Insinuation 2.9 Last Chapter Next Chapter
As Brian and I returned to the loft, I felt more than a little apprehensive. It wasn't just that I was going to be around Bitch again, but I was also having to face Lisa and Alec. After shouting and talking about quitting the team, I was turning around and going back. A part of me wanted to apologize, but a larger part of me felt I shouldn't. I had been justified in everything I had said and done, right? Maybe it was just because I wasn't used to violence or raising my voice.
As I'd feared, there was a bit of an awkward silence as we reached the top of the stairs. Bitch was sitting in a chair beside one of the tables, her dogs nowhere to be seen. As she saw me, she scowled, but didn't say anything. Alec grinned as I came back, but I couldn't decide if it was because he was glad or if it was at my expense. I didn't know him well enough to guess either way.
"Glad you came back," Lisa told me, a bit of a smile on her face, "Alec, can you go get the first aid kit? It might be in the storage closet."
While Alec did that, Brian sat me down on the arm of the couch and I pulled off my sweatshirt to get a better look at the damage. I pulled the bottom of my tank top up around my ribs to get a look at where one of the dogs had been gotten at my stomach and back. My clothes had taken most of the damage, and I'd only suffered three or four shallow-ish scrapes. There was bruising and some raw areas where I felt tender, but I figured I'd recover from that in a day or two. I had a cut on my ear, which would be harder to hide, but I was pretty sure I could keep the incident from my dad without him raising hell.
There was only one spot of real damage, a puncture where it looked like a fang had buried itself deep in the top of my forearm and then dragged an inch or so down towards my wrist as it made its exit. The area around it was already turning colors with bruising. I wasn't sure how deep the puncture was, but I was pretty sure it should have been hurting more than it did. The blood from the injury had trickled down my arm, and was still welling out.
"Christ," I said, mostly to myself.
"That was awesome, you know," Alec told me, as he returned with the first aid kit, "I didn't think you had it in you to kick someone's ass." I glared at him, but he just sat on the back of the sofa, his legs kicking like an excited kid.
"I think we're going to clean that and stitch it. Tattle's power should give us a better sense of whether stitches are necessary," Brian said, quietly.
"Alright," I agreed.
I would hardly describe getting stitches as a bonding experience, but Bitch more or less stayed quiet throughout the process. We were both sat down and told to sit still while Brian both cleaned and sewed up the hole in my arm and the tear my kick had made in Bitch's ear.
Brian insisted I take two Tylenol, though the pain was still limited to a mild ache in my arm. I grudgingly obliged. I'd never liked taking pills, and never felt they made a real difference.
"You have first aid training?" I inquired, to make conversation and break the tense silence.
Alec complained, "We all do, Brian made us all take a comprehensive class less than a week after we were gathered as a team. Such a pain in the ass, believe me. He'll make you do it too."
"I already did," I admitted, "One of the first things I did." I jumped a little at a snarling from my left, but it was just Rachel cussing as Lisa taped a cotton pad to her ear.
Brian just looked at me and flashed that boyish smile again. I looked away, embarrassed that a guy like him would get pleased like that on my account. He got up to head to the bathroom, garbage from the bandages, sutures, cotton swabs and ointments in his hands.
With Brian gone and Lisa absorbed in trying to patch up Bitch's ear, I was left with Alec. To make conversation, I said, "Alec. You were going to tell me what you do. You go by Regent, right?"
"The name is a long story, but what I do is this." He looked over his shoulder at Brian, who was returning from the washroom with a damp washcloth in hand. Brian, mid-stride, stumbled and fell onto the floor.
"Way to look good in front of the new girl, gimpy!" Alec mocked his teammate, laughing. Grateful for the break in the tension, I couldn't help but laugh too. While Alec continued laughing, Brian got to his feet and ran up to the smaller boy, at which point he got Alec in a headlock and began punching him in the shoulder repeatedly. This abuse only made Alec laugh harder in between his cries of pain.
Lisa turned to me, smiling at the prank and play fighting between the boys, "It's a bit complicated to explain, but basically, Alec can get into people's nervous systems. This lets him fire off impulses that set off reflexes or make body parts jerk into motion. It's not a dramatic power, but with timing, he can make someone fall over midstep, drop something, lose their sense of balance or pull the trigger on a gun."
I nodded, absorbing the information. It sounded very underwhelming to me, but I was willing to admit I could be underestimating it.
"Well," I said, after a long pause, "I think I pretty much get what everyone can do, then. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Bitch can turn those dogs into those freakish monsters I saw the other night?"
Sitting a few feet away, Bitch muttered, "They aren't freakish."
Lisa answered my question, ignoring her. "Rachel can do it with any dog, actually," she said, stressing the name, "And no codenames when we're not in costume, 'kay? Get in the habit of using the right name at the right times, and it's that much harder to slip."
It was hard to think of Rachel by her real name. Bitch seemed really fitting given the stunt she had pulled. I apologized to Lisa, "Sorry."
Lisa gave a small nod in response, then told me, "She can use her power on any dog, but only Brutus, Judas and Angelica are trained well enough that they'll listen to her when they're pumped up."
