The Owl in the Abyss - Chapter 7

The sun rose at last and I decided to spend the day outdoors.

Our backyard wasn’t that large, but it was a nice uninterrupted stretch of lawn with a few small trees along the fences. The only thing that was missing to complete the picture was a pool, but that had been outside of the budget of the previous owner and it was completely out of the question for me and dad.

We did have an outdoor table and chairs that in merrier times we used to eat Sunday lunch on. The first hour of the day I spent with a hose, cloth and cleaning fluid getting everything clean again from years of accumulated grime and dust. A towel to dry one chair and a part of the table, and I was able to bring my notes, books, the ancient clay jar and SCP-15 outside to begin work.

Exposing ‘15 more to the jar and querying the sentient pipe on what it perceived, was the only real idea I had to try and pry more of the jar’s secrets loose. 15 also kept on insisting that I should be able to perceive the same things without its help.

It got to the point where the pipe refused to speak further until I tried.

So I was forced to bury my skepticism and do so.

Just staring at the thing achieved nothing, then I decided to pick it up carefully and see if direct contact helped.

This also was a bust and twenty minutes later, ‘15 began honking at me.

“You say you can see fleshy thing’s emanations, do the same here.”

“The jar isn’t alive, ‘15,” I pointed out.

“All things have emanations, Taylor. You blind yourself.”

“Wait… you mean, my preconceptions?”

“If that is what you fleshy things call it, yes. I have emanations, can you not see it?”

I stared at the length of innocuous pipe feeling like someone had picked it up and hit me with it. How did I not even notice I was doing that?

It was like I had a third eyelid and every time I was looking at a person, the eyelid opened. I looked away… and in reflex the eyelid closed. It was nuts. I didn’t remember what it was like to be a baby learning the motions of limb movement, but this had to be what it was like.

A muscle that before was entirely reflexive… and you discover that you can move it.

Jerkily. I strained and tried not to think about it too hard. It was like pushing my will through molasses.

My mind’s eye opened.

I jerked in surprise, as ‘15 was the first thing I saw… truly saw. It was like my aura vision was just the first step.

‘15 seemed to radiate what my mind seemed to define as a type of blue, but this was not a blue that existed in nature. It didn’t even really exist in this ‘reality’. This had nothing to do with the EM spectrum at all. This ‘not-blue’ aura radiated outward and dropped off sharply at just a few feet. The exact distance you had to keep ‘15 away from other pipes.

I looked around with true sight?

The grass was also emanating… a lush yellow and I could practically see them drinking in sunlight and being busy with the processes that gave them life.

Then my attention was drawn to my own body and while I could see the aura and a bunch of processes that were probably the emanations of my biological machinery, like ‘15, there were dozens of unreal ‘not-colors’. It was so complex that I didn’t see how I was ever going to make rational heads or tails of any of it.

Then again, ‘15 had said that it was instinctual, something that the standard rational mind couldn’t begin to properly fathom. Did ‘15 even have what could be defined as a rational mind?

My eyes turned to the clay jar and I instantly saw that there was a lot going on here, but in a more limited fashion. There were new ‘not-colors’ here and there were distinctly four of them, clumped together and moving around like they were orbiting the jar, but never really coming close enough to touch the jar.

I opened my notebook and began taking notes, brainstorming, then editing and filtering the ideas to more reasonable ones.

That done I saw immediately that I would need help. “Dad!”

“Coming!”

He emerged onto the backyard with wet hands that he was drying out with a towelette.

“Crap, did I forget the dishes?”

“You technically forgot breakfast, dear,” he smiled in jest.

“Yeah, I suppose I did,” I muttered. It was odd that I wasn’t missing the taste of foods, especially my old favorites. The memories of a maple syrup waffle or pizza were there still. I could recall the relish and the delight of my taste buds being in heaven, but trying to summon a longing or craving for those foods just wasn’t happening.

He pulled out a chair, regarded it for a second and sat down. “So what’s going on?”

“I’m going to need a few things for an experiment,” I pushed over the notebook to show a rough sketch I’d made with labels of the various components.

He looked it over for a few minutes, “I see, you think there’s more to the jar than what we’ve found. It can pour a fourth substance?”

“I figured out what ‘15 was going on about. It seems my aura vision is just the tip of an iceberg. I can use it to look at just about anything really and when I look at the jar… I don’t think I can really put words to what I’m seeing even if I invented them from scratch. The only analogy here is trying to describe the color purple to someone blind from birth. The point is I know there’s a fourth substance. It probably needs a very precise angle to pour that we accidentally missed.”

Dad nodded and then looked at his watch, “Speaking of which, I could probably give Robby a call.”

“Robby?”

“Chem guy for warehouse certification,” he explained as he fished his own phone out of his pocket and began dialing after fiddling with it.

My mind had a bit of a hiccup of surprise at seeing it, then I chastised myself for it.

Of course he would get himself one.

What did it help I had one and he didn’t?

In retrospect, in a town as dangerous as Brockton, the idea of not having a mobile phone was utterly moronic, doubly so when we just let our old phones from before mom’s accident lapse into inactivity. It just showed how weirdly and even stupidly the human heart sometimes dealt with traumatic loss. We had both just heaped the blame and hurt onto the things and never looked back.

Did this show that we were healing? That we were moving on?

I didn’t know how to feel about that.

On the one hand, it felt like moving on was an insult to mom, but would she really want us to torture ourselves in ‘honor’ of her memory. The lack of being able to call for any help could likely kill us.

“Ah, Robby, how are things?” Dad said abruptly, jerking me out of my introspection. He listened for a bit, politely nodding and ‘uh-huh’-ing to whatever his old friend was saying. “Yeah, well, I can probably make it next Saturday. I’ll call if I get hung up. Things with Taylor are fluid…” he winced visibly as he looked at me.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or be furious at the accidental double-entendre, the humor thankfully won out and I had to clamp my hand over my mouth to prevent the burst of laughter.

