I apologize for making my fans wait so long before Book 2 started. I really didn't want to wait this long, but real life and jobs and stuff just insisted on getting in my way.
As per usual, please post comments and stuff in the
Discussions thread (I'm not creating a new Discussions thread, just a new story thread).
The original story, of course, and all its commentary can be found
here.
Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
*******
At any rate, welcome back to the misadventures of Raymond Keyes and Sorina Tavarisch in...
THE COURSE OF SUPERHERO ROMANCE II: COURTSHIP AND CRIME FIGHTING
Chapter One - No Rest for the Weary
The sound of a low, persistent beeping slowly filtered its way into Raymond's consciousness, and he groaned, rolled over, and blindly slapped his hand down in the direction of his alarm clock...
"Ouch!"
As his arm connected with something warm and very definitely
not his alarm, Sorina's muffled yelp brought him fully awake, and he sat up, briefly disoriented.
"Wha- oh..."
The events of last night came back to him, and he belatedly remembered that he had spent the night at her apartment rather than returning to his own house in Steel Canyon. With a sigh, he flopped back onto the bed, one arm across his face.
"Sorry about that."
Next to him, Sorina was rubbing her cheek where he'd accidentally hit her with his arm while reaching across the bed, and at the same time frowning blearily at her alarm clock.
"It's not even four in the morning," she complained. "And that's not my alarm. Or my phone."
"Four a.m.?!" Leaning over the edge of the bed and rummaging one-handed through his pile of clothes on the floor, Raymond bit back a curse. "I swear, if this is Steve calling, I'm going to kill him."
But then he frowned as he finally located his cell phone, and Raymond realized that the sound was coming from someplace else.
"Your armor, maybe?" Sorina suggested with a yawn, rubbing her eyes and looking over at him.
"You're probably right," he sighed, but before he could get up, Sorina rolled over onto her side and slid her arm around his waist, resting her face between his shoulderblades.
"Come on, Sorina," he said halfheartedly, but she didn't move.
"Shhhh," she murmured indistinctly, and they stayed like that for several seconds.
He closed his eyes again, letting himself simply enjoy the feeling of her holding him, the warmth of her body against his, and the quiet pleasure of her presence.
If only we could just stay like this... he thought.
Just for a little while longer.
Then she finally released him with a slight push.
"Go. Before I change my mind and decide not to let you leave."
Looking over his shoulder at her, he saw the slight smile that curved her mouth, and he rolled over to kiss her lightly.
"Stay just like that, with that smile, and I might not leave anyway," he told her, then he kicked off the covers, scooped up his clothes, and padded barefoot into Sorina's living room where he had left his armor the night before when they'd returned from the Rikti War Zone.
As he pulled on his clothes, he cursed the yet-again intrusion of real life onto the fragile peace he'd managed to find lately. In the two months since he and Sorina had begun dating, life had thrown one problem after another at them, culminating in yesterday's nightmarish excursion to the War Zone. Upon their arrival back at her apartment, they had finally agreed that their personal lives and heroic lives could no longer interact.
He looked wistfully back toward Sorina's bedroom.
Which is why she's still there and not out here with me to find out what the crisis of the day is.
Once dressed, he donned his armor, and his retinal displays indicated that the incoming transmission was coming from Freedom Phalanx HQ - and on a priority one signal. Whatever it was, he thought, it couldn't be good.
"Accept transmission," he sighed, and the audio/visual link to the Phalanx headquarters was established.
"Positron here, go ahead."
Manticore's image appeared on his displays. "
Sorry to wake you up, Pos," he said apologetically.
"I doubt you want to be awake this early, either. What's the situation?"
"
PPD just called us - someone had phoned in a bomb threat to City Hall. But when their bomb squad got there, whatever they found, it's not your typical bomb. They're asking for our assistance on this one, and specifically for yours."
That was a surprise - the PPD rarely had to call in the Phalanx for problems at City Hall, considering the contingent of Longbow that could generally be found stationed there at any given time. On the other hand, until he found out more information, it could well be that Longbow had initially been called in, and then decided it would be better to turn the matter over to the Freedom Phalanx.
"Understood. That thing got a timer of any kind? Note indicating when it'll be set off?"
