Frustrated, Max stood up and thought over her options for a moment. Her best bet would be to opne the door quietly and slip in. It would be fairly easy since there was no light and the hallway itself had no windows of any kind to let in the outside light.
Silently standing up, Max grabbed onto the doorknob and turned it. She took her time, a full minute just to open the door enough to peer inside the room fully. After a moment of searching Max spotted a bed and a very horrifying sight that made her want to retch.
On top of the bed was a middle aged man with slightly wrinkled skin and a balding head, completely matching the description and photo she'd seen online. He was completely nude and had a hand roughly on a young girl who was also nude.
Max seethed with anger but managed to stay calm. She needed to get the girl out of the place before she took any action. So with that, she flipped the light switch on the wall. The 2 people in the room blinked in surprise and tried to clear their eyes from the light. They succeeded after a moment and looked at the intruder.
The man had a strange look that crossed between terror and ultimate hatred. He looked down at his charge and realized that he'd been caught. So carefully and quietly he placed the girl down on the ground. Without a word Max went over and picked the girl up. The man made no moves and Max carried the girl out of the room and back to the window. She realized then that the girl lived next door and the man had used the closeness of the windows to abduct her. He'd probably been doing that to her for years considering his address was listed on his parole sheet more than 3 years ago.
After passing the girl back to her house the girl ran to a room and slammed the door. Max could hear her crying from the window and she reached over and shut the window to the other house quietly. After she did a pair of men came running up the stairs to the girls room to check on her. Max crept back out of the room and across the hall to confront the man she'd found raping the poor girl.
The light was off again and she flipped it back on. The man stalked out from behind the door with a gun in hand and a silencer screwed onto the end. Without a work Max stared at him as he held it to her face and smiled cruelly.
He pulled the trigger but Max dodged the bullet to her left with her superhuman reflexes. The bullet embedded itself in the wall. Max grabbed the gun and bent the entire thing, folding it in half with considerable difficulty.
The man stared at her in absolute terror as she bent the gun and then tried to run after she finished. He didn't even make it to the door though, as Max grabbed his neck from behind. She snapped it with relative ease and the man dropped limp to the floor. She looked down and saw that his eyes were still moving, meaning he might still be alive. She spit on his face before stomping his head into the floor. His skull was instantly crushed and his brain splattered everywhere, killing him for good.
Max scowled as she walked out of the houses front door and sprinted off into the woods. She heard the police sirens coming just after she vanished and knew that the girls family had called the police.
##########
Max stared at the television in the dorm lobby in silence as she watched the news early the next morning. During the night the police had been called after a young girl claimed to have been hurt by her neighbor. The girls parents had called the police instantly and the police had investigated, finding the dead body of the man Max had brutally murdered the previous night. They were still baffled and the men she had seen were both on television crying over what had happened to their daughter.
Inside she didn't know what she felt, if anything at all. She'd been early enough to stop the man before he'd killed the little girl, but late enough that the girl had already been hurt. She hated herself for being so late, but decided there was nothing she could do now and promised to be earlier next time.
After that she left to go back to her dorm room. The first class of her day had been cancelled because the teacher was sick and so Max would have some free time to herself.
Max began going through the list and finding more registered sex offenders near her area. She found that the next nearest one was in a county prison waiting to be transferred over to a federal prison for raping his wife and killing her. He had a 19 year old daughter but her name hadn't been listed as one of the people who'd been harmed by the man. Max didn't believe for a second that he hadn't hurt his daughter and decided to put him on her list, right at the very top.
Max prepared by trying to find any public records of the jail, but after a vigorous search she hadn't found a damn thing. She needed to know where his cell was because she couldn't spend too much time inside the facility. The guards would realize she was there very fast and would move to protect her target from her.
After hours of searching she finally found a black market site selling the information she needed. She would need a way of getting it that didn't require payment because the risk of getting caught up in the black market, and maybe being arrested, was too high.
Though she had no idea how to do just that. And she had to leave for her weekend job anyway, so she would have to formulate a plan.
##########
During Max's shift at work she came across a small proposal to have a professional hacker come in and teach the students about keeping their online lives safe and anonymous. The hacker was actually a network security teacher at a major technology university, having been hired after he'd successfully broken their network while high on drugs on a dare from an equally drugged up friend. The university had decided that his sentence, which was community service, could be best served by teaching his methods at the university level. He'd agreed and had decided to pursue a full time career as a teacher after his sentence was over.
The proposal was absolutely stupid and a complete waste of money as far as Max was concerned. Even the other members of the student government had agreed so. The proposal had been denied but still had to be filed as per the rules of the charter for the organization. So Max filed it but then decided to research the professor more. It turned out all of his lectures were recorded and published online for others to use after a small fee was paid. The fee was quite high compared to Max's budget, but she decided to set aside enough money to buy the lectures, even though it meant she would need to work some overtime for her freelance web design job.
