Leaf

by Slavok

When an expedition through Shadesmar goes awry, Lift finds herself stuck on earth. Fortunately, between the capes, the crime, and the local cuisine, she finds more than enough to keep her occupied.

7. Chapter 7

Leaf

Chapter Seven

In the following days Lift learned to kick people in the face, and her quality of life improved dramatically.

"Again," Brian said. He blocked with his arm, but if he hadn't, he would have gotten a face full of foot from the right, then the left, then from below as Lift spun around, planted her hands on the ground, and ... actually, that one just hit his chest. But if he was shorter ...

"Good. Do it again until it's muscle memory." Brian was big on muscle memory. He said things like, "Good, do it again," by muscle memory.

But Lift smiled all the same. "Hey, how come Lisa never spars?" she said as the older girl came into the room. Lisa was a bit shorter than Brian, so her face would be easier to reach.

"Who, me?" Lisa said, pocketing her phone. "No thanks. I'm more of a brains over brawn villain. Besides, I need to save my breath for talking."

"Also, she's lazy," Alec said.

Lisa shot him a look. "Weaponized talking is hard work. What's your excuse?"

"I never claimed I wasn't. You don't see me on that mat when I can avoid it."

Lisa shook her head. "Anyway, I just got off the phone with the boss. Who wants to rob a bank?"

"Gee, I would, but I'm too lazy," Alec said. "I think I'll just stay here and play video games."

"Bad idea," Brian said. "Bank robberies are a villain cliche, but there are plenty of places that give as good of a pay out for half the risk."

"Wait," Lift said. "We have a boss?"

WWW

"It's still a bad idea," Brian said after Rachel had gotten back. "We'd have to break into a fortified area, giving the heroes time to show up, and then deal with at least one of the three hero teams in the city. Best case scenario, we make a few thousand dollars a piece. Worst case, we go to jail. We'd be better off hitting the ABB targets we had planned."

Lisa nodded. "So you're worried that the risk is too high and the payout is too high. Important points. I talked it over with the boss, and I think we can deal with both."

"What boss?" Lift asked. "How long have we had a boss? Is this new? How come no one told me about this?"

Lisa sighed. "You know we have a boss. We've told you about him repeatedly."

WWW

Lift bounced up and down on her new bed, testing how high she could go.

"So, here's your room," Lisa said in the background. "Make yourself at home. You get two grand a month just for being on the team, and I was able to convince the boss to pay you in advance. If you want to go shopping later to get some new clothes—not that you're not rocking the homeless look—just let me know. Also there's a Ghirardelli's down on the Boardwalk doing a special on mango cream filling, you know, if you want to support your local businesses ... and blood sugar."

"What about the boss?" Skullface asked. "Can he help?"

Knowitall shook her head. "I just got off the phone with him. He told us to keep him posted on any updates, and that he has absolute confidence in our abilities."

Fancypants laughed. "In other words, screw you, you're on your own."

"Alright, the boss gave me a list of ABB points of interest. We just need to pick, say, six of them, and Operation Steal Lung's Dinner will be good to go."

WWW

"So, he's a secret boss?" Lift said.

"No, he's ... fine," Lisa said. "Fine. We have a boss, he gives us money, advice, info, jobs, blah blah blah. Moving on. First of all, Brian, you were worried about the risk, and we need to worry about the Protectorate, Wards, and New Wave. The Protectorate will be out of town on Thursday doing an event, so they're out of the picture."

"What sort of event?" Lift asked.

"I ... didn't check. Probably a fundraiser or a PR event or something. The point is, they'll be too far away to do anything."

"Will there be food there?"

Lisa shrugged. "Probably."

"Then why ain't we robbin' that?"

Lisa gave her a flat look. "The place with the most powerful capes in the city and with little to no on hand cash?" she asked. "That is an excellent question. We will get back to that. Anyway, the heroes have their own jurisdictional protocols, and if hit a bank solidly in Wards territory, New Wave will stay out of it. And if we strike when the Wards are in school, then they'll have to miss class to come fight us. If the same six kids cut class every time there's a dastardly villain to deal with, their classmates are going to get suspicious. We'll be dealing with half the team at most, and I'm pretty sure the five of us can handle any three of them.

"As for the turn out, the boss offered us a deal. Three times whatever we steal or twenty-five grand, whichever is greater, and costs. Equipment, info, bribes, anything we might need. Money's always coming and going, but the bank is set to receive a major shipment at eleven Thursday morning and will send the next one out at three. If we strike at one, there should be at least thirty thousand dollars in there, which the boss will turn into ninety. Split five ways, that's eighteen grand each."

"How much is that?" Lift asked.

Lisa hesitated. "If you go to that Cinabon over on Boardwalk, eighteen thousand will get you over two thousand cinnamon rolls."

Lift's eyes widened. "How much is that?"

"Enough to eat six a day every day for the next year."

Lift considered that. Their rolls were a pretty good size, and six could go a long ways to filling her up. Besides, when they were fresh and steaming hot, glaze melting off the top ...

"Why?" Brian asked. "Why would he pay us sixty thousand dollars to rob a bank? I mean, I get him fencing what we steal and laundering our money. If he has the right connections, he gets as much out of that as we do. But this? I know when something's too good to be true, and this deal crossed the line thirty thousand dollars ago."

