39

TUE MAR 1

We traded goodbyes and I made sure there wasn't any water in the phone, then walked over to the edge of the roof and hopped off. I tugged at the water soaking my clothes to slow my descent, resulting in a merely knee-bending landing, with a splash that was still louder than I would've liked. No one was around to hear, but that wouldn't have been the case if the rain had let up already. The rest of the walk was uneventful, and soon I was making my way up the block to the tenement. I was pretty sure the only camera was the one in the top-left corner of the porch stoop, but I kept my head down and hood up the whole way. I ducked in, keeping my face turned away, even as I set my things down and dug my masks out of my backpack. I glanced up at it once they were on, then pressed the door buzzer. The wait was spent watching the three men at the base of the stairwell at the end of the hall, two of them tearing away at drywall and insulation, all of them checking the various supports and pipes they found.

It was about half a minute before the woman from last time came to the door, checking the monitor and sighing. "Yes?" Crackled over the intercom, once she hit the button for it.

"Hi. I'm here to help with the project?" I tried to sound as confident as possible.

She rolled her eyes, but started undoing locks. "Come on." She said once it was open.

I came in, but stopped her before she shut it. That got me a light glare until I started pulling the water out of my clothes into a large glob that I then flowed out into the gutter outside. "Okay." She shut the door, re-locked three of the locks and left the rest. She then rather unnecessarily led me down the hallway to where the guys were working. There was only one set of stairs on the first and top floors, so the hallways left the space the other stairway would be empty. I turned into that little open space at the end of the hall, with the building's laundry room to the left at the end, and the stairs and elevator to the right. The space under the stairs themselves was put to use as a utility closet, the door wedged open with Jake and Gerard inside, having moved from stripping the walls to pulling up flooring. Arthur was leaned against the wall next to the door, comparing folded up sheets of paper that looked like blueprints. "Hey, guys."

"'zat her?" Came from the little room, Jake popping his head out. "Ey, it's Big T!" His grin was full of mirth, and I groaned. He probably thought that was clever, alluding to both my names. A glance Arthur's way saw him rolling his eyes.

Minnie gave them a token hand-raise of a wave and turned to head back to her rooms.

Gerard dusted himself off as he came out. "Time to fill her in on the plan?"

"I… didn't expect to see all of you, here." I cut in first.

The younger two shared a look. "Well," Gerard started. "I took a day off, said I had a job under the table today. Higher ups out of state always hate it, but the local bosses are pretty understanding."

Yeah, that sounded like dad, alright. Not enough work to go around, so if someone can find their own work, that meant a smaller pool of workers to split the limited jobs they could find between. For today, at least. I glanced pointedly at Jake.

"Hey, I'm freelance." He said with a brittle smirk and a shrug. Right, splitting part-time between martial arts and running drugs. "Arthur's up early before work." He tried to deflect, thumbing at the older man behind him. Night shift, if memory served.

I kept glaring at him until it started getting awkward, then heaved a deep breath in and out. He didn't want to be a gangster, and I didn't want to stay angry with him. "Alright, what's this 'plan' you were talking about?"

Arthur cleared his throat and held up the blueprints. "City plans have both a main sewer line and a storm drain nearby, both big enough to at least crawl through. We're going to dig out a space to hide, and a tunnel to one of those for if a back door is needed. Depending on what you can do... we're going to either lay down concrete for the floor and sections to be put up later, try to set and cure the whole room at once, or just brick the lot of it."

There was a pause while I took that in. "How... does curing concrete work?"

He continued his lecturing tone as if he hadn't stopped for me to ask that. "The process can actually take months to finish, but most mixes are stable enough to stand on their own after a few hours to days. Water breaks down the lime and silicates, and catalyzes a series of reactions that result in enough tiny crystals growing into each other that it forms one big composite rock. That's cement. Add in gravel and extra sand for filler, and you've got concrete."

Huh. "I don't think I can force chemical reactions to happen faster. Forcing water in, or drawing it out? I could do that, but..." I shook my head. "The bricks might be better, if you want everything done today."

He nodded, pushing fully away from the wall. "We've got a couple palettes tarped up in the alley behind us. Weren't expecting the rain."

"Probably good, though. Can't trust your eyes in the rain." Jake chimed in, starting for the door and waving me to follow. "Don't know when it's going to let up. We should get them inside." Arthur shrugged and Gerard went back to work, so I stuck my things in the laundry room and jogged to catch up. He'd stopped to unlock the door. "So can you magic the bricks in a stack, oooor?"

"I can keep the stack together, yeah." I followed him out into the rain, around two corners, and into the alley. Against one of the walls sat two chest-height cubes covered in a generic blue plastic sheet.

After a moment's pondering, he pulled the tarp off. "So, how do you want to-" I cut him off by levitating the stacks. They were each stacked as a pair of rectangles, likely to make it easier to get them in through the door. The four sets of blocks floated apart a bit in front of us, and I gave him a look, despite my mask. "Right. That works."

He hurriedly folded up the tarp, tossing it on one of the pallets and stacking it on the other, grabbing the lot and scurrying to the mouth of the alley. I could already tell there wasn't anyone in a position to care about half a minute of supernatural shenanigans spilling into the street, but I let him scout and check for himself. He beckoned and I followed him to the door, took a second to arrange them into a thin line, and backed into the hallway towing them behind me. Jake squeezed his way past to shut and lock the door again, and I set the bricks back down on the wooden pallets he'd laid out. I pulled what water had soaked in from them, and the tarp that'd been tossed in the laundry room, then my clothes, and sent it all down the drain. When I left the room, Jake noticed that I was dry now. He pointed at himself with both hands and gave an excited smile. I stared at him until the smile started to droop, gave an overly dramatic sigh, and did the same for his clothes.

