Original: "Origin Story," Part 1
I couldn't figure out how I could tell Carapace's story from Aline's point of view without giving away the hero's identity. I also shocked myself by giving Aline's story an ending when I never planned to end it there. But end it did! And I was stuck. But then I realized instead of a single story, this could be a compilation. So the second part will be Carapace's POV in the first person. It takes place after "Stigmata Martyr" and has some spoilers, but they can be read in either order. This is the first part of... several. We'll see how long it ends up being. ;)
Both stories are compiled under the banner "Heroes of the Jade City" on AO3. :D
Summary: A superhero in turn-of-the-century Seattle chronicles her life and the road that led to her putting on a mask. (Continuation of my story "Stigmata Martyr")
Origin Story
by Geonn Cannon
http://www.geonncannon.com
Copyright © 2014 Geonn Cannon
AO3
I won’t tell you my name. The newspapers call me Carapace and, while it’s hardly the name I would have chosen for myself, it’s certainly apt. I won’t reveal my identity within these pages so anyone who stumbles upon this and hopes for some sort of revelation, I’m sorry to disappoint you. But recent events have reminded me that even with all of these gadgets, even with all the precautions I’ve taken, I’m still human. I can still be hurt.
Isaiah warned me that something like this would happen. I had the upper hand for a long time, taking down people who couldn’t hope to compete with me thanks to his inventions. I could make ten-foot vertical leaps, I had weapons strapped to my arms, I was faster and stronger and I wore armor that protected me from the worst of their blasts. The first time my arm was grazed by a bullet was a wake-up call. I assumed that was what Isaiah was talking about when he warned me I was vulnerable. Little did I know I was still fast asleep.
The real awakening came with a woman calling herself Stratagem. Her armor was better, her weapons stronger, and I was completely outmatched by her. If it hadn’t been for Aline’s reckless intervention I would have died there on the floor. It was a close call even with her dragging me all the way home. I owe her my life. I owe her everything, really, as Carapace would never have been as successful without her stories.
When I tried to reveal my true identity to her, she refused to look. I can understand her reluctance. In lieu of unmasking perhaps, in the event of some calamity preventing me from explaining myself in the future, I can provide some sort of understanding without taking the extra step to identify who I am. It forces me to be vague, and there are certain things like my day-to-day job and certain interactions that I can’t even allude to without inadvertently giving myself away. Hopefully I can walk that fine line.
I’ll begin with Isaiah McKeon, seeing as he’s the most important person in my life. I was a child when the fire destroyed our city. My father was a firefighter and of course he was summoned to help battle the blaze. My mother was a highly Christian woman who insisted the flames were retribution from God for our sins. She insisted that people who embraced the Holy Spirit would be untouched by the fire and knelt in front of our large crucifix to pray as the fire grew ever closer. She tried to hold me by her side, but I became scared and ran away. She yelled after me but refused to move from the position of worship for fear that God would think she had lost her faith. When I went back for her, I thought she was still praying. Later I learned that bodies just end up in that position when they’re burnt so badly. I was happy for her in some macabre way; she never had to stop praying.
My father disappeared. I never knew if he died in the fire, if he simply took the opportunity to flee (he and Mama never exactly saw eye to eye, and I felt like the glue that was forcing them together). If the latter, I’d like to think he would have stayed if only he’d known Mama died in the fire. Either way he was gone and, when the city finally cooled down, I was alone.
I hid in old buildings, keeping quiet when the machines came and began to build a new city above my head. They buried me alive, but they left me with catacombs and caverns to explore. I scrounged for food... nothing new, since I often had to feed myself when Mama was on one of her prayer binges. I found a safe place to sleep and I kept my head down. Soon other people showed up and we banded together to protect each other.
I found Isaiah by accident. We’d heard rumors of an inventor who remained Underground when the city rose up, but none of us had ever seen him. We dared each other to go looking for him, to test the boundaries of our safe haven, but none of us were brave enough. I happened to be in the right place at the right time when Isaiah appeared in search of a cable splitter. We were both digging around the same pile of discarded garbage and, once he determined I wasn’t a killer and I decided he wasn’t going to attack me, I took him to find it. As a reward he gave me a small metal disc that would send an electrical charge through anyone I hit with it.
