A Darker Path
Part Ninety-Eight: Knock-On Effects
[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Relevant Side-Story: Thou Hast Fucked Around, Now Find Out, by LadiesWhoLunch
Dear Beloved Friend,
I know this message will come to you as surprised but permit me of my desire to go into business relationship with you.
I am Miss Akira Sony, a daughter to late of Mr Sony whom was murdered along with the rest of Kyūshū by Leviathan on Novermber 2009, before his death my late father was a great businessman who had amassed many fortunes in electronics. I have many millions in funds that I cannot access myself due to the collapse of Japanese banking industry.
I am here seeking for an avenue to transfer the fund to you in only you're reliable and trustworthy person to Investment the fund. I want you to help me transfer the fund into your bank account for investment purpose. Please I will offer you 20% of the total sum of USD4.2M for your assistance. Remain blessed,
Miss Akira Sony
"And this worked?" asked Danny, his eyebrows raising.
Kurt sucked in air through his teeth. "Yup. I love my mother, but she's not sharp like she used to be. She gave this person all her bank information and two days later her retirement account was emptied. Nearly thirty thousand dollars."
"Dammit. That's terrible, Kurt. Your mother still lives in the Bay, right?"
"Yeah. She's born a Brocktonite, and intends to die a Brocktonite. Couldn't pry her out with a crowbar."
"Okay, well… No promises, but I'll talk to the committee. Maybe this is something the BBBC can make right for her - we shouldn't let thieves bankrupt people in the Bay. But you need to understand, I can't just write her a check - the BBBC's not my personal piggy bank. We're gonna need bank records, emails, whatever documentation you can get us."
Kurt nodded. "I'll get you all that stuff pronto. Thanks, Dan."
"Hey, what are friends for?" A thought struck Danny. "Hey Kurt, does she have money to live on for the next couple of months? If not, we could-"
"No, no, Mom's alright short term. And Lacey and I are helping her, of course."
Danny's phone chirped. He picked it up and saw a text from Taylor. "Tell Kurt not to worry."
Danny pocketed the phone. "Listen, Kurt, don't stress, okay? I've got a feeling your mother's going to be fine."
"Oh, we'll get through this, somehow, like we always do. But I just keep thinking… What kind of person does something like this? Just finds a vulnerable old woman and cheats her out of her life savings?"
Seven thousand miles away, Trader glared at the printed-out email in his hand.
Trader was a rich man, but not rich enough. The secret to great wealth, Trader knew, was unrelenting work and keeping expenses down.
For example, most people in Trader's line of work had to spend a ton of money on guards. Without guards, workers would run away, or even worse, be forcibly poached by competitors, and there goes the business. (Not that kidnapping his workers would do Trader's competitors any good, but they didn't know that.)
But guards, unlike other employees, had to be paid and treated fairly well, since they weren't going to prevent themselves from leaving. That kind of cost added up.
But not for Trader. Shortly after he had bought his fenced compound, he invested in guard dogs, who the seller promised were vicious. He kept them half-starved, and sometimes beat them, and one of them died and had to be replaced. But even with that expense, dogs cost much less than all the round-the-clock human guards a compound like his would require, and were probably more frightening to potential invaders.
They were frightening to his workers, too, but Trader wasn't worried about his workers trying to escape.
Trader still employed one human guard. Well, marginally human, at least. Minotaur bore little resemblance to the bull-headed creature of myth, but when you're nearly three meters tall and over a meter wide at the shoulders, you could call yourself whatever you want. Minotaur's skin was covered in rock-like growths and she shrugged off bullets like mosquitoes. Best of all, she never slept - couldn't if she wanted to.
Minotaur was so intimidating she didn't need to beat up the workers. She was there as a deterrent, both for the workers and for Trader's competitors, and the very small amount of work Minotaur had to do was a testament to how effective she was. She spent most of her time sitting in a specially constructed chair facing the entrance and playing Red Dawn Redemption.
Of course, normally one guard wouldn't be enough to keep the workers from escaping, no matter how strong the guard. The workers could just all run at once, in different directions. But Trader's power took care of that.
Unlike Minotaur, Trader actually had to work. He was constantly buying new contact lists, managing investments and properties, and recruiting new workers - a difficult and expensive process, since all his workers had to be fluent in English to run the scams, but also desperate enough to cross the world for what they thought was a customer service job.
By the time they found out that their job was really to contact thousands of Americans and scam them as thoroughly as they could, it was too late for them to leave.
Speaking of which… He nodded to Minotaur, who got up and followed him as he walked into the office where the workers labored, three to a table, four tables in all. Each worker had their own computer terminal and a stack of mailing supplies. None of these computers were connected to the internet; instead, the emails the workers wrote were routed to Trader's own laptop, in a different room, and Trader skimmed them all before allowing the emails out into the world.
As the workers heard Minotaur's unmistakable footsteps, the tapping of keyboards fell silent and all the workers looked up fearfully, some of them wheezing heavily, some of them with only one eye, some with the yellow eyes of jaundice, some pale to the point of looking blue.
