11:45am

“Dada!! DAAAADA! Are you watching?” high, demanding little voice.

Akshay smirked, shaken from his musings upon the park bench as he sat, watching the younger boy as he patted shovelfuls of dirt into sunny, lemon-yellow bucket. The boy, no older than four or five, was grinning wide and happily as he continued to giggle incessantly as the sand as it spilled into the bucket. Sitting on a park bench, just outside of the perimeter of the sand pit, was Akshay Malik, sitting with his legs crossed and his hands neatly folded upon his lap. He was dressed fairly simply in black slacks and a buttoned shirt the color of cream and a tie which resembled brass. Over that was a suit jacket, the same shade as his slacks, a black trench coat slung over his lap.

He gave the young boy a nod and a wave, confirming that he was watching. However, in one hand, it was plan to see that he was holding onto his cellphone. There was nothing of importance on the screen, just random emails and the occasional text message. At least one would pop up, asking if he was free for dinner that evening, but Akshay was quick to delete those message and block that number. Some people just couldn’t take a hint.

Feeling the presence of something looming closer, Akshay tapped his emails off and switched to a random Picross app; however this wouldn’t fool the man who plopped down onto the bench next to him.

”You know this was your idea, right? Family time and all that?” the other teased and slightly admonished.

Akshay turned to face the man. He was a little older but with ruggedly handsome looks. With scruffiness adorning his chin and jaw line. Loose hair was combed back and though there was amusement in his eyes, it was clear that he was just a little overly tired. Akshay dipped his head down, smirking a bit sheepishly and nodding his head.

”Yeah. I know,” he said gently. ”Sorry. Just…”

“Distracted?”

Akshay smirked as he looked off in the distance. His eyes should have been on his adopt son but, really, he was looking past him and into some unknown distance. It felt odd to be standing still, to not be moving, to not be chasing; it was both jarring and a little scary. Bruce, his partner who sat next to him, would point out that it was so jarring because Akshay wasn’t used to having a quiet life. Akshay wouldn’t argue, but it would make him irritable. Didn’t he want a quiet life at some point? Why else would he have married Bruce and adopted their son? It wasn’t as if he were doing it for appearances sake or anything.

“Oh…here…” Bruce said, holding out a packaged ice cream sandwich. “Got it from the vendor.”

Sharing a small, sheepish smile, the agent reached over to take the ice cream bar from his lover’s hand when there was a buzzing on his lap. Looking down, he plucked up his phone, held it up and flipped over to his messages – it was a secure one. He shared a look with Bruce. The man stared back into Akshay’s eyes, sighing a bit in defeat before he leaned over and kissed him softly.

“Be careful.”

”I always am.” With that, Akshay got up and immediately moved away form the bench, putting the phone up to his ear. ”Malik.” He should have said goodbye to his son, but Bruce would handle it. He always did.’

---

12:30pm
The classroom looked in shambles. Moving across the room, he peered at the remnants of meat and blood that had been discarded in the midst of the fighting. He had gotten most of the report: a mutant came into the classroom, started to raise hell, until he was stopped by a S.U.P.E.R. agent. Here was the kicker though, the agent went rogue not a few moments after the team arrived to collect the mutant. Not all the details were clear, only that the agent had been on assignment, tracking a supposed mutant with connections to the X-Men. Then, for whatever reason, he went rogue. That did not bode well for any of the parties involved.

Agents swept the area but there was no sign of where this Trace Tanner had escaped to. Being trained by S.U.P.E.R. he would have the skills to make himself vanish, which meant that finding him was going to be all the more difficult – for most people. Akshay stood, inspecting the remains of the carnage all around. What could have driven the agent to abandon his post? To turn against them? He mused on these thoughts as he swaggered out of the room and back out into the building.

S.U.P.E.R. wasn’t going to just let Trace go. He was an agent, he had turned on his own, it wasn’t as if he had earned retirement for long years of service and was going to be allowed to go quietly. No, the man had broken protocol, broken his reputation, and broken a fellow agent’s jaw. There was no other choice, he needed to be brought in, questioned, and properly dealt with. That was what Akshay was for, or as he was known among his fellow agents – the Stalker.

Akshay pulled up his phone, shaking his head as he pulled up the number for his command. Holding the phone to his ear, he muttered. ”Check surveillance for a Trace Tanner and anyone resembling – twenty mile radius from NYU. Message results to me ASAP.” He clicked his phone off and left the school. Trace couldn’t stay hidden for long and the second he had a positive I.D. on him, there would be no escape either.

Of all the bad days in his life, Trace Tanner was currently in the midst of the worst.

