Shaggy was right, his night was filled with planning what was sure to be a bad idea. Fleur had told him so, Ephemara told him so. Even the damn robot stared blankly at him as if he was an idiot. But Shaggy was tired and, really, coming topside had been a long rollercoaster ride. From fighting ninja’s to messing with Supers. He even got to meet and unleash an actual Super Villain upon the gaming world. But he was ready to get off this ride and get back to the bar.
It took a long night of convincing, but Shaggy had gotten Ephemara to agree to his plan. With the caveat that she would follow him at a distance. Fleur and Racine thought they were both crazy, but happily agreed to look after 1138 for Ephemara. The ghostly lady was really getting attached to the little guy. Something that confused the hell out of Shaggy. If something had stabbed him, he wouldn’t carry it around like a damn doll.
Shaggy shook his head as he leaned up against the wall of a building outside the courthouse. He was watching Supes and civilians rushing in and out of the place most of the morning. He was also keeping track of the drones flying overhead. There were, surprisingly, not that many of the damn things zipping about. But he would still need to keep his head down.
He watched as the civilians and Supers used their respective entrances to enter the courthouse. Civilians were scanned and identified by their ID cards. But all a Supe had to do was scan their wrist communicator and pass through a turnstile. He watched a speedster jam himself into the turnstile as Ephemara spoke up from behind him.
“How the hell is this going to work? That damn wrist thingy of yours is busted. Not to mention all it will take is one scan and your toast.”
Shaggy rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. He would kill for a cup of coffee right now. “The weakest point in any system is the people. Always has been, always will be. All we have to do is wait for our chance and rely on the laziness of people.”
Ephemara snorted. “And when that fails?”
Shaggy shoved himself off the wall as he saw his moment. “We run like hell and say ‘fuck it’ to this whole damn endeavor.”
Ephemara remained silent behind him. He figured she had done her disappearing act. Shaggy focused ahead of him and tried to keep his eyes looking down. As he made it to the stairs of the courthouse, he could hear loud voices coming from the Super’s entrance. Another speedster had jammed their way through the turnstile, which was apparently one speedster too many. The purple speedster was off to the side complaining to a security officer about the frailty of the metal turnstile as Shaggy approached.
The officer was explaining how the speedster was going to have to pay for a new turnstile, but she was having none of it. Arguing that it wasn’t her fault the thing wasn’t designed to handle speedsters. Shaggy kept his face hidden as best he could as he moved to the broken turnstile and scanned his non-functioning communicator. The console made a loud beep as Shaggy thumped into the broken turnstile.
“Sorry, Sir you’re gonna have to go around to a new station. This one is currently out of order.” the security officer said, interrupting his conversation with and sending a glare at the lady speedster.
Shaggy cursed. “Fuck! Come on, man! I have a meeting in, like, three minutes!”
The officer sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. The purple speedster was still glaring at him huffily. “Fine, just give me your name and the name of your handler and I’ll check with them as soon as I am done here. You go ahead with your meeting, but I will come find you after I’ve confirmed everything.”
Shaggy threw up his hands. “Perfectly reasonable. Name’s Andy and my handler is Joel. You can find me in meeting room C.”
The officer made a note on his own wrist communicator and went back to arguing with the woman Super. Shaggy jumped the turnstile and waited a few seconds for any alarms to blare. When nothing happened, Shaggy speed-walked away from the front entrance. He guessed he had minutes before all hell broke loose.
Shaggy walked to the main desk in the courthouse's foyer. A young blue-skinned woman with ebony hair stood behind the desk, hands moving rapidly across her computer. She glanced up at him for a few seconds, but went back to work just as fast. Shaggy grimaced and coughed into his hand before stating why he was here.
“I’m from the HLO, here to audit case number 555-FFL-9856-TZ.”
The woman glanced up at him again, her hands still speeding around her. “Your a little early, aren’t ya?”
Shaggy shrugged. “Honestly, I just want this over with as soon as possible.”
The receptionist snorted as a blur of movement went by and a large scanner appeared on the desk in front of Shaggy.
“Scan please.”
Shaggy gave another grimace and raised his broken communicator. “The station out front fried my communicator.”
