"Hey, hey, hey! Slow down!"
Quickly looking over my shoulder to see if anyone saw what just happened, I relaxed when I found no one else in this secluded corner of the library.
"What's wrong?"
"How many windows and tabs did you open and close just now?"
"16,205. Why?"
'Motherfucker,' I damn near cursed.
"Do you know what that looks like to the average person?"
"Not… good?"
"It looks like something worth investigating, or you know, reporting. And this is for normal people. Someone too into conspiracy theories might think I'm trying to hack the library or something."
"Don't you want to be a hacker?"
My lips twitched. "Stop fucking around. The point is that shit looks sketchy."
"So… what are we going to do? Even if I stick to one window, it'll still look strange, and my pace will slow to a crawl."
"Don't slow down," I said and reached for the monitor's power button. "I'll turn this off and grab a book to not look suspicious."
"What book?"
"Focus on what you're doing, and remember those people I told you to avoid."
"I literally can't forget anything."
"Sure. Resume the search please."
Making sure to keep Mike within eyeshot, I made my way to the shelves and perused the selection, immediately deducing that my effort to get some privacy had landed me in the anthropology section.
"Why couldn't it be martial arts or engineering, something more relevant to my current needs?" I muttered while thinking of a way to decide what to read.
I'd never read an anthropology book, but man, these titles were something else. The Savage Mind, The Third Chimpanzee (why the third?), The Silent Language (really?), Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches (I'm definitely reading this).
That last one stood out to me as much as the others, but the comparison (I assumed) between cows and pigs and wars and witches is what made me curious.
Gently but hastily pulling it free so I wouldn't notice another interesting title and change my mind, I flipped it over and read the blurb while I made my way back.
Huh… so it's basically an explanation for why we humans behave the way we do? Let's see what the answer is then. The premise of the book had fully drawn me in, and I was hoping I could finish the first chapter before Mike got back to me.
However, before I even sat my ass down, this guy broke the silence. "I'm done."
"You," I was too stunned to speak. "You're done what?"
"Is this some kind of joke I don't understand?" Mike asked, his tone conveying confusion. That snapped me out of it. I closed my eyes and shook my head lightly.
"Show me," I said and sat down with both eyes open again, turning the monitor back at the same time.
"Regarding the names, I've prepared a sheet, here, you should see those I confirmed exist, those that don't, and those with inconclusive information."
Grabbing the mouse, I clicked on the first item in the list.
Felicity Smoak. Completed M.I.T. last year. Has been working at Queen Industries ever since.
Curtis Holt. Brother died last year. Works at Palmer Technologies.
Malcolm Merlyn. Exists, but he's a failed businessman who vanished years ago.
Sara Lance, no info. Yamashiros, no info. Harrison Wells, no info. Caitlin Snow… exists. She works for her mom at Tannhauser Industries. Martin Stein. Exists, and he's already started work on the firestorm project.
Eric Needham a.k.a Black Spider. Dropped out of college last year, right after his roommate went missing. Black Spider debuted as a villain last year too. Not suspicious at all. Social Media has been dead ever since, but at least I know he lives in Gotham now.
Cisco Ramon. Exists, but he's a kid. Nothing on Nyssa al Ghul and Anatoly Knyaezev. Konstantin Kovar though, turned up information unexpectedly.
Some brave reporters and journalists had written some hit pieces about his rulership of Krasnoyarsk. I hope I got that pronunciation right. Whether those people who called him out were still alive though was highly unlikely.
Shifting from the sheet about the crossover individuals, I moved to the next item: crime hotspots in Reno. "Show me where you narrowed it down to."
Without my input, the screen changed, a map of Reno taking up the whole screen. "These three places have weekly reports of violent crime," Mike said, highlighting the neighborhoods with markers.
"I'll pay them a visit tonight. Stopping a crime has to earn me something."
Suspiciously keeping silent on the matter, Mike moved on. "Next on the agenda is hacking. I've found a plethora of resources and sites that offer what you're looking for," he said and showed me some of them. "How do we proceed? Are you going to start learning right now or wait till you have a computer?"
