Harker, year 0-5-1 Acceptance, Sanders

Information appeared on his visor as Patrick looked at the building on the other side of the street. Its height; thirty-six feet. Its width; five hundred and eighteen feet. Its depth; a hundred and twenty-seven feet. The composition of the facade; brick. The windows; boarded up with cheap plywood. The font was green and looked as if he was reading an ancient monochrome screen. All dots instead of sharp-edged letters.

He’d never gotten Richard to explain his affectation for the old font, which was odd, considering how up to date he was on technology.

He stepped back into the alley’s shadow as a car turned onto the street. The visor darkened momentarily as the headlights blinded him. He had to hope what reflected off his visor would be dismissed as glasses, and the long gray hair as that of a vagrant. His armor was mostly mate, so more difficult to notice.

“The building used to be a brewery. Back in the good old days,” Richard said through the earpiece. “Went bankrupt in the eighties, and has been on the auction board ever since. Some merchants tried making it into a coffee shop, went under, and it was back on the board. An artisan tried making it a clothing store. Failed. It’s been a tech upgrade shop a few times. Back to the boards. It turned F class pretty quick after that, and was reclassified as ‘Villain Base’. Which bring us to our current quest chain.”

Patrick sighed as softly as he could. Another affectation he’d had to get used to was Richard’s insistence on turning everything he did at night into a video game adventure.

“What’s wrong?” the voice in his ear asked. “I’m not seeing anything suspicious on the street cameras.”

He kept forgetting how sensitive the microphone in his cowl was. “I just wish you’d stop it with the game-speak. This isn’t a game.”

“They’re just words. Don’t let them get to you.”

“Word have power, Rich. Respect that.”

“Will do.” The tone wasn’t exactly dismissive, which was the best Patrick would get out of his friend and associate.

A path appeared from his position, to across the street, and went to the side, vanishing in the alley there. He waited for a car to drive by, then hurried to cross. Once in the alley, the path stretched up the building.

He stifled the sigh. “Can’t you find me a fire escape?”

“Sure thing. As soon as they install one.”

He flexed his hands, and the visor indicated the small claws at the tip extended. They were too small to inflict damage, no matter how often Richard insisted he could make him combat claws. All he’d accepted was something to help him climb. Edge weapons killed too easily.

Patrick had had to loosen a lot of God’s laws when he’d taken on cleaning his neighborhood’s streets, but ‘tho shall not kill’ was one he wasn’t willing to be soft about. He wouldn’t kill on purpose, and he’d do everything he could not to do it accidentally.

Rich didn’t share that ideal. They were enemy mobs; and those were put in games to die.

Ghost Mission Active—The Sorento’s Secret, Step 6 flash in the upper left and Patrick groaned.

“How often do I have to tell you to stop it with the Ghost thing?”

The claws sunk into the brickwork, and he slowly went up.

“It’s what the media calls you. You know. Because all anyone’s ever seen of you is hints, the gray and black of your armor, along with that horrible gray wig, does give you a phantom-like feel in the right light. Or lack of it.”

As he approached the roof, wireframes of items appeared. Objects now registering on the short range radar thing Richard had incorporated into the armor. A square box that might be a rooftop heat pump. Venting pipes. A larger one that would be an access.

“It doesn’t mean you have to use it as part of your mission names.” Then he grumbled. “Why can’t all buildings have fire escape stairs? That’s what every night stalker in movies uses.”

“Oh, I like that one. The Night-Stalker. Let me set up a press release to send to— Damn it. It’s taken. Some guy out of New York City’s been using it for two years. You think San Francisco’s far enough, you can use it too? Oh, it would make for an epic mission. Fight for the Name!”

“I don’t want a name.”

“Tough luck. The media names every public parahuman, that you want them to or not.”

“I’m not public.”

“They disagree with you on that, Ghost.”

He stifled the groan. “How about you tell me what I’m looking at instead of focusing on my media campaign? Which I don’t want.” He pulled himself so he could do a visual check of the roof.

