Purple Team on the Hunt

The shadow seems to stalk along the rooftops. No, not stalk, drift. Words are important, and that movement isn’t like that of a person or some predator, it’s more like the shadow they pretend to be. I shake my head as I move into the back of our van. We finally have caught up with this creature. Monster. Serial killer. Whatever you want to call them. It started in Paris, with rumors. Those rumors grew to suspicions. Eventually that became a hunt. This was, after all, exactly what the bossman has been after for a while. A natural version of our technological jury rig. Only where our stuff takes an entire massive complex and several satellites to work right, this appears to be contained within a single person. And where the technology’s ability to siphon and access is impermanent and one at a time, this killer, this Consumer, seems to have neither limitation. Only issue is how much conjecture is involved, seeing as they leave only bodies behind them. Bodies of formerly powered people with none of the genetic red flags so many machines owned by the enemy look out for.

In the back, I sit down next to Mikey. “How’re you feeling?” I ask my Purple Muscle. He’s got the roughest job coming up, having to go toe to toe with the thing.

“Sick,” Mikey replies with a sigh. “You figured out which poor sap we’re going to watch die this time?”

“Not sure, but to be fair, I’m not entirely sure the killer does either. Think about the other attacks, I think it might be as much influenced by instinct as it is any rational thought.”

“That’ll make it so much more embarrassing when it whoops your butt,” Val says from the front. They’re a solid Gunner. Not the best, but more than capable.

Mikey laughs. “You’re more than welcome to take my place,” he offers.

Val laughs right back. “Seems rough. I’ll just provide support and actually kill the thing, while you’re busy dickmeasuring.”

Mikey starts his comeback, “At-”

“Shut it,” my final team member cuts him off. Lucy is staring at the monitors, watching the reflections of shadows on buildings. “On the move. North,” she says. From the tone you would think Lucy’s all business. She’s not, but when the job is on, we’re all on. Purple Team doesn’t take our position as second ranking team lightly, and we know it’s only a matter of time before we overtake Black Team as the number one squad.

Val’s laugh stops immediately. “On it,” they say as they pull the van out of the spot. We follow the shadows, Lucy providing directions to Val. North, then west, out of the city limits.

Mikey notices it first. “The Vic,” he says quietly. “We’ve been behind it the whole way. The victim’s in the Vic.”

“Ironic,” I say, forcing a smile. “Let’s pull back a bit. See if that’s indeed the case.” I take note of the Crown Vic’s plates. As the van slows, I get on the other computer. Figure out who this potential victim is.

It’s owned by an Alex Mitchell. A nobody. Hasn’t been to the hospital or gotten his blood tested in far longer than recommended, so we don’t have any confirmation per se. But as the car turns into the city once more and the shadows follow, I assume that’s the case. The apartment complex has a garage. “Pull in up here,” I tell Val. “Let’s keep eyes on that bridge.”

“Shadows falling to ground level. We’re gonna lose our clear indicators with all the interfering lights down here,” Lucy informs me.

I pull up the picture of Mr. Mitchell. “This is who we think is the target. Keep an eye out, got it?”

Mikey looks at the picture and slides the door open, leaning casually on the van’s exterior. Val rolls down their window, to be able to take her shots without breaking any glass. Lucy looks at me. “Rooftop?”

I look over. “Awning. No powers, we don’t want to risk exposure yet.”

Lucy smirks and nods. She slides herself out the door, and like a mix of a top-tier gymnast and expert climber, she propels herself onto the office building’s concrete awning. Of course she can look like that mix because she was both of those at some point in her life. “Stop staring at my ass, Jac,” she jokes over our comms, her little half smirk somehow audible. Then she immediately adds in her professional tone, “And Vic’s pulling into the lot as we speak.”

“Alright,” I acknowledge Lucy’s statement then add, “No one rev anything up yet, but get it on idle. I want to minimize the delay once we have confirmation.”

I take my own order as well. Not sure how useful I’ll be against this target if it’s truly just following instinct, but at least it will help with coordination. I can feel the hair stand up across the back of my neck as the implant begins to run, even in an idle state. I know that the other three are doing the same.

Mikey speaks next. “Target’s target is entering the walkway. Moving fast.”

“Probably made us,” Val explains, “After all, I’m no Lucy and we didn’t even know we were supposed to be tailing him until we’d been riding up on him for a while.”

We all watch as the shadows begin to pool up, despite the light of the enclosed walkway. That’s confirmation of the target. The shadows seem to form some kind of humanoid figure. It shoves its arm-like appendage through Mister Mitchell. The man’s clothes fall away, revealing a glowing face and arms. Likely his whole body glows like that. Fascinating. Then, the glow fades. Not necessarily confirmation. The man dying could also be the reason behind the fading glow. But when the eyes within the pile of shadows start to glow, I switch on my mindlink with the others. ‘That’s confirmation.’ I think across the link to my team, ‘Even if this isn’t the cure, it could hold the secret to that cure. The killer’s going to be headed to the rooftop. Gunner, whir up something to get it down to the street. Muscle, get big. And Shadow, we’re gonna want to light this street up once the thing’s down here.’

