Dr. Shadelove, or How I Asked My Mentor To Help Interrogate A Supervillain

## June 20th, 2020 - Hana’s Apartment below the community center

A rhythmic tapping echoed through the otherwise quiet hideout. It came from the big array of computer screens, the supercomputer that this place housed. More specifically, it was the girl sitting in front of the screens. Hana’s foot tapped on the floor, her strength making it loud enough to resonate through the large main room. Her head sat in her hands, eyes glancing around at the multiple screens she had up in front of her. It was a mix of search results, things like “definition of ghosted”, “how long should you wait to see if someone is okay after not hearing from them”, “can a merc ghost you”, “Smokescreen villain powers”, and others. There was also a feed of HCPD and AEGIS arrests that she’d entirely legally gotten into, definitely didn’t hack them, not at all. Really though, if they didn’t want to be hacked, they shouldn’t have bought network equipment from Bishop, should they?!

It had been two weeks now since she’d heard from Hayeli. A lot of it just seemed like Hayeli had left or was done with her. She’d even said it might be the last time they saw each other on their date, so she shouldn’t be too surprised if that was the case. Even so, what they’d talked about at the reserve, the text she’d got the night all the stuff went down, it didn’t add up for Hana. Call it naivety, call it wishful thinking, she didn’t think Hayeli would do that to her. Not until she knew it for sure. With her job, it was entirely possible that something had happened to her, and she was hiding out for other reasons. If she was in trouble, or hurt, Hana wanted to help her.

The girl sighed and leaned back in her chair, then picked up her phone and went to her mentor’s contact. Sledge, the big time hero, someone she’d come to trust and respect a great deal, and who’d given her really good advice about this. Even offered to help, since the advice was to get info from the person who’d initially hired Hayeli: Smokescreen, the supervillain. Kind of a big deal. Still, she’d offered. Hana sent her a text, then set her phone down to wait.

`*Hey, Sledge. You busy? You think you could come down to my place? I wanna talk about stuff, the thing I’d asked about last week*`

A few minutes passed before a reply came. ‘*I am busy. How urgent? Be more specific, you ask many things.*’

…

Samantha Steel put down her phone next to her on the couch, right next to a stack of paperwork with the insignia of the Halcyon City Council visible on it. She leaned back and put an arm around Elizabeth, her wife, who snuggled up against her.

“Who is it?” Elizabeth asked.

“It’s Hana,” Samantha said. “I’ll get back to her, if it’s urgent.”

Elizabeth playfully stomped her in her side, knowing she’s tough enough to barely notice anything less. “It’s good to set boundaries, but don’t be too tough on her, okay?”

“I’m not! It’s not like I don’t care.”

“Oh, so you caaaare?” Elizabeth smiled coyly. “Better watch out. If the world learns that the big hero Sledge cares about a young girl, what will they think?”

“Shut up! I run a community center! I care. I--shut up!” Samantha shoved Elizabeth away with a pillow.

…

Hana picked up her phone when it went off, giving a sigh. Was it urgent? Probably. Did she want to say it was urgent? Not really. Was she worried Sledge was going to tell her Hayeli ditched her and left town or something? Yeah. Crap. She sighed once more and sent another message.

`*Last week, when I asked about that girl and that I hadn’t heard from her after the 6th. It’s been two weeks now, and if she was just going to ghost me I don’t think she would have kept chatting with me for a week after. I want to talk to Smokescreen about where he hired her.*`

She sent it, then used her foot to get the chair spinning around as she waited for the next response.

…

Laughter filled the Steel apartment as Elizabeth tried to push away Samantha, shaking uncontrollably as she was getting tickled by her wife. “Stop! Stoooopp! I yield, I yield!”

Samantha let up, giving them both a moment to catch their breath. Her phone buzzed again with a notification from her Protege. Elizabeth gave her a look. Samantha pointed back at her in a gesture intended to silence her. “I don’t care, but I care, m’kay?” She pulled Elizabeth in close for a kiss on her forehead. Elizabeth giggled as Samantha pulled away and reached for her phone.

“Oh. Hm.” Samantha frowned at her phone.

“What is it? Is something wrong?”

“Nothing more than before. It’s about that Hailey girl. The mercenary.”

“Oh.”

“She wants to talk to Smokescreen about where he hired her.”

“Oh. Oh dear. That sounds pretty serious. What are you going to do?”

“I think… that a visit to our old friend Smokescreen could be fruitful for more than one thing,” Samantha said. She rose up from the couch and walked past Elizabeth on the couch and the wheelchair next to it. “I’m gonna get changed, head out in a bit. Rain check on watching--” she gestured with a frown at the TV screen “--later?”

Elizabeth smiled. “*Zomb Fu* can wait, yes. You go have fun saving our daughter’s girlfriend!”

From the bedroom, a pillow got launched, smacking Elizabeth in her grinning face.

…

Hana received her next text a few minutes later.

‘*I’m on my way. We’ll see what we can do. Arranging a meeting is no simple task.*’

The dots don’t stay gone for long, and soon a second message appeared.

‘*...you’re not hacking into AEGIS to arrange a meeting.*’

Hana’s spinning stopped once her phone vibrated. She lifted it in a hurry to check. A grin crossed her face. “Yes! Thank you, Sledge!” The next text came through, and she groaned.

`*Whaaaaaa I wouldn’t do that*`

She sends it, then glances up at the screen where she’d already hacked a part of AEGIS. “Uhhh. I’ll just...hide that…” She says, sending that feed away.

`*Besides, I got an idea :D*`

After, she stands and stretches, realizing she’d been sitting for a while. She took a deep breath, then hurried off to the section of base that was her apartment to get ready herself. This called for a different cool jacket, something sleek and sneaky. Also cute. Had to look good in case they were able to meet up with Hayeli.

After a few minutes she stood at the table in the base, dressed up for hero work in some cute leggings that matched her mask, some tough running shoes, and a cool darker jacket over a Flex Girls shirt.

It didn’t take Sledge long to get to the Niccals Community Center from her apartment. She took a detour to her office to drop off her paperwork before heading to the secret elevator that took her down to their base, and Hana’s apartment. Sledge looked into the mirror in the elevator, straightened her denim jacket and wiped at her face. “Is it weird that my Protege lives in my base, when I don’t, and I’m the one who comes running to her?” She mumbled to herself, questioning the state of her hero life at this point. “Hmm, well, to be fair, Samantha, you would still come running in this situation if it was to a different place. The likelihood of Hana going off on her own is there, and it’s especially high if she talks with her teammates about this. You’ve seen what happened. You don’t know what would happen. You’d be too worried.”

She recalled Elizabeth--Temperance--joking about Hana being their daughter and this ‘Haley’ being Hana’s girlfriend. She scrunched up her face and adjusted her bracers. “Thank god I don’t need to deal with little kids like ‘Devil’ Drummond. The worst.”

The elevator doors opened into the base below the community center. Sledge stepped out and surveilled her surroundings, just to make sure nothing looked worse than she had last left it.

Hana looks up as the elevator opens, smiling as she sees Sledge. Even better, she was all decked out and dressed up in hero mode. That meant they were gonna do this. Or she was just leading her on and going to tell her to knock it off. Hopefully the first.

“Hey Sledge” Hana says, waving from her spot at the table. She sat on it, swinging her legs back and forth. The base looked the same, since she usually tried to clean up at least this area. Her room was another story. “Uh, thanks for coming. Sorry to bug you while you were busy, but, like, I, I really appreciate this” She said, her voice sounded relieved.

Sledge walked closer to Hana with slow, deliberate steps. “On the one hand, I did offer some guidance in helping you figure this out,” she said, stopping in front of Hana. “On the other, I don’t think it’s wise to invest yourself in this case too much, and as your mentor, it is somewhat of my job to give you what wisdom I have, isn’t it?” She cocked an eyebrow at her Protege questioningly.

