Red Light Hero

by Kory Shen

  Images of nude women appeared on the phone screen. Alan's curiosity got the better of him. He took a closer look. Some of the faces looked familiar. Wasn't that—

  "I know them. Those are women I've…" They were women who had sent him photos. Sexting partners, flings, meetups. A visual history of his sex life scrolled across the phone screen. "Stop that!" Alan grabbed the phone out of Stalker's hand, ready to crush it with his super strength.

  "You won't want to miss that last one," Stalker said calmly, nodding at the phone.

  A woman was lying on the floor, sobbing. Unlike the other clips and pictures, this woman wasn't naked. Instead, she wore white. Cover Girl.

  Alan shoved the phone back into Stalker's hands. "Where is this? When is this? Is Cover Girl in trouble?"

  Stalker casually accepted the phone back. "Back at the Institute. Now. Yes."

  "What's happening?" Alan found himself holding Stalker's arm. She raised an eyebrow at him. "Sorry. What's happening to Cover Girl?"

  "Cover Girl is officially on Maiden's shit list. She was before, but now she really is. She's a prisoner, and Maiden's going to cut her off. She won't be an alpha after a few more weeks."

  Alan stared in horror. He knew what it meant for an alpha to lose her powers. It was worse than suicide. He stared at the screen more carefully. She had some kind of electronic-looking collar around her neck. "Can you help her? Can you disable that thing on her?" Alan said.

  Stalker balked. "Why would I do that? I'm not interfering with another beta circle's business."

  "But it's cruel. Don't you care about your fellow alphas?"

  "She made her choice. With you."

  "So can you help her? Like are you capable of helping her? From here?" Alan pressed.

  "Maybe. Maybe not. But I won't," Stalker said, frowning now.

  "That's fine. If I have your alpha powers, I can do it myself, right?"

  "Is that why you wanted to see me?" Stalker stared at Alan intently. Her phone was off.

  Alan hesitated. That was a plausible explanation. Revealing the plan to steal the Alpha Files would put the mission in jeopardy. All the maneuvering, the lies, the plans within plans was grating, though. He refused to become another fake cog in the spin machine.

  "No, I can't tell you what we're after, but it's to protect ourselves from Sire and PIERCR. I didn't know Cover Girl was in this much trouble until you told me." He'd have to ask Godmother about Cover Girl. Was there anything they could do?

  Stalker nodded. "No lies. I hate lying, too."

  Alan couldn't shake the eerie suspicion that Stalker had hacked his brain. "Did you just do something to me?"

  "I can't control neural impulses. Yet. I can read them to tell if you're lying or not."

  This alpha was getting creepier and creepier. The sooner he finished his business with her, the better.

  "So, are you, uh, in the mood yet?"

  Stalker licked her lips. She repositioned herself on the car seat so she was facing Alan. He tried not to flinch as she laid an arm around him. "Getting closer. Do you know why I like to watch people?"

  No, and he didn't want to find out. "Because it's taboo? Naughty? That sort of thing?"

  Stalker laughed. "That too, but that's not the main reason. It's to see people naked."

  Alan blinked. "You can see naked people without creeping on them."

  "Not naked bodies. Naked souls. How people act when they think no one's watching. When you see the real person underneath, not the pretty clothes that everyone else sees." Stalker panted as she spoke. She reached out and tugged at Alan's pants.

  Alan helped her along, trying to go with the flow. He didn't know where this was going exactly, but it was in the right direction.

  "Yeah, I totally get that. I hate it when people are fake. But isn't that what you alphas are like? Pretty on the outside, ugly on the inside?" He shouldn't have said that, but he wanted to hear Stalker's answer.

  Stalker smiled, "That's right. And I get to see it all." She reached under her top, massaging one breast as she spoke.

  Alan hid his disappointment. He had hoped that there was more to her. No, she was just another creepy alpha.

  He pulled his own pants down, then pulled up Stalker's business dress.

  "You have to tell me your secrets while we do it," Stalker said.

  "Oh, come on," Alan said.

  Stalker pressed her knees close together. "Those are the rules. You tell me what the others don't know. About what you think about when no one's watching." She caressed Alan's hair. "Tell me everything in here."

