Read aloud to me alt Taylor

by Kahlil Johnson

Dnd

2. M

Approaching school the next morning I felt a sense of apprehension. I didn't know how much my classmates would know. Would they know about my powers, or would I just be the crazy girl who'd brought a locker full of weapons to school.

Either way, it was hard to see me being accepted with open arms.

Part of me was wondering why I even bothered at all. My grandfather's avatar certainly didn't seem to think that I should waste my time sitting in class when I could be out doing... whatever he had planned for me.

It hadn't really said, actually, and I wondered if that was something I should be worried about. I had no intention of taking over the world, no matter what it said. Taking over the world sounded fun and all, but actually running the world once you had it sounded like a thankless, unpleasant job.

If it actually showed me how to turn everyone into the city into gorillas I'd owe Dad an apology.

"Humans are already apes," the voice commented. "I don't see what difference adding a little hair would make."

Nice.

My grandfather the racist.

"Wasn't my grandmother a human?" I asked.

It was silent before it spoke. "I have loved many woman, some who were not mutants."

"I really don't want to hear about your love life," I said. I still wasn't comfortable thinking about young people having sex, much less someone who had been at least ninety years old.

"The first was Magda, a beautiful gypsy I met in the camps. I loved her and I married her. We had a child together named Anya. She died in a fire when I was prevented from saving her by men who were frightened by what I was. I...did not react well. Afterwards, she could not accept what I was, and she fled from me."

It's voice actually sounded sad.

I tried to imagine how I would have reacted if someone had forced me to watch my father burn. I doubted that I'd have been any more merciful than my grandfather.

"I searched for her for years, haunted. There were others, of course. Isabelle, Astra, Jean, Janet, Aletys, Emma, Marie, Amelia, Alda, Karima..."

"Holy crap!" I muttered. "I didn't know that my grandfather was a man-whore."

"Do not judge, child. I lived a very long time, and the nights grow lonely. None of them meant as much to me as Magda though, who was my first love."

"Can we change the subject?" I asked. Listening to stories about old man sex was going to cause more psychic damage than the Simurgh.

All morning I could feel people watching me out of the corner of my eye. People whispered as I passed . It wasn't like before, when most people had completely ignored me except for my bullies.

Now everyone was aware of me, and most of them were actively avoiding me. I still couldn't tell if it was about the guns or about the powers. How fast the news spread through the grapevine I couldn't be sure.

Madison in particular took great pains to ignore me, although it looked as though she was about to have a heart attack a couple of times when she saw me looking at her.

It wasn't until I sat down for lunch at an empty table that things changed. I was done with hiding, with eating lunch in the bathroom.

When I felt people slide into the seats on both sides of me I suspected that there might be trouble.

Considering that both of them were large enough to be football players and both had a distinctive set of tattoos I should have been even less surprised.

The fact that I could almost feel the metal piece in my pocket heating up wasn't a surprise. Given what my grandfather had been through, if he'd had control of my powers I doubt anything would have been left of them.

"Hey, Heeb. I hear you scared a couple of pigs yesterday," the larger one smirked. "Made one of them piss his pants. Wish I could have seen that."

"What do you want?" I asked flatly.

"I've got bosses that would like a word with you," he said. "A proposition that would be of benefit to everyone."

"Except the blacks and the Asians and the gypsies," I said.

"Exactly!" he said enthusiastically. "We need to help the good, honest people before the refuse moves in and takes over. After what that nig...bitch Hess did, we figured you wouldn't mind helping us out."

"Where were you when I was powerless?" I asked. I hadn't been, but no one had known that. "You all let a black girl walk all over a white girl and nobody lifted a finger."

"We thought you were Jewish, what with a name like Heeb and all."

"And Jews aren't white?" I asked. I'd never really understood the hatred toward Jews. It hadn't been a part of history that Winslow had focused much on for obvious reasons.

"Jews are their own kind of evil," he said.

"What if I told you I was Jewish?" I said casually. "Do you think that would make a difference to your masters considering what I'm able to do?"

He froze as he noticed that all the metal utensils on the table were bending and twisting as though they were alive.

"You know all it would take is a paper clip to kill a man," I said casually.

My grandfather had told me a story about doing just that. It had been supposed to be educational, I guess, even if it had made me feel a little nauseous.

"You, you wouldn't," he said nervously. "Using powers against a norm in a public school. The PRT would be after you.

"The PRT doesn't do anything about Lung," I said. "The Empire doesn't do anything about Lung, and all he's got is Oni Lee. I'm stronger than Lung, and what do you think that means I think about the Empire?"

The entire cafeteria was silent now, watching us.

"I've had my powers for a while, and I've tolerated certain things. That's over. Anybody comes against me, and that's fine. I'll be happy to meet them wherever they want. Anyone comes against mine though, and I'll make them pay in ways that will be talked about for generations."

Both boys made to get up. I tried something I'd been working on for a while. I didn't only control magnetism; that was simply the easiest of the forces foe me to control. I could control all the forces of the spectrum, one of which was gravity.

"Wha...what are you doing?" one of the boy's asked as he suddenly found his weight increased by a factor of three. He slammed back on the table, and at that weight it had to be hard to breathe.

"I don't just juggle ships," I said. "I've got tricks no one has heard of yet. Tell your masters what I said."

A moment later I let the gravity field up and they were both scrambling away.

Considering the emotion that I felt from my grandfather's avatar, they were both very lucky. If he'd been in charge the entire school would have gotten an up close and personal anatomy lesson. Me, I felt that seeing the insides of a Nazi would ruin everyone's lunch.

Besides, I needed someone to send a message. It was only a matter of time before someone tried for my Dad, and I needed someone to make an example of, so that the others would learn they needed to leave me alone.

Better that it occur at a time of my choosing than by surprise.

The tenor of the whispers around me changed after lunch. People weren't looking at me like the crazy gun girl anymore. Instead I was the crazy and scary cape.

It was yet another reason to go to Arcadia. The people there were used to Panacea and Glory girl being open capes, and it was assumed that the wards went there in secret. People were used to capes whereas here I was treated like a freak.

I didn't even have anyone else trying to suck up to me, which was a little disappointing. Maybe I'd done too good a job of intimidating the Nazis.

As I walked to Chemistry class that afternoon I felt someone slam into me in passing. It was strange, considering that everyone else had been giving me a wide berth. I felt something being pressed into my hand at the same time.

"Check your locker," the note said.

With a growing sense of unease, I turned and approached my locker. I could feel metal there, but it was too small to be a bomb.

Opening my locker without touching it, I saw a small metal box inside. I lifted it with my powers and made sure to raise my shields. Opening the box, I looked inside with trepidation.

A bloody human finger was inside, along with a note.

"We have your father. We will communicate with you at the end of the school day as to where we shall meet."

I saw white.

I was barely aware of the metal doors of Winslow exploding outward on their hinges as I flew forward and then up. I wasn't wearing a costume, but I didn't think it mattered anymore. An act of will summoned my costume from my house. I could feel it flying across the city as I moved to intercept whoever had my father.

The voice was whispering admonishments; whether it was to calm me, or to tell me to kill them all I did not know. I didn't listen. All I could do was focus on the location of the tracker I had put in Dad's shoe.

I slowed as I approached a large warehouse. There was a skylight and I landed silently next to it.

"No one is invincible," I could hear Kaiser saying. "And if this new Cape is Jewish it is only a matter of time before she comes after us. It is better to ambush her all together than to wait for her to come take us one by one. She controls metal, which means that Fog and Crusader will have to be our main avenue of attack. We will change from our ordinary costumes to Kevlar. It will be a temporary inconvenience until we end this offense to the natural order."

They were expecting to have plenty of time to prepare for me. It was probably better that I didn't give them that time.

The roof to the warehouse exploded upward around me. I would have turned it into shrapnel but I didn't want to injure Dad.

They were there, all of them. Hookwolf, Kaiser, the giant twins, Crusader, Night and Fog and the others.

My father was in the center tied to a beam. It looked as though his arm was broken and he'd been beaten unconscious. A white cloth stained red was wrapped around his left hand.

I saw red.

This wasn't some sort of game, a polite exchange of hostages. I'd hoped that the finger had been fake somehow, but they'd actually hurt him.

"Surrender, Jew..." Kaiser began.

I crushed his metal armor like a tin can, doing the same to the squishy body inside inside. On my grandfather's advice, I did the same to the twins and to Crusader. I stopped short of killing them, but I gave them crushed ribs. They wouldn't be fighting anytime soon.

Hookwolf snarled and leaped for my father. I tore his metal body apart. What I hadn't realized was that the metal wasn't just a shell; it extended under the skin, which led to a sight I would have rather not seen. He was still alive, but just a mass of blood without a skin.

A simple snap of her cage-mask left Cricket with a broken neck but still alive.

The others were only now beginning to react, stunned at how quickly I had attacked. Fog was floating toward me; he was one of the Empire Capes who was most dangerous to me now that Crusader was down.

Stormtiger was trying to buffet me with winds. He wore chains which I used to turn his body suddenly so that his winds buffeted and dispersed Fog instead, who screamed and returned to his human form. I heard a scream from Night, who was running toward me.

Stormtiger's chains lashed out, smashing her skull while she was still human, knocking her out before strangling Stormtiger. He was too busy clawing at his neck to attack again.

Rune threw a chunk of concrete the size of a car at me; I blocked it with the metal remains of Hookwolf's shell.

Blades exploded from Hookwolf's shell, piercing her in the collar and forcing her to fall off her platform fifteen feet to become unconscious.

Viktor was charging toward me, but he was wearing a breastplate. I smashed him into Alabaster over and over until he was unconscious.

Alabaster I simply dropped Hookwolf's armor onto, followed by a truck. It was probably unpleasant, but he was immortal and I didn't know how to disable or even kill him in the long term.

Only Othalla and Krieg were left. Othalla had her hand on Krieg even as she stared at Viktor, who I remember was supposedly her lover.

Suddenly I felt myself getting short of breath. For a moment I was worried that Fog had revived; it took a moment to realize that it was Krieg. He could control kinetic motions. Furthermore, with Othalla empowering him, he was now able to withstand a punch from leviathan, at least supposedly.

Glancing around, I noted that everyone else seemed to be unconscious.

I wrenched Othalla away from him using pieces of Hookwolf's frame. Locking her down was important; otherwise I'd find myself facing opponents that I'd already taken down over and over again.

I then called lightning down from the heavens. It struck Krieg but didn't affect him. He was running toward me, and the closer he got, the harder it got to breathe.

He might be invulnerable, but that didn't make him unbeatable. I threw cars at him, but he used his power to bat them aside. He jumped for me as I levitated there, and moments before he would have gotten me, with the world slowing around me because of his field, I turned several cars into a giant fist that reached up and grabbed him. He tried to turn the fist's power against it, but my power was too strong. He struggled against it, and then his power failed.

He was unconscious in the space of a moment, only his power protecting him from being utterly crushed.

I landed and stood before Othalla.

"You will heal my father," I said. "Or I will start breaking your bones. I'll start with the one that you all broke with him."

"It was an accident,' she stammered. "He wasn't supposed to fight back, not like that. He had some kind of armor on and he was harder to subdue than everybody thought."

"I don't care. Will you heal him?"

She nodded, looking down at Viktor.

"No one else has to die," I said. "If you don't help my dad, I think that might change, though."

It was only an act of a moment for her to heal my Dad. As he healed I tied her down again.

Pulling my phone from my pocket, I levitated it next to my ear.

"PRT," the voice on the line said. "How may I direct your call."

"I'd like to report a parahuman fight," I said calmly.

"Are you safe?" the woman asked.

"Very," I said.

"Are you one of the parahumans involved?"

"Yes. I think they've been calling me Inferno. I have members of the Empire eighty Eight that need pickup."

"Which ones?" she asked.

"All of them," I said.

For a long moment all I heard on the other end of the line was dead silence.

"What?" she asked. Her voice sounded shocked.

"I've got all of the Empire Capes here ready for pickup, except Purity I guess," I said. "Some of them look like they are bleeding fairly profusely, so it might be best to make haste."

"Where?"

"You've got my phone GPS location," I said. "I'm not sure of the address. I flew here."

Glancing down, I grimaced. "I think some of these guys are dead."

It looked like the guys whose armor I had crushed weren't still alive. Kaiser, the twins, Crusader. I wasn't sure how I felt about it. For the moment I didn't feel anything other than grim satisfaction.

"Can you provide medical treatment?" the woman asked.

"Othalla can," I said. "But some of these guys are too dangerous to revive."

The truth was that I didn't want her to heal any of them. They all deserved everything they'd gotten. I held dad, whose finger was slowly healing and he still wasn't conscious.

"We have teams in route," she said crisply. "ETA is five minutes."

"You have done well," the voice whispered. "Each of the men you ended has hurt hundreds, maybe even more. They would have hurt thousands in the future."

It wasn't something he had to tell me; I knew that better than anyone. I had lived with the Empire on my doorstep my entire life, and I knew what they were responsible for.

The question was, what would I feel when this numbness faded, and how would my father take the news that his daughter had killed? Even if it was in defense of him, I suspect he would disapprove.

It didn't ultimately matter. He was alive and if that meant that a hundred Nazis had to die, that was a trade I'd make.

1279

ShayneT

Mar 28, 2018

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Threadmarks 12. Monster

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ShayneT

Mar 30, 2018

#1,859

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," Rune said. Her voice was thready, and she sounded like she was in shock.

"What wasn't?" Battery asked.

"We'd been talking about bringing the new girl in for a couple of days. After she did that thing with the ship everybody wanted her... that kind of power would make the Empire unbeatable."

"So what happened?" Battery asked.

"Kaiser wanted to do the soft sell, send some kids to talk to her after that idiot cop let everybody know who she was. It's not a violation of the rules if you don't have a secret identity any more, right?"

Battery glanced back at the one way mirror. Piggot and the others were behind the glass, watching. Rune had seemed more vulnerable than the others, which was why they were interrogating her first.

"Thing is, the kids came back screaming that she was a Jew and that she was planning to take the Empire down. I didn't believe it. Who would be crazy enough to even try something like that?"

Rune laughed bitterly, and stared down at her hands. They were wrapped in steel mittens so that she couldn't make her trademarked gestures required to use her telekinisis.

"Stormtiger and Hookwolf started talking about how she was making the Empire look weak, and about how if we let it go we'd be making ourselves a target for all the other gangs. Kaiser didn't want to do it, but the others were listening."

Battery nodded sympathetically. Suspects tended to be more open if you pretended to be sympathetic. It helped that Battery was white and female. Miss Militia was too ethnic and Armsmaster too intimidating. Assault didn't have the light touch that was needed for a good interrogation, at least not with a teenage girl.

"Everybody figured she was just a scared kid talking big. She was bullied at school... let a nig...er, black girl walk all over her for years. She's only had her powers for a few days! Even regular kids don't start killing until they've had a taste for it for a while. How dangerous could she possibly be?"

Rune closed her eyes and shook her head, as though to push the images of what had happened away.

"So Hookwolf and Stormtiger send some guys to pick up her Dad. It was just supposed to be a threat, you know? One of those, we can find your family any time so don't fuck with us kind of things."

Rune scowled. "The old guy wasn't supposed to fight. He brained one of the guys with a wrench, and when they beat him it was like he was wearing some kind of armor. They had to beat him unconscious, and one of the guys got a little carried away, cut off his finger."

"Kaiser just kind of rolled with it. Said to send it to her, make her stew for a while while we got everybody together. Either we'd intimidate her, or we'd get Fog to choke her to death."

"We weren't even sure whether she controlled metal or was a telekinetic. Kaiser thought we ought to change to Kevlar to make sure, but nobody really knew. Hookwolf was pretty sure he was fine. She should have been Manton limited, and his metal comes out of his body."

"That apparently wasn't true," Battery said, grimacing. She'd seen Hookwolf's body, what there had been left of it. It had been hideous.

"No," Rune said. "We were just getting started getting ready, and then the roof exploded."

"What happened then?" Battery asked, leaning forward.

"You saw what happened," Rune said. She was silent for a long moment staring into space."We were the biggest, strongest gang in the Bay, and it took her less than two minutes to take us out. She's a monster."

She started to cry.

Battery doubted that Rune would have a sound night's sleep for a long time.

