Fandango 1.5

Stepping from that dark and filthy factory floor into their loft was like crossing into another world. Downstairs, the machinery was rusting away, the air was filled with hanging cords and hoses, and there was a heavy layer of dust. Here, I was greeted with a comfortable lounge, a massively overdone entertainment center, a punching bag, cubicle-esque rooms, and enough free floorspace to fit most of my house in. Of particular note were the artistic choices; someone was a budding artist here, because the paintings on the doors in the hallway were excellent.

"Nice art," I said. Bitch disappeared down the hallway. Regent opened his mouth, but was interrupted by the slamming of a door.

An awkward silence followed, cut only by the peppy tune of "Beat It" in my ears.

Finally, Tattletale broke the silence. "Brian, could you be a dear and help me sit down?" Grue, who I guess was Brian, complied, and I followed, sitting down on the couch across from her. Regent plopped down on the far side of the same couch, stretching out to take up two seats, and Grue headed into the kitchen area.

"So, hi. We didn't get to talk much last night. First off, thanks for saving our asses." She grinned. I swear, she looked like a cartoon fox, and the freckles didn't do much to dispel the look. "And in such a cathartic fashion, too. You would not believe how much fun I had watching the helmetcam footage today."

Next to me, Regent let out a laugh, then coughed. "Been doing way too much laughing today," he commented after recovering. "You mind filling us in on what the hell you did to those guys?"

"Alec, maybe wait a minute before interrogating her?" Gru- Brian returned, carrying something. He strode over, offering me what turned out to be a lunchbox, probably a collectible one, with a likeness of Alexandria on it.

Mixed feelings struck me as I looked at the image; as a kid, all I ever wanted was to be a hero, to be like Alexandria, but here I was, about to join a team of villains. It wasn't my fault; the system was biased and broken; but I would never be the hero I wanted to be, and it hadn't really sunk in till now.

I opened the lunchbox, glancing over the stacks of bills, then set it aside. Grue – Brian – spoke.

"Two thousand cash, all clean money. Like I said last night, we can't thank you enough."

I nodded, focusing on my music to break my stupor. Showin' how funky and strong is your fight…

He took the black-and-purple beanbag chair from near the tv, brought it over to face the couch and Tattletale's armchair, and plopped down into it. He gestured to the lunchbox.

"It's yours, regardless of where we go from here. You could walk out right now, and as long as you didn't mess with our lives outside the Undersiders, we'd have no problems." He paused, frowning, as he thought over what he just said. "I didn't mean… look, I'm sorry, I said that wrong. I just mean that we don't want to pressure you or anything. We'd like to ask you to join the team."

There it was. They wanted a new member, and seemed like okay people. Was I ready for this?

"I have a few questions, before I make any decisions."

He nodded, as did Tattletale. "Sure thing, fire away."

"Criminal histories? Anything bad?"

Tattletale looked uncomfortable, but answered. "We do hit-and runs, mostly. No long-term kidnapping, no murder, as little fighting as we can. As for criminal histories, you know some of Rachel's, although I should mention that the murders on her record were accidental. She just makes dogs strong, if they're untrained she can't control them. So the first one she made big… you get the idea. Other than that, it's mostly theft and minor assault." Regent – Alec, I reminded myself – adjusted his seating, and Tattletale glanced his way before asking, "Next question?"

I thought about it. "Why is Rachel not here for this? You guys are a team, right?"

Brian answered this one. "Rachel doesn't get along well with others, and is understandably opposed to splitting future takes five ways instead of four. She puts most of her money into dog care."

"Okay…" Maybe I can work something out with her. Actually, doing work with dogs might even make a good cover story. It wouldn't cover the money, but I didn't exactly have a plan for that. Speaking of which… "Money management. Can't exactly keep money in cash, right?"

Tattletale's knowing grin grew ever wider. "Our backer sets us up with a third-party banker called The Number Man. Not only is the monitoring so good that I doubt I could steal from him, but the guy invests a bit of the money, and I've yet to see my bank account drop."

Okay, it was all sounding good. At this point, I was probably just stalling. I stood up.

