Vigilante

   A skin tight suit might have been her best choice for the work she had ahead of her, but it wasn’t the kind of clothing she would use in her daily life. God knows that Clementine Avery would never wear such a scandalous piece of clothing and that’s not even considering the fabric! It was a kind of leather that molded itself to her body, which made her very self conscious but, again, it came in handy for situations that involved a lot of physical activity and the like. It was just what she needed, even if it wasn’t really her.

 Walking around in alleys and rooftops, Clementine eventually grew accustomed to her new skin and also to her newfound sexuality. She would hide her body before, but the suit had granted her an unexpected weapon and that was her own body and what she could do with it. Men would look at her ass and boobs for a bit too long, and she would take that time to tackle them, put them on a headlock and submit them, to ask a few questions or maybe to make them see who was in charge at that moment.

 However, and mostly during the day, she would still be Clemmy for her grandma and grandpa, the people who had helped raised her. Her parents had died in a plane crash years ago, and Clementine had been the only survivor. She was still called a “miracle baby” by some and she hated it. From a very early age, she understood that it was best to go unnoticed, and that’s why her sexuality was not something she explored until she was an adult and realized that she needed to do something to help people.

 When she first donned her uniform, Clementine was investigating the lawyer firm that wanted to take her grandparents house from them. True, they weren’t as liquid with money as they were in the past, but her grandfather had always paid the mortgage. She knew about this because she helped pay every single month, with the various jobs she head during her teenage years and then when she went to college. Her parents had saved for her education and wellbeing but her grandparents refused to use that money to pay anything for them.

 There were always long discussions about that subject with them and would always end up in hugs and kisses and possibly some ice cream, without them really acknowledging how much they actually needed that help. So Clementine worked hard, in part for them but also to have some money for herself and start saving for the unforeseeable future. She had no idea what to do in the future but she was aware that her parent’s money would not last forever. And problems always arose for people like her, so it was a good idea to work. And after that, it was a good idea to do more.

 Of course, the whole suit thing didn’t happen overnight. It was an idea she ultimately had after watching one of those vigilantes save some people from a fire on the news. Some people were not really into them but their grandparents were absolutely thrilled that some people had taken it upon themselves to help others, even if it was when wearing a mask and some other ridiculous attire. All of that gave her the idea that she could sneak in places and talk to people in order to really know what was happening with her grandparent’s house.

 At first, she only used clothes that hid her identity, but after a while it felt a little bit too silly to wear a hoodie and sunglasses. Eventually, people would find out who she was, if they had a brain. So she decided to wear a mask she had personalized herself and then came the first uniform and eventually she got to put on the skintight suit, which wasn’t her idea. Actually, it wasn’t her idea either when one her best friends discovered what she was doing.

 Adele worked with her and they had always been closed, or as close as you can be when you’re working and doing things at all times. Nevertheless, it wasn’t too hard for her to decipher Clementine’s secret identity. Clem was scared of her reaction but her friend just wanted in an all of the “nighttime fun”. She explained that it wasn’t something funny or enjoyable, but her friend was too over the moon to listen to anything she said. So Clementine told her everything about her first, and so far, only mission.

 It was Adele’s idea to change the outfit, to make Clementine more agile when encountering foes and also much more effective when avoiding people. The costume was completely designed by her friend, who had realized what Clem was doing precisely because she saw the same clothes her friend wore one day on the news the following night. She could be a little bit distracted and dense, but Adele understood the position her friend was in and swore to help her in whatever way she could. She felt very excited.

 Clementine had gotten a lot of paperwork that revealed something was wrong but she didn’t understand all of the terminology. Adele tried to help, but neither of them was a lawyer or anything close to it. It was Adele’s father, a retired public official, that checked the papers without them knowing and just asked his daughter about them. He explained that those papers basically gave properties away to that law firm by bypassing several laws with a special close that had not been revealed to the mortgage payers in the first place, as the law firm had bought the contracts illegally. It was surprising for the girls to hear it all in such a simple way.

 Eventually, Clementine got more evidence and she was able to put the law firm in very big legal troubles. They were forced by a court to give up all the contracts they had acquired illegally and an investigation was started to clarify how it all had happened. Her grandparents were beside themselves with happiness, and so were so many others of their neighbors. Of course, none of them ever knew what had really happened behind the scenes or how the evidence had really appeared in the judge’s private office.

