Lull 4.01

I stood there, staring at a precious prize, when Tattletale, standing next to me, asked: "Why are we just standing here?"

"I'm trying to decide," I answered, "if I should try and see if they'll sell me beer."

The blonde rolled her eyes in an exaggerated fashion so that it could be seen behind her mask. "I swear, when we get home I'm staging an intervention." She then grabbed me by the collar of my tank top and dragged me away from the local mega-mart's liquor aisle. I sadly waved goodbye to Miller and Budweiser, the dear friends I made during my time of solitude, as a lone drone pushed the grocery cart behind us as we left.

...Yeah, the whole thing was a bit I'd decided to act out. We needed to reduce fear and do some damage control after the Zerg were revealed, and, well, joking around kept me from freaking out at being out in public again. Especially after… No, I've got more important things to do. Today's mission: Grocery shopping! Something completely mundane and normal, something that everybody did… That, and those of us living at the lair needed groceries, Rachel couldn't shop, and Alec was a lazy bum.

Other than one vaguely familiar looking guy from the parking lot who ran screaming when he saw the floating drone, public reaction had been more or less the same as last time-though most of the fearful looks were directed at the drone, not me… Though some of them were less fearful and more gawking, which probably had something to do with the red wagon we'd tied to the back of it. To be fair, if I wasn't controlling it and hadn't made it I'd probably be scared too. Still, that people were staring at the floating crab-spider-thing pushing a shopping cart instead of at me was a comfort.

We'd already picked up most of the essentials-bread, milk, eggs, soda, easy to cook food, metal thumbtacks, drain cleaner, and the like when we turned into the pet aisle. "What kind of treats does Bitch give her dogs?" I asked after casually hoisting too large bags of kibble into the cart.

"I don't know," Tattletale answered, "besides I don't think we'd be able to get enough for all of them without a second cart." She looked thoughtful for a second. "I think there's a bulk-club store halfway across town where we might be able to get some, but I'm not sure if they'd give a membership to known villains… Well, maybe. It's something to check out later."

"I guess. Which way is the snack aisle?" Honestly, Alec would probably bitch if we didn't come home with chips or something. About halfway there a teenage girl I didn't recognize, someone I'd ignored because they weren't feeling anything… aggressive that I could pick up, randomly came up and hugged me.

It was only for an instant, and she didn't say a word before she let go and left, but…

"Someone you know?" asked Tattletale. I shook my head in response. Tattletale hmmed and we continued on.

Ten minutes later, with a Zerg propelled shopping cart full of edibles, the two of us began heading for the registers when my friend tapped me on the shoulder. "Heads up, we've got company."

Tattletale pointed back down the aisle we'd just been in. I looked back and, instead of the squad of PRT troopers I'd expected, I saw the hero Triumph walking up the aisle. He'd swapped his normal lion helm for a slightly thicker and more concealing variation at some point since I'd last seen him. He stopped when he noticed that I seen him, and just started staring at me. Honestly, it was kind of creepy. I reached out with my senses but ran into some kind of interference-whatever Armsmaster had been doing to jam my senses, he was sharing it with the rest of the heroes now.

The hero and I just stared at each other for a minute before Tattletale took me by the arm and dragged me up to a register. Apparently, lines move really fast when there's a pair of supervillains and their pet monster in the queue. I wasn't paying much attention, once things were moving. The drone would be an awkward fit into the register line, so I had it move off to the side and around-that this let me keep an eye out in case Triumph or someone else snuck up behind us was a bonus.

"I'm not gonna say we haven't done anything bad," I heard Tattletale explain to the somewhat frightened woman working the register, "I mean, there was the bank, and even before that we did some low scale robberies and some muscle work. But we're not bad people," she continued. "Some of us really didn't have a choice. I mean, my father found out about my powers and immediately decided 'A mind reader! Something I can abuse and exploit for financial gain.' and Empress here..." The blonde placed an arm on my shoulder. "By now, I'm sure you've heard how nothing Empress did was really that bad until someone who should have known better scared her away from her home and into the streets." Okay, I had to admit that Lisa was beating a dead horse right now. I think by now, everybody had heard the story and formed an opinion on it, but at least the register clerk wasn't having a panic attack. "And really, you would not believe the lies they've been telling about Bitch-Er, 'Hellhound,'" she said with emphasis on the air quotes. "You know how it is, you do one little thing, and then you either have to escalate or you're fucked. I mean, you've probably seen the news lately, right? If that's what happens to a celebrity that fully cooperated, what do you think happens to people like us?" I flinched.

Things moved smoothly and as normally as possible all things considered, Triumph only observed, and after some trial and error with my drone, Tattletale and I were riding said drone, which was carrying most of the groceries-some between its claws, and some in the wagon tied to it's back-back to the lair… Or, well, to a tunnel that led down into the storm sewers. It might be pointless, but I didn't feel comfortable going straight to the apartment building on the surface

"Are you okay?" My companion asked.

