Ty nodded, listening. "Shouldn't be a problem. I got a new bottle of aspirin just for this occasion," Ty answered, following Harlan into the bank. The back and forth between the two men didn't really interest Ty. So they were lovers, big deal. He just knew he was here to touch a few things and get a story, and that was it.

When his hand touched the cold metal of the box. The other scenes flashed before his mind, but he ignored them. Then came the good parts. He saw the guy breaking open boxes, but the girl...he was right. But Harlan wasn't. He couldn't be. In fact...from the bits he could pick up, they seemed...distant. Not like lovers at all. Thank God...Then other scenes flashed by, but not much happened besides investigations.

Ty walked over to the water fountain, popping some aspirin and chasing it for once. "They're NOT lovers!" Ty found himself snapping, then regained his composure. "They were a male and a female though...male was sort of built like me, with dark hair and a facial hair. ...the female was smaller....blond...This case seems...old. I'm going to need a piece of the camera. Or something newer that would have seen the entrance. The box really wasn't that bad, but I don't wanna take any chances," he said, looking between the men.

Ty's results came in... and they confirmed some things and shot down others. He claimed there were two people indeed, man and woman even, so that made Harlan grin, since he had deduced that through mere hunches and gut feelings, not through palpable evidence, but Ty was claiming they were not lovers.

"How do you know? I suspect they wouldn't be kissing mid-heist, with all the stress and urgency from robbing a bank, but once they left the place, you'd have no way of knowing what they did afterwards. He could have proposed her and we'd never know" he said, remembering the ring. Harlan was now grasping at straws, but if he had been right about the number of mutants and the genders, he sort of hoped to be right about the lovers angle as well. Two out of three was not bad, but three out of three was even better.

Ty then proposed getting a hold of the camera, to which Harlan turned to the manager and he just shook his head, but then offered something else instead.

"The cops took pictures, then took all the pieces to the lab. We do have the base where the camera was mounted on, but it's still on the ceiling. You'll need a ladder" he said, nodding to one of the security guards, who immediately left to fetch one. "Would that work for you?"

Harlan had no clue, but he pretended he did, patting Ty on the back.

"Sure, that should work" he said. "The camera couldn't film the criminals, but my friend here should see everything the object 'saw' as well" he guessed, since he didn't know if Ty's mutation had a visual limit at all.

He then addressed Ty as they left the vault and headed to where the camera used to be. "Maybe if you didn't see them doing anything passionate on the vault, you might catch some of that when they were on the way over to it. Holding hands maybe? A brush or a slap on the butt? I wonder if the cops screened the place and looked for semen? No, no, I'm over thinking this..." he said, being careful not to let his pride interfere with his investigation.

Ty felt his face turning red and his temper getting hot. Boiling hot. And it intensified with every word that Harlan spoke. It was all the young redhead could do to keep from turning and letting him have it...

"Yes...the base will work," Ty muttered, biting his lip, but at one certain comment, the boy almost lost it. "They are not lovers! If anyone would know, it's me. I'm right, you're wrong, get over it," he found himself hissing, nostrils flaring with each breath. So...this is what full-fledged jealousy felt like. Even though he knew with everything in him that it was unlikely--no, impossible that Tses would remotely do such a thing, those words pissed him off.

Fuming, Ty climbed the ladder, grabbing hold of the base of the camera. But it failed. Sighing, it took him several minutes to calm down enough, when it finally worked. "They didn't come in from the front," Ty said, climbing down and glaring at Harlan. "They came from above, but from the conversation I could pick up, they were two thieves who just happened to pick the same bank on the same night, and were forced to finish their heist together, or leave it behind," Ty explained, then added one more time for emphasis, "I told you. Not. Lovers." With that, he popped two more aspirin, sure that his power wasn't the only cause of his headache.

"Fine. Not lovers, but the SAME bank at the SAME time!?" Harlan asked incredulous at the newest batch of information. He noticed that Ty didn't handle being questioned that well. With an ability like his however, it wouldn't be strange that people doubted him all the time, so no wonder he was defensive, but hey, Harlan was an investigator and it was his job to ask questions and look at things from multiple angles. This 'same bank job at the same time' situation however was the strangest and dumbest thing he'd ever heard a couple of bank robbers pull off.

