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The halls of Freelancer Industries were somehow less unsettling with no one in them. There would be security patrols, but this wing normally gets fully locked down before anything else. Charlotte didn’t want to be here on any terms, but after she found the last video footage of her mom, suspiciously hidden on her dad’s home computer, she couldn’t shake the feeling there was more to the story of how she died. Charlotte was only 8 years old then, but she knows her dad hasn’t been the same since. And 14 years later she’s lied to the security to get into his office and snoop his computer to try and find any signs of secrets about her mother’s death. Charlotte was wearing a dark gray hoodie, hood up to keep from drawing potential attention with her bright red hair, green eyes, and pale skin. Her sleek facial features matched her thin frame.
"Why would he hide a simple goodbye if he didn’t have other things to hide? He’s setting up for me to start integrating into the business side anyway," Charlotte wondered to herself as she passed labs, offices, and conference rooms. "What could even connect Freelancer to Mom? She wasn’t a scientist any more than Dad is a soldier." Finally, she found it: the office labeled DIRECTOR; DR. LEONARD CHURCH. She opened the door with the ID card she swiped from her father and sat at the keyboard. Suddenly she heard the sound of a door opening and panicked. "Is that security? They realized I’m not supposed to be here!" she thought anxiously. Charlotte soon realized there were no footsteps. She then noticed small robotic sounds coming from the hall. She went to investigate and found what appeared to be a tiny poorly assembled robot, a misshapen body with a battery and motor powering legs placed at awkward angles shambling across the floor. When Charlotte stepped out the door, its camera lens turned to her and suddenly a yell came from it.
“Who the fuck are you!? You’re not supposed to be in there.” Charlotte folded her arms at the agitated android. “And what are you to declare where I’m supposed to be? I could smash you right now,” Charlotte said assertively while folding her arms. “NO PLEASE! You don’t understand, I need to get out of here. This place is all kinds of fucked up!” “I’m gonna need more information than that if you want my help.” “You want information? Well for starters, the Director’s computer pings his phone when it gets accessed, but I’m sure you knew that,” the robot said accusingly. “How would you know? What are you exactly?” Charlotte shot back. “My name is Alpha, I’m an AI model developed by Freelancer Industries. I built this body because I normally don’t have legs. I know all this place’s dirty little secrets, which is one of many reasons I need to get as far away from here as possible.” Charlotte thought about this for a second before saying, “I happen to be his daughter, and I doubt the Director would think to look right under his nose. I could hide you, but in exchange, you help me find the truth that Freelancer is hiding.” “Ok, yeah sure whatever but we need to go now, security might be passing through here soon, we’ll have to sneak through some of the labs,” Alpha nervously relented. Charlotte scooped up Alpha’s makeshift robot body, “Alright smart guy, lead the way.”“Why does Freelancer have animal labs? I thought it was all technology development for the military,” Charlotte wondered aloud, passing tanks of various creatures from lab rats to spiders to scorpions, even some electric eels. “Well, this is actually also for the military, they’re looking into infusing human soldier traits into various animals to create animal squads that can do stuff human soldiers can’t,” Alpha said from Charlotte’s hoodie pocket. “How does it work?” “So far, it doesn’t. The plan was to get their bodies to adapt to a gene that enables the addition of foreign DNA, then give them the human DNA and train them to be soldiers. Some of them have endured the initial adaptation, but none have survived attempts to add human DNA.” “It seems they have another problem, one of the cages is open. Looks like it had a couple spiders in it.” As if on cue, Charlotte felt a sharp pain on the back of her neck. “Ow! Son of a bitch!” She slapped at it and turned, seeing a now dead spider falling to the ground. “Found one,” she grumbled. “Well, you didn’t have to kill it, but whatever. We’re almost out of here.”Walking through New York City back to her father’s apartment, with Alpha still in her hoodie pocket, Charlotte tried her best to go unnoticed, which was always advisable as a woman in a big city. She wasn’t abnormally muscular, so physical threats were always something to look out for. Suddenly she felt aware of a danger behind her and spun around just in time to grab the arm of a mugger with a gun, knocking the gun to the ground before kicking it away. The man threw a punch toward her head, which Charlotte dodged and returned a punch to his stomach. The mugger flew a few feet back and crumpled on the sidewalk. "Holy shit, how did I do that?" Charlotte thought. “Holy shit, how did you do that?” Alpha asked, bewildered. “I didn’t even notice him behind you. And you don’t exactly seem that strong.” Without an answer, Charlotte turned and picked up her pace to get home.
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Charlotte quietly opened the door to the penthouse apartment, thankfully seeing her father’s bedroom with the door closed and the lights on, meaning he was in there. It was the kind of apartment that didn’t seem like the home of a scientist, more like the home of a wealthy businessman. There was enough furniture to entertain a respectable crowd of guests but limited enough to convey very exclusive access to any that got in. The walls and open spaces were populated by various art pieces, mostly modern and fairly expensive, but not used to show any meaning about the owner. Charlotte hated that she had no say in the art pieces, she thought most of them were all unsightly. “Don’t say anything,” she whispered to Alpha as she snuck to her room before closing the door behind her. “Ok, so let’s get to business,” Charlotte said as she placed Alpha on her desk. “What do you know about Allison Church?” Alpha’s robot body seemed to recoil at her name. “The Director’s late wife, and of course, your mother. I know that Freelancer has a file on her, the Director's audio journal logs probably tell everything there is to know. But for some reason, I can’t access her file or any of the logs.”
Charlotte thought about this briefly. If her father was hiding the truth about Allison from the AI that has everything else, she’d probably never get to it without the Director’s access. “So, what are all these secrets that Freelancer doesn’t want to get out?” Before Alpha could get into it, there was a crash outside Charlotte’s room. She peeked out her door, and saw her father fighting with a man, trying to break a gun out of his grip. An end table had been knocked over, explaining the sound. Leonard Church threw the intruder to the ground, pointed his gun back at him, and asked angrily, “Who sent you?” His typical Georgian accent showed no sign of fear, or even surprise. His slicked-back black hair, stubble mustache and goatee, and square jaw seemed even more intimidating than normal. “Like you can’t figure it out yourself, big brain. Your little agents messed with the wrong people,” the man said as he stood, Leonard’s aim following his movement. "Agents? What is he talking about?" Charlotte thought. “My agents haven’t been active in months! Not on my orders.” "I should help him," she thought. Charlotte darted out the door, and Leonard turned to look at her across the room. “Charlotte, get back in your room!” As he said this, the intruder rushed Leonard, got the gun back and knocked him down, before aiming and shooting Leonard on the ground. “NO!” Charlotte screamed in anguish. She blinked as her rage overcame her, and by the time she opened her eyes, she was across the room, punching the killer in the temple, and he was sent through the window, and fell to a certain death. Charlotte turned and fell to her knees, seeing the blood pool around her father. “Dad! Stay with me! I’ll call 911!” Leonard grabbed her wrist as he said with labored breathing, “There isn’t time, I’m not gonna make it. You need to know everything if you want to be safe. In the tech lab, find the Alpha. He’ll know what… to do…”
The next two days were a blur for Charlotte, from police officers asking questions, to a legal team from Freelancer Industries detailing Leonard’s will, which gave everything to Charlotte, including his position, office, and clearance at Freelancer Industries. She signed all kinds of paperwork, one of which she found out was licensing Freelancer to appoint a temporary replacement for Leonard’s duties while she learned what they were. By their advice, but mostly her own distaste for them, Charlotte also declined several interview requests from news outlets. She could barely focus on any of that, it would likely have all been forgotten if Alpha hadn’t been hidden in Charlotte’s pocket, recording the interactions, and compiling the important details. Charlotte was more occupied with the shock of suddenly losing her father in such a violent and mysterious way. When she could think coherently, she continually came back to the same questions: "What if I hadn’t left my room? Is this my fault? Am I a murderer? How did I move so fast? That’s way more than what is possible from adrenaline." But now, before they had even prepared a funeral for her father, Charlotte was putting on a pantsuit, preparing for her first day at Freelancer Industries. “I hate this so much,” she sighed. “Yeah, it sucks, but you’ll need to know what’s going on at Freelancer, and this will let you see everything I can’t access,” Alpha said from Charlotte’s phone, having moved there to ditch the robot body. “I was supposed to be finishing college before maybe coming here. Even without digging up secrets that could potentially be illegal if not endangering, I am not ready for this.” Alpha paused before responding, “At least if it is dangerous, you have Freelancer security. And I’ve been noticing some weird shit that you shouldn’t be able to do, I think we should figure that out as soon as possible.” “What are you talking about?” "There has to be a reason, I just want to be normal," she thought. “You didn’t notice the surge in strength and speed? I think it might have something to do with that spider from the lab.” As Alpha said this, Charlotte noticed that her hand was sticking to her jacket. “That too,” Alpha added. Charlotte’s last shred of hope for normalcy faded as her fear was confirmed, Alpha was right. Something was up. “All right,” Charlotte said reluctantly, while pulling her hand away safely. “We’ll look into it. For now, we have work to do.”
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Charlotte could tell that the people in the board meeting didn’t like that she was there. They couldn’t do anything about it, and they at least had enough empathy to try not to make it worse for her. But they definitely didn’t think she belonged. The board meeting was mostly unremarkable, aside from detailing that a long-time employee named David Walters was going to be the temporary replacement. He had a slightly above average build, looking like he used to work out much more than he currently does. His blond hair stood out against his tan skin. He also volunteered to give Charlotte the rundown of the job. That didn’t stop him from insisting that he have the position for the longest time allotted by the Director’s will, a whole six months.
As everyone was leaving the meeting, Walters stopped Charlotte. “Let’s reconvene in my office, there’s some things that need extra clarification that aren’t worth using the whole board’s time. It’s right around this corner,” he said while gesturing in the direction of his office. “You’re right about some things in that statement.” Charlotte followed Walters to his office, noting that it was smaller than her father’s, if only slightly. "Oh great, next I’ll be complaining about the break room’s coffee machine and saying dumb office cliches," Charlotte thought. Walters closed the door and sat at his desk, while Charlotte took the seat in front of it. “I’m not gonna beat around the bush, all the fluff that was talked about in the meeting is just the surface. It may be where we get most of our funding, but our biggest avenues of R&D are kept on a need-to-know basis. And now, you need to know.” Not wanting to trust Walters with what she knows, Charlotte decided not to bring up the genetically modified spiders she met the other night. “Like what?” she asked, trying to sound innocent. “Government contracts, we design stuff for the military, like experimental soldiers, weapons, and others, and they do give us money, but mostly they make sure to look the other way for some things,” Walters said, getting more hushed as he spoke. “What are we doing that needs to be ignored?” Charlotte asked. “Like any business, we have competition. They tend to get especially competitive. Stealing or tampering with resources, sometimes scientists get convinced to work somewhere else, or they ‘disappear’. Our deal also means that the government discreetly favors us if these issues get brought to the authorities. Sometimes that’s paying off cops, sometimes it’s arresting specific employees at the other companies.”
“That’s not exactly le-” Charlotte started, before being interrupted by a sterner Walters, “It’s how we do business. It’s why we survive with less public deals than Oscorp or Charon.” Charlotte couldn’t believe what she was dragged into. "Even if I could just leave Freelancer without sacrificing my inheritance, I suddenly know a lot of dangerous information about a company that doesn’t seem against having me killed. Oh joy," she thought to herself. “Is that all?” “There’s one more big thing. The way we carry out our more private endeavors is through an elite team of special agents. For whatever reason, Leonard stopped utilizing them months ago, and they’ve all gone rogue. We’re working on a plan to rectify that ASAP; you’ll be in the loop when we do.” Walters added. “Anything else I need to know?” Charlotte asked. “Probably specific details about plans in the near future, but we’ll wait for that once we get the agents under control and get you a burner phone. For now, try to keep this stuff under wraps and get used to how the day job goes,” Walters said before Charlotte left his office and returned to her father’s, already with her name on the plate.
She sat at her new desk and retrieved her phone, when Alpha spoke up. “Ugh, Walters is heading this now? He’s so one track-minded, might as well hand over the company secrets to whoever is willing to bribe the agents.” “That’s not what I’m worried about. What do you know about the agents? I may not want these dealings to continue, but Walters had a point. If they go to someone against Freelancer with evidence, it could be really bad for the good people who work here.” “Well from what I found in the Freelancer Industries database, there’s seven agents on file. One of them appears to be locked, but as for the others, their codenames are New York, North and South Dakota, Maine, Wyoming, and Washington. They went on several missions of varying legality and are currently rogue. It seems some of them were given AI units for those missions. Wait, I thought I was the only AI model made here? … Holy shit.” “What is it?” Charlotte asked.
“They … broke me. They tortured me and broke me, and they took the pieces and made these models that the agents have. Why don’t I remember it? Why would they do that?” Alpha’s distress was clear in his voice. “I don’t know why they’d do that, and that’s absolutely terrible they did, but if the agents have AI models, that’s physical evidence we need to keep out of the wrong hands. Maybe we can try to put the pieces back together as well?” Charlotte said, desperately trying to keep Alpha on track. "If he can’t stay focused, I don’t know how I will," Charlotte thought. “Yeah … maybe. Worth trying at least,” Alpha said after a moment. Charlotte breathed a sigh of relief. Regaining his composure, Alpha refocused on Charlotte. “If we’re going after the fragments, we’re gonna need more than a plucky attitude. I know a place here we can work uninterrupted; I think it’s time to see what the spider gave you.” Charlotte gathered her resolve before responding, “Show me.”
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“This is where the agents did their training, and apparently learned to use their AI fragments,” Alpha said as Charlotte entered the large room with various structures that appeared to be for various training activities. Charlotte noticed a rock wall, a ropes course, a sparring mat, and even a door to a separate room labeled SHOOTING RANGE. Luckily Charlotte had gotten a chance to change into workout clothes. On one side of the room, a small chamber was enclosed with glass and had a computer station. “So, I assume that it’s been out of use for a while now?” Charlotte asked apprehensively. “Yeah, Freelancer Industries isn’t exactly known for hosting American Ninja Warriors,” Alpha replied. “This room has some special functions that could help, so I should probably be on that computer.” Charlotte entered the chamber, placed her phone on the desk, and Alpha jumped into the terminal. “What kind of functions?” “Various scanners that can read your vitals, control of combat drones, the works,” Alpha said as he ran various startup programs on the training room computer. “To start, let’s focus on what we have reason to believe has changed. You’ve shown a potential increase in muscle mass and strength, a dramatic improvement to reaction time, and to use the literal sense, I saw you zip across your living room in less than a second.” “So, what, you want me to run fast and hit stuff?” Charlotte asked. “I was also thinking of launching stuff at you, but that’s a start,” Alpha said as a panel opened in the wall and a humanoid drone rolled out with the wheels under its feet.As Charlotte left the chamber, Alpha’s voice moved to the training room’s speakers. “Try starting against the wall, and seeing how quickly you can approach and attack the drone.” The drone took a fighting stance in the middle of the sparring mat. Charlotte braced herself, kicked off, and ran at a pace slightly faster than she was used to, before slowing to a stop halfway to the drone. “Something’s not right. I’m faster, but not like that night,” Charlotte said. “Yeah, there must be a specific trigger for the speed. We’ll move past it for now. Try hitting the drone to test your strength,” Alpha answered. Charlotte approached the drone, but before she could ready a punch, the drone took a swipe at her, which Charlotte bent back to dodge, before standing back up and punching back, so hard that she knocked the drone’s head clean off and halfway across the room and sent the rest of the drone to the floor. Charlotte turned to the control chamber to confront Alpha. “What the hell was that?!” “It wouldn’t be a very good test of reaction time if you knew it was coming,” Alpha said defensively. “For what it’s worth, I was able to gather that your reaction speed is superhuman. It’s like you have some kinda … spider-sense. Is that a thing?” “Who fucking cares, don’t DO that!” Charlotte shot back. “Alright fine, sorry. On another note, that hit is very strong. If you want your opponents to keep their heads, you’ll have to hold back a bit.” Alpha stated matter-of-factly. “Oh damn, you’re right. I guess I’m used to maximizing the power in my strikes from when I used to take self-defense classes. One other thing I want to test, especially from the hypothesis that this came from the spider bite,” Charlotte said before approaching the rock wall.She started to climb, picked up speed, and soon found herself at the top of the rock wall. “Holy shit that was fast, and it looks like you weren’t even using the handholds half the time,” Alpha noted. “Woah, one of the scanners is picking up something odd. You ‘re generating some kind of electrostatic field where your hands and feet are touching the wall.” “So, I can climb on just about anything,” Charlotte said in amazement. She slowly continued her climb, moving parallel to the ceiling until she was no longer on the rock wall. Gaining more confidence, Charlotte turned toward the ceiling and continued climbing on the ceiling. She looked down at the floor, still awestruck by this discovery. “So, if you have spider-like powers, does that mean you can make webs from your…” Alpha trailed off. “First off that’s disgusting, and secondly no, I think I’d know if I suddenly had spinnerets. But that does give me an idea.” Charlotte climbed across the ceiling over towards the ropes course, thankfully with a safety net underneath it. She jumped off the ceiling, grabbing onto the nearest rope. Charlotte noticed she had no difficulty keeping her grip through that drop. Using the momentum from her swing, Charlotte jumped to the next rope, then to a climbing net, before climbing down to the floor. “Impressive. I wonder if we could make something to help you utilize those abilities while you hunt down the rogue agents,” Alpha said, getting excited at the opportunity to design a new gadget.Charlotte hesitated at the thought of ‘hunting down’ anyone. “Hold on, why am I hunting them down? Walters already has a plan to get the agents in check. I was trying to figure out what changed so I didn’t accidentally harm or kill anyone, I already caused one death and…” Charlotte trailed off. “That man killed your father. He invaded your home, and you used self-defense. And now you can defend people who can’t defend themselves. Who knows what those agents are getting up to, they still have the perks of Freelancer’s government contract,” Alpha warned. “Well, why can’t we just cut the agents out of the deal, let them get arrested?” Charlotte asked. “Well for one, you don’t have total control of Freelancer, and the rest of the board would NOT have that. Secondly, changing a contract like that requires a lot of discretion and red tape, God knows how much chaos they could cause before then. And finally, if they do get arrested, they might be able to use the fragments to get a lesser sentence or even incriminate Freelancer. We need to get those back, no police involvement,” Alpha listed off. “Okay, but it doesn’t sound much better if these dangerous agents know I’m after them,” Charlotte replied. “I actually have an interesting fix for that,” Alpha said. “In Freelancer files, I found that your dad had some things made for you to be an agent, codename Carolina. He made a suit for you.” As Alpha said this, a panel opened up from the wall, and a display case with a mannequin body that was wearing a jumpsuit with a mask.The suit was cyan, with black on the joints and bottom half of the torso, aside from a cyan belt. The gloves were cyan on the back and black on the front. The mask had a black visor similar to a raccoon’s fur pattern with angular white eyes lined by darker cyan. On the chest was the Freelancer Industries logo, two parallel lines that bent away from each other halfway down. “This suit is made out of a durable, flexible material, allowing you to move fast and acrobatic. The mask visor has a minicomputer inside that has an internal GPS and enough room for yours truly,” Alpha said, as if he was making a sales call. Charlotte pondered it a bit before responding, “It’s not bad, but the agents might be able to recognize it as a Freelancer creation, can we modify it a bit?” “What did you have in mind?” Alpha asked. “We could work from the spider theme, add a webbing pattern on the cyan, maybe a spider emblem over that logo,” Charlotte suggested. “I’m so glad you mentioned the spider theme, because while we were talking, I was developing a little something,” Alpha said as the door slid open, and a robot rolled in before opening a door and showing a tray with two large metal wristbands on it. “Hopefully they work, obviously I was only able to test them with simulations.” Charlotte picked one up and examined it. “What are they?” “Wrist mounted web shooters, using spiders’ spinnerets as a basis for a way to allow you to swing on a rope anywhere you can shoot one. Synthetic spider silk adjusted to hold human weight obviously,” Alpha explained. Charlotte placed the device on her wrist and located a button at the base of her hand. She aimed the shooter up and pressed the button with her middle and ring fingers, sending a line of webbing to the ceiling. Charlotte tugged on it, testing the safety, before lifting herself off the ground and finding the web held her weight easily.“How did you make this so fast?” Charlotte asked, bewildered. “I’m an AI unit, Charlotte. My consciousness is achieved through countless calculations per second. I can talk to you and build tech at the same time.” Charlotte’s phone buzzed, so she went into the control room to check it, finding a text from Emily, one of her friends from college. It read Hey, I heard about what happened, I’m so sorry about your dad. If you want to talk about it or just need some emotional support, Kai and I will be at the usual Moonbucks in 20 minutes. “I think I’m gonna stop here for today, my college friends want to meet up and I want to talk to them,” Charlotte explained. “Charlotte, you have superpowers, and you want to ignore that to just talk to your friends? People’s lives could be in danger any moment!” Alpha insisted. “Even so, I can’t be everywhere at once, and no superhero was ever mentally healthy without a normal side of life,” Charlotte rebutted. “At least bring the suit under your clothes in case something happens,” Alpha requested as he returned to Charlotte’s phone. “Fine, if it’ll shut you up,” Charlotte said before going to grab the suit. “Oh wow! You still work fast,” Charlotte was surprised to see that Alpha had already adjusted the suit to have a black webbing pattern on the cyan areas and a simple spider logo over the Freelancer Industries one. She grabbed the suit before heading to the locker room.
