One Bad Day
Part Fourteen: Penultimate
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by GW_Yoda and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Cranial
Lil still wasn't one hundred percent sure what was going on here. But then again, she wasn't being paid to worry about that part. Pyrotechnical was standing by to play rear-guard if events went severely tits-up; she could open a doorway into a Dodge space and get everything inside in thirty seconds if she had to, but it would be a very long thirty seconds. However, everything seemed to be running smoothly.
The only hiccup—Brandish going off-script, then being whisked out of sight by Laserdream—had had her tensing and reaching for the remote. Fortunately, nothing had come of it, and she'd allowed herself to relax a little and get back to doing she was being paid for. This is why I hate the weird jobs.
As each memory set came in, it wasn't hard to strip out everything that didn't pertain to Glory Girl, then set it to meshing with what she already had. Lady Photon's and Brandish's had formed the core of this shared memory experience early on. The other kids were adding superficial amounts and filling in a few gaps here and there, but only the New Wavers and one other (she didn't know who the good-looking blond boy was, and didn't care to speculate) added a significant amount.
That didn't mean it was a perfect engram; there were always times when someone was on their own, and determining someone's state of mind or thought processes from what they were doing or saying was an inexact science. However, everyone had holes in their memories from simply forgetting what they'd done on a certain day, and emotions rarely translated into long-term storage unless they were particularly vivid, so what she had would be workable, especially if Glory Girl's memory still had fragments left to attach to.
(She still didn't know exactly what had happened to Glory Girl, and it wasn't something she intended to pry into.)
There were, of course, the two stipulations that Tattletale had insisted on from the beginning. Neither one was a deal-breaker, but the second one was going to be just a tad finicky. Don't let anyone be in love with anyone else had raised her eyebrows, and given her another hint as to what was going on. Though she suspected she'd never get the full picture.
She checked the screen and verified that the latest read (Manpower's, and was she glad the chair was built to take someone his size) had integrated with the rest. Raising her eyes, she gave Tattletale a nod. This in turn triggered a change in the music, and the second-last of the kids (if her count was correct) came 'sneaking' down the stairs.
"I-I'm here to test the chair!" the girl declared. She was wearing a bright red domino mask and looked nervous as hell. Not that Lil blamed her; stage props were one thing, but actual Tinker tech had a certain look and feel to it, especially close up.
"Sure, go ahead," she responded, readying the 'Hair Dryer'. "Just sit right here. It won't hurt a bit."
Obediently, the girl sat down, and Lil lowered the helmet over her head. The opaque visor—it helped to let the mind wander if there was no visual input—slid into place, and the girl let out a startled cry. "I can't see anything!"
Didn't she see the same thing happen with everyone else? "That's how it's supposed to be," Lil said quietly. "Just relax and let your mind wander."
"You're-you're not going to hypnotise me and make me cluck like a chicken, are you?"
"No," Lil said shortly. She was tempted to add, That's my other brain transfer machine, but decided to leave well enough alone. "Relax. Let your mind wander."
Finally, the girl calmed down enough to get a good read from her—seven seconds, not bad—and Lil raised the visor and lifted the helmet off. It took the girl a few seconds to react. "It's done? I can go?"
"It's done," Lil assured her. "You can go back up and join your friends now."
"Oh, good." The kid got up and scuttled back across the floor, to applause from the watchers.
One to go, then we can really get this show on the road. Lil went through the motions to strip out the extraneous information, then overlaid it onto the rest. As she'd expected, ninety-five percent of it integrated with pre-existing memories, with just a few new viewpoints. The rest slipped into place without any problems on the ever-growing amalgam, and she looked up to Tattletale.
When the music changed this time, it was Panacea who came out of a side corridor; wearing street clothes, certainly, but there was no mistaking her for anyone else. Also, there was no mistaking the stress she was under. The girl had circles under her eyes that belonged to someone thirty years older and going through mid-life crisis.
She didn't even bother pretending to sneak, even as those watching from above appeared to hold their breaths. Unlike Brandish, there was no uncertainty; Panacea was driven and determined. Moving with purpose, she seated herself on the chair and allowed the helmet to be lowered over her head.
"Please tell me you can fix all this," she mumbled as the visor went down.
"Do my best, hon. That's why you called in the experts. Now, try to relax and let your mind wander. This might take a little while."
"Okay." But from the white-knuckled grip Panacea had on the chair arms, relaxing was the last thing she intended to do.
