Volume 2: Chapter 210 — Confrontation

Dan briefly considered calling in a bomb threat to the school. Then, realizing how insane that was, he considered dropping a threatening letter on the principal's desk. Finally, he turned on his brain and called Agent Carver. She picked up on the second ring.

"Carver," Dan said, jumping his portals to keep up with the moving vehicles. "I'm watching a convoy of vigilante hunters driving towards Middleview High School."

There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

"For what purpose?" she asked, carefully enunciating each word. Dan could hear the tapping of a keyboard in the background.

"How should I know?" Dan exclaimed in frustration. "I didn't ask them!"

But he could try to find out. He reoriented his portal, opening it on the underside of the brothers' van. His veil poked out of the exit and spread across the undercarriage. He felt for the seats and opened a new portal beneath them, just out of sight. He listened in for any chatter, but the Vigi-Brothers were arguing about the episode's script.

"I can't evacuate a school just because some idiots are driving past," Carver said over the phone. "If that were the case, schools would never be open."

Dan closed his portal into the car. He wasn't getting anything useful from it. "Right. What do you recommend?"

"I can... probably put a squad nearby?" Carver sounded unsure. "I have a contact in the local SPEAR team I can lean on. At the very least they'll be geared up and ready for deployment."

"Works for me," Dan said. "I'll keep you updated."

"Understood. Anything else you need?"

Dan jumped his portal forward to another street. He watched the line of paneled vans as they weaved through traffic at a pace just shy of dangerous. He was missing something. How did they know where to go?

"What upgrades do the Vigi-Busters have?" he asked.

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "That might take a minute."

 "Call me back," Dan said as the convoy passed another set of lights. He hung up the phone and checked his map. Ten blocks from the school, and they were finally slowing down the pace. He let himself relax a fraction. These vigilante hunters were morons, but even they weren't about to charge into a high school halfcocked. The bad press alone would have them hesitate.

There were four vans in total, white and blue paneled monstrosities each emblazoned with the enormous logo of the Vigi-Busters: a red bullseye over the silhouette of a cape. They were anything but subtle as they moved down the road in an unbroken line. The traffic got worse as they moved deeper into the city's Metro hub.

Dan had never visited his nation's capital in his old dimension, so he couldn't compare the two. Still, here a metropolitan cityscape had grown around the seat of government like a metal fungus. There was a clear line of delineation between government offices and civilian businesses, with the latter completely surrounding the former. The Metro hub was placed slightly off-center from the whole mess, and only a single subway line snaked its way into the actual government sector.

Middleview High School was less than a mile from the Metro hub, so when the Vigi-Busters turned onto a particular side street, Dan's assumption was confirmed. He watched the convoy fall into a slow crawl as they navigated the narrow streets of downtown D.C. School zones were active for most of the day in Dimension A, which only helped make the brightly colored vans even more obvious as they crept past the front of the school. Classes were ending soon, but some students had cut out early. They lounged around the front of the school, staring and pointing as the Vigi-Busters' motorcade stopped just across the street from the school.

The vigilante hunters piled out of their vans and started to set up their equipment. Phones came out from the students. The Vigi-Busters accumulated more screen time in the next three minutes than the rest of their lives combined as word spread, and students began shamelessly rubbernecking. The vigilante hunters finished their setup and started to film... away from the school. The Vigi-Busters stood before a small grocery store across from the school and monologued to the camera. The two brothers faced the school, suits on and dark glasses in place, but their cameras were pointed squarely away.

Oh, Dan realized. They're trying to provoke a response. Somehow they'd learned the age and location of the vigilante, but rather than confront the girl in school, they were trying to scare her into acting first. It was almost clever if it wasn't so insanely amoral. And did they really expect her to just come out swinging?

No. They were stupid, but not that stupid. Dan opened a door into the school and started to sweep it with his veil. He didn't have Micaela Sanchez's schedule, so he would have to find her the old-fashioned way. Carver's profile on the girl was still in front of him, her visage prominent on the front page. He went classroom by classroom, opening tiny doorways to each and peeking through to examine the bored faces of students. It was amazing how small a gap the human eye could see through when the aperture was perfectly centered on the cornea.

