Author's Note: My apologies for the formatting in this chapter. It may be hard to read on mobile devices. Lisa's power doesn't mesh well with FFN formatting restrictions.
Chapter 35: Headaches
March 29, 2011
Lisa glanced around the tiny boutique more out of habit than anything else. Given her current circumstances there was more risk than gain in scamming tourists, but it was good to stay in practice.
Two girls working behind the counter, chatting. It didn't take her power to know they were discussing boys (or possibly girls - crushes, anyways) because both were blushing. A single woman who was pretending to be thirty was browsing through jeans intended to be worn by women who were twenty.
Make-up application, brand choice: real age is forty-two years old.
Diamond ring, platinum band: bought within the last two years. Not a wedding ring.
Ring finger very thin, thin in places different than the current ring: she had previously had a wedding ring, and was now wearing a different one.
Wearing imitation wedding ring: husband cheated, and then divorced her.
Lisa cut her power down as much as possible, trying to look over the woman with her own eyes, but it was impossible. She was able to notice details such as the leather jacket that was at least two years out of style, the heels that were barely scuffed, and the corner of the flyer for a free concert peeking out of the purse made of genuine leather, but it was as much her power as it was her.
This woman had certainly fallen on hard times recently, and was pretending she hadn't. With this new information, Lisa opened her gift up again, letting the power off the proverbial leash.
Expensive tastes: ex-husband bought gifts when he was feeling guilty.
Keeping up appearances: hoping to find another rich man who would take care of her.
Well, that she could have probably guessed from human nature, if her power would let her think alone. At least there was no trace of a headache yet.
Shaking her head, Lisa glanced back towards the rack of skirts she was flipping through before the store girls got suspicious. She was trying to make more of her own observations, drawing minor conclusions, before bringing her full power to bear. She thought that it made the headaches a little less, but it wasn't simple or even quantifiable. Casual people watching, like today, was good practice though.
The only other people in the boutique were two teenage girls who were hanging out only in the clearance section, and neatly drawing all of the limited attention that the clerks could spare from their gossip.
The tall one with curly hair held up a simple, black sweater, and her friend crinkled her forehead, before shooting the sweater down. "We found that cute black top at the Market yesterday. Do they have it in green?"
Tall and Curly placed the sweater back on the clearance rack and flipped unenthusiastically to a green halter top.
Unenthusiastic shopper: doing this for her friend, thinks her friend needs this, doesn't value her own opinions, is depressed.
Listens to her friend's judgement: younger of the two, wants to be a help.
Blond and Athletic watched her friend's progress through the clearance items. An exceptionally loud giggle from the counter drew the eyes of Tall and Curly, and Blond and Athletic followed her friend's gaze, then she glanced back at the rack, holding up a dark green top that she'd been looking at for the past few minutes.
Didn't glance up herself: Deaf.
Deaf but speaks without a noticeable accent: was hearing until recently.
Casual about following line-of-sight and exposing her back: has been Deaf for quite some time.
Lisa quickly dropped her gaze back to the clothes in front of her and took a deep breath, cutting her power down to a trickle. No thinker headache.
It wasn't unusual for her power to be wrong, or to contradict itself, but to do so right now? Typically, that happened more often when she was pushing for obscure answers, or trying to gather information quickly, or as new data became available. Two back-to-back answers, completely opposed to each other, based on the same amount of information, without Lisa overextending her power was… unusual. Very unusual. She didn't like what it implied. Cautiously, she glanced back to the two teens and observed Blond and Deaf with her own senses, keeping as tight a hold on her power as possible.
Blond and Deaf was clearly shopping for her friend, based on the sizes she was selecting, and she was doing a decent job of finding cuts that would work for the tall, slender girl. She was dressed comfortably, but not so casually that she stood out, in Contract-style jeans and a white top. She was short but strong. She was wearing no jewelry or accessories of any kind. Very soft makeup.
Stance, movement, posture: uncomfortable in body, recent growth spurt.
Recent growth spurt: mid teens.
Word choice, confidence, makeup: early twenties.
Casual management of friend, mentorship, fondness in smile: late twenties.
Age was usually a pretty simple deduction, especially for people under the age of thirty where her power could pick up biological information as well as social behaviors. Widely divergent answers were… troubling. Lisa switched her gaze over to Tall and Curly.
Posture, clothes choice: fifteen years old, give or take a year.
Okay, so the taller girl was easy to read, and her power was only affected by the short blond. What could interfere with her power? Another cape? As soon as she wondered it, Lisa tried to seize on her power, but it was too late.
Blond cape, 5 feet 3 inches, teenager to young adult, Contract-style clothes: Contract.
Contract rumored to be resistant to thinkers: Contract is resistant to thinkers.
Lisa froze in brief panic, then forced herself to keep flipping shirts. She moved around the rack until her back was facing the rest of the boutique and shut her eyes. She monitored her breathing.