"You already know the answer, don't you?" I then realized that I was hugging a bag of groceries. "No. I'm, I'm." I gulped. "I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. They've backed off, for now, but..."

"You're honestly afraid that they'll nuke the city just to kill you," my friend continued. "Most of the things you can do to protect yourself and others from that will make it more likely that they'll think you're a new Nilbog, and you're pretty sure that nothing you say or do will convince them that you're not a monster." I nodded. "They're not gonna… Look, I know that things are scary from where you're sitting… Honestly, you probably could have handled the 'Empire's bearing down on us' thing better, but… This isn't like the Canary trial, Taylor. Someone getting screwed that hard takes a lot of people all trying to screw someone together. That's not happening here."

Canary, real name Paige Mcabee. A singer with the power to influence people's emotions, she had been arrested after she told her ex-boyfriend to go fuck himself and he got seriously injured trying to. The whole trial had been a sham, and she'd been convicted and sentenced to imprisonment in what was basically hell on earth for what anybody with half a brain could tell was an accident at the worst. The new hole in the wall in my room was all the proof that was needed to show that I had a… strong reaction to her conviction.

"You know, getting to the 'cage from Boston means she has to come right through Brockton Bay… Especially since the Birdcage is likely where Kaiser is heading..."

"What are you..."

"If that blatant screwjob has honestly got you so upset," Tattletale said as her eyes twinkled menacingly, "We have options… Hell, most of them aren't even illegal, because I'm pretty sure her conviction was."

"Huh?"

"And worst case scenario, well…"

"Are you saying what I think you're saying?" This was crazy. They'd just had this talk with me about doing stupid stuff like.

"I'm not promising anything, we'll have to talk it over with Grue, but… Call your dad when we get back. I've got ideas but we'll need his help. Besides, talking to him will probably do you some good."

I closed my eyes and thought it over… I didn't answer and instead kept my eyes closed and felt out for any sign of hostiles or people following us. I didn't find anyone, but I kept looking until we got home.

Long Live Empress Taylor

"I love you too, goodbye." I ended the call. When we'd gotten home, Lisa had informed me of what she was thinking. She'd said she'd have to talk to Brian before anything… Major could be done, but… I'd asked Dad for help and he was going to call his friend in the media and try to arrange something on his end.

I couldn't believe we were going to do this. It was… Okay, I needed to calm down. We might not even do the crazy part.

I went over to my workbench, where I'd been running a little experiment with some rats I'd found in the sewers and… shit. On my desk were four purple cocoons, three of which were empty, and what used to be a rat. From the mid-section up, it still looked like a rat, except for the six yellow eyes and the purple carapace around them. From the bottom of the ribs down it was covered in a misshapen purple carapace and six malformed and spider-like legs where the rat legs normally would have been, with no tail. The yellow eyes had been glowing before, but apparently, while I was away the infested rat had bitten one of its still normal legs off and bled to death, extinguishing the light. I think that counted as a failure.

I was debating on whether or not I should eat the rat to reclaim its essence or just throw it out when I felt company coming down the stairs. I turned just in time to see Rachel come down with Angelica behind her.

"Hey," I greeted. She grunted in response. "What do you want?"

"You gonna start working out again?" Oh, that's right. Rachel was the one who usually sat on me when I was doing pushups. I'd stopped working out when I'd lost my hand and hadn't gotten back to it yet.

"Yeah, we can do that now if you want?"

She gave another grunt, which I took as 'okay,' but then she noticed the content of my bench and asked, "What's that?"

"Oh just a little experiment," I answered.

"For what?" she asked again. She wasn't normally this talkative.

"One of the things that the Zerg can do is called 'Infestation,' " I explained. "Taking something that's not a Zerg and making it into a Zerg." I sent out a command and another infested rat, one that was more… even in body, went crawling from a corner into the middle of the room. "See?" Rachel then looked at it, then back at me. "That one down there is my second try, actually. The first one melted into creep." I shuddered. The first infested rat had been entirely subsumed into the hivemind, meaning that I'd seen what it saw and felt what it felt as it dissolved. I didn't sleep that night.

"Anyway," I continued, "it's possible to infest something without taking control of it or plugging it into the hivemind, and I'm trying to figure out how to do that."

"Why?"

