Hornet
I woke to the muffled sound of the radio in the bathroom. Reaching over to my alarm clock, I turned it around. 6:28. I groaned. Roughly forty five minutes had passed since the last time I had checked. Turns out a broken hand when you had a habit of turning in your sleep did not work out well. I was woken up periodically by the searing pain shooting up my arm.
I had my alarm set for six thirty, but I almost never needed it, because my dad was always in the shower at the same time. Routines defined us but just this once, there was nothing I wanted more than to sleep in. I raised my good hand and placed it on my shoulder. If I concentrated, it was as if I could still feel the warmth.
I laid in bed for a good five minutes before I forced myself to get up. My thigh muscle twinged and I knew a large mottled bruise was decorating my side. My hand had ballooned to twice it's size, the throbbing pain telling me quite clearly that I was going to have to face the music.
I didn't bother changing, just walked down to the kitchen sink to wash my face and then rooted around in the fridge for the orange juice. Screwing open the cap on the carton with only one hand was an ordeal, luckily I got the hang of pouring it into a plastic cup one handed pretty quickly. I was walking to the kitchen table when my dad came downstairs in his bathrobe.
My dad is not what you'd call an attractive man. Thin as a rail with a soft jawline, dark hair that was thinning to the point of being see through on a spot at the back of his head, big green eyes and glasses that magnified those eyes further. An ugly scar trailed across his right cheekbone, making it look sharp. As he entered the kitchen, he looked surprised to see me there. Then his eyes zoomed in on my hand before I could hide it, and his face darkened.
That was the way my dad always seemed to look these days: on the verge of losing his temper. That, and a little defeated.
"What happened?"
"Nightmare," I lied thickly. "I cracked it on the wall, or the bed post. It kept me up."
He bent over my hand and touched it gingerly. I couldn't quite keep the hiss of pain inaudible and he flinched back. "That looks broken." He looked up at me. "Nightmare? Was it..."
"I had to get out." That wasn't technically a lie, I really did need to go out but I knew how he would take it and the niggling feeling of guilt just kept squirming in my gut.
He smiled weakly and kissed the crown of my head. "Want me to call you in? I don't think you can write with it like that."
I nodded in relief. "Please? I'm going to have to get this looked at today, it's killing me."
"The insurance card is on the dresser." He took reluctant steps towards the fridge, like he was afraid if he took his eyes off me I'd break. "I could take today off to drive you there?"
"It's not that far away," I refused the offer and smiled. "Go to work, as long as I don't try to pick up anything I'm fine."
There was the slap of bacon hitting the frying pan. Silence descended and I sipped at my juice. The bacon was sizzling, and maybe burning, before he spoke again.
"You know Gerry?"
That name wasn't ringing any bells, but Dad's voice was a bit tight so I already knew it wasn't going to be good news.
"You met him once or twice when you've visited me at work. Big guy, burly, Black Irish?"
Oh.
"E88?"
"They roughed him up real good," Dad gritted as he rescued the bacon and added french toast to the pan. "His house was completely trashed, I was thinking getting some guys together to help clean it up."
My dad was part of the Dockworkers Association, as the Union spokesperson and head of hiring. With the state of the Docks being what they were, that meant my dad was pretty much in charge of telling everyone that there were no jobs to be had, day after day. Still, he had his contacts and was always looking for legal opportunities.
"Maybe he could move to the Docks," I ventured.
Dad scoffed. "Trade the E88 for ABB?"
"At least he wouldn't have to worry about hate crime then," I said a bit more sharply than I intended.
"Just everything else."
I sighed and bit into my french toast. My Dad and I had a strange relationship and with the whole school thing, it had only gotten stranger. He'd gotten the scar on his face in a minor blow up between the E88 and the ABB at the Docks, just a bunch of hot headed kids with powers or knuckledusters and he'd gotten tagged with a flying piece of rubble trying to drive them off.
He didn't want anything to do with any of the gangs and I knew he blamed the Protectorate just a little for letting it get this bad. I could see where he was coming from. Even after they absorbed half of New Wave, it never seemed like they had enough heroes to really do anything. I haven't told him about my powers because honestly, I wasn't sure how he'd take it. And I certainly wasn't going to tell him about meeting Lung mask to mask.