Lil sighed and started the read. She was here to do a job. Let's get it done and dusted.
Tattletale
"Is it just me, or is Panacea taking longer than everyone else?" asked Bethany. She wasn't wrong; it had been more than a minute, and Amy was still under the helmet.
"She's making extra sure that Glory Girl gets all the encouragement she needs," Lisa responded automatically. "When Glory Girl gets under there, she'll be reminded of all the good times they've spent together." In a way, it wasn't even a lie. Vicky was going to be reminded of things, only not in the way Bethany thought.
I'll be a whole lot happier once this whole dog and pony show is over. The party guests couldn't simply be shooed out once they'd donated their memories. If they weren't allowed to stay and celebrate their 'victory' with the re-memoried Glory Girl, far too many questions would be asked. Still, everything seemed to be going relatively smoothly. So why am I on edge? What am I missing?
Crystal eased through the guests and tapped her on the shoulder. One look at the New Wave girl's face sent Lisa's paranoia into orbit. Shit. Shit. Fuck.
'What?' she mouthed silently.
'Office,' Crystal mimed back. That meant Coil's office, which Lisa had appropriated as the ad hoc control room for the whole complex. Whatever was going on, she'd find out about it there.
It only took her about thirty seconds to get there while moving casually enough not to draw notice, but it felt like thirty years. Whatever it is, please God let it be fixable.
When she got there, Taylor was sitting at Coil's desk, staring intently at one of the screens. How she'd gotten into the office without being noted by the guests was simple; when the bugs that were her Swarmina guise went away, she was just another teenage girl in a domino mask. However, right now, her fists were clenched so tightly that her knuckles were white in the glow of the screens.
"Circus got out," Taylor said bluntly, without looking up. "I've been trying to tag her with bugs, but she's a lot more aware of her environment right now. And she keeps doing her fire-breath thing with a lighter. I've lost three swarms, so far."
"Shit." Lisa eyed the screen, and noticed that a lot of the sub-screens were blank. "Has she been knocking out the cameras, too?"
"Yeah." Taylor's jaw was tight. "I'm pretty sure we can't catch her unawares like we did the first time. Should we maybe open the outer doors and let her go?"
"No." Lisa said the word before her brain had properly processed the question. "She won't go. She's after revenge. Specifically, on me. I'm the one she was hunting. She believes she's owed."
"And we can't just pay her?" Taylor already knew the answer to that one, but Lisa knew she had to ask it anyway.
"Nope. Between shelling out for Vicky's brain fix and this party, I'm in hock up to the eyebrows. I figure I could maybe afford a soda right now, if you were willing to spot me a quarter." It wasn't quite that bad, but Lisa knew damn well Circus wouldn't accept anything less than seventy-five percent of what she figured she was owed, and there was nothing like that in the kitty.
"So, what do we do? Send New Wave after her?" Taylor sounded hopeful at that idea.
"Yeah, that's what I'm thinking." Lisa ran her hands through her hair. "I've got Sarah watching Brandish, so I'm thinking Eric and Neil. Let Dean and Crystal run interference in the party while they're all watching Panacea in the chair."
"Oh, she just finished," Taylor reported. "Cranial's doing a lot of work right now, but she doesn't look too worried. At least, not as far as I can tell."
"She's the one thing that's got to go right," Lisa agreed.
"Yeah." Taylor gnawed on a thumbnail for a second. "What about Vicky? Who's watching her?"
"Aisha." Lisa rolled her eyes. "She might be as irritating as hell, but she's really stepping up."
"No argument here. I'll stay here and let you know if Circus shows up on camera again."
"Got it." Lisa slipped out of the office. Goddamn it. It was all going so smoothly, too.
Cranial
With the Panacea read complete and integrated with the gestalt as a whole, the finicky part of the job began. Each memory of Glory Girl seen from the outside now had to be inverted, so that it could be experienced from the inside. This meant the visuals had to be switched around, and the faces of those with her placed in the appropriate locations within the emerging memory patch.
It wasn't always possible to do this, but it wasn't a real problem. Where she didn't have an up-to-date face, she slotted one in from earlier or later, whichever worked better. And if Glory Girl ended up thinking Bethany had acquired that nice blouse a month earlier than she really did, it wouldn't be the end of the world. Memory played tricks like that sometimes, even when one's brain hadn't gone through a hard reset.
