A Side A

Her hands worked.

Fear and power, he said. She thought she knew what he meant. What was she thinking? He was insane. He snapped that man's neck with a swing of his arm. For what? Because he couldn't beat a hero in an armored suit with some handguns?

Insane.

They're insane.

Lee and his dead eyes. All the captains with knives pointed at one another's backs. Lung and his—His Lung-ness. Those wharf rat kids were the most normal of the bunch and not one of them knew what school was!

Insane.

They're insane.

Her hands trembled as they worked. Fear and power, Lung said. The sound of a snapping neck in her ear. His hands reaching for her throat and telling her he wanted 'bombs'. He'd seemed so much calmer when he came crashing through her cell wall. Still scary as fuck, but not in a 'I can kill you with a snap of my finger' sort of way.

She made a mistake. This was a mistake.

She swallowed. Her throat felt dry. She couldn't get the sound out of her ear.

How long had she been working? Her stomach ached. Putting the first few tools together took a while. Lung wanted bombs. She'd build bombs.

Fear and power.

"Ms. Bakuda?"

Her back shot rod straight, and she fell back. Her knee hit the floor and pain shot up her leg. She scrambled in spite of the pain, grabbing a knife from the table and pointing it at the shadow.

"Sorry!"

The pudgy boy looked at her apologetically, a tray in his hands.

"Sorry, Ms. Bakuda," he offered. "I know you said you didn't want to be bothered but it's been a while and no one has seen you." He lifted the tray up. "We thought you might be hungry."

The knife shook in her hands.

The boy watched her in silence. He glanced around the small basement workshop Lung stuck her in. Long and narrow, with a bunch of scraps on shelves along one wall.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

Of course she wasn't.

She was holding a knife at some cinnamon bun of a boy, shaking with every bone in her body.

"I—I'll just leave this here."

She watched him, knife still in her hands as he turned his back to her. He set the tray down, exposing the nape of his neck.

Her eyes flashed to the workbench.

It was a small thing. The size of a 1000 mg capsule. So small, but it could blow someone's head off.

Her eyes went back to his neck.

The knife felt light in her hands. She'd learned where to make the exact incisions in school. A set of tweezers could maneuver the small thing into place. Stick it where it would be a bitch to get it ou—Rig it to explode if anyone tried.

"Sorry I scared you."

She tensed. "I'm not scared."

The boy turned, looking up at her. She pushed her jaw forward. She wanted to look tough, but she felt like she looked ridiculous. No one would buy that.

They'd see the fear.

"My mistake." His eyes were expressive. He saw the fear. She could tell. "Sorry."

He turned back to the stairs and left.

The knife shook between her fingers, a cold hand gripping her chest. She looked at the small thing, and her stomach turned.

Fear and power.

She cursed under her breath and forced the memory away. She wished it would stop coming up every time she worked.

She didn't need the constant reminder.

Her sides hurt. Damn vest. She tries to make some armor for herself, and the best she could come up with was a fucking bomb vest. At least it worked. Mostly. Now, if only she could figure a way to not set her ribs on fire.

"Hey bomb lady!"

Alice groaned. "What?!"

She turned, looking toward the stairs as Shino poked his head through the door. The tall boy gave her his usually goofy look and rubbed the back of his head.

"Um. The TV broke."

"Again? What are you doing? I fixed it last week!"

He shrugged.

"Sorry?"

She inhaled and pushed her chair back.

She set her vest aside, next to the parts for her new launcher. She grabbed a tool from the table and stalked up the stairs.

A wall of apologies followed her entry into the lounge.

"Yeah yeah yeah."

She pointedly avoided looking any of the kids in the eyes. They were young, as small as six. She counted more than the last time she'd fixed the TV.

More and more every day.

She wondered if Newtype ever thought about that. She arrested the bad guys and they just trafficked more orphans to make up the difference. There'd be many more now, with Trainwreck dead.

Go and arrest a bunch of bangers, and the captains just went hunting for new blood. There were plenty of wharf rats in the world if you knew where to look. They were easy to get a hold of and bring anywhere. At least two ABB captains made all their money from trafficking, but it didn't hurt any 'Americans' so no one really cared.

Some hero.

Akihiro got up and helped Shino pull the TV back from the wall. Alice slipped behind the machine and pulled the back off. It was the power supply board. The thing was big for an old analog television, but ancient. Of course it kept breaking.

"You could just get a new one," she mumbled.

"We tried," Shino replied.

"Biscuit said we needed an excuse to get you to get up every now and then," Akihiro revealed.

"Of course he did."

For just a pudgy boy he sure acted like a doting mother hen.