“Mission Recap!” Richard intoned. “The story so far. Ghost investigated a series of seemingly unrelated thefts, and one revealed a Clue! One of the mob had a scrap of paper with an address on it. Ghost investigated it and found a recently abandoned Villain Laboratory. Enough remained behind for another Clue. The Sorentos were involved. Nights of asking around brought him the latest Clue, possibly the last one on this mission chain. Where the Sorentos had established their Base, and that they had something. Something powerful, dangerous. That only Ghost can stop.”

Patrick rolled his eyes. He could hear the highlighted words, even envisioned them in white, instead of the usual green from all the times Richard added the text on his visor.

“Will Ghost stop them from taking over the Barrows? His home? The way they established themselves in the Bricks?”

He closed his eyes at the reminder. He did his best not to think of it as a failure. His mother had taken him and his sister out of that neighborhood when she’d gotten a promotion. The Barrows were a much better place to live. But it had left the folks of the Bricks, his neighbors, without protection.

“This mission is expected to contain a dozen mob classed under Ghost’s power levels. This means that so long as Ghost doesn’t allow them to gang up on him, they’ll be easy, letting him deal with the Boss. Snake. Unfortunately, as Ghost has never encountered him before, he has no information on his capabilities.”

“Nice blurb.” He pulled himself onto the roof, paying attention to the objects large enough to hide someone. “Now, tell me what you found out.”

“That’s not how games work. You get the—”

“Rich, this isn’t a game. Now spill.”

“Way to ruin the immersion. Okay. Snake, freelance thug. Low enough, there’s hardly anything online about him. Two stints at Alcatraz, which implies no power, or low enough not to matter, even if his recorded description includes slitted eyes and scaly skin. That explains the moniker.”

As hard as Patrick tried not to be noticed when he had to stop gang members in the process of crimes, the media had, and with the name, this group had to be expecting trouble.

The elevator maintenance building had a door, which meant stairs, but the skylight was highlighted as his entry point.

“So, no snakelike power? No venom spit, or constriction?”

“Nothing recorded, but it’s the rare parahuman who doesn’t have something of the animal they look like. I’d at least expect him to be stronger than your average bear.”

“Bears are pretty strong to start with. Don’t you think that would have been on his record?”

The sigh was loud. “Figure of speech, Patrick.”

“Those would be easier to work out if you weren’t constantly using gamer speak.”

“Wait, there might be someone behind the staircase. I’m confident I saw a shadow move in the little one camera shows me of that area.”

He edged his way there, careful to keep the gravel underfoot from making sounds. The person on the other side wasn’t, and Patrick heard footsteps. At the corner, he picked up the fruity, smoky smell of an e-stim.

The shadow became visible, and instead of turning around, it approached.

He waited.

The man stepped around the corner, and Patrick moved. Grabbed the arm, pulled him off balance, and smashed an elbow in the face. He caught the man as he dropped and quietly lowered him onto the gravel. He took the hypo-injector from the pouch at his belt and injected the tranquilizer. That would keep the man unconscious for at least six hours. He still tied him since he couldn’t know when the police would bother checking in once Richard called them.

“Don’t touch the door. The sensor is getting electrical that matches a lock, so probably an alarm.”

Like that was the reason for the skylight. Richard had picked that well before Patrick was close enough to the door to know. His friend just like to give him dramatic entrances.

He looked over the edge, and the floors were opened to the ground. There was enough light inside for him to make out a table on the ground floor, and chairs, and a boxy device next to them. He could see part of the second and third-floor balconies, but nothing of interest there.

He centered the device in his sight, so Richard could get a good image to enhance.

“Any idea what that is?” It looked like an antique computer. Like those in pictures from back in the forties, tall cabinets with tapes. What he made out of the exposed electronics were too recent for it to be one of those antique.

“Quest Goal Found! The Ghost has located the Sorentos’ Secret. But what could it be?”

“I was hoping you’d tell me.”

“No idea. I can’t get electronic signatures from that far. Which is why you should bring Pam along. She could tell you something about—”

“No. I am not dragging my sister into this.” He tested the casing.

“I wasn’t thinking dragging. More like cajoling. She’d know what that is from the other side of the street. Things like walls don’t impede her the way they do my scanners. And her range is better than anything I’d ever come up with.”

“And she doesn’t know how to fight. She doesn’t have my endurance, toughness, or strength.” It took little of that to lift the skylight’s casing.