“So what about that sample I brought you?”

He listened for quite a while, once again going into a string of ‘Uh-huh’s.’

“Really? Wow. Is it that effective? No kidding.” Dad then gave me a grim look. “Rob, that’s not something I can talk about over a phone. Yeah, look, just keep a lid on it, will you?” He gave a slight breath of relief on the answer. “Good. There’s a lot of things I don’t even have an answer for yet. I’ll get back to you… okay… goodbye.”

He pulled the phone from his ear and practically shoved his finger through the screen to end the call.

“What was that about?” I asked with a bit of dread.

“Robby rather amazingly came up with some answers on the corrosion substance, but he’s got a lot more questions about it that came up as a result of those answers. Firstly, he did some tests and then those tests sent him down all sorts of other investigation paths, it’s a long convoluted thing that he didn’t really explain in much detail. Bottom line, this stuff is what he calls antihemolytic, in other words, it gets rid of blood like nothing he’s ever heard of or seen before.”

“That’s not so extraordinary in comparison to the flammable stuff.”

As it turned out the flammable liquid did have a limit on how long it could burn for - it had winked out at 25 hours.

“No, it is. You know how at crime scenes the police use that liquid… uh, luminol, yes, to illuminate cleaned blood stains. Apparently our corrosion substance would totally, completely get rid of blood to the point where even luminol is ineffective. At that point, even a trained sniffer dog would also be useless.”

My fingers were kneading my forehead, I caught myself and asked, “So what does olive oil, an effective 25 hour, odorless, smokeless light oil and an antihemolytic, magically coming out of the same ancient jar, have in common? What’s the connection? What is the point?”

“If your sight or hunch proves correct, I think identifying what the fourth substance is will make the pieces of this puzzle fit together. He also thinks that the stuff will be almost revolutionary among the mortuary industry. The various chemicals they have to use to keep their embalming facilities clean and up to code is a pain - this antihemolytic would greatly streamline their operations. We’d have to ‘beat morticians away with sticks’ if we ever brought this stuff to market.”

“We don’t even know how much this jar would produce over time, or if it would eventually run out.”

“Yeah, he figured it was some form of ‘Tinker’ chemical and naturally assumed that I was the Tinker. Had to set him straight and I’m gonna have to come up with something to tell him. He’s going to try to recreate it himself, but I’ve got a feeling it’s not gonna work.”

I nodded. It wouldn’t work at all. It was a substance that was completely other.

My hand reached out and I paged in the notebook and my eyes found the translation of the inscription on the jar again. “‘Pour the oil on your flesh’, well, olive oil is used in some skin lotions.”

“It’s also described in the Bible as what was used in anointing, it’s still used today,” Dad pointed out. I let my surprise at his knowledge show on my face. “Hey, we’re not the most religious of families, but I grew up that way, same with your mother. We both just decided to let you make up your own mind about that. So, pour the oil and go amidst the… faithful?”

“Maybe,” I shrugged. “It’s just that the last bits are very ominous.”

“This has the feel of the Old Testament, ‘His wrath and fury shall’, fall on the unbelievers or His enemies, guessing there.”

I wrote dad’s guesses down in the book. “Might be, can’t rule anything out at this point.”

“Well, we’re not going to get answers sitting on our behinds all day. Write me a list and I’ll go out and grab what we need, might as well get your GED coursework while I’m at it,” he stood up.

I bounced out of my chair and grabbed him in a hug, only to run smack first into my nudity predicament, so I awkwardly kept the hug as light as possible. “Uh, thanks dad.”

“No problem, dear, I should only be a few hours,” he patted me on the back lightly and walked back into the house.

My mind was preoccupied for quite a while after that.

I had become so comfortable with my nudity… that I had totally forgotten about it.

888888888888888888888888888

The next evening I found myself standing on the slanted roof of a five floor apartment building in the same street where I had met Del in Brockton’s Red Light district. It wasn’t quite time for the working girls to appear, but I had dad drive me earlier so I could do some more detailed scouting of the area.

It allowed me to also just ponder on the results of a day’s experimentation with the Maccabee Jar. It felt wrong to just keep calling it ‘the jar’ anymore, considering we now had a pretty good idea what the thing was used for.

We had together built my simple experimental rig. It consisted of a steel stand and claw, which would hold the jar at a precise angle which we measured with a protractor.

As before, at 45 degrees tilt, came the olive oil but the oil stopped flowing the moment the inclination went beyond 46. The Jar began pouring again at 50 degrees.

The naked eye and even my super nose reported that once again it was just pouring olive oil, but my true vision showed that this was definitely the new fourth substance. Just looking at it now exposed to the normal world and air gave me awful shudders down my spine and even ‘15 warned us away from ever touching the stuff.

It had a non-real color that I made sure to never forget because ‘15 explained that the substance was ‘death to most fleshy things’.

Dad was the first to join the dots.

The Maccabee Jar was a tool of judgment and even from a certain point of view, assassination.

Someone using it could harmlessly anoint people with olive oil or even use it in food, then with just a slight extra tilt produce a perfectly indistinguishable poison form of olive oil - that could somehow ‘judge’ someone and if they were found wanting - would die nastily from that poison.

The antihemolytic was to clean up the mess afterward, whilst the near unending light oil was to help the ‘assassin’ during the night.

All this was interesting, in a horrifying way, but it still didn’t answer the primary question of why?

Why was this sent to me?

What possible use could I make of it?

Sell two liters of near artisanal quality olive oil that the jar would produce every day?

Another thing we had discovered was the limits of volume of oils it would produce over time.

The effort and red tape didn’t justify it all, considering that a bit of legal research online said that olive oil must be certified to have undergone mechanical or physical extraction. In other words, you had to be able to show the olives you got the oil from and even where you grew it.

