Reality Intrudes [Worm/Matrix AU]

[Ack]

What if Worm was just a Matrix simulation, and an operative came calling ... ?

Disclaimers:
1) This story is a crossover between the Wormverse and the Matrix. I own neither property.
2) I will follow Worm canon as closely as I can. If I find something that canon does not cover, I will make stuff up. If canon then refutes me, I will revise. Do not bother me with fanon; corrections require citations.
2a) This story is set about twenty years after the Matrix movies. The Mainframe has gone down, but the Matrix is still up. Many sub-systems are still maintaining individual pod-farms, and most of humanity is still dreaming in their pods.
3) I welcome criticism of my works, but if you tell me that something is wrong, I also expect an explanation of what is wrong, and a suggestion of how to fix it. Note that I do not promise to follow any given suggestion.

Part One: Mission Prep (below)
Part Two: Being Taylor Hebert is Suffering
Part Three: Gathering Information
Part Four: Revelations
Part Five: Sophia Interlude
Part Six: Wake-Up Call
Part Seven: On the Offensive
Part Eight: Disengage and Recover
Part Nine: Investigations
Part Ten: Unreality Check
Part Eleven: Fallout
Part Twelve: More of the Same
Part Thirteen: Who Needs Luck, I Know Kung Fu
Part Fourteen: Poking the Bear
Part Fifteen: Over and Under
Part Sixteen: Speedrunning, Matrix Style
Part Seventeen: Uncoiling Coil

 

[Ack]

Part One: Mission Prep



I'm half-asleep in my bunk when the call comes over the scratchy PA system. "Morrigan to the Captain's cabin. Morrigan to the Captain's cabin." Yawning, I stretch a little. Sure, I heard the call, but waking up properly takes time. I'm not a morning person, never have been. Probably comes from all that late-night sneaking around in back alleys. In the Matrix, of course. Humanity hasn't rebuilt enough to have back alleys in the real world yet.

Getting off the bunk, I rub my eyes and stretch again. Looking down at myself, I wonder if it's worth putting on pants to go see the Old Lady. On balance, I decide that it's probably a good idea. So I climb into a pair of imitation blue-jeans I picked up on my last leave rotation, cover my sleeveless top with a t-shirt, and pull on a coat over that. Tugging on my boots takes another few seconds, then I run a comb through my brush-cut and head out of my cabin.

The first person I see on my walk to the Captain's cabin is Loki. Smarmy motherfucker thinks he's all that, too. "Hey, Morrigan," he mouths off. "Figure the Captain finally got sick of your handle and decided to rename you? I figure 'More or less' should about—urk!"

I hold the straight-arm pose, with a knuckle on either side of his Adam's apple, until he starts to turn an interesting shade of purple. When I pull back my arm, he slides down the wall and collapses to his knees, coughing and choking, but he doesn't try to retaliate. Which is smart of him, and proves that he can learn. Eventually.

Turning my back, I walk on. All too soon, I end up at Captain Hornblower's cabin. I have no fucking idea where that name comes from. It's not like she's got a trumpet on the wall or something. Just a picture of an old-timey sailing ship. I stick my head in the door and nod to her. "Captain."

"Morrigan." She doesn't look up. "Come on in. Close the door. Take a seat." Her fingers rattle on the keys of her computer as she speaks, which means she's better at multi-tasking than me. She's also given me a direct order, so I drag out a chair and drop my ass in it. For a bit, I watch as she keeps typing.

I have no idea if she's filling out forms, writing her biography or describing the look on my face (bored. Bored, bored bored. With a side order of bored.) Then I start checking out the rest of the cabin. Nope, nothing new here. Oh, wait. There's a picture of some guy in a blue uniform with gold buttons and decoration and stuff. He looks bored, too.

Captain Hornblower stops typing and looks up at me. "Morrigan. Are you familiar with the population conundrum?" Her tone says that she doesn't expect me to be, and that she'll probably have to fill me in on what she's talking about.

And the bastard of it all, it's true. "Uh, no, Captain. What's that?" I know that we're gonna have to get the human population up if we want to have a chance at surviving the next century, but that's hardly a fucking conundrum.

Her lips twitch for a moment, and I'm certain she just won a bet with herself. "It goes like this. When the computers took over in the beginning, all of humanity was loaded into the pods. But the problem is this; we've discovered roughly as many people in pods as there were in late 20th-century Earth. But the records we've recovered indicate that there were maybe twice as many people, possibly even more than that, on Earth at the time. So what happened to them?"

I shrug. "Machines killed 'em off? Surplus to requirements?" But even as I say it, I know how stupid that sounds. The computers needed us as living batteries. The thing about humans is, we can die at any time, for the stupidest fucking reasons. Trip over the curb, walk down the wrong alley, eat the wrong food. I mean, fuck allergies, right? And if a human dies in the Matrix, he dies in the real world too. If there's anything a computer understands, it's the need to keep a backup power supply. "... no, that doesn't make sense."

The Captain smiles slightly and gives me this tiny nod, like I've just passed a test. "Precisely. So a very high-powered team of investigators started searching the hidden corners of the Matrix. And they found something. Which is why we're here."

I sit up, suddenly interested. "Why do I get the impression that 'here' isn't marked on any official map, and that we're travelling under secret orders?" Captain Hornblower, bless her leathery heart, is now my favourite person in all the world. If what I think she's leading up to is true, I'm gonna get to lead the exploration of a whole new section of the Matrix. I'm totally repenting now for making up that nickname for her (though it was funny at the time).

"Because you're one of my best people." I'm actually impressed. She manages to say that with a straight face. Then, of course, she ruins it. "You're insubordinate, disrespectful and have only the vaguest idea of military discipline." I dunno about that; there was this one lieutenant I used to date who really enjoyed being strapped down and paddled. But maybe she's not talking about that sort of discipline. "However, you're resourceful, intelligent, and you think on your feet. As it stands, we can't send a team in. So you'll be on your own for the time being."

Whoops, time to back things up. "Okay, what now, Captain? I'm going in solo? I'm good, but I was hoping to have a couple grunts to back me up."

She looks like someone overdosed the lemon flavouring in her gruel. "I'd like that too, but this is a particularly bizarre situation. This corner of the Matrix was sectioned off by two separate sub-programs of the Mainframe, which sealed themselves in after setting it all up. One of the programs crashed after they kicked over the emulation, and some of the locals have literally been picking out fragments of the crashed program and incorporating it into themselves."

I have to blink at that. "When you say 'bizarre' you ain't just waving the word around for fun. Holy crap. Anything else I need to look out for?"

She nods. "Yes. Remember how the One managed to write superhuman powers like flight into his avatar? Well, the program that didn't crash is literally handing out powers like this to the locals." Her face twists in distaste. "And the worst bit? It calls itself Zion."

My fists clench at that. Zion is a sacred name for all of us redpills, for obvious reasons. "Oh, it did not just go there. When I get my hands on that pile of crappily-written code—"

"You won't." She doesn't have to raise her voice to interrupt me. "It's given itself god-mode, making it able to suspend use of other reality-adjusting code at will. You don't go after it. Your mission is to go into this place, look around, and see what it looks like at ground level. Once we get a good solid recon picture, that's when we start upgrading the mission profile. Until then, you're under the radar. You don't even try to tell people the truth about the world. If you have to break cover, you pretend to be one of the enhanced individuals. Nobody will think otherwise."

"Huh." I rub an old scar on my cheek. "Okay, I'm gonna need a fairly comprehensive loadout—"

"No." For the second time in a minute, she interrupts me. "The connection we've got isn't a strong one. We can't drop a whole person through and be certain that nothing will detect the arrival. However, we have been able to kludge together a modified Agent-style entry mod."

I frown. "I must be getting slow in my old age. I thought we wanted to go low profile. Me replacing one of the natives is probably gonna raise a few eyebrows."

"I said 'modified'," the Captain says a little testily. "The host won't look any different, but you'll be in the pilot's seat, with access to the host's memories. She'll be on lockdown while you're in her head. Plus, you'll have your own skills and capabilities. Also, we'll sneak in a phone so you can contact us and get pulled out for downtime."

That seems kind of reasonable, though there were a few points I thought needed raising. "Whoever I replace is gonna be pissed. And what if they're popular? It's hard to fake being who you're not if a lot of people know who you're supposed to be."

"Give us some credit." The Captain's smile is thin. "We've got you a good candidate. Loner, no friends. Nobody's going to be listening to her, even if she wants to make problems over this."

Well, it's not something I've ever done before, but I'm always up for new experiences, so I nod. "Sure. We got much in the way of uploads for local conditions before I dive in?" I don't ask for stupid shit like standard urban-infiltration skills. Skillsets like that got uploaded back when I was still in my single digits for Matrix insertions.

"Not enough for an upload." She laces her fingers before her. "As far as we can tell, the Zion program played fast and loose with the geography and politics of New England when setting up the emulation. You'll be dropping into a city called Brockton Bay, into the head of a teenage girl called Taylor Hebert. She's got almost exactly the same build as you, so you won't have much trouble adjusting. Current date is January third, twenty-eleven."

As I wait for the rest of it, Captain Hornblower sits there, looking at me until the penny drops. There is no 'rest of it'. That's all she's got.

"Well, shit." I raise my eyebrows. "How many of the crew know about this?" If I know that bunch of low-lives, they'll be betting on how fast I screw everything up. It's what I'd be doing. I find myself wondering if I've got time to get in on that action.

"You, me and the operator." Hornblower's gaze is direct. "This mission is as covert as it gets. If even a whisper gets out about this, we'll be overrun by a dozen different activist groups, all trying to grab lead. Which will be about ten minutes before they start shooting at each other. We need to get a good solid foothold here, which means establishing a covert presence. The more we know about this 'Earth Bet', the better off we'll be in the long run."

I nod in agreement. Having better information now would be nice, but that's the sort of shit that happens when you're a kick-ass covert operative. We're the source of better information for everyone else. "Got it, Captain. The more I can find out, the more likely we are to prevent a shooting war, yeah?"

Just for a second, I imagine that I see a look of respect in her eye. "Succinctly put, Morrigan. I've got a stack of papers here from the operations committee, detailing your operating parameters for this mission. Unfortunately, half of them completely contradict the other half. So I'm going to make an executive decision, with the certain knowledge that you'd ignore them anyway, and tell you to use your own judgement. And try not to end the world."

"Wait, that's a thing there?" For a moment, I'm startled. "Maybe that's something you should've led with, Captain."

She shrugs. "There are some really odd bits of reality-adjusting code running around loose in the system. It's not likely, but it's not impossible either. So be careful about what bears you poke." As she says that, she gives me a hard look. I gaze back as innocently as I can manage. Given that we both know I make a hobby out of poking bears, it's not very convincing.

Finally, she sighs. "Well, try not to let this blow up in our faces. Even if you only screw this up a little bit, we get it taken off us, and nutjobs like Free Humanity will be all over that place like cockroaches, trying to tell all and sundry that they're not living in the real world. If they react like I think they will, a lot of people will die before we have a chance to get them out."

I can see why she's worried. In the wake of the fall of the Mainframe, we had radical groups springing up faster than you could ask 'red pill or blue?'. Some advocated dumping people from their pods as fast as they could be located, while others decided that if the computers could use them for a power supply, so could we. I'm part of the middle ground; the more people we can show the truth to, the fewer there will be of the next generation to be stuck in the Matrix. Eventually, everyone will be out, and we can shut down the networks and start learning what it really means to be human. But in the meantime, we're gonna need operatives like me, going into the various outposts of the Matrix and seeing what's in there.

I stand up from my chair. "Don't worry about it, Captain. I've never destroyed the world before." Turning, I head for the door. Behind me, I hear the Captain mumble something. "Sorry, what was that?"

"Nothing." She sounds grumpy. I hide a grin, because we both know I heard what she said. Always a first time. Me, I'm an optimist. The world might not blow up tomorrow, but that's no reason to live like it won't.

<><>​

I'm just settling myself into the chair when the hatch opens and the operator steps through. I stare in real horror. "Oh, fuck no. Captain, not him!"

Loki gives me a toothy grin as he settles down at the console. "Whassamatter, More-grin? Finally realising that shit comes back at you sometimes?"

"Shut it, the two of you." The Captain is typing on another console, sending instructions to the bridge. "Loki, Morrigan, I get it that you can't stand each other. But you're the best I've got. Now zip your lips and work together or I swear I'll jack you both into the same ten by ten cell and leave you there."

I shoot a poisonous glare at Loki. "Fine, but if he messes with me while I'm in there, I'm gonna punch his lights out once I get out."

"Pfft," he snorts. "You don't need me to help you fuck up. You're a natural at it already." But as he talks, he's already typing. I can see the screen over his shoulder, starting the cascade of green symbols. "Okay, searching for an uplink signal now."

"No, no, I told you this was a different setup." The Captain abandons her keyboard and goes to his, where she inputs some code strings. I see the pattern on the green waterfall change subtly. "See? We've got to brute-force it through. We're taking over the Matrix headspace of a native."

"All right then," he says. "I think I got it now." As the Captain moves aside, he puts on the headset and starts watching the screen, typing commands again. "Any time you're ready."

"Good." Captain Hornblower comes over to where I'm trying to relax. "Just think of it as a standard Matrix insertion. Try not to do anything that'll get you noticed straight out of the gate."

"But even if I do, I can claim superhuman powers, right?" I look up at her. "I mean, that's a thing there."

"True," she muses. "But it might be an idea to keep that sort of thing on the down-low. Until we've got more information, of course." Seating herself beside me, she takes hold of the main jack. "Operator?"

"Green to go," he says, the tension audible in his voice. I see him poised over the keyboard, fingers at the ready.

Captain Hornblower slides the jack home. I go down the rabbit hole.

Part Two

 

[Ack]

Part Two: Being Taylor Hebert is Suffering

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

I'm in a tightly confined space, with a sore head and the echoes of a scream in my ears. The worst smell I've ever experienced assaults my nose. There's the taste of vomit already in my mouth. I'm up to my hips in something sludgy. Bugs are crawling all over me.

For a moment, I'm about to throw up again, but then I recall the most important, most fundamental lesson about the Matrix. Do you think that's air you're breathing now? It's not, of course. Whatever I'm sensing is merely a computer simulation. With that knowledge, I force down the nausea and try to work out where I am. This does not seem to be a normal place for a teenager in New England to be, at the beginning of the school year.

Wait a minute. Hornblower said I could access the memories of the kid I've just taken over. I blink in the darkness, and a green curtain of code descends over my eyesight. Okay, rewind. There's a brief blur, then I'm looking at a high-school locker from the outside. There's that smell again, only not so bad. I look around, to see a smirking redhead, then back to my locker. The combination goes into the lock, and I open the door. This was not a great move, as the smell really hits me about then. Also, now I can see the horrific mass. It doesn't look any better than it smells. I go to throw up, but then I'm shoved forward into the locker with some serious force. I hit my head—so that's why it's sore—then I'm shoved all the way in, and the door is locked behind me. Ah hah. Got it. So it appears that felony-level pranks are a thing, in this iteration of human civilisation. Something to keep in mind.

I end the replay, now that I know where I am. My back is hard against a metal surface, which has to be the locker door. This is made of thin steel, less than a millimetre thick. Works for me. I bring up my hands and place them flat on the back of the locker, then pull back a few centimetres. This is a simulation. I can bend reality. I can bend steel.

Nobody ever makes the Jump on their first try when they're introduced to the Matrix, not even me. But I did make it on my second try. I'm good at selectively ignoring reality. I slam my hands forward, driving my back into the locker door. With a screech of tearing metal, it rips clear off of its hinges. I fall back out of the locker, stumbling clear of the worst of the decomposing mass of … are those tampons? I don't care if this isn't really me, I'm gonna kick someone's ass so hard for this.

I could keep my head down and go get cleaned up, or I could deal with this my way. It takes me another moment to dip back into the kid's memories, until I find the redhead. Then I send a silent query into the database. Who and where?

Green lettering spills across in front of my eyes.

Name: Emma Barnes

Status: Ex best friend. Current bully.

Location: Mr Gladly's World Affairs class (home room)

Chances of being involved in the locker incident: very high.

All right then. I follow up on the 'World Affairs' thing, giving me a school layout and a classroom to go to. I'm very carefully not breathing through my nose; the stink, even though I'm leaving most of it behind me, is incredible. Repressing my gag reflex, even knowing it's not real, is hard work. Right now, I want to scrub out my sinuses with bleach and a wire brush.

Nobody is in the hallways, which is a good thing … for them. I'm in the mood to hurt someone. Though the janitor is gonna be so pissed with me; some of the stuff came out of the locker with me and is now falling off my legs. Not my school, not my problem.

I get to the right door. It's not even locked; I open it and go in. A classroom full of heads turns to look at me, along with the teacher. He's young, my height or a little shorter, and I can see straight away that he's got no idea what to do about me. That's fine; I wasn't going to try to appeal to him anyway. I fix on the redheaded girl, the one I saw in the memory file. She stares at me, her eyes widening, as I head straight for her.

Someone tries to trip me; I plant my other foot and swing my leg through theirs. It's a disproportionate application of force. There's a clatter behind me as whoever it is falls off their chair and on to the floor. By the time Emma realises she's actually in danger, I'm at her desk. Reaching out, I grab her by the ear. She's got a fancy earring that I could hook my finger through, but that's got too much chance of tearing the ear or breaking the earring. My finger and thumb close on her ear instead, and I turn and head back toward the door.

Emma follows, of course; it's either that or she loses an ear. She's got a good line in high-pitched screams, especially when I haul her out of her chair with almost the full weight of her body resting on her ear. But she gets her feet under her and comes along, batting ineffectually at my hand with both of hers. Oh, wait, she's trying to dig her nails in. That's almost adorable.

"Taylor, what are you doing?" Mr Gladly is between me and the door. "And what's that smell? What is that on you?"

I pause for a moment, and call up the database. Correlate 'Mr Gladly' and 'bullying'. Images and clips flash before me; this Gladly clown standing by, time and again, while other girls—and sometimes boys—steal my work and harass me in other ways. Well, not me me; the kid. Taylor. But even that's bad enough. While it's not exactly my job as a female Operative to stand up for the rights of all women (and girls) in the Matrix, I tend to think of it as a perk.

"Good," I say coolly. "You're paying attention at last. Go check out my locker. Bring a hazmat suit. I gotta go get cleaned up." I take a step closer; he edges away, not willing to come into close contact with me. Not that I blame him right now, but he could've stood to get his hands dirty earlier, when Taylor was being shat on from a great height.

"Mr Gladly!" Emma's voice is high-pitched, desperate. "Help! Call the principal! Don't let her take me!"

He reaches for her arm; before he can make contact, I flick one of the things that's still clinging to my leg so that it arcs toward him. Convulsively, he steps back, and I drag Emma away. She's still shrieking as I look over my shoulder to see him standing indecisively at the door to the classroom. He's got his phone to his ear, but I'm not sure who he's calling. Nor do I really care.

Now to deal with the noise problem. I twist Emma's ear to get her attention, then pull her close to me. "Shut the fuck up, princess," I snap, "or I'll give you something to really scream about." She stares at me, her eyes wide in a tearful face, but she does shut up. Which is good; my ears were starting to hurt.

Taylor's memory database gives me a location for a bathroom. I head on in and shove Emma at a washbasin. "Fill it," I order her. She looks at me uncomprehendingly. I point at the basin. "Fill. It," I repeat, then start to take off my jeans.

She tries to make a bolt for it then, but I've allowed for that. Even with one leg caught in the jeans, I grab her by the hair and swing her around. With one hand on the back of her neck, I smack her face into the washbasin bench. There's a crunch, and I suspect I just broke her nose. Whoops. Her knees give way, but I hold her up with one hand and splash water on her face with the other. She quickly comes around again, but her nose definitely looks broken and there's a bruise forming on her forehead. I'd be sympathetic, except I'm not.

"Fill the fucking basin, or I'm gonna see exactly how far I can shove your head down the goddamn toilet." My voice is flat, and I think she realises exactly how serious I am. Crying a little and sniffling through her busted nose, she gets some paper towels. One she tears up and shoves up her nose to stop the bleeding, and the other she crumples up and uses as a plug in the washbasin.

I finish taking my jeans off, and kick my shoes off at the same time. Looking at my hoodie, I take that off too, then check my shirt, which also joins the pile. "Clean that shit off," I order her.

She stares at me, standing there barefoot in my underwear, then at the pile of shit-covered clothing. "Whad habbe'd to you, Daylor?" she mumbles. "Whad're you doi'g?"

"I didn't say 'ask stupid fucking questions'," I remind her. "I said 'clean that shit off'." I cheat just a bit as I crack my knuckles; it sounds like firecrackers going off. Hurriedly, she picks up the pile of clothing, cringing back as some of the shit gets on her hands.

"Wait a minute," I say. "Jeans." Grabbing the item in question, I go through the pockets. There's a coin purse there, along with the standard-issue Matrix-diving phone. Dropping the purse on the bench, I toss the jeans back at her. "Get to it."

Hurriedly, she starts trying to scrub the shit out of the heavy cloth as I turn away. I flick the phone open, hit the button and hold it to my ear.

"Operator." Loki answers immediately.

"You're an asshole," I tell him heatedly, though keeping it quiet enough that Emma can't hear me. I hope. "You picked the worst possible moment for me to go in."

"It's the best possible moment for someone to have a personality change though, right?" He sounds altogether too pleased with himself. "What's with the redhead doing your laundry?"

"Long story," I mutter. "Any alarm bells yet?"

"Nope, though the cops just got called," he says. "Have fun with that."

I grimace. Cops are no fun to deal with. They're as squishy as any other bluepill, but there's so many of them. After a while, it feels like kicking puppies. At least there won't be any Agents to deal with. "Can you organise an exit strategy?"

"Well, we can pull you out," he suggests.

"No, you asshole." I grit my teeth. "This kid's already had a world of shit poured on her. I pull out now, what I've just done comes back on her in spades. I need a strategy for both of us."

"You're no fun," he whines. "Okay, fine. Walk out now, or talk to the cops about the locker. One of the two."

Talking to the cops sounds like a bad idea. Though the locker is something I can definitely show them. I probably won't be able to prove that Emma was in on it. "Talk to the cops? Are you actually serious about that?"

"Hey, you're a teenage girl who got locked in her locker. Pretty sure you can plead temporary insanity. Or in your case, permanent insanity." The asshole chuckles, and I want to punch him.

The bathroom door flies open, booming as it hits the stop, and a black girl stomps in. She's about my height, and she looks pissed. That look changes a little to confusion as she sees me in my underwear, but then she looks past me. "Emma," she says. "You all right?"

"I thi'k by dose id broke'd," Emma mumbles past the plugs in her nostrils. "Tha'k God you're here."

I fix on the black girl and run a facial search in Taylor's memory. Immediately, I get a dozen hits.

Name: Sophia Hess.

Status: Bully, bitch and athlete.

Really strong and fast. Dangerous. Aggressive.

Something strikes me, and I find myself on the floor with an ache in my solar plexus. Sophia Hess is standing over me, fists clenched. "You've just never learned—"

If she's as dangerous as all that, I need to regroup. It might be that she just hit me because I was occupied with the database search, but there's no sense in borrowing trouble. Bringing my legs up, I flip out of the way of a kick and come to my feet. Sophia's eyes widen, but she comes in at me again anyway.

I cover up, ready to defend until I've got her capabilities pegged. Her fist lashes out, this time aiming at my face. But I'm a little confused; Taylor's got her down as being fast. This is barely above average for a bluepill. I've got all the time in the world to respond. Unless it's a feint. Is it a feint? I check her posture, and I can't see the rest of the attack. For all I can see, she's committed to this.

It's embarrassing to admit, but I'm concentrating so hard on seeing the trap that I nearly let her tag me with the second punch. At the last split-second, I tilt my head to the side and let her fist slide on by. That's when I grab her arm and put her in a hold. Nothing fancy, but definitely nothing she'll be able to get out of. Leverage is fun like that.

Satisfied that she's locked down, I turn my head toward Emma. "How are you going with that?" She's staring at me and Sophia—obviously hoping that her friend will hand me my ass—but when I speak, she hastily turns back to the washbasin.

"Uh, id's slow," she says in a defensive tone. "Id does'd wa'd to cub oud." She says something more, but I'm not paying attention. Because Sophia Hess has just done the impossible; she's gotten out of my hold. She didn't brute-force her way out of it, like any other redpill would do, and she didn't slide out. But between one second and the next, she simply isn't there any more. I have got to find out what she did there.

I'm impressed, but not so impressed that I don't go on full guard. Which turns out to be a wise move, because the Hess girl is right back on the attack. This time, she does go with a feint; a jab at my face, followed by a solid left to the solar plexus. Of course, to me, it's basically in slow motion; give this girl a red pill and a proper martial-arts upload and she might be dangerous. As it is, I almost have to hold back a yawn.

The jab, if I let it hit, might sting a bit. I'm not inclined to give her even that much, so I casually brush it aside like a mosquito. Her face twists in triumph as she puts her weight behind the gut-punch, but it's a little premature. This is brought home to her in no uncertain terms as I pull off an unconventional move; I put my hand out and catch her fist in it.

Unconventional, yes, but effective as hell. She goggles at her fist, now trapped in my hand, as if she can't believe what's happening. The look lasts just long enough for me to step forward and lay a nice crisp head-butt on her. When I broke Emma's nose, it was by accident; with Sophia, it's deliberate. Sophia's knees go out from under, and her eyes roll back in her head. Blood is already beginning to trickle from her nostrils as she hits the tiled floor. I let go of her fist and grab the front of her top just long enough to make sure she doesn't bang her head as she goes down.

"Emma," I say, looking down at Sophia. "Leave that. Come here."

My comprehensive defeat of Sophia seems to have knocked the last of the fight out of Emma. She comes a little closer, keeping to what she probably thinks is a safe distance. I don't disabuse her of the notion. "Whad you wa'd be to do?"

I point at the jeans Sophia is wearing. They'll be a little baggy on me, but they're about the right length. As a bonus, she's got a belt as well. "Help me get her pants off." Sophia's sneakers aren't to my taste, but I do like the zip-up knee-length boots Emma's wearing. "And your boots. Plus your top." It's just as stylish—and expensive—as the rest of her outfit. I definitely won't be able to rock it like she is, but I'd prefer it over a hoodie, crap-stained or otherwise. Would it have killed Loki to outfit me with a long coat? I love those things.

For a moment, it looks like she's going to argue, but then she catches the look in my eye and shuts up. Wordlessly, she helps me strip Sophia of her jeans, then unzips her boots. I step into the pants, pulling them up to cover my butt. The belt looks like it can pull in to cover my new waistline—I don't think I've ever been this skinny—which I was kinda hoping for. "So," I say as I cinch it in as tight as it'll go. "What's with that trick she pulled? She got one of those weird abilities?"

I look up from the belt to see her staring at me, eyes wide. Lips pressed tightly together, she shakes her head almost feverishly. "I do'd doe whad you're dalki'g aboud," she says, in a tone that wouldn't convince a two-year-old.

In other words, "yes, but there's a taboo about it". Got it. "Right, okay, forget I asked," I say. Holding out my hand to her, I snap my fingers. "Top."

I'm pretty sure she's attached to her blouse, or maybe she's just modest. Again, the temptation to argue must have crossed her mind, but I snap my fingers for a second time, like I'm getting impatient. Reluctantly, one button at a time, she undoes the shirt. I give her a hard look, and she hurries up quite a bit.

The boots fit quite nicely over the jeans, and the top looks pretty good in the mirror. Sophia is starting to groan and stir feebly by the time I do up the last button. There's something else … oh, right. I was holding my phone when Sophia hit me. "Where's my phone?" I ask out loud, putting my hand to my ear like I'm making a call. Emma stares at me mutinously, but I'm not talking to her.

Operators might not be able to talk to you when you're not on the line, but they can see what you're doing just fine. On cue, the phone starts ringing; somehow, it ended up in one of my shit-covered shoes. A couple of wet fingermarks on it explains how this odd thing happened. Emma backs away as I advance on her.

<><>​

When I emerge from the bathroom a few moments later, I'm carrying Sophia's t-shirt and Emma's skirt. Emma's phone isn't on her, so if either of them wants to go for help, they're gonna have to do it either in underwear or in my wet crappy clothes. I dump the skirt and top in the first trash can I come to. In the meantime, I'm back on the phone. "Okay, now I do need an extraction plan. I just beat up two girls and stole their clothes."

"Gotta say, Moggie, you know how to win friends and influence people wherever you go." Loki sounds like he's holding back laughter. "The option to pull you out is still on the table."

I shake my head. "Screw that. I need to have this girl in a more viable position when I jack out. Otherwise, fuck knows what'll happen to her while I'm on downtime." I'm taking the stairwell down as fast as I can, which basically means leaping over the rail to skip a whole flight of stairs at a time. "Where's the nearest motorbike, car or whatever I can hotwire?"

Now he actually does laugh. "Only you would look at stealing a car as a valid way to de-escalate the situation. I'm telling you, just walk out the front door. You'll be fine."

By now I'm low on options. So I walk up to the main doors and consider what I'm going to see when I open them. In every other op I've been on, a clusterfuck of this magnitude would've had the authorities on alert and seen the parking lot full of cop cars. There'd be flashing lights everywhere, guns pointed in my direction, and probably a helicopter or two overhead. Oh, and of course there'd be Agents. Some pockets of the Matrix still maintain them.

I'm pretty sure there aren't any Agents here—though I've been wrong before—but even without them, life's gonna get really fucking interesting for a while. I decide that even if I can't jack a police motorbike, a car should do just as well.

Okay, it's showtime. I shove open the doors and go out in a roll, looking for cover against the inevitable storm of bullets. Reaching my objective behind a low concrete wall, I come up on one knee and pause. When I run the last few seconds past my mind's eye, I frown, having not registered any shots at all. Cautiously, I peer over the top of the wall.

There are no cop cars. There aren't any cops, either. In fact, if not for the fact that it's fucking January, my dive-and-roll would've been greeted with the sound of crickets. Slowly, I come to my feet and look around to see if it's some kind of elaborate ambush. An army of SWAT totally fails to leap out of non-existent cover.

I scratch my head, then start down the steps. I don't get this at all. This isn't how it works. Operatives start shit, then Agents and cops show up to shut them down. It's like I threw a party and nobody came. I'm almost insulted. I'd been looking forward to rocking one of those cop shotguns, too. The ultimate party accessory.

The sound of air brakes gets my attention. Has an Agent taken over the driver of an eighteen-wheeler with the aim of running me down? But when I look toward the road, all I see is a bus, pulling in at the bus stop. What the hell. Reaching into my pocket, I pull out the coin purse. I've never left the scene on a bus before, but I guess there's a first time for everything.

Part Three

 

[Ack]

Part Three: Gathering Information

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal]

I'm pulling out Taylor's coin-purse to pay the bus driver when I notice something I should've picked up before. Sophia's belt has actual pouches on it. Two of them. And there's something in them. I don't draw attention to the fact that I've just noticed this; instead, I get out the purse.

"How far ya goin', kid?" he grunts, like he's not even surprised that someone's leaving school mid-morning. My estimate of the school system in this town, already low, starts making preparations to plumb the Marianas Trench.

Which gives me an idea of where I should go. "Uh, library?" I ask, as if I'm not sure about it. Or like I'm just throwing it out like an excuse. Get off at the library, go to the mall or whatever. Pretty sure this guy's heard it all.

"Sure thing," he says. "Three fifty." No what are you doing out of school, or does your mom know where you are. Just three fifty. I shrug and dig out some coins. There's a weird-looking coin among the dimes and quarters and stuff; when I look closer, it turns out to be a dollar. This place is getting weirder all the time. I drop three dollars and two quarters into his hand, shove the purse back in my pocket, and climb on board the bus.

There's fuck-all people on there with me, but I've still got residual Agent-paranoia going on, so I go all the way to the back where I can keep an eye on them all. Once I'm there, I check out the contents of the pouches. The first one's a flip-phone, a well-worn model that looks a couple years old. And the second one's … huh. This one's a brand-new smart-phone. The case is barely scratched, even.

I sit back in my seat as the bus rumbles down the road, and examine the two different phones. Okay, this is a bit of a puzzle. But that's good, because I like solving puzzles. Okay, I like breaking shit until puzzles aren't puzzling any more, but that's almost the same thing.

Hypothesis one: only one phone belongs to her. The other one's stolen, or she's holding it for someone. Something like that.

Counter to hypothesis one: this belt belongs to her, and the pouches are purpose-built. Conclusion: both phones are hers.

Hypothesis two: one's a normal phone and one's a special phone. But what sort of special phone? I look at the worn phone, then the new one. There's no good reason I can think of for a teenager like Sophia Hess to hold on to the older one when she's got the newer one.

Fuck it. I give up trying to use deduction and brainpower to solve the mystery, and hit the wake-up button on the new phone. It wakes up, all right, but then it asks for a PIN. Which puts me back at square one. Without much hope, I try the same with the older phone. To my surprise, it wakes up just fine and opens its secrets to me.

The fuck? Why password one phone but not the other?

The answer comes to me immediately, of course. Because there's nothing important on the crappy old phone. All the good stuff's on the sleek new one. That's the only logical conclusion.

Still, it doesn't stop me from looking at the old phone. No sense in not checking it out. There still might be something on there that's of interest to me. And until I can get the PIN code for the new one, it's my only option.

On the surface, the phone's pretty vanilla. Contact list includes Emma and someone called Madison, as well as numbers for a Mom, a Terry, an Alan, and a few others. Not many, which isn't really a surprise. I hadn't picked Sophia as a social butterfly. Pit bull maybe, but not a butterfly. I make a bet to myself that if I ever manage to lift Emma's phone, she'll have ten times as many contacts.

The interesting bit is when I start skimming her saved text messages. Taken one at a time, they don't say much. But put a whole bunch together and they paint a really fucking horrific picture of relentless borderline-sociopathic bullying. Sophia and her friends are starting to look like people I'd gladly throw under any bus I'd care to name. They never name Taylor specifically in these texts, but from context it's pretty damning. It looks like they've been going at her for a fucking long time, maybe years. What I don't get is why. Actually, no. What I actually don't get is why she hasn't snapped and gone psycho on their asses already. I certainly fucking would've. Oh, wait, I already did. All of a sudden, my minimal regret for breaking their noses becomes care factor zero.

To distract myself, I eye the new, holy-shit, high-tech phone. My guess is that any missing parts of this puzzle are to be found on it. Trouble is, it's protected by what I suspect to be the best encryption money can buy. This doesn't mean I'm stopped, of course. It just means that I'm stopped unless I do something I really don't want to do.

Unfortunately, my options are few and far between. I'm gonna have to ask Loki for help. And I just know that the asshole's gonna be so fucking smug about it. I'm beginning to regret kicking him in the nuts the last time we sparred. Well, almost.

With a sigh, I pull out my own phone and flip it open, then hit the call button.

"Operator." I can almost hear the smug in his voice.

With a sigh, I bite the bullet. "Need the PIN code for this phone." Phones, of course, are just chunks of code in the Matrix. Digging into them for the on/off switch is child's play for a good Operator. And as insufferable as he might be, Loki's a kick-ass Operator.

"Wow, this is low, even for you. Going through a teenager's cell-phones? How low can you go?" He's fucking enjoying this. I visualise kicking him in the nuts, again. "Just do it, okay? You know she's one of the weird ones. I wanna see what this high-tech piece of shit is about."

"Yeah, about that. Gotta say, I didn't expect her to tag you like that. That one's going in the greatest hits file." I'd wondered when he was going to pull that up. Also, how long it's gonna take me to live it down.

"Fuck you. Gimme the PIN code." We both know he can't actually refuse a request, but there's nothing in the regs against being fucking irritating while he does it.

"Okay, okay, don't get your panties in a wad. Sending the code to your phone now." He hangs up; a moment later, a six-digit number pops up on my phone screen. I'm actually kind of impressed; most phones go for four digits. If I'd tried to brute-force it, there would've been a million combos to try. Fuck that shit.

I enter the PIN in Sophia's phone and it lets me in. The interface is smooth and intuitive, almost anticipating my every need. Why can't we have shit like this? Anyway, I start looking through it. My first port of call, like with the other one, is Contacts. This one's got a different list of names; big surprise there. Except that these aren't names that I'd normally associate with normal people: Triumph, Aegis, Clockblocker, Gallant, Kid Win, Vista …

"The fuck?" I mutter. "What kind of names are these?" Unless they're online handles or something. I blink as it occurs to me that Sophia might actually be more important than I'd thought. Maybe she's part of a hidden group that knows what the Matrix is and is working to get out or something. That's the way most people get recruited, after all. They start asking questions, the most important one being 'What is the Matrix?'

Okay, so the bullying thing is a bit on the nose, but maybe she does it to fit in or something. I begin to wonder if I've misjudged her. When she wakes up, she'll be freaking out about her missing phone. I might have to figure out some way of getting into contact with her. Having a resistance cell already in place would make my job one fuck-load easier.

I scroll a little farther to see what other names are there, and run head-first into my own assumptions. Because the very next two names are more corporate than symbolic; Director Piggot and Deputy Director Renick. What is this? A secret underground hacker group or a corporate think-tank?

And then something occurs to me. I'm totally failing to make use of the best source of information I've got to hand. Specifically, Taylor Hebert's memories. Leaning back in my seat, I let the curtain of green slide down over my eyes as I concentrate on the names. If they're a secret underground group, Taylor won't know thing one about them, which will be a point in their favour. Of course, I'm gonna have to warn them to back the fuck off from her. Fitting in's one thing, but I'm not gonna let some teenage bitches wale on me for any fucking reason under the sun.

To my surprise, the names get a hit. But the real surprise is the content of the hits. By the time I blink my eyes clear, my head's spinning a bit. Turns out that Taylor didn't know all the names, especially Piggot or Renick, but she knew Triumph and Aegis, as well as Clockblocker. I pause for a moment to reflect on exactly what sort of a mind would call themselves that, then move on.

They aren't a secret underground resistance group. They're a bunch of fucking bona-fide government-sponsored kid superheroes called the Wards, complete with costumes and powers. Which means that they've all got chunks of anomalous code grafted on to them.

My phone rings, and I answer it. "You are never gonna fuckin' believe this."

"It can wait." Loki's voice is brusque, even for him. "You gotta ditch the phone. It's got a trace program in it."

I stare at the smart-phone, holding it away from my body in case a metallic insect jumps out and burrows its way into my body. Saw a good buddy go out that way once; the fucking thing got to his brain and diced it. "You're shitting me. There's Agents involved after all?"

"For fuck's sake, Momo. I mean an actual trace program on the actual goddamn phone. They just activated it remotely. Ditch the fuckin' thing. Now." Loki sounds both pissed and urgent, which convinces me.

"Okay, fine," I reply. The bus window takes a little effort to open, then I flick the phone on to a shop awning. "Ditched. Happy now?"

"No gratitude, I see. You know I probably just saved you from getting arrested or shot or whatever."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." I flip the phone shut, then grin. I suspect I know Sophia Hess' dirty little secret. By now I'm pretty sure she's not in the know about the Matrix. But I'm absolutely certain that she's gonna be shitting herself majorly over the loss of the phone. Of course, I'm not totally read in on all the details yet, but I have a fairly good idea where I can get access to those.

<><>​

Winslow High

Sergeant Joe Casteli yawns as he slows down briefly to give a passing bus right of way at the intersection. He's been pulling some late nights over Christmas and New Year, mainly because there's always someone who chooses to be out and about causing trouble. Even now, two days later, he still hasn't caught up on all his sleep.

