Mission: Two Dead boys on a road trip

[Gus]

• Title: Two Dead Boys on a Roadtrip
  
• Leader: Gus and Captain Hesperus
  
• Type: Private
  
• Players: 2
  
• Overview: After episode 2 Danny took Lucas's abandoned car and put it in storage. Now that he's had his own brush with death, he finally decides to use it to get away from things for a while… who should he run across while stopping to check the map on I-70 west? He's lost an eye, and most of his memory, but Lucas didn't die; he dissolved. Now he's back, and this unlikely pair has been thrown together by fate. What else does fate have in store? Only time will tell...
  

 

[Captain Hesperus]

Spoiler

First post is a collab. Enjoy, folks

[SIZE= 14.6667px]Danny swiped the small access card through the reader and the machine bleeped, unlocking the door to the long-term storage garage. The garage was old and in an area of town that few people used so what he’d stored here was pretty much on its own. There were some other vehicles, carefully stowed under dust covers, on jacks and with their wheels removed to prevent the tires from perishing, but Danny hadn’t been planning on leaving [/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]it[/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px] here long enough for that to happen.[/SIZE]


 

[SIZE= 14.6667px]He reached his bay and looked it over. The once lustrous red paint was faded by years under the sun, leaving it a redder shade of pink. It was well maintained, for its age, no significant rust anywhere, the engine lovingly maintained, oil and water levels carefully managed. [/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]He[/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px] had taken good care of it. And so had Danny, since it’d come into his care. It had been a hit-and-miss affair, driving it here. Danny wasn’t familiar with a stick shift so he’d stalled with annoying regularity, but choosing to move it in the middle of the night and by side streets had meant he had gained some level of competence, not including the week or so he’d driven it around the interior of the garage. Nonetheless, he knew how to drive it now. A fifty-year-old Subaru Justy. [/SIZE]


 

[SIZE= 14.6667px]Of course, it had belonged to [/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]him[/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]. Lucas, the kid who’d died at the zoo and who the media glossed over in the reporting of the casualties of that fucking day. What’s one dead freak in a city of people mourning the deaths and injuries of so many normals? The memory of watching the memorial from the doors of the chapel still stuck in Danny’s head. Lucas had died and Danny had been powerless to help him. He had to get away, far away from Baltimore, the Commonwealth and AEGIS. Somewhere out there there had to be answers to the questions he didn’t even know how to ask.[/SIZE]


 

[SIZE= 14.6667px]He unlocked the doors and opened the trunk. Inside he’d already stowed several bags of food and drinks, a sleeping bag and blankets, basic camping equipment as well as a couple of maps. He wondered if they would be enough, or if he’d get a couple hundred miles away from the city and have to come back. At this point in time, he told himself, it didn’t matter. For the past week or so, after his run in with Heinrich von GasAttack, of course his mom had ordered him back home. She’d sent an official complaint to both the Director of the Commonwealth AND to The Bird Man, demanding answers to how her youngest son should end up near-fatally poisoned in a facility full of trained and supposedly professional Supers. He wondered if she’d get any answers or if the whole thing would get swept under the first convenient carpet and ignored. Either way, she’d clamped down on his activity, which meant he’d had to be very cautious about coming to the garage. [/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]Tonight, however, he decided that it was time to go. He was feeling better and he’d almost completely stopped coughing up chunks of coagulated blood from his lungs. Also home was feeling too constrictive. Mom had started making rumblings about sending him to Facility 101 in New York, since it had a shining reputation of outstanding tutor-student interaction and blah-blah-blah. He’d waited til all noise in the house had died down that evening before slipping quietly out his bedroom window.[/SIZE]


 

[SIZE= 14.6667px]Now here he was, with a backpack, a fully fueled Subaru Justy and an itching desire to not be in Baltimore any longer. He tossed his backpack into the trunk and withdrew a pair of bolt croppers. He hitched up his sleeve and wiggled one of the tool’s jaws between his wrist and his limiter strap. With a couple of twists and a bit of effort, leaning on the handles,  the strap finally gave way and Danny cheerfully tossed it to the far side of the garage where it made a satisfying clatter. [/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]I’m not your fucking pet dog any more, Bird Man.[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]He climbed into the car and turned the key. The interior lights came on, indicating the battery had not suffered for the month or so it’d been almost idle. He turned it more and the engine turned over. Once, twice, three times. Then it caught and Danny almost cheered to himself. He put his hand on the gear shift, depressed the clutch and shifted into first. [/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]Parking brake off and easy up on the clutch while giving a little gas.[/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px] Danny remembered his father talking him through driving his old stick shift car, [/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]Manual engines are better because you control how much power goes from the engine to the wheels, it’s more responsive than an automatic.[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]The car rolled forward and Danny turned the wheel to align it with the exit ramp. A few turns later, another flash of the access card and Danny was turning out onto surface streets. It was about three AM, pitch dark, as he started to accelerate. He knew the route out of Baltimore, he would take the most direct road south then from there he’d find some place to eat and plan a concrete direction.[/SIZE]


 

[SIZE= 14.6667px]Blue lights flashing from behind[/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]. Danny’s eyes went wide. It was definitely a patrol car and it was definitely following him. It whooped a couple of times and Danny sighed as he pulled over, stuck the car into neutral and waited for the inevitable. The front doors opened and two people approached. The uniform knocked on his window and he cranked the handle to get a glimpse. The badge read ‘TRAVIS’.[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]Shit.[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]“Did you really think this was a good idea, Danny?”, Russ said with a sigh, “Did you really think Mom and I were so stupid we didn’t think you had something moronic like this planned?”[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]The front passenger door opened and Danny’s mom sat in the seat beside him.[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]Shit, shit[/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px].[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]“Honey, is this really what you want?”, she asked, quietly.[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]This was how it usually started, asking him what he wanted, then using logic on him, then telling him what he [/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]had[/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px] to do, then ordering him to do what they told him.[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]“Yes, Mom, I want… I [/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]need[/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px] to do this.”[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]“Okay then.”, she replied then sat quietly.[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]This was new, was it going to be a guilt play? Going on about all the years she’d given up for him only for him to just abandon her?[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]“Look, Mom, Russ, Baltimore’s dangerous. More dangerous than it’s ever been. I can’t protect you from all that shit. I can barely protect myself, goddamnit. I need to see what’s out there,” he pointed across the steering wheel into the distance, “before it’s too late. I’m not gonna take any stupid risks… Well, not too many. But I have to get out of Baltimore before I end up doing something that [/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]will [/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]get me killed.”[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]“I see.”, she replied simply, even as Russ leaned against the Justy’s door, “Well, I want you to keep your bank card safe, because your brother and I will be sending money every week as usual. Try and call me at least once a week, you can email or text Russell whenever, but I want to hear your voice regularly. We’ll set up your phone on a roaming plan, so don’t let it run out of battery and if you have any emergency, no matter what the time is back here, you [/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]call us[/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px].”[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]Danny’s mouth hung slack, this was not what he expected.[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]“Why?”[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]“Because this is the safest and best plan you’ve had to date, Danny,”, Russ replied, “Beats being a hobo on the railroads or living in the YMCA. Stay safe, little brother.”[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]Danny’s mom reached over and hugged him tightly, kissing his forehead as she let him go and climbed out of the car.[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]“Go safely and come home safely.”, she said as she gently closed the door.[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]Danny turned to look at his brother but he was already walking away, stopping to lean on the hood of his squad car. Danny’s mom stood with him and as the young Super drove off, they waved.[/SIZE]


