An Imago of Rust and Crimson
Chapter 2.10
Wrapped in the haze of my loneliness, I hiked down to a night bus stop and caught a ride down to the Docks. I'd skipped the ones closer to my house, and the driver and the mix of late-night workers and drunks paid no attention to me as I boarded, which suited me just fine.
Isolation pushed the world away from me. At one stop, a pair of women staggered on, clinging onto each other for support. For a moment, it looked like they were going to try to sit right on top of me. Then they swayed drunkenly in another direction, led seemingly at random to another pair of seats.
I could really get used to this. People ignoring me when I actually wanted them to would make school so much easier. Even better, Isolation seemed to make them ignore me even though they saw me – I wasn't actually 'invisible'. That should mean they wouldn't walk into me. I hated it when people did that at school. They didn't even have the excuse of not being able to see me.
I pressed the button to get off, and the bus pulled to a stop, even though the driver looked kind of annoyed. Pulling my gloves onto my hands, I set off along the city streets. It had started raining again while I was on the bus, leaving yellow halos around the sodium streetlights. I kept having to wipe down the lenses of my gas mask. They were as bad as glasses that way.
Two old men were fighting in an alley as I passed. They were each so bundled in thick clothing that they looked almost spherical as they pounded on each other with fat fists. I paused for a moment to examine them in the Other Place, where their problems were written right on their twisted faces. One had the same babbling schizophrenia as the preacher and Emily. The other was a mosaic of old broken glass, who wept dark foamy tears. An alcoholic, I guessed.
What could I do to help? I couldn't think of anything. I mean, I could probably try something which might make them stop fighting, but that might go wrong. And even if they stopped fighting, I couldn't really help them. I couldn't get them off the streets or get them into rehab or… or anything. I was just one person, and my power hadn't stopped those security guards from going for that skater.
God. This sucked.
Hands in my pockets, I wandered through the streets. In the Other Place, they were marked by misery and vice like graffiti. I found myself having to step around the black-red oil stains that marked deaths. Thankfully, there weren't many people about. My body tensed up whenever I saw a new stranger, even with Isolation surrounding me. This wasn't a safe place.
At last, I came to the sweatshop.
It seemed almost worse at night. The great coiling dark shapes in the sky blotted out the dim and bloody moon of the Other Place. The long shadows cast by guttering street lights hinted at the monstrosity within the building. The suggestion somehow made it worse. The stink was just as bad, and I gagged as it pierced my gas mask. Now I noticed a slow pulsing from it, which moved the air in the Other Place to force fresh waves of rot down my throat.
It was breathing. Or beating, like a heart.
I swallowed, and wished I hadn't. This might not be such a good idea. But I was all out of good ideas, and I couldn't let a place like this exist any longer. I would get it shut down. I could matter. I wasn't someone who could just be shrugged off by a principal who'd prefer to listen to girls prettier and more popular than me – at least until I forced her to
do her damn job. I was going to be the better woman; better than her, better than any of those bitches.
So. First step was to get in. The doors were shut and probably locked, and I didn't think Isolation would be able to conceal it if I broke a window. Not that I could probably get in through the ancient, dirty, tiny windows of this old redbrick factory. I'd climbed the fire escape of another one of these buildings, but the sweatshop didn't have its lowered, and I couldn't jump that high, which was a shame because I could see that there was a fire exit on the roof. That also ruled out jumping between buildings. Maybe an athlete could have made it. I wasn't athletic.
I supposed I'd just have to lurk by the door until someone went out for a smoking break, and tailgate in. That didn't sound like fun. It was raining again, and even if my clothes were water resistant that meant I was still getting unpleasantly damp. Who knew how long I'd have to wait?
After a few minutes I got bored, and my mind started to wander. I tried the handle, but it was locked. Maybe it shut up at night. No, I could see light coming in from under the door. I tried walking a circuit of the building, but all the other doors were just as locked.
I took a breath. I was cold, wet, and I didn't want to look in the Other Place any longer than I had to. I just wanted to get up to the roof. Was that too much to ask for?