“In case you run into someone less kind than I am.”
I kept the device on me at all times, and I credit it for saving me from men on at least four occasions before I went in search of Isaiah again. I found his lab by following the trail of ransacked tech dumps in the area. Once I knew what to look for it was as easy as following breadcrumbs. He didn’t even look surprised when I walked into his lab, the bastard. Like he expected me and was a little disappointed I had taken so long.
He taught me about his inventions. I asked why he had stayed below when the city rose. The things he spent so long trying to find in the trash were readily available on the surface. But he got a dark look in his eyes. “Some people can’t afford to ascend with the city,” he said, and he left it at that. I had no reasons not to go up and told him if he ever needed something and couldn’t find it, that I would go up for him. He immediately began composing a list, and I went up for the first time that night.
The entire city had become something alien while I was underground. It was night but I still felt like I had to cover my eyes against the brightness. Glass buildings bounced the moonlight off the sea, and electric lights seemed to be on every street corner. I quickly acquired the items from Isaiah’s list and then fled back underground as quickly as I could.
I became his apprentice. He taught me everything I need to know about his work, and soon I was welding some of his designs together while he worked on the bigger blueprints. We built vehicles, little carriages that my tunnel rat friends could use to quickly get from one part of the city to the other. We set up a system of lights so we didn’t have to carry flashlights everywhere. One of the rats, a boy named Jiang, had his leg crushed by a cave-in. Isaiah amputated the useless limb and replaced it with a mechanical one. It was all I could do to convince the dumb kid not to crush his other leg so he could have a matching set.
When I was sixteen I made a pass at Isaiah. I kissed him and he very gently pushed me away. I was pissed at him for a long time after that, but eventually I came to understand how wrong I was. Not to mention how easily he could have taken advantage of me. By that time I was making more frequent journeys to the surface. I was more comfortable among the people, and with sunlight, and soon I started questioning Isaiah about how I could live up there. I felt like I was betraying my friends, but Isaiah said that we all had to make our own choices. If living topside felt right to me, he promised to help me.
After that, I grew up. I became a person. Revealing details of that journey would implicate my true self, so I won’t go into it. The important things that happened during this period were slow-burning and boring. I educated myself enough to get gainful employment, and a woman I had befriended became something more. I was perfectly comfortable with the knowledge I was falling in love with her, but I hesitated because I had no idea how she would react. I finally confessed everything to her and we went to bed together.
I suppose the next question I should address is when I decided to become Carapace. Even though I absconded to the surface - a job, a girlfriend, an apartment thirty feet above the ground - I maintained ties with those I left behind. Isaiah was the closest thing I had to a father and I refused to turn my back on him. He mentioned that he was working on a prototype of armor that he hoped to provide to the police once he was certain it worked correctly. I was skeptical. It was already apparent that the police only protected and served those with deep enough pockets to supplement their income. Crime was soaring but no one seemed to be doing anything about it.
I was seated on the table in Isaiah’s lab during one of our weekly chats, holding the first breastplate he had produced. I used my thumb to rub away a few blemishes on the metal and looked down at my reflection. “If you really want to make a difference, you should hand these out to civilians. There are people out there who want to make a difference but they don’t have a badge or the strength of the police department backing them up. Maybe if they had armor they wouldn’t be so willing to turn a blind eye. Hell, you give me one of these armored vests, I’d go out there tonight.”
“Do you mean that?” Isaiah asked.
At the time I wasn’t entirely sure. But the truth was I’d seen the city becoming more corrupt. My neighbors were afraid to go outside after dark. They locked their doors and cowered in their homes. What kind of life was that? We were in a prison while the criminals had control of the streets. A few nights earlier I had cowered in bed with my girlfriend when we heard someone shouting in the alley below. The shouts didn’t last long, and the silence that followed was even more terrifying.
“Yes, I do,” I told him.
He said, “Well... maybe I can see what I can do. But if you’re going out, you’re going to wear a mask.”
I wrinkled my nose. “A mask?”
“Like you said, a vigilante won’t have the protection of a badge. What would stop the criminals from just following you home and taking their revenge? The mask will give you freedom to intervene without worrying about retribution.”
“So I’ll still be hiding.”
“You’ll be keeping yourself safe. There’s a vast difference between the two.”
