Angle Shooting
It turned out to be something closer to a week. A week which saw one truckload of ponies being moved through the city and the chemicals moving to intercept, which had mostly allowed it to learn that windshield wipers made for horrible handholds. The entire clinging (and whipping -- mostly whipping) process had been something of an education, and it had reluctantly passed on the bruised ribs to Jack with regrets and a promise not to be quite as stupid the next time, because it had turned out that in real life, it was actually somewhat easier to place part of one's weight on an eighteen-wheeler's side mirror. (Finding a running board to stand on hadn't exactly hurt, at least not for the chemicals. The leverage available when it had been able to swing a punch through where the window had once been... well, that pain hadn't been its.)
It had intercepted one "shipment," and wondered how many it had missed. Crossing Guard had told it that Equestria had disappearances all the time now, and some of those would be going to other worlds. There was nothing the chemicals could do about that: the method which allowed it to travel only went to Equestria, with the reversal doing nothing more than sending it home. There were a very few agents who could reach worlds other than their own and that of the ponies, who could provide reinforcements -- but they tended to be extremely busy. The hot zone was, on a multiversal scale, everywhere.
Some of those vanishings would be from kidnappings which had ended in places the chemicals could never reach. But it was possible that some had ended in the city. And if that had happened without its knowledge and no interception possible, the next thing to end would have been pony lives.
It had talked about the matter with Jack, during one transition. That they might not be doing enough, that there was no way to know if they were doing enough...
...that no matter what they did, it might never be enough.
Especially after having been fired.
Both had given some thought to finding their replacement, and neither had gotten much of anywhere. There were a few others scattered across the country who were trying to win their own version of the good fight, a precious few who managed to live long enough to reach the level of rumor. Someone on the west coast was supposedly trying to battle weapons made of light with a few bits of floating matter aimed just so. A whirlwind of Midwest death would find its running path littered with caltrops -- ones made from a child's jacks. A length of glowing rope which took away free will was slashed at by retractable claws. Rumors, legends, and the occasional blurred photo which was so easy to fake. They had heard of all, met none, and every last one was so very far away. It didn't seem to be the sort of job where commuting was a real option.
But for the city... it was just the chemicals. It seemed as if no one had ever tried until the chemicals had come about. There was him, and millions of people who'd simply given up. They knew what happened to those who fought back or rather, to those around them.
They had friends, of course. And because they had friends, they both had a list of people whom they could never ask to risk more than they already had. Victor... the chemicals had gone to him because he'd been the original creator, a parent, and when Jack had learned about that... well, they'd both known they needed to find some way of going on, because the supply Jack had found in the dump was always going to run out. No vials meant no chance. The chemicals had told Victor about that, and so much else. It had taken long hours of talking, deep into the night (which wasn't easy to do, especially after you'd just broken into someone's house), before the teen genius had agreed to help them, and it often seemed as if a thousand clauses were attached to that assistance. The regular medical testing was one of them.
But when Jack had been told, in the transition following the agreement... it had been ugly. No, worse: it had been their first all-out fight. Because Victor, as the original creator, was likely being watched. Because the ongoing supply had to come from somewhere and the logical first suspect was the person who'd developed the formulas to begin with. Because Jack was the one who had lived, and for a survivor to be seen with the young scientist might just mean Victor would eventually come back to a house which was a little too quiet.
Victor had tried to explain about reverse engineering: how dissecting an extant formula was a hundred times easier than coming up with an original one. He'd talked about corporate espionage, and how easy it would be to plant a few rumors which would point away from him. He'd even offered to teach the bundle of chemicals about the basics of the science and when that eventually happened, it would turn out to be a surprising natural in the field. (It supposed that was similar to the average teenage male's preoccupation with sex, only with more interest in what could actually be created.) But still, after their fight, Jack hadn't called on the chemicals for a full week, a week which had left Jack increasingly angry, frustrated, desperate, watching Victor's house for signs that anything was happening...
