. But if they find his body, maybe they'll find the Butcher standing over it.

He still has his heart inside his chest, after all.

The connection secures, and a cool female voice answers the line.

"Heroes' League Alpha Unit. Please input your emergency code."

The first time he tries to speak, only blood comes out. But he manages to croak out a reply, quiet in the night air, thready and desperate.

"Threat level Canary. Butcher."

"Are y'all sick of seeing Shockwave's smug face everywhere as I am? Usually, I can stomach seeing his face cycled through the bulletins, but now we get to see Fairchild Group's golden boy pasted on every damn street pole and wall in the downtown district. He hasn't had this much coverage since his murder trial last year—and his disappointing, but not unexpected, acquittal. But, I will say, if the Hero Butcher has his way, we'll be seeing a lot less of him in the coming days."

There's a short silence interspersed with the quick shuffling of papers, and then the line goes dead completely.

He slumps in relief.

Reinforcements are coming.

He leans his head back, and the moon traces the line of his bobbing throat, working in frenzied comfort.

Then, abruptly—knifelike—the tenuous light is sliced away, and there's a dark figure blocking the mouth of the alley.

They've caught up with him.

He staggers to his feet, static building up in the coils of his muscles. The throbbing, dull pain under his ribs sings sharp and blinding, but he powers through and manages to spark, electricity dancing between his fingertips.

He's Shockwave, goddamnit. He’s not gonna go down without a fight.

He could fucking take them. He's dispatched annoyances for Fairchild and for his own ends, and he's come out on top every time.

Why would this time be any different?

The shadow advances, slow, obscured by the dark. The district is free from the neon and full-strength lighting that infects most of the city-state—everything is a blur, even with Shockwave's perfect vision.

"Fucking coward," he snarls, metallic tang on his tongue. "Show your fucking face!"

He lunges, not about to take the defensive, his skin crackling off boiling white light. With ozone heavy in the air, his power lights up the alley, illuminating his attacker's face.

Then comes the mistake.

His eyes widen in recognition, his mouth shaped into a shocked yell, and he falters in his trajectory, stumbles a centimeter too close, and looks up—

And then, there is blood.

And then, there is silence.

"And you know what, Old York? Good riddance, am I right?"

There’s a pause as a notification pings in the background, static curdling the noise slightly.

“Oh? What’s this on my screen? Listeners, word on the street is that HLAU maglevs have been sighted downtown, heading towards the Warehouse District. Hm. Looks like a certain someone’s been busy while I've been running my mouth off. We’ll know more as the night progresses.

In other news, our favorite Angel’s been sweeping down the Foxconn District—long-held territory of CoDEX. Our reports have him connected to the recent arrest of Warren Abernathy, mid-level executive of Higher Limits LLC., connected to the much-reviled Bronxhattan™ Projects. Just this morning, Abernathy turned up trussed like a pig on the doorstep of the Independent, along with verified and very incriminating files that even Norton can’t sweep under the rug—federal-level shit.

Lovely, lovely news. To those that haven’t been following the story on the Projects—get your head in the game!—let’s just say that Higher Limits and CoDEX have an...intimate relationship.

So intimate, in fact, that the former’s been allowing the latter to operate out of Bronxhattan™ and collecting blood money from the carnage, all while writing it off as construction damages.

Corrupt fuckers, the lot of ‘em.

If you’re out there, Angel, my hat’s off to you.

Speaking of corruption, media darling and core member of the HLAU Centurion has been nominated yet again for the Heroic Service Award. How many times has it been? Three years running? Not that it’s a surprise to anyone, considering who dear old Dad is. Sorry, was. Not to mention the man's impressive physical assets—hey, even I’m not immune to that kind of propaganda and it looks like the guys up top aren’t either, if you catch my drift.

Moving on, the New York of Education has introduced a new public initiative: G. S. Norton Institute for Powered Youth. A government-funded boarding school designed—and I quote with considerable disbelief—to ‘keep low-income, powered youth off the streets and on track to a productive career’. The kicker is that accepted applicants apparently pay ‘nothing’ during their stay, each receiving a full-ride scholarship awarded by the city.

