Morning runs

by Fjodor

Taylor has a good day for once, meet someone new and maybe a friend?

It was not the first time she had gone out, her running had been a constant in her life. Running in the morning, running at school, and then again in the evening, she ran straight home. Her days were set in a routine, it was rusted into place. Morning, at school and in the evening, nothing had interrupted that routine since she had started it. She enjoyed the feeling of wind flying past, the way the sunrise gave the city and her neighbourhood an orange glow. The boardwalk was mostly abandoned as she took a turn to run down it, no people there too. It was just the wide open.

Or at least it had been, now when she went out for her run she saw someone from occasion to occasion. The person wasn't in the same place though, she–that was what she had been able to figure out so far–keep her hair down, revealing a set of ponytails that wayed in the wind. Those ponytails, her hair by extension too, was a dirty blonde. She kept popping up from place to place. First in the doorway of one of the old dock buildings, then sitting on one of the benches that marked the end of the boardwalk, she once was walking along the road when she whizzed past. It had been dark, right before sunrise and she didn't manage to catch a glance at her face. By now she could almost count to see her on at least one of her weekly runs.

Taking a moment to get out of her bed, Taylor looked at the ceiling of her room. As usual, a couple of spiders sat on it. She still hadn't looked into what kind of spiders it was, she didn't really care either way thought her powers worked anyway. She directed them to one side of the ceiling and have them the instruction to walk across it in the next three minutes. Seeing them move slowly gave her all the time to get the sleep out of her system and convince herself that today she wouldn't be killing herself before school started. As they reached the other side, so did her commitment to not dying.

She hopped out of her bed and thew on a pair of joggers. Her sweatpants were still draped over the chair she had in her room. A chair her dad used to sit on when she was younger reading her night time stories. That had not happened for a long time now, the last story he had read to her was that of a little girl, a girl with a peculiar name. She lost the details of the story over the years and she was pretty sure she had gotten the name wrong by now. There were only the memories of buttons for eyes that connected the story to the present by now.

Walking past her dad's room she paused for a second, there was a fifty-fifty chance that he was up by now. As there was no sound in there except the steady snoring, she walked on. The kitchen was still shrouded in darkness. She took one of the glasses off the shelf and cleaned it before she filled it. The water tased of the same old zinc that the plumbing had been made of. All by all, it didn't taste that bad, she even missed it whenever they drunk it out of a bottle.

Opening the backdoor she took in a quick breath of the morning air. The puff she released after was visible, still cold she thought as she pulled together a couple of insects to sit under the cap on her hoodie. It was slightly more comforting to her when she knew a couple of them were close by. Only for a moment did she wonder if the girl would be there again today. It was a nice thought, but as soon as she went into her run those thoughts, along with all others, were banished from her mind. Now there was only the road that she was gonna run along. The miles would disappear beneath her feet. And in the end, she would come home more refreshed than she had been when she had woken up.

Her dad was now awake, he had prepared breakfast, which in his case was laying out the plates and some bread. He left the fillings in the refrigerator, not wanting to pull them all out and have them go bad. She smiled a little at that, it had been the one thing her mother had allowed him to lie about, just a white lie to make his mornings a bit more entertaining. Her mother , there was a topic she didn't want to have thought of this early in the morning, or at all this day. Her demeanour changed a bit, not enough for her dad to notice but enough that she pulled out some cheese slices. Their breakfast was quiet, but as both of them were not the type that wanted a space filled with noise from the start till the end of the day they were fine with it.

As she looked over to the wall where were was a digital clock she saw it was nearly time for her to grab a quick shower before she made her way to school. Getting up she said goodbye to her dad, as he would be gone by the time she got back down again and left for the bathroom.

Having a couple of towels over the radiator she jumped in the shower right as the water started to stabilise. Living in this neighbourhood meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but what all of them would probably agree on is that water pressure should really be just constant and not the game of chance it was now. She got out a couple of minutes later.

It was not a long process getting ready, she knew that but even then her hair would take some time. It had gotten to the lower end of her shoulders and she wasn't sure what to do with it now. Would she just leave it and trim the edges as it kept going or would she cut it short so it would dry quicker? Looking over to the scissors she had in her room. Maybe? She wasn't sure yet, she'd think of it later, she made a mental note to herself.

Putting on her day to day shoes and some old jeans she quickly chose to replace her green hoodie with a dark red one. She didn't exactly know why she had done that but it felt right, making her feel a tad more loved. She could leave her jacket at home now though. There was no real need for it at the moment, the paper had predicted clear sky's overhead all day and it was rarely wrong. And if she got cold, this hoodie was made of very thick material.

The bus arrived on time as it did most of the days if it was here now meant that there hadn't been any hero or villain activity in the immediate area. She let out a sigh of relief at that, it also meant that she could probably avoid them for a bit longer today than she might have been able to. Taking a free seat about two third down the bus they started moving again. It would take a couple of minutes before they would stop again. She knew this from the many times that she had been on this bus and the absolute boring routine it had. She didn't mind it, a routine was good. It made her more sure of where she would be at that time, it was comforting in its own way. She spends most of the ride looking out of her window, it didn't show you much, just houses where people lived, rundown docks that had not survived the economic wave from the past ten years and the occasional person walking along.

