Anomalies: Control

“Charge, I think we’ve got an opening.”

He looked over at Banshee in the doorway and stepped back from the punching bag he and Kane had set up in the garage. Kane had wanted it, but suggested that an outlet for his frustration might make Cole stop pacing around the house like a caged tiger.

He hadn’t been wrong.

Cole had started spending almost as much time abusing the punching bag as he had practicing his ability with Tracker and Lights. He’d gotten better over the past few months at both practices. “What kind of opening?”

“There’s going to be a press conference next Thursday. A bunch of reporters, a bunch of bigwigs, heavy security but light on the barcode scanners. They aren’t going to risk insulting their upper level management by scanning their barcodes, and while they’re going to try to scan the reporters, people slip through the cracks.” She was grinning widely, and he felt an answering smile cross his lips.

“Not bad. We could sneak a few of us into the crowd and make sure it’s clear for one or two to get inside and to the others.”

“I mean, inside is obviously going to be seriously guarded, but at least it’s an in. And we have over a week to plan for it.” She was bouncing on the balls of her feet, enthusiastic and optimistic, and he grinned.

“Sounds like a good in. You wanna tell the others?”

“Definitely!” She ran from the garage, excited to be able to tell the others she’d found a way. He leaned against the punching bag, letting himself be swayed a bit back and forth from the dying momentum of the swinging bag. The in was there, now they just needed a way to the place they were keeping Rune. He went back to the table in the corner where Garet’s map had been sitting for months, crinkled and rumpled from how many times it had been lifted and inspected and moved and run over with hands and fingers. Garet had traced the path he was fairly sure he’d taken out, though according to the Mentalist, he’d been in the dreamscape when he’d left, though had refused to elaborate even to Cole how he’d gotten out without someone grabbing him or tripping an alarm. He’d given up that questioning pretty quickly; how Garet had gotten out four years ago wasn’t going to help them today.

But if they hadn’t overhauled the entire building, the prisoners were being kept a few floors beneath the ground floor. Garet said maybe four floors, maybe three, he couldn’t be sure. Either way, Cole and whoever ended up going down with him needed to figure out how to get down three or maybe four floors past barcode scanners and eye scanners and handprint scanners and who even knew what other body parts needed to be scanned. He hadn’t wanted to say it to anyone else, hadn’t wanted to dampen morale, but he’d been thinking for a while, with every new and discarded plan they came up with, that they’d need someone to help them get down there. They’d need someone in the building.

But now that they had a real chance at a real plan, he needed to bring his concerns to the others. He followed the way Banshee went and into the house, back to the living room where she, Tech, Kane, Tracker, Lights, Shock and Hawk were all lingering. They were looking a few different combinations of pleased and nervous and wary, and Cole came up behind the couch. “Did Bansh finish telling everyone about the conference?” She nodded, and he smiled at her. “Cool. So, now that we’ve got a real shot at this, I want to bring up a concern. Actually getting down to the lower levels. We’re likely not going to get in without something or someone to fool barcode and other scanners. Without badges to get further in.”

“What about you, Tech?” Banshee looked to the Mechanical, who shook his head.

“I can’t talk to machines or manipulate them. I can build stuff, but that’s not going to help you get past scanners.”

“Well we can lift a badge, that’s not a big deal,” Tracker piped in. “It’s just a matter of lifting the right badges that look enough like you to pass a cursory glance. I doubt any security that’s down there is going to be looking too hard at badges after you’ve gotten past whatever electronic measure they have.”

“So then it’s the electronic measures we need to worry about,” he sighed. “I’ve been working on it, but ideas are welcome.”

“Could we bribe or blackmail or something someone on the inside?” Banshee offered hesitantly.

Tech shot her a stern look. “No. No hurting people.”

“I’m not saying we hurt them, I’m saying we trick them!” she defended herself.

“Still. That’s not who you are. Not who we are.”

Cole nodded. “It would work, but it’s not my style,” he said, trying to ease the indignation on Banshee’s face while still agreeing with Tech, glancing around at the others as well. It wasn’t that he didn’t agree with Tech, he did. He didn’t want anyone to get hurt or lose their jobs and livelihoods. But he still needed to get into that building, and figure out how to do that with as few issues as possible. “We’ll give it a couple days. We have until next Thursday; that gives us a little wiggle room to figure something out.”

