2103:09:09:00:29:33

  While I took flight and followed from the sky, Crowsong ran and jumped around from building to building, across streets and through alleys in an unending chain of acrobatics. I didn’t know what her powers were, but while her leaps were great and she ran fast, they weren’t enough to be called super. Instead, they seemed to be the result of experience and training, aided by claw-like – or talon-like, considering her bird theme – metal protrusions extending from between her fingers and shoes. Meaning she was either a master, a maker, a combination of the two or she had an auxiliary power in the super category, much like me being an android gave me a super sub-categorization.

  We were travelling to the west, further away from the Hoquiam River and deeper into the outskirts of the city until eventually, Crowsong came to a stop on a seemingly random building. I swooped down and transformed myself mid-air, right before landing and dropped next to the other masked.

  “Third building on the right,” Crowsong said, gesturing roughly to the houses on the other side of the street. “The one with the lights still burning on the second floor.”

  I spotted which one she meant. It was a wholly unremarkable townhouse in a row of variants of the same. It was in desperate need of some repairs, a fresh coat of paint and a general cleaning, sure, but that was not out of place among the rest of the neighborhood. Nor were the lights still being on in the middle of the night an exception; at least a third of the houses on the same street still had their lights on in one form or another. The only suspicious thing I could find was the nicer-than-average sedan parked on the driveway accompanied by another one on the front lawn, but that alone would not be enough to mark this as the location of a drug lab.

  “How did you find this place?” I asked.

  “By putting in the work. Snooping around criminal hangouts, listening in on law enforcement, keeping eyes and ears peeled on the streets and online – criminals like bragging on their socials, very useful,” she explained. “Or in this case, beat up a dealer, who names another dealer to beat up, who names another and so on until you find a distributor that knows where the stuff’s produced.” She shrugged. “So, you know, the usual.”

  “Ah,” I replied, taking mental notes.

  “Take a lesson in this. Not the part on how to do the work, that just comes with experience. Learn that appearances are deceiving. Just because something isn’t out of place doesn’t mean that it’s all on the up-and-up,” Crowsong lectured, staring at me from behind her beaked mask. “In fact, it is the hearts of those that look the most normal that often hide the most evil.” There was a bitterness in her voice.

  I nodded at that, taking the lessons from the more experienced hero to heart as best I could.

  “Good.” She returned the nod and turned to look at our target. “Now, as for our plan of approach, that’ll depend on you. I want you to scout around the house as a crow and look for any openings we can take advantage of – open windows, back doors, a hole in the roof, anything at all. Then, see if you can spot people within the house. Take note of where they are, how many there are and whether they are armed or not. And finally, keep an eye on anything unusual or something you can’t quite place, like a strange device or odd silhouette. It can turn out to be nothing, but it is often the things we don’t know that can cause the most trouble. Sound good?”

  “Definitely,” I replied with confidence.

  “Good. Then get going,” Crowsong told me, gesturing towards the house.

  I transformed into a crow once more and made my way to the other side of the street, examining every centimeter of the building for an opening. Before noticing anything, however, another thing stood out to me. Though dampened by insulation or something like it, I could hear a thumping beat coming from within.

  I flew toward where the sound came from, drawing closer the window on the second floor where the lights were still on. Although whoever was inside had drawn a thin curtain over the window, I could still clearly see three figures within the room: two near a table at the far end and one on a low chair of some kind, closer to me and to the left of the window. I gently pushed the window, but whether my crow body was too light, the window was too heavy or it was locked from the inside, it refused to budge. The figures were too obscured by the curtain for me to figure out anything else, so I rose back into the air.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  I flew circles around the house and examined the rest of it. Although we hadn’t been able to see it from across the streets due to the thick curtains there, the room downstairs – the living room most likely – had brief flashes of color coming from it. Meanwhile, the back of the house was completely dark, both on the first and second floors. I approached the windows on the second floor to see if I could find one that had been left unlocked, but no such luck.

  I leapt down from the second floor onto the backyard. Although the window on the first floor at the back of the house were as dark as those on the second floor, they didn’t have any curtains. I jumped and with a flap of the wings, landed on the windowsill and peered through it. I saw an unoccupied kitchen, which was good to know, but most importantly I could see the living room, along with what caused the flashing lights. There was a man on the sofa staring at a TV screen, though rather than watching it, his lack of movement or reaction to anything happening meant he might be asleep.