The people made it a bit more interesting, they showed her a wide range of people that lived here. Most of them she had only seen on this bus ride, there was a handful that she had spoken too, but they looked strange from above driving by. It was like they all just looked bored as they were passed. She couldn't blame them for that she thought, a bus is not that exciting to look at.

When they stopped there was a change in her routine. Not one but two people got on this time. She looked over and recognised the guy that had gotten on–knowing was maybe a bit of a strong word, she had seen him around a couple of times. The girl, however, was new.

She had dirty blonde hair and a sly smile across her face, one that people have when they know something the other doesn't. She didn't hesitate to take a seat a couple of rows before me when she turned her head it hit me. Those ponytails, that hair, was she the girl? She wouldn't be, right? And why would she get on this bus, she didn't even go to their school. Or at least she had never seen her around there. But if she was being fair to herself, she didn't look much around anymore.

For the remainder of the bus ride, she looked over to where the girl sat. now slumped in the corner her seat and the window made. It was a bit uncomfortable as she had her shoulder pressed against the cold window of the bus. But she made sure to keep an eye on her. The longer she looked the surer of it she was that this was the girl that she saw from time to time on her morning runs.

Arriving at the form of the school the people in the front and back started to get up, both groups wanting to leave as quick as possible. Even now, after all this time neither group notice or chose to ignore the logistical problems they caused. The front couple of rows all piled up on each other, causing a standstill immediately behind it that the people from the back filled up all the way down the aisle. This didn't matter all that much to her, she just waited for the other people to clear out before she got off. This, however, did mean that she would lose sight of the girl.

From one moment to the next she lost track of where she had gone. She couldn't have just disappeared, could she? The pileup had happened moments before so far she couldn't have gone. Looking out of the window she was surprised, there she was walking away from the crowd of people that were streaming out of the bus. Seeing her from a distance now confirmed it to her, as much as she could do that, that was the girl from her runs.

She wasn't sure what to do with that information. Not here at least, not in this place. This was a place that she endured for the one and a half years she had left here. As she stepped out of the bus she looked up at the grey building, it was sturdy, a description that did little to make her day better. It was bulky and squared off, it had been placed here after the appearance of capes around the world. The city had deemed it needed to have education be done in safe and secure buildings, which in turn made them sturdy but also depressing. But credit should go where credit is due, the building had survived. A lot of the area around the school had been damaged over the years, villains being villains, hero's fighting them had left some scars on the neighbourhood. The most you could see on this building, however, was just some paint chipping of the inner walls.

She made her way to her locker, or what was left of it, she half hoped someone had taken note and replaced it but no such luck today. No, it was as it had been for almost a month now and she wasn't quite sure if they ever would. Not stopping at it she made her way up the stairs till she got to her first class, she pulled her books out of her bag and placed them on the desk. She folded her arms on top of them putting her head down to rest. The first class had been boring to her, she knew what was expected of her and for now, she could get there without paying attention to the lesson. It was also one of the only classes she had this semester where none of them would be attending. It was beneath them she guessed, or at least that was what their parents might think, she, however, was content with what she had chosen to follow this semester.

As her eyes were closed and she made herself ready to take a quick nap before the lesson ended a chair to the left of her pulled back. Someone was sitting next to her now, 'awesome,' she thought as she opened one of her eyes, looking for who was now sitting there. She could only take a glance at the person sitting there before she made sure it was not one of the trio, none of them would be caught death in a pair of shoes like that. But content that there was no threat in the immediate area she dozed off to sleep.

She awoke when the bell rang out to signify the end of the first lesson. It was jarring, not in the getting punched in the stomach out of nowhere jarring, but still a bit unpleasant. As she lifted her head and opened her eyes, she saw that about half the class was still hanging around for the moment, putting her books away or waiting for others to join them to leave. She herself opened her bag and put her books in there. As she turned to get out of her chair she saw the person that had been sitting next to her.

"Hi, I'm Lisa," the girl said as she extended her hand.

She stumbled a moment, this was ponytail girl, morning run girl, suddenly appearing on my ride to school girl, and now apparently the girl that was sitting next to her in whatever this class was again. And her name was Lisa? 'How in the world was she supposed to respond,' she thought as her mind started running in overdrive. After what seemed like an eternity did she finally make a move.

"Hi Lisa, I'm Taylor," she said as she shook her hand.

She looked away for a second, 'that could have gone worse,' was the first thing she could think of when she evaluated the meeting. The girl–Lisa she remembered, correcting herself, had spent the last ninety minutes sitting next to her while she was taking a nap. 'Good first impressions there,' she thought. At the very least she could rest assuredly on the fact that she was a quiet sleeper. She didn't speak in her sleep, and neither did she snore, a blessing really. Taking naps during class was hard enough as it was, some teachers got a kick out of it waking students up when they didn't expect it, but she had been saved from that for now.

Packing her bag and swinging it across her shoulders she got up out of her seat. Lisa had done the same a couple of moments prior. She stood there not really waiting for anybody, but also still there. It was a juxtaposition that didn't really make any sense, but then there was that smile again like she knew something I didn't.

"Ready to go?'" she asked.

I stared blankly out of my eyes, 'why had she asked if I was ready to go, she had only been here for one lesson, how did she know where I was gonna go?' I wondered. "How do you know where I'm going," I asked warily, not wanting to spook her off, it was nice to talk to someone here that didn't have it out for me, she realised. 'Let's not mess that up too quickly.'