He turned to show the station and saw that the security officer was still having a heated argument. But not only with the speedster, but with several other Supers that were now crowding around the turnstile. Shaggy turned back to the desk to see the blue woman scowling at the congestion out front. She glared at him for a few seconds before another blur went by and a pen and paper was placed in front of him.
“Name and Super account number. Please know that all information will be double checked with your handler as soon as possible. If any falsehoods are found, you will be charged with a felony and fined up to five thousand credits. Is that understood?”
Shaggy gulped. “Uhh. Yeah, sure thing.”
Shaggy signed Andy’s name and made up a string of numbers for the account number. He really hoped this place was as slow as an actual government body. He was starting to think he was going to have to run out of this building. Quiet in, loud out, was becoming his go-to maneuver topside.
After signing the paper, it blurred out of his vision and the receptionist glared back up at him. Shaggy hoped she hadn’t read what he had written at super-speed. Instead, the woman passed him an ID badge and tilted her head toward the back stairs of the courthouse. Shaggy glanced at the pair of curved stairs leading to the second floor of the courthouse.
“Your meeting has been confirmed and all parties have been notified. Please make your way to meeting room D. Thank you and have a great day.”
The blue woman went back to work, clearly dismissing Shaggy from her mind. Shaggy hid his grin and rushed off to the stairs. Behind him, he heard a loud commotion coming from the front doors, but he didn’t turn to watch. No one was screaming at him to stop, so he figured he was still in the clear. He nearly sprinted down the carpeted hallway of the second floor until he came to a series of doors label meeting rooms A through F.
He was about to enter when a hand landed on his shoulder and he nearly leapt out of his skin. Shaggy turned and saw Ephemara standing behind him, fully visible in the hallway. He looked up and down the hallway and while there were a few Supes and civilians around, no one was paying much attention to them. Shaggy quirked an eyebrow at the pale woman, but she just pointed up at the door to meeting room D.
Just above the door was a silver metal device aimed downward. Shaggy stared at the thing for a few seconds before Ephemara explained in a whisper.
“It’s a bio-scanner. It will scan anyone heading into the room and log their bio-metrics.”
Shaggy grimaced. “Well, can’t you just phase through the wall?”
She looked at him like he was an idiot. “Of course I can, but your full bio-metrics are going to be logged with the DA’s office and probably the HLO.”
“Bah! I was already scanned and tagged when I went to prison.” Shaggy waved dismissively.
“That was with the police. The HLO is another ball of wax altogether. Trust me, you want as little of your information in their systems as possible.”
Shaggy groaned quietly and looked up and down the hallway again. He leaned against the wall near the door and pretended to be waiting as Ephemara joined him. He glanced up and judged the distance to the scanner. The door was almost seven feet high, and the scanner was placed just above it. There was no way he was going to be ignored if he jumped that high.
He turned to Ephemara. “So what do we do? I can reach the thing, but I would probably draw a lot of attention if I jump and break it out in the open like this.”
The pale woman snorted again as she looked glanced around. Making sure the coast was clear, she drew a small slim knife out from behind her. Shaggy looked down at the knife and raised an eyebrow.
“Your gonna stab it?”
“Little gift from 38.” Ephemara said, raising the tiny dagger.
As she did, Shaggy noticed that the small knife had little blue sparks coursing up and down the three-inch blade. It didn’t quite look electric, but something was definitely up with the knife. Shaggy turned his head to the hallway again and looked around. Nobody was paying attention to them, so Shaggy gave her the go ahead. He heard a grunt and above him there was the sound of an electrical snap.
Shaggy waited a few more seconds before he heard Ephemara say. “I think that did it.”
“We are gonna have to risk it. Let’s go.”
They both rushed through the door and waited in the meeting room. It was a beige windowless room with a large square table in the center. Against the far wall was a small trolley with water and coffee on it. Shaggy grinned as he didn’t hear any alarms going off and moved toward the smell of coffee. He could hear Ephemara sigh in relief.
“I can’t believe we made it.”
Shaggy nodded as he poured himself a cup. “Right? I thought you would get spotted for sure?”
“We got so lucky with that front guard. Also, I had no idea that security was so lax for Supers.”
“Ahh, it makes sense if you think about it.” Shaggy said, grabbing a few bags of crackers and a stale-looking cookie from the tray. “No hero wants to wait in line all day. They got stuff to do.”