The others nodded and he unwrapped the tape around his hands to rewrap them and go back into the garage to think and hit something a little.

Three days later he still had no idea what to do about the scanners, but had asked Tech to start work on a scrambler of sorts, knowing it wouldn’t get them in without alerting someone, but it might get them in and they’d figure out the getting out bit on the fly. He was still hoping to figure out something before the deadline was up, though for lack of fast-track befriending someone in the building or doing it the way Lights suggested and knock someone out and cart their unconscious body from scanner to scanner (apparently it worked in the movies). He had a path mapped out, the ideal way in and out if Garet’s information was accurate. Tracker had been practicing her pickpocketing- even though the barcodes kept all your information, old habits died hard and most people kept at least one physical form of ID on them at all times- and she was confident she could get the right ID’s for Cole and Banshee. They’d been decided as the ones to go inside for their more likely ability to hide and slip around corners unseen as opposed to the very large and imposing- not to mention memorable- Kane.

Cole was starting to become glued to the floor plans, hoping for some magic solution to their electronic adversaries. Punching stuff only helped vent, it didn’t produce solutions, and practicing his ability was risky and besides, he had a decent grip on it. Mostly. He didn’t set people off accidentally anymore anyway and that was good enough for now.

It was already the Monday before the conference, and he was starting to freak out, thinking they’d have to call it off and hope for another chance like this to pop up again. Banshee wasn’t a big fan of that one.

“No! Do you know the odds of finding another perfect opportunity like this!?” She was pacing around the kitchen as Tech watched her from his seat at the kitchen table and Cole argued from where he was leaning against the counter.

“I get that, Bansh, I do. But if we can’t get past the scanners, we can’t do anything. All we do is put four of us in a very dangerous, very precarious position and possibly get ourselves caught. Does that sound like a perfect opportunity to you? Because it sounds like shit to me.”

“We can still do it! What about Tech’s scrambler?”

“That was a last ditch attempt. I’m not risking three lives on a last ditch attempt. Add in myself and the three we’re going in after that they might kill for inciting a rescue attempt, that’s seven lives at risk.”

“Charge, this kind of chance doesn’t come along every day.”

“I know, Bansh, and if there was any way to do this, I would. But there just isn’t.”

“You’re just going to let them rot for another six months waiting for another impossibly perfect opportunity!”

“Getting ourselves killed trying to save them isn’t going to help anyone.” He was trying to stay calm in the face of Banshee’s anger, and the years of separating fights and diffusing arguments between foster siblings at least gave him an edge over Banshee’s lack of self-control.

“We can do-!” She didn’t get to finish before Tech interrupted her, sounding sympathetic but over her tantrum.

“Banshee. Charge is right. It’s too much risk. We’re better off saving them in eight months and getting everyone out alive and in one piece than in six and losing some of us in the process.”

“What if it doesn’t take eight months? What if it takes ten, twelve, eighteen, what if it’s two years before we get another chance like this?”

“Then it’s two years, Bansh. We just have to be smart about it,” Cole reasoned. She glared at the both of them and went stomping out of the kitchen and into the garage, presumably to vent some of her own frustration on the punching bag.

Cole let out a breath and looked to Tech, who was smirking. Cole laughed. “Don’t say it.” he said over his shoulder as he went to a bedroom to catch a nap.

They let him sleep until he woke up again, which judging by how overtired he was ended up being longer than the hour nap he’d been planning on. He stumbled out of the room and into the main area, scrubbing his face. “How long was I out for?” he mumbled.

Tech looked up with a smile, his arm around Maggie. “Almost a full day.”

His jaw dropped, and he quickly snapped to, looking around. “What? You shouldn’t have let me sleep so lon-”

“Charge, relax; you deserved the sleep. Nothing big happened. We would have woken you if it did,” Maggie assured him with a warm smile. Kane chuckled from the couch where Tracker was laid across him, her legs across his lap as she napped.

“You really did need the sleep, man. You were starting to go stir crazy.”

