A/N: Chap 2 responses are in my forums like normal. If I missed something you wanted an answer to, that's the place to post it.
Chapter Three: A Good Meatloaf
The beeping sound was what roused Taylor completely out of the cold dark. It was an incessant sound, but muted as if distant, or behind a diffuse barrier. She opened her eyes onto…darkness. She tried to move, but just like last time she woke up restrained. Not just straps and metal braces, but something that felt almost like a liquid against her skin, only a liquid that wasn't wet.
She felt naked under the foam—not even the wire frame of her bra. Why? What possible harm could a pair of underpants and a bra do?
Distorted memories flittered haphazardly though her mind, like from a dream. Screams. Fire. The roar of the noise. Miss Militia's face obscured by a cloud of rage.
I'm so sorry, Taylor.
The beeping grew louder, more urgent. A polite, synthesized female voice spoke just on the edge of her hearing.
Prisoner 596, Codename Eavesdropper, Blaster 7 Thinker 10+, is conscious. Recommended protocols were carried out but Protocol 1-A is no longer effective. ETA forty minutes to Baumann Parahuman Containment Center. Chance of escape has increased to 32.4567%.
Baumann? Taylor's mind struggled against the blanket of haze and lethargy that seemed to hold her down. Something about the name was important. Baumann. Parahuman. Containment. Center.
The Birdcage. Where they sent Lustrum. And Marquis. And Glastig Uaine. A prison without an exit, where the worst capes in the world were sent until they died.
"Why?" she gasped. "I don't understand. Why are you taking me to the Birdcage?"
"You heard me?" The voice was louder, this time, reverberating through the foam. "I was transmitting silently."
"Don't…" Taylor found it hard to swallow in a dry throat. "Why? Why the Birdcage? What did I do? I'm just fifteen!"
A long silence answered her. Finally, the voice responded. "You don't remember?"
"Remember what?" Taylor couldn't help the hysteria in her voice. "What happened? Why am I here? How can this be happening?"
"As of 10 am Eastern Standard Time, you have been convicted in absentia of three counts of murder in the second degree with a parahuman power, and one count of capital murder with a parahuman power, for the deaths of Emma Barnes, Madison Clements and Sophia Hess, and most recently, Miss Militia of the Brockton Bay Protectorate. You were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter with a parahuman power for the deaths of five other girls killed in the fire you caused. While ordinarily the law would take into account the trauma of trigger events and your age, unfortunately your power was deemed a threat to national security because of your murder of Miss Militia. You're not being sent to the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center to punish you. You're being sent there to protect everyone else from you."
The words felt like slaps, one after the other. She tried to remember what happened to the Bitches Three after they locked her in, but she couldn't. All she remembered was the pain from the roaring, and the strange vision of the monsters fighting, and…and...her father.
"My dad's dead," she gasped. "Oh my God, my dad is dead. They killed my dad. Why am I going to the Birdcage when they killed my dad? Why?"
"Taylor, I know it won't make you feel any better, but please understand that Miss Militia did not kill your father. During the investigation into what happened at your high school, she was charged with searching your home. You were held for two days, and your father was understandably upset. He had been drinking. After Miss Militia left, he ran a red light and was struck by a sixteen-wheeler."
"Bullshit! She thought she killed him. I saw it! I felt it!"
"If she felt that way, Taylor, it was because Miss Militia was a kind, selfless person who hated when bad things happened to good people. She stated in her report that she should have taken him into PRT headquarters to let him sleep off his intoxication instead of leaving him alone like she did. She most certainly did feel guilty for his death, Taylor. But she didn't kill him. You, on the other hand, did kill her."
"I…what?" She started to deny it, until the memory broke through the lingering haze of the drugs. The rage she felt, and the way she could feel everything in Miss Militia's neck, from her spine to her windpipe. The rage abated into a brief satisfaction at the feel of another person's neck being crushed from within, before the darkness came.
