The Slippery Slope

Part Twenty: The Gathering Storm

[A/N: This chapter has been beta-read, and considerably improved upon, by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

Wednesday
February 16, 2011

I relaxed in the anteroom to the little apartment I shared with Dad, a bowl of ice cream in my hand. Othala lounged in the armchair next to me, holding a similar bowl. Within the apartment, Dad was being bathed by Mary; as this would necessarily take some time, Othala and I had retired to the anteroom for ice cream.

"Dad opened his eyes today," I told her, trying to keep my voice casual. I'd been holding on to the news all morning, but I had to tell someone.

Her eyes widened in surprise. "He woke up? Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

I shook my head. "I don't think he actually woke up. You know when someone's asleep and they open their eyes, look around then go back to sleep but never remember it later on? That's what happened. He just opened his eyes, blinked a few times, then closed them again." I'd been wildly excited at the time, of course. For about the next ten minutes, I'd tried to wake him up again, but all I got was a few squeezes of the hand.

"Well, that's really good news anyway." She reached over and took my hand for a moment. "I'm so pleased for you. I know how much your dad means to you."

"Until I met you guys, he was my only family." I stared at the watercolour on the opposite wall, trying to think of the right words. "I mean, you and Victor and Cassie mean a lot to me, and Peter's just wonderful, but Dad's my dad, you know?"

"Yeah, I know," she said, her tone as gentle as her expression. "And I'm gonna keep giving him my healing. It's a slow process, but it's really working. To be honest, I wasn't really sure if it would."

I put my bowl down and got up to give her a hug. "I owe you guys so much. I don't even know where I'd be if I hadn't met Peter."

"Hey," she said, putting one arm around my back. "Friends support friends, yeah? You're a sister. You're one of us."

"Yeah." I smiled as I sat down again. "And you have no idea how good that makes me feel." I took another spoonful of ice cream. "Though it sucks that I can only see Peter in the evenings, once he drives over here from school."

She smiled slyly. "Well, you know that I've got my driving license. And I've got my own car."

It took me a few seconds to get it. "You'd take me to meet him at school?"

"Well, duh." She rolled her eyes. "You and Peter remind me so much of me and Victor. You're so goddamn happy when he's around."

"Well, are you surprised?" I chuckled. "He's Peter."

"Which reminds me," she said. "You never filled me in on how your date went. Details, girlfriend."

I smiled to myself, recalling that wonderful evening. There were some details, of course, that were going to stay between me and Peter. But Othala had done her bit to make sure the evening was a success, so I guess I owed her something. "Well, he managed to totally take me by surprise with the candlelight dinner …"

As I talked, Othala ignored her melting ice-cream and listened with rapt attention.

Later, Outside Winslow High

"Thank you so much for this," I said feelingly. "It's nice to get out, and even nicer to go see Peter."

Othala reached across from the driver's seat and squeezed my shoulder. "Well, you go have fun. And hey, how about we go down to the Boardwalk on the weekend, after we've dealt with the Merchants? We'll make it a double date. You, me, Victor and Peter. We can go to Fugly Bob's."

"Sure thing," I replied with a grin. "But only if you make me invulnerable so I can try out the Challenger."

"I dunno." She looked doubtful. "My power's good, but it won't work miracles."

I smirked. "So you can give me kickass powers, but you can't give me the ability to eat that heart-stopping mass of grease and salt?"

"Be real, Taylor." She pushed down her sunglasses and looked at me over them. "You weigh about the same as a Challenger as it is."

I had to admit that she wasn't far wrong. "Fine," I agreed, wrinkling my nose. "We'll hit the Market and make the boys carry what they buy for us."

"Now that's more like it," she said with a laugh. "Sisterhood forever!" She held up her hand; I high-fived her, then got out of the car.

As I did so, I flashed my powers on and off again, getting a count of firearms and vehicles moving in suspicious patterns. There was a bunch of Jeeps in a nearby side-street, with armed men inside, but nothing closer that I could spot. Moving casually, I leaned back into the car. "Does the boss have anyone watching the school? An emergency team or something like that?"

"Not that I know of," she said.

Knuckles tightening on the gear shift. Sign of tension.

"Why?" she asked. "Do you see something?"

At that moment, all six vehicles started up and began to move. "There's a group of four wheel drive vehicles with men in them. They just started moving. If they come this way, should I immobilise them, or let them get close enough so we can capture one?"

"Let them get close," she said immediately. "If there's someone making a move on us, the boss will want to know who and how."

"Understood." I closed the door and took a few steps away from the car. The four wheel drive vehicles exited the side street and turned left. Away from the school. I turned to catch Othala's eye through the windshield, and shook my head slightly. She nodded just as minutely, and started the car. I moved toward the front steps of the school, still intermittently watching the unknown vehicles.