Ah, so that was it. "And Brian makes that oily darkness that screws up your hearing. The Parahumans wiki said it was darkness generation."
Brian smiled, "I put that into the wiki myself. It's not wrong, but it does catch people off guard when they think they know what you can do, and there's something more to it."
Lisa added, "It's not just hearing. It also cuts off radio signals and dampens the effects of radiation."
"That's what her power tells her, anyways. I haven't had much chance to test that part of things. I get by as is," Brian said. He turned his hand palm up and created a handful of the darkness. It was like smoke, but so absolutely black that there was no texture to it. It was like someone had taken a scalpel to reality and the blackness was what was there when everything else was gone. I couldn't even gauge the dimensions of it, unless I looked at it from a different perspective. Even then, with the way the darkness shifted and billowed like smoke, it was hard to judge the shape.
More of it just kept pouring from his hand, climbing upwards to cover the top of the room. As the light from the windows near the upper edges of the room and the florescent bars on the ceiling was cut off, the room got a great deal darker.
He closed his hand into a fist, and the darkness thinned out and disintegrated into strands and tatters, and the room brightened again. I looked at the light coming in from the windows and was surprised it wasn't later.
"What time is it?" I asked.
"Nineteen minutes before five," Lisa said. She didn't look at a watch or a clock as she said it, which was unsettling. It was a reminder that her power was constantly available to her.
Brian asked me, "Do you have somewhere you need to be?
"Home, I guess," I admitted, "My dad will wonder where I am."
"Call him," Lisa suggested, "Now that the introductions are over with, you can just hang out for a bit, if you want."
"We could order pizza," Alec suggested. Then when Lisa, Brian and Bitch all made faces, he added, "Or maybe everyone's sick of pizza and we could order something else."
"Stick around?" Brian made it a question.
I glanced at Bitch. She was sitting on the table behind one of the couches and looking like a mess, with a bloody bandage over one ear, blood smeared below her nose and lip, and a bit of green around the gills that suggested she was feeling a little worse for wear. With her in that state, I didn't feel particularly threatened. Staying meant I could work to get things more copacetic and maybe dig for a bit more information. I'd also missed socializing with people – even if it was under false pretenses with a group that included an apparent sociopath. It had been a sucky day. Just chilling out sounded good.
"Okay," I decided, "Yeah, I think I'd like to."
"Phone's in the kitchen if you want to call your dad," Lisa said.
I looked over my shoulder as I headed across the loft. The others got settled on the couches, with Alec turning on the TV while Lisa and Brian took a second to clean up.
I found the phone and dialed my dad.
"Hey dad," I said, when I heard the phone being picked up.
"Taylor. Are you alright?" He sounded worried. It was unusual, I supposed, my not being home when he got back from work.
"I'm fine, dad. Is it cool if I hang out with some people tonight?"
There was a pause.
"Taylor, if there's anyone that's making you make this call… the bullies or someone else, tell me everything is fine. If you're not in trouble, tell me your mother's full name."
I felt momentarily embarrassed. Was it so unusual for me to hang out with people? I knew my dad was just trying to keep me safe, but it was bordering on the ridiculous.
"Annette Rose Hebert," I told him, "Really dad, it's cool."
"You're really okay?"
My gaze roved over the kitchen, taking in the details, as I gave him my assurances.
"Better than ever. I kind of made some friends," I said.
My eyes settled on their dining room table. There was a stack of money, wrapped with a paper band just as the money in the lunchbox had been. Beside the money, plain as day, was the dark gray metal of a handgun.
My attention caught by the gun, I only barely caught my dad's question. "What are they like?"
"They seem like good people," I lied.
Interlude 2 Last Chapter Next Chapter
There were very few things, in Victoria Dallon's estimation, that were cooler than flying. The invisible forcefield that extended a few millimeters over her skin and clothes just made it better. The field kept the worst of the chill from touching her, but still let her feel the wind on her skin and in her hair. Bugs didn't splat against her face like they did against car windshields, even when she was pushing eighty miles an hour.
Spotting her target, she whooped and plunged for the ground, gaining speed where anyone else would be slowing down. She hit the asphalt hard enough to crack it and send fragments of it into the air, touching ground with her knee and foot, one arm extended. She stayed in that kneeling position for just heartbeats, letting her platinum curls and the cape that was draped over one of her shoulders flutter in the wake of air that had followed her descent. She met the eyes of her quarry with a steely glare.
She'd practiced that landing for weeks to get it right.
The man was a twenty something Caucasian with a shaved head, a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, jeans and work boots. He took one look at her and bolted.
Victoria grinned as he disappeared down the far end of the alley. She rose from her kneeling position, dusted herself off and ran her fingers through her hair to tidy it. Then she raised herself a foot off the ground and flew after him at an easy forty five miles an hour.
It didn't take a minute to catch him, even with the head start she had given him. She flew just past him, grazing him. An instant later, she came to a dead stop, facing him. Again, the wind made for a dramatic flourish as it stirred her hair, her cape and the skirt of her costume.
"The woman you attacked was named Andrea Young," she spoke.
