86

Chapter 86

A Darker Path

Part Eighty-Six: Same Day, Different Date

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

Stanley Partridge considered himself to be smarter than average. Ever since he was old enough to understand his options, he'd always made the choice that benefited Stanley Partridge. Everything else came second.

Why study, he'd reasoned as far back as middle school, if what they're testing you for won't ever apply in real life? He had better things to do with his time. So he'd befriended the hardest workers in his grade and persuaded (or coerced) them into 'helping' him with his schoolwork.

Going into high school, he didn't always have the option of getting someone to do his work for him, so he learned to cheat in other ways. Whether it was teasing open the lock of the teacher's desk to get an advance look at the next test paper, or bribing someone from a higher grade to help him out, he was always one step ahead of the administration.

It occurred to him once when he was sneaking into the school in the dead of night that if he applied that kind of effort to actually studying, he could come by the marks honestly, but he dismissed the thought. If he started playing the game by their rules now, it would mean they'd won, that their way was better than his.

It would mean they were smarter than him.

And that just wasn't true. He was smarter than them. He was smarter than everyone.

At the end of tenth grade, he dropped out of school. This was a calculated move: on the one hand, he'd heard that it was a lot harder to fake doing the work in eleventh and twelfth grade. The teachers were a lot sharper (though they still weren't on his level), and might pick up on copied work. Also, bribing someone of a higher grade to help wouldn't work once he hit twelfth grade anyway.

On the other hand, he already knew everything he needed to about life. He was sixteen, but husky enough to pass for eighteen. There was no doubt in his mind that he could get any job he wanted, and learn to do whatever it was better than anyone.

And that was when he hit his first snag.

Up until then, he'd always been able to wriggle his way though the cracks presented by people who didn't care enough to pay real attention to his words and deeds, and those who were venal enough or scared enough to give him what he needed. But now, presenting a good front wasn't enough. It didn't matter that he was a quicker thinker than the people he was seeking to get a job from; they had vastly more experience in the world, and in the type of bullshit he was trying to peddle, than he did.

For the first time in his life, he hit a brick wall. Unlike the teachers he'd left behind, his prospective employers actually wanted to see ability, demonstrated in front of them. If he couldn't perform, they had no incentive to give him a pass and move him on to where he wanted to be. There was no option for persuading or wheedling, and no second chances. They simply said 'no' and turned him away. A couple even said, "Go back to school."

He didn't go back to school. Going back to school would be an admission that he'd made the wrong move, that he wasn't as smart as he knew he was. Instead, he persuaded himself that he didn't really want to become a wage-slave for The Man. That way was for idiots and morons.

But he still needed money. There was no work going, even for casual labour, because Brockton Bay wasn't exactly an economic powerhouse. However, there were still ways to get ahead for someone who had their ear to the ground and an eye out for the main chance. Long story short, his best bet was to join a gang.

His choices in this regard were somewhat more limited than he'd initially thought. Drugs were not his entertainment of choice (except maybe for a bit of weed every now and again), so Skidmark's almost-gang wasn't even a possibility. He wasn't Asian, so the ABB were off the table. The name Coil had cropped up, but the guy didn't recruit from inside Brockton Bay.

Which left the Empire Eighty-Eight.

While this would've been problematic with someone of a more ethical bent, it didn't bother Stanley overmuch. He didn't hate minorities, but he didn't love them either. If kicking someone's ribs in was what it took to get a place in the gang, then ribs would be kicked. He was smart enough to know that his own welfare came first.

So he took his place in the Empire Eighty-Eight, and life was good. Some got tattoos as a way of showing their loyalty to the gang, but anyone with an ounce of savvy knew that such permanent markings had a way of coming back to bite people in later life, so he always had an excuse why he wasn't going to get one quite yet. Getting a buzz-cut was almost as good, and hair could always grow back.

Months passed, then years. He wasn't stupid enough to put himself forward when it was something that could get him killed, because he was just using the Empire Eighty-Eight as cover. But when someone else did, he had no problem with moving up in the ranks.

Then Atropos came to Brockton Bay, and everything went tits-up and sideways, all at once.

Kaiser got taken out on the second day, before Stanley even thought it was time to get concerned. As a direct result, every cape in the Empire Eighty-Eight either left town or (in the case of Hookwolf) died. The gang itself began haemorrhaging members, of whom Stanley was one, because hanging on past its use-by date was not what he considered the best move in the world. He didn't have to worry about the ABB, because Lung died twenty-four hours after Kaiser did, and Skidmark bit the dust one day after that.