"That done," Arthur cut in. "we need to get through the foundation, dig up all the dirt, tunnel to the drains, and then open that up. We've got a few of the empty apartments tarped up to hold the dirt until we can move it out."

I held up my hand, walking over to the bare concrete that'd been exposed, checking what I remembered by setting my hand on it. "If we go with the storm drains, I can just send the dirt into the bay from there. If the current isn't enough, I can always push it along. No one's going to notice more muck than usual coming out of them." We were only a mile or so from the water, and the drain was straight the entire way there. Earthbending didn't really have a range, either. Even if it wasn't raining, I could've pushed the dirt through the dry tunnels the whole way from here, if I had to.

They were silent for a moment. "That should work." Arthur agreed. "Now, this is the most important part." He knelt down next to me, tapping at the bare concrete. "We need to get through the foundation without damaging the rest of it. It doesn't matter if the bolthole leaks, we can fix that easy enough. Every crack in the foundation is going to eat away at the lifetime of the building, though."

After a moment still staring down, I nodded. "Pretty sure I can do that." I started on breathing exercises. Deep in, slow out. I pulled as much attention inward as I could with each breath in, and focused it down into the floor below me along each exhale. I scooted over, setting my left hand in a straight knife-edge against the stone. I felt each ripple of vibration as they passed through the grain of the tiny crystals abutting each other, fused together along odd angles. The tiny stones and pebbles, gravel used to fill out the cement, each with their own structure. The miniscule cracks and wear. I curled the fingers of my right hand, alighting it against my left thumb like a hammer above a chisel. One tap, and I knew how each tiny imperfection would sever, how each crystal would part, how each stone would fracture. The second, I solidified in my mind the utter immutable nature of the boundaries I'd set. On the third, with a deceptively subdued snap, a thin line appeared in the concrete. I opened my eyes, and it looked like someone had taken an industrial saw and cut a mechanically precise line exactly thirty inches long. "That do?"

He knelt down, picked at the edge with his finger for a couple seconds, and stood back up. His head turned slightly, eyes narrowing warily at me. Assessing and cautious. "It'll do."

I repeated the action three more times. Even getting faster and more confident each time, it still took about twenty seconds. Then I lifted the block, exposing the packed earth underneath it. "What do you want done with this?"

They considered it, glancing at each other with confused looks and half-hearted shrugs. "It's nearly useless." Arthur stated. "More effort to work it into a plan than just get rid of it. Can you powder it? We can add it as cement filler, or just toss it with the dirt." I held up both hands, fingers clawlike as I mimed a crushing motion. The mass cracked and splintered, chunks separating and grinding against each other, swiftly reducing it to chunks ranging from rice grains to actual dust I had to spend additional effort to keep out of the air. "...christ." He muttered, almost too low to hear. I pretended not to notice.

Jake lightly clapped his shoulder and gave him a sharp look. Gerard started heading down the hall. "Alright, here's one of the apartments we tarped." He opened the door, and I followed to check it, hovering my ball of detritus beside me. The whole thing looked like it'd been carpeted with giant trash bags, that were then taped together. I think I'd seen this sort of tarp peeking out from under sawdust before. "We figured the building could handle a foot deep of wet dirt... maybe three if it's dry. Piled away from the walls, o'course."

"Right, and I can always pull the water out. We might not need all... three, you said?" He nodded as I let my ball settle into a pile near the door. "I guess it just depends how big you want it. We can head straight for the drain and start putting dirt right down it, too."

"Not gonna say no to less work." He grinned.

I rolled my eyes and headed back to the others. "So, how deep do you want it, and what shape do you want the tunnels and main room?"

"Maybe a meter down, standing room for a dozen people, storage space for supplies for a day or two... siege lasts longer than that, that's what the escape tunnel's for." Arthur rambled, shuffling through his papers. He held one out to me, a rough sketch of the room and tunnels. "Two, two, six meters should do, plus an arched ceiling for roof support." I took the paper. "Maybe one by two for the tunnel, and we've got some sheet metal to cover whatever hole we put in the drains."

"Aren't they supposed to inspect those?" I asked offhandedly, still planning everything in my head.

"Supposed to, sure. But unless it clogs up and bothers someone downtown? Never gonna happen."

I gave an unimpressed hum and handed the paper back, then pulled a two-foot cube of dirt out of the hole and walked it down to the tarped apartment. I could just chain them along in the air, but I wasn't sure of my ability to catch all the dust in that case, and suspected everyone would rather I take more time with it than need to clean the hallway carpets. Then again, I could probably just pull the dirt up out of the carpet. I considered it on the way back, and grabbed two blocks of dirt this time. The round trips only took about half a minute, and I could try cleaning the carpet before I left. I'd worry about ground-in dirt maybe pulling it up at that point, rather than letting my brain run off on tangents now.

About two meters down the earth started coming up wet, so I went back to single blocks, taking a few seconds to draw most of the water out on my way past the utility room. The water table wasn't far down even on dry days, and being largely paved over around here only did so much to keep the rain out. The guys spent their time chatting and slowly setting up a cement mixing station by the laundry machines, for the mortar to go with the bricks. We had an unspoken agreement that it was probably faster for me to do all the work right now, so there wasn't much to do besides supervise. To that end Arthur strung up a couple of garage lights, long cords ending in lightbulbs that had safety cages and hooks to hang them, for everyone to see into the hole with.

Twenty minutes later, I had a rather respectable room squared out from the tunnel down, which hung off of it like a chimney in its own hollowed space. That was when I was surprised to notice the girl walking down the street ducking into the covered alcove of the building's front door to start undoing the locks. I sped a bit to hide in the dumping room, dropping the load and not returning for another. I didn't know if it was hearing the door, or me not reappearing, but Jake popped back out of the utility room to check the hallway.

