2014.02.04 - Stolen Valuables

Upper Metropolis - Harlem

Harlem is known for many things. Beginning in the 1920s it was the epicenter for the "Harlem Renaissance," an explosion of Black culture in the first half of the century. In the later part of the century, Harlem fell on tough times as job opportunities moved away. Crime and poverty both increased. At the turn of the 21st century, Harlem has begun to rebound economically with an increasing population.

It was a nice enough day for the time of year. The sun was out and there was a nice wind from the south, bringing by warmth that was making the snowfall melt prematurely. This meant it was wet, but also icy, so few people were on the sidewalks. Most people were in sidewalk shops or on their way to work round this time, with truant highschoolers gathering around at the local electronics shop, along with others who needed a new gadget or an old one repaired. Being right next door to a coffee shop gave it a good bit of business, as people would come in to browse while enjoying their coffee break.

Within that electronics shop is Kwabena Odame. He had mixed opinions about the place, for it saw a bit too much foot traffic for his tastes. However, the owner was solid, and he kept a supply of stuff he often needed. So, with great effort, he's been picking around the shop with a Styrofoam cup of coffee in his hand.

Soon enough, his needs simply grew beyond his capacity to locate what he needed within the shop's expansive supply of parts. So, he's found his way up to the counter, and is speaking with the bearded fellow working the desk. "Yes, but dey need to be remote controlled, and easily paired to a Class 15 micro-emittah."

"Burst x-mit?"

"Dat's right, boss."

"Comin' right up!" The shopkeep disappears for a few moments, leaving the accented Ghanian to lean upon the counter nearby, his mis-matched eyes watching the comings and goings with a slightly bemused smirk.

Its starts innocently, but perhaps a little ominously enough when the lights start to flicker, dimming before flashing back to full light. It was nothing more than something to turn peoples eyes up. One of the nearby customers, looks no older than sixteen, ribs his buddy and makes a snide comment about a fancy electronics place not even able to keep their lights up to par.

"Whatever man...", says his buddy with a grin "C'mon. Lets just get this and get out. I gotta get back for third period."

Both of them swagger up to the counter, just as a few people in the store start to come down with a shiver. One or two suddenly jump and look around, or shiver like they'd just been hit with a cold chill.

There's one person in here, at least, who isn't looking up when the light's flicker. Instead, his eyes seem to change from smug to keen, glancing about every so often. It's not that he's paranoid, per se... but he's got a bad reputation in some parts of town, and there have been hits on him before. For lack of a better term, he's always aware, even if it doesn't appear so.

When he notices a few people seeming startled, the smugness of his face turns into a slight frown. By the time the clerk has returned, he's gone.

"Mister Ahn--.. hello?" calls the shopkeep.

Kwabena, as it were, has edged his way through a couple of those who seem spooked, and found his way toward a well concealed corner of the building. There, between the space between heavily stocked shelves, his eyes peer about, looking for trouble.

It was the stranges thing! As you crossed through the store... its like you walked under a cold air vent... but it wasn't just a breeze. its like for a moment, that chill penetrated all the way through your body. If thats what had been going around... but what WAS that?

"HEY! Where the hell's my wallet?!" Cried one of the teenagers at the counter!

Right behind you, dispite your back being to a wall, you hear a soft, faint whisper. "Hello there." It was a whispy sort of voice that didn't carry at all.

"My wallet is gone too!"

"My ring!"

"Whats goi~"

All across the store people were finding things missing, when all of a sudden the front doors slammed open as though from a heavy gust of wind, and moments later, the lights suddenly went out, leaving only the windows in front to illuminate the store.

The chill is certainly off-putting. Kwabena can't help but shiver as it passes through him, but... it only furthers his position. Something odd is truly going on here!

The whisper catches his attention, to be sure. He doesn't move, nor does he react otherwise to the cries of surprise peppering the place. Instead, Kwabena does something that he hopes might gather the invisible person's attention. His clothes inexplicably fall to the ground, emptied of their body, only to be replaced by so many thick tendrils of black, swirling, living smoke. It rises up to the ceiling, where it's veiled in general darkness as it spreads all around, thinning and thinning...