The bus rumbles past and he lets the clutch out, rolling down the road until he gets to the entrance of the Winslow parking lot. This is a place he knows all too well. A week rarely goes by without a call-out to Brockton Bay's shittiest high school. Whether it's the Empire skinheads clashing with the ABB assholes, the ABB or Empire trashing the Merchant stoners or the Merchants selling drugs to anyone with the cash, he figures more crime goes on within those four walls than half the Docks.

The rookie riding shotgun, a skinny black kid called French, looks puzzled as the car rolls past the allotted parking space for emergency vehicles. "Uh, sergeant, wasn't that …?"

Casteli chuckles. A twenty-year man, he sometimes feels like he's been on the job more than twice that time. "We never drive straight in. Sometimes the gangs put metal spikes or broken glass in that spot. So instead we eyeball it on the way past and do a lap of the parking lot, just to see what stolen cars are in here today." Taking one hand off the wheel, he points. "See that one? The red Honda? Plates look familiar. Run 'em, will ya?"

"Uh, sure thing, sergeant." French sits forward and begins to tap information into the fold-out keyboard. "Just, um … weren't we here to investigate a fight or something?" To his credit, he never pauses in his data entry.

"Technically, yeah." Casteli decides to pass on another pearl of wisdom. "Thing is, this is Winslow High. They don't go a day without a fight, not here. Even if it gets called in, by the time we get there all we can do is scrape up what's left and call an ambulance. Whatever's happened is done. Hell, half the time we can't even spare a uniform to check it out. It's always the same story, anyway. Nobody saw nothing. Not even the guy who's bleeding out on the goddamn floor."

From the look on French's face, he isn't prepared for this revelation. "But …" He pauses. "So why are we showing today?"

Casteli nods and smiles. "Good question, French. This time it got called in by the principal. Woman called Blackwell. Apparently one of her model students got assaulted by one of the weird loners. Our job's to go in there, find out what happened, and let the little shit cool his heels overnight in the precinct house." He pulls the cruiser into an empty parking space. After shutting the car down, he climbs out and stretches, swivelling his shoulders one way and then the other. Obligingly, vertebrae click in his back. I'm getting too old for this.

French hooks his head toward the school. "Anything I should know before I go in?"

Silently, Casteli commends the kid for thinking ahead. "Treat it like a gang bust. You're gonna draw shit from the skinheads, and we'll both get it from the ABB. They'll say anything to get you riled up. Don't let it happen. Keep your hand near your gun, but for fuck's sake do not draw down on anyone unless they're holding a weapon and directly threatening you or someone else."

With a serious expression on his face, French nods. "Got it." Peering up at the grimy frontage of the school, he loosens his gun in its holster. "Like the training officer told us. Some parts of the city you gotta treat like the Wild West."

Casteli snorts. "That's about as good a description as any." He tilts his head toward the car as he hits the key fob to lock it. "How'd the search turn up?"

"Stolen." French doesn't even sound surprised. He's learning fast.

"Good. We'll deal with it on the way out." Casteli leads the way up the stairs to the front doors and pushes them open. "Come on, let's get to the principal's office and see what she can tell us about what's going on." He knows the way, of course; he's been here more than once before.

French sniffs out loud, then does it again. "Uh, sergeant?"

"What is it?" Casteli could've told him that sniffing, or even breathing deeply, inside Winslow isn't the smartest thing to do. God alone knows when they last cleaned the heating system. And he's got a sneaking suspicion that there's more than a bit of unreported asbestos in the walls. It looks like that kind of place.

"Something stinks, sergeant." French's face twists into a grimace. "I mean, it really stinks. Like something's dead. Or someone."

Without thinking, Casteli takes a sniff himself. French's nose is decades younger than his, and probably a lot keener, but even without that advantage he can just about pick up the odour that his partner's detected. It smells even worse than the time he ended up on stakeout with Howard 'Two-Ton' Tunley, who did nothing for six hours straight but eat fish paste sandwiches and fart. He hasn't been able to stomach fish since. "Shit. What is that?"

"I dunno." French moves forward, head turning from side to side as he sniffs at the air again. "I think we should check it out. If it's something rotten, then it's definitely a health hazard."

Momentarily, Casteli's tempted to overrule him and get back to the business at hand. But then he catches himself and shakes his head. French is right, after all. A smell like this has no place in a high school—well, apart from the locker room, anyway. And if he can get the school slapped with a health violation, it might make being dragged out here just a little more worthwhile.

They move through the halls, watching each others' backs. While Winslow's a high school, it's still the biggest shithole this side of whatever squat the Merchants are living in this week. Crudely sprayed Asian ideograms are overlaid by red and black racist symbolism, with the occasional double-barred green 'M' in the corner.

Casteli catches French's grimace as they pass by a full-length mural, a swastika overlaying a Confederate flag. "Don't let it get to you, kid. Thing these little shits don't understand is that both those flags got their asses kicked by black soldiers and white soldiers fighting side by side for the good old US of A." He slaps French on the shoulder. "And if they start anything, we'll just hafta show 'em a little historical re-enactment. Got it?"

French straightens his back slightly. "Got it, sergeant." He sniffs the air again, and screws his nose up. "Fuck, whatever that shit is, it's horrific."

"You're not wrong." Casteli is now trying to breathe through his mouth only. Whatever's causing the smell is directly ahead. They move up together and look around the corner.

The source of the smell is very easy to pick out now. There's lockers lining each wall of this particular corridor; all are closed and locked, except for one. That one is open; more specifically, the hinges have been busted and the door's hanging from the locker by its lock. Spilling out of the locker is a sludgy mass of something that, even now, is gradually slumping toward the ground, an inch at a time. Bugs, masses of them, crawl around and over the fetid pile of decomposing … "What the fuck is that?" Casteli immediately regrets speaking, because now he's going to have to inhale.

"Dunno, sergeant." French gulps slightly. Casteli hadn't ever imagined it was possible for a black person to go green, but French is a talented young man. "Someone was in there. They went that way." He puts his hand over his mouth.

Casteli wrenches his horrified gaze away from the oozing, rotting mass to follow French's pointing finger. The muck has indeed been disturbed in a way that looks like someone waded through it, and there's even a trail leading away, outlined in clear sneaker footprints. Also included in the trail are bits and pieces of stuff that's apparently come from the pile. He thinks he recognises feminine hygiene products, but a glance at French makes him certain the boy's gonna lose his breakfast in the next few minutes if they keep hanging around.

"C'mere." He grabs French's sleeve and tows him along the corridor in the direction of the footprints. Once they're out of the worst of the miasma, he stops. "Wait here a moment."

"What are you gonna do, sergeant?" French, now looking less nauseated, eyes him curiously as he pulls his phone out.

"Crime scene photos," says Casteli grimly. "And to find out what locker number that was. Ten gets you one that whoever owns it is the one that got locked in with that crap. While I'm getting the photos, you call this in. Then we're gonna track down our vic and get a statement." He bares his teeth in what might be a smile. "Congrats, kid. Looks like you just sniffed out our first real crime of the day."

Part Four

 

[Ack]

Part Four: Revelations

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

Morrigan

When the bus pulls up in front of the library, I do a double-take. Not sure what I was expecting, exactly, but this sure as shit wasn't it. It's a big old building, almost fucking stately rather than being a run-down shithole like the school I just walked out of. As I get off the bus, I'm revising my opinion of the city of Brockton Bay upward a bit; there's office buildings all around and almost a feeling of prosperity in the air. That's probably an illusion though; I remember the bus rolling through some pretty crappy neighbourhoods before getting to the downtown area.

I climb the stairs and go in through the double glass doors. Inside, it's even more fucking impressive. I put my hands on my hips and look around, trying to figure out exactly how much damage an extended firefight in here would cause. What with the marble pillars and the artwork hung everywhere, I decide that the answer is 'way too fucking much'. If it wasn't for the shelves of books, I'd almost be forgiven for thinking I was in a museum, it's that goddamn fancy in here.

First thing I do is scope out the place for lines of fire and exfil points. I wander from one end of the building to the other, trying not to gawk too much. The last time I was in a place this fancy in the Matrix, I used about a quarter-ton of C-4 to blow it the fuck up. Fucking Agents, they ruin shit for everyone. And of course, I've never been anyplace this fancy outside the Matrix, because that shit hasn't been rebuilt yet.

Once I've finished with the ground floor, I head upstairs. Almost immediately, I strike gold. There's a row of twenty computers, free for use. Better yet, barely any of them are occupied, because all the good boys and girls are in school, and the adults are earning their illusory electronic dollars. I keep moving, making a mental note of which way I'd have to run if some asshole came through the door with overwhelming force. Sure, there aren't supposed to be Agents here, but I still don't really trust that.

It doesn't take me too long to get the layout of the place down, and I head back to the computers. Going online in the Matrix is kind of recursive; you know you're in a computer simulation, and the computer you're using is just an emulation in that simulation. If you know what you're doing, you can coax the system to do things it was never designed to do. This is why nearly all Operatives show up as hackers in the Matrix; even before we get the red pill, we're used to warping reality in a myriad of small ways. Of course, once we get the red pill, we can learn to do a whole lot more, but it's a solid start.

I pick the computer station right at one end from sheer reflex. Less chance of someone looking over my shoulder and scoping out what I'm doing. At the same time, I half-turn my chair so I've got the wall partially covering my back. I don't know that anyone's coming after me, but paranoia is a finely developed survival trait with any Operative. Until I've proven otherwise, I'm not gonna assume that there isn't someone already gunning for me. And even if I do prove it, I'm still not gonna trust it, because that shit can change.

The computer starts up just a little sluggishly, but that's par for the course. I'm tempted to pull a few hacker moves and go into the programming of this thing to speed it up, but I don't want to draw any more attention than I already am. Don't pay attention to me, I'm just a curious teenager looking up some stuff. So I endure the lag and type in my queries.

For "Wards", I get a page of really solid hits. Turns out that Taylor's memories were reasonably accurate; there really is a bunch of government-sponsored kid superheroes in town. Once I figure out how to narrow it down to Brockton Bay, I get a list of names and (masked) faces to go on with. In fact, each of them has a whole portfolio of pictures; turns out that having powers makes you a celebrity. Go figure.

The list is almost identical to the one I read off of Sophia's phone before I had to ditch it. Triumph is the leader, with a gladiator-style costume topped by a lion-head mask/helmet thing. The description says that he can shout loudly enough to break concrete. I guess that's what grafting weird-ass code culled from a fragment of the Mainframe on to your avatar will do. Must make ordering in a restaurant a bit of a tricky situation.

I skim through the rest of the names: Aegis, Clockblocker, Gallant, Kid Win, Shadow Stalker, Vista …

Wait one goddamn moment. Back that shit up.

I recognise most of those names, especially Clockblocker. If he picked that name for himself, I have to give him kudos. Though I'm not really sure what it's in aid of. I quickly check, and find out that he can freeze shit in time. That's actually pretty damn cool, but I still think that whoever was supposed to be checking names fell down on the job.

In any case, I'm not after him. There's one name on the list that I didn't see earlier; Shadow Stalker.

She—it's a teenage girl, looking pretty fit—doesn't have many pics in the profile, like she hasn't been with them for long. But I don't need many pictures to verify my earlier suspicion. Shadow Stalker wears a costume and mask combo that does a good job of covering her hair and skin colour, but she can't change her height and body type, or even the way she stands. That's Sophia Hess, all the fucking way.

I give the images a good long look, so I'll know her when I see her out and about. There's a full-face mask and a hooded cloak, with what looks like body armour on under the cloak. More of interest are the hand-held crossbows she apparently uses as her weapons of choice. Even though they aren't full-sized, they look like they could do some damage. With Sophia's temper, I'm left wondering how many assholes she's killed already.

Looking into her background, I get more of an idea of what she's like. Turns out she used to be a vigilante, but then she volunteered to join the Wards. Knowing what she's like face to face and having skimming through her text conversations with Emma, I get the strong impression she didn't so much volunteer as get shanghaied. Whatever she did to get this done to her, it must've been pretty bad. I know this because from the description she's got a classic "you can't touch me" cheat code grafted on to her. Which nails it down for me; there's no other way she could've gotten out of that hold I had her in. But it also means she could slide away any time she felt like it, unless they were keeping pretty close tabs on her.

Some other hyperlinks are demanding my attention, so I click on them. I start to learn about the Protectorate, which seems to be the adult version of the Wards. I'm hoping that I don't end up clashing with these guys; I'm good, but their avatars have been upgraded with stuff I'll be hard pushed to match off against.

On the other hand, there's also the Parahuman Response Teams, abbreviated to 'PRT'. That's the next link I click on. I'm not sure what to think about them. On the one hand, I'm pretty sure that they're all baseline human, but on the other … well, with the identical faceless appearance of those helmets, I'm reminded of how Agents all look the same.

Clicking onward, I find myself directed on to something called the ParaHuman Online boards, PHO for short. I start reading random threads; five minutes in, I pull out my phone and flip it open. There's nobody sitting close enough to listen in, but I remind myself to keep my voice down before I press the button.

"Operator." For once, Loki isn't coming across like a smug asshole. In fact, he sounds more stunned than anything.

"Yeah, you getting this?" I keep scrolling down the screen. It's a frank and open discussion of superhuman activities in Brockton Bay and across America, if by 'frank and open discussion' you mean 'terrifying references to inhuman capabilities'. In doing so, they're casually tossing around names that I'm going to have to look up if I'm to make any sense of this.

"Fuck yes, we're getting this." For once, he's actually being professional. Well, kinda. "Pretty sure we can strip out every thread you click on. Does it look like there's much more?"

"Uh, yeah." I click on the Home button, and look at the list of options. There's a lot of them; Brockton Bay, New England, America, International, PRT, Triumvirate, S-Class Threats, Scion. "Want me to hit up local events, or go wider?"

"Well, we're gonna want to get basically everything. This is gold, right here. If anything's gonna give us a picture of the world, it's this." There's a murmuring sound in the background. "The Captain wants you to look at that sub-forum titled 'S-Class Threats'. We're not sure what it means, but it can't be good."

Personally, I'm more interested in the one marked 'Scion', for no better reason than it's right at the end. But what the Captain wants, the Captain gets. Unless I get a better idea, of course. "Sure thing. S-Class Threats it is." I move the cursor to the link and click it. "Okay … let's see. Slaughterhouse Nine? Sounds like a bad sequel to a fairly dreary novel. Nilbog? Sounds like a bad fantasy novel. Sleeper? What's he gonna do, snore me to death? Endbringers? Wow, ominous much?"

"Captain says to check out the Endbringer thing, whatever that is. Probably our best bet of figuring out what's got the most chance of ending the world so we can stop it." Loki's voice is tense; I'm not feeling too relaxed right now either.

"I'm starting to wonder exactly how many ways these guys might end the world," I say, but I click the link anyway. The subforum that pops up has four options: General, Behemoth, Leviathan and Simurgh. I shrug and click 'Behemoth'.

And then my mind goes blank, because I've just seen my first Endbringer. The imagery is terrifying, and I say that as someone who's gone toe to toe with Agents. Forty-plus feet tall, dwarfing the people around it, in the air and on the ground. Throwing fire, lightning and even radiation at its opponents, tearing its way through cities like a man wading through a wheatfield. My throat goes dry and closes up altogether as I read the stats attached to the creature, how long it's been active (eighteen years) and the estimated number of casualties it's responsible for. Not thousands. Not tens of thousands. Not even hundreds of thousands. Fucking millions.

Nausea rises in my throat. Loki's saying something in my ear, but I'm not hearing him. I don't even recognise my own voice as I say the only thing that makes sense.

"Fuuuuck."

<><>​

Winslow
A Little Earlier

Casteli hasn't drawn his gun yet, but his hand isn't too far from it. Someone who'd shove a teenager into a locker packed with rotting crap could just be the sort of asshole who'd bring a gun or a knife to school. French isn't so green around the gills any more. He's got his head up and looking around, so there's hope for him yet. The fact that he's following Casteli's lead without argument is another point in his favour.

The trail of stinking debris, along with the slimy footprints, leads them to a classroom door, which is wide open. Voices come from within. Casteli catches French's eye and points at where the footprints also leave the classroom, heading off down the corridor. "Looks like our vic came and went," he says quietly.

"So what are we waiting for?" French asks. He sounds eager, which is kind of excusable, but Casteli knows better.

"First off, we find out what happened in there," he says. "Then we go looking for the vic. They're obviously up and able to walk. Also, probably traumatised. So we don't go running after them. And we don't go anywhere alone in Winslow. So stick with me."

He moves forward and steps into the doorway, coming face to face with a familiar figure. He's met this woman before. Principal Blackwell has never really impressed him much, but she is the ranking authority in Winslow. Behind her stands one of the teachers; a Mr Gladly. Gladly has managed to impress Casteli even less.

"Oh, good, you're here," Blackwell says. "I demand you arrest her at once!" Her voice is a little sharp, a little high-pitched, and would probably go through the human skull like a bandsaw after a Friday night bender.

Casteli frowns. "Good morning, Principal Blackwell," he says in an attempt to establish a certain level of politeness. "Who do you want us to arrest? And on what charge, exactly?" He knows what charge he wants to arrest someone on, but who that someone is, he's not sure yet.

Blackwell takes a deep breath. "Her name is Taylor Hebert. She barged in here after class started, assaulted several of my students, then dragged Emma Barnes from the classroom by force."

That changes everything. "Is anyone here hurt?" he asks crisply. He waits a bare second for her head-shake, then points into the classroom. "Wait here. We'll be back."

With French at his side, he starts off down the hallway, moving at a steady jog. The footprints are fainter now, but still quite visible, and occasionally accompanied by a horrid blackened thing. As they take the first flight of stairs upward, French clears his throat. "Uh, sergeant, why are we in a hurry now when we weren't before?"

"Because we didn't know the vic had a hostage," Casteli says, taking the steps two at a time. "And dollars to doughnuts this Barnes girl has something to do with the locker. Or the Herbert girl thinks she does. Either way, we've got to stop her before she does something she'll regret."

"I think she said Hebert," French says, between puffs. "Not Herbert."

Casteli wants to say who the fuck cares? but he doesn't, because it would be a dick move to swear at French for picking up on a detail he missed. "Good catch," he says shortly. They come out at the top of the stairs, and he squints to pick up the trail again. It's not hard; the footprints lead directly to a girls' bathroom, not far away. Raised voices are audible from within, though he can't make out the words.

"Call this in," he says quietly. "Gonna see what I can hear." He turns down his radio so he won't be distracted as he eases closer to the bathroom door. Over his shoulder he can hear French murmuring on the radio, but he's concentrating on hearing what's going on inside.

The voices, as far as he can make out, are female and on the young side, but he can't tell more than that. Fits with what they told us. Dollars to doughnuts that's the Hebert girl and the Barnes girl. While there's definitely an argument going on, he can't make out more than a word here or there, and it's not enough to establish context. But it's definitely two voices and there's no screaming or noises of pain, so nobody's hurt yet. He hopes.

French moves up beside him. "They wanted to know if the Hebert girl's armed. I said not as far as we know."

Casteli nods. "Yeah. If she had been, Blackwell'd be demanding we shoot her on sight. Still, no sense in taking chances. If I draw my taser, you draw yours. If I draw my gun, you draw yours. If I shoot, you shoot. You do not do any of that unless I do it first. I'll go left, you go right. Got it?"

He senses rather than sees the return nod. "Got it, sergeant."

"Good." Taking a deep breath, he steps forward to the bathroom door. "BBPD!" he yells. "Police officers! We are coming in! Make no hostile moves!" With his left hand, he slaps the outer door open, then wrenches at the inner door. The instant it's open, he lunges through and moves to the left, clearing the way for French.

Two teenage girls, wearing just underwear, spin around from what looks like a heated discussion to stare at them.

<><>​

A Couple of Minutes Later

Casteli wriggles his pinky in his ear again. The black girl never made a sound when he burst in with French on his heels, but the redhead turned out to have a really effective screaming voice. This was only amplified by the tiled walls; his ears are still ringing. The redhead now has his jacket draped around her for modesty, while French has given the black girl his own jacket.

"I don't understand why we can't take this elsewhere," Principal Blackwell grumbles. It's obvious she's never been in this bathroom, and the smell of the pile of soiled clothing isn't helping.

"This is a crime scene," Casteli says for the third time. "We need to find out what happened here. Now, you're certain that neither of these girls is Taylor Hebert?" He brushes his hand over his vest to make sure his recorder is running.

"I'm certain," Blackwell informs him frigidly. "That is Emma Barnes. Her father's a lawyer. Sophia Hess is one of our track stars." She gives Casteli a hard stare. "Are they under arrest?"

Casteli shakes his head. "No. But as soon as we can walk through the timeline here, we can move things along. So, Miss Barnes. You came in here with Taylor Hebert?"

Emma turns at his prompting and nods. "Yes," she says thickly. Her nose is swollen and red, and there's a bump on her forehead; plugs of paper adorn her nostrils. "She dook her clothes off."

"That's those clothes there, right?" asks Casteli, pointing at the smelly pile. "Why do you think she did that?"

"Yes, that's themb," she confirms. "She bade be clead themb id the singk."

"She made you clean them in the sink?" he asks. When she nods, he goes on. "What happened then?"

"Sophia cambe id," she says. "Daylor beat her ub add stole her bands."

Casteli considers that. "Sophia came in," he hazards. "Taylor beat her up and stole her pants, is that right?"

Emma's just nodding when Sophia slaps her hands to her hips through the overhanging jacket. "Oh, shid!" the black girl blurts. "Bish took by phodes!" She turns to Blackwell. "I deed to call mby social worker."

"I'll do that for you," Blackwell says hurriedly, reaching into her handbag and pulling out her phone.

Casteli watches curiously as she taps a number into the phone without even consulting with Sophia. Is it just me, or does she have that number memorised? Putting the phone to her ear, Blackwell turns away and begins to speak under her breath, which seems to bear out his supposition. He wonders just how often Blackwell's had to call that number over the last year. Though it's nice to see a teacher so willing to step up for her students.

"So what happened then, Miss Barnes?" French asks.

"She mbade mbe give her mby boots add blouse add she left," Emma says simply. "But she was actig weird. Like she did'd really doe mbe. Cold add mbead." She points at her face. "She broke mby dose add Sophia's doo."

If I got locked into a locker with crap like that, I'd want to break someone's nose too, Casteli thinks. I wouldn't even really blame her for making Emma give her the boots and blouse, if Emma was the one to shut her in there. Not that that changes matters, of course. Assault and battery is still a crime, as is theft.

"Well, that seems to cover the situation here," he says. "Let's get you downstairs so you can wait for your parents." He really should get a description of the stolen clothing, he knows, but he just can't face trying to decipher any more of Emma's nasal mumble right now.

<><>​

PRT Building ENE
Deputy Director Renick's Office

"Deputy Director Renick speaking."

"Deputy Director, this is Kirsten Bright."

Renick frowns at the phone. "That's nice, Ms Bright, but it doesn't tell me why you're calling me."

"Oh, uh, I'm Shadow Stalker's PRT liaison?" The Bright woman sounds a little flustered. "I've got instructions to call if there's ever anything I can't handle?"

Shadow Stalker. Renick's frown deepens. She's not popular among her fellow Wards, but at least she doesn't cause problems at school. "Understood," he says bluntly. "But what are you calling me about?"

"I just got a call from Blackwell at Winslow," Bright goes on. "Someone beat up Shadow Stalker, knocked her out and took her Wards phone."

He sits bolt upright in his chair. "Status of Shadow Stalker?" he asks crisply.

"Alive and conscious," reports Bright. "She's got a broken nose, though."

Turning toward his computer, Renick puts the phone on speaker and starts typing. "Any indication as to whether this was an attack on the Wards, or on her personally?"

"There was nothing to indicate that it was about her secret identity," Bright says. Which doesn't really mean anything, as he's fully aware. "A friend of hers was being assaulted and she went to their aid. She was apparently taken by surprise and knocked out. While she was unconscious, her phone was stolen. The thief has apparently left Winslow."

"Call Blackwell back," Renick orders. "Get her to put Shadow Stalker on the phone and get a full report from her, broken nose or no broken nose. Call me back when you have more." The press of a button ends the call.

He clicks open a window, revealing a menu titled 'Wards Phones'. Scrolling down the list—it's arranged alphabetically, which puts Shadow Stalker down toward the bottom—he locates the one he wants and clicks on it. Immediately, a second menu pops up. From it, he selects 'Activate Tracker'. A moment later, a map unfolds on the screen. On it, a red dot pops up, crawling south from Winslow. Reaching over to his phone, Renick hits a speed-dial number.

"Operations, Sergeant Lamont speaking."

"This is the Deputy Director." He knows that saying so is probably unnecessary; they've probably got his number memorised. But he still does it anyway. "We've got a ten-eighty-three. The tracking beacon has been activated. I'll be sending the frequency through shortly. I'm going to need a plainclothes detail to track it down discreetly."

"Copy that, sir. We'll get right on it."

Renick sighs and puts the phone down, then hits the key to send the information to the Ops desk. Then he picks the phone up again. The Director's going to want to know about this.

He's not looking forward to the conversation.

Part Five

 

[Ack]

Part Five: Sophia Interlude

[A/N: this chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]



Earlier

Sophia isn't sure she knows the girl who sent her the text. Probably one of Emma's ass-kissers. Not important. What she does know is the body of the text: Hey Sophia, Taylor just dragged Emma out of Gladly's World Affairs class. Looked & sounded a bit psycho.

It's all Sophia really needs to know. She's not entirely sure how Hebert got out of the locker, or how she managed to grow enough of a spine to drag Emma out of the classroom, but details like that aren't important. If Hebert thinks she's good enough to stand up and fight back, then it's up to Sophia to explain to her where she's wrong. A good ass-kicking, she figures, will show Hebert where she really belongs. And Sophia can even report it to the PRT as a righteous beatdown, given Hebert's attack on Emma. I fucking love a win-win situation.

By the time she gets to the top of the stairs, Hebert's crap-stained footprints are getting faint, but they show the way into the third-floor girls' bathroom. Sophia sneers; this is one of Hebert's favourite hiding places. Tracked you down already. Couldn't even make it difficult, could you?

She goes into the bathroom fast, shoving the doors open as hard as she can. Hebert has no way of being a danger to her, but Sophia wants to get the drop on her anyway. Even when the outcome of the fight's a foregone conclusion, it's a good habit to keep up. And if she curbstomps Hebert hard enough, maybe the sorry little queef'll think twice before getting in Sophia's way again.

As the inner door booms against the stop, Sophia strides on into the bathroom. The first person she sees is Hebert, who's stripped down to her underwear for some weird reason. Did she drag Emma here for some kinky sex thing? The other odd thing is that Hebert looks like she's in the middle of a phone call. In all the time Sophia's known Emma, Hebert's never even been seen with a phone, much less using one. She vaguely recalls Emma saying something about Hebert's mom, but Sophia's never bothered remembering boring details like that.

Focusing past Hebert, Sophia looks at Emma, who's just turned toward Sophia from where she's standing at one of the sinks. There's a pile of some sort of stinky shit at the redhead's feet, and she's got the water running over something that's in the sink itself. There's a red mark on her forehead, her nose is swollen, and blood-stained paper plugs her nostrils. Hebert, you're gonna fuckin' pay for that.

Sophia takes a step forward. "Emma, you all right?"

When Emma speaks, her voice is a nasal mumble. "I thi'k by dose id broke'd. Tha'k God you're here." The look in her eye goes deeper than that: Where were you? Why didn't you protect me?

Anger swells in Sophia's chest at the implication that she's failed Emma, but the marks on her friend's face are silent proof of the point. By the time I'm finished with Hebert, she's never going to pull this shit again.

Hebert seems to be paralysed with fear, or just has no idea what to do next. Either way, she's just staring into space with the phone still held up next to her ear. Gliding forward, Sophia swings her fist and plants a solid punch into the skinny girl's solar plexus, just under her breastbone. With a gratifying whoosh of breath, Hebert folds over and goes down, sprawling inelegantly on the bathroom tiles. Her phone hits the floor and skitters across the ceramic, coming to rest against Emma's boot.

Sophia looks down at Hebert with her fists clenched, her victory feeling almost anticlimactic. It's not as though Hebert ever put up much of a fight before, but this time felt as though it might be more of a challenge. No such luck, of course. As Hebert's eyes focus on her, Sophia aims a kick at her ribs; time to drive the lesson home. "You've just never learned—"

Her eyes widen and she breaks off her little speech as Hebert goes from helpless victim to active participant. Lifting her legs, Hebert flips out of the way of the kick, coming to her feet far more athletically than Sophia would've given her credit for. Not that this deters Sophia in any way; Hebert might get lucky once, but that's no substitute for hard-earned skill. She comes in hard and fast, throwing a punch from the shoulder. Hebert seems to freeze up again for a split second; Sophia begins to grin tightly in anticipation of the sensation of Hebert's lips splitting under her knuckles.

The barest fraction of a second before Sophia's fist would've knocked Hebert's teeth across the room, Hebert's face just isn't there any more. Caught off guard as her fist whiffs past the other girl's head, Sophia feels her arm seized in a steely grip. As fast as she is, her reactions haven't even begun to catch up by the time the arm is twisted uncomfortably, locking her into a compliance hold. Shocked, Sophia realises that Hebert's not only stronger and faster than she seems, but that she's also totally turned the fight around in less than a second.

While Sophia's trying—and failing—to break free of the hold, Hebert turns to Emma. "How are you going with that?" The utterly casual tone of her voice does more to irritate Sophia than anything else. It's like she considers Sophia to not even be a factor any more.

Emma's reply is defensive. "Uh, id's slow. Id does'd wa'd to cub oud." If she says any more, Sophia isn't listening, because she's taking advantage of the fact that Hebert's distracted to slip into her Breaker state. It doesn't matter how lucky or good Hebert is, she can no more maintain a grip on Sophia in that state than she can put a headlock on a puff of smoke.

It's time to play hardball; if Hebert wants to poke the bear, she's gonna get mauled. Reforming, Sophia leads with a jab to the face; her follow-up will be a punch to the solar plexus. This is, of course, the least of what she's gonna be doing to Hebert, but it's a good start. Hebert takes the bait, deflecting the jab and leaving herself wide open. Sophia bares her teeth viciously as the follow-up punch … smacks loudly into the middle of Hebert's right palm, which has somehow blurred into position. Hebert's hand has no give at all, and the shock of the blow travels up Sophia's arm as her fist comes to a complete halt.

Sophia's got just enough time to register that Hebert's turned the fight around again, and that she's holding Sophia's fist in a grip like iron. Too late, she looks up to see Hebert's forehead approaching at speed. The last thing she feels before the lights go out is a bone-deep crunch from her nose.

<><>​

Cold water splashes into Sophia's face, and she splutters her way back to wakefulness. She's lying on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor, with Emma standing over her in her underwear. Her nose throbs abominably, feeling about three times its normal size. "The fuck?" she asks, sitting up. Her head spins for a moment, but she pushes through it. She's taken hits to the nose before, though this is the first time she's actually had it this badly broken. "Where'd Hebert go? What happened to your clothes?"

Emma looks uncomprehendingly at her. "What?" she asks nasally.

Sophia rolls her eyes as she climbs to her feet. The throbbing in her nose eases very slightly, but it's still unpleasant as fuck. "Where. Is. Hebert? And where. Are. Your. Clothes?" That's when she looks down at herself and receives another shock. "And where's mine?" she yells, because she's just noticed she's also in her underwear.

Emma gets the meaning of that with no problem at all. "She took themb," she says nasally. "Took mbide too."

"And you let her?" Sophia glares at her. "I thought you were supposed to be strong!"

"Why did'd you mbeat her ub?" retorts Emma. "You've always mbeed strogger thad her!" Her eyes, red-rimmed as they are, stare accusingly at Sophia.

Sophia's got an idea about that. "What if she triggered with powers?" she asks as she tears off strips of paper from the partial towel on the counter. "Attacking civilians and Wards with powers is a criminal offence." She ignores the notion that this can apply to her. If they can't catch her, they don't deserve to apply the rules to her. Rules are stupid and restrictive anyway, except for the ones that let her do what she wants.

Emma stares at her. "You thigg that's what habbed'd?" She doesn't sound disbelieving, but nor does she seem to be jumping on the idea.

Sophia winces as she shoves the wadded-up pieces of paper into her tender nostrils. "You ever seen her go that psycho before?" she asks rhetorically. Honestly, if Hebert had been that much of a badass when they first met, Sophia probably would've cut her a shitload of slack. But their respective roles are now set; Sophia's the ass-kicker and Hebert's the ass-kickee. Which just means that Sophia's gonna have to work harder at putting Hebert back where she belongs. Either that, or six feet underground, if Hebert won't see sense.

"So what do we do dow if she got bowers?" Emma asks after a few moments. It might be Sophia's imagination, but Emma's gaze doesn't seem to hold quite the same level of unquestioning faith in Sophia's abilities that she's used to seeing.

"We don't do anything," Sophia says flatly. "Once we get out of here, I'll be contacting the PRT and giving them chapter and verse on Hebert, how she's a dangerous parahuman who attacked you and tried to kill the both of us before I drove her off. You don't have to say a damn word."

Emma frowns. "But what about our clothes?"

As much as Sophia doesn't want to admit it, she's got a point. "Okay, so she attacked us both and took our clothes. Think we should say she tried to make us do skeevy stuff? I've heard that's a fast-track to the Birdcage, right there."

A sceptical expression crosses Emma's face. "What if they exabid us? Cad't brove what did't habbed." She gives Sophia a hard look. "Add as buch as I wadd to see Taylor id trouble, I'b dot about to fake that shit."

"Yeah, you're right." Sophia considers her options. "We'll just say she was acting crazy, making threats and shit. We don't know why she picked on you. For all we know, it was all about how you used to be her best friend."

"Add our clothes," Emma points out. "She wadd wearig your padts."

Sophia shakes her head. "I still can't believe you let her take my pants."

"I still cad'd believe she bead you ub," Emma retorts. "It was like she didd't have to eved try."

"Don't go there," Sophia says warningly. "I figure she's got a Brute rating, as well as Mover and probably Thinker. I couldn't use my powers directly, so yeah, she beat me. But next time I see her, I'm gonna take her down as hard as I need to."

Emma nods. "Souds good. So how are we gettig out of here? I dod't thidk adyode dows we're here."

"Well, I'm sure as shit not walking out that door like this," Sophia says bluntly. "If anyone gets even one photo of us, it'll be all over the fuckin' school in minutes." And even with Emma's standing among the 'in' crowd, such a photo would make them a laughingstock at best and raise salacious rumours at worst. The higher you are, the harder you fall.

"Doe, doe, I cad see that," Emma says hurriedly. "Cad't you phase through the floor or sobethig?" She looks expectantly at Sophia, who shakes her head.

"Fuck, no," Sophia says flatly. "For one thing, if I run into an electricity cable, it hurts like all fuck, and if I can't get out of the wall in time, that might just kill me. For another, that's a fuckin' boys' bathroom just under us. I am not fuckin' outing myself and giving whoever's in there shooting up or smoking up a free show, all at the same time." While it isn't a certainty that there'll be someone in there, the chances are about fifty-fifty of this being the case, and Sophia doesn't like those odds in the slightest.

Emma seems to shrink in on herself a little. "So what do we do?" she asks, wrapping her arms around herself. Sophia restrains herself from following suit, even though it is a bit chilly in the bathroom. She tells herself that it's all the tiling that's making it feel cold.

"There's only one thing for it," Sophia says. She points at the pile of reeking clothing on the floor, which by now she's identified as Hebert's cast-offs. Even worse than them are the jeans, currently crammed into one of the sinks; they were what Emma'd been trying to clean when Sophia came in. The cleaning effort hasn't been too successful, and on top of everything else the jeans are now also soaking wet. On the floor, the sneakers are just as filthy as the jeans were, while other items of clothing (while not nearly as bad) are still soiled to one degree or another. "You're going to have to put those on and go for help."

Up until now, Emma's been following Sophia's lead for the most part. But at this suggestion, she shakes her head violently. "Doe! Fugg, doe! I'b dot puttig that shit odd." The look on her face suggests that her disgust might stem in equal parts from the smell and the utter lack of fashion inherent in Hebert's ex-wardrobe. "You put it odd."

"Not fucking likely," Sophia retorts. "That shit stinks bad enough when we're back here. There's no fuckin' way I'm getting any closer. You put it on."

"You're subbosed to be the suberhero," protests Emma. Sophia is mildly surprised; the redhead is pushing back harder on the issue than she would've expected. "Addyway, I cad't fit iddo mbost of her clothes. You're skiddier thad be."

Sophia steps forward and raises her voice. "There's no fucking way I'm putting on any of that shit. You're the one who got yourself dragged up here by Hebert."

"I didd't see you doig addy better agaidst her," Emma shoots back, her own voice also rising. "Addyway, you're the wud who shoved her iddo the logger."

"Oh, don't even fuckin' go there," Sophia snaps. "All you had to do was distract her just once when I was fighting her and we would've had her. But you couldn't even do that."

"Whed, eggzacty?" demands Emma sarcastically. "Whed she had you id ad arb lock, or whed she head-butted you? She fuggig owd'd you."

Temper rising, Sophia is opening her mouth to shout something when another shout interrupts her. "BBPD!" It's a masculine voice, coming from outside the bathrooms. "Police officers! We are coming in! Make no hostile moves!" This is followed by the distinctive sound of the outer door being pushed open, then the inner one also flies open. A heavy-set male cop, made even bulkier by the jacket he's wearing, bursts into the bathrooms and moves to the right. Directly behind him, a skinnier cop, this one black, comes in and moves to Sophia's left.

Despite the fact that she's technically covered by her underwear, Emma automatically shields herself with her arms, and lets out a piercing scream. Sophia has to admit, this is something she's really, really good at.

<><>​

Later, in Principal Blackwell's Office

Just as they enter the outer office door, Principal Blackwell's phone rings. Pulling it out, she swipes the answer icon and holds it to her ear. "Winslow High School, Principal Blackwell speaking," she says.

Sophia tunes her out in favour of listening in on the two police officers. The older one, in his forties, has greying hair at his temples and a stolid, unshakeable air about him. His jacket hangs off of Emma like a circus tent, while the younger cop's jacket might actually fit Sophia in a couple of years.

"Take that to the car," the older one says, indicating the oversized evidence bag that the younger one is holding, containing Hebert's wet soiled clothing. "Bring back tape and cones. We need to partition that locker off until crime scene techs can get to it."

Sophia isn't so sure she likes that idea. If the cops decide to really investigate the locker, she's not sure exactly what they'll find, but it might not be good for her. Best, she decides, if the PRT takes over as soon as possible. Being aware of her secret identity, they'll steer any investigation away from her. Because of course as a Ward she won't be a suspect in the matter.

"Miss Hess?" She looks around at Blackwell's voice. "Your social worker needs to speak with you." The woman holds her phone out to her.

"Okay." She takes the phone. "Can I—?" She gestures toward the inner office. After all, it wouldn't do to have the cops hear what she's got to say to the Bright twit.

Blackwell nods and ushers her through; the door closes behind her. On the other side of it, she can hear the principal explaining that she needs to take a 'private phone call'. Sophia grins and settles down into Backwell's desk chair as she holds the phone to her ear. "I'm here."

"This is Kirsten Bright. Can you speak freely?"

Sophia glances around, just to make sure she's alone. "Sure. What's up?"