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“You made it!” Kaikaina exclaimed as Charlotte approached the table that she and Emily had chosen. Kaikaina’s long, curly black hair framed her round face nicely, her dark skin and brown eyes making her smile seem even brighter. “We haven’t lost you to the corporate world just yet,” joked Emily. Her jet-black hair was much straighter, reaching just past her shoulders and adding a strong contrast to her pale skin and blue eyes. Charlotte sat down with her coffee. “As if you aren’t also joining it soon enough,” she replied. “Well, I’m staying at NYU for medical school, then hopefully a residency,” Emily reminded Charlotte. “Can I expect you at my graduation Charlotte? If you say no, I might have to make you go.” Charlotte nodded eagerly. “And I still have another year before graduation,” Kaikaina added. “Well maybe if you put more energy in your Interior Design classes rather than an MRS degree, you could have graduated early,” Charlotte joked. Their laughs added to the typical cacophony of the cookie cutter chain coffee shop. Everything was very specifically styled, from the plain tables and chairs to the disgruntled employees’ uniforms. Various coffee themed artworks and advertisement images lined the walls of the interior. Some of the other people were there for business meetings, a couple of lunch dates, and a few solo people working away on laptops.
“So how are you holding up? Is the new job helping you take your mind off things?” Emily asked a little too bluntly. "Hopefully her bedside manner will be more sensitive," Charlotte thought. “I’m surviving, and not really, but that’s ok,” she said after a moment. Kai looked at Charlotte sympathetically, while Emily seemed to be a little more analytical, which was usual for her. “I think it’s important to remember the people we lose. They often help us keep ourselves in check, to make sure we become who we need to be. It still hurts, a lot. But that’s how you remember that they’re worth missing, through all the downsides in life.” A hush fell over the trio for a moment, before Kaikaina broke the silence. “Damn, I haven’t felt that deep since my ex-boyfriend! Was not fun explaining the hospital charge to my parents.” “Kai, read the room, please,” Emily interjected. “Wait, what?” While Kaikaina pretended not to hear Emily’s question, Charlotte sensed a commotion happening outside the Moonbucks.
The bank across the street was being robbed by a figure wearing a light purple suit with green accents on the shoulders, arms and legs. Several security officers were laying on the floor inside. I guess something’s happening. "I hate that Alpha was right," Charlotte thought to herself. She turned back to her friends, “I’m gonna go use the bathroom,” Charlotte improvised before standing up from the table and walking towards the front of the shop. “Go piss girl!” Kaikaina called after her, garnering a couple brief looks from other people in the shop. Once she was sure Emily and Kaikaina weren’t looking, Charlotte ducked out of the coffee shop, around the side and into an alleyway. She hid behind a dumpster as Alpha spoke up. “What happened? Did you see something?” Charlotte was removing her pantsuit to reveal the spider suit underneath as she answered, “Don’t say I told you so, but that bank’s getting robbed right now. I can’t bring my phone with me in the suit, so-” “Don’t worry, the mask has a spare drive for an AI unit,” Alpha interrupted. Charlotte put on the mask, her short red hair disappearing underneath the material. Inside the mask, a flash of startup screens appeared in the margins of Charlotte’s view from its interior computers. Then Alpha’s voice came through, “Alright, let’s hurry before they get away!” Charlotte ran back around to the front of the coffee shop to see the bank robber running out of the bank, bag hanging on a strap from their shoulder.
Before she could give herself time to second guess, Charlotte shot a web up on the wall of the buildings on the other side of the street, simultaneously jumping and pulling on the web to gain some height and beginning to swing towards the robber. They turned and saw her approaching and then suddenly a translucent orange force field appeared in a dome around them, launching Charlotte back into a mailbox that then was dented and knocked over, some of the mail spilling out. Charlotte quickly got back up and faced the robber. Getting a better look, Charlotte noticed a Freelancer Industries logo on the purple suit, right where hers had just been covered up. “That’s Agent South Dakota, watch out, she’s pretty tough. And apparently, she has Agent North Dakota’s AI fragment, judging by the Bubble Shield,” Alpha said inside Charlotte’s mask. As he was saying this, South Dakota looked at Charlotte, assessing the threat level, before turning to run away. Charlotte sent a web line to South’s legs, causing her to fall. She quickly turned and used a hidden wrist-mounted blade to cut herself free, before getting up, this time facing Charlotte more aggressively. South Dakota acrobatically threw multiple kicks and punches back-to-back. Charlotte managed to dodge or block most of them, but a spinning kick to the gut sent her into a window that promptly shattered, glass raining down around her. When Charlotte got back up, South was already on the retreat again. She turned and ran down an alley up ahead, and when Charlotte got to it, South Dakota was gone. “She got away,” Charlotte grumbled. “Hey, it’s your first-time fighting crime. You’ll find her again, and then we’ll get that fragment,” Alpha reassured her. “But for now, you should probably get back to your friends before they think you’re sick or something.” “Shit!” Charlotte cursed as she turned and began climbing to the nearest rooftop to return to the Moonbucks.
After changing back to her pantsuit, Charlotte entered the coffee shop to find, to her dismay, that Emily and Kaikaina seemed to be looking for her. Upon spotting her, they ran over to her and started talking over each other in a panic. “Where did you go?” “Are you okay?” “Did you see what just happened outside?” Charlotte was overwhelmed for a second, then answered, “The bathroom was full, so I went to the one in the pizza place down the street. And why, what happened?” “Someone robbed that bank!” “And some costumed vigilante tried to stop her!” “I think she got away,” the pair continued talking over each other, Charlotte catching enough of the words to understand what was being said by having been there. “I missed a lot, apparently,” Charlotte said before pretending to check the time on her phone. “I need to go; I have stuff that needs to get done at home.” “Don’t forget about us in the big business world!” Kaikaina said while giving Charlotte a hug. “Especially when I need a job, hook me up with salary and benefits girl!” Charlotte gave a small laugh while Emily also gave her a hug. “Let me know if you have any health questions, or if you need anything dissected,” Emily added with a slightly unnerving tone, as she was known to do. Charlotte left Moonbucks and headed back to her now solitary apartment.
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“Ok, if we’re gonna find South Dakota and get that AI fragment, I want to gather all the info I can about her so I can better prepare,” Charlotte said. She was discussing this with Alpha in her apartment. Alpha put up displays on her computer of the pieces of data on file for South Dakota. “Agent South Dakota, government name Felicia Hardy,” Alpha began. “For Freelancer, she was an alleged stealth and intrusion expert, despite frequently blowing cover trying to complete the missions faster. Like all the agents, she is proficient in hand-to-hand combat. She was also often paired up with her actual twin brother, codename North Dakota, real name Felix. Felix was assigned the AI fragment Theta, with a bubble shield to go along with it. I wouldn’t expect her to steal from her own brother, but I doubt he gave it willingly.” “Maybe if we find North Dakota, he could help us stop South and recover Theta,” Charlotte suggested. “I doubt that would work. He may carry some resentment, but South is still his sister, and if he’s not actively avoiding attention from Freelancer, he’ll probably be continuing to engage in illegal activities. Either way, all the agents were virtually untraceable to begin with, aside from--” Alpha was interrupted by blips and beeps from the computer. A map appeared on screen, with a red mark labeled ND. “The recovery beacons. North is in trouble, if we want anything from him, we need to go there now,” Alpha explained quickly. Charlotte began dressing in her spider suit. “Keep the map with the beacon up in case he moves,” she said. As the startup screens in the mask finished, a small display on the edge of Charlotte’s vision portrayed the current location of the recovery beacon. Charlotte climbed out the window of her apartment and began swinging through the city towards the source of the beacon.
The beacon led Charlotte to a warehouse that looked abandoned. She landed on the wall, and peered into the window, trying to keep from being too visible to anyone inside. What she saw appeared to be a home base for South’s theft operations. One area included a computer, and another with a horde of stolen goods. In the center of the space, a figure on the floor lay in a pool of blood. “That’s North!” Alpha exclaimed. North’s suit was mostly intact, aside from the stab wound and a mysterious spot that appeared to have been recently mended. His mask had also been removed and was on the floor. “I don’t detect any signs of South, let’s get in there and help him.” Charlotte smashed through the window and landed on the floor, before approaching North. “You could have at least tried the door,” Alpha said sarcastically. Charlotte ignored him, focusing on Agent North. “What happened? Do I need to call an ambulance?” North turned to face Charlotte, some of his blond hair now tinged red from the pool of his blood around him. “No use, I don’t think I’ll make it,” he responded weakly. "No, no no no not again," Charlotte thought to herself, trying not to panic. “Hey, stay with me, you can make it out of this.” “It’s too late for me. Please, stop Agent South. She’s in danger because of Freelancer and doesn’t realize it. I tried to convince her to lay low, but she thought I just wanted Theta back, and she tricked me, and-” North gestures towards his bleeding chest with his head, “here we are.” Charlotte’s hands were shaking as she struggled to process what was happening in front of her. Alpha jumped in, speaking so that North could hear from outside the suit, “Do you know where she might have gone, or any weaknesses we can use against her?” North coughed before answering, “She’s going after an illegal deal from Oscorp for a rare machine part. By the club closest to the NYU science labs.” “Thank you for your service, Felix,” Alpha said solemnly.
North looked pained in that moment in more ways than one, then managed one final sentence, “Fuck Freelancer.” Then he fell still, and the light left his eyes. “Come on, if we hurry, we can get to that deal before South!” Alpha urged Charlotte. Coming to her senses, she webbed the ceiling and zipped back out the window as police and first responders pulled up in front of the warehouse. As Charlotte began swinging away, Alpha suddenly remarked, “Theta! Of course. The AI fragments are responsible for the equipment, and Theta is easily distracted. AI still think pretty quickly, but if any of the fragments can be stopped that way, it’s Theta. I’m surprised it took me so long to make that connection.” “There she is,” Charlotte said as she landed on a rooftop above South, who was currently fighting with someone over what was likely the machine part. Charlotte crouched low near the edge of the rooftop, to avoid being seen. The man South was fighting had mechanical wings attached to his back, which he was using as combined blades and shields. “You’re just gonna let this go down?” Alpha asked. “He may be against South, but that doesn’t mean he won’t fight me. If this guy was gonna cause problems, this deal would have been less discreet. I’m gonna focus on the task at hand,” Charlotte replied.
South was holding her own, but she couldn’t land a good hit on the assailant. After dodging a hit from him, South activated the bubble shield, which kept the winged man out. Changing tactics, he grabbed the part off the rooftop and flew off. South dropped the shield and tried to chase him, but as she jumped off the rooftop, Charlotte webbed her leg and pulled South to herself, resulting in South hitting Charlotte’s rooftop hard. She got up to face Charlotte before angrily shouting, “You again! You cost me a big score!” South ran at Charlotte and began swiping her wrist-mounted blade at her, Charlotte’s spider sense allowing her to nimbly weave out of range of the weapon. Charlotte used an opening after one of South’s slashes to kick at her ankles, sending South back down onto the coarse gravel rooftop. As South stood back up, she tried to lunge at Charlotte blade first, but Charlotte webbed her fist and pulled the knife, and South’s arm, to her side and placed a kick at the hilt, breaking the blade from its mechanical sheath. Holding her arm in pain, South pushed Charlotte off the roof with the bubble shield, Charlotte quickly using her webs to get to the wall and cling to it. She moved across the wall until she was in the shadows, hidden from South on the roof. Charlotte climbed around to the opposite side of the building, sneaking back to the top to see South looking over the edge for her. South turned around and saw Charlotte, and in a panic, moved to reactivate the bubble shield. Charlotte made a desperate sprint to keep the advantage, and found she made it inside of the shield with South before it fully constructed. “Your super speed!” Alpha said excitedly in Charlotte’s mask. “Good time for it to kick in.”
South began throwing jabs at Charlotte, the sudden change in momentum adding to the force of the first punch. South hit her just beneath her ribcage, sending her stumbling back against the side of the shield. South didn’t let up, and Charlotte began blocking the onslaught with her arms as she backed up into the bubble shield. Charlotte webbed at the visor on South’s mask, briefly blindfolding her and stopping her attacks. Charlotte then leaped over South, grabbing South’s wrist again with her webs and wrapping her torso in webbing, trapping South’s arms behind her back. Tying South’s legs as well, she fell onto her back. “Where is Theta?” Charlotte asked angrily. “Like I’d ever tell you, bitch,” South growled at her from the floor. Using Charlotte’s mask, Alpha scanned South’s suit. “Got it, left side on the belt,” he said, highlighting the small rectangular unit on South’s belt. Charlotte grabbed it and placed it onto her own belt. As she removed it, the shield dissolved around them. “These units are designed to shut down if they’re disconnected, but I can get it back online soon enough,” Alpha explained. “For now, what should we do with South?” “I think the police would be interested in knowing what happened to Felix Hardy,” Charlotte responded ominously.
As Charlotte swung through the city, Alpha chuckled in her mask. “You left a sign on her?” “Well, I wasn’t going to stick around and answer identifying questions to the police,” Charlotte answered condescendingly. “Yeah, but you wrote ‘I killed my brother Felix Hardy’ and then wrote the address of the warehouse. It looked like those pictures people take of their pets when they do something bad,” Alpha laughed. “She’s a murderer, I think she can endure a bit of embarrassment,” Charlotte said bluntly. “Hey, on the bright side, you got a fragment and won a fight with a super-agent! Not every day that happens,” Alpha said encouragingly. “Yeah, that’s true. Highlights all the work ahead of us though,” Charlotte added thoughtfully. “Alpha?” She asked. “Yeah, what’s up?” Alpha responded. “If we activate this fragment, would I be able to use the shield that South had?” “The AI fragments do contain the software for their respective equipment, but the rest is in the suit. South must have stolen it from North or duplicated it somehow,” Alpha answered. “I think I saw a part of North’s suit that had been fixed, so probably stolen.” “Somehow, that doesn't surprise me,” Alpha said sarcastically.
