**
The circuit board of the armband bafflingly looked like a bunch of gibberish. It was as if someone took a microchip for a watch and then shifted things around so that it couldn’t function at all. Despite that, it did have a component identifiable as a signal booster in a configuration that shaped whatever signal the chip was projecting into a small field around the wearer. The entire contraption ran off of body heat. The lack of logic in the engineering suggested it had been created by someone with an ability similar to the one the Agency referred to as The Architect.
While Hugo would never be able to reconstruct an item created by an Architect, as the creations did tend to defy logic in the way other powered people’s powers worked, it was still based on mundane technology and he figured the easiest way to disrupt it without physically breaking the band seemed to be to get the metal to vibrate so that the field disrupted itself. Hugo quickly wrote a program that would test for the metal’s resonance frequency and let it run. Now they just had to wait.
Crysta smiled, then glanced away, her cheeks red, “I’ve been practicing the piano. Maybe, if you wouldn’t mind, you could listen, and tell me how to improve?”
Hugo nodded, “Of course.” He almost made a portal, but Crysta had already started moving again, a slight smile on her face. Well, it wasn’t far to her place, and they weren’t exactly in a hurry, and it was actually really nice out; warm, windy, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The weather report for the day was way off, but he wasn’t going to complain about that.
Once they’d made it to her apartment, Crysta slipped off her shoes and placed her coat in the closet. He dropped his scarf over the back of the couch.
“Coffee?” She asked.
He met her at the edge of the kitchen, “Yeah, but let me make it. You go warm up.” She paused, and it looked like for a moment she would argue, but instead she just nodded and headed back towards the piano.
For some reason it took him several moments to actually continue into the kitchen. It was small and neat, which wasn’t exactly a surprise; everything about Crysta was neat and composed. She liked structure and routine, something he’d never been able to manage to anyone’s satisfaction. The coffeemaker was tucked in a corner, unplugged, with a fresh filter in it, but no coffee grounds. He looked around at the cabinets, trying to predict which one the coffee would be in before actually looking. He could hear her pressing down on the keys hesitantly, almost randomly; quiet and tentative. She was embarrassed. Hugo found himself smiling a bit. He opened one cabinet and then another. On the third try he found the coffee in a container, the scoop inside. He measured out enough for the filter, poured in the water, and then turned it on. It immediately started that soft little gurgling noise that was so familiar. Did his dad still drink a lot of coffee?
Hugo backtracked through the cabinets to pull out a couple mugs and then fished around for the sugar and milk. He peeked into a few more cabinets absentmindedly. It wouldn’t work, they were complete opposites. The only things they had in common were the same circumstances that had turned him into a killer, but not her.
Realizing, belatedly, that he was rummaging around Crysta’s kitchen without permission, he walked to the entrance, but stopped before heading to the couch. Her back was to him, her shoulders slightly hunched. She was giving the piano her full attention now. Her posture was wrong; she could get carpel tunnel that way; although he doubted she’d ever play enough to make that a problem. Even still, he was already right behind her, placing the palm of his hand against the curve of her back, pushing a little, “Don’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself.”
She sat up much straighter than she needed to; overcompensating because he’d startled her. She should have noticed him. What had she been thinking about? Uh…she was never going to get carpel tunnel cause she could regenerate.
Crysta tilted her head back so that she was looking him in the eyes, “Sorry.” Her face was a little red; why was his hand still against her back?
He stuck his hands in his pockets, “Ready to start?”
Crysta nodded, and returned her focus to the piano. He continued to the couch, pulled off his shoes (which he should have done at the door when they’d walked in,) and pulled his legs up on the couch, leaning against an armrest so that he could still see the piano. She started a little hesitantly, and she was too stiff because now she was worried about her posture, but eventually she forgot about it and relaxed. She was doing a decent job; a little mechanical, but it would get better once she felt completely comfortable with the piece. She’d never stray too far from the emotion written into the sheet music however, she was just like that.