Lisa smiled. "Not as much as you might think. Those kinds of amounts don't mean a whole lot to him, and he's been investing in us for months now. We've proven that we can get in and out well enough, and that's worth ten grand a month to him, but we took down Lung. The Empire couldn't do that. The Protectorate couldn't do that. We did. That makes us big league material, and he's offering us a big league pay off."

"But why pay us anything?" Lift asked. She had no interest in money, but she knew how it worked (mostly), and no one would pay her a year's supply of cinnamon rolls without getting something in return.

"Well, that is a good question with a long and complicated answer," Lisa said. "Whenever you come across a villain sponsor, he's in it for one of three reasons. The first one is money. Like Brian said, he fences goods and launders money for us, but that's just the beginning. He could short-sell stocks in a company, pay us fifty grand to trash the place, and end up with a hundred thousand. And if we get big, we could end up with our own black market merchandising line, and that's when the money really starts to roll in. There's a fine line between villainy and showbiz, and villain sponsors use that line as a jump rope.

"The next reason is power. It pays to have friends in low places, and not just in cash. If you want to intimidate your enemies at competitive prices, you can't beat a team like ours when it comes to style and panache."

Lift understood all of that except for the panache. That was probably what you called pancakes before they were cooked.

"Then there's politics," Lisa said. "And that's where it gets complicated, so I won't go into that."

"I understand pol'tics." Even before she had started living in a palace pol'tics had been straightforward for her. They were just a buncha cons but extra squiggly 'cause they had to be legal.

"Oh. Okay then. A politics sponsor works a lot like the first two kinds, only with extra steps and less intuitive goals. He could try to discredit the current political regime by putting together extra villain teams, or he could set us up to rebalance the villain dynamic to do the opposite. I could talk your ear off about this, but that's for another time."

Lift nodded. "So which one is it?"

"Hm?"

"What's he havin' for dinner?"

Lisa shrugged. "Can't say. Whenever I get the urge to look into it, I remember the stupid amounts of money he's been throwing at us and think about the old adages about gift horses and curious cats, and I lose interest. But back to the bank robbery, we're looking at a ninety-thousand dollar payday with a risk factor of a couple of Wards. Who's in?"

Brian leaned back and looked at the ceiling. "What the heck. Sure."

"Alec?" Lisa asked.

He shrugged. "Sounds like the hardest part is carrying all the money away. I'm in."

"Rachel?"

"Yes."

"Lift?"

She thought for a moment and glanced down at Wyndle. "Yeah, okay." There was probably a vending machine or an employee lounge she could rob while everyone else was busy with the money. "How are we doing this?"

Lift had never put much planning into her heists in the past. There were too many things that you couldn't plan for, so she usually skipped that part and made things up as she went along. Besides, as a master thief, she had never needed a plan.

But while Rachel was giving her dogs tummy rubs and Alec was getting lunch ready (two very important jobs), Lisa and Brian wanted to plan everything. Lisa had a fabrial full of pictures of the bank inside and out, diagrams, and enough words to make a head explode. While they were discussing using Lift's shardblade to break into the vault, she made a suggestion.

"Why don't we just dig a tunnel?" she asked. "If we know where the vault is, we could just skip the main entrances and everything." The vending machines included, but it still made more sense than kicking down the front door.

"That could work," Brian said. "It would take longer, but we can start digging it today if we needed to. Best case scenario, we get out before the heroes even show up. Worst case, we have a several ton steel door between us and them and an easy exit."

"It could backfire though," Lisa said. "In a tight enclosed space like that? If it came down to a fight, we wouldn't be able to fit the five of us and Rachel's transformed dogs inside the vault. And if we outnumber the heroes, which between the five of us and her three dogs we definitely will, the small space will hurt us a lot more than it will help us. If Clockblocker gets through the vault door he could tag half of us just by stumbling around blindly. And Vista? Vista could shrink the tunnel down to a pinprick and trap us there all day."

Brian frowned. "Alright. How about this? We dig the tunnel except for the last bit. Then we come in through the fire exit as normal. The heroes show up and, I don't know, set up a perimeter or whatever, and then instead of engaging them we uncover the tunnel entrance and just leave."

Lisa nodded thoughtfully. "The best defense is being somewhere else entirely. We'll need a map of the sewers and the bank's blueprints so we don't destabilize the building going in. A lot of that isn't going to be in the public domain, but I'm pretty sure the boss can hook us up." She pulled out her phone and started pressing buttons. "Hey, Boss, how's it going?" she said with a forced smile. "So I told the team about your deal, and everyone is just super excited for Thursday. Yeah. They can't wait. First though, we're going to borrow your frankly ungodly information network to get the bank's blueprints."

There was a pause.

"Oh, nothing much. We're thinking of digging a tunnel in there to save some trouble later on, and don't want to knock the building over. Can you imagine that? That's the sort of thing people would hold a grudge for."

Another pause.

"What? Oh. Really? Huh. Good to know. Uh-huh. How about just as an exit strat? Okay. I'll pass that along." She put her phone down.

"Is there a problem?" Brian asked.

