xp_logs | Miles & Matt, midnight Sunday

Miles enlists Matt's help to find his missing friend Ganke. They find something but is it enough to save him?

Miles was sitting on the roof of Brooklyn Latin School when Matt arrived. His black uniform made him almost invisible in the shadows, not that it mattered to his super-hearing partner. Miles nodded, and then, remembering that Matt was super-hearing and not super-seeing, vocalized his greeting.

"Thanks for coming."

In his own maroon and black uniform Matt wasn't significantly more visible once he reached Miles and the shadows. He was more of a night person than day, but he hadn't hesitated when Miles had texted him for help. "Of course," he replied, "What's going on?" Miles wouldn't've asked him to come if it weren't important and it wasn't a masked sort of thing. If it wasn't, then he would have probably asked Warren or something.

"My friend Ganke is missing," Miles explained. "His mom called me yesterday. He hasn't been home, he's not responding to emails or texts, he hasn't even logged into WoW. No one's seen him since he left here. It's not like him at all. Ganke wouldn't just run away. He doesn't have any problems with his mom. And he'd tell me before he did anything stupid like that." Despite being covered head to toe and standing in the darkness, fear palpably radiated off Miles. Ganke was more than just a friend. He was Miles's brother from another mother. If something had happened to him . . . "I have to find him."

"I'm sorry. I'm assuming you already tried to track his phone?" Matt asked, it being the obvious first choice, especially for Miles. He also trusted the teen. If he thought his friend was in danger, then that wasn't something to be ignored.

Miles shook his head sadly. "His mom said the cops tried but no luck. It might be turned off or d . . . out of power." Dead. No, not going to use that word in this context. Nothing was dead. Everything was going to be okay. "I already checked all the places he normally goes to but I haven't seen any trace of him. I was thinking we could check security cams. If this is the last place he was seen, then maybe there's something there."

Security cameras, while ubiquitous, were not Matt's first thought for obvious reasons. "Sounds like a plan," he agreed, letting Miles take the lead, at least for now. He hadn't met Ganke, so he wasn't aware of his specific heartbeat or scent to try to track him, but more than that, he needed the location narrowed down first. Security footage would help with that. "Can you hack in? Or were you looking for something more official? Warrants take time," and legalness.

There was no good response to that except a sarcastic snort. "If I waited for los puercos to do their job and follow through then I'd never find Ganke. No, I saw a security guy walking around earlier, so he probably has the key or whatever to the camera room. Just got to get it from him and keep him away while we look."

Ask a stupid question, get a stupid response. They wore masks for a reason. Heading to the door to the stairwell, Matt picked the lock quickly, then opened it. "After you," he offered, listening into the building and concentrating on what he wanted, "I hear a guard on the 4th level and one in...probably the security office. Level 1."

The fastest and quietest way down the stairwell for Miles was to crawl on the wall. No footsteps, no creaky floorboards. And he knew Matt of all people could also soundlessly ninja his way down to the first floor. Miles shifted into camo mode before opening the door to the hall, and slowly, gently closed it behind Matt.

"Which way?" he asked Matt, glancing around at the dark, empty halls. The school was new, and the modern architecture and high-tech classrooms were an object of envy for pretty much every other high school in the borough. The place reminded him a lot of Brooklyn Visions Academy, the semi-prep school he and Ganke had lucked their way into. If that school hadn't been shut down after M-Day, If Miles hadn't moved out of the city, if Miles and Ganke had continued schooling together, then maybe Ganke wouldn't be missing. They'd be home, safe and sound, stilling counting down the days until Dawn of Justice premieres.

One of the most infuriating things when they had first met, at least for Miles, was how Matt had always known where he was, even when he was hidden in camo mode. Matt, for his part, hadn't realized that Miles was hidden from view. It had been kinda funny once they had figured it out. Now it worked to their advantage. "That way," Matt replied, pointing towards the back of the school, "offices that way." Not the administrative ones, but the operations ones.

Miles slipped soundlessly down the hall (down the wall, actually) until he came to the room that Matt had indicated. And as he'd said, there was only one occupant, getting Cheeto-dusted fingers all over the security console. Miles didn't know if he had much time before the other guard came down, so he had to make this quick. Reappearing behind the seated guard, he poked the man's shoulder, who jumped and spun around. His mouth fell open and he reached for the radio on his belt when he saw Spider-Man standing before him.

