2014.09.11 - Identity Crisis, Volume 7

A loud harley echoed in Glendale. The alleyways carried the sound. It had taken a few days and a lot of legwork, but Logan was able to track Jane down to this part of Gotham. He wasn't sure where she wound up. Luckily it was the daytime so a lot of the dangerous elements were asleep, if any. So, Logan was touring up and down the streets looking. His blue jeans, grey t-shirt and leather bomber jacket didn't exactly make him standout. However, he was a new sight in this area so it was hard to exactly ignore him either. His eyes glanced around the area. Then he took a few sniffs trying to find the familiar scent.

Jane had been in Glendale on occasion, mostly to do some of the more shady jobs like fixing a few reports or databases. Ordinary forgery work mostly, and she had fixed the visa of a couple illegals today - they provided the information, passports and forged paper documents, she only gave them the needed backup in a few database for a small fee, turning them almost legal - if they were not jsut a very fancy forgery stretching into the servers of the foreign ministry. But during the hacking she had been sitting in a room only lit by a single source, the laptop, and wore a full body covering zentai, protecting her identity - or what she thought it would be.

She had researched the name Logan called her... and found nothing. The person simply had not existed it seemed - no documents, no passports, not even a photo did turn up, but the last item she had known since longer, where she witnnessed photos of her degrading within a couple of hours to binary nonsense.

Now she was walking down the street slowly, her laptop in the tight backpack, the Zentai packed together to less than a pocket full of cloth, almost looking like padding around the computer. In her hand, as if a show of strength in the low law area was a staff from black carbonfiber, the tips shimmering as they were plated with metal. But her smell did not change too much, only the ozone clinging to her had been increasing.

"Yer hard to track darlin'," Logan stood next to her. His eyes looking over what she was wearing. He also noated a black carbonfiber staff. That meant she was skilled or at least knew her weapons. His gaze was level on her as he watched her. "Yer a ghost accordin't o many. Something that shouldn't and don't exist."

Logan had files most were just hidden by shield. It was the facial recognition software that got him. If Jane had that she could have traced the few bits and pieces of him that were out there. There was some closed circuit footage in New York that saw him fighting Mister Freeze and other ice villains. At one point he had Freeze's gun and was using it. Other times it was him just shopping in areas with people. Then there were large gaps. There was a soldier in World War I, II, and Nam that went by the name of "James Howlett." The resembalnce amongst them was uncanny. At times the face was younger, but it was by a matter of a few years and not decades (or even centuries).

"Seems I am not ghastly enough to not beeing seen." Jane replied as she just gave a short glimpse to the side. "And I happen to know from the news that there is some guy called Gentleman Ghost who is a ghost really, in contrast to me. I am all flesh and bones."

She didn't looked up Logan - for that she would have had to have a photograph of him for all her skill, she had no eidetic memory and she wasn't an artist really, and she did lack access to a real phantom picture software.

"Two of a kind, kid," Logan said and looked at Jane again. "I knew who you were, but that ain't who you are," he accepted. "Someone wants you to stay buried. A memory and nothin' more," from there he smirked. It sounded all too familiar, "I can keep ya safe if ya want."

Even if she damned good knew what he was talking about, she quirked an eyebrow, continuing to walk in the direction she had as he pulled close to her. "You're talking in riddles and you don't look like the Riddler to me. You lack the green suit and lean stature. And if photoes don't lie he's about three heads taller."

"We're both ghosts kid. You've got somethin' after ya. If you want to be safe and maybe have a home, I can help. If ya want it," Logan offered again being a little less vage. His eyes stayed on her as she talked about the Gotham whack jobs Logan read about in the paper. Mutants he understood. Power either went to their heads or gave them a responsiblity. People like the Riddler were just crazy.

"And what guarantees me you are not just another one of the Gotham and Metropolis menangerie of madmen? You come out of the blue, claim to know me but you ring no bell. You claim you want to help me, but said furry claims the same, and his way of helping is not very nice." Jane exclaimes, the staff in her hand gripped like a vise as she continued her way slowly. "If you are a ghost, I guess you are a poltergeist." - Pulling out his wallet he tossed it at her. Inside were some IDs along with S.H.I.E.L.D. clearance card, "That. Means I know what some can do and I can use resources to help you figure out who you are. I'm part time. They need me too much to let me go, but I know their tricks. Madmen in Gotham don't get those," he looked at her just waiting for a reaction.

