8 & Interlude
"God DAMMIT!" you shout.
'Hey that was pretty good, though,' Rose responds over the continued clatter of two by fours tumbling to the ground.
"Hey at least this time it was just a bin full of scrap wood instead of huge metal poles like the last one," Anne buzzes.
You shake your head in frustration. "Can you bring Cheshire back over here?"
'Nope,' Rose responds, popping the 'p' and giving you an irritating grin. 'I stood her back up and put her right around the corner. See if you can just walk her back out on to the main workshop floor without being able to see her.'
You close your eyes and focus. You really do try as hard as you can, pulling your attention from the two block-or-so radius of Anne's insects that you can feel and just focusing on Cheshire. You can see just fine through its eyes. Its hearing and smell are much sharper than your own, but it doesn't really seem to have a sense of touch. Like, at all. Or like a body-sense or whatever. So when you don't have line of sight on it, you're clumsy as hell moving it around. You've done some pretty serious damage to the unused spaces and junk on the far side of the workshop just trying to move it around.
You once again take control and walk veeery slowly around the edge of a large storage bin until you can lock your own eyes on it. The doll is looking down at its own feet, wobbling along like a toddler or someone blindingly drunk. As soon as you lock your eyes on it, it straightens its posture. Its shoulders relax and its limbs become loose. Its gait is fast and easy.
Truth be told, it feels amazing. So much more than moving around your bugs or your own squishy meat body. Keeping your gaze locked firmly on it, you have it sprint across the space, pushing power into the floor to avoid leaving foot-craters. You leap it forward towards the wall, have it bound off and land with catlike grace in the rafters.
It's taking practice, but you've gotten pretty good at managing the various physics-defying aspects of it.
Again, so long as you can see it.
'It really does feel more natural,' Rose comments.
"I still think that's super-weird," Anne buzzes.
'Maybe it's something to do with the fact that Rose feels like Cheshire is something outside her, whereas for you, Anne, the swarm is you, so to speak?'
You still haven't figured out why one ghost – Anne – would find it intensely strange to have you seize control of her power whereas another – Rose – actually finds it more comfortable for you to control her projection. And then Lea, Marceau and Worm all felt totally neutral about it. Mysteries on top of mysteries. Maybe every cape felt this way a little about their power, and since you kept getting new powers there was just going to be this endless series of little oddities?
'Okay so Cheshire is basically infinitely strong but only moderately fast on the parahuman scale of things. You can move her about as far away as Anne's swarm but I can only really manage her when I can actually see her. And either one of us can only summon her where we can see her. If we're not careful we destroy almost anything we touch simply by virtue of pushing an infinitely strong force through the world, but we can push our invulnerability into anything except our ghosts or me,' you quickly recap what you and Rose have learned today about Cheshire's qualities.
'The real trick is going to be actually using Cheshire to do anything,' you comment.
'What?' 'Yeah no kidding' Rose and Anne respond simultaneously.
'Well, remember what we said about the Slaughterhouse Nine?' you begin.
'Yeah Rose, the thing is The Siberian is instantly recognizable and is probably more infamous than even Jack Slash. She's the only person… the only thing known to have ever hurt Alexandria. If Cheshire starts running around, that stripey look is gonna get us lots and LOTS of unwanted attention.'
'What?'
You pause for a second. Rose is giving you this incredulous look. What's so confusing about this? Cheshire looks like one of the world's most hated monsters how can she not…
'I mean why would we ever send Cheshire out naked like that? Just give her a ski mask and a full body suit?' Rose says it like it's a question, because it seems so obvious that she can't understand why…
"Oh goddammit," Anne buzzes. 'Of course.' She smacks her ghostly head with a ghostly hand.
'I can push invulnerability into clothes. I used to do that all the time before…'
Rose has only had two days to get used to her new condition so she still keeps getting kind of uncomfortable when thinking about her previous life.
"Okay well that's solved," you quickly comment. "We can definitely use Cheshire so long as she's completely 100% covered. Of course, if somehow the clothes get damaged or we need to unsummon her, we're screwed since we can't resummon her elsewhere naked."
"Yeah, that's going to make things tough" Anne buzzes.
=
For the past two days, your counter has been stuck at 695/700 and you'd really, really like to get another boost of that power. Reflecting on it and discussing it with Anne and Rose you realize that you get more "points" every time something important happens or you accomplish something. A bit of brainstorming and you think the best thing to do is to work as quickly as you can on finishing Panacea's costume. That should count as a sort of "achievement" to get you some more points.
==
The PRT finally wraps up its investigation and lets you and Dad get back to work on the house. They're also surprisingly prompt with cutting you and Dad a settlement check. You have to sign a zillion things saying your outing wasn't the PRT's fault and a bunch of other legalese but Mr. Carruthers says it's a good deal. More than enough money to fix up the house and such.
You're stuck staying with Kurt and Lacey for almost another month, though, since the contractor says it'll take that long to get everything repaired and structurally sound enough to pass inspection. Hah. Inspection. Brockton Bay can't even stop the frigging sex slave trade, but the housing inspectors are apparently still a force to be reckoned with.
==
You spend the next week continuing your home school catch-up work and playing around with Rose's and Worm's powers on alternate days. Ever since you "leveled up" yourself, you find that your awareness of your surroundings through Worm's power is pretty phenomenal. It's limited to just a few hundred feet – nothing like Rose's or Anne's range – but you can feel literally everything. It's like having a trillion tiny hands that are touching every surface. No, more than that, touching inside and underneath and through every surface. You can even feel inside Anne's bugs. Like if you wanted to exert the most microscopic force inside the bug's body, you could.
It's a heady feeling.
Anne is devoting a portion of the swarm just to reproduction, which means progress for the first couple of days is slow, but by the end of the week she's able to churn out the last of Panacea's body suit at a faster rate.
'Yeah once we get this first one done, I'm gonna flip over the entire swarm to reproduction,' she informs you. 'A big chunk of time of doing nothing but making more widows and we should be at a point where I can honk out a bodysuit pretty quick.'
She sends huge waves of pride through her link to you while telling you that.
==
The end of the week finds you in your workshop, facing Vicky, Amy, and Sarah. Vicky keeps glancing around the workshop, a disgusted look on her face.
"Oh man how can you stand the sound?" she asks.
"What sound?" Anne buzzes.
You give a small chuckle. You've long since stopped consciously hearing the low humming chittering noise coming from thousands of insects at work. It's just white noise to you now. But clearly it's bugging Vicky.
Sarah also seems kind of uncomfortable being there. "It's almost tropical in here," she comments. "Do you have to keep it so hot for the bugs?"
"Yeah," you reply. "Actually its not that we have to keep it hot, it's more just that having this much living matter all crammed into the space tends to warm it up. Anne also keeps the bugs working at a much higher than normal rate, so their bodies are generating more heat than bugs ever would naturally."
Their comments prompt you to glance around the place with fresh eyes. Since you've been here through the entire process, you've just gotten used to it. But seeing the endless rows of tanks, hearing the buzzing and heat, and watching the never-ending machine-like march of the bugs across almost every surface it occurs to you that an outsider might be really creeped out seeing it for the first time.
Amy, surprisingly, is totally chill with it, looking at the bugs with almost clinical detachment.
"So, my costume?" she asks, excitement creeping into her voice.
"Yeah, let's try it out," you walk over to the nearest workbench. Anne scatters the widows and cockroaches that had been doing last minute tweaks to the zipper and various seams.
It's still the generic greyish of undyed widow silk, but since it's going to go under her New Wave costume you figure that's fine.
"Here you go!" you walk it over to her.
Amy runs her hands along a sleeve and breathes, "…so smooth…"
"Why don't you go to the little office over in the corner and try it on?"
While Amy's changing, Sarah broaches the subject of patrols: "So, Beacon, we'd like to have you come along for our next scheduled patrol tomorrow night, and get a plan in place for when and where you'd be working with us."
You wonder why the hell she's calling you by your cape name.
Anne must've seen the look on your face, because she gives an amused buzz, "It's because you're in your costume, silly. It is an important habit to get into. While they're in costume, they're Glory Girl and Lady Photon, too."
You duck your head slightly and give a sheepish, "Oh yeah okay, sure."
