1.5
-- Lisa Wilbourne --
An hour later, I sat at my desk, taking notes on my laptop as Tanya paced and dictated. I'd changed into my civvies while she washed up, surmising she wouldn't appreciate me making a big deal about unmasking. I'd offered my real (fake) name, and gotten a distracted nod in return.
Freshly scrubbed and swimming in some of my clothes, rifle propped up by the wall, she looked a lot less Bonesaw, thank God. Though her attitude had always kept that association mostly in check. She looked kind of adorable, almost, if you ignored the calluses on her hands, her coarse, gravelly voice, and the pitiless, unnatural intellect lighting her ice blue eyes. Well, maybe she'd look adorable if I didn't know what she'd done, what she was ready to do at any moment. And only saw her from a distance. And didn't use my power. Oh well. She at least didn't bother pretending to not know what the computer was, which I appreciated. Even if she wasn't willing to talk about it, she knew I knew something, and that made things go much more smoothly.
"... weight and recoil aren't nearly as important for aerial mages but don't overdo it. But the most important factors are sturdiness and reliability. Even with a mage blade formula to ease the passage and a good cleaning afterward, circumstances permitting, getting shoved through a rib cage or skull at a relative speed of several hundred kilometers per hour is rough on a gun. All steel construction, ideally, with a hefty bayonet lug. Even then, buy extras. You'll also need to find someone capable of performing a silver inlay from the top of the grip up to a half-circle over where the projectile sits in the chamber and all down the sides of the barrel. In the meantime, get a couple thousand rounds of 7.9257mm Mauser to tide us over."
Thousand? Tide us over? Just how many people are you planning to kill, Tanya?
"That many, boss?"
"Ammo is cheap, but running out of ammo is not. And you go through far more rounds in training than you ever will in combat. Well, off the Front, anyway. And we'll want submachine guns for inside work. Same considerations, just smaller and smaller caliber. Get yourself one, too. A handgun is fine if you need something concealable in your civilian persona, but the cape costume already marks you as dangerous. Might as well have the firepower to go with it."
That's... not how that works. I'd already considered and rejected the notion of trying to explain the role of guns in cape culture, and how I can only really get away with the pistol because I'm a squishy thinker. I didn't need my power to tell me there was just no possible way to convince this little girl to give up her security blanket/murder implement. Which was lucky, because I'm just about tapped out, pain already making it a little hard to focus. Because I spent all my reserves on a 'conversation' that, it turned out, for the most part, neither required nor permitted my participation. And somehow emerged from the experience with even less understanding of the thinker headache in human form than when I started. And an agreement to follow the orders of the insane tween literal fucking gun-wizard from another dimension. But hey, Coil is so fucking dead. Got to take my wins where I can find them. My old plan of just tossing Taylor at him seems kind of anemic in retrospect.
Well, I guess if I'm going to be running around with a team loaded down with all the highly illegal military hardware I can afford, I really might as well have some myself. And how had I ended up on the hook for all this, again? Oh, right: "What, you're willing to bet your life on this team, but not your money? Insanity. Or is that you think I'm trying to rob you? Naturally not. You'll receive a double share of all team dividends until your outlay is made whole, plus some reasonable compensation for the use of your capital."
"Language tutors for Granz and Koenig. We need them up to speed as soon as possible, at least on the basics. Trying to give orders in multiple languages during a firefight is a recipe for disaster."
Where had the orphan child soldier developed her fixation on economics? I think I had a good theory on the why and the how of it: poor little Tanya must have found people so confusing, reptile that she is, and economics purports to describe human behavior in terms that cold reptile brain can understand. She'd have jumped in with both feet, and rapidly built her whole world view around it. But she didn't just reinvent it from whole cloth. She's hardly that smart, and, anyway, she uses all the right terminology. In English, no less. So where? Did the orphanage that couldn't afford to properly feed her stock a copy of The Wealth of Nations in their extensive library? Was civilian economics a focus at the Kaiserreich's militarized Hogwarts knockoff? Or, as I was beginning to strongly suspect, did it come with her mysterious future knowledge? If so, that was an important clue. It implied she had some control over the knowledge she'd received. But fuck, for all I know she just disemboweled a chicken and used her no-shit actual magical powers to just divine the secrets of Market Capitalism from its innards.
"A harness for you, with handles by the neck and lower back. Though, make sure either one can take twice your full weight in an emergency."
I winced. My new look was going to be a recipe for disaster.
"And see about acquiring some of those bottled superpowers you mentioned."
"What? Why would you need... Oh."
"Right. The four of us are not parahumans. And if we ever get to the point of mass testing for magical potential, any mages we find probably won't be parahumans, either."
If there's anyone who doesn't need more powers...
"Well, I don't really have any clue how to get in touch with the evil shadow conspiracy that sells them. Unless you want me to shoot Alexandria an email, I guess."
Her silence made me glance over. Oh, uh, should not have offered that. Not even as a joke.
Fortunately, she eventually responded, "Not just yet. I'd rather remain below her notice until I've worked out a counter."
