Setup 2.5
January 3, 2011, Winslow High - Brockton Bay, 9:57 AM
Well, I was overjoyed at all the gains and realizations, but I figured I should do something about the situation. I don't think Taylor was doing anything important inside, she was already done triggering. Might as well let her out. Ugh, emotional controls had clamped down to suppress surprise and hadn't let up, I think I'd configured the emergency override a bit too loosely.
Okay, saner thoughts prevailed with nominal emotional feedback reinstated. Had to get her out without displaying any supernatural knowledge. I went towards the locker, it smelled like an unattended hospital dumpster in the rainy season (speaking from experience). I injected uncertainty and worry into my posture and voice, "Is there someone trapped here?" The thumping increased and I heard a muffled yell, well that was enough incentive.
I made a show of grabbing the handle, leveraging myself by planting a foot on the adjacent locker, and heaving. The lock wrenched free, the door yanked open, Taylor came out screaming and flailing, smeared in brown gunk. A crowd had started forming, the kids all around still radiating apprehension mixed with apathy. I arrested Taylor's fall before she could bang her head on the floor.
Seconds passed, Taylor was still incoherently flailing, I paid no heed to her arms flapping at me and held her firmly. Turning around to the crowd in general, I poured a bit of command and intimidation and yelled at them, "What're you looking at? Get the doctor! Now!" A few of them turned and ran, the rest were still busy staring at us, good for them. I swivelled my head around to let my spy-glasses have a good view of all the bystanders. Hey! I knew that girl, that's Bitch 1 from the cafe! And the girl beside her, wow, Level 23! She was the new ward! And she was Bitch 2! I shot off an observe.
Ugh. Just plain ugh, this was such a mess! Have these people never learnt of psychotherapy? Poor Shadow Stalker's WIS was debuffed down to 2 by her powers, quite strong powers though! And the predator-prey ideology thing was narrow beyond comprehension. Both Bitch 1 and Bitch 2 were exuding smugness and irritation. I'll deal with them soon, first things first.
I took out my phone and called 911, as soon as the operator picked up, I just said "Winslow High school, student assaulted, send a hazmat team ASAP." I noticed Shadow Stalker was almost lunging at me to snatch the phone, Emma Barnes' smugness had changed to panic. I cut the call, angled my head for the camera to get a clear view of her and shifted at the last moment so her hand clawed my face instead, I turned on Anonymity Protocol Emulation to let a scratch mark form on my cheek, it stung.
Taylor had finally stopped flailing, she was still sobbing incoherently though. Sophia drew back after her grab for the phone missed, she was preparing for another try. I turned on Intimidation to full power, arranged my posture and expression for maximum aggressiveness, looked her in the eye, she flinched. I immediately brought my expression back to neutral, and deadpanned with intimidation still on, "Don't." Sophia stilled, eyes wide, mouth agape. Good, that was that taken care of for the moment.
Everyone had lapsed to an anticipatory silence. Only the faint buzzing of insects could be heard. Wait, that was not faint at all, I observed a fly zigzagging near the trash in the locker, fuck. I observed Taylor, double fuck, the girl was going to out herself first thing after triggering, and what ridiculous power! I'm so adding her to the party. But first things first, I grabbed Taylor by the neck, she'd quietened down, but her face was twisted in fury at the two bitches. I forcefully turned her head towards me, "Taylor, look at me, ease up, please, breathe." doing my best to inject both command and kindness in my voice and face. She looked at me, still furious, I shook my head imperceptibly. The buzzing started to decrease... Thank the INT monster, she got it! I asked her again, tapping my glasses, "What happened?"
She nodded at me, radiating anger and vindication, she was starting to hyperventilate again, damn, wrong question! She pointed a shaky hand at the two bitches, "It was them, Sophia, pushed me into, into..." The buzzing was perceptible again, shit, I drew from my Shiatsu and Biology skills, applying steady pressure on her Vagus nerve with the index finger of the hand holding her neck. Her breathing started to hitch, she started to swoon. Meanwhile I turned my attention to back to Hess and Barnes. Hess was watching me with simmering rage and wariness, while Barnes had apparently found some measure of smug back to go with her panic. Taylor's hand was slumping, Barnes stepped forward, "You can't prove that, no one will believe you!"
I gave them a deadpan smile, "Strange choice of words." Hess turned back to Barnes and hissed "Shut up Emma!" Taylor had finished fainting by now, her status showed Unconscious. I slowly eased her to the ground, made a show of checking her pulse, and stood up. The crowd had grown considerably.
"She's right you know." A high-pitched, almost lilting voice piped up. Ah, Bitch 3, Clements, I was wondering where she was. She had an almost innocent looking smile, "No one saw anything, you can ask anyone here." I looked around, quite a few were actively agreeing with her, most others were quiet, slumped postures, some girls were actually verbalizing their solidarity, this was gold! I made a slow sweep of all of them, then focused back to Clements, who was standing with Hess now, both smirking, I looked down at Taylor's prone, bloody form, just a quick glance, and turned back to Clements, injecting surprise and panic into my voice, "You don't see anything?!" All the three of them were smug and shaking their heads, perfect, I couldn't have hoped for anything better, but Clements went above and beyond, "You're new, you'll learn." and their whole group were nodding like robots. Haha! I've never had such a brilliant setup!
I slumped in a defeated posture and sat down, hunching with my back to the lockers, legs bent, blocking everyone's view of me bringing my phone surreptitiously to bear. I'd already noticed the School Doctor, or Nurse, as her class label said, rounding the corner, hurrying over, Blackwell in tow, the police must have called her. I didn't have much time to work.
I mentally calculated the timestamps, opened the camera feed, extracted the perfect timeline from the last 23 seconds. Opening and ending with Clements's beautifully creepy delivery. Attached it to a PM on PHO, which went:
"Help, I just recorded this at Winslow high, a student was attacked, I've already called the police, but something weird is going on! These kids are possibly being mastered. I feel trapped! Please help!"
The darknet forums are rife about speculations on how the always-active Tin_Mother is Dragon's Civillian account. It would be a good test of the theory, I sent off the PM with the video clip to her.
Time to see how much shit I could throw at the fan.
