And finally, she rested.

Mellisa had managed to get things together.  A series of cut-outs made it hard for anyone to really track where things came from, which was important. Vigilance HQ was good, but she wanted her own place where she could do things without anyone looking over her shoulder. And now, finally, her own personal space was finished.

She opened the small fridge and pulled out a bottle of Moxie, popping it open and taking a long swig. The dry bitterness sat at the back of her mouth as she surveyed her new place.

She’d bought the building, which used to be a self-storage facility. Most of it still was, actually, and a good investment, but three of them, facing the back, had been permanently reserved for her. Doors had been installed between them – the walls were just wood – and then the wall between those three and the one next door had been heavily reinforced by well-paid workers. No one was going to be kicking them down.

She herself had welded two of the doors with metal bars, so they weren’t going to be easy to go through. The third – which faced outside – had a opener originally for a garage door (but then sped up) attached. The entire place had been rewired.  And then she brought the gear in.

A 3D printer, a laser cutter, a C&C machine. Everything she needed for a compact if comprehensive criminology lab. Computers. Vehicle repair gear enough to rebuild the Slingshot if she needed to. Lockers. A workbench. A corkboard and a lot of push-pins, and on the back a map of Boston.

When she was done, she was sure that it was about the best she could do to run her crime-fighting operations from the place. She turned in the office chair (high-backed and with lumbar support), and nodded to herself. She finished the Moxie, tossed it into the recycling bin, and rolled over to the computer.  She tapped the power button, and as it booted checked the connection. It was connected through a router to the Boston wireless mesh network, and set up to connect to the Vigilance base’s network through a proxy, to hide her location.

She started going through records. Mister Blasphemy had struck again last night, and this time there was a victim: a priest left deranged from an overdose of PCP. He was alive, but his mind wouldn’t be the same soon, possibly ever.

The hunt, she thought, was on.