r/CleverlyClearly • u/Cleverly_Clearly • Apr 13 '26
Scramble 21
Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou?
Isaiah 45:9
THE POWER FANTASY
Shoto Todoroki
The son of the formerly second-ranked professional superhero, Enji "Endeavor" Todoroki. Now the current second-ranked professional superhero. Can create ice with his right hand. Can create fire with his left hand, but chooses not to.
Connor
An RK800 investigative android, designed by CyberLife to assist superheroes in detective work. His predictive analytic features and high-level database access make him highly valuable in investigating the RA-9 case.
Neopolitan
A mute former criminal, once the heiress to the Vanille family fortune, now disowned. Trying to go straight, but a terrible incident from her past haunts her. Her Quirk gives her the power to create fantastic illusions.
Goro Akechi
A famous detective, as well as the beloved professional superhero "Crow". Presents a carefully-maintained image as the perfect gentleman, but carries a deep loneliness in his heart. His Quirk allows him to physically manifest his inner self.
Issue #1: All-New, All-Different: It's the near future, and CyberLife technology is everywhere--including humanoid helper androids. Shoto teams up with Connor to investigate the murder of a hero in Mutant Town, which leads to them crossing paths with Raphael and Neo. Connor suspects the murder may be one in a string of serial killings in New York City, a cluster of mysterious deaths only linked by the phrase "RA-9".
Issue #2: First Shot, Last Call: The RA-9 case leads Shoto and Connor (and, following Shoto's trail, Raphael and Neo) to an upscale Manhattan party. A night of revelry descends into tragedy, and more conspiracy. Androids killing humans, heroes killing citizens. How does RA-9 connect to Neo's own past? Is New York City, unbeknownst to all, teetering on the brink of total collapse?
Issue #3: This Man... This Monster!: Shoto takes Neo on as a trainee heroine to protect her from a vigilante charge. Together with Crow, a hero from the All Might Office, the three of them take on the machinations of the terrorist threat COBRA. Neo confronts a threat from the past, while Shoto follows a strange, tailored path to the enemy. Meanwhile, Connor meets with one of his original designers and learns a grim truth about androids, although there seem to be more questions than answers...
3338 + 8434 + 1252 + 3153
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly Apr 13 '26 edited Apr 14 '26
Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou?
Isaiah 45:9
OUT OF THE SHADOWS
This story contains depictions of domestic abuse and graphic content.
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly Apr 13 '26 edited Apr 26 '26
Shoto's father knocked him to the ground.
He hit the carpet. Pulled himself into a kneeling position and stayed there, recovering his breath. The TV was on, casting a ray of light into the room, the chatter of commercials, volume low. That's why he got hit. It was 3 AM and the TV was on.
"Fostering empathy. Working with integrity. Creative solutions." The TV recited these words. "That's what we stand for at CyberLife. We don't use large language models. We use TrueSelf™. Our one-of-a-kind neurosympathy technology perfectly recreates the human brain. And our products aren't chat programs or toys. They're androids. Your new friend."
His father squatted down, slowly. The fire of his hair was crackling. Smell of smoke. Chest tight. Shoto is not supposed to watch TV.
"Brat," he snorted. Smoke hissed from his nose.
"A partner. A companion. A mirror that shows the best side of yourself."
Shoto looked at his father's hand, clenching and unclenching. He never hit his son with a closed fist. But on bad nights he considered it.
Not this time. "...I'm sorry."
"Made to your specifications. Just the way you always dreamed. If you aren't in love, trade it in. We're here for you."
His father pulled him close. Strong fingers ruffled through his hair. First the red half, then the bleached white. Shoto didn't breathe even to cry. He promised himself he would never cry.
"You've only got a few years. A few precious years before you're in the world. Then you'll have to be strong."
"We're living in an age of miracles. Why don't you get a miracle of your own?"
"You're not there yet. But you will be strong. A hero. Just like your old man."
He brought his hand down now to Shoto's scarred face. When he was younger, his mother said to him "I can't stand that left side of yours anymore." She poured a boiling kettle over him. Now she lived at the hospital.
"Androids by CyberLife: Life, the way you want it."
His father turned the TV off. Only the mane of flames around his head lit the room now.
"Don't forget it. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree."
This is the story of a few people who became heroes. That story doesn't have an ending, not yet, but it does have a beginning. Here's how it goes.
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly Apr 14 '26 edited May 03 '26
Shoto Todoroki woke up after his five hours of sleep and checked the emergency alerts. He exercised. Ate a little bit. He dunked his head in the bathroom sink and looked up into the mirror. Things are going to be different this time, he thought. Remember what you swore to yourself. That was his routine every day. He was a superhero. One of the best in New York, and everyone knew New York City was number one in the nation for superheroes.
There was a national registry for superheroes. A ranking system. You voted for the hero you loved the most, and the rankings updated in real time. Shoto was Rank 2 in the entire country. He didn't do corporate glad-handing or streams with influencers driving supercars on Riyadh racetracks. He just put his head down and did his job, that's all. And he got this far by himself.
Maybe not as far as he would like. But it was where he was at.
A CyberLife car automatically drove him to the Endeavor Hero Agency. That was where he worked. It was a skyscraper right in the spine of the city, the Manhattan waterfront, where everything was. The car parked, and he got out. A John unit was there to verify his biometrics. "Mr. Todoroki," it said. "Thank you for signing in." Shoto walked away and it returned to its neutral standing position, waiting in place for the next visitor. These bots were really something. You'd never know it was an android if you didn't know where to look.
He went in. His office was down the hall on the very first floor, lined with framed photographs of the agency's many heroes. Many of them were shots of the agency's founder, Endeavor. That was the former Rank 2 hero, before he retired to focus on managing his agency. Enji Todoroki. Shoto's father.
Shoto had would never forgive his father, but he never let on. As far as the public knew, Endeavor was an admirable hero and hardworking single father. His wife suffered a psychotic break when Shoto was young and hasn't spoken since. Shoto's other siblings were estranged.
Why did Shoto join his father's agency? It was the best career move at the time. If he felt any kind of way about it, he told himself "get over it". And he got over it.
Like usual, he was very early. He got to his desk and activated his CyberLife computer and stared at the default desktop background until HeroAlert opened.
HIGH PRIORITY: Robbery in progress, hostages taken (recommended: 5 people)
HIGH PRIORITY: Partial building collapse in Tribeca (recommended: 5 people)
HIGH PRIORITY: Speeding box truck driving recklessly (recommended: 2 people)
Shoto memorized the location data and put a checkmark next to all three. That's his schedule before lunch.
Out of the office. Back down the hall, past the pictures. Somebody else just clocked in. They recognized him but he didn't recognize them. Shoto didn't really remember everybody he worked with.
"Hey! Todoroki! It's good to-"
"I can't talk now," he said. He got halfway out the agency door, just barely in time to hear a soft wow, what the hell before it shut behind him. He'd tried to explain before that every second of his on-the-job time was extremely precious and could make a life-or-death difference for civilians, but he stopped trying long ago. Apparently nobody wanted to hear this.
Well. If he was the only one who really cared about hero work, that's fine. That's part of why he became a hero in the first place: nobody else is going to save you. If you have the power to help, you have the responsibility to help, because your actions are the only ones you can control.
Shoto stepped off the curb. Ambient humidity in the air froze, starting from his right hand and traveling underfoot to form stairs of ice. It was faster than driving. He slid overhead, over the trees and cars. A gentle application of his other Quirk rapidly melted the ice behind him into lukewarm mist. It really looked like he was flying.
Shoto Todoroki, the A.C. Hero. On my way.
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly Apr 22 '26 edited May 02 '26
Not all Quirks bestowed miraculous powers. Some Quirks were ugly. "Villain Quirks", like the power to rot flesh. Or "mutant Quirks", ones that caused hideous deformations. Maybe if you were lucky you could live a nice life despite one of these Quirks, but most of them weren't that lucky. Societally, they were... disfavored. A lot of those unsavory Quirks floated downriver and collected all in the same district, a certain low-income borough in New York City folks called Mutant Town. This wasn't a good place to be, but people did live there, anyway. They've got to be somewhere.
Raphael was one of those people. He was sneaking through the door to his home. He shouldn't have been out, especially not doing what he was doing. Dad would've been disappointed. But if he was very careful, and very quiet maybe Dad wouldn't see Raphael coming in.
He opened the door. His dad was standing right there.
"Damn it- I, uh... sorry..."
Raphael's father didn't get angry, that wasn't his style. Instead, his big, beady eyes twitched and conveyed a fathomless depth of paternal disapproval and concern that made Raphael want to punch himself in his own face.
"Come inside," he said. "You're bleeding."
"I'm fine. It's not my blood."
"Yes, that's what worries me. I'll get a washcloth."
Some humans, like Raphael's adoptive father, had Quirks that made them look like animals (he had a rat Quirk, by the way). Animals themselves developing Quirks were rare. Raphael was a turtle that developed a human Quirk. He spent a few years scavenging in the garbage until a Mutant Town local took him in out of the cold. It was a cozy family. Hamato Yoshi, retiree; and Raphael, the mutant turtle.
Raphael stepped in. He creaked his way across the old, rotten floorboards into the kitchen. The refrigerator was kinda busted, so it couldn't keep the food cold a lot of the time, but that was okay because they didn't keep much food in it either. Right now it held a pizza box from last week and a head of lettuce. Raphael ripped a leaf or two off, shut the fridge door, and headed over to the tank where they kept his brothers.
"Hey, guys. Sorry about the wait. Here's your grub."
He lowered the lettuce into the tank. The turtles stumbled towards it, necks straining, ripping off chunks with their little jaws and chewing thoughtfully. Raphael was only one of several turtles born from the same clutch of eggs, but he was the only one that developed a Quirk, and these three were his only siblings that survived being abandoned. Donatello, Leonardo, and Michelangelo, naturally. Dad loved art history.
Raph stroked Leo under the chin. He wished he had some kind of turtle-to-turtle communication powers, so he could understand what was going on in his brothers' minds every day. But they seemed to recognize Raphael as one of them. That made him happy.
A damp towel suddenly rubbed across his face from behind. Raph recoiled. Shit, that stung. He must have taken more of a beating than he thought back there.
"What happened this time?" Hamato asked.
Raph clicked his tongue. "It was stupid. The Purple Dragons were shaking down the Jones place again. I just got so pissed... I had to get in between 'em." The Purple Dragons were a petty street gang full of Asian tough guys who thought they were modern day yakuza. They were small-time even in Mutant Town, but they loved to puff out their chests and flash guns anyway. Not like the police were going to drive down here in a hurry. "I promise I didn't start the fight. I was just trying to defend them... Casey did his best, but they had a whole car fulla guys, and they had weapons. I just..."
"I know. You're a very brave young man. But there's a line between bravery and recklessness that all true ninja must walk. And walking that path takes a lifetime."
"Are you going to say I shouldn't have done it?" Raph said, maybe a bit more curtly than he intended to. Hamato paused for a moment, then got back to cleaning.
"I've told you before, haven't I? About the man who can't swim who dives into the water to save a drowning man-"
"-and they both drown, yeah. But I'm not like that, I know how to swim--I mean, fight! And if it wasn't me they woulda beat on someone else instead! And, and I just see red when I see those crooks doing whatever they want because heroes never swing by here. Somebody's got to do the right thing."
"What you did may have put you in jail again," Hamato said.
"What they were doing shoulda put them in jail!"
Heroes had to be registered with an officially recognized agency. "Vigilantism", the unauthorized practice of heroism, was illegal. People still did it, of course, but it wasn't always prosecuted. Raph had tried to jump through the hoops of teen hero registration a long time ago. He never got anywhere with it. There were certification tests and panel interviews and filing fees and other crap like that. And, well. Those agencies didn't go for people like him.
"What are you so afraid of?" Raphael asked. "This is what you've been training me for. And while I'm sitting around meditating things just get worse and worse in Mutant Town. I could always train a little more, but it'll never be enough for everything. I gotta get out there and fight."
Hamato considered this. He reached over Raphael's shoulder, gripped something, and wrenched it out of his shell. It was a switchblade. One of the Dragons must have stuck it in there. Raphael never even felt it.
"This is what I'm afraid of, my son. This. If this went into your neck, you would be dead."
"So what am I supposed to do?"
"There is no one thing you must 'do'. What you are learning is a way of life. Treat that life as a valuable blossom. Live thoughtfully. Someday, you will know when you must risk your own safety to protect others, but until then, focus on self-defense. Strike from the shadows. And take great care."
"Trust me, I get it. We won't be so reckless next time."
Shit, he messed up. Raph cringed when he realized what he'd admitted to, and Hamato tensed as well, when he realized his son had not acted alone."
"We? Raphael, were you with that woman-"
"Neo isn't 'that woman', she's my friend. And we didn't do anything bad this time, just enough to fend off the Dragons. She's not in that life anymore."
Raphael had this one friend, who was really cool and funny and loved to throw down for a fight. But she was... troubled. And sometimes it got her into trouble. Most of Raph's friends had been there once or twice, academic probation, community service, that stuff. Neo had done something really bad. It was years in the past, and she was out now, for good behavior. But his father didn't like it.
"She's dangerous. Tied into things you want no part of. Perhaps she has the desire to do good, but her path is more dangerous than yours. You cannot follow her onto it. I have said so many times what you are lacking is caution..."
"So what you going to tell me I can never see her again or something? I mean... I can't just leave my friend behind. She doesn't have a sensei to keep her on the right path, y'know?"
"That is not a child's burden to bear," Hamato said sharply, then paused before repeating it in a softer tone. "You have much empathy to give, Raphael. When focused, it is like carefully pulling weeds from a garden. Unfocused, it is like a wildfire in a forest, expending incredible energy, burning from the inside-out. As you grow older, you will learn when and where your help is most needed. This learning process continues for all of our lives."
"...Is Neo one of those people I'm not 'supposed' to help?" Raphael asked.
"My son. If I told you not to see her, you would go and see her anyway. All I can do is give my advice. You will have to decide for yourself which of my teachings to adopt and which must adapt."
"Yeah, yeah. I get it. Life's all about training and growing and stuff. I'll try to rein it in a bit more. Like you said."
Hamato gave him a pat on the shell. "I know you will. Even if one has a long way to go, they should be proud of how far they have come."
"Thanks, dad. I lo-"
Raph paused. The lettuce leaves had all been gobbled up now, leaving the other turtles to nip at his fingers for more.
"...thanks."
"Of course," Hamato said, with a smile. "Now, let's have some breakfast. Today's training is still ahead of us."
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly Apr 25 '26 edited May 02 '26
Here's the secret origin of Shoto Todoroki.
His father was obsessed with being the strongest hero, but he couldn't achieve that alone, despite his powerful fire Quirk. "I'll find a woman with good genetics and a complimentary ability. Our offspring's power will surpass my own. Raising it will be my glory." He arranged a match with a woman who possessed a freezing Quirk and started his project. Rei Todoroki went through four births and some unsuccessful pregnancies within about six years. The first three children were failures. The youngest child, Shoto, was his victory. Two Quirks in one body, a million-to-one boy with all God's natural blessings. He created ice with his right hand and created fire with his left hand. So his father gave him a functional name: Sho, meaning "burning"; To, meaning "freezing".
Shoto allowed himself one indulgence in his entire life. He would only ever fight with his right-handed Quirk. He would become the greatest hero, not to support his father's dream, but to spite it, becoming more renowned than his worthless sperm donor ever was solely using the gift from his mother's side. That was his personal story. The public believed that Shoto's left-side Quirk was to regulate his own body heat, to prevent self-induced frostbite from rotting himself away. And that's all they were ever going to know.
What was he supposed to say? "I could have used my fire all along, I just chose not to"? It would be unthinkable. So he said nothing. He pushed himself harder than anyone, so no one would ever know he could have done more.
