Queen Takes Knight

War isn’t all it’s chalked up to be. In all fairness, people always talk about how bad it is, how much it ruins everything involved, from the people fighting to the places the people fight. But people always come in to say it’s necessary. It’s vital. Standing over the result of the most recent skirmish over a robbery, I can confidently say that I’m pretty sure it isn’t. It’s just getting people, good people mostly, dead, and wonderfully unique locations, many of which were beloved, destroyed. Thankfully, I missed the police in this case, no need to deal with those thoughts. I just got to see the effects of the fight on my city. And those effects sucked sometimes. When I got to watch the fights, it was amazingly fun. Men in funny suits fighting against other men in different funny suits, causing explosions and punching people through cars and whatnot. But coming in after the fact just ruined all the fun, leaving only the crappy results. Especially crappy in this case. I liked Ricky’s selection of packaged food and news sources, combined with his utmost refusal to enter the twenty-first century. No cameras meant the cops were going to have a rough time finding the perpetrators, but I knew. It had all the telltale signs of an assault team. Just one thing to confirm. I walked past the crime scene tape, and approached the center of the shop, to the smoothie machine. Or, where the smoothie machine should’ve been. The actual machine was missing, meaning police took it into evidence. There was a hole in the ground. Crap. Someone took my leverage. That was far from good. Without threat of that cube, I’d need to be on the lookout for assassins. I hear someone wondering who has entered Ricky’s. It’s nighttime. No one should be in Ricky’s. Not right now. I turn around slowly and ask my newest stalker, “Excuse me, are you here to kill me?” Stepping out from the shadows was a man clad in a variety of dark colors. Oddly shaped. Exoskeleton. It was the Fist. “Give up, I won’t have to,” he said, trying to be intimidating. It would've been, too, if not for his thoughts being filled with confusion. “Oh, it’s just you,” I said. Feeling a mix of relief and humor is always fun. The Fist, he’s a good influence on this part of the city. The cops hate him because his involvement complicates things, legally, but that's fine overall. Criminals don’t like getting the crap beaten out of them. “You can trust me, in this case. Do you know what went down here?” He looked hesitant, but his shoulders relaxed and he walked into the room. “I’m still trying to piece together what I saw.” “I could help, if you want,” I replied. He felt confused at my offer. “Why? Who are you? Why did you think I was going to kill you?” “Because I care about Ricky. And, if I’m completely honest, finding what was taken.” If I wanted him to be helpful, he needed more information. I could always just make him forget it after the fact. He smiled. “The police and Ricky say nothing was taken.” He knew well that wasn’t true. I sighed at that veiled nothing. “That’s bull. This wasn’t vandalism. They were here for an item.” He nodded. “Yep. Some weird box. How’d you know that, though?” “It’s a rubix cube, sort of,” I corrected him, then answered his question, “And I know because I put it there. Which is also the answer to the earlier kill me question.” “What?” he asked. He really had no idea the scale of this, I realized. “What are you talking about?” I cracked my neck one way, then the other. “Well,” I answered him, “That little cube had lots of juicy stuff on it. While I had it, none of the sides would risk killing me. Now…” I trailed off. “I see,” he said, “You were flamethrower lady’s so called friend.” Fire generation was too common to determine sides. “By now, you’ve probably learned that there weren't any traces of accelerant on the scene. If you want me to be useful, you might want to tell me everything you remember and know about what happened.” I needed to be careful with my wording. If he encountered some of us before, he might realize I had influence over his head, and stop trusting me. “Give me a minute, the scene seems odd. Different.” “Hmm?” I wondered. “The room wasn’t near as destroyed when I left,” he answered. So, it wasn’t a battle here. It was a race. And the losers covered up the winners’ target. Why? Too many sides to keep track of. The important question was who took my cube. “Anywhere I can wait for you to do your thing?” I asked. He was ignoring me, so I walked out back to the ruined alleyway. What remained of the fire escape was crumpled up on the ground. Any number of things could’ve done that, both conventional weapons and natural abilities. I’d need the quickly-going-broke scientist to help me figure out the details. I waited, and soon enough, he showed up. “So, my man,” I began, “Where to next?” “I need you to promise me that you won’t reveal anything you see today. To anyone.” I nod. “Of course,” I said, “On my own life, I will tell no soul about you or your operation.” It’s the truth. The fact that I don’t have anyone to tell may be a part of that, but it doesn’t make my promise any less true. “Then follow me. Try not to get spotted.” And he was off, up to the rooftop. I watched him from the ground, following along the sidewalks. Of my many abilities, none would let me jump across rooftops like his exoskeleton. Three blocks in, it became pretty obvious he was headed back for his apartment. Keeping my bubble of invisible forgetfulness up, I broke into a jog to the building. He made it there first, of course. He was running and didn’t have to worry about the street layouts. As I approached the building’s front door, he opened it up. No longer in his weird superhero