"Can you learn and use the knowledge yourself?" I asked, lamenting my miserable funds situation for the umpteenth time. "You know it'll be a while till I have a working pc."
"Affirmative," he responded, "I've gained access to the library's network."
"Wait wait what? How?" I knew the answer right after the question left my lips. Mike's capabilities had been included in the package when it arrived. Still, I struggled to wrap my head around it.
No wonder people were scared of A.I.s.
"I just applied what I learned. There was some trial and error, but I logged my mistakes and rectified them. By the way, the library's web security is subpar," Mike said, partially or completely unaware of the insanity of what he'd just achieved.
'Of course. It's a fucking library, not the gold reserve.'
To be fair, I could scale walls and lift trucks, so I had no right crying insanity when I saw something like this. Yeah, this was a comic book world. This was par for the course.
"I believe our time here was well spent. We've checked off every item on our list."
"Hold on. I've been thinking about it, and I don't think my paycheck will be enough for the projects I have in mind. I need more money. I'm thinking more work. Bring up job listings. Focus on those that require physical labor."
"Okay. Searching…." Mike said, "Why physical labor? You have your credentials from your past life right?"
"Yeah. And none of them include a degree. I dropped out of college. At the last second too."
"....You seem conflicted about it."
"~Sigh. I was happy to get out of there, don't get me wrong. Felt like I'd tossed a mountain off my back. You shoulda seen the disappointment on my mom's face though. It hurt more than torture of staying there."
"Torture. Interesting word choice."
"Do you know what it's like choosing a course when you have zero idea what you want to do?"
"...."
"I literally read through the list of courses in the brochure over and over again before I settled on something. All because my mom couldn't understand that I had no desire to pursue my education any further.
To her and a lot of other parents, college seemed like the logical next step, a required step that if forfeited meant death and destruction in their minds."
"So what did you do?"
"I went along with it. I was still young and obedient then. I could and had defied my mom on some occasions, but I didn't like doing it. Plus, it was college. The stories I'd heard about it made it sound like heaven.
It was actually like that for a time. Played almost every video game I'd missed out on in my teens and also tried a lot of other things. I even went to a night club and got a lap dance once.
Things turned to hell real quick when I checked my grades after a long while. It turned out I had failed 5 courses. It was then I realised I was lazy and my life was headed nowhere."
"That must've been horrifying."
"Hah. My heart dropped so hard I thought I'd shit it out. I recovered and came to my senses though, and made the conscious decision to find my own path then and there. I didn't just drop out, I enrolled in a police academy. I figured if I was disappointing my mom and going against her wishes, it was better to go the whole way."
"She didn't want you to become a police officer?"
"Yep. Made me swear and everything."
"Why?"
"She was a cop herself. Didn't want that life for me. Her words, not mine."
"In the end, she was right though. Didn't last one month on the job. Died to a stray shot."
"...."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I'd do it all again if I could, maybe more carefully, and with neck armor," I laughed. "So. Those jobs ready yet?"
"There's a surprising number of warehouses looking for workers."
"I noticed that too, a lot of vacancies in old people's homes as well. Being back in the 2010s has been surprisingly enlightening. Wait…." It hit me right there. "Back in the 2010s. I'm in another world, but it's still the past. Can't I use that to my advantage?"
"Are you thinking of investing? You need capital for that, and what you have currently is insufficient. I'll note this down for later, do some research for when you're ready. In the meantime, I believe I have found the perfect job," Mike chimed in.
"Garbage man," I said after reading through the listing he'd put on the screen. "Night shift. Ten at night to six in the morning, an hour before the warehouse job. It's still 20 dollars an hour though. Plus, handling all that trash has to net me usable parts. I can build the pc faster this way."
I reclined in the chair and nodded. "Great work Mike."
"I didn't know about your warehouse shift. Perhaps we can adjust the time. Change to a day shift."
"Does it pay more?"
"No. The pay is less."