It really is dumb as hell, but you've gotta play by the rules, even the little ones like code names for outed capes. You resisted at first but explaining the "unwritten rules" with Dad had really brought home to you the importance of boundaries in the cape world. He agreed with them and asked how you'd feel if Mom had been killed the way Fleur was. The memory is still kind of embarrassing. You shouldn't've needed to hear things put in a way that directly affected your family the way it affected New Wave's just in order to agree with the unwritten rules.
You and Lady Photon hash out the details for the next month's worth of activities. Patrols, appearances, etc. It's going to cut into your rogue work making spider silk, for sure. But it's worth it to make sure you're more firmly seen as attached to New Wave to fend off any more incidents.
Amy emerges from the office, practically skipping in delight. "It's soooo comfortable!" she announces. Just as she says that, the counter ticks up past 700 and settles at 705/1500. You feel the now-familiar rush of warmth and tingles that let you know you've got a power-up available.
Vicky and Amy spend a few minutes ooh-ing and aah-ing over the feel of the costume and remarking on what a good fit it is. You crafted it with a hood and a lower face-mask, which will be covered by the red scarf Amy normally wears in her Panacea outfit. She puts the costume back on and you can't tell that anything's different.
"Okay so one last thing we need to do," you begin. "Amy, stand over there and we'll shoot you in the arm."
"WHAT?!" Vicky yells.
"Jeez, it was just a joke," you reply. "But it really is bulletproof."
"And how exactly do you know that, Beacon?" Sarah asks.
Shit. You know that because you provided a small sample to the Undersiders since they said they wanted to do tests that weren't covered by the official analysis. Lisa texted you the next day and said it took three shots with a nine-millimeter pistol in the exact same spot to finally penetrate the silk.
"Umm… happy accident?"
Sarah's not amused. "Taylor!" she barks. "Did something happen? Were you shot?!"
Shit! "No, no sorry I was just joking. I mean not about it being bulletproof. Anne assures me that it is."
A spike of irritation comes from Anne. 'Throwing me under the bus, boss? Nice.'
"Yes, Lady Photon," she buzzes. "It's a really basic calculation based on the kinetic energy imparted by a standard low-caliber slug and the deforming forces involved when compared against the shear modulus of the final woven product, cross-calculated with the bulk modulus of the underlying human flesh, assuming it's not a direct headshot, wherein of course one has to use the tensile strength of flat bone averaged against the shear modulus of non-spicular bone…"
"Okay, okay," Sarah waves her off.
'Goddamn, Anne. Saving the day with techno-babble,' Worm comments to you both.
"So, Taylor, we'll see you tomorrow night for patrol. How long until you can have the next bodysuit ready?"
You turn to Anne.
Her swarm-blob replies, "With Amy's costume… excuse me, with Panacea's costume done as a proof-of-concept, we need to spend the next week or so just on increasing the swarm and optimizing workflow management."
"You need more bugs?!" Vicky looks around incredulously.
"Yes," Anne replies and you can actually hear the irritation in the inhuman buzzing voice for once, "We're only running one hundred seventy thousand, two hundred and five black widows right now and in this space we could easily manage something like one point one million, which would bring our production time down from well over a week to just a couple of days per suit."
They're all just staring at Anne.
Why are they just staring at Anne?
"What?" you ask, the height of intelligence.
"You can manage over a million insects at once?" Panacea asks.
Anne, that smug bitch, grins hugely. "Are you kidding? I'm managing three million, nine hundred seventy-two thousand, six hundred-something right now. The limiting factor here is black widows, not the total insect population. I can feel everything happening in a four-block radius. In fact, if you'd like to kick a little ass while you're here," she turns to Glory Girl, "there's a drug deal going down about three blocks from here. Wanna punch some assholes?"
Vicky is shaken out of her gobsmacked expression. She smiles, "Oh hell yeah!"
"Okay, just follow the arrows," Anne buzzes. You take the cue and use Worm's TK to flip the latch on the door. It swings open, and Anne's got an arrow made out of flies pointing into the air.
Sarah shoots you both a look as Vicky rockets out the door.
"Don't worry, we'll keep an eye on her," you say. Sarah sighs and waves Amy over to her.
"Okay let's go," she mutters to her niece, scooping Amy up into a piggy-back ride.
==
The next morning you're once again in Taylor Selection deciding what to do with your recent level up. When you first felt the power, you unlocked another active circle. The second time you upgraded yourself and developed much better awareness of your ghosts' powers and found that you had access to Rose, with those other scary-powerful Taylors slightly lit up.
There was only one unexplored option – pushing the power into the ghost itself. You figure that if you're ever going to fully understand things, you need to try this option as well. Your active circle currently has Anne and Worm. You swap out Rose for Worm and stare at both Anne and Rose, considering.
You think it over, but realize you're really just lying to yourself. You're obviously going to push the power into Anne. She was your first ghost, the one that feels the most like you, and she's not just the cornerstone of your budding rogue empire, she's… well, she's your best friend. Your sister. Someone you know you can absolutely rely on. You push the power into her and then back out of Taylor Selection.
Rose and Anne are standing at the foot of your cot. Anne hunches over and groans, gripping her head. She wobbles and falls to the floor.
She disappears.
What the fuck!?
You can still feel her there and can feel her swarm, but she just went completely invisible. You're suddenly struck with a wave of input… you can see the floor where she is, you can hear through a second set of ears…
"Oh Armsmaster… you… fucking… ASSHOLE!" she yells.
"What?!" you jump out of bed, reaching your senses out into the swarm. You feel Rose pop Cheshire in, standing protectively next to you. Your distraction at suddenly being able to see perfectly through Anne's eyes and hear through her ears is bushed away by your concern.
Why would Armsmaster be attacking you? Was he mastered? Secretly a villain agent this whole time?!
Hold.
On.
Anne just…
You turn around and see Anne flickering back into visibility. "Anne…?" you ask.
"Holy crap that was weird," she answers.
'Are we in danger?' Rose asks, cutting straight to the point.
"No, no, sorry, there's no threats anywhere in range," Anne replies.
"Um… so you can talk now?"
"What? Oh… whoa. Um yeah okay so apparently I can talk now?" she replies.
'Well that ain't fair…' Rose grumbles.
"Yeah and you turned invisible."
"Oh. Huh." She pauses for a moment, head tilted. She suddenly flickers out and in a few times. "Yeah, okay, got it. That's weird. Like suddenly discovering an extra hand or something. But yeah it's super-easy."
'Okay so you know how I explained that little counter that I have and how I get extra power periodically,' you switch back to thinking at Anne and Rose since you don't want to disturb the others still sleeping in the house. 'I used power once to let me have two of you out at once and then used the power on myself which let me summon Rose,' they nod their understanding. 'So this time I did the only thing I haven't tried yet and pushed my power into you, Anne.'
You think you caught a hurt expression on Rose's face, but it was gone so fast you're not sure.
'So giving one of you the power lets you talk and turn invisible, and lets me easily see through your eyes, at the very least,' you wrap up.
'What was that about Armsmaster?' Rose says, once again keeping focused on the key issue.
Here Anne pauses. She takes several long breaths.
Silence.
She closes her eyes and takes another deep breath. She then says a sentence that completely shakes you.
'I remember more after the Lung fight.'
You can't even formulate a meaningful reply. So she didn't die? Is she not actually dead? Is she also currently alive in her own home dimension? Is your power completely screwing up a totally innocent Taylor elsewhere by having her soul stolen into this dimension?
'I think I died a little while later.'
Oh.
'So I survived the Lung fight because the Undersiders in my own dimension intervened. They saved my life. And then Armsmaster showed up and he took credit for taking down and capturing Lung. And I told him I wanted to be a hero but that the Undersiders had a secret mastermind backer. I decided to go undercover with them to find out who their backer was.
'Armsmaster was this enormous douche about the whole thing, even when I told him I just needed to do one more job to finally get in good enough with them to uncover the mastermind.'
'I'm sure Marceau would say something snarky about being surprised that you really are a hero,' you comment.
Anne gives you an unimpressed look.
'So what happened?' Rose prompts.
'The boss told us to rob a bank. We had to make a big splashy show of it. I'm not sure why, but I was working really really hard to make sure nobody got hurt. The last thing I remember is Kid Win flying on his hoverboard teleporting in this enormous scary tinkertech cannon thing and the glow as he powered it up.