"Not really. He said that the triple payoff is dependent on us engaging with the heroes. He wants us to get our names out, and that means winning fights, not avoiding them. If we dig our way into the vault and get out before anyone realizes that we're there, we'll get away with the bank's thirty-thousand, but not the boss' sixty-thousand."

Lift frowned. "So he wants us to kick the door down, beat up everyone, and take their stuff, but we can't sneak in and out without hurtin' nobody." He wanted them to rob the place, just as long as they were really stupid and clumsy about it. "No, I got it. He wants us to spit in their eye, don't he? 'Cause pol'tics."

Lisa shrugged. "Could be." Could be. Can't say. It's possible. For someone who knew everything, she was being real vague today.

"You said the big heroes were havin' a party, right?" Lift said as an idea grew in her mind. "Where?"

"Could be good to know," Brian said. "If Velocity or Dauntless can reinforce the Wards, I want to know that beforehand."

Lisa gave him a look. "I mean, if it takes us more than twenty minutes to rob a bank, we've screwed up, but I'll check." She took out her phone again. "Hey, Boss. Sorry to bother you again, but the engagement the Protectorate is going to be busy with? Could you tell us where it is?"

A pause.

"The Augustus Country Club? Got it. And I'm sure you're already planning on doing this, but could you have an informant there to let us know if any of the heroes don't show up and when they leave?"

"Hey, Lisa," Lift hissed. "Ask him how much he'll pay us for robbing that!"

She glared at her and shook her head. "Okay, thanks. I think that's—"

"Come on! You know that'll be more fun than some boring old bank."

She mouthed the word no. "That's all. I'll let you know if—hey!"

Lift snatched the phone from her hand and held it up to her ear like she had seen everyone else do. "Hey, boss man!"

"Give that back!" Lisa shouted, reaching for her.

Lift rolled backward off the couch and jumped away. "Who is this?" said a voice from the phone. She smiled. And I thought these things were going to be hard to use.

"I'm Leaf. I stole Lung's dinner and his feet last week. You've heard of me. I gotta know somethin'. If you're willing to pay us a year of cin'min rolls to rob a bank, how much will you give us if we rob that gusty country club? The heroes'll get eye spit either way, but my way's got extra gunk."

There was a pause as Lisa scrambled to catch up with her. "This conversation is over. Do not speak to me again." The phone made a click just before Lisa took it back.

"Don't do that," she said, her face livid. "Ever. Only I talk to the boss, okay? It's a delicate process where I annoy him just enough so he'll give me what I want to get rid of me that much sooner without making him angry enough to screw us over. You do not bludgeon your way through a conversation with him!"

Lift shrugged. "It's okay. I'm new, so he'll 'spect me to be stupid, and I'm young, so he'll 'spect me to be even stupider. I gotta use that up while I can." She grinned. "Besides, I got what I wanted."

Lisa narrowed her eyes. "Oh?"

"Yup. It's like with Lung last week, tryin' to distract him so much so he can't kill us. The boss don't want us to spit in no one's eye, just keep 'em busy. Sneakin' in and outta the bank won't busy nobody, and robbin' the gusty club won't help him 'cause they're already distracted. I'll bet you anything that he's planning a second heist at the same time as us, and whatever he's havin' for dinner, it's worth more than a year's supply of cin'min rolls."

She grinned, but Lisa didn't. "Do you think that I couldn't figure that out on my own if I wanted to?"

Lift hesitated. "Did you?"

"Hell no. I need to be careful to be smart enough to be useful without being too smart for my own good. Which is the opposite of what you're doing."

Lift looked up at her and a thought dawned on her. "You're scared of him."

She took a breath. "I'm not. It's just that ... you don't recognize danger until it's right in front of you, and that's not enough."

WWW

Lift spent the next few nights digging a hole.

"So, I know that this is mostly water," Lisa said. "Rain water is the top component, and there's also a lot of bath water and dishwater. Hardly any of this has ever seen the inside of a toilet. But goddammit, when this is over I am burning these clothes."

"There's nothing wrong with having some work clothes," Brian said. "We're villains. We get our hands dirty. Sewage washes off."

"Smells like crap, though."

Lisa was there because she knew how maps worked. Brian was there for cover, putting up walls of darkness on either side of them. Not a lot of people came through here, but it would only take one to catch them. Alec stayed home 'cause he was lazy, and Rachel didn't come neither 'cause dogs couldn't climb ladders.

Lift didn't mind the smell too much. It was more like muck than poop, and you got used to it. Lisa still made her take a bath every single day afterwards, which was crazy. Only crazy people, rich people, and crazy-rich people did that, but here she was, squeaky clean day after day and ready to get dirty again.

"How's that?"

Lisa shone a beam of light from her phone on Lift's work and tapped on the end of the tunnel. It sloped upward until it was nearly vertical. "Alright, good. Make it wide enough so Rachel's dogs could crawl through single file, but don't go any further up than this. The dogs need to be able to dig through the top layer of cement, but we don't want the floor to collapse on itself before then."

Lift got back to work, carving off the edges of the tunnel until she could no longer touch both ends at once. Wyndle could be as long as she needed him to be so that wasn't an issue, but she still got a load of dust in her eyes.

