A/N: Chap 36 review responses are in my forums as normal, including a brief discussion of what's going on with Lung. We'll get back to that scene next chapter.
Finally, I'm not much on trigger warnings. I choose to believe that my readers are mature and intelligent enough to decide what and when they read, and its that more than any specific content that makes me mark many of my stories "M". However, I will also admit that the first half of this chapter was both dark and difficult, both to read and write. It constitutes the harshest point in Taylor's personal journey. I believe her actions are completely within her established character, but that doesn't make it any easier.
Desperation 5.3
The scream jerked Taylor awake, though just barely. The inside of the vehicle was filled with a cloud of agitated insects. With a half-formed thought, she calmed them down and returned them to the back of the SUV.
They'd rolled to a stop on the side of the highway. She had no idea where they were, only that there was a constant stream of traffic going in the opposite direction, while very little traffic headed north.
The woman finally stopped screaming, but the baby didn't. Taylor blinked back gum from her eyes and saw the baby writhing and red-faced with infantile rage and fear.
"What happened?" she demanded.
"You tell me!" The woman screamed before she covered her face. She was young, probably mid-twenties, with a round face framed in lustrous black hair. Hispanic, though she had a Boston accent. "Your fu….bugs just went nuts!"
Taylor's eye lids felt so heavy. She tried to sit up, but so doing caused agony to lance out from her shoulder.
That's right, I've been shot.
Blood loss. She could smell it in the air, and see it coating her arm. Her own blood. She felt dizzy from it.
"I've been shot," she said aloud, for the woman. "I must have passed out from blood loss. When I did, I momentarily lost control of the bugs. You have a smart phone, right? Find the nearest urgent care clinic."
"So you can kill more people?"
Taylor sighed. She hated the idea taking hostages, it never worked out.
"If you get me to a clinic, you and your baby go free. I'm more interested in not having the Protectorate kill me than I am in hurting you."
"You promise?"
Taylor didn't bother answering—it took all her energy to just keep her eyes open. With a worried glance back at her still-screaming infant, the woman removed her phone and did a quick search.
"There's one two miles away."
"Where are we?"
"An hour south of Boston."
"Okay, let's go."
They merged back onto the highway. "I don't understand why there's so little northbound traffic," the woman muttered.
"Leviathan," Skitter said, fighting to stay away. "Mage and I killed it, but it still did so much damage. I've read that the whole region around an Endbringer attack becomes economically depressed. People are fleeing New Hampshire."
The woman drove on for a few minutes. "I…what was it like?"
"Terrifying," Skitter muttered. "Huge. Impossible. We had armbands that announced the fallen—a cape was dying almost every minute of the fight. Then Mage had the plan, and Legend approved it. Eidolon helped us—he was right there shielding the building we were on. But…but the building fell. Next thing I know I wake up in a room across from my friend Canary. They had a shock-collar on her and they tortured her until she…"
Taylor stopped as the full import of what happened struck. "Holy shit, the Protectorate used me to assassinate Legend. Prism paralyzed him—I saw it. I saw her do something that froze him so he couldn't wipe out my bugs. She fucking helped me into the building. They fucking airlifted me to New York from Brockton Bay. I just…" She had to stop.
Unlike Coil's false accusations of murder, she really did kill him. She was compelled, but it was almost impossible to prove being Mastered like that. Especially not when the ones who mastered her were the supposed Good Guys. Worse yet, in her desperation to escape she killed at least four people. Two were complicit in the conspiracy, but two were just innocent Paramedics.
She had no future. There was no hope any more. The sheer weight of her eye lids added to the despair and started to pull her eyes closed again just as her involuntary chauffeur pulled off the highway and into a parking lot.
Taylor sat staring at the sign for the longest time, wishing more than anything else that her father were there to hold her hand. Hell, she'd even take Mage and his bad sex jokes.
"Go home," she whispered to her driver. "Take care of your baby. Raise her to be strong—because the world's just going to keep getting worse until we all die."
She opened the door and stumbled out. Her bugs followed her, every last one. Not surprisingly, the SUV skidded out of the parking lot before Taylor even managed to reach the door. All around, she gathered more insects—subtly just wasn't going to work anymore. So she went for shock and awe.
