The Other Way
Chapter Four
The next day at school …
Taylor had never heard a story that started out with those five words that ended well. She had certainly never lived one.
"So," Emma said, sidling up to her in the hallway. "Who's your friend?"
Emma Barnes did not sidle. Even when she was up to something horrible—especially when she was up to something horrible— she strutted. What new game was this? "I have no idea what you're talking about," Taylor said, using a tone that suggested that she was quite content with her ignorance.
"Yes you do!" Emma snapped. So that was the game, the game where Emma pretended to lose control. "The little whore from the bus yesterday. Or was she just a cheap slut?"
Taylor glanced around. Emma's favorite goons weren't around to join in. While some of the other students were watching just in case the two of them did something amusing, no one else seemed to be a part of this. No backup. Trying to catch me off guard, maybe? "So you're saying she was telling the truth. What's the legal definition of statutory rape again?" Taylor knew that Lisa had made that part up, but a jab was a jab.
Emma's eyes flashed with anger. Taylor had seen her look cruel, disgusted, contemptuous, and even spiteful, but she hadn't seen her angry in a long time. She almost looked human. It passed. "Good luck proving anything with just the word of a passing bus tramp, Taylor, but if you're interested in legal definitions, try looking up the word, 'slander.'"
Slander? That was rich, coming from Emma. She had spent half their freshmen year telling people that Taylor was pregnant, and the other half telling them that she had AIDS. "I don't need to prove anything." She couldn't prove anything. Some people used the law, she thought, and others let the law use them.
But when she looked into Emma's eyes, she saw a glimmer of something … familiar. An ancient memory long buried. "What happened to you?" she asked, not for the first time. Emma was off her game. Something had rattled her. Something that Lisa had said? What had she said? "What happened to you … once?"
Emma struck, carefully manicured fingernails raking across her face. That was more surprising than painful. In the past year and a half, Emma had shoved and tripped her in an "Oh, I'm sorry I didn't see you there," and "Watch where you're going," kind of way, but nothing like this. Nothing so blatant.
Taylor rubbed her hand against her forehead. It came back red. Proof. She smiled.
"Easy there," came a gentle voice as Mr. Gladly made his way through the crowd. "Just calm down, both of you." He looked at Taylor, and his face went a little pale. "Yeesh. Taylor, why don't you let me take you down to the nurse's office to put something on that scratch?"
Taylor stared at him. The school had a zero tolerance policy when it came to fighting, but policy and practice were two different things in Winslow. Besides, Mr. Gladly had never been much of a disciplinarian. "Seriously? That is your response to this? Are you blind or do you just not care?"
"I care." He sounded hurt. He looked hurt. Mr. Gladly put a hand on Taylor's shoulder. It felt like being consoled by a snake. "But I was young once too. I know how it is to lose your temper and say something you don't mean or …" He glanced at the blood on her forehead. Some of it dripped into her eye. "… Or do something you don't mean, and there's no need to make a bigger deal of it than it already is when it's better to just let things go and move on."
The sad thing was, he was right. No, the sad thing was that Lisa was right. The rules played favorites, and that didn't include people like her.
But … how much of that was observed fact instead of her own cynicism? Did Taylor know the whole school was against her, or did she just assume it was? She had never believed much in the system, but could she take a leap of faith, if only to prove it wrong?
"No," she said. "Emma meant everything she did. I don't have to tell you what that was, because you saw everything. If you refuse to enforce the rules, don't expect anyone to respect them or you."
Mr. Gladly looked shocked and a little worried. Taylor had forced him into the role of authoritarian, and he didn't like it. Well, Taylor didn't like him much either. Emma looked shocked too, but more at what she had done than what Taylor was doing, and she didn't look worried at all. Well, if the system worked then Emma wouldn't be a problem anymore, and if the system didn't work then Taylor wouldn't be here for very much longer.
"Okay," Mr. Gladly said with a sigh. "Okay, if that's what you really want. Come with me." He led the two of them down to the principal's office.
The principle was tall, thin, and she wore her dirty blond hair in a bowl cut that didn't look good on anyone. Taylor was tempted to like her, if only because she was the polar opposite of Mr. Gladly. Mr. Gladly wanted to be liked, but Principal Blackwell seemed to think that a principal that was liked was a principal that wasn't doing her job. Taylor was inclined to agree. She looked up from her desk straight at Taylor's bloody face. "Mr. Gladly? Explain."
"Oh, Mr. Gladly was my dad's name. Call me Mr. G."
Principal Blackwell gave him a patient look that suggested that patience was a rare virtue that should be appreciated while it lasted.
Mr. Gladly cleared his throat. "This is Emma Barnes and Taylor Herbert. They were fighting."
They?
"She started it!" Emma protested. "I don't want to come off as immature, principal, but I just finished it."
"Like hell you did!" Taylor snapped.
"It doesn't matter who started it," the principal said. "I do not permit fighting in this school. This is …" She typed a few words into her computer. "I believe this is the first offense for both of you, yes?"
"No," Taylor said. "That might be officially true for her, but I've never been in a fight with anyone at school, including today. She attacked me, so this wasn't even a fight, it was an assault. The blood that's on my face and not hers is proof of that."
"Just because you're bad at fighting doesn't mean that you didn't fight," Emma said. "And just because I don't bruise easily doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt." She turned to the principal. "Ask anyone who was there if you want real proof; they'll back me up."
They probably would, but that proved nothing but Lisa's point. The system favored those who had friends willing to lie for them. Taylor didn't even have strangers willing to tell the truth for her.
The principal looked at Mr. Gladly. "You were there. What happened?"
Mr. Gladly shuffled his feet nervously. "I, well, I only saw the end of it, so I can't say."
