A Star Walks Into A Bar

Mason’s Poutine, Waffles and Wings – Some 20 miles from the destroyed Institute Lab

The weather forecast for much of the Quebec area was an artic blast that was rolling in soon. The sky outside had been a dark gray overcast all day, and the dropping temperature preceded a cold wind coming in. Mark Mason, the eight-foot tall, nearly thousand-pound Moose-human chimera, had sent his staff home early and was about to close, when a message on the UberEats app had placed a large order for at least a dozen folks.

Mark wanted to turn down the order on the app, but when his personal phone rang he answered it immediately.

“Yeah, hey buddy, we’re going to be closed… you’re coming here? Wait, there’s a blizzard out… Who do you think you are lady… No way… you’d have to be… I understand. Okay, okay.”

Mason pocketed his phone, then pressed the button on the intercom at the counter. “Hey Astrid! We’ve got a big order coming in! Four buckets of bbq wings, twelve poutines and two dozen waffles! Get the food ready, I’ll be fixing up the tables.”

Normally, Astrid didn't bring food to the tables. Her... appearance tended to weird people out if she wasn't blasting a bad guy, so she typically just stayed behind doors and prepared the food so someone else could bring it out. Besides, she made some damn fine waffles, and art can't be rushed. The looks people gave her even in the kitchen were awkward from time to time, but lately, word had started to spread that she was actually a superhero named Stareater. Even the heroes have to make a living, it seemed.

Astrid was living here as of late, so she was on call even when most people sat their asses at home due to the cold. Even she wouldn't go out there, and she had a reality-threatening fish bowl for a head. When Mason called out for an order that damn big, she didn't know what to think.

"Holy hell, who's driving in that?" She mused out loud, before poking her glass dome of a head through the doors to tell Mason something.

"I'll get on it. Have someone get back here to carry this stuff out while I'm cooking it." The young hero spoke with a voice that sounded as though the helmet some kind of sound modulator. Her voice was pitched lower than most people could naturally manage, and her words seemed to have reverb to them. This was just how her voice normally was.

And then she dipped back into the kitchen to prepare that monster of an order.

Mason set up the tables like a father would set up his daughter’s tea time toys. He moved quickly, with a practiced grace and speed for someone of his size. He then ducked into the kitchen to help Astrid, looking at the tattered recipes pinned to the fridge and consulting the multiplication table. He fires up the friers and grabs the frozen fries, setting them up. Then all the chicken in the freezer. He seasons the meat, and the fry-ables go in.

Next came flour, milk and special spice mix, to make a big batch of Mason’s sauce. Mason was never the hardest working fellah in the business, preferring to talk with his crew and perfect each dish. That was not the Mason working here today; you’d have thought this was some kind of professional chef trying to impress Gordon Ramsey, demonstrating dexterity and fine motor skills a man his size probably shouldn’t have. Mason scarcely chatted with Astrid, only reminding her of the maple syrup boat. The bell at the entrance rang just as the wings were slathered in that famous sauce of his. Something was bothering him, that much was obvious.

The bell rang just as the blizzard came down hard on the town. This crowd must’ve been driving like demons outside. Astrid, from the kitchen, would have the convenience of cctv to see what was happening in the main hall: About a dozen men, large, muscular, stockily built, clad in tactical gear from head to toe, and a thick coat over that. They left their primary armaments in the cars, but had their side arms. Each took their helmet off as a courtesy, but this only showed the charming eastern European prison tattoos on their neck and shaved heads.

“Hey. Leave the guns at the door.” Mason said, smoothly placing the 4 buckets of wings on the table prepped for them. He’d need an extra table, seeing each made was wider than normal. A whole bunch of powerlifter ex-con types. These folks were muttering to themselves, obviously deciding whether to obey the giant moose man or not. Mason made a disapproving face.

“Leave the guns at the door. No clip. Follow the rules.” A woman’s voice spoke up, repeating in Russian Mason’s request, and the men readily complied, ejecting the magazines.
The relatively smaller woman was in charge, and very unusual to be sure. She was wearing an all-white business suit, fit more for pencil pusher’s desk job than going around in the freezing Canadian winter. She glanced about the bar with a slow, purposeful expression, like examining every square foot of the place.

“Miss Nakamura, good afternoon. You haven’t aged a day. Aren’t you cold?” Mason said reflexively. So far, these folks had minded their manners, except for the skinheads eyeing him up, probably wondering if they could take him.

