Hope falls silently in the dark ... - Part 5

Fast-floating with the addition of Alden's weight, and that of the flying platform, was more than Caitlyn had ever attempted to carry. The fall slowed, but not enough to stop them both crashing to the floor. Luckily, she managed to angle them all so that the flying platform took the brunt of the damage, but it still knocked the air from her lungs. What it had done to Alden remained to be seen as Caitlyn tried to regain her feet.

A fist struck her, and she heard Alden squeal in pain. She had broken his arms with her first strike, but, even so, she had felt attacks from Fiend before and this felt feeble in comparison, even with his damaged arms. Still more powerful than a non-super could hit, but nothing compared to Fiend's normal strength. In fact, Alden struggled against her, not to fight, but to get away from her, crawling backward on the ground, away from the damaged flying platform.

"No. No! Get away! You're a monster!" Alden's face looked odd, even with the infrared vision. Lopsided and twisted. "You're all monsters! Monsters everywhere. Everywhere!"

Caitlyn changed back to the green-tinted night vision and could now see Alden far better than before. The face twisted, not because of the fall, or from any damage she had caused, but because the mask that he wore had slipped, revealing part of his normal, real face. Patting aside his injured arms as they struggled against her, she ripped the mask from his face. Nothing was as she had expected.

She wrapped his arms tight to his body, using the suit, extending it around him, and lifted him with ease. Something was wrong here and, even as she carried him out of the dome, back through the tunnel and out into the night, Alden continued a stream of babbling nonsense. He sounded more insane than ever except, now, he struggled less against the binding from her suit.

Outside, she ripped down part of the chainlink fence that surrounded the facility and wrapped that around him before taking a closer look at her captive. His eyes were almost as wide as the mask he had worn, pupils pinholes in the white. Sweat poured from him, coating his face, and he shivered constantly, even though the night was relatively warm. He was nothing like the man she had met in the hospital, or at Ald-Tech headquarters, reduced to a gibbering, sweat-soaked fool.

The mask. She held it in her hands, ignoring the noises coming from Alden as she examined it. She felt certain that, before, when Fiend had attacked Alaina and then when they had fought in the warehouse, Caitlyn could swear that what she had seen was no mask. Like Professor Halstrom, the synthesised Black Element had transformed Fiend.

The grey face, with grinning, bright fangs, bulging yellow eyes, pointed ears and elongated head were all the actual, transformed Fiend. The skin, grey and scaled. Long, claw-like fingers were real fingers, not gloves as Alden appeared to wear now. In fact, Alden didn't even look as muscular. Other than he had, somehow, learned to control the transformations, remaining in human form, Caitlyn couldn't think of an explanation for the differences. Unless ...

Unless Alden wasn't Fiend. Unless this was all some elaborate ruse to frame Alden and make the world believe that the billionaire CEO of Ald-Tech had gone mad, kidnapping people, planning to kill his own board members. Of course, it would explain why everything had felt wrong for some time during the investigation. Why it had all felt a little too easy. Alden, no matter his frame of mind, would never have left so many clues pointing toward him. He was far too intelligent for that.

Which meant that Fiend, the real Fiend, was still out there. That Aunt Mary and Rayna were still not safe. That Fiend still held Alaina somewhere. At that thought, she remembered what she had told Aunt Mary and Rayna. Telling them to run back to the city without protection was the dumbest thing Caitlyn could have done. No doubt the real Fiend had watched this entire play and now knew that Caitlyn had deduced Alden wasn't the villain Fiend had made him look.

Sirens pierced the night air and she could imagine who drove at the head of them. She didn't have time to stand around and explain things. She needed to find Aunt Mary and Rayna before Fiend, and also figure out where Fiend had hidden Alaina. This wasn't over yet.

"Bastion satellite, one to transport." She touched the ear piece, though she wasn't sure she needed to. "Does the satellite have decent surveillance photos?"

-+-

Soon after ...

Chief Watson arrived far too late to catch the kid and explain what he had learned and she still wasn't picking up her cell. Whether it was damaged, or she was just being ignorant, he couldn't tell, but, if nothing else, he wished she'd slow down long enough to talk to. How could he expect any less from a kid whose surrogate mom had been kidnapped, along with her best friend. That would be enough for anybody to rush out for vengeance.

As he pulled the squad car to a halt, he saw something huddled against the bunker that was the first building they reached from the road. He almost didn't wait for the car to stop before opening the door and racing forward, pistol drawn, and then he slowed, holding the weapon ready as he neared the figure, wrapped up in chainlink fencing, under words scratched into the concrete above him.

"Not Fiend." A crude arrow pointed down toward Raymond Alden.