She saw him, and glanced along the hallway before turning back to the door to redo the same three locks. By the time she turned back, there was an excitement burbling away within her, flaring as her eyes stopped to rest on Jake and Arthur at the end of the hall, and the ajar doors of the uninhabited apartments. "Was that today?" She calmly asked, coming down the hallway and unzipping her poofy nylon winter jacket. She glanced into the nearest one and caught the plastic over the carpet inside, then slung her backpack against the wall and tossed the wet jacket on top, only slowing a little to do so before continuing on her way.

Jake was equal parts amused and exasperated. "You know, there was a reason we didn't tell you what day it was."

"And yet, you told me what week it was." She stated in the same flat tone, only a small smirk showing the resounding amusement and the excitement building to a crescendo. Even knowing nothing else about her, I was impressed with how well she played 'aloof' despite herself.

"And so you..." He trailed off into a groan. "Right. Well, it's not a big deal. Just stay out of the way. I'm sure Arty's got a shillelagh he can dig out from somewhere if you don't."

"Up your ass." Arthur shot dryly back.

"Kinky." The girl muttered loudly while rolling her eyes. "So where'd the cape go?"

Jake's eyes flickered around and Arthur gave a slight nod down the hall. "It's fine, Terra. She won't bite." Jake called.

I made sure my hood was up over my hair before I left the room. Now that I had eyes on, the girl looked familiar. A tall and thin East Asian girl, with shoulder length black hair up in a low ponytail. I'm pretty sure she would've seemed familiar to my earth senses if I recognized her from Arcadia... maybe from Winslow? She might've been a year or two older than me, and that could explain it.

She turned to look me over with sparkling eyes. "Terraform, right?"

Despite feeling the giddy, happy, little kid allowed to pet the pony excited... she looked hungry. It made me distinctly uncomfortable. "Uh, yeah." I stalked closer, weight on my toes, ready to dart away from any threatening motions. "I'll just... uh." I passed by her, speeding a little on my way to continue working.

I could feel her quirk an eyebrow and tilt her head, looking questioningly to the men while worry spiked through her chest. Arthur gave a tired eyeroll and Jake shrugged haplessly. I grabbed another couple blocks, a couple more and I could just shift the earth around down there, finish the tunnel to the drain, and start funneling slurry out with the rain. Had to focus on that.

"So... what's being a cape like?" I stared at her, until she started feeling uncomfortable. Then I pulled the water out of the dirt, angrily splashed it into the drain, and levitated them down the hall. She hopped to the side to make room.

When I was almost past her, I stopped. "I'm... a pretty bad example for that. Being a cape usually just makes everything worse." I left her to ruminate on that for half a minute, tossing the dirt on the pile. "Just seems like there's always something about the powers that you hate." I added as I passed again.

She felt indignant about the jab, and I could tell she was reaching for the first 'happy' hero to come to mind. "What about Glory Girl?"

I shrugged. "She probably couldn't hide her powers even if she wanted to. Always halfway in the air, with that aura that affect people's moods." I grabbed the next blocks. "Being in New Wave, being forced to out herself, wasn't so bad for her. It still means she has no private life, and can't escape the celebrity on days when even an extrovert like her just wants a break." Drain water, start walking. "When I put on this mask, I'm not allowed to be a person anymore. I have to be a paragon of virtue, every single second, or someone might catch it on camera, and people lose trust in everything I stand for." Stop long enough to drop them off, head back into the hall. I tapped the ceramic on my face. "But I can take this off. Go be a normal girl for a while. Decompress. She doesn't get that." I kept walking, staring down Jake as he awkwardly shuffled away from the serious conversation. Stone-faced Arthur gave zero fucks, but... seemed oddly approving? Hrm. "I can't think of a single cape I actually know that isn't some kind of mess deep down." One more trip. "The things to remember being, Capes don't stop being people when they get powers, and happy people don't get powers." I left those words hanging as I passed her again. I took a bit longer getting back out, taking a breath to try and reassert calm, then headed back intending to ignore her on my way through.

"Hey," She stopped me, feeling contrite and a bit worried. "I'm sorry about that. It was... rude." She bit her lip and fidgeted, almost grabbing her elbow before she seemed to notice what she was doing and thrust the hand out instead. "I'm Rika."

I stared down at the hand for a moment, before deciding to give her the benefit of the doubt, and taking it. "Terra."

We awkwardly teenaged at each other for a few seconds, then she broke the silence. "So, what do you do when you're not... caping?"

I snorted, gave it a moment's thought, and nodded down the hall for her to follow. "I haven't really had any time for hobbies between training, experimenting, networking... getting out of the hospital." I muttered the last part. "I think I'm going to curl up with a book after I'm done here, though."

She felt surprised and a bit put off, but pushed through it. "What do you like?"

"High fantasy, classics, period dramas... anything that's good at getting me out of my own head for a while." Anything sci-fi just made me think tinkers, and anything too modern was about capes. I liked geeking out about real capes when I was younger, but fictional ones? No thank you. "What about you?" I started rearranging the space below, pulling long blocks of earth from what would become the tunnel, and shoving them to the sides of the room I'd made.

"More of a 'movies and TV' escapism girl."

"Never big on TV. I hate missing episodes, waiting for reruns, or trying to marathon the whole thing at once." Plus, the cost of buying a season of a show was pretty prohibitive for someone with a bad enough computer and internet connection to make downloading pirated copies unfeasible. "Movies were always a thing to do with other people."

"No friends?" Her tone was almost taunting.

"'Happy people', remember?"

"Right, sorry."

