The Other Way

Chapter Six

Tattletale put her binoculars away and smiled. "I love it when a plan comes together."

"So are we fighting," Bitch growled from atop Brutus' back, "or are we not fighting?"

"No, see, we don't need to fight because the plan worked."

Bitch paused to consider what need and fighting had to do with each other, gave up, and scowled.

"Uh-huh," Regent said. "You keep saying plan a lot, but I'm starting to think that you just make stuff up as you go along and take credit for everything if it works out."

"When it works out." Okay, maybe Regent had a point, as odd as it sounded. Maybe plan was a strong word, but strategic positioning worked just as well, and what did he expect her to do? Admit that she didn't know everything? Ha!

"Tattletale," Grue said, his voice sounding deep and hollow. "At what point did you figure out that Bug was a hero?"

Tattletale forced a grin. She didn't like lying to her team, but she couldn't convincingly play dumb to save her life. "Since Sunday night."

"Sunday night," he repeated. "And when we were talking about meeting her out of costume and throwing money at her, you didn't think to mention that?"

"Oh, busted!" Regent said.

Tattletale ignored him. "What, you don't think she was worth two thousand dollars? Because of her, the ABB lost its leader twice. The only cape they have left is Oni Lee, and he's going to be lounging around his mother's basement playing video games until someone else tries to order him around, so we pretty much have the whole docks to ourselves."

At least, until the Empire Eighty-Eight tried to move in. And Skidmark's gang. Faultline might decide to settle down just out of spite. But still, for the time being the Undersiders had an opportunity to grow, or at least breathing room for a few days, and it was a toss of a coin to say which one they needed more.

"She's a hero," Grue said. "She'd have done that for free."

Tattletale rolled her eyes. "You're missing the big picture. Heck, you're even missing the little picture, and our valiant friend just demonstrated both. Let's say, hypothetically, that Bug had a psychotic bomb tinker exactly where she wanted her, but didn't know what to do with her after that. Because we're friends, I can tell her that the tinker selects her bombs with a built in HUD on her mask and detonates them with her toe rings, so if she smashes her mask and injects a neurotoxin into her left foot, the tinker's going to end up totally helpless."

Tattletale had not planned that eye thing, though. Eek.

"We can take that a step further," she continued. "Let's say a rival gang was planning on making a move, but we didn't want to risk dealing with them directly. So instead, I nudge everyone's favorite hero to do something brave and stupid, dragging half the Wards team along with her. The rival gang ends up neutered—figuratively this time, probably—and we don't even show up on the radar."

"Which is exactly what just happened," Grue said.

"Did it?" Tattletale said, sounding shocked. "Huh. Funny how that works."

"Gee, Tattle," Regent said. "If you wanted a pet Ward, you could have just asked. I would have been happy to get you one."

She rolled her eyes again. "Please. Did you not see the part where Gallant walked right by her and didn't notice a thing?"

"No. You were hogging the binoculars."

"They're not that expensive! Anyone can buy them!" She took a breath. "My point being, a meat puppet could not pass Master-Stranger protocols unless they were really into it, in which case they wouldn't need to be a meat puppet."

"Oh, right," Regent said, nodding. "Because they have 'emotions' and stuff."

"If we're not fighting anyone," Bitch growled, "I'm heading back."

"Yeah, yeah," Tattletale said. "Our work here is done."

"Not that we did anything," Regent said, sounding sullen. "We didn't even get to see fireworks. She promised fireworks, but there was only one, and we weren't close enough to even see that one."

Tattletale was about to climb up on Angelica with Regent when Grue gestured her toward Judas with him. Bitch always got her own dog because she liked dogs and hated people. Grue usually rode alone too because he was the biggest, so Tattletale often ended up with Regent, but apparently Grue had words for her.

She hung onto him as Judas jumped off the roof and onto the street below in a way that suggested that people with internal organs had better just learn to deal, and began trotting back to the hideout.

"Tattletale," he said. "When you plan something, I want to know about it beforehand."

"I'm always planning something."

"Then I always want to know about it. If it's just in your head, fine, keep it there, but as soon as you start acting on your ideas, you affect the whole team. You should have told us about Bug by Monday, and if you were in contact with her since then, you should have told us about that too."

"Well, a girl's gotta keep a few secrets."

"No! No secrets, no surprises. Not from us."

Tattletale gave an overly dramatic sigh. "Okay, fine, fine. I can tell you're loads of fun at parties."

"I'm 'fun' out of costume. Right now I'm working."

Tattletale smiled to herself. There were of course a few secrets that she couldn't help but keep, especially concerning their boss. She might be able to keep track of her own web of lies, but the web of lies that she might weave in an alternate timeline? That could get complicated, even for her.

Still, if Grue didn't trust her to be honest about lying to the team, then she'd just have to be dishonest about lying to them.

After they got home, Brian left for his apartment, Rachel saw to her dogs, and Alec booted up the Xbox. Lisa went to her room, lay down on her bed and awaited a phone call in five, four, three, two ...

Nothing.

Huh. Well, she was probably tired and had a lot on her mind, what with taking down her second villain this week, meeting some of the Wards, and tormenting herself over arbitrary guilt. Lisa thought about calling her, but the girl liked her space.

She decided to text her instead. hey t glad you made it home ok

Right. That didn't sound stalkerish or creepy at all. She deleted it and called Coil.

"Hey boss. How's the plan for world domination?"

"Tattletale. If this is about the bank documents, I'm still reviewing them."

"Oh, sure, take your time. Hey, you probably already know this, but Bakuda's been arrested."

There was a pause. Lisa smiled.

"I didn't know that, actually. Pity. She could have been useful. The havoc she could have wrought would have embarrassed the heroes greatly."

"Yeah, maybe, but she was a lousy neighbor."

"Did she come after you?"

"No, but we saw it go down. Two of the Wards, Gallant and Vista were there, as well as the new cape that's been running around controlling bugs." If Coil had split the timeline and had played the conversation differently, would Lisa have added anything else? Talking to him was tricky, but in a fun way like playing chess with yourself while blindfolded.

"I see," he said. "Well, that's unfortunate. This victory negates the defeat your team handed them yesterday."