"What kind of MORON would do such a STUPID thing like that!?" he asked aloud. It might make the manager feel comfortable to know that his robbers were slightly on the bottom of the idiotic scale. "You can't trust a partner you just met on the bank you're trying to rob!"

This case was starting to take a turn towards the bizarre. So, what were the facts? Two perps, finding each other in the same bank. There was no 'musclebound oaf' and no love between them. Ty could provide a facial feature description of both to a sketch artist. Also, they didn't haul off with too much but burnt something. If Ty could tell them what safety deposit that something was from, they could get a link to the real motive, since thievery seemed like just a bonus.

Ty popped in some aspirins, which meant his mutation was starting to hurt him. Maybe they could take a break from using it and peruse on everything he saw. Harlan shook the manager's hand and thanked him for his help, letting him know he'd be working on this as he readied himself to leave.

"Come on" he said to Ty, urging him to come down from the ladder. "I need more details on what happened at the vault, who popped the boxes, who punched them, who burnt what and what you heard from their conversation. Also, we'll need your descriptions on paper, so we're heading to the police station"

Ty looked at Harlan. "Simple. Neither wanted to abandon their mission. Similar motives gives reason to form a temporary alliance, I guess."

He sighed, leaning against the wall for a second. "It's not stupid, actually. Two robbers, one bank. You're faced with a choice. Abandon what you came for, go home with nothing, or put your differences aside, work together, and get the haul you came for, whatever that may have been? Personally, I think you just have your panties in a bunch because the new guy is out-snooping you." The last comment was added rather dryly.

"Anything that looks like a punch was done by the male, the female popped the boxes open with explosives," he explained, trying to calm down, but starting to panic as he let Tses's power semi-slip. He tensed even more at the mention of the police station.

Great...something told him he really didn't think this through when he applied for this job. Then again, he never really thought this far ahead.

"Out-snooping me?" he asked in feigned disbelief and actually smiling at the jab. "But... you're cheating. I have to work with what they left behind, you get to work with what you saw them doing! That's hardly fair!"

Harlan couldn't help but think placing the ad to hire mutants was his best idea ever. Even if Ty had an attitude, his information was quite valuable, so he'd just have to put up with it. The detective was mending his wrong theories in his head, trying to come up with new ones as he processed all the information.

"If the male punched the boxes and he looks like you..." he said, looking at Ty from head to toe as he started walking towards the car, signaling him to follow "...we can almost rule out super strength. He punched the alarm box, he punched the case... and didn't pull, lift or rip apart anything. It makes me wonder if punching is all he does or if he can do much more than that. What happens if they liked working together or if they didn't? What happens if they meet again and then he goes you know what? You're a liability and I don't need you anymore?" Harlan asked, trying to think like the robbers.

"It must have made sense to partner up inside the bank with a temporary alliance like you said, but once outside, you have a stranger who knows your face, who knows what you did and who can rat you out very easily. If you were in the man's place, with the power to crush large metal boxes with your fist... would you leave that loose end hanging about? It makes me wonder if someday we'll find the girl with her face smashed in and dumped in a ditch, or if we'll find the guy, blown to bits on some motel room? Because that's the catch of temporary alliances, you see. They're temporary" he said, wondering if a trip to the morgue was also called for.

"Cheating, not making crackpot assumptions, whatever you wanna call it~" Ty retorted, almost too happily. Though he nodded at Harlan's assumptions about the male. Until of course, he started elaborating on temporary alliances. It made Ty tense up, as the two men climbed into the car, Ty's mind wandered to the possibilities.

"That won't happen. Tses can fend for herself just fi--" well crap. "What I'm saying is, maybe they hoped to finish this and not meet again, from the looks of things they didn't exactly have good chemistry. And what does ratting the other out matter if we're trying to get them both anyway?" The man countered quickly, hoping the detective didn't catch the first part or make any assumptions.

