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The Adventures of Silver
Daily Pallis Prophet
Part One
"You have got to be kidding me!" Silver proclaimed, not bothering to bite back the laughter that was forming.
"What?" the thug demanded, annoyed. He was wearing a fairly typical gang-style outfit; old, ripped jeans, black t-shirt, leather jacket. A black baseball cap covered his hair, but what she could see was black but appeared dyed. However, none of this was the reason for her sudden giggling fit. That was due to fact that the gang member was holding a bow, with an arrow notched.
"A bow and arrow? You are joking, right? You actually have gun, right?" she guessed.
He narrowed his eyes. "I hate guns," he declared. "No sport. I never miss."
"Whatever, Robin Hood. I'm just saying. You look like an idiot."
"Don't call me that!" the thug snapped. Silver opened her mouth to give a witty response (the snappy repartee was really her favorite part of crime fighting) but was cut off as someone tackled her from behind. She hit the ground hard with someone heavy on top of her, and lost her breath.
Whoever it wasone of Robin Hood's companions, no doubt; she'd already dealt with most of themwas a good deal bulkier than she. She gasped in a breath and tried to roll over, but the massive man's bulk made it difficult.
"Let's see what's under that leotard, shall we?" he sneered.
"No," she sneered back, finally managing to maneuver herself to a position where her knee was in place to strike—and she did. The man hit a note that most people have to practice opera singing to get, and she shoved him aside before he could recover.
No sooner than she stood, a sudden stabbing pain shot through her side. Glancing down, she saw an arrow, and whirled to face the thug she'd been laughing at previously.
"That'll teach you to mock my bow," he said smugly.
She looked down at the non bleeding wound. "You ripped my costume, you bastard! Do you have any idea how hard this thing is to repair?" Annoyed, she reached down and yanked the arrow from her side. He stared at her, eyes going wide with shock, as the wound closed before him.
All he'd really managed to do was make her mad. She glared at him, and he got the feeling his night was about to go rapidly down hill.
Goodness knew she certainly had.
The yawn turned into a sigh as she glanced at the stocks section. Silvers Energy Company, her father's business, was still on a downward trend; their stock had been falling for three weeks steady. Obviously, she was quite caught up in the stock trends of her family business, seeing as her father owned sixty-four percent by himself, and she owned another five percent personally.
She wondered what was causing the downward trend as she flipped to her second favorite part of the newspaper: the comics. It was hard to concentrate with the noise around her, though. The campus center was definitely not her favorite place to be.
However, her roommate was on a studying binge, something she did frequently. Veronica couldn't stand being in a room with someone concentrating so hard, especially when she was supposed to be working herself. For a moment, she wondered what her father would think. She didn't precisely have a social life (she'd promised she wouldn't) but she didn't study nearly as much as her father had hoped she would.
Instead, she amused herself by spending time prowling the streets, clad in a skimpy silver leotard, with nothing to protect her but a single knife and her natural talentswell; her natural talents and her genetically enhanced talents, such as healing.
"Hey." Veronica glanced up. One of the guys from her Macro Economics 101 class was standing by her table, smiling cheerily. He did that a lot when she was around. He was barely the tall side of average, with short black hair that was spiked up a little. One of his ears was pierced twice; the other held a ring up in the cartilage. He wore a bright yellow T-shirt with the logo of a band Veronica had never heard of; over-sized, ripped jeans, and had an orange bag slung over one shoulder.
She began to blush, as she always did when boys spoke to her. "Um... Hi," she finally managed. "You're name is Veronica, right?" he asked. She nodded. "I'm Aaron. You're in my econ class, right?" She nodded again. "Mind if I join you?" he asked, when she didn't offer.
"Um... sure," she agreed. He smiled again, and he pulled a chair up to her table.
"So you're a fan of the comics section?" he asked, trying to make conversation.
For all Veronica was witty and could banter with the best of villains, she was painfully shy when she didn't have a mask to protect her. "Yeah," she managed.