She pulled the power cord out of the wall, made her quick fix, and stuck it back in. The TV blared up with some insipid song for some kiddie show. She slipped out and the two broadly built boys pushed the TV back into the wall.

A chorus of thank yous followed her as she left. Akihiro stalked off to some other hall. Shino hung back to watch the toddlers.

Well, they got her up. She checked the time and shrugged. She'd been rebuilding her gear since six in the morning and it was past noon.

Damn do-gooder.

You blew up my suit, she complained.

Alice shook her head and patted her sore sides. Maybe if she built a counter charge into the vest? It would be easier if her power could build something other than explosions.

She walked into the kitchen and started fishing out sandwich supplies. When she couldn't find tomatoes, she left the first kitchen and went to a second.

The old apartment complex sat in the Train yard near the city edge. No one lived nearby. Orga liked it that way. Gave them warning if they happened to see anyone lingering around. Helped that they didn't have to pay rent, she guessed.

The large underground parking garage made for plenty of working space too.

Alice assembled her sandwich, trying to think of a way to counter the blast from her vest. Unfortunately, stopping an explosion with another explosions seemed to be an ineffective way of avoiding physical injury. It would be easier to just blow the prissy bitch a—

She inhaled and clamped down on that thought.

She knew where that road led. There was no coming back from that.

After fixing her plate, she found herself something to drink and walked off.

She needed to distract herself. She'd supplied Lung with his 'bombs'. Her gear needed a complete rebuild, but she was overdue for that anyway. With Trainwreck dead, Coil out of the picture, and the Empire still tucking their heads between their legs, Lung might as well have invited Newtype in for a holiday beat down.

She tensed as the eyes turned on her.

His blood trailed across the floor, the meter long stakes laying where he'd tossed them after ripping them from his chest. The wounds were already healing, but they were ghastly.

Rail guns.

She shot him into the sea with rail guns.

And he was still alive.

"Where were you?"

She forced her lips into a scowl. They say fake it till you make it, so she forced the chill back and dismissively replied, "I tried. You told me to go after Trainwreck. I—"

"That was before Lee was captured, and I told you to join me."

How fast did he think she could move? Half the ABB got stranded fighting former Merchants. She couldn't just teleport herself away. Well, she could, but her teleport bomb had a tendency of delivering things wrong.

"It's my fault."

No.

Lung turned his eyes away from her, and relief that came from the reprieve brought the chill back into her chest.

Orga stood firm, eyes cast down.

"I showed you the price of failure," he snarled. "Did I not?"

"Yes."

Bakuda cursed under her breath.

She'd learned Lung's moods, more or less. He could be calm when he wanted. Scary but, calm. He was easy to manage then. He didn't mind back talk or sass or questioning. It was beneath him to be bothered by such things.

He used Lee to punish people for opening their mouths in ways he didn't like.

And he didn't have Lee anymore.

Fear and power. One fed into the other. Losing Lee cost him some power, and in turn it cost him some fear.

He had to restore it somehow.

His hand lashed out, grabbing hold of Orga's throat and lifting him off the ground. The sound of a snapping neck echoed in her ears, and she needed a moment to realize it was just the memory.

Across the room, Mikazuki started reaching into his coat. Little psycho. What did he think he was going to do?

Her hands twitched at her sides.

"Do we have bodies to spare?" she asked.

A lick of flame rolled over Lung's arm. He turned his eyes back to her. She held her ground. Forced her legs to be still. She was glad she wore her mask. He looked at her, but she watched the hand on Orga's throat.

"You fear for him," Lung snarled.

"Don't give a shit about him," she lied. "I like having my shit delivered on time. He's the only one who gets it done."

The other captains, the ones who weren't in a cell, snickered. She shot them a glare and they looked away. Cowards. Orga was right about them. They did fear Lung, but they didn't respect him. Everything was jockeying for position with them.

She wondered if Newtype realized how much easier she made Orga's life getting so many of them arrested.

"No." He lowered Orga to the ground. "You fear for him."

She watched his head as it lingered.

"Remember that, Bakuda."

His fingers remained clinched a while longer. When he let go, he walked out, snapping at a few of the captains and telling them to secure territories before the Empire could push for them. Laughter ran rampant while everyone moved on Newtype's factory.

No one knew how much she destroyed yet.

Mikazuki pulled one of those stupid little snacks from his coat and popped it into his mouth.

Alice waited for the captains to filter out before asking, "Alright?"

"Thank you." Orga straightened his collar with steady hands.

She feared for him. For them. When did that happen?

"What happened to you?" she asked, kicking the door closed behind her.

She sat down on a chair and set her plate in front of her.

"You look like crap."

