Chapter 49

Tiff wondered how many faces a cheerleader had. Stereotypically, they were often described as two-faced, befitting the catty, mean-girl persona. But limiting the number of faces to 2 felt…superficial. As if it suggested the cheerleaders themselves were two-dimensional. Like there could only be left or right, good or bad, kind or mean.

Hero or villain?

Irrelevant.

Cheerleaders were anything but flat. In fact, Tiff would place a mediocre-sized bet that most successful cheerleaders learned how to weaponize their vibrancy, full of life and bounce. But even that felt insincere in describing the depth of a cheerleader’s character, making them sound more like predatory sharks circling the weak and defenseless male heart than a high school girl.

And Tiff wanted to do the cheerleader species justice, not lump them into a convenient take-out bag. They were a fascinating creature, indeed.

At least according to Tiff’s incredible sample size of 1.

So what had caused this case of introspection? Candice, exhibit A, was smiling at one of the mathematically-inclined boys (exhibit B).

The smile in question could be described as one of the following.

It wasn’t the “I’m really into you, please give me your number” smile (diagram 1).

It wasn’t the “I’m-leading-you-on” fake smile reserved for people trying to hit on her that she clearly wasn’t interested in, but at the same time wanted something from (diagram 2).

It wasn’t the pinched “I’m only smiling to make you go away” smile, forcefully projected at offensive idiots who thought they were cooler than they were and yet were too dense to get the hint that they were not, in fact, cool (diagram 3).

It was the “You’re a pleasant person to talk to, and we have things in common” smile reserved for idle conversation between acquaintances (diagram 4).

So, members of the jury, Tiff would like to propose that cheerleaders had a minimum of 4 faces, and, Your Honor, she would like a recess.

No, really. Why did recess get abandoned after 6th grade? Was it because 7th graders suddenly found it embarrassing to play on the swings? Perhaps, if Setma High ever fell under Tiff’s protection as one of her Controlled Areas, she would consider adding a jungle gym as a potential upgrade.

But the time for internal musings was coming to an end, as Candice’s conversation wrapped up and she took her seat next to Tiff in Homeroom.

“That was…Dillon, was it?” Tiff asked.

Candice’s eyes went wide and her head snapped back in the direction of the kid she was just talking to. The poor boy’s prey instincts flared and he froze. He started looking around the room wildly, probably feeling that phantom tingle of being watched.

“Tiff,” Candice said, her voice low and filled with awe, “You remembered somebody else’s name!”

Tiff gave the girl a flat stare.

“You know I am trying, right?”

Candice stood up, raised her arms, and addressed the class as a whole.

“Dillon! Congratulations! Tiff has remembered your name!”

The rest of the class paused to stare at the back of the room. Tiff groaned, put her arms over her desk, and slowly slumped her head into them.

She could hear the amusement in her classmates’ voices.

“Hallelujah!”

“There is a god!”

“Wait, what did Dillon do wrong? His days are numbered!”

“RIP Dillon, you’ll be missed.”

“Do you hate me?” Tiff’s muffled voice muttered through her arms.

“Relax,” Candice smirked. “As your public relations manager, this is part of the plan.”

“Is it…working?”

“We’re playing the long game.”

Candice gave Tiff a cheeky smile before turning serious.

“Enough about that. I have some updates from our new friend.”

“Sugar Rush?” Tiff asked.

“Yup. It seems like-“

Whatever it was, Candice got cut off by the bell. The cheerleader gave the front of the room a speculative look as Mr. Hendricks entered, as punctual as usual.

“Lunch,” Candice decided in a rushed whisper. It seemed Tiff had an appointment.

​

“What do you know about Hacienda?” Candice asked as she took her seat at the lunch table.

“Not that much,” Tiff admitted. She observed the people watching Candice with a frown. Most people didn’t care who sat where at lunchtime, though plenty of people found it curious that a cheerleader would sit with a nobody. Most of them lost interest after the second week of Candice joining Tiff at her table, but some seemed to take issue with the continued fraternization. Perhaps something to keep in mind. “It borders Setma and Santa Ronda, right?”

“And Fullerton,” Candice nodded. “But that’s not really important. Do you know its history?”

“No?” Tiff answered with an amused smile. “Should I?”

