All Alone
Part Eleven: Learning Curve
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by GW_Yoda and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal].
"Wait, wait." Officer Lagos held up his hand. "How do I get in contact with you, if something weird happens, or if I've got questions?"
I shared a glance with Dad. It would be unfair to cut the poor guy off like that, but I knew
I didn't feel comfortable just spreading my real name around. I was wearing a mask for a reason, after all. And the Merchants were unlikely to be the only ones willing to murder a cape or their family members.
"I, uh, I'll be starting a PHO account under the name of 'Animator'," I ventured. "Just as soon as we get home. You can send me PMs that way."
"And in the meantime, you can PM me on my Shadow Stalker account." Sophia added. "I haven't been using it much, but I'll check it more often now. Any questions I can't answer, I'll pass on to Animator."
"Before I forget," I said hastily, "you don't need to breathe anymore, so don't get too worried if you forget. Also, if you feel a boost of energy every now and again, that's perfectly normal. And we're working out the rules on eating and drinking. Food apparently still tastes good, but we don't know if it's necessary."
His eyebrows rose slightly. "Right. I hadn't even thought about that. Thanks a lot. I appreciate … well … everything." He held out his hand.
"You're welcome." I shook it. "Don't hesitate to get in touch if you need repairs or if you've just got questions."
"Okay, I'll do that." He turned away to his fellow officers then. From the looks on their faces, they were going to be wanting full chapter and verse on what had just happened. Not that I blamed them. It was a scary situation, from anyone's perspective.
"Hey," Sophia said as we headed back toward the Market. "We
don't have to breathe, do we?"
"It doesn't seem to be a requirement anymore, no," answered Dad. "Except for Taylor. She's still boring and normal." He shot me a sly glance of amusement.
I poked my tongue out at the both of them, forgetting that I still had the bandanna over my mouth and nose. "Well, your sense of humour needs to be buried in a shallow grave, so nothing's changed there. Why so excited about not needing to breathe anymore?"
"When I go into shadow form, I still need air," Sophia explained. "In the open, I can just absorb it. But if I'm
inside something, I've gotta keep moving or it starts hurting like a sonovabitch. I'm wondering if that's even a thing now."
Dad raised his eyebrows. "So basically, being dead has allowed you to act even
more like a ghost than usual?"
I was impressed; even behind the full-face mask, the dirty look she gave him was phenomenal. "Okay, yeah, I get what Taylor meant about your sense of humour. That was
bad."
"It was." I looked at Sophia. "You think your vulnerability to electricity might be minimised, too?"
"That's something we might need to be careful about testing," Dad cautioned. "We still
feel stuff, so our nervous systems are still intact. Biology classes all over the world use electricity to make dead frogs twitch … and our nervous systems are attached to our brains."
It took Sophia a moment to get his point. "Oh, you're saying it might disrupt whatever Taylor's doing to keep us up and moving?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying." Dad looked meaningfully at Sophia, then at me. "We might not be as immune to everything as we think. So it will absolutely be a good idea to be careful about things like that, until we know for sure."
"Definitely," I said. "Please. I just got you guys back. I don't want to lose you again." The idea of some idiot with a taser killing Dad or Sophia for real when tasers weren't even lethal to living people was scary.
"I'm kind of enjoying being alive … or not-dead … or whatever the hell you call this," Sophia agreed. "There's a shitload of potential in this, is what I'm saying."
"How about 'Animated'?" Dad asked. "You know, to go with the cape name."
Sophia's shrug indicated that she didn't care a whole heap about what she called the state of being back from the dead, but I thought it was a reasonably descriptive name. "I'm good with that," I said.
"Good." Sophia indicated a side alley. "Now if we're done talking about what to call us, you guys still haven't finished shopping for costume accessories."
I raised my eyebrows. This, at least, she could see. "Sure, but no corsets."
She made a rude noise. "Spoilsport. You could really rock that thing."
"Pass.
You wear it."
"Nah. Not really my deal."
"And it is mine?"
"Well, yeah."
"Nope."
"Sophia, stop telling Taylor she has to wear a corset."
"Eh, whatever."
<><>
PRT Building ENE
Director Emily Piggot
"Hmm." Emily paused in the middle of curating her emails and determining which needed to be kicked downstairs; as efficient as her secretary was, a few always snuck through the vetting process.
The one that had caught her eye was from Williams of the BBPD and was titled, '
Ongoing Breaker Effect on Officer K Lagos'.
Breaker effects were usually placed on the cape, not on other people. So unless Lagos had triggered—which she
definitely wanted to know about—whoever had placed the effect was a Trump, not a Breaker. Either way, this was something she needed to deal with.
