Nyx’s Hotel Room:
Nyx looks at the time on her laptop and couldn’t believe she has been up since four in the morning. She just couldn’t sleep because of what was going on. They need to find who stole that power armor. She sent the security footage she had to her friend, and he said it was going to take at least a day for him to get back to her.

Tammy and Leland had said they were going to check out a possible lead they had this morning. While they were doing that. She was going to check out the locations that could be used to fix the armor Tammy damaged. She walks into the bathroom and takes a shower.

As she is washing her body, she is still amazed at what the lightning had done to her body. Somehow, the lightning had supercharged the hormones she was taken from overseas. It completely rewrote her DNA with the DNA she had inherited from the bone marrow she had been given. She knew the bone marrow had rewritten some of her DNA, but when the lightning struck her, it caused it to completely rewrite her DNA and turn her into a woman. Not that she was complaining. She has always wanted to be a woman.

After she finishes with her shower and blow-drying her hair. She gets dressed and grabs her purse and rental car keys. She looks over towards her body armor and wonder should she take it. After thinking for a while, she grabs the gym bag she normally transported her body armor and jet pack in and takes it down to the car.

She would rather be safe than sorry. She walks down to where the SUV she rented was and puts her body armor in it and her portable tablet on the passenger seat. She mounts her cellphone and brings up the address of the first place she should check out.

Several Hours Later:
Nyx looks out towards the beach as she sits on a bench eating her lunch. So, far she has checked out four possible sites. None of the sites she went to had anyone come asking about the items she asked them about. She takes another bite from the burrito she had gotten from one of the food trucks. She had two more places she needs to check out.

She finishes her lunch and walks back to her SUV. Because of how high gas was in California she had rented a hybrid SUV. She gets in to check to see which of the two places were near her. The nearest one wasn’t far from where she was. So, Nyx fastens her seat belt and drives towards the place.

It takes her about forty minutes to arrive at the location. She notices the place was out of business. Nyx parks nearby and put on her body armor. She grabs the custom-made rifle that she had on display at the emporium. Since the emporium is over, she could use it to give her an edge against the other armor.

She moves quickly and quietly to the nearest window to see if there was anyone inside the place. She doesn’t see anyone inside, so Nyx finds a door and pulls out a small laser pen. It was powerful enough to cut through the lock and after that it was useless. She manages to cut
through the lock and open the door. She puts the laser pen back on her web belt and quietly walks inside the place. Whatever equipment that use to be here has been removed already.

She explores the place but finds nothing. It looked like no one has been inside the place for ages. She slings the rifle she brought with her and just stands in the open space looking around. That leaves one more place and it was going to take her a while to get there.

As she starts making her way to the door she came through. She is attacked by two with AR15s. The bullets bounce off her body armor as she continues to walk towards them.

“Here fellows, let’s see if you like my gun.” Nyx unslings the rifle and fires two rounds from it.

The rounds land behind the men and explode. The two men come flying forward because of the explosions. Nyx points the rifle at the two men “now, you’re not hurt. However, I can change that with the next round in this rifle.”

Nyx knew the round in the magazine was a lethal one and it would blow a hole in these unarmored men. She designed the round to penetrate armor cars and bulletproof vests. She figures she might stand a chance with this rifle against the other armor.

“Now, you’re going to tell me why you just tried to kill me.”

Nyx points the rifle at their heads. She wouldn’t kill these men, but she would make them regret coming after her.

“Start talking!”

“Go to hell, bitch!” The guy reaches into his pants pocket and tosses something at Nyx.

Just as it hits her, she is thrown off her feet. The two guys that were laying on the ground, get up and runoff.

“Son of bitch!” Nyx figures if she hadn’t been wearing her body armor, it would hurt more.

She gets up off the ground and watches as they speed off. She could chase after them with her backpack, but she would be limited how far she could chase after them. It was good her body armor recorded everything. She walks back to her SUV after she picks up the weapons they left behind. The men were in such a hurry, that they left their weapons.

She takes her body armor off and stores it in the SUV. On the way back to her hotel room. She stops at a science store and picks up a cheap fingerprinting kit. She learned how to lift fingerprints from an online criminal justice course she took for her degree.

She dusts the gun with the powder and finds several fingerprints. She uses tape to carefully lift them and put them on a card. She does both guns and afterward, she logs onto the site she uses to do background searches of the employees she hires.

She knew the search will take a while, so she watches as the search continues. While the search continues, she logs onto another site and sees if there are any cameras in the area of the last building she didn’t go by. She finds a few cameras owned by the city that looked down at the building. She tries to hack them and after several failed attempts. She manages to break into the system.

Just as she hacks into the California camera system, the background check program she used id the fingerprints. She looks at the report and lets out a low whistle. They had a record that was a mile long. She was even more surprised when she looked at who they were affiliated with. She has heard rumors about Scorpio, but she has never met any members from that organization.

She wonders if Tammy and her husband have heard of them before? She goes back to the camera access she has and goes back a day or so to see if anyone had shown up at the address. As Nyx continued to watch the footage. She spots the four people there moving some crates from the building to a moving truck. She wonders what they had shipped there? And why did they move it?

Nyx looks at the time and wonder when her friend was going to contact her.

Leland and Tammy:
Leland pulls up a few houses down from 5646 Freewheel St. The two of them notice that the houses in this area were expensive. Tammy looks at Leland “what do you think?”

“I’m thinking that Ted Albright might not be home.” Leland gets out of the Suv.

He walks side by side with Tammy as they walk up the sidewalk to house 5646. Tammy knocks on the front door. No one answers on the first knock. Tammy knocks again and after a few minutes the door opens and standing in the doorway is an elder man.

The guy looked like a strong wind could blow him down. He was using a cane and had silver rim glasses on. He looks at them “what can I do for you?”

“Hi, Mr. Albright. I was told you had a vehicle for sale. Is it alright if I look at it?” Tammy was trying to charm the old man.

“I wish I could help you, young lady. But the vehicle I had for sale, was stolen sometime yesterday. I didn’t notice it, until this morning when I went out to start it for a person interested in it.” Mr. Albright looks at the gentleman standing near the young woman.

“You said you didn’t notice it was stolen until this morning? Where do you store the vehicle, sir?” Leland was suspicious.

“Right there in the driveway. Someone came up and took it during the night without me or my neighbors knowing.” Leland could tell that the person was telling the truth.

“Did you report it to the police, sir?” Tammy looks at Mr. Albright.

“Yes, I did. I even called DMV to report it at well.”

“Why did you call DMV?” Tammy was puzzled.

“Just in case whoever stole my vehicle got in an accident.” Mr. Albright didn’t want this to come back to bite him in the ass.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Albright.” Tammy turns to leave.

As she and Leland are walking back to Leland’s Suv “not totally. I managed to get a good whiff of the scent left behind. Now I know who it is.”