It all came down to reputation. Coil wanted to destroy the heroes in the hearts and minds of the people of Brockton Bay, but he didn't want the Protectorate coming after him for revenge, so he pushed gangs like the E88 and the ABB to become more aggressive. He also wanted to take over the underworld without being seen taking over the underworld. That's where the Undersiders came in.

"If you want us to fight the heroes again, all you have to do is make us an offer. Of course, it might be easier just to break Bakuda out of prison." Lisa paused. "I suppose the logical conclusion would be to hire us to break her out, but ..."

"Would you do it?"

"If the money was good enough, sure, but that would have to be a lot of money. We kind of hate each other right now. Freeing her could be a peace offering, but a peace offering to who? To Lung, stuck in prison right now? To the ABB, with Oni Lee as their only cape?"

"That's assuming she'd be returning to the ABB."

"Where else would she go?" Lisa asked. "She's on strike two at least, and first degree murder draws way more heat than you'd want on your team, and we don't want her either. Again, if the money was good enough we'd do anything, but I don't know if even you have that much."

"I'm merely brainstorming. She could have been a valuable enemy, but perhaps she lacks the qualities necessary to be an ally. If the ABB is truly defeated, then you can expect the Empire to expand."

Such was the life of a super villain. If you defeat one enemy, another one will take its place before you have time to catch your breath.

"Over expand?" Lisa suggested. "Bite off more than they can chew?"

Coil paused. "Perhaps. I will have to think about this. I will keep in touch."

Lisa wondered if Coil ever hired her to analyze information, then deleted that timeline so he wouldn't have to pay her. That irritated her because not only would that be a total cheapskate move, but also because Coil would know what Lisa knew without Lisa knowing what Lisa knew, and if anyone had a right to know what Lisa knew, it was Lisa.

Shortly after Coil hung up, Taylor called.

"Hey, super hero. How's life saving the world?"

"Tiring. Lisa, I ... I've been thinking."

"You're not breaking up with me, are you?" Lisa asked in mock panic.

There was a pause. Silence often said the opposite of nothing.

"I hear you guys robbed a bank yesterday."

Okay, not where I thought this conversation was headed. She gauged Taylor's tone and mood. "Yeah. We really wanted to make the front page today, but the bank tried to sweep the heist under the rug and we ended up overshadowed by some missing kid. We walked away with forty K yesterday, and don't let the Bulletin tell you otherwise."

"I talked to her dad today."

Lisa frowned. The bank's dad? "What?"

"The girl who went missing," Taylor said. "I talked to her dad. I think it's a thing that Wards do, visit victims of past crimes."

That's what you want to talk about? Of course it was. Of course Taylor would care more about a missing person than a missing fortune, and would try to sweep a major accomplishment under the rug like it was something to be embarrassed about. She was exactly like heroes ... weren't.

"Yeah? What did he say?"

"He was talking to Gallant the whole time, and Gallant told him that the Protectorate was out of town that day and that the Wards couldn't come help because they were too busy fighting you."

There was a note of accusation in her tone. Not the drum solo of judgement or the entire orchestra of condemnation, just one note.

"So go on. What happened next?"

"Well, Gallant told him that the heroes would do everything they could to get his daughter back, but when I asked him later what that was, he admitted that it wasn't a lot."

"Uh-huh. So he just gave him some false hope."

"That's better than no hope. I guess." She didn't sound convinced. "That's what he said, at least."

"But is it? Let's play this out. In scenario one, Gallant tells the grieving father to keep his chin up and keep smiling because the heroes have everything under control. The trail goes cold, but while the heroes couldn't save the day, no one else did either, so the good guys break even. In scenario two, Gallant admits that the heroes have more important things to do than rescuing diminutive damsels in distress, like stopping dastardly villains from robbing massive, heartless corporations. So Dad feels miserable, sure, but then he starts looking into other options. Maybe he solves the mystery himself, or hires a private investigator. Heck, maybe he decides that you need a thief to catch a thief and goes to the villains for help, and maybe, just maybe, he gets her daughter back. Do you have any idea how disastrous that would be?"

"No. That doesn't sound bad at all."

"It would be horrible. If people start finding alternatives to super heroes, where would it end? Heroes need people who need them, because then those people will support them with tax dollars, charitable donations, and stroke their heroic egos. If people started solving their own problems instead of waiting for the United Military Complex of America to follow through on their empty promises, they'd start lobbying for budget cuts, and for career heroes throughout the U.S. and Canada, that would be Armageddon."

There was a pause. No one who has a hero to save them ever becomes a cape. That was a well documented fact. People with villains trying to torment them have trigger events all the time.

"That seems a bit convoluted. What was that razor theory? Olcam? Occam? I think Gallant just wanted to make him feel better."

"Of course he did," Lisa said. "I mean, it's not like he writes the protocol for that sort of thing." Was she laying it on too thick? Maybe, but if Taylor was going to join the Wards, Lisa wanted her going in with her eyes open instead of content to follow orders to defend the status quo. "Or maybe I'm just terminally cynical. And I keep on interrupting you. Go on."

"Um, anyway, Gallant said that the reason the heroes can't do anything is because all their Thinkers join the PRT Think Tank, and they only get involved with Parahuman threats. So I thought, I don't really know what your powers are, but you always seem to know everything."

Lisa grinned. "Guilty, as charged." Lisa didn't know everything, but she was great at seeming like she did. "So you want me on the case, do you? I hope you know the going rates for Thinker work."

She noticed that Taylor hadn't actually asked for help. Just like when she had called about Bakuda, she hinted that she needed help and let the implication hang in the air. Bad experiences asking for help in the past?

"I ... don't."

"Oh, they're reasonable. Quite reasonable." You'll owe me a favor. Even if I never ask for anything, you'll know I helped you, and you'll want to pay me back. "So. What's the name of the missing kid?"

"Dinah Alcott. She was kidnapped from her home Thursday afternoon."

"I can't believe crooks are operating in broad daylight. What is this city coming to?" Taylor didn't laugh. Okay, the joke was in pretty bad taste. "Did the family have any enemies? Was the kid acting weird?"

"Her uncle is the mayor, but that's it. She was having bad headaches too, which is why she was staying home."

"Headaches." Lisa got headaches when she used her powers too much. Sometimes it got so bad she couldn't stand up straight. "Anything else?"

"Her dad said that she made predictions sometimes, too. So I guess she was delirious?"

"Are you sure she didn't just run away?" Lisa asked, feeling a sense of déjà vu."

