Leaf
Chapter Eight
"I don't need to tell you this," Aegis said down in the Wards HQ, "but today was a huge success, and I'm proud of each and every one of you."
Clockblocker leaned back in his chair and stretched. He flexed his arm a bit, trying to get used to it. It was amazing how much you learned to appreciate the little things in life after losing them, like having an arm connected to your shoulder by more than a single tendon.
"This is the first time we've had a direct confrontation with the Undersiders, and we've captured half of them. More than half if you count Hellhounds dogs."
Vista looked up. "Yeah, are those dogs going to be okay?"
"We'll find out. Some of the lab coats are preparing some tests to check for any weird long term effects to her powers. That may take a while, though. While we have a lot of doctors, there aren't a whole lot of vets that study parahuman abilities."
"I think they'll be fine," Gallant said. "Hellhound became furious when Aegis tackled one. I doubt she'd use her power on them if it was harmful."
"Is that how things usually go?" Browbeat asked. He had barely joined the team that week.
Aegis furrowed his brow. "I'm going to say no. Most fights aren't as direct as that, and usually we're backing up the Protectorate instead of doing everything ourselves. But we always need to be prepared for fights like these, and learn as much as we can from our mistakes afterwards."
"I should have noticed their escape route earlier," Vista said. "It's my fault Hellhound and Regent got away."
"You can't blame yourself for that," Gallant said. "If you weren't there, they would have walked all over us."
"I should remember to not use my inventions in the field," Kid Win said mechanically. "Even though that's the whole point."
"Only inventions that haven't been cleared for use," Aegis said. "Even if you know they're safe, the Director needs to know they're safe too."
"But that takes forever!"
"I learned that costume switches can be fun and exciting for everyone involved!" Clockblocker said. "Also, I may have soiled your pants." Though considering the blood and holes in the rest of Aegis' rust-red outfit, the pants were relatively pristine.
Aegis hung his head. "Yeah, that was a mistake on my part. I didn't take into consideration how much more fragile you are than I am."
"Hey! The only thing fragile about me is my masculinity." He hesitated. "That came out wrong. What I mean is, I have feelings, and you hurt those feelings. Now apologize to my feelings."
Aegis sighed. "I'm sorry, Clockblocker's feelings. I'm just happy Panacea was there to patch you up."
He had gone out with her once. It had been a double date, him, Dean, Victoria, and Amy, and everything about the girl had said, "My sister dragged me here kicking and screaming and I want to go home." There hadn't been a second date, but Clockblocker learned today that she really knew how to make a guy feel good. Yeah, sure, sex is great, but have you ever had two working arms that aren't limp blood geysers?
Well, yeah, plenty of people had two working arms, but not all of them appreciated it.
"My feelings accept your apology," he said magnanimously.
He was going to have nightmares about those dogs. He wasn't sure if Hellhound went after him in Aegis' costume first because Aegis was the most dangerous or because he was the only one who could take the hits, but the team leader could handle a giant monster chewing on his head. Clockblocker couldn't. He froze the first one after it chomped down on his arm, and after that no force on the planet could make it let go. And he had to stand there until his power wore off, praying that the dog would release him instead of bite down harder.
The plan worked, sure, but it could have worked better.
"Though," he said. "If you want to make it up to me ..."
"Oh, god."
"Does Shadow Stalker know yet?" he said, clasping his hands together in a way that was totally not reminiscent of Mr. Burns.
"No," Aegis said. "She knows the Undersiders hit the bank, but she doesn't know the results."
Clockblocker smiled. "Can I tell her? Because considering her long and passionate relationship with Grue, the look on her face when she finds out that we captured him without having to drag her out of school will brighten my day for a long, long time."
WWW
"That's what happened while I was gone?"
Alec plopped down on the couch. "Hey, don't blame yourself, shrimp. Blame Lisa. It was her idea in the first place, and she's the one who thought that there were only going to be three of them."
Lift tried that, but it didn't work. She should have been there! It didn't matter that she didn't think that they'd need her. She had ... she had been selfish. Again. Sure, Brian and Lisa weren't sick in bed waiting to die, but she had gone off to have fun while the people that she lived with, ate with, fought with, and stole with had gone off to do something dangerous.
