Volume 2: Chapter 203 — Sleuthing

The D.C. Vigilante was being hunted by the police department, the FBI, possibly Anastasia's mooks, and Dan himself. It should've come as no surprise, then, when a random civilian was the first person to get footage of the vigilante in action. The shaky-cam video was taken by a gawking passerby as the vigilante dropped down on a mugging-in-progress. They came from the rooftop, wearing a thick winter cloak from which black threads unspooled, pouring out from the hood and moving like liquid shadow to envelop the thief. He was subdued in moments, knife torn from his grip, while more threads pulled his victim a safe distance away. 

He paused the video, peering at the grainy image. The vigilante looked surreal, all bundled up in that massive grey coat, hood up, and what looked like a branching tree limb made of darkness sticking out of where their face should be. The threads were thick and glossy, but wire-thin. No, not threads, Dan realized. It was hair. The 'black blur' that everyone had described seeing was a result of extremely powerful hair control.

"It's fucking Bayonetta!" Dan exclaimed at his screen.

"Who's that?" Abby asked, walking past him with a cup of coffee. It was morning, two days after he'd spoken to Carver. She had reported some progress with the DCPD bureaucracy, as she called in favors to deprioritize the vigilante's capture. Unfortunately, they were no closer to finding said person's whereabouts or identity. They hadn't even had a physical description yet, so this video was a surprise and a gift.

"Nobody important," Dan replied, waving off his own comment. "It's just an interesting power is all."

Abby glanced at the screen and Dan unpaused the video. The vigilante slammed the mugger against the wall, strands of hair contorting his body into a pretzel. When they pulled away, his arms and legs were zip-tied to each other. The mugger was unconscious and bleeding. The vigilante glanced around, noticed the camera, and was visibly startled. The voyeur swore, spun away, and ran. The perspective bobbed violently up and down, then went dark.

The video had ended suddenly, but the civilian must have survived. They'd posted it, after all, so the vigilante hadn't even stolen the phone. It spoke well of their restraint, at least towards civilians. Or maybe they were just worried about the image it would present, chasing a fleeing civvy out into the street in the middle of the night. There would be a lot of screaming involved. Not a good look.

Dan replayed the video, pausing it again as strands of hair bound up the mugger. He frowned at the screen. There was no way to see the person's face. The hair was completely obscuring them.

"Mutate," Abby said from behind his shoulder.

"What?" He turned to face her. "How do you know?"

"Just a guess, but there are a bunch of upgrades that let people control their hair. You know: grow it out, change the color, manipulate it into various styles. Nothing as extreme as that, but the template exists."

Dan stared at her. "People can choose from a vast array of superpowers and they pick hair control?"

"You've never had long hair, Danny," Abby said, patting Dan patronizingly on the cheek. "Keeping it in check is a superpower."

"Right," Dan laughed. "Well, if you're right it narrows things down quite a bit. Can't be too many mutates for that pattern."

"You're assuming they registered," Abby countered. "Some mutates are incredibly obvious when they incarnate, but just as many are subtle. Could be this person didn't even realize what they were until much later down the line." 

She leaned over Dan and took control of the laptop. Her hair curled around his face and tickled his nose. She smelled like lavender, and her proximity sent his brain into fuzzy loops that only resolved when she pulled away. She gestured to the screen. She'd pulled up some kind of upgrade tracking website, showing the trending numbers for various patterns.

"Statistically, you're looking for a woman between sixteen and twenty-three," Abby read off, running her finger across the numbers on the screen. "You can probably get something approximating her height from the video. That will narrow things down. The hair color... probably not black, given that's what's showing. Everything on the market can change that much." She paused, then added, "Assuming I'm right about the upgrade."

"We'll find out soon enough," Dan said, pulling out his phone. He had a call to make.

Agent Carver wasn't overly enthused to be trawling through the federal upgrade registry, but neither had she turned down his request. It was a tedious task, though, pulling every name between the targeted ages and plugging them into the FBI's crime database. Anyone with any kind of record was put down on a list to be pruned later, and the process repeated. It wasn't limited to people who had committed crimes either. Victims and their immediate family members were also logged into the database. Billions of entries from all across the country. The record-keeping was genuinely phenomenal, and also more than a little horrifying. 

The theory was simple enough: a vigilante did not spring up out of nowhere. There should always exist in their life some sort of intersection with crime, good or bad. Whether reformed villain or helpless victim, there might be traces left behind, breadcrumbs to follow. It was a brute-force method of tracking someone down, given the limited data. Carver was operating under three assumptions.

The first was the upgrade path. The second was the general height and body type. The third was their place of residence. The vigilante must live within D.C., or a nearby county. Upon these three data points, Dan and Carver were attempting to prune a list of tens of thousands. Turns out hair upgrades were incredibly popular. It was going to take some time. Too much time. They needed more information.

"Who else is working on this?" he asked Carver, two days after the vigilante had been caught on tape. She'd made no further appearances since then, either rethinking her life's choices or more likely, laying low. There was some progress on the list of suspects, but there were so many names and so few variables to narrow them down. They needed more information. 

"Nobody," Carver said, squashing Dan's hopes of an easy collaboration. "Frankly, this vigilante is below federal notice, and you specifically asked me to stand down the DCPD."

That wasn't exactly what he'd asked, but it was close enough for him not to argue the point. It was clear they would not be getting any outside help on this. He considered the outcome optimal in some ways. Dan didn't really want anyone to know his interest in the DC vigilante. Especially any moles the People or Senator Madison might have within the FBI. Or even the Evo Church. Gosh, he was just stacking up enemies, wasn't he?

Nonetheless, there was good news. The exact alley where the video was taken had finally been uncovered. Not by Dan's federal contact, or by the police, but by a random internet sleuth. Apparently, the original poster's refusal to elaborate on the location had been taken as a challenge by some people. The victorious keyboard warrior proudly posted the street name for all to see. The only surprise there was it had taken two entire days to happen.

Two days was a long time, but Dan had ways to see what others might not. They needed more data, and there may yet be something left behind. This is why Dan found himself walking down the streets of D.C., heading towards a specific dark alley the same evening after it had been posted. His veil unspooled from him, covering the length and breadth of the street. It was a poorer part of town, and there were people everywhere. In the streets, in the run-down apartments flanking the alley, milling on stoops and in dark places.

Dan wore a thick brown coat and jeans, both rugged and worn. He kept his hair messy, and walked with an uncomfortable slouch, like the world had hammered his spine out of shape. It wasn't a perfect disguise, but it stopped second glances well enough. Tawny had taught him the ways of walking unseen, how to be somewhere and belong without relying on his power as a crutch. He made it to the alley unaccosted, and there he found a crowd, a van, and men with cameras.