What was he thinking? He wasn’t her type at all, she’d figure it out eventually, and then things would just get awkward. Or he’d die and that would upset her (huge understatement,) or he’d do something and get her killed. But how was that different from what they were already doing? Ok, so he was just worried about the eventual rejection he could see coming from a mile away. She’d figure out that he was completely unreliable; he would let her down. He would let them all down, already had made a lot of mistakes, and still they stuck with him, listened to him like he knew what he was doing. He was so lucky to have them as friends, but eventually they’d all get tired of him and go away, wouldn’t they?
The smell of the brewing coffee filled every corner of the small, tidy apartment; seeped into his brain. He pulled himself off the couch and went back into the kitchen. This was depressing. He didn’t like this train of thought at all. He didn’t know how Crysta liked her coffee. Hugo frowned a little as he stirred sugar into the cup he’d poured for himself. He didn’t want to just guess, because she might not like it, but he didn’t want to interrupt her either. Maybe he should just leave it for now, and get her a cup when she was done with her third run-through of the song. Perhaps he should have said something about how she was playing so far. Had he really been in the kitchen that long?
Hugo took his mug back into the living room, but stopped when he noticed that her wrists were a little low, so a few of the notes from her right hand were coming out weak. He set the coffee mug on the little stand by the piano, next to a couple of ball bearings and 84 cents.
She stopped playing and looked up at him. He nodded toward the piano, “Keep going, I want to show you something.” Crysta nodded, a determined look on her face as she turned back to the piano, placing her hands on the keys. She paused for a moment, trying to remember exactly where she’d dropped off. He came up behind her, which made the recollection take a bit longer, but then she started again. He waited and eventually her right wrist started to droop again, so he leaned over her shoulder and pressed his fingers against her wrist, pushing it upwards. He wasn’t tall enough, so he was actually leaning on her a little. Crysta abruptly stopped playing. Holy crap, what was he doing? He could have just told her what she was doing wrong; he didn’t need to be interrupting her like this.
She was staring very fixedly at the piano keys; her face was bright red. Common sense told him to move, to back off, but he certainly didn’t seem to be doing that; in fact, he wasn’t moving much at all. Crysta shifted. He should say something, but her perfume was in the way. He pulled his hand away from the soft skin on her wrist, only to lose control again at her shoulder. Crysta turned her face towards him somewhat, dragging her hair over the back of his hand. Both of her hands were still lightly resting on the piano keys. His left hand touched the back of the bench. Screw common sense. His right hand slid to her collarbone and he applied a slight pressure; her body responded, she was leaning back towards him…
…and then his ass started to vibrate. Hugo jerked back a few steps, startled. He should ignore it. It couldn’t possibly be important. But he was already sliding his phone out of his back pocket. God dammit Clem, “What?” He said more sharply than he’d intended.
“Sorry Captain, did I interrupt something?” Clem sounded way too smug, and Hugo’s only comfort was that he wasn?
??t in the room to read his mind at the moment.
“What is it, Clem?” Hugo attempted civility.
Clem chuckled, “You know that guy that tried to shoot you? I think we found their memory-wipe guy. Lucas couldn’t give us a lot of information beyond that. We’ll need to talk to the head of The Lazarus Group, Mitchell. What does he do?”
“Weather control.”
“Great, that should be easy,” Clem paused for a moment, “What do you want us to do about the mind-wipey guy?”
Hugo glanced at Crysta, who was staring up at him questioningly, “Take care of him. I don’t want him doing that to anyone else.”
“Got it Captain,” Clem responded, clearly not surprised by the answer, “How’s the armband coming along?”
“I think we have a solution, now we’re just waiting to make sure it works. I’ll give you a call as soon as it’s ready.”
“Good. We need that thing. Well, we should go. Bye!”
Crysta was still staring up at him, her hands in her lap.
Hugo shifted his weight, keeping his eyes focused on his phone, “We should… uh… head back to the lab. The program has probably finished running.”
Crysta stared at the piano for a second, and then nodded.