 Some people did associate the vigilante they had seen in the news a couple of times with the case of the law firm, but that was it. Clementine felt really stupid for that because her other persona was not supposed to be known at all, but she had felt, at times, the need to help others and that’s why she had gotten to the news. It was kind of fun for her when, at the start, only drawings from the witnesses could be done and she looked like a very sexualized superhero. She thought it was fun and also good they were way off.

 In time, someone actually came up with a recording of her saving some people from getting mugged and there were even some pictures from security cameras of her entering the law firm’s building, and that’s how everything got tied up. After her grandparents’ problem ended, she decided not to wear the mantle ever again, which Adele thought was a mistake. She didn’t understand that it was something dangerous and potentially deadly. Clementine could get killed or someone could get killed because of her.

 For Adele, it was all just fun and interesting. She explained to her friend that she was now someone important in the community, someone that looked after the ones that no one cares about and that’s way she was such a key part of what was going on in the city. But Clementine decided not to pay attention because she knew that not much was required for her to become addicted to what she had done before. She had felt the rush going through her body and just knew that it could be something too attractive.

 Trying to get away form all of it, she went back to her studies and her work but something always bothered her. It was as if she had a fly or a bee inside her skull and it wouldn’t stop annoying her unless she thought about how exhilarating it all felt when she uncovered the truth and she fought injustice.

 When you’re hooked, you just are. So when a young woman was about to get raped near Clementine’s house, she put on her costume and kicked that man’s ass like there was no tomorrow. She saved the girl, who asked who or what she was. Clem then realized she had never decided on a name for her other self.

What I saw in the cave

   No matter how much I try, I will never forget what I saw in that cave. The scientists had already done their digging and everything was as organized as it could be. To my surprise, people I had known from the past and from afar, were working with them. I didn’t know why but I never asked anything in detail, it was better if I was in the metaphorical dark. In the cave I was in the real dark, a humid place that appeared to be like a museum, at least in the first area I stepped in. It was a scary thing to do, entering that place, but I did it anyway.

 Then, I saw him. It was very strange: he came up to me and said “Hi” and I answered. We knew each other but, deep in my being, I didn’t know from where or why. He seemed to stare at me to much, making me a bit uncomfortable. I tried not to look at him too much because he made me feel worried somehow. Then, another man appeared, one that was already leaving the cave. That one I knew very fast who he was: I had bought my ticket in from him and I think I don’t really have to explain what that’s supposed to mean.

 We didn’t looked at each other for long, instead pretended to ignore one another. A kind girl I had known back in high school gave me a helmet and some protective goggles. I had to loosen them up a little bit because they were really tight around my head and I was already getting a headache from seeing two guys I had been intimate with in the same place. I suppose that didn’t really spoke very well of my behavior but, to be honest, I don’t really care how others perceive me as long as I’m able to get whatever it is that I want.

 With the girl, I started to descend into the depths of the cave. I was getting more and more nervous because I knew what they had found there, I knew very well why I had come and it was because I wanted every single piece of the truth in my power. I wasn’t going to give up an ounce of the knowledge I had gathered along the years and I certainly wasn’t going to pull back from getting my hands on every piece of information I might need. I think everyone that knows me has that in their mind when they see me and, to be honest, I like it.

 Julia, the girl who takes me deeper and deeper into the ground, doesn’t seem to care about any of that. She had always been so kind and respectful of everyone when we were in school together. She was a little bit like me: never excelled in anything, always been a very average student. However, she had it clear in her mind what she wanted to become: a renowned journalist. She worked her ass off for it and made it. Now she worked with this corporation because she thought she would get the first scoop on the story.

 I got scared for the first time when I stepped on a rock covered in moss and I almost fell right in the hole they had made in the ground. Julia was very agile and managed to grab my hand in the almost dark, pulling me back afterwards in one go. She was stronger than I had imagined and now I understood why they had hired her. Maybe she had being trained, like all those other security guards that I had seen around the compound. They were like huge rocks, impossible to overcome. They weren’t even scary but massive.

 We descended a little bit more until Julia took my hand and told me to let her lead, as there was a doorway built into the wall that lead into the space which I wanted to visit. After walking for a bit, we crossed a plastic curtain and then there was a very potent light. She told me to grab one of the hazmat suits that were hanging on hooks on the side of the tunnel and put it on as fast and as efficiently as I could. I don’t know why, but I started to shake a lot right there.

 When I was done with suiting up, I realized she had been ready for a while. I couldn’t hear her and she couldn’t hear me. I guess the suits prevented even know from getting in or out. I felt strange, not very sure of what I was doing but I was already there and there was no turning back. Julia walked first and I followed her. The tunnel continued for, at least, fifty meters and then it opened up into another chamber in the cave system. Julia had a flashlight and made me realize how massive the space was. A building could have easily rested there.

