Week 75: A Night Run

On the rooftops between the open and old city, a figure crouched against the cloudy sky. His cape moved in the air. The wind was picking up. It had rained a few hours ago, but the cooling weather had left the air feeling almost.. clean. As close to crisp as the Ai Jinn polluted air could be. It was a nice night to be out. But the hero would have been out anyway.

He listened, now, to the sounds of people on the streets below. It was mostly business in this area, the half the windows dark now, half the workers home. Here, even at night, the Ai Jinn didn't sleep. Not really. There was work to do.

Here on floor twelve, it was dark, sheltered, safe. And the hero watched.

Fenris was pleased. She had just gotten out of yet another session at the cyberneticist, now she just needed to practice. But this was a lot of fun. As she sped through the night, she could tell she was running faster and jumping further, she barely needed to think about the gaps between the buildings, or even between the streets.

She stopped briefly, glancing round, looking for something fun to climb on. She spotted the office building, it rose a little way above the surrounding block, and she also spotted the thick black cloud of... Storm? Smog? It was hard to tell with the Ai Jinn pumping all sorts of crap into the air. She hoped it was a storm, and decided to head up to catch a good view.

Fenris took a running leap towards a billboard across the street ... And overshot. She had just enough time to let out an almighty "DAMN IT!!!" Before slamming straight into the wall. She managed to catch her self on her palm thorns before falling too far, and quickly scrambled up the building. When she got near the 12th floor, she broke in, and stopped for a break. Well that spoiled things a little. It seemed her judgement had been shot to hell by the surgeries... Fenris decided to just wait here until the people down below moved on, she didn't want to draw any more attention to herself.

There was a knock on the window as a shadow eclipsed the light from outside. "You know, you were doing well up until that last jump. The pollution gets brought down from the rain, and here in Seoul the sludge is slick, slippery." His voice was explanatory, and his head was turned so even his mouth was hidden from view. He dragged his gloved hand down the mostly dry window, but his fingertips were blackened. When he spoke next, though, he sounded smug. "So, German, huh? I was betting on English."

The figure stood on the ledge, still overlooking the city, silent again but radiating amusement.

Fenris glowered at the newcomer, annoyed that someone was watching her miss so spectacularly, and the smugness wasn't helping any, either. "Of course you were. English is the obvious choice. Half the world speaks mandarin, and the rest speak English." She walked up to the window, checking the street below, and there was still a couple of people hanging round. She sighed, turning and leaning back against it. "So... You got yourself a name yet?"

The hero chuckled low in his throat. "I stopped an attempted murder yesterday, but it was just some gang thugs and a newspaper didn't even pick it up. I'm never gonna get a name at this rate." He slid down the window, letting his legs dangle off the fairly wide ledge. "I was thinking maybe I could leave notes. Like.. "The Watcher", or something. But that doesn't seem.. active enough. I do more than watch." He sighed theatrically, sounding childish and young again. "The.. Protector. The.. Guard Dog. ..No, definitely not that. The.. Gray Shadow." He was thinking aloud now, unhappy with his nomenclatureless lot.

"I think "Shadow" may be taking it a bit far. You're far too easy to spot, or at least compared to L'Ombre." She wasn't entirely serious, but Fenris still thought the whole idea was stupid. But... If he was going to do this regardless, she might as well help him get a name that didn't suck. "You might want to try mythology, though I haven't a clue what crap they believe in here. Beyond Ai Jinn propaganda, that is." The last bit was added under her breath.

"I hardly think I'm mythological material. That dragon got in the news. Besides, I cannot say there is one religion I could be so intimately entwined with, except for the basics of kindness and altruism. And neither of those are good names, for a lot of reasons." The hero kicks his legs as little as he sat on the ledge, sighing again. He looked out over the city. "I hoped maybe there would be one of those adjective-noun names. The Swirling .. Fury, or something. I'm not mad enough to be a fury, though. Maybe I could appeal to Ai Jinn morality and be like, the Loyal Defender or something." He wasn't happy with this, either.

"You can come sit on the ledge if you want. No one will see us. They never look up."