The man looked over his shoulder, as if gauging his escape routes.
"Don't even think about it, fugly," she told him, "You know I'd catch you, and trust me, I'm already pissed off enough without you wasting my time."
"I didn't do anything," the man snarled.
"Andrea Young!" Victoria raised her voice. As she shouted, she exercised her power. The man quailed as though she'd slapped him. "A black college student was beaten so badly she needed medical attention! Her teeth were knocked out! You're trying to tell me that you, a skinhead with swollen knuckles, someone who was in the crowd watching paramedics arrive with an expression bordering on glee, you didn't do anything!?"
"I didn't do nothing worth caring about," he sneered. His bravado was tempered by a second look over his shoulder, as though he'd very much like to be elsewhere right that moment.
She flew forward, her fists catching him by the collar. For just a moment, she contemplated slamming him up against a wall. It would have been fitting and satisfying to shove him hard enough against the brick to crack it, then drop him into the dumpster that sat at the wall's base.
Instead, she pulled up a little, bringing the two of them to a stop. They were now just high enough above the ground that he'd feel uncomfortable with the height. The dumpster, mostly empty, was directly below him, but she doubted he was paying attention to anything but her.
"I think it's a safe bet to say you're a member of Empire Eighty-Eight," she told him, meeting his eyes with a hard stare, "or at least, you've got some friends who are. So here's what's going to happen. You're going to either tell me everything the triple-E's have been up to, or I'm going to break your arms and legs and then you're going to tell me everything."
As she spoke, she ratcheted up her power. She knew it was working when he started squirming just to avoid her gaze.
"Fuck you, you can't touch me. There's laws against that shit," he blustered, staring fixedly over one shoulder.
She turned up her power another notch. Her body thrummed with current – waves of energy that anyone in her presence would experience as an emotional charge of awe and admiration. For those with a reason to be afraid of her, it would be a feeling of raw intimidation instead.
"Last chance," she warned him.
Unfortunately, fear affected everyone differently. For this particular asshole, it just made him dig in his heels and become obstinate. She could see it in his body language before he opened his mouth – this was the sort of guy who reacted to anything that spooked or unsettled him with an almost mindless refusal to bend.
"Lick my hairy, sweaty balls," he snarled, before punctuating it with a spat, "Cunt."
She threw him. Since she could bench press a cement mixer, though it was hard to balance something so large and unwieldy, even a casual toss on her part could get some good distance. He flew a good twenty five or thirty yards down the back road before hitting the asphalt, and rolled for another ten.
He was utterly for still for long enough that Victoria had begun to worry that he'd somehow snapped his neck or broken his spine as he'd rolled. She was relieved when he groaned and began to pull himself to his feet.
"Ready to talk?" she asked him, her voice carrying down the alley. She didn't move forward from where she hovered in the air, but she did let herself drop closer to the ground.
Pressing one hand against his leg to support himself as he straightened up, he raised his other hand and flipped her the bird, then turned and began to limp down the alley.
What was this asshole thinking? That she would just let him go? That, what, she would just bend to his witless lack of self preservation? That she was helpless to do any real harm to him? To top it off, he was going to insult her and try to walk away?
"Screw you too," she hissed through her teeth. Then she kicked the dumpster below her hard enough to send it flying down the little road. It rotated lazily through the air as it arced towards the retreating figure, the trajectory and rotation barely changing as it knocked him flat. It skidded to a halt three to five yards beyond him, the metal sides of the dumpster squealing and sparking as it scraped against the asphalt.
This time, he didn't get up.
"Fuck," she swore, "Fuckity fuck fuck." She flew to him and checked for a pulse. She sighed, and then headed to the nearest street. She found the street address, grabbed her cell from her belt and dialed.
"Hey sis? Yeah, I found him. That's, uh, sort of the problem. Yeah. Look, I'm sorr- ok, can we talk about this later? Yeah. I'm at Spayder and Rock, there's this little road that runs behind the buildings. Downtownish, yeah. Yeah? Thanks."
Victoria returned to the unconscious skinhead, checked his pulse, and listened intently for changes in his breathing. It took a very long five minutes for her sister to arrive.
"Again, Victoria?" the voice disturbed her from her contemplations.
"Use my codename, please," Victoria told the girl. Her sister was as different from her as night was from day. Where Victoria was beautiful, tall, gorgeous, blonde, Amy was mousy. Victoria's costume showed off her figure, with a white one-piece dress that came to mid-thigh (with shorts underneath) an over-the shoulder cape, high boots and a golden tiara with spikes radiating from it, vaguely reminiscent of the sun's rays or the statue of liberty. Amy's costume, by contrast, was only a shade away from being a burka. Amy wore a robe with a large hood and a scarf that covered the lower half of her face. The robe was alabaster white and had a medic's red cross on the chest and the back.
"Our identities are public," Amy retorted, pushing the hood back and scarf down to reveal brown frizzy hair and a face with freckles spaced evenly across it.
"It's the principle of the thing," Victoria replied.
"You want to talk about principles, Glory Girl?" Amy asked, in the most sarcastic tone she could manage, "This is the sixth – sixth! – time you've nearly killed someone. That I know about!"
