2.25.2 – Something fishy in the camp
2.0 - Edited by: Rellawing, AlliterativeArts - 11/29/2020
Aurora used the position of the Sun to travel in a vaguely south-westernly direction at the outset of her journey home. As the lifegiving marble shone above jewel-like mountains to her rear and left she messed with her new communicator card.
Through her exploration of its features, she found a more advanced mapping system with a holographic projection of the terrain. This looked like it was built specifically for heroes that were flight-capable. Much like a video game HUD, holding the communicator properly, Aurora was able to use this projecting as a means of navigation without the route jittering all over the place as it tried to follow the roads she rocketed past. Ground-based nav had its limitations, though it served a purpose until she got a better tool. Unlike a cellphone, there were seemingly no dead zones. While heading home and enjoying the scenery, she thought she should call home again.
Based on how she answered, Goonie seemed to have already gotten a head start on the day, “Hey my girl! Did you sleep alright? Where are you right now?”
“I slept really well, and had a great breakfast with Mistral and Mr. Plow.” Leona grinned.
“Mr… Plow? Is that a nickname for Mistral’s husband?” Goonie laughed.
“Mr… what?” Quinn cackled loudly in the background.
“N-no! It’s a freaking cat! A really cuddly poofy white cat with a loud purr and a super soft tummy!” Leona complained.
“Riiiight, sounds legit I suppose,” Aurora heard Quinn say when Goonie relayed that information.
“It’s a weird name for a cat, but who are we to judge,” Goonie responded.
“He loves snow! There’s tons of snow up here… oh… by the way I left Saskatoon a bit ago,” Aurora hopefully changed the subject.
“Saskatoon? Way up in Canada? That far east? Are you okay? The line’s a little fuzzy,” Goonie asked somewhat fretfully.
Come to think of it, she was flying as fast as she could. If she was using her normal cellphone, Goonie wouldn’t be able to hear her. This was some amazing technology. It must have background noise muting technology far beyond what cell phones used, or else it was limited to a kind of a mental communication, “I’m fine.” Leona smiled. “I’m headed home at top speed now. I’ll get back home in no time. ”
“Just be safe and careful,” Goonie said. Aurora nodded. “Of course. I love you!”
After disconnecting, she found the browser in her communicator and signed into the email account she had set up to communicate with Detective Kirby and found a message from him waiting.
Hey, I got a somewhat unfriendly message from some cops out in Junker… seems they didn’t like your investigating out there. Pestered me about what business I might have out there. I told them that if you were investigating something, I hadn’t been informed.
Still, nothing like a good threatening to make me decide to do some poking around of my own. You should stop down at the station if you want to see what I’ve got. Don’t want to send anything out on a generic email, but give me a call or stop in and we can talk.
Detective Benjamin Kirby
Aurora nodded to nobody but herself, smiling. Good ol’ Kirby!
She’d had a good feeling about him right from the start. It was funny how she was already saying things like this about him. But he had already proven to be reliable and good to work with, unlike that Ruffino character off in Seaside City.
Talk about two people who couldn’t be any more different. The one in charge over in Seaside obviously hated heroes while the rest cheered for them. In San Isidro, the police were kind of indifferent about her, but on the other hand, Kirby was a steadfast partner.
Even though she didn’t particularly like or think she could get along with Ruffino, now that she had an official Society of Sentinels’ membership and communicator, Aurora could give ‘Ruffneck’ some contact information that wouldn’t compromise this fledgling heroine.
Not thrilled about the possibility that Ruffino might then be able to gripe at her about anything that came to mind, she still considered it.
Checking her ETA estimation to determine how fast she’d get home going at her current speed, she saw that she was still in mountain range. The snow was mostly on the peaks now, however. Off to her west, a vast plain opened up.
Finding she was a little off-course, she adjusted. The wind on and through her wings was refreshing, was wonderful, and in the course of her flight, it had grown subtly warmer. The sunshine felt wonderful on her body.
She was tempted to remove her clothes so she could bathe in it’s light more directly, though she felt everything intimately enough as was. It also probably wouldn’t be a good habit to fly in the nude. She might someday find some pretty awkward things on the internet if she started doing things like that. She enjoyed being more of a consumer rather than a producer of things like Mistral’s doujins with Bombshell and the presiding powers forbid Midnight Avenger and any of the female SoS members starring in any more pornophic fanfics.
Come to think of it, she’d now met all three members of that particular cast. Aurora’s eyebrows raised at that thought and she chuckled dryly.
Aurora sped up and continued on her way. When she pushed her flight speed to its limit, the land below practically began to blur past.