I sighed. I didn't want to make her feel bad, she just grated on my 'popular girl threat' nerves. "So, you live here?"

"With my parents, yeah."

I nodded, holding my hand up to stall any further conversation, and compressed the last bit of dirt from the tunnel into a solid platform, which I pulled up to the top of the hole. "Hey!" I called to the others. "Who wants to head down? It's time to break through to the drain."

All of them wanted to see this part, it turned out. Even Rika, who stepped up onto the platform with me, standing uncomfortably close so we'd both fit. I dropped us down, scooting away as soon as I could, while the men were double-checking their lights and tools. I swept the thin layer of water pooling at the bottom to the sides, freezing it there. Then I compressed the muck under our feet to slow the draining into the space, and sent the platform back up once she'd followed me off. This left us in the dark until I brought Arthur down, with one of the lights.

"Don't cut the cord." He idly instructed. A moment's thought and I swept a bit of ice back into water, freezing it into a loose ring around the cord and affixing it to the wall, snapped one of the near corners off the platform, and yelled up to have the coiled line set on that side of the hole. The platform went up slower to make sure it was all lined up, and Gerard won the quick rock-paper-scissors match to determine who came down next.

When everyone had made the trip down, I lit a ball of fire in my palm. Rika oohed over it, and Arthur passed the garage lamp back, until Jake in the back was shining it over our heads. Given everything still looked like dirt, there wasn't much to see. The tunnel sloped upward, to meet the storm drain a couple meters under the road, ending in a wall of dirt bulging out around waist-height. I stopped a few feet away, setting my feet and twisting my fists in front of my chest. Then, with a small tugging motion, the surface powdered itself, revealing the bare concrete of the drain tube. I stepped up, setting my hand on it and confirming what I'd already sensed. "It's a bit over half full. Water's moving pretty fast. I can still open a hole in the top, though. Should be safe."

Arthur stared at the pipe for a bit. "How hot can your fire get?"

Well that came out of nowhere... "Uh... pretty hot? Could probably play cutting torch if needed."

He shook his head, thought for a second, and nodded. "Back up." He said as he turned, addressing the guys. "Grab the plate and a few bolts." They handed the light back and jogged to the entrance. "And some prongs!" He called after them. They answered affirmatively, and I sent them up while we followed at a more sedate pace. "How do you feel about a bit of welding?"

"Never tried, but I don't see why I couldn't do it." I watched the pair split up, one heading over to the elevator, grabbing one of the curved sheets of iron stashed nearby. The other ran up the stairs, popping into a room. It took a bit of finagling, but Jake and I got the plate down the hole about the same width as it, and I sent the platform back up for Gerard, who returned with a pocket full of steel bolts and one of the biggest set of pliers I'd ever seen.

Arthur handed Rika the light and told her to make herself useful, while we dragged the lot of it back to the drain. "Plate will need a bit of clearance. Knock out a chunk a few inches smaller." He instructed once we were huddled around it again. I carefully dragged a finger over the concrete, tracing a crack through it, the chunk it outlined lifting out easily once the lines were connected. The deep bass of running water jumped from nearly subaudible to drowning out every other sound in the confined space. "Now we weld some pins to the plate, so the vibration can't shake it off, over time." He raised his voice over the din, and dragged the cap over. Then he pulled a marker from his pocket, and drew a square on the inside of the curve, after a few quick measurements. "Bolts." He waved Gerard over, who handed him the pliers and most of the bolts. He grabbed one by the screw with the pliers, and held it away from himself. "Alright, heat the head as much as you can, then we'll see if it sticks."

I shrugged and extended a pair of fingers from my right hand, took a deep breath, and lit a jet of flame from them. Arthur called for everyone to turn away, and narrowed his eyes nearly shut. My hand crept closer, until the boxy ratchetable end was deflecting the fire, and started pushing the jet hotter. The steel quickly started to redden, but I waited until the metal began to shine yellow before cutting the flame. "Okay."

He opened his eyes wider, lined the bolt up with one of the corners of the doodled square, and pressed it into the metal. There was a sharp hiss and a couple of pops, but nothing else happened while he bore his weight down on it, and the metal's glow rapidly dimmed. After about a minute, he relented, straightening a bit from his hunched lean and tapping the metal next to the slightly deformed head of the bolt with his finger. He did this another couple times, then held it there a moment. Then he stood fully upright and tapped the closed pliers against the bolt, then again and again with increased force, before he seemed satisfied. We repeated the process four more times- with the second bolt popping loose under the testing- before we called it good and started back to the entrance.

I turned and pulled a chunk of dirt from the room, part of what I'd dug out of the tunnel, and shattered it into clods down the tunnel with a punching motion. Then I started drizzling the chunks into the water, and repeated the steps a few times. The dirt was mostly breaking up and dissolving, but some of it was depositing along the pipe. "I think it's working. I'll flush the pipe when I'm done though, just to be sure."

"That sounds fine." Arthur managed through a yawn. "I'm gonna go eat breakfast, then."

"Ooh! Grab coffee on the way back?" Jake cheered.

Arthur made a gruff noise, and waved back on his way to the platform. "You know brickwork, shouldn't need me here to start the room. Just make sure the ceiling's curved to brace the load." He said as he turned back, before tapping his foot imperiously on the compressed stone.

I might have sent him up a little too fast at that, given the half-second of airtime and mild stumbling out of the room above. After that, I went back to work, crumbling away bits of piled up dirt from the tunnel and streaming the snaking lines of levitating clods and dust into the water.