"I'm sure. Armed men broke into the house while the mom was there and dragged the girl off, kicking and screaming."

"Oh." It was that kind of story. The déjà vu came back in full force. "It sounds like someone wanted a pet precog."

"No, they already looked into that. Her parents got her an MRI, and it came back negative."

An idea popped into her head. It was ... not a dumb idea, very clever actually, but it was a foolish one. She ran with it anyway. "Let me ask you a question. What do you know about our boss?"

There was a pause. "I remember you guys mentioned that he's half the reason you've been as successful as you've been so far. He also pays you two thousand dollars a month to stick together."

"Good memory. Now, what did we not tell you? Come on, you're smart. Fill in the cracks. Why would someone want to fund a team of super villains?"

"I don't know. Maybe he helps you operate and takes a cut of whatever you steal?"

Lisa rolled her eyes. "If he paid us to pay him, we'd just cut him out and keep the money ourselves."

"Wait, it's like you're lawyers, isn't it? Only, you're not lawyers on retainer, you're villains on retainer. He doesn't need you all the time, but he pays you to be available for when he does."

"Ooh, now that's an interesting idea. Now, who knew that the Undersiders were going to rob a bank that day?"

"Your boss did."

"Robbing a bank is usually a pretty dumb idea, but fortunately the Protectorate was having a party at an out of town country club. Who knew where they would be?"

"The heroes did."

"During the robbery, every Ward but Shadow Stalker showed up to stop us, leaving virtually no one to deal with other threats. Who has the authority to send out all the reserves, assuming that they wouldn't need anyone hanging back, or, and I'm just throwing this out there, wanting to make sure they didn't?"

"The heroes."

"Them again? Okay, final question. Who is in a position to fudge a PRT MRI scan?"

"You're saying that your boss is one of the good guys?"

"Well, good might not be the right term, but no. That's what you're saying. I'm just asking poignant questions." It was far more likely that Coil had a few well placed spies and a corrupt official or two in the PRT, but why waste good paranoia?

"Okay. But if your boss is behind all of this, why would you tell me?"

"Because he never told me. If you tell me a secret, I'll keep your secret, but if I figure it out on my own, I have to tell someone, don't I?"

"Is that how your powers work?"

"That's how I work." She hadn't picked the name Tattletale out of a hat. "As for compensation ..."

"I have about a thousand dollars left over from what you gave me for helping you with Lung. After I join the Wards, I'll get ... I don't know how much they offer."

"Eight bucks an hour."

"Really? I'd make that much at Fugly Bob's."

"You get another fifty grand a year, but you won't be able to touch it until you turn eighteen, and even then you have to use it for college before anything else. That's why it's called a trust fund, because they don't trust you with it. You might make more working as a rogue on the side being an exterminator or something, but the only way to make serious bank is villainy."

"That's not an option for me."

"Yeah I know. But if you can't pay me with money, I'll trade you information for information."

"You want me to spy for you?"

"Not on the heroes," Lisa said. "I wouldn't ask you to do that." It would be a bad idea to get Taylor in the habit of saying no. She considered asking her to spy on some of the other villain teams. If the Undersiders knew that the PRT was going to attack the Empire, they could take advantage of the information to hit the Empire somewhere else at the same time—or hit the PRT at the same time. She decided against it.

"If the boss really is a hero during his day job," Lisa said, "you'll be in a better position to find out than I am. You tell me what you find out about the big man, and I'll tell you what I find out about the little girl."

There was a pause. "Why would you want me to spy on your boss?"

Because you're not going to find him. You might find an informant or two, but that's it. But you'll look. You'll ask questions. And whenever someone tells you to do something, you'll think. The worst thing a hero can do is follow orders blindly.

"Because if we're right about this, then he didn't just hire us, he used us, and being expendable is not a good career move for me. If I know who he is and what he's doing? He won't be able to afford to play both sides."

WWW

The next morning the alarm clock barely woke her. It wasn't that Taylor was exhausted from the night before; no matter how tired she was, she was always a light sleeper. She had to be, with dreams like hers.

No, the problem was that she was still deaf in one ear. She snapped her fingers on either side of her head to test it, and while her right ear was pretty much back to normal, her left ear couldn't hear a thing.

Not the best way to start my first day as a Wards member, she thought, getting out of bed and feeling wobbly. I can't even walk in a straight line. She remembered that the sense of balance was controlled by the inner ear, and when Bakuda's bomb had damaged her hearing, it must have wrecked her balance too. For some reason, her bugs were able to help with that, and when she had laced the walls, ceiling, and floor with her swarm, she felt more sure of where she was placing her feet.

And today she would join the Wards. There were a thousand reasons not to, but if she put if off until tomorrow, she'd come up with a thousand more. Gallant had been nice to her—more than nice. Taylor had spent less time with Vista, but the girl seemed nice too. And there was a chance that a criminal mastermind was pitting the heroes and the villains against each other in order to kidnap little girls, and Taylor wouldn't be able to find out more as a solo cape.

She felt better after she started her run. Her problem wasn't that she was tired, it was that she was tense, but running let it out. She felt more relaxed covered in sweat and panting heavily with sore legs than she ever did lying in bed dreading the next day.

After she got back, she showered, ate breakfast with her dad, and looked up Bakuda on the PHO message boards. She thought that the bomb Tinker might appreciate how her topic threads had exploded.

The first one was labeled, "Head Asplode," and talked about the people who'd had bombs implanted in their heads. Some of the commenters talked about their experience while others claimed that the people in the first group were making it up to look cool. Some were worried that Bakuda would set them off telepathically when she woke up (and theorized that she was kept perpetually sedated so that wouldn't happen), while others claimed that the bombs had an automatic countdown that would set them off today unless Bakuda was freed to reset the timer.

The biggest part of the thread was talking about getting the bombs out. Some people said that pulling the bombs out set them off, but that was only the first few times until the PRT doctors got the hang of it, and you really don't want to go to the ER or a private surgeon because they have no idea what they're doing. Others said that the PRT doctors will take the bombs out, but they'll put you in prison for being part of a gang. The thread devolved into a debate about whether the Hippocratic Oath allows your doctor to arrest you and what the legal definition of guilt by association was, and then devolved further still into childish name calling.