Now, I don’t have time to unpack all of that bullshit, but I’d advise that no matter how tantalizing the free tuition plus room & board is, all you parents think twice before sending your kiddies into a boarding school with the mayor’s name literally all over it.

You know how the mayor is, New York.

He always gets what he wants.

Even at the expense of our children.”

There’s a pause, and a tinny refrain starts up, signaling the end of the broadcast.

“Damn. Looks like our signal's been caught. Sorry to end on that note, listeners, but such is the nature of our show.

Watch out for each other, keep an eye out for Big Brother, and above all, don’t call the supers when you’re in a pinch.

Call us.

This has been Old York Underground. See you next time, listeners. Stay safe out there.”

And with a click, the music resolves into static as the dawn hits the skyline, indigo blue fading into streaky orange.

It’s a new day in New York Republic, but somehow, everything’s still the same.

template by astraea ∙ beware hidden scrolling

 

[vxnilla]

ingrid declan caverly.

location. his penthouse => warehouse district
mood. keyed up, at first trying to get out of his head and now unfortunately confronted with what he'd been trying to not think about
interactions/mentions. 4SIGHT, shockwave, lifeline, others
tags. leviathan.

Ingrid had no delusions about his ability to sleep. He was not someone haunted by insomnia or nightmares, or someone whose occupation required more hours out of him than he could afford to give. No, when he put his mind to it, he fell into slumber easily—in the way of someone so unequivocally safe behind layer after layer of protection (cyber and physical both), in the way of someone able to shrug off Centurion like a suit at the end of each day. The one drawback was that he was a light sleeper, roused by the slightest out-of-place creak on his floor or shutter of his windowpane, but rarely did it have to kick in.

Sometimes, though, there were things that would get to him. There were things that even he couldn’t simply push out of his mind.

The Butcher’s return was one of these.

Ingrid was no novice: he’d seen more than his fair share of blood and violence over the years, but the Butcher’s… second debut, if it could be called that, had sunk its hooks into him. They’d called him onto the scene of the first kill, 4SIGHT, and now every time Ingrid closed his eyes, he could see her face: her gouged-out eyes, her mouth slack and stuffed full of money. The senseless brutality of it floored him, but more than that, it was the cruel and mocking allusion to Ada’s other uses of her ability that unsettled him. He had no idea of knowing how far those rumors reached for the general public, but as far as he knew, it was only that highest circle of superhero elites which understood the unspoken truth of it.

All that glittered, after all, was not gold.

The second wave of posters hadn’t waited for the last death to settle before they started coming. It was Shockwave’s face on them this time, and Caleb was a lot of things, and not all of them favorable in Ingrid’s eyes—but he wasn’t an idiot, and he’d vanished off the grid as soon as he saw his own face staring back out at him from the posters. And Ingrid could never be friends with Caleb (not when he found the other arrogant, flashy, and unsubtle, leaning too hard into his own flash and bang to climb the unspoken social ladder, and especially not when Centurion and Shockwave seemed locked in a rivalry to rack up the most fame and fans and front page photo ops), but they were colleagues, and he wouldn’t wish the Butcher on anyone he knew.

It had been two nights of radio silence from Shockwave so far, but Ingrid, as much as he dreaded it, felt in his bones it would soon be time for the silence to be broken with bad news.

It was nights like these—times like these—when he could not sleep, thoughts some special kind of vicious that would not let his mind rest. Energy coiled restlessly under his skin like a livewire. What he needed was to get out of his head, find some kind of outlet, and so he’d gone out and picked up someone all too willing, leggy and blonde, and brought her back. His colleague was freshly dead, her mutilated corpse just barely cooling on the table of an autopsy room, and he was folding himself into a woman whose name he couldn’t remember, trying to forget the confines of his own body. His mind, blissfully, went noiseless.

When the both of them were spent, he laid still before he raised himself up on his elbows in a fluid, silent motion. His sheets slipped down his torso as he regarded her dispassionately. She was beautiful in the most objective sense, even more so with her fair hair splayed out against the pillow and the thin cotton still hinting at the body underneath. But while his thoughts had quieted initially, in the afterglow they now revived themselves with a frenzy. Maybe, he considered, she’d been too passive, a little too willing to lie back and simply do nothing. Left a little too much still in him.