"You forgot to close your bag and when I glanced at it I could see your schedule, when I compared it to mine I could see it was nearly identical," she said, offering me an apologetic look. So she had just seen my schedule, nothing to be too wary of she realised. She just wanted someone to take her to the next class she reasoned.

"Mind if I hop along," Lisa asked her, as she threw her bag around her shoulder. It seemed light, very light. If she didn't know better herself carrying around most of her books with her she could have sworn that there was no weight in there at all.

"No, not at all," she quickly responded as her own bag settled on her shoulders, her figure shortened a couple of inches because of the weight that was now being carried. It was not how she had imagined her days to be going now if she would have been asked a couple of years ago, but she bared the way her life was now for now. She could always pretend it was strengthening her legs and upper body with all the weight it carried.

Leading Lisa out of the classroom they walked alongside each other, the halls were filled with students, all of them excited to be anywhere but the classrooms. A tsunami of sound flooded their ears as they got past the doorway. Almost without thinking Taylor reached out before she stopped herself. It would be weird she reasoned, and now there was one person that didn't hate her or had a subtle dislike towards her, she wanted to keep them around for now.

The way towards their next classroom was not worthy of much note, they made their way through the masses along the western end of the building. There a staircase was taken up a couple of floors till they reached the last floor that was used exclusively for classrooms. Above them where the offices and labs, it had been deemed the safest, not only for the students but also the staff.

Entering the classroom she looked around the room, wanting to locate them before they did the reverse. If she could see them sitting somewhere it meant that they didn't have the drop on her. Today she had been lucky, they were sitting on the far corner of the room huddles together. It didn't seem that they had seen her or they had but didn't think it required action from their side. Taking a couple of steps further in she took a seat close to the exit. Lisa followed her, taking a seat that was again to her left.

The class was calm, uncharacteristically for it. On a couple of occasions, they looked over but hesitated and eventually broke of whatever they might have had planned. It still was nice to just be able to follow the lessons though, she even didn't mind it when she was called on when the teacher had asked her a question. If she hadn't been here before, although, in different circumstances, she would have just relaxed into the seat and just sat back. But for now her walls would stay up, or at least as up as she could get them with a person that she had not only seen on her morning runs from time to time for over a couple of months now, but also one that had watched over her as she took a nap in her first class.

But now, now she was about to go back to routine. The lunch break was approaching and she started packing her bag again. She got up as quick as she could and left the classroom, leaving everyone in her wake, them, Lisa, the others. No-one was in the hallways now, she had beaten them by a couple of seconds, now she just had to make it to a bathroom before they could follow her.

Arriving at the stairs she looked at them for a moment before she walked up to them if memory served her right only a couple of classes wherein the labs upstairs, meaning that fewer people would be up there. She would be able to get to some empty toilets at least. Walking into the first set on the right side of the hallway. When she got there she noticed that one of the stalls was locked, not because it was occupied but because maintenance was not budgeted for this year, stuff that broke now would stay like that till there was a budget to fix it later. Entering the stall alongside the wall that blocked a full view of the bathroom from the outside, she made sure the seat cover was down.

Taking her backpack off, and taking a seat on the toilet folding her legs up. Making sure that if someone would walk in they couldn't identify her by her shoes, which honestly even for her seemed to be a lot but it had happened once. She wasn't all that keen on it happening again so since then she had sat cross-legged on the seat cover with her bag in her lap. Pulling out her lunch she had made earlier on that morning, some cheese and butter. It was a functional meal for her, it would give her the energy to carry her through the rest of the day and probably the evening till her day got home again.

As she made work of her prepared meal she could hear a couple of students walking past the toilets, they didn't seem to be entering so she relaxed a little. They were probably making their way to the basement where the lunchroom was set up. The space also doubled as an emergency shelter in case of flood or a more serious situation. She finished up and took a look on her watch, she still had about forty minutes left till she was expected to arrive for her next lesson, taking a tick red book from her backpack she flicked through it till she found the bookmark I had left in it.

' Lawn as white as driven snow
Cyprus blck as e'er was crow
Gloves as sweet as demask roses
Masks for faces….'

She continued reading it for a while till an alarm on her watch indicated that it was about five minutes left before her next class, if all went well she could have got off scot-free today, no bullying from them, no interruptions during her nap earlier. All in all, she couldn't have asked for a better day if she had been honest. A pretty low bar if she was being honest, but it was true, a day without harassment, being left alone was a good day.

The fact that Lisa was around was a new factor in her routine, but she decided, she wasn't not welcome in it. As far as she could tell Lisa was nice, she was not one of the normal people who attended the school. If she had to compare it to anything, from what she had seen today and during her runs all of the last couple of months, she could do it with the Cheshire cat or at least a sane version of it. Which was maybe a strange caricature to relate her to but it also kinda fit too.

As she walked along the hallway, joining the stream of students who were all walking toward their classes. She knew that if she just left ten minutes earlier she could avoid this whole debacle with quite a lot of ease. But there was always the threat of them that prevented her from leaving earlier out of the bathroom. Now she was at least sure that if they found her in the crowd she might be able to duck out of the way.

Today was one of those days it seemed, in the distance, she could see Sophie standing on the higher end of the hallway, there were a couple of stairs leading up to a platform that gave the people standing on it a superior vision over the area, she should have something was up when she felt someone pull on her arm away from the hallway into a small out cove from where she was no longer visible to the general public. The students that passed by didn't pay much attention to them and at closer inspection of her location she could make out that they were standing in one of the many emergency exits of this building.

