Vigilante (Under Construction! Please Excuse the Dust!)

Chapter 11: helping hands.

Rain Maker:

        Panicking, I rushed back to the desk where the librarian sat. When my footsteps scuffed against the rough carpet, her head shot up and she narrowed her eyes at me.

        "I'm sorry to bother you again-,"

        "Then why are you?" the woman hissed, propping her book between us like a wall. She glared over the edge of it. "Did you not find what you were looking for?"

        A bit caught off guard by her hostility, I quickly recovered, taking note to keep my voice hushed.

        "I did, thank you," I replied, ignoring her interruption and sneering expression, which only deepened as I continued to talk. "However, I forgot my backpack inside and the door sealed. Would you... mind opening it again?"

        The librarian looked positively annoyed, her face pinched up. She didn't care that I was in need of her help and it read of her like a strong perfume that she only wanted me out of her precious library of silence.

        "How foolish," the librarian shook her head and frowned, scuttling around her desk and grumbling to herself the entire walk back to the vault. She repeated the process of tapping at the keypad, then twisting the pad to the right and then left. Again, the low sound of a releasing lock rumbled and the door opened lazily. I entered quickly, not wanting to push the librarian's temper any further at the risk of making an enemy of the one person with unfettered access to civilian records.

        Slouched against the cabinets, my pack sat waiting for me. I snatched it up and swung it over a shoulder. When I exited the vault, the librarian had returned to her desk. Closing the door as quietly as one can close a vault, I let out a sigh of relief at the familiar weight of the bag on my back.

        Moving to leave, I thanked the librarian quickly. She didn't even seem to acknowledge my words. I hurried out of the library.

        What Commander Barnaby's file told me was that she didn't have any reason to help dangerous Heroes or why she would have disappeared. She was a straight-laced police officer who had an impeccable record; not even so much as a traffic violation. No theory made sense for this situation.

        The Elemental's disappearance, next Barnaby's, and finally the Shapeshifter. It was possible that the commander had a role in the Shapeshifter's escape, but not in the Elemental's. Charm himself had vouched for her alibi the day that she had vanished.

        Groaning at the confusing case, I reached into a side pocket of the backpack, withdrawing my communicator and pressing it to my ear once more. It had to come off along with the rest of my gear, seeing how it was rather noticable as a long piece of black plastic that jutted over my cheek towards my mouth.

        Immediately, the communicator pinged and the virtual intelligence told me it was an urgent message from Charm. Without any prompting from me, the message began. Charm's voice had an edge to it that appeared when he was stressed out or afraid.

        "We just got a report from the OCPD," he spoke quickly. "There's a Socket loose out in the Outer Province. I need your help with this if they're using electricity. The reports say that they're somewhere on the western side. Go there when you get this."

        A Socket? That was bad, very bad.

        The message was dated to almost a half hour ago. I doubted that Charm had found the Socket yet, but waiting around was not a good idea.

        I turned toward to the west. The sun was only a sliver of light above the horizon now. I ran towards the boundary that seperated Inner and Outer City, pulling only my mask on over my head and flipping up the hood of my jacket.