dear steve winters
I mean exactly what I said. It's too late to repent for your sins.
when I find you it will be your last day
sincerely, collateral
This wasn't the first unusual mail message that Stephen had recieved recently. The message was the exact same one, a threat on his life... other than the fact that it seemed to be written extremely hastily, it was nearly the same as the last. She deleted the message.
"Man, what the hell's that about..." She said to herself. Stephen figured it was probably just from some gang member who had figured out her electronic messaging address... could be anyone, really, she'd attacked a whole lot of gang members during her short time in Toronto alone.
"What's what about?" Her roommate, Jacob, asked.
"Don't mind me... just thinking out loud again." Stephen responded, slowly.
"You do that a lot, don't you?"
"Gotta have someone to talk to." Stephen said with a slight laugh. Jacob forced a grin, and turned away.
Stephen looked at her computer, seeing the other message worthy of note, one that she had received earlier, in the morning.
Polarity,
This electronic mail shit ain't gonna work out. Get a disposable cell phone or something, we gotta talk.
Your Hunter Friend
She had ended up following his advice, glancing at the cell phone laying around, nearby. She responded to the message, giving him its number.
That Tuesday evening was quite dull, for the most part; Stephen had already returned from doing patrol as Polarity, and had just started to sit down. After she checked her mail, there was only really one other important event that would happen that night.
Her new phone rang. Call display informed her that "PRIVATE NUMBER" was the person calling. She picked up the phone that she had laid to rest nearby, pressing the button to answer the call (which had been the standard ever since landlines became entirely obsolete).
"Hello?" She asked, keeping her tone relatively neutral.
"Yo... is this Polarity?"
"Who else?" Her voice went up by nearly an octave, and softening just as much. "But who the hell are you?" She then realised that this was a fairly stupid question, as of currently, only one other person knew the phone number, and that was her informant inside the Hunters Pack gang. Thinking quickly, or straight, was not something that she was particularly good at after a long, tiring day.
"What, you don't recognise my voice? That's a shame. Oh well." A male voice told her. She started to say something to reply, but was cut off before she figured out her response. "Anyway, word has it, someone's looking for you."
"No shit, really?" She said flatly, recalling the mail that she had received on her computer. "What can I say, I've got a lot of fans."
"Apparently so, since this one seems to be totally cramping your style. Quite a few Hunters, and apparently some guys from other gangs, too, have been found in bloody messes all over the city. I'm betting most of them are your handiwork, but we've got quite a few reports that suggest someone else's out there, doing work, too."
"Lemme guess, short girl in blue armour?" Stephen figured that Moonbeam might have started to attack more gang members after she had taken her out to look for someone -- the very man that she was talking to now, in fact.
"What, your girlfriend?" He said with a snicker.
"Fuck you, she's like, twelve." She said sharply. Her sense of humour for that sort of thing was, not surprisingly, non-existant.
"Whatever, man. It sounds like she's been busy, too, but I ain't talking about that. No, some of our guys are saying that they got beat up by someone in some giant, black and white armour, saying that they were looking for either some chick named Magnet, or Polarity."
"Black and white armour? Oh shit... it didn't have a white mask, and huge shoulders, did it?"
"Yeah, actually, it did. You know what I'm talking about?"
"Alright, man... thanks for the heads up." She managed to stammer.
"No prob." He hung up.
Stephen held the phone to her head for a good minute afterwards, shocked by what he told her. She had gone from being vaguely curious as to who was looking for her, to incredibly scared. The description of the armour was vague, but familiar enough to make her quiver in her seat. She knew exactly what he was talking about; but the wearer of that armour died a year ago, back in Ottawa.
***
"...this news just breaking now, the Toronto Police are now reported that three of their squad cars have been destroyed within the past hour. We have been unable to ascertain a detailed description of the attacker, but he seemed to have been riding an usually shaped red vehicle, which according to witnesses, resembles a motorcyle. More news on this as it develops. Now, in other news, we turn to the ruins of Pickering, where..." The newscaster delivered her constant report. This wasn't the same anchor that people like Polarity were used to watching in the evening; instead, the Saturday morning newscaster had taken her place. The reason behind this was simple: it was Saturday morning. It had been four weeks since Stephen had got the surprising warning.
"Man, is this how Polarity does it?" Arianna wondered aloud, sitting across from the TV on a couch that could be accurately described as being very comfortable. It wasn't unusual for her to be sitting on that couch, watching TV; but this was the first time that she really bothered watching the news. Like most girls her age, it simply did not interest her, for the most part. "Should go check that out... maybe I'll find her."
