Parallax 2.01
"So what I told you was true... from a certain point of view" —Alec Guinness
"So what do you think?" I sat with my legs hanging over the edge of a building in the downtown area. The wind was much stronger at this elevation, the air was much colder at night, so I had wrapped my scarf a bit more tightly than normal and wore a knit cap over my head. My tinted glasses had been stowed in a shoulder pocket as well, useless as they were at this time of day.
They seem like nice people, Jamie answered. She was down at street level pacing the various storefronts and shops that had been closed for the night. Ostensibly I was using my vantage point to spot any suspicious activities along the streets whilst she was making sure there had been no break-ins, but neither of us were wholly focused on our tasks. Flurry's not what I expected.
"I know what you mean," I said. The Flurry in Jamie's world—or Sunny, as our sudden benefactor had named her—was remarkably different from the one in this world. At first the moniker had confused me; when introducing herself to my parents in her civilian guise with the others, she had used a different name.
"It's a nickname," Sunny explained. She
gave a stern glare towards her younger
sister. "Courtesy of Karen, here."
Karen nodded, beaming. "It's cuz
she's got such a sunny disposition.
Fitting, dontcha think?"
At first glance, no. No, it was not fitting at all. 'Sunny' was reserved and polite, keeping her thoughts and feelings close to her chest. However, when compared to 'Flurry', the nickname suddenly seemed to fit remarkably well. Flurry was all business. She was stern. For much of the time that I'd known her I had never once seen her relax. When we were part of her team, she demanded that our work-ethic should meet her high standards. It was difficult to tell when she was pleased, but when annoyed her voice could chill the air.
Sunny shared the precise manner of speaking as her counterpart, but her tone still had an undercurrent of warmth to it. She was much more emotive, she teased and traded jokes with her younger sibling as she'd cooked dinner. There had been a brief moment of chaos as Karen had made a mess whilst retrieving ingredients from the icebox. Sunny had merely chastised her with a tone of long-suffering, which the girl had accepted with a grin and quick apology.
Sunny apparently had no problems with preparing a nutritional soup of some kind for Jamie on such short notice. The practiced manner and the speed with which she'd cooked the meal suggested we weren't the first people she'd played host for. The change of worn but clean clothes she'd provided Jamie to wear for the night had only reinforced that impression. There had been no real chance to ask any questions, however, because once she'd been fed Jamie had wheeled herself to a spare bedroom and dumped herself on top of the bed there, passing out almost instantly. I had stayed a bit longer, making sure our hosts didn't try anything suspicious, until my own body had woken up and pulled me back.
The two of us had resumed our nightly patrol out of sheer habit, the familiar task helping by giving a sense of normality after such a confusing day. It gave me time to think about everything that had happened to me recently. Flurry was keeping tabs on me. Having worked in a supporting role for so long, I had been the least likely of heroes to strike out on their own. After having woken up and showered, I'd found a text from her with a short message.
Be advised. Suspected supervillain activities reported in Bristol over the past week.
Detail-oriented and obsessive to the point where she had probably been keeping up with the reports I'd been filing with the town authorities. It was a bit grating how she seemed to be micromanaging my activities. However, seeing Sunny's interaction with her sister made me rethink about Flurry's core motives. Maybe, in her own way, Flurry was worried about me. After all, although I hadn't been planning on crossing the River Severn into the larger city, in the unlikely event that I did, she was at least making sure that I wasn't caught unawares.
My actions back at the clinic were another concern. Looking back, I couldn't pinpoint the reason I'd gone and done what I had. Jamie could have bluffed the nurse in the same manner she'd done to get past the front desk on the ground floor. The woman may have even been somewhat sympathetic, easy to convince to simply keep quiet for however long it took to get some distance away from the building. But instead, I'd immediately gone for the brutal knockout. I couldn't recall any earlier incident where I'd responded to a situation with that much violence.
I carefully concealed my thoughts from Jamie. She was just getting used to the idea of having a life of her own, just getting used to the idea that her life had already been sidetracked by the disappearance of every other person she knew. I didn't want to add my own suspicions—that I was turning into some sort of psychopath—to her troubles.