Once addressed, Nakamura took a few more seconds before responding, her eyes falling on Mason. “The cold doesn’t bother me. Anyway, I am grateful you took my order. It’s lunchtime and there’s no way I could find a place that would serve bortsch to my bodyguards. They will have to adjust to local cuisine.” She gestured for her men to sit and eat, and they complied happily, their expressions changing at the sight of the warm food. Foreign as it was, they found it to their taste.

“Vkusnny!” They said. It seemed food was the great diplomat that bridged all peoples. “Spasibo.” Mason responded. An order of poutine was a mountain of gravy slathered cheese curds and expertly fried potato, good for 2-3 people, while a bucket of fries was close to five pounds of the stuff, but these guys made it look like a light snack. Nakamura simply took a small plate and loaded it with a little bit of everything, and ate with a fork and spoon and with table manners, unlike the rowdier gentlemen.

Nakamura sat apart from her bodyguards, and dined at the bar to speak with Mason. “I’d like to add Eleven hot chocolates, and a tea for myself.” Nakamura added. Mason stood there nervous, and repeated the order through the intercom. He very not-so-subtly kept it on, so Astrid could listen in.

Mason couldn’t stand this uneasy torture by politeness. He cut to the chase, looking the woman in her one good eye. “So, what brings an Institute Administrator around these parts?”

Mason fixed up the tea himself, since the tea stuff was at the bar. Again, Nakamura answered only once she had the tea in hand, an uncomfortable few second of silent speculation. “20 miles from here, the Institute sponsored an energy research laboratory… well. The Nakamura Group sponsored it, and the institute endorsed it. This morning we investigated the site and found it wiped clean from the earth, atomized to nothing.”

Mason clenched his fist behind the bar, but remained calm. “That’s… a damn shame. I’m guessing people were hurt?”

“Some personnel were accounted for; some were likely caught in the blast. Chief researcher, Professor Black. And according to security logs, he often had his daughter, Astrid on site. I was wondering…” Nakamura paused to sip her tea again. A dramatic pause for effect. “…If you knew anything about it?"

Mason sighed, and spoke as calmly as he could, trying to sound natural. “I had some eggheads come in for meals or takeout every now and then. If they’re the ones you’re looking for, they don’t come around anymore. I’m sorry for the Institute’s loss.”

“I see.” Nakamura paused again. Mason saw she was thinking what to say next, and he hated that about her. She had more poutine before continuing.
“I was asking because, we detected a new type of radiation at the site. A radiation which, while having only trace amounts around town, I found a higher concentration here.” Nakamura said in that calm icy tone as she boxed Mason in. But Mason was old and slippery.

Damnit. Mason thought to himself. Nakamura just cornered her. “I... don’t know anything about that. Radiation you say? Should I be worried about getting cancer?”

“Mason, you know the Institute stands for protecting society at large from dangerous anomalies. I am only looking out for the safety of everyone involved. We need to ensure exposure to this radiation doesn’t cause… undue side effects to the people of this town.”

“Uh…” Mason was out of ammo to respond with.

Oh no. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

It hadn't been a secret in the past few months that there was a new hero in Canada, who sported a superpower that could atomize things, and now her dad's boss had tracked that very hero to this town. Behind her helmet, Astrid's eyes, if they were even there anymore, were glued to the CCTV cameras and her ears were glued to the intercom. That name rang bells in her mind, as she heard it dropped countless times in the lab. Richard Black never showed respect to anyone, but the second he heard the name Ellen Nakamura, he was like a dog obeying commands. She never had the chance of meeting that woman in person, but there was a first time for everything. Okay. Think. It's a problem, so solve it, she thought.

Astrid was a hero, and the Institute was in the business of alternative energy sources. By all accounts, Astrid was an alternative energy source. There were variables to this. Those people had guns, but the whole building was quite warm, especially the kitchen. Since Mason put pressure on them to disarm, and they did indeed do so, she could blast them before they could get their weapons. Ellen didn't look like a threat, but her experience in dealing with bad guys taught her not to judge a book by its cover. Her hero antics had been in the news roughly one month after the lab was dematerialized into dust and ash, meaning enough time had passed that anyone with a smartphone in Canada could look up her name.

But still... How could she spin that she emitted the same energy as the Whitespace in such a way that made these people leave?

Either way, she couldn't let Old Man Moose get got, so she had to do something. Astrid took a shortcut into an employees only part of the building, and came back out a few minutes later in full costume. She wore what looked like a zip-up jumpsuit with thick metal gloves, combat boots, and a strange pack slung over both shoulders that she built herself. Once it was clicked into place and a link was established between it and the PLC in her sleeve, she stepped out into the main floor where everyone was.

