You tightened the straps of the new arm, the custom-printed foam inside making it rest fairly easy, and you ran it through its paces one more time. The fingers moved naturally between a few preset configurations, but manual control was still slow, clunky, and imprecise. The movement of the limb was a bit jerky sometimes, but mostly naturalistic, and you figured nobody would notice under the suit. It was the right shape, and the metal frame was covered in a matte black soft layer that would help deflect any questions. Somebody could grab your arm as you pulled from out of a dangerous situation and probably not immediately notice it wasn't organic. Hopefully. Maybe.
The wrist rotation still wasn't good. It was hard to imitate the way the wrist pivoted in an organic forearm. The new metal gauntlets would hopefully slightly cover that up. Hopefully.
"Liv! You hungry?" your mom called, shaking you out of your introspection. "There's pizza, if you're done making your death ray!"
"It's not a death ray!" you called back. "I'm going to the gym, I'll grab something on my way back!"
You stood up, stripped to your underwear, and pulled over your new backpack. On the outside, it looked like a regular jansport (because it was), but inside was the ungainly metal contraption you'd constructed. You pulled on the white bodysuit, thick hydrophobic material running with temperature-managing fluid systems, layers of spidersilk and aramid fibres, a steel weave over vital areas to turn away knives. Then you brought out the harness, the new one, red and silver, placing it around your shoulders and securing the straps. The arc reactor lit with a thought, and the red and white LEDs along the length flared to life as the metal legs jolted and unfolded to their full length. The extra armour plates adhered in place with the same technology that stuck your hands and feet to walls, the most secure way you could think to attach them, and fast too. You flexed and twisted, making sure nothing pinched or dug into you anywhere, then you pulled off your glasses, put your hair up, and stuck on your goggled helmet, fitting your earpiece in and plugging it into the suit. You secured the chinstrap, ran the AR systems through a basic diagnostic, the auto-adjusting lenses reading the movements of your eyes and dilation of your pupil to match its focus.
Then you pulled on the white mask and pulled up your hood, and took a look at yourself through your webcam, the closest thing you had to a mirror in your room. You knew it was going to look cool, but you weren't expecting...
You looked
awesome. You didn't look like a boy wearing an exoskeleton like the first suit, or the weirdly androgynous ghost of your second. You looked like some kind of badass sci-fi warrior woman or something. You felt
powerful.
"
This suit looks anime as fuck, Liv." Athena muttered in your ear.
"It... it does not. It's not anime." you said.
"
... I'm devoting all my cores to an adversarial network in order to category match your current suit and the results of this completely objective process indicate you are in fact a big weeb."
"Is it too late to return you to Best Buy?"
"
I can just see the light novel: 'I can't believe my human creator is so kawaii!'"
"I will transfer you to a raspberry pi, I swear to God."
---
You hadn't realized quite how much you missed this until you started doing it again.
You tumbled out your window onto the building opposite, ran vertically to the roof, and took a swan dive off towards traffic, shooting a web across the street and swinging back up at the last possible minute, skimming through an alley and out into the sky. The long jump, tossed into the air by your momentum, hanging at the apex of the curve and seeing the city unfold before you, knowing exactly where you were going to land, exactly how to maintain that energy and send yourself in another direction... the instant freedom of the open air.
The whole city was your playground.
You sailed though the streets a while, watching heads turn and phones track you as you did, running along the sides of buildings, watching the golden light of the sun fade against the buildings and the lights of the city start to glow below you as you made your way to a denser area, more room to swing, more space to play. You watched police lights chase you a block and a half before stopping, trapped in traffic as you left them behind.
"Alright Athena, what's interesting."
"
The theft tamper alarm of a 2023 Honda City-E just went off about a hundred and fifty meters from you. Want to take a look?"
A little icon appeared in your vision, and you shot out a line to redirect, heading for the street below. The icon indicated a little two-door red sedan that a man in a hoodie was leaning over the passenger window of, staring inside, wincing as the alarm blazed. You arrested your momentum on a street lamp and landed silently behind him.
"Hey, what's up?" you asked, and he just about jumped out of his skin.
"Fuck! Oh shit, you're that spider-lady."
"The one and only. You lock your keys inside?"
"... yeah. The stupid toggle thing's broken, otherwise its supposed to unlock it. It's my girlfriend's car, she'll be pissed." he explained. Sure enough, you could sense the keys inside, sitting on the passenger side seat. You suppressed the alarm and leaned closer.
"Here, I got just the thing." you said, reaching out with a mechanical arm to look like you were doing something while popping the lock open with your mind. Took you just a second to figure out what was wrong with the key fob as well: the battery was just dead was all. A lot of people were only vaguely aware there was a battery in there at all. "The key just needs a new battery. A CR2032 3-Volt, Universal Electronics has them for like two bucks. Just undo those screws there, okay?"
"... these have batteries in them?" he said, then shrugged. "Shit, I guess they would. Thanks a ton."
"No problem!" you said, jogging down the street to get a running start. "Good luck!"