Hana blinked a few times as Sledge went on, then looked toward the floor. Her legs stopped swinging back and forth. “I, well, yeah, I guess. It might be pointless, sure. I just, I dunno, I got a bad feeling about it” she said, looking back up to her mentor. “If I didn’t look into this, I know I’d regret it. At least I’ll know, right? Uh, that probably sounds dumb” She added, eyes glancing back to the side as her face got a bit red, feeling embarrassed.

Sledge eyed Hana’s reaction, seeing the blush creep into the girl’s face, and considered her words. She sighed. “Speaking of wisdom to give, I guess it’s better to regret the things you did do than the things you didn’t do.” She managed a smile, but at the same time narrowed her eyes at the girl. “Besides, who knows what trouble you’ll get yourself into this time breaking into places unsupervised?”

Hana glanced back up, catching the smile and giving one of her own. “Yeah. That’s, like, what I figured” she said. Her eyes got excited when Sledge mentioned breaking into places. “Okay, yeah, we did some break in stuff, but we don’t have to this time! I told you, I got a plan!” she said, hopping down from the table.

“When we met with him last time, he was at the hospital. Something about tests and how he was allowed to be out of super jail just for those. But like, he was totally open to talking about whatever in his room, which makes me think he feels it’s safe there, that AEGIS isn’t listening in. Sooooo, we just “happen” to show up at his next appointment and have a little chat. Bingo, easy peasey!” She explained, crossing her arms and grinning at her incredibly smart plan.

Sledge was quiet for a few moments after Hana explained her plan. In a way, it made sense, and it would result in less trouble. She’d planned to just check with AEGIS to see if they could be let in, “It does sound like a good plan.” She narrowed her eyes again. “Does this mean you hacked into AEGIS to find out Smokescreen’s parole schedule?”

Hana’s eyes widened as Sledge’s narrowed at her. “Wha, that, whaaaaa? That’s, no, no, no, maybe, a little? I miiiiiiight have intercepted one of their feeds so I could keep an eye on arrests and prisoner details, or something, just to watch, make sure that was...you know...all good and stuff. So, like, technically I didn’t hack into them, technically. Yeah.” She said, hoping saying ‘technically’ enough times would make it okay.

“Hana…” Sledge put a hand to her temple and closed her eyes. “This is exactly the kind of thing that got you into trouble before I took you under my wing. AEGIS is--technically,” she emphasized the word with a look at Hana, as if it was more in response to her use of it than anything else, “on our side. You need to work with your allies. You wouldn’t hack into my computer either.”

She walked over to a wall that had a row of weapons hanging there, most of them hammers of different sizes. She walked past her signature sledgehammer and took a small carpenter’s hammer and held it up for Hana to see. “In any situation, we can apply a lot of force. We are strong. We can do that. Sometimes, however, it’s best to apply only a little bit of force, in a weak spot. Find the road of least resistance.” Sledge smacked the hammer into the palm of her hand. “In this case, what do you think that would mean?”

“II, well, yeah, that’s true” She said, hanging her head a bit. Hacking Sledge’s computer would be a big no-no. Not only because Temperance had handled the security on it. Her gaze moved up to follow Sledge as she moved, then her feet brought her along to the wall as well. She nodded and listened, realizing it was a lesson.

“Uh, well, okay, so” She furrowed her brow in thought. Road of least resistance. Well the hack had been really easy, but she didn’t mean that, obviously. If the point was to work with allies, and use less force, what would that mean for getting to meet with Smokescreen? Probably nothing bad, then. “Uh, I guess, probably like, checking with Mr Ribaldi first, since he’s like, our AEGIS dude? But I guess he probably wouldn’t be super jazzed about asking to meet with his brother...Uh...But if we explained what was going on he’d probably be cool about it, right? Yeah” She nodded, fairly sure of her answer.

“That would be a good option, yes.” Sledge nodded approvingly to her Protege. “Through Kenneth Ribaldi you have a connection with AEGIS. That is a connection you should make good use of. That way, you might find resources and information available to you that otherwise might not be. However, Kenneth Ribaldi does not have any real power himself. He is out of prison on strict conditions and largely there to keep an eye out on the Big Team. Still, that is an option for you, and it’s good that you thought of it. You should consider it earlier next time.” Sledge wags her finger and hangs the hammer back in its place.

“I can also contact AEGIS. As former head of the League of Heroes, I have earned a lot of trust. I have some pull. I can’t use that too much, but I can try when necessary. That is a second option you may consider next time.” She kept talking about a next time as if she expected there to be one. As if Hana might want to visit villains in prison more often to talk to them.

“Well, you know, doing the stuff I’m good at is what pops into my head first, like smashing stuff or hacking stuff, not like, having meetings or whatever” She said, giving a shrug. “But, yeah, I get you. Gotta consider stuff like that first.” She nodded. In truth she did get it, but going through back channels and stuff was so much faster, and more fun! Still, hero stuff meant you had to do things the hard way. Especially if she was going to be seen as a leader and someone to be trusted, like Sledge had said before.

She gave a small frown at her next words, about Sledge contacting them herself. “Oh, uh, yeah, I didn’t really think of that. I, uh, I guess I didn’t want you to have to spend any favors or be inconvenienced because of me” Hana gulped, trying to choose her words carefully. “I’m, I’m not used to people wanting to help, so I usually just end up doing stuff on my own so I don’t bother anyone. Heh, you shoulda seen me trying to ask Atlanta for dating advice, I was freaking out” She said, accompanied by a chuckle. “But I should be able to know that you’ll want to help me by now. Oh, uh, sorry, I’m motormouthing, aren’t I? Hehe.”

“Just a little bit.” Sledge gave her a smile. Her look softened when Hana mentioned not wanting to inconvenience others, and freaking out when asking Atlanta for dating advice. “Just know that sometimes, people are okay with being inconvenienced when it is to help someone else. It’s all about whether or not they choose to. If you don’t ask, they can’t choose.”

Sledge put a hand on Hana’s shoulder. “Alright, enough wisdom bestowals for now. You’ve already hacked AEGIS and gotten some information, so we might as well use it this time. Let’s say asking Smoke or calling in my favors is Plan B.” She holds up her other hand, holding up a finger demonstrably for emphasis. “This time.”

Hana blinked a few times at that advice. “Ooohhhhh. Woah. Yeah, that’s true. Huh” She said, nodding. That…made a lot of sense actually. Asking might be hard still, but if she didn’t ask, she’d never actually get help. Like with Atlanta. “Huh” she muttered, still thinking, taken out of her deep thought by Sledge’s hand setting on her shoulder.

“Wha? Oh!” She said, giving a grin. “Yay! Cool! Okay, plan B, sounds good. This time” She added, chuckling after. She left from the wall, back to the entrance to the garage. “How do you wanna get there? Shouldn’t be too long to get to the hospital”

“We’re going by car. Convenient and inconspicuous. Not that we’ll need to be inconspicuous, but it’s always good to keep in mind.” Sledge fished her car keys out of her jacket pocket. “I’m driving, you’re navigating. And remember: don’t touch the radio.”

Hana nods and grins, hurrying off to the elevator. “Awesome! Shotgun!” she called without needing to, running off to get in Sledge’s car.

## Later, Halcyon Historic Hospital

Hana puts her phone away as they pull up into the hospital’s parking lot. “Here we are! I don’t have a room number...but we can go to the one he was in before and check there first? Maybe ask the front desk, see if they can tell us?” She asked, looking over to her mentor excitedly.

“That sounds like a good way to go about it.” Sledge noted approvingly as she parked the car. She turned off the engine. “We can--wait.”