"Cool." There was an awkward pause. "So... Um...." He shrugged. She giggled nervously. "What.... What else do you read?"
"Um." She paused. "Comic books?" she said, almost questioningly.
"Really?" he asked back, raising an eyebrow. "How old are you?"
She tittered nervously. "Oh... I just..." She shrugged. "I guess it's kind of... childish..."
"Nah, it's cute." He grinned again, and she turned bright red, wishing she wasn't noticing his dimples. "So are you going to the lecture tonight?"
"Lecture?" she asked, digging through her memory, trying to figure out what he meant. Their econ class wouldn't be meeting until the next day, but she dimly recalled a special event... or something....
"Yeah, that stock market specialist guy giving a lecture tonight. I think his name is..." he thought for a second, then finished, "Elijah Lemuel. He's supposed to be some kind of genius. Professor Stanson said it would be really interesting..."
"Oh." She shrugged. "I'd forgotten... But I like... y'know, stock market... Um, stuff." She giggled nervously again and began to wind a strand of hair around her finger. He laughed back. "I guess... I'll probably go."
"Cool." He stood. "Save me a seat?" He winked at her and walked away. She gaped in his wake.
Before she could find anywhere, one of the people who was already seated turned around and flashed her a dimpled grin. "Hey—Veronica! C'mon, I grabbed a seat for you!"
Blushing, Veronica made her way over to sit next to him. "I got here kinda early," he said by way of explanation. "Sorry we aren't closer, but I can't heckle so well from the front."
"It's... Um, fine," she said. He gave her a bemused look.
"I get the feeling you're a little shy," he said. She blushed and nodded. "Don't worry. I'm not going to bite or anything. But you always look lonely whenever I see you. So..." he shrugged.
"Wh-when do I look lonely?" she asked.
"Oh..." He paused and looked almost like a deer caught in headlights. "Um. I've seen you around... Y'know, the student center and the cafeteria..."
"Y-you were w-watching me?" she suddenly realized.
"Uh... Hey, the guy's here," he said, changing the subject and motioning towards the podium at the front of the room. A man was standing behind it now, shuffling through a few notes and things. He looked a lot younger than Veronica had expected a stock market specialist to be; probably only in his late twenties. His eyes were bright green, though hidden behind silver, oval shaped glasses, and he had blond hair that was a little bit too long and kept falling in his eyes. He was dressed casually, wearing a pair of khakis and a blue button-up shirt.
He finally glanced up at the crowd, then reached forward and clicked the microphone on. "H'lo," he greeted them calmly, his voice sing-songish and touched by a very faint British accent. It took a minute, but people eventually settled down and quieted. "My name's Elijah Lemeul—I'm from London originally, but moved to the States when I was twelve, then back to London for University."
He continued to give a brief history of himself, how he'd gotten interested in economics and what he did for a living. "So let's take a brief look at the market as it stands now, shall we?" he suggested eventually, although it was a purely rhetorical question. "Who here actually owns stock?"
A few people raised their hands, Veronica among them. Aaron gave her a surprised look for a second, then whispered, "So what, you read comic books and the stock page?"
"Yes," she whispered back, not realizing he had been joking. He gave her that same bemused look and she began to blush again.
The man on stage glanced through the people with their hands raised, and his gaze stopped on Veronica. He smiled and winked at her. "What company do you own stock in, Miss?"
She turned bright red and stammered, "Sil-Silvers E-Energy Company..."
"Ouch. I just dumped my Silvers stock—I was pretty sure it was going to start slipping, based on how other energy companies were doing. How much do you own?"
"A l-lot," she stammered.
"Really?"
"F-f-five perc-cent..."
He stared at her for a moment, with a very strange look on his face, almost as if he was staring through her. Then he smiled and nodded. "No wonder you'd be hesitant to drop it. You must have had it for a long time." She nodded.
"Well, I suppose it's going to go back up eventually," he comforted her. "It's one of the giant companies; they always do. Though right now would be a fairly rotten time to buy. It's low, but it's going to get lower before it picks back up." He flashed the audience a somewhat smug grin. "That was a piece of free advice. I usually charge money for that..."
