Wake-up Call – Chapter 63

The good thing about living in a lawless city where every LEO is either too busy running for their life or taking bribes?

[Approaching intersection. Red traffic light. Lack of visibility. Pedestrian starting to cross parallel to—]

No traffic cops.

I accelerate, my bike rumbling between my legs as I shoot straight past the old lady who was also disobeying the laws of Man, if not those of God, by defying the crimson light barring her from crossing the street.

The day's still not that late, a mild afternoon, and so I can rush with my white vinyl jacket undone and flapping behind me, the freezing breeze just enough to keep me focused, in the moment, anchored enough that I can navigate the myriad potholes along this broad street that is the most direct route from Danny's house to my destination, even if I don't want to think about what I'll do when I get there, even if I just want to lose myself in the blurred colors of sickly trees and houses that could do with some paint.

Ahead of me, taller concrete buildings loom.

I speed up.

[Cruising speed higher than would allow for standard reaction time to—]

Well, that's why I have you, don't I? So that 'standard' isn't a concern—

[Flattery—]

Stop distracting me if you're so concerned.

…

OK, I… Look, I'm sorry, all right? It's—oh fuck!

I clench the brake of the rear wheel, not as hard as I can, but enough that I can buy some time to take a left and switch lanes on the up till now mostly deserted street right as a grey SUV exits a garage faster than should be warranted, and the control of my bike slips away as I go right over one of the everpresent potholes and jump up, losing contact with the asphalt for an eternal, [thrilling] second that stretches with all the ways this could go horribly wrong—

[Relaxation. Allowing inertia to self-correct orientation. Letting vehicle straighten out as—]

Yes.

That.

I feel it. I feel the motor calm down below me as I decelerate and allow the wheels to spin at the speed that the street below them wants them to. I feel it as I cede control and, in doing so, regain it.

My bike barely wobbles, and, gently, I pump up the gas just a tad more as I return to my lane, flipping the bird to the frantically honking grey car fading away behind me.

And I feel… Cold.

Not… not cold as I would if fear ran its course through me, as if the shock contracted my capillaries and made my skin pale as blood flow was constricted and my skin quickly lost warmth. No, it's the other kind of cold. The one that feels as if something tingling and electrical just washed down the inside of your body, carrying away any intrusive thoughts and feelings, making you…

I'm not quite calm, not really.

But I'm no longer anxious, either. Because, right now?

I feel nothing.

Nothing other than cold.

[Lisa Wilbourn's recklessness—]

I've got you, Power. I've got you.

[Lisa Wilbourn's—]

I've got you. So it's not recklessness. Not really.

…

Heh. One of these days? I'll manage to get Colin and Dragon to code an avatar for you just so I can see how bashful you look when you do one of these pauses.

[Anthropomorphizing of—!]

Yeah, methinks the psychic voice inside my head doth protest too much.

***

I would like to say I'm composed and cool as a cucumber (one that is, presumably, stored in a fridge) when I enter the small café near my apartment where I should've headed without taking a detour to Casa Hebert, but, to be perfectly honest…

Well, let's just say that a brown-haired missile impacting my stomach as soon as I push open the wood and glass door isn't that conducive to keeping up my carefully cultivated, calm façade.

"Ouch," I tell Dinah as my sisterly instincts take over, and I involuntarily ruffle her soft hair.

Is this age-related? Will it get coarser as she reaches the apogee of a puberty anybody who has the slightest idea of what a world-class precog and hormones can unleash when combined will dread like a fourth Endbringer? And, if so, is Taylor's hair immune to the ravages of time, or do I need to bully some Tinker to make it so?

"You're OK," Dinah reassures me as she rubs her face against the belly of my pink top, her warmth seeping through the fabric and quickly replacing the lingering, cold air still clinging to me from the ride over.

I look at her, then I shoot a brief glance at the barista behind the white marble counter with an apologetic lip bite that she answers with the kind of smile one usually reserves for dumb puppies smushing their face against the window of the pet store, and then I look back at my…

My Dinah.

Thinking in family terms is not a good idea at the moment.

"I'll be," I whisper to brown locks gliding between my fingers.

"You better," Taylor says from my right, making me jump up in the biggest scare of my life that doesn't involve hostile (at the moment) parahumans and making Dinah snort.

"Jesus Christ! Warn a girl before doing that, won't you?" I tell her as Dinah takes a staggering, giggling step back.

"Funny. Dinah and I were just discussing how much you love surprises."

"I don't. At all. I hate them with a burning passion."

"I seem to remember—"

"[Tay!"] I tell her as I cover the ears of the still somewhat innocent, overwhelmingly powerful Thinker that… Uh…

Dinah, stop glaring at me. You are [comparatively innocent], and that's all that matters at the moment.