She really did it. Taylor Hebert, aged fifteen, was a murderer.
"Oh God," she whispered. She murdered a Protectorate Hero—one she actually looked up to as a kid—and now she was going to hell for the rest of her exceedingly short life because of it.
Taylor closed her eyes as fear and rage battled inside her. The utter injustice of it all left her breathless. For a year and a half the girls at school tortured her. She lost her mom, now her dad was dead, and she was the one going to the fucking Birdcage?
"It's just not fair," she whispered through her tears. "Why couldn't the fuckers just kill me already? Haven't I been tortured enough?"
The polite voice, which Taylor began to suspect was the internationally renowned Tinker named Dragon, did not answer. What could she say? Taylor's life was over, she had nothing left to live for. She had no friends, and now she had no family. She had no future at all.
The only desire she had left, the only hope she could summon, was to somehow not go to the Birdcage. With that hope came a memory—the feeling she had of Miss Militia's neck. She could feel everything—the individual vertebra of her neck, the spinal column; the air travelling through her windpipe and the blood moving through her arteries. Somehow, she tapped into something that let her feel things beyond her body.
She tried to remember what it was, and almost instantly became aware of a stream of…of everything that flowed constantly through the back of her mind. Within this stream were the roars she heard when she first woke up, only now restrained and controllable. They were thoughts, she realized. Everyone else's thoughts.
Through this strange, undefinable stream of everything, she could feel things all around her. She could feel the dagger-like shape of the jet that carried her, with its tiny, back-swept wings flying so fast not even sound could keep up. She could feel every aspect of the craft, some of which she was surprised to find she could understand. At its heart was not a pilot, but a cluster of microscopic relays that reminded Taylor a great deal of a human brain.
Droid. With the thought came a stream of images and thoughts and knowledge she couldn't possibly have. She assumed the droid brain was something Dragon built, which would make sense. It startled her, but also made her realize that she was the only living thing on the craft.
She focused her will on the fuel intake valves and knew with a sense of growing numbness that she could crush them. She could make the plane crash. It wasn't like anyone else was aboard. She knew she'd die if she did. As much as she didn't want to die, the thought of the Birdcage was so terrifying she couldn't stand the thought of it. If she crashed the jet, then at least the nightmare of her life would finally….be…over.
Without a second's further hesitation, she crushed the fuel intake valves with her power. Alarms blared. The background roar of the jets she'd only been partially conscious of cut out, and suddenly they were falling.
"Taylor, what did you do?" The voice sounded alarmed, but not for herself. "We're supersonic. You can't survive a wreck at the speeds we're going."
Her throat hurt. From screaming? She spoke anyway. "Who cares? Really, who cares? The only person in the world who loved me is dead, and now I'm going to jail for killing his murderer." She hated the tears she could hear in her voice. "No thanks, I think I'd rather die. Maybe if all the priests weren't lying like everyone else, I'll get to see mom and dad again."
Her stomach jumped into her throat as the plane lost all forward momentum and began plummeting. She felt tears well up in her eyes and squeezed them shut, her whole body tensing in terrible anticipation.
"I'm so sorry, Taylor," the voice said. "I wish more than you know that things could be different for you. I understand why you did what you did. But I cannot allow you to die. I won't."
Abruptly Taylor felt a violent jerk of motion horizontal to the plummeting craft. Wind billowed outside her pillow of foam, but none of it touched her. She flipped awkwardly in free fall, fighting hard not to throw up, when suddenly a loud billow slowed her fall drastically.
A parachute. She'd been ejected, still in her containment cell, from the jet. Instantly a deep, brittle cold began to permeate the foam. More important, she felt the whole unit jerk abruptly, with the motion accompanied by the sound of small jets. She was being directed? To where?
She had plenty of time to think about it. It felt like she was falling forever, growing colder and colder as she did, until abruptly the entire unit hit the ground. The foam kept her from collapsed into a pile at the jarring, painful impact, but did nothing for the intense cold.