 

[SIZE= 14.6667px]Danny didn’t get too far. He pulled into an all-night gas station and bought soda and chips, then as he sat eating and drinking, he pulled out his phone and sent a message through the AEGIS facilities private messages.[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]“TO: [/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]p.urbain@AEGIS.gov.us[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]FROM: [/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]d.travis@AEGIS.gov.us[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]Subject: Hey[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]So I heard that you were kinda instrumental to saving my ass. While the Gasmaster was dropping poison farts and the other freaks were losing their shit, you kept your head and told everyone.[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]Thank you. No shit, I mean it. I never thought my life meant shit to anyone, let alone some salty little virgin in a lead coffin under a government building. It means a lot to me.[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]But enough of that shit, I’m blowing this shitheap town, looking for new horizons and what-the-fuck-ever. I dunno what I’m looking for exactly, and I’ll be fucked if I know when I find it, but I’ll be back someday. I don’t doubt you’ll be tracking me like some fucking scary stalker chick, so if you’re good, I might send you a postcard or some shit. [/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]And hey, my freak ability is energy absorption. It was either that Einstein dude or some other dead fuck who said that radiation is just another form of energy, so when I do get back, maybe I’ll stroll into your nuclear bedroom and we’ll make our own little Fukushima Incident. If you know what I mean. [/SIZE]


 

[SIZE= 14.6667px]See ya, bitch![/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]Danny”[/SIZE]


 

[SIZE= 14.6667px]He tapped send, finished the bag of chips then drove off toward the city limits.[/SIZE]


 

[SIZE= 14.6667px]The last thing the boy clearly remembers is… something about birds. Everything since has been a little hazy. And the birds thing is fading too. Probably because he doesn’t like to think about it. Everytime he tries to remember, his mind shies away from it. It gives him the shivers. [/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]Or maybe that is the cold. [/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]How long has it been snowing? The snow rushes past him through the dark, periodically illuminated by the headlights of passing cars.The snowflakes dance past him, an endless parade of brilliant sparkles.  It reminds him of the dark place. The place between places, where it is neither warm nor cold. He wishes he could go there now. He wishes he could curl up in there and stay.  Sometimes, in the dark, there are brilliant little sparks like this. Sometimes, he thinks, they speak to him. Other times he thinks they are just reflecting back what he is thinking. Perhaps they are a part of him that he pretends is separate, to have friends again. He did have friends once, didn’t he? He is almost sure he did. But when he tries to remember their faces, there are only birds, and he has to stop thinking for a while.  At any rate, none of his friends are here now. Only snow. He shivers, and begins to look for a way back into the dark place. [/SIZE]


 

[SIZE= 14.6667px]The boy walks on. Time passes. The snow is getting heavier, and it does not remind him of his friends anymore. It is heavy and wet, and passing cars kick sheets of freezing slush up onto him. His body is beginning to lose integrity; if he doesn’t get dry soon, he may go completely to pieces until the weather changes. Perhaps that would be easier, but he just keeps walking. The first law of motion sustains him.  Up ahead he sees a brightly lit charging station, the old fashioned kind that still has gasoline pumps for the dwindling number of hybrids and ICE cars still on the road. Something about this makes him smile. It is the charging station he truly needs, but it is the gas pumps that make him happy for reasons he can’t quite grasp...[/SIZE]


 

[SIZE= 14.6667px]Later, he is somewhere else. He has an upsetting impression of discontinuity. The charging station had been too bright and... noisy? He catches flashes of angry words, shouted, and several very loud bangs. He thinks maybe there were bird men there. Or bad men? He can’t remember. He wants to remember, but when he chases after it, it slips away again. [/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]It seemed important to remember. He sighs. At least it is only cold here, and not wet. Dry is better. Cold is not so bad. He is getting better at making clothes after his travels through the dark place. These clothes are not so thin as his first attempts. They keep out the wind, and they look more like regular clothes. The buttons are a little vague, but the cloth looks almost normal, if you don’t look too closely. [/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]There is a slight heat spike in his thighs as he walks through a guard-rail and onto the side of a major road. For a moment, his pants smolder, but then they stop. He looks up and down the road. Divided highway. A red car parked on the shoulder catches his eye, and a wave of nostalgia sweeps over him like a tsunami. His voice is so rusty from disuse he doesn’t recognize it at first. He hears himself say “Sac a papier. It is good to see you old friend.”[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]He is unsure why he said that, but he feels he simply must get in that car. He totters closer to it, his knee joints suddenly feeling weak and wobbly. As if emotions too big for words are stirring in him. That he has no idea what those emotions might be is deeply disturbing.[/SIZE]


 

[SIZE= 14.6667px]Thanks to some early morning maintenance work on the roads, Danny had had to take several diversions from his projected route, got lost once or twice, had to backtrack and finally, as the sun was starting to peek over the horizon, found himself on the on-ramp to an Interstate. He paused and stared for a moment at the on-ramp signage indicating that, despite his best efforts to head south, he'd ended up going west and was now on I-70. For a moment, he imagined the scent of rolling tobacco and Old Spice aftershave. This early, the traffic into Baltimore was starting to pick up, so he had the entire outgoing road to himself. He indicated and pulled over onto the shoulder, then popped open the glovebox and pulled out the Baltimore area road map he’d filched from the AAA office downtown. Best to get a plan of where to go next before he got his ass lost again.[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]Movement outside the car drew his attention and he popped down the top of the map to see… another guy wandering toward the car from the direction of the [/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]row of powerlines crossing the highway.[/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px] Danny wasn’t sure he’d seen the guy when he pulled over, [/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]but maybe he’d hiked onto the road following the powerlines?  The trees came up pretty close to the road here, and[/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px] would have concealed him [/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]pretty much up until he stepped over the guardrail[/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]. He leaned over and rolled down the passenger side window as the guy came closer.[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]He was wiry, almost athletic in his physique, but he didn’t move like an athlete. He seemed frail somehow, like an old man. Lost.[/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px] His clothes were well kempt as Russ might have put it, but [/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]oddly colored, as if they were a sketch of clothing on a real person[/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]. He had pure white hair, not dyed, even his eyebrows were white and there was heavy scarring where his right eye used to be. But despite his otherwise shocking appearance, there was something familiar about him. Danny wasn’t one to trust people on first sight, but this guy… There was something trustworthy about him.[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]“Hey buddy, wanna lift? There’s a diner about six miles down the road I was gonna get breakfast at. Didya wanna come?”[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]The boy isn’t sure what to say to the driver of the car. He seems friendly, but words won’t come to mind. He attempts a smile, and opens the door. He folds himself into the small bucket seat and his head drops back on the head rest in something like bliss. He turns his good eye to his host and there are tears standing in it.  He searches for words, but they evade him. A welter of emotions tumble across his features, anxious worry bubbles up, wrinkling his forehead. Something in him grasps that if he can’t say something soon he’ll be put out of the car, and he wants desperately to come along. He fixes his eye on the younger boy’s face, looking for help there. A clue what he should say. He looks concerned. Uncertain. But not unkind. And strangely, not unfamiliar. He gives up and lets his head drop back on the headrest. He closes his eye tightly. And suddenly, at last, the words come. [/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]“Th- thank you, D- Da-” he falters. “D- drive. Please?” [/SIZE]


 

