My first patrol was relatively calm, I started out over my clinic, after checking that the phone I turned into a body cam and sown into my costume was working properly. I took off from the roof of my building and began circling the surrounding area.
Unfortunately, because a lot of the houses were pretty old, they had a lot of asbestos in them, which apparently meant that, even though I was in the process of getting a demolitions liscense, I couldn't do the demolitions myself. We had to get special contractors to come in and tear down all the houses. Even my clinic would have to have the insulation gutted and replaced with something more modern.
But, since that was taking a while, the place was still pretty run down. Which made it the perfect haunt for drug dealers and thugs. There were other so-called criminals around, including prostitutes and homeless people, but I didn't really concern myself with them. Brockton bay had enough people down on their luck that I didn't want to make things worse for them if I could. Still, that left me plenty of people to capture.
I grabbed a branch off one of the trees, letting my power go to work on it, transforming the cellulose and lignin into complex chaining molecules that spun themselves into ropes stronger than steel. The only way to get people out of them would be with my power, some very intense heat, or a very potent acid.
It was a shame how long it took me to make them. I was kind of tempted to make an extruder down the line, I might do it anyways, it wasn't that hard to make, and if I got them approved, I bet they would sell quite well. Until then, I could use it to tie up the people I captured.
As I passed over another alley, I saw my next target. I floated down behind the two thugs, putting them to sleep as I touched down. I really needed some other way to stun them, but for some reason, I can't seem to make electrical blasts. Well, my Tinker power would let me build like tazers into my hands or something, but I want to spend some time looking up why it was going on.
I mimed tapping something in my ear and began controlling the burner phone. I had some ideas on how to make the control system I was imagining it real, but it was more work than just controlling it with my powers.
"Hello, this is Halcyon, I've performed a Citizens Arrest on two individuals attempting to assault a young woman, I'm at the corner of 34th and Martin Luthor."
The operator on the line paused, "Halcyon, to confirm, are you a cape?"
"Yes, I am a cape."
"We will have to inform the PRT of any incidents involving a cape."
"I understand. How long can I expect to be waiting to hand these men over to the police?"
"A squad car is being dispatched, but it will take some time to reach you."
I did the calculations in my head. I noted I could be over there quite a bit sooner, "I can reach you in about five minutes, would you like me to bring them to you and provide a statement?"
The operator paused, "Sure, I'll have the officers meet you outside."
I looked at the young woman, "Want to come with?"
She nodded absently. I grabbed the two thugs by the cord, picked up the woman with one hand - and asom discretely placed force-fields and took to the skies. After dumping them at the police station, filling out a report and taking to the skies again, I continued to patrol. I rounded up dozens of criminals as I worked south and east towards downtown.
It was dark, by the time I was in the richer part of town, but I had managed to figure out a sort of night-vision by using my powers to detect the light coming into my eyes. My Sensor was way more sensitive than my eyes, and I could basically see nearly as bright as day if I wanted to. It made spotting those criminals and knocking them out very easy.
But eventually, I made it to my destination, Brockton General, the biggest hospital in the city. And also, 'coincidentally' where Panacea was volunteering today. I had already cleared my own volunteering, where I would be taking a round through some of the longer-term care wards.
I worked through each person, healing them to the point where some self-care could get them the rest of the way, I didn't really have time for much more, since I was moving through the hospice care patients and had a goal to reach. Plus, I didn't want to devalue the full healing services I provided. What I was doing now meant that people could be discharged, and as long as they took care of themselves, they would perfectly healthy in a month or two tops.
Eventually, I found myself in the trauma ward, looking over the most severe cases.
Across the way, the door opened and I saw Panacea walking in. She stared, as I quickly dealt with the most severe injuries one of the men and started to move along.
Eventually, once everyone was out of danger, I walked over to her, "Nice to meet you, I'm Halcyon."
She stared at me, and then at the patient she was healing, the man I had healed when she first entered the room, "You aren't healing them fully?"
I shrugged, "Yeah, I mean, I'm making sure they won't die or anything, but it's not like I'm getting paid to do this. I'm helping out here because I don't want people to die."
"Paid? You want to be paid for healing?"
I stared at her, "Yeah."
"Isn't that selfish?"
"How is that selfish?" I was very confused.
She looked at me, "Well, you have healing powers, right? Shouldn't you be doing the most good you can?"
I paused, "I mean, it's not like fully healing them versus healing them until they can go home and recover makes all that much of a difference. Plus, I help more people this way."
"You know what?" I asked as she stared at me in confusion, "I'm almost done here, the others are in decent enough shape that the doctors here can take care of them. I'm hungry, and you look a little tired, why don't we go grab some snacks at that cafe down the road, and we can chat a little more about this."
