An Imago of Rust and Crimson

Chapter 6.04

So, I was a dog. That was a thing.

The first thing that was obvious was how different the world looked through a dog's eyes. Everything looked like I was seeing the world without my glasses. No, worse than that; it was like I was wearing swimming goggles with the lenses coated in Vaseline. The colours were wrong, too. Oranges looked yellowy-green; everything was way more muted. I'd read that dogs were colour blind so that must have been it. The smell of this place was a hammer to my senses, and I was trying to ignore it because I certainly didn't understand everything the dog's nose was trying to tell me. The noises were too loud, especially when a cop car wailed past outside.

But that wasn't the end of my problems as I stood up on four legs and slowly made my way back out the door. Moving around was hard. I didn't know how to walk on four legs. But as long as I didn't think about it, this body just sort of handled everything for me. The dog's mind was somewhere in here with me, swamped by my Other Place form, and it did what I said.

It was almost like I'd made it into one of my creatures. Just for a little while.

Being a dog wasn't comfortable. Everything I did was clumsy and disassociated, like I was handling the world with thick gloves. The dog's skin was too tight; its bones were in the wrong places and ached; its narrow throat strangled me. I'd been crammed into something that was too small.

To my disgust, I found that I couldn't slip past the fog wall as a dog. When I sniffed the luminescent pink mist, it stuck to the dog's nose and I had to exhale something black and cloying to corrode it off. It'd been worth a try.

It was time to hide. The kennels were outside the fog, so I couldn't blend in with the other dogs. There were still a few of them trotting around the place. From the way the cops treated them, it seemed the K9s were treated as pets by the officers. I kept away from them. They didn't like me. Maybe the dogs could tell that something was wrong.

So instead I made my way downstairs, dodging grey men as I headed back to the cells. The institutional-green walls were almost as grey as the Other Place to a dog's eyes. It stunk like a bathroom. There was mould under the all-consuming scent of piss and cleaning fluids.

The way I saw it, the three-eyed man didn't have reason to check down there, since I'd already fled upstairs. And I was right. The three-eyed man wasn't down there, though he'd made a mess. He must have dragged himself to a bathroom. I grinned. Hopefully he was having all the fun he deserved from Phobia. I didn't want to be vindictive, but after the incident down at the docks with the bird lady he and his allies deserved some suffering.

The two grey men from earlier, the fake cape and the paramedic, were hanging around in front of Tash's cell. They weren't doing anything. They were just standing. Watching. Waiting. Guarding. The woman wasn't blinking. Their stink was even worse to the dog than that whiff I'd got in the Other Place. I could feel the dog's mind within me whine. It wanted to bark and bark until those things left it alone.

Slowly they turned to look at me. "Go away," the paramedic said to me. To the dog. "Animals are not welcome here."

I waited for some kind of response from the fake cape, ready to disappear his helmet, but he didn't seem to be able to see that I was hiding in the dog. I guessed that the 'tech in his helmet wasn't the sort that let him see the Other Place. Maybe it was because he was meant to be working alongside the three-eyed man, so he was there for other reasons. But the dog didn't want to go anywhere nearer to them, so instead I took the nearest door that didn't lead into one of the cells.

Tash's attorney was in there, doodling on a piece of paper. He looked even unhealthier through canine eyes, and stunk of spirits and cigarette smoke. A butt smoked in the ash tray in front of him. It was more comfortable than the rest of the basement, but that was only relative. The furniture was cheap and bolted to the floor and an extractor fan buzzed loudly in one corner of the room. Whatever colour humans saw the room as, to a dog it was a sickly bile green.

The attorney glanced down at me. "Heya girl," he said to me, looking up from his pad. "You're a pretty thing, aren't you?"

Okay. That was a thing. He was a dog lover. I tilted my head, looking up at him, then ambled over to him.