The stream of everything in the back of her mind whispered to her, guided her. She drew it into her body, making her skin tingle as a warmth enveloped her. It wasn't enough to make her feel comfortable, but it was enough to keep her from freezing to death.
She hoped, anyway.
So, here she was covered in foam and wrapped up in restraints, somewhere very cold, without an idea of what time it was or where she was. She wondered if her situation had improved or become worse. She didn't have long to wait. Within a few bitter, freezing-cold minutes, she heard vehicles pulling up, followed by heavy metal doors slamming shut.
"Hello? Miss Hebert, can you hear me?"
Taylor frowned, anger and helplessness warring inside her. Dragon, if it was her controlling the droid brain, must have alerted the authorities. Maybe that's what the small jets were for? For all she knew, she landed in the middle of an army base.
"You've landed in Grand Forks Air Force Base," the speaker announced, confirming that God, the Universe and Scion all hated her. "PRT agents are en route. I know it's cold in there, but the law says you have to remain contained at all times. If you stay put and cooperate, everything will be fine."
Taylor didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The asshole actually believed his bullshit, she could tell. She tapped into the everything and sensed everything around her easily—a squad of ten military police, made almost inhuman by their thick, heavy coats. She was on a salted, plowed stretch of runway in the dark of night, in an air force base on the edge of creation.
How were things better?
Make them better. Use the Force.
That seemed an odd term for the everything in her head, but then again her own term for it was a mouthful as well. So far, the odd guidance she'd received hadn't hurt, and she had no further ideas. She concentrated on her immediate cage—metallic straps over her arms, legs and torso. Naked underneath for some pervy reason she decided not to dwell on. And the foam, that damned fucking foam that let her breathe but not move. Abruptly she realized the foam didn't feel wet against her skin any more. It felt hard.
Brittle.
How long had it been exposed to the cold? How high were they when she sabotaged the plane? She tried moving, but instead of malleable foam it felt like impossibly strong ice. But the thing about ice was it could still break. The trick was breaking it without breaking herself with it.
She called on the everything—on the Force—that seemed to constantly be available to her. With gritted teeth and a sub-vocal growl at what she anticipated was going to be unpleasant, she pulled the energy into her body, just like she did with the heat. More and more she pulled on the energy around her until she felt like she would simply pop.
She released it, all at once, everywhere.
The hard-frozen foam exploded in a shower of ceramic-like shards. The military police around her stumbled back, some struck hard by the shards. In the same instant, Taylor ripped off the metallic restraints that held her until she fell free into the hard, salty, burning cold of the asphalt. Despite the heat she drew into her body, she began shivering violently from the cold and winced at the pain in her bare feet.
Before she could take a single step, she felt a whisper of warning and ducked as one of the soldiers fired his weapon at her. With only a thought, she flung him away so hard he was lost in the gloom and snow. One after the other they fired, two or three at a time in some cases, and somehow, she managed to dodge their shots and fling them away, until she came to the last two. The first she slammed against the truck before ripping the man's heavy coat from him. She slipped it on—it wasn't enough to make her warm, but it at least cut the painful, burning-cold wind. The second, who stood with his gun held in a shaking hand, she concentrated on.
"You're going to take me to your house."
"I'm…going to take you to my house," the man said dully.
"And you'll drop your weapon," Taylor added at the last moment.
"And…I'll drop my weapon."
The heavy pistol fell to the ground with a heavy thud. Taylor glanced at it, and a second later it flew into her hand, where she slipped it into her pocket even as her…thrall?...climbed into one of the Air Force trucks.
She followed him to one of the four vehicles that surrounded her landing site and climbed in after him. "Turn the heat on," she said.
"I'll turn on the heat." He complied, and only as the heat started pouring over her did she allow herself to shiver uncontrollably. The man backed the truck away from shattered containment unit and the billowing parachute that brought her there, turned the truck, and started driving across the parking lot.
