Issue 1 Downtime

Miranda had crashed on one of the couches at Madison Heights. She had grabbed a soda from one of the vending machines and she cracked it open as she leafed through a folder that looked like a pile of news story printouts. Occasionally she made dots on a map of Maldon and the surrounding area with various colors from one of those multi-color pens. She never seemed to actually look at the map.

"What up, M? Randa? Mira? M'randa? Your name is really hard to turn into a nickname, you know that?" Zephyr says when she enters the room, tossing her jacket towards one of the tables where it slides off and falls onto one of the chairs. Just as planned, she would probably claim.

"Randa works," Miranda said with a chuckle. "How's it going, Zephyr?" Her face turned to look at Zephyr, but she also kept flipping through the stories and making dots.

"Going alright. There's all kinds of crazy rumors out there about what happened at the docks. Whatcha doing?"

"Something Char said got me thinking. She was right, though maybe not in the precise way that she meant it. I don't know her well enough to say that for sure yet. This is our town. And that asshole with the briefcase thought it was a suitable place to come peddle his shit. So I'm looking at problem zones in the area, and I'm going to do something about it. Start small and work up I guess you'd say."

"The only time Char's ever right is when she doesn't know it." she chuckles. "What did you find so far?"

"Anti-social behavior seems to be the crime of choice around here," she chuckles, fishing out a piece of paper with a pie chart on it. "Still, there's a bothersome amount of violent crime and theft and it looks like drug crime's not unheard of either. I figure if we can clean up the other messes, it'll make the big fish easier to spot. That is if you want a piece of the action."

"I dunno... That doesn't really seem like it's our responsibility. Not even sure if they'd want us to solve their shit for them."

"They probably don't, but they're not solving it and we have to live here too. Or close to here, in your case," she said, teasing.

"Yeah but that stuff's just... stuff. I mean the drug shit is kinda nasty, I guess..." she admits.

"Well, let's start with that. The other stuff is kind of hard to catch in progress anyways, even for me. Once we sort out the little fish dealers, it'll be easier to find the big fish we're looking for I think."

"Busting drug dealers is risky. They tend to not be a big fan of that."

"There's some risk, yeah. But I'm not a big fan of their activities either, so we'll call it even on that front. I'm still figuring out how to approach this. I don't plan on going out and kicking in doors tonight."

"Well, we better come up with a good plan because neither of us is bullet-proof. And I don't know if you can talk Char into doing something for the 'good of the community'."

"We can phrase it as 'keeping assholes out of her town'. That seems to be the button to push."

"Just don't try to manipulate her. She'll notice and she'll be rightfully pissed. I prefer when she's pissed at other people, because I like my eyebrows." she chuckles.

"It's not manipulation to have complementary goals, but your point is well taken," she said with a chuckle, "I rather like my eyebrows too."

"Just be upfront with her. Just don't show her that chart. At least some of those are her fault."

"I'm so surprised by that," Miranda said with a smirk and a chuckle.

"Hey uhm... some of them are my fault too..." she carefully admits.

"I'm not here to judge," she said with a chuckle. Then she glanced at the papers and the map, "Well, not judge you guys at any rate. I like you guys."

"Aww gee, we like you too M." she smiles. "And we don't hurt people. Just... sometimes money is sparse or some stupid human thinks they can shove us around." she shrugs slightly.

"Understandable. So you're a mutant too? Not that that matters, of course. Just curious."

"Oh, yeah. I thought you would have figured." she grins sheepishly.

"I try not to assume and there wasn't anything obvious," Miranda said. "For all I knew you could just be a nice girl who likes to dye her hair."

"And who has access to a bottomless pit." she says and reaches into her pants-pocket and pulls out a huge flashlight.

"That's pretty sweet," Miranda said, leaning forward excitedly.

"Fits pretty much anything! Well, not, like, buildings and shit, but still. I tried to fill it up with water once to see how much would go in there. I got bored after a couple hours."

"And you just think about what you want from it and pull that out?"

"Yeah! How'd you know? It's like I just find what I'm looking for no matter how much stuff I cram in there."