"Identify yourself by codename and security password, please." It seems that Bright is actually taking security procedures seriously, for once.

"Shadow Stalker. One two one three Sierra Hotel. Happy?" She tries not to sound too sarcastic, but she can't help rolling her eyes.

"Perfectly. Deputy Director Renick has directed me to get a verbal report from you regarding the incident involving your phone being stolen. Just so you know, I'll be recording this. Do you understand?" The so-called 'social worker' definitely seems to be crossing the "t's" and dotting the "i's" today. It doesn't take Sophia long to figure out why. They're gonna be going through everything that happens today with a fine-tooth comb. She doesn't want to fuck up and lose her job. The fucking twit. It occurs to Sophia that she doesn't want Bright to lose her job either; the next babysitter they stick her with might actually be inclined to do their damn job.

"Sure, I understand. Let me know when to start." Leaning back in the chair, she puts her bare feet up on Blackwell's desk, crossing one over the other. There's no sense in not being comfortable, after all.

Kirsten Bright clears her throat. "Commencing verbal report by Shadow Stalker regarding phone-loss incident at Winslow High on January third, two thousand eleven. Shadow Stalker, you may begin."

Sophia takes a deep breath. "There's this creepy weird loner in Winslow called Taylor Hebert. When she dragged my friend Emma Barnes out of class—"

"Uh, one second," interjects the Bright twit. "How did you know she'd done this? Are you in the same class with her? Did you see this?"

Trying not to sound aggravated, Sophia sighs. "No. Someone sent me a text message. One of her other friends, I don't remember who. Anyway, when I heard, I got worried so I went looking. I—"

"Were you in costume at the time?" interrupts the twit. "Has your secret identity been compromised?"

"No and no," Sophia says, trying not to snap at the woman. No sense in getting her pissed, after all. "I just made an excuse and left class. No big." She takes a breath, then continues on. "I know Winslow pretty good, so it didn't take me long to find them. Emma and Taylor, I mean. I—"

"Uh, I've been to Winslow too. It's not a small place. How exactly did you find them quickly?"

Knowing Bright can't see her, Sophia rolls her eyes. She didn't want to bring up this detail, but it seems the twit's actually using her brain for once. "Hebert must've walked in something. Left a pretty clear trail. Led me straight to the third-floor girls' bathrooms. I get there, she's already busted Emma's nose and she's making Emma change clothes with her or something."

"Why?" asks Bright. "The clothes, I mean."

"I dunno," Sophia retorts. "Maybe because her own clothes are so fuckin' grungy? She's a weirdo loner, who knows why they do shit? Anyway, I tell her to back the fuck off from Emma. But she attacks me. Now normally, I should've been able to take her down, no problem. I'm pretty fuckin' good, and Hebert doesn't do sports, never fights—I mean, doesn't get into fights. Never even seen her throw a punch. Just a big wimp, really. But this time around she cleaned my fuckin' clock. She's got moves I've never seen." She lets the aggravation at being beaten so thoroughly creep into her tone. "She's gotta be a fuckin' cape."

From the change in tone, Bright is suddenly a lot more attentive. "You're certain about this? What proof do you have?"

"Okay." Sophia tries to inject patience into her tone. "She's basically a bundle of twigs in a hoodie, yeah? I went to punch her and she caught my fist out of nowhere, and held it. When I was fighting her, or trying to, she moved faster than Armsmaster. Maybe as fast as Velocity. Not the whole body, but her arms and head. Like she knew what I was gonna be doing and got there first, every time."

"That's … very concerning," concedes Bright. "So what happened then?"

"Well, after she head-butted me and knocked me out," Sophia grinds out, "the bitch stole my clothes and my phones, and took Emma's too. I dunno where she got to. The cops came in shortly after that, then brought in the principal. You know the rest."

"All right," says the Bright twit. "What have you told the police?"

Again, Sophia rolls her eyes. What do you take me for? "Everything that happened, except for the bits about me being a Ward. And about her being a cape. Figured you'd want to keep that on the down-low for the moment."

"That's exactly what we want, yes." Bright pauses for a moment. "So what else can you tell me about the Hebert girl?"

Sophia bares her teeth. This is the moment she's been waiting for. "Okay, she's always been creepy, but now she's got powers she's even creepier. Take it from me, she's hella dangerous to fight. Pretty sure she's got Brute and Mover and combat Thinker ratings, and she's sure as fuck no hero. Emma said she was acting all crazy, saying we'd all be sorry or some shit." She pauses for a moment. "Need anything more?"

"No, that sounds perfect," the Bright woman tells her. "I'll pass your report on to Deputy Director Renick as soon as possible."

"Excellent," says Sophia, and hangs up the call. Stretching in the chair, she allows herself a tight little smile of self-congratulation. Fuck you, Hebert. Fuck you with a barge pole.

I. Fucking. Win.

Part Six

 

[Ack]

Reality Intrudes

Part Six: Wake-Up Call

[A/N: this chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

Morrigan

Leaning forward with my elbows on my knees, I breathe deeply. Yeah, I know it's not really air that I'm breathing. I don't give a fuck. Breathing deeply still helps when it comes to dealing with this sort of shit. Not even the Mainframe killed that many people so casually; looking into the face of a thing that's got a seven-digit body count is frankly terrifying. Even if it is just a picture of something inside a simulation. I'm inside the goddamn simulation with it.

Slowly, I raise my head and look at the pictures of Behemoth again. They aren't any less frightening, but I'm gradually getting used to the idea that there's something in here that I don't stand a snowball's chance in fuck of taking out on my own. No amount of Operatives could. So we don't even try to kill this thing; we just leave it in here when we evacuate everyone the fuck out of this pocket of the Matrix. Then we shut the fucking thing down and erase it.

As I click out of the entry on Behemoth and hover the cursor over Leviathan's name, I'm wondering if I really want to do this. Also, exactly what is the purpose to leave three rampaging … viruses, for want of a better term, active in the system alongside living people? Seriously, does this Zion program want people to die en masse? To me, that seems to go directly against the primary ethos of the Matrix as a whole. It's insane. It fucking has to be. There's no other viable explanation. With that in mind, I open the entry for Leviathan.

The appearance of the big lizard-like creature is made subtly worse by the fact that it has no fucking face. Or muzzle, or whatever it is that lizards have. Then I take in its accomplishments.

Well, fuck. I'd thought I was inured to the havoc that the Endbringers could cause. It turns out I'm wrong; so sue me. It sank Kyushu. And Newfoundland. That's … I've really got no words for that. Apart from what the holy crapping Christ have I stuck my neck in this time?

Feeling just a little light-headed, I look at the list of other places that Leviathan has inundated and decimated. The very long list. After a moment, I work out that the vast majority are coastal cities. Opening another window, I look up information for Brockton Bay; specifically, its location.

Yeah, thought so. I'm in a coastal city. Fuck my life. By now, I'm not even remotely surprised.

At some point, I must've put the phone on the table beside me. Now it rings softly, buzzing against the hard surface. Picking it up, I flip it open. "Yeah?"

"Your vitals just jumped all over the place for a bit. You're not wimping out on us are you, Mopey?"

Fucking Loki. The last of the sick sensation in my stomach makes way for an entirely reasonable and rational desire to punch his teeth down his throat. I wonder momentarily if the Captain would mind if I jacked out for a moment so I could do just that. "Fuck you, ass-biscuit. I'm doing better here than you ever would. Figure you'd be puking your guts out if you were reading half the shit I was."

His tone is irritatingly condescending. "I highly doubt that, Moggy. After all, whatever you're looking at in there is made-up information for a made-up simulation. None of it's real. No need to piss yourself."

"I did not fuckin' piss myself!" In my own head, I admit that this is because I'm capable of some pretty effective self-control. But the fact remains that I didn't. I hang up, making a mental note to screw Loki over in an appropriate manner once I jack out of here.

Behemoth was a shock. Leviathan isn't much better. But when I click on the Simurgh, I get a whole new level of 'what the fuck'? Even if there aren't any Agents here, they don't need them. This giant creepy winged fucker is a fucking telepath. And a telekinetic. And she can apparently turn people into long-term serial killers and worse.

Again, I'm left wondering exactly what the purpose is to have these things killing hundreds of thousands of people every few months. And then I wonder if Zion was originally so dedicated to his little pocket project that he wiped the information that he's in the Matrix from his own awareness. It'd explain a shitload, given that his standard operating procedure seems to be "kill the people I need with fucking great monsters". I mean, what the living fuck?

If there's anything good to be said about this, it's that the Endbringers seem to be the worst singular threat facing the population. Everything else seems to be merely human beings with stupidly ridiculous cheat codes integrated into their avatars. The Slaughterhouse Nine, just for instance, comes across as a bunch of murderhobos led by a smarmy-looking asshole whose looks would be greatly improved by a bullet-hole roughly around the left eyebrow. Why nobody's implemented this improvement in the twenty-something years they've been active is something else I can't figure out. The rest of the crew could do with something similar too. I stall on the page dedicated to the first twelve year old serial killer I've ever heard of. The images on her wiki page have a caution sign you've got to click past, and it still makes me glad that Taylor's thrown up basically everything in her stomach. I never knew it was possible to do that to a human body. Even in a simulation.

I'd thought I knew viciousness. This pocket of the Matrix is fucking war-crimes central. Everyone in here, if I'm reading the situation even half right, is walking wounded. Accordingly, I stop reading what I'm clicking on. Let 'em strip it out, and upload a summary into my head.

I click through a few more information pages, but my heart's not in it any more. Plus, I'm hungry. Slipping the phone into my pocket, I stand up. Nobody's looking at me oddly, which is good. I head downstairs, still wary of any sort of ambush, but nobody seems to have me in their crosshairs as yet. I don't assume I'm in the clear, but I let myself relax very slightly. Now, if only I can find someplace to get a snack or two.

There's office buildings all around me, so I'm guessing there's also coffee shops around here somewhere. With this in mind, I walk a couple of blocks, keeping my eyes open, and pretty soon I locate what I'm looking for. Taylor Hebert's coin purse, when I investigate more closely, has a pocket for what looks like house keys, and another for notes. A five goes toward a take-away coffee and a croissant, with damn-all change left over. I grimace, make a mental apology toward her for hijacking her body and spending her money, and leave the shop with my drink and pastry.

The croissant is nice and hot, but the coffee leaves a bit to be desired. Still, it's hot and liquid, so I drink it. I've had worse. And it's kind of pleasant to just walk along, the weak January sunlight cutting down the effect of a chill breeze winding down the street.

Of course, I'm still on the clock, and I figure I've gotten enough data from official sources for the moment; it's time to see what the underbelly looks like. My options to do this are relatively limited. I could either impersonate a cop, a fellow criminal or a victim. Being a cop is out, as it would take too much time to acquire a legitimate-looking badge and uniform (besides, I've kicked the shit out of a fuckload of cops. It would be too fucking weird). Likewise, I simply don't have the underworld contacts for this pocket of the Matrix. However, being a victim requires minimal prep. Any idiot can manage it. Even Loki.

So I set out to get mugged. Basically, this means that I spend the next twenty minutes keeping an eye out for suspicious types that happen to be lurking in alleyways, and make myself a nice fat (figuratively speaking, because Taylor's a rake) target for them. So when I get dragged into the alley, I hold back and put up a token struggle, as if I've got no chance against two strong men.

Once we're in the alley proper, they push me face-first against a dumpster and pull my hands behind my back. One guy gets in close and holds his hand over my mouth while pressing a blade of some sort against my cheek. The guy who's holding my hands behind my back starts patting my pockets down at the same time, copping a feel as he does so. I'm really not sure what pisses me off more. They're late teens or early twenties, and they haven't bathed in a while. Both of them have shaven heads, which is kind of weird. The guy who can't decide whether to grab my ass or my phone is mouthing the standard threats I assume muggers use in this situation. I'm not even listening, as my focus is on making sure we're alone and unobserved.

Once I'm certain this is the case, I stop playing the helpless victim. Yanking my hands free of the asshole's grip, I grab the hand that's got the knife on me and wrench it backward until bone snaps. His pained scream is cut off when I bring my other elbow around into his side. I'm pretty sure I don't break any of his ribs, but I certainly bend a few.

He tries to reel backward, but I've still got his wrist. Turning, I kick him under the kneecap with more force than necessary; not entirely certain that I haven't ruined the whole knee joint. With a rather more high-pitched scream, he lurches forward. The scream is cut off as my rising knee meets his descending face, and he crumples limply to the ground.

His buddy is quicker on the uptake, though I can't say much for his self-preservation instincts. Pulling out a Saturday Night Special, he backs way the fuck off while waving it in my general direction. "F-fuck off!" he yells. "Kill you, you fucking cape bitch!"

Well, I'd been thinking about opening a dialogue right about then, but the gun fucks any diplomatic intentions in the ass, without lube. The word 'cape' rings a bell, but I haven't got time to think about it as I backflip on to the dumpster. Reacting way too late, the guy fires off a wild shot, puncturing the dumpster about two feet to the side of where I'd been. Without pausing, I kick off from the dumpster and run three steps diagonally up the wall before diving outward into a forward somersault. The pistol goes off for a second time; this time, the bullet takes a chunk out of the brick wall.

My boot heels slam into his collarbones with my full weight (or rather, Taylor's full weight) behind the impact. It's still hard enough to snap them both like bread-sticks; he screams, rather more manfully than his buddy, and goes down like a sack of shit. By the time he hits the ground, I have the gun. I may have accidentally-on-purpose bounced his head off the ground extra hard, but at least he's still breathing.

I dust myself off, restraining the impulse to stomp on his crotch a few times—cop a feel off a teenage girl, will you—and go through their pockets. The knife and gun I'm claiming as spoils of war, because I need them and these two fucktards are barely competent to walk and chew gum, let alone be trusted with weapons. I make a mental note to upgrade the knife as soon as possible, given that it's a substandard piece of shit. If anything, the pistol is worse. For one thing, it hasn't been cleaned in forever; for another, the action is loose. Third, the asshole only left two bullets in it. I'm honestly surprised it went off at all. They've also got some money, which I shove into Taylor's coin purse. Each of them has a phone, which I add to my growing collection.

Of course, beating crap out of them is only half the plan for getting an insight into the criminal underside of Brockton Bay. The other half requires them to give me information. Unfortunately, I did handle them kind of roughly; even if I woke them up, they're unlikely to willingly answer any questions I've got for them. And Mr Grabby probably has a concussion anyway, which reduces my options.

With a sigh, I pick up Mr Knifey and sling him over my shoulder. Mr Grabby should wake up sometime soon and stagger to a hospital; after all, I made sure to leave his legs in working order. I make the leap on to the dumpster without much trouble, but it takes a bit more effort to jump up and catch the fire escape with my free hand. As the rusty metal creaks and groans under the sudden strain, I swing my legs over the rail and catch my balance. Only then do I realise that what I'm doing isn't as hard as it should be. Sure, this is the Matrix, but there's usually a bit more push-back from the subroutines designed to maintain the illusion of little things like physics and gravity.

Jogging up the stairs makes Mr Knifey flop around in a way that has to be uncomfortable, or would be if he was conscious. The fire escape doesn't like it either, reiterating the creaking and groaning while adding a few clanks to its repertoire. I'm not really worried about either one as I pull my phone out of my pocket, flip it open, and press the button.

"Operator." He sounds as smarmy as ever.

I get to the top of the fire escape and start across the rooftop, gravel crunching under the soles of Emma's boots. My boots, now. "Need you to check something out for me. Think you can do that, or is the big bad Matrix too scary for you?"

"Fuck you, Moggy." But the insult is only casual. "What the fuck do you want?"

"The code." I break off talking for a moment as I accelerate to a run, free arm pumping smoothly along with my legs, and leap the twenty-foot gap to the next building. As I land, Mr Knifey groans at the impact. "Check the local code. Bet you a genuine imitation beefburger that the error-checking's out the fuckin' window."

"Yeah, yeah, hold your fuckin' horses." He stops talking and I hear the sound of computer keys rattling. "Holy fuck. Are you seeing this, Captain?"

I hang the phone up as I hurdle another gap. Mr Knifey's definitely starting to regain consciousness now, but that's okay. I've found a good spot for what I want to do. A sheer drop to the alley below, no visible witnesses, and a solid parapet to brace from. Thematically, I should really be waiting till nightfall to do this sort of thing, but I'm kind of rushed at the moment.

When Mr Knifey opens his eyes, he's dangling face-first over the gap between one building and the next. I've got one foot braced against the parapet, the back of his collar in my right hand, and his unbroken wrist jammed firmly up between his shoulderblades with my left hand.

I'm watching him carefully in case he tries to play possum, but he signals his wakefulness by screaming and convulsing in my grip. Despite the fact that Taylor's Matrix avatar hasn't got anywhere near the muscle mass of my real-world body, and that Mr Knifey would make four of her, I hold him easily.

His right arm flails uselessly, the wrist still at an odd angle since I broke it. He tries to scrabble with his legs, but there's not much leverage to be had, and I wrench his arm a little farther up between his shoulderblades. "When you're ready to talk, I'm ready to listen," I say, injecting all the menace I'm able to muster into my voice. Taylor Hebert's not exactly physically imposing, so I need every advantage available to me.

"Fuck, fuck, don't kill me, don't kill me!" he blurts. "What do you wanna know? I'll tell you everything!" He starts babbling a litany of minor robberies and muggings that very quickly becomes repetitive.

Well, fuck. Either this guy's a total wimp or I'm scarier than I thought I was. Though the fact that I'm casually dangling him over the alley is probably adding to my intimidation factor. "Shut the fuck up and listen," I order him harshly, twisting his collar by the grip I've got on it. As the pressure increases, he chokes, fighting for breath. "Who runs the crime around here?"

"Kaiser," he blurts, which doesn't make me any more informed. "He runs the Empire Eighty-Eight."

I frown slightly. When gang bosses take on weird nicknames, you know things are getting hinky. "So who's Kaiser when he's at home? Surely nobody just calls him that." I ratchet his wrist upward half an inch or so, just to get his attention.

"E-everyone does!" he nearly screams. "He's Kaiser. Nobody sees him without the armour. If anyone got a look at his real face, he'd probably impale 'em right there!"

Wait one fuckin' second. Back that shit up. "How, exactly, is he gonna 'impale' them?" I ask carefully, a dark suspicion brewing in my gut.

Over the next half hour or so, I learn that things in Brockton Bay are even more ridiculously problematic than I'd thought before. Sure, there's adult superheroes along with the junior varsity (including one Sophia Hess, who doesn't qualify for 'superhero' under any definition I've ever heard of) but there's also supervillains running gangs. Note 'gangs'. Plural. My involuntary informant lets slip that there's at least four lots of super-powered assholes running criminal syndicates in and around Brockton Bay. Kaiser's Empire Eighty-Eight (a bunch of racist cocksuckers, as the shaved head and the code numbers should've warned me) isn't the only one, just the biggest. If Mr Knifey isn't talking his boss up, Kaiser's got something like a dozen powered criminals working for him. Fuck my life.

The next biggest employer is someone going by the unlikely name of Faultline, who runs a crew of weirdo freaks (his description, not mine) who only do out-of-town jobs. As if this is a valid excuse for the authorities not to come down on her. But apparently it works. This fuckin' place.

Knifey is in the process of a highly derogatory description of someone called Lung when I interrupt him. "Hey," I say, twisting his wrist slightly. "Quick question. Where's your nearest stash house?"

"What?" He tries to twist his head around to look at me; I move my head to avoid his gaze. While they might not recall the face of Victim Number Fifteen or whatever, I'm pretty sure that right now anything he sees of me will be burned into his memory. "You're fuckin' nuts."

"What's it to you if I am?" I try to sound bored. "Best case for you is if I get shot to shit. What do you care about my well-being?"

It takes a little more coaxing after that, along with a certain amount of applied pain, but he finally gives up the address. Along with a verbal description of the layout, and an estimate of how many people are likely to be there. Mentally, I double the number. Then I double it again, just in case.

"What're you gonna do to me?" Knifey sounds justifiably nervous. "Fuck, don't kill me."

I'm tempted to just let go, but I did kinda bait them in the first place, and it's not like he was ever a real danger to me. Pulling him back from the brink, I let go his arm, then smack him in the back of the head hard enough to put him out.

As I head for the fire escape, I'm already planning my next move. There's a couple things that I need, and then?

Then I'm going shopping.

 

[Ack]

Reality Intrudes

Part Seven: On the Offensive

[A/N: this chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]



My first order of business is, of course, to ensure Taylor's safety after the fact. I've got to jack out sometime, if only so I can eat and attend to bodily issues. I won't be doing her any favours if I leave her wide open to a revenge hit from a bunch of super-powered gangland assholes while I'm not in residence. On the one hand, there's the fact that she's currently our best choice to jack into this version of the Matrix; on the other, she's a teenage girl who's had a crappy deal so far, and I don't want to make things any worse for her, if I can help it. Well, any worse than I've done so far.

I'm just thinking over my options when my phone rings. Pausing halfway down the fire escape, I pull it out and answer it. "What's up?"

"Would it kill you to consider opsec just once?" Loki sounds even more irritated than the time I put industrial adhesive on the waistband of his pants. "People have been trying to call that other phone belonging to that girl you got tagged by in the bathroom. So far I've been successful in blocking them, but it's only a matter of time before they check the GPS. Unless they already have. Moron."

I want to snap back at him, but he's actually right. I'm an experienced Operative; this is something I should've thought of. My only excuse, and it's a thin one, is that we don't usually jack in for all that long. I can't remember the last time I lifted someone's phone; why would I? Usually we're there to kick Agent ass and free the bluepills. I'd honestly forgotten I still had Sophia's second phone in my pocket.

"Yeah, fuck you too," I tell him, and hang up the call. Then I pull out all three phones—Sophia's, Mr Knifey's and Mr Grabby's—and power them down. One at a time, I prise them open and pop out the batteries and SIM cards. The phones and SIMs go into one pocket, while each battery gets a pocket of its own. Slightly shaken by the wake-up call—sure, this isn't the same as your usual Matrix setup, but that's no excuse to get sloppy—I continue down the fire escape.

Right now, I figure that Taylor's kind of safe from any Empire backlash. While Mr Knifey and Mr Grabby got glimpses of my face, the brain does really weird shit under stress, including convince people of things that are totally wrong. So I'm reasonably certain that they're gonna be remembering me as being at least six inches taller and a hundred pounds heavier, because who really wants to admit to having the living shit beaten out of them by a five-foot-seven sixty-pound weakling? But still, there's a lot to be said for muddying the waters.

And one of the best ways to do that is to acquire a disguise. As I stroll along the street toward a promising-looking boutique, I pull out my phone again and press the button.

"Operator." Loki sounds more pissed than normal. "How the fuck did you know about the broken error-checking in the code?" It takes me a few seconds to recall what he's talking about, then I remember how it's a lot easier to break the rules here. The tone of his voice gives me a hint as to how my hunch has turned out. Of course, then he has to straight-up confirm it before I have a chance to bait him with it. Way to spoil my fun.

"Wild guess," I say lightly. "I didn't really notice it till I was manhandling that asshole up the fire escape, but it's easier to ignore the rules here. I doubt I'll be flying any time soon—" That's a trick nobody since the One has managed to pull off, though not from lack of effort. "—but I was carrying a guy four times the size of me, and I barely broke a sweat. So what exactly did you find?"

"A total fuckin' mess." It's a testament to how rattled he is by the fact that he's swearing, and—this is important—not at me. "There's holes and patches and conflicting code all over the place. If you ask me, I'd say that it was never designed to deal with having bluepills with grafted-on shit screwing physics over on a daily basis. Every time it's called on to give an exemption for someone to fly or blow up a building with laser beams from their ass, errors creep in. And this's been going on for fuckin' decades, by the looks of it."

"Which means that when someone like me comes along, who's used to bending the rules when they're a lot tougher to get around, I can just make it my bitch," I conclude. "Fuckin' excellent. About time something went my way."

"Not all your way, Momo," Loki says altogether too cheerfully. "Not by a long shot. Don't forget, you're not the only one around here who likes to put on dark clothes and go lurking on rooftops. It's just that the other ones were born here, and they know the terrain a lot better than you do. And they're probably better at it."

He's got a point, though I hate to admit it. "Okay, fine. Fuck you very much. I'll be careful. Asshole." I hang up, my brief good mood shattered. He could've at least let me enjoy it for a few minutes.

Which means that I've gotta get my spirits up by indulging in some good old-fashioned retail therapy instead. Fortunately for Taylor Hebert's meagre finances, the Empire Eighty-Eight, by way of Mr Grabby and Mr Knifey, are paying for my purchases. The fact that I'm gonna be using said purchases to enable a raid on Empire Eighty-Eight property is just a supremely ironic dollop of cream on top of the cake. Or is that icing? I've never been able to remember the saying.

Strolling into the boutique as I stash my work phone back in my pocket, I look around and mentally crack my knuckles. A salesgirl approaches me, but I wave her off. Sure, now they're gonna be keeping an eye on me to make sure I don't lift any of the merchandise, but Taylor's a teenager so they'd be doing that anyway. I just don't need anyone getting in my face right now. Besides, I know what I want.

First off, I stop at the sunglasses stand. I take my time making my selection; or rather, I make my pick on the first go-around, but I don't take them straight away. Pretending indecision, I rotate the stand a further three-sixty degrees, using the mirror to make sure I don't have anyone paying me an unusual amount of attention behind my back. Nobody's staring at me, and those facing me don't turn their heads away when I glance in their direction, so I decide I'm currently in the clear. Probably, anyway.

I've picked out an oversized pair, to fit over Taylor's glasses. Which just so happens to remind me of another gripe I've got. Even people with eye problems in the real world can see perfectly well in the Matrix—that is, the people who've actually got the choice whether to go back in or not. I get it that Taylor Hebert doesn't have much of an option in the matter, but with all the people they could've chosen to drop me into, why the fuck did they have to pick someone who is actually fucking short-sighted? While I've had no problems so far keeping the glasses on—in fact, Taylor's muscle memory allows me to get along most of the time without even noticing them—it's still a real potential problem. I've got no doubt that Loki's just waiting for me to lose my glasses just one fucking time so he can laugh his ass off at me.

Next, I go and pick out two hats. One's a baseball cap featuring the name of a sports team I've never heard of, and the other's a rather stylish-looking fedora that I'm pretty sure I can stuff my hair up inside of. I've never worn a fedora before, and I figure it looks pretty good. Not that I'm there for fashion, but a girl can enjoy wearing nice stuff, even if it's just in the Matrix, right?

I'm burning through my stolen dollars at a startling pace, but that's what money's for. It's not like I can take it out of the Matrix, after all. My next purchase is a slightly oversized shoulder-bag with a zippered top, which I gauge is big enough to keep my spare gear in for the moment. I pause for a moment to check on how my cash is holding up, then check on the purchase I really want to make. It's a long-coat, slightly off-brand but I'm not picky.

The salesgirl raises an eyebrow slightly as I lay down cash to pay for everything, but there's no law against it and money is money after all. I walk out with my purchases in a cute paper bag with the name of the shop printed in art deco lettering. This has to be the first time I've actually bought stuff at a shop with money in the Matrix. I can recall three times off the top of my head that I've busted into shops like that and stolen clothes to change my appearance, and once that I blitzed through one in a TransAm in high-speed reverse, firing an M-4 out through where the windshield used to be, but legal transactions? None.

My next stop is a dark alley. This one I make sure is empty of would-be muggers and homeless derelicts alike, before I pull out the coat and the glasses and remove the tags before putting them on. Carefully, I bundle my hair up under the fedora, then fold up the shop bag and put it in the shoulder-bag. When I stride out of the alley, long-coat flaring around me, I'm as ready as I'm ever gonna be.

The purchases I've made aren't merely to make me look badass, though I figure I've just permanently raised Taylor Hebert's cool factor by about five hundred percent. Everything I'm wearing or carrying has a purpose; whether it's to fudge my appearance, change my profile or make me look more intimidating. It's all a means to an end. Specifically, surviving until I can find out enough about this corner of the Matrix to let me get everyone out and safe.

I wait until evening to approach the stash house; in the meantime, I scout out the surrounding area. Smartphones are apparently a thing in this version of the Matrix and I kind of wish I had the chance to browse the local internet. All data is good data, and don't ever let anyone tell you differently. But my work phone isn't actually a phone; it's more of an abstract representation of one with a unique calling plan. The pieces of shit I took off Sophia and the other two jerks are older-style bricks with an internet presence of fuck-all, which is why I don't power them up and go surfing. Well, that and opsec.

The two mooks on the front steps of the stash house are doing a passable impression of 'me and my homie just hanging out', but their eyes say differently and the guns they're holding almost out of sight are a whole novel worth of 'differently'. To deal with them, I'd need to get past the peeling picket fence, evade the chained-up overly scarred dog currently worrying at a bone on the patchy front lawn, then get close enough to take them out before they brought their firepower into play. The shitty little Saturday Night Special could maybe be used to deal with two of the three threats, but I've got as much faith in that as I would in the power of prayer for dealing with an Agent.

So it's time to get creative.

This being a racist redneck stash house, there's one thing I'm gonna find not far away. Specifically, a racist redneck's truck. And what do you know; down the street and around the corner, I find just that. Big muscle engine, big muscle tyres, big muscle chassis. All good solid American know-how and technology.

Which makes me scratch my head for two reasons. One, America helped beat the fuck out of the Nazis, back in the day. There was even a war over it. Two, given how clean this puppy is, it's never been off-road in its life. So why the fuck is this jerk driving around in something that he's never going to use the full potential of, like ever? And how can he even call himself American?

As far as I'm concerned, he's forfeited his right to own it or drive it. Which means I've got free rein to do what I want with it. Okay, yes, that was a bullshit line of reasoning, but a girl's gotta have fun somehow.

Coming up on the passenger side of the truck, I smash the window with my elbow, then reach inside and unlock the doors. I don't know who's heard that, so I vault over the hood of the truck, open the driver's side door and get in. Ten seconds later, I've got the seat adjusted the way I like it; twenty, and I've got the engine started. Hotwiring vehicles is a skill I've long since mastered.

Before pulling out, I lean over and check the contents of the glove compartment, and scope out the floor and between the seats for good measure. Some guys keep a backup piece there, though it's usually only Americans that do that. I could do with a little paranoid gun ownership right now.

Unfortunately, although I can smell gun oil, the firearms themselves are notably absent. Seems that this gun owner's so paranoid that he took them with him. Not that I can blame him, seeing that I'm stealing his truck, but there really should be a limit to that sort of thing.

But hey, it's okay. The theft is only temporary. More like 'involuntary borrowing'. He can have it back once I'm done with it.

Pulling out of the parking space, I roll sedately down the street and around the corner. The stash house is just up ahead. Gradually, I accelerate while keeping an eye on the front door guards. Even from out on the road I can see when their attention fixates on my ride; seems that either one of them owns it, or knows the guy who does. When one of them points, that's my cue.

Flooring it, I start changing up as hard and fast as I can. The deep meaty growl of that big muscle engine takes over everything as I jolt over the curb. The picket fence doesn't even register with me as it goes down.

When they start bringing up their guns, I hit every light switch on the dashboard; standard lights, high beams, and the spotlights over the top of the cab. The front of that stash house gets very bright, and they can't see shit.

I'm strapped in, of course, with my foot flat to the floorboards and the engine screaming like a banshee. The guys try to dive aside in different directions. I track the one who's holding a shotgun—come to Mama—and angle toward him. My front wheels hit the stairs and go up them like Agents descending on newbie Operatives. I've got it in all-wheel drive, and the big chunky tyres are howling and juddering and clawing at the steps as I perform a dynamic vehicular entry to the stash house.

Shotgun guy almost gets out of the way, but the bumper catches him and he flies aside to hit the wall of the house. His weapon is jolted out of his hands, and just as the front of the truck ploughs into (and through) the wall of the stash house, I reach out the window of the truck and catch it on the way past.

Score.

The truck makes it most of the way into the stash house before it runs into too many obstacles and the engine stalls out. That's okay with me; I open the door and bail out, checking chamber on the shotgun when I get a chance. I can feel that it's loaded but there's nothing in the breech so I rack the action and look around for anyone to shoot.

I gotta say, I've made a pretty good mess this time around. There's broken wood everywhere, along with a huge cloud of dust; the lights on the truck should be making everything easy to see, but all they're doing is illuminating the dust. Everyone who's in this stash house will be homing in on where the front door used to be, so it's time for me not to be here.

Jumping up, I kick off from the hood of the truck to get over the majority of the rubble and into a corridor. A shape looms ahead of me and I shoot it, centre mass. It grunts and goes down, but someone behind that one shoots back. I'm pretty well keyed up by this point, so I can see the disturbance pattern of the buckshot through the dusty air. Not being there when the return fire arrives is harder than it sounds, but I've done this before.

The muzzle-flare is bright enough to see through the dust so I put another round from the shotgun—solids, from the feel of the recoil—six inches to the right and about a foot upward. Scratch opposition number two.

In another moment I'm beside the bodies. One's still alive, but he won't be for long. The other is well past his use-by date. I grab their guns—a pistol and another shotgun; it's Christmas in, well, January—and move on.

Now I've got a pistol and two shotguns. I can dual-wield this shit, but it would be easier with another pistol. I've got more ammo for the handgun, so I decide to use that to mop up the mooks when I can't get close enough for CQC.

On the downside, they've definitely beefed up security here. I kill about half a dozen guys before I have to reload; on the upside, each one I pop has a gun on him, so I'm not running out of ammo anytime soon. All I have to do is stay frosty, stay on the move and not let anyone get into my six.

I'm about halfway through clearing the house before I come to the conclusion that I didn't fluke onto the crappiest guys in America's version of the Nazi Party. These guys honestly suck. Sure, they're big enough to take a single hit from a scrawny teenage girl, but their situational awareness is non-existent and their tactical sense sucks balls. And that's not even taking into account how slow they're moving. Or am I just that fast, here?

It's something to think about. I took Sophia apart easily enough, but these guys are supposed to be in some kind of fighting trim. I'm not even bothering to shoot them anymore. Two or three good hits and they're down. If they're lucky, I haven't crushed their windpipes or stopped their hearts.

After I've cleared the biggest room, a setup with sofas, armchairs and a big-screen TV, I'm starting to think this is going to be easier than I expected. Of course, that's when someone comes into the room behind me. They make a full production of it; dynamic entry, dive and roll, come up shooting. Accurate too, for bluepills. I have to put serious effort into evading the shots.

One guy's all in white; skin, hair, clothing, eyes, the lot. I take half an instant to appreciate the way he's sticking to the theme before I nail him in the breadbasket with a couple of nine millimetre happy pills. From the way the blood spreads across the white cloth, he's not wearing body armour. His bad luck. I'm not playing.

His buddy's still moving, taking advantage of the furniture in the room for cover. He's pretty damn good at it, too. I have trouble getting a proper bead on him. Which means he's going to have the same with me.

I put a couple of shots through his cover, hoping to tag him blind, but he's always moved on again. When he pops up and fires back, I've actually got to limbo under his shots, he comes that close. He's not quite on par with someone who's able to pull Matrix shit, but he's about as good as an unenhanced human can get.

And then I get that tingle in the back of my neck, the one that says, move, dumbass! So I move, going evasive as fast as I know how. A good thing too, because about a tenth of a second later, half a dozen .44 rounds rip through where Taylor Hebert's head and vital organs would've been if I'd stayed put.

Why yes, I can tell the calibre from the sound of the shots.

Who the fuck fired?

Flicking my head around, trying to keep tabs on Mr Tactical, I scan for the new hostile.

It's the guy in white. On his feet again, bloodstain clearly visible, and just as clearly not affected by the wound. Two guns out, coming for me like an Agent with a grudge.

What. The fuck.

An Operative might be able to pull that off, but not a normal. Unless …

I suddenly realise that I've been ignoring what they're wearing.

Fuck.

That wasn't clothing.

Those were costumes.

I'm up against more capes.

Fuck my life.



End of Part Seven

 

[Ack]

Reality Intrudes

Part Eight: Disengage and Recover

[A/N: this chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]



So, this isn't good. In fact, I could go as far as to say it's bad. Mr Tactical there really knows how to use his cover to its best effect, while Whitey McWhiteface seems to be able to ignore the deleterious effects of a couple of high-velocity nine-mil slugs performing impromptu surgery on his vital organs. Meanwhile, they're both armed and not at all reluctant about making use of said armament in my direction.

And while the neo-Nazi parody poster child (why yes, I do think it's ridiculously on the nose for a guy who's literally white all over to be a member of a white-supremacy group) is only middling effective with his artillery, his buddy has come unsettlingly close a few times. Not sure where this guy got that sort of training, but he's good. Real good.

It's true that all the skill in the world won't save your life when an Operative decides to insert a lead jellybean where it'll do (me) the most good. But I'm having a lot of trouble delivering said jellybeans of doom in an accurate and timely manner. This is partly because the Whitemeister is pretty damn good at running interference for his buddy, and partly because this asshole seems to be getting more accurate as the firefight goes on. And for some reason, I'm getting less accurate, which is bullshit of the most profane order.

I pop the cardboard cutout in the face with the last round in my pistol, then reload on the fly while I somersault out through the door. A string of holes punch their way through the wall, missing me by rather less than a comfortable margin; the long-coat is now a little more ventilated than it was when I bought it. I return fire, trying to match trajectories, but I hear no sound of a falling body. When I land and roll, I nearly muff it, which seals the deal in my mind.

Something hinky is going on in Brockton Bay.

Tall-pale-and-Nazi is around the corner first, not even a bloodstain to show where I nailed him above the right eye-socket. He's got two forty-fours up and firing like ammo just went on sale. If I'd paused for even a few seconds, I would've been in a killbox, but I've been doing this shit longer than that. I've already anticipated this move, and I'm diving through another doorway as his fire nips and chops at my heels.

My trailing gun fires off two shots; one to the throat and one to the shoulder. Which is problematic, because I intended for two headshots right then. What in the name of Trinity is going on here?

Normally, pulling out your phone and dialling the Operator during a firefight is a sign that you're royally screwed and have zero other options. I'm anticipating this scenario, and I'm working to forestall it. In other words, it's better to call your Operator before you need their help, not after their help would've been useful.

Loki, of course, is his usual suave and helpful self. "Hey, Moo-moo. Is it just me, or are you having trouble with just two bluepills in there? Losing a step, are we?"

"Something's fucking with me," I say, nailing the paperboy (hah! I kill me) through both lungs as he shows in the doorway of the room I've ended up in. He crumples to the ground yet again, but an instinct has me diving to the side as a blitzkrieg of shots (pun intended) comes through the wall just short of the door.

They nearly get me, too. The asshole comes that close. I've got to seriously work to avoid the multiple trails of sonic disturbance. I fire back as I launch myself at the doorway; if I can get just one good shot in on him, I can then concentrate on ending Mr Mayonnaise permanently. Maybe I can arrange something with wet concrete.

"Well, shit. Looks like you aren't malingering this one time." Loki sounds honestly surprised. I personally don't care; I just want him to fix whatever's going on. "Your combat stats are going down by the second."

By the time he's said this, I've come out through the doorway, but Captain Nazi has anticipated me and ducked behind a doorframe, leaving his buddy on the floor at my feet. I fire another shot into the guy as he begins to stir, and bolt farther down the corridor.