There was definitely a trend going on here. Criminal capes were on Atropos' radar, so Stanley did the smart thing and kept his head down. Even if the Nine came to town, he decided, he wouldn't try to sign up with them. (And then they did try, and died, which only proved he'd been right all along).

But once again, even as villains and their minions were dying all over the place in numbers that could've been avoided if they'd just stayed away, he needed an income stream. There still wasn't much work going around, so he decided to keep doing what he had been before, but go freelance with it. If he didn't kill anyone, and didn't hurt people unless they did something really stupid, he was pretty sure Atropos would have a lot of other people to go through before she got to him.

Plus, she always gave two warnings. He paid attention to things like that. One would be enough for him.

By the time the Betterment Committee kicked over (and he got his stimulus card) he'd gathered to himself a bunch of like-minded guys, who listened to what he said about not getting the attention of the scary girl in black. He could've quit crime at that point and applied for employment on the rebuilding, but that sounded too much like work to him, and he'd already made the decision once before that working for The Man was a fool's game. So, while some of his people went to become wage-slaves like the rest of the sheep, he stayed independent, because he knew better than them that the work wouldn't last. It never did.

And so, there he was one fine Saturday night, lurking with his boys in a side-street just off the Boardwalk. There was more money about these days, so pickings were definitely better than when he'd first gone freelance. It only proved what he'd already known; you just had to be smart about who you picked to rob.

Boardwalk, Saturday Evening, March 12

Anne Barnes

"So, what's the plan for tonight?" asked Crystal, lounging against the rail and looking amazing in a blouse and slacks of magenta and white; while ruby earrings, a purse, and a hairband of the same colour made up the rest of her ensemble. "Did we have anything in mind, or were we just going to wing it?"

Melanie had chosen a severe black theme, with a dress that had been cut to be flattering to her form (not that it needed to work very hard). Her shoulder-bag, bigger than most, also came in black. She'd gone with makeup and jewellery in various muted shades of colour, which made her look dark and mysterious and cool. "I was thinking we could start with a meal at Drinks on the Bay, followed by a stroll to take in the sights of the Boardwalk then a movie. Sounds good?"

Anne nodded. With an idea of how Crystal and Melanie would dress, she'd opted for ocean and beach colours to draw out her eyes and hair, and she thought she looked okay, but nowhere near as good as they did. "Sure. Dad took Mom out to dinner there after the reopening, a couple of weeks ago. They came home raving about the seafood platter."

"I do like seafood," Crystal agreed. "If it's that good, I'll have to tell my folks about it too." Linking her arm through Anne's, she tilted her head in the direction of the restaurant.

Melanie smiled. "I have read good reviews about it. And of course, having members of New Wave dining there can't hurt its reputation in the slightest." She came in on Anne's other side, so that Anne had a cape on either arm. Together, they started off along the Boardwalk.

"If we're trying to keep whatever we've got on the down-low until we figure out what it is, maybe we shouldn't make a big deal about who Crystal is once we get there," Anne suggested. She gave Crystal an apologetic shrug. "Not trying to tear you down or anything, but PHO can be pretty unforgiving. And all it takes is one person posting a photo online, especially without context."

"Or even with context," Crystal agreed with a smile. "Trust me, Aunt Carol's waxed lyrical on the subject. All us kids had it explained to us multiple times that we always had to assume there was a camera pointed at us whenever we were in public, and that we were never, ever off the record." The smile became almost a grimace. "I would've expected Eric to be the one to slip up on that, but Vicky was the one who stepped in it more often than not."

"Oh, the Collateral Damage Barbie stuff?" Anne had watched a few clips from that channel. Most were funny, but a few were just cringe-inducing. "Has she gotten better—wait. Is that who I think it is?"

Because both arms were occupied, she nodded toward the quartet of girls up ahead; two had been on the Boardwalk already, and were greeting the other two who had just gotten off at the bus stop. It might just have been the fact that she had Crystal on her arm, but one of the girls looked remarkably familiar, despite being dressed up to the nines. The frizzy hair, normally hidden under a hood, had been brushed to a gleam and was neatly tied back, but her face was still recognisable.

"Huh, you're right," Crystal confirmed. "It is Amy. I'd heard she had a girlfriend. Good for her."

Melanie chuckled as they drew closer. "It does seem to be getting around, doesn't it?"

Something Anne's sociology professor had once said came back to her. "It's more that the societal pressure against same-sex romance in Brockton Bay has eased all the way off, so people are feeling more free to express it. It's coming out now because it was here all along but suppressed, not because it's something new." The more she thought about it, the more that seemed to apply to her own situation as well. Colour me surprised. He had a point.