Fenris burst out laughing at the concept of Ai Jinn morality. "They really don't have any! If you don't want to use their mythology, you should try their horror stories. Isn't the point to terrify them into giving up crime." It sounded dumb, even as she said it, and she was unable to keep her bemusement from her voice.

As she left the building through the entrance she had made earlier, she just kept heading up. "You're not gonna see anything staring into that street. I'm heading up, and you might as well come with me."

The hero gave a little nodding grunt to indicate that he would climb with her, but kept his mind focused on the trouble of his name. "Of course the Ai Jinn have morality. Morality is merely what societies--and their people--define as right and wrong, good and bad. Their morality is nothing like EI morality, for example, but it has its own codified views nonetheless." His voice was relaxed as he defined morality in an academic, dry way. "It is not the code I ascribe to, but it remains an important fact none the less." He flexed his broad hands, and placed his palms along the ledge above them. "And I don't want to scare the populace. I just want to sound.. ..at least a little formidable." Despite his obvious education, he still sounded like a young boy who wanted to be seen as a grown up.

Fenris sighed to herself, shaking her head. This guy was just plain weird, and he seemed a little naive."What is it you're actually trying to do? You could try using that." Fenris was eating up the distance to the top , effortlessly pulling herself across the wall, especially now she weighed a lot less. Luckily not everything required much judgement. (Pass agility athletics by 9)

The figure followed, though slower. It was hard to tell if he was being thoughtful or if he couldn't keep up. (Pass ag+ath by 5.) he moved to avoid light up windows, where people still worked in offices. "The Growing Hero? The Unable To Live With Myself Otherwise? The Petty Crime Stopper? The Going-To-Be-Someday?" The naive man chuckled a little self-deprecatingly, shaking his head. "I want something cooler than that. Something I can.. grow into, you know?"

"Your long term goal is to stop petty crime? really?" She wasn't quite sure how he had missed the point, but she wasn't just going to ignore it. "You have no ambition!" She was chuckling slightly, no real malice in her teasing. Fenris continued speeding up the side of the office, easily keeping out of sight of any windows that seemed occupied. (pass athletics by 7)

"Well, no! I want people to.. learn to protect themselves. To not harm each other. To look after one another. But... that seems unlikely." He sounded a little sad as he picked up speed, following Fenris' path along darkened windows. (Pass by 9.) The wind was picking up as they got higher. "And I'm still just one person. One person who still has a lot to learn! So... No luck there." Despite the obvious gentleness in her words, he sounded a bit sad about the whole concept.

Fenris let out another little chuckle. "OK, I take it back! That is one of the most hopelessly idealistic things I've ever heard." She couldn't help but smile at that. The freerunner put on an extra burst of speed as she neared the top, the bracing wind rushing past serving to enhance the experience, Fenris loved being an Agent. (pass athletics by 12) She hauled herself over the lip of the roof, then turned to offer her companion a hand. "People seem to take far too much pleasure in it to just stop hurting each other" There was no judgment in her voice, she was just stating a simple fact about how people worked.

The hero looked at her hand but didn't take it. He wasn't quite as fast as she was, but he was speedy enough and... "Thank you, but I might be too heavy for you, lady." He was over six food and broadly build of muscle, so it wasn't a baseless idea. (Pass ag+ath by 10.) "Idealistic or not, I cannot help how I see the world." He too didn't sound upset, just stating a simple fact. "You got faster, didn't you?"

The infiltrator just shrugged at his comment, obviously not too concerned. He could easily be full of cybernetics. "Agents need every advantage they can get." She turned to watch the approaching cloud, smiling to herself as she caught a flash of lightning. She kept her back to The Hero as he climbed up, keeping tabs on him with her Geosonar. "So. Who is it you work for when you aren't patrolling the streets? You don't seem Ai Jinn." From the sound of her voice, not being Ai Jinn was definitely the right choice.

"I'm more of a.. independent contractor. I don't want to tell you anything that would would give away my secret identity." He smiled, dusting his hands off and following her gaze to the clouds. "I don't really agree with many of the corporation's basic ideals, really. This is who I am most of the time. Most nights, anyway."

