0.11
[Days without Flooding: 7]
Robin looked at the counter with a strange sense of bemusement. Sure, it was probably installed as a prank by Assault or one of the Wards, but at the same time the speedster couldn't help but feel like this was some sort of bad joke, making light of an otherwise difficult situation.
Seven days.
Seven days since Oni Lee met a bloody end at the hands of Fontaine.
It would soon be two weeks since her first appearance, since Lung had been thrown out of the city. Never mind the mischief she got up to after that, visiting the Mayor of all people while stealing the ships from the Boat Graveyard in plain view of the entire city.
Strangely, he found himself almost feeling nostalgic with how the girl just… did stuff. No one just helped out. Not heroes, not villains, not even the Troopers. You needed to be paid, needed to keep your job and keep food on the table. And, yeah, most heroes tended to want to help people - but that didn't mean that practical considerations disappeared. Heck, most Tinkers got a pretty sweet deal on their materials budget working for the Protectorate and they were probably the most independently capable of capes when on their own.
"She's been way too quiet."
It would be nearly a week since the fight with Oni Lee and since then Fontaine had been all but incognito. Their sensors still picked up on strange movements going on underwater, signaling that she was still in town and probably continuing her earlier attempts to clean the Bay in a more discreet way.
That was a good thing.
Not having a rogue flaunting their authority every time she walked around in broad daylight to throw out the trash, well, it certainly was less stressful than wondering if there would be another fight in the middle of the city.
'And she did take out the trash. Human and otherwise.'
He might not be as harsh as some, but the ABB and Lung were the worst sort. Their existence had even aided the Empire 88 far more than anything else in the whole city. Now, though, the Nazis were back to being the most noticeable assholes around. A definite improvement.
But all the same, Robin felt ill at ease.
Fontaine stopped calling them.
"She hasn't made contact at all?" Sitting across from him, Hanna nursed a cup of strong black coffee. Not that she needed it, no. Apparently some parahumans didn't need to sleep, but he'd offered when she passed by to visit him at the communication room.
Just because their local troublemaker was keeping quiet, didn't mean he was off the clock.
Besides, he wanted to make sure she was doing well.
"Not a peep. A couple people thought they saw her a few days ago, but when we sent someone to investigate they didn't find any sign that she was there." And as far as the Protectorate was concerned, no news meant good news.
"She is being more careful now."
The speedster sighed, shaking his head.
"Or she is planning something and doesn't want us finding out. At least that's what that consultant guy keeps saying whenever they call me to report on whether she's shown up again or not."
Sipping from her cup, the veteran hero looked thoughtful for a moment.
"You care about her well being."
Grimacing, Velocity knew he'd been maybe a tad too vehement in his complaints.
"I'm not trying to excuse her or anything like that, Hannah, it's just that she is a kid. I doubt she's older than the Wards. Powerful or not, I was happy that she was at least trying to keep in touch with us before doing something but now…"
"You feel we've lost her trust."
"Didn't we?"
Miss Militia put down her cup, letting it steep.
"We're not responsible for her actions, Robin. We can't predict how others will react to them either. Oni Lee was projected to pack up and leave the city, maybe join up with another gang if Lung didn't surface. It never crossed our minds that he would try to do what he did." And she would be right. The ABB, while technically the smallest gang in town when it came to manpower, could get by on Lung's protection.
They should have left or disbanded.
It didn't make any sense to try and strike back when Lung wasn't coming back, it was just wasting potential manpower he could bring over to whatever new place he decided to hide at.
"Even if we didn't know what was happening, how did we miss the signs? Hell, how did the feds miss the weapons sales? You can't just buy a fifty cal and bolt it to a sporting boat. Especially not when the FBI confirmed they bought the thing in Boston."
"Well, do you want me to be perfectly, brutally honest?"
He didn't like the sound of that. Enough he hesitated for a moment.
"No. It's still better if you are."
"We knew. Arms dealer was on a watchlist, ATF had an informant in the group selling it, along with an agent. Plan was to bust them next week. The thinking was that we'd roll up the whole network in one go."
"Shit."
"Yeah."
So it turns out the Law had known the whole time. That it had been part of a "plan". And they had screwed up. But… that wasn't what he was getting at.
"Still. Someone else screwed up out of town. That doesn't change the fact that we are responsible. We are the heroes and this is our city, and yet we ended up sitting on our hands until the absolute last minute."
