Power Play — Chapter 59

We last read Chapter 58, in which Sapphire Angel comes out on top after Raven Tristan’s sneak attack. Tristan pleads with her, convincing the superheroine she can undo the damage she’s done. Tristan explains how the power of Sapphire Angel’s necklace is so overwhelming, even Tristan finds herself doubting that Beth Harper is Sapphire Angel. Because of this, and because of how much Xavier Wheldon trusts Tristan, the goth woman insists it shouldn’t take much for her to convince him that she was wrong about Harper being Sapphire Angel. It will take some subterfuge and deep fakes, but Tristan believes it can be done. Tristan explains her motivations for helping the heroine — she fears Wheldon is plotting something big, that could drag her down with him, and needs Sapphire Angel to stop him. With the clock ticking down toward Wheldon’s gala celebrating the approval of the sale of the nuclear power plant, Sapphire Angel agrees to let Tristan put her plan into motion.

This is the second story, so if you want to start from the very beginning, you can jump over to book 1, and begin with the Prologue of Sapphire Angel, Superheroine. Or to start at the beginning of book 2 (this story), click over to the Prologue of Power Play.

Thanks for reading!

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After her confrontation and subsequent truce with Sapphire Angel, Raven Tristan packed an overnight bag and drove to the Pegasus Club. Tomorrow evening she would help with the technology for the gala, but tomorrow morning she had a more important job. She needed to convince Xavier Wheldon she had been wrong about Sapphire Angel's identity. Her stay at the club would give her the face time she needed with him.

As the moon hung over the interstate, she considered how to best convince Wheldon. Under normal circumstances, her ideas wouldn't stand a chance. But she had experienced the power of Sapphire Angel's necklace on the mind, and she had seen Wheldon's uncertainty about the heroine's identity. Tristan was thankful she had allowed the embers of doubt to smolder in his mind, by not showing him video of the heroine confessing her identity. Together, the necklace and his lingering doubt might make the impossible possible.

After pulling up to the front of the lodge, a guard met her, took her keys, and drove off to park her vehicle. Tristan climbed the front steps, with her backpack over her shoulder, and eased the door open. She froze, spying two guards standing in front of Wheldon's trophy case, ahead and to her left.

"How do you think he got it?" one guard whispered. "You think he took her down and then stripped it right off her body?"

"Everything in that case is from somebody he took down. It wouldn't surprise me if he's got that hot blond in the back, naked, doing whatever he tells her to."

They both laughed, but turned when the front door creaked. They stiffened when they saw Tristan.

"Ma'am," one said. He coughed, bowed his head, and walked toward the door, as the other turned and headed toward the back hall. After passing Tristan but before stepping out the door, the guard turned and called to his comrade.

"Don't forget. Ten tomorrow morning, we have that crate to take into the study."

"Oh, I can't forget. When we're done, I've got first shift outside the study."

The men said their farewells, one exiting out the front door and the other disappearing down the back hall. Tristan watched them go, biting back her disgust with them, and stepped into the foyer. She stopped, her attention drawn like a magnet to the trophy case.

There it was. Sapphire Angel's costume on full display. The overhead lights in the foyer were dim, but spotlights in the ceiling illuminated the case's contents, shining off trophies, plaques, medals, and other items. But the center of the case was most radiant of all, with the light shimmering off Sapphire Angel's minidress, gloves, boots, and tights. The items appeared almost magical, as if a mystical aura drew the light to them.

Tristan frowned. The quality of the costume would be a problem. It was almost too perfect for anyone to believe it was a forgery. Tristan sighed and headed for the stairs winding up the left wall.

At the top of the stairs, Tristan took a left and headed for the last room on the left. She entered, threw down her backpack, and dug out her laptop. It was time to set her plan in motion.

Five minutes later, Tristan had disabled the surveillance cameras in the hall, stairs, and foyer, and was headed for the stairs. She descended, pausing at the bottom. The room lay shrouded in darkness, and the only sounds were the cacophony of animal and insect life coming from the forest outside.

Tristan went straight to the trophy case, using her lock pick to force the simple lock. She opened the case and reached out for the minidress of Sapphire Angel's costume. She inhaled sharply at the first touch, having forgotten how smooth and luxurious the material was.

After marveling over the costume for a few moments, Tristan spread it in front of her on the bottom shelf of the case, and pulled a pair of small scissors from her lock pick kit. She eyed the two buttons on either side of the costume's short collar. White, small, and covered with the same fabric as used in the rest of the costume, the buttons were the only adornments on the sleek costume. Tristan moved to one of buttons, pulling it back and finding the threads securing it in place.

She moved the scissors into position, opened them, and squeezed. The threads didn't give. Tristan furrowed her brow, pressing harder. Still nothing. She increased pressure with a grunt, fearing the scissors might break, but finally the threads snipped. Damn.

Tristan took her thumb and forefinger and grasped the ends of the threads and pulled, working them free from the costume little by little. Once done, she repeated the process with the other button, and placed both of them in her pocket. She studied the costume, furrowing her brown again as she tried to find any evidence the buttons and thread had been in place. What material was this dress made of? Or what kind of thread was it? Amazing.