"So I've been thinking," Lift said as she worked. "You got this whole bank robbery planned out down to the last detail, right? And it's not gonna be dangerous or nothin'. You'll be fast instead of quiet, and you're stronger than the other folks who're gonna try and stop you, so you needn't worry 'bout that none. I'm thinkin' I might sit this one out."

"You're not scared, are you?" Brian asked. He picked up a chunk of concrete and tossed it down the main tunnel. It splashed too close to Lisa, who glared at him.

She laughed. "Storms, no. If it were scary it'd be fun. Now it's just boring." She jumped back as another chunk came loose. "Tryin' not to get caught is fun, but you're plannin' to get caught and just fight your way through anyway, and I ain't no fighter."

"Don't sell yourself short," he said. "You beat Lung."

"I ain't sellin' myself short, I'm sellin' myself tall. Any punter with a sword can chop people up, but I'm a thief. Sneakin' in is thievin'. Fightin' your way out is just thuggery."

"What? Let me get this straight. You want to drop out of the mission because you're bored? Lift, we've already spent more time digging this tunnel than the entire robbery is going to take."

She shrugged. "Yeah, but this is fun."

"This," he said, giving her a flat look. "Spending hours in a dank sewer digging a hole is fun for you."

She grinned at him. "A secret hole. No one knows it's here but us."

He sighed. "Look, not every job is going to be fun and exciting. Most of what we do is work. We try to maximize the profit and minimize the risk, and then we can have fun after it's over. After we rob the bank, you could have the rest of the month to yourself, but right now there's work to do."

Her shoulders slumped. "That just sounds starvin' miserable. And we're not even stealin' nothin' I want. Just a big heap of money." And it was all 'cause some mysterious boss was telling them to. There wasn't much point in robbing a bank if someone wanted you to do it. If she was going to do what she was told, she might as well be a hero.

He frowned. "Money is what this is all about. Money can mean the difference between life and death if you know how to spend it. At the rate things are going, I might be able to retire by twenty-five with enough saved up to put Aisha through college." He paused. "And that's something I struggle to imagine. But I don't pull these jobs because they're fun. I do it to prepare for the future."

She dismissed her Shardblade, turning Wyndle back into a mass of vines that only she could see, and sat down on a chunk of concrete. "That's gotta be the worst thing you can do to a future, to prepare it. Might as well not even have one then."

He sighed. "You can't just slide through life and never ..." He shook his head and turned to Lisa. "If Lift stays home, what kind of trouble would that leave us with?"

Lisa considered that. "The vault doors would take a little bit longer, but not by a whole lot. And if we have hostages, we can take as much time as we want as long as we're done by the time the Protectorate gets back. If we were going up against the Protectorate heroes I'd definitely want you there; they'd rather take a loss than be seen beating up kids, though the Wards have more leeway. You'll want to avoid chopping up heroes if you can avoid it because we don't want the heat.

"In a worst case scenario, Clockblocker, Aegis, and Vista try to stop us. Clockblocker could counter your friction power completely, and Aegis and Vista could mostly ignore you. You could disable Gallant's and Kid Win's Tinkertech if you could get close enough, but they're not the most dangerous players. Honestly the main reason I'd want you there is for emergency heals, and against those guys? Even Shadow Stalker keeps her psychopathic tendencies in check when her team is watching her, so if you want to ditch the job ..." She shrugged.

"Alright," Brian said. "I can't force you to come, and who knows? It might be better to have an ace in the hole for when we really need you. Just ... just stay out of trouble while we're gone, okay?"

"I'll be fine," she said, as she began at the tunnel walls again. She had already found a place full of food that nobody wanted her to rob, and it had been no trouble at all.

WWW

"Hey, Taxi-Man," Lift said, climbing into the car. It smelled like fresh leather. "Take me to the ..." She paused to get the pronunciation right. "... Ah-gus-tus Country Club, and make it fast."

The driver, a chubby man with tan skin and a spectacular mustache, peered at her through a mirror then turned around to look at her straight. She'd seen that sorta look before. It was a look that wondered what she was doing here, wished that she were doing it somewhere else, and hoped that while she was here, she didn't get his nice clean seat dirty. Which was totally unfair. She had bathed three times in that week alone!

"The Augustus Country Club? Really, kid?"

She nodded. "And make it fast."

"Okay, I'm going to need to see some money up front for this one."

She handed him a brown paper bag. He took it and peered inside.

"There had better not be drugs in—sweet Mother of Mercy! There has got to be over a thousand dollars in here! How'd a kid like you make this kind of dough?"

"I didn't steal it, if that's what you're askin'." That was her team allowance, one of the few things she hadn't stolen. Money just got people into trouble, so she wanted to get rid of it as soon as she could. Besides, Lisa had said something about supporting local businesses, right?

"I never said you did, I ... you know what? Nevermind. I don't want to know, I do not want to know. Augustus Country Club? You got it."

WWW

"This is ridiculous!" Lift walked along the outer fence, looking in. "Why build a palace in the middle of nowhere? Why fence off all the nowhere in the first place? Who has time to cut an endless field of grass to be precisely one inch tall?"

"Extravagance is an expression of wealth," Wyndle said, growing along the fence. "This is an extravagance of space. Inconvenient to be sure, but hardly unique. Though I must say, this place is very green."