Ephemara shrugged. “Still, though, I expected them to be a little more thorough. Or for their internal scanners to pick me up or something.”
“For all we know, they did.” Shaggy muttered through a mouthful of crackers.
She raised her eyebrows at him, and he swallowed loudly. “All I mean is that they probably picked something up and went to investigate the scanners. People are more willing to believe that their security system failed rather than someone circumvented it.”
“Maybe that’s been your experience, but it hasn’t been mine.”
Shaggy just shrugged and stuffed another pair of crackers into his mouth. They waited for a few minutes before the door opened and a short, bald, red man walked through the door. He was dabbing the sweat from his head as he looked up at the pair of them. Shaggy thought the handler looked more like an office worker than a police officer. The red man’s eyes grew sharp as he studied both of them.
“You two don’t look like auditors to me.”
Shaggy grinned wolfishly. “Laura says ‘Hi.’”
The red man’s eyes grew wide as he rushed toward the door again. Shaggy hurried to stop the man, but Ephemara was faster. She leapt the square table and slammed into the poor man, jamming his face into the wall next to the door. Shaggy was there soon after and they wrestled the guy away from the door and covered his mouth.
“Listen, damn it! She sent me up here to check on you. You’d been silent for three months. She was worried.”
The red officer glared at him as he mumbled around their makeshift gag of napkins. He spit them out as Ephemara and Shaggy backed off a few feet, but stood ready to stop him if the short man made another run for the door.
“Why the hell would she send criminals to find me?”
Shaggy put a hand to his chest and looked affronted. “Why, sir. I am a true and upstanding citizen.”
As Ephemara snorted, the red man looked them both over again. “Ok, that was a stupid question. Who else can she turn to? So you're here to get me out of here?"
“Whoa! No way, my guy. We were just sent to check up on you and maybe get some goddamned answers.”
The red man raised a bushy black eyebrow. “Answers?”
Shaggy leaned against the wall and nodded. “Yeah, like why the hell did someone pay for a bunch of ninjas to come after you? Why haven’t you contacted Laura? How can a Super agency like this be so fucking slow? What’s the answer to life, and the universe? You know, the big questions.”
The red man stared into Shaggy’s grinning face for a bit. “Seymour Coje,” he introduced himself. “And I had no idea that ninjas were after me. I was just tipped off that I was on someones hit list so I went into hiding. I tried to go to HLO, but they made me wait in line! I have literally been hiding out here for months. In a heavily fortified safe room. I haven’t been allowed to contact anyone!”
Shaggy poured himself another coffee as he nodded. “That is all very interesting, Coje. But I really don’t care. My associate got stabbed, and I have been shot, burned, stabbed, and damn near blown to pieces, so now that I got my answers, I’m going home. Try not to die and I’ll let Laura know you're okay.”
“We were almost drowned too, boss.” Ephemara said as they both moved to the door.
Shaggy waggled his hand back and forth noncommittally. “Meh. Kind of.”
Ephemara opened her mouth to say something, but Seymour interrupted them. “There’s a mole in the SPPD feeding a gang information. That’s how they found me. It’s how they’ve been finding all of our safe houses. We have to--”
“Nope!” Shaggy shouted. “Nope. Not gonna happen. I was sent up here to contact you and figure out what was going on. Now I know. Now I can tell Laura and she can fulfill her end of the deal. You police can deal with police shit. Bye-bye now.”
“Then take me with you!” Seymour growled angrily. “I can at least trust Laura to do something.”
Shaggy looked at Ephemara, who shrugged. Sighing, he waved a hand at Seymour. “Fine, Mr. Coje. Let’s go already. I really don’t want to extend our stay here any longer than I have to.”
Seymour stood, and they walked toward the door as he asked. “Yeah, about that. How did you even get into the building?”
Ephemara smirked. “The weakest point of any system is the people.”
Shaggy grinned as he opened the door into pure mayhem. Shouts and sounds of breaking furniture resounded through the hallway. Shaggy stuck his head out to see speedsters of all shapes and colors running around on the walls and ceiling. Shaggy could guess that a few were players just from their mannerisms and the way they were posing for screenshots. Someone had spray-painted ‘down with paperwork’ on a nearby wall and Shaggy couldn’t help but grin.