A moment later, one of the girls looked around and said something to Panacea, who turned in their direction. Anne would've bet a large amount of money that it was something along the lines of, 'hey, isn't that your cousin?'. Instead of ducking away—as Anne half-expected her to do—Amy smiled broadly and led the way toward them.

"Hi, Amy," Crystal greeted her as they got close enough to talk. "Vicky said you went out on a date last night. It must've gone really well if you're going out again tonight."

"Oh, yeah, we had a ball." Amy gestured toward the Asian girl who was part of the other couple in her foursome. "But Lily's only in town until Monday morning, so we're making the most of it. Um, so this is Sabah, and that's Emily, and of course this is Lily. Everyone, meet my cousin Crystal, and Anne Barnes, and … I'm sorry, I don't think we've met?"

Melanie smiled and introduced herself, and there was a round of nice-to-meet-you and how-are-you-doing as was usual for this sort of thing. In the middle of it, Anne caught Melanie exchanging a brief nod with Amy and realised that the healer had pretended ignorance of the former's identity, despite almost certainly having been briefed by her parents about what had happened. If she was reading the signs right, Amy was doing her own little bit to keep the potential three-way relationship under wraps until it became unavoidably public.

"So where were you going to, anyway?" asked Crystal. "We've all heard good things about Drinks on the Bay, so we were going to start our night there."

Amy's date, the shy young woman called Sabah, took a step closer to Melanie. "Excuse me, but where do you get your dresses done? The cut is very nice."

"Sabah's a fashion student at the College," Amy explained briefly, then refocused on Crystal. "We hadn't really decided, to be honest. I think we were just going to head along the Boardwalk until the growling of our stomachs got too loud to hear ourselves talk, and get something to eat wherever we were."

Anne tilted her head. "Actually, now you come to mention it, I think I have seen you around the campus. Huh. Small world."

"I've, uh, had to tailor my own clothing from time to time," Melanie explained. "I bought this one off the rack, but since then I've altered it here and there to fit me better." She looked at Amy's group. "You know what? It's been a really good day for me, so I'm going to do something nice to celebrate. How would all four of you like to come to the restaurant with us? My treat."

Anne met Crystal's eyes briefly; they both knew exactly what she was referring to, and Anne personally agreed that it was grounds for celebration. From the look on Crystal's face, she thought so too.

"Only if you're sure," Amy said uncertainly. "I mean, so long as it's not just because you and Crystal are friends."

Melanie chuckled warmly. "Well, I'd be lying if I said that wasn't part of it, but it's more than just that. A good friend of mine had a huge problem Ended today, and it's a massive weight off everyone's mind. So, this is me paying it forward."

From the flicker of recognition in Amy's eye, she'd possibly picked up on Melanie's tone, but again she didn't call attention to it. "Well, okay then. Thank you so much. Guys, the decision has been made. We're going to the restaurant."

"Wow, thank you!" the girl called Emily gushed. "That's so amazing!"

Sabah nodded in agreement. "We really appreciate it. I've heard it's a nice place."

"Yeah, what they said," Lily added. "This is all kinds of awesome."

"So, which way is it again?" asked Crystal.

Amy pointed. "Down this way, I think."

Stanley

"Heads up!" hissed Fedor, the lookout. "Seven chicks, no guys!"

That was exactly what Stanley wanted to hear. Guys in a situation like this sometimes got a rush of testosterone to the brain and did something stupid. He preferred it when everyone understood how this sort of thing went and cooperated. And if they were tourists, they could even go home with a story about how they got mugged in Brockton Bay. Looked at in the correct light, it was almost a rite of passage.

"Places!" he ordered, keeping his voice down as he ducked into his chosen hiding spot.

It was the kind of narrow side-street that could be found throughout Brockton Bay, allowing one-way transit between the Boardwalk (and the businesses that fronted onto it) and Lord Street proper. Perfect for his purposes, it was wide enough not to be an actual alleyway (which nobody with half a brain walked down in Brockton Bay, for obvious reasons) but still narrow enough that people could be trapped in it and made to give up their worldly goods without too much of a fuss. The dumpsters that lined it took up most of both sidewalks, forcing any pedestrians to walk on the road itself, and incidentally providing ample hiding places for people like his little gang.

He hadn't named the gang. This was because he wasn't a fucking idiot. Only people who wanted official attention gave themselves grandiose names.