Lift rolled her eyes. "Yup. They grew grass in the field like it's a big starvin' garden."

"There are trees too."

"Oh, right. Can't forget the threes. Nothin' like a few trees to break up the monotonomy of grass." They didn't even have different kinds of grass. Every single blade was the exact same color and width, for as far as the eye could see.

"It's pronounced monotony, and I think it's rather pleasant. Even if you disagree with the end result, you have to respect the care that has been put into it."

"Don't gotta respect nothin'."

Wyndle sighed. "No, Mistress, I have come to understand that you do not. Though if you were to cultivate a garden of your own, I believe you would come to admire the craft a bit more. You might even learn something."

"Learnin's for noodles." Lift took a running start and jumped the fence. The metal bars were slick with rain water and there were spikes on top, but the spikes were trying to look pretty first, politely ask people not to break in second if it weren't too much trouble, and third to provide convenient hand holds to anyone trying to break in anyway.

Once on the inside of the fence, the next step was to walk to the big building in the middle. A mile away.

"Ugh. I hope everyone else is having more fun at the bank than I am."

"And I hope they don't hurt anyone while they're there."

Lift rolled her eyes as she trudged along the wet grass. "Course they ain't gonna hurt nobody. They're as harmless as me."

WWW

"Armsmaster! It's so good to see you."

LIE.

The letters flashed at the top of Armsmaster's HUD. The lie detector was one of his newer updates, and it needed a few tweaks, like determining the difference between when a villain was bluffing and when a wealthy business man was making polite smalltalk.

He forced a smile, a skill that he had honed from hours of practice, aided by the fact that his helmet covered his eyes. He gave the man a firm handshake (another honed skill, made all the riskier by his power armor) as his facial recognition software identified him.

Charles Andrew Shermin, a venture capitalist with a stake in over a dozen startups in Brockton Bay alone. Several of those businesses had gang ties, but not enough to be suspicious. Only the PRT and associated organizations were completely free from villainous influences, and even that was debatable.

"Mr. Shermin, I'm glad you could make it."

LIE.

No one asked you.

"I trust you are enjoying yourself," he continued.

Shermin grinned. "As stoic as ever, eh? Good to know."

Stoic? That was meant to come off as relaxed and friendly. In all honesty, he could design a program to predict social encounters and analyze the optimal response, assuming he had the time. And that was what it all came down to, time. If he spent half the time he spent schmoozing as he did working in his workshop or in the field, he'd have cleaned up the city years ago. Instead, he wasted his few waking hours ensuring bankers, bureaucrats, politicians, and concerned parents that the city was safe instead of grabbing his halberd, revving up his motorcycle, and making it so. And in this setting, the only thing his skills, training, and hand-made equipment allotted him was his lie detector declaring Shermin's most recent statement as TRUTH.

If he had been paying attention to what the man had said, that might have meant something.

"So I was chatting with my friend Max over there—"

Armsmaster glanced over to where Maximus Otto Anders—CEO of Medhall with a number of controlling interests up and down the supply chain verging on a vertical monopoly—stood chatting with Roy Leo Christner—Mayor of Brockton Bay on his third term and father of Roy Christner, also known as Triumph.

"—and I heard that you were the one to take in Lung on a solo operation. Is that true?"

"Yes."

LIE.

He really needed to look at the code. His statement was technically true, which was close enough. While on patrol, the PRT received intel concerning a cape fight in the docks. On the scene Armsmaster found Lung coming down from his transformation and looking like he had been savaged by a wild animal. Armsmaster's initial hypothesis had been Hookwolf, but later examinations suggested that the teenaged villain Hellhound had been involved.

What had been more concerning was the paralysis Lung had suffered. While his skin, bone, and muscle tissue had been unaffected, his nerves had been dissolved and his blood vessels had been drained and cauterized below the knees. His feet, caught in mid-transformation and unable to resume their normal shape, had needed to be amputated when they began to rot.

The fact that this had happened to Lung was a nonissue. Paraplegic super villains made life easier for everyone involved. But the fact that there was another cape in his city that could do that to someone with Lung's defensive and regenerative abilities was a matter for concern. He prided himself on being prepared for anything he might face in the field, but he had no idea if this was a Striker ability, an energy blast, Tinkertech, or none of the above. Lung himself had told them nothing, and Armsmaster could only assume that the cape in question was in some way allied with the Undersiders.

Lung's capture had been too easy by far. He had been practically gift-wrapped for Armsmaster. Or left as a warning.

He caught a glimpse of something through the skylight. Someone on the roof? Were Assault and Battery shirking their responsibilities while stealing some time alone? Was Dauntless flying around outside ... in the rain, instead of doing his job? Hoping it was the latter he rewound the recording on his visor while the conversation continued.

"That's wonderful news! You must tell me how it happened."

LIE.

Armsmaster hesitated, not sure which of his two statements had triggered the lie detector. If the first statement was the lie, then either Sherwin desired to see Lung succeed or Armsmaster fail. If it was the second, well, as leader of the Protectorate ENE his list of duties were long and vast, but they did not include entertaining this particular buffoon.