Recently, Trace had been sent on a variety of missions for S.U.P.E.R, the black-ops, cloak and dagger branch of the CIA that was responsible for the capture and tracking of Mutants for the good of mankind. The missions had been set to him in a very straightforward manner. Go here, speak with this contact. Attempt recruitment. If recruitment failed or the target went hostile, respond non-lethally if possible.
He’d been fed all of the same lines that his training class at Langley had eaten up. Most of them, however, did not make it into the ranks of S.U.P.E.R. Only the special, the very best made the grade. And Trace was amongst their ranks. He was a contender in hand-to-hand combat. He was an expert at shaking a tail. He was proficient at evading surveillance. All of the stuff that’s in the training manual. But Trace wasn’t proficient in viewing lives as less valuable than others.
On one of his previous recruitment missions, Trace had attempted recruitment of a psychic that was able to commune with the dead. The psychic had informed him that there were a lot of mutants turning up recently – dead mutants. And they all had one thing in common. The name S.U.P.E.R was on their lips. Trace had dismissed this as resistance from an unwilling source. But then he had started to look deeper.
He didn’t have access to everything. In an intelligence agency, no one has access to everything. But there were things that he couldn’t look into, walls that were put in his path. Files that suddenly couldn’t be accessed and an entire division of S.U.P.E.R that received a surplus of funding without putting anything on the books about where it was going.

So, he’d turned to civilian search methods. To stay under the radar, Trace had searched in a round-about manner. Rumors, urban legends, myths and disappearances. Not everything that sounds made up and fantastic never happened. Some of it just has the details wrong. Many times, he found information about mutants going missing, turning up in random places with no memory of where they’d been, what had been done to them. Lots of mentions of nightmares, things that couldn’t be scrubbed entirely from the mind. The information seemed credible. Credible enough to plant a seed, deep in Trace’s mind. A seed that quickly took root and spread into a massive, California redwood of doubt that loomed over his every thought and action.

And that’s when it happened. Trace received another mission to surveil a girl. A young girl, in college. The dossier had its typical lack of information a la need to know. She seemed normal. But with what Trace now knew, nothing was normal about these missions. Nothing at all. In fact, they seemed to be testing him. Seeing how far they could drive him. And it appeared that if he got killed along the way, there wouldn’t be any huge loss. You either died a hero or lived long enough to see yourself trampled by one.

The mission went pear-shaped. They usually did. Together with the help of the girl, he’d managed to stave off a majority of the ill effects of the Goatman Incursion. He thought he’d gotten out of the mission clean. He’d given up his identity as a government agent, sure, but he hadn’t revealed for what specific division. She was none the wiser. He’d even managed to steer the conversation clear of the girl’s involvement altogether. She should have been safe. One mistake had given it up. And they had planned to kill her because of it. More drops of innocent blood spilled in the name of ‘protection’. Another soul cast into the abyss because she was born special. Trace could not bear that affront to nature. He couldn’t even think about it. So, he did the only thing he could do: he intervened. He’d joined the agency to be the shield that protected those that couldn’t protect themselves, so he’d protected her.

His soul would rest at the end of his life knowing that he’d done the right thing. Somethings were worth the risk.

12:40pm

Trace stepped off a curb, hood drawn, sunglasses on and a ballcap perched on top of his head. Cyber counter-surveillance was all about removing identifiable points of data. He’d even stopped at a prop shop and added a few distinct points to his face that would throw off biometrics. If he could reduce his profile enough, he might be able to slip by unnoticed.

It was a long shot. Too much technology was used these days. As he walked along, he glanced up at a traffic camera nearby. It was important to act natural. Someone acting suspiciously could be picked out of a crowd with incredible ease. And people looked at traffic cameras. He pulled out a burner phone that he’d bought with stolen cash. He messed with the interface for a bit and put it back in his pocket. He had to look like any other guy.

He proceeded north several blocks. He had to get to a place with more people. It was way easier to get lost in a crowd and if he could get himself out unnoticed for a while, he could make it across the border into the great white North. Trace stopped next to a store front. Lunar eclipse food festival? That might work. And it was just a few blocks away. Trace quickened his pace and headed to the crowd, hoping if it all went wrong, he could avoid civilian casualties.

2:00pm

Using city wide surveillance was one thing, but being out in the day was another. Akshay never liked to leave the tracking of dangerous mutants to the computer hackers alone. They were could see from every ATM, street, or cellphone camera within give parameters, but they didn’t have the same instinct as someone who was on the hunt. Akshay took a personal pleasure in this aspect of his job, utilizing his mind to track and trace anyone who would attempt to escape. Once he set eyes on their particular signature, he knew it was over for them. No matter where they ran or hide, he was always there, ready to pounce when need be. But this part, the finding of them, that was why he preferred to go on foot – it made the capture all the sweeter.

Akshay had been at it for about an hour now. He wasn’t actively hunting Trace the whole time, but rather was spending the next few trying to learn about him. As surveillance attempted to smoke him out, the hunter himself sat calming in a coffee shop, sipping a cappuccino while looking over a dossier on the individual in question; needless to say, this would be interesting.

Trace Tanner was an early inductee into the club. His abilities made him a high-importance recruit; who wouldn’t want someone on their said who had at least some control over time. It wasn’t absolute but it was certainly something that gave the government paranoids a leg up against the competition. You hear anyone with time abilities and any government agency from any corner of the world will attempt to snag them up. Trace was lucky he was already agency minded, otherwise he would end up like the other mutants, those that are coerced into membership. That was a fate the hunter wouldn’t dare imagine.

