A Darker Path
Part Seventy-Three: Tempting the Fates
[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Relevant Side Story
8:00 AM Saturday, March 5, Brockton Bay College
Faultline
"I can't believe … what were you
thinking?"
Melanie sat on the plastic chair in the dorm lobby while Brandish and Lady Photon took turns admonishing a downcast Crystal. Neither one was in costume, though everyone knew who they were; it seemed that they wanted to keep this low-key. For a given definition of 'low-key', anyway.
At the far end of the same room, while campus security stood around looking a little embarrassed, a similar scene was playing out with Anne and two older people she assumed were her parents. Outside the lobby, through the glass doors, she could see the redheaded girl from the pictures Anne had shown them, along with the other members of New Wave, including Glory Girl and Panacea. They weren't in costume either.
She wasn't sure how New Wave had gotten her villain identity. Maybe Anne had blurted out that she'd slept with a hero and a villain at the same time (this had apparently been a secret fantasy of hers, though maybe involving guys instead of girls) or Crystal may have let slip something by accident. It didn't matter now; fortunately, the Barneses and New Wave were just as reluctant to broadcast the full aspect of their respective daughters' indiscretions to the world as she was.
Of course, she had her own problems to deal with here. There was nobody coming to admonish her (though she'd half expected Atropos to show up, just on principle) but she didn't need anyone. She was quite able to haul
herself over the coals for such an unprofessional lapse in standards. Worse, she'd forgotten to lock the dorm room door behind them, so when Crystal's friend barged in instead of knocking, they'd still been in the process of waking up and untangling from each other.
The respective hangovers hadn't helped. Nor had the shouts of 'haha fucking WHAT?'
Events had rapidly gone downhill from there. Campus security had been summoned and New Wave had shown up in force, as had the Barnes parents. She'd been briefly interrogated by Manpower and Flashbang:
'
What are you doing back in town?'
'
Atropos invited me.'
'
Oh.'
After that, she'd been left alone to try to figure out her next move.
It seemed that to be able to give Atropos' name as a reference actually opened doors, or at least closed doors that she wanted kept shut. The actual cops hadn't shown up yet; neither had the PRT. The impression she got was that the College
also wanted this kept as low-key as possible, so they were dragging their heels as much as possible on informing the actual campus cops. Moreover, she was pretty sure she'd figured out why.
Finally, she sighed and stood up. She knew damn well that she'd never hear the end of this once the rest of the Crew found out; Newter in particular would probably fall over laughing. Even Gregor was likely to make a few jokes of his own. But that was for later. Here and now, this was the situation she had to deal with.
One of the security guards looked her way, and made as though to say something. She raised her eyebrows. "Yeah?"
"Uh … I think you're supposed to stay there."
"No." She moved forward, getting into his personal space. Involuntarily, he backed up a step. "The heroes on site haven't arrested me. You
can't arrest me, because you don't have that power. Now, I'm going to speak with them, and then I'm going to leave. If you think you can legally stop me, go right ahead."
She gave him time to think about it. It didn't take him long to figure out that he didn't have a leg to stand on. "Okay. Just don't …
do anything, okay?"
Anything that will make me call the cops, he meant.
"Wouldn't dream of it." She gave him a brief smile with zero humour to it, then made her decision. Turning left, she went over toward where the Barnes parents were still browbeating Anne.
They weren't yelling at their daughter over sleeping with both a hero and a villain and how that would look, so much as they were being Very Disappointed with her over drinking underage and making her father's name look bad. He was a lawyer of some sort, Melanie recalled Anne saying. Apparently, that sort of thing would lower the brand name value of his firm, if it got out too far. Personally, she figured it should be counted toward Anne's ability to make contacts across diverse segments of the population.
"If you'd just
thought for a moment before—" Mr Barnes broke off when she approached. "What do
you want?"
"Hi, I'm Melanie Fitts. I'll be moving back into Brockton Bay, probably getting a job with the Betterment Committee. And you are?" She held out her hand expectantly.
