Broker

Wicker lay in his bunk, staring up at the ceiling. It’s been two weeks since the raid and no trial date, He grumbled. The scattered conversation around him faded into the background as his mind wandered. He scratched at his chest, the prison uniform was beyond uncomfortable. He scowled a little, rolling onto his side and watching the others as they milled about, waiting for rec time. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and sat up, scoffing a little as two of his fellow gang members walked by and nodded to him. Seems like almost all of us were sent to corporate prisons instead of federal ones. I figured they’d set us up in a supermax or something. Talk about lackadaisical. I wonder if the corporations are getting paid extra to hold us, cheap ass politicians.

A few of the other prisoners glanced his way and then returned to their conversation, his lip twitched, most of them weren’t taking him and the others seriously. Not only that, the few light-touched who had already been in the prison when they awakened were content to do their time and stay off the monster-ridden streets. It was just like the boss had said. They were going to need more than convincing words to become true believers. He let out a breath, Ishtar promised that she’d find a way to help us, she promised. He reminded himself.

“Ey, Wicker,” A big man said, walking over. 

He looked up at the wall of muscle called Franklin and smiled at him, “Franklin! Sleep well?” He asked, straightening up a bit on his bunk.

The big man rubbed his neck, “What do you think?” He asked grumpily and leaned against the small wall that designated Wicker’s cubicle. “Tell me more about this lady.”

Franklin wasn’t light-touched, but he’d overheard more than a few of Wicker’s attempts to evangelize Ishtar to the other inmates and had developed a bit of an interest. Despite not really seeing any profit in talking to the guy, it didn’t hurt to have an excuse to spread the word by proxy. He cleared his throat, Maybe I’ll talk about my own awakening. That’s a good story. He thought just as a pair of guards walked into the room. One of them carried a cardboard box.

“Mail’s here!” One of the men shouted and the inmates got to their feet. The other guard made a face and put his hand on his hip, “Sit down, we’ll call you, you know the drill, idiots!”

There was a susurrus of grumbles but nobody made any pressing moves. One of the inmates sitting near the rear of the room tilted his head up and scowled at the guards. He hopped off his top bunk. The guy had short blonde hair that was cut in such a way that it stuck up on its own. His eyes were an unsettlingly clear blue and he was built like a proper fighter. He reached up and scratched at a small cut on his lip as he passed Wicker and glanced his way, snorting derisively at him. Wicker kept his mouth shut.

After all, nobody messed with Graff.

He strode up to the guards who hesitated, both of them looking at one another before looking at him. He huffed out a breath and held out a hand, “Hurry up,” He growled.

The guard with the box quickly began to leaf through the envelopes before plucking one out. He handed it over without hesitation and Graff grinned at him, “Do yourselves a favor, boys,” He said and turned away, “Don’t forget that there are some of us here who are only here because we have self control.”

The first guard frowned, “Is that a threat, Cal?”

Graff turned around, “Yes, it is, and it’s Graff now, you know that.”

The guard didn’t move an inch as Graff made his way back to his bunk and sat down. An awkward silence hung over the room as the few other light-touched besides Graff stared at the guards with warning in their eyes. Wicker frowned, if only he could get Graff on his side, then he could… “Thomas Pile!” The letter carrying guard shouted. Wicker blinked, he slipped off his bed and walked past Franklin before grabbing the letter from the guard who gave him a wary look. Apparently he was being categorized the same way as Graff. That worked for him.

More importantly, I got mail? From who? He looked the envelope over as he walked back to his bunk. He flipped it over and found that it was open. He frowned but let it go, it was policy for them to check it for contraband at least. He looked back at the front and checked the return address. From the desk of Mephisto? Who the fuck is Mephisto? Sounds like a villain name.

He paused and glanced surreptitiously over his shoulder at the guards who were already making their way out. The two members of his gang in this block walked over and peered over his shoulder, “What is it, Wick?”

He glanced up at them and shrugged, pulling the letter out, “Says it's from a ‘Mephisto’,” He said and unfolded the cover letter.