A thought struck me. My barbed wire cherubs could teleport things around. Things like books. Hell, that had been one of the first things I'd consciously and deliberately done with my power. What if I could move myself? It wasn't certain it would work. Parahuman powers often didn't make 'logical' sense from my research, like how there were people who could heal others, but not themselves. But my power was 'making things which had powers', so – much like Tinkers – I seemed to be more flexible, if I did the right thing.
So I'd probably need a different construct. Something larger. More powerful. I weighed a lot more than a book, after all. I visualised what I'd need, and exhaled, filters hissing.
The creature that formed from the dark mist was no cherub. It was a fully-fledged angel made of barbed wire. Even its rusty wings were just wire tracings in the air, though they still managed to remind me of a butterfly's. It was tall, skeletally thin, and vaguely feminine. It took after me, I guess. Kind of. Too-long arms hung down by its side, knife-like fingers nearly scraping the ground. I realised with mild unease that it had an extra joint in each of its limbs.
And, of course, it was wearing a gas mask over the wire. Had I imagined it like that? I wasn't sure.
I cleared my throat, and tried not to gag from the smell of the sweatshop. My creation tilted its head at the noise, staring with those glassy lenses. I shivered. "Take me to the roof," I ordered it, wincing at the thought. The cherubs had managed to move things without damaging them, but I was still scared.
The gas mask angel bowed its head once, and then stepped forwards, wrapping its bladed hand around mine. I screamed. I couldn't help it. I didn't want it to cut me.
Then there was just the Other Place. The Other Place I had seen through the eyes of Sniffer. No, worse. Deeper. My eyes ached, like there was nothing around me. I was blind; no eyes, no ears, no mouth or tongue or touch. I couldn't feel my clothes. I couldn't even feel where my legs were. A chill filled me to the very bones, and even worse, I wasn't sure that I had a body. I could feel everything. I could feel nothing.
I think I tried to cry out, but there was nothing. I couldn't even tell how long it lasted. The concept made no sense. There was only me, and nothing else. I was utterly alone.
Then that moment was gone, and I was back in the shallows of the Other Place, on top of the rot and filth of the sweatshop.
The angel released me, and I fell down, shedding the Other Place as I did. On all fours I hugged the cold, wet rooftop. I managed to fumble off my gas mask and roll up my balaclava before I was sick. I emptied my stomach, retching until only bile came up. The Other Place had been so cold. No, it hadn't been cold. Coldness wasn't the right way of thinking of it. It was more like heat simply hadn't existed. There had just been… nothing. No warmth. No light. No senses. No time. Nothing but me – and maybe not even all of me.
There was water on my face, and I knew it wasn't just the rain.
Panting and queasy, I pulled myself to my feet, staggering away from the steaming, chunky puddle. I just had to get my breath back. I pushed my glasses up my forehead and wiped my eyes, blinking in the rain. I spat over the edge of the roof, trying to get rid of the taste of vomit, and opened my mouth to the rain.
I was such a fuck up. God, half the things I tried with my power seemed to end with me scaring myself or making myself ill. I just wanted to make a difference. To help people. And then over and over, I got kicked in the face for it. No other cape had to go through sensory deprivation torture to get on top of a stupid
roof.
Sniffing, I wiped my eyes, and slipped my glasses back down. The worst thing was, I knew I could easily make myself stop feeling so bad. I could turn off my fear of what I'd seen – hadn't seen. Now I knew what would happen if I called on the gas-mask angel to teleport me, I could make it... not a problem.
I just wasn't sure that I wanted to make myself into that sort of person. Into someone who didn't have a problem with what I'd been through.
I breathed and swallowed. Looking out over the ocean, I could see the radio balloon moored over the Protectorate headquarters out in the bay. It was a darker shape against the night's sky. Of course they didn't put lights on them. The network of radio balloons were what they used for tracking and navigation. Speaking of which, I could see a flight of two insectoid helicopters taking off from the launch bay, silhouetted against the sky. They were flying low over the water, and if I hadn't been already looking in that direction I'd have never seen them.
I needed to get out of sight. The last thing I needed was to be seen and for someone to draw attention to me by – like, shining a spotlight or something. Those things were meant to have on-board AI systems, high powered scanners, smart missiles - the works. And since Isolation only seemed to make people ignore me rather than making me invisible, I'd probably show up on sensors. Sure, they'd probably just ignore one person at night, but what if they could detect the use of parahuman powers? I didn't know.