"I'm strong enough to lift a SUV over my head," Victoria muttered, "It's hard to hold back all the time."
"I'm sure Carol would buy that line," Amy said, making it clear in her tone she wasn't, "But I know you better than anyone. If you're having trouble holding back, the problem isn't here -" she poked Victoria in the bicep. "It's here-" she jabbed her sister in the forehead, hard. Victoria didn't even blink.
"Look, can you just fix him?" Victoria pleaded.
"I'm thinking I shouldn't," Amy said, quietly.
"What?"
"There's consequences, Vicky. If I help you now, what's going to stop you from doing it again? I can call the paramedics. I know some good people from the hospital. They could probably fix him up alright."
"Hey, hey, hey," Victoria said, "That's not funny. He goes to the hospital, people ask questions."
"Yeah, I'm well aware," Amy said, her voice hushed.
"This isn't, like, me getting grounded. I'd get pulled into court on charges of aggravated assault and battery. That doesn't just fuck with me. It fucks with our family, all of New Wave. Everything we've struggled to build."
Amy frowned and looked at the fallen man..
"I know you're not keen on the superhero thing, but you'd really go that far? You'd do that to us? To me?"
Amy pointed a finger at her sister, "That's not me. It's not my fault we're at this point. It's you. You're crossing the line, going too far. Which is exactly what people who criticize New Wave are scared of. We're not government sponsored. We're not protected or organized or regulated in the same way. Everyone knows who we are under our masks. That means we have to be accountable. The responsible thing for me to do, as a member of this team, is to let the paramedics take him, and let the law do as it sees fit."
Victoria abruptly pulled Amy into a hug. Amy resisted for a moment, then let her arms go limp at her sides.
"This isn't just a team, Ames," Victoria told her, "We're a family. We're your family."
The man lying just a matter of feet away stirred, then groaned, long and loud.
"My adoptive family," Amy mumbled into Victoria's shoulder, "And stop trying to use your frigging power to make me all squee over how amazing you are. Doesn't work. I've been exposed so long I'm immune."
"It hurts," the man moaned.
"I'm not using my power, dumbass," Victoria told Amy, letting her go, "I'm hugging my sister. My awesome, caring and merciful sister."
The man whined, louder, "I can't move. I feel cold."
Amy frowned at Victoria, "I'll heal him. But this is the last time."
Victoria beamed, "Thank you."
Amy leaned over the man and touched her hand to his cheek, "Slingshot break to his ribs, fractured clavicle, broken mandible, broken scapula, fractured sternum, bruised lung, broken ulna, broken radius -"
"I get the point," Victoria said.
"Do you?" Amy asked. Then she sighed, "I wasn't even halfway down the list. This is going to take a little while. Sit?"
Victoria crossed her legs and assumed a sitting position, floating a half foot above the ground. Amy just knelt where she was and rested her hand on the man's cheek. The tension went out of his body and he relaxed.
"How's the woman? Andrea?"
"Better than ever, physically," Amy replied, "I grew her new teeth, fixed everything from the bruising to the scrapes, and even gave her a head to toe tune-up. Physically, she'll feel on top of the world, like she had been to a spa and had the best nutritionist, best fitness expert and the best doctor all looking after her for a straight month."
"Good," Victoria said.
"Mentally? Emotionally? It's up to her to deal with the aftermath of a beating. I can't affect the brain."
"Well-" Victoria started to speak.
"Yeah, yeah. Not can't. Won't. It's complicated and I don't trust myself not to screw something up when I'm tampering with someone's head. That's it, that's all."
Victoria started to say something, then shut her mouth. Even if they weren't related by blood, they were sisters. Only sisters could have these sorts of recurring arguments. They had gone through a dozen different variations on this argument before. As far as she was
concerned, Amy was doing herself a disservice by not practicing using her powers on the brain. It was only a matter of time before her sister found herself in a situation where she needed to do some emergency brain surgery and found herself incapable. Amy, for her part, refused to even discuss it.
She didn't want to raise a sensitive issue when Amy was in the process of doing her a major favor. To change the subject, Victoria asked, "Is it cool if I question him?"
"Might as well," Amy sighed.
Victoria tapped the man a few times on the forehead to get his attention. He could barely move his head, but his eyes lolled in her direction.
"Ready to answer my questions, or do me and my sister just walk away and leave you like this?"
"I… sue you, he gasped out, then managed an added, "Whore."
"Try it. I'd just love to see a skinhead with a few broken bones go up against a superheroine whose mom just happens to be one of the best lawyers in Brockton Bay. You know her, right?"
"Brandish," he said.
"That's her name in costume. Normally she's Carol Dallon. She'd kick your ass in court, believe me," Victoria said. She believed it. What the thug didn't understand was that even if he lost the case, the media circus that would be stirred up would do more damage than anything else. But she didn't need to inform him of that. She asked him, "So do I get my sister to leave you as you are, or are you willing to trade some information for relief from months of incredible pain and a lifetime of arthritis and stiffness in your bones?"