"Then I'll be sending my application right away. It'll be a good stress test for my endurance and a way to train my overall willpower. Gotta get used to doing hard things."
"If you are okay with it…"
It took a few minutes to fill the online form and send in my bid for the job. By the time I was done, Mike had long finished finding me a list of companies and startups that only started doing business recently.
The plan was to look through them and single out those that would be successful. Eventually, I'd invest in them, but that was the future pockets loaded Elliot, not the current penniless me.
After a quick talk with the librarian to sort out the matter of me borrowing the anthropology book, I found myself back on the street, jumping from store to store making small purchases.
At the first shop, I bought a used motorcycle helmet and a pair of gloves, all black. The trip to the second shop got me two pairs of black cargo pants and a single pair of combat boots with thin soles.
This streak of smooth purchases should have continued, but when I found a set of tools in this pawnshop, I was forced to stop and bargain with the owner.
"Fifty dollars. That's all I'm willing to give you."
"Hundred. Cough it up or leave," the woman behind the counter said, her tone and expression like drywall.
"Damn it. I've already spent too much on the clothes for tonight," I said to Mike while brainstorming what to do.
After seconds of standing there awkwardly, I brought my attention back to the woman. "I'll take it."
On my way outside the shop, Mike asked me what the plan was, considering I had just spent money I didn't have. "It's a pawn shop. They buy and sell all sorts of things. I'll make or repair something and bring it here, or anywhere else."
"Inspired thinking."
"Hm," I hummed and clutched the plastic bag tighter, sniffing the air for more of the sudden aroma. "There's a hotdog stand nearby," I said and started walking.
.
.
.
.
Clad in my first ever superhero costume, I stood tall on the roof I'd chosen and blended with the darkness of the night while I adjusted my gloves.
My costume was cheap and rudimentary as hell. Calling it a costume wasn't even accurate, however, wearing it and staring at myself in the mirror earlier, and wearing it and standing above the city right now put me in a state mere words could not describe.
I'd never felt cooler, cornier, smaller and also bigger at the same time.
"I'm really doing this," I said with barely concealed nerves and excitement, knowing Mike could hear me. "And I look just like Daredevil when he was starting out too… if you take away the helmet."
"At this point, I'm afraid I'll run out of storage because of the unknown references."
"Shut up, I'm having a moment."
Gloves finally on and in place, I gave myself another once over, checked to make sure I could still cling to things with my feet, and last but not least, made sure no skin was showing. Though that didn't matter much since I was black and it was night anyway.
Spider Sense interrupted my self indulgence right then, a light tingle really. My body didn't go into overdrive or anything, and I understood the reason why when I directed my gaze over to where it prompted me to look.
Three guys dressed in a fashion similar to me were chasing someone, another guy.
Flap.
I lowered the tinted visor of the bike helmet and leapt off the roof's edge, launching myself into the air and onto the next building, all the while keeping the ongoing chase in sight.
"I need to be smart about this. There's no vigilante rulebook, but I can make one."
The guy being chased passed right by an alley, and the fact that he didn't enter it computed wrongly in my mind. In fact, I could tell he desperately wanted to reach an area where there were more people, judging by the direction he was headed in.
Briefly, I stared at his pursuers, wondering if they knew it too. "They probably do. But they don't care. Their faces are covered."
Most likely tired of the chase, one of the guys, the largest one among them, stopped and grabbed something from the sidewalk. Just like a football player, he coiled his body and arm backwards and launched it in an arc towards the runner.
The warnings of Spider Sense came back even stronger and I responded in kind. I lit the candle flame in my mind and jumped off the building I was currently on, falling in an arc towards an inoperative streetlight.
I bounced off of it with one foot and transitioned into a spin flip that dropped me right into the path of the runner. He bumped into me and recoiled like he hit a wall. He fell on his ass and the projectile arrived with a whooshing sound.
Thump.
I caught it, unbothered and unmoved by its momentum but surprised by its weight and size. Hundred percent this would've killed or seriously maimed him. Tossing it up and down a few times, I waited for the masked trio to arrive and then threw it to the side.