Friend and Foe

Chapter Six

I got the message from the Hub after dinner the following day. It was direct from Gwen Ollander. She was the head of The Society, daughter of the son of the founding father of The Society. We rarely dealt with her directly. It was usually through her secretary (yes, the woman in charge of a superhero society had a secretary – who else dealt with the paperwork?) or right-hand man, Archer, that we were contacted. And it was never for anything more that simple directives regarding missions.

Every hero working out of The Society had a unique communicator, Companion. A Companion was as simple as a flip phone with the two light up screens and a press button keyboard, but it functioned differently. Whereas most mobile phones had many functions to keep people in touch with friends and family, a Companion would only communicate directly back to the hub to handlers and select, pre-chosen heroes in the field. Every message that was typed out in the Companion was sent through a coder that changed on a weekly basis before sent off to the receiver who had to run it through a decoder on their end. It was able to transmit brief voice calls and send pictures. A Companion was also a tracking device for the Society, though only those with fairly high clearance had access to that seeing as they tracked whilst we were off the job and our secret identities was pretty valuable information. They also streamed a live verbal stream back to The Hub.

I hadn't had any activity on my Companion in weeks. The Society had gone dark after the security breach, so nobody was sending me orders and none of my messages to the few other heroes I was able to access, had been responded to. Magnet and I rarely sent each other messages because there had been a phase when we'd both first gotten our Companions and they were new and novel and we had been chastised for clogging up the communications with 'stupid memes and inappropriate jokes' (Magnet had been fond of 'Yo Mama' jokes).

When my Companion started vibrating on my desk I almost fell out of my wardrobe in surprise. I jumped across my bed and snatched it up. Desperate to have communication with The Hub. On my scree was a simple line of text.

Extended verbal communication transmission at 2100. -G.O.

I spent a moment muddling over which handler had the initials G. O. before realising the that it was Gwen herself. Gwen, whom I hadn't spoken to since my initiation two years prior. Gwen, the boss lady. The only person with high enough clearance at The Hub to request extended transmissions of any kind.

The clock on my Companion blinked a minute to, at me so I took it outside, yelling to Mum and Dad that I was taking a walk. My Companion beeped out three times to alert me to the incoming transmission as I pulled the front door shut.

"Ma'am?"

"Hello Parker," Gwen said before pausing.

I crossed the lawn, waiting for her to speak. The silence stretched on.

"Ma'am? Is everything alright?"

She sighed, "Well no, Parker. There was a security breach at The Hub."

"I know that. I was wondering the purpose of this call. Is something else the matter? Is it Mr Hearst?"

I was near the end of my block, standing under a streetlight as I watched the streets vigilantly.

"It's the person behind the security breach. We've had our best on it for the past month and the verdict was that it was an inside job."

What? But- I, in a small place in the back of my mind, wasn't at all surprised. Weren't traitors in the script of every great story? Although, was I so bold to claim my story was great? I was just the sidekick to a protagonist like Magnet. Or a flat character to Gwen's protagonist, mentioned only a few times with no significant impact on the story. Knowing how the story went, meant that the traitor was somebody close to Magnet or Gwen probably.

Damn Abb for making me take that writing course with her.

"Who?"

"We don't know. The list of suspects is getting shorter as we speak," she informed me.

"Okay. Wait," I asked quickly, "is this call to inform me that I'm on the list. Or off it?"

"Off the list. You have been cleared but we are still working to clear other names that I cannot release to you for obvious reasons. You are not to speak to anybody of this call. Do you understand?"

"Of course, Ma'am."

"Excellent. Stand by for more transmissions in the next day or two, Parker."

The transmission was cut off before I had a chance to even think to ask about our next moves regarding Mr Hearst. I was left standing in the street staring at my Companion in the dark. Glancing at the clock on the screen, I turned back for home.

It was time to don my suit and hit the streets.