"Well. I asked, and no one saw anybody break it. Sorry, couldn't catch them for you. I'll swing by the police station and let them know to look out for the guy you described to me." It was a convenient excuse for Astrid to get the hell out of there, but also take some of the heat off of the old man.

And then she looked at everyone around the table. "It's a rough a day for takeout, isn't it?"

Ellen turned around and saw the newcomer from the door. Some kind of superhero? She didn’t know, those sorts of affairs rarely piqued her interest. It was only when her eye whirred with detection, that this being was emitting a unique radiation signature. She appeared vaguely female, but considering her see-through vision relied on emitting faint amounts of exotic radiations, Star Eater’s vampirism absorbed it all. To Ellen, this person was an empty walking suit.
“And who might you be?” Ellen said calmly, after a brief pause from eyeing her up. The goon squad were just wrapping up their meal. Their boss was playing good cop, so they’d have a few minutes to digest their meals before trouble broke out.

“Uhh… thanks… Yeah you do that…Go… station…” Mason said, clumsily playing along with Astrid. Verbosity was not one of his powers.

“Let me introduce myself. I am Ellen Nakamura, and I am a member of the Iskatonic International Institute of Inquiry.” She assumed the friendly, unthreatening stance, playing the savvy businessman about to drop a deal. “We deal with anomalous objects and events, and we want to help.”

Oh, I know exactly who you are. Not that she said so out loud.

"My name is Stareater, and I am a superhero." She said flatly, in response to Ellen's question. Stareater could sense the odd prickling feeling of unidentifiable energy, as she absorbed it as she would anything else. Ellen's eye would have detected a rather sense electrical charge right on top of the hero, located in the device on her back. Stareater considered the strange eye she had. Was it some kind of prosthetic? It certainly looked complex enough to be so, perhaps it worked off of some sort of unusual frequency. An odd thing, but nothing out of the ordinary for someone like her, she thought.

"I haven't seen any "anomalies" on my way here, I just came by because I heard someone was running around breaking into places. Something about brains and... cheese curds according to the guy I spoke to." A slight change in inflection implied she was speaking in less than a monotone voice, despite her voice already sounding quite odd beneath that helmet. She made it sound like it was a weird explanation. Which... It was. "I didn't see any signs of a break-in, though. So the place seems safe." She was trying to play it cool, to imply that there wasn't any outright interest in whatever Ellen was about to say.

Ellen huffed internally. She would have to pitch the sale just a bit harder. She left her seat, and took a couple of steps closer to Stareater, standing in that executive power pose, clasping her hands behind her back.

"Let me be specific, miss Star Eater." Nakamura chopped Astrid's hero name into two words. "20 miles from here there is... was a research lab looking into sustainable energy sources. That lab is now gone -empty wilderness, and a trail of anomalous radiation led to this town... and to you. Now, if you are connected to the head researcher, is important. We want to ensure this radiation does not have an effect on living beings, or perhaps cause a second incident. Also there is the matter of liabilities and compensation for any possible survivors. The Institute takes care of its own. I would know." She gestured briefly to her own prosthetic, topping off the sales talk with an emotional connection.

Mason meanwhile, looked at Astrid. He said nothing, not wanting to implicate the girl, but he made that gesture to take a calm response.

"I heard about a research facility getting levelled a couple months ago. Haven't heard much about survivors though. I never went there, I was busy somewhere else.  Sorry, but I've got nothing for you." Astrid had zero sympathy for anyone at that lab, least of all the head researcher who she secretly was the daughter of. "If they were researching sustainable energy, then maybe something went critical and blew the whole place up inside? If its radiation radiation and not just some kind of energy, then it must've been dangerous stuff. That was a few months ago, though, wasn't it? I'm guessing no one's had any time to investigate given the... Severity."

Emotional connections were arbitrary when you had nothing but distain to show for the people you knew in an accident. Granted, Astrid did feel somewhat downtrodden about the sheer level of destruction, but in the end, it was an accident. None of it was her own fault. Her father forgot to prime the BCD Mesh around the gateway. That was the reason the place went up in smoke, not her.

Her eyes flicked to Mason, unsure of what that look really meant.

Now Ellen let out a subtle sigh. The girl was not buying what she was selling. "If the researcher covered something up between audits, then it would've went overlooked by the inspectors, resulting in catastrophic safety violations. Regardless..." Nakamura turned her attention back to Mason. "As a precaution, Mason, I highly suggest you come with us. You've been exposed to this radiation and we'd like to run some medical tests. Nothing invasive, just observations if you've come into side effects." Nakamura looked out the window. "...After the blizzard passes."