Players were only going to put up with this level of in-game bureaucracy for so long. He was honestly surprised it had taken this long for things to deteriorate. Several black-suited men were running around trying to capture the various Supers, while the civilians were trying to get out. It didn’t look like any of the players were actively hurting anyone. They were just causing chaos for chaos’ sake. Gaming, in other words.
“Okay, we just have to make a run for it, like we are trying to flee the mayhem.” Shaggy said.
“No problem there.” Seymour grimaced as Ephemara nodded.
Shaggy burst into the hallway and rushed toward the stairs. He heard the others behind him as whooshes of air flew past his face. Speedsters were running so fast down the hallways they almost created a vacuum in the enclosed space. The air whipped around Shaggy’s body as he made it to the stairs and stared at the absolute mayhem that was in the foyer. Bodies were all pushing to get out the front doors as other Super were shouting obscenities at the assembled security guards.
The guards were trying to direct traffic out of the building while calming down the crowd. Shaggy jumped down the stairs and turned to look at Ephemara and Seymour. But Ephemara was gone, which wasn’t too concerning. Meanwhile, Seymour was surprisingly nimble as he zigzagged his way through the crowd on the stairs. Shaggy was almost to the door when a booming voice rose over the crowds.
“You call yourselves Heroes?!”
Shaggy glanced up to see a blue man with two antennae sticking out of his head, floating over the crowd. The man was wearing white spandex and a blue cape. He looked like a prototypical Super. He had his fist on his waist and he was glaring down at the assembled heroes like a disapproving parent.
“A little paperwork is all it takes for all of you to fall into anarchy? Are you children?”
“I’m fourteen!” Came a voice from the hero’s side of the room.
“Yeah! Shut up, you @#%&-ing NPC. Paperwork's not fun in a game. I get enough of the @#$% at school.”
Shaggy winced as the profanity filter filled his ears with static as the obviously underage super swore. His parents had obviously but some restrictions on his pod. The crowd was about to fall into chaos again as more and more players started shouting up at the floating Alien. Shaggy ignored it as he made his way toward the door. Seymour was right on his heels.
“You aren’t Heroes. You're all just children who don’t know any better. None of you deserve to be a part of the HLO.”
There was a loud whoosh of air and several Players cried out in alarm. Shaggy glanced back to see the blue Alien was back in the air with several HLO communicators in his hands. The Alien broke each one in succession as the Players screamed in dismay. Shaggy saw several speedsters make running leaps for their communicators. But he didn’t get a look at what happened after as he had made to and through the front door.
The other NPCs and players around him were entranced by what was happening inside. Which made it easier for him and Seymour to make their escape. The loud clamor behind him made Shaggy think that things were soon going to turn into a fight between the players and that blue NPC. He didn’t want to be that NPC right now. Drawing the ire of the player-base was one surefire way to get ganked. But then again, the guy seemed like a powerhouse. Shaggy briefly wondered who that was as Ephemara appeared beside him.
He had run about a block with Seymour before the woman had reappeared. He raised a quizzical eyebrow at her, but she shook her head.
“Later.” She said as they ran.
Overhead, several drones were all converging on the courthouse and Shaggy ducked his head as he ran. Ephemara veered off as Shaggy made his way toward the entrance to the Under-Town tunnel. Seymour almost followed her, until Shaggy grabbed the man’s shoulder.
“I’ll meet you down there. I’m gonna get 38!” she shouted.
Shaggy didn’t have time to argue as she disappeared around a turn. He sighed and led Seymour further down the street. Nearby sirens wailed and the sounds of drones seemed to increase. Seymour kept pace next to Shaggy and continued to look around nervously.
“What the hell is going on?”
Shaggy shrugged and grinned. “Revolution?”
Seymour raised an eyebrow at him as Shaggy cackled and turned down an alley. He was hoping they could make it to Under-Town quickly. Above ground had been fun while it lasted, but the HLO and their drones had soured the entire experience. He couldn’t wait to be down at the bar with his friends. Maybe they had finished the thing at this point, or maybe they had gotten an influx of recruits. Shaggy couldn’t wait to see what had gone on while he had been away.