"I was out on a late night patrol when I received a call concerning a cape fight in the area. Lung had entered into an altercation with another group of capes, and while he seemed to have driven them off, he had left his own henchmen behind. Without backup, I was able to engage him one on one. I had faced him enough times in the past that his old tricks no longer worked on me, and I was able to apprehend him without undue difficulty."

He ignored the lie detector on his HUD as he played back a few seconds of recorded visuals. One of his older modules used a non-invasive BCI that interpreted his brainwaves as commands, but the software worked poorly when Armsmaster was multitasking. His current system, which read his eye movements and blinks, worked as his mind wandered.

He had stopped paying attention to the man in front of him, noting only that his most recent statement had been classified as a LIE, and focused on a freeze frame of a small girl passing by the skylight. She was wearing a mask and had shown only her profile, but his facial recognition software identified her as a known villain within a ninety-four point three seven percent.

"Excuse me, Mr. Shermin," he said with forced politeness. "There's a work issue to take care of."

"Oh. Well, nice talking to you."

LIE.

Leaf. A young criminal with a history of break-ins and no history of violence. Friction negation powers, limited phytokinesis, and an ability to project bladed weapons that required further study. Later. Now she needed to be gone.

He scanned the room, searching for someone whose abilities would help him. "Velocity," he said, spotting the red-costumed hero sporting a wine glass. "How much have you had to drink?"

Velocity grimaced. "No conversation that starts out like that is good news." TRUTH. "Two? Three, tops." TRUTH. "What do you need?"

"The villain Leaf has been spotted on the premises."

"Leaf? Leaf?" His eyes widened though the lenses of his mask. "The kid who broke into the—"

"Classified!" That she had broken into the PHQ at all was shameful, the fact that it had taken the combined efforts of himself and three other heroes to subdue her was an embarrassment, and the end result of her breaking out of the PRTHQ within twenty-four hours was something that Armsmaster would happily take to his grave. The child was not dangerous, but she was extremely slippery and the heroes had been forced to pull their punches.

Velocity glanced around, but no one seemed to be eavesdropping. "Are you sure?"

Armsmaster gave the man a flat look, even though Velocity could only see half of it. "I do not needlessly waste your time." LIE. The hell is that supposed to mean? "Do not waste mine. She was last spotted outside on the roof. You are to locate her before she can make a scene."

The whole point of this party was to convince the wealthy elite that Brockton Bay was not, as one might initially assume, a raging dumpster fire, and that it was worth investing in. While the villain was unlikely to steal more than a hundred dollars in concrete goods, the damage that her presence could do to the reputation of the city, the heroes, and Armsmaster himself was unacceptable.

"And do what?" Velocity demanded. "Handcuffs don't work on her. Containment foam doesn't work on her—not that I have any. Apparently not even holding cells can—"

"Classified!" He glanced around and spoke softly. "Find her. Contact me. And most importantly, be discreet."

Velocity nodded hopelessly and headed out the door. He was next to useless in a fight, but his speed made him practically a clairvoyant when it came to reconnaissance. If Leaf was still outside, Velocity would find her. If she wasn't ... Armsmaster scanned the room, eyeing the crowd. He couldn't shake the feeling that every cocktail-formal corporate snob was waiting for him to fail and hoping that he would. It was an irrational notion, but one that he couldn't get rid of.

He spotted Miss Militia discussing something he couldn't hear with Eric Alexander Stansfield, chairman of Renaissance Capital. "Excuse me, Mr. Stansfield, I require a word with Miss Militia for a moment. Work matters."

"Of course," he said, smiling professionally. Armsmaster's facial recognition software was useful for remembering people's names. They often became offended when he forgot them, but disturbed when he remembered them. Stansfield took it for granted, either because of his position in his business or because his son was on the Wards team as Gallant.

"What happened?" Miss Militia said after they were alone.

"Code yellow. Leaf has been spotted in the area. Intentions unclear. I already sent out Velocity as a lookout. You have interacted with her the most, so I wanted you to know."

"Code yellow? She's a blue at most."

TRUTH.

Well, she believed it. That didn't mean she was right.

"Normally yes, but here? At a public event? It's a disaster in the making. How did she even know we'd be here?"

Her brow furrowed thoughtfully. "I hadn't thought of that. This location isn't too different from her normal targets, but ..." But she had attempted to rob the PHO only a few weeks before. If the villain was going out of her way to provoke the heroes, she was doing a good job. "The thing you need to know about her is that she's not like any of the major villains in the city. She's not in it for money or power, just fun."

"The same could be said for the Slaughterhouse Nine."

Miss Militia raised an eyebrow. "That's a bit harsh, Armsmaster. And false. The Nine seek to strengthen their reputation wherever they go. Leaf doesn't. If she follows her usual pattern, she'll steal a few lobster rolls and a souffle and leave without a trace."

Armsmaster stared at her. "I'm not going to grant her free reign until she gets bored and leaves."

"The alternative is to try and arrest her in full view of some of the most influential men and women in the city. If you succeed, you'll seem cruel. Fail, and you'll look weak. Public opinion will show more mercy to the Wards if they take her in than if we do it."

While his lie detector marked her statement as TRUTH, he hated every word of it. When he saw a problem, he didn't ignore it, he fixed it. He couldn't just sit back, relax, and wait for disaster. And it would be a disaster. It wouldn't be in Leaf's self interest to make a scene in front of the most important people in the city, but self interest hadn't been a pattern in her record. "Well, pass the word along to the others to keep an eye out, all the same. I'll check back with Velocity."