“It’d be weird if you did,” Candice sighed, digging into her lunch. Today was "Italian Day” in the cafeteria, which was probably an affront to all real Italians everywhere. It featured offerings such as small slices of mediocre pizza that had sat under the heat lamp for far too long, “calzones” that were little more than glorified Hot Pockets (though they were far better than they had any right to be), and lasagna with meat sauce.

Tiff went with a calzone and a brownie with the texture and durability of a brick. She looked at Candice’s slice of lasagna and understood why students would choose it. Compared to the pizza -slice and -pocket, which were likely delivered by a Little Caesar’s equivalent, the lasagna was made fresh. It had a decent amount of burnt cheese on top, but the real kicker was that the portion size was double the other options. Unbeatable value. The only reason Tiff didn’t go with lasagna was that she got spoiled by her mom’s cooking and couldn’t look at other lasagnas the same way.

“The only reason I know about it,” Candice continued, oblivious to Tiff’s commentary on lunch, “Was because I got an unwanted history lesson from Sugar Rush.”

“…she called you to tell you about Hacienda’s history?” Tiff asked blankly. Of all the things she expected of an up-and-coming Sidekick, that was not it.

“Well, no, not exactly,” Candice huffed, blowing a strand of hair out of her face. “But the conversation just flowed that way. Can you believe I was on the phone talking to Sugar Rush for 2 hours last night? Girl can yap, yo.”

No, honestly, Tiff couldn’t believe it. Sure, she fundamentally understood that plenty of people stayed up all night talking on the phone. Just…not her. How did people have that much to say?

“Is she much of a history buff?” Tiff asked. She was building a mental profile of the Sidekick, and it was looking…weird. So far it consisted of helium, donuts, and extremely niche microhistory.

“Not so much,” Candice denied. “She’s just very passionate about Hacienda. Like, I mean, very passionate. Totes obsessed. But I suppose you kinda have to be if you’re gonna put your neck on the line and fight crime, right? Who’s gonna go to war for a slum they don’t care about?”

“Hacienda isn’t a slum,” Tiff pointed out. It was distinctly average in her opinion, being equal to Setma in her previously perceived danger level before she got access to a cheating map that let her see details like this for free. Not that she’d fully looked for gangs and stuff, but that was on the menu.

“Not anymore it isn’t, but let me tell ya, according to Sugar Rush, it’s had its ups and downs.”

And so, because Candice was subjected to an overblown telling of Hacienda’s history, she made Tiff sit through one, too.

Hacienda, along with much of the surrounding area, was a whole lot of nothing in the early 1900s. Once the late 40s rolled around, however, people wanted to move into new suburbs full of freshly built houses courtesy of the G.I. Bill. The future looked bright: the world didn’t pull itself to pieces under the strain of multiple Meta-escalated conflicts and it was time to kick back, relax, and enjoy the fruits of their labors.

In reality, history wasn't nearly as shiny as rose-tinted lenses would suggest, but once upon a time, Hacienda was a small, brand-new community. As all neighborhoods do. It experienced a boom of growth, stability, and success, where everything was bright, exciting, and new, and the world felt like it was at the peak of potential.

But the veneer of perfection couldn’t last forever. Even if those new families and hopeful entrepreneurs had a solid foundation to start with, they built their house with faulty materials. Metaphorically, the general outlook of the people back then, even when planning for “the future,” was incredibly short-sighted and hardly considered the ramifications of their actions beyond the end of the decade. Everybody thought “new nuclear” was the way of the future…it was not. And physically faulty, too, because not all the contractors hired to build those new homes were the upstanding, trustworthy professionals they claimed to be. To save on cost, or maybe to line their own pockets, they often used low-quality materials (sometimes replacing higher-quality ones), and construction suffered. Some houses turned into ticking time bombs, inching closer to falling apart with every passing month (instead of year).

That wasn’t to say the entire city was one big facade or sham. But it did affect the quality of people attracted to move there as the decades rolled on. The general populace slowly declined as well-to-do families moved out, wanting something more stable or permanent, and were replaced by families willing to settle for less.

