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BK – Chapter 4

Kenzington filled the screen with at least a dozen portraits with a flick of a hand, the pictures floated at the center of the dark office nearly the size of a small auditorium. He ordered them male, female, oldest to youngest and left the room to fix Solmon some tea. The advanced panoramic screen filled the room with the gastly images leaving the portraits looking like ghosts floating in the dark. Solomon plopped down into the ergonomic chair and adjusted accordingly to get maximum comfort. He pulled himself up to his console as Kenzington approached his side with his choice of tea and just a few drops of milk and a few drops of nutritional supplements. Solomon picked up the tea studying the images that floated across the screen.
“Good work Kenzington…” Solomon spoke softly as he sipped his tea.
“Analyzing the trespasser’s DNA was a bit difficult but once I had a good match, ran a query on the social security database – I didn’t have to dig far sir. The information was there so plainly in sight.” Kenzington picked up the left over tea and exited the room as Solomon continued to survey the images and digest the profile information slowly scrolling below. Solomon could feel rejuvenated as the specially blended formula worked quickly through his body. He felt like he could pull an all nighter to strategize and research, then go clean up some crime in Megapolis’s streets… but he knew better than to waste his energy. Besides, the formula’s potency doubly increased with a few restful hours of sleep. Focus was key in getting things done and what happened last night was a direct attack on Richards Conglomerate, and he was going to prepare for a counter strike, he was not happy.
He motioned at each of the cards and each flipped over with a more detailed information of each employee. Kenzington spoke, but not breaking his maintenance activities around Solomon. “All trespassers were former employees of Genentech and upon further research into Genetech’s HR department each was terminated around the same time after working on similar projects in the Gene Therapy department. All personnel information was wiped off the servers but there was some dirty laundry overdue to be unexpurgated, which was how I found the details.”
“Kenzington your getting real good at this computer stuff” Solomon stated nodding his head in approval.
“Yes sir, its pretty amazing how many things you can learn on Youtube”
Solomon snickered, “Right… HERA bring up a map of the employees residencies.”
The computer screen blinked an image or HERA’s rose pink renaissance logo, which was the console’s operating AI and had a map of Megapolis highlighting the Genetech campus, in particular the scientist Dorm buildings. Solomon sighed and shook his head. He motioned with two hands to grab the map and brought the map onto the floor console raising it up to his waist creating an image that Kenzington was waddling through the room cleaning up and monitoring some computer progresses, looking like giants in the middle of Megapolis.
“Man, I love this new feature”, with his hand on top of the Genentech building bringing up a few articles floating above the building. He opened his hand and opened up multiple articles that headlined Genetech’s attempt to buy into Solomons Conglomerates. He highlighted a few articles and threw the articles into his hand held console to read later. Nothing looked out of place at first glance, many companies try to buy into his conglomerate stocks as they were on the stock exchange. He scrolled through a second level of articles to see anything out of place. He didn’t see anything as…
“Bingo” Solomon read out loud, “Six Company Coupe fails as stocks for Richards Conglomerate soars despite ruined annual ball. Just released thirty minutes ago… why was I not notified about this stock buyout?!”
Almost on cue his hand held console blinked a green light notifying him of a message. He leapt over to see the new message alerting him regarding the stock buyout.
“ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?” Solomon smashed the console on the ground and quickly scanned the article still floating in the air. Kenzington without hesitation, placed a new hand held console on the dock and sweeped up the busted mess that sprawled from main street to fourth.
“Sir, you must keep yourself tempered or..”
Solomon interrupted in a bitter voice, “Kenzington, please see to it that the message servers are functioning correctly and I would like a full assessment of the companies that tried to buy us out… and yes, I apologize for my behavior…” Solomon looked up at Kenzington after scanning the article, “See, I am trying to be nice, but you can’t expect me to be nice when something like this happens.”
Kenzington smirked a bit and shook his head. “Your father had a saying.” In almost synchronized harmony he recited one of his father’s ten commandments.
The two hummed, “A level head in a time of crises could mean the difference between victory and defeat.”
“I swear, I can put money on it. I have more of my mother’s gene’s than my fathers.”
A few hours later the antagonists faces were painted across the panoramic screen with the CEO’s below each company.
The leader of the the financial company, “X” Benjamin which so leads us to his younger brother a fat chubby fellow. Of course there is the visionary extravagant of the new future releasing product not yet used by all, but striving to do so. Greg Gohmi. Biotech is one of the weaker of the bunch, but still one to be rekoned with in size. Media is a ghost, with so much turnaround at leadership but there are whispers of a real leader there. But, finally Genentech. Out of all of these a middle of the pack company that sent over these uninvited guests.
“What a dastardly bunch… Boring isn’t quite the word for them. Bring up the feed from a few nights ago. I believe I visited one of these companies…”
“Bingo, was his name – o. Check this drug connection from HERA’s data logs.”
“Do you believe they found you out sir?”
“That is the obvious response, but my intuition states that they have no idea.” Kendrick sneered.
“Irritating, annoying to say the least. I’m going to bring the hammer down on their illegal activities. I’ll burn them down with all their drugs and money so fast…”
“Sir, a level head…”
“Right… burning that much narcotics would just make the whole city intoxicated and addicted to drugs. To the drawing board Kenzington! We’re at war…”
—
“Amassing documents and articles Jackie worked unceasingly in the school office. It was amazing what the library had on file with maps and journals. Research material that no
Kendrick wasn’t happy with all these things happening starting from the day they ran into that stupid CEO. He was pompous, arrogant, and wasn’t as smart as he looked. Only cause of his good looks were the only reason people liked him. There were rumors everywhere the kid didn’t do anything but play video games all day as board members ran his company. What’s up with the CEO moniker they gave the kid when he wasn’t doing anything.
