4-6: Customs

“Do you really think it was wise to kill the worm after you were done with it?” CORVAC asked.

I ignored him. I was busy. I’d heard other older villains, the few who were still kicking around and telling their stories from prison, talking about how airports used to be a hell of a lot easier to infiltrate.

Supposedly they were difficult these days, but that was because most of the people trying to infiltrate these places weren’t above the law. No matter how much they liked to pretend they were.

The fact they were giving those interviews from prison was proof enough of that.

“It seems only reasonable that if you are going to tell these aliens that they are going to be let free if they tell you what you want to know, then you would actually release him once he told you what you wanted to know,” CORVAC droned on.

He seemed to be enjoying that he had me in a situation where he knew I couldn’t talk back. I was trying to look unobtrusive as I made my way through the line.

I was surrounded on all sides by the usual people you expected to see at the airport. Families getting ready for a vacation to Disney World. That was an even happier place than usual for Starlight City residents since no self-respecting villain ever tried to conquer Florida.

Come to think of it, the only hero I’d ever known who made a go of it in Florida was a buff guy who could naturally chill the air around him to a comfortable seventy degrees. Which made him a sought after commodity with the beach party crowd. Last I heard, he was heroically cleaning up with a new beach bunny every night, and more power to him as long as he stayed down there and out of my hair.

“I know you have taken a turn for the villainous recently, Mistress, but even so…”

“Even so, you need to shut your mouth,” I hissed. “I’m in the middle of something here!”

That earned me a few looks from the occasional-flyer crowd. I hated being here. I was a frequent-flyer myself, but I always did it with antigrav rather than relying on outdated tech like heavier than air flight.

I looked longingly at a group of business travelers who were moving through the line a heck of a lot quicker than my line. Unfortunately I couldn’t go with them, as tempting as that was. Not when I was pretty sure there was a target right in front of me in the slow line.

A little old lady with white hair and a massive red hat. She wasn’t the target, but the cat carrier she had slung over her shoulder looked nice and juicy considering there was a low key alien invasion of parasitic worms taking over cats under everyone’s collective nose.

I checked the radiation monitor in a specialized detector I’d put together just for the occasion. I couldn’t show up in my suit, which meant I was absent the usual sensor suite that let me keep an eye on the world around me.

Still. A detector slaved to my contacts was good enough for what I was doing right now.

Sure enough, the signature I’d first seen when I sent a probe through to the other side of the portals Dr. Lana opened during our fight with the giant lizards showed up loud and clear. I grinned.

Just what I was looking for. There was a worm in that cat. That meant the asshole who’d ended up dining with the fishes hadn’t been lying to me.

They were trying to get out of the city, and they weren’t being very subtle about their invasion of the cat snatchers. Why bother when air travel made their job so easy? Or when nobody suspected cute little kitties of attempting world domination?

“Hey, what the hell is that?” someone asked.

I cursed and turned to see a middle aged dude with a long beard and a “Don’t Tread On Me” shirt staring at me with open hostility. Which was odd since I didn’t have the type of skin color that would usually make that kind of prick suspicious of me on a plane, but I guess in Starlight City he was willing to question anyone using a bit of technology that wasn’t obviously a smartphone.

I hadn’t had time to add this particular detector to my smartphone lookalike. I’d been in too much of a hurry to get out here before the runners made their escape.

Which meant my detector looked suspicious instead of blending in with every other asshole in line burying their nose in their phone while they waited for their turn in the massive civil rights violation that was modern flight.

“Nothing,” I said, tucking it into my pocket.

“Like hell that was nothing,” the guy said. “Hey! Someone get over here and have a look at this chick! She was using some weird technothing!”

I sighed. Obviously this guy was a tourist. He hadn’t learned the first rule of Starlight City. Other cities had rules about keeping your head down and moving along so you didn’t attract the wrong sort of attention from the kind of people who preyed on tourists.

It was sort of the same in Starlight City, but the unspoken rule was if you thought you saw someone using a piece of tech that was beyond modern humanity’s capacity? You shut the fuck up about it, lest you get dragged into whatever they were doing.

“Look, buddy,” I said. “I’m late for my flight to Chicago, and I really don’t need to…”

“Like hell you are,” he said. “I’m tired of letting your kind walk all over us. Someone get over here and take care of this bitch before I do!”

My hackles rose. I didn’t take kindly to that kind of language on the best of days, and today was hardly the best of days considering all the bullshit I’d been through recently.

“You really don’t want to do this,” I said, trying to keep my voice low.

“Oh, I think I do,” he said. “If the government isn’t going to take care of this, then maybe we should!”