He continued to ask students about what stocks they owned, and made a few general predictions. Some of the things he said were interesting, but most of them weren't too spectacular. He spoke for awhile longer about trends and ups and downs and recessions and.... It wasn't nearly as interesting as Veronica had hoped. By the time he finished, Aaron was dozing in the seat next to her.
When he finally ended the lecture and left the podium, Aaron opened one eye. "Five percent?" he asked her.
"Um... yeah."
"Isn't that an awful lot for an eighteen year old?"
"Um...." she debated explaining that her father owned Silvers Electric Company, but just shrugged and mumbled, "I guess," instead.
"Hey, want to go get a coffee or something?" he offered, as he stretched and stood up. "The campus Adama should still be open. He couldn't have talked for more than what, four hours?"
"It was only an hour and a half," she answered. "And... um... I have to study for a history test tomorrow." She gave him an apologetic look.
"It's okay." They started walking out, but were stopped in the hall way by none other than the guest speaker himself.
"Hey," he said, stepping in front of them. He and Aaron sized each other up for a moment before he continued, "I'm afraid I might have embarrassed you there. Terribly sorry."
"That's f-fine," she stuttered.
"No," he objected. "I'm really sorry. I'd like to make it up to you."
"No, it's"
"I insist. You look like a coffee drinker, perhaps—"
"She has to study for her history test tonight," Aaron interrupted, narrowing his eyes.
"Does she." Elijah said it flatly, and the look he gave Aaron wasn't any nicer than the look Aaron was giving him. Veronica nodded apologetically. "Oh well, another time, perhaps, Veronica," he offered, then took her hand, kissed it gently, turned and walked off.
She gaped after him, and Aaron glared, then put a hand on her shoulder and nodded towards the building's exit. She took a few steps with him, then stopped suddenly and turned to stare back the way Elijah had left. "How did he know my name?"
Emma glanced up from the paper she was writing. She'd been working for seven hours straight, which never bothered her in the least; she was the sort of person who preferred to wait until the day before a project was do and spend twenty hours in a row perfecting it. Not surprisingly, the main staple of her diet was Coca Cola; she rarely actually had a chance to eat.
"Hey," Veronica mumbled, walking into the room they shared and dropping her jacket and backpack on her bed.
"Hi." Emma didn't even look up.
"Mind if I flip on the TV?"
"Whatever."
She was too engrossed in her paper to realized that Veronica was very studiously watching the local news, as she did every night, and far too busy to realize that Veronica was paying more than particular attention to a news story about a series of robberies.
"...Has perpetrated a series of very bizarre crimes, starting with the kidnapping of one Jordan Lising, a local zoologist. It is believed that this same criminal has also broken several criminals out of the Outer Pallis Maximum Security Prison, as well as a guarded army supply station.... Details of what was stolen have not yet been released.
"The gang seems to be quite adept at anticipating police actions; as a matter of fact, they usually manage to be in and out before the police arrive. Their activities are flawless, and whoever is plotting them is reputed to have an off-the-scale genius IQ.
"So far, the police have no comment about who this mastermind might be. It seems that he's being referred to by authorities as 'The Prophet,' as he's left behind a copy of Pallis' largest newspaper at every crime scene. We here at Channel Nine News will be keeping you updated on this story as we find things out.
"Coming up after the commercials..."
Veronica bit back a smile. "Hey, Emma," she said to her roommate, getting a vague guttural noise in response. "I'm gonna go to a study group for awhile. If my dad calls, tell him I'll call him tomorrow, okay?"
"Whatever."
She just didn't really know how.
Okay, I need to think rationally, she told herself. I wish I knew this guys motive. Because then I could figure out what he wants.... Lets see; the reports said he's broken into a high security bank, broken henchmen out of a maximum security prison... And kidnapped a zoologist.