Sledge stared out the window at the front of the hospital, where a black van was waiting. A woman in a suit and sunglasses opened the back doors. A ramp folded out as she pushed a button. Meanwhile, through the front entrance of the hospital came a man in a wheelchair, pushed by a man in a similar getup of suit and sunglasses as the woman. The man looked to be in his forties, with greying hair, glasses and an unseasonably thick coat. Behind them walked a black-haired girl in a short black dress. Samantha Ribaldi. She said her goodbyes to her father, bending down to kiss him on the cheek, before the other man wheeled him into the van. The ramp came up and the doors closed behind him.

“Mierda, we’re too late?!” Sledge cursed under her breath.

“We can wait? Uh, I guess so, if, oh!” Hana said, realizing what Sledge was looking at. She took in the scene with narrowed eyes, waiting til the doors closed to look to her mentor. “How did, it, wha, did, the appointment must not have been a long one, crap” She said, groaning. She’d thought the time was right, but assumed it would be a longer visit like the first one, that had lasted through the shenanigans of the bucket fight, the free milkshake debacle, and lots of intense back and forth banter.

“What now? Oh, this is why we have plan B!” Hana said, excitedly. “Should I call Mr Ribaldi or do you wanna call in your favors? Should we follow them? Oh gosh are we gonna tail ‘em?! Make sure you stay two car lengths behind, that’s what I heard is best to avoid being detected,” she went on, both disappointed the easy way hadn’t worked out but equally excited that they got to do more stuff.

Sledge pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath. “Alright, yes, Plan B. Hold on.” She started the engine again and switched the gears. As she drove backwards out of the parking lot, she took her cellphone out of her jacket pocket. “Here,” she tossed it to Hana. “Find the contact details for an ‘Agent Tonner’. Send her a message. Tell her I need to talk to Smokescreen for some old, unfinished League of Heroes business. Tell her it’s urgent.” The car turned around with screeching wheels, facing towards the direction the van had just disappeared off into.

Hana had the biggest grin on her face as they spun around and headed out of the parking lot. “This is so cool,” she said, mostly to herself. Going through the phone, she found an ‘Agent Tonner’ in Sledge’s contacts. About to send a message, she paused for a moment. It had to sound like Sledge. Right, get in the mindset. Hammer, Temperance is wife, smash, wisdom, runs a community center that her protege lives beneath in a secret base/apartment. Got it.

`*Tonner. I need to talk with Smokescreen. It’s important, something came up from an old League case. Alright?*`

She nodded, and sent it off. “Done. I’ll watch for a response. If you get me close to the van I can stick a tracker on it!” she said, grinning and waving a small device.

Sledge carefully eyed her speed, sticking to the maximum speed limit even through bends and turns, but never quite going over it. Unsafe, but legal. Something had been gnawing at her. Smokescreen had been the one to convince Big Team to break his brother out of prison. He’d had reasons for doing so, but a few things were extremely fishy about it. The fact that he’d been able to hire a mercenary while in prison, only allowed out on supervision to go to the hospital, where he could have brief moments with his family, was the major snag. Another was the fact that Smoke had not been the only person to escape the AEGIS prison that night.

Sledge’s hyperfocus on what was ahead of them had her distracted, and she nearly hit a car as she ran a yellow light. Hana talking to her snapped her out of it. She cocked an eyebrow. “We don’t need to track them. We know where they’re going.”

Realizing this for herself, Sledge slowed down. They didn’t need to be in a hurry after all. She wanted answers to a lot more things too, but Smokescreen wasn’t going to go anywhere anytime soon. Not unless one of his mercenaries has convinced Big Team to break him out of prison too, she thought sarcastically.

Hana blinked. “Oh, yeah, duh. Good point” she looked longingly at the device, then put it away. “I’ll get to use those eventually” she assured herself, then kept an eye on the phone, awaiting Tonner’s message. Sledge had slowed down a bit, which was fine, she supposed, since they did know where the van was going anyway. The fast driving had been pretty fun, though. Made it feel more like a chase scene.

“You think this Tonner person is gonna let us in? Hope they’re cool” she said, glancing ahead toward the van. She wasn’t exactly looking forward to chatting with Smokescreen again, not after the fairly creepy chat last time. He knew a lot. About her, about Sledge. Still, she was going to do it, being the only real lead she had on Hayeli, let alone whatever else Sledge wanted to ask him about.

Sledge’s face softened. “Yeah, Agent Tonner is cool. She should be back to work by now. Even falling out of aircraft doesn’t keep those AEGIS agents down for long.”

The phone buzzed with a notification. Agent Tonner. Speak of the devil. Sledge paid it no attention, too focused on the van ahead of them.

‘*That should be alright. I will need to verify with the Director. We can get you an appointment in 48 hours.*’

Shade frowned, tilting her head. That wouldn’t work. Hmmm. How to reply?

`*It’s urgent, Tonner. I need to meet with him soon, like, today. Can you make that happen? It’s important.*`

She nods, and sends it off. “Uh, she was like, saying something about letting us talk to him in a couple days, I sent that it’s urgent again, so hopefully she’ll make it happen.” Her gaze returns to the road ahead. “I...I really hope she can, at least”

Sledge remained silent. She still looked determined, but she was nervous at the same time. Sometimes she’d joke she had ‘nerves of Steel’, but most of the time she thought she was just better at hiding it. Maybe that was the real secret to having nerves of steel. She, too, really hoped Tonner could help on short notice.

The phone buzzed again.

‘*I spoke with Director Hussain. I’ll send you some forms. If you can get them filled out so we can process them when you’re here, she will approve of it.*’

An email notification popped up with an attachment. The forms. Thirty pages of them.

Hana had been watching ahead, so the notification startled her. She jumbled the phone a bit before looking at the message. “She can help! Just need to fill out...some...forms…” her voice became less excited with each word, as she opened the message’s attachment. It was good that they could meet today, but...why so many forms!? Now she really regretted missing them at the hospital.

“Uhhhhhh, want me to take over driving? Or I could try filling out these forms, I guess, but no promises I’ll do it right. Not because I’d mess up on purpose, but like, you know, government forms, they’re hard” She said, shrugging. She was ready for the true test of trust: would Sledge let her drive her car?

The realization that they needed to fill in a bunch of forms hit Sledge like a stack of paper hits a desk that is already covered in paper, causing another stack of paper to slump off the side of the desk and spill everywhere. She slowly turned to look at Hana. Seeing her Protege clearly not joking around this time, she sighed. “Yes.”

Sledge sat up and it almost looked for a moment as if she wanted to switch positions while the car was still moving. Then she froze, looking at a sign alongside the road that alerted them to an upcoming gas station. “I’ll pull over so we can switch.”

The gas station came up a mile later. Sledge pulled over, stopped and opened her door. Before she got out, she leaned towards Hana and lifted up a warning finger. “This time.” She repeated the same mantra as she’d said when agreeing to use Hana’s ill-begotten AEGIS info. Her steely gaze was firm. “And no mistakes.”

Hana grinned, giving several nods. “Okay! Got it!” she said. She took a deep breath. Okay, Sledge’s car. She could drive a car, she’d driven the Baroness back from Quebec and it went fine. That wasn’t Sledge’s car though, this carried a whole different kind of pressure. It would be fine, right?

As they pulled over, she was about to get out when her mentor used the finger again. Her eyes widened, and she nodded a bunch. “Right right. No mistakes. I got this. Super good reflexes and stuff!” she said, giving several more nods. Sated with her reassurance, Hana got out and came around the side of the car. She’d had an inkling to do a cool slide over the hood, but you know, time and place. Letting Sledge move to the passenger seat, she got into the driver’s and sat down.

