Mind Goblin
“We interrupt our daily cute cats compilation hour to bring you breaking news.” The newscaster’s voice announces, startling Emma from her makeout session. “The mysterious series of kidnappings happening recently across Brockton Bay finally has a face to attach the crimes onto. A dangerous Case 53 villain is on the loose. If you see a green little person with sharp ears and yellow teeth, call the PRT immediately. We repeat, do not try to be a hero, it is a dangerous supervillain with unknown powers. As far as PRT are aware, she is only visible to its next victims. We repeat, if you see a green little person with sharp ears and yellow teeth, call the PRT immediately. The PRT is still puzzling out the connection between her victims to find a pattern, but so far her kidnappings seem completely random. This was Jessica Baxter speaking, we now return to our regularly scheduled programming, but we will keep you informed of any major updates.”
The TV is back to displaying cute cats, but Emma is not in the mood anymore. She pushes her partner away and sits up, straddling him.
“What’s the big deal?” asks Troy, whose name won’t be relevant very soon. “It’s not like she’ll pick us of all people. Brockton Bay is huge, babe.”
“I dunno. It’s just… the only victims I’m aware of are Julia and Madison.” Emma says, her eyes wandering over the dimly lit room. The only light source in the apartment right now is the TV and Emma doesn’t like that. Every shadow now looks like it has glowing yellow eyes.
“Who?” Asks Troy, the inconsiderate bastard.
“... We went to school together. Madison went to BBU, Julia went to Gateway Community College. So there’s no way the cape picked them because of where they go now… Uh, they could be going to the same parties or something, but that’s unlikely too, cause-”
“Babe, you’re rambling again. Calm down. There’s still like a good tenth of the city who went to Winslow before. Heck, half our class went to Winslow.” Troy said, trying to calm Emma down. And it seems to work as she relaxes
“Yeah, but-” Troy sits up as well, putting his hands on Emma’s shoulders.
“Come on, no buts. We finally got some free time to fool around after the midterms week. Relax a lil-” Troy freezes, his eyes catching a faint fog on the window, like someone just breathed on it and then put their tiny hand on the condensate. She seems to notice his change in demeanor.
“Troy? What’s wrong?” Emma asks, anxiety building up inside her. When she looks behind her, the fog is already gone.
“I think we need to go.” Troy says, his voice strained. He slides under Emma’s legs and begins putting on his shirt.
“What? What’s going on?” Emma asks, but doesn’t sit around sucking her thumb either.
“I don’t know, Emms, but I just got a serious case of heebie jeebies just now. Like somebody’s watching us.”
“ Oh shit. ”
“Yeah, oh shit! Call the taxi, let’s get to the dorms. That’s a populated area, nobody would fuck around in a populated area.”
“Y-yeah, you’re right!” Emma says, grabbing her phone and opening a taxi app. The screen stays loading for too long before Emma realizes her connection is off. The zero bars indicator sits on the top right corner of her screen, mocking her. “I- I don’t have service!”
“Okay, a taxi isn’t an option right now then.” Troy looks around the apartment, looking for any other signs of the cape. “Maybe the building is made of concrete blocks or something. Let’s get out of here first before we do anything. Out in the streets sounds good right now.”
“Yeah, yeah!” Emma begins collecting her belongings.
“I just-” Troy debates holding it or slowing them down now. “I really need to go to the bathroom though.”
“Hurry up!” Emma says, already putting on her jacket and walking towards the exit door.
“Emms. The toilet is fucking gone.” Troy says, looking at the faint dirt outline of where the toilet stood literally an hour ago when they checked the apartment. He rushes out of the bathroom, forgoing his jacket as he follows Emma on the stairs. “Why didn’t you take the elevator?” He asks, coming down the stairs three steps at a time.
“They weren’t working, genius!” She yells at him.
“Right, fuck!” They’re out the apt complex doors and Emma is already down in the streets. Troy goes to follow her and wonders at how big the stairs are. That stair was a whole knee high. He goes down another, this one even bigger. He doesn’t remember them being this big, the next one is as high as his waist. Realization strikes him when the next stair he has to crouch down and climb down, as it’s as high as he is tall, Because that’s just silly. Emma had to go down the same flight of stairs, and she did it no problem. “Wait a second!” He manages to say when an enormous, gangly green hand covers his entire field of vision.
…
What do you do when you’re the prime suspect for an investigation that the PRT is in a hurry to close? Coincidentally, every victim of the ongoing serial kidnapper is connected to you somehow. Especially when, at the time of every attack, you were suspiciously gone, at home or did not have an alibi in general.
