Meander

Conclude that the short time you've spent with the RADIOACTIVE SLUDGE must have made your skeleton INVINCIBLE!

Of course! Everyone knows RADIOACTIVITY is the perfect thing for SUPERPOWERS!

Either that or you've broken half of the bones in your body.

Or not. You feel LIGHTHEADED. A small trickle of liquid teases the rim of your hat...




The world dims. There is the SENSE OF FALLING, of striking the DESK - then, NOTHING. Nothing at all.






What are you looking at?


You wake up on a SOFA. You have a BANDAGE on your head, a blanket over you, and-


OW!


Jammroll goes on a TIRADE, shouting about the COSTS and TIME required to repair the WALL RECENTLY BROKEN BY RAWR-ING. She'll make you pay it if it's the last thing she-




An ORGANIC, FAIR-TRADE SOY LATTE MACCHIATO appears in a blur, balancing itself neatly on your lap.


'nuff said.


Jammroll is even more perturbed by the fact that there is a SUPERPOWERED RAT in her MAIN LOUNGE.


Correction: a SUPERPOWERED RAT that can talk.

>Jammroll Rockenzie: Throw phone at creepy dude in self-defense.

With an expert throw, SPIDERAT is knocked out off the sofa!

Ask for a cup of tea or something and check her call history while she heads into the kitchen to begrudgingly make it.

Any good detective knows to take opportunities when they come. You grab her PHONE, opening its CALL HISTORY-


She leaps from her LAMP-PERCH, drawing a MACHETE from her PONYTAIL (how did she put that in there?!) and throwing it like some kind of BLADED MACHETEFRISBEE.



You leap off the SOFA, injuries notwithstanding, as the PHONE is neatly skewered. That thing must have cost...and she can just go and...wha?!

>Superpowers, yay!

> Use her jumping on you as Innuendo Fuel

> Fall through floor because shoddy construction

> Phase through floor because superpowers

>RUN!

>Alternatively, be saved by the fact that she was suddenly pulled into a battle to the death for no reason.

>Superpowers, yay!

Your bracing for IMPACT is suddenly unnecessary. Jammroll has decided to violate the LAW OF GRAVITY, and is LEVITATING above you in a HALF-THREATENING position.

> Use her jumping on you as Innuendo Fuel

Somehow, the urge to make a WITTICISM has left you in the face of IMPOSSIBILITY.

>RUN!

You can't take this. It's too much to handle. With EVER-FLIPPING COINS, SPIDERAT, RADIOACTIVE SLUDGE and now this - your life seems to have taken a distinct TURN FOR THE STRANGE lately. You haul yourself to your feet and and sprint for the door-


-she grabs your hand.

==MEANWHILE==

AMITYEnmity CITY: REDRIA¦EMCORP TOWER


---

>Laugh maniacally.

> Steeple fingers as you contemplate your dastardly schemes.

> Plot diabolical schemes.

Tom: How did she move so fast?!?!

>Get coffee. You cannot plot without coffee!

> Plot diabolical schemes.

You are now MONTGOMERINE JAMES LEOMILIAN MAXISON MANWOOD-THORNCHESTER, ESQ. You are a HIGH-RANKING OPERATIVE in the REDRIA¦EMCORP HIERARCHY. You are NOT LOYAL.

> Steeple fingers as you contemplate your dastardly schemes.

Fingers?

>Laugh maniacally.

Step 2: Laugh maniacally. You do, and then feel a little silly. It doesn't really suit you.

>Get coffee. You cannot plot without coffee!

Step 3: Get coffee. Your PERSONAL COFFEE is still warming up! You blame the PERPETUAL WINTER for requiring continual coffee-heating.


You're really not sure why you even bought Plotting Dastardly Schemes for Beginners to begin with.


Besides, you aren't a beginner - you already have a DASTARDLY PLAN to enact. Clutching tight your AP3X PHONE, you make a call to one of your associates.


"What do you want, Manwood? I'm drinking here."
A cruel smile makes its way across your face as you explain. "Two targets; you have one witness and one elimination."
"Why me, Manwood? You only ask me when your other lackeys can't do your dirty work."

"It's the Redria operative. The one in music. The one who can fly."
"She finally slipped up? The goddamn super?!"

Amidst the noise, you hear her finish her drink and slam it on the bar. In the darkness of your office you allow yourself a small measure of satisfaction.
"I'll take it, Manwood - does she know we've been tracking her?
"After two years? She'd have to be utterly naïve not to."
"Good. If she doesn't live up to the challenge you're selling me, Manwood, someone is going to pay. Double."
"Do the job, Lavender."
She hangs up.

====

Tom: How did she move so fast?!?!