"Bathroom's the middle door on the far side," Tattletale said as I stood. I gave her a nod, heading over with tote in hand.

I closed the door, catching myself in the mirror for a moment before I began to change. Into the bag went the dark fabric, and on went the jeans and t-shirt, the glasses, the headphones. I brushed my hair out with my fingers, staring myself down in the mirror.

This was it. The moment of truth. Doubts rushed through my head- what if they didn't want a gawky girl? What if they wanted to betray me? What if I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life? My hand clenched around the mask, gripped the edges of the porcelain sink.

"You can do this, Taylor," I murmured to the girl in the mirror. "You're strong, you're confident, and you can do this." I took a deep breath in, then let it out, whispers of the song in my ears brushing my lips in a familiar and comforting way. My arms relaxed, and I turned away from the mirror, dropping the mask into the tote bag and gathering it up.

I opened the door, and stepped out into the vast living area. Heads turned to face me, a mixture of expressions taking in all my little flaws. I spoke.

"I'm Taylor. Nice to meet you all."

A pause.

Alec snorted. "Nice intro, dork."

Brian reached over and smacked his arm as I crossed the room. I strode past the pair, hooking up my mp3 player to the speaker system. I picked out a rather appropriate song: Smooth Criminal.

The choice earned smiles as I walked back over and plopped onto the couch, shoving aside Alec's feet.

"So, as I was saying…" began Alec, "How the hell did you make Lung do a conga line?"

"It's my power," I said, shrugging. "I make things dance."

"That is easily the best power description I've ever heard," he replied, deadpan.

I really just had no idea how to respond to that. "Umm… thanks?"

"You're welcome, dancing queen." Nonono, line in the sand time.

"No, don't you dare start that! I'm not going to be called "Dancing Queen", it just sounds stupid!"

He just smirked. Brian intervened before any more banter could be exchanged.

"Alright then. In case you didn't catch it yet, I'm Brian, he's an idiot, this is Lisa, and Bitch is also known on occasion as Rachel. I think we should go around and talk over our powers." Alec looked bored by the suggestion, but he cut him off. "We can go over your powers after Lisa explains her power, for reasons that will shortly become obvious. Lise?"

She turned to me, smiling, but not in the almost vulpine fashion that she seemed to enjoy. A friendly smile. "I try to pass my power off as being psychic, on the rare occasion I've had to confront someone with it, but really, it's more like being Sherlock Holmes. I get random facts and information from everything, lets me ferret out details like passwords, weaknesses, quirks of powers, et cetera, but occasionally grants me the boon of killer migraines."

That… was terrifying. She could find out the deepest, darkest secrets of anyone she saw. I wasn't aware of any incredible secrets I had for her to spill, but still…

"I get it, it sounds scary. I can't blame you for that, although I should mention that my cape name doesn't really describe me all that well." There was that grin. Despite that, she seemed genuine, and downright friendly and open. "I can't really stop my power entirely, but I won't go spilling any secrets on you," she finished.

"Okay then. My power. Um." You're blowing it, Taylor. Be confident! "I can sense living things around me, and take control of them by making them start to dance to the music I'm listening to. After that, I can keep them dancing for a while, even if they leave my range. I haven't been able to make anything do anything that wasn't at least related to the song I was listening to, and I start losing control if I'm not listening to something." Plus, I really didn't like not having music on anymore. "Oh, and I slowly gain their senses as they get more into the dance. I think that's about it."

Lisa chimed in. "You've got more than that. You move to the rhythm of whatever you're listening to, did you know that? Steps in time with the beat, flowing motions; it's subtle, but it's there. I think you might have some extra spatial awareness too, although I'm mostly guessing on that."

"Jesus, that's a strong power," Brian remarked. "Though, I guess I should have expected that, considering. How big is this area, by the way?"

"I don't know, about a block on every side?"

He grinned. "Holy crap, Lung never stood a chance."

"Actually," Lisa interrupted, "her power gets slower as things get bigger, so if Lung had gotten too much larger, he might have bought enough time to get her, or get away."