"I suppose this means we should raise her threat ratings a little," Assault said lightly.

Strider had been transporting the members of the Empire to other PRT headquarters around the country. It would have been too easy for the mass of them to break out all at once, which likely would not have pleased the Hebert girl.

At the moment everyone wanted to keep the Hebert girl happy.

Piggot glared at him, then shook her head.

"It's a bad sign that I'm more worried about a fifteen year old girl than about the gang war that's about to happen because of what she did." she said, scowling. "She's a loose cannon, and we're hamstrung by that damnable lawsuit."

"That's what we're hamstrung by," Assault said. sarcastically "Not by the fact that she beat a group that had us outgunned faster than I can say their names."

Battery kicked her husband under the table. Everyone was stressed enough without his fanning the flames. Assault ignored her, however, to her displeasure.

"Also, we're in a headquarters made entirely out of metal sitting out in the middle of the Bay," Assault continued. "Our Tinkers all have metal armor, and so do some of the rest of us. That's something I'd really reconsider after what I saw happen to Kaiser. It was like what happened when you step on a Ketchup packet."

"Switching to using entirely non-metal technologies is something that will take a very long time," Armsmaster said. He seemed to be taking what Assault said as something more than sarcasm. "Even though there are ceramic armors, the wiring, sensor components...there is metal in everything. I could try to create shielding, but I'm not sure how effective that would be against someone of this power level."

"She's a problem," Piggot admitted. "And worse, she's our problem."

"Does she have to be?" Battery asked. "She only went after the Empire because they'd taken her father, the one person she has left in her life. It's not like she was looking for trouble. She hasn't even gone out for patrolling, which is what most heroes do their first time out."

"She's actually been remarkably passive," Miss Militia said. "Most parahumans seek out conflict like moths to flames. I know that most of you think she triggered with the locker incident, but she didn't even bother to report it and there's some evidence that she's had her powers for a lot longer."

Battery nodded.

"She's got too much control of her powers to have just had them for a few days. She acts like she's had them for years."

"There's no way someone with that kind of power could have flown under the radar for that long," Dauntless said. "Powers just want to be used."

"We talked to people at the craft show," Miss Militia said. "She's been selling metal statuary for the past year and a half. There's a clear progression in her work, but all of it is similar in that it didn't seem like it was welded together, at least not normally."

"There's something else," Armsmaster said. "We found what was left of her father's jacket at his workplace. It's tinker work, a kind of magnetic gel armor that I have never seen before."

"So she's working with a Tinker," Velocity said. "Maybe we can use that person to get a little leverage."

"I scanned her for tech when I went to bring the Empire in," Armsmaster said. "I didn't find anything. She was talking to herself and I thought that she might be in communication with someone else. I checked the entire electromagnetic spectrum and there weren't any emissions."

"So you're suggesting that she's the Tinker?" Piggot asked. She frowned. "I thought that Tinkers did not tend to manifest really strong other powers."

"I examined the jacket," Armsmaster said. "And its construction had a lot in common with the statuary. There were no visible welds and it looked as though the nanobeads inside the gel had been magnetically formed. More importantly, I think that it's technology that could be replicated by non-Tinkers, which is rare."

Everyone was silent for a long moment. The number of Tinkers with replicable technologies was infinitesimal.

"Has anyone thought about the fact that she's not Manton limited?" Assault asked. "That means that anyone with metal fillings, metal joint replacements, anything is pretty much dead if they get into a fight with her, even if there aren't any other metals around."

"She's unstable," Piggot said. "She's clearly paranoid; her feud with Shadow Stalker and Miss Militia's meeting her at an art show was enough for her to sue us all. Worse, she murdered several men in cold blood, and as far as I've seen, she hasn't shown an ounce of remorse. If there is no response, what's to keep her from escalating?"

"Perhaps we should use diplomacy instead of force," Battery said. "We can always cal the Triumvirate later, but if that's the first thing we do, it's likely that there will be a lot of collateral damage."

"If a Kill order is issued there are ways that would involve less collateral damage," Armsmaster said. "Poison, Fletchette from New York has a power that even cuts through Endbringers... this is not a situation that cannot be solved."

"Are you suggesting that we assassinate a fifteen year old girl?" Battery asked incredulously.

Armsmaster shook his head. "She's not a fifteen year old girl. According to those who have faced her, she is a monster. Besides, I am simply pointing out that there are ultimate options other than turning the city into the kind of warzone that an Endbringer would create."

"She's a scared teenage girl," Battery said.

"She didn't look scared to me," Velocity said. "I heard about how she intimidated those cops, and all I can think is that it's a pattern. She promised not to do that kind of thing anymore and the very next day she's using her powers on kids at her school. If this was anyone else we'd have already hauled her in."

"She's not anyone else," Assault said soberly. "Does anybody here think she couldn't take Lung is she wanted to? We've let him run around free for years. Are we going to do anything different with her?"

Piggot scowled at him, but she didn't disagree with what she was saying.

"She needs to be managed. Once the rest of the country gets wind of this, things are likely going to get ugly." Piggot said. "There are always idiots who want to poke the bear."

"There is a worst case scenario," Miss Militia said. As everyone looked up, she said one word. "Butcher."

Battery watched as the color drained from everyone's faces. The idea of the Butcher with Taylor Hebert's power was terrifying. She would make the Slaughterhouse Nine look like amateurs, given the levels of power and control she'd already shown as a fifteen year old.

"We need a plan to deal with her before that happens. Does she even know about Butcher?" Velocity asked.

"We have to make sure she knows," Piggot said. "Which may be difficult considering that Butcher may have jumped bodies by the time he comes here."

It wasn't as though having a physical description would be of any use.

"How do we get her to listen to use then?" Battery asked.

"Maybe Dragon," Assault offered. "If she really is a tinker who has tech than can be replicated, Dragon might be able to set her up with lucrative contracts. Her father isn't exactly rich. Think about it... the girl wants to be a rogue, isn't it in our best interest to let her? The more time she tinkers is time she's not running around blowing people's heads off when they make her mad."

"That's... not bad," Piggot said begrudgingly. "Dragon has a reputation among tinkers, one that we can use. We need good interactions with the girl wherever we can find them. She seems to be under the impression that we are the villains in all this and we need to convince her that we aren't."

"Dealing with Shadow Stalker might help," Battery said. "What's been done with that?"

"She's under house arrest," Piggot said. "For her own safety mostly. There's no proof that she did leave the guns in the locker, although some of the fingerprints and serial numbers do match some of the busts Shadow Stalker is known to have made."

"I'll talk to her," Battery said.

"It wasn't me," Shadow Stalker said.

"Taylor Hebert thinks it was," Battery said. "And a lot of the guns come from perps that you busted."

"I didn't say the guns didn't come from me. I said it wasn't me that did it," Sophia looked up. "I might as well admit it. Hebert's the big player now and Piggot's going to throw me under the bus."

"Where did you get the guns?" Battery asked.

"I like to take trophies," Sophia admitted. "I've got stashes all over the city. Even showed Emma some, the stupid bitch."

"Are you saying that Emma Barnes was the one who put the guns in the locker?"

"It was overkill," Sophia said. "You do something like that you've got to sell a story people will believe. A girl like Hebert brings a gun to school; it's not a surprise to anybody. It needs to be something cheap, something a girl like her could get hold of, but this is the Bay. Anybody can get a piece if they really want it."

She shook her head. "Emma went nuts, though. I don't know how she got inside the school or into the locker for that matter, but she was the only one who knew about my stashes. It had to have been her, right?"

"I don't know," Battery said. "Just holding onto the guns, tampering with evidence is a crime serious enough to revoke your parole."

"I'm better off in juvie," Sophia said. "They say Hebert crushed Kaiser like a grape. If I'm in juvie maybe she won't go after my family."

"Do you think she might do that?"

"Hell if I know. I thought I knew Hebert, but I never would have thought she'd do... all of this, even if she got powers. She killed more people in two minutes than I ever thought about killing, and the question you have to ask yourself is where does she go from that?"

"You think she'll escalate?" Battery asked.

"Wouldn't you? Short of the big three there's nobody that can stop her, not locally anyway. She pretty much is the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room," Sophia said. She scowled. "I still don't understand why I got the power to walk through walls and she gets to be an Endbringer."

"She's not an Endbringer," Battery said quietly.

"The stuff I've heard she's been doing, doesn't that sound like an Endbringer to you? If you can lift a cargo ship you can probably lift a building, and doesn't that sound like something the Simurgh does?"

"You can't reason with an Endbringer," Battery said. She felt a little uncomfortable even talking about it. Most people avoided talking about Endbringers like the plague, fearing that it would somehow call them down on their city. Given the Simurgh's powers it was possible that it might even be true.

"You think you can reason with Hebert when she's got her mind made up?" Sophia asked. "Everybody thinks she triggered in the locker, but I can you that she didn't."

"Why would you think that?"

"She didn't act like she should have. She didn't scream or beat on the walls or anything. She went in and it was just quiet. Somebody goes through that with those kind of powers, they'll panic and blow through the locker, right? She just opened the lock and stepped out. Who has that kind of control when they are triggering?"

"When do you think she got her powers then?"

"There was always something about her, little things. She looked like she was taking what we had to give her, but she was never really afraid like she should have been. It was like she always had an ace in the hole."

Sophia stared down at her hands. "I thought she was just pretending, that she was weak and just good at hiding it. Why else would she let us do everything we did to her? If she was this strong why not stop us? That's some Clark Kent level shit right there."

Battery was surprised that Sophia even knew the reference. Many teenagers her age didn't. In a world with Scion, who needed Superman after all.

"Did she get off on it? Pretending to be weak and laughing behind our backs when we acted like we were the strong ones?" Sophia scowled. "What kind of sick freak does that?"

Battery didn't make the obvious comparison.

"This is only the beginning," Sophia said. "And I'm going to be happy to be out of the bay when it all explodes in everybody's faces. I'm telling my family to get out and you should get out too."

"She seems like a nice girl," Battery said weakly.

"She seemed like a nice girl for two years and then she murdered a whole bunch of dudes and didn't even look back. What else is she hiding?" Sophia asked. "How long is it before Piggot or Armsie or some other idiot decides they need to reign her in? You think she's gonna take that from anybody but maybe her pops?"

Sophia shook her head. "Just send me to juvie. I'll come by and check the crater that's left when she finishes with it when I get out."

1186

ShayneT

Mar 30, 2018

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Threadmarks 13 Waiting

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ShayneT

Apr 3, 2018

#2,162

I should have killed Othalla.

She'd promised to heal Dad, but after two days he was still unconscious. Nothing the doctors had done had made the slightest difference. I couldn't help but feel that Othalla had left him in a coma intentionally, maybe as a form of revenge against me.

I'd been in the hospital by his side for two days, sleeping restlessly on a cot by the bed. Granddad's voice had been curiously silent. I would have thought that with all his knowledge of genetics and mad science that he'd have had some idea about what was wrong, but he seemed as puzzled as my doctors.

Whenever I'd heard about killing on television and in books, they always made a big deal about it, the same as they did with losing your virginity. It was supposed to be this life changing thing, something that stained the soul forever.

It worried me a little that I didn't feel anything. I felt numb, actually. It might have been that my worry for Dad overshadowed anything I felt about what had happened.

What worried me was the thought that it might be a delayed reaction. I'd walked barefoot in the snow once. It hadn't been one of my better ideas, but while I was doing it there hadn't been much in the way of pain. It hadn't been until I'd come back into the heat that I'd realized that my feet had been numb and I hadn't felt any pain because of it. Instead all the pain had hit me at once as my feet were back in the heat.

In the end all I could do was sit and stare at the monitor beeping in a regular rhythm, afraid to use my powers for fear of damaging some sensitive equipment.

No one came to visit me; not the police looking for statements or the PRT. The only people I saw were nurses and occasionally doctors.

That changed on the evening of the second day.

As the door opened quietly, I looked up. The nurses had kept a regular schedule, and most of them had been efficient, although some of them clearly knew who and what I was. I'd seen fear in their eyes, although most had been good at hiding it. Those who had shown the most fear had been rotated out quickly.

This wasn't a scheduled time though.

I was surprised to see a girl my age stepping into the room. She was wearing a robe with a large hood and a scarf covering her face. The robe was white with a red cross on it. She had mousy brown hair and she looked tired.

"I don't do brains," she said as she stepped into the room. "I tried to tell them, but everyone seems to think that you're a special case."

Panacea. She was the one Cape in Brockton Bay who was an even better healer than Othalla. Some people said she was the best healer in North America.

"Do I have your permission to heal your father?" she asked, her voice sounding bored. "Even though I probably won't be able to do anything?"

Was she letting me know up front so that I wouldn't get my hopes up, or was she actually afraid and trying to keep my expectations low so that I wouldn't crush her like a grape?

Unlike my nurses I couldn't get a good read on her, and the voice wasn't helping either.

I nodded permission, and she reached out and touched his hand. She frowned, and then did something. I could see his finger starting to grown back. It was weird and a little disgusting.

"It's a good thing he has a lot of fat stores," she said. "It'd be a lot harder with someone who was thin."

She held his hands for a good five minutes until the finger was completely regrown. Finally she let go of her hand and turned to me.

"Well?" I asked. "What's wrong with him?"

"Even though I can't do brains I can see them," she said. She hesitated. "I don't normally talk about any of this without the permission of the patient, but everybody seems to think you should be an exception. It's like they think you'll blow up the hospital if you don't get the answer that you want."

"Did they do something horrible to him?" I asked. I scowled, and the numbness began to be replaced by anger. If they'd done more than just cut off his finger, I'd find what was left of them and I'd make them pay.

Metal objects began to levitate around the room, and I had to consciously force them to drop back to where they were. I worriedly looked at the monitors, which seemed to be fine for the moment.

Amy took a step back.

"Have you considered anger management classes?" she asked. "I can see how people might get worried."

Apparently my rage had shown on my face.

"It looks like he had an initial beating," she said. "But I doubt they did anything to him after cutting off his finger. The fact of the matter is that nothing is wrong with him."

"What?"

"I've healed his body, and he'd not actually in a coma. Have you heard about the part of the brain that determines whether someone has the potential to trigger or not?"

I nodded.

"His is active. My guess is that he triggered whenever all this happened, and his mind is still trying to deal with whatever new information his powers are giving him."

"What does that mean?"

"You see it with Thinkers sometimes, if their powers are strong. They get so much new information and it takes time for their minds to learn to organize it," she said. She shrugged. "I'm not sure how long it'll take him to wake up, but my guess is that the stronger he is the longer it will take."

"It's already been two days," I said. "Is that normal?"

I'd read about triggers, of course, while trying to figure out how being a mutant was different from what everyone else experienced. The fact that Dad had triggered meant that what he'd gone through had been horrific. Had it been the beating, or had it been his fear that I was going to be murdered that had done it.

Had he seen me murder the other Capes and that was what had done it? It was a thought that I quickly shut down as unproductive.

"It means he'll probably be pretty strong," she admitted. "It might be another couple of days, or it could be in a couple of minutes. I wouldn't expect him to be like this for more than a week total, and that seems unlikely."

"So he's healthy otherwise."

She nodded.

"I went ahead and corrected his vision. I reversed his male pattern baldness. It'll take a while, but his hair will grow back in. That'll give you time to get used to the change. He should probably lay off the cheese fries, though. He has a genetic predisposition for heart disease that I did my best to fix, but anybody who eats enough crap can get it no matter how healthy their genes."

I was silent for a moment, staring at her.

"I really appreciate all of this," I said.

She waved her hand as though it was nothing. "It's all part of the service."

"No, really." I said. "Dad is all I have left in the world, and you saving him is something I'll never be able to repay. If there's anything I can do to help you, name it."

She was silent for a moment, staring at me. It looked as though she was debating with herself. Finally she took a deep breath and spoke.

"Do you really want to help me?" she asked.

I nodded.

"Think about what you're doing the next time you decide to go blundering around town like a bull in a china shop," she said.

"What?" I asked.

"Who do you think had to heal up the people you mangled before they sent them off to jail?" she asked. "And in the past two days I'd had to heal forty different gang members who were injured in the fighting."

"Fighting?"