Who would want a zoologist?... Someone who likes zoos. Or animals. Okay, if this guy is a genius, he probably won't just kidnap someone because he likes animals. He'd kidnap an animal. But what animal? Where would he keep it? If it was really exotic, he'd need some sort of help, someone trained to give it tranquilizers or feed it or... Or a zoologist.
That makes sense.
She smiled and altered her course to head towards the Pallis City Zoo. I wonder how much a motorcycle would cost... she thought idly as she hurried along. That was the problem with her brand of low-cost vigilanteism; she had the powers to do things, but not the equipment. Her mode of transportation was her feet, and she felt vaguely silly wandering around dressed in a skimpy leotard.
It took her awhile to cross from the seedy part of Pallis where she habitually patrolled to the nicer section that housed the zoo. There was a large chain link fence surrounding it, serving as a barrier to keep the public out. Silver had reasoned long ago that she wasn't just 'the public,' though; she was a hero. She had to go into off limits places sometimes. That was her job.
Glancing up, she saw something stuck to the top of the fence. She sighed, wishing she could fly, and grabbed hold of the links. Climbing wasn't too hard; she was strong and athletic. It occurred to her that it really wasn't the best security after all. There was probably something more complex somewhere, there had to be. Probably security cameras all over.
She glanced around, looking for one but didn't see any. Hopefully, there wouldn't be a police van after her in a minute or two...
Silver grabbed the top of the fence, and reached over for the paper stuck to it. It was a page ripped from the Daily Pallis Prophet, with red ink written over the printed text. She scanned it, eyes going wide:
She glared at offending paper. How did they know? I mean, I guessed they'd be here, so they could guess I'd come looking, but right here on the fence?
She stared at the paper in her hand. Okay. In comic books, it's always a trap. But there's no choice, right? She clutched the paper and carefully leapt down from the fence doing several very unnecessary flips in the process to show anyone who was watching through a security camera that she was, in fact, a hero and not a random thug breaking in. Though most thugs didn't wear outfits like hers.
One thirty-seven PM. That's an invitation. Villains aren't dumb enough to invite heroes. Not real ones, anyway. So... why? And what else can I do?
Not much occurred to her, as she headed back to the University campus. So this villain was going to do something at the zoo the next day, or perhaps just try to trap her. Why the zoo? If he had been one of her comic book villains, she could have guessed, but this was real life and surprisingly difficult.
She stopped in the library to change back to street clothes, grateful that, though the UP library was open twenty-four hours a day, it wasn't highly used. She stuffed her frequently ripped and repaired costume into the bottom of the backpack she'd crammed under one of the bathroom sinks and headed out.
She started heading across campus back to her room, trying to unwind. Whenever she was out as Silver, she ended up high-strung for awhile after she changed back. It was hard to slip from her "real" self to her heroine persona; she didn't do it intentionally, it just came with the costume.
Emma was still up and still staring at her computer screen when she arrived. "How's your paper?" Veronica asked by way of greeting.
"Six pages short."
"Oh. Well. Good luck with that."
Veronica wanted to examine the newspaper, but didn't want to take it out with Emma in the room. She didn't want her roommate to get curious, even if the chances of Emma glancing away from her computer were nil.
Now that she'd had time to absorb the shock, she wasn't surprised. The paper was the Pallis Prophet and they were calling whoever lead this gang The Prophet as well. And they'd seemed to predict where she'd be, the same as they'd predicted police actions. Like they'd been prophesied.
Okay, that wasn't as helpful as she'd hoped. She collapsed on to her bed and stared at the ceiling for a minute, something uncomfortable poking into her back... But she felt like she was missing an obvious piece of a puzzle and didn't want to move for fear it would get away.
She really wanted to examine the newspaper now, but erred on the side of safety. Sooner or later, Emma was going to wonder why she went out every night, and there was no need to give her something else to wonder.
With a sigh of annoyance, she finally rolled over and reached back to grab whatever had been jabbing her. It turned out to be her newspaper from earlier that day that she'd dropped off without really thinking about it. She searched her memory for the page number and began to flip through it, scanning articles to see if they matched the background text her note had been scrawled on.