Opening the email, she found two files within. There was a brief note from Williams, and an actual police report about a cape fight up near the Lord Street Market. She'd heard about that one; Armsmaster had shown up after the fact, decided that the police had everything under control now that the capes had moved on, and gone back on patrol.
Maybe he should've stayed a little longer, if there was more to it.
She started with the report itself; better to get the full background first than go in with false impressions. When she got to the part about the capes stepping in to save civilians, she frowned. Shadow Stalker she knew of as an often-violent vigilante, but she'd never heard of a Brute in Brockton Bay sporting a wide-brimmed hat and a cloak.
This can't be what Williams is emailing me about.
Reading on, she sat up at the description of the death of Officer Lagos, then his return to an effectively living state. The report ended with the name of Animator as the cape apparently responsible for Lagos' current situation. She went over to the note from Williams.
Director, it went,
I was there when Lagos was debriefed. He looks entirely alive, if you discount the fact that he has no heartbeat and no discernible pain reaction. He also held his breath on command for over ten minutes with zero signs of distress. According to him, 'Animator' is the person who placed him in this condition after his death. We're keeping it as much on the low-down as we can, and Lagos has been officially placed on sick leave until we can figure something out, but any insights you or your people can supply would be invaluable.
She sat there for a moment, pondering the implications, then clicked through the menu to re-open the file containing Lieutenant Grant's report on the incident at the hospital. A moment later, her lips skinned back from her teeth as she spotted the phrasing that she recalled from her earlier reading.
How many capes have eyes that go from shining like a spotlight to pools of darkness? She suspected that the answer, at least in Brockton Bay, was in the region of 'one'.
All the same, that may have been a false positive, except for the whole 'bringing back from the dead' aspect. She would've been more inclined to be skeptical about the concept—what happened to Lagos might yet have been a trigger event, or a genuine healing with some extremely idiosyncratic side-effects—were it not for Doctor Cartwright's expert testimony regarding the effects of Animator's powers. One data point could be an outlier; three (four, if she counted the dead gang member) were a lot harder to ignore.
Okay, then. It seems we have a cape in Brockton Bay who can return the dead to a strong semblance of life. More importantly, to the point where they can answer questions about such things as 'who killed you'. And then go and do something about it. She sat back in her chair, drawing a deep breath and clenching her hands together so hard her fingers hurt.
That power could be a game changer, under the right circumstances. Like an Endbringer battle.
She just wished she wasn't so fucking
creeped out by the whole idea.
<><>
Coil
God, I need a proper power base.
Thomas Calvert was a man with capital-A Ambitions. If he wasn't, he wouldn't have put himself in hock with Cauldron for the uncertainty of powers in a bottle. The powers had turned out satisfactorily, but the cost had been more than he could pay up front. While he'd almost succeeded in paying the money back, he knew they still had a week's worth of service they could call on him for at any time.
And as an ambitious man, it grated on him. He utterly despised being held down, held back, from achieving his goals. Cauldron had enough money, enough resources, that they hadn't
needed to bleed him dry and put him into debt to them.
Needed, no. They'd
chosen to do that to him, to rub it in that
they were in control at all times. He supposed that it was a filter of sorts; only those who were desperate enough to dig this deep were allowed to get powers. Cauldron wanted people who were hungry for powers, who would actually get out there and
do something with them.
He supposed he hated them for putting him through the wringer, but it wasn't as though he could do anything about it. His first meeting with Doctor Mother's
utterly fucking terrifying enforcer had convinced him that there was absolutely zero percentage in harbouring secret plans of evening the score. Cauldron did what it did for its own reasons, and all he could do was pay them off and make his own way in the world with the powers he'd been sold.
Once he was fully paid off, he could start building his bank account again, instead of riding it with just enough money to keep his expenses paid from month to month. He'd be able to see about acquiring a purpose-built base and hiring a crew to do his dirty work for him.
Right now, he was able to parlay his prior experience with the PRT into occasional work as a consultant; given enough time and a sympathetic ear (even if he had to bribe someone to offer one), he figured he'd eventually be able to ease his way back into the ranks. Just not yet.
One of his big weaknesses was that although he could pick and choose between potential outcomes, there was precious little he could do to influence those outcomes without muscle of his own. Even a low-powered cape with the right power offered considerable flexibility in his plans, more than a comparably priced mundane mercenary would allow him. Thinkers would be best, but he would take what he could get.
He didn't have any contacts inside the PRT building; his consultancy work had yet to gain him that level of access. However, he'd managed to subvert a few file clerks in the BBPD, which was why he was now perusing a report about a cape who could reportedly bring people back from the dead. Splitting time, he followed a hunch onto the PHO boards, tracking back through mentions of weird incidents until he struck gold with a claim of a zombie outbreak.
