Heroid

((I remember laughing when I saw Hugh Jackman's picture when they announced he was playing Wolverine. His profile indicated that he was a pretty-boy song and dance man from Australian stage and television. He's still nothinig like how I think Wolverine should look (too tall for one thing), but he's played the part well, and is now how most people see the character.

Ryan Reynolds will probably make a fine Hal Jordan. If he has a good script/direction. ))

*Is willing to give up virginity for safe passage out of the forums...*

“My five year old brother could do this.”

Paley Whitmore is a wiseacre, but he’s the best hacker in my small circle of acquaintances. He’s never liked me, in the beginning because we were on rival soccer teams in the city league, but now, I think it has more to do with the fact that he is dating Julia Kantner, a girl who had a crush on me not so very long ago. He isn’t a student at the Rock, but lives nearby. His father owns a popular chain of steakhouses in the northeast. Paley is trying to open the game I found in the bank vault on his pc. I had tried it on mine, but it was written for a much older operating system.

“Your five year old brother knows more about computers than I do then,” I say.

“Serious, dude – do you even know where the on-button is?” His voice, as it always is when speaking to me, is full of derision.

“I know how to turn on a computer,” I say and immediately know I phrased it poorly.

“Ha! I bet you blow in its ear!”

It was a stupid joke, but I had expected it, and it would not have stung at all except that Julia was also present, a girl whose ear I had indeed once lightly blown into. I don’t qualify it with a response. He looks to Julia to see if she will laugh, but she doesn’t. Instead she looks at him with an empty expression that makes me very sad and regretful.

I stand by quietly while Paley works. I know what he’s going to say next…

“Dude, there’s nothing on this disk.”

“Ah,” I say, “then sorry for wasting your time.”

“Yeah, well don’t bother me anymore with stupid crap like this.”

I turn to leave, a small memory chip hidden in the palm of my hand. Without a word, Julia follows right behind me.

“Wait,” Paley says, “Jules – where are you going? I thought we were going to go see that new Vin Diesel movie later.”

Julia doesn’t even look at him as she says, “I don’t think so Paley.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow then?”

“I don’t think so, Paley.”

Ah, yes. Yet another person’s happiness ruined by yours truly.

Outside the building, I turn to her and I say, “Julia, I’m sorry.”

“Not right now, Smith,” she says. “Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week. Maybe not ever, okay?” She quickens her pace to pass me as she heads back to the Rock.

I deserve that, I know. I watch her walk away.

“Should I tell you if she’ll get over it or not?”

The voice is familiar, but I shouldn’t be hearing it. No one should. The person it belongs to should no longer exist.

I turn to face Godlike Me.

“How--? You should have vanished along with every other thing the game created.”

“I never said the game created me.”

Once again – confused.

“Then what are you? Me from a parallel universe?”

Godlike Me laughs and says, “My boy, don’t you know? Oh – wait! You don’t know until I tell you! I remember now!”

“Know what?”

“That there are no parallel you’s.”

“What?”

“There are no other versions of you in any other universe.”

“That makes no sense. In all the infinite alternate timelines—“

“There is only one you.”

“Impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible.”

My mind is boggled – really. I’m so mired in abstact concepts right now that I begin to doubt the likelihood of my own realness.

“Then… I become you in the future? Are you what the Fates have in store for me?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then say what you bloody mean! If you’ve come here to tell me something, then bloody effin’ tell me!”

“I already have. Goodbye, young me. I wish you luck in the ordeals to come. And quit worrying about the Fates so much. It gets tiresome to those who care about you.”

He opens up something that looks very much like an Ouroboros portal and steps through it.

“Wait--!”

But it’s too late. He’s gone.

Hours later, I’m alone in my room. Really alone. Adam Scott is installed on my computer, happily exploring a brave new virtual world. I… I’m lying on my bed wondering about the “ordeals to come” that my older self mentioned. There’s a knock on my door.

“Come in,” I say.

It’s Stephanie Martin, a girl I once fancied might help me get over Jessie.

“Can we talk?” she says…

At times like this I sometimes wish I shared some sort of orthodox faith so that I could more effectively curse.