Trader held the sheet of paper above his head, shaking it. "What the fuck is this?," he said in English - his workers came from many different countries, and English was the only language they all had in common. "What the FUUUUCK" he repeated "IS THIS?" He lowered the paper and read from it. "Stop what you're doing, free your workers, and turn yourself in to the American authorities. Do this or I'll drop in for a visit, which you won't enjoy in the slightest. This is your second warning. Toodles, Atropos."
"This was sent to my brand new private email address, which literally no one in the world has. Which means one of you idiots thought it was a good idea to sneak onto my computer while I was asleep and pretend to be Atropos, right? You thought that would get you free?"
The workers exchanged worried, puzzled glances. Finally a worker named Hua spoke, his voice horse and apologetic. "But - I'm sorry. Who is Atropos?"
"Don't you fuck with me!" Trader stomped across the room and grabbed Hua's shirt, yelling into his face. "You know who Atropos is! EVERYBODY knows who Atropos is!"
"Trader, they don't have internet or TV. How would they know who Atropos is?" said Minotaur, her voice rattling like a muffled jackhammer.
Trader forced himself to keep his temper when talking to Minotaur. "They know because they've been sneaking into my office and using my computer." He turned back to the workers. "But here's what you stupid shits didn't know - when she's not killing Endbringers, Atropos doesn't give a shit about anything outside her stupid little American city, which is literally on the other side of the world from us."
He crumpled up the paper and threw it into Hua's face. Then, to make sure the lesson sunk in, he plunged his hand into Hua's chest. Hua's shirt and flesh gave way like it was made of wet clay, and Trader easily pulled out Hua's beating heart. Hua gasped and fell onto the floor, staring at his own heart.
It was fine, Trader knew - the guy would recover in a few hours. Well, mostly.
Trader turned and walked to a table where another employee looked up at him, her three eyes wide, filled with hope. She was lethargic and horribly pale, which made sense, since Trader had removed her heart months ago.
Trader held the beating heart in front of her eyes, wiggling it a bit, then abruptly pushed it into the chest of the worker sitting next to her, who gasped and clutched at his chest - suddenly having an extra heart was painful.
But he'd live. They'd all live, until the moment they strayed more than a hundred yards from wherever Trader was.
For keeping workers from running away, Trader's power was much better than guards.
One useful quirk of Tattletale's power is that it's virtually impossible to sneak up on her, at least when she's awake. No matter how quietly a person can move, their breathing and their movements still move the air minutely, and Lisa's power notices.
So when Lisa stood from her chair and turned to find Atropos' black morph mask a foot away from her own face, she was if anything more shocked than an ordinary person would have been. She shrieked and fell over backwards, and would have cracked her head on the wooden desk if Atropos' hand hadn't shot out and adroitly rebalanced her.
After about a minute, Lisa's breathing and heartbeat slowed down enough for her to talk. "You… You're not here to kill me. You're a stickler for your rules, and I haven't even gotten a warning from you. I left Brockton Bay before I could get on your list."
Atropos gave a single slow nod.
"So if you're not here to kill me, or to give me a warning… you must want my help."
Atropos tipped her head. "That's your conclusion? Okay then, Tattletale, tell me: What can you do that I can't do better myself?"
"Well, I can-" Lisa stopped. She couldn't think of a single thing. Fuck! Lisa schooled her face, trying not to show her humiliation.
Senses your humiliation. Amused by your humiliation. Purposely allowing your power to read her amusement because that adds to your humiliation.
"Just kidding," said Atropos, and Lisa could hear the smirk in her voice. "As it happens, I do want your help."
Lisa blinked, double-checked with her power that Atropos had no intention of murdering her, then rallied and smiled. Not her best smile, but under the circumstances - a parahuman villain facing an unbeatable serial killer who specialized in killing parahuman villains - even a weak smile was something of an achievement. "And I'd love to help you! What's in it for me?"
Trader, dressed in jeans and a linen front-button shirt, was concentrating on prepping a contact list, so he didn't look up from his laptop as his office door opened. Lunch a little early today. "Just leave it on the desk."
"You know, I think I'd prefer to hold onto it" said an unfamiliar voice with an American accent. Trader looked up and immediately jerked back. A pistol was pointed at his face from three yards away. It was held by a cape he'd never seen before - a teenage girl, wearing a purple and black bodysuit and a mask. She smiled at him.
"Who- who are you?"
"Trader, right? I'm Tattletale, and I'm not the one you need to worry about. Don't go for the pistol in the desk. Stupid of you to keep that drawer locked, there's zero chance you'd get it out in time. But of course, you're afraid one of your workers might steal it." She gestured with her gun for him to stand up.
Trader stood up, lifting his hands to shoulder height, palms out. "Okay, let's both just stay, uh, calm. Calm. I'm not armed, I'm a reasonable guy, and I'm good at getting people what they want. So, uh, what do you want?"
As he spoke, he edged around the desk. All he had to do was touch this bitch once… But the girl moved to keep the desk between them, tracking him with her gun the entire time.
"Here's your problem, Trader: I know you're a striker - your power can't hurt me unless you touch me. And unless you're also a speedster - and whoops, I can see you're not - I'll shoot you long before you touch me. Now back up a few steps. Towards the door."
He did, saying "You've got this all wrong. I'm not a parahuman."