Dad wanted to do further experimentation with the light oil, seeing if it could be used for any combustion. Two liters of free fuel a day was pretty appealing to him, but the chances his truck could handle it without expensive modification was pretty much zero. Even if the light oil could act as a combustible, there was no guarantee it could act within the performance tolerances required by a modern engine.

The only realistic possibility we could see was storing up the antihemolytic and hope Robbie had a few contacts in the mortuary industry we could use to get the ball rolling there.

My eyes looked up into the dark sky and I rather irrationally wished that the city could just shut off its lights for a moment.

I wanted to see the stars again.

Somewhere out there, someone had decided to send me ‘15 and the Maccabee Jar.

The reason would remain elusive unless they literally decided to teleport a note to me next time and there was going to be a next time. This was far from over.

Once was an accident, twice was a trend. Three times would be a pattern. Technically speaking, we had reached that point already.

I was the first.

A car engine backfiring in the street below almost made me jump out of my skin. I had been woolgathering for long enough that I could now spot the girls in their preferred spots all along the street. Del was there too, though her head swiveling all over the place up and down the street, was a clear indication that she was expecting me to make an appearance. My vanishing stunt had made an impression it seemed.

The first clear customer of the evening pulled onto the street.

The car was very expensive and high-end. An Audi of some sort that just screamed high-tech by just looking at it. Curved lines, aggressive LED headlights that didn’t blind you, all in a dark blue color.

Many of the girls stepped forward to entice the driver of this car, though quite a few remained back for some reason. It was hard to tell detail at this distance, but their auras were stained with a wary suspicion.

The car stopped a few meters from Del, a window opened and I could see her begin talking to whoever was inside. The view of the driver was blocked due to my high angle and even if I had been on street level, the dark one-way windows of the car would stop me seeing the occupants.

She continued her negotiation with the potential customer and now her aura started to gain the same green hue and sparks of someone not liking what they were seeing; deception.

Del shook her head, affecting an uncaring expression, waved goodbye to the driver and stepped away back towards her spot.

The doors of both passenger and driver opening at once did not bode well.

Two men. One was dressed in a formal suit made informal, with no tie, and an open collar shirt. He was short and walked rather awkwardly, as if he was trying to stretch himself to appear as if he was taller. The other was more alarming; tall, muscular, wearing a white sleeveless shirt and shorts, with sneakers adorning his feet. In contrast to his youthful appearance in body, he had a receding hairline and a saggy, jowled face… and was brandishing a baseball bat.

If the latter hadn’t rang alarm bells in my head, the fact that these two clearly had parahuman auras sealed the deal. Their intent was also clear.

I misted and hovered invisibly in the blind spot of Mr Bat.

This close I could study them further and was hit with a strange sense of familiarity. As if I had seen these faces somewhere before.

“Hey lady! You think you can just leave us hanging like that,” he crudely thrusted his hips forward and used his free hand to frame his crotch. “This here needs some satisfaction.”

The accent wasn’t local but I could vaguely hear that this wasn’t his natural speaking voice. He was clearly and quite professionally shifting it to a more Californian accent.

“Uh Trevor, we’ve gotta problem,” Mr Suit said. He was also shifting his accent but more crudely into a stereotypical Italian American style. He pointed at a pair of glasses that he wore, which was thicker and visibly giving him an actual HUD in them. “Our wanted level just spiked to five.”

“What? I don’t see no cops, Michael,” Trevor glanced up and down the street warily, slapping his bat into his open hand, as if eager for a fight.

“I dunno, it should be calibrated properly…”

Trevor looked at Michael with disappointment plain on his face, “You’re breaking immersion.”

“Immersion is not gonna save our skins when we have faulty equipment,” ‘Michael’ retorted, more of his fake accent slipping to reveal he was clearly a Brockton local. He abruptly reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a pistol, turning towards Del who was by now in a full backwards retreat towards the alley. The only thing that stopped me from braining him with ‘15 was that he had kept its barrel to the ground. “You stay right there, honey. Capiche?”

Del had no choice but to comply at this point, she was still within fifteen feet from the duo, a relatively easy shot for anyone with a hint of hand-eye coordination.

My own brain was warring with two conflicting issues. I had realized who these two actually were and looked up into the sky, scanning with true sight and sure enough hovering about ten meters in the air behind us was the ‘Snitch’, a tinkertech drone camera that was livestreaming the antics of Uber and Leet.

I could end this quickly by simply mastering them. The problem was I would be doing it in front of a potential audience of thirteen to fifteen thousand people watching the stream live - who were probably also recording and would send the video out further and the entire Internet would know.

My nudity so far had only been in front of a handful of people, most of whom had been my food sources, doctors, heroes, my dad and Del. This was a completely different kettle of fish. I had been in control there, ready to pull people in, to hypnotize them to forget if necessary. There was no such safety here.

Leet pulled out a control pad from his jacket pocket, it was filled with buttons and a central screen. Uber stepped forward in his Trevor Philips disguise and walked right up to within arms reach of Del, so Leet could spare his full attention on whatever gadget he had.

My long nights of research, prep and eagerly reading the words of heroes on PHO, had given me a few aphorisms that most heroes operated by.

The one most relevant to this situation was, don’t give a Tinker time.

I ruffled my hair as much as possible to cover my face and angled myself, trying not to think too much about what I was going to do and burst forward with speed.

My form materialized to Leet’s left as I swung up with ‘15.

The control pad was flung out of the tinker’s hands and into the air as he cursed in pain, reflexively clutching his hands together and scrunching his eyes closed, curling in on himself.

My sentient pipe was already swinging for Uber’s face in the next moment.

Uber dodged by jerking himself back and I only managed to clip the tip of his nose.

It was enough to stun and it looked like it hurt like hell judging by Uber’s own painful scream.