God, was something happening elsewhere in the city just on the night I happened to pick for this? I really hoped not. I didn't want the police to be distracted by other things when I handed in my evidence.
I spat again, trying my best to ignore the taste in my mouth as I put my gas mask back on. This wasn't pleasant. Edging around my vomit, I approached the fire exit on the roof. When I tried the door, it was locked.
Great. Just fucking great. I was
not getting down from here by calling on the gas mask angel again. I just couldn't. Not right now, not without any danger. The door was shut, but it was just a stupid fire exit! It'd be so easy to open it from the inside. But I was on the outside. It was like trying to open a box with the key locked inside it.
I snorted as the solution struck me. Taking a breath, I shifted to the Other Place and exhaled a static-filled television screen. The white fuzz cleared, showing me the filth-coated interior of the door. I reached through the icy cold screen, pushing my hand through the glass to touch the handle and open the door.
I shivered as I withdrew my hand through the icy membrane. That wasn't cold, was it? That was a lack of heat. They were distinct, somehow. I shouldn't think about that. Not now. I was sure I'd be having enough nightmares about the depths of the Other Place as it was.
Rubbing my hands gingerly to try to warm them up without hurting myself, I stepped into the sweatshop, and closed the door behind me. The rusty walls were filthy with dried blood, and my feet squelched on the floor. I shed the Other Place as fast as I could, and looked at the corridor with normal eyes. The first thing I noticed was a distant repetitive noise. It was muffled by my gas mask, and I couldn't identify it, but it sounded familiar. I carefully shut the fire door behind me, cocking my head to listen. The lights were dimmed, but on, and the corridor looked like an office. I guessed that made sense. The shop floor was probably where they had the workers, so they'd keep the organizational stuff up here. The paperwork, the security rotas, the delivery records, and everything else involved in running a sweatshop.
That was good. This was where the stuff I was looking for would be located. If the outside had been this bad, I didn't want to go anywhere near the shop floor.
My shoes squeaked on the tiled floor. The noise of machinery got louder. I was going to see what else was here before I started looking for evidence. The top floor was abandoned, so I took the stairs down, trying to avoid making noise. The next floor down was properly lit, and I could hear other people. I poked my head through an open doorway, into a rec room where a guy sat with his feet up on old worn green couch. He was wearing a uniform and had a radio and baton at his belt, so he was probably one of the security guards.
Lazily, the man's gaze swept across me. He didn't give any sign he'd noticed a strange, darkly dressed gas-masked figure at the door. It was a little bit creepy. I'd really wanted it to work, of course, because I would be in so much shit if it failed, but it was still weird.
My heart beating louder, I continued my exploration of this floor. I did stumble on a bathroom cubicle, and take the chance to wash out my mouth. And then I found a gantry which looked down onto the shop floor. I edged over and stared down.
The harsh fluorescent lighting was bright compared to the darker corridors I'd been sneaking through. There wasn't even the cover of darkness to hide anything. There was row after row after row of tables, each packed with sewing machines. People – they looked Asian – were sitting at each of the machines. Whenever one of them finished their current bit of clothing, one of the people walking around with baskets would take it, while other people brought fresh material.
They were working late at night. They must keep this place running 24-7, swapping out staff in shifts. They were probably bussing them in from some kind of labour compound. There were all kinds of places in the city you could keep a mass of workers. You'd just need to find an old tenement going cheap, or even an abandoned warehouse or something, and then you'd just buy it up and pack it with people.
There were men in the guard uniforms patrolling up and down. They had their batons in hand. The figures in the – I was going to call them 'watchtowers' – had shotguns, and while they weren't raised they were close to hand. Oh yes. Those guards put any idea that this was a legitimate factory to rest. You don't have people with shotguns watching over normal workers, or people with batons patrolling among them.
The entire place smelt of sweat and cloth and – I sniffed – even through the mask, there was a hot smell too. Warm plastic, maybe. From the machinery, I guessed, or… maybe some kind of glue? I could probably tell more easily if I took the gas mask off, but that would remove the point of it. I hadn't thought about how wearing this would affect my sense of smell.