He looked across the table to his girlfriend, another day, same research material. She had scoured every public record available and still had not found enough “information”. All this for a school paper he thought. She’s in line to make a name for herself but Kendrick didn’t think she needed to exert herself this much for the small fries that would read this in the school newspaper.
“Jackie”, Kendrick tried to get her attention. “Jacqueline…” He tore a corner of a piece of his notes and threw it across to her. She swatted it away reflexively. “Yo…” Jacqueline slowly looked up from a few articles she had opened up from older newspapers of twenty some odd years ago.
Finally getting her attention Kendrick asked, “Want to get something to eat?”
“No, no… I have a lot of research to do…” She shook her head ever so minutely. She knew he wasn’t happy at her response. They hadn’t done anything in such a long time. Kendrick obviously knew what the priorities were.
“Seriously…” He had brought her breakfast, brought her lunch, but he had to draw the line at dinner and Jackie knew.
“You don’t have to bring me anything and I’m probably not going to leave here any time soon so don’t wait up. The weekends are really the only times I have enough time to research.”
“You got to be kidding me, you research every DAY…” He stood up and gathered his belongings. “Alright Jackie, I’m outta here.”
Jackie didn’t say goodbye further infuriating Kendrick. He just shook his head and walked away. As he walked towards the sunset he heard a loud growl from his stomach. Great, he thought. What shall I eat today? Maybe some more ramen. Ramen was indeed his favorite food. All types of ramen, but any of the spicy variety would do for today. Jacqueline and Kendrick hadn’t spoken legitimately in a few weeks now and Kendrick wasn’t sure when they would speak. They lived in apartments just across from each other, traveled to school together, traveled back, which might have been the most conversation they struck… but with summer coming quickly that only meant finals in a few weeks. What could he do? He thought. Bummer… Wonder what his gamer friends he hadn’t spoken with in a long time were doing tonight. Maybe he’d eat with them, but first he’d have to swing by his apartment to lay down his belongings where he saw a familiar, slightly terrifying sight.
Long, silvery, white hair fluttered in the wind in conjunction to a grey – silver coat pressed in perfect condition. The man’s face had long features with a distinct slight scowl to his thin silvery grey eyebrows letting you know he always meant business.
“M-m-mister Jennings! I-I-… Surprised to meet you here!”
Mr. Jennings gave a slight smile and walked over to give Kendrick a strong pat on the back nearly sending  his body flying into the concrete ground. He let out a nervous laughter.
“How’s my man doing?! Everything is going well with Jackie I presume!”
“Y-y-es sir! Ha hah ha…” Kendrick was always nervous around Jackie’s father. He was a well disciplined man and a strongly religious one at that.
“Don’t be nervous, after all these years and my future son in law still gets the jitters around me! Ha ha ha!” Mr. Jennings gave another strong pat on the back. That one would leave a mark on Kendrick’s back as he tried to rub it down with more nervous laughter.
“What brings you here today?”
“Business, and I thought I’d stop by! Its not everyday I can swing by to check up on you two.”
“Jacqueline is in the library, she’s been working on a project for the past few weeks. She’s on to something big.”
The look of pride emerged from Mr. Jennings’ face, but no smile this time. “I wonder what it could be? Well, I guess I’ll see you around Kenny!”
“Y-yes sir!”
Mr. Jennings walked down the stairs of the apartment complex, his long hair fluttering in the breeze with his coat swaying behind him. Kendrick let out a sigh of relief as Mr. Jennings was a safe distance away before opening his door and walking in closing the door behind.
—
The sun had set on this day and Solomon had yet to leave his temple. He brought up X Company and found a thin trace to when his father had been the president of Richards Conglomerates. Something he wanted to look, if the past were only able to speak to him a bit more clearly. Kenzington had been working on the messaging servers and dropped by his work space with news that there had been a hitch in the system that had been resolved.
“Hey, Kenzington… Do you remember when my parents died… What did Company X have to deal with it?”
“Well, sir…. before these companies were all dissolved and broken apart into pieces they were all one just one company.” With a few taps and swipes Kenzington opened up a breakdown of Company X and its history with Richards Conglomerates. “Wow, so while Richards Conglomerates had been pulled together by my father, Company X managed to fall apart and break apart.”
“Well, from these press releases”, Kenzington pulled up simultaneous documents and threw them into the air. “it seems they weren’t to fall apart but intentionally broken apart. Weather in disputes and arguments or to minimize risk in finance.”
“Interesting, its obvious there is a lot of drama amongst the Brady Bunch.” Solomon sneered.
Kenzington continued his usual maintenance activities and interjected with a comment, “While I was doing some digging sir I did find some rumors to our drug imports from a few days back that just surfaced and you may want to pay a visit to one of our trading partners.”
“Are you kidding me? One of our partners? Unacceptable, cut them off now and let me build a case.”
“You may not want to cut them off from Richards Conglomerates as they are our largest East Asia trading partner… and I believe you will want to pay a visit to this one before doing anything.”
Kenzington flicked up a few images replacing the social diagram with some shipments marked Richard Conglomerates.
“They are using our name to ship the drugs in Asia, but we only have pictures of boxes that were released on the Internet on some forums.”
“…and so we need to verify the results, the best thing to do is to go in and hand check them ourselves… Well I guess I’ll have to choose to pursue our Sinister Six or our drug lead.”
“No you will not have to do sir.” Kenzington flicked up a last image onto the screen.
“This is the right hand man of Hillary Hamas, Genentech’s CEO and Owner. He was spotted in China around our shipments that marked each port from where the drug shipments were traced back from.”
“Great work, where did you manage to find this lead Kenzington?”
“Sir, you keep forgetting I worked for British Intelligence prior to becoming your family’s caretaker. I had max clearance to intelligence around the world. Something like this is low level material. Please don’t continue to undervalue my worth here sir. Your operation would never stay afloat without my cunning prowess and experience.”
Solomon grinned largely as he ran over to Kenzington and gave him a bear hug lifting his small frame from the ground causing his usually kept garb to crinkle before Solomon had dropped him to the floor and ran out the door shouting things to his automated home system to ready his personal jet with enough fuel to China and back.
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BK Chapter 2 – A Failed Request