I brought ‘15 around with its momentum, regaining control and misted, pushing myself to hover two meters above their heads.

Del, I was gratified to note, had not wasted the opportunity and was fleeing down the alley.

The other working girls were also long gone.

Good.

“Ah fuck,” Leet winced, shaking his hands to alleviate the pain. “Who the fuck was that? Shadow Stalker? Would certainly explain the wanted level.”

“No,” Uber shook his head, he tapped something on the back of it and with a static effect, his head and face shifted into a domino masked visage, which had done nothing to protect his now bleeding nose. “Unless Stalker’s white and decided to take up a nudist fetish.”

Leet turned to look at his partner in astonishment, “You’re kidding?”

“Nope, nude woman, tall, some kinda stranger effect, she had a long pipe.”

“Shit,” Leet hurried forward while drawing his pistol again, and picked up his control pad - which was thoroughly smashed at this point. He pocketed it and began swiveling his gaze, trying to spot anything amiss on the street itself which would betray my position.

He naturally found nothing and reached into his suit pocket and pulled out what looked like a grenade.

I doubted they were stupid enough to bring an actual explosive grenade to fight someone who was clearly a close range opponent.

“Think that will work?” Uber winced, using his shirt to dab the bleeding. The utter beefcake of a body beneath was enough to send all sorts of tingly feelings along my brain and body - serving to remind me that I needed to feed.

“It was designed for Stalker, but it’s better than nothing at the moment.”

Leet pulled the pin and dropped the grenade a few feet away, which abruptly burst and spewed a dark misty black gas everywhere.

I decided not to take the chance and hovered higher.

Luckily this gas was strangely dense and heavier than air, it seemed to peak at eight feet and with no real wind tonight only spread forty feet in every direction. Uber and Leet was now lost in the dark cloud, but I could still spot their auras.

Uber was clearly not happy about the situation and gave Leet a slap on his shoulder.

Leet was still able to see through the dark cloud somehow, most likely his tech glasses helping, and the two quickly burst out of the cloud.

“Seriously bro,” Uber shook his head, losing his California accent completely. The abruptness of his voice indicated that the cloud also had sound dampening effects. “We have to talk about this throwing shit against the wall approach.”

I had a bit of struggle to contain my amusement at their antics as I flew up to the hovering Snitch.

Again I was in a bit of a conundrum. Villains they might be and they were far from harmless, as evidenced by tonight, but the Snitch was the exact sort of thing I needed. Going all hero on them and kicking their asses was making an enemy I didn’t want or need. Destroying the Snitch was not an option.

Leet was a unique tinker in the world of capes. He was generally considered a joke, because his devices tended to fail, usually in ways that were hilarious or even dangerous. A fringe section of PHO, though, pointed out that in their early days, the duo was frighteningly effective and Leet’s slump was due to some sort of limitation in his tinkering abilities. What that was, no one could say for sure.

I reached out with my hand, materializing it briefly. It closed around the Snitch and just as quickly I misted it with me.

My instincts had served me well here, because Leet had built in a final safeguard. The Snitch had been trying to send a stun charge through my hand, but I only caught less than a second of it, as it didn’t strictly exist anymore.

“What the fuck! The Snitch is gone!”

“What?!”

I zoomed away at my max speed and into a building two streets over, finding a basement room that looked like janitorial storage, which seemed securely locked, then materialized the Snitch in it.

It immediately flew about, desperate to find some way to return to its owner.

I quickly returned to find Leet desperately fiddling with his glasses and shouting verbal commands, “Return, return! Shit, it’s locked in.”

“Easy, easy, bro. At least she didn’t destroy it.”

“You’re not helping,” Leet gritted his teeth in frustration. “Do you think the audience is gonna enjoy just seeing a janitor closet?”

“We’ve still got audio of our position at least,” Uber pointed out. “Sorry folks, for this technical issue. It looks like our format has changed to a podcast for the moment.”

Crap. It was a mistake to have assumed that the Snitch was their sole source of broadcast. It was also likely that Leet’s glasses could also double as a camera, broadcasting his point of view in a pinch. They probably had a whole host of gadgets to facilitate this excursion and they had prepared for a law enforcement response and even hero intervention.

The only way to move forward now was unfortunately not going to be conducive to voluntary friendly relations.

The initiative remained on my side and the option for retreat was there. Leaving these two to pick up the pieces of their broadcast was not an option though, given the theme and video game that I thought they were emulating in reality.

I grit my teeth as I warred with my indecision and chose.

My form sped towards Leet, briefly emerging into reality. My right hand grabbed onto his suit jacket, while my left went for his glasses, my power flexed and I was invisible and in the air again.

With everything that the villain had been wearing.

I dumped everything on a nearby rooftop and zoomed back down.

Leet was reacting to his abrupt nudity at this point.

“Ahhh! What the…” he reflexively buried his right hand to cover his crotch and whirled around in panic. I had been thankfully careful enough to leave his holoface disguise, so I couldn’t be accused of willfully unmasking a cape. That was a surefire ticket to becoming persona non grata amongst both camps.

Uber boggled at this sight of his naked partner, before I gave him the same treatment.

I dumped his clothes on a different rooftop and returned to examine their reactions.

Uber in contrast didn’t cringe or cover himself. In fact, he had pulled himself into some sort of ready stance straight out of some martial art.

Seeing such an utterly muscular specimen of manhood, trained to the upper limit of humanity, in that pose was a delight to the eye, especially as he certainly didn’t disappoint downstairs either. He wasn’t hung like one of my conquests at the hospital, but he was in the upper percentile of size.

Uber’s power granted him skill at any technique he concentrated and focused on, if it could be performed by the human body. Something he obviously had applied considerably towards training his own body.

“Shit, what are we gonna do?” Leet moaned. “Everything’s gone, we’re literally naked bro.”