Shame it didn't protect me from the reek of this building in the Other Place. I wasn't going to look at the Other Place reflection. I… I just couldn't. I didn't want to see. It was bad enough in the real world. I could almost believe I could smell it creeping through into reality. As if this place was bad enough that the Other Place was intruding on reality. I hoped it was just my imagination.
I really hoped so.
Fumbling in my pocket, I pulled out my disposable camera. I wound the film on, and took a few pictures of it. I made sure to get the guards with guns. This… I couldn't let this go on.
When I'd seen all I could bear, I turned and left. I wanted to do more. I wanted to hurt the guards. I wanted to make them suffer. I wanted to force them to see, smell, taste everything I saw, rub the pain of this place in their faces. I wanted them to dream of it, to have nightmares like I had.
It was leave, or do something rash. And there was just enough of me left that I didn't want to risk that. Not when I was going to get
all of them thrown in jail to rot.
I was literally shaking with rage as I made my way back up to the top floor. It was a good thing I didn't come across someone on my way there, because I don't know what I would have done. It was darker and cooler above, and that seemed to damp the anger slightly. I was going to take them down. Punching people wouldn't work. And it would hurt my hands. I choked the rage down and let cold bitterness take its place.
I checked the doors until I found some kind of manager's office. It was locked, but it was the kind which could be opened from the inside. I reached through a cherub-held screen, and unlocked it, letting myself in and turning the lights on. The room was about the same size as the guards' rec room, but was better carpeted and had cheap paintings hung up on the walls. There was a desk with a computer on it, next to filing cabinets. One wall had a window, and the other one was occupied by a table and stacked chairs. I guessed this room had probably been the boss' place when this had actually been a proper factory.
The worst thing was that it was less horrible than some of the corridors. It was still a stinking, sordid mess, but in the face of the unrelenting horror of the Other Place it was marginally less horrific. Perhaps I was getting inured to it. More likely I was just so angry that I didn't have room to feel sick.
I shed the Other Place and got to hunting. There was a framed picture of a man with a woman and a child on the desk. My stomach churned, and my hands balled into fists. I forced myself to relax, because it hurt. The anger was still there, though. What does Daddy do all day? Oh, he
keeps people as slaves so other people can have cheap clothes. How dare he put a picture of his family on his desk. How dare he treat it as just another job! How
dare he!
I was grinning to myself as I exhaled out a barbed wire cherub. Only it wasn't a grin. Not really. It was more of a snarl. Sorry, kid, I thought to the picture. I know this is going to hurt you, but if your Dad really loved you, he wouldn't do this.
The cherub returned with the files I wanted, and I got to skim-reading. Each time I found something interesting, I took a picture of the page with the disposable camera, aware of how I was getting through the film quickly. Grind, grind, grind. Click. Grind, grind, grind. Click. Paper rustled as I turned the page. Grind, grind, grind. Click. Grind, grind, Grind. Click.
Okay, I thought to myself as I slowly worked my way through the records, taking pictures of everything that looked of interest – especially the deliveries – there
had to be a better way of doing this than using disposable cameras. Especially since I was only getting one copy of the evidence here. I ran out of film too quickly, too.
Oh. Yes, I should get myself a polaroid camera. I could… maybe afford it? I might have to save up for a while, but that'd be perfect. I could get the pictures straight out. Of course, what would be ideal would be a digital camera, but there would be no way I could afford something like that. It was a pipe dream. In the meantime, I'd just have to build up a stock of cameras hidden in my room, and have barbed wire cherubs bring me more when I needed them. Twenty four pictures weren't enough.
I tried my best not to think of what had happened when the angel had teleported me.
When I was done, I had another barbed wire cherub put the folders back in the locked cabinet, and turned my attention to the computer. When I turned it on and waited a few minutes while it booted up, I found out that there was a password. Damn. Maybe they'd written the password down somewhere? I rooted around the desk, and found a post-it note stuck to the underside of the keyboard.
'jwinzu – 091m4@bfDkWyc93x' I read, and input the username and password. A sixteen digit alphanumeric string with special characters, written on a post-it note stuck to the bottom of the keyboard. It was almost funny.