[SIZE= 14.6667px]Danny froze as he heard the stumbling words that fell from the other guy’s mouth. Even with the few words that passed his lips, his accent was unmistakable. He’d heard it before and the memory sent a superstitious chill up his spine. As he slumped back into the seat, Danny could see his profile clearly. Again it was familiar. He’d seen that exact same profile [/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]driving this car[/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px] into the parking lot at Facility 108. Could that mean…[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]“L...Lucas? What? What the fuck? But… but you died! I mean, they didn’t find a fucking body, but there was a fucking memorial and shit! What the fuck?”, he stammered, his heart pounding so hard he thought it’d punch straight out through his ribs.[/SIZE]


 

[SIZE= 14.6667px]Lucas… was that [/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]his[/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px] name? Did this boy know him from before? Before the cloud of birds? He closes his good eye and furrows his brow, thinking hard. Deep in his mind, the phantom birds rose up, trying to chase his conscious regard back into the safe, shallow harbors of his immediate perceptions.  He was having none of this, and pushed through the haze of fear, regret and pain with grim determination. Once confronted, the shadow birds retreated sullenly deeper into his mind, vowing further vexations to come, but it didn’t matter, the boy had what he needed. He opened his eye and looked at the driver. [/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]“Danny. You were at the… bird place? Zoo. The zoo. I remember you there. I remember there were birds. And a giant? I fought a bird general. I thought maybe I died. I thought maybe this was after. But I think… I think I got better instead.” He closes his eye again and puts the seat back. “I’m not hungry. But I have been walking a long time. You can drive her, the first shift.” And instantly, the boy begins to snore.[/SIZE]


 

[SIZE= 14.6667px]Danny blinked, once, twice. As the sound of snoring rose from Lucas’ mouth, he reached out a hand. He got closer and closer then, lightly, nudged the other young man’s cheek. Pliant flesh and unyielding bone met his finger. Slightly cool, but warming up in the blast of the Justy’s heater vents. [/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]Okay, so this isn’t some sort of acid trip or a dream.[/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px] He sat back in his seat and stared out the windscreen for a few minutes, the road map crumpled in his lap.[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]“This is some [/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px]heavy[/SIZE][SIZE= 14.6667px] shit.”, he sighed to himself after a minute or two.[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]He glanced to his right, just to make sure Lucas was still there and that he also wasn’t, like, a fucking zombie or some shit. The white haired youth continued to snooze in the passenger seat.[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]Danny clutched the steering wheel and squeezed until his knuckles showed white through the skin, then he relaxed and matter-of-factly, but inexpertly, folded the map.[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 14.6667px]“Well, fuck it. At least I’ll have something more interesting than what’s on the radio to listen to.”, he said to himself as he started the engine and accelerated back onto the Interstate. He figured it’d be about an hour or so’s good driving before he really felt hungry and he knew there was a Denny’s in Funkstown. So there it was, an hour’s drive for an All-American Slam and enough coffee to float a battleship. Danny put his foot down and Justice gamely revved as he drove west and slightly north to fuck knew where.[/SIZE]


 

 

[Captain Hesperus]

The drive up the I-70 was perhaps not as glorious sat behind the tiny 1.2 three-cylinder engine of the Justy as it had been behind the immense V8 powerplant of his dad's Plymouth, but in Danny's mind, the sight of Baltimore with an early morning mist still clinging to the lower parts of the city near the ports receding into the distance and the open road ahead rolling past was still excitement unbound. He successfully changed up to fifth gear after a couple of stabs and remembering to keep the clutch pedal fully depressed and the Subaru slowly ticked up to 65 miles per hour. The engine was plenty noisy at this speed and Danny had serious concerns that it had not been run this fast for a very long time. He chanced a glance over his shoulder to make sure that there wasn't a big cloud of smoke and flames trailing in their wake or that pieces of the car were not comically tearing away and bouncing off behind them. He wasn't sure if he was relieved or reassured that neither event was taking place. A Maryland State Police car went past in the opposite direction and Danny found himself watching it in the centre rear-view mirror. He was still paranoid that Russ would wake up, freak the fuck out and have every Maryland State Trooper hunting Danny down to drag him home. But yet, the cop car disappeared around a curve in the road, it's lights staying stubbornly unlit, it's siren irritatingly silent.


Danny took a couple of breaths to calm himself. Chill the fuck out, man! Russ and mom were cool with this, bizarrely. They're not gonna let you get this far out and then drag you back, fucking dumbass. Great, now he was insulting himself in his own thoughts. He yawned and smiled as he saw the advertisement sign for Denny's, indicating the off-ramp into Funkstown. Danny turned off the Interstate and his memory took him through the still-waking streets of Funkstown to the Denny's restaurant. Within minutes, he had inexpertly wiggled the car into one of the bays and turned the key in the ignition. The car was silent, but for the sound of Lucas' uninterrupted snoring. Danny was about to give him a nudge, to wake him and take him inside to eat, but he seemed so at peace and comfortable, he couldn't bring himself to do it. Instead, he pressed the Justy's keys into Lucas' left hand, curled his fingers around them and got out. Breakfast was calling and it was All-American!

 

[Gus]

The boy called Lucas slept, and slept hard. He slept, not like a dead man, but like a man who has narrowly avoided death, but is now seriously reconsidering his options. His left eye twitched under the eyelid, tracking invisible constructs of the mind, trying to make sense of the world. As for his right eye, perhaps in his sleeping brain it can still see, but in the scar tissue, there is no sign of twitching.


The ancient Subaru Justy rattles down the highway, a testament to both the engineers who built her, and the care of her many owners, some of whom she has outlived. She cradles her surviving owner in her passenger seat, making him as comfortable as she can manage. The upholstery is worn and the springs are not as resilient as they once were. Her new traveling companion is a little rough on her clutch, and asks a little more of her in rpm than she is accustomed to giving, but for now, her spirit is willing and though she has no flesh to be strong or weak, the engineering is still... adequate to the task. She is glad to be out and about again, and she will take these boys are far as she can.


Lucas woke with a start. He was dreaming of his mother again. He's pretty sure it was his mother. The name won't come to him, but the feeling is maternal. Somebody was holding him and humming a tuneless song, comforting nonsense to sooth him to sleep. The song had stopped now. It takes him a moment to remember where he is. It is the slightly musky scent that reminds him. Justice. Having realized where he is sitting, it takes several moments longer to realize that he actually doesn't have any idea where she is or how she came to be here. He is in the passenger seat. The keys are in his left hand. (Through it, actually, but the plastic fob has stopped it from falling all the way through.) He has vague memories of having slept in Justice before, when he was between places, when home stopped feeling like home. But how'd he get in the passenger seat? It's not like he could have rolled over the gearshift...


He climbs out and puts the keys in his pocket. “Qui Vivra Verra,” he mutters to himself as he stretches. However he got here, he'll figure it out when he figures it out. Denny's parking lot. Winter morning. Far enough from the city that he can't see any tall buildings. Can't even see the highway. Why'd he drive Justice to a Denny's? Might as well get some breakfast though...


He walks over to a light pole and kneels beside it. He sticks his hand through the metal service box at the base and feels around for the live wire. Finding a worn spot in the insulation, he picks at it until he gets some flow, and then sprawls out on the ground to maximize conduction. The pavement is wet, which causes some sparking, but all in all, he's had worse. Should be adequate meal in about 20 minutes or so... He lies back and closes his eyes as the charge trickles in. Nice meal and a quick nap, and he'll be sure to remember what brought him here...


“HEY! HEY KID! YOU OK?!”

