ID# 26130
Being a probationary agent for BADGE, one of my first official acts was going on Patrols around various locations. While I'd already done rounds in my home city of New Amsterdam, I figured I had the routine down. How wrong I was...
One day prior.
"Hi Astra," I said after I arrived at the earthbound BADGE HQ building and morphed out of my snow owl form. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm going to be your T.O. for this little excursion." Astra said with crossed arms and a stern look on her face. Formerly a boy, changed into a girl and empowered with powers of the mind, it was often hard to read her body language. Always friendly, there were moments were she came off as very tomboyish and seconds later, very feminine, and occasionally a mix of both.
I couldn't tell if she was being brutish on purpose or very, very serious about her doing her job well. I clicked my heels together as I transformed into my Madam Marvelous persona. Slightly over six foot tall, long dark black hair just like Lynda Carter, approximately in my early 20's (as opposed to my normal teenage look), and covered in glossy blue and red spandex with black accessories. "Yes, ma'am."
Astra scowled at me. "Seriously? Take it down a notch. Is this what you usually look like when you patrol?"
"It was the best thing I could come up with based on the options available to me," I said <fourth-wall wink to my audience>. "Is there a problem with it?"
"It's fine," she said. "I know you have a secret identity to protect. I just hadn't seen this look on you before. It's rather, curvy."
I smiled. I wanted to look good for the cameras if I ever was in a position to be photographed. "So, where are we going tonight? New Amsterdam? See if we can find any more signs of Legion?"
"What can you tell me about your patrols so far in New Amsterdam?" she asked.
I thought about my many, many times investigating dark corners of my hometown. "Well, after my Tour of BADGE, which was pretty short and sweet, I went on My First Patrol and after that, crossed paths with some run of the mill villains. Firebrand. Valkyrie. Impulse. The Stygian. Taking most of them down was fairly easy, except for Valkyrie. For some reason, she seemed to be way tougher than the others. Like really tough for a while, but then it seemed like she lost her power boost and went down like a sack of flour."
"OK. How about after that? Did you have any unusual encounters while working the city?" Astra pressed for more details.
"I did run into this Super Golf course, but kept losing my ball," I replied. "In the end I figured out what it was all about, but I can't go into details because of some NDAs made with BADGE lawyers."
"I think most everyone knows what you are talking about there," Astra said, finally uncrossing her arms. "If they haven't run across the Super Golf course yet, they will if they keep patrolling the area. Anything else?"
"Basically, it eventually seemed like what happened there was All In a Day's Work. Fighting Agents of the Legion, getting occasional encounters that gave me bursts of Mad Speed. Lots of Super Laser Eyes. A fair amount of experience in doing my job as a hero. Overall, it I find working in New Amsterdam very rewarding. Repeating my efforts there always seems to help me the most in my efforts to invest in developing my powers."
"Agreed," Astra said as she nodded. "It seems like New Amsterdam is fairly familiar to you, so we're going to patrol in a different area today. Take my hand."
"Where are we going?" I asked as I cautiously held my hand out to her. "You're not going to teleport me into some dark forest and I have to try to find my way back home?"
"No." Astra shook her head. "I'm not here for Hell Week or to haze you. But I am going to take you somewhere dangerous. Are you ready for this?"
"Of course. Danger is my middle name."
"According to you file, your middle name is Agatha." Astra looked at her BADGE communicator.
"I was JOKING..." I said as I took stepped beside her and grabbed her arm. "Calgon. Take me away."
"Don't call me Calgon. Or Shirley," Astra said as she teleported us away.
Nearly instantaneously, the arrived outside of a towering concrete compound that had multiple searchlights swiveling to search the large open area surrounding it. "Welcome to Purgatory Penitentiary."
Loud klaxons sounded all around us, immediately alerting everyone to trouble being present. "What do you think is going on?"
"Most likely a Breakout." Astra raised up her comm badge to a group of guards that pointed guns at us from the watchtower build into the compounds corner wall. "Villains are always finding new and inventive ways to get out of here and cause endless trouble. Let's go and help them clean up some of their latest mess."
Together Astra and I worked our way around the region and helped find and recapture many of the escapees. "I don't think they need more heroes on the case here," I said. "They need a better architect. What's the warden's name?"
"Something Dufresne, I think," Astra said with a shrug. "He seems to have this theory about redemptive nature of prisons. It doesn't help that enough criminals have tunneled out that the ground beneath the compound is about as solid as swiss cheese."
"I know there are some pretty big names being held in here. Gentleman Rex, for instance." I looked up at one of the barred windows high up in the wall. It had a glazed window that looked just like what you would find in a pool tavern or bar. "What do they all do while locked up in there?"
"Lots of games, I guess. You're in for Jurassic Trouble if you ever run into Gentlemen Rex or his pets while patrolling around here. He's more likely to challenge you to a game of billiards instead of a standard fight. If you accept and win, you'll still have to fight him to take him in, but more often than not, if you treat him well when he asks you to a game, politely accepting his invitation, you can actually learn a great deal about the game."
"Seriously?" I couldn't believe anyone would choose to play a game with him rather than recapturing him and taking him where he belongs.
"That's why I brought you here. The hero game isn't just about fighting them with your powers. Different skills, like pool, ping pong, pinball, bowling, and probably many more to come, will help you with your hero game. Why fight and level a city block with energy blasts and charging in like a wild rhino when you can win by besting them in a skill challenge."