Hell, it was funny.
I grinned as the Windows 2002 log-in screen flashed by, and then swore under my breath at the noise the machine made. I turned the screen off and waited, but no one came to poke their heads in. It was lucky that this top floor was mostly empty. Cautiously I turned the screen back on, and started browsing, my mask lit by the monitor. Documents… okay, lots of documents. All in folders named things like "Accounts" and "Orders" and "Shipping" and "Staff". Oh, and something which was labelled 'notes.txt', but seemed to be a folder. I wondered what was in there.
Oh. A folder of porn on a work computer. Blushing, I checked if it was… like, something really bad, but no, it seemed to just be vapid blondes with breasts the size of their heads kissing each other. Charming. I closed that with a shudder.
But apart from that, I thought checking the other folders, I'd hit the jackpot. Spreadsheets. Documents. Instructions. Contracts. How could I get them off this computer? I could steal the computer, I guessed, but that'd tell them it was missing. Plus, it might raise suspicions if Dad found a computer tower in my room.
Urgh. Why hadn't I thought to pack some floppy discs in my superheroing kit? Oh yes, because I hadn't thought I'd ever need them. Well, that was going to change in the future.
Email. Yes. I could zip up the files and then set them as attachments. I set the computer compressing the files I wanted, and followed the cables back to find the modem. I turned it on, and then connected the internet. The electronic noises were very loud in the silence and I was scared someone had heard it, but no one came. After I'd zipped up each file, I uploaded it to a discardable email address I registered. I could go grab the files on a floppy on a library computer or something. It was painfully slow going, though.
I was just starting on uploading the "Staff" file when the lights outside the room turned on. "Shit," I breathed to myself. "Cancel, cancel, cancel." I turned the screen off, pulled out the modem cable and listened for the sound of footsteps. There were two – maybe more? – people coming closer, their feet echoing on the tiled floor. I hit the power switch, and looked around desperately. Where could I hide? Under the table pushed up against the wall next to the stacked chairs? Good enough. Sure,
maybe Isolation would work, but I wasn't going to risk it. After all, I'm pretty sure there's nothing in the superhero's rules which say you can't hide as
well as use Stranger powers.
And fuck, I realised. The lights had been off when I'd come in. And it was too late to turn them off because they were just outside the door and… I tried to keep quiet and control my breathing.
"The lights are on," I heard. "Did you leave them on?"
"I… didn't think so," another man replied. "But… hmm. I can't remember." A key scraped at the lock, eventually managing to open the door. Three men walked in. One of them I'd seen in the pictures on the desk, although he was just wearing a t-shirt and jeans and looked decidedly tired. His brown hair was lank and he had bags under his eyes. It was past midnight after all. One of them was just big – muscular as well as fat – and wearing a balaclava. The other, however… well, I couldn't see his eyes. Or his hair. Because he was wearing a blank theatrical mask over the top of a balaclava not too different from mine.
A cape. Probably a villain. This was a sweatshop and he didn't seem to be arresting the manager. I was already trying not to make any noise, but I tried even harder. A parahuman might have a power which could find me, which meant I might have to rely on not being noticed mundanely.
"Check the window," the cape told the big guy.
"Locked," the thug said. He was wearing big heavy boots which were splattered with mud. They looked like they were military-made. "Doesn't look like it's been opened. And," he rattled the handle, "not broken or nothing."
It wasn't broken or
anything, I thought to myself irritably. I knew this wasn't the time, but… dammit, Mum was an English lecturer and certain habits got set at a young age. Just like how I wrote texts and emails
properly, thanks very much.
"Oh, thank goodness," the manager said, shaking his head. "I was worried you might have found a break-in, Mister Watchful. When you get a call when you're in bed from your PSC… well, I…"
"Shut up." The masked man sniffed, his head scanning the room. His shoes clicked on the floor as he paced back and forth, interspersed by sniffs. Click, click, click. Sniff. Click, click click. His eyes lingered on the table for a moment. "I can feel something," he said. "There is a danger. Something is threatening you, Mr. Welbret. Something close by. There's…" his head scanned from left to right, "… something." He was sweeping the room, and his gaze was settling more and more on the table. "Vague. But real."