It’s not my fault nobody talks to me! Well, it kind of is, but it isn’t! I’m just antisocial and don’t have any friends! I needed a break from teenage drama anyway, and every time I ended up as the center of attention I had full blown panic attacks. So no, sorry for not conforming to the norm! I just can’t tell that to fucking Gallant of all people!
“Can you repeat where you were at 7:39 PM yesterday?” He asks patiently, as I sit in the PRT interrogation room. Unbound, thankfully. But I was also never offered coffee or cookies. Nothing.
“ The gall… ” I whisper.
“I’m sorry, can you speak up?” Gallant asks, concern etched on his face.
“I was out grocery shopping.” I say louder. “ Bitch .” I add as another whisper.
“Sorry?”
“Apology accepted.” I say louder. “ Pig. ” I whisper again.
“... Okay. You were out grocery shopping. Can you please explain what you were doing in Whitney Avenue Downtown when you live in Atwater?” He says, pulling out CCTV photos of me coming out of Good Nature market.
“You know damn well why. Downtown is the only place where grocery shops don’t have to raise prices because they’re being wrung dry by the gangs.” Instead, they’re being wrung dry by the Enforcers. But at least those are consistent with how much money they demand each month. “It’s cheaper to spend the extra gas to get to Downtown than to buy local.”
“Very well. Then, what were you doing in Temple street arts & crafts three days ago?” He asks, pulling out another CCTV photo of me, dressed in plainest clothes I had, in a medical mask and glasses.
“I started sewing. Sue me. I have acquaintances around that neighborhood I don’t want to get recognized by.” Like Madison. I cross my arms and look at him defiantly. I was shopping for supplies for my cape costume, but he doesn’t need to know that.
“That was the day and place when Miss Madison Clements was kidnapped.” Gallant says.
“Well, I didn’t know that! What am I supposed to do? Keep trackers on all of my past acquaintances? I haven’t seen her in four years!” I throw my arms up, because what the hell? Give me some slack! If I wanted them dead, I’d have done it before I dropped out! It’s been so long since I even thought about them that I find it hilarious that they even suspect me! “Furthermore, it’s not like she has a restraining order on me that prohibits me being within a certain distance of her? It’s a free country, damnit!”
“... Let’s move on to Miss Julia Roberts. Where were you on April 14th 7:50 PM?”
“Why don’t you just lock me up here? Do it for a week or so. I’m on spring break anyway, I’ve got nothing to lose except my free time. So if attacks continue without me, I’m innocent!” That’s a brilliant idea and I’ll make sure to buy myself a chocolate bar for having it later.
“You know we can’t do that. No crime, no punishment. But once we’re done with our questions, you’ll be free to go.” Gallant says placatingly. “As long as you’re innocent.” He adds in the end.
…
An unnecessarily long interrogation later, I am released from the PRT headquarters building. They got no results, I wasted my time. I already submitted my final project so I don’t have to deal with that anymore. But I had other things to do. First of all, a run.
Convincing dad to drop me out of Winslow wasn't that hard. Prepping for my tests from scratch without library access was a bit harder. Not being able to go on my runs in the morning? Agonizing.
I needed to be online in the mornings, because I took up tutoring a bunch of Korean kids. I had plans, and those plans needed money. Thirty dollars an hour wasn’t much, especially with two hours of work a day. But it was something, and it helped Dad. They still had school when it was evening for me, and I had to sleep when it was noon for them.
So it was with much reluctance that dad let me go on my runs in the evenings. He made it a point to always check if I have my pepper spray and knife on me at all times when I go out. And it has become a habit after two years of doing that out of necessity.
I still tutor a bunch of Korean kids in the mornings, my former students even referred new ones to me, that’s how well I taught them. The first time it happened, I was so proud, both of the kid for actually enjoying the lessons and learning something, and of myself for making said lessons enjoyable and effective. My hopes for a happy and fulfilling career were quickly dashed upon the jagged rocks of Reality Bay when, on my first day as an English teacher substitute, I had a mental breakdown in the teachers’ bathroom because kids were mean to me.
So I decided to never teach, and only do academic research like god intended. Linguistics always sounded appealing to me. It was basically everything I liked about English, but put into neat formularized boxes.
The breakdown was kind of a wakeup call for me. I’ve read somewhere that you get powers when you experience the worst day of your life. After the whole locker incident, I’d thought that was my all time low and the only available way left when you’re at rock bottom is up. But I never got powers. That is, up until a couple weeks ago.
It wasn’t even anything that traumatizing. I wouldn’t call it the worst day of my life either. Just a bunch of stuff happened all at once, I got overwhelmed and I’ll never speak of that day ever again. Big deal.