Kendrick couldn’t believe his ears as his girlfriend continued to drone on and on about some boy clad in a suit of armor saving his ditz of a girlfriend in the middle of the night. Either she was making up a bunch of garbage like the articles she wrote as a student journalist, or she may actually be telling the truth this time.

“You gonna eat your sandwich, or you gonna keep talking gibberish?”

Without even noticing Kendrick had said anything she kept droning on and on about how she was captured by some mob leader named Yamamoto. She thought that her life was over, but couldn’t believe the things she was hearing as she opened up some mental journalism pad to make sure she took note of all the evil mob stuff that they would do.

Kendrick reached over and took Jacqueline’s sandwich off her plate and started to munch on her roast beef and avocado delight. He didn’t like it when she went off about her journalism projects or assignments. She obsessed over every journalism project she did and wanted her to just shut up and live in the moment at times, he had begun to have a certain penchant of hatred toward these moments. Kendrick wanted her to not record anything or wait for something to be recorded, which was exactly the reason why they had gotten into a fight the day before.

He finished her sandwich and got up to pay for the meal since he had eaten both sandwiches, as his girlfriend still hadn’t finished her story. He walked up to the register and paid for both meals. She hadn’t noticed that Kendrick had finished her sandwich and he had to pick up her bag and pick her up out of her chair to stop her from continuing her obsessive frenzy. He placed the bag on her and pushed her into a walking motion.

“Okay, that’s enough.”

“Okay, that’s enough of what?” Jacqueline looked back and blinked her eyes at Kendrick unsure of why he was so angry.

“Look, why don’t you write the stuff you say down, and maybe I’ll just read it on my free time. Can’t we talk about other stuff while we’re together?”

“But Kendrick! Aren’t you listening!? I almost died yesterday!”

“I don’t know what to believe that comes out of your mouth anymore.”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“No, but I’d be a liar if I said you didn’t have class right now. Here you go.” He placed her cell phone that she had left on the table into her hand. “Call me after class if your ready to talk about anything else that makes sense.”

She just didn’t get it. “Okay, see you in a few hours!”

Jacqueline began to traverse up the stairs towards her class. She tied up her hair with a hair tie she had wrapped around her wrist and tightened her shoulder straps of her bag. She couldn’t wait to write down the adventures that she had the night before. Jacqueline was sure her journalism project would blow away all the other students in class.

She stood five feet seven. Slightly tall, with long hair tied into a neat ponytail. She wore a plaid skirt and a plain white dress shirt. A neat skinny black tie added accent to her outfit, as well as the cute green frog bag she had picked out for her last birthday Kendrick had bought for her as a present. To a degree she had a slightly child-like flare to her outfit. Cute was what she loved to aim for.

She checked her matching green frog watch and it finally clicked that she was late for class! She dashed through hallway to find her class at the end of the hallway. Jacqueline took a deep breath to stop panting, adjusted her outfit, and slightly cracked the door open to find the teacher had just set up to begin class. Ninja Journalism skills would have to be used to get to the nearest desk. She carefully opened the door, scuttled passed the first few desk, spun around past the backpack on the ground and quietly plopped herself into the seat and recomposed herself.