In no time, she left the mountain ranges. Vast troughs of desert started coming into vision. A fragrant smell came up off from the terrain. She wasn’t familiar with it but the smell was sweet like seasoning and tickled her nose enough to cause her to sneeze.
She continued onwards and crossed yet another mountain range, returning to her native sun-baked golden grasslands.
She was nearly home now.
She kept the throttle open until the ocean and the two coastal cities appeared on the horizon. Angling towards San Isidro, the proud gothic lady, she opened the communicator and set the destination point more precisely. “Navigate me to the San Isidro PD’s twenty-fourth precinct.” The communicator understood immediately and responded without lag, pointing her to a specific point instead of the greater metro area.
Aurora glided down to the station’s steps and walked inside. She waved at the officers milling around in the reception area, smiling. “Hi everyone! I’d like to see Detective Kirby.”
Though no one really spoke or made any move to get Detective Kirby for her, the man in question appeared but a few moments later, greeting her, “Aurora! I guess you got my email. Come on back to my desk.” He gestured.
Aurora followed him quickly to the bullpen where he sat down at his desk. He fished out a manila folder as she sat herself on the opposite side. “I don’t know what you’re investigating up in Junkers, but as my message said I decided to check into the Padua Realignment Camp a little. I’ll give you this folder if you tell me where your interest lay. I want to know what you suspect is going on there.”
“Well…” Aurora paused. “Brainwashing children among other things.” That was obvious, though. She wasn’t sure what else to say, but she ventured, “So far I’ve determined that they’re kept out of the sun six days of the week. Creeds and slogans are hammered into them until they’re beyond the point of dropping. None of it sounds healthy.”
Kirby nodded and handed her the folder. “There’s been some allegations about the camp in the past,” he stated, “but each time local authorities found no wrongdoing. Same one gets investigated at least thirty-five times and nothing turns up? No way, no how. That on top of the allegations consistently being some variation on allegations of child abuse and false imprisonment. All dismissed. Good grief. How’d you know about all this anyway?”
Aurora nodded. “I’m familiar with one of the girls in that camp. Her parents are the reason why she’s there. To make sure she’d be alright, knowing what kind of place it was a primary concern of mine. I wanted to make sure she was being treated properly and from what I’ve seen that’s definitely not the case. She’s afraid. Of punishment, of her parents, of so many things, but she was very brave. She’s been very affected by her treatment there. She already seems traumatized and isn’t happy.”
After taking a breath to center herself, Aurora continued, “I’m concerned about her and I suspect the local police are in the camp's pockets. They protect Padua so fiercely you’d think they were hired as external guards. Not only that, they used unnecessary roughness with the girl when she was being taken into their custody.” Aurora shook her head.
“They’ve clearly been getting away with something.” Aurora let out a heavy burst of breath, planting a hand firmly on Kirby’s desk. “The problem now is that, because my investigation up to that point had fallen a bit flat, so I took more firm measures. As a result of that action when they confronted us, they made me promise I wouldn’t violate “their airspace,” whatever that technically means. It was also pretty strange how fast they knew to look and found us as I barely got any time to really talk to her… we were interrupted.”
Kirby’s lips twisted. “It would be best if you let our department handle this one internally. If you can get this girl you spoke with to tell us what she told you, we can follow up with other children who went there and maybe find out if someone else wants to file a complaint. Any chance of that or do you know of any better threads we can investigate?”
“I don’t know much else. The camp’s liable to be punishing her harshly for what she’s already done. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have her isolated at this very moment. If I'd had any inkling that this sort of thing was going on there, I’d have just taken her from there no matter what the law demands.” Aurora gritted her teeth as she shook her head again.
“I can tell that you’re fiercely protective towards this girl.” Kirby nodded. “But don’t allow those feelings to ruin your career. As much as it might hurt, we have to play these things by the book. Be assured that I’ll do everything I can to look into the situation. In the meanwhile, I can let you ‘borrow’ these files I’ve scrounged up. Let me know if you notice anything I didn’t.” He slid the file across the table and reached across the table to shake her hand. Aurora took his hand and firmly shook it.
“Thank you Detective. Things have been pretty eventful the last day or so, so there is more to tell you, to change the subject.” She removed her membership card and flashed it at Kirby with a grin. “I’m now officially a Basic member of the Society of Sentinels. You can use my official address with the Society to securely communicate with me. I set the email I gave you before to forward it to the secure one connected to this communicator, but probably we won’t use that insecure account much going forward.”
Kirby nodded and gave a little smirk. “I’ll say it’s good to have something more than an insecure email address to work with.” He took the information and Aurora left with a smile and more waves to the other officers.
Aurora rocketed back home and landed in the copse behind their condo.
Hoping over the property walling, she saw Quinn sunbathing. That wasn’t too surprising… the tiny g-string she was wearing, moreso.