"And erectile dysfunction," Amy said, just loud enough for the thug to hear her, "You fractured your ninth vertebra. That's going to affect all nerve function in extremities below your waist. If I leave you like you are, your toes will always feel a little numb, and you'll have a hell of a time getting it up, if you know what I mean."
The skinhead's eyes widened a fraction, "You're fucking with me."
"I have an honorary medical license," Amy told him, her expression solemn, "I'm not allowed to fuck with you about stuff like that. Hippocratic oath."
"Isn't that 'do no harm'?" the thug asked. Then he groaned, long, loud and with the slightest rattle in his breath, as she removed her hand from his body.
"That's just the first part of it, like how freedom of speech and the right to bear arms is just the first part of a very long constitution. It doesn't look like he's cooperating, Glory Girl. Should we go?"
"Fuck!" the man shouted, then winced, tenderly touching his side with one hand, "I'll tell you. Please, just… do what you were doing. Touch me and make the pain go away, put me back together. Fix me?"
Amy touched him. He relaxed, and then he started talking.
"Empire Eighty-Eight is extending into the Docks on Kaiser's orders. Lung's in custody, and whatever happens, the ABB is weaker than it was. That means there's territory for grabs, and the Empire sure ain't making progress downtown."
"Why not?" Victoria asked him.
"This guy, Coil. Don't know what his powers are, but he's got a private army. Ex-military, all of 'em. At least fifty, Kaiser said, and every one of 'em has top notch gear. Their armor's better than kevlar. You shoot 'em, they're back up in a few seconds. 'Least when you shoot a pig, you can be pretty sure you broke a few ribs. But that's not the fucked up thing. These guys? They've got these lasers hooked up to the machine guns they carry around. If they don't think bullets are doing it, or if they're after people who are behind cover, they fire off these purple laser beams that can cut through steel. Tear through any cover you're standing behind and burn through you too."
"Yeah. I know about him. His methods get expensive," Victoria said, "Top of the line soldiers, top of the line gear."
The thug nodded weakly, "But even with money to burn, he's fighting us over Downtown territories. Constant tug of war, neither of us making much headway. Been going on for months. So Kaiser thinks we should take the Docks now that the ABB are on the outs, gain some ground somewhere easier. Don't know any more than that, as far as his plans."
"Who else is up to something? Faultline?"
"The bitch with the freaks in her crew? She's a mercenary, different goals. But maybe. If she wanted to branch out, now would be the time to do it. With her rep, she'd even do alright."
"Then who? There's a power vacuum in the docks. Kaiser's declared he wants to seize it, but I'm willing to bet he's warned you about others making a play."
The skinhead laughed, then winced, "Are you dense, girl? Everyone's going to make a play. It's not just the major gangs and teams that are looking for a slice of the pie, there. It's everyone. The Docks are ripe for the taking. The location's worth as much money as you'd get downtown. It's the go to place if you want to buy black market. Sex, drugs, violence. And the locals are already used to paying protection money. It's just a matter of changing who they pay to. The Docks are rich territory, and we're talking the potential for a full scale fucking war over it."
He looked up at the blond superheroine and laughed. Her lips set into a firm line.
He continued, "You want to know my guess? Empire Eighty Eight is going to take the biggest slice of the Docks, because we're strong enough to. Coil's going to stick his thumb in just to spite us, ABB is going to hold on to some. But you're also going to have a bunch of the little guys trying to take something for themselves. Über and Leet, Circus, the Undersiders, Squealer, Trainwreck, Stain, others you've never heard of? They're going to stake out their ground, and one of two things is going to happen. Either there's war, in which case civilians get hurt and things get bad for you, or there's alliances between the various teams and solo villains and shit gets even worse for you."
He broke into laughter yet again.
"Come on, Panacea," Victoria said as she stood up, touched ground with her boots and brushed her skirt straight, "We've gotten enough."
"You sure? I'm not done yet," Amy told her.
"You fixed the bruises and scrapes, broken bones?" Everything that could get her in trouble, in other words.
"Yeah, but I didn't fix everything," Amy replied.
"Good enough," Victoria decided.
"Hey!" the skinhead shouted, "The deal was you'd fix me if I talked! Did you fix my cock?" He tried to struggle to get to his feet, but his legs buckled under him, "Hey! I can't fuckin' walk! I'll fucking sue you!"
Victoria's expression changed in an instant, and her power flooded out, blindsiding the thug. For an instant, his eyes were like those of a panicked horse, all whites, rolling around, unfocused. She grabbed him by the shirt collar, lifted him up and growled into his ear, her voice just above a whisper, "Try it. My sister just healed you… most of you, with a touch. Did you ever wonder what else she could do? Ever think, maybe, she could break you just as easily? Or change the color of your skin, you racist fuck? I'll tell you this, I'm not half as scary as my little sister is."
She let him go. He collapsed in a heap on the ground.
As the two sisters walked away, Victoria pulled her cell phone out of a pouch on her belt with her free hand. Turning to Amy, she said, "Thank you."