  The others were counting on him. Now Cover Girl was, too. He could do this. He had fucked a couple creepy girls in the past.

  "So are we playing truth or dare or something?" Alan asked. "We did that back when I was a teenager." He tried not to make those last words too sarcastic.

  Stalker's eyes lit up. "That's a great idea! Except, we'll skip the dare part and stick with the truth." She wagged a finger at him. "Don't forget. I can tell if you're lying."

  Stalker pulled her black panties down, then spread her legs open in the cramped back seat. A small line of clear fluid dribbled down to the fabric of the seat beneath her. She wasn't lying. She did enjoy this.

  "When you were a teenager," Stalker began, "did you ever think about sleeping with your mom?"

  "What!" Alan's mouth fell open. "Of course not."

  "Your sister?"

  "No, I don't have a sister."

  "I know. I was testing you."

  Jesus Christ.

  "A teacher?" Stalker asked.

  "Teacher?" Alan echoed. "No—" Stalker was staring at him intently again. She couldn't actually read his mind, could she? He sighed. "Well, back in ninth, no, tenth grade, there was this English class…"

  CHAPTER 28

  HumiliT watched the taller blonde out of the corner of her eyes as they entered the base. Violet flicked her eyes over, catching her. HumiliT didn't turn away, but stared back openly. It was time to make things clear.

  "You want to do it now?" HumiliT asked.

  "Excuse me? Do what?" Violet replied.

  "I know you're itching for a piece of me. To see if you can take me on. By the way, you can't beat me, in case your nerdy brain can't handle that fact."

  Violet's mouth fell open. "Okay, I was wrong. You're an even more arrogant asshole than I first thought."

  HumiliT smiled. Goading her on shouldn't be too hard.

  "You and me right now," HumiliT said, pointing to Violet and back at herself.

  Violet stared. "We shouldn't waste our viral loads. We have a mission."

  It was true. The mission always came first. Except when upstarts needed to be put in their place. "A quick scuffle, then. Star can recharge us if he wants."

  "Alan has a lot of things to deal with. Stalker, then the mission. We should be helping him out, not giving him chores."

  HumiliT chuckled. "Oh, I help him out plenty. I can see that fucking you would be a chore, though." There, was that enough of a push?

  Violet's lips pressed together. HumiliT's speed-enhanced vision caught the momentary flicker of something purple, but it vanished too quickly for her to make out clearly.

  "One round in the practice room," Violet hissed. "Follow me."

  Several minutes later, they stood opposite each other in a small gymnasium with a hard rubber floor.

  HumiliT beckoned to Violet. "Give me your best shot."

  Violet glared at her, then charged. A translucent purple armor appeared around her as she ran, but Violet didn't miss a step. It looked nice, but fighting wasn't about looking nice. HumiliT didn't even bother to brace herself. What mattered was the woman behind the projection armor, and it didn't matter if she used a fist or a knife. She wouldn't be able to hurt—

  HumiliT buckled over in pain as Violet sucker punched her in the stomach with a fist wrapped in purple.

  "The hell, how did you—"

  HumiliT stepped backwards, avoiding a seco
nd punch to her head. She stared at the woman smirking at her.

  "You shouldn't be able to hurt me with a punch," HumiliT said, her eyes narrowing.

  "My power's in my brain, not my body," Violet said. "But someone like you wouldn't understand." She charged again, coming in for a punch.

  HumiliT turned her right shoulder into the punch, readying herself for the pain. This time, she watched carefully. The instant before Violet's fist made contact, the projection surrounding the fist changed shape into a blade. It was only for an instant. The materializing blade collided with HumiliT's skin, shattering. The blade fragments disappeared in the next moment.

  Violet wasn't simply punching HumiliT. She was combining a contact-based projection attack, similar to what Alan had done to her before. Against anyone else, Violet's attack would have been fatal. HumiliT dashed backwards to the other side of the gymnasium.

  "You figured it out?" Violet asked. "Good. This isn't so meaningless after all. We should know each other's abilities before the mission." Violet shot a small purple marble forward at HumiliT. It vanished after a short distance. "I don't have the range that Alan does. But I have better control. Like this armor."