She hadn't been there. What had she expected to happen? It was always like this. Things always fell apart whenever she was gone.
"So we're gonna need to break them out," she said. She'd done jailbreaks before, more than she could count. Stealing food was fun, but jailbreaks were serious. Things wouldn't be okay if you failed a jailbreak. You couldn't give up on them or run from them or get caught, and they were twice as hard getting out as they were getting in. Worst, she had never done a jailbreak against no one who was awesome, and so far she hadn't even managed to steal an awesome person's dinner without getting caught.
But she should have been there, and she wasn't.
"Well, we might as well give it a shot," Alec said. "Yo, Rachel, you in?"
Rachel glared at Lift. "I'm in. Are you in?"
"I'm in." She held Rachel's gaze, though Rachel didn't relent. Relenting wasn't the sort of thing Rachel did.
She nodded, though, after a while. "We're getting Judas and Brutus too." Out of her three dogs, only Angelica had gotten out safely. The heroes had stolen the other two.
"What, really?" Alec said.
Rachel turned on him. "You got a problem with that?"
"No, of course not. Problems are the last things I have. So, we're rescuing Brian, Lisa, and two dogs. What's the plan?"
Lift shook her head. "Plans are a waste of time. Brian and Lisa planned everything, and look where that got'em! I never plan nothin', and everything works out."
"So, what?" Alec said. "We'll break the door down, charge in, and take back what's ours?"
"Yes!" Rachel said.
"No!" Lift said. "We're thieves, not chull-brained thugs. We'll sneak in, steal what's theirs, and get out before they even know we're there."
"I have a better idea," Alec said. "We kidnap someone, either one of the heroes or one of the PRT agents. It doesn't matter as long as they can get in and out without too much trouble. Then I use my powers to turn them into a meat puppet, and ..."
WWW
Lisa's head lay on a pillow. The rest of her body was attached to it, but she couldn't feel it. She was breathing, but it was a quiet, shallow movement that she knew only by the noise it made.
She could feel her jaw, though. It was broken and throbbed in pain with every heartbeat. The doctors had wired her remaining teeth together to let her bones heal after they picked out bits of the rest of her teeth out of the inside of her mouth. Lisa hadn't seen a mirror since the bank, but she could feel the way her lips were ripped and cut, and she suspected that she looked like she had tried to kiss a blender.
Panacea had used her powers on her. After Glory Girl had knocked her out, Panacea had made sure that the break in her spinal cord was low enough so she could breath, and she stopped the bleeding so Lisa wouldn't choke to death. Then she used her position as an honorary physician to inform the PRT doctors that Lisa was allergic to every pain killer on the market.
Likely altered biology. Panacea too cautious to be caught in obvious lie. Strong impulse toward cruelty. Impulse not in line with ingrained black and white morality.
Lisa could forgive the broken jaw, and even the broken neck. It was a cape fight, and some capes played nicer than others. Besides, her mouth was her second greatest weapon, and the New Wave sisters knew it. But the lie about the pain killers? Making sure that her most vulnerable moments after her arrest were filled with weeks of unending agony? That was petty.
Black and white morality. Hero equals justice equals retribution. Justifiable cruelty sole outlet for chronic self loathing. Dissatisfaction in results leads to further excesses of cruelty.
She had been bluffing in the bank when she threatened to reveal their deepest, darkest secrets. It was like threatening to shoot your only hostage. After you did it, you had nothing left. Besides, Panacea's secrets weren't nearly as devastating as the girl thought they were. Daughter of a supervillain? Whoop-dee-doo. In love with her sister? It would be embarrassing if Glory Girl found out, for about a week.
No, actually exposing the secrets was a dead end. It was all in the threat, and Lisa could squeeze quite a bit of blackmail out of that threat if she presented it right, and then blackmail Panacea further from the things she'd made her do in the first place.
Increasing paranoia and dread, guilt from justifiable cruelties, fears retribution, expects retribution, requires retribution.
Lisa recognized the dark mental path she was going down, but it distracted her from thinking about what was going to happen to her. Villainy was a high stakes game, and the risk didn't alway pay off. Under normal circumstances, an arrest would lead to being forced into the Wards and endure a sentence of community service via heroism.