“But she has you beat in the looks department.”

“Are you saying that if my sister was helping, you’d have her show her face and body?” he carefully moved it off. He needed to maintain the element of surprise if he was going to be taking on a dozen gang members.

“It would be a crime against nature to hide a body like hers, Patrick. But no, I wouldn’t want her to show her face. After Jacksonville public hero persona make it too easy for the cops to find you and arrest you for the oh so horrible crime of keeping the street safe.”

“I’ll have you know that, as her twin brother, my body is also hot.”

“Not claiming otherwise, but I like ogling her, not you.”

He nearly dropped the skylight. “Did you just admit to spying on my sister?”

“It’s not spying when she’s in a public space. And I’m not the only one staring. Trust me, every straight guy can’t take their eyes off her. When she manages to drag you out, I can tell who’s gay by the drool. I swear, the two of you, in the right clothing, would become a drowning hazard for San Francisco.”

He gently placed the skylight on the ground, its size more than weight, causing him trouble. Looking over again, he was more careful about casting a shadow in the moonlight. He didn’t know if snakes had good vision, but he wasn’t taking a chance. People were moving about now, but no one out of the ordinary. Only gang members in the Sorento green and yellow.

Richard cursed. “They have something disrupting the sonar. Some white noise generator this piece of crap can’t punch through. You’re going to have to do this without your surround-sense.”

“I’ll be fine.” Thirty-six feet. More than he liked, but they had tested how far he could drop. So long as he landed properly, he managed forty-five feet. And he had to land properly. Unlike most parahumans with the physical enhancements he had, his didn’t come with sped-up healing.

He climbed over the edge and fell. He went limp on landing, rolled toward one of the gang members, and used his momentum to slam his elbow in the man’s face. One down.

Alerted, the other six came at him.

A spin kick, and the tip of his steel-toed boot connected with a shoulder. Two down. This one with a possible broken collarbone. He lowered as he finished the spin, and the expected gunshot sounded.

Gangs and guns were one and the same, in his experience. And not protection guns that stunned. They went for bullets that hurt, and killed. He stayed low as he ran, then staggered to the ground from the armor taking a bullet. A bat came at him. His boot connected with the woman’s face as he did a backflip to get to his feet. Three down, three visible to go.

His mother had taught him to be respectful of women from an early age. But he’d had to teach himself to make exceptions for gang members.

He jumped well over the line of fire, higher than a normal person could, and it threw their aim off. The kick in the stomach as he flew at them sent one into the wall. He batted the gun out of the other’s hand. A punch in the face and down he went.

Two shots in the back staggered him down to a knee.

He grabbed the downed man by the belt and threw him at the shooter as he stood and turned. He followed with a punch that downed that man too.

Six down. More to go. The gunshot had alerted the rest. He grabbed a gun and found himself searching his visor for where the next attacker would come from. Nothing.

Right. No surround-sense this time.

A woman in green and yellow ran into the room. “What’s going on?” then she was on her back from the gun in the face.

The man who followed her only wore pants.

Patrick admired the chiseled chest, and it was enough of a distraction that the man was halfway to him by the time he readied himself.

Richard was going to have comments.

The man parried his punch, dodged, then returned a punch, and Patrick was too distracted by the muscle flexing to block it.

“Do you need me to put an ugly woman in front of you?” Richard asked. “You know. So you’ll actually kick his ass?” There was enough snark to shatter concrete. His friend didn’t like it when fights weren’t as one sided as they should be against what he considered low-level mobs.

The man’s face warned Patrick of his intent and was less distracting than the rest of him. He dodged, kicked at the knee, punched the man in the face, and threw himself to the side as two guns became visible in a doorway.

Shots rang until the guns clicked empty. The armor took a few bullets, and he felt a spike of pain as he put weight on his left leg. He ignored it as he ran. His legs supported his weight, so the injury wasn’t serious.

He grabbed her arm, as she finished inserting the magazine, and pulled, slamming his knee into her stomach. She dropped, wheezing. He jumped over the other one, who turned to stay with him, but before he brought the gun up, he was the one in the air, over Patrick, and slammed into the concrete floor hard enough he didn’t try to get up.