"Play safe, Victoria. I can't bring people back from the dead, and once you've gone that far…"
"I'll be good. I'll be better," Victoria promised as she dialed with one hand. She put the phone to her ear, "Hello? Emergency services? Requesting special line. New Wave, Glory Girl. Incapacitated criminal for you to pick up, no powers. No, no
Agitation 3.1
Last Chapter Next Chapter
Tuesday morning found me running again, first thing. I woke up at my regular time, apologized to my dad for not having breakfast with him, and headed out the door, hood of my sweatshirt up to hide the mess of my uncombed hair.
There was something appealing about being out and about before the city had woken up. I didn't usually get out quite this early, so it was a refreshing change. As I headed east at a brisk jog, there were no cars or people on the street. It was six thirty in the morning, and the sun had just finished rising, so the shadows were long. The air was cool enough for my breath to fog. It was like Brockton Bay was a ghost town, in a good way.
My training regimen had me running every morning, and alternating between more running and doing other exercises in the afternoons, depending on which day of the week it was. The primary goal was to build my stamina. In February, Sophia had goaded some boys into trying to catch me, I think the goal had been to duct tape me to a telephone pole. I had escaped, helped mostly by the fact that the boys hadn't really cared enough to run after me, but I found myself winded after having run just a block. It had been a wake-up call that came about just when I was starting to think about going out in costume. Not long after, I had started training. After a few starts and stops, I had settled into a routine.
I was more fit, now. While I could hardly say I was heavy, before, I'd had the unfortunate combination of a slight bulge for a belly, small breasts and broomstick-thin arms and legs. It had added up to me looking something like a frog forced to stand up on its hind legs. Three and a half months had burned away the body fat, leaving me very lean, and had given me the stamina to run at a steady jog without leaving me panting for breath.
I didn't aim to just jog, though. I steadily increased my pace with every block I ran as I headed towards the water. By the fifth block, I was running.
My general approach was not to get too worried about counting the miles or measuring the times. That just felt like it was distracting me from my own awareness of my body and its limits. If it felt too easy, I just pushed myself a step further than I had the previous day.
The route I took varied every day, at my father's insistence, but it usually took me to the same place. In Brockton Bay, going east took you to one of two places. You either ended up at the Docks, or you ended up at the Boardwalk. Because most areas of the Docks were not the sort of place that you just breezed through, given the vagrants, gang members and general crime, I stuck to main roads leading past the Docks and to the Boardwalk. It was usually close to seven by the time I got to the bridge that went over Lord Street. From there, it was a block to the Boardwalk.
I slowed down as the sidewalk ended and the wooden platform began. Though my legs were aching and I was out of breath, I forced myself to keep a low and steady pace rather than just stop.
Along the boardwalk, people were starting their day. Most places were still closed, with the top notch security systems, steel shutters and iron grates protecting all of the expensive
stores, but there were cafes and restaurants opening up. Other stores had vans parked in front, and were busy loading in their shipments. There were only a few people out and about, which made it easy to find Brian.
Brian was leaning on the wooden railing, looking over the beach. Balanced on the railing next to him was a paper bag and a cardboard tray with a coffee in each of the four pockets. I stopped beside him, and he greeted me with a broad smile.
"Hey, you're right on time," Brian said. He looked different than he had when I saw him on Monday. He was wearing a sweater under a felt jacket, his jeans didn't have any rips or tears in them, and his boots were shined. On Monday, he had given me the impression of a regular person who lived at the Docks. The fashionable, well fit clothes he wore today made him look like someone who belonged on the Boardwalk alongside the customers who shopped in stores where nothing cost less than a hundred dollars. The contrast and the ease with which he seemed to make the transition was startling. My estimation of Brian rose a notch.
"Hey," I said, feeling just a touch embarrassed at having taken so long to respond, and feeling painfully under-dressed in his presence. I hadn't expected him to dress so well. I hoped my being out of breath was enough of an excuse for the delay in response. There was nothing I could do about feeling unfashionable.
He gestured towards the paper bag, "I got donuts and croissants from the cafe over there, and a coffee if you want it."
"I want," I said, then I felt dumb for the awkward lapse into caveman speak. I blamed the early hour of the day. To try and save face, I added, "Thanks."
I fished out a sugar-dusted donut and bit into it. I could tell right away that it wasn't the kind of donut that was mass produced at some central factory and delivered overnight to the shops for baking in the morning. It was freshly made, probably right at the store a block away, sold right out of the oven.
"So good," I said, sucking the sugar from my fingertips before reaching for one of the coffees. Seeing the logo, I looked over at the cafe and asked, "Don't coffees there cost, like, fifteen dollars a cup?"
Brian chuckled a little, "We can afford it, Taylor."
It took me a second to process the idea, and as I made the connection, I felt like an idiot. These guys were raking in thousands of dollars on a given job, and they had given me two thousand dollars up front. I wasn't willing to spend the money, knowing where it came from, so it was just sitting in the cubbyhole I kept my costume in, nagging at me. I couldn't tell Brian that I wasn't spending it, either, without risking having to explain why.
"Yeah, I guess," I said, eventually. I leaned my elbows on the wooden railing beside Brian and stared out over the water. There were a few diehard windsurfers just getting ready to
start the day. I guess it made sense, since there would be the occasional boat going out on the water, later.