It had to be the same trio, he decided as he jotted down notes. A girl—calling herself Animator in the police report—and her father, and the other girl was Shadow Stalker. The confirmation by the PRT that it was Animator's trigger event was just icing on the cake.
Brockton General, hmm? I wonder …
Opening a new window, he began to enter queries. He was no hacker, but digging out someone's identity with this many clues to go on could hardly be called hacking.
RaffieStaffie, you and I need to have a little chat.
<><>
Hebert Household
Evening, August 30, 2009
Taylor
It had taken the better part of a day to assemble all the parts of my costume, but I figured I was finally ready. I'd fitted a layer of aluminium foil into the wraparound sunglasses I got from the Market, so I could cover the glow if I needed to. Concealing the blackness when I was out of shadow realm was another problem, but I figured I'd deal with that when I came to it.
After all, I had a whole day before school let back in. Yay.
For the main parts of my costume, I went with a funerary veil attached to a broad-brimmed hat, thick enough to conceal my features. I'd found a black dress a few sizes larger than I usually wore, which gave me room for body armour under it; Sophia and I had artistically tattered the sleeves and hem, then attached strips of black gauze to add a flowing, ghostly appearance. If these caught on anything, we'd made sure they would tear off easily enough.
Pinned to the dress was a silver skull brooch, front and centre. Underneath it all, I wore black tights and solid boots, because I might need to run occasionally and I didn't want to turn a heel.
We were divided on the corset; Sophia had eventually bought it, though she'd given up trying to persuade me to even try it on. She just waved it at me occasionally in a playfully threatening way. I was considering getting a spray bottle as a way of retaliation.
In the end, we compromised. I didn't wear it, but it didn't get thrown away either.
Dad and Sophia had stuck with the all-black theme. Or rather, Sophia kept her costume, merely adding a cheap plastic skull pin to the shoulder of her cloak. Dad swapped out his hat for a top hat he found somewhere, shabby but with the look of something that had been once quite expensive. He'd added a long-coat instead of the cloak. Under it, he decided to wear basic black, with another one of those skull pins on his long-coat. When he added a walking cane (also with a skull head) to his ensemble, he had the undertaker look down pat.
We'd found the skull pins in a Halloween display, and bought a couple of dozen … just in case. Maybe I could carry some on me, so I could give them out to people I'd raised with my power. It sounded kinda morbid, but if the last few days had proven anything to me, it was that people died in Brockton Bay on a more or less hourly basis.
Setting up my PHO account was actually kind of fun. Dad and Sophia debated whether to have my avatar image show me in the shadow realm or out of it. Sophia preferred 'out', because (as she put it) the skull look was badass. Also, it would get me away from any 'high beam' jokes … which, after I realised what she was talking about, I absolutely agreed with.
So Sophia took pics of me with her phone and emailed them to my computer, causing Dad to shake his head slightly and mumble something about 'modern technology'. We put the best one of them up for the new account—The_Real_Animator, as just plain 'Animator' was apparently taken—and then followed the process Sophia had used to get the (Verified Cape) tag attached to it. This involved another photo of me wearing the same costume, holding a sign bearing the code phrase 'I'm a little teapot'.
"Okay," I said, sitting back from the computer. "I'm a verified superhero now, according to PHO. What's next?"
"What's next," Sophia said cheerfully, "is that we costume up and go out looking for trouble to stop." She gave Dad a sideways glance. "Because you were just gonna say that tomorrow's a school night, right?"
Dad nodded, but he didn't seem too surprised. We both knew Sophia pretty well by now, and she knew us. "That's absolutely correct. Taylor can stay home—"
"No," I said flatly. "Taylor is
not staying home while my dad and my best friend go out into harm's way."
"You still need to learn how to fight—" Sophia began.
I wasn't having any of it. "I won't be jumping into any fights, but I need to be nearby to know when to give you boosts, and to fix you after the fact. Also, if anyone dies, I'm going to need to be there." I clenched my fists. "That's not negotiable."
Sophia shared a glance with Dad. "She's not gonna back down on this one, Mr. H," she advised him. "I've seen that look on her face before."
He snorted. "You think I don't know that? I
raised her." He turned back to me. "I'm still concerned about you being able to protect yourself if someone sneaks up on you."
I rolled my eyes, not that he'd be able to see that. "Remember what happened to the last guy who tried? Even before Sophia got there, I was kicking the shit out of him."