Besides, she rationalized to herself, I want to take a bike ride and get some fresh air, anyway. The term "fresh air" had become fairly oxymoronic, when it came to describing most North American cities; it would be hard to describe how bad the quality was without being a scientist or doctor, but let's just say that you wouldn't want to have asthma and live in a city.
Arianna turned the television off, and grabbed her backpack as she left her room. She would not have to sneak past her parents today, since they were at work. Working on the weekend was considered a privledge, rather than a sign of misfortune, and Arianna's family was not at all poor. Well, they'd be considered poor by 21st century standards, but Arianna did not live during that time period.
She slipped into the armour as she walked out the house, hopping onto her bike, pressing her palm against the handlebars. A quiet tone was emitted, indicating that the rider was the rightful owner of the bike. The engine started.
She tapped a couple of buttons on the screen of her motorcyle, various sections across the bike lighting up, making the colour unrecognisable as anything but "bright". And yes, that's not actually a colour, but it's the only way of describing it.
She took a breath, concentrating on the air around her. She knew that she had gotten the activation right when her field of vision brighted greatly. Now, to anyone else, she'd just look like a blurr of bright light, her deep blue armoured body barely visible to any spectator.
Satisfied that she was ready to go, she drove out of her Scarborough driveway, heading downtown. The sun shone brightly that morning, and as a result, Moonbeam herself reflected light a lot brighter than normal. This, while not presenting her with any significant tactical improvement over usual, made her look more mysterious, as she drove through the streets.
***
As Moonbeam drove down Bloor street, which had still, after all the years, remained one of the major streets in the city, she didn't notice much unusual. The ride along the street was rough, as it had not be repaired since before the road, and many of the buildings that she drove past had been seriously damaged, a few even seeming that they would collapse at any moment.
The moment could be almost considered serene, but it was not, however, calm. The streets of Toronto were rarely ever entirely empty. On weekdays, it was gang activity that prevented this from being true; but this weekend morning, it was simply normal people, going about their Saturday shopping, trying so hard to distract themselves from the hardships of life, if only for a few hours.
Some of the more wealthy shops were located inside buildings, but many others were simply set up on carts on the street side, their products out for all to see. There was not a single successful store owner on Bloor, or most other streets, for that matter, that did not have a loaded handgun located behind the counter. Well, that's not entirely true... there were a few, like the tailor near Pape; he kept a shotgun.
It had occured to Moonbeam that she didn't particularly know how she was going to find this machine that she had heard about on the news, but when she looked at her surroundings, she also realised that it didn't matter that much to her.
Remember how I said that the moment was almost serene? Well, that near serenity ended with the sounds a gunshot. While shootings were not woefully uncommon in a city like Ottawa, let alone Toronto, a shootout occuring on a major street in the middle of Downtown was never a good sign. One famous gang leader was once quoted as saying "No, you don't fuck around in the Downtown, man. We don't want that; it's Black and White territory, man, you don't want to fuck with the cops down there." He then proceeded to shoot the man who had asked the original question, in order to not look like a total coward.
Moonbeam came to a stop when she heard the shot, and turned around, trying to find the source... it didn't take too long. Standing near the middle of the street was a magnet soldier, laughing at a roadside store owner. This store owner was, not too surprisingly, holding a smoking gun.
"Ha ha... sure, just keep shooting at me. Now how about you give me your money now, and I won't have to beat the shit out of you and leave you for dead in the middle of the street." The magnet demanded.
"Fuck you! You ain't getting anything!" The store owner shouted at him, shaking with fear.
"Okay... you've left me with no choice, then." The magnet said with a snarl, and started to walk towards him. He had the same type of visor that Stephen used as both Polarity and Magnet; it was, after all, the standard mass produced, magnet operational computer that had been used in the war. His boots and giant metal gauntlets also looked just like the ones that Magnet used to use, before she went by the name Polarity; for they, too, were the same ones used in the war.
The mugger, however, was interrupted by a swift punch to the back.
"Get lost, now." Moonbeam said, with a slight smirk. The magnet turned to face her.
"What the hell do you think you're doing, little girl? Fuck off."
Surprisingly enough, as it turns out, Moonbeam does not appreciate being called a little girl. She punched him again, her fist aimed straight for her gut.
The problem is, Moonbeam was wearing heavy metal armour, which included her metal gloves. While these gloves made it not only hard to get shot in the hand, as well as hurting like hell when you got hit by them... it also meant that they were quite magnetic. As a result, her punch never connected.
