Amakudari 1.5
Taylor caught the first bus home in good spirits. Fading into the distance behind her waterlogged athletes exchanged bon mots of 'Sophia sucks' as they passed each other on the soggy track. When the Coach called out 'Sprint Lap!' noises of complaint arose from the entire track at once. After the Coach hollered, "My Grandma can run faster than that.... and she's dead!" Taylor's swarm listened as exchanges between runners evolved to 'Kill Sophia' as the bus left the school behind out of her range.
Madison ran home almost two hours ago, but Taylor was able to have her swarm slip a new perforated roll of condoms into the petite girls' locker after she left. Filling them out last night had been fun with all the celebrity references; Richard Gere, Rod Stewart, Danny Thomas… she hadn't used politicians or she'd have been paralyzed by the possibilities. Later next week she'd go for one geographic location added to one mundane activity and >bam!< instant sexual position euphemism. Her favorite resulting 'Mad Lib' combination so far had been the Appalachian Pre-flight Checklist.
Emma left not much later with her Dad as expected. Taylor was disappointed she had been denied the chaos those defaced modeling advertisements would have caused, but there was still a stack of twenty or so hidden in the vents above for her swarms to distribute Monday morning. It was too bad she couldn't risk being there in person to see the trap get sprung when she got home, but the bus should pass by close enough for her to get a sense of the aftermath.
And Sophia…
It took a solid week until she tracked down where Sophia lived. Taylor got on the bus a stop before Winslow, and hid while Sophia got on and stayed busy on her phone almost the whole time. Then she pulled out a second phone and put it away after a glance. Sophia exited the bus and ran home, going upstairs to her room as the bus moved beyond Taylor's range but still within sight of the next bus stop where Taylor walked back up the hill to Sophia's home. She'd explain to her Dad she just forgot the time while studying at the city Library. Taylor brought in more bugs to investigate the row house when Taylor realized Sophia wasn't there. She sent more bugs inside through vents and up through the walls from cracks in the basement. Sophia's backpack was in the entryway, her clothes were in her room with the tracking bugs still on them, but Sophia herself had vanished. What. The. Fuck?
The only person in the house was Sophia's mother in the kitchen. Bugs from garbage cans in the alley behind verified there was no one there either. Maybe Sophia had taken a bicycle, like that one chained up to the utility pipes. But why would she change clothes first? More and more bugs poured out of the ventilation ducts and into Sophia's room as Taylor made her way back to the bus stop Sophia had taken. She sat on the bench, determined to get to the bottom of all this.
A line of roaches from the floor to the ceiling marched carapace to carapace around Sophia's room. Squadrons of flies inspected every shelf on the bookcase, the light fixture in the ceiling, the desk and beneath the bed. Spiders investigated the hanging clothes in the closet and shoes beneath. Nothing. The roaches finished circumnavigating the walls and crossed the ceiling and found nothing of significance.
But really, what did she expect? A bust of a famous composer whose head flipped back on a hinge to expose a red button that, when pressed, opened a sliding panel which revealed a brass pole labeled 'To The Bitchcave' where the Bitchmobile sat next to the Bitchcomputer scanning the skies for the Bitchsignal? As if.
Flies on the window found it locked, so if Sophia had exited through them, she wasn't coming back in the same way. Besides, how would she have locked it behind her? Taylor shook her head. Sophia's absence was distracting her from the task at hand: finding something Sophia regarded above all else to destroy as thoroughly as they had done to her Mothers' flute.
The clothes Sophia had worn that day lay haphazardly on top of a pile of others on the floor next to her closet. The light in the closet was still on, Taylor could tell by the warmth of the light bulb, but the door was closed. There was an access panel leading up into the attic, but no stepladder in the closet or folding ladder in the attic itself. Just plastic bins of Christmas decorations and junk in boxes, most likely. The closet held clothing hung with care, summer weight dresses shoved to one end with a Halloween costume and unkempt piles of shoes below.