He was too much of a lawyer to not take that opening, shaking her hand curtly. "Alan Barnes, attorney at law. This is my wife, Zoe. Can we help you with anything, or did you want to offer my daughter
more alcohol?" The suggestion that she vanish back into the woodwork was almost palpable.
She allowed the distaste to roll off her back, like water off the proverbial duck. In her time, she'd been sneered at by experts; this barely registered. "No. I wanted to help you realise something. Your daughter is an intelligent, funny woman who was drinking moderately and safely when I met her. She had the good sense to accompany us to her friend's dorm room when she realised she was intoxicated, instead of staying there alone. What happened then was entirely consensual, though admittedly somewhat alcohol-fuelled. It was, frankly, a surprise to us all."
"It still
happened," Barnes senior gritted. "With alcohol
you bought for her. Tell me why I shouldn't have you
and the bar staff arrested for contributing to delinquency."
"You really want to go there?" Melanie raised an eyebrow; a trick she'd worked at getting right in the mirror. "If it gets out that the Rec Center has been serving students without carding them for years, the lawsuits will be
epic, destroying the College's budget for years to come. Every student who's bought alcohol who's still underage gets charged with a misdemeanour. That includes Anne
and Laserdream. People
will find out that it was you who raised a stink about it. I'll ask you again: do you
really want to go there?"
His eyes flickered, and she could tell the shot had hit the bullseye. "… no," he admitted, after a moment, looking down and away. That kind of shitstorm was something no law career could survive.
Melanie nodded. "So, here's what you do. You stop yelling at Anne and give her a hug. What happened last night was both unexpected and totally out of my experience, but it wasn't
wrong. If you can accept that and move on, forget it happened, everyone has a happier life."
Alan and Zoe both became rather thoughtful at that, but Anne raised her head. "What about me?" she asked. "What about … well, us? Do
we just … walk away? Forget it ever happened?"
Melanie chuckled wryly. "I doubt I'll
ever forget last night. But I'm thinking that before we start thinking about 'us', we need to see if there's an 'us' when alcohol's
not involved. I'll be around. We'll talk."
Giving Anne a smile and her father a nod, she turned and strode toward the other nexus of conflict in the room.
The Barneses, she figured, had been the hard nut to crack. With superheroes, she already knew which buttons to press. The fact that she'd been observing New Wave for years and already knew how they thought just made it easier.
They wouldn't
enjoy it, but that wasn't her problem.
Brandish—no, Carol Dallon—turned to glare at her as she approached. "You've done enough damage! Get away from my niece!"
"I could do that," Melanie agreed. "But you do know you're going about this all wrong, yeah?"
Carol's eyes flared with anger. "I'll—"
"Whoa, whoa!" Sarah Pelham stepped in between them. "Carol, take a breath. Ms … what was your name again?"
"Fitts. Melanie Fitts." Melanie held out her hand to shake. "Like I told your husbands, Atropos has invited me back into town."
"But not to—" Carol shut up when a square force field appeared in front of her face. Melanie was impressed; Sarah hadn't even looked around.
"What do you mean, we're going about this all wrong?" Sarah asked. "This is a potential public relations nightmare, here."
"It could be, if you kept trying to suppress it. Streisand effect, and all that." Melanie gestured to the campus security. "But if you just took your cue from them, it might all just … go away. The College doesn't
want a scandal. They don't
want it getting out that they serve drinks to nineteen and twenty year olds. And as scandalous as three women sleeping together might sound to you, it's not actually illegal. We're all adults, and though it kind of happened by surprise, it was all totally consensual."
Sarah frowned. "So you're saying … just let it go?"
"What about the tabloids?" Carol snapped. "They'll be all over this like white on rice!"
"Repeat after me," Melanie suggested. "'
So what?' Also, '
no comment'. If no big deal gets made of this, it'll fade away. Sure, it's up on PHO. We can't change that. But if we don't boost it, it goes away. The next big thing will take precedence." She chuckled. "
I'm certainly not going to make a big song and dance over it. I'd prefer my return to Brockton Bay to be as uneventful as possible."
Sarah blinked. "Oh."
Crystal stepped forward. "And that's it? We just pretend that what happened between us … didn't?"