You are now TOM SMITH again. You begin, fracturedly, to ponder how JAMMROLL caught up to you when you were running full tilt. It's only now that it's hitting you: she can fly. She can fly she can-

She has your hand quite tightly. In light of that you promptly take another method of escape, and go into shock. A memory surfaces as she drags you along:


A memory from a long, long time ago. You were only six.

----


It was the fourth of July. Chaos was in the streets, but not for celebration. Looking back, it was obvious why the Reformists had chosen the date they had. They wished to change the meaning of 'Independence' forever. The Crash had made all suffer, equally, and compatriots to their cause had multiplied - and at the appointed time the multitudes rose up.


They made no bones and left no illusions. The coup was bloody, brutal and total. They gained control, and what they lacked in subtlety they made up for in speed and in strength. No one was safe, not from the conspirators that infiltrated every level of society.


You had no idea where you were going; the only goal was away, away from the chaos - away from the shouting and the violence behind. Your mother dragged you by the hand down the ruined street, past the fires and the blood and the burning.


It was so long ago. You don't even properly remember what she looked like then - your mental image of her was always of her in her last days - before they finally killed her.


Your father's face, however, you will remember forever. The look in his eyes: pained, as his wife and only son made their way away, and in pain, as the wreckage crushing his body pressed down with the inexorable hand of gravity.


You will remember forever the moment the sharp smell of gasoline fumes, and forever the sparking, sibilant sound of the flames.


His visage as it was borne on a wall of yellow fire bore on it shock, as if he never expected to die trapped and burning. He probably didn't. No one expected this, except perhaps the Reformists and the most cynical of economists.


Urban legends still fly about that day - some ridiculous, some almost believable, and for the most part untrue.


One of them concerns a fire-bringer, who flew about in a swathe of destruction, aimlessly killing anything that looked amusing to kill. They called him the Conflagrator, the Hellbringer, the Shut Up You Guys Supers Don't Exist...


You called him real.


You and your mother never spoke of him, never acknowledged that her husband's death was due to anything but neutral, unthinking fire. You came close to broaching the subject many times. You came close to convincing yourself it was all the imagination, that perhaps your child self simply personified the inexplicability of a father's death into an antagonistic figure to act as straw man for sorrow and anger.


But no innocent child's imagination could have manufactured that malicious smirk, of pain caused and thoroughly enjoyed, of pulverizing lives already shattered into dust, ashes and a trail of burnt bodies.



----



You break JAMMROLL's grip and stare her down. You declare to her that she is a SUPER, that you get kind of tetchy around SUPERPOWERED INDIVIDUALS even though you didn't know for sure they existed until five minutes ago, and that you would like some ANSWERS thank you very much.
"There isn't any time." She looks around suspiciously. "If it's answers you want, Smith, you'll have to come with me. It isn't safe here."

>

SpoilerShow

Attempt #231 at steepled fingers:




Also image #100! :D

>Fine, whatever. But act like it's your idea somehow.

> Ask if you can have some more tea.

Do I detect a scoop?

>Question her authority over you

> Ask if you can have some more tea.

You do so.


She gives you some more tea.

>Question her authority over you

Who does she think she is? Just because she's an executive in the corporation that controls the city and has pots of money and is offering you give you all the intel you could possibly want on said corporation at no stated charge doesn't mean she can just throw tea at you whenever she wants!

Do I detect a scoop?

Whoops! That's your SCOOP DETECTOR going off! You usually use it to find out when the DISCOUNT ICE CREAM VAN is coming near your block, but it seems to be acting up all of a sudden. Could it be-?

>Fine, whatever. But act like it's your idea somehow.

Fine. You capitulate, but casually mention that if it isn't safe then both of you should find someplace safe before talking.

You casually fail to mention anywhere actually safe. You don't want to give away any of your SAFE HOUSES, especially considering that you don't have any. You really aren't a very good PI.



This is the place. Top floor, third to last door on the right.



No witnesses.

>Okay, so get going already!

>Discount Ice Cream Man: Arrive just in time to be a witness.

Jammroll: Mistake that scoop detector for a wire. He's setting you up! You know, possibly.

>Spiderat: Offer secret superhero hideout as a safe place as long as the lady doesn't throw any more phones.

>Spiderat: Offer secret superhero hideout as a safe place as long as the lady doesn't throw any more phones.

In an ACT OF KINDNESS despite previous encounters with PHONE-THROWING, SPIDERAT offers his SECRET SUPERHERO HIDEOUT as a SAFE HAVEN.


Unfortunately, there always remains THE MATTER OF SCALE.


You begin to get nervous. What if you've gotten yourself into something bigger than you can handle? You need a way out, and fast.