Emotions were trickier, but she had a good baseline for that as well. Glory Girl loved her mother and mourned her father, held slightly more distant familial views of her aunt and uncle and cousins, enjoyed the company of her friends, and had a very close relationship with someone who looked remarkably like the young man from upstairs. That was all well and good, and she was able to program those emotions in with relative ease.
Panacea … was more problematic. Going through her memories clued Lil in on what had started this whole debacle. She was a tangled mass of neuroses which included abandonment issues, unconscious hatred for her foster mother—wait, foster mother?
Okay, so Panacea had been adopted, but how? Lil ran back through the recorded memory. When she came to the relevant part, she blinked hard. Holy fuck, New Wave adopted Marquis' kid? How is that not common knowledge?
Deep breaths, deep breaths. Not my problem. Okay, she doesn't even know that she hates Brandish, but she does. She's also strongly in love with Glory Girl, who from her interactions has no idea of this. Had no idea. This was what Tattletale had been talking about, it had to be. After the mindwipe, the entire rudimentary personality Glory Girl had been left with was based around loving Panacea.
Okay, Glory Girl will see Panacea strictly as her sister, and nothing else.
Except that if I leave the memory of the mindwipe intact, which Tattletale says Panacea wants, Glory Girl is likely to go after Panacea and try to murder her.
Is Panacea trying to commit suicide by cape? Because pissing off Glory Girl seems to be a remarkably efficient way to do it, if the nearly-dead gangsters are any indication.
Did I mention that I hate weird jobs? I hate weird jobs.
But her price had been agreed to and the money was there, so it was time to woman up and get it done.
Shielder
The radio earpiece crackled slightly, then Taylor's voice came through. "Ready to open door 12-A. Be careful; I don't have cameras on the other side of it."
"Great," muttered Eric. A moment's concentration created a force-field bubble next to the sliding door, so that if Circus was indeed waiting in ambush on the other side, nothing would get through. "Okay, open it up."
"That force field will stop a thrown knife, right?" asked Tattletale, standing next to him in the bubble. "Circus is really good with those."
"I can tank Aunt Carol's energy blades, so yeah. It'll stop a thrown knife." Eric cleared his throat, not wanting to sound too boastful. "How laser-proof is Circus?"
"She's not." The door began to slide open. Tattletale peered through, then let out a slight huff; whether of relief or disappointment, Eric wasn't sure. "But she's insanely good at dodging, and she has all sorts of crazy things in her personal pocket dimension."
There was nobody on the other side. Eric let the bubble bulge through, then he and Tattletale entered the next section. Here and there he could see blackened spots up on the ceiling where he suspected security cameras had been mounted. "She's been busy," he observed. "How'd she manage that?"
"Minor pyrokinetic," Lisa reminded him. "All she needs is a source of flame, like a Zippo or a road flare, and she can make it into a burst of fire. Also, if she's holding a knife, assume she can stab you from any angle. She can bounce those things."
"Knives, I can handle," Manpower asserted. "Fire breath isn't so much fun."
"Transmitted heat?" asked Tattletale, though her tone suggested she knew the answer already.
"Transmitted heat," he confirmed. "Fire can't touch me directly, but it's still hot when it's half an inch away from my skin."
The door slid shut behind them and the keypad turned red again. They moved on through the base, remaining within Eric's bubble, although this slowed them down more than a little. More and more scorched security cameras showed up, though some were untouched. Eric waved at those before they moved on again.
Each room they encountered, they opened and checked within, to ensure Circus wasn't lurking there. On the third such room, there was nobody inside, but the light switch didn't work. Still, a quick sweep of an attenuated laser beam around the interior of the room showed it was empty of all but cleaning supplies.
They were about to move along when Tattletale said, "Wait, go back."
"Why?" asked Eric. "Did you see something?"
"That's the only room we've seen where the light wasn't working," she said. "There's something she doesn't want us to see in that room."
Neil shrugged. "Sometimes lights just fail." But he didn't object when they went back anyway.
This time, Lisa studied the entire room carefully, including the light fitting. It had been scorched, in the same manner as the security cameras. Turning, she pointed at the air vent cover. "That's been removed and replaced. It's what she didn't want us to see. She's in the air ducts."
Neil studied the air duct cover carefully. It wasn't much more than a foot across. "Are you sure? That's not a metal air duct, that's concrete. If anyone gets stuck, there's no rescue coming."
"I bet I could fit down it," Eric claimed. Not that he wanted to, but he totally figured he could.
"Well, you're not going to find out." Neil's tone was very much 'Dad has spoken'. "Do we have a map of the air ducts?"