Contract. She was standing just feet away from a hero who had, just ten days before, wiped out the Endbringers. She was standing next to the cape who killed the Endbringers and Lisa had seen her face. She knew her secret identity. Crap. Okay. Deep breath. Maybe this was no big deal. It wasn't like there was any way for Contract to know that she'd been spotted in her civilian identity while hanging out with her civilian friend. Again, her power slipped free, evaluating that assumption.
Tall and Curly wants approval from Contract, but doesn't know which clothes to suggest to get it: recent friendship following isolation.
Recent friendship; Contract moved to Brockton Bay recently; Contract out and about with Tall and Curly: Tall and Curly is also a cape.
Crap. Double crap. Now she had the identity of two Wards, because she didn't need her power to tell her that the tall cape with dark, curly hair and self-confidence issues was the recently triggered Beetle.
Lisa forced herself to continue breathing evenly as she finally managed to cut off the information stream from her power. She had to approach the situation logically. She had options. She could go home, and pretend she knew nothing.
Contract destroyed Endbringers: Protectorate using thinkers and precogs to search for threats to Contract.
Coil would love to control Contract; my continued association with Coil might allow him to discover this information: Precogs might be able to pick up on that.
Well, that was out. Staying silent would do her no good, and might bring the government down on her head. Lisa could go to Coil, and sell him the information. This time, she purposefully turned her power onto the problem. She could feel a headache beginning to form, and she knew it was due in part to the way she was struggling against her power.
Coil has already exhibited distain for you, and a willingness to hurt you: Coil wants to control you.
Coil wants to control: will use secret identity to blackmail you. Highly unlikely to offer any protection or benefit for the information.
Coil wants to control you: might want to control Contract.
Protectorate would see Coil as a threat: Protectorate thinkers could trace information source to you.
Precogs might miss Coil as a threat; Coil has people in the PRT: might already have the secret identity, would still be willing to use it as blackmail to control you.
So there was nothing to gain and possibly everything to lose from volunteering the information to Coil. That was almost a relief, because it left her only one option. She had to break free of Coil. But how? She'd already been trying to do that, since the day he put a gun to her head, and while this increased the urgency of the situation it didn't change the basic facts.
New Wave was closed to her. They would turn her in for being a villain, and even if they dealt with Coil, Lisa's power had suggested that they wouldn't do it fast enough to keep his people from killing her.
She couldn't go to the Protectorate or the PRT for fear of not knowing exactly who she could trust. And there was the same issue of being vulnerable if she was arrested. Lisa had tried to work out what she might be able to say that would force the Protectorate to take Coil seriously without revealing that she was a cape, but hadn't been successful thus far.
She might be able to go to the Wards, specifically Beetle or Contract. She could beg for their help, or in the worst case scenario try to blackmail them with the knowledge of their real faces. The second was dangerous: you do not blackmail capes that swat Endbringers. But the first… she might be able to pull it off. It would be incredibly risky, but if she could approach one of the Wards in their civilian identity, and get her story believed somehow, and also convince them that Coil had people in the PRT, they might be able to do something without alerting his moles.
More importantly, they might be willing to do it outside of the regulations that would tip Coil off, since they were both new Wards.
The problem then became how to approach the Wards under Coil's nose. Probability manipulation, if that was his power as she suspected, was incredibly powerful. But his power might have a limitation she could use. Coil frequently called her just before a job, to give the red or green light. He also called with last-minute advice or changes. Whatever the exact mechanics of his probability manipulation, it was seemed to be limited to immediate action.
So the first key was to make it away from here safely. She wasn't going to be a threat to Contract, so the Protectorate shouldn't see her. And she wasn't going to do anything to hurt Coil for at least forty-eight hours, to try to keep him in the dark.
With this resolution set firmly in her mind, Lisa put one foot in front of the other and walked out of the boutique, down the street, and got on the first city bus she saw. She didn't go back to the Undersiders' base. Instead, she ended up riding the bus to the end of the line, near one of Brockton Bay's libraries. She went inside, then wandered into the historical fiction section and sat down against the books, out of sight of anyone who might be looking.
Lisa had seen Contract. She'd stood within reaching distance from her. She'd used her power, however successfully or unsuccessfully, on her. Lisa was a villain, but she was still breathing. After a moment to let all of that sink in, she leaned her head back against the shelving and just thought.
When Contract had initially come out to Brockton Bay, Lisa hadn't been able to figure out many details as to why. Her two TV interviews the day of the Simurgh's last attack hadn't been much help either. At the time, Lisa had assumed that the weird answers she'd gotten from pushing her power had been a result of trying too hard, the interference from second hand observation rather than personal contact, and overuse of her power.
Now, she knew that some of the problems likely stemmed from Contract herself, and her thinker resistance. Still, were there things she could infer about Contract based on how the PRT and Protectorate were treating her?
Contract not under guard or surveillance: trusted, capable of self-defense.
Well, that much was obvious. A cape who ate Endbringers was capable of self-defense. Thanks thinker power, never would have guessed that otherwise! Lisa sighed, and laid her head in her hands.