Melanie smiled. "Anne asked exactly the same question. And I'll give you the same answer I gave her. Let's find out if there's an 'us' that doesn't depend on alcohol before we answer that question. I'll be around. I'm pretty sure I can find your number."
Carol stepped up alongside her niece. "I'll be watching you," she promised.
"So will Atropos," Melanie reminded her. "I know who I'll be paying attention to."
Giving Crystal a smile and Sarah a nod, she strolled out of the lobby into the morning sunlight. The New Wave kids and Emma Barnes turned to stare at her as she walked past, and she waved but did not stop.
The drive back to Boston would probably give the hangover time to subside, but then she'd have to find out if the Crew had heard yet. With her luck, they had. And they'd remember it a
lot longer than the public would.
Yeah, this is gonna be no fun.
<><>
The Supreme Earth
Tori Heflin
"How are our Earth Bet agents progressing?"
"Understand, Highness, that it has been difficult to slip anything through the White Rock portal since the outbreaks—"
"I
understand that. Now answer my question." Tori felt a ghostly hand close around her throat for a moment.
She was dedicated to solving her liege's problems, partly because this was the natural order of things, and partly because she didn't want to die. "They're entirely unaware that this has anything to do with Atropos. If they knew that part, they would probably refuse altogether. As it is, we had to offer them extra pay just to go into Brockton Bay and kidnap two teenage girls."
Goddess' expression twisted in anger. "They
should be doing it simply because it's me who's saying so."
"Yes, Highness, I know. Unfortunately, they've never seen your face or heard your voice, so
they don't know that."
"When they bring the two to the portal, they come through too." Goddess' expression hardened. "I will wish to thank them …
personally."
"As you wish, Highness." Tori knew she would pass on the orders verbatim. She also knew it would spell the doom of the agents, or at least condemn them to a lot of pain before Goddess tired of punishing them.
But at least it wasn't her.
<><>
PHO Reacts
Emma
The Boardwalk was nice at this time of morning, Emma decided. There was a brisk onshore breeze, and the weekend crowd had yet to make it feel cluttered. She glanced sideways at Anne, who was walking alongside her.
"So, sister of mine." she ventured.
"So," Anne replied. "You asked if we could meet, and here we are. We're on your dime now. What's on your mind?"
"I merely wished to ask some questions." She paused, thinking about her next words. "Clear something up for me."
"Go ahead and ask, but be warned." Anne sounded serious. "If you ask anything along the lines of '
what's it like' or '
how long have you been into girls', I am seriously just going to walk away."
"That's not what I was going to ask." If pressed, Emma would've admitted to some natural curiosity on both counts, but she took the warning in her stride. "I had thought that Our Lady in Darkness had forbidden Faultline from entering the city again, on pain of death. Was it truly her?"
"Officially, I have no idea what you're talking about. Realistically?" Anne glanced around, then nodded. "That's what she said, and I've got no reason to disbelieve her. She did say Atropos invited her back, remember. She's going to be working for the Betterment Committee."
"Ah. So it was Our Lady in Darkness who was responsible for her being at the College, then." Emma nodded wisely. "I had wondered."
"Wait." Anne stopped and stared at her. "Are you saying Atropos set us up together? That she
meant that to happen?"
"Obscure are her ways, and long is her reach." Emma turned her hands palm upward, as a way of showing that she was hiding nothing. "If she did, it was for the good of all. Thus is her purpose."
"No, no." Anne shook her head. "I need to know. Did she do that deliberately? Because if she did, it changes everything."
"I will consult with her, and put your mind at ease." Emma took out her phone and accessed PHO. If Atropos was indeed behind it, she would say so. She never lied or deceived.
Flowery language would waste time, so she opened a private message and typed in,
Why did you get my sister laid?
Less than ten second later, the phone pinged with a reply. Opening it, she read:
What are you talking about?
"Well, this is interesting," she murmured. "Our Lady in Darkness wishes me to clarify. Give me a moment." Atropos preferred directness, so she'd be direct, no matter how much she wanted otherwise.
Faultline and Laserdream, she typed
. She got drunk and in bed with them. You can't tell me you didn't have something to do with that.
