Chapter 8-5

Our meeting with Glory Girl wasn't a success.

No, that's an understatement. I wasn't really sure what you'd call screw-up like that. Mom would probably use words like 'abysmal' or 'disgraceful'. Me, though? Simply a failure. Lisa and I had a task and we couldn't complete it. We were supposed to spur Glory Girl into action and it didn't work.

Apparently, people don't react rationally when you tell them their sister has a crush on them. How about that.

I should have known. If our roles had been reversed…actually, I would have listened. There was no reason not to, the logic was sound, and acting on the information couldn't have made things worse. Glory Girl didn't share my point of view, though. The question of whether that speaks poorly of me or her is left unanswered.

I found Lisa in a hallway, slowly and rhythmically bumping her head against the wall. "I fucked up." She said. "You too, by the way. We both fucked up."

"I'd hoped that Glory Girl was a little more rational than that. Apparently, I was wrong." I admitted. "It has some…unfortunate implications."

"Unfortunate implications?" Lisa repeated, incredulously.

"When I go out on patrol, I need to hold back to keep myself from accidentally snapping someone in half with my bare hands. With a temper like that, it's a miracle that she hasn't crippled someone already."

"Not a miracle." Lisa said with a snort. "Panacea. Poor thing follows her around like a puppy."

"Guess that explains much." I added morosely. "So what's your excuse?"

Her eyes lowered. "Have you felt that aura?"

"Yes, I have. I know it makes it hard to think but…"

"But what? Not everyone's made of fucking iron, Taylor." Lisa bumped her head with a bit more force now. "You know why I keep getting headaches? Information overload. If I don't clamp down on my power, bad things happen. With that stupid aura, it's practically impossible to keep a lid on it all."

"I think I understand."

"No, you don't. I was stuck, a mile in the air, with my power telling me all the ways I was going to die horribly if I hit the ground. My only lifeline was fucking Glory Girl, and I had to tell her that her sister was in love with her. Oh, and she knew that I was a villain and therefore hates me by default cause loverboy apparently can't keep is damn mouth shut. So I pretty much blurted out the first thing that came to mind and…well, you know the rest."

I paused, trying to think of the right thing to say. "I guess there's no good way of breaking something like that."

"Maybe not, but I could have done better. I should have eased her into it. Maybe start with smaller stuff, like her mother being shit at being a mom. I shouldn't have flat-out told her that." Lisa sighed, then punched the wall. "Shouldn't have let her take me into the air. It was over the moment she did."

"Didn't look like you had much choice in the matter."

"I could have kept my goddamn mouth shut until she put me down."

"Like you've ever been able to do that…"

She tried to glare back, but there was a ghost of a smile on her face. "Low blow, Taylor."

"So, what now?" I asked as I started moving back to the monitor room. I still had a job, after all. Having Carlos cover for me for a few minutes was fine, but I couldn't stay away forever.

"Honestly? I don't think there's anything we can do. We push this and Glory Girl's going to get bitchy. I don't think that's in anyone's best interest."

"We can't just sit around and do nothing."

"Well, what are we supposed to do? Panacea hides from her problems and we can't force her to confront them without pushing her too far. Glory Girl obviously isn't listening, and there isn't anyone else that Panacea's going to believe. Right now, I think we should wait and hope that Panpan either mans up or that Glory Girl's started to wonder if we might have a point."

I frowned. Not what I wanted to hear. "That's not a very good plan."

"Yeah, well, I'm done playing good Samaritan for a while." Lisa said as we approached the monitor room. "She threw me around like a fucking yoyo when I was just trying to help. Fuck that bitch. If it weren't for her sister being a harbinger of the apocalypse, I'd have told her where to stuff it."

"Told who what?" Carlos suddenly asked.

"You weren't using your power." Lisa told me, chidingly.

"No. Didn't think I needed to."

Carlos cleared his throat. "So, ladies, what exactly was that with you and Glory Girl?"

I let Lisa answer the question. "Just girl things. Nothing that concerns the team."

"Really?" Carlos flipped on a screen in front of us. "There are cameras on the roof, you know? You can access them from here. I couldn't tell what you guys were talking about, but Glory Girl looked really upset. So did you, Lisa. You couldn't even walk straight. What did she do?"

Calmly, she replied: "Let's just say that I found out something personal about the Dallons. I tried to warn Glory Girl about it and she didn't take it well. End of story."

"I believe her exact words were 'tossed you around a little'. That's Victorianese for 'show the criminal scum who's boss'. What happened?"

"Nothing bad. We talked it over and I'm fine."

I couldn't help but frown. Lisa was being oddly evasive. Why wouldn't she want to tell what Glory Girl did to her? As far as I understood it, Victoria pretty much tossed her around like a ragdoll. She could have been killed. Yeah, she said something horrible, but that's no excuse.

Now that I think of it, why the hell would Glory Girl react like that? She was part of New Wave. You'd think that she, of all people, would know better than to attack a Ward. Why did she think she could get away with it?

Then it hit me: she was one of the most popular heroes in town and she had Panacea. The latter takes care of any physical evidence, the former means that people will dismiss any accusations against her. No one has ever been willing or able to stop her. Kind of like Sophia…

"Tell him." I commanded.

"What? No. I don't want to make this anything more than it is."

"Lisa, what she did…that's reckless endangerment at best, assault with a parahuman power at worst. Fuck, she's a bully with a badge. You can't look the other way, or she's just going to get worse."

Lisa's face contorted in a way I couldn't quite place. Pity? Annoyance? Resignation? "Look, we try to arrest Glory Hole, the story's going to go viral. I mean, it's fucking Victoria Dallon. She's can't walk down a street without someone posting it online."