Tattletale scratched the back of her neck. "Almost certainly, somewhere on the computer system. I'll have to look for it."
Eric had to know. "Okay, so if this Coil guy was as paranoid as you keep telling us, why would he have air ducts in his base that a person can crawl through?"
"It was because he was so paranoid," Tattletale explained. "He always hired big, muscular guys. Out of everyone in his crew, he was the only one skinny enough to use them to get around."
"Huh." Eric hoped he would never get that paranoid. It sounded like a miserable way to live.
"Damn right." Tattletale keyed her radio. "Problem. She's gotten into the air ducts. We need to figure out where she is, and how to flush her out. Coming back in."
"Well, shit. Ready to open 12-A on your signal."
Circus
There were only a few good things about this decision.
First, she didn't have to worry about dragging her gear along, because it was all inside her hammerspace. If she needed her Zippo to see where she was going, she could get it out with minimum fuss.
Second, whoever had set up these air ducts had ensured that there were no impossibly tight turns or even sharp edges inside. Also, for some unknown reason, there was the occasional metal plate with letters or numbers etched into it. If I knew more about the layout of this base, I might actually be able to make use of that.
Third, of course, was the fact that it was cast out of concrete, which didn't have the propensity of metal air ducting of being horribly noisy to move through and likely to collapse under the weight of a medium-sized rat.
Neither did it possess the usual accoutrements of the average supervillain base air ducts, as noted in popular fiction, such as electrified mesh or razor-edged high-speed fans. All of which led her to wonder if Coil had intended for these air ducts to be traversable. And if so, by whom?
Wait. This is Coil we're talking about. This is a guy who probably built an escape tunnel on his escape tunnel. Of course he set it up so he could vanish into the air ducts.
Great. Mystery solved. Now, if only I knew where I was, and how to get to Tattletale.
Tattletale
As soon as Lisa got back to where the party was going on, Crystal homed in on her like a guided missile. Lisa took one look at her expression, then stepped in close. "What's happened? Have you found Circus?"
"No." Crystal took a deep breath. "Cranial's been trying to get my attention, but I have no idea what she wants, and I don't want to go down there."
"Shit." With the way things were going, Lisa flashed to the worst possible interpretation. The memory recordings went wrong. She needs to do them all over again. Or she can't do it at all. Jesus, how am I going to explain this to Amy?
With this running through her head, she moved over to the rail and gestured to get the guard's attention. He turned and said something to Cranial, who seemed to brighten up under her concealing helmet. Her next gesture was something Lisa's power was easily able to decipher.
Ready to roll. Bring on Glory Girl.
She nodded and gave Cranial a discreet thumb's up before keying her radio mic. "Tango to Alpha. We're good to go. I say again, we're good to go."
There was a pause, then an answer came through. "Yo, this is Most Esteemed Alpha. I'll be bringing my girl, the Vickster, through right now. Roger dodger, over and out, rubber duckie."
With a silent prayer of thanks that Aisha had no desire to join the military in any capacity—her discipline issues aside, just her butchering of radio etiquette would probably cause aneurysms in anyone trying to train her—Lisa made the 'all okay' gesture to Cranial. Turning, she headed back toward the office where Taylor was still manning the control centre.
If anyone had suggested to me a month ago that I'd find myself in command of my very own underground base, overseeing the memory reintegration of a superhero while trying to deal with a supervillain lurking in the air ducts … I would've probably asked what they were smoking.
But that was the way her life seemed to be going these days.
Taylor
"Anything?" asked Lisa, the moment she was inside the office and the door was closed behind her. "I thought there were barriers in the air ducts that stopped people from getting around."
Taylor shook her head and leaned back in the admittedly very comfortable chair that Coil had bequeathed to the office. Closing her eyes for a moment to rest them, she sighed in aggravation. "I thought so too, until I looked more closely. There's barriers between the base and the outside air, sure. The last thing Coil wanted was people sneaking in or out. Secure areas like the cells or the armoury have tiny air ducts, like four inches across. But through the main areas of the base? Just big enough to fit a skinny person."
"Like you, or Coil, or Circus, yeah." Lisa growled under her breath. "Even dead, that asshole's paranoia is coming back to bite us. Have you found a map yet?"
"Yeah, but I don't know if it's accurate." Taylor sat forward again and hit a few keys. A diagram of the base came up on the screen, with an overlay of lines connecting the various rooms. "This might be the actual version, or it might be the one Coil had made to fool people with, while the real one is hidden in an anonymous file somewhere."
