Acadian: The links I provided were just the tip of the iceberg of my research for the B-52 and its crew. All the airmen's names are of RL B-52 crew members. Things like the oven heating food to ice cold or burnt, or heating cubes of steak in a cup and eating it off your clipboard at your station - all that is from statements by B-52 crew.
The concept of things going from bad to worse to disastrous was my intent as I wrote it. I wanted to show a situation that went totally out of anyone's control, until it was a total catastrophe.
Rook definitely did not escape. We will eventually circle back to him and Keep 19 near the end of the book, when the story finally reaches their final resting place.
I kind of forgot about the North Atlantic in winter until my final edits, when I glanced back at the date and realized it was January. I think I first learned about North Atlantic winters watching old WW2 documentaries about the Battle of the Atlantic. Some of the pictures of ships sailing through its storms were just harrowing.
Renee: There was no official bathroom built into the plane back in 1961. The engineers who designed it had not thought of that. But a couple options were added. One was a metal or wooden box that you sat on and pooped into, with a plastic bag inside. The other was a plastic cup stuck into a tube in the wall. The current versions have an actual toilet built in now.
Rook is not a sociopath. He's egotistical, and isolated from people, but he's not completely heartless. Very few people really are actual sociopaths, something like 1 or 2% of folks. Usually you need to work people up with propaganda and hate-speech to get them to kill others. Or just put them in a situation where they panic and stop thinking. The latter is where Rook falls. He thought he could be a cool supervillain without having to get his hands dirty. Obviously it was not the only thing he did not put a great deal of thought into.
WellTemperedClavier: At first I was kind of dumbfounded when it came to thinking of how the Allies would refurnish the Raven's Nest. Then I thought of the depiction of the Bat Cave in the comics, with the giant penny, the T-Rex, and the Joker card. So I decided to go the same route, and start filling it with trophies and memorabilia. So disused super suits, the early warning poppets, the shards of Y Ddraig Aur, and the like. There will probably be lots more team photos going forward, since they often have extra allies helping out in the big battles.
Rook is completely new. The real bird is from the corvid family, just like ravens, crows, magpies, and the like. So he does share a corvid inclination. But that is his only connection to January and Blood Raven. Unless... Now I have an idea... So far at least, his father was in the military, and was a veteran of WW2 and Korea. I am thinking he died in Korea. I picture his old man as being incredibly toxic, probably because he was carrying around a lot of trauma from his war experiences.
I was originally going to name-drop Chrome Dome. But my research uncovered that it did not start until about six months after this incident. It was one of many such airborne alert missions. They all did essentially the same thing though. It is just the one that got most famous.
Primordial Air is from WoW? I did not know that. I was inspired by the True Elements from Earthdawn, which sound like the same idea. They are the magical elements in their purest forms. I just wanted to use a different name.
I did find one account of a B-52 losing its tail fin and landing safely six hours later. But I also found others where it caused them to crash and kill most of the crew.
I had to dig to find the Micky Mantle reference. I went through lists of home run kings in the 50s and 60s. My original thought was going to be Roger Maris. But I think he would be too obscure for most people to recognize. And his really big year was after this took place.
I did play Undying. I loved it! Especially when you go to the ruined monastery and read about how it was destroyed by a monster. Then you go back in time and find out that
you were that monster! Good times. The arcane shield is really similar to the one in that game. Basically a personal force field that you create with one hand.
Your observations on the differences between Aitken and Rook are what I was going for. Aitken had no clue what was going on. But he was a experienced professional. Instead of panicking he fell back on his training and experience, and did the things he could to deal with each emergency as they happened. While Rook just panicked and acted on instinct and made things worse and worse.
Rook is not
alive. But he will appear again near the end of the book, when January and company reach the final resting place of Keep 19.
Pic of Belle Isle and the Detroit RiverPic of Belle Isle south-western Tip (where the battle took place)Ope!David Bowie - Space Oddity (Ground Control to Major Tom)The Weather Girls - It's Raining MenRose Royce - Car Wash Book 12.3 - Broken ArrowAugust 8, 2019
January stood upon Belle Isle once more. She had not been here since she and Blood Raven had spoken with the governor there. Afterward they had taken part in a press conference to explain what had taken place in the apocalyptic battle there the previous night. A full month had passed since then. Now January was back to rebuild what had been destroyed, at least as best as she was able.