Taylor rolled her eyes. Typical spineless Gladly. Of course he wouldn't stand up to anyone or for anyone; no one would be friends with him if he got them in trouble. It was understandably sad when students lost focus of everything else but high school popularity contests, but when a teacher did it, it was just pathetic. And Taylor was pretty sure none of the students he sucked up to were even his friends. The losers and the loners like Taylor hated him. Did the popular kids like Emma like him, or did they just see him as useful?
"But I have Emma and Taylor in my class," he continued, and despite herself Taylor's ears perked up. Was he actually going to do something for once? Just two days ago he had told her that he knew she was being bullied and had offered to help, and while she had turned him down at the time … "And I can't imagine either of them attacking someone unprovoked."
Oh. Oh. That was a betrayal so gentle and gutless it might as well be called the Gladly Maneuver. Amusingly, he had a point. Emma might emotionally abuse someone unprovoked, but physically hitting them was strange for her. Taylor hadn't been unprovoked since she started high school.
"Alright then," the principal said. "As I was saying, this is the first offense for both of you, so you're both getting two days suspension."
"Two days?" Emma protested. "You're punishing me for defending myself? What am I supposed to do, lie back and let people like her have their way with me and hope that a teacher just happens to wander by in time to put a stop to it?"
Her hypocrisy would have been impressive if it weren't so nauseating. Taylor ignored her and focused on the principal. She studied the tired, annoyed expression on her face, and something snapped. "I remember," Taylor said coldly, "you made a promise to my dad and me back in January. You said that you'd keep an eye out, that you'd make sure I'd be safe here." No one looks out for me but me. She laughed. "My dad thought you meant something, but I knew from the start that you were full of crap."
Mr. Gladly gasped behind her and the principal scowled. Right. Hurt someone in school, and she gets annoyed. Send someone to the hospital, and she get worried that someone might sue. But insult her to her face? Oh boy, you crossed a line there. Next to her, Emma's eyes twinkled like Taylor was playing right into her hands. Maybe she was. Or maybe Taylor was done playing.
"You are not doing yourself any favors, young lady," the principal said. "That sort of disrespect will—"
"Disrespect?" Taylor repeated. "What have you ever done to merit anything else?" It's not about justice. Just order. She stood up. "I knew from the start that coming to you, or him, or anyone in this damn school for help would be a farce, but I just had to see the circus for myself. Thank you, Principal Blackwell, for putting on the best damn show in Winslow High."
She pushed the door open to leave. She didn't need anyone here. She never did. "I'm done here."
WWW
"And that's how I got two days off from school."
"Yikes," Lisa said through the phone. "Makes me glad I dropped out."
"I wish I could drop out," Taylor said, lying on her bed and staring at the ceiling. The cut on her forehead wasn't very deep, so she had washed it after getting home and put some gauze on it. "But if I back down, they win. And they know that." Of course, if the Wards thing worked out, she could transfer to Arcadia, which might suck less. She couldn't imagine it sucking more.
"Well, do they win if you give them lice? Or scabies? Crabs, tapeworms, termites, ticks, mosquitos?"
"They'd get a moral victory, I suppose."
"Okay, but what if we kidnapped them—"
"Yeah, I'm not doing that."
"Drove them to the outskirts of town—"
"Lisa, I'm a hero."
"Dressed them up as mimes—"
"So we could what? Hunt them for sport?"
Lisa fell silent for a moment. "You know? That's a really good idea. Way better than what I had in mind. You sure you don't want to be an Undersider?"
Taylor smiled. She didn't, but the fact that someone wantedher felt nice, even if it that someone was a villain. "Yeah, I'm sure. I think I'm going to call Gallant, see if I can tag along with him tomorrow."
"See if you can set a time for Friday."
"Friday?" Taylor shook her head, despite the fact that Lisa couldn't see her over the phone. "I'm sure the cyber-punk knight in shining armor has something he'd rather be doing on the weekend than hang out with me."
"Which is why you should do it. It's a basic head game, Taylor. If you come begging, he'll take you for granted, but if you make him work to recruit you, he'll convince himself you're worth the trouble."
"Does that … actually work?"
Lisa laughed. "I do it all the time, and I've never once had a guy turn me down."
Taylor rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well, you're prettier than I am."
"Hmm, not really. I just do a good job of convincing people that I am."
"That doesn't make any sense."
"Meh, head games. Everything's a head game. Anyway, I gotta go. I'm robbing a museum later this week and still need to iron out the kinks."
Taylor winced. "Please don't tell me about your dastardly deeds. It makes me feel complicit."
"I'm joking, I'm joking. It's actually a bank."
"Lisa!"
She laughed. "Okay, okay. Let me know how your date goes."
"It's not a date. He's already in a relationship with the girl who gave me his number."
"Sounds like someone's trying to spice things up in the bedroom."
"Yeah, I'm hanging up now. Goodbye."
WWW
Taylor didn't want to introduce herself to Gallant as a juvenile delinquent, so she spent the next few hours in the basement until school would have been over. She worked on her art project, which might have been a lost cause by this point, and had her spiders spin a few lengths of silk for her. She imagined that she could use the silk to tie up bad guys after she caught them. Sure, zip ties were about twenty for a buck, but, well, she had a theme.
She also sort of, kind of, maybe if you looked at it the wrong way, internet stalked Gallant. Research. It was research. She had already embarrassed herself when she had run into Glory Girl unprepared, so she needed to make sure she didn't make the same mistakes with him.
The PHO message boards and wiki were, according to Lisa, false when it came to his powers, but they still had a lot of information about Gallant's history in the Wards. He had joined the team about three years ago, making him the most experienced member, and was the third oldest after Aegis and Clockblocker. He was a strong supporter of the community outreach program, which in Taylor's experience meant that capes visited different schools and told students not to do drugs.