It seemed like a lark, but Isaiah promised he would get to work on a breastplate for me. In the event something really did happen, I started training. I spent so long at the gym my girlfriend eventually left me. It took me almost two weeks before I realized she wasn’t coming around much anymore, and another few days before I bothered to go see if she was okay. By that time she already had a new girlfriend. I couldn’t complain too much; I just went back to the gym and focused on getting into shape.
It became my sole focus outside of work, and soon my dedication was showing dividends. I was strong, I was faster, and I felt bulletproof. Fortunately my profession allowed me to wear long sleeves that disguised just how toned my arms had become. I stopped riding the streetcar because it was cheaper and less of a hassle to just run to work. I would change in the bathroom when I arrived and change back into my sweat-clothes when I left.
Isaiah had one of my former tunnel rat cronies take my measurements to spare him the embarrassment of “getting his hands on me,” although having Archie do it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park for anyone involved. He formed the breastplate specifically for me, and it fit like a glove. It was heavy enough that I knew it would have been an issue just a few weeks earlier, but by that point I could bear it. We tested it first with baseball bats before moving up to heavier artillery. He had blasters and energy weapons that made my hair stand on end, but the damaging power of it was perfectly dispersed by the armor.
When Isaiah was convinced I would be protected physically, we began focusing on protecting my identity. The metallic mask he designed made it impossible for me to breathe, and even with a vent cut into it, I would still get far too hot too quickly for it to be much use. The gas mask wasn’t much better but we found a way to cut off the filter and replace it with a gauzy cloth that allowed air flow. Isaiah tinted the glass over each eye so they would be opaque, and I began wearing the mask whenever I was underground so I could get used to it. If I was comfortable wearing the mask and being half-blinded in the dank darkness, being up in the open air would be no problem.
He built accessories that would make me more formidable, and I trained. I learned how to fight with the other rats, goading them until they were mad enough not to pull their punches. I was punched in the face on several occasions, I had broken bones and black eyes. Those were just part of the practice; once I was fighting crime for real, I would have to deal with pain and visible injuries when I went back to my day job. The training helped me smile through the pain of a bruised rib or concussion. I figured out how to use my makeup to cover black eyes without being too obvious about it.
On Fridays I would go into Isaiah’s lab to see what he’d concocted for me that week. “Leather gloves,” he said, holding them up for inspection. “They appear ordinary, but the fingers are reinforced with metal shields sewn in. Try not to get them caught in anything or they’ll turn your fingers into mush.”
“I’ll try to be careful,” I said.
The jet-propelled boots were too powerful at first. They sent the mannequin careening head-first into a stone wall. Isaiah tinkered and fussed with the amount of power they emitted until they worked perfectly as boosters. We found a stretch of tunnel without a ceiling and I practiced bouncing. It was one of the most gleeful moments of my life, bounding back and forth in my new boots, laughing as I nearly caromed into the wall. The rockets were activated by applying pressure to a certain part of the boot, and it took a lot of experimenting to hit it just right. I also had to avoid triggering it when I was trying to walk or else it might cause a hiccup in my step.
I was sore most of the time, when I wasn’t outright injured. But soon I was strong enough to shake off the rats, I could take a punch without falling down, and I was able to knock most of my friends on their asses without breaking a sweat. When the weighted gloves were added to the equation I became a true force to be reckoned with.
Eager to take our experiment to the next level, I began keeping my eyes peeled for crime. The rats were a terrific source of information. They were scroungers and buskers, the invisibles on every street corner selling newspapers to earn a penny at the end of the day. People tended to ignore them because they were small, but even the smallest rat had eyes. I pinned up a map in the room I kept in the catacombs and, based on their reports, I began marking territories.
The name Mordecai Stringer popped up early and often. There were others in charge of the trade, smugglers and thieves who had a certain amount of power, but Stringer stood tall at the apex. I knew that if I could take him down it would make a serious difference in the city. I also knew that going after him directly was suicide. Sparring with rats was one thing but it was quite another to attack someone who truly intended to kill me.
And so I started small. I walked in my daylight world for my job, I maintained friendships and feigned disinterest whenever I was asked out with friends. My nights didn’t belong to me any longer. I would don the mask - which was actually quite comfortable when the weather began turning cold - and stalked the alleyways until I was called upon to act.