Soon enough, those who haven't yet run out of the shop begin hacking and coughing, as if the place had caught on fire.

As you spread throughout the room, you notice one very strange anomoly. There's sort of a... cold spot... moving around the room. As you spread about, it feels distinctly... person shaped. The way a person radiates heat just... not nearly as warm as a person. With how high the heat was in the store, it became even easier to notice.

"Smoke!" Go the cries, and before long the poor clerk you had been talking with yanks the fire alarm in a panick. A few of the younger folk had been scared off by the spooky light trick and front door but now people were filing for the exits in earnest.

What was interesting however was two points. One, was that that 'cold spot' was... floatng would probably be an appropriate term. Second, is that it seemed not only formless save for that vague temperature difference, but also seemed completely unconcerned with what had others running for fresh air. "It isn't until the last of the people had filtered out however, the store clerk finally fleeing out the back exit, that the shapeless mass drifts down towards the floor near the cash register. Slowly, a girl in her late teens fades into view over a few seconds, standing with sloppy posture, her arms crossed, and a punkish smirk. She was looking up into the mist clouding around the ceiling, and speaks in that same whispy voice you heard earlier.

"You kinda spoiled my fun... but a good trick. I wasn't gonna make a move on the register... I just wanted something to play with. What d'you want... half whats in this thing?" She talked as though she was begrudgingly appreciative of assistance, and being very generous.

Well, that's interesting. Suspicions confirmed. Metahuman presence... invisible. Also... gas permeating?

Kwabena's thoughts flow through the living cloud, kept to himself alone. As each person exits, he withdraws his gaseous form from their mouths and noses, freeing them to breathe natural air.

Once the voice spills again, the smoke begins to collect. It drops from the ceiling into the form of a man, standing right behind Phantasma. And then, with a sound of displaced air (imagine something being sucked through an invisible vacuum), Kwabena reappears. Now, his clothes are still gone, but he's clad in some kind of gunmetal gray, a thick material that might resemble spandex, except up close and personal, the tendrils woven into it seem of a much higher tech nature. Which might explain how the costume transformed with him. He hadn't the time to put the hood up, so his head and face remain exposed, where the costume covers everything else.

"I don't want any of it," he answers. "Don't need any of it." Mis-matched eyes look upon the girl, though it might be surprising that they do not appear to carry judgement. "Wasn't too long ago I was robbing..."

He suddenly gets cut off, his eyes bearing down upon something protruding from her neck.

Recognition.

You spotted it when she glanced at your face. She stared at you for a long moment, and reached up into her hood to rub her neck. The spot on her neck that had the wierd port. A little tilt of her head, and her face turns very inspecting. She walks forwards through the counter, until its literally her waist sticking up out the top of it. Getting up on her tiptoes... s-so it seems, she takes a hard look at your face.

"Do... Have I seen you before? Hellish prison... jerks in white coats... freaky horror drugs. Ringing a bell?"

Kwabena watches you as you pass through the counter. It's a trick he's seen before, albeit perhaps a bit differently. What he spots, though, is an opportunity.

"Yeah." He tries to make it convincing, developing a somewhat spooked look when she mentions it. "You were dere?" He makes to reach forward, but then acts as if he's thinking better of it, drawing his hand back. "What did dey do to you?" he whispers, urgently. "How fah did dey..."

Sirens. Sirens carrying through the streets, closer and closer.

"Where ah you staying?" he asks.

She looks at his hand, but doesn't move. Instead, an unamuzed look crosses her face. Arms crossed and a skeptical sneer, her face just screams 'Really?' even without words. Naturally she'd be confident, not seeming to fussed about interference from the physical world.

Her eyebrow raiseas again, but she wastes precious seconds just sort of looking at you. Sizing you up. Thats when one of the most poorly timed 'heroic moments' you've witnessed lately springs up.