He continued to sip at his coffee, looking through the dossier, learning whatever he could about the agent that he was chasing. The agency kept detailed files thanks to yearly psycho evaluations, histories, relationship trees, everything for purposes exactly like this. S.U.P.E.R. didn’t let you go unless they wanted to let you go. You try to run, taking government secrets with you, they have absolutely no problem with hunting you down and either bringing you back into the fold…or disposing of you in a way that ensures you won’t talk.

It was just how they operated and Akshay was not one question them.

DING!

His phone alerted him to a new message. Flicking across the screen to it, the stalker pulled up the message: it was from the cyber-heads. There was gibberish about an algorithm they had developed, one that was still experimental but used to track certain movements. Muggings, certain purchases, vague appearances of individuals caught on camera, none of it was substantial on its own, purely coincidental, but their algorithm set to track a certain number of these areas within a certain distance and time of one another, essentially, would allow them to track anyone – not matter how well trained.

At least that was what they were trying to explain to Akshay. With a roll of his eyes, he messaged them back…

Do you have a location or not?

A few tense minutes passed. The hunter merely shook his head, lifting his cup to his lips for another sip as the afternoon breeze wafted through his hair. It was amazing how chilly it felt outside, especially when they were in the midst of summer. Akshay didn’t contemplate this for too long, however, as his phone rang with a new message…coordinates.

Silently he nodded his head. It wasn’t an exact location but it was an area to start…somewhere in the general surrounding areas of Madison Square Park. A slight scoff on his lips, Akshay set his cup down, stood up and closed his coat. Setting his phone into his pocket, the man left the café and headed for the coordinates he was given. With the image of Trace Tanner burned into his mind, he set out to find his quarry…and find him he would…

Trace was kind of amazed he’d managed to avoid detection this long. He’d been on the run for about an hour and a half at this point and, to his knowledge, he hadn’t been discovered as of yet. He’d gone ahead and stopped for a moment to get some food from one of the stalls at the Eclipse festival. He found a corner out of the view of the general public, sat down and ate some street tacos, which were particularly delicious. He also drank a decent amount of water. Every good fugitive on the run needed to stay hydrated.
Trace stopped for a moment to wonder who they’d send after him. He didn’t know all of the agents in S.U.P.E.R, but there were some notable agents that might make the list of ‘fugitive hunters’. Or maybe Trace was the first. He hadn’t ever heard of anyone trying to leave before. But, then again, with a shadowy government agency, you probably wouldn’t hear about people leaving. Or stepping out of line. They’d probably send Wick. That would suck. That guy was lethal. Or Nolan. Or maybe someone he hadn’t even met. A chill ran up his spine. They might send some specialist. Things could get ugly.

Trace swept his eyes over the crowd. He was practically in the middle of the park. Not a great place if you were found, but a pretty good place to not be found. There were people all around. Hopefully he’d be able to avoid detection long enough to get himself out of the park and by doing so get all of these people out of harm’s way. That was the goal. No innocents hurt in this exchange. If there was even going to BE an exchange.

Had they gone after Zero? Was that what was taking them so long to catch up? The thought of that girl in the hands of S.U.P.E.R brought a sick feeling to Trace’s stomach. If they had figured out who she actually was, then they would probably do some pretty awful things.

The good news was that the guy who might have known who or where she was probably wouldn’t be telling anyone anything for six to eight weeks. The knockout blow probably broke his jaw. It was not a pleasant memory. But hey, look at the other guy.

Trace checked his watch. It had been nearly an hour. It was about 15:00 (3:00 pm). If this went on for much longer, Trace would have to find some place to stay. He wouldn’t be able to go home. They’d be watching that, everything in a five-mile radius and every person he’d ever known, in all likelihood. This situation was getting more precarious the longer it went on.

Should he just turn himself in? It would definitely minimize civilian casualties. It might save his loved ones. But, then again, it might not. S.U.P.E.R might not buy the reasons that he gave for… What had he done, exactly? Turned coat? He wasn’t working for another agency or faction. He’d definitely departed. And knowing S.U.P.E.R, that was more than enough.

Trace got up and started into the crowd. He’d already spent too long. He needed to move or else he was going to get caught.

Madison Square Park was going to prove to be a challenge. The second that Akshay had gotten out of his taxi, he had begun his search of the surrounding areas. The cyber-heads were keeping an eye out for any more incidents or anything that could link Trace to his location. However it seemed that the agent was trained enough to continue to elude detection. It couldn’t last forever and Akshay knew it, but with every passing minute that he didn’t get a bead on the guy was another minute closer to Trace getting away from him. His superiors wouldn’t be happy if he allowed that so he needed to act fast.

He had seen the advertisements for the food festival that was to be held in honor of the eclipse this evening, but he tried to avoid the spot like the plague. There were too many people. If there were mutants then he was certain that he would end up getting an explosive migraine. He had hoped that Trace would avoid such an open place and busied himself with searching the outer perimeters, but his luck would ultimately fail him. It was already 3:00pm and he was coming up completely empty. No, Akshay was going to have to risk it if he wanted to be thorough.