She wondered if that was compulsory. If she joined the team, she could handle going on patrols and fighting bad guys, but public speaking? No. If the Wards wanted good public relations, then they needed to keep her as far away from a microphone as possible.
At a quarter before four, she took out the scrap of paper that had his number on it and dialed.
It rang.
She hung up.
This was a bad idea. She couldn't just call him right when he was getting out of school. Let him go home first, and relax for a little bit! Then, maybe around five … no, then he might be eating dinner. No one wanted a phone call during dinner time. Better to wait around eight or nine … unless he was on patrol. When did patrols start for the Wards? When did they end? She didn't want to distract him during a crucial moment, so it would be best to wait until …
Her phone rang.
She stared at it.
He's calling me back! What do I do? Ignore it. That was the only option. Pretend it was a wrong number or something.
She answered it.
"H-hello?"
"Hello, I just got a call from this number and I'm calling you back."
His voice sounded confident, strong, and relaxed. "Oh! Um," she said, feeling like the exact opposite. "Is this Gallant?" She wondered suddenly if this was an elaborate prank where Glory Girl would give her a random number and let her think she was talking to a hero.
"Yes this is," he said. "Who am I speaking to?
Her mind went blank. "I … don't know." Crap! "I-I mean, um, I haven't figured that out yet." Great, now I sound like an amnesiac. "I'm new at this, and I haven't gotten that far, and I'm new at this—I'm a cape!" She took a deep breath. She should have written this down first. She was great at writing—compared to talking, at least.
"Oh, you're a new cape? That's great! And don't stress out about the name. It's not nearly as big of a deal as people think. Can I ask how you got my phone number?"
"Uh, it's a long story."
"Was it Vicky?"
Vicky. Victoria Dallon. Glory Girl. "Yes?"
"Ah! Perfect. Do you mind if I ask you what your powers are? I don't mean to pry."
"I do bugs." That sounded weird. And dumb. Taylor could not have sounded more retarded if she tried.
"Bugs! Right. Vicky told me so many wonderful things about you. I was wondering when you were going to call."
Taylor tried to come to terms with the idea of Glory Girl saying something good about her, which was far easier than imagining her doing it more than once. "Sorry. I guess I should have called you sooner."
"Oh, no worries. So, what can I do for you?"
Taylor bit her lip. She knew everything about what she wanted except how to put it into words. "It's complicated. See, I um … I um …"
"You wanted to see what the Wards program was like without committing to it?"
Okay, so maybe it wasn't that complicated. "Glory Girl said you could do me. Do something for me!" Oh please tell me I didn't say that! Well, if it was any consolation, she hadn't given him her name yet so she wouldn't have to change it.
"Sure, no problem. Anything for a new cape. If you have any questions about the Wards program, I'd love to answer them for you. Or, if you prefer, I could take you with me the next time I go on patrol and you can see for yourself what it's like."
"Okay." That wasn't a yes or no question. "The second one."
"Really? That's great!" He sounded excited for some reason. Well, maybe that was just him being polite. "What time would you like to meet?"
Taylor thought back to Lisa's advice. "Friday? I mean, if you're not too busy."
WWW
Taylor had always been a cape geek, even before she got her powers, but she had never gotten into the hero worship that pried into every aspect of their lives. Their abilities interested her, but the people behind the masks did not.
She spent the next two days watching every Youtube clip and talk show that had Gallant in it, but that was just because without school sucking up seven hours of her day, she had time in abundance.
No one from school had told her dad that she was suspended, so he still didn't know. Taylor suspected that Emma had used the "My daddy's a lawyer" card and had convinced the principle to cancel the punishment. The principle couldn't punish Taylor for fighting without punishing Emma, but between the classic combination of incompetence and negligence that Winslow High was famous for, no one had bothered to tell Taylor to come back to school.
Oh well. Part of her had already decided to join the Wards, transfer to Arcadia, and leave Winslow to burn in hell, so she couldn't bring herself to care. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
She went to the abandoned ferry to meet Gallant, and changed into her costume in the station bathroom. The trashcan had nothing but a few paper towels inside, so she figured it would be a safe place to stash her backpack with her civilian clothes. She didn't carry any ID on her so it wouldn't be a big deal if it ended up stolen, but she filled it with spiders too just for the heck of it.
After she was ready, she took a deep breath and stepped outside into the afternoon sun to spend the day with a super hero.
"Well, look at you!" he said as soon as he saw her. "Nice costume. What's it made out of?"
Taylor found herself blushing and glad that her mask hid her face. Then she remembered that Gallant could see emotions, so the mask wasn't doing anything for her. "Black widow spider silk," she said.
Gallant nodded slowly. "That," he said, "is hard core. Why black widow?"
She knew he wasn't really impressed with her costume. He was wearing power armor that protected him better and gave him enhanced strength. Still, she had put a lot of work into it, so having someone at least pretend to like it was a nice feeling for her. "Their silk is nearly as strong as steel."
"Really? And does it just weigh as much as regular silk?"
"About."
He nodded again. "Just to warn you? If you do decide to join the team, everyone's going to want you to make them one, if only to wear under their costumes. But I am getting ahead of myself." He snapped his fingers. "I need something to call you until you come up with a cape name. Would you mind if I called you Silk for the next hour or so?"
Silk? That sounded … seductive and elegant, the sort of name a femme fatale cape would call herself if she had lots of make-up, a coquettish hair style, a costume she filled out, and a voice that sounded like sex. It didn't suit her at all, but … an hour? "Okay."
"Okay! Come on, I'll take you for a drive." He opened the car door for her like a gentleman from a different century. It made her feel weird. Kind of squiggly.