“Oh, phone” She handed it over once Sledge was in, then did a little adjusting to get the car working for her. Namely moving the seat up, since Sledge was a good amount taller than her. Seatbelt too, figuring that was important for showing how mature and safe you are. Feeling good about it, she waited for Sledge to be in and all set, then pulled out and back onto the road to continue following the van. She gripped the steering wheel tightly, not so tight that she’d break it off or anything. Was driving always this nerve wracking?

Sledge fiddled around on her phone as Hana drove. She cursed under her breath a few times, frustrated with the fiddliness and small screens of phones for the filling in of government forms. “And here I thought this gig would let me escape paperwork for a little bit.”

Hana glanced over, frowning slightly. “Sorry, didn’t think this would need you to fill out stuff. I’m sure it’s not fun, especially on a phone” She said. Her driving was a little less reckless than Sledge’s, mainly because she didn’t want to risk going around corners at the speed limit. “Uh, I, like, I appreciate you doing all this for me. I know this is like, not usual stuff, it’s kinda personal, so, like, yeah. Thanks” she said, doing her best to watch the road and also hide her face turning red.

“You’re welcome,” Sledge answered, not looking up from her phone. She mumbled a bit as she scrolled through the forms and filled in more sections. “I can use this visit to also ask some questions of my own.” She briefly looked up to check if they were still following the black van in the distance and gave a nod when she confirmed that, then returned to frowning at her phone. “You’ll be taking charge of questioning, of course.”

It was good they hadn’t been in the middle of a turn, as Hana froze up for a moment when Sledge said that. Her eyes got wide and shot over to her, then she looked back to the road and adjusted them back to the center of their lane. “Wh, I, uh, you, that, uhhhhhh, me? Me in charge of questions? Is, are, am, that a good idea? I’m sure you’re so much better at asking questions, I’ve got a lot to learn about the...asking questions game. That, I, yeah, uh, if, if you’re sure, I can, like, handle it and stuff, then yeah, I can be in charge” she spattered out while driving.

“So far I’ve told you that you need to find the easy ways, the ways that get you less trouble, and that you need to ask for help from the right people.” Sledge stopped scrolling, put her phone down and looked straight at Hana. “Your next lesson is even more important: when you want to get something done, you need to also be ready to take charge of a the situation. You want to go get answers from a supervillain to find your girlfriend? That’s fine. But I am not going to hold your hand through all this. This ain’t no picnic with auntie Sam.”

Sledge glanced out the window to check on the black van, then pointedly looked at Shade’s hands on the steering wheel. “Look, I can give you more of a briefing on Smokescreen when we’re there. Better to not do that while you’re driving.”

Hana gulped and nodded as Sledge went into lecture mode. She was right, again. Her face got red again when she said ‘girlfriend.’ “I, that, she, we, like, we went on a date and stuff and texted a bunch and I think about her a lot and I sent her a pic after we beat up Cheeser, but like, I dunno if we’re girlfriends” she said, smiling slightly. She nodded though, and glanced to Sledge.

“But, like, I get what you’re saying. I got this. You’re right. Gotta show that I can do these things so people will trust me” she said, remembering a point her mentor had made from a previous conversation. “So like, I’m like your niece then?”

Sledge made note of Hana getting flustered, but decided to not comment on it in that moment. Instead, she scoffed and laughed at her question. “Don’t get cute. You’re my Protege. I’m your mentor. Like I said: this ain’t no picnic.” And yet, she didn’t want to outright say no.

“Eyes on the road. We should be there in a few minutes.”

Hana chuckled at it, and nodded. “Eyes on the road, right right” she said, giving a small smile. A picnic with Sledge and Temperance at some point didn’t sound bad, or maybe not a picnic and just stopping at a diner after a mission or something. She continued on, seeing the van approaching the destination ahead, with them not far behind.

She pulled up to the building the van went to, and found a parking spot to stop in. It seemed to be a loading facility that ferried prisoners out to an island prison. Hana partly wished they could handle this before going out to the island for time reasons, but part of her also wanted to ride the boat out there. Classic conundrum. She turned the car off and grinned to Sledge. “There, first time driving your car was a complete success! Did the forms all get done? Freaking cops and their forms and things”

“Yeah, I got it done,” Sledge said. “It’s frustrating, but I’d rather there be forms I need to fill out than everything being a Wild West of unaccountability. That’s how you make it easy for people like… like Cheeser.” She called back to Hana’s nickname for Police Commissioner O’Reilly. Sledge had a sardonic smile, shook her head, and got out of the car.

The building ahead of them was mostly blocky and grey, like a memorial to the Cold War, but the front entrance looked renovated and newer. There was an iron gate that opened to the ferry area, through which the black van had already gone. The gate was now closed. In front of the building’s entrance, there was a statue of a muscular, faceless man in a suit and fedora, his fingers touching the hilt of a sword that stuck out of the ground. On the blade, the thick letters P E N A N C E stuck out. The statue looked old and faded bronze, save for shiny spots on the hilt of the sword and its butt.

Sledge walked towards the entrance and held up her old League of Heroes badge as a sign of authority and identification. She gestured for Hana to follow her inside.

“Yeaaaahhhh, I guess” She said, begrudgingly agreeing, also glad the nickname for the pompous jerkface they’d beat up a few weeks ago was catching on. She slipped out of the car, pocketing the keys for now. Her gaze moved around this building and the exterior, mainly how creepy and off-putting it all was. Gray and a creepy statue and like, too angular? It was weird. Hana looked to see Sledge motioning for her, then hurried to catch up. She reached into the pocket of her jacket to pull out her mask, looking at it.

“He already knows who I am, dunno if I should even bother with this” she muttered to herself, thinking for a bit, then shook her head and put it on. She liked it anyways, and wanted to set the right mood. She was Shade, talking to a villain. “Okay. Let’s do this” she said louder to Sledge, and nodded. “What other questions did you want me to ask? Anything I should try to keep in mind? I remember he was really cocky and likes to get the upper hand on you. Not you specifically, like, the royal you.”

“That’s how he is, yeah.” Sledge confirmed. “We’ll talk more about that on the ferry ride.” She looked at Shade’s mask and nodded approvingly.

The inside of the building was small, but had a calming atmosphere. The walls were painted in cool and soft colours, with two paintings of fields of flowers hanging there, one with a windmill. There was a potted fern next to the entrance. The salty air from outside was replaced with a faint whiff of lemon air freshener.

Sledge walked to a reception desk where a woman in navy overalls and baseball cap that said AE GIS, with a bit too much spacing between the E and G. “Afternoon, Agent Hennessy,” Sledge greeted her. “I sent in the paperwork ten minutes ago.”

The woman’s face lit up when she saw them, but turned disappointed swiftly. “Digital paperwork? Alright.” She rattled away on her keyboard, staring at her computer with a disinterested look. She cocked an eyebrow. “Smokescreen?”

“Yes.”

“Cool. Cool cool cool.”

Agent Hennessy’s keyboard rattled a bit more. She looked past Sledge at Shade. “‘Sup.”

Shade followed her inside, hands jammed into the pockets of her jacket. She looked around the entrance, surprised by the contrast between the inside and outside. Part of her wondered if this was a “our facility is too gloomy we need to made it happier” kind of thing, cause that seemed like something they’d do.

She came up with Sledge to the desk and leaned on it, looking between them as they chatted. At the greeting, she gave the agent an up nod. “Sup. I’m Shade. Uh, sorry we made you have to do paperwork”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I love paperwork!” Agent Hennessy responded. “It’s just this digital stuff, y’know. Makes it feel less real.”

Sledge leaned on the counter and looked at Shade. “Agent Hennessy here used to work in a library and never got over it.”

“I worked in the archives! There you have all the physical proof of everything, the smell of paper, the weight of the books, the quiet… ah, I guess it’s quiet here too. Except the buzzing electronics and these really loud keyboards.” Clack-clack-clackity-clack the keys went. “Alright, you’re processed. You can take the next ferry in half an hour.”