"Okay, now you're starting to piss me off..." The magnet said angrily, getting ready to take a swing at her.
Another gunshot came from the store owner, aimed towards the magnet, who was now distracted. Unfortunately, it didn't hit either. As most kids learned in school, Moonbeam included, you could not shoot a magnet. A basic reflex programmed into the genetic engineering, in conjunction with the computer inside the visor, caused them to instantly project a magnetic field to slow down any bullet to a non-harmful speed. It was this mechanism, not manual pushes and pulls, that was the source of their usefulness in the war.
"Now now... don't you know? I'm bullet proof... and seriously pissed off." He turned to the store owner again, who subsequently wet his pants from pure fear. The magnet started to walk towards him again.
Moonbeam took a deep breathe, held her right arm behind her back, and took a lunge at the magnet again. This time, she was focusing entirely on blurring herself to her left, an attempt which was entirely effective. The magnet tried to push her backwards with a magnetic shove, but didn't quite hit the mark, due to the blurr, and instead only knocked her off balance. Moonbeam swung her right fist at his head, hitting his visor.
Since he wasn't prepared for the impact, this managed to not only cause the visor to fall down his face, but an entire section of his ear that the visor was attached to was also removed in the process.
"Shoot, dammit!" Moonbeam yelled at the trembling store owner. The stunned magnet got hit by no less than three of the four bullets fired. She spat on his dying body. "Polarity, you ain't."
"Th-thank you... you... you s-saved my life." The store's owner stammered.
Moonbeam nodded, and walked away with a wave. As she got back onto her bike, someone flying above took notice, and started to follow her, driving away.
It would take twenty minutes for the mood of that section of the street to return to normal.
***
When Arianna looked back on the events that day, she didn't recall exactly how she managed to get in an exchange with the person in the black and white armour. She knew that she had been pulled over by the person flying overhead, but her recollection of that exact part of the event would forever remain hazy.
She did, however, remember that the armour could only be described as being in "shitty condition". Not having ever cared about any happenings in Ottawa, she'd never seen it on the news... so she didn't recognise it. It wasn't really hard to tell that it was in terrible condition, though, any casual observer could tell you that.
Although the actual helmet seemed to be still fine, it was quite clear that the faceplate was chipped in places. One of the wearer's eyes was visible, and hair hung out the mask. The armour, although still remaining very bulky in appearance, was significantly less so, with the removal of the large wings. In actuality, there was never anything wrong with the wings; they had just been taken off because the person inside didn't understand the purpose of them (it wasn't directly related to its ability to fly), and assumed they were more of a burden than they were worth. What was most evident was the sharp contrast between the bulkiness of the armour from the waist up... and the general lack of anything below. Suspensions attached to the person's boots stopped the weight of the armour from being supported entirely on the wearer's legs, but it clearly wasn't nearly as bulky down there. Pants... which looked a whole lot like bell-bottoms, on second glance, were very noticable, in sharp contrast with the heavy armour on the chest, arms, and massive shoulders.
Aside from it being obvious that the suit was broken, though, it was still quite imposing. Moonbeam couldn't tell if the wearer was male or female; the pants could have just been an aftereffect of being poor, and the giant shoulders were very masculine... the person's voice could be heard when they spoke, but barely, because of a deep synthesized voice that echoed the wearer's speech by half a second.
Moonbeam didn't remember what the exchange started with, either... she could only remember after the first question that set off alarm bells in her head.
"Do you know Polarity?" The armoured person asked, sounding almost like two voices speaking almost, but not quite, in perfect unison. The effect was eerie.
"I know her." Moonbeam nodded. The question made her wonder just what the armoured person was up to, and she started to get tense, blurring more as a result, although not conciously. "Why?"
"He... used to be in my city, by a different name. He's a terrible, terrible man." Although hard to tell, there was sadness in the wearer's real voice.
"He? Shit, I think we're talking about different people, then. I mean the magnet soldier one, who's on the news... definitely not a he, man." Moonbeam said with a bit of relief. She knew that Polarity could handle herself, far better than she could, but it relieved her nonetheless that it wasn't the woman she knew that the armoured person was talking about.
Well, it turned out, it was.
"No... it's the same one." The voice changed from sadness, to scorn. The difference was ever-so subtle. "He pretends to be a woman, but he's a terrible liar. That son of a bitch... I can't believe he still does that."
Moonbeam was shining too brightly, and too blurred to notice, but her eyes widened a bit, confused at the person's words.
