Contagion 1.02
I was surprised by the state of the Hess family house. It was even more run-down than my home had become, a little three-bedroom hovel that seemed to proudly display its lack of upkeep. I knew Sophia lived with her mom so I couldn't just break the door down without risking her calling the cops; of course, I didn't need a key to slip inside.
Sophia's shorter legs carried me across the cracked asphalt and broken sidewalk, up to the front door where I stooped down to check for openings. Sure enough, there was a lack of weather stripping in one corner, enough to let water or some little bugs in. Or a parahuman. I liquefied my body and slithered through before reforming and making certain I was still wearing Sophia's face. I'd been the target of her hate for long enough that I knew most of her mannerisms: if her mother was up and about, I was reasonably sure I could pass as the bitch long enough to get to Sophia's room.
Mom had been an English teacher at Brockton U, and had been fascinated with etymology – the study of word origins. Because of this, I knew that Sophia came from the Greek for "wisdom." While this seemed extremely inappropriate, further research presented the sophists, people who pretended to be intelligent by spouting confusing nonsense and lording their supposed brilliance over the unwashed masses. That reminded me more of Sophia, ranting her bullshit about the natural order of things, predator and prey, yadda-yadda-yadda. Sophists pretended to understand the concepts they espoused; I was going to teach Sophia the true meaning of predation.
My eyes adjusted to the darkness and I looked around the living room. It was sparsely furnished with only an old couch that looked to be made from carpet, a plywood coffee table with faux-mahogany finish, and a little TV set up on the box it'd came in. More of interest, however, were the more valuable-looking knickknacks. Unless the Hess family was wasting its income on pricy hunks of shit rather than upkeep of their home, I was willing to bet these were gifts from Emma. The Barnes family was well-off, that was a commonly known fact, but they'd gotten that way by being miserly. During my entire friendship with Emma, she'd only even offered to buy me a handful of things and I'd turned her down most times out of a sense of self-sufficiency. There had to be more tchotchkes here than I'd ever been offered, and they'd only been friends for what, two years? Sophia didn't strike me as the type to accept gifts, seeing it as charity...unless she saw it as tribute, kick-ups from fiefdoms to the queen. The thought made me sick to my stomach, though that was really a phantom sensation as I was fairly sure I no longer had human internal organs.
I didn't bother trying Sophia's doorknob, certain someone like her would have it locked. Instead I once again oozed under the door and reassembled myself. Hess' room was better furnished than the rest of the house, even a goddamn top-of-the-line laptop on her desk. I wanted to take it for myself, but I was sure there were ways of tracking it... Well, I said to myself, what if Sophia went to the local pawn shop and traded it in along with a few other things? It was a better idea. I didn't need a computer as much as Dad needed to not worry about bills. Some money coming in would be a big help.
Sophia slept flat on her back, her arms on top of the sheets despite the cold. With my strength, I could have crushed her skull before she awoke, but it wasn't about the kill itself. I needed her to understand why she was going to die, to see before the end that her actions have consequences.
"Hey there, sunshine," I crooned in Sophia's voice, the gentle greeting made cruel by my tone.
The evil bitch shook her head a little before her eyelids flickered. "Mm? Huh?" Apparently she was unused to being awoken by a relatively pleasant voice. I wasn't surprised; children are often shaped by their parents, after all. But Sophia was the one who took action and chose to hurt others. Her mother was only responsible to a certain degree, and I wasn't about to go on a massacre. This was about retribution, not animal savagery.
Sophia turned to look at me and blinked once or twice before realization dawned on her. She shucked the bedsheets faster than I had expected, as though it were a practiced action, and leapt to her feet. "Okay," she growled, "what's your fucking game? How did you find me?"
Interesting that she asked that before asking who I was. Did she already presume I was Taylor? "The phone book is a wonderful thing, Sophia," her face smirked at her.
That answer seemed to leave her confused. "How would you even – wait, Hebert!?" Her eyes snapped wide open now and I couldn't help the sinister grin that spread across my lips.
"My, my. You must have been one naughty girl if you couldn't even guess who was coming for revenge." I took a menacing step toward her. "So here's what's gonna happen: I suffered all of your violence, hatred and indignation, isolated and helpless. And I survived. Now you're going to suffer the same. And we'll see if you survive."
"Give me a break, Hebert. You're nothing but a worthless pile of shit. You even triggered and all you could manage was to look like me?" How does she know what a trigger event was? She was certainly no scholar. Sophia lashed out with a quick rabbit punch to my throat. Were I still human, that would have left me gagging for air and staggering back. As it stood, it hurt a tiny bit and jarred my body but Sophia was the one who staggered, shaking off her hand.