Tomorrow night, then, he’d invite back someone different. Perhaps with broad shoulders and the kind of arms that would be happy to pin him down, perhaps with a smile sharp enough to cut and no reservations in taking what they want.

As if she sensed the weight of his gaze, she turned to look back at him, lips beginning to curve in a smile. He returned the gesture but felt no warmth behind it. She looked so hopeful, so unaware that even now he was trying to remember her name.

“Congratulations,” she enthused, “on the Heroic Service Award—this makes three, right?” and he knew what she was trying to do, had seen it done a dozen times before: she was trying to stave off his restlessness, draw this out as long as she can.

“Thank you,” he said. He straightened further, casting his eyes about the room for any glimpse of fabric, and pretended not to notice her face fall. “It’s an honor,” instead of what he wanted to say, which was It is as much of an honor as I am a good man, or maybe This makes three years, then, that the world plays the fool. Service, the award had boasted, as if his every action wasn’t calculated in some way for profit. If it didn’t deal in money, then it pulled in some other prize: a favor he can later redeem, or a foothold for him to further ascend the ranks, or PR currency.

“I bet. Then again, no one’s really surprised, right?” She laughed, a touch frenetic, running out of things to say.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t in the headspace to humor her for much longer (he wasn’t in the headspace for much right now, it seemed like), so he made a noise, neutral and noncommittal, and began to rummage for his clothes, pulling them on with much less fanfare than he’d taken them off.

From behind him, she asked, “You’re leaving?” Her tone was bitterly disappointed, but he could hear a note or two of resignation, and that was something he could work with.

“I’m afraid so,” he answered, just this side of apologetic. “Duty calls and evil never rests—you understand. But feel free to stay the night, it’s no trouble. Or you can ask for someone, and they’ll show you out.” To soften the blow, because he wasn’t sure he had an accurate gauge on how gently he thought he was letting her down, he added an utterly insincere, “I hope our paths cross again.”

As he padded to the door and stepped out into the hallway, smoothly closing the door behind him, he didn’t look back once.


—


It was three in the morning, and only an hour or two after he’d let himself out of the bedroom, when Ingrid got the call. He was nowhere near sleepy, so it took him mere minutes to don his suit and arm himself. Small razor in the hem of his pant legs, knife strapped to his wrist and the bottom of his foot, gun in hand and another against the small of his back.

Overkill? Maybe. But he’d rather overkill than be killed.

As if in agreement, his brain offered him reminders of 4SIGHT, of potentially Shockwave, and most hauntingly, of Solar Flare. None of them as untouchable as they thought they were.

Ingrid arrived to a scene thick with silence and blood. He’d gotten there soon enough that only one other person was already there—Lifeline, clever and quiet and always on the job, which made sense with his penchant towards healing—and another arriving at the same time as he did.

Even before he saw Lifeline’s shake of the head or glimpsed the blood that coated the other’s gloves, Ingrid knew Shockwave was a goner. His body was littered with wounds, but it was his chest, or where his chest used to be, that drew his attention first—it was a mangled mess, barely decipherable as something that used to have structure. And Shockwave’s skin was raised with red welts, in what looked like electrical burns.

Ingrid fought against the urge to avert his gaze. Instead, he locked eyes with Lifeline, who shook his head again and murmured, “There was nothing I could do. He was already dead by the time I got here.”

Silver-tongued as he was, even Ingrid didn’t know what he could say, and when words failed, he supposed action was all that was left. So he nodded in acknowledgment and turned to sweep the area, trying to look past where blood streaked cement and concrete. Tried to look for anything—a dropped weapon, a broken fingernail.

There was nothing.

Or at least he thought there was nothing, and he was about to ask whether or not either of the others had found something else, when out of pure luck his eyes lit upon something near the toe of his boot. He bent to get a closer look: it was a hair, thin and dark.

Shockwave was blonde.

“Hey,” Ingrid voiced, doing his absolute best to fixate on Shockwave had been blonde and this is not his and not the blood-drenched color that Shockwave’s hair was now. “I think I have a lead.”