When Gangster grabbed Julia, I lost my concentration on Paley, which allowed him to awaken. And of course he wakes up in a bad mood. I’m lying on the floor, barely able to move. He’s drawing all of our energy to convert to speed. I imagine he might be doing so to the whole building, in which case our little tricks to hide our activities from the Whitmores are going to be pretty ineffectual. They’ll soon figure out the center of the phenomena is in this room and then Juilia and I are in huge trouble.

Paley is vibrating ball of speed now.

“Julia!” I shout, and they both turn and look at me. “He’s your boyfriend – talk to him!”

She opens her mouth to speak, but Paley is suddenly standing right there at her, his face a blur.

“Yes, talk to me, traitor!”

Oh my, this isn’t going to go well…

“Talk to me Julia! Tell me how you love me! Tell me that so I can call you a liar!”

Julia doesn’t break down, doesn’t cry or get upset. “I’ve never lied to you,” she says, “and I’ve never told you that I love you either.”

Paley smiles, but it’s not a friendly smile. “It doesn’t matter – I know you’re conspiring with him to take away my powers! Traitor! You’ll get your justice first!”

He puts his finger to her forehead. It’s reciprocating like a jackhammer.

Focus, Smith! Focus dammit!

Despite that he’s drawing on almost every source of energy available, I manage to muster up enough psychic firepower to deliver one blast, so I’d better make it –

Oh no! Catsuit has drawn her gun! She’s going to shoot him!

“NOOOO!” And I’m sure all of Paragon City hears my anguish.

“Hey, boyfriend,” she says, and when Paley turns around, she fires.

This has to be one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen. The gun fires, the bullet shoots out of the gun like – well, like a bullet! But then the energy is sucked out of it and it falls to the floor having traveled only a few inches.

That’s when I realize what Catsuit was going for. She wasn’t trying to kill him. She was just giving him a sudden surge of velocity to draw from, allowing the rest of us to regain some of our own energy.

I regain my focus and I’m sure now that I will not miss. Speed Trap is out like a light once again.

Catsuit trains her gun on Gangster Me so that he will not give us any further trouble. The Wentworths come barging into the room to see what is up, but Godlike Me causes them to forget why they came in, and sends them out for a pleasant dinner at the Hungry Dragon.

I telekinetically lift Paley into the chair, then manipulate his fingers to type in the slash-command...

Julia Kantner watches herself type at Paley’s computer; a virtual person made real engaged in intercourse with a real person made virtual. She finds herself wishing that this older, more interesting, more confident version of herself could stay when this is all over. How is it, she wonders, that a virtual copy of herself could be so much better than the real her? Did she have that potential in her?

But she could ponder that later. At the moment, she had bigger things to worry about.

Smith had arrived twenty or so minutes ago with Paley/Speed Tap. Paley looked to be in rough shape and she felt like crying when they pulled the costume off to examine his wounds. The older Smith – Smith-Two -- had healed them, but Paley still lies unconscious on his bed, kept unconscious by Smith’s psi powers.

Now, the older version of herself was getting instructions from Adam Scott as to how to restore order out of this chaos.

“It’s ready,” older Julia says after several moments. “Even with all its magical manipulation of reality, the game still operates as a mundane computer program. All we need to do is seat Paley in this chair and get him to type this command, ‘forward slash – end game’.”

She smiles after saying it, a telling smile that lets Julia know how simply impossible that sounds. After all, there is no way Paley, in his current state, would agree to sit down and bring an end to all of this. Julia smiles back and sighs.

Then someone grabs her from behind.

“Nobody’s ending anything,” Smith-Two says as he tightens his forearm around her neck.

“How did you get in here?” Smith – the original one, the real one – says as he narrows his eyes into a threatening squint.

“I still remember how to do those ‘Jedi mind tricks’ too, y’know,” Smith-Two replies.

Smith-Three’s brow furrows as he says, “You must know that we do not belong here.”

Julia knows that they are doing something psychically, either attacking or attempting some sort of mental domination. Smith-Two is holding her so tightly he’s choking her.

Then suddenly, she feels heavy, sluggish. And she knows she’s not the only one feeling it. The arm around her neck goes lax. Smith and Smith-Three stagger. Smith actually falls to the floor. The lights dim, and the display on the computer shrinks to a white dot.

“I can see now,” Paley/Speed Tap says, his body fairly crackling with electricity from the speed he is absorbing, “that the only way to stop your nefarious league of evil is to kill you all.”

