The events of this story take place within the Tarnished Sterling universe shortly after the events of Shadowrealm, but no deep understanding of that setting should be required to understand it.
* * *
Carol Hardtop tried to hide behind her notebook. The fact that no one was paying her any attention made this easier. Her embarrassment stemmed from her hair. After having been told not to dye her hair, she’d gone ahead and tried to do so. The result had been horrible streaks of light and dark that looked just dreadful to Carol. The punishment was having to live with it, at least for a few days. So, she curled up in the corner of the armchair, hiding behind her notebook. It was an old chair, a bit threadbare, but it held great sentimental value. Her earliest memories were of sitting with her father in that chair, learning how to read. So even when they got a new living room set, she’d protested the idea of throwing the old chair out. Now it sat in the sun room, staring out the massive windows at the twisted old tree that had given her nightmares when she was younger. Though no one could actually see her, Carol still hid, and scribbled in her notebook. Mostly, she wrote love stories, trying to give people the happily ever after they deserved.
The crunch of tires on their gravel driveway perked up her ears, but she did not move. From the repeated attempted to get the driver’s side door to stay shut, she knew it was only her brother. In her unassailable opinion, the rolling scrap heap David called a car should have been junked years ago. Hearing him swear and kick the car door gave Carol a start. David loved that rustbucket. She couldn’t fathom why, but he did, and heaping abuse on the jalopy was not something he normally did. So, despite her unfortunate appearance, Carol peered over her notebook as he opened the sun room door. David had headed out in as best an approximation of well dressed as he could manage, putting on an actual button-down shirt and tie. He’d even gone so far as to make sure his hair was neat. That was no longer the case. Something sticky and amber-hued had been dumped on his head and shoulders, streaking his face and adhering his once-white shirt to his lanky frame.
The foul scowl on David’s face summed it up.
“Your date went badly?” Carol asked.
“It wasn’t a date,” David snapped. “It was a prank. She lured me out there to humiliate me – on camera. The video is probably all over the internet by now.” He stomped off inside, and Carol was not surprised to hear the shower start up shortly thereafter. Before she could bury her face back in her notebook, another set of tires crunched on the driveway. A car door closed. A few moments later, the door to David’s car closed. Shortly after that, the tall form of their father appeared in the still-open sun room door. He had the haggard look of someone who’d been driving far too long. He had one suitcase in his left hand, and several more still waiting in the car. Carol beamed at the sight of him.
“Hey little one,” he said, exhaustion telling in his voice. “What happened to you hair?”
Turning beet red, Carol ducked behind her notebook again.
“Let me guess, your mother said you couldn’t dye your hair, and you went ahead and tried to do so anyway?”
Carol mumbled something by way of confession.
“Ah, well, I brought you something anyway.”
Cautiously, she peered over her notebook where Floyd was fishing something out of his jacket. Despite the wrapping of tissue paper, Carol could guess it was a pen from the size and shape of it. She had started collecting pens even before her father’s job had required him to travel. Now he made a habit of bringing them back from wherever he’d been. Most were highly decorative, and not very good as writing implements. Carol accepted this one and gingerly unrolled the tube of tissue paper around it. The nub had poked through and gotten tangled up in the wrapping, resulting in it almost tumbling to the floor when it should have just easily unrolled. It was a fountain pen with a wooden body. A few scraps of paint remained trapped in the depths of the carving, but for the most part it was worn walnut. The shapes carved into the hard wood looked like they’d been designed by someone with no real knowledge of American Indians, and contained motifs from across the continent. Mostly ravens and coyotes from the looks of it, in multiple artistic styles.
“It’s a genuine antique,” Floyd Hardtop said. “Nineteenth century, hand-carved fountain pen.”
Carol gave her father a warm smile. He meant well, even if it was an ugly pen. “Thanks, daddy,” she said.
“Why did your brother leave his car door open?”
“You know how it doesn’t like to latch,” Carol said, trying not to get drawn into the particulars of David’s ill-fated ‘date’.
“All right, you be good, and I’ll talk to your mother about taking you to get your hair… evened out.”
“Thanks.”
* * *
Carol finished combing out her now-mahogany locks. She had wanted lighter, but it was easier to cover up her earlier mistakes with a dark shade. It wasn’t the perfect look to her eyes, but no one would point and laugh. Had she been forced to go back to school with the streaky mess… Carol shuddered at the thought. She could live with mahogany. Setting down the comb on her vanity, she sat down in the rockerless rocking chair by the gable window. The house was old, and her bedroom small, but, save for the old tree, it had a superb view of the New Port Arthur skyline. She could see the glittering lights of the downtown highrises, the blinking beacon atop Mount Kline, and the dull glow of street level. A ridge blocked the view of street level proper, but that didn’t spoil the view. Her window also looked out at the roof of the sun room. She had fond memories of sitting out on that roof and watching the skies. Though the city lights made it hard to see the stars most of the time, there had been that one blackout when the sky was allowed to be brilliant.