She looked around, and I shook my head, "They will be fine, I checked all of them, and I went through the hospice wing before coming here. Oncology was practically empty when I passed through there earlier, so I bet you got through it," I turned to one of the nurses who was staring at me with wide eyes, "That just leaves, what Infectious deseases as a priority now that we are done with trauma?"
"Um… we just came from there, it's pretty empty outside of like the normal flu patients."
I nodded, "So yeah, there's no one that really needs us here now. Why don't we get some food."
The nurse nodded quickly, "Yeah, some rest will do you well Panacea, take a bit of a break why don't you?" she told Panacea as she ferried the two of us out of the room. She quickly guided us to the elevator and dragged us into it, seeing us off in the lobby. Panacea stared at me. I shrugged, "So, snacks?"
She paused, and then sighed, "Sure, snacks."
We talked a little on the way to the cafe, ignored the barista staring at us as I bought us both some food, and we took one of the more secluded booths.
We talked a little while, about healing. Or, well, I talked for a while, as I explained my clinic to her. "So, it kind of helps everyone. I get paid, so I can do my other stuff, the people who can't be cured with modern technology get their healing. Plus this way, doctors don't loose out on their payment, though nothing is stopping me from just volunteering to heal normal injuries until my hospital is done."
"What about the people who can't pay?"
"Meh, I get to decide how much I'm charging to heal people, I'll figure out what the price is, and how they can pay it. I just want to make sure that I'm not being taken advantage of."
She looked down at her coffee. "And that works?"
"I dunno? It should? I've only been doing this for like two weeks, so I don't really know. But I've been doing research ans speaking with lawyers and some other guys, and this should do what I want it to, and make sure that I don't go crazy just healing people all the time."
She just sat there.
I checked the time and frowned, "It's getting late. I'll need to head home soon. Do you want a ride back home?"
She nodded absently, and I guided her out of the cafe. I slung my arm under hers and pulled her up into a princess carry. "You can fly!?"
"Sort of." I chuckled. "It's a bit tricky but I've gotten a lot of practice."
I didn't go quite as fast as I could, but even keeping things under the rate I regenerated at we made decent time. I dropped Panacea off at her house, and then took off, checking in at my clinic before dissapearing into the storm drains to head home.
As I made my way back to my stash, I took a moment to upload all of my body-cam footage to my website to make good on my promise to the police, and wrote an email to Mr. Wiles asking how I would go about getting a police station set up in my territory.
I knew it was illegal for me to make my own holding cells, but travelling so far to drop off people was annoying. That said, I bet there was some way of bringing the cops closer to me, instead of having to travel so far. Setting up a little police outpost with holding cells would probably be pretty easy and it wouldn't even need to have a whole lot of cops, since me and my team would be based pretty close by.
When I opened the door, mom was sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me, "James! Are you hurt?"
"Mooom… I'm fine, I didn't even get into a fight, I just knocked the people out before they realised I was there." I groaned as this patted me down.
She looked at me, "Don't mom me, do you know how worried I was?"
"I promised you that I wouldn't get into fight with any capes right? The thugs weren't dangerous at all, I just knocked them out, tied them up and handed them over to the cops."
She sighed, "So, what do you want for dinner?"
"Umm… do we have any mac and cheese?"
She laughed, "Sure, we can have some mac and cheese."
Over dinner, mom asked me all about the patrol, though there really wasn't much to tell her about. Jenny, on the other hand, was much more interested in the pictures she saw on PHO of Halcyon and Panacea on a date.
"It was just a cup of coffee, we were tired from healing for hours, and we wanted a snack. That doesn't make it a date."
"You spent several hours talking with someone over a cup of coffee. Most people would call that a date."
Jenny cackled as my cheeks grew hot, "Shut up. She's nice, but I don't think she thinks of me like that."
"Don't give up hope yet, it's just the first date, and it looks like ti went well. You even carried her home. Did you remember to give her a kiss before you left?"
I was just about to stand up as mom stared at Jenny, "Jenny, stop teasing your brother."
I relaxed for a moment.
"Though, I do have to admit, the pictures she showed me of the two of you were very cute. I definitely approve."
"Mooom!"
Still, I smiled as i finished off the last of my dinner. I put away my plate and mentally started searching up why I couldn't make a taser with my Projector. Turns out that electricity is sub-atomic, which means my powers can't move the electrons around in order to build up those sorts of charges.
My power couldn't do that, or, not easily, at least. I'd have to put together a power that did this sort of sub-atomic stuff better. Honestly, having something that could do that promised to be pretty interesting.
I toyed around with different implementations of the power, but every time I got somewhere, it was too expensive, or too limited. Something in the back of my head was nagging me that I was missing something obvious, that I should be able to pull off something reasonable.
Still, it started to get late, and I hadn't decided on the next set of thinker powers yet, so I still needed sleep.