"How's your arm?" He asked.
I extended my arm, clenched my fist and relaxed it to demonstrate, "Only hurts when I flex it." I didn't tell him that it had been hurting badly enough to cost me some sleep last night.
"We'll leave the stitches in for about a week, I think, before we take them out," Brian said, "You can go to your doctor and have him do it, or drop by and I'll take care of it."
I nodded. A turn of the salt-water and seaweed scented wind blew my hood back, and I took a second to push my hair out of my face and pull my hood back up.
"I'm sorry for Rachel and that whole incident last night" Brian said, "I wanted to apologize sooner, but I figured it would be a bad idea to bring it up while she was in earshot."
"It's okay," I said. I wasn't sure it was, but it wasn't really his fault. I tried to put my thoughts into words, "I think… well, I guess I expected to have people attack me from the moment I put on a costume, so I shouldn't be surprised, right?"
Brian nodded, but didn't say anything, so I added, "It caught me a little off guard that it came from someone that's supposedly on my team, but I'm dealing."
"Just so you know," Brian told me, "Just from what I saw after you left last night and as people were waking up this morning, Rachel seems to have stopped protesting quite as loudly or often about the idea of having someone new join the team. She's still not happy about it, but I would be surprised if there was a repeat performance."
I laughed, a little too abruptly and high pitched than I would have liked, "God, I hope not."
"She's kind of a special case," Brian said, "I think that growing up the way she did kind of messed her up. No family, too old and, uh, not really attractive enough to be a good candidate for adoption. I feel bad saying that, but that's the way those things work, you know?" He glanced over his shoulder at me.
I nodded.
"So she spent a good decade in foster care, no fixed place to live, fighting tooth and nail with the other foster kids for even the most basic luxuries and possessions. My guess? She was screwed up before she got her powers, and with things happening the way they did, her powers pushed her into the deepest end of the antisocial pool."
"Makes sense," I said, then I added, "I read her page on the wiki."
"So you've got the gist of it," Brian said, "She's a handful to deal with, even for me, and I think she actually considers me a friend… or as much a friend as someone like her can
have, anyways. But if you can at least tolerate her, you should see we've got a pretty good thing going with the team."
"Sure," I said, "We'll give it a shot, anyways."
He smiled at me, and I dropped my gaze, embarrassed.
I spotted a crab scuttling across the beach almost directly below us. I reached out with my power and stopped it in its tracks. Though I didn't need to, I extended my finger and pointed at it, then waved my finger lazily as I made the crab follow where my my index finger was pointing. Since Brian and I were both leaning over the railing, and there was practically nobody on the Boardwalk that wasn't busy with work or getting their store opened for the day, I was pretty certain nobody else would figure out what I was doing.
Brian saw the crab dancing in circles and figure eights and smiled. Conspiratorially, he leaned closer to me and whispered, "You can control crabs, too?"
I nodded, feeling just a bit of a thrill at how we were huddled like this, sharing secrets while the people around us were totally in the dark. I told him, "I used to think I could control anything with an exoskeleton or shell. But I can control earthworms too, among other things, and they don't have shells. I think all it takes is that they have to have very simple brains."
I made it run in circles and figure eights for a short while longer, then released it to go about its business.
"I should bring the others their morning coffee before they come looking for me. Want to come with?" Brian asked.
I shook my head, "I gotta get home and get ready for school."
"Ah, right," Brian said, "I forget about stuff like that."
"You guys don't go?"
"I take courses online," Brian said, "My folks think it's so I can hold a job to pay for my apartment… which is kind of true. Alec dropped out, Rachel never went, and Lisa already applied for and tested for her G.E.D. Cheated using her power, but she has it."
"Ah," I said, my focus more or less dwelling on the idea that Brian had an apartment. Not the fact that Grue the successful supervillain had an apartment – Lisa had mentioned that to me – but that Brian the teenager with parents and schoolwork to focus on did. He kept changing my frame of reference for trying to figure him out.
"Here, a gift," he said, as he reached into his pocket and then extended his hand.
I felt a moment of trepidation at the notion of accepting another gift. The two grand they had given me was a weight on my conscience already. Still, it would look bad if I didn't accept. I
made myself put my hand under his, and he dropped a key with a short beaded chain looped through it into my palm.
"That's to our place," he told me, "And I mean that. Ours as in yours too. You're free to come by any time, even if nobody is there. Kick back and watch TV, eat our food, track mud on our floor, yell at the others for tracking mud on the floor, whatever."
"Thank you," I said, surprising myself by actually meaning it.
"You going to come by after school, or should I meet you here again tomorrow morning?"
I thought on it for a second. Last night, not long before I'd left, Brian and I had gotten to talking about our training. When I had mentioned my morning runs, he had suggested meeting me regularly. The idea was to keep me up to date, since I wasn't living at the group's hideout like Lisa, Alec and Rachel were. It had made sense, and I'd agreed. It didn't hurt that I liked Brian the most of anyone in the group. He was easier to relate to, somehow. That wasn't to say I didn't like Lisa, but just being around her made me feel like I had the Sword of Damocles hanging over my head.
