A few days later I was sitting in a café, waiting for my contact to arrive. I was early, as always in these cases: showing up late isn’t very good for business when you have to count on other people’s willingness to share information. As I waited, I reviewed what I’d managed to dig up about PowerJack on my laptop; there wasn’t much that was publicly available, but he had his own page on HeroWiki (because of course there was a Wiki on Numan heroes, there is a Wiki for everything).

PowerJack, real name unknown, age unknown.

Power rating: speed A, strength S, durability SS+.

Other known powers: flight (supersonic, top speed unknown).

First intervention (unconfirmed): June 9th, 2004.

First intervention (confirmed): July 4th, 2004.

Last intervention (confirmed): March 10th, 2009 (see also: Tragedy at Dallas).

Status: inactive.

Positions held: deputy leader, The Association (2005-2008); leader, The Association (2008-2009).

Not much to go on, honestly; but heroes were always very cagey regarding their identity and personal lives, with some exceptions, owing to the existence of some… Unsavoury types, who would exploit that knowledge for personal gain. (And groupies. Let’s not forget groupies. Many heroes had gone on record that die-hard, super-obsessed fans were absolutely insufferable, and that they were the main reason they’d never revealed their true name publicly.)

“Antonia Shaeffer?”

I looked up from my laptop at the man standing beside my table. Close-cropped hair, black but greying, brown eyes, five-foot-ten (give or take a couple inches), about forty-five to fifty. “That’s me,” I replied. “But Manuel hadn’t mentioned my contact was in the military. Air Force, if I had to guess?”

The man seemed taken aback. “How did you know?”

“You’re not even bothering to hide it. Or, if you’re trying to, you’re not very good at it.” I gestured at him. “The hair was a hint, textbook Air Force regulation. And you’re clean-shaven. You’re wearing civvies, but your posture gives it away: parade-ground straight.”

He looked at me for a few seconds, frowning, then he relaxed. “Manny wasn’t kidding. You are good.”

“I’ll take it as a compliment. Please, have a seat,” I said, closing my laptop and motioning to a chair.

He sat down at the table. “Let me introduce myself,” he said. “I’m--”

I held up a hand. “Please, no names, at least for now.” He gave me a puzzled look, and I continued, “You don’t need to establish credibility right now, and this way I cannot give your name away even if I’m forced to.” I smiled. “A good journalist always protects their sources.”

He nodded. “Alright.”

We were briefly interrupted when the waitress brought us our orders – black coffee for me, and a glass of soda for the soldier – and then we got down to business.

“So,” I said, “Manny probably mentioned I’m writing a story about PowerJack.”

The man nodded again. “That’s right. And you’re looking for any information that may help you track the bastard down.”

I blinked. This was unexpected. “Why did you call him that?”

He sighed. “My family was in Dallas, ten years ago. Mom, dad, and my big brother.”

That explained the hostility. “And can I assume they…?”

“Yeah,” he said. “They died. PowerJack killed them.”

No, he didn’t. Not according to what I’d read. Not according to all the research I’d done. But I wasn’t about to say that, or this man would be much less likely to help me. “I’m sorry,” I said instead.

“Thank you,” he replied. “I’m over it. Mostly. But I still want to see him brought to justice.”

I looked at him, considered my next words carefully. “You do know,” I said, “That he hasn’t been charged with anything? That even if I find out where PowerJack is and reveal it to the whole world, in the end he’ll still be a free man?”

The soldier nodded. “Yes, I do know that. But… There are other ways.”

What other ways? PowerJack could punch through inch-thick steel. PowerJack could run faster than most planes could fly. PowerJack could take an artillery shell to the face and not even flinch. Hell, what had happened at Dallas had proven just how strong and fast and durable he was. What could this man even hope to do to PowerJack?

“So you’re willing to help me,” I said. “What do you want in return?”

He looked at me, straight in the eyes. “When you find him--”

“If I find him,” I corrected him.

“--If you find him,” he continued, “I want ten minutes in a room with him. Alone.”

I shook my head. “I cannot promise you that,” I replied, “simply because I highly doubt I will be able to force PowerJack to do something against his will. But I can promise I’ll do my best so you can have your ten minutes.”

The soldier held my gaze, silently, for a good half minute, seemingly trying to decide if he could trust me. Then he nodded, pulled a thumbnail-sized chip out of his pocket, and placed it on the table in front of me.

A graviton-holographic memory bit; it was a relatively new technology, barely five years old, but it had revolutionised the world, quickly superseding flash memory: while incredibly inexpensive, even the smallest device like that one could hold well over a million terabytes of memory, and a single conventional-sized drive was able to hold as much as all the previous storage devices ever made combined. No one was sure how they worked exactly, or even who had developed the technology in the first place, but Numan involvement was heavily suspected.

