A mist fell on Brockton Bay. Brown stone buildings were obscured in a thin fog as water ran in lazy rivulets towards the street drains. On this foggy morning, one alleyway was closed off by yellow police tape. Leaning against an idling PRT cruiser was an armored figure with glowing green eyes, a pair of steel ball bearings spinning in counter-circles just above his outstretched right hand. Crush, one of the newest Wards was watching the street.

Crush stifled a yawn before shaking himself awake. He needed to keep watch. It was still an hour before dawn and technically, he wasn’t supposed to be here, none of them were. The crime scene was still active and technically under Maester Red’s jurisdiction, but… he STILL hadn’t left headquarters. In response to what Crush could only see as neglect the Wards had taken a vote, two of their own were missing after all, and it’d been unanimous, they were going to investigate this themselves.

A clatter of trashcans a cat’s scream and a too clean curse drew Crush’s attention.

“Shoot!” A young voice cried out. Stumbling back from a pair of trashcans he’d been examining was a man, a boy really, dressed in a black and white bodysuit. His face fully covered by his mask. An orange cat lept onto the young hero’s chest, hissed once, then darted down the alleyway. Leaving a bemused Crush and a prone Power-Broker.

“Darn cat.” Power-Broker muttered as the offending feline darted down the alley. Power-Broker was almost petite for a super hero, but, as he liked to say in the mirror when he thought no-one was listening, he had moxie. The moxie-haver was currently laying among three steel trash cans, two of them didn’t have lids anymore, all three of them had been full and half of that full load was now covering Power-Broker.

Crush was glad he couldn’t smell anything through his visor. 

Looking down at his bodysuit, Power-Broker grimaced. His shiny and new body suit was now soaked with stagnant water and other foulness Crush didn’t want to think about. In the end was considerably darker than it had been a few moments ago. He looked up at Crush. 

“I’m going to have to wash this before school aren’t I?” Power-Broker asked.

“I’m not doing it for you.” Crush informed him.

Power-Broker hung his head in disappointment, then bit back a yelp as a shadow materialized over him. A gray armored hand seemingly appeared from the shadows themselves as Cyberpunk offered a hand. Cyberpunk was a pale teenager, two years younger than Crush, with an athletic build, pale skin and dark hair. His costume was a mixture of his augments and fabric mesh, the mix was such that it was hard for Crush to tell you what was an augment and what was fabric.

“Are you all right PB?” Cyberpunk asked in an almost too quiet a voice for Crush to overhear. Power-Broker (PB) recovered from the shock of Cyberpunk’s silent entrance and accepted the outstretched hand with an embarrassed “thanks.”

As far as Crush knew, Cyberpunk didn’t have a Stranger Power, but he lacked presence to a point that even Crush’s PTO lost track of him sometimes.

Cyberpunk helped Power-Broker to his feet with an almost sickening ease. Power-Broker let go of Cyberpunk’s hand as he came to his feet and began to brush himself off. Muttering all the while about cats picking on moxie-havers. Then, about a quarter of the way through the process, he grabbed a brown paper bag from his shoulder, he held it in front of him for some stupid reason, probably to see what it was. He was holding the bag by its bottom. The bag rolled open and brown sludge fell from the opening and slammed onto his foot with an audible plop.

Cyberpunk backed away from the sludge quickly covering his masked face.

Power-Broker looked over at Crush, silently pleading. It felt like the poor kid was about to vomit or cry, possibly both.

“Oh for Heaven’s sake.” Crush put the two steel ball bearings in his belt then held out a hand towards Power-Broker. “Don’t move.”

Almost immediately the sludge exploded from PB’s suit and floated towards the trashcans even as they put themselves upright. Power-Broker breathed heavily, shivering slightly as the foulness was cleansed.

“Thanks.” Power-Broker managed.

“Why didn’t you do that before?” Cyberpunk asked, eyes narrowed.

“Because I’m not a dry cleaner.” Crush countered, eyes narrowing to match.

Cyberpunk looked over at Power-Broker’s newly cleaned suit. “You kindof are.”

Crush’s eyes narrowed even more, “Keep that up and I’ll call you CP during an interview.”