If she could make it through the next forty-eight hours without Coil or a PRT hit squad somehow figuring out what she knew, she was probably safe. That meant that she'd have to avoid all contact with Coil, especially personal contact. He always seemed to know too much when they spoke face to face.
In two days, she could try to figure out if there was anything knowable about Contract, to help with her eventual first contact. Barring that, she could try to gather information on Beetle and the other Wards, to figure out the best approach. Then, if it still seemed like a good idea, she could decide if she wanted to actually try to get to Contract to help her against Coil, or if it was better to just try to do a runner.
April 4, 2011
Lisa soon discovered that some things were easier said than done. Preventing herself from doing any further thinking about Contract was one of those things. She spent most of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday giving herself a thinker headache investigating the Empire just so that she wouldn't try to investigate anything that could get her smote by whoever or whatever might be watching out for the Endbringers' killer.
When she finally did let herself look into the Wards, it was almost too easy at first. Hacking into Arcadia for attendance records, correlating absences, and double-checking social media quickly gave her the civilian identities of Clockblocker, Aegis, Triumph, Gallant, and Kid Win. Vista was probably too young to be in high school. Tellingly, however, there was no trace of Contract, Intrepid or Beetle in the Arcadia system or in the social media accounts of the other Wards. Likewise, Shadow Stalker was conspicuous by her absence.
Since Contract and Intrepid had shown up on the Winslow campus twice, she turned her attention there next. In this, the nature of the school worked against her. There were far more students with absences, and kids frequently transferred in and out of the school, giving a wide range of possible suspects.
Shadow Stalker was actually the first Ward she pinned down at Winslow, for the simple fact that she had the longest history as a Ward to track against. Interestingly, Sophia Hess had not been withdrawn from school due to a car accident. She'd been arrested. Specifically, she'd been arrested for criminal harassment of one Taylor Herbert, along with other charges that would require hacking through an impressive level of confidentiality, indicating that it probably related to her cape identity.
It was in this way that Lisa learned that Taylor Herbert was the girl that Contract had been in the store with. She had no social media presence, however, so that was no help in tracking down Contract's civilian name.
It was here that she hit her wall. Contract had come to Brockton Bay sometime in February, but a large number of kids had started at Winslow in that time frame. Of the short, blond girls that had transferred to Winslow, three had joined Winslow's new computer-based program, which might or might not an attempt to disguise cape presence in the school. There were a likewise large number of suspects for Intrepid, and too few absences to compare to. And all that assumed that Contract and Intrepid were even at Winslow, rather than being home-schooled or being on-call from another nearby campus.
In frustration, Lisa went back to tracking Taylor Hebert and hit another dead end. Taylor had been viciously harassed in life and online, so in response she'd had practically no online presence. Lisa was able to guess her PHO account name after a judicious use of her power.
Contract had mentioned the ferry by name as a project that needed fixing in Brockton Bay. Since there was no reason to believe Contract was a local, so she had to have heard from the ferry from somewhere. Taylor's dad worked for the Dockworker's Union and was infamous in city council circles for harping endlessly on ferry revival projects. If the ferry was important enough that Taylor mentioned it to new-to-town friends within the first month, it was important enough to her family that she might identify with it. There were a very small number of Ferry related PHO names, and only one posting in Brockton Bay boards.
Even with this lead, however, Lisa found depressingly little. Just about the only thing of interest was that she was able to confirm, after reading Ferry Girl's responses to a post about Beetle, was that Taylor was definitely the newest Ward.
After that, there was nothing. She spent all of Friday and Saturday digging deeper into the Wards. She deduced hobbies, team dynamics, and sussed out that both Triumph and Aegis had been graduated before they were technically eighteen due to some sort of tension with Contract. But she wasn't able to find anything else about Contract, or about Intrepid.
On Sunday, she finally made the decision to try to get in contact with Taylor, and see if she could get a feel for what Taylor would do if she revealed her situation. She chose Taylor for several reasons. As a new Ward, she was more likely to be willing to bend the rules, or just not know them. As a recent victim of bullying, she was more likely to be swayed by sympathy. And since Contract had been at Winslow and mentioned the ferry, it seemed likely that Taylor might be closer to her than other Wards.
Lisa had thought that making that decision, choosing to put her life in the hands of another teenager, was the hard part. Not so. On Sunday afternoon, when Lisa resolved to track Taylor down, she was nowhere to be found. She wasn't at home, or on the Boardwalk, or in the Marketplace. Lisa finally concluded she must be at the Ward's base and gave up, determining to talk to her after school on Monday instead.
So now Lisa was riding another city bus on Monday afternoon, waiting for the bus to pass by Winslow. If Taylor was headed to the Wards' base again today, this would be the bus she'd get on. If she was headed home, then Lisa would have to get off the bus in two stops and sprint nearly a mile and a half to try to catch the bus which was headed in the direction of Taylor's house. Such an entrance was much less nonchalant than already being on the right bus, so Lisa was hoping that Taylor headed to the Wards again today.