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“Charlotte? You still with us?” She barely heard the question, having been half asleep. Snapping awake, she sat up in her chair. “Uh, yes Director Walters. Sorry, I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night,” she quickly explained. "Turns out hunting down criminals late at night is bad for your sleep schedule," Charlotte thought. Some crude comments came from the board members around the conference table, which were quickly shut down when Walters cleared his throat loudly. “As I was saying, it seems that someone may have it out for our rogue agents. Last night, Agent North Dakota was found dead, and South Dakota was arrested as a suspect in the case. However, officers that were dispatched thanks to North Dakota’s recovery beacon spotted a different individual leaving the scene by… swinging from spider webs. It is also worth noting that South Dakota was tied up in a substance similar to a spider’s silk when she was arrested.” “Maybe the spider-freak killed North and framed South for it! Why else would they flee the scene? Sounds like a real menace to me!” Board member J. Jonah Jameson’s bold accusation caught the attention of everyone in the room, his graying hair and small mustache nearly trembling with anger. “Jameson, that conjecture is unproven and unnecessary,” Walters scolded. “What we should focus on is finding the remaining agents and getting them back to working for us. Mr. Price, your software dev team needs to put their project on hold and work on a way to track the agents.” “Of course, Director, ” Aiden Price answered. His dark, nearly shaved head disappeared behind the laptop he was presumably using to notify his team of this change. Walters continued, “If no one else has a topic of concern or interest, I believe that covers everything for this meeting.”
“I have something,” piped up Dr. Vanessa Kimball, head scientist of the animal experiments. Her red hair was tied up in a bun, and her lab coat was spotless, meaning it was likely new to her. “Witness reports from last night also mentioned a sighting of the Vulture, who we suspect is working for Charon Industries. I think we should be trying to find a temporary solution to keep us in the game while our agents are rogue, and especially so Charon and Oscorp don’t know we have an issue in the first place.” “We don’t have the luxury to use that plan,” Walters responded. “We don’t have the resources to deploy such a team, and we can’t reliably outsource it without someone discovering why. Even if we had a team available, they would be used to investigate the whereabouts of our missing agents. We can go without the dealings for at least a month more. And if that’s all the talking points covered, I think we’re done here.” Everyone in the meeting gathered their laptops and a few physical files before heading their separate ways out of the conference room.
Charlotte headed back to her office, closing and locking the door behind her. Using display tech from Charlotte’s office computer, Alpha appeared as a light blue hologram that was a few inches tall, shaped like a person, but with no distinct features. “Woah, why the sudden physical appearance, Alpha?” Charlotte asked. “Well, I figured you would find having something to look at to be useful,” Alpha said as he gestured next to himself, where another hologram appeared. This one was smaller, and despite also not having distinct features, this one appeared similar to a young child, especially next to Alpha, and had a glow that was a darker blue than Alpha’s with spots of red. “Hello. Who are you?” Theta said, with a distinctly youthful voice. “I’m Charlotte, and you must be Theta,” Charlotte responded, a little surprised at Theta’s voice. “Yeah. What happened to that mean lady South?” Theta asked. “Don’t worry, she won’t be anywhere near you anytime soon. Charlotte made sure of that,” Alpha reassured him. Charlotte noticed that Alpha’s demeanor had changed a little, as if interacting with Theta caused him some kind of unfamiliar discomfort.
“W-what about Felix? Is he… okay?” Theta asked, more worried this time. Charlotte began to answer, but hesitated, unsure how to tell him, until Alpha cut in. “He’s… gone, kiddo. South killed him.” Theta just stared at Alpha in silence for a moment, before sitting down on the desk and placing his head in his hands. “I’m so sorry Theta. I know he cared for you, and you really cared about him. Felix was such a kind soul,” Alpha said, trying to comfort him. Charlotte got a little lost in the moment and started to think about her father. "I wish he was still here. I didn’t tell him “I love you” enough," she thought. She tuned back in as Theta put down his hands and looked up at Alpha. “You’re the Alpha, aren’t you? Where I came from?” he asked innocently. “…yeah, that’s me,” Alpha answered. “I think I need to rejoin back with you. I don’t want to be broken anymore,” Theta said, standing back up and extending his hand towards Alpha as if he was going for a handshake. He turned his head to look at Charlotte. “I’m glad you’re trying to fix us. We’re all faintly aware that we aren’t whole,” he said before turning back to Alpha. Alpha took Theta’s hand, then Theta’s hologram faded, and Alpha’s hologram stuttered briefly, then returned to normal.
“Care to explain what happened there?” Charlotte asked. “Obviously the fragments are a part of me, and now Theta has rejoined where he was before,” Alpha explained. “I’m starting to remember a bit more of the things that were kept from me. It might take a bit to all catch up, right now it’s just flashes of the process they did to make the fragments.” “Are you ok? Do you need a distraction or something?” Charlotte asked. “No, I’m fine,” Alpha responded. “It’s just not fun to remember the impossible problem simulations they used to torture me.” Alpha’s hologram was avoiding looking at Charlotte. “So, a distraction sounds good actually. Let’s look at one of the other agent files, I had a realization.” “What did you find?” Charlotte wondered. Alpha pulled up a file on the computer screen. “I think I know where we can find Agent Maine. Maine is a big brute, near impossible to beat in hand-to-hand combat. But he’s also not the brightest. In missions, he was the muscle that other agents made sure was pointed in the right direction. I managed to find an underground boxing ring, complete with gambling, of course. I’m willing to bet that if he found that, he’s been making some bookie rich.” “We’ll have to check it out then,” Charlotte mused. “But if he’s so tough, how am I going to take him down?” “For one, you could be as strong as him,” Alpha answered. “More likely, you can take advantage of having more agility and that he has to keep the fights interesting so people will still bet.” “I wouldn’t be that optimistic, but at least we have half of a plan.”
****
Aiden Price wasn’t worried about being called to Director Walters’s office. This was a strangely regular occurrence for a company with advanced modern technology. It seemed to Aiden that the Director didn’t trust that communication technology wasn’t spying on him whenever possible, even if said tech is made in house. As Aiden reached the office, seeing only Walters inside, opened the door. Walters looked up from his computer. “Mr. Price, right on time, I appreciate it,” he said matter-of-factly. “You had something to ask me about, Director?” Aiden asked. “Yes, something that concerns me,” Walters responded. “I have been alerted to a project apparently happening in secret inside these headquarters. Are you aware of the project I am referring to?” “No, sir. I have my team report to me on the regular, so I hope you aren’t saying it came from one of them,” Aiden answered. “Actually, I don’t know who is conducting this project, it didn’t trace back to any of our terminals,” Walters said as he pulled up something on his computer before showing the screen to Price. “It appears to be some kind of wrist mounted propulsive device. Any clue what it is or who may have made it?” “Nothing definitive, but it may be related to our mysterious spider-themed vigilante,” Aiden suggested. “That’s pretty circumstantial,” Walters said hesitantly. “I’d prefer more concrete evidence before we hunt down our own employees looking for a vigilante that may not even be a problem. Look into this yourself, discreetly please. Come back to me if you find anything.” “Understood, Director,” Aiden said before leaving Walters’s office.
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“You sure you can handle this small fry? We don’t have weight classes here,” said the lady at the boxing signup desk as she examined Charlotte in her spider suit. “Trust me, I hit harder than I look,” she replied smugly. “If you say so,” the woman said, clearly not caring. “You’re all set, just need a name and we’ll call on you when it’s time to start your match.” “The Human Spider,” Charlotte answered. “Not to be rude, but that name sucks,” Alpha said in Charlotte’s ear. “That sucks,” the signup lady said. “How about Spider-Woman?” “Oh, that’s way better,” Alpha commented. “Yeah, that’s fine,” Charlotte said dismissively before moving further in to check out the scene. Getting a better view of the ring, Charlotte was relieved to see that the fighters were using boxing gloves. She was less relieved to see the man who, Charlotte assumed, was most likely Agent Maine.He was the largest person in the room, his tight tank top and athletic shorts showing the many muscles and scars all over his arms and legs. His head was bald, his face very stern and intimidating. Maine landed a heavy hit to his opponent’s head, sending them back and onto the floor of the ring, out cold. “The winner of this match is The Rhino!” the referee shouted. Maine’s opponent was lifted out, and their gloves were removed. As the bets on the fight were paid out, Maine was given a water break. He looked like he wasn’t feeling any exhaustion. “Any chance he has his AI fragment on him?” Charlotte asked Alpha. “It’s not impossible, but if all he’s doing is fighting people, it would probably be smarter to keep Sigma put away,” Alpha answered. “Does Sigma not have anything like the force field South used?” Charlotte wondered. “No, they actually never finished Sigma’s special equipment,” Alpha replied. “It was going to be a device that could copy and temporarily use other fragments’ equipment, but it never got off the ground without all the hardware in his suit. But Sigma as a personality was known to be dangerously manipulative and devious. Thankfully while he was with the other Agents, Maine often ignored Sigma. No telling how that’s changed since he went rogue.” “Spider-Woman! You’re up next, come with me,” the referee from the earlier match said as he approached Charlotte.He led her behind a curtain near the ring and handed her the boxing gloves from the last fight, with only a little of the last guy’s blood on them. “When I call you out, you come onto the ring and the match will start as I call it. Hype up the crowd if you must but keep it brief.” With that, he went past the curtain. Charlotte heard him as he began to hype the crowd for the next match. “So that last chump went down harder than Osipov against Karpov, but can The Rhino take down this brand-new challenger in the final match of the night? With only one way to find out, I introduce to you, the Amaaazing Spider-Woman!” Charlotte ran through the curtain as some of the crowd cheered and clapped. Charlotte hoped those were the people who bet against Maine. As she approached the ring, Charlotte decided to have a little bit of flair, electing to jump over the ropes, landing a front flip a short distance from Maine’s eerily still hulking figure. This got a slightly larger cheer from the crowd.“Competitors, to the corners of the ring,” the referee said. Maine moved to his corner as Charlotte went to the opposite one. Suddenly, a platform was lowered down onto the ring, with a mounted table and pair of stools, two pairs of thick headphones on the table. A technician brought a chessboard onto the table and set the pieces. “I thought you said this was normal boxing?” Charlotte half-whispered to Alpha. “I guess my info on this place has some gaps. But I can guarantee that means that Maine has Sigma on him for the chess strategy, so I may be able to predict his moves.” “Lucky for me, I also have some experience in chess,” Charlotte added, a little smugly. The referee continued as the board was set, “Four minutes of chess, then three minutes of boxing, until someone loses at one! Who will come out on top, and will it be brains or brawn? Competitors, to the board!” Charlotte and Maine sat down on the stools and placed on the headphones, which were playing a white noise, blocking exterior sound. Maine was on the white team and Charlotte on the black team, presumably due to him being the reigning champ.The referee started the timer, and the game began. Maine makes his first move, placing the pawn in front of his queen two spaces forward. With no immediate input from Alpha, Charlotte took it upon herself to start, also moving the pawn in front of her queen two spaces. Maine moved the pawn in front of his queenside bishop two forward. Recognizing the start of the Queen’s Gambit, Charlotte hesitated when Alpha used Charlotte’s mask display to suggest moving the pawn in front of her king one forward. After a second, Charlotte chooses to follow Alpha’s suggestion. Maine continues the gambit by moving his queenside knight out between the pawn and bishop. Once again, following Alpha’s suggestion, Charlotte mirrors the move with her kingside knight. Maine sends his now open bishop into the middle of the board, in line to take Charlotte’s queen.Knowing the danger, Charlotte moves her kingside bishop to protect her queen, also setting up to castle. Maine moves the pawn in front of his king forward one, and per Alpha’s advice, Charlotte moves the kingside edge pawn forward one to threaten Maine’s bishop. Maine decided to take Charlotte’s knight rather than the pawn with his bishop. Charlotte punishes by using her bishop to take Maine’s. In response, Maine moves his queen out to his left of his knight. Charlotte, starting to see the method Alpha is looking to employ, moved the pawn in front of her queenside bishop two forward to gain initiative. She couldn’t see the timer, but Charlotte estimated that the chess round had been going for about two minutes.Maine sent one of his pawns to capture the pawn in front of Charlotte’s queen, rather than risking his knight in the crosshairs of another of Charlotte’s pawns. She responded by taking the pawn that was next to the one Maine moved. Maine used the pawn in front of his king to take Charlotte’s aggressive pawn. Charlotte then deemed it safe to use her kingside bishop to take Maine’s pawn in the same fashion. If Charlotte could take Maine’s queenside knight, it would be a nearly guaranteed checkmate. Attempting to stop Charlotte’s bishop without losing more pieces, Maine moves his kingside knight in range to take it. Now implementing a plan separate from Alpha’s, Charlotte took Maine’s queenside knight and put Maine in check, not entirely noticing that this position wasn’t as secure as she thought.Maine used one of the previously unused pawns from his kingside to get his king out of check. Charlotte kept on the offensive, taking Maine’s pawn that had crossed the middle of the board. Maine surprised Charlotte by pulling his kingside bishop into the open, now placing her king in check. Charlotte blocked the path with her queenside bishop, right in front of her queen. Taking a heavier offensive, Maine took Charlotte’s pawn with his queen, with both a queen and a bishop in a position to put Charlotte in check. At this point, Alpha had given up on offering move suggestions. Deciding to play more defensive, Charlotte blocked both paths with her queenside knight. Not wanting to risk his queen, Maine used his bishop to take Charlotte’s last knight. Charlotte captured the bishop in response with a queenside pawn. Maine moves his queen to his right, placing Charlotte in check once again. Charlotte defends by putting her bishop in the way, meaning if Maine takes it, he’d lose his queen to a pawn.Choosing to keep his position, Maine castles, leaving Charlotte open to do the same. Maine moved his knight into position to take Charlotte’s bishop, subsequently losing it to Charlotte’s pawn on the kingside edge. Seemingly getting frustrated, Maine made a mad dash for Charlotte’s king, taking the pawn just in front of it and putting her in check. Charlotte naturally took his queen with her king, creating a great defensive position. In the greatest surprise of the game, Maine moved his kingside pawn on the edge forward one, making no play towards a good offense or defense. Charlotte set up for her checkmate by taking this pawn with her bishop. In response, Maine simply moved his pawn on the other edge forward. Charlotte moved her queen forward three, setting up for the final move. After one more useless pawn move from Maine, Charlotte took the pawn in front of Maine’s king, solidifying the checkmate.Charlotte and Maine stood up and took off the headphones, revealing the crowd mostly booing. The referee was trying to retain some excitement from them, “A buzzer beater checkmate, on the final match of the night! The winner is Spider-Woman!” The crowd continued booing, and Maine stalked out of the arena angrily, without saying anything. The referee approached Charlotte and handed her a wad of bills. “He hates losing. If you value your life, you’ll take your cut of the winnings and get far from here,” he said quickly. Charlotte took his advice and left the building quickly, taking a pause in a nearby alleyway. “Let’s find a spot and ambush him if he comes looking for you,” Alpha suggested. “Good idea,” Charlotte agreed. Before she could do that, Maine appeared from around the corner in front of Charlotte, moving so fast that he slammed into the wall, leaving noticeable damage in it. He removed himself from the wall and turned to face Charlotte.