He still felt horrible over it, the fact that by the time they got there Oni Lee had already blown up so much property and nearly killed Fontaine. He regretted the fact she had to carry the weight for killing him even more. The world might be a dangerous place nowadays, but he still liked to believe it hadn't gotten to the point a teenage girl should fight for her life.
It was very idealistic, not to mention unrealistic considering the person sitting beside him.
Even then, Robin hadn't signed up for the military and then left for the Protectorate just so he could throw his hands up in the air and say he'd done all he could and the rest was up to other people.
"You're right of course. Which is why the higher ups decided to… amend our policies concerning Fontaine."
Well, that was new.
"First I heard of it."
"That's what they sent me here for. Since you're the only one who's built some sort of rapport with her, we would like you to try and set up some sort of formal meeting with Fontaine."
"Now they want to bring her in out of the rain?"
Hannah shrugged, reclining on her seat with another seat of coffee.
"According to them, before Fontaine was a possible loose cannon. There were concerns regarding her goals and behavior. And the chief concern was avoiding escalation or antagonizing such a powerful Blaster, Shaker, whatever she's rated as at the moment. Now, after everything that's happened, they believe that instead of avoiding her we should try to make a more concerted effort to bridge that gap."
Part of him was skeptical.
How could he not? Just a week ago their orders were to not interact with her at all unless she initiated contact, and now, after what must have been doubtlessly a traumatic experience fighting the ABB, they wanted the heroes to reach out?
After they were forced to sit back and let it happen?
The timing was just too convenient.
"And that has nothing to do with her being probably spooked by what happened?"
His fellow her gave him a look that burnt with exasperation.
"It is definitely a factor. Before, we couldn't predict Fontaine's actions and she was benign if frustrating. Now, we can't be sure what her mental state is looking like or what she might do in the future if a fight breaks out. Maybe she will choose to avoid fighting altogether, or maybe she's decided that treating criminals with kid gloves the way she did doesn't work. Next time she might leave more stains than people behind."
"And they want me to do it."
"You care about her, and she probably won't hang up on you or leave without a word."
He didn't know whether to be relieved or pissed about that. But she was right that he was probably the best one for the job. At the very least he wanted to check in on her.
"I'm guessing Colin volunteered?"
She snorted.
"He is still a bit hurt. She just ignored him and left, after all." And nobody liked being brushed off, especially when they were the leader of a hero team in town.
Robin chuckled.
"Assault mentioned he thought Colin was hoping she might be a fan, what with all the blue in her costume."
"Hah. She might be." Hana leaned forwards, hands wrapped around the warm ceramic of her mug. It was a beach pattern, of all things, with a sea star and palm trees and coconuts. Nothing like Brockton Bay. Nothing like her home. "But she's taken a life and most Americans are, thank God, poorly prepared to do that."
"You're feeling for her, too, aren't you?"
"So long as she doesn't keep killing, yes."
"Ah. We think she might end up with the Nine?"
"Unofficially, our orders are to contact the military and have them intervene should the Nine approach Brockton. Worst case scenario, Colin mentioned they'd pre-emptively authorized the use of cruise missile strikes."
'Preemptive' was a heavy word to toss around, with that kind of fire power.
Especially around civilians.
That froze any conversation for a long, long while as the veteran slowly digested that information. Eventually, one important thing percolated atop a sea of displeasure.
"So the upper brass is afraid of her?" Gesturing vaguely in the direction of the south, he elaborated. "Someone high up believed that idiot Thinker screaming his head off about how she was a 'pitch black void' when they tried to rate her?"
That wasn't a question. And Hana didn't bother answering.
Instead, she sipped her coffee, turned it twice in calloused, brown hands, and then nodded.
"They have hope, too."
He wanted to scoff at it, but it would just be taking out his frustrations on a coworker.
"Throwing teenagers against Endbringers isn't my idea of hope." Forcing himself to calm down, the speedster allowed his power to give him several moments to just breathe before continuing. "I'm sorry, that was uncalled for-"
"You have nothing to apologize for." She interrupted, eyes softening. "I think quite a few people feel the same way about the idea of it."
"But the truth is that she is just that powerful. Maybe an answer to Leviathan, maybe a way of just… putting Behemoth in something resembling a stalemate. Maybe someone who can go put out the oil fires still burning in Iraq."