We lived close enough to the Docks to expect bi monthly visits for protection payments and afterwards every time, without fail, Dad had to go for a walk to cool off. If you followed the rules and stayed out of the heart of ABB territory, you were left alone. Mostly.
It'd been three years since Lung "claimed" the outskirts and Dad was still simmering.
"We're supposed to talk about how the powers thing has influenced our lives in class today." I said quietly.
"Look around," Dad retorted.
We ate in silence.
"You went out for a walk?" Dad said eventually.
I nodded.
"And there wasn't any...trouble?"
"No," I lied. The guilt sprouted legs and started crawling around at my father's concern for me. It was all the more intense because it was so justified. If Lung hadn't decided to get that dog off me, hell everything about Lung in general, if it had gone differently we probably wouldn't be having this conversation right now. "And I had the pepper spray just in case."
His face tightened. "If Kali had been wandering..."
"She wasn't. I'm fine," I nodded at my injured hand. "Except for you know, beating the crap out of myself in my sleep."
He let himself be defused, chuckling, and pointed his syrupy fork at me. "You get that taken care of, young lady."
"I hope I won't need a cast," I frowned. Going to school all taped up would smell like blood in the water and I had absolutely no desire to deal with that.
"You aren't planning to run, are you?"
"No." I gathered my plate and put it in the sink to run water over it. "Going to see if I can get some more sleep." I needed it. And after I saw a doctor, a trip to the library. I put my dishes in the beaten up old dishwasher and filled a plastic sandwich bag with some cold water for my hand. I bent down to give my dad a hug on my way back to my room.
"Taylor, have you been smoking?"
I shook my head.
"Your hair is, uh, burnt. At the ends, there."
I smiled weakly. Lung had been on fire when she knocked the dog off my back. "I dunno, maybe the stove?"
He didn't believe me judging from the look on his face. "Just...be careful, alright?"
"I will." I promised and I would. "I was thinking about hitting the library, get some studying done?"
"I expect you to be home before I am, kiddo."
I could work with that. "Hope today is better."
His answering smile was strained.
I tried not to think about how lost he looked when I collapsed on my bed. I put my hand on my stomach with the cold water bag on top of it. My clock read 6: 52. I sighed and closed my eyes.
When I had opened them again, 9:03.
The nap did nothing but make me feel even more tired, but the hot shower and a cup of coffee my dad had left in the pot woke me up a little. Even so, the fatigue did nothing to disguise how surreal today seemed. Just a matter of hours ago, I'd been in a life and death fight, saved the Undersiders, twice, survived meeting Lung and had even had a chat with Miss Militia. Now here I was, trudging to the nearest bus stop like it was a day like any other.
There were two people already there before me, both Asian but considering one of them was fussing over the elderly woman it felt safe to assume they weren't going to be trouble.
"Hello." I greeted as soon as I was in earshot. Never hurt to polite. I'd learned that last night.
The older woman smiled at me, clutching at a bamboo cane with a sequined purse hanging off her arm. She was wrapped in layers and had chin length hair that had streaks of gray running through it. She murmured something that might have been a hello, her younger companion just gave me a very terse nod. "Jing Wen," she introduced herself and then gave a smiling laugh, pointing at who I assumed was her daughter. "Noriko."
'Noriko' looked like she was somewhere in the mid twenties, maybe thirties if I pushed my estimate and quietly pretty if a bit intense. A small mole was at the end of her left eyebrow and her face was heart shaped. Not cute like Madison's, but thinner with a small mouth and large dark eyes. She wore her hair long and was also one of the few women I met who stood almost dead even with my height.
"Nice to meet you," I tried to say brightly. A yawn almost sabotaged it and Noriko quirked an eyebrow.
"Where?" Jing Wen said.
I waved my hand and she winced in sympathy. "Hospital."
We didn't have to wait long for the bus and I stayed back to make sure the woman with her cane got on. She and Noriko spoke quietly in...Korean? No, Chinese, I recognized some of those words I think. Kind of odd, I thought 'Noriko' was a Japanese name. Before I stepped on, Noriko gasped quietly.
"Your hair..."
My hand flew to the back of my head, terrified that the burnt ends were that easy to see. I was already beginning to regret not spending more time in the bathroom cleaning those up. "The stove," I repeated the lie I'd tried to feed my father. Her other eyebrow rose to join the first. I cringed and rushed up the stairs.