The next day was a lot less hectic, without someone being stuffed into a locker. Taylor still hadn't returned to school, but surprisingly, both Emma and Sophia were also missing. Why, exactly was a bit of a mystery, but I suspected that the cops can brought them in for questioning or something and they stayed home the next day?
The day was fairly quiet, and I even managed to finish my homework in my bag with a Mental Lane during class so I wouldn't need to worry about that tonight. Instead, as soon as I got home, I chucked my bag into my room, said bye to mom and headed out to the woods again.
I was at the clinic again today, taking a moment to heal up a few people, and wrapping things up early.
I was just about to head downstairs and see to some of the walk-ins when One of the windows exploded and a gunshot rang out.
I froze for a moment, before forcing myself to yell, "Everyone on the floor now, I'm going to deal with this.
I raced out towards the door, projecting a barrier of force as I did so. Several bullets hit the barrier and fell to the floor as I burst out onto the street, seeing my attackers. A few skinheads. They stared at me as they emptied their guns at me, but my barrier held firm.
I didn't give them a chance to reload, racing over and knocking them out as soon as I got in range.
The fight was short, as their brains were forcefully put to sleep. They crumpled to the floor, and I took a moment to unwind some of my wire from around my wist and tie them up.
I headed back into clinic, "The disturbances have been dealt with. I will be making a call to the police to have them picked up, but once that is done, anyone who wishes to contact their family may make use of this phone for five minutes at a time. Those who are still waiting for healing, I will see you at the front desk.
Once the call was over, I made a note to talk to mom tonight about what happened. I didn't get hurt, but with the way things were going, I was going to need to really step things up. Some security guards at least, and some bullet proof glass for the windows.
I continued to think up various things as I pulled up the first evaluation that Debra returned to me. "Jamie Franklin, please come up."
And with that I got to work. I quickly made my way through the different people until I got to Emmanuel Davis. "You get out of my clinic. I don't treat the gangs." He began yelling at me, but I just shook my head, "No means no, get the fuck out."
His fist came careening at my head, but it ran into a plane of force, stopping instantly. I sighed, and tapped his fist, sending him to the floor. I carried him out and left him with the other empire thugs, He wasn't actually tied up, since that would be illegal, but I didn't have to wake him up, and what did you know? The cops finally showed up.
They sighed when I showed them the security footage of Davis, and put him in the back of the car as well, ferrying the three of them off to the police station.
It took a while, even with only really requiring a base minimum of a background check, but eventually, I managed to work through the people who weren't going to go out there and cause problems for society. And I made a decent profit!
Some of it wasn't money, one guy was ex-merchants and he knew a little about how their gang was set up, so he got a discount. Assuming that things hadn't changed too much, Squealer would be taking a sub she made out to mexico and back this weekend to get more drugs. The chance to get another Tinker power and possibly capture a Merchant cape would be amazing!
So yeah, I repaired the damaged synapses from his addictions for a lot less than I could have. Unfortunately, I couldn't cure the additiction itself. So much of it was psychological, and I didn't trust myself to change memories like that. Fixing that was a full-blown Tinker power - at least a sixth level charge, probably seven, to do it properly sadly. I was still shy of level six, even with all my charges, and I'm not sure if I wanted a Master power to begin with.
Just relieving the physical symptoms of addiction would be enough for me.
I looked around the empty room and nodded, Things were still picking up, but I could already see the money flowing into the company accounts. This latest transfer wasn't quite as lucrative as the big batch I had done a few days ago, but it meant that I shouldn't have any issues hiring people going forward.
I sighed for a moment, before taking a loop of the area around my clinic, but my work yesterday seems to have scared off anyone dangerous for the moment. I headed home.
I carefully walked home and winced as I saw mom in the kitchen.
"Why did I have to hear about you getting SHOT AT from the news?"
I shrunk back a bit, "I mean, I was going to but then I realised that I couldn't email you or call you without there being a detectable link between you and Halcyon, so I thought I would talk about it when I got home."
She stared at me, "You are home now. Start talking."
"Some Empire thugs showed up, shot up my clinic, I got a barrier up, they couldn't hurt me, I knocked them out and handed them over to the cops. I'm going to have the windows replaced with something bulletproof - Maybe some blast panels, like they have on Mythbusters, so that won't happen again, and I'm going to hire a couple of security guards."
She shook her head, "No, if they are just going to shoot at you like that, then a couple of security guards aren't going to be enough. I saw how many places you bought, we are getting a full security team."
"About that, I was looking online for more stuff, and I think we need a proper hiring manager to help us get people. We can't keep paying Wiles to find people for us, so we need someone on that full time. We probably should also go about setting up that deal with your company and the other travel agents so that we can find people to heal that doesn't involve paying a lawyer way too much money to deal with it for us."
She stared at me, "Don't you dare think you are getting away with that! We are talking about your recklessness young man!"