…
“So, was she our mystery cape after all?” Carlos asked an exhausted looking Dean, who just returned from the interrogation room. He offered a cup of steaming coffee to the bludgeoned-looking empath.
“Don’t even start. Oh god . I’m not built for questioning people as I read them. I told you I should stay behind the one-way glass while you do the talking.” Dean grabbed the coffee cup and chugged the whole thing like it was a glass of alcohol. Exhaling in contentment, he continued. “That woman is a mess of emotions. Our best bet is that whatever happened during that April Fools’ day attack made her trigger. I don’t think she’s got the emotional state of a serial killer, not enough deep seated rage or grievances. She’s almost too content.”
“Maybe because she just kidnapped her high school bullies?” Said Dennis, startling Dean by sneaking up behind him. He’s learned to walk soundlessly in the past couple years and it has been a major pain to predict his movements now that he also learned how to meditate mid-action, some new wave (heh) anti-Thinker technique he found on the net. Only subtle hues of mischievousness radiating off of him gave Dean enough of a warning not to spill his remaining coffee.
“... No, no.” Dean clutched his cup a bit tighter out of fear of spilling it when Dennis smacked him on his shoulder in greeting. “She was very much self-assured when she said she wanted nothing to do with them, ever. Not a single hint of deception, guilt or worry when she talked about what she was doing at the times of attacks.” Dean eyed the trash can, but it was too far away.
“Wuuu-what's up boiiis?” Sounded Missy’s cheerful voice, before she kicked the conference room door open and promptly sat on the furthest chair from it. Their honorary Protectorate hero chose the director’s seat as her destination. “So, did you find who did it? Whodunnit? Whooo Deand it?” Missy rotated the chair and rested her chin on its headrest. She finally decided to embrace her inner child, only when she became the eldest Ward, both in age and experience. But Dean didn’t complain.
“I wouldn’t write our latest suspect off completely. She’s at the very least a cape.” Dean said. “A fresh trigger of two weeks if I’m not completely off the mark, exactly when the attacks started. She’s also got all the hallmarks of someone making her new costume. But then again, if that goblin is her projection, why would she need a costume in the first place? And why so late in the game?”
“We would never know unless we send a team to watch her.” Sounded the voice of the PRT director.
“Director Calvert! You’re early today.” Missy spoke up, not intending to leave the main chair. Thomas sighed, his head swirling in pale yellow of mild annoyance and baby blue of appreciation. He chose to sit at the midpoint of the long conference table.
“The case is urgent and I just got Gallant’s report about his latest subject of questioning.” How he followed up on the conversation he couldn’t hear, Dean could probably guess how, but the fact that he bugged the conference room was disconcerting. Also didn’t Dean forget to hit send on his report and it still laid on his work PC, in the drafts? He was looking for ways to excuse himself to dash to his cubicle but, apparently, Director Calvert also has access to his PC now. Oh joy.
They kept up the small talk until every active Protectorate member entered the room, Assault and Battery being almost late to the meeting. Now in full attendance, Thomas Calvert spoke up.
“I want Miss Hebert under surveillance.” Hebert! That’s why her anger spiked when Dean pronounced it as ‘Herbert’! Oh god he’s the worst empath ever! “Watch her every step for the next week or so. If the attacks continue happening around her, we detain her.” He looked around the conference room, meeting the eyes of those who would protest that decision. “She offered it herself, didn’t she?”
“Unless someone wants to frame her, and would stop their attacks immediately once she’s imprisoned.” Miss Militia mused.
“The girl is a nonentity. She has no friends, nothing happens in her life. Who would hold a grudge against her?” Asks Dauntless after reading her file. PRT already has a file on her? Dean thinks to himself. “At most, I think she’s the scapegoat. We have seen that happen time and again.” A pulse of purple worry/concern/unease flashes over Dauntless. “A fresh trigger pings our radars, and suddenly they are implicated in a series of crimes that force our hand to persecute them, or at least suspect them. And that ultimately alienates the fresh trigger to the Protectorate, making them ripe for pickings by the gangs. It has been going on for the past… What, seven years? The entire Shadow Stalker debacle cost us a seasoned veteran hero, and a wayward teenage vigilante choosing the path of crime.”
“Dauntless has a point.” Says Director Calvert after a minute of contemplation. His aura flashes with a bright red of determination. “But we can’t let this opportunity slip. Miss Hebert is being cooperative so far and I feel like she has promise. Be on the lookout for new independent capes in town. Go for the soft sell to the Protectorate if possible, we can’t let another potential hero be tempted towards the life of crime.”