Masks XXVIII: Old School

by

Rodford Edmiston

Part Nine

Michelle walked past the bathroom, stopped, reversed and looked in through the open door. She saw her wife staring into the mirror over the sink.

"I didn't think you were the narcissistic type."

"My dad likes to joke that noses run in our family," said Vic, sadly. "Mine did look a lot like his, before; it's smaller, now, and a different shape."

"I think you have a cute nose," said Michelle.

Vic just sighed.

* * *

Laurie hated deception. However, to avoid awkward questions she always assumed the form of an old, human woman to deal with the actual owners of the property. She also reminded herself, firmly, to move more slowly and cautiously than her usual quick, fluid manner when in this guise. As she did this time, when the owners called her in to discuss "something important."

She thought at first they were going to tell her she was being let go. A prospect which filled Laurie with dread. She could easily move into the Marsh with no-one being the wiser, but Laurie was used to the conveniences of her home in the modernized carriage house where she had lived for many years. They were no longer necessities, but Laurie was - as she willingly admitted - spoiled by them.

"We have some news about a decision we made in connection to this property, which affects you," said Mr. Anders, her words doing nothing to assuage Laurie's concerns. "We are retaining this estate and the marsh, but someone made us an offer we could't refuse about the land upstream from here."

Well, that was disturbing, but not nearly as disturbing as the news could have been. Laurie felt a cautious relief.

"I'm sure you know that developers have been trying to acquire that land for decades," said Mrs. Anders. "I hate that someone finally succeeded; however, Michaíl Tsirogiannis and Gianfranco Becchina have bought some of the land in the watershed for the Mystery Marsh property. They have plans to turn it into a subdivision."

"They have a reputation for respecting the environment," Mr. Anders added. "Hopefully, that means that there will be little change downstream. Including in the marsh."

We'll see, thought Laurie, sternly.

* * *

The call came in just after Vic got home. She had plugged the helmet into the charger - Vic still hadn't adapted the carrying case for the new helmet - and just done the same with her Bureau-issue brilliant phone, when the latter rang. The ring was for a text message and not a live call, and Vic almost decided to check it later. However, her sense of duty took over and she opened the message.

It told her to report to an electrical substation - the same one where she had arrested Allan Cuvier - to check out a suspected super holding it hostage.

Vic wondered if this were some sort of delayed message. She didn't recognize the name of the sender, but it came from the Detroit PD, and had the current date, with the time it was sent being just before the end of the PD day shift. Which meant it had been delayed, but not by much. She sent a text asking for more information, but got no reply. Most likely, the sender had already gone off duty.

Vic was immediately wary. Allan Cuvier had been sent for psychological evaluation, and was still in Bureau custody. She would have been notified of a release or escape. If someone were causing trouble at the substation - which had taken two days to be fully repaired - then any threat now was likely to be from a copycat. That was entirely possible, of course.

Vic called one of her police contacts, who was on duty but turn out to not be available. The captain who had been in charge that night she captured Cuvier was not available, either; he was still on sick leave, which made sense. He had been shot in the arm by a thirty-caliber machine gun, after all. Vic contacted the police dispatch and requested assistance at the substation. She was told that she would get it. That was only slightly reassuring, because Vic was also told there might be a delay, due to this being a busy night.

Still, the call had come in through legitimate channels and she had to answer it. She did take the precaution of notifying her boss about the call. Unfortunately, he was at home and apparently not answering his brilliant phone. Vic wound up leaving a message on his voice mail.

"Gotta go check something out," she said to Melissa, going into the kitchen and giving her a quick kiss. Vic didn't supply her wife with any further details. There was no sense in worrying her. Besides, she didn't know many more details.

Vic returned to their den and opened the case with her armor. She stripped to her underwear, right there in the hall. Vic put on the undergarment and the armor except for the helmet; then hurried to her car. At least she had the charger cords for both her helmet and phone at the ready, now. She had even used them on the trip from office to apartment. So her electronics would be topped off on this trip.

* * *

There was no police presence when Vic arrived at the substation. Another warning sign. A call to dispatch provided the repetition that this was a busy night. Vic was told that the first available units would be sent in a few minutes. Still, Vic was confident that even if this were some sort of setup she should be able to handle it. At the very least, she felt that she needed to take a look around.

Normally, Vic would have approached such a situation from above. However, that was not possible, here, due to the transmission lines and overhead equipment. Instead, Vic parked out of sight half a block away. She approached on foot the side entrance she had used before, making good use of the cover in the area. She didn't see anyone.