'I think I must've died when he shot it. Killed by a goddamn Ward,' she muses bitterly.
'Wait but before you thought you were killed by Lung?' I ask.
'This feels… different,' she replied. 'More complete, or something. Before my memory was super-hazy near the end there. I couldn't remember specific details of the Lung fight and just had this image in my head of his scaly face and fire-covered torso that just kind of fades out to black. But I can remember the bank heist really well. Tons of little details. And it's not just a casual fade-out, it's like there's this really sharp divide in my memory, where Kid Win was powering up his cannon-thing and then… poof. No more Skitter.'
'Who?'
'Oh, Skitter. That was the name they gave me as a bug-themed villain.'
'But you just said you'd only fought Lung before doing the bank job. How did they know you were a villain? Who gave you the name Skitter?'
Anne seems caught up short for a second. 'Huh. You know, I can't remember. I know for a fact my name was Skitter but… I dunno.'
'Well, you're Anne to us,' you push as much reassurance and love into your words as you can.
She gives you a smile, still puzzling over the name.
==
Back at the workshop that day, you find that Anne can now get almost a block and a half from you, and she comments that she feels like her control over the swarm is slightly more precise. When she tries making a body to talk it ends up actually looking like a human silhouette instead of just a vaguely human-sized blob of bugs. Her actual range hasn't changed, though, nor can she suddenly control things besides bugs.
You still can only get little flashes of seeing or hearing through Rose, but now that Anne's gotten a boost, you find that you're seeing and hearing through her as easily if they were your own senses. Even weirder, it's not a strain in the slightest. Like you'd been born with it… what did Anne say? Like discovering a new hand? Strange at first to have the additional sense, but then every bit as natural as a part of your own body.
=
Glory Girl shows up that evening to pick you up for your first patrol. You're going out with her, Shielder, and Lady Photon to chaperone.
Glory Girl walks into the workshop and once again gives a big, theatrical shudder as she looks around. "God, I'll never get used to this creepy-crawly place," she insists.
She glances over at you, "Hey Taylor, Anne, Lea," she nods to you and your ghosts.
Huh… she thinks Rose is Lea. A moment's reflection and it makes sense – Rose doesn't look sickly-thin like Worm does and isn't in the mime clothing that Marceau always wears. Should you explain it to her?
'Hey for now just play along. We just wanna do our first patrol without incident and explaining Cheshire is gonna be complicated,' Anne suggests. Rose nods her agreement.
Vicky scoops you up and starts heading out the door when you realize there's a problem.
"Oh hey wait. Anne and R… Lea can't fly."
"Can't you just resummon them as we move along then?"
"No sorry it doesn't work like that. I kinda have to stay within a block or so of them and even though they look like ghosts, they're not like spooky flying ghosts. They just walk."
"Or we can run," Anne offers, "and we don't really get tired like people would."
"Whoa, she talks!" Vicky exclaims.
"Yeah I talk!" Anne smiles at her. "We're all still figuring things out with our powers and Taylor's powers and stuff. Maybe it's because I was the first ghost and have spent the most time out or something."
"Okay so this isn't gonna be a flying patrol then…" Vicky thinks aloud.
"We can ride in a car," Anne suggests.
=
After some quick texts back and forth, the plan is modified to more of a slow, floating patrol with Anne and Rose jogging along the ground rather than a faster flying patrol than had originally been planned.
A short while later, you find yourself bopping along about three stories up, with Lady Photon and Shielder just off to your sides, with you ridding piggy-back on Glory Girl. True to your expectations, neither Anne nor Rose get tired at all, and are able to run along at their top speed without getting winded.
=
You're patrolling a relatively safe area on the boundary between the Empire's territory and the niche downtown that Coil has carved out.
=
Damn this is boring.
=
Oh! Some guys!
Wait, no. It was just some guys staggering out of a bar. None of them are showing E88 colors or anything.
=
"Is it always this…" you start.
Vicky laughs. "Yeah. Most patrols are actually really boring."
"I mean Anne isn't even picking up anything with her bugs. As fast as we're moving her coverage is pretty terrible but still…"
Lady Photon overhead a bit of what you were saying and floats closer and waves a hand for everyone to slow down to a sedate walking pace. You ask Anne and Rose to continue their running pace but to do little trips down alleyways and such in between keeping up with you and the rest of New Wave.
"As bad a reputation as our fair city has," Lady Photon says, "things are usually pretty quiet, especially in the part of the city that the PRT designates for us to patrol. Probably 95% or more of our patrols see no action at all."
"Then why bother?" you can't help but ask.
"Have you heard about the Broken Windows theory?" Shielder picks up the thread of the conversation.
You shake your head.
"The idea is that if a house has broken windows, then people unconsciously react to that by thinking it's a crappy neighborhood and that it's more socially acceptable to like break other windows or do bad things. But if everything looks really nice then people, even criminals, are more likely to think like 'oh this is a nice neighborhood, this isn't the place where home break-ins happen' and so they actually do less crime."
"Really?" you can't keep the skepticism out of your voice.
"Yes, it's actually a real thing that's been tested and proven true in multiple cities," Lady Photon replies. "A big part of the patrolling that New Wave, the Protectorate, and even the Wards do is about visibility. It's not just PR or a waste of time. When people see heroes in a neighborhood somewhat regularly, there's actually less crime. Would you rather catch someone after they've hurt someone committing an assault or robbery, or would you rather prevent the robbery in the first place?" she asks you pointedly.
"Okay, yeah," you concede.
"So one other thing I wanted to talk about," she changes gears. "We need to do some more serious testing with Lea's power boosting. Panacea has been kind of non-specific about what Lea did to her, but I think if we're going to practice team synergies and figure out how to respond to various threats, we need a much better feel on how Lea can boost each of us and what happens when you borrow powers like you borrowed some of Glory Girl's flight that night."
Oh. "Um… okay so how about we set up time this coming week?" you begin.
"Oh, oh, oh, I wanna try!" Vicky chirps out. "Can we try a boost right now?"
Your panic is interrupted by Vicky's phone ringing. Not a moment later, Lady Photon's phone starts buzzing as well.
"Ames?" Vicky asks just as Lady Photon is snapping her phone open and seeing the text there.
She looks to you sharply, "Quick, Beacon, boost Glory Girl, maybe she can fly faster to the hospital!"
"I can't!" you wail. She gives you an irritated and confused look but doesn't pause.
"Glory Girl, go, now!"
Vicky plops you on the roof of the building you were hovering over, and rockets off, phone still pressed tightly to her ear.
You shoot your eyes back and forth between Shielder and Lady Photon. Lady Photon says quickly, "We'll discuss this later. Right now there's a group of men attacking the hospital and they're on some sort of lockdown. Shielder, you stay with Beacon and make your way to the hospital as quickly as you can. I'm going there now," and without pausing for reaction she flies off at a fraction of Glory Girl's speed.
You mentally explain everything to Anne and Rose. They're alarmed, but Anne comments that Panacea's not in any real danger.
'So we shouldn't worry? All those doctors and nurses and patients and you're just thinking, "Oh well Panacea's gonna be okay, so no big?"'
'That's not fair, Rose, and you know it. Of course I don't want anyone else hurt, but…' she's interrupted by you and Eric coming down to street level.
"Okay guys so you can run almost as fast as Shielder can fly and you're not slowed down by silly things like walls so we're just gonna make a straight line for the hospital," you say aloud, mostly for Eric's benefit.
"You sure Lea can't boost me?" Eric asks.
"Uh… yeah sorry my power's been really weird for the past few days. Like Anne can talk now and stuff but today Lea's social lines and their Trump power have been kinda off-kilter," you evade.
Eric's either too distracted or too oblivious to notice your concern. He scoops you up in his arms again and starts rising in the air.
You feel a small squirt of jealousy from Anne.
You would've expected it to take a long time to get to the hospital at a running pace, but you wildly underestimated how fast you could move when you were going in perfectly straight lines and didn't have to worry about things like traffic. Or buildings.
You're halfway through the trip in under ten minutes when Eric's and your phones buzz simultaneously. You stop on a roof and check – a group text to all of New Wave from Sarah.