A chorus of Understoods in my mind, and the faint glowing along all their spines, tell me they’re listening. If it is animalistic in its targets, we’ll be too juicy for it to turn down right now. And if not, a few blasts from Val should draw him close enough for Mikey to engage.

I can just notice the figure forming up, becoming clear as the twin specks of light shine down on our van. Then, like the wind, it’s gone. ‘It noticed us. Heads on a swivel.’

Lucy lights the street ablaze. She must have noticed something. Rolling out of the van, I notice it too. The shadow is behind Mikey. ‘Gunner, help Muscle. Well done, Shadow,’ I inform everyone. Then the link fades as I switch over and send an intense migraine of raw information into the creature. It doesn’t seem phased. Either it’s already eaten someone with some mental protection powers, or there isn’t much of a mind there anymore. Not good either way.

Mikey whips around and tries to grab at the shadow but, despite the light, it seems to fade and Mikey’s hands just pass through the space. It clearly doesn’t like the light, but only psychologically, rather than weakening it physically.

Val opens the rear door of the van and propels a wave of force point blank into the creature. That affects it, causing the shadow to be forced back into the flames. And the flames lick up the creature and it lets out a shriek. Or it would, except Lucy muffles the whole area, so the fires make no noise and the loud shriek sounds more like a yappy dog barking then a monster screaming in pain. I flip over to one of our newer abilities, and emanate enhancing power into Mikey. And Mikey feels it, switching from raw strength to something more subtle, letting a field of energy surround his arms. This time, when he swings at the shadow, it connects. A chunk of shadow flies off off the humanoid figure, splashing into the fire and fizzling into nothing. Another yappy screech of pain. Then the shadow passes straight through Mikey, sliding the armlike appendages into the man just like it had the glowing man in the walkway. The now-glowing eyes slide through the shadows to face its new prey. MIkey seems to smile. Why? His spine begins to glow even more brightly, some smoke leaking out. I realize what the idiot is doing. He grabs the shadow, wrapping his energy-covered arms around it, and squeezes with impossible strength. Shaking my head, I join in. Overclocking my own system, though not quite to the same extent, I keep the amplification up and add in a link. ‘Val, Lucy, flip to brain dot amp, and focus on Mikey. Now.’ Then I shut off the overclock before it burns out my brain. I have to hope they can do it. The fire grows louder, as does the whining from Mikey’s implant. So, Lucy’s no longer silencing the area. Mikey begins to grow in size. The shadow bulges, twisting as it tries to pull in all of Mikey’s power. But, from the looks of it, Mikey’s trying to access the whole Muscle suite, and is amplified multiple times over. The shadow’s struggling to keep up.

Then, suddenly, the shadowy figure explodes violently, shattering across the ground. Mikey falls to the ground. Alive, but unconscious. And his implant isn’t shutting down. “Shadow, down here. Gunny, get Muscle into the van and find some way to shut him down.” I look at the solid shadows that coat the street now. Should just need to get some of that back to Leo. I head back into the van, not even watching as Lucy makes her way back down. I grab a few of our collection containers. Putting on gloves, I head back out to the street.

FIrst, I collect some of the shadows into one of the containers. That’s easy enough, because the semisolid shadows of the former killer are everywhere right now. Once that’s sealed away in the airtight collection unit. I begin the harder search. There were two beacons of light in the shadow, like eyes. Eyes are linked directly to brains. Brains hold many secrets. So I seek out those glowing orbs.

I only manage to find one, in a small pile of shadow near the curb. I collect that shadow as it begins to de-solidify. Sealing it away, I look around. The other chunks of semisolid shadow are becoming less solid as well. Looking in my two sealed containers, the shadows shift less like jello and more like shadows should. Interesting sign. I climb into the van. “How is he?” I ask as I climb in.

“We couldn’t figure out a quick and dirty way to turn the implant off, so I basically disconnected it. Like I would a security system. We need to head back soon, though, not sure how long my implant’ll last doing this without a recharge,” Lucy informs me.

“Val, you mind getting us out of here?” I ask as I focus in on our Gunner, letting my still active amplification flow into them. They feel it, nod and head to the center of our van. Focusing on where the spider web of wires around the van meet, they close their eyes. I can hear val Breathing slowly as I climb into the driver’s seat. Then, where there was once a still burning city street around us, instead sits a near idyllic lawn, leading up to the isolated complex owned by a very rich, very smart man. I drive us in. We’ve been in the field a long time. Flipping over, I give a telepathic shout to Leo. ‘Nobody? Purple Brain here. We’re back with samples. But Purple Muscle is down, with an overloading implant. Jury rigged solution won’t hold up long. Bring help.’

‘Understood. Well done.’ our boss replies kindly into my mind. ‘The garage should be open and ready to receive you.’ Then, after a pause, he adds, ‘And thank you, Jac.’