She stared at me. "Haven't you watched the news? Maybe even just looked outside? The gangs are at war. Even though the Empire no longer has any Capes, they outnumber all the other groups by at least three to one. The other groups don't have a lot of Capes anyway, so it's mostly gang members, and innocent people are getting caught in the crossfire."

"What does that have to do with me?"

She stared at me as though I'd said something stupid.

"Did you know my sister is scared of you?" she asked. "She's not scared of anything, but she's been really quiet about you ever since she saw you carrying that boat."

Glory Girl was scared of me?

"A lot of people are scared of you," she said. "And for good reason. Someone with power like yours is like an elephant in a world of mice. Even if they don't mean to be destructive they'll blunder around killing people and destroying things unless that are very careful."

"You don't seem to be scared of me," I pointed out. If anything she seemed a little rude.

"I'm the healer," she said dismissively. "If you explode my head or... whatever it is that you do, what will you do the next time your Dad gets hurt?"

I stared at her for a long moment.

"Even the villains don't come after me," she said. "Because sooner or later all of you will need me."

"They don't try to hire you?" I asked, ignoring the implication that I was one of the villains.

"Sure," she said. "But if I went with one gang exclusively the others would go to war to get me back... kind of like what's happening now that you kicked one leg off of a three legged table. Why do you think I don't just heal heroes? I'm Switzerland."

"I didn't start this," I said defensively.

"But you finished it," she said. "Except not really. There's a lot of loose ends out there, and there's ordinary people getting hurt. I wouldn't care, really, except that they keep sending them to me to get patched up."

"You could turn her," the voice said. "She is bitter in the role she has been forced into, stagnating to the point of madness. Give her a cause, an opportunity to use her powers in the way they were meant to be used and she would be yours."

It hadn't had a single constructive thing to say in the last two days, and this was what it wanted me to do?

I ignored it.

"All I ever wanted to be was a hero," I said.

"You think that matters to the person whose house got shot in the gang war you started?" she asked. "People playing cops and robbers is fun until people start getting hurt."

She bit her lip. "I know you want to help, but just be careful. Not everyone is as tough as you."

When she glanced at Dad I wondered if she was blaming me for what had happened to him. As though I hadn't blamed myself often enough anyway.

"Anyway, I've got a half dozen gang members to treat and then a guy with a weird rash to treat, so I need to be off. Thanks for not exploding my head."

With that she was gone.

Is that how the rest of the hospital staff felt, that I was a problem? The Empire had been beating up minorities in the Bay, murdering people for as long as I could remember. I'd decapitated them in a single evening. Wasn't cutting the head off the snake worth a little thrashing around?

Or was Amy spouting the Protectorate line, the one that led to nobody ever doing anything to threaten the status quo. Sure people were hurting for now, but the city had been bleeding for years, dying a slow, inevitable death.

"They deserved everything they got," the voice whispered.

"Shut up," I said as I settled down into my chair.

If Dad was really aware somehow, I wanted to be here when he woke up.

"Miss Herbert?" A heavyset woman stepped into the room, followed by a tall African American man. There was something about her smile that I didn't like.

"Yes?" I asked.

I'd been waiting for the police to come to question me, maybe to try to take me in. I wasn't sure what I would do in a situation like that. Short of the Birdcage I doubted there was much they could do to hold me, and there was no way I was going to let them get me anywhere near the Birdcage.

"My name is Alyssa Jones, I'm with Social Services. This is Alex Winters."

"What?" I asked flatly.

"Honey, I understand that your Dad is in bad shape right now. Are there any relatives you could go to stay with?"

"No," I said. "All my relatives are dead."

I could probably stay with Kurt and Lacey if I had to, but I had no intention of going anywhere with these people. Leaving Dad alone was a nonstarter.

Even my fake grandpa was technically dead... at least as far as I knew. For all I knew the original was still out there somewhere. The thought was startling. I'd assumed he was dead because I'd assumed he wouldn't have abandoned my mom if he wasn't dead.

"We're here to make sure that you have a place to stay while your father gets better," she said. Her tone was cloying, and her expression was fake. I felt as though she was talking down to me.

"I'm not leaving this hospital room until my Dad wakes up," I said flatly.

Who had done this? Was the PRT really stupid enough to think that I would follow some bureaucrat away from my father so they could kidnap him? How stupid did they think I was?

"You have to go to school," she said. It was as though she hadn't heard what I said. "You need a bed and a place to stay."

Staring at her, I said, "I can take care of myself."

"You're fifteen," she said dismissively. "I know that at your age teenagers think they are fully grown, but..."

"They didn't tell you who I was," I said disbelievingly. "They actually sent you in here without knowing."

Why would they send someone who was completely clueless in? I couldn't understand their reasoning. At least a police investigation would have been logical. I'd have even cooperated as long as I didn't have to leave the room. The odds of a disgruntled non-powered Empire member trying to get revenge were too high.

"What?" she asked, the confusion on her face obvious.

"You've heard about all the gangs fighting," I said, staring at her. How long would it take her to make the connection.

"Your father wasn't hurt in that, was he?" she asked. "It's a terrible business; so many people getting hurt."

"In a way he started it all," I said. "The Empire caught my Dad and tortured him. I made sure they wouldn't do it again."

"What are you..."

With a glance at the equipment monitoring Dad, I took hold of change in my pocket and sent it orbiting around my head.

"I was the one who carried the ship over the city recently," I said. "And I was the one who took out the Empire capes in less than two minutes."

The fake smile on her face froze as she saw the coins rotating around my head. Even though she had suddenly become aware that I was a parahuman, I doubted she had any idea how much damage I could do with even one of those coins.

"Even if you were somehow capable of forcing me to leave here, which you can't, what home would take me? The minute I went to school the remaining Empire members would firebomb whoever's house I was in. I'm surprised that they haven't already firebombed my house already.

There was something about her expression. I groaned.

"They firebombed my house?" I asked. Somehow it didn't surprise me. "Is there anything left?"

There had been pictures of Mom there, mementos, things I'd never get back. The helmet was there!

If the voice was still talking to me that meant the helmet was still all right, right? Was this why it had been so quiet for the past few days.

"I am still functional," the helmet said. "I was not aware of what was happening until it was too late. I have no power on my own, and most of my awareness is here with you."

Her partner looked uncomfortable.

"We really can't say. We haven't been over there yet."

"Who sent you?" I asked.

"I really couldn't say," he said smoothly. "Calls are anonymous to protect callers from reprisals."

Was the Protectorate trying to annoy me to death, or were the remnants of the Empire trying to bleed me with a thousand small annoyances since they no longer had the power to do anything else to me?

Or was someone else trying to turn me against the government and against the Protectorate?

I summoned the helmet from its hiding place, presumably in the ashes of my family home. I could feel it flying through the air over the city. The last thing I needed was for someone else to get hold of it.

Whatever happened I was going to have some choices to make the moment Dad awakened.

Part of me dreaded him waking, because I was afraid of what he was going to have to say to me. Would he blame me for what had happened? Would he be relieved that I wasn't dead?

I had no way of knowing.

The one thing I did know was that a reckoning was coming for whoever was trying to destroy my life.

"In any case," I said. "We're done here. I'm not leaving, and if you try to force me I don't think things are going to go very well for you."

For some reason they seemed more than happy to leave. I seemed to be having that effect on people these days.

I settled back down to wait.

1158

ShayneT

Apr 3, 2018

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ShayneT

Apr 5, 2018

#2,449

"It wasn't us," Assault said. He held his hands up at my expression. "I swear. Official policy has been to leave you alone, give you a few days to cool off."

"I'm not sure what to believe anymore," I admitted.

Assault was pleasant and even a little funny, but part of me couldn't help but wonder if it was all an act. After all, the PRT likely wanted me to drop the lawsuit, and they wouldn't mind using a carrot along with whatever stick they had.

"We've been busy with this gang war thing anyway," Assault said.

"I wouldn't have thought that would be a problem with their Capes gone," I said.

"It's actually worse," he said. "The Empire had over a thousand members, and now they've exploded into dozens of small gangs. They scatter like roaches whenever we show up, and it's like playing whack-a-mole; as soon as you take one down others pop back up."

I stared down at my hands.

"Panacea seems to think this is all my fault," I said.

He shrugged. "It would have happened eventually. The city was a powderkeg waiting for something to set it off. You just brought a flamethrower instead of a match."

"So what do I do?" I asked. "I'm not leaving until my Dad is safe. They've apparently already burned my house down, so I don't trust a few security guards to keep the gang members from getting to him."

"You do what you have to," he said. "After what happened with Sophia, I'm not even going to try to talk you into joining the Wards."

"You aren't?" I asked. That seemed a little suspicious. I would have thought that the powers that be would do anything to get me under their control.

"Oh, if anyone asks just tell them that I worked really hard to get you in," he said, grinning. "Really convincing even."

"So why aren't you?"

"You wouldn't be a good fit," he admitted more soberly. "You scare too many people and you don't strike me as the type to follow the party line."

"I don't get why I scare people," I said. "Sure, I'm powerful, but..."

"Have you ever heard of threat displays?" he asked, interrupting me.

I shook my head.

"Animals don't usually kill members of their own species," he said. "They usually start by posturing. If they can intimidate the other animal, then they may not have to fight at all. If they do fight, it usually isn't to the death."

He stared out the window. "You know people aren't much different? We just point guns at each other instead of roaring. Someone shooting at you is pretty terrifying, and a lot of times that's all it takes to get people to break and run."

"I'm not sure I..." I began.

"In World War II only about fifteen to twenty percent of the soldiers actually fired at the enemy. One percent of pilots accounted for forty percent of enemy fighters downed, which means that a lot of pilots never actually shot a single person."

"I'm not sure what all that has to do with me."

"Cape combat is all about posturing," he said. "Who has more power, who can cow the enemy into doing what they want. Most Capes never kill anybody. The thing is, when the Empire faced you, they started posturing, expecting the same thing they'd always gotten, and you jumped straight to killing."

"This isn't a game," I snapped. "They had my Dad. They'd hurt him."

"Most of them don't consider norms to be as important as Capes," he admitted. "That's just the way it is. They were playing cops and robbers and you went straight to war. That worries people. It makes you like that one percent of pilots, except that nobody really knows what side you are on."

"I'm on the side of the city," I said. "And on the side of my Dad."

He stared at me for a moment then nodded. "I guess that's fair. The thing is, even though they want you to join the Wards, being an ally to the Protectorate isn't the worst idea in the world."

"Oh?" I asked.

I'd been waiting for this pitch since Assault and the silent Battery had entered the room. Battery leaned against the wall and hadn't been saying much. She didn't seem afraid, though, which was an improvement over some of my nurses.

"We've got resources that you don't," he said. "You say you want to help people, and you can do a little tinkering. We can set you up with labs. We've got legions of lawyers that can make something like clearing out the ship graveyard not only legal, but popular. You can even work with Dragon if you'd like."

"After the thing with Sophia, you think I'd trust any of you?" I asked. "You threw me under the bus because I was just some unpowered nobody, and she had powers that were useful to you. Why should I ever have anything to do with a group like that?"

"Sophia's not the only criminal that was given a second chance," Assault said soberly. "Most of them made good use of it. The fact is, mistakes were made. If we'd known what was going on we'd have put a stop to it."

"Because it wouldn't play well for the news?"

"For some of us, sure," he said. "But most of us are good people who are put in a hard situation. We're outnumbered three to one, and even if we went all out against the bad guys and won, we'd be left short during the Endbringer fights."

"So it's all a game?" I asked. "Just a show so everyone can think someone's doing something?"

"Pretty much," he said.

At my expression, he held up his hand. "The world is going to hell, and we're doing everything we can to keep it from getting worse. There's only so much we can do, though."

"I can't live like that," I said. "Watching the world circling the drain and doing nothing about it."

"You shouldn't have to," a scratchy voice said from the bed.

I whirled and saw my Dad was staring at me. He'd grown stubble, but seeing him awake made me rush forward to embrace him.

"Hey," he said. "I'm glad you're all right."

"They burned the house down," I said into his shoulder. "There's nothing left."

Assault and Battery had been kind enough to bring pictures. There wasn't anything left of the house; it had burned down to the basement. Once Dad was up and around I'd go back and take a look for myself, see if anything was salvageable.

"I kept copies of some of the pictures in a safe deposit box," he said. At my look he shrugged. "We live in Brockton Bay. It was only a matter of time before someone torched the place."

We didn't have money to replace the house though. I could probably get some fairly easily, but it would take time.

He felt for his stomach and frowned. He'd always been generally thin, but he'd been developing a small pot belly over the past few years, likely from the beer he drank when he thought I wasn't looking.

"Panacea," I said. "She had to have some mass to grow your finger back."

"Well, I'd have rather taken up running," he said. "And you know how much I hate running, but this'll do."

"Are you all right?" I asked, staring into his eyes. The trauma he'd been through, I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't the same man at all.

He looked away for a moment, staring at Assault by the window. "Are you?"

"I did what I had to do," I said. Glancing back at Assault and Battery I said. "I'd do it again if I had to."

Both of them tensed, but neither of them said anything. They worked really well together; their body language was in sync.

"It was my job to make sure you didn't have to do... whatever you did," he said. "And I failed."

His face was expressionless as he turned back to look at me. I couldn't tell what he was feeling, and that frightened me a little.

"I should have given you some better options," I said. "Giving you the armor and nothing else was just asking for trouble."

I'd been thinking about the weapons I could have given him over the past two days. My grandfather hadn't been one for building hand weapons; he'd never needed them. However, there were weapons that I could buy, and if need be I could even make weapons with my grandfather's help.

As long as I had a power source that would support it, creating a miniature rail gun shouldn't be that hard. The power requirements had always been the sticking point anyway.

"I feel fine," he said. "We should probably get out of the hospital before they take my kidney in payment."

"Nobody's taking anything from you," I said. "Never again."

I turned to Assault and Battery.

"I appreciate what you've been trying to do, offering the olive branch and all. But I've got some things to take care of before I can do anything."

Assault shrugged and handed me a business card. "Call us when you're ready."

Both of them left the room.

When they were gone, I turned to Dad.

"I didn't want to say anything while they were here, but I know you're a parahuman," I said.

I waited for him to deny it, but he simply sat looking at me without saying anything. In a better world I could have approached this with tact and understanding, but that wasn't the world we lived in.

Understanding his capabilities would let me know what I needed to do to protect him. If he was bulletproof then I didn't need to do much of anything. If he was just a Thinker I'd need to do a lot more. If he was a Tinker I'd have to provide him a lab.

"What can you do?"

After more than two days I figured he had a good idea of his own capabilities. Unlike my own experimentation with mutant powers, parahumans seemed to get a little more guidance with their powers.

"Right to it," he said. He looked away again.

"I need to know so that I can protect you," I said. "It'd be nice if you were bulletproof, but Panacea seemed to think you're some kind of Thinker."

"I can see through the eyes of animals," he admitted. "And control the animals I can see through."

"What kind of animals?"

"Birds, insects, rats, cats, dogs... pretty much anything really."

"And how many of them can you control?" I asked. "At once?"

"All of them," he said "Everything in maybe a three block radius. Every cockroach, fly, pigeon, termite...hundreds of thousands of them all at the same time."

I leaned back. No wonder his mind had struggled to deal with all that information at the same time.

"And it's on all the time?"

He nodded. "Assault and Battery are apparently in a relationship. I just saw her kiss him when they were outside of the range of the cameras. This hospital is a lot less clean than I would have liked; there are bugs everywhere."

With a power like that I could have done a lot. It wasn't the bulletproofing I'd hoped for, but there was a lot of intimidation value in swarms of insects.

"It's not going to be like it was before," I warned him. "There are people after us both, and I'm a lot better able to deal with them than you are."

"I heard," he said. "I've seen a lot more over the last couple of days than you have. There are people getting hurt close enough to the hospital that I could see them. I tried to help, but getting control wasn't easy."

"You'll have to practice," I said. "I can't lose you again."

He was silent for a long moment. "What are we going to do about the house?"

I grinned, but it didn't reach my eyes. "I've been thinking about that for a while now. I'm assuming you don't want to leave the city?"

He shook his head.

It would have been easier to stash him somewhere. I had little doubt that I could have made enough money to support him until he got his feet back from under him.

"Then we have have two choices," I said. "We can either hide, or we can double down and give the bastards who did this the finger."