Again, the answer came back quickly.
Huh, that's a surprise. I did invite Faultline back into the city to work for the committee, but I didn't think she'd do anything else.
Anne looked at the messages, raising her eyebrows in surprise. "So, she wasn't behind it? It just happened naturally?"
"Our Lady in Darkness does not stoop to lying about such matters," Emma chided her gently. "If she says she had no part in it, then she had no part in it."
"Okay, gotcha." Anne shook her head. "From the way you've been talking her up, she knows all and sees all. Seems like your goddess has feet of clay, after all."
"She is no goddess." Emma was indeed taken aback, but she had her Lady in Darkness' words to fall back on. "She has said that many times. But I see this as a test of faith."
"You do you, sis." Anne smiled. "I got stuff to think about, too."
Leaving her to stroll along the Boardwalk, Emma went to the nearest bus stop and boarded the next bus that was heading in her direction. She settled down in her seat, her mind still churning over the implications of Atropos' words. Finally, going back to the phone, she typed another message.
You seriously didn't plan this?
The answer popped up almost immediately.
Nope.
"Huh," she murmured. She was still
faithful, but that one admission was forcing her to re-evaluate everything she'd thought she knew about her Lady in Darkness. After a moment of thought, she typed that word in and sent it.
The conversation progressed as the bus ride went on. Sometimes Atropos answered immediately, while other answers took minutes to come through. She learned that Faultline was in the city as part of a 'path' to get her, Emma, to stop worshipping Atropos. This suggested to Emma that Atropos didn't know every step of whatever 'path' she was following to get something done.
She paused after coming in the front door to type out a longer post, trying to put her thoughts and realisations into coherent form. The conversation had given her a new perspective on her own state of mind, and she wanted to convey this before she lost it again.
I'm swinging back toward normal, she ended the post.
But I don't know if I'll stop there.
Atropos seemed to take it in her stride, as she did everything else. But then, after Emma had gotten a snack and headed upstairs to her room, a bombshell dropped into the conversation.
Anyway, you're going to be kidnapped in, like, five minutes. Thought I should warn you.
Just for a moment, she thought of trying to hide, or get help, but then she realised she already had the best help available. If Atropos knew of the kidnap ahead of time, she would also have plans to thwart it. A few quick comments back and forth confirmed this, then they ended the conversation.
Whatever was going on with the 'royal brat' (as Atropos put it) who was trying to get at her Lady in Darkness, she was sure Atropos had it well in hand. All that was left for Emma was to be kidnapped in
style.
<><>
Damsel of Distress
Ashley paused before opening the door and read the plaque on it again: DR PHOEBE TANNER. She bit her lip, knowing that she was going to have to knock, that Atropos would
want her to knock, but she didn't like going into things blind, and despite her talk with Mrs Yamada, it wasn't Mrs Yamada in there.
Her phone buzzed. She took it out and found there was one text waiting for her. A sense of inevitability came over her as she read it:
Go on in. It'll be fine.
Because of
course Atropos knew what was going on with her.
On the other hand, this
had previously led to her powers being fixed, and her ending up in an apartment that she
still had trouble believing wasn't a dream. With serious money in her bank account and shops within easy walking distance, she was eating and sleeping better than she ever had before.
Raising her hand, she knocked sharply, twice.
"Come in, please." The voice was warm, matronly, comforting.
She took a deep breath and muttered, "God, I hope I don't regret this."
When she turned the handle, the door opened easily. Inside was a rather informally furnished area, not like any doctor's office she'd ever seen before. A lady in her late forties, on the overweight side, rose from a comfortable-looking armchair, putting a novel to one side. "Well, hello," she said with a welcoming smile. "You must be Ms Stillons. Or would you rather be called Ashley? Or by some other name?"
Ashley considered this. "What if I said to call me Damsel of Distress?"
"Then I'd do that." The answer came readily enough. "Is that what you want?"
"Maybe it is." Ashley let a smile flick up the corner of her mouth. "But let's go with Ashley for the moment."