Hey, James? her voice was wavering, sounding uncertain. She was making that voice too often lately.
I wanted to hit myself. Here I was wallowing in my own inconsequential concerns whilst Jamie was going through a literally life-changing event. I immediately perked up and cast out my senses through the link.
"What is it?" I asked sharply, ready to move at a moment's notice. I didn't sense any residual angst from her. Had she found something? There was no movement in her immediate area. Looking at the walls didn't show me any notices or posters that might have warranted closer scrutiny.
Then I looked down, finally noticing what had caught her attention.
She was staring down at a box set against the building. A box of kittens. At this late hour they were asleep, but even as I watched, Jamie stretched out a blue, see-through hand as if to pet them. The fur of one shivered at her proximity and the kitten suddenly blinked awake and shot to its feet, arching its back and hissing.
Her mental voice took on that special syrupy-sweet tone people generally took on when confronted by kitties and ducklings. Do you think I could have one?
...
"Huh, I was going to ask if you had slept well, but you look like you've risen on the wrong side of the bed this morning." Karen poked her head out of the lavatory, toothbrush in hand as Jamie wheeled past the hallway.
"Bad dream," Jamie grumbled. "I got in a fight with myself and lost."
If a wheelchair had eyes, I would be using them to look away and whistle innocently.
Jamie yawned and used one hand to rub at her eyes, the other hand fidgeting with the collar of her pyjamas. Evidently, some time after she had fallen asleep one of our hosts must have changed her and tucked her into bed.
Karen nodded sympathetically before ducking her head back inside and rinsing her mouth out. She left the lavatory a few moments later and began moving down the hall. "Here, follow me for a sec."
Seeing no harm in the request, I pushed Jamie forward after the girl. Karen pushed open a door at the other end of the hallway and beckoned Jamie forward. Entering the room, I had to control my impulse to make a surprised exclamation.
It was a bedroom slightly larger than the one Jamie had been put in, one clearly decorated for a permanent resident. Clothes littered the floor and the bed was unmade in the casual sloppiness one might expect from a teenager. The walls were painted in a bright red, with yellow accents along the windows and doorframes and a yellow carpet. At least, I assumed the walls were red, from what little I could see of them.
Posters and photographs covered nearly every available space. Several official-looking shots of various superhero teams from around the world. The King's Men were in evidence, but for the most part it was the American teams that stared back at us. No real surprise there—if this world was anything like mine, then the Protectorate heavily promoted their own heroes globally.
Wow... a cape geek, Jamie sent over the link with a slightly awed tone. "Um, this is... quite an impressive collection you've got here," she said hesitantly.
"Isn't it?" Karen gushed. She had brushed past us the moment Jamie had frozen in place, moving over to a dresser and began pulling out clothing at random. "The posters you can get from anywhere, but high-quality images of stuff like this?" She flicked her hand towards the corner of the room. An equally messy desk was stood there with a computer set on top of it. A bulletin board was on the wall above it, covered with newspaper clippings and printed copies of various photographs. A blurry photo, probably taken from an extreme distance, showed a formation of red and black-costumed capes standing at attention. Not any team that I recognized. "This stuff is hard to find!"
I longed to get closer to the photograph, but leaving the wheelchair would give me away. Even from here, though, it still seemed too fuzzy to make out any real details. This was high-quality? My curiosity had been aroused, however, so I nudged Jamie with a thought.
"Does your interest in capes come from your sister?" she asked.
Karen shook her head. "Sunny? Nah, she hates capes. Thinks they're a waste of air, quite frankly. She thinks I'm completely mental when it comes to this sort of stuff. That it's a monumental waste of money. But hey, it's my allowance!"
Sunny hated capes? Maybe she was just hiding her activities from her sister. The thought seemed alien to me, although I knew most capes probably operated under the same level of secrecy.
"What does your sister do?" Jamie asked.
Karen frowned at the seemingly sudden change of subject. "She volunteers at a food bank. That's why we're here, actually." She draped a handful of blouses over one arm and began holding them in front of Jamie one by one with the other, discarding each one on the bed as she cycled through them. "Your clothes are in the wash, although I have to say they're cleaner than I expected them to be. You look about my size, so I'm giving you a loaner so she can take you to pick up some nosh for yourself. She needs to vouch for you, you see."