She didn't follow. The doors closed as I sat down and the bus pulled away from the curb.
I felt like I could still feel eyes on me.
If you looked at Brockton Bay as a patchwork of stellar and squalor, upper class and lower class with no middle ground, then downtown was one of the nice areas. The streets and sidewalks were wide, and that meant that even with skyscrapers in every other lot, there was a great deal of blue overhead. It was always busy, not quite to the point of never sleeping, but the streets were just beginning to fill up with people taking an early lunch break and the sides of the buildings were mostly free of gang markings.
I say mostly because there were a few Asian restaurants that depicted dragons on their signs, but they were different colors, green or gold, or just stylized letters and not something you could really prove. The city had gotten a small wave of immigration for, well obvious reasons I guessed, and in many ways it was like sitting at a table where someone kept moving your glass. You think you know exactly where it is, but it isn't until you reach for it, miss and blink that you realize things have changed.
My stomach growled as I came across a street vendor getting ready for the lunch rush and I dug into my pockets with my good hand. My injured one was in a sling and still numb from the anesthetic. The X – Ray at the ER had revealed a clean and slightly displaced break in two of my...metacarpals? He'd had to set it, thankfully with my hand already numbed up and I was under strict orders to not move it.
I wasn't exactly sure how eating a hot dog with mustard and relish one handed was going to go, but I was hungry enough to risk it.
I sat down on one of the street side benches with my plate.
I ate slowly, taking care not to get relish on myself and just thought about things. It was still hard to believe that last night had really happened. Which I supposed was the point. Escapism wasn't any use if you were always grounded in what was still waiting for you when you got up the next morning. In my case, that was school and after the dumpster, I would have rather clawed my own eyes out than go back.
I was determined not to let them win, but if I felt like I had to escape, I'd already lost.
I didn't like thinking like this.
I finished my hotdog and threw my plate away, scattering a kit of pigeons. The public library was only a few blocks away so I started heading in that direction.
People were trickling into the library with me. A few college students with laptops in their bags and business men and women wanting some quiet during their lunch hour and casually browsing sites they couldn't at their workplaces. I would have included Brockton Bay's biggest and fanciest high school, the nearby Arcadia High, in that generalization, but students spending their lunch breaks at the library was a thing that didn't happen.
The Central Library looked more like a museum or art gallery than anything else, with tall ceilings, pillars and massive pieces of artwork framing the hallways between the major sections of the building. I headed up to the second floor where there were about twenty computers sitting on a couple of flower shaped desks, with dividers creating the "petals" and giving users a bit of privacy.
I sat down and grimaced as I had to peck at the keyboard with one hand. It was a good thing all I really wanted to do was browse, and not write a message. The go-to place for news and discussion on capes was Parahumans Online, or PHO for short. The front page had constant updates on recent, international news featuring capes, groups and events, or to the message boards, which broke down into nearly a hundred sub-boards for specific capes and cities. My first research topic on the wiki was a guilty curiosity: ABB. Specifically, non-Asian capes.
The list was longer than I thought it would be.
There were names I wasn't familiar with but there were a couple I did know. Parian used to be a fashion designer rogue but some kind of power clash PHO wasn't clear on between her and Kali ended with the former forcibly inducted. That made me feel a bit queasy but I pressed on. Uber was a name my gut expected but my head was still surprised by.
Uber and Leet had been a dynamic duo, running their web shows and thumbing their noses at authority. Empire happened. They'd dropped off the radar for a few months and now Uber has resurfaced, alone. The implications weren't pleasant.
On an article brimming with "citation needed" and "evidence please" tags was Panacea's ABB page. A lot of it sounded like circumstantial evidence, claims of preferential treatment or suspicions surrounding her reasons for not joining her sister in the Wards. These people seemed to forget that her father retired and her mother was in a coma. Panacea can't do brains. That kind of helplessness could suck the motivation from anyone.
I couldn't help but to feel sorry for her. A lot of her troubles just seemed to hit too close to home.
I kept searching, going over the absolute ridiculous number of Empire capes. They had to be getting them out of town, drawing in resources from sympathetic groups because I didn't want to believe there were that many Brockton Bay bigot natives. Diamond, Kafka, Frederick, I've never even heard of Regent, crawling out of the woodwork.