But now? With a broken neck? Would they even want her? The PRT wanted heroes that looked capable even more than they wanted heroes that were capable, and a girl in a wheelchair who couldn't even go to the bathroom without help wasn't the sort of image they wanted.
The worst thing they could do—and government bureaucracies often leaned in that direction—was send her home. Her life as a villain was clearly over, and sending her to a parahuman detention center in her state would be cruel. So instead they'd inform her parents who would no doubt be teary-eyed with joy to have their prodigal daughter returned to them. Lisa wouldn't be able to say no with her wired jaw and perforated tongue, and by the time she could she'd be back in the house she grew up in, forever.
Just her and her parents. And this time she would truly be helpless. No one would be able to hear her but them. No one would be able to see her but them. No one would be able to control her, but them.
And not even that would be the end of it. Coil hadn't recruited her, he had claimed her. He had offered all the Undersiders payment, but it was only with her that he complimented that offer with threats. The only choice she had in the matter was how much she would resist, and in her current state? Paralyzed from the neck down and entirely dependent on the people around her? She'd be practically delivered to him on a silver platter, the platter being dead parents and a kidnapping.
Minimum autonomy, minimum resistance, minimum risk. Ideal for Coil.
She'd be a talking head in a dark room working for a man who would push her to her limits one headache after another for the rest of her life.
That was the worst case scenario, and there was nothing she could do to prevent it. There was nothing she could do to promote the best case scenario either, which made knowing it next to useless. Ideally Lift would find her and heal her. Even if Lisa wasn't rescued she would be able to feel something below the neck again, and even that would be an infinite improvement.
But at the moment she had no control at all, and when she was alone, helpless, and in pain, it was always the darkest places her mind chose to go.
I could be bounded in a nutshell, she thought, and count myself a queen of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.
WWW
A vine named Wyndle grew out of the PRT building, across the alley, and up the wall. He was fast and invisible to anyone who wasn't Lift, so it made perfect sense for her to sit here on a nearby rooftop and wait for him to scout ahead. That didn't mean she liked it, though. Waiting. Doing nothing. It was the worst thing ever. That's why they made you do it in prison.
"What took you so long?" she said.
The tangle of vines that made up Wyndle's face looked both worried and indignant. "I was being thorough, Mistress. While Brian is in a holding cell near the one you stayed in recently, Lisa and the animals were more difficult to find. You may remember that the holding cells are heavily guarded and underground. The animals are not guarded, but they are in the center of the building. Lisa is neither. She is being held in a room on the third floor with a window, and seems to be the easiest one to extract."
Lift grinned. "I finally got you thinking like a thief."
"I-I am doing no such thing!"
"You are. You totally are."
"Your imaginary friend has good news?" Fancypants said.
She nodded. "Skullface's right where they held me, but Knowitall's got digs upstairs with a view."
"Really?" he said. "Why? Did she switch sides already? You'd think there'd be at least more paperwork."
Lift glanced down at Wyndle who said, "I believe her position is due to her injuries. The room seemed to be a medical facility, and I noted severe swelling along her jawline and several cuts along her mouth. She was handcuffed to her bed, so I doubt she is there by choice."
"Wyndle says she's hurt."
"What about Judas and Brutus?" Fluffy demanded.
"Wyndle says they're fine. He says that Lisa ain't fine, so we gotta steal her first."
Fluffy glared at her. She glared so hard Lift could see it with her eyes closed. "I'm not leaving my dogs."
"You ain't gonna. We can rob the PRT all week, but you can't steal more'n you can carry. I can nab Knowitall faster than I can eat a pie, but I can't get your dogs to follow me around all nice and quiet. I'd need to get you in so you could get 'em out, and you ain't so quiet neither."
Fluffy glared at her, but she didn't deny the point.
"Right," she said, turning to the PRT building. They were on a nearby roof, carried there by Fluffy's last dog. Dogs that big stood out when they were covered in a heavy carapace with bony ridges all over, but none of the hero fliers were floating around this late at night.