By the 70s, crime picked up. Expansion was too rapid for the poorly thought-out city planning of the time, leaving newer neighborhoods too dense for struggling law enforcement to keep up with while older ones fell into disrepair. The worst of the original buildings were condemned, either falling into ruin or being bought out for cheap to “redevelop the land.” While it might look nice on paper, the apartments and condos that went in weren’t any better, and only contributed to the mess. Drugs were on the rise as people tried to escape the shattered vision of “the future” they trapped themselves in, and petty violence like mugging and pickpocketing became an everyday norm.

The 80s weren’t much better as the pendulum swung the other way. People cried out for justice…so “justice” was what they got. An increased police presence didn’t magically make everything better; it only made the existing problems flare up worse. Old kingpins were reluctant to give up or give in, and of course, not everybody in the force was on the up and up. The average citizen suffered.

The 90s had riots. Much could be said but little needed to be. Everybody and their brother’s history class had an insight (or opinion) on how things could have gone better or what could have been done to avoid such a fate. Hopefully, they learned their lesson for the future.

But all of that sounded like doom and gloom, and despite the retelling looking like the opener for a cheesy post-apocalyptic serial novel, things weren’t actually that bad. Hacienda wasn’t Chicago, New York, or Detroit. The neighborhoods had their ups and downs, riding the graph paper like a proper sine wave. Enough good counteracted the bad; the teetering scales of power balanced out, and people carried on. Or maybe they simply didn’t have anywhere else to go.

So that left Hacienda in a state similar to many urban cities around the country: dusty, a little banged up, sporting a band-aid or two, with some scuffs on the clothing. Bad enough to know it needed to be fixed, but good enough to not want to spend the money on improving decades-old infrastructure. Like many other places, the greater city turned into smaller circles featuring varying degrees of affluence and crime, and the two sometimes overlapped. Where the affluence was greater, more resources were poured to sweep the crime under the rug. Where it was lesser…something else was needed.

And that’s where home-grown Metas like Sugar Rush stepped in. People with the power to do something about the problems in their communities who didn’t want to move away where the world was “better”...either through pay, Class advancement potential, or exposure to the spotlight. The people who wanted to see their communities flourish…because they lived there. They were husbands, wives, sons and daughters. Friends. Neighbors.

“So basically,” Candice said, looking rather tired after doggedly giving Tiff the Cliff Notes version of the story, “Sugar Rush’s whole family has always lived in Hacienda. Her grandma, that sweet old lady running that ice cream shop, moved in at the very beginning. She’s probably told the poor girl all sorts of stories about ‘the good old days’ and how ‘everything is always sliding downhill’.”

“So our Sidekick isn’t in it for fame or glory,” Tiff nodded. “She’s fighting for an ideal.”

“I’m not sure what’s worse,” Candice grimaced. “But that’s what we’ve got to deal with.”

“So did she tell you anything of tangible value?” Tiff asked. “Like where specific gangs operate or what buildings to stay out of? Or was your whole 2 hours spent on a history lesson?”

“Nothing concrete,” Candice said. “I’ve got some notes on where Sugar Rush thinks players are active. But, for better or worse, she’s firmly set on the light side of the Greyscale. I don’t think it would ever occur to her to bust down the door to some of these hideouts and take matters into her own hands.”

“Sounds frustrating,” Tiff mused, “For an aspiring hero. I suppose that’s where I come in. What did you call me? An ‘Informational Specialist’?” Tiff snorted. “That’s pretty accurate. Did she give you any specifics or leads?”

“As a matter of fact, she did!” Candice smirked.

But even Tiff could see that a crowded cafeteria probably wasn't the most secure place to discuss such delicate matters in greater detail. Once the two were done eating, they retreated to the library and squirreled themselves away into one of the private study nooks. Candice pulled out a stack of heavy math textbooks to give the illusion of working on homework, and to anybody looking in, she appeared to be stressing out over an upcoming calculus test. Next to her, Tiff propped up her TAS tablet.

“So what are we looking at here?” Candice asked, watching Tiff manipulate the map to focus entirely on Hacienda. Tiff kept the black-and-green wireframe model view because it was what she was used to, even though she could make the map look like a satellite view if she wished. It took a little getting used to, not imagining buildings being hollow, but there was a reason a few of them were colored.

“See these green shaded buildings? Those are mine.”