"Yes you are," he said. He bent down, slightly wary of the unknown dog and scratched me between the ears when I didn't react. "Who's a good friendly girl? Who is? You're a good girl!"

I didn't like being touched like that But sure, I decided. Sure, if he liked dogs, I could play-act for him. Don't pay any attention to me, I'm a friendly police dog, woof woof, I'm just sitting down beside you.

He got up and closed the door, then dialled a number on the landline. I wondered why he wasn't using his cell - but then again, there wouldn't be reception down here, would there? His other hand went down to keep on idly petting my head. It wasn't pleasant because he was pushing down on the dog's head too hard and if I was a real dog I'd probably have bitten him, but I wanted to hear what he had to say. "Pick up, pick up," he muttered. "Come on…"

"Yes, hello? This is Kirk Everest." I could hear the voice on the other end of the line from where I was. Chalk one up for canine hearing. "Who is it?"

"Kirk, it's me. I'm at the station right now."

"Good. Can we talk freely?"

"Yes, I'm alone." Sitting down by his ankles, I felt very smug indeed. "Plus, you're my client. They know better than to tap the line."

"What the hell happened, Martinson? What can I tell Wells?"

"I've seen his daughter. It's a good news, bad news kind of thing." The attorney rubbed his jowls with his free hand. Then he touched my head with the same hand. Yuck. "They brought in a PPD team headed up by a fed, 'cause it looks like she got whammed by a Jap villain. They broke off the checks, though. Something's going on upstairs. Not sure what. But they know she's a para so they'll probably force her to register. That's the bad news. The good news - such as it is - is that she's confused and clearly affected by whatever they did to her, so we should be able to get her off."

Kirk harrumphed. "Could be worse. Do you know if she's going to be okay?"

"The feds weren't chatty, but from what the cops said she's calming down. I talked to one of my contacts - he's trustworthy, good man - and he said she was acting like she'd been zapped by some kind of fear thing."

It was guilt, not fear, I thought sulkily. But Kirk was talking. "A fear power? Have the Boomers picked up someone new?"

"I don't know."

"Well, can you ask around?"

"I'll see what I can do," Martinson said, nodding. He patted my head. "Tell Wells that if they call him up, he should have a sob story ready. That she's a good girl, that she's been coping badly with the divorce, that she might've fallen into bad company but she didn't do anything wrong, et cetera."

Kirk laughed. "He was already on about that when he called me up in a panic. He won't even be acting. I think he's going to ground her for years. He put effort into keeping her off the register and then she goes and gets involved with one of our street defence groups."

"Good. I think that'll help the case. Tell him that at the moment, best case is there'll be no charges. But if we wind up with one of the Leftie prosecutors who wants a feather in her cap for going after whites and looking good for the Red 'Net, I'll take the plea bargain and should be able to get her probation. And that's a worst case, got it? I should be able to get her confession thrown out as it's trash. Without that they've got nothing. That NY jackass at the station was claiming she was party to a kidnapping, but they haven't even shown me proof anyone was kidnapped. I think he's playing hardball."

"Great work. Just keep it up. So, find out what you can about this new jap villain. And see if you can get anything about the others there who were attacked by the japs."

"Mmm. Do you want to hire me for the Waiting Force?"

"No. They're not worth it. Burn them if you need to, to get Wells' girl off. She could be useful and we need to keep him happy for veteran connections. The others aren't worth it, and if the japs start a riot when things come to trial that's all we need."

Martinson chuckled. "That makes my job easier. If it comes to a jury, she's a pretty girl with a clean record. They're much easier to defend than young men. If you want the intel, though, I'll have to talk with people. That'll cost me and…"

"I'll make sure you get your expenses repaid."

"Fax your consent ," said the attorney. "I want it in writing."

"Yeah, yeah. I think that's about all. You know what you need to do. Hail Caesar."

Wait. Wait. What?

The attorney checked the door, overlooking me. "Hail Caesar," he said softly, before raising his voice. "That'll be all," he said. "I'll call you if there's anything new, Kirk."