Orga glanced up from the pad in his hands. He eyed her food for a moment, and then looked away.

"You should get a new TV," Alice said. "I'm tired of fixing it."

"It has sentimental value," Orga replied.

"It has crap value."

At Orga's side, Mikazuki traced his finger over the pages of a book. There was something wrong about someone his age—size be damned—looking through a children's ABCs book, but he said he wanted to learn how to read so she got it for him. Something about Orga and Biscuit being the only ones who could.

She spoke as she bit into her sandwich.

"So what happened? Big meeting not go well?"

"Newtype was there," Mikazuki revealed.

Alice froze. "Why?"

"Wants to sell her models through Yashima," Orga answered.

"She run you out or something?"

"No. Naze went and suggested Yashima give Turbines the contract for distributing the goods. They left, and Newtype and I sat and pretended we tried."

The old geezer did that? Why?

"I did think about it for a moment," Orga mumbled.

Alice raised her brow. "You can't be serious."

"For a moment," he repeated. "It's not like it's a terrible idea. She wants to restore the economy here. That would benefit us."

"But she'd never do it."

"And neither would we," Orga agreed. "Lung wouldn't turn a blind eye to that. He'd think we were moving against him, especially since you hang around here most of the time."

Maybe we should. Again, she forced the thought down.

"She wouldn't want the PRT or Protectorate breathing down her neck either," he added. "We're on opposite sides. Can't get around it."

Orga said it, and she nodded, but her mind was elsewhere.

Newtype shot him with fucking rail guns and he still lived. Its not like she never contemplated killing Lung, but people who didn't know him didn't get it. Lung was fast, strong, and regenerated like a mother fucker. And he got stronger faster the harder you came at him. Miss the first shot and he made you pay for it.

Sometimes, she thought it would be easier to beat him with some dinky power. A power that seemed harmless at first. Something he wouldn't take seriously.

"I did try to think of a way to make it work," Orga continued. "Side deal. Under the table arrangement. Set up a shell or something."

"The other captains are watching you," Mikazuki warned. "I think Kazu knows we got Yan arrested." She glanced at Mikazuki. "They're waiting for you to slip up."

Mikazuki looked back at her, but said nothing before going back to his ABCs. The fact she was around was probably the only thing holding them back. They both knew it.

"My thoughts." Orga set the tablet down and leaned forward. "A long shot beyond a long shot. She's a hero." He left the 'and we're not' silent.

"Overrated," Alice declared.

"You'll figure it out," Mikazuki offered. "The security thing is working."

"Of a sort," Orga said. "Not if we want to build something more than this. We barely have any left over after sending Lung his due."

She didn't get that. It might be an abandoned apartment she powered with a small generator, but it wasn't bad. She'd seen people in the Bay living in worse. They only went out when Lung called them to action, and they kept themselves out of sight as best they could.

That would keep the law off their back, mostly. The Trainyard wasn't exactly rolling in police.

If she left, they might be able to go completely unnoticed. Except the other captains would pounce if she left. That wasn't an option.

Slow and steady, Orga said.

Sometimes Alice wished he'd do something more ballsy. Their criminal records cut them off from a lot of options, not that they were particularly infamous or anything. But the law didn't give points for 'we were ten and forced to do it' when you kept doing it into your late teens. Not that any of them had any reasonable adults around but themselves.

They gave up the girls. Whoever previously ran the territory—the sound of a neck snapping rang in her ear—had a lot. Something about the Trainyard being far out of the way. A place johns could go where they wouldn't need to worry about being seen.

It wasn't good territory for gambling, the one trade Orga didn't seem to have any qualms about. Yan's would be better, but the other captains knew what he did. The security contracts gave them honest work, but it wasn't nearly as lucrative as drugs and whores. Lung got most of that money.

Orga turned his head toward her and sighed.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

She raised her head, broken from the musings.

"Oh, I'm dandy. Just dandy." She put on a big grin. "You know I blew up a robot? That was fun!"

He chuckled.

"Newtype holds grudges," Mikazuki pointed out.

Alice met his gaze and asked, "She's let you all go what, three times now?"

"Us."

How did a kid who didn't know how to read manage to be so insightful?

"Let her 'grudge' me," Alice replied. "Just do what I say next time it comes up."

"If we did what you said," Orga answered, "Newtype would have caught you and we'd be in trouble."

"Pfft." Alice rose from her seat and waved her hand dismissively. "It was a draw!"

"You were unconscious," Mikazuki reminded.

Orga shook his head with a small smile, the traitor.

"Draw!" Alice repeated as she left.

Except it wasn't. She was surprised to wake up in her lab, if she were honest with herself.