outfit. “Come on. No comments,” he told me. I followed him up to his apartment. It was surprisingly clean and tidy. Not what I expected from someone who spends his days working and his nights out fighting crime. Almost like he doesn’t sleep. “Alright,” I said, looking around his apartment, “What went down, then?” “I'd normally say this is going to sound weird, but given that you know why they went there, I’m not so sure you’ll think so…” He explained the whole scene. What he saw. The point and explosion. The drugged fingernails. The nice criminal who tried to make him sleep. And the lady with the hidden flamethrower. As he finished his explanation, he walked behind his chalkboard, which was covered in some kind of science-y writing. Flipping the board over, it revealed a small network of his evidence. “And somehow, they left this here, for me to find,” he finished, indicating the letter in the middle of the board. I walked up and read the letter. It’s wrinkled, like it was angrily crumpled up. TA. Third Army. “Crap,” I instinctively said aloud. “What is it?” he asked. I looked over at the man. “TA is for the Third Army. And they aren’t going to just give me back my cube.” “Why not?” he asked. He went and wrote, ‘TA = Third Army?’ on the letter I shrugged. “Because they know just enough to think they can win, and unlike everyone else, they don’t know enough to be afraid.” That, more than anything else I’d said, confused him. “Why would anyone be scared of you?” Then, realizing the question was a bit rude, he added, “It’s not that you’re not something or other, but the team I saw was organized, trained. They knew what they were doing and how they were doing it. I don’t see them scaring easily.” I smiled. “That’s because they have naturally gifted abilities beyond normal humanity. In common parlance, powers. That’s why no accelerant or explosive residue were found on the scene, right?” He looked at me dumbfounded. His mind was exploding with confusion and understanding, like what I was saying made no sense physically, but also made perfect sense based on his evidence. I continued, “Did they give you any way of contacting them?” He folded the bottom of the letter up, to reveal the subreddit. “Just this. Why?” “Suffice it to say, you’ve stumbled into the middle of some heavy crap. And I want to not be dead. Also, preferably, not be involved in the war.” I walked over to his computer and asked him, “What’s your password?” He wasn’t going to tell me. “Why would I tell you?” he replied to me. Just as I expected. But it’s an old psychic trick. Because, even though they never plan on revealing anything, they always think about it for just a moment when asked. I typed in his password, some weird long scientific formula. Such a nerd. The page was innocuous enough. A reddit about first world problems on the surface. He realized I was logged on and, confused, asked, “How on earth did you guess my password?” “I’m psychic,” I replied, masking the truth with a joking tone. Using a guest account, I typed a short post. ‘Don’t you hate it when ignorant and triggerhappy thugs take your things? I mean, just yesterday someone ruined a nice little place, and took my second favorite rubix cube. I mean, ugh. As though they don’t think I’ll find it.’ Posting it, I messaged the founding account, ‘Queen takes knight, check,’ mostly just to be annoying. I knew a guy who could dig into IPs and things like that. I made sure to close the private message before the hero saw it. It was private, after all. One last piece of business, I thought, then I’m out of here. Turning to the Fist, I said, “Well, that should ruffle some feathers.” “What did you do?” he asked, reading over the post. “What is that supposed to do?” I smiled. “Well, make them scared, of course,” I told him, “Frightened people make mistakes. One last thing, if you don’t mind?” He stood up. “What?” Time for me to see myself out. Staring blankly into his eyes, I said, “Pursue these leads, pursue this case. Close your eyes for exactly fifty three seconds, then forget any and every detail about me, about anything I said. Remember only that you realized the team had powers, and that the cube they stole is valuable and dangerous.” And with that, I quickly walked out of the room, down the stairs, and onto the street. I’d ruffled some feathers, gotten a lead. Fortunately, I didn’t need to worry about assassins from the company. The Third Army wouldn’t risk revealing what they stole to their enemy. Unfortunately, the leaks in the Third Army meant that whoever was behind the teams making our kind disappear knew I didn’t have the data anymore. That might prove problematic. I’m not sure they’d risk coming after me close and personal, and from what I witnessed a few months ago, they seem to only capture, never killing their targets. I got lucky. That might change. Need to stay wary. Sighing, I headed to the bus stop. I needed to get across town, to the backroom of that one apple store. A hacker worked out of there and, even though he didn’t know or remember, he’s helped me with similar things in the past. That meant taking the bus to the subway, then switching lines a couple times, then heading back up and walking the last mile. There was a bus, but it always shut down around midnight, and it was already near eleven as I sat down. He wouldn't be open. There was a shelter a block away from the shopping area, I might be able to spend the night there, I mused as I got onto the bus. If not, sleeping on the street has always been my least favorite but most easily achieved option. It’s not like I have things that most people want. I leaned back in my bus seat, relaxed just a bit, and listened to the music that was stuck in the bus driver's head.