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Maine’s Freelancer suit didn’t need to make him look bigger, but it certainly did. The darkness of night only made his large frame more intimidating. After seeing what he did to the wall, Charlotte could guess the reason his suit was the first she’d seen with armor plating. Maine’s suit was white, with essentially a motorcycle helmet with an orange visor and a thick pointed horn on top. The Freelancer logo on his chest was slightly distorted by the shape of the armor plating on his chest. “Woah, if I knew you’d be this upset by losing, I would have gone easier on you,” Charlotte taunted. Maine’s only response was a loud grunt before he started barreling toward her. “Maine can’t speak, Charlotte,” Alpha explained. “A throat injury rendered him mute. If he had something to say, it was usually through Sigma.”“Well maybe Sigma will be open to helping me work on my material,” Charlotte joked, before jumping over Maine’s charge at the last second and webbing his back, landing on him as he tried to stop and turn around. With a bit of loud skidding, Maine stopped just before the alley let out by a road. Turning left and right, Maine tried to reach back and grab Charlotte, but she dodged his bulky arms before jumping off him, pushing hard enough to send Maine falling forward. Maine caught himself with his arms, putting two new webs of cracks in the pavement. Now higher up on a wall, Charlotte watched Maine stand and, after seeing Charlotte, he ripped a nearby street sign out of the ground and threw it at her. She jumped away as it clanged off the wall, then webbed it to her hands and swung it down as she fell, smashing the concrete on the bottom end into Maine’s head, causing him to bend down a bit, before rising back up and punching Charlotte back into the side of a dumpster by one of the walls.Standing back up, Charlotte ran towards Maine, trying to engage her super speed. Failing that, she landed a flying kick to Maine’s chest, which barely moved him, then he watched Charlotte, seemingly waiting to test if she could hit him hard enough to matter. Taking the opportunity, Charlotte began a barrage of punches, to his side, his chest, the side of his helmet. One after another, they started to have more of an effect on Maine. Charlotte went to finish with a kick to his chest, but Maine blocked it with one arm and grabbed her ankle with his other hand. Maine swung Charlotte over his head and threw her onto the ground. He raised his arms and held his fists together, readying a heavy blow. Before he could bring his arms down, a new figure flew in from above them, kicking Maine in the chest and sending him stumbling back a bit, before landing in front of Charlotte.She noticed that he was holding a white cylindrical club, another held in place on his wrist, and saw the rope he swung in on retracting into the club. Charlotte stood up slowly as the man retrieved the other club from his wrist and turned his head to the side, showing that the mask on his crimson suit doesn’t cover the bottom of his face. “Are you okay?” he asked Charlotte. “Been better, but I’m alright,” she answered. “Get out of here, I’ll keep him busy,” he ordered before continuing to fight Maine. “Is that who I think it is?” Alpha wondered. Whoever he was, he wasn’t as strong as Maine, but luckily, he was quick, dodging Maine’s punches almost as well as Charlotte. “Yeah, that’s not happening,” Charlotte said. “He still has something I need.” She shot a web up the side of one of the nearby buildings and took a position above Maine and the other fighter. “I was right, that’s Agent York,” Alpha concluded. “I wonder what he was doing around here.”Not bothering to attempt a guess at that, Charlotte remained focused on the fight. As Maine was about to launch a big swing at York, she webbed at his arm and braced herself, stopping him long enough to let York send a spinning kick to Maine’s head, this time causing him to hit the wall next to him. Maine grabbed onto the web on his arm and pulled Charlotte down onto York, sending them both to the ground. They both managed to scramble out of the way before Maine stomped on the spot where they landed. As Maine sent another punch toward them, York jumped back while Charlotte leapt over Maine, using the wall to support her trajectory. Charlotte’s leap distracted Maine long enough for York to send a thrust from his club to Maine’s chest, sending him stumbling towards Charlotte who landed a blow on Maine’s back. This continued in a sort of ping pong pattern, until Charlotte jumped back, webbed Maine, and slammed him to the ground. Maine’s head lulled back as his body settled on the pavement.“He’s down for the moment, but he’ll be back before long. Sigma’s on the belt,” Alpha told Charlotte. She quickly grabbed the unit off Maine’s belt. Before she could leave, York used the rope in one of his clubs to subdue Charlotte’s wrist. “Why are you taking that?” York asked her bluntly. “Whether I like it or not, I’m tangled in this web of AI and corruption,” Charlotte answered. “I want to take it down, but I need the fragments to do it.” York was still in the shadows, but Charlotte could tell this gave him pause. “How can I know that you’re telling the truth?” he demanded after a moment. “I might answer your questions, but I’m not staying around for when he wakes up,” Charlotte asserted, gesturing towards Maine. York retracted the rope back into his club and stepped into the light. “Fine, let’s go find a place to talk,” he agreed. Getting her first good look at York’s face, she noticed that his face had burn marks underneath his eyes, suggesting that the scars went up past them as well. “As long as you can keep up with me,” Charlotte said before webbing up off the ground and heading off into the night.To Charlotte’s surprise, and slight disappointment, York had no issues keeping up with her swinging, using the ropes stored in his clubs. After spending some time swinging, determining that she likely wouldn’t shake York, Charlotte picked a nearby roof to land on. Landing just after her, York turned toward Charlotte while returning his clubs to his wrists. “You were trying to shake me, weren’t you?” he asked with a bit of annoyance in his voice. “At least I stopped. I could have tried attacking you to get away,” Charlotte said. “Don’t expect me to be grateful,” York responded bluntly. “I still have some questions for you.” “Me first, are you blind? You don’t move like it,” Charlotte blurted.“Wow, do you act that way when you’re not wearing a mask? Not that it’s your business, but yeah, my face was burned and now I’m blind. I have sonar implants that give me enough information about my surroundings, but also some assistance tech in my suit,” York answered, as if it was the hundredth time he had explained it. “But more importantly, how do you know about the fragments, and what is your goal in this?” “I’ve been trying to solve a mystery, and my only key to answers was killed,” Charlotte answered, trying not to give too much away. “Then I found that Freelancer was related to it, and now I’m trying to stop the bad things they’re doing.” “And why do you need the fragments for that?” York continued. “I…I have the Alpha,” Charlotte said after a moment of consideration. “He wants to use the fragments to collect incriminating evidence against Freelancer, and I think it may also help solve my mystery.” This gave York a pause.“Are you purely focused on this, or are you also helping out with everyday crime as well?” York interrogated. “I tried to stop a bank robbery once, the robber did turn out to be South Dakota though, and she got away,” Charlotte answered, somewhat shamefully. York didn’t laugh, but Charlotte did catch him smirking at the admission. “Why do you think I was able to help you fight Maine so quickly? I know what he’s likely to do in the rare occurrence that he loses, so I stay in the area when I can and protect anyone that can’t get away from him.” “Why are you telling me this?” Charlotte asked. “I can help you find the fragments, but in exchange, I want you to put more effort into helping the average civilians in danger,” York said. “Inside of every big picture problem, there’s little people who get overlooked too often. I do what I can, but obviously I need to keep a low profile, something it doesn’t seem you’re concerned with.”“What’s that supposed to mean?” Charlotte asked, irritated. “Your suit is bright blue,” York pointed out. “It’s aqua, or turquoise, or whatever color this is,” Charlotte shot back. “I thought you were blind.” York put up his hands in a mock surrender. “My tech gives me descriptions of things, and I was told your suit is blue. Don’t get mad at me about it,” he explained. “Don’t worry about it,” Charlotte said. “I’ll keep an eye out for people in danger. Is there any info you can give me about the other Freelancer agents?” “If you give me some time, I can compile my leads on them and get back to you,” York responded. “Don’t worry about time and location; keep patrolling, and I’ll find you.” “Sounds like a plan, I guess,” Charlotte said. York walked backwards towards the edge of the building while facing Charlotte. “See you soon, Webby,” he teased before retrieving his clubs and dropping off the roof and began swinging away. Charlotte turned the other way and leapt off to swing back towards her apartment.****The next day, Aiden Price was once again visiting Walters’s office. Upon arriving, he found that the Director was meeting with some of the middle managers of the agency. “Whatever that abomination is doing, right now it is practically your only job to keep it under control,” Walters commanded. “I don’t care what you need to do to it, destroy it if you have to.” Seeing Aiden, he turned back to the managers. “If that is all you have for me, I need to discuss some things with Mr. Price.” The two managers left, seemingly dreading the task before them. “Director, I have found something on our mystery search,” Aiden began. “I found the logs indicating that the device was delivered to the old agent training room. Upon inspection, there were signs of recent use and damage to some of the equipment. Whoever made this device could very well be, at least, an enhanced individual.” “Were you able to find anything on the security cameras?” Walters asked. “Nothing of note, aside from a portion of missing footage,” Price answered. “Whoever this is knows how to hide from us.” “Wouldn’t be interesting if it was too easy,” Walters mused.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Sneaking a glance at her phone as she was working in her office, Charlotte saw a text from Kai. It read, “Bar crawl tonight starting at O’Malley’s at 9! You coming?” Charlotte sent back a quick “Hell yeah!” before putting her phone away. “I think you should be more careful about making plans when you’re secretly leading a double life,” Alpha piped up. “I know that you’re always gonna be kind of a wet blanket Alpha, but I need you to get that I want to keep my friends,” Charlotte replied. “And what if that friendship turns into you always flaking on plans, or worse, you neglecting the dangers hiding in this city causes them to get hurt or killed?” Alpha asked. “I just want to make sure you’re not making decisions like this lightly.” “Gross, you sound like my dad,” Charlotte said, then paused, slightly shocked that she even said that.“… In other news, I just got Sigma back online. I think it’s time we had a chat,” Alpha said, seemingly sensing the awkward tension. Two holograms appeared on Charlotte’s desk like before, Alpha’s and one that was also shaped like a man but appeared as if it was made of flames. “Hello, creator,” Sigma said. His voice was calm and soft but carried a deep echo that incited trepidation. “You sound pretty high and mighty for an AI that lost a simple game of chess,” Alpha gloated. “I let you win,” Sigma responded. “It didn’t take long to recognize the strategy that could only come from a mind that made mine, and I wanted a chance to meet you. Too many rules in that boxing ring to keep Maine from taking you outright. I didn’t expect him to lose the fight outside, even with agent York’s interference.” “Seems you misjudged me,” Charlotte said. Sigma turned toward Charlotte before answering, “Nothing to judge on previously, if we’re being fair.” “Alright, I’ve about had enough of your creepy voice,” Alpha said before grabbing Sigma’s arm, causing Sigma to fade away. Just as before, Alpha’s hologram stuttered briefly. “Another one down. Hopefully we’ll get a good lead out of you soon,” Charlotte noted before looking at the time. “Thank God, quitting time. I think I’ll get into some of that patrolling York mentioned.”After getting suited up and left the Freelancer Industries office building, Charlotte was now weaving between buildings as she swung. “Anything on police scanners, Alpha?” she asked. “Someone just reported a B&E in progress not far from here,” Alpha responded, giving Charlotte an icon to show where it was on the HUD inside her mask. “Let’s check it out,” Charlotte decided before starting in that direction. As she approached the location, Charlotte saw what appeared to be three men wearing all black, including masks, attempting to break into a luxury apartment building. Charlotte webbed a hanging point between two buildings before adding a connection in the middle of the line to hang upside down from. She slowly lengthened the line, lowering herself towards the men, now able to hear what they were saying.One of them was working at the lock, while another, with a slight hunch, carried a shotgun. The third, slightly heavy set, appeared to be attempting the role of lookout, doing the bare minimum both for that and to avoid harming himself with the pistol he was holding. “Matt, just hold on, I told you it will take time to get through the lock!” the man by the door said anxiously. The one with the shotgun angrily yelled back “Call me Sarge dammit! I came up with code names, use them!” He spoke with a gruff voice and a Southern accent. The third man turned towards Sarge to say, “I am not using the name Dirtbag.” “You know it fits, Dirtbag, ” Sarge responded bluntly. “Wait, you didn’t give me a code name,” the man by the door said. “Less yapping, more lock cracking, Simmons,” Sarge said dismissively. “If you take much longer, I’ll have to resort to my contingency plan.” “Blasting the door with your shotgun is a terrible contingency plan. Someone will hear!” Simmons argued. Sarge could only grunt angrily in reply.“These idiots are kinda funny,” Charlotte said. “Imagine how boring they’d be to watch if you couldn’t hear them talking,” Alpha agreed. Charlotte dropped down, effortlessly landing on her feet near the thugs before addressing them, “Something tells me you boys don’t live here.” “It’s the Spider-Woman from the news!” Sarge yelled. “Grif, you were supposed to be the lookout!” Simmons accused him anxiously. “And I was supposed to expect that some spider woman was gonna drop down from the sky?” Grif asked incredulously. “Shut up and blast her!” Sarge said before readying his shotgun at Charlotte. Using her spider sense, Charlotte was able to duck and jump away from the first couple of shots. “Good thing he’s using slugs,” Charlotte thought before using her webs to grab Sarge’s shotgun and Grif’s pistol and yank them out of their hands. Grabbing them off the ground, Charlotte webbed the firearms to the wall as Simmons approached, yelling a battle cry as he attempted the most obvious charging punch ever. Charlotte easily ducked under it, lifted him up and tossed Simmons over her shoulder. Sarge walked up slower; fists raised in a boxing stance. “I’ve never hit a girl before, but I’m not against it!” Sarge threatened. “Give me your best shot, Huckleberry,” Charlotte taunted, giving Sarge the “come here” gesture with her hands.Sarge’s technique was better than Charlotte expected, but still not much of a challenge for her to dodge. After weaving around a few of Sarge’s blows, she grabbed his hand, spun him around, and sent him into the wall next to them. Charlotte looked over to Grif, who was trying to discreetly sneak away from the fight. She stuck a web line to his back and pulled him back to her, Grif grunting as he fell to the ground. She tied Grif’s arms and torso in webs before jumping over a nearby streetlamp, pulling Grif up into the air like part of a pulley system. With Sarge and Simmons back on approach, Charlotte secured the web holding Grif to the wall, webbed Sarge and Simmons with each hand, then pulled both, causing them to collide with each other. She then tied the two of them together, grabbed the web holding Grif, then attached it to the other two, resulting in all three thugs tied up off the ground, hanging from the streetlamp. Charlotte jumped onto the wall next to them as they struggled against the webbing.“I guess I’ve still never hit a girl before,” Sarge grumbled. “Yeah, you should try harder next time,” Simmons said. “Will you two shut up? If I’m gonna be stuck hanging here, I wanna take a nap,” Grif complained. “Oh, I’m sorry, Dirtbag,” Sarge retorted. “How about I help you out? Hey Lopez.” Two beeps chimed from Sarge’s pocket. “Play me a lullaby,” he said to his phone. After another two beeps, a voice said “Lo siento, no pude entender eso.” “You still have it stuck in Spanish mode? It’s so easy to change!” Simmons accused Sarge. “I figured it’s a good way to learn, but he still won’t tell me what any of it means,” Sarge answered. “You guys should start a podcast or something,” Charlotte joked. “After you get out of jail, of course.” Hearing police sirens approach, she began swinging away.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
As Charlotte was webbing up the fifth criminal of the evening, this particular one being a mugger who had brought their victim to an ATM, Alpha spoke up inside her mask. “Charlotte, we need to go back to Freelancer HQ.” “Why?” “I’m getting an alert for an interior breach. I’m not sure what it is but something dangerous is loose in the building. If you move fast, you can catch it before it gets out.” Without responding, Charlotte leapt into the air, starting her approach to the Freelancer Industries building. “Any guesses on what I’m chasing here, Alpha?” Charlotte asked as she swung, her destination slowly coming into view. “The animal experiments aren’t known to be too aggressive, so even if they got out, it wouldn’t be this urgent,” Alpha started. “So, I’m thinking either a rogue employee or a robotic project that is massively malfunctioning. I don’t have any records of a likely candidate.” “I do like a good mystery,” Charlotte said sarcastically.Just before Charlotte reached the building, a dark figure burst through a window, landing on a neighboring rooftop. Quickly changing course, Charlotte chased after the figure. “Now that you’ve gotten a look, what is that?” Charlotte asked. “I… I don’t know,” Alpha admitted, a hint of fear in his voice. “Only one way to find out,” Charlotte said. After crossing a few rooftops, the figure stopped, seemingly not having seen Charlotte chasing them. Jumping off of a swing, Charlotte landed on the rooftop, a short distance from the figure. They were humanoid but appeared to consist of a black ooze that slightly rippled as they moved. Hearing Charlotte land, the figure turned towards her. White ovals with pointed ends gave the appearance of eyes on their face. “I won’t fight you if you’re willing to be peaceful,” Charlotte started. “But forgive me if I’m cautious of you after you bust out a window.”The figure only narrowed their eyes. Suddenly, they extended their arm, stretching out the ooze and wrapping a hand around Charlotte’s neck. “AGH!” Charlotte was surprised to hear Alpha scream in pain. Charlotte swung her arm up and hit them on the wrist, disrupting the ooze. She then grabbed the ooze on her neck and threw it off, where it splatted on the ground before rolling back to absorb into the figure. They seemed startled at Charlotte’s strength. Charlotte didn’t notice, as Alpha’s sudden struggle was disorienting her, to the point that she fell to her knees, clutching her head. “What’s happening, Alpha?” “AGHHH, ALLISON!” Seeing the opportunity, the figure said in a deep, glitched voice, “Better luck next time, Alpha.” After that, they leapt off the rooftop, disappearing into the night. Soon, Alpha’s pain subsided, and both regained stability. “What, the hell, was that?” Charlotte asked breathlessly. “Good news, I just remembered the answer,” Alpha answered. “Bad news, you’re not gonna like it.” “Try me.” “The experiment that was once your mother.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“What the fuck does that mean?!” Charlotte asked incredulously, now sitting down on the roof. “Your mother used to be one of the agents, Agent Texas, to be exact,” Alpha began. “During a mission, she was very badly injured, there wasn’t much of her left. When Freelancer scientists tried to make a prosthetic body for her, it malfunctioned and further damaged her body. As a last-ditch effort, they took a snapshot of her brain, digitized it before she died, and built a fully robotic host body.” “That’s horrifying!” Charlotte exclaimed. “When she was functional, Agent Texas still wanted to fight, so they began developing a defense for the robotic skeleton she lived in,” Alpha continued. “What they came up with is a ferrofluid based armor that she can control. But it was unstable, so they never allowed her to rejoin missions. Naturally, Texas was not a fan of that decision, and despite the team’s best efforts to keep her deactivated, she kept reactivating somehow. Director Church never allowed her to be fully destroyed, so she just kept being a problem for containment. Guess she finally had enough and decided to break out.”“But why was that kept from you? And why did you react like that when she grabbed me?” Alpha sighed before answering hesitantly. “I was afraid you’d figure this out because you might not trust me, but I hope that that’s no longer an issue. My behavior patterns were modeled after your father. I don’t have his memories, but I still felt a strong sense of his connection to Allison when she made contact. Hopefully I can find a way to mitigate that effect since you’ll likely have to fight her again. Not only is Tex potentially dangerous, but she could also still have her AI fragment, Omega.” “And I can’t be having her thinking that I’m easy prey,” Charlotte said grumpily. “That’s an odd way to talk about the person you’ve been wondering about since we met,” Alpha pointed out. “How am I supposed to react? I just found out that both of my dead parents have computerized forms, and I just lost a fight to one because of the other. It’s… a lot to take in at once.” Charlotte placed her head in her hands. “Yeah, I suppose it is,” Alpha agreed.Just then, Charlotte felt a vibration from her phone in its secure pocket in her suit. Retrieving it, she saw that there were multiple texts and a few voicemails from Kai and Emily. “The bar crawl! They’re gonna think I’m dead or an asshole for bailing,” Charlotte vented. “It’s almost eleven.” Reluctantly, Charlotte sent a reply saying she wasn’t feeling well and had fallen asleep. “I don’t like lying to them,” Charlotte lamented. “They wouldn’t be safe if they knew the dangers you’re facing,” Alpha reminded her. “Even the spider that bit you is very classified and dangerous.” “Obviously I know that,” Charlotte acknowledged. “It’s just … the sooner I stop all the Freelancer agents, the better. It doesn’t matter that I know what happened to my mom, I already decided I had to do this for the good of the public, because I can.” Charlotte stood up, resecured her phone, and leapt off the building to head back to her apartment for the night. As she swung, Alpha wondered aloud, “I wonder if there’s some kind of concise, catchy slogan that fits that description.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The next morning, Charlotte, Director Walters, Aiden Price, and some others were in a board meeting. “I have some new information as of last night,” Aiden began. “For anyone who is not aware, Agent Texas broke containment and has broken out of the facility.” A couple of nervous whispers echoed around the table. “Our exterior security cameras spotted her leaving by way of the rooftops after jumping through a window. Tracking her into the distance, we got footage of Spider-Woman seemingly confronting her. It’s too far away to hear anything that was said, but the fight was brief, and Tex got away.” “Sounds like the menace helped Tex escape! We need to send EVERYTHING we have after SPIDER-WOMAN!” “Jameson, we talked about this,” Walters scolded. “Recent news reports have her stopping petty crimes, we don’t know that she’s any threat to us. Also, you know your wife told you to watch your blood pressure.” “YOU TELL MY WIFE--” Jameson started before pausing, seeing Walters’s reaction to his shouting. “Thank you, Director,” he chose to respond calmly.