 Then, she grabbed my hand and indicated with her hands that she was going to be pointing the flashlight downwards. And then she seemed to ask something of me: to remain quiet. I didn’t really understand why she would do that sign. I did moments later when I didn’t obey her advice and screamed at the top of my lungs. It was the most awful thing I had ever seen and the image was now stuck in my head, in my eyes even. She pulled me out as fast as she could and, in what seem seconds later, we were on the entry point of the cave.

 I ripped off my suit and decided not to listen to her orders or to anyone else. I dropped every piece of equipment as I walk straight to his office, to Michael’ office, the guy I had slept with in order to get in there. He wasn’t in the office. I started looking around for him but the small group of trailers that made up the camp next to the cave was not exactly a big one. There were not really many options to where he could have gone. I left the last pieces of the suit there, turning around as if going crazy.

 Then, Alex came and grabbed me tight. He took me to one of the trailers and close the door. He was the guy I thought I knew but didn’t quite remember. When I saw his eyes from a close distance, I remembered him all right: Alex had been one of the guys in my life that I had to convince of things that weren’t real. That was my life and now he was in front of me again and the worst part was that he seemed to still think that everything that happened was true. But I wasn’t up for that, not then.

 I asked him, before he could say anything, if he knew about the cave, if they all knew. He told me only a handful of people had gone down there. He hadn’t and neither had Michael. Only Julia and the group of scientists had been there but the rest of the crew in the camp knew exactly what was down there. I started crying. I couldn’t control myself. I told Alex that it was horrible and that I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I had wanted information and now that I had it, I didn’t know if I wanted it anymore or if I could do anything with it.

He held me in his arms, which were very strong, and I realized how nice it felt. Actually, I remembered how I had lied to him for a long time in order to get to another secret I was seeking. He knew who I was and, instead of trying to arrest me or something, he was hugging me and trying to make me feel better. We looked at each other’s eyes and I realized he was crying but I never got to know why that was. Someone was knocking on the door and Alex opened it. He got out and I got confused for a second and then I saw Michael coming in.

 He closed the door behind him and demanded me to tell him what I had seen in the cave. I told him he knew exactly what I had seen and demanded his thugs to let me out of the camp. Michael smiled in the most awful and disrespectful way and told me that now I was theirs and that I had to work with them as a mean of payment for what I had seen. I told him he was insane if he thought I would tell anyone about what they were keeping underground. I would never be able to reveal such a secret to anyone a live unless I wanted to scare them for life.

 He grabbed me by the arm and reminded me how I had thought I had used him to get inside that camp. Now, he was giving the orders and the most important one was that I wasn’t going to get out of there anytime soon. Then, I felt the most awful look all over my body. His eyes felt like the most awful medical devices, making me feel more than naked, almost violated. He got out of the trailer without even closing the door and I collapsed on my knees. My job, my life choices, had taken their toll on me and now I had become something I had never wanted to be: a prisoner. Basically, they had beaten me at my own game.

Below

   The walk couldn’t be too long. They were allowed to reach a big boulder on the top of the hill and then go back almost instantly. There was no way to really enjoy the moment, although no one got out for a walk to enjoy themselves. They did it because it was necessary to walk, to train for longer walks in the future. The funny thing was that the distance had not change in a year so they couldn’t really know if they were able to do more in the suits or not.

 Helena arrived at the Boulder and looked up, to the sun. The veil that covered the sky was especially thick that day, blocking most of the sunlight from arriving to the ground. The sun appeared to be cold, as if it didn’t care of what had happened. And he certainly didn’t because everything that had happened had nothing to do with the sun but with the planet and its inhabitants. They had always been a real danger but no one ever thought something might actually happen.

 The alarm begun. She had enough oxygen to go back to the Hut and couldn’t waist more time looking at the sun or at the reddish sky. She wanted the oxygen tank to be bigger, she had asked that several times. But they couldn’t do it. They had no materials and also no interest in letting anyone wander to far off. The truth was that the government of the Hut was not interested at all in reconquering the surface, only in surviving for a hundred years or more.

 When she stepped into the entrance and the airlock decontaminated the chamber, she felt sad. The world outside was no different than in the books and the images she had on her computer. Yet, there was death and desolation all over the place. As a team of people cleaned her outfit with a variety of chemicals, she wondered if the human race could ever be what it once was.