With a shrug, Tristan returned the minidress to its place and stood back, admiring her work. Without the power of the superheroine's necklace, and the effect it had on people's minds, this ruse might not have a chance. But with the necklace, there was hope.

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Raven Tristan marched into Xavier Wheldon's office early in the morning to tell him of her "grave mistake" concerning Sapphire Angel's identity. She explained how new findings proved her prior conclusion to be erroneous. When he frowned, she asked him to pull out the computer tablet he had kept since their last meeting, and to call up the photos of Harper chained to the car. She also asked him to open his laptop and call up photographs of the superheroine from the Internet.

"See how in all those Internet photos," Tristan continued, "she has those two little white decorative buttons on her collar, right near where it splits like a V in the front? There are no buttons in the photos on the tablet, when I had Harper chained to a car. And she's not wearing a necklace, either. She wears a necklace in all the Internet photos."

There were no buttons in Tristan's photos, because she had remotely accessed the tablet to alter the photos. And there was no necklace because she had removed it from the captive heroine, after learning it gave Sapphire Angel her powers.

"That means nothing," Wheldon said, furrowing his brow. But a moment later he jumped from his chair and rushed out the door, turning toward the front of the lodge and his trophy case. He returned moments later, holding Sapphire Angel's costume — a buttonless costume — in one hand and rubbing his temple with the other.

"She might have more than one outfit," he said, tossing the costume onto the desk next to the laptop. "And she could have just forgotten the necklace, or decided not to wear it."

"She probably has more than one costume," Tristan said. "But every photo ever taken of her has those buttons. Except my photos. And in every photo she is wearing a necklace. Except for the photos I took. And she seems too stylish to have one costume out of sync with the others."

Wheldon leaned forward to gaze at the photos and winced, putting two fingers to his temple. He held the computer tablet in his hand, and studied the photo of Beth Harper, in Sapphire Angel's costume, chained to the hood of a car. Tristan had doctored the photos, so the car was a darker, less vibrant shade of blue than before. And the angle was too close to make out any other details of the vehicle.

Tristan also had altered the tablet's photos of Harper. She had tweaked the photos of Harper chained to the car, and the photos of her in her civilian attire in the report, so they differed in almost imperceptible ways from the Internet photos of Sapphire Angel. She darkened Harper's hair, just a touch. Tristan changed the shade of her eyes, only barely. She lowered Harper's cheekbones, maybe a millimeter. She also had hacked the server from Radiance Online, Harper's employer, and doctored Harper's profile photo.

The changes were so subtle, Wheldon would never be able to scrutinize them by studying Harper in person, unless he tied her down, immobilized her, and held the photographs next to her face. If that happened, Tristan and Harper had bigger problems.

"I don't know..." he said, his voice trailing off, as his eyes moved from tablet, to laptop, to the costume. He pecked away at the keyboard, calling up even more public photos of Sapphire Angel. He squinted, comparing Harper's features with the features of Sapphire Angel.

"One more thing," Tristan said. "Go to the Harrisburg Daily News website, and type 'Sapphire Angel gang fight restaurant' in the search box."

After Wheldon typed on the laptop keyboard, he looked up at Tristan. "And? There's an article here about Sapphire Angel breaking up a gang fight down by the water, below a restaurant on the West Shore. What am I looking for?"

"Look at the second photo in the article, taken by a patron out the window and sold to the newspaper. It caught Sapphire Angel in action, in the distance."

"Yes, I can see that," Wheldon answered.

"Now, look closer," Tristan said. "At the corner of the photo where the customers are sitting at a table. Do you notice who is sitting there?"

"Damn," he muttered. "Beth Harper."

Tristan's extraordinary computer skills were such that Wheldon had no way to know she had altered the photo to insert Harper's image into it, and then hacked the newspaper's server to replace the actual photo with her forgery. Wheldon opened a desk drawer, pulled out a bottle of ibuprofen, and popped two into his mouth. He chased them down with water from a bottle at the edge of his desk.

Tristan's stomach churned as she sat before him. Two buttons and some forged photos. The whole damn thing came down to that. Well, that, and the power of Sapphire Angel's necklace. Tristan needed to trust that its mind-bending effects were as powerful as she hoped and believed. Because, despite all her efforts, in the end this all came down to Harper's necklace. Tristan had felt its mind twisting effects herself, and suspected it wouldn't take much to tip the scales, ever so slightly, back to the side of disbelief in Wheldon's mind. She wasn't counting on "slightly," though. Her evidence was giving him the full-court press.

"So, why the hell would Harper have been wearing the costume in your photos?" Wheldon asked. "Is she a... what's the term? A cosplayer or something?"

"Not so much a cosplayer as a fan," she answered. "It's pretty common, kind of like how fans imitate movie stars and pop singers. Do a Google search, and you'll find a ton of websites with other people doing the same. You'll also see a market has sprung up around Sapphire Angel's style. There are lots of obsessed fans out there. Not just men, but girls and women of all ages."