Sure, she destroyed the suit. That was pretty cool. But her vest hurt her more than it hurt Newtype and she couldn't build any sort of armor to make the prediction engine easier to use. That's probably how Newtype used it. Programmed it right into her suit.

She hoped that the pretty little hero might go off on her rescue mission instead of fighting to keep her. She didn't really expect it. Maybe telling her what she wanted to know in the first place paid off?

What did that band of brats want with a bunch of quantum sensors anyway?

No matter. Better to focus on what she'd do when Newtype came after her again. The second suit. That was the problem. She could fight one suit. She'd keyed the prediction engine better, but without any sort of exo-armor, she'd only ever have her own reaction speed. A second suit joining the fight would doom her.

And Newtype would have two before getting serious.

It would be easy to beat her, Alice thought, if she were willing to let go of the strings.

Her hands twitched, remembering the weight of a knife.

She shook her head and stalked up the stairs to the roof.

She found herself a corner to sit. The Trainyard was dark beyond their little hovel. They moved around, switching to another location every few weeks. Kept Newtype from tracking her down because she could do that apparently.

But Newtype wasn't her current problem.

She'd gotten it in her head again. Alice had been over it before, many times now.

There was no way out.

Even if she managed to kill Lung, then what? Other captains already talked about the Elite poking around. They always wanted to expand. The strength of Lung and the Empire might have given them pause in the past, but not anymore. Accord in Boston was contemplating a move, not that she knew why. The Patriots—some crazy militia group—had started setting up in some of the mountains just outside the city.

The Merchants were gone.

Coil was gone.

The Empire was hiding like a band of cowards.

Everyone already saw blood in the water. She couldn't do it on her own. They needed Lung to survive. To avoid something even worse than the sorry state they were already in. Not without going somewhere she didn't want to go…

She grinned, the moment captured in her eyes.

"How?" Lung asked. He stepped forward, hand running over the brick wall. The cut was smooth, like a laser.

"Don't know." Bakuda laughed. "I saw what Stratos did, and I tried thinking how I could do it."

She looked up at the building, half of it vanished. A bomb that copied Stratos' power. It made her giddy. It didn't work how people thought it did. It wasn't total annihilation. She tried that and the effect was not the same. It seemed more like moving matter from one place to another.

Establish a field. Capture all matter in the field. Push it through a small singularity in an instant. That's how it worked.

"Be mindful, Bakuda."

"Hmm?"

"This is power, but it is not fear until you use it."

She raised her brow behind her mask. Did he not like it? He said he wanted bombs and so she made bombs. It was a bomb that popped shit into oblivion like the cape the Protectorate used to check him. Why was he telling her to be mindful? Did he want something better?

She considered asking, but Lung started walking back.

Whatever.

She'd pulled her mask off and set it aside. Hard to see much through those lenses. She tried a few variations but turns out explosions are easy to blind yourself with. It wasn't something she could work in.

She looked over the data she gathered from the sensors. If they could be called that. Setting off targeted micro-explosions, recording the results, and figuring out what they meant wasn't very precise. It's all her power seemed able to do though.

If it didn't explode in one way or another, she couldn't build it. She tried to think of it as art. Better to burn out than fade away and all that.

"Ms. Bakuda?"

She grit her teeth.

"What?" She groaned. "I'm busy Pillsbury!"

What else could she do? What other capes might make a good bomb. Cinereal? Narwhal? Huh. Narwhal might be interesting. How did she make those force-fields. Could she do it?

"Are you okay?"

"Huh?"

She looked up from her laptop at him. He had expressive eyes, and they looked confused. And afraid.

She saw her smile in her reflection. Broad and manic.

It vanished from her face instantly.

She rubbed her wrist. The strings seemed so fragile. How easy it would be to just let go and be someone else. Something else. Something so broken she'd never fit herself back together again.

There was a pyromanic in her neighborhood once. Her father, rat asshole he was, ranted about it after they arrested him. She didn't get it. Why would someone run around setting fires just to watch things burn?

She didn't understand then.

She understood now.

Because the flames were amazing in their tiny terrible power. Even better when you watched space warp, or everything crystalize. The magic she could work. The tiny terrible miracles…

She forced the thoughts from her mind.

She clung to the strings.

"Can you show me how to read?"

"What?"

Mikazuki looked up at her. For having so much muscle he sure was short.

"Orga and Biscuit are the only ones who know how. I want to be useful."

Alice set the box in her arms down.

She glanced down at his coat. He always had a gun on him. Far as she could tell, he knew how to use it. She also got the sense he'd killed someone at some point. Not that she blamed him. Knowing his lot, he probably had to kill to live.

