A/N: Previous chapter review responses and comments are in my forums like normal. For those asking, the first few chapters are setting the stage. Things start getting interesting in chapter five. If you can make it until then, you'll see. If it's just too excruciating for you to read, I certainly understand.
Genesis 1.2
"You did very well, Mr. Bailey," Calvert said.
Harry nodded but was too busy looking out the window of the helicopter to give a damn. He was in a helicopter! He was in a jet-propelled PRT helicopter, flying over dense streams of traffic between New York and wherever the hell they were.
Calvert must have realized everything else was irrelevant. Harry sat on the edge of his seat, watching the land fly by underneath him in a near solid stream of humanity. What surprised him were the long stretches of greenery. He'd assumed it was just one big metropolitan area, but it wasn't like that at all.
They came within sight of the ocean soon. They were flying to Brockton Bay in the most direct route, so most of it was overland. His first sight of his new home left a lot to be desired.
There were a few skyscrapers in the heart of the city, and what looked like a handful of nice neighborhoods, but most of the sprawling city seemed composed of tightly packed neighborhoods. Other than one or two parks, he saw hardly any greenspace. What he did see were dilapidated, empty piers and ports, and a large part of the bay obstructed by what looked like sunken boats.
What a dump.
Then he saw the Protectorate Headquarters in the middle of the Bay. It rose out of the water just like an oil rig, but an oil rig with beautiful architecture surrounded by force fields and defensive missile placements. While not as beautiful as the New York PHQ, it was still a stand-out in Brockton Bay. The Rig was a testament, he knew from his reading, to the disproportionate number of capes in the mid-sized city. Brockton Bay actually had more capes per capita than Los Angeles or Houston.
Of course, most of them were villains.
He wondered and even hoped they were going to land there, but instead the helicopter continued toward downtown.
There was no party waiting for them at the much smaller PRT East North East Headquarters, which after the glory of New York looked like a remarkably ordinary steel and glass high rise with the letters P.R.T. and a large glass dome on top as it's only distinguishing feature.
Rather than a fancy pad on the roof, the helicopter landed on a helipad between the building and the water's edge, set amidst a garden furrowed for winter. Even with Endbringer-enhanced global warming, it still snowed in New Hampshire in winter.
No one met them from the PRT, just a limo to drive them wherever they were going. The view from the ground frankly wasn't much better than from the air.
"Given you're…unique perceptions, you present something of a quandary," Calvert said as soon as their limo started driving through the start-and-stop traffic of afternoon rush hour. "It is a serious crime to reveal the civilian identity of a cape, even if they are a villain. Doing so brings not only severe legal repercussions, but usually immediate and draconian retaliation on the part of the entire Cape Community.
Who actually says Draconian? "I understand."
"I say this because you are going to likely learn the civilian identities of several capes in my employ. While I will create the pretense of you living with my civilian self, in truth you'll be housed in other facilities more suited to my off-duty interests. You understand that should you reveal anything you discover, not only will the terms of our agreement be broken, you will be killed."
It was the first time Calvert explicitly made a threat to Harry's life since he landed. It had been almost eight hours. Justinian made his first threat after just five minutes. "I understand. I keep my mouth shut."
"Excellent." He then dismissed Harry entirely and looked down at a smartphone.
The cape beside Harry leaned over and offered a hand. "Luke," he said. "Luke Casseus."
Harry accepted the hand. "Harry, nice to meet you. Striker, right?"
Calvert didn't glance up, but Harry noted from the corner of his eye the man make a note on his phone with a small stylus.
"That's right. Go by Ballistic. How do you know?"
Harry shrugged. "The Simurgh still sings to me whenever I'm around capes. Gets pretty irritating if you ask me. I can usually tell from the song what the cape can do."
Luke stared at him a moment, a small flicker of horror shone in his eyes before he forced it back. "That's some pretty serious shit. You okay?"
Harry shrugged. "We play the hand we're dealt. Who knows, maybe working for Mr. Calvert here will help my hand."
"From this point on, Mr. Bailey, you can refer to me either as Boss, or as Coil except in public."
Coil. For some reason, Harry hated villains with snake motifs. "Will do, Mr. Coil."
~~Simurgh's Son~~
~~Simurgh's Son~~
"Holy shit, you live in a supervillain lair. That is so cool. Do you have a monorail? Tell me you have a monorail, because that would just be awesome."