"Good job, Martinson. I'll keep my phone on all night, but don't call me after ten unless it's important."

"Got it. Speak to you later."

"Right." The man at the other end of the line, Kirk Everest, hung up and the attorney slumped down in his chair. He made a few more notes in his pad.

I was bolt upright, eyes raised. My curiosity managed even to force down the unpleasant feelings of being trapped in this dog's body. Hail Caesar? Hail Caesar?! I'd heard that name. Dad spoke it with venom and said that he was talking shit about how America was dying like the Roman Republic and needed an Augustus. People said he was some big player behind the scenes with the Patriots. Rumour said he was a cape with a grudge against the leader of the Boumei. Or maybe Caesar wasn't a person at all - maybe it was a title for the secret boss of all the skinhead gangs.

Both Martinson and Kirk Everest had said 'Hail Caesar' to one another. That cop had said to the three-eyed man that Martinson got called in to defend skinheads. Tash's dad had talked to Mr Everest and he'd send in Martinson to get her off. Apparently Everest and Tash's dad had done stuff to make sure she'd stay unregistered.

Had I stumbled on some Patriot conspiracy of seemingly-respectable men who worked behind the scenes to do stuff for - and with - skinhead gangs? But, wait, from what they said, Tash's dad wouldn't want his daughter involved with a gang. They might have been doing things with the gangs, but they didn't want their families involved in the violence.

I huffed. I didn't want to admit it, but my sense of fairness did force me to accept I'd probably mucked up with Tash. What I should have done was… I sighed. What I probably should have done was call the cops. I could have used an Idea to push the cops into taking things seriously, and then I could have been there to make sure nothing went wrong. Or maybe I should have just helped Tash be the voice of sanity, at least until no one was talking about killing anymore.

It wasn't what I wanted to do, but I really needed to find a way to get in and talk to her. I had to know 'why'. I'd never asked my own bullies that, even since I got my powers. The grey men were guarding the door, though, and I doubted she'd accept a dog coming in and speaking. If I could even talk in the dog's body.

Resting my chin on my hands… uh, my front paws, I started to think. Something cold and damp distracted me.

Dark water was oozing from the dog's paws. And now that I looked more closely, in the warped-colour world of the dog, there seemed to be a speckling of rust in its fur. That wasn't the scariest thing, though. The scariest thing was that I could see this in the real world.

Could everyone else? Or was this just the Other Place intruding on my senses?

I sunk into the cold. Things were even worse there. I was leaving wet footprints on the bare concrete ground, and the dog's skin was starting to flake away to reveal the metal underneath. I felt like if I wanted, I could unfold my wings from its back. Just the thought produced stabbing pains between my shoulderblades.

Something like a dog couldn't hold me long. Anyone who saw me would be able to see that I was overflowing it. I needed a new body. I needed to get out of here. Right now I couldn't think about Caesar. The three-eyed man and the grey men were my problem.

Lifting my head off my paws, I looked at the door. There were two grey men out there. Grey men who weren't real people. And they were blocking the way in.

All it took was scratching at the door to get the attorney to let me out of the room. He closed the door behind him. Good. No witnesses. But just to make sure, once I heard him sit down I sent Cry Baby after him. If I'd had a human body, I would have grinned. Breaking news; dog puts man to sleep.

I paced towards the pair of grey men, toenails clicking against the hard concrete. The paramedic was a woman so would probably be more comfortable, but the fake cape had tinkertech. I wanted that.

But no, this dog wasn't comfortable and I didn't want to be a man. I'd just need to take the fake cape down too. And then I could take the glowing power from his helmet and… I shook my head. Focus.

They weren't looking my way.

I exhaled, and I came rushing out of the dog's mouth in a tarry black cloud. I nearly took form as my Other Place body, but rather than linger I enveloped the paramedic. Like helium I expanded within her skin, until it was my skin.