((*nod. Yes, but this was many, many years ago (my kids are adults now in their twenties). But my point is that rude, abusive behavior will get you rude, abusive reactions, and I don't need a PhD to know that. ))

((Hehe! Can't think of a better excuse to go afk though. ))

((Are you sure? >:1 ))

((The article makes him sound like the best CoH PVPer evar! Anybody's nine-year old could exhibit as much "skill" as this guy.

And, yes, if you're mean to people for no reason, you're going to get death threats, serious or not. I once told a couple of kids (looked about thirteen or so) who were two cars in front of me on a loop-a-loop roller coaster and spitting everytime we were upside down, "If any of that hits me or my kids, I'm going to kill you when we get off of here!" They stopped spitting, but even if they hadn't I really wasn't going to kill them. I hope they thought I was though.

Anyway, I don't pvp much so I guess I won't be in his book. To those of you who are -- I salute you! ))

[ QUOTE ]
((Damn wife agro, gotta go raid the bed!))

Teeheehee

[/ QUOTE ]

((You been eavesdropping on my rp?))

((Why is the (( )) nonsense? Sometimes it's better to go ((House is on fire. BRB)) than to have your character say, "Er... those tacos I had for lunch are getting to me -- I'll be back in a few." It's certainly better than having that curvy redhead your hero hangs out with speak in a deep, gruff baritone over Teamspeak.

But, different strokes...

And I understand completely what the OP is talking about. I got it right away. Sure you can have realistically played characters in a fantasy setting. There's even a literary genre called fantasy realism.

It can be a lot of fun to play a Silver-Agey superhero. And contrary to what many believe, you can even have interesting dramatic moments with those type characters. But it's also fun to play your character with realistic emotions, reactions, and -- in as much as the game allows -- realistic consequences for their actions.

I don't see what everyone here is arguing about. Even the "real" world is largely based on our perceptions of it. One person's real world might be a world based on hard work and moral living. Another person might see that as fake, and their world is based on scrapping and scraping and "do unto others before they do unto you". One person's idea of "real" is a benevolent god with whom they can have conversations and from whom they gain help and guidance. Another person might argue that kind of belief to be the ultimate expression of escapism and delusion.

I believe you do what you need to to get by in life. And I do what I need to to have fun playing my game. If it means (( )) and angsty role-play, then -- GO ME! ))

Think, Smith!

Aha!

Speed Tap caroms one way, and I the other. He travels hundreds of yards before he can turn to make another run at me. I’d be Smith-ereens if I hadn’t realized something the moment I saw him – in order for him to target me, he has to think. And I’m pretty sure his pure speed is quicker than his mind. Therefore, in order to attack me, he has to slow down. That realization gives me an edge – I’m more practiced in my powers that he is. He has to process his attacks; I can defend myself reflexively. This time burst of TK sent us each in an opposite direction.

Here he comes ag— GO UP, FOOL!

Silly of me not to think of leviating sooner. After all he can’t—

Buggers! He’s running up the embankment like it’s a ramp—

Effin’ shaz! He barely missed me. Trajectory is not his strong suit, but I’d better go higher if I’m going to—

What th—

Where did he learn to do that? From a comic book? He’s bloody spinning like an effing top, whipping up a twister around him, lifting him toward me!

Clearly, I’m not safe in the sky. If I could only get a clear focus on his face, I could psi-blast him into unconsciousness, but even spinning, he’s moving too fast to get a bead on.

I go back to the ground because if I’m going to get creamed, I’d just as soon not fall two-hundred feet afterward.

Let’s see… can’t psi-blast him and the TK is only good for defense…

Ah! Idea!

But he’s nearly on me already! Have to time this perfectly—

Ouch! Oh gods! It hurts! I think he broke my bloody leg!

But –

Ha! It worked! I tripped him! He’s skidding to the end of the street and –

Double-ouch! He just took out a concrete highway support. I think he’s hurt worse than me. I just hope I haven’t bloody killed him. Julia doesn’t deserve that kind of ending to this ordeal.

Oh, and of course Paley doesn’t either.

Speed Tap runs, so fast that he has to hold his mouth open to scoop air in order to breathe. He knows he should stop. He knows he needs food in order to sustain this accelerated pace. He needs liquids to replace what is evaporating from his sweat and saliva. But he cannot stop. He seeks the villain who would deprive him of his power, would deprive the city of its fleet-footed champion. Only after destroying this enemy will he be able to stop, to rest. So he runs, so fast that his thoughts begin to blur…

Exposition first.