“Quiet,” Uber snapped at his partner. He was carefully remaining still, not bothering to turn or try to look in every possible direction, which was surprisingly wise of him. It meant he was expecting an attack at his back or blind spot now. He had probably used his power to adopt some sort of martial arts technique for countering that.

So now it was time to throw a spanner in the works of his expectations.

I moved to about twenty feet away from the duo, directly in Uber’s line of sight and materialized.

“Sorry…”

Uber charged straight at me.

I briefly pulled his mind into my web, “Stop!”

He complied completely and in the process didn’t compensate for retaining his balance. His right leg, still in the air, froze and he pitched over. I released him in time for his hands to catch his fall, which he turned into a roll to come closer.

“Stubborn,” I grumbled to myself and pulled both of them into my web. “Stop!”

Uber popped upright and stopped, coming to a military style pose of attention. Leet did the same, completely abandoning his attempts at modesty.

What was it with my master abilities and making my conquests act like smitten soldiers?

Leet was also clearly not in shape, but he wasn’t fat, just skinny. I put it out of my mind and got to business.

“You will both not attack me, understood?”

“Yes, mistress,” they chorused. I studied their aura’s carefully before nodding and pushing them out of the mind web.

“Ah fuck,” Leet winced shaking his head and holding a hand to it. “Stranger, Master, Mover? That is some bullshit!”

Uber was staring at me with a furious expression and his entire body was straining against my command.

“I just wanted to talk,” I planted ‘15’s end on the tarmac and leaned on it, flaring a hip casually, trying to affect an unconcerned posture and body language. “You’re not making it easy with your antics, especially considering your theme tonight.”

“Who the hell are you supposed to be? A nudist cape? A hooker cape?” Leet’s hands were back to shielding his crotch.

“Wow, good guesses, Leet,” I smiled at him.

“Seriously?” he gaped in astonishment and his eyes began to take a rather lecherous glint as he stared at me.

“As I said, I just wanted to talk… business that is, which can’t happen when you’re cosplaying as GTA characters and have an audience, so I was forced to remedy the situation.”

Leet began to smile, “Wow, the game for these characters isn’t even out yet. You saw their promo stuff at E3?”

“I’ve recently come into a lot of free time that I need to fill and happened to catch an ad online,” I shrugged.

“I see, oh well, I guess it was too much to hope that you were a gamer girl as well.”

“Leet, stop speaking to the Master,” Uber gritted his teeth. “We should just…”

“She wants to talk business, bro, we’re not in a position to refuse.”

Uber looked unhappy but finally conceded to the situation and stopped straining against his own body, “Fine. Talk.”

“Cool, so, uh, what’s your name?”

“Escort,” I replied promptly.

After many hours of research and brainstorming with my dad, we had finally settled on a name for my cape persona. Almost every connotation and meaning associated with it was positive, except for the one usage where it meant in UK English, ‘someone who is paid to go out to social events with another person, and sometimes to have sex.’

“Oh, well, Escort, what sort of business did you have in mind?”

“I was looking to see if I couldn’t organize a purchase of some of your technology.”

“Really? What kind? I’m not really into that side of tinkerdom.”

“The Snitch, could you make another?”

Leet frowned and I saw his inner conflict, his greed was warring with something else. “How much are you offering?”

“Monetarily, probably not enough for your liking, but I am willing to offer my services in compensation.”

“What services are we talking about here?”

Uber choked and looked at his partner, “Bro, do you need it spelled out for you?”

“To make sure we’re on the same page, I will not help you in any of your endeavors. I am an independent hero, who just happens to be very pragmatic. When I say services, I mean I’ll fuck both of your brains out every two days for the next month.” Leet’s jaw dropped to the floor and even Uber looked shocked at the offer. They looked at each other and suddenly Uber took the lead in the conversation. Most likely he had used his power to gain some sort of master negotiator skill at some point.

“Three months, tinkertech ain’t cheap, Escort. Some of Toybox’s stuff go into the millions.”

“Six weeks, Toybox has a reputation for reliability, Leet’s stuff does not,” I countered.

“Two months,” Uber countered.

“Seven weeks and I’ll throw in a ten percent cut from whatever I get from my coming campaign against the E88.”

The latter was a spitball idea that dad and I had brainstormed. I wouldn’t be fighting anyone, just utterly destroying their finances by ghosting into some of their locations that dad knew about near the Docks. From there we would hopefully also get further clues to more locations. Dad would usually not even have considered me doing this, but the Dockworkers and the Empire had a bad history. He also found them an acceptable target to unleash me on and he hated white supremacists.

“You’re taking on the empire? Really?” Leet asked skeptically.

His skepticism was understandable. The cape roster of the E88 was daunting to say the least.

“Do you have a problem with that?” I countered pointedly.

“No he doesn’t Escort,” Uber said quickly. “Seven weeks and a twenty percent cut.”

“Twelve percent,” I retorted with a quirky knowing smile, easily falling into the role and flow - even though somewhere in my hindbrain my nerves were a quivering wreck and I would have to deal with that at home.

“Eighteen.”

“Fifteen, final offer.”

“Done, accepted.” Uber struck out his hand.

I stepped forward and clasped the offered hand, but quickly gave it a meaningful squeeze.

Uber winced slightly and looked at me with a wary expression, “Grab bag? Seriously?”

I pumped his arm once and let go, “That’s one way to look at it. So, just so things are clear…” I pulled them both in my mind web. “You will not double cross or betray me or renege on our verbal contract.”

“Yes, mistress.”

“Oh, come on,” moaned Leet in objection after I let them go.

“Trust is earned, boys,” I grinned at them both and clapped my hands, rubbing them together eagerly. “Where shall we go? I’d fuck you both in that nice car right now.”

Uber’s eyes goggled at me, “Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack,” I looked down at his manhood which was beginning to perk and swell to attention as the mere idea began to percolate in their heads. The idea was also beginning to get me hot and bothered, I really wanted something to eat.