Outside a bar in downtown, I pulled a man off his shrieking victim. I misjudged my strength and caused serious internal damage when I hit him in the stomach, but if there was a human being who deserved to be a guinea pig... I left him gasping and wheezing in the alley and escorted the woman back to a safe area. She gripped my arm, which at that point had yet to be wrapped in the thick leather of the coat I would eventually don.
“Wait... who are you?”
“That’s not important.”
Her grip tightened. “It is to me.”
I thought for a moment and covered her hand with mine. “I’m someone who cares. Someone who has heard enough screams to go unanswered and I’m going to do something about it.”
“Thank you.”
I nodded my head and looked up to see someone coming out of the tavern. “Is he...?”
She nodded. “Yes. That’s Micah. Micah! Hurry! Help!”
I slipped out of her grasp and retreated into the shadows. Micah sped up slightly; he had obviously seen me standing with his friend and assumed I was the threat. He reached her and she stopped him from pursuing as I slipped into the nearest alleyway. I used the boots to propel myself up to the first level of the fire escape; it was nearly too high, and I ended up dangling from the edge until I could pull myself the rest of the way up.
The rooftop was shielded on three sides by neighboring buildings, but on the fourth I could see out over the water. I stood on the ledge - reckless, but I couldn’t resist the urge. I felt invincible. I smiled underneath my mask and looked down at the glittering city that had risen from the ashes of the one I knew. It looked so bright and perfect despite the darkness seeping in around the edges. I had prevented one tendril of that darkness from getting a foothold. I’d sent it back and saved a woman’s life.
In the morning the first newspaper article about a “super-hero,” exaggerated but wholly positive. Isaiah had been skeptical about publicity but I felt it was a necessary evil. I could strike terror in the hearts of the criminal element without ever fighting them. They deserved to know that someone was pushing back against them.
It would still be a while before I was given the name “Carapace,” but on that night I knew I had finally found my true identity. After years of searching for a purpose I knew why I had survived the great fire when so many had not. My reverie was interrupted by the sound of a police whistle a few streets away. I stepped off the ledge and ran, leaping from one rooftop to the next with the aid of my boosters.
Somewhere, someone needed my help. I knew I wouldn’t be able to save everyone, to stop every crime, but I was determined to be there as often as I could.
Both stories are compiled under the banner "Heroes of the Jade City" on AO3. :D
Summary: A superhero in turn-of-the-century Seattle chronicles her life and the road that led to her putting on a mask. (Continuation of my story "Stigmata Martyr")
Origin Story
by Geonn Cannon
http://www.geonncannon.com
Copyright © 2014 Geonn Cannon
AO3
I won’t tell you my name. The newspapers call me Carapace and, while it’s hardly the name I would have chosen for myself, it’s certainly apt. I won’t reveal my identity within these pages so anyone who stumbles upon this and hopes for some sort of revelation, I’m sorry to disappoint you. But recent events have reminded me that even with all of these gadgets, even with all the precautions I’ve taken, I’m still human. I can still be hurt.
Isaiah warned me that something like this would happen. I had the upper hand for a long time, taking down people who couldn’t hope to compete with me thanks to his inventions. I could make ten-foot vertical leaps, I had weapons strapped to my arms, I was faster and stronger and I wore armor that protected me from the worst of their blasts. The first time my arm was grazed by a bullet was a wake-up call. I assumed that was what Isaiah was talking about when he warned me I was vulnerable. Little did I know I was still fast asleep.
The real awakening came with a woman calling herself Stratagem. Her armor was better, her weapons stronger, and I was completely outmatched by her. If it hadn’t been for Aline’s reckless intervention I would have died there on the floor. It was a close call even with her dragging me all the way home. I owe her my life. I owe her everything, really, as Carapace would never have been as successful without her stories.
When I tried to reveal my true identity to her, she refused to look. I can understand her reluctance. In lieu of unmasking perhaps, in the event of some calamity preventing me from explaining myself in the future, I can provide some sort of understanding without taking the extra step to identify who I am. It forces me to be vague, and there are certain things like my day-to-day job and certain interactions that I can’t even allude to without inadvertently giving myself away. Hopefully I can walk that fine line.
