Chapter 11- Looking for a Lair Again

It was about a month before I was ready to go out for another night on the town. I think I managed to pass off as okay after a few days of contemplation. I still wasn't comfortable with what I had done, but with time I became a lot more functional. After all, with HYDRA and Thanos' armies, there was going to be some killing to be done. While I still liked the idea of being innocent longer, it was better for this problem to be dealt with early rather than in a time where I would be needed. I still had a bit more than two years before the other heroes rose up. I needed to be ready.

So, on another Friday night, I snuck out as Genji again. Between him and Pharah, I was able to get to Hell's Kitchen in ten and a half minutes. Landing on top of a building and letting go of the Resonance, I climbed down the fire escape to the ground.

I reached into the pocket of my hoodie and pulled out a notebook. In it, I had six different sites that I thought might have the speakeasy that I was looking for. I walked down the street towards the first. Once I reached the address, I tried flipping through all of the heroes that had sensory abilities. Widowmaker came first, because of her goggles.

Unfortunately, it was only looking for life signs. I couldn't see if there were any spaces beneath the buildings around me.

Genji was next. When he fought Hanzo, there were signs of extra senses between them, perhaps the qi magic could do the trick. However, I found that his senses were also tuned to qi, and therefore only good for detecting killing intent and enemies. So, I dismissed the Resonance and moved on.

Sombra had, in game, the ability to sense low health units, but whatever device did that was also quickly eliminated. Lucio (I thought it was a stretch, but I was hoping for some kind of sonar scan to be possible) was also a bust.

Then I went Symmetra. She was one I had never had cause to try before, as the sentry turrets she could create would disappear when the Resonance ended. If what she made didn't last, it wasn't quite as useful. For a moment, I played around with the photon projector, and realized just how nerfed she was when it came to her game appearance. The Vishkar company, where she got her tech, could build entire cities in minutes. Thus, there were endless possibilities with this hard-light projector.

Sitting on a chair that I materialized, I turned my attention to the visor that had materialized as part of becoming Symmetra. Fiddling with it, I found that it was an architectural scanner. Vishkar had intended it as a way of checking work in construction and look for hidden safes for her clandestine missions.

Finally, I had a way of looking for my future lair. I looked toward my first site and… bust. There was nothing hidden beneath this building. Disappointed, but still excited that I had a good way forward besides wandering the sewers and hoping to get lucky, I moved on to the next site. Also a bust. So I moved on to lucky number three. Along the way, I kept an eye out for any drug dealers. I didn't intend to do anything about them tonight, but it would be good to know where they were anyways. That, and I was a kid wandering the streets at night. It was best to be cautious.

After the fourth bust, I took a break at a corner. I just sat my back against the side of the building and sank to the sidewalk. I was a little tired, but more troubling was the idea that none of my sites were going to work for me and I was going to have to scan the entire area or scrap the whole idea. Neither option was very appealing.

As I was sitting there, the city was fairly quiet. There were a couple of people on the streets, some of whom gave me brief glances then ignored me. There were also some stray cats wandering about. One black cat ran right over my legs and around the corner. A few seconds later, another cat ran past me on the same path. Maybe all black cats look the same, but I could have sworn it was the same cat again.

Déjà vu, right?

Well, a couple of minutes later, I was done taking my break, and went over to site number five.

"Symmetra, Resonance!"

Using the visor, I looked at the dark café in front of me. An older building, but still made well and enduring. Additionally, it was on the north side of Hell's Kitchen, and thus further from the epicenter of the attack on New York that was coming in 2012. Hopefully, this would be safe even through that incident.

Looking down below the café, I caught my breath. There was an open space beneath it. Looking back up to ground level, I could not see any open stairs to this lower level. In other words, there was currently no path to this area. I'm sure if I looked closely, I would find the mechanism for some kind of hidden door, but that wasn't as important as finding the space.

I found a manhole cover and lifted it up using the photon projector. Jumping down to the tunnel, I looked around the walls looking for an entry point. After about a minute of looking, I picked up a hidden door around the corner. The speakeasy must have had this for an emergency escape. Or, it could have been for secret alcohol shipments- this was relatively close to the docks if there was a tunnel that came out that way.

I found the mechanism to open the door and was met with a rush of stale, dusty air. Clearly, this hadn't been opened in decades. It was fairly small, but still had plenty of space for a bar and a couple of tables, one of which still had some playing cards on it.

I smiled. It was perfect.