Leona’s jaw dropped. Her cousin must be insane to flash her butt at the neighborhood like that. The blood rushed to her cheeks. Aurora walked up to her, shaking her head to note that she was now sporting green-hair.
“That’s daring… I bet you’re catching a ton of attention. Could you do this every time I come and go as a superhero? With you distracting the neighbors, I might be able to fly right up to my window without anyone seeing a thing,” Leona joked, chortling.
Quinn chuckled. “I needed an even tan. The smaller the covering the better, you know. I’d do it naked, but even the great ‘I’ am not that shameless.”
Leona tilted her head with a non-judgemental expression.
“Hey now, you’re totally judging! I’m back where nobody’s around to get an eyeful, after all. So anyway, you spent the night up in Canada, didya?”
Just the thought of certain events that happened yesterday caused Leona’s head to explode in a cloud of steam. She turned bright red, unable to help it. “Y-yes?”
“Oh! My! GOD! You slept with her! Your freaking mentor!” Quinn said in not-so-quiet surprise. “You did, didn’t you? Ya old coonhound, wow… Did you do it as you or as the angel? Were you that daring?”
Leona started feeling dizzy. “N-no… it wasn’t like that. She’s not a pervert… I won’t let anyone call her a…”
“Can it, twirp. With you V-card punched, I guess you’re officially a certified adult now. And that’s besides you being trusted by the Police and being a bonafide superhero to boot, so don’t worry about it. Seriously, though… I’d never have thought you’d do it!” Quinn grinned at her sister.
“I don’t… don’t tell Mom! I don’t know how she’d react. Maybe not like you. I don’t want her to think badly of Mistral.” Aurora squirmed. “I was Aurora, of course. It’s fine like that because I’m 18 in that form and who knows how old Black Angel was? I don’t know. A few hundred years old? Older?” She shrugged as she paced, still blushing. “Now that villain’s a part of me. Anyhow Mistral knows my secret and... she respects and cares for me. She even talked about fighting by my side, even knowing the truth about me. Everything!”
“And we cuddled so sweetly…” Leona warped her arms around herself, fidgeting and blushing even more at the recollection. “And we slept together… innocently… and the cat jumped up and settled down at our heads... I was out cold before that though. But I worry…” Leona chewed her lip, thoughtfully. “I hear long distance relationships can be pretty rough. Do you think it’s different when you’re superheroes and you can treat the intervening miles like the person was your next door neighbor?”
Quinn shrugged. “Depends. Is she around beautiful girls who make her smile and laugh? Hmmm… maybe you’d better not answer that,” she said, crossing her arms.
Leona nodded. Quinn slipped behind and grabbed her cousin in a big behind-the-back bear hug. “But you snuggled up with her, eh? Just as Aurora, right?”
“Yeah, we haven’t snuggled yet with me as regular Leona. I’d like to hug her in my normal form.”
“Did you do this to her?” Quinn started molesting Leona’s breasts. “This is how it’s done, ya know.”
Leona fidgeted and squirmed, red-faced. “I… I snuggled and nuzzled them… I didn’t know what to do… but she seemed to love it…”
“Your big sis knows what girls like, so I’ll demonstrate a bit…”
“Ahhhh Quiiiiinnnnnn!” Leona squealed, trying to squirm away. “H-hey now! Someone could see you molesting your little sister!”
“Maybe if you cry for Mistral she’ll come to rescue you but see you getting molested.” Quinn laughed before letting her go, ever the joker. Leona blushed furiously.
“Well, that’s enough fun in the sun for the day, I’m going back to my room,” Quinn shot over her shoulder and walked off with a playful wink.
Leona glared after her, biting her lip. Was she mad at her for getting with Mistral? “Are you mad at me?” She yelled after.
Quinn stopped and laughed. “Oh, puh-leez. If anything, I’m excited that my little sis got to be a famous hero’s booty call.” She grinned. “I just want to shower and reapply some lotion so I can keep my shade-or-two darker tan up.” She smiled.
“You’re such a bad older sister!” Leona yelled. “I’ll get you back for that! And Aurora’s way bigger and stronger than you!” She stuck out her tongue and grinned, assuming a stereotypical superhero pose with her hands on her hips and legs separated.
“Enough teasing! It’s show-off-time!” She pulled out her Society ID card from her pocket, proudly displaying it. “Ever see one of these? Isn’t it so cool?” It was transparent right now, like a sheet of glass in the size of an oversized card like a phone.
“Yeah, way cool. A piece of glass… It’ll go great in your collection. I didn’t think you collected broken windows though.” Quinn stared at it for a moment and laughed. “Did you find a pretty rock too?”