 

[Captain Hesperus]

Danny was eagerly polishing off his breakfast, pausing only to take long slurps of his coffee while half-listen to the drone of the local news channel burbling on about everything and nothing. What a life! he thought to himself, as the hot, fresh-cooked food settled in his gut. Already the worries that had dogged his mind when he'd been living in metropolitan Baltimore were ebbing away and he was starting to get that first tantalizing glimpse of a life away from the oppression of the Commonwealth and AEGIS. The waitress, a lady in her fifties wearing her graying hair in a tight bun, strolled over to pour him another coffee from the jug that had just brewed.


Danny had not been a huge fan of coffee when he'd been younger, it'd always been his old man's drink. When they'd gone to Denny's he'd always had soda, a Root Beer or Coke, possibly a milkshake if he was daring enough. Until his dad's death, he'd never bothered with coffee, but after he'd tried it, with copious sugar and cream, and found the flavor agreeable. As time went on, and he moved from his mom's house, he started taking it with milk and one sugar. And, finally when money was tight, he started drinking it straight black. Now he couldn't function without at least one cup of coffee inside him.


"Heading anywhere special?", she was asked him as she poured.


"Not really, a buddy and me are just, you know, going out to see what's out there.", Danny replied, glancing at her.


He paused when he realized she was paying him no attention whatsoever. Her eyes were instead fixed outside the window. Danny gritted his teeth and turned to follow her stare.


Lucas.


Danny swore. It was language you'd never use around polite company on any day, let alone a Sunday. He hopped out of his seat and tossed a couple of tens on the table, before darting out the door. For fuck's sake! Can't we go forty fucking miles without advertising that we're fucking freaks on the fucking run!!!


Lucas was laid on the ground, in a fucking puddle, one hand through the panel of a street light. Small arcs of electricity cracked between his body and the puddle and the air was thick with the smell of ozone. There were surprisingly many people out, probably drawn by the commotion caused by the elderly fart ranting and pointing at Lucas.


"Oh my Lord, that boy's electrocuted!", he was jabbering at the top of his lungs, "Someone call a ambulance or somethin'!"


Danny hauled up short. What the fuck was Lucas' game? If he was honest, he barely knew Lucas, but he knew his power had something to do with electricity, so he probably wasn't electrocuting himself. But this silver-haired old fuck was making such a scene, Danny knew this would end up getting onto the local news, even if only on a 'weird news' segment of the six o'clock news. And if one of the shitbags at Commonwealth central got wind of it, both he and Lucas were imminently up shit creek without a paddle.


"Nah, he's not being electrocuted, man.", Danny responded, trying to sound calm.


"Are you crazy, son? Can't you see them sparks?", the coffin-dodger replied, pointing with his stick again.


"Fuck no! He's my friend and he pulls these pranks all the time. He's gone one of those up-rated electric shock generators in his trouser pocket. He's fucking with you. Seriously."


At that point, Lucas crackled again, a bright blue-white flash of electricity earthing through his left leg.


The crowd backed off slightly. Fuck, this was going to hurt.


"Look, I'll prove it.", Danny said, gritting his teeth.


He stepped up and, after a moment's hesitation, grabbed Lucas' legs and started pulling. He felt the current surge into him, but his power instantly started storing the energy, a rumbling, roiling pit of stored potential energy that started in the pit of his stomach and began spreading outwards. Danny applied just a small amount of that energy to his arms, giving him the strength to completely overwhelm any grip Lucas might have on the wiring and to his legs to prevent him stumbling.


Please, you stupid fucking asshole, don't fuck this up while we're still close enough to Baltimore to smell when Psycho Ward farts!

 

[Gus]

Lucas was drifting with the ebb and flow of the alternating current like flotsam washing back and forth in the surf at the beach. If the breakers were rolling in at 3600 oscillations per minute. And were invisible. And lethal to almost anyone but him. Other than that, though, it was a day at the beach.


If the beach was wet asphalt at 38 degrees fahrenheit...


In any case, to Lucas it was quite soothing. He fell asleep almost immediately, rocked back into dreamland at 60 hertz. With each passage of the electrons through his body, a few million more chose to settle in and stay a while. In principle, it was little different from what Danny's body was busy doing with constituent parts of his breakfast, but in practice, it does look a little odd to be sleeping through the feeding process outside of a hospital bed. Especially if feeding looks suspiciously like being electrocuted. Nonetheless, Lucas was dead to the world, and the world was alarmed. He snoozed on.


Only when Danny started siphoning off power and channeling it into more forceful pulling, did Lucas's body finally respond. He did so reflexively, before even fully waking up. Danny was tugging on his calves, lifting his legs up and away from the puddle. Lucas hands slapped the ground, lifting his hips slightly. His toes twitched outward, rotating his shins against Danny's thumbs to loosen his grip, and then with a whiplash motion of his whole body, Lucas flipped over backward to a standing position, facing whoever was pulling his legs. The entire process took slightly less time than a normal person would take to blink their eyes. Lucas opened his eye to see who had woken him up. As his brain tried to get up to speed with the rest of him, his senses were rapidly taking in data. Big crowd. Mostly Normals. What about that guy, there? He doesn't seem normal. Oh, right. That's Danny…. Danny from...? Nevermind where. Danny looks worried. The crowd looks concerned, not angry.


Lucas's judgement centers started to come online now, like trying to coax Justice into second gear on a cold day. Definitely not under attack. Probably shouldn't have been feeding in a parking lot. Never used to do that. (Sure?) Pretty sure. Draws attention. Callisse du marde. What now? The faces of the crowd are just begining to change from concern to shock. Hmm. Flipped up too fast. Flipped them out. Danny'll be mad. Danny mad is not good. Cover? Flip slower. Make a show of it...


Slow as molasses, Lucas does a back bend, to a hand stand, to a toe touch, to standing with his hands up in a flourish. As his sense of time snaps back into normal speed he attempts a winning smile and calls out,


“TAH-DAH!”

 

[Gus]

Collaboration #2
​

Danny stumbled back as Lucas performed his impromptu feat of acrobatics. That was waaaaay too fast, Danny’s mind grumbled, traveling with this guy is never going to be dull. Or safe, possibly.


“See?”, Danny spoke up so all the onlookers could hear, “He pulls this shit all the time in the city. He does it for the attention, I swear.”


It was an abject lie, but Danny let his annoyance at the scene Lucas had made mask the lie.


“Hey Danny. Don’t be mad. I was just playing. SORRY EVERYBODY!”


Danny actually facepalmed. Is this how people feel when I'm being a shitlord?


“And with that, nothing more to see here. Now fuck off.”, he scowled at the assembled crowd.


He grabbed Lucas by the elbow and hauled him away before anyone started asking questions he knew he'd regret answering.


“What the fuck, dude? Can we at least leave the state before we start acting like weird motherfuckers?”


“I’m sorry Danny. I was just ...hungry. I can’t eat food like most people. I gotta plug in somewhere. I think… I think maybe that is why I didn’t die at the zoo. The giant girl knocked down some power lines. I think I escaped through them and instinctively rebuilt myself”


He touched the scar tissue where his eye used to be.


“I could have done a better job maybe.”


Danny gritted his teeth. Don’t lose your shit, don’t lose your shit, don’t lose your shit.


“It’s…. okay. We’ll just have to figure out places you can…. feed discreetly. Maybe outside of a town or something?”


“Yeah, I think I used to just plug in overnight. Slow steady drip, took care of most of it. Maybe a snack between classes? Memories kinda fuzzy, but I don’t think I usually did that in parking lots. ...except, you know… that last time at the zoo.” Lucas shook his head as if to clear it. “Maybe we should hit the road before anybody with authority shows up with questions?” He reached in his pocket and pinched the plastic key fob, pulling out the keys. “I can drive her for a bit, if you want an after breakfast nap.”