I thought about what I'd just said, then winced. Dad had already given them a finger.

He didn't seem to mind. "What did you have in mind?"

I told him.

Thousands of pieces were floating in the air as the boat separated into its component parts. I was building something completely knew on the corpse of my old home, something that would be both a show of my power and a defensible structure should we need it.

I was building a fortress. The metal in ships was by necessity very thin, but it wasn't really what was providing the protection. I was using my control of electomagnetism to produce plates of graphene that were ten times as strong as steel. I didn't completely understand what I was doing, but the voice was helping me transform the sheets of carbon into something far more.

All of it was being done at three in the morning. Most people, even the criminals were asleep, and I wanted this done in the course of a single night, a demonstration of my power that no one in the city could ignore.

It would be an Iron Fortress, and while I had no intention of spreading out into the neighbors yards, at least not until I got the money to buy them out, the one direction I could build was up. When I was done it would be a structure visible all over town, much like the Rig.

Also like the rig, I'd have a force field to protect the place, although that wouldn't be done tonight. Instead I'd focus on the iron plating, and on digging earth and stone from the basement to add mass to the structure on the bottom side. With a little work I'd have three feet of solid earth between two metal walls, with the graphene plates as added protection.

This place wasn't going to simply be a statement, it was going to have to be our home. I regretted losing the back yard, but we needed the extra space.

When I was done, the structure would be self sustaining. Granddad knew how to make solar cells that were better than anything we had, except possibly for some Tinkers who had chosen not to care.

The windows would be made of graphene, bulletproof and transparent. There wouldn't be that many of them anyway; mostly I'd use solar tubes to provide natural lighting. The exterior was the most important thing for the moment; I could always work on the inside as we went along.

As long as I had a shell to present the city by the morning, the message would be sent.

Doing it silently so that no one except the occasional insomniac out for a ride noticed what was happening would be an added bonus.

"Perhaps a skull motif," the voice whispered in my mind. An image of what it was talking about appeared.

"And you wonder why everyone thought you were a villain," I muttered. "No, I'm not going to put a giant skull on the from of the fortress."

The fact that I thought it would be kind of cool looking was something that I didn't express. The last thing I needed to do was encourage him.

"Then a throne room," he said. "You need a place to address callers from a place of power."

Blackwell had always used her enormous desk and her office to intimidate the students. She'd used it against me often enough that I could see the value in it. If the Protectorate wanted to talk to me they could come to my place instead of forcing me to go to theirs. If villains tried to talk to me, I'd need the intimidation factor even more.

A throne room it was.

"Perhaps a throne like this," it said.

An image appeared in my mind of a throne made of hundreds of blades. It looked uncomfortable to sit on.

"You think I don't know where that comes from," I said. "But I actually read."

The voice gave a mental shrug. "It hasn't been turned into a television show on this earth yet, has it?"

"It's a television show in your world?" I asked. "That's... kind of amazing."

"You are perhaps not old enough to fully appreciate the show," the voice said. An image of bare skin flashed through so quickly I wasn't even sure I'd seen it.

"Right," I said. "I guess it would be like that. Wait...does that mean you've read the books that haven't been written here yet?"

"I have been warned in the past that giving spoilers is considered the act of a rude, inconsiderate fool," the voice said. "Although considering that it was Toad telling me this, perhaps I should get a second opinion."

"Never mind," I said. "Can you help me with the electrical connections?"

"Certainly," it said. Images began flashing through my mind, and as they did, my mind began to turn them into reality.

Dad was staying with Kurt and Lacey until this was finished; they lived close enough that he could use his bugs to warn me if anything bad happened to him.

By the morning, Brockton Bay would wake to find my Iron Fortress overlooking the city. It would send a message of overwhelming power, at least hopefully.

They'd burned my house down after I'd defeated their Capes, which meant they needed a lesson in power. Fortunately I had enough power to teach them a lesson they wouldn't ever forget.

1159

ShayneT

Apr 5, 2018

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Threadmarks 15. PHO

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ShayneT

Apr 8, 2018

#2,759

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Topic: Brockton Bay v1.01 Patch Notes

In: Boards Boards Places America Brockton Bay Discussion (Public Board)

One Angry Man(Original Poster)

Posted on January 17, 2011:

I always thought the Heberts were good neighbors until they put a skyscraper up next to my house in the middle of the night. Now I can't sleep because of the lights they've got on the top of the thing for the airplanes. Just because the daughter is a cape doesn't mean that she shouldn't have some consideration for other people. It's not like she's an architect; what if the whole thing falls over?

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Waterbringer

Posted on January 17, 2011:

First! What is this, some kind of joke? You complaining about the chick who brought down the E88 capes all by herself? You have a death wish, buddy?

Void Cowboy

Posted on January 17, 2011:

I went to school with her, and she's really very nice. I'm sure if you talked to her she'd turn the lights down or something.

Beauty_Three(Cape Groupie)

Posted on January 17, 2011:

I think what she's been doing is admirable. She cleared the boar graveyard out to make that thing, which has to be a good thing for the city, right?

Clockblocker (Verified Cape)(Wards ENE)

Posted on January 17, 2011:

I don't know if I should be more impressed or terrified. Did anybody notice that she intentionally made her place ten feet taller than the rig? I hope she has some pretty good supports for that thing, because if she doesn't it's going to come down and people are going to get hurt.

Cutey_Pie

Posted on January 17, 2011:

So are we just going to argue about her urban renewal plan? Or is anybody freaked out by the fact that we have somebody who can juggle ships and build giant buildings at a whim? I've seen the other threads, and I know most people seem to think that she's on the side of the angels since she chewed through the E88 like a meatgrinfder, but where was she when Empire Thugs broke into my grandmother's house and stole all her stuff?

Stalking_Scaramuchi

Posted on January 17, 2011:

She can't be everywhere, bro. We should probably be thankful for that.

Liehoarder

Posted on January 17, 2011:

We've already talked about her powers on the other thread, and we've rehashed what was known about her fights. Can't we focus on what's important here? She's flouting zoning laws. They are there for a reason. As far as I can tell she made the whole thing from recycled materials that she didn't even own. What happens when there's an electrical fire because she didn't use the right gauge of wire. There''s no way that place is up to code. She's a fifteen year old girl; she's not a plumber or an electrician or an architect. I'll bet that place is a deathtrap.

Need_for_Speed (Cape Daughter)

Posted on January 17, 2011:

Maybe she's a tinker.

Kingless (Unverified Cape)

Posted on January 17, 2011:

Tinkers don't get really strong other powers like she has. I can see her maybe working with a tinker to build the thing, but it's still really impressive.

Winged_One

Posted on January 17, 2011:

Are you sure about that? I think you'd be surprised.

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Vista (Verified Cape)

Posted on January 17, 2011:

I'm not sure what to make of her, really. She doesn't seem to want anything to do with the PRT, but she hasn't done anything villainous except for the whole building a fortress of doom thing. PRT is considering working with the city to see if they can get it up to code. I'm just happy I'm not the one who has to deliver the bad news.

White Fairy

Posted on January 17, 2011:

She's done a lot of damage to Winslow. The school was already failing, and it loses funding every time a student doesn't come to class. With nearly the entire class of Empire kids calling in sick for the last few days I wouldn't be surprised if the school collapsed.

Laser Augment

Posted on January 17, 2011:

That wasn't her fault. The Empire broke the code and they paid for it.

Valkyr (Wiki Warrior)

Posted on January 17, 2011:

We're the ones who are paying for it. I'm staying at my aunt's house because the fighting is too bad near my old house. My family is considering keeping me home from school too until the fighting dies down.

Xyloloup

Posted on January 17, 2011:

I think she should give the rest of the Empire wannabes a taste of what she gave the leadership.

Clockblocker (Verified Cape)(Wards ENE)

Posted on January 17, 2011:

Hey, no need to call for hurting people. I understand that people are upset about the chaos, but this could be a good thing. We have a real chance to make a difference now, and we are rounding them up as fast as we can. The various gangs that used to be the Empire are bleeding members almost as fast as the ones we're bringing in. It shouldn't be too much longer before things are back to normal, whatever that is in Brockton Bay.

Heckyes

Posted on January 17, 2011:

Why are you having so much trouble arresting some gang members without powers? I'd have thought you'd have had them rounded up in a day or two.

PrudishP

Posted on January 17, 2011:

There's a lot of them scattered everywhere. There's only a limited number of PRT members and Protectorate capes in the city, and they've got to keep an eye out for Lung and the Merchants. We're lucky they're helping at all.

Vague20

Posted on January 17, 2011:

It looks like she's starting to do something! There was a police shootout between about forty members of the Empire and the ABB outside my window. I was pretty scared, but looked outside when the shooting stopped. I actually have video! She just yanked all the guns out of everybodies hands at the same time and used something... I think it was a quarter to hit people that tried to run in the leg until the police came. She's terrifying.

End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)

Replied On January 23nd 2011:

Hi Schoolhouse, let me be the first one to welcome you to PHO.

Wow. It's been less than a week and it seems like she's been everywhere. She's been crushing what's left of the Empire and she's hit the ABB several times. How long can it possibly be before Lung has to respond with force or lose face? I wouldn't be surprised if he sends Oni Lee after her to kill her in her sleep.

WhiteKnight (Verified PRT Agent) (Brockton Bay PRT) (Emergency Contact)

Replied On January 22nd 2011

It's probably best not to speculate about what Lung is going to do. Despite what people think, he's fairly savvy as a leader. Taylor Hebert has been fairly circumspect about targeting the ABB so far, focusing on the Empire almost exclusively. He has to know that, and there's a good chance that when everything dies down he can just fill the void. He doesn't have to do anything but wait, and she'll do all his work for him.

Draconin (Hugger Extrodinaire) (Case 53)

Replied On Jan 22nd 2011:

Snipped

User received an infraction for this post: Please do not advocate actions that can bring harm to others.

While Taylor Hebert has so far limited herself to attacking villains, it is probably wise not to annoy her by begging her to attack whoever your favorite enemy is, no matter how abnnoying.-Tin_Mother

Wolfy_One (Verified Cape) (Case 53) (Verified Fuzzy)

Replied On Jan 22nd 2011:

It's not like she's been assassinating anybody. That thing with people's legs could cause them to bleed out, but since it's gotten around most people have stopped running. There haven't been that many injuries even. She's doing what the PRT should have done a long time ago. All hail Empress Hebert!

JackNabbit

Replied On Jan 22nd 2011:

I for one am thrilled. This is the first time I can walk the streets as a black man without being afraid that someone is going to beat me or mug me. Even the police are looking more cheerful now that the fighting is starting to die down.

SailorRedSun (Unverified Cape)

Replied On Jan 22nd 2011:

She's still a teenager, and nobody is doing anything to reign her in. What happens when she gets into some kind of teenage drama and decides to kill someone? Will she get a free pass? From what I hear she talks to herself all the time. Is that who we really want running things in the bay?

Ackton9033

Replied On Jan 22nd 2011:

I heard that a lot of the ex-Empire guys are leaving town. Between the pressure from her, the PRT, the ABB and the Merchants, it's just getting too hot to do business anymore.

FaxMachine (Cape Groupie)

Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:

That's got to be a good thing.

Void_Cowboy (Banned) (Troll)

Replied On Jan 22nd 2011:

I just read that Medhall is closing its doors. That's at least six hundred people who are going to be out of work. There's been rumors that Medhall was Empire, but people kept banning me for saying it. Well, it's been confirmed by a local news report, which may be why they are leaving.

Enjoy another 7-day Ban. Sigh.

End of Page. 1, 2, 3

(Showing page 2 of 3)

Lurker9001

Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:

It's been almost three weeks and the fighting is over. But Medhall was the biggest employer in the Bay and with most of the Empire gone that's a lot of people who aren't going to restaurants, buying clothes, going to movies and all that. With the six hundred people who lost their jobs that's another two or three thousand people not contributing to the economy. That's going to be devastating to businesses in certain areas.

buryitnow

Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:

There haven't been as many crowds at lunch as usual. Are we sure it's just the E88 people who are leaving? I've got a feeling that there were a lot of people sympathetic to the Empire that don't feel comfortable living in the shadow of a Cape who claims to be Jewish and has a hate-on for racists.

UnGone (Unverified Cape)

Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:

I'd been thinking about coming down to the bay to help, but it sounds like you all went from being one of the busiest cape cities around to almost nothing. I haven't heard any Cape related news in almost a week.

Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)

Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:

It's quiet all right. Lung must have told the Abb to keep a low profile. She's been holed up in that tower of hers for the past several days without any sightings. I've heard that she's supposed to be going to Arcadia soon, which is going to be weird for the kids there. I know they've been going to class with Glory Girl and Panacea, but its still going to be strange sitting next to someone who could dump the entire school on your head if you say the wrong thing.

disgae96

Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:

Yeah. The kid that asks her out on a date is going to have balls the size of Jupiter Forget your anniversary? Oops, your house collapses. Forget her birthday? Your car mysteriously ends up in the bay. It seems to me she's going to be pretty lonely.

SchoolhouseRock (Original Poster)

Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:

There's got to be some Cape strong enough to date her.

WhiteKnight (Verified PRT Agent) (Brockton Bay PRT) (Emergency Contact)

Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:

Discussing the dating life of fifteen year old girls is disgusting, even if it is Taylor Hebert. I am proud to announce however, that the PRT has a production deal with her for the production of magnetic armor. A factory will be constructed in the Bay Area per her request, and it will likely employ one hundred people. Construction will begin in may and hiring will likely begin in November.

End of Page. 1, 2

(Showing page 1 of 13)

Cybrain (Verified Cape) (Banned) (Wards ESE)

Replied On Feb 4th 2011:

Is it weird that I feel threatened by someone whose power is deigned to counter mine? I'm not sure if I know how to make anything completely without metal, which makes finding countermeasures for her difficult.

User has received a ban for this post: A public forum is not the place to discuss countermeasures for capes who are not known publicly as villains. Try cooling your jets with this 3-day ban

Cog (Verified PRT Agent)

Replied On Feb 4th 2011:

I've seen the specs on the new armor she's making for us. It's at least thirty percent better than the armor we have now at a similar cost. If she can make other equipment like that, I'm happy to have her working as a tinker.

WhiteKnight (Verified PRT Agent) (Brockton Bay PRT) (Emergency Contact)

Replied On Feb 4th 2011:

It just seems suspicious. No tinker ever has had a major power like she's got on top of being a tinker. It just doesn't happen. There have been some grab bag capes like that, but they have minor powers with Tinker as their specialty. I've got a feling that she's serving as a front for someone else.

Cybrain (Verified Cape) (Banned) (Wards ESE)

Replied On Feb 4th 2011:

That would make me feel better, actually. Right now I'm feeling a little inferior. As if working with Armsmaster isn't enough to make anyone feel incompetent. The man is a machine, I tell you.

Cog (Verified PRT Agent)

Replied On Feb 4th 2011:

Let's keep Protectorate business in the protectorate.

Bagrat (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)

Replied On Feb 4th 2011:

How long do you guys think it will be before she starts attracting undesirable attention to the Bay. I saw that she made national news; I would imagine that its only a matter of time before undesirables start making their way here to test her.

bunglejungle

Replied On Feb 4th 2011:

She'll just stomp them into the ground like she did the Empire.

WhiteKnight (Verified PRT Agent) (Brockton Bay PRT) (Emergency Contact)

Replied On Feb 4th 2011:

\

Let's not ask for trouble before it gets here. All you'll do is incite people to panic. Also, no parahuman is invulnerable. There is at least one person with the perfect counter to any power, which is why it is important to work in groups to buttress each others' weaknesses. Taylor Hebert has chosen to work alone, which has left her vulnerable to Masters and others with more esoteric powers. The consequences should she be mastered are obvious. Even if she isn't, the damage to property and lives from a major fight would be catastrophic. Why do you think we don't send the Triumvirate to set her straight?

TheBadCop (The Bad Cop) (BBPD)

Replied On Feb 6th 2011:

Has anyone noticed that the animals have been acting strangely? They have been leaving the city for the past couple of weeks. I can't help but feel a sense of foreboding.

WhiteKnight (Verified PRT Agent) (Brockton Bay PRT) (Emergency Contact)

Replied On Feb 6th 2011:

The weather has been odd too. Lots of rain.