I took a deep breath, and lifted my hands in front of my face. I had hands again! My bones felt like they were mostly the places they were meant to be, and I was looking at the world from a proper eye level! Things weren't quite right – I was too short, for one – and maybe that'd start to bug me in a bit, but right now I was just glad to be in a human body once more, even if it wasn't mine.

Oh, it felt good to be human again, I thought as Cry Baby settled on my shoulder. Not that I wasn't human. But being a creature of the Other Place or wearing a dog wasn't the same.

Now, to dispose of the other grey man. What was his name? Oh yes. "Sir Sense," I said, reaching out with one hand. Cry Baby crawled along my arm.

"What is it?"

I touched him on the brow. There was something squirming there – another word, below the helmet. I could feel it. "Sleep," I said, inhaling sharply.

The word evaporated, seeping out of the hidden air holes, and I breathed in the hissing mist. It tasted of old paper, cleaning fluids, and hot tarmac. It wasn't good like a normal parahuman power. I brought my other hand around and held his helmet tight, sucking in the beautiful, wonderful, tasty light. It made fireworks explode behind my eyes. I stumbled back, letting go of him. Oh. Oh, that was so much better. He crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut. There was no self in the shell that remained. He was just a discarded doll, lifeless without his animating word.

I'd been thinking about what they were. I knew a name for that from books. Golem. No wonder it'd been so easy to take over this woman's body and wear her like a suit. Even the dog had fought me more. Cracking my knuckles, I stretched out my new body and made sure I could walk around in it properly. It was a little clumsy, but I could pass.

Raising my stolen right hand before me, I clenched the glove into a fist. "This'll do," I said, in a voice that wasn't my own. There was a false ID clipped onto the front of my outfit, and I had a pistol at my hip. "This'll do nicely."

I stashed the false cape in one of the empty cells, tucking him under one of the fold-out beds. Just like the last one I'd taken the word from, he was still breathing. He just wasn't doing anything. A hollow shell that could be filled by the word. Or by me.

Then I let myself into Tash's cell with the keys I found in the paramedic's pockets. Now that I was back in a body, it really made it clear how small the cell was. It was made for one person, with barely enough room for a simple bed. It meant I had to stand closer to her than I liked.

Not that she looked up when I entered the room. Natasha was huddled in on herself; arms tucked in tight to her waist, shoulders hunched over, those elbow-length cuffs resting on her knees. It didn't look comfortable. Even in such a small room, she was overwhelmed by her surroundings. She might have been average height, but the way she sat on the bed reminded me of a child.

No, that wasn't it. It reminded me of Kirsty and the way she'd huddle in on herself when she was having one of her worse days. I winced. I'd just meant for her to give herself up to the police. I hoped I hadn't done any more damage. I'd been in a psychiatric hospital, and even though the time away from the world had been useful, I wouldn't wish it on anyone who'd been fine before.

I shook my head, banishing such things. I had to remember what she'd done. I couldn't go soft on her. That wouldn't be right.

"So," I said, folding my hands behind my back. "Let's talk."

Tash looked up at me. Her eyes were reddened and her nose was running. She'd been crying. Her hair – cut short at the side the way skinhead girls did it – was dirty and still had plaster dust in it. "Doctor?" she said, eyes settling on my stolen body's uniform. "I… I think I'm going crazy. I… ever since… since it happened, I… wait, has this already happened? Can I…" she trailed off. "Is this now?" she asked, awkwardly. "Like, now-now."

Um. "What are you talking about?"

"I… I keep having… waking dreams?" She laughed bitterly. "Nightmares, more like. Things from the past. And everything smells of…" she unconsciously tasted the air. "It's gone, but everything tasted bad. Really, really bad. Like blood and… and rot and… and…" She looked up. "At least the ceiling is back," she whispered. "All the paint fell off it for a bit. I'm glad that's stopped. I didn't like the writing."