I shrugged. "Mostly because it's something to do while I wait for the drones to finish excavating." I'd sent a few extra drones after the one I'd set to digging. I was going to have at least one backup hive and some stable subterranean tunnels heading out of the city, just in case. I absently wondered if I could get away with spawning a nydus worm if I planted it deep enough and never used it to surface. "But… Well, the Zerg are a lot more durable and heal a lot faster than most creatures." Also, I was pretty sure they were clinically immortal if I had gotten how that regen works right. "I'm a bit of a way away from that, but if I can find a way to make someone Zerg on the inside but not on the outside without mastering them, then… But that's a way off and I'd have to talk to Lisa or Brian about it first." If I could do that though, that's the kind of thing that could save lives. And if I could save lives, then...

"Wouldn't you have to test that on people though?" ...Crap. Well, there goes that idea.

"Yeah. Never mind then."

And then I got on the ground, she sat on my back, Angelica sat in her lap, and I started my push-ups. Around the time I got to fifty, Rachel spoke up. "You could try it on me."

And then my face hit the creep covered floor, Angelica jumped from atop me with a frightened yelp, and while I couldn't see her I got the impression that Rachel was glaring at me.

I took a moment to compose myself, and then said "What!?"

"The infest thing," Rachel said simply. "If you need to try it on a person, you can try it out on me."

"Rachel, do you know what you're suggesting?"

"If it works I get stronger," Rachel said. It was honestly starting to sound like she thought I'd suddenly become stupid.

"And if it doesn't work," I patiently tried to explain, "then you'd be permanently attached to me. Or you'd lose yourself in the hivemind. Or die." Seriously, this was crazier than… "And chances are, you'd end up a freak like me or worse even if it did work." Maybe I'd have better luck convincing her if I wasn't still face down on the ground with her sitting on me.

"I trust you," Rachel said. "Er… I want to trust you." I didn't know how to feel about that.

"Look," I said, "barring a miracle it's gonna be a good long while before this is even close to ready for human testing. Let's just..."

Rachel made a sound, Angelica climbed back up, and I finished my pushups. She climbed off of me, I stood up, and then a squelching sound happened. Checking my work desk, crawling out of the fourth cocoon was a rat with glowing eyes but that otherwise looked perfectly ordinary… A quick check established that I wasn't sharing its senses. I silently cursed myself for saying "barring a miracle."

"Okay," I said, "I need to figure out how and why this rat is different from the others and… stuff. And talk, before… stuff." I noticed a presence that hadn't been in the lair earlier. "Brian's here and I just remembered that I've got to talk to him about something and let's just finish this later okay?"

Rachel shrugged and left. I grabbed the latest rat and tossed it in an old cage I'd found in an alley to study it later and went upstairs to Brian's apartment.

Brian didn't live in the lair, the so his apartment wasn't as heavily furnished as Alec's was, just a bed and a couch in case he needed to crash here, and some training equipment he'd brought in to replace the training room that had been lost when the Undersiders' loft had been burned down.

Alec had said that Brian had been out of it for a while, and I could tell. He just felt angry and frustrated all the time. Not angry at any one thing in particular, and it wasn't a kind of anger I was familiar with, but… I heard a noise when I got to his door. It sounded like he was working a punching bag. I knocked.

The punching sound stopped. "Come in."

I entered.

Brian was shirtless but had yet to work up a sweat. "Taylor. What do you need?"

I wasn't about to tell him that I'd used him as an excuse to get out of an awkward conversation. Besides, I probably should have asked him this a while ago: "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Brian," I said calmly, "I can sense emotions and sometimes read minds."

Brian sighed and turned back to his punching bag. "Empire did a jail-break while you were out." He explained, "but they had to lure heroes away before they could do it-fuck, they still lost three capes and only managed to save Hookwolf. A bunch of Empire grunts went out and attacked people-guess what kind." Brian took a big swing at the bag. "My father was killed in an attack."

Oh. "Brian, I'm so sorry.."

"The worst part?" Brian asked. "I don't even know how to feel about it." He took a few more jabs. "Dad wasn't the best parent-don't get me wrong, he was better than my mom or her boyfriend were," he hit the bag with an uppercut, "but he didn't exactly know how to be a dad. He wasn't a good dad to me, and he was a worse parent..." Brian grunted in confusion, and then he took one big swing and the bag almost hit the ceiling.

"I'm sorry, I wish I knew what to say, but… Brian? Who is that." I pointed to his couch, where I'd noticed a pretty young black girl, a year or two younger than me with perfect features and generous… assets, where a strapless top and short shorts that were far too trashy for someone that young or someone that pretty, with a blonde streak dyed in her hair. Her clothes were wrinkled-I could see stains of some kind-and she smelled… funky. There were tear stains around her eyes, and it felt like she'd gone through the whole spectrum of negativity recently.

"Who is who-What?" He looked where I was pointing. "Aisha? Oh shit, Aisha!"

The girl looked at us and in said, in the most deadpan tone imaginable with just a hint of frustration below it: "It's about fucking time. I've been here for a week."