I looked up from the device at the soldier. “What’s on it?”

“The full sigma-wave radar tracks for the whole country, for six months, starting March 10th, 2009.”

I was astonished. Sigma-wave radar had been invented some thirty years before, and while it still had some limitations (terrain was still a factor, for one), it was leaps and bounds beyond conventional radar. For one, the resolution was extremely high: the few specifications that had leaked out showed that it could detect an object the size of a baseball at a distance of several hundred kilometres. At the press conference where it was announced that every military radar station would be upgraded to sigma-wave technology the Air Force Chief of Staff had bragged: “If it flies, we’ll be able to find it.”

Needless to say, how it worked and any data that could be used to reverse-engineer it, including the radar tracks themselves, were a closely guarded military secret.

I looked down at the chip, then up at the soldier again, my eyes wide, and my voice lowered to barely above a whisper. “Is this legal?” I asked.

He shook his head, and a smirk formed on his lips. “Not even remotely,” he replied. “I could get court-martialled just for copying the data out of the mainframe.”

This guy was serious. He was putting his career, his freedom, maybe even his life, on the line, to allow me to find PowerJack.

It was a grave responsibility.

My mouth felt dry, all of a sudden. I took a sip from my coffee mug, gulped it down, then picked up the chip and slipped it into my pocket. “Thank you for your trust,” I said.

“Thank you for trying to find him,” he said. He finished his drink, then stood up. “Drinks are on me.” And he walked away.

I sat there for ten minutes more, occasionally drinking out of my mug, before leaving too. Meanwhile I’d thought about what to do with the resource I’d been given, and I knew just the right person for the job. Walking out of the café, I flagged down a taxi.

Half an hour later I was knocking with my right hand at the door to an apartment, a plastic shopping bag full of ice cream in my left hand. “Come on, Jenny,” I mumbled to myself. “I know you’re home, just open the door.”

Just as I was about to knock again a small panel in the door slid open, and a camera popped out of it. “Good afternoon,” said a synthesised voice. “Mistress Jennifer is currently indisposed. Please state your name and the reason of your visit and--”

“It’s me, Jeeves.”

The voice paused. “Good afternoon, mistress Antonia,” it said, after a couple seconds. “Mistress Jennifer is currently indisposed. Please state the reason of your--”

“She’s sleeping, isn’t she.”

“...I’m afraid so.”

“When did she go to sleep last night?”

There was another brief pause. “Mistress Jennifer didn’t go to sleep last night.”

I sighed. “At what time did she go to sleep today?”

“My records indicate that mistress Jennifer fell asleep at nine oh eight AM.”

Figures. She’d probably spent the whole night on that dumb game of hers. “Just let me in, please.”

“Mistress Jennifer doesn’t like to be disturbed when she’s sleeping. If I let you in, she’ll be very cross at me.”

I sighed again, and pinched the bridge of my nose. “How many times have we had this conversation now, Jeeves?” I said. “I’m her sister. I should be allowed to go in and check on her once in a while. Besides, you know she can’t stay mad at you for long.”

I couldn’t know what Jeeves was thinking; cameras don’t have an expression to give away their thoughts. But after a few seconds, the door buzzed and opened slightly. I pushed it all the way open, walked in, and shut it behind me.

The apartment was a mess. Bins full of electronic equipment littered the living room, leaving little space to walk around; the kitchen, on the other hand, was pristine – save for the dozen or so take-out containers, all empty, that were spread across the counter. Weaving my way through that disaster zone, I headed for the bedroom; Jenny was sleeping very soundly, I could even hear her quietly snoring.

I shook her a bit. “Come on, Jenny, wake up. Come on.”

She opened one eye and looked at me blearily. “Tonia?” she asked, her voice sleepy. “What’re you doing here?” She yawned, mouth opening wide. “What time is it?”

“About three thirty. Good afternoon, sleepyhead,” I said, smiling, and mussing her hair.

I loved my sister. Even though we were more than two decades apart in age, we were really close; I was more or less the one who raised her, since my parents were already quite old when she was born (she was an “accident”, though everyone in the family disliked the term). She’d found her niche as a freelance programmer, and she made enough money that she was able to move out to her own place at age eighteen.

Jennifer looked up at me. “Good morning, you mean,” she said, with a cheeky smirk on her lips. “Remember, whenever you wake up, it’s morning.”

“Ah, yeah, right,” I answered, still smiling.

“How did ya get in?” she asked. Then, without waiting for an answer, she raised her voice. “Jeeves!” she called. “Did you let Tonia into the house?”

Another camera popped out from a panel near the door, ringed with LED lights and pointed at us. “I did, mistress Jennifer. I’m sorry. Please don’t deactivate me.”

“I might just do that,” said Jenny. “You’ve been a baaaaaaad robo-butler.” I could tell by her voice that she was kidding, however.

