“Hey? Anyone home?” she called again. Music blasted from somewhere upstairs, loud enough to drown out any volume Arin could produce. Now, Arin knew it wasn’t a good idea to walk into someone’s home uninvited, but their assignment was due at 10am, and she couldn’t afford to fail for this dumbass’s lack of effort.
She crept up the stairs and peeked into the room the music was coming from. Judging by the names on the numerous bowling trophies, this room belonged to Joe. It smelled awful, with dirty socks, shirts, and underwear spread out everywhere, as well as scattered remains of what had once been edible substances. Arin’s own dorm room didn’t seem so terrible anymore.
On the desk in the corner, a small beat-up laptop glowed through the dim lights. Its screen scrolled rapidly through jumbled text and all kinds of confusing information at speeds Arin’s eyes struggled to interpret.
“Joe?” Arin called out again, but again there was no answer. Her voice drowned behind the blasting, heavy-metal guitar shredding coming from the laptop. She reached over to mute the ruckus and stole a glimpse at what it processed. Her eyes widened as she read over the code so fast it made her dizzy. What may’ve been jargon to the average person made total sense for someone like Arin, three years deep into a Security Risk Analysis degree.
The thing might as well have said: Probably very illegal stuff in progress -- 88%
Joe’s laptop was hacking something. And, judging by the complexity, it was hacking into something really big, possibly even governmental.
It’s for some school project. Obviously. She figured Government Hacking 101 had to be offered somewhere on campus.
Whether she truly believed that or not, she definitely believed it was none of her business. Even if something illegal was happening, Joe wasn’t exactly the most intelligent fellow. He probably didn’t even know how to hide his IP address. Or, that’s what she told herself, knowing that most people who could hack into a government facility knew how to hide their IP address.
Leave it alone. She turned to leave, but the figure of someone dancing up the stairs with three beers in his hand blocked her escape.
Something told her that Joe was not going to be happy about her snooping. Arin debated jumping out the window, but she didn’t feel like breaking her legs today. She threw the hood of her jacket up over her head and stood in front of one of those cheap floor lamps that just about every college student had. Joe, too into his drinking and dancing, didn’t see Arin before he waltzed into the room.
The second Joe tilted his drunken face upward, every single light in the room went out except for the one behind Arin, cloaking her in shadow and creating a silhouette. Joe jumped out of his skin at the sight of the shadowy, red-hooded person standing in his room next to a computer currently performing computations that could land him in jail for a decade or more.
“Who r’ you?” Joe slurred. “Ge’ outta my house!” He backed up, tripping over his own drunk feet.
“What are you doing on this computer?” Arin said in a very deep, very fake voice.
“None’ya business, ge’ out!” Joe repeated. He pointed one of the beer bottles at her like a gun. Arin couldn’t say she felt threatened by watching drops of beer stain the already browned carpet.
“It looks illegal. Is it illegal? I can’t let you do it if it is illegal,” Arin stumbled over her words more than once. She had no idea what she was doing or why she was doing it.
“Yeah? What are ya gonna do about it?” Joe smiled, watching the counter reach 95%.
With a wave of Arin’s hand, the entire laptop shut down...then turned on again, then shut down again, then shone so brightly it nearly blinded Joe.
One final spark and a small billow of smoke erupted from the machine. The smell of fried motherboard filled the room.
Arin both fought to hold back hacking coughs from the, undoubtedly toxic, fumes filling the room. It really only made it smell better in there.
“Y--y’ur one of them! One of the supers! No, this’s South Urbana! There aren’t supers here! They’re only in the city!” Joe slipped on a plate of moldy food and flopped into the wall. His hand landed on the light switch. “At least I can see your face!”
He smacked the switch to ‘off’ but the light behind Arin didn’t even dim. In fact, it shone brighter and brighter until it was like staring into the sun. Joe covered his eyes and leapt at the laptop, cuddling it in his drunken arms.
“No. Turn it back on! I gotta finish this!”
“Tell that to the cops,” Arin belted in her manly-hero-voice.
“Never! You’ll never take me alive!” Joe yelled. His inebriation had, for some reason, sent him back into a 1960s cop flick. He darted for the door, tripping over everything that was in his path–everything. He practically rolled out of the door and down the stairs.
“Wait! Please don’t run!” Arin dropped her false voice, well aware that asking politely probably wasn’t going to stop him.
“Way to go, Arin. You didn’t make this a thousand times worse or anything,” she scolded herself. She pivoted back and forth several time, debating whether to run after him or far away.
You started this, you’ve got to finish it. She reluctantly took off after Joe.
Joe was generally a slow dude, only made slower by the beer sloshing in his stomach and veins. He ran, with about all the grace of a frightened ostrich, through the empty streets of South Urbana. Arin didn’t possess the speed of a track runner herself but she was, at the very least, sober. She caught up to him easily, even while she took time to drain streetlights to hide her face as she approached.
Just as she attempted to tackle him, he slipped out of her reach and onto his back, sliding through the dewy grass. The laptop flew out of Joe’s arms and tumbled into the street. Headlights could be seen speeding down the road—headlights heading straight for the laptop.
“No!” Joe yelled and crawled to his feet. He ran out into the street and jumped on top of the laptop, protecting it as the car raced towards him.
“Move!” Arin yelled. Joe was clueless enough without alcohol, but now he just sat there, protecting his cargo like obliviousness was his superpower.
Arin closed her eyes and held out her hand.
The speeding car sputtered and stalled. Its headlights flickered, getting brighter and brighter until one exploded. The driver panicked and turned the wheel, hard, trying to regain control.
The car came to an instant halt when it met a streetlight’s pillar. The engine smoked something awful.
Joe’s eyes were still clamped shut, hugging the laptop as he prepared to take a full-forced car right to his flushed face. Arin ran up and pinned him to the asphalt to tie his hands behind his back with her wool scarf. Not the best handcuffs on the planet, but more than Joe could handle.
“What did you do to my car?” yelled the man getting out of the driver’s seat. Arin was careful not to look up at the guy, or he’d surely see her face. She killed the streetlight above her for extra protection.
Arin cleared her throat and continued to speak in her low register, “This man was doing illegal—”
“I DON’T GIVE A DAMN WHAT HE WAS DOING!” the man exploded.
The man threw shut the door of his car. “This car is one of a kind!”
Arin could hardly see the car in the dark of the night, but what little she could see was very nice. It was low, aerodynamic, and pristine—aside from the broken headlight, smoking engine, and the entire side busted in by a lamppost. All Arin did was drain some of the electricity from the thing; it’d probably be fine...aside from the broken headlight, smoking engine, and the entire side busted in by a lamppost. Then again, she didn’t really know what her powers did.
Arin rose, being sure to keep her back towards the red-faced-angry-man. “I am sorry about your car, sir; a repair shop should have it fixed up no problem. Do me a favor and call the police on this lunatic.”
“On him? I’ll call the cops on you!” The steaming man took wide, stomping steps in Arin’s direction, signaling for her to get the hell out of there.
She sprinted from the scene, hoodie keeping her face in shadows as Joe yelled after her, “Curse you Red Electron!”
![Vol. 1 Small Town Hero. [PAGE 3 through probably like 5ish]](https://us-a.tapas.io/sa/2e/9292d11d-4db2-4920-9b87-941d9d2773fc4.jpg)
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