In the midst of your worrying, your SCOOP DETECTOR suddenly goes off again, a tad more urgently this time.

Jammroll: Mistake that scoop detector for a wire. He's setting you up! You know, possibly.

You're about to give it another check when Jammroll suddenly snatches it out of your hand. What gives?!


"Aha! So all this mess; you were just looking for some dirt, eh? Trying to catch me out being disloyal to Redria? I just can't believe you thought you could disguise a wire as this...ice cream thing..."


Almost as if in response, the SCOOP DETECTOR gives even more urgent beeps, as the light on it changes in color...



Top floor.


No time to lose.

>Discount Ice Cream Man: Arrive just in time to be a witness.

In a flash, the DISCOUNT ICE CREAM MAN is summoned through the use of JUDICIOUS APPLICATION OF HOPE and THE POWER OF ICE CREAM!
"You were right, girl! Someone was listening - but I've no interest in your loyalty: Discount Ice Cream Man, at your service. Independent enterprise at the ground level, away from your corporate dramas, providing AFFORDABLE ICE CREAM FOR ALL!


Colored flashes - if there's another super here, that complicates things. A lot.


"SO WHY HAVE YOU SUMMONED-oh hey, Tom. I suppose you need a way out? Again? Well, I'm only too glad to oblige a frequent customer."


"Wait wait wait, what do you mean? What do you have in-?"


"We don't have time!"
True to his word, a LOT OF THINGS begin to happen at once.
"Are you...oh fuck, you're going to explode, aren't you?"
Jammroll grabs you just as the Discount Ice Cream Man summons a gigantic explosion of VANILLA ICE CREAM, presumably affording it through THE POWER OF DISCOUNTATION, forcing you both (and Spiderat) towards the wall.

>Okay, so get going already!

You find a way out. And yet, you're still involved.



You are now LAVENDER DEVIN. You're not sure, but it looks an awful lot like this chump decided to hijack your job. It's that or he just helped them escape.


You pull off your CHAIN-SASH, wrapping the leather around your hand.

Either way, death wish for him.

>Discount Ice Cream Man: Send some rocky road her way!
>Jammroll+Tom+Spiderat: Go hide out in a cheap, shady motel on the wrong side of town.

SpoilerShow

You caught me by surprise with the Discount Ice Cream Man! It's fantastic!

DICM: Counter with waffle cone nunchaku.

>Discount Ice Cream Man: Send some rocky road her way!

You are DR. BREVITY FRINGE, MAD SCIENTIST. You're not mad as such, but in Enmity City it helps to have a REPUTATION if one is to be left alone to EXPERIMENT. Precious EXPERIMENTING. Nothing should take time from EXPERIMENTING.

It also helps if you live next door to an INSANELY NOISY BASS PLAYER, since no one seems inclined to come near the entire section of corridor at all when she's there. Though it seems that today, something is different. To be PROPERLY PRECISE, you've never heard fighting from there before.


You don't recall ever having a wave of ice cream burst through your wall with all the force of a rocky road, bearing on it an irate actually mad-looking woman wielding chains and anger, either.


And you've never seen the DISCOUNT ICE-CREAM MAN this angry before, either! Come to think of it, you didn't even know he could summon ice cream like that. I mean, he seemed to, but that was obviously-


Hang on, wait wait wait, one part of your big brain tells you. These guys just blasted a hole into your apartment. Clearly you have right of way. Tell them to get out!
Another, more sensible, part of your big brain just notes that the woman has drawn her chains again in a threatening way, and that this is going to cost a lot to repair.

DICM: Counter with waffle cone nunchaku.

"You're not the only one 'chained up' around here!"
The DISCOUNT ICE CREAM MAN pulls out, from nowhere, a pair of WAFFLE CONES joined with a chain. Together, the parts combined create...WAFFLE CONE NUNCHAKU! The genius!
"I'm going to cream you and put you on ice!"


If you were conscious at this point, which you aren't because of the HORRIFYINGLY BAD PUN, you would notice the woman twirling her chains like a kind of flailing shield and leaping off a hillock of ice cream onto the DISCOUNT ICE CREAM MAN, screaming in rage.


You would also see the DISCOUNT ICE CREAM MAN calmly throw a NUNCHAKU forward, catching its chain with the wildly flailing shield's.


You would then witness the other cone flip around and strike the woman in the face, knocking off her GLASSES.


And then you would see nothing...

...and everything.

Whether or not you were awake at that point didn't really matter.

>Jammroll+Tom+Spiderat: Go hide out in a cheap, shady motel on the wrong side of town.

