Marks of Cane

An Uneventful Stroll for Professor Smith...

“Will only be out for a moment, love!”

And what a moment it’d be, for it was upon a uniquely clear Haven evening that the white-furred Professor Smith went for a stroll. For the all the excitement of an inline-six hammering away at 100 miles an hour, there was nothing quite so replenishing as a good long walk around the block. He fixed the brim of his flat slouch hat, snapped up his horsehead cane, and stepped out of his apartment, down the stairs, and onto those broad city streets.

In lieu of the usual gas-lamp fog, A.C.E.S. had afforded her wolves a crystal-clear view of their beloved abode, from the heights of her mirror-glass skyscrapers to the length of her endless streets. She elected to include a faint lavender aroma to the night air, one which Smith took in great, gleaming breaths as he strode along. There was only one thing that could make the evening stroll better.

“Would it kill you to change this zeffre nonsense?” he quipped idly, cane clacking along the sidewalk.

She shifted the night’s pallor between footsteps, trading the bog-standard blue for an electric violet, one which the Professor met with a deferential bow. “You’re a good lass when you want to be,” he smiled gently, though his warmth towards her didn’t last.

His mind was still wrapped around the calamity that had been occurring over the past few weeks. More muggings, more gangland scuffles; more reasons for him to don the cape, carry the sword, and spend the hours he’d prefer in research dispatching with these wanton thugs. If the Artificially Controlled Eco-System couldn’t keep her automated cops in line, and get them where she needed them, more and more chaps like him would have to take the reins.

Such wanton thugs who had escaped official justice happened to be making their way down the street. Making their right for Professor Smith.