Buyer’s Remorse Part 1
ℝoot / The Shadow
Location: Midas Industries
Time: Night (Some time around 1:25 am)
“This is where things get complicated.” ℝoot explained into her phone to her volunteer while syncing her EEGARD to her home computer. “Say what I say. Do what I do. Be what I am... ” ℝoot added and compulsively verified the pairing of her phone to that of her avatar’s before locking the door to her apartment. The connection was a digital substitute for a sympathetic connection to her avatar and now that the telepathic link was established the phones could be allowed to resume their normal operation. Now she pushed through to and from her and her target’s mind. At the same time she pushed the lobby button and muttered her tagline: “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” while knowing full well what was to happen next.
Outside Midas Industries the answer was given in an equally under-the-breath tone: “The Shadow knows…” The line came from an elderly gentleman of gentry, well into his seventies but equally well aged. He tentatively leaned on a smart-looking cane as he delivered the line, before springing into action. He wore a two thousand dollar black suit with silver pinstripes, and a matching fedora. A fed-aura one might say as his attire, the manner in which he carried himself, and an immutable aspect in his presence marked him as a man out of time. A true 50s gangster.
The man strolled confidently into the lobby of Midas Industries while, simultaneously, the girl stepped out of her run-down apartment building. The girl hesitated as she mounted her vespa for in this moment the man was approaching the elevators.
“Sir,” the receptionist mechanically said without looking up from her desk, to which the man in the suit nodded and tipped his hat. We’re not invisible… ℝoot thought to her elderly counterpart, I’m radiating a sense of familiarity and belonging into everyone who sees you. To them you’re an everyday part of their routine. Do not do anything to disrupt that. To each human element in the system The Shadow merely belonged wherever he was seen, and paid no mind when observed.
ℝoot started her vespa and, as her mind raced, her EEGARD translated and displayed on-screen the actions she was having her computer take. The head’s up display didn’t obscure her vision and she began driving toward her destination: the IMEI that she had identified earlier is one that now had GPS enabled.
Biometrics… she received from her avatar as he stepped into the elevator. It was a basic fact of security that every system had a weaknesses. That was because they’re not designed to keep everyone out. Only to keep the wrong people out. The trick is to either get the system to think you are the right people, or that you simply don’t exist. In this case a little of both was required and the thoroughness of the system was its weakness. Every person’s biometrics was on file, and every access was recorded. Upon mental command the man held his phone up to the microphone and it emitted a high-pitched pulse: a virus explicitly designed to be read by voice-recognition software encoding its bits in the variation of the tone.
Moments later the time on the elevator’s clock changed to the moment the occupant she traced here had initiated the lift. “Welcome Ms. Sparks,” the elevator said as it began its descent. ℝoot had used the internal clocks and recorded time-stamps to trick the computer into thinking it was the moment between conformation of identity and engaging of request, so the elevator took her avatar to the place where Ms. Sparks went previously.
Midas sat behind the large oak desk that adorned his office watching the security cam footage of the battle between Racheli and the mercenary War-Pulse. Though he had watched the events as they had initially unfolded via his secret access to the city’s network of security cameras, he found the footage even more impressive upon a second viewing. As Midas watched the damage that the young woman wrought in Chinatown, his lips curled upward in a proud sneer. This woman, this Racheli was an absolute powerhouse...and she was all his. With Racheli under his employ, Midas knew that the possibilities were endless, and he was looking forward to putting his newest acquisition to work.
Suddenly, the chime from Midas’ private elevator sounded. Surprised, Midas looked to the elevator door located in the corner of his office, almost hidden by the ornate wooden panelling that decorated the office space. He anticipated seeing his man servant, Livingston walk through the doors. However, he was slightly taken aback when he saw a man in a dark pinstriped suit and fedora. As the man stepped into Midas’ office, the CEO couldn’t help but to picture the man in the 1940’s or 50’s in a speakeasy surrounded by loose women and gangsters.
There was something off about the man, and aside from his strange choice in wardrobe, Midas couldn’t quite place it. However, not one to take risks, he reached for the pistol that was strapped to the underside of his desk, though he refrained from pulling it from its hiding spot.