Thankfully she was not alone. The rest of the Great Lakes Alliance was on hand, so too the Daughters of the Raven, the Sentinels from Chicago, even Isaac in his mech the
Fred Hampton. These worthies had in turn reached out to others whom they knew, and brought with them even more capes from around the globe. It was not quite the Army of Light that had gathered to repel the Abyssal onslaught a month before. But it was still an awesome assemblage of might in one place and time. Only Blood Raven was conspicuous by her absence.
January and most of the others busied themselves with gathering up chunks of broken concrete and marble. It had once belonged to the streets and parking lots that had crisscrossed the south-western end of the island. Now it was nothing but shattered boulders and dust, mixed with equally damaged bricks, cinderblocks, and other materials from the buildings that had been destroyed in the fight.
There had been a few structures on the western shore that flanked the bridge to the mainland, such as the Belle Isle Boathouse, the harbormaster, and a utility building. Now they were nothing but rubble. The Flynn Pavilion on the eastern side of the island had likewise been annihilated, along with the nearby Nancy Brown Peace Carillon tower. The same fate had befallen many smaller structures such as shelters and public bathrooms scattered about the now barren landscape.
Of the Belle Isle Casino there was simply nothing left. Nátthrafn had created his gateway there, and the event space had been entirely consumed by the portal. Not even ashes or dust remained. It had vanished entirely from this world. Clearly, it had hosted the greatest event in its existence. Left behind in its wake was a deep crater gouged out by the Abyss itself. It was the largest of all the cavities that now pocked the moonscape of the island's south-western end. It looked to January like a giant ice cream scoop had simply gouged it out from the earth below.
She did not miss it. That had been the site of the Hierophant's summoning ritual. He had tried to kill her there, and unwittingly met his own end instead. It was not a place January would ever want to visit again. Just thinking about it sent her heart into overdrive, and turned her blood to ice. His screams echoed in her ears, and her nostrils were smothered in the stench his blood.
The sound of someone whistling broke her from her reverie. She looked up to find Gadget standing before her. Like all the others, he was fully caped up. In his case that meant a suit of powered armor that glowed faintly blue with ionic energy. That suit was now stained brown and gray with dirt and dust, and he held a massive chuck of marble in his hands.
"Ground Control to Major Tom," Gadget said, "you in there?"
"Ope..." January muttered in a most Michigan way. "Just wool-gathering I guess."
She lifted up another block of shattered marble and tossed it into the massive industrial dumpster nearby. The rectangular bin stretched over a hundred feet long, and was taller than January. Its dented iron walls were painted green, except where that had chipped away to reveal rusted metal beneath.
Her eyes moved away to gaze across the torn up landscape around her. It was dotted with craters and pits. Everything living had been burnt to a charred black mess. Not a single tree or blade of grass remained. She stood in what had once been a massive pond at the very south-western tip of the island. Its water had boiled away under the A-10's airstrike, not to mention all the subsequent energies that had been unleashed throughout the battle.
Nearby lay the James Scott Memorial Fountain. Rather than a single reservoir of water, it had once been a sprawling assemblage of fountains, basins, channels and steps. Now only broken white marble scattered around the tortured landscape remained to hint of its former existence.
Thankfully there were no bodies. Abyssals faded from reality when they died. Being from another universe, they could not manifest on Earth without some magical force maintaining them. They were literally made of the Outside, and obeyed Outside laws of nature that were congruent with existence in this reality. Otherwise January could not have imagined what a ghastly sight - or smell - the place would have been. Especially given the hot summer sun that blazed high in the sky overhead.
