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nothingnoteworthy · 7 years

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Chapter 8: Liminal Sandwich Shops

Overload loved a good rave. The louder the music and the bigger the crowd equaled the better the time. Plus, no one really noticed if you were physically sparking on the dance floor. You could lose control, generate too much energy, teleport to an entirely different rave in an entirely different country and no one in either rave really cared. Well. No one cared if you ended up at the right type of rave. Not every party with bad lighting and glowsticks counted.

It wasn’t surprising that it was the buzz she was sensing. A large party in the middle of an otherwise empty, quiet commercial area would be putting off noticeable electricity. Apparently it wasn’t her sole opinion. Some sort of insect with too many legs and too much body slammed itself onto the roof. The crowd panicked and they were in the right. She would too if she hadn’t given herself the responsibility of protecting people from superpowered threats. Ash was a lot more prepared to take it on. Probably a mixture of bravery and excessive experience in killing bugs. Overload wasn’t going to do it, Caroline thought her fear was hilarious, and Lyric tried to pied piper them out of the fucking apartment. Like the nonviolent effort was appreciated but please set it on fire.

Overload snagged Ash before she could start the fight. There was something at the edge of her awareness, one powerful and familiar enough to make Overload retreat into the shadows. Sure enough Scream Queen showed up in a burst of that signature PDU light. The creature was done for in the most humane way possible. Which, given that its legs were being chopped off, probably wasn’t much better than being lit on fire.

She kept backing up, deeper into the alley. This was not a good time to have a run in with Scream Queen. Overload had the presence of mind to not wear spandex but if your ex catches you lurking in an alleyway wearing head to do black and metal plating with a cheap mask and a girl that breathes fire she’s gonna know what you’re up to. She didn’t want to get caught working as a vigilante, especially not by this ex. It was weird.

Her anxiety spiked. Scream Queen lingered after the battle. Just. looking around. Casual. Calm. Collected. Fucking creepy with her god damned spiny teeth just sorta stapled onto the burlap. She seemed to lose interest and leave but. She might come back. Overload wouldn’t put it past her to mess with someone like that. Jumpscares and all. Even if she didn’t, a UN clean up crew would and that meant it was high time to move on. This was getting them nowhere anyway. It was time to seek outside help. On the lucky hand, she had another ex in the area who was much more comfortable with masks and usually had good information. On the unlucky hand, she had another ex in the area. Tonight sucked.

Overload tried to keep thinking of him as her contact. But that just made it seem like they were friends on superhero facebook or something. Which she actually would be, although she would probably hide him from her feed. The thought would be mutual. Probably. He hung out in a sketchy looking sandwich franchise that she was pretty sure he actively worked to make sketchy. Single story, had to have been at least a 20 year old building, hidden at the end of the road with two four story office buildings on either side of it.Weirdly large parking lot for a tiny shop that literally no one was at, ever. There wasn’t a single car in that parking lot and the open sign was so heavily aged you probably couldn’t tell when it was on. The inside was extremely sterile in contrast with the outside dinge. You could smell the antiseptic. The floor was so shiny you could do your make up with it. It was weird. She didn’t like it. One day she’d bring Caroline here to get confirmation that he somehow set up his life in a pocket dimension.

Overload pushed open the employees only door, weaving through the shimmeringly clean racks straight for a box freezer. She shoved it to the side, revealing a narrow staircase that revitalized the rust chic the outside had. It was less rickety than it looked. Ash went first, a small fireball in her hand lighting just a few feet in front of them. Enough to see where they were going but not enough to be able to tell exactly how much of the stairs were iron and how much were thin flaky rust.

They ended in a bare cement room, empty except for a flickering lightbulb. Her ex/contact was nothing if not cautious. Understandable, given his particular situation. Overload walked up to one of the walls and began to bang on it with her fist.

“Heeey buddy, open up, I need some info and there’s a 75% chance you have it. Come on, don’t be annoying it’s alright like 12 at night I know you’re up and I know neither of us want to be up. Or, well, okay, you probably want to be up because you don’t sleep because you seem to think you have infinite health and will never get sleep deprivation ever but you’ve gotten it before like right before my damn eyes so I know it happens and then you get the sleep headaches and you get all grumpy and frankly that’s uncalled for. I mean you might be sleeping right now but I don’t think -”

The wall slowly slid to the left, revealing a large grey bipedal wolf. With hands. Now how he would describe himself (he liked getting out a large red plastic binder with printed wikipedia entries of various werewolfs, wolfmen, and humanoid dog creatures and showing you the highlighted portions) but it was how Overload did it. Wolf on two legs with hands. There we go. At least he was wearing a pair of loose black workout pants. So that was a bit of description embellishment. Something fancy to get going on. Pants. His ears slid back slightly and he tapped one of his feet against the ground. “What’s the other 25%?”

