Chapter 17

Derek's POV

“So no thoughts about babies in her mind?” I asked Jordan. It didn't make sense to me, according to my records, Chris Heaven had given birth to a baby daughter a little more than a month ago.

“No, sir. She said she had a daughter and granddaughter. Maybe the granddaughter is the baby?” Jordan suggested.

“No. Her granddaughter has entered the school system. Age eight, according to my notes. There is no evidence of any baby beyond a birth certificate. An analyst suggested that with her DNA manipulation ability she created a fake baby just to get a birth certificate so that she can create her own fake identity in fifteen years. It all sounds very suspicious especially with the conversation where she stopped you asking questions about her ability in case you learned something she didn't want you to.”

“She did say it wasn't anything dangerous, just something that would make her a target,” Jordan said.

“Being able to make fake babies would not make her a target. With her ability to change who she is completely, if she decided to disappear it would be almost impossible to track her. She has already moved her money into a Swiss bank account so we won't be able to trace her through her money. Now apparently, she has created another different face for when she visits her daughter. She is clearly worried about security, almost paranoid.”

“I don't think she is paranoid. Those people are constantly thinking that people are watching or listening. I would describe her thoughts as cautious,” Jordan corrected.

“She is definitely hiding something that she thinks is a big deal and until we know what that is, we can't trust her. Your new assignment, outside of your usual duties is to hang around her as much as possible and see if you can work it out. We will assign you together as much as possible.”

“Do you want me to bring up the baby or press her on her abilities?” Jordan asked.

“No, we don't want her to know that we are watching her or do anything that will cause her to run. We will accept her into the team and treat her normally, only you have been informed of the discrepancies in her story. We want her to relax and let her guard down.”

Josie's POV (Previously Chris)

I was kept a lot busier than I was expecting. I didn't see much of Stacy because she was training with SWAT most of the time. Because of her speed and regeneration, she was the pointy end of the SWAT spear when it was needed but only brought in when violence was necessary. That was pretty rare in Surfer's Paradise, but they trained constantly so when they were needed they were the best they could be. Adam, Sarah and another guy called Pedro were the obvious superheroes. Their job seemed to be more PR than action. They were dressed in superhero costumes, albeit all body bulletproof versions, did patrols and helped out where they could. They were all fliers and could cross the city quickly. Superhero versus supervillain fights were rare and usually ended up in a life or death battle, which was both why those fights were rare and why there needed to be superhero groups rather than individuals. Supervillains tended to be individuals, but the clever ones stayed beneath the radar, usually working for organised crime. Groups of supervillains tended to be stamped out quickly by the superhero governing body, the Superhero League.

Every superhero registered with the Superhero League. I didn't know that until I joined up. I was now considered a superhero. Small s. I had to sign an agreement which the world governments had agreed to, which meant I was not allowed to use my powers aggressively outside of Australia unless the Superhero League recruited me to become a member. The most powerful superheroes became members and took an oath to be apolitical and work purely for the good of mankind. It was these people who stopped several wars that almost started when superheroes first started appearing and was the reason for its formation.

As for my job, I was paired with Jordan and attended crime scenes. Most of my cases were solved pretty quickly, it was just a case of gathering the evidence to prove what I had already said. That was mostly Jordan's job, so we worked well together. I had to work with a sketch artist and in a few cases, transformed my head to show how a fifteen-year-old version would look.

There is not that much crime in Surfer's Paradise so my work didn't take up that much of my time, but when you added dancing lessons, Spanish lessons and guitar lessons, along with time to practice, my time was nicely filled. Not so busy that when Stacy contacted me after a week I was unwilling to create some space. We started slow by going out to dinner, followed by a dance club. The spark was still there and I had to reign in my lust and just give her a kiss when she brought me back to my apartment. That was when I realised I needed a girlfriend to talk to. I felt like a volcano ready to erupt with emotions and needed someone to vent to. I did phone Talia, but it didn't feel right beyond a bit of squealing. Jordan was wonderful. We had been spending a lot of time together. I suspected that was deliberately done, as I was both new and admitted that I had secrets. Still, Jordan could literally hear my thoughts so there was no holding back with her. It was like I felt the need to go over everything, from what I was wearing, what we ate, talked about, where we danced, everything, including our first kiss.

The kiss was interesting, as Stacy took the more dominant role and there was something nice about feeling small, vulnerable and protected. My body started reacting and I exited quickly before I changed my mind. On the second date, we had a romantic walk along the beach with an ice cream. We held hands and sat down together in a slightly secluded part of the beach to watch the sunset, before a lot more kissing and a fair bit of groping.

For the third date, Stacy invited me to her room for a romantic night in. She had cooked spaghetti meatballs and the first movie we watched was Lady and the Tramp. We didn't get to the end of the movie before we were in each other's arms, kissing and touching. We moved to the bedroom with my heart beating like mad. Stacy definitely took the dominant role and I was made love to rather than the reverse. The loving was very nice and I had lots of orgasms, but it was the shared music, films and books that we had both grown up with that made our connection easier. Dating someone similar in age meant we had so many things in common that there were always things to talk about.

We announced to the team that we were officially going out together and had another girls night out, this time without drama. The loving got better as time went on. Stacy had a love of using a strap on and I altered my body so that I could enjoy what she enjoyed. Not that I didn't enjoy her initial efforts, I just couldn't orgasm from penetration alone, at least, not without some DNA changes. Similarly, she wanted to penetrate my bottom. I think it was a mental dominance that turned her on more than anything, and with the right DNA I found that enjoyable as well. I determined that I could be submissive to a point, but anything that caused me pain and I would rebel. We almost broke up when she spanked my bottom. Lightly done and I was fine, but when she hit me too hard and I felt pain more than sting and it was like a switch turned off and all my lust left me.