Bagrat (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)

Replied On Feb 7th 2011:

Oh God. Are any of you guys still alive?

Bagrat (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)

Replied On Feb 7th 2011:

Guys?

1049

ShayneT

Apr 8, 2018

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Threadmarks 15. Work

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ShayneT

Apr 9, 2018

#2,932

Building a tower turned out to be a lot easier than living in it. While it looked impressive, one thing I hadn't been able to do was provide any soft accessories. I'd made chairs of iron, of course, and I'd made them as comfortable as I could, but beds were another matter altogether.

Without a stove or microwave we couldn't cook. It was likely that I could have created something, but I couldn't help but feel that something commercially made would be safer.

Having electricity wasn't the same as having heating and cooling. There were a thousand small things that houses had to have that I hadn't had time or had the knowledge to put in my tower.

The first morning we had to sleep on the floor in sleeping bags Dad bought from Wal-Mart.

The funny thing about tall metal structures is that they sway. All buildings move; most moved only in minuscule ways and sometimes only a little worse during windstorms. The movements of most buildings is simply below the threshold of human perception. As they grew taller, however, that changed.

Buildings had a natural frequency, much like a tuning fork. Most of the time it was imperceptible to the human ear. Some people were more perceptive than others, however. Apparently I was one of them. Even though the voice assured me that most people would not notice the sway, I did, and it gave me the uncomfortable feeling that the entire building was going to collapse around me at any minute.

Sleeping was difficult that morning for more than one reason. I'd spent all night building the place, and I wasn't even tired.

It was exhilarating knowing I could create something even as flawed as this was.

While I resolved to do something about the swaying, I never got to it, and eventually I almost found it comforting, the same way I found the sounds of the crashing waves comforting.

Building bedframes of metal was easy. Levitating new beds from Wal-Mart got us more attention than I was comfortable with. Dad's money didn't go nearly as far as I would have liked. We had homeowner's insurance, but it would take time to resolve a claim and we needed these things now.

What surprised me was that Dad insisted on going back to work.

After everything that had happened I would have thought he'd have avoided the place where he'd been beaten like a plague. But he simply gathered what little clothes he'd managed to buy and he went back to work.

I decided that building sensors in his workplace would be one of my tasks. The last thing I needed was someone trying a drive-by shooting against him. Even though the Empire was on the run didn't mean they didn't hold a grudge.

Going back to school was going to be difficult. Part of me wondered why I should bother. My grandfather's avatar knew more than I would ever learn in a public school, and while that wouldn't be legally recognized it would be a better education all around.

"Education is not simply about facts and figures," the voice said disapprovingly. "It is about learning to deal with your fellow man."

"Like you did?" I asked sarcastically.

"I was rarely alone," it said. "I had followers, lovers, allies and even friends. My life was full even if my goals were not always met. Can you say the same?"

I didn't say anything. Even before Emma had turned against me I hadn't had many friends. I hadn't needed many. She'd filled that need in me, and my other relationships had been casual. That was why it had been so easy to separate me from the herd, to isolate me. It was because I'd never really properly been part of it.

"You will need friends and allies," it said. "You will need to be a beacon to the people you wish to help, a source of hope, a light in the darkness. To be a leader you must learn to deal with people."

"And school will do that for me?" I asked skeptically. "I doubt anyone will want anything to do with me because of what I am and because of what I've done."

"I made the mistake once of assuming every normal hated mutants," it said. I had a sudden flash of a man in a suit the colors of the American flag. "I learned that I was mistaken. It was a lesson that I try not to forget, even though it is not easy sometimes."

Another flash of memory, this time of bodies burning in a pile, and of robots the size of Leviathan flying through the sky. What kind of world had my grandfather lived in? If he'd sent my mother away that had to mean that he could no longer protect her.

What had happened?

"I do not speak of it," the voice said shortly. "The memories would sear your mind and scar your soul. It would create hatred that would twist you into someone you do not wish to be."

The voice seemed more serious than I'd ever heard it, even when it had been advising me during the battle against the Empire.

Still, while Dad had left as I was going to bed, by the time I awoke it was almost time for him to come back. I was aware of the sensor in his shoe as it approached.

He looked tired when I saw him with fast food sacks in his hand. We didn't have a refrigerator either, although we did at least have plumbing. The fact that metal toilet seats were unbearably cold in the morning if you weren't used to them reminded me that I needed to put a heating vent nearby.

The entire structure was really meant more for show than for living in. There were a lot of stairs, and while I could float through the stairwells, it couldn't have been good on Dad's knees. An elevator was the next thing I needed to build. Fortunately the throne room was on the first floor so that most of the deficiencies weren't obvious to our visitors.

The first of them came shortly after our first meal.

"What the hell, Hebert?" he asked Dad as he entered the room. He studiously didn't look at me, presumably assuming that Dad could control me. "You put this crap up in the middle of the night? I already was having trouble selling my house; what's this going to do to the property values?"

I was disappointed to notice that he barely seemed to notice all the details I'd so carefully prepared. The twenty foot throne of swords, the lighting that was designed to highlight me and make me look both sinister and powerful. I hadn't had time to make much in the way of furniture, but that wasn't a problem on this level.

Petitioners should have to stand after all.

However, Mr. Simmons didn't even seem to notice the room he was standing in. He only had eyes for the two of us.

Mr. Simmons had always been a complainer. He'd complained about most of the people in the neighborhood, although we'd mostly avoided his wrath. The fact that he was willing to come to me and complain despite everything I could do both impressed me and made me wonder about his survival instinct.

"Talk to Taylor," Dad said. "After the Empire burned the house down we couldn't afford to rebuild the house the normal way."

"You didn't have to build a skyscraper!" he said. "Something normal, down to earth. I don't think my petunias are even going to grow because of the shadow this thing casts."

The voice informed me that he was mistaken, and I wondered how my grandfather had known about growing flowers.

Besides, it was hardly a skyscraper. He was exaggerating.

"Houses in residential areas can be up to ninety feet tall," I said. "I looked up the law."

"This place is taller than that!" he retorted.

I shrugged. "How do you know? Have you measured it?"

It was taller than ninety feet, but I found a savage sort of enjoyment in seeing the vein in his neck throb. The man always looked like he was on the verge of having a coronary.

"There are rules!" he said. "You can't build something like this. You have to have inspections to see if it's up to code. That takes a long time."

"Nobody's said anything to me," I said.

Of course, if they had come to the house I'd been asleep so I wouldn't have known. A doorbell was another thing to add to the list, along with an intercom system.

"That's because you only built it last night!" he shouted. "This was a nice neighborhood before you brought all this trouble here, what with the burnings and everything."

I didn't like his tone, and my voice turned decidedly frosty. "They burned my house down and this is my response. If they somehow destroy this one, I'll rebuild it even larger. I'm not sure you heard what I did to the Empire when they took my Dad, but I can tell you this. Whatever someone gives me, I will give them back five or ten times in return."

He stared at me, and I realized that my hair was starting to float. I didn't care.

"I'm done letting people walk all over me because I was meek and turned the other cheek. That's done. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I will do what I have to in order to protect me and mine. The question you have to ask yourself is which side of that line you are going to be standing on when the dust settles?"

He stared at me and scowled before turning around and stomping out without saying anything. Not once did he seem to notice anything about the decor, and I felt vaguely disappointed.

Walking into Winslow after all this time was a surreal experience. It seemed strangely empty; the halls were considerably less crowded than they had been the last time I had come. The students who saw me quickly turned away, and I even saw two of them running into walls in their zeal to get as far from me as possible.

I wasn't quite sure why I was being ostracized like this. It had been a week since I had brutalized the Empire students in the cafeteria, and the thing with the Empire was clear self defense.

It was possible that people remembered how they'd treated me before they'd realized I had powers and were now worried that I was going to seek revenge. It was a silly worry. Short of Emma or Sophia starting up on me again, I was unlikely to go Carrie on the school.

It was also possible that they were worried about reprisals from the Empire, which would make a lot more sense. Empire underlings were rarely the best and the brightest; that tended to be reserved for their capes. It was possible that some of them would think that something like a bomb in the classroom would kill me. It wouldn't, but they had no way of knowing that.

From that perspective, staying as far away from me was probably a good idea.

"Ms. Hebert," I heard a voice from behind me say. "I need to see you in my office immediately."

I turned and stared at Blackwell. Short of the Empire, Sophia and Madison she was the one other person who was really on my list of least favorite people.

I shrugged and followed her back to her office. I saw the school secretary start as she saw me. She flushed and looked away quickly.

Stepping into her office, I compared her desk to my throne and I fought the urge to snicker. It undoubtedly worked to intimidate poor students, but compared to my twenty foot monstrosity it wasn't anything.

I sat down in my seat and crossed my legs.

"You've really caused a problem here, Ms. Hebert," Blackwell said. "A third the school is boycotting, refusing to come in because they are afraid that you will murder them in their seats. I have spoken to other students who tell me they are having nightmares."

"It's guilty consciences," I said. "They realized that they thought they could step on someone they thought was unimportant only to find out that they were dead wrong. The funny thing is that this is the world we live in now, and people are going to have to learn to accept it."

"The school was already financially strapped," She said. "Now we're losing money faster than ever before. It's possible that we may have to close our doors."

I looked at her with a cold look in my eye. "None of this would have happened if you'd done your job, you know. Personally I'd be happy to help bulldoze this place to make a parking lot. It wouldn't take me more than what, five minutes?"

She stared at me for a long moment with a sour look on her face. Pulling papers from her drawer, she handed them to me.

"Your acceptance to Arcadia came in. Hopefully once students realize that you are no longer coming here they'll consider returning."

"I seem to have that effect on people," I admitted. "Is it me do you think?"

"I'm sure the murder and mayhem that seems to surround you has nothing to do with it," she said dryly.

I grinned at her as I rose.

"Feel free to take an excused absence today," she said. "Your teachers have been happy to send homework to that monstrosity you call a home now."

Without saying anything else, I walked out. Resisting the urge to give her the one finger salute as I left was difficult, but I could feel my grandfather's avatars disapproval at the thought. Apparently he thought I should be classier than that.

Just to be annoying I floated through the hallways on my way out, which seemed to panic even more of the students. I felt a sort of grim satisfaction. None of them had lifted a finger to help me in two tears of torment. If I hadn't known I had powers during that time it would have been even worse for me. I couldn't imagine how much damage it would have done to my psyche.

Fortunately I was perfectly sane and reasonable. Ask anyone.

Flying out of the school, I headed for the Boardwalk. There was a new ice cream place I'd been wanting to try, one supposedly with early hours for the tourist crowd.

Stepping inside I found what I wanted quickly. A double scoop in a waffle cone. I ignored the nattering from my grandfather's avatar about possibly getting fat. Apparently all the mutants in his world looked like supermodels with figures to match.

I didn't care. I sat on the boardwalk watching people go by, and for once no one seemed to recognize me.

A figure in a hooded sweatsuit began walking toward me. I casually strengthened my force fields. On my grandfather's advice I'd learned to keep light shields around me at all times except when I slept. When I knew something was likely to happen I could strengthen them.

Was this going to be an assassination attempt or someone attempting to sell me something?

I expected about a fifty percent chance of each. It was possible that it was a particularly brave reporter. The fact that I couldn't tell the gender made me think assassination.

The figure stopped three feet in front of me. I didn't stop eating my cone.

"You the one who offed Hookwolf?" she asked.

I nodded. No point in lying about it. Everyone knew. Was she a member of the Empire? I could tell it was a woman now, but a rather butch women. She had no visible tattoos, but her face was blunt featured with thick eyebrows and blondish auburn hair.

"Good," she said. "He hurt dogs."

"He hurt a lot of people," I said. "Including my father, which is why I did what I did."

She was staring at me as though she was trying to challenge me in some way. I stared back at her without blinking. After a moment she nodded and seemed to relax.

"They're still hurting dogs though," she said. "The Empire I mean. People too I guess. You don't care about that?"

"I've been planning to do something about it," I admitted. "I've just been busy."

"I know where they're fighting dogs," she said. "Killing them. They've got a lot of guys with guns; three times as many as they had when Hookwolf was around. That something you interested in stopping?"

I frowned. "Are you a cape?"

She hesitated, then nodded.

"Bitch," she admitted.

For a moment I thought she was talking about me, then realized that was her cape name. Was she really that hard to deal with?

"You don't think you can take care of it yourself?"

"People I work with bailed," she said. "Say it's too dangerous, ought to lay low."

"Maybe they're right," I said. I looked at her for a moment. "Why do you care so much."

"Dogs don't deserve that," she said. "Can't protect themselves. I've got to help."

"Sounds like you're their hero," I said. I smiled and she stepped back.

I finished my ice cream and I wiped my hands on my pants. "I guess I ought to get back to taking care of Nazi's. Lead the way."

It was possible that this was a trap. If it was, better to find out now than when they kidnapped my dad again. If it wasn't, it sounded like the kind of thing I ought to be breaking up.

I could feel my grandfather's avatar's approval, even though it didn't say anything. I suspected that attacking Nazis was always going to be one of its favorite pasttimes.

It was time to get to work.

1156

ShayneT

Apr 9, 2018

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Threadmarks 15. Dogs

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ShayneT

Apr 11, 2018

#3,068

Bitch wasn't much of a conversationalist. She gave me a location and a time later that night, and she agreed to meet me there before vanishing into the crowd.

I thought about what I was going to do for a while. I suspected I knew who Bitch really was. There was a cape called Hellhound who was considered a villain, a member of a small time gang of petty crooks. Did I really want to risk being linked to her?

Ultimately it came to doing what was right. If she was being honest, and what little of her motivations were known suggested that she really was obsessed with dogs, then this was a legitimate plea for help.

The fragments of the Empire had been fighting each other as often as they'd been fighting the ABB and the Protectorate, fighting over caches of guns and ammunition, drugs and money. The larger fragments were doing anything they could to make more money. They needed the money to hire more men, to get more guns and to stay relevant.

I had no doubt that the largest gangs hoped that with enough money they could hire their own capes. It was a fool's dream, of course. Hiring a cape would simply mean that he'd take over the gang in a year or less. Not hiring a cape meant being chewed up and spit out by the gangs that did.

The gangs were dying, but it was an ugly death, and even a dead rattlesnake could still kill you. Their heads bit down reflexively and the venom was still potent.

In the end, I was the one who had created the mes, and I would have to be the one who fixed it. Starting out saving the lives of dogs who were being abused in ways that made what I'd experienced in Winslow look like a day in the spa? It was probably the most righteous thing I could do that didn't involve saving orphans or helping old ladies across the street.

I spent most of the day adding things I'd forgotten to the tower. The doorbell was something I should have thought about in the first place, and I added a garage for Dad's car so he didn't have to park in the street. After all, car bombs were still a thing.

I'd slept most of the day yesterday, leaving me today to show up at school. I fully intended to make better use of my time today.

Leaving the tower as being all metal wasn't going to cut it. There had been other materials on the ships, but they'd mostly been ruined by water and the sea air. What I needed was good hardwoods, tile, and maybe even paint and materials to make the upper levels feel more like a home than a prison cell.

The problem was that I didn't have money. I'd looked at what tile cost and it made me wince. Carpet was almost as bad. While I could probably improvise a stove or even a refrigerator, I doubted that Dad would want anything jury rigged.

Dad had put a claim in with his insurance company. Ironically the pictures from the PRT were helping there, substituting for pictures an adjuster would have made. He wasn't sure how long it would take to get money from there.

I could easily fly over the city and collect aluminum cans, but I'd heard that was one of the few ways the homeless had to make money. That wouldn't exactly endear me to the population.

Stealing scrap metal was a crime. There were enough abandoned buildings around town that I could strip and take the metal to Boston that I could probably become rich, but that would put me solidly in villain territory.

In the end I ended up dredging the bay for materials. There was a surprising amount of metal down there, from sunken ships to old, rusted cars to metal that people had just thrown away. A quick trip to Boston towing a ball of detritus behind me wasn't much of a problem.

I suspected that I had about five tons of assorted metals, and the recycling center in Boston paid me fourteen hundred dollars. That gave me an inkling as to how poor of a deal I'd gotten selling the ship in Brockton Bay, but it was cash money, and it was all mine.