Leet, who was still shielding his crotch, visibly had to adjust his hands to accommodate his own growth. “Uh, how about you get our clothes and stuff back and we’ll go somewhere more comfortable. As much as I’m liking the idea, we’ve got a lot of viewers on tenterhooks…”

“Oh, that’s a good point, can’t lose those subscribers after all, and at this point your financial interest is my own, can’t exactly build me tech if you go broke.”

I misted and zoomed to the two stash points for their clothes, flew back and dumped them at their feet.

They were dressed by the time I returned with the Snitch. It had seemingly deactivated itself to save on power, so there were no issues with it trying to taze me again.

Before I handed it over to Leet though I held it back pointedly. “I intend to start my own online presence in the future. A brand which I don’t want connected to yours. Continue your GTA presentation, but nothing involving me or hurting any of the working girls here. If you wish to hire any for a good time, you’re going to find it difficult. Word of this encounter will be filtering through the network as we speak.”

“Of course they have a network,” Uber sighed in frustration rubbing his hair in irritation.

“Yeah, no girl in this town is gonna give you the time of day in your villain personas, not for any amount of money,” I explained. Sure, I was probably speaking out of my ass, but, like it or not, I was a working girl in Brockton now, officially. “Make too much of a nuisance and the ABB is going to get involved too.”

I put the Snitch into Leet’s palm as he turned to his partner, “Gonna have to go with Plan B then, bro.”

“Man, that’s gonna be so much hassle,” Uber moaned.

“Dare I ask, what is Plan B?”

Leet looked at me and his eyes reflexively ranged from my crotch, to my chest and then to my face. “Uh, well, don’t you worry about that. Nothing a hero would find objectionable. I see you’ve got a phone strapped to that pole of yours. Save the following number and address.”

My phone was sheathed in a protective leather pouch in the middle of ‘15s length. It wasn’t the ideal place considering that if I used it to block somebody trying to hit me, the phone was potentially in harm’s way. There was unfortunately no way I could wear a holster or even a belt - my skin had rejected the attempt at every turn.

Leet rattled off a number and an address in a downtown neighborhood, which I saved into my contacts and navigation app.

“Meet us there in two hours, we should be done by then.”

“Very well,” I secured the phone, gave them a quick wave and misted, shooting up into the air.

88888888888888888888

Their Plan B turned out to be a raid on a drug den owned by one of the smaller parahuman gangs in the city.

The raid was ‘cosplayed’ by the duo, acting as if the two characters from GTA had briefly teamed up to take down the stash house because the ‘gang leader’ had stolen from them both and the raid was a reprisal for that.

Uber made good use of the baseball bat on the occupants of the den, but was clearly careful to keep it non-lethal and only cause debilitating injuries at worst. Leet used the pistol, but it turned out was actually a tinkertech hard light weapon that was the equivalent of a bean bag gun used by law enforcement.

The den itself was an abandoned house which was occupied by the Archer’s Bridge Merchants.

They were a gang of drug dealers mostly, and what parahumans they had were simply there as leadership and muscle. Using their powers only to make the work of drug dealing less risky and as a consequence make more money. Their organization, if it could be called that, was very informal and loose, but it was generally accepted that a cape known as Skidmark was the leader.

I was tuned into the livestream from my phone, while seated on the roof of a multi floor department store that overlooked the address Leet had given me.

It was a warehouse storage that presumably serviced the store beneath me.

There was no way that Leet would just hand out the location of the duo’s ‘lair’ so easily. This was most likely just a random meetup point where they would pick me up after the stream most likely.

It was somewhat eye opening reading the live stream chat. I had only ever caught the occasional video that they released, when it trended enough to pop up on the front page of the video sharing sites.

Their viewers fell into a three way split of camps. The first were those who rooted for the duo and wanted to see them succeed, despite the failures and bloopers. The second camp were those who were purely hostile and wanted them to outright fail and even be caught. The third camp didn’t care either way and just wanted a good show. Monetarily it seemed, most subs and donations that occurred came from the first and third camps, but even the second camp was contributing thanks to the ad revenue… a fact that was entirely lost on them.

I had to admit, if I was being honest with myself, that I would probably fall into the second camp before I obtained my current state of being. Their actions and attitude were despicable in general.

Now though, if a past-me were somehow brought forward in time, wouldn’t she find me despicable as well?

Uber and Leet did what they did according to their own website and bios, because they simply wanted to spread the art of video games to a world that was forgetting it. It just so happens in trying to do their promotion and acting out of video games in the real world, that they obviously ran afoul of the law. You act out Mario Brothers for example, and because one of the primary objectives of the game was to collect the golden coins, it would require you to rob a bank.

The duo just accepted that as the price of doing business and promoting their art.

My attention was drawn by a rather ordinary, old and soft brown colored Toyota Camry pulling into the parking lot of the department store. It was a bit late for any shopping to be done and given the time, it was likely that this was the duo.

I misted and flew down, poking my head through the tinted windows of the car and sure enough, both of them were there. They had their heads on a swivel, and were squinting out into the night trying to spot me.

Feeling a bit mischievous, I pulled my ethereal form inside and arranged myself to sit with crossed legs in the rear seat. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the proper moment, when their line of sight was directed away from the rear.

I materialized and waited.

“Holy shit!” Leet practically jumped in his seat when his eyes finally caught me and Uber jerked in fright at the sudden exclamation of his partner.

“Hello boys,” I smiled.

Uber clutched at his chest and glared at me, “Geez, Escort, please don’t do that again.”

I merely stretched my smile wider in response, “So let me guess, the Audi was stolen?”

“Yeah,” Leet breathed hard, trying to calm down. “It’s GTA, now way we could actually afford that thing. Dumped it a few blocks from the dealership and reactivated its tracker.”