Ballistic snorted back laughter while Coil pretended Harry hadn't said anything. Awnold the Terminator Guard just looked blank. The limo parked in an enclosed garage on the second level, but they took a lift down to a subterranean staging area filled with soldiers, armored vehicles, crates filled with munitions, and everything you could ask in an evil lair.
Except a monorail.
"Damn," Harry muttered. "Colbert had a monorail."
"He took over an abandoned theme park, Mr. Bailey," Coil said. He didn't try to hide his impatience. "This isn't a theme park. Ballistic, please show Mr. Bailey to his apartment. You'll start Arcadia tomorrow. You'll receive a phone. I expect discreet pictures of every cape you encounter with a description of powers, preferably before winter break."
Harry snapped to attention and saluted. "Sir, yessir!" He then turned to Ballistic. "Hey, there anything to eat around here? I'm famished."
Ballistic roared laughter as he led Harry to a set of stairs leading up to the apartments.
~~Simurgh's Son~~
~~Simurgh's Son~~
Early the next morning, Harry blinked himself out of his memories to see a pretty blonde girl standing at his door in jeans and a black hoody with the Arcadia Supersonic's basketball team logo printed on it.
"Are you for me?" he said with a suddenly bright, excited grin. "Perk of working for a supervillain, maybe? Coil didn't have to, but I'm thrilled to accept anyway."
She scowled at him, but he suspected she was laughing at the inside. "I'm taking you to school, Perv."
He made a show of putting his hands in the pockets of the brand new jeans he found in his dorm room and scuffed the floor with the brand new $200 sneakers that fit his feet perfectly. "Will you hold my hand? First day, you know. I'm pretty shy."
This time he could see her start to lose the fight to contain a smile. "Luke said you were something. Name's Marissa."
Harry started to accept, but paused. This girl's song was so bright it burned. "Er, I won't get burned touching your hand, will I?"
She blinked at him, surprised. "No."
With that assurance, he grabbed her hands with both his. "So, how bout kissing? If I kiss you will I get burned?"
"No, only punched. In the face. Really hard."
"Might be worth it."
"I didn't say I was the one who would punch you. Luke is my friend."
"Er, don't want to kiss him. Or get punched." He shuddered as if either were horrible. Marissa rolled her eyes and led him out of his small apartment.
The Coil Evil Lair of Doom™ was as busy as ever with men purposefully stacking things.
"You know, I've always wondered about minions in evil bases. When they're not fighting or pillaging or whatnot, what do they actually do?" He wondered aloud. "I mean, think about it. Do you think they just move the same boxes around anytime Coil's nearby so it looks like they're working?"
From the corner of his eyes, he saw a couple of the soldiers glare at him. Marissa just shook her head. "They might hit you too."
Harry shrugged. "Eh, I get used to it."
She didn't say anything else until they reached the garage. Instead of the limo, they walked to an older-model sedan.
"Can I drive?"
"Do you know how?" she asked with one arched brow.
"This would be a good time to learn, right?"
She shook her head and climbed in behind the driver's seat. Harry got beside her and buckled up. "So, you're Sundancer, right?" he asked.
"Not dressed like this."
"Oh, right." He nodded and looked out the window as she backed out of the space and started driving.
"How old are you, Harry?"
"Sixteen. Be seventeen in July. You?"
"Seventeen for a month or two longer. Technically this is my senior year."
He nodded and glanced at her as she drove. She had a lovely neck and pale, classically porcelain skin. Her song, as brilliant and bright as it was, sounded…
"Are you a slave like me?" he blurted, despite a small part of his mind telling him to shut up.
"NO!" She turned and glared at him a moment before shaking her head. "And you're not a slave. Luke said you accepted a salary and you'll be gone by eighteen."
"Oh, right. Sorry. Just…you seem really, really sad. Not like, 'boo-hoo my dog died' sad. More like, 'my whole world is shit and there's nothing I can do about it' sad. Like me. Just… Yeah. Sorry. I'll shut up now."
"Please do," Marissa said heatedly.
After a few minutes of driving, she sighed. "Sorry. It's just…things are hard for my team. That's all."
"Okay, I get it," Harry said. "Know what helps me get over it?"
"What's that?"
"Sex. Let me know if you want to give it a try."
She snorted, shook her head, and then glared at him even as she smiled. "You have a one-track mind, don't you?"
"Er, I'm a repressed, enslaved sixteen year old boy. So sue me."
"No. Not now, not ever."