"I've got her!" Shouts the enthusiastic clerk, wielding, of all things, a promotional sword prop from a newly released game. Lethal, no, but certainly heavy, if the amount of weight he puts behind the swing is any indication. Phantasma turns around just as the prop passes cleanly through her head, as though it wasn't even there! Unfortunately, you were still standing immediately on the other side of her, meaning it was now coming straight for your chest.

Phantasma drifts backwards through you almost immediately, once more washing you in that piercing, penetrating chill. A raspberry is blown and she takes off through the wall regardless of the outcome.. and.. did she... grope you after she passed through you...?

He knows that look. He should have played this one differently.

Instead, he looks at that 'sword' just in time to feel the chill pass through him, among... other distractions. Of course, Kwabena Odame has never been bothered by such things. The sword comes in hard, and passes right through his chest as well. Only there's... a subtle difference, tendrils of black smoke that follow its motion before getting sucked back into his body.

"Keep an eye out for my clothes," he says to the shocked shopkeeper, before he turns and bursts through that door and out onto the street. His gloved hand comes up to pull the mask tightly over his face, leaving naught but his mouth and chin exposed. His head turns left, then right, trying to find the girl, but there's a sinking feeling in his chest that he's going to come up dry.

Out in the street there's no sign of her. If she wanted to be gone, she would be very long gone by now. Combine that with the fact that she was apparently able to vanish and this quickly felt rather hopeless. Sirens are getting rather loud now, as the fire department pull up with a pair of ambulences to respond to the 'fire'. Police it seems arrived earlier, and were actually keeping people back from the 'burning' building for their own safety.

There's something in the face of the officer that approaches you which says 'A metahuman. Of course...' as he makes his way towards the store front.

"Hey... You have any idea what happened here? I've got alot of reports of stolen valuables, something about a fire..."

Normally, Shift would have cut and run by now. He's an unregistered mutant with a pretty hefty police history. Sure... busting up drug dealers and traffickers can be a good thing, but he's left some hospitalized for months, cut deals with others, and put bullets through the worst of them. He doesn't exactly 'get along with' law enforcement.

Still, he sticks around, leaving the mask up as the officer approaches. And he does his best to conceal his Ghanaian accent. "Teenager. Metahuman. Invisibility powers. Nobody was hurt, but she's gone. I have tried to track her, but... well, she's invisible."

Meanwhile, the clerk inside has gone to collect Kwabena's belongings, and stealthily is stowing them in his back office. Seems the mutant known as Shift comes here because he's got a friend in this neighborhood.

The officer doesn't sound impressed and keeps pressing the point of 'something about a fire'. It isn't until the clerk comes out to 'demand' that they stop obstructing his work, saying he pulled the alarm because of the 'freaky ghost theif', and generally helping end the argument with a sour seargent sulking towards their cruiser.

As people go back to their day to day grind, now you might discover your pockets are a little... lighter.

The first thing you likely notice missing is your smokes, but the absense of your wallet is a quick second thing to notice! Nothing else is missing on quick inspection, and in fact, there's something left behind where your wallet used to be. A heavily folded coupon for a fast food restaraunt mostly well known in Gotham. In fact, on the list of 'participating locations' for the '2candine' coupon, one particular branch in Gotham North is circled with... is that a heart?

Shift just stands aside, letting the clerk do his thing. He tries very hard not to look all heroic-like, but given the costume... there are a handful of cell phones which come out, snapping pictures, and soon enough, social media feeds are swamped with Instagram's and tweets of this 'new, masked, unknown hero!'

Boy, if they only knew the truth.

Shift goes back inside, thanking the shop owner for his deflection, and collects his clothes. A few moments later, he's dressed as he was before, the 'costume' safely concealed beneath his street garb. He's out on the street, walking along, when he reaches for his pack of smokes.

Finding... them... gone.

Closing his eyes, Kwabena winces and curses himself quietly. No wallet, but the keys for his motorcycle are there, and his beat up old zippo. A rueful smirk forms at that, but when he finds something else... he stops just outside an MTA bus stop and investigates.

He knows the place, of course. He's been there, on any number of late night occasions. His eyes look up, glance about briefly, and he quietly folds the paper away for later use.