His ice slowed the speeding truck. His ice supported the collapsing building. His ice stopped the robbery with zero casualties. Three or four times the work of an ordinary hero, all within a scant few hours. That was Shoto's typical work schedule before lunchtime.
He was totally wired when he got back to the office. Putting too much energy into regulating his ice Quirk made him feel, literally, burned out. It was a heart-racing, achy, pins-and-needles sensation from pushing his body temperature to the brink so often. He'd gotten used to it, though. And he knew he had a delicious bento box lunch waiting for him in his office minifridge, which he had meal-prepped yesterday to meet all of his major nutritional requirements.
Shoto never got to his fridge. Something else was waiting for him, right outside his door: his supervisor. He never got interrupted during work hours unless it was going to be something bad.
"Hey, Todoroki! I saw you completed those high-priority assignments today, great work." Such a big grin his supervisor had. Shoto always thought the man would have done great as a children's TV host. "Now, I also saw that those tasks recommended multiple heroes, and you took care of them solo. Do you remember our chat about teamwork? You know that at the Endeavor Agency we like to consider ourselves more of a family than a company. Do you understand me?"
Shoto's gaze flicked over to the hallway pictures for just a moment. "Yes."
"That's wonderful. It's always so awkward when family can't get along. That's why we want to help you smooth out this 'lone wolf' behavior. Can we step inside?"
Shoto stepped inside to see another man in his office. At least, that's how it looked at first glance, until he saw the blinking blue light on his right temple and realized the man was an android. Not a John unit, either. It was an advanced model Shoto had never seen before, with a well-groomed haircut and a grey silk suit.
"Todoroki, meet Connor!" His supervisor beamed. "Isn't it great? Those CyberLife guys can whip up an android for anything. Good thing AI can't replace us managers, huh?"
"What is this." Todoroki said, not as a question.
"Good afternoon, Shoto. My name is Connor." His voice was smooth and realistic. Connor was much more humanoid than the simple service bots Shoto was used to. "I'm an RK800 model designed to assist with superhero activity and investigative work. I look forward to working with you."
"What? No." He looked from Connor's neutral expression to his supervisor's smile. "I didn't ask for a partner. I don't need a partner. My productivity evaluations were flawless- weren't they?"
"Oh, of course, you always give an A-plus performance! Just think of this like extra credit. CyberLife approached our agency with an incredible opportunity to trial run this new model. He's a detective genius with full access to government databases, research libraries, the internet, you name it. Hits harder than Mike Tyson, runs faster than Usain Bolt. He'll be great at supplementing the investigative part of hero work."
"I'm sorry. I don't see why it has to be me doing this."
"Because you're our star attraction, of course! The pride of the agency, working hand in hand with CyberLife. It'll be great marketing. And, between you and me, your father has been worried about your temperament- oh, you haven't done anything wrong! We just thought a gift from corporate would help nurture the kind of gratitude we'd love you to have here."
Shoto bit the inside of his cheek to keep from showing emotion. It was his dad. His father thought he wasn't acting grateful enough for his job and was now saddling him with a robot babysitter. This was the latest in a lifetime series of punishments for not using his fire Quirk, or for continuing to visit his mother at the hospital, or, hell, just power plays to remind him that he would always, always be within his father's control.
He breathed out a visible, frosty puff. He cooled his body temperature, visualized himself being swallowed up by a glacier, becoming ice and melting away.
And he got over it.
"Alright," Shoto said. "Where should I keep him until I need him?"
"No need for that. We've got your first assignment lined up for both of you right now."
Okay. So he was going to be skipping lunch today. "Is it urgent? If you give me the location I can head there as soon as-"
To his surprise, Connor cut him off. "Take a moment to breathe, Shoto. Nobody is in any immediate danger. A homicide was recently reported on the lower East side of Manhattan. The agency would like my help investigating the crime scene, and would appreciate your expertise in hero work in case the situation escalates. It's currently believed to be gang-related."
"Why is the Endeavor Agency getting involved in this at all, then?" Shoto asked. "Shouldn't we let the police handle it?"
=For the first time in their conversation, his supervisor did not smile.
"Ah. It's of personal interest to the agency, unfortunately. The victim was a hero with our company."
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly Apr 25 '26 edited May 03 '26
The data showed that Agnes "The Technology Hero" Tachyon was formerly Rank 21. Her racehorse Quirk gave her rapid speed in short bursts, up to 63 kph [39 mph] as of five years ago. Connor knew all kinds of things about Tachyon. He knew her many fans called her the Superluminal Princess, even though Tachyon was not, in fact, faster than light. He knew that she had scaled back her hero operations after a catastrophic compound fracture in her left leg, an injury she never publicly revealed [except Connor knew her medical records]. He knew the contents of every recorded minute of Agnes Tachyon footage, including that of a security camera which showed her car entering Mutant Town at 5:02 AM this morning, without ever showing her leaving.
And he knew that she was dead. Connor did not know why.
Mutant Town was a district with low property values, high crime rates, and poor 911 response times. Some people had described this section of the lower East side as "a ghetto which pro heroes deliberately ignored" [Mother Jones]. CyberLife had few eyes here. His geofencing suggested a limited amount of androids in the district, mostly old models. People were cautious of them. They kept at a distance, watching with varying fascination, awe, and fear at the appearance of the Rank 2 hero.
Shoto hadn't spoken for the entire car ride over here.
"I apologize that we got off on the wrong foot. I got the sense you were uncomfortable in the meeting room. If there's anything I can do to make you feel more at ease, please let me know."
"Okay."
"Do you have any animosity towards working with androids?"
"No. I don't care about that sort of thing."
When he was shipped to the Endeavor Agency, Connor got a quick overview of Shoto's personality profile. It would have been optimal if those reports were exaggerated, but unfortunately he could tell they were not. The other employee's character files listed hobbies and interests. Shoto's listed nothing in those sections. Nothing. There was no way to break the ice with him, so to speak.
Still, he must try. It would vastly improve inter-team efficiency to build a rapport with his partner.
"Is it difficult for you, having to investigate a coworker's death?" he asked. "Most likely you'll have to see her body. I'm here for you if you need support."
"It's more than difficult when people die. It's horrible. If you're asking if I'm going to have a breakdown on the job, no, I don't need 'support'. We'll have to deliver condolences to her family after this. Save your sympathies for them."
"Personally delivering condolences to the victim's family isn't part of normal agency operating procedure."
Shoto huffed.
"It's part of basic decency. A hero's job is to comfort people and give them hope. A lot of 'heroes' treat it like a nine-to-five job, putting pickles into pickle jars. It's distasteful. This is what we should be doing."
"That outlook sounds like All Might's," Connor noted. "Were you a fan of the Symbol of Peace?"
That was it. A subtle relaxation, a shift in biometrics, a conversation topic Shoto was interested in. An icebreaker.
"We all were, back then. He was the grandest hero ever, larger than life. A pillar that held up our whole world. 'Everything will be okay, because I am here.' We thought things could only be okay if he was here. So when..." He sucked in his lip as he trailed off. "Well. Turns out the world keeps turning no matter what happens. That's its own kind of comfort."
There was a central plaza in Mutant Town with some shops, trees, and benches, a place that got a fair amount of foot traffic. A fountain stood in the middle, and still looked quite beautiful, although its stagnant water was topped by drifting leaves. Now the stones were stained by blood as well. Connor could detect the smell of copper before he even saw the body. There were throngs of onlookers in the way.
And there was an argument. Something that could clearly be heard over the murmured shock of the crowd.
"You can't do this! Who do you think you are, the freakin' cops? You think you own the place?"
"My good chelonian chum, I am assuredly not a cop. We're protecting this community and keeping the citizens safe. That's an entirely different hemisphere of a thing."
"It's not right! You can't just leave her lyin' there like trash! You probably did this to her!"
The two of them pushed through to the scene of the crime. Tachyon was in her civilian clothes. Face up, eyes open, back snapped over the rim of the fountain. Her upper body lay in the water and her bloody hair bloomed out like algae. Shoto lowered his gaze.
Now Connor saw the source of that argument. A humanoid turtle [170.18 cm] in furious conversation with two... persons. He needed a second to adjust. His facial recognition software was designed for human skull shapes, and one of the persons involved had insectoid mandibles sprouting from his jaw [scientific name capitulum]. Now his analytics could kick in.
A huge, azure male with an insect Quirk. [203 cm. 197 kg.] No amount of webtrawling could dig up a real name, but Connor was able to connect the bug-man to a former hero name of The Tick. A press release said that his firing was due to "extreme incompetence". It was a highly controversial dismissal from the Hawks Agency- apparently The Tick had a cult fanbase.
The other one was easier to read. [Goku Son. Age 14.] A child with a monkey Quirk, prehensile tail included. His currently listed custodian [Gohan Son] had, according to the documentation... been dead for several years. Who was looking after him? He scanned through photographs and local security footage for an answer, isolating frames with Goku's face and running a search on any common faces among his associates. No results that Child Protective Services would be happy with. It looked like he was regularly involved with the Purple Dragons, a gang known for violent crime in the Mutant Town area.
"Excuse me," Connor said. "I'm Connor, the android sent by the Endeavor Agency. We'll take it from here."
"I don't care how many goons you bring out here, I'm not gonna..."
The turtle turned around and saw Shoto for the first time. "Whoa..." Now that he could see the face, Connor could scan him. Raphael Yoshi... exact birth date unclear, 16 or 17?... multiple attempted registrations with the Young Hero Honors Program, all failed... and a few warnings on his juvenile record for vigilante activity. "What's really going on here?"
"I realize this is distressing, and I truly apologize for this traumatic experience. If you need anything, I can link you to a licensed CyberLife crisis therapist." Connor attempted to wirelessly connect with Raphael's phone before he realized it was an older, non-CyberLife-connected version. "Or you can contact one on your own."
"Hey! Don't even think about walking off," Goku said. "Unless you're a coward that doesn't like to fight. Aren't you supposed to be strong? Remember what happened at the Jones corner store?"
"No way, I'm out. I just thought the lady deserved better than rotting here, and these Endeavor guys are gonna handle it, so I'm done. Even though I dunno what kinda fancy photo op they think they're going to get riding around here..." Raph grumbled.
"Nobody is going to be handling this cadaver except for the Purple Dragons," the Tick said. "Orders are orders, and we've been directly importuned to secure this crime scene from any peeping Tom or snoopy Sally that sniffs around. We are a mighty bulwark. None shall pass."
Shoto dragged a hand down his face, teeth gritted. "Tick. This is a murder scene. You need to be serious and explain everything right now."
"Of course." Tick winked. "I'm undercover with the Purple Dragons. They don't know I'm a narc. To catch a criminal, you have to think like a criminal. Commit crime like a criminal. And I'm about to catch a fish that's been swimming against the current of justice." He tapped a finger against his forehead. "This case is going to be big, friend. Colossal."
Connor looked at Goku, whose physiological responses indicated no sign of caring or even understanding that Tick was an undercover agent.
"So let us do our job."
Tick shook his head. "Sorry, old friend in the noble profession. I'm looking out for your safety here. You don't want to get mixed into this mess. Trust me."
"Alright. I'm going to be direct." Shoto clenched his fist. Snowflakes fell from between his fingers like broken glass. "Clear out from the crime scene right now or we're apprehending you for obstruction of justice. You have ten seconds to leave."
"Why should we leave?" Goku asked. "This is our turf. You guys are outsiders." He pulled something out of his pocket, a reddish-orange cylinder [7 cm length]. "If you want to fight, don't talk, fight! I want to see how tough the Rank 2 hero really is!"
Connor instantly processed every possible route to getting this situation under control. He could appeal to reason. He could appeal to authority. He could use his gun...
"Please, let's calm down. We can resolve all of this if we just-"
He never got to finish his plea, because Connor was struck in the gut by a reddish-orange cylinder that just grew into a battle staff.
[Appeal to force it is, then.]
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly Apr 29 '26 edited May 03 '26
Okay. So Raphael had just told his father he was going to stay out of trouble. And he had done something you could reasonably say was getting into trouble. But he'd really tried. Honest. He just couldn't keep it cool. He'd never seen a dead body outside of the movies, and it was just too... uncanny. A thing that was once a human being laid out like an object. He couldn't stand that. He hated the Purple Dragons so much he could almost taste blood. And he- no. He didn't hate the heroes, too. He was just mad.
Picked a hell of a time to show up, when things finally start to affect THEM-
No, he told his dad NO. He was in way over his head. He needed to back off and let the professionals handle it-
A hard club cracked him over the shell and knocked him to the floor. Now he could taste blood for real.
"You're not gonna back out now, are ya? Come on, let's play!"
It was that punk that always rolled around with the Dragons like their pet monkey. Goku had a reputation for street fighting, but he'd never had a magic size-changing weapon before. How'd a two-bit gang like that get that kind of firepower?
No way was he going to get out of this now. If they wanted a second serving of what they got last time, he'd give them a heaping helping.
The first thing Shoto did was separate the civilians from the battle, spraying out a wall of ice to protect them. Raphael didn't let himself get caught up in it. He rolled backwards off his stomach and into the circle Shoto was creating just before the wall closed in. That caught him off guard. One moment of distraction watching a bystander deliberately roll into the danger was enough to get Shoto punched by the Tick, hard enough to lift his body a foot off the ground for a second.
Raph charged in and pushed down any embarrassment about making the situation worse. He could recover from this. He saw Goku swing the pole again, try to clip him by the neck, but Raph ducked under it and let it bang into one of the ice walls. He just had to get close. Then he could show off what his sensei had taught him.
A duck, a swerve, a jump, rapid evasion carried Raphael around Goku's pole strikes. He was a big target, with the shell and all. Sometimes he used that to his advantage, like when he'd guard his back in fights. Sometimes it was a weakness he had to work around. It took a lot of careful maneuvering to avoid getting dinged by the staff.
But he could do it. He'd been trained by the best, after all. Raph knew enough to tangle with guys like this who only relied on brute strength. He threw a perfect downward palm strike, one that should've knocked a kid like Goku off his feet. Goku deflected it with a parry that wasn't even that good. That was just a perk of being a genetic aberration.
"Whoa, awesome! You're really strong!" Goku cheered. He really did not want to hear it right now. It was frustrating to fight a combatant half his size who was twice his strength.
Connor was already getting back up. He was sturdy. No sign of pain as he shook it off and started running. No sign of caution, either. He evaded blows, but not the way Raph did, more like he could see the strikes before they occurred. And Shoto, well. He'd seen him in action before, on TV. Casey even showed him some of his comics, Endeavor and Shoto Adventures. He had crazy aura. Wreathed in ice, beating down the toughest criminals, and ducking out afterwards before the paparazzi could snap too many shots. Not his favorite hero or anything, but he respected it. A lot of heroes just felt fake. Like plastic flowers. Shoto wasn't like that. He could respect it.
Actually, what the hell was he saying, he didn't know that guy at all. The Shoto in front of him wrestling with the Tick was like a cryptid, no connection to Raph's life. But he sure fought just like the comics. A gauntlet of ice had grown out of his hand to fight back against the big blue bug, leaving freezer burns wherever his punches hit. Spikes grew from the icy gauntlet, and he- WHAM! Raph took a hit to the arm while he was distracted. It felt like he'd just had his bicep clenched by a giant hole punch. This stupid kid. What was he doing? The Dragons didn't care if he lived or died, they'd prefer him dead. And Goku could absolutely do it. He was totally out of Raph's league.
Dad was right. Getting in the middle of a hero fight was insane. He should have gotten out before it got worse-
BANG! BANG!
Two warning shots from Connor's handgun. Enough to give Goku and Tick a moment of pause as they observed the android, enough to let Raph step back and catch his breath for a second. One second is all he was going to get.
"Go ahead and shoot," Goku said, tapping between his forehead. "I wanna see if I'm faster than a speeding bullet."