Middleview was not a small school, but Dan could move pretty fast when he was motivated, and he knew exactly what he was looking for. It wasn't just faces he examined, but also backpacks and shoes. He reasoned Micaela probably didn't have the spare change needed to switch up her outfit each day. As he searched, he saw in real time as gossip spread across the student body. Texts were sent, notes were passed, and a certain awareness slowly swept from classroom to classroom.

Vigilante hunters were filming outside the school, the rumor said. It was about the only correct thing being uttered. Speculation ran wild as to their purpose. They were waiting for someone, they were hunting someone, they were there to arrest poor Ms. Chen who owned the grocery store they were camped in front of. They'd trapped a vigilante in the sewers and were baiting him out. They were announcing their retirement and were going to open a bakery. The most common response to their presence was excitement but an undercurrent of unease ran through the staff and some of the more aware students.

Dan's phone rang. He answered it, and Carver spoke into his ear, "The Vigi-Busters are listed as having the Brainiac and Neversquint upgrades. Both are common choices and their performances are unexceptional within their respective categories."

Dan frowned at this information even as he continued searching classrooms. He dug through his memories for reference, but there were so many damn upgrades around he could only guess.

"So better eyesight and... cognitive function?" he asked.

"Much better eyesight," Carver emphasized. "Extremely detailed at extreme ranges with almost no degradation. It's an excellent quality-of-life upgrade. The Brainiac is much the same. It doesn't actually make you smarter, but it does grant a near-photographic memory. It makes you pretty much immune to dementia. It's a popular pick for anyone with neurodegenerative orders in their family history but that doesn't appear to be the case here."

"How the hell did they know where to find Micaela?" Dan muttered.

"We missed something," Carver suggested. "Or they found something in the alley and it led them here. They could've known the whole time but wanted camera footage as further evidence for their show. When you disappeared it, they just came straight here."

"Maybe," Dan said, frustrated by the thought he may have triggered this stupidity by impulsively swiping the Vigi-Busters' tapes.

"What are they doing now?" Carver asked.

"They're just posted up outside the school."

"Pressuring the girl to make a move," Carver surmised.

Dan grunted as he bounced portals from class to class. Any reaction to the Vigi-Busters from Micaela would instantly put a target on the girl's back. It was an obviously bad idea, but the girl was a panicking teenager. She may do something insanely stupid and end up on the morning news. Dan wasn't about to let that happen. He just needed to find—

His portal opened to a familiar face.

"Found her!"

"How's she doing?" Carver asked.

Dan eyed her dubiously. "...Is that SPEAR Team in place?"

The young girl was not doing well. Hers was a window seat on the corner of the building. She actually had a relatively clear sight line to the distant Vigi-Busters. Close enough to see the exaggerated logos painted on their vans, but far enough for their purpose to remain unclear. Micaela could best be described as 'twitchy' at the moment. Both knees bounced uncontrollably up and down while she openly gnawed on the end of her pencil. Her gaze was pinned to the window and she unreservedly watched the Vigi-Busters' every movement.

"They can be there in five minutes," Carver said. "Just tell me if things go bad and I'll send them in."

Dan checked the clock. Ten minutes to last bell.

You can make it, he thought to the girl. Just don't panic.

Well, it was too late for that. Micaela was already in a full-blown panic. Fortunately, hers manifested itself as a sort of decision paralysis that kept her ass planted firmly in her seat. Ten agonizing minutes passed while the girl quietly hyperventilated, and Dan breathed a sigh of relief when the final bell finally rang.

"That's it," he said, as the classroom burst into motion. They all began packing and standing. Micaela took a full ten seconds to start moving, but she too joined the throng of students exiting the classroom. The halls were packed with chatting teens, and the vigilante hunters were the subject of the day. An enormous crowd gathered together and moved like a living wave to the front exit, all looking to gawp at the D-list celebrities camped outside. "Everyone's leaving. She only needs to stay in the crowd and they won't even see her."

