[Deleted]

Liz Evander

The clocks were nearing twelve o'clock midnight, and the Daily Star's main office was exceptionally dark sans one cubicle that stood out in stark contrast to the rest. With such a lone spotlight it wasn't very difficult to see the small figure hunched over the desk, fingers deft as she pressed word-for-word on the keyboard. Looking even closer, one could see three cups of coffee by the side, with one cup already consumed as it was toppled over and nearing the possibility of falling off the table (a bin was thankfully there to catch it). The second one, while not quite empty, wasn't obviously quite full, either, and the figure--a woman, precisely--routinely took a sip from it without even looking elsewhere. Her eyes were fully fixed on her laptop, just about to put in the last bits of her latest article for the Star.

And what of the third cup of coffee? Well, Liz Evander had decided she'd drink it while on her way home.

Disappointingly, the journalist didn't finish the article on or before twelve o'clock, but thankfully she'd finished it either way. It was already 12:17 AM when Liz completely pushed the first empty cup off her table and into the bin, afterwards consuming the rest of the second coffee in one gulp and also dropping it down the trash. Shutting off her laptop and stuffing it inside her satchel, Liz switched off the lights to her cubicle and proceeded to head out of the Daily Star's office, bidding the security a goodbye and stepping on to the cold nightly streets of New York.

Usually, the reporter would be using her car, but today her sister was borrowing it and as such Liz was left to travel by foot instead. It wasn't exactly a bothersome thing--sure, crime rate was higher at night and there were less heroes around for graveyard shifts, but that was part of the reason Liz took self-defense lessons, and besides her apartment wasn't very far from the Daily Star. A simple walk would suffice, enough for her to enjoy her coffee amidst the cool breeze and the quiet atmosphere.

Even then, she'd learned not to completely keep her guard down.

It wasn't very long--nor was it very short--before Liz spotted the outline of her apartment from afar. One hand was already reaching down her satchel, traveling towards the pockets where her keys were usually situated--it was a habitual move, and one that Liz always initiated whenever she was nearing her apartment. Instead of her keys, however, the reporter's hands brushed over her vibrating phone. It could only mean one thing: a text message, but from whom? Liz could only assume that it was her boss or her sister, but then again it was still rare for either of them to be texting her at midnight.

And so she grabbed it out, unlocking the screen and beginning to check the text--temporarily unaware of her surroundings as she squinted amidst the brightness of her phone.

@gabby ||

[Deleted]

If they were going to go after Iris, they needed connections. If they were going to get connections, they needed to make sure they had branched out to every possible avenue. Reporters, private investigators, police, other individuals partial to wearing a mask. In this case, Noah had her lined up with a possible lead to someone they could possibly trust. Someone who might hear what Peacekeeper had to say and agree with what they were moving in on, and publicize it in a legitimate way that wouldn't be instantly disregarded with a "vigilante" step put on it.

Luckily, Noah was a good vetting process.

While Gabby worked in the field, the AI handled possible leads to follow. Who to speak to, why, and how. And apparently all his fishing got them a bite in the form of a New York reporter with a particular interest in superhuman crime. She wasn't sure how she felt about it  - given that their enemies likely weren't superhuman, hopefully... but if they were lucky - Miss. Evander was an open minded reporter who might be interested in a good scoop. And if not... well, then it seemed like they were never there to begin with.

"She's on the move." Said Noah's smooth robotic voice from the phone sitting in the car console, briefly lighting up the car that rested in the parking garage that... wasn't Gabby's, admittedly. But they had made a habit of sitting in cars that were not their own, mask and all. They hadn't encountered issues yet, but... well, Noah was good about that. When he alerted her that their person of interest was on the move, Gabby nodded, pulled up the scarf to her nose and climbed out of the car, closing it and locking it with a press of her thumb before she walked over to the opening overlooking the street outside. Sure enough, when she brought up her phone to watch the marked individual pass street cameras, she saw her come into view. "You got her number?"

Noah answered her by switching to the Messaging app and inputting the number, with theirs scrambled of course. "Muchas Gracias... See how this goes, I guess."

A few quick motions of her thumb and she'd sent off the message. And right on queue, the reporter within her sight slowed to a stop. Under a strange, scrambling line of digits where a number or name would have rested on the unlucky reporters phone, a text message appeared.

// Hello, Liz Evander \\
// Sorry to interrupt your walk home. \\
// If I could just have a moment of your time. \\
// I have information that might interest you. \\

[Deleted]

Liz Evander

// Hello, Liz Evander \\
// Sorry to interrupt your walk home. \\
// If I could just have a moment of your time. \\
// I have information that might interest you. \\

Liz didn't stop to a halt, instead just walking slowly with her eyes still glued to the phone. A small crease formed between her eyebrows as she read the text, a dozen questions already popping up inside her head. Who is this? Liz couldn't possibly decipher the random jumble of characters that replaced what would've been the texter's name and number. In fact, how was that even possible? Hacking was one surefire answer, but then again the reporter couldn't be too sure--in a world where some people could cause a blackout with the simple snap of a finger, everything was possible.

Well, almost everything.

Liz scanned the text message again, not quite sure if she should reply or not. Her thumb was already hovering close to the screen, alternately pressing between the letter 'A' and the backspace button in doubt of what to do. She'd been given anonymous tips before, of course, but they always held at least a percent of suspicion--a percent or more that would eventually be removed once Liz investigated the information further. Which she always did.

The reporter took one big gulp from her cup of coffee. It always never hurt, right?

