An Imago of Rust and Crimson (Worm crossover)
- Thread starter EarthScorpion
- Start date
3.06
An Imago of Rust and Crimson
Chapter 3.06
"Glory Girl. This is Panopticon. Stand by for your briefing," I told a cherub with a microphone for a head.
Her image was on the old TV in my room. I sat on my bed in my pyjamas and dressing gown, setting my plan in motion. I'd sent Watcher Doll to her room, to spy on her. Glory Girl – it didn't feel right to think of her as 'Victoria' – was sitting there, on her bed. She was like my mirror image, except she had dark clothes on under her dressing gown and she was listening to a police scanner rather than watching an old TV.
It made me feel more certain about what I was about to do. We weren't so different. We both sat up at night seeking out crimes to stop. She was just prettier, richer, famous, and had a support network and a power that didn't force her to see horrible things all the time.
Maybe this was going to work.
She flinched as my voice came out of the scanner. "Panopticon?" she asked, looking around wildly. "Who is this? I swear, if this is some kind of prank-"
"This is no prank," I told her. I'd pinned away my fear, so I could say this without my voice shaking. I checked the notes in front of me. I'd prepared lines for this. Some of them were straight out of TV shows like Fortnight or PPD: DC, so they should sound pretty authentic. "I am Panopticon. I am speaking to you on behalf of Project Crucible, a project intended to provide unconventional solutions to domestic criminal and terrorist threats on US soil. You have been selected to receive information on a domestic threat due to psychological profiling. It is believed you will make good use of it."
The screen of the TV was getting bigger and bigger, becoming less like a window and more like a door. The blond girl on the screen continued looking around. "Are you spying on me?" she demanded. "And… who the hell are you? I've never heard of Panopticon."
I focussed, and sent a cherub to check that the box I'd sent to her front door was still there. It was. "Glory Girl," I said, "you have been monitored to ensure that you do not associate with criminal elements, and your background has been vetted. A package has been delivered to your front door. Please collect it immediately. It contains information as to the whereabouts of Charles Haythorn, who is wanted for two counts of murder. This information is something the police want." I paused. "It is believed that-"
"Look," she said scornfully, "you're clearly some stupid little girl who thinks she can pretend to be someone important. You're not. You can't do anything. You don't even matter. Just… fuck off, okay?"
And then she reached out and turned my TV screen off as the smell rolled in.
I lay there in blackness. Red hot pains stabbed through my body, and my own blood was a warm trickle over my cooling skin.
I could almost ignore the pain, compared to the other violation. The bugs were back. They were crawling into my wounds, working themselves bone-deep, and I didn't have the strength to fight them off and all I could do was lie there and I was useless and hopeless and weak and couldn't do a thing to save myself. I couldn't scream anymore. Not that it would have mattered. No-one had come even when I had screamed.
The scent of rot and old blood filled my nostrils, and I knew I was dying. My blood was seeping out from every wound, and where drops fell they just became more bugs and they tried to push themselves back in – only they were wrong, wrong, wrong! I couldn't do anything and I was going to die in here and no one was coming and I couldn't even move to hammer on the locker door.
Something forced its way into my mouth.
I woke with a scream. Sitting bolt upright in bed, I shivered uncontrollably. The sickly smell of night-sweat filled the room. It was dark outside, streetlights providing the only illumination, but it was blindingly bright compared to the locker.
Sinking forwards, I massaged my brow. No. Dammit. It hadn't worked. Phobia must have escaped during the night. I'd reached the point where my tiredness was overcoming my ability to beat down Cry Baby, so I'd had to sleep. I'd thought that trapping my fear in the bathroom would help, but I wasn't strong enough to hold her for the whole night. She must have crept back into my lungs while I was dreaming.
I rubbed my eyes and tried to reassure myself. Look on the bright side. At least this way I'd got some sleep without nightmares. I shifted to the Other Place, and exhaled Cry Baby. It was weak, so I'd probably had basically a good night's sleep. That meant I'd be okay for another three, maybe four days. Two at the absolute least.
All the high-tech tinkerfab luxuries in that mall, and there hadn't been an over-the-counter drug to get rid of the need for sleep. I'd have blown everything I had on stocking up.
