Robert Barett and Cecilia Morris
Vigilantes (Independent)
Hardware and Binary/Their Home, Downtown Brooklyn
Affected Rpers: None

Ceci was angry. Not at him, mercifully, but angry nonetheless. The glass window they used to communicate through when his best friend was holed up in her soundproof workroom was vibrating so violently that he suspected she had the music in the room turned up so loudly it would have made any hearing individual just as deaf as her after a minute or two of similar exposure--on any other day, he would have been amused at the similarity, that just like a number of hearing teenagers, the young woman had locked herself in her second favorite room in the building and started blasting music as loudly as she could stand. Right now, it just worried him.

She’d been in a foul mood since the video had been released--the Demon’s Run video that had gone viral since it’s first posting earlier in the day, that had played over and over again on the news stations, the radio, had dominated almost every social media platform by this point. It had initially made her so angry that sign language had failed her at first when she had tried to ask Rob for permission to borrow his ears so she could hear it. Instead of telling him what she had wanted after tapping on his shoulder to grab his attention, she had yanked on his shirt sleeve like an impatient child, and shoved her phone into his hands, pressing the volume key until until it reached its max setting. Taken aback, he’d glanced at her and asked her name aloud, almost forgetting to sign the one-word question, and she didn't wait for him to correct himself. Instead, she made the gesture they’d agreed upon to use when she wanted to describe something involving her power, lifting a hand level with her left ear and making a quick turning motion, like she was adjusting a dial. This, however, was less a question, and more a statement--not a, “May I borrow your ears,” but more of an, “I’m borrowing your ears,” not that he had any objection to it, and hit the play button on the video as soon as (he assumed) she had tapped into his hearing.

She flinched as soon as the sound began, but that was the only indication she gave that she was now able to hear, and then stood motionless as she continued to watch. At that point, he hadn’t yet seen the video himself, and stood in shock as Demon's Run declared the city would be theirs by the end of the year. Once the video had ended, however, she quickly snatched her phone from his grasp and began moving towards the soundproofed room she used as a workroom. Once the door was shut, locked, and the “do not disturb” light was on, it was a matter of minutes before the glass began vibrating.

Oh great, he’d thought as she thumped down into her rolling chair. They’ve gone and made 1984 angry. It was hard not to see the girl’s pro-vigilante pseudonym as another person entirely, given how sly and confident 1984 was, wiping away evidence of vigilante activities where they were best left alone, and bringing evidence of Demon’s Run and other nefarious Foram activities to the attention of the authorities. Where Ceci had come alive in the past few years since moving out of her parents’, 1984 was someone entirely different. They were calm, collected, they didn't trip over themselves when they wanted to express how they felt about Foram, or even how they felt about those who were different. Cecilia Morris on the other hand? Couldn't even properly articulate how she felt about her own deafness most days, even in her native tongue, sign language. Not that he faulted her for it, or found the fact particularly negative--just an odd distinction between the young woman and her online, pro-vigilante persona.

Rob suspected that he’d be seeing her handiwork in due time, as she seemed to be putting in overtime on her self-imposed security camera duties. They couldn't really fight like the rest of the vigilante forces, heck, they’d never even knowingly met a vigilante Foram, but that didn't mean he and Ceci didn't silently do their best to ensure that their abilities were put to good use trying to protect the innocents they could. Except in this case, his best friend hadn't left her room in the hours that followed. She’d refused to so much as unlock the door when he’d told her that dinner was ready, and he was starting to get worried. At least he had the ability to annoy her to no end by jiggling the light switch, for all the good that did him.

On the other side of the glass, Cecilia had lost herself among the world of security cameras and code. The idea that a group of someones intended to take Manhattan--her neighboring city by force--and use it for their own playground was enough to make her burn in anger. She wasn’t a proper vigilante, she couldn’t go out and fight crime like many of the other Foram could, even if she wanted to, but this...this was something she could do. At the very least, she could put her skills as a hacker to use, trying to protect those Foram and individuals who might protect the city, while exposing others who might do it harm. So far, she’d hadn’t seen much tonight, though she’d also had several different matters vying for her attention. Ceci had been working on a program that was meant to identify violent crime and alert her, but she hadn’t had much luck with it so far--she supposed that was what she got for not going to college, but it was a small price to pay for escaping the grasp of her father, and into Rob’s home. With a sigh that was inaudible to her own ears, she slumped back in her chair

Rob, she thought, must be worrying by now if he hadn’t begun to already. He had tried to get her to come away from her computer for dinner earlier, but she couldn’t bring herself to step away from her pair of screens--she could miss something important, Cecilia told herself, but after several hours with almost nothing to show for it except for a few petty crimes the cops would surely see later, she was beginning to wonder if anything was going to happen at all tonight. No rest for the wicked, her brain reminded her as she turned her attention away from the camera feeds to the video yet again. She’d done her best to try to track the source of the video down, but it seemed the group had their own capable techies behind them. Curiously enough, though, it appeared that others were trying to hunt the source of the video down as well, not that it surprised her. A few of the forums she dug through for information regularly (some for hacking information, and others for Foram information), had theories and some others trying to hunt down the source, but so far, it seemed as though no one had succeeded.

For a moment, Ceci closed her eyes and let her blaring music envelope her, savoring the way the sound made her desk and the floor beneath her tremble, delighted in the way the sound she was unable to hear shuddered over her skin. After what felt like a minute or two, she opened her eyes again, and leaned forward, hunching back over her keyboard again.

No rest for the wicked, after all, meant no rest for the righteous who hunted them down. She wouldn’t be able to sleep soundly until this was over.