Pulling a pill bottle from his coat, Akshay narrowed his eyes as he marched in the direction of the festival. As he opened the bottle, he popped two of the pills into the palm of his hand before he proceeded to swallow them straight. He craned his neck, painfully gulping down the pills and hissing through his teeth. With the painkillers quickly taking to his system, the hunter ground his teeth as he reached the edges of the festival and groaned at the sight of several beacons beginning to pop up in his field of vision. There were mutants here. He only hoped there weren’t so many that he would not be able to identify Trace.

Like a shadow he slipped into the ground, ignoring the scents of the various foods cooking all around him and moving with careful purpose. He scrutinized everyone he passed but started to pay careful attention to those who glowed like wildfire with his vision. To Akshay, whenever he was around mutants, the world around him became desaturated and those with X-genes became brighter. It was the to the point that they were almost like staring into the sun for the younger man, as he could feel his eyes burn when he stared for too long. But that was what the pills were for.

With silent, even non-verbal, excuses as he passed, Akshay pulled up his phone until and stared at the image of Trace Tanner that the agency had on file. He kept that image in his mind, looking about the festival in hopes of finding the man. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack but all he needed was one glimpse so that he could lock onto him. But seriously, how great would his luck have to be in order for a miracle like that to happen?

Accidentally bumping into a woman who fumbled with her chocolate covered churro, Akshay merely lifted his eyebrow when she started to berate him for not watching where he was going. Once she started to get into how this churro had cost her fifteen dollars, the younger man merely shook his head and told her in so many carefully chosen words to “f**k off” as returned his attention to the ground. There were mutants, left and right, but he couldn’t get a trace of…well…Trace. Maybe this wasn’t the best decisions. The cyber-heads probably got it all wro—

He stopped. There. Across the way, in a hoodie and dressed as inconspicuously as possible was the familiar height and body shape of the man he was searching. He couldn’t see his face so there wasn’t a solid way to tell, but from Akshay’s eyes he could see that he did possess an active x-gene; that was all he needed to warrant some following.

He locked on. Immediately the figure began to glow like hellfire in Akshay’s eyes. Slowly he tried to keep casually, milling around food stalls but glancing up every now and again to keep the man in his sights. Purchasing a baked apple, Akshay took a warm bite from the treat, flicked hair out of his eyes and tried to keep nonchalant as he followed the man. All he needed was a glance at his face, the last insure he would need to make sure this was the man he was looking for.

Trace could not shake the feeling that someone was watching him. He’d learned over the years, that if you got that feeling, it was usually right. Some part of the brain’s ability to take in all of the information around you lead to this gut reaction, a piecing together of information not necessarily important enough to focus full attention on but relevant enough to know that there was a pattern. The instinct came from a time when humans were little more than animals and something that old needed to be respected.

Trace began to move a bit more evasively. Taking random turns, bumping into people, moving in a nonsense manner which would cause a tail to stick out like a sore thumb. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to be working. He still couldn’t shake the feeling, however. It was too strong. So, he waited for a few seconds until the crowd around him cleared a bit and, using his powers, put up a time bubble. He waited long enough that he’d be the only one in the circumference of the circle; no need to pull a civilian in and draw all that attention to himself.

He spun in a slow circle, scanning the crowd. His time bubbles compressed about two minutes into a span that could be called an instant. To the untrained eye, it might appear that the observer had blinked at the wrong moment and had missed something. To a trained eye, it might be enough to give him away. But Trace had to take the chance because he wasn’t sure if he’d gotten away clean. He couldn’t put anyone else at risk by being sloppy.

His eyes scanned the individuals in the crowd. Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope…. Good looking churros… Nope, nope… his blood froze in his veins. There was a man nearby acting a little too casual. But Trace had seen the same person from the corner of his eye for quite a while now. That had to be it. This was the one they’d sent after him. He wasn’t sure, but he thought the man was a mutant. In an organization with leanings such as S.U.P.E.R, mutants tended to be fairly well known. Recently, that had taken on more of a light of suspicion to Trace. Before he’d thought of it as some kind of fame. He could not recall this particular person’s powers or even his name. But he fit the bill for a tail. Trace was going to have to find out.

He used the remaining few seconds of the time bubble to calm himself and turn in the opposite direction he had been walking before. He readied himself and, just as he let the bubble drop, resumed a casual pace in that direction. For any normal tail, this would be incredibly disorienting. It might even be enough to shake them. The target suddenly is going the other way? It might be just enough to cause doubt.

Trace tried to keep his hood low as he approached the other man. It was a massive risk, but hopefully it would pay off

There was no proof but Akshay had a feeling he was on the right track. He couldn’t see the face of the man who had garnered his attention, but his posture, his body language, to him they all screamed that this was someone who didn’t want to be noticed. Akshay was trained and skilled enough to notice something like that. So with his posture, his build, and the fact that he was glowing like a roman candle thanks to his active X-Gene, Akshay was having the most intense suspicion that this was the man he was looking for; he just needed confirmation.

