Cape Crossed

Chapter One

Silver thought back to only last week when Surge and her shockingly daring tricks had knocked her off her feet. All the rubber soles in the world couldn't fully protect her from the electricity Surge liked to shoot her way. The arcing blue lines played havoc with her enhanced biology that gave her the strength she relied on to keep herself and her city safe.

Luckily, Silver hadn't been alone that day or the other woman would have left her out of commission for days rather than winded for a while. That would have been a dead giveaway that she wasn't all she seemed when she was out of the suit. Keeping her identities separate was tied for first in her priorities with saving lives.

"Quiet tonight," Black Star commented. The stars in his eyes shifted minutely as he looked from one end of the street below to the other.

"Are you complaining, princess?" Silver asked, crossing her arms over her chest. She saw the lights in Star's eyes glow brighter, a sure sign the other entity in his body was trying for full control. The princess, as they had all taken to calling her after she explained their human tongues could never hope to properly speak their language, often bullied her way to the surface and suppressed her human host. She had gotten lucky in her landing place and found someone so willing to share every part of himself. Her counterpart had not been so lucky and more often fought with his host. Silver didn't envy him.

Star swatted at her knee. It had all the effect of a gnat flying into a pane of glass. Few could match Silver in strength and durability. "No complaints here." They both jumped when Silver's phone blasted a cheerful jingle. "I'd bet Orion's belt that's who I think it is."

"Hush, go find a telescope or something," Silver muttered as she pulled the phone to her ear and reached into her suit collar to flip off the voice modulator. "Is everything okay?" Her free hand fiddled with the black cape that trailed behind her. The silver threads that lined the hem and outlined the shield insignia on her back caught the street lights that bled into the night air around them.

"I'm fine, babe. I was just calling to see if you were on your way home," Jake answered her worried tone with complete calmness. Across the city, he shifted the phone to his other ear and held it between his head and shoulder. His fingers delicately traced the crisscrossing wires in front of him while he tried to match up what he was seeing with the sketched out diagrams spread open on his lap. The rubber gloves made the process minutely more difficult but better this than a nasty shock of an errant fingerprint. Even so, his mind was working on a new design in the background. Could he insulate just the fingertips?

The metal security panel swung slowly as if it would close and he nudged it back open. Costume planning could happen later, there was work to do. The small clicks of her wire cutters echoed through the empty exhibit hall he'd carefully snuck himself into. Would that be something she could hear through the phone? Jake pulled his hood up more securely to help muffle the rebounding sounds.

"Nah, I wish," Hannah's voice came through, mixed with the background of passing cars and a steady breeze. "I'm going to be here a bit longer."

Jake figured she'd be on the hospital's roof, hoping to catch a glance of a passing cape. She often found her way up there on her breaks. He'd most likely interrupted her during a long session of scrolling through videos or playing the most recent game she'd downloaded from an ad. Anything to temporarily detach her mind from the work she was elbow deep in. "They really overwork you," he scowled.

In front of him, a green wire twisted over and around the bundle he had resting in his hand. The schematics in front of him showed nothing of the sort. How was he meant to be in and out like the brilliant mastermind he claimed to be if he had to stop and correct people's work on the go? The offending wire slid upward with the rest into the base of the display case, but its other end split off and made a hard left away from the rest. What were the chances it was fake and unimportant?