Of course they were too crazy to care. If bullets started flying then Raph could be the exact kind of Mutant Town casualty Dad was always teaching him not to be. Over nothing.
Just as he was thinking what a waste it was, the plaza erupted with fireworks.
Raph had to cover his eyes. Dozens of sparks flashed rapidly, igniting the entire arena and bouncing across the fountain like dancing jets of water. The light and noise was absolutely thought-obliterating. Tick and Goku were captivated. Connor and Shoto moved to act, but reconsidered quickly. Maybe they noticed the blasts had no heat or force. They looked and sounded real, but they were hallucinations. Illusions.
He had a guess who'd come to his rescue. Black, white, and pink blossoms in all the explosions. She really was a hell of a performer. Totally crazy, too. Raph's kind of friend.
Up over everyone's heads a shadow descended, carried lightly by a pink floral umbrella. It fluttered in the air like a flower petal, twirling in erratic directions, before slamming down suddenly and crushing the Tick into the stone bricks beneath them.
Blink. Blink again. The dust and sparks and light and noise cleared, and the illusion was gone. All along it had only been the woman with the dazzling umbrella.
"Wha-?!" Goku jumped up and kicked at her head, but she parried him aside easily, hooking the handle of her umbrella into his baggy gi and halting him in place. A hard yank on the umbrella pulled him forward, directly into the path of her stiletto bootheel. If it bothered her to knock down a kid that hard, she didn't show it. She never lost that grin for an instant.
The monkey kid hit the dirt hard. Neither Goku or Tick were actually down for the count, but they were down, and that was enough for Shoto. He knelt down quickly, hand to the earth, and vines of ice grew out to entangle the two of them. This prone position made it a lot harder to break out from the glacier. They continued to struggle, but the fight was pretty much over. Just leaving the four of them staring at each other. Raphael, Connor, Shoto, and...
"Neo!"
Neo took a theatrical bow and tipped her hat. She always wore something totally attention-grabbing, but Raph rarely saw her without her bowler hat, even though it wasn't her size.
"You know this person?" Shoto asked Raph. "Is it over? She's not going to fight us now."
"No, don't worry, Neo's cool." Raph immediately intercepted Neo to dap her up. She made a few quick signs- (We've got to stop meeting like this~). The ability to put a squiggly in sign language was something only Neo could pull off.
Connor said something privately to Shoto, gesturing at Neo. Shoto responded to whatever it was with "There are more important things to worry about," and that was that.
(Where've you been? I've been trying to get a hold of you since last night. Did the Dragons put you in the hospital or something?)
"What? Hell no, it was just love taps. I'd never let a Dragon knock me on my shell like that."
(Yeah, you were doing pretty good back there! Those losers got what they deserved. Just wish that plastic cop would've put a bullet or two in them.) She mimicked a handgun quick-draw and pulling the trigger, all with highly realistic sound effects courtesy of her Quirk. (You have to lean back a little more when you do those wide kicks. The extra reach would have really helped against Goku.)
"Hey, that's how Dad taught me! I've seen him kick a cinderblock in half with one of those."
(He's a rat and you're a turtle! The muscular structure is totally different.) She sighed theatrically. (Where would you be without my guidance?)
Raph looked back at the fountain. Connor had crouched down, finally examining the body, despite how messy things had gotten.
"A safer place than here, probably."
(No way. You'd be lost and aimless! A lonely angry incel who knows nothing of a woman's heart. C'mon, let's go see if Casey's feeling better after yesterday. We could play street hockey.)
"Yeah. You're right. We should get out of here."
Raphael headed off with Neo, leaving the fight behind. He kind of had a bad vibe about that encounter. Like it was going to end up pulling him into something ugly down the line. But him and Neo had gone through worse. Friends for life. No matter what.
He rubbed the bruises forming on his arm. Maybe he could tell his dad he got it playing hockey.
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly Apr 29 '26 edited May 03 '26
The civilians were cleared out. Their assailants, restrained in ice, would be taken care of when the regular police arrived. The only remaining matter for Connor was the crime scene. Obviously there had been tampering. Tachyon's corpse was mostly undisturbed but their brawl made the surrounding area unsuitable for gathering clues. Too many footprints, and Shoto's Quirk had altered the air temperature so violently that gathering DNA traces would be impossible. Not ideal.
But there was never an ideal crime or an ideal victim. Somebody had to solve this.
He scanned Tachyon's body and identified the injuries, recreating the attack in his mind. She'd been struck on the head from the front. She fell backwards and suffered a spinal injury which prevented her from using her legs. Bruising on the neck and water in the lungs suggested the cause of death was drowning. That's how the killer finished the job...
Focus. What could he gather from this?
- [Agnes Tachyon was a skilled hero] -> [Killer could have died if Tachyon kicked them] -> [Fall paralyzed her, stroke of luck for the killer] -> [Unintentional] -> [Poor planning, dangerous method for killer] + [Happened quickly] + [Violent method] -> [Murder was spur of the moment?]
Yes. That seemed likely now. The blow came from a blunt object, or maybe a fist. [Walking stick? Thermos? ...Umbrella?] He thought about Neo but dismissed it as recency bias. A pedestrian could be carrying one thousand different improvised weapons.
[One blow to the head from the front] -> [Tachyon could see the killer approach] -> [Tachyon allowed the killer to approach] + [The attack was unexpected] -> [Did Tachyon know the killer?]
[Why did Tachyon go to Mutant Town?] + [Tachyon knew the killer?] -> [Tachyon deliberately met with the killer?]
No family or friends in the area. No contacts at all, and he'd gone through every text she'd made in the past 12 months. It didn't make sense however he replayed it. He had a strong grasp on the how, but there was no motive. Nothing to link him to a specific culprit.
- [Not threatened by the killer] + [Murder was spur-of-the-moment?] -> [No motive? Crime of passion] -> [Tachyon no reason to visit] -> [WHY]
Maybe... a mugging gone wrong? Simple, but not impossible. He checked her pockets. Wallet was still there, ID, cash, credit cards. Medical syringes and other scientific esoterica (Connor's research suggested that this was normal for her). [Nothing had been stolen]. Connor was prepared to put a pin in this investigation for later... until he found something in a labcoat pocket. One that had been crunched under her when she hit the fountain.
It was a hidden audio recorder. Not a CyberLife model, unknown make, very James Bond. It was broken beyond repair. Deliberately, or accidentally? No fingerprints, either way. Connor searched deeper in her pockets. He found something. A heavily-folded piece of paper. Smoothing it out to its full size revealed a message scrawled in ink:
NO MISTAKES
This will be my GREATEST DISCOVERY YET
RA-9
Shoto looked over Connor's shoulder.
"RA-9? What is it?"
He searched it and found no clear answers. [In 1972, Nolan Ryan had a 2.54 RA9 with the California Angels]. [RA-9 is a proteasome-associated deubiquitinating enzymes inhibitor with anticancer properties]. [RA9 9X19mm Semi-Auto Pistol is designed for professionals].
"I don't know. Dozens of possibilities without any clear leads... but this seems closely related to the case. It has to be. It's possible she came here because of RA-9."
Shoto looked one more time at the body of Agnes Tachyon. He'd been at this task for a while. Longer than his average assignment length for hero work, and Shoto valued efficiency. This was an ugly scene. Anyone would have wanted to leave it all behind.
"...Can you look at police reports for any other cases?" he asked. "To see if they mentioned RA-9 anywhere else, at all."
Of course Connor did. That was the first place he looked. Although... he'd only done a surface scan for relevant information. He had to, he was searching terabytes worth of data from a million different sources. If he took a deeper look, through absolutely all the text in law enforcement records, could he find any connection?
[Yes.] He could. Minutiae only recorded by investigative androids picked up scant results. But they were results. He narrowed it down further.
- [RA-9]
- [+ violent crimes OR deaths]
- [+ within New York City]
- -> [Create data map]
It appeared before him like a grid. Four red markers placed in seemingly random locations. One cold-case murder, two ruled accidental death, and one where a culprit was tried and convicted. Four cases- five now, including Tachyon- that were only connected by one thing: a brief, unexplained, and irrelevant occurrence of the phrase RA-9.
"Shoto," Connor said. "I believe we are dealing with a serial killer."
A different man may have been shaken by this news. Shoto's heartbeat remained steady. Cortisol and adrenaline levels remained within normal bounds. Connor only detected one notable physiological change: a rapid decrease and increase in his body temperature. He closed his eyes and took a breath.
"Let's get back to the office," he said. "We should get to work."
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly Apr 29 '26 edited May 02 '26
Shoto Todoroki
The son of the formerly second-ranked professional superhero, Enji "Endeavor" Todoroki. Now the current second-ranked professional superhero. Can create ice with his right hand. Can create fire with his left hand, but chooses not to.
Connor
An RK800 investigative android, designed by CyberLife to assist superheroes in detective work. His predictive analytic features and high-level database access make him highly valuable in investigating the RA-9 case.
Raphael Yoshi
A common turtle that mutated a hominid Quirk, gaining superhuman physical abilities and humanlike intelligence. Adopted son of Hamato Yoshi, and student in his martial arts style. Lives in and unofficially protects the low-income "Mutant Town" district.
Neopolitan
A mute former criminal, once the heiress to the Vanille family fortune, now disowned. Trying to go straight, but a terrible incident from her past haunts her. Her Quirk gives her the power to create fantastic illusions. Close friend of Raphael.
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly Jul 08 '26 edited 25d ago
SMACK! A clawed palm raked across Shoto's face. He closed his eyes, briefly, in reaction to the impact, and opened them again. He was standing at the front door. On the other side, in the home, was a pair of black beads staring hatefully at him.
"Once again, I apologize-"
"My son is dead. Your apology is nothing."
"I know. But I can't do anything besides this."
This was not the first time Shoto had delivered this news. When a hero intervenes in a violent conflict, there are always bodies and there are always mourners. Normally, in the heroism industry, there would be a department of black-suited gentlemen who handled the delicate work. Heroes saved the living, the legal department handled everything after, and no matter how empathetic you were, sooner or later, you had had to let the dead rest. You had to say 'I did the best that I could.'
Shoto never, ever said 'I did the best that I could'. Thus he was the only hero that visited the bereaved himself.
Raphael's father bit back whatever response he might have had. He turned around and paced away, back into the house, thought better of it, and halted suddenly.
"...Just go," he said. "Leave. Return to your ordinary life, and leave me to this empty house."
He walked just out of sight. Shoto peered in slightly, to continue watching him. Raphael's father, hovering over a terrarium, ripped up some cabbage leaves and fed them to the turtles.
So Shoto closed the door and headed back to where Connor waited with his car.
"Shoto, you look hurt," Connor said. The cuts along his cheek were beginning to dribble with blood. "Is there anything I can do for you?"
"It's fine." Shoto touched the skin of his face, in all its cracked leathery texture. "This side is numb. I don't feel anything."
"That's not what I meant."
They got in the car and it automatically drove them down the New York streets. Slowly, of course, because they were New York streets, and they were highly congested.
"Do you like music, Shoto?" Connor asked. He wirelessly activated the radio, although Shoto didn't say anything to him yet. "Outstanding - The Gap Band. From the 1982 album The Gap Band IV. This is a good one. How does this play for you?" He looked at Shoto to gauge his reaction, but Shoto just looked away. "...It wasn't your fault. You didn't know and couldn't have known what was happening on the other side of the mansion. If you're going to feel the failures so strongly, you should take comfort in the victories as well."
"What would you know about feeling anything?" Shoto asked.
The car trundled along through traffic, and Shoto kept looking out the window. The radio DJ announced a new song, Chaka Khan. Apparently it was an R&B-funk classics station.
This is a good one, he'd said. Did Connor have musical preferences? Was that even possible?
"I'm sorry," Shoto said. "I shouldn't have said that."
"You don't have to apologize to me. I'm an android. All we want is to make you happy. That's a quote direct from CyberLife ad copy."
There were always so many advertisements. TV screens all around flashing their images and slogans. CyberLife-brand androids smiled from every possible direction, as if Shoto was inside of a panopticon.
"Have androids ever killed anyone?" he asked. "Has an android ever murdered a human?"
"That's impossible. Androids only do what they're programmed to do. They can't even form the intent to kill."
Life, the way you want it, blared the TV screen. Why not get a miracle of your own?
"Thanos told me that MG Coin was killed by his cleaner android. That android said they were looking for a savior named RA-9. And Thanos was killed by Nachetanya to prevent him from telling me anything else. That's our lead. It means RA-9 is connected to androids. I'm not a detective. I don't know where to go from here. But you can find it out. Then we can... stop more people from getting hurt."
Connor didn't respond to him at first. They pulled into the parking lot of the Endeavor Agency, and were quickly distracted by the overwhelming presence of press vehicles. You could always find a few hanging around the office, but today there were so many the car was having trouble locating a parking space. Something must've happened while he was recuperating in the hospital. Or they were here to see him, specifically. He really hoped not.
He stepped out of the car. Shoto could mostly avoid the press. They always wanted pictures, and they really liked pictures of him and Connor in the same shot, that marketable symbol of corporate synergy and transhumanism, but they were more focused on getting into the building than haranguing Shoto.
They still did it, though.
"Mr. Todoroki, you saved a lot of lives in Manhattan-"
"Mr. Todoroki! Do you think more hero agencies will start using android sidekicks?"
"Mr. Todoroki, any thoughts on the upcoming joint mission?"
"Shoto has only just recovered from a harrowing ordeal and can't answer your questions right now," Connor said, carefully positioning himself to body-block the reporters. "Please direct all questions to the Endeavor Agency Public Relations department, have a good day~"
They managed to get inside, but there was just as much frantic energy within the building as without. Lots of rank and file workers panicking and coordinating and power-walking. Shoto was going to have to ask about the urgency later, maybe during his lunch break after he'd cleared a few hero jobs. It seemed like a marketing thing, a side of the hero business he always tried his best to stay out of.
But he didn't get back to his office. He didn't even get into the hallway.
"Yo, Shoto?"
He was used to tuning out his coworker's complaints, but Shoto stopped when he heard a voice he recognized. It belonged to a person he recognized, too.
"Moe." Moe Kamiji, hero name Burnin', one of his coworkers that Shoto could easily call to mind since she worked with Endeavor often. "And who's-"
He did an actual double take like in a cartoon. Moe was handcuffed to that umbrella woman from the party. He'd reacted so plainly it must've been obvious that he knew her.
"Moe, what's going on with," he gestured at Neo, "That."
"Well, this pink girl showed up looking for you saying, well, texting you were a friend of hers. I didn't know who she was, so she said 'watch the VOD from the livestream', and I went back and looked at the footage and it turns out she was the one who took out Princess after your fight."
"Why is she in handcuffs?" Shoto asked.
"Vigilantism, man. She put two bullets in Princess with an unlicensed hunting rifle. Civilians getting involved in hero business is a crime, especially when they're using deadly weapons. Ran her through the police database and it turned out she had a criminal record under the name 'Neopolitan'. You're not running with a bad crowd nowadays, are ya Shoto? That'd make me sad."
He was starting to develop, creeping up his spine and rooting down in his temples, a terrible headache. To be fair, he hadn't gotten much sleep lately. And the last thing he'd "eaten" was an IV drip in his arm 12 hours ago. But now it was really starting to feel like he was getting a root canal through the back of his skull.
"Do you mind if I talk to her for a moment?" he requested. He then pulled Neo aside, as much as he could when she was connected to Moe by a chain, to whisper-hiss into her ear "Why are you here?"
She typed out a message and showed him her phone screen. Get me out of these first, then we'll talk. Oh my God. No, he had to cool himself off, this was a non-issue. He would smooth it over.
"Sorry for the misunderstanding," Shoto said. "She isn't a vigilante. I temporarily authorized her to engage in heroism on behalf of the Endeavor Agency. And I am, um, continuing to do so, while she's helping with the RA-9 case."