"Apparently there was already an offer made. The Director is getting at least two calls from the other Directors every day. Offering to exchange posts or send extra personnel. I heard even Alexandria sent a sort message encouraging us to pursue whatever path to rehabilitation we see fit for her."
"They are being that overt?" He wanted to say desperate, but seeing what he did that day when Fontaine emptied out the ship graveyard, found he couldn't fault them for trying.
"Can you blame them? A little bit of the world dies every couple months. Eidolon tries his best. But the sheer scale of the destruction is beyond any power he could manifest that wouldn't just involve glassing whole swaths of lands."
"So the hope is that some kid, who just exploded a terrorist blowing up her hometown, is going to try and save a whole country next?" He closed his eyes and leaned back. "Jesus."
Hannah echoed the sentiment.
"In a way we are lucky she hasn't done anything drastic so far. Right now she is only a local anomaly, the only people who actually care are those who in the know, those who understand what she can achieve with that kind of power."
Robin sighed, pinching his brow.
"But that's only until she does something that catches more attention." And knowing the kid, she probably wouldn't lay low forever.
That was when his phone rang, as if to taunt him.
Atlantic Ocean / South of Greenland
"You know, when I said I was going out to look for treasure, I wasn't actually expecting to find a whole lot."
It was just a hobby she was hoping to pick up.
'Do not underestimate the sheer weight of materials a modern society consumes. Each of these trucks would represent a significant expense on their own, never mind all together.'
She floated about ten meters off of the floor bed, hanging above a broken, washed out highway still packed with vehicles.
Taylor's eyes lingered for a moment on… fragments of those who came before. Trying not to dwell on them, instead staring in mild amusement at the thankfully unoccupied, broken open bank car nestled between two crags. Literal piles of silver coins, long since rotted away packets of gemstones, and a mound of gold dust in carefully labeled plastic baggies sat undisturbed all these years later.
"Wonder who that all belongs to. Belonged to, too."
There was no reply, for there was no need to reply. Focalors simply granted her a second to run her fingers through more wealth than she could imagine as the teenager opened up a sachet of gold dust and twirled it around.
Diving into deep unexplored waters in hopes of finding neat little trinkets and maybe lost cargo she could haul to shore and claim had been a sudden, random idea. More sought out for an excuse to get out of the house than anything else, especially when she didn't feel like doing more exercise, than as an intentional plan.
Moving away from Brockton Bay and up north also let her take the day off and enjoy herself, while Charlotte was busy distracting her dad with an interview that meant Taylor didn't need to call or explain where she was… if she had a phone that is.
'We could procure a replacement. Perhaps a pager? Something less distracting but portable.'
She sighed, diving down to avoid a small school of fish as it passed by. It wasn't impossible but at the same time… a pager? Wasn't that kinda tacky, never mind old.
'It would be cheap if nothing else.'
The voice in her head had a point.
Taylor wasn't exactly swimming in money. Despite all her good deeds and helping the Union get their hands on the ships from the graveyard, she hadn't demanded payment for it. Even if her dad mentioned he was getting a bonus out of the whole thing.
It hadn't resulted in an increase to her allowance.
'Trash bag, on your six.'
Twirling amidst the current, she lashed out, forming a thin tendril of water that latched onto a passing sack of trash before hurling it towards the large bubble of water that Focalors had kindly offered to look after while Taylor was doing her stint treasure hunting.
'Tangled net, to the left.'
Slashing her hand through the water, a thin line flew through the cold ocean and split a bundled net that had been slowly passing by before Focalors bubble swiftly gobbled it up… only to spit out a crab that had been stuck inside.
"Good catch."
She hadn't sensed anything inside.
'You're welcome, also, a shark is about to bite you.'
Quickly turning around, she tossed a tightly packed ball of water at the predator as it charged towards her, only to be walloped by the bubble and turning around to flee instead of trying its luck. Taylor watching it go with a sigh of relief before giving her powers the mental equivalent of a stink eye.
That was a close call there.
'I warned you in time. Perhaps more focus on situational awareness might be good for the future.'
Everything they did would be turning into a lesson at this point.
That was how Focalors had seen 'teaching' her. Any time of the day, any day of the week, she'd tell her to do something or pose her a task to solve and she'd have to do it without any help or ideas on how to do it with her powers. Supposedly to get her to think more creatively with her powers, even if her solutions were still minimalistic, Taylor would admit that envisioning the result they wanted by comparing it to something she was familiar with did help.
Using a knife to cut a net.