Two or three minutes later, Jake's phone started ringing. I finished dumping what was in the air, but stopped at that so the sounds couldn't carry to the microphone, and he answered. The words were sharp and similar sounds, with a lot of shifting tones, maybe Chinese? Whatever the language, he was fairly tense, and a little angry. Whoever it was on the other end, he certainly didn't like them. Not long after the call started, he pocketed his phone, and gave each of us a pained, considering look. His eyes turned back on Rika, emotions mixed but trending towards sadness, then began to firm into determination. He took a steadying breath. "Lung is back."

"Shit."

"Fuck."

"What does that mean?" I asked, after their muttered exclamations.

He turned hard eyes on me. "Lung's not going to be happy. Some of his businesses were hit, and that turf war with the Merchants was kicked off, all while he was gone." He shook his head. "He doesn't actually care about his gang's businesses. As long as enough work out to keep money flowing his way, the rest can all fail as far as he cares... but he can't let attacks against his gang stand. It makes him look weak." His emotions were a pit of shame and rage as he glanced away, then shook himself and refocused. "He'll need to give some show of strength, maybe march on the Merchant's lighthouse and force them to kowtow for a while, or hit the Empire. It's going to be flashy, and it might spark another gang war... but if it doesn't, it'll be back to business as usual after that."

"I see." I had to consider what to do now. There was a good chance I could help with whatever was going to happen, but I needed to know what to do, to make the most of it. Dinah should be able to help with that, though she might overreach with her power if I don't word the request well enough. I had no idea what information Lisa could dig up, but she'd owe me for the warning, assuming she hadn't already heard the news. She might be able to help with planning, in that case. Vicky and Amy also needed to know for New Wave's sake, and putting the PRT on alert could-

"You can't fight him." Jake hissed. I startled out of my plotting, taking in his tense glare. He was angry, stressed, and worried.

"What? No." I spat back immediately. I took a deeper breath and continued in a more even tone. "I'm not stupid. I could maybe take Lung, but maybe isn't good enough, with him. I can't think of anything I could do he couldn't ramp up and break out of, without just killing him. Without a Kill Order..." Why didn't he have one of those, again? I knew they had to be used sparingly or the villains would start assuming anything they did would get them killed, so they'd just escalate immediately to mass murder and targeting heroes... I wish I understood the limits and rationale behind them better, though. Leaving someone who couldn't be taken alive without one seemed like carte blanche to do whatever they want. Still... "I need to talk to my team, and the PRT. It's only murder if the government doesn't okay it first." I spat ruefully. "Speaking of, do you mind if I tell them? The heroes knowing could save a lot of lives."

He continued staring for a bit, after I was done. I got the feeling he was running how I said it through his head, assessing whether I was bluffing, or liable to change my mind later. "Alright." He nodded solemnly. "I don't mind you telling them. Someone should, you're right about that. Just keep our names out of it."

I rolled my eyes, wondering if he thought I was actually that bad at keeping secrets. Then I remembered that the average time it took someone to learn my secret identity once I'd started interacting with them was about a week. I let out a deep frustrated grumble, and chose not to directly address it. "They already think my team has at least one Thinker, I can just say the info is from a 'trusted associate' and let them jump to their own conclusions."

Another second of staring, before he snorted and shrugged. "That should work." He made a show of dusting himself off and started for the exit. "I didn't get an invite, per se... but I can still hang around and see if I can catch anything new."

"Isn't that dangerous?" Spilled out before I could stop myself.

He turned back, raising his hands in a wide shrug. "Look like you're supposed to be there, and make sure at least a quarter of the room's seen you around on business before. It's not as bad as it sounds."

"I need to make some calls." Gerard cut in, following Jake over to the exit. "Running around can wait a bit..." He muttered. "But, should spread the word." He added, louder.

One after the other, I sent them up. Then I brought the platform back down and turned to Rika. "You leaving, too?"

Being addressed shook her out of her hesitant worry spiral. She turned the light back toward the ceiling to cover the entire room in a dull glow. "No? I'm fine."

"It's okay to worry, you know." I started back to work, just to have something to do. I felt way out of my depth, in an awkward sort of way. Like I shouldn't be, and that failure was on me. "I don't... I know how bad the Bay can be for girls, but... I don't have an Asian perspective on it. I'm sure it's different, and worse in a lot of ways. Are you doing okay?"

Her eyes narrowed at my back, teeth grit, throat swallowing some imaginary lump. She grew tense to the point of nearly shaking, her emotions a mass of rage and shame. "I get by." She bit back at me.

I took a deep breath, actively pushing all of the common platitudes from my mind. No amount of 'sorry' or 'that's so terrible' or 'I wish I could help' would have made me anything but furious, back at Winslow. "I thought the same thing. 'It doesn't matter how bad things get. As long as I can survive through High School, I'll be free'." I dropped what I was doing, and turned back to her. She was still angry, but from the rest of her emotions, I'd guess it was only partly at me in particular. "Then they tried to kill me, and I got powers." A little hyperbole, sure. I was still convinced my infections clearing up as fast as they had was part of my powers, or the process of getting powers. I'd still been pretty bad off, and assuming my nearly miraculous recovery was the best possible outcome, the other possibilities quickly spread into months hospitalized, permanent damages, or death. I'd been very lucky. I am very lucky. I had to remember that. "If things had gone differently, I'd either be dead, or I'd have snapped and Carrie'd the whole school while I was too scared and angry to stop myself." Rachel came to mind. How many villains were on the run because of accidents, or because they lashed out at their lowest point? I barely remembered triggering, just hazy blurs and half-mad visions until I passed out. I didn't want to think of what I'd have done if I'd actually broken out of the locker, and my powers came in all at once instead of as slowly as they have been.

"What's your point?" She hissed warily. I hadn't intended to trail off, but my mind had wandered on me.

