Summus Proelium

“Man, I still can’t believe you get to come here whenever you want.”

Amber was the one talking, and ‘here’ was the White Pines Country Club. It was a pretty exclusive place. A pretty exclusive place that my parents happened to be on the board of directors of. We’d been members basically my whole life.

I wondered how many of the other important members were also supervillains.

Feeling self-conscious (for a few reasons), I shrugged at both Amber and Jae, who sat next to her. The three of us were out on one of the balconies overlooking the golf course, sitting on some admittedly incredibly plush and comfortable chairs. “It’s not a big deal. Your families could probably join up if they wanted to. I mean, we all go to the same school, you know.”

Taking a sip of her virgin strawberry daiquiri, Amber shook her head. “No, see, our families are comfortable. High end of comfortable. Yours is filthy stinking rich. There’s a difference.”

“It’s not just filthy stinking rich people who come here,” I pointed out. “If it was, there’d be like, four members.” Shifting in my seat as I tried to push my thoughts away from that one about how many of the people I saw here all the time might be evil, I looked to the quiet Jae. “Besides, with how cool she looks, I bet you guys could get in all on your own.”

“It’s true,” Amber agreed with a wink at her friend, “she is pretty cool.”

Jae, who was wearing dark shades and a large sun hat to help keep her sensitive skin from burning so easily while we were out here in the open, flushed a little and took a drink from her iced tea. Her voice was very soft as she suggested, “We should probably start.”

“She’s got a point.” Looking to Amber, I added, “We should get to it. I just figured coming out here might be a nice change of pace from holing up in the library or whatever. But we can still work on the project without too many distractions.”

Clearly distracted, the dark-haired girl stared at a passing woman in a short tennis skirt. “Uh huh, not too many distractions. Sounds yummy–I mean good.” She looked back to me. “Good.”

Giving her a disbelieving stare, I shook my head while muttering, “Has anyone ever told you that you’re as bad as a guy?”

Her response was a Cheshire grin. “Bad wasn’t the word they used.” Before I could respond to that, her eyes glanced over my shoulder as she added a quiet, “Heads up.”

I turned, just in time to see basically the last person I wanted to run into (okay, there were a few lower on that list, like Janus). It was Simon, dressed in his own tennis outfit as he smiled broadly while sidling up to the table. “Well, if it isn’t my little sister and her friends. And here I thought you didn’t like watching golf.”

“I don’t,” I retorted. “I like playing it, but it’s boring to watch. Thankfully, it looks like a lot of people agree with me.” I gestured around the mostly empty balcony to illustrate that fact. “So this is a quiet place to work.” Pausing pointedly before making my voice sound as lightly teasing as possible, I added, “Or at least, it used to be.”

“Psst,” Simon stage-whispered toward Jae with a slight smile. “I think she’s talking to you. There’s already been noise complaints about the racket you’re making out here.”

Jae, in turn, sank a bit in her seat while apparently trying to hide behind her iced tea glass. Her reply was a very quiet, “They must have very sensitive hearing.”

“Ears like rabbits, I tell you,” Simon agreed, winking before he looked to me. “Anyway, I just thought I’d see if my little sister was bored.”

“Bored? Not until you showed up,” I tried to tease before giving him a firm pushing motion with both hands. “So why don’t you let us get back to work before you put us to sleep?”

Snorting, he gave me a light jab at the shoulder before stepping back. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. I’ll stop crowding you guys and let you work. You don’t need a ride home, do you?”

The thought of being alone in a car with him made me repress an almost violent shudder. It was all I could do to keep the revulsion off my face while quietly replying, “I think I can manage.”

With a nod to the other two, he headed off. Amber, watching him go, murmured, “Something about him bugs me.” She jolted a little then, as I caught the slight motion of Jae subtly kicking her under the table, eyes finding me. “I mean… um, sorry.” Flushing as she clearly just realized she’d been talking out loud, the girl gestured. “I guess we should work, huh?”

“Yup. And don’t worry, I uhh, I get it.” Leaving it at that, I reached down to grab the bag at my side, taking a book out to set on the table. “Right, so… Laura Cereta.

“Let’s see what history has to say about you.”

******

Hours later, we’d done enough on the project for the day, so Jae and Amber had gone off to do… whatever they were going to do. I, meanwhile, was standing on the roof of a building downtown, dressed in my costume. Because it was time for me to get started on my other project. Namely, finding either Ashton himself, or at least those vials, so Blackjack’s daughter didn’t die.

Yeah, I had a feeling this project was going to be harder than the other one.

Face covered by the ski mask but with the helmet hanging loosely from one hand, I tried to think. What did I know? Or at least, what could I be pretty sure of?