Or a rope to lasso a bag.
Come to think of it, when she was fighting Oni Lee, she hadn't really stopped to consider how she was making those bubbles explode like mines. She only imagined them doing it and the water did its best to mimic the explosions she'd seen earlier or shooting it like the guns the gang members had.
'You have a solid grasp on envisioning the result you want, and with awareness I'm sure you will only grow more proficient with time.'
Positive reinforcement tasted weird.
But she was gonna take the compliment.
'I think this is the place.'
Taylor stopped, looking around. Just because she could easily move and even breath underwater, it didn't make her underwater vision that good, and being this far down meant there was little to no light to help her. Instead, she focused on the currents and felt out the small bodies moving through the ocean, some too small to be anything interesting, other being fish and the like.
Then, she found it.
It was large, immobile, and deeper than her awareness extended to. A massive hunk of metal sticking out of the ocean floor, its form cutting through the current like an ice breaker. It was at least half the size of one of the ships from the graveyard… which still made it a pretty big ship.
Now if only she could actually look at it.
'Please, allow me.'
As if a switch was flipped, numerous motes of light suddenly flickered to life around Taylor. Like fireflies with a soft blue glow, easy on the eyes, they swam around her, spreading out like stars over a night sky.
It was beautiful.
'Thank you, I've always had a talent for showmanship.'
How could she make things glow though? Their power was water, wasn't it?
'Our power is more than hydrokinesis, rather, one could say it resonates the most with water but as an energy form it exists separate from the physical.'
Separate but connected? Not water but a power that exists like water? Truly, Taylor didn't feel like she was any closer to figuring out what her ability's flowery descriptions and prose meant on a practical level. If what she understood was right, then her power was 'energy' and that energy just happened to have a connection to water.
'That is an effective summation, yes.'
Then how come she hadn't started off learning how to use this energy?
'Well, over-exposure to this power can have adverse effects on the human body. Thus far I have been regulating its output, allowing you to wield the power of hydrokinesis at a level comparable to that of an allogene in combat with little consequence at the cost of diminished quantity.'
Allogene.
Another new world, another explanation she'd need to figure out later.
For now she would focus on what Focalors was willing to tell her, whether it was helpful or not was still a matter of discussion. But Taylor had seen an improvement in how she used her powers now that she had a new angle to approach them with.
'We should be drawing close to our quarry.'
Ah, she could see it now.
With a net of light cast over the whole of the area, she was no longer limited to following, old, broken roads. Newfoundland had been "sunk", after all, and it was simple enough to follow old scars for a long distance.
Now, however, she could see a huge network of sinkholes - perhaps placed to cause maximum flooding and direct tidal waves to wash out huge chunks of earth.
There were flow lines where it seemed that St. John's had been… cut into? Dug into? Some odd combination of both, perhaps, by Leviathan's powers. An island couldn't actually be sunk, after all, it wasn't floating. But it had managed to dig into the bedrock below, connect different subsurface bodies of existing water, and then even more waves coming in to flood everything that could be flooded.
It was like turning the Earth into a balloon and then popping it all at once.
'More pleasant to imagine than the comparison you made to a zit earlier.
"Shut it."
Her words had no heat but Taylor didn't appreciate the reminder at her attempted explanation.
"Honestly, though, I just… didn't get it."
She could see for miles, even in the gloom, and the pockmarks were bigger across than her house. By a couple of times over in most cases. There were cracks, fractures almost, that zig zagged between them, and then a vast plane as far as she could see that had just slumped down on itself.
What little remained before hinted that it might have been forest.
Maybe. Possibly. She thought the occasional, jagged outgrowths of material suggested tree stumps.
And then, maybe a mile away, there was a city.
More or less intact on the whole.
Oh, sure, individual buildings were smashed, whole blocks washed away, but frames, the very skeleton of the port itself, remained intact. She could clearly see lines of piers, mostly complete buildings dragged down, and small pockets where the city's defenders had managed to erect shields and barriers before they went down.
Those were untouched.
Even their windows were still intact.
A little ways away, her goal, having tried to slip free from an inevitable doom, still lay there.
The ship didn't look that damaged and finding a place to swim inside was easy enough.
While the frame and body were intact, the deck had large cracks in it, areas that had collapsed when it had gone down, and, most importantly, the cargo containers were still sitting on the ocean floor next to and on what was left of the thing.
'So it was medical supplies the ship carried?'