But oh, what a car it was. Taylor had never cared much about cars; they got her from one point to another as fast as possible. If she wanted to enjoy the trip, she got out and went for a run. But this? It was some sort of luxury sports car that probably cost more than her house. No, cross that, it definitely cost more than her house. The silver-grey exterior matched Gallant's power armor, and as soon as he started the engine, her seat started massaging her back—which she would have appreciated more if her armor weren't in the way.
"So, how does this work?" she asked. "This patrol thing?"
"There are a few people I would like to touch base with," he said. "If you save someone, you can't just disappear into the void and assume they'll be okay. It's best to now and then to make sure they're not targeted again and see if they need anything else. In fact, Vicky mentioned that you helped a woman named Andrea Young a few nights back when she had been attacked by an Empire thug. If you like, we could drop by her apartment. I'm sure she'd like to thank you in person."
Would she? "That's okay. I … I didn't really do much. If I hadn't shown up, Glory Girl would have handled it." If Taylor hadn't been in the way, she probably would have done it faster.
"If you say so," Gallant said, but he sounded doubtful. "There are a few ongoing investigations around here that we can look into. I'd be the first to admit that I'm not much of a detective, but some people tell things to capes that they won't tell cops. Other than that, a patrol is about being visible so if someone has a cat stuck in a tree they can wave me down."
That would explain the open windows. People saw them drive past, and while they didn't recognize Taylor, the smiled when they saw Gallant. "How good at you are climbing trees?"
"In power armor? Terrible, but I have pretty good aim if I need to toss you up into one."
She laughed, despite herself.
"So go ahead. Ask me anything."
"Anything?"
"Anything. Anything at all. Cape stuff, Wards stuff, anything."
Well, there was really only one question that mattered, but not one she could ask. "How do your parents feel about you being a cape?"
"My father tolerates it. He views it as an exuberant hobby that I will put away when I grow up and start worrying about more important things. He's okay with me being in the Wards, but if I told him I wanted to join the Protectorate full time after I turn eighteen, he might get upset."
Gallant didn't mention his mother. Was she not in the picture? Did his parents get a divorce, or was his mother dead like hers? "More important things?" she asked instead. "Like what?"
"The family business. He's a bit on the wealthy side, and he thinks that I can do more good by helping out with the company than putting on a suit and fighting crime. I can see his reasoning, of course. My power set isn't that great, money can solve a lot of problems. After a super villain blows up a neighborhood, we need to put the fires out. After someone gets hurt, hospitals need to be funded. When a villain is arrested, prisons need to be maintained. If an Endbringer attacks, refugees need to be housed and fed and cities need to be rebuilt. All that costs money."
"But you don't agree with him?"
He shook his head. "No. If money could solve all out problems, we wouldn't have either."
"Then what does?"
"Every problem has its own solution," he said. "But what people need most right now, more than money? They need something to believe in."
Taylor smiled at that behind her mask. He could not have come up with a cornier answer if he tried, and he managed to sound completely serious at the same time. "You want to fight super villains with hope?"
"Have you ever tried fighting one without it? And it's not hope, it's … something more than that. Something I can't put into words, but if you stick around long enough, I might be able to show you."
"Ooh, intriguing. Maybe I'll take you up on that."
"So how about you, Silk? How do your parents feel about you going out in costume?"
She winced inwardly. "They, um, don't. I haven't told my dad I have powers yet." She had brought up with her mom the last time she visited her grave, though, so that was something. "He worries a lot, and he wouldn't be able to help me much when I'm in costume, but this is also something I don't think I could not do, so … I don't know. If I joined the Wards, I guess I would have to tell him, wouldn't I?"
"I would encourage you to do so," he said. "But not every home environment lends itself to full transparency. Vista hasn't come out to her parents yet, and she's been on the team for over two years now. There's a loophole where you can ask someone in the PRT or the Protectorate to sign in place of your legal guardian, but that should be a last resort, not a first."
Taylor nodded. It beat giving her dad a panic attack every time she went out in costume. What else did she want to know? "What are the other Wards like? As people?"
"As succinctly as possible? They are people who are trying their best to be their best. Aegis leads the Wards, and he would take a bullet for anyone on the team."
"Isn't he bullet proof?"
He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "He'd do the same even if he didn't have powers. He feels pain just like anyone else, and no invulnerability is flawless. He's still on the front line, every time. Then there's Clockblocker." He let out a chuckle. "That guy is fearless, I really mean it. Plenty of capes will volunteer when an Endbringer attacks, but will fold in a heartbeat the moment a PRT bureaucrat in a suit scowls at them. Clockblocker breaks every rule he can get away with breaking, and bends every one he can't."
"Are there a lot of rules?"
He nodded. "Most of them are to help the organization run smoothly and safely, but there are still plenty that focus on the message we want our image to deliver. His attitude might get him in trouble—well, it does get him in trouble, but a message sounds more genuine when everyone isn't speaking in unison. After him, there's …"
"You," Taylor supplied.
"Me, but you've already met me, and I won't bore you by talking about myself. After me there's Shadow Stalker, and I can't think of anyone more driven than she is. Though just as a warning before you meet her, she does have a lot of personal issues that she hasn't managed to leave behind when she puts on the costume. Don't tell her I said this, but she doesn't come from the best home environment, and while that helps her focus while on the job, it's best to give her some space. Still, she's a great asset to the team, and while she'll never admit it, she needs the team more than anyone."
Taylor nodded slowly. Knowing that capes had personal issues was like knowing that teachers had families to go home to after class. It was obvious once she thought about it—after all, spandex and super powers hadn't made her life all sunshine and roses—but it was never something she would have considered.
"Browbeat is new," Gallant continued. "He got in his first real cape fight yesterday, and he wasn't too thrilled with how it went, but if he sticks with it for a few more months, I feel like he's going to make a great difference."
"What happened yesterday?"
"A gang robbed a bank. Small time, but it looks like they're trying to make a bigger name for themselves. They call themselves the Undersiders."