Hess' eyes hardened to a level of hatred I'd never seen before and she lunged forward before dropping into a slide, slipping between my legs. She grabbed my ankle as she twisted and stood up, pulling my leg out from under me. I hit the floor chin-first but just rolled with the blow, shifting onto my back so I could stand up facing her.
Then she reached through her closet door, her arm turning into a barely-cohesive cloud of black smoke. She retrieved a crossbow and I could see in the darkness how light glinted off the metal bolt.
I should have been angry. I should have launched into a berserker fury and destroyed the entire house and everyone in it. Instead, I chuckled. "So that's why. You're fucking Shadow Stalker. That's why the judge threw out our case, why Winslow dropped the ball more than usual." I shifted back to my normal form, Sophia's eyes widening in disgust as I did so. "Y'see, as a kid I always wanted to be a hero. Now that I know you're one, though, I think being a villain is the more moral path."
The moment I finished my sentence she snapped up her arm with the precision of a talented madwoman and fired a bolt right into my forehead. It hurt when it lodged in there, then just kind of itched. I grabbed the shaft and yanked it out of my skull. "Try again for the kewpie?"
I knew I could turn into liquid, but I'd never tried to aerosolize myself before. I knew that Sophia would run. She was a coward when it all came down to it. So, when she tried to phase through me – or through the wall – I'd shove myself into her cloud. I knew I could take the damage of another person's parts being lodged inside me. Sophie, on the other hand? I doubted it.
Instead of just phasing out and fleeing through the wall, Sophia made for the door, which meant she had to go through me. I clenched myself, trying to build up pressure, and when she lunged I detonated myself. Bits of red mist mingled with her smoke, carried with her through the door. I focused my consciousness into the pieces there, the rest of my essence acting on autopilot and slithering in pursuit. Sophia must not have had the same level of awareness regarding her body, because she didn't seem to realize that I'd hitched a ride. She reformed on the other side of her door, and when she became solid I found myself inside her body. I could feel it, just like I felt myself. More than that, however, I felt a deep, agonizing, to-the-bone hunger. I needed something, though I didn't understand what that something was. I felt certain that if I didn't get whatever it was, that I would die. I hadn't come this far to die now, so I let instinct take over.
Fingers of my essence shot through her body, grabbing and squeezing. Sophia fell to her knees and groaned in utter agony. I could feel her all-consuming pain, experience all of her senses at the same time I sensed myself spreading through her. The rest of my liquid form pooled at her feet and the fingers became tendrils, a deep visceral red so dark they were nearly black. I tore through her, consuming, gorging myself on a meal so heavenly it was like nothing I'd ever imagined. Even experiencing every second of her agony wasn't enough to put the slightest damper on the joy I felt.
Then I reached her brain, the only part of her that was truly valuable, the hive of secrets. Once I'd absorbed that, much more carefully than I'd been devouring her body, there was no need for care. In an instant Sophia's corpse ripped apart and fell in on itself, her body reassembling. Except it wasn't Sophia, not anymore. I tried to stand but my legs gave out and I slumped to the floor as a series of visions, memories from her life, flashed across my mind. Individual nodes, clusters of memories like stars in an empty galaxy. Tearing from one to another at such a pace that I could barely comprehend what I was experiencing, but as I raced, things began to piece together.
I had the bastard cornered. Drug pusher decides to come into my turf? I'd show him he couldn't start shit and expect not to get smacked down. I threw him against the fire escape railing. He was bigger and probably stronger than me, but my crossbow had bite. A couple bolts in him and he was in too much pain to fight back. "Think you can come in my house? Shit on my carpet and think you can get away with it?"
"Th–" The bastard spluttered, coughing out some blood from his busted lip and other mouth damage. "The fuck you talkin' about, bitch? I never did nothin' to you, and you don't look like no Ward."
"I don't like pushers on my turf!" I pushed him over the edge and grabbed him by the ankles. I'd dangle him for a bit, get him scared, then send him back to his bosses. With luck they'd kill him for being an idiot and the rest would know not to mess with me.
I couldn't hold him. I hadn't realized just how heavy a man could be. My grip broke and he landed on his neck. Oh well, I shrugged, turning away from the railing. Not like that scum really mattered...
(BREAK)
Shadow Stalker, that's what they'd taken to calling me. I liked it. The little pussies on PHO liked to talk shit about me, say how I was just a thug in a costume going after easy prey because I didn't want the heroes after me. Like those worthless fucks could do anything. They weren't cleaning up this city, weeding the weak from the strong. I jumped and phased, my Breaker form floating up until I could perch on a rooftop. A few ABB fucks were torturing a busty redhead. I'd wait to see if she was a fighter. If not, I'd let them finish her before taking them down. Nobody was there to say I hadn't arrived in time to do something, after all. The girl was whimpering, crying like a little bitch. But she fought back, even knowing she was outgunned. I smirked and fell off the building, taking down the slant-eyed shits.