Jacqueline took out of her librarian- like, horn rimmed, large framed, black glasses from her backpack and brushed her bangs aside to softly place the glasses on her nose. She had picked these glasses with much detest from Kendrick. He said that the glasses were far too large for her face, old fashioned, and most of all stupid looking. Regardless, she liked the glasses and reasoned with him saying that she would only wear them for class, and since they didn’t have class together, he would eventually give in. Thinking about it now, Kendrick hadn’t liked anything that Jacqueline had picked out for her birthday.

Journalism became much of a passion for Jacqueline as she entered college. As she had entered college as an art major, she had a knack for drawing, sculpting, and was a natural using any artistic medium. However, taking an intro to journalism as a breadth requirement her second quarter of freshmen year completely rocked her world. So much so that she completely stopped pursuing art and decided to take up journalism as a life long passion. No matter how boring the teachers were, to Jacqueline, it didn’t matter. Journalism in itself, to her was beautiful.

Outside the building where Jacqueline had entered a few hours before, Kendrick was waiting for the call to come. He had finished lab a bit early as usual and was waiting for Jacqueline in front of her class as usual. He took a sip of his Americano and looked around the barren campus on the Wednesday afternoon. The air was still slightly moist from the rain that had come during the night. He put the drink down and stretched his hands toward the sky feeling a little tired. Programming all night had taken a toll on his body. Always the procrastinator, Kendrick couldn’t deny he was the worst of them all. Perhaps if there was a competition, he would be called the King of the Lazy People. Contrary to his girlfriend, Kendrick wasn’t too motivated to study. He liked computer science, or anything that hummed, buzzed, or whirred, which may have been the only deciding factor in finishing his programming assignments. But, to him none of it mattered. He knew going into the work place none of this studying would probably help him. He’d just have to relearn everything, as the company would want him to do something completely different.

Perhaps, even to Kendrick, his relationship with Jacqueline was something of a mystery. Being in a relationship with her really changed his personality. Relationships really weren’t something he was ready for, or even something that he was looking for. Almost in chance, nearly in chance, perhaps the only thing he could attribute it to was destiny? Or was it just random chance that they were together. The one part of his life he couldn’t figure out or grasp had to be Jacqueline.

His phone in his pocket rang a simple tune as he reached in to pick up.

“Hello?”

She spoke in a whisper; “I’m in the media library doing some research, meet me here!”

Kendrick heard the click on the other end as he was a little annoyed by his girlfriend’s actions as of late. Journalism had completely taken over her life.

He grabbed his side bag, coffee, and walked up the stairs that his girlfriend had walked up a few hours before and made his way to the media library.

The library was on the third level of the odd shaped building, and he climbed another flight of stairs. He clicked his ID card into the turn stalls and it beeped allowing him to walk into the library. Shortly after walking through the hallway he reached the large expanse circulation. The librarian at the circulation desk signaled for Kendrick to throw away his cup of joe due to the “no food or drinks” policy, so he took a long, scalding swig and dropped it into the trash can.

The library was a freezer. He zipped up his hoodie and proceeded maneuvering around the stacks of books and study areas. The media library, wasn’t it’s own library, but rather the whole left wing of the library. A big film reel statue denoted that he would be entering, as well as a vibrantly framed hallway display of newspaper articles, art works, photographs, and other prominent media snippets from alumni. The Megapolis Private University prided itself in only two categories, media related majors, and technology related majors. Everything else in between could be considered scrap metal, under funded, and understaffed.

He walked past stacks of books, more statues, rows and rows of computers, and came to the corner of the library where Jacqueline loved to study. He placed his belongings on the wide desk and sat in a seat adjacent to his girlfriend. She didn’t even look up.

“Hello?”

“I found him.”

“Excuse me?” Kendrick raised an eyebrow not understanding.

“The guy from last night.”

Kendrick didn’t like what he was hearing. “What guy…?”

”The guy that saved me. Hold on, just stand up really fast for me Kendrick.”

Kendrick reluctantly obeyed. Jacqueline’s eyes danced from Kendrick to her computer screen. She lifted up her laptop up to Kendrick’s face and shook her head as her eyes continued to dart from screen to Kendrick even faster now. Kendrick started to get annoyed.

“This better be good.”

“YES! FANTASTICO!!!”

Her eyes glimmered in the library lights as she twirled her laptop around revealing a side by side picture.

“This. This… right here. Is the reason why I am in Journalism. I am a Journalism Genius.
She began to give herself a fake hug as Kendrick didn’t understand what was happening.

“Jackie… Is this why we are here?”

Jacqueline’s eyes widened; she realized that Kendrick didn’t realize the similarity.

“Look Kendrick! You don’t see the resemblance?! You should have been there! That Jaw line, your hair style, your build, how you both stand! You should hear his voice! You guys even have the same speech pattern as well!”