Belle Isle looked every inch the battlefield it had been. But amidst all the destruction a ray of hope shone through, bright as the sun. It was Y Ddraig Aur of course. The golden dragon rose up hundreds of feet above the ruins of the fountain. Her image radiated heat and light, like a bonfire that had been pressed into solid form. January did not have to deliberately sense into astral space to feel her power. It was so omnipresent that no magician could possibly miss it. It was like standing next to a star.
Beyond the dragon lay more fields of devastation. Then about a third of the way up the island all that stopped. Trees once more rose up into the sky, and green grass blanketed the earth. The glass walls of the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservancy glinted whole and unharmed under the hot summer sky. So too did the giant, wavy slide nearby it, and the historic police station. The latter looked like a fairy tale castle with its stone walls and pointed turrets. On the eastern shore of the island the Dossin Great Lakes Museum likewise still stood tall, just beyond the terminus of devastation.
January knew from the after action reports that Cray had gathered, that Blackhawk and Blood Raven had held that section of the island in the very beginning. The First Nations heroine's force fields had kept the Abyssals back, and protected it from the firepower unleashed upon the rest of the island. Then Blood Raven had used the Abyssal's own blood to annihilate them. That accounted for the clear line of demarcation between wasteland and pristine earth. They had literally drawn a line in the sand which the invaders could not cross.
Granted, the Abyssals had not been too intent upon taking this territory. There was nothing in the north-eastern section of the island but more parkland. The real prize had been the bridge. It was the only way off the island and onto the mainland beyond. The Abyssals had concentrated their efforts there, so Blackhawk had followed them to join Isaac in his mech and his sidekick Archie there. Once the odds had shifted and reinforcements had arrived, she and the other mundane members of the military and local civilians had held the crossing. In the meantime Blood Raven and the rest of the supers - January included - had struck inland to deal with the gateway itself.
"So where's the Rock of Belle Isle?" Lighthammer asked, referring to the First Nations heroine by her new nickname. Like the others, he too was gathering up rubble and depositing it within a massive 50 yard dumpster of rusty metal.
"She's with the Technocrat, they're fixing up the last of the bridge."
January turned to see Kaelin walk up. The green-haired trans woman was not pitching in directly. She was an alchemist, not an actual superheroine. But she did have a platter of cool drinks that was more than welcome. January joined the others to knock back a glass of the green, vaguely glowing liquid. She immediately felt the weariness in her limbs vanish, to be replaced by a feeling of boundless vigor and energy.
"Ahh, the old restore fatigue special," Avery said with an appreciative sigh. "That hits the spot."
"I thought there'd be beer," Lighthammer groused. "I have never fixed anything without beer."
"Come by the Aura later Lightguy, and Harper will pour you one personally," Kaelin insisted. "I just finished a batch of pale lager that would make a Bohemian brewer envious."
"Preach it sister!" Cleveland's resident superhero grinned.
Soon they had filled the massive industrial dumpster with broken marble, stone, bricks, and other rubble. Stinger from the Sentinels flew over via a pair of insect wings that sprouted from the back of her armor. She trailed a net over the entire bin, and took care so that it draped down the sides to the ground all around. Afterward she turned her head to the computer at her wrist. After a few taps on its control panel, a bright flash of energy rolled through the net and surrounded the entire dumpster with green light. It flashed brightly for a moment, and then both the entire container and net vanished.
No, not vanished entirely. They had simply shrunk down so small that January had not seen them at first. Now they were just a few inches across, and easily fit into the palm of the Chicagoan super's hand. She lifted the miniature dumpster up and gave a wave as she flew off to the Technocrat's flying wing, which hovered overhead nearby.
She passed by her husband Zero Point, who exited the futuristic craft even as she entered it. He wore a suit of white, gray, and silver powered armor. He produced a tiny dumpster in the palm of his hand. It looked like a child's toy. He tossed it down, and it instantly grew to full size in all its dented and rusted glory. It likewise was sheathed in another of those energy nets, which he proceeded to pull off and bundle up in his arms.
"So does he really have a matter convertor in there?" Gadget asked the other tech hero.