I’ll begin with Isaiah McKeon, seeing as he’s the most important person in my life. I was a child when the fire destroyed our city. My father was a firefighter and of course he was summoned to help battle the blaze. My mother was a highly Christian woman who insisted the flames were retribution from God for our sins. She insisted that people who embraced the Holy Spirit would be untouched by the fire and knelt in front of our large crucifix to pray as the fire grew ever closer. She tried to hold me by her side, but I became scared and ran away. She yelled after me but refused to move from the position of worship for fear that God would think she had lost her faith. When I went back for her, I thought she was still praying. Later I learned that bodies just end up in that position when they’re burnt so badly. I was happy for her in some macabre way; she never had to stop praying.
My father disappeared. I never knew if he died in the fire, if he simply took the opportunity to flee (he and Mama never exactly saw eye to eye, and I felt like the glue that was forcing them together). If the latter, I’d like to think he would have stayed if only he’d known Mama died in the fire. Either way he was gone and, when the city finally cooled down, I was alone.
I hid in old buildings, keeping quiet when the machines came and began to build a new city above my head. They buried me alive, but they left me with catacombs and caverns to explore. I scrounged for food... nothing new, since I often had to feed myself when Mama was on one of her prayer binges. I found a safe place to sleep and I kept my head down. Soon other people showed up and we banded together to protect each other.
I found Isaiah by accident. We’d heard rumors of an inventor who remained Underground when the city rose up, but none of us had ever seen him. We dared each other to go looking for him, to test the boundaries of our safe haven, but none of us were brave enough. I happened to be in the right place at the right time when Isaiah appeared in search of a cable splitter. We were both digging around the same pile of discarded garbage and, once he determined I wasn’t a killer and I decided he wasn’t going to attack me, I took him to find it. As a reward he gave me a small metal disc that would send an electrical charge through anyone I hit with it.
“In case you run into someone less kind than I am.”
I kept the device on me at all times, and I credit it for saving me from men on at least four occasions before I went in search of Isaiah again. I found his lab by following the trail of ransacked tech dumps in the area. Once I knew what to look for it was as easy as following breadcrumbs. He didn’t even look surprised when I walked into his lab, the bastard. Like he expected me and was a little disappointed I had taken so long.
He taught me about his inventions. I asked why he had stayed below when the city rose. The things he spent so long trying to find in the trash were readily available on the surface. But he got a dark look in his eyes. “Some people can’t afford to ascend with the city,” he said, and he left it at that. I had no reasons not to go up and told him if he ever needed something and couldn’t find it, that I would go up for him. He immediately began composing a list, and I went up for the first time that night.
The entire city had become something alien while I was underground. It was night but I still felt like I had to cover my eyes against the brightness. Glass buildings bounced the moonlight off the sea, and electric lights seemed to be on every street corner. I quickly acquired the items from Isaiah’s list and then fled back underground as quickly as I could.
I became his apprentice. He taught me everything I need to know about his work, and soon I was welding some of his designs together while he worked on the bigger blueprints. We built vehicles, little carriages that my tunnel rat friends could use to quickly get from one part of the city to the other. We set up a system of lights so we didn’t have to carry flashlights everywhere. One of the rats, a boy named Jiang, had his leg crushed by a cave-in. Isaiah amputated the useless limb and replaced it with a mechanical one. It was all I could do to convince the dumb kid not to crush his other leg so he could have a matching set.
When I was sixteen I made a pass at Isaiah. I kissed him and he very gently pushed me away. I was pissed at him for a long time after that, but eventually I came to understand how wrong I was. Not to mention how easily he could have taken advantage of me. By that time I was making more frequent journeys to the surface. I was more comfortable among the people, and with sunlight, and soon I started questioning Isaiah about how I could live up there. I felt like I was betraying my friends, but Isaiah said that we all had to make our own choices. If living topside felt right to me, he promised to help me.
After that, I grew up. I became a person. Revealing details of that journey would implicate my true self, so I won’t go into it. The important things that happened during this period were slow-burning and boring. I educated myself enough to get gainful employment, and a woman I had befriended became something more. I was perfectly comfortable with the knowledge I was falling in love with her, but I hesitated because I had no idea how she would react. I finally confessed everything to her and we went to bed together.
