Hope Comes to Brockton Bay
Part 54: In which Amy gives Menja a hand, and Hope agrees to assist Skitter in a delicate mission
Hope stirred.
The tantalizing odour of tea wafted past her nostrils, and she inhaled appreciatively.
She had actually woken up a couple of times in the last few hours, but Amy was still sleeping soundly, and she hadn't wanted to disturb her. And it was nice to lie in for once.
She smelled the tea again, and opened her eyes. Lisa was sitting beside the camp bed, with a tray on a small table beside her. On the tray were a teapot, two teacups, a small jug that Hope presumed held milk, and a sugar bowl. The third teacup was in Lisa's hand, as she sipped at the steaming beverage.
"Hi," murmured Hope.
"Hi yourself, sleepyhead," replied Lisa, with a twinkle in her eye. "You two look so damn cute like that."
Hope smiled. "Shush, you," she replied, keeping her voice down. "Amy really needs this right now."
Lisa tilted her head, her vulpine smile widening. "Really?" she asked. "So it's just about Amy? You get nothing out of it at all?"
Hope rolled her eyes. "Okay, fine, so I kinda enjoy it too," she admitted. "It's nice to have someone to snuggle up to."
"So I see," agreed Lisa gravely. "Uh, listen, when you two feel like getting up, Skitter's here to see you."
"I don't want to disturb Amy –" began Hope, but she could already feel the girl in her arms begin to stretch and stir, preparatory to waking.
"I'll be out there," Lisa said, rising to her feet. "Enjoy the tea." She exited through the makeshift curtain, just a moment before Amy's eyes fluttered open.
"Morning, sweetie," Hope greeted her with a smile and a hug.
"Is it morning?" asked Amy, returning the hug.
"I have no idea," admitted Hope. "But we have tea."
"Tea," repeated Amy, then her brain engaged. "Yes please. Tea. Tea is good."
They sat on the edge of the camp bed, side by side, shoulders touching, and enjoyed the hot tea. Hope took hers black, with lots of sugar, while Amy stirred hers almost white, with only one cube.
They drank in companionable silence, leaning against one another, enjoying the togetherness.
"Hope ...?" ventured Amy, as they were almost finished.
"Yes, Amy?"
"Did ... Vicky visit, earlier, or was that just a dream?" Amy looked wistful. "I miss Vicky."
Hope shook her head with a smile. "No dream, sweetie. She visited. We talked. I convinced her that she needed to let you fix what you'd done. You fixed it. And then we went back to sleep."
"Oh," said Amy. "Good. I'm glad." She smiled at Hope. "You have a way of making dreams come true."
Hope wasn't quite sure what to make of that, she she decided to make light of it, and giggled. "All in a day's work, I guess." She turned a mock-stern gaze on Amy. "And no more changing people to what you want them to be, unless I specifically okay it, all right?"
"Oh god no," Amy replied fervently. "I've learned my lesson there." She leaned her head on Hope's shoulder. "I have no idea how to thank you for what you've done for me."
Hope finished her tea and put it down. "That part's easy," she said lightly. "Be the best person you can be. Try not to hurt people, and do good whenever you can." She put her fingertip to Amy's nose. "Everyone matters. Everyone."
"... wow," said Amy, blinking. "You really mean that."
Hope nodded. "I remember living in the gutter, not all that long ago," she said seriously. "If I mattered then, then everyone matters, all the time. It's that simple."
Amy tilted her head to one side. "You know, with your charisma, your philosophy, you could really start a movement," she said. "People would follow you if you asked them to." She giggled, self-consciously. "I know I would. You could make a difference. Change the world. Make it a better place."
"Yes," said Hope, perfectly straight-faced. "I could. And that's why I'm not going to." She stood, stretched, and collected the tray. "Come along, o disciple. Let us see what the afternoon brings us."
Amy grinned. "Lead on, o great and glorious leader."
