The Angel of Chicago

Part Four: Revelations

by

Rodford Edmiston

Most of the preliminaries were simply Melody verifying some of what she had read about Arielle. Who seemed both surprised and pleased the reporter had read her book. There really wasn't time for more than that, though. Despite her comment about the service, the waiter arrived to take their orders shortly after Melody sat.

Melody tried to convince the other woman to let her put the bill on her expense account, but Arielle firmly stated she would pay. They wound up compromising: Each would pay for the other's lunch.

Melody was tempted to order the most expensive item on the menu, but she actually wasn't very hungry. She settled for a tuna sandwich plate. Arielle had a Cobb salad plate.

They spoke little during the actual meal, mainly pleasantries. Melody found herself persistently distracted by Arielle. She hadn't been so struck by a woman since her college days. Once they started on desert, though, they began talking.

"You seem to be in good physical condition," said Arielle.

"Reporters run a lot," said Melody. She realized she was blushing. At least that got a laugh.

"Your request for an interview said you wanted insight into my father's activities at the awards show."

"That, and what you might be able to tell me about why any of that happened."

"Mannequin was physically and mentally changed by the empowerment," said Arielle. "As my father says, Mannequin needs help, not prison. Of course, my dad says that about many people. For Mannequin that's especially appropriate, though."

"Why do some people keep avoiding pronouns when talking about Mannequin?"

"We think - though there's no confirmation - that Mannequin was originally a woman named Georgia Jones. While that could be just another red herring, Mannequin does answer to that name. Empowerment left Mannequin ungendered. Completely neuter. Saying 'it' doesn't seem... polite. I do know that Mannequin's voice sounds like a woman imitating a drag queen. Anyway, Mannequin's abilities include a form of reality alteration, so Mannequin can actually take on other forms temporarily. Though this apparently doesn't include a permanent change to one gender or the other; or maybe Mannequin just doesn't want to be either gender. There's also this attitude that everything is a farce, and that we must embrace that. As part of which, Mannequin keeps pulling pranks which show up the folly of others."

"Well, the Empowered Reality Television Awards are pretty much the height of folly," said Melody. "Oh, and I thought that well before the attack."

They talked for nearly an hour. Melody didn't try for any direct questions about where Malak or Mannequin were, but she did ask why the authorities hadn't charged either of them.

"I think they're just glad to have Mannequin out of their hair for a while," said Arielle. "The worst of the actual damage was caused by Crunch, and that was broken glass and some cuts to bystanders. Also, the few times Mannequin has been tried an insanity defense was used successfully."

There a long moment of quiet after that. The empowered woman took advantage to give Melody a long, evaluating look.

"There are many other questions you should be asking me," she said, finally. "To be fair, these are about things which my experience have made obvious to me, but which few others even notice."

"Such as?" said Melody, actually enjoying the scrutiny.

"Such as why technology in the world has been held back."

"I'm not sure..."

"That electronic book you're using, for example, has more computing power than any of the mainframes used for accounting by big businesses. However, there's several laws prohibiting the use of that technology for anything except reading documents on a portable device. Though I note you're using it for more."

"Wait; that's illegal?!" said Melody, skipping over how someone with documented heightened senses had seen through her pretense with the device.

"Oh, yes. The reasoning is that the type of circuitry and instructions used on those could supposedly only be developed by someone empowered or someone using their work. The federal government got so fed up with people trying to get exemptions that they finally passed a law prohibiting news media - including technical magazines - from mentioning the prohibition. Which means that young developers keep getting arrested for violating a law they aren't allowed to know about!"

"Whoah..." said Melody, shocked. "I knew there were occasional stories about..."

"They're more than occasional," said Arielle, sourly. She sighed, stretched, looked around the restaurant and smiled. "You have to wonder if their disapproval comes from my appearance, or the fact that we're obviously attracted to each other..."

"'Obviously'?" said Melody, both startled and encouraged.

Arielle smiled.

"Well, obvious to me."

She casually reached out and drew the tip of her finger along the back of Melody's hand. Causing the reporter to shiver and give a little gasp.

"I'm free for the rest of the afternoon. If... you'd like to show me around your town."

* * *

Melody stirred, yawned, opened her eyes and gave a little squeal of pure alarm.

"Are you all right?" said Arielle, amused. She was naked and slightly damp. Now that she was awake, Melody recalled hearing a shower running.

"I'm sorry," said Melody, irritated, "I'm not used to waking up with a predator staring at me hungrily."

Arielle laughed. She calmly reached out and caressed Melody's breast through the sheet.

"Does it help that what I'm hungry for isn't food?"

"A little," said Melody, shivering. She gave a contented sigh. "I haven't fallen this hard for a woman
since my aunt introduced me to her 'friend' Catherine when I was nineteen. All we did was shake hands."

Arielle laughed again, a sound Melody found most pleasing.

"You wouldn't be here if you didn't want to be," she said, confidently. "I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to be. So, by that logic we should both be happy."

She leaned over and briefly kissed Melody's breast through the sheet, focusing on her prominent nipple.

"We both got what we wanted," she breathed.

Arielle stood and walked casually naked across the room. Melody watched in fascination, noting the way Arielle's muscles played under her tawny skin.

"I know you have some Indian ancestry," said the reporter, actually feeling envious. "I guess that explains the coloration and high cheekbones."

"The whole 'lioness' thing comes from my father making a play on my name," the taller woman said, as she picked up her bra. "Nothing about my powers is specifically feline."

She turned and looked at Melody, frowning a bit.

"You are attracted to men, as well as women?"