He nodded to the sleek flying wing in the sky above. Its gleaming hull possessed a lozenge shape, from which a pair of wings stretched out to either side to form a diamond. A silvery glass canopy filled its rounded nose, and a wide storage bay yawned open at its stern. It had no visible engines to hold it aloft. But the air seemed to shimmer around it like the heat-haze from a highway, as if spacetime had been altered there to maintain its presence.
"Absolutely," Zero Point replied. "It's the prototype Janos created to deal with all the plastics and other garbage that he and Calypso are pulling from the oceans. That garbage rune you guys came up with is really doing the trick from what I hear. This convertor is small. But he is going to be building a full size one on Haiti to process all of the trash from the Atlantic."
"How does it work?" Gadget asked.
"It reduces molecules down to their constituent elements. So toss a refrigerator in there, and you will get ingots of iron, aluminum, copper, and the like out of it. The shrinking tech that Stinger and I use reduces it in size for mass storage. They can later be enlarged and sold off to pay for the entire operation, and more. This ought to do good things for the economy of Haiti." Zero Point waved for Gadget to join him. "Come on, I will show you."
"I guess one man's trash really is another man's treasure," Lighthammer mused.
With that Gadget and Zero Point jetted off to disappear into the back of the flying wing. Kaelin moved on to take her refreshments to the next group of supers toiling under the sun. A quick glance showed that it was the rest of the Sentinels from Chicago, along with Harper. The magical mixologist had summoned her magic hand spell, and was using the giant appendage to scoop up massive chunks of rubble.
January's eyes drifted from them to the waters surrounding the island. While it was still closed off to the public, hundreds of boats dotted the river to the west and south. They came in all sizes, from tiny one person kayaks, to large cabin cruisers. They loitered around the shore, and their occupants watched on with curiosity and amazement as the capes went about their work. In addition news helicopters buzzed overhead. So too did occasional drones. Not the military kind that carried weapons, but the smaller civilian types that recorded video.
A coast guard cutter kept the shipping channel to the east clear for the massive freighters that occasionally meandered down the Detroit River. January recognized it as the Bristol Bay. It was the same ship that had been present at the Battle of Gull Island, and later the fight here at Belle Isle.
Or was it a boat instead of a ship? January had no idea. All she did know was that the nautically-inclined did seem to get pedantic about the difference.
In any case the vessel had taken a beating in both fights. January had fought an Abyssal in its engine rooms at Gull Island, after it had punched a hole clear though the vessel's hull. At the following battle here at Belle Isle it had been thrown up onto the Canadian shore. But Blackhawk - the Rock of Belle Isle - had repaired it with her electromagnetic powers each time.
"We need to pick things up," Lighthammer called out. "Play us a tune on that fancy wrist watch you got there."
January obliged, and punched her fingers upon the Sága's computer screen. In no time at all the Weather Girls were singing about men raining from the sky. That picked up everyone's spirits. Gadget came flying back and turned on his suit's PA system. He synced it up with Sága so that they both belted out the classic post-disco song in stereo. In moments they were all dancing as they chucked rubble into the newest dumpster.
The day passed quickly, thanks to more ebullient music and occasional refreshments provided by Kaelin. The sun stood at its zenith when January and company finally completed their task of cleaning up. So too had the other groups of heroes spread across the south-western end of the island.
By this time the MacArthur Bridge to the mainland had also been fully restored to its original state, thanks to the engineering work of Janos Heisen and Blackhawk. The Bailey Bridge that had been temporarily put up there had likewise been hauled away to the American side of the river, ready to be broken down and hauled away by the US Army.
Now January and the others looked behind them, to see that the areas they had cleared earlier had been entirely transformed. Craters and pits had vanished, to be replaced by smooth, gently rolling hills. Dirt and ash had been replaced with a carpet of green grass that blanketed the landscape. Trees that now grew all about in small copses. Flowers bloomed beneath them, and bees buzzed among the flourishing plant life.
The small stream that had flowed through the island above the old Belle Isle Casino had been restored, as was the pond it emptied into near the eastern shores of the island. The massive crater that had been left behind in the wake of the event space had been filled in with earth, and now it was an open green field.