Sure enough, Taylor got on the bus with six other students headed from Winslow into downtown. She swiped her student ID card, then took the seat in front of Lisa. The boy directly behind her swiped his card and followed Taylor back, sitting in the empty seat across the aisle. Even though they weren't talking to each other, the two clearly knew each other.
Not talking, Taylor doesn't have many friends; not hiding association; are hiding that they're riding together: headed to the same destination, the Wards' base.
Disguising the same destination; downplaying association during transit between civilian and cape areas: the boy is Intrepid.
Well damn. The one Ward she didn't know much about, except what she could glean from the online information from his time in Houston. He was a regular stand up hero, at least in front of the media which Lisa trusted about as far as she could throw the entire PRT PR department. That didn't mean that he was necessarily bad, of course, but it didn't mean he was a decent person either. Shadow Stalker had taught her to be wary, though nothing in his immediate posture pinged her power as aggressive.
So it came down to this. Did she still want to try to approach Taylor with another Ward sitting right there? Lisa had prepared a number of openings for Taylor, everything from pretending to recognize her from her very short lived anti-bullying campaign to pretending they'd known each other as kids at a summer camp, and Taylor had simply forgotten. None of those openings worked quite as well with an eavesdropper.
Lisa waffled, but there was no escaping the facts. There was no reward without risk. As much as she hated the unknown, she had to do something. The longer she waited, the harder it would be to avoid Coil. She had no choice.
Lisa took a deep breath, then leaned forward casually and tapped Taylor on the shoulder. The other girl jumped and looked up from the bus window in surprise.
"Do I know you from somewhere?" Lisa asked in as friendly a tone as she could manage. "You look familiar."
Taylor shrugged, glanced at Intrepid, then remembered that they were supposed to be disassociating from each other and looked back at Lisa. "Uh, I don't think so?"
Lisa hmmed, considering Taylor carefully.
Body language, word choice: caution that this is a bullying trick.
Question, not statement, tone: hoping this is not a trick. Would like a non-Ward friend.
Lisa relaxed just marginally. It wasn't perfect, but it was a lot better than it might have been. In her persona as bubbly-camp-girl, Lisa nodded eagerly. "Oh, did you go to a summer camp, either two or three years ago?" Lisa knew from Taylor's extremely limited online presence that this was one of the last social things she did, before the bullying that turned her life upside down in high school had started. She had gone alone, without friends or anyone else from Brockton Bay, so there was no one to contradict the story that Lisa was going to weave out of the photos she'd found on Taylor's long-neglected social media page.
"I did. Lakeside Summers. You were there?"
Body language, sitting forward: Taylor believes the hook.
Sitting forward, body language: positive association with summer camp.
Using summer camp had been a bit of a gamble. All the pictures were positive, and Taylor had chosen to post them. That indicated the camp had been good, and that's what Lisa was banking on. Shortly after the camp, however, when Taylor entered high school, her grades had started dropping. Whatever bullying or trauma had been following her for the past eighteen months had luckily started after camp, not during it.
"I was. How crazy that we run into each other again!" Lisa draped an elbow over the seat, leaning so far forward she was nearly between Taylor and Intrepid, who was pretending he wasn't listening in. "How long have you been in Brockton Bay?"
Taylor shrugged, drawing in a little, less eager to talk about her current life. With the Wards and the bullying, there wasn't much that she could talk about that she would want to discuss. The motion was too familiar, it struck home with Lisa and she remembered one of her first observations of Taylor had been "depressed." Fortunately, Taylor muttered, "I've always lived here."
Lisa yanked herself out of her thoughts, focusing desperately on the present. "Crazy," she repeated while she remembered the backstory she'd decided on. "I moved here last year! I was in Winslow for a bit, but then I talked my parents into letting me get a GED. School sucks."
Lisa had carefully mixed lies and truth into her new backstory, both to make it easier to live and to limit the damage if and when she had to reveal the truth. Part of her wanted to abandon ship, shift gears, and give Taylor the truth. If it hadn't been her life on the line, she might have wavered.
Taylor nodded, but didn't take the opening the way Lisa had hoped she would. Instead, Lisa bubbled on in her current persona. "So hey, I'm headed down to the library to look into some classes for next semester. Where're you going?"
"The, ah, Boardwalk," Taylor answered, eyes darting up to the left in a way that made it obvious she was lying, even if Lisa hadn't already known she was headed to the Wards' base.
"We should get together some time. What are you doing tonight?" Lisa asked, trying to stay casual, even though Taylor was contributing basically nothing to the conversation.
"I'm not sure," Taylor hedged, leaning back a little.
Withdrawal, tone: distrusts sudden offer of friendship; has suffered betrayals in the past.
Lisa's heart clenched. Shit. Just what had Sophia and her crones done to this girl?