Dr Tanner nodded agreeably. "Let's do that. If we're going to be on a first-name basis, you can call me Phoebe."
So far, this seemed to be a painless process. "Sure thing, Phoebe. So, how are we going to do this? I've never done therapy before. I just got told I have to do it."
Phoebe sat back down in the armchair she'd gotten up from. "Well, you can sit down if you want, or walk around, or even lie on the sofa. Whatever makes you comfortable."
Ashley noted that the chair Dr Tanner had chosen allowed her to see the whole room; the woman wasn't stupid. "I think I'll sit." The other armchair looked inviting, and if they were both sitting, nobody was standing over anyone. She sank into the cushions and found out that it was as comfortable as it looked. "Yeah, definitely sit."
Phoebe chuckled companionably. "Yes, they are like that, aren't they? So, you said you were told to get therapy. How did that make you feel?"
Ashley wriggled a little, feeling the cushions enfolding her. "Not thrilled, but it was Atropos doing the telling, so I'm here."
"Hmm." The sound was non-committal. "Do you think she did it to be mean? To provoke you?"
"No." Ashley answered automatically. "Atropos doesn't play by those rules."
Phoebe chuckled again. "Very true." She paused; when she spoke next, her voice was serious again. "Are you willing to talk about why you don't like the idea of therapy?"
"No. Yeah. I dunno." Ashley thought she'd figured out why, and she didn't want to lie to Phoebe. Even if the therapist didn't know, Atropos would. "My life's been fucked up for years, ever since I got my powers. Most of the time I tell myself that I'd be fine if my powers weren't so screwed up, but deep down I know it's not true. Me going to therapy just proves that I'm fucked in the head even now my powers are good." She paused. "I'm allowed to say 'fuck', aren't I?"
That drew another motherly chuckle. "Trust me, Ashley, I've heard a lot worse. You talk exactly how you want to talk. I won't be deducting marks for language."
"Thanks." Ashley tilted her head slightly. "I notice you didn't say I'm not fucked in the head, though."
"To be honest, I'd be astonished if you
weren't suffering from some kind of long-term trauma stemming from your trigger event," Phoebe said seriously. "There have also been studies that suggest a power-based drive toward conflict, contrasting people from before and after they gained powers. Some people—not all, but some—became more violent, shorter tempered, more willing to lash out. Whether this is due to trigger trauma or a literal change in brain chemistry due to powers altering the body, is something we frankly don't have enough data on. Long story short, most capes need therapy of one type or another. Far more than actually get it."
"Oh." That was a shift in perspective that Ashley hadn't been expecting.
It's not just me. It's everyone. "So, um, I'm not your only patient here?"
"Doctor-patient privilege says I can't give you names," Phoebe gently admonished with a twinkle in her eye. "But no, you are definitely not."
"I can deal." If Phoebe wasn't allowed to talk to her about the others, she wasn't allowed to talk to the others about her. Ashley could definitely live with that. "So, what did you want to talk about?"
"Your choice." Phoebe clasped her hands in front of her. "If you can't think of a subject, I notice that Atropos seems to be an important figure in your life. Would you like to talk about her?"
Ashley nodded. "Sure, let's do that. The first time I met her, she put a gun to my head …"
<><>
Atropos
I was down in the basement, reshaping a bullet prior to replacing it in the cartridge case, when Emma sent me a private message about Anne. I had no idea what she was talking about, and told her so. Her response was enlightening, but I still had to explain to her that whatever had happened (as entertaining as the aftermath might be) I'd had nothing to do with it.
The conversation went on, with occasional pauses as I worked on one cartridge or another, but Emma seemed willing to wait and see what I had to say. In fact, as I tapped the last bullet back into place, I realised that this was the longest (and most civil) conversation I'd had with her in literally years. I grinned as I sent back the message,
Well, welcome back to sanity. Hope you enjoy your stay, however long you stick around.
A moment after that, some interesting information popped into my head, informing me that there were abductions lined up for Aisha and Emma. It had something to do with the text I'd sent Aisha the previous night, suggesting that she and Brian buy Theo a welcoming gift of some kind, though I wasn't quite sure what the connection was yet.
