Chapter Text
-5 years ago-
In an estimated sixty seconds the download would complete. Edwin Alva watched with passive disdain from an observation window just outside of the room for the supercomputer he’d spent several billion dollars to build. A computer that no one has been able to use for the past two weeks because it's been stuck downloading some virus and all attempts to debug it or unplug it have been met with bizarre and unlikely electrocutions.
Forty seconds until completion. Granted, Alva was rather curious as to just what kind of computer virus could trump the best computer programmers in the world. He knew it couldn’t be the Russians since he’d gotten them and the Chinese to program the thing in the first place. And it sure as hell couldn’t be the government. Between him and Lex Luthor, they owned the government outright. And Luthor was far too obsessed with Superman to split resources to fight an equal in the business.
Twenty seconds now. A panic broke out in the computer room. The doors were apparently bolted shut. He could see from his vantage point that the people trying the door handles getting shocked for their troubles. Alva sent a call to the guards to get the battering ram but it was unlikely that they would make it before the countdown finished. Not that the health and safety of his employees concerned him all that much, they were infinitely replaceable.
Program XANA download complete! The screens for the supercomputer glitched out for several seconds before displaying a symbol that looked a lot like a cross between an eye and target on a blank bluescreen of death. Sparks flew from the machine and a thick purple fog filled the room. Then the power went out.
The power went out all over the city.
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-Present-
“I can’t believe that you were planning to do this all by yourself,” Maggie said as she gently rubbed a healing salve over her son’s stitches, the old springs of his bed creaking as she moved around. He could actually feel his wounds healing as she applied it. Man what a killing this magic stuff could make on the market. “How would you even hide it?”
Richie half turned his head from where he was reading her spellbook, “Mom. I’m a teenager and recently went through a traumatic experience. I was definitely not thinking about what happened after I cut myself open and tinkered with my insides.”
His mom laughed and fell to lay beside him on his queen-sized bed. “That’s fair. Hell, you aren’t half as impulsive as I was at your age.”
“I was about to say I doubt that but then I remembered the whole witch thing. And the eloping. And dad’s some kind of fairy right?”
“Your father would have an aneurysm if you called him a fairy but yes. At least, he’s part fairy.”
“No wonder he’s a jerk.”
“To be fair, his werewolf cousins on the ‘Blue’ Foley side are decent, lovely people and they’ve got about as much fairy blood as him. He’s just ...him.”
Her son turned to the section in her spellbook on transformations. “So, um, the werewolf thing. You really think I’m gonna be one? How does werewolfing even work? Is it like the movies? Which movies tho? I get that they’re plenty of different interpretations of the werewolf and--”
“I mean you do have all the signs for it.” Maggie cut Richie off from his ramble. At his incredulous look, she continued, “You’ve certainly got the appetite and the right ancestry. And I can feel it in your magic alongside that touch for technology, The Constructed. Don’t believe that hairy palms and unibrows stuff. The only way people back in the middle ages ever found out a real werewolf was if they saw ‘em change. And even then most of those were wizards, not werewolf werewolves.”
Over from his desk where his computer sat, BacPac paused in his reading of the programming from the devices and nanites removed from his body to confirm what his mother said. The little droid even sent a few scholarly pirated sources through their mental link. A lot of werewolf serial killers and cattle mutilations in that info.
“Aren’t werewolves dangerous tho?”
Maggie looked him dead in the eye, “Anyone can be dangerous fangs or no. Don’t count yourself short Richie, you are a good kid.”
She ruffled his hair. “As for now, you need to rest up and heal. I’ll go make you some soup.”
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By the time Friday rolled around Richie was feeling a lot better. His surgery scars were mostly faded. And he’d managed to do a very good job of repressing his feelings about the whole being possessed for a week by a homicidal alien computer program thing. In fact, he had a lot to look forward to now that he could give himself all the cool superpowers he’s ever wanted. And with his mom’s help, the protective wards he and BacPac were designing meant that he might never have to worry about getting turned into a meat puppet ever again! Honestly, who knows just how powerful he could become with magic and tech on his side!
[That was a bit supervillain-ish, no?] BacPac said to him as it rode on his scooter disguised as a grey, one-eyed cat. The droid wanted to be a spider, but Richie managed to convince him that was incredibly conspicuous. Even in Dakota people would stop and stare at a spider the size of a cat just existing.
“Ok, maybe. But it’s true,” Richie replied. He hadn’t meant it in a supervillain way. “Going up a few superweight classes is great for the Gear brand.”
[Perhaps,] The bot said thoughtfully, [ But the road to the dark side is paved by an excess of ambition.]
“C’mon BP the last thing I want to do is be a bad guy.”