Lift climbed down the wall as Wyndle grew in zigzagged lines to provide handholds, and she looked up at the building. It didn't look like much, not like the Protectorate Headquarters. The PHQ had style, standing out on the water with a glowing green dome over it. This was just a big square block made of glass. The walls were huge grids full of windows with gaps for the floors, and anyone who wanted to could look inside.
Looking in, she saw shutters. Curtains, too. Sometimes both. But if she wanted to, she could get close and peak through the cracks. Then she'd see, well, maybe a hero, but mostly guards and noodles. There were also all the things that she wouldn't see, like the fabrials that would alert folks to innocent thieves sneaking in and out. She had broken into the PHQ and had broken out of the PRT, but both times she had been alone. Being alone was easy for her. It always had been. Worrying about other people was the hard part.
"Which window is hers?" she said.
"Just around back, Mistress," Wyndle said. She followed him around the corner of the building and watched him circle around a spot a few floors up. The lights were off in that room. They were off in most of the rooms this late at night, but she couldn't climb straight up if she wanted to avoid all the rooms that were lit. Even though she was a Knight Radiant, she always felt safer in the shadows.
She mapped out a path in her mind—up, up, over, up, up, over, over, down—and set to climbing. Wyndle grew back and forth along the glass so it was like climbing a ladder, and she didn't even need to use her awesomeness. Which was good, 'cause glowing in the dark was terrible for sneaking.
Pretty soon she started to feel tired. Her arms were sore and she wanted to stop and take a break, but she couldn't. All it would take was one person coming into the wrong room at the wrong time and she'd be seen. She had to keep moving no matter what. Even going the wrong way was better than staying still.
Finally, she made it. "This the one?" she whispered. She was three stories up and smack dab in the middle of the side of the building.
Wyndle grew from down by her feet to up at eye level. He could get long when he wanted to. "That is correct, Mistress." He frowned. "Have you given any thought on how you are going to get inside?"
"Sure. I'll turn you into a Wyndleblade, cut a hole in ... the glass ... aw, bollocks."
"Language, Mistress," he said.
"Bollocks and jiggers."
He sighed. "Perhaps if you had some seeds you could grow a vine on the wall, grab onto that, and then cut your way in."
"Ain't got no seeds no more." She used to have some rockvine seeds in her pocket, but that was before she had been arrested. Starvin' heroes. You couldn't get good vines around here, and those seeds were irreplaceable. "Maybe I could climb up a level, turn you into a blade, and stab into the window while I'm falling."
"That could work," he said. "If you can time it correctly, and if you can angle it so you don't cut a gash all the way to the bottom of the building, and if the structural integrity of the glass is sufficient to hold your weight without breaking."
"Right," she said, nodding. "Let's do it."
She climbed to the window of the room above Lisa's, with Wyndle whimpering all the way. "Ready?"
"No, and I never will be."
"On the count of three."
"Falling from this distance would hurt a great deal. It would be loud, too, so you'll almost certainly be noticed."
"One ..."
"Perhaps we could go back down and think about this."
"Two ...
"Oh Mother," he whispered. "Mother, Mother, Mother."
Lift hesitated.
"Um, Mistress? Three comes after two in case you've forgotten again."
Instead of dropping, she reached down with her leg and traced a line across the glass with her big toe, making it Slick. Without friction holding the screws and bits in place, the entire window pane fell out and crashed down below. It was loud, but it was loud far from where she was. She dropped down, grabbed onto Wyndle's lowest vine, and swung into the room.
It was dark, so she lit herself up, making awesomeness drift off of her like glowing steam. She saw Lisa lying in a bed, her left wrist cuffed to it, and her face looking like someone had hit her with a hammer.
Lisa was watching her, unmoving and unspeaking. This was wrong. Lisa always had words, she was made of words. But not now. And she was so still. She didn't wave, she didn't sit up and say, "Hey, Leaf. What took you?" She didn't point an accusing finger, glare, and say, "Where the hell were you, Lift? Where the hell where you?"
She just looked at her, desperate, pleading, and afraid.
Lift moved toward her, and the brightness of her light made Lisa's eyes water. She slipped off the handcuffs first. With a touch they fell to pieces, but even freed, Lisa didn't move. Lift took her hand, but it felt cold and limp.