WWW

Lift slid across the floor, keeping her head below the counter tops. The people around her, the cooks, the chefs, the culinary masters, they didn't listen. They barely watched. To be fair, though, there was a lot in the kitchen to distract them.

Even if she closed her eyes she couldn't block it out. The sizzle of grease, the thick bubbling of the soup, and then there was the smell! And what a smell! So many smells, smells that she didn't have words for, smells of foods that she didn't have names for and that she had never tried before. The air was so thick with the smells she could almost taste it.

But not yet. And until then, she had a distraction of her own to worry about.

"You know, the more I think about it, the more I think gardening would be good for you," Wyndle said as she scurried into a cabinet, careful to avoid clanging any of the pots and pans. There was more room in the ovens, but ... but she didn't want to hide in one. "It is a hobby that rewards patience and consistency instead of impulsive, grandiose gestures. A plant that will flourish under a cup of water a day will shrivel and then drown if you give it a gallon a week."

Yeah. Wyndle for sure wasn't gettin' into the spirit of the heist. Probably 'cause he couldn't eat. Kind of sad, really. She listened as the sound of footsteps passed by and then got out again. If she hid in one place for too long she'd get caught no matter how good a place it was. She had to keep moving no matter what. Besides, she didn't come here to hide, she came here to eat.

"It's the same with people, if you think about it," he continued. "A consistent, nourishing environment is generally superior to one of constant panic. Not that being able to respond well to stress is a flaw, far from it, but one can only toy with death for so long before the game either becomes droll or fatal."

Just around the corner a cook transferred a tray full of rolls into an ornate glass bowl. Lift didn't know what kind they were, but they were so fresh she could feel the oven warmth when she smelled them. But she couldn't snag one while the cook was staring at them.

"And I think you're starting to realize that, with others if not with yourself. It's a sign of maturity to—"

Lift turned him into a Shardrock and tossed him past the cook. He bounced off the dishwasher before he returned to his usual mass of vines. The cook turned toward the noise and away from Lift, and Lift snuck up behind her and snatched a roll.

"As always," Wyndle said with his usual lack of enthusiasm toward all things fun, "I am happy to be of assistance. But as I was saying ..."

Lift ducked under a table and sank her teeth into the roll. It was so hot it almost burnt her tongue, but it was so worth it. It was moist and buttery and-and-and ... there was some kind of meaty flavor to it, but not pork or chicken. It tasted like the ocean. Clam? Crab? Crabish, but more focused, and ... and there were no words for it. There weren't a whole lot of words for foods 'cause folks couldn't talk with their mouths full.

Then the door opened, and the whole kitchen went silent.

"Can ... can we help you?" one of the cooks asked. Lift couldn't see her, but she sounded old and plump like cooks were supposed to.

"Good day to you all. I hate to disturb you all while you're working, but there's a minor security inspection that I need to run." It was a woman's voice. She sounded familiar, but Lift couldn't remember where.

"What, right now?" another cook said. He had a deep voice and sounded like he had fat, wobbly cheeks. "With all due respect, some warning would be appreciated."

"I apologize sincerely, but as this is a surprise inspection, no warning was permitted. Remove everything from the stoves and ovens that you do not wish to burn, and exit the kitchen in an orderly fashion."

"You want us to leave?" the first cook said. "No. Perform your inspection if you want, but do it while we work. Otherwise the filet mignon will dry out, the tiramisu will turn to mush, and the creme brule will be ruined entirely." The kitchen fell silent once more. "If that's okay with you."

"I appreciate your dedication to excellence, but I must insist. I'll accept all responsibility for any delay or diminished quality in your cooking, but I will need five to ten minutes alone in your kitchen."

It was Miss Militia, Lift was almost sure of it. Surprise inspection? She didn't believe a word of it. Militia knew she was here. But why was she getting rid of all the cooks? More eyes would help her find her.

The cooks grumbled as they put their things away, and one by one they walked out the door. Well, this was gonna be easy. Militia could only search one place at a time, and there were more than enough places to hide in the kitchen. Lift could leave as soon as Militia stopped looking at the door or just keep on moving until she searched the whole place and left.

"You can come out now, Leaf," she said. "There's more than enough food to go around, and I know you're hungry."

Lift winced. Was she bluffing, trying to trick her into showing herself by pretending like she already knew? Maybe. That's what Lift would have done in her place, but Militia didn't seem the type.

Besides, if Militia wasn't gonna play, Lift felt silly hiding. She crawled out from under the table and stood up. "What gave me away?"

"Your unique value system makes you unpredictable only to those who don't know it. You pursue fine food and thrills. Stealing food from the kitchens a room away from the entire protectorate would give you both."

Even the chaotic can be predictable with proper study.

Darkness' words, but if Miss Militia had been wanting to catch her, she'd have turned Cain into a gun and pointed him at her. Instead, he sat all peaceful like on her belt. Lift reached for another roll, figuring that whatever Militia was planning, it would be better to deal with on a full stomach.

"Did you wash your hands?"

Lift stopped. "Huh?"