He yawned and cracked his neck. “I’d have been fine. At least I’m all caught up for the next couple days,” he said, turning with everyone else as the front door opened and Shock and Lights came in in a bustle of energy, waking Tracker and making her growl quietly.

“Be prepared to kiss our feet, plebes,” Shock announced.

The others laughed as the two boys came practically skipping into the room.

“What have you two been up to?” Duplicate was the one to ask as she came to the doorway between the main living area.

“There’s a scientist at the building; we were watching him on his way home and he stopped at a park, right?” Lights immediately started explaining while Shock preened. “And he’s got a wife and daughter, and get this - the daughter is an Anomaly!”

“And you think his business doesn’t already know that?”

“It’s subtle. She’s little, she probably hasn’t been tested yet.”

“How subtle?”

“Her toy moved an inch closer to her hands so she could grab it. No one was paying attention, but her mom looked nervous. If the bosses already knew it, there would be no reason to be nervous right?” Lights was bouncing from foot to foot. “Ipso facto; she’s his dirty little secret and he can get you in!”

“How do you know what ipso facto means?”

“Not important! Can we focus!? We did it, guys. We found the last piece of the puzzle!”

Cole grinned, but it was quickly dropped as Tech spoke.

“No. We said no blackmail remember?”

“That was when people were going to get hurt,” Cole argued. “No one’s getting hurt. We’re not taking anyone, we’re not really going to out the little girl, but he doesn’t need to know that. It’s safe for everyone involved.”

“Charge, I thought we agreed that this wasn’t the way to do this.”

“I agreed that I didn’t want anyone hurt or ruined. This way avoids all that.”

Tech didn’t look happy, but eventually he nodded. “If it looks like the man in question is going to suffer for this…”

“We pull back and leave,” Cole said immediately, making Tech smile.

“Well alright then. Looks like we’ve got a plan.”

“Yes!” Lights leapt into the air, pumping his fist while Cole vanished into the garage to go over the floor plans once more with this new information. He let the door slam shut behind him and went straight for the table with the maps on it, and leaned over the table, studying the papers below him. He heard the door open, but didn’t bother turning around. Whoever it was would either relax in silence, start hitting the bag, or talk to him, but in any version they knew what Cole was in here for.

“Hey Cole.” Tech’s voice drew him out of his mental planning and made him look over at the older man.

“S’up Tech?”

“I want to talk to you about this plan. I know you’re really close to getting in, and getting Rune. I just want to make sure you plan to be objective even once you’re in there.”

“Yeah, of course. Look, I want her back, but I was serious when I said I didn’t want anyone hurt because of this. I just want us to sneak in and out and be done.”

“You know it’s not going to happen like that.”

He didn’t answer, just turned back to the floor plans, and felt Tech come up alongside him, leaning his lower back against the table.

“Other people have tried. They tried with less noble reasons and as a result, the agency has made security all but impenetrable.”

“People? What people?”

“Other Anomalies that aren’t so cooperative with the current laws.”

That reminded him of something Tracker said ages ago. “That reminds me…Who’s Ghost and his ‘crew’? And why was Tracker worried I was a part of them?”

Tech looked uncomfortable, and he regretted for a minute asking, but he wanted to know. He got the sense this was a big subject, especially in regards to Rune, and he needed to know.

“Ghost was to Rue kind of what Rue is to you. What I am to the rest of Skye. He was the person who found Rue out on the streets, the one that took her in for whatever reason and gave her food and a roof and a home. There were two Elementals that he was always with, and they kind of became her family. Ghost’s name was Pierce, and the two Elementals were Landon and Jack.”

“What happened to them?” He already suspected, but still he had to ask. Tech wasn’t the type to be advertising other’s actual names unless they weren’t around to care anymore. This must be the ‘once upon a time’ short story she’d told him on Tech’s request when he first arrived. The ‘people who made a bad choice of a friend’.

He didn’t answer him directly. “You know Rue wanted to stage a search and rescue on the department building once too.” Cole looked up at him, curious but didn’t ask, just let Tech go where he wanted with the conversation. “It was when she first came to live with us.”