Then she leaned over, cupped Lisa's face in her hands, and blew.
Lisa's eyes went wide as she experienced the Surge of Regrowth for the first time. She inhaled sharply and her body went rigid, and then slowly relaxed. She sat up and threw her arms around Lift, trying to squeeze her until she popped.
"I'm sorry," Lift said softly. "I ... I should've been there."
Lisa pushed her back to arm's length so she could look her in the eye. "Hey," she said. "Yer an Undershider now. Zat meansh no regretsh, no matter what."
Lift coughed a laugh. "What? Why do you sound like that?"
Lisa grinned, revealing a mouth that glistened with metal. "Got new brashesh. What do you shink?"
"I shink that someone wanted to shut you up real bad."
"Y'can shay zat again. Unshtick 'em fer me?"
Lift ran a finger across Lisa's plated teeth and nearly cut herself. Lisa turned her head and spat out far more wires than ever should have been able to fit in there, then roared in laughter. "Oh yes! That was an experience that I never want to repeat. I ... I really look bad with braces. Grade school was a hard time for me." She got out of bed and stretched, wearing a simple blue dress that came down to her knees. "Want to get ice cream? When we get out of here, we're getting ice cream, my treat."
"I-ice cream?"
"Absolutely." Lisa stopped and looked down at her. "Hey Leaf, look at me. No matter what happens, I want you to know that you are the best thing that has ever happened to us, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Especially not yourself. Got it?"
She wasn't there when she should have been, but she was there now. And she'd make up for it, no matter what it took. "Got it."
"Good. Now that that's out of the way, do you have an escape plan?"
She shook her head, feeling better. "Nah. Plans ain't my style. Figured I'd just, you know, be awesome and figure it out from there."
"And you gotta have style." She stuck her head out through where the window used to be and looked around. Below them a couple of guards were around the window waving flashlights around. The glass somehow hadn't shattered, but if you were going to make a building out of the stuff, you'd want it to be as strong as possible. Lisa leaned out further until she had to grab onto the edge of the next window frame to keep from falling out, searching for something along the skyline. "Hey!" she yelled, waving her free arm. "Over here, Bitch! Come and get me!"
The guards looked up and pointed their flashlights at them.
"Okay. They're going to come in through that door any second now, so we need to get down fast. How long of a pole can you make?"
Lift looked down at Wyndle and held out a hand. He formed a rod that filled the small room and shot out into the night.
"Good." Lisa took the rod and held it by the end. "Wish me luck!" She jumped out the window and wrapped her arms and legs round the pole in midair. The bottom end hit the ground upright, and Lisa slid down. It wasn't a graceful landing, especially at the end when she fell over, but grace was for fancy rich folks who could afford to worry about that sort of thing.
The guards pointed their guns at her and barked out orders that Lift couldn't hear. Lisa put her hands behind her head, but when Fluffy came charging in on her dog's back, the guards took off running.
"If I had known that she was going to try that," Wyndle said, coming back, "I would have chosen a different form. Something with a wider base for balance perhaps, or a point at the end to stick into the ground."
The door burst open, and a series of flashlights blinded her. "Don't move!" said a voice behind the lights.
"Wanna try again?" she said.
He sighed. "Oh, if I must."
"Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head!"
"'Kay. Imma do a backflip."
Wyndle groaned. "Please don't. It's dangerous enough without additional—"
"I said, get on your—"
Lift did a backflip out into the night because you gotta have style, and tried the same maneuver Lisa had. It worked way better for Lisa, probably because she wasn't flipping around when she tried it, but even though she got the wind knocked out of her so bad she couldn't even cuss proper, at least she didn't go splat.
"Get on!" Lisa said, sitting behind Fluffy on the dog's back.
Lift scrambled to her feet and grabbed onto the dog's tail, then slicked her legs and got on her knees. "I'm good. Go!"
The dog took off at a run, leaving the world behind.
WWW
"You know," Alec said afterwards, "not a lot of girls can pull off the hospital gown look. So don't feel bad that you couldn't either."