Even as the words left his mouth, Micaela peeled away. She moved against the wave of bodies, heading towards the back side of the school away from the Vigi-Busters. It wasn't the expected move, but at least she wasn't looking for a confrontation.

"Okay, strike that. She's taking a back exit. Either way, she won't run into them."

He watched as she freed herself from the crowd and started to trot away. She was nothing if not suspicious, but the attention of both students and staff was on the spectacle out front. Micaela made it to the back of school unimpeded and hit the back parking lot at a steady jog.

"She's out," Dan breathed out with a sigh. He opened up a separate door to check on the Vigi-Busters. The crew were packing up, apparently having given up on a confrontation. The students were shouting questions at the hosts but were being soundly ignored. The gear was stowed quickly, and both hosts and the crew piled into their vans and pulled back into the street. Dan watched them trundle down the road before turning at the first street.

A thought crossed his mind.

"Could they know where she lives?" he asked. "If they know where she goes to school..."

"It's possible," Carver conceded. He checked his other portal. Micaela had stopped in an alley between stores and was pulling a large hoodie out of her backpack. She probably thought it would conceal her appearance. Once again Dan was reminded that teenagers were not subtle.

Micaela was heading away from the school, but the Vigi-Busters were heading in the same direction. When the convoy of vans turned again, Dan realized they were heading in the exact same direction. Dan's guess was wrong. The Vigi-Busters didn't know where Micaela lived, they knew precisely where she was right now!

"They're tracking her!" Dan snarled in realization.

"What?"

"They're beelining right towards—"

The side of the lead van crumpled like tin foil struck by a hammer. Metal screeched and rubber squealed as the vehicle tipped sideways and crashed into the road at speed. The next vehicle in line swerved sharply to avoid a wreck, and Dan watched as its wheels buckled as if they were soda cans caught under a crusher. The suspension gave out and the chassis hit the concrete, letting loose a trail of sparks as friction ignited the air. The next two vans plowed into the mess, unable to slow in time, and the whole span of twisted, smoking metal came to a dragging stop.

Nearby civilians started screaming and running. Dan swore and said, "Send in the SPEAR Team! Someone just attacked the Vigi-Buster motorcade." He rattled off the address before frantically reorienting his portal. Whatever just hit them, it wasn't Micaela Sanchez. He could see her standing at the exit of her alley, now dressed in a dumpy brown hoodie, having paused at the sound of the crash. She was less than a block away but seemed just as surprised as Dan at the sudden commotion.

Carver asked a question, but Dan barely registered the noise. He was too busy thinking through his next steps. Did he really want to risk going down there and saving these idiots? The answer was yes, and he hated it. There were civilians down there, and the Vigi-Busters' crew were probably less guilty than their hosts of rampant stupidity. Besides, none of them deserved to be burned alive in a car wreck.

The mangled remains of the convoy shuddered. Dan's resolve crystallized, right as the entire collection of smoke and steel went skidding backward across the ground, yanked by some unseen force. Street signs and parked cars were smashed out of the way while the few civilians brave enough to linger were showered in glass and debris. The pile of broken cars slammed up against the walls of an alley, with the Vigi-Buster's van trapped at the center and pulled taut against the edges of each wall. Its undercarriage bulged grotesquely outwards before erupting like a cyst, metal guts and oily blood spewing across the dark, narrow passage, followed quickly by the weakly flailing bodies of the two vigilante hunters. The two bodies rag-dolled forward across the gravel, skidding to a stop before a male figure dressed in plain clothes and wearing a simple bandana and ball cap.

"Where's that SPEAR Team?" Dan demanded.

"Two minutes out," Carver replied. "What's happening?"

"I think some guy is about to execute the Vigi-Busters," Dan said. "I'm stepping in. Tell your guys not to shoot me."

The last thing he heard before vanishing was a string of violent swear words.

A/N: So, that sucked. But I'm back now.