The dresser contained no surprises, no taped envelope behind the drawers like at Madison's house, even if it had only held her passport and some foreign currency. Track and Field trophies vied for space on the top of the bookcase, but the shelves were relatively bare below. Guess Sophia wasn't much of a reader.
It was weird, in a way. Nothing in Sophia's room seemed overly personalized. None of the track trophies were displayed with pride like Emma's certificates of achievement or modeling portfolio had been, or the stuffed animal collection which threatened to overflow Madison's bed. The desk was barren save for the two phone chargers. Why two phones? Taylor realized she hadn't really picked up on that detail earlier on the bus. But while there wasn't much there in Sophia's room, what wasn't there that was also interesting. Nothing for relaxation, no music or hobby materials. Even less makeup than Taylor kept in her own bureau.
Taylor had caught Sophia buying steroids from that Merchant under the bleachers two weeks ago. She hadn't gone back to buy more, so where were they? Sophia's mother was still in the kitchen, so Taylor's bugs had investigated the bathroom, and there was no sign of those little glass bottles and plastic wrapped syringes anywhere. Not even in the separate bathroom off the master bedroom. Had she missed something in her search of Sophia's room?
Taylor used teams of bugs to pry open drawers so her swarms could search inside. Too bad they couldn't relay sight as more than a kaleidoscope of light and motion or she would try to read some of the papers she found in the nightstand. Would Sophia have hidden something in the walls behind an electrical outlet? Since she didn't want to betray her investigations with the smell of immolated insects, Taylor directed her swarms down inside the walls from the attic.
Taylor found the steroids and the needles along with many empty bottles in the space above the door frame between the walls. But the surprising part was the insulation hadn't been disturbed in the attic until her bugs burrowed through, and there were no electrical boxes that high. How the hell did they get there? There were other things resting on the fire blocks about halfway up the interior walls too. A phone. What felt like stacks of bills. Arrows.
Arrows? What the hell? No, wait… they were too short for arrows… Bolts? The answer broke through into reality as her swarm discovered a crossbow inside the vacant space in the wall between the closet and Sophia's room. Taylor felt her gut turn cold as dread overcame her. She sent bugs back into the closet and further investigated what she had at first thought was just a Halloween costume. The integrated mask eliminated all doubt. Who else would have a hag mask and could move things inside walls without a trace?
Sophia was Shadow Stalker.
No goddamn way… it really is the Bitchcave.
The two phone chargers, one old style, one new, plus the phone hidden between the walls. Why else keep the old phone unless it's for stuff not allowed on a phone for professional use? For cape use? The unused costume was made of a lighter material, probably a summer weight fabric. Now the sequence of events on the bus made sense. Sophia got a call from the PRT, suited up and ghosted away through the roof.
This is why Emma kicked me to the curb, Taylor realized. Why pal around with your old childhood friend when you could hang out with a real parahuman instead? Emma's parents had to know as well, especially after the locker. It made her want to undermine the foundation of her former friends' house now instead of just the driveway like she had been doing for over two weeks already. But that would be too noticeable. Taylor had lured moles to dig tunnels after the worms under her control. It had taken weeks and had been hard enough, especially guiding them to redirect runoff from the downspouts to underneath the driveway where decomposed wood from the greenbelt would sell the illusion of an old stump covered over by some lazy contractor and finally rotted away under torrential rains. On her morning runs she was still steering the moles to dig after tasty earthworms in order to expand and deepen the network of tunnels and just waiting for a large enough storm to flood it all. Any contractor brought in to fix it wouldn't care about the whys and wherefores, they'd just see a payday and a good story to tell their buddies.
Taylor glanced down at the duffel bag at her feet. Hundreds of Black Widow spiders she'd brought from home to weave silk all day rested inside. They may be all out of silk, but they're still full of unused venom. She could kill Sophia in three seconds flat with that many poisonous spider bites. Reaching out with her swarm, she wondered how many insects she could bring here, and how fast they could skeletonize Sophia once she was down.