Eventually, there had been an emergency, one major enough to bring out the vials. And some time after that, Victor had admitted to having gone through questioning. (He hadn't said whether it was physical. He had admitted to the fear.) He'd told Jack that he'd been cleared, that he wasn't being followed or watched -- and then the new security measures had gone into his own walls anyway.
The continued survival of Victor's family proved that whatever had been said during that questioning was still believed. Jack's continued nightmares were waiting for that to break. Victor was his friend, and... anyone who was his friend just might wind up seeing others die for it. Just for having known him, let alone having done what they could to help.
Jack had friends now, and most of the people at his school considered the group to be an accumulation of freaks -- while having no true idea of just how deep that state went for a few. But even then...
Friends were people who cared about you, and were cared about in return. Sometimes they even cared when you didn't strictly deserve it, or shouldn't have been forgiven, or... understood that there might be deaths.
But then, some of those new friends lived with him at the orphanage, and so had very little left to lose.
The bundle of chemicals looked at the small rectangular box which had just been placed into its white palm.
"Cards," it said.
"Cards," Victor grinned.
"Playing cards," it tried. "A full deck."
"Yes."
"I feel," the chemicals disgruntledly declared, "as if I'm missing something here. Other than the years required before I can legally gamble, which is either something just over three or very nearly twenty-one, depending on how we're counting. You said you had a new weapon for me, and I've just been handed a deck of cards. Do they come to life and charge at their targets while waving tiny spears? Because I'm fairly certain that when it comes to the historical record on that tactic, you're going to find very few victories."
Victory blinked. His gaze briefly moved away from the chemicals, looked around the most recent of half-constructed buildings. "How do you know about that?"
"About...?" Some further definition seemed to be required.
"Living cards. Lewis Carroll."
It had never seen a movie: it only knew what movies were. It hadn't read the book, and yet something approaching knowledge of its contents was available for review. (It was a very small amount of knowledge: strictly speaking, when it came to fiction, Jack generally read just enough to mostly bluff his way past the test.) "I don't know," it admitted. "I just -- know things, sometimes. What I also don't know is how this is supposed to work."
With a thin smile, "Do you know about paper cuts?" Victor passed over a tiny plastic vial, one with flexible sides and a squeeze-drop tip. "Open the lid, then sprinkle this on." It did so. There was a brief puff of red smoke, and Victor's nose wrinkled at an odor which the chemicals couldn't register through its own face. "I've been trying to find ways where you can carry extra weapons -- things which would pass for something normal if Jack got caught with them. Brass knuckles are common enough, and you can drop them in a hurry. The vials can be hidden --" a brief pause "-- up until we hit a full x-ray, and by then... well, it's too late already. But cards... anyone could be carrying those."
It nodded. "But as weapons?"
"That formula reinforces them -- for a while. They'll be as tough as steel. It's a paper cut magnified." The blonde briefly looked satisfied -- then sighed. "Which still isn't ideal, because they still have the mass of paper. You'll have to learn how to throw them so that they'll hit edge-first, and you're going to need a lot of practice. But these could potentially cut deep enough --" There was a small shudder. "-- it's like the knuckles: under the right circumstances, just about any hit has the potential to be fatal. So you have to be very careful about where you hit someone, and I want you practicing for at least half an hour per night. Which means you're going to be running through a lot of cards -- and you can't save anything you don't use for another night because three hours after they're treated, they dissolve into sludge. But it gives you a distance weapon, something people won't be expecting -- something that gets past Jack being randomly stopped on the street, at least for a while."
The chemicals were starting to feel excited. They had been talking about distance weapons for some time, because the default state of combat was wading in to where the guns were. (It had considered using guns, but while they were easy to acquire -- especially once the fights had wrapped up -- they were a little hard to control when it came to degree of wounding, and extremely difficult to explain.) Tasers, much easier to deal with in terms of potential fatalities, were restricted within the city and as he generally had very little interest in stunning targets, the chemicals hadn't been able to scavenge one -- which probably would have just had a tracking chip in it anyway. The cards...