"Goddamn it." Lisa leaned in close, studying it. She didn't want to waste a use of her power quite yet; as it was, with all the demands on her, she was hovering on the edge of a migraine. "It could be. Looks real enough. But he'd make sure even the fake one looked real."
"Okay, so we flush her out and map the air ducts at the same time." Taylor glanced up at the air vent in the office. She'd shoved a filing cabinet in front of it, to make it harder for anyone trying to push it out from inside. "I don't have any special-issue rats left, but maybe Amy can—"
"Nun-uh." Lisa shook her head. "Amy's not in a good headspace to make anything to order right now. She's likely to somehow make it into a fuel-air explosive, or a nerve gas dispenser. Something we absolutely do not want in this base right now, or ever."
"Right. So we go with what we've got." Taylor grimaced. "She's really good at spotting bugs, and frying them before they can KO her."
"Okay, rats it is." Lisa ran her hands through her hair, further disarranging it. "Once you locate her, do you think you can maybe keep her busy until we're done with Vicky, and the innocents are out of here?"
"Gonna have to, aren't I?" This was getting more complicated by the second.
"And don't attack her. The last thing we want is screaming coming from the ducts and scaring the guests."
Taylor groaned and rolled her eyes. "Yes, boss."
Lisa patted her on the shoulder. "Attagirl."
Aisha
"Okay, let's go, Vickster." Aisha took a deep breath. She'd built a great rapport with Vicky so far, but all she needed now was for her charge to decide that she wanted to play patty-cake instead of coming along quietly. "Time for a new game. You want to play a cool new game?"
"I like playing games," Vicky said brightly. "Games are fun. Will Amy be playing this game with us?"
"Amy's already playing the game." It was even true, for a given definition of 'true'. "It's your turn now. I think you'll win, don't you?"
Vicky looked hesitant. "I don't want to beat Amy and make her sad."
"Oh, no, no." Aisha thought fast. "You're on Amy's side. If you do really well, you'll both win."
Vicky perked up. "Then I'll play and win, and make Amy happy."
"That's my girl." Aisha gave her a hug. "Let's go wow them all."
Hand in hand, she led Vicky out into the lower area, where Cranial was prepping the chair for Vicky. Lisa had seen them coming, and the music changed to something with a dramatic beat, as befitted the climax of the show. The nominal guests of the party had all been downstairs and sat in the chair, and now it was time for the big payoff. The girls lined the rail and clapped as she came into view.
"Oh, look, it's my friends!" Vicky waved excitedly and levitated into the air. "I'll go and say hi to them."
"No, no, not yet!" Aisha gave her a gentle downward tug. "If—if you go up there, you forfeit the game and Amy loses!"
"Oh." Vicky pouted, but she came back down to earth. "That's a stupid game."
"It's the game we're playing. Now come over here. You see that chair?"
Vicky tilted her head. "It's a silly looking chair."
"Oh, yeah. It's a stupid looking chair, alright." Aisha didn't actually think so. As far as she was concerned, it belonged in some mad Tinker's basement somewhere … which wasn't too far removed from the current situation, to be honest. "But this is the game. You have to sit in it and let that lady put that helmet on your head, and close your eyes and sit still for as long as you can. If you sit longer than everyone else, you and Amy win the game. Okay?"
Vicky nodded enthusiastically. "Okay!"
"Excellent. Here, I'll just take your tiara off." Otherwise, it would definitely interfere with the helmet.
Vicky balked. "But I want to keep my tiara on. I'm Glory Girl. I always wear my tiara."
Lowering her voice, Aisha leaned in close to Vicky. "Do you want the other girls to beat you and Amy? Because they'll totally be mean to her about it."
"No, I don't want that." Reaching up, Vicky removed the tiara from her freshly brushed hair. "Can you take care of it for me, Most Esteemed Aisha?"
Aisha nodded and took it, trying not to let the tears show in her eyes. This was probably the last time she was ever going to see the simple, happy Vicky who liked to have her hair brushed and braided, and to play patty-cake. "I can totes do that for you, Vickster. Now, go and win that game for Amy." She couldn't say any more through the lump in her throat.
Beaming, Vicky strode up to the chair and seated herself. She closed her eyes and held perfectly still as the helmet was lowered over her head, and the visor dropped into place. Stepping away, Cranial leaned over her equipment and started pressing buttons and turning dials.