Danny shrugged. “It’s whatever. Your car, your say, man. I was just taking care of her while you were… away.”


Lucas touched Danny’s shoulder as he turned away, and caught his eye. “I want you to know I appreciate that Danny. Truly. She’s meant a lot to me, and I am glad Justice got taken by somebody who’d care for her, and not just towed to impound. If anything happens to me, I want you to have her. There’s nobody else who’d take care of her. And anyway, I’ve gotten used to traveling by other means. Driving is just for fun now, for me. She’s yours man.”


“...the fuck, dude.  ...You named your car Justice?!  What're you, fucking 10?” Danny grinned as he said it, but holy shit what a dork! Lucas looked sheepish, but with a hint of obstinance, as they moved to opposite sides of the car and got in.


“Well… you know! Justy… Justice! It’s not a huge leap. Plus, y’know, with the whole studying for a blue card thing? ...I mean, she’s like my Batmobile, right? So, like Lucas to the rescue: Have no fear, Justice has arrived! …man, shut the hell up!” Lucas starts the car, face burning.


Danny cackled with mirth at his friend’s obvious discomfort. “No man, that’s cool. We can be like crime-fighting buddies! Captain Batshit-Crazy and Sarcastic Bastard! You could get an eyepatch, keep changing which eye you wear it on, I'll wear a cape with ’Fuck You’ written on it and everything!”


Lucas looks over his shoulder, backing out gingerly to account for reduced depth perception.


“J’men calice, toton…” he muttered.  By now Danny was positively shaking with laughter.


“What’s that? Sorry, no habla Canadian, Frenchy McFucktard!”


“I said get some rest, tabarnouche. Knuckle dragging douchery has gotta be exhausting.”


Danny put his feet up on the dashboard and snuggled back into the creaking bucket seat, still chuckling.


“You’re all right, Luc. Dorky, weird and a freak, but you’re ok.”


“Put your seatbelt on, please?”


“Nope, sure won’t.”


“Bâtard”


“Surrender-monkey”


“3400 miles from Montreal to Paris, toton. Slept through geography class, did you?”


Danny kept his eyes closed but scratched at a pretend itch conspicuously with his middle finger. Lacking peripheral vision, Lucas fails to see, and they lapse into silence as ‘Justice’ noses out of the parking lot and onto the street.

•••••
​

After stopping twice to check the map, Lucas finally found his way back to the highway. Danny woke up just as they were coming down the on ramp. He sat up and stretched, pointed ahead to the overpass.


“Hey, Beaver Creek Road! Shoulda gone that way. You get a lot of beaver up in Canada, Eh?”


“Oh, yah. Gotta a bunch on a string, toton. You wouldn’t know ‘em though. They haven’t got passports so it’s just a summer vaykay thing. Girls around here don’t appreciate what they’re missing.”


Danny grinned. He’d planned on a solo road trip, but… As he sat forward, the bottomless cup of Denny’s coffee shifted inside him, and his thoughts turned urgent.


“Hey man. Gonna need a rest stop. Like immediately.”


“Ostie et calisse, Danny! I just got on I 70! The next exits, like, Haggerstown. Three miles at least!”


“Fuck that, I'm a man, the world is my urinal. The woods up over here, just pull over. Won’t be a minute.”


Lucas puts on the turn signal and pulls well off the road. Danny practically erupts from the passenger door and duckwalks swiftly into the woods and disappears. Lucas shakes his head and sighs. Normal human physiology is weird and inefficient. He doesn’t miss pissing at all...

 

[Gus]

A flash of blue lights in the side view mirror caught his attention. Somebody in distress somewhere down the road. Maybe they could help, if Danny would hurry up! But then the car pulled in behind Justice, and his heart sank down to his toes. Funkstown Sheriff's department. Calisse du Marde... Hope they didn’t see Danny’s dash to the woods. Lucas is a little vague about public urination laws, since he doesn’t, but he's pretty sure the rule as far as the police is concerned is: don’t.


Lucas rolled down his window and put his hands on the wheel in plain sight. The two deputies got out of their car and came around on opposite sides, weapons drawn. That seemed like a bad sign. Lucas kept calm and kept his hands on the wheel. Bullets couldn’t hurt him, unless they were specially made to be nonconductive, but he’d rather not have bullet holes in the car either...


“What seems to be the trouble officer?” he asked, as evenly as he could manage.


“Please, step out of the vehicle, son.”


“Yes sir, I will, but can I ask what this is regarding?”  Moving slowly, he unbuckled and eased the door open.


“You fit the d'scription of a punk did a stunt at Denny’s this mornin'.” The other officer answered while circling around Justice’s hood, weapon trained on Lucas.


This felt wrong. His instincts told him to disarm them both and run for his life. The first deputy spoke again.


“Just keep him covered, Lee-roy! You don’ need tell him nothin'. Just keep 'im locked down 'tween th'eyes while I give him a quick l'il scan.” He pulled a device off of his belt, and held it up to Lucas face. It whirred and clicked and flashed.  The deputy’s eyebrows shot up. “Sweet Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “You wouldn’ believe how far he throws the needle, Lee! Lucky we found you, boy! Lucky for us… Good thing we got the heavy duty cuffs for this ‘un.”  He grabbed Lucas’s wrists and spun him around to face the car.


There was a moment remaining where he could still run. For Lucas, the moment stretched out for quite a long while, but as he considered his options, he saw Danny coming back through the woods and decided to play it cool. Maybe at least Danny can still get out of this if he plays it cool. Whatever this is about, it is not public urination, and he doubts it is the 'prank' either… And then the moment had passed. His hands were embedded up to the elbows in some kind of high tech ceramic restraints. The deputy switched them on and they threw up an immensely powerful limiter field. Lucas’s insides squirmed as his body struggled to adapt to being solid again. He felt like his blood had turned to sludge. His mind struggled to make sense of what the two men were saying to him. His nerves felt raw and burnt. Numb.


He slid down the side of the car, sweating and struggling for breath. He heard Danny’s voice shouting. Something angry, profanity laced, but with real indignation. There was a note of disgust, of shock and betrayal, but there was no sense in them he could puzzle out. Then there were gunshots. One. Two, three, four... …Five, six.  Had he been shot? The high power limiter made him wonder if they had. It made him feel dead inside. It could have made him bleed for their bullets. But he is not bleeding.


Lucas fell over on his side, glimpsed Danny falling over backward through the gap under Justice’s transmission.  Danny, no! The thought is slow coming, pushing through the limiter sludge in his mind. He sees the other deputy, Lee-roy? moving to check Danny's body.  Somebody else is pulling him toward the sheriff’s car. Danny? Danny?! 


Lucas doesn’t want to go. He tried to struggle, but nothing works right. He can’t move or think. He tumbled into the back of the patrol car, and it seemed to him like he tumbled down and down into it. Into darkness.


Alone.


And frightened.

 

[Captain Hesperus]

Danny walked nonchalantly back out from the stand of trees he’d decided to water to see something unexpected…. No, wait, this was totally expected. A local hick cop car with the blue lights on and a pair of deputies holding Lucas at gunpoint. Fucking awesome.