With her insects gathered, she stepped into the lobby. The receptionist had already seen her gathering her swarm and was on the phone. The four people waiting in the room screamed as the swarm shot into through the doors Taylor opened.
The insects themselves augmented her voice. "Everyone, phones down now."
Even as she spoke, she sent bugs through the whole clinic, tagging those within it. She formed insect drones in front of the back and side entrances, stopping the few nurses and two patients within from trying to escape.
"Lock the building down," Taylor ordered the receptionist. "I have insects on you right now, I'll sense everything you do. Everyone else into the back. Do as I say, no one gets hurt."
Because her insects augmented her voice, everyone in the clinic heard it. She stood waiting while the weeping receptionist locked the front door, making sure to keep a swarm near her, while the others retreated quickly into an open administrative area. It was a small clinic with ten patient rooms spaced in a U-shape around the administration area. Glass walls lined the cubes where the nurses and techs worked. Four nurses, just one actual doctor and two patents gathered in the center of the administration area.
The blubbering receptionist joined them moments later.
The only doctor on site was old—pepper-gray hair over a dark, heavily wrinkled face. Japanese, she'd guess. Another refugee?
"What do you want, young lady?" the doctor demanded. Impeccable English, Jersey accent. Not a refugee, then.
"I've been shot," she said. "I need treatment. Then everyone goes free."
"This is a minor emergency clinic," the doctor said. "We're not equipped…"
"I'm not equipped to be merciful," Taylor snapped. "I was just forced by the Protectorate to assassinate Legend. They need me dead. So that leaves me without mercy. Cooperate, no one gets hurt. Fight, and I'll have my swarm eat that fucking receptionist of yours alive."
The doctor stiffened, his dark eyes glinting with outrage, while the blubbering receptionist actually collapsed to the floor in tears.
"In fact, I might do that just to shut her up," Taylor muttered. Unfortunately, everyone heard her which just set the receptionist off even louder.
"Fine," the doctor said. "Nurse, I'll need …"
"No pain meds."
The doctor sighed. "Young lady, the procedure will be extremely…"
"If you knock me out, my bugs attack everyone. I won't be able to control them." Half of that statement was true; half was a lie.
The doctor harrumphedhis displeasure, but didn't argue as he ordered a list of supplies. He motioned Taylor toward a room but again she shook her head. "Here."
"I'm going to have to remove your shirt," he pointed out.
"I don't care!" She forced herself to calm down. "I don't care."
"Fine." He pulled out one of the task chairs from an empty administrative station. "Sit!"
Taylor sat. She kept her pistol in her left hand.
"Take off the vest and shirt."
"I…I can't," she admitted.
The doctor sighed dramatically. "Linda, Christine, if you please?"
Two very young nurses, both trembling, made their way forward and with surprisingly gentle hands removed the tack vest. Taylor couldn't help the tears of pain from how they had to move her shoulder, but the vest was not something they could simply cut away. They did cut away the black shirt under it, revealing her lanky, pale frame and the solid stream of blood that coated her entire right side down to her hips. One of the nurses sucked in a breath.
The doctor, though, leaned forward and squinted. "How old are you, young lady?"
"Doesn't matter. They'll kill me no matter how young I am."
The doctor's face was blank, utterly without any emotion she could detect. He took her shoulder and looked at it intently through the bottom half of his bifocals. "The vest must have caught some of it. The penetration is not deep—I can see the bullet. Hold still." He gripped her shoulder, causing Taylor to suck in a breath. "No sign of broken bones—I'd say you were lucky."
She wanted to argue about just how lucky she was, but saw no point. The nurse, (Linda, Taylor guessed) took a large piece of gaze and soaked it liberally in an orange disinfecting agent, which she rubbed around the wound. Taylor didn't comment on the piercing, deep sting.
"You have several other wounds," the doctor noted. "Bruised ribs, contusions."
"Yeah, well, they never bothered healing me after Mage and I killed Leviathan," Taylor snapped, the rage making the pain slightly more bearable. "They fucking locked me up while we were unconscious and then shipped me to New York and made me fucking assassinate the only decent human being in the entire Protectorate the minute I woke up. So sue me if I'm a little rough on the eyes."