Kendrick was starting to get irritated.

“Liar.” He began to gather his belongings. “This is ridiculous Jackie… Are you sure you didn’t just go to sleep early yesterday, take a sleeping pill?”

Jacqueline was already frivolously smashing away at her keyboard in a information gathering frenzy. Kendrick shook her shoulder and she looked up, continuing to hammer away at the keyboard. Her giant black glasses slid down her small nose because of the sweat that had formed from her concentration.

“You going to stay here, or we going to go eat dinner?”

“Dinner?” She pursed her lips, her mind slowly started to grasp a hold on Kendrick’s anger. To blow off the boyfriend, or to follow the one lead she had… Oh the humanity. Her eyes stared at Kendricks face unable to make a decision.

The tables had seemed turned in the past month with Jacqueline and Kendrick’s relationship. It had always been Jacqueline complaining to Kendrick about his lazy butt always lying around, uninterested. Still the miracle of Kendrick still being interested in Jacqueline was a contradiction to Kendrick’s personality, which in turn fascinated Kendrick by the attraction towards her.

Going into their third year of college they had decided to get apartments in the same complex across from each other. Rent was cut throat, but since Jacqueline’s family was well off, and Kendrick’s miracle grants and school funding, it would take a huge chunk out of their budget, but nothing to harm them much.

Finals were approaching and Jacqueline’s journalism projects had started to pile up. It was in that past month that she started to get a little radical with her journalism. Taking “The History of Criminalistic Journalism” paired with writing for the Megapolis Collegiate Post (A joint newspaper distributed at the three colleges in Megapolis) didn’t mix too well for Kendrick’s taste. Last night was the first time it seemed she decided to go looking for trouble in the Shady districts of Megapolis. Kendrick didn’t think that she would actually go.

So with the gears in her head finally coming to a conclusion, and her boyfriend staring into her brown eyes with an obviously irritated look on his face she proposed a compromise. She launched two words from her mouth with a great big smile on his face, hoping it would avert the nearly inevitable feud.

“FIVE MINUTES!”

Kendrick’s slightly rotated his head in curiosity and decided to give her a chance.

“Okay.” He squinted his eyes at his girlfriend furiously, focused and smashing away at her keyboard.

Jacqueline’s mind raced, her eyes widened. This had to be her ultimate test, no, race for her journalistic skills. She was determined to find some sort of method to communicate with Solomon Richards in five minutes. Email address, Phone number, place of work, home address, whatever she could find. One word was screaming inside her mind. “INTERVIEW.”
Solmon Richards let out a sigh as he reclined at his desk in his office room on the 144th floor of Richards Tower. He was dressed in a clean cut, skinny two button suit; black and red, pin stripes and all.

The room was silent, with only the hum of electronics filling the air. He whispered, “Nothing to do… night come quick.”

For the past two weeks since playing around with the suit of armor, everything else seemed so… dull. Nothing compared to the feeling of running through the night at sixty miles per hour, digging his feet into the pavement, the feeling of destiny between his fingertips. He raised his head as he could see the sky projected above his head. It was only a digital image projection, but it got the trick across to his senses. He breathed in deep and stretched his arms up above. He heard a slight beep, but decided to ignore it. Was it a conference call? Did he forget a prior engagement? He tried to view himself racing through the city line, tumbling through the air, jetting from roof top to roof t-.

He was stopped in mid thought as he heard the beep one more time. He looked at the projected image on his desk to see that there was an urgent email in his personal inbox.

“Rats, what now…?”

Solomon Richards froze. He read the first sentence of the email out loud.

I know who you are. Meet me at the rooftop you abandoned me at, midnight tonight. Or you won’t like what you’ll see in the news tomorrow!

Sincerely Signed,
^^V Rooftop Damsel in Distress

“Hell…” Solomon wasn’t sure what to do. He pushed a button to reach his secretary on the opposite side of the wall. “please call off the rest of the meetings for the day, due to illness.”

Day had finally turned to night as Solomon waited a distance from the rendezvous point. This wasn’t exactly how he thought he would be spending the night after the Yamamoto incident. He was early at the scene, and couldn’t help but feel antsy as midnight approached. He hadn’t given it much thought if his identity were to be revealed. Well, perhaps he did care, since he liked to keep a low key. Media and paparazzi had persistently tried and failed to glorify his boring life. They’ve been long gone for a while. This girl, may prove to be a thorn in his side if his identity as the crime fighting knight were to go public. What to do with this… problem. The next few moments would only tell, and he was already getting quite irritated with the situation.

He spotted a crack of light as the rooftop door opened. To his suprise he switched to infrared on his visors to see not just the girl that he had spotted, but a boy around her age walk out of the door. He shook his head. His first plan of action was to see what the girl wanted, and to see if he could remedy the situation without overreacting. Now, his patience was running thin. He ran across the roof top and launched himself toward the couple.
Jacqueline pushed the heavy door and motioned to Kendrick to hurry, midnight was quickly approaching. She was so excited, she could jump out her skin. She took a step out of the rooftop she had just been nearly 24 hours earlier. She could see her breath as the night was clearer but mcuh colder. Jacqueline looked around to see if the boy in the suit of armor was already there, but the rooftop was empty. She looked down at her frog watch and pressed a button to activate it’s neon green glow. Exactly midnight.

