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A Murder at the Bank

The morning sun beat down upon a 6-story stone building in the middle of downtown Brokton Bay. Gargoyles stood as silent grinning sentries on the corners of the roof. A wide stone entry way flanked by statues of rearing horses, shone a pale white in the morning light. The name of the building was etched above gold-framed doors, Brokton Bay Central Bank. An impregnable fortress of prosperity that was robbed only five times a year and only half of those successfully! 

The doors to this immaculate institution were shut. Closed due to ‘special circumstances’ as the hastily printed sign informed every stymied patron. The circumstances for this closure lay at the bank’s top floor. Within a wide handsome office paneled with red mahogany wood, sat a corpse with a crossbow bolt coming through the back of his chair and through his forehead.

Crush stared into the corpse’s lifeless eyes. Perhaps forcing himself to think of this corpse as having been a person, not just a body. The corpse had been Franklin Howe in life, the Bank’s President. A rotund bald man, wearing an expensive, but not too expensive, tailored suit. Mr. Howe had been into the office at 5am this morning, as was his habit, and was dead by the time his secretary entered his office at 9am with his schedule. She immediately called the police.

The police then called the PRT because of some residue found on the victim, consistent with the residue found on past victims of a particular vigilante. Cyberpunk appeared from behind the victim’s chair and looked at Crush. His eyes said it all.

“It’s Shadow-Stalker.” Crush asserted.

Cyberpunk nodded tentatively. He clutched an evidence bag that even Crush could see contained the oily darkness known to accompany a Shadow-Stalker bolt. It was a residue left behind when she phased a bolt through material. It was this residue that had let the PRT strongarm her into joining the wards in the first place.

“We could get Maester Red in here for a second opinion.” He offered. 

“Why? Cause I like hearing the same answer twice?” Crush replied deadpan.

Cyberpunk shrugged, he seemed perplexed. “It’s just such a drastic change in MO, she goes from what? Crippling some street toughs to attempted assassination of a politician and then the actual assassination of a bank exec? It doesn’t track.”

Crush suggested what they’d both been thinking, the thought that had been haunting the Wards since Shadow-Stalker reemerged and put that city councilman in the ICU. “Maybe she joined the fucking free.”

Cyberpunk said nothing. Neither of them thought Shadow-Stalker was Truly Free material, but going from small-time vigilantism to political assassination would certainly be explained by a radical change in perspective and joining the most feared villain group in the US would certainly do that to her. Crush began to pace.

“If she did join, she’s not stopping here.” Crush lamented.

“No.” Cyberpunk agreed, “but there’s no-one to blame for that but her.”

“Isn’t there? We had her Cyber, Lucky and I, we had her dead to rights. I should’ve--”

“What? Cripple her? Kill her?” Cyberpunk interrupted. “You aren’t built that way.”

Crush stopped pacing. That was the bitch of it wasn’t it? He really wasn’t built like that. When he first joined Ward, Crush though he could kill a man and sleep just fine. Now? He liked to think he had it in him, if things got REALLY tough, but… he just didn’t know. He could always blame Reine’s influence… Reine. Crush looked at Cyberpunk, “do you think Shadow-Stalker being active means she got Reine?”

Cyberpunk shook his head as he returned to examining the body. “Doubtful.”

“Then where is she?”

Cyberpunk looked away from the crime scene locked eyes with Crush and replied, completely deadpan, “I thought you’d never ask, let’s go get her right now.”

Crush waited. Cyberpunk stared. Crush relented. “You could’ve just said you don’t know.”

“I don’t know.”

“Thank you.”

“If I did know I’d of course keep it to myself, I’m a massive asshole.”

“Thank you!”

“In fact I’m not really trying to investigate this crime scene perhaps for some financial incentive I could--”

“Ahem!”

Crush turned and Cyberpunk looked up, the color draining from his face. There, in the office’s doorway, stood Ms. Piggot, the colloquially named Piggy and the director of PRT operations within Brokton Bay. She glared daggers at the two Wards. But particularly Cyberpunk. “If you need incentive Cyberpunk, maybe a pay deduction for every hour you take will suffice?”

Crush didn’t think Piggy would know what sarcasm was if it ate her last donut.

“No ma’am I’m done here, I just have to catalog the crime scene and then the coroner can clean up.”

“Then what should you be doing?”

“Cataloging?”

“That is correct.”

Silence.

Those steel gray eyes hardened to a knife’s edge at Cyberpunk. “Get to it.”

Cyberpunk hurriedly obeyed, Crush breathed a sigh of relief that her ire had not been directed towards him. The sigh was quiet, it really was, inaudible outside of his helmet, but the way Piggy whirled towards him had Crush convinced it hadn’t been quiet enough.