Lady Photon: All clear. Dumb druggies trying to raid pharmacy. No paras. Hx sec and BBPD contained it before I got here.
Eric starts texting back when another message comes in
Glory Girl: Holy shit guys it really is bulletproof!
Your eyes widen in alarm.
Glory Girl: Idiots were firing all over hit Ames in side of her leg shes got a badass bruise forming and a hole in robes but is okay.
720/1500
Brandish: Debrief ASAP
Manpower: Aw, no cool battle scars?
Lady Photon: GG, PAN, SH, LP, BCN to Dallons for dbf.
Rose looks down at the screen and radiates amusement. Of course they use acronyms or whatever for faster communication, but for some reason Rose thinks it's funny to read "BCN" as bacon instead of Beacon.
'Pork debrief!' she decides to share with the group. Or with you and Anne anyway.
=
The actual incident turns out to be every bit as anticlimactic as Lady Photon's initial text suggested. Some dregs left over from the Merchants got the bright idea to raid the hospital's on-site pharmacy. Security was well on the way to containing them when they decided to open fire. Meth and good aim don't seem to mix and they put holes in the walls instead of in people. Amy was rushing there to patch up anyone who got hurt, which is how she ended up catching a round in the side of her thigh.
In a matter of seconds the hospital police offers had everyone contained and Amy healed up the one nurse who got shot in the chest. The debrief quickly broke down into the kids all marveling over Amy's enormous new bruise and singing the praises of your body suit.
"I wasn't kidding when I said you could sell those things for tens of thousands of dollars," Sarah reminds you.
The issue of testing Lea's boosting comes up again, and you deflect with the same evasiveness you'd used earlier. It didn't take a social thinker power for you to realize that both Carol and Sarah were deeply skeptical.
After less than an hour, Lady Photon wraps things up and says she'll fly you back to the workshop to get your stuff and then escort you home.
=
"So we need to talk," you begin, once you are settled back at the workshop.
"Yes, Beacon, we do," Sarah replies flatly.
"Um, I'm just gonna start with the really big thing first, okay? And then we can talk about the details?" you can't help but phrase it as a question.
She nods.
"Okay so that's not Lea," you nod towards Rose.
"Mmm-hmm."
Damn. That's the same tone Mom used to give you when you…
You shake your head slightly to stop painful reminisces.
"Her name is Rose."
Rose gives a little wave.
"Hello Rose," Sarah replies, all frosty civility.
"And she's the Siberian."
Sarah's head whips to you.
"That's not funny, Taylor," she rebukes.
"No I'm serious. You can't freak out, okay. Promise me you'll stay calm. She's got a projection that is The Siberian, but it's not actually the Siberian, Rose is in total control of it and even I can control it when I have line of sight and it's not actually the Siberian," you repeat. You feel yourself babbling, "We call her Cheshire and she actually looks like Mom," you voice cracks slightly, "but she's all stripey and infinitely strong and…"
Here you trail off and just pull on Rose's power, summoning Cheshire at your side.
Lady Photon gasps, darts backwards in the air and forms a bubble of shield around herself.
You have Cheshire smile and wave. "This is just a projection, like I said," you have it say in Mom's voice.
You quickly have Cheshire launch into the Y-M-C-A dance while mumbling barely-remembered lyrics. "Young man… something blah de blah blah…"
Sarah shudders. She's not amused.
"Can you dismiss… it?" she asks from the air.
You do so.
She drops the shield and settles back down next to you. She gives you an expectant look.
"Okay let's sit down cause this is gonna take a sec," you head over to the couch.
=
You explain your power as best you can, holding back nothing. Sarah nods along, less fazed than you'd expect. She does seem very unhappy with you, though.
"Taylor is that everything? I need you to swear absolutely to me that you've told me everything. Any more surprises like this and…
"New Wave's entire philosophy is built on honesty and accountability," she sees your mouth open starting to object and just rides right over you: "I'm not saying we actually advertise everything you can do. That would be foolish and dangerous. We'll need to play things very tight to the chest with how your power works.
"But at the very least Carol and I need absolute, full disclosure. If we're going to work with you, even as an affiliate, we need to know what you can do. What your powers actually are, their limits and their… consequences."
Your head is hanging. You can't even meet her eyes. You feel more shame and embarrassment at having mislead and lied to her than you did over anything that ever happened at Winslow.
Photon Mom, indeed.
"Yes that's absolutely everything as far as I understand it."
"And do you swear to me that as you discover new facets of your power, you'll share them with me?"
"Yeah."
"Okay.
"Okay," she lets out a small huff.
"Okay I think I'm ready to deal with," she pauses, "Cheshire now. Go ahead and summon her again."
Cheshire pops into existence in front of you both.
You see a tiny wave of goosebumps form on Sarah's arms.
"That is… uncanny," she comments.
"How do you think I feel? She looks like my dead mother wearing the skin of The Siberian."
Sarah turns to you, her eyes soft with concern. "Oh Taylor, honey. Oh god, I'm so sorry."
She scoots over on the couch and wraps you in a hug.
=
You stay like that for awhile.
=
A bit later, having shown Sarah how Cheshire works, she broaches a subject you hadn't even considered: "We need to show her to the PRT. If there's any chance that the actual Siberian works this way, that she's a projection instead of a parahuman, this could be huge in taking down the Slaughterhouse Nine."
At the idea of working with PRT at all, Anne can't help but keep her anger from radiating into you and the swarm.
Man, she really doesn't like the Wards or Armsmaster. Not that you can blame her, really.
"Yeah, but, I mean. I don't trust them. They seem so incompetent, how can we be sure they'll be able to keep this secret?"
Sarah considers for a moment. "Taylor honey I know your first experience with them was really awful. Normally they're not that bad, they really aren't. Tell you what, I'll contact them and say I've learned the information from a confidential source and I won't tell them anything else, okay?"
You appreciate her efforts to placate you.
"With that settled, we do need to figure out how to best have Rose and Cheshire work as heroes, patrols, and so on. A projection with an enormously strong Brute and Breaker power would make for an enormous advantage against the villains," she thinks aloud.
"Yeah we were thinking of covering her entirely in a costume that she pushes her invulnerability in to," Anne offers.
"But the problem is, what if something happens?" you say. "Even the slightest mistake and if she's seen in the city, everyone will go nuts. They'll assume she's The Siberian and then what if reports of a Siberian copy actually get out and Jack Slash finds out."
Sarah's face goes completely still. "Ah."
"Yeah, exactly. I'm even kind of scared just testing with her here in my workshop and in the empty building next door." At the words "my workshop" you're hit with another stab of guilt. You haven't actually told Photon Mom everything. Not about your agreement with The Undersiders, how they bankrolled this purchase, and you're going to make them costumes, or about how you found two security cameras pointed inwards on your first day here, but Anne chewed through their power cables with cockroaches immediately.
You rationalize to yourself that she asked for full and complete disclosure about your power, not about everything that's going on with your life.
"Okay so I agree that caution is the smart move here. Plus we really do want to test things out with Lea's Trump power, so maybe for the next few days, you can call out Lea and Anne?" she suggests.
"And as for the PRT, let's just explain that you're still coming to understand your powers. Trumps are both rare and often more complicated than other cape powers, well except for maybe Tinkers," she considers. "So we'll simply explain that you have two ghosts now each of whom has their own powers. You think there may be more but you're not sure."
"Which power should we show them in addition to Anne's swarm?" you ask.
"Lea's social Thinker power was essential for tracking down the Merchants and Director Piggot has been hassling me for a more complete report on the encounter. So let's go with that."
You nod, "Yeah and Lea wanted to meet the Wards anyway."
Disgust from Anne.
==
Two days later and you find yourself at PRT headquarters, being lead on a tour around the place by Gallant. Vicky's floating along with you, Anne and Lea trailing behind.
Gallant pauses as you're leaving the PRT's power testing facility. "Beacon, is everything okay? I'm sorry you just seem really uncomfortable." He looks to Anne and Lea.
Actually, he's been glancing to both of them almost constantly. He's not wrong – you are really uncomfortable. Not from anything he's been saying or doing. It's all been boring, generic PR-approved crap. The kind of "behind the scenes" tour that anyone could get if they either pay a bunch of money or have connections. You're uncomfortable because Anne has been radiating a mix of anger and disgust at you while Lea is a huge pulsing orb of nostalgia, regret, and warm feelings.