The nurse, Linda, paused a second before continuing. When done, the doctor took a pair of forceps and in a simple, efficient manner removed the bullet. Taylor found herself staring at it in fascination.
The fascination lasted up until cold, burning water splashed into the wound. The doctor stared at her for a long moment as the nurse irrigated the wound. "I expected you to pass out," he admitted.
"I was hit with a pain bomb by a psychotic bomb tinker," Taylor said. "It permanently increased my pain tolerance."
"Desensitization is not the same as tolerance," the doctor said. He didn't sound…quite as angry. "No sign of necrosis. An artery was hit, but the bullet itself helped slow the bleeding, otherwise I have no doubt you'd be dead. You'll need antibiotics and follow-up treatment."
"Give me what you have," she said.
The doctor sighed. "Christine, we have Cephalaxin in the pharmacy cabinet. The 500 mg bottles, please."
Christine, the blonde one, nodded. Linda, meanwhile, finished packing the wound and wrapped Taylor's shoulder. Taylor was intensely aware that she was sitting in the middle of an open room in nothing but a skimpy skin-toned B-cup bra.
She was also aware that they were all terrified of her.
"Are there any spare shirts here?" she asked.
The two nurses exchanged looks as Christine arrived with a bottle of pills. She disappeared after handing the medicine to Linda. Taylor tracked her movements to a lounge at the back of the clinic that had a few lockers. She returned moments later with an old T-shirt that had a picture of Legend on the front.
Legend. Taylor suddenly sobbed when she saw it. Overhead and on the floor, insects started buzzing in agitation.
"Young lady, you need to get a hold of yourself," the doctor said.
"Fuck you," she muttered. "Fuck all of you. Legend is dead. He was the only one who gave a shit. And his own fucking people made me kill him." She ripped the shirt from Christine's hands and pulled it on, ignoring the pain. She stood, only for the whole world to spin around and dump her on the ground. The insects in the air went insane for a moment, causing the receptionist and one of the patients to scream in alarm before Taylor could see straight again.
Naturally, that was when a piercing siren announced the presence of the police. Well, that explains the blubbering receptionist. Sneaky girl.
"Do you have epipens?" Taylor asked.
The doctor stiffened but nodded.
A second later, they could hear screaming from outside. Taylor didn't even flinch as she lay on the floor, panting slightly.
"Do you know why things like Nilbog and the Slaughterhouse Nine still exist? Why capes exist? We exist because we're so fucking unfair to fight." She glared at the receptionist, who wasn't blubbering any more, at least. "Anyone else you want to call?"
The girl shook her head.
Taylor took her time climbing back to her feet, bracing herself on the edge of the desk. "You, Kristin…"
"Christina."
"Blondie," Taylor finished. "Where's your car?"
"I don't…I…."
Linda, the brunette, cleared her throat. "She carpools with me."
"Fine. Come with me."
"You said you'd release us if we treated you," the doctor said hotly.
"I am. Except her. She's going to drive me."
"You can…just take the car," Linda said.
Taylor snorted. "I just turned sixteen last month in Brockton Fucking Bay, as if I fucking know how to drive. Come on."
The doctor stood, but Taylor moved her drone right in front of him. The mass of insects in a humanoid shake broke even his calm and he stumbled back. Linda looked over her shoulder in worry once before she followed Taylor toward a back door.
"You have a building key?"
"Yes."
Linda's hands shook as she unlocked the back door onto a small square employee parking lot. Taylor saw a Lexus SUV and three small sedans—a Corolla, a Civic and a Focus. Naturally Linda led her to the Ford.
"Are you going to kill me?" Linda asked after she pulled them onto the highway heading North.
"Hope not," Taylor said. "They're going to be looking for us. Where are we?"
"Um, just north of Providence."
Taylor closed her eyes, desperately trying to recall her local geography. "Take me to Plymouth. Then you're free to go."
Linda frowned. "Plymouth?"
"If I tell you any more, the Protectorate will kill you to find me. Plymouth. No questions."
Linda nodded and started to back up when a dark-gray missile struck the hood of the Focus so hard it severed the entire engine compartment from the rest of the car and sent both spinning. Linda screamed in terror but Taylor just closed her eyes as she realized it was over.