His hand had just started the car when Ty said that short sentence.

'Tses can fend for herself.'

Harlan immediately picked up on it and paused, his brain trying to make sense of what it was hearing. His reddish haired associate continued talking about the thieves poor chemistry and how ratting each other out was a moot point but Harlan was still thinking on the first phrase.

"Who is Tses?" he asked, realizing something was a little amiss here. "Is that the girl thief? Did they actually exchange names!? Why didn't you tell me this the moment you saw it happen? That's huge!" he said as he kept on mulling things over in his head...

'Tses can fend for herself.'

Wait a minute... Why does he care if she can fend for herself or not? How does he know? Sure, she had some kind of explosive mutation and one can assume she's more than capable, but why say it with such certainty? How does he know what a stranger can or can't do?


'They are not lovers! If anyone would know, it's me. I'm right, you're wrong. I told you. Not. Lovers.'


Oh, for crying out loud...


He had just started moving the car out of the parking spot when he pulled the brakes after such a sudden realization had dawned on him. He gave Ty a quizzical look, thinking... he didn't know this guy from adam. He had just brought him in, thoroughly impressed with his mutation and not even bothering to make a background check on him. He was a mutant and in his experience, many mutants liked to stick with their own. Was there a chance, however small, that this guy actually knew one of the perps? The odds of such a thing happening were enormous, just as huge as two separate thieves stealing from the same bank on the same night.

Harlan stared at Ty's face, letting the awkward silence and sudden stop tell his associate that something was wrong, and if that didn't convince him, the detective pressed a button on his door and the locks from all the doors in the car automatically locked themselves.

"Is there anything.... anything at all that you would like to tell me, Ty?" he asked, slowly but with a very serious tone in his voice.

Ty froze for a second at all of Harlan's questions. He was in deep now, and thanks to his little slip-up, Tses was now in danger. His mind was racing, thinking over everything he saw, digging for a name. But he got nothing, because they didn't exchange names. Not to his knowledge, anyway...

"Uh...I said Beth, not Tses," he replied, trying to cover his trail at least a little. This was way out of his league...

Ty deliberately ignored the rest of the string of questions from the detective. Oh, he was sure his job was in jeopardy now. His job, his girlfriend, and his own ass. When Harlan finished talking, it was then that Ty spoke up, brushing his hair out of his face.

"You didn't ask for any names," he said calmly. "And this is my first investigation. In fact, that's all I didn't mention. Besides, when you get a thousand scenes rushing before your eyes in a minute, some things are hard to pick up on. Beth, and...Jacob." The man gave a slight shrug. He knew a Jacob, but it was the only name he could think of. Maybe Harlan wouldn't catch on that he was lying...

Harlan was no lie detector, but he was an actor and he was used to lying and playing roles, so he was no stranger to seeing people lie and pretend to him as well. He DID get the feeling that Ty was trying to amend a slip but inside his head, his gears were working, trying to figure out what was the best course of action.

Suppose Ty DID know Beth. He'd likely cover for her. What would happen if Harlan put on the pressure? If he threatened or tried to scare him into telling the truth, what were the odds the man would break and spill the beans instead of clamming up? No, there had to be a subtler way to get what he wanted.

The detective let go off the brakes, spun the wheel around and the car started to move.

"Well, names are pretty much the most important thing you can get out of a suspect. I figure you get a deluge of stuff to sort through, but always keep an ear out for names" he said as he drove the car out of the parking lot.

"Beth" he said, trying to get a mental picture of the blond woman as he thought out loud, sharing his viewpoint with his associate. "Beth. Beth, you are in a lot of trouble. It's actually sad when some big corporation hires me to catch a fellow mutant. I'm just a gumshoe, you know? I need to make a living, but it doesn't mean I have to like what I'm doing sometimes. We mutants are such a minority that we shouldn't be out there hunting our own, but helping each other instead. How much money could this girl possibly have taken out of there? They left most of it on the floor but she's still going to get prosecuted for a bank robbery. And she has some kind of explosive power? I'm lucky that my mutation is actually useful in my line of work, but this is not what I wanted to do with my life. Imagine someone who can blow things up and tell me what kind of honest job could she possibly apply for?"