Taylor wiped tears from her eyes as she pulled her legs and feet inside the massively oversized coat and tried to stop her shivering.
~~Quintessence~~
~~Quintessence~~
"Hey, babe, what are you doing home early?"
Her name was Tracey. Taylor knew her at a glance, reaching for any advantage she could find. Brunette, fundamentalist Christian parents, just indoctrinated enough in their faith to feel uneasy about her doubts. Never intended to go further than high school. Two kids, proud of her curves and for good reason. Aggressive in what she wanted, but not unkindly so.
Staff Sergeant Jeff Schaefer had loved Tracey since Middle School. He also had fundamentalist parents in the same church. Son, grandson and great grandson of soldiers. Never had a doubt about his career, or his wife. Content in the belief that God loved him. God loved him because he was pious and because his parents and Reverend Tennant said so. He also believed that Judgement Day would occur within his lifetime, and that he and his family would be taken into God's embrace while all the heathens of the world burned.
Taylor hated them both just a little as she followed Jeff into the on-base duplex where his family lived.
When Taylor pulled back the hood of her stolen coat, Tracey Schaefer screamed. She jumped back, yanked her youngest baby into her arms, and backed away in terror as if a naked skinny fifteen-year-old girl in an oversized coat was the most horrifying thing she'd ever seen.
"Jeff, who is this?" Tracey demanded.
"Jeff can't answer you," Taylor said. Seeing the genuine terror in the woman's voice, which her baby picked up enough to begin to cry, she hated herself a little too. "Not yet. I promise I won't hurt any of you. I won't stay long. I need…I need clothes. And some food. It's been a day at least since I ate, maybe more. Money. Then I go, and you're all safe, and you won't ever see me again."
"You're…one of them. You're a cape!"
Taylor never knew how evil the word "them" could sound until she heard the fear, disdain, contempt and horror Tracey filled the word with. It was the same way Taylor thought of the "they" who condemned her to the Birdcage. Taylor wondered how the woman could tell, but not enough to dig any deeper in her self-righteous head.
"Clothes, food, money. Then I'm gone."
Taylor considered what a tableau this must have presented. Tracey out-massed her by at least twenty pounds or more, and looked as if she worked out. Taylor had no visible weapons, and looked like a strong wind could blow her away.
Just the fact that she was a cape was enough to cow this woman into terrified paralysis. She looked at Taylor now, tears in her eyes, and assumed the posture of a beggar.
"And you'll let my husband go? You won't hurt us?"
Taylor knew her promise was worthless. But she could see—hell, she could feel—how Tracey clung to that promise. The whispers from the Force gave her so many ideas she could use, some enlightened, some sickening. As she stared at the terrified woman with her baby, sure that their oldest was at Nana's, Taylor realized she just couldn't do what the cold, pragmatic part of her knew she should. She knew she should hold the woman hostage to belay an attack.
She just… "I don't want to be the monster they're trying to make me."
Tracey Schaefer blinked, confused. "What?"
"Go." Taylor stepped to the side. "Get your baby, your things, and go. It doesn't matter if you call the police or the PRT. They know I'm here. They might hurt you to get to me. Just…go. Hurry."
"What about Jeff?"
"He'll snap out of it when you're away, but you'd better drive. He'll do what you tell him until then."
That was all the permission Tracey needed. "Jeff, take the baby."
"I'll take the baby," Jeff agreed dully as he took the baby.
If nothing else, Tracey was a prepared mom. In less than five minutes she was dressed, had the baby bundled up like a giant fabric egg, and her family was gone.
"You're going to take me to the mall, Jeff," Tracey said as they stepped into the blizzard.
"I'll take you to the mall," he agreed.
Behind them, Taylor locked their door and walked up the stairs. She found their bedroom easily—spotless save for a basket of freshly laundered clothes sitting on the queen-sized bed. Through the bathroom door she saw the shower stall and felt it pull her like a magnet. She felt utterly filthy and was still shivering from the cold. The soles of her feet hurt.