"Okay," Harry said. "So, this phone you're giving me, it has internet access right? And none of that net-Nanny crap, right?"
~~Simurgh's Son~~
~~Simurgh's Son~~
Within the first three hours of school, Harry had pictures, names and powers of every Ward in Arcadia. It should have been much harder, but the Wards hung out in a clique with Victoria and Amy Dallon, who were openly known as Glory Girl and Panacea. He'd never heard of them before.
However, the counselor's assistant voluntold to show him around made sure to tell him all about the beauteous, poetry-inducing brilliance of Glory Girl. And Panacea, the humble sister who could heal anyone of anything. But who wasn't Glory Girl, who was so beautiful and powerful that the sun shone only for her.
The poor kid appeared a little besotted.
But then he had a class with Glory Girl second period, and began to understand why. Imagine the most beautiful, stereotypical Swedish Bikini Team model, and then give her utterly unreasonable super powers and an aura that could reduce villains to putty and allies to…well, putty as well, and you had Glory Girl.
No wonder Panacea sat behind her sister, slouched with exhaustion and social neglect. She could have been a brilliant, happy person, and on one would be able to get past Glory Girl's power-induced awesomeness to ever know.
Naturally, Glory Girl surrounded herself with the best and brightest, which just happened to include pretty much every cape in the school. They didn't even try to be discreet, and Harry strongly suspected Coil already knew all about them.
Perhaps it was a test.
Regardless, he did his duty, took his pictures, and pretended to care about class when in fact he made more notes in his note book. Lunch was good, though. Coil gave him a near limitless lunch budget, and he tested that as much as he could. By the time Marissa joined him with a little turkey, lettuce and bacon wrap, he was on his fourth piece of pizza.
"How can you eat that stuff?" she asked with a disgusted sneer.
"By opening my mouth and shoving," he said, before opening his mouth and taking half a piece in a single bite. "I'm all done with my assignment, can we go now?"
"I'm in an accelerated program to get my degree," she said. "I've been travelling too much and am really behind. I'm not leaving because you're bored."
"You can give me the keys and…"
"No, Harry."
"Sigh."
"You don't…did you just say, 'sigh'?"
"Yeah, so?"
"You don't say the word, Harry. You actually do the action."
Harry smiled. "You sound smart. Definitely got the ELA portion down."
Marissa sighed before taking a bite of her much less impressive lunch. As she did so, she saw the notebook that held his doodles. "What's that?"
Harry glanced down, momentarily distracted from his cheesy, pepperoni goodness. "Er, magic runes. When I'm done I'm going to get them tattooed all over my body so I'll be impervious. Just like my avatar."
He saw her eyes light up. "Avatar?"
"Yeah. Total gamer. Craft of War, handle of Forever Mage. I'm a level ten, you know. Only a dozen level tens worldwide."
She stared at him, wrap forgotten. "Holy. Shit. You're the Forever Mage? The one with the cats? You?"
Harry buffed his nails against his sweater. "Don't like to brag, you know. But if you want to show your appreciation…"
"No," she said absently. "But you're Forever Mage? Okay, when we get back, you're on my team."
"I have a team!"
"Do you have a box?"
"Oh, well shit," Harry muttered. Then he brightened. "Are there any benefits to being a teammate? I mean…"
"No."
"Sigh."
She shook her head, but then chuckled. "You're going to a real pain, aren't you?"
"It's a coping mechanism. Hey, do you have a sister?"
She sighed.
~~Simurgh's Son~~
~~Simurgh's Son~~
After dinner in the common room with fifty of the mercenaries Coil kept on premises (another fifty were allowed to live off-site at any given time except when on call) Harry started up toward his room. He barely made it up the stairs to the private wing that held all of Coil's resident capes when he was intercepted by Marissa.
"There you are. Where were you?"
"Eating."
"Come on."
"Why?"
She rolled her eyes, grabbed the sleeve of his hoody and dragged him down the hall toward a room with a partially opened door. Inside he saw two other people—a blond boy whose face looked almost like a Ken doll, it was so perfect. The other was a girl with frumpy auburn hair held back in a poorly knotted bun with three earrings on her left ear. She sat in a wheelchair. They both sat in front of little computer desks with large monitors and state-of-the-art gaming PCs. Harry saw there were three other similar stations against the wall of the room, which also housed a narrow bed and a shelf full of books. A large wardrobe dominated the far corner of the room.