At that moment she heard a whirring and in the distance she saw a glow then the same armored knight launch himself off a nearby rooftop. He floated across the sky cape fluttering behind him and what looked like a graceful flight came slamming down onto the roof of the building. She saw him extend his arms onto the ground in order to increase the friction as the boots didn’t provide enough. It was a magnificint sight really, something straight out of a movie… took both Kendrick’s a Jacqueline’s breath away. Jacqueline because the moment had come to finally confront her mystery hero and Kendrick because he finally realized that his girlfriend hadn’t been lieing. Perhaps the shock hit Kendrick far worse as he started to gasp for air clutching his chest.
Solomon Richards didn’t like what he saw. He walked a clean circle around the two, not to intimidate them, but to inspect what he was up against.

“What do you want?”, the two didn’t respond. He repeated his question but there was still no response. He was getting even more irritated, but forgot that he had to either activate his forward speakers for vocal communication or release his visor over his face. He chose to go with vocal communications this time as he was wary of revealing his face for the second time. The suit in itself seemed to have a personality in itself, nearly teasing Solomon when it felt like, listening when it felt.

He vocalized the command, “Activate forward speakers”.

His voice cracked through with a digitized voicebox in his helmet. “What do you want?”

Solomon could see the girl’s eyes light up.

“I’m sorry about threatening to blackmail you, but I wasn’t sure if you would take me seriously if I hadn’t.”

Solmon simply shook his head in disbelief.

“I want an interview!”

Solomon almost reacted in instinct and growled, “idiot…” He was getting even more irritated. “Your wasting your time. Do both of us a favor and forget you just saw me.”

The girl shrank back seemingly scared, but a more determined look appeared in her eyes. “I’m not scared to use leverage!”

With that the boy reached into the girl’s oddly shaped, bright green backpack. Solomon saw the boy take out a large DSLR and he started snapping pictures of himself. At first Solomon was a little confused at their petty attempt, and slowly walked towards the two. His armor clinked as he gaited slowly at the male. The two froze but the DSLR continued to snap away. Solomon pryed the DSLR from the boys hands and tried to pop out the memory chip. However, since he forgot the power levels of his suit, the finger smashed into DSLR cracking the camera in two.

He grew even more irritated at his own forgetfulness. The pieces of the camera clattered to the floor. He played off the mistake as a tough guy act and tried to keep composure. He frantically searched for a tough guy line to scare them.

“Are you kidding me? Don’t contact me again and don’t you dare send any information to the media… Or…” He coolly paused. “I’ll kill you both.”

Before the two realized what had just happened, Solomon was three buildings away. No, make that four.

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BK Chapter 1 – A Mix Up

The night was cold, and the air smelled of salt. Solomon stared out from the ledge of the tallest building overlooking the Bay City. The sparkling lights slowly started to disappear as the fog rolled in to strengthen the scent of salt in the ocean air. From where he stood the city lied in a serene lull. To the eyes, Megapolis slept, so deceiving from the evil that thrived under the cover of darkness.

Honestly, Solomon knew that he was strange odd sight, standing at the ledge of a hundred-story building, scanning the city in an odd Batman-like suit wasn’t something everyone normally does. It had only been two weeks since he’d donned the powered suit his father had left him. A billionaire from a young age, his parents had left him with all the family had owned when they had died. With so much money, and no family or friends, except a servant, to share it with, life had been difficult, as he had grown up. He had never gotten over his families death, the sole survivor of what was thought to be some cataclysmic accident.

A swift breeze whipped across the top of the building signaling that the wind would soon pick up. Standing at the top of the tallest building of the city had its perks. Standing on the top of the tallest building that belonged to you, even better. When his family died, whatever belonged to his family went straight to Solomon Richards. Solomon became the sole owner of Richards Conglomerate and all of its branches. Bruce Wayne, had Wayne Enterprise, Solomon practically held the world in his hands.

Solomon heard a buzz as the radio uplink clicked to hear the familiar voice of his servant, “Sir, our sensors are indicating the storm will reach shore within the hour. I will upload the data to your suit.”

“I can see it from here Kenzington. I’ll probably be returning earlier than usual. Intelligence is harder to come up with when it rains”

“As you say, I’ll have fresh clothes and refreshments prepared.”

“Thanks Kenzington, you the best.”

As the radio connection clicked off, Solomon’s visor swooped into place covering/ protecting his face. He couldn’t get enough of it. The process of thought controlled most of the suit, and not even the latest technology could keep up with some of the things the suit could do. Best of all, it was a perfect fit, light as a feather, and he always had a hell of a fun time running around in it.