"Huh?" Jamie asked eloquently.
Karen had set aside a faded blue blouse and was now going through pairs of trousers. She gave Jamie a curious look. "They don't just give out food to any bloke or bird that wanders in from the streets, you know. You need to be referred there in order for them to pay out. Haven't you done this before?"
"Um, I... " Jamie floundered briefly before I touched her mind again. "I haven't been... like this... until recently. I'm sort of new to this charity thing."
"Aww, poor thing," Karen commiserated. She unceremoniously tossed the blouse and a set of black slacks at Jamie's head, making the girl yelp in surprise. A jumper and a set of underthings landed in her lap moments later. "Well, that should be good enough for a day trip. Get yourself changed and meet Sunny in the kitchen when you're ready. Just leave the pyjamas on your bed, I'll take care of them later."
Jamie clawed her way free and stared down at the pile of clothes in her lap, sputtering. "Wha—I don't need... I..." She fell silent as she was reminded of her current circumstances. After a few moments she lifted her head with a somewhat troubled expression on her face. "T-thank you," she whispered.
Karen waved her hand flippantly. "It's not a big deal," she said dismissively. She grinned. "All in a day's work around here, you could say."
ooo
"How long have you been homeless?" Sunny asked as she drove Jamie down the street.
"M'not homeless," Jamie grumbled, hunched down in her seat. "I've got a home, it's just temporarily under new management."
"I see," Sunny said. The phrase, used so often used by Flurry to give up the argument and move the discussion along, was a familiar enough touchstone that Jamie found herself relaxing in spite of herself. "My apologies. How long have you been on your own, then?"
"I'm—" Jamie hesitated, unsure how to word a response to that question without revealing my presence. She turned her head to stare out the window, watching the scenery as it passed by. "I don't know," she said.
Sunny's car was a white hatchback, an old enough model to have been bought used, or simply well-maintained. Given the occasional hiccups in it's motor and the practiced manner in which the older woman handled the transmission, I assumed the latter. Not that I was a car-aficionado, but I was currently a car-person of sorts. While Sunny had explained her plans for the day to Jamie, I had taken the opportunity to sneak outside and possess the car parked directly in front of the walkway. Fortunately I had guessed correctly, although there would have been no problems to simply switch vehicles if I had been wrong.
Karen, dressed in the uniform she had been wearing the previous night, had watched from the doorway as Sunny helped Jamie into the passenger seat and stowed the wheelchair in the boot. I wasn't sure if it was just random curiosity or if she was looking for something specific. She stood there for a good minute or so, until Sunny reminded her about her classes and the younger girl yelped and dove back inside to fetch her school bags. In the meantime, I was busy getting a crash course in 'How To Move a Car 101'. I usually got around the town on foot and public transit, so this was something of a new experience for me.
We arrived at a wide, squat building, pulling into a lot just to one side. It was mostly brick and mortar, unpainted except for a line of graffiti covering the wall facing the parking lot. Gang signs, artist tags, and even a colorful rendition of an Asiatic-style dragon. I extracted myself discreetly from the car, rather than confine myself to Jamie's wheelchair. Figuratively stretching out my legs, I rose to the building's roof level, hoping nobody would chance upon me by looking up, and ducked inside.
When I'd heard Karen talking about her sister working at a food bank, I'd assumed she meant something like a cafeteria filled with people living in shelters—the kind that's usually seen on the telly. What I saw instead was something like the cross between a grocer and a warehouse, with large pallets of preserved foods stacked in several aisles. An area to one side had been cleared aside from a long table, with more perishable goods piled along its length.
Instead of dirty, grungy homeless people, I saw ordinary-looking men and women browsing the aisles, pushing trolleys that they used to stack their selections on. The pile of fruits and vegetables on the long table were being attended by a group of people wearing aprons; they appeared to be sorting through them and creating identical food baskets.