"The hell are you talking about?" She questioned, taking a step backwards.
"I don't know what the hell his problem is; maybe he's a pervert, or he likes the attention, I don't know. He's a fucking murderer, though!" Their fists clenched tightly in front, "Cold hearted son of a bitch..."
"She... no... no way. That's not her." Moonbeam said, after pausing for a moment. "Whatever the hell your problem with her is, I don't care, just get away from me, alright?"
"He'll pay... that fucking son of a bitch will pay..."
"No, seriously, fuck off. Okay? Get lost, stay the fuck away, got it?" She snarled at the armoured person, walking back to her bike. I gotta get some air, calm down. What the hell. She thought to herself.
The person in the black and white armour never got a chance to say what they had originally intended on saying.
***
When Arianna would watch the news later that night, she'd discover that five other police cars were attacked by the machine that day. Toronto was a giant city; possessing the second highest number of people in a North American city, only beat by one city in the United States. As such, it's very, very difficult to find one person (or moving vehicle, for that matter) by pure chance. She never did come in contact with that machine on Saturday. She drove through the city for a long time, contemplating her encouter with that person in the armour. What the hell's going on with that? Probably just someone full of shit with a grudge against her... why do I care? Were her only thoughts on the subject, for the most part, although they surfaced many, many times.
Finally, near the end of the day, she spotted Polarity on a rooftop, about five blocks away from their school. Polarity, in fact, lived nearby; a bit of knowledge unknown to Moonbeam.
"Hey! Polarity!" She called out, stopping her motorcycle beside the building. Polarity jumped from the building she was standing on, sliding down a pole, landing gracefully on the ground, partially in the alleyway perpendicular to the street that Moonbeam was on.
"Hey, Moon... how've you been doing?" Polarity asked the girl warmly, her casualness almost funny, given that she was dressed in her Polarity outfit, which, although not a flashy "super hero" costume, wasn't really something you'd wear walking down the street, especially with the mask covering the bottom half of her face, or the sleek metal boots and gloves.
She stepped off her bike, and silently walked to the corner of the building, leaning against it. "I think... someone's out to get you, Polarity." She said, finally, with a sigh.
"Oh, that's good to hear... I thought I was just starting to get paranoid." She said with a slight laugh. "But man, seriously... tell me something I don't know. Lemme guess, black and white, heavy armour?"
Moonbeam noticed that she seemed to sound a bit more nervous when the question was asked. "Yeah... wait, you know that person?" She was relieved to hear that Polarity already knew... but then she started to wonder. Wait... if she actually does know them...
"Christ... I don't know. I don't think so." She sighed. This isn't something she wanted to explain, but... "That armour... it's... well, it's from my past. A past that... I tried to leave behind for good."
"Huh? Did it use to be yours or something?" Moonbeam questioned.
Polarity glanced around, and answered, after seeing that nobody nearby was paying attention. It was dark, and people had better things to do than hang around when someone with a reputation like Polarity was standing around.
"No... no, he was... a friend." She picked her words carefully. "A very close friend..."
"Holy shit. Do all your friends from your past hate you?" Moonbeam said in amazement.
"That's... he..." She stumbled for words, giving a sigh, slumping against the wall beside Moonbeam. "Well, I... I left for a reason. My God... I can't believe this... I tried to leave that fucking city behind!" She slammed her fist against the wall, full of rage.
Moonbeam turned her head, looking up at the older girl. She took a while to say anything.
"You... don't have to explain it to me. If it's personal, then... then it's not any of my concern." She wanted to know what the hell was going on, but she didn't know Polarity that well... and wasn't going to demand answers.
"No. No, no, no... fuck it, you want the truth?" Polarity said, sighing. "You know, maybe I don't act like it, but there are a lot of things I'm afraid. But I also know better... the truth? It's not one of them."
"The... the person said that you're a liar. That you're some guy who dresses like a woman or something. Where'd he get that from?"
"Wow... talk about deja vu." Polarity laughed a bit, nervous, "No, it's not funny... my God, amazing how his words manage to strike from beyond the grave." She stopped for a while. "Let's go for a ride, alright? Doesn't matter where, I'm gonna talk here."
They both got onto the motorcycle, driving down the dark street.
"Lemme tell you a story, from back in Ottawa, alright?" She said, quietly, trying to compose herself.
"Okay..." Moonbeam had little else to say. She stared down the street, wondering in amazement just what the hell was going on.
