SCAU : Within the Apple Ch1B

*****

The Rig

Armsmaster glowered at his readings, trying to parse what he was seeing, but something about them just… was wrong.

“Dragon,” He said, “Are you seeing this?”

“I am,” The voice came from his computer, where a pleasant face was looking back, “but I have to admit that I’m not entirely certain what it is that I’m seeing.”

“You and I both. The readings are bizarre,” Armsmaster grumbled, unhappy with his inability to analyze it properly. “I’m seeing things here that almost match… String Theory? And maybe Professor Haywire’s tech?”

“I see those too, but also similarities to Grey Boy, Clockblocker, Strider, and several others…” Dragon admitted, sounding as confused as he was, “but nothing that matches perfectly… or even close. I think it’s a new Parahuman, someone we’ve not detected before.”

“Great,” Armsmaster grumbled.

He wished that his gear was more precise, but tracking gravitational anomalies was a bit of a vague sort of practice, as it turned out. You didn’t detect the anomaly so much as you detected what the anomaly affected, which tended to be a pretty wide chunk of turf since gravitational waves propagated at lightspeed.

The only reason he knew it was somewhere in Brockton Bay was because his sensors didn’t extend much past the city limits.

“Have you detected it elsewhere,” He asked Dragon.

“I have,” She confirmed. “With satellite triangulation I can say with certainty that it originated somewhere in the North East of the US or Canada.”

Armsmaster closed his eyes, “Nothing more precise?”

“Not with the atomic clocks on the satellites I have access to, no,” She said with a sigh. “Perhaps if we could launch newer gear, but…”

Armsmaster nodded curtly, knowing what she was talking about. They were lucky to have the satellites they had, many of the constellations launched up to the arrival of her had been destroyed over the years, and she rather seemed to take offense at new ones being put in their place.

“I’ll put in a report about a potential new Parahuman in the area,” He said after a moment, “but without more information, well there isn’t much to be done.”

“Agreed.”

*****

Xander grumbled as he put away his Spell Phone for the second time, having just used it to look up Brockton Bay through the link he had back home, as well as to both the DC and Marvel continuums.

Nothing.

Damn city didn’t exist in three universes.

Just my luck that I’d land in a universe with a nonexistent city.

Irritated more than anything, he checked back up and down the highway, not finding any sign of traffic to speak of, and the few that had passed him had roared on by without showing any sign of being willing to pick up a hitchhiker.

Ok, screw this, Xander produced his wand and returned his kit to normal, lifting into the night air as he leaned forward and began to fly into the city.

Whatever else this Brockton Bay was, it was clear that the city had seen better days. Under the grime and the damage, he could see a city that had once been prosperous. Those days were long behind, though, two… maybe three decades behind at least.

The infrastructure was crumbling, no sign that the rails had been used in almost that time, and he could already see that the bay was filled with derelict ships. Derelict ships… and an oil Rig that appeared to have a glowing force field projected around it, he realized as he got closer.

I need a library.

Xander didn’t expect to find one open this time of night, of course, but as he flew into the city he quickly located a 7/11 and landed in the alley behind the store, before walking around and making his way into the well lit shop.

A glance at the clock told him that it was half past ten, local time, so Xander updated his own timepiece as he made his way to the magazine section and perused it quickly,

Huh. This is different. Parahuman Weekly? What the every loving fuck is a Parahuman? Sounds like a cheap knock off Meta-human, Xander supposed. Of course, those are just cheap knock off Mutants. That’s an interesting possibility… a pattern for a later time, I suppose.

He grabbed the magazine and briefly leafed through it, just skimming.

Alexandria, Eidolon, and Legend… The Triumvirate. Not bad naming, actually, Xander admitted to himself. Better than most. Ok, so we have a superhero world and… oh shit, what the hell is this? The Slaughterhouse Nine? What the fuck kind of name for a group… well, fuck me. They live up to the title, apparently.

Xander grimaced, flipping the magazine closed before slipping it back onto the shelf and moving along.

The rest were a mix of the familiar, Time Magazine, Newsweek, that sort of thing… and the utterly bizarre.

What the hell is Popular Tinker Magazine anyway?

He grabbed it and started skimming and speed reading, finding himself quickly engrossed by the information within.

Huh… a whole class of superhuman inventors. Very interesting…

He barely noted the sound of the door chime as someone else entered the store, but the commotion that erupted a few moments later was difficult to miss, even absorbed as he was.

“Hand over the cash, asshole, before I put a hole through your brain!”

Xander rolled his eyes as he dropped his wand into his hand and waved it negligently over his shoulder.

“Stupefy.”

The red blast darted across the store in an instant, dropping the speaker in his tracks.

“Oh shit! Cape!”

The two others that had come in with the armed thug bolted and ran as Xander turned around and walked back over to the cashier. The kid had his hands up as high as he could physically reach, and Xander was half sure he was actively trying to fly just to get them up higher.

Xander ignored him, tossing the magazine onto the counter as he flicked his wand at the thug on the ground.

“Accio cash.” He said, reaching out his free hand to grab the bills and loose change out of the air as it was torn from the idiot’s jacket.

Peeling off a twenty from the roll, Xander dropped it on the counter and grabbed a coke from the mini fridge.

“That enough to cover the drink and the magazine,” He asked curiously as the kid was trying very hard to look anywhere but at him.

“Dude, I ain’t paid enough to tell a cape how much something costs, it’s yours just don’t hurt me, ok? I swear, I can’t remember a damn thing about how you look.”

“If I wanted to hurt you, it would be done already,” Xander rolled his eyes, idly kicking the gun away from the thug, “Just call the cops to pick the moron up or whatever, would you?”

“Cops? Dude, no cop is going to come out here,” The cashier shook his head. “I call the cops, first thing they’ll ask is whether there was a cape here. When I say yes, they transfer me over to the PRT, no more questions.”

“Ok… so?” Xander shrugged, guessing that the PRT were the super-cops or something.

“So nobody wants to deal with those assholes over a botched robbery.” The kid swore, “moron would be out by morning anyway. He’s E88.”

“The fuck is E88?” Xander asked, confused.

“You know, Empire 88? The big NeoNazi gang?”

Xander looked down at the thug, for the first time paying attention to the tattoos.

Very slowly he looked back up, a nearly feral grin causing the kid to back up a step.

“You have NAZIS here?”

*****