"Don't be like me." I said after blinking back into focus. "If you could get out on your own, you would have. Asking for help might seem hopeless- it certainly never worked for me- but you have people who care about you. People that might actually be able to do something." Instead of falling apart or snapping and making things worse, like Dad would've. Maybe if I'd asked Gram? Hell, I could've gone to the media and raised a stink. Gone over every head I could find until someone finally started caring. "I'm starting to realize that I just didn't ask the right people the right questions. I gave up, stopped fighting. I let them win." I shook my head, considering what I would have been willing to do to get away. The thought made me chuckle. "Hell, we could embrace absurdity. Break your hip or something, to keep you 'bedridden at home', and then heal you." She flinched away, and I couldn't blame her. "Just remember you have options, and think about it. Alright?"

She turned pensive for a few seconds, then met my eyes with a hesitant nod. "Alright."

Things were quiet for a while, after that. Gerard was upstairs, pacing around while making calls on his cell. I went back to work, first finishing sending the bits from the tunnel down the drain, then starting on excavating more of the room. Rika watched pensively as I worked. I didn't need the light she was still holding, and there were times during the work she let her hands drop to where it'd be useless, before realizing what she'd done and righting her stance.

That all changed when I noticed the small child sneaking out of the apartment at the end of the hall. He was bored, and curious, felt excited when he noticed the door was open, and was now making his way down the hall, likely drawn by the sound of water from the drain. At first I considered just shutting the exit again, but a traitorous part of my mind wondered what Rika would think about that. She'd ask why, and I'd have to give her something, but if I told her about my senses... she'd get excited about powers things again, and ask for details. Could I lie well enough to gloss over things? She had no reason not to tell the others anything I said to her, and if they knew I could read them, lead them on, manipulate them...

The boy was already at the door to the closet, before I could make up my mind. "Uhh, I think we have company?" I lamely asked, pointing up that way.

She gave a confused noise, followed my finger, and gasped. "Oh, shit. Benny."

He was leaning over the hole, now. "Rika?" He asked, followed by something in another language. She was panicking, worried, looking to me and motioning, but otherwise locking up.

I swiped a bunch of the water that'd slowly seeped in off the floor, whipping it into a few very large bubbles, and sent them swiftly meandering towards the entrance. He leaned forward excitedly for the half second it took them to get there, but leaned back when his focus latched onto the bubbles. They floated out into the hallway under my direction, and we both heaved a collective sigh of relief. She started for the exit, and I tugged the light from her hands with a tendril of water, lashing it to the wall and freezing the cord against it. Then I swiftly caught up and sent both of us up on the platform. He was still chasing the bubbles when we got there. She charged out of the room, calming significantly when she saw him, and walked more sedately over to thread her hands under his arms and pick him up. If I had to guess, he was around four. Probably the limit of a girl like her comfortably doing so, evidenced by the grunt of effort it took. He sat on her cocked hip, still swatting at the bubbles just out of his reach.

"Su-Min!" She shouted, followed by what I guessed was 'come here'. Minnie the surly abandoned her work making dinner in their kitchenette, stepping out of her apartment and taking in the sight. Her eyes ran over the pair, drawing confusion as they traced the bubbles, and turned steely as they settled on myself far behind them. Rika said something else as she slowly walked over, drawing the woman's focus back. I finally let the boy- Benny?- catch his prey, only two of the bubbles left by the time he was handed back to his mother. She checked him over more carefully, then turned her gaze back to us. For once, she didn't bother glaring at me. She nodded, and turned, shutting the door behind her when she got there.

"So, you know him?"

She shrugged, and we started back towards the utility closet. "Single mom's a busy life. I babysit, sometimes."

"Huh... the dad?"

She stopped, and I turned back. "We don't know, and we're not looking." Her words were quiet and hard, her tone very cold. "Don't ask, not where she can hear it."

I paused to let that sink in, and led the way back to the bolthole. Minnie struck me as the sort of person who would never sleep around, which is either a result of having the kid, or it was a situation like what happened to Kara. Then again- "Shit." I muttered when we were back underground. "ABB?"

Rika nodded, and headed off to gather the light. "She's lucky, all things considered."

Well, I guess I had my proof about those rumors, now. Rika's worry made more sense, too. If she spent time around Su-Min, and always had to wonder if that'd be her in a few years. I went back to work, and she went back to her ruminating. Gerard came back maybe ten minutes later, and I let him down. He commented about things looking good down here, but picked up on the mood and settled in to wait until it was done, which didn't take that much longer. Then I started streaming the dirt out of the rooms, and into the drain. Whenever I was finished with a section, Gerard would roll up the thick plastic that'd been there, and stacked them up next to the bricks. When the rooms were clear, I took a minute to make sure all the dirt was pushed down the pipe and out into the bay.

"So, bricks?" I asked, when everything else was done.

"Mortar, first." He said with a nod. He led the way back up, then I hopped along the narrow shaft to jump out, before bringing Rika along on the platform. He led us into the laundry room, where they had some of those large buckets partly full of water, and bags of sand and cement. He showed us the ratios required, and was about to start mixing things, but I levitated the bags away. I split them open, mixed the materials, and had him checking the result less than a minute later. "...I guess that works."

He grabbed a kit full of tools and smaller supplies, and I levitated the buckets over to the hole, next to the bricks and tarps. We headed back down, and I cleared the water again, taking the ice with it this time, and cleaning up the corners and walls. "Now what?"

Gerard cleared his throat. "Well, normally this is where I'd show you how to do it, explain how we start with one brick at a time until we have a row, and might have two or three people start at various points from there to speed it up... but you, are a cheating cheater. So I'll let you cheat, and mark you on performance. We can always tear it up and start over, before things dry." I gave him my best sassy look, replete with quirked brow. "Floor first, though." He grinned. "Should lay out that plastic, first. It won't keep the water out, but it'll slow it down enough to fix everything later on if it's a problem."

