Devious Origins

CHAPTER 37

So, here's the thing. My Empathy power seems to have a blind spot when it comes to Dee. My theory is that her I-Belong-Here field interferes with it. Instead of reading Dee, maybe I'm reading the fake version of her that her power projects, the thing that shows you what you want or expect to see instead of what's really there. That's probably why I never before put together all the puzzle pieces that suddenly clicked into place in that room, and it's also why I'm still not sure there is any truth to the picture they assembled.

I hadn't before really thought about why Dee dropped out of college. I didn't put much thought into what wakes a person up in the middle in the night. What might drive a person to search the night looking for wrongs to right. I was thinking about it now, and I didn't like where it led.

We can only know as much of someone as they choose to share, and sometimes pain is bigger than words. It's one thing to hear the statistics. It's quite another to think about what they mean in the measure of real lives. One out of every six women in America will suffer a sexual assault at some point in her life. Now think about how many women you know. Almost certainly, some of them are carrying around secret wounds you know nothing about. Perhaps even someone very close to you. And you don't know.

I still don't know. Not for certain. How much can we ever really know another person's origin story?

* * *

The Mook raised his gun, and I drew my breath to speak. And then something in The Mook's eyes changed. He was looking not at Dee, but the video playing on the main display. I glanced at the monitor and quickly looked away. I looked back at The Mook. I reached into my Empathy, but I already had the words.

"This is who you work for," I said to him.

He looked to me. He lowered his gun as if it had suddenly become too heavy. "I didn't know," he answered.

"We need to stop them," I continued. He replied with a short nod.

Dee seemed oblivious of what was transpiring behind her. "This is it, Barry. This is the smoking gun. We have to take it with us."

I looked at the overflowing shelves. "It's too much to carry." I turned my attention to the PC. "They've obviously been digitizing the older media, copying it to a hard drive."

"I know. I'm trying to get into the file system, to copy the data, but this system is a dinosaur." She pounded the desk in frustration.

The bang of Dee's fist was immediately followed by the deafening bang of a handgun. The Mook stepped back into the room and said, "sorry, but it seems some of my former associates are attempting to join us from the estate." He leaned out the door and fired another two shots. "I'm keeping them pinned down in the stairwell, but I have limited ammunition. I suggest you leave quickly."

"Dee, he's right. We need to leave."

Dee turned to me. "It's right here, Barry."

"And we know where it is," I said, "We can lead others to it." I took her hand. "Let's go."

She spared a glance back at the shelves, then ran with me. The Mook covered our retreat with a steady rhythm of gunfire. We ran down the hallway, shoved open the door, and leaped into to the great map room.

It was not empty this time.

About thirty thugs were milling about the room, some of them familiar faces. Our old friends Gray, Green, and Red were there. I also recognized a few fraternity members. The rest seemed to be generic security goons like the one I saw at the Siegleshust estate. From the looks of surprise on their faces, I don't think they knew there was a second secret door in the room.

Red looked at Dee, his face a sudden mask of recognition and fury. "You!" he shouted.

"What did you do with our Ax?" yelled one of the frat boys.

The entire group was focused on us, and I didn't need my Empathy to know their intentions were less than kind. I thought about running back into the hallway, but the sound of continuing gunshots quickly erased that idea.

Dee turned to me, winked, and said, "Like I've said before, Barry, the only way out, is through."

Up until that moment, I had maintained my doubts about Dee being a superhero. With the events that followed, those doubts died. Completely. Permanently.

She fell on them like some mythical goddess of vengeance. Like a cleansing storm. She danced and spun, kicking the feet out from under them, flipping them into one another. A few pulled guns, but she quickly disarmed them, sometimes throwing one gun as a projectile to knock another out of some thug's hands. She used the stun gloves like she had trained with them for a lifetime, brushing her hands across several people in succession and throwing them each off balance as their bodies spasmed. It was like she was inventing a new martial art while we watched. When she was done, Dee and I were the only ones standing. She picked up her backpack, and we headed up the stairs to the fraternity house.

We emerged into controlled chaos. Red and blue flashing lights shown through the windows. Police in tactical gear wandered the house, rounding up the occupants one by one. It seemed the frat party had been raided, which meant DualCore had closed our trap.

With potential corruption in the local police force, we needed a way to call in outside reinforcements. Dee and DualCore manufactured rumors of an impending large scale drug deal. I'm not sure what sort of evidence they invented, but it definitely worked, because the place was swarming with authorities, a mix of state police and DEA agents.

Dee quickly removed her superhero implements and slipped her skirt back on, then we let ourselves be captured and processed with the rest of the party guests. We were searched, and finding nothing obviously illegal, they simply copied down our names and contact information and let us go. The cop searching Dee's backpack did raise an eyebrow at her goggles, but her stun gloves evidently looked innocent enough with the batteries disconnected.

As we began to leave, one of the state police emerged and had an excited conversation with with several other officers. I heard something about a closet and needing backup, then he said something into his radio, and they all headed into the fraternity house.

A while later, the thugs from the map room began to emerge. Evidently they did not go quietly, because most were in handcuffs. Dee and I hung back with the crowd now forming outside the police perimeter and watched it all happen. At some point Brian joined us, as did Sebastian and Kate.

Red was one of the last people pulled out, and as they stuffed him into a police van, he looked over and saw Dee.

"It's her!" he shouted. Dee grinned and waved. "She's the one who broke both my hands. Somebody arrest her. Somebody arrest that devious..." He was cut off by the slamming of the van door.

Dee grabbed my arm. "Did you hear that Barry? He gave me a name. I have my hero name!"