“Jenny,” I said, “Do you remember you have to go to sleep at a decent hour? We’ve talked about this.”

“Buuuuuuuut,” she protested, “It was raid night last night! We finally took down Exdeath!”

I sighed. “Did you really need to pull an all-nighter, though?”

“I did,” she said, pouting. “It took us several tries. And besides, I didn’t have anything important to do today.” She paused. “Speaking of which, why are you here?”

“I need your help with something,” I said, pulling out the graviton-holographic chip and showing it to her. “There’s some data on here I need help sifting through.”

“Ah, fiiine,” she said, getting up from bed, “But it’ll cost ya!”

I lifted my left hand and showed her the bag. “This should cover it.”

She looked at me sceptically. “Chocolate chip?”

“Rocky road.”

She smiled and nodded. “Good. Let’s get started.”

She took me by the hand and dragged me out of her room, across the living room, and to her study. She clapped her hands twice. “Good morning, everyone!” she said, in an almost sing-song voice. “Good morning Archimedes! Good morning Pythagoras! Good morning Diogenes!”

The whole room lit up and started beeping; three big computer cases, set against the far wall, started shining with led lights: red, blue, and yellow.

“Yes, yes, I know it’s not technically morning, shut up, Dio,” said Jenny. “We have some work to do, so let’s get down to it!”

She took the chip from me and slotted into a drive set beside the door, then she walked forward and sat cross-legged in the middle of the room. Several screens lit up above the computer cases, and six keyboards sprung out at her, and she started typing.

And she started whistling.

No matter how many times I witnessed it, it was always amazing. By just whistling tuneless sounds on a seven-note scale, she was seemingly able to communicate with her computers. What’s more, with their incessant beeping, the computers were talking back at her.

“Hmmm, yes, I see,” Jennifer said, as an apparently meaningless jumble of numbers and letters appeared on the screens. “There’s a lot here. Now, what should we look for?”

Realising she was talking to me, I took a few steps forward, and placed my hand on her shoulder. “An object. Lifting off from Dallas at about eleven AM on March 10th. See if you can track it.”

“What size?” she asked.

I thought a bit. “Let’s say… Between a hundred and three hundred pounds.”

Jenny gave me a puzzled look, but resumed typing and whistling. Soon a map of the United States appeared on one of the screens, with a timestamp in the upper right corner, and a blip centred over Dallas.

“Got it,” said Jennifer. The blip on the screen started moving, heading north-west, towards Colorado. “It’s fast,” she said. “About Mach one point eight, I’d say, travelling at… Fifty thousand feet? What the hell is this thing?”

We kept looking at the screen, following the track as it passed west of Denver. “It’s going lower,” Jenny said, as the signal entered Wyoming. “Almost to the ground. We might get some interference from the mountains… Ah, yep. Lost it.”

“Where?” I asked.

“Yellowstone, more or less.”

I sighed. “Any way you can narrow it down?”

Jenny shook her head. “I doubt it. I can keep looking through the data, see if it shows up again, but it could be just about anywhere between there and Canada, seeing how fast it was...” she drifted off, listening to the beeping that filled the room. “Wait, let me try something.”

She started whistling and typing again, and the map on the screen started lighting up with dots. “Good,” she said. “Thank you, Archie.”

“What am I looking at?” I asked.

“All of those are cities that have gunfire locators set up in their streets,” she replied. “It’s a system used to--”

“Detect gunfire and locate it,” I said, nodding. “I know. I’m a journalist, remember. How does that help us?”

“See, Thago had an idea.” (Wait, computers have ideas now?) “Ze thought that since that thing was travelling so fast, it was sure to leave a sonic boom in its wake, which could be picked up by...” she paused, and looked at me expectantly.

“...Gunfire locators,” I said. “Excellent idea, Thago. Thank you.”

I heard a beeping that didn’t fit in with the rest of the noise pattern, and Jenny said, “Thago says you’re welcome. So now I’m downloading all the data from the police precincts in the area around where that thing went to ground.”

For the second time that day, I found myself asking: “Is this legal?”

“Eeeeeehhhhh,” Jennifer replied, waving her hand dismissively. “Not quite? But don’t worry, Dio is good about this stuff, we won’t get caught.

She tapped and whistled a bit more, and finally an area on the map, in south-west Montana, lit up in red. It still covered a few towns, but it was a start.

“There. That’s as much as I can narrow it down.”

“Thank you, you’ve been a big help. And thank you Dio, Archie, and Thago.” There was some beeping. “Don’t eat the ice cream all at once,” I said, turning to leave.

“Are you going out there?” asked Jenny.

“I am,” I nodded. “I’ll tell you what this was all about when I get back. But first, I have another stop to make.”

 

To be continued in: THE INTERVIEW