The lock she broke her first time here had been replaced. However, everything else was the same including the corroded chain. Vic pulled that tight and chopped down, breaking the chain. This caused some noise but not much. Vic eased the gate open, making sure to quietly close it behind her. Given the lack of lighting at the gate, the broken chain would likely be unnoticed unless someone looked closely.

Vic crept carefully toward the spot where she had found Cuvier. Sure enough, she saw half a dozen armed and armored men waiting, hiding behind various pieces of equipment. She thought there were others present, as well. There was no nearby police chatter on the radio. In fact, all her helmet radio produced was a sort of muted hum, which she knew from previous experience was created by all the electrical activity in here. Vic decided to pull out and wait for backup.

As she began quietly backing away, though, her helmet speakers gave a loud squawk. At the same time, her helmet display flashed, then went clear. All this had barely registered, when she realized - through her sense of perception - that something was hurtling through the air towards her.

Vic immediately went into a diving shoulder roll. She popped out of this, intending to land on her feet and run. Unfortunately, while she was still in the air Vic was hit by a shockwave. This threw her into the case of one of the large devices in the substation.

Grenade! was her thought, a bit late.

It was a concussion grenade, rather than fragmentation, but still dangerous. Thanks to her armor, Vic was more affected by the impact with the transformer which halted her involuntary flight than she was by the actual blast. Neither cause her much trouble, thanks to her armor. She dropped, rolled, and leapt to her left, where she sensed movement.

Two of the men were moving in at a run. Vic's jump towards the men caught them by surprise. She chopped down with both hands while still in the air, the blunt impact transmitting through their soft body armor. She broke one man's shoulder, and at least stunned the muscles and nerves of the other's; they both dropped their weapons and the one on her right fell to the ground. One of those longarms appeared to be a standard M-16; the other was some sort of futuristic blaster.

Vic still planned to run, but there was now gunfire, as some of the other men she had spotted came out of concealment to attack Vic from the near distance. Most of this was from assault rifles, but there were also beam weapons, of several types. Including ordinary lasers. Vic blurred into action, closing with the attackers then kicking, punching and throwing. In just a few seconds the only person left standing besides Vic was the presumed leader. He was standing a bit apart from the others, directing the action.

He stared at Vic with increasingly widening eyes behind his safety goggles as she charged. As frozen as he was she probably could have just pushed him down and flex-cuffed him. However, Vic was not in a mood to take chances. He went down hard.

Vid barely had enough of the fiber-reinforced polymer restraints for all of her attackers. Once they were restrained, she then tried to call for backup and ambulances.

Unfortunately, her armor's built-in com system was fried, as was her brilliant phone. None of the guys who had attacked her had phones on them, either. She did discover a case with a gadget, near where the leader had been hiding. A gadget with a directional antenna. Vic figured that was the EMP device. With a sigh of resignation, Vic began bodily hauling the eleven men to the main gate of the fenced-in area. Fortunately, enough people had called 911 about the disturbance (and the resulting power outages) that DPD response was swift.

"Whoah..." said the first officer on the scene, as he got out of his unit. "What happened here?!"

Realizing that without power she had no PA function in her helmet, Vic dumped the fourth pair of assailants near the gate. She then manually unlatched and removed her now useless faceplate.

"Federal agent," panted Vic. "I hope you have keys for this entrance."

"Ah, no," said the wide-eyed officer. "I'll call in to make sure someone does, though."

"I asked Detroit Police Dispatch for assistance before I went in," said Vic. "Are you telling me you didn't get told about this?"

"I better let my sergeant answer that," said the officer, suddenly concerned.

* * *

"I heard you were in another fight," said Michelle, her concern clear despite the clipped sound on the cell phone Vic had borrowed. "On the scanner."

"My armor was torn all to Hell, but I'm all right," said Vic. "So it did its job."

"Thank God," gasped Michelle.

"I should be home as soon as I give my preliminary report to the cops," said Vic. "We can sort out why I was called and why I didn't get any support tomorrow."

"I'll keep your supper warm."

* * *

"Well, you seem to have annoyed someone," said Drake, when Vic delivered her full report of the fight at the substation, in his office the next day. "I suspect this was left over from the previous administration for the city. What I mean is, that someone in power who didn't like your attitude towards the previous Mayor and Police Commissioner and decided to punish you for it."

"After the Mayor was voted out," said Vic, numbly.
"Not sure I believe it."

"Well, whether that is what happened or not, that will likely be the reason those involved give," said Drake. "Meanwhile, we and the FBI are checking everything."

"I'm just glad they didn't think to go after Michelle," said Vic, fervently.

"Be aware that if those behind this do go after you again, they may try to get to you through her."