"Bakuda for the Birdcage" was the second thread that caught her eye, but it didn't have anything conclusive. You needed three strikes to be sent to the Birdcage, but no one knew what counted as a strike. Bakuda had held a college campus hostage before joining and then leading the ABB, so she was on at least two. Whether or not implanting bombs in the heads of hundreds of people, most of which did not explode, should count as one or two strikes was another debate the devolved into childish name calling.

Afterwards, she printed off the Wards application form and smuggled it into her backpack before her dad could see it. She wondered once more why she didn't just tell him what she was doing. He was bound to find out eventually, especially when she transferred to Arcadia, and for every day she hid the truth he would feel that much more betrayed when the truth came out.

"Hey, Taylor," he said as she passed by. "Heading out?"

"Yeah. I'm going to drop by the library, get a few books." She made a one-eighty turn so her good ear was towards him, even though that put her back to the door. Hopefully it didn't look too suspicious.

"What again?" Oh, right. She had used that exact same excuse the night before to cover up for her ride-along with Gallant. He smiled. "You are so much like your mother."

How could she even respond to that? She liked reading, and much of that was because of the times she spent in her mom's English class on campus. It was like peering into a new world, surrounded by people twice her age discussing Shakespeare and Crime and Punishment while her fourth grade class was slogging along through Wayside School is Falling Down and Mr. Popper's Penguins.

"Try not to stay out so late again," he said. "Dangerous people come out at night."

"I have my pepper spray." And a stun gun. And a baton. And superpowers. Also, they're villains, not vampires. They come out during the day, too.

"And they have bombs. I heard one last night. I don't mean I heard about it on the news, I heard the actual explosion."

Taylor blinked. "You did too?" That was right in front of me. That was why Taylor didn't want to tell him, for the same reason she kept the details vague about her bullies. He worried about her, and when he couldn't do anything to help, he worried even more. Gallant had talked to her the day before about false hope; this was false peace. "I'll give you a call to let you know where I am if I end up staying out too late. I'm ... I'm also thinking about getting a part time job. You know, for after school."

"A job? Really?"

She forced a smile. It was technically true, but that only made it feel more deceptive than a flat out lie. "It might be nice to have some spending money, some work experience, and ... and to be around people I don't go to school with."

He considered that. He considered everything with his signature thoughtful seriousness, even jokes. That had only increased in January when he got a glimpse into the craptacular life of Taylor Hebert that she had never told him about.

"That sounds like it could be good for you," he decided. "What kind of job are you thinking about?"

Part-time junior super hero. "I don't know. A custodian or something." That had just popped into her head, but it was a pretty safe answer. If she said fast food, he'd want to go out to eat there to see her and wonder why she wasn't at work. The same was true for a job at the movie theatre.

Besides, how did that phrase go?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes.

It worked.

"Okay. Let me know if anything comes of it."

"I will. I'll be home in time for dinner if not sooner."

"Alright. I love you Taylor."

"I love you too, Dad."

WWW

After a long phone call with Armsmaster's secretary, Taylor made her way to the Protectorate Headquarters. It was a futuristic fortress on the water with a forcefield bubble around it and a forcefield road leading up to it. Taylor wasn't sure, but she suspected that the architect had been a huge fan of the Jetsons cartoon growing up.

Still, it was magnificent. The heroes worked there, some of them lived there, and the building was designed to look like Brockton Bay's own personal Mount Olympus, then no one was going to argue with that or with the missile defense system on the roof.

After Taylor got there, she ... waited. She arrived ten minutes ahead of schedule, but she ended up waiting half an hour after that.

Should she have come in costume? It would have been appropriate, as she was doing cape stuff, but the design was a bit too edgy for a hero, and the PHQ was not a place where you wanted someone to call security on you. Besides, the idea of taking the bus and walking down the sidewalk in costume was ridiculous. That's why the heroes got around in cars, motorcycles, or, in Vista's case, by violating the laws of physics. Heck, even the Undersiders had Hellhound's freaky monster dogs.

While she waited, she watched the capes come and leave. She recognized all of them, of course. Assault and Battery, walking side by side. Velocity blurred by. Miss Militia, with a squadron of PRT officers. Some of them glanced at her, as though wondering if she was lost. No sign of Armsmaster, though.

Finally, the receptionist called her name and a PRT officer escorted her through the door and down the hall to Armsmaster's workshop.

She didn't know how many people got to see Brockton Bay's top Tinker at work, but she probably would have appreciated it more if she understood anything she was looking at. There were gadgets strewn across the tables, shelves, and on the floor, and Armsmaster was sitting at a computer that looked like it had been turned inside out and Frankensteined with another computer.

"You may go," he said abruptly, glancing at them.

Taylor's escort turned and left, and she was left wondering if Armsmaster had been telling her to leave too.

"You've had a busy week, I'm told. I hear you've settled on the name 'Myriad.'"

"Gallant picked it out, and I haven't been able to come up with one I liked more." She hesitated, unslung her backpack, and fished out the Wards application form. "I decided to take you up on your suggestion to join the team. I was ... I was hoping you could sign it for me." She held out the form, and he waited just long enough to make her feel uncomfortable before taking it.

He set it on the table without looking at it. "I've been analyzing Bakuda's inventions, trying to disarm them and even reverse engineer a few. Do you know how she detonated her bombs?"

She shook her head. "I saw her set one off, but I didn't see her press a button or anything."

He cocked his head. "You don't know. Interesting."

For a moment he reminded her of her eighth grade math teacher, Mr. Harrison. He wasn't very good at explaining the concepts, and if you ever asked him for help with a problem, he would take a moment to rub your face in your own ignorance and relish his own superiority over the average thirteen-year-old.

He took two small rings on his desk and pushed them towards her. "She wore these on her toes. When she wanted to detonate a bomb, she selected it via the built in HUD in her mask and crossed her toes over each other. We might never have discovered this if we weren't treating a black widow spider bite on her foot. But you say you didn't know her detonation mechanism."

"I didn't. I had no idea until you told me."

"You're telling the truth." It was a statement. He had said the same thing in the same tone when she had told him that she wasn't a villain. She suspected that he might have a built in lie detector. "And yet, a potent neurotoxin would have been an ideal, if ruthless, tool to negate someone's ability to cross their toes. And then you smashed her mask immediately afterward."