He crouched, listening for the next attacker. He counted. Nine down. He heard no one else. Richard had said twelve, plus Snake.

“Are you sure about your numbers?” he whispered.

“This isn’t an exact science,” Richard replied. “Or a science at all. I counted twelve from the camera feed in the area, but the coverage sucks. One could have snuck past without even trying.”

“Can Snake have snuck out without you seeing him?” He stayed low as he approached the device. He was surprised none of the gunshots had hit it.

“Big guy like him? No way.”

Just how big was the man? It was the first time Richard mentioned size. If the man was a bruiser on top of armored and strong, this wouldn’t be fun.

“What is it?” he whispered, doing a circuit would the cabinet of electronics.

“No idea,” Richard replied.

“That’s what’s going to take the neighborhood for us,” a deep voice sounded from a doorway.

Patrick stepped around the cabinet.

Snake stood there. There was no mistaking who he was. His skin shimmered in the light from the delicate-looking scales. Surprisingly, the man was older than he’d expected. The Sorentos were all in their low twenties. This man…wasn’t.

“Oh, don’t you dare let this daddy get to you,” Richard warned, and the term was enough to make Patrick cringe. The man might look like one, but he wasn’t letting that get to him. No matter how hot he looked.

What was it about older men without shirts on that made them so fucking hot?

“Win?” he asked, deepening his voice as he did anytime he had to speak as part of dealing with criminals. He wanted to project the image of someone older so no one would think to look for an eighteen-year-old under the mask. Richard has suggested a voice distorter, but having something pressed against his throat felt too much like a hand around it.

And those things could fail.

“Oh course. That’s going to turn everyone around here for us. They’re going to kick the other gangs out without us having to do anything.”

He glanced at the cabinet. “Mind control?”

Snake shrugged. “No idea. Didn’t make the thing. I’m just making sure no one touches it. That means you, by the way.”

“So, no poison gas? No radioactive dust? Just a bunch of electronics some gadgeteer put together?”

“Yeah. It’s all electronic.”

Patrick smiled. “Thanks.” A spin, and the cabinet exploded from his foot’s impact.

Snake stared.

Reaching the older man before he got over the surprise, Patrick punched him in the face, hard.

Snake’s head snapped to the side. He slowly turned to look him in the eyes. The slits narrowed, and faster than he expected, Patrick was picked up and thrown across the room.

The impact against the concrete wall cost him his breath.

“Shit,” Richard cursed. “If the telemetry isn’t lying. You hit that way harder than you should.”

“Not lying,” he groaned, getting to his feet. “Tough, too. His records are wrong.” He shook himself and headed for Snake. He dodged and parried, was blocked and avoided. He got a sense of the man’s training, and it didn’t look good. He punched with all his strength when he got an opening, and all Snake did was grunt.

Patrick dodged the strikes. He had speed over the older man, at least. With a sense of what his opponent was capable of, he got in a few punched in the next opening, but the one he received in return staggered him almost off his feet.

Richard cursed again. “You need to end this now. That punch redlined the telemetry. Any more, and you are looking at way worse than bruises in the morning.”

He didn’t need to be told. Keeping what he felt from his mom was going to be hard. He straightened. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Snake smirked. “For not being much of a challenge?”

“No. Because I hate not winning fair.” He stepped forward, tensing his arms, and Snake raised his in preparation.

It didn’t prepare him for the kick between the legs.

The man’s eyes crossed, and Richard groaned along with him. Patrick took the man’s head and shoved it down against his knee hard. Snake fell back, and he cursed, biting back the pain as he put his foot down.

“I think you broke the knee’s joint armor.”

“How about you stop pointing out the obvious?” His knee moved the way it should, but complained about it. Covering up the limp was going to be tough.

“Put scaled daddy to sleep and get out of there. I don’t have to call 911. Someone heard the gunshots and already did. I doubt anyone will show up for a few hours, but let’s not risk it. There are no ‘white vigilantes’ since Jacksonville.”

And Patrick wasn’t white. He would never be mistaken for black, but he and his sister had enough of their Mongolian heritage to be noticeably not Caucasian.

He tested the skin. “The hypo isn’t getting through those scales, and I’m not taking the time to look for soft tissue.” He was not touching the man there.

