The Emerald Avenger stood in the server room of City Hall, blending perfectly into his surroundings. Slipping past security had been easy, but how would he enter the computer? He couldn’t just sit in a catatonic state for an hour. Maybe he could fly inside. He focused on the computer, imagining himself shrinking and going through the screen.
He found himself standing outside a toll road with Zolgron by his side. Glistening circuitry surrounded him.
A guard put a hand out. “Stop! You can’t enter without a user name and password.”
Zolgron stared at the guard. “Stand aside.”
The guard stood aside, and they entered. The Emerald Avenger grinned. Wow. So great was Zolgron’s control, no password protec-tion could stand in his way.
The Emerald Avenger gaped as Zolgron navigated the confusing mess of streets inside the city of circuitry. After about ten minutes, Zolgron handed a thick stack of spreadsheets to the Emerald Avenger. “Eat this.”
“What is it?”
“A list of all the police officers, judges, and prosecutors within the city and their bank accounts, divided up by who their direct de-posits went to in nice neat databases. Now eat it.”
“No. That’s gross.”
Zolgron grabbed a fist full of the Emerald Avenger’s hair, and shoved the spreadsheets down his throat. His knees buckled from the pressure of the data stream.
The Emerald Avenger asked, “How did I eat a spreadsheet?”
Zolgron smiled. “All you’re seeing is a physical representation of what’s going right to your brain.”
The Avenging Eagle appeared next to them. Zolgron led them inside and punched an address into the navigator. “This bank has twelve accounts we need to investigate.”
“Investigate how?”
“By digging through their banking his-tories for years back, looking for patterns.”
The Emerald Avenger groaned. Super-heroes on TV had sidekicks or high powered computers to handle stuff this boring.
On the third officer, the Emerald Avenger whistled at a $9,000 check deposited the week before. Pay dirt. He pulled up the electronic copy of the check. His face fell. “Darn, just a cashed in life insurance policy.”
In the Avenging Eagle afterwards, the Emerald Avenger yawned. All this effort, only for all twelve police officers to come out clean. “Now what?”
“Your energy reserves are depleted. Re-charge them.”
Mild mannered janitor Dave Johnson tumbled across his basement floor and col-lided with the washing machine. Rubbing his head, he dragged himself to his feet, and blinked at his computer through the iron cur-tains passing for his eyelids. Strange. He’d not really needed that much sleep since he got his powers.
He stumbled three steps and crashed on-to his duct-tape patched brown leather couch. Naomi would be mad in the morning, but Mount Everest would be an easier climb than the stairs.
Continued Next Tuesday.
Tales of the Dim Knight is set for book Release November 22nd, a sample e-book including the first four chapters is available for your reading pleasure. You can follow our hero on Twitter @dimknight