He gave my shoulder a shove. I looked down in astonishment, and had to remind myself that I was trying to be incognito here. Still, it was weird seeing someone acting like an ass because he didn’t know the dangerous ground he was treading.

I turned to look down the line. Not because I was particularly concerned about the TSA agents who were making their way down the line to see what the trouble was. No, I was worried about the cat and the little old lady.

I zoomed in with my contacts. These things really were so useful, though it was going to open a can of worms when someone figured out how to manufacture them independently and commercialize them.

A little paw stuck out of the carrier. And that fluffy paw deftly worked at the latch on the carrier. Not the sort of escape artistry you expected to see in a cat.

“Damn it,” I growled.

The TSA agents slipped past the little old lady, and I missed what happened next. Those assholes really were worse than useless. One moment the carrier door was closed and the next it was wide open and there was no sign of the cat.

“Motherfucker,” I said.

The asshole’s eyes went wide. “What the hell did you just say to me?”

I turned back to him. “Oh. Sorry. That wasn’t aimed at you.”

The guy snorted. A self-satisfied smirk. I got the feeling this guy went through life pushing people around and saw it as the natural order of things that I’d immediately back down when I thought he was willing to throw down to get his way.

It had to be a sad way going through life. Getting all of his self-worth from his ability to beat on other people and his willingness to use force despite everything society said about not doing that sort of thing.

Maybe that’s why I said something stupid that probably would’ve been better left unsaid.

“Obviously it applies to you too.”

The guy was fast. Unfortunately for him I was faster. Even more unfortunately for him, I was working with CORVAC again. Which meant no sooner had my hand come up than my suit materialized around me, giving me the kind of strength this guy couldn’t dream of no matter how much time he spent in the gym.

Though he looked more like the kind of guy who’d spent a lot of time in the gym in high school when he was second string on a football team with a losing record dreaming of the day coach would put him in, and then spent the subsequent couple of decades losing muscle and building a beer gut as his arteries slowly clogged their way towards the inevitable widowmaker that would relieve the world of his presence in a decade or so.

He was so mad that he didn’t seem to realize exactly what he’d gotten himself into. I could tell the Starlight City natives in the crowd from the tourists, though, because no sooner had my hand come up than they were all gasping and backing away.

I grinned. It was nice to be noticed.

The guy stared. To his credit, the look was still one of pure anger and dismissal rather than fear. It was a stupid look. The kind of look that was going to get him in trouble, but at least it was consistent with how he’d been acting before he knew who I was.

“Who the fuck are you supposed to be?” he growled.

Okay then. Maybe he didn’t know who the fuck I was. Meanwhile, the locals were getting away as fast as they could, and in at least one case someone who was obviously from Starlight City with family or friends who were obviously from out of town was trying to push them away from the brewing confrontation.

“The name’s Night Terror,” I said. “You might’ve heard of me.”

His eyes went wide. Finally.

My punch was a hell of a lot more effective than his. I moderated it just a little, but he still went flying back and landed against a support beam. Plaster and dust rained down on him.

A good thing they’d redone the whole airport in the past decade or so to reinforce everything in the event of a super powered fight. Otherwise that guy might’ve found himself in the middle of a bunch of asbestos rather than plaster.

I turned to the TSA agents. They’d stopped in their tracks and looked like they wanted to be anywhere but where they were standing.

So basically the standard look I always got from government types when they realized their desire to be anywhere but where they were was in conflict with their job which required them to jump into the fray.

“I know how much they pay you at these jobs,” I said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” a skinny dude asked.

“I think she’s offering to bribe us,” a fatter older dude said. He looked like he was actually excited at the prospect.

Considering what they made on the job, it was hardly surprising that he’d be excited at the idea of a good old fashioned Night Terror bribe. I knew security professionals swapped rumors that they could retire on what they got from me if they were lucky enough to get a Night Terror bribe.

Which wasn’t entirely true, but it was close enough to the truth as made no difference. Like I suppose they could retire if they lived the rest of their lives in a trailer park and lived very frugally, but it was still a nice chunk of change.

The only problem was there wasn’t a chance I was doing anything like that when there was a crowd gathered taking video of our little confrontation.

“Not a chance,” I said. “But if I were in your shoes right about now, I’d be seriously considering whether or not what you make is worth taking on the most powerful villain in the world. We all know you’re going to lose, so why not cut your losses before I have to beat the shit out of you?”

This seemed like a situation where a threat would be far more effective than bribing them. They looked at each other, shook their heads, and melted into the crowd.

“Good idea,” I said. I looked to the rest of the crowd and sighed. So much for staying inconspicuous.