Taylor's breath caught in her throat. "O-oh. Did anyone get hurt?" She struggled to keep her voice calm, but that wouldn't make any difference against someone who could sense emotions. Wait, Lisa had told her that he could see emotions, so as long as his eyes were on the road, then …
"No, thank goodness. Any time there's a fight with another cape, the first priority is always keeping everyone safe. The fact that we were able to engage them before they escaped is a bonus, because usually they're gone before the alarm goes off."
Why would Lisa tell her to go out with an empath the day after her team robbed a bank? Why had Lisa told her that they were going to rob a bank? "So what's Kid Win like?"
"He is the opposite of Shadow Stalker in every way imaginable. If either of them worked solo that would be a problem, but on the team they balance each other out. While Shadow Stalker can be focused to the point of being harmful, Kid Win is relaxed, easily distracted, and doesn't let anything get to him. He hasn't figured out his specialty yet, but even without it he can build nearly anything."
"And that leaves Vista." She was glad to have changed the subject, but had Gallant noticed anything? Was he biding his time to jump her with an interrogation as soon as she let her guard down, or was he waiting for her to come clean on her own? Not that there was a whole lot to come clean about. Taylor hadn't done anything illegal. Had she?
"And that leaves Vista," he repeated. "She's been on the team the longest after me, and is the most reliable person on the team. It's more of a family than a team for her, because, well, I told you how attentive her own family is. So that's the team in sound bites. You'll get a better idea of who they are when you meet them."
Not if, she thought. When. Well, she was leaning that way. The way he described them, they didn't just sound like likable people, but like people.
"So I answered your questions," Gallant said. "Now I have some for you."
Taylor inhaled sharply, knowing what was going to happen next. The door was unlocked and they weren't driving very fast, so …
"How do you feel," he said, "about the name 'Ladybug?'"
WWW
They made a few stops along the way. At one point, Gallant pulled over to break up a fight between some Empire thugs and a few ABB members. Well, maybe "fight" was too strong a word. Some kids Taylor's age (and a few she recognized from school) were yelling and posturing at each other, and Gallant deescalated the situation while Taylor waited in the car. It ended with a few of the gang members getting their pictures taken with him and then going their separate ways.
Taylor and Gallant spent most of the time coming up with a good name for her. Silk was too sexy, Ladybug was too silly, and Hive Queen and Swarm were too sinister.
"Firefly?" he suggested. "That show was the best thing to come out of Earth Aleph in a while, and here on Bet it's not copyrighted."
She shrugged. "I haven't really used any fireflies yet." If she went on a trip to import them from the countryside, she could use them for, like, Morse code or something, but they weren't city bugs. "I mean, it's better than Spoder, so ..."
"Sp0der," Gallant corrected. "Spelled with a zero. The zero is important."
"But it's pronounced the … right."
"How about, oh, what was it called? I remember there was a mythological beetle that rolled the sun across the sky. I want to say, 'Kerrigan,' but that's something else. I knew I should have made a list."
Taylor shook her head. "I can't name myself after some ancient sun god. That's beyond pretentious."
"You think you couldn't pull off pretentious if you had to?"
"I'm more skittish than pretentious," she admitted.
"How about Skitter then?"
"That's not what that word means."
"Yes, but bugs skitter around, don't they? But you're right, it's the wrong image."
"I still don't know what the 'right image' is."
"You want to have a name that would encourage people to come to you for help instead of run away. Intimidating the villains is good, but other capes will have a professional interest in you while most civilians will know nothing about you beyond your name and costume."
"Okay."
"How about Myriad?"
Taylor frowned. "I don't see the connection."
"Sure. You control a myriad of bugs, don't you?"
"That's a bit of a stretch."
"How many can you control?"
She shrugged. "I haven't found an upper limit, so as many as I can fit into my range."
"And what's your range?"
"A few blocks." That would have been a lot more impressive if Taylor could control something besides, you know, bugs.
"And how many different species of bugs out there?"
"Millions," she admitted. "But … Myriad? I don't know, it sounds a bit too pretty."
"What, you think you can't do pretty?"
No, but that was the advantage of wearing a mask. She shrugged.
"Well, try it out for a bit, let it grow on you. Unless you liked one of the other ones better?"
She didn't, and she supposed that if she stuck with the name, she could paint some sort of kaleidoscope design into her costume. Something iridescent, maybe. "Okay, but I reserve the right to change it later."
"Sure thing, Myriad."
"Okay, I'm liking it less already."
He laughed good-naturedly as he pulled up in front of a house in the suburbs.
"Where are we?"
"This is a follow-up," he explained. "There was a kidnapping yesterday, and I'd like to check on the parents."
Taylor nodded. "Do you want me to wait in the car?"
"Not if you'd like to come inside."
She got out of the car and followed Gallant to the front door. Being in costume, she decided, was easy, but being in costume in public? That was something that she would never get used to.
Gallant rang the doorbell, and a middle-aged man answered the door. He looked haggard, like he hadn't been sleeping well.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Alcott," Gallant said. "I wanted to check to see how you were doing. May we come in?"
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"There haven't been any ransom notes, negotiations, demands, or anything," Alcott said in a shaky voice. "I don't know if they're trying to make me sweat or if they just did it for kicks."
"Can you think of any other reason why someone would want to kidnap Dinah?"
He shook his head. "Money? Extortion? My brother-in-law's the mayor so it might be trying to get to him, but Triumph has been watching over things over there, and he hasn't heard anything yet."
Neither of them paid much attention to Taylor. Gallant offered a brief introduction on her behalf, and then she was left alone to watch. A picture on the wall caught her eye, a family photograph. She recognized Alcott despite the tired, rung-out look he had in real life, and that would make the woman his wife and the preadolescent girl with long brown hair the missing Dinah.