Also, the less the rest of world learns about the sordid beginnings of my relationship with Taylor, the less blackmail you'll have over me when you desperately need it. I think. I mean, you're a precog, and I don't plan on topping [that] in the near future, so I can rest assured that the most embarrassing moments of my life are secure in the past, where no precognition can get a glimpse of them, and they'll just keep randomly appearing in fits of intrusive thoughts that will make me blush until the day I die.

Which, if Dinah learns about this, may be sooner than most would expect. Due to, you know, the burning embarrassment.

…

I have had rooftop sex. [Repeatedly]. I [shouldn't] be this mortified over a prepubescent girl learning my first time involved arachnid bondage!

Also, both Taylor and said prepubescent hellspawn are staring at me like I'm doing a series of very interesting facial expressions.

…

"I hate you both," I say as I let go of Dinah's ears.

"We too," she says.

And immediately grabs the sleeve of my jacket to drag me to the corner table situated out of immediate sight of the door that she's clearly chosen for its ambushing advantages.

Then she sits me down, my back against the wall, the rest of the cafeteria easily surveyable from my vantage point, and a mug of recently poured hot chocolate appears in front of me with a plate of ladyfingers on the side.

I blink at the whole thing, then look at a suspiciously innocent-looking Dinah and an unsurprisingly smug-looking Taylor.

I need to start enforcing that trademark. I would've made bank already.

"Take a moment," Tay says as she grasps my left hand, my cold fingers warming in her grasp and tingling in a way that's just shy of uncomfortable.

"I—"

"A moment," Dinah insists from the chair to my right, the one that's against the other wall of the corner we're in. The one that also lets her watch without being observed, because paranoia is a healthy trait to cultivate for people like us, even if anxiety is the opposite of healthy.

And then she sticks one of the ladyfingers in the thick, creamy chocolate, lets it go, and smiles expectantly at me as the flattened cylinder of sponge cake slowly tilts back to rest on the rim of the white mug.

And I…

"It's… It's been years since I drank chocolate," I say.

"There are things you can like as a kid that you can also like as a grown-up," she says with a cheeky grin poking at the corners of her mouth.

Remembering a blond, smug, mustachioed Gaul, I try not to smile at her.

And then…

Well, [she's not wrong].

Mostly because she's basically quoting me, but I should learn to accept insightful wisdom no matter how unlikely the source.

[Lisa Wilbourn's humility—]

You're doing that just so I'll quote Sherlock at you again, aren't you?

… [Anthropomorphizing of parahuman abilities' interfaces—]

OK, I'm gonna ignore the rest of that as I grab a paper napkin, briefly ponder how to navigate the whole affair without giving up my precious handholding time with Taylor, and then watch with bemusement as she rolls her eyes and steals it from my grasp before holding it below my chin, making me blush like a maidenly Rachel in the process, and now I've got her and Alec stuck in—I scrub [that] from my brain, and take out the pastry from the mug before it sinks completely into its dark depths.

Then, with a careful, non-drippy trajectory that hovers over the napkin Taylor is holding for me, I carefully blow on the molten sweet until I feel the risk of second-degree burns is somewhat ameliorated, and…

Bliss.

Sheer, unmitigated bliss.

The flavor spreads across my tongue as the aroma fully hits me, and the ladyfinger is just consistent enough that it is a pleasure to bite into even as it almost disintegrates inside my mouth, only the chocolate holding some of it together, crumbs of sweet, delightfully soft sponge cake carrying the nuanced, deep taste of the dark, sinfully—

Taylor's blushing.

So's Dinah, even if her expression seems to convey much more delighted glee than embarrassment.

…

Putting on my most British demeanor, I look imperturbable as ever as I manage to swallow without letting out any further moans.

The waitress is [staring].

And, apparently, overjoyed.

"You planned for this," I tell my archnemesis. "You planned for this, and you didn't give Taylor a hint just so you could watch the tips of her ears redden."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Dinah says as she hides half her face behind her glass of orange juice.

"Two Thinkers. Of course I thought it would be a good idea to spend the afternoon with two Thinkers. God, what is wrong with me?" Taylor, still holding a paper napkin beneath my chin and my left hand in her right, mutters.

I arch an eyebrow. Pointedly look at both hands of hers.

She doesn't let go.

But she blushes harder.

"If you say something utterly sappy right now, Liz, I swear I'll pour the rest of the chocolate over your obscenely expensive jeans."

"You wouldn't do that to your loving girlfriend who knows how to mess with your haircare products, would you?" I tell her.

She pales.

I smirk.

"You wouldn't."

"Tay, you know I love you and your hair. You know I delight in running my fingers through and over it. You know I value it more than most people I've ever met. Now, what you've gotta ask yourself is this: do I love it [more than winning an argument?"]