"...I'm not impotent if that's what your implying!" Mason cracked a dirty joke, something he did when the man was under a whole lot of stress. This had the visible effect of wrinkling Nakamura's poker face, if only for an instant. "We can go to the police station and the hospital after the blizzard, no problem. Not exactly in the mood for a 200mile road trip down into Maine!" He added, slamming down on the bar with emphasis.

Nakamura recoiled slightly. Her bodyguards all stood up in unison. It seemed Mason knew what was going to go down, and he decided he would choose violence first, eyeing each other in quiet unison, then sizing up the large metahuman. They didn't have their guns but, they did have their tazer batons.

"This radiation is Anomalous, Mason. It's the Institute's purview. You and this young lady could be matters of public safety. I can also get a letter from the Public Health Agency of Canada-" Mason cuts her streams of half lies and hidden truths off.

"FUCK YOU AND YOUR CLOAK AND DAGGER BULLSHIT, ELLEN. YOU'RE A CANCER IN THE INSTITUTE. AND FUCK THE PHAC. SHUT UP OR GET OUT OF MY BAR NOW." Mason said, his bestial features becoming more pronounced, and his shoulders bursting out of his shirt.

"Don't hurt him too much. He used to be one of us." Ellen reminded them in Russian, letting the goon squad get to work, surrounding Mason and ganging up on him, while she stood back and let them do the dirty work.

Mason shouting at the top of his lungs was beyond jarring to the young hero, but what was truly unsettling was that Mason was with the Institute, of all people. She had been staying here, basically living under his roof for months. He worked for her, or did, or still did, she didn't know. What Astrid did know, was that Mason had shown her more kindness than most people over the age of 18 had in her life. More importantly, he was getting flogged by these Russians. Astrid had tried to keep this cool, and yet, that clearly wasn't in the cards.

There came a time in every superhero's tenure when they had to get ugly. This was one such time. Stareater raised one of her metal gloves and pointed her palm at the general direction of Ellen's goons. A vibrant sphere of energy exploded into existence with an ethereal crackling noise. Swirling flecks of black became white, and white became black, like ripples that sounded off of one another endlessly. It glowed ominously as it was held in the threatening manner one would hold a gun to someone's head. Curiously enough, it resembled exactly what everyone could see swirling around inside Stareater's helmet.

"That's enough. All of you, back away from him immediately. And you. Take your men, and leave right now, or I won't be able to guarantee your safety any longer." Stareater's tone went from casual to dead serious, as she was dead set on controlling this situation as much as possible.

Alas, her hand was now shown.

Before Ellen could (or would even) call them off, Mason started swinging, and his scuffle was short but brutal. The goons came at him all at once behind the bar, and the first man who came into reach had his face brutally caved in by Mason’s very large knuckles; the man knocked over, his ruined head making a sickly gurgling noise, spewing up blood through his ruined skull. A second goon was sent gored by his horn and sent flying into a table, holding his torn-out guts in shock. Mason was about ready to twist a third man’s head off like a twist cap, when the goons dogpile him and pin him to the ground. In the heat of the moment, Mason let it slip. “Astrid! Run!”

Nakamura had a theory as to who this superhero was, and Mason confirmed it. She now had more ammunition to use, and used it immediately. She looked at Astrid and spoke slowly, clearly, pulling the string as she saw them. She interposed herself between Mason and Astrid. “Stop! Everyone, stop! Please, Mason, you’re traumatized, I see that. I didn’t come here to fight.” Then she delivers an Oscar performance for Astrid.

“Astrid? Astrid Black? My god, what happened to you? There’s no need for that.” She gestures and emotes at her energy blast, even as her eye rapidly tried to make sense of the new radiation. She very slowly tries to lower her hand. “Look. Mason… Mason must be skipping his therapy. He has PTSD. And you Astrid… we sponsored the research, and I take responsibility for you- for whoever else made it out- now that I know your father hid something from us.”

Mason was being pinned down by eight big, heavy guys, and could hear the conversation. The best advice he could offer was “…She’s lying! If she says girls have vaginas, she’s lying!”

Even Nakamura guffawed at that. “That’s not fair Mason. Let her decide for herself.” Back to Astrid. “I know I haven’t given you a reason to trust me- you don’t know me, and you rely on Mason. But you don’t know him fully either. We worked together before, a long time ago. We did nothing wrong. We helped people, but it came at a cost, and he has a right to blame me. I swear Astrid, we do good, and the Institute will help you however we can. A cure for your condition, education, some semblance of a normal life. What do you say?”