I already knew there was something going on with me, but I didn't have all the details about that either. My power seemed to be chuckling to itself in the background. It could be a real troll on occasion, but that was fine; so could I.
I passed the relevant information on to Emma, and she acknowledged it with a damn sight more aplomb than she would've before I'd gotten my powers. Whether this was because she was more scared of me than of the kidnappers, because I'd told her she was going to be okay, or just because she was still nuts, I didn't know and didn't care. We signed off the conversation, and I set to work refilling the last of the magazines with the altered bullets. One went into the pistol, while the others ended up in my pockets.
A timer was ticking down in my mind as I slipped Riley's canister into a pocket inside the crown of my hat. Emma and Aisha were supposed to be kidnapped in three minutes, which gave me just enough time to do what I needed to do. A ballpoint pen went into the pocket of my shirt under the vest; I wasn't at all sure what I'd need
that for, but I was sure I would find out.
Taking the teleporter off charge, I slipped my left forearm into it, then clicked it into place. I set the teleport coordinates to Emma's house and hit the go button. Knowing exactly what was going to happen next, I stepped into the portal.
An immense hand closed around me and yanked me sideways, right out of the world.
<><>
The Supreme World, A Few Moments Before
Goddess
"Is the diverter ready?" Bianca scanned each of the technicians for the slightest hint of betrayal. She would reward such with the most excruciatingly painful death, but all appeared to be loyal.
"It appears so, Highness." Tori gestured at the banks of gauges and dials. "We have a full lock on the teleporter she uses. It does not accept wireless input from outside, but when she teleports, we can use brute force to redirect her to where we need her to go."
"Highness?" One of the techs put his hand up hesitantly. "A word, if you will?"
"Yes?" Her eyes narrowed. His tone suggested that there was bad news following. She did not like bad news. Bad news was something she did to those who refused her right and proper guidance.
"The, uh, the diverter will work, but the power we'll be needing to pull someone across the dimensional barrier, to repurpose the portal, will overload it quite badly. There will be extensive stress on critical systems. We'll only be able to do this once." He wilted under her glare. "Apologies, Highness. I-I thought you needed to know."
"Hmm." Bianca wanted to crush his body into paste as an example to those who thought they might be able to fail her with impunity, but she chose to stay her hand. After all, she only needed to do this once. And it wasn't like she intended to allow Atropos to go
back to Earth Bet. "Understood. Carry on."
A buzzer sounded, and a yellow light flashed. One of the techs raised their hand. "The teleporter has gone off standby! It's in operating mode!"
"This is it, people!" The tech who had approached Bianca moved to a control panel and started flicking switches. "Generators online! Bring to full power!"
"Generators running at one hundred ten percent rated power!" another tech called out. "Cutting in power …
now!" What had been a background hum rose to an almost unbearable shriek. The smell of ozone permeated the air inside the vast building.
"Activating diverter!" Grabbing a large blade switch, the tech pulled it over. The shriek became a thunder, actively painful to the ears. One at a time, the techs fumbled earplugs into place. Bianca merely powered up her force field, keeping Tori inside. The sound was reduced to an acceptable level, and she kept watching.
A red light began to strobe on top of the main part of the device. "She's teleporting," Tori said, her voice raised to a half-shout.
Lights flashed crazily across the machines. Gauges exploded, dials popping out of their mountings. An electrical arc crackled between two of the consoles, frying a tech. One of the consoles exploded, pieces of shrapnel bouncing off the force field. Sparks flew as fuses blew, one after the other.
The noise gradually abated, winding back from thunder to shriek to hum. Flames crackled on several of the consoles, until fire-control sprays hissed and put them out. Lying on his back, clawing at the sky, the dead tech had smoke drifting upward from his clothing.
Barely any of the blinking lights or dials had survived; it was clear that the tech had not overstated the amount of damage that the diverter would suffer. But Bianca didn't care about any of that. "Did it work?" she shouted, dropping the force field now that the danger was past. "Has Atropos been captured?"
The main tech staggered to his feet. He had a cut on his forehead and a piece of jagged metal sticking out of his arm, but he looked over what remained of his prized machines. "Y-yes, Highness," he managed. "All readouts indicate success."