Something about.... genetics? she wondered, and stopped when, lo and behold, she came to an article about genetics. It looked right, and she began to read eagerly.
The article was about how there seemed to be a genetic link between some sort of prehistoric dinosaur, modern birds and the missing link. She blinked. I thought the missing link was an ape? She reread the paragraph, slower. Oh, a different missing link, one for birds. But not a real bird. What are they talking about?
She read on, confused. Now it was talking about myths and legends about the Phoenix. She saw no connection at all, but finally, after several columns of text, it clicked. Whoever these geneticists were, they'd tracked down some rare species of very endangered rain forest bird and were now claiming that it was the end of an alternate path that flying dinosaurs may have evolved into, related to the mythical Phoenix. The project claimed that they could genetically show this, and meanwhile there was a book it was plugging about the how myths might have come out of extinct creatures.
Okaaaaay, she thought to herself, wondering how anyone could believe in a Phoenix... Or at least, it's genetic descendants. That was ridiculous, even if they did claim to finally have one of those birds in captivity. In captivity currently housed at the Pallis Zoo, she read further, a display only open from one to two on weekdays.
Oh.
"Because I knew," the boss answered. Like everyone else in the gang, CC only had a slight idea who his boss was. Someone rich, he'd gathered; they didn't seem to be hitting places for money, mostly just to see if they could. If they were don't it for money, they wouldn't be pulling tomorrow's job in front of a crowd, and they certainly wouldn't have invited a costumed hero. But CC wasn't going to question why his Boss had planned things like this; he'd been sprung from jail and that was enough. Besides, so far things had all gone exactly as the Boss had predicted, so exactly it was eerie.
No wonder the media was calling him The Prophet.
Whoever he was, he was tall and broad shouldered. He always wore a black mask over the top part of his face around the gang, but his eyes were bright green beneath. He usually kept his hair tucked under some sort of hat, but what CC had seen of it was blond. He dressed well and spoke with a tough of a British accent that made him sound far more cultured than the criminals he worked with.
"Oh, right." CC shrugged. "Well, she was there and she got the newspaper and she left again."
"Give me the tape," the Boss ordered.
CC nodded and fiddled around with one of the many VCRs he had set up. This was his section of the low-scale apartment that housed the gang, though not the Boss. TV monitors covered the walls like paint, each showing a different security camera from somewhere in the city. One at the police station, one at each major bank, a few at the mall, etc. Of course, these were all supposed to be closed systems, but they hadn't been hard to break into. That was how he'd gotten his nickname; CC was the leading expert at breaking into closed circuits and rerouting them. That was also how he'd gotten his jail sentence; his hobbies had landed him a place in gangs like this before, but none that had fared as well as the Prophet's.
The Boss accepted the tape and ran a finger across it gently. "Silver," he whispered, his voice soft—then he dropped the tape abruptly and inhaled sharply, as if he'd been stabbed. "Silver!" he half-yelled, collapsing on to his knees, his hands clutching at his face frantically. He yelled in pain. His eyes were entirely green and somehow glowing, and the man wasn't blinking at all. CC gasped when he saw those unnatural eyes, and only stayed where he was because the Boss was between him and the door.
"Boss? Boss, are you ok?" CC asked, scared as much for himself as his employer. If something was happening to the Boss, then he'd be out of work, and no one else ever carried off crimes as well as the Boss did...
The Prophet whispered the name "Silver," again, and reached out, feeling around for the security tape. CC nudged it back towards him with his foot, and the Prophet reached out with a shaking hand and picked it up. He stared at it, still not blinking, then shut his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them and looked up at CC, they weren't glowing any more, and his pupils were very large, but at least he had pupils and not just a vast green blank. "I just had a vision..." the Prophet whispered, his voice filled with quiet panic. CC wasn't a brave person by nature, and everything he'd just witnessed had scared him. But this was worse, hearing his Boss talk about visions and sounding so scared. "The tape, CC. We might be in an awful lot of trouble..."
Stay tuned to find out, when the author gets around to writing part two.....