We managed to talk it out and return to a very happy relationship, to the point that we moved in together after another month of dating. Work-wise we barely saw each other, occasionally in the hero lounge, but most of the time together was when we were both free.

Chapter 18

Work-wise I was very successful but limited by the freshness of the evidence. Because I was so sensitive to DNA, any attempts by the criminals to hide the truth quickly came to light, but if too much time passed, so much other DNA contaminated the situation and made it very difficult to make progress. I was so successful that I moved quickly to become a national consultant. I was flown to the highest-profile cases across Australia and even had an amended agreement to work in the US, Canada, Britain and Europe. It would need to be serious if I was called abroad considering the freshest crime scenes were the most valuable and by the time I got there the crime scene would no longer be fresh. However, that was solved with the help of the Superhero League. They had a powerful teleporter who would get me relatively close and travel with me so that he would have more locations available and return me after the job was done.

Jordan stayed with me even though most locations had their own telepaths. Part of that might have been because we worked well as a team. I would often communicate with her by thinking clearly about my results so that she could take action. We didn't want the perpetrator to know that we were on to him and if we were in a location that wasn't secure, it was a good way to keep operational security. Having said that, any telepath could have done the same thing. If I was being kind I would say they were trying to help the little teenage girl by having her friend go with her, but honestly, I thought it was so the Australian government could keep tabs on me.

Before the Washington case, my life was close to ideal. I was in love with my partner who loved me back, we didn't smother each other but had great nights out and even better nights in. I had a close girlfriend in Jordan and, although I didn't have much time to spend with Talia and Kalie, both were doing very well and getting on with life beautifully.

The Washington Case

It was about mid-afternoon when I received the phone call. A twelve-year-old girl had gone missing during an evening party. That was enough for me to agree. The twelve-year-old girl, Abby, was the daughter of a Senator's Aide. I didn't know what a senator's aide did, but I figured that they would have the senator's ear and therefore a certain degree of political power. I cared for none of that, just the missing girl.

Jordan and I put our Raven suit on and waited for pick up. Cole, our teleporter, arrived promptly and a few seconds later we were in Washington. We actually arrived in the superhero lounge. They were aware of our impending arrival and had cleared the room so we didn't meet the superheroes until later. At that point, we went out the front and into a police car that put the sirens on and whisked us to the mansion where the girl had gone missing.

I was introduced and given a sample of the girls DNA from a toothbrush. The mansion had a garden with a hedge maze. Nothing too elaborate, still the hedge was thick enough that you couldn't see through it. I did my best to follow the highest concentration of her DNA like a bloodhound. I could tell where she stopped for a while as the concentration was higher than when she just passed through. My initial pass through took me through the maze, out the back end and then across a lawn to meet with the driveway where the DNA tapered off. The back of the maze had no lighting so a picture was beginning to emerge of her being kidnapped, taken to a car and driven off. In the maze there was too much different DNA to be useful, however across the lawn, with her DNA was the DNA of a man that was high enough to suggest he was the one to carry her or force her to the car.

These findings were a political hot potato because every car that came into the mansion was filmed and identified, which meant it was someone from the party. I was relaying my thoughts to Jordan who spoke to the FBI agent to organise a sketch artist.

Fairly quickly we were ushered into a large RV type vehicle and we went through the usual process. Since it was the only lead I was also asked to change my face to what the DNA suggested. I'm pretty sure they knew who the guy was long before my face had completely changed. They took photos and aged the face to the biological age of thirty-four. I set my face to change back as I went to sleep in a nearby hotel. Jordan and I sharing a two-bedroom suite.

What happened next I only vaguely remember. I heard something, possibly my name being called by a stranger. Not sure exactly, but something that made me wake up and raise my head to look. There may have been a person at the end of the bed, then brief intense pain, that I remember clearly.

I woke up in hospital with a police guard next to my bed.

Apparently, I died. Shot in the head, twice. Whether it was because I had already activated my body to change my head back to normal or an automatic reaction from my superpower, my heart kept beating and my head was already in the process of repairing itself when they found me in the morning. Jordan was not so lucky.

I insisted on seeing the body. I'm pretty sure they thought I was in denial, but I had a plan. My body was already changing to my birthing best, as in the same womb and vagina DNA I had used to have Kalie, at the same time as I was preparing an egg. If it was Kalie's soul that I had sucked into my egg previously, then maybe I could restore Jordan. It has long been hypothesised that the soul lingers after death for at least a few days and with some people having superpowers who insisted they could talk to these souls for up to three days after they had died, I hoped Jordan's soul was still available.

I was checked out by doctors who had to admit that I was physically fine. Eventually, I was allowed to see Jordan. I suspect some of the delay was to try and make Jordan look a little more presentable. She had also been shot in the head and that makes a mess. I sobbed when I saw her. I tried holding her hand with her DNA in my egg, but it didn't work. I was beginning to panic and probably looked crazy when I started waving my hand above her body, hoping she was there somewhere. At the end of my reach, I felt it. A rush of wind through my body settling in my womb. I cried even more then, in relief.

As far as the case goes, we followed normal procedure. The man I had identified was lined up with other people looking similar and I picked him out with his DNA. That was enough evidence to allow questioning with a telepath. He was a different Senator's bodyguard and the child had been abducted for the Senator's sick pleasure. The case unravelled very quickly after that and the child was returned to her family. I don't know whether she had been abused before they found her, I just hoped not. I had done as much as I could as fast as I could and tried to console myself with that.