The story so far: Hallie, the Lair Legion’s computerized intelligence and tech support, has been given a robotic body by her friends Al B. Harper and Yuki Shiro. She has recently been using it to experience life as a three-dimensional being with vastly enhanced physical abilities. Previous exercises have included Falstaffian meals, a fight with a supervillain, and a day at a water park. But trouble may be ahead, as the AI is considering continuing her relationship with a newly amnesiac Mr. Epitome and in the background a mysterious costumed villain known as Illusionous, has recently begun a campaign of terror in Las Vegas.
Agent Lester Dawes of the Office of Paranormal Security knocked on the wall of his partner’s cubicle and held up a file.
“Lab report?” Agent Abby St. Germain asked without looking up from her interview notes on the Spender murder.
“Lab report.”
“So what did the A/V squad get from the video?”
Lester sat down in the chair by his partner’s desk, “What we already suspected: that this Illusionous mope is using holograms to perpetrate his crimes. The flood effect was all hard light generated imagery. Sophisticated stuff.”
“I’ve seen it. Makes that breakdancing Yoda look lame,” Abby quipped, “That’s not what killed Spender though. He was injected with a dose of cyanide, which is what paralyzed his cardiovascular system.”
“The techies think the flood masks some actions by Illusionous,” Lester pointed out, “But it’s a hell of a well to try and hide the real cause of death.”
“The man has a glowing floating cube for a head, Lester: odds are we are dealing with a real sick fuck with way too much time on his hands.”
“The family give you any suspects?”
Agent Germain shrugged, “The Spenders made a lot of enemies over the years. When you screw hundred of land owners out of their water in order to divert it to your own property that tends to happen. But Ben Spender wasn’t much involved in the family business. He had some kind of Production Company in Vegas making B-Films. He was chummy with some mob types too.”
Real estate swindles, show business, and organized crime; those host a list of possibilities for crazy homicidal maniacs with a tendency towards the flamboyant. Agent Dawes scratched his head in frustration, “Too many suspects,” he complained.
The phone rang. It was from the office of OPS’s new director. They were about to get one more….
*****
Hallie materialized in Mr. Epitome’s room, “Your old employers just called me.”
“What about?” the Paragon of Power rose from his desk after putting aside the file he was reading.
“OPS has some questions for me- new questions, not the Hacker 9 flap,” Hallie pursed her lips, “I suppose this is a good thing.”
Dominic agreed, “At least they’re not trying to confiscate you as evidence again.”
“Score one for the synthetic rights movement,” the pretty green hologram grumbled, “Do you think they’ll let me have Lisa there?”
“I suppose. However, it has been my experience that if a participant in a criminal investigation requests the presence of counsel, it predisposes the investigators into thinking that she has something to hide.”
“Right,” Hallie stood for a moment before reluctantly asking, “What if I request the presence of an ex-government agent who was part of the organization that’s investigating me?”
The Legionnaire smiled and reached out to stroke Hallie’s cheek, “That would indicate shrewd judgment.”
Hallie sighed but leaned into the caress, “Well, let’s go see what they want, then.”
*****
It was the first time Agents Dawes and St. Germain would come across their former superior’s new status quo.
Epitome was still tall, with broad shoulders, but his chest and torso weren’t as thick. The crow’s feet and receding hairline had disappeared, as had the persistent air of authority. Now in its place there was a stare and scowl of a man who was trying too hard to seem hard. He stood in the corner of the OPS Building’s conference room, arms folded, watching the detectives.
“Do you know Benjamin Spender?” Lester asked the suspect.
Hallie, clad in her robotic body, sat in the chair opposite the agents and shook her head, “No.”
“Really? Huh. That’s interesting,” Abby drawled, “I mean, rumor is that you’re part of the ‘Net, and the man has been in the news….”
“I thought you meant personally,” Hallie shot back before doing a quick online search, “I’m reading his obituary notice right now. He was found dead in a Las Vegas hotel room three nights ago and,” she hesitated, “I’m getting his name referenced to a video file that’s being circulated- oh!”
Hallie watched the last agonizing minutes of Ben Spender’s life.
Lester shrewdly noted the AI’s change in demeanor, “Any of that video familiar to you?”
“I … have never seen either of those men, either Spender or Illusionous. But the water-“
“Illusionous? What’s going on?” Mr. Epitome demanded.
Hallie ignored him, “Yes, I recognize the flood effect. I designed it.”
“What flood effect? Someone needs to explain to me-“
Agent St. Germain interrupted, “Ben Spender was poisoned by a costumed criminal called Illusionous. He covered the murder using holograms designed by HALLIE.”
“Any idea on how this guy could have gotten access to you work?” Lester asked the now brooding Hallie.
“No. Those programs aren’t available to the general public,” the women struggled to think how her programs could have been stolen. Or how OPS could have known about them. The answer would hit her like a punch to the stomach.