The rest of the way to the TriCorner Chartreuse Richie could feel BacPac’s critical gaze boring into the back of his head. In the daytime, the bar acted as a recreation center and cafeteria. While Wise Son was frankly, a terrifying gangster, he was perhaps the most civic-minded one Richie had ever personally met. Like Al Capone in the days of yore, Wise cared about his people and his community. Granted his methods ranged from free breakfasts for the needy to organizing charity events with his mosque to a terrifying amount of bullets into neo-nazis and dirty cops. Richie was very surprised didn’t include his dad, apparently, Sean took his job seriously for all of the racist hogwash the man spewed at home for most of Rachie’s life.
“Come in.” Richie entered the office with BacPac close on his heels. Inside sat Wise Son at his desk doing some kind of paperwork, a little old lady in a feather coat on one of the couches, AquaMaria on a cheap plastic lawn chair, and a Francis on a metal stool very pointedly not looking at him. On the wall to the side was a massive board of pictures of people, places, and drawings connected by strings and sticky notes. He politely decided to pay no mind to the board and took the seat next to the old lady in front of the desk. BacPac on the other hand made sure to record the information since like any good Muslim Wise Son liked cats he likely wouldn’t draw too much attention. And just looking at him Wise seemed to be the ‘too cool to be soft’ type so hopefully, he wouldn’t try to pet the disguised robot.
“Hey boss, how’s it going?” Richie said nervously as he took a seat.
Without looking up from his paperwork, Wise Son said. “‘Sup.”
Wise let them stew in silence for exactly ten minutes. The entire time Hotstreak refused to look his way. It eventually dawned on Richie that snitching didn’t count with gang leaders and all the dread that he’s managed to shake off came flooding back. And the old woman staring at him like he was a particularly interesting bug did not help.
“Twinkletoes, do you know why I called you in?” Wise said finally taking his nose out of his files to look at them, breaking the silence but not the tension.
“Because I need to start pulling my own weight for the TriCorners?”
“Damn right.” The thick heavy gold rings on Wise’s hands clinked ominously as he did paperwork. “And what do I want from you, Hotstreak?”
“You want me to get off my ass and back working the street with a crew.”
“That is also correct. You’ve had a long enough vacation.” It said something about Wise Son that he didn’t even flinch at the pyro’s white-eyed glare. So Richie made the note that the man was probably fireproof, given like the rest of the Tri-Corners he was probably also a Bang Baby. Either that or trusted that Francis was scared enough of him to sit pretty and play nice. “Now you three youngins are gonna work together from now on as ya own little sub-crew. I don’t care what you call yourselves so long as it’s something dignified. I don’t care if you add more members. I do want you to work on a few projects for me and the betterment of this city.”
Wise Son gestured at the old woman, “Mama Benu will help you. She’s a conjure woman, she does magic and knows a lot about our strange little city and its secrets. You probably haven’t seen her work, but she’s the reason Anubis can still go to his classes without causing a panic. Aquamaria, If you interested she can hook you up.”
He closed the files on his desk and put them into three piles. One for each of them. “I want you three specifically to get me information on Alva industries, the stuff they used to make the Bang happen, and every cure for Bang Babies being worked on.”
“Why are we keeping track of the cures too? Isn’t it a good thing to have one available for the folks who want it?” Richie asked before he could stop himself.
“No, it isn’t little boy blue.” Wise Son sighed, “Especially not when the people working on this shit are the types that aren’t gonna ask consent before they start crop-dusting our city with it. And I bet you nine to one they won’t even test that shit properly cause long term effects don’t fucking matter to them so long as they got an off button for their little super soldiers.”
“You’re saying that our government--”
“I’m saying you need to do some damn research if your stupid enough to trust a government that has a fucking history of this shit. You a scifi nerd and somehow missed all the ‘the government would gladly fuck over the common man’ messages in all them movies you watch? Hell, let’s make it personal, you trust yo cop daddy to give everybody fair treatment under the law?” Wise Son asked with an annoyed flutter of his eyelids.
Richie clamped his mouth shut. Sure is dad was doing better and trying not to be racist anymore, but… Yeah, Wise Son had a very good point. Alright then.
“And cause you felt like saying some stupid shit in my presence, congrats. Y’all got homework now.” Wise pulled out a trio of copies of the… Communist Manifesto? From his desk and sat them on the folders. “Start with this guy, I want an oral report on it in a week. Then I’ll give you more nuanced stuff. Don’t forget your files, you’re dismissed.”
On the way out of the bar, Hotstreak made sure to slug him in the arm. “You really had to open ya mouth and make this shit harder.”
“How was I supposed to know gang leaders give out homework?” Richie shot back, rubbing the store spot where the older boy hit him.
“Fucking smartass.”
[You are a smartass, pops.] BacPac chirped in his head, rubbing against his legs still hidden by his cat hologram. Because of course, the artificial apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.