He found cement tape, confirmed the rating was high enough, and turned Snake onto his stomach. “You think I need to carry cement tape for guys like him?” he broke the seal and wrapped the man’s arms in three layers of it. It was darkening as he finished.

Fast acting stuff.

“That’s industrial stuff. You can’t find it in small enough rolls to be worthwhile. You open one and you have fifteen minutes, at most, before the whole thing’s solid. Do you have that kind of money? Or is that your subtle way of saying you’ll look the other way if I….”

“No. No stealing. Remember the deal. That’s how you ended up in the position I rescued you from.”

“I do, and I haven’t. I’m just saying that….”

“No stealing. Can’t you just make some?”

“That’s chemistry. My thing is mechanical and electronics.”

He exited through the door at the back. He wasn’t in a state to climb up or down. He heard sirens in the distance, but couldn’t tell if they were approaching. “Anyone around?”

Richard snorted, so Patrick took the long way to where he’d hidden his stuff to avoid the crowd that had massed.

It was far enough he should be safe. “Tell me no one can see me.” This part worried him more than the fighting. If one person caught him changing, and linked the dark clack protector to Patrick Sander, his mom and sister would be in danger.

“Clear. They’re all waiting for whatever comes next at the building.”

He hurried out of the armor, bandaged his wounds and into his clothing. Then, packed it in the backpack. It still surprised him something this tough could fold and compress so easily. The long gray hair went with it, revealing his short dark brown. He carefully pealed off the fake beard and stored that as well.

With the pack over his shoulder, he was nothing more than a teenager out much too late, heading home.

*

He opened an eye at the scream.

The familiar smell of the pillow and sheets kept him from panicking.

He was home.

The scream came again. His sister. The tone excitement.

He glanced at the time floating above his bedside table. Nearly noon.

Thank God for Saturdays.

He considered closing his eyes again. His mom would investigate why he wasn’t out of bed yet. That she hadn’t already, even on a Saturday, was something of a minor miracle. Pushing his luck wouldn’t result in anything good.

He was careful moving. He wrapped his knee in a tension bandage and set it as tight as he could stand before putting jeans on. Then, the earpiece went in. “What’s the news”

“Ghost. Someone claims to have seen a form slinking away in the darkness, so the media is holding you responsible for taking down a cell of the Sorentos. Enough’s left of their machine they’re adding that you kept them from unleashing something horrible on the city. Snake has been arrested. Forensics aren’t finished, but from what I hacked into, they’re theorizing that it would have created an energy wave that would have affected people’s brains.”

“So, it was mind control.” He stretched, forcing the protesting muscles to work through the pain. He checks the bandages to make sure no blood has seeped through. And adjusted the tension on the one wrapped around his shoulder.

Then put on a shirt instead of his usual tank-top. He didn’t like shirts, but those were preferable to his mother asking about his injuries. He didn’t need another argument about getting into fights.

“Why bother being nice to people when you can have a machine force them to be nice to you. If it had worked. I can’t see the Sorentos affording a proven gadgeteer.”

No one denied the advancements gadgeteers and made to technology since they’d been recognized back in the nineteen sixties, but they didn’t all come at the same strength. And some were even weaker than Richard.

He nearly collided with a guy, six-two, dark skin, frizzy black hair, jean and well-defined muscles, as he exited his room. The guy smelled of body wash and shampoo.

“Who are you?” Patrick demanded.

The guy was hot, so he knew why he was here. He and his sister has the same taste in guys.

“I’m Allen.” He offered his hand. “A friend of Pam.”

He shook it and fought the urge to crush the hand. The guy looked stronger than Patrick, but looks were deceiving. He almost called Pamela to confirm, but thought better of it. If their mother had somehow slept in, waking her to the news her daughter had brought a man, well, a guy, home wouldn’t make for a good day.

He followed Allan to the kitchen, where she was excitedly reading a letter. Allan hugged her, pushing her long blond hair out of the way, and kissed his sister in the crook of the neck, and Patrick looked away. He didn’t need to see her with her lovers.

“Are you looking to get in a fight with Mom?” he asked, nodding to Allan.