"Oh, sorry. No, it's really nothing. I'm just… uh… distracted because when we left this morning to come here I was in the middle of a big project at my spider silk workshop and I keep thinking about it and making more costumes and uh… yeah…" you finish lamely.
He considers for a moment and just nods. "Okay well let's move on to the Wards common room and introduce you to everyone."
You borrow Lea's power for a bit and push it forward to inspect Gallant. You see the huge pulsing pink line between Glory Girl and Gallant.
Oh.
Well, okay.
So he's Dean what's-his-face, the rich kid that Vicky's dating.
You pass through a tinkertech elevator and a door-thingy that pauses to let everyone get their masks on.
As you step in, your attention wanders for a sec and your focus on Lea's power snaps back to yourself. You see the ever-so-slight beginnings of blue lines forming between you and the Wards except for a shockingly pure red-orange line of anger pointing to… you turn your head…
Shadow Stalker.
What the fuck.
You stop cold in your tracks, staring at her.
A moment of pregnant silence fills the room.
Gallant's head whips to Shadow Stalker's then back to you. "Beacon? Everything okay?"
You shake yourself and reply, "Yeah, yeah okay. Sorry, my powers are really weird and sometimes I get kinda confused or lost in them. Thinker powers, you know."
The Wards all nod in agreement. It's something of a joke among parahumans how spacey Thinkers and Tinkers can get.
Your mind is churning a mile a minute. Why the fuck does Shadow Stalker hate you? What's going on with her… is she secretly a member of the Merchants? Oh god, that has to be it. She must actually be a secret double-agent for a villain team and she's already got an antagonist relationship with you. That's the only thing that makes sense.
You try to keep it together and be polite with the Wards. You shake hands, agree that it would be totally cool if they could all get silk costumes like Panacea's. You explain how Anne and Lea are both independent people and that Lea is a huge fangirl of the Wards, which amuses Vista to no end.
Shortly after you shake her hand, Shadow Stalker says something to Aegis and leaves. You watch as her orange line heads up out of the building and slowly grows more attenuated.
'Taylor c'mon please lets do some power-boosting, please,' Lea pesters you.
You sigh your agreement.
Lea starts by boosting Vista.
"Whoa. Whoa! WHOOOOAA!!" she hops up an down and then suddenly teleports across the room. "This is SO COOL!" she cries out. She's suddenly popping back and forth across the large, open space of the Wards common room.
"Holy crap, short stack, you can teleport now?!" Clockblocker exclaims.
"No, it's not actually teleporting. I'm kind of like… tunneling through space. I'm not just folding it, or I dunno I am still folding it but I'm like completely scrunching it up and making like a hole," she keeps talking while zipping around the room faster than your eyes can follow.
You can just feel Anne rolling her eyes, radiating her disapproval.
You spend the next few minutes watching the Wards all dive through Vista's hole (get your mind out of the gutter, Anne!)
"We have to go on the roof and try this outside!" Vista insists.
"No wait, hold on, I wanna see what my boost does," Clockblocker interrupts.
Before you can get any further, Armsmaster comes tromping in to the room. He catches the tail end of Aegis flying through one of Vista's warp points and bonking his head into the wall, hard.
Vista busts out cackling. "hahahaha… I… heh..moved it right before you went in and…" she can barely catch her breath.
Lea's falling over herself laughing.
"Exactly what is going on here!" Armsmaster says sharply.
Lea straightens back up, wiping tears from her eyes.
"Oh my god, Armsmaster this is so cool!" Vista practically yells. "Beacon's ghost Lea can boost powers and when she boosts me I can create like wormholes through space it's so…"
Armsmaster looks to you. "You've been using an untested unapproved Trump effect on the Wards!?"
"Just Vista," you mumble.
"Vista, submit yourself to level 1 M/S screening immediately."
Silence fills the room.
"Uh, what?!" Clockblocker says.
"Now!
"Glory Girl, please leave the facility. Beacon, come with me," he snaps.
Before you can react, Anne interrupts, "Hey no way, fuck you and your fucking face, Halbeard."
You've never felt such anger before. Everyone pauses at Anne speaking aloud for the first time.
"Anne, please, now's not the time," you try to interject.
It's too late. Armsmaster has turned towards Anne. "Beacon, control your projection now."
"I'm not a projection I'm a person you fucking asshole. You self-righteous piece of shit. You glory-seeking lying SHITHEAD!"
You can feel the bugs in the wall begin to stir. This is getting out of hand, fast.
"Anne! STOP!" you command. You seize control of all the insects you can feel and force them into absolute stillness.
She goes completely rigid and turns to you, looking completely betrayed. 'Please, Anne, I'm so sorry but now is not the time or place.'
Her response is complete silence.
"I'm sorry for Anne's behavior, Armsmaster. Can you please just explain to us what's going on so we can understand?"
His jaw is still clenching and unclenching and you can see little rigid twitches to his posture. He did not like being called a "glory-seeking shithead" by a teenage girl.
"Beacon," he says through clenched teeth. "Trump powers are very often associated with intentional or unintentional Master effects. We have no record on file of you having Trump powers that can affect other capes. Until we've tested and approved it, you are not to use your power…"
"Lea's power," you interrupt.
He grinds his jaw even more. "…Lea's power on any Ward or Protectorate member, is that understood?"
"Yes, sir," you reply.
"We need to run Vista through a level 1 screening. Gallant, please report to Lieutenant Fromme to assist. And Beacon, I'm going to need to conduct level 2 power assessment and interaction assessment on you immediately."
Anne has calmed down, but she is still radiating a stony fury both at you and Armsmaster.
The line connecting you to him is still solidly blue and not at all tinged with the orange or red you would've expected. Instead, there are huge yellow blobs coming down the line your way. He's clearly very concerned right now, but still sees you as an co-worker. You shift your sight to him.
Holy shit. He's really, really mad at Anne. He looks like a hedgehog of blue lines pointing all over the PRT headquarters. Not a green one in the bunch that you can see. Tons of little pulses of yellow concern or vaguely orange-tinged aggression. You look closer and see lots and lots of very faint orange lines as well. Makes sense that he'd have a longstanding adversarial relationship with most of the big players in the city's gangs.
Your line-sight flickers for a second and snaps back to you with no conscious decision on your part. You feel a sense of fatigue and Lea complains, 'Ugh, ow. My head…'
Power-boosting followed by closely inspecting others seems to've been too much for her power.
=
The rest of the afternoon is completely uneventful and filled with tons of weird technical tests you don't really understand. They're really unhappy when you tell them Lea's power is almost completely tapped out, so you can only do a bit more power-boosting in really small doses. Armsmaster is almost shaken out of his stern disapproval when he feels the effect of Lea's boost.
=
By the end of the day, Anne still isn't speaking with you.
=
The next morning, you call out Marceau and head back to the workshop.
'Whoa! Holy crap! How long was I out?' she asks upon seeing all the progress you've made with the weaving swarm.
"It's been almost two weeks," Anne replies.
Oh, so she's willing to talk to Marceau, but not you. God. Bitch.
'Holy crap crap! You can talk!'
"Yeah, Taylor used her energy-thing to give me an upgrade."
You decide discretion is the better part of valor and silently head over to the workshop's small office to do homeschool work. You can feel as Anne explains the events of the past week and a half to Marceau and shows off her invisibility power.
Since you can now see and hear almost perfectly out of Anne, you can't help but overhear as she gives a very biased recounting of yesterday's events. Marceau suggests that since you had to put up with all of that to let Lea talk with the Wards, the least you could do is arrange a visit to the Undersiders as well.
Huh. You're already intensely uncomfortable having such an open relationship with a villain group, but if it'll get Anne speaking with you again…
=====Choices!
What do you do about your suspicion that Shadow Stalker is a double-agent for a villain group?Spoiler
What do you do with Marceau's suggestion about arranging a visit with the Undersiders?Spoiler
Ongoing plans: It's now the first week in April (just before the start of canon) and you've decided on a patrol schedule and a series of appearances with New Wave. Between working publicly with them and keeping up with your homework, your weaving time is going to be less than you'd like. Despite this, you do still have some flexibility in how you proceed:
♦Topic: OMG SIBERIAN IN BB
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay ► General
EyesPrivates (Original Poster)
Posted on April 7, 2011:
Oh my god oh my god oh my god.