 As she removed the suit in the next room, Frank came to talk to her. He was the person that controlled every walk outside and had some questions, the same questions they always asked people. It was some kind of an obligatory test for every single person that asked to have a walk. There weren’t many who did, not all wanted to go back and see what their house was like now or what the world looked like. Some had actually moved on.

 She answered the same as always: there was no plant life, no animal life, the concentration of particles had not changed and the deterioration of the different materials was advancing as scheduled. She was obliged to take pictures but this time she hadn’t taken any. She told the man it was because her earlier walk had only been a week ago and nothing had change out there in such a short time.

 Frank wasn’t happy about the pictures. He wasn’t really the boss and he knew someone else would get all over him because of that. But he didn’t insisted. Helena was one of the few people that dared to go outside and walk around, they needed her more that she needed them or at least that was the way he saw it. So he wrote in his report that the camera inside the suit was damaged and that they hadn’t realized before she had stepped out. That way, the questions would be less.

 Helena thanked him and, walking slowly, she went directly to the food court. According to her mother, that wasn’t the term they should use but it was the one promoted by the government. They wanted people to feel they were in a safe and fun environment, even if it was below ground. And “food court” was one of those terms that reminisced something good, or so it seemed, from a long time ago. Everyone ate there although they didn’t have many options, only one.

 As always, the young woman did the line and the cashier scanned the code on her wrist to check that she hadn’t eaten earlier. She received her tray and some minutes later she had hot food and was looking for a place to sit down. Luckily, her friend Patricia was finishing her meal so she sat down with her. Patricia was alone, as it happened very often. Many people thought she was obsessed with the outside.

 During the following twenty minutes, Helena discussed with her friend every single thing she had seen outside. Of course, it was nothing new for the scientific team but it was new to Patricia, who was not allowed to go outside on mental health grounds. She had always wanted to do it but from the first time she asked for permission, it was denied. And after many times trying to apply, they finally told her why they wouldn’t let her out.

 She loved to hear every detail about the outside and Helena knew how much her friend like her tales so she tried to make as entertaining as she could. The tale ended when she arrived at the boulder and looked at the sun. Patricia was smiling and her eyes were full of water. She told Helena she was very lucky to have seen that because the world, as she knew, was very beautiful.

 Helena did not really know if the world was beautiful. In theory, it was. The millions of pictures available to them seemed to tell the story of a bright world were people were happy and lived very complete lives. Yet, those same people had been the ones to destroy it, her parents for example. So she always had problems processing that. Besides, the world outside was dead and no sign of that beauty remained.

 After lunch, both women went through the Market. It was a large and long corridor filled with different stores. Each one of them sold something different, so there was no competition. And the amount of things each store sold was very limited. Yet, most people loved to stroll around to check if they had pulled out something new from their vaults or something. People still had hope that things would change suddenly, even if they hadn’t changed at all for so long.

 But that day, the fifth store on the left was filled with people in front of it trying to look for something the vendor had put in display. It was the store that sold paintings and pictures and such things. Most of the things the man there sold were made by him or his family. But the little image in the transparent urn he had put on display was something another walker, the people that go outside, had found in a recent walk.

 When they were able to get closer, Helena and Patricia realized the image was very small. It was a black and white photography, probably a very old one. It pictured three baby boys, or so it seemed. One of the babies was crying, while the other two held hands and were apparently playing with some cubes with letters. The most intriguing part of the image was a shadow behind the crying baby. It seemed to be the arms of an adult, or maybe the legs.

 They could only see the picture for a while before those who had just arrived pushed them aside to have a look. They talked about the picture all the way to the dormitories, wondering if the shadow behind the babies was really another person or maybe even an animal. It was a very weird picture too: who would take a photo of a crying baby instead of taking a look at what he needed.

 Patricia concluded that it might have been a fake. Maybe the vendor had taken the picture and he said they had found it outside. That was very hard to do, thought Helena, but not impossible. They separated in a corridor, as Helena lived further ahead and Patricia lived one floor below. They committed to see each other the next day and then parted ways. Not a minute had passed when Helena fell to the ground.

 A very large, very powerful earthquake was shaking every single part of the complex. It had been built for that but that didn’t mean people wouldn’t get scared. It was the first one in a long while. Helena could hear screaming behind the doors, where people lived. When it stopped, she stood up fast and ran towards her home. But she never made it there. A general alarm was issued: the compound had been breached.

 No one knew what that meant. Was it toxic gas or something like that? What did they mean with “breach”? Helena wasn’t sure she wanted to find out but, instead of going to check on her mother, she decided to turn around towards the laboratory. She had to know what was going on.