No wonder my dad looked so defeated. Something has to give.
I navigated to the forums and started searching under villain gangs: ABB. At the top of the page was a blanket warning in bright red from Tin_Mother about Lung pictures. Immediately underneath was a pinned 532 page argument about that very warning.
Not surprised.
I skimmed the titles of the most recent threads. The ABB was a controversial topic to put it lightly. Just as hero worship was a thing, villain worship was too. Everything from Slaughterhouse Nine psychos to "local favorites." From what I've heard of Kaiser, the leader of the E88, he had a high class gentleman image that meshed with his knightly costume, befitting an ideal, no matter how disgusting it was.
Lung; see warning.
One message, just about to drop off the first page was simply titled, 'Bug.'
My gut churned as I clicked it. What I got was brief.
Subject: Bug
Owe you one. Sorry about the dog. Would like to repay the favor. Meet?
Send a message,
Tt.
The post was followed by two pages of people commenting. Three people suggested it had something to do with the 'bonfire' last night, while half a dozen more people decried them as tinfoil hats, 's term for conspiracy theorists.
It was meaningful though. The group I'd saved, the Undersiders, had found a way to get in contact with me. I thought hard about what I wanted to say back, a thousand and one questions bursting to the forefront of my mind. The loudest was: Lung. Are you stupid? But that didn't seem to be very diplomatic.
I chose to compose a private message, finding 'Tt' in the drop down menu and started typing very slowly, pecking away.
Subject: Re:Bug
Bug here. Why should I?
I hit send.
The reply came only two or three minutes later. It was fast enough that I imagined she must have been either waiting for a reply, or just spent a lot of time online. Either way, the answer sent a shiver up my spine.
Subject: re:Bug
Lung.
Just want to talk. Don't come dressed up if you don't want her to know. I won't either.
Boardwalk, boat statue in an hour?
You need my help.
I leaned back in my chair and swallowed the acidic taste of anger. I wouldn't say that I inherited my dad's temper, but I did inherit his pride. I found it hard to think much beyond: 'I need your help? Who saved who yesterday?' How could someone that nearly got charbroiled by Lung help me with Lung?
Why did I need help in the first place?
And don't even get me started on that fucking dog.
The screensaver came up while I stared at the monitor trying to get my thoughts in order. I didn't think someone who 'owed me one' was hostile, at least not for a very good reason that I couldn't think of at the moment. On top of the public meeting place, that pretty much eliminated the chances of this being a trap. Which meant that it really couldn't hurt to at least listen to what 'Tt' had to say.
Or I could spend the rest of the afternoon killing time as best I could with a broken hand.
I sighed.
Subject: Re:Bug
See you in an hour.
I logged off the computer and exited the library and very carefully did not think about how much I could come to regret this. Showing up in costume on the Boardwalk was just asking for trouble considering it was A) near the Protectorate building and I was meeting with a villain and B) would have little to no chance of not attracting attention. That didn't mean I had to be stupid about it.
I caught the bus from the library to my house and struggled to put on key pieces of my costume underneath my clothes. Most of the armor panels of my costume were separate pieces, held in place by straps that ran into slits in the fabric of the costume. Not all of them were though. I'd integrated some of the armor into the bodysuit itself, narrower rigid sections. If it came down to it, I would rather be capable of surviving having a knife pulled on me.
I checked myself in the mirror before I left and grimaced. Messy ponytail, large sweatshirt with a sailboat on the front, baggy jeans and a pair of Dad's sneakers. All I needed was a drawn hoodie and then I would really look like I had something to hide. I left a note for my Dad in case I ran over time along with an explanation of where his sneakers had vanished to and headed out.
The Boardwalk was a long stretch along the beach of the Bay, stuffed to the gills with tourist traps and restaurants. The boat statue Tt mentioned was a stupid little bronze cargo ship mounted on a painted wooden pole. It had a worn plaque detailing how long Brockton Bay had been an active port but often went over looked now, graffiti, dents and scratches on it. There were dozens of life sized examples of what the Bay had been laying in a heap like trash at the Boat Graveyard.
There weren't a whole lot of people around given that it was in the middle of the day so I sat on one of the benches and sent a dozen flies to scout. I closed my eyes, braced myself and focused on what they were sensing.
