CHAPTER FIVE
The past week had gone by quietly. The city had been hit by a spell of harsh winter weather, temperatures plummeting as a rolling blanket of clouds shrouded the sky. Their undersides bowed, full of snow that broke free on occasion to fall across the landscape. As the fat flakes drifted towards the ground visibility dropped and sounds grew muffled, smothered by the blanket of white. The combination lent the city an unearthly air as Disjoint walked down the streets and drifted across rooftops. The crunch of her boots on the snow and swish of her cloak were the only sounds, resonating softly through the sky before fading into the foggy distance. After a while she discarded even that, the ethereal feeling that followed well worth the minuscule effort of pushing her power through the fabric.
It must have painted an inhuman image, she mused. A specter garbed in white, drifting soundlessly through the thickly falling snow. The entire city had been leached of color, a mirror of her swirling skin beneath the cloak.
In response to the onset of worsening weather the level of local crime had plummeted as well. Nobody wanted to be outside for long. She had watched as gang members moved from building to building, piling into available cars, or ducking their heads and walking quickly if there weren't any. Here and there a few of the tougher or more disciplined remained outside, but the combination of low numbers and even lower visibility meant that she never encountered anything blatantly illegal. It was a little surprising, especially after her first patrol, but she wouldn't complain about a lack of crime. She did stop to memorize the address the most recent group had vanished into, though. It wasn't the first time a group of people had made the trek to the building, and there were always a few men milling around outside of the doors. It was hardly evidence, but it was suspicious enough that she'd visit again in the future to try to learn more.
All in all she had begun to settle into a routine, as early as it was. Patrolling took up most of her time, but she could only do so much of it. Boredom was the true limiter, her body never slowing or faltering. In response she had begun going out of her way to be at the edges of the city for the sunrise and sunset. When the clouds were heavy in the sky there wasn't much to be seen, but so far she had gotten a glimpse one clear morning; the sun had risen over the bay slowly, shedding rays of light across the water's surface as it ascended. She had stared unblinking as it rose, eyes unable to pierce the corona of light but undaunted by the burning rays.
This morning she had received a pleasant surprise as well, though not of the same variety. The PRT had reached out to her again, notifying her that she had materials to pick up from their offices. Confusion mounted until the officer elaborated further, describing the small bag of supplies that had been prepared for her. The gesture had been unexpected, and she wasn't sure if it was standard preparedness for registered heroes, or something Battery had gone out of her way to set up. Either way, she would have to thank the woman in person next time she had the chance.
The bag had resembled a survivalist's pack, containing a few simple but useful items: zip ties, a heavy metal flashlight, handheld flares, and best of all, a small, black earpiece. The earpiece wasn't anything special but it readily connected to the PRT-issued phone, freeing up the use of her hands if she ever needed to make a call. All together the gear would only help, and she had accepted it gratefully.
Currently she was perched on a rooftop at the corner of the street, gear tucked away across her body as she stared down the length of the road. She had chosen the industrial building for its unobstructed view in all four directions, peeking out above the low-lying buildings that surrounded it. It was still early into the night, the busiest time for the city's underbelly. During the day most people were occupied with work of the legitimate or semi-legitimate variety; it wasn't until the normal business hours were over that the gangs truly came out in force. The Protectorate was active as well, patrols doubling up in the hours immediately after the sun dropped below the horizon. She had yet to make contact with any more of the local heroes, but she had caught sight of them in the distance a handful of times.
Back on the rooftop she remained motionless at the edge of the building, head slowly panning back and forth down the street. Today she had begun modifying her traditional pattern, focusing on picking areas with sufficient view and spending most of the patrol stationary, only moving to the next spot every half-hour or so. In return for losing some of her previous unpredictability and constant motion she gained the opportunity to keep an eye on an area for more than the minute or two it took to walk down the street. She could only be in one place at a time after all, so it seemed smarter to keep as much of the city in sight as she could. Time would tell if her new idea was any more successful, not that she had much of a baseline to compare it to.
Off in the distance her eyes picked out a smear of darkness moving slowly through the air, traversing the city at an unhurried pace. As the shape grew closer the blur resolved into two figures, blue light springing into existence around the trailing one and highlighting the pale outfits the pair were wearing. She rotated in place on the edge of the roof, turning back to face the incoming heroes.
Her first thought was one of surprise at the age of the newcomers. She had known intellectually that both the Wards and the local hero teams contained teenagers, but seeing it in person was still vaguely upsetting. It felt wrong to see such young faces out on patrol, powers or not.