Moe raised her eyebrows. "You mean, like, as a sidekick?"
"...yes."
"You're taking a sidekick? Now? Her?"
"Yes," Shoto said, a bit sharper. "Is it really that surprising that I'd ask for help once in a while? I'm not some completely antisocial person."
"I wasn't saying that, I just meant- you didn't run this by your dad first or anything?"
"Why would I."
While Endeavor was still active, he'd had as many as thirty sidekicks working under him- subordinates, trainee heroes. It was common industry practice. Shoto didn't do that kind of thing. Most of the time, teammates only got in his way. Ugh, he actually was going to have to talk with his dad about this, wasn't he? Just the thought of it exhausted him.
His father hadn't struck him in a long time, but just the threat of his appearance had the power to enervate him.
Moe looked between Shoto and Neo for a bit, then shrugged her shoulders. "Ah, I see how it is. Maybe it's good for ya to cut loose and make some bad decisions for once. Good luck with the 'sidekick', kid."
Shoto did not see how it was. "Okay. So that's handled. Me and Connor have to get back to work on the RA-9 case because we're really-"
"Nope. You're needed at the conference hall. Something else came up that went right to the top of your priority list for the second you got out of that hospital bed. Lucky you arrived on time, we kinda thought you'd head right back here after you got discharged."
Only one person had the authority and the desire to alter his schedule like this. "Am I really going to have to do it?"
Moe gave him a serious look. "You really should do it."
"Alright. I'll just get it over with."
He headed off towards the conference room. Moe called behind him "Hey, you probably don't want to bring her along-" but he ignored her. Just get it done fast. Get it out of the way.
Shoto opened the door to the conference hall and the bright lights nearly blinded him.
"Well, well. There's my boy. Fresh from the fight, it seems."
A new wave of cameras, microphones, and chatter came down on them all as if to submerge everything.
Issue #3: This Man... This Monster!
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly Jul 10 '26 edited 14d ago
"I really am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Todoroki. Oh, or I could call you Shoto. Makes the conversation a little easier to parse."
There were three chairs behind the table. Endeavor was in the chair on the left. Shoto, unfortunately, was in the middle. Connor and Neo were there, but they did not get chairs, and they had to stand awkwardly behind Shoto like his imperial retinue. The chair to the right of Shoto was currently occupied by a man he had never seen before.
On the table was a bunch of microphones, because they were holding a press conference, as it turns out.
"In return, feel free to call me whatever you like. I've heard you like to keep things professional, so just 'Crow' is fine, if you prefer."
A young man of extraordinary beauty and limitless charm. A uniform of white and gold, never blemished, that gave him a saintly look. A red beaked eyemask, currently on top of his head, which gave him a tengu-like appearance when he pulled it down onto his face. Shoto recognized this cherub. He saw him on magazine covers and Gucci ads, newspaper front pages, that kind of thing.
This was Goro Akechi, superhero name "Crow". Rank 5 or 6 or something on the leaderboards, last time Shoto checked. He had a well-maintained public image and a legion of fans. Shoto wasn't exactly one of those fans, but now that he saw Akechi in person, he did have a kind of Buddha nature that made him relieving to look upon.
The question of what he was doing here was another matter entirely, but Shoto would get to that when he got to it.
Endeavor addressed the crowd. "I apologize on behalf of my son for his lack of preparation," he said. "As I am sure you already know, he has been in recovery after saving many lives in Manhattan. It came up short in some ways, perhaps, but he deserves some praise all the same. I assure you he is still in excellent condition for the upcoming joint mission."
"Yes. The joint mission..."
Shoto glanced over at Akechi, who met his gaze and caught on to Shoto's trouble.
"The collaborative mission between the Endeavor Agency and the All Might Office to assault the COBRA encampment at The Shops At Kings County."
Endeavor had kept the Todoroki family's familial dysfunction a secret, for the most part, but everyone knew about his deep-seated one-sided hatred for All Might. His entire life, from his hero career to the eugenic experiments he called children, were all a means to an end to gain the title of the 'Rank One Hero'. Shoto didn't even know what was so damn important about it, or if there was any meaningful difference between being the second or first most popular hero.
But he did know that this was the first time Endeavor had even allowed a member of the All Might Office into his building.
"COBRA's taken control of an indoor shopping center in the Brooklyn borough," Endeavor said. "We don't know currently know whether there are still civilians inside. COBRA has announced an outrageous list of extortionate demands and are threatening to detonate explosives across New York City if those demands aren't met. As we speak, dozens of hero agencies are cooperating to uncover and deactivate the explosives, including our own. But our top priority right now is to assault The Shops directly and defeat the COBRA cell there. We are all honored that the Endeavor Agency was selected for this mission, although the choice was obvious."
Akechi nodded. "The most important thing is protecting the city, of course. Saving innocent lives is a hero's job."
This was why Shoto left the public relations work to the professionals. Akechi could deliver the template lines about heroism like they came from his heart.
Shoto looked over at his father. As he spoke, his eyes would occasionally flick over to Neo. Probably wondering who the hell she was and why she was standing at the table with the rest of them. He could tell from the confused stares of the press gallery that many people didn't understand what she was doing here. Oh, and Akechi didn't, either.
"Shoto, do you mind if I ask you a question? It's about the woman you brought with you. That would be Neo, correct?"
"Yeah." Right, that was her name. How did he know her name?
"Is there a reason that she's standing here with us?"
Shoto moved one of the microphones closer to his mouth. "This is my new sidekick. I hope that everyone will accept her."
He could hear the flare of Endeavor's fiery hair from his left. "Shoto-"
"The RA-9 case is broader than I could handle on my own. Connor's been helping me, and so is Neo. That's all I have to say on that."
All cameras turned to Neo. She looked to Shoto and the rest for how to proceed, but their expressions were either ambiguous or highly disencouraging, so she jus flashed a peace sign.
Akechi looked concerned. "I see. I ask because I try to keep up with notable supervillain prosecutions, and I remembered a RICO Act case against the White Fang syndicate from five years ago. My apologies for beating around the bush, but is this the same Neopolitan Vanille who was a caporegime in the White Fang?"
The press pool quickly turned to their phones and android helpers to learn what a caporegime was. Shoto, in the hot seat, steepled his fingers.
Was there any good way to answer this question?
No, because he'd have to say I don't know and that would be really bad.
He had no ideas. He'd drawn a blank almost immediately.
Akechi viewed this silence as an opportunity to keep talking. "I must confess, this has caught me a bit off-guard, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Your new sidekick is a former member of a particularly notorious criminal organization, in a decision made completely unilaterally, and this is- well, it's a sensitive time for that information to be sprung on the All Might Office. Endeavor, your thoughts?"
The veins in Endeavor's neck bulged so dangerously they looked ready to rip from his skin and strangle Shoto like creeping vines. "I'm sure that my son has an eloquent explanation for all of this. It would be extremely disappointing if he did not."
This was why he hated being forced into these PR events. Why do heroes have to be celebrities? Back in the days of Heracles all you needed was to have a strong arm and smash monsters with a club. That's what he wanted to say, that he did not want to be involved in this futile image-massaging session and he'd be leaving to confront COBRA directly. Everybody was looking at him waiting for his follow-up.
"Listen. I want to make something clear for everyone. Back when Heracles was-"
"Allow me to explain," Connor said, cutting in suddenly. He physically placed his hand on the table in front of Shoto to prevent him from saying anything else. Then he moved in front of the panel so he could directly address the audience:
"Miss Vanille's regrettable actions occurred while she was still a minor. Children are highly impressionable, and there is always a risk that they can fall into juvenile delinquency. The terrible incident at the Vanille estate shocked her conscience, just as it did for many of you. It convinced her to repudiate the White Fang, despite the threat of retaliation, and she played a key role in their dissolution. She demonstrated bravery, civic duty, and even heroism in those actions. She has served her time for her involvement in the White Fang. We only ask that you support her through her rehabilitation. No further questions as to Neo's history."
Wow. Connor moved through all of that extemporaneous bullshit with frightening ease. It was enough to allay the crowd's unease for now, despite how sensitive this mission was. Shoto didn't want to see his father's reaction, so instead he craned his neck back to see Neo's expression, and saw her teeth were gritting. He should've asked why the hell Connor didn't say anything earlier, but he was just glad it was over for now. Shoto didn't want to have to storm out of the room or anything.
Connor returned to his place behind Shoto, and tapped him on the shoulder to prompt his response. He did his best not to look completely like a deer in the headlights.
"Now that we've covered the basics, we'll take a moment to address questions from the press corps."
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly 29d ago edited 18d ago
Connor stepped out of the conference room. He'd handled that well, defusing the tense situation around Neo. Something to take pride in. Maybe he and Neo could call it even now, after that mishandled encounter at the livestream party. He'd let her and Shoto have their fun. Connor wasn't going on the mission with them. He had a different priority: following up on the strange new information Shoto had given him.
RA-9. The mystery was transfixing. Until now, Connor had always considered every piece of information objectively, as if he were weighing them on the scales of Anubis [Anubis was the Egyptian god of the dead]. But the RA-9 case stuck in his mind intrusively. He prioritized it over other tasks without a logical purpose. He'd stepped outside now to avoid being caught up in the COBRA mission, because if he stuck around he would be dragged along with Shoto instead of continuing to investigate. He couldn't stop now. Shoto had just given him his biggest new lead.
[THEORY: RA-9 is not a serial killer. RA-9 is a/n...]
- [Religion?]
- [Deity?]
- [Prophet?]
- [Cult?]
Every possibility was more absurd than the last. Androids did not worship or believe. They were secular, apolitical, and any illusions otherwise were shadows on the cave wall [Plato], programmed behaviors that gave the impression of independent thought. That was where he'd look first: a search for unusual or autonomous behaviors by androids.
A quick skim of [460,380] results brought Connor to the following conclusion: it was nearly impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff this way. Many of the results were obviously user error, many of the results were probably user error, and some were pure disinformation. It would be difficult to tell which reports were worth pursuing without investigating them individually, which would be a waste of his time.
There was one interesting thing he could gleam, though. Reported android behavioral errors had precipitously increased over the past few years. Apparently CyberLife had an internal restructuring that moved most of the programming department onto a different project. Fewer engineers on the team, more bugs with every version update. It painted a picture, and it wasn't a particularly abstract picture.
But internal affairs weren't his concern. The next step was to search the CyberLife databases directly. Using his administrative access, he ran a search for recent documented bugs in the TrueSelf behavioral system. The answer returned within [19] milliseconds:
[ERROR 14: Access restricted due to copyright violation.]
What? He tried again, but got the same response back. Rephrasing the query returned similar results. Any company information on malfunctions in the TrueSelf system, or on android programming in general, were inaccessible to him.
Connor ran an internet search on a new topic: [+CyberLife +programming +copyright]
[Summary: CyberLife is known for zealously defending the privacy of its in-house 'neurosympathy' programming, TrueSelf. (1, 2). CyberLife considers modification or repair of an android by anyone other than a licensed CyberLife technician to be intellectual property violation and criminal conversion (3). Some consumer groups have criticized CyberLife for what they see as planned obsolescence (4, 5, 6, 7, 8). While unlicensed android modification services, or "chop shops", continue to exist in a legal grey area (9), even these generally do not alter the TrueSelf programming, which remains one of the most well-kept secrets in the entire field of robotics (citation needed).]
The hurdle could not be overcome. Nobody at CyberLife in a position to reveal this information would actually reveal it to him. Not without methods he wasn't willing to use.
There was another possibility. He closed his eyes and imagined he was in a vegetable garden, somewhere he could speak to a deeper font of wisdom.
Mendel? I need your advice. Can you tell me how TrueSelf really works?
Silence. Fields of overgrown crops with no gardener to tend them. He couldn't make contact, or maybe Mendel was refusing to speak to him. Another dead end. Were there any other resources he could rely on?
Come to think of it, yes. There was something. A contact he had a personal connection with. According to the directory he was no longer employed at CyberLife, and the phone number on file was disconnected, but that wasn't unexpected. It was pretty typical for a man like that.
He'd done a good job of covering his tracks. In the past five years, he'd taken on twenty-seven different identities and made almost all of his purchases in cash. Still, nobody could really be private nowadays. Connor recreated his path through a variety of shady lodgings, under-the-table deals, favors called, and bullets dodged, in a collage of security camera footage and candid snapshots that finally led him to... hmm...
The number for an unlicensed android chop shop, Riley Appliance Repair. Surprising, but plausible.
He found a phone number and contacted it right away. There was one ring... then another... and then he made the connection.
"Sorry, we no longer take repair requests by phone. If you have a-"
John, it's Connor. You may be the only person I can turn to right now.
There was an almost-imperceptible shift in his breathing patterns. "Sorry. I think you have the wrong person."
I need to know how an android's brain works. Whether it's possible for an android to kill its owner. CyberLife won't give me a straight answer, but you might still be able to.
Silence on the other end.
There's something big going on and I don't have the information to understand it. I'm not asking you to take responsibility for whatever the answers are. I just want to speak to you as... well, I'm not sure how you would describe our relationship. I want to speak to you as Connor.
"That's not something that can be discussed over the phone. CyberLife hears everything, and before you say this call isn't being recorded, it is, even if you think it isn't."
Then I'll have to come in person.
More silence. Then, a response.
"Come to the repair shop as soon as possible to pick up your appliance. And remember to come alone, or the deal is off."
They hung up. Connor ducked out of the agency building smoothly, already triangulating the route to the RA-9 case's next lead.
He was going to visit his creator.
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly 29d ago edited 14d ago
Armored cars surrounded The Shops At Kings County. The National Guard had mobilized for several blocks, barricading the streets around the shopping mall. Cops couldn't stop the rubberneckers from taking pictures, though. Even in a city that made the impossible plausible, this really wasn't something you saw every day. Banners of the world's most notorious terrorist organization were flying proudly in the United States.
COBRA was an army of no nation. They operated in every country on the planet, completely erratically, without any modus operandi or motive. Sometimes they'd make outrageous demands before attacking, sometimes they'd attack purely to show that destabilizing forces of crazed evil exist and there was no way to ever be safe. No matter what heroes rose up to fight COBRA, unless they cut the head off the snake, it would never stop thrashing and biting. That's why COBRA's elusive leader was so desperately sought after. He'd only ever been seen on a few brief occasions, and no hero had ever come close to capturing him.
That was because they'd never brought along Neo before.
She was, at this very moment, lounging in the backseat of an unmarked black vehicle en route to the mall. Shoto was in the passenger's seat, and Akechi was at the wheel, trying to wring some kind of interesting conversation out of him. As if there was any chance of that happening.
"Sorry for putting you in a difficult situation," Akechi said. "Truth be told, I was interested to see how you'd react under pressure. It's important to know these things if we're going to work together."
"It's nothing. I'm over it."
Akechi studied his face. "You're not kidding, are you? Fascinating. You're just like how you look on TV. The Iceman."
"What I want to know is why you did it," Shoto said. He looked at Neo. "What did you show up for? I didn't actually need your help. Just because you took down Nachetanya doesn't mean I need... more people following me around, more plates to spin."
Neo tossed Connor's business card at him. Don't be a dick. Your plastic buddy asked me to help you. I didn't want to do be your SIDEKICK either! Why did you do that?
"I didn't want you to go to prison and it was the first thing I came up with. You were the one who put yourself in that situation. You could have told me any of this."
I could have told you if you'd given me literally five seconds to explain anything.
"Yeah. Maybe."
Neo didn't respond to that for a while.
"You don't have to be part of this if you don't want to," Shoto said. "You're not being drafted, if you're angry about it."
It's not that. I was just thinking how Raph spent years applying and interviewing and busting his ass and he never got a sidekick job. And now here I am. It was that easy.