What was she supposed to say? That a nearby supervillain that she had been hanging out with had given her a cryptic tip at just the right moment? Of course, if she was right about his lie detector, she couldn't tell him anything but the truth. Lying to the heroes was a bad habit to get into anyway.

She just needed to tell him the best truth and hope it worked out. "Before I went after her, Gallant told me what to do during a hostage situation. We could either wait for her to get tired of killing people and try something else, or we could do something so horrible to her that no one who knew her would try to do that sort of thing again."

"So you bit her with a black widow and stuck a taser in her eye."

She nodded. In retrospect, going for the eye may have been a bit much.

"Myriad, or ..." he started.

"Taylor."

"Taylor, villains might skulk around in the shadows, but when you're a hero, everyone is watching. We have rules here, protocols and standards. Any fight you go into should either be one you can win without killing anyone, or against someone with a kill order. We do not tolerate cruelty for the sake of cruelty among our own any more than we tolerate it among the villains, and yet this is the second time this week you have sent someone to the ICU."

Taylor stared at him. "But ... but I caught the bad guy! Besides, she had a grenade launcher, henchmen pointing guns at my head, and over a hundred hostages. I wasn't in a position to play nice!"

"You put yourself in that position."

"What was I supposed to do?" she demanded. "Let people die?"

He didn't respond and let the silence linger long enough for it to dawn on her that she had just tried to tell the leader of the Brockton Bay Protectorate how to super hero. "Like I said, when you're a hero, everyone is watching, and they're only looking for mistakes. It's not enough to do less harm than good; you're expected to do no harm at all. I already stuck my neck out for you once when I took the fall for Lung. I'd be doing it again if I signed for you, so I need to ask you, are you willing to follow the rules?"

The fall for Lung? That was supposed to be a favor to him. It was karmic in a way. Armsmaster had manipulated her into letting him take credit for Lung, and Taylor had let him take the credit so he'd owe her a favor. But the credit had turned into blame, and now she owed him a favor.

"If I can't follow the rules," Taylor said slowly, "I'll quit the team before I break them."

WWW

Taylor needed two signatures besides her own to join the Wards. The Wards program had grown out of the early sidekicks, and back then they were mostly orphans and wards of the state, hence the name. Apparently, being a super hero was easier without inconvenient questions like, "Your school called. Would you like to tell me why you didn't show up?" and, "Oh my goodness, what happened to your arm?"

That was why in place of a legal guardian signing for her, Taylor could ask a "respected professional" instead, and Armsmaster was one of the most respected professionals in the city.

The second one was potentially even harder. She had to sit through a session with a PRT therapist and convince her that she was hero material. What could Taylor even say? That she wanted to take on super villains because she couldn't handle high school? That she wanted to save the world because going on a murderous rampage through Winslow High seemed like too much trouble?

With a lie detector, from what she knew, you could get away with being technically truthful, but would a professional therapist let her get away with all the stuff she was leaving out?

"Have a seat," Doctor Yamada said, "if you like. Make yourself comfortable."

Taylor sat down. The chair was soft, but not a couch like she had expected. "So, how do we do this?"

"We talk. You tell me what's bothering you, and I see if I can help in any way. We can start, if you like, by you telling me your name."

"Oh." She felt like an idiot. "Which one? My cape name, or ..."

"Whichever you prefer." Her voice was soothing, like listening to the ocean on a calm night. Taylor wondered if Yamada ever narrated audiobooks. "I'm under a strict code of confidentiality when it comes to secret identities. You can even make one up if it makes you feel comfortable."

Taylor considered that. "Are you usually here, or are we borrowing you from another city?"

"The PRT cycles through us on a regular basis," Yamada explained. "I live in Boston, but I work with young capes here, in New York, and even as far as Chicago. Doctor Richmond is the usual therapist for Brockton Bay, but she had to take time off."

Ah. If Yamada wasn't local, then Taylor would probably never see her again. That made things easier. "You can call me Taylor."

Yamada smiled. Taylor had seen that expression before on the faces of parents helping toddlers learn to walk. "Thank you for telling me, Taylor. With all the focus on secret identities, I understand that it can be hard to trust people."

She shrugged. "I've never been good at trusting people." She shook her head. "Well, not any more."

Crap. Why had she added that second part? Why had she even said the first part?

Yamada smiled at her the same darn smile. Good job. Keep going. I believe in you.

"I ... I mean, it's great to have someone to trust. I used to. I had a friend growing up, just one. We did everything together, shared everything, and I never needed anyone else. Then she ... changed. There was no warning, no sign, just one day she was my friend, and the next, she ... It was like a game to her, finding new ways to hurt me. I used to think she hated me for some reason I couldn't understand, but now I think she was just bored."

Great job convincing the PRT therapist that I'm not a basket case of issues.

"Anyway, that was a long time ago," Taylor said. "Can we talk about something else?"

"We can talk about anything you wish to talk about."

"Well, that's vague. What do you need to know about me? I've never done a, uh, a psychiatric evaluation."

"The most important question, I would think, is why you want to join the Wards."

She shrugged. "They're a super hero team. I'm too young for the Protectorate and I can't keep a secret identity in the New Wave, so if I want to be a hero it's either the Wards or work solo. And if you work alone, you get picked off and no one comes to help."

"And why do you want to be a hero?"

Taylor fell silent for a moment. She'd been daydreaming about being a cape for months and doing it for a week, but what could she get out of being a hero that she couldn't get out of being a villain? A life outside of high school? An escape from the bullies? She could get that as a villain. The thrill? If she wanted thrills, she might get more as a criminal. Fame? Fortune?

The chance to hurt people?

"I get bullied a lot at school," she said at last. "I don't know what it says about me that I felt better staring down a gun barrel last night than I ever had at Winslow, but it's true. There's only about three other girls who do it, but everyone lets it happen. The other kids would rather watch than risk becoming a target, and the teachers ... I don't know. They just don't care? They don't want to be seen as the stern disciplinarian?

"It doesn't matter. Last January, one of them shoved me in my locker. A bullying cliche, I know, so she decided to spice it up. She filled it to the brim with used pads and tampons, and they must have been sitting there all Christmas break. I threw up as soon as I opened the door, and I spent what felt like the next hour locked in there, barely able to move, covered in blood, garbage, and my own vomit."