Shaggy was right, his night was filled with planning what was sure to be a bad idea. Fleur had told him so, Ephemara told him so. Even the damn robot stared blankly at him as if he was an idiot. But Shaggy was tired and, really, coming topside had been a long rollercoaster ride. From fighting ninja’s to messing with Supers. He even got to meet and unleash an actual Super Villain upon the gaming world. But he was ready to get off this ride and get back to the bar.
It took a long night of convincing, but Shaggy had gotten Ephemara to agree to his plan. With the caveat that she would follow him at a distance. Fleur and Racine thought they were both crazy, but happily agreed to look after 1138 for Ephemara. The ghostly lady was really getting attached to the little guy. Something that confused the hell out of Shaggy. If something had stabbed him, he wouldn’t carry it around like a damn doll.
Shaggy shook his head as he leaned up against the wall of a building outside the courthouse. He was watching Supes and civilians rushing in and out of the place most of the morning. He was also keeping track of the drones flying overhead. There were, surprisingly, not that many of the damn things zipping about. But he would still need to keep his head down.
He watched as the civilians and Supers used their respective entrances to enter the courthouse. Civilians were scanned and identified by their ID cards. But all a Supe had to do was scan their wrist communicator and pass through a turnstile. He watched a speedster jam himself into the turnstile as Ephemara spoke up from behind him.
“How the hell is this going to work? That damn wrist thingy of yours is busted. Not to mention all it will take is one scan and your toast.”
Shaggy rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. He would kill for a cup of coffee right now. “The weakest point in any system is the people. Always has been, always will be. All we have to do is wait for our chance and rely on the laziness of people.”
Ephemara snorted. “And when that fails?”
Shaggy shoved himself off the wall as he saw his moment. “We run like hell and say ‘fuck it’ to this whole damn endeavor.”
Ephemara remained silent behind him. He figured she had done her disappearing act. Shaggy focused ahead of him and tried to keep his eyes looking down. As he made it to the stairs of the courthouse, he could hear loud voices coming from the Super’s entrance. Another speedster had jammed their way through the turnstile, which was apparently one speedster too many. The purple speedster was off to the side complaining to a security officer about the frailty of the metal turnstile as Shaggy approached.
The officer was explaining how the speedster was going to have to pay for a new turnstile, but she was having none of it. Arguing that it wasn’t her fault the thing wasn’t designed to handle speedsters. Shaggy kept his face hidden as best he could as he moved to the broken turnstile and scanned his non-functioning communicator. The console made a loud beep as Shaggy thumped into the broken turnstile.
“Sorry, Sir you’re gonna have to go around to a new station. This one is currently out of order.” the security officer said, interrupting his conversation with and sending a glare at the lady speedster.
Shaggy cursed. “Fuck! Come on, man! I have a meeting in, like, three minutes!”
The officer sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. The purple speedster was still glaring at him huffily. “Fine, just give me your name and the name of your handler and I’ll check with them as soon as I am done here. You go ahead with your meeting, but I will come find you after I’ve confirmed everything.”
Shaggy threw up his hands. “Perfectly reasonable. Name’s Andy and my handler is Joel. You can find me in meeting room C.”
The officer made a note on his own wrist communicator and went back to arguing with the woman Super. Shaggy jumped the turnstile and waited a few seconds for any alarms to blare. When nothing happened, Shaggy speed-walked away from the front entrance. He guessed he had minutes before all hell broke loose.
Shaggy walked to the main desk in the courthouse's foyer. A young blue-skinned woman with ebony hair stood behind the desk, hands moving rapidly across her computer. She glanced up at him for a few seconds, but went back to work just as fast. Shaggy grimaced and coughed into his hand before stating why he was here.
“I’m from the HLO, here to audit case number 555-FFL-9856-TZ.”
The woman glanced up at him again, her hands still speeding around her. “Your a little early, aren’t ya?”
Shaggy shrugged. “Honestly, I just want this over with as soon as possible.”
The receptionist snorted as a blur of movement went by and a large scanner appeared on the desk in front of Shaggy.
“Scan please.”
Shaggy gave another grimace and raised his broken communicator. “The station out front fried my communicator.”