Watson could have told the kid that some time ago if she had only answered his calls. Replacing his pistol to its holster, Watson crouched beside Alden, noticing his pallor, the sweat, the wild eyes, not to mention arms that looked broken. Drugged. Fiend, the real Fiend had really wanted Alden to take the fall for everything.

"Get this man some medical attention!" He called over his shoulder at officers he knew had followed him to this point. "And get the NHPD chopper here, right now!"

-+-

The Bastion satellite, in Earth orbit ...

Kyle wasn't in the meeting room, but Caitlyn didn't have the time to search for him. Instead, she headed straight to the wall of monitors, keyboards and mice that Kyle had set up like some kind of ragtag gaming system. It didn't take her long to find the relevant programs to access satellite imagery and begin to pour over the latest data surrounding the domed facility.

Unfortunately, satellites didn't cover everywhere and the only images she could find were of Rayna and Aunt Mary reaching a pay phone, some distance down the road from the facility and, a surprisingly short time later, a long, black limo stopping beside them, waiting as they got in and then drove back toward the city. That, at least, gave Caitlyn a little hope. Though Ald-Tech security had performed a terrible job of keeping Alden, himself, safe.

"Hey! Woah! Do not touch a guy's computers. Like, not ever." Kyle rushed into the room, wiping his hands on a a cloth that he tossed to the side without a care. "That is a violation of ... okay, you know what? It's fine. You're upset. I can let this ... why have you hacked into satellites? Okay. Why have you hacked into government satellites? Oh! I'm going to have to apologise. Again."

"Alden isn't Fiend." She let that hang in the air but Kyle took it in his stride with noncommittal shrug. "I'm just tracking the Ald-Tech limo to make sure Rayna and Aunt Mary get back to the city, safe. And why do you have grease on your upper lip? Are you pretending to have a moustache like a big boy?"

"I ... what? No! It's ... you know what? I don't have to explain myself to you. You're not my mom." As sly as possible while making it perfectly clear what he was doing, Kyle slid in front of Caitlyn, taking her place at the table. "There. Just arriving now and ... they're both going inside. Rayna has her arm around your not-mom's shoulders. Probably bonding over the experience."

"Yeah." Caitlyn leaned against the table. It felt like she hadn't taken a rest since ... she couldn't even remember. Her cell phone beeped, again, with Chief Watson's caller id. "I'm going down there. I need an Aunt Mary hug. You keep searching for Alaina, she's still in the city, somewhere, we just have to find her. And get Chief Watson off my back for just one minute, will you? Update him, or something, okay?"

"Sure. Anything else? Foot massage? Lunch? Perhaps madam would care for ..." Kyle saw the glowering look she shot across to him and snapped his mouth closed. "Fine. And the real Fiend? Do we have any clues?"

"None that I can think of." She pinched the bridge of her nose before straightening up and allowing the suit's mask to slough back into place. "I'm going to go dark for a few minutes while I see my aunt. I'll call soon."

She didn't have time to continue to feel impressed by the views from the satellite windows and wondered whether Principle was wrong. Maybe people did get used to it, after a while? None of that mattered right now. She could return to looking awestruck at the satellite some other time. Right now, she needed to reach Ald-Tech headquarters, reunite with Aunt Mary, and tell her in a million different ways how much she loved her.

-+-

Kyle waited for Caitlyn to transport down to Earth before calling Chief Watson. To say she had only become a super-hero recently, she had taken to the game well, fast coming to terms with the responsibilities such a choice carried with it. It didn't help, of course, that her first true big-bad had learned her secret identity. Thanks to Fear's unassailable paranoia, no bad guys had ever learned theirs. Kyle couldn't really relate.

What he could relate to, was fearing for the life of the person that had raised him. He and Fear had had more than their fair share of close calls, near deaths, but they could always rely on each other to be there to talk about it afterwards. Caitlyn had chosen to keep her identity secret from her aunt, and that was her choice, but it would make getting over this experience difficult.

"El jefe! It is I, you're favourite kid sidekick-that's-almost-an-adult. Listen, update-a-roonies incoming. I ... what?" He and the Chief of NHPD had had their moments, in the past, but Kyle knew when the man was being deadly serious. "No. No, that can't be right. Well, you better get to Ald-Tech HQ, like, right now! ... because sh ... because Blood Obsidian is already on the way and they have no idea what they're getting into!"

He ended the call and immediately called Caitlyn, hoping that she hadn't yet gone dark, but she had. The table rattled as he hit it with the arm in the cast and he glared down at the one on his leg, too. He couldn't help her. Not like this. But he did have another way.