This was the first time I had been back to Winslow since the ABB had nearly killed George. So much had happened over the last … two weeks? Three? Whatever; my life had changed utterly beyond recognition in that time. While Winslow still wasn't a place I really wanted to be, it had gone from an institution of slow torture to a place where I could see Peter and my Empire friends and be relatively safe. Now, it meant virtually nothing to me. It was a building, a collection of meaningless nobodies. Not one of them had done a thing to help me while I was Taylor Hebert, bullied loner. They probably didn't know or care that Bronson had died saving my life, or that Jenna's last act had been to try to put me out of the way of danger.

The last of the contingent of vehicles moved out of the range of my power, but I didn't relax. I had learned the hard way that enemies would attack at the worst possible time, from the worst possible angle. Every car within my range only needed my will to become a weapon of war. Idly, I wondered if Victor could design me an exoskeleton light enough to be worn under clothing without using my power. To appear to be powerless, yet be able to jump on top of a building or punch someone's heart out through their back could be very useful in a pinch.

I was aware that my thoughts were darker than normal, and I wondered why. Then I realised that I was looking at the patch of concrete where I'd been standing when the ABB guys had jumped out at me. Barely even thinking, I moved sideways to peer around toward the corner where we had found George. I wondered what the police had thought of the body we had left behind. Not that I cared. Just another fucking Asian criminal. I barely even noticed how I ran the last three words together in my head.

"Taylor? Is that you?" I spun around, my hands coming up in a defensive stance, ready to kick, punch or bring a car into action … then relaxed slightly as I recognised the boy who had come up behind me. My sudden action startled him, so that he stumbled backward and tripped, landing on his butt.

"Greg? What the hell are you doing out of class?" I demanded. Dipping into my powers, I checked my watch – Peter had given me a mechanical one, which meant that I could read the hands without looking – and noted that it was still two minutes short of the bell.

"I've got gym class," he mumbled, scrambling to his feet. "They always play dodge-ball in the last period, and they always pick on me, and they throw the ball hard."

I could almost sympathise, but that sort of thing wasn't my problem any more. On the other hand, Greg Veder was kind of my problem. "Greg, you didn't see me here."

"Uh …" His brain seemed to kick into gear. "Taylor, you've changed. Where've you been? I heard the ABB killed the guy you were with, and chased you off down the street. I heard they killed you, too, for being … uhhh …" All too late, he stumbled to a halt.

"In the Empire?" I raised my eyebrows. "Is that what you meant to ask? You can say it, you know. As you can see, I'm alive and well. Answer your question?"

If human brains had silicon chips in them, I would've been able to smell his frying from where I was. The look on his face could have gone into the dictionary, under 'confusion'. Or perhaps 'befuddlement'. "Uh, but … I … were you actually in the Empire?"

"It's a little late to be asking that, isn't it?" I asked, just a shade sarcastically. "But to answer your question, yeah. I joined the Empire. Mainly because they were the only ones to offer the slightest bit of help against the bitches and assholes who thought I was Winslow's punching-bag. Got a problem with that?"

He swallowed convulsively. "Uh, no … I just … well, I wanted to help, but … uh …"

"But you were too piss-scared that they'd turn on you as well?" I tilted my head slightly. "Actually, I gotta say you were probably right. Still doesn't make it any better that you never even tried, though."

He wilted in on himself. I was reminded of a spider I saw in the bathtub once when I turned the water on. It had rolled on its back and pulled all its legs in as it drowned. "I'm sorry, Taylor. I … we were friends, weren't we?"

"Well, in your favour, you never actually joined in," I conceded. "Though you sometimes made things worse from sheer stupidity, so there's that." I raised my chin slightly as a thought occurred to me. "You get beaten up much?"

"Now and then," he mumbled, looking down and away. Which meant at least once a week, if I was translating 'boy' correctly. "Probably get it tomorrow for skipping out on gym class today."

"What if I told you I could fix all that?" I asked. "Make sure you never got beaten up by the assholes at Winslow ever again?"

His eyes widened. "What, you'd tell the Empire guys to ease off on me?"

"Not … exactly." Though it didn't surprise me that they'd been smacking Greg around. The boy did manage to almost invite it on a regular basis. I'd wanted to smack him more than once myself. "I was thinking you could join."

"Wh-what?" He stared at me as though I'd just pulled a gun on him. "The Empire? But they're a bunch of racist pricks!"

Well, his foot is still lodged firmly in his mouth. I didn't say a word, but my stare finally got through to him; when he eventually realised what he'd said to me, he nearly fell over again in his hurry to get out of my arm's reach. If I wanted to hurt you, you'd already be on the ground. While I wasn't yet a match for Peter, I was pretty sure I could put a world of hurt on Greg Veder.

"Shit – I'm sorry, I didn't mean, uh, I know you're not a racist, uh, I didn't mean to call you that," he babbled.

"Racism is just another name for a particular point of view," I told him firmly. I'd been doing a lot of thinking about this. "Is it racist to point out that the ABB targets everyone, including their own kind, for their violent crimes? Which include kidnapping teenage girls for their brothels? Or that the leader of the Merchants is a black man?" I put my hands to my face and made my voice high-pitched. "Oh, no, a drug-dealing African-American! How goddamn stereotypical!" When I took a step forward, he cringed back from me. "You don't have to hate other races to join the Empire. All you've gotta do is be ready to back your brothers and sisters up. Because they'll be backing you up. No matter what."