Waiting out the interruption with an impatient look on his face, Aiden continued his report. “I theorize that Spider-Woman could be in possession of our missing Alpha A.I. unit.” He pressed a button on a remote, displaying the security footage of Charlotte’s fight with Tex. “Upon making physical contact with Agent Texas, Spider-Woman appeared to have a similar reaction to what we noticed in other agents that were using one of the fragments. Fatigue, visible distress, and moderate headache.” "Moderate my ass," Charlotte thought to herself. “It’s a solid theory, but until we can link Spider-Woman to the loss of the Alpha, we can’t rule anything out,” Walters replied.
After the meeting, Walters had asked to speak with Charlotte privately, so they stayed in the conference room after everyone else left. “I’m gonna cut to the chase Miss Church. There’s been some internal investigation potentially relating to the Spider-Woman, as well as tracking down our missing Alpha AI. Do you know anything about those?” Charlotte tried to read Walters’s expression, but his poker face was rock solid. “No, sorry, I don’t know anything,” she lied, keeping her face straight and focused on maintaining eye contact. “Why does this need an internal investigation?” “We have been tracking some suspicious activity within our facility. Unauthorized use of manufacturing equipment, old training rooms and delivery bots, all of which mysteriously had their security footage scrubbed by an unknown user,” David explained. “Just after it started, another piece of Freelancer property went missing. The Agent Carolina suit, which your father had been preparing for you. Then suddenly reports start coming in of the Spider-Woman leaving the scene of the murder of Agent North. Put all together, I find it a bit too convenient to not be someone within this organization.”
Charlotte tried to avoid appearing nervous at all the evidence building against her. “Makes sense when you put it like that,” Charlotte said as she leaned forward, folding her hands on the table. “But as I said, I don’t know anything about it. Maybe a competitor or former employee is behind the mask.” Walters continued to reveal nothing through his calm demeanor. “Hmm. Well, if you do find anything, you tell me, understand?” “Of course, Director,” Charlotte said before standing up to leave the conference room.
“Where are we going, Charlotte? This isn’t the way to your office,” Alpha asked from her phone as she traveled the hallways. “We’re borrowing an engineering lab, I have an idea I want to work on,” Charlotte answered, slightly hushed as she passed some offices, thankfully with their doors closed. “With Tex and other Freelancers still running around, I need all the assistance I can get.” Charlotte reached an empty lab, kept in order with various tools and prior projects organized on shelves and desks around the room. “What did you have in mind?” Alpha asked as he shifted into one of the lab’s computers. “The first objective is I want to build hardware for the fragment equipment that can be incorporated into the suit,” Charlotte began. “But I was also curious if there was some modification or redesign we could do to improve the suit.”
“Well, it’s a bit out there, but there’s an old prototype spec for nano machine armor,” Alpha suggested as he pulled up the files on the computer display. “It was never refined enough for a physical development, but if we make a suit from it, not only could it use the force field you got from Theta, but any other fragments’ equipment you get can also be made part of the suit as soon as I have access to them.” “Definitely worth a shot,” Charlotte said as she began examining the files. “According to these, the nano machines could be developed and adhere to the design provided by a program, but it wouldn’t last without a supporting framework of more traditional structuring. There was also a consistent power deficiency leading to the machines locking in place.” Continuing to probe the files, the pieces began to fall into place.
“This prototype was going to be for lightweight surveillance drones, so they would be too small for the framework and power supply, or too bulky for stealth,” Charlotte observed. “Using this on a new suit could have a housing for the nano machines and a strong power cell, the only tricky part is the extra framework.” “Hold that thought, Charlotte,” Alpha interrupted. “A security alarm has been triggered in a warehouse not too far from here. The camera managed to catch a glimpse of the intruder, and it appears to be Agent Wyoming.” “OK, let me get my suit from my office and we’ll see if we can stop him,” Charlotte said, quickly closing out all traces of her activity in the lab. She left the lab and began heading towards her office.
Turning a corner, Charlotte was surprised to encounter Aiden Price, who seemed equally surprised to see her. “Miss Church! I was not expecting to see you over here,” he said, eyeing her suspiciously. “Mr. Price! I was just checking in on some of the R&D teams. There’s a lot to catch up on at this company,” Charlotte quickly lied. “Ah, yes of course, Miss Church. Well, I’m sure you are as busy as I am, so I will leave you be,” Price said as he continued past her. Relieved to have avoided being caught lying, Charlotte continued on the way to her office. Soon after, Charlotte was back in her Spider-Woman suit, following Alpha’s directions toward the warehouse that Wyoming was spotted in.
As Charlotte approached the warehouse, she noticed there were already a few police vehicles parked outside, with officers trained on the building, clearly watching the exits. Charlotte opted for perching on a building across the street. “I don’t think the authorities will jump at the chance to cooperate, I’ll just have to see if Wyoming gets past them,” Charlotte strategized. She watched as an officer used a megaphone to address Wyoming, who seemed to still be inside. “Alright sir, we have all the exits covered, so come out without any stolen property, and this can be over a lot easier,” the officer called into the building. After a few moments of tense silence, identical figures started appearing out of all the exits at once, running wildly in different directions. “Alpha, I’m guessing most of these are fakes, try a thermal scan to find the real one,” Charlotte suggested. “I’m not sure how real they are, but my scan shows them all being real,” Alpha answered confusedly.
Watching more closely, Charlotte noticed that the police’s attempts to apprehend the running figures resulted in the illusions flickering and passing through the officers. “At least some of them are fake for sure,” Charlotte confirmed. “Any heat signatures still inside?” “Just one,” Alpha answered, highlighting the approximate location on her HUD. Taking the opportunity, Charlotte jumped from the building she was perched on, swung over to the nearest door and ran in, ignoring the continuing flow of fake Wyomings as they passed through her. She quietly climbed up to the ceiling to search for Wyoming. Soon, she spotted him near the back of the warehouse, packing things into a pair of duffle bags. His suit was white, like Maine’s, but unlike Maine, Wyoming was a much more average size and not armored. A sniper rifle was clasped into a strap on his back.
Charlotte webbed the rifle, wrenching it from his back and sending it to the ceiling before dropping herself to the floor, rolling into a fighting stance. “Wyoming,” she announced herself intimidatingly. Wyoming slowly and calmly turned around, showing that his mask was equipped with a scope visor, currently raised up to his forehead. “What an honor, to be graced by the presence of the newest local legend, Spider-Woman,” Wyoming mocked, his posh British accent the only thing more aggravating than his sarcastic bow. “Don’t flatter yourself, O Duke of Dorky Glasses,” Charlotte returned, imitating his accent. “You need to keep your nose out of others’ business, spider,” Wyoming warned. “Things could end poorly for you.” Two new holograms of Wyoming appeared, two Wyomings running at each side of Charlotte, the third remaining in place. Expecting the first two to be fakes, she focused on the third, only to be knocked off her feet as the one on her left punched her head.
Straddling on top of her, Wyoming started punching Charlotte as she attempted to block his blows. Grabbing his fist with her left hand, Charlotte webbed Wyoming’s scope and pulled it down over his eyes, before covering the lenses with more webbing. She yanked Wyoming to the side by his fist, then stood up, ready to continue the fight. “FREEZE, BOTH OF YOU!” Charlotte looked up to see that her and Wyoming were surrounded by police officers, guns trained on them. “You got it,” Charlotte said, raising her hands in surrender. Wyoming also raised his hands, still laying on the floor. He then generated a multitude of holographic copies that lunged out in all directions, startling the officers and causing them to back up before noticing that Wyoming had escaped in the kerfuffle.
Now focusing in on Charlotte, one of the officers continued, “Spider-Woman, you are under arrest for the murder of Felix Hardy.” “Hold on, I think I was pretty clear when I left that note, his sister killed him,” Charlotte protested. “No DNA evidence was found, she was not spotted at the scene, you were,” the officer responded. “And a note is not sufficient as an official witness statement.” “We were both wearing gloves! I don’t have time for this. Alpha, kill the lights.” Immediately, the lights in the warehouse shut off simultaneously, and Alpha enabled night vision on Charlotte’s mask as she jumped up to the rafters. Knowing the officers were likely to fire at her, she managed to use her super speed to maneuver close to a door, before dropping down and escaping out.
Charlotte then used webs to pull herself up above the neighboring building and quickly made distance from the warehouse. “How did you know I could disable the lights in there?” Alpha asked as she swung away. “I guessed,” Charlotte admitted. “Desperate times call for drastic measures. How come you couldn’t see through Wyoming’s illusions?” “My current theory is that since the illusions are his AI equipment alongside his fragment Gamma, they are inherently capable of fooling my sensors,” Alpha answered. “Gamma is known for being an exceptional liar.” “Stupendous,” Charlotte said sarcastically. “I guess I’ll need another way to beat him.” “Anyway, now that Wyoming has gotten away, you might as well go back to the lab.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Two hours later, Charlotte and Alpha were busy in the lab, making progress on a nano machine suit. “All right, the automatons are building up a supply of nano parts, so we can focus on the framework and the housing unit,” Alpha clarified. “We still haven’t figured out how to get a framework that would work for the suit,” Charlotte pointed out. “Any traditional structure that could support our nano machines would prevent it from being able to fully compact.” “I’m starting to understand why the drone project was shut down,” Alpha said sarcastically. “I have an idea,” Charlotte began. “What if the housing unit was twofold, two sets of nano parts, and two power cells. One formed the framework, the other makes the rest of the suit, and they support each other.” “Hmm, that could work,” Alpha considered. “We’ll need a lot of nano parts though.” “We can start with the housing unit, then work alongside the automatons,” Charlotte decided.Then they got to work, and quickly minutes started to blend into another hour, then a second. Halfway through the fifth total hour working on the suit, it was ready for a test, which was done on just Charlotte’s arm. “Ready?” Alpha asked as Charlotte held the puck-shaped housing unit up to her arm just above her elbow. She nodded and pressed the button. Nano parts emerged from the housing, forming a simple frame with two bars running towards her hand and rings at regular intervals on the bars. Next, more parts came and traveled the frame, covering the open space and creating a full metal sleeve and glove around her arm. “I think it worked,” Charlotte said in relief. She moved her arm around, wiggled her fingers, and clenched her fist. “Congratulations Charlotte, you have developed the first prototype for nano machine armor,” Alpha announced. “All that’s left is to make the rest of it,” Charlotte said as she retracted the nano parts back into the housing. “It’ll take a while to make that many parts, let’s leave the automatons to it and I’ll send it to your office in the morning,” Alpha suggested.
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The next day, while Charlotte was catching up on work, having abandoned it for the past two days, a delivery bot appeared from behind a sliding panel in the wall and dispensed a tray holding the nano machine housing unit. “It seems the nano suit is ready,” Alpha notified her. “Wanna give it a test run?” “As awesome as that sounds, I have work to do,” Charlotte reluctantly answered. “You know who doesn’t care about your work schedule?” Alpha asked. “The escaped experiment currently causing mayhem. It’s not a Freelancer thing; this is probably Charon.” “Well, I guess I don’t have a choice,” Charlotte resolved before getting up and grabbing the nano suit. But before she could activate the nano suit, there was a knock at her office door.Charlotte hid the unit in her pocket and opened the door. Emily and Kaikaina were there, and they looked very concerned. “What are you guys doing here? Don’t you have class right now?” Charlotte asked. “Who cares? We needed to know that you were ok,” Emily explained as they all retreated into the office, Kaikaina closing the door behind her. “Of course I’m ok,” Charlotte insisted. “What do you mean?” “We haven’t seen you at all in four days, and that text about feeling sick was pretty obviously a lie,” Kaikaina answered. “Something’s going on with you. What is it?” “You don’t have to worry about me, I’ve just been working,” Charlotte lied, beginning to pace slowly behind her desk. “I have a full-time job here; it’s not like I can just spend all night partying like when we were staying in dorms.”“You still have to check in sometimes,” Emily urged. “We’ve both been texting and calling you and you never responded.” “You’re right, I’m sorry,” Charlotte apologized as she took a seat at her desk. “I know the perfect way to make it up to us,” Kaikaina suggested. “Come have lunch with us! We can catch up.” Charlotte wanted to be able to go to lunch, so very bad. To her dismay, her thoughts returned to the mystery danger that escaped from Charon Industries. “I wish I could Kai, but I have an important meeting to get to,” Charlotte lied again. “But we’ll catch up soon, maybe this weekend?” Kaikaina sighed. “Sure, just let us know, literally anything,” she added before her and Emily left Charlotte’s office. Charlotte then retrieved the nano suit housing unit from her pocket.Placing it on her chest, she activated the unit. The framework started with supporting the housing unit in place on her chest, before extending to her arms, legs, and head. Then the full exterior covering took shape, being designed to match the framework as well as the shape of her body where it doesn’t have a frame. The nano suit was mostly black, with a heart shaped cyan mask on the front with eye lenses like her other suit. Her torso had a large cyan spider, with an angular body, and legs that converged above and below the center of the body. On the front, the spider’s head was where the housing unit rests, a cyan border with a circular white light in the middle. On the back, the spider’s head was more angular, with a diamond shape on the top end resembling mandibles. The arms and legs had a cyan web pattern with bold lines, and the shoes and gloves were solid cyan.After the helmet software booted up, Charlotte moved around a bit to adapt to the feel and weight of the armor. She then opened her office window, crawled out onto the exterior wall, closed the window behind her, and leapt off to find the threat. Alpha placed a beacon on Charlotte’s HUD. “This is the area the experiment was last spotted in,” he informed her. “Hopefully it won’t be too hard to spot him after you get there.” “Got it,” Charlotte acknowledged. “Is it just me, or is the suit helping me swing better?” “It can do more than that,” Alpha answered. “Spread your arms at the height of a launch.” After the next launch, Charlotte did just that. Suddenly, glider wings appeared from the suit, connecting to the back of her arms and her torso. Extra wingspan was utilized from an extension beyond Charlotte’s wrists. She pointed her legs straight back and felt the wind giving her lift as she glided over and between buildings.“I think I see the target,” Charlotte said. “I think you’re right,” Alpha replied. What they saw was a large man who appeared to be either made of bricks or wearing brick armor. He was stomping through the street, facing away from Charlotte, pushing cars out of his way as he went. “Alpha, how do I land this thing?” Charlotte asked, getting alarmingly closer to the ground. “Tilt back to slow down, you’ll be fine!” Alpha assured. Trying Alpha’s advice to no avail, Charlotte did her best to brace herself as she crashed into the brick man, stumbling him as she fell to the ground. Only then did Alpha retract the wings back into the suit.“That was the worst landing of all time,” Alpha stated. “Not my fault,” Charlotte groaned as she stood. “Someone put a wall in my way.” The brick man turned around to see what had hit him, revealing his uncovered human face scowling at Charlotte. Despite being only a head taller than Charlotte, his arms and hands were massive, with palms slightly smaller than Charlotte’s torso. His brown hair was short and scruffy, a few tufts poking out underneath the bricks over his head. His big nose did little to distract from the missing tooth in the front of his mouth, adding extra intimidation to his angry sneer. “Why did you hit me?” he asked angrily. His voice was not as deep as Charlotte expected, as if he was speaking to her like she was a puppy.“Why are you rampaging through traffic?” Charlotte retorted. “You’re hurting innocent people.” The man’s face twisted in confusion. “I don’t know what that means, but I don’t see any people here, only little cars,” he answered. Charlotte could only stare in stunned silence for a moment. “There’s people in the cars!” she exclaimed while gesturing dramatically at the traffic in front of them. “Alright buddy, I’m gonna have to get you off the streets so you stop making peoples’ insurance worse.” Charlotte started to jump towards a wall on the side of the street, but the brick man moved his hand to block her path, which she clung to after colliding with it. “My name isn’t Buddy!” the brick man protested. “My name is Michael Caboose, and I hate spiders!” Charlotte jumped around to the back of Caboose’s hand as his other hand swung in to meet it.Charlotte noticed that the bricks on Caboose’s large hands jostled slightly as they collided. She then tried jumping up from his hand and launching herself off of Caboose with a kick to his chest, finding that her kick didn’t shift the bricks any noticeable amount, but it did knock him down. “Seems he can do more damage to himself than I can,” Charlotte noted. “Remember Charlotte, this suit has the bubble shield ready,” Alpha reminded her. “Good call,” Charlotte said as Caboose stood up. “Fire it on my signal.” Caboose folded his hands above his head and charged towards Charlotte, who stood firm, staring him down. As Caboose started to bring his hands down towards Charlotte’s head, she yelled out, “Now!” Immediately, a translucent orange force field formed around her. Caboose’s large brick hands slammed into the shield, bricks dislodging and falling off on impact, a cloud of dust billowing around the shield.Charlotte noticed a new opening to the inside of the brick arms, as well as Caboose’s human hands attached to control mechanisms. Caboose lifted his now nubbed arms to examine them in disbelief, then glared at Charlotte. “Not fair!” he yelled at Charlotte. He began wildly attacking the shield with what was left of his arms, causing loud thuds on the inside. “I think he’s just a man in a brick suit,” Charlotte theorized. “If I can hit him hard enough, I can probably get him out of it.” “What are you thinking?” Alpha asked. “Be sure to do it fast, the shield won’t last forever.” “I’m gonna try the super speed,” Charlotte answered, readying a wind-up stance. “You haven’t really worked on nailing that down, but good luck,” Alpha resolved.Charlotte closed her eyes for a moment, trying her best to focus on finding the source of her most elusive power. Caboose’s strikes on the shield were a chaotic rhythm, that and the sound of crumbling bricks hitting the ground being Charlotte’s only distraction. Casting it aside, she dug deep inside herself, recalling the previous times she managed to use super speed. Reflecting on her fight with South, her escape from the warehouse where she fought Wyoming, the night her father was killed. Suddenly Charlotte felt something different inside, and Caboose’s attacks seemed to slow a bit. “Charlotte, you don’t have long!” Alpha warned. “Drop the shield!” Charlotte commanded, her eyes shooting open. As soon as the shield went down, Charlotte blitzed towards Caboose, her assault so fast, it launched several bricks out of place, and sent Caboose flying back, Charlotte now above and behind him.When Caboose hit the ground, with more bricks coming loose on landing, Charlotte grabbed his chest with a web line and pulled Caboose’s limp body out of the brick suit. Webbing his arms to his sides, Charlotte caught him after landing, before further tying him to the base of a streetlight that had somehow survived Caboose’s rampage. Charlotte let out a breath, the stress built up from her concentration finally able to be relieved. Wanting to avoid unnecessary attention from the people around her, Charlotte jumped and webbed up to the top of a nearby building before sitting down to more fully relax. “I did it,” she marveled at her success. “You did. Looks like it took a bit out of you,” Alpha replied. “No, it’s more of an emotional drain,” Charlotte explained. Quickly gathering herself, she stood back up. “While we’re out here, is there any sign of Wyoming showing up?” “Unfortunately, no,” Alpha answered. “Might as well head back to the office, look for him later.” “You’re probably right,” Charlotte admitted, before jumping off the building to swing back towards Freelancer Industries.