I find myself back in the common room, gunsmoke rasping in my throat, as I try to figure out whether to get Taylor Hebert's skinny ass out of there or try to finish these assholes first. Because they've surely got a good look at her face by now, and even if I took her away from here before jacking out, they'd hunt her down and kill her. But try as I might, I just can't get a bead on that guy. He's too damn good. And while I should be better than him, I'm not.

"Well, fix it," I rasp.

"On it." There's a click over the line, and then I feel the flood of incoming muscle memory. It's rough, raw and more than a little painful; Loki's speed-loading my skills back into me at a way faster rate than normal. Right now, it's just what I need.

So was the breather. I drop the pistol and unsling one of my two shotguns from where it's been flopping around on my back all this time. The guys have clearly had time to confer, because they come into the room from two different directions. Whitebread is pulling his usual stunt of coming in fast and dangerous, leading with his forty-fours. I'm supposed to try to pop him—again—while Special Ops Man hits me from the side.

Only, I just changed the script. Outside the Matrix, I'm pretty damn dangerous. Inside it, up against bluepills, I'm insanely capable. In Earth Bet's frayed and denatured version of reality, I'm basically a god of war. And it's about time I reminded these assholes of that.

I lean into my Matrix capabilities. The shotgun in my hands is a virtual-reality construct; to anyone living in here, it's a thing, unchangeable. To me … it's a weapon of mass destruction.

I run halfway up the wall to escape Mr White's gunfire, then do a backflip. While I'm in the air, I sight on his head and fire. Blood and brains spray out sideways from the divot my slug just put in his skull. He's dead, right there, but before he has a chance to begin falling, I rack the action and fire again.

Normally, if a pump action shotgun is worked past a certain speed, forcing the mechanism beyond its normal limits, it will be damaged. It might even break. I choose not to let it break, as I fire a second time, then rack it again. And fire. And again, and again.

I'm still in midair, twisting around to land while firing the shotgun over and over, when the second asshole enters the room. To me, he's moving at a snail's pace, bringing his gun up to bear on me. I keep firing, racking the slide, firing again. The shotgun's internal mechanisms are starting to glow with a dull heat. I don't care.

Something about the whiteface guy is letting him get up each time I kill him. I don't have the deep sense of the Matrix that the One had, but I get my feelings from time to time. And right now my instincts are yelling at me to remove this guy's head. Lacking a machete, or even a pocket knife, I'm going with the next best option.

My skills are back, baby. Every shot hits, and every hit counts. By the time the magazine is empty, I've hammered twelve rounds downrange, a mix of slugs and heavy buckshot. Between them, they've taken this mook's head apart like a watermelon. There's not much above the neck; the wall behind him, on the other hand, could win a modern art contest. By my estimation, it's taken me about two and a half seconds to empty the shotgun at him.

His body hits the floor, just about the time I drop the shotgun and unsling the other one. The ratty carpet begins to smoulder, but I'm more interested in expressing my extreme displeasure with his buddy. Especially since I think I've figured out his cute little trick.

Skill stealing. I mean, how low can you go?

He goes for cover, of course, even though he probably hasn't figured out yet that his buddy's down for the count. But the difference now is that I'm not trying to hang back and snipe him. I close, fast, and kick the chair he's hiding behind. The chair flies back and hits the wall, and so does he. He tries to roll to one side and tag me, but whatever bullshit he's already pulled is officially over.

The instant his head comes into view, I put a slug through it.

I'm not here to take prisoners, and this guy was way more trouble than he's worth.

Keeping one ear out for incoming sirens, or any kind of car engines at all, I go back to clearing the house. The basement door is locked; that's cute. I don't even bother with the shotgun. One kick later—and a step back to make sure I don't get popped by some asshole who decided to play possum—the door's open.

I pause for a moment, listening. Feeling the air.

There's nobody downstairs. I head down, shotgun at the ready anyway.

<><>​

Three minutes later, I hurdle the back fence and start away at a steady jog, keeping to the shadows. Over my left shoulder is a duffel full of guns and ammunition, with money stuffed in here and there to fill the gaps. While "guns … lots of guns" may not be our official motto, it should be. Martial arts are all well and good, but there's nothing that can reach out and say hi to some asshole who desperately needs it like a high-powered firearm.

I detour to grab my other bag from where I stashed it, then I jog away into the gathering evening as smoke begins to curl into the air from the building I've just left. Normally by this time, I'd be on the lookout for a very special phone box, where I could jack out and disappear from the Matrix until it came time to jump back in again. Of course, I'd also probably be on the run from Agents at this point as well.

But this body I'm using isn't going to dissolve into the electronic ether the moment I disconnect. Taylor Hebert has a life of her own, and she deserves a chance to stay alive once I step out and let her take control again. So it's on me to make sure I leave her someplace safe. It'll also be a great idea for me to not leave her to face the consequences of what I've been doing since I left the school.

Unfortunately for the both of us, I've got no idea how to cover for everything I've done with her since I stepped out of that locker. The most I can do is run damage control.

On the other hand, her memory tells me that her dad has been kind of passive since his wife died. While this isn't much, it's definitely something I can work with.

But first, I have to stash my ill-gotten gains somewhere. Having someone confiscate them, or just plain steal them, would irritate the absolute living fuck out of me. Also, I've got to get rid of the smell of gunsmoke. That stuff clings to everything.

<><>​

Danny Hebert

For what must have been the fifteenth time, Danny got up and went to the front door. He opened it and looked out, hoping against hope to see Taylor trudging up the front path. He didn't know what he was going to do first; yell at her or hug her. Maybe both.

When he'd been contacted by the police, he hadn't known what was going on. It turned out they were somewhat in the dark as well. Taylor had clearly been shut in her locker, which was equally clearly full of some pretty vile stuff, by a person or persons unknown. Blackwell was covering her ass faster than a fat kid spreading gravy over fried chicken, but it was obvious to everyone with half a brain that Winslow had fallen down on the job hard.

As for 'person or persons unknown', that was a not so polite fiction that Danny was calling bullshit on as well. The fact that after forcing the door off the locker she'd been shut in—which only underlined the crappy state of the lockers in Winslow—Taylor had made a beeline to Emma's class and dragged her out by the ear said something to Danny. What it actually meant, he wasn't sure, but the way Emma was complaining loudly (and nasally) about losing her clothing to Taylor, while Alan wasn't saying a goddamn word, indicated that shit was going on behind the scenes.

And then there was the other guy, the one with the immaculate suit and the neat beard. Danny wasn't entirely certain when this one had shown up at Winslow, but the man had pulled him into an empty classroom and asked a whole series of pointed questions which amounted to, "is your daughter a parahuman?"

When he'd told the guy that he was damn sure Taylor wasn't a cape, the man had nodded as if unsurprised and handed him a business card. "I'm with the PRT," he'd said. "Call this number if she starts exhibiting odd capabilities. We can help her."

Danny knew the PRT hotline number; it featured among the just-in-case numbers on his office phone. The number on the card wasn't it. Whoever the guy was, he was not some office drone, sent to Winslow as part of standard procedure. Something was definitely going on here, and Danny disliked having the wool pulled over his eyes as much as anyone else did. He'd put the card away and made a bland almost-promise to do just that.

Whether the guy actually worked for the PRT or someone else pretending to be them, he wasn't certain. He intended to keep his options open until after he spoke with Taylor and got her side of things. Of course, this required Taylor to come home at some point.

There was nobody on the front path. The street was as quiet and empty as it had been the previous fourteen times he'd checked. Defeated, he closed the door again and turned to go back into the living room—

"Hi, Dad." Taylor stood there behind him in the entrance hall. "Sorry about—oof!"

"Taylor!" Danny hugged her tightly, smelling cheap soap on her hair as he did so. "Where the hell have you been? I've been worried sick! Nobody's seen you since—" He trailed off. Since the school was remarkably undescriptive. Since the locker would have rubbed her face in what happened. "—since this morning."

She waited until he let her go, then nodded. "I know. I didn't want anyone seeing me. Did you see the locker?"

"Yeah, I saw it." His fists clenched all over again. "Someone's head is going to fucking roll for that."

"Don't bother." She shook her head. "They closed ranks, yeah? Nobody saw nothing, let's just sweep this under the carpet?"

"Kind of, yeah." He led the way into the living room, then appraised her appearance and attitude. She was honestly looking better than he would've expected. Not nearly as distressed as he would've been in the same situation. "Emma's pissed at you, but Alan's playing it close to the chest. What happened there? What does she have to do with it?"

From the look on her face, he knew the truth. He just didn't want to think about it. Emma had been best friends with her forever.

"You know exactly what's going on, Dad." She sat down on the sofa. "It was Emma and some of her friends. They've been pulling this shit on me since I started at Winslow. But you'll never get her to admit it. And her father's a lawyer, so there's that."

She was being remarkably pragmatic about the whole thing. Far more than he was, he had to admit. Also, extremely impersonal about the Barneses, but that was probably a defence mechanism.

"So what happened?" he asked. "I've heard everyone else's side but yours."

Sitting on the sofa, she related her experiences simply and concisely. Danny hadn't heard about the girl Sophia being involved before; that added another layer to the mystery. She was a little vague about where she'd gone once she left the school, and where she'd dumped the clothing she'd stolen from Emma and Sophia, but Danny didn't care about that.

Where she'd gotten what she was wearing right then was easy to figure out; the Lord Street Market stayed open late on weekdays. The T-shirt, jeans and sneakers she had on weren't exactly haute coture, but they did the job.

"So, am I in trouble?" she asked once she was done.

Danny shook his head. "There's no arrest warrants out for you. The police would like to speak to you on the matter, but the fact of the locker muddies the waters considerably. Also …" He paused, not sure how to go on.

"Someone else wants to talk to me?" She raised her eyebrows. "Oh. The PRT. Well, I wasn't exactly subtle, I guess."

"What's that supposed to mean?" If he hadn't been looking right at Taylor, he would've thought she was a different person. More direct, more assured. And most of all, she didn't have an apologetic bone in her body, whereas the Taylor he knew walked around hunched in as though asking the world for permission to exist.

She got up then and checked the street with a twitch of the curtain. Then she picked up the remote and turned on the news. "What I mean," she said once the speakers were filling the room with sound, "is that there are things they're not telling you. For instance, that girl Sophia I kicked the shit out of? She's the Ward called Shadow Stalker. And I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that her higher-ups don't know about her little extracurricular activities. Which is why they've passed the word to keep this as much on the down-low as possible."

Danny stared at her. "A Ward," he said. "You were shut in your locker by a Ward."

"Yeah," she said lightly. "Turns out that getting a shitload of power and being put in authority over people doesn't automatically make someone trustworthy. Shocker, hey?"

"But how can you be so calm about it?" he demanded. "This is Emma we're talking about! Your friend!"

"I've had a lot of time to think about it. And she's no friend of mine. So, not to change the subject, but I'm gonna change the subject." She tapped her ear. "Did anyone wearing a suit and sunglasses, little coiled-wire earpiece, maybe a little vague about exactly who they're working for, ask you about me? Push for a few details?"

Danny thought back to the guy with the beard. "Yeah," he said slowly. "Someone did that. He said he was from the PRT." He pulled the card out of his pocket. "He gave me this."

"Thanks." She accepted the card from him and examined it. "What did he say, exactly?"

"Uhh …" Danny concentrated. "He asked me a bunch of questions about anything weird you might've done recently. I think he thought you were a cape. And he said to call that number if you showed up with powers."

Taylor snorted. "What, like flying around wearing brightly-coloured tights? No, thanks. Not for me. I'm exactly the same person I was this morning before all this shit started."

Danny had his doubts. Between the implications of the information he'd gathered at Winslow and Taylor's current attitude, it seemed to him that she'd had a massive confidence boost since he'd last seen her. Beating up the people who'd shoved her in the locker then spending the day wandering around the city had apparently done her the world of good.

Or maybe … a horrible potential crept into his mind. What if she's been Mastered? That would also cause a distinct personality shift. "I don't know," he said out loud. "Your mother's nickname for you would be fairly apt, in that case."

She hesitated for half a second, and his heart sank. Then she looked at him oddly. "What, 'little owl'? I'm pretty sure that's about my glasses, not being able to fly."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. It was a pretty poor joke." He gestured toward the kitchen. "Hungry? I made lasagne."

If she heard the unspoken while I was waiting for you to come home, she didn't respond to it. "Cool, thanks, Dad. I am kinda famished."

As she headed for the kitchen, he followed along. She had passed his impromptu test, but he still felt slightly uneasy and he didn't know why.

<><>​

Taylor

"Let me out! Let me out!"

Taylor thrashed, trying to free herself from the four metal walls and the all-pervading stench. It was useless, and despair welled deep in her soul. She was trapped and—

Everything changed. The stink was gone, replaced with the warm, familiar smell of freshly-laundered sheets. Hard metal and squelching horror vanished in favour of a cocoon of sheets and blankets, wrapped comfortably around her body.

She stopped struggling. Her cry for help died in her throat. Taking a deep breath, she inhaled the scents of her bedroom. Slowly, carefully, not wanting the reprieve to be an illusion, she extricated herself from the soft enclosure and sat up in bed.

It was night-time. Her alarm clock told her so, and the view out the window agreed with it. She was wearing pyjamas, not ordinary clothing. And she was in her room, not her locker.

What's going on here? Did I just have a horribly detailed nightmare?

That was about the time she noticed the sheet of paper clenched in her fist. Carefully, she spread it out it then turned on her reading-lamp and fumbled for her glasses. Settling back into bed, she began to read the spidery writing.

Hi, Taylor.

I've got good news and bad news for you.

Bad news: yes, it all happened. Fortunately, I got you out of the locker.

I also kicked the shit out of Emma and Sophia, so you're welcome for that too.

Now for the other bad news.

I'm currently Mastering you, or I will be once I get some shuteye. This is not just a for-kicks thing for me. I have a job to do, and you're the only one who can help me with it.

What's the job, you may ask?

Saving everyone on Earth Bet. It's a big job, but I doubt anyone else is up to doing it.

Okay, time for the good news. I'm really, really good at my job. Trust me, you're in the best possible hands when I'm running your body. Also, when I'm in charge of you, you're basically superhuman. I know this because I beat two of your homegrown capes just tonight. Keep an eye on the news for Victor and Alabaster. If you don't see them, it's because we (you and me) put them down like the rabid dogs they were.

Also good news: it's possible to save the world. Or rather, the people in it. The world itself? A bit of a shithole, if you ask me. But we can do this. I've got faith in us. And I've done this before.

Now for the downside. I'm gonna be borrowing your body occasionally to go do world-saving stuff. You'll be switched off for the duration. There will be no perceived passage of time for you. I will do my best to ensure you come back in safe locations, where nobody will query you for what's been going on. Also, I'll figure out some way of keeping you in the loop as to what we've been doing while you were out.

Oh and by the way, the PRT suspects us of being a cape. Technically that may be true, but we don't want their attention. We've got stuff to do that they might not appreciate.

So, breakdown. Your dad knows you busted out of the locker and kicked shit out of Emma and Sophia in the bathroom, and stole Emma's blouse and boots and Sophia's jeans. He also knows that Sophia is Shadow Stalker, of the Wards.

Yeah, so that's a thing. It's also one of the reasons we can't let the PRT get its hooks into us. I wouldn't have trusted them as far as I could spit them even before I found out that little secret.

Your dad does not know that I'm working to save the world, or that I've dealt with two Empire Eighty-Eight capes (and a number of mooks) already. That's between you and me.

I'll do my best to keep both you and him safe. If everything goes to shit, I'll move heaven and earth to get you both to a safe place. That's my promise to you.

In the meantime, each time you have a blackout, just be aware that it's for a good cause.

Sorry for any inconvenience,

Morrigan

PS: Feel free to ask any questions. I'll do my best to answer them the next time around.

PPS: Destroy this letter. You absolutely do not want anyone else reading it.

Taylor read it through. Then she read it through again. Eventually, she got up and left her room. Finding her way down the corridor to the bathroom in the dark was second nature to her; she'd been doing it all her life. Carefully, she tore the letter to shreds and dropped them into the toilet, then flushed it clear. Then she returned to her bed, turned out the light and lay there staring at the ceiling in the dark.

Sleep was a long time coming.



End of Part Eight

 

[Ack]

Reality Intrudes

Part Nine: Investigations

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
[A/N 2: Because the chapters for this story are deliberately short, there will be two. I'll be posting the second one tomorrow.]

The Next Morning
Medhall Tower

Looking down at the two bodies, stretched out on metal tables in the in-house clinic Medhall maintained, Max Anders clenched his fists. "What in God's name happened?"

He felt fully justified in asking the question. Where Alabaster should've had a head was … nothing. Just a ragged stump, as if someone had hacked his head off with the world's bluntest paring knife. But Max knew that wasn't what had happened, because it wouldn't have worked. (Also, Alabaster would've had something to say about it).

Victor's death hadn't been as dramatic, though his head was a distinct mess after the shotgun slug had removed a good deal of the contents of his skull and spread them over the wall. That bit, at least, was understandable, at least technically. But he'd been working alongside Alabaster for years. They'd been an extremely effective team.

Which made their deaths all the more shocking, along with the takedowns—some lethal, some otherwise—of the rest of the men in that stash house. They'd gotten word that some 'scary woman on a rooftop' was going to make a run on it, so he'd ramped up the guard force. Extra guns, a visible presence, and two of his best close-quarters guys on site. It should've been a combination that either convinced the wannabe raider to go elsewhere or put her down for good once she entered the house.

She'd torn through them like an out-of-control bandsaw.

Now, he was down the money and guns that had been stored there, as well as two members of the Empire Eighty-Eight itself. And he didn't know who to blame, who to send his people after for bloody vengeance. The only thing he had was a single fact, repeated by every person who'd survived the massacre.

It had all been done by one person. The woman on the rooftop.

Cape or not, he couldn't stomach the idea that just one person had shredded his assembled guard force like wet newspaper, then taken down Victor and Alabaster like she'd trained to do that exact thing. The Empire Eighty-Eight happened to other people. This sort of thing didn't happen to them.

Hookwolf didn't look any happier than Max felt. While he hadn't been drinking buddies with either man, they'd all still been part of the same team. Looking down at the pair of cadavers, he shook his head. "I got nothin'. Cops in that part of town are paid off. Nobody goes near our stuff. PRT op would've been a lot louder, with choppers. None of the other gangs have anyone who could do what this bitch did. My guess is, it's an out-of-towner looking to make her mark."

Well, she certainly fucking did that, Max managed not to say. "Did we get any description at all?"

Hookwolf looked around at him, his expression even less happy than normal. "Yeah. But they don't add up. Morry and Joe, the fuckwits who met her first, thought she was a schoolkid. Dragged her into an alley to mug her." He didn't say what they both knew; when two grown men drag a teenage girl into an alley, it rarely ends well for the girl. Neither of them cared at that moment. "But she went cape on them. Bullshit martial-arts movie stuff like running on walls. Beat fuck out of them, broke some bones, then dragged Morry up to the rooftop and questioned him. Morry swears she was like seven feet tall then. Holding him out over the alley with one hand. There's no way a normal kid has that kind of muscle."

Max nodded. "Okay, so we're looking at a Brute, maybe a combat Thinker, possible Changer. What did she look like?"

"Uh, hang on." Hookwolf dug a grimy notepad out of his pants pocket and thumbed it to the right page. "A bit of a weed, tall for a girl, curly black hair, glasses. Totally harmless until she started kicking their asses. Joe says he saw her jump like ten feet in the air, do a triple backflip, and kick Morry in the face."

"That's something to go on with." Max knew, though, there were literally hundreds of school-age children in Brockton Bay who fit that description, and fake glasses were a thing, especially if she'd been trying to bait them into grabbing her. Which, considering her later actions, seemed likely. "How about the survivors from the stash house?"

Hookwolf turned to the next page and squinted at his handwriting. "She had a hat and a long coat on. Nobody saw her hair, and she was wearing shades this time. And she had a shotgun and pistols. They said she was like seven feet tall, and nothing slowed her down. You know that Stallone movie, Terminator? They said she was like that."

"Fuck." Max ran his hand through his hair. "So, you think two different people, or a Changer?"

"One person." Hookwolf's voice was definite. "No way an adult would let the sidekick handle the mugging alone."

Max nodded to concede the point. "Okay, so is it a kid who can Change to look like an adult, or an adult who can look like a kid?" The answer to this would define who they'd be looking for.

Hookwolf grimaced in thought. "Adult, for sure. There's no way a kid can have that much training under their belt. But she's good enough of a Changer to look like a kid close up. So she might be hiding out like that. I mean, who looks at a kid?" His tone turned scornful.

"We start looking at them, as of right now." Max set his jaw. "Kid or adult, I want her tracked down and made an example of. How many outsiders know we've lost people?" By 'people', he meant the bodies on the tables, not the faceless mooks. He could always get more minions.

"Only thing that travels faster than light is the fuckin' grapevine," Hookwolf quoted in his own inimitable fashion. "People know shit went down, and that maybe someone died, but we've managed to keep details sketchy. But it's gonna get out sooner or later. Sure, Victor could be laid up, even with Othala healing him, but nothing keeps Alabaster down. We can't keep it secret forever."

Max growled under his breath in agreement. "True. How is Othala holding up, anyway?"

"She's a fuckin' mess." Hookwolf shook his head. "Blames herself for not being there."

Technically, Max agreed with her. If she'd been present to give Victor invulnerability or super-speed or one of the other powers she could bestow, the fight may have gone much differently. But she wasn't a combat cape, so he'd kept her out of what he figured would be a close-combat situation. Still, what was done was done. "How soon before you think she'll be on deck again?"

"Fucked if I know." Hookwolf shut the notebook again and stuffed it back into his pocket. "Maybe after we find this bitch and rip her head off? Nobody comes after us like this. Nobody."

Max nodded. "Put the word out. Everyone keeps an eye out for a tall woman with curly black hair and maybe glasses. Or a girl. Once we've got some names and photos, we show them to Morry and Joe, and see if anything rings a bell."

"Why not just grab up everyone who looks like that?" Hookwolf cracked his knuckles. "Get 'em all at once." From his tone of voice, he wasn't advocating letting the remainder go. Dead women told no tales.

"Because if she realises we're doing it, she'll go underground. Or hit us from another direction." Max couldn't believe he had to spell this out. "She killed Alabaster. If she can do that, nobody's safe."

"Once I'm bladed up—" Hookwolf began to boast.

"You can die, too," Max interrupted him. "An armour-piercing round through the right section of your body will kill you just as dead. If she can take on Victor and Alabaster and murder them both with zero prep, we have to assume she can figure out how to take you down as well."

Hookwolf didn't like it but as far as Max was concerned, he didn't have to, so long as he did what he was told. "Okay, fine."

"Good." Max raised his eyebrows for emphasis. "And when you do go after her, make sure there's at least three of you. Got it?"

He received a reluctant nod back. Hookwolf did like his warrior code bullshit, but the law had been laid down. "Got it."

"Good." Max looked down at his deceased henchmen one more time, then turned and left the impromptu morgue. "Now go find that bitch, so we can kill her."

<><>​

PRT Building
Wards Area
Shadow Stalker

"Hi, Sophia."

Dean's expression as he offered the greeting was bland, with no hint of secret amusement, but she glowered at him anyway. "What the fuck's that supposed to mean?"

Stopping at the entrance to the kitchenette, he turned and came back to where she was sprawled on the sofa in front of the large-screen TV. "It's supposed to mean, 'Hi, Sophia'. It's a friendly greeting. You looked a little unhappy, I thought people might've been ignoring you, so I said hello."

Sitting up, she intensified her glare. "You thought I looked unhappy? Keep your fucking empathy powers to yourself, Gallant."

"Jesus, what's your problem?" He stared at her. "I was being polite. Courteous, even. And my powers didn't even come into it. You're sitting there with an expression like you just found half a worm in your apple. We haven't been briefed on whatever shit happened to you yesterday, but don't take it out on us."

"There's a reason for that." Triumph came out of his office, fully costumed up. "There were details that needed to be cleared up. That's now happened. Costume, please, Sophia. The Director wants to see us."

All her bad temper fell away as she came to her feet. "Fuckin' A! Best news I heard all day. They finally catch that bitch?"

"Well, the Director said to get up there as soon as possible, so I'm going with 'maybe'."

But Triumph was talking to her back. Sophia was already on her way to her room, where her costume hung on its rack, waiting to be donned. Hebert was going down, and Sophia wanted a ringside seat.

As she put her mask on carefully, she could feel the tenderness in her nose. It had been reset, but she'd refused a splint, mainly because she didn't want anyone else knowing her nose had been broken in the first place. Nobody gets away with that shit.

Fully costumed, she headed back out into the common room. Kid Win waved as they passed the monitor console, but Sophia ignored him. People who fucked with Wards got the Birdcage, right?

The ride in the elevator passed by in silence; Sophia couldn't tell what Triumph was thinking behind that stupid lion mask, but she was impatient as fuck. She was first out of the elevator at the top, nearly bumping into a PRT trooper. With a muttered, "Sorry"—didn't want Triumph telling tales out of school to Piggy, after all—she dodged around the guy and headed for the Director's office.

He caught up to her after she'd only been waiting somewhere between twenty seconds and a fucking eternity, and opened the door to the outer office. "Triumph and Shadow Stalker to see the Director, please."

The secretary didn't even look up. "Go right in. Everyone else is already here."

Everyone else? Before Sophia could do more than ask herself the question, Triumph opened the door and ushered her in.

'Everyone else' turned out to be the Director, the Deputy Director, and Armsmaster. The two extras were standing on either side of the desk, while the Director sat behind it.

"Good, you're here." Piggot wasn't one for pleasantries. That was one thing Sophia actually liked about her. She didn't piss in your pocket and tell you it was raining. "Shadow Stalker, we've gotten a break in the case you were involved in yesterday."

"So you caught her?" Sophia looked around, wondering what the big fuss was all about. "What's going on? Is she going to the Birdcage?"

"It's too early to tell," Armsmaster cut in. "If you could do us a favour, and tell us what happened yesterday, from your point of view? We need to fill in a few gaps."

"Sure, okay." Sophia took a deep breath, trying to recall exactly what she'd told them the day before. "I was in class, and one of Emma's friends texted me to say Hebert had come into the classroom and dragged Emma out by the ear. I went looking for them, and tracked them down in one of the girls' bathrooms. Hebert was in her underwear, and making Emma wash her jeans."

"Why?" interrupted Renick. "What was wrong with them?"

Sophia shrugged as casually as she knew how. "They were dirty? She didn't know how to do laundry at home? I don't know why Hebert does the shit she does. Anyway, I came in there, and Hebert went nuts on me. She'd already busted Emma's nose, and she went after me as well. I'm good. I know I'm good. But she cleaned my clock hard. Busted my nose and all. She's gotta be a cape. It's the only explanation."

"Understood," Piggot said. "Now, you contacted your PRT liaison and told her that you hadn't outed yourself using powers, correct? Taylor Hebert has no idea of your real identity?"

Shit. Umm … Behind the mask, Sophia grimaced. "I might've gone to shadow once, to get out of a hold. It happened real fast." Part of her wanted to claim, wanted to believe, there was no way Hebert would've noticed and connected the dots.

"So she could know you're a cape." Armsmaster's voice was hard. "Why didn't you tell us before?"

"I was all hyped up, and it slipped my mind," Sophia retorted. She was lying, but he had no way of telling that. "Has there been anything …?"

Renick shook his head. "Nothing."

Sophia let out her breath in a huff of relief. "Good, then she doesn't know. Hebert's a coward and a wimp. If she knew something like that, she'd shout it out loud then run and hide."

"That remains to be seen." Piggot nodded to Sophia. "Keep going."

"There's not much else to tell." Sophia shrugged. "When I came to, Hebert had stolen our clothes, including my phones. Cops showed up, and we raised the alarm."

"That's right," Renick said. "We put a trace on the Wards phone, and it showed up alongside a bus route, on a store awning." He leaned forward slightly. "The passcode registry showed it had been opened once since you lost track of it. One attempt, correct first time. How did Miss Hebert know your passcode, Shadow Stalker? Did you tell her?"

"What?" Sophia looked around at the three adults staring at her. "She didn't! I didn't! That's a six-digit code! There's no fuckin' way she could've guessed her way in!"

"That's what Deputy Director Renick is saying, Shadow Stalker," Piggot pressed. "She knew your code. How did she know your code? Did you set it to your birthday?"

"Oh, puh-leeze," scoffed Sophia. "I'm not stupid." It was what she had had it set to, until Emma had explained how many people did just that. So she'd changed it. "I had it set to the date I leave the Wards." That was a date she would never forget.

The three adults glanced at each other. "Reasonable," allowed Renick. "And not blatantly obvious."

"Except to someone who knows Stalker well," Piggot responded. "And has access to that information."

"Hm," Armsmaster said. "Only someone who's on the inside would know the first and have the chance at the second. Neither of which, if our information is correct, fits Ms. Hebert. Shadow Stalker's end date isn't exactly widely known."

"Unless she's an intuitive Thinker," Sophia pointed out, in as reasonable a tone as she could manage. "She's already a combat Thinker, maybe a Brute. Why not a brainiac, too?"

Renick nodded. "Well, that would cover how she knows those details."

"True," the Director agreed. "Which brings us to the other matter." Piggot fixed her eyes on Sophia. "When police were called, they found a locker filled with … extremely unhygienic matter. Ms. Hebert's footprints led directly from that locker to the classroom in question, and then up to the bathroom where you had your scuffle with her. The locker was assigned to her. It is my personal belief that she had been locked into that locker with all that material and left there. When she forced her way out, she went directly to where Ms. Barnes was, and dragged her directly to a bathroom, where she forced Ms. Barnes to clean her clothing." She laced her fingers together in front of her. "Would you like to give us any reason you might be able to think of as to why she would target Ms. Barnes?"

Sonovabitch. Motherfucker. Sophia was teetering on a cliff edge as it was. The only way through was to brazen it out. It wasn't like they'd be able to search her phone. "She used to be besties with Emma, but she got too freaky, so Emma walked away from her. Maybe she blames Emma for whoever locked her in there?"

"You know, I like that." Piggot's voice was ruminative. "It covers the facts without actually paying attention to the details. Except, there's one tiny problem. We decided to work on the idea that she had a logical reason for doing it. We couldn't check your phone, but we could apply for a warrant to search Ms. Barnes' phone. And we got that two hours ago. We finished searching it fifteen minutes ago."

Fuu—

Armsmaster stepped forward, halberd snapping into line. "Shadow Stalker—"

—uuu—

Sophia spun around, lunging for the door.

"STOP!"

Even as she went to shadow, Triumph's shout hammered into her from the side. It disarranged her and flung her into the door frame. She collapsed to the floor, and Armsmaster's net closed over her an instant later.

—uuck.

"You're under arrest for multiple violations of your probation," Armsmaster continued. "Including—but not limited to—conspiracy to commit a crime, theft of property, destruction of property, assault, and false imprisonment."

Still dazed, she was hoisted up in the net like a fresh-caught fish. She could feel tiny jolts of electricity from it, so she knew better than to try to phase through. "B-but Hebert," she tried to say.

"Is still our problem." Piggot had come out from behind the desk. She looked at Sophia with no emotion at all. "You're the one who probably triggered her in that locker, so I hope you're proud of yourself. But you've got nothing more to worry about on that score. By the time I'm done with you, you won't be a Ward anymore. You'll be a number in a cell." She paused, then fired one final shot. "And with any luck, Taylor Hebert will be your replacement."

As the door opened and Armsmaster stepped outside, Sophia began a singular rant which continued as they went down in the elevator, was uninterrupted by her being processed through into the holding cells, didn't stop as she was locked into secure holding, and went on for some time thereafter.

But nobody cared.



End of Part Nine

 

[Ack]

Reality Intrudes

Part Ten: Unreality Check

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

Taylor was in the locker again. But before she could panic, she felt her heart rate slow. Her body moving with purpose, she placed her hands on the back wall of the locker and pushed. In disbelief, she felt the metal at her back bending and tearing free of its mounting, and she stepped back into the corridor.

Am I dreaming? What's going on here?

It was weird. She recalled reading the letter from Morrigan and destroying it, and she'd gone back to bed after that. After lying there staring into the darkness for a long time, she'd eventually drifted off to sleep.

So, this had to be a dream.

But it wasn't like any dream she'd ever experienced before. She saw herself striding through the school as if riding in an illusory passenger seat. Everything was sharp-edged, and her body moved with purpose. It just wasn't following her purpose.

The weird thing was, every detail was sharp, even things at the edge of her vision. It wasn't like a memory, where things she hadn't focused on were absent. While her dream-self entered the classroom and dragged Emma out by the ear, she wondered what was going on. Then, just as they reached the bathroom, she got it. It was like watching a movie.

A highly entertaining movie, she had to admit. It had a certain amount of schadenfreude to it, all of which Taylor enjoyed tremendously. The moment when Emma tried to flee, only to have her nose broken on the washbasin bench, was … therapeutic.

But then her dream-self took a phone from her jeans pocket, one that Taylor had never seen before. Where did that phone come from? What's going on here?

Taylor concentrated on the phone call, ignoring Emma's pathetic attempts at scrubbing the horrific stains from her clothing. Who was the 'Operator', and why did Taylor want to smack him?

The person piloting her body, Morrigan, wasn't thrilled with him either. This sounded like a long-standing rivalry. When Morrigan explained how she didn't just want to 'pull out' (this was already the weirdest Mastery case Taylor had ever heard of) and leave Taylor holding the bag, Taylor wanted to hug her. How bizarre is it that this woman I've never met, who's puppeting my body without asking first, is still the nicest person I've met in years?

When Sophia came in, Taylor wasn't sure what to expect, but standing there and getting hit was not it. Yeah, been here before. The phone left her dream-self's hand and skittered under the bench, and she mentally winced in expectation of a follow-up kick. But whatever the reason Morrigan had for taking the first hit, she flipped acrobatically to her feet in a way Taylor could never have performed to evade it.

Then she stood still again as Sophia threw a punch at her face. At the same time, in the corner of her picture, Taylor saw Emma scoop up the phone and drop it into one of the discarded shoes. You bitch. I hope she kicks your ass all over again.

At the very last instant, Morrigan faked Sophia out, blocking the blow and putting her in a hold. From the look on Sophia's face, she was just as surprised as Taylor herself. How the hell did she make my body move so fast?

And then came the next surprise. Just as Morrigan was asking Emma about how the clothing was coming on, Sophia's arm dissolved into black smoke just for an instant, reforming outside the hold Morrigan had on her. Holy shit, she was right. Sophia is Shadow Stalker. It wasn't that she'd disbelieved, exactly, but it had been hard to wrap her head around.

Still assimilating that, Taylor was almost too distracted to see the follow-up. This time, Morrigan was taking no shit. The first punch, she knocked aside. There was a second that Taylor didn't even see, that Morrigan caught full-on. And finally, a glorious, beautiful head-butt that knocked Sophia cold.

If Taylor had had a physical body of her own inside the dream, she would've been waving pom-poms at this point. But all she could do was cheer inside her own head as Morrigan stole Emma's blouse and boots, and Sophia's jeans. And then, once she discovered where Emma had put the phone—helped when it conveniently started ringing—she took everything except their underwear and dropped what she didn't need in the trash can outside.

Taylor was still giggling over that when Morrigan got back on the phone with the Operator. Between the highly fascinating conversation and how the person piloting her body chose to go downstairs—jumping, a flight at a time—she was mentally out of breath by the time Morrigan got outside. With a dramatic dive-and-roll, no less.

Taylor could've told her what the Operator already had; police response to Winslow calls was … slow. The running joke was, they preferred to wait until the bodies stopped twitching. After all that action, leaving on a bus was a distinct anticlimax.

When Morrigan discovered that Sophia had owned two phones, Taylor was intrigued, though what was on the older one barely surprised her at all. She was more than a little perplexed by just how much effort all three had put into planning to make her life hell. Couldn't they have found a less time-intensive hobby, like overthrowing third-world nations?

What got a lot more interesting was when Morrigan called the obnoxious Operator for the PIN code for the newer phone … and he gave it to her. Plus, he alluded to how Sophia had tagged them in the bathroom, which implied he'd been watching somehow … maybe?

And the 'what the fuck' rating just jumped another notch when Morrigan was looking at a list of the Brockton Bay Wards … and didn't know who they were. Even Taylor knew who they were, so long as she had a list to look at. Where is this woman from?

She flicked through the contacts, then sat back and apparently relaxed for a bit. Taylor figured she needed to unwind before doing whatever she did next. Things had been getting a little hectic.

When the Operator guy rang back to warn her of a trace program on the phone, Morrigan said something about 'agents' which made Taylor wonder if the NSA or FBI were involved. Taylor just wondered how he'd known about what was on the phone in Morrigan's hand, even when it wasn't being used to make calls.

Bullshit hacking skills are bullshit, I guess.

When Morrigan went into the library, the first thing she did was check out PHO. Which was reasonable; Taylor kind of wanted to know what was happening back at Winslow herself. But she didn't go there. She went to the Wards page.

Specifically, to Shadow Stalker's page.

It took a few seconds for Taylor to realise that this was where Morrigan had figured out for the first time that Sophia was a cape, and who she really was.

The reminder pissed her off so much that she nearly missed Morrigan going into the wider PHO, and her reactions to stuff everyone knew, like Behemoth and Leviathan. From what she and the Operator were saying, they'd never seen this stuff before. Any of it.

Taylor began to thoughtfully formulate some questions of her own, such as:

Where are these people from? Because they aren't from Earth Bet.

Who's the Operator?

Who's the Captain?

What's the rest of this stuff they're talking about?

She was still mulling these over when Morrigan piloted her body out of the library. First, she went and got a snack (with Taylor's money), but Taylor got to enjoy it as well, so she couldn't be too pissed about that. But then … she went and got herself mugged.

Or rather, she let someone try to mug her.

Taylor had seen a hint of her capabilities when she beat up Emma and Sophia, but the beatdown she laid on the muggers was … spectacular. She frisked (and robbed them) with ruthless professionalism; by the time Taylor realised this had been the point of the whole exercise, she'd jumped onto a dumpster with one of the muggers over her shoulder and was running up the fire escape. With him still over her shoulder!

There was another phone call, something about 'checking the code' that Taylor couldn't quite figure out, then Morrigan started interrogating the guy while casually holding him out over the alleyway. Specifically, she wanted to know about the gangs, and where the nearest Empire Eighty-Eight stash house was. He told her, of course. Taylor couldn't imagine a circumstance where people wouldn't tell Morrigan what she wanted to know. She had a certain way about her.

Taylor was more or less settled in for the ride now. She knew her body would end up being okay; this was what had happened, not what would happen, so there was no anxiety there, but she did want to know what Morrigan had done in the meantime. The subsequent phone calls with the Operator didn't get her much more information, except that he was good at deflecting phone calls, and there was a mention of something called 'blue-pills'. The conversation ended, leaving Taylor puzzled.

Did that sound like what I thought it sounded like? Because to me, it sounded like they were talking about the real world having computer code applied to it. But that can't be right.

Can it?

Taylor was already mentally composing the letter to Morrigan in her head. Most of it was questions so far; but of course, they were going to have to wait until she was back in charge of her body, with a pen in her hand.

She wondered if Morrigan had known she'd be able to go back through these memories like this. From the tone of the letter, she suspected not.

Morrigan definitely had a plan, and Taylor still hadn't forgotten the mention of having dealt with Victor and Alabaster, but it was interesting to watch it all come together. First was the shopping trip, where she got a nice hat and a seriously rocking long coat. Then …

… then she went and raided the stash house.