"Hi," Lisa offered as she put her back to the wall, it was a strange juxtaposition, her stance was one that belonged to a person that was very sure of their position in this world, but her face and tone of voice showed a girl that was a bit shy around new people. She wasn't completely sure how to deal with that. It was like she was walking around with all the confidence in the world but sometimes she would remember that she needed to be shy? Like it hadn't really settled with her what Lisa was on about but she did seem to care at least a bit about what was going on with her.

"Hi," she said back, finding it a bit lame but also at a loss of words for what she might be able to say in its place. She looked down at her watch and then toward the steady stream of students that still managed to fill the hallway.

"So, I noticed that that person that is standing up there is not the best of friends of yours?" She asked it but it was more of a rhetorical question really, yes that person was not a friend of hers, she was about as far away from a friend as you could have the thought as she looked down on her watch again.

"Twelve fifty-seven ten," Lisa said, giving her a bunch of numbers that didn't seem to be making any sense.

"What?" she asked.

"If you leave by then you should still be making it to your class on time, it will be a bit scanty on time but you'll make it," she then further explained. Her watch read twelve fifty-six forty-nine when she last looked. She had some twenty seconds before she needed to leave again if she chose to believe what Lisa had told her. So far she had no reason to not believe her so she stood there back to the wall, looking up at the ceiling. She knew there would be a couple of insects there, she didn't know exactly which ones but them being there was comforting in its own way.

"Five seconds left," Lisa announced as she got up from her spot and joined the stream of students. Leaving her behind for a moment, she counted to four before also joining the mass of bodies that made up the stragglers and slowpokes of the school. She tried to make her way through it but progress was slow, where she could, she squeezed her way through. As by a miracle did she make her way to her class and right as she walked it the bell rung to signify the start of the lesson.

Looking around for a spare seat she found one in the back corner with the window, it was quite peculiar if she was being honest. This seat was the trifecta of being ignored in class, having a view and being able to make a quick exit. As she sat down she noticed someone left a note on the windowsill, she looked around if anyone was looking for it but that was a bit absurd as it was just a piece of paper that was laying there. It was not significant for the small detail it was addressed to her.

' Hey, I really like hanging out with you
Want to do it some more sometime.
Text me at ###-###-####

Lisa'

She wasn't sure what had just happened but someone that didn't know her, or at least hadn't spoken to her before today wanted to hang out with her? Why, what did she brings to the table? All these were questions that she focused on for a long time, even when the lesson had started. She was at least safe from that, she hadn't been called on once and when it was time to get up and leave the premises, Taylor realised that she hadn't seen Lisa since their meeting in the alcove in the hall. Where had she gotten herself too? She asked herself as she prepared to leave. And how had she managed to put the note on the window sill?

She was still pondering over those questions when the bus to take her home had arrived. Getting in she quickly made her way to the middle of the bus to a pair of seats that hadn't been taken yet. Sitting with her back in the corner where the side of the bus and the back of the seat met, she looked back over her day. It had been a less than normal one, her routines as they had stood for the past year and a bit were shaken up. Not a whole lot mind you, but enough that she was now doing things slightly differently.

The note came back to mind, she still wondered somewhere in the back of her mind how it had gotten there. Lisa had only had a twenty-second headstart on her, managed to write, place it there and leave the classroom afterwards. If she lived in a different place she would probably have a lot more questions, but this was Brockton Bay, the place where the cape population was one of the highest in the whole country. Last she had checked they had entered the top ten of cities with proportional cape population.

So it was not the most unlikely thing that maybe Lisa was one, even with the odds being so low, they were still significantly higher than elsewhere. There had been no explanation yet why it was the cape capital, but on occasion, it worked out in their favour. When other funding to the city had been seized because of a shifting economy, the influx of protectorate money had created a new cornerstone of funding in the city. Combine that with the villain teams that paid their minions for their services, it wasn't a bad gig, as long as the heroes didn't come in to blow it up you could generally get a decent paycheck out of it.

The bus stopped when her mind was wondering about the ins and outs of the villain financial systems. Leaving the bus a couple of stops before where she lived gave her the opportunity to jog the last part home. It might not be the best idea to do that with a backpack that was about half as heavy as she was but so far it hadn't been a massive problem for her. She saw the bus leave down the street before it made a turn to the right. It gave her the opportunity to secure the bag and start herself out on a steady jog. She knew that it would be like five to six minutes.

Arriving home she went through the backdoor, picking up the key from underneath the loose brick in the stairs. Well, where there used to be a stair, it had been broken for a while now and it had become a normal thing that they, her dad and her; would just jump over it. Turning the key and opening the door she placed it back for the next day.

Entering the house she was greeted by the silence that hung in there, she knew for a fact that there wasn't another living person in here, her bugs told her that much at least. Dropping her bag on the seat closes to the door she came in. she raised her shoulders a couple of times to get the stiffness out of them. There were few things as bad as being sore from carrying her bag around all day, not that she had little choice in the matter.

Opening the refrigerator she took one of the small puddings that her dad would buy on occasion, she liked eating them a whole bunch more than she'd like to admit. In all honesty, they were made for children but that didn't stop her now. Spoon in hand she took off the lid and started eating it. Still as good as she remembered it, she thought as she finished it. Disregarding the packaging in the trash she opened the fridge again, now looking for what she might be able to make for dinner later on.