"Uh, yes," said the reporter, noting that Arielle didn't shave, well, anything, adding to her feral air. "What about you? Are there any men in your life?"

"No," said Arielle, absently, as she donned her underwear. She looked at Melody and grinned. "Much to the disappointment of my mother. Though my brothers gave her plenty of grandchildren, and great-grandchildren."

That reminded Melody of how old the other woman was. Though her underwear was definitely modern...

"Aren't you getting dressed?" said Arielle, as she finished.

"Now that the show's over..."

* * *

Melody worked her stationary bike hard. She knew what she was doing. She was trying to avoid thinking about Arielle. Fortunately for her continued employment, part of that effort involved working long and hard on her assignment.

Finally exhausted, she leaned over the handlebars for several long seconds, just breathing. Finally, she rose, brining the towel draped over the handlebars with her. She dried herself and the seat, and then the grips.

I overdid it, she thought, tiredly. I'm actually a bit dehydrated. Three weeks and she is still doing this to me.

A quick shower later and she was back in her den. The clock showed not as much time had passed as it had felt like. She turned the 3V on, using the ultrasonic remote, and set it to a prime network channel, scowling as the selector overshot and she had to go back around. At least in her loft she didn't have problems with signals from other apartments coming through the walls.

"New York has too many channels," she muttered.

The hourly news brief would be on soon. While the last few minutes of a prime time sitcom played out, Melody sat at her dining room table and worked on some papers for a column which had nothing to do with empowered. However, her mind kept wandering to the contents of the locked cabinet in her kitchen. Melody gritted her teeth and ignored the hints. After some problems early in her career - one of which had cost her a good job and a promising fiancé - she had learned to confine her drinking to weekends. The hardest times for adhering to that rule were just after a breakup.

There's no breakup! We had one night together!

Was it Arielle somehow influencing her? Or had she simply been that good?

I need to find someone at least as charismatic to interview, thought Melody. To take my mind off...

The idea didn't quite hit her like a thunderbolt. It wasn't even a new idea; she had planned to interview Malak for the empowered articles she had in the works. She just had a good reason, now, to do that sooner rather than later.

* * *

Of course, getting permission to visit his community - Haven; it was actually an officially incorporated town, in what was mostly farmland southeast of Chicago - was neither quick nor easy. That was already in the works, but the next day at the office she put a flag on those efforts. She also began going over some new documents which had arrived with the overnight mail, asking Sam Kingson for help with them.

Sam was older than her, and had similar - though by her choice not identical - views about many things. She hoped that his different viewpoint might help her with the flood of information. To focus on what was important and ignore the flotsam and jetsam.

"What's that?" said Sam, after three and a bit hours, as they finished one pile and Melody reached for another.

"I got a bundle of documents on government studies of empowered and plans for handling them." She turned the pile around so he could get a better look at what was on top. "Some of these are early versions of the registration program. Some actually propose internment camps! Starting right after the War! These idiots saw what Hitler and Stalin did and thought that was a good idea!"

"Yeah, that's something that's been repeatedly denied by the US government, despite several versions of the plans being leaked or made public through time."

"I know all that," said Melody, digging through the pile. "It's just that they keep going back to that idea! As well as mentioning other projects which I can't get a handle on. Here. Most of this particular paper is about chemicals known to trigger empowerment, and in a closing note says that the information should be useful for Project Grand Slam. I can't find a mention of that anywhere. Well, not in connection to the empowered. Was Grand Slam another of those poorly thought out projects to deliberately make empowered for government use? Were they planning to ban those chemicals? What?!"

"Huh. Are there mentions of that phrase anywhere else? Including for things not connected to the empowered?"

"Just for a big but conventional bomb from the Second World War, plus a couple of proposals for a second front in Europe and a proposed operation against the Chinese in Korea."

"It's probably some politician's or military bureaucrat's pompous name for a pet project which never had any real support or development."

"There's dozens of things like that in this stuff," groused Melody, taking the multiple piles in with a careless gesture. "Most are simply undefined, and asking about them either brings denials the word or term even exists or visits from plainclothes security men."

"Typical. They just figured that anyone cleared to know what was meant already did."

"One thing I uncovered is that even some of the empowered who were involved in the attack on the ERTA show are complaining that the police aren't taking the matter seriously. The police respond that they took their part seriously, that anything more than what they've already done is federal business. The feds say they've investigated and nothing more needs to be done."

* * *

"I know that's what they're saying," said Blackpool, to his superior at the Empowered Matters Agency. "I just want to point out there still needs to be a proper follow-up. If someone is doing a follow-up they need to talk to me. Maybe put me on the continuing investigation. So far I haven't even been asked to make an in-person report. When I asked, they said my preliminary written report was all they needed."

"Even you said that except for what Crunch did to the booth the matter was pretty minor," said Mr. D'arsonval.

"I just don't like this."

"You think I do?" said D'arsonval, throwing his arms wide. "It's a violation of procedure! I have a suspicion that someone high up is trying to make everyone pretend it never happened. Which I can understand; that prank was pretty embarrassing for some people."

"It does highlight some deficiencies in the program's security," said Blackpool, thoughtfully. "Of course, even I couldn't catch Mannequin."

"That's hardly your fault. Malak literally got in the way before you had much of a chance."

"Oh, I'm not complaining. He was far more suited to capturing Mannequin than me. Or most empowered, for that matter. I just think someone is trying to minimize the event, and that this could prevent a needed review of the security measures."

"That could very well be. I'll look into it, but it'll have to be as a side project."

"I understand."