“Fleas. 75% information. 25% fleas.”

“You’re hilarious. Come in, tell me what you’re looking for.” He paused, glancing at Ash. “I don’t have fleas don’t listen to her. That was one time and it was her that had the fleas first.”

“It’s true, I did. It was finals week, I spent a few hours at the dogpark with a giant bucket of dried chicken livers buying the love of the city’s dog population.” Overload explained. Ash sighed heavily and walked into the spacious room. Half of it was laid out like an apartment, a little kitchen, a tiny table, a beat up couch and a coffee table. There was a large bed, piled with pillows and blankets, that looked like it had never been made. There rest of it was covered in computers. Desks and tables were arranged in a large U shape, with a cluster of servers and other components in the center of the room. Several large screens hung from the wall, each displaying several windows full of numbers, pictures and documents. It was a lot. Gave Overload one hell of a headache.

“I’m Kevin by the way. A lot of people call me K9, my project code back at Biotech was really unfortunate. Or really well planned.” He held out a large furry, clawed hand to Ash. She hesitated for just a moment, cautiously giving his hand a small shake.

"Ash."

"Nice to meet you Ash. What were you looking for Overload? I've got my own project right now but I might have gotten something on the side." He quickly moved to the other side of the room taking a seat into a large plush rolling chair.

“You’ve probably heard of the digital attacks on some companies in the area? We tried to see what was going on but their server room was fried. You could go in any room in the building and see every scream freaking out. It was pretty bad. Plus there was this weird person in red? Teleporting?” Overload dropped onto his couch. Kevin wrinkled his brow and stared at her before shaking his head.

“The teleporting person, I’m not sure. There’s a lot of possibilities but it quickly becomes too many possibilities. If they’re good, cameras will never catch them. If the cameras never catch them, neither do I. All I get is some word of mouth and that takes forever to form into a profile. The attacks, yeah. Everyone’s heard about that. It’s another Old Series Biotech soldier, I don’t remember her project code but her project name was Antivirus.”

“Ironic.”

“Yeah. Let me see what I have on her, I’m glad you’re on her trail. She’s low key but dangerous. If she stays on the streets she’s going to start fights with other ex-Biotechs, both old and new series.” Kevin turned his focus back to his computers, sorting through files. He went quiet for a bit, massive body hunched over his keyboard, staring into the rows of screens. At least Kevin and Overload got along still. It would be kind of unfortunate if an information hound like him was out to get her. It would also be unfortunate if he ever heard her make that pun. Someone needed to get a new sense of humor, or at least learn to respect the beautiful time honored art of wordplay. It was the one sore spot in their otherwise decent relationship. If only.

“What are you working on?” She asked, watching Ash unsuccessfully try to wipe a few stray hairs off her pants. They would be there forever.

“Something a lot more interesting than some computer problems. The city’s grown itself another cult. A lot of them are just smoke, mirrors, and sedatives but some of them have Astral influence. This one’s got something big.” Kevin got excited, his ears perking up. “I think they’re trying to resurrect or even create some kind of deity. So Cool. I mean. It’s not, not really cool people will die and I gotta put a stop to it but they had to pick up a lot of ancient forgotten stuff, thousands of years old.”

“Is it a bad god?” Ash didn’t seem comfortable with the couch or the conversation. Overload smiled sympathetically.

“I wouldn’t say that it’s a good one. I’ve already found a ritual spot covered in blood. Whatever they’re creating it’s not friendly. I’m not done decoding all of the information I’ve found, but I’ve found enough references to a ‘sea of blood’ and ‘cities full of emptiness’ to come to the conclusion that maybe this shouldn’t happen. And there we go. Here, the flash drive is secure but try not to put it on an internet connected device.” Kevin swung around, pulling one of the dangling drives off his tower, tower. “I’m gonna call you if I need a hand. I work well with lightning powers.”

Hm. Oh yes. The, other thing that stained their relationship. One of his exes. Fun. Fun reminder. Still. Sounded bad. Probably a lot worse what they were working on. But also a bit weird that the PDU wasn’t involved. Kevin would’ve never gotten into it if they were. “I’ll bring the whole crew. Who knows what powers their evil-cult-god will have.”

“I’m hoping I can put a stop to it before they actually manage to wake it up. I should be able to pull a few strings and get them cut off. Fingers crossed.” He grinned, managing to not look like he was trying to eat them. Overload laughed and took the drive, motioning for Ash to get up.

“Fingers crossed. Thanks for the help.”

“Anytime Duracell.”

“See ya later Rover.”

“Bite me.”

#Queer Books #Queer novel #Queer characters #Queer main characters #Nothing Noteworthy

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