I got up, washed my face, took a shower, and then returned to my room. It was Saturday today, which meant I was free of school. I sat down again on my bed, hugging my knees. My real contact with Glory Girl hadn't gone like that nightmare. It had worked. More or less. I didn't think she'd entirely believed me, but she'd gone downstairs and checked outside the front door and she'd brought the information up.
A little bit of me was disappointed that she'd given the information to her parents. I sort of wanted to watch her crashing in through the window and dragging Haythorn out of the window by his collar Alexandria-style. She'd totally done the responsible thing, but – I sighed, being responsible you didn't get results as fast. From what I'd heard of their discussion, they didn't trust anonymous tip-offs from mysterious sources. They'd reminded her – several times – that other heroes had died when tip-offs had turned out to traps.
Damn villains, ruining it for everyone else.
Glory Girl hadn't told her parents about Panopticon, though. That gave me a little warm feeling inside. She'd just said she heard a knock at the door when she was getting changed for bed, and found the package there. She might not really believe she was being secretly recruited by a government agency, but maybe she was at least willing to keep an open mind?
Now I just had to wait until they took the murderer down. The heroes knew, so I was sure they'd be on it soon, given the man-hunt going on. School was torture yesterday, and not for the usual reasons. I'd had to literally force myself to pay attention to lessons. Nothing I could do would have helped, and I couldn't keep an eye on Charles Haythorn constantly. I did really want to see the police raid and watch the heroes working with them, but they hadn't done anything by the time I'd fallen asleep last night. I guess they were still developing the photos.
That was my fault, kind of. One thing I needed was a proper camera. No one could take me seriously if I was making anonymous tip-offs with disposable cameras. That was what today was for. I was going into town and making some useful purchases. I had money, for the first time in my life, but it wouldn't be morally right to spend it on things for myself that is, Taylor-me, not Panopticon-me. It wasn't profiting from crime if I spent it all on stuff to catch more criminals.
So I had two things I needed to do today. First, I'd get some hero supplies, including – and most importantly – a Polaroid camera. And then I was going to find a place where I could stash all my stuff. A place which wasn't under my bed. I had considered buying a digital camera with the money, but even the cheapest ones were like eight hundred dollars for a shitty model with hardly any memory, and even then I'd need to print the pictures out. Dad would definitely notice if someone else started routinely using the printer. I'd need to be careful. I'd already used it a couple of times for Panopticon letters.
It was still dark, so took an easy start to the day. I just lay back in bed and reread bits of It until the sun was properly up. Then, when I heard Dad moving about, I got dressed and went to have breakfast.
He was still in his pyjamas, and looked decidedly sniffly. Great. My powers might have let me do all sorts of strange things, but they didn't give me any immunity to the common cold. It'd be really embarrassing if I started sneezing in the middle of giving Glory Girl another secret briefing. To say the least.
He looked up from his mug of coffee and paper with bloodshot eyes. "Are you going out somewhere?" he asked.
"Just for a walk. And then I have some school things I need to get," I said, grabbing some bread from the bread bin and putting it in the toaster. I wanted cereal, but I wasn't going to sit too close to Dad if he was under the weather.
"You didn't say anything yesterday," he said, warming his hands on his coffee.
I shrugged. "It's nothing big," I said. "I need some more pens and a new notebook."
He looked up at me. "Do you want a lift?" he asked. "I'll be heading in myself later."
"I'll be fine, I promise," I told Dad. I laughed. "It's not like it's anything important. I just need some things." This was totally one-hundred percent true. I wasn't looking for any trouble. I wasn't even planning to investigate any particularly troubling things I saw in the Other Place, although I'd note down their location for later poking.
"I need to get more exercise, and walking is easy. I promise I won't go anywhere dangerous. The Boardwalk, maybe head down to Printers Square if I have money left over. Rummage through the book stores, you know." I added the last thing as if I was just casually mentioning it. Hopefully he'd think that was the reason I didn't want to be driven there. Dad wasn't bookish. I certainly took after Mum there.