Cyberpunk’s eyes narrowed to the point that they ceased to exist. “I’ll spread a rumor online that you have a crush.”

Crush with a crush, that’s awful! Crush let his eyes relax and nodded in silent surrender. Cyberpunk nodded in turn, accepting the surrender.

Power-Broker, misunderstanding the nature of their exchange, and still distracted by his recent experience, said, “yeah only I get to call him CP. Right CP?”

Silence, shocked and oppressive reigned through the alley for a solid 4 seconds. Then Crush burst out laughing. Cyberpunk, appalled, looked at PB like he was a traitor. Power-Broker saw Cyberpunk’s reaction and backed up utterly confused.

“What?!” Power-Broker asked, completely guileless. “You shorten my name!”

Cyberpunk’s eyes widened in realization while Crush doubled over. “D-don’t actually call me that, okay?”

“Why? Is it bad?”

“Y-yeah.” Was all Cyberpunk managed to say, while Crush regained himself. Cyberpunk shook his head and changed the subject before Power-Broker could ask the dreaded next question, ‘what’s it mean?’ “Anyway, I’ve found wood fragments, blood, pieces of costume. Looks like Reine and Shadow Stalker got into a fight.”

“Agreed,” Power-Broker held out a quarrel, retrieved from his ill-fated expedition into the cat-infested rubbish. Crush stopped laughing entirely when he saw the quarrel’s head. Sharp, deadly, covered with blood, there was little question what happened now.

“The question now is,” Cyberpunk continued, nodding, “who won? And why didn’t Reine report in?” There was not a question in anyone’s mind Reine would’ve won the fight. Shadow Stalker was dangerous but she wasn’t a powerhouse. Not like Reine. 

“Well at least we can rule out the piss vampire.” Power-Broker continued, examining the quarrel.

“Yeah, but then that just leaves us back at square one, what did--”

Crush folded his arms as he leaned against the cruiser. While the two investigators talked, he lost himself in a memory. A memory of only two weeks ago, when he had had a confrontation with Reine. He couldn’t see the setting really, but he remembered the words.

“He was running!”

“He wasn’t after I broke his leg.”

“You have too much power to be so casual in its use! Because of what you did that man may never be the same.”

“Good! Maybe he won’t hold some poor kid at gunpoint again!”

“Is that why you’re here Crush? Make sure the villains can’t hurt you anymore?”

“Wha—Me?! This isn’t about me!”

“Isn’t it?”

That last part had bit. At the time Crush told Reine to shove her amateur psychoanalysis up her ass, then stormed off. But in the two weeks since, he really had dialed it back. Reine never mentioned the change in his behavior, neither did he. He hoped it wasn’t too late to thank her for it.

He doubted Shadow Stalker would’ve been so affected by just words. Still, he somehow couldn’t see Reine killing Shadow Stalker… even if she really deserved it.

“Crush?” 

Crush came back to the present. “Huh?”

Power-Broker rolled his eyes at Crush’s inattentiveness, good to see he was completely recovered from his ordeal, “we were discussing whether to check in with Sophia’s family.”

Crush checked his watch and shook his head, “gonna be cutting it close with Piggy as it is.”

Cyberpunk frowned, hard to tell with his mask on, but Crush usually could, “Web-Mistress is supposed to inform Lucky whenever Ms. Piggot gets to HQ and it’s not like Shadow Stalker’s mom’s place is that much further away--”

A woman came at a dead sprint from the other side of the alley. She wore a set of power armor that did little to bulk up her small frame. This was Lucky Dip, the support member of the team. A shy girl, Crush hadn’t managed to talk to her much, but she seemed nice enough. Right now though, the expression on her face was one of excitement and more than a little anxiety.

“Viki called!” Was all she had to say before the other three members scrambled into the car. 

Crush started the engine and just as Lucky’s ass hit the seat, he stepped on the gas.

#
Crush pulled into HQ’s parking garage silently. With the practiced stealth of professionals, the four teenagers filed out of the cruiser one by one. Ducking between cars with absolute precision, leaving only split seconds when they could be observed, the four came to the parking garage’s elevator. Crush checked his watch.

