Self Destructing Messenger

#26 - One More Thing

"No," Azalea said as she handed the Man in Black his jacket. The two had been about to head to the park when ambushed by a certain teen at Pyro's place. Azalea was doing her best to not lose her temper. As usual it wasn't working.

Gia kept at the idollette's heels. "Please! The text mentioned you specifically! If you don't help me, I'll never figure it out!"

The blonde paused. "I really don't care. I can't emphasize that enough."

"Whatever you are about to do can't be more important than this!" Gia insisted, suicidal enough to shut the door that Azalea had just opened.

The last button, that was it.

"Oh but it is," Azalea snapped, spinning to face the annoyance. "We are improving the overall mental fortitude of the population by teaching them to deal with the consequences of a temporary loss of balance."

Gia squinted. "What?"

"Show her."

The Man in Black nodded slightly and Azalea went for the door once more. Gia tried again to stop her but this time tripped over her own feet, landing with a thud on her a$!.

"Feel that?" Azalea asked. "That's skin thickening. Character building. You're welcome. Ciao." The Man in Black flashed the peace sign and the two idols left.

"That's not very altruistic!" Gia yelled.

Cayce had watched this all play out with some amusement but now he just felt bad. Azalea didn't have to be such a b@#$% all the time. He pushed away from the couch and helped the teen up. "No it wasn't but you should know better than to keep at her like that."

Gia's pout was at 90% capacity and rapidly increasing. "She didn't have to be so mean."

"You did ask for it, sorta. That's actually what they are going to go do, trip people at the park. She's been trying to raise the psycho's spirits."

Her expression changed from disbelief to distaste as Gia realized he was telling the truth. "That's demented," she said at length.

"Yes it is." He shrugged which was all anyone could do about Azalea's attitude. "Now what's this big problem?" The words were out. He had effectively trapped himself. Masochism.

The teen jumped on it, whipping her phone out at light speed. "I got this super weird text. I don't recognize the number."

Cayce took the trendy blue phone from her and read through it. "I've been watching," he mumbled. "blah blah too public, more blah. Disband V3, huh? Person is not a fan of vigilantes apparently. Or of the dangerous idol Azalea."

"That's not even the freakiest thing! Look at the signed name!"

Cayce scrolled down. "Technika. Isn't that what you go by?"

She bobbed her head enthusiastically. "Weird right?"

"Pretty threatening but you can't exactly take it to the police. Aren't you our tech girl? You can't trace it?"

Gia looked a little embarrassed. "Eh I managed the blogs but I'm not super tech savvy. We used to have a real tech girl in V3 but that was a long time ago."

"Could she figure out the source?" He asked.

"Probably. She was amazing at that stuff."

Cayce handed back the phone and snatched his keys off the coffee table. "Then lets have a reunion."

They pulled up to a house as remarkably unremarkable as any other on the street. It was large, nice and the grounds were perfectly maintained, like Gia's and everyone else's in neighborhood because that's where they were. Cayce was having trouble deciding what irritated him more; that Gia had fidgeted the whole ride or that she had fed him step by step directions even though the retired vigilante lived a street away from Gia's parent's house. Definitely the later. Now he wanted to trip her... or push her out of the truck.