I was pretty sure that Ashton guy was still in the city. Mostly because what he took had to be useless for him personally. It was valuable only as a way of getting money out of Blackjack, or one of the other gangs. Unless I was really off, my guess was that he was going to lie low until it was clear they couldn’t find him in time, then find a way to start auctioning it off. He’d try to get money out of Blackjack, or out of one of the other gang leaders who wanted to take the vial to get control and concessions out of the man. Or just to fuck with him. Either way, it was only worthwhile to Ashton as something to sell. And the only people interested in buying it would be the ones here in this city. So he was probably hiding out somewhere within it.

But where? He had basically the entire city looking for him. Cops, heroes, villains, entire gangs were going to be roving the city, turning over every stone they could to find this guy. He wouldn’t be able to hide anywhere they could find out about. Every family member, every friend, they’d tear through every clue to drag him out. They’d be going through showing his picture at every motel, homeless shelter, bed and breakfast, taxi driver, bar, everywhere. And yet, despite all the people out scouring the city, apparently he was still safely hidden.

So how was he doing it? Why had no one been able to find him, even with what had to be incredibly intense motivation? And how was I going to do any better than they were?

I needed to think outside the box. I needed to figure out where to look that everyone else wasn’t already looking. Obviously, Ashton wasn’t stupid enough to stay somewhere he could easily be noticed. My guess was that, wherever he was, he hadn’t left for a long time. Probably since he stole the vials to begin with. He’d most likely set the place up far ahead of time, so he had food, water, everything he needed to stay holed up without venturing out to be recognized.

Also, I realized belatedly, he’d probably only ever gone there in disguise. There was too big of a chance of someone noticing a new person fitting his description. So, be it a wig and glasses or… or whatever, anyone around where he was staying had probably never seen the real him.

Right, unless I was wrong, this guy was holed up somewhere he wouldn’t have to come out of for a long time and was disguised so that no one around would recognize him.

How the hell was I supposed to work with that?

“You got any ideas, Pinky?” My question was addressed not to a cartoon mouse, but toward the blob of pink paint that I had sprayed out onto the nearby wall. Glancing to it, I waited until it was painfully clear that no answer was forthcoming. “Right, so you’re not ‘magically instill answers’ paint. Got it.” Scratch that off the list of possible powers the pink stuff could’ve been hiding.

“I guess I’ll have to do this myself then. Hmm.” Frowning behind the mask, I moved to the edge of the roof and looked down. I’d come to a place across the street from the bank in question, hoping it would give me some ideas to work with. But even looking at it now, I still wasn’t sure.

Unless… apartments. Right, so I could guess that he’d set up an apartment ahead of time, and that it was stocked with everything he needed. But I was also pretty sure that it would be somewhere within walking distance of the bank. Because he wouldn’t want to take his car there to be found, and there was no way he’d risk a cab or Uber driver remembering him. So he’d walk. Beyond that, he’d also probably want to change into his disguise on the way, rather than doing so at the bank where his disguise would be seen, or at the apartment where his real self would be seen. He’d want to leave the bank as his real self, change somewhere along the way, and show up at his hideout in his disguise. That made sense, right? Yeah, totally made sense.

So apartments within walking distance of the bank, preferably with a place he could stop and change at. Either a fast food or gas station bathroom, some other store, an alley, something. There were probably a few that fit that bill, depending on how far he’d want to walk. Not longer than ten to fifteen minutes or so, I was guessing, since he would want to get out of sight quick. But not much less or he’d be too close to the bank. He’d want a sweet middle ground where he felt safely distant from them, but close enough to get to and hide in time.

Okay, then step one in this plan that was slowly taking shape in my head was to identify potential apartments that could fit that bill.

With that in mind, I put the helmet on my head, adjusted it, and then took a few steps back. Taking a breath to brace myself, I ran forward, painted my legs purple, and leapt as high and far off the roof as I could before extending a hand to shoot a burst of red paint toward the antennae sticking off the edge of the next roof over. Using that to yank myself across the distance before disabling the red paint on my hand, I tucked myself into a flip to fall just under that antennae, landing on the roof on both feet before sprinting once more.

I was going apartment hunting.

******

Cripes, there were a lot of apartments in Detroit.

Yeah, a lot. Even narrowing it down the way I had still left more than I’d thought there would be. Being incredibly picky about it, I ended up with six strong possibilities. Six apartment complexes that were within the right distance, that seemed private and quiet enough, and generally fit the idea I’d had in my head. If none of those six panned out, I’d have to expand. But I’d start there.

To that end, I was crouched on the roof of yet another building (I was becoming very acquainted with roofs already), watching the nearest possibility. It was a small complex that amounted to four main buildings, all in a line, with dog paths between the first two and a pool between the others. There was a high fence all the way around the whole place, with a gated parking lot.

It was late enough that the windows of the main office were dark. They’d been closed up for a few hours by that point, the employees long gone aside from possibly a night manager, who didn’t work in the main office itself.