He turned to show the station and saw that the security officer was still having a heated argument. But not only with the speedster, but with several other Supers that were now crowding around the turnstile. Shaggy turned back to the desk to see the blue woman scowling at the congestion out front. She glared at him for a few seconds before another blur went by and a pen and paper was placed in front of him.
“Name and Super account number. Please know that all information will be double checked with your handler as soon as possible. If any falsehoods are found, you will be charged with a felony and fined up to five thousand credits. Is that understood?”
Shaggy gulped. “Uhh. Yeah, sure thing.”
Shaggy signed Andy’s name and made up a string of numbers for the account number. He really hoped this place was as slow as an actual government body. He was starting to think he was going to have to run out of this building. Quiet in, loud out, was becoming his go-to maneuver topside.
After signing the paper, it blurred out of his vision and the receptionist glared back up at him. Shaggy hoped she hadn’t read what he had written at super-speed. Instead, the woman passed him an ID badge and tilted her head toward the back stairs of the courthouse. Shaggy glanced at the pair of curved stairs leading to the second floor of the courthouse.
“Your meeting has been confirmed and all parties have been notified. Please make your way to meeting room D. Thank you and have a great day.”
The blue woman went back to work, clearly dismissing Shaggy from her mind. Shaggy hid his grin and rushed off to the stairs. Behind him, he heard a loud commotion coming from the front doors, but he didn’t turn to watch. No one was screaming at him to stop, so he figured he was still in the clear. He nearly sprinted down the carpeted hallway of the second floor until he came to a series of doors label meeting rooms A through F.
He was about to enter when a hand landed on his shoulder and he nearly leapt out of his skin. Shaggy turned and saw Ephemara standing behind him, fully visible in the hallway. He looked up and down the hallway and while there were a few Supes and civilians around, no one was paying much attention to them. Shaggy quirked an eyebrow at the pale woman, but she just pointed up at the door to meeting room D.
Just above the door was a silver metal device aimed downward. Shaggy stared at the thing for a few seconds before Ephemara explained in a whisper.
“It’s a bio-scanner. It will scan anyone heading into the room and log their bio-metrics.”
Shaggy grimaced. “Well, can’t you just phase through the wall?”
She looked at him like he was an idiot. “Of course I can, but your full bio-metrics are going to be logged with the DA’s office and probably the HLO.”
“Bah! I was already scanned and tagged when I went to prison.” Shaggy waved dismissively.
“That was with the police. The HLO is another ball of wax altogether. Trust me, you want as little of your information in their systems as possible.”
Shaggy groaned quietly and looked up and down the hallway again. He leaned against the wall near the door and pretended to be waiting as Ephemara joined him. He glanced up and judged the distance to the scanner. The door was almost seven feet high, and the scanner was placed just above it. There was no way he was going to be ignored if he jumped that high.
He turned to Ephemara. “So what do we do? I can reach the thing, but I would probably draw a lot of attention if I jump and break it out in the open like this.”
The pale woman snorted again as she looked glanced around. Making sure the coast was clear, she drew a small slim knife out from behind her. Shaggy looked down at the knife and raised an eyebrow.
“Your gonna stab it?”
“Little gift from 38.” Ephemara said, raising the tiny dagger.
As she did, Shaggy noticed that the small knife had little blue sparks coursing up and down the three-inch blade. It didn’t quite look electric, but something was definitely up with the knife. Shaggy turned his head to the hallway again and looked around. Nobody was paying attention to them, so Shaggy gave her the go ahead. He heard a grunt and above him there was the sound of an electrical snap.
Shaggy waited a few more seconds before he heard Ephemara say. “I think that did it.”
“We are gonna have to risk it. Let’s go.”
They both rushed through the door and waited in the meeting room. It was a beige windowless room with a large square table in the center. Against the far wall was a small trolley with water and coffee on it. Shaggy grinned as he didn’t hear any alarms going off and moved toward the smell of coffee. He could hear Ephemara sigh in relief.
“I can’t believe we made it.”
Shaggy nodded as he poured himself a cup. “Right? I thought you would get spotted for sure?”
“We got so lucky with that front guard. Also, I had no idea that security was so lax for Supers.”
“Ahh, it makes sense if you think about it.” Shaggy said, grabbing a few bags of crackers and a stale-looking cookie from the tray. “No hero wants to wait in line all day. They got stuff to do.”