Lisa forced herself not to focus on that for the moment. If all went according to plan and Taylor and she became friends, Lisa could and would try to help her then. Right now, she had to focus on rescuing this initial encounter. She'd pushed too hard, too fast, and now Taylor was in retreat. It was past time to back off, which Lisa did by leaning back a little, giving Taylor more space. "Oh, okay," Lisa offered as casually as she could, disguising both her sympathy and her self-censure. "I guess I'll just give you my cell number, and you can call at a better time, yeah?"
Taylor nodded mutely, so Lisa leaned back and pulled a small notebook out of her purse. She scribbled her name and a burner phone number on the paper and tore it out for Taylor, who barely leaned forward far enough to take it.
"I'm Lisa, by the way," Lisa said cautiously, faking embarrassment. "I think I forgot to mention that."
Taylor hesitated, but after a moment she nodded and just mumbled, "Taylor," in answer. Lisa sat back awkwardly, knowing there was still at least twenty minutes until the bus passed the library and she could get off.
After a moment she got out her phone and pretended to text, instead writing down everything she could observe about Taylor and Intrepid from behind. She kept her power as low as possible, wanting to save it in case she needed to talk to Taylor again before the bus ride ended, but she noted everything she could for later use.
Taylor spent about ten minutes alternating between pretending to stare out the window, discreetly glancing over at Intrepid, and glancing less discreetly back at Lisa, while Lisa pretended not to notice. Inside, she was gleeful. Interest was good, it was better than Taylor writing her off completely.
At one point, Intrepid managed to catch and hold Taylor's gaze.
Taylor recovering from trauma; Intrepid wants her to try to make new friends.
Intrepid helping Taylor: not a total jerk; PR may be more true than usual.
Intrepid from Texas, less stressful area than Brockton Bay: Intrepid more trusting and open than most local capes.
Well, thank you, Intrepid. Reluctantly, Taylor twisted in her seat to face Lisa, who cheerfully looked up from her phone, waiting for her to speak. "So, um, listen, today's not great, but I could meet you somewhere tomorrow?"
As much as Lisa wanted to just wrap this poor girl in a hug, that was not practical at any level. So instead, Lisa just nodded happily, recovering her earlier fake-chipperness. "Sure thing. I don't have plans. Where do you want to meet up?" Lisa hoped that by putting the planning back in Taylor's hands, she'd feel safer and not suspect a trap.
Taylor shrugged, but she did offer, "Uh, Fugly Bob's, I guess?" After a moment, she backtracked, "Or we could meet downtown somewhere, if that works better for you."
"Nah," Lisa answered easily. "Fugly Bob's is good. Right after school good for you? Or do you need some time?"
"No, that'll work." Taylor glanced down at her hands, obviously at a loss for further conversation.
Lisa suppressed a sigh, but carried the conversation forward anyway. "Hey, do you watch the news? Winslow's raised, like, three million dollars since the Simurgh got zapped."
Taylor smiled, and sat up a little, obviously pleased with a topic that she could safely contribute to. "I heard the Capeless funds total was close to a hundred million dollars now, plus Contract's promise to match everything that's been donated out of the Endbringer rewards. I mean, the funding has severely dropped off since the first couple of days, but not completely."
Lisa nodded eagerly. "I can't believe how much people are giving." She'd done her part for the movement by using her thinker power to come up with a good logo, and then hacking the websites to make them more aesthetically pleasing. She'd chosen a black and gold color scheme, and a circular logo with a human fist holding a quill aloft in the foreground. In the background was a basic domino mask, such that the human arm and hand subtly created a slash through the mask.
The logo had taken off with a bang, and was now being produced in bumper stickers, shirts, bags, and other paraphernalia, all with some portion of the profits going to the funds. It had been a good prank, making the people who were actually in charge of that sort of thing panic while the public ate it up, and it hadn't taken Lisa more than a couple of hours. Sometimes, just messing with people was its own reward.
Taylor leaned forward, engaging further in the conversation. "My dad says there's plenty of money for the ferry now too."
"I wonder where Contract heard about that," Lisa mused aloud. "The ferry is hardly Brockton Bay's only problem."
Taylor blushed slightly and shrugged, but she didn't let it trip her up for long. "Maybe she lives in the Docks."
"Well, she does go to Winslow, so that would make sense."
Taylor shook her head. "That's just rumors. We don't know for sure where Contract goes."
Lisa's first instinct was to tease Taylor, asking if she'd tried to suss out Contract's identity or if she was watching for new students with blonde hair, but she held off at the last moment. If Taylor was still getting used to her new identity, then she would be sensitive about that issue. Lisa hesitated long enough for Taylor to continue.
"I guess it would be cool to go to school with her, but she's probably homeschooled or something. If she was at Winslow, I think people would know."
Lisa shrugged, then reached up to pull the cord to ask for a stop as the bus approached the place she needed to get off if she wanted to maintain her library charade. "I guess. I still think you're wrong. She's at Winslow. I mean, she popped up there twice. And the interview totally sounds personal," Lisa argued, echoing the most common PHO speculations. As far as Lisa and her Contract-affected power could guess, Contract probably had been at Winslow at some point, although she might not be attending there now.