The two teenage heroes trailed to a stop a few dozen feet away, and she got her first good look at them. They fell into the latter category of underage heroes, members of New Wave. Shielder was the boy in blue if she remembered correctly, making the older girl in front of him Glory Girl. She didn't recall too many details about the team's members; they were a family group, so these two would have to be siblings or cousins.
From what she had read, the family of heroes were relatively unique in advocating for unmasking and removing the separation between cape and civilian lives, to the point of publicly revealing their own identities soon after founding. It was an uncomfortable reminder of her own status, hiding behind a new hero identity to distance herself from her past actions. As a result she had been uneasy with the idea of meeting the group, though it seemed like that plan had failed.
Now she watched in silence as they touched down, coming to rest on the roof with a simple step downwards akin to reaching the end of a staircase. The ease spoke to long hours of practice; it took a surprising amount of effort to make the switch between flight and walking so casually. In front of her the heroine murmured to the boy beside her without turning her head, and she could just barely make out the words.
"Oh man, Ames is going to be thrilled that there's another cape with her terrible fashion sense," the heroine whispered quietly, and Disjoint suppressed a scowl. Her identity as Disjoint was supposed to be a clean slate, and now she had been immediately compared to another hero, one she hadn't even met. Better than a villain, to be fair, but it still stung.
"A pleasure to meet you too," she said, letting a bit of irritation color her tone. A stab of satisfaction went through her as the heroine stumbled, missing a step in surprise. Glory Girl had the grace to look embarrassed at least, face darkening slightly under the pale blue glow from her companion.
"Sorry, you just reminded me a lot of my sister," the teen heroine replied. "The whole long, white robes thing you two have going on. It stood out. You're the new hero, Disjoint?"
Disjoint sighed tiredly. It really wasn't that big of a deal, certainly not worth starting an argument over. "Yeah, that's me. You must be Glory Girl and… Shielder?" She still wasn't positive on the second one, but Glory Girl nodded so it must have been correct.
"Yeah, we're a part of New Wave. Have you heard of us?" The two of them had stopped a half-dozen feet away, Glory Girl placing herself in front with Shielder at her shoulder.
"Mhm. I got the highlights online. Spent some time recently looking into the local cape scene," she answered. Honestly she would have had to go out of her way to miss the family team. With eight active heroes they were comparable to the nearby Protectorate in numbers alone, if not in resources.
"So, are you two out on patrol, or just flying around?" It seemed a safe enough topic; she was obviously on patrol herself, the rooftop wasn't exactly a place for people to be hanging out. Especially in this weather.
Midway through her question Glory Girl's phone buzzed, the heroine fishing it out and excusing herself as she strode away across the rooftop. To Disjoint's surprise Shielder didn't follow, instead moving up to the lip of the building she was sitting on and joining her, legs dangling and heels tapping idly on the concrete.
The young teen nodded, some of the nervousness leaving his face. "Yeah, we usually fly around for an hour or two in the evenings, before it gets too late. We were wrapping up, but well, flying is a lot of fun." He reached up to run a hand through his hair, messy from the wind. It was medium-length, and upon closer examination she realized the blue color wasn't just from his namesake shields — he had dyed his hair to match.
The conversation eased into a more relaxed fashion as he spoke, Disjoint content to let him lead. Despite his age Shielder proved to be surprisingly informed about the city, growing more talkative as time went on. The information was useful as well as interesting; New Wave had an enormous amount of experience with the villains of the city, and knew many of the common pairings and tricks they employed. Before long Glory Girl returned as well, though she seemed content to let Shielder talk, focused more on her phone than the two of them. Only occasionally would she glance up before returning to typing.
Eventually she rejoined the conversation, and Disjoint found herself betrayed once again by her own expectations. Reading about the heroine online had been misleading in retrospect, nothing like meeting her in person. She had been described as a hurricane or a force of nature, and while it wasn't wrong it wasn't right either.
Glory Girl was a hurricane, but it was one of personality. She flowed into the conversation and uplifted it, filling in the gaps between topics and shifting aside to let Shielder speak when he grew excited, recounting the first time he had flown across the city skyline. As the minutes passed by Disjoint grew more comfortable, the cold winter banished around the bubble of conversation the three of them had formed on this little out-of-the-way rooftop. It wasn't until a half-hour later that they were interrupted by a series of long buzzes from Glory Girl's phone.