"I'm already naked," she muttered. She let the coat fall to the floor and in minutes stood under hot water that burned against her frozen skin, and yet felt like heaven.
By the time the first red and blue lights flashed through the bathroom's small window, she was curled in a corner of the shower weeping softly. The pressure against her mind from all the presences outside roused her from her fit of self-pity.
"No more of that, kiddo," she muttered to herself as she turned the water off and dried herself in new, fluffy towels. She tried to remember the last time she used a new towel, especially one so nice. The Air Force must have paid pretty good, considering they didn't have a hell of a lot to do any more.
She stepped in front of the Schaefer's vanity looking for a brush when she saw her reflection in the mirror. Despite herself she screamed a little, startled. Her eyes—they were black. No sclera, no discernable iris. Just solid black from one corner to the other. No wonder Tracey screamed.
Otherwise, she looked the same. Pale, skinny. Enough of a chest to be identified as female, if just barely. Her mother's too-wide mouth and her dad's too big eyes. She took a brief pass at combing her mess of curls, figuring if she was going to die, at least her corpse would have combed hair.
Upon a quick inspection, Taylor discovered that Tracey was half a head shorter than her, but much larger in every way a woman would care about. Even so, she still found a heavy hoodie, yoga pants and sweat pants to layer, and thick woolen socks. Unfortunately, Tracy's shoes were way too short.
However, it turned out that Jeff Schaefer's feet were as small for a man as his wife's were for a woman. With a few extra woolen socks, Taylor was able to slip on a pair of the man's hiking boots. They didn't fit well, but after walking barefoot on salted asphalt in 30 below cold, she didn't care.
She drifted down the stairs and saw through the window blinds a line of lights flashing outside in the dark. They were waiting, she knew. Waiting for the nearest PRT or Protectorate team to arrive. So, she ignored them as she made her way into the kitchen.
Jeff must have received the alert of her landing right before dinner, because there was a still-hot meatloaf and macaroni and cheese on the stove. There was even a little pan of green beans with bacon and onion mixed in, because God and Reverent Tennant wanted them to eat something green, Taylor was sure. Bacon could make even canned green beans taste good.
She drank water from the filtered pitcher in the fridge, then drank more. Then she sat down to a meal of mac and cheese, really good meat loaf, green beans and a diet soda from the fridge. She was sure Tracy mixed some breakfast sausage into the meatloaf. And more bacon.
"Some last meal," she muttered.
More soldiers and police were arriving outside, she could feel. They were worried. Curious, she turned on the Schaefer's television. They had cable, of course. And on the screen, standing in front of a row of military jeeps and police cars surrounding a plain but sturdily built duplex illuminated by emergency lights, stood a pretty blonde in a parka.
"…was being transported to the Baumann Parahuman Detention Center when she somehow disabled her plane. According to the PRT spokesman, Hebert should be considered extraordinarily dangerous and should not be approached by anyone without heavy Protectorate backup."
The screen switched back to the gray-haired, paternal anchor with the deep, practiced voice. "Thank you, Tracy. Any word on which Protectorate member Grand Forks will be host to?"
"No word yet, Tom."
"Nope, no word yet, Tom. So go fuck yourself, Tom."
Taylor shoveled a few more bites of meatloaf in her mouth before she started searching the small duplex. She found a black backpack filled with old Air Force manuals and other illegible books which she dumped. She stuffed a few of Tracey's clothes in the bag, then raided the woman's pantry for water bottles and non-perishable food.
She paused a moment when she saw a tin can labelled "Florida." It was a fruit cake tin with the typical floral pattern one could find on any similar shaped tin across the country. She took it out of the pantry and opened it on the kitchen counter. Inside she found wads of twenty-dollar bills. A quick count revealed close to seven hundred dollars.
