insane views."
"Insane views?"
"He's a hardcore Jones supporter. He saw him as a good guy. That 'bringing chaos' to the world 'saved it from self-righteous metahumans who would have eventually enslaved us'. He thinks Jones was saving us from them and ourselves."
"That's absolutely insane."
"What did I just tell you?"
"So this guy has been on this message boards for years defending Jones, the meta who used to just walk up and down city streets killing hundreds indiscriminately. I mean, people with the last name Jones changed it after The Battle just to avoid ever being associated with him," I say.
"Yup. This guy, The Controller, thinks Jones was the good guy all along. And now he's got a nice pair of metabands himself somehow and intends to continue what Jones started," Derrick says.
"Well this is good then, right, all this online stuff? There must be a way to track him down through here right? Login records, IP addresses, something?" I ask.
"Nope. These boards are locked down tighter than most government networks. People on them are paranoid about retaliation from metas whose secrets they expose. Everything is encrypted, and traffic gets routed through a few dozen network connections before it even hits the main message board server. There's no way to find out who this guy is in real life through it," Derrick tells me.
This is not good.
"I'm guessing Electrotown gave you guys all the day off, considering what happened?" Derrick asks.
"Yeah, but I got a new job down at the la-," I begin while taking a look down at my phone to check the time, "shit. I'm late. Gotta go, see you later." Along with being late, I also notice that I've got another missed call from Jim, and about a dozen missed calls from an "Unknown" number that I can only assume is Midnight. Great.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"Where the hell have you been?" Midnight screams into my ear through my cell phone's receiver. I'm driving Derrick's car to the lake to make sure I'm not late. Seems safer than the whole teleportation thing right now.
"I was asleep! Maybe you've heard of it? It's that thing that everyone else in the world has to do once a day or else they start going crazy." I say.
"Well while you've been sleeping, the rest of the world has been learning all about the new friend that we made last night," Midnight says.
"I know. I heard about him this morning from my brother."
"Can you trust him?"
"The guy who made the thing we battled last night? What are you, crazy?"
There's a silence that implies Midnight is barely keeping his composure.
"Not The Controller. Your brother," he says.
"Oh, yeah. Of course. He's obsessed with meta stuff, but he's got no clue about me. I'm sure of it."
"I still don't like it. You shouldn't be engaging in these types of conversations with him. One slip in a conversation and all of a sudden you've turned him into a liability."
"He's fine. I'm being careful. Did you find anything out about this Controller guy that the news hasn't already?" I ask.
"No. But I'm processing through all available data on him as we speak. I'm not even sure he's on the same continent, let alone city, as us. There's a lot of ranting and raving, but not a whole lot of actual information about who he is, other than a lunatic."
"Yeah, I gathered that part. It seems like he's got a grudge now too, which should be extra fun for me."
"That's why you need to be especially careful right now. Listen, I need to leave town for a few days to follow up some of these leads."
"Where are you going?" I ask.
"It's better that you don't know. Honestly, it doesn't even matter, anyway. All you need to know is that if you get yourself into trouble, I'm not going to be close enough to save your ass, so absolutely no powering on your bands while I'm gone. This Controller person is going to be monitoring the police radio, social media,
"Insane views?"
"He's a hardcore Jones supporter. He saw him as a good guy. That 'bringing chaos' to the world 'saved it from self-righteous metahumans who would have eventually enslaved us'. He thinks Jones was saving us from them and ourselves."
"That's absolutely insane."
"What did I just tell you?"
"So this guy has been on this message boards for years defending Jones, the meta who used to just walk up and down city streets killing hundreds indiscriminately. I mean, people with the last name Jones changed it after The Battle just to avoid ever being associated with him," I say.
"Yup. This guy, The Controller, thinks Jones was the good guy all along. And now he's got a nice pair of metabands himself somehow and intends to continue what Jones started," Derrick says.
"Well this is good then, right, all this online stuff? There must be a way to track him down through here right? Login records, IP addresses, something?" I ask.
"Nope. These boards are locked down tighter than most government networks. People on them are paranoid about retaliation from metas whose secrets they expose. Everything is encrypted, and traffic gets routed through a few dozen network connections before it even hits the main message board server. There's no way to find out who this guy is in real life through it," Derrick tells me.
This is not good.
"I'm guessing Electrotown gave you guys all the day off, considering what happened?" Derrick asks.
"Yeah, but I got a new job down at the la-," I begin while taking a look down at my phone to check the time, "shit. I'm late. Gotta go, see you later." Along with being late, I also notice that I've got another missed call from Jim, and about a dozen missed calls from an "Unknown" number that I can only assume is Midnight. Great.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"Where the hell have you been?" Midnight screams into my ear through my cell phone's receiver. I'm driving Derrick's car to the lake to make sure I'm not late. Seems safer than the whole teleportation thing right now.
"I was asleep! Maybe you've heard of it? It's that thing that everyone else in the world has to do once a day or else they start going crazy." I say.
"Well while you've been sleeping, the rest of the world has been learning all about the new friend that we made last night," Midnight says.
"I know. I heard about him this morning from my brother."
"Can you trust him?"
"The guy who made the thing we battled last night? What are you, crazy?"
There's a silence that implies Midnight is barely keeping his composure.
"Not The Controller. Your brother," he says.
"Oh, yeah. Of course. He's obsessed with meta stuff, but he's got no clue about me. I'm sure of it."
"I still don't like it. You shouldn't be engaging in these types of conversations with him. One slip in a conversation and all of a sudden you've turned him into a liability."
"He's fine. I'm being careful. Did you find anything out about this Controller guy that the news hasn't already?" I ask.
"No. But I'm processing through all available data on him as we speak. I'm not even sure he's on the same continent, let alone city, as us. There's a lot of ranting and raving, but not a whole lot of actual information about who he is, other than a lunatic."
"Yeah, I gathered that part. It seems like he's got a grudge now too, which should be extra fun for me."
"That's why you need to be especially careful right now. Listen, I need to leave town for a few days to follow up some of these leads."
"Where are you going?" I ask.
"It's better that you don't know. Honestly, it doesn't even matter, anyway. All you need to know is that if you get yourself into trouble, I'm not going to be close enough to save your ass, so absolutely no powering on your bands while I'm gone. This Controller person is going to be monitoring the police radio, social media,
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