2. Impostor
A concerned look fell on Siberian's face as Riley made her way back into the room.
Would it be more suspicious to ignore the silent question, or to acknowledge it? Bonesaw was anything but shy when something bothered her, but getting caught in a lie was worse than acting out of character.
She offered Siberian a reassuring smile that hopefully didn't look as hollow as it felt, and made her way to the clothes.
Dresses hung from the top of the wardrobe's door, and the travel bag containing the rest of her clothes lay on the dresser, a fair share of its content spilled around it.
Even with her back turned, she could feel Siberian's eyes on her.
"What do you think?" Riley asked her while lifting the hem of one dress. "This one?"
Siberian shook her head and pointed to a sunny yellow dress. Something bright and happy.
The muscles holding the smile in place were straining, but Riley didn't betray any of it as she nodded in agreement. Siberian busied herself making the bed, turning her back to her as she changed.
Once done, she opened the curtains and found that it was still early enough in the year that tree leaves hadn't bloomed yet. She tore through the pile of clothes to find a vest, then discarded it for one that matched her dress better. Socks were traded for warm tights, with non-slip ankle socks on top for good measure.
Siberian finished straightening the bed runner and decorative pillows that had been kicked off during the night, and gently pressed a matching bow to the side of Riley's head as she stood in front of the mirror.
Riley had never been one to wear a costume or participate in those silly dress-up games that most capes insisted upon. The closest she had ever come was when leaving the pocket dimension to shop incognito, and it had been camouflage more than anything else.
This was a costume, with matching clothes and perfect hair and carefully curated smiles in lieu of armor and masks, and with Bonesaw's skin as a suit to layer those upon.
She would need weapons too.
Riley made her way to the desk. The chair held most of the equipment Bonesaw usually carried on herself, with tool holsters to go under the sleeves and straps around the thighs for the basic chemicals she could mix and match on the fly. She put them on.
Underneath the pile was all the stuff she must have emptied from her pockets before going to bed. Some candy, candy wrappers she hadn't thrown away, a finger severed under the second phalange, a pen, some safety pins, an empty syringe, and, at the very bottom, the phone that doubled as a remote control for the spider boxes.
She turned it on, and the lock screen displayed the date.
Friday, April 8, 2011.
Her estimation had been off by a few months, but there was no new information to glean from the date, she realized with annoyance as she slipped the phone in her pocket. Her life back then hadn't been structured in a way where keeping track of time was important.
Siberian sat down on the bed as Riley started sorting through the mess on the were too many test tubes to examine them individually, so she grabbed the most recent-looking rack and crammed as many as possible in her pockets. Chances were good that the others hadn't been immunized to at least some of those yet.
Jack was a problem that needed to be dealt with. Jack's power was a problem that needed to be dealt with. And it wouldn't be an easy one, if her earlier failure was any indication.
"So let's think about that. He's got a thinker power that lets him manipulate parahumans, or read them, or gauge how they'll react. He uses it, probably unconsciously, to constantly maintain the edge. And he gets bored. You've seen him get bored, haven't you, Riley?"
The words from that meeting had haunted her through sleepless nights and restless days after Gold Morning. She'd approached the question with her best approximation of objectivity. She was good at figuring out powers, and this one was no exception. It was even obvious in retrospect.
Jack's passenger was in cahoots with the other passengers to give him an unfair advantage.
Most of her research on the subject had been to understand the impact of his power, to gauge how much was her and how much was him. She hadn't investigated ways to actively counter it, and had only speculated about range, limitations and mechanisms, because he wasn't an active threat anymore and resources were better spent elsewhere.
She didn't need scientific data to know how things ended for people who fought against Jack. She could picture his amused grin once she failed and had nowhere left to hide. He loved those kinds of things, and would stretch it out on purpose.
He would monologue.
Aside from making for a very compelling mental picture, siccing Siberian on Jack would be a Bad Idea. Siberian would win in any straight fight, but Jack's fights were anything but straight. He didn't need to win, just to convince her not to fight him, and then he could turn Siberian against Riley.
A workable solution would require one of two things. Keeping Siberian on her side and away from Jack, or finding a way around his power.
Could she disable it from afar?
She found a jar of her prions at the back of the desk. Her faithful, Gemma-crippling prions. The original recipe only worked on active control, not subconscious powers, but Bonesaw had seven variations in the work. Riley grabbed the most aggressive one. It was in powder form, which she couldn't use without getting close enough to be killed before it took effect. Airborne transmission was a better choice.
The jar went in her pocket, and she rummaged through the mess for bits and pieces to cannibalize into a diffuser.