"Yeah, but not fast enough." Sophia rummaged in the bag she kept her costume and other gear in, and came up with a dully-gleaming black cylinder, about an inch thick and eight inches long. "
This is how you put them down on the first hit."
"What
is that?" I asked, peering at it. The only thing it looked like to me was a gun barrel, but where was the rest of the gun?
"The important question is, '
where did you get a collapsible baton from'?" asked Dad.
Sophia wrinkled her nose at him, probably for spoiling her big reveal. "Ways and means, Mr. H. Ways and means. So yeah, this is a collapsible baton." She flicked it with her wrist like she was cracking a whip, and with a
click-click-click sound the baton was suddenly a foot longer. When she gave it an experimental swing, I heard the hiss as it cut through the air. "Not as bulky as the Baseball Bat of Doom, but it will absolutely fuck up some asshole's entire night."
"Ooh," I said. "Yeah, I can see that." The way she was swinging it, I could see the metal button on the end would hit
hard. "Can I try?"
"Sure." She placed the button against her palm and pressed hard, and the whole thing compressed to just the length of the handle again. Then she handed it to me and stepped back. "To open it up, imagine there's a big ugly cockroach on the end and you're trying to get it off."
"Right." I flicked the baton as she had, and it extended with the same solid metallic noise. As I swung it back and forth, getting used to the weight, I could feel the power behind it. "I like. A lot."
"Why am I not surprised?" Dad asked dryly. "Come on, let's go down to the basement and you can practice hitting things without dropping it."
"I'm not going to drop it!" I protested. "Tell him, Sophia. I'm not going to drop it."
Instead of jumping straight to my defence, she waggled her hand from side to side. "Maybe, maybe not. Until you learn to hit properly with it, it'll jar your wrist pretty bad. I dropped it a few times, starting out. Probably a good idea to get some practice in a place where it won't matter."
I looked back at Dad, who raised his eyebrows interrogatively. He'd said his piece, and that was it.
I rolled my eyes again. "Okay,
fine. We'll go down to the basement and I'll show you I'm perfectly capable of holding onto a skinny metal club."
And so, we headed down into the basement.
<><>
I dropped the baton, of course. Not once, but several times.
Swinging a metal stick at a wooden post was harder than it looked.
Dad and Sophia didn't laugh, but I could
hear them smirking.
But in the end, I beat the living
fuck out of that support post.
<><>
Rodney Stafford
It's just not fair.
Rodney sat slumped on the sofa in his apartment, glowering at the TV. He wasn't even watching the game show currently on the screen; his thought processes were entirely taken up by the resentment and anger roiling in his gut. He'd seen enough horror movies to know how
not to react when zombies or Monsters from the Deep showed up. Smart people didn't stand around saying '
how interesting' and poking at the Eldritch Horror from Beyond the Stars. They
raised the fucking alarm.
So he'd raised the alarm. He'd done the right thing. And when the PRT showed up,
he was the one who got in trouble. How the
fuck was that fair?
Following that episode, it was clear that everyone in any position of authority had a firm grip on the Idiot Ball, so he'd been forced to take the next step. If the people in charge were going to refuse to do anything, then the
public needed to know.
PHO was best for that. Everyone who was anyone had an account. And fortunately he still had his phone on him when he was sent to mop the hallway. That stupid ape Simon caught him at it, but at least he got the message out.
The discussion with Doctor Cartwright had been uncomfortable to say the least, but at the end of it he still had his job … barely. However, he'd been told to take the next few days off, almost as though Cartwright thought he was overstressed or something. Rodney was actually okay with this, because that let him bunker down in his apartment (complete with tinned food, bottled water and bug-out bag at the ready) while he alternated between seething about how stupid and short-sighted Cartwright and the PRT were, and browsing the news sites for any mention of the zombie outbreak.
His anger at the idiots running society redoubled when he found that not only was nobody taking his warning seriously, but he'd actually been temp-banned from posting any new content to PHO for a week. Was it a conspiracy? Or was this just a sign of how horribly broken things actually were?
If he'd been told a month before that not only was a zombie apocalypse imminent but that the very people society depended on to keep them safe from such things would actively deny and ignore the fact of it, he would've considered them paranoid and alarmist. But now, having seen the phenomenon for himself, he was beginning to understand how such a thing could happen in real life. People
didn't want to know. They deliberately went out of their way to not know.
The only bright point in all this, and he wasn't sure whether to celebrate or worry, was that there didn't seem to be any ongoing active apocalypse at the moment. Even the fringe sites frequented by the tinfoil-hat community were relatively quiet, speculating on whether Alexandria was currently pregnant with Eidolon's baby or Myrddin's, and whether or not Dragon had a hand in formulating the chemtrails that caused everyone to hallucinate Endbringer attacks. Nothing at all about zombie outbreaks.