Aisha couldn't watch anymore. Turning away, she saw the row of girls avidly observing to see what happened next. Some nodded to her, in a 'we're in this together' sort of way. She gave them a weak thumb's up in return.
God, I hope this works.
Taylor
"God, I hope this works." Taylor watched as Eric used his force field to lift the filing cabinet away from where she'd shoved it up against the air vent. She had eight rats resting on her shoulders and arms—all she could gather at short notice—plus a small swarm of bugs.
"It better." Eric pulled the vent cover off—Taylor had already checked with her bugs to ensure that Circus wasn't lurking within knife-throwing range inside the duct—and set it aside. "Clear."
Putting her hand up on the edge of the air duct, Taylor made the rats run up her arm and vanish into the darkness. The bugs flew with them, scouting ahead. Each time the group hit an intersection, they split their numbers and kept exploring.
As Eric put the vent cover back on and shoved the cabinet back into place, Taylor sat down at the computer and called up the diagram she'd found. Lisa had already expressed a strong suspicion that what was on the computer didn't match reality, and Taylor tended to agree with her. Coil had been a paranoid sonovabitch to the end, and this was probably no exception.
Come on … where are you … where are you …
Cranial
"Son of a bitch," muttered Lil as she ran her preliminary scan to see what sort of substrate she'd be stitching the memory patch into. She'd done individual grab-and-repair jobs before, usually involving cases of amnesia due to head trauma. That was simplicity itself compared to what was going on here.
Only the barest tag-ends of some memories were left behind, and she could see the unmistakeable signs of where someone had overlaid a new personality, then taken it away again. Whoever had done it (given what she knew already, she suspected Panacea) hadn't bothered or known to remove the memories of having had that new personality graft, however briefly. Seriously. Fucking amateurs. At least she took it away before it did too much damage.
Using all the finesse of which she was capable, she set to work sanitising the area, scraping away the damage until everything was ready for the new patch. Leaving anything underneath where it could grow and fester was merely a recipe for disaster; weeks or months or years later, brand new mental problems could surface, undoing all the work she was performing now. And I really don't want to be responsible for a powerhouse like this going off the deep end.
Finally, it was ready. She'd identified the points in her constructed gestalt where the lone fragments of memory could attach to. Once it was in place, she'd set Glory Girl to living through her reconstructed life. Not at a one-to-one ratio, of course. Nobody had the time to wait through something like that. But just as someone within a dream could live through subjective years in mere seconds, she could speed up Glory Girl's experienced time, going barely slow enough to patch any holes that cropped up.
And—fingers crossed—once Glory Girl came out the far end, she would've reformed her original personality (or something very close to it) by way of her re-lived life experiences. Unfortunately, this was the tricky bit. If something utterly life-changing had happened to her away from all the recorded memories, it wouldn't happen this time around. And Lil couldn't throw in a correction for something she knew nothing about.
But she could only work with the material she'd been given. Tattletale knew that, which was why she'd been paid the majority of the money up front.
Carefully, step by step, Lil commenced the memory implant process.
Panacea
Lurking in the shadows of a corridor entrance, Amy clenched her fist and gnawed at her knuckles. "Please let it work," she whispered. "Please let it work."
She had no idea what she would do if it didn't. All of her efforts had gone into getting to this point. She knew she wouldn't have even gotten this far if it weren't for Lisa and Taylor and Aisha. As it was, disaster had threatened on half a dozen occasions, only to be averted by the slimmest of margins. Without them, Vicky would still be a brain-wiped doll, with no chance of ever getting her life back and no way forward.
And if it went wrong now, after all this effort, all this money, had gone into it … she clenched her fists even tighter. The single bright spot in all this was the chance that her mistake could be rectified, that Vicky could be restored. If that light of hope was to be extinguished, if the darkness tarnishing her soul was to take over everything … she didn't know if she would ever come out the other side.
"Hey." It was Lisa's voice, behind her. A light hand fell on her shoulder. "Hey, Amy. It's going to be alright. Vicky'll be the same old pain in the ass once this is over and done. You'll see. Cranial came with the highest of recommendations."
"But what if it isn't alright?" Amy asked, her voice harsh with self-recrimination. "There's no way she's ever dealt with shit as bad as what I did to Vicky. I tried to fix her, but all I did was make it worse, so I had to fix that, and what if I made it so bad even Cranial can't do anything because of my fuckups?"