She found some stuff that could be used in the creation of some pasta sauce. Checking the pantry she found some pasta to cook along with that. It was settled then, she'd make that. Leaving the ingredients where they were, as it was still far too early to get started on that yet, she made her way to her room.

Walking in she opened a drawer in her desk, it was kinda stuck but if you lifted it just right you could get it out of its place. Inside the drawer, she kept the stuff she didn't want her dad to know about. He respected her privacy and rarely entered her room when she wasn't there but it was still a precaution on her part. Taking the cellphone out of it, she put the battery back in place. It had been the safest way to keep it she had found out. Even when she didn't use it often somehow someplace that tried selling things over the phone had gotten a hold of her number. When they called she had almost gotten caught with it, since then it had been laying in her drawer with its battery being disconnected.

Waiting for it to start up again she took the note that Lisa had left her back in her hand. She'd like to hang out with her. It was something she hadn't done in a long time. The last time she had done something like that, Emma had been the last person that she had formally hung out with.

Emma, thinking back to those days dampened her mood a bit. She still was a bit disappointed how that entire situation had turned out, but nothing she could do anything about she reasoned, there had been tears over this before and she wasn't about to do those over now.

Sitting on her bed she saw the screen light up. Her phone was ready to be used. It didn't take long before the backlog of messages flooded in, a whole string of voicemails from unknown numbers, a couple of presses on the buttons cleared those out. Going into her messages she saw that even here there had been people sending her stuff, but these were again mostly from unknown numbers. skimming through these she was relieved. They didn't seem to have found out what her number was. It had been something she was pretty persistent about, keeping that number on the down-low.

Tapping in Lisa's number she waited for a second before she did anything else. She had entered her name and signified that it was a mobile phone she would be reaching with the number. Her fingers hung over the keys as she thought about what she might send, there were a couple of options.

Not wanting to deal with any of those at the moment she switched the phone to silent and put it under her pillow. It would be out of sight if her dad got off work earlier and in the case that it didn't want to be silent like it had been told the pillow would muffle the sounds that it made. But even then she would have to be quick, it had the reputation of becoming quite loud. There might be an option somewhere in the phone to turn that off but she hadn't found it yet.

Making her way back to her desk she switched on the laptop, it opened to the login screen. She might trust her dad, but that didn't mean that she didn't want to make it as easy as possible for him to go through her stuff. Quickly typing in her username and password the desktop came into view. It showed no icons as she didn't want others to be able to look at any information when she was not paying attention to her laptop. Pulling up a web browser, she clicked the bookmark that linked her to the parahumans online website, she did a quick search for recent additions to the wiki. It had become a part of her routine now, it was comforting to get to know the ins and outs of what was going on in the world of capes.

Seeing the myriad of results she started applying a couple of filters, first removing all posts that didn't have any tags. This took about a third of the posts out of consideration, they all went up into smoke or as close as you could relate it to a search option. There was still about five pages of results, which was even for a boring evening a lot for her to got through. But they were getting closer, as she typed out the next filter option the results shrunk to a more manageable amount, 'location: Brockton Bay,' there was now only twenty new messages that she hadn't seen yet.

A few mentions from the villain teams that were active in the area. She saw that a couple of them had attempted to rob a bank, but that didn't seem to have gone all that well. Miss Militia had shown up and stopped them in their tracts. There had been a couple of civilian casualties but none of them had been fatal. Just some broken bones and bruised limbs. Most of the posts where observations from that event, the eyewitnesses gave reasonable assessments of what had happened. The fact that ten people described the event gave her at least a pretty good view of what happened if you cross-checked all the facts.

The robbery that happened was just the standard one that happened more often in the city than others might like to say. You get a person that can enact some kind of projection and have them make something appear out of thin air. Then a flyer would go overtop the barrier and land behind the people who are distracted by what they saw. Then they would be knocked out with whatever means the flyer had on hand. While the villains hadn't been able to rob a bank like that for over a year they still tried doing it like that. She wasn't sure that they even had understood that teams that did this most of the time didn't appear in the streets again.

Closing her the browser, she opened her music library and started to play her home playlist. As she didn't have a phone there were a few moments that she could listen to her music now. She could have turned on the radio but she wasn't in the mood for songs that got interrupted every couple of minutes with news on the cape situations happening around town. No, she wanted to listen to music, and she would prefer it if nothing came between that. Checking the clock on the wall as she walked past with her laptop and charger in hand showed that it was barely past four. It would be a while before her dad would join her at home again. He might be done at six thirty, but since the derry wasn't running there was no way for him to get home sooner than eight.

Knowing this she pulled the books out of her bag, they made a soft thud when she dropped them on the table. She hadn't gotten any homework today, at least not in class. A short search on the school website confirmed her suspicion. No new homework. Sometimes she enjoyed her days at home. The school hours sucked most of the time so home was where she really could decompress. As the second song started, a notification came in from her laptop, an email had arrived in her mailbox. A curious feat as she had only set up the account last weekend and it hadn't been used in any place as far as she was aware.

Tapping the icon that had sprung up from the side of the screen it opened her inbox. It was still empty as she had had it exempt from a single email that was sitting at the top of the screen. Opening it she read the subject that had been put in there.