There were some layers of truth in what he had just said and some exaggerations as well, but he laid it all out in as convincing a fashion as possible. His concern seemed genuine, though it was actually misdirected. Ty may not think it was that important, but his mutation was quite valuable for someone like Harlan, who'd get stumped in a case from time to time and psychometry was a wonderful thing to have in such cases. What were the odds Ty would want to work again with the same man who had arrested his friend?

"I wish we could help her somehow, but these people are not the sort who'd trust a private eye to lend a hand. She'll likely run and I'll be forced to give chase" he said as he pulled out his smartphone and called his office, dialing his techie's number.

"Lyle, I need you to look up in our mutant database. Blonde woman, explosive powers, by the name of Beth. If that doesn't work out, talk to our contacts at the precinct and have them give you a list of women living in the New York area by the name of..." he paused as he gave Ty a squinted look.

"....Tses. T-S-E-S" he spelled, letting his reddish haired associate know he had heard the name quite well the very first time he said it.

"With a name like that we should be getting quite a short list."

He wasn't buying it. Great. Though the young man listened, he wasn't fully into the conversation now. This job was turning into one great big piece of hell. But how was he supposed to know Tses would be in on a heist? From what they'd talked about, Tses didn't rob banks...

"How are we supposed to do that?" he snapped, face turning red with frustration and embarrassment. "How was I supposed to know my girlfriend was involved in this? Jesus...regardles I'm in this **** deep now..." He let out a disgruntled sigh, his mind racing, not even bothering to notice how much he let slip.

Ty became even more aggravated when Harlan called his office, and let it known that he DID catch Ty's slip up. Even down to the spelling, somehow...

"Well...I gave you my word. The least I can do is follow through with it," he mumbled. But as soon as all is said and done...no promises.

Yup. He gave him his word. Would he give him his girlfriend as well?

Harlan thought it unlikely. He suspected Ty knew the girl, but 'knowing' her and 'being her boyfriend' were totally different things. The way he had reacted to the 'lover's' comments made more sense now and it was only natural that he didn't react well to those.

It was also natural for a man to try and protect his lady.

So, was Harlan supposed to believe Ty would lead him to her? No. Not without some convincing. Harlan needed to convince Ty that she was in deep trouble and the best course of action would be for her to turn herself in.

"Ty, I don't want to be too bleak about it, but I also gave my word... to my client. If your girlfriend did this, then the outcome is not good, unless she cooperates. Bank robbers don't get sent to low level security prisons, much less if they're mutants who can blow things up. How could they keep her in control? They'd probably have her sedated all the time, unless the government shows some interest in her mutation, because if there's someone who likes to have things blown up, it's the Man..." he said, totally intent to have Ty freak out a little and consider the possibilities of what would happen if she didn't cooperate.

"If she turns herself in, it shows remorse. She stole so little and if it's a first time offense, she'll likely get a short sentence. There's hope for her if she behaves and since no one saw what happened in the bank, she could always pull the 'he forced me to' card on Jacob at the trial. I'm telling you, she has a chance if she plays her cards well".

They reached a traffic light and Harlan slowed the car down to a stop.

"I want to help you and your girlfriend as well, but you're going to have to make some tough choices if you want everything to work well for her."

Ty was honestly too flustered to catch much of what Harlan was saying. He wasn't mad at Tses, however, mostly just himself. A thief with a thief girlfriend suddenly deciding to take on an investigator job....bad idea. But it was too late now.

Ty bit his lip; it wasn't a first time offense, there was no way she was going to get off easy. When they stopped at the red-light, Ty finally spoke, looking at Harlan. "You're right," he said coldly. "I do have a tough choice to make..."

With that, he flung off his seatbelt, threw open the car door, and sprung out of the car, making a run for it. He darted into an alley, shimmying up a fire escape, and leaped across the close-together roof-tops before shimmying down another alley and turning for Tses's apa--no. That was stupid. He'd have to meet up with her, but it was a foolish idea to lead someone like Harlan to her place.