I frowned. Penitence had been showing her the Other Place. I hadn't told it to do that. "Is that happening right now? I can't smell any blood."

Shifting in place uncomfortably, Tash looked around, carefully scrutinising the walls. "I… don't think so," she said. "It comes and goes, but… I don't think it's happening right now?" There was more uncertainty in her voice than I was comfortable with. "Where am I?"

"You're in the cells at a police station. I'm with the… I'm with the PPD, here to check up on you."

"Oh." Tash blinked, slowly. "I… I think I remember that," she said, shivering. "Someone told me that already. But not you. Actually, it might have been you. You were just in here, weren't you?"

That wasn't something I could answer for certain, but it made sense. "Yes," I said.

"Good. Good." Tash took a deep breath. "I… I… things are happening in the right order. You said… you said you were going to run tests on me? Something involving a helmet?"

"Not right now," I said. "Now…"

"Um. Can I have some water, please? My mouth is really dry and," she shrugged in a way that emphasised that her hands were trapped in the cuffs. "Well, you're… you're probably not going to let me out of this."

I wasn't breaking my promise; I didn't feel sorry for her. I just fed her water from the bottle I found in the paramedic's bag because I wanted to talk to her and if her throat was too dry that'd just get in the way. And it also helped put us on better terms. I did consider using an Idea to stop me from flagging, but no. No. I wasn't going to do that to myself.

"Thank you," she said, licking her lips as I took the bottle away.

"Good." The recessed ceiling lights hummed overhead. I folded my hands behind my back, so she wouldn't see them clench into fists. "So what I want to know is why you did it?"

Natasha swallowed. "I…" Her eyes sunk down to her feet. "I didn't plan it. It just… h-h-happened. I wasn't looking for… I just had exams today and God, that feels like years ago, but…"

"No, I know that. I know Alexander decided to grab Megumi," I said. The way she flinched was something to behold. I didn't feel proud about how good it made me feel. "I know he called you up in a panic. I know you went over to try to handle things and I know everything started going south when his older brother – who's part of another gang – showed up and your plans to… oh, what was it, get her drunk and dump her in a park so no one would believe that she'd been kidnapped? They weren't going to work out."

She looked up at me, eyes wide. "B-b-but… how do you know?"

"Alexander talked," I lied. Her eyes sunk down again. With Penitence gone, she'd clearly had some ideas of getting off, even if the after effects might have been lingering. "No, that's not what I wanted to know." I leaned towards her. "What I want to know is… why?"

"Why?" Her brow crinkled up even as she reflexively leaned away from me.

"I know what you did. I know you got involved with the skinheads after your parents got divorced. I know you've been taking pictures of the bullying. I know you did it because you thought it was funny!" I took a deep breath. My voice had been getting louder, and I wouldn't get anything from her if she went to pieces because I was screaming in her face. "What I don't know is… why?"

"But…" she trailed off. I nearly sunk into the Other Place to make her talk – but no. I wanted to see what she said without my intervening any more than I already had. "I didn't even tell…"

"Maybe talking about it might make you feel less guilty," I suggested artlessly. "Because I can see it in your expression."

Her shoulders were hunched in tight. The ceiling rattled because of a passing truck on the street, making the lights flicker slightly. Tash took a deep, shuddery breath.

"Well," she began, and her words poured out as if a dam had broken inside her. She hadn't meant to, not at first, she said, and it's not like she meant anything by it. But Ashley – one of her friends – had been dating a skinhead and she'd liked menk anyway and she was feeling rotten and Ashley got her to tag along and they'd been nice and they'd been right and then one of the kids from a jap gang at school had burned Ashley with a cigarette to get at her boyfriend and…

Her story jumped around; thoughts spiralling a drain. She really wasn't over what Penitence had done to her. She wanted to confess, and the act of confession made her feel better. I wasn't a priest. But I guessed I was an angel. Or something not too distant, at least.