I was out in the northeast docks. My brother's a huge junkie and I was looking for him to bring him back for his fourth rehab. For just a sec I stuck my head into a warehouse and i saw the MOTHERFUCKING SIBERIAN. Naked, stripey, everything. She was just like jumping around inside the warehouse. I like froze in panic and she just kind of kept running around would periodically get all woozy and stumble.
I saw her fall straight through a support pillar and suddenly disappear. I came to my sense and GTFO.
GUYS THE S9 IS IN BROCKTON! I reported it to the PRT and they just blew me off!!!!!!!
(Showing Page 1 of 23)
► Peelyface
Posted on April 7, 2011:
What are you smoking and can I get some?
► Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
Posted on April 7, 2011:
I find that hard to believe, since they would've told us. Plus, you know, the S9 basically never come this far east and last time they showed up in Brockton Bay, the Marquis single handedly drove them out after they fought the Teeth.
► Om-Shanti (Cape Groupie)
Posted on April 7, 2011:
Um… what? What?!?! WHAT!!!!!!!! WTF WHAT????????????????
► Bagrat (Guy in the know)
Posted on April 7, 2011:
Completely false. See most recent updates in the S-class threads. Siberian along with the rest of the sickos were last spotted this morning more than halfway across the country: [Link]
Either the Siberian now has continent-wide teleportation powers and used them to teleport to the east cost just to wreck an empty warehouse and then teleported back to North Dakota, or OP is full of crap.
Shame on you, man. That kind of shit can start riots and actually hurt people. It's not just "lulz trolled, u mad bro" this crap has consequences in real life.
► Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
Posted on April 7, 2011:
Yeah, see, toldja.
► QuisCustodiet (Moderator)
Posted on April 7, 2011:
Okay everyone, locking the thread. Bagrat's post is pretty definitive. I'll give @@EyesPrivate the benefit of the doubt and assume he was drunk or seeing things or something and not that he's intentionally trying to start a riot in our city. One month ban but I won't permanently lock your account.
Think next time. If you already called the PRT, then there's no need to create a panic via PHO.
====
PRO/PRT OFFICIAL COMMUNICATION
FORM AC-217: AFFILIATE CAPE COMMUNICATION SUMMARY AND FIRST-PASS ANALYSIS
FILED BY: PIGGOT, E.
SENT TO: OFFICE OF THE CHIEF DIRECTOR, PRT
cc: PIGGOT, E.; COSTA-BROWN, R; OFFICE OF PROTECTORATE LEADER ENE; ARMSMASTER; OFFICE OF INTERNAL OVERSIGHT; LEGAL AFFAIRS OFFICE; NONPROTECTORATE PARAHUMAN CONTACT ARCHIVES; WEDGDG
DATE INCIDIENT: 2011-04-09
DATE FILED: 2011-04-09
PROPERTY DAMAGE ESTIMATE LEVEL: N/A
VIOLENCE LEVEL: N/A
PROTECTORATE MEMBERS INVOLVED: N/A
PRT OFFICERS INVOVLED: Piggot, E., Director
NON-PROTECTORATE PARAHUMANS INVOLVED: Lady Photon
PROTECTORATE FATALITIES: N/A
PRT FATALITIES: N/A
NON-PROTECTORATE PARAHUMAN FATALITIES: N/A
NON-PARAHUMAN PARTICIPANT FATALITIES: N/A
BYSTANDER FATALITIES: N/A
FATALITY ATTRIBUTION(S): N/A
COMMUNICATION SUMMARY: PRT Director Piggot received an email (see #221187) communication indicating that New Wave leader Lady Photon (see dossier #658971) had come into intelligence indicating that The Siberian may be a projection rather than a parahuman. Lady Photon was unwilling, during follow-up phone consultation, to disclose anything about the nature of the source of this information and said only that she had "high confidence" in the quality of the information (see recording A#5828527).
FIRST-PASS ANALYSIS: WEDGDG Thinkers have already hypothesized with 19% likelihood that The Siberian is either a Master projection or Tinkertech creation. This new information is thus not new and of no great concern. Lady Photon has been an active hero long enough to have well-developed contacts in the parahuman community and thus it is unsurprising that a person would have passed this information to her. Report merits only level 1 review by WEDGDG filter software VIs.
====
Director Costa-Brown leaned back in her chair and let out a low sigh. The physical act of sighing provided no particular relief, of course, as she was incapable of feeling the kind of physical tension that would even necessitate relief. But, old habits die hard.
It had been quite some time since she'd had occasion to review the files on New Wave, and she did so now. She cocked at eyebrow at the summary of their newest member. A Trump? And not just a Trump, but one whose own power repertoire had recently expanded to include a power that could boost other capes? How had this not come to her attention sooner?
It was blindingly obvious, of course, that this new Trump must have stumbled on a Thinker power that revealed The Siberian's true nature to her. It would merit investigation. She made a mental note to pass the issue along to Doctor Mother, while composing an excoriating note to Piggot for failing to appropriately apply a priority flag to information relating to a new, potentially high-power, Trump.
====
"And what was your mistake, Victor?"
"Failing to recognize how quickly New Wave would accept a non-family member into the fold."
"Incorrect.
"What was your mistake, Victor?"
Victor shifted uncomfortably on his feet. Most of the other Empire capes were in attendance. Their expressions ranged from Hookwolf's feral joy at watching Victor be publicly cut down, to Rune's indifference and, of course, his own Othala's deep lines of worry.
"Failing to directly confront the girl's father at his place of business to immediately bring home to him the danger his daughter was now in."
Kaiser gave a low sigh that echoed slightly in his metal helmet.
"Incorrect.
"One more try, Victor. Do not disappointment me. What was your mistake?"
Victor wracked his brain. What did Kaiser want to hear? His actual mistakes were the two he'd just listed. They were elementary miscalculations that were obvious in hindsight. Kaiser himself had initially suggested that he…
Ah, of course.
"Constructing my own plan rather than immediately deferring to your judgment, Kaiser."
The tiniest of nods.
"As punishment, your territory will have an additional 10% of revenues added to its contribution burden for the next three months. In addition, the next time a candidate of appropriate stock shows him- or herself in the city, you will once again be tasked with recruitment. If you fail me again, if you fail The Empire, the punishment will be a fair sight worse that mere money.
"Do I make myself clear, Victor?"
"Yes, sir. Absolutely, sir."
====
PRO/PRT PARAHUMAN ANALYSIS
FORM PA-112b: PARAHUMAN ANALYSIS (addendum)
FILED BY: GALLANT (WAR#654987)
SENT TO: OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR, PRT ENE
cc: PIGGOT, E.; OFFICE OF PROTECTORATE LEADER ENE; ARMSMASTER; OFFICE OF INTERNAL OVERSIGHT; LEGAL AFFAIRS OFFICE; NONPROTECTORATE PARAHUMAN CONTACT ARCHIVES; OFFICE OF THE ARCHIVES; OFFICE OF PARAHUMAN SCIENCE
DATE INCIDIENT: 2011-04-05
DATE FILED: 2011-04-05
PROPERTY DAMAGE ESTIMATE LEVEL: N/A
VIOLENCE LEVEL: N/A
PROTECTORATE MEMBERS INVOLVED: GALLANT (WAR#654987)
PRT OFFICERS INVOVLED: N/A
NON-PROTECTORATE PARAHUMANS INVOLVED: BEACON (AP#8897412)
PROTECTORATE FATALITIES: N/A
PRT FATALITIES: N/A
NON-PROTECTORATE PARAHUMAN FATALITIES: N/A
NON-PARAHUMAN PARTICIPANT FATALITIES: N/A
BYSTANDER FATALITIES: N/A
FATALITY ATTRIBUTION(S): N/A
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Emotion-sensing power detected unique emotional signatures for the Master projection "Anne" and the Master projection "Lea" created by parahuman Beacon (see dossier AP#8897412). Some two-way communication seemed to occur between Beacon and each Master projection, but no more so than two particularly in-tune normal humans (such as between, for example, a long-married couple). Mp Anne exhibited a range of negative emotions relating to the PRT and Wards. In an encounter with Armsmaster (see #3218/94) she displayed deeply powerful feelings of anger and betrayal.