“Oooohhhhh, I gotcha” she nodded, glancing between them as they talked again. Shade chuckled. “Yeah, if you’re into that, probably sucks to have to be moved up here then. I’m like, super into computers and stuff so digital sounds better to me” She looks over the counter to the keyboard that was so noisy. “Yeah, that can be annoying. They make stuff to get them quieter, but like, AEGIS probably doesn’t want you putting stuff on them or whatever.”

Her mask perked up when Hennessy said they were processed. It immediately fell when she said ‘in half an hour.’ “Uggghhh, we gotta wait that long? Are there other boats we could take? I drive stuff, I’m sure a boat isn’t too hard to drive”

“This is one of those times we gotta play by the rules, Shade.” Sledge’s tone was admonishing, but she smiled as she said it. “Let’s get the car around. You can skip stones or whatever while we wait.”

“There’s a soda machine around the corner if you’re thirsty.” Agent Hennessy said. “Though it’s usually out of Boktor Pepper.” She looked disappointed as she said it.

“Fiiiiine” She said, pushing up from the counter with a sigh. She perked up at the mention of a vending machine, then hurried around the corner. “I’ll get your favorite if they have it!” she shouted as she ran off. Returning a few minutes later with two cans, she tossed one to Sledge.

They waited the half hour, Shade a bit impatiently. She skipped stones as Sledge had mentioned, taking a bit to get the technique, but once she could get her strength behind it, they started going pretty far. She spent some of the time on her phone, tapping back into her computer at the base just to check on things. It was hard to keep her mind off worrying thoughts now that they were just sitting there, stuck waiting for the ferry to come.

Eventually it did, and the two set off. Shade leaned on the railing, looking to the island, then out across the bay. Was Newfoundland that way? She wondered if that had been true, when she’d mentioned it on the date. That was something she hadn’t told others about the date, about her mirroring, how she’d been scared of what was fake or what was real. Shade sighed and looked down at the water. She wanted to find out.

## The Ferry

“Oh, right, we were gonna talk about Smokescreen and how we should go about this whole talking with him thing,” Shade said, looking up and over to Sledge. She turned around to lean back against the railing, crossing her arms. “What else did you want to know from him?”

Sledge looked out over the water and leaned on the railing. Her eyes scanned across the water. In the distance, the Zodiac Tree was visible. “We have a shared past.” She said in response to Shade.

“I will brief you on him now.” Sledge continued. “Smokescreen’s list of crimes is numerous, so I will not go into detail there. Suffice to say that he was fond of tackling what he saw as ‘corrupt, hypocritical institutions and power structures’. Those just so happened to often include things like soup kitchens, veterans’ homes, hotels… Because of his convictions, he found many allies. Because of his destructive nature, he made many enemies. I don’t think I’ve found a supervillain who’s fought as many other supervillains as he has.”

Sledge shook her head and reached for her phone, searching for something. She handed it to Shade, showing a news article about Smokescreen’s final arrest. The man was laid out on a stretcher with a brace around his neck. “He is a paraplegic now due to injuries sustained as a result of his own supervillainous actions. That’s what the newspapers said. Truth is that it was a member of the Big Team that was responsible for his injuries. I suspect he hasn’t forgotten. Or forgiven.”

Shade nodded as Sledge went on. He hit soup kitchens and stuff? Sounded like an asshole. Violent, too, then. She took the phone as it was handed, to read over the article. Her gaze moved up, and to Sledge when she said it was a Big Teammate that did it. “Really? Anyone I know? If he’s got convictions like that, I imagine he holds a grudge” she glanced at the screen to see the picture one more time before handing the phone back to Sledge.

“So you and him have history? Must have fought a lot, then, huh?” she said, crossing her arms again and looking at her. She was nervous about handling the talking, but also a bit excited. It was something new, something Sledge was trusting her with, so she wanted to give it what she had.

“You could say that.” Sledge said. “As for you questioning him: be on your guard. He’ll try to throw you off, especially since this is a personal matter to you. He’s always been well-informed and a very useful ally to have, but very dangerous to try to work with. Not ‘will shoot a lieutenant for a single failure’ dangerous, but more like ‘used to be an underground mafia boss’ dangerous. His arrest was a great positive, but it caused a chain reaction of events in Halcyon City that ultimately led to Zodiac City and the tense stand-off between a number of factions lurking within the city. Mind you, the man is no longer a threat, not by himself, but he is still incredibly dangerous. Choose your words carefully. Don’t threaten him. You can’t keep those promises and he’s already in prison and paralyzed. Keep your mask on. Betray as little of your own personal feelings as possible. And above all: don’t let him get inside your head.”

Shade nodded as she listened through the explanations. It was a lot to take in. Keep the mask on and don’t let him into her head seemed to be the key points, she’d have to stay calm and collected through it. She wasn’t planning on threatening him, well, she might accidentally if he pissed her off. Would have to remember to not do that. “Okay. Yeah. He’s a bad dude, and I can’t let my guard down around him. Got you. I’ll keep it professional and stuff, we’re just looking into stuff” She paused for a moment. “Are they cool now with Mr Ribaldi being out, or should I worry that he’s going to spill the beans about us being the ones that did it?”

“Oh, they already know. Kenneth Ribaldi told them himself.” Sledge said bluntly. “Basically the first thing he said.”

Sledge was silent for a few moments, going back to staring at the horizon again. This time her eyes drifted towards their destination: an island almost completely built up by a large, blocky, grey structure. The AEGIS super-prison. She grimaced at the sight of it. “Ugh. Well, don’t worry about Vincente Ribaldi selling you out and getting you locked up in the cell next to him. Unless you did more stunts like that breakout, you should be good.” She sounded joking, to hide her own unease.

Shade blinked a few times under her mask. “Oh. Cool. Cool. Don’t need to worry about that, then” She chuckled nervously, then turned to look at the prison as Sledge grimaced at it. “Got it. No other stunts like that, no need to worry. Did you have anything specific you wanted me to ask him while I’m in there? I was gonna frame it like, how he had access to hire mercs and where he hired them from, then press there if any answers came up. You got anything you’re dying to know?” She said, glancing up to her, her mask showing a small smile.

“I have a few questions you can ask him in relation to your gal pal,” Sledge said. “Who else has he hired? How can he pay them? Why did he specifically get you involved to break out his brother? I can make educated guesses, but something straight from the source is most valuable. Starting with simple questions and pressing further on any answers he gives is a good start. You can fall back on further questions when a line of questioning hits a dead end. Then once you’re done, I’ll have a few questions for him that you won’t need to be present for.”

They were getting close to the island. Agent Tonner was standing in the shadows on the pier, hiding from the summer sun. Sledge adjusted her bracers. “Look sharp, we’re heading into the lion’s den.”

Shade nodded, taking the advice to heart for her questioning. Her head tilted and she looked back to Sledge when she mentioned things Shade didn’t need to be present for. “Stuff I don-” she started saying when they got close enough to the island to see the agent awaiting them. She leaned up from the railing, gulping slightly. Lion’s den, huh? How fun.

## The Prison

When the ferry docked and they could depart, Shade followed Sledge to meet Agent Tonner. Her gaze moved around the island, not liking the aesthetic that was similar to the building on shore: angles, grey, like it was designed to make you feel crappy. Gross. She shook her head, trying to get herself back in the mindset of ‘about to question a supervillain for answers on your girlfriend.’ Wait, not girlfriend, it was just one date, remember?

“Hallo!” Agent Tonner greeted them cheerfully, shouting across from where she was standing. She briefly stepped into the sunlight to be more visible, but the day was hot and the sun was bright, so she stepped back into the shadows again, waiting for them. She had one arm in a sling.