She squinted once again at her phone, a small realization hitting her like some kid's outmaneuvered bicycle. Looking around, all the reporter could see was the darkness of New York's streets, but she did know one thing for certain--she was being watched. If the second line of the text message didn't indicate that then Liz didn't know what would. Eventually, one could hear the faint tapping sound that Liz's phone emitted as she typed down a reply to whoever was contacting her.

// I'm all ears. \\
// You could always just come out of the dark too, you know. \\
// Probably less creepy and more trustworthy that way, whoever you are. \\

@gabby ||

[Deleted]

So willing to speak to a stranger. Maybe their little display of getting that message in was enough to garner enough interest from the reporter in order to listen to what the vigilante had to say. Or maybe she wasn't as smart as Noah hoped she was. Either way - the hook was in. She wasn't calling the police, and Gabriella wasn't having to work out how to vanish into the streets before NYPDs response time kicked in. Clearly picking up on Gabriella's mind at work, and likely being impatient enough as it happened, Noah sent off the next message on his own.

// Across the street. Parking Garage. Third floor. Fourth Row. Look. \\

[/center]

She glanced down at the text message, and then back up with her scarf-covered face. With a slight adjustment of the ball cap that rested on her head, the physical half of Peacekeeper appeared as a shadow in the specified floor as she pulled a pair of aviators off of the cap and placed them over her eyes, leaning against the divider that separated the parking lot space from the three-floor drop. When she thought that the reporter noticed, she raised a hand slightly in greeting before bringing her hand up and putting in a reply.

// We mean you no harm. \\
// So long as you return the favor. \\

And, with a swipe of her thumb, the scrambled digits on Liz's phone contact square changed. No number still - but spelled out now were letters as opposed to random symbols. "Peacekeeper". On that note, the vigilante stood there for a moment, looking down at the woman on the sidewalk, then pushed back and retreated to stand in the middle of the parking garage floor, her hands in her pockets.

Truly, this was already feeling like a Deep Throat trope from a movie. She had to wonder if Noah did that on purpose.

[Deleted]

Liz Evander

Peacekeeper.

It was better than the jumbled mess of characters, Liz supposed. It didn't make 'Peacekeeper' all the more trustworthy, though, even with the text message and their shadowed appearance from across the street. Liz had responded to the person's gesture with a nod, before spotting a nearby bench and settling there--all plans of heading home were out of the window now that she know some anonymous person was watching. Was it futile? Probably, because if Peacekeeper had acquired one of her numbers then they would definitely have known where she lived. Or maybe they didn't, which was why Liz was currently sitting on a bench by a lone streetlight. She'd always been cautious--maybe bordering on paranoid--but it was a disadvantage that had its perks.

A small crease formed once again as Liz reread the message. We, it had mentioned, but there had only been one figure who showed. So where were the others? Was this an organization, perhaps? It didn't seem likely now that Liz read the texter's first message.

So what was it, really?

Liz shook her head at the theories that were beginning to form--this would need more inspection.

// I don't think I can do much on that part. \\
// You're the one who's hacking my phone. \\

She didn't know a lot about hacking, but that was obviously needed to change the contacts square from a mix of symbols to 'Peacekeeper'. How, Liz didn't know, but it was likely an easy feat for Peacekeeper--whoever they were. The reporter briefly wondered if the texter was a metahuman. Judging by the alias they already seemed like the vigilante type...or maybe just some random person hired to slander someone else, and the alias was a product of ironic reasons. Liz couldn't know until the aforementioned 'information' was given, but those two choices were the most reasonable ones.

Liz tapped on her phone again.

// Well? What's this information you speak of, then? \\

@gabby ||

[Deleted]

"Should we?" She asked, turning her head slightly to the side, as if looking to an invisible person that she expected to be standing there. Of course, there wasn't, at least not one that people could see. She tended to have a bit of a mental image of what she imagined Noah looked like - or at least just the outline of him in her mind where she imagined that he would be standing. Regardless - she waited for his input. "I hope you know what you're doing here and this isn't some kiddy crush, Noah."

"Security systems are now disabled, traffic cams are on a loop... We are now off the grid once more. Shall I activate some dramatic flair?"

As Gabby began to walk forward and make her way down the stairwell of the parking garage to the ground floor, putting a bit of thought into it as she moved, adjusting the cover to her nose and mouth, the sunglasses, and her hat. Did she really want to go that route with the idea?

She did.

"Go for it." She said with a laugh, and the moment that a figure emerged from the door to the steps across the way from Liz Evander, she began marching forward, and as she came to the edge of the light generated by the streetlight she would have passed under, the light flickered and went out. she moved towards the bench, and as she closed the distance in the now-dark square of street, the nearby lights flickered out and Gabriella walked forward nonchalantly and dropped into a seat on the opposite side of the bench from Liz, reaching up and tapping a little device resting on her neck that would distort her voice when she spoke.

"Pamela Opal, major shareholder of IRIS labs has her hands in a lot of shady things.." As she began, the reporters email pinged with an email loaded with image files of a variety of compromising positions of the older female stockholder including her sitting in a room with a number of young men and women in minimal dress, their arms bound by zip ties - none of them looking like they were exactly willing to be there. The next had her standing and speaking to a number of known mobsters, with a number of attached police files connected to the aforementioned mobsters that she was sitting at a diner table with sharing a nice conversation. These were just a few of the things that Peacekeeper had seemingly churned up, eventually culminating in one rather graphic image of the older woman with a mistress. "As you can see. But it get deeper."

The email pinged again, and the second one had bank statements. Statements that had effort put in to hide them, with various shady dealings and abnormalities outlined - including evidence of extorting money and laundering through different businesses she held stock in. "There's also a rumor that she was involved in the murder of an upstart vigilante in the Bronx but... I couldn't confirm that other than the kids body being found in the river."