"Good." Bianca turned to Tori. "Send the signal. Take the hostages."
Tori inclined her head respectfully. "Yes, Highness."
<><>
Relevant Side Story
<><>
Theo
"Hey."
Theo looked up from the cartoon channel—for some reason, Riley found
Li'l Protectorate Pals to be hilarious, and it was starting to grow on him too—to see Brian and Aisha standing near the door.
"What's up?" he asked, already feeling easier about just asking the question than he would've been twelve hours before. Brian, he'd found, was very straightforward and direct, and preferred the same from others. There were no trick questions, no 'gotcha' comments. What you saw was what you got.
"I'm taking Aisha to do the shopping. Anything either of you need?"
Theo shrugged; there wasn't anything he desperately wanted. He wasn't even hungry; the bacon and eggs he'd had earlier had filled him up nicely. "Not really, but thanks anyway."
"I got a list," Riley piped up. "I'll text it to Aisha."
"Sounds good." Brian put his hand on the door and opened it. "We'll be back in half an hour. You've both got my number in case of emergencies."
"Don't worry," Riley interjected in a passable imitation of Aisha's snark. "I'll make sure nothing happens to him."
Brian nodded. "Works for me." He nodded to them both and left, Aisha following behind. The door closed behind them with a definitive click.
As Riley started to fiddle with her phone, Theo frowned. "Aisha didn't argue with him about going shopping. I thought she liked cartoons as much as you do."
"She does." Riley gave him a sideways
duh look. "They're buying you a welcome-to-the-apartment present, silly. He's taking her along to make sure they get something you can use."
"What? They are? He is?" Theo was startled. So far, he'd found the company pleasant and the entire lack of oppressive judgement thoroughly enjoyable, but for all he knew, they were just tolerating him because they had to.
"Well, yeah." Riley kept tapping on her phone while she talked. "Me and Aisha talked it over last night after we went to bed, and Aisha talked to Brian this morning. You're a nice guy who's been dealt a really shit hand, which kind of describes everyone in the apartment. But you haven't let it make you into an asshole, which is kind of impressive, so we like you. Aisha had the idea of getting you a present, and Brian agreed."
Theo frowned. "What sort of present?" He'd never been gifted with anything that didn't involve an ulterior motive before.
"No idea." Riley finished her texting and put the phone down, then gave him a severe look. "Just make sure you pretend to be surprised when we give it to you. I don't want to get in trouble for blabbing."
If there was one thing Theo knew all about, it was keeping his mouth shut. Max Anders had expounded to him at length on the subject of strength of character, then ruthlessly crushed any signs of it that Theo might have shown. Keeping his head down and being as invisible as possible had been his go-to for literally years.
Besides, he liked Riley too. There was compassion inside her, linked to a pain that Theo didn't want to delve too deeply into. Her earlier remark suggested that she too was someone who had been 'dealt a shit hand', though he was
not going to ask.
The hug she'd greeted him with hadn't been a once-off. She was cheerful and demonstrative and capable of both humour and seriousness, sometimes both in the same sentence. He respected Brian and thought Aisha's antics and occasionally crass humour were quite funny, but Riley was someone he hoped that Aster would grow up to be like, someday.
That random thought led to a place he didn't want to go, reminding him of the Empire Eighty-Eight and the way they'd fled Brockton Bay following the death of Max Anders. The last he'd heard, the gang had broken up and gone their separate ways, some being captured by heroes and some still at large.
He wondered if anyone left on the loose even remembered him. It wasn't something he was anxious to explore. The idea of some section or other of the Empire Eighty-Eight grabbing him to hold up as the heir of the white-supremacy movement was positively nauseating, not least because he fervently disagreed with everything that they stood for.
He was still musing over that when, with a shattering crash, the front door was kicked in. Two burly men burst into the apartment, pointing what he easily recognised as suppressed firearms. Theo didn't know who they were, but he certainly understood
what they were. Thugs were thugs, the world over.
Well, fuck. They found me anyway.