“What happened to Ghost and the other two, Tech? And how does Rue fit in?”

“They got arrested. Taken to the Pravitas building. We… never heard from them again. Rue was broken up about it, and none of us even now know the whole story. Tracker felt Rue’s power go berserk and she, I, and Kane went to go get her, and found her in the middle of the house, the walls coming down around her, sobbing and scared and wanting her family. We brought her back to Skye and tried to calm her down, tried to figure out what had happened, but every time we brought it up, she started to unravel, and we couldn’t risk someone tracing her ability back to us. So eventually we gave up, and it just,” he shrugged, “remained a mystery. She tried more than a few times to ask me about going to get them. But nothing ever happened. I wasn’t willing to risk it and she wasn’t as coherent as you are.” He’d found the radios they planned to use for the mission and was idly fiddling with them.

“They died.”

“We never saw bodies. But it’s been years, and it’s about a ninety-nine percent chance they did. Rue blames herself for it. She ran away because the department wanted to study her, and she feels like she led them to the other three, and she was the only one that got away.”

“And never got to go back for them.”

“And that. Makes for a nasty case of self-loathing and survivor’s guilt. You know, she wasn’t always a…as Tracker puts it…walking disaster.”

“No?” He actually found that a little hard to believe, that she’d ever been anything other than the surly tempered woman who showed pleasure through smirks and joy through halfhearted chuckles.

Tech smiled, but it was distant as he fiddled with the radio in his hand with a complicated looking tool that had been his other hand a second ago. “Nah. Once upon a time,” the words, Rune’s words, made the Mechanical’s tone catch for a brief second, and Cole felt a slightly irrational flash of jealousy. He wasn’t the only one that cared for Rune, and he was the one with the least history with her. He wasn’t entitled to jealousy. “She was just a lost kid.”

“What was she like when you first met her?”

“I met her after she met Ghost, after she’d been living with them for a few weeks. She was a sweet kid, to be honest. A little nervous, a little like a cub in a pack, waiting to see what the others did and how they reacted to things before she did herself. She didn’t have a good control on her powers, but it mattered less then. She had the three boys watching out for her, gave her enough of a sense of security that she didn’t lose control very often.”

“And Ghost and them, what were they like?”

“Keeping in mind, I didn’t know them like she did,” the man disclaimed as he set down one radio and reached for another. “I always thought they were trouble. Landon, the Earth Elemental, he wasn’t bad. He went by Shaker, he was the most brotherly to Rune; always watched out for her, made sure she was eating right and feeling alright and all that.”

“A lot like you.”

“Yeah, a lot like me. Jack, the fire Elemental went by ‘Flames’ – original, I know - and he was wild card. I did not like him at all. He liked to find riots and stir up trouble, start riots if he couldn’t find any. It gave him a thrill, and Rue found herself in a lot of close calls because of him, and it was a lot of his influence that got her into trouble after they were gone.”

“And Ghost?”

“Ghost wasn’t bad, per say. He was an Exceptional, like Kane, only his specialty was speed. Like I said, he wasn’t bad, but he was very black and white; either you were with him and his family, or you were against them. He’s a big part of why Rue’s the way she is now, why she’s so black and white and why she’s so untrusting. He wasn’t as violent as Jack or as peaceful as Landon, but he was like a Doberman watching his home. He didn’t go looking for fights, but he didn’t back down and he didn’t leave loose ends when they found him.”

“But wasn’t he Rue’s age? That’d have made him what? A teenager?”

“He was a couple years older than Rue. But in all honesty, I don’t think Ghost had been a kid or a teenager for a long time by the time he got to the streets and created his own little family of Rue and the Elementals. Overall, they were bad news, but they watched out for Rue and I couldn’t deny that, even though I tried to get her to leave them and come to Skye.”

“Why?”

“Because I was worried she’d find herself in a situation even Ghost couldn’t get her out of.”

Cole nodded, accepting that answer, and turned back to the floor plan. Tech set the radio down and clapped him on the back. “Just be careful, Cole. Tunnel vision and desperation make people do crazy things.”

“I will, Tech,” he said, barely loud enough for the other man to hear as he left.