"So I'm really sorry about this," Miles lamented, frowning under his mask, "But I kinda need that, so . . ." He pressed a hand over the guard's mouth so he couldn't scream as the venom blast countdown reached zero, sending a paralyzing surge of bioelectricity through his body. The guard slumped down, barely conscious, and Miles carefully sat him down on the floor and webbed him to the wall. Satisfied that he was out of commission and not going to bring the NYPD down on them, Miles took the abandoned seat and, after a brief hesitation, raised his mask up above his nose so he could scarf down a handful of Cheetos, too. "You want some, Double D?"

"Gross," Matt replied, wrinkling his nose. Miles was very effective though. That was good. "Get hacking. We're losing time."

A perk of being a new and well-funded school was that the security system was also state of the art. For a school, at least. But that meant it was a simple interface to navigate, and Miles brought up Friday's footage in just a couple of minutes. "Okay, Mrs. Lee said Ganke went to all of his classes, so he must've disappeared after 3. Hey, buddy, where's the junior locker row?" he asked, looking over his shoulder at the unresponsive guard. "Oh, right. Sorry. Wait, here he is! Heading to the front door at 3:05 PM."

"Is that his usual routine?" Matt asked, thinking that to get out so quickly, Ganke must not have stopped at his locker. "Do you know? And are there cameras outside the school too?" There were, even if they weren't school cameras. Pulling up that footage would be much more difficult.

"Yeah, I think . . . yeah, this one's right outside. And there's a little kid next to him. Hmm. Looks to young to be a student here. And they're white. What would Ganke be doing with a white kid?" Miles zoomed in on the second video, but frowned and shook his head. "Ugh, too blurry. Shouldn't this enhance when you zoom like on TV? Look, they're just . . . going. Not talking to anyone, not stopping, they're . . . they're just gone." He switched to the next camera in the sequence, but there was nothing.

"What're you doing hanging with white dudes?" Matt retorted back to Miles, "You mean they walked off where the camera can't follow? And this is real life. Not TV. You could probably zoom and enhance back at the mansion, but on HS software? Forget it," he might not able to use that sort of thing, but that didn't mean he was ignorant or unable to think. "Any alleyways or doorways they could have ducked into?"

Miles shook his head and rewound the footage and played it back in slow motion, paying careful attention to every frame. One moment, Ganke was closely following the mystery kid, and then the next, they were both gone. Teleporter? Unlikely, because at least in Miles's experience, teleporters always left some effect when they disappeared. Maybe a mutant with invisibility, like himself or Sue Storm. But who was it? And where would they have gone?

Matt cocked his head to one side, listening. "Guard," he stated lowly. They'd knocked one out, but that didn't mean the other wasn't back up again. Quietly, he slipped under the desk, unable to hide anywhere else, though he crouched in a way that would allow him to move easily if needed.

A moment later, the door to the security room opened.

The room appeared to be empty at first glance. Miles leaped out of the chair and onto the wall, camo mode on, mere seconds before the guard came in. The chair was still spinning. The guard wisely decided to take a step back and withdraw his gun, but Miles didn't give him the chance to investigate. Still cloaked in the shadow, he fired a web line and disarmed the guard, freeing him for Matt's offensive.

In one smooth movement, Matt stepped out from under the desk, rising to his full height at the same time. Punching the guard in the jaw with one fist as his other arm blocked, it did not take long to subdue the man. He was a security officer for a high school after all, he wasn't a trained fighter in the same way they were, "Ask your questions," he instructed Miles. And if there were no more questions, they they'd tie him up and get out of there.

"Unless he knows anything about a missing student and strange children roaming campus, then we're wasting our time. I'm sorry about this," Miles offered conciliatory, webbing the guard up next to his partner, "But if it makes you feel any better then you can tell the cops you got one punch in. We won't tell. But you and me," he said to Matt, "we should go. There's nothing else here."

"C'mon," Matt hefted the guard into a fireman's carry, "We'll put him in a closet," not a locked one or one to make it difficult to find him, but they needed to make sure they had plenty of time to get away. "Sorry, man."