Leona scowled and booped the surface. It came to life and displayed her official identification information, complete with her portrait that was taken mysteriously of her.
That put a stop to Quinn’s snickering real quick, causing her to stare in wonderment. “Wow…” she admitted, wide-eyed, “The heck? That really is cool! I’ve never seen anything like that! It doesn’t look like anything but glass!” She snatched it and fiddled with it.
“Hey now! Don’t mess with it! It’s a security b-breach!” Leona yelped.
“I’m just interested!” She looked it over. “Does it play music?” She purred practically.
“D-does it look like it has a speaker?” Leona asked.
Quin tilted her head. “No.. it doesn’t… but…” She fiddled with it and grinned. “It’s a freaking computer! It’s more sophisticated than any I’ve seen!” She played with it and suddenly Dubstep was playing on a mental wavelength.
“Oh crap…” Leona facepalmed. Her musician sister had gotten a hold of her license card and was already playing dubstep directly into their heads.
Oblivious to Leona’s woes, Quinn continued to jam out, breaking into dance, practically naked.
Leona fell over.
One gnarly beat dropping session later, Quinn returned Leona’s card to her with a grin. “This thing is way fun, but it’s yours. I guess it’s like a phone too. And it plays in your head? Can you talk to it telepathically?”
Leona snatched it back and pouted. “No… that didn’t work. I tried. I have to talk out loud for it to hear, but I’m guessing it can beam stimuli straight to your cochlea somehow, that’s why it sounds like it’s in your head. It might have a limited AI too. Not like a personality or anything like that, but a ‘smart’ interface.” Leona pocketed it.
“They told me I could run any app from any platform, but Mistral said it’d be a huge security breach to do so. A way to track you remotely, for instance. I think I’m going to use it instead of my normal phone except for school. It’s handier and lighter than my regular smartphone. I called mom on the way home on it and the sound cancellation is amazing. Maybe it thinks about what background noises are disruptive and processes them out in advance? Anyhow, the flight from Saskatoon took just three hours.”
“It was central Canada or something like that flying back here. It’s a bit far for a casual visit, though not too bad actually. Did you know Mistral can teleport? ...Of course you do. You saw when we left, right?”
Quinn nodded and chuckled. “Seeing that had me questioning life and the ways of the world, I gotta say. Not like we don’t know there’s a ton of weird things in the universe we don’t understand, but to have one of those things show up in your kitchen... Well, you know.”
Leona followed Quinn as she went back to the house. They went their separate ways inside, and the moment Quinn headed to her room to get a towel, the heroine's new communicator beeped.
It was a text from Mistral! She blushed and peeked around and darted up to her room, resting her back against the door once it was closed.
“Yay! A message!” she squeed.
Did you make it home alright? How was the weather between Saskatoon and San Isidro?
Leona grinned and spoke, answering the message using the dictation function, “I made it with no problems. It was a fun flight! It’s so weird to not be tired after doing something like crossing like 1,500 miles… or is that how far it is in kilometers? I’m still thinking about you. I miss you already. How did class go? Good, I hope! Lots of my love! Aurora.”
She sent it happily and waited, fiddling and fidgeting.
A reply came!
Good to hear it! I’m still thinking about you too, Aurora. I still can’t help daydreaming about you from time to time. Maybe we should meet every other week?
Kyaaaaaa! She wanted to meet again! Leona practically danced. She started replying, but another mail came, interrupting before she could start dictating.
It was from Detective Kirby.
I have another possible instance of something unusual about The Padua Realignment Camp. A couple of complaints about outlandish charges and some hush money. There may be a lot here, I’ll send you an update.
Leona scowled for a moment at being interrupted, but then smiled, remembering through her euphoria that Sarah meant as much to her as Mistral. She responded quickly to his message, typing it directly into the communicator this time.
Thank you, Detective. I appreciate the info. Please keep me updated. I’ll look it over.
Just as soon as she was done, she went back to Mistral’s message and dictated the next, “That’d be nice! You’re my first girlfriend, so I don’t know how all this works. Since we’re both busy, it seems like every other week is probably the best we can do for now. I’m looking forward to the next time we hook up! I’ll be dreaming about you until then! I’ll text you if something bothers me, since I have a super experienced girlfriend now. I’m blushing so much!”
She looked it all over to make sure there weren’t any mistakes before wiggling more and hitting send.
She wanted to see Mistral more, as soon as possible. Like right now. But she couldn’t be selfish. She knew how important Mistral was to her country and she was probably going to be busy as she. As long as she also wanted to see her too, as much as her heart ached to see her love every second and her cute kitty, she thought she could be brave and okay for her new lover. Kyaaaa!