When he tried to force the issue by speculating about it, he was shut down and accused of being a provocateur, then insulted and told to 'git gud nuub'. Any comment he made was brigaded and downvoted to a fare-thee-well. As a final insult, he found that someone had dug up his PHO post and was sharing it across the boards to general mockery.
<><>
Coil
Throwaway Timeline
Raising his hand, Thomas double-checked the number then knocked on the apartment door. There was a long pause, even as the TV continued to sound from within.
"Who is it?" The voice held caution and suspicion.
"Mr Stafford, my name is Thomas Calvert." He could've used a fake name, but he hadn't gotten around to faking up genuine-looking ID to suit, so he simply chose to use his real name in throwaway timelines. "Could you open the door, please?"
The hesitation that followed made Thomas wonder exactly how much mockery Stafford had endured over his claims. Paradoxically, this was likely to make his task easier, not harder, so long as he played his cards correctly.
"Why? Who are you and what do you want?"
Yes, he's definitely had a hard time of it.
Thomas affected a sigh, as though his patience was being tried. "Mr Stafford, I'd rather not broadcast my business to everyone in this building. Let's just say I'm here about the reason you're not at work."
Silence reigned from the other side of the door, then the tiny spot of light in the peephole was obscured. He kept a neutral expression on his face while Stafford looked him over; the suit and tie were well-cut, but not ridiculously expensive. People trusted men in suits when it came to high-level decisions, just as they trusted men in high-vis gear and carrying clipboards for other matters. He'd had occasion to use both, from time to time.
He heard the chain go on its catch, then the door was unlocked and opened. Stafford peered out, discontent stamped on his unshaven features. Thomas kept a smile from his face; this couldn't have been a better opportunity if he'd slapped a thousand dollars into Stafford's hand to play along.
"Thank you," he said, lowering his tone. "Mr Stafford, I'm a PRT-affiliated consultant, and I need to speak to you
in private about the issue that I mentioned."
"PRT?" Stafford shook his head. "They came to the hospital, but then they went away again without doing a damned thing." Remembered disgust was strong in his voice.
"That's because even the PRT is only as good as the orders they are given," Calvert said, pretending irritation. "As a consultant, I happened to sight the report. Everyone else is downplaying it. I'm not. I
need to find out what you know, so we can nip this in the bud before it gets any further."
Take the bait, take the bait …
From the way Stafford's eyes lit up, Thomas may well have appeared as the second coming of the Messiah. "Yes, yes, of course," he babbled, closing the door briefly so he could take the chain off. Stepping aside, he beckoned for Thomas to enter. "Come on in. I'll tell you everything."
"Excellent." Thomas made his voice warm and reassuring as he closed the door behind him. "You're an exceptional young man, you know. It's only due to you that the zombies aren't already overrunning the city." It was total bullshit but to an already-primed idiot, it was
believable bullshit.
"What, really?" Stafford's voice squeaked into a higher octave on the second word. He cleared his throat before continuing. "I mean, really? Because of me?"
Oh yeah, he's hooked. Now I've just got to land him. "Absolutely. May I sit?" Without waiting for an answer, Thomas took a seat at the edge of the ragged armchair that looked like it had been once salvaged from a dumpster. He wouldn't have been surprised; intern pay wasn't great. "The fuss you made at the hospital, although it got you in trouble, also served notice to the zombie maker that at least
someone recognised her true goals. She hasn't been expanding her horde, or even attacking people, at least in public. This has given us valuable breathing room that we—you and I—can put to good use."
"Yeah, but how are we going to do that?" It was evident that Stafford was buying the entire line, without querying a thing. "Nobody's listening to me. Sooner or later, she'll start turning people into zombies on the quiet until there's too many of them to fight. I'm wondering if she isn't down in the sewers or something right now, building her army on the quiet."
"That's a very real concern," Thomas agreed solemnly. Producing a digital recorder, he pressed the button to start it running. "Now, if you could give me
every detail of what happened in the hospital that night, we can put a stop to it before it goes any further than it has."
In the other timeline, he relaxed back into his expensive recliner and prepared for the long haul. Cup of coffee at elbow, pencil and paper at hand, phone on silent, no other distractions. This was likely to be the most momentous interview of his life, to date.