Through all of this the Gaia Sisters worked their magic. They were quite a trio, all literally different colors and sizes. One had stony gray skin, long black hair, and a slender, almost bony frame. Another was vibrant green in color, with scarlet red hair and a plump, round frame. The last was a rich shade of umber, with yellow tresses and a curvy body.
They spread out in a line, and reminded January of an old time farmer planting seeds. They tossed small pebbles to the ground as they walked forward. She felt tremendous raw power bound up within these little stones that they were planting within Belle Isle's blasted earth. Mana flowed from the sisters and down to these mystical seeds. Their will and power awakened the prodigious energy stored within them, and turned it loose upon the landscape around them.
Everywhere the sisters walked, the broken, blasted land blossomed with life and vigor. Grass sprouted up in long green shoots, and even bushes and trees rose up to tower above the landscape. Craters and rents in the landscape smoothed over into gentle rolling hills, and flowers bloomed under the blistering August sun.
January switched her awareness into the astral to get a better sense of what they were doing. Those seeds of earth they were planting were the first thing that caught her attention. They not only radiated energy, but purity, perhaps even a certain sort of perfection. Each was a magical ideal made reality.
What archetype these particular seeds represented was clear. January could feel it as solid as stone, firm under her feet. She could smell it as rich loam in her nostrils. She could sense it as moist soil on her fingers. They were the element of earth in its purest distillation.
January recognized this from her study of the
Scripta Mortis. The ancient magical tome had explained how all of the elements could be found in these primordial forms. Often they were used in enchanting to imbue an item with their unique properties. Or a magician could use them to perform extraordinary spellcraft, as the Gaia Sisters demonstrated before January's eyes.
The primordial earth did not act upon its own. It was the will of the three sisters that imbued it within the land below, and transformed it into the living, breathing landscape they left in their wake. Their mana flowed through the elemental earth, activated it, and used it to remake the world around it.
How they could maintain the pace was readily evident to January. For Silverlight walked behind them. The marble-skinned superheroine held her lunar staff aloft. As ever, its stone head was a duplicate of the moon overhead. Today that meant it showed a first quarter face, with the right half of its disc shining white, while its other side lay dark and dormant.
January focused intently upon Silverlight's staff, named Mene. She could sense that the rough and pitted white stone on its head did not just look like the moon. It was an actual rock from the moon. Even though it had been physically removed from the lunar surface, it was still part of that celestial body. That was Sympathetic Magic 101: things that had once been in contact remained so even after being separated.
As such it continued to pull raw magical power directly from the moon overhead. Silverlight drew down this endless font of energy, and poured it into the three women in front of her. This was accomplished through a ritual link that January could sense Silverlight had formed with the Gaia Sisters.
The mages in the Army of Light had done the very same thing during the Battle of Belle Isle. That was the only way they could supply Blood Raven with the power that she needed to undo the gateway to the Abyss. In today's case the energy from the statuesque wizard's staff provided the three sisters with a literally bottomless well of power to work their magic with.
"Now that is something you do not see every day," Ôkami said what January imagined everyone must have been thinking.
"The Gaia Sisters are old friends of mine," Riven said.
The San Franciscan heroine came over along with Calypso. Where the rest of them were dirty, sweaty, and disheveled, the two women were soaking wet. But clean. They looked like they had just stepped from the shower. Given that Calypso was the Mistress of the Waves, one did not have to imagine who was responsible for that.
"I'll introduce you once they're done," Riven went on. "We go way back. They live in a commune up in Oregon, and don't come down to the big city much. They aren't really capes like us. I mean, they don't go around punching bad guys. But they do have a way with nature."
In the meantime Calypso gave them all a bath, thanks to the water she was able to summon from the head of her own staff: Bagua. Gadget cued up an old song about working at the car wash. That brought a smile to January's face.
"You should try taking your armor through an actual car wash," she told him.
"Well, I could always use a wax and underbody flush..." the powered armor hero mused.
"That sounds kind of personal..." Lighthammer coughed.
Soon enough Kaelin was there with more refreshing drinks. They all relaxed in the light of Y Ddraig Aur, and just kicked back and enjoyed the moment. January had to admit, it had been a good day.