The heroine withdrew the phone again, and after a particularly furious bout of texting slipped the phone back into her pocket and moved forwards, getting to her feet next to Shielder as he drew to the end of his most recent story. She looked a little irritated, but mostly resigned.
"Time to go. Family's getting impatient," she interjected. Shielder only sighed in response, but didn't protest. Getting to his feet he joined her, giving a goodbye as the two began to float into the air. Glory Girl bid her an easy farewell a moment later before turning towards the sky.
"It was nice to meet you!" Shielder half-shouted as the two drifted sideways through the air, gradually picking up speed as they departed over the city.
As the two heroes vanished into the distance Disjoint thought over the admittedly brief meeting. Even second-hand through Shielder's recounting, New Wave's message had come across strongly; the family was famous for their focus on accountability. To her, it was a reminder of some of the things she had been avoiding. Information that she could have known, but choose not to. Namely, her actions as the Siberian.
Up until now she had avoided any mention of her former alias, a nauseating reminder of her time with Manton. Hiding from the problem wouldn't allow her to move forward; she would remain stuck on it until she finally worked up the courage to see for herself. So it was with mechanical movements that she withdrew her personal phone from deep inside her cloak.
Navigating to the Protectorate's page on the Siberian was the work of a moment, but it felt much longer. At the top was a grainy photo, displaying her form striding down the street. It looked like it had been taken from a cell phone at a vantage point high above, the owner lucky or insignificant enough to escape notice.
Below the photo was the opening paragraph, displaying an emphatic warning in bold letters and surrounded by a glaring red box: Member of the Slaughterhouse Nine. Do not approach. Notify the Protectorate immediately if sighted. The words were no less upsetting for their clinical tone. It was an unassuming line of text that precluded a decade-spanning list of terror.
Truthfully, she was surprised that the Protectorate hadn't found the remains of her final work. True, it still hadn't been a full week since she awoke, but so far they had always seemed competent. Overworked perhaps, but still competent. The penny would have to drop soon, especially without Shatterbird tearing inquisitive drones out of the sky. She hadn't even gone out of her way to clean up the evidence, as limited as it was. There was nothing to tie her to the scene.
Again she realized she was distracting herself, and had to make the effort to break the previous line of thought and refocus on the screen in front of her. If she had the capacity to breathe she would have felt it catch in her throat, as the list of casualties rose into view, line after line of text sitting dispassionately before her. A particular name stood out near the top of the list, and within her gut a ball of ice congealed, a compliment to the view around her. 'Hero,' the innocuous word read, as plain and unremarkable as the surrounding letters.
That had been one of the fragments she remembered.
Scrolling further, she reached the next section and the ball of ice shattered, fragments plummeting into the void. There was a break in the list, a header with only two words: 'Slaughterhouse Nine.' Past this point the names of civilians stopped. Instead, the descriptions of towns took their place.
Her fingers locked around the phone, quivering in place as her empty hand clenched around the edge of the roof. Concrete sprayed with an ear-splitting crack, chips launched into the distance on screaming horizontal trajectories by the force. The rest of her body remained completely and utterly frozen, oblivious to the havoc wreaked beside her.
Time passed slowly, moments dripping by like tar as she sat there, watching the long, long list move by. Here and there the names of heroes and villains alike were interspersed between the towns and cities. Slowly the frozen cold inside her warmed, then passed warmth into flames. She was incandescent, furious at Manton for the atrocities he'd wrought with her hands. Furious at herself for letting it happen. Furious at whatever had created her awakening, that it had waited so long that the chains around her were wrapped so tight she could hardly see a glimpse of light.
The bright flare of her anger couldn't last for long, burning high before guttering out and leaving her feeling spent, even emptier than before. She slumped in place, cradling her head in her hands. In the absence she found a semblance of clarity. A part of her that had been missing, exposed again by the rage of emotion and reminder of her past. Her empty name ached, but this time she saw a way forward.
Reading the list in reverse was no less painful the second time, but she moved with purpose back to the top, to the first victim. The entry was short, a woman with nothing but a name and estimated date. She was the shadow of a shadow even in Disjoint's impressions, merely the first of many. An innocent bystander, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Unremarkable in every way except as the herald of something more to come.
Perhaps it was presumptuous of her, perhaps it was disrespectful. She didn't think so. It was a reminder of how she had begun, and now that she had the chance to start again it was an opportunity to be something greater.
She would honor this woman, Eve, the only way she could.