Stafford took a deep breath. "Okay, so we had these two cases come in, one after the other. A black girl and an older guy, totally separate. They were both pretty badly hurt, and they coded before they could be properly prepped for surgery. Pretty sad, but that's the sort of thing that happens in a hospital. Especially in Brockton Bay, am I right?" He paused, and Thomas nodded encouragingly. "Anyway, I was passing by the morgue a little while later and I heard raised voices. So I stick my head in, and this one girl is standing there with eyesockets all black like a skull, and the two people I
knew were dead, standing up, still beat all to shit. So then I …"
<><>
Ten Minutes Later
It was
amazing how persuasive a sympathetic ear could be. Thomas was already aware of the psychological effects of alternating shunning with a deliberately friendly approach (the classic 'good cop/bad cop' ploy worked for a reason), but this was still an impressively effective demonstration. Stafford was spilling
all the beans.
"And the black girl, her name was Sophia, correct?" he asked, double-checking his notes in the other timeline.
"Uh, yeah," Stafford agreed. "The skull-eyed girl said her name, and so did the older guy." He frowned. "Oh, yeah, she's a cape too. She said she was Shadow Stalker. And she went kinda ghostly when she came at me the first time. I thought that was just her being dead, but maybe not."
"Really." This was very important information. Stafford hadn't bothered mentioning it, the first time through. "Is there anything else you remember?"
Stafford frowned. "Um, skull girl can fix injuries on her zombies? The old guy said she … wait, he said her name. Tammy … something like that. Maybe Talia? Starts with T, anyway. Oh, and he's her dad."
"Good, good." Thomas made a
keep going gesture. "You didn't get his name, did you?"
"No." Stafford shook his head. "I'm pretty sure nobody said it. And when I came back with the PRT guys, everyone just clammed up and didn't say anything about their names."
In the other timeline, Thomas looked his notes over then ran the back end of his pencil over his lips, thinking.
"I'm sure they did. Let's get back to why they were all in the hospital at the same time. You said that the skull-eyed girl came in with Shadow Stalker, and she was beat up as well? And then her
father came in more or less at the same time?" It seemed rather a stretch for a coincidence, to say the least.
"Yeah. Not sure what's going on with that, either."
Thomas found it a mystery as well, but it wasn't his problem. Getting the unnamed girl under his control, where she could revive any of his men who died in his service?
That was his problem.
His first order of business was to find out all he could about her. Which, almost by necessity, would start with her name. "All of this very useful," he said, sitting forward. "But it's not quite enough. Rodney; do you know where the medical report on the incident you described could be accessed?"
Stafford shrugged. "Uh, sure, but why?"
"Well, I'm going to need a copy," Thomas explained. "But the PRT needs to jump through hoops to legally access that information, and I'm almost certain we don't have the time. We need someone with the clearance to get in there, and who knows what they're looking at, to acquire it. Lives depend on it."
As expected, the clichéd phrases awoke a spark of determination in his patsy's eyes. "You can count on me, sir!"
Thomas smiled. "Good."
It would require him to run this timeline in parallel for a few more days, but once he had the file in his hands and the contents transcribed into the safe timeline, he could drop the instance where he'd contacted the idiot Stafford. To everyone but him, it never would have happened.
I love being me.
<><>
Taylor
I stayed out of the shadow realm as we drove slowly through the streets of Brockton Bay, windows rolled down to listen for signs of trouble. This was partly to keep my boosting ability 'charged up' and partly to make sure nobody could see my glowing eyes. The glow itself was bizarre; it looked like normal light, and registered on cameras and eyesight perfectly well, but never shed light on anything else.
"Stop!" Sophia said suddenly. "I think I just heard something."
Dad was already pulling over before she finished the second sentence. He parked the car and killed the engine, and Sophia ghosted out through the car door instead of just opening it. Pulling my veil down over my face—we'd gone with a 'reverse bride' look—I got out on my side. Acting on a hunch, I dropped into the shadow realm to give Sophia what measure of boost I could.
She immediately pointed at the entrance to an alleyway. "Down there," she said.
Dad and I didn't argue. Even though most sounds in the shadow realm were hollow and echoing to my perceptions, I heard the cry of pain when it came next; from the way Dad's head came up, so did he. "Give me the keys," I said to Dad. "I'll lock the car and follow on."
"Good idea," he replied, and tossed me the keyset. Although they became translucent when they left his hand, I caught them anyway. Winding up all four windows was a little bit of a chore, but it was better than coming back and finding the car ransacked.
Being in the shadow realm was very useful for keeping track of the other two, even when they passed behind buildings. Once I had the car locked, I hustled after them. It wasn't hard to catch up; in the shadow realm, I was stronger and faster as well.
As I was heading down the alley, two men came running toward me. I tensed, but they just moved to pass me, panting with exertion. One was holding his ribs. I didn't know who they were and I didn't care, just so long as they didn't get in my way.
