Chương 43: Crash

My body tensed like bridge cable, ready to snap at the journalist Holden Worth, who had just entered. That man was at the press conference. He knew about us in our costumes. How the fuck did he know about us out of them? Did he follow u-"Oh, ho ho, sorry there!" The man spoke, his booming voice at a much calmer tone than normal. A smile crossed his stony demeanor.

"Just trying to find a copy machine that was working. The one in the other auxiliary library is out of ink." My face must have not caught up with my emotions yet, with how calm he sounded. May's voice shot past my ear.

"No, no, it's okay, we were just sitting here because it's quiet. You can use the copier if you want!" She was much cooler under pressure than I was. The tension in my body slowly receded as he seemed to almost hobble along to the copy machine. A tapping on my arm. Must have been May. I looked towards her, and with a worried expression across her face, she pointed down towards my left hand. Glancing down, I saw I had accidentally forced my fingers all the way through the table.

I scrambled to lean over it, resting my forearm across the damaged area.

"So are you two new students? Don't think I've seen either of you around," he inquired. May maintained the diplomatic offensive for the both of us.

"So we're new to UVA, but this is technically my second year, I came here from William & Mary."

"Oh, a law student! You lucked out, UVA Law is top ten in the country. Any specific focus?"

"Constitutional law presently, but I might branch out into corporate depending on how this semester goes."

"That's wonderful! And what about you, young man?" His blue eyes set on me. Felt like I was on another planet. He seemed mundane, but that buzzing in the air. It was a physically felt thing. It interrupted May too. Something happened. Was it just not him? Was it something else? Fuck, Leo, stop thinking and answer!

"I'm, uh, just in the theater program and the intro to American politics course." The journalist leaned back, his smile broadening.

"Intro to politics? You with Schreiber?" I nodded, rubbing my face.

"That slimy little martinet. He's an old contemporary of mine, we used to both work up in D. C. on opposite sides of the fence. He tell you he only worked for Carter?" Despite the... harsh terms — I wasn't actually sure if they were harsh, but slimy rarely meant anything good — he seemed rather enthusiastic. Holden got another nod from me. A short laugh.

"Don't believe him. While he was still getting into teaching, he was a key advisor across four presidencies. While he wasn't exactly whispering in Mondale or Clinton's ear during 9/11, he was making sure information passed around like clockwork." I nodded a third time.

"How do you know each other? You said you were on opposite sides of the fence?" Setting his papers down on the copy machine, he leaned against the wall.

"Well for starters let me introduce myself. My name is Holden Worth, I'm part of the advisors for the Media Studies' research department. But I've been an independent journalist since the 80s and kicked out of every print you can think of because of my focus on cape journalism."

"Cape journalism?" May inquired.

"I focused my research and reports on superhumans, mostly heroes. My biggest issue with reporting on them is the household-name outlets aren't actually journalistic in nature. They're entertainment outlets. Most of them have comic book deals with publishers. They 'collate' stories they've chronicled of superheroes, then document and sell them to publishers to make comics out of. Entirely business driven. I was against that." I sat up a bit, still making sure my arm covered the hole I put in the table.

"And that opposition made you quit? Get fired?"

"Sometimes one, sometimes the other. I wanted the truth, I wasn't interested in marketing. It's not like the heroes got any money out of it anyway. So I went independent and focused on actually trying to get the facts out of people. I ended up getting very invested in government engagement in superheroes come 9/11. Schreiber scammed me out of every damn lead I had."

"And that made you two enemies." The journalist shook his head, rubbing his chin.

"I wouldn't say enemies. Rivals, I suppose? We were on opposite teams. He wanted the machine squeaky clean. I wanted the truth that'd gum up the works. So whistleblowers were reeled in and he'd push for meetings to reschedule just so I couldn't do ambush interviews. I say this not to criticize him, it was his job. But it did leave me bitter." There was an awkward silence in the air before he spoke again.

"Oh, right, sorry, we were talking about you. Terribly sorry about that. Just got nostalgic. Poor form on my part. So you're dabbling in both arts and something a bit more practical?" That prompted a shrug from me. A history in superhero-focused journalism explained his interest in The New Sentinels, but he somehow managed to infiltrate a press event and scare off Tancred. There was clearly more than meets the eye. I had to maintain my cover.

"That's the best way to describe it, I think. I was just hedging my bets since I lucked out on a scholarship." I could feel May's gaze on me. Literally, I think she was trying to prod me with her powers without being seen.

"Oh a scholarship? Usually those have a major. You got one without a major?" I shook my head.

"It was a, uh, delinquent reform scholarship.

'Fix your act up and we'll cover a year of college.'" He nodded.

"Oh, that's lovely. What's the scholarship called?" God damn it. Fucking journalists. Every question comes with three others hidden under them. What the Hell kind of scholarship would that even be? Whatever I said would give him something to research, and if it turns out to be bullshit, that might draw attention. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. I didn't even know what scholarships were usually named- POW Darkness. The room had the light stolen from it.

Holden and I both seized up in surprise, until I felt a tug at the sleeve of my shirt. Glancing over at May in the dim light, I could see the faintest wink.

"Oh goodness," the journalist mentioned.

"You kids should leave, I'm going to get one of the maintenance staff to figure out what just happened. Right when I was going to turn the copier on too. Maybe someone accidentally hit a fuse..." We didn't hesitate, and scrambled out from there. After we made some decent headway away from the room and confirmed we weren't being followed, May slapped my arm.

"You are so damn lucky I was there. If he caught you alone, you would've outed yourself immediately. You can just say your parents were paying for it! It's a university, plenty of rich kids are here."