She looked up from the letter and gave her a vapid smile. “Mom’s not here, remember?” She lowered her voice. “It’s why I could do this.” She giggled, and Patrick fought not to roll his eyes. “For you.” She pushed another envelope to his side of the table. She smiled at Allen. “Alex was such a fun boy last night.”

“Allan,” the man corrected amicably.

The upper left had the name of the sender. ‘Harker Academy.’ The address was in Pennsylvania. He ignored the hungry look Allan gave his sister and turned the envelope over, looking for any clue as to what this was about.

“Harker Academy,” Richard said. “New college with its first classes starting in August. The security on their server’s keeping me out, so all I have is what’s on their site. Funded by Tracy Harker. Retired archeologist with a lot of money. On the board of a bunch of charities, most working to repatriate finds to their home countries. He was sued by half a dozen of them before that, well back in the eighties.”

Patrick half listened to the rest as he read the letter. What could an old archeologist want with him or his sister.

“Dear Mister Sander,” the letter started, then gave a rundown of the college’s short history. “You have been approved for a scholarship.”

“What the fuck?” He looked at his sister, who was busy kissing Allan. He could see their tongues. He shuddered. “Pam, what is this about?”

She disengaged but continued looking into Allan’s eyes like a lovesick puppy. “Alex, can you be really, really, really nice and get me breakfast from Brooks?” she ran a finger down his muscular chest. “I’ll reward you the way you like it.”

“It’s Allan.” He smiled and kissed her. “And I’ll do it just to make you happy.”

“And I’ll make you very happy.” She giggled.

Patrick didn’t understand the guys who were attracted to his sister’s vapid act. Or how they’d do anything when she asked them that way. Sometimes he almost thought that controlling men was her power, instead of hearing electronics.

Allan left the kitchen, and she continued looking in his direction with a goofy smile on her face. The door closed, and when she looked at Patrick, her expression was sharp. Her gaze piercing.

“We’ve been approved for a scholarship.”

“I got that part. But aren’t we supposed to apply to get a scholarship?” He shook the letter. “Did you do this? Your way of telling me I’m a dumbass who needs more education?”

“Pat, that idiot act you like to play up doesn’t suit you.” She fixed him with her gaze. “At all. You are among the smarter men in this neighborhood.”

“Which isn’t saying that much. This is barely a step above the Bricks.”

She shuddered, and her expression grew distant.

The neighborhood where they’d grown up hadn’t been pleasant for either of them. The gangs ran it, fighting over which block they controlled and dragging all the kids into their fights. It was how Patrick had realized he was stronger and tougher. It was where he’d grown to dislike the gangs, and why he, why Ghost, worked so hard at making sure they didn’t get a foothold here.

It was also where his sister had come up with the vapid act, as a way to survive the boys in the gangs who thought they were entitled to her body. They wanted a girl with spunk, who’d at least put up a pretense of resisting. Not a blond hair-head too stupid to understand what they wanted.

“If you’d read the whole thing, you’d know that because it’s their first year, they contacted all the schools for recommendations. We were picked out of millions of applicants.”

“We?” he asked suspiciously, and she glared. “Not what I mean and you know it. What are the odds we would both be picked? You? There’s no question they’ll want. The teachers know your air color’s a dye job and isn’t an indication of how smart you are, or aren’t.”

“Why, thank you. That’s the best, not a compliment, you’ve ever given me.”

He flipped her the finger. “Me? If this was to join their football team, I’d buy it. Every year the coach’s been on my back to join just because I have the body for it.” And every year the man was livid at his refusal to join.

“The teachers know you aren’t dumb.”

“I’m not the genius you are.”

“See, that’s how you compliment a girl. And maybe they don’t want to split twins. You know, emotional damage and all that. Didn’t the voice in your ear tell you why already?”

“I have nothing to say,” Richard replied. “Still trying to get into their systems.”

His friend’s paranoia had gone overboard the first time Pamela had asked about the voice in Patrick’s ear. The earpiece was small, and someone had to look directly in the canal to see it. She’d been doing the dishes, with her back to him. That Patrick hadn’t denied the voice was there hadn’t made Richard happy. But he’d grown used to her knowing.

“Really?” she said. “There’s a computer out there you can’t get into?”

