Work Text:
Special detective Henries surveyed the scene before him and felt a chill go down his spine. It was an uncanny parody of a construction zone, with solid pillars resembling warped cranes precariously balancing loads of what seemed to be oversized cinderblocks, dotted with random sections of wire fence which were broken and jagged. It had once been a small skate park filling an otherwise abandoned lot between the adjoining residential area and a block of warehouses, and the terrain formed uneven concrete hills, marked with graffiti and the scratches of skateboard wheels and likely the occasional elbow pad or helmet.
“Definitely a cape’s abilities,” PRT officer Redmont said. “When Shakers leave a mark like this, nine times out of ten it’s got this half-real look to it, like someone drawing an animal they’ve never seen before, just based off of a description.”
“Just make sure you don’t get directly beneath the hanging weights,” added officer Misk, the third member of their little party.
Henries carefully slid down the lip of the area until the slope evened out, and again took stock of the situation. A cape with some kind of sensing ability had marked this scene as a weak power effect and relatively safe, but that didn’t mean that it wouldn’t suddenly become bigger on the inside once he entered, or transform into a labyrinthine maze or something. Capes and the messes they left behind always had the potential to be dangerous.
Luckily for him, as well as Redmont and Misk who followed closely behind, nothing seemed to change as they made their way further in, mindful of any sudden movements or shifts in the environment. Though they stayed well out from under the crane-like structures, the hanging weights still loomed, promising a devastating and thunderous crash should their cargo be jostled even a little.
Beyond the creepiness and the constant sense of danger, their way deeper into the transformed skate park was peaceful and unobstructed. No pitfalls opened up, no wriggling creatures burrowed out from the concrete hills, the metal railings didn’t animate and attack.
Henries led his two escorts on a slow circuit around the area, noting anything that stood out and mentally surveying a list of capes whose powers might have produced a scene like this. Finally, something which had been picking at the back of his brain reached the forefront, and he turned abruptly.
“There,” he said, pointing at one of the concrete hills they had just passed between. “This area isn’t marked at all: no scratch marks, no graffiti. It looks fresh. Let’s get a closer look.”
“Be careful,” Misk said, helmet angling up. “A few of those cranes are dangerously close.”
Nodding, Henries set out half-walking, half-climbing to the top, where he stopped dead. There was something, small but distinct from the concrete around it, breaching the surface as if the concrete had been poured around it. He approached and knelt, pulling out his phone.
He dialed Chad at home office, and after a quick back-and-forth, got to the point. “Do we have any missing persons from the last couple of days?”
“Lemmie check. Found a John Doe?”
“Yeah. Or part of one anyway. I’m on a cape hunt, got a finger sticking up out of concrete like a weed sprouting on the sidewalk. My guess is we have a whole body down there, but we’ll have to wait until someone shows up with a jackhammer to find out.”
“God damn, okay. Looks here like we have a social worker by the name of Mary Weirne, never came back from her lunch break today and hasn’t responded to any phone calls. Report says she was acting odd when she left, but no details.”
“Thanks, take care.” Henries hung up and left a note on his phone to look into Mary Weirne, along with any cases she had been working during her time of disappearance. Of those villains and few heroes whose identities had been made public- or public to the police, at least- a large number had been troubled kids or estranged parents. Add to that the fact that most victims knew their killers, and it gave Henries a solid angle to chase down leads with.
Redmont and Misk had caught up while he was on the phone, and they had made calls of their own. The area had been scouted, and a victim found. The rest would be up to CSI, the cape geek division of the PRT, and whoever’d be responsible for digging out the corpse.
Before the cavalry arrived, however, Misk got a call. There had been another similar scene, this one more urgent. A cape working with the authorities- a vigilante in good standing, in other words- had failed to check in after going to question a local villain about what new cape might have caused this scene, and the PRT had received a report that the area had been warped as well..
Henries hitched a ride in the PRT truck and got the short brief from Redmont on the way. The villain was named Apex, a woman with a predator-themed costume including a motorcycle helmet which had been cracked along its circumference to form a jagged jaw. Her powers were mostly physical, allowing her to move like a gymnast and fight like a black belt, all the while hitting harder and jumping further than anyone of her size should be capable of. She may have also had some form of defensive power to explain how she had taken a hit from a powerhouse named Arc Rad and had come out unscathed. The new site was apparently a known haunt of hers, an unoccupied residential space taking up the second floor above an old-school arcade. Whatever reality-warping power was making these odd scenes, it was more visible there and was actively spreading this time.
Once they arrived, it was clear what that meant. In the back of the arcade, next to a door labeled ‘do not enter’, the wall itself had changed texture and color, and two of the nearest arcade machines were now sporting Apex-themed decorations. A logo of her helmet had been turned into a kind of pac-man game on one machine, and on the other a looped demo showed a pixelated Apex beating up nondescript thugs. Apparently just the door had been altered when the call originally went out, and it wasn’t clear yet how far the spread would reach before it stopped.