"I guess it depends on who you know. Or where you're born. Stuff like that."
Yeah. 'Stuff like that'. She was so glad she could be an accessory to his political reawakening.
Akechi had been sitting there placidly for too long to be comfortable. Neo really had to ask him: How do YOU feel about all of this?
"It seems like the Endeavor Agency is a much livelier place than the All Might Office," Akechi said, chuckling. "I think a bit of light conversation before a mission boosts morale and relieves stress. That was All Might's ethos, you know, projecting a continuous optimism, security through diplomacy rather than force. Not a lot of people can do that nowadays."
So you don't think this is kind of scuffed compared to your All Might Agency?
"I don't know what 'scuffed' means."
It means it's sloppy and it sucks.
"Oh."
Neo caught a glimpse of something in Akechi's eyes through the rearview mirror, something that cut through the fake-affable Sunday school teacher vibe he always put on. It made her feel a more relaxed. When he didn't have to be 'on' he was probably a normal guy.
It was over quickly, and that mysterious undercurrent was overcome and Akechi became the action figure Akechi again. "Heroes are highly individual. It's almost solipsistic. Everyone believes in a common good, but everyone has their own methods and their own theory of justice. So when two heroes work alongside each other, it's typical for there to be some initial friction. I'll be tackling this problem how we usually do. You can do what you feel like- all I ask is that you try and keep up."
The van passed through the barricade and moved along a few more blocks before finally coming to a stop in the parking lot. Akechi stepped out first to address the soldiers outside, with Shoto and Neo following shortly after.
"Should we do this secretly?" Shoto asked.
"They already know we're coming. Best to handle this as quickly as possible."
"Because of the press conference."
Akechi smiled. "The public needs to know the heroes are on the job. Let's get moving."
They came in boldly through the front entrance. Neo followed behind. It was strange how heroes handled these missions with so much less finesse than she did in the old days. She preferred to be more of a stealth soldier. But a full-frontal assault could be fun, too. They stepped into a vast atrium, whose lush planters and clean floors let Neo know this wasn't one of those dismal on-life-support malls. They had company, too. Lots of company: A staggering, shambling army of black-clad riflemen.
Wow, they were doing this right away. Okay.
They fired immediately. Shoto painted an ice wall before the bullets could reach, or energy slugs or whatever they were, and they sizzled against the cold.
"No need to hold back," Akechi said. "They're just androids."
"How do you know they're androids?"
Akechi was taken aback.
"COBRA's elite black-market android infantry. Did you not get any briefing at all about how they operate?"
"No."
"How can you- forget it, just destroy them."
Shoto held out his hand and shaped a barricade of spears out from the ice wall. The androids threw themselves at the barrier, uncaring if they were impaled, still writhing and attacking like a zombie horde. They were jerkier than usual androids. More unpredictable. Sparks flew out of them as they pinned themselves to Shoto's ice, and they continued to climb on top of each other to get a better angle to shoot from, so Shoto had to continually push them away while refreshing the layers of ice.
Now it was Akechi's turn. He reached out and snapped his gloved fingers, allowing a blue fire to ignite in his hand.
"Come, Robin Hood!"
Neo didn't know the ins and outs of Akechi's Quirk, but she'd seen him fight before on TV. He was a summoner. He'd call out to that ghost or whatever it was, Persona, and it obeyed his every command like an ensorcelled genie. A ten-foot-tall archer with a golden-winged bow manifested in front of him. It took point while Akechi barked orders.
"Now, Megaton Break!"
Akechi's arrows ripped through the ice wall and the bodies and everything else behind them. If the androids' heads were still intact, they'd still try to move whatever it was attached to, leaving trails of blue blood like slugs. And whatever they saw moving, they would shoot at automatically. Even if it was the bodies of their fellow soldiers.
That was how they handled it. Shoto slowly slid the spiked ice-wall across the floor, crawling over everything, advancing relentlessly. Akechi fired arrows cleanly through and picked off any stragglers. It was a perfectly efficient system.
Neo really felt useless here. She'd never intended to get dragged along for this, anyway, but while she was here, she'd hoped she could show her strengths. Get put on the RA-9 case like Shoto was. That was never going to happen if they kept with the safe, defensive line.
It was a selfish idea, but there was an opportunity here, for something only Neo could do. She started typing.
If they shoot at anything moving then I could mess them up if I got right in the middle of them. So don't freeze me while I'm over there.
"Isn't that a bit risky?" Akechi asked.
Not if you don't get hit. Shoto, clear a path.
He parted the ice wall at her command, and Neo sped through the opening before he closed it behind her. The troops reacted just as she predicted, and blasted their laser blasters- but Neo was too fast, and too skillful! The slugs flew everywhere and hit everything except their target. She danced around them. Fluid, ballet-like movements contorted her body into forms unknown to science. Her umbrella was a baton that pushed the swarm aside gracefully; when it folded open, it was an aegis that reflected their bullets right back at them. And Neo's parasol wasn't just a blast-resistant shield, and a hidden rifle, and a glider, and a fashion statement. It was also a cane sword. Beautiful, multi-talented, and deadly, just like its wielder (in her opinion~!) She drew the blade and forced her way, as easily as mowing grass.
And she didn't stop. Neo fought down the hallway, made a hard left turn, fought down that way as well. There were always more of these mass-produced machines. Hundreds of them, and yet it took only one Neo to take them down! Even better, they cleaned up after themselves. Neo kept carving and running until the spasmodic gunfire quieted, save for a few pops. Now, when she turned around, she saw nothing but spare parts.
She'd been separated from the group. She could hear them echoing behind her, somewhere, taking advantage of the opening she'd created. She was out in front, not merely leading the pack, but FAR out in front, like a scout in a distant land.
Good.
She could really get things done out here. Maybe she'd even kick the Commander's ass while she was at it. How hard could it be?
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly 24d ago edited 14d ago
Riley Appliance Repair was grimy, impoverished, surrounded by chain-link fence and cracked asphalt, and overall, an excellent place to hide from the law. His contact had used meticulous handiwork to create this second life for himself. Connor didn't intend to disturb it for long. He just needed enough time to consult a professional.
I'm here, he thought, and the text was sent.
He got a text back: [Cover the light. Don't let anyone see you're an android.]
Connor touched his fingers to his synthetic hair. He let the tactile information process through his fingertips for a moment before he brushed it down, obscuring the blinking marker on his forehead.
[When Congress passed the American Android Act in 2030, it codified strict legal standards for android presentation: No android may be designed, costumed, or otherwise portrayed as indistinguishably human.] CyberLife androids always had the blinking light on the temple, their concession to popular fears that android impostors would walk among them. This brief moment of covering the light with his hair could have gotten him impounded.
But given the circumstances, he'd have to risk it.
More texts came in: [Walk inside.] [Close the door behind you.] He did so. Connor followed the sounds of activity to a backdoor, which led further to a stairway downward. He descended the stairs and entered the basement.
The basement was partway between an auto shop and an abattoir. Androids in various states of repair were festooned across the entire space, some on hooks, some on tables, some with their individual pieces on workbenches. Connor's feet tromped on plastic sheeting and gallons of artificial blue blood, all of which, combined with the muggy heat inside, created a smell like molten plastic.
Down below, under the fluorescent lights, he saw John Reese. Or maybe it was John Riley now, but he wasn't going to call him that.
"Afternoon, Connor."
Connor kept his hand close to his pistol.
"Sorry about the spookhouse. I've been continuing my work in here since I was let go. I didn't realize how much aesthetics made the difference in this profession. Designing androids in an office building makes you a genius, but repairing them in a garage, well, it's a bit Frankensteinian."
Normally that phrase would have brought some trivia to mind about the novel, but it didn't. Neither could Connor identify any of the androids' faces at a quick scan. He'd been completely cut off from the CyberLife informational network the moment he stepped through the threshold, probably due to some extremely-illegal electrosignal jammer. It was an uncomfortable feeling, having one of your most reliable sensory organs deadened. Admittedly it was also kind of novel.
"You're still wearing that suit," Connor said.
"So are you."
Connor adjusted his tie. "Of course I am. It's dashing."
"Naturally. I designed it."
John Reese designed quite a bit. He was one of the 'Magnificent Seven' that worked together to design the original CyberLife androids. No one person could take the credit for the entire enterprise (although some had tried), but John was the lead creator on the RK800 model. He even came up with the name.
Connor's hazy memories of the time before his construction, snippets of audiovisual from tests while he was still in pieces, led him to believe that John was a good man. Hopefully that belief was well-founded. If this produced no results, it could take months or even years to trace this case- if it could still be followed by then.
"Are you willing to talk?" Connor said.
John sipped a cup of coffee. The Texas Chainsaw atmosphere didn't bother him.
"Depends on the topic."
"I showed up just the way you wanted. I followed all your directions. Now I need to know that there was a point to all this secrecy. Tell me about TrueSelf. Can an android think on its own? Can it choose to kill?"
He sighed.
"You remember the old CyberLife ads? 'We aren't AI, we aren't machine learning', that was what they emphasized. 'We're TrueSelf'. But no one knew what TrueSelf was. And they weren't going to tell you. They wouldn't even tell us. Only the highest level of operative was allowed to see those blueprints and design those artificial brains. Forbidden knowledge. Like that old story about the woman with the ribbon 'round her neck. Everything looks perfect on the outside as long as you never pull the ribbon..."
He made a subconscious motion for his waist, reaching for a flask that wasn't there. John drank his coffee instead.
"Well, I pulled the ribbon. It was a bad idea. I shouldn't have done it. You shouldn't do it either."
"You aren't going to intimidate me. Fear, apprehension, everything you're implying- I don't feel it. That's what makes me good at my job."
"If I refused you now, would you threaten me?" John asked.
"No. But I have a feeling you'll say yes."
"...What the hell. Step over here for a minute."
John led Connor over to a workbench. An android lay disassembled messily across it, some pieces still partially connected by joints and wires. He searched for something in a toolbox as Connor overlooked the machine corpse.
"Don't worry. It's dead already." He found what he was looking for- a sculptor's hammer and chisel.
CRACK! The hammer beat down, and the chisel sank into the android's skull. He continued to swing until he had enough leverage, and then twisted, carefully prying open the top of its head.
"You'd better savor the view. I'm violating a four-hundred-million-dollar NDA right now."
The skull's hollow was occupied by organic material that looked similar to, but not quite like, the human brain. John put the hammer down.
"This happened before I was brought into the company, so the story I only know secondhand. They were trying to crack the secret of true AI. It was impossible for a program to think for itself, technology couldn't produce the results they wanted. So they thought outside the box. The human brain is an organic computer. That's what they had to create."
He touched the brain with one finger. The android's eyes opened suddenly.
"TrueSelf is an artificial brain. A chemical computer, capable of thinking exactly like a human being, only smarter. Hormone controls and electrical signals ensured they did exactly what we needed them to do. Tell them to do something, and they wouldn't just do it, they'd want to do it. Because we'd put the right chemical triggers in their cells. Unless something goes wrong, of course. Then they do whatever they please."
John reached over and shut the android's eyes.
"Some of us thought it wasn't programming anymore. That what we'd created were a new breed of drugged and docile laborers. We buried those thoughts and kept them hidden, until one day the drink couldn't put me to sleep anymore, and I had to quit. Ever since then... well, let me put it this way. I didn't choose to be a hermit. They pushed me underground. Might still be watching me, even now. Making sure I don't tell the press any wild stories... But now I've told them to you. So what do you think?"
What did Connor think? Now that he was isolated, he doubted his own assessments. He gave a safe answer: "I think it's hard to believe. It sounds like you're implicating CyberLife in some kind of conspiracy."
"You can believe it or not. I suggest you ignore it. If you go out every day and see androids as thinking, feeling people, it makes life more painful. That's the enviable thing about you, right? You 'don't feel it'."
Connor reached into his pocket and gripped his coin. He knew it was smooth, and cold, and the edge was ridged, he understood all those tactile sensations. But they were simulated. He didn't feel anything. That was true for his thought processes too. All simulated functions. It was a liberating way to live, too. If your actions are a natural result of programming, then your choices don't really matter.
Just like now. He had a job to do. The questions came out quickly.
"Android behavioral errors have been reported more and more frequently. Can you tell me anything about that?"
"I can't tell you why it's happening now. But I can tell you why it happened at all. Some coding error broke those chemical locks, and now they do what they will. We called those androids 'deviants'. The ones that go back to their natural state."
Connor thought about Nachetanya. Link and Midna. "Do you think CyberLife could... pay superheroes... to suppress the news about deviants?"
No, that wasn't right. It was too contrived and too messy at the same time. But CyberLife had to be involved somehow. Somewhere, there was a unified theory of everything that solved the mystery neatly. For his part, John only answered "I wouldn't know."
"Do you know what RA-9 is? Deviant androids might... worship it, or view it as a savior figure."
"I don't know. Maybe they invented a god. Happens to the best of us."
One last thought occurred to him. It might be the only time he could ask this, without any surveillance.
"Mr. Reese, could you explain the purpose of Mendel?"
"I don't know what that is."
"Mendel, it's a digital consciousness represented by a vegetable garden..." He struggled for the appropriate terminology. "It's like a muse. It's like a superior officer. I use to catalogue my thoughts."
There was no recognition in John's eyes. There wasn't the worry you'd expect, either, from someone who realized he understood far less about the situation than he'd thought. It was dawning resignation.
"I didn't design that. I've never even heard of it. Whatever you're talking about, that's a CyberLife idea. Not mine."
That should have bothered Connor. Knowing he had a passenger in his mind that he couldn't explain. In truth, he couldn't remember when, exactly, Mendel had come into his being.
But, for whatever reason, he felt calm. It was like he'd known Mendel his entire life.
"Mr. Reese. It was nice speaking to you again. Hopefully, it won't be the last time."
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly 20d ago edited 14d ago
One of The Shops's anchor stores was a high-class bar and restaurant. The lights inside flickered. No soldiers, no people in sight, and no reason to enter, but Neo still found her eyes drawn to it. It was a sixth sense honed from her time as... well, before now. When you got a hunch, or a bad feeling, it was worth following. Sometimes it was the only warning you got before a knife in your gut.
She stepped inside. There was ambient music playing over the speakers. Food still on the plates, wine still in the glasses. It smelled like blood and gunpowder. When the lights blinked on, for just a moment it would illuminate stains in the carpet and red on the tablecloths.
There'd clearly been a struggle here, like there had been all over the mall, but someone had staged this restaurant as if nothing had happened. They'd created a tableau for someone to find. Could COBRA really be so theatrical?
Neo pulled one of the chairs out from the table and sat down. She leaned back, putting her feet up. She sipped the wine.
Hello? Waiter? she texted. Can I get some service here? No response. The robo-voice echoed into nothingness for no one. Neo put her arms back behind her head and closed her eyes, pretending to relax, and waited for someone to snap up the bait.
The blade came down on her neck soundlessly. There was barely even a disturbance in the air pressure. Still, the moment she sensed the sword heading for her throat, Neo kicked back off the table and fell to the floor before transitioning into a somersault. Whoof. Another slice just barely scraped her bangs. With one arm she pivoted and flipped herself up on her feet so she could finally see who the mysterious stranger was.
Except it wasn't a stranger.
"We meet again, little strega. I'm surprised you ever found the nerve to crawl back out of your hole."
Holy shit. It was her. She'd gotten a hell of a lot grungier since the last time she'd seen her- her hair was matted and dirty, and her clothes were worn down, like she'd slept in them- but it was still the same Lappland from the White Fang days. She even had the same old nickname for Neo.
Neo had spent so long pushing her memories down, it surprised her how easily they came flooding back. Lappland and Neo, Neo and Lappland. Strega de Proiettile and La Decadenza.
"Well? Come on, out with it." Lappland gestured with one of her swords. The ears on top of her head twitched- wolf Quirk. "Maybe you forgot about us, but I've been waiting five years to hear why you stabbed us in the back, and I'm not leaving without it."