"I'll practice," it sincerely promised. "I can try for half an hour now, before I have to leave. There's an appointment which I simply cannot afford to miss. And do you happen to have an extra deck? Just in case I wind up needing to deal with someone on the road?" Or deal to them, as the case might be.
Victor nodded. "I'll give it to you before you leave." A worried hesitation, and then "Appointment?"
The chemicals glanced up, for this site had yet to install every portion of its roof. Thought about how beautiful the moon was and filed the memory away, because there might never be another glimpse.
"Well, in some ways, it's a drop-by, or at least a drop-in," it admitted. "But I do know he wants to see me, so he really shouldn't object to when I manage to show up, especially given the hours he keeps. He used a dead-drop to make the request and yes, before you say anything, I will be very careful about exactly how far I trust him because I'm aware that if he feels there's more in it for him that way, he just might use the chance to try and make me drop dead. But he claims he's following up on that idea Jack passed along, from you, about three days ago, so..."
Which told Victor exactly who it was meeting, and the teen winced. "I don't trust him."
"There's something good in him," the chemicals said. "Admittedly, it takes some digging before you start to see it. You have to go through seven years of college and at least three layers of bedrock."
"He's doing this for the jewels," Victor pointed out. "People who can be bought don't always stay bought."
"And where," the chemicals inquired, "do you know that from?"
"...Netflix," Victor eventually confessed as a tinge of red suffused pale cheeks. "It's still true."
"There is," the chemicals repeated, "something good in him. I occasionally see it peeking out of the corner of his eye. The right one, if you're curious. So. Cards, and then I'll choose the smallest emerald we have -- you know, I really should find out exactly how he's selling those, or if he's just holding onto them as a future investment -- before dropping by." It carefully pulled the first card out of the deck (a two of diamonds) -- then brightened. "And now that I'm going to be passing out cards, perhaps we should consider getting something personalized! A little home-printing. We could do an icon, or a logo -- something we can trademark, don't want him somehow getting a cut of something which does the cutting -- or even put a name on it --"
Which was when it saw the teen's expression.
"A logo," Victor repeated. "Or an icon."
There seemed to be a curious omission in that repetition, and the chemicals decided not to point it out.
"Well, yes," it said. "I'm sure we can find a graphic artist. Somewhere. It's a high school: check the loudest locker for recent stuffing. So. How does one throw a card? Pinch between the fingertips? Three at a time, between the fingers? For what might seem to be obvious reasons, I won't be putting one between my teeth and swinging on a ship's rigging any time soon, in part due to lack of ship. And most of the rest is typical lack of access to teeth. Incidentally, I know you've been very busy with the cards and all, but has there been any progress on my next face? The one which would have a little more -- range?"
"I don't know robotics that well," Victor admitted. "Not enough to make compressible plastic gears and a micro power source. But I'll keep working on it. There's just been a lot going on lately."
"Like the cards," the chemicals decided.
"Well -- yeah." There was a distant look in the teen's eyes. "And... other things."
Curiously, "Such as?"
"Nothing I want you bringing into the field yet," Victor said. "It's still at Emergencies Only. And if we have that level of emergency, it's probably too late already."
The chemicals accepted that, then tried the first toss, which took an awkward bounce off a girder and wound up half-embedded in soundproofing tile.
You had to laugh.
Strictly speaking, trusting one of his was a fool's endeavor and while the chemicals occasionally entertained the notion that it was insane (mostly because the concept was so inherently funny that you just had to give it a little time on stage), it resented any implication that it might be a fool -- even though it understood that in some cultures, it more or less looked the part.