"So, patrolling in New Amsterdam will help me improve my powers by giving me rewards I can use to improve myself or my gear as a hero, while patrolling around the Purgatory Penitentiary will help me develop different skills with games that can help me in challenges. Challenges like we had during her Heroic Olympiad." I wanted to make sure I fully understood what Astra was trying to tell me.
"In many ways, you are right, but there are other differences." Astra pointed at a section of the grounds and a stick floated up in the air. A tiny jewel sat at one end of what turned out to be an elegant walking stick. "You will find different items as you fight the villains, thugs, and basic bad people you encounter, as well as some Bux they may have accumulated and commendation items from BADGE. Since there is no reasonable way to return them to their rightful owner, you might as well keep them to use for yourself."
I looked at the loot that had fallen from a recently defeated villain she and I had encountered. I sifted through the belongings and found some Egyptian jars, scarabs, colorful dice, and other various objects. I opened a couple of jars and found intestines in one, a set of lungs in another. I turned my head away to avoid the putrid scent rising from the organs. "Are you sure someone doesn't want these back?"
"Maybe. I don't know. Maybe you can ask your mummy?" Astra giggled.
"Har. Har." I closed the jars back up.
"One thing you will find is that as you patrol, the more you patrol, you will eventually find a new opportunity to investigate a different layer of the area. You can find in the Purgatory Penitentiary region there are Crooked Affairs afoot after you chase after Gentleman Rex. Shifting Circumstances may bring you more opportunities. You will find that in the world of us heroes against the villains, it is always Game On!!" Astra showed me a gauntlet she wore on her arm. "I took this from Power Princess earlier. It isn't as good as some items you can get in the armory or shuffled around by Director Nova, but gear like this will help you better than nothing at all."
I ran my finger on the edge of the gaudy appliance. "That's awfully pink, isn't it?"
"Beggars can't be choosers, can we?" Astra said. "Some of the other gear options available to you are, well, like winning the lottery. If you are willing to spend enough, you'll win something. Probably not what you wanted, but you're assured to get something decent."
"It kind of seems a bit disheartening," I said, feeling a bit glum at the concept. "We do all this work, fight the bad guys and whatever else gets thrown at us, for what? All the while, gaining more and more experience as we fight tougher and tougher opponents. Seems kind of unfair. Good equipment would make our jobs so much easier."
"Nobody said being a hero was meant to be easy," Astra said as she put a hand on my shoulder. "Now, lets go to Neo Utopia."
"Isn't that where that idiot Rotkowski had control of the world a while ago?" I asked.
"A month ago. A week ago. Tomorrow. Time is a construct we don't fully understand yet, do we?" Astra asked just before we blipped away.
We appeared in black and white in Neo Utopia. Astra appeared dressed quite differently than she had been. Her costume had been replaced by a frilly slip with a silk negligee. "She looked good, except a bit cold, if the diamond-edged tips of her bustier gave any indication."
"Where is that voice coming from?" I asked. I check my own uniform and found that while it was black and white now, it still covered my body just as I imagined it should.
"Don't worry about that. It happens here," Astra said. She closed her eyes and her clothing changed, becoming a pair of worn jeans and a tank-top t-shirt. "There. I've made it so people can see me in a more appropriate manner. This area messes with our BADGE nanites for our costumes. Hold it. How do you still look like yourself?"
"I'm a shapeshifter. No nanites other than in my communicator," I said, but as I did, I realized my wrist communicator was missing. I looked down at my feet and found an empty tin can with a length of string running into the base.
"Hmmm." Astra shrugged before she knelt down and picked up the tin can and wrapped the string around it. "I guess you won't need this right now. Anyways, here heroes work with a P.I. named Peyton to find a McGuffin Clock used by Rotkowski." She held up her finger to silence me before I could speak. "I know Rotkowski is in prison, but you have to do the patrol to understand what is going on here. There's a story here, and I don't want to spoil it for you. Right now, searching for the Clock is the only task heroes have to complete, but I'm sure eventually more opportunities to patrol will arise."
"Astra readied to leave, but she acted as if a chain tied to a large ball held her in place, not wanting to do what she had to do next," the narrating voice returned.
"Ignore that. Let's go," Astra said, touching my shoulder again before we disappeared.
"The ladies departed, but I'm certain they will return one day soon. Neo Utopia isn't done with them yet," the voice said to the empty field they once stood in. "Well, f*^( this s#*@. If there's a narrator in a field with nobody listening, is anything really being said?"
*****
Astra and I reappeared in an area I wasn't familiar with. Fancy automobiles zoomed on the streets and over bridges crossing over a wide river. The smell of industry and burnt tires filled the air all around us. And people ran into buildings after being chased by odd looking robots of various shapes and sizes. Some of them looked strangely familiar, like something I'd seen before on television. "Where are we now, Ghost of Patrol's Present?"
"This is Free Detroit," Astra said. "You're not ready to patrol here yet. Not as a probationary BADGE agent. One day, when you are a full agent, you might be ready to fight what you will encounter here."
"So why bring me here?" I asked.
"To give you a taste of your future," she said before disappearing. Her voice spoke in my head. And I lied. Have fun trying to find your way home after I teleported you around to different locations. Krystal Fae said this would be a good test for your powers. Good luck.
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