"And what if you didn't?" Lisa's hand slid across Amy's shoulders. "What if what you did is basically what she fixes on a Tuesday? She deals in memories. It's what she does. Trust me, I looked into her pretty damn hard before I contacted her. And you've known Vicky since forever, right? Your memories, turned around, are gonna be what fixes her. You'll see. I mean, your mom, your aunt, your uncle, whatsisface …"
Amy snorted with amusement despite herself. She could see what Lisa was trying to do, but it was still working after a fashion. "Dean. His name is Dean. And he's her boyfriend. I'll never try to get in the way of that. Maybe I should leave altogether, go somewhere else."
Self-exile sounded better and better all the time, now that she came to think of it. Once Vicky was herself again (Aisha had referred to it exactly once as restoring a save game file, before Lisa had smacked her across the top of the head) then it would be better for all concerned if she cut ties and left them to have their happy life.
Because she knew damn well Vicky wouldn't want her around. She'd emphasised to Cranial that she didn't want any remnant of the love she'd foisted on Vicky to be left behind. Once Vicky was cured, and if she chose to spare Amy's life for the horrendous sin that had been perpetrated on her …
"Don't even go there," Lisa murmured. "If Cranial does her job right, and I know she will, Vicky will know exactly how desperately hard you've been trying to get her back up to speed. Not only is she not going to punch your head off your shoulders, but she's also not going to want to chase you away. I mean, all this wouldn't be happening if it wasn't for you."
"Damn right," retorted Amy. "I'm the one who fucked Vicky over in the first place. If I hadn't let my stupid selfish wants take over, we wouldn't be in this position."
"Not stupid and not selfish," Lisa countered. "I'm pretty well ace myself, but from my understanding what you want and need isn't exactly something you can pick and choose. Sure, you're gay. Big deal. If I were a guy, I'm pretty certain I'd be drooling over Vicky every chance I got. Because holy shit, does she have it going for her."
Lisa's deadpan delivery had Amy turning and giving her a suspicious stare. "Are you mocking me?"
"Not in the slightest." Lisa's expression never shifted. "Just saying, it takes all kinds. But as for you, I'm wondering if your mistake didn't come from another source. That is, it wasn't totally your fault."
Amy blinked. "I'm not sure I follow."
"Okay, let's see. When you've been making up the birds and rats and bugs for Taylor, has it made you feel better?"
This line of questioning didn't actually improve Amy's level of confusion. "Well, yeah, actually. It was like I was doing something right, to help Vicky."
"Mm-hmm." Lisa rapped on Amy's skull with her knuckles. "That's where your problem is, then. In there."
"So, me. I'm the problem." Amy stared at her defiantly. "That's what I've been saying all along."
"Nope. Your corona pollentia. Your gemma." Lisa raised an eyebrow. "Your powers, dumbass."
Amy gritted her teeth at Lisa's patronising tone. "I know what the corona pollentia and the gemma do. Probably better than you do. What about my powers?"
"Well, for starters, have you ever heard of capes who tried to hang up the mask but just couldn't help getting back into the game?" Lisa tilted her head. "No? I have. They want to retire, but their powers just … come out. And they get forced back into it. It's not a hugely common thing, but I've also heard of people trying to defend reckless power use by saying their powers just activated all by themselves. Usually a power that they're trying to never use, like ever."
"What are you trying to say?" Amy shook her head as she stared at Lisa. "You can't be saying what that sounds like … can you?"
"I don't know." Lisa shrugged, apparently attempting unconcern. "Funny thing with my power. If I use it too much, I get headaches. A really strenuous bout will have me laid up with a migraine for a day or more. Classic Thinker headache, yeah? But if I try to never use my power, if I repress it altogether or restrict what I use it for, it kicks in anyway, usually giving me information that will push me toward bad decisions. Almost like …" She trailed off, gesturing for Amy to finish the thought.
"Almost like it's punishing you for not using it?"
Lisa snorted. "Maybe. Or maybe it just wants to be used in new and interesting ways, and doesn't have a hassle with how interesting things get."
"Okay, yeah, your power's got issues. Understood." Amy shook her head. "But my power doesn't ever go wrong like …" She paused, a terrible realisation flooding through her. Go wrong like that. "Oh. Oh, shit."
"Mm-hmm." Lisa didn't say anything else, just stood there looking at her with a sympathetic expression on her face.
"No." Amy shook her head, trying to feel justified with the strength of the denial. "No, I've healed hundreds of people, flawlessly. Thousands. Maybe tens of thousands?" She didn't know. Somewhere along the way, she'd lost count. "Sometimes I've wanted to screw something up, just so I could take a step back, but I never have."