She smirked. "Well, I am. I'm psychic. And that means I can't be lied to. No, shh, I'm talking now. You asked what I wanted. I want to sit here at your very nice laptop and open your bank accounts and your investment portfolios and just clean them all out. Out of curiosity, how much would you say your investments are worth in American dollars?"
"Um, a little over, uh, two hundred grand."
The girl whistled. "Wow, fourteen million and change? Trader, buddy, you've done well for yourself." How the fuck did she know that?
"It won't work. I won't tell you my passwords." And where the hell is Minotaur?
"You already have. Psychic, remember?" She tapped the side of her head with the forefinger of her non-gun hand. "After that, I'll start the process of selling everything else you own, like this compound."
"Then I'll go through your records and refund every single person you've cheated. Then I'll pay your workers ten times what you promised when you recruited them. And after that, what's left will go sixty percent to the Brockton Bay Betterment Committee and forty to me and my partner. Then I'll take this very nice laptop, go home and order an expensive delivery dinner, which will be delicious."
"So that's what I want - everything you own, plus dinner. What's your counteroffer?"
"You think this is cute?," he snarled. "Little girl, if you don't quit this bullshit right now, I'm going to fucking kill you. I'm going to take your liver-"
From behind, someone grabbed his wrist and the back of his shirt collar. "Whoops, you must be going," said Tattletale with a smirk. Trader tried to yank himself free, but whoever was behind him pulled him too far in the direction he was yanking, and he somehow found himself spinning and sliding across the wooden floor outside the office, coming to a stop face-down when his head hit against a cabinet.
He turned around and sat up, rubbing the top of his head. There were three capes here, not including the bitch in his office. There was a big Black guy wearing a sort of karate uniform, an actual child dressed as a surgeon and carrying an old-fashioned doctor's bag, and a thin woman dressed in black with a broad-brimmed black hat, standing in his office door. Behind her he could see Tattletale sitting down in front of his computer and cracking her knuckles while smirking at him.
What the hell happened to-
He turned to look at Minotaur's workstation, set up facing the door, so no one could get in or out without her knowing it. He half expected to see her bloody corpse lying on the floor. Instead, there she was, sitting on her expensive chair and playing Red Dawn Redemption on the wall-mounted screen, her headphones on and her back to the room.
How the hell did they even get in here? Trader thought, even as he screamed "MINOTAUR!" at the top of his lungs. Minotaur jerked in her chair, then turned around, her eyes widening when she saw the three extra capes. She stood up… and up… and up. No matter how many times he saw it, Minotaur just had a level of bigness that his mind refused to accept. She threw off her headphones, reached to a table against the wall and grabbed up her hammer, a huge thing with a five foot handle made of thick hardwood and a concrete head larger than a human's.
"Minotaur, how the hell did three capes just walk in while you-"
"Sorry, Trader, sorry!"
"Fuck!" said Trader, standing up. "You fucking incompetent!"
"It's really not Minotaur's fault," said the tall woman in black mildly. Minotaur glanced at her, then did a double take.
"You take out the big guy while I get the other two. Then there's a bitch in my office you'll have to kill - I'd do it, but she's got a gun."
None of the capes looked concerned. The little girl was looking around. "Hey, this is fun, but aren't there some patients I should be looking at?"
"Through that door," said the tall women, nodding towards the door to the workstations. "Go ahead and take a look, we'll catch up in a few minutes."
The girl walked through the door and the big guy in the karate outfit looked unsure what to do. "Go, be with Miss Medic. That's your job here, right?"
"Okay," the guy answered. Deep voice. "Are you going to be- sorry, stupid question." He followed the little girl out of the room and shut the door behind.
"Minotaur!" growled Trader. "Why'd you let him go? I told you to get that guy!"
Minotaur was still staring at the woman in black, the rocky giant's eyes larger than he'd ever seen them.
"Excuse me," said Minotaur, in a remarkably submissive voice for a woman who sounded like jackhammers. "Are you… Are you Atropos?"
"Yes, I am."
"Oh. Um."
"Come on, get her!" Trader moved behind Minotaur and pushed her towards the woman in black, which had the same effect as if he'd been trying to push a cement bunker.
"Trader, she's Atropos." Minotaur carefully put her hammer back on its table and turned to Atropos. "I'd like to surrender now please?"
Atropos shrugged. "Fine with me. It's not like I emailed you a warning."
"You fucking traitor!" screamed Trader, jumping towards Minotaur with his hands extended. Minotaur turned, faster than he expected.
Trader woke up, blinking. Confusingly, the little girl was leaning over him, pinching his skin behind one ear. "A little pressure on the right nerve and - wakey wakey! Eggs and steaky!"
"What's - what's going on?"
"I think Minotaur just tendered her resignation. Oh, and thanks, Miss Medic." He looked up at the speaker, a tall woman in a black morph mask, and it all came rushing back - the warning emails, the smirking girl in her office. Atropos.
"What - but - why?"
"Why am I here? Because you swindled someone in Brockton Bay."
"I- I'll give it back! Every cent!"
"Tattletale's already taking care of that." Atropos put a hand under one of Trader's forearms and guided him to a standing position. "I would have done it myself, but I'm more needed to supervise you while"
Trader plunged his hand towards Atropos' heart. Too late, he realized Atropos had never let go of his sleeve, and his hand was yanked to a stop with fingertips half an inch from her shirt, even as she rammed her elbow into his throat. He fell back, gasping, and she guided his fall into a chair.