The bus coasted to a stop, and Lisa waved to Taylor as she disembarked. As the bus pulled away, she stood and watching it go, letting herself feel all the emotions she'd had to hide from Taylor. The sympathy and protective instinct that Taylor provoked, and the echo of grief that underpinned it. The worry that this wasn't enough, and she'd get caught by Coil before she was able to get Taylor to believe her.
After several deep breathes, Lisa forced herself to pull out of the emotional mire and walk towards the library. According to plan or not, it could have been a worse first encounter.
April 5, 2011
Lisa made sure to get to Fugly Bob's a little before the agreed-on time, and snagged a table with a good view of the restaurant. She then sat in the opposite side of the booth, leaving the prime seat open for Taylor. She wanted to do everything possible to put the other cape at ease, both for her own sake and for the sake of her plan.
Again, Lisa suppressed the guilt that had been nagging at her. If what she'd figured out about Taylor was correct, and she really did have no friends outside the Wards, then Lisa's deception might eventually destroy her. She was reaching out, tentatively, and making a new friend. For that friend to be a villain? Well, it wouldn't do anything good for her psyche.
On the other hand, Lisa was trapped. She had to get out from under Coil, and she had to do it fast. Taylor was still her best shot at survival.
Taylor entered just when Lisa expected her to, having ridden a city bus from Winslow. She was again accompanied by Intrepid, but this time they weren't pretending not to know each other, since they were both firmly in their civilian identities. The two teens ordered, and then awkwardly waited around while they tried to spot Lisa. Obligingly, Lisa waved to get their attention and they both trooped over with their food in hand.
"Hey Lisa. This is Jason," Taylor introduced, sliding into the booth. She barely gave them long enough to shake hands before she continued. "You don't mind if he joins us, do you? We've got a project to work on later."
Taylor brought a friend: wanted backup; still concerned about a prank or other bullying.
Jason's posture: trust; doesn't think this is a set-up.
Jason's facial expression: compassion; doesn't mind spending time with Taylor to help her feel safer.
"Not at all, the more the merrier!" Lisa enthused, pretending she didn't recognise Jason from the bus ride yesterday. Using the glimpse she'd gotten of his face, she'd been able to figure out that Intrepid was Jason Wilson, recently moved to Brockton Bay due to his dad's job, just as he claimed. All in all, everything about him proclaimed him to be a stand-up dude and all-around good guy. It was almost enough to rot Lisa's teeth off. The perfect teen, from a perfect family, who got to grow up in Texas and help kill Endbringers. Still, Lisa tried to remember that it was better than having someone like Sophia involved in this little charade of hers.
"It's nice to meet you," Jason drawled with a heavy Texas accent. Lisa had to suppress actual giggles at the stereotype.
"I don't recognise your accent. Did you just move here?"
"From Texas," Jason answered honestly. "My dad's work transferred him. Taylor said you're new to the area too?"
"I've been here about eight months now," Lisa admitted. "It's different than the rest of the East Coast."
"Certainly more gangs than you can shake a stick at," Jason agreed. Lisa nodded, but glanced back at Taylor as she shifted the conversation.
"So how was school today?"
Taylor shrugged. "Fine I guess. It's school." Taylor glanced down to her food and made a show of finding the perfect fry to dip in ketchup and eat.
"Taylor's been dealing with some bullying," Jason volunteered. "We had to get two teachers involved today."
"That's terrible!" Lisa exclaimed immediately. "People can be so cruel. At least you're going to the authorities though. No one should be able to get away with that shit."
It was a pretty venomous response for a stranger, but Lisa wanted to make herself an immediately sympathetic figure. It helped that she had some idea of what was encapsulated in the euphemism "bullying." Lisa was kinda surprised that the tormentors hadn't come down with lice or crabs. It'd be the least that they deserved.
"That's what I said," Jason threw in authoritatively, and it occurred to Lisa that going to the staff might not have been Taylor's idea. A quick check with her power confirmed it: Jason had involved the teachers without Taylor's permission, and Taylor hadn't decided how she felt about it yet.
Mostly, Taylor didn't actually mind that Jason had broken teenage social code and reported the incident, although peer pressure still made her feel like she ought to have handled the situation differently. She was more pissed that the teachers were willing to help now, after she became a Ward, but hadn't helped when… hello, when Sophia Hess aka Shadow Stalker had… done something… and caused Taylor to trigger?
Well, there was a can of worms Lisa forced herself to ignore rather than open.
"So what have you been doing since we saw each other? Besides making the world safer from bullies?" Lisa asked, casual.
Taylor shrugged, not having much in her life she could use as an honest answer. "School, mostly," Taylor finally said, "no real clubs, but I've got a few friends I hang out with. What about you?"
Lisa immediately broke eye contact, exaggerating the social cues that indicated discomfort. "Oh, well, I told you I got a GED rather than put up with school…" Lisa trailed off, shifted uncomfortably, and then lied as obviously as possible, "I got a, ah, job. So mostly I just, ah, do what I'm told."