The game, Hero City, is a reality-warping chaos engine created a decade ago by the technomage, Adam Scott. Something went wrong with whatever Mr. Scott had planned, and he wound up trapped as data on the computer system in his apartment. The game and its abilities became the stuff of legend among certain technomagic circles, and a bounty was put out for its procurement.

Days ago, I came along with my own singular mind-over-matter abilities and found the disk while stopping a bank robbery. This was actually a pre-event manifestation of the activated program since an alternate version of me that was created by the game was responsible for placing the game where I would find it. (Don’t ask me how that worked – it’s maddening just to think about it.)

There were three of us in the room when the game was activated – Paley, Julia, and myself. Paley was transformed into a superhero called Speed Tap, while Julia and I had older versions of ourselves created. We are guessing that since Paley’s fingers were on the keyboard, he was chosen as the primary player and the older versions of Julia and I were created as support character – Julia, some sort of super-spy and I, the villain. (The game must have tapped our minds because these characters seem to share many of our traits and memories.) Why it created a second, god-like version of me, we cannot figure out; perhaps it’s merely a symptom of the chaotic nature of the game.

Which brings us to the here and now.

I’m right here and now I’m standing in Skyway waiting for a run-in with Speed Tap. Literally.

Mr. Scott’s plan is simple: Let the hero defeat the villain.

Therefore, after some city grid-mapping and plotting of Speed Tap sightings, the three me’s have scattered around the city – Gangster Me’s body repaired by Godlike Me (who also repaired himself) – as bait to trap Paley. We each have a quantum sink device (I think that is what Catsuit said it was – she crafted it from parts she bought at Cooke’s Electronics and built it to Mr. Scott’s specs) which, we have been assured, will stop Paley cold once he is within one-hundred yards of us. I just hope it doesn’t affect any other unsuspecting heroes going about their business.

“Smith-One?” Julia’s voice says over the comm. “Smith-Two’s comm just went dead. We think Paley might have hit him before he was set up.”

Probably, I think, or… “Or the blighter escaped.”

“Well,” Catsuit’s voice joins in, “even if he’s escaped that won’t matter if the other two of you capture Paley. We can end this and put things back the way they should be before this event spreads and corrupts this reality and he’ll disappear same as me.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?” I say.

“Why should it? I’m not even real.”

As I said – maddening.

Nearby some Trolls are accosting a civilian. I send a gentle TK nudge their way that puts them on their bums and then a psi-blast to put them to knock them out for a bit. I dare not move away from the quantum-whatever device to tag them for arrest. They should be down for a while anyway.

Waiting is tedious. I can hear both Julias breathing over the comm, but neither says nothing. Godlike me is quiet also. I’m standing here with nothing but my thoughts to keep me company. Bloody hell, Paley, hurry it up.

As if my thinking about it made it happen (and who’s to say it didn’t?) an orange blur passes on the highway above me then disappears out of sight. It has to be him.

“I saw him!” I shout into my comm. “But he passed me by!”

“Smith Three, be ready,” Catsuit says.

Godlike me replies, “I am always.”

I wish I was.

Since Paley’s passed me by, I turn off my device and prepare to head to the next likely location on the grid.

“Any sign?” Julia – regular Julia says.

“None,” comes the reply from Godlike Me.

I’m ready to move on when I hear the sonic boom…

Speed Tap runs. He cannot stop. No longer pausing to stop crimes, he continues to move, his body racing quicker than his thoughts. He knows only that he wants to keep this power and that someone would take it from him and he must stop that someone. Drawn to that person, he thought he had found him, but no. He was mistaken and by the time his brain processed the mistake, his body had carried him miles away and he could no longer feel where his target was located.

Speed Tap runs. He crisscrosses the city in a tight grid. Sooner or later he will find the one who would take this from him. He runs. He cannot stop.

((And another bump. ))

Ascendant? Yeah! That guy's awesome! He's more'n super -- he's damn near allimpotent!

We couldn’t go to our school, the Rock. Not with the odd entourage we have with us now. Even if the House had let us all in (yes, the building itself is sentient and sometimes it and I do not get along), we’d never get past Mr. Kirby in security or – gods forbid – Old Man Kinsolving, the headmaster. So here we are back in Paley Whitmore’s room.