That part was true. An unauthorized cottage industry had sprung up around all things Sapphire Angel. If Harper could find a way to copyright her costume and her image, she could license it and make millions. Tristan watched as Wheldon pecked away on the keyboard and peered in at the screen.

As Wheldon studied the images, he squinted his eyes and scrunched his nose. "Damn headache," he muttered.

Tristan remained silent, allowing his eyes to dart from the tablet, to the laptop screen, to the costume, and back to the tablet.

"Why didn't she object harder during my meeting with her?"

"Didn't she?" Tristan asked.

Wheldon tilted back in his chair and pursed his lips.

"Yeah, I guess she did," he murmured. "But not as hard as you would think. She kind of froze, like a deer in headlights." Wheldon rubbed his temples again.

"I can find out why, if you'd like," Tristan said. "Her interest in Sapphire Angel might go beyond admiration. Perhaps Harper wanted to live the fantasy, so much so she thought she was protecting Sapphire Angel by not protesting too hard. Or maybe she was just embarrassed by the extent of her obsession."

Wheldon stared at Tristan, twisting his mouth and drumming his fingers on the desk. Tristan gave an impassive stare back.

"I guess it seems silly, in a way," Wheldon said, and squinted at the laptop screen. "All these girls on these websites look just as much like Sapphire Angel as Harper does."

He paused, and Tristan remained silent.

"Well, not quite as much as she does," he said, but a moment later he rubbed his temples again and blinked his eyes several times. Tristan said nothing.

"You said she admitted being Sapphire Angel to you?" he asked. "Why would she do that?"

"I can find that out, too, if you'd like. Perhaps, again, it was to live the fantasy. Maybe I should have pushed her harder. Or maybe I pushed her too hard, and she just wanted it to stop. Or maybe I misunderstood her. She was in bad shape and babbling." Tristan wasn't about to tell him she had completely broken Sapphire Angel. "Or perhaps there's more to it. It's unlikely, but she might really know Sapphire Angel's identity, and was protecting her. Or maybe, like I said, she really is obsessed, and that's why she was protecting her. I can find out if you'd like."

Wheldon stared at the costume, and picked it up one last time, studying the collar.

"No," he said with a sigh. "I guess it doesn't matter. The deal went through. I need you to focus on security tonight."

Tristan studied him, trying not to let her curiosity be too obvious. Did he believe her?

"I guess I'll keep this here, now," he said, rising from his chair with the minidress in hand. "No point in looking like a fool."

He moved to a standalone closet in the corner, opened the door, and retrieved a hanger. He slipped the minidress onto the hanger, before retrieving the other times from the desk and placing them in the closet, too. Tristan's heart beat with excitement. Could it really be working?

He turned to her.

"If Harper isn't Sapphire Angel," he said, "that means you failed me, Raven. For the first time."

Color rose in Tristan's face, and she fought down her instinct to scream, No, I didn't! I wrung every last truth out of Sapphire Angel, and had her sobbing and begging for me to stop! But Tristan said no such thing. She hung her head and murmured, "I'm sorry, sir."

"We can't have mistakes like that tonight. It's too important. You were in charge of the whole IT security show tonight, but I'm changing our plans. I will have two men in the control room with you."

Damn. Tristan hadn't counted on him changing the setup. It would make it harder for her to help Harper.

"Very well, sir," she mumbled.

Wheldon gave a nod and motioned for her to leave. As she did, she glanced over her should and saw him rubbing his temples again.

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After Tristan marched from his office, Wheldon slouched back in his chair. Damn, his head hurt. Could Tristan be right that Beth Harper wasn't Sapphire Angel?

He didn't want to look at the photos again — his head hurt too much — but the differences between them were clear. How had he not noticed them the first time? Had he been too excited over the prospects of controlling the superheroine? There was no excuse. Sapphire Angel was in the news enough he should have noticed any differences, even if he hadn't preformed a side-by-side comparison of Tristan's photos with Internet photos. And the buttons? How had he missed those? Sloppy and out of character.

Wheldon growled and swore. Tristan might be wrong, but better to err on the side of caution. He wouldn't parade Harper in front of his guests and force her to don the costume. In the end, it didn't matter, anyway. He got what he wanted — his deal went through. He would still keep an eye on Harper tonight and even play with her mind a bit. Perhaps she would slip up if he tested her. He might tease her, subtly, about not having a necklace like Sapphire Angel.

He also might promise her to Mark Bishop. Bishop was a womanizing lout, accustomed to having his way with even the most attractive women. If Bishop kept her busy, she couldn't do much to interfere.

Another idea came to him. When he got the chance, he'd search Harper's suitcase to see if it hid a costume. That seemed like the simplest answer. She wouldn't come to the gala unprepared. If there were no costume, she wasn't Sapphire Angel. Her suitcase would hold the key.

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This is the second story, so if you want to start from the very beginning, you can jump over to book 1, and begin with the Prologue of Sapphire Angel, Superheroine. Or to start at the beginning of book 2 (this story), click over to the Prologue of Power Play.

Thanks for reading!

I appreciate any comments or email.