"Got it in one. I got lucky last night."

Alec snorted. "Phrasing." I flushed a little at the implication.

"One more question, by the way. Where'd you buy the costume?"

Huh? "I didn't…"

"What, you stole it?"

Lisa came to my rescue. "She made it herself. Spider silk, right?"

I nodded. "Some Kevlar, too, but yeah." I smiled a little to myself, remembering how I'd made my costume. "I just make hornets dance, have them pick up spiders, and have them do some aerial acrobatics while the spiders spin silk, then run it over with another set of spiders and some sticky silk, and finally layer another sheet of weave. Instant silk cloth, although it's kind of draining on the spiders." There was nothing quite so fun as having legions of bugs weave cloth in midair to the tune of Ride of the Valkyries, or a Disney song.

"That… is simultaneously hilarious and terrifying. You weaved your costume like a Disney princess, but with bugs?"

"Yes?"

"Well, umm… good job. It looks like professional work." He coughed, clearly feeling at least a little awkward. "Anyways, my powers."

"I saw it described as darkness generation online?"

"I put that up myself, to make people underestimate me. It's more than darkness; it also kills sound, and Lisa thinks it can block radiation and stuff like phone signals, microwaves, all that stuff. I can see and hear through it, but it's pretty good cover, and apparently very disorienting. Alec?"

"Give me a sec." He adjusted his position on the couch, going from laying down to sitting up, so he could look at me. He seemed to be thinking about something. Finally, he spoke up.

"Okay, so, to everyone outside this team, I have a pretty weak power. I cause twitches, spasms, and cramps, and can only do up to a few people at a time. Good timing, I can screw with them in key moments, make them shoot themselves in the foot, or trip, or miss a punch. Weak, but useful, yeah?" He went to shrug, and winced, then continued, looking bored.

"I can do more than that, given time, though. I'm really mapping out the nervous system when I make people twitch, and if I spend a few hours doing that, I can control the person remotely. All their senses, all that jazz, but instead of a timer, it's a radius thing, and there's no dancing unless I make it happen.

"I wasn't gonna tell our next recruit about that part of my power, because I know it would creep most people out, and I'm probably not going to use it again. You, though, get to be an exception, because your power is really similar to mine, and while I'm not signing up for some heart-to-heart bullshit, I figured you'd like knowing there were others like that."

Wow. I got the feeling that he'd really put a lot into that, despite the flat, almost emotionless delivery. "Thanks, for that. It does help." He didn't seem like a talker, either, so it said a lot that he'd let me know about that.

"Don't make a big deal of it."

"Of course."

Lisa spoke up. "Well, anyway. Rachel pumps up dogs, makes them into the things you saw last night. She's really touchy about dogs in general, so please, no jokes about kicking you-know-whats. She's abrasive, but you learn to let that go after a while."

That reminded me, I needed to talk to her. She was currently in the back cubicle-room, sitting next to a dog, probably grooming it based on their relative positions.

I stood up, but was hit by a wave of exhaustion. Was something wrong? No, I realized. I was just crashing after an afternoon of being awake thanks to my good friend, caffeine. Crashing after I was already running on two hours of sleep.

"Shit. I need to get home."

Lisa frowned. "Really? It's already like 9:30, why not just spend the night?"

"Because I left a note saying I'd be home late, and that I was going out for a job interview."

She smiled. "Okay, so all we need is to come up with a good cover story. Easy."

I mean, that worked, but…" You can sleep on the couches, or in my room." Geez, she really did seem psychic. "We're gonna clear out our storage closet as a spare bedroom, just in case, but Bitch is busy, Brian needs to get home himself, Alec has a lightly fractured collarbone and ribs, and I'm sporting a broken arm and burns myself, so it might be a week or two coming."

I sighed, walking over and taking my mp3 player from the stereo, plugging in my headphones, and donning them. "Alright, fine. Let's call him up, assuming you have a good story."

And that was how I came to be employed as a tester by an indie game studio based out of Brockton Bay, and how my father came to meet my new friend and coworker, Lisa, over the phone.