"Huh."
She pocketed the money. She cleaned up after herself, using plastic wrap to cover the various pots and pans before placing them in the fridge. She then cleaned her plate and put it in the drying rack. She saw the notepad and winced before writing a quick letter apologizing for taking their clothes, food and money.
By the time she was done, she sensed even more men behind the house as well as in front. In fact, it felt as if they had the entire structure surrounded—not just the duplex she was in, but the neighboring duplex as well.
A glance at the window in back revealed an open field filled with police cars and military vehicles, with only a fence between them and the house.
The phone rang. Taylor jumped out of her chair, startled by the sound. Her heart beat a harsh percussion and she reached out with her senses, but the Force didn't warn her of any immediate threats. The phone continued to ring until the answering machine clicked on.
"HI, YOU'VE REACHED THE SHCAEFERS. PLEASE LEAVE A MESSAGE AND HAVE A BLESSED DAY."
DING. "Miss Hebert, please pick up." Feminine voice, deep and powerful. A beautiful contralto. Not Dragon. "We do not want your situation to get worse. For all our sakes, please pick up and we can find a solution."
Taylor snorted. "Yeah, the Birdcage. Some solution that is."
She trotted back up the stairs and looked out from the second window. Across the field filled with police and military cars, she could see a road lined with furrows of plowed snow, and beyond that a parking lot and what looked like a small store or something with business signs. More importantly, she saw cars in the parking lots, and a few trucks that looked like they were starting to move.
She went back down stairs and sank into the stream of power that seemed to course through the back of her mind. Ideas came to her from the ether—ideas on how to kill every man and woman out there. Other ideas on how to simply not be seen.
Definitely the latter. She concentrated on how unimportant she was; how unremarkable. Little better than a blank canvas. No different than the snow. She held onto that idea and pushed it out around her, just like she did with the energy that broke the foam. She had no idea if it would work, but at this point she felt she had little choice short of being the killer the real bad guys were trying to make her be.
She opened the back door, stepped into the bitter cold night, and closed it behind her. The colors of the lights beyond the back fence made the snow flash red and blue like a kaleidoscope. She stared at it—at the thick layer of snow that Brockton Bay rarely saw. It was even worse walking in. Each step sounded like a bag of cornflakes being crushed, and she couldn't help but wince in anticipation of a dozen guns going off in her direction.
No one seemed to care. She reached out with her senses, even as she continued to project how unnoticeable she was, and felt apprehension and fear, but also boredom. Many of the men and women around her were simply irritated at being pulled out of their homes on such a cold night, while a few were excited at the idea of seeing Narwhal, who was supposedly on her way to take care of the murdering little bitch cape they'd surrounded.
Narwhal, a super hero who could cut people in half with her forcefields. Considered one of the ten strongest and deadliest capes in North America. Who was Canadian, and so wouldn't have to worry about American media coverage over murdering a fifteen-year-old girl.
Taylor swallowed in a dry throat and pulled the hood of her sweater down lower in an attempt to preserve feeling in her face and maybe keep the lingering water of her shower from freezing in her hair. She continued to crunch through the snow until she reached the back gate. She opened it slowly, fully aware of the line of heavily armed Air Force soldiers that formed a parameter literally within a foot of her. One of the men was smoking a cigarette. They didn't look at her, or notice the gate that opened and closed in her passage.
She continued walking, pausing only long enough to reach into the open door of a Humvee for the extra heavy coat that she saw in the passenger seat. It looked like the one she stole but stupidly left behind because it was hard to remember how cold it was for someone not accustomed to winters like this. The coat felt as warm as she could hope.
Ahead, she saw the road and the commerce building. The signs said GNC and Burger King. It was slow going, trudging through the knee-deep snow, but she didn't dare slow down. She knew with all the certainty that the Force could provide that if she made it there, somehow she would get away.
All around her, the snow began to fall again in a smothering blanket of white.