Then you were back up in the air, just in time to see the last rays of the sun disappear over the horizon.
"What's next?"
"
How do you feel about cats being stuck in trees? I can offer a selection."
---
"...and you leave her alone, alright?" you lectured.
"Look, I just wanted to-"
"She doesn't want to talk to you, dude. Look, it's over. Following her home after work every day isn't just shitty, it's stalking."
You were sitting up on a rooftop with your latest intercept: you'd spotted somebody who was definitely running from something, dropped in to ask her what was wrong, and turns out her ex was being a bit... awful. So you'd decided to have a word with him. It wasn't like he could hurt you, and you talking to him was better than her calling the cops, probably.
"But I love her, man, it's not fair." he complained.
"It's rough, I know. But you gotta move on. You're scaring her, you know that?" you explained.
"Fuck..."
Fortunately, he didn't seem like that bad a guy. You went into this ready to make threats if you had to, you didn't exactly have time for abusers, but he really just seemed emotionally out of his depths.
"My recommendation? Breakups are hard. Go talk to somebody. You can sign up for a therapist, Medicare will help cover it now. This website..." you said, printing him a card from one of your arms. "... will help you find somebody subsidized. It's worth it, trust me."
"A shrink?"
"I know, but trust me, it makes a big difference. Hell, I see a therapist."
"Super therapist?" he asked, smirking.
"He's pretty great, yeah. You going to leave Tessa alone?" you asked, and he nodded, "Seriously?"
"Seriously." he said.
"Alright. I got a lot of important superheroing to do, so let's not do this again, okay?" you said.
"... hey, how do I get down from the roof?" he asked, as you stood up.
"Door behind you, service elevator to the floor!" you announced, dropping off into the street below with a goofy grin on your face. "Okay, what's next?
"
It's nearing midnight, Liv, and you have school tomorrow. I recommend we pack it in."
"... one more?"
"
Well... if you want to end with something exciting, a silent alarm just tripped at a pharmacy a few blocks over. Security cameras show three men, armed. One of them has gone into the back and they're taking medication."
"Oh,
gross. Let's do something about that." you said, redirecting. With cash an increasing rarity, robbery of pharmacies had been on the uptick for years, and didn't look like it was dropping off any time soon even with Medicare for All. This was doubly true with the increased efforts to reduce the use of opiate medication cutting down on legal avenues to acquire them. You didn't have a problem per say with people going outside the system to get meds they needed: you'd have done it if your mom and the clinic hadn't been so supportive. You did have a problem with people who just scooped a bunch of people's important medications in a bag, sold whatever would make them a quick buck, and chunked the rest.
You dropped to the employees only door, prompted the electronic lock to open, and walked inside. Took only a few steps to get to the back room, where a man in a ski mask was pulling open drawers and stuffing boxes into a duffel bag.
"Hey, did you talk to your doctor to see if that was right for you?" you asked, and his head turned, first to you, and then to the table beside you where a compact submachine gun was waiting. He made to more towards it, and you sent two claws forward to stop him while another grabbed the gun and dropped it into your hands.
"Nope, nice try. Didn't you ever see
Pulp Fiction?" you asked, webbing him to the wall. "Hold on, gotta deal with your friends."
The fight in the pharmacy itself wasn't, really. You burst out into the hall, knocked one of the men to the floor, and stood on his wrist while you stuck a line to the other's face and pulled him through a display shelf.
"Sorry everyone, hi, everything'll be over in a second." you said, webbing the two men's arms to their chests and pushing them into the back alongside their friend. You had their guns hanging around your neck, and you pushed them against the wall in a shameful little clump.
"So, what have we learned?" you asked.
"... don't leave your gun on the table while you're on the job?" the first guy volunteered.
"Jim... the fuck? Why'd you do that?" another asked.
"It was hard to put stuff in the bag with it in my hands! I figured you had it covered..."
"For fuck's sake, haven't you seen
Pulp Fiction?" the other guy said.
"Right?" you agreed. "Anyway, seriously guys, this is low. What's the deal?"
"Easy money?" one of them said, and their was a chorus of agreements.
"Yeah, pointing guns at innocent people is not a super cool job, even in this economy." you said. "Fuuuuck."
"
Liv, police are coming." Athena warned you.
"Yeah... I just, this is a messy one, right? Like... we don't want to get cops involved." you said. "Do we?"
"
At the same time, it is unlikely these three are just going to stop, and you can't exactly make the systematic changes that will discourage them from committing these kinds of crimes."
"Uuuuuuuurgh."
"Who are you talking to?" one of them asked.
"Your mom, shut up." you snapped back. "I dunno... I feel bad."
"
I understand, but as you said, pointing guns at innocent people isn't super cool, and if you let them go it's likely they'll do it again." Athena explained. "
Then again, the American justice system isn't exactly going to make things easier for anyone."
"... see, this is why I like stopping petty shit and kitten rescuing. It's less complicated." you complained.
----
[ ] Take their guns and let them escape out the back.
[ ] Leave them and their guns webbed up for the cops.
[ ] Write In
