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Buried in Indecision

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Angel Falls, Midtown



A light haze of dust and smoke hangs in the air like a dense fog, making it hard to see though it is late morning.  The ruins of a brownstone apartment building lies crumpled in the street; bricks, mortar, and personal belongings all intermingled in a chaotic scene.  The bordering buildings have shattered windows and smoke wafts casually out of the first floor in one of them.  The street out front appears to be oddly still and quiet.  There are no signs of life anywhere in the area, though there are still vehicles parked in front of the rows of apartment buildings up and down the street.

 

The sound of brick and stone grinding and tumbling breaks the silence.  A section of roofing lying on the largest debris pile begins to rise, knocking loose fragments of building materials down the hill of rubble.  The large piece of intact roof lifts clear of the fallen home and falls aside.  The silver woman known as Kai Steel pushes herself up from beneath the wreckage to stand above it.  Her metal skin is dulled, covered in dust from the collapsed brownstone, her blue hair matted and weighed down by dust and debris.

 

The tall woman slowly dusts off her blue and gold uniform, resembling a keyholed leotard.  With a saddened expression, Kai steps down the mound of bricks scanning the debris.  Near the bottom she stops and kneels down clearing away some of the wreckage.  Beneath the stone and dust, a small girl’s recital dress catches what little sunlight penetrates the smoky haze, its sequins glinting brightly.  A broken frame partially sticks out from beneath the skirt and Kai lifts it from the ruined home, staring at the picture a moment.  A man and a woman hug a girl wearing the very dress she just unearthed, happiness evident in all of their faces.

 

The picture frame falls from Kai Steel’s large hands and she buried her face in them, her body wracked with sobs.

 

“Cut!”  A man’s voice cuts through the silence like a gunshot.  Kai looks up to see the set director get out of his chair, his hand already making a sweeping gesture across the area of the ruined building.  “Kaitlyn, take five.  Where is Sylvia?  Sylvia?!”  The director, Aaron Martins, is middle aged, fairly thin, gray, and usually fairly collected during shoots.

 

This shoot was expensive and this was the fifth take for the scene on location already.

 

Kai begins walking down the pile of bricks toward the loose groups of set crew workers and watches as Sylvia comes running out of the adjacent building toward Director Martins.  She could be beautiful, Kai figured, if she hadn’t cut her hair absurdly short, shaved on one side, and hid behind those ridiculously large framed glasses.  Sylvia was the special effects tech geek for the shoot.  She was fresh out of college and this was her first live gig.  She also happened to be the director’s daughter, but it was hard to see that watching them interact on-set.


Kai caught bits and pieces of the conversation between Director Martins and young Sylvia as she walked over to the chair with her shoulderbag resting in it.  Martins wanted less smoke and told Sylvia to tone it down.  The set manager had stepped in at some point and sardonically remarked how it would be a beautifully narrated scene of smoky fog in the street after post production.  The director seemed moderately amused.  More or less.

 

Reaching into her shoulder bag, Kai fished around for her phone.  She checked her messages and saw that, as usual, no one except her handler Steven had called her.  Seven times.  Kai didn’t know why she bothered to look at all, and with a quiet sigh of disappointment, she tossed the phone back into her bag, as she picked it up before walking off to the edge of the cordoned off shoot location.  With practiced care, the giant steel woman sat down on the sidewalk and set her shoulder bag on the ground nearby.  So distracted in thought, Kai didn’t notice she had a shadow until she turned to glance back in the direction of the film crew and saw a young woman standing patiently beside her.  The woman had a black bag and a modular train case on wheels with her.

 

“I’m sorry Emily.  I didn’t realize you were there.”  Kai offered a polite smile to the nineteen year old makeup artist.

 

Emily shifted a bit as she set the train case upright and re-shouldered the black bag in a nervous, or perhaps shy gesture.  She was wearing a gray and black horizontally striped tunic over tight black leggings and some fairly tall black pumps.  Her long dark hair was perfectly wavy and hanging over her left shoulder.  Emily’s artistic skill was readily displayed on her face with the way she applied her own makeup and lashes, done so in a way that made her look striking but almost as if she were barely wearing anything at all.  Taking Kai’s scrutiny of her appearance as impatience, Emily seemed to find her confidence and spoke up.  “Um, Kaitlyn, we need to get you ready for the next take.  Mr. Martins wants to go over a couple of small changes with you for your reaction shots and he wants me to have you ready for the next take first.”

 

With a soft groan, Kai reached up to rub her temples with a thumb and forefinger.  It wasn’t that she had a headache so much as it was just a reflexive motion.

 

“Are you okay, Kaitlyn?  You seem… maybe a little stressed?”  Emily set her shoulder bag down as she squatted next to the much larger steel woman.  Her large brown eyes gazed up at Kai filled with sympathy.  “I can give you some space if you need it.  I will just let-“

 

Kai raised her hand to cut off Emily’s verbal train of thought.  “No.  No, it’s fine Emily.  We both have things that are expected of us and roles we have to fulfill.”  She does her best to offer a smile down at the younger woman.  “Besides, I would hate for you to get chewed out because of me.”  Stretching out her legs, Kai leans back on her hands and looks straight ahead at the far side of the street.  “Go ahead and do your thing.  Make me all pretty, dear.”