None of them looked happy in the photograph, their smiles forced and faked, but all family pictures were like that. No matter how much you loved life, no matter how much you loved each other, you had to squeeze out something picture-perfect for three seconds straight, and that always made you come out looking dead inside.
"Is there anything else you can think of?" Gallant said. His voice was gentle, more like a therapist's than an interrogator's. "It's fine if it seems improbable or even ridiculous; every lead helps in a matter like this."
No matter how good Alcott's poker face was, Gallant's power would let him see what the man was feeling. At least, Taylor assumed it would. She had no idea how his powers worked, or even if Lisa had been right about him in the first place.
Alcott stared out the window for a long moment, his finger drumming against the table. "Improbable," he repeated, mostly to himself. "My mother always had an appreciation for literature, she had taste, but I've never had the time to pick up the original Sherlock Holmes stories. I've only heard the quote in references and renditions. How did it go? Eliminate the impossible, something something the truth?"
"Once you eliminate the impossible," Taylor said, speaking for the first time since entering the house, "whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
Alcott nodded bitterly. "I remember the actors playing Sherlock or some Sherlock wannabe always looked so smug, like they had it all figured out. But the impossible went out for a drink over thirty years ago and hasn't been back since. You can't be sure of anything these days, not even death and taxes. The weatherman could predict sunshine only for Leviathan to climb up out of the beach and make it rain. My brother-in-law's worried about his reelection, but there's no guarantee that they'll be a Brockton Bay to be mayor of in a few months.
"But how do you tell a kid that? You can't, so you lie to them and tell them that everything is fine. Keep truth and other sharp objects out of reach so they don't hurt themselves. Even if things don't work out, you have to pretend they do because staying up all night worrying only makes things worse. So we told her that everything was fine, even when it wasn't, and that things would get better, even when they wouldn't. You'll make friends at school, your uncle will get reelected, grandma will get out of the hospital, we'll all live happily ever after." He laughed. "It was a charade, of course. Most of parenting is, and we thought we were good parents for raising a kid who could still believe in things like futures.
"But then Dinah started worrying. That's part of growing up, worrying, being afraid, asking questions. I think my mother's death hit her harder than it hit me, because Dinah always assumed that she'd be released from the hospital, just not in a casket.
"Then she started getting headaches so bad we could barely get her out of bed. She missed so much school we were worried that she was going to have to repeat a year, which now … which now seems like such a small thing to worry about, but at the time … She started talking funny too, making predictions that there was a sixty-seven point two two seven four chance that we'd stop for ice cream on the way back from the hospital. The doctor was no help. Told us to just have her chug aspirin until the headache went away. We even took her to the PRT to get her tested to see if she had a trigger event or something because every parent hopes that their children are special—until they are—but the MRI came back negative. We were looking into therapy to see if maybe that could help cope with the problem even if we couldn't cure it, but then, well …" He waved his hand and trailed off.
"You think that her headaches had something to do with it?" Gallant asked.
He shook his head. "No. I don't know. It's just that … if you get in a fight with someone right before they die, it stays with you. Even if it wouldn't have changed anything, you spend the rest of your life wishing that you had done something different. I'm a realist. I know that I might not ever …" He swallowed. "But I keep on thinking that the last time she was home, she was in pain and there was nothing I could do!" He let out a breath. "There's still nothing I can do. I wasn't even here, you know? I was at work, doing my damn job." He laughed bitterly. "Anna was here at the time, for all the good that did. They just threw her to the ground and walked past her. I know that I could have done more if I had only been there, but I also know that I didn't do anything at all!"
"You did everything you could," Gallant said. "That's not a comforting thought, I know, but it's the truth. You were gone, your daughter was sick, and your wife was alone, but not anymore. Now you have the police, you have the Protectorate, and you certainly have the Wards looking for your daughter. She even made the front-page news this morning, so everyone in Brockton Bay will know what she looks like and that she needs help."
"No offense, but the police, the Protectorate, and the Wards didn't do much when my daughter was being kidnapped in the first place."
"And I apologize for that," Gallant said. "The Protectorate was out of town that afternoon, and the Wards were involved with a gang of bank robbery, leaving the already overburdened and understaffed police force. The men who took your daughter may have been lucky, but being lucky will only help you commit the crime. To get away with it, you need to be careful for the rest of your life."
"Do you really think you'll find her?"
Gallant nodded. "I know we will. I don't know when, but I promise you we will find her. Until then, is there anything we can do for you, Mr. Alcott?"
Alcott let out a sigh and seemed to relax into his exhaustion instead of trying to stave it off. "No, no. Thank you for stopping by. I'll let you or Triumph know if I remember anything that might be helpful."
As they left, Taylor took with her the swarm that came with her on the way in as well as all the ants, cockroaches, flies, beetles, spiders, termites, and centipedes already in the house. It was the least she could do, and also the most.
"What does a team of junior super heroes do to solve a kidnapping?" Taylor asked after they got back into the car.
"All we can," Gallant said as he started the engine. "But if I have to be honest, that's not a whole lot. We're combat-oriented, so if we find out where she is we can rescue her, but the rescue operation is the easy part. If we had a thinker on the team who could search large areas of the city at once, see the future, or analyze patterns and clues with superhuman efficacy, we'd have a chance, but most non-combat thinkers join the PRT think-tank instead of one of the hero teams."
"Then you can ask them to help out, can't you?"
"We could, but the Parahuman Response Team only responds to parahuman threats, and there's no evidence of any parahumans being involved."
I could search large areas of the city at once, Taylor thought. If my bugs could see worth a crap. "So what can you do?"