Taylor, for some reason nobody (who's not a Thinker seven) could've predicted, pales further.

And Dinah giggles.

"Don't think this means I'm done with you," I tell the utter terror who's now snatching a piece of chocolate-soaked pastry.

The little thief. We'll still make a proper villain out of you, Dinah.

"What is the question?" she says, the hand holding her stolen prize waiting in front of her lips as brown eyes beneath barely lighter bangs stare at me.

And I pause.

Because there was a question. One I had forced myself to ask her, one that would acknowledge what we talked about: my trust in her, and her trust in me.

That we can collaborate, help each other, without… without hurting. Without exploiting us.

I had a question for her, and she knows it, and I set up this meeting with her and Taylor so we could do this in as relaxed a way as I could envision, without the ghost of her new residence and the worries it brings to mind hanging around us, with one of the few people Dinah trusts to both want to and be able to protect her being there, with us, sharing this little piece of intimacy.

This… This would've been me showing Dinah that I… That I accept her. Her and all she has to offer. That I'll let her be there for me like she wants to be.

But she's asked her own questions, discovered that I'd arrive here after a terrible day, that I'd need to decompress, to…

She's pulled a me on me, is what I'm saying.

And I'm grateful. I am. Because I can still feel the thrill of my bike [almost] going out of control, almost carrying me away in a brutal tumble beyond my capacity to influence, beyond my [responsibility] to do so. I can still feel the short moment of panic and the lingering mourning of a liberation that didn't come.

My chest, beneath Taylor's still hovering napkin, rises and falls.

And I…

I just stare at brown deeper than that of her hair, divining highlights and shadows, the texture of her irises full of details that seem to reveal a bit more with every passing second as I look at the one person I know for a fact will one day surpass me, become a far more powerful Thinker than I could ever be.

And I watch the foundations of that titanic mind, that pristine intellect, wait for me to take a step forward, to push our relationship in a new direction.

"You trust me too much," I tell her, barely above a whisper. Something that couldn't be heard if this little place with warm, inviting buttermilk walls wasn't almost empty.

"No. I do not," she says, her smile now both soft and frail even as her eyes shine just a tad more with moisture I'd rather not know the meaning of.

So I close my own. The bottle green that Taylor likes so much, even if she rarely mentions it.

And look inward.

The scent of the chocolate is still there, still anchoring me to my senses, to the moment, but I allow both my mind and Power to drift, to sift through the burning questions.

Chances that Panacea can be broken without collateral damage?

Chances that I'll be satisfied after returning the blow?

Chances that Colin will side with me rather than with the most powerful healer in the world?

Chances that I can win, that I can do something years from now I'll still see as a win?

Chances that Mom is sincere, that she really wants to—

Chances that I can grow past this?

Chances that this is a one-time thing and Panacea is satisfied?

Chances that her informant is someone I know?

Chances that—

[Chances that Lisa Wilbourn will be happy—]

No. Not that one. Never that one.

[Chances that self-fulfilling prophecy—]

You're being an ass.

[Anatomical unlikelihood of—]

Damn it. Damn it, fine. You win.

[Lisa Wilbourn's… Lisa Wilbourn.]

Thank you. Again, Power… thank you.

So, with that done, I open my eyes and meet solemn, expectant dark brown once again.

And so, I just ask the one question I had meant to ask all along:

"Chances that a Machine Army drone can keep its connection with the hive mind while inside Grue's power?"

Dinah smiles. Something bright and triumphant.

"Zero point three percent," she says.

And we both share a moment of victory before an annoyed Taylor drops the napkin on my lap, grabs the rest of my half-eaten ladyfinger, and shoves it in my mouth.

==================

This work is a repost of my most popular fic on QQ (https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/wake-up-call-worm.15638/), where it can be found up to date except for the latest two chapters that are currently only available on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Agrippa?fan_landing=true)—as an added perk, both those sites have italicized and bolded text. I'll be posting the chapters here twice weekly, on Wednesday and Friday, until we're caught up. Unless something drastic happens, it will be updated at a daily rate until it catches up to the currently written 88 chapters (or my brain is consumed by the overwhelming amounts of snark, whichever happens first).

Speaking of Italics, this story's original format relied on conveying Power's intrusions into Lisa's inner monologue through the use of italics. I'm using square brackets ([]) to portray that same effect, but the work is more than 300k words at the moment, so I have to resort to the use of macros to make that light edit and the process may not be perfect. My apologies in advance

Also, I'd like to thank my credited supporters on Patreon: Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, Xalgeon, and aj0413. If you feel like maybe giving me a hand and helping me keep writing snarky, useless lesbians, consider joining them or buying one of my books on https://www.amazon.com/stores/Terry-Lavere/author/B0BL7LSX2S. Thank you for reading!