'To: .extra

From: noneofyourbusiness

Subject: Didn't realise there was no phone

---

So, didn't realise you didn't have a phone, my bad there. Still, I'd like you to stay in touch. I'm gonna be sending you a phone, should be there tomorrow.

- L

Tayler stared at her screen for a couple of seconds before she reacted to what had been put before her on the screen. 'How had she…,' she thought as she reread the email a second time. The question came back to her. How had Lisa managed to figure out what her email address was? She had only just changed it and all the sites that she visited didn't require her to put in one to view the forums. Or at least the forums she liked to visit, the others did require a login, but her old email would work well enough for that.

As she was pondering on and on about the ways that Lisa might have gotten her email, a second ping came from her laptop. This time it is a was a tracking email from a shipping company. As she clicked it open it showed a marker on a map that was moving along the roads not that far from where she lived. As she read the block of text above the message she could see that a certain L had ordered a phone for her.

As she clicked on the map to make sure that it was indeed leading to her house there was a knock on the door. That was not that usual for here, people really just kept to themselves. The few times they had been in a spot where asking the neighbours had been an option they would call friends rather than depend on the community. Even as she had lived here for the better part of her life she still didn't know the name of the family that lived next door. Not that she minded that very much, the distance kept things just out of arm's reach, they didn't have to pay much attention to anyone and if you kept to yourself you'd be left alone. It was a pretty good system.

As she walked up to the front door, remembering to take the key with her–it was a different one from the backdoor as the two doors weren't installed at the same time. As she put it in she noticed that it gave a bit of resistance against the key as it slid into the lock, something she'd have to grease later. The mental note was made as she saw a guy in an overall standing on their porch.

"Taylor Hebert?" he asked looking at his clipboard.

"That's me."

"Here you go," he said as he reached out with a package. "If you could just sign for it I'll be on my way," was said as he reached out the clipboard.

Reaching out to the pen that was dangling of the board she quickly signed next to her name, "there you go," she felt the need to announce.

The driver didn't seem to carry that sentiment with him it seemed as he was already halfway down the driveway. A short wave from the board was all she got out of it. She stood in the doorway for a little bit, watching him get in his van and drive off. When it had finally disappeared from view turning around a corner. Turning around to walk back in she caught a couple of glances from behind curtains.

The door fell close behind her, she didn't bother locking it at the moment. You'd need a key from the outside anyway so no-one could come in that way anyway. There was also the low crime rate in the area, despite the living standards it was pretty nice to live down here. As they were also connected to the power and water lines that ran to the more prosperous areas of Brockton Bay, the place where the people that had gotten rich out of the change in economic direction. There lived the amalgamation of old and new money. It was noticeable when you walked there from the boardwalk.

The lavish shops that were all present down there turned to several rows of houses that looked like they had been put there when the housing boom of the fifties was reaching its absolute height. Now they bungalows looked like the sad buildings they actually were. As she passed those, there was a strip of land that had been intended for development but ultimately had been left as is, just some dunes with a couple of provisional roads running through it. You get to the area where she lived then, a more rundown part of town she had to admit but the houses had been there since they started digging for coal, this meant that when they were building, the owners could afford to spend some money. It was how her dad and mom had been able to buy a two story house for a reasonable price. But as soon as you'd walked past them the really nice houses would come into view. Here it wasn't all that strange to see two or more sports cars in peoples driveways. The mansions themselves where also a sign of people not knowing exactly how to spend their money. They were all kinda like cartoon mansions, but real. It was difficult to grasp what exactly they looked like but that was the metaphor Taylor used whenever she was asked to point people in that direction.

Putting the key back in its place, she put the package down on the table next to her laptop. From its speakers, she could hear a familiar bassline before she paused the track. She wanted to focus on whatever was inside the brown box. The eerie silence that fell after though was not something she was the biggest fan of. Moving past that quickly, she reached out for a kitchen knife that was in one of the drawers to her left. Cutting through the tape that was put over the lid to secure it she opened it up. She could first only see a bit of bubble wrap that would have been used to protect the product inside.

Pulling the bubble wrap out of the way she could reach in to retrieve the product that had been delivered at her home. A ping from before her let her know another email was arriving in her inbox, as she glanced up she saw the subject, 'package delivered at…' so that was that then, she thought as she pulled out the white box. There was no brand name to be found anywhere on it.

This was all in all not that strange, there was a tradition of sorts that the off-brand products used bland packaging. No name, brand or information on the outside of the box. This had ironically been adopted by expensive brands as well. They minimalism that had been introduced years ago as a design choice had now extended to the most extreme version of the original intent. Now they sold bland white boxes that contained the phones they sold. You couldn't predict if a box like that was one with an off-brand phone or one of the high-end ones.

For a moment she wondered which of the two Lisa had decided to send her. The message didn't mention it and the delivery mail also seemed to be without that piece of in information. The quickest way of getting to that was to open up the box, she realised. But as with everything in the last couple of years, she had become careful, looking in the bigger box for a receipt inside of it. Feeling around she managed to grab a small piece of paper that was included inside. Looking it over she wasn't sure which of the two was inside of the box now, it was a phone that much she was sure of but as all the brand names weren't ones she recognised it seemed likely that it was off-brand.