The group of seven—young women and teenage girls—walked casually down the street, chatting as they came. Peering through a gap between dumpsters, Stanley could see two of the women glancing around, but the rest were cheerfully oblivious. He resolved to keep an extra careful eye on the tallish black-haired one, who walked like she knew how to handle herself, and the blonde chick, who looked kind of familiar.

At the right moment, he threw a rock across the street, to hit the dumpster on the far side. At that signal, everyone jumped up out of cover and moved across to block the road; four in front, four behind. The soon-to-be-mugging-victims had paused at the sound, which broke their momentum, just as he'd planned. Now they were stalled in the middle of the street, with his men surrounding them.

"Ladies," he said, because opening with politeness often made women feel that they had to respond in kind, even if you were robbing them. "You can't run away, and I'd advise you not to try to fight us. All we want are your valuables, and then you can go on your way. So hand them over, and this doesn't have to get unpleasant."

The red-headed chick gave him what was probably supposed to be a withering stare. He'd had worse. "You really have no idea how big a mistake you just made, do you?"

Great. A feisty one. Some men claimed to like chicks with 'verve' or 'spunk' or whatever the term was these days. Stanley didn't, because if one decided to put up a fight, then the others might join in, and then shit would get messy. "Honey, I'm not the one who just walked down a dark street, right into the middle of a bunch of muggers. Now, start getting your valuables out, because if my guys have to go and get them, I can't answer for the consequences."

"Yeah, actually, you can." He couldn't believe it. She was literally answering him back? "My Dad's a lawyer, and he says if you commit a crime, you're responsible for everything that happens as a result."

His temper was at breaking point. "I honestly don't give a fuck. Now, shut your mouth before I shut it for you."

She turned to the tall black-haired woman beside her, one of the pair who'd been looking around earlier. "He's being mean to me. Make him stop."

The woman she'd addressed—who, now Stanley was paying attention to her, looked fit as fuck—gave him a once up-and-down, leaving him feeling like he was a slab of beef that had been found wanting. "Go ahead," she said in a tone that was anything but inviting. "Come over here and try to shut her mouth."

"Okay!" the blonde chick snapped, and fucking levitated six feet straight up. "Enough's enough. I'm Laserdream of New Wave, and you're all under arrest. Put down any weapons you've got, and we're all gonna wait for the cops."

"Nuh-uh." Stanley could see the odds were still solidly in favour of his guys. "What we've got is you plus six hostages. Power down now, and nobody gets hurt. Or fly away; I don't care." He knew she couldn't just open fire with her lasers, because him and his guys were normals, not capes, and killing muggers wasn't a good look for anyone, much less New Wave.

The frizzy-haired girl raised her hand. "Panacea of New Wave, here. Do you really want to fuck with capes? Because this is not going to go the way you expect it to."

While a couple of his guys looked nervous, Stanley kept his head. He did a quick scan of the rest of the women, looking for more New Wave members. No guys, so that left out Flashbang and Manpower. Nobody else was blonde, so that settled it. "You're not a front-line cape. And last I heard, you can't even heal yourself, so I'd keep your opinions to yourself if I were you."

"This guy is really pissing me off," remarked the Asian chick. "Can we please do something about this?"

Stanley had had enough. "Shut up!" he yelled, pulling out his folding knife and clicking it open. "Get their stuff!"

"Don't cut anyone!" Panacea shouted as he started to close in with his guys. "I don't want to get blood on this dress!"

"That's not—" Stanley's retort was cut short as the tall black-haired chick cut out of the group like a shark through minnows, heading straight for him.

He waved his blade at her, but she tapped it with a fingertip; to his astonishment, it fell apart in a burst of reddish energy. Then her fist came in, hard and fast. She had moves, but he was okay with being hit. It wouldn't be the first time, or the last.

The punch nearly took his head off, or felt like it. Pain exploded across his jaw as he felt teeth come loose, and he spun around, losing his balance. The asphalt came up to meet his face, then he rolled onto his back.

Off to the side, he saw the Asian chick dancing between two of his guys, handing out elbows and palm strikes like they were on Christmas special, knocking them on their asses. A couple more of his guys had tripped and fallen before they even got close. Two more were facing off against the chick with curly brown hair, right before she spewed a line of fire that set a garbage can alight and forced them to reconsider the idea.

Fedor came in after the chick who'd dropped Stanley, but he fared no better. When she kicked him between the legs, there must've been something extra behind the kick, because the big Russian émigré went down like a busted folding chair. And then it was all over. Eight in, eight down, and the women were barely breathing hard.

