Hyperion powered down the rocket pack on his suit, and strode across the room to the consoles against the wall. He removed his helmet, and set it aside, before dragging his armored hands over his face. He thumped his fist down on the console – hard enough to leave a dent in the metal.
“Motherfucker!” he spat, letting his frustration boil over.
He took a deep breath, then let it out, trying to calm his nerves. He didn’t think as well when he was angry– and he needed every ounce of his wits for this.
A bitter smile crept to his lips. He needed every ounce of his brainpower. And for what? To catch a Power-less anarchist with homemade tools and weapons. He should not be having this much trouble tracking Scour down, but here he was, six months into his campaign against the maniac, and what did he have to show for it?
He began tapping keys on the computer console in front of him, and the screen blinked into life. He began entering all the pertinent information from memory, calling up every riot, every demonstration, where Scour had been sighted in the last six months. One by one, little red dots began appearing on the map of Union City, representing an incident.
Here, where he had tried to assassinate the Governor of New York who was in town.
Here, where he had detonated a truck full of explosives outside of the naval yard.
Here, where he had been spotted leading an assault on Jamison Technologies’ headquarters downtown.
Every time, it was the same. Scour was there, spouting his anti-establishment rhetoric, inciting violence, urging the crowd on by telling them that the world needed to be scoured clean, that humanity needed a hard reset. Things would escalate, violence would break out, the police would respond, Hyperion would respond, he’d capture the head of the little revolt…
And it wouldn’t be Scour. It would just be someone dressed like him, using a voice changer to mask their true voice, to sound like the man whose videos were shared around the darker corners of the ‘net, demanding total upheaval of society.
He was a ghost. A phantom. Sometimes, Hyperion found himself wondering if “Scour” was actually a real person, and not just a name, a name adopted by this lawless mob to justify their desire to tear down anyone who dared to stand taller than them.
He stared at the map, red dots scattered like shrapnel across the city grid. There had to be a pattern. A signal in the noise. Something. There was a beeping sound, and he realized that it was coming from inside his helmet. Someone trying to reach him on comms.
He picked the helmet up and slipped it back on, fastening it in place, before touching the receiver at the ear to activate the comm and take the call.
“Yes, Commissioner?” he asked, his suit filtering his voice to hide his true identity. “I take it that you’ve unmasked the leader of the protest?”
“We have,” came the reply, along with a weary sigh. “Looks like we’ve got yet another ‘I am Spartacus’ situation on our hands.”
Hyperion gritted his teeth, resisting the urge to punch the console again. “Don’t worry, sir,” he said, managing to keep most of the frustration out of his voice. “It’s only a matter of time before he slips up.” He looked back at the monitor, at the map, at the little red dots taunting him, at the masked face in the corner of the screen. “And when he does, we’ll be there to stop him.”
(Art by @birdy-the-artist)