The stairs up were largely normal, though Henries doubted the rock-climbing handholds around the outer wall had been there originally, and the railing which would have kept people from falling down the middle of the stairwell was missing. They got to the second floor, and were faced with a thick metal door with an unlabeled keypad. Redmont carefully tapped one of the nine squares, and a quick sequence flashed on the keys, each one a different color and emitting a different electronic chime. After about five, it went back to being dark and blank.
Into the silence that fell afterward, Henries suggested, “maybe try repeating the sequence back to it? It could be imitating a ‘simon says’ game.”
Redmont shrugged and pressed the first square which had lit up, but that just set off a new sequence of lights and sounds, different from the last. Redmont hummed, and tried again, this time with the last key which had flashed.
After about a minute of trying different patterns, Henries said, “maybe try hitting the keys as they light up?” This time, Redmont played a game of whack-a-mole with the lights, jabbing each square as it lit up in the sequence. One, two, three, four, five… and six, seven, eight, and nine squares each flashed before Redmont pressed the wrong square and the keypad went dark.
“I think you’ve solved it,” Redmont said. And then added, “either of you got quicker fingers than me?”
Misk said from behind, “just try it, and we’ll try blowing the lock if you can’t get it the ‘fair’ way after a few.”
Redmont turned to Henries, who just shrugged. “I’d just fat-finger it. You got this, Redmont.”
It took five more tries, but on the twelfth lit square, the sequence was complete and the keypad lit up all green and stayed that way.
Had the keypad been there before, a way for Apex to get in quickly with her enhanced reflexes but stall anyone else? Capes did have a flair for the dramatic, but it was still more likely that she would have just set a combination instead of putting in a game pad that anyone could use, authorized or not. No, it was more likely that this new power had changed whatever lock had originally been on this door to one which had some connection to Apex.
Redmont cracked open the door, and immediately a knee-high cloud of faint green gas began to flow out. He shut the door with a sharp smack, and took a step away from the mystery gas, which began to spread out and flow down the stairs.
“Should we leave this to a hazmat team?” Henries asked, stepping well out of the way of the gas cloud..
Misk grunted and pulled a paper tab out from a velcro pocket in his uniform. He knelt and waved it in the edge of the cloud, then rose- stepping away- and examined the paper. “Litmus says it’s safe to touch, as long as you don’t breathe it.” He reached into another pocket and handed Henries its contents. “Here, got a filter mask for you. Same stuff we got in our helmets.”
Beyond the door was what resembled a cartoon cape hideout far more than an unused apartment space. To the right, the floor dipped into a recessed lounge area which should have dominated the arcade below, had normal physical laws applied. There was an oversized mock-up of Apex’s helmet sitting nearby, and the walls were decorated with paparazzi-style photos of Apex, usually with her back turned. The gas permeated the space, giving the floor a green tint.
Perhaps it was the photos, but Henries felt a telltale tingle as if someone was behind him, watching. He turned, but there was nothing.
Henries was just an investigator, so he let the PRT officers take the lead. Having the two armed and armored escorts in front of him didn’t exactly help the feeling that there was some undefined threat behind, but he let it slide as the usual paranoia that came with capes and their abilities.
“Shit, got a body here!” Misk stepped around a corner, followed closely by Redmont. Henries was a step behind, instinctively looking around first in the direction the others clearly weren’t- not quite a military doctrine of covering each others’ backs, but a habit picked up through years of perps setting up a distraction and then bolting as soon as everybody’s backs were turned.
He saw a shape bundled up on the ground to the right. It was the cape they’d come here to find- he was hard to recognize as a heap of black clothing, but the large bladed weapon he carried was a strong ID. “One more body to the rear- looks like Deadbeat.”
“Apex is toast-” Henries got a look over Misk’s shoulder, and felt the bile in his stomach sour. Apex lay face-down, the back of her helmet shattered, the pieces mixed in with blood and bits of gray matter. Corpses always felt eerily close to being alive, even with gaping wounds, but from what he remembered, Apex had been more… alive than most. She could dodge gunfire, just from keeping out of the line of your aim, and a footchase against her had never stood a chance. And yet here, she was completely still, never to move again. Was the gas responsible? Knockout gas maybe, something that would get through her helmet or Deadbeat’s mask but not the PRT’s high-grade filters.
As the PRT officers moved to check on Deadbeat, Henries got a better look at Apex’s body. There was, in fact, a metal canister with a spray nozzle on top lying by her feet. He couldn’t be sure without inspecting it closer, but he imagined that it had a one-off trigger, some button or even grenade lever that, once used, would stay on and keep the gas spraying. Still, just one canister wouldn’t have produced the sheer volume of gas here.