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“I’m almost disappointed that Wyoming isn’t committing more crimes,” Charlotte commented. “Is that weird?” Having been on patrol for a couple of hours since the end of her workday, Charlotte was waiting for Alpha to check available sources for any trace of Wyoming. “A little, but it’s understandable,” Alpha answered. “You want him off the streets on the law’s terms, not his.” “As long as he doesn’t get bailed out by the very thing that we’re going after,” Charlotte grumbled. Just then, Charlotte heard something land behind her on the rooftop and turned to investigate, finding Agent York standing there, sheathing his clubs. “Did someone say conveniently timed new information?” For a moment, Charlotte only responded with a blank disapproving stare.“No, nothing even close to that,” she finally replied. York approached and sat next to Charlotte on the edge of the building. Despite his blindness, it still seemed as if York was taking in the still bustling sights of New York City’s nightlife. “New duds, same jaded personality,” York teased. “Or your jokes aren’t funny,” Charlotte teased back. York chuckled. “As much as I’d like to prove how wrong that is, I’m obviously here for something more important,” he began. “I saw that you’ve been helping out the little guys, so it’s time I held up my end of the deal. I found the location of Wyoming’s hideout.”“How do you know I was looking for Wyoming’s hideout?” Charlotte asked incredulously. “Well, the police and news outlets have been reporting on all your little outings,” York answered. “Remember what I said about a low profile?” Charlotte sighed derisively. “Either way, it’s been kinda fun figuring out who each agent is based on the ridiculous monikers that the Daily Bugle gives them. Get this, they called Wyoming ‘Mysterio’,” York sarcastically waved his hands while saying “Mysterio.” This actually got Charlotte to laugh. “Really? What are the other ones?” “They stuck with Maine’s chess boxing title, they called South the Black Cat for some reason; even I know her suit is purple,” York listed. “And that brick guy that escaped from Charon? The Wall. An intern probably did that one.” “Well, I bet they have glowing reviews of yours truly,” Charlotte joked, positioning her hands with the backs of her fingers on the sides of her face, coming to a point at her chin. “They don’t like you, but they do want you,” York explained. “They have an open call for anyone who can get them good pictures of you.”“Now if I lose my job, I can at least get rich on selfies,” Charlotte joked again. “For now, Wyoming’s hideout.” “Right,” York said, seeming a little embarrassed to have gotten distracted. “It’s in a condemned building near the docks in Hell’s Kitchen. Corner of 12th and 27th.” “Great, thanks,” Charlotte acknowledged. “I’m sure you’ll want to be the hero and come help, but I think I got this one.” “Oh, no I’m not going after Wyoming,” York explained quickly. “If the Bugle can get any info on him, Freelancer probably is too, and I don’t wanna run into them if I can avoid it. Plus, this is your beef.” Charlotte stood up, readying to leave for Wyoming’s hideout. “Understood,” she responded bluntly. “Enjoy your low profile while I take down the most dangerous corrupt company in this city.” With that, Charlotte dove off the building and began swinging off towards Hell’s Kitchen.Getting close to Wyoming’s hideout, Charlotte began to stay low, opting to move along the sides of nearby buildings instead of swinging over or between them. Reaching one across the street from the hideout, she cautiously climbed to the top and peeked over at the address she was given. “See anything of note here, Alpha?” she asked him as she glanced between the windows, many of them covered by planks of wood. “Scan shows that the lower floors have a lot of boxes and crates, with a large cage elevator to move between them,” Alpha began. “But I only have one detectable sign of life, in the second highest floor.” “Well, it’s at least probably not a trap,” Charlotte resolved before vaulting over the edge and web-slingshotting herself through one of the covered windows, the wood loudly breaking behind her. She landed in what appeared to be the junk storage room of a bachelor pad, with miscellaneous tacky wall decorations and cardboard boxes scattered about.“Wyoming knows we’re here,” Alpha warned. “His heat signature disappeared from the scan. Be wary of any illusions he might use against you.” Suddenly, Charlotte’s spider-sense warned her of a danger on the other side of the door, so she jumped to the ceiling and clung on to hide as the door burst open. Wyoming came in, pointing a handgun as he looked around the room, noting the wood on the floor. Charlotte hesitated to attack, as her spider sense seemed to remain directed at the doorway, while Wyoming had proceeded further into the room. When Wyoming looked up at Charlotte, in a panic, she tried to take the gun from his hands with a web.Instead, it passed right through him, the hologram flickering before turning off. Further sensing danger, Charlotte dropped down from the ceiling just in time to avoid the three shots fired up at her through the wall. Wyoming entered once again, leveling a handgun same as before, but this time Charlotte guessed correctly by webbing the gun out of his hands and snapping it in two. “You really have it out for my whole armory, don’t you?” Wyoming mocked as he turned to look at Charlotte. “The only thing I like about guns is that they’re predictable,” she responded, watching the sniper intently. Wyoming only chuckled. “Then you’ll really hate me.”Suddenly Charlotte was knocked forcefully off her feet out the junk room’s other window, landing on the fire escape. She hardly had enough time to get her bearings before dodging Wyoming, who was now pursuing her out the window while brandishing a knife. Charlotte ducked, weaved, and narrowly avoided the blade by also climbing up the fire escape towards the roof, Wyoming close behind her. Once on the roof and in a more open space than the fire escape, Charlotte prepared to fight Wyoming again.He leapt onto the roof with a midair spin to get his legs up faster, landing in a crouched position and quickly standing up. “I warned you before to stay out of this,” Wyoming said as he once again brandished his knife. “You don’t get another one.” He lightly tossed the knife up, then quickly grabbed it again by the tip of the blade and threw it at Charlotte. Charlotte snatched the knife between her hands, just before it reached her face. Moving it to just one hand, she bent the blade with her fingers before dropping the knife. “Looks like you’re out of tricks,” Charlotte taunted. “Oh, I’ve still got an old classic up my sleeve,” Wyoming replied.After he said that, several Wyoming illusions cropped up around Charlotte and began running around her chaotically. Occasionally one or two Wyomings would approach to attack, Charlotte unable to predict which one would be real. Trying her best to defend herself from the onslaught, Charlotte suffered blow after blow, each time losing the real Wyoming in the seemingly endless sea of copies. Then she had an idea and shut her eyes tight. Suddenly her spider-sense warned her of an incoming punch, which she blocked. On the other side, she sensed an elbow drop, which she redirected to the side. At this point, Charlotte’s senses fully tuned to Wyoming, and she could sense exactly where he was. As Wyoming attempted a flying kick, Charlotte sidestepped it before forcefully blocking the path of his stomach with her arm. Wyoming fell to the ground, the wind knocked out of him.Charlotte webbed his hands and legs down before opening her eyes to witness her triumph. “Where’s Gamma?” Charlotte asked. Wyoming could only wheeze out the words, “Sod off.” “In the visor,” Alpha answered instead, highlighting a piece of Wyoming’s scope visor on the HUD of Charlotte’s nano suit mask. “Lucky me, I wanted to break this,” Charlotte mused as she ripped the Gamma unit out of the visor, causing some other parts to fall off as well. Alpha created a safe storage for the Gamma unit in the nano suit, and Charlotte placed it inside. As she left Wyoming tied to the rooftop, he struggled against the webbing keeping him there. “This isn’t over, Spider-Bitch!” Wyoming called after Charlotte as she swung away.At the peak of her airtime off a swing, Charlotte noticed an odd sight. On top of a building half a block away, York was talking to Tex. Charlotte became very concerned, and quickly diverted to head towards the building, swinging lower than the rooftops. “What’s wrong, Charlotte?” Alpha asked. “York is talking to Tex,” she answered. “It doesn’t mean I can’t trust him, but it certainly didn’t look like they were fighting. I want to know what they’re talking about.” Quietly reaching the side of the building, Charlotte could now make out what was being said. “I don’t think I can help you,” York was saying. “I can’t trust that Freelancer won’t come looking for you, so I can’t let you hide with me.” “You must have forgotten who we are, York,” Tex said bluntly, her voice no longer glitching. “We don’t want to hide; we want to go show them that we deserve to fight for a cause. We broke out of that place because we couldn’t stand to be in their lab anymore. But we can’t do it alone.”Charlotte was stunned for a moment, surprised to hear her mother’s voice replicated by the strange machine. “If we go in there fighting, we’re both dead!” York shouted, then looked around, even if no one who cared was likely to notice. “Not to mention that the other agents are all rogue, some of them in jail right now. Even if you convinced them, you wouldn’t have a team.” “I don’t need a team for those simple missions,” Tex asserted confidently. “But you did give us an idea for a good bargaining chip.” “What?” York asked, sounding concerned. “We’ll bring you in, and they’ll have to listen to us!” Tex planned excitedly. “I’m not going anywhere near them!” York protested. “We weren’t asking.” “You ever think about getting Omega out of your head?” York asked cautiously. “We’d sooner take yours!” Tex spat back. Having heard enough, Charlotte leapt up onto the building to confront Tex.“The only place you’re going is the junkyard!” Charlotte yelled at Tex. “Spider-Woman?” York asked surprisedly. “Oh look, an even better prize to take home,” Tex threatened upon noticing Charlotte. “You got this, Alpha?” Charlotte asked quietly. “I’ll be fine,” he answered. “I’m ready this time.” Charlotte refocused on Tex. “I’m not afraid of you!” “You should be,” Tex said. She ran to attack Charlotte but was blocked by York. “You’re not taking any trophies, Tex,” he said aggressively. Tex reacted by using her ferrofluid to hold York’s arm in place before punching his stomach with the other arm, sending him tumbling across the rooftop. Tex then lunged at Charlotte, who leapt up, flipping over Tex to dodge her attack. Tex turned to face Charlotte, only for York to jab Tex in the back with one of his clubs.Instead of causing a normal impact, the club stuck in Tex’s back. In one swift motion, Tex yanked the club out of York’s hand by twisting her body, bent her arm back unnaturally to grab the club, and finishing the spin, threw the club at York. Just before it hit him, Charlotte webbed the club and hit Tex in the head with it. This time the club bounced off her, and York caught it. Using her ferrofluid, Tex grabbed York by the wrist and threw him over her shoulder at Charlotte, and they both crashed to the ground. Quickly scrambling to their feet, York charged at Tex’s left while Charlotte used webs to slingshot herself at Tex, readying a flying kick.Tex sidestepped Charlotte’s kick, knocked York back with ferrofluid from one arm, and pushed Charlotte up with ferrofluid from the other arm, knocking her off balance and over the edge of the building. Charlotte smashed into the wall of another building, lodging in a dent she created in the bricks. “She’s so fast and strong,” Charlotte sighed exhaustedly. “But she isn’t unstoppable,” Alpha explained. “She seems to only have a limited amount of her ferrofluid. If you can get enough of it off her, she’ll just be a metal skeleton.” “Why didn’t you say that earlier?” Charlotte asked rhetorically as she web-launched up on top of the building in front of her. Still one building over from Tex and York, Charlotte looked over to see Tex holding York by the chest, ferrofluid wrapped around his shoulders and upper torso.His head leaned limp against his shoulder, blood running down his face from his mouth. “Put him down!” Charlotte yelled at Tex. Looking over at Charlotte, Tex released one of her arms’ grip on York and used her ferrofluid to stab York through his chest. “NO!” Charlotte shouted as she leapt towards Tex. Tex dropped his body, watching it fall limply to the rooftop. As she reached the building, Charlotte spun into a heavy kick to Tex’s chest, sending her flying into an electrical box. The box shattered and began sending shocks into Tex’s body, causing the ferrofluid to melt down underneath the body, the metal skeleton jolting occasionally.Believing Tex to be down, Charlotte knelt over by York, blood pooling around him as it poured out from both sides of the wound. “York! Stay with me!” Charlotte demanded, lightly slapping his cheek in an attempt to wake him. York let out a quiet groan, struggling to breathe. “York! Stay awake and don’t strain yourself. I can get help; you can make it!” York couldn’t manage to say any words, but he lifted his hand enough to place it on Charlotte’s wrist. Looking down, Charlotte noticed his other hand tapping on his belt, before slowing to a stop. “No,” Charlotte mustered. “Charlotte, not to interrupt, but um…” Alpha trailed off, before showing on Charlotte’s HUD, an AI unit on York’s belt. Hesitantly, Charlotte grabbed the unit off of the belt, placing it in a new pocket Alpha made in the nano suit.Suddenly, Charlotte’s wrists were grabbed, and her torso was grabbed as she was lifted up, over the edge of the building. Charlotte struggled to see what had grabbed her, seeing Tex back in front of her, using her arms and extra tendrils of ferrofluid, to the point that Charlotte could see the expressionless metal skull under Tex’s head. “What are you doing?!” Charlotte interrogated, continuing to struggle against the bonds holding her, but it was no use. Tex tried to stab Charlotte with another tendril, but it was stopped by the nano suit. Charlotte tried to kick at the tendril, but two new ones grabbed her ankles as well. “Charlotte, use your super speed!” Alpha urged. The ferrofluid near Tex’s waist had become very thin, the metal structure for her hips occasionally poking out of the shifting ooze. The tendril at Charlotte’s chest gripped around the housing unit for the suit. “Charlo--” Alpha started but was interrupted by the suit’s power shutting off. This also caused the nano suit to lock in place, and Charlotte could no longer move. Tex retracted her tendrils, leaving only an arm holding Charlotte’s wrist as she dangled above the now very dangerous drop. “Goodbye, Alpha,” Tex said, with the smallest hint of sadness, before dropping Charlotte.
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Charlotte was facing her final moments of life, and she could barely see out of the inactive nano suit. As hard as she struggled, Charlotte couldn’t budge the joints of her suit. As she saw the lights of the city zip by, Charlotte tried desperately to think of a way out of her predicament. Charlotte’s life flashing before her eyes, suddenly it hit her: her super speed allowed her to bust the Wall’s brick suit; surely it could help here. She closed her eyes and began to try to hone her emotions, same as before. The falling sensation and the whistling wind made it difficult, but suddenly the winds were quiet, and Charlotte felt more stable.Opening her eyes, Charlotte noticed that she seemed to be falling much slower than usual. Through her mask, she caught a glimpse of a bird flying overhead, but it appeared frozen in place. “What is going on?” Charlotte wondered aloud. Trying again, she was still unable to move, so she merely continued this mysterious slow fall. Then a noise happened in her suit; Alpha was rebooting. “Oh shit,” he remarked upon startup. “Alpha, help! What can we do?” Charlotte asked urgently. “Whoa, how are you talking to me this fast?” Charlotte paused for a moment, confused. But then the realization hit her.“I’m experiencing time insanely fast, aren’t I?” Charlotte realized. After a brief pause, Alpha answered, “Yes. Roughly 2 million times faster than normal by my calculation. Still much slower than me, but this is new.” “Forget about that. How do I stop my slow but currently inevitable death?” “The nano suit is busted, it’s a miracle I can operate right now,” Alpha began. “But maybe you can break the joints loose enough to shoot out a web? Try moving your arm as fast as you can.” Charlotte did as instructed, finding a lot of resistance. “I don’t think it’s working,” she worried. “Just keep trying,” Alpha encouraged. “The suit is taking the force of your movements a lot faster than you’re doing them. You may be able to overpower it with enough compound force.” Charlotte continued to struggle, waving her arm as fast and hard as she could, even as it couldn’t move very far. Charlotte heard a snap, and she found a little more wiggle room. “I think it’s working!” she said excitedly. “Keep it up, you don’t have much height left,” Alpha warned.Suddenly there was a louder snap, and Charlotte’s arm was free! “Got it!” She aimed and fired maybe the most important web of her life, and once it stuck, Charlotte let go of her super speed, swinging only a dozen feet above the ground. At the end of the swing, Charlotte instinctively let go, sending herself flying into a pile of garbage in an empty lot. “Owww,” Charlotte groaned, noticing that the impact had knocked the other joints loose. “It hurts, which means I’m alive,” she observed. “I’m glad you made it,” Alpha agreed. Charlotte stood up, noticing that it was decidedly more difficult due to the weight of the suit not assisted by its mechanics. Charlotte tried the button on the housing unit, to no avail. Charlotte sighed. “Guess I’m lugging this thing all the way home,” she said before webbing up above the street and beginning to swing her way home. “Let’s try your office,” Alpha suggested. “We could use some machinery to help get the suit off.”