When I got to where Dad and Sophia were, which was the middle of a narrow side-street, things were just beginning to get interesting. Overall, there were ten people up against Dad and Sophia, though five had gone down while I was getting there. The trouble was, I could see all the people but I didn't know exactly what was going on.
"There's another one," called out one of our adversaries, pointing. The glow around his head, as bright as it was, seemed to flicker every few seconds. What that was about, I had no idea. "What the fuck are you supposed to be?"
"Ahh, Animator, just in time," Dad said smoothly. "It seems the Empire Eighty-Eight decided to hold an initiation for some of their members. This is no longer going to happen. They get to learn what it's like when people hit back."
"Yeah, well, fuck you." The voice was that of a woman, but it was rough and ragged. I could see something weird around that person's head, and they carried a couple of what looked like bladed weapons. "What they get to learn is what happens to assholes who mess with the Empire."
"Yeah, yeah, bring it, Cricket," Sophia retorted. "I'm gonna squash you like the bug you are."
"You three," ordered the guy with the flickering glow. "Get the girl. I got the moron in the top hat."
"I'm pretty sure you just heard me called Animator," I said. "Are you deaf or just an asshole?"
"Probably both," Sophia snarked. "Cricket and Alabaster were always C-listers anyw—" She cut herself off as they surged to attack.
Well, at least I knew who we were up against now. I'd heard of Cricket, and the rumour about Alabaster was that he couldn't be killed. Which was fine; I had no intention of killing either one. Not least because there was no way I was going to raise them, and casual murder is never going to be my style.
Cricket went for Sophia, probably because of the 'C-lister' jab, while the three normals still on their feet headed for me and Alabaster closed with Dad. I could see a chain, an axe handle and an iron pipe in the hands of my adversaries, which could be a problem. On the upside, I'd gone through a torture session at the hands of the Merchants, so a few bruises weren't going to match up to that.
Chain guy got to me first and swung his chain at my head. Reaching up with my free hand, I grabbed the chain and let it wrap around my wrist, then flicked open the baton and broke
his wrist with it. I had to say, it took a lot less effort than hitting it with my hand. His scream, already high-pitched, reached entirely new octaves when I followed up with a kick to the groin. Letting go of the chain, he crumpled to the ground.
Iron pipe guy was next. He was predictably hesitant after how quickly I'd dealt with his buddy with the chain, but he stepped in and swung anyway. I blocked it with my chain-wrapped wrist, then swung the baton at his arm, hitting him around the elbow region. Bone splintered, clearly visible to my shadow-realm vision; before he had a chance to voice his unhappiness, I kicked him hard under the kneecap with my heavy boot. The iron pipe hit the ground at about the same time as he did.
"Next?" I asked, and axe-handle guy hesitated. This gave me the chance to see how the others were doing.
Dad was holding his own with Alabaster; or rather, he was taking his opponent's hits and smacking him back just as hard. Every time he broke a bone or did some other injury, though, it would be fixed in just a few seconds, when the flicker happened. But this was the benefit of being dead. He could soak up all the damage and still be fine when I got to him.
Sophia was doing somewhat better against Cricket. Smoothly going in and out of her ghost-like form, she was avoiding the bladed weapons and landing the occasional hit with power and fluidity. Cricket, on the other hand, seemed to be getting more and more irritated that Sophia was still in the fight.
Finally, axe-handle guy got up the nerve and swung his weapon two-handed down at me. I reached up and caught it with one hand, then twisted it out of his grip as part of the same move. He stared at his hands, as though wondering where his weapon had gotten to, then looked at me … and bolted.
"Oh, for
fuck's sake!" Cricket disengaged from Sophia and cartwheeled in my direction. I felt a ringing in my ears and staggered sideways, just in time for Cricket to snake her arm around my throat from behind. A razor-edged blade touched the underside of my jaw. "Surrender, you fucks, or the Goth bitch gets it!"
As the dizziness wore off, I berated myself for getting too close and allowing this piece of shit Empire cape to actually fucking take me hostage. Briefly, I considered trying to slide the baton up between the blade and my neck, but I was pretty sure her arm was in my way. Worse, I was starting to get the initial flickers that preceded me having to drop out of the shadow realm.
Worst. Timing. Ever.
"Animator!" shouted Dad. "Let her go,
now!"
"Yeah!" Sophia added. "Come back here and fight like a person, not like a fucking coward!"
"Fair fights are for pussies," Cricket sneered. "Hands behind your heads or this one's fucking dead. Last warning. Gonna count to five. One … two … three …"
My power was shouting in my ear, and I finally slowed down my racing thoughts enough to listen. There was one more thing I could do. It had never happened before, because I'd never had the option or the reason to.