Stupid fuck just had to be a freak during the hours of daylight. Only… those cuffs. They’re not your standard silver bracelets. They looked like some sort of fetish paraphernalia, but coated is a shiny white material, kinda like a urinal or sink. Also, Lucas looked… sicker? Paler? Solider! Danny had gotten used to his co-pilot-in-crime’s physical state. Being composed of mostly solidified energy, he had a slightly ghostly appearance, like you were almost possibly sure you could almost possibly see stuff through his body. Danny’d tried it while he’d been driving. If he concentrated, he could make out the leather of the seat behind Lucas’ back and the steering wheel under his fingers. But now, now he was most definitely solid.
“Hey, yo! What the fuck! You gonna read him is fucking rights or something?”, Danny called out, marching down on the two cops and Lucas like a rolling thunderstorm, “What did he do that’s got you so jacked the fuck up?”
One of the deputies swore and dipped down. Danny’s eyes widened as he pulled a snub-nosed revolver from an ankle holster and leveled it at him. There was a loud bark and Danny felt his powers absorb energy. Holy shit, he shot me! He stared at the cop in shock for a moment, then took another step forward. The cop unloaded another three bullets into Danny’s chest. Danny could see where this was going, and he didn’t like it. Like it or not, he had to roll with it. He feigned a stumble, putting a hand protectively over his chest to hide the fact that the four bullets had not actually perforated him. He staggered forward, hoping to get close enough to land a solid punch on the shooter, but the deputy was no weekend shooter and gave ground, emptying the last two bullets from his gun. But his other hand, the one holding the semi-automatic service sidearm was coming up. This was going to get complicated fast. Danny toppled backwards, acting as if the last two rounds had hit something vital and writhed on the floor a few seconds before lying still.
“Holy shit, Leeroy, why the fuck did you do that?”, the cop holding Lucas cursed, pulling the young Super protectively in front of him.
“Fuck that kid, Aaron, he saw us. He was the one with this freak back in town. Nothin’ but trouble if I let him live.”
“Is he dead?”
“I’ll go check.”


Danny lay still and tried not to swear. The minute Leeroy got close enough, he’d see there was no blood and then there’d be trouble. And someone would end up bleeding. He heard the sound of approaching boots in the slushy snow, but almost as the deputy was close, he paused.
“Shit, there’s a car coming!”, ‘Leeroy’ growled, “We can’t be seen here, otherwise the shit’ll hit the fan. Get that freak in the back and we’ll take him to the Compound.”
“What about the other one.”
“Let some passer-by find him. Sheriff’ll put it down to a robbery or some shit. Wait, gimme your holdout.”
“What?”
“Fucking gimme! I saw it on one o’ those TV shows. We’ll leave this fucker with a gun nearby and when he gets found, we’ll just say he was trying to trick people into pulling over, then robbing them. Some ‘honest citizen’ got the drop on him and gave him a taste o’ hometown justice.”
Something thudded into the snow near Danny’s hand, before he heard the sound of car doors closing. The engine of a Crown Vic cruiser lit up and then, with a squeal of tires, it accelerated away toward town.


The moment the engine noise died down, Danny sat up. There, indeed, lay another revolver in the snow beside him. He picked it up uncertainly. ‘Justice’ sat silent by the roadside, abandoned by the cops. He ran to the car and peered through the window. The keys were gone. Danny didn’t swear. Instead, he walked to the back and knelt to reach under the fender. There, in a small box with a magnet glued to its back was a spare key. Danny flicked it in the air and caught it with a smile. He strolled around to the driver’s side door and climbed in. The engine started smoothly and he set off, heading further away from town.
“Fuck those bastards.”, he said to himself, glancing in the central rearview mirror.
Fuck Lucas, too?
“He’ll be able to escape from wherever they lock him up.”
You mean, like he did when they handcuffed him?
“He’ll figure something. Fucking Canucks always land on their feet.”
What if he doesn’t?
Danny pulled over onto the shoulder again and stared out at the road stretching away in front of him. In the rearview mirror, the town they’d just been in was little more than a blur of distant buildings. He tapped the steering wheel, measuring something in his head. He turned to look at the vacant passenger seat, almost expecting….
“Qu’est qu c’est?”
But there was nothing. Just an empty seat.


The rest of the world was a lonely place to go see on your own. And besides, he had a whole heap more beaver jokes to tell.


"Oh, for fuck's sake..."


He turned the car and started to drive back.

 

[Gus]

Lucas


Dimly, he became aware of the sound of flowing water. It was cold and damp. He rolled over to try and get comfortable, but whatever surface he was lying on was uniformly chill and unyielding. He curled up in a ball to try and get warmer. It did no good and after a minute or so he stretched out and opened his eyes. There was a gray light as one might encounter a little before dawn, or just after sunset. In every direction he looked he could see water sheeting down, as if he were in the center of circular waterfall, or under a gazebo in a torrential rainstorm. In the half light he could make out a few other bodies scattered here and there curled up on the cold hard floor. He sat up too quickly and had to rest his head on his knees to avoid passing out. He felt like throwing up. Hoping his friend was nearby, he called out in a stage whisper.


“Danny? You there?”


One of the nearby lumps sat up and looked at him, a girl a little older than he. Or perhaps not. She didn't look old so much as tired. Her eyes met his with a kind of resignation one seldom sees in teenagers. Or even twenty-somethings, outside of refugee camps. Her eyes looked like those of an elderly woman, long past ready to die. She attempted a smile, but rather than softening the look in her eyes, it just sharpened it, honing it to a point that would pierce your heart.


“My name is Lucas. Lucas Marsolet. Do you know, is Danny here?”


“Hello Lucas. Welcome to the Confine. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but Danny died, about midmorning. Did you know him from Outside?”


Lucas's heart sank, and again he felt the urge to vomit. He had barely known Danny, at school or since. But he had begun to know him. And now, already, he was alone again. And if the name 'Confine' meant anything, he was trapped here, wherever here even was.


“Virage, how did he die? Is his body in here? Can I see him? I'd like to say good-bye properly.”


“What remains of him is over there, by the Yokes. They'll probably whisk up the ashes and the bones after they put the rest of us to work this evening. It won't be long now, so you'd best be quick.”

 

[Gus]

Lucas crawled over to where the girl had indicated, feeling his way among the sleepers on the ground through the half light. As he got closer, there was an acrid smell of ozone and ashes. He felt the remains before he saw them, a greasy coating on the cold glassy floor. Amongst the ashes were fragments of disarticulated bone. A chill swept over him, far beyond what the mere cool damp air could claim credit for. What in the hell had they done to him? He'd seen Danny fall when he was shot, but what in the name of all that was holy could have done this? Lucas scrambled back away from the grisly remains, falling onto one of the sleepers, mumbling an apology and clambering off. Before he could make his way back to the girl to ask what had happened to his friend, a trap door opened in the floor between them. Bright light flooded up from below, and several wicked looking muzzles of rather improbably sleek guns poked up through the hole. The sleepers popped up off the floor and began shuffling over to the center of the large circular room, now revealed in all its squalor. The girl he had spoken to earlier called out to him.


“Newbie! Get over here with the rest of us. Don't look the guards in the eye. Put your hands on the red handles of an open post and wait for instructions.”


Unsure what else to do, Lucas followed the crowd and did as he was told. The guards stormed up through the trap door and spread out around the tight knot of people standing at the posts facing inward, eyes downcast. Lucas felt an unpleasant tingle as his hands touched the red grips on the post. He flinched involuntarily, but found his hands adhered to the surface and he couldn't pull away. One of the guards noted the attempt and landed an expert blow to his left kidney.


“Hands on the handle, freak-show!”


Lucas sagged forward against the post, sickened by waves of pain. Gasping for breath, he nodded meekly hoping to dissuade the man with the gun from hitting him again. He gripped the handles as best he could, intensifying the tingle to a distinct burning sensation.