Greg stared at me, possibly wondering at the certainty in my voice. "But … they'd take me? And I wouldn't get beaten up any more?"

I wasn't so sure about the latter. The stories I'd heard from Bronson did mention a certain amount of 'attitude adjustment' amongst the lower ranks now and again, but that was mainly for those recruits who mouthed off in the hearing of the wrong person. Of course, Greg wasn't the type to mouth off … on purpose, anyway. But they'd certainly toughen him up, and maybe give him a crash course in how to associate with people. God knows he needs it.

I tilted my head, just as the bell rang. "Sure they'd take you. You just gotta be dedicated. Be loyal to them, they'll be loyal to you." He didn't seem to notice that I'd left off any mention of being beaten up. If he decided to join, they'd get to that part eventually. And nobody else would be beating on him, which had to be a bonus. "Now, you never saw me. You never talked to me. Got it?"

"I, uh, yeah, got it," he said. "If I, uh, joined, would we …"

I didn't show him the smile I felt like showing, as it might have given him entirely the wrong idea. "Oh, you'd see me around." Turning my back on him, I strode toward the steps just as the doors opened. A flood of students stampeded out; just to be careful, I dipped into my power and tracked all the switchblades and pistols on the move. Peter's pistol was a bit different to the ones I usually saw, which let me track his movements through the school. All this time, and I never knew he was carrying at Winslow.

Nobody seemed to recognise me as the school emptied out. I stood with my hands in my jacket pockets, watching the students stream past me; while I did attract a few glances, they seemed to be of the who are you? variety rather than hey, I know you. To be fair, I didn't have much in common with the hoodie-wearing shoulder-slumped bullying victim who'd walked out of Winslow three weeks previously. Now I stood straight and tall, wearing a leather jacket that had spent a couple years languishing at the back of the closet before Peter gave it to me. I didn't care that it was old, or that it was second-hand. I did care that it was something that Peter had owned and cherished, and now he was passing it on to me. Under the jacket was a black t-shirt and skinny jeans that Cassie had picked out. I supposed it wasn't that much of a surprise that Greg had seemed more than usually intimidated by me.

"Taylor!" Peter's eyes lit up, though he sounded surprised to see me.

I grinned at him and slid my arm around his waist before planting a peck on his lips. "Hey, good looking," I greeted him. Then I turned to the Empire guys who had accompanied Peter down the stairs. "Hey, guys. Gonna steal Peter now. Sorry." My tone indicated that I wasn't sorry at all, but they already knew that.

Except one who stared at me, then turned to Kelly. "Who the hell does she think -?" I didn't recognise his face; he might've been new, or just someone I hadn't met before.

Kelly silenced him with four words: "Shut. The fuck. Up." Then he nodded to me. "Taylor, nice to see you again." His posture and tone were both deferential; either he knew I was Remote, or he was just showing respect to me as Peter's girlfriend. Either way was good with me.

"Nice to see you again, Kelly," I said, affording him a smile. "How've you been?"

"Oh, you know. So-so." He tilted his head. "Sucks what happened to Bronson and Jenna."

"I know." I lowered my voice slightly. "I was -" I paused minutely as I changed my mind on what I was going to say. I was there might be saying too much in front of the others. "- at the service," I concluded.

"Yeah, I was too," he said. "I didn't …" As his voice trailed off, I saw the understanding cross his face. The look in his eyes went from respect to something not far from worship. "I, uh, thought it was very moving," he ad-libbed, just a little clumsily. I was willing to forgive him for that. He just figured it out. I caught the look he shot the guy who had mouthed off, and mentally winced. There'll probably be some attitude adjustment later on. Oh well, not my problem.

"It was," I agreed. I tilted my head toward Peter. "But we gotta run now. See you around, Kelly." Just because I was now a cape, and technically outranked even Peter, didn't mean I had to be impolite to Kelly. He'd always been nice to me while I was a Friend of the Empire, and had stood between me and Sophia more than once.

I had gone for far too long without any friends at all. Now that I had some, I wasn't going to be discarding any of them just because I found my situation changed.

"See you around," he replied, then paused. Relief showed in his face as I nodded very slightly. "...uh, Taylor."

Peter said his goodbyes, then headed across the carpark with me; as we walked, I held his hand. Dipping into my powers, I noted Othala's car heading for the carpark exit. She probably thought that I hadn't noted her hanging about until Peter came out, but I figured I'd let her think she'd gotten away with it. Besides, I was pleased that she had chosen to stay. As I'd told Greg, the Empire backed one another up. It was what we did.

"I didn't know you'd be coming in to meet me at school," Peter observed. "Not that I'm unhappy, mind. But please tell me that you didn't take the bus here." His hand tightened slightly on mine; I could tell that he didn't like that idea. Then again, I didn't much like it myself..