"No one will miss the food you take, but I don't want you to get anyone sick. Wash your hands first."

Lift stared with her mouth open as Miss Militia went to a sink, took off her gloves, and started lathering her own hands with soap and water. Really, she thought. You don't mind me stealin' nothin', just as long as my mits are sparklin' when I do it.

Mother had been like that too. They could have saved money on soap and bought something that mattered instead, but it had mattered to her. There wasn't always food on the table, but storms was it clean.

Lift walked up next to her and held her hands under the water

Then Miss Militia, with her hand covered in white suds, did something that Lift never would have expected. She pulled her scarf down to her chin, held her hands in front of her face, and blew, long, slow, steady, and gentle. A bubble swelled up and broke free, nearly as big as her head and wobbling in the air. It popped, releasing its breath and turning into a drop of water and a cloud of mist.

Miss Militia smiled at her, just once as if to prove that she could, and pulled her scarf back up over her nose. As serious as she ever was, she said, "Are you taking care of yourself? I'd ask if you were staying out of trouble, but that doesn't seem to be a priority."

Lift stared at her for a moment before her mind caught up with her. "Yeah. Yeah I am. Staying with friends. One of 'em taught me how to kick people in the face."

Miss Militia raised her eyebrows. "Oh. A valuable skill when used correctly."

"Haven't gotten the chance to use it, though." She waited for Miss Militia to take the hint, but she didn't respond. Lift grabbed one of the rolls and took a bite out of it. "This was better when it was stolen." Food always did. It was best when it was stolen from an enemy, but none of her enemies seemed to last.

"In my experience food tastes best when it's earned."

Lift rolled her eyes. "'Course you'd say that. Bet you never stole nothin' in your life."

Miss Militia tilted her head slightly. "You'd be right. I've never had the need or the desire to take what wasn't mine."

Lift looked up at her. "So you wouldn't know."

Her expression was unreadable for a moment. "No, I suppose not. Now, while I do enjoy talking to you, I'm going to have to let the cooks have their kitchen back. Contact me if you ever get into ... into more trouble than you can handle."

"Yeah, okay," she said, but she didn't mean it. It seemed like everyone around her wanted her to stay out of trouble but her.

"And, if I can give you some advice, Leaf?"

"Mm-hm?"

"I've had my powers for a long time, longer than you've been alive. If there's one thing that I've grown more and more certain of, it's that the gifts that have been given to you are not for you. That's true for parahuman abilities most of all. If you want to make the most of your powers, use them for others whenever you can."

Well, that was easy for her to say. Her powers were weapons, and if you used a weapon on yourself you were either using it wrong or starvin' miserable. But ... but Lift thought back to the four girls she had stolen from Lung. Angela, Emily, Stephanie, Natalie.

"I do."

Her brow furrowed. "And?"

"And ..." They had nearly stolen themselves completely. Soon they wouldn't need her at all. "And food's always better when it's stolen."

Miss Militia seemed annoyed by this answer for some reason. She shook her head and turned away. "I'm sending the cooks in. You'd best make yourself scarce for when they return."

WWW

Lift left shortly after that. With her pockets full of pastries, rolls, bite-sized skewers, and one chicken leg, she headed over to the garage and hid inside the trunk of one of the cars. After the party was over, a couple of the heroes themselves drove her back. She never caught their names, but their car swerved a bit when she jumped out.

She pulled off her mask and stuffed it in her pocket as soon as she was out of sight, and walked the rest of the way back. It was still raining, though it seemed to rain all the time. As far as heists went, hers honestly hadn't gone that well. Half the point was the challenge of not getting caught, and the other half was the satisfaction from seeing her target find the food missing. Today she got caught practically before she got started, and to make the whole thing even more demeaning, Miss Militia didn't even seem to care none. No, from a professional perspective, the heist had plopped completely.

Other than that ... it hadn't been fun, but it had been interesting. People always said things like, "Let me know if you get into trouble," but she might just take Miss Militia up on her offer, if only to see if she meant it.

By the time she got to the loft, it had nearly stopped raining by the time she got there. Inside she found Rachel sitting on one couch with her face in her hands. Alec was lying in the other, staring at the ceiling.

Rachel looked up as soon as Lift came in. "What the hell are you doing here?" she demanded, even angrier than usual. One of her dogs, either Judas or Brutus, growled at her.

Lift stopped dead. "I live here. How'd the bank robbery go?" Not good, judging by the general mood.

"The bank robbery?" Alec laughed. It sounded like a crazy person's laugh, only without the enthusiasm. "It was a complete and total disaster. You should have been there, Lift. It was a level of, of such catastrophic ruination, such baleful misfortune that you only see once in your life."

Lift winced. "Really? Oh. Brian and Lisa made it sound so easy I thought it was gonna be boring. What happened? And where are they, anyway?"

He laughed again. Rachel got up and punched a wall. "Like I said, you should have been there."

WWW

A/n And here's the next chapter. As usual, a big thanks to my s Exiled Immortal and Prime 2.0. Exiled Immortal is also my editor, who helped me out with this chapter a lot. In the first draft, Armsmaster was the one who encountered Lift in the kitchen, but as amusing as that was, we both decided that what this story needed more of was Miss Militia.