At no point in all that had Atropos' voice even paused. "...you go and put all your workers' body parts in their original homes. Miss Medic, would you mind?"
Trader had been gasping for air and getting none. "No problem!" chirped the little girl, who grabbed the front of Trader's throat and tugged, and suddenly he could breathe again. The girl babbled on while he sucked in oxygen. "I've just been examining your workers, and wow, is your power cool! It's like you're giving all of them a weaker variation of Aegis' power. There's a guy out there who's literally using his spleen to pump blood! I love that word, spleen."
"Anyway, I could put them back together, but that would take so many hours, and it's meatloaf night, and in the meantime they're really uncomfortable. But Atropos says you can put them together lickety-split!"
"No," said Trader.
"No?" Atropos tilted her head.
"I've read about you. The moment I put them back together, you'll kill me! And it won't even work anyhow - even with their original organs back in place, it's only my power that's keeping them put together! If I die, they'll die!"
Atropos said nothing, while the little girl - Miss Medic? - giggled.
"Oh, you're so funny! I said your power was cool, not that it was powerful. There's nothing you can do I can't fix. I mean, come on. But if you help out, it'll save me a bunch of time. Please?"
"Trader, I understand your concern," said Atropos evenly. "I'll make you a deal. You help us out - make everyone as right as you can before Miss Medic does her stuff - and you can walk out that door."
Trader snorted. "Right, so you can shoot me in the back."
"Not at all. If you've read about me, you know I never lie. So here's the deal: Help us out, and I won't chase after you or hurt you. Not with guns, not with knives. I'll leave you completely alone."
"You mean Tattletale or that karate guy will shoot me instead."
"Nope, them too. They won't harm you at all, apart from Tattletale bankrupting you. But if you don't help us…What I'll do to you will be so awful I wouldn't even describe it in front of Miss Medic."
"Hey! What could you possibly do that would be too gross for me to hear?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?"
Maybe "Miss Medic" wanted to know, but Trader definitely did not.
So Trader, burning with resentment, put all his workers' organs and pieces back in the original bodies while Atropos watched. He wouldn't have been sure which body part went in which person, but somehow Atropos always knew. "No, that liver belongs to the tall guy with yellow eyes" and so on.
While he was working, Minotaur walked back and forth to the storage shed, returning each time with the workers' confiscated possessions (those that Trader hadn't sold) and suitcases and passports. The karate uniform guy, whose name Trader never learned, efficiently cleared off a table which Miss Medic sprayed with some kind of mist before using it as her surgical table, opening up his workers and doing something in them with shiny metal tools that popped out of her bracers so smoothly they looked like CGI. And all the while, she softly sang pop songs, replacing many of the lyrics with "spleen spleen spleen spleen…"
Trader had a back-of-the-brain sense for everyone his power was keeping alive, something he was so used to that he didn't notice it. But he noticed it now, as one by one, Miss Medic worked on his workers and they slipped out of his awareness. It was like losing a tooth - you don't really notice it while it's there, but you definitely notice the hole where it used to be.
Once the last patient had gotten off Miss Medic's impromptu operating table, feeling his throat in wonder where his third eye used to be, Atropos secured Trader's hands behind his back with duct tape. Then she made an announcement to the workers.
"Listen, a terrible thing has happened to you. I'm not a social worker, and I can't make everything right for you guys. But if you have someplace safe you'd like to go, I'll get you there. Or if you don't have a place you'd rather be, I'll take you back to Brockton Bay, in the USA, and I'll introduce you to people who can set you up with a place to stay and a job if you want one. Either way, you've all got money coming to you, which I hope will make your transition easier.
"Also, I promised this guy that I'd let him leave alive, and I keep my promises. So I'll leave him in here with you for ten minutes, but be careful not to kill him, okay?"
"WHAT? NO! NO!" screamed Trader, as Atropos ushered the other capes out of the work area and shut the door behind her.
"All done?"
Tattletale smiled, Trader's expensive laptop tucked under one arm. "Basically. I'll have little bits of follow-up work for weeks, especially after his real estate is sold, but nothing I can't manage from home. And every cent due will be put into the accounts we agreed on."
They all ignored the thumping noises and groans coming from behind the door to the workstation room.
"I know they will. Good work, Tattletale. You've met Tenebrae, I know," said Atropos.
"Have I? Gee, I can't remember," said Lisa sweetly, while Brian glared at her. She blew him a kiss.
"But have you met Miss Medic?" Atropos continued, gesturing towards Riley, who was packing up some of her supplies. Riley turned around and accepted the hand Lisa held out.
"We've never met in person, Miss Medic, but I really admire your…" As she saw Riley closely for the first time, Lisa's eyes widened. She yanked her hand out of Riley's grip, shrieking briefly, and would have fallen onto the floor if Atropos hadn't caught her and set her upright. "You sure fall down a lot," Atropos commented.
"How - what - how?" said Tattletale, staring in abject terror at Riley, who shrugged and turned back to her packing.
"Something wrong, Tattletale?" said Brian, smiling maliciously.