"Like I said," Laserdream told him, coming in for a landing beside him. "You're all under arrest. Being a mugger in Brockton Bay, these days? Not a smart career move at all."

Hebert Household

Taylor

I relaxed slightly on the sofa. Amy and Lily were no longer in any danger (not that they'd been in much peril to begin with) and Parian and Spitfire were okay as well. Between them, Laserdream and Faultline were mopping up the casualties. I figured they'd be irritated that they'd have to wait for the police, but I'd already made an anonymous call two minutes before, and the BBPD response time was vastly improved from even a month ago.

The fight had been impressively handled. Between Parian literally tying together the shoelaces of some of the muggers and Faultline's surreptitiously donned knuckledusters (and the concealed steel toes in her stylish looking boots), Laserdream hadn't even had to intervene, aside from putting a protective force field over Amy, Anne and Parian. It just went to show that I wasn't needed to sort out every last detail of cleaning up the city.

"All good?" asked Cherie, beside me, without looking up from her new book; this one was called Rabbit Hill. I'd enjoyed it, once upon a time.

She was turning out to be quite the bookworm, once encouraged to start. I found it endearing.

"Yeah." I stretched without getting up. "They handled it just fine."

"Cool."

The house phone rang, and Dad got up to answer it. I picked up the remote and muted the TV so he'd be able to hear whoever was on the other end. Hopefully, it wasn't some aspect of Committee business that would drag him back to the offices at this late hour. Nothing was pinging on my radar, anyway.

"You've reached the Hebert household, Danny speaking." He paused, his eyes staring into nothing. "Chief Director Costa-Brown? How can I help you?"

Sitting up, I pointed to myself, then yanked my mask out of my pocket—I'd had no idea why I needed it, but that was Ending all over, the troll—and pulled it on over my head. I was standing all the way up by the time it was on all the way, and heading toward where Dad was.

"No need for me to contact her," he answered whatever she said. "She's right here. Betterment Committee business. I'm giving the phone to her now."

Taking the receiver, I put it to my ear. "Atropos speaking," I reported. "What's the situation?" Because I was damn sure Costa-Brown wouldn't be trying to contact me for a casual chat. I also knew that she'd trained her hearing well enough to tell if I was talking through cloth or not; thus, the mask.

"Are you aware of the Sleeper situation?" Her tone was clipped but deferential. "If you're already dealing with it, I'll leave you to it."

A lightning-swift survey of my threatscape showed no indication of Sleeper aggressing on me or the people I saw as being important. "Assume I'm not. Brief me."

"He's on the move from eastern Russia, heading for Alaska. Our best analysis of the situation is that he's bound for the White Rock portal."

"Earth Shin," I filled in, to show I knew what she was talking about.

"Precisely. As you're probably aware, trade is beginning to take place through the portal, under careful scrutiny from both sides. But if he gets there, he'll just blow through all the safeguards and step on through. They don't have anything capable of stopping him on that side, and they'll kill themselves trying."

"And as far as they'll be aware, it'll have been an unprovoked attack from our side," I concluded.

"Yes. Also, the death toll in Shin itself will be unprecedented, outstripping even the worst excesses of Goddess' reign." She didn't try to appeal to my better side, probably because she was aware that as far as she was concerned, it didn't exist. It was blunt facts, all the way down the line.

"Understood. Thanks for filling me in." I hung up the phone and pulled off my mask as I stood there, thinking about what I'd just learned.

While Sleeper invading Earth Shin wasn't going to have any specific effect on the ongoing improvements to Brockton Bay, there were extraneous details I had to consider.

Earth Bet, as Costa-Brown had reminded me, was now officially trading with Shin. The more ongoing trade we had with them, the more prosperity there would be on both sides. Over and above that, I'd personally told the people of Shin that they had nothing more to fear from Bet, and that they were free to remake their society from the dictatorship of Goddess into something more democratic and manageable.

If Sleeper burst through the portal, he'd fuck that whole process up with slightly less delicacy and tact than a red-hot poker being forcibly jammed where the sun didn't shine, thus (among other things) making me into a liar. My brand, as far as the natives of Shin were concerned, would be well and truly tarnished.

That shit was not going to fly.

"Welp," I said, heading back into the living room. "That's my weekend shot all to hell."

"Why?" asked Cherie, looking up from where she'd been pretending to read her book. "What's going on?"

I huffed a sigh of irritation. "Sleeper's being a dick, so guess who's got to do something about him?"

"Well, shit."

"Yup."

End of Part Eighty-Six