It was exhilarating and terrifying, and beat the living hell out of any action movie Taylor had ever watched. A stolen truck, guns everywhere, and Taylor got to watch Morrigan just go through the bad guys like a combine harvester in a field of ripe wheat.

It got really scary when she ran into Victor and Alabaster, though. Alabaster just kept getting up, and Victor kept coming after her while his buddy ran interference. Taylor started to worry when Morrigan started missing shots she'd hit with before.

Then Morrigan made the phone call, and that was when everything changed. Taylor could feel it like she was plugged into a high-voltage powerline, the current pouring through every muscle and into her brain. Morrigan was back up to speed, and she pulled the most ridiculously bullshit move Taylor had ever seen. Even in the trashiest action movie, they'd never blown a guy's head all the way off while doing a backward somersault off the wall. But she did it anyway. And Alabaster didn't get up again.

Once she got rid of Alabaster, Victor was easy; Morrigan barely broke step as she killed him. Then she went downstairs, robbed the place blind, and set it all on fire. Taylor just wished she had popcorn.

After that, things eased off. Morrigan had clearly gotten what she wanted, so she took a cab to a gas station and washed up in the bathroom, scrubbing with the cheap soap, probably to get rid of the smell of gunshot residue. Then she went to the Market and bought some cheap but comfortable clothes. Emma's and Sophia's clothing went into a Goodwill bin; the phones, separated from their SIM cards and batteries, ended up in the duffel.

If she'd been impressed before, Taylor was downright astonished at how well Morrigan sneaked into the house while her father wandered around keeping an eye out for her. Getting through the kitchen and down into the basement without making a sound was pretty cool, too. There was an old coal hatch that had been boarded up years ago; Morrigan had the cover off in five minutes, and the duffel stored inside (along with the perforated long coat and the neat hat) in another thirty seconds. Then she went back upstairs and let Dad think she'd just come in.

Dinner was excellent, even experienced second hand. Morrigan had told the truth about what her father now knew, which clued in Taylor enough not to give the game away. After that, Morrigan apparently dipped into her memories (as she'd done to get into the house and talk to Dad, duh) to get her pyjamas from her room, have a shower, and go to bed.

Well, not all the way to bed. She sat up for a while, pen in hand, carefully writing out a very familiar-looking letter. Then she climbed into bed, put her (Taylor's) glasses aside, and turned out the light. After wrapping herself in a cocoon of blankets with the folded letter in her hand, she opened the phone in her other hand and pressed the button.

"Operator."

"I've done what I can. Pull me out."

"Roger."

The dream ended, and Taylor sat up in bed. Carefully, she put her feet on the floor and crept over to her bedroom door. The corridor was in darkness, but that didn't matter; she knew every inch of the house anyway. And she had to know. Down the stairs she went, and around through the kitchen to the basement door.

In the basement it was even darker, despite the grimy windows set high in the wall. Taylor closed the door, then found the dangling light cord and pulled it. When the bare bulb clicked on, the light dazzled Taylor's dark-adapted eyes for a moment until she blinked them clear. Tiptoeing down the stairs, she went over to the coal chute, stared at the cover for a second, then opened it the same way Morrigan had closed it.

The duffel was there, as were the long coat and hat.

It was all true.

"Holy shit," she murmured. "Holy … shiiit."

Carefully, she closed the cover again, went back up the steps, and turned off the light before opening the basement door. She was thirsty, so she got a glass of water from the sink and drank it while looking out the window at the back lawn, dimly lit from the street.

If she'd needed proof for what Morrigan had said in the letter, she had it all, and more.

But she also had questions.

Lots of questions.

<><>​

Morrigan

I grunt as I roll out of my rack. The shuteye was nice, but that insertion was the roughest one I've done in quite some time. Plus, the emergency upload of combat skills has left me with an unpleasant tingling at the base of my skull.

I shamble along to the head and splash cold water on my face, so I feel halfway human. Then I pull on my genuine imitation blue jeans, head through to the mess hall, and dial myself up a nice, tasty bowl of gruel (yes, that's sarcasm. Glad you noticed). Already, I'm missing the coffee and pastry I bought with Taylor's money yesterday.

The first spoonful is halfway to my mouth when the PA system chunters to life. "Morrigan, report to Operations. Morrigan, report to Operations."

"Ohh, fuck me sideways," I mutter as I get up from the table. But they never said not to bring food along, so I do just that. Besides, I'm hungry as fuck.

When I wander in through the hatchway to Operations, Loki is already there, coffee cup in hand, with Captain Hornblower leaning over his shoulder. They both turn to look at me. I eat a spoonful of gruel and look right back at them. "What?"

"We have a potential problem," Captain Hornblower informs me. Far from giving me the stink-eye over the bowl of gruel, she looks like a person with much more pressing issues. "Loki discovered it when he was checking to make sure Taylor Hebert had suffered no ill effects from the insertion yesterday."

I eat another spoonful of gruel. Hey, I'm hungry. "So, what's the issue?" I hope nothing's happened to the kid. She doesn't deserve the shit that's been dropped on her from a great height.

"The issue," Loki says in the tone of someone handing over a problem to someone else, "is that the connection you made to Taylor Hebert somehow recorded the entire insertion where she could access it. She's just lived through the whole thing in a dream state. Every second of it."

I blink. "Well, shit." Looks like the letter I wrote her wasn't really necessary after all.

"Is that all you've got to say?" demands Loki. "If you don't recall, we talked about stuff on the phone that she would've heard. Stuff we don't want her knowing!"

I eat another spoonful of gruel. "Stuff you don't want her knowing," I correct him. "I already wrote her a letter and explained basically what was going on, in terms she'd understand. Now … I guess she understands a bit more. So when she asks me questions about that …" I look at Captain Hornblower and raise my eyebrows in a question.

Hornblower looks right back at me. "You're the lead Operative on this mission," she says. Which is a fancy way of saying I'm the only Operative, but I'm not complaining. "I leave it to your judgement."

I'd be touched, but I seem to recall her also pointing out how I'd be likely to ignore orders to do what I felt like anyway, so I just accept that she's a realist. "Thanks, Captain. When do you want me to go back in?"

She considers this. "Do you have a time limit you need to meet?"

I finish off my gruel and put the bowl down right in front of Loki. Yeah, I'm totally petty like that. "I was thinking about going out at five or so tonight, local time. Give her the chance to get through a day of school on her own, without those other hell-beasts there on her back all the time. Once it's dark, I'm gonna need to go out and start beating up blue-pills and shaking the bushes until I've got a lot better idea of what's going on under the surface. Maybe give one of their crime lords another kick in the teeth."

Captain Hornblower nods. "Sounds like a plan. Rest and relax, but stay close to Ops in case she gets in danger, and you need to go in and bail her out."

"Hey," says Loki, taking a drink of his crappy coffee. "She just got up. Check it out, Mo-Mo. You got yourself a pen pal."

<><>​

Feeling rested and refreshed, Taylor sat at her desk in her pyjamas, the morning sunlight slanting in through the window. Taking the pen in hand, she carefully wrote her reply to Morrigan's letter.

Hi.

I totally believe you.

I have some questions, though.

Where do you come from? Are you even really here? Are you even really human?

What's a blue-pill? Is that what you call people like me, or just capes?

Who is the Operator? He sounds like an asshole.

Who is the Captain?

Is the Matrix a computer simulation of Earth Bet? Are we all programs? Do powers really cause glitches in the code?

Where do powers come from?

Do I have a real body, and if so, where is it?

More questions as I think of them.

Taylor

<><>​

I'm laughing so hard I have to lean against a console while the Captain hands Loki a cloth to clean off his console and screen, where he sprayed his crappy coffee. Privately, I resolve to do something nice for Taylor Hebert. Her 'He sounds like an asshole' line hit the mark perfectly, just like Loki's coffee did.

"So, she knows," I say after I catch my breath. "Well, shit."

Captain Hornblower nods acknowledgement in my general direction. "Indeed."

This mission just got a whole lot more interesting.

Good thing I enjoy interesting.



End of Part Ten

 

[Ack]

Reality Intrudes

Part Eleven: Fallout

[A/N: this chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]



PRT ENE Building

Director Emily Piggot

Triumph grimaced as Shadow Stalker's ranting died away along the corridor. "A pity to see someone with so much promise go bad," he said. "I can't help thinking there should've been something we could have said or done, to avert this."

Emily shook her head. "We gave her every chance. She chose to keep offending, and trying to cover it up, even after she was brought into the Wards under you as an alternative to juvenile detention. This was her last lifeline, and she chose to throw it back in our faces."

He tilted his head, a slightly overdone gesture to compensate for having only the lower part of his face visible. "What you said to her, about having Taylor Hebert come in as her replacement; do you really think that's an option? We know extremely little about her at the moment, least of all whether she's willing to even join the Wards."

Emily nodded. "That's true. Fortunately, I've got people on that."

<><>​

Taylor

She was just finishing breakfast when her father looked across at her. "Considering what happened yesterday, and how badly Winslow's been falling down on the job so far, I'm going to give you a lift into school and explain how I'm really invested in this shit never happening again. Also, so they don't suddenly get the bright idea to blame you for everything."

Taylor nodded. "That's … I'd like to say they probably wouldn't do that, but I've kinda lost all faith with them to be anything but totally self-serving, so that's probably a good idea. Thanks, I'll definitely take you up on that." Getting up, she started to clear the table.

"Good." He finished his coffee and pushed his own chair back, just as there came a knock on the front door. Frowning, he looked at Taylor. "Were we expecting visitors this morning?"

"Um …" Taylor quickly went back over what Morrigan had done on the previous day. Did she leave evidence that led back to me? "Not sure. I'll go see who it is."

She put the plates down again and trotted through the living room to the entrance hall. Slotting the chain into place on the front door, she opened it slightly. "Who is it?" she asked.

"Ah, hi," a guy's voice answered. He sounded chatty and personable, even though she couldn't see his face. "We're here to read the gas meter. Do you mind if we come in?"

"Uh … what? We don't have the gas on here. Dad!" She raised her voice. "They say they're here to read the gas meter!"

"That'll be a good trick," he called back. "We don't have the gas on." She heard his footsteps coming along the entrance hall. "Who's out there, really?" he demanded.

"Brockton Bay Gas and Illumination," the cheerful voice insisted. "Here to read your meter. We'll be in and out in a jiffy."

Danny stepped forward and motioned for Taylor to get behind him. "As my daughter and I both just informed you, we don't have the gas connected to this house. I'm going to need to see some ID, or we're calling the police, right now."

"Certainly, sir." A wallet was slipped through the gap. Open, it showed a badge and an ID card … one that identified the holder as a member of the Parahuman Response Teams. "And now that we've established to any nosy neighbours that we're just here to read the meter, would you mind letting us in for that chat, sir?"

"Not just yet." Danny seemed to be considering his options. "Who do you want to talk to, and why?"

"Your daughter Taylor, if we could." This was a second voice, a young woman.

Danny turned and looked at Taylor, with his eyebrows raised in query. Why do the PRT want to talk to you?

While she could think of several good reasons, she made herself shrug. Back when she was spending time at the Barnes household, she'd heard any number of stories from Emma's dad about how people accidentally confessed to things they weren't even suspected of. No matter what they got her on, there was no point in making it easy for them. "Maybe the Shadow Stalker thing?" she hazarded, keeping her voice low. One of the things she recalled from the 'movie' was Morrigan-as-her telling her dad about that.

He nodded briefly. "Makes sense," he murmured in reply, then raised his voice. "Why?"

The woman answered again. "Because we'd like to get Taylor's side of what happened with Sophia Hess yesterday. And we'd really rather not have to do it while standing on your front doorstep."

Danny grimaced and glanced at his watch. "I can let you in. Ten minutes, max. Any questions for my daughter come through me. Any questions I don't like, you're out of here. Got it?"

"Absolutely," agreed the guy at once. "We only want to talk."

"Hm." There was a grimace on Danny's face, as though he didn't totally believe them, but in the end he closed the door and took the chain off the hook.

"Hi," enthused the man who stepped through the doorway. "Ethan Saunders, at your service. This is my partner and totally my best friend, Jess Everett." He shook Danny's hand firmly. "Danny Hebert, yes? And you must be Taylor."

Drawn in despite her own misgivings, Taylor found herself warming to him. "That's me," she acknowledged. "What do you want to know about Sophia? Because I can tell you a lot, and none of it good."

"That's exactly what we're looking for." Agent Everett slipped past her partner and shook Taylor's hand. "Is it okay if we come through and sit down? Because the last thing we want this to feel like is an interrogation."

Even though that's exactly what it's gonna be. Taylor wasn't sure where that thought came from, but she wasn't about to disagree with it. "Say, if this is about Sophia, I've got some stuff upstairs that might throw some light on the subject, if you're interested?"

"Definitely," said Agent Saunders. "We'll be interested in whatever you've got to show us."

"While she's getting that," Danny said, "come on through. Can I interest you in a cup of coffee?"

"Now there's an offer I can't refuse," Agent Saunders agreed. "Lead the way, Mr Hebert."

As Danny went through to the kitchen, Taylor darted upstairs. Heading along the corridor to her room, she glanced suspiciously over her shoulder in case either of the agents had followed her. Neither one had, so she ducked into her room and retrieved the stack of pages from under the tacky Christmas sweater on the top shelf of her closet. The bulldog clip she was using to hold them together was having to strain a little, and she made a mental note to get a bigger one.

<><>​

Morrigan

I'm dozing in my rack when the PA system grinds to life. "Morrigan to Operations, stat. That means get your butt here now!" It's staticky and distorted, but I can pick out Loki's smarm from fifty yards in pitch darkness under heavy gunfire.

It's tempting to dally around for ten or fifteen minutes to teach him a lesson about who's authorized to give orders to whom. Case in point: he is not my commanding officer, and never will be.

But right now, it's more important to get there fast, because it sounds like Taylor Hebert's in trouble. If she gets injured or killed, her career as our conduit into the Earth Bet server would be set back to square zero. Also, I'm getting kind of attached to the kid. (Especially since she called Loki an asshole).

So I get there as fast as humanly possible, pausing only to put pants on. As I swing around the hatch-frame into Operations, I focus on the waterfall display in front of Loki and the Captain. Taylor's still in her house and uninjured, which is good, but there are two strangers in the house as well. "Who're they?"

"ID says PRT," the Captain informs me tensely. "I've got my doubts."

I'm already dropping into the chair and fastening my restraints. "Local criminals, trying for a stealth recruitment after they saw her performance yesterday? Or maybe Agents?" I haven't seen any of the latter yet (if I discount the maybe-sighting of one by Danny yesterday) but the mission hasn't hit the forty-eight hour mark yet either.

"Possible, but it's more likely that it's two of their 'capes', investigating the chance that she's one as well, since you roughed up one of theirs yesterday. After all, would you send non-Operatives to check in on another Operative?"

The Captain's voice is non-judgemental, even as Loki sneaks me a smug look behind her back. "Hey," I say defensively. "That little cow totally had it coming."

"I'm not saying she didn't," Hornblower agrees. "However, it did have the undesired side effect of putting you on their radar."

"Gotcha," I say, and slide my arms into the wrist restraints. "So, am I going in now?"

"Not yet, but be ready in case you have to." The Captain studies the screen intently. "They don't seem to be there to arrest her, but I honestly don't know how she'll do under pressure."

I shift in the chair, lining up my neck with the hole for the Matrix jack and trying to relax at the same time. "From the letter she wrote after she saw what I'd been up to, pretty damn well."

There's a snort from Loki. Nope, he hasn't forgotten the 'sounds like an asshole' comment, either. "Let's hope so."

<><>​

Taylor

When she got back downstairs, the two agents were seated in the kitchen, and Danny was just pouring coffee for Agent Everett. "Here," she said, dropping the pages on the table in front of the female agent. "Feel free to take photos, but I want to keep the original."

"What is it?" asked Agent Saunders and Danny more or less simultaneously, but Agent Everett was already reading the first page.

She went through two more, then pulled out her phone. "I'm definitely going to want pictures, yes. Is this just from September of last year?"

"Taylor, is that what I think it is?" asked Danny at the same time.

"It's what they've been doing to me. What the school's been letting them do to me, while they carefully look the other way," she said in answer to both. "It started in two thousand nine, but I only started keeping track last year."

Agent Everett nodded. "I'm going to want to get pictures of all this. Saunders, would you mind handling the questions?"

"Fine." Agent Saunders affected a put-upon tone. "I'll ask the boring old questions." Taking a sip of coffee, he nodded to Taylor. "So, yesterday. Sophia Hess and Emma Barnes. What actually happened there?"

Taylor glanced at her dad, who nodded. She took a deep breath, ready to launch into her tale of woe, then she paused. The more details she gave, the more they'd be able to tease out of her, until they had something to incriminate her on. But on the other hand, if she told them something they could never disprove, with the only witnesses being people who were predisposed to being antagonistic to her …

"After I got out of the locker," she said neutrally, "I went to Emma's next classroom. She was one of the two who'd put me in there, so I figured she needed to help clean up my stuff. So we went up to the bathroom and she started cleaning my clothing. Out of the goodness of her heart, of course."

Agent Saunders raised an eyebrow. "Ms Barnes claims you forced her to clean your clothing, and broke her nose when she refused."

She met his gaze with hers, and refused to back down. "Just so you know, Emma Barnes couldn't lie straight in bed. If she said the sky was blue, I'd get a second opinion."

Apparently caught on the back foot, he coughed into his fist and regained his composure. "Be that as it may, when Sophia Hess got there, they both say you attacked her and took their clothing."

"Well, that's impressive." Taylor gave him another raised-eyebrow look. "Sophia and I had a free and frank exchange of views, and we all agreed that Emma was taking far too long to clean my clothing, so we traded clothes, and I left."

"An exchange of views?" He tilted his head, as though trying to figure out what I was saying. "They say you broke Sophia's nose and knocked her out. That's some exchange of views, right there."

"Honestly?" Taylor hid a grin. "If I was capable of doing that, don't you think I would've done it back when they first started on me?"

"Well … no," he admitted with an irritated twitch. "However, if you'd triggered with powers in that locker, you might now have the ability to do that."

Silence fell as Taylor regarded him steadily. Even Agent Everett had ceased taking photos of the pages, and Danny was staring fixedly at Agent Saunders.

"And if I didn't?" Taylor asked.

"Are you saying you didn't?" he countered quickly.

Danny cleared his throat. "Are you trying to trick my daughter into admitting to having super-powers? Does the PRT have the legal right to force that sort of information from people now?"

Agent Everett swallowed heavily. Saunders glanced at her, then shook his head hastily. "No, no, of course not. It was speculation only, a hypothetical answer to the question."

"Well, your hypothesis is based on faulty data," Taylor stated with as much snark as she could pack into the sentence. "I don't have powers."

"Ah." Saunders frowned. "So how did you break Sh—Sophia's nose? And knock her out?"

Taylor considered letting the agents know that her father was already aware of Shadow Stalker's real identity, but decided it was too much fun watching Saunders tap-dance around it. "Who says I did?"

"They do," Saunders insisted. "Sophia Hess and Emma Barnes."

"And given what else they've said about me since September before last, they're hardly credible witnesses. Let's see…." Holding up a finger for each point, she said, "I'm simultaneously bulimic, anorexic, a lesbian, a man-hungry whore, too ugly to you-know-what, and a junkie. Also, to the teachers and staff, I'm a troublemaker and an attention-seeker. Of which exactly none is true. So, if they chose to give me their clothing and then turn around and claim that I beat them up and stole it … who are you going to believe?"

Agent Everett turned another page. "Uh … she's got a point. The amount of stuff they've been doing to her is frankly ridiculous. Seeing what's already in here, I honestly wouldn't put that past them."

"Actually, I'm curious about something." Danny leaned into the ongoing discussion. "Two bullies claiming to have been beaten up in a high school bathroom and their clothing stolen by their victim isn't exactly a common occurrence … but why exactly is the PRT involved in all this?"

Taylor saw both agents wince as the shot went home. Danny had struck right at the heart of the little deception that was going on, and neither one liked it. "Let me guess," she snarked. "They claimed I was a dangerous cape, and that's how I supposedly beat them up?"

"That was the gist of the claim, yes," Saunders confirmed. "You're saying that you didn't beat them up, powers or otherwise?"

"I believe my daughter's already made that clear," snapped Danny. "Are you going to keep asking her the same question in different ways, or accept that she's telling the truth?"

Taylor was impressed. Her father knew the truth; or rather, he knew what she'd told him. And yet, here he was, backing her solidly against the PRT.

"Okay, moving on," Saunders acknowledged. "Ms Hess said that after you left, both her phones were missing. She says you took them."

When Taylor gave him the speculative look, she could tell from his expression that he knew what was coming next. "What would I do that for? I'm not even allowed to own a phone."

"That's not for me to say." Saunders' tone hardened slightly. "We traced one of the phones, and determined that it was well outside the school, travelling in a vehicle of some sort. Perhaps a bus. How did you leave Winslow?"

Taylor shrugged. "Can't remember."

"Where did you go once you left Winslow?"

"I dunno."

He breathed in deeply through his nostrils. "Did you take her phones?"

"Agent Saunders." Her father held his hand up. "Back off, right now. Quick question, Taylor; do you have either one of Ms Hess' phones on you right now?"

Taylor beamed at her dad. "No, I don't."

Agent Everett cleared her throat again. "If you, uh, 'swapped clothing' with Ms Barnes and Ms Hess, where is that clothing now? Did you bring it home?"

"No, I bought new clothes and left the old stuff in a Goodwill bin," Taylor explained.

"Which one?" prompted Saunders.

Taylor shrugged. "I dunno."

He twitched again, then turned to his partner. "Everett, we need to talk. Outside. Now."

"Alright." She weighted down the pages with salt and pepper shakers and gave Taylor an engaging grin. "Don't want to lose my place."

"Probably not a bad idea," Taylor agreed. She watched as the two went to the back door and let themselves out. The door closed behind them and they walked a little way out into the yard. Facing away from the house, the two agents began to converse.

"Come on," said Danny quietly. He led the way into the living room and used the remote to turn the TV on. "I don't know that they've bugged the place, but I'm not going to trust them until I see a reason to."

"Okay, yeah, I didn't even think of that," Taylor admitted. Leaving the room to allow the suspects to converse in 'private' had to be one of the number one tricks in law enforcement. "What did you want to talk about?"

He put his hands on his hips and looked her in the eye. "I can tell when someone's pulling a line of bullshit. And you and Agent Saunders are both trying to bullshit each other. And you're not fooling anyone with your stonewall act. Neither is he, but he's slightly better at it."

"What's that line Emma's dad always uses?" Taylor asked rhetorically. "'Never admit to anything they can't prove?' He might suspect stuff, but so long as I don't actually agree that I did something, he can't prove it. And until I know why he's trying to get me to admit I took Sophia's phone on the bus, fuck him. He can whistle in the wind."

"He also wants you to admit to being a cape," Danny pointed out. "Which reminds me; are you?"

"Sorry, Dad," she said without a quiver of remorse. "The answer's gonna be 'no' whether I am or not. Plausible deniability, you know."

He didn't like it, she could tell, but neither was he going to push the matter. "That's fair, I guess. Just tell me you're not going to become a villain. I'm not sure my heart could take it."

"Zero plans to rob banks and plot world domination while cackling menacingly," she reassured him.

"Oh, good." The moment of levity over, his serious demeanour returned. "Just remember, I am not going to stand by and let anyone steamroll—"

"Coming back in," she warned him quietly, just as the back door latch clicked open.

<><>​

In the Back Yard

Assault

Ethan ground his teeth. "Jesus Christ, and I thought I was good with teenagers. That kid's harder to deal with than Shadow Stalker at her pissiest."

"Calm down," Jess advised him. "You think she's a cape?"

"Don't you?" he retorted. "She's hiding something, and that's the most obvious thing it could be."

"Well, you going at her like a bull at a gate isn't helping, you know."

Closing his eyes, he breathed deeply, letting the tension dissipate from his shoulders. "The craziest thing here is that we're not even trying to protect Stalker. She's going down. They haven't finished going through the Barnes girl's phone and we know she's going down."

"You just want to know how that girl in there broke a six-digit PIN on her first try, don't you?" Her grin was almost impish.

"Of course I damn well do." He shook his head. "The techs are adamant it can't be done. She did it, or whoever she gave the phone to. But we can't ask her outright without explaining how a high school student had a special phone with that level of PIN, and how we know it was broken into."

She frowned. "What's the possibility that she knows Hess is Stalker?"

"Shit." He rubbed his lower lip with his thumbnail. "If Hess showed her powers during the fight, one hundred percent. But if she beat Hess with her powers—that she's just gotten—while Hess was using her abilities, she must be pretty damn good. Because Hess is almost as good as she thinks she is."

"And if Hess didn't show off her powers? What's the chances of Hebert finding out from the phone? What was accessed?"

He looked unhappy. "Not sure. Damn it. We're going to have to read them both in, aren't we?"

"Can't see any way out of it." She brightened. "But like you said, Stalker's not going to be a Ward much longer anyway."

"Not after this fuckup, no." He turned and gestured toward the house. "I'll get the forms from the car. You go in and keep them talking."

"Copy that."

<><>​

Taylor

Danny turned the TV off as Agent Everett came in through the back door. "We've come to a decision," she said. "It requires just a little bit of paperwork, which Agent Saunders is fetching from the car."

"Paperwork?" he asked as he and Taylor sat down at the table again. "I'm not signing Taylor up for anything without a damn good reason."

"Wouldn't expect you to," she agreed. "Though, just saying, if Taylor did happen to have powers, she could do a lot worse than going into the Wards."

Taylor rolled her eyes. "Still don't have powers, over here. Just saying."

"Understood." Agent Everett took out her phone and started to photograph the pages again.

Dad glanced at his watch. "The ten minutes I gave you is nearly up. I've still got to get Taylor to school. You don't want her to be late, on top of missing all her classes yesterday, do you?"

"—yeah, thanks, I'll keep you posted." The back door opened again, and Agent Saunders entered, with his phone to his ear. He seemed to be his chipper self once more, and he was carrying a Manila folder in his free hand. Ending the call, he slid the phone into his pocket, then dropped the folder on the table. "If I can get you two to sign these, we can be a little more open about what's going on here."

"Oh, good." Danny took the folder, opened it, and started reading the forms within. About halfway through, he looked over at Agent Saunders, who had seated himself. "These are non-disclosures. Why do we need these?"

"As I said." Agent Saunders seemed to have recovered from going head-to-head with me. "Once you've signed those, there's a lot more we can tell you about the situation."

Taylor figured she could guess what it was—Sophia Hess' status as a cape, among other things—but she couldn't see why they'd be telling her that. "I'll sign only if Dad says it's okay."

"Just give me a moment and I'll let you know." Danny kept reading through the documents, checking every line. While Taylor didn't think they'd sneak in a stealthy Wards membership in the fine print, she definitely figured it was worth doing.

Eventually, he sat back and passed one of the documents over to Taylor. "It all seems above board to me. I'll have to co-sign yours, to make it binding."

That followed, given that Taylor was a minor. "Sure, okay. Got a pen?"

Agent Everett loaned Taylor her pen. She filled in her details and scribbled her signature, then passed it and the form to her father, who filled out his own form then signed both. Handing back the pen to Everett, he raised his eyebrows. "Okay, the t's are crossed and the i's dotted. Can we stop tap-dancing now?"

"Sure." Agent Saunders gathered up the non-disclosure forms and stashed them back in the folder. "Fact number one, that I'm reasonably sure you already knew. Sophia Hess is the Ward known as Shadow Stalker."

Taylor shared a glance with her father, then they both looked back at the PRT agents. "I am shocked," Danny said, deadpan.

"Surprised," echoed Taylor.

"Flabbergasted," Danny added helpfully.

Taylor leaned forward. "Which leaves me wondering, how long have you guys known about this, and covered it up?"

Agent Everett winced. "We didn't know. We're currently unraveling the cover-up. And Stalker is going to be an ex-Ward by the end of the day. That's the second fact."

Now that, Taylor hadn't known. "Really." It wasn't a question.

"Really." Saunders had a grin on his face that was more teeth than humour. Interestingly enough, it looked more genuine than when he'd been talking to Taylor before. "Your little clash with her in the bathroom opened a whole can of worms. We were unable to access her phones, because some unknown person made off with them—" He paused to give Taylor an extremely dry look, "—but fortunately we were able to get a warrant for Ms Barnes' phone. And it's proven to be an absolute trove of incriminating texts. So yes, Sophia Hess is going to be punted out of the Wards in a high ballistic arc that ends up in secure juvey holding. Any questions?"

"Yeah," said Danny. "As satisfying as this is, why are you telling us?"

"Because Sophia had two phones, not one," Agent Everett explained. "One was personally owned, and the other was Wards issued. We have no idea what happened to the personal one—though it would be nice to get our hands on it, to absolutely seal the deal—but the Wards one was electronically pinged as riding in a vehicle, probably a bus, around the time that someone used the six-digit PIN to open it up, on the first try."

Taylor leaned back in her chair, feigning unconcern. "Good trick, but what's that got to do with me?"

Agent Saunders took up the ball. "Because we found the phone, and lifted fingerprints off it. I was in contact with the lab, just now. The prints don't match Sophia Hess, who we had on file, or Emma Barnes, who got printed just today. They do match the most recent prints on your school locker combination lock. Which, I've got to say, the tech who lifted those prints? Deserves a medal. So yeah, they're your prints."

"You're not in trouble," Agent Everett hastened to say. "We just want to know how you cracked a six-digit PIN in one try. As you might imagine, right now it's a bit of a security issue for us."

Taylor shrugged. "Lucky guess. I was just fiddling and got it right first go. But when there wasn't anything incriminating about Sophia on it, I tossed it."

The two agents glanced at each other, then Saunders shook his head. "Come on now, you've got to be able to do better than that. 'Lucky guess'? Nobody's that lucky."

"And now you're calling my daughter a liar." Danny stood up. "We've listened to what you have to say, we've signed your NDAs, and now we'd like you to leave."

To their credit, they didn't argue. Agent Everett looked at the portion of the pages she hadn't photographed. "I'd like to get the rest of these, sometime. Also, you should really think about the Wards."

Taylor smiled at her. At the very least, she'd been polite about it. "We can make an appointment. And you enabled Shadow Stalker for years, so that'd be a hard pass even if I did have powers."

After a round of hand-shaking, the two PRT agents left the house and went out to the car. Watching through the blinds, Taylor was puzzled when Agent Saunders paused and saluted in her general direction. Then they got in the car and drove away.

<><>​

Assault

Jess looked askance at Ethan as they pulled out onto the road. "What was that for?"

"It's a long time since anyone's done passive-aggressive better than me," he said with a sigh, relaxing back into the seat. "Part of me wants to get her into the Wards, just to see the look on Piggot's face when she realises what she's gotten herself into."

Jess shook her head. "You're mean."

"But I'm not wrong."

<><>​

Morrigan

Loki shakes his head. "Well, I'll be damned. Are you sure this isn't a two-way link, Captain? Because that's something Momo here would pull."

"I'm quite aware of Morrigan's arguing techniques, thank you very much," Captain Hornblower retorts. "This is a new technique, yes. It's not impossible that a little leakage might occur. But it's not problematic enough to justify pulling the plug."

That's all I need to hear. I finish removing the restraints and get up from the chair. "I'm going to hit the head then stack a few more zee's," I announce. "Call me if anything actually important happens."

Trudging out of Operations, I yawn. Beauty sleep awaits.

And tonight … another deep dive into the Brockton Bay underworld.



End of Part Eleven

 

[Ack]

Reality Intrudes

Part Twelve: More of the Same

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]



PRT ENE Building
Director's Office

Director Piggot

Emily Piggot did not like to shout or scream or rant and rave when she was pissed off. That sort of thing unsettled the lower ranks for no good reason. She wanted them to consider that everything was normal and above-board until she really wanted them unsettled. That was why, instead of grimacing and pinching the bridge of her nose, she merely laced her hands together in front of her.

"So, to recap. You had to reveal Shadow Stalker's secret identity, and all you got regarding the PIN entry was a claim of a 'lucky guess'."

Assault, now back in costume, waggled his hand from side to side. "If you ask me, they already knew. At least now, they can't legally talk about it."

In Emily's mind, 'legally' was not a word that she preferred to depend on. "In your opinion, will that stop them?"

"I don't think they were likely to in the first place," Battery said. "But I'm also pretty certain they're not looking for official attention, and now spreading that word is guaranteed to draw attention. So, all told, I'd call it a net benefit to us."

"Good. And the rest of it? Did you get an idea of her powers?"

Assault's mouth tightened, and Battery answered for him. "She was particularly unforthcoming. Anytime we tried to get a straight answer out of her, she deflected with a question or gave a non-answer. Overall, I got the strong impression that she trusts us about as far as she could throw this building. Any suggestion that she might have powers was met with a strong refusal of the possibility, to the point that she did her best to cast doubt upon the notion of having engaged Shadow Stalker in the bathroom."

Emily could feel her knuckles turning white under the tension, so she deliberately relaxed her hands. "Did we get any kind of win at all out of the situation, over and above having marginally decreased the chance of Shadow Stalker's situation being made public?"

"Maybe," offered Battery, pulling out her phone. "We got a bunch of evidence we can use to nail Shadow Stalker and her cohorts to the wall, if they're stupid enough to try to take it to trial." She woke it up and tapped the screen a few times, then handed the phone to Emily.

Even considering the size of the screen, it wasn't hard to read the painstakingly inscribed notes dictating act after act of bullying. Emily flicked through the images, noting the attached dates. "How much of this does she have?"

"More than I was able to get pictures of in the time we were there." Battery accepted her phone back. "A lot more."

"Good." Emily nodded; perhaps she could turn this around after all. "Make an appointment to get it all. Emphasise that it will help put Stalker away for good. Maybe that will help engender enough trust that she'll tell us how she beat the little fool, and how she opened the phone."

"Just so you know, we're not her favourite people," Assault said. "As far as she's concerned, everything that Stalker pulled is on us."

"Which isn't an inaccurate summation," Emily noted. "Back in the day, they taught me that as an officer, my subordinates' screwups were my personal responsibility. Stalker screwed up, but we were the ones who allowed her to do it via insufficient oversight." She pinned him with a solid glare. "Which you are never to repeat outside this office, and I'll deny I ever said it if you do."

"Understood, ma'am." Assault seemed to consider the matter for a moment. "On the upside, they seemed to be more resigned than angry. It's going to be a long hard slog to get her trust again—if we ever had it—but at least they weren't talking lawsuits, against us."

Emily considered that. While the NDAs would prevent the Heberts from bringing lawsuits on the matter of Shadow Stalker being Sophia Hess against the PRT, they would have no such obstacles in suing Winslow into the bedrock. She wished them all the luck in that endeavour. "That's something, at least," she conceded. "We're done, here. Have that information you got from the Hebert girl entered in the evidence against Hess. If it does go to trial, we may wish to subpoena her to testify for the prosecution."

Assault actually snickered. "If we do that, we may just see the first case ever of a non-Mover spontaneously manifesting the ability to move faster than sound, in her hurry to be here on time."

Shaking her head, Emily gestured at the door. "Get out of here."

They left, Assault still chuckling.

<><>​

Taylor

She'd known Sophia was under arrest, which was heartening to say the least—it seemed the PRT wasn't totally corrupt and/or incompetent—and the fact that they'd been going through Emma's phone records suggested that she was in custody as well. This was borne out by the fact that nobody had bothered her before home room, or even on the walk from Computer Studies to World Affairs.

This run of good luck came to a screeching halt the moment she entered Mr Gladly's classroom and saw Madison and Julia sitting side by side. Okay, I can work with this. All she had to do was stay as far away from those two as possible, and not draw their attention. Hopefully, with Emma and Sophia both absent, they would be less likely to pull something on her. And if wishes were SUVs, we'd all drive to school.

Madison sneered at her, then looked disappointed as Taylor walked past her usual desk—the suspiciously shiny appearance of the chair indicating glue or something similar—and took one down near the back. Julia whispered something to Madison, and they both giggled. Whatever they were amused about, Taylor was fairly sure she'd learn about it sooner or later. Whether she wanted to or not.

"Good morning, class!" Mr Gladly was in fine form, at least. "Could I get you to hand up your homework from yesterday, please?"

Taylor just sat there. Danny had had a quiet but intense discussion with Principal Blackwell before school started. This had resulted in a promise that no more bullying would take place (she'd believe that when she saw it) and Taylor being gifted brand-new textbooks, plus a backpack that had been languishing in lost-and-found for the last six months. Blackwell had also sent out texts to Taylor's teachers to not ask her for the previous day's homework.

Of course, Madison had to push matters. "Taylor, where's your homework?" she called across the room. "Did you forget?"

"Madison—" began Mr Gladly, but Taylor had had enough.

"No." She stood up. "I didn't forget, Madison. I didn't get the homework because I wasn't here. This is because I got shut in my locker by Emma Barnes and Sophia Hess. When I got out, I got new clothes and went home. And Emma and Sophia are now facing assault charges. Any questions?"

Amid a silence so vivid that it was possible to hear a fly buzzing against the windowpane, she sat down again. Everybody turned to face forward, with only the occasional sidelong glance at her. That was fine; she preferred it that way.

Wow, she asked herself. Where did that come from? It appeared that being 'possessed' by Morrigan and going out to kick ass had positive effects on her self-esteem; who knew?

Of course, this good feeling wasn't going to last. She had far too much experience in such matters. Shit happened to her because shit happened to her.

<><>​

Madison

Taylor had done the inexcusable. She had fought back. Worse, she'd brought the authorities into it, and she'd snitched. Madison had no idea how Taylor had won against Sophia (with or without Emma in the mix) but she'd walked out of school wearing their clothing, or so the rumour went.

And now Emma wasn't in school, and neither was Sophia. Madison wasn't at all sure what had happened to them—Taylor's story about them facing assault charges was just too far-fetched to be true—but they weren't responding to her texts or answering her calls. Whatever was going on, it was Taylor's fault.

And she had to be punished for it.

"Okay," Madison said in a low tone. "Everyone knows what we've got to do, right?"

Julia rolled her eyes. "Yes, Mads. We all know."

That was totally the wrong tone to take with the future queen bee of Winslow—if she pulled this off, she'd be getting mega respect from everyone—but she let it slide this one time. "Good," she said. "Let's do this."

Hebert probably didn't know they knew she preferred the third-floor girls' bathrooms to hide out and eat her lunch, but the secret was out. One of the other girls had spotted her coming in here once too often for it to be a random chance thing, so Madison had squirreled away that information for when it would be useful. Like right now.

Madison led the way into the bathroom with Julia right behind her. The other four followed, two of them taking up station just inside the door to prevent Hebert from making a run for it. To Madison's surprise, Hebert wasn't lurking in a stall, but instead washing her hands.

"Oh, hey," she said, slinging her backpack over one shoulder and heading for the air jet to dry her hands. "I'll be out of your way in a minute, and you can do whatever you came in here to do."

This was not what Madison had expected. Fear, yes. Cringing, yes. An attempt to hide in one of the stalls, definitely. But not this … dismissal.

"What the fuck did you do to Emma and Sophia, you bitch?" she shouted.

Hebert turned and looked at her. Abruptly, Madison was reminded of the difference in their height; even in the brightly lit bathroom, Hebert seemed to loom menacingly over her. "I think you've got it wrong," she said bluntly. "They attacked me."