"Why not ask them?" she asked. "I'm busy."

She didn't have time to teach someone his age how to read. He'd just have to make do.

"You went to school. You're better at it, aren't you?"

Alice flinched. Did he think she couldn't do it? "Fine, but after I work. Lung ain't gonna let me slip up."

"Okay. Thanks."

He ate something out of his pocket. She couldn't tell what. He was always hiding snacks somewhere on him.

He walked down the hall, calling out to Biscuit.

She stared at his back. Did she misread him?

Tiny little strings.

"Hey bomb lady!" Shino waved as he approached.

"I have a name damn it! Why do all of you call me that? Or throw a miss in front of it?! Jesus what do you want?"

"Oh. Well there's this pretty girl and I think she's kind of cute but I have no idea what she would like."

"And you're asking me about this?!"

"You know what pretty girls like, right?"

"Do I look like some prissy little thing to you?"

Shino scratched his chin. "Not particularly, no."

She tilted her head. "Then why are you asking me?"

"Well I was looking for Akihiro but I can't find him."

Her brow twitched. He couldn't be serious. Who just walked up to a bomb tinker and asked about girls?

You can't go to that place, she told herself. There's no coming back. No one will ignore you. No one will give you peace. You'll never be safe.

She'd go out in a blaze of glory, but she'd still go out.

And then what? None of them were capes. They'd get torn apart.

What had she been thinking that night? Putting bombs in people's heads? She went to medical school because her father was an elitist prick, but she did want to help people. Didn't she?

"You're teaching Mikazuki to read?"

"What of it?"

"Nothing. It's nice. He says he wants to work in a factory someday. He'll probably need to know how."

She continued working, and he stood there. She looked over her shoulder at him, meetings those expressive eyes.

"What?" she asked.

Biscuit shrugged. "You're not so bad is all."

She inhaled, taking the invisible strings between her fingers and holding tight.

In a just world, Orga would be a hero. Everything he did he did for them. To keep them alive. To keep them out of prison. Out of early graves. He stuck his neck out, because he'd rather die than fail.

It wasn't fair, she thought.

They could float on their own. Barely, but they could. It wasn't fair that if she snapped, they'd be the first. The first ones she cut. It would be so easy for the strings to snap.

It would be best if she left.

The boys moved her stuff into the basement. She stood to the side and watched. It surprised her. Lung said to find a place. Newtype figured the location of her lab somehow. No way StarGazer could hack her computers without knowing where they were. She needed to move.

She didn't have any territory of her own. The captains glared at her when she looked to them. Of course they did.

Her finger's twitched, remembering the weight of the knife.

They were afraid.

Orga was the only one to walk up and ask her to come with him.

"I said I paid you back." Bakuda covered for them. Let them get all those girls out of the brothels. "I don't want your charity."

She looked at him. Orga wasn't an ugly man, but he clearly spent too much time frowning.

"Don't get me wrong," Orga mumbled. "We don't have the luxury of charity. Having a cape around will keep the others off our backs."

She scowled behind her mask. Was it a bunch of shit then? All that, you fit in better with us crap? Figured. Fear and power. Just like Lung said. Having a cape around gave them power, and put fear into anyone around them. Simple.

They were afraid like everyo—

"But I think charity is overrated."

Alice raised her head. Orga turned his head toward the sea. He did that sometimes. She wasn't quite sure why.

"Save the charity for the ones who can't do anything for themselves. You help us, and we'll help you. We float together. Until we build something better."

The world treated them like animals and they kept fighting. And she clung to their coats, praying the waters wouldn't swallow her whole. It's not fair.

"Ms. Bakuda?"

She inhaled, forcing her fingers to relax.

She considered her usual complaint about the miss, but why bother? He never listened. Something about his mother telling him he needed to respect women or something cheap like that. Maybe that's why he refused to let it go. If he was here, she was probably dead.

"Pillsbury," she mumbled, fixing her eyes on the shadows of the mountains in the distance. "Need something?"

"Just checking," he mumbled. "Your sides still hurting? The doctor said not to exert yourself too much."

"I'm fine," she mumbled. "You're such a mother hen."

"Suppose I am." He shrugged. "Did you eat something? You've been working all night."

"Had a sandwich," she grumbled.

"Just checking," he repeated. "The stuff you wanted came in. I thought you'd want to know."

She turned a scowl on him.

"Why didn't you say that first?" she asked. Pushing herself onto her feet she turned to the door. "I swear it's like you're scatterbrained or something."

"Sorry Ms. Bakuda."

She let it slide again. She didn't want to snap at him. Not in the mood. Her fingers twitched at her sides as she descended the stairs, the monster straining against the strings.