9-News: 41.006: A Conversation in the Hell Cave

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9-News: 41.006: A Conversation in the Hell Cave

Post by RonCo » Wed Dec 18, 2019 10:05 am

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Heidi Hickman sat in the quiet of her shelter—an abandoned space of hollowed out rock made back in the days when the War had been Cold and the missiles hot. “Getting downright homey in here,” she said out loud. Over the weeks, she’d brought in a sofa, chairs, and a work desk, as well as posters of various comic heroes and heroines. A single mural of the Yellow Springs Nine covered one large section of the rocky wall.

And space heaters. Don’t forget the space heaters. The steady 50 degrees of normal underground passages was great when you compared it to the Ohio winter that raged outside now, but it sucked eggs without that relative measurement. If she could, she’d work on kicking in the ancient equipment the government had left behind a few decades ago. But that would have to wait until the calendar turned to 2041. It was going to be a sweet secret base at the end of the day, though. Her Hell Cave, as it were. She smiled, glancing to the dresser where she had stashed a series of clothing that went into the look, and the vanity stand where she’d taken to crafting her presence. She was at her best in the darktime, it turned out.

Go figure.

Well, she’d never been a morning person.

It was mid-morning, now, though.

She was tired and drained in a good way, getting ready to take some shuteye on that grand couch of hers. But first she’d been scanning early news reports of her work last night. Three men had been arrested for burglary after being found tied up and gagged in a corner restaurant. The mugshot of one of them made her laugh out loud as she remembered the anger on his voice when she turned down his attempt at a bribe. “No, thank you very much,” she chuckled. “I do not need the pleasure of your pickle.” Then she scanned on. No mention yet of the photos she’d routed to the police regarding one Mr. X who’d been double dipping in the public coffers for years. Nothing was worse than a government guy on the take—unless it was s corporate guy on the take. The average Joe could take down a crooked politician at the ballot box, but they were just hosed when a corporation went dirty.

Not a bad night’s work.

Even as a kid she’d been good at getting around on the streets—you had to be to exist in Chicago. But making this life a focus had done nothing but make her even more aware of her shortcomings, and of the need to work on them every moment of the day. Combined, it had made her even that much better. She had, for example, used the three bandits as training fodder, executing several different approaches in which she could have stopped them earlier before finally separating the three and taking them down one at a time.

Ever since she’d given into her full Hellscape, the crime rate in Yellow Springs—which had already been low—had plummeted. As with any good origin story, rumors were beginning to pop up about a lithe creature in black roaming the streets, running free-form parkour, dashing from shadow to shadow. Sometime soon she’d find a way to let people know who she was, but until then Heidi Hickman was enjoying the anonymity.

She was just getting ready to close up and get some sleep when a notification chime rang.

It was a coded message from Ron Collins, GM of the Yellow Springs Nine.

“Sounds like you did some work tonight,” he said when she’d engaged various scramblers and encryption devices.

“It was good. I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you enough for getting this set up.”

“Can’t think of a better use of our community outreach budget. Besides, it’s your buddy doing all the hard work.”

Heidi nodded. TripleAxe had turned them onto the Hellscape Cave to begin with, and his contacts were the ones who helped educate her on the best ways to enter and exit without being tracked.

“What’s up?” she said.

“I got a call from a schmuck in Chicago.”

“Yes?”

“Seems they want to talk to you.”

“Really?” Thoughts raced in her head. There were a few different things folks in Chicago might be wanting to jaw about.

“It seems they’ve got a question for you—they want to know who ‘Kate’ is.”

She paused, Rerunning tapes. “Kate?” she said.

“Direct quote.”

Finally her brain hit on a conversation she’d overheard—yes. Kate. That had been her name. Woman from Portland, talking in a bar during the trek she’d taken to the Wisconsin fiasco where she’d learned about the Wolves’ proclivity for crotch photography. With that, pieces of information fell in place, at least enough.

“Ah, yes. Okay. I know who they are talking about.”

“So, who is she?”

Hellscape opened her mouth to speak. Then closed it.

“I think I need to look into something first. Give me a couple days, all right.”

The pause on Collins’s part portrayed annoyance. “All right,” he said in a tone that said he understood more that she was saying. “Just remember: nothing illegal.”

“You got it, boss. Nothing illegal.”

They disconnected a short while later, and, after booking a flight, Heidi went to the couch to sleep. She wasn’t sure what was going on, yet, but she was pretty sure things were starting to get interesting.
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Re: 9-News: 41.006: A Conversation in the Hell Cave

Post by 7teen » Wed Dec 18, 2019 12:39 pm

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Re: 9-News: 41.006: A Conversation in the Hell Cave

Post by shoeless.db » Wed Dec 18, 2019 2:40 pm

Hell (pun intended), yeah! Good Stuff.
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