She didn't have much longer though. The man she was after would be moved in 2 more weeks, after a 6 week delay due to over-population at the prison he would be assigned to. Max had to learn network security and all related info in less than that time, completely from scratch. If she could do it she could certainly just steal the information she needed, lessening her risk of being involved in something illegal that could get her caught.
She got started with the lectures she'd paid for, watching them at 4 times the normal speed of playback. Though it would still take days to watch them all, Max patiently went through them. She absorbed the information quite well and after she was done she found she had a much better grasp of even her own schools computer network. Within a day of finishing the lecture videos she'd managed to sneak her way into the schools network and change the website access and logging for her computer. She erased all the traces of her activity since the night she'd killed her father after being thoroughly surprised and sickened at how much information they kept about their students browsing habits. The school could have put google to shame if they ever made their records public.
Even so, Max finally had the freedom she would need to begin finding a covert way to get the information about the prison layout. She began the next morning, but it took a number of days and many failed attempts that definitely didn't go unnoticed before she finally got the info she needed. She was down to the last day before the transfer would take place but had lucked out. The info featured the names and cell locations of all prisoners the day it was posted. That day happened to be exactly 3 days after the prisoner she was after had been shut in his cell. Max now definitely had the location of the man she was after, and she was going to finish
him off, one way or another.
Chapter 9:
Trouble
Max waited outside the prison in silence as she watched the perimeter. There was a rather tall perimeter fence topped with razor wire. She figured she could get over the razor wire but she couldn't see any cameras. She knew they were around but without being able to see them she couldn't get any idea of their field of view. That was troubling because Max needed to be able to make her way to the prison wall without being noticed.
She sat for a good half an hour thinking and finally came up with a plan. The lights were the obvious weak point and if she could take a few out her full black outfit would help her move stealthily across the compound. She dug around a bit, looking for a suitable rock to try and use to destroy the bulb. After a moment she found one and looked up to line up her shot. She threw the rock but it missed to the left just enough to not hit anything.
Max scowled and reached for another rock, this time finding one considerably faster than last time. She threw it but this time missed too far to the right. She kept trying until she had thrown over a dozen rocks. She was getting tired of that method and needed something more reliable. After a moment she suddenly had a very bright idea. She needed to chip away at the rocks to form a small arrow head shape from them. That would let them fly straighter and increase her chances of hitting the damned lights.
She found 2 rocks and set about using one to shape the other. It took a further half an hour but she finally had the shape she needed. She lined up the shot and threw it with as much force as she could muster. The arrow head rock struck its target, taking out the light instantly. It made a decent amount of noise but after 5 minutes no one had come to investigate, so she reasoned that no one had heard it.
In that way Max took out 3 more lights before the area she needed to access was sufficiently darkened. Then she quickly and quietly scaled the fence and ran across the open ground to the side of the prison. Once she arrived she found a small depression right beside the wall. Ducking down inside of it, Max pressed her body to the ground while watching and listening to see if anyone had spotted her. When it became clear that no one had, she let out a small, silent sigh of relief.
Then she stalked around a bit to find the place she needed to be. The cell she was looking for had an outside view with a really small window that would be about big enough for Max to squeeze through. It took 10 minutes of searching and fair amount of retracing her earlier steps, but she finally found the window she was looking for. Looking around, she noted the area was sufficiently dark enough for her to hide herself while she broke in.
After confirming that she would be unseen she jumped up and grabbed the ledge of the window. Slowly she pulled herself over the ledge and looked around carefully. There was a male in the corner, sitting on the ground with his head buried in his knees. There was no one else around but Max was sure there was a camera hidden somewhere watching the cell. Even so, she couldn't spot it.
She decided she would just have to make it quick and ripped a few of the cell windows bars out of the concrete with a considerable amount of effort. By the time she had finished the guy in the cell had noticed and was watching in anticipation. She slid through, leaving one bar in place since she was on a timetable.
The man stayed sitting on the ground but looked up at her with a combination of fear and acceptance in his eyes.
"So, what do you want?" he asked, clearly stifling back some tears as he spoke.
"Your death." Max growled out, distorting her voice so much that it scared the man. He stared at her a moment longer and then stood up slowly. Max stared at him as he moved but made no actions. Finally, after he was on his feet, he sighed.
"Please go ahead then. I've caused my family enough trouble. It's time my miserable life ended."
Max frowned and stared at him. When she didn't move he stepped closer.
"Please. I promise if you do this they'll be better off."
Max stood without moving. After a few minutes she figured she needed to get out of there. The longer she stuck around the greater the risk of being caught by a guard. But she couldn't move. Something was rooting her in place and she didn't understand it.