I'd already started the basics for heating and cooling when I'd driven pylons deep into the earth. They were necessary for stability, otherwise the whole tower really would fall over. There was a huge mass of water beneath Brockton Bay, but the Pylons didn't go nearly that deep. Still, I'd be able to use the difference in heat between the earth and the air above to help cool my building. I'd already placed tubes to run fluids through the pylons where they would release heat into the earth and absorb some of its coldness.

I needed parts for the motors to make the heat pump work; I probably could have done it myself, but sometimes being off by even a little bit could cause things to fly apart. While my grandfather's avatar felt I was being too conservative, the last thing I wanted was to wake up in the middle of the night sweating because I was too cheap to buy a small motor.

There had been some parts in the ships, too deep for the looters who had stripped almost everything else that could be sold out of them, but those parts were deeply rusted and likely had molds growing on them that would be unhealthy to be breathed.

Legally I was supposed to let professionals deal with coolant chemicals because they were environmentally damaging and toxic. I didn't really have a problem with that, but I needed to get the engines for the system working first.

Eventually, if I got the money I decided that I wanted to make the tower entirely automated. There were risks with that, including hackers, but if I didn't connect it to the net I ought to be safe from anyone short of Capes with machine control powers.

Getting the parts I needed and constructing the air conditioner took me the better part of an afternoon. It turned out that most HVAC stores wouldn't sell directly to the public; they required that customers have HVAC contractor licenses. It apparently involved a sales restriction by the EPA. While it was possible that they were trying scare tactics, I was told that venting refrigerant in the air could result in a 20,000 fine and five years in prison.

Heh.

The thought that after the murders and reckless endangerment they could probably charge me with the thing I ended up trying to be forced into prison for was improper air conditioner maintenance seemed ironic.

I ended up going to a junk yard and buying parts that my grandfather's avatar assured me seemed sound.

Still, the project went well, and I was reasonably confident that it would pass muster. All I needed was to get the money for the air conditioner guy.

I wondered if any contractors ever took trade; I'd be happy to build metal carports, sheds and put metal buildings together in return for people to lay tile and do other tasks that neither I nor my grandfather's ghost knew how to do. I'd talk to my father and ask him when I got the chance. It seemed like the kind of thing that might be in his wheelhouse.

Still, the evening seemed to come before I knew it. I went to the intersection Bitch had suggested we meet at. It was far enough from the dog fights that we were unlikely to be spotted, even by latecoming customers, yet close enough that it wouldn't be a lot of work to get there.

I'd decided against wearing my armor. Instead I wore a nondescript black hoodie similar to what Bitch had been wearing the first time I'd seen her.

She was waiting for me when I got there, even though I was ten minutes early. She had four dogs with her, and this time she was in costume. Her costume mostly seemed to consist of a dog mask, which seemed kind of lazy, really. Of course, I was in a hoodie, so what did I know?

"Wasn't sure you were going to show up," she said.

"I said I would," I said. It was true that I'd considered not coming for a variety of reasons, but in the end I just didn't care what anyone thought if I was spending time in the company of villains while doing good deeds.

It was strange. It had only been twelve days since I'd started all this with the locker. It felt like a lot longer.

"What do you mostly want to do?" I asked. "Save the dogs or hurt the people?"

"Both," she said. "Dogs are more important though."

It made sense. If we just saved the dogs, the people running the fights would just get more dogs. They probably needed the income to pay their people, and dogs were easy to come by.

Money was a major motivator. I'd done a little research this afternoon while waiting to be rejected by air conditioner salesmen, and I'd learned that sometimes twenty to thirty thousand dollars changed hands in a single major dogfight and that up to a half million dollars had been seized during raids. For that kind of money people would be willing to take risks. It would also be enough to keep them in ammunition and mercenaries for a while, and maybe even hire a Cape.

"Dogs it is, then," I said lightly. If I had a choice, though, it would be both, and if they didn't have any Capes, there wasn't anything they could do to me really.

"What's the plan?" she asked.

"I'll go in alone," I said. "The nice thing about being me is that most people outside of my school don't know what I look like by sight. I want to see what they are doing for myself so I can see how hard I need to hit them."

"You need to hit them hard," she said.

"There's hard and then there's hard," I said. "I want to know which to use."

"I'm coming in after ten minutes," she said. "No matter what you decide."

I could see that her dogs were already growing into monstrous creations. I wondered if Dad would be able to control them like that, or if they were somehow being transformed into something that was no longer animal enough for him to master.

"Not a problem," I said.

With that I floated toward the intersection she'd indicated. It being held in a large metal warehouse, and although there were no lights showing from the outside, I could hear the commotion coming from the inside.

The first obstacle would be getting through the two bouncers at the door. Undoubtedly the people coming had a password that they used to get in.

Fortunately the building was mostly metal, and I could sense the metal in the bodies of the people inside if I strained hard. It was more difficult to detect because of all the metal around it being much more prominent.

There was an office not being used currently. It was a simple matter to float up to the second floor at the back of the warehouse and simply peel the wall away, creating a makeshift door. I closed it behind me, even though it had obviously been damaged and wasn't particularly airtight. I simply moved some filing cabinets in front of it and it was all good.

Stepping through the door, I saw that plywood had been set up to create groups of walls, forming an impromptu ring. Carpet had been placed inside the ring. For some reason they were washing the dogs, which seemed strange and incongruous.

"It is to ensure that the opposing side does not taint their dogs' fur with something noxious or dangerous in an effort to change the outcome," the voice said quietly.

There were lines on the floor inside the arena created with duct tape.

What surprised me was how many people were attending. There had to be more than two hundred people in the room, and there was an air of excitement. I saw a lot of money changing hands, being collected by men who had other men with guns behind them.

I slipped quickly down the stairs before anyone could question me. I worked my way through the crowd.

I saw that there was a post in the center of the ring. They were attaching a small dog to the post. It looked like a French Bishon. It's jaws were taped shut and it was trembling in fear. I couldn't understand what they were doing with it.

"It is a bait animal," the voice said. "They use it to encourage aggression in the fighting dogs and test their willingness to kill."

I would have asked how he knew so much about dog fighting, but I was in the middle of the crowd now.

"They are often someone's pet, taken from a pound or stolen," the voice said helpfully.

I stopped, someone bumping into my shield from behind. This was someone's pet? From the glimpses I could get of it through the thronging crowd, it looked terrified.

This wasn't going to happen, not while I was here. I'd told Bitch I needed to see for myself, and I hadn't even gotten to see the fight before I'd decided that it wasn't going to happen.

I froze as I rounded a corner and saw dead dogs being thrown on a pile. There were only three, but the sun had just set. How many would there be by the time the night was over with?

Someone slammed into me from behind. I could have stopped myself from moving with my force field, but I chose not to. Instead I stumbled forward.

"What were you doing up in the office, bitch?"

Three men were behind me, two with rifles. None of them looked particularly friendly. Apparently I'd been seen.

"Bitch is my partner," I said. "I don't suppose you know who I am?"

"No," the one who had spoken before. "But I know what's going to happen to you."

"I really don't think tonight is going to go the way you think it is."

Behind me a large Rottweiler was being released into the pen. It charged toward the terrified smaller dog only to suddenly stop for seemingly no reason. It strained against its collar, but the collar was made of metal chain, which meant it wasn't going anywhere.

"What the hell?"

"What's red, black and blue and really stupid?" I asked.

"What?"

"You and all your buddies. I took care of your leaders and you still run around like nothing happened? That's not very smart."

He stared at me, still not understanding what I was saying. One of the two men behind him did though, and he started backing up.

"These fights are over!" I said loudly.

For a moment no one around me responded. Many probably hadn't heard me over the roar of the crowd.

An act of will and the speaker system suddenly put out a large squeal making everyone wince. I allowed myself to rise up into the air even as the doors to the warehouse suddenly slammed shut. I took control of the speakers; it was one of the first tricks I'd practiced when I was bored at home.

"You should all be ashamed of yourselves," My voice said, coming over the speakers, even though my lips did not move. "The fights are over. Line up against the wall and surrender your weapons and you won't be hurt. Otherwise you won't like the other options."

People stared up at me, and some people ran for the doors. The men with guns almost uniformly raised them and fired a stream of bullets in my direction.

There aren't really many safe places to shoot someone. The movies would tell you that shooting someone in the leg or shoulder are safe, but in reality there are major veins there and it is easy for people to bleed out.

I raised my hand and hundreds of bullets stopped in mid air in front of me. There were hundreds of them; many of the men had converted their weapons to fire like automatic weapons.

The firing went on for several seconds before the men realized they weren't doing any good.

A moment later I gestured, and hundreds of bullets dropped to the ground. A moment after that guns went flying up into the air. One man with a strap struggled as his gun lifted into the air, but he struggled and a moment later he fell.

"You have one last chance," I said.

I waited, and most of the spectators moved to the wall. Most of the Empire men did not, probably fearing the reactions of their friends. Well, I'd warned them.

Coins began to come out of my pockets. I had a dollar in pennies there that were soon orbiting me in a cloud. I could have used bullets for this, but being hurt by the very money they were so desperately scrambling for seemed wonderfully ironic.

A moment later the coins exploded out in every direction. While most places on the human body were not safe to shoot or stab, the one place that was safest were the buttocks. They were composed primarily of muscles, didn't have any dangerous arteries, and would be humiliating when the people had to heal.

I heard screams from beneath me as man after man fell clutching at his buttocks.

Moments later I pulled wire from the walls and used it to start tying everyone up. As I was finishing the wall exploded and Bitch came through riding her dogs who were now the size of cars.

"What kept you?" I asked.

1052

ShayneT

Apr 11, 2018

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Threadmarks 16. Responsibility

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ShayneT

Apr 13, 2018

#3,177

"You're turning into a real pain in the butt, you know that?" Assault said, smirking.

"I try," I said.

Apparently transporting the men I'd injured was going to be complicated by all the injuries to their buttocks. For some reason I didn't feel particularly sorry for what I'd done. Once I'd seen the scars on the dogs I'd found myself wishing I'd done a lot more damage.

Bitch had found a large U-haul truck from somewhere, and I'd helped her crate up as many dogs as she thought were salvageable. Apparently she thought two in ten were not, because she'd left them behind. I hadn't understood at first until she'd told me that they'd likely have to be put down.

She'd taken the little white dog too. She said she'd do what she could to find its owner. She'd left with the dogs shortly before the PRT had shown up.

"Working with villains probably won't do your reputation much good, puppy," he said.

"It was a good cause," I said. "I don't suppose there's a bounty on any of these people, or if I can keep any of their money?"

"It's evidence," he said. "Illegal to keep. That doesn't mean some vigilantes don't, of course, but it's technically illegal. You want bounties, go after Capes that have kill orders. Of course those tend to be the worst of the worst, people like the Slaughterhouse Nine. Those people, even if you kill them they scar your mind."

"I just want money for carpet for my new digs," I said. "I can't make it out of metal, or, well, I probably could but it wouldn't feel right on my bare feet."

"Armsmaster is interested in that armor you made for your Dad. I'll bet the PRT would be happy to buy the designs for it."

I frowned, then said, "You'll have to talk to my lawyer. I'll make sure he knows that I'm open to it."

"I'm a little hurt that you're more willing to work with villains than the Protectorate," he said. He smiled to let me know he was sort of joking. "It's not like we have body odor or anything, at least most of us."

"If I wanted to work with you I would," I said. "I used to think I wanted to be a hero, but all this has soured me a little. What's the point in all the fighting? I'd rather do something that makes the world better."

"And stopping criminals isn't making the world better?"

"Not if they're out the next day," I said. I looked around. "How many of these guys are actually going to serve time? How many of them are going to make deals and end up on the street sooner rather than later? I'll bet half of them make bail before the night is done with."

"Judges are getting pretty hard on ex-E88," Assault said. "And bail doesn't get set till business hours."

"Fine," I said. "Stopping them from doing this to the dogs feels pretty good. But most of the time they're just out there fighting other criminals, stealing from each other and just generally being idiots."

"But they are hurting people in the meantime," he said.

"Fine," I said. "I caused all of this, so I'll finish it. Just make sure the police have the jails ready."

Before he could say anything I rose up into the air.

"You need to come to the PRT to give your statement!" he called up to her.

"You want my statement, you come to my house. Not during school hours, though. And don't bother my father."

With that I flew through the now open warehouse doors and I flew up into the sky.

Finding the Empire thugs wasn't going to be easy for the PRT because they didn't have permission to set up proper surveillance over the city. People thought it would be too much like being in a police state to deal with drones flying through the sky watching everything they did.

I didn't have those same limitations. All I needed was my ability to detect metal; moving metal. The Empire thugs tended to carry guns and knives on their persons much more than the average Brocktonite. While it was possible for an individual who was armed not to be a gang member, gang members also tended to collect up into large groups.

I could sense at least three large groups right now.

Well, curfew wasn't until eleven and I had some time to kill. Maybe it was time to clean up the city.

The good thing about force fields was that blood slid right off of them. As I approached home I let the last of the blood vanish. The police were pleased with what I had done but told me the jails were filling up and they'd need time to process the gang members or maybe even send them to facilities outside the city.

The implicit message was that rounding up the gangs was great but I needed to give them time to process the thugs they already had.

I hadn't seen Dad all day anyway, so it was a good thing.

Entering the hall, the large iron doors shutting behind me, I flew up the stairs. Dad wasn't wearing his shoes; the tracker was still in them and I could detect the iron in his blood.

Reaching the room that was going to be his bedroom when we were finished, I peeked inside. He wasn't in bed; instead he was sitting in the dark in an iron chair staring sightlessly out to the world.

"Dad?" I asked.

He didn't respond.

Stepping closer, I realized that his eyes were open, but only white was showing.

"Are you all right?"

I reached out and touched his arm, but again he didn't respond. I shook him. Had someone done this to him?

It took a moment, but he finally seemed to come back to himself.

"What's happening, Dad?"

"I was mindwalking," he said after a moment. "Riding the minds of one of the seagulls on the bay. Flying is amazing."

"I can take you flying for real," I said, but he didn't seem interested.

Instead his eyes had a far away look. "You don't know what it's like to be one of them. They live entirely in the moment, no worries about the future or the past. They simply are."

"They?" I asked.

"The animals," he said. "The bugs don't have enough of a mind to really do anything with other but control, but the smarter birds and the mammals? It's amazing."

I didn't like the look in his eye. It almost felt like he was impatient, like he was humoring me long enough that I would go away and let him go back to what he was doing.

"Have you eaten?" I asked. "I can go out and get something."

Choices at this hour were limited, but I could probably find something even if I had to go to Boston. There were some all night diners I could probably find. While I still hadn't finished the air conditioning, I had set up the wifi.

I wasn't a barbarian after all.

"It's fine," he said. "One day won't hurt me."

I scowled at him. "Are you getting depressed again? I practically had to hand feed you after Mom..."

He shook his head. "It's kind of the opposite. When I'm in the mind of one of them everything falls away. There is no doubt, no depression, just peace. Well, except when something is trying to eat them; then there is some fear. But five minutes later they're fine."

"Don't overdo it," I said. I stared at him. "If you keep not eating you know I can make you eat. Don't make me do the whole magic spoons thing again."

He grimaced. "I promise."

As I left his room, though, I noticed that his eyes were turning white again.

Showing up to Arcadia in the middle of the week wasn't ideal, but I'd already taken too many days off. I felt a strange combination of excitement and terror. I'd fantasized about coming here, but there was no guarantee that it wouldn't be just like Winslow.

Even if it wasn't, there were going to be people terrified by me simply by the fact that I could do things and had done things that no one else could do. I would probably be the only one on campus who had actually killed someone, much less more than one person.

Would they accept me, or would I be as isolated as I had been during the final days at Winslow? The only way to know was to go to school and find out.

The one good thing was that these kids wouldn't know my face any more than the run of the mill Empire goons did.

Even from outside I could tell that the place was different. There was no graffiti, and the metal detectors at the door actually seemed to work. The building was four stories high.

Stepping through the main entrance, I headed for the principal's office where I would pick up my class schedule.

As I entered I frowned. Something felt off. It took me a moment to recognize what it was. The school had a Faraday cage built in! There was a grounded metal screen built into the walls. It would prevent cell phone signals from getting out. It would also protect against lightning.