You have questions, I’m sure. Well, I’ll answer them. The minor one first: Why would Mrs. Whitmore allow us to come into her home with… well, who all is with us will wait for a moment. I’ll just tell you that I used “an old Jedi mind trick” on Paley’s mother and as long as we keep the door to Paley’s room shut, she’ll never know we’re here.

Second question: What happened to the older me in the warehouse? Easy answer – Speed Tap ran through him at an incredible speed. I know. Not very satisfying an answer, is it? It will do for now though.

Third question: Who all is in our “odd entourage”? All right, here it is: Me (of course), Julia (surprise!), the older me that Julia encountered (stuffed in a body bag, no less!), the older me I encountered (wrapped in a plastic tarp and stuffed in a large burlap sack!), and… well, Julia’s explaining about the fifth person in our group now.

“…so I thought you – he! I mean he!—was going to kill me for sure, when she…” And here Julia gives a nod toward number five of our bizarre bunch – a lovely young woman – in her mid-to-late-twenties, I’d say – wearing a very tight-fitting, black catsuit. Then Julia continues saying, “…showed up out nowhere and shot you—him! I mean she shot him!”

The woman in the catsuit is, it is obvious to me, Julia about ten years in the future. Jules is a bit slender now; some would say skinny. But the older version… She fills out very nicely...

Hrhrm.

Anyway, Julia’s still speaking.

“She shot him right in the head, but he didn’t die. He just sort of fell down and it was like he was asleep. But when he fell, all his ‘men’ disappeared. I think he had made them with his mind!”

As young Julia talks, Catsuit Julia is working with Paley’s PC, either on the game itself, or on Mr. Scott’s data, trying to figure out what has happened and how to fix it. According to what Julia’s telling me, Catsuit Julia is some sort of hacker/spy/assassin type who works for a covert ops organization. She showed up in Adam Scott’s place and –

Oh, I need to explain that also. Julia’s already gone over it, but I’m not sure you heard.

Adam Scott, the creator of Hero City, was a technomage. (Or was he a metaphysicist? I’m not sure what you’d call a scientific genius that dabbles in magic.) It seems he didn’t much like the world as it was, and so he found a way that he might remake it the way he wanted it to be. Something went wrong, and Mr. Scott wound up trapped in data form on his own server. Catsuit Julia was skilled enough to load Mr. Scott onto a small memory chip (computer technology has advanced at an insane rate since 1998!), and she brought him here with her.

Okay, back to what Julia (regular Julia) is saying.

“… so she hacked into the server and retrieved him and we stuffed gangster you into the body bag and she teleported us back to Paragon.”

Gangster Me is lying in the corner with Godlike Me (he can’t just be called “older me” now, since there are two of them, both older me’s). They’re actually both awake and chatting now. They were arguing while ago, but they got too loud and I was afraid they would draw unwanted attention or distract Catsuit Julia from her work, so I told them to keep quiet or I’d throw them both to the bottom of Platinum Lake. So like I said, right now they’re just chatting. I know it’s creeping Julia out because it’s creeping me out.

“All right,” Catsuit Julia says after a long while of working, “Adam Scott has told me how to reverse what’s happened to Paley. But he wants to strike a deal…”

“Wait – you’re talking to him?” I ask.

“Yes. He’s still alive.”

“But… he’s just data.”

“We’re all ‘just data’ when you think about it, Mr. Smith.”

“Well, of course. But I didn’t think he was still sentient.”

Catsuit Julia reads something off of the monitor and laughs.

“He wonders the same about you,” she says. “And he wants to know if we want young Master Whitmore back.”

I have got to get Paley back somehow.

“What are his terms?” I ask.

“He wants Internet access.”

“That’s all? He doesn’t want to be restored physically?” It seems like a simple request to me.

Julia – normal Julia – explains to me, “He didn’t like the world before, remember? Why should he want back in it?”

Catsuit Julia smiles at her younger counterpart and I can tell she’s proud of the astuteness of that observation. “Exactly,” she says.

Julia – normal Julia – continues, “But his request isn’t so simple. His apartment might have had internet back in 1998, but I bet it was slow dialup. It’s also possible that – with the way telephone companies change ownership and services, that he wound up without any kind of internet access.”

“Quite right,” Catsuit says.