Looking back to the bland white box she reached out with the knife again, slicing the second piece of tape that was keeping her from opening it up. Unpacking she was still left in the dark about the nature of the phone, it looked like the last generation phone's it didn't have any buttons visible and there wasn't a single port to be discovered on it except the 3.5 mm jack on the top. There must be a thinker battery inside of the piece of technology, designed to not run out and powered with physics breaking manners.

As she took it in her hand the screen lit up, a startup sequence started. The progress bar gave her a very positive outlook with it's ten minutes that it predicted it would take, it would take longer Taylor thought as she put the phone down again. There would be more than enough time to go through the fridge to see what their dinner later would be. As she opened it up and made the mental list of what she could see. They still had some pasta sauce left over from last night, if she checked for pasta their meal would be one of the more easy ones to make.

While she looked for the pasta the phone gave of a ping, it was just so sudden in the silent kitchen that she dropped the bag with pasta she had found out of her hands. It burst open and the contents spread out over the floor. Looking over she saw that the screen had lit up. There was a message that was prompting her to enter something.

Deciding that she could clean up the pasta later, it was stored dry so it wasn't that big a deal that it was now laying in the floor. She picked up the phone and entered her name as it had asked, skipping over the next couple of questions for last name, previous phone number and credit information. She knew that all those were put in there for the convenience of the user but she didn't want to enter that into a database somewhere. She'd rather be inconvenienced than risking her information getting out there.

Finishing up, she started to gather the pasta back in its bag. The entire area where they lived might be a bit broken down over time but the kitchen had been kept spotless. After her mom died the house fell a bit into disrepair, not all of the pieces had been repaired or cleaned up properly for a while but she had taken it upon herself to keep the place where they ate food spotless. So far it had been just like that, any mess that was made was cleaned up as soon as she could. One could eat off the floor if they wanted to probably, so when she picked up the pasta and put it in the bag she was sure that it wasn't even dusty.

Looking at the clock she decided that if she started getting the food ready in a couple of hours it would still give her plenty of time to get it ready. Putting the bag on the counter for later she left the kitchen. Even though she hadn't gotten any homework there were still a couple of things that she would like to have finished rather earlier than later. One of those things was a project that she was building in the basement. It was nice and out of the way, away from the prying eyes that her dad could have about her activities down there.

As she entered the basement she was reminded of the first time she had been down here since her dad had lost his job in the economic crisis a couple of years back. It had been dusty, it smelled stale and everything seemed to be attached to its place with a sort of permanence. She had walked in and picked up a hammer that had been placed on his workbench. It left behind a clear indent in the dust that had been sitting on it for a while.

Cleaning out the room had been a process that had taken her a couple of days, she had done it mostly after school before her dad got home again. She didn't want him finding out that she was cleaning it out. He hadn't gone in there for all those years and she would like to keep it like that. When she eventually got it back to a place where people could work in she had spent some time thinking. The thoughts came back to the plans she had laid out for her future, the way to becoming a hero. She had been planning it for a while now, making notes and learning things. She had taken a course on first aid a bit ago with the city and had been able to be certified for it.

Feeling underneath the workbench she grabbed the bag that she had taped to the underside. Her dad might never enter, but she couldn't be safe enough. Keeping her stuff secret was a priority. Opening up the bag she pulled out the starting parts of the suit she had been making with the help of the spiders she kept around the area. Looking it over she saw that progress had been good, yesterday had been a bit chaotic so she had let them go for a while with a simple set of instructions. Looking at it now she saw that it had been fine, the sleeve had been finished to the best of her instructions.

She picked it up as it wasn't attached to the rest of the bodysuit, she needed to test the fittings on all the pieces before they were stuck together. It had cost her a lot of time when the noticed an earlier part was a bit off in sizing. It had taken her a pair of bolt cutters and a couple of afternoons to cut it off the suit again. But she had learned her lesson now, fit before you attach it to the suit.

Sliding it over her arm she was pleasantly surprised that it was a nice fit, of the few places where she had told them to leave space, in case they needed to make it a bit bigger, were in the end not needed. She placed it on the bench and started to gather the widows to her location. They had been living in a degree of luxury, Brockton Bay had been proven to be the ideal location for them to live. The black widow spider population had sprung to a new high since she had started to influence them. Their silk had been proven to be among the strongest in the world. Only a couple of other spiders could make stronger stuff but they didn't like the environment in which she lived. It would be far too much effort on her part to keep them alive, where the black widows were already able to live comfortable.

The documentary on the topic of organic alternatives for common materials spider string had come up. It had been proven to be stronger than conventional steel. Her tests on the fabric that she had been producing supported the documentary. Everything she could get away with in the basement from crushing to stabbing had shown to be of little effect. Even when she tried to set it on fire it was just fire retardant, melting a bit here and there but overall it held the shape it had.

Putting down a kitchen timer she set it to two hours. As she placed it on a box in the corner of the room, the spiders started to enter the room. An outsider looking in might have been concerned as the floor suddenly featured a myriad of black spiders with a red mark on the back of their bodies. Taylor stood still, not out of fear but more observing what was going on with the spiders. She directed them to the sleeve that was laying on the workbench and gave them the simple task of stitching the parts together and closing the gaps that had been left intentionally in case it was too tight a fit.