As she'd hoped, both Taylor and Jason picked up on her cues and the two shared a glance. Taylor straightened up a little, and Lisa turned her power all the way up, focusing on what the other girl was thinking.
Posture, decreased heart rate: calm under fire.
Recent trauma, recent trigger: helps others in order to hold herself together; more comfortable now that there might be a chance to be needed.
Automatic transition: has been using this coping mechanism frequently.
Frequent care for others, limited social circle: family member or Ward needs her.
Not her father, it's a new habit: a Ward.
Not one of the Brockton Bay's originals, they'd turn to each other: one of the new Wards.
Not Intrepid, Jason, he's a protector, put together, doesn't need the help; Contract.
Helping Contract as coping mechanism: highly likely she will help you.
Leaning forward, hands clasped together: would be offering a hug if we were next to each other.
Lisa shut the deductions off in order to focus on the deception she was laying out but filed the new information away for later use. It was important to know that Taylor was not holding herself together nearly as well as others thought she was, and it indicated that Contract might be in a pretty bad way herself, if she was accepting help from a victim who was barely okay.
Lisa picked at the cuticle on her left middle finger, a practiced tell that she used whenever she needed one. It was Taylor who took charge of the conversation, not Jason. Lisa wondered if Jason was letting Taylor speak because he knew this was her coping mechanism, or if he didn't realise how bad-off his teammate was. Either was possible. He would want to help Taylor as well as he knew how, but he was naive enough that he might not recognise what she was going through. The joys of growing up not-in-Brockton-Bay.
Lisa resisted the temptation to find out with her power, in case she got pulled down another rabbit hole while she needed to look vulnerable.
"Lisa, is everything okay?"
Lisa snapped her head up sharply, and gave a nervous little laugh. "Sure. Why wouldn't it be?" She picked at her cuticle more strongly. Even if they didn't recognise it consciously, they'd be subconsciously registering the fidgets in her posture.
The two Wards shared another look. "Do you want to talk alone?" Taylor offered, in a tone that was not at all subtle. Lisa wasn't sure if Taylor was trying and failing, or if she wasn't socially adept enough to know that the question was actually a little awkward. However, since the conversation was still going the way Lisa had hoped it would, she chose to ignore that for now.
She gave a bitter laugh, as well as she could without sounding fake, and quipped, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Lisa followed it up with a big, fake smile.
"You might be surprised," Jason said, in a tone that was privately amused. Taylor never glanced away from Lisa's face, carefully reading and studying Lisa's facade.
"Well in that case I'd have to kill you," she said as though she was trying to brush the subject off, but she let a little of her honest bitterness at Coil color the end of the morbid joke. Taylor's gaze sharpened.
"Lisa…" just the tone was enough to tell Lisa that Taylor was hooked. Taylor was certain something was wrong, and was determined to get to the bottom of things. For a moment, Lisa considered "caving" right then and there, but it would be too easy. People believed secrets more when they had to be pried out of their hiding places.
So instead of telling them everything, as she desperately wanted to, Lisa instead stood up abruptly, saying, "No, I'm sorry. This was a bad idea. We haven't seen each other in what, almost two years? It's stupid. I'll catch you later."
With that, she turned and hurried out of Fugly Bob's, already wondering where the best place would be to run into Taylor "accidentally." She could use the bus again, on the same downtown route, but there was a high chance of Jason being on the same bus, and it would seem more natural for Lisa to open up to a single girl, rather than a two-versus-one guy/girl pair.
"Hey!" a girl said as she pulled Lisa's shoulder around. Lisa opened her mouth to start in on whoever had accosted her, and found herself facing a very determined Taylor Hebert, who had followed her out of Fugly Bob's. Evidently, when Taylor coped by helping people, she really dug her teeth in.
Having secured Lisa's attention, Taylor's face lost a bit of its intensity, and she took a step closer, her voice dropping into a very persuasive coaxing. "Lisa, what's wrong?"
Lisa swallowed heavily. She hadn't expected her ploy to work quite this well. Taylor was genuinely invested and they barely knew each other. Worse, Lisa was dangerously invested as well; Taylor just reminded her too much of her own brother. "Why should you care?" she asked, when she probably should have been starting to feed Taylor tiny details. But Lisa couldn't help it, she had to understand why Taylor was so insistent on helping before she could trust the offered hand.
"Someone cared for me," Taylor said, her voice low and intense, "when she didn't have to. Let me help you."
Tone: truth; Taylor wants to help.
Word choice, she: friend; good friend; Contract.
Contract helped Taylor: Taylor wants to do the same for someone else.
"You can't," Lisa whispered, still trying to decide if she ought to fold or keep holding out. She wanted to just tell Taylor everything, and then maybe, maybe this nightmare with Coil could end.
"Try me," Taylor challenged, and Lisa could read in the set of her jaw that she was thinking about her position on the Wards and the ability that would give her to help in so many situations where she would have been powerless before.