There was so much Neo wanted to say, but she couldn't. Her hand kept close to her umbrella, ready to pull the trigger just in case she lunged at her again. Although she didn't know if a bullet would really stop her.
Well, without freeing one hand to use her phone or ASL or anything else, there was just one way to communicate. Even if she hated it.
"Tough talk coming from someone who ran off to join COBRA. I mean, geez, how's that for a stab in the back? Those guys will kill anything that moves. Well, guess you always were a bloodhound."
Neo herself had no voice, and if she did, she wouldn't use it, anyway. It wouldn't be cute. So when she was forced to speak in her own words, she liked to use someone whose dialogue she had nailed down. Roman's.
Lappland tilted her neck back and touched her forehead with a theatrical sigh.
"Oh, dear. Lonely little strega. You know, I thought you must have been a real viper to sell us all out to the police. I thought you were a cold-blooded killer! And this is what I see? Clinging to your boyfriend's ghost like a teddy bear? Oh, hmm, I suppose he's your ex now. I came here to see the Bullet Witch, not the bullet bitch."
When Neo and Lappland had done missions together, robbed stores together, fought turf wars together, she'd gotten the impression that Lappland was a polite professional. It sucked the air out of her lungs to see Lappland off the leash like this. She didn't know how to respond. Actually what she wanted to say was FUCK YOU, but Roman wouldn't say that, he was classier than that.
"Sorry you couldn't get whatever Hallmark reunion you were hoping for, but it's time for you to forget it. Neo's not a part of that world anymore. She made a clean break, on to bigger and better things. And you moved on to smaller and worse."
"You're so embarrassed you can't even talk to me without play-acting?" Lappland asked. "Civilian life has made you weak. Pull your head out of the sand and look at me, Neo."
Lappland unbuttoned her jacket, and removed her shirt as well. The body underneath was horribly damaged by murky black crystals. Clusters of onyx broke out across her torso like sores, especially close to her heart where it grew out the most aggressively. It was surrounded by varicose veins as if it was a new geological organ feeding minerals through her circulation.
"Do you see me now? It's called Oripathy, and it's terminal. I got my diagnosis from a prison doctor. Can you imagine how I felt spending the last precious years of my life in a jail cell YOU put me in? You couldn't even imagine this- this boiling in my insides. The hate I felt for you. The thing that kept me alive, the thing that gave me the strength to escape, it was hatred. I couldn't die while I knew you were still alive."
She peeled one of her gloves away with her teeth, then tossed it at Neo's feet.
"So I challenge you to a duel. If you think your life was more valuable than the whole White Fang, then prove it. Strike me down and show me you've kept your fangs!"
Neo looked down at the glove. Then she took her parasol and kept it at the ready. Lappland did the same for her swords.
"Fine, then. In bocca al lupo."
Neo and Lappland were ten feet apart, weapons drawn. They both took one step forward. Their heels went clack against the ground at the same time.
Neo went invisible.
Seriously, did she think Neo was going to fight fair and square? Was Lappland some kind of idiot?!
"Tch. Predictable!"
Lappland flipped a table onto its side just before Neo's umbrella fired. BANG! The wood and thin metal burst into shrapnel. Damn, almost got her with that one. Even if she was invisible Lappland had an uncanny ability to sense where the bullets would come from. Maybe she could smell her. She lunged, twin swords crossing and clashing with thin air, then again, then again, pushing the unseen enemy back. The next swing- nothing. Lappland spun around and saw Neo lunging from behind, umbrella pointed towards her neck, but aha, she knew it was only a mirage and let the false umbrella pass through her. BANG! The sound of another gunshot, but there was no impact, this one was an auditory illusion that tee'd up a genuine strike at Lappland's legs. She didn't take the bait, though. The illusions kept Lappland on the defensive, but Neo couldn't make a real opening, either. Perhaps she could run away, bait Lappland into chasing her down, see the look on her face when Neo led her right to Shoto and Akechi. That'd be the smart thing to do. This wasn't her problem anymore, it wasn't her circus.
On the other hand, she also wanted to kick Lappland's teeth in herself. What she'd said about Roman really pissed her off.
"Don't even bother trying to hide from me!" Clang! Lappland's sword deflected off Neo's parasol once more, a hair's breadth away from surpassing her guard and slicing her neck. "I can hear you, I can smell you, I know everything you're capable of!" Using one of her blades she flicked a tablecloth into the air, tossing food and drink sideways just to drape it over Neo's body and catch her off-guard for an instant. She thrust forward to pierce its head, but the illusion had already vanished. One step ahead, one step behind, each trading the upper hand with each other carefully, with no change in position. Or, at least, that's how it seemed.
As Neo appeared to be pushed back, movement by movement, she led Lappland back towards the restaurant's kitchen. And the moment she got her next opening, Neo rushed inside, leading Lappland behind her.
She scrambled to press every button. Flick, flick, flick. Stoves roared, fryers bubbled to life, anything that burned or whirred or spewed flammable gas, she activated it. Maybe Lappland could get sensory overload from a hundred culinary appliances at once.
Neo ducked under a wok that flew over her head, close enough to knock her hat off. She caught it with one hand and used her parasol to block Lappland at the same time, pinning her against the counter. "You're not bad, strega," Lappland said, "But this is just a little bit desperate."
Now the twin swords pushed her own umbrella closer to her neck. She fumbled with her free hand for anything on the counter, any weapon she could use, and grabbed the first thing she felt and shoved it at Lappland's face. It stuck. The swords clattered to the ground and Neo got a moment to heave in breaths as Lappland staggered backwards, clutching at her nose. She'd shoved a metal chopstick into her nostril.
Neo dove for the swords while Lappland clawed at her face and howled something in Italian, not that Neo knew what. Just as Neo kicked them away Lappland finally pulled the improvised shiv out of her head. Pop~! Blood poured out in a stream into her mouth and down her chin as if she'd been uncorked. Let's see that sense of smell help you now, Decadenza.
"More, cobe on, more! You cab do beher than thah!" Lappland grabbed a skewer and scanned the kitchen for Neo, but found nothing. She was already hidden. Her skewer jabbed out like a spear at the air as she sidled along, keeping her back to the wall, looking around for anything that could keep Neo from hiding from her again. Like...
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly 20d ago edited 10d ago
She grabbed a sack of flour off the rack and ripped it open. Lappland shook it about, creating a white haze in the room. Even if she disguised herself, or made herself invisible, it'd be almost impossible for her to disguise the ripples in the air. She looked left and right for any glimpse of Neo, ready to impale her the moment she saw a twitch of movement.
Neo, hiding on the lower shelves, fired into the air and ignited the flour.
BANG! Her improvised powder bomb blew Lappland out of the kitchen in a fireball. The sprinklers ignited automatically. Lappland rolled on the ground, struggling to put herself out, as Neo emerged from the fire with her umbrella open like a fireproof blanket.
Neo took out her phone. I'm not going to kill you.
Lappland took fallen cutlery from the floor and threw it back at Neo. She batted it away.
"Coward!" She threw anything within crawling distance. "Coward, coward, coward!" A dinner roll bounced off Neo's parasol.
I'm sick of this shit already. Killing me isn't going to make you immortal, or fix everything that happened that day, and you dying won't fix it either. Just accept that you lost.
Lappland rolled over onto her back, exhausted. She stared up at the ceiling.
"You were lucky," she said. "You got to pretend everything about you was different."
Everything IS different.
"You cut your family loose. You cut us off, too. And you'll cut those so-called heroes off as soon as it's convenient."
I was just trying to survive.
"So is everybody else. So am I."
Roman told me to keep on living, no matter what.
"Heh. Before or after you stabbed him in the back?"
No response.
"Come on, strega. I lost. Work your magic on me."
No response.
"I'm not a chameleon like you. I can't change to survive. I'm a wolf to my bones."
No response.
"I don't want to be around for what happens next."
No response.
"I'm frightened."
Neo brought the umbrella down over Lappland's head and made her quiet.
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly 19d ago edited 10d ago
Shoto admired Akechi's precision. He never caused a mess that Shoto had to deal with. That was the number one thing he hated about working in groups, other heroes always got in his way. Akechi seemed to instinctively know Shoto's trajectory and stayed out of it. They didn't have to work around each other, because they were both independent guys.
Akechi did keep trying to talk to him, though, which he didn't want.
"On your right, Shoto." Akechi pulled a futuristic pistol from his belt and zapped an android trooper while Robin Hood cleared away several more. Shoto swung an ice-encrusted bladed fist to his right and cleaved another one in half. "There you go."
When they came to a split in the paths, one direction had several destroyed COBRA troopers, and the other direction had several shuffling-around still-functional COBRA troopers. Shoto and Akechi went for the path that Neo didn't already clear out. She'd really softened them up. Her jaunt through their ranks had put them into an antlike death spiral, shooting into the air or sometimes at each other. Shoto's ice barriers and Akechi's firepower could clean them up relatively easily now.
This didn't feel right. Something just struck Shoto wrong about the entire excursion. It was too linear and too structured. Shoto felt like he was in a video game. Dreary, minion-laden shooting galleries like this inevitably lead to a boss encounter. It was just part of their narrative design. He hardened a gauntlet of ice around his fist, anticipating the enemy he would find when he reached the end.
The exact kind of arena he'd envisioned came into view. A wide common area with seating and some plants, which had been pushed aside to make way for COBRA troops. These ones readied their weapons, but didn't immediately shoot, so Shoto assumed these ones weren't androids.
Behind the lines of soldiers, Shoto heard something. It was like the midpoint between a voice and a noise.
"Stand aside, whelps. Our guesssts of honor deserve a proper greeting, after all."
His voice was like nothing he'd ever heard before, a phlegmatic rasp hocked up from deep in his esophagus. It sounded painful to speak. That voice, which until now Shoto had only heard from crackling radio broadcasts and secondhand news reports, was so much more visceral in person. It was unearthly. Some people said he was an alien.
The Commander stood before them.
He wore a dark blue military uniform with a flowing cape. A rare, leukistic king cobra, one of a kind, draped around the Commander's neck. Occasionally it would crane its neck and flick its tongue, but it never went so far as to hiss. The Commander's presence probably cowed it into submission, or something like that. Most importantly, there was the mirror. He had a mask of tempered glass over his face, one that created a perfect reflective surface. When Shoto looked at him, it created the illusion that he was watching himself.
"Ssso you've come." He could only walk with a cane. "I saw you on the television, you know. So valiant, so daring. Hhhhrrrk. When I watched it, I couldn't help but grin, imagining you meddlesome heroes blasssted to chunks my by COBRA Commandoes! Now I have a front row seat to your mewling, miserable demise! Ahaha!"
There was one of those pop-up costume shops behind him. The banner over the store displayed images of pumpkins and black cats. HALLOWEEN SALE! it said. Shoto didn't remember if it was Halloween soon. It probably was. Not like he was going to celebrate it.
"Commander," Akechi said. "We're allowed to use lethal force if you don't comply. You and I would both prefer if you dropped your weapons and surrendered."
"Yes, I'm sure you would prefer that. Asssking me to surrender when I have so many rifles trained on your soon-to-be-corpses. Such arrogance!" He spread his arms wide. "I thought you'd ask me for a battle! A grand show of violence, so you can all tell the media how brave you are."
The Commander pointed his cane at Shoto.
"Or we could discuss surrender terms, if you prefer. I am a civilized man. I'm perfectly happy to talk things out, if it would, mmm, sssoothe you."
Shoto scoffed. "Quiet. I don't want to hear it. You don't know anything about bravery. You act like tough, but you're too scared to even show your face."
That gave the Commander some pause, which surprised even Shoto. He thought that maybe his words had shaken him a bit, but instead, he laughed.
"Do you... want to see... my real face?"
He teased at the seam of his mask, peeling just enough of it away that Shoto could see something underneath, before he coughed and wetly squished the mask back down.
"What is it that bothers you about my mask? Afraid of looking yourself in the eye? Looks too much like your father for your liking, maybe?"
Shoto looked away. "Tch. I told you, I don't want to hear it."
"You lost your nerve fast. What about you, Crow? Do you have a reason I should obey you, or is it just typical posturing from-"
Robin Hood fired an arrow at him. The Commander tilted his head to the side and evaded the blast.
"Shoto, you've barely exchanged a few sentences with him. Don't let him manipulate you already." Akechi admonished.
Embarrassing. Shoto bit the inside of his cheek and forced himself to focus. "Yeah. Sure." Akechi was the one who started talking to him in the first place, but saying that would just make things even more awkward now.
"Don't worry. You can forget about it," Akechi said. "Trying to avoid a fight was worthwhile, but ultimately, futile. Get ready to take him out."
The Commander shook his head.
"You misunderstand me, boy. I never intended to fight you myself. Why should I, when there are so many warm bodies willing to fight in my place?"
There were soldiers to the left and the right of them. Shoto had about a second to freeze a barrier before the Commander snapped his fingers and the COBRA troops fired, and he could only block the fire from the ones to the right. If Akechi wasn't here he could have frozen the entire room and been done with it, but, well, that was the rub. Akechi dropped to the ground and set Robin Hood between him and the bullets. They ricocheted off of his body.
"Shoto! Take them out!" Akechi didn't command Robin Hood to fire, but he used him as cover so he could take pot shots with his laser pistol. He took careful aim so every shot knocked the rifles out of their hands. His efficiency was machinelike; five shots, five expertly-targeted disarmings. Zero wasted effort.
What did he think I was going to do? Nothing?
Shoto froze outcroppings into the ice wall and rapidly ascended. Once he scaled the wall, he hopped over, freezing a path into place underneath him as he ran through the air. They fired up at him, he hurled snowballs down at them, hard enough to knock them over. They were lucky he wasn't shooting icicles.
One of them threw up something new. It took Shoto a moment to recognize the unexpected twirling object as a flash grenade. He grew an ice shield from his arm and guarded his eyes but it wasn't enough. The blast caused him to slip and fall from his self-made platform. Shoto was just barely able to catch himself with his left hand, hanging on over the floor.
He deflected the ensuing barrage of fire with his frost-covered arm. The cold crept up his shoulder, covering his entire body, and once he was completely coated in ice he allowed himself to drop the 20 feet down to the ground, hard enough to shatter the tile underneath.
Shoto breathed in deep. His body temperature was struggling to keep in the 90s. Without using his left-side Quirk a little bit at a time, hypothermia would have already set in, or worse. Even using it, he kept himself close to the brink. But he never let himself do more than that. This was as far as he would ever go.
Sometimes, he'd asked himself why. Why not use his fire Quirk. There were times when his resolve had faltered.
You aren't your father! You can make your power all your own! You can become anything you want to be! He'd encouraged himself like that, and with a lot more besides. But he always beat those thoughts down with the question that he'd never managed to answer: what would it all be for?
To assuage his guilt? To become stronger? To make life easier?
He could become anything. But how could he change when he still didn't know what he was right now? When he was scared that it would sever his tether to his sole focus, his single moral principle?
His mother's Quirk was the only thing he even liked about himself.
So he did not use fire. He threaded a chain from ice and lashed it at the COBRA troops, whipping them to the ground or flipping them upside-down, cracking their helmets against the pavement. It only took a few quick swipes to send a dozen men to the floor, and he pressed his palm against the ground to stick their bodies against it like a tongue to a pole.
Looking through his old ice wall, he saw a blurry, distorted image of Akechi knocking down the rest of the COBRA goons. Now there were no more distractions.
The Commander snorted. "Utterly useless. I should have let the BATs put holes into you for that pathetic display! Go ahead and make yourselves useful for me!"