"Doesn't matter. Being the queen bee doesn't mean she gets away with this."

"You don't get it." Lisa almost pleaded. "This isn't just about Glory Girl. If we bring her in for attacking me, the first question on everyone's mind is: What did Insight do to deserve that? Glory hole is popular, so there's gonna be victim blaming one way or another. Then, someone is going to find out about my past, which would be bad for everyone involved."

"No one's going to find out about your past, Lisa." Carlos said, reassuringly. "There are laws protecting our secret identities."

"Right, like that's going to help. Glory Girl found out, remember?"

The boss's eyes widened. "What? But…It was Dean, wasn't it? Goddammit, I'll talk to him later. Still…"

"Laws won't stop Glory Girl from running her mouth. Even if she doesn't talk, the people will want to know why she did it and if we start quoting mask laws, it'll sound like we've got something to hide."

"Which we do." I added. Fuck, she kind of had a point. "You robbed a bank and got two years of community service for it. I can imagine what that looks like to someone who doesn't know there whole story."

"Then," she continued. "there's the part where the PRT pretty much bullied my parents into letting me join the Wards. If my secret identity gets leaked to the media along with my history… They could stir up a full. Have me send back to jail, or worse, back to my parents. I kind of like where I am now, so I'm not rocking the boat over anything short of a serious death threat."

"And dropping you from a mile high isn't?" I asked incredulously.

"She was never going to let me hit the ground. She wanted me to think that, but she was never going to let it happen. Power told me. Glory Girl's just the kind of person who likes to play 'bad cop'. Look, I know you can't stand bullies, but please, let this go, for all our sakes."

I shook my head. "I don't think I should. She could have killed you, Lisa. You don't just get a slap on the wrist for that."

"Taylor, that's not even close to as bad as what I did. Besides, capes like Glory Girl? Way too popular and way too useful to send to jail. No, people like her get placed in the Wards, kind of like I was. You really want that?"

I sighed in defeat. She was right. It was sickening to think another bully was going to get away with what they've done, but that didn't change the fact that going after Glory Girl was more trouble than it's worth. Letting her go was the sensible thing to do, which probably says a lot about the world we live in. "Yeah, we don't need a loose cannon with a hate-on for us on the team. It'll probably end badly. Not to mention the whole mind-rape aura thing."

Carlos studied the both of us and frowned. "Okay, it's nice that you two are agreeing and all that, but we still have a problem on our hands. Glory Girl just assaulted a Ward without provocation. I can't look the other way, not without making it look like we're approving of that kind of behavior. I'm sorry, but she crossed the line." From the tone of his voice, I could tell that he didn't want to do it. I didn't envy the position we've put him in.

"Carlos, please." Lisa warned. "You'll only make things worse."

"Look, at least tell me why? What did you tell her?"

Seeing no alternative, Lisa explained everything. About the issues between the Dallon sisters, about Panacea's power, and anything else she could think of. Throughout it all, I could see Carlos getting more and more exasperated.

When she was done, Carlos sighed. "And of course, neither of you talked to me about this. You, Lisa, because you don't trust my judgement, and you, Taylor, because asking for help just doesn't occur to you. What a mess." He didn't sound angry, just disappointed. "Does Dean know about any of this?"

Lisa shook her head. "No. With his relationship and the fact that he's almost certainly compromised by the aura, he won't be able to look at this rationally."

"I see. In the future, I want you two to talk to me, okay? I know neither of you really trust me with the important things, but please…I can't be a team captain if I don't know what's going on. The…"

Suddenly, the radio switched on and Armsmaster's voice crackled through. "Wards Console. Come in. I repeat, Wards Console, come in." He sounded…not panicked, but there was a certain seriousness to his tone. More so than usual.

That couldn't possibly be a good sign.

I grabbed the radio and replied. "Console here."

"Recall all the Wards immediately. On duty, off duty, all of them."

"Of course, sir. What's going-" Before I could finish my question, he cut the connection. "-on?"

"That sounds ominous." Carlos muttered. Clearly a master of the understatement. I ignored him and started making the calls. Whatever it was, it must have been important.

Moments later, a group of PRT vans came screaming towards the station. Voices filled the space below me, faster than I could keep track of.

"…hold on, puppy. Just hold on. Help's on the way, okay? Please don't die on me. Please…"

"…Put pressure on the wound, dammit! We won't let him bleed out. Already lost too many…"

"…keep your eye on them, Simmons. Any of them turn, shoot. Don't think, just shoot. They're already…"

Eventually, I found Armsmaster and Director Renick in the cacophony. "…did you do? This was supposed to be a simple clean-up."

"Resistance was heavier than anticipated. I did not realize the infected retained stability for as long as they did." Came Armsmaster's reply.

"You said the virus was crippled already! Virtually harmless! Now, look at what happened!"

"Director, I won't deny that the creatures were much more powerful than we anticipated but we can still stop them. We have identified their leader and the strengths and weaknesses of the various strains. If we call in some reinforcements, I can lead a team…"

"It's already out of my hands, Armsmaster. Quarantine has just been enacted and Washington is clamoring for a purge. Unless you can pull a miracle out of your ass, we're going to have to evacuate."

"That won't be necessary. Like I said, we can stop this. I just need more manpower and…"

Carlos shook me out of my concentration. "Hey, what's going on?"

What was going on? That's the million dollar question, wasn't it? I didn't know what to say. There was too little information to go on and all of it was bad. I looked to Lisa, but she was no help either: the villainess just stared at me, eyes wide and skin pale. It looked like she'd seen a ghost. Then the Endbringer alarms started blaring.

There was only one thing to say. I didn't know how or why, but that didn't change the fundamental truth about our current predicament.

"We're fucked."