A while later, after Minotaur had left (taking the XBox with her, after asking Atropos' permission), Miss Medic examined the bruise-covered Trader and declared him fit enough to go "give or take a few teeth." Atropos cut the duct tape holding his hands together so smoothly he never saw the knife.
"Well, Trader, a deal's a deal." She gestured towards the open door to the outside.
"You never said anything about letting them beat me up!"
Atropos shrugged. "Never said I wouldn't. Besides, let's face it - you're a literal slaver. You deserve so much worse." She held out something to him, and he reflexively took it. His passport and his wallet. There was some sort of grit on the wallet, which he brushed off. "Bye now."
There was a pause. Something in the back of Trader's mind was urging him to lunge forward and see how smug Atropos could be with only one lung. But now that he'd had some time to think about it, he realized that attacking someone who'd literally killed an endbringer would be idiotic. Better to live and start over.
From nothing. Years of his hard work, gone. It was so unfair!
It seemed wrong to walk away, but Trader couldn't think of a single thing to say or do that would help. So he turned and limped out the door into the dim night.
The heavy door shut behind him and he limped along the path running next to the main building, trying to plan what he'd do next. But as he was approaching the main gate, a rough voice with an American accent said, "These your dogs?"
He turned tiredly. Around the building's corner, where he hadn't looked, a teenage girl stood glaring at him. She was stocky and had blunt-cut hair. She was holding two chains, and at the end of each chain was one of his supposedly ferocious guard dogs, lying docilely on the ground.
First Minotaur, now the dogs. No such thing as good help.
"Keep 'em," he spat.
"No fucking kidding I'm keeping them," growled the girl. She walked towards him with large steps, and he backed up until he bumped into a rough wall. Wait, am I at the shed? He didn't dare turn around to look.
"Your dogs have been starved and abused. Which means you're one of those fucking assholes who thinks that starvation and abuse makes better guard dogs because you're too lazy and stupid to learn how to train them!"
At some point she'd dropped his dogs' chains, but they didn't attack her. The traitors just lay on the dirt, watching with odd alertness.
"Listen, I can explain," Trader said, then lunged forward to snatch out the girl's heart. But she made a clicking noise with her tongue and the wall behind him abruptly slammed into his back like a truck, so hard he was thrown into the gravel and slid several feet.
Hands and cheek stinging, Trader rolled over and almost had a heart attack.
There was a… thing standing over him. A giant lizard monster made of jumbled bone and muscle and dripping blood and the most enormous fangs he'd ever seen. He felt something wet land on his chest, and didn't know if it was drool or blood.
"You think I'm a fucking idiot?" hissed the girl. "Lisa told me you were a freaking striker. You think I'd let you touch me?"
He gawked at the beast, too terrified even to scream, as he heard the girl say "Brutus, maim."
We now return you to the regularly scheduled lack of reality ...
2:30 PM, Friday March 18
Brockton Bay Betterment Committee Offices
Danny Hebert
The knock on the door was firm yet tentative, mainly because the person doing the knocking was worried about accidentally breaking the door. Of course, Danny knew exactly who it was; they were here to see him on Betterment Committee business, so he was aware of everything he needed to know about them. "Come in," he called.
When the door opened, he restrained the rise in his eyebrows, because the person on the other side of the doorway was big. The interesting thing was, she wasn't that much larger than, say, Manpower (and she was considerably shorter than Menja or Fenja had been when grown to full height) but she radiated the impression of being much larger than she really was. (He was under no illusions about her gender; while her shapeless clothing and her power's effects on her body made it hard to tell, his own power filled him in anyway.)
"Uh, thank you," she said in a voice that sounded like granite being crushed, ducking reflexively under the doorframe, even though it wasn't required. The room he'd set aside for interviews of this type was on the ground floor of the Committee building, where the ceilings (and door frames) were somewhat higher than normal. After carefully shutting the door behind her, she lowered herself into the chair (appropriately sized, and reinforced as a matter of course) with the air of someone for whom seating usually came in 'extra flimsy'. "I wasn't sure if you'd see me."
"We don't discriminate in the Betterment Committee," he advised her briskly. "If you're willing to work, we've got work that will suit both your temperament and your capabilities. Now, you were recommended to us by Atropos after your last employment ended so abruptly. I presume she filled you in on the local expectations for ex-villains?"
"She did, yeah. Play nice and don't do crime, is what she summed it up as." She leaned forward in her chair, which creaked slightly but held firm under her bulk. "Mr Hebert, I'll level with you. Ever since I got my powers, I've never been able to get work that didn't involve some real shady stuff, or even just plain hurting people. I've done stuff that I'm not proud of, because I needed to eat. If you can get me work that lets me do my thing where nobody gets hurt or yelled at or whatever, I'll count that as a win."
"I believe we can find something in that line for you." He opened his top drawer and took out the small envelope and the form that he'd placed in there prior to her arrival. "Now, as for the matter of your accommodations."
"Oh, uh, I won't be needing any." She made a wave-off gesture. "I don't actually sleep anymore. So, you know, all I really need is a place to keep my clothes and stuff, and shower when I'm leaving for work."
"Everyone needs a place to sit and unwind, and perhaps watch a little TV … or play video games, for that matter." He smiled slightly at her minor start of surprise. "We've had 'big and tall' occupancy apartments up and running since a week before Atropos began clearing out the quarantine zones. They're mainly used by some of the larger Eagletons, but as far as I'm aware, a few are still available. You're welcome to move into any one of them."