Why was she telling her this? Was she doing that self-sabotage thing again that Gallant had talked to her about? Trying to convince Yamada that she was too pathetic to be allowed anywhere near a super hero team? Well, she was almost done.

"Only one of the bullies actually did something, but there were hundreds of people who did nothing. It would have only taken one person. Anyone could have called a janitor to unlock the door and let me out or, or offered to testify, but they didn't." Damn it, she was still bitter after all this time. She had expected monsters to be cruel, but they could only get away with it because people were so indifferent. "I got powers that day, and I didn't want to be someone who would look the other way." Not like they did.

Yamada nodded somberly. "Trigger events are half the reason the PRT employs so many therapists. It's not something that capes every completely leave behind."

Well. That wasn't comforting. "I haven't really studied the scientifics behind parahumans. Or the psychologicals." If that was even the right term for it.

"That's quite alright." She gave Taylor a smile that seemed almost playful. "I'd feel rather useless if you had. Do you have any concerns about joining the Wards?"

Enough to fill a book. Where could she even begin? That she was terrible at working with people and was about to join a team? That she hated being in the spotlight and being a hero meant that everyone would be watching her, waiting for her to screw up?

Talking to the therapist made her feel raw. She didn't like it.

"What if I'm not good enough?" Gallant had been encouraging from start to finish, and even Glory Girl had seemed a little impressed with her, but Armsmaster's attitude seemed like it was, "Be perfect, or get out of the way."

"Would that be so bad?" Yamada asked. That surprised her. Taylor had expected some empty platitude. "Would you still want to be a hero even if it meant starting from the bottom, making mistakes, and learning over time? How long would you be willing to be a bad hero in order to become a good one?"

Taylor considered that. Of course she would like to be exceptional from the start, but it would be naive to expect that. "Even if it means holding the team back?"

Her vanity, even the chance to say goodbye to Winslow High once and for all wouldn't be worth it if it meant getting someone killed.

"Everyone starts at the beginning, Taylor. We put heroes on a pedestal, so it's easy to get caught up with all the gilt and glitter, but when you cut all that away from the capes, what you have left is people. People with abilities, but people with fears, flaws, and insecurities. Like you."

"But that's worse." She laughed bitterly. "You do see how that's worse, don't you? I mean, the heroes are the ones fighting the Endbringers and keeping the Slaughterhouse Nine from running rampant—more rampant—in the streets. Can you imagine how royally screwed we are if the people saving the world are people like me?"

Yamada leaned forward, and if there hadn't been a coffee table between them she would have reached out and touched her. "Taylor, I meet with young heroes all over the the eastern United States, and I've come to know that the very best heroes are the ones who feel the most inadequate, and the ones who grow the most are the ones who realize how much they have to learn. I want you to know that you are stronger than you seem, smarter than you think, and braver than you believe."

Silence filled the room until Taylor broke it. "Did ... did you just quote Winnie the Pooh at me?"

Yamada leaned back in her chair. "Taylor, as your therapist I will never lie to you," she said, though Taylor thought that the woman's cheeks looked slightly pink. "Now let's talk about your childhood."

WWW

"Do you, Taylor Hubert, solemnly swear to uphold the laws and ordinances of the city of Brockton Bay and the surrounding areas, serve the public trust, and defend the people without fear, favor, or thought of personal safety; to pursue the guilty and protect the innocent, laying down your life if necessary in the cause of said duty, so help you God?"

"It's Hebert."

The deputy director blinked owlishly. He was a tall, skinny man, and Taylor got the impression that his mind was somewhere far more interesting than the PRT building and that his body wished it could be, too. "What?"

"Hebert. E-B-E. Not Hubert."

"Oh." Deputy Director Calvert scribbled a note on a piece of paper. "And it's Taylor with a Y?"

She nodded. "Yes sir."

"Mm-hm. Right then." He cleared his throat. "Do you, Taylor Hebert, solemnly swear to ... do all that?"

"I do."

"Then just sign here ... and here ... initial here, and the date is ... it's the sixteenth, and ... and you are hereby a member of the Brockton Bay Wards." He shook her hand.

Aegis strode forward. "I'll take it from here, Calvert." Aegis' powers made him invincible to the point where a bullet to the head was merely a cosmetic issue, but he wore body armor all the same. His costume was dark red with a white shield symbol on his chest.

"So, Taylor," Aegis said, leading her out of the room. "Gallant's told us a lot about you. The team's downstairs waiting to meet you."

"Should I be in costume?" She had it in her backpack; she could change in a bathroom if Aegis gave her a few minutes.

"If you like, but I wouldn't bother."

Taylor looked down at what she was wearing. Should she have gotten dressed up for this? She had left her home in what had felt comfortable: a baggy sweatshirt and a pair of jeans that were big enough to hide in. But now, on the verge of seeing Gallant, Vista, and the rest of the team—her team—she almost wished she had worn one of the outfits Lisa had bought for her.

Almost.

"I think I should," she decided. If she had the choice between introducing herself as a creepy bug girl or an ugly, nerdy girl, she'd go creepy all the way. "Just give me two minutes."

It took longer than that. After stripping down in a bathroom stall, her costume decided to fight back. It was like putting on a wet swimsuit, and the more she tried to rush things, the longer it took. When she was finished, she realized two things.

The first was that while her clothes were drab and plain, her costume was literally homemade. Compared to the sleek designs the Wards had, her costume looked like she was trying to hard too hard to be edgy.

The second was that her lenses were still cracked. She hadn't had time to replace them since her fight with Bakuda, so she'd be meeting the team half blind as well as half deaf until she traded her mask for glasses.

She considered changing back into her civilian clothes, but then she'd have to explain to Aegis why she made him wait so long for nothing. She stepped out, keeping track of where the walls, floor, and people were with her bugs, pretending to see fine and hoping she wouldn't embarrass herself too much.

"You ready?" Aegis made no comment concerning her appearance. "Alright. Let's go."

He led her into an elevator. Instead of having a sliding metal door like a normal elevator, the doors had interlocking plates that folded in then back out. She would have thought it looked like CGI if she had seen it in a movie. They descended, and the Tinkertech machine moved so smoothly she wouldn't have been able to tell if it weren't for her bugs keeping track of their position.

"The PRT building is like an iceberg," Aegis explained. "Most of it is beneath the surface. The lowest and most secure level is the Wards base. On the second lowest level we have our very own parahuman containment facility. Gallant and Vista brought Bakuda in last night. They said you had something to do with that."