Deadbeat was alive, thank God, and currently slung over Redmont’s shoulder. Henries fell back into formation comfortably close behind the PRT officers as they beat a quick retreat out of the strange cape-affected area. Still, something was stuck in Henries’ mind. Was the altered space keeping the gas from dispersing? He may have thought it was generating the gas, but then what had the canister been? In fact, he saw another two sitting off to the side, near an oversized Apex helmet placed against a couch as if it were a beanbag.
As had become habit in this place, Henries glanced over his shoulder, and saw what must have been three gun muzzles aimed in his direction, emerging seemingly from the wall itself. Any closer inspection was cut off as he dove to the floor, shouting “get down!”
Three gunshots rang out, each sound hitting him almost as hard as a bullet as they echoed down the hall. He scrambled up, feeling something flap around his face- the mask, he realized, knocked loose- and turned, still moving, to find a new set of firearms, emerging from the wall as if it were liquid, aimed at him, or, as a voice in the back of his mind said, at the back of his skull, right where Apex had been shot. Had it been three times? Impossible to say from just a quick look, and so much mess.
Luckily, they didn’t seem to handle tracking so well, and he was able to dodge the second volley as well. Redmont and Misk were moving, though Misk’s helmet had a spiderweb fracture along the side and Redmont had dropped Deadbeat at some point. Henries spied another set of guns which had emerged- and now were quickly receding- from the ceiling, aimed, he guessed, at Misk. Henries found the errant mask strap with one hand and pulled it back around his ear.
Someone- a shorter adult, or an adolescent, wearing a hoodie and a facemask- stepped their rear foot out from the beanbag-esque Apex helmet, the helmet itself having opened like a car door to admit them. They had a handgun in one hand and a kitchen knife in the other, and they were approaching Redmont, his back turned.
Henries reached into his jacket and pulled out his own firearm- not police-issue, but sometimes a necessity in his line of work- and squeezed the trigger with stiff fingers. One shot went wide, another sent the enemy’s gun flying with a bright yellow spark and a flash of blood, and then Henries was being tugged by the shoulder and he felt a piece of his ear go missing, along with an eardrum-pounding crack.
“Out, out!” Misk was shouting, half-dragging Henries as all three made a mad dash for the door. Luckily there wasn’t any keypad on this side, the door simply opened to the stairwell.
Henries distantly felt the effect of shell shock settle into him. The world went vague, his body descending stairs automatically while Misk called for the Protectorate to send a team.
They made it down the stairs and into the arcade without any further attacks or signs of pursuit. Apex’s body and Deadbeat, however, had been left behind. The call came back; cape support would be forty minutes away. Henries’ fingers were still stiff, and he was unable to move his toes in his shoes. He found a comfortable enough place to sit, hopefully to wait out the effect, likely from the gas.
Time passed. Redmont noticed his state and checked him over, patching over his ear and regularly inspecting his body for evidence of the paralysis’s progression. Eventually, a pair of capes arrived with five heavily armed PRT officers and passed through the ceiling in a kind of bubble one of the capes had turned into. Henries’ fingers began to respond to his attempts to flex them.
The capes didn’t find anything. Apparently, more decorations had ‘grown’ inside of the scene, one of them encasing Apex’s body the same as that other victim. The area hadn’t become ‘hostile’ again, likely because it had been reacting to its creator’s intent to attack. The creator had vanished, along with Deadbeat’s paralyzed body.
A medic arrived and properly treated Henries, including some medicine that had him start to come back to himself. It was a slow and gradual process, much like the flexibility just now returning to his fingers.
Once he felt steady enough on his feet, Henries approached a PRT officer- he thought he recognized her, but he couldn’t quite recall her name- and asked, “any news on the case here?”
She gave him a sidelong look, and said, “we’re calling them Ripper. The cape that did this, I mean. Three bodies, two capes, and both capes had their brains… well, you know about the Corona Pollentia?”
“It’s the part of the brain that controls powers, or something close to that.”
“Well, in the capes here, they’re missing. Not… not quite missing, that makes it sound like they just vanished. They were ripped out, near as anyone can tell. Nobody could find them either. Ripper must be collecting them or something.”
Henries’ stomach twisted. “You said there were three bodies. There’s the one here, I’ve looked over the scene in the vacant lot… the third one…?”
She frowned, looking at him. After a few seconds, she gave a small shrug and said, “they’ll probably pull you in to compile the reports anyway, so might as well share. I heard it’s like Deadbeat went on a rampage through a razor factory. Those slashes, those weird reverse-vacuum holes he makes, they’re everywhere, even though they should only last a few seconds. The walls, floor, ceiling, they’re all made of layers of sharp blades. Techs said that they’re all coated with a paralytic too. They found Deadbeat inside with his throat cut, torn wide open to get at his brain. No sign of ripper though.”
“Great.” Henries closed his eyes and breathed in slowly through his nose, then let the air out through his mouth. “Okay, back to work.”