"Well, I can't now since that's the second guy that's been told some variation of that alibi."

"The second!?" she shouted, before realizing she was making too much noise and quieted herself.

"Two?"

"Look, the first one wasn't my fault. He came up with it himself and I just agreed. But he's at Piedmont, so I don't expect him to get information to spread there." May groaned, rubbing her temples.

"Leo, you really can't be making up backgrounds for things you don't know anything about. I thought you were more tactical about this." All I could offer was a shrug to accompany my words.

"I was put on the spot, May. That entire encounter had me off-balance. You felt that shit in the air."

"I..." she trailed off.

"Yeah. I don't know what that was. It felt like the air was made out of shag carpet or something. I'd never felt something like that before. Do you think it was him?" Shaking my head, I replied.

"It's possible. But that'd be way too many superhumans in one area, don't you think?"

"We don't know how many superhumans there actually are in the world. There's all sorts of estimates, sure, but they've also all got different margins of error. And he might be using magic or something instead, which doesn't qualify him as one."

"That's still a lot of weird shit happening in one area right around when we're starting up."

"Well, the ADU were clearly building up over the past few months, and their first attack was before we debuted. That Technofiend guy is clearly a robot, those don't just get made overnight. Holden is an established presence here. I think it's not as all-at-once as it looks." I rubbed my face while nodding.

"That might be the case, then. It's just a lot more than drug dealers, and a lot weirder." There was a tap on my arm from her.

"Welcome to the life of being a superhero. It's only going to get a lot weirder." Another nod from me as I rested my hands on my hips.

"Yeah." A question then sparked in my mind.

"What the Hell did you do to those lights, by the way?"

"Oh, I thought about the electromagnetic pulse I could do for Jairo's vision, and I tried to see if I could focus it into a beam to just... disrupt wiring or something. I didn't think it would explode!"

"That sounds really dangerous, May." She shook her head.

"EMPs don't do anything to people, and I only kept it up just long enough to pop the light, which took maybe two seconds. I doubt it was strong enough to penetrate through concrete." I was reminded of Tancred's warning about her. That she was the most dangerous of the group because she could just emit things we can't see that could kill us. She was rather casually demonstrating it here. It was to save my ass, sure, but if her opinion ever changed, she could be a huge threat. Needed to think about this.

For so long my default meditation was just going out and keeping scumbags in the same tiny little part of Richmond. In theory I could go do that now, but I'd need my costume if I wanted to avoid the Firmament. Wished I knew in advance I was getting a bag, I would've kept my costume in there. I'd have to pick it up from the base if I wanted it. From there I could just leave it in my bag.

"Alright," I conceded.

"I'm... gonna go for a walk. Wanna get some fresh air to myself." May nodded.

"I'm gonna go find a new study spot with less journalists. Take care now, alright?" I returned the nod and we parted ways. Navigating my way back out of the school was easy enough, the next step was navigating back to base. Had to retrace my steps to the best of my ability, the conversation with Billy definitely interrupted the mental map I was making. I had approximated I was probably about a couple miles west of the base. Sounds simple enough. Go East until things start looking recognizable.

This was actually easier said than done, due to a lack of opportunities to actually navigate beforehand. Inevitably, after what turned out to be thirty minutes of wandering, I did manage to spot the base from behind. Looking around, I made sure no one was observing me before rushing over and hopping down into the base. Common area was empty. No one in the little lobby leading to our rooms. Perfect. It was patrol time. I pilfered my costume, stuffing it into my bag before rushing back out and through the tunnels.

I chose the park exit, ducking out of that little shed and looking around to confirm no one was going to see me. I used a loose branch to leave the door propped open. From there, all I had to do was suit up in a bush. I packed my old clothes in my bag, before rushing back to toss them all into the shed and shutting the door behind me. Saved me a lot of time for the return trip to get them all back. I then trudged off through one of the wooded areas the map had indicated to me, before popping out behind a warehouse.

This was quadrant D. Southeastern part of Charlottesville. The roofs seemed low enough. I could avoid having to walk sidewalks by taking those. Time for my first test on my vertical leap out in the field. First one was a bit too short. Second one was too fast, I didn't catch the ledge on time. Third was the charm, I caught the lip and pulled myself onto the roof. Looking around, it was pretty broad. The bigger question was spacing. The roads were a bit wide.

I'd need to find narrow points where four lanes became two. Building to building seemed doable, none seemed to be too suddenly steep. The gaps were narrow. Testing my own theory, I lunged to the next roof, landing firmly in the middle and on my feet. Those dash tests were good for the muscle memory at least. Meant I could actually make a flow out of this. Just follow roofs. No need for people to see me. Each building was a stepping stone that I was clearing.

Some were taller, so I kept finding middle grounds between my vertical leaps and my horizontal lunges. Probably the clearest my head has felt this entire time. Gave me room to think. So a buzzing in the air, one that May felt, came before Holden did. These two events happened at the same time. I need to consider correlations beyond that. He seemed surprised to see us. So, at face value, he wasn't aware of people being in the room.

That could have been an act, but if I assumed everything was simply a lie then I'd get nowhere, it'd turn circular fast. So that's the first step. He didn't see us. But that buzzing was there. I knew that seeing things through electromagnetic somethings was a thing. Jairo did it when he transformed. May could do it. This wasn't an unprecedented phenomenon. Could it be similar? What were they called? Electromagnetic... frequencies. Frequency. How often something happens. Was that buzzing a frequency?

Was he checking the room for electromagnetic frequencies? Seeing if someone was in there? KRRNG TK TK TK Glass shattering. No more time for thinking. Time to act.