Julia stepped up alongside Madison. "You're not getting it. That sort of thing, we sort out between ourselves. We don't bring the teachers or cops in on it. Snitches get stitches."

Hebert actually laughed. "Is that supposed to be a threat?" Shaking her head, she turned away toward the air jet. "Go away and stop embarrassing yourself."

Julia let out a squeal of pure rage and launched herself at Hebert's back. As per instructions, the other two started coming in as well. Madison hung back because (as she told herself) she was the one who ordered beatdowns, not the one who delivered them.

That was when it all went horribly wrong.

Somehow, Hebert sidestepped Julia's rush, then swung a crisp, neat elbow to her jaw. Julia went down like a marionette with its strings cut, but Hebert was still moving. The first girl to get close to her suffered a punch to the stomach that dropped her on top of Julia, while the second one had her legs swept from under her.

Madison stared at the heap of groaning girls, then at Hebert, who wasn't even ruffled yet. "What? No! You two!" She gestured to the girls at the door. "Get her!"

"Yeah," said Hebert, holding her hand out and doing a little beckoning gesture with her fingers. "Come get me."

"Fuck that, she knows Kung Fu." One of the girls opened the door they'd been supposedly guarding. "You're on your own." They both ducked out; the door banged shut behind them.

Madison was starting to get the impression that she had fucked up in a truly fundamental manner. Was this what happened to Emma and Sophia? Is Hebert some kind of cape? What the fuck's going on here? She truly, desperately wanted to pee right now.

The air jet rumbled as Hebert dried her hands. After a moment, she turned to Madison. "Don't let this happen again." Then she was gone, the bathroom door banging shut behind her.

Madison stumbled into a stall and locked herself in. Sitting on the toilet, arms wrapped around herself, she rocked back and forth slowly.

Fuck this shit, I'm out.

<><>​

Taylor

Heart beating a mile a minute, Taylor found an unlocked classroom. Shoving the door open, she stumbled inside and leaned against the wall, trying not to hyperventilate.

"Holy fuck," she said out loud. "Was that me? Did I do that?"

When she first saw the posse Madison had brought along, she'd known she had overplayed her hand. They were there to get revenge for Emma and Sophia, because how dare she defend herself. But right at that moment, she knew reverting to her previously retiring ways would accomplish exactly nothing, so she'd decided to keep pushing the bluff as hard as she could.

Julia had attacked her anyway; this hadn't come as a tremendous surprise. What had surprised Taylor was the lethal speed and precision with which she'd found herself responding. It was as though she had muscle memory for things she'd never learned, never experienced. Her elbow was still stinging from the strike to Julia's jaw and her middle-finger knuckle was sore from the punch to the other girl, while her leg … was actually pretty good, honestly.

Which was downright astonishing, given that she'd demolished those three girls in about five seconds flat. She hadn't known what sort of threats were appropriate after pulling that sort of thing, but she'd gone with 'don't let this happen again' as a kind of catch-all vague phrase.

Pulling a chair down off a desk, she sat down and scrubbed her hands over her face. This has got to be something to do with Morrigan. But how do I ask her about it? 'Oh hey, I think I'm picking up skills from you.'?

It wasn't something she could do anything about right then, so she got up from the chair. Lunchtime beckoned, and she hadn't had time to pack anything to bring from home. So it looked like she'd have to brave the cafeteria line.

I just hope nobody else comes at me. This sort of thing, I can totally do without.

<><>​

Morrigan

"Okay, what is it now?" I grumble, ducking in through the open hatch into Operations. "I just got to damn sleep. Again."

"There's been a new development," says Captain Hornblower crisply. "Play it back, Loki."

Grumpily, I pull up a chair and sit down to watch the show. The waterfall display shows Taylor Hebert being cornered in what looks like the same high-school bathroom as I kicked Sophia Hess's ass in yesterday. One against six; I draw air in through my teeth in a pained hiss. This is gonna be bloody, especially if they decide to kick her while she's down.

"Why didn't you call me earlier?" I ask as Madison and some other girl crowd in on her. "I could've jacked in there and … holy shit."

The next few seconds, after Taylor drops the first girl with an elbow to the jaw, are glorious. She doesn't waste a single move; in fact, the moves are what I'd use in that situation. Exactly those moves.

"That's why," Loki says as Taylor leaves the bathroom. "By the time I got the Captain in here, it was already done and dusted." He looks almost accusingly at Captain Hornblower. "I wasn't aware she could kick ass like that."

"She can't." Hornblower gestures at the console. "You did the original analysis of her. Pull it back up and compare to her current stats."

"Sure thing, Captain." He starts typing and dragging in files, then sets up two screens, each with a Matrix avatar breakdown on it. To the left is Taylor Hebert, before we showed up. To the right, her stats right at this moment. We stare at it.

"Well, holy shit." I run my hands through my hair. "No wonder she kicked their asses like they owed her money. Her combat stats are nearly as good as mine. How the hell did that happen?"

"I may have an idea." Captain Hornblower frowns. "The incident with the skill thief. Loki, what did you upload for Morrigan?"

"Everything. Her entire combat block. Why?"

I get it at the same time that he does. "Because it didn't just go to me. It went to Taylor as well. Seeing as I was using her body at the time."

Loki blinks. "Well, damn."

Rubbing her chin with one finger, Captain Hornblower stares at the screen. "Indeed."

I take a deep breath. I know what I've got to do now, and I'm really not looking forward to it. "Captain ..."

Hornblower glances around at me. "What is it?"

"I'm going to have to talk to her."

Loki stares. "You have got to be kidding."

I wish I was.

<><>​

Taylor

Getting home after the school day ended ... was kind of an anticlimax, really. Her day had started with a visit from a couple of PRT agents, and then hit the high note when she beat up three girls in the bathroom and traumatized three others. Lunch had offered no surprises, which had been nice in a non-event way. Emma's absence from Mr Quinlan's math class had strongly suggested that Taylor's assumption about her ex-best-friend being in police custody was more than just a possibility.

With a sigh, she dropped onto the sofa, tossed her new/old backpack to one side, and relaxed into the cushions. Her father would be home in an hour or two, and they would undoubtedly hash over the visit from the PRT again. But until then, she had time to just close her eyes and try to make sense of the chaos that had overtaken her life.

The TV came on.

This was not supposed to happen, unless someone was sitting on the remote. No; there it was, sitting demurely on the arm of the sofa. She hadn't touched it.

When the picture formed, it wasn't any TV show or actor she knew; instead, it was a woman with a messy blonde brush-cut and pronounced cheekbones, in front of a blank white background. She stared out of the screen, looking directly into Taylor's eyes, or so it seemed. "Hello, Taylor."

Taylor blinked. "What?" That's some kind of coincidence. Definitely creepy, though.

The woman grinned and the camera pulled back, to show her wearing a well-used denim coat over an olive drab T-shirt, blue jeans and military style boots. Behind her, the background changed, a wall sliding into view, then a sofa ... one that looked identical to the one Taylor was sitting on. All the way down to having a surprised-looking Taylor sitting on it.

"Hi," the woman said, sitting down on the sofa beside Taylor. "Morrigan. It's good to meet you."

Her voice sounded so near, so real, that Taylor couldn't help glancing around to make sure she was really alone. So when she saw the blonde woman actually seated on the sofa, it came as a severe shock to the system.

"Holy shit!" she yelped, leaping half off the sofa. "Who—how—where the fuck—"

"Damn, Taylor," Morrigan chuckled. "That's some potty mouth you've got there. Keep at it, you'll get there someday. So hey, yeah, I'm the one who got you out of the locker and kicked Sophia's ass yesterday. Pleased to meet you."

Taylor blinked slowly and lowered herself back down onto the sofa. "Is this real?" she asked. "How can this be real?"

Morrigan waggled a hand in midair. "It's as real as anything in the Matrix. That is, as real as we want it to be. To answer your questions in brief: you were actually pretty well on the money with your letter this morning. The Matrix is a massively parallel ultra-complex VR network that was built God knows how long ago to embed all of humanity in a gigantic Beowulf cluster. You are living in the Matrix. Your entire life is an electronic lie. I'm a free human, living life in the real, looking to cut humanity free from dreaming about electric sheep."

Taylor frowned. "Okay, but if you can do this, why not pull us all out?"

"Because it's a bit harder than unplugging your laptop, kid. We've got to put a trace in the system that's subtle enough to duck past the admin programs and locate your real body. Then we tell it to eject you, and we go find you. Very time and effort consuming. It's a lot easier to chat like this." Morrigan gestured at the living room around them. "This is a sandbox that we slid into place around your house. You're not outside the Matrix, and I'm not jacked all the way in. Just by the way, we've got a time limit; the system admin will be doing an error-check sweep soon and that'll pick this up for sure."

Taylor was keeping ahead of what was going on, but only barely. "Okay, how can you do the impossible things that you do, and how was I able to beat up those girls today at school?"

Morrigan grinned. "Being aware of the Matrix gives you a certain amount of power over it. Some people even manage to break themselves free through sheer blind stubbornness. It also helps to be a rebel against whatever system you're a part of. And once you're out, you can be trained in techniques for leaning on the Matrix and making reality do what you want it to do. As for what happened today, one of the ways we train our Matrix avatars is by uploading skill programs into them. That asshole Victor had the ability to draw on the skills of other Matrix avatars. When Loki, my Operator, re-uploaded my skillset ..."

It was easy to fill in the blanks. "I got them too? Huh. I guess that kinda makes sense. Hey, that Loki guy. Is he ..."

"The one you called an asshole?" Morrigan cackled out loud. "Yup. Wouldn't worry about it though. He totally is."

"Right." Taylor found herself grinning; Morrigan's sense of humour was infectious. Still, she had a serious question to ask. "So, if you're not here to get any of us out, what are you doing here at all? Why take over my body like this?"

"Because we do want to get you all out eventually." Morrigan wasn't smiling anymore either. "This server's on a downhill spiral. The protocols are weird so we can't just jack in as per normal, and we need to investigate it as much as possible so we know what we're up against before we start trying to evacuate the population. And that's where you come in." She paused and looked Taylor in the eye. "Are you game to keep going?"

Taylor firmed her jaw and nodded. "Yeah. I am."

Morrigan clapped her on the shoulder. "Excellent. I—"

A phone went off in her pocket and she wrinkled her nose. "Goddamn it. If this is Loki messing with me ..." She pulled it out and flipped it open. Taylor stared; it looked identical to the one she'd been using in the dream sequence. "Morrigan."

There was a tinny voice, on the edge of hearing. Morrigan growled at the back of her throat.

"You have to go?" asked Taylor.

"Gotta go. Thirty-second warning. See you tonight, kid."

Taylor nodded. "See you then."

Morrigan gave her a smartass grin, then lifted the phone to her ear. "Okay, pull me out."

It was like watching a movie special effect. Morrigan literally dissolved from the feet upward into silvery static that dissipated, finishing at the phone itself. At the same time, the TV went blank and both the sound and light texture in the room altered almost imperceptibly.

Taylor sat back on the sofa, thinking through what had just happened. This was more than a weird dream, more than a moment of unexpected martial arts. Morrigan was real. Taylor had spoken to her.

Holy shit, I've been chosen to help save the world.

It was a heady feeling.

Now, all she had to do was live up to it.



End of Part Twelve

 

[Ack]

Reality Intrudes

Part Thirteen: Who Needs Luck, I Know Kung Fu

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]



Morrigan

The tinny little alarm clock jangles, jiggling back and forth on the chain that connects it to the frame of the bunk above mine. I hate the thing, but it wakes me up when I need to be on my feet, and it doesn't use batteries. So I'm not about to use it for throwing practice … yet.

Getting up, I stretch the kinks out of my muscles. It's a good idea to go into a Matrix insertion nice and limber, otherwise you can come out of there with cramps on your cramps. If the last dive into that hellhole they laughingly call a civilised city was any indication, I'm gonna need to be on my toes every second I'm in there.

I traipse along to the ablution block and shower in cold water, partly because it'll wake me up some more and partly because there isn't a whole heap of warm water for the purpose. Even back in Zion, it's a good idea to keep hot showers nice and short. One more reason why the Machines needed to get shot in the face soonest.

I heard they were talking about recolonising the surface. Makes you wonder what's left up there. We made the Machines in our own image, so I'm not exactly optimistic.

Clean, dry, and dressed, I stop by the commissary and acquire a bowl of gruel. Nutritious, filling or tasty: pick one. I nod to the other members of the crew as I stroll along to Operations. Nobody but Hornblower, Loki and me know the whole story about what we're doing here, and it'll be a good idea to keep it that way for as long as possible.

The last thing we want is some misguided do-gooder mass-dumping the already-traumatised inhabitants of Bet into a whole other dystopian paradise. Or worse, getting the attention of the Scion program. We'd be fine, but the whole Earth Bet server would be fucked nine ways from Sunday, and I don't play that way.

I step through the door just a few minutes short of showtime. Hornblower is seated in the corner of the room reading something on a tablet, while Loki is making himself comfortable in the Operator's chair, with the waterfall display in front of him. It's a weird feeling: I know that in the server, Taylor is fully aware that I'll be stepping into her head and going out to perform constructive acts of violence on the assholes who infest her city. And apparently, she's perfectly okay with this.

"Her Majesty finally chooses to arrive," snarks Loki. "Did we stop to curtsey to the adoring masses?"

"They curtsey to me, asshole. You should try it sometime." I flip him the bird as I settle down into the chair, then I go back to eating my gruel. When I talk next, I ignore Loki and address Hornblower. "Anything new since I had the chat with her?"

Hornblower shakes her head, apparently willing to overlook my back-and-forth with Loki if it will keep things moving along. "No. She did her homework and ate dinner with her father. There doesn't seem to have been any trouble over the brawl; whether because they didn't want to admit she'd beaten them up, or because the school administration is so apathetic, I'm still not sure."

"My vote's on 'both'," I decide. "Having seen what that place is like first-hand, I'm guessing the assholes running the place are just fine with ignoring their duty of care so long as the almighty dollar keeps dropping into their paychecks. And as for the little sociopaths who infest that school, admitting that three of them got beaten up at once by a nobody like Taylor Hebert would be worse than the actual beating. Nobody would take them seriously after that. What's Madison been up to?"

Loki shrugs. "Fucked if I know. Which of the little shits is Madison, and why do you care?"

I repress the urge to wing the bowl of gruel across the room at his oh-so-punchable face. "She's the third member of the unholy trinity, the cutesy one who set the other three on Taylor in the bathrooms. I can see them just laying low and denying that anything of the sort happened, but how she reacts is going to set the tempo for the rest of it. She's trying to be the queen bitch since I beat up Emma and Sophia, and I'm interested in seeing if she's going to be smart and listen to Taylor's warning, or do something stupid. If she's aiming for 'stupid', I might have to do something about her before she fucks up our entire operation. That's why the fuck I care."

"Oh." To his credit, he actually listens to my explanation. It's probably because Hornblower's in the same room, but he still listens. Turning back to his screens, he opens a secondary window and mumbles to himself as he types in commands. I tune him out as I finish my gruel.

"So what's your plan for tonight?" asks Hornblower. "Continue following up on the Empire Eighty-Eight? They seem to be a large operation."

"… no," I decide. "It's tempting, but I think I'll see what's going on with this Lung character. Being able to spit fireballs and grow to twenty feet tall is a pretty impressive reworking of the laws of physics, even in a server like this one."

Loki blows a raspberry as he swivels on his chair to face me. "You're just scared you might run into an actual challenge, now the Empire knows you're here."

"It's more like I'm keeping them off balance," I correct him. "I out-skilled the skill thief and killed the unkillable man. They're gonna be jumping at shadows, wondering which direction I'll be coming at them from next."

"Morrigan is correct," Hornblower intervenes before the argument can get heated. "When you're one against many, it's vital that you don't get into a pattern that they can recognise and anticipate."

"Right you are, Captain," smarms Loki. I can tell he's doing his best to make it clear that he's agreeing with her, and that he doesn't give two shits about my opinions. Turning his head, he checks his screen over. "And the kid's just settling down to sleep now … hah!"

"'Hah'? What's 'hah'?" I ask, leaning forward to see.

"You'll find out." He smirks at me over his shoulder while deliberately blocking my view of the waterfall display with his body. "Best time to go is right now, Captain."

I really want to get up out of the chair and shove him out of the way to see what he's hiding from me, but professionalism takes over and I settle down again. Besides, clocking a crewmate, even someone as odious as Loki, is frowned upon if you do it in front of your captain. Don't ask me, I don't make the rules.

Putting the empty bowl to one side, I slide my arms into the restraints and relax into the padding of the chair. Last time I jumped into Taylor Hebert's head, I wasn't sure how it was going to go, and I really didn't know how she was going to take having her body hijacked. This time, at least I know she's okay with the procedure, and I've got a better idea of what I'm doing in Earth Bet.

"Understood." Hornblower puts her tablet aside and gets up. I close my eyes and exhale, sending my tensions away as I relax into the chair. When the Matrix jack hits my port, I'm ready. Hornblower plugs me in, Loki hits a key, and I'm down the rabbit-hole again.

I open my eyes in Taylor Hebert's bedroom. Sitting up, I look down at myself and discover what Loki was laughing at. For a change, it's nothing bad.

Before going to bed, Taylor must have snuck downstairs and retrieved the shoulder-bag, the long coat, and the hat. The outfit I was wearing when I killed Victor and Alabaster (yes, I checked them up after the fact; I still think Captain Nazi and Whitey McWhiteface were better names) is hanging over my computer chair and there's a shotgun lying alongside the bed, with a box of ammo beside it. Also, Alabaster's shoulder holsters and pistols, and a box of ammo beside them.

I mentally chalk up a plus mark toward Taylor's common sense; even though she's likely got all my gun skills, she's left them unloaded with the breeches open, so I know exactly what I'm dealing with when I pick the things up. The first thing I do is put on the shoulder rig (adjusting the straps because Alabaster had some heft, and Taylor … doesn't) and the long coat. Then I load the guns and put some spare ammo in the long-coat pockets. The shotgun goes over my shoulder on its sling.

Getting outside is the easiest thing of all. I open the bedroom window, pause to make sure there aren't any inconvenient witnesses, then climb out and kick off from the sill to land just inside the fence. But now I have my next hurdle: transport.

In a normal Matrix insertion, the Operator will program the Operatives up a car, or even just drop them where they need to be. Things are different here, so I've got to be smart about this. If I'd been thinking ahead, I would've 'borrowed' Danny's car keys, and filled it up on the way back.

God dammit. I bite the bullet and pull out my phone. Loki must be loving this.

"Operator. Forget something, Mo-Mo?"

I grit my teeth. "Shut up and find me the nearest motorbike." I love motorbikes. They're so easy to bend the laws of physics with. Everyone's seen so many impossible stunts in movies, they'll just accept that kind of bullshit in what they consider to be real life.

"Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Well, if you were mighty to begin with." I hear the clicking of keys. "One block west. Better hurry before someone else steals it."

"Oh, ha ha."

"No, I'm serious. Some local five-finger discount artists are eyeing it off right now. Better put the pedal to the metal if you want metal to put pedal to."

Well, shit. I end the call, hurdle the fence, and start heading west. Nobody's out and about at this time, which suits me down to the ground. I can really stride out, hitting speeds no bluepill can match, hopefully to get there before our prospective motorbike thieves make off with it.

Don't get me wrong: I can run really fast. But motorbikes can go faster, and they don't get tired. And with a little reality-nudging, they can be persuaded not to run out of fuel any time soon.

I swing around the corner of the block just as the bike's being quietly wheeled out of the driveway by a grown man, with two teenage boys in attendance. Aww, isn't that cute; they're learning crime from the master.

Unfortunately for them and their boss/dad/uncle/older male role model, I'm not there to enable them in their larcenous ways. I'm here for the motorbike. So just about the time they spot me coming, I've got enough speed up to go for a flying jump kick. I pass between Junior Bike Thieves One and Two, and hammer the guy in the chest with my heel. Then I fiddle Matrix physics a little so I backflip off the impact, land astride the bike, and catch it before it can fall.

The ignition's already been busted open, probably so they could unlock the handlebars. I spot the two wires I need and twist them together. The bike roars to life, especially when I give it some throttle.

Up until now, the kids have been frozen in shock, possibly because I kicked their mentor five yards down the street, and possibly because I've got a shotgun slung over my back. But when Bike Thief (Senior) sits up and yells at them, they go to grab me. However, it's too late for that; I kick the thing into gear and peel out of there. The last thing I see in the rear-view mirror is the lights of the house coming on, and the three thieves scattering (and staggering, in the case of the one I kicked) into the darkness.

There's nothing quite like cruising the streets late at night on a stolen motorbike, looking for trouble. I know for a fact it'll find me shortly, or I'll find it, and then we'll see what's what. I've read up everything I could about Lung and the Stupidly Spelled Racist Name Gang, but there's nothing like personal experience, in my opinion.

Also, I want to see if Oni Lee is really all that.

Riding one-handed (because I can) I sigh and fish out my phone again. Brockton Bay's a big place, and there are easier ways to look for a super-powered crime lord than by cruising around and looking for places where the smoke is rising. I don't like having to do it this way, but I do it anyway.

"Operator. Wow, you're needy tonight."

"Fuck you. Where can I find Lung?"

"Okay, not needy. Suicidal. But hey, who am I to argue with the mentally impaired? Sending you the address now."

He ends the call before I can reply with a suitably cutting quip, so instead I flip the bird toward where I'm guessing the waterfall-display point of view might be.

The address pops up on the phone, followed by a useful little map to show me how to get there. I've already memorised the general layout of the city, so I won't have much trouble getting there. Putting the phone away, I gun the bike to pop a wheelie on general principles, then accelerate straight through the speed limit in the general direction of Lung.

I've got a date with a rage dragon.

<><>​

Lung

As far as Kenta was concerned, the night had started well but was beginning to go downhill.

One of the blonde giantesses—he'd never made the effort to tell them apart—shoved a thirty-foot spear at him, but he turned aside so the bladed head merely scraped off his scales. In return, he blew a vast plume of flame back at her. Her sister's shield intervened just in time, though he suspected the spearwoman would be lacking in the eyebrow department, come the end of the fight.

He'd long suspected that their ability to minimise incoming damage was limited mainly to actual physical attacks, such as bullets and cars. Flame wasn't as easy to shrug off; against a larger opponent, it spread. Their caution when dealing with his fire breath seemed to be bearing that out, but landing a proper attack was difficult when they worked together like this.

The news that both Victor and Alabaster had fallen to some unspecified opponent (he'd scoffed at the description of a 'seven foot tall woman with eyes of death') had been a welcome one, but when he'd initiated a push into Empire territory it seemed they hadn't been caught napping. Oni Lee was duelling with Stormtiger somewhere out of sight; the occasional sound of a grenade explosion indicated that they weren't done yet. It was quickly becoming clear that the more time he wasted on this fight, the more Empire capes would arrive to oppose him.

He'd meant this to be a quick push to secure territory, done and dusted before the Empire could respond. It was shaping up to be anything but. However, he was up to the challenge, and could escalate further and faster than any of his opponents could—

The roar of a motorcycle engine behind him almost drowned out the pistol shot. The cape with the sword and shield rocked back, her hand going to her face. Another shot rang out, this time from a shotgun if Kenta was any judge; she staggered back, almost dropping her shield as red showed through a tiny gap in the armour at her shoulder. What is this? He wasn't aware of any of his followers who was an expert sniper.

Glancing behind him, he saw the oncoming motorcycle rider; apparently deciding that proper riding rules were for wimps, she—it was a woman—had one foot on the fuel tank, with the other steering and keeping the hand-throttle wide open. As he watched, she fired the shotgun once with her right hand, and the pistol four times with her left. The giantesses staggered backward again as the rider somehow managed to target the minuscule gaps in their armour; while the shots wouldn't kill them at that size, they'd certainly sting, and a deer slug to the eye might still blind one of them.

An unspoken agreement seemed to pass between the pair and they began to back off, spear held in a defensive position and shield ready to block any more shots. Kenta grinned savagely. He wasn't sure who this newcomer was, or why she'd chosen to aid the Azn Bad Boys against the Empire, but—

Too late, he realised that the motorbike wasn't slowing down, and that the illumination of the headlights seemed to be centering around him. He looked around, just in time to see the bike hit a piece of debris from the fight and take to the air. The long-coat clad woman—she was wearing a fedora, he registered absently—kicked off just in time.

Even at twelve feet tall, taking a motorcycle to the face was not something he could do lightly. The impact was massive, sending him sprawling across the road. Although he didn't quite pass out, he came close.

<><>​

Morrigan

In the instants before impact, I'm idly wondering exactly how the local Matrix justifies thirty-foot-tall women, even as strong as they clearly are. I mean, the square-cube law exists for a reason. But then the motorbike encounters Lung's face and they both go over backward, bits and pieces flying off the bike in all directions. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be getting the non-existent security bond back.

I'm already airborne at this point, flying toward the Valkyrie twins. Mungo and Fungo, or something like that. One's got a spear and the other's got a sword and shield. I mean, what's with that? If I could grow that tall, I'd be packing a Smith & Wesson .500, and I'd be laying down fire with that sucker like there was no tomorrow. I'd literally be firing two-inch shells. That's the sort of ordnance that makes buildings bend over and kiss their asses goodbye.

The one with the spear tries to bring it up toward me, like she can defend against what I'm doing. I twist in mid-air and land on the spear shaft, then run up it. Directly toward her.

Her sister—or clone, or whatever—tries to intervene with her sword, but I snap off a shot in her direction, through the tiny eyeslit. Tiny at normal sizes, maybe. Since Loki replenished my skills, I've been able to hit a gnat's ass blindfolded in a coal cellar with a brass band playing in the background.

Her head jerks back; I think I got her in the eye. Probably won't blind her, the reaction isn't pronounced enough for that, but she's gonna be feeling that for the next few days. Which is totally her problem and not mine at all.

With sword-girl being kept honest, I holster the pistol and work the action of the shotgun. This time around, I'm loaded with deer slugs from beginning to end. Like the pistol shots, they won't be lethal, but with the way one of those slugs can disassemble a bluepill, it's gotta be hurting her. Left eye, right eye, boom boom.

She drops the spear and bolts. Hitting the ground, I roll to my feet.

The one with the sword retreats also; she shouts something about being sorry I crossed the Empire, but I draw the pistol again and place a shot into her open mouth through a gap in her armour. She coughs and chokes, then staggers after the other one.

There's still a fight going on, if the sounds I can hear are any indication. I sling the shotgun and reload the pistol with economical moves, then head toward the sound of combat.

Turns out it's Oni Lee fighting some guy doing the shirtless thing with chains and a tiger mask. I am mildly offended by the chains concept. Didn't those things go out in the nineties?

The moment I see them, I start laying down fire. Three at Oni Lee, and six more at the tiger guy. Tiger Storm? Maybe Stormtiger? I remember thinking it was a stupid name, anyway.

Lee takes the hits, then dissolves into ash. A tingle at the base of my neck warns me, and I duck aside just as he's about to gank me with a respectably sized knife. I take away the knife and shoot him in the face, only for both him and the knife to dissolve in turn.

I've already fired six times at Stormtiger. As per his PHO page, he's generated a gust of wind that blew five of them off course. The sixth one has punched a nice hole through his lower calf muscle, and he's now bleeding. Go me.

He's also throwing wind-claws at both me and Lee, so that's less of a 'go me' situation, but hey, I'm a glass-half-full kinda gal. I fend off Lee's second and third attempt to introduce my insides to the outside, dodge some hostile bits of air, then ricochet a bullet off the pavement to hit tiger-boy in the hip. Well, I was aiming at his groin, but it's not a precise science.

Apparently realising that a) I can actually shoot him, despite his vaunted (actually, does anyone even use 'vaunted' anymore? Is it just taking up valuable space in the dictionary? Can we boot that word out of the English language?) ability to redirect bullets, and b) he's wounded and alone in this fight, he decides to fuck off as well.

Works for me. The teleporting wannabe edgelord is starting to get a little irritating, and I don't want to saddle Taylor with cleaning too much Lee ash off my clothing in the morning. So I leave Drizzle-kitty to retreat with his tail between his legs, and turn my attention to Oni Lee.

His problem is, he thinks he can't be beaten.

I know I can be beaten, and what's more, I know how he can be beaten.

He's skilled, but I'm a fucking Matrix Operative with more asskicking programmed into my stats than a hundred lifetimes could give me. Plus, I know one thing he doesn't.

This isn't real.

That's not air we're breathing.

So when he pulls his teleport-clone bullshit, I lean into the Matrix. Now I know exactly where and when he's going to pop up. I defend against the outgoing clone, and backfist the just-arrived one in the throat as he manifests. He gurgles and staggers, I shoot the one in front of me before he can pull a pin on his grenade, then throw out a side-kick to get the new new one in the ribs. Two of them go, and he falls over, still clutching at his throat.

The fourth one gets shot in the kneecap, and I cartwheel over to where the fifth one's going to appear. A dropping knee smash splits his mask wide open and shatters his nose. He collapses, out like a light.

As his clones all around me pop to ash, I stand up and dust myself off, looking around to make sure Lung is still on the ground. He'll be getting up in a minute, once he extracts what's left of the motorbike from his sinus cavity, but I don't have be here when he does.

Well, that was a nice little workout. What's next?



End of Part Thirteen

 

[Ack]

Reality Intrudes

Part Fourteen: Poking the Bear

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

Morrigan

I'm just deciding which way I'll go—either Downtown and kick the shit out of Coil, or to the Trainyards so I can explain to Skidmark why he shouldn't sell drugs to high school kids, using extreme percussion as a teaching aid—when my phone rings. Taking it out, I flick it open. "Is there a problem?"

"Maybe. Got one of their 'superheroes' closing on your position. The guy with the armour fetish and the halberd. Might want to make yourself scarce." Loki doesn't even sound mocking, right now.

"Armsmaster. Right. Got it." I close the phone and pocket it again.

Just for a moment, I consider not being here when the guy shows up, but seriously? If he's all that as a superhero, if he leads a whole bunch of these 'capes' at all effectively, how the fuck are they letting both a white-supremacist and an Asian supremacist supervillain gang just walk around like they own the place? I wonder if anyone ever asks him questions like this, or do they just let crap slide all the time, because superheroes can do no wrong or some shit like that.

Ask me about my deep and abiding respect for the forces of law and order. Go ahead, ask me.

I hear the motorbike before I see it. It's got a deep rumbling quality about the engine that says to me that it's tuned to go from zero to insane in three point one seconds. The online sites say that Armsmaster has rejiggered this thing from the ground up to his own personal specs, and from what I can see when he rolls around the corner, they're not far wrong.

Lung sits up, groaning, just as Armsmaster rolls to a halt. There's a glance in my direction, but the superhero's attention is all on the guy who took a motorbike in the teeth and survived. I mean, he's not wrong, but I do feel a little slighted.

Just in case he's got some kind of fancy facial recognition in that helmet of his, I've put on the shades I bought the previous day, over my glasses. The PRT already has Taylor in their sights; there's no reason to verify their suspicions. I had considered putting a scarf over my face or something similar, but that would make it damn clear that I'm trying to hide my identity, which would only serve to draw more attention.

He unlimbers his halberd—ooh, nice, it actually unfolds, with a very techy-sounding series of clicks and clacks—and jabs Lung with the tip. Doesn't stabbify him with it, even though Lung's lost a lot of weight in the last few minutes and doesn't have his scales anymore. The tip just touches him, and I'm pretty sure I hear a hiss, like a pressurised system.

Lung jerks away from him and climbs to his feet, but Armsmaster just jabs him again. There's a second hiss. This time, when Lung takes a step, he stumbles. From the fuzzy look in his eyes, he's not connecting all the dots right now. Then he takes two more steps toward Armsmaster—who backs up out of the way—and falls flat on his face.

Buck-ass naked, I have to say. No pants to be seen, which kind of makes sense. He probably doesn't shop at the same place the Hulk does, for Big and Purple Pants for All Occasions.

Once Lung starts to snore, Armsmaster turns toward me. He doesn't put the halberd away, which indicates that he's not entirely sure about my intentions.

Okay, so he's not a total idiot.

That opinion gets revised real quick, when he opens his mouth. "You gonna fight me?"

I'd been intending to get his measure before vanishing into the shadows—hey, on a superhero world, you do what superheroes do—but mainly in a non-violent manner. However, that question just plain pushes all my buttons. It's a challenge I can't pass up.

I work my neck, popping it one way and then the other. "Already kicked the asses of two masked idiots tonight. Might as well make it three for three."

Armsmaster brings up his halberd, aiming the tip at me. I take in everything about him, every aspect of his stance and his balance, and of the fact that two tiny prongs are now protruding from the tip of the weapon, where there previously had been a needle. He's good—I'll give him that, he's very good—but someone should maybe inform him that he's got tells when he's about to unload that halberd at someone.

There's the slightest twitch in his right arm, barely noticeable under the armour, and I leap up and over the crackling stream of electricity that he's just tried to nail me with. Kudos for the wireless taser; someone expecting a big-ass bladed weapon would be caught totally unawares by that. If that someone wasn't me, of course.

As he tries to sweep the thing up to catch me, I come down on it with both heels. He's strong, and the armour adds some power to his moves, but even my (lack of) weight landing on it does force it downward. And then it's all over bar the shouting, because now I've got my hands on him, and I also have a ton of momentum behind me. Getting a good grip on his arm and helmet and using him as a fulcrum, I swing around then up and over, throwing him off balance. He staggers wildly, his armour's servos whining audibly, and throws out his other arm in an attempt to regain his equilibrium, but it's far too late.

I'm cheating, of course. I probably mass one-fifth of what he does in the armour, and that's being generous. But in the Matrix, I don't do what physics says. When I'm jacked in, physics is my bitch, and that's particularly true in this specific server. So if I decide I'm going to use some bullshit martial-arts trickery to toss a power-armoured superhero around like a rag doll, that's what's going to happen.

Keeping a good grip on his armour, I plant my feet on the ground, and perform a gorgeous shoulder throw. He lets out a startled yell as he briefly goes airborne, then slams down hard on his back. That armour would have to be padded, right? Right.

There's gonna be some dents in the armour—and the asphalt—but it's not my armour and not my asphalt.

Going up onto my knees on top of him, I haul off and deliver a strike straight down into the front of his helmet. Not hard enough to shatter his skull and kill him—he hasn't done anything to deserve that—but definitely enough to utterly fuck up any computer-driven analysis software and recording system he might have in there. As an added bonus, it'll kill any HUD he's got running, so if he was cheating with low-light vision, tough. It's back to Mark One Eyeball for Mama Armsmaster's little boy.

I step off him and stand up. On the way over to where he parked his bike, I pull out my phone.

"Operator. Wow, you really do make friends and influence people wherever you go, don't you?"

"It's part of my inimitable charm," I say blandly. "So, what security and tracking does he have on his wheels, and how do I disable that?"

Because of course I'm going to steal his damn bike. I've been wanting to ride it since I saw it. And I know for a cast-iron fact that I'll be able to get better performance out of it than he can.

"In case you were wondering, the Captain just facepalmed," Loki says with the kind of glee that comes from knowing he's not the one who's going to be in trouble. Meh; some things are just worth it. "Sending a schematic to your phone."

I've been counting on this: he could have cock-blocked me from doing what I really wanted to do, but then I won't get in nearly as much trouble. My phone chimes as the schematic arrives, and I study it carefully. There are three separate trackers, plus two override units that Armsmaster will be able to use to take control altogether, one disguised as a power junction. But first I'll have to take care of the remote immobiliser; otherwise it'll all be for nothing.

I grin. Piece of cake.

<><>​

Armsmaster

Colin groaned and sat up, shaking his head. There were tinkling noises inside his helmet when he did this, which didn't give him a good feeling about matters. Cracks radiated across his visor, and the entire HUD was down. This wasn't much of a surprise, given that the rest of the helmet was down as well.

Lung was still unconscious, which was a bonus, and Oni Lee lay nearby. Colin thought the latter was alive, but after the extremely brief encounter he'd had with the parahuman who'd taken the ABB capes down, he wasn't so sure. Someone who could hit so hard as to wreck his helmet (any harder, and he would've been wearing his HUD as an involuntary implant) could certainly kill someone with a punch or a kick, either accidentally or deliberately.

He looked around toward where he'd left his bike; to his shock, he saw the parahuman still there, crouching by the bike. As he watched, squinting in the dimness, she pulled a component out and dropped it on the ground. Shock combined with outrage as he realised that she'd just removed the second remote override module, the one that looked just like any other part of the bike. Already on the ground were the primary override, the immobiliser and the voice command module.

As of ten seconds ago, the most he'd be able to do with his bike would be to track it. Okay, I can do that. Just play possum until she's gone, then call in the cavalry. She can't fight us all.

Then she smacked that panel closed, opened another one, and plucked out one of the trackers.

Christ, how the hell did she know how to do that?

Just waiting for her to leave was no longer an option; from the way she was going, she'd have his bike totally anonymous before too long. The halberd wasn't lying too far away, so he reached out for it. While the primary teleport-retrieval trigger had been in the currently-defunct helmet—and if that wasn't a wake-up call about not having everything controlled via the HUD, he didn't know what was—he had a secondary haptic control in his right gauntlet. Flexing his fingers in the coded pattern, he tapped the side of his index finger twice with his thumb, then waited. One second later, the halberd vanished from where it was lying and reappeared in his hand.

The cape didn't seem to notice, but that wasn't necessarily a good thing. She'd found the second tracker while he was deciding what to do. From the way she was going, he had zero faith in the idea that she might not know where the third one was, or how to emergency-start the bike.

He'd put far too much time and effort into making the bike the fastest thing on the road to simply lie there and let her ride off on it. More to the point, there was no way in hell he was going to allow some no-name cape to boost his goddamn motorcycle. Brute or no Brute, he would take her down.

Rolling over, he triggered the wireless taser again. She was crouched by the bike, with nowhere to go. The girl was good—he would be the first to admit that—but he was better.

He could've sworn she was looking in entirely the wrong direction, but between the triggering of the taser and the emission of the charge, she vaulted over the bike, evading the shot altogether. Sitting up with a surge of adrenaline, he used the halberd to vault himself to his feet, a little trick he'd been practicing for just this sort of moment. The moment he was upright, he brought the halberd around to try for another shot. If she tried to close with him, he was going to activate the plasma blade, to hell with continuum-of-force guidelines.

Instead, she swung her leg over the bike, and hit the high beams. He hadn't realised she'd compromised its systems that far, and regretted not anticipating it. This close, the tweaked halogen bulbs produced a wall of light that his unassisted visor did exactly zilch to mitigate; he could barely even see his own hand as he brought it up to shield himself against the light.

In the next second, the bike engine kicked over, and he swore luridly. She's fucking getting away! Leaping forward, going off memory, he swung the halberd in a wide sweep, activating the plasma mode as he did so. The possibility of wrecking the bike, something that he'd been quietly concerned about, had ceased to be an issue. Stopping the cape was more of a priority.

The blade hit and sheared through something, which clattered to the ground. Unfortunately, the receding sound of the engine informed him that whatever he'd hit, it wasn't her or the bike. By the time his vision cleared, both she and it were gone, though the parking meter he'd hit was still glowing orange at the cut.

As he stood there in frustration, fists clenched around the halberd, he became aware of wheezing, painful laughter. He looked around to find Oni Lee lying on the grimy asphalt, laughing at him through half a mask. Lee had been shot at least twice, and didn't seem inclined to move, but he was showing his bloodstained teeth in a painful grin.