He tried to keep nonchalant. He milled around the vendors, he munched on an apple, he pretended to observe a woman making cotton candy from scratch, but still Akshay found his eye wandering over to man, observing him but not engaging just yet. He needed to make sure; this was a very public place and the last thing he wanted was for there to be unnecessary attention. People were laughing, taking photos, he could even see evidence of a camera crew wandering through, getting footage of the festivities. He needed to get the man out of this area.

Another bite of his warm apple, and Akshay turned. The man was moving, taking a rather odd number of paths and turns but Akshay always managed to find him again. He wasn’t too obvious and did his best to make it seem as if he was just any other bystander who happened to be going in the same direction. For an everyday pursuit, he would have easily gone unnoticed, but for someone who had training like Trace, well, it was a bit hazy whether or not he was pulling it off.

Pretending to be interested in a the bacon flavored poporn vendor, he smile and took part in some very small chit-chat as he sampled a couple of pieces. But as the man began to explain the process, Akshay would turn to get another eyeful of his quarry.

It was strange. Every time Akshay turned to look at him, he seemed to be pointed in another direction, almost as if Akshay was blinking too fast to notice his movements. He knew from the dossier that Trace had time manipulation abilities that were extremely limited – what was he doing? Turning back to the vendor, he shook his head, not wanting another sample and instead turned back to follow…only it was different. He wasn’t following now, he was being advanced upon.

The man kept his hoodie up and his head down as he casually attempted to walk towards Akshay. He was a vision of flared brilliance as Akshay kept his eyes on him. He tried to look past him, to wave to an individual behind Trace that wasn’t actually there. He just needed to get a good look at his face. It took a moment but as Trace drew closer, the subtle differences were noticeably…fake. This was Trace Tanner.

Just as the two of them were about to cross, Akshay grinning looking over Trace’s shoulder, he shouted to the person who was not there. ”Stacy! I’m coming…” he chuckled good-naturedly. However, as soon as the two were just about to slip passed one another, Akshay stopped, his arm held out, and he snagged Trace by the bicep. His good-natured mask fell away as he whispered just loud enough for Trace to hear, ”Let’s not make a scene, Mr. Tanner.”

Trace thought he had made it. The man he’d been worried about called out to someone behind Trace right before he was going to pass. Somewhere deep in his mind, a voice screamed that it wasn’t true. That the threat was close. Adrenaline surged through his veins. They were separated by ten feet… five feet… dead even… And a hand reached out, snagging him by the bicep. A voice, low and confident said “Let’s not make a scene, Mr. Tanner”

Well, this was the worst case scenario. And it literally had reached out and grabbed Trace by the arm. He’d heard rumors of a specialist in S.U.P.E.R that could track mutants. It was said that he could track any mutant, anywhere. Trace had even heard an audio recording of the man once, provided by a co-worker. That was what struck a chord with Trace. It was The Stalker. Worst case indeed.

Trace’s mind went into overdrive. A million thoughts hit his brain at the same time. He was going to die. This was it. Should he fight? Could he fight? His mind popped back to when he was a kid and his parents had told him that if a stranger grabbed you that you made it impossible for them to take you anywhere. You kicked, screamed, fought. Generally, you made a scene. For some reason, that advice didn’t seem particularly relevant But, then again, maybe it was.

Trace turned, cooperating with the slightly older agent. He was going to play along for a moment, but he wasn’t going to go quietly. But he needed to wait for the right moment. Hell, he’d bumped into someone as he was turning around. Too many people in this area. He needed to get some distance. Plus, he couldn’t user his power in these close quarters. It wouldn’t do him any good. He was too close to his enemy and it would just take both of them in. That might serve useful.

Trace’s training had kicked in. No amount of training could fully suppress human emotion. But it could sharpen that emotion into a blade you could use against an opponent. Readying himself, Trace began his plan. “So what do I call you? Stalker seems a little off putting. Wouldn’t want to startle any of these nice people.” He said, bravado flaring. He wasn’t going to let this man cause him to panic again. He was done being hunted. The best way to deal with a predator was to not become prey. Trace wasn’t going down defenseless.

Akshay didn’t move. The second that he had clasped his hand around Tanner’s bicep, there wasn’t need for him to move any further. He had the mutant and in this close proximity to people, he knew that there was no way getting away from him. He was locked on, he had his DNA signature, there was no reason to intimidate him further because there would be no getting away. What he needed now, more than ever, was for Trace to come back quietly as to not cause a scene. The problem, of course, being that the two of them were in a rather public area, with bystanders and people recording. Once they got someplace quiet, he could continue with what needed to be done.

Holding Trace perfectly still, he could see the demeanor of the individual shifting. Where before he had been doing what he could to blend into the crowd, now he seemed almost resigned to his fate. Of course that didn’t make him a weak, sniveling fool trying to talk his way out of the situation. As a matter of fact, Trace was being quite agreeable to Akshay’s order. He had told him that they shouldn’t cause a scene and rather than try to break away or shout for help, Trace was being surprisingly submissive. It was too good to hope that he was planning on giving up right here and now but the hunter could hope.

With a silent agreement that he would cooperate, Trace stood tall but didn’t fight back. It was a suspicious, of course, to Akshay, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Still he kept his hand firmly around Trace’s arm, his other slipping to the side and casually pulling a knife from his sleeve downward so he would have easy access to it should it be needed.