He sniffed again. My heart almost stopped. The gas mask was fogging up as I hyperventilated, and my breaths were loud in my ears. Shit. Shit. This must be some kind of… of precog or 'danger-seer' or something like that. And the manager had mentioned PSC, a private security contractor. Or 'Pinkerton Stupid Cunts', as my dad called them when he didn't think I was in earshot range. You try being the daughter of a union leader; then you'll hear all about PSCs. They were muscle for rent. Tended to hire a lot of people straight out of the military, and they were part of the 'business community'. And some of them had parahumans working for them. No wonder a place like this could keep going if they were hiring someone with a danger sense.
I slipped into the Other Place. The manager was a grey, dull corpse with hands coated in dried blood, while the thug was a beast-man hybrid with unreadable writing covering his shirt. But it was the cape who drew my attention. The man's mask was twisted into a wide-eyed theatrical grimace, and eyes bubbled over the surface of his skin.
It wasn't the man I was looking at.
From his head, delicate fronds of light waved and trembled. They reminded me of ferns, in how they branched and coiled. Or maybe they were like some kind of creature which lived in coral. They were certainly mobile in a way plants weren't, because their movements were not random. They were sweeping back and forth.
They were so delicate and beautiful and… and they were everything the Other Place wasn't. I don't know how else to describe it. Where everything else was dark and dirty and stank, they were pure and bright and beautiful. They felt good. I could sit here, hiding under a table, afraid that I'd be caught and killed – or worse – and watch them all day. They made such pretty pictures in the air as they caressed the ceiling and the walls and the floor and the computer.
They didn't come near me, though. No. They didn't like me. Or maybe they didn't like Isolation. When one frond drifted too close, the razor-edged rusty butterflies that made up the flight of Isolation went for them. Diaphanous light met corroded iron, and iron won.
It… it didn't feel good to know my power was doing that to something so beautiful. There was enough left of me that I realised this had to be how his power looked for things, but it was so beautiful I almost didn't care. For so long I'd only seen horror and ugliness in the Other Place and now I had something worthwhile for the first time. Something I actually wanted to see. Just staring at his power when he was doing things felt
good. Really, really, really good. And it wasn't his power doing it, because I felt it even as Isolation cut the ribbons of light. They never got to touch me. This feeling was coming from inside me.
Their words were a blur. I could hear them, yes, but I wasn't paying any attention. I didn't care I was in the Other Place, surrounded by the stench of gore and worse. I was too focussed on watching the soft tendrils of light playing all around the place. I could see how they moved, how they swept, and there was something about them I could almost, achingly, nearly understand. I got that the far-less-important men were talking about security and there was probably something about contacting him if they had any break-ins, but I just wasn't paying attention.
Here was all the beauty, all the grace, everything good that the Other Place normally lacked. I felt… dirty and unclean by contrast. All my power did was to make monsters and show me horrid things.
It hurt to pull myself away from the light. It made my hands ache, and reminded me of all the little pains of normal life. I just knew I needed to get out of here before they started searching the room properly. I couldn't stay here. Shouldn't.
I closed my eyes, and imagined the gas-mask angel again. I could feel myself start to shake. I knew what was coming. Especially after seeing something so beautiful, I didn't want to go through… through that again. But I had to.
I exhaled, and it was there, staring down at me. The tendrils of light avoided it. Didn't want to go near it. I wasn't surprised – nor did I. First I needed line of sight. I crawled out from under the table when no one seemed to be looking in my direction, and bolted for the window.
The manager was in my way. I didn't care. I might have been skinny and built like a stick, but he didn't expect me at all. I barged past him, sending him sprawling, and the words "What the f-" were just about leaving the mouth of one of the others when I reached the window. I could see the rain-soaked sidewalk outside, on the other side of the street.
'Take me there,' I thought at the gas-mask angel, desperately.
Then there was just the nothingness again. I was screaming. I was sure of it. Even if there was no sound, I was stuck in an eternal infinitesimal, observing with nothing to observe.