Mannequin could counter it easily, but unless he was actively monitoring the air content, he wouldn't have time to act before everyone else was affected.
A sharp knock nearly made her jump out of her skin, but she had a façade ready when Jack opened the door a second later.
He looked at her, then looked at the hasty construction in her hands, and the world stilled for a second.
He looked back at her with a pointed look. "You know the rules, poppet. No tinkering before breakfast, or we'd never get anything done." He nodded his head towards the corridor. "Come on."
She dropped her half-finished diffuser and followed obediently, Siberian on her heels.
Stupid. She should have begged Siberian to run away with her the second they were alone, instead of getting dressed like he told her.
The staircase brought them down to the living room, where Crawler lounged while watching the news. Furniture had been pushed around to accommodate his size, but even then, he had to curl up on himself to fit. They had to walk in front of the television to reach the kitchen, and hurried to avoid disrupting him.
Riley saw Murder Rat sitting on the couch, and boy was that embarrassing. Crooked staples, shoddy workmanship, and the telltale lividity and bloating of tissue on the verge of going bad. Terrible work. Ways to fix, to improve, to undo coalesced in her mind's eye, and she let them. It was easy to be swept away by the stream of ideas. Easier than to examine the unease gripping her stomach.
She couldn't afford to break character.
The important thing was that Murder Rat's lack of active decomposition meant she was still a fully-fledged member of the Nine. That gave Riley a better point of reference than the date.
The kitchen found Shatterbird at the stove and Burnscar at the table. Mannequin was nowhere to be seen, which wasn't a big surprise. He didn't eat and wasn't very social, so he would have claimed a space for himself to tinker in peace. Good for now, but it made for an unknown variable in an eventual fight.
With Murder Rat on the team, either Hatchet Face or Cherish would be completing their ranks, but neither was present. Hatchet Face would be an easy solution to a lot of problems. Cherish… would be the opposite.
A steaming mug of black coffee awaited Jack on the countertop, and he settled with it against the small expanse of wall that separated the adjoined kitchen and living room. The position afforded him a view of everyone, but he kept his eyes mostly on her.
Siberian made a beeline for the door under the stairs and went down to the basement, leaving Riley to contemplate the kitchen cabinets. They were numerous enough that she could easily guess wrong, and it would be suspicious for her not to know where things were, if they'd been staying here for a while. She checked the dish rack instead, and was relieved to find a bowl there. She grabbed a towel to dry it.
At the stove, Shatterbird was cooking some fancy omelet, a book in one hand and a mug of coffee on the countertop next to her. Her eyes strayed from the book every once in a while, tracking Jack's attention. On one occasion, Riley caught them tracking more than his attention.
Ewww.
How had she not noticed that the first time around? Maybe that was for the best, she told herself, repressing a shiver of disgust at the unwanted mental image.
Siberian was already back and sitting at the table by the time Riley's bowl was ready to use. There was room both across and next to her, and Riley went with the latter to avoid turning her back to Jack.
Burnscar had helped herself to a box of Frooty Toots, with the questionable decision to mix them with orange juice.
"We're out of milk," she said, a touch defensive, while handing the box to Riley from across the table. Her other hand was molding a flame into animated figures.
"I finished the eggs too," Shatterbird added while sitting down next to Burnscar. "And I'm all out of sparkling water. Someone needs to do a grocery run."
"Hm." Jack made a sound, eyes finally lifting from Riley as she poured herself a bowl of cereal to eat dry and orange-juice-less. "The fancy one that comes in glass bottles?" he asked dryly.
"I'm not about to drink something that comes in plastic," Shatterbird answered, biting the last word with a viciousness she usually reserved for disappointing candidates or people who disagreed with her literary opinions.
"The nearest store that carries the brand is in Burlington, and there's no intact glass left there. I thought you filled up Mannequin's box before you sang."
"I thought we would have moved on by now. I didn't expect we would put everything on hold for weeks to humor some insipid twat who wanted to audition," Shatterbird retorted while viciously sprinkling sea salt over her omelet for punctuation.
Ah. That narrowed it down. Cherish had found them and ambushed Hatchet Face just as they beat a hasty retreat from Burlington to escape reinforcements. They'd commandeered an isolated summer house for the duration of her tests.
This was bad, but still salvageable as long as Cherish didn't join them.
"We will soon enough," Jack answered. "Any preference? You can pick, but keep in mind that we might be looking for a new member by then."
The notion of being in control of their destination seemed to placate Shatterbird for now. That, or the prospect of Cherish dying a horrible death in the very near future.