Mp Lea showed warmth, fondness, and nostalgia while in the PRT facility and respect towards Armsmaster. In particular, Lea showed emotions typical of well-established friendship towards all Wards ENE except Shadow Stalker, and a romantic interest towards Clockblocker (WAR#654971).
ANALYSIS: Beacon, Mp Anne, and Mp Lea all maintain that the projections are independent persons. The emotional auras on display align with the interpretation of them being sentient or semi-sentient independent persons. No hypothesis is available for the longstanding emotional reactions Mp Anne or Mp Lea had in relation to the Wards given that this was their first real interactions with the group.
====
"I'm sorry, Mr. aahhh…"
"Just Coil, will do, Mr. Alcott."
"I'm sorry, Coil, this is all just a little much to take in at once."
"I certainly understand Mr. Alcott, Mrs. Alcott. Perhaps a small demonstration would help?"
The Alcotts looked to each other, worry passing in a glance. Mr. Alcott nodded at the supervillain seated at their dining room table.
Or rather, he'd thought the man a supervillain. He spun a story of himself as some sort of rogue acting more like a secret vigilante, pushing back the Empire while adopting the guise of a villain. Mr. Alcott was still wrapping his head around that fact when Coil had dropped his next bombshell.
Mrs. Alcott called up the stairs, "Dinah, honey, can you come down here now, please?"
A twelve year old girl, her face etched with more worry than would be appropriate for someone twice her age, made her way slowly down the stairs. She locked her eyes on Coil's masked face and paused for a moment. She then slowly made her way into the dining room and sat herself next to her mother.
"Dinah, my dear, if I take no particular action towards you, what are the odds you will be kidnapped by Accord within the next month?"
"I don't know who that is."
With barely a pause, Coil turned to the soldier standing at attention behind him. A small wave and the soldier produced a manila folder. Coil pulled a large, glossy photo featuring a man in an intricate mask and immaculate suit.
"98.713% that man will kidnap me in the next month if you do nothing."
Mr. Alcott let out an exclamation just as his wife gasped.
Coil held up a placating hand. "Just a few more questions, Dinah, do you think you can handle that?"
She gave a slow nod, tears beginning to form in her eyes.
"If you go to the PRT and join the Wards, what are the odds you will be kidnapped within the next month?"
"86.116%"
"If you leave the city and try to hide?"
"99.928%"
"If you try to join New Wave as a hero?"
"43.333%"
"If you join my new group of independent heroes, the Guardians?"
"1.216%"
As the relentless drive of numbers showed Dinah's fate, Mr. and Mrs. Alcott became more and more distraught. Then, at 1% they both snapped their heads to Coil.
"Just so. As I said, I've already foiled one kidnapping attempt by Accord. He knows me well enough and understands how my own Thinker power cancels out his own. Should Dinah join my team, she would be even safer than she would with any of her other options."
Mrs. Alcott began wiping the tears from her face, lightly smearing her mascara across her prominent cheekbones. "But it's so dangerous, even for the heroes, how will you keep Dinah safe?"
Under his mask, Coil smiled. The battle was already over.
====
"We're hitting a payroll shipment."
"What the fuck, Tats? Don't people get paid by check these days? What're we the Jesse James gang?" Alec retorted hotly.
"Yeah, Lisa, I'm not getting this. Even if the transport does have cash, it can't be much. What's going on?" Brian asked.
"Look, what can I tell you? The Boss wants the job done. I know he technically gives us the right to refuse jobs, but guys trust me when I say we don't want to refuse this one. Whatever schemes he's got going on, it depends on us showing up at the Dockworker's Union at a very specific time and date and hitting the van with the payroll cash." Lisa replied, rubbing her eyes. She hated everything about this job, but Coil made it clear that if she didn't convince the group to go along, there would be unfortunate consequences. For her. Personally.
"Wait, wait, wait, the Dockworkers Union? Like as in the place that scary ghost-bug-girl's Dad works? No thank you, I'd rather not have my eyes chewed out by…" Alec began.
"Wow, Alec, color me impressed. I didn't think you paid that close attention to the local news."
"Bugs, Tattletale. BUGS. Giant fucking swarms of bugs, Tattletale. I heard she choked Skidmark to death with cockroaches, Tattletale. There is no fucking way…"
"He's paying us each 15 grand just to do the hit and paying us two-for-one on any loot we recover."
"…I'm in."
Well, that was easy. Of course, convincing Alec was a pretty straightforward enterprise.
Brian shook his head. Always the cautious type, if something looked too good to be true, he's spend his time worrying over it and talking himself out of it.
Rachel just grunted. "Easy job. Good money. We're doing it."
"It's three for the job, Brian. As leader you can veto, but we should go for it. We'll do our recon, make sure ghost-bug-girl isn't there. Really there shouldn't be any real resistance. No cops, no parahumans. A fast, flashy hit and we're gone, over 60k richer for like fifteen minutes' work."
"That's what scares me."
"The Boss is a schemer, I won't lie. And frankly, I have no idea how this fits into his schemes. Probably got some sort of contract or legal shenanigans and it makes him look good if the Union gets hit hard. That political legal crap is all over our heads anyway, and…"
"Bored now," Alec announced, leaving the kitchen and heading back to his video games.
Brian sighed. It was a pretty sweet deal.
Lisa smiled. The battle was already over.
====
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Why had she agreed to this?! "Oh it's just a payroll van, Brian" "Oh there won't be any parahumans there, Brian" "It'll be fifteen minutes' work, Brian."
Of course that 'simple job' turned into an utter shitshow basically immediately. First, it wasn't a payroll van, it was an honest-to-god armored truck. There weren't parahumans there, but the guards were armed.
Neither of which would've really been a problem. A quick application of Grue's darkness to disable the guards and some heavy hits from Bitch's dogs to rip the truck open and they'd be home free.
No, the real problem was the motherfucking clown grinning like a maniac and running at her, mallet swirling in the air.
Well, her and the nine foot tall steam-mech guy and whatever it was that was going on with that green-tunic looking weirdo who bounced around.
Circus's hyper-agility wouldn't normally mean much. A twitch from Regent's power and a cloak of darkness to keep her confused would've settled her down quickly. But Grue was out of action and it was time to retreat.
=
Moments earlier
"Okay, got the guards restrained. Bitch, let's get those doors open," Grue's voice echoed out from the darkness wreathing his helmet.
A quick whistle and gesture and one of the dogs smashed hard against the doors to the truck. They deformed slightly, but held. This was going to take a few good whacks. "They'll crumple in fourteen hits," Tattletale informed her. "Make it fast, someone called the PRT."
Thump.
Thump.
Thumpthump.
Wait, that wasn't the sound of the dog hitting the van.
Heavy, metallic sound. Footstep cadence. Power armor. Not Armsmaster, much bigger.
Tattletale whirled around, seeing a giant steam mech moving forward at a brisk walking pace. Next to him was a short teenage boy in a green tunic getup, looking like something out of Zelda or Neverland.
"Grue!" Tattletale shouted.
He whirled, took in the threat, and briskly jogged forward, pulsing out darkness. Regent gripped his scepter tightly and gestured, making the tunic-boy stumble slightly.
"Bitch, keep at the truck. We'll deal with these two," Grue commanded.
Lisa let her power loose. Unknown parahumans with unknown powers were incredibly dangerous and could easily result in fatalities, unintentionally or otherwise.
Case 53. Non-standard biology. Only rudimentary limbs. She glanced to Regent. Power almost completely ineffective. Shit. So much for an easy way to trip up that steam-mech Tinker.
Green-tunic fell down from Regent's trip, caught himself on a single finger and pushed himself back up as if he weighed nothing.
Not super-strength. Not super-agility. There was too much of a wobble for him to be like Circus with inhuman agility.
A clang behind her. Tattletale's head whirled around. Speak of the goddamn devil. Circus was perched on top of the truck, rolling easily with the rocking of the van as Bitch's dogs smashed into it. Well, that answered the question as to who this was – Circus was a low-profile independent villain who typically worked alone. Part of a team now. Working with them as a group. New independent villain group. Here to interfere with the robbery. Not here for the cash. Not here as villains.