Alexandria stood in the wreckage of the car's engine, her face hidden behind her dark gray helmet. Even though she knew it was useless, Taylor summoned all her bugs from the entire area, both from within the clinic and the surrounding woods. Black swarms descended on Alexandria. Rather than stand there and take it like the brute she was, she shot into the sky like a missile.
Seconds later she flew in from the side. Taylor had a heartbeat where she felt some of her insects pulverized before Alexandria struck the back of the Focus, sheering it off and sending the cabin spinning once more. Linda managed to open the door and spill out into the parking lot. She ran toward the clinic in terrified silence.
Alexandria wasn't just the strongest flying cape—she was reputed to be the most intelligent person on the planet because of her Thinker power. Of course she wouldn't let Taylor get her bugs anywhere near her mouth or face, especially not after Legend.
At best they were going to kill her. At worst, send her to the Birdcage. It fell on her like Leviathan itself that she had well and truly lost. From that first aborted attempt to be a hero, she'd never had a chance because the world itself didn't want heroes. It didn't want people to make things better. Anyone who had a chance to improve the world got a visit from an Endbringer, or worse, people like Alexandria.
All she had left was pain.
"I'm sorry, Dad," she whispered with a short sob as she brought the gun to her temple.
Only to have the weapon snapped away.
"Not so easy as that, I'm afraid," the cold voice of Alexandria said. "No, nothing so quick and easy as that for you, young lady."
"Tell that to Legend, you murdering, hypocritical bitch," Taylor said. She didn't scream—she didn't have the energy. Or so she thought.
A smooth gray glove ripped the door off the shattered Ford and grabbed her forearm. The hand squeezed and Taylor could only stare in horrified, agonized fascination as her forearm snapped like a twig. Only after the pain hit did she scream.
"Anything else you'd like to add?"
She sucked in a breath and controlled the sobs. What was the point? "My neck's right here, you murdering whore."
A fist snapped her thigh bone with almost casual ease. This time there was no sucking in her scream. She bent over her broken leg, howling from the pain Alexandria so easily inflicted. She didn't even have time to bask in that suffering. The same hand that broke her arm and thigh grabbed her by the tactical vest she'd put back on and lifted her out of the car. Taylor closed her eyes, praying for it to end. What she got instead was a calm, mature voice that momentarily broke through the haze of her pain.
"Miss Alexandria, I recognize you are perhaps perturbed," the old Asian doctor said as he stepped from the clinic. Linda hovered right behind him. "However, I will remind you that the villain you are apprehending is a sixteen-year-old child. That she is recovering from a gunshot wound, and what you are doing is very clearly excessive force bordering on outright torture, even under parahuman protocols. She cannot fight you; she cannot harm you. Whatever her ultimate sentence may be, by your own decision to form the Protectorate you are neither her judge nor her jury."
Alexandria didn't bother lowering Taylor to the ground, but she did meet the old man's gaze.
"You are correct," she said. Her voice sounded utterly calm. "Legend was a good friend, and unfortunately I lost my temper. I'll make sure she receives proper care before she is shipped to the Birdcage. Have the owner of this vehicle contact the nearest Protectorate Office for compensation. Good day."
Taylor couldn't even scream. Alexandria took off so fast all breath was pushed out of her lungs. The pain of her broken limbs, the loss of blood from her gunshot wound and the utter weight of despair all conspired to rob her of her consciousness.
~~Simurgh's~~
~~Simurgh's~~
"Danny, you'd better come see this. You'd better come now."
Danny Hebert straightened with a grimace and popped his back. He'd been loading the next day's supply of food from the second level storage racks to the communal kitchen in Coven's apartment complex.
The floor of Coven's lair was lined in simple cots. The level below was the same, and every cot was full, with many people sleeping on the floor as well. Most had lost not just their homes, but everything they had within those homes. The Red Cross and National Guard had both come with supplies to help stretch out what the supposed villains had gathered, but that didn't change the fact that people had no home to return to.
Kurt was one of them. He stood in a pair of jeans that hadn't been washed in so long they'd probably keep walking when he took them off, and a shirt that didn't just have sweat stains, but rings of salt around the sweat stains.
"What's up?"
"Whole caravan of police and PRT agents just showed up, and a nice-dressed couple demanding to see that girl Coven took in—you know, that kid-cape named Dinah?"