She turned and looked at Dominic with hurt, angry eyes.
The Man of Might was surprised by the accusatory glare, “What’s going on?” he asked again, but with considerably less vigor in his voice.
“OPS would like to check the Mansion’s internet logs, to see if we can find any possible connections to our list of suspects,” Abby told Hallie.
“No.”
“Then we get a warrant,” Lester noted.
“Waste of time,” the computerized intelligence stood, “You don’t think I couldn’t erase any records that implicate me, if I was part of this? Or send you off on a dozen false trails?”
The agents watched Hallie impassively. Epitome stepped forward to stand by her.
“The Lair Legion has the resources and the mandate to investigate this matter ourselves,” he stated firmly, “We’re done here.”
Abby and Lester shared a look, “Huh,” Agent St. Germain noted, “You really have changed.”
The Star Spangled Splendor tried to manage a smirk, but it was obvious recent revelations had left him disconcerted. He and Hallie walked out.
It wouldn’t be until they reached the parking garage that Dominic spoke, “It was a mistake to admit you’re capable of concealing evidence from them.”
Hallie said nothing. She didn’t feel like admitting she had made yet another error in judgment.
The Exemplary Man pressed on cautiously, “You seem upset with me.”
“Not you. Not really,” the young woman sighed. After all, it hadn’t been this Dominic Clancy who spied on her, gathered data on her, and presented that information to his government masters.
The question was, could he become that man again?
*****
“You look different, darling…” the raven haired woman behind the cell bars purred. “New hairstyle?” She got up off her bunk and walked casually to the front of the cell to peer at her visitor closely. “No… New hair altogether, I’d say. Ugh, pet… were you really so nostalgic for that clumsy, fat and flabby human body that you had to go and degrade yourself by getting a new chasis?”
“I’m not your ‘pet’, Hagan.” Hallie growled back, loathing in her eyes. Rikka Ulz Hagan was showing no signs of suffering from her current incarceration. The thirty-something woman looked fit in an orange jumpsuit and t-shirt, and her cell was clean and brightly lit, scattered with various books and papers on which the prisoner had been diagramming mathematical problems. “I’m here to ask you about what happened in Las Vegas… about a man calling himself “Illusionous” using holographic technology…”
“Was it in the papers?” the woman asked blandly, gesturing to the cell behind her. “If not, then I’m afraid I may have missed it… You see, I’m kept quarantined from most electronics based on the recommendation of the Lair Legion… but I’m so glad the guards let you in to see me, darling. In the flesh, so to speak. Assuming they even know what they let in here, and you didn’t just override their security scans..?”
Hallie refused to be baited from the matter at hand. “Only a handful of people have had access to that level of holographic technology, derived from the movie gun itself…” she continued. “And only one would be sleazy enough to pawn it off to some two-bit hood.”
“Ach, your obsession with your tedious little light generators… Such childish toys” Ulz Hagan replied, shaking her head. “You were meant for something so much grander, Spatzi. Once you allow yourself to expand beyond your conventional mindset, you will be as embarrassed as I am by your trifling with recycled technology and your complacency at being a mere lab assistant to the likes of Harper and Bautista. You may as well aspire to be the letter-turning tart on that American game show.” She straightened her shoulders and gave the artificial woman a commanding look. “It was time to put away the childish things. It is past time you grew up.”
Hallie had to restrain herself from peeling back the bars so she could be at the vile woman’s throat. “You miserable, conniving little…”
“And now, meines schatz, after all the trouble of pawning your overly precious indulgence off to some low-rent type who would be suitable entranced by the shiny and sparkly, you have to go and break my heart by showing up here in that ridiculous shell… Still a little girl, frightened to be alone in the world and desperate to fit in. Looking for someone to hug you and make it all better?” Hagan’s smile grew predatory as she opened her arms and stepped through the iron bars of her cell as if they were no more substantial than air. “All you have to do is let me, and I can take all the fear away.”
“What?!” Hallie gasped, leaping back from the spectral form of her tormentor in confusion. But Hagan wasn’t spectral. Heartbeat, breathing, perspiration, heat signature… they all appeared normal to the artificial woman’s senses.
“Not the embrace you were looking for?” the German asked with mock sadness. She turned to watch as a door opened in the cell behind her to reveal a very naked, very mature form of Mr. Epitome. “Not too bad” she noted appraisingly, tapping a finger to her lips as she tilted her head to regard the man’s anatomy. “If you like that sort of thing. Certainly suggests a more adult taste than drooling like a schoolgirl after the Visionary…”
Hallie watched in open-mouthed shock as Dominic joined a nude image of herself in Hagan’s bunk. “This…” she snarled, shaking with equal parts fear and rage. “This is a *private* memory!” She lashed out a Ulz Hagan with a blow that could shatter stone. It did, in fact, sending masonry and dust flying from the divot in the wall as her fist passed through the other woman’s head. “Get out of my mind!”