Taylor felt cold. "She's staying ... right above the Wards base?"

Aegis nodded. "In a cell right next to Lung. I can't imagine he's too happy with what she's done with his gang."

"They're both above the base?" Ohcrapohcrapohcrap.

"It's the safest place they could be until the trial. Feel free to check out the holding cells yourself if you're worried."

Like hell I'll let Lung know where I am. The elevator door unfolded itself again. Taylor didn't know if it was any more effective than a normal elevator or if it was just designed to look cool. Still, she thought as she stepped out into a long hallway, it does look cool.

At the end of the hall Aegis peered into a retinal scanner.

"Did it ..." Taylor started.

"Wait for it." The door slid open. "Timed delay," he explained. "Gives everyone a few seconds to put their masks on."

"Does that happen a lot?"

"The premium tour goes through here a few times a day."

Taylor groaned inwardly. Imprisoned super villains and impending tourists. Why did I do this to myself?

As soon as they stepped in through the door, Aegis took off his mask. "I'm Carlos, by the way. You can get into a tremendous amount of trouble revealing secret identities to the wrong people, but we're pretty casual about that sort of thing within the team." He had long black hair, tan skin, and Taylor couldn't tell if he was Cuban or Puerto Rican, but a body like his could make any face look good.

Taylor nodded and replaced her own mask with a pair of glasses. "Taylor," she said, then she remembered that Aegis—Carlos—already knew that.

On the other side of the door was a large room with a curved, dome-shaped ceiling. The walls were moveable, so the one large room was divided into several smaller ones: council rooms, bathrooms, and so forth.

Clockblocker stuck his head out through one of the doors, a black domino mask in place of the blank white one he usually wore. "New girl?" he asked.

"New girl," Carlos confirmed. "Myriad, Clockblocker. Clockblocker, Myriad."

"But around here people call me Dennis," he replied, taking off his mask. He had bright red hair and was more pretty than handsome. He made her think of what Emma would have looked like if she were a boy instead of a soulless she-devil.

"Taylor," she said.

"Yeah, I'm probably going to stick with 'new girl' for the next week at least." He turned back to the next room. "Yo! New girl's here!"

The next person to come out was a boy in a black buttoned-up shirt and slacks instead of a costume, followed by Vista, sans mask. The boy was tall, blonde, and had a chin that looked like it had been chiseled out of marble. "Myriad! I'm glad you made it official."

She hesitated. "Gallant?"

He smiled in a way that made her think of The Great Gatsby. "Dean right now, and this is Missy. I don't have a scheduled patrol, so there wasn't much point in putting on all that armor."

"He's on probation," Dennis explained, and he rolled his eyes. "His first day off in two years, and what does he do? He comes to work anyway, because he's him."

"I just thought she might appreciate a friendly face to welcome her onto the team," he said, and he was right. "Besides, Chris is on probation too, and he still came."

Probation? Taylor made a mental note to remember that—and to avoid bringing it up just in case it was embarrassing.

"Yeah, but that's just because the wifi's better, the TV's bigger, and no one gets on his case if he interferes with the nature of causality. Isn't that right, Chris? Chris? Hey!" He pulled out what looked like a miniature fire hydrant out of his utility belt and tossed it into the next room.

"Ow!"

Carlos stared at him. "Did you just throw a flash bomb at him?"

Dennis shrugged. "I didn't pull the pin."

Dean sighed. "Dennis has many good qualities. I hope one day you encounter some of them."

Dennis put a hand on Dean's shoulder. "One day. One day you'll be irritated enough to insult me directly. Come on in. We can either do intros in the council room or the den, and the den has bean bag chairs."

It did have nice chairs: three bean bags and two couches. Chris, whom Taylor guessed was Kid Win, was half-swallowed by one of the bags in front of a flat-screen TV nearly as wide as Taylor was tall, playing a game she didn't recognize. He pulled off his head phones and looked around.

"New girl?" he asked. Like Dean, Chris wasn't in costume either, and was wearing a tee-shirt and jeans.

"Taylor," she said.

"I recognize you from that Youtube video. With you on the team, that makes five of us."

"Seven," Dennis corrected. "Eight if you count Shadow Stalker. Don't know why you would, though."

Taylor frowned. "Why's that?" What Youtube video?

"You didn't hear? I thought the whole city knew by now. Shadow Stalker 'works alone.'" His tone suggested that that was a claim Shadow Stalker often made.

"She'd prefer to work alone," Carlos clarified. "Currently she's with ... Battery again?"

"Browbeat," Missy said. "Poor guy. They're on their way back right now."

"Browbeat," Dennis repeated. "I don't know how he puts up with her. Patience of Gandhi, I suppose, though I imagine that early onset schizophrenia doesn't hurt."

Oh great, Taylor thought, groaning inwardly. A social hierarchy. Of course there'd be one, even among heroes. Taylor was worried that she'd start out at the bottom of the ladder, but the bottom seemed to be already occupied by the former vigilante. Now if she wanted to be a part of the in crowd, she just needed to exclude the out crowd.

She'd seen it done countless times before.

"If that's how you talk about her when she's not here, is it any wonder why she'd rather be by herself?" Taylor demanded, a bit more harshly than she intended. "Because no one gossips so quietly that the person you're talking about can't catch on."

"Thank you," Dean said. She wanted to smile at that. Of course he'd be decent about this sort of thing."

Dennis, fortunately, didn't seem too offended. "Hey, to be fair, I talk to her face the same way."

"No, you flirt with her to her face," Missy said.

"I do both," Dennis replied. "It's called multitasking." He paused. "Which would explain why it doesn't work."

Oh. It was one of those relationships. She should have waited to figure out what was going on before she charged in with all her baggage.

"Hey Chris," Carlos said. "Didn't you say you were going to make some fireworks?"

"Oh right. Sorry. I was planning on throwing sparkbots together before she got here, but then I had an existential crisis and started playing video games instead." He looked at Taylor apologetically. "It hasn't been a good week for me."

"I asked Browbeat to get a cake on his way back," Missy said. "I, uh, didn't know what kind you wanted, Taylor, so I just asked him for one I wanted."

"Oh," Taylor said. "You guys didn't need to do anything. I'm just glad to be on the team."