With her instructions given and her spiders at work, she was left with two-ish hours before she needed to start preparing food. She pulled her sweater off and started the last of her daily routines, a workout that helped her in the places that didn't get used in her unusual life. By now she could see that certain places had become more defined than others. Looking in a mirror she had been able to see the progress and she had been happy with it. Her plan had set out a schedule and at the moment she was a bit ahead of the curve.

The time passed by as she did her workout and the spiders finished up the costume changes. When they finished up she told them to go back to where they kept their habitats. Slipping into the mostly unfinished costume she moved her arm around. As it was encased in the new sleeve it felt a bit strange, but she would get used to it in time. Moving it from back to front and up and down, going through the motions she didn't feel limited in her range. A big plus in her books. Agility would be incredibly important to her in the future.

Keeping her eye on the timer she put the costume parts back in the bad and taping it back to the underside of the workbench. As it went off she quickly stopped the alarm and ascended back to the ground floor of the house. It was still very much an empty house, this was by the bugs that had been spread around in the house and around it. Not a soul was closer by than the neighbours. She grabbed one of the pots that had been stored in the cabinet underneath the stove. As she filled it with hot water she made a note of how long she would have to heat up the sauce. If she just popped it into the microwave it would only take about two minutes at most. Turning on the stove and seeing that the water was quickly heating up she grabbed the bag of pasta closer by, ready to be thrown in the water.

Looking over to where she had left her laptop on the table she decided to play some more music, cooking asked for a more energetic theme. Putting her hype hype playlist on, the speakers started blaring the opening tones, "I can move mountains…"

Setting a couple of plates on the table as she finished up the meal as the clock passed eight. Her dad would be home soon, he'd managed to arrive between five past and twenty past. He had managed to do that for the past few years. It all seemed to depend on what event was happening on the far side of the bay. She wasn't aware of anything happening there today so it would not take all that long before he would be here. As she took a moment, letting her critters feel and see the people in the area she saw her dad getting off the bus.

Looking at the kitchen it looked still unblemished apart from the stove where a pot was damping there. The steam was still rising from there but it was mostly dispersed. In the end, there was not a lot of mess made. Everything seemed to be fine, seemed to be. There was a thing out of place there, looking it over again she noticed the phone that she had received earlier on.

That was not great, there wasn't supposed to be a phone in the house, it wasn't exactly a rule but after their mom had passed on her dad had thrown his phone away and refused to get a new one. When Taylor had gotten to the age were others around her had started to get one he hadn't mentioned or made any notion of getting her one. At the moment she had found it rather annoying but she got it. It had been the direct cause of her mom's death.

Walking over as her dad turned the corner on their street she had plenty of time to take the phone and dump it in one of the several drawers in her desk that she wasn't using. For the moment that would have to do. She made her way back to the kitchen was her dad walked in. he seemed to be tired, a long day she surmised.

"Hey dad," she greeted him.

"Hey kiddo, what we having?" he asked as he put his coat on the seat before pulling out from under the table. It wasn't really a question, he could clearly see the pot of pasta sitting on the table in front of them. There wasn't much conversation after that. Her dad didn't speak about his job and she refrained from telling him about school. It wasn't the best way of going about it, but it kept the spirit of the safe heaven alive. It was her sanctuary and she would do almost anything to keep it from being invaded with the stuff she went through during the day.

Finishing up the meal her dad cleaned up, another unspoken rule that had been established a bit ago. She made the meals and he made sure the washing up got done. Taking her laptop back to her room, she closed the door. Putting up a physical barrier, it was more the fact that she was more at ease when she was alone than anything else. She liked her dad, but she had been stressing a lot more around him since he had asked about the event again. She wasn't ready to talk about it so she had decided to just avoid the topic by avoiding him in the process.

She might as well turn in for the night she thought putting her laptop back on the desk and turning off the lights that were still on in her room. Slipping out of her clothing and into her bed she closed her eyes and with a last moment of awareness, she gave the whole area to keep guard.

Opening her eyes again she looked up to the ceiling overhead, a familiar couple of spiders were standing on one side. As soon as she opened her eyes they started to make their way over to the other side of the room. She had about five minutes before they got to the other side. It wouldn't mean anything if they did but it was nice to keep track of such things.

Closing her eyes again she stretched her arms out for a moment. They still were heavy with sleep but being moved around woke them up quick. It was colder in the room than it was under the blankets, a truly cruel faith that had been stuck upon her. Getting over herself she took a breath and then moved the duvet off the bed and swung her legs over the edge. They touched the cold wooden floor and she shivered a bit.

She needed to get some clothes on and fast she realised. Moving across her room to the organised mess that was her clothing pile she pulled out the jogging and vest that she wanted to wear. It was one of her older ones but that didn't matter all that much. It would only have to do its job of keeping her warm till she herself had gotten warm enough to open it up.

Her socks were kept in a basket that she had filled last week, picking out a pair that still seemed to be similar enough that if they weren't anyone would notice. Slipping on her running shoes to complete the outfit she made her way to the door of her room when a buzz interrupted the silence and peace in the house.

It didn't buzz a second time but she knew exactly where it was coming from. Moving over to the drawer in her desk where she had dropped the phone in she saw it was now lit up. A single name was displayed on the screen,

'Lisa,
….'

Unlocking the phone she read over the message and took a moment to interpret what was said in it. Slipping the phone in her pocket and closing it with a zipper to make sure it was secure. The message had been clear, make your way to the boardwalk, see you there.

As she left the house she wondered what Lisa wanted with her.

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