"Yeah, you've healed people." Lisa tilted her head for emphasis. "All you ever do is heal people. You don't go out and create new and interesting plants, or animals. Building explosive birds was the most fun you'd had in forever, wasn't it? Because it let you use your power in a totally new way, and it rewarded you with a dopamine hit. And it's making you feel crappy about healing."
"It felt great," Amy agreed. "I didn't know why. My power … why? Healing people is a good thing to do."
"I have no idea," Lisa confessed. "When I ask my power about this sort of thing, it goes, 'what thing?'. But it's happening. If you know where to look, you can totally see people being manipulated by their powers, even in small ways. And if I had to guess … I'd say it wants variety."
"Well, shit." Amy slumped against the wall. "My power thinks I'm boring."
"Could be worse." Lisa grinned suddenly. "If your power thinks you're boring, what if all of Leet's accidents aren't because he's a shitty Tinker?"
Amy's eyes opened wide. The scrawnier half of Uber and Leet had a well-deserved reputation for Tinker tech that fell apart, malfunctioned in some pretty impressive ways, or just plain refused to work at exactly the wrong time. "If that's deliberate … what's it trying to do? Kill him?"
"Either that, or it's doing its best to get his attention before he accidentally kills himself." Lisa shrugged, very obviously discarding the topic. "So let's suppose you've been essentially feeding your power a diet of unsweetened tapioca for the last few years, and all it wants is some spice in its diet. And in a moment of weakness, it takes your unconscious desires and makes them real. You know why you couldn't fix it?"
The conclusion was obvious, especially given how Lisa had framed it. "My power didn't want me to. It wants me to go on and do more."
"Bingo." Lisa waved at the base around them. "And look at what you've done so far."
"So, why do I still feel like shit?" Even now, Amy could feel the miles-deep abyss calling to her, inviting her to submerge herself in the depths of angst once more.
Lisa waved out toward the open area, where Cranial was working on her gadgetry, with Vicky sitting in the chair. "What's happening out there?"
"They're fixing my mistake … oh. Oh, crap."
"Mm-hmm." Lisa nodded in Amy's direction. "Your power doesn't think it was a mistake. Its modification of Vicky is being reversed, as much as possible. We're changing things back to the way they were. No more abominations of biology." She laced her fingers in front of her. "Back to a steady diet of unsweetened tapioca."
"So what do I do?" asked Amy desperately. "How do I stop it doing this again? I can't just start modifying brains. That goes against everything I believe in."
Lisa shrugged. "Then don't. Do something else. Make glow-in-the-dark squirrels or airborne jellyfish. Pets to order, with as many legs, eyes and other appendages as your clients want. Hell, you could make an absolute killing as a transhumanist plastic surgeon. So long as it's not just plain vanilla healing anymore."
"I can't." The realisation hit Amy like a freight train. "Carol would—"
"Then leave New Wave." Lisa's tone was firm. "You were already considering it. Go ahead and just do it. No matter how this pans out, your relationship with them is never going to be the same again." She rapped Amy's forehead, right between her eyes. "Your happiness is more important."
"You mean it?" Amy looked searchingly at Lisa. "You're not just saying that?"
Lisa snorted. "I would lie to a great many people about a great many things, but right here and right now, I'm telling the unvarnished truth. Hell, you can move in here with me and Taylor and Aisha, if you want. It's not like we don't have the room."
It was a huge leap, but Amy felt she had no other choice in the matter. "Okay. So long as Vicky turns out okay, I think I'll take you up on that." As she said the words, she felt the burden on her begin to lift.
"Good to hear it." Lisa put her arm around Amy's shoulders. "So, there's this other little problem we've got …"
Circus
Coil, you sneaky bastard.
She'd nearly gone past it, feeling her way in the dark, but her elbow had brushed a panel that swung inward. Backing up slightly, she nudged it all the way open and flicked her Zippo to reveal a tiny cubby-hole. With a little contortion, she managed to wriggle inside, where a light switch allowed her to see what she'd stumbled upon.
Barely ten feet by ten, it was a bunker within a bunker; food, water, weapons, a camp bed, a chemical toilet. Plus, a screen that allowed her to tap into the security cameras.
She could see everything that was going on, and they had no idea where she was.
And best of all, as she flicked through, she could see one particular face, plain as day.
There you are.
End of Part Fourteen