"
Not that we've found... PPD is still analyzing the call, but I get the feeling that this is a message."
"Any idea from whom?"
"
Not a clue... yet."
"I'll meet you guys at City Hall, then. Ten minutes."
"
Will do. Manticore out." As the call ended, Raymond removed his helmet long enough to rub his eyes tiredly, wishing he had time to at least get some coffee into his system.
He glanced over at Sorina's room, and saw her standing in the doorway, a sheet wrapped loosely around herself and her hair around her shoulders.
With no small amount of reluctance, he turned to leave. "I have to go."
"I understand," she said quietly. "Be careful."
He could only imagine how hard it was for her not to ask him what was going on, but that was the deal - they could spend time together as Raymond and Sorina, but not as Positron and Agent Tavarisch.
Grateful that she was taking it stoically, if not happily, he got as far as the door, then turned around, crossed the living room to stand in front of her, and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close.
The Freedom Phalanx needs Positron. Paragon City needs Positron... so... so it doesn't matter that I need... that I want Raymond Keyes.
I don't care if the world needs me as Positron. Right now, the only thing that matters to me is that you need me... and want me... as Raymond Keyes. And what I want... what I need... is you.
He was briefly tempted to stay, to let the Phalanx deal with this one, but he knew that it was a luxury he couldn't afford right now.
So he kissed her one more time, and then was gone.
*****
It took him just under eight minutes, flying at maximum speed, to fly from Sorina's apartment in Founders Falls to City Hall in Atlas Park. As he approached, he saw that the PPD and Longbow had cordoned off the building itself. Since Atlas Park was also usually teeming with heroes, they were out among the crowd, helping to keep order and rendering assistance as necessary. Statesman, Sister Psyche, Manticore, and Synapse were inside the cordoned zone, talking with Ms. Liberty and the higher ranking Longbow and PPD on the scene.
Statesman glanced up as Raymond landed. "Good, you're here. The building has been evacuated, although Longbow and the PPD are still checking for any other surprises that might be waiting for us."
The Longbow officer drew himself up and saluted. "Sir. Thank you for coming."
"What have we got?" Raymond asked as he and the others turned and started up the stairs to head inside.
"Energy signature reads as a bomb, but it's no design we've seen before."
"How so?" Statesman entered first, then stepped aside to allow the others in. The Longbow officer then led them down the stairs, past the MAGI office and into the DATA office. Flashing his ID at the sentries on duty, he led the Phalanx through the security checkpoint.
"Wait a second," Synapse said. "They got the bomb down by the portal?"
"Yes. That's what worries us."
The six heroes descended into the vast technological chamber that housed one of the few dimensional portals not physically located Portal Corporation on Peregrine Island. This one, and this one alone, was programmed for a single destination...
... an alternate Earth where good and evil were so closely balanced in power that Atlas Park was caught up in a moment-by-moment struggle for control.
The dimension was formally designated by Portal Corporation as Delta Mu 66-06.
Those in the know, however, referred to it as "Recluse's Victory."
Longbow and DATA kept constant surveillance on the dimension, using it to study Arachnos in an attempt to foil their machinations in that dimension, but Raymond was aware that Arachnos was doing the same. He and the rest of the Phalanx had squared off against Recluse and his lieutenants there on more than a few occasions, not to mention slugging out it with some of the superpowered villains who had also managed to infiltrate Recluse's Victory.
Now the Longbow officer led them over toward the portal, where near one of its massive generators, Raymond and the others could see a bomb half-hidden in the shadows of the generator. His scanner systems were already assessing the device and calculating information, none of which was looking very good.
While he studied it, the officer went on. "From what we can tell, there are no motion detectors on the thing, no proximity monitors, nothing. The strange thing is, it's been here almost 12 hours."
"How do you know that?" Sister Psyche asked, frowning at the device as though trying to mentally penetrate its mysteries.
"Once it was discovered, we checked the surveillance feeds. God only knows how, but someone managed to teleport in here past all the security, but only just long enough to place this thing and disappear again. Ten, fifteen seconds at most." He shrugged helplessly. "With all the energy spikes around this place, no one noticed one more, and as I said, this thing seemed to sit almost dormant."