Skitter was waiting, chatting quietly with Menja. Lisa brought over a tray of hot rolls, just as Hope and Amy emerged from the curtained-off area. She swapped the tray with the one Hope was carrying, and bore the teapot off with the air of someone who has successfully pulled off a magic trick.
Hope and Amy each took a roll, and Hope took the tray over to Skitter and Menja. Skitter declined a roll, but Menja accepted one.
The rolls were delicious.
Finishing hers, Menja inclined her head to Hope. "I understand that it was your plan that defeated the Nine, and avenged my comrades and my arm," she said.
Hope nodded. "Well, sort of my plan," she said. "I presented it, but everyone else did most of the work. I just kept Jack Slash busy." She smiled. "If you want to thank the person who took down Crawler, Amy here set him up, and Bitch's dogs put him down."
Menja nodded to Amy. "It was very well done, then," she said.
Amy ducked her head. "Vista was the one who got me close enough," she volunteered. "It was teamwork all the way around."
"Be that as it may," Menja said, looking back to Hope, "I am only just now recognising who and what you really are." She dropped to one knee and bowed her head. "Command me, and I will obey. Lead me, and I will follow."
"Oh god, no, seriously, get up," said Hope hastily, feeling horribly embarrassed. "All I want you to do is run your territory fairly. Work with Skitter and the other Undersiders. Help people out. Do the right thing by them. And one more thing."
Rising to her feet, Menja looked at her closely. "What is that one thing?"
"People get strong when other people help them to get strong. I'm not saying to let people sponge off you. But it's easier to get to your feet and get strong when others are assisting you. Can you do that for me?"
Menja looked as though she were trying to process this; it was apparently a new and rather difficult thought. "I can ... try," she said eventually.
"That's all I ask for," said Hope. "Oh, yeah, and there's something else, too." She turned to Amy. "If I asked you to, could you fix her arm for her?"
Amy looked thoughtful. "I'd have to draw on a bit of muscle and bone mass from the rest of her body, but sure."
Hope turned back to Menja. "Would you allow her to regrow your arm for you?"
Menja looked startled. "My ... arm?" She stared down at her stump, as if seeing it for the first time. Then she looked at Amy. "You can do this? You will do this?"
"Uh, sure," said Amy. "Just ... when you lost the arm, you lost body mass. If I regrow the arm, I'm gonna have to take that mass from other parts of your body. You're going to be just a tiny bit shorter, a tiny bit lighter, than you're used to being."
Menja smiled. "A change in size ... will not be a problem."
Amy nodded. "Your point is taken." She glanced at Hope, who nodded fractionally. "When you're ready?"
Menja sank back to her knees in front of Amy, and offered her truncated arm. "Now is as good a time as any."
It only took a few minutes. Hope watched, fascinated. As was becoming her practice with Amy, she kept one hand in contact with Menja, observing the change from the inside. Muscle and bone migrated from all other points in the body, causing Menja's left arm to expand like a time-delay film of a tree reaching for the sky. There were pauses at the elbow and wrist as the delicate joints were established, and more for the finer bones of the hand and fingers, but it was over faster than she would have believed possible.
By the end of it, Menja was white-faced and sweating; apparently the process, while not actually painful, was not particularly comfortable either. But she bore it stoically, without a twitch or a word of complaint.
Eventually, Amy lifted her hands away from Menja's now-complete left arm. "That should do it," she said. "Complete copy of the right arm, mirror imaged." She smiled, looking just a little tired. "Even down to the chipped fingernail on the ring finger."
Menja flexed the fingers of her brand-new left hand, worked the elbow, and rotated the wrist joint critically.
"It seems to work well," she admitted. "It feels just a little ... strange. New."
"That's because I had to rebuild the nerve connections from scratch," Amy pointed out. "Basic movements will work fine; you're used to moving your left arm, after all. But you're going to have to retrain your combat reflexes for that arm."