"The same thing we've been doing. Whoever kidnapped her is connected to at least one of the city gangs, and if we apply enough pressure to them, something will turn up. If the kidnapper tries to use the child for ransom or extortion, then that will point us in the right direction. Other than that, the non-powered police force is actually better equipped and trained for this sort of case than we are."
Taylor stared at him. "So, everything you said back there about finding her and getting her back? Was that just a comforting lie?"
"Is that how you see it?"
"Well, yeah. You don't think you're going to find her, and you're not even going to do anything different to try to find her, but you want him to think you will while you pass the buck to someone else." Lisa's words came back to her. They care more about looking good than being good, and more about ruling the world than saving it.
"I want him to have hope."
"Even if it's a false hope?"
He didn't answer for a moment, and Taylor realized that she had crossed a line. His expression was hidden behind his helmet, but she knew that any second he was going to stop the car and tell her to get out.
He didn't.
"If you're willing, I'd like you to take a moment and consider the alternative. If what I told him was a comforting lie, what should I have said? What is the probability that Mr. Alcott will see his daughter again? That, I can tell you, is about fifty percent. In a best case situation, Dinah is being held for ransom and she'll be back home by the end of the week after her parents transfer the money. If she's being held for blackmail, then she'll be safe and healthy for as long as her uncle remains mayor. After that, she'll be a loose end. If she's not in either situation, then her fate is likely worse.
"Even if she does escape, it will take months or even years for her captors to let their guard down, and even then she might never recover fully. If you like, we can examine the hard truths on a larger scale, such as how the villains outnumber the heroes in Brockton Bay by nearly two to one, or how the Endbringers are predicted to wipe us out somewhere between five and fifty years, but that would be getting sidetracked. If I offer false hope, then it's because it's the best I can."
Taylor looked away, feeling guilty. "Sorry."
"Don't be. I respect your integrity, Myriad, and I wish more than anything that the truth was something that could comfort people instead of frighten them, but that's not always the case."
"Is this what you were talking about earlier? About how people needed something to believe in?" Are heroes worth believing in? Or do we just tell people what they want to hear?
"Not quite. That is still more like hope. I …" His voice trailed off as he looked at a boy walking down the sidewalk, and he slowed his car down to a stop. Gallant had been doing this sort of thing all day long. He hadn't explained his methods, but Taylor guessed that his thinker power let him recognize the emotions that represented a silent scream for help.
The boy looked Chinese, and had a lanky build. He looked nervous and jumped a bit when Gallant's car pulled up next to him, but a look of dread crossed his face when he saw Taylor.
"Are you alright?" Gallant asked, stepping out of the car. "Is something wrong?"
The boy looked scared, but more scared of running away than of staying here. Barely. He compromised by pressing himself up against a wall. His eyes flickered toward Gallant before going back to Taylor. "She's the one that controls bugs?"
Gallant went still for a moment, then said, "Myriad, stay in the car." To him, he said, "Yes. What's troubling you?"
"I … I have a message for the girl who can control bugs." He reached slowly into his pocket and pulled out a phone.
He dialed it, but Gallant stopped him before he could hand it to Taylor. "I'd appreciate it if you kept your distance and put your phone on speaker," he said, his voice calm, even polite. "I'm sure you understand."
The boy nodded wordlessly and pressed a button.
"You presume," said a woman's voice from the phone, "that I couldn't make a bomb the size of a paperclip that could level a city block. Frankly I'm insulted."
"Am I speaking with the famed bomb tinker Bakuda?" Gallant said. "I assure you I meant no offense. You are widely considered to be the single greatest threat to the city, and I couldn't forgive myself if I missed out on a chance to gather information on you."
There was a brief pause on the other line. "Well, it seems the bug girl has found herself a rather charming secretary. Now put her on the phone before I start killing people."
"I'm here," Taylor said through the window wishing that Bakuda had said or instead of before.
"Are you?" the woman asked. "I'll have to take your word on that. I seem to owe you a great deal. After you took down Lung, I ended up in charge of the ABB."
Gallant gave her a look that she couldn't read. What should she say? He had tried flattery, and he had more experience than she did. "Congratulations on your promotion. I expect to live to regret the part I've played in it."
"Yes, but not for very long," Bakuda said. "See, with Lung gone, some of the other gangs have gotten it into their stupid little heads that you can mess with the ABB and get away with it, so I thought, what can I do to make people fear us? What kind of performance would be so flat-out terrifying that Kaiser, Coil, and every parahuman with a record will wish that Lung was back out on the streets, just to keep me in line? And then I thought of you."
"I … okay."
"You and I are going to meet, face to face—or mask to mask, I suppose—in the same place you fought Lung. Understand?"
Taylor looked at Gallant, who shrugged. "Alright. I'll, um, I'll be looking forward to it."
"What?" Bakuda said. "No. No! Look, I have been orchestrating this all week, kid. You do not get to just cooperate."
"What?"
"You're not choosing to come, I'm making you come, got it? You're supposed to ask, 'What happens if I refuse?'"
Taylor hadn't done much research on Bakuda beyond reading her wiki entree. She regretted that now. "Okay. What happens if I refuse?"
"Then I kill a hostage every hour until you show up." The boy holding the phone inhaled sharply. "And just to show you I mean business …"
Pop.
Sploosh.
The boy dissolved into a thick, white liquid that collapsed and spilled over the sidewalk. He dropped the phone, soaked through his clothes, and dripped into the gutter. One moment he was there, the next he was a puddle.
Taylor stared, the absurdity of what she had just seen temporarily blocking out the horror of it. Gallant knelt down on the sidewalk and bowed his head, as if in reverence or respect.
"Gallant?" she asked. "What do we do?"
"I'll call this in. As for you, well, I apologize. I was hoping to drop you off where you met me today, but I fear I will be delayed."