>> “So what do I call you? Stalker seems a little off putting. Wouldn’t want to startle any of these nice people.”

Akshay rolled his eyes. To be honest the codename wasn’t exactly his favorite but the higher-ups thought it gave him a nice ring. He was used more as an image, a boogeyman story for agents so that they wouldn’t get out of line. They knew that if they even heard a whisper that The Stalker was on your tail, that you needed to shape up. Still, despite the fearful respect that it earned him, he didn’t care for it. Hearing it come from Trace, with such bravado, only made the hunter roll his eyes tiredly.

He turned, he removed his hand from Trace’s arm and held it firmly upon his shoulder, just a slight squeeze where the nerves were to show he was serious. ”Shut up,” he said low and quiet but with a smile to fool anyone nearby. ”We’re going to walk. You’re not going to say a word. And when we get somewhere more private, we’re going to call this in.” Another tight squeeze to those cluster of nerves. ”Understand?”

He waited until Trace either confirmed or denied and, despite his reaction, Akshay would start walking, pushing the man to walk along side him. The second he got clear of prying eyes he would call in that the asset had been captured and would be awaiting pick up. Deep down, some part of him felt sorry for Trace because he knew what the man was going to be suffering for turning against S.U.P.E.R., but it was better him than Akshay himself.

The eyeroll was a sign that his verbal blow had landed. No one with the nom de plume ‘Stalker’ could enjoy being called that, especially not by someone being defiant. Make their shame your strength and all. The tension he felt in the air was fairly palpable. It was an environment Trace could work with. It was also an environment that could get him shot or stabbed. But sometimes, you have to focus on the positives.

Stalker – since he’d chosen to not give another name – shifted his grip so that his hand was firmly on Trace’s shoulder. He’d also slipped something down his sleeve with his other hand. It was definitely a pro move. Possibly a gun or, if Trace was somewhat fortunate, a knife. Guns tended to make things messy. Although, in the right hands, a knife could do just the same. He gave a squeeze on the pressure point located in that area and told Trace to shut up. This guy obviously didn’t know Trace Tanner. Shutting up wasn’t something he was likely to do. And pain wasn’t all that big of a motivator to keep your mouth shut.

There was a certain amount of calm to The Stalker. Something that Trace could read. But it was like he didn’t really know what he was reading. A certainty. Like the fact that the cat was in the bag and that it wasn’t going anywhere. No Schrodinger scenario here, that cat was dead. Trace took a mental note of this fact. Sometimes, confidence was well placed. Other times, it was a major weak spot. He’d have to probe to get a bit more information to see what this confidence was.

He squeezed the nerve cluster in Trace’s shoulder again. That hurt. “I read you loud and clear, Sir-Stalks-a-lot!” Trace said with a note of pain in his voice. Again, back to the part where you can’t suppress all forms of being human. “And just to be clear on the talk or no talk thing, should I answer when you ask me questions out loud? Or no?” he asked, pushing the boundaries a bit. He had to get Stalker thinking he’d lash out verbally. He also wanted to get him a bit angry. People weren’t at their best when they were angry.

If Trace was going to get away, he’d have to catch a moment when the Stalker let his guard down. Trained agents didn’t often do that, so if there was a chance, Trace would have to take it. He couldn’t miss. It was third and long, ten seconds left and the ball was in Stalker’s court. The ninth inning, down by one, Stalker up to bat. And all those other sports metaphors. Trace had always been told that you learned more from mistakes than from winning. Someone was about to learn a serious lesson.

This was it. He had his quarry and now it was just a matter of getting out of this public setting so that the man could be dealt with accordingly. It was always a shame to lose a good agent, especially when Trace seemed like he would have been one of the good ones. But that clearly didn’t matter anymore. The man was an unexpected loose end that needed to be snipped. Akshay didn’t take too much pleasure in this, though, despite his reactions. He merely did what he was instructed to…background information was irrelevant to him now. As far as he was concerned, whatever was in store for Trace, it was because of his own doing.

A firm pinch of the nerves and he started to guide the man away. He didn’t care for the sass that he was getting back from him but knew that it came with the territory sometimes. Really he couldn’t blame the man. A lot of times those people he hunted tried to hide their fear by talking a lot or wrapping themselves up in a blanket of denial to prove that they were going to be okay after all. It was harmless bravado, nothing more.

However, what made this one particularly annoying was that the man simply wasn’t shutting up. After he had already informed him of the plan and warmed him once, the now ex-agent as still talking. He complied, of course, by walking but his mouth was still going, something which was already starting to grate on Akshay’s nerves.

>> “I read you loud and clear, Sir-Stalks-a-lot! And just to be clear on the talk or no talk thing, should I answer when you ask me questions out loud? Or no?”

The painful reaction was nice, but the fact that it wasn’t deterring him from his grumbling was enough to start to irritate Akshay. He felt his hand on the knife hidden in his sleeve. He shook his head, grumbling again as he kept up with the man, his agitation showing a little as he adverted his gaze to try and just tune the man out. Still, another warning would hopefully help silence his tongue.