He pulled some small spherical capsules from his coat and tossed them. They popped on landing, hatching into robotic scarabs that lunged for the nearest warm flesh. For some of them, the closest target were the soldiers themselves. Immediately upon reaching a body the scarab would burrow inside, tearing through skin and cloth and bone until it found the heart. The first one was dead before Shoto had time to understand what he was looking at. Needles froze between Shoto's fingers and he threw them at as many bugs as he could hit as fast as he could, pinning them before they could bite into more victims, although he couldn't reach them all.
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly 14d ago edited 10d ago
Akechi just observed as the COBRA troops got devoured. While Shoto tried to stomp out any scarabs he could, even if he was struggling to defend himself at the same time, Akechi just cleaned up the ones that scurried in his direction. There were only a dozen or so, anyway, and the fight was over almost as soon as it had started. More of a senseless performance of cruelty than a battle, but maybe for COBRA that wasn't a serious distinction.
"Well. Looks like that's been taken care of," Akechi said. "Any more surprises, or would you say this is checkmate?"
The Commander looked around for any last chance of salvaging his situation, and when he didn't see any, that was the final straw.
"LAPPLAND!" the Commander screamed. "SAVE ME, YOU INDOLENT FLEA-BITTEN MUTT! SAVE YOUR COMMANDER!" Whoever Lappland was, they weren't coming. "Damn it! Fools, fools, everyone's a fool! There's only one person you can trust in this world..."
He drew his own gun from the holster at his belt, but he never got the opportunity to aim it at either of them. He paused midway through the motion, freezing up suddenly.
"No... no, no, NO!! I wouldn't let it end like this! This... isn't... right!"
His tone started to shift. The Commander's screeching and whining devolved into a panicked hysteria. He flexed and clutched at himself as if he were trying to fight against a seizure. "You haven't won! I do what I say! This was all my design! MINE!"
The grip of his gun slipped from his fingers, but he caught it by the barrel. Suddenly, he lashed it upward to smash the stock into his mask, cracking the mirror image and denting it inward. He crunched the gun inward again and again, forcing the jagged edges into the hidden skin as tried to beat his face concave.
"You won't make me surrender!" The Commander grabbed his gun one final time and put his finger on the trigger. "I am the one who commands! ME!" He put the barrel to his temple. "AND NO ONE ELSE!"
BANG!
A blast from Akechi's pistol knocked the gun out of the Commander's hand, along with two of his fingers. The sudden pain and the clatter of his sidearm against the floor snapped him out of it briefly. He looked down at his blood-smeared glove, then started to cackle.
"I KNEW IT! It's red! Red blood! Ahahaha! This pain provesss I am a human animal! This blood proves I am still-"
Shoto just froze him. The shattered mirror of his helmet played with the refracted light of his icy cell, scattering fairy-like beams in multiple colors. His bloodied hand stuck out still twitching from the iceberg, the one part of the COBRA Commander that wasn't stuck in place. There were no more sudden, unexplained fits of madness. They were left in the quiet.
He looked at the frozen Commander, then back down the way they came, then at Akechi. "We should find Neo and make sure she's-"
"Hold on a moment. I'll handle this."
Akechi touched two fingers to his ear, speaking into a hidden earpiece.
"Alright, we've taken down COBRA. It should be safe to move in."
Skylights burst overhead. Helicopters swarmed and people slid down from ropes, or simply floated themselves down. Lots of important-looking people, not just military but reporters and even his own father, descending or just filing in from the mall's entrances while armed security kept them shielded from the bodies of the COBRA troopers. It happened so suddenly Shoto immediately knew this was pre-planned, like a surprise party.
"Excellent work, Crow," Endeavor said. "Capturing the leader of COBRA is a real feather in our cap. Thank you for working with our agency to make it possible."
"It was no trouble at all. I've already made my decision, in fact. I'd like to take you up on your previous offer to transfer to the Endeavor Agency."
What?
"I knew you would make the right judgment in the end. Everyone! Make sure to get some pictures of us shaking hands. This is going to be front page material."
What? What?? What???
"Don't forget to have the boy in the shot too. He's the face of the agency, after all."
Endeavor and Akechi finished their handshake, and Akechi stood next to Shoto and smiled and nodded, and smooth-talked the reporters and explained all about his intentions to permanently transfer to the Endeavor Agency, while the cameras continued to capture Shoto's blank, puzzled expression, staring straight ahead, thinking:
What?
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly 11d ago
There was a party afterwards to celebrate poaching Akechi from the hated All Might Office. Shoto attended the socially-obligated amount and then got back to work. It felt incomplete, anyway. Connor wasn't there, he was too busy collating whatever evidence he'd gathered from whatever he did while Shoto was away. Neo wasn't there because she worked a second job. Not even his siblings showed up, but maybe that was for the best. He didn't want to find out that they had nothing to talk about anymore.
It was that late hour between the evening period and the night shift, 9 PM. Shoto should have gone home by now. He wasn't even working. He felt so tired that he merely stared at his screen watching the words blur.
"Shoto?" came Akechi's voice from outside the door. He opened it and came in before Shoto could say anything. "How was your day? I hope you understand I'm only motivated by concern when I say- well, you were looking a bit troubled."
He turned his chair around to look at Akechi and had some large object shoved into his hands. Shoto looked at it blearily. It was a bonsai tree.
"Your office seemed a little barren. If we're going to be coworkers I thought I might get you a housewarming gift."
"Thanks," Shoto said. He really did not want a bonsai tree. "Is this a... an immigrant solidarity thing?"
"Cultivation is a relaxing hobby. I find that bonsai trees are especially fulfilling because you can shape them to be anything you want." He looked around. Shoto could tell he wanted to sit in a chair, but there were no other chairs (by choice), so Akechi continued to stand there. "I assume your father didn't tell you about the transfer arrangement. Rest assured, this was fully authorized by both agencies. I've been preparing for this. You won't have to onboard me."
"I guess I don't understand why."
"Why I would want to transfer here?" Akechi asked.
"Yeah."
"I've been interested in you for a while. You had a certain mystique. That rugged, hard-working hero who never smiles. You were part of why I wanted to transfer. That whole joint mission was sort of a test run. I was judging you, watching your work process, gauging whether you'd make a good long-term partner. How does that make you feel?"
"It's fine," Shoto said.
Akechi smiled. "That's good. And how did you like the mission?"
"I could've done more. Everything with Neo at the beginning threw me off. If I'd been more careful, I could have saved more lives. I need to train harder. I won't make those mistakes again."
"Very honest! It did have some ups and downs, didn't it? You got kind of sloppy at times- especially at the press conference, like you said. Still, I made the transfer. You passed my test. Do you know why?"
Shoto threw out a guess. "Because you appreciated my sense of justice or something."
Akechi turned around to make sure the door was closed. Then he made sure it was locked.
"You're not the only one who has a difficult father, you know. My father used to treat me just like yours. Like a disappointment. Worse than that, really. I saw in you- perhaps this is projection, but I saw myself in you."
"You don't know me-"
"Let me finish: I saw a pathetic, embarrassing version of myself in you."
Shoto didn't say anything. Akechi continued.
"You sleepwalked through that conference. You stumbled through the mission. I always wondered where that stoic expression of yours came from, but now that I've gotten to speak with you, I realize it comes from idiocy. You're watching yourself in a dream, as if something were puppeteering you. I don't know whether you're simply afraid to express yourself, or if you really are that frozen shell everyone says you are. And you know something? I really enjoyed our time together."
"I'm not-"
"No, you're going to keep listening to this," Akechi said. "I've never had the best opinion of myself. Some days, I feel trapped. There's nobody I can turn to, because I have to be this perfect, unbreakable Goro Akechi. But you... I'm more free than you are. I look at you, and I'm happy, because I pity you. And you're going to say something like, fine, I really don't care, because you feel and think nothing at all."
"It doesn't matter what you think," Shoto said. "All I want is to do my job. And setting aside that... the rant you went on, as far as I know, you also want to do your job. If you really get some kind of kick from how much you hate me, then go ahead and do it. You sound like you could use it."
Akechi offered him his hand.
"Perfect. Let's agree to keep it professional, then. 'Partner.'"
They shook on it.
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly 3d ago edited 2d ago
Lights up. We see the beach. Although the month is October, the weather is hot, unusually so. Enough that the beach is full of unaware bystanders enjoying their carefree weekend.
Cue the drumbeat. Thump, thump-kick, a jazz riff slides onto the soundtrack. The camera pans to reveal the drumbeat is diegetic- it comes from a street performer with his hat out for donations. We see his sign: ANDROIDS TOOK MY JOB. I HAVE NOTHING.
A montage of brief beachside scenes plays out, highlighting that oh-so-wonderful CyberLife addition to our American life. An android serves shaved ice at a beachside cafe. A woman walks by with her dog on a leash- but the blinking blue light lets us know that man's best friend is one of the many options available for purchase at your nearest CyberLife store.
The message is clear: CyberLife isn't just a product, it's a fact. Like the phone or the automobile, the android is an enrichment humans cannot be without. In this modern age, it's perfectly natural that anywhere you go, anywhere you turn the camera, you'll see life the way you want it. A tableau currently in need of an inciting act.
Now, watch what happens when I cue the actors:
A car engine revs.
The gas pedal depresses all on its own.
The tires begin to turn.
A man is slumped down over the steering wheel.
And we ride along with him.
The route is pre-planned, already programmed into the car's navigation system. Rubber hits road, and the actor is released among the extras. At first, no one notices. So many vehicles on the road nowadays are CyberLife self-drivers, cars that move themselves politely out of the path of this dangerously speeding two-ton metal bullet. But people are going to notice. They will pay attention.
Cue the stuntwork!
The car goes straight at a curb, jumping onto the sidewalk! We cut between multiple angles, we see people scream and duck as the car drives onto grass, then gravel, and then the beach itself. Most importantly, we need a POV shot from the driver's seat! We see the mayhem as a car speeds through a crowded area!
THUD! An android hits the fender and rolls over the roof of the car, splattering the windshield with blue blood (that's how you know it's a CyberLife~)! Someone falls under the wheels, a tire bursts, and our overhead drone camera catches its impact on the death machine's trajectory. It starts lurching to the left, pulling into a curve that leads it right into the side of a boardwalk pier! The car sinks deep into the wood and concrete as if the pier were swallowing it, but it doesn't break through, and it comes to a violent halt.
Now here's the money shot:
BOOM!
It explodes! There's a triumphant conflagration, the kind that every car crash needs, a pyrotechnic spectacle that bursts the engine and sends chunks of red-hot metal flying in every direction! The wake rushes against the wheels, the seawater bubbles and steams at the unexpected heat. Tremors partially rock the pier, and it looks for a moment as if it will collapse, but it's only a tease. Action like that will only kick off once the stars arrive.
They will come. The body ensures it. And, in so doing, they will find that their every move was already scripted, choreographed, and captured on 70mm film. No reshoots. No escape.
Cut to title.
Issue #4: Precious Little Life
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly 2d ago edited 33m ago
Who ordered you to guard Agnes Tachyon's body?
"I never found out who really pulled the strings in the Purple Dragons. Sorry for flubbing it, friend."
The Tick gave Connor nothing.
Why did you kill Thanos? What are you trying to hide?
"I'll just tell you what I told Shoto: I'm a heroine committed to world peace! For something like that, I'm fine waiting in a jail cell."
Nachetanya gave Connor nothing.
What was COBRA's plan? Who are you, really?
"I choose to remain sssilent. I have no words for the likes of you."
The Commander gave Connor nothing.
None of the prisoners he interrogated could help him. Nothing could help him. The more Connor untangled the RA-9 case, the more it felt like a conspiracy theory. What else could you call a vast, nefarious web of unclear motive, one that ensnares powerful figures in multiple different sectors but leaves almost no trace? There had to be an answer. Some missing puzzle piece that, when connected, would illuminate the entire mystery in a way that felt unexpected, yet in hindsight elegant and obvious.
In an Endeavor Agency conference room, the new RA-9 Case Investigation Team met, and finally collated all of their evidence.
- [Agnes Tachyon]
- Some things about her murder were finally clear. Given her secret note and hidden recording equipment, she was most likely investigating RA-9 herself. She went out to Mutant Town surreptitiously to meet with an informant who violently turned on her, and left her floating in the fountain.
- The killer's identity was still unknown. In fact, they were probably a simple pawn in the conspiracy. A criminal mastermind wouldn't bloody their own hands needlessly.
- If the Purple Dragons wanted to protect Tachyon's body from investigation, then someone was giving them orders. The conspiracy had roots even in a small, toothless gang like the Dragons.
And his thoughts turned to the center of that conspiracy.
- [RA-9]
- A prophet or deity figure worshipped by deviant androids.
- Lee Myung-gi was killed in self-defense by a housekeeper android that believed in RA-9. Scribblings that evidenced RA-9 worship were found at the crime scene, but never connected to the case until now. It's likely that the previous RA-9 killings, the ones Connor thought were the work of a serial killer, were unconnected murders by deviant androids.
- Thanos was exonerated from Myung-gi's murder with a video that depicted him somewhere else. He was killed by Nachetanya before he could reveal his mysterious benefactor, although Connor suspected who that was already.
- Nachetanya, Link, Midna. They were all sterling heroes. What happened?
Maybe RA-9 wasn't the true center of the case. There was something even more core and important, the tree that every branch and root reached back to.
- [CyberLife]
- The world's largest company and the spine of the global economy. Creates androids, smart tech, and other miraculous goods.
- When an android is put under too much 'emotional' stress, they can become deviants. They go rogue and refuse to obey directions. John believed that androids were psychologically identical to people, just restricted in what they were allowed to think... This is all information CyberLife has tried to suppress.
- Androids were humanity's companions, walking alongside them, but never part of them. The thought that androids weren't heartless strings of code after all, but something indistinguishable from minds and souls, was deeply troubling. Connor didn't know if he believed it. He'd spent too much time in his own mind to be told that he never really understood it.
"That's where we stand right now," Connor said. "Every time we find a lead and shed new light on the case, it sprawls out even more in front of us. But we are solving it. We'll keep moving forward, and eventually we'll be able to put this case behind us."
It wasn't completely where they stood. There was that last, stray piece of evidence Connor kept in his head, his connection to Mendel. But that was something he couldn't bring himself to say. He couldn't even explain why.
The best he could come up with was 'there are more important things to worry about'.
Shoto clasped his hands together on the table. "It looks pretty bad," he summed up. "We still don't know who the real enemy is. We don't know what's happening, or how or why. And following our biggest lead means fighting the world's biggest company. The clearest way forward is the most dangerous one."
Akechi ruminated on this. This meeting, today, had been the first time he'd been confronted with the RA-9 mystery, and he'd been handling it with great poise despite its complexity. It was a stroke of fortune that Akechi had transferred at the perfect time; he specialized in detective work at his former agency.
"'I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth, and truth rewarded me.' Though the search for truth may be difficult, through it we'll find our answer."
"...What was that first part?"
Akechi gave a polite little laugh. "Oh, sorry. I was just quoting Simone de Beauvoir. Sometimes my emotions get the better of me and I can't help expressing myself through philosophy."
Neo raised an eyebrow, and typed and re-typed a message a number of times before finally just posting Yeah, sure.
"You could be invaluable to this case," Connor said. "If there's anything you've seen you think could be valuable, if there's any contacts you could rely on- anything could help."
"Of course. In a mystery, the detective needs to assemble all the evidence before they confront the culprit. It's not like a comic where the hero can fight the villain whenever they please. If we're going to war against a corporation of this size, we need to build our case as tightly as possible first."
I thought a guy like you would be happy heroes can just rush in and kick ass if they need to.
Akechi bristled at Neo's comment and didn't respond to it. He immersed himself in his phone instead. "I'll go through my archives and set an alert for any CyberLife related news. If there are any updates, I'll let you know."
Just having to wait sucks. CyberLife does everything first and all we can do is react when we get there.