Behind his eye panels, there was a faint green glow that momentarily shut off as he turned his face upwards.

Fenris wandered slowly across the rooftop, just moving, getting used to the new upgrades. "Secret Identity. Of course!" She hadn't really expected to get anywhere, but it was worth a shot. "Though it's not like I could track you down with just your Corp..." There were other ways to maybe work out who this guy was. "How long have you actually been at this "Heroing" thing? If there was some event that triggered the whole thing then that could be used for a name.

"Oh, a while now. Six months? No, more now. It's not like I was mugged or my parents were killed... ...Not really. I just.. couldn't be home anymore." There was something weird about the way he was talking, and he shrugged. He tried to change the topic. "I don't think 'Tired of Watching Cartoons All Day' is a good hero name. So no luck there. And I'd want people to focus on me, not my past." He moved over to a vent and sat down, stretching his legs like he was sunning himself.

Fenris continued her pacing, crossing over to the other side of the roof before turning back suddenly. "Ah! Let me guess! Bored rich kid. Grew a conscience and decided to right the wrongs on the street in order to make up for whatever shady deals your parents are making. "

Before he could reply, she ran forwards, diving into a series of cartwheels and flips that wouldn't be out of place at the Cross-Corp Gymnastics Championships. (pass athletics by 10) It only took a few seconds to clear the distance between the Agent and the stranger. With a final spinning flourish, she landed perfectly on the vent next to the one occupied by her friend. (pass agility looking good by 6) "Was I close?" She was ginning, very pleased at how well her little experiment had gone.

The hero couldn't help but applaud at her gymnastics, laughing delightedly as she landed. He grinned at her, shaking his head. "That was great! Ahaha! And... You're about half right, lady. Bored, rich kid.. Yeah. But my parents aren't that bad, really. I just have a really moral family, is all. Important lessons instilled in me when I was small and the like." He shrugged and stood, lazily cartwheeling. His cape flopped inelegantly, but his skills were close to Fenris'. (Pas ag+ath by 12.) He landed on his feet lightly, smiling still. "Really, it started as just something to get me out of the house, but my sister is the creative type, and.. ..Oh, it's tangled again." He sighed at his cape, and began unfolding it to it would once again furl in the breeze.

"Your family wants you out here fighting crime?" Fenris didn't believe that for a second. There was no prestige to be gained from it, so it was just an unnecessary risk. If her years at the Academy had taught her anything, it was that almost no-one would want that for their child unless there was a significant reward. But he seemed to be telling the truth, so maybe... "Are you sure they have your best interests in mind?" As she was talking she stepped down off the vent, using it as a seat from which she could watch the approaching thunderstorm.

"Hey, I'm an adult, they.. they let me do what I want. My parents give me a lot of freedom and I don't think anyone else except my sister really knows. And she thinks it's pretty cool, so..." He seemed uncomfortable by the conversation, shaking his head and looking back into the clouds. "I think she, they, know I need to do this. So no one says anything... I.. ..What about you? Your family have problems with you being an agent?" He cleared his throat as he ungracefully changed the subject.

Fenris tensed slightly, and the Hero could almost she her withdraw into her shell. "No. They don't." It was clear that was all she was willing to say on the matter. She couldn't think of a topic to change to, so the silence dragged on, becoming increasingly uncomfortable for the Oracle Agent.

Finally she latched onto something that had been bugging her slightly, "Where are you from? It's rare to find someone who speaks German and Mandarin so perfectly." She was more curious than suspicious, and more that a little desperate so just say something.

"I'm from here. Born and raised. But languages.. It's one of my talents. I know a lot of them, plus I have some help with cybernetics." He seemed a little relieved to change the topic as well, though mostly he appeared lost in his own thoughts, unwilling to ask her about her own past. "It's one of the few things I'm really good at. Besides running." He continued looking into the night, watching distant flashes as the storm got closer. "What else are you good at, besides running?" It was such a childish thing to ask, but sincere, coming from him.