(Its facial appearance was still a work in progress. During the time when they had been working with the contents of the original case, it had been sporting a blank white sheet, which the chemicals had found made it rather difficult to sincerely look rescued victims in the eye when reassuring them. But after the handshake, Victor had said its hair and skin reminded him of something, a profession which some people had an unreasoning (and unreasonable) phobia about, and had sculpted a second face into a mostly-frozen mien to suit. True mobility of features was the next step, but the chemicals understood it was going to take a while.)
In the case of the chemicals' appointment... it had been around ponies enough to get some idea of how a number felt about destiny. But strictly speaking, this particular first meeting had been accidental: he'd saved the man's life from a mugging which was in the middle of going a little too far, because even with nearly all major crimes controlled by a single entity, there was still room for the occasional small family operation. As its rescue had been rather shaken and turned out to live close by, the chemicals had taken him home, which admittedly hadn't done much to calm the poor man down. And once inside... well, the open files which covered just about every flat horizontal surface in the cramped apartment had quickly informed it of just who the man worked for, along with the fact that he'd probably learned a little more than he strictly should have. Some quick, rather mobile discussions (in terms of the small confines) had then established his unwillingness to turn any of it over to the police. (Not that doing so would have done much on those nights, other than getting someone -- not necessarily him -- killed, but it had felt like a natural sort of question to ask.)
The chemicals had followed up later, because when you met someone during that kind of situation, there seemed to be a certain obligation to check in on their well-being. And so he'd learned that the man, who occupied a position in the Foundation known as barely-paid slave labor (a seeming contradiction, at least until you saw his pay stub) liked money and there was a part of him, ground down into the fine sand of desperation by years of accumulated student loans, which didn't care very much about what he did to get it. But there was something else in him which could almost be ethical, which had started to glimpse what lay under the Foundation's surface, realized there might be no ready escape from the contract, and wanted someone to do something. Someone other than him. Someone, in fact, with absolutely no connections to him, and preferably an individual who could provide the funding for a desperate run should something go wrong -- or if his withered conscience, which had apparently provoked his field of study in the first place, actually took over for a full hour.
He wasn't entirely happy about who he was working for, and he wanted money towards a possible long-term goal of stopping. This, to the chemicals, made him an asset. A low-placed, barely-seeing-anything asset -- but anyone the chemicals could talk to was a welcome addition to the circle, even if this one was a person whom you just had to keep an eye on. Because the chemicals had recognized the danger long before Victor had voiced it: someone the chemicals were paying to talk might readily accept money to talk about it. Any meeting had the potential to turn into a trap.
You had to be careful, with people who stood in the darkness and strained towards the light. That felt like a hard position to hold, and the chemicals weren't sure which side he would ultimately fall on. And so it met someone who wasn't quite a friend in one of the smallest of the parks -- after scouting the area for hidden reinforcements and sniper perches. Fail to completely trust, but verify.
The man stood under one of the larger trees, allowing its shadows to take him into a deeper night. He was shivering slightly, and the briefcase in his right hand trembled accordingly. (Stress: it still wasn't quite that cold.) The chemicals watched him for a full minute before the final approach, because it wanted to see if there was any potential problems which might manifest at short range. And also because, quite frankly, he was just worth taking a moment to look at. The chemicals had very little concept of sexuality, but were easily capable of appreciating beauty. There was the shine of the moon, the night sky on those rare times when clouds and light pollution abated enough to glimpse a star, and then there was this man's face. It suspected the horrible hours required by the contract were keeping him away from most of the city's single population, quite a few of the married ones, and at least a dozen Well, If I'm Going To Try That Out, It'll Be With Him. Watching him was like watching a particularly nervous piece of fine sculpture, and even the startled jump backwards which came when the chemicals dropped out of the tree seemed oddly charming.