You are now TOM SMITH. You are being carried, somewhat embarrassingly, by your ESCAPE-AIDER and BENEFACTOR JAMMROLL ROCKENZIE. You can only assume she's taking you someplace safe, since if she wanted you dead you'd have been a splotch on the pavement by now.


Instead, you examine the CITY that is so disconcertingly below you. Decades ago, this had been someplace else. A metropolis, maybe, or just a large town - it didn't matter. The Crash and the USC and Redria¦Emcorp and everything else had run over anything that Enmity City had been, mashing it into a slurry of snow slush and factory fumes, towers and brownstones and complexes and slums. Some places in the city were funded better than others, or simply didn't have a local officer pocketing too much - and it showed. And where the opposite was true, it did too.


You're flying away from the city center now, over some of the poorer districts in town. Nearby, you see a FIRE going on at the top of an apartment building. No one's coming to help, of course. Even in your district the FIRE DEPARTMENT won't respond to a call without cash in hand. In desperation, the resident's throwing things out the window, knowing full well he won't see them again five minutes after they land - books, cases, a guitar -


As you fly overhead, you see him hesitate, holding a picture frame out over the street.
He looks at it, and even from here you can see his tears shining in the firelight -
And then he grips it tight, with both arms, and as the fire blazes up behind him he

leaps

...


The three of you end up in a CHEAP, SHADY MOTEL on the WRONG SIDE OF TOWN - in fact, as wrong as the wrong side of town can be without being another town completely. It's the wrong side of all the wrong sides in the city put together.

Funnily enough, it used to be the city center.



It had to be, or somewhere near it - somewhere luxurious. As JAMMROLL negotiates for ROOMS, you take a look at the ARCHITECTURE. Above you, a curved ceiling is supported on three majestic beams, a single LIGHTBULB hanging from the apex. It's obvious from the straining brightness of the bulb that that place of honor was once occupied by a CHANDELIER - probably seized sometime after the coup and broken down for metal and crystals. The ceiling itself has faint faded marks outlined here and there by the light, suggesting a FRESCO or MURAL in times long past. An open wound in the ceiling is patched over with TARPAULIN and painted underneath with RUBBERIZED TAR to keep the never-ending snows out. The front wall is relatively recent BRICKWORK, clearly replacing what was once PLATE GLASS, and the place that might once have housed a REVOLVING DOOR instead is home to a ROUGH BARRICADE. The main entrance to the MOTEL is just a rough standard door cut into the brick, off to the side. Here and there are suggestions of overenthusiastic redecorating, leaving marks and stains on surfaces that might once have held paintings or supported furniture.


"Are you done admiring the decor? I've checked us in, on the house - Redria cred can do that. I hope you like being 'Gregory Finch'."


You were right; this motel must once have been something bigger before the Crash. This room alone is palatial in its dimensions - the ceiling reaches up more than twice your height. In decoration, however, it's painfully obvious that ANYTHING NOT NAILED DOWN was taken a long time ago, and the NAKED LIGHTBULB in the ceiling, while not nearly as bright as the lobby's, is bright enough to show that the WALLPAPER is peeling, exposing the BRICKWORK, GRIME is not scarce, and there is a SPIDERWEB in the corner. A DOOR to your left presumably leads into the BATHROOM. There is a DESK in the corner, with its PUTERPLATE missing.



Jammroll slams the door, shoving you out of your reverie.


"We've come all this way, and you're daydreaming? At a time like this? We're holing up here in the ass end of the city, having flown - and by that I mean I had to carry you, and that goddamn rat - across more than its radius of distance, to find someplace safe - I notice you didn't volunteer anywhere - and you're daydreaming?" She speaks like someone wanting to unload a burden, but talking over the urge rather than indulging it. "Fuck knows what's going on back at my place - a fight, probably, between your goddamn ice cream man and whoever they sent to take me. Take us, maybe - but not likely. Not you alive at any rate. And that ice cream! Do you know how much it'll be to get the stains out of the wallpaper?" Trivialities circle importances like a corporate orator's speech, words for the sake of words, unwilling to divest true meaning lest it hurt...


"Never mind. It doesn't matter."


...


"Do you know what it's like to have a secret? Not one of your pansy private-eye who's-sleeping-with-who secrets, Smith. Secrets that could get you killed. Secrets that are best ...locked away."


"Hereditary secrets, Smith. Secrets that shape your soul, your life, and everything you know. And have you ever woken up one day to find that everything you know has been completely, utterly, totally wrong?"


"Have you had then been given your own secret, Smith? One that you'd have to bury deep down in the essence of your being..."


She stops, and sighs. "Just ask your fucking questions."

>"What the hell is going on?"

> "Do you think there's any hope?"