“I hope this finds you well, blah blah, you’ll find what you need attached, good luck to you, Mephisto,” He read aloud and frowned, slipping a much thicker sheet of paper out from behind the cover letter. He narrowed his eyes, it looked like a contract. He read it over and felt his muscles tighten and sweat bead on his brow. He hurried over to his bunk and gestured for the other two to stand guard over him. “Oh shit… oh shit…” He breathed.

A contract that can awaken someone’s powers? Just like that? Notarized by Mephisto and… it’s signed by Ishtar! Holy shit! I need a pen. The library might have one I can use.

“Wick, what is going on with you, what is that?” Branch, one of his gang members, hissed as he stood guard.

“It’s our way to the top of this place,” Wicker said with a shaky laugh and glanced up at Franklin who was staring curiously at them from the edge of Wicker’s space, “Hey Franklin, you wanna join me in the library later? I got something even better than a story for you.”

–

Sonya opened her eyes as an important email notification went off at the back of her mind. She tilted her head and called up her HUD. She was sitting in her secret merging room, collecting her thoughts and going over everything she’d managed to accomplish so far. The sheer walls around her made her feel oddly safe, despite the metal being capable of shrugging off even rare-tier powers with little effort. She ran her fingers through her hair and let out a breath as the message appeared.

‘The first wave of letters have begun arriving. -Mephisto’

She smiled, Good. It took a lot of political capital and pressure to orchestrate the scattering of Shark's captured men. Now to see if the training they were given will pay off. She looked down at her hands, I wonder how many talents were left tucked away in the prison system after the flash? 

As her thoughts danced away towards imagining abilities never seen before in her last life, she felt Amos contact her.

<Hey can you come down to my lab?> He asked hurriedly.

<I was just wrapping up, is something wrong?> She asked, getting to her feet and heading to the hidden door. It slid open and she stepped out.

<I finished gathering all that data you asked me to with the sensor I built, you gotta see this, I can’t make heads or tails of it.> He insisted.

She snorted, <I thought you were a genius.> She teased him as she walked down the hallway.

<Only at things I understand to begin with!> He huffed, <You try building a mana-detecting sonar system.>

She laughed, <Not my field,> She shot back and stopped in front of the door to his lab, it slid open and she found his lab assistants all crowded around his desk. 

Doctor Da-som looked up from where he was squinting at Amos’ computer and brightened. “Miss Chernovna! You need to see this, the data is all over the place!” He called, waving her over. She smiled at him and approached, stopping next to the desk and looking down at Amos who was chewing on a pen and glaring at a pair of screens. One had an absolute mess of numbers and letters cobbled together in a way that made one think a cat had done a dance on a keyboard. On the right was an odd aquamarine cloud that swirled and curled inward on itself at points.

“What am I looking at?” She asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Amos looked up and nodded to her before looking down, “Left side is the data from the scanner, still haven’t figured out what it all means so it’s hard to organize it.”

She nodded, “Okay and on the right?”

“A three dimensional projection of the data. I managed to at least figure out that some of that mess over there is positional data. The location of chunks of mana in the air, but it looks… weird.”

Sonya glanced down at him, hiding her delight. He had no idea, but this particular breakthrough happened years after the flash. It had been hard to slowly nudge him in the right direction to take this particular step, first introducing him to monster cores, then building gear out of them, then using cores to detect abilities, then the easy jump to using them to detect nearby mana. After that he’d insisted on building a much larger scale sensor and done most of the work himself. He was so close, just one more innocent nudge.

“Huh…” Sonya said thoughtfully, “Looks like a stormcloud.”