Sunny was pushing Jamie through the front entrance now, explaining how food banks like this usually supported shelters and group homes. Most of the people with the trolleys were actually employees or volunteers of those organisations, while the food baskets the volunteers were putting together were destined for another location. Sunny worked as a volunteer supervisor, coordinating the efforts of other volunteers and helping to determine where the food would be sent to.
I supposed it made sense. If this was Sunny's side-job, then she could be helping people even when not out on patrols. Working with the local shelters could have given her an informal intelligence network whenever villains tried to hide in the more down-trodden parts of the town. It was brilliant, I only wished I had thought of something like it before.
Jamie picked up on my musings, but she mentally shook her head, even as she continued listening to her chaperone. I dunno, James. Being a supervisor seems like a full-time job. I'm not entirely sure—
A sudden noise from outside reverberated throughout the food bank and all activity paused briefly. When the sound—a loud crash or bang—repeated itself again, this time with shouts and yells, the mood immediately shifted. A few of the 'shoppers' looked confused, but the packaging group at the tables immediately dropped whatever baskets they had been working on and gathered up the completed ones, fleeing for the back doors. A few workers out on the floor tried to gather up the various customers and herd them in the same direction. Sunny kept her hands on Jamie's wheelchair, backing away from the doorway she'd just entered.
Stay hidden, Jamie ordered me. It's just a bunch of chavs marching in on us. Mixed group, lots of shinies.
I focused through her eyes and saw a fairly disagreeable group of young men and women. Nearly all of them were dressed in collared shirts, tracksuit bottoms, and draped with enough jewelry to make them fairly effective solar reflectors. Baseball caps were evident, many of them burberry-patterned. Through Jamie's ears I could hear Sunny muttering something about having recently received a food shipment.
"Oy! 'Ello beautiful!" one of the teens called out. "Nice place you've got here, yeah? Got a lotta food 'ere!"
Jamie's eyes were wide as Sunny stepped around her, placing herself between the growing crowd.
"Please leave," the older woman stated flatly. "We are charged with distributing these supplies to the needy and less fortunate."
"Oh, oh! That's us right? That's us ain't it?" The spokesperson pressed his hand against his chest as he turned and surveyed his friends. "We're totally needy people, we need that stuff you've got there. Totally needy, totally unfortunate!"
The crowd behind him murmured in agreement. Shouted. Hooted. From my vantage point, hovering just below the ceiling, I could see Sunny's jaw tightening. It was rare to see Flurry ever lose her cool. I felt somewhat voyeuristic, eagerly awaiting the moment she got so fed up she began using her powers on the mob.
"Please leave," she repeated. "If you truly need assistance, we have brochures next to the door where you can get in contact with a social worker to evaluate your living conditions."
Um, Big Brother, about that...
The spokesman apparently didn't like the fact that Sunny wasn't backing down. He stomped towards her at a half crouch, leaning slightly forward until he reached her, then straightening back up to his full height. I assumed the idea was to give the impression that he was looming over her—possibly very effective if he wasn't dealing with somebody like Sunny, but then there was no way for him to kno—
Sunny took a step back.
Eh? I wasn't sure who emoted in that split second. It was most likely me, although the shocked expression on Jamie's face made me think twice about that. Even as the chav took an extra step forward, leering at his dominance over the older woman, my mind was occupied with thoughts along the lines of, What in the world?!
Sunny had submitted. Flurry never backed down from a fight she knew she could win. Maybe it was pride, maybe it was stubborn determination, it didn't matter to me. Whenever we had gotten into sticky situations in the past, Flurry was always the one to calmly evaluate the situation and find the path to victory. Once she found it, she followed through with a ruthless efficiency that had Wu singing her praises for days. Well, maybe hours. If none existed, she backed off without any fuss and forced us to do the same until circumstances were more in our favor.
I was beginning to wonder if Jamie's world was some kind of bizarro universe when Sunny suddenly pivoted on her front foot and brought her trailing knee into the teen's stomach. He tried to avoid it, but that extra step forward she had lured him into taking robbed him of distance and he took her strike solidly. She used that same leg to hook around behind him and tripped him, stepping forward to plant her knee against his back and pin his arm beneath him.