Tiff pointed around the map at about a dozen buildings, mostly businesses. Tiff hadn’t been to all of them, so she couldn’t say what most of them were without tapping on them. A few were easily recognizable, such as Haxor’s Phish and Chips.

“You know, for a high schooler, you sure own a lot of businesses,” Candice muttered. Tiff scoffed.

“It’s not like I actually own them.”

“Tiff,” Candice said in a flat tone, “They pay you money.”

“It’s protection,” Tiff shrugged. “I’m closer to a landlord than an owner.”

“Oh, that makes it so much better,” Candice sighed sarcastically. “You know how well that worked out for serfs in the Middle Ages.”

Hmm. That certainly gave extra meaning to Tiff’s Dark Queen moniker, but they weren’t here to turn Hacienda into a fief.

“So, what area does Sugar Rush usually patrol?” Tiff asked.

“She didn’t say,” Candice replied. “Though I’m not sure if it’s because she was smart enough not to tell a random stranger she just met what her routine looks like, or if she was too busy rambling and it slipped her mind. From the sound of things, all over. And from what I can tell, she really is the group’s patrol car. With her speed, she can just zoom around town looking for trouble.”

“She’s that fast?” Tiff asked.

“Fast is relative,” Candice replied with a waggle of her hand. “Compared to you or me? Very fast. You specifically?” Candice smirked. “She’s like lightning.”

“Ha. Ha,” Tiff droned out in a monotone voice.

“Compared to other Speedsters?” Candice continued. “I’m guessing the higher end of average? I don’t have much to go on besides what I found from the DMArchive. She can cruise around town at, like, 50 miles per hour, and she does it all day, so I think she’s pretty fast. Her thing might be more endurance than raw output. And, get this- she’s a very public figure. People in the area know her well enough to treat her like a motorcycle when she’s running down the road. That’s what the high-vis suit and the goggles are for…when running at high speeds, apparently she uses the streets more than sidewalks.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Tiff muttered. “There’s gotta be laws about that.”

“Eh, not my problem,” Candice shrugged. “And if there are? She probably knows them. Sugar Rush seems to be the type of person who’d go out of her way to make sure she can run legally wherever she wants.”

“So we should assume her coverage is the entire city of Hacienda,” Tiff said. “That’s pretty good. Is there really so much crime that her team can’t stay on top of things even with that amount of surveillance?”

“She can only be in one place at a time,” Candice countered. “And regardless of that, her partner needs to be able to get to where she’s at. Bogard is a fighter, remember? And Sugar Rush isn’t. So she can’t engage if he’s not around. And, on top of all that, once they do coordinate a place to engage? That’s kind of it. Gotta commit, you know?”

“I guess,” Tiff nodded. It didn’t sound like what she knew of heroes…but then again, Tiff could admit her perception was skewed. If it wasn’t a Saturday morning cartoon, Tiff’s image of “Hero” in her head was Big Time, who was the Super Hero, or her parents…who treated it like a 9-to-5 job.

“So…,” Tiff said, changing tracks. “[Enforcers]. In Hacienda. Threatening muh business. We stopped two at the Tinkerer’s shop,” Tiff pointed to one of the green buildings. “But Haxus made it sound like the whole city is under siege.”

Tiff could see a handful of orange-shaded buildings, ones that weren’t under her control but were potentially being harassed. They were neutral, and Tiff assumed if she freed them from the tyranny of small-time thugs, they would turn green. Would those businesses also become hers? Would they start owing her money? Unlike the 24-Heaven, these places had no reason to pay her consistently, right? It wasn’t like every small shop in the city was a money laundering operation. And how was the 24-Heaven actually laundering cash? Perhaps she didn’t want to know.

“Doesn’t that seem like a lot of [Enforcers] to you?” Tiff asked with a frown. “For how small the percentage is for Metas in the whole population, doesn’t that feel a bit…high?”

“Technically, aren’t there ways to become Meta?” Candice asked. “Like me, for example. My Class upgraded my stats, and now I’m in the Meta bracket. I wasn’t before. But yeah, that’s what I thought, too. Sugar Rush and I talked about it, and there’s got to be something boosting people beyond what they normally are.”

“Even then, I’d think it would take time for people to gain enough levels from the System to increase their Stats,” Tiff frowned. “And that’s after unlocking a Class capable of steering their life in that direction.”