"So, is this going to be waterproof?"

"Oh, hell no." He laughed. "But it might be close enough to not matter, or maybe it'll be enough of an issue to need extra prep or work done." He gave it a bit of thought and shrugged. "My guess, easiest to not bother. Just store everything in watertight plastic bins."

I considered it. "I guess that would work."

"Might do that, and treat the walls with something. Maybe add wood paneling, and waterproof that." He seemed to be musing to himself, more than explaining anything.

Well, whatever they were doing, it wouldn't be my problem at that point. Gerard took a few minutes checking around with a level and having me smooth some places out, despite my protestation that it was completely level. Then we brought the tarping down, and all three of us worked at laying it out, since using powers to move it around ran too much risk tearing it for me to feel comfortable doing so. Between all the stuff used for the apartments, and the stuff that wound up not being needed, we had more than enough for a full layer, even keeping some back for the walls. Then it was time to actually start on the bricks.

I started with the wall to our left, drawing a stack of bricks down, lining them flat in a row to cover the most area, and streaming mortar into the spaces between them. Then I compressed them together, until I had enough space for another brick on the end. I tossed another down, wicking the extruded mortar from the top of the bricks and using some of that to do the new one. I thought it could stand another, and repeated the process. This left about a centimeter of mortar between each one. Gerard whistled, but gave a 'go ahead' motion rather than saying anything. I started the next row, doing it mostly the same way, then smushing it into the last one with just a bit of mortar between them. A couple more rows, and I had to remove more water that'd started pooling on the tarping.

People started showing up and mostly ignoring us when I was about halfway done with the floor. Gerard pointed out that people were getting off work, and I checked my phone to note that it was almost six already. I was closer to three-quarters done when Sue got home. The older woman ambled over to check on things, and I sent the platform up and shouted that it was an elevator. She gave an impressed noise when she saw everything I'd done in half an afternoon, then a suspicious hum directed at Rika. The girl gave a chipper greeting, masking the stress and worry she was actually feeling.

Sue shook her head, turning to Gerard. "Jake?"

He rolled his eyes. "'Meeting'."

She had some sour words for him, but I couldn't understand them, and I wondered if he couldn't, either. Rika was struggling not to snicker, though. Sue glanced her way, before addressing me. "How have things been, dear?" I think I caught a slight raise of her brow, combined with a tilt of her head towards the girl, and other subtle signs of inquiry. Asking if I wanted to talk with her here?

I shrugged. "Fairly well. Team has new recruits, but more is always better. Still not ready to go public, but I think we're past worst-case scenarios there." There, trying to show that I didn't want to talk about everything, but her side of things was fair game.

Sue gave a slight nod. "I think Jake managed to convince a couple of independents online to at least attend the first meeting."

"I found a Tinker last week, got a good feeling there." Gerard cut in.

"Aren't Tinkers supposed to be a big deal?" I hedged. "I haven't heard of any being active, besides the Merchants and Protectorate."

He shrugged. "He's kept to hitting Merchants so far, and people might have been mistaking him for their new junk Tinker. Not a lot of great press to be had, there."

"Junk Tinker?" I got the feeling Rika just wanted to be included in the conversation. "Are they just bad, or what?"

Sue shook her head. "The Merchants are calling this 'Trainwreck' a 'Junk' Tinker. Specializing in low-quality or simple materials and devices. However, this could just be a lack of understanding on their part, or an insufficient supply chain. Squealer," She hissed the name like it caused her physical pain. "would have seniority and priority, in any case." A moment's thought, and she addressed Gerard. "It's the 'Tin Man', yes?" He nodded, and she turned back to us. "He may be a case of mismatched specialization. All Tinkers have a... 'lens' through which their technology is realized. Everything Armsmaster builds will be small, or contain lots of smaller parts, while everything... she... builds will be mobile, or useful in a vehicle. We don't know the specialties of the others, as more than hearsay. It's entirely possible that whatever his specialty, it does not lend itself to powered armor. The product is... bulky, bulbous. But armor is a staple of Tinkers for a reason. The defense and utility often outweigh any negatives from working outside their specialty on a comparatively inferior product."

I already knew all of this, but it's possible Rika didn't. "A Tinker would be good, I've heard they can be impressive force multipliers." Plus, if we got him working with Tracy, it might help her figure her specialty out, faster.

"They can be." She agreed, and stretched to work out some of the kinks from standing still. I pulled a stack of bricks down and made a little stool on the completed section for her to have a seat, and took this as a good time to start working again.

Arthur came back not long after, carrying a drink tray and a bag full of pipes. He took note of the stuff Gerard had grabbed earlier, and I found it rather telling that he didn't ask about Jake. "Good, we should have everything, then." He offered drinks, and I declined, leaving them to the others. He set the bag down and dug into it, pulling out a pipe with pinched ends and a thin one-by-six inch metal plate with a line of holes through the middle. "Alright, usually we'd bolt things in later, but given how we're doing this, we might as well pre-prep this step. Loosely screw all the fasteners to the ends with bolts, we can tighten them up later. Then we push them into the mortar as we build the wall." He grabbed a bolt from the toolkit, threaded it through the holes on the ends of the pipe and plate, and screwed a nut on the end. "Get to work, people."

I took the light from Rika and hung it up on the wall again, then went back to finishing the floor while everyone else started assembling parts. When I was done, he led me over to the entrance shaft. "Alright, let's go with the left, here." He turned right and pointed at the wall of the chute. "People can turn left and start climbing down, it's safer than straight ahead or turning all the way around. Faster, too." Which was important if they were attacked, and in a hurry to hide or run. "I'd say every six layers or so, add a rung. I got the size so that we could hammer an inch or so into the dirt wall, make them safe to use faster. Let's see it." He stepped back and motioned for me to start.