Welcome to your life There's no turning back Even while we sleep We will find You acting on your best behavior Turn your back on mother nature Everybody wants to rule the world It's my own desire It's my own remorse Help me to decide Help me make the most Of freedom and of pleasure Nothing ever lasts forever Everybody wants to rule the world There's a room where the light won't find you Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down When they do I'll be right behind you So glad we've almost made it So sad they had to fade it Everybody wants to rule the world I can't stand this indecision Married with a lack of vision Everybody wants to rule the world

 

[leviathan.]

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[div class=container][div class=border][div class=name]❝ michael. ❞

[div class=role]-— it'll be the death of me; i'd welcome it.[/div] [div class=image][/div] [div class=textbox][div class=scroll] "Stay safe out there." The radio dissolved into white noise as the New York sun rose, freakishly large and bright over the jagged planes of Battery Heights, casting the pocked asphalt and stripped brick a white-red-gold light. In his shoebox apartment on a shoestring budget, Michael Kirk leaned back with a grunt on a ratty sofa, having just finished the stitches on his wounded leg. Warren Abernathy (renny to his friends, Michael couldn't help but remember. renny to no one anymore cause the goons caught him as soon as security left him in the cell—it's abernathy now, mr. abernathy-that-fucking-rat-bastard for the rest of his days) wasn't the type of man to carry arms, though he should've been. (shoulda been. he mused. shoulda been, but no. lucky for him. not so lucky for renny.) But he did know how to put his teeth to good use, having torn up Michael's skin something fierce. (it was a desperate kind of hurting, the way that the man lashed out limbs akimbo thousand dollar suit in disarray nails like claws eyes like a cornered animal—he was a bit like an animal wasn't he, when he scratched and bit and bled and tried to beg though when he caught on he stopped quick, he really did, and started biting again. hurt like a son of a bitch didn't it) His head buzzed with the remnants of last night's exploits, vision tinted ever so slightly red. A raft of bruises on his side made themselves known whenever he shifts an inch and his leg is just a mess of pain radiating out from the bone like a sun unto itself. He'll have reduced mobility for a few weeks—nothing a few weeks of bedrest can't heal, but Michael can't afford bedrest. Not when there's so much work to be done. (it echoed in his brain that thing they said on old york underground. 'if you're out there, if you're out there, my hat's off to you, angel.' a sort of hungry part of his mind scrapped for it like the meager bone it was, and still it gnaws on him, gives him a crushing shame in his belly—that golden little moment, that sliver of recognition—i am out here, i am out here, and you can see me.) He leaned his head back, jaw working as he tries to keep a lid on his frustration. Shards of sun from his window's crooked blinds pierced his eyes and dissolved into red spots dancing in his sightline. Abernathy had only been the beginning. Michael's done his research and he's determined not to stop there. Higher Limits needed to be stopped. He experimentally flexed his wounded leg, wincing at the expected lance of pain that shoots up into the spine, but heaved himself up nonetheless. (truth waits for no one, especially not him. he huffs a grim laugh.) He limped over to his computer—last year's model, laden with various heavy duty modifications to keep the built-in failsafes from frying it when the next new edition came on the market. it had multiple holo screens, a buzzing, faint neon blue floating over off-white plaster wall, cold to the touch. The monolith of tech took up most of his living space, the network of wires and plugs a carpet against his scratched hardwood floors, emanating in a snake-like burst. He sunk himself down in the seat, the worn springs creaking as he did, and started surfing through H1TLIST, looking for any worthy targets. Though some were, of course, kill contracts, there was plenty of valuable information posted up by angry Old Yorkers among the more