Sledge stuck up a hand in response. “Hey!” She waited for the ferry to dock and motioned for Shade. “Let’s make this as quick and painless as we can. Don’t wander off. They can get kinda strict about these visits.”

Shade nodded and hurried to follow after Sledge, sticking close behind her. “Yeah, you got it. Wasn’t planning on checking out more of this place than I had to” she said, giving it another look around as they came onto the island and toward Tonner. She took another deep breath, trying to focus on what they were here to do. It was personal, but she couldn’t let him see that. “Quick and painless” she said, mostly to herself as they walked.

Agent Tonner was cheerful but clearly serious in her demeanor towards them, shaking Sledge’s hand with her single available one. “Must be serious if it couldn’t wait, huh? And you brought Shade. Um, hello!” Tonner waved at Shade. There was a bit of hesitance in her words. She adjusted her sling carefully. “So uh, exciting first-time authorized trip to an AEGIS prison for you, huh? Sledge, did you fill out the paperwork for her too? You did? Good. That was a lot. I don’t think I’ve seen anybody process that sort of thing this fast before, other than Agent Hennessy.”

“Think nothing of it,” Sledge curtly nodded as she began to walk. “I want to get in as fast as possible, so we can maximize our time here.”

“Right! This way then.” Agent Tonner led the way up a sloping path onto the island towards the giant, looming prison complex.

“Uh, yup, hey there” Shade said, giving a wave. She cringed slightly under the mask, hearing the emphasis on authorized. Yeah, first official trip, the last one had been anything but. At least she didn’t seem pissed at her. That was something. “Oh, yeah, uh, Sledge is real good at it” she said awkwardly about the paperwork, not sure what else to say. She shook her head, then hurried to follow after them. Just keep the mind on what was happening. Be cool.

They ascended along a walkway lined with a few fruit trees, apples and pears, before entering through a set of double doors under an archway that read ‘The shield of humanity guards both ways’ in both English and Greek. Upon entering, Agent Tonner showed a few guards her badge and confirmed Sledge’s forms. They signed a guest book, were asked for their fingerprints and got checked for weapons. “Standard procedure,” Agent Tonner assured Shade with a small smile. “A room should have been arranged for you to meet with Mr. Ribaldi. He’ll have been taken there to wait for you. It’s across from the first block. Have you done interrogations before?”

Shade went in, feeling suddenly very nervous with all the procedure and signing and prints and stuff. It felt weird, even knowing they were here officially and everything. She had no weapons, since she basically just used her fists and whatever improvised thing she could find, and begrudgingly gave her prints. “Standard, right” she said, nodding, then looking to Tonner. “I, yeah. Well, not like, official ones in a specific room for them, just like, you know, doing a thing and you’re like ‘where’s your boss’ and you gotta like, get them to tell you where the leader is or whatever when you’re fighting baddies. Um, I mean, thank you for arranging this” she said, her nerves getting to her some as she went on.

“Oh, it is no problem,” Agent Tonner assured Shade. “I--and AEGIS as well--owe Sledge multiple debts, so to be able to help with something like this was only natural, even if it’s unusual to have it be on such short notice. If you don’t mind me asking: what or whom do you want to ask him about?”

Behind Agent Tonner’s back, Sledge gave her a look and then looked at Shade. She shook her head as she looked at her.

“Heh, makes sense. Sledge is awesome” Shade said, glancing down bashfully. At the question, her gaze shot up, then to Sledge. She returned the nod, then looked back to Tonner. “He makes a mean pot roast and I gotta know the secret ingredient” she said, then chuckled like it was just a friendly joke. “Nah, just following up on some stuff that couldn’t wait”

Agent Tonner frowned at the response she got and opened her mouth to ask more, but Sledge cut her off. “We’re all done here, right? Let’s go. I don’t want to waste your time.”

“Oh, it’s no matter! They put me on half duty, due to all that has happened in the past few weeks.” Agent Tonner waved it off as they passed through an airlock with cameras and gun turrets much like the ones on the AEGIS helicarrier. “My fall injuries got exacerbated in a fight. I didn’t even really notice until afterwards. Adrenaline, I guess. Ah, here’s the door.”

Agent Tonner pulled out a bundle of keys and began to go through them to find the right one for the door leading to the interrogation rooms. On the other side of the hallway was a reinforced door with a small window looking out into a row of cells. To the side of the door was a wall plate that said ‘CELL BLOCK A’. Below it was a list of the prisoners occupying it.

Shade relaxed some as Sledge tried to get them to hurry along, worried the agent would keep pressing on why they had to talk to Smokescreen right now. She grimaced slightly under her mask, feeling guilty again about the injuries she’d sustained. It really wasn’t supposed to go down like it had. Shade leaned against a wall as Tonner started to go through the keys to unlock their way, figuring it hadn’t been updated to an electronic lock for some reason that only AEGIS knew. She glanced over to the list under the plate, curious if she would spot any familiar names while waiting.

The list showed ten prisoners’ names in total, with two slots left blank:

* Jesse Tsoukalos (a.k.a. Ophiuchus)
* Bridget Ironside
* Troy Roman (a.k.a. Wolf Centurion)
* --
* Vincente Ribaldi (a.k.a. Smokescreen)
* Spegulo
* Keith Rodriguez
* Tiffany Treble (a.k.a. Deci-Belle)
* Marc Blackwood
* Harriet Habershire (a.k.a. Undertow)
* --
* Jane Doe (a.k.a. Neptune Noverre)

A couple of the names had a tinge of familiarity to them, namely the supervillain aliases and things she’d heard from the goings-on in Halcyon, people the Big Team had fought. Spegulo she thought she’d heard about being some magic person or something? Or like part of a wizard club? Maybe? Noverre might be familiar but she couldn’t place it at the moment. The main name to stand out was the person they were here to see, Smokescreen. Her gaze moved back to the agent at the door, wondering how many keys she’d have to try before getting the right one.

“Ah, there we go!” The door’s lock clicked and Agent Tonner opened it. “With all these supervillains in here we can’t rely on solely the highest level of tech to keep them locked up, so we have some low-tech solutions too. Alright then, in you go! The room’s the third door on the left. We’ll have an eye in there in case he gets violent.”

“He doesn’t have super strength.” Sledge said.

“You’d be surprised what he can do with a wheelchair.”

“Do you have an ear in there too?”

“We’d love to, but that carries some extra legalities with it, so only if we have your permission.”

“You don’t,” Sledge affirmed. “So that’s good then. Third door on the left you said?”

“Third door on the left.”

“Let’s go, Shade. Time to work those questioning muscles.”

Shade leaned up from the wall and nodded. “Let’s do this. Thanks” she said to Tonner, giving her a nod, then following Sledge back. Third door on the left. Right. Them not having a microphone in there made her feel better, though she figured they could always have a hidden one somewhere. Whatever. She shook those thoughts from her mind, psyching herself up a final time. With an exhale, she moved to the door and looked to Sledge. “I got this” she said, both to her mentor and to herself for affirmation, then opened the door to go inside.

The room was square, fifteen by fifteen feet and ten feet high. It had few features, containing little more than a table and four chairs. The table was affixed to the floor with bolts that didn’t seem to be made of metal. There was a spherical camera attached to the ceiling in the corner, its eye watching them as they entered. Behind the table sat the man in a wheelchair: Vincente Ribaldi. Smokescreen. He breathed out a bit of smoke as they entered, though he had no cigarette anywhere.

“Hello there,” he said calmly, slowly looking up. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

Shade stepped inside, looking around the room for a moment. Her eyes paused on him, then she gave a nod. “Hey. Thanks for making time to meet” she said, moving to sit in a chair across from him. She waited a moment before speaking again, collecting her thoughts. “There’s some things we needed to ask about. Stuff that wasn’t adding up and we want some answers to” She leaned forward, elbows on the table. “A few weeks ago, when you got us to free your brother. How exactly did you set all that up from inside a prison?”