After heading back home to change, the team had gone out for ice-cream. They hadn't gotten around to feeding her in the hospital, and besides, Lisa had promised. Rachel had gotten a vanilla cone because she hadn't wanted to come and was determined to enjoy it as little as possible. Lisa had gotten two scoops of butter pecan because ice cream was as good of a nepenthe as anything, and Alec had gotten a turtle sundae.
Lift had gotten a banana split with blue moo cookie dough, cotton candy, and strawberry cheesecake ice cream with hot fudge, caramel, pineapple, nuts, strawberries, whipped cream, and cherries on top, and had managed to get most of it on her face. She was spooning great scoops of the stuff into her mouth, grinning up at her with full cheeks.
"Aw, thanks," she said. "And I'm touched that you were willing to put in the minimum amount of effort to rescue me." They were sitting at a table outside an ice cream parlor called Mr. Moo's, and this late at night there wasn't much danger in being overheard. The middle-aged Hispanic woman working the graveyard shift might recognize Rachel, but if she wanted to antagonize a supervillain who was peacefully eating ice cream, she deserved everything that would happen to that entire street.
He shrugged modestly. "I know you'd do the same for me."
"We're wasting time here," Rachel growled. "The job's not even close to finished."
Worried about changes in team dynamic in Brian's absence. Worried more about dogs. Worried that dogs will die in PRT custody. Has lost dogs before to human indifference.
"We have enough time to do this right," Lisa said. "It was a lousy day for all of us, but most of the damage is already done. The heroes unmasked me and they'll be able to piece together my background to better predict what I'll do. They've done the same to Brian too, and that will hurt him a lot more than it will hurt me. Even worse, they beat us, so they'll be more confident when facing us in the future. But none of that will change if we wait a few days."
"A few days?" Lift said, looking up. "Brian's gonna be starvin' miserable till then."
Starving saccharine derivative of storming. Deliberate childish affectation to hold on to past. Resists adulthood. Repressed guilt.
She blocked off the flow of information. The ice cream tasted good in her mouth, but that paled in comparison to the sublime experience of being able to wiggle her own toes, which she wouldn't have had if it weren't for Lift. It was the little things that you learned to appreciate only after losing them, like basic bodily functions in Lisa's case, or long dead mothers in Lift's. If the kid didn't want to act her age or follow basic rules of etiquette, what was that to her?
"He'll be more miserable if we all get captured. If I thought he'd cut a deal with the PRT for a reduced sentence, then yeah I'd rush to bust him out, but that's not going to happen."
"Why not?" Alec said. He sounded like he was making conversation, but even that was an unusual amount of interest for him.
Stunted emotional depth, attempt appearance of emotional health by imitating those around him.
"They won't give him what he wants," Lisa said. "If the PRT was smart, which they aren't, they'd offer him a spot on the local team and help him with the custody battle, and then he'd love them forever and wonder why he ever wasted his time being a villain. But if they're stupid, which they are, the best offer they'll give him will be to ship him off to a team on the other side of the country to cut him off from nefarious influences, like us—"
"Damn straight we are."
"—and let him visit his sister in a few years, if he behaves himself. By then Aisha will be so jacked up on sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll he won't be able to recognize her anymore. So he'll choose prison, knowing that we'll break him out as soon as we can, and even though he'll never be able to be his sister's legal guardian, he'll still be able to look after her illegally, which suits him better anyway."
Until then, he'd be stuck in a cell. A prison larger than his own head and with a few creature comforts like working arms and legs, but that was all that level of physical autonomy would be, comfort. He wouldn't be in control of his own life, and he'd be entirely at the mercy of his enemies and of his friends, if and when the Undersiders got to him. There would only be one choice of his that mattered, and he had made that choice long ago.
Maybe they could kidnap Panacea. Hold her hostage until the PRT released him. It was a terrible idea of course, and it was a surefire way to bring every hero in the city down on their heads. On the other hand, they could use that to draw the heroes out and then hit the PRT Headquarters while they were gone ...
"And what about my dogs?" Rachel said.
"Your dogs will be even easier to rescue," she said, coming back to the present. The kidnapping plan was more motivated by spite than anything else, and they needed to focus on other things. "The PRT wants to study them to figure out your powers. After they're done, they'll drop Judas and Brutus off at the nearest dog shelter, and we can pick them up then."