That's how I met Emma Barnes, who helped make life so much easier. Even when the Protectorate caught me and took me down, thanks to Emma's dad I ended up only being pressganged into the Wards rather than being carted off to jail with the failures.
It took Emma's worthless little hanger-on so long to realize that trash like her wasn't wanted. Even the locker wasn't enough to chase her off. She and that putz father of hers actually tried suing the school. Alan managed to spin things and, with Emma's help, we made Hebert look like an unstable maniac who did it all to herself. Piggy didn't want to run the risk of exposing a Ward's identity and dragging the PRT through the mud, so she managed to silence the case somehow. And then Hebert finally stopped coming to school. With any luck, she'd kill herself soon.
(BREAK)
For all their power, the Protectorate were losers. They were so concerned with preserving peace that they wouldn't take action necessary to fix things, so worried about the filth in the streets that they wouldn't accept collateral damage. And on top of that, they were too afraid of getting hurt to put themselves at any real risk.
The Wards were even worse, a bunch of whiny little brats who all wanted to be friends and sing kumbayah or some bullshit. Thankfully, they disliked me just as much as I hated them, so I got a lot of chances to go on solo patrols. Got a lot of scum cleaned up, either trussed up for arrest or bleeding out in the gutters to no longer be a burden on the strong.
I reflexively gasped for air and had to fight in order to hold in a scream. I'd seen Sophia's thoughts, but moreover they were thoughts relevant to my own experiences. Had I somehow sought those out? Unconsciously searched for answers to questions I hadn't asked?
I rolled onto my back, still hyperventilating even though I'd been reasonably sure I no longer needed to breathe. I'd killed a person. Not only that, but I'd fucking eaten her. I'd become her and I realized I now held an encyclopedic knowledge of her mannerisms, everything I'd need to become her. Except... I thought, flexed my brain as best I could, but I couldn't activate her power. I guess that'd be too easy.
"Huh," I whispered upon finding that I was now in Sophia's nightclothes. Before, the only clothing I could manifest had been my own, and I had to be careful to overlay the clothing 'template' before changing or I'd end up naked. For that matter, Sophia's clothing was gone. Had I absorbed them along with her body?
I needed to focus. There were too many questions and if I kept asking then I'd get completely lost in my own mind. I'd killed Sophia. That was what I'd set out to do, but if I'd had any doubt that it was the right thing to do, those visions put it to rest. She was a broken human being, content to let innocent people suffer and die if they weren't 'strong enough'. If she weren't black she'd have made for a good Nazi. On the other hand, my own argument – the one I'd used to help justify my revenge – now tasted like ash in my mouth. If I claimed to be the next step in evolution, did that justify abandoning all of the supposedly inferior homo sapiens? My father was one, too: could I eventually leave him behind, even kill him?
No, I was better than that. Someone like Sophia, or someone who genuinely believed my evolution argument, wouldn't have stopped to save those men from the Empire. But I'd taken a life and, now that the shock was wearing off, I wasn't really upset about it. That kind of coldness was dangerous. I could find myself on the metaphorical slippery slope, fading into the same kind of hatred I'd just ended. I needed a goal and, from the last vision Sophia had so helpfully shared with me, it seemed I had one.
The Protectorate was hamstrung; its heroes couldn't use lethal force unless authorized, and had to work to keep the peace. Of course, that peace just meant slow decline and eventual death. You don't cure the plague by just lancing the boils and pretending it doesn't exist otherwise; you need to treat it at the source.
I could do what Sophia, in her own warped reality, believed herself to be doing: I could fix the city, heal it.
In order to do so, I had to remove the disease that festered within the lymphatic system of Brockton Bay. The gangs had to go.
I wasn't going to leave the Hess residence just yet; I was going to take my pound of flesh. Sophia owed me for all the pain, and her death wasn't enough. I wouldn't punish her family, at least not directly. But I'd certainly take some damages. That laptop was first on my list. Before pawning it, I'd see if she had anything worthwhile squirreled away on her hard drive.
The bedroom door was still locked, so I went to liquefy and slip under the door. This time, however, I felt another mental muscle ready to flex. I tried it and instead aerosolized myself once again. Now, though, Sophia's memories filled in the blanks. I understood how to direct my movements as a gas. I pushed myself around the doorframe and reformed.
I spared a glance at the closet. I'd need more of a wardrobe than just my one outfit and a set of pajamas. Sophia had a whole closet full of stylish stuff that she no longer needed.
For the first time in years, I felt that things might actually be looking up. I had purpose. I had the means to fight back against the universe's injustices. I would save my home, even from itself.