She picked up the pen her father had brought back and turned it over in her hands. On one hand, great care had gone into its craftsmanship, with a beautiful piece of wood as the key element. On the other, the end result was still ugly as sin. She couldn’t figure out how to get it open and get at the ink reservoir. Idly, she ran the tip across the top of the current sheet in her notebook. A line of red ink followed. It flowed smoothly and evenly, drawing out every mark and doodle she set it to. Impressed with the doodling, Carol wrote out, “It was a dark and stormy night.” It was the smoothest writing fountain pen she’d run across. Too bad the ink in it was blood red. Failing again to find a means of getting at the internal inkwell, she set the pen down and dropped her notebook atop it.
The hallway connecting the rooms on the second floor wrapped around the stairwell. Her parents room was by the top of the stairs, at the official front of the house, though most of the time they used the sun room to come and go. The front door looked out upon the sad, abandoned house across the way. David’s room was next to Carol’s, being the very last door anyone would reach on the hall. The bathroom sat between Carol’s closet and her parents’. As she paid the bathroom a visit, she heard the unmistakable crash of thunder, followed by the strumming of heavy downpour on the roof. Finishing up, Carol headed back towards her room. Through David’s open door, she saw him, backlit by the rain-diffused light of the city, staring at the floor. The lights were off, and the flicker of lightning showed an expression so miserable that Carol’s instinct to tease him over the date died.
“So what happened with Kassidy?”
David’s gaze flicked up. Seeing nothing but sympathy in Carol’s eyes, he decided to talk.
“She never actually broke up with Cameron. She said all those things just to get me to believe she might actually be willing to go on a date with me. When I showed up, Cameron dumped a bucket of syrup one me while she filmed it.” David snorted. “She was laughing so hard she might not have managed to keep her phone pointed in the right direction.”
“What a bitch,” Carol muttered.
“I’ll get over it,” David said, his voice lacking conviction.
“Sitting around in the dark won’t help.”
“Maybe I want to,” David said, but Carol had already reached over and flicked on the light. David’s room was a mirror image of Carol’s, with a similar gable window looking out over the sun room roof, and a closet towards the front of the house. He had hero posters decorating the walls, depicting mostly girls, with the only guys intruding on group portraits. A few were unofficial pin-up variants, mostly hidden where they would not be frequently spotted by their parents. The posters showed a distinct preference for blondes and redheads. Carol’s gaze passed over the familiar enough decor and halted when she saw her brother clearly.
The redness about his eyes showed where he’d been driven to tears, though he’d evidently already cried them all. The weight of his melancholy was such that he didn’t even bother to chastise Carol for touching his lights. He just sat there, staring at the floor, miserable. Carol nibbled her lip, biting back the commentary on Kassidy that came to mind. It was supposed to have been his first real date with anybody. She decided she had no words for David and slinked away to her room. The rockerless rocking chair sat rather low, but with a pillow on a step stool, it was a perfectly serviceable lounger. Rain strummed against the window panes in an aggressive, if musical, patter. Scooping up the notebook and pen, she tried to put David’s love life from her thoughts, but the sight of him sitting there in the dark would not leave her mind. The only way she could think of to deal with it was to compose a happier resolution.
Poking the corner of her mouth with the back end of the pen, Carol contemplated the matter. Kassidy was a blonde, so a proper happily ever after would involve a redhead. And if she were secretly a hero, all the better. Red ink on white paper suggested what her colors might be.
* * *
The rain subsided by morning, leaving everything damp, with a fresh scent upon the air. A big diesel engine was not a common noise on their street, and the white panel van that stopped across from the Hardtop residence looked decidedly like a moving van. By the time Carol had rubbed the sleep from her eyes and gone through her morning routine, the truck was parked, the rear door rolled up and the ramp fixed in place. Someone was actually moving into the old, abandoned house across the way. She had a sense of deja vu, though no one had ever lived in that house for as long as Carol could remember. David stared out the front door at the aberrant moving truck.
“Who on Earth?” He left the question unfinished, as at that moment, the person in question appeared. She had loaded a stack of boxes on a hand truck and was rolling it down the ramp. She had a fit, athletic build, and an open, honest face. Her tight jeans and t-shirt accented her curves, while the heavy work boots contrasted sharply. Her complexion was almost cream, tending towards peach at its reddest. Bright green eyes looked out from above the faintest dusting of pale freckles. Her shock of bright red hair was tied back with an emerald ribbon, flaring out in a large poof of hair behind her head. Having gotten the two-wheeled hand cart off the ramp, she pulled it up the driveway and started up the stairs. A look of consternation creased her features as the wheels snagged on the lip of the second stair. One wheel rolled free, while the other remained snagged, twisting the cart about the handle. She blurted out a noise of annoyance as the stack of boxes tumbled from the truck and down the porch steps. Suddenly relieved of her burden, she stumbled back and fell on her rump. David rushed out the door and across the street.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, just… annoyed.” Her voice was gentle, soothing.