Taylor broke herself out of that train of thought. If she killed anyone it would instantly mark her as a villain. It was the entire reason she didn't just attack her bullies with millions of bees. No direct attacks with insects, or secondary effects which could only come from bugs, only tertiary effects which could have another plausible source. She tried to envision herself as a Ward, doing heroic deeds alongside… Hell, she couldn't even finish that thought, what made her think being a cape on a team with Sophia would be any different? Maybe the PRT didn't know? Maybe she could gather evidence and get Sophia kicked out…
As if they would give up one of their own for an unknown, just like that. Even if they knew Sophia was the superbitch Taylor knew she was, it would still be a case of 'the devil you know is better than the devil you don't.' Oh crap, what if the Wards liked Sophia? Then they'd close ranks around her, even if Taylor brought all the evidence she had to bear. Why would they pick me over her if they had the choice? Give up an experienced crime fighter with a fearsome reputation for a girl with bug control powers? Yeah, right.
Taylor felt the cold from sitting outside for so long and realized the sun had set while she'd been absorbed investigating Sophia's room. She was putting too much thought into what-ifs. She knew that the school administration was covering for her activities as Ward, but there were some pieces which didn't quite fit in that simplistic point of view. Why the 3rd phone and cash hidden in the wall with the crossbow and sharp-tipped bolts? Taylors stomach rumbled. She didn't want to leave now, so she had her bugs bring several bills off of the stack out through the walls as well as an empty steroid bottle to an exterior vent she could easily reach when no one was looking. To camouflage the missing money, Taylor slipped a few bills to the next level down past the fireblock inside the wall. If Sophia even investigated it would look like some had slipped down the wall accidentally.
The bills were twenties and fifties, so Taylor felt no qualms about finding a Diner nearby and getting something to eat while she continued her surveillance of Sophia's house. She had enough change to call her Dad at work and tell him she'd be home late after a group from school wanted to go to see an Earth Aleph movie, and not to worry since she'd catch a ride back with them. She'd tell him it was all fake looking explosions and nausea inducing shaky camera work. Actually she'd take a cab after she finished here, but Danny bought her excuse and she settled down at a booth to order.
Hours passed as Taylor, under the cover of doing homework, plotted and planned over tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich, with coffee and an occasional dessert to make up for monopolizing the table all night. She was glad she'd figured out early on how to listen through her bugs as the quality of her education at Winslow had improved when she could effectively audit every class at once. She used that ability now to listen in on the mundane domesticity of Sophia's house even as she planned the girls downfall.
Sophia's hidden phone, cash reserves and weapons showed strategic planning, and to just run straight into prepared defenses usually didn't turn out well for the attackers, historically speaking. She probably had a set of backup gear at school as well. Now Taylor just had to figure out how to turn those assets into liabilities, or remove them from consideration altogether and pull an end run around Sophia's Maginot Line. Too many variables to consider right now, but she'd have to plan out Sophia's moves and likely counter-moves and have contingencies prepared for all of them.
Taylor gave up the notion that taking down Sophia would be as easy as going after Madison's quest for popularity through infamy. Turn her from 'That girl Madison' to 'That girl Madison who...' it didn't matter what the rumor mill spit out, just as long as the petite girls' reputation imploded. Emma was harder, because what do you get the girl who has everything? Money (Okay, Daddy's Money), looks, fame, a career as a model, what could undermine that? Maybe get a tick with lyme disease and...
No, wait... Nothing. Literally nothing. Nothing would be better than that. Put yellow food coloring in her diet sodas to stain her teeth. Drip blue food coloring down spider silk to stain sleep bags underneath her eyes. Eyedrops in her food to give her the runs. Mix salt into the sugar she put on her breakfast cereal to make it taste odd. Make aphids bite through one follicle at a time so she thinks she's losing her hair. Slip MSG into everything so she's constantly thirsty. Work her up into a panic about her health with no doctor able to find the reason until a few empty dropper bottles here, some printed pages of how to fake disease symptoms there and poor widdle Emma's desperate bid for attention comes to light. The more she denies, the more pathetic her perceived antics will seem. Enjoy your Munchausen's Syndrome, Emma. You'll deserve every second of it.