Bugs sense things in a very different way than we do. More than that, they sense and process things at a very different speed. They didn't have any of the ingrained cues our minds did when it came to recognizing faces, scents or colors. The rush of awareness felt like breaking free of my head. The world warped into broken pieces of light and dark, vibrations, tastes and instincts that weren't my own. Multiply that by a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, and it would bury me.
Happened before.
The monochrome light and dark started to form a coherent image, kind of. More like a kaleidoscope of cobbled together angles and viewpoints and a mess of sound that was still a bit painful to focus on. My preferred method of sensing things through my bugs was touch. Where they were, if they were still, moving or was being moved the same way I know where my hand is.
My fingertips were ghosting over the people on the Boardwalk and most of them had no idea. By the boat statue a shorter blurred figure with an ant on her shoe turned towards one of my flies.
"bUG?"
I flinched and pulled back.
Found her.
I licked my dry lips. Tt's power must be mental of some kind if she was able to pick out my presence from a fly which was really giving me misgivings about this whole thing. It may sound like a terrible thing to say, but I did not relish the idea of talking to someone parahumanly smarter than me.
I approached her carefully, taking her in with my own two eyes. Tt had dirty blonde hair tied back in a loose braid with freckles dusting the bridge of her nose and a somber expression on her face. She wore a plain blue T shirt underneath a denim jacket and matching knee length skirt with white sneakers. Her eyes were a tired bottle-glass green that soon found mine.
Her lips quirked.
"And she arrives," Tt said simply. I opened my mouth. "It's just me," she cut me off. "Lung hit Grue pretty damn hard, swelling in his spine. Spitfire wants nothing to do with you. And Bitch..." She smiled weakly. "Yeah, no."
"You could have died," I said sharply.
"In our defense, we could have taken a bunch of angry gangbangers." She shrugged. "And then Lung would have gotten pissed, so yeah. Did I mention I owe you one?" She held out her hand. "Call me Lisa."
I took it. "Bug."
Her smile turned a bit sardonic. "Smart. But that doesn't change that you're here, and so am I. You know my face, and I know yours. Dangerous," she said. "But not as dangerous as what you're about to get mixed up in."
I frowned, keeping the small sand flies at the beach hovering near people's ear so I could judge who could hear us and who couldn't. It made a tiny headache start to blossom between my eyes but a migraine was worth it. "Enlighten me."
"Last night was your first time out, wasn't it?" As I struggled not to react, her small smile grew into a smug, vulpine grin. "You tangle with the ABB, the thugs we heard were coming for us. Lung catches you red handed but you don't run. You're not E88 so she makes you an offer you can't refuse. Am I warm?"
"How do you -" I bit my tongue.
"I'm psychic. The point is," Lisa sobered, looking back out over the bay. "She's got your number now and soon she's going to start ringing it. She'll trap you here."
I frowned and leaned against the railing. "Trap me? I live here."
"This city, you see it?" She nodded back towards the Boardwalk. "It's about to blow like a volcano. The person I work for, independent, I know not many of those, small time, keeps under the radar. He wants this city." She turned her head and scanned the crowd with what seemed to be an uncharacteristically serious look on her face. But she didn't find what she was looking for and her smile resurfaced. "But he can't have it when half of it's Empire and the other half has a dragon sitting on it. What do you do when you've got two players too big for you to handle, that hate each other?"
I knew what I would do. "Play them off each other."
"And make sure there are no victors, yes. Everything is going to get caught up in that."
I could imagine it. Fighting breaking out in the streets as both groups made the push to wipe the other out. And when I considered the sheer amount of parahumans involved, something cold formed in my stomach. I'd seen Lung on TV before, during Canberra, towering over the buildings like they were made of matchsticks. Brockton Bay wouldn't survive that.
My hands balled into tight fists. "Why aren't you telling the Protectorate?"
"Don't you think they already know?" She rolled her eyes. "Come on now. Villains and stable don't exactly go together. To them, all out gang warfare is inevitable, its only a matter of when." She waved her hand at the floating Protectorate building out on the bay. "Gotta give it to the heroes, they've always been the big picture type, they just can't do anything about it."