“Yeah,” Candice nodded. “Seemed suspect to us, too. That’s why we think it’s drugs.”

“Drugs?” Tiff asked sharply. The temperature in the nook dropped as her aura flared and Candice shuddered.

“Easy,” she said, glancing at Tiff warily before shaking it off. “I’m on your side. And this is just what Sugar Rush told me! She could be lying, I guess, but we have no way of knowing unless we do some digging ourselves.”

“What kind of drug could turn somebody into a Meta?” Tiff muttered. “You’d think if something like that existed, it’d be all over the news. It’d cost a fortune and people would be climbing over each other for a small taste.”

“Well, apparently it’s highly illegal,” Candice replied grimly. “And highly unstable. It’s an ultra-underground, super-unstable drug that’s cruising around the underworld. Nobody knows where it’s coming from or who’s making it.”

“So who’s supplying it?” Tiff growled. “It better not be one of my guys. I explicitly forbade the 5th Streeters from dabbling in drugs.”

“Well, maybe you’ve got some holes in your ship,” Candice suggested. “It’s finding its way into the world somehow. And it might not even be your gang; there’s plenty of other gangs out there and something like this is apparently too good to pass up.”

“What’s it even called?” Tiff asked.

“Meta-Night.”

Tiff blinked.

“Like the Smash Brothers character?”

“What?” Candice gave her a funny look. “No. Like…you’re a Meta, for a night. And then there’s like a 50-50 chance it melts your brain or something equally grim. There’s a reason it’s black market stuff.”

“Looks like we’ve got some hunting to do,” Tiff said, full of resolve. “I won’t be having any of this in my city.”

But the more Tiff thought about it, the more…plausible it sounded? Not necessarily believable. But plausible. There were too many tropes, movies, and other assorted Hollywood plots about this very thing for it not to be a possibility in real life. Clearly something was going on.

And what did they really know?

There were too many [Enforcers].

It could be a rival Villain bringing in their own muscle. It could be drugs. It could be both. It could be something entirely unrelated.

Tiff couldn’t do much about [Enforcers] except maybe hunt them down on her map. It would be painfully slow since she didn’t have a search function and she’d have to follow random people around, listening for context clues or randomly stumble across somebody doing something illegal. While not the worst usage of her time ever, there were definitely better things she could focus on. Such as locating drugs.

Like the [Enforcers], Tiff couldn’t search and highlight “Meta-Night” before watching it magically pop up all around the city. And unlike [Enforcers], which were people and usually quite large, unknown pills or a powdery substance was likely very small. It could be hidden in any number of inconvenient or devious locations.

And as for why the police or official heroes haven’t done anything about it yet?

Well, searching every nook and cranny in an entire city wasn’t exactly feasible, was it? Nor was busting into a house or apartment without a warrant legal. At this point, there were simply too many barriers to even consider calling in the police.

But now that Tiff had a potential partnership with Sugar Rush…she could see the beginnings of a plan taking shape.

First, they’d need a little more information from The Rush to narrow down her search. Suspicious apartment blocks? Cul-de-sacs of dubious outward appearances? Anything to cut down the sheer bulk that needed to be checked.

Once they had a location, Tiff could use her TAS to search for illicit goods. Unlike the main city view, Tiff could identify items when she was zoomed in far enough. For example, she could zoom into the library she was sitting in and see that somebody in the nook two spots over had a can of Pepsi hidden under their hat on the table. Tiff couldn’t track “Pepsi” across the city…which was a good thing, because her entire map would be peppered with tiny highlighted dots. Or maybe that was an upgrade she would receive later down the line when she leveled up more? But for the sake of the mission, Tiff was willing to devote at least a couple of afternoons virtually snooping through apartments looking for drugs.

And on the off-chance she actually found any? What then?

Stage a coordinated drug theft?

Strictly speaking…not legal. But who was going to complain about it? It wasn’t like a druggie was going to march up to the cops and complain that their drugs were stolen. And unlike the cops…Heroes (or at least Vigilantes) didn’t care quite as much about due process. All Tiff had to do was get the drugs to one of them and suddenly they weren’t her problem anymore. And as it just so happened? There was a convenient Sidekick who would be more than happy to work out a deal.

¹

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