෴Hex෴

෴Midnight෴

෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴

Clear the Air

෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴

“Are you ok?” Midnight knelt next to Hex where she’d suddenly collapsed in a teary mess.

She wiped her eyes and took his hand, accepting his help up, “Not even close. Everything’s going so wrong. Raz is in trouble, I’ve only got one aspect on the ground there and he’s trying to tell me he’s got it all under control and to just leave him. Like I’m going to do that.”

Midnight swore under his breath and glanced upward, “How long has he got? If you tell me where he is, I can get there once I have a few minutes to rest. What’s the situation there?”

She filled him in on what she knew about the situation at the African Incursion site.

“So at least two enhanced onsite, a stealthy type and a tank? Who’s behind all this. Have I run into them before?” he muttered to himself, lost in thought.

“How soon can you get there?” she interrupted his train of thought.

He felt around for his energy reserve. “I–I could go now. Be there in probably seven to ten minutes, but I’d arrive with nothing in the tank. I doubt I’d even have the juice to carry him away, let alone fight anyone on the ground.”

She put her hand out, “Take some from me.”

He shook his head, “You know how that goes. Even if I only take a little, it puts all of you down. It’s not enough to make a difference, and it just adds another problem,” he glanced upward again, and then turned to her, “Look, you need heavy weapons. The heaviest, apparently. I need some food and at least a few minutes of rest. Give me your honest assessment. Will my arrival in half an hour be that much different? If I can rest for a bit and eat, I’ll be able to go get him. In the meantime, I can make some phone calls about those weapons.”

She stood there, shaking with suppressed emotion. “I don’t know!” she turned and slapped the metal door, sending a low reverberation echoing through the storage facility. “Fine. I’ll get food, you make your calls. As soon as you have enough energy, you need to get there and help! I’m going to do what I can to help him until then.”

He nodded, “You got it.”

*** *** ***

A few minutes later.

“—you still take payment in gold? Perfect. Thanks, Sergei, I’ll come by within the next day or two for pickup.” Midnight hung up the phone and looked over at Hex. She was leaning against the door to the storage unit, talking into her phone.

Midnight jotted some notes on his phone regarding the details of his purchase. She finished her call just as he was putting in the last detail.

“I ordered food. If I’m being honest, you do kind of look like hell. No time for sleep, so food will have to do. Any luck?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yeah, I’ve got a line on two ‘man portable’ units, and what sounds like as many Chinese clones of the old W48 tactical nuclear artillery rounds as I care to buy,” he sighed, “The bad news is those old artillery units aren’t all that reliable at this point. In terms of yield, they’d be perfect. The man-portable weapons are a little bigger in yield range, enough that I could see taking down an anchor beast if you can deliver it.”

She shivered in place. “I don’t know what’s worse. That you could make a deal to buy some supposedly disposed of nuclear weapons on the phone. Or that you were able to do it in less time than it took me to order some pizza.”

He shrugged. “One of the few benefits of being painted as the bad guy is that sometimes other bad guys are more willing to deal with me,” he looked at the storage unit then back at her, “Where do you want them? Keep in mind radiological detection will mean about a foot thick lead envelope will be needed if you want them near anything people would consider strategic targets.”

She furrowed her brow in thought. “Let’s put that on hold. As soon as you get that food in you, I need you to get there and help me out in Chad,” her eyes blazed with intensity as she stared him down, “I know you’ve got your own problems, but Wraith is going to get on this tech you brought back by the end of the day,” she cradled her head in her hands, “I’ll help however I can with the rest, but right now I need you to make this your top priority!”

“Consider it done. I just need enough power to be able to do it.”

“There’s way too many for me to handle by myself, even if I could teleport locally. They have more people coming, and it looks like all the soldiers are dead.”

He abruptly held up his hand in a halting gesture, “Hold up, why can’t you teleport there? Actually, why don’t you just bring in more aspects to the fight?”

She brushed that aside with a dismissive gesture, “Long story, Brock’s gates leave me all messed up for a while. Doesn’t matter right now.”

He blinked, “You know Brock Ivaldison?”

She held up a halting hand of her own. “It. Doesn't. Matter. Right. Now!”

He nodded, “Ok, food, then I’ll meet your aspect in Chad?”

Several thumps emerged from her storage unit. Midnight looked at Hex with a raised brow.

She seemed to relax slightly, “Ok, got some portable infantry missile systems in case your nukes fall through. It’s no rapid launch hellfire ground battery, but it’s the best I could get. I’m taking your tech to Wraith now. I left it in his garage, he knows what to do.”

Midnight smiled. “Thanks. That’s one thing off my plate.”

She shook her head. “We’re wasting time, let’s go get that food so you can go. Also, don't get too comfy. My taking something off your plate just means I get to put something on it. We need to talk about your imposter with the business cards, and—”

“Do they look like this?” he pulled the silver-grey brushed titanium alloy business card out of his armor and held it up.

She took it and examined it. “It does look like the one he left behind,” a Hex aspect dressed in field combat gear flickered into view just long enough to drop an identical card into her hand and vanished.

“May I?” he pointed to her card.

She handed them both to him. “I looked up the coordinates. Middle of nowhere up north kind of place. From a satellite image, it looks like a golf course in a forest.”

“These are not manufactured cards. They feel…” he looked up from the two metal rectangles at her in consternation, “I didn’t notice it at first with such a small single sample, but they feel like something I made,” he ran a finger along the surface of both cards.

“But just to be clear, you didn’t make them, right?” she prompted.

“Right. I didn’t make these, but they feel like I did. I don’t want to get into the whole thing right now, but when I make metal constructs, two things make it identifiable as something I made. First, I align the molecules in patterns that I can recognize. It’s not intentional, and I can make it not happen, but if I’m not trying, the pattern is there. Second, using my ability to form metal leaves a sort of residue, a trace of that power. That residual power doesn't last forever, it fades in a few hours or a few days, depending on how much energy was used, and whether I put in the effort to add more.”