“I don’t know who you are, but you must have brass ones coming in here like this. Now, what is it that you want?” Midas asked the man as he strolled toward Midas’ desk.
The clack of diamond on marble resonated through the room as the man who stepped off the elevator centered himself. It was imagined that the elevator announced the visitor as Ms. Sparks which they both knew to be wrong. The elderly man dressed in avarice looked up in a passing glance, from his younger counterpart who simply exuded it, to the screens that monitored the same battle that brought him.
His cane tapped, and his leather shoes clacked on the stone, as the man approached while deliberately ignoring the explicit question. There was a primal aura about him. One that initiated and perpetuated the fight-or-flight response in all those who looked upon him; particularly the one hiding behind a gun.
“You have the look of a man who keeps informed so you know who I am.” The man said in reference to the placement of his name—of his foretold coming on every news broadcast, on every channel, and on every report of the day. “I am The Shadow. As for what I want…” The Shadow shook his head. “You ask as if you have some power to deny me.” A wry smile crossed the gentlemanly caller’s face as he stepped forward once more casually closing the distance between the two.
“I am here to offer you one opportunity. Stop.” The earlier passing glance to the screens monitoring the meta’s battle made it very clear what was to stop and so it didn’t require further clarification. “You’ve attracted my attention and that does not end well for you.”
Midas’ lips curled into a sneer as as he listened to the man’s thinly veiled threats. Never one to shy away from a challenge, the man who introduced himself as “The Shadow” genuinely intrigued Midas. The man’s mere presence presented several questions, most notably, how did he get past security, more pressing...just how did he trick the company’s biometric scanners into believing that he was Ms Sparks.
“Is that so?” Midas asked the man. “And if I don’t?”
“Then you will have made an enemy you are not qualified to engage.” The Shadow stated as simply and as naturally as if he was giving the time. He glanced again at the monitors before adding “One of many powerful enemies.” The Shadow lifted one hand off of his cane, and placed it on Midas’s gun to gently push it down to his side.
“The fact that you are hiding behind that gun. That your first instinct was to put it between us for your safety. That tells me you are out of your league. That you can not fathom just what you are dealing with. The enemy you will have made.” The Shadow’s hand left the man’s gun and rejoined its opposite atop the cane. “You are being given an opportunity that most in your position do not get. You should seize it.”
“We’ll see about that. But I am feeling generous today, so I am going to give you an opportunity that few who have been so brazen have ever gotten. I’m going to give you the chance to walk away from this with your life.” Midas told the impeccably dressed man. “You don’t get to be in the position I am unless you are ruthless and willing to do whatever you have to do in order to secure your success. I have no problem making you disappear and making sure that no one ever finds any evidence that you ever existed. So take this opportunity and leave. Walk away, and forget that you were ever here, otherwise you will be making a mistake that you will not live to regret.”
A long sigh escaped the gentry as his eyes drifted over the man’s frame, as if he expected more from Midas than what was presented.
“I’m not actually here.” The Shadow said through through its flesh avatar as the elevator dinged for the second time since he arrived.
Midas listened to the man continue speaking, yet what he was saying made no sense. At least it made no sense if you took what he said at face value. However, Midas began piecing together things that the mysterious stranger had said, and it did indeed paint an interesting picture. Midas was well aware of the various metahumans that had begun populating the world in recent years, each displaying varying powers, he supposed that it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibilities that somewhere out there, there was a metahuman who was able to mentally control others. However, that posed another problem for him. Just who was controlling the man who stood before him, and what was that person after?
Midas drew the pistol again and squeezed the trigger. Not hard enough to cause the gun to fire, but hard enough to vindicate his feelings. It was not a point of fear, but rather a point of caution, that he let the man go. The Shadow had blown past every defense in his organization, for a face-to-face meeting to deliver a warning or threat of some kind.
A threat sufficing where very direct and violent action could have easily been substituted instead. It was the warning that drew his interest though, and there would be time enough to test later. After all, this man's presence didn't present any intimidate danger to anything other than his pride. The Shadow was patient and Midas too must be patient.
Taps of diamond on stone, equal in number to his entrance, sounded The Shadow's exit from Midas's inner sanctum. As the doors of the elevator closed with him inside it greeted him once more "Welcome Ms. Sparks."