"Hmm? Oh, no, ah, Masamune, I think, was a Tinker. The city was trialing some of his stuff that could try to mass produce certain medical items. Apparently he donated the device and Dragon was gonna study it and there was talk of setting up an international hospital area if it worked out."
'And such a device would be immensely powerful and profitable. I see. Now, tell me why it hasn't been recovered?'
"Uhhhh the computer said because there was a conflict over ownership of the device and permission for salvage operations couldn't be granted. But then you told me to read between the lines and I think it's because the whole affair was humiliating for Canada? They didn't want a bunch of people poking around the site of their greatest failure in, well, probably ever. And it didn't help when Masamune put a ten million dollar bounty out for the recovery of his machinery because of all that and then, well, you know… Dragon got shot out of the sky, twice, by some crazies trying to just give it back."
'Which meant that there was a vested interest in stopping the recovery of the machine. Or, rather, that is the assumption I operate under at the moment.'
"Because people are assholes and rich assholes figured they could lose a bunch of money. And fuck the people who could benefit from such a machine." If the shoe fit the assholes who left the ship graveyard to rot, it certainly would the ones behind this.
That got a somewhat amused chuckle from her head's other occupant.
"Perhaps. Though I would not put it so bluntly or simply."
The conversation fell into a lull after that, small comments here and there keeping Taylor's engaged as the delve deeper into the ruins of Newfoundland, the small lights of hydro, whatever that was, illuminating her path as she made her way through toppled buildings and upturned vehicles.
Had she been alone, this would have felt like walking through a ghost town.
Or maybe a graveyard, even if the comparison wasn't quite apt. A graveyard implied only the dead were left to rest in the depths. While the sunk city had indeed lost the people who once built it, new inhabitants moved in once the sea claimed it from the surface.
Fish, crabs, octopi. Small, strange beings that Taylor couldn't name off the top of her head.
'Life finds a way.'
The hydrokinetic frowned. Maybe it was disrespectful to seek solace in the aftermath of a tragedy like this. The city was lost, and very soon time and erosion would make sure nothing but husks would be left of it.
'And, in time, your kind will raise up a new city on a new shore. Perhaps for a million years or a billion or a hundred trillion. Time, if you live long enough as a race, shall cease to mean over much. But I can promise you this, death is not the end.'
Spoken without attempt at comfort, Focalors was matter of fact in tone. Almost cruel in how casually those words were laid out. And Taylor wasn't dense enough to miss the implications and unsure if she appreciated the knowledge that her mother hadn't ended when she… ended.
Choosing not to tug on that thread, her powers sent a small pulse of understanding through her mind, followed by a small wave of comfort.
But no pity.
"Thank you."
That, she at least could appreciate.
Nothing more was said as she dove down towards the ship containing her cargo and the motes of light gathered, winking out, until only a small halo of them remained about her head.
The ship had seen better days, not only was there a massive crack on the deck, but parks of the hull had been torn open. She could even find spots where the new tenants had moved in. A massive colony of barnacles clung to the side facing the surface, even so, nothing bigger than a fish dared approach her as she dove closer, a water crowbar digging into one of the warped doors.
Before something suddenly pushed it… from the opposite side. A pair of massive flood lights suddenly poked out of the darkness as a hulking diving suit emerged from the depths of the ship in the time it took her to blink.
Taylor couldn't help it, she floundered.
Tossing herself backwards, the protective bubble shield denting the cargo container behind her as she damn near shot through it, leaving a deep imprint of her body on the metal.
After several long moments of the two of them staring at each other, the diver, slowly, raised a single hand to make the ok handsign.
Taylor, swallowing, made the gesture back at them.
Still moving slowly, he gestured towards a small pack on the back of his suit and she gave him a nod. Reaching up, the figure undid a pair of clasps to remove the pack and opened it up. Pulling out a small facemask and breathing apparatus, he pointed at the ear of it and then pointed to his ear and back again.
"An ear piece?"
Her words might not have reached him, and Taylor may have blushed when she realized that, but the other person seemed to understand what she tried to say.
Holding it out, she made a long, thin tendril of water, snagged the mask, and brought it over to herself. Finding the construction a bit complex at first, actually getting it on was simple enough in the end, though she had to hold it in place.
Pressing a green button located on the bottom right of the jaw of the mask there was a small electrical pop, a crackle of static, and then a worried voice coming through.
"A-Are you… okay?"