"Alright, so... imagine this. She's an ordinary girl. Maybe about 14, maybe a bit older. Goes to school, gets fairly good grades... goes out after school with her friends, has stupid crushes, plays computer games, and doesn't really get along that well with her parents. You know, normal, and all that shit."
Polarity took another breath, picking her words slowly.
"Alright, so, problem is... people don't see her like that. As far as she's concerned, she's got two seperate appearances; one's her real self, what she really is... a young girl, maybe she's pretty, maybe she's not... it's not a very extraordinary appearance, really, it's just her. But the other... the other is... it's one that she despises, one that disgusts her. It's an appearance that's not a whole lot different; after all, behind the appearance, she's the same girl. But still, that appearance... it's just not her." She sighed, carefully slipping her visor up, rubbing a couple of tears from her eyes. Polarity paused, trying to regain her composure as she brought up terrible memories, on a subject she hated to think about. She thought about her next words, and continued.
"Every time she looks in the mirror, every time she takes a shower... she sees that second appearance, that boy who isn't really her. But you know what the worst thing is? Even though she knows that she's really the first one... everyone else sees the second one. And she knows that's not right, but she's too embarrassed to tell anyone. So everyone ends up thinking that she's the second appearance, the one she hates and despises, the one that makes her cry when she thinks about it for too long."
Moonbeam remained silent. She was starting to understand what Polarity was explaining... but what could she say? She was amazed at the story... not too sure what to think... but couldn't think of any decent response.
"She knows that it's her fault that people can only see the second one, that boy, that boy who isn't her... I mean, after all, she's never told them. She's tried to be subtle about it, drop hints about who she really is... but nobody ever picks up on them. But she knows a way... she's got a way of showing who she really is, that first appearance. So eventually there are people who get to know that first appearance, without ever knowing about the second, the appearance that most people know about. But there are some people... some people who find out, find out somehow, about her two appearances... but don't realize which is the real one. They get the two confused, and think that the boy, the boy which she hates, is the real one." Polarity stopped again, sighing.
"And... instead of accepting the true one... they accuse her of being a liar, a pervert, or just pretending to be... who's actually herself." Moonbeam asked, quietly.
"Yes..." Polarity whispered. Neither of the two said anything for five minutes.
"I... I never would have guessed... never would have imagined..." Was all that Moonbeam managed to stammer.
"That's why I had to tell you. It's... you have no idea how hard it is... how hard it is to say something like that." She responded, quietly.
"Is... that why you you're been followed by that person in the armour? The person who used to be a good friend?" Moonbeam tried to piece it together, her tone confused. "Because you ran away after he found out... and now he wants to get back at you?"
"Remember how I told you how the armour belonged to a close friend?"
"Yeah..."
"I say belonged, because... he died a year ago." Polarity sighed as she told her. It was something she never forgot, not for a second... Ken's death was something she'd never stopped regretting.
"Oh... then... who the hell's in the armour now?"
"I don't know. But it scares me... that somehow, someone else knows..." She said quietly. She'd already poured out her heart to the young girl, so she didn't stop. "And... now they're here."
Eventually, she stopped driving. The moon was already well on its way into the sky by then, and Polarity stepped off the bike.
"You should get home. Aren't your parents going to be worried about you being out this late?"
"Jesus... you've got someone who hates you, under the guise of a close, dead friend, out to get you... and you're worried about me?" Moonbeam asked in wonder.
"I'll... don't worry about me. Good night, Moonbeam." Polarity walked away.
"Be careful, alright? Good night!" She waved, and drove off on her motorcycle.
Polarity headed to her own home, in the darkness of the night. Her eyes were red, even though she'd tried to avoid crying, when she told her story to Moonbeam... and she was sullen, thinking to herself what she had told to the young girl. It wasn't something she liked to think about, despite the fact that it dominated her life... but nothing else came to mind, and she'd rather consider it, than think about Ken.
Someone else, however, did rather make him want to think about him. She heard a loud noise overhead... and a large figure appearing in front of her in the dark.
"I finally found you, you son of a bitch. You fucking son of a bitch..." The voice echoed. It sounded familiar; it was that same deep voice that Avenger had... only with another blended in... one that was just as familiar.
"You... you're..." Polarity stammered, shocked at the sight of the old armour.
"Dead?" The voice laughed, "Well, let me tell you... you're going to be, you piece of shit. You killed Ken because you're a lying son of a bitch, and now..." The steps were loud as the person in the armour, with the makeshift boots to support it, clanged towards Polarity.
"Oh shit..." She whispered to herself.