I landed down on the pavement, and nearly collapsed. I staggered over to the nearest streetlight and clung onto it, breathing deeply and trying not to retch. I'd bitten my tongue and the taste of hot copper filled my mouth. My fingers were throbbing like I'd just reopened every wound on them, and I had a stomach cramp. I waited just long enough that I could stand, and staggered off down the street again. I shouldn't stay around here. Even if I might have the chance to see that power again.
My tears painted halos around the lights.
I found a bus stop a few blocks away, and sat there, wrapped in Isolation, trying not to throw up. There was an old drunk who came down and sat at the other end of the bench, but he never even looked in my direction. When a night bus showed up, I went to sit at the back, away from the drunks and druggies. I took off my balaclava and my gas mask, and curled up into a ball, head resting on my forearms.
I had my evidence. Some of it. I hadn't gotten all the stuff from the computer, but… but I had my photos and some files on that email account. And I felt like shit and my tongue was bleeding and from the sticky warmth under my gloves my hands were in an even worse state. I was shaking and my eyes were watery.
The lights outside passed in a haze as the bus crawled along, rain pattering off its roof. One collection of noisy drunks got on. Another got off.
God. What the fuck was wrong with me? Why was my power so… so
sordid? Why did it hurt me? Why… why couldn't I have
anything nice? I knew, deep in my gut, that I'd get the same rush from other parahumans. I knew it. I almost didn't want to go to bed. If I went out again, maybe I'd find another parahuman on the streets. I could watch them. See how their power worked. How beautiful it was, compared to mine. I could just sit there and watch and feel the comforting warmth wash over me. Wash away the pain of my aches and my bleeding and the cramps and… and everything in my life.
Because it had felt good. Really good. Really,
really good.
The classic comparison would be to say that it felt better than sex, but… uh, I kind of didn't have a baseline for observations there. If I was going to compare it to things I'd actually experienced, I'd say it felt as good as the painkillers they'd had me on in hospital. No, it felt
better , because it didn't come with the wooziness, and there was a more wholesome feel to it. Sort of like the feeling you get when you eat chocolate.
So watching parahuman powers in the Other Place felt like a mix of opiates and chocolate. It would probably be more pithy to say something like 'chocolate-coated heroin', except I was pretty sure you couldn't actually coat heroin in chocolate, because wasn't it like a liquid? I suppose you could… like, inject heroin into the centre of a soft-centred bit of candy. The same way you get that gross orange goop in them..
I shook the wanderings from my head. The point was that it felt
amazing. I wanted to do it again. I… I needed it.
I pursed my lips, tasting blood. No. I needed rest. Real rest, not just forcing Cry Baby away from me. I was tired and emotional. It was the stress getting to me. It would be silly to go running off again tonight. I needed to sleep. I'd nearly been caught anyway. I'd sleep and then write up my letter to the Protectorate and send them the evidence. After all, there were parahuman criminals involved in this, right? It made sense to send it to them!
And with a little spying, I could find out when they were going to raid the place – they'd have to raid it, there was no way they could ignore it – and tag along under Isolation. Then I could see what they did. Watch real heroes in action. See their powers.
I'd make sure they'd do the right thing, of course. And I could help them from the shadows. I wasn't a fighter, but I was good at noticing things and… and I could probably find a way to warn them without having to talk to them. Like having a barbed wire cherub carry notes to them or something.
I wiped my nose on my coat and polished my glasses. I'd made a mess of my first outing as a secret hero, hadn't I? Well, maybe not a complete mess. I'd got some of the evidence I wanted. I could still get that place shut down. I hoped. But late at night, when I was hurting like this, inside and out, and I'd been through… through That Place, right in the depths of the Other Place – well, I was feeling weepy. Maybe I'd feel better when I wrote-up the full message I was going to give to the Protectorate and signed it from 'Panopticon'. Although, urgh. I wasn't looking forwards to having to write my covering letter.
Smiling weakly, I tried to think of the story I'd have to tell Dad. Maybe I should reconsider the whole journalism thing. My job would writing essays if I did that – because I certainly wasn't news anchor material – which would
basically be a kind of living hell.
And whoever heard of a cape who was secretly a journalist?
…
Yes, that was a joke. I do know about Superman. We watched the film from the seventies in Parahuman Studies.