0500, Piggy would be in her office checking emails right now, which meant the coast would be clear for another 10 minutes.

Really Crush probably could’ve obeyed traffic laws and still gotten here on time. Crush nodded at Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk nodded in return, then nodded to Lucky Dip. Lucky Dip nodded in return, then nodded to Power-Broker, who nodded in return, then began to nod to Crush, realized that was probably overdoing it and moved to press the call button. 

The elevator opened. Out stepped an obese woman with steel-gray eyes and a bleached blonde bob cut. She wore a navy blue jacket and a stern expression. She looked down at Power-Broker, still crouched next to the call button. Finger hovering just centimeters away from the button that the four of them thought would be the home stretch. Now, it was just the entrance to Hell.

“… Good Morning Ms. Piggot.” Power-Broker greeted. Her face hardened. Their asses were all kinds of grass.

[tpb]Later that Morning[/tpb]

Joan Gold sat in a wonderfully comfortable chair, pen in hand, holding a thoroughly marked up contract. She was leaning over a beautiful desk as she examined the contract she was offered thoroughly. “I don’t think I can accept the post-mortum services clause, I realize I won’t be cognizant enough to regret them, but I promised my mom I’d get a Christian burial.”

Lie.

With that she crossed out the offending clause, properly annotated.

The skeletal figure across from her, a one Mr. Theseus, tapped a bony finger against his chin, “understandable, understandable, my own mother was somewhat rigid in her beliefs.”

Lie.

“But you understand that makes this contract less appealing to me. It’s not a deal killer I assure you, but I’ll need some value added.”

Truth.

Joan leaned back in deep thought. “Hrm, let me think…”

Joan already knew what she was going to offer him. This meeting had been planned meticulously for weeks and they’d already spent 3 hours negotiating the finer details of this contract. When she was planning this meeting, Joan thought she’d be bored to tears by now, but she was having a lot of fun.

Catching traps, balancing advantage so she didn’t appear too strong or too weak, getting concessions, giving them in return. These were some of the best hours of her life. Maybe when she got her untouchable status she’d be a lawyer.

“Let’s not overthink it too much, how about I up the purchase amount? Would 10 more augments be enough value added?”

Mr. Theseus leaned forward, “Not quite, what about 20?”

“12.” Joan countered, the number she was shooting for was 15. She chose 12 as the counter to indicate they weren’t close to a deal on 20, but that she wasn’t tapped out at 10. She didn’t choose 11 for two reasons. First was because increasing her initial position by only 1 would overstate how far from a deal they were and because Mr. Theseus, perhaps unknown even to himself, despised following an odd number with an odd number.

If Joan had said 11, Mr. Theseus would not have likely countered with 15. He would’ve said either 14 or 16. 14 was too few for what Joan wanted, 16 was too many. But now that Joan had given him 12 as her counter-offer…

“15.” Mr. Theseus conceded. 

Joan smiled. “Done.”

Truth.

Mr. Theseus gathered up the contract and set it to the side, “I’ll have my lawyers look over the annotated contract, then fax it to your people.”

Truth? Weird, her lie detector sounded uncertain, maybe Mr. Theseus was already satisfied with the contract? She’d have her lawyers look it over more carefully before she signed it, in case her inexperience had caused her to miss something.

“If there’s nothing else….”

“Oh, if you’ll indulge me, I have a separate item I’d like to discuss while I’m here.”

Truth.

“And what is that?” Mr. Theseus asked, cordial as could be, but clearly annoyed his carefully crafted schedule was being put in jeopardy. His body language screamed, ‘this had better be good.’

“These post-mortum deals.” Joan began, “how do they work on living parahumans?”

Mr. Theseus leaned forward. This line of conversation was good enough to shuffle a schedule. “What are you asking?”

Joan grinned, silently thankful for her powers once again. Four weeks ago she’d never be in this position, never holding the power to bring a powerful Rogue like Theseus to the table. Now? Now she had something he’d genuinely want, maybe enough to help her with her big project. “I’m asking, what can you do with a brain dead parahuman whose body has been graciously donated to science?”

Lie.

Her only complaint about her powers is that her damn lie detector went off WHEN SHE WAS THE ONE LYING.