A message beeped and projected itself to his visor. With how advanced the suit’s technology was, it was relatively easy to configure and compatible with nearly anything he’d try to streamline with it. He cracked a smile as images and video of the location of Yamamoto, Jin. Solomon’s newest addition to his suit’s functionality was the ability to stream into the local camera network of Megapolis. Since every camera was on a different network, it had been a tedious process to hack into the various network camera feeds, and from there had run the feeds through the government’s face recognition database. All the sleepless nights had paid off with this lead. It was time to meet this thug.

Solomon stepped forward to the edge of the ledge. He spread out his arms and took one last deep breath and jumped. Falling from one hundred stories wasn’t something he had gotten used to yet, but he couldn’t get enough as his adrenaline pumped stronger as his barometer counted down his decent to earth.

For two weeks Solomon had been running around Megapolis at night fighting the creepy bad guys, looking for someone to beat up. Masquerading as some kind of superhero. It must have been an amusing sight as he’d caught a few petty thieves in action, a few robberies here and there, even running into a burning building saving a child. Solomon had just one policy for himself. He would always stay out of sight from the public, never stepping out of the shadows. Publicity wouldn’t mix well with his plans.

Contrary to his actions or policy Solomon wasn’t a crime fighter. He was no super hero. It was a true masquerade, it would be a lie to call him a protector of the weak, the hand of justice. Perhaps the closest thing to him may have been Batman. Solomon’s reason for picking up the suit was full of ulterior motives, perhaps not ultimately for revenge, but rather to find out the truth. Stemming from the death of his family, he knew as a kid the deaths of his family members just didn’t add up. He had obsessed over their deaths, he had nearly driven himself to obsession as the loneliness picked at him, prodded into his soul. Sadly enough, for Solomon, this became the meaning of his existence.

Solomon, the man in a suit of armor continued to streak down to earth. Ten stories from the ground the jets in his boots automatically operated, cushioning his fall. He leveraged his fall to churn the movement into a run and sped through the city at inhuman speeds. Leaping from roof to roof, cutting from alley to alley, Solomon put free runners to shame powering through the city at sixty miles per hour. He could see bits and pieces of the dock through the fog as he grew closer and closer to his destination.

For two weeks he had tested the suits abilities in real life situations; with the armed robberies, combat with the thieves, and the fire, all too easy. Everything was too easy with the suit on, and every test surpassed his expectations. He had projected a month to get fully used to the suits functions, but with such great results and ease of control Solomon decided to set his plans into motions a bit earlier than planned.

Solomon turned into the last alley, which lead to a dead end. He sped up and jumped, scaling a third of the wall. He ran up the rest of the building with ease nearing the edge of his journey. He glided across expanse of the roof and launched himself from the top of the roof just as an enormous cargo boat entered the interior dock. Solomon, hoping to land on the large cargo boat, or even grab the tail end misjudged the power of his step in excitement. He let out a gasp as he realized that he was heading straight into the dark waters of the bay. He flailed his feet forward reactivating his jets, but only activating it for just a split second due to the time lag between boosts. In mid tumble he managed to grab a railing over the side of the ship successfully avoiding an extremely wet situation. Solomon pulled himself on deck as he stowed away among the huge cargo boxes on deck.

It was dark inside the building and he could hear orders being barked and feet shuffling around moving away from the boat. He turned on his infrared on his visor, which gave him a clear view of the inside of the docks. He could see around five to six men moving boxes from the boat off the docks. Something was up, a boat moving in through the cover of darkness and fog. Something was fishy, and fishy was exactly what he was looking for. Fishy would lead him to Yamamoto, who should still be at the docks, and Yamamoto had his fingers in anything relatively fishy. Solomon couldn’t get a good view of the docks from the boxes he was hiding behind and decided to prop himself on top of the boxes to get a better view.

Bingo. From the opposite end of the docks he spotted Yamamoto in his trench coat and fedora. He zoomed up the image to make sure, and it was crystal clear. Oddly enough, out of place, he spotted a young women tied to a chair.

“Was she kidnapped by Yamamoto?” Solomon tried to think.

He zoomed up to her face trying to figure out if it was someone famous or important that he might know of the top of his head, but she was blindfolded obstructing the view of much of her face. His mind raced, the sole reason of being here was for intelligence, and intelligence meant figure out information on Yamamoto. Yamamoto ran the streets with gambling, drugs, and whatever shady dealings made money, his hands would be on it. However, being one of the heads on the streets didn’t mean that Yamamoto was at the top. He had to have a boss, even someone like Yamamoto reported to somebody, and through complicated reasoning, and Yamamoto being Solomon’s only lead, he was stuck in a predicament. Save a random girl, or go through with simply gathering intelligence. Yet, Solomon played with the idea of possibly doing both.

He stood at the top of the boxes thinking, enjoying the wonderful view of the shady dealings of the criminals in progress. His mind began to race trying to calculate a plan to combine gathering intelligence, and saving the girl in the process. Both had their perks, gut instinct was to go save the girl. However, that would ultimately blow his cover as there was no way to smuggle the girl out of the dock without the dirt bags knowing she was gone. On the other hand, if he just gathered intelligence, he wouldn’t be noticed, he could be able to formulate a plan, and possibly figure out who Yamamoto’s boss was and go from there. Save the girl another day? Solomon was unsure.