I wanted to defend them, but choked on the words. There were more villains than heroes. Fact. A lot more. And Lisa's employer was going to take advantage of that, right underneath everyone's noses. I remembered Lung's advice: Do not focus on an enemy so closely, you miss the ground washing away beneath your feet.
Did she know?
A far more grim possibility occurred to me right after that thought. What if she didn't?
"I know that face. That's the 'I have a crazy, stupid idea - ." Her expression shifted as she suddenly paused. "Lung, really?"
"It's not stupid if it works," I said a bit defensively. "But if it's going to work I'm going to need you to answer some questions."
Lisa stared at me, studying me, before her smile returned full force. "I did say I owe you one," she commented drily. She leaned over the railing. "What do you want to know?"
I decided to start with the most immediate question. "Do you think Lung knows?"
Lisa's lips pursed. "She can't expect the status quo to remain forever but she's sure she'll win. That's Lung for you."
"Will she?" I asked quietly.
Lisa looked me dead in the eye for a moment. "Made an impression?" She looked down at the water. "She gets stronger over time. High powered rifle shot when she doesn't expect it? She dies like everyone else." She looked away. "Your next question is probably going to be, what were we thinking getting her attention, right?"
'Something like that."
She shrugged. "Being expendable is one of the risks of the trade."
A sharp thread of horror wove through me. "Why the hell are you working for him then?"
"Don't have a choice, personally. And that's something you're going to run out of soon, you know. Choices." She looked at me again. "You know once Lung thinks she has you, she's not letting go." A shudder went through her and she pulled her jacket tighter around her. "Fuck," she swore quietly. I reached for her and she pulled back.
"What's wrong?"
"Caffeine withdrawal," she said unconvincingly. "Look, you do what you think you have to. I'll," she rubbed at her face. "I'll try to put a time frame on it." She straightened, tapping the rail thoughtfully with her index fingers, before giving me a small smile and shoving her hands into her jacket pockets. "I was hoping I could convince you to book it out of town. Don't know what the hell I was thinking."
"It's a good thing you're doing." I tried to inject as much encouragement into my voice as I could, taking my cues from my memories of Miss Militia last night.
She laughed. "Maybe. See you around, hero."
"Taylor," I said.
"Taylor."
Her answering grin was relieved.
"Dad? I'm home." I called as soon as I opened the door. There was no answer. I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. The last thing I wanted right now was to worry my father. When he was concerned, Danny Hebert was like a helicopter with searchlights, never letting me out of his sight and itching to blow the horn if I so much as turned a corner he wasn't expecting. It was nice that he cared, but if I was going to pull off being a cape, I needed space.
I headed up to my room and stripped out of my costume's bodysuit as quickly as I could manage it. I put my borrowed sneakers back where I had found them and shoved my costume back into the depths of my closet. My stomach rumbled, declaring that a single hotdog wasn't enough to keep it satisfied.
I hooked my arm back into the sling and headed downstairs.
I pulled some luncheon meat out of the fridge numbly and it took me at least three minutes to tie up the bread bag after I was done with it. I was in the middle of making my sandwich, spreading a bit of mayo on one of the slices before I noticed that my hand was shaking.
"Tinkertech of some kind." she had said, pointing out the small horizontal scar at the base of her head. She hadn't known exactly what it was, ranging from bomb to tracker, to things more sinister. "At times I think it's a bluff, but other times I am so damn sure he's about to activate it that I...just can't."She had similar scars all along her spine.
"I'm not the only one."
I didn't think it was possible to hate someone I didn't even know so much.
I thought of myself as a hero but the spike of loathing I had felt for Lisa's "employer" had scared me. Heroes weren't supposed to contemplate murdering someone in cold blood, they were supposed to be more. But if I had a gun in my hand and came face to face with 'Coil' I couldn't say I wouldn't take the shot. I suppose it said something about me that his aims for the city just made me feel morally obligated to stop it, but when it came to one friendly face I wanted to tear him apart with my bare hands.
Maybe it just made me human.
I had questioned her, lightly, if it was really caffeine she was suffering withdrawal from. The look of self loathing that had appeared on her face was one I'd seen in the mirror, and at times on my father's expression. The one said that said 'Why am I so weak?'
I'd hugged her. She didn't pull away then.
"You're a real bleeding heart, aren't you? Be careful with that."