Danny nodded but only as a means of hiding the fear. It was day three since Leviathan. Without internet, cable, broadcast TV or even cell phones, he'd not heard anything about Taylor or Harry. Worse yet, Paige had disappeared almost right after the attack.
Kurt led him to the main entrance of the lair, where they had to push through a thick line of co-workers and others to reach the front.
Danny saw more than just police cars and PRT vans. He saw four yellow school busses and four military vehicles. National guardsmen with their weapons ready stood behind lines of PRT agents and police. Almost a hundred armed people, all told.
At their front was the unmistakable form of Armsmaster. Beside him stood a couple only a few years younger than Danny himself. Unlike he and Kurt, the couple was dressed in clean, pressed clothes. A blue pantsuit cinched by a white leather belt for the woman, and tailored slacks, button up and sports jacket for the man.
"Danny Hebert?" Armsmaster said. "This is Kenneth and Louise Alcott. We understand you are holding their daughter here against her will?"
Danny frowned before looking down to make sure he was on the right side of what Harry had called the 'ward line'. "Holding her? Not at all. She arrived with Vista before the Endbringer attack—she warned us the attack was coming and gave us the time we needed to evacuate. No one is holding her against her will."
"Then bring her out to us right now!" Kenneth Alcott spoke like a man accustomed to getting what he wanted. Of course, he was the Mayor's brother and a tech baron himself, and so likely did get what he wanted more often than not.
Regardless of how Danny felt about the man, as a father he couldn't in good conscience keep a child from her parents.
"Lacy, could you…?" He started to ask his friend to go get her when the crowds parted behind them and the last two capes of Coven that Danny could think of appeared.
Genesis had taken the form of a giant, four-armed woman—a figure right out of a bad fantasy movie, with a long top-not of black hair. She stood half again as tall as Danny.
Holding onto the lower of her left hands, Dinah Alcott walked beside her. The little girl's face was etched with tears and a genuine fright Danny recognized as being the same as Taylor's after her mom died.
"Dinah!" Kenneth Alcott rushed forward to his daughter only to hit the ward line and bounce back onto his rear. The line of soldiers behind them reacted instantly, whipping their guns up. This in turn caused the civilians around Danny to scream in alarm and back up.
"HOLD!" Armsmaster's powerful voice boomed across the white street. For a moment, the only sound was the waves crashing against the crumbled pavement where the warehouse wardline ended.
"Deactivate the shield," Armsmaster said. He spoke to Genesis.
She folded the top most of her two arms across a wide, copious chest and smirked. "Can't. Mage said it was an intent-driven magical ward. Anyone who means any of us harm, or who we think means us harm, can't enter without permission."
If not for how serious the situation was, Danny would laugh at how ludicrous it was to have a perfectly normal young woman's voice emerge from such a monstrosity.
"I'm her father!" Kenneth roared.
"Ninety-eight percent chance I'm kidnapped by Coil if I go with you," Dinah said. Though she spoke softly, somehow her voice still carried. "Eighty-five percent chance you and mother die. Mage is the only one who can protect me."
Armsmaster stiffened, evidently understanding what that meant more than the Alcotts.
"You believe Coil is still after you?"
Dinah nodded.
"Nonsense," Kenneth said, not shouting but speaking very loudly. "He's fled the city, probably the country."
"He's in Boston," Genesis said. "Working with Accord. He'll be back."
"How do you know that?" Armsmaster demanded.
Genesis shrugged, which was an interesting effect with four huge arms. "You could ask Tattletale, if you fucks hadn't betrayed them. Where are they? Where's Mage, or Skitter? Where's Tattletale? Why the fuck did you violate the truce?"
"Mage was detained for the negligent homicide of over three thousand people in the 1st Street Shelter. Skitter, on the other hand, murdered Legend this morning…"
The entire crowd started shouting, booing loudly. Danny could only stand and stare in shock as his stomach dropped.