"Nope." I squeezed back. "Got a lift." With my free hand, I indicated Othala's car, just now turning on to the road. I grinned as I saw a hand raised in a wave from the driver's side window. Othala can be such a sweetie sometimes.

"Ah, of course." He smiled. "So, did you get the chance to dissect our date with her?" His tone was more curious than apprehensive. I was pretty sure that he knew I wouldn't tell her anything really juicy. Well, not without swearing her to secrecy.

"Oh, once or twice." I grinned back at him. "She said good things about it. Oh, and we're going on a double date with her and Victor on Saturday. To Fugly Bob's." Moving a little closer to him, I hugged his arm with mine. Even through the jacket, I thought I could feel the warmth of his arm. It might have just been my imagination, but I still enjoyed the closeness.

"Really?" His tone was intrigued. "So when was I going to be informed of this?" He eyed me with a certain level of curiosity, but I refused to feel self-conscious.

"You just were," I pointed out. "By me." I treated him to a cheeky grin that morphed of its own accord to a smirk. It was fun playing this game with him. He knew how to lose so gracefully.

"This wasn't something I was going to win, was it?" But his voice was more amused than otherwise as he pulled out the electronic fob. We both knew that if he chose to dig in his heels, I'd get nowhere. He was just complaining for the sake of appearances.

I tilted my head. "Did you want to do something else on Saturday?" Now I was curious; if he had a better idea, I'd be happy to change my mind.

"Well … no." He opened my door and handed me in. "I'd just thought we'd be just hanging out, not going anywhere in particular." Which had been my idea before Othala had made her suggestion, but I liked the double date better.

I pulled the door closed and waited for him to get around to his side. "But this way's more fun. We get to look forward to doing stuff." I did my best to look sly, though I was pretty sure I wasn't pulling it off. "Like browsing the Market." With a grin, I waited to see how he responded to my springing the clever trap. Such as it was.

"Oh, now I see your nefarious plan," he remarked in tones of great revelation as he climbed in. "You want to go shopping." My grin widened at his tone; he'd managed to put a pitch and spin on the word 'shopping' that I would personally put on the name 'Winslow High'.

"Well, duh," I said with a smirk. "Have you seen how many zeroes I've got on my card these days? I wanna see how many of those I can make go away before Dad wakes up and makes me save for college." With growing amusement, I waited to see what he would say to this.

He pretended to heave a long-suffering sigh. "I don't have a choice in that either, do I?" Ah; immediate surrender. A wise decision. This worked for me.

I put on a faux-thoughtful look. "Mmm … nope. I'm playing the girlfriend card. Of course, there is the upside." Bait is trailed. Let's see how quickly he bites.

"Upside?" He started the truck. I was impressed; he hadn't taken any time at all to zero in on the important aspect.

I batted my eyes at him. Now to sink the hook. "We'll be trying on clothes. Like those skinny jeans you like on me so much." Three … two … one ...

He brightened so much that it must have been an act from the beginning. "Well why didn't you say so in the first place? To the Market we shall go!" He pumped his fist in the air before putting the truck into drive.

I burst into giggles as we moved off. Peter could be such an idiot, but he was my idiot. And it didn't matter that we were going there today; after all, there would be more stuff to buy on Saturday.

Coil's Base

The screams of dying men filled the headphones. Calvert clenched his fists at the sides of his head. Two dozen men, and she eliminated them just like that. She was either watching them from the beginning, or she keeps checking to see what's happening. This is getting aggravating.

"Sir, is everything all right?" One of his mercenaries approached him cautiously. "Is there anything that we can do?"

Irritably, he pulled his pistol and shot the man three times in the chest and once in the head. Before the stricken mercenary had crumpled all the way to the floor, he dropped that timeline. In the other, he was also sitting in his base, with the singular difference that there was no dead mercenary on the floor. Nor were twenty-four of his men dead, dying, or captured by the Empire's latest cape.

With a sigh, he stood up from the chair and stretched. If I don't get some good news soon, I'm going to be seriously annoyed.

As if on cue, there was a ping from his computer, indicating an incoming email. Twisting to the side, he felt the vertebrae pop then did it again the other way. He didn't know what the email portended, but there was only one way to find out. Reaching out, he took hold of the mouse and clicked the mail open.

PRT Building
Shadow Stalker

"Aegis, you've got a bogey to your two o'clock. Rooftop. Yeah, you got him." Chris leaned back in the chair as he casually manipulated the joystick to zoom in the security camera feed. It was kind of grainy, but there was no mistaking Aegis' armoured form as he closed in on the ABB thug. The resultant fight was very short and to the point; seconds later, Aegis descended to street level once more, holding the thug by his collar. Chris grinned under his visor. "Damn, I love this job."

Sophia wanted to punch him. No, she reconsidered. She wanted to grab him by the back of the head and smash his head through the monitor screen. See if he loved the job that much then. In her opinion, monitor duty was hellishly boring and painful to sit through. If it wasn't bad enough watching the Wards prance through every encounter without ever inflicting enough pain to leave an impression, she also had to endure Chris' faltering attempts at conversation, which basically began and ended with Tinkering.