“You did well on your raid,” I commented, trying to break the ice a little further.

“Uh, thanks, it was rather surprising how it went off without a hitch. I kept expecting Leet’s gun to fail or go crazy and actually kill someone. There’s a reason it wasn’t our Plan A,” Uber explained.

“Okay, so let’s get to business, are we doing this here?” The two looked at each other and Leet swallowed. Leet’s aura was a mess of nerves to say the least and Uber had the violet hues of humor and amusement running through his aura.

“Uh, it’s just…” Leet couldn’t finish, his face flushing underneath his domino mask.

Uber cleared his throat, “It’ll be Leet’s first time.”

Leet gave his partner an angry punch in the shoulder, “Don’t just blurt it out like that.”

“You’re overthinking it, bro, this isn’t super science,” Uber shook his head and was struggling to hide a smile.

I was nearly overwhelmed by the cuteness of the entire scenario and buried the usual responses.

I reached forward and placed my hands on Leet’s shoulders, he stiffened at my touch. “Easy there, Leet. As your partner said, this really isn’t complicated.” His mind was in my web in the next moment, not to control him, but just being there would help him to relax.

“Hey, no mastering,” Uber objected.

“For relaxation only,” I explained and released Leet’s mind. “How are you feeling now?”

“Wow, that’s… nice.”

An idea hit me, I put ‘15 aside and out of the way, then l stretched myself out on the length of the back seat, and reached out, “Come.”

It was naturally a bit cramped and awkward for Leet to squeeze himself through the two front seats, but he managed it, with his legs kneeling in the rear foot wells. It did allow him complete access to my body as I was stretched out before him.

I reached out to his hands and guided them to my stomach.

His hands were naturally cold relative to my body temp, but I didn’t betray any discomfort. He was looking at me with huge, wide eyes… as if he couldn’t believe he was actually doing this. I put my hands on his wrists and began to guide them. “Feel me, explore my body, slowly, softly, caress.”

He nodded, his hands were twitching as he did so, moving across my abdomen. His hands warmed up and now my own pleasure was slowly beginning to build as he caressed and slid his hands over me.

Naturally, his first destination was my breasts and he palmed them, his face marveling at how they felt. They filled his hands pleasantly, and my nipples began hardening under his palms. He moved his hands away and began playing them with his thumbs like they were a game controller.

I guided his left hand to move down to my legs, and directed his caresses to first my upper thighs then the inner thighs.

My own arousal was warring against my rationality to keep guiding him.

I used his hand so that he lifted and parted my leg, fully exposing my pussy to him.

He was utterly gobsmacked and transfixed by the sight. My lips down there were well engorged and began to leak fluids from between the folds. The smell was also starting to pervade the car.

I noticed with a bit of alarm that Leet’s shuddering was building and he was starting to cum in his pants.

His mind was pulled into the web quickly and I managed to stop his premature climax just in time. Uber was also too invested and aroused in the show to notice, so I just continued.

I sat up and reversed my position with Leet, and began to divest him of his clothes.

When his engorged member burst free it was all I could do not just blow him off right there. The smell was hitting me hard and my mouth was watering.

When he was left in just his socks I could no longer resist, grabbed him by the hilt and enveloped his dick with my mouth with a throaty moan of pleasure.

Leet moaned and stiffened in pleasure as I began working on him.

My own hunger was such that I really didn’t want to bother with the foreplay too much or delaying Leet’s climax further.

He came into my mouth explosively and the delicious nectar hit my tastebuds in just the right spot.

My nympho level was high enough seemingly that the act and sensation pushed my arousal quite far. Enough that I had to push myself off, swallow and let out an aria of moaning as my body shuddered into a climax, where I began to twitch as my pussy let out successive squirts of fluids in reaction.

“Whoah,” was Uber’s only response. I rode out the aftershocks and lowered my head, breathing hard. “That was fucking amazing.”

My only response was to mist and rematerialize in Uber’s lap, straddling him.

He jerked in fright reflexively but relaxed as my hands began to work on divesting him of his clothes.

I was impatient enough to only push down his shorts and underwear to his knees.

His large penis was engorged and ready.

With my right hand I guided it to spear into my core and we both moaned at the sensation.

Instinctually my arms moved forward to support me on his broad shoulders, my breasts mashing into his chest.

Then, using my knees for leverage against the car seat, I began riding him and finished each stroke with a twist and roll of my hips.

He groaned from the sensations, his hands going down to grab my ass and support my efforts, pulling me up slightly and letting go on the downward push.

After a pleasant eternity of this, which was probably only three or four minutes, I was rewarded with my second orgasm, utterly drenching Uber’s lap with my fluids as I almost screamed in pleasure.

That sensation seemed to overwhelm the villain and I could feel him stiffening beneath me and groaning.

His orgasm burst in my pussy and the energy that only I could see was swiftly channeled through and into me.

“Oh fuck,” he groaned as I continued riding his now overly sensitive dick.

I managed to bring myself to partway before Uber’s manhood deflated into his refractory period.

My body misted and in the next moment I was straddling Leet - whose own penis was standing up into the air and practically begging for attention.

With a brief touch of my right hand I guided it into my folds and speared myself to the hilt.

“Oh fuck,” Leet groaned, loosing himself in the new sensations.

It barely took a further twenty seconds of riding him hard in cowgirl before I reached my peak and drenched him with my fluids.

This was enough that I was rewarded with Leet reaching his first orgasm in a woman barely a few seconds later.

“Oh crap, uh Escort… trouble.”

Uber’s alarmed voice snapped me out of enjoying any post-orgasmic bliss.

My eyes snapped open and were greeted with flashing red and blue lights, strobing and reflecting around the area and within the car.

I turned my head, staying sheathed on Leet, my internal muscles twitching possessively on his member, not wanting to let go.