Wearily, he stood up from the sofa. "Okay, you got me. Don't hurt the girl, and I'll come quietly."
He was wholly unprepared for the punch to the gut that left him gasping on the floor while one man stood over him, gun aimed downward. "Aisha Laborn?" asked the other one.
"Yeah, I'm Aisha," Riley said immediately. "Please don't hurt him. He didn't do anything."
"Witness," the one who'd hit him grunted. "Seen our faces, and he can call the cops." He aimed the pistol at Theo's face; the muzzle aperture looked enormous.
"You don't want to do that in this city," Riley warned. "Atropos is the only one allowed to kill anyone. She's got a murder sense, and she can teleport." She said it with such surety that even Theo was almost convinced, though he was
fairly sure he hadn't heard about any such 'murder sense' before now.
"Atropos?" The thug's voice had real fear in it. "Fuck. Okay. We'll take him with."
As Theo was manhandled to his feet and forced to walk out the door, his jumbled thoughts spun in all directions.
Who are these guys?
Why did Riley say she was Aisha?
God, I hope she knows what she's doing.
Because there was no way in hell
he was going to be able to get them out of this.
<><>
Tori Heflin
Following Goddess into the main control centre and standing out of the way of the emergency workers who were dealing with the injured techs, Tori looked over the playback equipment. It seemed to be in good condition; nothing had fallen on it from the ceiling, and the power lights still glowed.
"Show me," Goddess ordered.
"At once, Highness." Tori hit the replay on the main recorder, and the large screen lit up. "The recording automatically began when we turned on the diverter."
The image on the screen was a cell, ten feet by ten, with a heavy metal door on one side and lights glaring down from each corner to rid every inch of the cell of darkness. A cockroach would have been visible, no matter how it slunk about. There were no furnishings, no amenities; it was an empty concrete box. The only thing that broke the monotony of the walls were regularly spaced grilles, four inches square.
"The walls are six feet thick, the door one foot, barred from the other side." Goddess hadn't asked, but Tori felt the need to explain anyway. "Knockout gas is being pumped in via the grilles."
The lights flickered briefly, then Atropos appeared in the middle of the cell. She turned faster than Tori would've given her credit, produced a shotgun from apparently out of nowhere, and fired six shots into the cell door; three down the left side and three down the right. Then she hammered her heel into the middle of the door hard enough to raise an echo in the camera audio.
It didn't give, of course, but any normal door would've certainly been hard put to take that sort of treatment. Tori noted distantly that Atropos had placed the shots precisely where the hinges and lock of a normal door would've been.
Reholstering the shotgun, Atropos pulled back her sleeve to reveal a sleek black mechanism wrapped around her left forearm. Flicking open a small panel, she tapped in a series of numbers, her fingers blurring over the tiny keypad. She flickered slightly, then reformed. Again she tried it, and again. Each time, she flickered but did not go anywhere.
"What is she doing?" demanded Goddess. "Surely she cannot be trying to leave the building. She does not know where there is a safe space!"
"She must be trying to teleport to the other side of the door, Highness." It was Tori's only guess. "When she shot the door and kicked it, it would've given her an idea of how thick it was."
After the eighth attempt at teleporting out, Atropos slumped to the floor, but not before Tori spotted her left hand moving stealthily. When she moved the recording back slightly, it was possible to see that Atropos had stashed her shears in her waistband, behind her back. Then she fell unconscious, or apparently so.
"What's the longest anyone has withstood that gas?" Goddess asked.
"Five minutes," Tori replied. She'd looked that statistic up herself. As it was, she knew that the damage in the other room had been due to the multiple escape attempts. Once more, and Atropos may have overwhelmed the diverter altogether, and been free to teleport wherever she wished.
"Wait for ten minutes, then go in wearing armour." Goddess glared at the girl on the screen. "I've poured far too many resources into getting her under my power. Take no chances with her."
"I won't, Highness." Tori looked at the screen again, where the black-clad girl was still slumped on the floor. She tried to feel satisfaction at a job well done, but instead all she felt was a creeping disquiet.
I truly hope this will not blow up in our faces.
End of Part Seventy-Three