"She … got … us … all … good," he managed. Colin honestly wasn't sure if the man didn't know much English, or if this was due to the injuries he'd suffered at the hands of the just-departed cape; either way, this was the longest speech he'd heard out of Oni Lee, ever.

"Oh, shut up," he said irritably. Fortunately, he'd anticipated the possibility of his helmet radio going out of action, so he'd taken to carrying around a phone. Fumbling the earpiece cord out from its niche in the bottom edge of the helmet was a little tricky, but he managed it, and plugged the phone in.

He spent the few seconds until the call went through wondering exactly how he was going to explain this away. There was no way he wanted to just come out and admit that he'd been beaten up then let his assailant get away with the bike, but as that was what had technically happened, he was probably going to have to just downplay it. A lot.

"You've reached the PRT hotline, how may we help you?"

Colin sighed. The number he was using was supposed to patch him straight through to PRT Ops, and from there he could be forwarded on to the Deputy Director's office. Instead, the program had screwed up—again—and dumped him into the hotline queue. "This is Armsmaster, verification Alpha-Simurgh-Two-Delta-Ellisburg-Zulu-Three. I need a priority line to Operations." Now that he'd spoken that out loud with people potentially listening in, that would be automatically changed. He'd have to go and find out what the new code was as soon as he was finished with the debriefing over this incident.

"Wait one minute, sir …" He heard the rattle of keys as she undoubtedly entered the verification string he'd given her. "Verification accepted, sir. Are you on a secure line?"

"No, I am not." He could mod up the phone all he liked, but at the end of the day it was still a cellphone. "I will not be discussing any classified information." Such as secret identities, or PRT operating procedures.

"Understood, sir. Patching you through now."

A moment later, the background noise on the line changed, and a man's voice answered. "Operations. What can we do for you, Armsmaster?"

He let out an aggravated sigh. This was the part that threatened to hurt more than the actual fight, or even the defeat. "I need a pickup from Casey Street and Church Avenue. Myself and two prisoners. Oni Lee is suffering GSW and other potential injuries, and Lung has been tranquillised. I'm uncertain as to how long he'll take to metabolise what I used on him."

There was a few seconds of silence. "… understood. Transport for two prisoners plus yourself." Another pause, and he knew what was coming next. "Uh … what about your bike?"

He gritted his teeth. "It's a long, long story."

Despite the curiosity he could feel radiating from the other end of the line, the man was professional enough to not push it. "Copy that. Van dispatched, with medical supplies and cape escort."

"Understood. I'll stand by here."

Ending the call, he was left with his thoughts, as dark and frustrated as they were.

Who the hell was that, and how did she break into my bike so easily?

He would bring her in, he promised himself, and then he'd get some answers.

Because if he didn't fix this shit post-haste, he knew those above him would start asking questions about his fitness for running the ENE Protectorate team; questions he couldn't afford to have people ask.

<><>​

Morrigan

I was right. It's a fuckin' amazing bike.

I'm tooling through the streets of Brockton Bay on top of a monster machine that was built to do one thing, and do it well: carry four to five hundred pounds of man and armour across town in the shortest possible time. With only eighty pounds of me on board, the power to weight ratio just hit the 'fuck, yeah' range, and I'm having the time of my life. My one regret is that Taylor doesn't have any place to keep it; I'm pretty sure that even Danny would notice if I stuck it in the back yard with a tarp over it and a sign saying, 'NOTHING TO SEE HERE'.

But I mean, come on. The guy literally challenged me to a fight. He was totally asking for it. I should've taken his halberd too, but I don't actually have anyplace to carry it. Besides, I don't think we've got any halberd training scenarios in the skill uploads. Though if we could take stuff out of the Matrix, I'd totally have it mounted over my bunk.

Oh, well. If he wants to be a dick about it the next time I see him, I'll just take his bike again. He kind of strikes me as the type of person who's in urgent need of having a stick extracted from his ass. A little bit of humility goes a long way. Of course, in my case it goes a long way in the other direction from me, glancing back nervously as it goes.

However, I haven't just been beating up people at random. Nor have I decided to go native; all this has been for a good reason. (Well, as far as I'm concerned, violence isn't the answer to problems. Violence is the question, and the answer is 'yes'.)

This has all been part of my fact-finding mission. Kicking over anthills is the best way to make a lot of ants start running around madly, and Loki and Hornblower will be gathering a ton of data while I'm smacking bad guys and having fun. It's honestly a win-win situation. But sad to say, the need for egregious violence is coming to an end. Just one or two more, and I'll be moving on to the next phase.

I'm still tossing up which of the bad guys to go and ruin the night of—Coil, who honestly sounds kind of boring, or Skidmark, who sounds like I'd want about three showers just to get over meeting him and who's barely a gang leader anyway—when my choice is made for me. Directly ahead of me, a bunch of lizard-rhino-dog things gallop on through the intersection, with four teenagers riding astride. All in costume, all with that subtle air of 'don't give a fuck' that gives me the strong impression that they absolutely do give a fuck, and desperately want you to give a fuck, but insist on pretending that they don't give a fuck.

Because teenagers.

All of which also gives me the strong impression that they're not four members of the local Junior Superhero Chamber of Commerce, out for a midnight charity ride.

Long story short, these are villains.

I catch sight of a tall guy all in black, with a skull-faced helmet—he glances over at me, then pulls a double-take that should've popped every vertebra in his neck—and a memory pings, from one of the PHO files. They're past the intersection by the time I get there, but I don't care. Laying the bike way over, I drift it around the corner to the sweet, sweet smell of burning rubber, then open her out on the straight again. Pulling out my phone, I call Loki.

"Operator. Are you trying to get yourself put on the Most Wanted list? Not that you don't belong there, I mean."

I cut him off. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Who's that ahead of me?"

His keyboard rattles briefly. "Those would be the Undersiders. Smash-and-grab teenage villains. Reputation for escaping and evading."

"Cool, thanks." I hang up. As good as I am, I'm going to need both hands for this. They've got a rep for escaping and evading, huh?

Challenge accepted.



End of Part Fourteen

 

[Ack]

Reality Intrudes

Part Fifteen: Over and Under

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

Grue

"Fuck!" yelled Regent over the sound of enormous dog paws hitting asphalt. "It's Armsmaster!"

"I don't think it is!" Brian took another glance over his shoulder. The most distinctive motorcycle in Brockton Bay had made the knee-scraping turn and was now accelerating into the straightaway behind them. "That's his bike, but it's not him!"

Tattletale looked back as well, hanging tightly onto Brutus as he galloped along. "No, it's a girl, a cape!"

"Tinker? Someone made their own ArmsCycle knockoff?" Regent peered back over his shoulder. "They got the engine note right and everything!"

"Not a Tinker, not a knockoff," Tattletale corrected him. "That's Armsmaster's bike, the real one! She just stole it, and now she's joyriding!"

"Not joyriding!" Bitch put her two cents in. "Chasing us! I know what a chase looks like!"

"Wait, what the fuck?" Brian stared at Tattletale, then back over his shoulder at the oncoming motorbike. "She stole Armsmaster's ride? How the hell did she pull that off?"

"Did you want to stop and ask her?" Tattletale snarked. "Whoever that is back there is Trouble with a capital T! Whatever she's involved in is something we need to avoid! Bitch, we need to lose her!"

"Hey, what if some of us wanted her autograph?" protested Regent. Brian was sure he was doing it just to be a dick.

"Then you can get off my dog and fucking walk!" Bitch turned Angelica and aimed her at a nearby alleyway. "Otherwise, shut the fuck up!"

Travelling in single file, they barrelled into the alleyway. Brian guided Judas to fall in behind the others so he could see what happened to motorcycle girl. If she lost interest, all well and good. But capes often did the unexpected; it was what made the hero/villain scene so interesting (and occasionally terrifying).

Knocking over trash cans, scaring the fuck out of the occasional homeless person, leaping over dumpsters and other obstacles, they thundered through the alley. Brian kept his seat through long practice, holding tight to a couple of convenient bone spurs. The motorbike pursued relentlessly; its howling engine amplified by the brick walls on either side.

Fuck it. He began producing his darkness, filling the alley from side to side. Ride through that, smartass. On he rode, keeping Judas up close behind Brutus as they powered on through the narrow trash-filled darkness.

After jumping a fence—ten feet high, chain link, securely padlocked—he looked back, secure in his own mind that the pursuit had been foiled. Instead, he was treated to the sight of the bike going airborne as it somehow used one of the dumpsters as a launch ramp, engine roaring, headlight blazing as it cleared the fence. Twisting in midair, it pulled a near-perfect barrel roll, left tyre-marks on the wall, then bounced off a dumpster before hitting the ground again, having lost no speed along the way.

Inside his helmet, his jaw dropped. How the hell? Nobody can see through my darkness, much less pull off stunts like that blind.

"She's still behind us!" he shouted, trying to get Bitch's attention. "We have to hit the rooftops!"

Vaguely he heard Tattletale repeating what he'd said, but most of his attention was directed behind them, at the crazy girl on the motorcycle. Even with all the obstacles in the way, she was still gaining on them.

Who the hell is this, and how is she doing what she's doing?

<><>​

Morrigan

First things first, this bike is amazing. For all of Armsmaster's flaws (and he's got more than a few) he's got it tuned to a point that it responds to my every command like an extension of my body. The few things it's not actually set up to do, I can make it do anyway, by leaning into the Matrix just a little. It doesn't even take that much effort.

I haven't done a deep-dive into the Undersiders as yet (why would I? They're small fry), which means that the sight-blocking smoke cloud comes as a rude surprise. But it's not as bad as it could be, because hello? Matrix operative here? It's not air that we're breathing, and it's not light that we're seeing by.

Where anyone else would be floundering blindly—I can tell that it blocks everything in the local simulated version of the electromagnetic spectrum, and muffles sound to a fair degree—I've got resources that bluepills just can't access. Being an operative lets me bend the laws of physics pretty damn hard as it is—here, I can just about tie them in knots—but I can also look past the façade of reality if I squint just right, and see the edges of the code. This doesn't give me my own waterfall display, but it does let me figure out what's in front of me before I hit it, and map out my route through the obstacle course they're trying to lose me in.

I pull the three-sixty roll when I come over the fence because I know Skeletor's watching, and it's funny as fuck to troll him like that. The move is also designed to send a message: You can't get away that easily. I figure once the Undersiders realise they can't lose me like this, they'll either change up their escape/evasion tactics, turn and fight, try to parley, or surrender.

Whichever one they choose will give me insight into them. All data is good data, as they say.

A moment later, I'm proven right as they pour out of the alley into a side-street, then the lizard-dog critter in front, with the muscular girl on it, leaps at the building opposite and starts climbing it. I'm actually kind of impressed by this; they don't look like natural climbers, but they're doing it anyway. The others follow along behind, in a move evidently designed to leave me twiddling my thumbs at street level.

Well, their intentions and reality are going to be two different things, if I've got anything to say about it. This whole wall-climbing schtick of theirs might work against Armsmaster and his merry band of spandex-clad do-gooders, but they're up against me now, and I don't play to lose. So, even as they scramble up to the roof of the three-storey building, I assess my options.

By the time they reach the top, I've figured it out. I turn the bike down the street and gun it for about half a block, then do a bootlegger turn that leaves a perfect half-circle of burned rubber on the asphalt. Kicking the throttle open a couple of times, I put a neat square of rubber under the rear tyre, then I open her out.

As the engine noise echoes between the buildings, I swing wide, then pop a wheelie as I angle in toward the building they climbed up. This is going to take all the Matrix bullshittery I can muster, but the looks on their faces are going to be fuckin' epic.

Why yes, I do live for this sort of thing. Why do you ask?

There's a parked car outside the building before the one I need to be on top of; I hit it at just the right angle (converting it from junker to junked) to launch me and the bike into the air. That gets me up just high enough to hit an awning (ripping it out of its mountings in the process, but it's not my awning) and boost the bike even higher. That wouldn't normally be enough, but there's a fire escape that I kind of ricochet the bike off so the wheels hit the vertical wall with six feet to go.

Turns out Armsmaster rebuilt the bike for all-wheel drive, and I'm pushing that to breaking point. Matrix chicanery gives both wheels far more traction than reality wants to allow, but I tell reality to stand over there and stop bothering me. Assisted by the remaining upward momentum, I've got the throttle wide open, engine screaming, the bike clawing its way up the wall.

At the top, just before I would've lost traction, the front wheel tips over the edge, giving it one last burst of oomph. The back wheel digs in and shoves me up the rest of the way, then, as it comes over the edge of the parapet, the bike pulls a complete backflip. I ease off on the throttle and guide the bike down to a two-point landing. The suspension takes it like a champion; Armsmaster actually does good work in that regard, apparently.

On the other side of the roof, still astride their lizard-dog-dinosaur hybrids, the Undersiders gawk at me in disbelief. Or at least, the girl in the form-fitting purple catsuit (do her parents even know she owns that thing, let alone wears it in public?) is staring at me, squinting and shaking her head like I'm screwing with her own personal reality. I can't tell what Skeletor's expression is, the twink in the Renfaire costume has a similarly face-obscuring mask, and the stocky girl with the dollar-store dog mask hanging around her neck is the poster child for 'resting bitch face'.

"Hi," I announce. "Name's Morrigan. New in town, on a fact-finding mission. First thing I want to know is, why did you guys even get into crime? Anything you want to vent about, I'm willing to listen."

Renfaire Twink recovers first and points at me. "That's bullshit!" he accuses me. "How the fuck did you just ride Armsmaster's bike up the side of a damn building?"

Well, he's got a point. It is bullshit, but a very special kind of bullshit. The kind I'm a past master at, to be specific.

"I might as well ask you how you just rode those lizard-dog-rhino things up the side of a building," I counter. "The answer is simple: because I could. So, as we were saying." I point at the big guy with the skull face helmet. "You. Skeletor. What do you get out of being a supervillain? Is it just the filthy lucre, or is there more to it for you?"

There's a frozen pause, then Renfaire Twink and Purple Catsuit snort in either amusement or disbelief. Resting Bitch Face doesn't even crack a smile; in fact, she continues to glower at me. I'm not put off by it, but I have to give her kudos for staying on track like that.

"My name's Grue, not Skeletor," says the guy reluctantly. I can tell he doesn't want to talk to me, but his buddy's already opened a line of communication, and talking's generally better than fighting, especially when you're facing someone who could just possibly kick your ass up between your shoulder-blades. "I'm in it for the money. Why do you want to know?"

"Just information gathering, to be honest." I go to gesture toward Purple Catsuit, but she nearly has an epileptic fit when I do, so I change my mind and call on the smaller guy. "Okay, you. Renfaire Twink. What's your deal in all this?"

Grue (that's a terrible name; if I was him, I'd complain to HR) audibly chuckles at that, and Purple Catsuit nearly falls off her mount with laughter. Even Resting Bitch Face cracks half a smile, but no more than that.

"The fuck?" complains Renfaire Twink. "Why does Grue get Skeletor, but I get … that? I'm Regent, and don't you forget it!" He gestures in my direction with the stupid gold-painted sceptre thingy he's carrying around. My right hand and left leg twitch involuntarily for some reason, but I suppress it.

With the coronet and the medieval clothing, I can see where he's coming from. It's not a great name, but it's a name. I'm just about to make a comment about it when my phone rings. "Hold that thought," I say, and pull it out. "Yeah?"

"What just happened?" asks Loki, sounding honestly concerned for once. "You just started twitching up a storm. The restraints stopped you from falling out of the chair or pulling the jack loose, but this was way more than the usual."

"Huh." I'm remembering the gesture with the sceptre. It seems Renfaire Twink, aka Regent, has a few tricks up his floofy sleeve. "Thanks. I'm on top of it."

"The last time you said that, we had to call in three operatives to clean up the aftermath."

That had not been my finest hour, but I rally gamely anyway. "I dealt with the immediate problem, didn't I? Anyway, busy. Smell you later." Hanging up the phone, I give Regent the stink-eye. "Okay, smart guy. Word of warning? The next time you try to pull that shit, I'm going to take that sceptre thingy away from you and turn you into a twink on a stick."

From the movements of his head, Regent stares at me, at his sceptre, then back to me. "What the hell? How did you do that?"

"Same way I got this bike up here," I remind him. "I'm just that fuckin' good. See these?" I open my coat to show the Undersiders the pistols I'd inherited from Whitey McWhiteface. "I took these off the asshole formerly known as Alabaster, currently residing in the PRT morgue, after I blew his head off last night. I'm willing to bet it'd be a whole lot easier to make you stay down, so let's keep this nice and polite, shall we?"

"Alabaster?" scoffs Regent. "Yeah, like—"

"Shut up, Regent," Purple Catsuit says tensely. She's staring at me while squinting hard, like she's not enjoying the view. "She did it. He's dead. I don't know how she killed him, but she did."

"Like a fuckin' boss is how." I focus my attention on her. "While Renfaire Twink is thinking about his answer, how about you? What's your reason for putting on something that any reasonable father would ground his daughter just for owning, and going out to commit egregious acts of criminality?"

"You are way too young to be having that attitude," she says, but it's only a medium level of snark so I let it go. Besides, I'm impressed. I'm a decade and change older than the Matrix body I'm currently inhabiting, but how does she know that? "As for why I'm doing this … well, there are several reasons, of which money is only one. Mainly, bad choices. Lots and lots of bad choices." She tilts her head, still squinting. "How about you? Why are you going around killing supervillains and mugging heroes for their rides?"

"Because I need to kick over anthills if I'm gonna see what the ants do." Ignoring her reflexive twitch, I look at Regent. "Figured your answer out yet, or did you want to phone a friend?"

Somehow, I can tell he really, really wants to flip me off, but at the same time he doesn't want to go the same way as Alabaster (and Victor, if he but knew). "Money, gaming and security," he says eventually. I suspect he's being even more honest than he intends. "Being a supervillain means I can afford the best gaming consoles out there, and not going to school or working a nine-to-five means quality gaming time is all the time."

"And security?" I prod him. "You mentioned that, too."

He makes a motion with his head that I suspect involves an eye-roll. "My dad's a villain too, the type that other villains don't associate with. If I'm with a gang, it means he's less likely to be able to swoop in and drag me back to the rest of the family."

From the way Grue glances at him, I get the impression he wasn't this forthcoming with the rest of his team when he joined. Purple Catsuit and Resting Bitch Face don't react; I suspect the former already knew, and the latter doesn't give a fuck. I can respect that attitude, given that it forms a major part of my worldview.

"And what about you?" I ask Resting Bitch Face. "You got a tragic story, or are you just in it for the big bucks?"

She gives me a challenging stare. "Why the fuck do you care?"

"Listen," says Purple Catsuit tensely. "Her mom abandoned her, she had a shitty time in the foster system, and she triggered when her last foster mom tried to kill her dog. Okay?"

While I'd really rather get that info from the horse's mouth, it's clear Purple Catsuit is trying to avoid a lethal confrontation, and I get the strong impression that Resting Bitch Face isn't the type to back down easily, or at all. Besides, I can fill in the blanks from what I've already been told: kid gets powers, shit goes sideways, and now she's permanently on the run. Joining a gang would've given her much the same kind of security as Regent was looking for.

This gives me interesting insights into the gangs, if the Undersiders are anything like a viable sample. None of them are in it just for the cash; even Grue, if I'm reading his momentary hesitation correctly, has other motives that I haven't figured out yet. 'Curiouser and curiouser', as someone said, once upon a time.

(I'm personally convinced that Alice fell into an earlier version of the Matrix, and only made it out by the skin of her teeth.)

Resting Bitch Face glares at Purple Catsuit. "Did I ask you to say anything?" Yeah, she's definitely pricklier than fifty yards of saguaro cactus.

I speak up again, mainly to defuse the incipient squabble; while I really don't care if they beat the shit out of each other at any other time, I'd rather not have to wait until they're finished before I get the answers to the rest of my questions. "Hey, fight on your own time. So, what's the skinny on Kaiser and his merry band of goose-steppers? Doesn't he know Hitler died decades ago?"

"Knows, doesn't care." Grue sounds appropriately disgusted by them, for which I award him mental kudos. Unless he's black under there—and he might well be, because I can't see as much as a square inch of skin to check—he's to be commended for his attitudes. If he is, then it just means he isn't a fuckin' moron. "We're pretty sure Allfather was his dad. He's just carrying on the family business, and he doesn't give a damn about who dies or gets beaten up in the process, just for having the wrong name or skin tone in the wrong part of town."

"Their biggest recruiter is Lung," Regent chips in without even being prompted. Good boy. You can learn, after all. "You know about the ABB, right?"

I nod. "I was going to ask about them next, yeah. Asian supremacist gang, if I recall correctly?"

"That's them." He gestures with the sceptre, but not toward me, and I don't feel any twitches. "Every time they do anything at all, Kaiser shouts it from the rooftops, and few more rednecks get insecure enough to join up. Same thing happens when the Empire Eighty-Eight beat up on some minority out on the street late at night: Lung whips the ABB into a frenzy, and they talk a few more locals into joining 'for their own protection'." For someone with a flattened emotional response, he could certainly pack a lot of sarcasm into those four words.

A few more things become clear to me. "So, neither one's really dedicated to wiping out the opposition, because they're each essential to the other's ongoing recruitment prospects. Yeah, that totally tracks." I pause and grin. "Want to know something else about Lung you didn't know before?"

They exchange glances, but only Purple Catsuit speaks up. "You did something to them, didn't you? Just before you stole Armsmaster's bike."

"That's right." I let the silence stretch on for a few more seconds. "I shoved the motorbike I was using then up Lung's nose, then I shot Oni Lee a couple of times and beat the fuck out of him. If Armsy's still got all his faculties, and I didn't hit him that hard, then they'll both be in PRT custody in the next five to ten minutes."

Purple Catsuit stares at me. "Holy shit, you really enjoy living on the edge, don't you? Alabaster's not a big member of the Empire, but killing him definitely sends a very loud message, and putting down Lung and Oni Lee for the PRT sends another one."

"Don't forget, she stole Armsmaster's bike," Regent chimes in. "I'm pretty sure the message is along the lines of 'batshit insane, do not engage'."

Grue and Purple Catsuit both tense and look at me when he says that, but I'm not the least bit offended. Besides, Loki's said worse to me with the Captain right there.

"I like that." I throw him a grin. "I might just use it."

"Knock yourself out."

"Sure thing. Oh, I might've forgotten to tell you. After I killed Alabaster, I topped Victor as well, then stole a ton of money and guns from the safehouse they were in. Then I burned down the safehouse with a bunch of drugs inside. And at the same time I beat up Lung and Oni Lee, I chased off Storm-whatsit and the Viking chick twins. Shot 'em all a few times."

Purple Catsuit slaps both hands over her mouth to contain her reaction. Grue just nods slowly, Regent mutters, "fuck me" and shakes his head, and Resting Bitch Face seems to look pleased. Briefly, anyway. I'm getting the impression that a smile from her is basically the equivalent of a standing ovation from anyone else.

"So anyway," I say, "what can you tell me about Coil? His PHO page is pretty scarce on information."

Purple Catsuit raises her head and lowers her hands from her mouth. "Before I tell you that, what're you planning for him?"

I shrug. "Get his measure, maybe smack him around for light exercise. What've you got for me?"

She shakes her head. "Not worth it. He's got some sort of reality bending ability that means he always makes the right choice. Also, fifty or so mercenaries with cutting lasers on their guns. If I tell you what I know and you get through them, then just hand him over to the PRT or even leave him to go free, he'll learn I ratted him out, and then he'll come after me. Hard pass on that."

"Reality bending, huh?" And here I'd been thinking he was almost too boring to mess with. This sounds like a real challenge. "Okay, so what can you tell me about him?"

"Hey." It's Resting Bitch Face. "Are you gonna be fucking with the Empire Eighty-Eight again? Like maybe Hookwolf?"

I look over at her. These are the first words she's actually volunteered, so I'm inclined to be nice. "That's always a possibility, sure. I've read he's an asshole."

"He runs dogfighting rings." If talking about someone could kill them, Hooksy would already be pushing up daisies. "Fucker needs to die."

I shrug. "I've heard of worse reasons. See what I can do." Then I look back over at Purple Catsuit. "You were saying?"

She takes her time with her response. "He's got an underground base near a skyscraper under construction. Find that, you've found him."

Well, I've had thinner leads. "Sounds good to me. Night, all. Good talk."

Engaging reverse gear on the bike—Armsmaster installed that, too—I gun it, bringing the bike up onto its front wheel. Then I dance it around in a circle, flick the throttle so the back wheel drops and the bike pops a wheelie. When I let it fall forward, the front wheel goes over the edge of the building, and the rest of the bike follows.

I draw on my Matrix capabilities pretty hard from that point onward. I've got the bike pointing downward at an angle, leaning in as close to the wall as I can. From the bike's point of view, gravity is actually partway into the wall, so as far as it can tell, we're going sideways down a really steep slope, allowing the tyres to keep some level of traction (and leave streaks of rubber on the brickwork). When I'm most of the way down, I give it some more gas; the bike leaps off the wall, finishes the demolition job on the car, and I ride off down the street.

Time to go find Coil and find out what 'reality bending' looks like from my point of view.

I can't wait.



End of Part Fifteen

 

[Ack]

Reality Intrudes

Part Sixteen: Speedrunning, Matrix Style

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

Tattletale

It took a few moments for the feeling of disorientation to go away altogether, but as far as Lisa could tell, the others had their own problems. When she figured she could finally open her power up and allow it to sample the world properly again, Grue was shaking his head and Regent seemed to be getting over a minor panic attack. Only Bitch was more or less unaffected, though her knuckles were a little whiter than normal.

"What the fuck just happened?" asked Grue shakily. "Who was that?"

"Didn't you hear?" Regent tended to double down with snark when he should be feeling fear, and this time was no exception. "She called herself Morrigan. What I want to know is how she rode a motorbike straight up the side of the building. Did she have gravity powers or something?"

"When she was chasing us down the alley, she pulled a barrel roll with the bike, inside my darkness," Grue added. "Whatever powers she's got, it's more than just gravity."

"Wasn't gravity." Whatever else Lisa was uncertain about, she was sure of that. "I could almost see it. Reality was warping around her, to do what she wanted. She was able to ride the bike up the wall because she'd decided she was damn well going to ride the bike up the wall." Her power had kept trying to categorise what Morrigan was doing, and had ended up headbutting a brick wall. It had not been a pleasant experience.

"So, when my power didn't work on her, it was because she'd decided it wasn't going to?" Regent sounded miffed. "That's not how powers work."

"No." Lisa shook her head. "She didn't even realise you'd tried anything until she got the phone call. Someone told her you'd done it. Which means she's got some kind of backing, who can pick up on stuff like that."

"What I want to know is, how did she see through my darkness if she doesn't have powers?" Grue didn't sound pleased. "Reality warping, or something else?"

"You said Coil bends reality," Bitch broke in unexpectedly. "And you say she was warping reality. What's the difference, or is it just fancy words for the same thing?"

"It's not the same …" Lisa spoke carefully, thinking her words through. Coil had a way of finding out shit that she'd never told him, so she had to make sure she didn't screw him over too blatantly. "I'm almost sure of how he does it. And I know for a fact that's not how she does it." She looked at Grue. "At a rough guess, she needed to know where the obstacles were, and so she knew about them. The fact that she couldn't see them was just a detail." A wave of pain swept through her head. "Now please don't ask anything else about her; I'd rather not have a migraine tonight, thanks."

"Fine," said Grue. "So how did you know that about Coil, anyway? We've never associated with him in any real way."

"Fuck that." Bitch pointed at Regent. "Which supervillain's your dad? Because if he comes looking for you and hurts my dogs, I will fucking take it out of your hide."

"Actually, yeah, I want to know about that, too," Grue agreed. "Regent?"

Regent hesitated, then turned to look at Lisa. "You already know, don't you?" His voice was more resigned than accusing.

"There's not all that many Masters out there." She had indeed already connected the dots, and was pretty sure he was talking about Heartbreaker. He had the looks and the accent, and neural control wasn't a million miles away from emotion control, which would make Regent Hijack if she was right. And she was rarely wrong.

"Yeah, true. Fuck." He sighed. "He's Heartbreaker. I got away from him and I'm not going back. He's one of the reasons I accepted the offer to sign up with the Undersiders. Safety in numbers, and all that crap."

Grue wasn't pleased. Not totally surprising, considering that he had family in the city. Lisa would've personally thrown her father to the wolves, given the chance, but Grue felt differently about his sister. "And you were going to tell us about this when, exactly?"

"Never, had been my game plan." Regent stared at Grue with defiance written into his very posture. "But you saw her. You heard her. If she didn't like the answers we gave her, she would've started asking questions without giving us the choice not to answer. So, I told her what I needed to."

Lisa wasn't thrilled at the omission either, but it was water under the bridge now. "Plus, I'm pretty sure she heard what you didn't say, Grue. I'll keep my ear to the ground, and if I hear even a hint that one of Heartbreaker's kids is in town, we turtle up. Go radio silent."

"And what if he comes to town?" Regent had lost nearly all his blasé tone. "Because he won't stop looking until he finds me. It's just the way he is."

"And if Morrigan's still in town, you know she'll go looking for him." Lisa tilted her head to one side, because she couldn't raise her eyebrow behind her mask. "Who do you think'll come out on top then?"

A thoughtful silence fell over the group. Lisa knew they were thinking about how Morrigan would fare against Heartbreaker, but she had something else on her mind.

If she can find that base from what I told him, Coil is fucked.

I hope.

<><>​

Morrigan

Once I'm away from the Undersiders, I pull out my phone again. Armsmaster's bike is a real beauty; even if I wasn't an operative, I'd be able to ride it one-handed. Being one just makes it easy.

"Operator." Loki's voice seems to be edging between fascinated disbelief and gleeful anticipation. "Just so you know, when you pulled that shit with the motorbike, the Captain swore and punched the wall, then went out to get herself something to drink. In case you missed that part of the briefing, we were supposed to be keeping things on the down-low. Not advertising to all and sundry that there's a Matrix operative running around in their server."

From his tone, Hornblower had meant something alcoholic, which means the guys running the still in Hold 3 are about to get a surprise visit. I'd wondered if she was aware of that thing. Well, now I know.

"Hey, in my defence, even when I'm going loud, it's still not as flashy as some of the idiots in this server seem to be." I'm quite pleased by the way that encounter turned out, actually. Shock and awe absolutely has its uses. "So, did you get everything they said?"

"In living colour. But seriously, did you really just ask a bunch of costumed comic-book supervillains why they're supervillains?"

"Not comic-book supervillains. Just costumed ones." I pause thoughtfully. "If this was a comic book, it would be the sort being published as a dark, arty trade paperback. Not one of them is a supervillain for the giggles. I have no doubt there are some like that out there—like that Jack Slash clown—but for the majority, it's just a life choice."

"Still, you took way too many risks for the Captain's liking." He doesn't sound displeased by this. "When you inevitably crash and burn on this assignment, I'll be right there to testify that you ignored orders—"

"Oh, put a sock in it. Preferably the crusty one you keep under your mattress." I don't give him time to respond. "I need you to do a survey of the city for skyscrapers under construction. Think you can do that, or will your fragile male ego get in the way?"

"You know what? You can take—sure, I'll get right on it." The sound of typing is audible to me over the phone. "Hey, Captain. Morrigan's just chasing down that lead on Coil."

I grin as I end the call. It seems that Captain Hornblower came back from her hunt for booze at just the right time to forestall Loki's attempt to stonewall me. At my best guess (from the last time I was out and about) the only place that it's likely they'll be building a skyscraper will be in the Downtown area, so I head in that direction.

However, it also seems that the so-called superheroes of Brockton Bay haven't finished getting up in my grille yet, as I'm about to find out.

Le sigh.

<><>​

Velocity

Coming to a halt on the Boardwalk (he'd been whipping past the late-night strollers almost too fast to be seen when the message came in), Robin Swoyer pressed his earpiece more firmly into his ear. "Velocity to Control. Say again your last, over?"

The specialised radio could take his words, compare his current rate of time dilation to the steady pulse of clock pings from the Protectorate base, and stretch everything out as it transmitted to give the guy in the switch room an audible answer, but it was so tedious to wait for a reply. Besides, what he'd just heard definitely needed confirmation now.

"I say again, unknown parahuman temporarily codenamed 'Bandit' has engaged Armsmaster approximately ten minutes ago, damaged his helmet and stolen his motorcycle. Be aware that 'Bandit' previously intervened in a fight between Lung, Oni Lee, Menja, Fenja and Stormtiger; Lung and Oni Lee were incapacitated and subsequently taken into custody, while the others were driven off. This may also be connected to the attack last night on an Empire Eighty-Eight stash house, with multiple confirmed fatalities, as well as the reported but unconfirmed deaths of Victor and Alabaster."

"I copy all that." With some effort, Robin managed to keep his voice level. "Physical description of Bandit? Any notable Tinkertech? Observed powers? Over."

"Bandit appears to be a slender woman or a tall teenage girl, wearing a fedora, sunglasses and a long coat over civilian clothing. She is reported to be armed with at least one pump action shotgun, and perhaps a pair of pistols in shoulder holsters. No visible Tinkertech. Brute level strength, highly acrobatic, trained in martial arts, very possibly a combat Thinker. Was able to disable the safeguards on Armsmaster's cycle and ride off on it before he could stop her. Fragmentary report by someone reporting that she was riding the bike straight up a vertical wall, but last spotted by someone on the Armsmaster tracking page, heading toward Downtown."

"Roger that. Will patrol in that direction, and report in if I see her. Velocity, out." He started off toward Downtown, accelerating as his time dilation rate increased. Weaving around traffic on autopilot, he zoned out as he crossed the city. The main thing on his mind was how exactly had this 'Bandit' gotten the better of Armsmaster.

Robin had sparred with Armsmaster before, and the man was good. More to the point, he had enough tech at his disposal, especially built into his halberd, that he could take out most street-level threats without obvious effort. Brutes were a special case, but his skills and equipment were usually good enough deal with them, too.

For someone to take on five parahumans at once—moderate to heavy hitters all—and disable two and chase off three, before Armsmaster even got there, was the mark of a superior combatant. Especially since the two taken down were the heretofore undefeated Lung and the nigh-untouchable Oni Lee. That bespoke impressive levels of combat Thinker capability, provided it was how she'd beaten them. If not, Robin really wanted to know what it was, because trying to match Lung in the (lower-case b) brute force stakes had always been a losing proposition.

He hoped Armsmaster had a recording of the fight between him and Bandit. It would undoubtedly be highly educational, if only to show people why she wasn't to be taken on one-on-one. But that was for a later moment in time; right now, he was looking for the big man's ride.

Motorbikes were not an uncommon mode of transportation inside Brockton Bay, especially for gang members, but this one had been so thoroughly modified that it was unique. Keeping an eye out for it, he did a sweep through the side-streets and back-alleys of the Downtown area without any luck. God damn it, she's already taken it under cover somewhere. But he didn't want to admit defeat so quickly, so he made one last check along the main roads coming through the area.

And there she was. Not even trying to hide, just hammering down the middle of the road like she had every right to be there. Also treating the road rules like a vague suggestion, but that last bit didn't surprise him in the slightest.

Not bothering to slow down because he wanted to keep sight of her, he activated his radio microphone. "Velocity to Control, I have a visual on the perpetrator. Description as given, riding southeast on Columbus Drive. Requesting advice on how to proceed, over."

It was no problem at all to keep up with her. As fast as she was riding, weaving between the cars like they were standing still, he could more than match her speed with no effort. However, he intended to learn from Armsmaster's example and not engage her until he either had solid orders from above or some kind of backup.

As far as he was concerned, any member of the Protectorate would be welcome right now. On his own, keeping up was about all he could do, unless they ordered him to get in close and tase her. He was reluctant to do that, mainly because coming off a motorbike at that speed would almost certainly leave her severely injured, if not dead. But he could absolutely work with someone else to a) stop the damn bike without destroying it, and b) get her off it and into custody relatively unharmed.

And of course, after all that, they could ask her what the fuck did she think she was doing? But that bit wasn't in his purview. He was just there to stop idiots from killing themselves and each other doing stupid shit.

"Control to Velocity. Vectoring PRT and Protectorate assets to your location, ETA ten minutes. You are authorised to do a close pass on the perpetrator. If possible, disarm her. Do not initiate physical combat, or do anything else that might endanger bystanders."

He took a deep breath. "I copy, close pass, attempt to disarm, no combat. Velocity, out."

As he started to move in on the slim woman riding the motorbike like it was an extension of her body—seriously, her balance and timing for it were even better than Armsmaster's, who'd designed it—he considered the phrasing. It had definitely come from the higher-ups, and not from Armsmaster. The whole 'do not do anything that might endanger bystanders' was basically them covering their asses.

If this blows up, they want to be able to put their hands on their hearts and swear they told me not to do anything dangerous. Right after telling me to do something that might be dangerous.

God, he hated being a Protectorate cape sometimes.

Cranking his relative time dilation up to about two hundred to one, he angled in on the bike, just about where he judged the right-hand blind spot to be. The bike was pulling a hundred miles per hour easily, switching lanes and zooming around cars with careless abandon, but that was fine. He could keep up, no problem. And while his punches at that level of dilation were slightly less authoritative than being slapped across the face with a powder-puff, he could manipulate items, so long as he was careful about it.

To him, the bike was crawling along at a casual walking pace as he jogged up alongside the rider. The best bit about this was that he had all the time in the world. Nobody could react as fast as he could when he was—

She whipped her head around and looked directly at him. Caught reaching for the nearest holstered pistol, he stared at her. She took her hand off the handlebar and slapped his hand away. Then, while he was still gaping, she backfisted him in the chest. The impact was hard enough to send him stumbling back several yards, where he tripped and fell on his ass.

"What the fuck?" he demanded, climbing to his feet. He was in the middle of a traffic lane, but the car coming up behind him wasn't doing more than fifty, so he was able to get up, get his head back in the game, and dust himself off before he even had to think about moving out of the way. "Are you a Mover, too? Is that how you did all that?"

She either couldn't hear him or was ignoring him, because she didn't answer. She had, however, returned her hand to the throttle and was actually accelerating. Not that she could get away from him, but it was going to take a little more effort to catch up with her.

"Velocity to Control, we have an issue." He started jogging again, to make sure he could keep track of her. "She's got Mover capabilities. She can focus on me just fine, and she just tagged me. I'm not injured but I think I'm going to have a bruise, over." Two bruises, but he wasn't going to tell them how he landed on his ass.

While he waited for the reply, he pondered a question that had just occurred to him. If she's a Mover, why steal the bike? Why is she even bothering with a bike?

She still seemed to be ignoring him, though he didn't trust that for an instant. The way she'd turned to look at him had surprised the crap out of him, and he didn't surprise easily. There was no doubt in his mind that she was keeping track of him via her rearview mirrors, with which Armsmaster's bike was amply equipped.

About three minutes later, or a little under one second if he wanted to count it in real time, she actually took her hand off the handlebars and reached into her pocket. He watched, both incredulous and horrified, as she lifted the phone to her ear. Oddly enough, her hand wasn't moving nearly as fast as it had been when she deflected his attempt at grabbing her pistol.

Still weaving through traffic at a ridiculously high speed, she seemed to have a conversation over the phone, at one point glancing back to check on him with the same high-speed head-flick that she'd used before. He was still waiting on the response from Control when she finished the call and put the phone away.