So the main office was clear. Exactly as I wanted. Looking around briefly to make sure I wasn’t being watched, I used a purple strength boost combined with a blue springboard to fling myself high into the air, then red-paint-yanked myself across the street and down toward the building in question. A shot of black made sure my landing would be silent, as I came down in a crouch.

Waiting there for a minute just to see if anyone had seen anything, I couldn’t hear any reactions. So I slid over to the far side of the roof, leaning over to carefully look through the window.

Nothing. It was dark aside from the light from the screen savers on a couple computer monitors. Which was just perfect for me. Aside from the fact that I was about to technically break into a place illegally. Yeah, I probably needed to work on that whole ‘hero’ thing. But this was important. Plus, I wouldn’t actually be stealing anything. Nor would I be really be breaking.

Nope, no breaking here. Instead, I boosted myself back up onto the roof and took a phone from my pocket. This one wasn’t mine, it was a pay-as-you-go phone I’d picked up from a gas station. I’d already taken it from the package and made sure it worked, and now I used it to look up the number of the after-hours office for this place. Dialing it in before lifting the front of my helmet and mask, I carefully moved the slider on my voice changer over to the first option.

“Yeah?” a male voice grumpily spoke up. “I mean, ahh, Four Pines Apartments, how can I help you?”

“Yes, hello,” I started. My voice sounded like an old woman. Mostly because I was pretty sure no one on the other end of the phone would have listened to either my regular voice or the one I used that sounded like a fourteen year old boy. “I think someone might’ve made a mistake at your office, young man.”

There was a brief pause before the guy replied, a little uncertainly. “Sorry, ma’am, if you have a problem with your bill, I’m sure you can–”

“Oh, no, no, no,” I interrupted. “This isn’t a complaint. I’m just calling to warn you that someone left the door to the main office open. My little Posey almost ran right in there after the squirrel. I shut the door so no one else would go rooting through your things, but it’s still there. The squirrel, that is.”

The man on the phone clearly had to take a second at that, realizing he wasn’t about to be sworn out by an angry tenant. “Oh–I–right, thank you, Miss…?”

“You’re quite welcome, young man. Have a good evening.”

With those words, I disconnected. There, that should do it. Laying on my stomach, I carefully watched the path leading up to the main door into the office.

I didn’t have to wait long. Within a couple minutes, I spotted a figure moving quickly along the sidewalk from one of the other buildings. Laying flat, my costume painted black, I watched as a man in his late twenties approached, grumbling to himself. Slowing as he approached, I heard the man mutter about people not locking the door, just as he went to open it.

“What…” There was a brief pause, then a jangle of keys as the man unlocked the door before carefully stepping inside. “Hello? Squirrel? Are there any squirrels in here?”

Leaning carefully over the edge of the roof, I peered down and watched. The man made his way into the office. As soon as he was through the door, I activated the black paint to silence myself, dropping behind him before quickly and carefully scooting through the doorway. There was a small lobby, with several private offices attached to it. The man was standing in the middle, looking around for the supposed squirrel. Quickly, I slipped to the right, through the open doorway of one of the offices to slip out of sight.

The man looked around a little bit more, but it was pretty half-hearted now that he’d found the door locked. I heard him talking to himself as he tried calling the number of the phone that had called him, but I’d already turned it off.

Finally, he gave up and stomped out, locking the door behind him. Once he was definitely gone, I straightened up and moved to the nearby computer.

Password locked. And no convenient password written down anywhere. Damn. But there were still several more computers. I moved quickly to the next office.

They were apparently pretty security conscious here, at least as far as computers went. Or they were used to other employees trying to snoop on them. All the computers were locked, but I was able to find a password written on a post-it note inside one of the desk drawers of the last office. That opened the computer, and I went through the files, looking for resident information.

There it was. They had it in an Excel file, which I brought up and sorted by date, looking for anyone who had rented an apartment within the past six months. Ashton might’ve started this further back than that, but I was kind of doubting it.

Once I had that list of nine possibilities, I looked at other criteria. Anyone with more than one person living there was immediately dismissed. I also looked at birthdates, mentally crossing out anyone who was definitely too old to be Ashton in a simple disguise.

Doing all that left three possibilities. Three different apartments. Noting where they were on the handy map posted on the wall, I turned everything back off, then carefully opened a nearby window and slipped out to climb back on the roof. Three apartments to play peeping tom at, just to see if any of the people in there looked like they could be Ashton.

They didn’t. One was a black guy, and the other two were Hispanic. None were white, and none looked anything like the picture I’d looked up of the man I was looking for. While he could have been in disguise even in the confines of his safe apartment, I kind of doubted it. And it wouldn’t have been that much of a disguise.

So, unless I’d missed something, these apartments were a bust. But that still left another five possibilities to check.

Yeah, it was gonna be a long night.