"Wait." He'd finally drawn her attention. "Eagletons … that's the robots, right? They live in apartments?" The look on her face suggested that she was wondering if Brockton Bay occupied the same frame of reality as the rest of the world.
"Well, where else?" He spread his hands. "Like I said, everyone needs a place to hang their hat, where they can keep their things out of the weather. I've heard that some love watching TV, while others play video games, as you do, while they're recharging. A few of them have built up a real presence online. Winston—he works in the office here—had a book club recommended to him by some of the girls, which he attends regularly."
She shook her head in evident bemusement. "Sure, why not. Sign me up for an apartment. If robots can live in them, so can I."
"Done, and done." Danny ticked off a point on the notepad in front of him. "Next order of business. I have here the standard contract for Betterment Committee work. You'll automatically become a member of the Dockworkers' Association, with all the benefits that accrue therein. The pay scale is laid out, and if you undertake training commensurate with your particular talents, that will go up accordingly." He eyed her up and down, raising his brows for a moment. "I suspect heavy lifting and demolitions are the best choices there, but you might yet surprise us."
She leaned forward again and accepted the form and the small envelope. "Uh, what's this?"
"That's your pay card. Everyone who moves to Brockton Bay gets one. The latest stimulus payment is already on it, and there'll be instructions in the envelope for setting the PIN. Which leads us to the next point. You're a case fifty-three, which means you don't have a legal name in the system." Or rather, you didn't, until now. He was looking forward to the next bit. It was like a magic trick, and he didn't even have to learn how to hide cards up his sleeves. Taylor already had it handled; she had all the cards up her sleeve, including some that didn't exist yet.
"Yeah, hah, no." The massive woman's voice held a tinge of bitterness. "It's not like they can fingerprint me and find out who I used to be." The delicate pebbled texture of her fingertips would've made picturesque prints, just nothing that could be recognised as human.
"Okay, then." He placed both hands flat on the desk. "Let's get hypothetical here. Tell me, what name would you like to use, among the crew? Go ahead, pick one."
"Name?" She leaned back in her chair. Danny was pleased that she was relaxed enough by the tone of the interview thus far that she was willing to participate in what she saw as a harmless game. "I'm guessing there's a reason I can't just keep using 'Minotaur'?"
"You can if you want." He let a half-smile tweak the corner of his mouth. "Just remember, you're going to have to look a bunch of construction roughnecks in the eye, as well as ex-villains and Eagletons, when you introduce yourself. They will take any opportunity to deflate egos by making up highly unflattering versions of pretentious cape names. Ordinary names get ordinary nicknames."
"Great, so no pressure then." But her tone was light. "I think … Abigail. Abigail MacFarlane." She glanced at him then, as though expecting mockery. "Is that okay?"
"Sure. It's your name." He gestured to the envelope, drawing her attention back to it. "Open it up."
Gingerly, she teased the tiny flap open—despite her size, strength, and rocky integument, she had excellent fine motor control, he noted—and slid the card out into her hand … where she saw the name embossed on it: ABIGAIL MACFARLANE.
The look of pure, unadulterated astonishment on her face was gold. She stared at the card, turning it over as though the explanation for the trick was on the other side. It wasn't, of course, so she settled for goggling at him instead. "What … how … but … I just … how did …"
He smiled. "Welcome to Brockton Bay, Ms MacFarlane." The sense of satisfaction never went away, every time he signed on a new worker and made their life measurably better as a result. "As I like to say, we do things differently here."
At the Same Time, in New York City
Rune
Recalling lessons from Kaiser and Hookwolf on projecting confidence, Tammi walked with her shoulders back and head up, so that any airborne assholes searching for a scuttling, cringing fugitive would look straight past her. All the same, she made sure her hoodie was pulled forward to cover her face, and every last bit of her hair was tucked under it. Legend lived in this city, and he could literally read a newspaper from twenty thousand feet up, so she was taking no chances.
A police cruiser turned the corner a block away, and she ducked into a side alley. Her shoes had runes drawn on the soles, and she used them now to leap over a dumpster blocking the alley, then scramble up the wall. There was an apartment two floors up that was currently listed online as being for rent, so she'd broken a window to get in last night, mainly to get off the street.
It was only partially furnished, but she didn't care. The only thing worse than the heroes catching up with her would be street people getting hold of her while her guard was down. This way, she could make her plans with four walls between her and the rest of the world.
After the fuckup that was her meeting with the Adepts, she'd put out feelers to meet with other teams, but she figured out pretty quickly that the only ones who were showing interest had to be cops or heroes trying to catfish her into a pair of handcuffs, with a beatdown as an optional extra. Everyone else was ghosting her hard; she'd even found that her PHO logon credentials had been pulled.
Muttering to herself, she tapped the option to go in anonymously as a guest. Her posting capabilities would be severely limited, but at least she'd be able to see what people were saying—
Her phone screen flickered; when it reset, she was looking at a single line of white text on black. BANNED MEANS BANNED. Then that disappeared too, leaving her staring at her home screen.
"What the hell? How did they know it's me?"