  I decided to do something a little risky and transformed myself back into my base form next to the door into the kitchen, and put my hands on the doorknob. Then, as quietly as I could, I began to twist it to check if it was open. It wouldn’t budge at first, but as I slowly increased the force, I felt the knob begin to twist. But just as I thought it might be left unlocked, it stopped and refused to budge any further.

  Disappointed, I transformed back into a crow and – after a quick check of the roof to see if I’d missed anything there – flew back to Crowsong.

  “Four people as far as I could see, three upstairs in the same room and one downstairs in the living room,” I told her as soon as I transformed back. “The three upstairs are playing music somewhat loudly, with two at a table away from the window and one in a chair to the left side. The last one is down in the living room, either sleeping or watching TV or something. All the windows and the backdoor are locked, but the kitchen has nobody in it, so that might be a good way to get inside.”

  “Good job Jester. Very good, especially for a first timer,” Crowsong said, and I puffed my chest with pride. “What about weapons? Do they have guns, knives, bats, anything?”

  My pride quickly flushed away with embarrassment. With everything else I’d found, I’d forgotten to pay attention to it. Luckily, the memory wasn’t long and I could do a quick review of my memcordings.

  “None that I could see at least. The rooms were dark and the curtains were in the way, so I don’t really know if they’re unarmed or I just couldn’t tell. Sorry,” I answered dejectedly, and after maybe a bit too long of a pause. Would she suspect something? Think I was making it up on the spot? Think I was lying?

  Fortunately, none of my fears bore out and she just waved off my apology. “That’s fine, just means we’ll have to be even more careful when we go in,” she said. “I think our best plan of attack would be to break in through the backdoor by picking its lock, silently take down the guy in the living room and then breach the door upstairs together.” I nodded in agreement.

  She continued. “Now, since I’m the most experienced, I will- Wait, you said you had a cat form, right?”

  I nodded, confused.

  “And your transformations are silent?”

  Again, I nodded. She’d have already heard if they weren’t.

  “And from the fact you’re still in costume, the things you have on you don’t disappear…” she murmured under her breath, looking at the ground in thought. Then, her head snapped back up and she continued. “Change of plans, you will be taking down the guy downstairs with-” she opened one of her pockets and retrieved a rolled-up package. She unfurled it on the ground and a dozen syringes appeared. “-this.” She picked up one of the syringes and handed it to me.

  I looked at it with suspicion for a moment, holding the syringe up against the light of the moon. There was a transparent, yellow-tinted liquid inside the syringe, and the moonlight glanced off its sharp, metallic needle ominously. I could see where this was going and found a feeling I didn’t like forming a pit in my stomach.

  Before I could open my mouth though, Crowsong started talking again. “Sneak up as a cat, transform and inject the syringe anywhere on his body, and he’ll be out for the fight plus eight hours or so. And don’t worry about him noticing; the needle itself is coated with a contact numbing agent that works instantly. Won’t even feel a thing.”

  Yes, this didn’t seem heroic at all, and my Heroic Impulse began sounding the alarm. Where was the opportunity to surrender? The speech to turn people away from crime, away from evil? Being a hero was more than turning in bad guys. The goal was to do good, to lead by example and to make the world a better place, not drugging people – not even criminals or villains – with an unknown, likely illegal substance. Doing evil against evil doesn’t make the evil thing suddenly good; the means are the message, and if the means are bad...

  But then again what did I know? Crowsong was the more experienced hero here by far, and she was the one heading this operation. Besides, while this wasn’t ideal, what other options did I have? The powers I’d been promised, the ones my Heroic Impulse assumed I had, just weren’t there. Again, the only suite I had was the infiltrator suite, and the only power in it was mimicry. Even with my android body, I was fragile by masked standards, and even by regular human standards I wasn’t particularly skilled at taking down opponents. I couldn’t afford to take risks, so I should do what I can to minimize them.

  Maybe if I had everything I was supposed to, I could live up to the ideal my Heroic Impulse tried to impose on me. But with what little my dying idiot creator had managed to give me…

  “Jester?” Crowsong asked as my silence continued.

  “Yes?” I asked, before startling in realization. “Yes! Sorry, yes, that sounds like a good plan.” I smiled wobbly, thankful Crowsong couldn’t see it.

  She stared at me in silence for a moment, then turned back to the house. “Good. The rest of the plan after the first takedown stays the same.” She turned back to me. “You ready?”

  I nodded, hoping it didn’t look as shaky as I felt.