“Is there something you should be doing?” Piggy challenged Crush.

“I don-- I mean, Yes ma’am.” Crush managed, thinking quickly.

“And that is?”

“Managing entry into the active crime scene, speaking of, may I see your credentials?”

Piggy didn’t move. For a moment, Crush thought he’d stepped on an active landmine. He was afraid to even breath as Piggy’s eyes bore through him. Then, to his relief, she pulled out her wallet, flipped it open, showed her badge. She waited.

Belatedly Crush realized she was waiting for him to nod and acknowledge her credentials as valid. After a cursory glance at her identification, confirming what he already knew, Crush began to nod before remembering one last thing he was supposed to do. “And today’s password ma’am?”

“Polka dot.” Piggy replied. She flinched as she uttered the words. It was a subtle enough flinch that anyone else would’ve missed it. Crush didn't miss it, it just confused him. It felt like the password reminded her something in her past, something traumatic, like when someone mentioned his parents…. Then again, he could just be reading too much into a grown woman having to recite such a silly phrase.

“That’s correct, thank you ma’am.” Crush stood to the side. Piggy walked past without another word.

“What have you found Cyberpunk?”

“It was Shadow-Stalker ma’am.” Cyberpunk began, emulating Crush’s detached professionalism after seeing the mollifying effect it had on Piggy.

“What a mess.” Piggy whispered shaking her head.

Crush and Cyberpunk stayed silent, what was there to say? One of the ‘heroes’ turning rogue and assassinating high profile citizens? 'Mess' was a polite way of putting it.

Ms. Piggot, through with her brief moment of weakness, moved towards the exit. “I’ll want a full report on my desk no later than 9pm, you have school tomorrow.”

Crush sighed at that particular reminder. School, where everyone knew him, where everyone wanted to get him back out of his shell. Maybe Joan had the right idea, maybe he should drop out and get his GED. Crush wondered if he could stay a Ward if he did that.



[tpb]Hours Earlier[/tpb]

Dr. Elizabeth Mallory waited in a deserted parking garage, clutching a manila envelope. She fidgeted in place. It was early, very early. She had to be at work in an hour, but here she was, waiting for a chance to betray her country. She should have more sense than to be here, or at least more loyalty. But… Dr. Mallory couldn’t forget that voice. That voice so young and sure of herself. Mallory somehow knew it was a woman even through the distortion. That voice had been so powerful when it promised Elizabeth justice that she hadn’t doubted for a second that she’d finally get it.

Headlights came down the parking garage’s ramp. Dr. Mallory tensed, clutching the envelope close to her chest. This was it, this was the moment. The moment where she found out if justice had been served, or if she was about to be killed for the contents of this envelope. 

The headlights passed Dr. Mallory and the black sedan pulled into the spot next to her apple red coupe. The car came to a complete stop and then a man, dressed in a long brown trench coat and a milk chocolate colored fedora stepped out of the car. 

The man approached, he had an air about him, an air Elizabeth couldn’t place but one that had the primal part of her brain screaming at her to run. It took everything she had to not back away. He came within a foot of her, then with a swift motion that nearly had Elizabeth beg for her life, tipped his hat. 

“Dr. Mallory.” He greeted.

“Yes.” Elizabeth managed. “I--, did you, that is, I mean.”

Without a word, the man produced a single photograph from his left breast pocket. Elizabeth hesitantly accepted the photograph. There, pictured in excruciating clarity was Mr. Howe with a crossbow bolt’s head shining in pristine metallic glory through the hole it had made through his skull. 

Dr. Mallory let out a noise which lay somewhere between a laugh and a gasp. There he was, her father’s murderer. The man that had lain with another man’s wife, then laughed about it to his face. He drove her poor father to suicide and he laughed. Now he was on his way to Hell where he belonged, next to Elizabeth’s bitch of a mother.

Dr. Mallory nearly shoved the envelope into the man’s hand. Hesitance replaced by a profound sense of relief. “My notes are in there as well, the nanites self-destruct when exposed to atmosphere so the chance of a plague is minimal.”

The man in a fedora tipped his hat and turned to leave.

“Thank you!” Dr. Mallory called. 

The man stopped and turned with a smile. “Don’t thank me, and don’t thank the Boss, you’ll earn this.”

Dr. Mallory nodded, holding back the tears. Ahead of her lay a life of indentured service to a master that had not deigned to meet in person. Yet that hardly seemed important next to finally putting her father’s spirit to rest. A part of her realized she should feel sick and anxious about the life that was to come, yet Elizabeth as clean as the day she watched her mother suffocate. 

The man got in his sedan and drove away and Dr. Mallory felt no less thankful.

Pasted: Mar 15, 2023, 5:17:47 am
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