”Stop. Talking.” he grumbled.

The day was pressing on. It would be evening before they he knew it. the last thing he wanted was to spend further time away from his family time because this guy was dragging his feet. He gave Trace just a little shove on his shoulder, sending him forward a step or two. He was ready to get this guy out of his life.

Trace’s plan to irritate the other agent had worked quite well. He noticed a subtle shift in his posture which likely indicated he was considering using whatever he had up his sleeve. Good. He’d almost driven the man to violence. That likely meant that he’d slip up shortly. Probably wanted to watch the Mets game. Or worse… The Yankees. That thought almost sent shivers down Trace’s spine in and of itself.

They had walked a decent distance and had cleared the park. The foot traffic in the area was considerably lighter. The vehicle traffic was, well, light for New York. Most people in the area had come on foot in anticipation of the Eclipse festival causing things to be pretty hectic. Hell, even without the cars New York had a way of making itself hectic as it was.

The opportunity came in the form of a shove on his shoulder. Trace stumbled forward a couple of steps and seized the opportunity to make the gap three or four steps in quick succession. He slammed a time bubble up with Stalker just outside the boundary. Close enough that if Trace held the bubble for too long, he might cross the boundary. That generally didn’t go too well when it happened. But also close enough that Trace could try to pull something off that might just save his life.

He took a step back and turned to face the other agent. The only way he was going to easily make contact with an operator of this guy’s caliber was if he caught him completely unaware. As though he had some kind of power that could have him stumbling forward one instant and be turned around and punching him in the face before anything seemingly could have transpired. So that’s exactly what Trace was going to attempt to do.

Now, this wouldn’t be any ordinary punch. Trace would have to drop the bubble the exact moment before his punch would land. No room for error. If he messed up and his fist passed through the bubble, it would probably miss. And could possibly tear his arm off. He wasn’t sure. Projectiles traversing the bubble did weird things like skew off in random directions. Would the same thing happen to his arm?

The risk was entirely worth it. Trace squared himself up right inside the boundary of the bubble, drew back and threw all of his strength into a punch that would have his fist stopping about four inches behind Stalker’s head. The parts of his face in between would catch all of that force. As his fist approached, he dropped the barrier and noticed in the fraction of a second his arm wasn’t torn asunder. So far so good.

Akshay was getting irritated. He didn’t like it when his prey was this chatty. Then again, he wasn’t all too unfamiliar with it. Some people, when caught in a situation like this are nervous and sometimes, nervous people liked to talk. They talked because it was the only thing that they had power over. They were caught and they wanted to spill as many words as possible, almost as if they hoped to weave a verbal wall between the two of them in hopes that it will help aid their escape. Most of the time Akshay just let them talk, it was easier that way. But with Trace, it was different. He was an agent and he didn’t trust him to talk so much.

Sadly the Stalker’s discomfort didn’t mean that Trace would be accepting of it at all. The man continued to talk, continued to pry, and it got to the point where Akshay did something rather stupid. He knew better than to do what he did. He knew better than to shove the man and have him step more than a few steps ahead of him. However, irritation and confidence that he could track the mutant was enough to blind him to the fact of just how silly is actions were.

He shoved Trace. Trace stumbled forward a few steps. The space was all the ex-agent needed to toss up one of those bubbles where he seemed to be moving out of sync with the rest of time. Akshay’s eyes went wide. ”No!”

He dropped the knife from his sleeve, into his waiting hand, and immediately reached out to re-seize the man. His actions, though, did not go unnoticed. As soon as Akshay had shouted, that drew people’s attention. Some already had their phones out, recording the festivities, and now camera lenses were turned towards the man who had just shouted. However, while only a few seconds, at most, passed, it seemed to be all the time needed for Trace to go on the offense.

Just as Akshay was about to reach out towards him, the man’s fist suddenly filled his vision. It flew at him, like a bullet, striking him across the jaw and causing the mutant to sputter and growled, the impact pushing him backwards until he started to stumble back a few steps. Knocked off center, Akshay stumbled into a nearby person, knocking them and another down, causing even more of a ruckus as a fourth party stumbled into table, knocking down the contents that were splayed atop.

CRASH! BANG! SMASH!

A cacophony was finely woven noise filled the air, drawing eyes towards the epicenter. The agent, felled by the punch, struggled to regain his senses, pushing a person off of him and forcing himself move onto his knees. His jaw burned and radiated with heat. Reaching down, he felt something smooth and cool touch his hand, his knife. It had clattered onto the ground. Picking it up, his eyes immediately sought his quarry again when someone from the crowd shouted.

”HE HAS A KNIFE!!”

Akshay growled under his breath. ”F**k.”

The plan worked far better than Trace had ever expected it to. His face made incredibly solid contact with Stalker’s jaw. The man had drawn that knife that had been up his sleeve the instant Trace had been pushed away. Man, this guy was good. It meant that he had, in some way, anticipated his mistake. Trace had still been able to take advantage of the man’s unfamiliarity with his time powers. The other agent was sent sprawling back into the crowd.