Growling under her breath, she tried again. This time, the opening screen for PHO hadn't finished loading before she was booted for a second time, with the same message glaring at her.
"Seriously, what the—"
The front door of the apartment, which she could've sworn was locked, flew open, bouncing off the wall. Flechette launched in through the open doorway, changed direction by ninety degrees (leaving footprints in the tired linoleum in the process), and came at her. Her hands were empty, but that meant nothing at all. On her face was an expression of pure, almost inhuman, focus.
"Ruuune!"
The only thing that saved Tammi from soiling herself right then and there was the fact that she hadn't had anything to eat since noon. Even if she'd been prepped and ready for this fight, she knew she wouldn't have won. Flechette was good at that ju-jitsu shit, and the one time they'd clashed, Tammi had had her ass handed to her.
How the fuck did they find me? Letting out a screech of absolute terror, Tammi activated her shoes and dived through the door into the kitchen, kicking it closed behind her. The kitchen table was within reach, so she scrawled a hasty rune on it. But before Tammi could use the table to block pursuit, Flechette smashed the door open again.
Tammi sent the table flying at her anyway, but Flechette dropped to her knees and slid under it with the same sort of grace and ease that made Tammi grit her teeth. Nobody who looked like her should be able to pull moves like that, dammit!
Jumping into the air, assisted once more by her shoes, Tammi attempted to land a pile-driver kick into Flechette's face. Once the Asian bitch was down, she could maybe go out the window and make her escape. She didn't have a hope in hell of getting away without that happening, anyway.
Flechette rolled out of the way then kicked out at Tammi's descending leg, connecting hard enough to throw her entirely off balance. Tammi let out a startled yelp, flailing wildly as she tried to regain her equilibrium, but it was far too late for that; just as she got her feet under her again, Flechette surged up off the floor, leading with a palm-heel strike that caught her just under the nose.
While Tammi had never been hit in the nose with a baseball bat, she'd seen it done, and vaguely suspected that this was how it felt. Or rather, it felt like her sinuses had simultaneously exploded and been driven out through the back of her skull. In any case, she was entirely incapable of mustering any kind of response as she sprawled on the floor.
As Tammi's vision cleared, she made out Flechette standing over her, an aluminum dart in each hand. "Go ahead." The funny thing was, Flechette didn't even sound pissed, just … determined. "Give me a reason, you murdering sack of shit."
Every time Tammi had seen this particular scene played out in movies and TV shows, she'd thought it was bullshit. Why the fuck would a villain taunt the hero? It was a lot smarter just to let them think they'd won, then escape and come back for payback later when they weren't expecting it.
But now, in the moment, she understood.
"Go ahead," she mumbled, then turned her head to spit out the blood that was trying to trickle down the back of her throat. "Kill me. Get revenge. You know you want to." She smiled through bloody teeth up at Flechette.
There was no way in hell she was going to get the drop on Flechette without drawing her full attention. And if the Asian bitch was anything like her, she'd want Tammi to see it coming, which meant she would take her time. Better yet, if her focus was totally on Tammi, she wouldn't even see the table coming.
"Don't think I hadn't considered it." Flechette's tone was thoughtful. "And it would totally be satisfying as fuck. But I'm not going to give you even that much. I'm not Atropos, and I don't need to be her. I'm here to be a hero, and that means you're under fucking arrest."
Concentrating on lifting the table without scraping it against anything, Tammi gave Flechette her best sneer. "Big words for someone who's too weak to—"
The toe of Flechette's boot caught her under the chin and rocked her head back, sending stars flooding through her vision. She was vaguely aware of the table clattering to the floor again, then Flechette rolled her onto her stomach and began zip-tying her wrists. "Just because I'm not gonna kill you doesn't make me stupid."
The door was pushed open and the table scraped aside, then members of the PRT and Protectorate began to enter the room. "Everything alright in here, Flechette?" asked Legend.
"Yes, sir." Flechette heaved Tammi to her feet and shoved her at the nearest PRT trooper, who caught her roughly. "It is now."
Winslow High School, 3:46 PM
Greg Veder
Along with the rest of his class, Greg hustled out of the Art classroom, the rising hubbub of excited conversation almost drowning out the bell signalling the end of the educational day. Absolutely nobody had forgotten about Principal Howell's announcement on Tuesday, and the fact that many things had already been moved out of the school overnight served as a reminder to those for whom it might have slipped their mind. Classrooms empty even of furniture—apparently the old stuff was all going to be recycled into something more useful—passed him by as he headed for his locker.
And then he skidded to a halt, because there was an Eagleton in the corridor (or rather, a robot wearing a yellow helmet and a fluoro orange safety vest, so he assumed it to be an Eagleton). He tried not to stare, but it was difficult. Seeing one on the news, or even at a distance on a construction site, was pretty cool, but there was a certain amount of separation involved. Meeting one face to face—or face to sensors, or whatever—took 'pretty cool', beat it up, and stole its lunch money.
Holy shit. This is amazeballs. He didn't even spare a thought toward being frightened of it. Atropos—Taylor—had told the Eagletons to behave, so they were going to behave. (At least, that was his understanding of how things had gone down.)