The group of teens roared in outrage and surged together as one unit, but were forced back as a ball of fire arced over their heads and hit the pavement in front of them. Jamie and I snapped our heads up to stare towards the back of the mob, even as they spun around to find the intruder. Sunny, for her part, simply closed her eyes in resignation.
"What the fuck are you useless sacs of meat doing in my territory?" an irate, abrasive voice shouted.
The crowd parted before a male figure costumed in red and gold armour. His helmet was long and narrow with silvery horns flaring out from the back. He had a collar cut along similar lines, his entire helmet resembling a dragon's head, with his mouth the only part showing through the dragon's teeth. His arms were covered in similar-looking scaled armour, with just his fingertips showing. On the backs of his gauntlets were two miniature dragon heads, one of them smoking from where the fireball had evidently come from.
"Well?" the cape looked around at the assembled crowd with a sneer on the visible portions of his face. He reached up to touch the miniature dragon and threw another fireball straight into the ground below him, forcing the mob to scatter. "Didn't any of you numbskulls see my sign on the building wall? What do you think you're doing?!"
The building wall? My mind suddenly flashed back to the red dragon I had mistaken for simple graffiti. Not a Welsh dragon, I suddenly realized. A Chinese dragon.
Apparently the remaining chavs thought they were in the middle of a footrace, because they seemed to have no problem continuing with it. Their finish lines must have been in various parts of the city, because they didn't seem to care which direction they started running in as they fled the food bank.
Sunny lifted herself off from her former assailant and he too wasted no time in chasing after the rest of his pack. Her expression was impassive as she stared at the cape. "Stay put, don't move," she told Jamie, speaking from the corner of her mouth. "I'll be right back."
She walked towards the cape calmly and I moved in closer to get a better look. She stopped several paces from where he was standing and crossed her arms. "That was unnecessary," she said. Her voice was pitched low enough that Jamie would have trouble hearing her from where she was. Fortunately, I had no such restrictions.
The dragon cape crossed his own arms, matching her pose. "I'm protecting my assets," he countered. "I told you before, you work for me, I take care of my own."
Sunny waved one hand towards the wall where I knew the 'sign' had been painted. "Your people put that mark there, but I never agreed to anything. We can take care of ourselves."
"Su~ure," he drawled. "Just like you were about to 'take care' of over a dozen young punks."
Sunny paused, the closest the cape was going to get to concession of his point. "I don't want you here," she said bluntly.
He grinned and spread his arms wide, dipping into a mock bow. "You don't really have a choice. Whether you like it or not, this territory is mine. The Bristol heroes can't touch me. I'm just sli~ightly inoffensive enough so that the London teams wont bother to come over either. You're... simply human. You have no support. Give it a try, I offer protection from thugs like those jokers."
I blinked in surprise. Simply human? Another stray memory suddenly clicked into my head, Jamie's discussion with Karen.
"Sunny? Nah, she hates capes. Thinks
they're a waste of air, quite frankly."
"You offer extortion," Sunny said with finality. "Nothing good can ever come from negotiating with a villain."
A villain?!
I told you so, Big Brother, Jamie sent.
The dragon cape grinned and raised his hand towards Sunny's cheek. She brushed it away irritably. "So principled," he said. "So willing to stand your ground. I admire that, you know."
"Admire something else," Sunny said between her teeth. She was clearly fighting the urge to sock him in the face, helmet or no.
He gave her a measured glance, then turned his back on her and began to walk away. "My offer stands," he said. "I could really use someone like you in my group."
Sunny said nothing, spinning on her heel and marching stiff-legged back towards Jamie.
My mind reeled with the sudden series of revelations. Sunny was a normal human being. The dragon cape, I recognized his voice, his casual mockery. The dancing dragon he used for his symbol. That was Wu Lung.
And he was a villain?!
ooo
a/n—and part 2 begins! as always, feel free to leave a comment or question regarding the plot or characterisations. to any UK readers out there, especially those who live in southern wales/bristol areas, feel free to nitpick my grammar, use of landmarks, or other things. i could probably use the help.
thanks, and enjoy as we get the second arc underway!