Picking up a split box, David found it heavier than expected. Through the damaged cardboard, he saw a stack of parquet floor panels. The sight raised an eyebrow.
“Flooring?”
“Well, the floorboards in some of the back rooms are not so great, so I’m going to have to pull them out. The plywood was put on the truck too early and I need to get it emptied a bit to get at it.” She stood up and dusted off the seat of her pants.
“You’re going to refurbish this house?”
“Well, I did buy it. It’s my first place of my own.” She smiled a warm, proud grin.
“Anyone going to help you?”
“I can’t afford to hire contractors, if that’s what you mean. But nobody’s volunteered so far.”
Carol had wandered across the street at this point, still nagged by the sense of deja vu. The newcomer looked too young to have a place of her own, let alone be interested in refurbishing a run-down old house all by her lonesome. But the smile she gave David had him almost to the point of blushing.
“I’m not all that handy,” David said, almost embarrassed, “But… I’d be willing to lend a hand when I don’t have work.”
“Oh, what do you do?” the newcomer asked.
David glanced away and sheepishly confessed, “I bus tables at a Pancake House.”
“I bet you get sick of the smell of pancakes then.”
“A little.”
“Well, since you’ve already picked up one of my boxes, why don’t you put it in the corner of the front room?”
“All right,” David said.
“My name’s Erin, by the way.”
A spark of realization struck Carol and she rushed back inside her house.
* * *
Travis grumbled at the sound of his phone. Turning off the shower, he dried off his hand before answering the phone. From the ringtone, he already knew what was coming next.
“Voiceprint Identify,” Shiva said.
“Identify Shadowdemon,” Travis said.
“Confirmed.” Shiva was the artificial intelligence running the Community Fund’s headquarters, and any phone call from one of his numbers was bound to be official business. “Category three security alert. On-call member needed to investigate.”
“All right, Shiva. It will be a few minutes. Category Three is ‘no imminent danger’, right?”
“Correct.”
“I’ll call you back when I get dressed.” Travis turned the shower back on long enough to rinse off, then dried off. Instead of donning civilian garb, he acquired Fund-issue undergarments and pulled on his charcoal and gray hero suit. The way the suit hugged the skin was awkward enough without the inopportune problems regular undergarments presented. Travis didn’t like the fit, even though he had the lean, muscular build best suited to it. Donning an oversized domino mask, he carried the rest of his kit to the base command center. A curved room running along part of the perimeter of an underground dome, the command center was dominated by three massive display screens and a holograph table. Setting his gear on the holograph table, Travis found a seat and dialed Shiva.
“All right, Shiva, what’s going on?”
“As the on-call member-”
“I know, I meant ‘what is the alert’?”
“An internal data integrity audit uncovered an inconsistency.”
“That sounds like an issue for IT.”
“The alert originated there.”
“All right, give me details.”
“The short version is, there is a record in our database that was not there yesterday. There is no transaction for it to have been added, and all of its history backdated to imitate a valid record several years old. Comparison against previous days’ backups has shown that the record does not exist in those iterations of the database.”
“Someone broke in and added… what? What type of record are we talking about?”
“A member.”
“What?”
“They have added a complete record for a Community Fund member including details going back as far as their initial application to be a sidekick. The Fund Board authorized decryption of the record and release to the on-call member for investigation.”
“So…”
“The technical teams will continue to search for how the intruder was able to go undetected and insert additional information into our database. You have been tasked with running down the information in the record, and see if it points to an actual source.”
“It could be a trap of some sort.”
“That possibility does exist.”
“All right, lets see the phony record.”
The middle display lit up. Travis’ eye was drawn to the portrait. It showed a girl with bright red hair and a red and white mask running from hairline to upper lip. The codename was listed as ‘Skyline’; the real name, ‘Erin O’Shea’; the birthdate was eighteen years ago yesterday; and the address was a street Travis had never heard of in Wellerby, a suburb just north of the city.
“Skyline?”
“Is that a query?” Shiva asked.
“Well, on one hand the record’s fabricated. On the other, the name is so awful, I can almost believe it. Unique code names being so difficult to come up with these days.”
“A public records search was conducted, and it verified all of the details,” Shiva said. “However, an intruder skilled enough to have inserted a properly crafted record into our systems could have easily done the same across the other systems.”
“Easily?”
“More easily than getting past me,” Shiva said.
“You sound almost annoyed that they got through.”
“This is not an area in which I am accustomed to being outperformed.”
“All right, Shiva. I’ll head on up to Wellerby and see if there is a Skyline at that address.”
“That is the entirety of your plan?”
“You and your friends have the technical side covered. The only reason the board would activate the on-call would be to see if there is a physical person to go with the fake record. Since the only address we’ve got is the one in the record, I’m going to see what’s there.”
* * *
Continued in Part 2…