shady shit. His gaze occasionally flicks to the automated timer on the top of the interface, its numbers slowly ticking down from 15 minutes. Browsing sessions were short on H1TLIST—the Hounds have been trying to take it down for years, and the site takes every measure to escape—often by barely minutes. (sinners everywhere. a flash of his grade-school catechisms momentarily gives him pause, the scent of church wood and dusty velvet filling his nose.) Usually, Michael pays the timer no mind. Nine times out of ten, it only takes him a few minutes to find a promising lead—New York Republic is no bastion of angels. Abernathy had only taken 6 minutes to find by way of a disgruntled employee looking for revenge. But today was slow, with the 15-minute sessions adding up into hours, coming up with only gang affiliate contracts out posted with some garden variety DOXXing on thieves, jackers, and government cronies that he couldn't be bothered to risk his neck to investigate. He pushed back from his desktop, rubbing a tired eye until it burned, watery with involuntary tears. There was nothing on H1TLIST. He's hit up the vigilante forums too—(encrypted little fuckers, took a hell of a lot of street credit and three weeks of securing his line to get in)—and they had nothing on Higher Limits—the records were all obsolete. Almost like someone was cleaning up. And Michael had a feeling he knew who it was. With a television-ready smile, electable platform, and made-for-radio voice, Norton ruled the streets more than any gang. But now's not the time. Or the place. With a muted grunt, Michael eased into his futon, not bothering to pick up his blanket from where it had been laying on the floor for hours. He glanced at the clock haphazardly positioned on the edge of his desk, neon numbers blinking a cool 10:45. Turning to his side with some effort, he closed his eyes. The plan was to sleep away the day and get up to do some legwork at night, patrolling a couple rounds of the Heights to start off. Michael didn't like it, but he had no leads and a hell of a limp. He knew his limits. (a old memory flickers to life in the recesses of his mind. latin class, 7th grade. answer 3, page 54. aut viam inveniam aut faciam. i will find a way or make one.) [/div][/div] [div class=info][div class=text]MOOD: hollow inside ○ LOCATION: battery heights, apartment 43B ○ TAGS: vxnilla [/div][/div][/i][/b][/div][/div][/div] [class=container] width: 450px; height: 630px; margin: auto; cursor: url(https://66.media.tumblr.com/232c090ebdd37ae4bc17adb54e1e0344/tumblr_inline_ol4nwhvSwg1uxxza6_75sq.png), auto!important; [/class] [class=border] position: absolute; width: 450px; height: 630px; background: #000; margin: 0 auto; border: 1px solid #ccc; [/class] [class=name] position: relative; top: 20px; line-height: 80%; margin: 0 auto; text-align: center; font: 27px Abril Fatface; color: #fff; text-transform: uppercase; [/class] [class=role] display: inline-block; position: relative; top: 22px; left: 50%; transform: translateX(-50%); line-height: 80%; margin: 0 auto; text-align: center; font: 9px Verdana; background: var(--accent-1); padding: 5px; color: #fff; text-transform: uppercase; [/class] [class=image] position: absolute; top: 100px; left: 0; height: 150px; width: 450px; background: var(--image); -webkit-clip-path: polygon(100% 0, 100% 100%, 0% 100%, 0 0, 50% 15%); clip-path: polygon(100% 0, 100% 100%, 0% 100%, 0 0, 50% 15%); [/class] [class=info] position: absolute; bottom: 0; left: 0; height: 30px; width: 440px; padding: 0px 5px; font: 11px Verdana; background: var(--accent-1); color: #fff; text-transform: uppercase; line-height: 28px; white-space: nowrap; overflow: hidden; [/class] [class=text] display: inline-block; padding-left: calc(100% + 5px); animation: {post_id}marquee var(--time) linear infinite; [/class] [class=textbox] position: absolute; left: 0; top: 250px; width: 433px; height: 316px; overflow-x: hidden; font-size: 12px; white-space: pre-line; line-height: 125%; padding: 17px 0px 17px 17px; [/class] [class=scroll] width: 100%; height: 100%; overflow-y: scroll; padding-right: 17px; text-align: justify; color: #fff; [/class] [animation=marquee] [keyframe=0] transform: translate(0, 0); [/keyframe] [keyframe=100] transform: translate(-100%, 0); [/keyframe] [/animation]