A BBPD squad car was parked twenty feet away and a police officer was already out and approaching the driver’s side of the Camry.

My brain, coming off the post-orgasmic bliss, did not want to easily go into rational mode and try to figure out a solution for this.

Uber reached for the hard light gun.

“No,” I declared, “I’ll handle it.”

I misted myself straight off Leet’s dick and reappeared sitting right on Uber’s lap. 

He twitched in surprise at my actions but quickly relaxed. “You sure?”

“I’ve got it,” I said, my brain racing now as I tried to formulate commands that would work and get us out of the situation. The officer would have a partner as backup in the squad car, who was watching and waiting to either back his partner up or call on the radio. He was slightly just out of my range…

The officer tapped on the driver window with his left knuckles, while his right hand was hovering near the sidearm holster on his hip.

I pressed on the button that lowered the window and pulled the policeman into my web the instant his eyes perceived me and what was going on in the car.

“Hello officer. Reply softly.”

“Greetings mistress,” the officer whispered adoringly.

“All you are seeing is a young, amorous couple who couldn’t wait to get back to the apartment, understand?”

“Yes, mistress.”

“Good, hold out your hand to me.” The officer obeyed and I handed him thin air. “You are now seeing our license and registration. Everything is in order.”

The policemen held his hand in a manner as if he was holding a license card. “Yes, everything is in order, mistress.”

“Give it back to me.” He complied, pretending to hand me an invisible card. “You’re letting us off with a warning, we should be more patient and get a motel room next time.”

“Yes, I’m warning you, mistress.”

“We’re very sorry, officer.”

“You’re sorry, mistress.”

“Excellent, you saw nothing odd otherwise and will report this to your partner. After which you will continue your patrol. Understand?”

“Yes, mistress.”

“Off you go.”

“Off I go, goodbye mistress.”

The officer straightened and walked back to the squad car, I let him go only just as he approached the edge of my range. Then pushed the button to close the window.

Uber and I watched anxiously through the car mirrors as the officer got back in.

It was a tense minute before the flashing lights switched off and the squad car drove off.

We both let out a sigh of relief.

At this point, Uber rather boldly closed his arms around my waist.

His right hand caressed from my left hip across to my right, hitting one of my erogenous zones, whilst his left hand came up and palmed my left breast, lightly massaging it and whilst fingers played with the nipple. Added to this, he was flexing and moving his abs and pecs against my back. He also pushed his lips right below my ear and began kissing there into my neck. His dick was also delightfully poking my butt, it wasn’t hard yet, but even partially engorged, he guided it to brush oh so softly across the lips of my labia.

He finished giving me a hooky and in a very deep, seductive voice said, “Do you know what we could achieve together with your power? Come to the dark side.”

Oh.

He was good, finding the right buttons on my body. He’d probably used his power to gain the technique.

I enjoyed the sensations for a brief time. It was so tempting.

I grinded myself on his lap a bit, feigning falling into it…

And abruptly misted myself to sit on the passenger seat, “Sorry Uber, but as good as that was, can’t afford to go villain, I’m afraid.”

“Awww,” Leet moaned in disappointment from the backseat, pouting ridiculously.

Uber shrugged, “Sorry bro, I tried.”

“Anyway, do arrange for our next appointment to be in different circumstances. A nice soft bed would go a long way.”

“Will do,” Uber agreed.

“I also expect at least some preliminary drawings of what you’re going to build for me as well.”

“Uh, just… this was amazing and I want to continue with our deal,” Leet was very nervous all of a sudden, “It’s just that I won’t be able to build you something exactly like the Snitch.”

I frowned in confusion, “What do you mean?”

“Are you sure you want to reveal that, bro?” Uber questioned his partner with worry.

“With your power, lying to you or not revealing this is gonna be a bad idea all around, cards on the table,” Leet let out an explosive breath. “My power doesn’t let me repeat things.”

My mind tried to parse that for a moment, “Okay… so you build the Snitch and then suddenly when you try again, you just can’t?”

“No, I can, but then there’s a higher chance of catastrophic failure that increases the more I build in a field.”

That… that explained so much. In the beginning, it seemed the duo were well poised to take the cape world by storm. Then…

“What a bullshit crap limitation,” I shook my head in astonishment, baffled.

“Tell me about it,” Leet declared bitterly. “By the time I figured out how my power worked, I’d already burned away the fields of biotinkering, robotics and hard light. That gun is the last thing I think I can safely make in the field of hard light.”

“Robotics is what you used to make the Snitch?”

“Correct.”

This was very frustrating, but there had to be a way.

“Have you made notes or anything about your power that you’re willing to let me take a look at?”

“Yeah, but I’m gonna have to first check to see if there’s compromising stuff… you’re still a white hat.”

“Fine, fine, but helping you is in my best interest at this point. I’m also a Noctis cape, and I have a lot of time to devote to figuring stuff out.”

“Okay, I’m officially jealous,” Leet declared. “Most Tinkers fondly wish they could also have Noctis powers. Do you know how much shit I could get done?”

“Not really, but I can imagine, given how much learning and research I’ve been able to do.”

“Okay,” Leet leaned forward to glance at the car’s digital clock. “It’s quite late, I’m dead tired. I’ll begin to draw up ideas and get you your research after a nice long nap.”

I reached behind me and grabbed a hold of ‘15. “Do so, I’ll see you both in two days.”

My body misted and vanished.

88888888888888888888888

A/N: No new SCPs introduced in this chapter.

I really enjoyed 'Trump Card' by Ack where a PowerCopier!Taylor teamed up with Uber and Leet. Now, while she won't do the same here, I wanted to bring them into a quid pro quo relationship, as writing the duo is all sorts of fun.

GTA V released in 2013, this fic is set in 2011 Earth Bet, but I rationalize here that the promo material and early game demos were released earlier. 

We return to Force Wills next week.