“Well then,” I say, “give him his Internet connection and let’s be done with this.”

“NO!” comes a shout from the corner. It’s Gangster Me. “He’s evil! EVIL! He’ll use the internet to take over the world!”

Catsuit smiles and says, “He’s hardly evil. He just was unsatisfied with his life. If we give him internet access, there are countless virtual realities he can access – or he can even create his own.”

All right. This is getting too abstract even for me to follow.

“Ask him how to get Paley back, and I’ll guarantee him uninterrupted internet access.”

I just hope I’m not effing up.

“Exactly who are you?”

I already know part of the answer, but simply saying he is an older version of myself doesn’t tell me why he’s here and how he got these amazing powers.

“I am what you shall become. Or perhaps, what you may become.”

Bah. I know I’m given to obtuseness at times, but this is ridiculous.

“Why did you go out of your way to put that game disk where I would find it?”

There. Let’s see him dodge that one.

“Did I place it there? Or did you place it there?”

Gyah! Fifteen or more years of living and I’m still an [censored]!

“Bloody hell, man!” (Yes, I am losing my patience.) “You promised me answers!”

“No. I promised you questions, Mickey.”

It occurs to me that I’m getting exasperated at myself…

“Stop calling me ‘Mickey’! My name is Smith – just, Smith!”

He sort of smiles at me then turns toward the warehouse door. No damned way I’m going to follow him until he gives me some bloody answers. No. Damned. Way.

“If you do not follow, then questions will be all you will ever have.”

Bollocks. I follow him through the door and into…

Not a warehouse…

I’ve been to Ouroboros. I’ve traveled to Cimerora. Neither experience has prepared me for…

We’re on a plateau… clouds and golden…

And then we’re… I never dreamed…

The gods of Olympus! I’m…

The three crones – the Fates… Oh my – I don’t think I can… No way! I’m not –

Oh… wait… this is…

Jessie…? Wait –!

Oh gods no! That’s not—

Bollocks. I follow him through the door and into the warehouse.

Inside it’s just a normal warehouse and I wonder why he led me on such a roundabout trip to come here.

“All right. I’m in. Now, will you tell me what the hell is going on?”

Older me looks at his watch and says, “We haven’t much time.” Then he tells me how he came to be. And how “other me’s” have come to be and that the Fates are in a tizzy over it all. How it is all tied to that game and its creator and how Adam Scott was only biding his time until someone with my particular abilities came along and set into motion the events that brought us to this moment, except that Paley Whitmore had messed things up by being the person who broke the code instead of me and now Paley, Julia, and I are all stuck in a chaos loop…

Then, he stops talking. He grabs me by the shoulders, lifts me from my feet as though I weigh nothing and sets me a meter or so to the side. He smiles, and holds up a finger…

Cheese and crackers! I’m a bloody mess! Literally! I’m covered in blood and… And –

Oh my gods…

I’m lying in two halves on the floor. It looks like something just cut right through me…

Him! Cut through him… I mean to say he’s lying on the floor. I’m still standing and I really do not know what’s going on…

Paley Whitmore, now known as Speed Tap races through the city so fast that other people appear to be standing still. He stops a mugging. Steers a car out of a near-collision. Catches a fallen scoop of ice cream and replaces it back onto the cone before the child even realizes it’s dropped it. All in the space of seconds.

No one has seen him because no one can see him. The faster he moves, the faster he goes. The more he does the more he can do. It’s addictive like a drug and he keeps moving -- sucking the speed out of the city as he burns up the streets. The buzzsaw of justice.

He goes so fast that Atlas Park is only a breath away from Talos. He runs now just to feel the speed. He lives between moments. He runs he runs he runs...

“It’s been a while since I was called that.”

He comes out of the shadows and Julia takes a step backward. Someone shuts the door behind her, and she hears the lock click into place. Rough hands grab her and begin frisking her all over. The searcher kicks her feet wide apart and Julia holds her breath while he finishes his search.

“She ain’t got it, Mr. Marcone.”

Mr. Marcone? Julia realizes her face must mirror her confusion because Mr. Marcone says…

“I took my mother’s name. It seemed the logical thing to do after all the stuff at the old school happened.” Then he says to the rough-handed searcher, “Thanks, Tony.”

“Your mother…?” Julia is still confused. “Who are you?”