Ephemara shrugged. “Still, though, I expected them to be a little more thorough. Or for their internal scanners to pick me up or something.”
“For all we know, they did.” Shaggy muttered through a mouthful of crackers.
She raised her eyebrows at him, and he swallowed loudly. “All I mean is that they probably picked something up and went to investigate the scanners. People are more willing to believe that their security system failed rather than someone circumvented it.”
“Maybe that’s been your experience, but it hasn’t been mine.”
Shaggy just shrugged and stuffed another pair of crackers into his mouth. They waited for a few minutes before the door opened and a short, bald, red man walked through the door. He was dabbing the sweat from his head as he looked up at the pair of them. Shaggy thought the handler looked more like an office worker than a police officer. The red man’s eyes grew sharp as he studied both of them.
“You two don’t look like auditors to me.”
Shaggy grinned wolfishly. “Laura says ‘Hi.’”
The red man’s eyes grew wide as he rushed toward the door again. Shaggy hurried to stop the man, but Ephemara was faster. She leapt the square table and slammed into the poor man, jamming his face into the wall next to the door. Shaggy was there soon after and they wrestled the guy away from the door and covered his mouth.
“Listen, damn it! She sent me up here to check on you. You’d been silent for three months. She was worried.”
The red officer glared at him as he mumbled around their makeshift gag of napkins. He spit them out as Ephemara and Shaggy backed off a few feet, but stood ready to stop him if the short man made another run for the door.
“Why the hell would she send criminals to find me?”
Shaggy put a hand to his chest and looked affronted. “Why, sir. I am a true and upstanding citizen.”
As Ephemara snorted, the red man looked them both over again. “Ok, that was a stupid question. Who else can she turn to? So you're here to get me out of here?"
“Whoa! No way, my guy. We were just sent to check up on you and maybe get some goddamned answers.”
The red man raised a bushy black eyebrow. “Answers?”
Shaggy leaned against the wall and nodded. “Yeah, like why the hell did someone pay for a bunch of ninjas to come after you? Why haven’t you contacted Laura? How can a Super agency like this be so fucking slow? What’s the answer to life, and the universe? You know, the big questions.”
The red man stared into Shaggy’s grinning face for a bit. “Seymour Coje,” he introduced himself. “And I had no idea that ninjas were after me. I was just tipped off that I was on someones hit list so I went into hiding. I tried to go to HLO, but they made me wait in line! I have literally been hiding out here for months. In a heavily fortified safe room. I haven’t been allowed to contact anyone!”
Shaggy poured himself another coffee as he nodded. “That is all very interesting, Coje. But I really don’t care. My associate got stabbed, and I have been shot, burned, stabbed, and damn near blown to pieces, so now that I got my answers, I’m going home. Try not to die and I’ll let Laura know you're okay.”
“We were almost drowned too, boss.” Ephemara said as they both moved to the door.
Shaggy waggled his hand back and forth noncommittally. “Meh. Kind of.”
Ephemara opened her mouth to say something, but Seymour interrupted them. “There’s a mole in the SPPD feeding a gang information. That’s how they found me. It’s how they’ve been finding all of our safe houses. We have to--”
“Nope!” Shaggy shouted. “Nope. Not gonna happen. I was sent up here to contact you and figure out what was going on. Now I know. Now I can tell Laura and she can fulfill her end of the deal. You police can deal with police shit. Bye-bye now.”
“Then take me with you!” Seymour growled angrily. “I can at least trust Laura to do something.”
Shaggy looked at Ephemara, who shrugged. Sighing, he waved a hand at Seymour. “Fine, Mr. Coje. Let’s go already. I really don’t want to extend our stay here any longer than I have to.”
Seymour stood, and they walked toward the door as he asked. “Yeah, about that. How did you even get into the building?”
Ephemara smirked. “The weakest point of any system is the people.”
Shaggy grinned as he opened the door into pure mayhem. Shouts and sounds of breaking furniture resounded through the hallway. Shaggy stuck his head out to see speedsters of all shapes and colors running around on the walls and ceiling. Shaggy could guess that a few were players just from their mannerisms and the way they were posing for screenshots. Someone had spray-painted ‘down with paperwork’ on a nearby wall and Shaggy couldn’t help but grin.