This caused a minor chain reaction in which a couple of nearby people were knocked over causing a table to flip over. Trace felt a little bad a bout that. Fortunately, no one had ended up skewered on the blade that Stalker had drawn.

Trace made like the roadrunner and meep meep’ed himself away from the crowd. Over his shoulder, he heard someone yell “HE HAS A KNIFE!” Trace chuckled and turned to look. That was a big mistake. The agent was trying to pick himself up as many people in the crowd were screaming and running. A few vanillas looked as though they were considering the odds of successfully taking on the downed knife assailant, but no one actually made a move. It was the thought that counts.

As Trace turned his attention back to the path in front of him, he saw a familiar face barring his path. Just hours before, Trace had broken a fellow agent’s jaw on the campus of NYU. It was the event that had caused all of this mess in the first place. Well, someone had obviously gotten the man healed because he was standing in front of Trace and he did not look happy.

Trace barely had time to react as the additional agent took a swing at him with an outstretched arm. The arm nearly caught Trace unaware, but he was able to drop himself into a slide under the man’s outstretched arm. Trace popped up to standing after the slide and popped a time bubble into place. He needed to deal with the agent without anyone else getting in the way and before Stalker could get to them.

Trace nearly passed out with what happened next.

He’d heard talk of people that were able to neutralize the X-gene’s abilities. This agent must have had the exact opposite effect on the X-gene. Trace’s perception of time completely shifted. Around him, time seemed to cease to exist. Everything was completely frozen. Trace immediately launched into combat with the other agent. He grappled the agent from behind and was flipped over the man’s shoulder.

Trace braced himself to pass through the barrier and realized that the barrier was further out than usual. In fact, it was about 40 feet in diameter. He watched people scurry out of the barrier and freeze in place. Apparently this guy was the living version of mutant steroids. This also meant that Stalker was in the bubble.

Trace landed on his back and drew his gun from his ankle holster, training it on the agent. “I don’t want to hurt you but I will shoot!” Trace shouted. He hadn’t pulled the gun on Stalker because of the number of people in the area and, well, he frankly hadn’t had time. Standing and keeping his gun leveled at the agent, he quickly circled behind the man, putting the gun to his head. Trace was not the human shield type, but this man was part of the organization that was trying to kill him.

Trace released the time bubble quickly and prepared for Stalker’s assault. Hopefully with his new bargaining chip, he’d be able to hold the man off.

The punch hurt but it would hurt more if the target got away. However, unlike other agents who could have scrambled to their feet and jumped up after the man, pushing people away, Akshay knew that he didn’t need to work – he was still locked onto him. Trace had escaped regular line a sight a few steps back but that wasn’t the only way to track him. As he moved onto his feet, dusting himself off, and picking up his knife, Akshay looked through the crowd that ran and screamed around him. They wouldn’t not be a distraction.

Like a beacon in the night, Akshay could see Trace as the man fled further and further away through the crowd. He couldn’t see him outright, but he could see that glowing pillar of light that only Akshay himself could see. Trace wasn’t going anywhere.

A few in the crowd gave the hunter the dangerous eye, but holding the knife in his hand, a rather twisted grin swept over his lips as he eyed them. Humans were supposed to be protected, yes, which meant that death was out of the question. But a few incapacitating gash and slices were fine so long as it was in self-defense. He waited for someone, anyone to make a move. When it never came, the agent just shook his head and started to walk in the direction that Trace had run.

Cameras followed him but at this point, Akshay just didn’t care anymore. They could record him all they wanted. He knew that S.U.P.E.R. would figure some way to block or delete all of it before the day was up. By the end of the week, videos of this incident will be relegated to deep web sites only, and a week after that they will be merely urban legends and nothing more. Mutants, money, and government bullying were all that was needed to turn this incident into just another example of hearsay; will be swept under the rug before they knew it.

Watching Trace’s beacon flee, the man smirked as his prey suddenly stopped. Another mutant signature was glowing, but this one was far dimmer and was opposing Trace. Judging from the movements, Akshay could only guess that a fight was ensuing. Good, the longer that Trace was distracted, the more easily that he could get into position.

Step, step, step, he edged closer and closer to the scene. He could practically taste the end of this hunt drawing to a near. Trace was distracted. Whomever the mutant that was keeping him busy was doing a damn good job of it. Barely walking into the scene, Akshay just grinned as his eyes started to glow a fierce, bright shade of red. People around him screamed, other recorded with their phones as mist started to envelope Akshay with every step he took – until, finally, in cloud of hazy smoke, the darkly dressed hunter vanished completely from sight.

Where one instant he was several feet away, the next there was a thick haze appearing behind Trace. The first to appear were the flashing red eyes and, following that, was the leaping form for Akshay Malik, also known as the Stalker. With the flash of a silver blade in his hand, the still mostly teleporting mutant could feel that rush of adrenaline as it torn throughout his body. Something was off. His was coming in, fast, his eyes glowing brighter than ever. He didn’t know what was happening but he couldn’t focus on it now.

For now, he needed only one thing.

He flew at Trace, mist refusing to dissipate and flowing freely around his body as he lunged at the runaway agent. He had him. ”TANNER!!!!”