“Pam,” Richard replied. “Unlike a certain lady I won’t mention, I have to work at getting into computers.”

“You know a lady?” Pamela asked.

“Rich, how about you get her an earpiece so I don’t have to be stuck in the middle of this?”

“You have to chaperone,” she objected. “Who knows the thing he’ll do to me without supervision.”

“You mean like treat you to a nice dinner?” Patrick asked. “A movie maybe? Then bring you home and leave you with a chaste kiss?” He knew Richard. For all that he said about his sister, if he got her before him, he’d be a perfect gentleman. Or as close as a shut-in borderline paranoid could manage.

“Oh, you would?” she asked, batting her eyes at him as if Richard would see. The sensors were in the suit, with the camera in the visor. All that was at the back of his closet.

Richard sputtered anyway, and Patrick did his best to ignore their conversation, reading further.

“Room and board?” He looked at Pamela and realized the conversation had faltered a few seconds before. “I thought scholarships just handed you the money, and you needed to figure out what you’d do with it?”

She shrugged. “This one’s clearly different.”

“Does Mom know about this?” The mail came in the afternoon.

“She went directly to the airport from work.”

“How are we dealing with this? We’re going to have to be on the same page when we tell her our decision. I don’t think we can even think of higher education without this.”

“But Pennsylvania’s like the other side of the world.”

“Is that such a bad thing?” They’d agreed years ago that when they did this, she pointed out the downside. He had to come up with the positive ones. “It’s away from the gangs.”

“And away from Mom,” she countered.

She had him there. The idea of leaving her behind wasn’t appealing. “We’re eighteen, Pam. It’s time we let her have her own life. When’s the last time she went out on a date?”

“That’s a reach,” she replied, “but I’ll give it to you. Are we even going to be able to study what we want? Academy makes it sound like a technical college. I want to go into computer science. And when we were talking about our dreams, you said ballistic science. Do they have that?”

“There are police-oriented curriculum,” Richard said. “But I don’t know how good of an idea it is for you to go into that.”

“Please leave your conspiracy theories on your side of the comm,” he said. “The police isn’t inherently bad.”

“Spoken like a white kid who’s never had to deal with them.”

“I’m not—”

Pamela shook her head, and she was right. Compared to Richard, they were both Caucasian, in spite of their visible ancestry.

“I’d say to let the voice have this one,” she said.

“The voice has a name,” Richard said.

She grinned. “I know. Isn’t it aggravating I won’t use it?”

“So I shouldn’t tell you they have a pretty impressive computer curriculum?” Richard asked.

“They do?” She squealed.

“So—”

The door opened and closed.

“—we table this until you’re done with Allan?”

“Hey,” the man said when he entered the kitchen. “What’d I miss?”

“Pam came up with a fool-proof way to create world peace,” Patrick said, rereading the letter.

“I am a genius,” she said, her tone losing ninety-nine percent of her intellect.

“Yes, you are, Baby.” He kissed her.

Patrick was going to throw up.

She stood. “Why don’t we eat breakfast in my room, Alex?”

“It’s Allan, and I only bought your breakfast.”

Her smile lost nothing of the mindless innocence. “I’m sure you’ll think of something to eat while we’re there.”

She led him out of the kitchen, and the guy gave Patrick a thumbs up before vanishing.

He stared. As he actually proclaimed his victory over banging his sister?

“If you want,” Richard said. “All I need is a last name and I can get you everything about this Allan.”

“I’ll get you his last name, but all I want to know is if he has gang affiliations.”

The first time Patrick and gone all big brother on one of the guys his sister had taken to bed, she had lost it on him. By the end of that fight, he’d agreed to stay out of her sex-life unless she brought a gang member into their mother’s house. They’d left that behind as much as anyone in the poor neighborhoods could, and he wasn’t letting them get their foot in the door.

She’d agreed to that exception to his non-interference since she too wanted nothing to do with them. She’d be happy to know if he was part of a gang too.

He reached the end of the letter without gleaming anything new. A check of the time on the fridge. Not quite one. Pamela would be with Allan all afternoon, so he could go out and find himself his own partner. The Bearington Bar opened early on the weekends, and the barman was definitely his type. He headed for a shower, a change of clothing and his own fun afternoon.