Tattletale cut her power off. With so little to go on, it tended to start speculating wildly and building on those speculations rather than observable facts. That and Circus was a known quantity, she needed to turn her attention back to the two new guys.
She caught one last glimpse of the two unknowns as they were enveloped by Grue's darkness. He strode in purposefully, hands clenched tightly. Tattletale caught a final look at tunic-boy's face, a grin of amusement and total confidence on his face.
Not super-strength. Not super-agility. Landed abnormally slowly. Capable of adjusting gravity's influence on his body. Capable of altering his own inertia. Capable of altering inertial mass, capable of altering gravitational mass. Capable of affecting others with a touch.
"Grue, no!" Tattletale shouted, as Grue's leather-clad form suddenly came rocketing out of the darkness cloud.
Sailing in nearly a straight line. Almost no mass. Will eventually slow due to air resistance. Will eventually land. Will not be harmed. Will land far outside the city. Will land in Delaware.
Fffffuck.
Tattletale pulled out her pistol and aimed it at the tunic-boy, but in a flash he was bounding away.
Regent gestured wildly, trying to have some effect on the steam-tinker.
"Regent, Circus, behind…"
Too late.
Circus dodged, dived, and pirouetted away from Bitch's dogs, all with less effort than Tattletale would have to spend walking across a room. Distracted by the mech, Regent hadn't seen her spin up behind him. A solid whack of her mallet and he dropped.
Severely concussed. Not dead. Will recover. Will take weeks to recover.
Tattletale pointed her pistol towards Circus, knowing full well it would be pointless.
Steam-mech guy tromped forward, out of Grue's darkness. His voice rumbled from his chest, sounding much like the clanging and deep grinding of his suit itself: "Go, little girl. Take your dogs and recover your far-flung friend. We are here for the Heartbreaker spawn."
Trainwreck had no idea what "Heartbreaker spawn" was supposed to mean, having memories that only stretched back a few months, but the boss had been very specific about only taking the little renn fair boy captive and saying that specific line when doing so. He wasn't going to question it. With what the boss was promising him, little things like delivering odd lines during combat was a tiny price to pay.
Tattletale's eyes went wide. Will actually let us go. Really was just here to capture Alec. Knows who Alec is. Not sent by Heartbreaker. Hired by an outside party. Mercenary. Mercenaries tracking down Heartbreaker's kids. Other kids out there. Powerful Masters. Hired to take down Masters. Hired by The Guild. Hired by the Yangban. Hired by… once again Tattletale clamped down on her power. Stupid speculation.
Bitch had finally managed to bash the doors of the truck open with one of her dogs while the other two were being kept busy flailing about, failing to even make contact with Circus.
"Bitch!
"Let's go! We need to get Grue!"
Bitch scowled at her, but after a quick, intensely hissed conversation, Bitch whistled her two dogs off of Circus. She made a point of grabbing a single bag from the armored truck, unwilling to leave completely empty handed.
Tattletale and Bitch rode off, leaving Alec prone in front of a wildly laughing tunic-boy.
=
A:
Coil gave the quietest huff of irritation. "And the dogs?"
"Launched into the Bay, probably off into the Atlantic by now."
"Circus, I was very clear about not killing any of them and only capturing Regent."
"I'm sorry boss. Pan went a little nuts after Tattletale shot him."
=
B:
"Alpha plan complete. All objectives met," the spotter's voice came across Coil's headset.
He allowed himself a tight smile and collapsed the timeline with two dead Undersiders and a wounded Pan.
==
Dinah fidgeted nervously in her costume. Actually it was hardly a "costume" at all. More of a dress made up to look kind of like a toga, with an actual wreath of actual laurel leaves in her hair and a simple domino mask. She was standing on a small, quickly-erected stage just to the side of the union hall for the Dockworker's Union, the day after the rest of her "team" fought the Undersiders and captured Regent. They were announcing themselves as heroes today, and Dinah had to be here to get her picture taken and to read the little speech that Coil had given her.
He'd assured her parents that she would never, ever participate in the field. "Operations," he'd called them. She would strictly work as their Thinker support, staying safe at their base or at home. She wouldn't even have to run the "comms" (which Dinah learned meant being on the phone with everyone and telling them things during the operations). Coil was lending them three of his mercenary guys for stuff like that. They scared Dinah and she really, really didn't like them. But seeing professional soldiers there helping them made Daddy more comfortable, and the numbers said that without the soldiers, Daddy wouldn't've let Dinah join The Guardians and then she would've been kidnapped and then…
Dinah started to panic slightly. Pan sensed it somehow, and reached out, holding her hand. He was only 14, not that much older than her. Just after he took her hand, a flurry of flashes came from the reporters standing in front of them. 'Odds that a picture of me and Pan holding hands shows up in the newspapers tomorrow?'
99.713%
Trainwreck was standing at the podium, finishing up the speech the boss gave to him. Each of them had little speeches they had to give. Dinah thought this whole thing was really stupid, but Coil had explained it to Mom and Daddy, and they said she had to do it.
The Union boss guy gave his little speech, and then this thin, bald guy who was also a Union guy gave the longest speech yet. He seemed to get really angry while doing it.
Dinah let her eyes wander across the Dockyards. Oh hey! There was Beacon! Dinah couldn't help but grin. Beacon was sooo scary and cool and awesome. When she was a little kid (and at 12 years old, she wasn't just some little kid anymore), she'd been terrified of both ghosts and bugs. But as is often the way with fears, her feelings on both matters had mutated into fascination. A cape who could control both! Coolest. Thing. Ever. She felt a little bit of sadness at knowing they couldn't get Beacon on their team, since she had already joined New Wave.
It was Pan's turn to talk. He dropped Dinah's hand, which was just as well because her palm was starting to get a little sweaty, stood up at the podium, and started his speech.
"…watch out for the good, hardworking people of Brockton Bay… heroes for the working folks… my uncle and Dad were… failures of the Protectorate and PRT…"
Circus reached forward into empty space and pulled her phone out while Pan was talking. Rude!
Just as Pan was saying something about "revolving-door-prisons" Circus stepped forward, placed her hand on Pan's shoulder, interrupting him.
"I'm sorry ladies and gentlemen. I've just been informed that the Undersiders are currently attacking the PRT and are very likely to free Regent, not one day after we caught him. We will NOT let that happen.
Guardians! Let's move!" she shouted.
Trainwreck scooped Circus in one arm, and took a step towards Pan. After quickly conferring, Circus pointed in a particular direction. Pan tapped both Circus and Trainwreck lightly and then all three of them rocketed off towards the PRT building.
Silence filled the air. Dinah stood there, now alone on the stage.
The small crowd of reporters turned their eyes and cameras off of the shrinking forms of her teammates and focused back on her.
Dinah gulped.
==
"You were supposed to get all of the money in the transport," Coil fairly growled at Tattletale.
Doesn't actually want the money. Doesn't care. Is actually pleased with the outcome.
"Boss, you and I both know you don't give two shits about that money."
Silence.
Shit. Tattletale felt a spike of worry. She'd pushed too far.
"I will use my power to help your efforts to retrieve Regent. You must do so immediately."
Tattletale let out a weary sigh. "Boss we just got back from fucking Delaware retrieving Grue. None of us have slept, and Grue's got frostbite on his ears from all that time flying so high in the air."
"Don't make me repeat myself, Tattletale. You have twenty minutes to prepare and then I want you hitting the PRT holding facility on 31st. Regent is there and my sources assure me that his guard will be minimal at exactly 1:30pm today. Now go."
Tattletale dragged herself up from her desk and walked out into the main area. Brian was draped across the couch and Rachel was scratching her dog's ears rather more forcefully than seemed necessary.
"Boss says we have to leave in twenty minutes to rescue Regent."
"Good," Bitch grunted.
She might not like Alec, but leaving a pack member behind had made her totally unmanageable for the past half-day. Only Lisa's absolute insistence that they would rescue him right away had gotten her to agree to leave him at the Dockyards.
Brian groaned, levered himself up off the couch, and gave a weary nod.
Twenty minutes later they were off.