"Why?" the words came from Max's mouth but she couldn't remember speaking them as soon as they were spoken.
"Because I've caused too much grief. I've already cost my wife her life and my daughter her education. Go ahead and kill me please."
Max started scathing but a part of her started fighting against her will. But that part of her was the part she hated. That part didn't want to deliver a proper justice to those who deserved it. She fought herself internally. After what seemed like a very lengthy battle Max finally subdued the part of her that she hated. In reality it had taken less than a second.
After she did she grabbed the mans neck in her hands. Without hesitation she squeezed, completely decapitating her victim. At the exact moment his body hit the ground a guard walked by. As soon as she saw the sight he instantly grabbed a radio and his gun. He began issuing warnings as Max jumped through the window. A few bullets chased her but she wasn't hit by any of them.
By the time they'd managed to mobilize Max had already darted off the compound and was half way back to the school campus. She didn't care about whether she was seen, she just wanted to get away as soon as possible.
##########
Max laid on her bed staring at the ceiling as the sun rose. She couldn't get the words the man had said out of her mind. And every time she closed her eyes she could see the look he had when she'd killed him. He was sad and scared. It wasn't at all like she was expecting. She had wanted him to be angry. To fight back. To try and hurt her.
But he hadn't. Not only did he accept his fate, he'd even done so because he cared about his family. He had wanted to save them from having to deal with his troubles. Maybe he'd even been sorry...
'NO GOD DAMNIT' Max thought angrily as she jumped up. She couldn't start questioning her conviction now. She had to be steadfast in her resolve to finish off the people who deserved punishment.
She went over to her computer and began researching again. She needed to find more people who deserved to die. She had to. After a while the feeling that she was wrong about her ideals would disappear. She hoped...
Chapter 10:
Killing Spree
Max looked at the file in front of her with absolute disgust. The man she had found was easily the worst person she could ever imagine. He'd raped and beaten his wife and 2 daughters, eventually killing the youngest one, a girl slightly younger than Max. It reminded her of her childhood so much that she had to go after him. She needed to end him and let the 2 remaining members live in peace.
Still that would be hard. The police had a picture of his face included in the profile, but to date he'd eluded escape. They suspected he was heading east of Raleigh but hadn't found him with various roadblocks. Not that those were effective given how many roads there were, but they still tried, even if sometimes it was to placate the public outrage over their lack of results.
Max didn't know where to start looking for him either. However she had abilities the police didn't. She also didn't have the legal bindings they did when searching for criminals. Though it seemed that might not help her this time around.
The police files, as it turned out, were kept in a private database with no internet access. It seemed the police in larger areas were more paranoid. And it iritated Max endlessly. She needed a way to get information and she needed it fast. But so far she couldn't think of any way to get any info. So instead she filed his public information on a folder on her computer and went on to find other targets who were easier to find.
She began searching again and found another target within minutes. This one was quite a bit further away than the last few had been and she would almost certainly need some form of transportation. Her top speed, that she'd been able to measure, was only around 60 miles per hour. At that rate it would take 3 hours just to arrive at the lo
cation if she followed established public roads. Meaning she needed a faster way to get there.
Of course she didn't have a car. And couldn't afford one. Her town had a bus stop but that was only for local transportation. If she ran in a straight line and didn't get lost, a huge assumption, then she could be there in roughly 2.5 hours. As she considered her options she decided that she would just have to run and pray that she didn't get lost.
She decided to set out that night despite the fact that it was a Sunday. She had school tomorrow morning and really wanted to get some sleep. But she decided that her vengeance was more important. Plus being unpredictable would make it harder for the police to trace her trail.
##########
Max was sprinting as fast as she could through some underbrush. But she had to be careful. One power she noted was missing from her repetoire was invulnerability. She would still be cut easily by things like the underbrush she was running through. Though she had super healing to make up for it, so she was pushing faster than she would have normally dared already.
She was only about 15 seconds out from her destination if she had run in the correct direction. While that was a really big if, she'd managed to orient herself using several roads in the area. The possibility of her being lost was certainly much smaller. Especially since she also had a map of the area she'd printed and compass to help her navigate.
She slowed down at the map when she saw a clearing ahead. If her guess was accurate, that clearing was the compound she had planned to infiltrate. As she came near she saw a very large 3 story plantation style home.
'Yep, this is it.' Max thought to herself.
The house was painted white and was very lavish, with a porch that wrapped all the way around the first floor. The third story seemed a little out of place to Max's eyes, but she couldn't figure out why. Perhaps it was a new addition to the home or something like that.
Chronicles of the Supers (Book 1): Born From Darkness (The Story of Max) Page 6