As he tried to figure out a plan he continued to watch from the top of the boxes. Solomon thought it was so stupid how these creepy criminals always loved to make deals with the lights off, using darkness of night as cover. Perhaps doing bad things in the dark made these criminals feel better, or gave them some reassurance that no one was watching. Solomon laughed inside, knowing he was watching. Bad guys are so stupid, he thought.

In that instant something peculiar happened that startled Solomon knocking himself off the boxes creating a huge ruckus as boxes tumbled over. His visor went completely white then dark. He couldn’t figure out what happened exactly until he popped his visor open, which nearly blinded his true sight. Someone had turned on the lights, and the evil bad guys knew that he had been on top of the boxes… WATCHING!

Shaking his head and recovering from the initial shock of losing his vision he fumbled around. His adrenaline started to pump as he realized he was in danger. There were foot steps clamoring up toward the ship signaling that the creepy bad men would be where Solomon was very quickly, if he didn’t figure a new place to hide.

“How ironic.” Solomon popped his visor back on and turned off the infrared view returning his vision back to normal. I guess that means I’m not gathering intel today…”

He measured the distance between the girl and where he stood and jumped off the cargo boat activating his jets, which sent him flying toward the girl. Shocked by a fully armored man hurtling towards them at high speeds, the evil baddies didn’t even get a chance to take out their guns. Solomon had swooped the girl out of the chair and was halfway toward the nearest exit when he heard bullets whiz by as he dashed faster and faster toward the nearest door. As he neared it, he jumped up and slammed into the door feet first, which smacked one of Yamamoto’s henchmen in the back.

Flying through the air, Solomon held the girl tightly, riding the door, and simultaneously riding one of the henchmen. Solomon smashed into the ground, smashing the man underneath the door and continued to run.

“Ouch that’s gotta hurt… I guess next time you won’t stand in front of the door, when Solomon needs a quick get away.” Solomon shook his head and leapt up the side of a building, then hoped to the next.

He noticed the girl mumble something and Solomon took the liberty of removing the cloth tied around her face so she could see and communicate.

“What the hell are you doing?! Put me down right now!”

Solomon lifted his visor half way so that he could talk to the girl yet keep his identity hidden. Puzzled he looked down at the girl as he continued to hop from building to building leaving the docks behind in the thick fog. Rain started to drizzle across the bay as he continued to run away from the dock.

“Excuse me?” Solomon looked down.

“K-k-kendrick!? Kendrick, what is this?! Is this some kind of joke!?”

Solomon, now a little confused and a bit irritated checked the distance from the docks on his visors and decided it was safe to let the girl down. The fog would cover his tracks, and it was safe enough to drop the girl off in the current area. He cut the ropes off her hands and feet and could see that she was a bit mad.

“You know, I just rescued you from some really bad people.”

“Kendrick, if you’re trying to make up for what happened today, it’s not working. You know that I’m going to be a journalist, and the best there is. Even if I have to put myself in danger to do so!” Her eyes glowed with passion as she stared off into the distance monologuing.

Solomon started to string the situation together. “I’m sorry, but I believe you are mixing me up with someone else.”

“OH PLEASE! Lose the super hero gag Kendrick. How could it not be you?! Same hair as this morning popping out of that helmet thing of yours, same height, you could change your voice just a bit to make you sound a little bit more heroic, and heck… I can spot you standing around from a million miles away. Don’t even try that on your girlfriend.”

Solomon flinched backwards as he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He began to think that she may be a stalker that was infatuated with him.. After all, he was a boy billionaire. Could Kendrick be her special nickname for him? Solomon, Kendrick? No, nothing added up.

“Look, I don’t know Kendrick, and I am not your boyfriend. Obviously…”

“Obviously what? Obviously, you are stupid. I can’t believe you’d go through this much trouble… You know, all I ever want to hear, is a SORRY?”

With that statement Solomon concluded that the girl was insane. In a split second, disregarding keeping his identity a secret, and a bit of frustration, he accidentally slipped a thought to open his visor revealing the entirety of his face. The female gasped and slapped him in the face.

“You are so kidding me…” Solomon rubbed the side of his cheek. The girl knew how to hit.

“You’re not… Kendrick.”

“Like i said…” Solomon shook his head and flipped his visor half way. “Take a cab from here. Don’t do anything stupid like that anymore. Mixing yourself up with Yamamoto will only end with you dieing.” Her eyes were still wide as saucers unable to comprehend the situation. She looked as if she was about to fall into shock.

“The area should be safe, so take a cab out.” Solomon’s visor slipped down covering the rest of his face and he sped off. Her eyes were still wide with fright and shock, not knowing how to react to the situation. Before the girl had returned to Earth, Solomon was three buildings away. No, make that four.