"Wrong!" Dennis said. "Dean lets loose exclusively for birthdays, holidays, and new team members, so if we skipped your welcome party, he'd work nonstop until the Fourth of July. Besides, this the only way we can justify the extensive hazing ritual you're about to face."

Hazing ritual? Taylor would have preferred to skip the hazing and the party, and just pretend like she'd been on the team the whole time.

"Don't worry," Dean said. "He's making it up. No one goes through hazing when they join the Wards." He sounded like he was talking to Dennis as much as he was talking to her.

"I did," Dennis said. "It's only fair."

"No, that was a disciplinary review and a meeting with Glenn Chambers about your image."

"Doesn't everyone have to do that?"

Dean shrugged. "I didn't."

"Huh. Go figure. It's been only a thousand years and knights in shining armor are still in style."

Missy nodded. "It's true."

Old jokes, Taylor thought. As old and familiar as my morning run. She found herself feeling both jealous and excluded from the group, which was silly in its own way. She turned to Chris, still in his bean bag like an egg in a nest, and tried to change the subject.

"What game are you playing?"

"Legend of the Last Slaughter. Do you play?"

"I haven't played that game." Or any game. Her family had never owned a gaming console, and she preferred reading anyway.

"Basically you fight the Slaghterhouse Nine. Or at least the two-thousand-and-five version of the Nine. Some of those guys last as long as a jug of milk."

Taylor scanned the game collection. It was like looking at someone's bookshelf in a way—a means of getting to know someone without actually talking to them. Most of the games looked like they were in the same series: Legend of the Last Slaughter, Legend: Beyond the End, Legend and the Wakened Sleeper, and at the very bottom ...

"Legends of Love?"

"Never played it," Chris said quickly.

"What's it about?"

"Don't know. Never played it."

Taylor pulled it out and glanced at the back. "'Romance world-famous heroes like Eidolon, Myrdin, Chevalier, and more?'"

"It came with the bundle," Chris said. Behind him, Dennis struggled not to laugh.

"But, if you complete all three core endings and input a code you get from beating The Last Slaughter, you unlock a secret ending where you bring Hero back to life via time travel." He hesitated. "At least, that's what I've read online. I don't really play dating sims. Um, so you control bugs."

Taylor blinked at the non sequitur. "Yes?'

"And you beat Bakuda."

"Uh-huh." Barely. It was more luck than anything else.

"So, how? I mean, I saw the Youtube video, but it just shows Bakuda monologuing for forever and a half, and then you hit her in the face."

Taylor stopped. "Youtube video?"

"Yep," Dennis said. "So, imagine that someone planted a bomb in your head, and the maniac with the trigger gets everyone together for a public execution. What do you do? The answer, obviously, is take out your phone and film the whole thing, because anonymous internet likes require, nay, they demand that level of dedication. Wanna see it?"

Yes, after she got home. Watching it with the Wards would remind them that she had tasered someone in the eye and could lead to awkward questions about Lisa's text message. "Not really," she said, feigning nonchalance. "I mean, I was there, so ... about your question, Chris, I had some spiders crawl up everyone's guns and gum them up, and ... that's about it."

Chris frowned thoughtfully, then grabbed a notebook off a nearby desk and began scribbling something down.

"What?" Taylor asked. She looked around at the others. "What?"

"Hold on," Chris said. "I just had an idea."

"Ooh, what're you making?" Dennis asked. "A gun that shoots spiders at people? Because that would be hilarious as long as you used it on people who aren't me, and even that would be funny in hindsight."

Chris rolled his eyes. "No, I'm not making a spider gun. With Myriad on the team, that would be redundant, and Miss Piggy would probably classify it as psychological warfare, confiscate it, and give me another week on probation."

There's some history here that I'm missing.

A bell rang overhead before she could ask about it, making Taylor jump. "What was that?"

"Someone's at the door," Carlos said. "Masks on, everyone."

It was a routine procedure for them, pulling masks out from their pockets or nearby drawers, but Taylor felt a moment of panic. Where had she put her mask? Oh, right, it was in her backpack.

"Hurry up!" Dennis shouted. "The tour will be here in two seconds, and they'll all have cameras! One second! There goes your secret identity!"

"Stop hazing her," Carlos said. "We all know it's just Browbeat and Shadow Stalker."

Sure enough, Shadow Stalker in a black cloak and black metallic mask came in through the door followed by someone with the body of a Greek god on steroids in a blue, diamond patterned costume.

"Sup, losers," Shadow Stalker said casually. "Oh, God, there's more of you."

"Did you guys get the cake?" Missy asked.

"We did," Browbeat said slowly. "But Shadow Stalker threw it at someone on the way back."

"You monster!"

"Okay, first of all, squirt," Shadow Stalker said, "I'm no one's delivery girl. Second of all, paparazzi don't have human rights. Third of all ..." She gestured towards the younger girl. "Aren't you fat enough already?"

Ah. Denis' comments about the girl made sense now. Taylor undid the straps of her mask to put her glasses back on so she could see if Browbeat was wearing body armor or spandex.

Carlos sighed. "Couldn't you pretend to be civil for one day?"

"Probably, but why would I ... no. No freakin' way. Hell no."

Taylor blinked. "What?"

"You two know each other," Dean said, sounding surprised and more than a little wary.

Shadow Stalker slid her mask off her face, and Sophia Hess sneered at her. "Welcome to the goddamn team, freak."

WWW

A/n So. Stuff happened. First impressions are extra fun when they're misleading. I imagine that Coil is the kind of guy who wouldn't just invent an alter ego that would pass inspection, but pretend to be someone so unexceptional and forgettable in every way that he wouldn't be inspected in the first place. Kid Win, well, like he said, he's not having a good week. He nearly killed himself on prescription medicine to make the greatest gun of all time, then got the power source confiscated and got put on probation after failing to stop a bank robbery. Fortunately, he has video games, the best therapy science has to offer. (Sorry Yamada, you just can't compete with technology.)

Shadow Stalker's first impression isn't misleading at all. She's upfront about who she is as a person.

If you feel like any of the characters are misrepresented, let me know. It's hard to cram so many people into one scene, so some of them are going to drift into the background, but more than that, most of their character development occurred after Leviathan.

Anyway, thank you for the incredibly supportive reviews. You guys are amazing.