"Who's this?" Ken-Doll said.
"Guys, remember the new kid I had to drive to school?" Marissa said, almost bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Guess who he is?"
"Harry Bailey, the only Simurgh-influenced kid to survive London?" the girl in the wheelchair said without looking away from her terminal.
"No!" Marissa blinked. "Okay, yes. But Jess, he's the Forever Mage! Level 10!"
"Fuck me," Jess said.
"Okay!" Harry said brightly. "This room or mine?"
Ken doll blinked in confusion, but Jess simply stared flatly at him.
"Oh, and he's a perv." Marissa's addition seemed unnecessary at that point.
"Ya don't say," Jess muttered. "Still, if the Forever Mage thing is true, get him online. We're going up again Faultline's crew and I'm not losing again."
~~Simurgh's Son~~
~~Simurgh's Son~~
He wondered back into his room past eleven, tired but happy. He'd laid waste to many villages and smited many a foe while complimenting the bouncing breasts of Jess's avatar. It was fun, the first fun he'd had in a while.
The buzzing of his phone almost made him fall off his bed. Frowning in confusion, he flipped it open and stared at a text bubble.
New kid. Fitting in?
He considered the words. There was no source code, so he had no idea who this person was. Still, they had his number. Maybe. Who are you?
Call me TT. I'm another well-paid slave.
Hmm. That sounded interesting. Are you a girl? Are you pretty?
Opinions vary.
About being a girl? Or being pretty?
A selfie appeared.
Oh. Very pretty. Wow. Wait…that's a picture of Sheila Peters when she was younger.
And?
Do you have any of her nude?
Maybe. Coil didn't outfit your phone with internet access, did he? Just voice and text.
No. The shite.
You're not going to get one, either. Or a computer. Or a tablet. He doesn't want you on PHO, or any other outlet you could ask for help from.
Ha. Needn't have bothered. Tried that in Leicester when Marko first took me. All it got me was acid burns on my back and a beating that left me unconscious for a day. Justinian used a lighter on my thighs and murdered the whole family of the person I asked to help me. Learned my lesson there.
Sorry. Your life has been shit.
I know that. I'm the poor sod stuck living it.
So, when you close your eyes and go still, like you did in the parking lot this afternoon for two whole hours, what do you see?
Are you fucking spying on me?
I spy on everyone. It's my job. But I don't send everyone porn. I might make an exception for you, if you do me a favor.
My palm and I are listening.
Coil has a vault on the third level down. Go down and listen. Tell me what you hear.
Yeah, right. And have Coil shoot me. No thanks.
A photo appeared.
Mary, Joseph and Margaret Thatcher, look at the size of those tits! What's her name? Do you think she'd marry me?
More to come if you help. I can make sure all the cameras are off and all personnel are away for 10 minutes tonight.
You know, porn is all good and fine. I mean, really really good, and totally fine. But I'm a teenaged boy with an active imagination. I don't really need it. So you'll have to do better.
Better than this?
Picture.
Shit. Give me a sec…
…
…
Yeah. Better than that. Though that was pretty bleedin' good. I want to meet you.
That would be exceedingly dangerous. Get-shot-in-the-head dangerous.
I'm not sure I care. I might do your favor if you meet me in person. Clothing optional. I have a feeling you're quite pretty.
I look like Rosie O'Donnell.
Bah, bite your tongue! Besides, I'm sure she's a lovely person on the inside. You shouldn't judge a person by their appearance.
Unless you're a hormone-driven teenaged virgin.
Well, that remains unsaid, doesn't it? I want to meet. Pick a time; pick a place that won't get us shot. Then I'll decide whether to risk this vault of yours.
A picture. A girl in a dark room, oval face with a petite button nose. Dirty blonde hair made white by the flash of a camera phone, dark eyes and full lips. And a line of freckles over the cheekbones.
Tomorrow, school cafeteria at lunch. Marissa is going to be sitting a practice SAT tomorrow.
You are pretty.
I'm also the single most non-sexual girl you will ever meet. Your palm will give you a lot more action than you'd ever get from me.
Again, that remains unsaid. My palm is my best friend. See you tomorrow then, TT.
Tomorrow.
The text bubble went away, along with all the rest of hers. A second later, his text bubbles disappeared from his phone as well. The single photo purported to be Tattletale herself also disappeared, but the other photos remained.
"Hello, my lovelies," Harry whispered. "Whatever shall we do tonight?"