Menja nodded, understanding. "That is not going to be a problem," she asserted. She smiled dryly. "It will be much easier with an arm than without." She smiled at Amy, then nodded to Hope, the gesture so deep as to almost be a bow. "I will be going now, with your leave. My people await me."
"Of course," said Hope. "And remember what I said about helping others get strong, okay?"
Menja smiled. "With your example, I can hardly forget," she agreed. Turning, she strode out the door, a new spring in her step.
Hope turned to Skitter, who had been talking quietly with Lisa as they watched Amy rebuild Menja's arm.
"Sorry about that," she apologised. "Everyone seems to want to talk to me these days."
"It's all good," said Skitter. "That was ... very impressive to watch." She tilted her head. "Do you know," she said, "I think she was serious about you leading her." Her tone was speculative. "In fact, if you put any sort of effort into it, you could have quite the following in a very short time."
"Told you so," murmured Amy.
"No, thank you," replied Hope firmly, then ruined the effect by poking her tongue out at Amy. Amy giggled. "I want people to do the right thing because they understand it to be the right thing, and choose to do it, not because someone with a bit of charisma and a good speaking voice lined them up and ordered them to do it."
"Hmm," commented Skitter non-commitally. "Well, good luck with that."
Hope sighed. "Yeah. So. What did you want to talk about?"
"Dinah Alcott," said Skitter. "You remember, the precog Coil has working for him?"
"Ah, right, of course," said Hope. "I remember thinking he seemed a bit evasive about the whole thing."
Skitter nodded. "That's right. Well, awhile ago, I made a deal with him. I'd work for him so long as he promised to let her go after the Slaughterhouse Nine crisis was over."
Hope picked up on the tone of her voice. "And you don't think he'll follow through?"
Skitter shook her head. "I don't know. If he decides that he'd rather have her working for him than me ..."
Hope was shocked, but only mildly so. She was starting to learn the ways of this world. "You think he'd kill you to keep Dinah?"
"She is incredibly useful to him," Skitter pointed out.
"Well, if she's being kept against her will," said Hope immediately, "of course I'll help."
"Me too," said Amy, slightly muffled around the roll she was in the process of eating.
Hope looked at her with a frown. "This could be dangerous, you know."
"Hello?" said Amy. "Ex-superhero? I've done danger." She shrugged. "Besides, I've seen you in dangerous situations. The safest place I can be is right beside you."
Skitter turned her head to glance at Lisa, who shrugged. "Couldn't hurt," she said. "Oh, and before you go." She held up a newspaper so that they could all see the front page, and the blazing headlines glaring out from it.
The primary headline read "SLAUGHTERHOUSE ZERO!", in ludicrously large text. The secondary headline read "HOPE SMASHES NINE"; the font for this was merely ridiculously large. At least two-thirds of the front page was taken up just by the headlines.
"Oh," said Amy.
"My," said Skitter.
"God," said Hope.
"I love it," giggled Amy.
"That's awesome," chuckled Skitter.
"Oh, hell no," protested Hope.
Lisa grinned. "I'm framing this."
"Don't you dare," Hope told her.
Lisa's eyes danced. "Can't stop me." Her grin widened. "And wait till you see what they wrote about you.Someone seems to have told them about, well, everything you did in dealing with the Nine." The mischievous tone of her voice told Hope exactly who she could blame for that.
Hope groaned and put her hand over her eyes.
Lisa seemed to be enjoying herself immensely. "And the cape forums are just going ballistic. I'm talking lunar orbit levels of ballistic. You are seriously the flavour of the month."
Hope took her hand away from her eyes, and gave Lisa a look of irritation. "You are enjoying yourself far too much." She turned to Skitter. "Let's go before she can embarrass me any more than she's already done."
As they walked out, Amy said conversationally, "But you know, she has a point ..."
"Shut up. Please."
"At once, o great and glorious leader."
"Oh god, you're not going to let up, are you?"
Amy looked pleased with herself. "Mmmmnope."
To be continued ...