"Gotta hit the head." Chris got up from the chair. "Watch the screens for me, Stalker?"

"Where else am I gonna be?" she sneered. My name is Shadow Stalker, dammit.

"Oh, yeah, good point." As far as she could tell, he had taken it as a joke rather than an expression of pure frustration. "Back in a bit."

Off he sauntered, humming some tune off-key, leaving her to nurse her anger. And who says 'hit the head' anyway? Just say 'going to the bathroom' like a normal person.

Nothing else was happening by the time he got back; almost immediately, she stood up. "Gonna go hit the gym."

"What?" He stared up at her. "You're supposed to be on monitor duty with me."

"Screw monitor duty and screw you." Sophia headed for the door. "What are they gonna do, put me on suspended duty while a goddamn court case hangs over my head? Oh, wait. They already did."

Ignoring his sputtered protests, she hit the button beside the doors; a moment later, they hissed aside, allowing her out into the metal-lined hallway. She knew that her ankle-bracelet allowed her access to various areas of the PRT building, and that the gym was one of these areas. Fortunately, it wasn't so sophisticated as to have timers for certain areas, so she was able to go to the gym at any time. Such as now.

She made it up four floors and along the corridor without the bracelet screaming at her; despite her confidence, she still felt a surge of relief when she pushed open the doors to the gym proper. At the time, she had argued that if she couldn't go out and keep her fitness up the old-fashioned way, she needed access to the exercise facilities. And as the Wards' 'gym' consisted of a decrepit treadmill and a few sets of barbells for Aegis, Piggot had granted her leave to use the upstairs gym. Piggot might have lost a step or three, but Sophia had to grudgingly admit the old hag understood the importance of keeping fit and strong. Even if she'd let herself balloon out since she landed behind that desk.

Sophia went into the changing rooms and came out wearing sweats and a domino mask. Picking a treadmill in the far corner, she set it to medium speed and started to jog, gradually clicking the speed upward as she warmed up. With a glance to either side, she made sure that nobody was watching her. Then she took her phone from the pocket of her sweats. They had confiscated her Wards phone, but she'd managed to hide the presence of this one from them for the time being.

Keeping up the steady jog, she turned the phone on and dialled in the number from the scrap of paper that she had saved from the previous night. One more double-check and she popped the paper into her mouth; a few seconds of chewing reduced it to pulp. Then she tapped in a message. I'm in.

As soon as she got the 'message sent' notification, she shut the phone down and pulled the battery out, dropping each into a pocket of her sweats. With a grimace, she swallowed the rough fibrous pulp of the scrap of paper, then clicked the treadmill all the way up to running speed. She didn't know if they were tracking all texts in and out of the building, but she didn't intend to make it easy for them.

Coil's Base

Hi, read the email.

Just got a text from you-know-who. Says she's in.

Send the instructions?

C

He smiled under his mask. At last. Something's going right.

Flexing his fingers, he savoured the moment, then split the timelines. In both worlds, he began to type. The message only consisted of two words, but he took great pleasure in clicking the 'send' icon.

In one world, the words were Affirmative. Proceed.

In the other, they were Negative. Abort.

Thursday Morning
Winslow High

"Hey, Veder."

Greg looked around from where he was changing into his gym clothes. "Uh, hi, Kelly," he said nervously. He didn't like the smile on Kelly's face. It promised bruises in his near future.

"Heard you skipped out on gym yesterday," Kelly said conversationally. "We were lookin' for you in dodge-ball. You make comments about the Empire, you gotta pay. You know that, right?"

Greg gulped. "Um, I didn't mean it, not really?" He could see he wasn't being very convincing.

"So you ran your mouth without really meaning it, huh?" Kelly shook his head. "Ain't gonna fly."

Panic almost overcame Greg's brain, but then he recalled his conversation with Taylor the day before. "Uh, um, I wanted to talk to you anyway."

Now Kelly's expression became a frown. "What the fuck do you want to talk to me about? The exact size and shape of your bruises? 'Cause we can talk about that."

"N-no." Greg shook his head. "About – about joining. The Empire."

Kelly took a step closer. "The fuck?"

Greg took a deep breath and faced him. "If I join you guys, you'll stop everyone else from beating on me, right?"

After a long moment, Kelly's eyebrows rose toward his hairline. "You want to join the Empire?"

"Y-yeah." Greg tried not to let his voice shake. "I – I was talking to Taylor, and she said I should."

Kelly's expression changed utterly. "Taylor told you to join." The flat contempt was gone; he was now regarding Greg with a certain amount of curiosity.

Greg nodded, not trusting his voice.

"Huh. You know it's not a club you can just join then leave again? There's a commitment, yeah?"

"I – I can commit." Greg tried to make his voice stronger. "I can. I promise."

"Hm." Kelly looked him over thoughtfully. "I'll get back to you on that."