She put her hand on his, “Ok, so you got some kind of magical metal forensics, what does it mean?”

“I’m getting there. The reason this is important, is that someone else trying to use the same sort of ability to shape metal, will have to work much, much harder, almost exponentially so, to manipulate metal that still has my energy in it. The same would be true of me trying to use metalopathy to shape someone else's recently shaped metal.”

She frowned, “Ok, I think I get it, but what does this mean?”

He shrugged and shook his head. “I’m not sure. What I can tell you for sure is these cards weren’t made at the same time. Yours is much newer, it feels less than an hour old, mine is nearly a day old at this point. In both of them, I can feel both the familiar pattern, and residual energy, and it feels like mine.”

She looked him in the eye, “But–you’re saying it isn’t. You aren’t going senile on me are you?”

He scratched at his chest, his fingers seamlessly passing through the armor shell to allow him to scratch the skin beneath, “Pretty sure I’m still all here. Do I seem like I’m losing it?”

She started to reply but trailed off when his armor flowed away from his chest, revealing the strip of metal embedded in his flesh. She watched in horrified fascination as he gently pulled the staples out and caused the metal to rejoin his armor mass.

He sighed in relief as he scratched vigorously at the fresh scar. “Ahh, that's better.”

She pointed at the pale pink puckered line of scar tissue. “What the hell did that to you? I didn’t even think you could be seriously injured like that?!”

He kept scratching at the long scar, “I wish. I capped out before I could get into any of the really strong durability chains. I get my toughness from the same chain that lets me manipulate metal,” he shrugged and caused the armor to flow back into place, “Usually that’s more than enough, but I’m not invulnerable. I don’t think anyone is.”

His stomach rumbled loudly. ”Ok, food does sound good. Breakfast feels like a long time ago and I didn’t want to eat more than my hosts could spare.”

She half shrugged, “I’m sure there’s a story to that, but we’ve got more important concerns. Let’s go pick up the food so we can get things moving. I’m worried we don’t have much time. While we wait I’ll bring you up to—”

She stuttered in place. “—ring you up to sp—”

She flickered in and out, her movements a series of chaotic jerks, “—ou up to spe—”

Hex crumpled to the ground. In a burst of graceful speed, Midnight stepped forward and caught her in his arms. She continued to mutter increasingly unintelligible chopped-up phrases.

He carried her over to the back of his blocky cargo van and set her inside. She didn’t look to be in distress exactly, except for the odd seizure-like behavior.

He watched her shuddering and flopping around for a moment before he noticed she was saying less and less each time.

He rested a metal rod on her forehead. When the metal rod didn't suffer any negative effects from contact with her, he cautiously put his hand on her forehead. She continued to mutter and move around without purpose. Through the contact and his prior access, he could feel her ability at war with another ability, but the battle was happening far away, and she was losing.

“Ok, getting you out of this fight is going to be bad, sorry in advance.”

He used a long-standing granted access and clamped down on her ability for just for a moment before letting go. Doing so felt harder than it should have.

She froze for a beat, went limp, then sat up in a rush a few seconds later. “What just happened!? What did you do?!”

He raised his hands and stepped back. “Whoa, I was just trying to help. I don’t know how, but someone shut you down. You were having what looked a lot like a seizure.”

She flickered in place, “I’ve lost sync and contact with the aspect in Chad!”

Midnight closed the van door and walked to the front of the van, “Where do we go for the food?”

She rolled over and hurried to the passenger seat, “Did you hear me? I’ve lost an aspect! I don’t even know that could happen! What did you do to me?”

Midnight prepared to shift the van into the sports car shape and drove out of the storage facility. Seconds later he pulled into traffic, driving his sleek silver and black classic car shape. Hex still sat next to him in the passenger seat.

“I interrupted your ability for about one second. Do you even know how long you were stuck?” he calmly replied.

She bit back her response and stopped to think. “No. I guess not. The last thing I saw was this creepy guy in a lab coat. Guy looked really familiar. I was about to shoot him again when he said something, pointed at me, and a Mexican-looking guy just looked at me. Things got kind of fuzzy then. The world was spinning, and I wanted to throw up everywhere. Something slapped me in the head. Next thing I know, I’m laying in your van and you’re holding my head down.”

He shook his head, “Wasn’t holding you down. Skin-to-skin contact makes ability disruption easier to do. I think you met someone with a spatial power, or a general ability disruption power. Neither would be good news.”

He turned onto the main road, “Where are we going?”

She closed her eyes, retreating from the conversation as he drove in silence.

He reached out to the metals in her phone and caused it to slide out of her pocket into his waiting hand, “Unlock your phone.”

She jumped, startled, flickered in place then looked at him, “Gimme that!” she snatched her phone back, “It's the Pizza Kitchen over on Peachtree, take this left.”

He nodded, “Are you ok?”

She shook her head, “No, still not ok, arguably worse than when you arrived. Now I’ve got an aspect that's somehow detached from me, but I can feel me, her, whatever. Still out there, active, but not part of the group. I don’t even know what this means.”

He turned left and started looking for the takeout location, “What's that thing you do to get rid of an aspect? Can you do that?”

She cradled her head in her hands and closed her eyes, a rictus of effort on her face.

As he pulled into the parking lot, she let out an explosive breath, “No. It’s not working. I can vaguely sense that she’s still out there, still alive. But that’s all. She’s all alone there.”

He pulled up to the takeout window, “We’ll get this fixed, I promise,” he tried to assure her. When this caused her to burst into tears again, he was left even more confused.