Jason was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he was out of sight, or perhaps Taylor had told him to stay behind so she'd have a better chance of getting Lisa to talk. Either way, Lisa didn't want to discuss this out in the open. She knew she wouldn't be able to get it all out, nevermind the actual security risks. Lisa glanced up and down the street, spotting a bus stop a little ways away.
"Can we get on a bus? Any bus?" Lisa asked, and Taylor's eyes shifted a little, hardened, as she inferred both that Lisa was ready to talk, and that whatever she had to say was too serious to say in the general public. Good. Taylor needed to take this seriously.
Taylor nodded, and strode off towards the bus stop. It only took a few minutes for the next bus to come along, and the two girls got on it and headed towards the back, where there were open seats next to each other.
Once the vehicle was in motion, Lisa was out of time to stall. But now that the moment came to actually tell Taylor about Coil and to plead for her help, Lisa found herself tongue-tied. She hadn't been at the mercy of others very often, but she was now, and it felt like sandpaper under her skin.
This whole idea hinged on Taylor believing her, which Lisa knew she could manage. The two girls had a connection, Lisa knew they both felt it, and Taylor probably wouldn't doubt her for a moment.
But the success of this plan also required Taylor to be able to convince her teammates to take action, without alerting the whole PRT and thus alerting Coil's moles. After the thinking she done about Taylor and Contract, Lisa was pretty sure that Taylor would be able to manage that bit. So the question came down to actually taking the risk.
After a long moment Lisa opened her mouth, and slowly, without having to fake her caution and reluctance, she told Taylor about being recruited at the point of a gun. Then she had to tell Taylor she was a thinker, and even though she knew that was coming, it was still hard to put into words. She didn't explain the specifics, and Taylor didn't press.
She didn't tell Taylor anything about her life prior to Brockton Bay, but she did admit that she was here alone, and she'd lied about having parents because she wanted to sound normal.
At that point, Taylor reached out and put an arm around her. For a single, dizzying moment, Lisa considered telling Taylor about Rex. Maybe not everything, but just something. Something real and deep and genuine to try to express what she was feeling, and tie Taylor to her more closely. In the end, though, she thought better of it. She forced herself to get back on track.
Lisa explained that she didn't want to be a villain, and that she was terrified of what Coil was willing to do to control her. She told Taylor everything she knew for sure about Coil, and what most of what she'd guessed. She explained why she'd never gone to the PRT before. Lisa even admitted to Taylor that she was a criminal before Coil, so that she could explain to Taylor how Coil had used her previous crimes and threats of violence to force her to join the Undersiders. She didn't share her cape name. It wouldn't be hard for Taylor to infer, anyways, and Lisa wanted to go on being "Lisa" as long as possible.
By the time everything was all told, they were two stops away from the PRT building, and Lisa had a massive headache from reading Taylor's reactions and finding the right way to tell her the necessary truths.
Taylor had been pretty quiet throughout, asking a few questions but mostly just letting Lisa talk and incidentally forcing Lisa to use her body language to interpret what she was thinking. When the time came to end the tale, it took a moment for Lisa to remember that she wasn't supposed to know Taylor was Beetle. That lie had to be maintained.
"Like I told you," Lisa sighed, "there's nothing you can do to help. I'm trapped." She looked up from her hands and met Taylor's eyes squarely, so that she could see the genuine gratitude that was there. "Thanks for listening though. It… it did help."
Taylor seemed jarred, and Lisa's power helpfully whispered that Taylor had also forgotten for a moment that Lisa didn't know she was a Ward.
"Why don't you go to the Wards, or the Protectorate?" Taylor tacked on the adult team at the last moment. "Coil might have people in the PRT but not on the hero teams, right?"
Lisa shook her head despondently. "They wouldn't believe me. I can hardly believe that you believed me." She gave a dry chuckle. "As soon as I told them who I was, they'd just process me and then what? If Coil didn't get to me, the sorry state of the American court system would."
Taylor nodded reluctantly. Lisa gave her a sad smile, then pulled the cord for a stop. "Thank you for believing me. I know you want to help, but you should probably forget I said anything. I don't want to pull you into this crap. I just thought… I don't know. I guess I wanted a friendship that would be simple. But nothing in my life is simple." Lisa paused, checked with her power that Taylor was still hooked, which she was, and then dropped one last line. "Just lose that phone number I gave you, okay Taylor? I don't want to drag you down."
The bus came to a stop and Lisa stood up. Taylor stood too, catching her attention. "I, I wish I could help."
Lisa smiled sadly a second time. "Me too," she said honestly, then she hurried off the bus and immediately started walking south, away from the PRT base. As the bus pulled away, she glanced over her shoulder and saw Taylor watching her from the bus window.
Facial expression; determination: is going to do whatever she can; believes the story.
Lisa didn't smile until the bus had turned the corner and was out of sight. Then she finally allowed her relieved smile to materialize. It was worth the thinker headache, the manipulation of Taylor, and the risk, for the possibility that she might soon be free from Coil.