"Ow. Time to put in that armored door. What do the attackers have to say about why they ambushed me?"

"Same old story," said Drake, sourly. "At first they denied everything, even that they were there! We wore them down with evidence against them, until they all admitted they were there and had illegal weapons. We eventually managed to get one of the suspects to claim they were part of the 'Your arrested!' attacks. Once one of them said that, most of the others - some reluctantly, some boldly - confirmed that. The contacts they gave us for those who provided the equipment and their orders were all fake, of course. As was the initial text asking for your help. The FBI is investigating how this was done, but so far we have few answers. For example, we still don't know how they spoofed a Detroit PD ID on that message, and why your calls for assistance didn't go through. To them or to me.

"You know, they have been doing this a lot, lately," said Drake, sitting back a bit. "Setting up ambushes, I mean, instead of simply taking advantage of a situation like they did initially. That is, encouraging individuals to try and kill a superhero and making them a member if they succeed. Lately, they've been assigning targets, and providing information on when the targets might be vulnerable. The only change this time from one of their usual assaults is that they ganged up on you. However, the consensus is that they are, indeed, part of that 'You're Arrested!' movement. We do think it likely that in this case the miscreants were pointed at you by someone outside the base group."

"They also had advanced energy weapons," said Vic, pointedly. "As well as armor-piercing ammo for their assault rifles. I'm just glad they didn't hit me very often. The few times they did hit my armor they really tore into it."

"That, unfortunately, is not new with these attacks. Other super attacks attributed to the 'You're Arrested!' group have also had one or the other. Some of the energy weapons are Shilmek. Others are mad science gadgets. As was the EMP device they used to kill your helmet. Which reminds me, the FBI techs were able to get it working, again, as well as your phone. I also had Brade put a rush on the replacement parts, including a backup helmet."

"The important part of all that is that now the 'You're arrested!' group is also supplying advanced weapons for use against supers."

"Looks like it," said Drake, with a grimace. "Their success rate has fallen, lately; they may think that all the easy targets have been hit. These specific people - those who attacked you and those who supplied their equipment - also seemed to think that you wear powered armor, and that if they could disable that with a strong enough EMP you'd be helpless. Trapped in an immobile suit."

"So all we have to do is find out who in city government thinks I wear powered armor," said Vic, sourly. "Yeah, that's all."

"Well, maybe. They could have been told this by someone outside the government - maybe a consultant - who could have been told that by someone else."

"Someone like Rokuro," said Vic, feeling a chill.

* * *

"Well, the super PAC missed this completely," said Blue Impact, sourly, glaring at her computer's monitor. "As if super-rated fabrics and such weren't already expensive enough, the feds have now put a surtax on them! Especially the imported materials!"

"There's a new tax on the materials used to make super costumes?!" said Energia, confused and outraged. "That's..."

"Several people have noted that this is very similar to the sumptuary laws of Fourteenth Century England," said Blue Impact. "Proper super outfits are expensive, mostly due to the materials. Taxing those materials - which are primarily used for super costumes, with few other applications - amounts to a tax on being a mask."

"So we make our own," said Gadgetive, shrugging.

"Spoken like a true gadgeteer," said Energia, rolling her eyes.

"There's already talk about passing an additional law requiring a special permit to sell or even work with such materials," said Blue Impact. "Not unlike the tax stamp required to sell distilled alcohol. Only this isn't just a permit to sell the materials. It's a permit to have them."

"So we'll make new ones," said Gadgetive, with another careless shrug. "New materials, I mean. The most common ones we have are several years old, anyway."

"That will work short term," said Blue Impact. "The people behind this law don't care about the materials; they just don't like supers, and will pass as many amendments as needed to make the new materials just as illegal as the current ones."

"That doesn't work with narcotics," said Energia, as unconcerned as Gadgetive. "What makes them think it will work with fabrics?"

"Two things. Most legislators don't pay much attention to the effects of the laws they pass; they just respond to voter and press demands, pass the laws and move on. Assuming they have solved the problem. They also think that if 'hero' masks violate the law every time they put on a costume, 'the people' will turn against them. Not realizing that most people won't see it that way. In the meantime, though, it's an excuse to harass anyone who wears a costume. If you can't prove on the spot that you're in compliance, they can arrest you and put you on trial. The burden of proof is then on them to prove you haven't paid the tax, but since breaking this law would be a felony..."

"It could be used to arrest any costume-wearing super on sight," said Energia, now sounding worried. "If they were found to be using the banned fabric without a receipt or whatever and were convicted, they would forfeit their legal ID protection and be outed in public."