"You know, we're going to have to start calling this the Dragon City, instead of the Motor City." Riven looked up at the brilliant image of Y Ddraig Aur overhead.
"I hear some people want to rename the Lions to the Dragons," Gadget mused.
"They should try winning a game first..." January snorted.
"It would seem that the Gaia Sisters have finished their work," Calypso noted. January also saw that she stood next to Lighthammer, very right next to Lighthammer. The Lightguy himself appeared to have noticed as well, given the smile that beamed from his features.
January looked out over the newly reclaimed landscape, and saw that the Bahamian was correct. The once blasted and tortured earth was now completely healed of its scars. In fact, nothing remained to show of the battle, save for Y Ddraig Aur herself. She loomed over all like a great spectral guardian. None of the old buildings had been rebuilt, nor streets, or parking lots, or the once great fountain beneath the dragon. But the land itself had been restored, and was now green and filled with life again. It was a blank - but living - slate upon which anything might be constructed, if at all.
The three sisters came their way with Silverlight in tow. The gray cloaked wizard rested her staff on one shoulder now, and magic no longer flowed from it to the nature Witches. The faces of all four were drawn with fatigue, and Silverlight herself yawned audibly as they approached. Kaelin was quick to meet them with her party cups and refreshments, and all eyes brightened once they had a chance to sample her restorative libations.
"Just a warning, they're a little weird," Riven mouthed under her breath. "Don't stare."
"We greet you warmly," said the first sister. Her skin was stony gray, and her long hair was night black obsidian.
"We watched you all battle with the Outsiders a month past," said the second. Her skin was lush green, and her hair was copper fire.
"Our world remains due to your courage," intoned the third. Her umber tones were complemented by a soft golden mane.
Riven had been right, they were weird. Their eyes all had a distinct unblinking stare to them, as if they were gemstones. Their voices all sounded eerily similar, as if one speaker used multiple throats. But January would not have described them as unearthly. It was quite the opposite. It was almost as if the Earth itself spoke through them. Arthur Machen might say that they had seen the Great God Pan, or perhaps were the children of one who had.
January had also raised her magical theory skill enough to recognize the significance of the number three that they represented. The Norns had likewise been a triplicity of Witches, the same with Medusa and her sister Gorgons. Baba Yaga was sometimes described as three sisters. Hekate, the Greek goddess of magic and death was sometimes depicted in sculpture as literally three goddess joined at their backs. And of course the Triple Goddess was a central facet to modern Witchcraft.
"I, um, well, you're welcome," January spoke for everyone. "Thank you so much for coming out to help us. It means a lot, what you did here."
"Yeah, you chicas rock," Viuda's voice rang out from behind them. January glanced back briefly to see that the Puerto Rican superheroine had joined them, along with Harper, the Sentinels, Janos Heisen, and the rest of the supers.
"We are pleased..." said the first sister.
"...our reason for being..." intoned the second.
"...is to serve the Green," said the third.
"Well, anyone else who wants to get served can come to the Aura for another after party." Harper grinned. "Drinks are on the house!"
January found that this superhero after party was a bit less bombastic and enthusiastic than the one that had followed the Battle of Belle Isle. Everyone was a little worn out from the morning's toil under the hot sun. Even superheroes had their limits after all. But January suspected that it was mainly the fact that they had not just narrowly escaped death this time, or faced the near destruction of their world. There was a lot to be said for the adrenaline and euphoria created by nearly dying to make one appreciate life after all.
Still, it was genuinely fun to hang out with her new extended family of capes.
As before January shied away from any alcohol, even beer. Gadget and Ôkami had no qualms about doing so, though the latter nursed a single mug through the entire afternoon. Blackjack had been buying brewskies for the Knights of Nerddom for years after all. Thanks to his full beard, no one ever thought to card him at party stores.
January had never been on the best terms with alcohol however. It tasted terrible. She could never understand how other people could actually enjoy the stuff, let alone debate the tastes, and undertones, and notes, of various beers or ales or wines. It was all just... too strong for her. Not to mention she had no resistance to it at all. She knew from experience that one beer would have her half way to being completely drunk, if not all the way.