He blinked and looked up at her, his eyes searching her face before he looked back down at the eerie blue-green cloud. He rubbed the back of his neck and then flinched, “Weather system…” He breathed and his eyes unfocused. The screen on the right began to change, shifting about until it was an approximate top-down, two-dimensional view of the cloud. From this angle it was much easier to see obvious swirls and movements. “Wait, wait, wait,” He rambled, “What if I…”

The black background on the image was replaced with a map of New York City with ASTA Labs at the center. A few of the assistants sucked in sharp breaths as they watched the clouds move around, swirling at points. One swirl grew condensed for a moment and then vanished. Amos sucked his teeth and pointed towards a monitor on the wall. The monitor turned on of its own accord and began flipping through points of view, drones and cameras set up throughout the city to observe monster activity.

Everyone looked up and there was a collective intake of breath. Even Sonya couldn’t help but gasp, more out of excitement than anything else.

On the screen they watched a pack of Hounds materialize out of thin air.

Everyone was silent for a moment, Sonya took a few steps back and gave Amos some space. A second later that turned out to be a good idea as his gathered assistants all raised their fists in celebration, cheering and hugging him and each other. There was laughter and exchanged high-fives. Amos whirled, “I can see when they appear! I can see how they appear. Sonya, we can predict a monster attack!” He shouted, gesturing wildly at the screen. He was on his feet, inches from her. She grinned ear to ear.

“I’m so proud of you,” She laughed and grabbed his shoulders, “You did it.”

He beamed at her and then his expression grew thoughtful, “We need sensors everywhere, hell, a satellite! Ten! Twenty!” He rambled, counting on his fingers.

Sonya laughed, “I can afford a lot of things, but I’m a bit short on satellites right now, Amos,” She said, “One step at a time.”

He nodded furiously, “Right, right, but-”

“Amos?” Da-Som called, “Uh… you might want to see this.”

Amos turned around and Sonya’s expression hardened a little. She knew what they were seeing, she’d spotted it as soon as the map appeared, but she kept her mouth shut. This was his discovery, not hers. She walked over slowly and kept her expression neutral as she peered over his shoulder, “What is it?” She asked.

He pointed at the screen, in a spot the corresponded with Times Square. There was a whole lot of blue-green swirling in one spot. More than had condensed to create the monsters a few moments ago. She glanced up at the screen and saw a pair of heroes land and make short work of the creatures before looking back down. Amos rubbed his neck, “Its way denser than the monsters, a Lurker?” He muttered and concentrated, “There’s nothing over there.”

“Didn’t the energy disappear when the monsters appeared?” One aide pointed out.

“Yeah,” Another said, “This one is just getting denser and denser.”

“It’s thinning out the energy levels in the rest of the city,” A third pointed out, “Look at how the cloud moves, its gathering into one point. When bits of cloud meet, monsters appear. But otherwise it's all moving towards that spot.”

Amos rubbed his chin, “What the hell is this?” He murmured and leaned back in his chair, rubbing the sides of his head, “Monster appearances have been on a downturn recently, and…” He froze and let out a shaky breath, “Dharan.”

Sonya clenched her jaw.

“Sonya!” He turned to her, “This is the same thing that happened before Dharan! Right? Monster levels dropped all over the place before all of a sudden there was an explosion.”

She nodded, “Worldwide levels dropped, though, and have been for a while,” She corrected him.

He shook his head, “No, Dharan was the first to see a downward trend in monster attacks, we’ve got word from the government over there that they were tracking the situation at the time,” He swallowed, “What if there are hot spots like this all over the world?”

You couldn’t be more right, Amos. “We’ll have to see what’s there,” Sonya said flatly and looked at the screen, “I’ll call Firestorm’s team and see if they’d be willing to join us.”

He clenched his fists, “What if this is a precursor to another Dharan? How do we stop it?” He shook his head, “No, we need to get eyes on whatever this thing is before we can jump to conclusions.”

She nodded to him, “Good idea, keep calm and get some gear together that we might be able to use. I want to see this thing personally.”

He swallowed hard, “I’m on it.”

Sonya turned away and took a steadying breath, And just like that, the Times Square dungeon has been discovered. She put her hand on the door and firmed her resolve. Let’s see if we can avoid the annihilation of New York City this time around. She thought as the memory of a city in flames clawed its way to the front of her mind.