It wouldn't stop me, of course. It didn't do anything for magnetic fields, which meant it hadn't been placed to somehow contain me.

Stepping into the office, a pleasant looking secretary looked up.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"My name is Taylor Hebert. I'm here to pick up my schedule."

She froze. Apparently she'd heard about me. I waited for the inevitable rejection, the fear that seemed to follow me everywhere I went.

"I heard about what you did with that dog ring," she said. "I think it's a good thing you were there. People have been torturing poor animals for entirely too long."

She had pictures of two poodles behind her at her desk. A dog lover; maybe I could use that. Having the secretary at Winslow against me hadn't made my life any better.

At my grandfather's avatar's prompting I forced myself to smile.

"Principal Harris wanted to see you before you started off to your classes," she said. The woman seemed friendly enough; maybe this wasn't going to be an emotional ambush like most of the visits with Blackwell had been.

Still, I couldn't help but feel anxious as the woman buzzed the Principal and sent me into her office.

The principal was a very small woman, possibly well under five feet. She was standing by the window staring out into the courtyard below where students were presumably still meandering in to the school.

As I entered she turned. "Miss Hebert?"

I nodded.

She gestured, and I took a seat. The seats were made of hard plastic. Presumably sitting in the principal's office wasn't supposed to be comfortable. Her desk was smaller than Blackwell's though.

"There are some issues that we need to discuss before you start school here," she said. "As you likely know, transfers this late in the semester are very rare. Several groups of people pulled a lot of strings to get you here."

I nodded, forcing myself to appear calm.

"Your grades in most of your classes are exceptional, but in other classes you fell behind," she said. "Why is that?"

"There was an issue with girls taking my assignments," I said. "And bullying me."

She stared at me for a long moment. "And you had your powers when all this was happening?"

I nodded.

"That speaks well for your self control in ways that your later actions do not."

"I didn't realize that it was so easy to kill people wearing metal armor," I said defensively. "And I thought Hookwolf wasn't attached to the metal he generated the way he was."

"That's not what I was talking about, but it's an important lesson. Ordinary people are fragile. There have been cases where even being hit in the temple with a fist by a girl of your size has been enough to kill someone. Given that, and given the fact that you can figuratively lift mountains with your powers, how much more careful will you have to be?"

I was silent, and I looked down at the desk. I wished I could argue with her, but nothing she said was a lie.

"We have guards posted," she said. "But none of them could stop you if you get upset. There may or may not be Wards in the student body, but if there are, I doubt they could do very much to you. That means that it's up to you to act responsibly. Even though you are a teenager you have to act like an adult because your power brings with it real world responsibilities."

Looking up, I said," I'll try, but there may be cases where I don't have a choice but use my power."

"If the school is attacked we certainly encourage you to use your power," she said. "And we don't have any kind of a blanket ban on power use unless it interferes with classes, terrorizes the other students or allows you to cheat."

There went my idea about using my grandfather's avatar for help when it came to World War II.

"I wouldn't," it said. "And our history was likely different than yours. I doubt you had a Red Skull or Captain America or any of the Nazi robots or war machines that we had."

"I'm a good student," I said. "When I'm not distracted."

"We don't tolerate bullying here," she said. "Not even the subtle kind. It would be very easy to use your situation as a kind of implicit threat."

"I'm just here to learn. As long as nobody bothers me, I won't bother them."

"And if they do bother you?" she asked. "Will you come to the authorities, or will you take care of it yourself?"

I hesitated. "I haven't had much luck with authority figures."

"We'd like to give you a chance to change that. Most of the students here are not actively suicidal, but there are always people who like to poke the bear. It's a problem we had with Victoria Dallon for a while."

In one way it was disturbing to think that there were problems even here, but it was a relief too. If she'd tried to claim that bullying didn't exist, I'd know she was lying. Teenagers were the same everywhere, even if they were wealthy. There was always going to be a certain amount of jockeying for position.

"I don't want you to think that I'm singling you out. I had this same discussion with Victoria Dallon and her sister. There's a responsibility to having power. The stronger the power the more that will be required of you. Given the evident strength of your powers, everyone is going to expect a lot out of you."

There was something about the woman's gaze that disconcerted me. It was penetrating and intelligent.

"Lifting a ship over the city made me worry about your judgment," she said. "Had you been attacked by some hothead and dropped it you could have caused an incredible about of damage."

I looked down. While I suspected that I could have fought and at least held the ship up long enough to drop it into the street, there was no way to really know. I'd been more focused on sending a message and less worried about the impact that it would have on ordinary people on the streets below.

"All I can say is I'll do my best," I said. "If it turns out that I'm not a good fit here I'll just have to home school."

"I'm sure there is a temptation to do that anyway," she said. She smiled for the first time. "Especially when you are dealing with real matters in the outside world. I doubt that you'll ever work in an ordinary job, and I'm sure you know that too."

I tried to imagine myself working in a cubical somewhere calling people about insurance or home security or something, and I couldn't quite manage it.

"Given that, you might ask yourself why get an education at all?"

I nodded.

"What do you think the difference is between a supervillain and a henchman?"

"Power?"

"Partly," she acknowledged. "But you'll notice that there are henchmen who are arguably more powerful than the people they work for. The difference is often one of intelligence and education."

"Are you saying I'm likely to end up as a supervillain?" I asked, one eyebrow raised.

She shook her head. "I'm just using that as an example since the Protectorate tends to be more opaque about their promotional structure. I think you'll find that it is the more intelligent and more educated who tend to rise there as well. Someone with power who doesn't have an education is just a thug, whether they are a hero or a villain."

I could make several arguments against that, but I chose not to, especially as I could feel a certain degree of agreement from my Grandfather's avatar.

"An education can't tell you how to use your power, but it can help you decide whether you should. Isn't that worth at least some effort?"

I smiled tightly.

"I think you'll like it here," she said. "I'll get your class schedule and I'll have someone show you the way to your first class."

I rose to my feet and took a deep breath. It was strange that I worried more about facing high school than any number of enemy capes.

Was Arcadia going to be heaven or hell? There was no way to know other than going.

Why did I feel like I was going to war?

984

ShayneT

Apr 13, 2018

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Threadmarks 17. Arcadia

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ShayneT

Apr 15, 2018

#3,327

Walking into the halls of Arcadia I felt a sense of unreality. Nothing was like Winslow and it left me feeling off balance and uneasy.

Everything was clean and white and there was no graffiti on the walls. Even the students looked different. No one had tattoos or wore open gang colors. Everyone seemed strangely serene, as though they'd all drank something in the cool aid.

It was as though they lived in an entirely different world from the rest of the city, a world where gangs and supervillains and unpleasantness didn't exist. They lived in a bubble, giving them the illusion that everything was safe and normal. It was almost as though Scion hadn't even arrived.

Where was the fear, the furtiveness that even the popular kids at Winslow had seemed to have? It seemed too good to be true, like I'd suddenly walked into a neighborhood of Stepford clones.

For all I knew I had.

Maybe everyone here was really just a mask for the Wards, all from PRT families. Maybe they were all watching me, reporting on what I said and did.

"There will be some of that, at least from the Wards," My grandfather's avatar whispered. "But do not become paranoid. That way lies madness."

I sensed that there was a story behind its words. I couldn't tell if it was its own or from someone it knew. The important thing was that it was right. My face hadn't been disseminated to the news, probably for fear that I'd be angry about it.

These children wouldn't know me by appearance any more than run of the mill Empire members had. I decided that I'd better enjoy that anonymity while it still existed. I doubted that it would be there by the end of the day.

I'd never had that kind of luck.

I forced myself to lift my head high and step into the hallway.

"Taylor?"

I blinked.

"Taylor Hebert?"

The voice was suspiciously familiar. I turned and saw a girl running up to me. For a moment part of me wanted to blast her, imagining that she had a weapon on her. A quick check of the metal on her body didn't show anything unusual, although I imagined that a tinker could probably make something out of wood. Despite her looking familiar, it took me a moment to place her.

Her name was Sarah... something. I'd known her in elementary school. We hadn't been friends, exactly, but she'd always been friendly. She'd been friendly to everyone.

"Sarah... hi," I said. "It's been a while."

"Are you coming here now?" she asked. "I always thought you'd come here but I heard you ended up in Winslow."

I grimaced. "Emma couldn't make the grade and I didn't want to be separated from her."

She stared at me, then nodded. "How is Emma?"

"I don't know. Our friendship didn't last very long," I said. I grimaced and looked away. "I don't like to talk about it."

"Is that your schedule?" she asked. She glanced at it. "Oh, we have first period together! Maybe we can walk together!"

Her friendliness was disconcerting. It was as though she hadn't heard anything about me. Did the students at Arcadia live in their own insulated bubble? Were they so wrapped up in their own lives that they didn't pay attention to things as important as the fall of the Empire?

Or had they been warned by the administration to pretend to be normal around me?

While I didn't want to ruin this, whatever it was with Sarah, I couldn't let it go.

"I don't suppose you've heard anything about me," I asked.

She looked at me and shook her head. "We should watch out, though. They say that some big deal cape is coming to school today... she's the one who beat the Empire all by herself."

I coughed into my hand.

She stopped. "That was you?"

I shrugged uncomfortably. This was the moment of truth. Would she run from me in fear the way the Empire kids had?

"Wow," she said. "And you look just like regular people. I'd have thought you'd have some kind of a throne or something."

She grinned as she said it, as though it was a funny joke. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I actually did, and for the first time I wanted to curse at my grandfather for his taste in reading materials.

Maybe I could throw a rug over it if anyone came over. A very large rug.

The fact that she was willing to make jokes after what I had done was very encouraging. It meant that she was not so afraid of me that she thought I'd explode at a bad joke.

"I decided to wait on the throne till the end of the week," I said. I forced a smile. "I wanted people to get used to me first."

"You were always so fun," she said. "I don't know why we didn't hang out more."

Emma was the reason. She'd just always been enough. I'd had opportunities to go out with other girls, to have a social life outside of our Duo, but I'd always turned them down. I'd simply never seen the need.

I shrugged uncomfortably again. Hopefully this wouldn't be a pattern. It wasn't at all how I'd expected my first contact in Arcadia to go.

She led me through the halls.

"We need to hurry if we want to get one of the good seats," she said. "Mr. Whitetower doesn't assign them, and the ones up front are always the best. He likes to do practical demonstrations."

Given that chemistry was my first class of the day instead of my last, practical demonstrations might be interesting. I'd been looking to science classes to help me figure out applications to my powers for a while I really wanted to take a Physics class, but I wouldn't be able to get into it until next year.

We reached the room with time to spare.

I was getting my books into place on the long lab table when I felt someone sit on the other side of me from Sarah.

"Hi," she said. "I'm Victoria Dallon."

She was tall, and pretty and platinum blonde. She wasn't as pretty as Emma, but she was pretty enough to make me sensitive about my own looks.

"Aren't you a couple of years older than me?" I asked.

I immediately wanted to kick myself. The last thing I wanted to do was make enemies on my first day of school.

She flushed. "Science isn't really my thing."

"Well, I just came from Winslow, so I'll probably be behind," I said.

"Annnnyway," she said. "My sister had a long talk with me and she wanted me to talk to you. I've got this aura... it makes people who like me like me more, and people who are afraid of me more afraid of me. I'm suppressing it now, but when I forget about it it kind of pops up on its own."

"I'm not afraid of you," I said.

"Right," she said. "I don't know why I even thought it would be a problem. It was mostly Amy really."

"It was probably good to warn me," I said. "I don't think I'd care much for being mastered, and it might not go well."

"I don't Master people!" she said. "Not really, I mean. I don't mean to anyway."

That meant that she did.

I didn't particularly like her or dislike her, but I felt a certain uneasiness in the bottom of my gut. I suspected that her powers didn't work the way she thought those were.

"Vicky, you're leaking," Amy Dallon said. She looked at me apologetically. "She can be like that."

Victoria Dallon flushed. "I can't help it."

"I'm not looking for any trouble," I said. "I'm just here to go to a school where people treat me more or less like everyone else."

Amy grabbed her sister and pulled her away. They ended up sitting at the back of the class, which made me happier. I was still irritated by the fact that Amy had chewed me out when she'd healed my Dad. Comparing herself to Switzerland had creeped me out a little, considering what had happened to it. Did she really think she was like a Simurgh victim, likely to explode at any minute and destroy everyone around her?

Or had she been talking in the old meaning of the word? Maybe it had been a little bit of both.

The class wasn't as hard as I'd feared. While they were farther ahead than we had been at Winslow, even in the advanced class, I had helpful comments from my grandfather's avatar. He was apparently an amazing teacher.

The Arcadia teacher was better too. He wasn't as much better than I'd expected, though, probably because the Advanced class teachers at Winslow tended to be some of the few who were actually engaged.

Chemistry had always been a refuge for me, since none of my tormentors had the class and none of my classmates there had cared much about me. In the last few days, though, I'd felt the kids at Winslow pull away from me in all my classes. There had been an undercurrent of fear that had been unpleasant.

The anonymity was refreshing, but I knew that it wouldn't last. I felt a moment of regret at losing my secret identity. Life would have been a lot easier if I could have been anonymous. I felt a flash of anger at the policeman who had outed me. Sure, I'd threatened him, but outing me had directly led to all of this.

My lawyer had told me that he was currently suspended without pay; there was a good chance that the district would fire him. It was mostly a way to avoid having me sue the district, since the BBPD was sorely underfunded. Part of it was the poor tax base, and part of it was that funds were directed away to the PRT.

I separated from Sarah for second period English. By this point I was getting looks from people.

Apparently rumors had been going around that the newest Cape in town was going to be attending, and I was the only new transfer student.

Everyone was pleasant, though.

It was at third period when things began to change. I heard people whispering and I saw glances directed my way from everywhere. Despite how pleasant everything was, I was beginning to wonder if I'd made a mistake in coming here. Was this going to be as bad as Winslow?

After third period, I was approached by several people, two girls and a guy.

"We've been hearing rumors," the lead girl said. "Are you really the new Cape, the one who beat the Empire?"

I grimaced. "They had my father. What else was I going to do?"

"Wow, that had to bite," the guy said. He grimaced. "I don't know what I'd do if someone took my Dad."

"I do," I said. "And apparently it's not very nice."

"I'm Jake. This is Alyssa and Jane. We're kind of your welcoming committee and the town criers combined. If you have anything you want everybody to know, just give it to us and we'll make sure word gets around."

The brunette girl, tall and willowy, although not as tall as me said,"It's always better to get your own message out. Nature abhors a vacuum. If people don't know what's going on they start making things up."

"Yeah, leave it and some people will be talking about how you are a supervillain plotting to take over the school. Other people will be talking about how you and Glory Girl are secretly in love because someone saw you talking to her this morning."

I frowned. "What if I don't want people talking about me at all?"

"You can't stop it," he said cheerfully. "People talk. You might be able to make people be quiet in your presence, but once they are outside... "

I thought about it for a moment, then said, "Tell them this. I'm a rogue who wants to make the city better. That means I don't want to ride out in a silly costume and silly hat to fight people. However, if people come against me or people I consider mine, I'll finish things."

"Is that a threat?" he asked. He was staring at me as though he'd seen a ghost.

"A promise," I said. "I wouldn't mind friends, but people who want to take advantage of me do not need to apply."

"So long moonlit walks down the beach are out of the question."

"You asking?" I asked, one eyebrow raised.

"Uh, not really,' he said. "I'm kind of going out with Alyssa. If I wasn't I'm sure I wouldn't mind going flying with a Cape."

Alyssa stepped on his foot.

"What? I said if," he said, looking at her through the side of his eye.

"No need flirting with our future overlord," she said. She smiled at me, then scowled at him. "Especially if she was a pretty girl."

I wasn't especially pretty, but it was nice of her to say. I felt a warmth inside my chest, and I had a sudden random thought wondering if I could convince my grandfather or Panacea to do something about my... shortcomings.

Panacea probably had girls asking for it all the time, and asking your grandfather's ghost about breast enlargement seemed a little creepy.

"Let's go to lunch," Alyssa said.

Another thing that was different from Winslow was the quality of the food. I'd always brought my lunch before, but given the state of our refrigerator (which was to say non-existent) I was depending on the mercy of the lunch lady gods.