"I'll come by later," I decided aloud, knowing I might chicken out if I didn't commit somehow. Before we could get caught in another thread of conversation, I gave him a quick wave and started my run back, the key to their place clenched in my hand.
Heading back home and preparing for school left me with a gradually increasing feeling of dread, like a weight sitting on my chest. I'd been trying not to think of Emma's taunting and my fleeing from the school with tears on my face. I had spent an hour or two tossing and turning in bed, the event replaying over my head while the throbbing of my wrist jarred me awake every time I started to drift off. Beyond that, I had been pretty successful in avoiding thinking about it. Now that the prospect of going back was looming, though, it was impossible not to dwell on the subject as I headed home, got ready and caught the bus.
I couldn't help but dwell on the coming day. I still had to face the consequences of missing two afternoons. That was a biggie, especially since I had missed the due date for handing in my art project. I realized my art project had been in my bag, and the last time I had seen my bag had been when Sophia was standing on it, smirking at me.
There was also the issue of going to Mr. Gladly's class. That usually sucked enough, what with Madison being in that class and my having to do group work with the likes of Sparky and Greg. Knowing that I had to sit there and listen to Mr. Gladly teach when I'd seen him blatantly turn his back to me when I was being bullied… that sucked more.
This wasn't the first time I'd needed to psych myself up to going to school. Deceive myself into going and staying. The worst days had been back in my first year at high school, when the wounds of Emma's betrayal were still fresh and I wasn't yet experienced enough to anticipate the variety of things they could come up with. Back then, it had been terrifying, because I hadn't yet known what to expect, didn't know where, when or if they would draw the line. It had been hard, too, to go back in January. I'd spent a week in the hospital under psychiatric observation, and I'd known that everyone else had heard the story.
I stared out the window of the bus, watching the people and the cars. On days like this, after being publicly humiliated, getting myself to the point where I was willing to walk through the door was about making deals with myself and trying to look past the school day. I told myself that I would go to Mrs. Knott's computer class. None of the Trio would be there, it was usually pretty easygoing, and I could take the time to browse the web. From there, it was just a matter of convincing myself to walk down the hall to Mr. Gladly's class.
If I just made myself do that, I promised myself, I would give myself a treat. A lunch break spent reading one of the books I'd been saving, or a rare snack bought from the store after school. For the afternoon classes, I'd inevitably come up with something else to look forward to, like watching a TV show I liked or working on my costume. Or, I thought, maybe I could just look forward to hanging out with Lisa, Alec and Brian. Outside of the part where I nearly got mauled by Bitch's dogs, it had been a nice night. Thai food, five of us lounging on two couches, watching an action movie on a huge entertainment system with surround sound. I wasn't forgetting what they were, but I rationalized that I had no reason to feel bad about spending time with them when we were – for all intents and purposes – just a group of teenagers hanging out. Besides, it was for a good cause, if it meant they relaxed around me and maybe revealed secrets. Right?
As I got off the bus, a pair of old notebooks in one hand, I just kept all that in mind. I could relax in Mrs. Knott's class, and then I just had to sit through three 90 minute classes. Maybe, it occurred to me, I could try and find and talk to my art teacher over the lunch break. It would mean staying out of the trio's way, and I could maybe work something out as far as doing another project or at least not getting a zero. My marks were okay enough that I could probably manage a passing grade with a zero on the midterm project, but still, it would help. I wanted to do more than just pass, especially with all this crap I had to put up with.
Mrs. Knott arrived at the classroom around the same time I did, and unlocked the room to let us file in. As one of the last of fortyish students to arrive, I'd wound up at the back of the crowd. While I waited for enough space to open up at the door, I saw Sophia talking to three of the girls from the class. It looked like she had just come from her track practice. Sophia was dark skinned with black hair normally long enough to reach to the small of her back, though she currently had it in a ponytail. I couldn't help but resent the fact that even with her being sweaty, dusty, and a notorious bitch, pretty much every guy in the school would still pick her over me.
She said something, and all of the girls laughed. Even though I knew, rationally, that I probably wasn't on the list of their top five things to talk about and that they likely weren't talking about me, I felt my heart sink. I moved up towards the jam of students waiting to get into the door, to break the line of sight between myself and the girls. It didn't quite work. As a group of students entered the room, I saw Sophia looking at me. She made an exaggerated pouting expression, drawing one fingertip in a line from the corner of her eye down her cheek like a mock tear. One of the other girls noticed and chuckled, leaned closer to Sophia as Sophia whispered something in her ear, then they both laughed. My cheeks flushed with humiliation. Sophia gave me a final smirk and turned to saunter away while the other girls filed into the classroom.
Kicking myself even as I did it, I turned away and walked back down the hall towards the front doors of the school. I knew it would be that much harder to go back tomorrow. For one and three-quarter school years, I had been putting up with this shit. I'd been going against the current for a long time, and even though I was aware of the consequences I'd face if I kept missing school like this, it was so much easier to stop pushing so hard against the current and just step in the other direction.
My hands jammed into my pockets, already feeling an ambivalent sort of relief, I caught the bus back to the docks.