Abruptly, he turned and left. Greg leaned against his locker, shaking.

I really, really hope this works.

Late Thursday Night
PRT Building

Sophia's phone buzzed next to her head. Groggily, she opened her eyes and picked it up to focus on the screen. It showed the time as 11:30 PM. Time to move. Pulling the covers off, she sat up, revealing the fact that she was already dressed to leave. Because of the damn ankle-bracelet, she'd had to wear sneakers instead of her boots for the last few weeks, but tonight was going to be different. Getting off the bed, she lifted the closest leg and worked off the rubber cap on the end. Nestling in the cap was the key she'd gotten in the letter. Putting the cap back on the leg – no sense in showing the morons how she'd done it – she put her foot up on the bed and regarded the key.

This was the moment of truth. She hadn't even tried the key in the cuff yet. It either worked or it didn't. If it worked, she was out of there. If it didn't, if the PRT was just waiting outside her door to burst in and entrap her in even more bullshit … well, that would happen too. All she had to do was find out was use the actual key. Whatever happens, I tried.

Despite her internal bravado, she hesitated before inserting the tiny piece of metal. If this was a trap, they could add 'attempted escape' on to whatever sentence they finally hung on her. That would mean even more possibility of her juvey sentence rolling over into an adult sentence. Her lawyer was generally a piece of useless crap, but he'd impressed that on her. Attempting to escape lawful custody made things so much worse.

I pull this off, I'm back here and in bed by the time they even think to look. Fuck 'em. If the key was genuine, she could deal with the assholes who were piling up their bogus charges, and just walk when the trial date came. Starting with Hebert. Couldn't stand on her own two feet, so she ran to the fucking racists when push came to shove.

Taking a deep breath, she leaned over her leg and gently pushed the key into the lock. It fitted perfectly, and no alarms broke out. Then she tried to turn it. It didn't move. Even when she applied more force than she really thought she should, nothing happened. Fuck, it's a bogus key. This was all one big hoax. Her heart-rate quickened. All this for fucking nothing … wait. She forced herself to calm down and reversed her grip on the key.

All her life she'd been conditioned to turn things left to right, which was why she'd automatically tried to turn the key that way. But now she turned it the other way … and it moved smoothly. With an almost inaudible click, the ankle-bracelet unlocked, the green light on it still pulsing strongly. She watched it fall off on to the bed with something approaching disbelief. Holy shit, it came off.

After a moment, she spurred herself into action. The bracelet went under the covers; she made no attempt to make an approximation of herself in the bed, because if they came into her room, they'd be checking everything anyway. The key went into her bra; she did not want to lose that. Her clothing consisted of dark-coloured sweats and a domino mask, such as she'd been wearing to exercise over the last couple of weeks. Not her ideal ass-kicking outfit, but she wasn't going out to kick ass. Not tonight, anyway.

Triumph was at the monitor console when she eased out of her room. It would've made things easier if he'd been wearing his helmet – did he have any idea how much that thing screwed with his peripheral vision? - but apparently he'd decided that late nights didn't count. She made the snap decision to bluff it out, and stepped into the main area.

He turned his head toward her. "Oh, hey, Stalker. Didn't know you were up."

"Can't sleep. Gonna hit the gym." She made her voice as non-committal as possible. "Might be an hour or so."

One corner of his mouth quirked. "Okay. Don't hurt yourself by pushing too hard."

"Try not to." Already pissed at herself – should've brought the bracelet, what if they check where it is when Rory says I'm in the gym – Sophia stepped forward, knowing that the absolute only way of getting through this was pretending that everything was absolutely normal. Fortuitously, she'd already built up the reputation of being a gym rat over the last few weeks. Rory wouldn't think twice about her going to the gym at this hour. She hoped.

The doors opened at her touch and she exited the Wards area. Now she was on borrowed time. She dashed down the corridor and hit the button for the elevator. As soon as the doors interleaved open, she hit the button for the gym floor. It zipped upward at its usual pace, but to Sophia it wasn't fast enough. The next bit of the plan depended on two factors. Either one going wrong could screw her.

It stopped on the correct floor and the doors opened. There was nobody waiting for the lift, which was the first danger averted. Slapping the panel for a lower floor, she stepped out before the doors could close again. A flicker of movement to her left alerted her, and she jammed herself back into the lift alcove again. The doors were set back into the wall a little, which was a bonus; sucking in a breath, she kept her back pressed to them.

Now she could hear voices; to her trained ear, it sounded like two of the guards, faceplates open, chatting about some TV show. On the upside, neither one seemed to have seen her. On the downside, they were coming her way, and the lift alcove was only so deep. While she'd used her mask on the elevator doors more than once, confirming that they had no electricity moving through them, she would have much preferred to step through them forwards. Unfortunately, turning around to do so would expose her to the oncoming guards. Fuck it. Taking a deep breath, she cleared her mind and turned to shadow, falling backward through the doors.