I breathed a sigh of relief. A counter to Alexandria? Good luck with that, Tanya.
"Probably outside our budget, anyway."
"Hmm. What about stealing them from other groups? Foolish to keep a stockpile around, but even one could be a big help. Look for highly profitable organizations with commensurately many strong, loyal capes."
So, groups we definitely don't want to steal from? Sure, I'll get right on that.
"Spare uniforms are a must. I understand it'll be hard to replicate them exactly, but do your best."
Er, what?
"Uh, boss? Why do you need uniforms? You... are planning on getting a real costume, right?"
If anything, she seemed more confused than me.
"No? Oh, you can keep yours, of course. You are not an Imperial soldier and it would be inappropriate to dress you as one. Though I still don't really understand why you'd want to keep dressing up as an eggplant."
Bitch, eggplant? Oh, God, purple bodysuit plus blonde hair... Well, I'm certainly not shaped like an eggplant, thank you very much! But, no costumes? I gave her a closer look. Blank expression, so something she doesn't want me to see. No power, but I shouldn't need to cheat on this. Well, not any more than I already have. Still 'clinging to military hierarchy as a source of stability and security' perhaps? The uniforms don't matter, Tanya! There's no war here to give it meaning, no military police to back your authority, and no treaties between the Empire and any Bet nation to protect you. But I've learned my lesson about prodding her issues directly.
"Will you wear masks, at least? If you don't at least make a token effort towards anonymity no one will hesitate to bother you over cape business whenever they like. It's an important custom."
Now her expression morphed to a more natural distaste.
"I suppose it's a reasonable compromise."
"And you need cape names to go with them, or there's no point."
Full on disgust now, but still not the fear(?) she'd been hiding earlier.
"Very well. I'll be 'Argent,' I suppose. I'll let the men pick their own, though I'm already regretting it."
As if on queue, the sounds of the shower cut off and Weiss emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in a towel. He gave us a nod and moved over to the couch on the other side of the room, replacing Granz as he got up for his own turn, and joining Koenig in playing with the TV remote. They'd worked out how to keep the volume down pretty fast, at least, after a single pointed look from Tanya.
("You know the hot water isn't actually unlimited, right? It's actually quite expensive to get all the clean water and butane shipped in."
"Nonetheless, you will share it freely with your new comrades. Or do you want their first interaction with you as a teammate to be marred by denying them this simple comfort?")
"We'll need a watchmaker or precision machinist of some sort for replacement orb parts or whole new orbs. Not soon, but it might take a while. I have... a spare."
She produced an elaborate device, a glass half sphere filled with clockwork set in a metal ring, but did not look eager to hand it over. She must have taken it from her uniform pocket before changing.
"Bear in mind this is irreplaceable. For the moment, I mean. I expect you to find someone capable of documenting and replicating each part before returning it in perfect order."
She still was not letting it go. I was very careful to keep my thoughts off my face.
"Don't you have two? Perhaps we could use one of those instead."
"Ah, no. My second orb is something else. I need both."
Her voice was firm and inflectionless, leaving no room for questions. Did I really manage to stumble over some brand new issue while dodging the last? Damn, Tanya, you think someone needs a thinker power to get to you? Maybe they need one not to! Well, let's leave this minefield of a topic as gracefully as possible.
"I'll look into it. I don't need the orb right now."
She put it away quickly and continued as if nothing had happened.
"Well, that's all I can think of right now. Longer term, we'll have to see about reinventing magic detectors. I can guess at the principles by which they operate, but I've never tried taking one apart. But it can wait."
I nodded, beginning to review the list.
"Oh, and one last thing. If you've been holding things back or lying to me about anything important, now's the time to say. I won't blame you for acting in your own interests while you were a free agent, but for all our sakes I need an accurate picture of the world now."
OK, that sounds very reasonable and all, but will she actually let it go if she figures out I exploited her loss to manipulate her? And there really isn't anyway to clue her in without her figuring that out. Well, she managed to reason her way out of her little paranoia fit earlier, right? Excellent self control. Then again, that wasn't this. I get the sense that self control hasn't been doing the Red Army much good, poor bastards. Well, it's going to come out sooner or later. The heroes might even reach out themselves, once they see what she can do. Nothing for it...
"Well, I couldn't tell you about Coil until I knew you'd help. I may have exaggerated a bit how hard a time you'd have making up with the PRT. Dauntless was well liked and the other heroes will probably hold a grudge, but the organization as a whole can be pretty cold and pragmatic. Also, I know a ton of little things about most of the capes in the city, like, Armsmaster let Merchandising print his face on kids' underwear for a while. And Panacea totally wants to bang her--"
She raised a hand. I shut up. She just stayed like that, staring at me, motionless. It would have been super awkward if it wasn't terrifying. I was really tempted to let up on my power, pain or not, but what good would it do? Finally, she just turned and left, grabbing her rifle on the way out.
A\N: I struggled with this one a bit. No scenes I was really excited for, just a checklist of things to address before the Coil mini-arc, plus some details on Lisa's perspective on recent events. Does it read as awkward as it felt to write?