 

With a humored snort, the dark haired makeup artist rises to stand and walks behind Kai.  She starts shaking all the dust and loose debris out of the giant woman’s blue mane before grabbing a pick and working to tame the thick curly locks.  “Has anyone ever told you that your hair is a real pain in the butt?  Very pretty, but I feel like I am getting a workout here,” Emily says, her amusement obvious.

 

“Yeah.  Me.  Every day,” Kai replies with a snort.

 

Emily grabs a large, soft bristled hand brush and begins sweeping the dust off of Kai’s metal skin and leotard.  She unzips the uniform slightly to be thorough and removes a couple of small pieces of mortar that fell down the keyholed front.  Using a can of compressed air, Emily gets the rest of the dust that had fallen down into the outfit and then yanks the zipper back up.  Inwardly Kai reminds herself that there is no modesty in the life of an ‘actress’ – or whatever it is she happens to be.  Shooting commercials for MetaLife was hardly the same as being a celebrity.  After looking her over once more, Emily nods to Kai and then repacks her bag.  “I’m all through, unless you needed anything else?  Hair changes, retouch your nails,” she pauses a moment, “Someone to talk to?”

 

With a shake of her head and a polite smile, Kai graciously replies, “No.  Thank you, Emily.  I appreciate it.  If he asks, I will be along in a moment.”  There was no need to specify who ‘he’ was.  Emily nodded firmly, with a bounce of wavy locks, and then towed her things back toward the off camera set area.

 

Alone once more, Kai simply sat and enjoyed the solitude.  Her reverie was short lived, however, as a repetitive vibrating hum distracted her.  Realizing it was her phone, the metal woman reached into her bag and fished it out.  A City Alert was flashing on the screen’s notices bar, so Kai unlocked the phone to see what could be so important.  A message marked as being critical displayed itself with a short blurb of information.  From what Kai could gather, someone or something called the Siege was terrorizing South Side and everyone was urged to remain indoors.

 

With a look of concern, Kai brought up the local news page and opened the live feed.  It took her a moment to see what was going on, but it looked as though a chopper crew was filming the incident from someplace overhead.  It was clear that they were staying some distance away and the camera was zoomed in as far as it was capable of going.  Even so, she saw energy weapons fire and a large armored battle suit attacking a gray skinned hulk of a monster.  The surrounding area looked like a war zone.  Two familiar superbeings came into view:  Soviet Super Woman and Walkaria.  Kai also noticed someone else on the ground she wasn’t familiar with.  It appeared to be quite a desperate fight.  From this view, it was difficult to tell who was coming out ahead and what all was really going on.

 

Rising up to stand her full height, Kai locked the phone and looked in the direction of South Side Angel Falls.  She was currently in Midtown and it would take quite a bit of time to reach the fight.  If she were going to be of any help, it had to be right now.

 

“Kaitlyn!  It’s time!” 

 

Kai turned to look in the direction of the shout.  Director Martins was waving a hand, beckoning her to return to the set.  She turned to look south once more and after a long moment, she picked up her shoulder bag and walked back to the pile of staged rubble.

 

Director Martins waved at the crew members with different hand gestures as he yelled, “Alright, places!  Let’s get bag it this take!”

 

Lying beneath a ton of rubble, faint sunlight and smoke filling any gaps to the outside, Kai Steel patiently awaited her call to action.


___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________




Continuing my practice with this comic book shading thing, also I make story time, ya?  I also thought I would try another new attempt at a different hairstyle.  Black hair can do so many things, but my artistic abilities cannot.  Practice, practice, practice!

These events take place during :iconrolandgrey:'s event The Terror Construct Part 8

Carrying over from that part of the storyline are vague mentions of:
:iconlonestranger:'s Warbuster
:iconsoviet-superwoman:'s Prodigy and namesake Soviet Superwoman
:iconteri-minx:'s Walkaria
:iconrolandgrey:'s The Siege

As always, artwork and story were done by myself, no matter which voice may have been running the show at the time.

These events take place in :iconangel-fallsda:


Kai Steel (Kaitlyn Ayla O'Hern) is an Original Character created by me, Kallsu

Image size
640x828px 410.92 KB
Make
Canon
Model
MP470 series
© 2016 - 2024 Kallsu
Comments26
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Speedslide's avatar
Late to the party, but I'll just say that this a very well-written story. I especially like the subversion of the classic call to action at the end of this. Kat is back... And yet she's not. I'm curious to see where you go from here.

:bulletred:Virtus:bulletred: "It's not that she has a new career simply to make a living. It's not that she's not doing the hero thing, I can accept that. It's the look of doubt on her face that makes me worried."