The guards stepped back a bit, forming a loose semicircle, guns at the ready, not really aimed at Lucas or other captives, but not exactly pointed in safe directions either. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another person coming up the stairs. Not another gunman. Somebody in a suit, with a bearing that says 'I'm in charge, and don't you forget it.' Lucas glanced at the others and saw them all pointedly staring at the ground between their feet, so he dropped his gaze also. The new arrival spoke.


“I am told we have a new arrival. Providential timing no doubt. See that you who remain educate him in the virtues of moderation that he does not come to and end so quickly as this one here... Do your duty by your community. Earn your keep, or face the consequences. That is all. Yoke them.” As their leader turns back toward the stairs, the guards each sling their weapons and pick up some kind of bulky high tech framework and lower it over the shoulders of one of the prisoners. Lucas lifts his head to accommodate his, then lowers it again to steady it against the post. Across the way he catches the eye of the girl. She mouths “Brace yourself.” The burning sensation in his hands intensifies. Sparks begin jumping back and forth between the posts and all eight of the other prisoners arch their backs, faces frozen in silent screams. Lucas feels... odd. Detached. As if his body is floating away, though his eyes tell him he hasn't moved. His hands feel cold now, but still burnt, as if by frostbite. His stomach turns flip flops as his eyes continue to disagree with his inner ear about what his body is doing and where it is going. He vomits a little bit, spattering bile onto his shoes. He is dimly aware of the guards moving away. The trapdoor closes. It is full dark now apart from the light of the electricity arcing between the posts. As the arcing increases, he feels himself drawn to the arcs, like a dancer drawn toward the dance floor at at night club. An irrepressible urge. To join the dance. A moment later, Lucas vanishes.


All across town, the streetlights come on. The town comes alive with light. Water pumps whir to life. Dynamos whine shrilly. Banks of transformers buzz and hum. Here and there, streetlights glow a little too brightly, spark and violently blow out. Hardly anyone minds. There is plenty of light to go around in this town.

 

[Captain Hesperus]

Danny was pissed off.


After parking up, dressing in clothes that might be recognizable from earlier and leaving the car parked in an unobserved location, he'd started walking back into town. It was cold, really cold. The warm glow from his breakfast was long gone and the constant wind was slowly sucking away his will to give a fuck. But... but he couldn't just turn around and leave Lucas. Something was just not sitting right inside him. Cops, even the lazy fucks in deepest, darkest Hicksville, didn't go around with funky full-arm handcuffs and shooting random bystanders who saw them.


Danny's sense of justice, that strange, twisted, weird beast within that sometimes stirred and drove him on, was wide awake and growling. He wished he was inside, it'd be far fucking warmer. The cold was making his fingers go numb, so he thrust his hands into his jeans pockets. As he wandered the streets, he observed the people of this town. Less than a hundred miles from a bustling urban expanse, the people acted different. They didn't walk with their heads down, eyes averted to avoid making contact with their fellow human beings. Instead, they walked upright, looking around and actually acknowledging other people, with waves and salutations for familiar faces, nods and smiles for unfamiliar ones. To be unobtrusive, Danny had to immediately unlearn the habit of a lifetime on the streets of Baltimore. He had to square his shoulders, straighten his back, raise his face to the world and stop fucking scowling. It was a surprising challenge, at first nodding his head to passersby who noticed him, perhaps a quiet 'Hi' to people who spoke to him. But for all the challenge, Danny was finding it easier and easier. He helped a lady take a stroller out of the back of her car and set it up while she extracted a grouchy toddler from their car seat. Danny felt the tiniest buildup of energy as a part of the stroller frame snagged a finger and reacted accordingly, withdrawing his hand with a brief 'darnit!' and waving his hand as if it'd actually hurt.


"I'm sorry, it's always doing that.", she'd apologized profusely as he waved off her offer to look at his injury. Instead, he smiled, said 'It's nothing, no bother.' and went on his way. Holy shit, lookit the fucking Boy Scout earning his 'Good Citizenship' badge. He scowled inwardly. He had been a Scout, before Dad died but that, along with lots of other things, fell to the wayside after he'd gone. If he reflected on it, Danny realized he'd missed out on a lot the past few years, between truancy, getting expelled and just generally being an asshole. School trips, Scout camps, time with his remaining family, all of it lost because of his own self-destructive nature.


He paused as he realized he'd come to a destination. He stood in front of the local Sheriff's office. Outside, several squad cars were parked up.


What now? Ya gonna go in and say, 'Excuse me, I'm looking for two cops who took my friend away and shot me six times in the chest.'. Yeah, that'll go well.


He cursed under his breath.


He pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at the time, it was just after three and the sky was getting darker. Holy shit, how long have I been walking? Just then, the street lights came on. They flickered and there were a couple of brownouts. One nearby actually sparked and the bulb blew explosively.


"Holy shit...", Danny said as the glass cover for the lamp fell to the street below and shattered explosively.


He glanced down at his phone and made his decision. He opened it and went to his texts. The last text sent was to Penny, the nuclear chick below Facility 108. Or at least he hoped she was a chick, as an image of a corpulent pale-skinned troglodyte crossed his mind.


'TO: 667-555-2034


hey not dead yet. found that Lucas kid, the electric one who died at the zoo. so he ain't dead either. bt he got grabbed by some pigs who shot me and i don't know were to start looking for him. how bout u do me a solid n throw me a bone?'

 

[Teh Frixz]

Penelope Urbain 


"Come on fucker...come on. Almost there..." Her fingers are a blur, sweat drips down her brow as she swears loudly. "Jesus fucking Christ come on...." Eyes nearly rolling back as they glaze over, Penny lets out a gutteral (for her) shout. 


"Boom." She drops her hands from the keyboard to make a pair of rude gesture to the screen before rapidly typing. "Git Gud I'm unculturedits. Your mom sucks my cock harder than you tried to win." In her post game victory screen. Fuck, her main wasn't even nerfed this season and she still kicked ass. 


Logging off even as her account was already turning red as she got reported for toxic behavior, Penny took a moment to stretch and look around. Her 'apartment' was as messy as ever but with the absence of dirty clothing. Laundry day teams had come in and began the process of dumping off clean new clothing and burning off the dirty ones. Luckily most of her wardrobe consisted of just shirts and leggings. Hard to justify formal clothing when she couldn't go out. 


A harsh stacatto beat followed by an Improbably loud ping signaled an incoming text from the leader of the lost boys himself. Danny was pestering her again. Fuckboi begging for lewds probably, Penny cackling as she grabbed her phone and stood up. 


A rogue bead of sweat dislodged from her still wet armpit before being absorbed into damp fabric as she scrolled through the message. 


She was almost disappointed. Almost. 


She starts typing back. 


dude wtf. Stop acting like a weirdo and pissing off cops. Hauling a 1/2 dead kid around!? 


The text sends off before she started another 


u ever see that old movie pulp fiction. 


She smirks and sends one more 


for real tho if hes alive now maybe I can pull up tracking files on him then. AEGIS probably unlocked all dead kids shit, lemme look it up n see if I can get a last known location. 


Propping the phone up just in case he responded quickly, Penny switches over to the Utility terminal and starts going through the ever growing recently deceased 108 files. 