Jack took a sip from his mug, eyes back on Riley now that one potential crisis was averted.
"You're being awfully quiet today."
The mouthful of cereal she swallowed before speaking felt more like gravel.
"Didn't sleep well," she answered, voice thin.
The lie went unchallenged, which wasn't nearly as much of a relief as it should be. She used to throw tantrums when she didn't get enough sleep, but faking it might give Jack an excuse to go on the offensive.
"Well, Cherie is coming over soon to show us the result of Mannequin's test. That should cheer you up," he said, an amused smile dancing on his lips. "Oh, and we could send her to run those errands while I prepare my test. I'm sure she won't mind."
Shatterbird sneered.
"Make a list," Jack told her, the slightest edge of annoyance coloring his voice, "and be specific enough to avoid a repeat of last time. Entertaining as it was, there's really no need to destroy the house over off-brand purchases. Not while we're still using it."
Shatterbird gave no answer beside the squeak of her knife against the plate.
"Do you know what you'll do? For your test?" Burnscar asked between two spoonfuls of her heinous crime against cereal.
"Eh. I play those by ear," he answered, shrugging.
In the living room, the image on the television shifted as one news report ended and another started. Scion appeared, floating above a forest fire. The footage had been reconstituted for a documentary, but the result was realistic enough to fool anyone who didn't know he couldn't be filmed.
Crawler straightened, the full force of his attention on the golden man. He was probably the only person in the world who genuinely wanted to fight Scion, and the irony was not lost on Riley. Scion was on top of Crawler's bucket list, up there with the Endbringers, Siberian, and that one cape in Juárez who could make all living matter in a fifty feet radius explode violently.
On the screen, Scion raised one hand and the image flashed with golden light. Memories spilled to the surface, too fast to be contained.
Riley bit the inside of her cheek to ground herself in the present, and the cutting material they were lined with pierced the flesh to draw blood. It helped a little, even if this particular present was not one she especially wanted to ground herself into. She swallowed the blood, eyes still on the television.
Would it happen again?
It would be fitting, finding herself with the crushing responsibility of saving the world as penance for the role she played in ending it the first time around. What could she even do about it? Killing Jack seemed like a good first step, but then again, it was a good first step for just about anything she wanted to do in the future.
A problem for later, she decided. Assuming there was a later.
Crawler let out a low growl of disappointment as Scion was replaced with Melinda Martin from Channel 5 News, a much less promising opponent.
"Poppet." Jack cut into her thoughts with a chastising voice. "Elbows off the table."
Riley realized she had stopped eating after Scion appeared onscreen, one hand holding the spoon in her bowl and the other pressed against the cheek she had bitten, elbow on the edge of the table. She hurried to move her arm.
"Sorry."
"Good girl."
Be a good girl.
Riley swallowed another mouthful of gravel and blood.
"Siberian?" Jack continued, "We're trying to set a good example here."
Siberian wordlessly moved the severed arm she was gnawing on so the elbow was off the table too.
Burnscar craned her neck around to look at Jack, the flame in her hand coalescing into familiar outlines. "What time is Cherie coming?"
He took a sip of coffee, and a crease appeared between his eyebrows as he checked the time on the microwave. "She should be here already."
Shit. Riley carefully avoided thinking about anything in particular in the hopes that nothing would show on her face. She mechanically chewed her cereal, eyes on the television.
"Something must have happened. A shame, truly," Shatterbird declared, the edge of a smile poorly concealed in her voice. "Crawler, have you seen anyone interesting on the news? We'll need proper candidates."
The conversation devolved into potential destinations and targets as Riley hurried to finish her cereal and dispose of her dishes.
"You don't even get cold," Shatterbird told Burnscar as Riley walked out of the kitchen.
"Cold weather is still gross. It would be nice to go somewhere warmer."
The living room's floor vibrated with Crawler's rumble of agreement.
"We are not going back to Mexico," Shatterbird snapped at him.
"Bonesaw." Jack's voice cut in just as Riley reached the stairs. Was it her imagination that made the name sound so taunting? "It would be rude to hide away while we're expecting company."
"Mannequin's doing it," she pointed out, pouting as she dragged her feet back into the living room.
"Mannequin doesn't have a recurring 'five more minutes' problem," he answered, his tone final. "Besides, I want everyone at the ready. Young Miss Vasil knows better than to keep us waiting this long. Something's up."
"Are we going out?" Burnscar asked, eyes alight.
"I do believe this requires investigation," Jack said, flicking a pocket knife open. Light reflected off the gleaming metal and into Riley's eyes. "If nothing else, we deserve some entertainment."