The look she gave Mason for dropping her real name, after she clearly stated her codename, could have killed a man if she could articulate facial expressions. Nakamura's platitudes only pissed her off, so she pointed that crackling energy ball at her rather than her men. "You sponsored his research. Not mine. Everything that subhuman excuse for a man gave you before that explosion about his "discovery" was stolen from me. He caused the blast to level the whole lab because he didn't listen to me. That was his fault. Not mine. I tried to warn him, and his own incompetence got him killed. None of you have any idea what I'm controlling right now, and if you really think I'm some sort of threat, then you had better get lost RIGHT NOW. This is my work, and I'll be the one who decides who gets locked up by a bunch of corporate bureaucrats."

There was something like a flutter in Astrid's chest. Not the kind one got when something happy occurred, but the kind that came with unloaded an absurd depth of rage onto someone vaguely responsible for it. "I don't need or want anything from you. Get lost, and do not come near me or Mason again."

Ellen's hand twitched slightly, as she had to resist the urge to reach for her eyepiece then and there and fry Astrid. "That's a shame. If all that work was yours, we could do so much together... but I see you've made up your mind."

Ellen gestured and commanded her goon crew to knock it off, and they did, dragging their dead compatriots with them out into the storm. "I'm sorry to learn your father wasn't honest with us or you, if things were different you'd be a brilliant researcher. Still... I won't rescind my offer. The Institute's doors are open to you, if you want to continue the great work. Deep down I can tell, you want to keep the research going."

Ellen took out her wallet and left a cheque for Mason to cover the damage to the bar. She then went out into the storm with her crew. Several minutes pass
before Mason got to his feet, shrinking back down to his human form. He clutched his tazer burns, while the compensation made this incident less unpleasant.

"...Sorry I opened my big mouth back there." Mason said, owning up to his mistake and grabbing a bucket of ice to hold to his wounds.

It took Ellen leaving the place, Mason apologizing and him finally leaving for Astrid to cool down and collect herself enough to form words. The fact that Mason dropped her real name made her somewhat furious with him. And when he came back, she let him have it.

"You're ONE OF THEM?!" She balked, in an uncharacteristically aggressive tone. "THEY'VE BEEN HUNTING ME FOR MONTHS AND NOW THEY KNOW WHERE I AM!" It wasn't very realistic to blame Mason for not telling Astrid that she was affiliated with the Institute in some way. After all, he didn't do anything, and he did try to stop this from happening. But right now, the fact hurt. Astrid was too busy overlooking that detail, too busy trying to weigh her trust in Mason up until this point against her hate for anyone even remotely related to Ellen, the Institute or even her father.

Astrid was no longer holding a ball of volatile energy in her hands, but she still gave off the impression of danger and aggression, practically screaming through her helmet at the man who tried to protect her. "NOW THEY KNOW I WAS THERE! THEY KNOW I'M TIED TO THAT PLACE!"

Mason could easily see that she was starting to tremble slightly.

Seeing Astrid extremely upset, Mason’s paternal instinct kicked in, and moved in for a big Mason hug, if she wanted it. “She’ ain’t comin’ back. Ahm sorry, darlin’, that was on me. You got cajones saying no to Nakamura but, you’re really a kid if you think she’s now yer archnemesis villain.” Mason grabs a fresh shirt, that half full bottle of Jack he keeps under the counter, and a class picture from the far wall where he keeps friends and family photos. Between changing, one could see a massive burn scar across his chest, and the same pattern on his back, as if some awful weapon cut him open.

“See, For every lab like yers that gets blown up, she got five more making her sweet dosh. And Nakamura cares about two things only- saving face, and making money. Fighting a teenager? Not worth either. Sit down, I got a story to tell ya. Might even get a laugh or two.”

Mason forgoes the glass and drinks straight from the bottle. The picture he showed was an old faded class photo of an elementary class, and a canny observer would note Mason’s distinct facial features in a very large, round young boy in shorts, wearing thick framed glasses, seated in the front.  Beside him, standing, was the class adviser, Ellen Nakamura, virtually unchanged from her present appearance save for the flared pants and short curly hair.

“Don’t mix up Nakamura with the Institute. Those are two separate things. Or, supposed to be. Institute started drinking her money like a man lost in the desert takes to water, all to expand their research. Last I hear, it’s a big ol' conflict-of-interest mess over there.”

Mason took another swing of Jack, going through the hard stuff like water. “So, there she is. My grade school and high school science teacher, also taught me how to set up wires for lights and power, how to fix a generator. Useful stuff really. Our principal at the time was a talking cat, and I dated, I shit you not, a blood sucking vampire through high school. My wacky Life at the Institute, am I right?”

Mason paused before going further, hoping the story would so disarm Astrid as to make her laugh or lighten the mood.