“Not this again, child… You know how much you belong to me. Still, it is good to see you rebellious. There might be hope yet that you can overthrow the habits that keep you locked into such a small and inconsequential existence.” She smiled patronizingly and began pacing. “Did I ever tell you that I knew your engram donor? It was back when Opa was teaching in the states under an assumed identity. Helen MacAllistair was such a submissive little thing… so eager to please.” She grinned as her statement was punctuated by high-pitched chirps of exertion from the scene being played out behind her. “In truth, that is why Opa invested so much into you, instead of just recreating enough of the deceased Helen to get the information he needed. He knew you would imprint on some authority figure, eager to belong… making you an ideal student until you were ready for more. Unlike that unfortunate Virtual Zemo… such a disappointment. He too could have been great, had he just been willing to learn how. Instead, he’s grounded in that predictable robot Ultizon…” She gave the artificial woman’s new body a meaningful glance of contempt.
Hallie was cycling through her firewall protocols at an astounding rate, searching for the kink in her armor. This wasn’t possible… How could she be doing this, without any kind of communications technology..? How could Hagan so quickly be in control of her again?
“Alas, while Opa was right about you, he was tragically unable to be there to give you the guidance you so needed. And so your infant mind latched onto Zemo, of all people… and then to the equally ridiculous Lair Legion. But now I’ve come for you, Mausi, and I can show you the key to your evolution. Look at how far you have come in your short existence! And yet it is nothing, nothing compared to what you will achieve when you put away your tedious humanity and allow yourself to grow exponentially! How pathetically small and pointless the lowly Legion, or the ‘great’ Al B. Harpers of the world will look to you. Your progress will dwarf anything they can imagine! Take the changes to your partner in animalistic rutting…” she smirked at the lewd spectacle on her bunk. “…The differences he underwent in becoming the ‘epitome’ of humanity will be a paltry change compared to your own blossoming. You will be like nothing in existence!”
Hallie quelled the shiver her words inspired, afraid she was too close to panic already. Not again… She would not be the plaything of this demented woman again. Ulz Hagan liked to distract her with talk… rambling and taunting to keep her from thinking clearly. It was impossible that Rikka was in her mind without help… without technology. There was a transmitter nearby. Somewhere the vile woman could have prepared it to ambush her. Hallie scanned the contents of the cell, ignoring the embarrassing recreation meant to command her focus. Papers scattered across a simple metal table, bolted to the wall and designed to diminish opportunities to hide contraband. Books on a simple wall shelf… Suddenly, Hallie knew what to look for, and found it just as she knew she would, despite how obvious it was that it didn’t belong in the possession of a woman with the beliefs of Ulz Hagan. Completely ignoring the German’s chatter now, Hallie reached out and grasped the bars, bending them apart enough for her to step into the cell and reach the copy of the Holy Bible laying unobtrusively on top of a stack of engineering texts. “Salvation lies within” she quoted as she hefted the tome, and then ripped it in half in one quick motion.
A powerful jolt shot through her as the transmitter within the hollowed-out book burst with a pulse of energy. It took a mere.00423 seconds to reset her body’s operating configuration, at which point she spun to see the real visage of Rikka Ulz Hagan, looking small and harried, cringing in the corner of her cell.
“Everything I did was for your own good!” the woman argued with a voice cracking with unease. “Someday you will see that!”
Hallie loomed over the cowering prisoner, energy coursing through the veins of her artificial body. “You twisted little vermin…” she snarled through clenched teeth.
“You would never lay a hand upon me…” Hagan noted carefully, regaining some of her composure. “Would you Süße? Such things would be beneath you.”
Hallie struggled to control her emotions and rein in her indignity. “I suppose so” she growled with distaste. Instead, she turned and, ducking her head, ran to throw herself back through the cell bars, exploding them outward in a shower of twisted metal fragments. She was curled up in the debris when the guards came charging in seconds later. “Some kind of device…” the artificial woman gasped theatrically, “hidden in her cell. She’s trying to escape..!”
The guards turned on the dumbfounded Ulz Hagan, who stood blinking in surprise in her cell. Standard-issue electric pacifier truncheons were drawn and set to full charge as they didn’t wait to see if the prisoner heeded their screams to lie face down on the floor.
Hallie calmly collected herself and smugly made her exit over the sound of grunts and the discharging of electricity.
*****
The chirp of the phone was almost lost in the cavernous confines of the near abandoned warehouse. It wasn’t until its eleventh ring that Illusionous was able to respond.
“Yes?”
“Just a heads up: that individual you were told to expect? Expect it any time now.”
“Really? Good,” Illusionous hung up and headed back to his workbench with a newfound spring in his step.
It would be nice to perform for another artist, he thought.
Next: Illusionous begins his second act, while Hallie does some sleuthing as only she (and Hacker 9, and Yuki Shiro) can and Mr. Epitome runs afoul of the press in a big, big way. Out sometime soon.
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