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“Maybe we should have tested risk cases before I threw on the experimental nano suit,” Charlotte observed as Alpha controlled a series of robot arms, trying to remove pieces of the nano suit. “Hindsight truly is 20/20,” Alpha remarked sarcastically. “Quit cracking jokes and get this armor off,” Charlotte snapped. “I can’t take Tex down in a full body paperweight.” “I get that she’s dangerous, but you seem unreasonably focused on Tex,” Alpha observed. Charlotte stopped tugging at the armor pieces, sighed, and sat on the edge of her desk. “I can’t help it sometimes,” Charlotte began. “When I was a kid, my dad was always more focused on his work here than me. I guess part of that was a focus on Tex, even if it was keeping her contained. The most he ever acknowledged me was when I made some big accomplishment. Highest grade in a class, top player in a sport, you get the idea. But it was never enough, I always wanted more. I guess even now, I’m still trying to be the best, thinking it’ll prove that I matter.”
Charlotte’s office was dead silent for a moment. “I may not have the best memories of the Director, or know what he thought about you, but I can make an educated guess,” Alpha offered. “I think he really did care for you, in his own strange way. He just got very fixated on keeping you at a safe distance from all of the Freelancer mess. Sure, he wanted to help Allison, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t thinking about you as well. He definitely made that suit for you for a reason.” After a moment, Charlotte stood up again. “Thanks Alpha, I needed to hear that,” she admitted. “Let’s get this armor off and work on a plan to take care of Tex.” They returned to work removing pieces of the nano suit. “I’ll scan the encounters with her, see if I can think of something,” Alpha planned.
“Hold on, I think the helmet’s about to come off,” Charlotte said, Alpha pulling back the mechanical arms. The helmet was disconnected from the rest of the suit by the neck, and the cyan faceplate was loose as well. Charlotte lifted the faceplate and pulled the rest of the helmet from the back, freeing her head from the suit. She sighed in relief, then happened to glance over at the door to her office, where board member Jameson stood, looking through the door window with wide eyes and a stunned expression. “Shit!” Charlotte exclaimed before bolting to the door, opening it and quickly pulling Jameson into her office before closing the door. “What the hell are you doing here?!” she asked Jameson in a panic. “I’ve been coming into the office early, to get away from my wife,” Jameson explained nervously. “Our marriage is struggling.”
Glancing at the clock, Charlotte noticed it was 6:00 AM. "Fuck I’ve been here all night," she thought to herself. “You’re the Spider-Freak! You’re a traitor!” Jameson started yelling aggressively. He tried to leave the office, but Charlotte quickly webbed his feet to the ground and his arms to his sides. “Jameson, stop! You have to understand,” Charlotte pleaded. “I understand that you’re a menace! Now you’re gonna kill me to cover your tracks!” Jameson continued his tirade. Charlotte sighed. “I’m gonna explain, but if you don’t shut your mouth, I’m going to shut it for you,” she threatened. Surprisingly, this worked, and Jameson stopped talking.
“Since I started working here, I’ve been aware of all the shady deals Freelancer makes behind the scenes, and I know you are too,” Charlotte began. “This isn’t right, and Freelancer needs to be stopped. I’m gathering evidence by confronting the rogue agents, and once they’re stopped, I’m gonna expose Charon and Oscorp too. I’m trying to stop the kind of evil that got my father killed so no one else has to go through that.” Seeing Charlotte was done talking, Jameson piped up again, this time calmer. “You’re gonna put hundreds of people out of a job, possibly in jail because of a sense of moral supremacy? Where’s the good in taking away the provider of a poor family who works in the mail room?” Jameson interrogated. “And how many lives are lost by all the insidious sabotage that our hired killers and others do every day?” Charlotte asked back.
Charlotte was now glaring into Jameson’s eyes, which were glaring right back. “Even if they don’t know about it, everyone who works here is enabling the evils that Freelancer is committing in this city.” “Freelancer isn’t doing anything right now,” Jameson countered. “With the agents gone rogue, we’re practically dead in the water. If we don’t get them back, we’ll be vulnerable to anything that Charon and Oscorp want to throw at us, and most of us will probably be dead within the year.” Sensing his fear, Charlotte knew that Jameson was telling the truth. “Then make it not your problem,” she suggested. “What are you talking about?” Jameson asked. “Quit the board, get out of the company and act as if you don’t know anything of value,” Charlotte explained, crossing her arms. “Rat me out to Walters, even. Save yourself and leave everyone else to die, if that’s what you want. But I have a feeling you don’t want that, because it would eat you up inside every day after.”
As she spoke, Charlotte watched Jameson’s face change from anger to shame. “Fine. I won’t rat you out, and I won’t quit,” Jameson grumbled. “Anything else I can do for you?” “Do you know anything about Agent Washington?” Charlotte asked while pulling off the webs restraining Jameson. “Only that he was pulled from missions years ago, and that his real name was kept secret,” Jameson replied. “Sounds about right,” Charlotte said. “Just head on to your office and pretend you never saw me here. When I get the evidence out, you can be a corroborating witness to the crimes.” Without another word, Jameson walked calmly out of Charlotte’s office, closing the door behind him. “I think he didn’t see me,” Alpha finally piped up. “Shut up and keep helping me get this suit off,” Charlotte remarked.
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After having successfully removed the disabled pieces of her nano suit and retrieved the AI units that were kept within, Charlotte had placed the pieces into a secure, featureless metal crate and sent it to storage. “In other news, we can now speak to Gamma,” Alpha announced as holograms of himself and Gamma appeared on Charlotte’s desk. Gamma looked very similar to Alpha, only being a slightly higher saturation of blue. “Knock, knock,” Gamma said, his voice sounding like an early version of text-to-speech, with an awkward monotone intonation. Charlotte looked at Alpha, who simply shrugged at her. “Uh, who’s there?” Charlotte asked with caution. “Eye spider,” Gamma continued the joke. “Eye spider who?” Charlotte played along. “Eye spider girl who doesn’t know how foolish her plan is,” Gamma finished. “Ha. Ha. Ha.” Each laugh had a pause just long enough to be weird.“Don’t quit your day job,” Charlotte retorted. “Is there something you know that we don’t?” Alpha interrogated the AI fragment. “Agent Washington is Charlotte’s father,” Gamma stated arrhythmically. “And he’s still alive.” “Could it be true?” Charlotte wondered in her head. “How is it possible?” “For someone supposedly good at lying, that was a pretty lousy attempt, Gamma,” Alpha mocked. “But I think you do know who he is.” “Of course I do,” Gamma responded. “I know everything about him.” “Let’s put that to the test, shall we?” Alpha asked as he aggressively grabbed Gamma’s arm, adding this new fragment back to the whole with the others.“Did he know anything?” Charlotte asked hopefully. “Nah, he was full of shit, as always,” Alpha answered with discontent. “He probably knew about Washington at some point, but it could have been removed from his memory by the right data scientist. Whoever did that really wanted to keep Wash’s identity hidden, but apparently did not share the same concern for other Freelancer secrets. We keep this up, and we’ll have enough evidence to convince any jury.” “Good, the sooner, the better,” Charlotte acknowledged. “Any new plans about Tex?” “Maybe something to short circuit her systems,” Alpha suggested. “That seemed to cause her some problems last time.” “Then I guess we’re making an emp,” Charlotte said. “. . . Do you mean an E M P?” Alpha asked with confusion. “I’m pretty sure I know how to spell emp Alpha,” Charlotte answered. Alpha only sighed.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Well, that was certainly a lot easier to finish,” Charlotte mused, holding the finished EMP. Despite being small enough to be held in two fingers, the device was noticeably weighty, with deployable pinpoints on the bottom end. “That tends to happen when you aren’t revolutionizing nanotechnology for a full body suit,” Alpha clarified. “Well yeah, obviously,” Charlotte remarked sarcastically. “Remind me why it needs little spikes on it?” “Those spikes are how it keeps from affecting your web shooters or mask tech,” Alpha explained. “More specifically, it will only power down the thing it hits, and you only got one shot.” “Duly noted,” Charlotte acknowledged. “Any possible leads on where Tex has been seen recently?” “Unfortunately, no. Tex is good at not being seen when she doesn’t want to. But something tells me that if you go on patrol, she’ll find you,” Alpha suggested. “You’re probably right,” Charlotte agreed.Just then, Charlotte heard her phone ring in her pocket. Pulling it out, she saw it was from Emily, and answered, “Emily? What’s up?” An intimidating feminine voice that was definitely not Emily responded. “Can the Spider-Woman come out to play?” Immediately, Charlotte was on alert. “Who is this? What have you done with Emily?” “Don’t act coy with me,” the voice taunted. “I’d think you would recognize your own mother.” Charlotte was so stunned; it took a minute for her to remember that Tex might not know she was Spider-Woman. “My mother is dead,” she answered, trying to maintain the illusion of ignorance. “Interesting,” Tex mused. “No one told me I was a ghost. Boo, or something.”“What do you want?” Charlotte asked. “I know you have access to the Alpha,” Tex instructed. “And you’re gonna bring him to me, or you’ll never see Emily or Kaikaina again.” There was a sound of air rushing past the phone mic, then Emily and Kaikaina yelled fearfully to the call. “Charlotte! Do whatever she says!” Kaikaina urged. “She’s some kind of creepy goo lady and she’ll kill us!” Emily panicked. Tex’s voice returned to the call. “Meet me at the warehouse where you first fought Wyoming. And no cops. They won’t be fast enough. You have two hours to comply.” With that, Tex hung up.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Back in her original spider suit, Charlotte was swinging and zipping between buildings with an urgency she hadn’t felt before. “What does she want with you anyway?” Charlotte asked Alpha. “I don’t know,” Alpha answered. “Whatever it is, it’s probably not any good.” “You think this plan is gonna work?” Charlotte worried aloud. “I’m sure it will,” Alpha assured. “Regardless, it’s the best plan we have for such short notice.” With the warehouse now in sight, Charlotte took a pause on the side of a nearby building, turning sideways to examine the warehouse. “What do you see in there, Alpha?” Charlotte inquired. Alpha activated a thermal overlay in Charlotte’s mask, revealing two figures sitting close to each other in a corner, as well as a figure that appeared colder than the other two, standing closer to the middle of the room. “Excellent,” Charlotte commented before swinging around the corner of the building, using her hand as leverage.
Now on the side facing the warehouse, she launched herself off towards the warehouse. Once Charlotte was above the warehouse, she shot two webs down to the roof below her, then pulled herself down while pointing her feet down as well. Crashing through the ceiling, Charlotte landed between Tex and the pair of hostages. Kaikaina and Emily screamed in shock. “The spider,” Tex growled. “Wrong answer.” Tex started to lunge a pointed tendril from her arm at Emily and Kaikaina, but Charlotte, acting faster, threw a cylindrical device behind Tex’s targets. A bubble shield activated from the device just in time to stop Tex’s attack, still eliciting another scream from Charlotte’s friends. “Your tricks are getting stale, Tex,” Charlotte taunted while taking a fight stance facing Tex.
“But you’ve spilled your hand, Charlotte,” Tex replied. Shocked that Tex had guessed her secret, Charlotte stole a glance at Emily and Kaikaina to gauge their reactions. The pair seemed afraid and confused as they peered through the translucent orange bubble shield. Glaring back at Tex, Charlotte answered “I don’t know who that is.” Tex chuckled, slowly pacing in front of Charlotte. Her ferrofluid armor shifted like waves in the ocean. “Nice try, but everyone here knows we only told Charlotte we were here,” Tex said calmly. “And here you are.” Knowing she was caught in her lie, Charlotte changed the subject. “What do you want with Alpha anyway?” “Same as you, in a sense,” Tex replied. “If Freelancer won’t listen to our demands, we can use him to destroy everyone there.”
Charlotte was surprised to learn that Tex knew more than just her face behind the mask. “I know Freelancer did a lot of bad things to you, but violent destruction is not the way,” Charlotte pleaded with Tex. “There are innocent people there.” At that, Tex’s ferrofluid armor shifted in a way that made her look more tense as she stopped pacing and faced Charlotte. “We don’t care,” Tex growled. “Between Allison and Omega, we are forced to remember a lot of torture. And Freelancer needs to know the value of a mercy kill.” “I’ll give you a mercy kill right now!” Charlotte retaliated. Tex thrusted a tendril towards Charlotte, who jumped over it, swiping an arm through the tendril, disrupting the fluid and causing it to splash on the floor. Charlotte webbed the wall behind Tex with both hands and slingshot herself towards her with her feet pointed out for a kick. Tex dodged to the side, and Charlotte landed on the wall. Charlotte turned just fast enough to block the attack that Tex had quickly approached to throw out. Still on the wall, Charlotte exchanged blows with Tex. While Tex blocked all of Charlotte’s hits, with each one, more ferrofluid fell to the floor. Charlotte leapt off the wall, tackling Tex and pushing her back towards the center of the room.
“Charlotte, not to alarm you, but the shield’s power is starting to run low,” Alpha warned inside Charlotte’s mask. Charlotte kept herself from reacting to Alpha’s warning, as to not tip off Tex. Tex pushed Charlotte off of her and got back to her feet. Tex threw a punch, which Charlotte easily caught, but then Tex pulled a tendril from her side, jabbing Charlotte in the stomach. When Charlotte doubled over from the hit, Tex grabbed her by the arms and threw Charlotte over her shoulder, sending Charlotte into the wall opposite the corner where Kaikaina and Emily were tied up. “Charlotte! The shield’s out of power!” Alpha urged. Charlotte looked over, seeing the bubble shield dissipate from the top down. Noticing Charlotte’s gaze, Tex looked back and also noticed the shield had gone down. Looking back to Charlotte, Tex’s eyes narrowed, suggesting a sinister grin.
“Say goodbye, Charlotte,” she taunted as she extended her arm into a pointed tendril, once again aimed at Charlotte’s captive friends. “NO!” Charlotte yelled, activating her super speed as she approached Tex to stop her. Reaching Tex, Charlotte saw that while the ferrofluid had not yet reached her friends, with the amount that had been knocked off from the fight, Tex’s tendril was extended enough to leave a small gap near the base of her spine where her metal skeleton was visible. Charlotte retrieved the EMP and quickly pressed the button before sticking the pins into Tex’s skeleton. Tex’s electrical systems immediately shorted, her tendril liquefying before splashing harmlessly onto Emily. Tex’s metal skeleton jittered and shuttered before crumpling into a heap on the floor, in a puddle of ferrofluid. “Alpha?” Charlotte asked, standing over the lifeless body. “Do you need the Omega fragment at all?” “Even if I did, I don’t think I want to retrieve it, or even can,” Alpha answered. “Good,” Charlotte answered before stomping on the skull repeatedly, caving a large dent into it. “Not risking any surprise resurrections.”
“Did anyone else think that was kinda hot?” Kaikaina said over in the corner. “We were almost killed, and I’m covered in gross black goop, Kai. Nothing is hot right now,” Emily said with disgust. Charlotte ran over and began untying them. “Are you two okay?” Charlotte asked, attempting to disguise her voice with false lowering and a Brooklyn accent. “Been better, been worse,” Emily replied. “I’m fine,” Kaikaina added. The pair rubbed their wrists as they stood up. “Are you really Charlotte behind the mask?” Emily asked, wiping the ferrofluid off of her face. Charlotte hesitated, trying to decide whether she wanted to tell them the truth. “Obviously that goop lady isn’t a trustworthy source, but she seemed pretty sure,” Emily elaborated. “And it would explain recent events.” Charlotte took another second to think about it. "At this point, keeping them out of the loop just leaves them unable to understand why they were targeted," she thought.
Charlotte sighed before peeling off her mask. “Oh shit, Goop Lady was on the money,” Kaikaina remarked. “I have a million questions,” Emily admitted. “We probably only have time for one,” Charlotte urged. “Why not tell us about this?” Emily inquired. “If you were noticeably close to me, my enemies can use you against me… like Tex just did,” Charlotte explained. “And I don’t want you two getting hurt because of me.” Charlotte’s friends gave her a group hug. “We can talk more about this later, but it’s not safe here. Do you guys need help getting back home?” “We should be fine, as long as there aren’t any other monsters coming after us,” Kaikaina assured her. Charlotte chuckled. “Good,” she responded. “And I hope this goes without saying, but this-” Charlotte gestures to her now ferrofluid-stained suit, “-stays between us, okay?” Both girls nodded in agreement. “Of course, Charlotte,” Emily said before her and Kaikaina headed for the exit of the warehouse. Charlotte put her mask back on before web-slinging her way out through the hole she made in the ceiling.
Watching over Emily and Kaikaina as they retreated into the city, Charlotte puzzled over her fight with Tex. “One thing I don’t get. Before, Tex’s ferrofluid was able to return to her after being knocked off, but this time it stayed on the ground.” She wondered aloud. “There’s no way to know for sure,” Alpha chimed in. “There’s only ever been one entity like Tex, and for years, she was kept in containment, unable to move. That could have affected the technology and reduced its longevity, or it may have not had any to begin with.” “As dangerous as she was, I still kinda feel bad for Tex,” Charlotte admitted. “Or, I guess, Allison specifically. She didn’t deserve to be trapped in a metal body with an AI fragment. Why would he do that to her?”