She hadn't anticipated that the lift shaft would be so dark. If there was any light anywhere, she couldn't see it. For a long moment, she nearly lost herself to panic, but then she clamped down on it. I'm stronger than this! Waving her immaterial arms out to the side, she felt a brief discontinuity with her left one; snapping back to solidity, she lunged both arms in that direction. Her left hand brushed something, and her right hand grabbed it. It was the cable; but she'd already started falling, and the jerk nearly dislocated her shoulder. However, she had enough experience in climbing in the dark and quickly brought her left hand around. Next, her booted feet closed on the cable, stopping her downward slide.

Grimacing at the feel of the caked-on grease, she wiped her hand on her pants as best she could and dug out her phone. It took all her concentration to turn it on without dropping it, but she managed it, and waved the weak light around her surroundings. Ladder. There. The rungs disappeared upward and downward, away from her sphere of illumination. Fixing the location in her head, she tucked the phone away again, turned shadow, and leaped. A moment later, she turned solid once more, gripping the rungs. Satisfaction twisted her lips into a feral grin. I don't lose.

She couldn't recall if she'd had a more tiresome climb before, but it was just the tedium talking. In reality, only a few minutes had passed before she encountered the hatch opening out on to the upper surface of the lift enclosure. Going to shadow, she ghosted through it, then turned solid again in the cool night air. She crouched there for a few seconds, just breathing deeply, enjoying air that hadn't been recycled and conditioned a thousand times over. Then she skulked to the edge of the roof and launched herself into the air, turning to shadow a moment later.

Nineteen minutes later, she was several blocks away, waiting in the shadow of an air-conditioning unit. It had taken her a few extra minutes to get there, as she had stopped by one of her illicit caches, but she'd spent the time wisely. Again she scanned the city skyline, then checked the time on her phone. Irritably, she tapped out a text. S here. Where r u?

"Right here," murmured a voice from behind her. She didn't hesitated for a moment; throwing herself to the side, she brought a crossbow up, the razor-edged arrow trained on the figure crouched atop the boxy metal structure. For a long moment, her finger trembled on the trigger, then she relaxed as the person raised their hands.

"Who the hell are you?" she demanded, only just barely remembering to keep her voice down.

"Relax, honey," the girl – the pose was feminine, as was the tone – replied, not seeming at all concerned that she was looking at a quick death if Sophia decided to pull the trigger. "I'm your contact. The letter you got? It had the key to your ankle-bracelet in it."

"Contact?" Sophia got to her feet, keeping the crossbow on target. "Who's your boss?"

Moving as fluidly as anyone Sophia had ever seen, the girl – maybe five or six years older than Sophia – leaped down from the unit, landing without a sound on the rough gravel. "The boss prefers to stay under the radar for the moment, hon. But trust me when I tell you that he wants to see Taylor Hebert out of the picture just as badly as you do."

Sophia blinked; now she could see the girl better, she could make out details of the costume. It seemed to be a subdued harlequin's outfit, in non-reflective blacks and dark reds; while there were bells attached, a tiny red ribbon tied around each one rendered them silent. There was only one cape in Brockton Bay who used the jester motif …. "You're Circus."

Circus' hand came up in a mime's exaggerated movement, her eyes going wide and the fingertips pressing against her pursed lips. "Guilty as charged, hon. You got a problem with that?" Her voice was smooth and sweet, like maple syrup.

For a moment, Sophia wondered if she was being deliberately mocked. Circus, she recalled, made a habit of doing her best to puncture the ego of every hero she faced. Had this encounter happened before all the shit with Hebert, she would almost certainly be loosing an arrow into this smug bitch's face right about now. But the situation had changed. How much more it was likely to change was something she'd have to discover for herself. "Not right now," she conceded grudgingly. Lowering the crossbow, she took her finger off the trigger. "So, what's the plan?"

Circus had somehow acquired a knife from somewhere and was flicking it through her fingers, the city lights glinting off of the blade. "You know about the Empire's little planned jaunt on Friday night?"

"Just that they'd be busy," Sophia answered cautiously.

Another knife joined the first one. Without looking, Circus was spinning both of them around the fingers of the same hand, the two pieces of glittering metal seeming to almost intersect on occasion. "Word is that they're going to stomp the Merchants but good. The Hebert girl's their new big hitter, so I guess she's going out to prove it by stepping on some cockroaches. So in the meantime, their home base is low on protection."

"The Medhall building." Sophia couldn't really figure that part out. "You're saying Medhall is being used as a safehouse by the Empire?"

Circus chuckled. One of the knives disappeared, and reappeared in her other hand. Sophia could've sworn that it hadn't crossed the gap. "Honey, they are the goddamn Empire. Who do you think Max Anders is? Big hint: he's never been seen in the same room as Kaiser."

Despite herself, Sophia's eyes opened wide. "You're shitting me. No way is Max Anders Kaiser."

"Wanna put money on it?" Circus' teeth were very white in the darkness. "I'll bet you half your pay from the job."

Sophia could tell a sucker bet when she saw one. "No dice. Okay, so Anders is Kaiser. Medhall is Empire. So Hebert and her father are in that building?"