The food was actually good here, not slop like was served at Winslow.

Sarah joined us at the table. Victoria and Amy Dallon sat all the way across the room, although Amy gave me a small wave. Was she trying to make amends for what she'd said earlier, or did she not even think anything about what she'd said?

I hated being a teenage girl. School seemed to bring the worst out in me. Out in the world I was a powerful Cape, someone who could dictate to the Protectorate as long as I didn't push things too far. I was important in a way that I wasn't here.

"Everyone is looking at me," I muttered.

"Most teenagers think that, and most of them are wrong," Sarah said. She took a bite, then looked around. "You, however aren't seeing things."

"You're just the newest thing to make the news," Jake said. "You should have heard people talk when Vicky and Amy started classes. The one good thing is that nobody is going to keep asking if you are the newest Ward."

"It's be like going back to Kindergarten," I muttered.

"Hey, at least nobody wanted anything out of you in kindergarten. Now, though?"

As I sat quietly listening to them talk about school and relationships and all the small concerns of average high school students, I wondered when I'd become so separated from my peers that I couldn't relate. Was it when I'd gotten my powers?

No. I'd been a strange duck even before then. I'd been a cheerful child, but I'd always felt like an outsider looking in. Emma had been the only one who hadn't made me feel that way.

Would I ever trust anyone else enough to feel that way again, or would I close myself off, fearful of being hurt. I had a sense that it wasn't entirely my choice.

The day finished without incident. While I didn't make any more friends, I also didn't make any enemies. I wasn't sure how I felt about the day. Was this just a grace period before everything fell apart, or was I being paranoid in a way where I would sabotage myself before I even had a chance to make friends.

As I left the school I was getting ready to fly away when I heard a voice.

"Are you Taylor?"

I looked down. There was a girl, too young to be in Arcadia staring up at me. She was young, at least three or four years younger than me, far too young to be out of her own school, much less to be at mine.

I nodded.

"There's a ninety nine point seven percent chance that I am going to be kidnapped in the next three months. I have a feeling that I won't enjoy what happens afterward."

"What can I do for you?"

"If I join you there's a ninety seven percent chance I will be safe." The girl seemed absolutely convinced of what she was saying. I listened for my grandfather's avatar to agree or disagree, to use his supposed skills at reading people, but he didn't say anything.

"Join me?" I asked. It almost felt as though this girl and I were having different conversations.

"In the team you are forming."

I stared at her, undoubtedly with a confused look on my face. I wasn't forming a team. I suppose I could form a team with Dad. Magnetic Lass and the Manimal King.

"Oh? That hasn't happened yet?" she asked. She frowned. "I get things confused sometimes. I've been having a lot of headaches lately."

"Thinker headaches," my grandfather's avatar supplied helpfully. As though I didn't know what it was myself. Now he decides to start talking. I wondered if he'd been sulking about my silly hat reference earlier ion the day, considering that he could be described as a high tech version of the Hogwarts Sorting hat.

She stuck her hand out. "I'm Dinah Alcott, and I see the future."

Last edited: Apr 15, 2018

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ShayneT

Apr 15, 2018

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Threadmarks 18. Dinah

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ShayneT

Apr 17, 2018

#3,428

"This isn't exactly the place to talk about this," I said, looking around.

There were other students milling around, but no one seemed to be paying attention to me. That was deceptive of course. Everyone was paying attention to me but no one wanted to look like they were. I wouldn't be surprised if people were taking pictures of me right now and posting them to social media.

"No one is close enough to hear," she said. "Eighty nine point five nine percent chance."

"Just the fact that you are talking to me is likely to get people's attention," I said.

"Good," she said. "Talking to you here and now drops my chances of being kidnapped by a good twenty percent all on its own."

"Let's walk," I said. "Is that how your power works? Percentages?"

She nodded. "But I only get a few per day. Any more than that and I get horrible migraines. I can sometimes get a glimpse of high percentage possibilities, but that costs me in terms of how many questions I can ask."

We were quickly leaving the school. I wondered if this was some sort of trap; encouraging me to kidnap a school kid as an excuse for the PRT to attack. I mentally sought out all the metal in the area just in case and ran through some possible strategies.

"I haven't had my power for long," she said. "And I don't think I was supposed to be kidnapped for a few more months, but the numbers changed after you did the thing with the bus and the boat."

"Who do you think is out to get you?" I asked.

"I'm not sure," she said. At my look she shrugged. "My power doesn't work on people I don't know, and whoever it is uses goons to get me and doesn't reveal himself. I've seen it clear as a bell. I've been home sick from school with headaches trying to figure out a way out of it."

"I'm guessing they want you for your power," I said.

With a power like that you could make a fortune in the stock market, at horse races, in gambling. If you were paranoid you could ask whether you were likely to be attacked each day, and then how. You could even ask how likely a plan was to succeed and discard it if it wasn't likely to work.

"Have you considered going to the Protectorate?" I asked.

"I have a twenty percent chance of being safe there," she said. "Joining the Wards doesn't help at all."

"So what do you want from me,' I said. "And what do you have to offer?"

"Protection," she said promptly. "And I can offer my power. I can ask seven questions a day before the pain gets unbearable. Four questions means no pain usually, unless it's unusually clear."

"Have you considered starting a business?" I asked. "A question a day. I'll bet there are people willing to offer a lot of money for a single question, especially if you are as good as you seem to think you are."

I paused. Was it possible that this was all a con?

"There is a ninety seven percent chance of an assassination attempt on you in the next ten minutes," she said. "With a three percent chance of you having been injured before my warning."

"And you're standing next to me?" I asked. "We need to get you home."

She nodded.

"Where do you live?"

"I'm the mayor's niece," she said.

"And you didn't think that was important to mention? You had to have left school early in order to get to Arcadia on time. I'll bet the people who were supposed to pick you up are worried sick."

Before she could respond, I saw a car turning onto the block ahead of me.

It was a strange looking car, a station wagon with a chassis made of wood. It was in excellent condition, but it looked old, like something from the forties. I'd been to auto shows where I'd seen similar cars. Back in those days they'd used wood for auto bodies sometimes instead of metal.

If this was the people making the attempt, I wasn't sure what they thought they were going to accomplish. The engine was made of metal, and so were the hubcaps. I only needed a single nut to kill someone, and maybe less.

The men in the car were all dressed conservatively, with jackets and hats, possibly to hide tattoos. There were six of them in the car, and they were all casually talking.

It was possible that it wasn't anything, but it was also possible that the girl was right. I checked the car with my senses. None of the men had any metal on them, not even watches or rings. That seemed a little strange, but not terribly so.

Driver's licenses had magnetic strips on them, and there were small magnetic strips in money. None of them had either, which was very unusual. People not carrying identification, cash or credit cards seemed a little risky.

I turned to Dinah as though I was deep in conversation, and the car slowed slightly. I heard a strange series of snapping sounds.

Looking up I saw that all of the men were holding wooden crossbows pointing in my direction, and wooden crossbow bolts tipped in plastic were coming toward me.

They bounced off my shield, which worked quite well against things that weren't metal. From the expressions on their faces they hadn't known that.

I sighed, and a moment later the car was rising into the air as I lifted it by its metal undercarriage. I began to make the car spin, like the teacup ride at Disneyland. At first some of the men were trying to reload, but as I spun it faster and faster they lost their grips on the crossbows, which went flying.

"Are they supposed to puke like that?" Dinah asked, interested. "It's kind of cool how it flies. I kind of feel bad for whoever owns the car."

She pulled out her phone and took a quick picture.

"I doubt it's theirs," I said. "I was doing this so I could avoid getting blood on the seat or tearing up the car."

"Several of them had fallen unconscious. I made the car land on the ground with a thump. Cars in this ere didn't have seat belts, and so they were lucky that they hadn't flown out of the car.

Not that I would have cared if they had.

My grandfather's avatar grumbled in agreement, although I had a feel of vicious amusement at the puke.

Picking up my telephone, I dialed the PRT. I'd been dialing the BBPD because I'd assumed that non-powered members of the Empire wouldn't be PRT business. I'd been informed that because I was involved it made it a parahuman incident and the PRT people were the ones to call.

Did that mean the PRT would come if I was arrested for jaywalking? I wasn't sure.

"PRT," the professional voice on the other side of the line said.

"This is Taylor Hebert," I said. "I've got six men who tried to kill me."

"Are they still alive?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said. "None of them are really hurt. They've blacked out from G-forces, but that's about it. You might want to bring some changes of clothes, though, they smell like puke."

"We'll have vans at your location in five minutes," she said.

If it had been my neighborhood or the Docks it would have taken fifteen. It might have taken longer if there were major traffic disruptions. Part of it was that that the whole reason the Wards went to Arcadia was that it was close to the Protectorate. They were nearby.

An ugly part of me wondered though if part of the reason was that the rich neighborhoods were considered more important, and my neighborhood was considered expendable.

"You could have set all this up," I said as an aside to Dinah.

"With what, my piggy bank?" she asked sarcastically. "Even if I had money, how many people would take a twelve year old girl seriously when she was trying to put a hit out on someone?"

"True," I said. "But maybe you're already working for a super villain, trying to con me with your innocent face."

She stared at me. "Do I look innocent? What kind of an idiot would trust a child to try to lie for them? I can't even convince my uncle that I've done my homework when I didn't."

"Do you have anything else to convince me?" I asked.

"There's a sixty two percent chance that someone will try to poison your food over the next four days," she said. "I'm not sure where. When I ask, the numbers keep changing."

"Meaning they probably have several places picked out," I said.

It made sense. The remnants of the Empire wanted me dead. They needed me dead. While some portions were probably small and being withered away by attrition, I had no doubt that the remaining portions were consolidating power into a few large groups. Most likely they were groups that had access to the Empire's resources; money, drugs, prostitution. People tended to flock to success.

We talked for a short time, her telling me about her school life and her life at home. We talked a little business too. The Protectorate vans, three of them arrived shortly afterwards.

Armsmaster and Miss Militia came riding up on motorcycles at the same time.

"What happened here?" Armsmaster asked.

"They tried to shoot me with wooden crossbow bolts," I said. "It didn't work, so I took them for a little spin."

I pointed out the shattered wooden crossbows and the wooden shafts on the ground. One PRT agent moved to take pictures even as his compatriots rushed forward and took control of the men.

He looked at the men in the car, who were just waking up and he winced. "That's a classic car they just threw up in."

"I was trying to be nice," I said.

"Is that the mayor's niece?" he asked, staring past me.

Dinah moved closer to me.

I nodded. "She came to my school with a business proposition."

"There's an all point's bulletin on her," he said. "People are worried that she's been kidnapped."

"That's what I told her!," I said. "In fact I was about to take her home, whenever she tells me where that is."

"Her parents are at the mayor's house," he said. "We'd be happy to give you a ride."

I shook my head. "I think I'll take her flying, as long as that's OK with her. Call ahead and let them know we're coming. I don't mind you following, assuming you can keep up. I'll even keep to the major streets instead of going straight if that's OK with you."

He was silent for a moment, apparently listening in to the radio in his helmet. He murmured something then nodded. "That will be acceptable."

A moment later we were in the air. The one thing I was unprepared for was Dinah's squealing in delight. Apparently she'd never gone flying before, and she wasn't one of those people who were terrified of flights. I doubted that I'd have trusted someone else to fly me; I'd have been afraid of being dropped.

Getting to the house that Dinah pointed me to didn't take very long. The mayor lived in this neighborhood.

There were men in the black outfits that seemed to be standard for every bodyguard in every movie anywhere. They all had earpieces. I wondered if they knew how easy it would be for me to drive the earpieces directly into their brains.

I winced at the thought. I occasionally had horrible thoughts and I usually tried not to dwell on them.

We landed, and I noticed that the men had their guns out.

"I'd put those away," I said. "Unless you want things to go poorly."

"Stand down," I heard Armsmaster say from the curb. "She's bringing Miss Alcott back."

The men nodded, and spoke into their microphones. A moment later we were escorted to the front door of the Mayor's mansion. It was rather large and ornate.

I found myself looking at it for design hints. I wouldn't be poor forever, and there were things I would need to do to impress people that didn't involve a stupid looking throne.

There was marble on the floor, which I liked. Decorations were sparse, but obviously tasteful and expensive. Apparently overloading people with art and fixtures was gaudy and would make people think I was uncouth.

"I would not let you choose a poor style," My grandfather's helmet murmured.

Considering that his helmet looked stupid and his throne had been gaudy and overdone, I somehow found myself doubting that he knew what good home design was. Besides, he was really old; he'd probably have my place decorated like some kind of place from the nineteen sixties or something.

I found the Mayor in a large office with a man and a woman I assumed were Dinah's parents. Another man I didn't know was also in the room, along with the guards.

Her parents rushed forward. "Dinah!"

"This seems like a lot of effort to find a girl who's been gone for a couple of hours," I said.

"There have been some worries about kidnapping," the Mayor said. "It's good to meet you, Miss Hebert. I've heard a lot about you. These are Dinah's parents Michael and Angela, and this is her cousin, Rory Christner."

"Was she the one who was worried about being kidnapped?" I asked.

"She'd been trying to tell her parents about it for a couple of weeks," he said. "When she vanished from school, her parents came to me worried."

"She came looking for me," I said. I glanced at her and she nodded slightly. "She tells me that she is a precognitive and she wants my protection."

The mayor stared at me, flustered. Had I just outed his niece to everyone in the room?

"I'm sure she has some stories," he said. "I hope she didn't bother you."

"She predicted an assassination attempt," I said. "And came to me at the exact time it happened so she could convince me of what she could do."

"If she is a parahuman, then outing her isn't in anyone's best interest." Armsmaster said from behind me. "Your own experiences should tell you that."

"She tells me that this is where I should out her," I said. "Apparently there are some leaks in the PRT and letting the people who are after her know that she's under my protection increases her chances of not being kidnapped at all."

"Is she under your protection?" the mayor asked.

"She made an interesting offer," I said. I turned to her parents. "Have either of you considered letting her start a business?

"As what, a fortuneteller?" her father asked.

"She could make a lot of money," I said. "The deal we've talked about is splitting profits fifty fifty and I provide protection and a place for her to do her work. Truthfully she could do it from home and I imagine we could get ten thousand dollars a question. Put half that away for her college fund, and she could go to any school in the country by the end of the summer."

"Is that legal?" her father asked.

"Possibly," Armsmaster said begrudgingly. "Although I think the Protectorate could offer better..."

"I have an eighty percent chance of being kidnapped as a Ward," Dinah said, interrupting. "With Taylor it's only three percent. I like the Protectorate, but I like not getting kidnapped more."

"We won't make her identity public like mine," I said. She's been seen with me, so I'll probably make an appearance at her school. Officially she was trying to get me to make an appearance on the same day the Wards are supposed to show up, to talk about being a rogue."

"Your position isn't quite the same as most rogues," Armsmaster said disapprovingly. "While the PRT officially likes to encourage rogues, the reality is that rogues are rare for a reason. Most of them get snapped up by one group or another, forced to work for people who don't have their best interests at heart."

"I'll make that clear," I said. I'd heard the statistics on rogues the PRT used, and my grandfather had told me why those statistics were flawed.

The truth was, public rogues were rare for the very reason that Armsmaster noted. However, my grandfather suspected that the numbers for Capes were grossly underrepresented because those capes who didn't want to get into fights would likely simply not use their powers anywhere anyone could see them.

It had apparently been the same with mutants. There had been a few highly visible mutants, but they'd been the tip of the iceberg.

"We'll have to discuss it," Dinah's father said, glancing at his wife. "Is your protection contingent on the deal?"

"No," I said. "But it would be nice to make some money."

"Um, you know that Rogues who register with the PRT can get a stipend," Miss Militia volunteered suddenly.

"They can?" I asked.

That would have been good to know a couple of weeks ago.

"Of course, generally people who go out beating up on gang members aren't considered rogues," Armsmaster said. "They tend to be put into one of the two categories."

Right.

The mayor cleared his throat. "While I appreciate what you did for my niece, there is a matter we should discuss while you are here. About your remodeling project... there's been a few concerns."

I suddenly realized that coming to the house of the chief bureaucrat in town may have been a mistake.

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