"Hello!" the chemicals beamed. "It's always so nice to see you!" (It had been working on its manners and felt itself to be making excellent progress. It sometimes felt that simply entering a situation and not hitting people was at least half of the social battle.) "Especially when you took the step of asking to meet me. Alone. And here we are, alone together, at least to the best of my ability to determine and honestly, I am going to be very disappointed if this suddenly turns into a trio -- well, at any rate, good evening! And I won't keep you long, because I know you have to get to work. Given your hours, possibly back to work. I know of exactly one individual who sees dawn more regularly than you do, and she's considerably less tired when that happens. Now -- what was so important that you just had to see me in person, which is especially nice when it means you must see me as one?"
The man swallowed. He did that a lot.
"Your -- whoever it is you talk to..."
"I speak," the chemicals haughtily declared, "to a great number of people. Sometimes twice, while not hitting them, which is often oddly important in second meetings. I don't tell them your name any more than I would tell you theirs, because that is what friends do for possible friends who may not be quite ready to commit. But we do gossip about you behind your back, which would apparently be the surest sign of possible acceptance, should we all be girls. Or of rejection." It tried to frown. "It depends on the channel, really."
Another gulp. "Let me see it."
The chemicals held up the emerald: so small by Equestria's standards, and absolutely ridiculous in carat and clarity anywhere else. Brown eyes widened, all the better to take in more of the green, and the man finally nodded.
"You know I'm not high up," he said. "Most of what I do is paying bills." With semi-private disgust, "Years of studying just to pay bills -- and some of that is just shuffling money around. When the same person owns the place using the utility and the utility itself, it turns into a closed system. There's all kinds of opportunities for tax dodges there. But there's still records, because something has to be sent in to the government. And where there's records..."
He opened the briefcase. (The chemicals watched, alert for a weapon.) A file emerged.
"These are copies of electric bills, broken down by hourly pull rate," he explained. "And at certain times, there is a massive, extremely expensive power draw. Something which moves. And it appears at each of the places your -- acquaintance -- listed. Locations which have since shut down, for reasons which aren't provided in anything I have access to."
The transfer points. Every one we've found and closed.
"How massive?" the chemicals asked, for that question seemed to be important.
"I'm not a electrician," the man said. "I know it's big enough to cost a lot of money. More than I've ever seen on an electric bill before. I'm surprised I didn't see the lights flicker all over the city when it happened, but I don't get to spend a lot of time looking out the window. Not that my office has much of a window. Or a view." Disgusted, "And my own desk lamp flickers all the time."
"One emerald," the chemicals said, "should buy a fair number of lamps."
"I'm saving up," the man shot back.
"For a spotlight? I haven't looked at the rates for those, but I'm sure you have enough put away for, say, a dozen or more..."
"And the next time I need to speak with you, I'll shine them all at the sky and spell out your name in lights," the man sarcastically declared. "If I knew what that was. Pass me the emerald. Then I'll give you the good part."
If he knew.
If I knew...
"The good part," the chemicals decided, "should come first."
"Don't you trust me?" the man asked with a thin (but extremely handsome) smile.
"I could ask the same," it noted with some offense.
"I'm sane. I know why I do things. I'm not sure about you."
"I," the chemicals stated, "saved your life."
"I know," the man quietly said. "In this city, that makes you crazy."
A breeze rustled through the branches. No footsteps moved through the park. Not at night. Not in this city.
"You said..." Another swallow, and the man tried again. "You said this is about lives."
The chemicals nodded, and wished it could look properly solemn.
"How many? Enough to be --"
"-- there is a way to measure whether a number of lives qualify as important," the chemicals softly educated. "You look at the number. And if it is a positive integer, then it is important. What do you know?"
The man's shoulders sagged. The sculpted chin dipped as brown eyes regarded the ground.
"I'm guessing," he said, "I don't know. But I think the power draw is so massive, you can't do it in more than one place at a time. That anything more, or even keeping it up for too long, would get noticed, or even burn out the grid. I'm guessing, and that's just based on the size of the bill. But dedicated generators on the scale you'd need to create that kind of voltage -- I know those are expensive, because I looked up that price using a public library server. And when you already own the utility, and your money is just going in circles, why spend any? Profit keeps the pulls down to one location, which keeps moving. Nothing more. And..."