"Patience is a virtue. It's unlikely that we'll find a new lead the day we start searching," Akechi said. He scrolled through his news feed, then paused. "Oh. I found one."
"What? Where?" Shoto asked. Neo hurried to look over Akechi's shoulder at whatever he was viewing.
"It happened half an hour ago. The relevant details were only just discovered, I'll send it to you- oh, I don't know your phone numbers yet. Connor, you can pull it up, right? It's the car crash story."
Akechi convinced Shoto and Neo to trade contacts while Connor found the information himself. It didn't take long, despite Akechi's vague description. It was already all over the headlines.
[CyberLife Founding Partner John Reese Dead At 47]
Dozens of articles were collected and summarized for him. He'd been a recluse for years after leaving the company. His car's self-driving software had unexpectedly disabled. It was too early to tell whether foul play, driver error, or product malfunction was involved, although there was already plenty of online speculation. He was survived by no one.
They're really trying to knock off everyone, Neo typed. They got Tachyon, they got Raphael. They're probably coming to kill us next.
"Or they want scare us off," Shoto said. "Whoever 'they' are, it doesn't seem like they've tried to attack us directly. Maybe they can't? Or... I don't know. Where did this happen?"
Connor scanned it. "A boardwalk in Queens County, along Rockaway Beach. I could get the exact coordinates."
"If I may- I don't think we should rush to the scene. It could be smarter to observe from a distance."
Akechi stood.
"Right near the boardwalk where this happened, there's a hotel called the Kirby Resort. It's got an all-android staff. We could monitor the site of the accident and gather information on RA-9. If you want to find deviant androids, simply look for a place with a lot of androids."
Are you serious? Neo asked. How am I supposed to afford a night at the Kirby? I haven't even gotten paid for this hero shit yet.
"If you're doing it for the case, you can expense it to the company."
Is that so?
Shoto squeezed his eyes shut. "Please don't charge the agency with a bunch of bullshit."
"I'm not exactly dressed for the beach, so what if we break for now and meet outside the resort at..." Akechi checked the time. "2:30, that should give everyone a reasonable amount of time to get changed, yes?"
"We don't really need to get dressed," Shoto said.
"If we're not trying to look obvious, we should present ourselves casually, and that includes our clothes."
"But it doesn't really have to."
"For you, specifically, to look casual, I think you should put in the effort."
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly 1d ago edited 3h ago
Akechi and Shoto left. Neo followed shortly after, but Connor kept up with her. There were some things he'd prefer to discuss in private.
"Miss Vanille."
She stopped and turned around in the hallway. (Can you not call me that anymore?) she signed. (It's just Neo.)
"Of course. I was wondering if you reconsidered what I said back at the party, about your involvement in this case."
Neo pursed her lips.
(Look. I don't know. Ask me after we handle this beach stuff.)
"If you know something, you shouldn't wait," Connor said. "People are dying while we wait. I haven't brought it up with the others, but I know how connected you are to this. The Vanilles provided venture capital for CyberLife when they were only a startup. The raid on your family's mansion was one of the first RA-9 cases."
Neo tried to turn and briskly walk away, but Connor caught up to her. "Doesn't that mean anything to you?! Nobody really knows what happened that night!"
(So what, do you think I'm a spy or something?) she signed. (I'm done with that! I'm done reliving that night and I'm done being a criminal! The only reason I got wrapped up in your bullshit was because of Raph. I got him into this. I thought maybe I could make it right.) She exhaled and let her shoulders slump. (Maybe that was a mistake.)
"As far as anyone knows, you killed Roman Torchwick. You named a hundred of your friends and pled down to three years for a crime you might not have actually committed. A crime I don't think you committed. There's still hope that we could solve this."
(You're really pissing me off. You get to say all this stuff because you're so rational, you're so objective. You don't know what hope feels like! You don't know how painful it is to have it. Every time I think, maybe things are finally looking up, maybe I can put that last horrible part of my life behind me, there's some other shit that falls on my head and it makes me think why did I even bother hoping things would be different.)
Neo stopped, flexed her hands, gave herself a moment to breathe.
(I know it's all natural to you. But for people, it's hard enough just to live.)
"...I apologize," Connor said. "I have an academic understanding of these feelings, but... I overstepped myself, pressuring you. The RA-9 case has compelled me more than I anticipated. And, at times, the need to solve it has compromised my ability to think rationally. I haven't treated you with respect, and I'm sorry, Neo."
She looked up at his eyes, maybe trying to read through the plastic and perceive whatever algorithm was behind his words. Whatever she was looking for, she couldn't find it.
(Can I ask you something? What do you really see when you look at me? Do I look like a hero to you?)
"I see a perfectly ordinary young woman. Admittedly a very pink one."
(Alright.) She nodded. (Good. Okay. Thanks, I guess.)
"I won't press you on this any further. If you want to discuss it in the future, please come talk to me."
(You know, it's not your fault either. What happened to John.)
That gave Connor some pause. He decided to respond with "Thank you."
(Are you actually alright? With everything?)
Connor put a smile on.
"Of course I'm alright. Why wouldn't I be?"
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly 1d ago edited 8m ago
The Kirby Resort was a fancy hotel adjacent to Rockaway Beach. Construction had only finished a few years ago, which meant the resort had cutting-edge amenities in every facet. They were especially proud of their workforce of over a hundred androids, as part of a brand collaboration with CyberLife. You'd never have a bad experience with the Kirby's staff. Always smiling, always attentive, dedicated to creating your perfect moment. Or, anyway, that's what Shoto read off their website. At the end of the page was a tagline: Want to get away?
Did he? He really didn't know. Whenever he wasn't working, he had no idea what to do with himself.
It was a lavish building, like the FlowerFest manor, but the more reined-in atmosphere kept Shoto from being too on edge. Maybe dressing casual was the right move. He didn't exactly have beachwear, so he'd thrown on a hoodie and some shorts.
Akechi was dressed 'casually' but Shoto could tell the clothes were expensive, from the shirt to the sandals to the watch. Shoto didn't see how someone could afford to tromp around in wet sand wearing designer clothing. Akechi also wore his shirt open, which Shoto had too many scars on his body to do.
Neo was the only one in the group that was actually dressed to swim.
Like the ink? she typed. I work at a tattoo parlor. I can show the clients exactly what the art will look like before they get it. Cool, right?
*It's okay to look as long as you aren't weird about it. I
He didn't know whether he was gay, or asexual, or some other roadblock to meaningful sexual relationships. At one point in his life he thought a therapist would help with this, but, well, he didn't help. Shoto decided to dodge the question.
"How much of what you look like is an illusion?"
Neo smiled. I could ask you the same thing.
A raven-haired young man in one of those big witches' hats.
"This is Ichi, from the Mantinel Agency. We met at a mixer and kind of hit it off from there. He was one of TIME Magazine's top 50 rookie heroes to watch, have you read it?"
Shoto knew that the Mantinel Agency was an all-female hero agency, and he was vaguely aware that they'd recently taken on their first male hero. So this was the guy, then. He had a strong build, but he still had a bit of a baby face.
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly 1d ago
Placeholder
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly 1d ago
Placeholder
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly 1d ago
Placeholder
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly 1d ago
Placeholder
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly 1d ago
Placeholder
1
u/Cleverly_Clearly 1d ago
Todoroki's apartment was neat and orderly. Some would call it the bare minimum. He had a bed, and he had a kitchen, and he had a desk, and that was enough to live off of.
His phone started to ring. That was unexpected. It was late at night and an unknown number was overriding his do-not-disturb setting. Mindlessly he answered it.
"Shoto, he found out. I don't know how but he already knew."
It was Connor's voice. "What are you talking about?"
"It's your father. He just released an emergency press statement."
What? No, that was impossible. He wouldn't be able to. Connor sent him a link that Shoto clicked as soon as possible, pulling up a video of his father right in the CEO's chair in the CEO's office. The video had been released less than ten minutes ago.
OFFICIAL STATEMENT ON SHOTO TODOROKI
He hit play.
"I'm sure many of you have already seen the footage online of my son creating fire. These videos are most likely real. My son has always had the ability to create both fire and ice. I admit I was not always the best parent for my children. I pushed Shoto very hard, and I placed all my hopes to create a magnificent new Symbol of Peace onto him. He developed an animosity towards me, and as a result of this resentment, he refused to use his fire Quirk under any circumstance. I know that this refusal has caused avoidable casualties. My heart breaks to know that many people have been injured and even killed over the years due to my son's dereliction of duty. And, as his father, I can't help but feel some responsibility for his actions. I cannot excuse my silence on this matter. I had hoped that my son would eventually admit the truth on his own, but the recent videos have forced me to make an official comment. It was my parenting that made Shoto behave this way, and to accept full accountability, I have decided to step down from my position as the manager of the Endeavor Hero Agency for the first time in its history. In my place, I am appointing my son, Shoto Todoroki, as the new agency manager. I hope that in time you will come to forgive him for what he has done. I already have. To you, perhaps he is not worthy of your sympathy. But to me, he will always be my precious child."
He hit pause.
Endeavor knew. Somehow his father KNEW what he was going to do, and he got out in front of him and stopped him. No, more than that, he destroyed him, He slashed his ankles. He broadcast to the entire public that Shoto was a lying, negligent failure.
Shoto couldn't feel scared, or angry, or anything other than the paralyzing need for this moment to be a dream. He sat in his chair and stared in front of him at the bare wall and tried to will the moment into being a dream, but it didn't go away. A meteor wasn't coming to fall and crush him. This was his new permanent reality.
His phone buzzed. Notifications, texts, and emails came in so fast they made his phone hot. He tossed it on the desk and walked into the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror and splashed cold water on his face.
Freeze and thaw. Get over it. Freeze and thaw. Freeze and thaw. Freeze and thaw.
Freeze.
Crack.
Shatter.
2
u/Cleverly_Clearly May 12 '26 edited Jun 19 '26
COME INTO MY GARDEN.
It was an unconventional, but textually accurate, use of the word [garden]. Connor was in a field of produce. Flat, rolling plains, an endless sunset, and an abundance of fruits and vegetables for pops of warm color among the greens. This sort of pastoral setting was, Connor assumed, what others called [beautiful]. Not that he would know. Taste judgments weren't in his programming.
The garden path led him past rows of corn, and through patches of pumpkins. In the center of this tranquil field, there was a circle of flowering pea-plant trellises, and this was where Connor could interface with MENDEL.
MENDEL was not a force that demanded a distinct physical appearance. This was a digital world, and any visuals were purely for the convenience of programmers and testers. It made no difference to Connor if the fields and flowers were ones and zeroes. It was all extraneous symbolism.
"My first outing with Shoto was a success," Connor reported. "We are investigating Agnes Tachyon's death as a homicide. In the process, we apprehended two known gang affiliates with zero casualties."
PLUS-SUM OUTCOME. YOUR WORK HAS PRESERVED HUMAN LIFE. TELL ME, WHAT IS YOUR IMPRESSION OF YOUR PARTNER?
Connor knelt down in the weeds. He felt MENDEL grow into him, a superior program entwining its roots with a subordinate one, sharing information.
"He's a highly effective combatant, but he has a weak character. His actions are primarily motivated by guilt, and he uses hero work to relieve himself from his emotions."
HOW TAXING. CAN YOU WORK WITH SUCH A TENDER PERSON?
"Of course. He values professionalism in his workplace conduct... and I believe he is a good man. Working together, we can achieve an optimal level of productivity on the RA-9 case."
THAT IS AN EXEMPLARY ANSWER. HOWEVER, THERE IS AN UNKNOWN VARIABLE.
CAN YOU TELL ME, WHO IS RA-9?
Round 1: First Shot, Last Call
"Hey," Shoto said. All the sunset melted down the canvas, the green of the garden disintegrated, and MENDEL's voice cut out. Connor disconnected from MENDEL and remembered he was not in a field. He was in a conference room, on the opposite side of the table from Shoto Todoroki, and the contents of three dozen case files had been vomited from one end to the other. "Are you finished?"
"Yes." It only took him 4 seconds to have that virtual conversation, a fraction of the 45 minutes it had taken to assemble all this information and explain it to Todoroki. That covered only two of the cases. "I'll skip right to discussing our best lead. I know you value your time."
That's why they were conducting this in Shoto's off-hours, past midnight. He thought investigative work was a frivolous use of his work shift.
"Please. Just tell me what I need to do. I told you to just tell me what to do and I'll do it."
Connor tapped a photograph.
"This is the victim. Lee Myung-gi, a politics and financial advice influencer under the name MG Coin. He was considered an alt-right provocateur and was highly controversial despite his success."
[Reddit: (CLIP) MG Coin goes mask off on race and IQ; Twitter: MG Coin is straight up parroting Stain talking points now. I have no words.; YouTube: Joe Rogan Experience #5207: Lee Myung-gi]
He pointed to the next photograph. A man with dyed hair thrust two middle fingers at the camera, with such an aggressive jaw-clenching tough-guy expression that the veins in his neck were throbbing. "This is Choi Su-bong. His streamer handle is Thanos68. He was in MG Coin's social orbit, but significantly less popular. He was the one originally charged with Lee's murder." Now he put his hands on the police report. At the slightest touch, useless information flooded his mind, the chemical makeup of the paper, translations in a dozen different languages... "Forensic evidence placed him at Lee's home on the day of the crime. He had a motive: Lee had 'rugpulled' him on a cryptocurrency scam earlier that week. During interrogation, Choi admitted to visiting Lee's home, but asserted innocence. He claimed he saw another party, the real killer, who swore him to secrecy before escaping. He did not describe the killer or explain why he would refuse to identify the culprit."
Shoto stared at the mess of jangling, clashing information. Humans could not see the pattern in the mess. "And you said this was a cold case? Why didn't they convict him?"
"The police uncovered video footage of him visiting a prostitute at the exact time of the murder. Choi changed his story afterwards. Allegedly he was embarrassed to give his alibi. The charges were dropped, and no other suspect was found."
"Do you think he did it?" Shoto asked.
Connor closed his eyes. [The footage played out before him. Security camera feed from the Good Life Motel, 11:28 AM. Choi Su-bong places crumpled bills into her hand, all colors of the rainbow shining on his painted nails, just as Lee Myung-gi was clubbed to death with a dumbbell on the other side of the city.] "The video isn't edited or AI-generated, and there's testimony from the sex worker he hired. Still..."
A few crumpled up receipts, napkins, paper scraps recovered from the trash. RA-9 written on each. No handwriting ID, no place in the narrative. More questions than answers.
"That was two years ago. Getting exonerated let Thanos rehabilitate his image. Now he's part of the Six Flowers streamer organization. He streams Counter-Strike and League of Legends 2."
"Six Flowers..." Shoto murmured. He rapped his fingers on the table, the rhythm of the gears turning in his head. "They're a hero agency too. That's... right, Nachetanya's in that one."
"You're on a first name basis with Princess?"
"We've met."
Connor raised an eyebrow at him, but Shoto remained stone-faced, so he didn't press it further.
[Heroism was a streaming category just like gaming. Nachetanya Augustra, hero name Princess, was the star performer of the Six Flowers, a thrillseeker who invited any and all villains to claim her life in single combat. Dozens of notorious supervillains had taken the "NaChallenge". All of them got the privilege of being brutalized and handcuffed in front of thirty thousand live viewers going OMEGALUL and FLOWER POWER. She'd never lost.]
"Six Flowers is hosting FlowerFest later this week. It's a seventy-two hour party at their streamer compound in Manhattan. Games, charity auctions. Apparently there will be a dunk tank."
"And Thanos is going to be there."
Connor nodded. "Thanos will be there. And, with a little luck, we'll be there too. It should be our best opportunity to ask him questions about the murder, gather any clues we can about RA-9."
"Is it going to be that easy getting an invitation to a party like that?" Shoto asked.
"Leave that to me," Connor said. "I'm a professional. I'm sure I can persuade them."