"You don't understand what it's like! There are bathrooms you can't go near because that's where the jap girls hang out and the boys are even worse! They wolf-whistle you and sometimes they'll get a girl alone and do that thing where they lean against the wall and block you off and look at you like you're meat! I hate that! And no one does anything to stop it!"

She didn't make all that much sense. Not if you expected a linear narrative. But I wasn't really listening for that. What I was listening for was feelings so I could understand what had driven her down this path.

"… and they're my friends!" Natasha stared up at me, fearful and shaking but with a hint of defiance. She didn't expect an 'old lady' like the grey women seemed to be to understand.

"I see," I said. "Thank you. You've been very informative." She had.

"What are you doing? Where are you going?"

"I need to talk to my superiors." I let myself out, leaving her alone in the cell, and slumped against the institutional-green walls of the corridor. It didn't smell too good, but I was glad to be out of the claustrophobic confines of the cell.

Well, I got my answer. It wasn't one I liked. She felt weak. She felt alone. She'd been alienated from her usual friends and missing her mother. She hadn't felt safe walking around school. She'd had bad experiences. And then there were some people who were her friends and she did what they did because… they were her friends. Because she thought they were doing the right thing. Because they were going after people she didn't like.

Natasha was a bully. That much was true.

She also wasn't that different from me. And that hurt to think about, but I had to. If I didn't think about those kind of things, I'd be the person who casually tore away my Dad's feelings and… I didn't want to be that person.

The similarities between us were uncanny. If she'd said 'We're not so different, you and I,' she'd have been right. Single fathers, living in the same area, we were both unregistered parahumans…

I could nearly have been her. Very nearly. If Dad had been a Patriot rather than with the union so I'd been primed to accept their rhetoric. If the skinheads had tried to be friends with me because I'd known a few of them beforehand, rather than hiding myself away in the library. If they'd just told me they'd keep Emma, Sophia and Madison off me if I hung with them. How many of these little things would have needed to be true before I'd have been just like her?

The lights overhead flickered and I sighed. It wasn't a nice thing to admit, but it felt right. Would I have bullied Japanese kids if my friends were doing it? Just as a hypothetical, because it wasn't like I'd had friends before Christmas.

I'd like to say I'd stand strong and say it was wrong, but… God, I think I would have. I knew what she was talking about with the way some of the Japanese boys acted to women. White boys were the same, but if that was what you were looking for… yeah. I'd tended to stay safe in the library, but there were sections of the school I wasn't willing to walk through without Isolation. If they'd just talked to me, been my friends, given me a break from all the shit in my life? I'd have been tempted.

And if someone had been willing to punch Emma in her oh-so-perfect-face and keep her off my back, I'd have done anything for them.

Standing there, I heard a sound from the cell. It was a sob.

Damn it. I thumped the wall. God damn it. It was just like with Ryo. I understand too much about why both of them had done what they did. And that meant I couldn't really hate them – even if I really wanted to hate a skinhead bully like Natasha. And these were just two people's stories. What if I'd put as much effort into finding out about Alexander, the meathead who'd grabbed Megumi? My nasty, morbid brain already was pointing out I hadn't seen any sign of a presence of parents in his place, just that older brother – who'd already been involved in gang stuff.

There were all these sad little stories at my school that I'd never had the mental space to think about. What else was I missing?

Well, Natasha might be a dumb kid, but her dad was something else. Her dad and his associates and that attorney. People like that using the stupid gang stuff at school for their own ends. Only caring when one of their daughters wound up caught up in one of their schemes. I wasn't okay with that. I wasn't okay with that at all.

Once this crap was over, I'd need to sit down and think about this. This wasn't the sort of thing I wanted to do on the fly.

Right now, I had more important things to do. Like getting out of the trap I was in. But now I had a gut full of stolen parahuman glow, I had the feeling the odds had shifted in my favour. And I was going to do my best to make sure they stayed that way.