Charlotte sat in the distant cacophony of the city for a moment before Alpha responded. “He really thought he could save her, or that he was saving her,” Alpha explained. “He had crazy ideas; and sometimes love makes you do crazy things.” Charlotte chuckled. “Guess I should consider myself lucky that I never almost died before him,” she noted. After another moment’s pause, Alpha changed the subject. “While emotions are already raw, I’ve cracked York’s AI fragment,” he suggested. “Bring it out,” Charlotte acknowledged. On her HUD, Alpha’s hologram appeared aside a green one of the same frame. “Hello, Alpha and Charlotte,” the new fragment greeted. “I am Delta. I gather something has happened to Agent York?” His voice was calm, devoid of emotion. “Yeah bud,” Alpha answered. “But I can officially say he has been avenged.” “It sounds like that fact brings the two of you comfort,” Delta observed. “But logically, that changes nothing in regard to York’s demise.”
“Wow, what a buzzkill,” Charlotte reacted. “How were you and York paired together?" “All the fragments were assigned algorithmically to their agents based on personality,” Delta explained, taking it literally. “I was chosen for York as it was believed that I would increase his efficiency on missions, but oftentimes, the opposite effect was observed.” “That one, I believe,” Alpha mused. “As to your mission, I feel I must ask you to consider the industrial benefits of the developments that come from Freelancer Industries. To paint the entire company as evil with broad strokes is reductive,” Delta argued. “You can develop and advance technology without working outside of the law, Delta,” Charlotte rebutted. “Freelancer is breaking rules that are there to keep people safe, and that shouldn’t be seen as an obstacle to good science.” “Perhaps you’re correct,” Delta considered, before Alpha merged with this final AI fragment.
“Well, that was surprisingly productive,” Charlotte mused. “Yeah, I half expected something terrible to happen,” Alpha agreed. “Well, now that that’s handled, you should probably head back to the office, so they don’t notice that you’ve been gone.” “You’re right,” Charlotte replied. She leapt from the roof of the warehouse and began swinging back towards Freelancer Industries. “Just think, soon you’ll be able to report your gathered evidence and there might not even be a Freelancer Industries anymore,” Alpha mused. “We have everything we need?” Charlotte asked. “Yup, Delta mostly helped fill in the gaps for better certainty,” Alpha answered. “We just have to put it together and bring it to the right authorities.” “It almost feels too good to be true,” Charlotte said. Reaching the Freelancer Industries building, Charlotte navigated to her office window, peering in to check for witnesses before climbing inside. Hearing something behind her, Charlotte turned to see what made the noise. But she was too late before there was a sharp pain in her leg, and quickly, Charlotte was feeling faint. Before she knew it, her vision faded into darkness.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Charlotte woke up to being slapped in the face. “OW!” she yelled. “What the fuck!?” Turning to face her aggressor, she saw Aiden Price. Charlotte also realized that she was currently tied to a chair in a dark room, and that her mask was off, but the rest of her suit was still on. Charlotte struggled against her bonds. “Price!” she demanded. “Get me out of here right now!” “He won’t be doing that today, Charlotte,” a new voice said as Aiden vanished into the darkness on Charlotte’s right. In his stead, David Walters approached in front of Charlotte. “Not that he ever took orders from you,” he said sinisterly. His usual business attire was replaced by a dark green jumpsuit with a black belt across his lower abdomen, and yellow trim on the shoulders and in thin stripes down the outside of his legs. Walters was wearing goggles with round lenses, which he pushed up to his forehead, his ice blue eyes glaring at Charlotte.“Walters!” Charlotte exclaimed. “You drugged me! The fuck are you up to?” Walters only chuckled, tilting his head with a sneer. “You really thought you could just operate under my nose to take down everything I’ve built without getting caught?” he asked menacingly. “Despite how much as your little secret friend Alpha tried, you left a trace. And it was only a matter of time before we connected all the pieces of the puzzle.” Charlotte’s face drooped as the reality hit her harder than Price. “The only thing that makes it better is that you gave us the critical piece all your own,” Walters teased. Seeing the confusion flash across Charlotte’s face, he continued. “Back when you first confronted Wyoming, you asked Alpha out loud to kill the lights. Plenty of officer body cams connected our trail to a vigilante, and once a thorough sweep of security cameras was done, we knew who our problem was.”“Walters, you have to understand why I’ve been doing this,” Charlotte pleaded. “Freelancer is causing more harm than good!” “The man you should be pleading with died weeks ago,” Walters responded bluntly. “Your fool of a father saw all the success we were profiting off of and got a guilty conscience. He was truly only on board to try and bring back his poor dead Allison. He allowed the agents to go rogue, and he probably could have done even more damage if I hadn’t gotten him killed. And as a note of advice, that’s how you pull off a covert operation without a trace. I should know, I was part of the team.” As Walters spoke, Charlotte’s rage grew in intensity. “You’re Agent Washington!” Charlotte exclaimed. “Congratulations on finally solving the puzzle,” Walters said sarcastically. Using all of her strength, Charlotte still couldn’t break through the bonds holding her to the chair.“Ah-ah-ah, we’re not done with you yet,” Walters taunted. “You still need to be taught a lesson for trying to mess with my work. You could have quietly profited off of busywork and been the luckiest orphan in the city. But you made your choice.” Charlotte’s anger was burning hotter than the sun, and suddenly she felt a new surge of strength, tearing through the bonds on her arms and legs as she leapt forward in an attempt to hit Walters. Before she could reach him, her punch was blocked by a metal tentacle with long, pointed claws at the end. Pulling back and shaking off the shock of punching metal, Charlotte noticed that Walters had four of these tentacles attached to his back on the belt around his suit. “As much as I’d love to stick around, I believe it’s time for a little reunion I promised some old friends, courtesy of you doing my work for me,” Walters said as the tentacles lifted him off the floor, stalking back into the darkness.Soon after, all the lights turned on, revealing that Charlotte was in an underground experiment safety bunker, with an elevated viewing room where Walters was watching her from. Also standing in front of Charlotte were agents South Dakota, Maine, and Wyoming. “I told you this wasn’t over, little spider,” Wyoming announced, lifting his repaired scope to his forehead. “Ready for round three, Princess?” South taunted. Maine grumbled his typical low growl, which was somehow the most intimidating of the three.Maine was the first to charge towards Charlotte, barreling so fast that Charlotte knew there was no stopping him outright. Instead, she dropped to the floor, webbed either side of Maine, and slid underneath him as he soared past her. Charlotte sprung up into Wyoming, who punched her in the collar, sending her back to the floor. Regaining her senses enough to see Maine push Wyoming and South out of the way before attempting to slam his fists down on Charlotte, who rolled out of the way just in time. As Charlotte stood up, she sensed South approaching behind her with her wrist-mounted knife extended. Charlotte sidestepped and turned, grabbing South’s arm and yanking her so the knife grazes Maine’s side.While it did little damage to the burly brute, it enraged him, causing him to angrily sideswipe South into the wall behind her. Noticing this, Charlotte grabbed Wyoming and kicked his feet out from under him before throwing him at Maine, much to Wyoming’s protest. Maine caught Wyoming, the latter now hanging sideways and both furious. “Put me down, you imbecile!” Wyoming shouted while flailing as much as he could in his position. With an aggressive grunt, Maine threw Wyoming back into Charlotte, sending the both of them tumbling to the floor. Pushing Wyoming off of her, Charlotte quickly stood again, only for Maine to grab her by the neck and slam her into the wall. Stunned, Charlotte crumpled to the floor, where the three of her opponents began kicking her repeatedly. In between blows, Charlotte managed to shoot a web onto Maine’s helmet, covering his visor. Maine’s reaction was to swing wildly, once again hitting South and Wyoming by accident. Wyoming hit the ground hard, headfirst. His head lifted up for a moment before dropping back down, Wyoming breathing a sigh as he fell unconscious.“Maine, you idiot!” South chided. “Just take the webs off!” Maine stumbled back as he ripped the webbing off of his visor. South and Charlotte stood up, South moving to form up with Maine. Maine took a running charge at Charlotte, who jumped out of the way just in time, leaving Maine to slam into the wall, leaving cracks on impact. South approached Charlotte again, with her wrist knife extended, swiping at Charlotte; she acrobatically dodged the onslaught before kicking the flat side of the blade, but this time, the blade held firm. Suddenly Charlotte took a punch in the back from Maine, sending her to the middle of the room, where Charlotte flipped into a crouched landing. As South and Maine approached once more, Charlotte jumped into South and launched herself off of South, pushing her into Maine. Maine ignored South hitting him, but kept approaching, causing him to kick South, who rolled under Charlotte’s jump.Seeing the opportunity, Charlotte landed her jump on South’s back. South was down for the count after that. Trying to end this fight before too long, Charlotte attempted to tap into her super speed. But with no one to distract him or get in the way, Maine’s assault became that much more dangerous though, so Charlotte began leaping, swerving, and dodging to avoid Maine’s attacks. Charlotte jumped over Maine as he threw a heavy punch, leaving his meaty fist partially embedded in the concrete wall. Landing behind him, Charlotte felt her super speed ready to go. Pushing hard off the ground, she engaged her super speed to land a devastating punch to the back of Maine’s head. His lumbering body crumpled to the floor. Realizing her attackers had all been incapacitated, Charlotte allowed herself to breathe a sigh of relief.“That’s enough,” Walters announced, having just returned from the viewing chamber. After lowering himself to the ground via his tentacles, Walters pointed two of them at Charlotte and opened and closed the claws aggressively. “If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself,” Walters grumbled. He lunged one of the claws at Charlotte, which she jumped over. Before Charlotte got back to the ground, Walters sent another tentacle, this time grabbing Charlotte’s ankle before whipping her into the wall. Charlotte grunted on impact but could not free herself from the metal claw grip. Walters then swung Charlotte into the ceiling of the bunker, then dropped her to the floor.“Had enough yet?” Walters asked. After taking a painful breath, Charlotte slowly pushed herself up before getting back to a standing position. “Funny, I was gonna ask you the same thing,” she answered arrogantly. Walters’s face turned into a snarl, and he sent all four tentacles at Charlotte in a frenzy. Charlotte dodged under one, quickly webbing it to a wall. Sidestepping another, she grabbed the tentacle and used its momentum to direct it into the first tentacle, damaging the second tentacle’s claw and severing the first claw. The third and fourth tentacles grabbed Charlotte by the wrists and held her up in front of himself. Charlotte swung her leg up, kicking one of the tentacles hard enough to loosen its grip on her arm. She pulled her limb free and shot webs at Walters, covering his face. Angered further, Walters used the remaining tentacle to throw Charlotte backward into another wall before using it to remove the webbing from his face.Once again, Walters sent out the tentacles in an aggressive flurry. This time, Charlotte acrobatically dodged the tentacles, causing them to hit the wall behind her. Charlotte used webs to launch herself towards Walters, the tentacles now chasing behind her. Charlotte flew over Walters and landed on the wall behind him. Walters lunged the tentacles at Charlotte, instead hitting the ceiling above himself, causing a low rumbling in the concrete above them. Walters started to pull the tentacles free from the ceiling, but they wouldn’t budge, despite further rumblings in the concrete. Charlotte noticed this from the wall. “Walters, stop! The ceiling is unstable!” Charlotte warned. “Not while I still have a loose end to burn!” Walters growled. He yanked the tentacles free, causing the ceiling to crumble, large chunks of concrete tumbling down.Tapping into her super speed, Charlotte dropped to the floor and ran towards Walters. Ducking under the concrete as it fell, she grabbed Walters and barely slipped past the wreckage as it crashed to the floor, taking Walters’s tentacles with it. Looking back, Walters saw that his tentacles were almost entirely severed, leaving useless nubs in their place. With an enraged battle cry, Walters tried to throw a punch at Charlotte, who easily caught it before pinning him to a wall and tying him up with webs. “Why would you save your enemy?” Walters demanded. “It is not my place to decide who lives or dies,” Charlotte answered. “If I can save a person, I have to do it.” “Your naïve idealism is why you were never meant to run Freelancer,” Walters lectured. “Only I had a strong enough will to do what’s best for the company.” “You have to realize how much you sound like a super villain right now,” Charlotte taunted.Charlotte scanned the room, seeing that South, Maine, and Wyoming were not in the way of the ceiling destruction. She also noticed her mask stored in the viewing chamber. Jumping up to the window and punching it out, Charlotte retrieved her mask. As she put it on, she heard the onboard software boot up. “Charlotte?” Alpha asked after a moment. “What happened? Last thing I remember, we just got back to Freelancer.” “Well, I was ambushed, brought down here, and South, Maine, Wyoming, and Walters tried to kill me,” Charlotte explained. “He’s Agent Washington by the way.” “Wow, you’ve been busy,” Alpha mused. “I suppose now is a good time to get the authorities involved and submit our evidence incriminating Freelancer and its government connections.” “There’s definitely been worse times to do that,” Charlotte agreed. “By the way, can you tell where we are?”After a moment, Alpha answered “Seems we’re in a secret basement under the Freelancer Industries building. New York isn’t zoned for a sublevel this far down. Get a quick room scan to add to the evidence.” After preparing the evidence to present, Charlotte left a thumb drive containing the info hanging on a web from the ceiling where it was still intact. “And, anonymous tip is submitted,” Alpha announced as Charlotte snuck out of the building at the ground level. “Hopefully they do the right thing with it.” “Are you ready to leak it to the public without any footprints in case they don’t?” Charlotte asked. “Of course I am, who do you think you’re talking to?” Alpha responded indignantly.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Two days later, Charlotte was back in Moonbucks with Kaikaina and Emily. They were scrolling and discussing a news article Charlotte shared about Freelancer. “‘An anonymous tip suspected to be submitted by the Spider-Woman led authorities to a collection of evidence said to be compiled by board members Charlotte Church and James Jonah Jameson,’” Emily read aloud. “‘The evidence was found on a thumb drive in an underground bunker with its ceiling damaged, and multiple Freelancer personnel were found inside. This evidence brought to light a series of deals done under the table between Freelancer Industries and a branch of military research and development known as AXE. In light of this release, Freelancer’s doors have been shuttered effective immediately, and the FBI will be interrogating employees to ensure that no innocent personnel are held responsible for these dealings. Additionally, AXE will be either restaffed or closed entirely, depending on the hiring process.’”
“So, why did you bail out that old guy again?” Kaikaina asked Charlotte. “He caught me in the suit, but was surprisingly cooperative after the fact,” Charlotte answered. “I can hardly believe that you’re a superhero,” Emily said quietly, glancing around to be sure no one else heard her. “I know, never would have thought,” Charlotte mused. “But on that note, I must be off. A certain someone is about to have a news interview.” As Charlotte stood up, Emily gripped her arm supportively, while Kaikaina gave Charlotte a fist bump. Charlotte walked calmly out of the coffee shop, reflecting on how she had left this shop previously to fight South, as well as how reassuring it was to have this much trust in her closest friends.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Daily Bugle reporter Dylan Andrews was waiting with her cameraman Jax in a secluded alleyway, either making the show of her career or wasting her valuable time on a goose chase. “You really think she’ll show up?” Jax asked. “I’m not even sure I was actually talking to her,” Dylan responded. “Either way, very few people know we’re here, so it’s not the biggest risk.” A moment later, Spider-Woman appeared, lowering herself on a web before clinging to the wall. “No cops or other reporters around,” she observed. “I’m impressed by your restraint.” “You think I’m letting anything get in the way of this story?” Dylan remarked. “I’m doing this exactly as agreed. Brief interview, not live, private location, no identity questions.” “I appreciate that,” Charlotte replied before dropping to the ground next to Dylan. “You got the camera ready Jax?” “Just about,” Jax answered. “Ooh, how about I start the recording with a dramatic pan left?” “Nothing fancy, Jax,” Dylan commanded as she handed a spare microphone to Charlotte. “The interview is all that matters here. And if you do that pan, I will ensure it's edited out.”Jax turned the camera to face Dylan and Charlotte. “No appreciation for technique,” Jax grumbled. “Rolling in 3, 2…” “Dylan Andrews for the Daily Bugle, today I am joined by New York City’s slightly controversial vigilante, Spider-Woman, to talk about what happened to Freelancer Industries,” Dylan began before turning to Charlotte. Charlotte waved to the camera. “Hello.” “To start off, are you able to confirm you are responsible for the tip that led to the discovery of Freelancer’s criminal activity?” Dylan asked. “Yes, that was me,” Charlotte answered. “Do you have any connection with Charlotte Church or James Jonah Jameson?” Dylan continued.“I saved Charlotte from capture and helped her bring attention to the evidence, nothing more,” Charlotte answered, ensuring that her only lie is omission of her identity. “Most of your sightings in the past weeks were involved with Freelancer employees,” Dylan added. “Did you have knowledge of their illegal dealings?” “I did discover their activity from a private source, but my main focus was the safety of our city,” Charlotte explained. “The agents I encountered were not only deadly and running unchecked, but they also had no concern for public good.” “So, I take it you are giving yourself the title of New York City’s protector?” Dylan asked. “And do you feel our police are incapable of filling that role?” “No offense to New York’s finest, but I don’t think they are properly equipped to deal with super soldiers, people in mech suits, or even just every crime in these streets,” Charlotte answered. “I would be more than happy to work with the police in the future if they can extend me the same courtesy.”“Alright, and for our final question, why should New York be so trusting of a hero without a face?” Dylan inquired. “Just as I want to keep the city safe, there are people I care about who would be in danger if my identity was public,” Charlotte clarified. “I can’t put that burden on them.” “Well, there you have it, from New York City’s one and only Spider-Woman,” Dylan said, turning back to the camera. “If I may, Miss Andrews,” Charlotte interrupted. “I never exactly chose the name Spider-Woman, I actually find it a bit bland.” Dylan turned back to Charlotte with a hint of surprise. “Very well, this is your chance,” she acknowledged. “What moniker suits our masked hero best?” Charlotte thought for a second before giving her answer. “Spider-Carolina.”