I suppose the next question I should address is when I decided to become Carapace. Even though I absconded to the surface - a job, a girlfriend, an apartment thirty feet above the ground - I maintained ties with those I left behind. Isaiah was the closest thing I had to a father and I refused to turn my back on him. He mentioned that he was working on a prototype of armor that he hoped to provide to the police once he was certain it worked correctly. I was skeptical. It was already apparent that the police only protected and served those with deep enough pockets to supplement their income. Crime was soaring but no one seemed to be doing anything about it.
I was seated on the table in Isaiah’s lab during one of our weekly chats, holding the first breastplate he had produced. I used my thumb to rub away a few blemishes on the metal and looked down at my reflection. “If you really want to make a difference, you should hand these out to civilians. There are people out there who want to make a difference but they don’t have a badge or the strength of the police department backing them up. Maybe if they had armor they wouldn’t be so willing to turn a blind eye. Hell, you give me one of these armored vests, I’d go out there tonight.”
“Do you mean that?” Isaiah asked.
At the time I wasn’t entirely sure. But the truth was I’d seen the city becoming more corrupt. My neighbors were afraid to go outside after dark. They locked their doors and cowered in their homes. What kind of life was that? We were in a prison while the criminals had control of the streets. A few nights earlier I had cowered in bed with my girlfriend when we heard someone shouting in the alley below. The shouts didn’t last long, and the silence that followed was even more terrifying.
“Yes, I do,” I told him.
He said, “Well... maybe I can see what I can do. But if you’re going out, you’re going to wear a mask.”
I wrinkled my nose. “A mask?”
“Like you said, a vigilante won’t have the protection of a badge. What would stop the criminals from just following you home and taking their revenge? The mask will give you freedom to intervene without worrying about retribution.”
“So I’ll still be hiding.”
“You’ll be keeping yourself safe. There’s a vast difference between the two.”
It seemed like a lark, but Isaiah promised he would get to work on a breastplate for me. In the event something really did happen, I started training. I spent so long at the gym my girlfriend eventually left me. It took me almost two weeks before I realized she wasn’t coming around much anymore, and another few days before I bothered to go see if she was okay. By that time she already had a new girlfriend. I couldn’t complain too much; I just went back to the gym and focused on getting into shape.
It became my sole focus outside of work, and soon my dedication was showing dividends. I was strong, I was faster, and I felt bulletproof. Fortunately my profession allowed me to wear long sleeves that disguised just how toned my arms had become. I stopped riding the streetcar because it was cheaper and less of a hassle to just run to work. I would change in the bathroom when I arrived and change back into my sweat-clothes when I left.
Isaiah had one of my former tunnel rat cronies take my measurements to spare him the embarrassment of “getting his hands on me,” although having Archie do it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park for anyone involved. He formed the breastplate specifically for me, and it fit like a glove. It was heavy enough that I knew it would have been an issue just a few weeks earlier, but by that point I could bear it. We tested it first with baseball bats before moving up to heavier artillery. He had blasters and energy weapons that made my hair stand on end, but the damaging power of it was perfectly dispersed by the armor.
When Isaiah was convinced I would be protected physically, we began focusing on protecting my identity. The metallic mask he designed made it impossible for me to breathe, and even with a vent cut into it, I would still get far too hot too quickly for it to be much use. The gas mask wasn’t much better but we found a way to cut off the filter and replace it with a gauzy cloth that allowed air flow. Isaiah tinted the glass over each eye so they would be opaque, and I began wearing the mask whenever I was underground so I could get used to it. If I was comfortable wearing the mask and being half-blinded in the dank darkness, being up in the open air would be no problem.
He built accessories that would make me more formidable, and I trained. I learned how to fight with the other rats, goading them until they were mad enough not to pull their punches. I was punched in the face on several occasions, I had broken bones and black eyes. Those were just part of the practice; once I was fighting crime for real, I would have to deal with pain and visible injuries when I went back to my day job. The training helped me smile through the pain of a bruised rib or concussion. I figured out how to use my makeup to cover black eyes without being too obvious about it.