Until Lisa had more information, an idea of how to get free without mutual destruction or leaving someone behind, we were going to concentrate more on keeping the lid on gang violence.
I had an informant.
I caught myself smiling. And maybe a friend?
The distinctive rumble of Dad's car came into hearing and I hurried up on the sandwich, popping a few slices into the toaster in case he was hungry as well. I looked down at my second lunch. Still needed a bit of something. I dove back into the fridge and was pulling out the tomatoes when Dad walked in through the door.
I knew by the slump to his shoulders that today hadn't been better.
I chewed on my lip when the toast popped back up. Dad sunk into a chair at the table, placing his briefcase on it.
"What's the damage?"
Dad opened his case and shuffled through some of the papers. "Gray showed up today, thanked me for my time. He'd found work." He shook his head tiredly. "Wouldn't say where."
"Mayo?"
"Please."
I made his sandwich in the quiet. Dad always took 'losses' personally and I couldn't blame him. Spend day after day telling people you cared about that you had no work for them, only to watch them get scooped up by a gang while your hands were tied.
"It's probably nothing serious, you know."
He scoffed.
Then there was the little thing of Dad's black and white morality. Guilty by association, even if everything was above the table. I was far from asking him to let go of his misgivings, but preemptively judging someone before they even did anything? Still, I knew Dad was the norm, not the exception. Maybe all the weirdness about our views on the gangs were my fault. I couldn't apologize for it.
When the people you least expect to lend a helping hand, do, it tends to change your world view a bit. I still don't know if it was for the better, or worse.
"That's how they get you," Dad said. "It's harmless at first but before you know it, you're in too deep to get out."
I handed him his sandwich and sat down with mine. He sounded like those posters and public announcements hung up on the walls at Winslow High, about what to do if you felt you were being targeted by one gang or another. It emphasized getting help as soon as possible, even if they didn't ask for anything illegal. Both the Empire and ABB had legitimate enterprises and that was before considering the civilian identity of any of their capes.
Lisa had advised telling the Protectorate, Miss Militia in particular before I carry out my 'crazy, stupid plan.'
"Soldier girl and Lung have a bit of an understanding. I'm going to guess it has something to do with the high powered rifle I mentioned. It's always the nice ones, I swear."
"He lives on the Docks?" I asked before I bit into my ham and tomato.
Dad grimaced. "Yeah."
My first thought was something along the lines of 'He'd be safe at least.' ABB didn't harm their own. I was less sure about the Empire, but it just seemed like common sense. And was giving me the feeling that the entire city was being Stockholmed into submission.
"I know that look." Dad peered at me over his glasses. "We've talked about this."
We had, when a gas main in a decaying part of town had ruptured a little over a year ago. I'd been at school, miserable doesn't really need to be said, when it had happened. Dad hadn't come home until very late that night, mostly because the evacuation was being spearheaded by ABB. He couldn't do less than them. I'd asked why he didn't just let them help.
'Good deeds don't erase bad' he had said. Troubles at school, friendless and lived in claimed territory. I think he was afraid of losing me to a gang.
Sorry, Dad.
"I wasn't going to say anything," I said.
He let it go with a sigh. I finished my sandwich.
"I love you, Taylor," he murmured before I hit the door out of the kitchen.
I blinked rapidly. My eyes prickled. "Love you too, Dad."
It was around seven when I finished putting on my bodysuit underneath my clothes again. It wasn't that I expected to need it, but I had liked having extra security. It didn't do anything for my head, or sufficient concussive force as last night had shown me but it was much better than nothing.
I came downstairs, finding Dad in the kitchen where the smell of spaghetti sauce and garlic was overpowering. He saw me in my sweats and sling and his eyebrows furrowed.
"Taylor..."
"It's Monday," I reminded him. "And early." I jiggled the bulging pocket on my pants. "I've got my pepper spray. Just a little ways then back."
He'd lost this argument three months ago and he wasn't going to win it today.
He must have been able to tell from the stubborn look on my face because he nodded and let me go.
My evening walks had originally started from a severe case of cabin fever and maybe more than a little rebellion at how tightly Dad seemed to cling to me. Not something I'm proud of, he'd been worried sick the first time I'd disappeared and didn't come back until dinner. I ran in the mornings so I could try to get into better shape for my cape career, so while strictly speaking I didn't need go out, I wanted to.