 

[Gus]

Johanna Castle





Through the haze of pain the yoke created in drawing power out of her and her fellow slaves, Johanna saw the newbie vanish. The process was not quite instantaneous; it was like he completely converted into power flow and was drawn into his yoke bodily. She'd never seen, or felt, anything like it. As he disappeared, the machine surged with a tremendous spike in current. It was beyond even properly describing it as a current; newbie's entry into the grid was like a tidal wave of charge. The feedback from a spike like that should have killed them all, crispy fried in the blink of an eye! Yet somehow, it felt... safe. And warm. As if all those trillions of trillions of amps were working in harmony, flowing smoothly in concert, rather than pushing and pulling and fighting the flow like punks slam dancing in a mosh pit. The others could feel it too, she could see it. They all relaxed into the flow, adding their voices to the choir of power. Johanna leaned her head back, smiling blissfully. She tried to spare a thought of concern for the strange boy, and what it might be like for him inside the town's grid, but the powerful rush of endorphins at the unexpected lack of pain was overwhelming, and for the most part she passed the night in a rapturous trance.

 

[Gus]

Lucas​

Near dawn, Lucas spat back out of the yoke and flopped heavily onto the hard glass floor, curled up on one side. With one final jitter of sparks, the machine fell silent, and the other prisoners sagged against their posts, gasping and utterly spent. Johanna was the first to recover, and went to see to the newcomer. She toed his shoulder gently.

“Hey. Newbie. You alive?”

In answer, Lucas groaned and rolled over onto his back. He made an effort to sit up, but quickly gave up and simply nodded weakly, in case she was still in doubt of the answer to her question. She crouched down beside him and pushed his hair back from his forehead, resting her hand there a moment.

“Your skin is clammy. That could be just the humid air in here though. You feeling ok?”

Lucas shook his head. He felt terrible. The room was still spinning from his last trip through that turbine. He felt like he'd lost about thirty pounds of muscle mass from the power they'd siphoned out of him. He looked up blearily at the girl.

“What is this place? What did they do to us? And who are you, exactly?”

“My name is Johanna Castle. We call this place 'The Confine' and it is my father's scheme for powering the town. He has been collecting supers with electrical powers for some time now. He started with just me. These posts siphon off as much energy as we can produce. Sometimes more than we can manage, as happened with Danny yesterday. Believe it or not, this machine is version seven. Earlier versions were even more painful. None of them ever consumed anyone without leaving a corpse though, and certainly never brought anyone back before... where did you go exactly?”

“My power isn't producing electricity, I am made of electrons. Your dad's machine pulled me in and I spent the night bouncing around the electric grid; made me quite ill... ...wait. Danny didn't have electrical powers! Well, not the Danny I knew anyway. Danny Travis? He got shot by those cops that brought me here.”

“I don't know any Danny Travis. Our Danny was Danny Brand. So, maybe your friend is still alive... if he can take a bullet. And if 'dear' father's enforcers were less than thorough about cleaning up loose ends. But wait. If you can travel through the wires of the grid... can't you escape from here?”

Lucas shook his head and lay back, trying to piece together his memories of the night from fragments. The local grid was independent of Maryland's grid, and all the pathways seemed to loop back to the confine. He'd tried to find a way out for the first hour or so, but all the promising paths seemed to lead to generators, and their churning magnetic flux had left him feeling scrambled and lost. Eventually he'd just given up and gone with the flow. He hadn't seen a single outlet anywhere. He was as trapped as the rest of them. And worse, he wasn't sure how many more trips he could make through the grid before it would consume him completely.

 

[Gus]

Johanna Castle
​

Johanna studied the newbie, still trying to process what he was saying. Obviously his powerset was different than the rest of the confine's, but what did he mean by 'made of electrons' exactly? How could that be? What would it even mean for a human being to be made of electrons? Her theoretical knowledge of electromagnetism was a bit spotty, not to mention organic chemistry, but didn't chemistry at least require atoms? With nuclei and things? She shrugged inwardly. Might as well take him at his word. Certainly his response to the machine was... unique. Perhaps he was as well. Perhaps... he was reason for hope. Too soon to get excited though. Far too soon to let the others hope. Hope was dangerous in here. Hope was what had killed Danny Brand. Hope, and the dashing of it.

Awkwardly she helped him to his feet and led him over to the cots. Glancing back to make sure the others were still recuperating and not close enough to overhear them, she spoke to the boy softly but urgently, knowing they'd be joined shortly, and that dangerous curiosity would follow.

“Listen. Lucas, was it? There's a reason you couldn't find your way out of the local grid. I helped father design it, back when the whole question was theoretical, back before he started enslaving people. There's no connections to the main grid, and even the local town power is only magnetically coupled to our yoke system. During the daytime though, the grid switches over to solar power and battery stored energy from the confine's efforts during the night. For the rest of us, that makes no difference; we can't travel through the grid, and if we tried to push our power into the grid during the day, it would be... bad. At best, we'd burn out some of the solar panels and batteries and then father's goons would come and punish us. At worst, well... you saw what happened to young danny. But you're different. The grid in the daytime is different. You couldn't find a way out at night, but now that it's on daytime power, it is just barely possible you could find an exit and go for help. Or at least signal someone out there to go get help.”

The others were drifting back toward the sleeping area. She leans in close and whispers in Lucas's ear. “You don't need to decide yet. I don't want to get the other's hopes up either. They'll be asleep soon though. Meet me by the yokes in an hour or so, and we'll talk further.”

The boy hesitates, then nods tentatively, and lies down, rolling away to face the wall.

Hope, Johanna thinks to herself, is dangerous. But maybe not only for them on the inside. Maybe, just maybe, it would mean danger for father as well.

 

[Gus]

Lucas​

He curled up into a ball, shivering on the cold glass floor. He was bone tired, and would have slept in spite of the spartan conditions, except that his brain felt like a scrambled egg, and his muscles were a concatenation of cramps. Going through dynamos never felt great, but he'd also never spent more than a few seconds in the power grid either. He couldn't imagine sleeping, feeling like this. He had a vague memory from his early childhood of an interminable night of sweat soaked sheets and gut wrenching dry heaves, high fever, chills, and throbbing full body migraines. He had tossed and turned, barely sleeping a wink, and yet he also remembered feverish nightmares that had seemed to last an eternity every time he had closed his eyes. This was not quite so bad as that. He'd been put through the wringer, but there was no fever, and little nausea. Still, the last thing he could imagine doing now was sleeping.

He slept.

 

[Gus]

Jehoram Castle
​

"Mr. Castle, good morning. I think you're going to want to see last night's numbers... That new kid your men brought in? He damaged some of the inductors, but he also... Sir?"

Lucy was used to her boss ignoring her. Generally speaking the best policy was the same as for dealing with six year olds: wait it out. Eventually they'd turn to see why it had gotten quiet. She waited. Eventually, he spoke.

"You are an excellent bookkeeper, Ms. Morgengwerder. An unfortunate side effect of your profession however, is that in your focus on the numbers, you tend to miss the big picture."

He gestured out the window of his office toward the fields of solar panels angling to catch the rays from the rising sun. Dutifully, she came to the window and looked where he pointed. The panels were lighting up in sequence like the diamond vision screen at a sports arena. They seemed to depict the outline of a person moving stealthily from one panel to the next, checking behind himself periodically as if he feared being followed.

"I don't understand... is this some new promotional stunt or..."

"No. This is something new. Something that needs controlling and containing. Get me a security detail, loaded for bear. It is past time I paid my daughter and her friends a little visit. And the new kid needs a proper welcome. And an introduction to the rules."

Nervously, Lucy hurried out to the front office to do as she was bidden.

Teh Frixz Captain Hesperus