  HumiliT had to admit, the woman was better than she had first thought. Not that it mattered.

  HumiliT shook her head. "I can tell you're new to this. You shouldn't show your weaknesses. Only your strengths."

  She charged, using her super speed to send a punch into Violet's armored body before she could dodge. HumiliT punched gently, not willing to risk getting blamed for hurting the girl before a mission.

  Violet slid back several feet, remaining standing on her feet. HumiliT frowned. That punch should have sent her flying.

  "Are you kidding?" Violet asked. "We're on the same team now. I don't know how you alphas do things over there, but you're not with them anymore."

  HumiliT ignored Violet and raced forward to strike Violet again. As she closed the distance to her opponent, something tugged on her feet. She stumbled, missing Violet, who had stepped to the side using the distraction. HumiliT looked down. Purple traps lined the floor around Violet.

  HumiliT snorted in disgust. "That's a terrible idea."

  Violet shrugged. "It worked, didn't it?"

  "Only the first time. I can just do this." HumiliT sprang at Violet, her body flying across the short distance between them.

  The two women crashed and rolled on the ground. HumiliT forced Violet to her back, straddling her and pinning her arms down.

  "See?" HumiliT said. "From here, I could do whatever I want."

  Violet struggled for a second but couldn't move under HumiliT's iron grip. She stopped struggling. "You idiot. Getting within range of me is never a good idea."

  Pain exploded between HumiliT's spread legs as projections attacked her nether regions. HumiliT rolled off Violet, grabbing her crotch.

  "Fuck you!" HumiliT screamed. "The kid gloves are off."

  She was going to pay for that.

  Violet stepped away, her eyes lined with worry. She held up her hands. "Hey, this is a friendly match, right?"

  "Not anymore," HumiliT said, advancing.

  "HumiliT! Stop!" Violet said. "You win! I know you can beat me if you go all out."

  HumiliT paused. "I'm listening."

  "You're more experienced than me. You're stronger than me. I know that. I needed to prove to myself that I'm good enough."

  "Good enough for what?"

  "For…everything. For the mission. For the team. That I wouldn't hold anyone back." The armor around Violet disappeared.

  "So we're a team now?" HumiliT rolled her eyes.

  "Aren't we?"

  "As long as you know your place."

  "I'm not going to be pushed around by you."

  HumiliT studied the tall blonde. She had some spunk. She had to give her that. Was she really some brainy genius? If she was at the top of her stuff, like she claimed, she couldn't have gotten there by accident.

  "Fine. I'll still kick your ass if you do that again."

  Violet tried to stifle a smirk, unsuccessfully. "I have plenty of other tricks for you."

  Yeah, this girl had some spunk. "Tricks will only get you so far in the field. What kind of training have you had?"

  "Godmother's been showing me the ropes when she has time," Violet said.

  "Godmother?" This had gotten interesting. "Show me."

  * * *

  Alan watched the car leave with Stalker inside. He noticed his wrist band's display blinking with four letters. XXOO. The screen faded to black, then changed back to its original configuration.

  That had been interesting, but he didn't care to repeat that encounter. The sex was vanilla physically, but of all the alphas he had slept with, Stalker had been the most unusual. And that was counting Violet's glowing tentacle attacks. Stalker hadn't even used her powers, for the most part, unless he counted her lie detection abilities. But creepy didn't begin to describe her.

  Alan headed back inside. Someone was waiting for him.

  "Scottie, is that you?" Alan greeted the guard. "I haven't seen you until now."

  "I had other tasks," Scottie said.

  "Hey, you didn't get in too much trouble for me escaping, did you?" Alan had half expected to find out that Scottie's body was at the bottom of some lonely river. Despite his unpleasant memories from his first stay here, he couldn't help but feel a little nostalgic, if not relieved.

  "Nah," Scottie said. "Godmother said she knew you would leave."

  "She did?" Alan scowled. She had been running the show the whole time, hadn't she? He didn't appreciate being someone's puppet.

  Scottie froze. "Uh, nevermind. I'm supposed to take you to the others."