Bao's group patrolled Mondays.
The ABB had a 'neighborhood watch' of their territory. Most of the time it was just normal people wearing the distinctive dragon icons and colors of whatever sub group they were in. Late at night, on a bad roll of the dice, you might meet a cape instead. It wasn't called a curfew, but it might as well be one. The fear alone probably kept most inside.
Just moving from one block to the next, you could see the change in the area. As I made my way into the Docks, the quality of my surroundings began to get a bit schizophrenic. Old and new mashed together with signs of new construction or repair. A few old men were sitting out on the front step of an old building smoking pipes and arguing over a board game I didn't know the name of. The empty warehouses had long been converted with guards standing out front, and the strains of music reached my ears.
As I walked, I was using my powers to draw a small swarm together, but kept most of them out of the way. Moving just over the nearby rooftops or skirting behind the buildings. It was mostly for practice in stealth, dedicating just enough attention to tell where there was light and not trip over my own two feet.
It was when I was close enough to see the cranes rusting from disuse and the 'skyline' of warehouses along the Bay that I saw them, smoking against a forklift.
That's what Lê Công Bao had been doing that day, sneaking out of school for a smoke when he heard me in the dumpster. He could have left me there. I would never forget the jeers of 'It's Hebert!' and someone kicking the metal side. But Bao got the janitor, a gang member who spent more time out of school than in class, doing what the teachers didn't.
Story of my life.
"Hebert!" Bao waved me over, wearing his dragon scarf and camo jacket with jeans. He was a year older than me. His hair was cut short with a styled shaved area of flames on the left side of his head. I wouldn't say we were friends but he wasn't an enemy and listening to him joking with the other members of his group made me feel less alone. God, I was pathetic. "You weren't in cla- " The muscles on his jaw rippled and I remembered my broken hand. "They fucking with you again?"
The urge to say yes burned.
"No, it was an accident."
He eyed me disbelievingly, but shrugged. "If you say so." He pointed out new faces. "Neal, Takeo, Bun Ma and her brother Chai Son."
Neal was tall, I estimated him to be in his early twenties and the best dressed of them, looking like he had just come home from work with nice slacks and his tie hanging loose around his neck. Takeo was younger wearing a wifebeater, his dragon handkerchief sticking out of his pocket. His arms had sharp muscle definition and sprawling tatoos. Bun Ma and her brother just had T shirts and jeans, my age but I couldn't remember them from school. Arcadia, maybe?
I stared at them and they stared back.
"Hi?" I tried.
Some of the 'old hats' on the forklift chuckled and waved their cigs but the silence afterward quickly got very awkward. Bao's palm met his face while his other hand reached out to swat 'Takeo' over the head. "Stop staring. Christ."
"But she's not - "
Bao hit him again. "Who cares? She's cool, quit it."
"Just," I sighed. "Pretend I'm not here."
I sat on the curb, mentally keeping track of time. Slowly, they started talking again, weaving in and out of English and at times breaking out in laughter. I snuck bugs onto the clothes of everyone in the group and let the chatter wash over me. It didn't matter if I couldn't understand them. I was being left alone.
Bao stamped out his cig and turned to me. "Walk with us?"
I swallowed. This was usually the time I headed back, but I could barely stop myself from leaping at the invitation. "Is that okay?"
He looked around and no one protested. "Sure. Come on."
The group split into three. I got up and wiped my clammy palms on my sweat pants. I was going to be bit late for dinner. Bao's group made a loop towards the Boardwalk before coming back, I could probably split from them there. But more importantly...
It was during a short lull in the conversation that I asked the question I had come for.
"How would I get in contact with Lung?"
"Youuuu," his voice cracked an octave higher. He coughed. "You probably don't want to do that? I mean, you don't just demand her attention."
I bit my lip. I was afraid of that.
"Thinking of joining or something?" He waved his scarf at me.
It was red, with a gold dragon stitched into it and Chinese characters lining the bottom. It's eyes glittered menacingly as it looked at me.
"Maybe."
"I'll vouch for you." Bao grinned. "We take care of our own. You won't regret it."
I wasn't naive enough to believe that.
I was calling Miss Militia tomorrow.