"…ALONG WITH TWO PRT AGENTS, TWO PARAMEDICS AND AN ENTIRE CLINIC OF CIVILIANS AND MEDICAL PERSONNEL," Armsmaster bellowed, his voice somehow supplemented by speakers in his armor. "She was recaptured by Alexandria personally just minutes ago. Her original sentence was reinstated based on her most recent atrocity and she has been sent to the Birdcage, along with Mage and Canary. Coven has ceased to exist. We are here with a court order to evacuate all citizens from this site. Food and shelter will be provided at a new camp on the edge of town. Anyone who stays will be cut off from all emergency supplies."
"One hundred percent chance Mage escapes," Dinah said. Danny turned to look at her and felt a spike of alarm when he saw a drop of blood run down from her nose. "One hundred percent chance you've already lost to Coven. They're going to come back. The Protectorate will be their enemy. Mage is the Endbringer killer. He is God's avatar on this earth. You have no idea what you've done."
Her eyes rolled up into her head and she collapsed into Genesis' arms.
Louise Alcott was holding her hands to her face and weeping, but Kenneth merely glared.
Armsmaster was frowning mightily. "Regardless, my orders stand. Will you cooperate, or will I have to employ harsher methods?"
"The protections on this building survived Leviathan," Genesis said. "Mage said they could survive a nuke. We have supplies. I'm not going anywhere." She turned and looked down across the civilians. "However, as the only remaining member of Coven, I recommend the rest of you go. Our contract was to shelter you and protect you from the attack. We've fulfilled the terms of our contract. There's no point in you being held under siege for something that's not your fault."
There was a lot of angry muttering until Bill Perkins stepped beyond the ward line. One of the PRT agents reached for him, but the old man slapped the hand away.
"Son, you don't want to manhandle me." He turned to the crowd. "Anyone with Magnate, let's go. We'll do a helluva lot more good for these folks out here. Senator Stillwater remembers who got him in office. And this young jackass might by the mayor's brother, but I was the head of his last re-election committee. We all know that in politics, money is thicker than blood. Come on, people."
Kenneth Alcott glared but managed to hold his tongue.
The crowds began to break—people went back in for what few personal belongings they had, but then left in lines being escorted to the school bus. The railroad people went next. The whole time, Armsmaster stood next the Alcotts, the three of them staring intently at Genesis and the girl she held so gently in her lower arms.
Phil Lendy stepped forward.
"Dockworkers, we've come to know a load of bullshit when we see it. If you have kids or family outside of town, then you should head out. For myself, I have a brother in California who's an even bigger asshole than these people, and that's it. So I'm staying with Danny. We all know Taylor Hebert, and we know there's no what in hell she'd assassinate anyone, not of her own volition. These liars have set her up before, and it's obvious they've set her up again."
Danny fought back tears when he saw just how many of the Dockworker's cheered. He met Phil's eyes and merely nodded, unable to express just what he was feeling.
Several of them went, of course. Those with children, or with elderly parents in need of care. In the end, only a hundred or so stayed, most of whom Danny knew by name.
"You're making a mistake," Armsmaster said.
Danny shrugged and wiped away a tear. "The only mistake I see were you bastards shipping my little girl into a prison for monsters. I'm not going anywhere, not while I have breath to breathe."
Armsmaster dismissed him with a snort and looked back at Genesis. "Regardless of the circumstances, the Alcott's are that girl's parents. If you fail to turn her over, you'll be guilty of kidnapping and…"
"Here, take her," Genesis said, cutting the man off.
Kenneth started forward, but Genesis stepped back. "Not the asshat. The mother."
Louise rushed forward and accepted her daughter with a loud, dramatic sob. Genesis rolled her eyes.
"Just to be clear, I'm giving her back because she said you'd probably die when Coil kidnaps her again. Some people are just too fucking stupid to live, and when you're so fucking arrogant to dismiss predictions from the most accurate precog alive, well…you deserve what's going to happen to you."
With that she turned and walked away. As the Alcotts turned back toward a waiting PRT van, Danny had a brief, odd glimpse of a figure in black wearing a devil mask. She waved at him before…before…what was he thinking about?
"Mr. Hebert, your actions could be construed as attempting to aid and abet a known fugitive," Armsmaster said. "This is your last chance to do the right…"
Danny turned his back on the arrogant son of a bitch and walked back into the warehouse. Phil joined him, patting him on the back. The rest of the dockworkers joined him.
A/N: Next chapter, we see how Harry and Lung are getting along.