As he pulled out his phone to get photos (because why the fuck not), the Eagleton stepped forward and stamped a locker with a large red X. A moment later, Greg realised that a whole bunch of the lockers already had the same X on them. "Why's it doing that?" he asked out loud, not expecting to get an answer.
The Eagleton's head (it was on top of the torso and had a bunch of sensors on it, as well as being where it wore the helmet, so Greg was going to call it a head) turned and it looked at him. "Am marking lockers as they are vacated," it said in tones that were clearly artificial without being robotic. "Once all lockers in row are vacated, row will be detached, removed and dismantled."
"Wait, we're getting new lockers too?" Greg couldn't see who'd asked the question, but they'd only beaten him to the punch by a second or so.
"Affirmative. New lockers will be more secure, and designed for student safety. For instance, built so that students will be unable to accidentally lock themselves in."
Greg blinked. As someone who'd ended up on the wrong end of the 'being shut in a locker' experience more than once, he definitely welcomed the idea of it never happening again. But … Was that sarcasm? It sure as hell had sounded like it. Whatever else he'd heard about Eagletons, a propensity for sarcasm wasn't high on the list.
That was when he spotted Taylor at the edge of the crowd. She wasn't pushing forward, or even trying to get a selfie, like basically everyone else. Hands in pockets, she was leaning against the wall, observing everything with a half-smile twitching at the corner of her mouth.
All thoughts of getting a picture left his head, and he worked his way around the periphery to where she was. She saw him coming, of course, but said nothing. As he took up position next to her—careful not to crowd her, of course, and totally incapable of looking anywhere near as self-possessed as her—she gave him a slight, measured nod of acknowledgement.
"How awesome is this?" He did his best not to gush, but it wasn't easy. "A whole new Winslow, and we've got Eagletons doing the rebuilding." And all your doing, he didn't say, less because it would embarrass her, and more due to the fact that she wouldn't want it spoken out loud. Nearly everyone knew—and she had to know they knew—but by unspoken agreement, it was never mentioned.
"We've needed something like this for a long time," she agreed. Raising her voice slightly, she added, "Though it might be a good idea if everyone just cleared out their lockers and let Jared do his job."
A few heads turned and a few people went quiet, then they whispered to other people, who in turn looked around. Fascinated, Greg watched the word propagate through the crowd like frost spreading over a windowpane, or ink seeping into wet paper. The silence spread, until everyone was diligently taking their belongings out of their lockers, reserving a nod or a quiet word for Jared Eagleton before moving off again.
"Jared?" Greg couldn't help asking. "Really?"
"Yes." Jared turned toward them, and Greg spotted the magnetic nameplate for the first time. "Dragon advised all Eagletons to choose human forenames. Will never look human. Will never be human. But can be equivalent. Names help."
"She had a point," Taylor observed mildly. "I'm pretty sure Joe Eagleton wouldn't have the following he does if he'd stuck with whatever his unit designation was, back before Atropos showed up."
"Heh, yeah." Greg grinned. "That guy's hilarious." Now that the crowd had dissipated, he nodded to Taylor. "See you after spring break, yeah?"
"See you then." Taking up her backpack, Taylor slung it over her shoulder and headed off down the corridor.
Greg noted that her locker already had a red X stamped on it, and that his own was one of the few yet left unmarked. "Sorry, dude," he said to Jared. "I'll grab my stuff and get out of your way."
"Not in way yet, but appreciated." While Greg was clearing out his own space, Jared stamped another three lockers.
By the time Greg had emptied his locker (and filled his backpack) the flow of people had slowed to a trickle. There had been more stuff than he'd really expected, which made the backpack more unwieldy than he was used to. Still, he managed to heft it onto his shoulder as he stepped back; Jared took the opportunity to apply the red X to his locker.
"Well, I'll leave you to it." Greg impulsively raised his phone to take a photo. Jared actually posed, saluting with the red stamp. "I'm looking forward to seeing what this place looks like in a week's time." Eleven days, to be precise, but he didn't want to try to out-nitpick a robot. That way led madness.
"Like a school, but better." Jared gestured toward the exits. "Shoo, shoo. Unless you want a job sweeping up plaster dust. Is probably a dustpan around here somewhere."
"Haha, nope. Pass on that." Greg grinned and gave the robot a cheerful wave, then turned and strode out of the school.
As had been promised, workers were walking in as he left. There were a few Eagletons, as well as people he suspected were capes (the skinny white-haired chick deep in discussion with the guy in the foreman vest had to be one, right?), though the majority were just normal construction guys. Outside, temporary fencing had been set up so the last of the students could file out to the narrow sliver of the parking lot that hadn't been taken up with machinery and building supplies. Even more supplies were being unloaded by the pallet-load on the sports field. Behind him, as the doors swung closed, he heard the first power tools kick into action.
He headed over to the bus stop; while he stood there awaiting his transport, he couldn't help thinking back over the conversation he'd had with Taylor. On the surface, it had been totally normal, but there was definitely a whole lot of subtext that only became clear with the knowledge of who she really was.
The best bit was, she'd treated him like a normal human being. While things in Winslow had been improving dramatically over the last couple of months, he didn't have many more friends than before (or any more, really) so it had been nice to share that brief moment with her.
And the chat he'd had with Jared Eagleton had been pretty damn cool too.
End of Part Ninety-Eight