Now that she knew she possessed a vulnerability to poisons she understood why. Clearly that weakness extended to alcohol, as well as more exotic toxins such as Abyssal venom. So instead she relegated herself to Fae Cola, like a good Faegallo. Though granted, she had heard they often spiked theirs with vodka or LSD.
Still, the party was fun. There were darts to be thrown, music to dance to, both magical and scientific theories to argue, and beer cups to pong, among other things. It was refreshing just to meet, and hang out with the rest of her extended community of capes without there being some sort of battle going on at the same time. Some of them she had grown up admiring, like the Veil from the Sentinels. Others she was meeting for the first time, such as the Gaia Sisters.
Calypso introduced her to the Technocrat, whom she quietly reminded her to refer to as Janos. That was what he preferred, thank you very much. But she did not really know what to say. She felt like she knew the man backwards and forwards, thanks to the four part podcast series on him that her mother Barbara had just presented. But once you were there, in front of the man who was part hero, part villain, and one of the greatest minds and metas in the world, well, words just failed you.
"It is my distinct honor to meet you young lady," he said, ever the Avarican gentleman.
"I... uh... um... it's nice to meet you too," was about all January could force out in reply.
A note from Sága came to her rescue. She glanced down to the digital assistant at her wrist, and saw that a voice mail had been forwarded to it from her personal phone. The latter was sitting at home, as it always was when she was suited up. Even with the GPS disabled and camera and microphones locked out from apps to use, there was no point taking chances with operational security after all.
Even with the earpiece built into her helmet it was not easy to hear the message. Not with the music that blared through the club's sound system, or the dozens of voices all competing to be heard above the din. But she could tell that it was from her mother. She was just checking in to tell her that she was with her new campaign manager: Frank Wigand, and was going to his place. Of course January knew that he was actually Cray, even if her mother did not. That explained why the hacker was not at the party.
That all seemed good. It was a little weird, but good nonetheless. She had wanted to get to know Cray better. Having him in her family's life as a civilian was a good way to do that, probably better than trying to do so in her cape life. The latter was all business. Even with Blackhawk and Lighthammer, they rarely just hung out and vibed like now. Instead they usually only met on missions or training exercises on Green Island in Lake Erie.
Speaking of Lighthammer, January noted that Cleveland's finest - and only - superhero had taken his prosthetic leg off. Peggy Mark II was what he liked to call it. With Peggy gone, his left leg now abruptly ended just below the knee. He massaged the stump from the old amputation. He moved so well that January often forgot that he was in fact handicapped. January imagined that a hard day's manual labor was not easy for him, not even given that he could fly to somewhat offset his disability.
January saw that Janos Heisen had taken note of the same. For the seven foot tall master of robotics walked over and introduced himself to the former USAF pilot. They began to talk, though January could not hear their words over the rest of the background noise in the bar. Given how the Technocrat gestured to the prosthetic on the floor beside Lighthammer, she could guess it had something to do with that however.
January heard her name, and looked around to see that Silverlight had called her. She went over to speak with her about setting up a new training session with all the Raven Sisters. In the meantime January turned off Sága without hearing the ending of her mother's message,
* * *
Am I reading that right? Yep, underneath her robe was a crate or a box. In a way this is way cooler than any smartphone. 
So it won't be him. Besides, they would not possibly endanger civilians like that. It will have to be one of the supes who takes the drink. 
Eesh, that's so scary. True, though. Even my cheapie flip phone is not immune. 
that's pretty bold. 
How would the plane know the difference? 
Love the cliffhanger at the end. Now... time to find out what happened with Jeval and Treads.
But since that took place in 1961, Somehow that ties into Broken Arrow.
It's like when two famous actors date & marry. Sometimes that's all they can date, is someone who's in the same profession as themselves. 
Never heard "it slaps" though. Wonder if that's a Michigan/Midwest term, sort of like "wicked" belongs to New England. 
But because of some tweaking and the way economy really works, we still are, somehow. 