A half-limp arm just barely came up, while the head did not. He held the file out.
"...the last page," he finished, "has the current site."
The chemicals took the folder, tucked the papers into the fashionable suit.
"Thank you," it said.
The man wouldn't look at the chemicals.
"This saves lives," he not-quite-asked.
"Yes." And then, because the chemicals liked to be honest, "Possibly, if it all works out. For a while."
"I got into law because..." One last swallow. "It wasn't for this. It wasn't supposed to be like this..."
The words seemed oddly familiar, and the chemicals weren't sure why. It watched as the man shivered in what still wasn't an external chill.
Twenty seconds passed.
"Your emerald?"
With a faint note of surprise, "Oh. Yeah. Hand it over." The chemicals did. "Fine. And now I've got to get to work. It's another all-nighter, until sunrise might let me go home. You don't want to know what they do to the first-years, all the times we work through hours no one should ever see..."
"I also happen to know a lady who sees them all the time," it replied. "She seems to do rather well with her life."
It created a small smile. "Is she pretty?"
"She's..." The chemicals took a few seconds. "...rather unlikely to be your type."
Ruefully, "Too bad. You mind keeping an eye on me for a few minutes? Make sure I get out of the park in one piece?"
"I will." The chemicals crouched, ready to spring back into the trees. "Go greet the sun, Apollo."
"Dent. I keep telling you, it's --" and a sigh of pure resignation. "-- whatever."
The chemicals jumped. The lawyer (whom the chemicals liked to think of as Apollo because 'Dent' implied imperfection on someone that handsome and it already had a 'Harv' in its life) took a few breaths, banished his shock to background levels, and started to make his way out of the park. The chemicals followed, now on the alert for a trap which would spring upon exit -- along with one which might be waiting at the next stop. But...
There's only one transfer point at a time because with that travel method and power consumption, there can only be one at a time. But that doesn't stop the next one from appearing...
There had to be some kind of solution. But before that could happen, the current point had to be shut down. And that meant there was about to be a raid.
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Yup. As I began to suspect last chapter, it looks like we've got ourselves a morally mirrored universe. Which means there's no question who he is. After all, he doesn't kill... the one who upset him.
Whether or not that spoiler block is correct, very interesting developments. And the disappearance is quite concerning. Ponies make sense as a multiversally hot commodity, but that doesn't make that status a good thing.
Cool, two chapters! So, I wonder if he'll end up confronting him at the site this time? That'll make for a fun climax. Even if he gets away, it might provide a potential solution for the pony-napping problem.
I don't think I know enough about DC villains to figure out who the heroes are here, other than the claws maybe belonging to Cheetah. Anyone want to clue me in?
8623337
Hector Hammond (no alias)
James Jesse (Trickster)
Barbara Ann Minerva (Cheetah)
8623352
Thanks, that helps.
Nice. Now I'm wondering why no one ever calls it Gotham in-story. Did it get a name change when the Equestria portals opened up or whatever was the divergence point for this universe?
Trickster feels redundant with the Joker around, but I guess it largely depends on what kind of story he's in.
Also very interesting how underpowered these heroes are in comparison to their enemies.
8580491
Wow, you're right, and his crush is named Nora.
It all makes sense now.
8623352
Oh? I'd assumed the caltrops belonged to the Toyman. But there's rarely good reason to argue with the author about their own writing. At least, the author of a good work like this.
no
8623352
Okay, I was able to get the last one, at least. I guess the first two don't show up as much in the team up type of stuff where I actually see GL and Flash.
8623834
But that would have been for Superman, not the Flash.
Oh, the Tricker and the Flash stories are going to be like reversed Roadrunner shorts, aren't they? But, you know, rated R.