  "Where are they?"

  "Fighting. Follow me."

  "What?" Alan raced after Scottie, but Scottie didn't say anything else.

  Alan arrived at the gymnasium, rushing inside. The two standing women turned to look at him.

  "The stud is back," HumiliT said. "Was it good? I've heard stories about Stalker."

  Alan frowned.

  "Did you get Stalker's alphavirus?" Violet asked.

  "I guess?" Alan replied. "We did the deed."

  Violet walked over and picked his arm up, tapping the wrist band. "I'll have to show you how to use this. See? Here. The sequencer's picking up a new strain. Counts are going up."

  "So can you make me one of those, too?" HumiliT asked.

  Violet ignored her. "I'll label it, STK."

  HumiliT sighed. "Please? I can only track the total viral load with my temperature band." She jiggled the gray band on her own wrist.

  "Since you asked nicely," Violet said, "I'll think about it." She turned back to Alan. "Have you tried using her power?"

  Alan realized that he didn't know the first thing about using Stalker's power. He had focused on getting out of there as soon as possible.

  "Not yet. I'm not even sure how," he said.

  "You didn't ask Stalker?" Violet asked.

  "Stalker is…" Alan began.

  "Creepy," HumiliT finished. "No one likes talking to her."

  "Can you try now?" Violet asked.

  "Yeah, let me see." Alan closed his eyes, unsure what he was doing. Was anything different? He breathed slowly and waited. Yes. There was a slight hum on the edge of his consciousness. He reached for that hum with his thoughts.

  A flood of numbers, images, and gibberish rushed into his head. Alan yelled in shock, opening his eyes. The other two gave him concerned looks.

  "Sounds like it worked," HumiliT said.

  "I have no idea what I did. How am I ever going to get this to work?" He could have asked Stalker for advice before she left. What if she figured out their plan, though?

  "You don't have to do everything Stalker does," Violet said. "You only need to break the encryption on the Alpha Files so we can copy them without having them self-destruct."

  "Oh, that'll be easy, then," Alan muttered.

&
nbsp; "You can practice on lower grade encryption, can't you?" Tricia asked. She pointed at Violet. "She's the brainy type, right? Can she make you some practice files to steal?"

  Violet's brows furrowed in annoyance. "Brainy type? Encryption isn't my specialty, but that's a good idea. I'm sure Godmother can get us something to use."

  Alan nodded. "Okay. Let's see what Godmother has to say."

  * * *

  Alan stared at the desktop computer on a cart in front of him. He held a simple USB stick in his right hand.

  "There, I've copied it." He handed the USB stick to Godmother, who plugged it into another computer.

  "Good." Godmother handed the USB stick back. "Now try one of the encrypted files."

  "How do I tell if a file is encrypted or not? Oh." Alan rubbed his head. Some of the files had a different texture as he scanned them with his mind. They were grainy, rough. At least, that's how they felt in his head.

  He touched one of the smaller rough files, wrapping his mind around it in an intimate embrace. He filled in the cracks of the file's rough texture. Suddenly, the file was no longer rough.

  "That's right," Godmother said.

  Alan kept his eyes glued to the computer as he replied. "How do you know? You can't even see what I'm doing?"

  "I can see it in your eyes," Godmother said.

  "Yeah, it's the same look you make when you—" HumiliT started.

  "Quiet!" Alan said. "I'm concentrating."

  The others didn't say anything for a minute while he teased the encryption apart. It wasn't difficult. Just tedious.

  "Same look as when he does what?" Violet whispered.

  Alan glared at her. "Not you too."

  Violet bowed her head. "Sorry, I'm curious. I am a scientist, after all."

  HumiliT chuckled. "When he—"

  "I got it!" Alan yelled in triumph, silencing the others. He gave Godmother the USB stick again.

  Godmother checked the contents. "Looks like you've gotten the hang of it. Now, repeat that ten more times. Then we'll work on your timing."

  "It wasn't that hard," Alan said. "Should we get going?"

  "The situation in the field's different," HumiliT said. "Godmother's right. You need to be able to break the encryption in your sleep."