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Kel had done some talking with Jack about learning the finer points of investigations, crime lab analysis and the skills he felt he might need someday.  Although Jack turned out to be less experienced then Kel though he would be, he did know someone who could help however.

Andrew Montrose was a local to the Chicago area who was an accomplished mystery novelist.  He wrote under a pen name, but he had a lot of detective novels to his credit.  He'd been a police forensics specialist for years before retiring and taking up writing full time.  Jack introduced Kel to Andy, with the story that Kel wanted to be a writer someday, even going so far as to show him some of the things Kel had written for the school paper.  Andy was impressed, and agreed to teach Kel the basics of forensic science and investigative techniques as well as coach his writing.

During a break at one of the sessions, Kel wanders from the den into the dining room and sees tons of photos and news clippings about various super heroes.  New items, including the local stories about the stuff the Usual Suspects have been involved with, and much older stuff going all the way back to the 1880's.

"Ah, I see you've discoverd my secret obsession."  Andy says.  "I keep telling myself I'm writing a book, but non-fiction isn't my strong suit so it's taking longer then I thought it would."

As Kel begins looking over the long stretch of news reports he says, "So wait...you're like cataloging this stuff?  This is...just...alot..."  While he looks closely at most of the items, he takes a closer look at the US stuff without trying to make it seem obvious.

"I wanted to write a difinitive history of supers over the last decade, and then it was century, and it just keeps getting bigger.  It's sort of going to be an encyclopedia of heroes.  You interested in super heroes at all?"

"Definitely," Kel said as he perused through the articles, "It's hard not to be with everything that goes on at my school you know.  Plus, there has definitely been some interesting guys here in Chicago over the years..."  As he thinks about it, he begins trying to see if there's anything on Batman.

Along with a copy of the Unauthorized Biography of Batman there are tons of articles and clippings on the subject.  Several boxes are labeled Batman & Related.

He begins looking through the batman stuff and says, "Like this guy.  Batman has always sounded totally cool to me."

"Well, he's pretty much the iconic vigilante hero.  Terror of the Chicago underworld in the thirties, certainly responsible for several heroes getting their starts over the later decades and possibly responsible for more then we know.  He really started the idea of the police and heroes working together, even though that's never really fully caught on.  Only one other person has ever carried the name, and he didn't start until sixty years after the original stopped apearing.  He's a very cool character."

"Yea," Kel said as he looked over the stuff, "I don't know much about this second Batman though.  Well I don't know much on the first guy either, just read the book on him and I don't know didn't seem that informative."

"Well, the woman that wrote it was a gossip columnist, and she didn't research it very well.  If you're interested you can look through this stuff.  Just, don't take any of it out of the house.  It's taken me a long time to collect all this stuff."

"Sure thing."  Kel said as he began to look into the first box of batman information, he then asked, "Did anybody ever catch a photo of him?"

"Plenty."  Andy said.  He opened one of the boxes and pulled out another smaller box that was filled with black and white photos.  Most of them are not very clear, but a few of them are.  They show the orignal Batman in a variety of places, most of them are action shots from various crime scenes taken by what were the eaerliest photojournalists.

"Whoa," Kel said as he looked over the photos, "These are pretty wild."  When he had seen the majority he asked, "Do you have any other stuff on local heroes, maybe some that are more recent?"

"Sure.  That stuff is all in here."  Andy said, getting another box and then putting the photos away.

Kel begins to sift through it, knowing full well that there had been plenty of mention of their activities (though not always blatant), he had never actually looked at more than the headlines.

The stories are usually vauge about the identities of the heroes, even when there were plenty of witnesses.  People accept the idea that anonymous heroes are out there and seem to gloss right over it.  They refer to people as the punk scrapper, the speedster girl, the dragon boy, the jedi chick and things of that nature.

Working his way through the assorted articles Kel realizes that there are at least three other teen supers in the Chicago area.  Two boys and a girl.  They don't seem to work together, as the stuff they've done has been pretty spread out and always just mentions one person.

Kel begins to sift through these articles of other teens, muttering mainly to himself, "That's weird...who are they..."  He begins reading the articles, trying to figure out where they operate.

One of the article subjects, a boy with no mask, seems to move around quiet a bit.  Chicago and most of the suburbs.

Another boy, this one with a mask, operates mostly in the Franklin Park area, which is near the airport.

The third is a girl.  She apparently has a mask and what most people think is a costume (described as a long duster coat with protective arm and shin pads, boots and some kind of armored vest.  She's mostly been sighted in the area around the University of Chicago.

Kel makes note of the non-costumed person but knows chances are good he's like Megan and just is moving too quickly to be observed.  He definitely jotted down Franklin Park, and since when he patrolled he often would go over Southside and the UofC area he would make a point of finding this girl as soon as his new costume was complete.  He rubbed his chin though wondering why the first person wasn't wearing a mask.  He looks over to try and see what type of things they've been doing.

Mostly intervening in crimes like muggings and that sort of thing.  He stopped a hit and run driver by standing in front of is car, which didn't stop.   A police car saw the driver accelerate and run head on into the kid, which destroyed the car and killed the driver.  The person the driver orininally hit was taken to the hospital and lived.

Kel is definitely a little shocked by that sort of news report, that means this guy is like a tank or something.  He shakes his head, looking at what the other people have done, just how super are these people.

The other two don't seem to be able to stop a moving car.  The other boy seems to be faster than a normal person, the witness statements suggest he dodged shots fired at him.  The girl is reported to have been shot twice by a rapist fleeing the scene of an attack, but she got up and gave chase.  Eventually beating him into unconsciousness and dropping him with the police near the victim.

Kel nodded, definitely some top type of people who were interested in doing something a little more.  He liked that, and beyond that, people who were familiar with the streets might know a thing or two about Vandross.