I clamped my hand on her arm, and said, "Five."
And then … I pulled the energy
out of her, into
me.
She was strong and vital, and had endurance for
days. I took it all except for the last final sip, leaving enough for her to survive and recuperate from, but certainly not enough to stay conscious on. Her hand opened and she dropped the weapon, then she slumped to the ground behind me as the metal blade clattered to the pavement.
"Whoaaa …" breathed Sophia. "I
felt that. She dead?"
"Nope," I said flippantly. "But she's gonna feel it in the morning."
"What the fuck did you
do?" bellowed Alabaster. Ignoring Dad's attempt to stop him, he bulled straight past Sophia and came for me in a raging charge. "I'm gonna—"
Taking him by the arm, I flipped him over my shoulder and slammed him to the ground beside Cricket's semi-comatose form. Then I moved my hand until I had hold of his bare wrist. It only took a few seconds for him to recover, but those few seconds were far too long. Taking a deep breath, I began to draw on his energy.
His limitless,
limitless energy.
Where Cricket had been a glass of chilled water in the desert, or a steaming cup of cocoa on a chilly winter morning—filling and satisfying, but
enough—Alabaster was a feast. An all-you-could-eat buffet, as far as the eye could see.
I had only been skimming off the top of my power when I went into the shadow realm, because I was only able to recuperate to a certain point with my own resources. But now I was discovering that a vast empty void existed
below that, one I could fill with the life energy of others.
Oh, look. A volunteer.
The longer I drew on Alabaster's life energy, the more I wondered if it was truly limitless. I didn't care; I could feel my own aches and pains fading away, and a strength I'd never before known filled me from top to toe. Skills I was untrained in whipped by, fleetingly visible in my mind's eye then gone again. And yet, there was more to drain.
I had no idea whether it was seconds, minutes or hours before I felt the flow beginning to slacken. My power certainly felt bloated; it had gorged itself on the equivalent of hundreds or even thousands of ordinary 'meals' like Cricket had provided. Alabaster's glow was still strong, but the flicker was starting to stutter and miss. I didn't want to kill him outright even though he was a criminal and a murderer, so I decided to drain him down as I had with his teammate, and allow them to recuperate in their own time.
And then I noticed he wasn't flickering anymore. I let up on the draining, and after about fifteen seconds he flickered again, but not until then. Then I resumed the draining, and he stopped flickering again.
On a hunch, I swung my baton—with the strength that suffused me, it took no effort at all—and snapped his forearm like a twig, both bones. After a few more seconds, I stopped the draining and dropped his arm. He lay there, unmoving but alive. Fifteen more seconds passed. His glow flickered … but his arm remained broken.
"Jesus Christ," murmured Sophia, as I shook the chain loose from my wrist and let it drop to the ground. "Is this what being high feels like? Because I think I'm high."
"I think we're just as powered up as we can get," Dad said, but he also seemed to be a little spaced out. "Let's secure them and call the PRT."
"Good idea," I agreed. Reaching out, I gave him a healing boost, then followed on with one for Sophia. Despite the beating he'd been taking from Alabaster, it took no effort at all to bring him back to fully-repaired condition.
Accepting a bunch of zip-ties from Sophia, he crouched beside Alabaster and began fastening the man's wrists and ankles. Sophia did the same for Cricket, while I watched out for any party-crashers. Standing up, Dad hoisted Alabaster over his shoulder with ease; I got the impression that he could've thrown the Nazi thug down the street one-handed.
As we headed back toward the car, Sophia frowned. Pausing, she used her free hand to check her neck. "Is it just me, or do I have a pulse right now?"
"What?" I stared at her, and then at Dad. They both appeared normal in my shadow-realm vision. "Let me see that."
"Sure," she said, and proffered her wrist. "Put your fingers just down below where the thumb is."
I did as she showed me and sure enough, I felt a steady heartbeat. Her skin was warmer than before, too.
"Wait." Dad dropped Alabaster unceremoniously on the footpath across from where we'd left the car. Carefully, he checked his own pulse. "Are we …
alive again?"
As much as I wanted it to be so, I grimaced and shook my head. "Sorry. You don't look like other living people. I'm pretty sure the excess energy I just stole off Alabaster is letting my power push you all the way to full appearance of life. When enough of it drains away, your heartbeats will stop and you'll lose body heat again."
Sophia dumped Cricket's unconscious body on top of Alabaster's. "So, does this mean that we get to beat up Alabaster on a weekly basis, just so we can pretend to be normal? Because I'm totes down with that."
I grinned. "Sounds like a plan."
End of Part Eleven