I quickly put down a few layers, letting the standard brick pattern stick out a bit to connect it to the rest of the walls when I started there. I kept to my fairly thin cementing, which left very little space for the rungs when I adding them in, bracing myself against the other side and forcing them into the dirt with my hands before I continued building over them. Soon enough that was done and setting, leaving the others without anything to do now that the ladder was finished. I started on the near-entrance wall, pinning more plastic up with ice and then layering brickwork.

Sue cleared her throat, turning to Rika. "Don't you have homework?" I flinched slightly at the blunt dismissal, but the girl didn't really have a reason to stay.

"Wait," I cut in, digging out my cape phone and tossing it to her. "text yourself. Let me know if you need anything, alright?" She hesitantly complied, and handed back the phone. Then I snapped a few inches off the platform to make room for the ladder rungs, and sent her up on it.

"Good talk?" Sue asked when she was gone.

"Not really." I replied, before getting back to work.

"So, how are you really doing?"

All told, I took nearly a minute to answer. "Team is up to six capes, including two from New Wave, and Rune, who wants out of the Empire. I know it's dangerous, and I know what she's done. I still think it's worth it. She wants to change, and I want to help her."

"You trust her." It wasn't a question.

"Yeah."

There was silence while I worked, and they shared looks behind me. "Not everyone can be saved. Not every broken person is worth fixing."

"I seem to collect them, anyway." I chuckled. "There's... a team of villains. I'm sort of using them, they're sort of using me, and I'm hoping by the time we finish taking out their boss I can convince some of them to turn hero. They're just petty thieves. Lots of little crimes, the sort of thing I could see the PRT overlooking if they got them, like with Shadow Stalker." I still wasn't sure if she'd actually killed someone, but that's what the rumors said.

A string of Asian cursing. "...do you have any idea how stupid you sound?"

"Little bit? Yeah."

She groaned, and Gerard took over. His emotions were a bit odd, a bit of disgust and hatred, but mostly determination and curiosity. "Who is it, anyway?"

"Undersiders."

They shared more looks. "Small timers." Arthur stated. "Merc, murderer, just heist jobs since they formed up." I didn't bother correcting him on Rachel. "Last two are maybe a Thinker and a Shaker, no idea on records. They're just kids."

"Smoke generating Shaker, a girl who can augment dogs but has to train them to obey her- maybe Shaker? Thinker who's good at information gathering, and a human Master." I added. "Working for some guy named Coil. Take him down and the group will either turn mercenary for the money like Faultline, self-destruct and break up, or overextend trying to keep up villainy without a backer and get caught. All of those are better for the Bay."

Sue took a deep, calming breath. "How much do they know?"

"Only really talked to their Thinker, but the team knows about me talking to her by now. Not sure if their boss does. Haven't told them about you, or specifics about my team. I don't think anyone but her know about taking down their boss, but she was recruited by force. The rest weren't."

They took a few moments to chew on the information. "Remember to be careful." Sue restated.

"I know. Also? We're out of mortar." With that masterful segue, we all trooped back up and I mixed up another round of buckets. Sue left to feed her cats, and Gerard headed out to check on the Empire's rumor mill. That just left me and Arthur heading back to the job.

He spent some of the time marking along the dirt to check measurements, but with my ability to easily snap the bricks into whatever filler shapes we needed, it felt like busywork to me. We wanted something functional, not something pretty. If I got one of the walls wrong and had to have a layer of bricks shaved in half lengthways to make up for it, I could do that.

Eventually, the silence got to be too much. "You don't like me."

He snorted. "You are eating into my fishing time, kiddo. Very few things can make me hate someone faster than that." The first part was half true, the second was a joke. Were it not for the superpowers, I'd have never been able to tell. There was a human being under all that gruff unlikeableness, but I wasn't sure how anyone else saw it.

"Is it because I'm a cape?"

It took a few seconds for him to chew on my question. "Capes tend to cause trouble, but not all of them do. The Bay's shit for capes. Gangs are too big, heroes can't do anything, government set on their 'us or them' bullshit... Neutrals just can't last here, like they can other places." His hand tapped along his leg, next to the cigarettes in his pocket. "Nothing but trouble."

"There are capes like Parian, and my teammates. We want things to be better. To be more than just villains, or heroes punching villains." I insisted.

"You are a kid, and kids are stupid." He let the light drop as he turned back my way. "That's not on you, it's just the way the world works. Do all the good you want, you'll either die trying, or live long enough to have to clean up the mess you made." I stopped working to glare at him. "All the gangs, all the powers, just make it easier for people who never wanted to know you to get caught up in that mess."

I took a deep breath, and forced the building indignant rage down. "I'm not giving up."

He shook his head, feeling disappointed. "Just own your mess. Fixing the Bay? That's going to cost blood. Never forget that."

The words I wanted to shout choked to a stop in my throat. Stop and think, Taylor. I stopped, and thought. "If I wanted to convince people to leave, I'd do a better job of it as a villain driving people out. I don't want to do that, and I can't sit back and do nothing. I'm going to fight the gangs, and help as many people as I can. People are already dying." He was waiting, determined and curious. Was he trying to teach me a lesson? "People are going to die either way, if they die faster because of something I did..."

"Good." He stated firmly, turning away again. "You're going to do a lot of things you regret, before you get what you want." It felt like there was something else he wanted to say, words half-forming, swallowed down. He glanced back sharply. "And you're gonna carry that weight."

We stood there, staring for a moment. "Fine."

Then the moment was broken, and I got back to work.