Rachel glared at her. "If you're wrong, if they start dissecting them ..."
That was, well, not likely, but it wasn't impossible either. The scientists would be looking for information they could use, ways to either replicate Rachel's power or counter it in the field. Basic examination wouldn't reveal anything besides two remarkably healthy and well trained dogs, and they couldn't experiment extensively because two dogs weren't nearly a large enough sample size to yield relevant data.
But I doubt it wasn't the sort of answer that would keep Rachel from charging headlong into battle. "They won't, Rachel, I promise."
"So we just ... what?" Alec said. "Do nothing? I mean, that's playing to my strengths, sure, but ..."
"We could," Lisa said. "That's the easiest option. With Brian and two of the dogs gone, our jobs won't be nearly as high profile until we get them back. And if we don't get back at the heroes soon, our rep's going to end up somewhere between Uber and Leet and Skidmark, which is going to be a hassle to make up for.
"But if we do break them out of the PRT—and I strongly suggest we do—there are a few things I need to take care of first. The boss owes us twenty-five thousand dollars that I intend to collect, and we might be able to squeeze some support out of him while we're at it. Then there's research on the PRT security measures, et cetera, et cetera. So if we have to wait a few days or even a week before busting Brian out of prison, we'll be fine."
Waiting was such an easy thing to do when you were in control, and such a horrendous thing when you weren't. But they would get Brian out, one way or another. Rachel was the strongest member and Lisa was the smartest, but Brian was far and away the most disciplined. He was arguably the most disciplined, the most grounded member of the team, and the Undersiders wouldn't be the same without him.
Besides, planning the rescue helped her cope with her own recent stay in PRT custody, which she did by taking a page out of Alec's book and repressing the hell out of it. She leaned back in her chair, took a bite out of her ice cream cone, and smiled.
WWW
The next night the city exploded. Or at least a small portion of it.
Lisa jolted awake, her mind racing.
Fourteen milliton explosion, west-south-west, twelve miles away, terrorist bombing, Tinkertech bomb, Bakuda.
Twelve miles? Not in her neighborhood. Downtown. Empire territory. Empire target?
No. Soft target to instill fear and panic. May target power grid.
She got out of bed and flipped on the light switch. Nothing happened.
Already targeted power grid. Instill fear and panic. Nonfocused attack pattern. Seemingly random to prevent organized response.
And that meant that the heroes were going to mount a disorganized response. They'd be too busy putting out fires to do much else. They'll be spread out all over the city ...
"Oh, hell yeah!"
People would die, absolutely. Some people were probably already dead, which was a tragedy. But tragedies happened all the time, so why not take advantage of it while they could?
She pulled on a pair of pants and bolted out the door.
"Wake up! Everyone, you're going to miss the fireworks!"
An assortment of grunts and growls greeted her. Lift stumbled out of her door and flared with light, jolting herself awake with the influx of energy.
"What's going on?"
Lisa grinned. "It's the Fourth of July, Lift! Get dressed and fast, because it's our very own Independence Day!"
She blinked. "What?"
Her powers gave her a flood of information that she didn't need right now, most of which she already knew. "The heroes are going to be busy for the next while," she said. "Get in costume and make it fast, because before they're done, we're going to bust Brian out of prison."
WWW
A/n And that's it for chapter eight. It's my birthday today, and publishing a new chapter was the best and most narcissistic birthday present I could think of, and that wouldn't have been possible without the timely and precise support of my editor, Exiled Immortal. He always somehow keys in on what matters most in each chapter, and always seems to understand my story better than I do.
As always, thank you to my readers, and thank you especially to my s Exiled Immortal and Prime 2.0, without whose support this story would simply not be here.
"But hold on," I hear you say. "Where's the rest of this? This isn't a satisfying ending to a chapter at all! I didn't come here for half a jailbreak."
And to that I say, good point. When I first finished this chapter, it was about twelve thousand words, so I ended up cutting it in half. And that means, and that means, dear reader, that chapter nine is already written. You may expect it in precisely one week. See you then.