Chapter 12

Police Facing Scrutiny Over Handling of February 17th Events

Chad Collins Austin Statesman

Published 3:40pm CT March 13th, 2029

Federal authorities are investigating the Austin Police Department's reaction to the appearance of persons with supernatural powers last month. Several deaths resulted from officer involved shootings. Police records show conflicting reports as to the events...

The address Eugene sends me is on the other side of town. There's no way I'll make it in a reasonable amount of time using a rideshare thanks to morning rush hour traffic. However, I do have the licenses to use my powers for work so I find a nice quiet place on the roof of Little Asgard Heights.

The top of the complex has a pitched roof with a solar panel array and, as I'm now discovering, little Viking style dragon heads on the top corners. They're kind of cute with their tongues sticking out.

Once I'm situated on the roof I relax my shoulders and shift myself a pair of wings from my lower back. Even with CoLs having existed for the last ten years it's probably not a great idea to fly over a city with giant fleshy dragon wings. As much as I don't like to, I make myself invisible again before taking off and heading across town. I stay above the power lines and trees, in that nice gap of space planes and helicopters prefer to avoid. When I'm almost to the location Eugene sent me my phone buzzes. I get it out, shielding it with a shifted shirt sleeve to prevent people from spotting a lone flying phone over town, as I answer.

"On my way," I say.

"Get some food," Eugene says.

"What would you like?" I ask.

"What was that? There's a lot of wind," Eugene says.

I cover the phone better. "What would you like me to get?"

"I don't know. Burgers. No pickles. I don't know how Starling can stand them," he says. "I still have the aftertaste from the last ones in my mouth."

"Got it," I reply. I spot a sign for a Burger Hat about a mile away to my left. "Burger Hat work?"

"That's fine," Eugene says before hanging up.

I adjust course and drop down a couple blocks from the fast food place before shifting back to Basic. I duck behind a dumpster and become visible again.

It's early enough to get breakfast. I order a couple egg and sausage biscuits for myself, but get Eugene his burger and fries with a soda. I check the address he sent on my phone while I wait for the to-go bags in the lobby. I'm not terribly far from it relatively speaking.

Austin is pretty spread out, meaning I'm still over a mile away but if I take the street next to the Burger Hat I should be able to make it there relatively quickly. I get a drink carrier for the cups and the bag before I leave.

I decide to experiment with my boots and use my powers to shift them into inline skates. I test the wheels, which glide smoothly against the concrete sidewalk without an issue. To my knowledge no one's tried to do this sort of shift with shift ready boots. I'm told wheels are not easy.

"This will work," I say to myself.

The sidewalks in this part of town are well maintained. I'm able to keep the food and drinks stable as I roll toward Eugene. As far as anyone else knows I'm just some weirdo in a suit and tie skating to work with breakfast in hand.

Which...is actually accurate.

I spot Eugene's little white hatchback a couple blocks to my left and shift my skates back into boots before walking that direction. He doesn't seem to notice when I reach the car so I knock on the passenger side window gently with my knuckle. I hear the door unlock and open it before getting inside.

"You really stopped for food?" He asks.

I get my biscuits out of the bag and hand him the rest. "You asked me to get you a burger. I also need to eat."

He unwraps his meal. "I'll reimburse you."

"No need," I say.

Eugene looks over at me as he chews. "What?"

"You don't need to reimburse me for breakfast," I say between bites of my own food. I sip my large orange juice.

"You work at a grocery store," he replies. "You shouldn't have to shell out for my meals."

"Starling paid last time," I say. "And I quit that job."

"Why quit? Why were you working in a grocery store in the first place?" He asks me as he eats his fries.

"I don't know," I reply. "It's just what was available in town. And I quit because I was looking for a cha-." I stop myself.

"A 'change?'" He asks.

"Yeah. As cliche as that sounds," I say. "I really did have all my things packed in boxes waiting."

"And Starling just drops out of the sky," he says.

"Are you okay?" I ask while wadding up my wrappers.

"I'm fine," he says. "As fine as I get, anyway. And don't say you can take this job off my hands again."

"Got it," I say.

"Are you okay?" He asks before looking at me. "Shit hit the fan at the club last night. It's fine if you want to walk away."