"Madmen can become foreign ministers and even the president has a psycho doc. Owning a Shield badge mister Howlett does not make you better than the bat-furry with ego complex. What tells me you are not just another Furry with an ego complex? I mean, come on, who wants’ to wear the mask of ‘’Gulo gulo’’? That's Glutton twice. Can't it be at least a cool animal... like the Honey badger aka ‘’Mellivora capensis’’? Same Family, other subfamily." Yea, seems like Jane spends her days watching YouTube virals when not working or reading stuff from Pauline Réage and Anne Rice as well as Leopold's unfinished 'The Legacy of Cain'. Taking a deep breath, she stops to eye him before she tosses the wallet back "So what you want really? Recruit me for that oh-so-top-secret suicide squad? I doubt you have any leverage on me there for you called me a ghost. And I am no youth, so you school attendance law does not work to drag me to your school."

"Not dragging you to a school and I've never heard of Suicide Squad. Quit assuming crap about me because yer makin' an ass out of yourself," Logan said firmly after taking the wallet back. "Want to know what I want. Give ya a room. Make sure yer safe. Yeah, you'll be in the school but I'll keep everyone off yer back. No classes. No nothin'. Keep your nose clean and by that I mean nothin' illegal. Other than that go nuts. What I want in return is yer safety. End of story," Logan shot it all back to her firmly. He wasn't about to put up with her suspicious ramblings. Most of them were wrong but he figured she had reasons for beign so paranoid.

"You sound like O there. At least before her Computer blew into her face and she did not come back to me after that." Jane answers with a smirk, the staff in the hand making a 180 spin. "Not my doing, but seems like I am bad luck to keep around. Not doing anything illegal, so why you bother? Because the Bat-Fur has a problem with his ego? Like I said, I don't know yea."

"You gotta learn to trust. You know I ain't a whackjob like ya claim. Not everyone in the world is out to get ya," then he paused. Thinking on his gaze went to Jane, "Come with me to Japan. You want to see if I'm lying you gotta come with," Logan turned aroudn then started to head toward his bike. Jane liked to draw conclusions from vague facts. It was time to use that curiousity and assumptiona gainst her.

"And what you think we find there? People you pay for staging remembering me?" As if she would have had many friends. "Tell you what: I know that about 1100 planes did land and start on JFK each day. Every seventh of them is international, reaching to almost any country in the world safe for stuff like Afganistan and Somalia. I come from Japan just as likely as Germany or England. Both countries with people speaking quite good Japanese. And then there are those planes from the west coast where we have Japanese enclaves in California. Why Japan?"

"You either take it or don't. Your call. We leave now," Logan wasn't given her chances to talk herself into it or out of it. All of this was on her right now. She could have babbled or done whatever she wished. Straddling his bike he looked back at her, "Coming?"

Instead of coming outright, Jane was stif for a short time, the eyes looking like she would stare into the distance. However, she was searching the web with her consciousness, looking for flights and times. As she returned to the real world with her mind, she snorted and gave him a short glare. "Two problems: no flight to japan within 12 hours and no passport. So much for you wanting me not to do doing anything illegal."

"Bend a rule in this case. I can get us in the air in three hours. Take or leave it. Legal flight too," he said Logan started up the engine. Then he waited for a moment. Again, everything was in her court.

It was a chance... even a tiny one... "One condition: If whatever you want to show me is not there, you don't just drag me to the next place you think you remember where you saw me." Jane closed in, the epoxy and carbon staff twirling once, twice, then getting collapsed by a twist, reducing the size to about a third of it and getting stuck into a sling under the backpack.

"Deal. As long as you know we have to make stops for food and sleep. Got it?" he said looking back to Jane before she got on the bike.

"Make a stop at the central station, I need my baggage." Jane responded to that "Other than food and sleep, no detours to special places unless they are Akihabara."