Sophia was a tougher nut to crack. She had support at school from her friends, the Track Team, and school administration which knows she's a Ward, where she also got support from her teammates, the Protectorate, the PRT administration and her own powers. Too many support systems to provide for her, so they'd all need to come down at the same time.
From what Taylor had been able to learn about the school administration by listening in with her bugs and observing how other bullies, gang issues and everyday problems got dealt with, they only wanted to maintain the status quo and most likely the PRT was the same way. The more waves Sophia generated, the more paperwork there would be, and like her Dad had often complained there were some people who were their own worst enemy and eventually caused more trouble than they were worth. Taylor just had to figure out how to get Sophia into generating that many "actionable" problems on her own, or with a little behind the scenes help.
In the Psychology class her bugs had helped her audit, they had gone through a unit on how reality TV shows intentionally generate conflict, and how some already existing groups fracture along minor points of contention which got blown totally out of proportion when exposed to stress. That would involve getting the Track Team or the Wards to turn on Sophia, or more likely getting her to turn on them. Damn, this was going to be a whole lot of work, Taylor realized.
The key would be to keep hitting all three of them from unexpected angles at the same time so that they abandon each other to focus on their own problems. But to have it all happen in a vacuum only to her three main tormentors would be like putting a neon bulls-eye on them, she would be just as visible in the glow. Therefore Taylor would need to arrange more cover for her own activities. One man running down the middle of the street attracts attention, but who would notice the same man in the middle of a marathon? That gave her a time limit: one month. One month to set up all the dominoes to fall and crush Emma, Madison, and Sophia to be lost among all the other pranks pulled on April Fools Day.
It was almost midnight when Taylor detected a tick as it dropped in and out of her senses above the rooftops where no tick should be. It headed for the row house she had investigated so thoroughly, and lost contact one last time on the roof to regain it inside Sophia's closet. Final confirmation that Sophia was Shadow Stalker as she hung up her costume, unbolted a security bar, and headed to take a shower. So easy to drop venomous bugs on her while she was helpless and deal with the problem permanently, and also get sent to jail for the same duration.
She gathered her belongings, left a nice tip with Sophia's money and called for a cab to drop her off close to home. Taylor thought, "I've got my ex-friend's fake illnesses to plan, slut shaming Madison to arrange, Sophia's cape life to destroy and the Track Team to frame for it; I'm swamped." She really needed to stop re-watching "The Princess Bride" so often...
The bus turned a corner which broke Taylor from her memories. Emma's house was barely within range for her bugs to pick out the tow truck out front and the expensive sedan with deployed airbags nose down in the collapsed driveway. Floating chunks of rotten wood mixed in nearby puddles along with a few drowned moles provided a simple, obvious, and completely wrong narrative for the so-called accident.
Investigating further it seemed Alan and Emma had to climb out the sunroof after their airbags deployed. And right now Emma was in a nice hot shower while her parents dealt with the repercussions of her bitchitude. A few bugs heard the shriek as Emma looked down at the puddle of warm water lapping over her feet to see a wad of red hair clogging the drain. Not even two percent of the hair on her head, but a little from all over, just enough to freak the redhead out. That and the gradually yellowed teeth should make her former friend demand to go to the doctor, only to find nothing wrong. A little visit later tonight for the fake bags under her eyes and Emma would waste the weekend going to see doctors with the manufactured symptoms to cloud the issue.
The skies cleared up as her bus got to her stop. Taylor walked home with a spring in her step she hadn't felt in a long, long time. She resolved to put on her costume and make tonight her first official night out as a cape.
Taylor thought, "After all, what's the worst that could happen?"