"Correct." Both the knives disappeared at once. "She goes out with the other capes. We go in. We find her dad, and we extract him."

This was the other part that she'd been having trouble with. "The letter said that certain interests wanted to get their hands on the father. Who?"

Circus shrugged, and a small ball appeared in her hand. It was black with a red skull and crossbones on it, with a tiny sputtering fuse appended to the top. Casually, she began to toss it into the air and catch it. "People with deep pockets. I don't ask questions. That way, I get paid more. You wanna ask questions or get paid?"

After a moment of reflection, Sophia decided names weren't all that important. "But this'll screw up Hebert?"

With a snap of the fingers, Circus was holding a second ball, with identical markings and fuse. This joined the other one in the air as she fell into an obviously rehearsed juggling routine. "Count on it, honey. She wants her dad alive and well, she'll have to dance to their tune."

It wasn't precisely what Sophia wanted – preferably, the chance to put an arrow through the back of Hebert's racist skull from about ten feet away – but she decided that it would do. "Like telling her to take a dive at my trial?"

"That's definitely something we can work into the agreement," Circus said cheerfully. Somehow, a third ball had joined the other two, merrily sparking fuse and all. "Any other questions?"

"What's the deal with the father, anyway?" asked Sophia. "Why hasn't he come out and made a statement telling everyone how great the Empire is?"

"He's in a coma," Circus told her. "Brain damage. Panacea couldn't heal it, but Othala might be able to. Last I heard, he was still doing a damn good imitation of a store dummy."

"Ah." Sophia considered this. It would make the extraction both easier and harder. "Are we gonna be having backup for this?"

"Only once we're outside," Circus informed her. "The boss doesn't want Kaiser figuring out who pulled this stunt on him. So while we're inside, we're on our own."

"Right." For a moment, Sophia had a mental image of Circus careening down the swastika-encrusted hallways of the Nazi stronghold, pushing a comatose guy in a chair while Sophia laid down covering fire. "Okay, do we know what floor he's on?"

"Not exactly, but we know what floors he's not on, so that'll cut down the search time." Circus's voice was bright and chirpy. "Or we can just find some asshole and ask him a few pointed questions."

On the word 'pointed', one of the 'bombs' disappeared, to be replaced by a knife arcing through the air from Circus' hand.

"We can definitely do that," agreed Sophia. She reflexively checked her phone. "Shit, I should be getting back. So, what time Friday night?"

"I'll text you when we're ready to roll," Circus told her. "Be ready to go after dark. It'll basically be once the Empire goes out after the Merchants."

"Gotcha. See you -" One of the 'bombs' hit the ground and cracked open, spewing thick smoke everywhere. Sophia backed up rapidly, crossbow coming up and aiming, but by the time the smoke cleared, Circus was nowhere to be seen. "- then," she finished lamely. Bitch. They really were smoke bombs.

She held herself back from any more irritation. Gotta get back before Triumph comes looking. Taking a running leap, she dived off the roof and turned to shadow.

PRT Building
Wards Base

The 'mask-up' buzzer sounded, and Rory reflexively put his helmet on. A click of the mouse showed the view just outside the door; it was Shadow Stalker, back from the gym. When the door hissed open, she strode in like she owned the place, ignoring him utterly as she walked past. He thought of asking her something like did you enjoy the gym but decided not to; not only was it a remarkably stupid question, but Shadow Stalker wasn't the easiest person to get along with at the best of times.

Pulling his helmet off, he sniffed curiously at the air. The scent of soap that she'd left behind was pretty powerful. She must've been really working up a sweat in there. Though he didn't think an hour-long exercise regimen really needed that much soap to wash off all the sweat.

Her door closed behind her, cutting off his window for starting any conversations. With a shrug, he turned back to the console and reactivated his game of Solitaire. Monitor duty only had to be boring if you let it be boring.

Sophia eased the rubber cap back on to the leg of the bed, concealing the key once more. On her ankle, the bracelet flashed its signal to the world, telling everyone that she was still in her quarters. With a sigh of pent-up tension, she collapsed on to the bed. She'd had to spend far too long scrubbing the grease off of her skin and clothing; if Rory had taken too much of an interest, he might've noticed that she wasn't wearing the ankle-bracelet. The damp sweats, wrung out as best she could, hung over the end of her bed.

But she'd proved it could be done; she'd snuck out, right under their noses, then gotten back in without anyone being the wiser. The return had been, ironically, much easier than the exit. There'd been no reason to climb all the way to the top of the building; a running leap from a nearby building had allowed her to glide straight in through the window of the gym. Mentally, she gave herself a slap upside the head for making the whole thing more complicated than it needed to be. I could've just walked past those damn troopers. For all they knew, I was allowed to be there.

Flopping back on to the pillow, she focused on the positives. Tomorrow night, I go out and fuck up Hebert's life once and for all.

It was a good thought. She went to sleep with a smile on her face.

End of Part Twenty