I sip my juice. "I absolutely have to stick with this because of what happened last night. The guy in the white suit is powerful. If they're working for the CooLs you are seriously going to need my help. You'll need what I can do."

"About that, what I need you to do right now," Eugene begins before pointing with the hand holding his cup. "Is to go into that blue house with the two dormer windows on the front and see if you can find any clues."

"I take it we don't have permission to enter it?"

Eugene huffs out a laugh. "Of course not."

***

I used to pick locks for fun. They were all locks I owned, of course. I never joined any clubs, since I lived in a small town. Locksport can be relaxing, but I fell out of doing it when I gained my powers.

That doesn't mean I forgot how. Knowledge like that comes in handy when you need to break into a building, even if it is breaking the core tenet of the hobby to only unlock things you own or have permission to mess with. This is an extenuating circumstance. We're looking for a kidnapped child, after all.

Eugene sounds surprised in the new earpiece he gave me when I just cover one hand over the door knob and unlock it. He can't see that I've shifted my right hand into a lock pick and a flat tension bar.

He also can't tell that I've changed the surface of my fingers to be flesh colored nitrile without my fingerprints present. Like Hel am I going to break into a house and leave finger prints.

Thankfully the lock is simple and I'm inside the house quickly. I could have just fashioned one finger into a metal plate and moved the bumps on it around to manipulate the pins that way but where's the fun in that? I enhance my senses of hearing and smell to better search.

"You just unlocked it?"

"Used to do locksport," I say.

"Again, why the Hell were you working in a Mythic Grocery?"

I laugh a little then begin my search of the house in earnest. There's no noise from anyone else in it. I can hear a few scratching noises from insects and rodents in the walls here and there. A nest of wasps under one of the dormer eaves upstairs buzzes in the reasonably cool fall air.

There's also minimal furniture, a few simple chairs and a folding table here and there. No beds or sofas anywhere. The water seems to be shut off as is the electricity. I don't find any personal belongings or toiletries. There's not even any signs of people really squatting here either.

I catch the faint sent of smoke which I follow upstairs where I discover an old metal trashcan sitting on a worn wooden desk. It's the most substantial piece of furniture in the entire house.

"Talk to me, Page."

"Smelled smoke, found some burnt paper in a trashcan," I say.

"It's still on fire?"

"No. Burned out some time ago. This place is deserted," I reply. "No signs of someone living here either, to be honest. Unless they cleaned up after themselves.

I pick up the scrap of paper.

"You could smell that? Never mind, you used your powers. Don't explain it," Eugene says. "Is there enough left to read?"

The paper is heavy parchment with an embossed logo partially visible on the corner that remains. Due to the damage I can't exactly read what it says. The center of the logo is shaped like a cross. I take a photo with my phone and send it to Eugene.

"It's thick paper, maybe a cross logo," I say.

"Signs are still pointing to the CooLs, then."

I pick up the paper and flip it back and forth in my hand. As Eterna said back in my apartment, the prevailing theory about how our powers work is that we tap into alternate versions of ourselves somehow and assume their shape.

We just can't quantify how it works beyond that with science at the moment.

If true this would mean there's some world where I am indeed a soundproof meatbox or where I'm a giant fleshbeast shaped like the inside of a building. It's not something that's easy to test because as of yet there's still no definitive proof that alternate realities even exist. If they did and they are infinite then it stands to reason there's one where this paper is still whole.

And if there's one where I'm a meatbox, why can't there also be some version of me who is partially, or fully, this particular piece of paper?

I set the paper down on the table top then shift my right hand to mimic it, spreading the paper out from the burnt edge to form a thick rectangle of parchment. My hand flattens and pales, a sheet of paper growing from my wrist.

"If there's nothing else come back to the car," Eugene says.

"One sec," I say examining my shapeshifted paper hand.

Ink swirls and spasms across the surface, never quite forming letters. Even the embossed section that had burned away doesn't remain solid. I've never had a shapeshift do this. Is it because I don't know what was on the paper? Is it because there are just too many possibilities? I shake my hand as I shift it back to Basic.

"Page?" Eugene asks.

"On my way."