Players were only going to put up with this level of in-game bureaucracy for so long. He was honestly surprised it had taken this long for things to deteriorate. Several black-suited men were running around trying to capture the various Supers, while the civilians were trying to get out. It didn’t look like any of the players were actively hurting anyone. They were just causing chaos for chaos’ sake. Gaming, in other words.
“Okay, we just have to make a run for it, like we are trying to flee the mayhem.” Shaggy said.
“No problem there.” Seymour grimaced as Ephemara nodded.
Shaggy burst into the hallway and rushed toward the stairs. He heard the others behind him as whooshes of air flew past his face. Speedsters were running so fast down the hallways they almost created a vacuum in the enclosed space. The air whipped around Shaggy’s body as he made it to the stairs and stared at the absolute mayhem that was in the foyer. Bodies were all pushing to get out the front doors as other Super were shouting obscenities at the assembled security guards.
The guards were trying to direct traffic out of the building while calming down the crowd. Shaggy jumped down the stairs and turned to look at Ephemara and Seymour. But Ephemara was gone, which wasn’t too concerning. Meanwhile, Seymour was surprisingly nimble as he zigzagged his way through the crowd on the stairs. Shaggy was almost to the door when a booming voice rose over the crowds.
“You call yourselves Heroes?!”
Shaggy glanced up to see a blue man with two antennae sticking out of his head, floating over the crowd. The man was wearing white spandex and a blue cape. He looked like a prototypical Super. He had his fist on his waist and he was glaring down at the assembled heroes like a disapproving parent.
“A little paperwork is all it takes for all of you to fall into anarchy? Are you children?”
“I’m fourteen!” Came a voice from the hero’s side of the room.
“Yeah! Shut up, you @#%&-ing NPC. Paperwork's not fun in a game. I get enough of the @#$% at school.”
Shaggy winced as the profanity filter filled his ears with static as the obviously underage super swore. His parents had obviously but some restrictions on his pod. The crowd was about to fall into chaos again as more and more players started shouting up at the floating Alien. Shaggy ignored it as he made his way toward the door. Seymour was right on his heels.
“You aren’t Heroes. You're all just children who don’t know any better. None of you deserve to be a part of the HLO.”
There was a loud whoosh of air and several Players cried out in alarm. Shaggy glanced back to see the blue Alien was back in the air with several HLO communicators in his hands. The Alien broke each one in succession as the Players screamed in dismay. Shaggy saw several speedsters make running leaps for their communicators. But he didn’t get a look at what happened after as he had made to and through the front door.
The other NPCs and players around him were entranced by what was happening inside. Which made it easier for him and Seymour to make their escape. The loud clamor behind him made Shaggy think that things were soon going to turn into a fight between the players and that blue NPC. He didn’t want to be that NPC right now. Drawing the ire of the player-base was one surefire way to get ganked. But then again, the guy seemed like a powerhouse. Shaggy briefly wondered who that was as Ephemara appeared beside him.
He had run about a block with Seymour before the woman had reappeared. He raised a quizzical eyebrow at her, but she shook her head.
“Later.” She said as they ran.
Overhead, several drones were all converging on the courthouse and Shaggy ducked his head as he ran. Ephemara veered off as Shaggy made his way toward the entrance to the Under-Town tunnel. Seymour almost followed her, until Shaggy grabbed the man’s shoulder.
“I’ll meet you down there. I’m gonna get 38!” she shouted.
Shaggy didn’t have time to argue as she disappeared around a turn. He sighed and led Seymour further down the street. Nearby sirens wailed and the sounds of drones seemed to increase. Seymour kept pace next to Shaggy and continued to look around nervously.
“What the hell is going on?”
Shaggy shrugged and grinned. “Revolution?”
Seymour raised an eyebrow at him as Shaggy cackled and turned down an alley. He was hoping they could make it to Under-Town quickly. Above ground had been fun while it lasted, but the HLO and their drones had soured the entire experience. He couldn’t wait to be down at the bar with his friends. Maybe they had finished the thing at this point, or maybe they had gotten an influx of recruits. Shaggy couldn’t wait to see what had gone on while he had been away.