Smokescreen looked past Shade at Sledge, who walked around the table to the wall behind him. She turned and leaned against it, keeping her eyes on him. Smokescreen turned back to Shade halfway through her question. He took a deep breath with closed eyes and then looked at her with a blank stare. His words came out in a flat tone. “Who said that I set all that up from inside a prison?”

Shade’s head tilted at the questioned response to her own question. “Good answer. Tells me I gotta be more specific. How did you hire a mercenary and give us intel, when your access to outside resources is...limited?”

Smokescreen’s lip curled up slightly at Shade’s response. He folded his hands on the edge of the table. “I have always been adept with any sort of technology. Any kind of device that lets me send a message is one that enables me to contact anyone I’d wish to. There are some apps that let you hire supers for jobs. Now, those apps usually don’t have options to advertise a prison break, mind you…” He trailed off.

“Uh huh. Got it. So you put an ad out, and this merc just answered it? That all it took? Was she working alone or through something else? Must have paid her pretty well to take a job like that” Shade said. She rested her chin on her palm, trying to keep herself casual as she asked the questions.

“I believe in fair wages for fair work.” Smokescreen smiled. “Unlike some. Have you ever gotten paid for the work you’ve done as a superhero?”

“Yeah, yeah I have. I’m doing much better than I was before all the superheroing, but thanks for the concern” She tilted her head again slightly. “Did the merc contact you directly, or was this a recruitment agency kinda thing?”

“She contacted me first. I needed someone for a delivery that I couldn’t ask my family to do for me. I had my first contact bail on me, then I received a message from her. She assisted me twice before she told me that she could provide other services as well, if the pay was appropriate.” Smokescreen looked at Shade and tilted his head in the same way that Shade had. “That is, if we are talking about the same merc.”

“The one that went with us? That’s the one I’m talking about. We’re wondering how you got a merc like that, and if we have to worry about any more. Does she still work with you?”

Smokescreen paused at that question. He was quiet for a few moments. “No. I lost contact with her.”

Her eyes narrowed a bit at the silence, wondering what he had to think about to answer that. “Was that after the job you sent her on with us?”

For a moment, Smokescreen looked like he was about to give a snarky response, but he simply nodded. “I had contact with her about a week after that. I tried again two weeks later, but I received no response. I didn’t require something important at the time, so I thought little of it, but she did have a habit of fast responses when a job was concerned.”

“Yeah, she did reply fast...Uh, she seemed like the person that would do that. Yeah. Mercs and their jobs. So, you paid pretty good, you can access your resources like that still? Money, info, gear, and all that?” she said. A change in topic since she could tell she was slipping a bit, thinking about Hayeli.

“Some of it. Most of my assets have been frozen, but some are outside of AEGIS’ legal purview, some I managed to retain due to counter-suing the state, and some is legally under ownership of others.” Smokescreen smiled. “I’m sure you are familiar with Samantha.”

In the corner, Sledge’s grip on her arm tightened and her eyes narrowed.

“Seriously? Ugh. Haven’t you ruined her life enough? What, you got random accounts in her name that you can access or something?” she shook her head. “Boundaries, dude. So...basically being here just means you lost access to some stuff but you can still operate and do shady stuff with all the things AEGIS can’t touch. Cool” she sighed, and leaned forward some on the table. “I guess that answers how you even managed to hire someone while you’re supposed to be in prison. What other things did she do for you?”

Smokescreen’s face hardened. “Young lady, I would appreciate it if you steer away from any notion that I would set out to worsen my daughter’s lot in life. I am well aware of the impact my actions have had on her life. She makes that all too clear every time she visits me.”

He shifted in his wheelchair, visibly riled up by Shade’s words. “Is there anything specific you want to know about Miss Hayeli’s services? Do you want to hire her yourself?”

Shade smirked under the mask, then sat up in her chair. “Okay, I won’t, and now I’ve done you a favor. You can do one for me. How can we get in contact with her? We’ve got some questions that she could shed some light on too. Any numbers, email, usernames or whatever that she contacted you on?”

“Being courteous is doing me a favor? You’d make a fine boss in the criminal underworld.” Smokescreen remarked. “I initially was in contact with her through the rent-a-super app iSupe, where she used the name--uh--XO underscore Bloody Mary Sixty-Nine.” He looked up and quirked his brow in thought. “After that, we were in contact through texting, mostly with burner phones provided by an old associate of mine, and the occasional meeting during my hospital trips.”

Shade’s eyes narrowed under the mask. She kept herself from being snarky, internally yelling at herself that he was just trying to get under her skin again. “Great. Any other mercs on your payroll or people you’ve hired to do your dirty work while you’re hanging out here?”

Smokescreen smiled a little for a moment and straightened his back, insofar as he was capable. “No.” He answered. “But then, I didn’t need to hire you, did I?”

“Good point. That the only reason you wanted us to do it? You knew we’d volunteer when we learned Sam was in trouble?” Shade leans back and crosses her arms.

Smokescreen took a while to answer. He crossed his arms as well. “No. I also wanted to see what the Big Team was like these days. To see if there is any honour in it or if it had devolved into a mob of spine-crushing wannabe child soldiers. Maybe you were when Godspeed led you, but your group seemed different from the Big Team I knew.” He glanced to the side, to Sledge, with a look of suspicion.

“Well, I hope you liked what you found out. I don’t know what you thought of us before, but the people I know on this team aren’t a bunch of shitty oppressive assholes like that. They’re pretty cool. Protected this city from a ton of stuff, even just since I joined,” she shrugs, then pushes her chair back and stands up. “I think that’s everything for me. Thanks for answering my questions about that. Anything else before I let you and Sledge catch up?”

Smokescreen looked at Shade with a neutral expression, uncrossing his arms as she stood up. “That sounds like an improvement. I’ve always taken an interest in the wellbeing of my city. That means looking to the future and children are the future. To see my daughter doing well is of the utmost importance, but as you’ve no doubt seen recently, there are problems in the city at a systemic level that threaten it--and by extension my family.” He folded his hands and bowed his head. “If I want Samantha to do well, to be safe, then Halcyon City needs to do well. Judging by your *new kind of Big Team*, maybe you kids will help make that happen… if you can handle the burden.” He paused and gave her a grim stare. “Good luck.”

“Hm, that’s something we actually agree on” she said, giving him a nod. “We’re gonna do our best. Good bye, have fun with Sledge” she added, turning to give Sledge a nod, then moved to the door, stepping outside.

“Until next time, miss Kerrigan.” Smokescreen calls out after Shade, as she walks out the door.

When the door shut behind her, she immediately let out a sigh, a mixture of relief and irritation. “He knows my name. Like, last name, like, he knows me knows me. Whatever. It’s fine. Maybe. Probably. Aside from that, that went okay, right? Yeah, like, better than I thought it would. Hehe” she talked to herself as she went to lean against the opposite wall while waiting. Him knowing so much freaked her out a little bit, he’d known she was with Sledge the last time, but like, down to her name was another level. It was fine. Not like she had any family to worry about him doing stuff to.

Even if the questioning went alright, she didn’t have a ton of answers to find Hayeli. He hasn’t talked to her since about the same time, then. It could mean she was just done working for him, or that something happened. She’d been worried about the latter. With a sigh, she pulled out her phone and went to this iSupe app to try and look for XO\_BloodyMary69’s profile, if that didn’t do much, maybe she could do more with her supercomputer back at the base. She appreciated her mask at the moment, hiding her blush at the number in the username.