Instead, he ran down the street, glancing over his shoulder to see if he'd lost the investigator. Then, he ducked into a phone booth, pulling out his wallet, looking for a scrap of paper. "Got it!" He pulled out the piece of paper he'd scribbled Tses's name on, then inserted change into the payphone and dialed the number. He sighed, getting voice-mail.

"Tses, it's Ty. The good news is, I got that job. The bad news is we're in trouble. Meet me in that abandoned building not far from your place, the one we jumped off of on Christmas. I can explain when when get there."

With that, he hung up the phone, and darted back down the street, again taking to the rooftops.

>>"You're right, I do have a tough choice to make..."

There we go! See? It wasn't that difficult to convince people to see things your way. Granted, Harlan wasn't THAT sure everything would work out all right, but people usually clung to hope so he played that angle and tried to make Ty see that the best course of action was...

The door opened suddenly and Ty bolted from the car. Harlan looked befuddled at his departing back, his first thought being that maybe Ty was desperate to take a leak, but unless he enjoyed peeing over people from the fire... escape... aw CRAP!

"HEY!" he yelled from the car, like that was going to stop the runaway. The traffic light turned green and the detective detached a hand to close the door while he pressed on the pedal and moved the car forward. He reattached his hand, took a turn and entered the parking lot from a depot store, quickly leaping out of the vehicle. Though Ty had a considerable lead already, Harlan had an advantage the psychometric may not have known or considered. While Ty knew his head was detachable when he saw him sleeping, did he know it could fly as well?

He looked to the clouds and the top of the buildings Ty had been heading towards. At that very moment, a couple with clasped hands was walking and looking at him in his distressed state. Harlan didn't have time to wait for them to pass, so he just raised a hand and told them: "Now, don't freak out".

His head shot upwards as he heard the woman's scream going "OH MY GOD!!" at the top of her lungs. He felt his ears pop as his quick ascent made the difference in air pressure quite noticeable, but once he managed to hover above the building's rooftops, he noticed Ty jumping from one building to the other and heading for another fire escape.

He floated his head forward and to the side until he managed to see the exit of the alley between the buildings. He saw the man's reddish mane pop out from there, looking behind him to see if he was being tagged. Hah! You should have looked up as well instead of just behind, buddy. From his vantage point, he noticed Ty ducking into a phone booth. Perfect. That would give him time to get his body closer to where his head was floating.

Moving his headless body from afar was a hassle and quite shocking for the average folk. "OH JESUS CHRIST!" screamed a man when Harlan's body stumbled forward to reconnect back with his head, which was coming down fast. Harlan raised his arms and hands, caught his own head like a football, placed it over his neck and adjusted his troath a little so the ends matched, while totally ignoring the gawkers. He then pushed forward, leaning over the corner of a wall to take a peek of the pay phone at the end of the street. Ty was no longer there, but he caught him just heading into another alley, probably ready to pull off the same 'fire escape' getaway. The moment Ty went in, Harlan ran as fast as he could towards the alley. He could hide his body there, shoot his head up, find where the only red haired man jumping over rooftops was going, then catch up on the ground while keeping his distance.

Keeping up with him wasn't going to be easy, but it was going to be worth it. If Harlan played his own cards well, Ty might end up inadvertently delivering Tses in a silver platter.

Ty was no stranger to being chased, so he by no means intended to lead Harlan anywhere.Get him lost in the middle of the city? Maybe. He kept to the rooftops, then shimmied down a fire escape, now sticking to the streets. The building he asked Tses to meet him at came into view, and he ran right by it, weaving through alleys and doing another stint across rooftops.

An extra ten to fifteen minutes later, Ty walked out of an alley, merging into a crowd crossing the street, and from there, slipped into the abandoned building, tired, out of breath, and his red hair was all over his head. He slumped against a far wall, keeping his eyes on all possible entrances, waiting for Tses to show up. He only hoped it would be soon...