On Fridays I would go into Isaiah’s lab to see what he’d concocted for me that week. “Leather gloves,” he said, holding them up for inspection. “They appear ordinary, but the fingers are reinforced with metal shields sewn in. Try not to get them caught in anything or they’ll turn your fingers into mush.”
“I’ll try to be careful,” I said.
The jet-propelled boots were too powerful at first. They sent the mannequin careening head-first into a stone wall. Isaiah tinkered and fussed with the amount of power they emitted until they worked perfectly as boosters. We found a stretch of tunnel without a ceiling and I practiced bouncing. It was one of the most gleeful moments of my life, bounding back and forth in my new boots, laughing as I nearly caromed into the wall. The rockets were activated by applying pressure to a certain part of the boot, and it took a lot of experimenting to hit it just right. I also had to avoid triggering it when I was trying to walk or else it might cause a hiccup in my step.
I was sore most of the time, when I wasn’t outright injured. But soon I was strong enough to shake off the rats, I could take a punch without falling down, and I was able to knock most of my friends on their asses without breaking a sweat. When the weighted gloves were added to the equation I became a true force to be reckoned with.
Eager to take our experiment to the next level, I began keeping my eyes peeled for crime. The rats were a terrific source of information. They were scroungers and buskers, the invisibles on every street corner selling newspapers to earn a penny at the end of the day. People tended to ignore them because they were small, but even the smallest rat had eyes. I pinned up a map in the room I kept in the catacombs and, based on their reports, I began marking territories.
The name Mordecai Stringer popped up early and often. There were others in charge of the trade, smugglers and thieves who had a certain amount of power, but Stringer stood tall at the apex. I knew that if I could take him down it would make a serious difference in the city. I also knew that going after him directly was suicide. Sparring with rats was one thing but it was quite another to attack someone who truly intended to kill me.
And so I started small. I walked in my daylight world for my job, I maintained friendships and feigned disinterest whenever I was asked out with friends. My nights didn’t belong to me any longer. I would don the mask - which was actually quite comfortable when the weather began turning cold - and stalked the alleyways until I was called upon to act.
Outside a bar in downtown, I pulled a man off his shrieking victim. I misjudged my strength and caused serious internal damage when I hit him in the stomach, but if there was a human being who deserved to be a guinea pig... I left him gasping and wheezing in the alley and escorted the woman back to a safe area. She gripped my arm, which at that point had yet to be wrapped in the thick leather of the coat I would eventually don.
“Wait... who are you?”
“That’s not important.”
Her grip tightened. “It is to me.”
I thought for a moment and covered her hand with mine. “I’m someone who cares. Someone who has heard enough screams to go unanswered and I’m going to do something about it.”
“Thank you.”
I nodded my head and looked up to see someone coming out of the tavern. “Is he...?”
She nodded. “Yes. That’s Micah. Micah! Hurry! Help!”
I slipped out of her grasp and retreated into the shadows. Micah sped up slightly; he had obviously seen me standing with his friend and assumed I was the threat. He reached her and she stopped him from pursuing as I slipped into the nearest alleyway. I used the boots to propel myself up to the first level of the fire escape; it was nearly too high, and I ended up dangling from the edge until I could pull myself the rest of the way up.
The rooftop was shielded on three sides by neighboring buildings, but on the fourth I could see out over the water. I stood on the ledge - reckless, but I couldn’t resist the urge. I felt invincible. I smiled underneath my mask and looked down at the glittering city that had risen from the ashes of the one I knew. It looked so bright and perfect despite the darkness seeping in around the edges. I had prevented one tendril of that darkness from getting a foothold. I’d sent it back and saved a woman’s life.
In the morning the first newspaper article about a “super-hero,” exaggerated but wholly positive. Isaiah had been skeptical about publicity but I felt it was a necessary evil. I could strike terror in the hearts of the criminal element without ever fighting them. They deserved to know that someone was pushing back against them.
It would still be a while before I was given the name “Carapace,” but on that night I knew I had finally found my true identity. After years of searching for a purpose I knew why I had survived the great fire when so many had not. My reverie was interrupted by the sound of a police whistle a few streets away. I stepped off the ledge and ran, leaping from one rooftop to the next with the aid of my boosters.
Somewhere, someone needed my help. I knew I wouldn’t be able to save everyone, to stop every crime, but I was determined to be there as often as I could.