Marcone/Smith smiles at her, and for a second, he looks just like the youthful Smith she knows.

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m your Smith’s final fate. When things went bad for me in Paragon City, I returned to my roots, to the family business.”

“You’re not—no way,” Julia says as steps backward.

She finds herself bumping against Tony who grabs her in a bear hug and lifts her off the floor. Attempts to kick loose only make him squeeze that much harder.

“Let me go!” Julia shouts. “I’ll scream! Someone will come for me!”

Marcone/Smith steps up close, so close she can feel his breath tickle her nose.

“No one will hear you in this room,” he says. “ We can do whatever we want in here and nobody will ever know.”

Marcone/Smith’s face is almost touching hers. She turns her face away, but he grabs her chin and pulls it back around.

“What’s the matter, Jules?” he says as he caresses her cheek and looks into her eyes. “You liked me, once upon a time. You liked me a lot.”

“Not you,” she says, trying not to show how scared she really is, “I don’t know you.”

“Wow. You really know how to hurt a fellow. But then, you always did.”

To Julia’s great relief, the old gangster doesn’t kiss her, but instead steps over to the array of computer equipment in the corner.

“This is a special room,” he explains. “Did you know that Mr. Scott wasn’t a computer programmer by trade? He was a quantum physicist. He did some work for Portal Corps and for NASA, among others. But then he did a no-no for a scientist – he got interested in metaphysics and magic. He wound up creating the perfect chaos engine. Do you know what he called it?”

Tony squeezes her as if prompting her to answer. “I have an idea,” she says.

“He would have used it to take over the world, but there was an accident. What you see here… this room with its fusion generator and all this equipment… this was his backup plan.”

“Backup plan?”

“This room is set up to keep that server…” Marcone/Smith pauses and sweeps his hand over the computer equipment for emphasis, “…running indefinitely. And it does that in order to keep Mr. Scott alive. You see he now exists only as a data stream.”

“And you’re telling me all of this why --?”

“Why? Because someone has decided that I should not exist and wishes to use this chaos engine to obliterate me from existence.”

((Open, public rp isn't as common as it was. Most of the rp I do is within the sg these days.))

((Good luck. I hope you find a new job sooner rather than later. Work may suck, but unemployment sucks harder.))

I hid in the corner, careful not to move and make a “shimmer” that would give me away. I watched “older me” sign the banker’s book, then followed them to the vault. It seems that the branch manager had contacted “Mr. Smith” soon after the Freakshow robbery, but “Mr. Smith” had been out of the country and this was the first chance he’d had to come and check on his safe deposit box.

I knew what was going to happen when they opened it. I knew “older me” would look inside and say, “Everything is just as I left it,” because otherwise, it would prove that he really wasn’t “older me” because he wouldn’t remember taking the disk from it to begin with.

He didn’t disappoint. He smiled and shook the banker’s hand and then hastily (almost too hastily, it seemed to me) left the bank. Outside, a limo and driver awaited him. If I was going to follow, I’d have to act hastily also.

TK powers are tricky. Levitating is easy, but actually building up speed is hard. I’ve found that if I can latch my telekinesis onto a swiftly moving something (a large bird like a pigeon or crow will do) then I can use that to pull me along with little effort. The mass of a car however is more difficult to affect. I have to find a small part that sort of stands out from the rest and hold onto that. Strange, but that’s the way it works for me. Unfortunately, most cars are made with aerodynamic surfaces, with very few interruptions in the smoothness of the vehicle.

I look over the limo quickly. There is a small ridge along the boot lid, and it is that which I anchor myself to as the limo pulls away. I follow a few feet above as the driver takes an insane route that seems as though he’s going on a Sunday tour of the city.

For over two hours I fly with them, my head is pounding from such a prolonged TK workout. But I can’t let him get out of my sight. Mysteries are piling upon mysteries here, and I know that “Mr. Smith” is at the bottom of it all.

Finally, in Indy Port the driver enters and alley between two warehouses. I hover nearby as older me gets out of the limousine and looks up -- at me! With a wave of his hand the car and driver both vanish as if they had never been. Incredible! Will I be able to do that in the future? Create things such as that with only the power of my mind?

Stunned and awestruck, I lose my concentration and fall to the ground, landing in a groveling heap at his feet.

“Hello, Mickey,” he says, “I suppose you have questions…”

((A bump for this thread, just in case. ))