"Until about half an hour ago, you said," Statesman said thoughtfully. "I wonder why."
Carefully approaching the bomb, Raymond knelt down beside it to look at it more carefully. No markings on the casing, no gang symbols, nothing to indicate a particular group. The shell was some sort of dark metal - a lead compound of some type, he surmised when he tried to scan through it. Six access panels, connected by circuitry and a few external wires. The design vaguely reminded him of something they'd taken off an Arachnos unit a while back, but the resemblance was superficial at best.
He cautiously pried open a panel to get a better look inside, and then frowned behind his helmet.
"This thing could certainly blow City Hall to kingdom come, but damn, whoever built this thing was smart."
"Any ideas on who might have built it?" Synapse asked.
"Hmmmmm... the components seem to be from a jumble of sources, probably to make it harder to trace. The primary detonator appears to be of Crey design, but that kinetic amplifier looks like something I've seen on a few of the Malta Group's Titans..." His voice trailed off as he looked at the circuitry again. The last time he'd seen anything like this, it had been when he and Synapse had gotten hold of a forcefield generator after stopping a group of Sky Raiders from blocking the shipping lanes in and out of Talos Island. The Raiders were skilled at stealing and combining the technical advances of other groups, but this didn't quite look to be their style, either.
Based on the bomb's readings, the thing was easily powerful enough to completely devastate City Hall, but more likely, it was meant to take out the dimension portal to Recluse's Victory. An ugly idea, considering that it was the only way for anyone in Paragon City to access the dimension.
Prying another panel off to better expose the innards of the bomb, he saw a tangled mess of wires, crisscrossing the inside of the bomb's structure. "Wait, there seems to be something else-"
Resting on top of the wires was a small blinking device that suddenly glowed brightly as the panel came away. A red ray of light shot from the device and lengthened into a triangular beam that abruptly swept in a circular pattern around the bomb.
"Oh hell!" Raymond shouted, nearly falling over as he leapt to his feet. "A scanner!"
It completed a full circuit, having swept over all of the Phalanx members and the Longbow officer, then the scanner flashed from red to green, and a sudden rising hum began to emanate from the bomb.
"How long do we have?" Statesman asked, concerned.
"No idea!"
Raymond was already once again on his knees beside it, mapping wires and leads and likely connection points. If he just started pulling wires at random, he could very well set the thing off prematurely.
With no idea how long he had before the bomb went off, he knew that he'd have to discard methodical research for blind inspiration - not the sort of thing he particularly enjoyed.
As he worked, his armor's scanners were constantly assessing and reassessing the bomb's energy levels, attempting to extrapolate how much time he'd have before it went off. Unfortunately, whoever built the thing seemed to be one step ahead of him, because the power would randomly spike and then drop before rebuilding, preventing him from accurately calculating a detonation point.
He was only dimly aware of Manticore, Sister Psyche, and Synapse racing out of the building to warn people away from City Hall, and of Statesman standing behind him, ready to plow him out of harm's way if necessary. Focused absolutely on his task, his fingers seemed to move of their own volition, tracing cables, comparing circuits, eliminating possibilities until he'd finally narrowed down the optimum means to deactivate it.
"Oh, please, God, let this work," he whispered, then carefully began severing wires one by one. Just as the hum reached almost unbearable levels, he pulled one last wire, and suddenly the scanner went dark and the hum cut out abruptly.
Letting out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding, Raymond was grateful he was kneeling on the floor, because he didn't think his legs would support him much longer. Pulling off his helmet, he gasped in fresh air and wiped the sweat from his eyes.
"Good job, Positron," he heard Statesman say, and he nodded weakly.
"Thanks." Drawing in a deep, shuddering breath, he tried to relax from the massive surge of adrenaline in his system. "I'll want to take this thing back to HQ and study it, see if I can get a lead on who built the thing."
"Any ideas?"
"Not a one. But whoever built this thing was innovative, I'll give them that."
"I'll let the others know," Statesman replied, and left the chamber, leaving Raymond kneeling alone in front of the portal, staring thoughtfully at the disarmed bomb.
To be continued...
If just so you get the time to actually do FUN projects, for the express purpose that they're fun, and not because you're getting paid to do it. Or at least that most of your pay projects end up being fun, as well.