It didn’t take Shade long to find XO\_BloodyMary69’s profile. The picture with it showed a flexing and scarred brown arm holding a paintbrush sopping wet with red paint in front of a white wall with a fresh red paint blotch on it. A section talked about her particular set of skills available, along with powers she claimed to have: “super-tech reverse engineering, nocturnal activity, teleportation”. In her About Me section, it had a cheeky note saying “I also do magic tricks <3”.

Shade tilted her head as she read through it. Teleportation, huh? Sounds like she had some pretty awesome skills. The picture seemed to fit, remembering the scars she’d had on her forearms. Well, she’d found her. Now what? She scrolled back up to send her a message, maybe this would get through if she’d had to change numbers quickly or something? Maybe she could try to hack iSupe’s servers and see where this user last logged in? Hana hadn’t really thought that far. A message for now, she figured, then could figure it out from there. She quickly made an account with the username 20StrongGirl02.

`*Hi, it’s the strong girl. I’m not sure how like, secretive I gotta be on this so I figured I’d be all discreet. I dunno if you wanted to ghost me or something, I guess if so you can just ignore this, but like, I dunno, I don’t think that’s true. Or at least I didn’t want to. So, uh, yeah, I guess I’ll say what I wanted to say. I like you, and I was worried something happened to you after all the crap that went down a couple weeks ago. Shoot me a message here or text or like, stop by my place or whatever. Stop by the community center and they’ll know how to reach me. Like, only if you want to, or whatever. If you don’t wanna see me or I’m being creepy you can just tell me to eff off or ignore me or whatever, but I hope not. Karotum yem k’ez*`

Shade sent it off, then put her phone away and leaned back against the wall to just wait for Sledge to be done.

## After the Interrogation

Sledge walked out of the interrogation room fifteen minutes later. The door sounded loud as it fell into the lock, echoing through the quiet hall. She sighed and cracked her neck. “Nothing like a reunion to make you feel old.” She looked over to Shade. “Are you satisfied? If you just need a break, we can go back in there in a bit.”

Shade glanced up when Sledge came out, giving a shrug as the answer to her question. “I think so. He’s got resources that AEGIS couldn’t really touch and he’s able to use, so that’s how he paid for stuff, and things were set up outside of the prison, who knows what devices he used. Getting info on how he hired Hayeli was good, can do some stuff with having her username on that app, maybe she uses the same one elsewhere. I sent a message on the app, hoping maybe it’ll get to her when texting didn’t. I don’t know what else I can get out of him without like, potentially revealing how personal it is. I tried to just frame it like we wanted to ask her some questions, but any more about her I’m worried he’s gonna catch on.”

Sledge nodded. “That is the trouble with interrogations about such subjects. It’s why, when I worked with the League, the interrogator would always be someone who didn’t have a great personal stake in the matter, if possible.” She placed a hand on Shade’s shoulder. “He may already have a hunch, but you did good. You got information that helps you get further. Now use that and see where it gets you. If messaging or hacking don’t get you further, we can come back here.” She held up a finger. “Just not on short notice like this.”

Shade looks up to her and nods, a smile forming under the mask. “Yeah, that makes sense, hehe. Thanks, I thought it went alright. Tried to keep him from getting in my head too much. Got some info though, and, uh, like, yeah, it went alright. Definitely nervous though, hehe. Uh, so, like, yeah. Overall it went fine. Thanks, again, Sledge. I think this helped a bunch, like, I didn’t have any leads before, and now I do. Thanks for calling in your favors for me” she says, glancing at her, part of her wanting to hug her mentor but part of her wanted to look tough.

Sledge gave her a small smile. “Good to see he didn’t scare the motormouth out of you,” she joked. “If you’re done here, then we’re done here.”

Shade chuckled. “Yep, don’t think anything could do that” she joked back. She nodded and followed after her, out the door.

Sledge led the way back through the hallway, through the old-school-locked door that Agent Tonner closed behind them, and followed her outside. Again they went past the checks as before, to ensure that nothing was getting out--as much as nothing was getting in. “We’ll be in touch,” she told Agent Tonner.

“Of course!” The agent replied. “Not too soon, I hope. I have an important case to work on today.”

“Not involving the Ribaldis, I hope?” Sledge’s tone was half-joking, half-concerned.

“Oh, not at all! I think? I hope. It’s just another case that we just got some new intel on, a lead I have to chase. The usual.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll pin it down in no time. We’ll let ourselves out, then.” Sledge nodded at Agent Tonner. The two women shook hands.

Stopping by Tonner, Shade waited while they talked, then stepped forward. “Uh, thanks for getting that all handled and letting us get in there today. It’s really appreciated” she said, offering her own hand to shake, figuring that was what she was supposed to do after saying something like that. “Good luck with your case and stuff”

“You’re welcome! And thanks!” Agent Tonner sounded happy about it. “Oh gosh, I almost sound excited. It’s part of a big case. Anyway, can’t talk about it, but I’ll crack her right open. Alright, have a good day!”

As Sledge and Shade walked away, Sledge’s pace was quick and she didn’t look back to see Agent Tonner wave them off. Her jaw was clenched the whole walk to the pier where they’d have to wait for the ferry again.

Shade nodded and turned to follow Sledge, walking a bit faster to keep up with the taller woman. As they got out to the pier, she tilted her head at her mentor. “Hey, uh, you okay? Seem kinda on edge. He say something after I left?” she asked, leaning on a fence and stuffing her hands into the pockets of her jacket.

Sledge raised a finger again and slowed down her pace, then stopped at the base of the pier. She took a deep breath. “Lot of history. Long story. Don’t want to get into it.” She rubbed at her eyes, shook her head and stared out over the water.

“Oh, uh, yeah, sure, no problem. Uh, just, like, you know, I’m like, here, if you do or whatever. Or could talk about something else if you wanna get your mind off him” she said, shrugging. Shade looked out to the mainland, then back to her quickly. “Oh, uh, Temperance and I got the encrypted communicators working, so those are good to go and stuff. Got it to stop accidentally patching into the AM stations with weird music, hehe”

Sledge was quiet for a few moments, then turned to Shade and managed a smile at the mention of weird music. “Good. I don’t want to have to listen to ten-hour loops of The Bangles ever again. Although if you can make them work so that we can control what stations we tune in to, then we can actually put on some good stuff for once.” She shook her head and looked back out over the water, thoughtful. A few moments of silence passed. “Does your band play on any stations?”

Shade chuckled, and nodded. “Yeah, I know Mel’s mentor likes them a bunch but jeez” she turned and nodded a bunch again. “Yeah! It could totally do that! The receivers could be altered to have the one encrypted comm channel and receive on another to tune to radio stations” she said happily, leaning and looking back out. At the next question, she chuckled. “Kinda, plays on some local stuff. We got a battle of the bands coming up and we’ll be on some other stations when we win that! Gonna be awesome” she said, grinning under the mask.

“Cool.” Sledge said simply. The ferry arrived shortly after, and they got on. Sledge took in the view, commenting on how she wished taking photos was allowed there. She asked a bit more about the Flex Girls’ songs and this ‘Battle of the Bands’ that they had coming up. Post-interrogation now, it was almost like an ordinary day again.

## Hana’s Apartment

Hana came out the door of the elevator into the base. She flipped the lightswitch to turn the big main ones on, then walked over and tossed her mask onto the planning table. Sledge had driven back, they’d talked some, it was good. The day with her mentor was nice, she appreciated it and the time they’d had. Still, she wished she’d gotten more from Smokescreen. A username was something, but it was just the start of a lead.

She fell into a cushion of the couch, sitting and pulling out her phone. She opened the iSupe app, looking at the message she’d sent, reading over it again, wondering if she’d said something wrong or it was too much or...overthinking it wouldn’t help. Just had to wait. Even if waiting sucked.