She downshifted and took a corner at what he normally would've called suicidal speeds. He rounded it with a lot less hassle because unlike her, he wasn't actually travelling that speed, so he didn't have all that inertia to worry about. Though he had to wonder about Armsmaster's bike; it was good, but Robin hadn't thought it was that good.

Finally, he got a response back from Control. "Velocity, if she's got Mover capabilities then she should be able to handle coming off the motorcycle. Disable the bike without destroying it, please. Only engage if absolutely necessary."

He wanted to roll his eyes, but refrained. More covering of asses, right there. Armsmaster totally wanted his bike back in good shape, but they also wanted to stop Bandit before she attacked any other capes. Meanwhile, he was the poor schmuck on scene trying to carry out conflicting directives, and he was totally the guy who'd get blamed when the whole thing went to shit.

But he'd been given orders, so he was damn well going to do his best to carry them out. That was one thing that hadn't changed from his first days in uniform. "Velocity to Control, I copy disable the bike without destroying it. Will only engage if I consider it necessary. Velocity, out."

Which left two huge questions looming over him. First, how was he supposed to disable a bike like Armsmaster's, travelling at that speed, in a way that wouldn't end up destroying it? Second, how was he supposed to even get close enough to disable it, considering that she had Mover capabilities and she was able to react to what he did in (his) real time?

The quickest way to stop any two-wheeled vehicle, he knew, was by sticking something into the spokes of one of the wheels. Front wheel would inevitably make it go end over end, while back wheel would probably cause the back end to slide out. Armsmaster wouldn't be thrilled either way, but the back wheel was probably preferable.

The next question was, what should he use? He suspected that an ordinary wooden stick would fail to suffice; Armsmaster's tech was more durable than that. I need a metal bar of some sort.

Still following the bike down a back street, impressed despite himself at the way she weaved between the worst of the potholes and took the ones she hit in her stride, he looked around for something to jam in the wheel. Up ahead was a car parked at the side of the road, the driver just getting out. Perfect.

Speeding up a little to pass her (and making sure to give her a wide berth) he arrowed in on the car. The driver was almost frozen in place, his head only just beginning to turn as the bike roared toward him. Robin could see he was in no danger, but hopefully he had something useful in his car.

Reaching in past the driver, he triggered the trunk release, then ducked around and opened it with a surge of effort. Right there, ready to hand, was exactly what he needed: a tyre iron. Nice and durable, just what he needed to stop a bike that Armsmaster had designed.

Grabbing it, he set off after the bike, which had passed the car in the meantime. It was only a few yards ahead, but now travelling at a rather respectable walking pace. She had to know he was up to something, but unless she wanted to actually stop controlling the bike altogether, there wasn't much she could do—

She triggered the oil sprayers.

Normally this would not have been a problem for him. At his current rate of time dilation, the oil—actually, a special formulation of synthetic low-friction high-surface-tension liquid lubricant—would take so much time to reach the ground that he could literally walk around the perimeter of the spray and still have time to buff his nails before inserting the tyre iron where it would do the most good. But this didn't happen.

One second, he was casually jogging up behind the bike, and the next he was covered from the waist down with the 'oil'. Somehow, she'd made the bike's systems act within the same time frame he was used to using. He couldn't stop his foot from coming down, and it was like the asphalt had been covered with the slickest of black ice. Only by the greatest effort of waving his arms did he avoid going ass over teakettle a second time.

By the time he got his feet under himself in a stable stance, she was well away. He couldn't move or chase her, not without falling over. His boots were now coated with the stuff, so he wouldn't be able to walk, let alone run, until they'd been cleaned off.

The worst part was, she'd stymied him in a way he didn't understand. Actually, that was the second worst part. The worst part was the way how (as she rode off sedately down the back street) she gave him the finger without looking.

He sighed and activated his radio. "Velocity to Control. We have an issue …"



End of Part Sixteen

 

[Ack]

Reality Intrudes

Part Seventeen: Uncoiling Coil

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]



Morrigan

The oil sprayer does the trick, somewhat to my relief; I'd hoped it might, once I've leaned into the Matrix and convinced it to work my way. The bits of code that Velocity has grafted onto him make him almost as fast as an Agent (though I've never seen one walking at that kind of speed), which could've been a problem to fight. Fortunately, he's nowhere near as strong as one.

After I leave him behind, I keep heading Downtown in search of Coil's lair. I don't have a ton of hours left in the night, and I'd like to have some time left over to deal with him. Fortunately, Loki is on the job (and has Captain Hornblower leaning over his shoulder, so he can't blow me off until the last moment).

Three blocks after I leave Velocity in my dust, my phone beeps at me. I pull it out and flick it open. "So, what've you got for me?"

"Proof positive that I'm a bona fide genius, unlike present company. Upload incoming."

"Wow, I hope the Captain doesn't mind that you just disparaged her intelligence." I end the call before he can sputter his denial in my ear. As the information upload settles into place, I have to appreciate that as abrasive as Loki is, he is indeed damn good at his job.

Not only do I have a map location, but I've also got a rough cut for underground layout. Seems that some contractor started building a shelter for hiding from those Endbringer monster things, then had to cancel and demolish it when they hit a fracture line in the rock. Except that they didn't; there was no such fracture line, and the facility was completed on the down-low.

What Loki has dug up (pun intended) is the original plans for the shelter, which hopefully don't differ a whole lot from the end result. There is indeed a half-completed skyscraper above it, owned by the same construction company that built the shelter, which is owned (via various cutouts) by a man called Thomas Calvert.

This is where it gets interesting: Calvert, a tall skinny (some might venture to use the word 'emaciated', but there are no fat people outside the Matrix, so I don't) guy, used to be a lieutenant with the PRT, but got booted after a debacle involving something or someone called Nilbog with some really funky extra code grafted on. He's since weaselled his way back into being a strike squad commander, but after a quick perusal of the dossier Loki put together on him, I wouldn't trust him as far as I could spit him. His connection with the 'supervillain' (that term still makes me shake my head) called Coil is officially indeterminate, but comparing the very few photos of both of them gives me about an eighty percent chance that they're the same person.

So, to sum up, there's a very good chance that Coil is also his own main inside guy in the PRT (there's more, if his financials are any indication, as well as plants inside the other gangs), and the cherry on top is that he's got his very own Bond villain base under the city. Plus a bunch of mercenaries (that's no surprise, at least) and at least one supervillain group as his catspaws—well, fuck me. It's the Undersiders.

So this is why Tattletale was reluctant to tell me everything she knows about him. Not from any misplaced sense of loyalty, but because he knows exactly where to find her. The fact that she works for him, fears him, and still hates him enough to tell me as much as she did says a lot about his personal brand of employer-employee relations.

So apparently he's not only a grade-A asshole who's just begging to be smacked around like a red-headed stepchild (I never really understood that one), but one with a bunch of paid mercs packing laser rifles.

I grin as I accelerate through the turn, heading for the location of his base.

Then something occurs to me and I pull my phone out to ask Loki one last question.

<><>​

Coil (Timeline A)

Thomas Calvert's phone pinged with an alert. He frowned slightly as he turned down the TV and picked the phone up from the coffee table. I'm off duty. What's going on?

When he opened the alert, the information scrolling up the screen got his attention. Sitting up, he started reading intently. Lung and Oni Lee captured … Armsmaster's cycle stolen … possible link to killings of Alabaster and Victor … 'Bandit' last seen heading Downtown after losing Velocity …

"Well," he said out loud. "That's different." It was not unusual for new capes in town to want to cause a splash and get their names in the paper. However, it was out of the ordinary for them to tangle with such high priority capes and come out on top.

(Timeline B)

Sitting at his computer terminal in his base, Calvert started searching for all incidences and reports of this new cape, spreading his electronic fingers far and wide. If this 'Bandit' was so effective and money-hungry (the report about the raid on the stash house suggested that she'd taken cash as well as weapons) then there was a good chance he'd be able to offer her enough pay to utilise her talents on his behalf. And once he had her on his payroll, he'd be able to start hitting the other gangs where it really hurt.

He'd barely gotten started when a ping popped up on his terminal, indicating that someone had just entered the base through the parking garage entrance. This would've been a perfectly routine alert, except that he hadn't given orders for his people to go anywhere. More worrying, the cameras that should have captured the images of his unexpected visitor weren't showing a signal.

He slapped the button on his desk that set off a stage-one alarm throughout the base, and changed up the pass-codes for all the doors. Buzzers would be sounding and yellow lights flashing in every space, especially in the guard barracks. Next, he pressed the button for the base-wide intercom. "Attention. Attention. Intruders have breached the base via the parking garage entrance. Two personnel to each of the other entrances, all currently armoured personnel to the parking garage entrance." No sense in not taking precautions in case this was a diversion, after all. He only had two available timelines, and he didn't want to lose the other one in case this went badly pear-shaped.

Actually, this could be a problem. He had matters handled in this timeline, but his men in the other one knew nothing about the problem, yet.

(Timeline A)

Putting his phone down, he took up the one that he used for communications with his mercenaries. Setting up a group text for the squad commanders, he sent a message to all of them at once. Alert. Intruders in base. Mobilize all troops. Capture or kill, as needed. Advise when secure.

A series of acknowledgements came back to him, all variations on Roger that. Satisfied that he'd done all he could, he settled back to wait for results. Either his mercenaries would capture or kill the intruders, or they wouldn't. In the latter case, someone would almost certainly try to get into his computer system, which meant he'd get an alert when the self-destruct went off and killed them.

Either way, I win.

<><>​

Morrigan

"Okay, I'm guessing someone woke up in there, given the buzzers and the flashing lights. Also, the code you gave me for this door doesn't work." I eye the lights as I hold the phone to my ear. Loki is an ass, but he's too professional to let me go down like this.

"Yeah, looks like Coil himself hit the panic button when you killed the cameras. You really love diving into the piranha pool headfirst, don't you?" His sarcasm barely shows through at all; I can hear his staccato typing over the audio link. "Okay, so the new code is a twelve-digit combo, changing every sixty seconds. Next combo coming up in ten seconds is on your phone. You know you can still walk away."

"Nah, I really can't." I glance at the combination and memorise it, then put the phone away. There will totally be guards on the other side of this door, which means as soon as I finish entering the code, life is gonna get interesting as fuck.

Good. I like it that way.

I enter the first eleven digits in rapid-fire mode, and the twelfth with a bit more difficulty. The door hisses open, and a hail of bullets fills the corridor, along with at least three laser bursts, from the ozone I'm smelling. Nothing hits me, of course.

I can faintly hear the sounds of radios squawking and asking for updates as the first guards step through the open door, looking around for where I might be. Whoever's on the cameras can't tell them, for the very good reason that I disabled the camera beside this door before I typed in the combo to open it. The guy who's in charge taps two more on the shoulder and points down the corridor; just as they start heading off, I make my move.

It's an old trick but a good one, hanging onto the ceiling with a foot on each opposite wall. The guards never see it coming, mainly because their helmets give them shit peripheral vision. I drop down into the middle of them, and make sure the one giving the orders goes down first, with a fist through his faceplate.

As he goes over backward, I elbow the nearest guy in the ribs, hard enough to break them even though he's wearing ballistic armour. I kick another one in the chest, shattering his breastbone, then do a whipping kick that uses my shin to smash the right shoulder and clavicle of a fourth.

The rest of the guards are just now starting to react, but that's fine. The first two I hit were carrying assault rifles with interesting under-barrel accessories, and now I'm carrying them. While their armour might be bullet-resistant (there's no such thing as bullet-proof; I once nailed Loki through the lungs with a .950 JDJ in a training sim when he wanted to argue that particular point) it also can't cover every single square centimetre. And one square centimetre is all I need.

When the hail of fire resumes, I'm not firing all the bullets, but I am firing most of them. A few rounds whip past me, but I'm using their own buddies as cover for the most part (arguments about bullet-resistance aside, two layers of Kevlar sandwiching a human body are pretty damn good at stopping most bullets). My return shots find those crevices and niches that allow my bullets to punch through into vital areas; in a very few (rather busy) seconds, I'm the only one standing.

I pause only to snag a couple of magazines from their rifles before I move along. More guards will definitely be on the way, and I've long since learned that it's a lot easier to dodge bullets when there's fewer of them intruding on my personal airspace. Loki has given me the most likely location of Coil's sanctum sanctorum, and it's high time I applied some high-velocity pest control to this subterranean snake's nest.

Dual wielding is all well and good, but the laser attachment is a little awkward to activate one-handed, so I sling one of the rifles and keep on going with the other ready to use. This is good, because I almost run face to face with the next bunch of guards when rounding a corner. My left thumb is marginally quicker off the mark than my right index finger, so I end up waving the laser across them rather than mag-dumping into the group.

It turns out that wearing dark coloured armour is not the best idea when someone's using a laser that can cut steel. There's a bunch of screams; some are cut off really quickly, while others last a little longer. This is definitely a first for me: I've had lasers shot at me before now, but I've never been on the shooter side of the equation. Now I can see why the Sentinels swear by them. I step over the pile of twitching body parts and keep going.

Bacon, I decide as the smell hits my nostrils, is off the menu for now.

<><>​

Coil

(Timeline A)

It seemed to last forever, but the silence was finally broken by the ping of a message from one of his squad leaders. Base secure. No intruders. One by one, the other squads sounded off, each one with the same message.

Calvert leaned back in his chair and frowned. That can't be right. In the other timeline, he watched with growing anger as the intruder—just one person—mowed her way through his troops like a combine harvester through a field of wheat. From what he could see on the cameras before they were destroyed, she fitted the description of the new cape

A thought chilled him: what if she's hacked their comms? This could be a ploy to make me think everything is fine and draw me into a trap.

He didn't like calling them direct, but unless Bandit was capable of mimicking the voice of a man she'd never spoken to, he was going to find out exactly what was going on there. Selecting Senegal's number—the man had a fifty-packs-a-day rasp that he doubted any woman could emulate on short notice—he put the call through.

A few seconds later, Senegal answered. "Yes, sir?" He didn't sound angry or stressed or afraid. No matter how much a man tried to sound normal when there was a gun to the back of his head, there was always a difference. Calvert knew this from personal experience. Besides, Senegal was no actor.

"I've been told to request confirmation that the base is secure." It was one of the oldest tricks in the book, pretending to be a fellow underling, but it usually worked. "All entrances secure, no disturbances at all?"

Senegal sounded entirely unconcerned. "That's correct, sir. Every entrance has been eyeballed and double-checked."

Calvert wasn't necessarily convinced by this. "Maintain a watch on the entrances, constant radio contact. Sweep the base, room by room. Nobody goes anywhere alone. Treat any unusual incidences as hostile until proven otherwise."

"Copy that, sir. I'll report back once we've guaranteed that the base is secure." The subtext was clear: again. He ignored it.

"You do that." Calvert ended the call and sat there staring at the phone in his hand. I split timelines five hours ago. I've barely had any interaction with anyone since then. Why is she hitting my base in one timeline but not in the other?

It was a mystery. He hated mysteries.

<><>​

Morrigan

The laser module on the second rifle is beeping mournfully at me to indicate a low battery charge. I've already discarded the other rifle, because both the magazine and the laser module are sitting on empty. Those lasers are useful as fuck, though the battery life is a little on the low side.

I straightarm the rifle at the last two visible guards and pop them with a bullet through each faceplate. My long-coat's a bit more frayed and tattered than it had been at the beginning of the fight, but that's okay. Nothing's actually touched me, though a few bullets and laser shots came kinda close.

I take a moment to appraise Coil's office door, then make a call. Loki comes on the line, sounding more than a little bemused (and pissed, but that's par for the course for him). "Christ on a cracker, Mopey. Is it just me, or are you actively trying to sabotage this mission? That was even more egregious than your norm."

"Only counts if there's living witnesses. Fortunately, all these witnesses were assholes who had no problem with taking pay to kill innocents. Combo, please." I discard the rifle, because I have a suspicion I'm about to need both hands free, and it's almost out of ammo anyway.

"Combo coming through now. Just so you know, there's something hinky going on inside that room. Doesn't fit any normal analysis profiles. Like he's there but not there at the same time." By now he actually sounds human; it seems that mysteries quell the jerkass in him.

"Yeah, well, I'm damn sure we haven't come close to finding all the weird code this place has added to its citizens." I end the call and pocket the phone, then tap in the code.

When the door slides open, I dive in for a classic shoulder roll, as bullets spark off the door frame and ricochet from the concrete wall. I keep moving, rolling to my feet and launching myself up to bounce off the wall because he hasn't stopped to appraise the results of his shooting yet. A couple of shots whiff kinda close, but as they say, close only counts with horseshoes and tactical nukes.

He's not a bad shot and his reflexes are above average, but I'm leaning into the Matrix more than a little, so my reflexes and speed far outstrip his. When I get close enough to him, I smack the gun out of his hand then get a good grip, because Loki wasn't just whistling Dixie about the hinky shit that's going on. Because he's not in the room, while at the same time he is. What I'm facing is a simulation of a person, a wireframe holding a pistol that's shooting very real bullets.

And then, just as happens in the normal Matrix when someone's dialling out, he starts coming apart from the feet up. Okay, what the fuck? How is this asshole pulling on me what we pull on everyone else? Time to put a stop to this shit, post-haste.

Still holding onto him, I lean hard into the Matrix and pull. I can feel resistance, but as I've already discovered, what passes for reality in this server is even more malleable than usual for the Matrix. I'm about as real as it gets around here, and I redirect some of that into Coil.

For a long moment nothing happens—well, nothing apart from Coil struggling like a mad thing on crack cocaine, but I'm stronger and I've got more moves, so that comes to nothing—and then he starts reforming. At the same time, as his feet come back into the world, his head turns from wireframe to flesh and blood (so to speak), revealing a skinny guy wearing a morph suit.

That's not to say this is in the slightest bit easy. Not even remotely. I've got my hands full preventing him from doing anything with his hands (and feet). I'm stronger, faster and significantly more skilled than him in hand to hand, but he's taller, has more reach, and fights dirty as fuck.

Inch by tortuous inch, I drag him out of whatever personal wormhole he's trying to pour himself down, determined to force every morph-suit-clad inch of him (and would it kill him to wear something under it? Ew!) back into what the inhabitants of Earth Bet blithely call reality. He never stops fighting, though, especially once he starts reverting from the wireframe state. The closer the process gets to completion, the more effort I have to put into keeping it going. Fortunately, I'm the type of person for whom that sort of thing counts as a challenge to be overcome.

Then, suddenly, there's an almost soundless pop, and he's all the way back into reality. He sags bonelessly as the fight goes out of him. At first, I'm suspicious, but he's legitimately solid and his feet aren't dissolving into silver static anymore. I'm not sure what just happened, but it didn't turn out in his favour.

<><>​

Coil

(Timeline B)

When the office door started opening, Calvert was so startled he almost didn't grab for the pistol lying on the desk. Muscle memory took over, and he started firing at the intruder. But no matter how he tried to anticipate his adversary, she seemed to almost dodge his bullets in the confined space.

Then the gun went flying from his hand and she laid ahold of him. No matter how hard he tried to escape, she was stronger and better at it, so he stopped trying. Screw it. She didn't attack in the other timeline. This one's a dead loss. He dropped the timeline …

(Timeline A)

… or at least, he tried to. But her grip on him tightened, and the timeline refused to drop. Instead, he felt himself being drawn out of the timeline where he was safe at home, and forcibly dragged to the one where he was in peril. Fighting as hard as he could, he concentrated on dropping the 'bunker' timeline, but it stubbornly persisted. Inch by implacable inch, she forced him out of the 'home' timeline, something that nobody else had ever managed to do.

And then, his efforts finally bore fruit. Her progress slowed to a halt, unable to pull him any farther into her timeline. Heartened, he redoubled his struggles. All he had to do was get in just one lucky hit and make her lose concentration—

A glaring headlight filled his living room window just before Armsmaster's motorbike, with Bandit on board, crashed in through the window sideways, glass shattering everywhere. He had no time even to try to dodge as the massive cycle landed on top of him, breaking most of the bones in his body. Consciousness fled almost immediately; with his resistance gone, that timeline ended.

<><>​

Morrigan

By the time Coil comes to—I've got him secured at wrists and ankles, because I'm not stupid—I'm going through his computer system in depth, getting all the data on his operations. Loki got the overview; I'm looking at the real deal here. Very little of it is clean; Mrs Calvert's little boy is into some very dirty money indeed. (And yes, I did slice away a little of the morph suit to confirm that our boy is indeed Calvert.)

"Well, hi," I say, spinning the chair so I can look at him without getting a kink in my neck. "Back with us, I see."

He looks at his computer, then at the open door leading out of the office. "We have to go now." His voice holds an edge of terror. "This place is going to self-destruct. There's no telling how long it's got to go."

"Oh, the self-destruct? That was the first thing I dealt with." I'd actually been mildly impressed by how closely he was following the tropes, but only mildly. If the place had blown sky-high, I would've been caught in the blast radius, after all. Crossing one leg over the other, I cup my hands around my knee and lean back. "My question to you is, how useful can you be to me?"

I can tell he's staring at me from behind his morph mask, stalling while trying to figure out how to get leverage from the situation. "… useful?"

"Yeah. Useful. A grimy little backstabber like you would know a lot about the local underworld. Start talking. I want chapter and verse. Also, what the fuck is your power?"

"What do I get in return?" I'd known that was coming.

I refrain from rolling my eyes. "I refrain from using exactly the same kind of torture you'd be inflicting on me, if our positions were reversed." My knife comes out and I spin it around through my fingers for a few seconds before it goes away again. "So, do we have a deal?"

It doesn't take him long to decide that yes, we do have a deal.

He starts talking, and I start listening.



End of Part Seventeen

 

[Ack]

Reality Intrudes

Part Eighteen: Circus Interrupt

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]



Morrigan

Coil is a great font of information, though he's got an unfortunate tendency to become an unreliable narrator if he thinks he can get away with it. His problem is that I already know a lot of details, and I can tell when he's trying to split off a simulation; a sharp smack upside the head discourages both kinds of behaviour. Not for long, however. He's nothing if not persistent.

However, after filtering out all the bullshit and obfuscation, I am left with a lot of very useful data. Coil's got a longer reach, and more people in places of influence, than anyone else in the city credits him with. To put it in the vernacular, he's got a great many fingers in a great many pies, and all of those fingers are sticky as fuck.

"So, what made you do it?" I ask in a lull while I'm thinking up more questions and he's thinking up more ways to lie to me. "Why did you go into crime? What's your win condition?"

It could be, after all, that he's just a misunderstood victim deep down, someone who's seeking to right a long-ago wrong. The Undersiders certainly turned out to be more than two-dimensional cutouts; I want to give their boss the chance to prove the same about himself. Instead, I get the best approximation of a blank stare that he can give me while wearing a morph suit.

"Power and influence," he says, as though these are cornerstones of the universe, and that I'm stupid for not understanding this from the get-go. "By the time I'm done, I'm going to be running the whole damn city. And if you're smart, you won't get in my way."

I've met people like this before, who are so enmeshed in their own personal view of how the world should work that they never stop to consider how other people might have a problem with that. And if someone does try to stop them, they're so used to having provisions in place to forestall any such interference that they will sometimes run headfirst off the cliff in the implicit belief that their machinations will somehow protect them from splatting on the rocks at the bottom. Even if any and all machinations have been long since removed.

Also, they're so enthralled by their own cleverness and ruthlessness, as if they're the only ones who ever figured out how to break the social contract and get ahead by stabbing other people in the back, that they can never conceive of someone else successfully doing the same to them.

Sucks to be him; nobody ever got ahead in the Matrix by being a pushover. We're always having to watch our backs, every second of the day. And while some Operatives are tougher than others, I like to think that I've successfully weaponised being an asshole.

Case in point: the number of complaints against me for any specific mission (and I've never failed one yet) can be taken as a reasonable gauge of just how hard that mission was to complete. When the going gets tough, I stop caring what people are going to think. Not that my care factor was ever that high in the first place.

"Okay, if you say so." I love that phrase; people like Coil think it means 'I surrender to your viewpoint' while what I'm actually saying is 'fuck you and the horse you rode in on'. "So, tell me about the Mayor's office. How many people there are being paid off by organised crime?"

He relaxes a little at that, and begins rattling off names. I'm pretty sure there's a few he's missing out that belong on his payroll, but that's not really something I'm concerned about. The picture he's painting, that Loki is recording for posterity, is complete enough for me.

That said, it's not a good picture overall. Brockton Bay, like Earth Bet, is in decline. It's not going to be a quick end, either. Slow and grinding, disguising the inevitable downward spiral with bursts of false hope here and there. There are just too many forces, too many agendas, aligned against anything that might give it a chance of eventual recovery.

It's not that anyone wants the city to go down the gurgler. But if my cynicism has taught me anything, it's that people are really good at letting greed blind them to the eventual downsides of what makes them money. And even if the danger signs are spotted before the point of no return is reached, they'll do everything they can to walk back whatever promises they're forced to make, just to drag out the profits for a little longer, all the while proclaiming that they're one hundred percent committed to fixing the situation.

The Earth Bet server as a whole has bigger problems. It's got its issues with politics and pollution, sure, but those things pale next to the whole 'Endbringers destroying a city every few months' aspect. Of course, you can rebuild eventually, and maybe you can even rehouse the surviving population in the meantime, but it gets harder and harder to return matters to status quo if it keeps on happening. Worse, while I have zero direct information about the intentions or agenda of the Mainframe sub-program that set up the server, the situation to date isn't making me overly optimistic.

In a nutshell: it could be doing a hell of a lot more to keep the problems in line, and it's not.

But I'm not focusing on the big picture right now. My mission is to get an in-depth analysis of how Brockton Bay ticks. We need a beachhead; like it or not, this gang-ridden shithole of a city is what we've been given to build it out of.

When I get up out of Coil's amazingly comfortable computer chair, he does his best not to look like a problem. Unfortunately for him, I know damn well he's had a good look at Taylor's face. If he's anywhere near as vindictive as I suspect he is, he's been memorising her appearance, down to the placement of individual hair follicles. He will totally try to find her, so as to inflict all sorts of retribution; that, I will not allow for several reasons.

"Well, thanks for the help." I turn to head for the door, then pause. "Quick question: what happened to the guys who built this place, after it was completed and you didn't need them anymore?" I flash him a smile. "Don't bother lying to me. I'm pretty sure I know. Well, this is for them." Leaning over, I press a single key on his computer keyboard. As the computer lets out the ominous 'self-destruct countdown beginning' beep, I unplug the keyboard and head out the door with it.

It takes a moderately determined adult less than a minute to escape from zip-ties, if they know how. I actually used two for his wrists and another two for his ankles, but I'm going to assume that he's really fucking desperate, and gets it done in thirty seconds or less. Having tossed the keyboard over the side of the catwalk—the idea wasn't to have a keyboard, it was to make sure Coil didn't have a keyboard—I'm sprinting for the exit.

Taylor's not all that fit (at least, she didn't used to be, before the emergency upload), but that doesn't matter in the slightest. Right now, with me in full Matrix cheat mode, an Olympic runner would be trailing in my dust. I make it to the exit in twenty seconds, and I've got my leg over Armsmaster's bike in twenty-five.

The self-destruct goes off just as I'm peeling out of the parking garage. I have to say, Coil didn't stint on the boom-stuff when it came to lacing his Bond villain base with it. Between the bike's gyro-stabilising and my Matrix-aided reflexes, I stay upright, but anyone else would've been kissing asphalt. The parking garage collapses behind me in a huge cloud of concrete dust, before the entire partially constructed skyscraper gradually topples over to crash down on top of the whole mess.

I don't quite ride out of the exploding fireball like an avenging angel on two wheels, but the street does buckle slightly so I accelerate up the ramp thus formed and get some air time; that'll have to do for the moment. There's a momentary temptation to pop a wheelie when I land, which I totally indulge. Because why the fuck not.

As my front wheel hits the ground again and I cruise away into the cool night air, I take the time to appreciate the golden moment. For me, it's the interval between when I've just fucked up something that really deserved it, and the inevitable arrival of the forces of law and order (usually including Agents, which I'm still not counting out yet). It's also just preceding the point when I usually jack out, to be yelled at for whatever mayhem I've caused this time around.

Fortunately, I've still got stuff to do, so hopefully the Captain will have a little time to cool down before I'm face to face with her again. Specifically, I've got to dump Armsy's bike someplace the PRT will find it, then get Taylor home safely again.

On the downside, at some point I'm going to have to check in about the information I got from Coil, and if I hold off anymore, they'll know I'm stalling. With a sigh—Captain Hornblower's almost certainly going to get some pre-yelling in on me—I pull my phone out and make the call.

"Holy shit, Monobrow." Loki's voice is bubbling with mirth. "You've outdone yourself for sure now. How many millions of dollars' worth of property damage is that, anyway?"

"Meh, call it civic improvement. Besides, why would he go to all the effort of having a self-destruct installed if he didn't want to see it used? This way, he totally got his money's worth out of it." Well, that's one way to look at it, anyway.

"Morrigan." Now it's the Captain; my finely tuned pissiness sense picks up that she may be a tad upset with me. "Is there any other possible way you could have done that without attracting quite so much attention?"

I'm also fully aware that she's just posed a rhetorical question, but one of my joys in life involves answering such questions as if they'd been asked in total seriousness. Among other reasons, this reduces the number of rhetorical questions asked of me by a significant amount. It also irritates the fuck out of people, but that aspect has never truly bothered me.

"Sure thing, ma'am." I shrug, fully aware she can see me on the screen. "I could've shot him in the head or some other vital area, or stabbed him or garrotted him, but leaving his base intact raised the possibility that someone else coming in could've set off the self-destruct with a lot more casualties. The most effective way of rendering a bomb harmless is to set it off, and this way no innocents were harmed. Also, I felt this was a 'live by the sword' teaching moment. Not that he had long to appreciate the lesson, but it's not a perfect world."

From the Captain's snort, she's not buying it for a second. "We both know that you wanted to set that thing off from the moment you learned about it. I do take your point about excess casualties, though. It could've been a lot worse, and there weren't many ways you could alert their PRT to the danger without exposing yourself to more official scrutiny than you're already going to be under." She leaves unsaid the fact that after boosting Armsmaster's ride, they're not going to be welcoming me with open arms any time soon. Or rather, handcuffs are likely to be involved in any 'welcome' they want to inflict on me.

"Also," I point out as though I haven't just thought of this, "there's no way I could've scrubbed his system of every instance of Taylor's face. Better to turn it into individual bits and pieces, buried under a million tons of rubble."

"Yes, yes, we get it." Captain Hornblower sounds like she's already getting over her irritation. "There were many good reasons to blow that base sky-high. I'll make sure the paperwork reflects that you only had the best intentions in mind. What's your next move?"

"Captain," objects Loki. "With all due respect, this is a huge potential mistake. Morrigan is a dangerous loose cannon. Her record is full of—"

I hide a grin as the Captain cuts Loki off at the pass. She's switched off her own mic, but I can hear her through Loki's headset loud and clear. "I'm fully aware of Morrigan's record. I know exactly what she's capable of. Her out-of-the-box mindset is why she's on this mission. Your level of adaptability and capability as an operator is why you're on this mission. But if you truly believe you can't work with her in a professional capacity, I can and will remove you from that duty, even if I have to put on the headset myself. Do I make myself clear?"

The pause before Loki's answer tells me that he's having to metaphorically carve out the pound of flesh nearest his heart before he answers in the affirmative. I could tell him that there are people in this city who'd be happy to do it to him for real (or whatever passes for 'real' in the Matrix), but that might make him decide to do the stupid thing out of spite, and I figure the Captain's got enough on her plate as it is. "Sure thing, Captain. Crystal clear. If Morrigan can handle it, I can handle it."

I give it a beat so I can pretend I wasn't listening. "Okay, then, Captain. I'm thinking I'll hit the Merchants tomorrow. I know they're not really a gang like the others, but nobody else has much influence in that area, and I want to get a read on them too. Also, they're jerks. But right now, I've got to get Taylor home so we can both get our beauty sleep."

"That's understandable," she says. "You're the operative on the ground. But if you could keep the body count to a minimum, it'll make my paperwork much easier when I make my report to the powers that be."

"You're the captain, Captain." I'm not quite being flippant, but it's pretty damn close. "But just saying, the bad guys might not want to cooperate. So if they come at me, I will put them down."

'Minimum', we both know, doesn't mean 'zero'. Sometimes, it just means 'oh well, I tried'. If I ever have a gravestone, I don't want it to read 'at least she fought fair'. In combat, nice guys end up six feet under, and that's not going to be me.

"Copy that. I'll see you when you jack out." She cuts the call off then, and I put the phone away.

I can almost relax now, cruising on Armsmaster's bike through the back streets of Brockton Bay. The first sirens are just barely audible, all zeroing in on the massive pile of rubble that used to be Coil's base. They're gonna be hustling to get there ASAP, so they'll be using the main roads and depending on their sirens to make everyone else get out of the way.

All of which means I've got a clear run to get relatively close to Taylor's house before I dump the bike and send the PRT an anonymous message telling Armsy where to pick it up. It's a little bit of a pity to have to let it go, but I'm almost sure that Danny won't let Taylor keep it in the basement. Maybe Hookwolf's got one; after I finish kicking the shit out of him for Resting Bitch Face, I'll relieve him of his ride. And I won't even give it back, so there.

Hey, I like dogs too. The fact that the Machines wiped them all out might not be the number one reason why we kicked their asses, but it's definitely up there. So I'll kick Hookworm's ass just on general principles. Being a Nazi is bad enough, but being a Nazi who hurts dogs is just totally unforgiveable on every level.

Just as I'm considering that point, something small and dark but with a bright spark attached flies down out of the shadows right in front of me. I've got just enough time to pop a wheelie before it explodes with impressive force, right where my front wheel would've been. The bike shields me from most of the explosion, but it's thrown up and backward all the same.

Even as it goes irrevocably out of control, I'm bailing out. Ironically, the explosion cancels out nearly all of its forward momentum, so I'm not gonna be risking meat crayon status when I touch down. I go high and wide, pulling Whitey McWhiteface's pistols as I somersault through the air, using the motion to get myself a full three-sixty scan of my surroundings, including who threw that damn bomb. Also, who the fuck uses bombs with fuses anymore?

Tracking the minuscule smoke-trail back to its origin would be basically impossible for anyone else, but my eyes follow it upward anyway. It leads me right to where the clown-costumed form is parkouring down from the nearest rooftop. I would've spotted them anyway in another moment, but this saves me a little time.

To my eyes, all the stupid costumes the capes in this town make them look like clowns, but this one's really trying for the look. My recollection of the costume makes this one Circus, which is totally fitting. The only other thing I remember in the heat of the moment is that nobody's quite sure if it's a girl or a guy inside that costume.

Not that I care, one way or the other. Even if Taylor weren't underage, I'm not exactly chasing a romance inside the Matrix, and not just because Loki would be looking over my shoulder the whole time. I'm more interested in stopping them from placing me at ground zero for another one of those damned bombs.

I've already picked out my landing spot, so I level the left-hand pistol toward Circus, but just as I squeeze the trigger, they twist out of the way of the bullet. I'm actually impressed: that's a trick I've pulled myself more than once. My right-hand pistol angles in their direction, but just as I fire, they bounce off a fire escape, changing direction altogether.

I touch down then, landing on my feet and taking two running steps before bringing myself to a halt. My left-hand pistol is just coming into line when Circus throws two knives at me: one at where I am, and one at where I'm most likely to dodge to. I'm not entirely sure where they got the knives from, unless they've got sheaths up inside those poofy sleeves.

But I lean into the Matrix and shift my weight in the other direction, so the first knife skims past and the second misses by a wide margin. On the downside, my aim's been thrown off, which was probably the whole intention. On the upside, Circus now has two fewer knives on their person.

Regaining my footing, I bring both pistols around to target them, just as they do something funky with spacetime and suddenly they're holding two more of those bombs with the fizzing fuses. That's not sleight of hand; I know sleight of hand. What I just saw was Matrix bullshit.

Acting on instinct, I shoot both bombs before Circus can throw them at me. They're almost fast enough to get rid of them before I get the shots off; the bombs come apart into fragments about two feet from their hands. The lit fuses contact the cloud of powder, and there's a BOOOM that ragdolls them across the street. By the time the shockwave hits me, it's strong enough to make my coat flare out, but that's about it. No shrapnel worth talking about, which I'm perfectly okay with.

I come in fast, which is fortunate, because Circus is already shaking it off when I get there. One leg scythes around to try to take me off my feet, but I see it coming and evade. The move almost distracts me from their hands, but this time I see it happening.

When Circus reaches out in a certain way, the numbers change. In one hand, a Zippo lighter reforms from digital storage, while in the other it's a comically oversized hammer with streamers hanging off it. I'm not sure what they intend to do with those things, but the phrase 'nothing good' is bouncing around in my head.

Of the two items, I decide the hammer is more dangerous, so I kick out at their hand to disarm them of it. I'm disabused of that notion when they flick the lighter, then purse their lips and blow a huge plume of flame at me.

As I limbo under it, I decide that Circus is really, really irritating.

In other words, just like me.

They'd definitely make a good Matrix operative.

But that isn't winning this fight. I shoot the handle of the hammer, just above and below their hand. Then I kick the lighter out of their other hand. While they're still reacting to the hammer being reduced to a stick, I lay my backfist alongside their jaw. With the weight of the pistol behind it, that smack puts Circus on the ground, unconscious.

I've already investigated the storage panniers on the Armscycle, and I grab a couple of flex-cuffs to secure Circus with. There's even a metal cage I can erect on the back to put them in, which I do. Then I jump back on and head off once more. It's running a bit rougher than before, but it's still going, which I consider to be a testament to his bullshit mad-scientist tinker bullshit. (And yes, I said 'bullshit' twice. That was deliberate.)

Despite my best efforts to help it along, the bike dies just off Lord Street, about six blocks from Taylor's home. I park it, write a note for Armsmaster, reconnect the one homing beacon I left on the bike, and set out on foot. By the time I hear the incoming sirens, I'm well away from the area.

The house is quiet and still as I let myself in through the back door, Danny's soft snoring uninterrupted. I ease down into the basement and stash my gear, then come back up and take a quick shower. "Well," I say softly as I prepare for bed. "Time for me to go. I hope you had fun. See you again soon."

Climbing into bed, I pull the covers over myself and open my phone.

"Operator." For once, Loki has no commentary to give.

Nor do I. "Pull me out."

And I'm yanked back up out of the rabbit-hole.

<><>​

Miss Militia

By the time Hannah got to the site, Armsmaster was already there, glaring at the bike and its involuntary prisoner. His anger wasn't overly surprising; he was wearing a backup helmet with less functionality, and the bike was impressively dented and scratched. But at least it was (mostly) intact.

"Hi," she said quietly. "How are you doing?"

"She handled me like a rag doll, then stole my bike," he gritted. "How do you think I feel? And then there's this." He handed her a note.

Her eyes widened as she read it.

Hi, Armsy.

Thanks for the loaner. Vroom-vroom goes fast. Sorry about the dings. I'm sure they'll buff right out. Anyway, here's a peace offering. They did most of the damage.

In case you're wondering about the big boom and rubble and stuff, Coil's under all that. His Bond villain base had a self-destruct. Sorry, not sorry.

Morrigan (but you can call me Bandit, I don't mind)

PS: Coil was Thomas Calvert. Don't say I never did anything for you.

Click to shrink...

"Well," she said. "Um." Her eyes fell on Circus, who was glowering just as intensely as Armsmaster was. She wasn't even sure what to say about that.

This was going to be one hell of an interesting write-up.



End of Part Eighteen