That's it? "She said that if I don't show up in an hour, she'll …"
"I knew him," he said suddenly. "His name was Neil Zhang. He was in my physics class. He couldn't stay on topic for more than twenty seconds at a time, and drove the lecture off course so many times the teacher took up smoking. I never met his mother, but that is not an encounter I am looking forward too."
"I'm sorry," she said because she couldn't think of anything else. If we hadn't stopped and tried to help … "But we don't have much time."
"We'll do this by the book."
"What? But …"
"Myriad, I know where you're coming from on this, but the worst thing you can do in a hostage situation is capitulate. There are two ways to handle this. The first is to do nothing. Bakuda will kill a few people, realize that her tactics aren't working, and then try something else. The other way is to come down on her like the wrath of God and bring her to such utter ruin that the next time some villain thinks that going after innocent people to get to us is in any way a good idea, they'll remember what we did to her, and they'll think again. We're doing this by the book because I do not want to do this again."
He dialed his phone and began to talk through the earpiece in his helmet. Taylor watched through the car window as the clock ticked by. If they left now … but they weren't leaving now. Gallant was being put on hold.
Taylor decided to make a call of her own. "Hey, Lisa," she said softly so Gallant wouldn't overhear. "Can you talk?"
She laughed. "Taylor, I can always talk. What's up? How's your date going? Did you guys come up with a name?"
"Um …"
"Oh, that bad, huh? I'm sorry to hear that. Did it end early or … oh my gosh, what happened?"
"Well …"
"Was there a dead body involved?"
"Yes." Or at least a dead puddle. Lisa's powers saved a lot of time, which was great because Taylor was on the clock. "Bakuda … melted someone. She's supposed to only do bombs, but now she can kill people from a distance somehow."
"It's still bombs. Nothing's ever going to throw her off her theme. They're just implanted in someone's body and detonated remotely."
Taylor thought about the look of fear on Neil Zhang's face when he had seen him—seen her. Maybe he had thought that as long as he gave Bakuda what she wanted, she'd leave him alone. Meanwhile, Bakuda probably had a list matching every internal bomb with the phone number of the person they had been planted in. Standing up to bullies might make you a bigger target, but lying down for them just made you an easy one.
"She said that she's going to kill someone every hour unless I head over to the docks to meet her in the same place I fought Lung. Only, I didn't beat Lung, you guys did. I'm with Gallant right now, but he wants to go through all these procedures, and I don't know if we have time for that, so I was wondering …"
"If we could team up?" Lisa asked. "Well, I'll tell the others what's going on, but I wouldn't get your hopes up. Last time Lung was coming after us while now Bakuda is only coming after you, but more importantly, you've been hanging out with heroes a lot since then and standing up for truth and justice and all that jazz. If people see us working with you now, our street cred goes down the toilet."
"What? People are dying, Lisa, and you're worried about your image?"
"Not image," Lisa corrected. "Respect. If you don't have respect, you don't have anything. I can, however, give you some advice."
Taylor took a deep breath. This better be darn good advice. "Okay, what is it?"
"The first is that Bakuda, like most capes, is a performer at heart. She'll kill people she doesn't care about just to make a point or because it's convenient, but if she hates you—and she does—she won't kill you without putting on a show. You'll have her undivided attention, but you'll also have time. Use it."
"Okay." Having a psychotic bomb maker focusing on her wasn't encouraging, but she could see the silver lining. She needed to turn the negatives into positives as much as she could to get through this, and at the moment she had plenty of negatives to work with.
"The second is that Bakuda always wears a gas mask."
Taylor blinked. "Is that important?"
"Absolutely, but not as important as this. You need to know that you have two ways to deal with this situation. The first way is that you can be cautious. Go home, let something horrible happen to someone else because God knows you've had your turn. In a few weeks this will all be over and you'll still be alive."
One person every hour. "That's not an option."
"The other way," Lisa continued, "is to be you."
Taylor waited for Lisa to go on. She didn't. "What do you mean? I mean, I … hello? Did you hang up on me?" She stared at her phone, and had a sudden urge to throw it at something.
Don't be cautious. Be you. But that didn't make any sense! If Lisa knew how cautious she was by nature … but she did. Didn't she?
Bakuda always wears a gas mask. A gas mask would be pretty easy to pick out of a crowd, even with bug senses.
You'll have her undivided attention. Use it. Taylor had an advantage that no other cape in the city had, but she couldn't use it unless she showed up.
Be you. The whole point of become a cape was so that she could be someone else … wasn't it? Someone who wasn't cautious, who wasn't weak, someone who could stand up to the bullies who made people into games.
Meanwhile, Gallant was still on the phone, explaining the problem instead of dealing with it … and he had left his keys in the car.
Huh.
As soon as she had let the idea into her head, her head couldn't hold onto anything else. She had a way to get from point A to point B within the hour, and nothing else mattered. This would ruin any chance she had of being accepted into the Wards, but … well, Taylor hated group projects anyway.
With a glance to the side to make sure Gallant wasn't looking, Myriad slid into the driver's seat and stole his car.
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A/n And that's chapter four. Hopefully, things are picking up enough for me to end on a cliffhanger. Gallant was a bit tricky to write. On one hand, he was pretty much the only member of the Wards that made people upset when he died, but on the other he was only present for one or two chapters, so I don't know how many of my readers really care about him. Worm is full of interesting background characters that I'd like to shine the spotlight on for a bit, but only a few I really care about. Still, I'm writing this to explore how things might have turned out if Taylor took the hero route, and considering the effect Gallant had on people after he died, I had to assume that he'd be even more important while alive. However, this is, first and last, Taylor's story, so feel free to call me out if I ever lose focus.
It turns out the Dinah's mom was Anna and Taylor's mom was Annette. It made me think of the Batman V Superman movie.
Anyway, thanks for the reviews everyone. They mean a lot to me.