 

[leviathan.]

.

.

.

CHAPTER ONE.

the war will not be televised.

LIFELINE - JAKE MONROE​

Jake bagged the hair as soon as Ingrid saw it, gloved hands trembling with barely contained excitement. He held in up in the light to examine it, eyes squinting under his cap. It was wiry dark hair, slick with blood residue.

Fucking bingo.

The Butcher had been meticulous since the beginning of their killings. Not a single scene had any sort of evidence on it—his superiors had all but torn their hair out in frustration. There hadn't been any good leads on the Butcher case since it was opened.

Until now, at least.

He grinned, manic, his expression not quite fitting his gruesome surroundings. The man turned to Ingrid (Agent Centurion, the professional part of him reminded) and schooled his face into something more serious as more maglevs pulled up, screeching mere feet away from the hastily stuck crime scene tape.

"Holy shit. Is that what I think it is, Monroe?" A husky voice said, incredulous, country twang palpable in the tone. Aces approached the scene with the practiced air of a senior HLAU agent, holding a coffee in one hand and taking off his sunglasses with the other. The brawny hero squinted at the bagged hair, disbelieving. The other two with him, Balance and Psyche, trail behind him, both wearing similar expressions.

Jake nodded. "Yeeeep. Centurion found it near Sho—the victim's boot."

"Damn." A gauntleted hand clapped Centurion's back, congratulatory. "'Course golden boy here found the only DNA evidence ever left on a Butcher crime scene. Shiiiiit."

"Alright, alright, let's scan the damn thing, huh?" A clear voice piped up. Psyche was squatting down, their keen eyes examining Shockwave's corpse, eyes narrowing.

"We need to find the son of the bitch now before they kill off more of us."

A hush momentarily fell over the group, the heroes suddenly looking grimmer than ever, before they all gathered around Jake expectantly.

"They're right. Lifeline, scan it."

Now with the entire entourage breathing down his back, Jake activated his holo-arm, small neon projections swirling around his hands.

He carefully lined the bag up against his OCR, the surface flashing as it scanned the hair and collected its data at lightning speed.

What popped up on his interface made him choke off a breath in disbelief.

"Says the hair belongs to one Cameron Rao. Has some infractions in the database—neurodrug possession and distribution, as well as some other low-level RICO charges. Affiliated with HARDWAREZ."

A silence.

Balance finally spoke, voice trembling.

"So...that's it? That's the Butcher? We really caught him? Is it all over?"

Jake held a finger up.

"Not too fast, Agent Balance. Here's the problem. This Cameron Rao is 21. Cross-referenced to make sure. This dude would have been 16 when the Butcher first attacked. Way too young to fit the profile."

Aces frowned.

"You never know, Lifeline. Some kids in this city are fuckin' rotten all the way through. Got a grudge against us cause we're the 'establishment.' Vindictive little shits, I tell ya. I wouldn't put it past this Rao of yours."

Jake raised an eyebrow. He himself grew up poor in the Projects and he knew that Aces came from old money, but he didn't know that the man liked to deepthroat the boot that much.

But that was above his pay-grade. None of his business. Stopped being his business when he bought himself a house in Uptown and his dad a condo in Sunnyside.

"Well that isn't proof enough, I think this is." He projects an image of Cameron Rao—short, young-looking, angry eyes—in uniform, smirking at the camera.

"Rao was in a military boarding school in Albany at the time the first attacks occured."

Psyche snorted. "Way to bury the lede, Lifeline."

They spread their hands out in a placating gesture, eyes sweeping across the four other heroes calmly.

"Anyway, even if he didn't do it, he might know who did." They shot an inquiring glance at Jake. "Last whereabouts of this guy?"

He typed lightning fast on his interface, eyes scanning databases a mile a minute.

"Dude's a ghost after he turned 18. I found a motel suite in his name in the Warehouse District, but it seems he checked out...three hours ago."

Balance narrowed her eyes.

"He's trying to skip town."

Jake shut off his interface with a swipe, immediately calling the Main Branch for a search party to canvass the whole city.
"Heroes' League Alpha Unit. Please input your emergency code."

"It's Lifeline, Code AB07 Jupiter. Threat level Epsilon, Butcher. Cameron Rao. Indian male. Five foot eleven. Extreme flight risk. Presumed armed and dangerous. Requesting all available units to canvass the area and Protocol R5 deployment."

Meanwhile, Aces sets his coffee down on the hood of his maglev, his friendly Southern accent disappearing as his voice turns smooth, businesslike.

"We have at least 24 hours before he makes it to the borders of the Republic. We need to act fast, or we'll lose this guy in a heartbeat."

He sets his hard gaze at Centurion, serious.

"How d'you feel about leading the patrol, m'boy?"

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