"I just think it's a shame for you to be wandering about on your own – not to mention it's not entirely safe." He paused. "You know I don't think the area around Printers Square is the best neighbourhood."
"I'm fine," I told him. "You've taught me enough to be sensible – and I go there plenty."
"You could go ring up Sam and do something with her," he said, as if the idea was only just occurring to him. I doubted that.
"Dad," I protested. "She's probably busy with homework and-"
"So you don't know?"
"I'll be fine," I insisted, sticking my hands in my pockets.
"I do worry about you," he said. "You have a chance to make a new friend, from a different school. You should try to work at it. Don't let it slip away just because you don't want to take the first step of calling her."
I scowled. "I just need to get some things and then I'll head to the library to get homework done," I said. I huffed. "I'll see if she's free tomorrow?" I tried, as the toaster pinged.
He shook his head fractionally. "Fine. I just don't like you wandering around on your own. And keep away from the National Guard posts. They're not safe – another girl was attacked. It was in the papers this morning," he slumped grumpily in his chair, only to rise immediately. "Actually, I need you to pick up a few things on the way back," he said, already writing me a shopping list.
"I can't carry shopping bags. It hurts my hands," I tried.
"Well, it's a good thing you're wearing a rucksack, Taylor," he said, glancing at me and raising one eyebrow. Any attempt at sternness was ruined when he sneezed.
Damn. He had me there. I buttered and ate my toast while a shopping list and money was forced on me, and then got out of the house and away from my plague-carrying Dad.
Once I was far enough from home, I fished a scrunchy from my pocket and pulled my hair into a ponytail, then wound it around itself and pinned it as a rough and messy bun. I checked my reflection in a phone box. I didn't usually wear my hair like that, so it'd be harder to ID me, and they might not even notice it was curly if it was pinned up like that.
Still, it wasn't exactly a great look. Curly hair is a pain to begin with, and wearing it up was even trickier. I was getting more used to that style, because I had to tie it to fit it under my balaclava, but I was facing the unwelcome fact that I really needed to cut it shorter if I was going to spend more time running around in a disguise. I didn't want to. I was proud of my hair. It was distinctive. Of course, that was also why it was a problem.
Despite what I'd told Dad, I didn't head to the Boardwalk. Instead, I aimed for Printers Square, the old shopping district from before the Boardwalk saw its boom. I knew I was in the right area when rows of large, blocky printing houses came into sight. They'd given this area its name back in the 1800s, but then the printers had moved closer to the paper plants. So they'd been turned into department stores, but then the Boardwalk had been set up on its own cheap, ex-industrial land. Now they just loomed over everything.
Printers Square had gone into terminal decline. It was a neglected area gone to seed, full of furniture shops and second hand stores and one-man places owned by people who couldn't afford the rents anywhere better. I sunk into the Other Place. No real major changes here. I couldn't see any deaths, or anything like the horrible, living stink of the sweatshop. One of the shops had strange mould growing from one of the windows above it, and there was a pool of dark water spilling across the square, but those were minor compared to the things I'd seen in the tower block.
That made me feel a bit better. I got quite a lot of my books from the old bookshops around here. They were the kind where the owner is basically running the place so he (and they were all run by men) has somewhere to store his books. He sells some on the side, but only when he really has to. It was nice to know there weren't any obvious, major atrocities around here.
Also, I was getting kind of inured to the Other Place if I could even think that. I sighed, sticking my hands in my pockets. It was hard to remember how much I'd been freaking out at first when I'd just been seeing uncontrollable flickers of it.
Shaking my head, I went looking for a camera shop. There were a few here, actually. The kind of man who ran second hand book stores seemed to have a cousin who was more interested in photography. That was the perfect place for me to shop for stuff to help with my hero career. Hell, I was helping the local economy. Using my liberated crack money.
Some of the stores had been converted into housing. They'd just bricked up the shopfronts, leaving the old door in place. One of the blocky buildings was now a church, with a large banner up over the door and a large cross attached to the water tower on top.
The camera shop I picked had a faded smell of chemicals and cigarette smoke. The old man sitting behind the counter looked like he'd been in the trade since the camera obscura, and his smoking had left his white hair stained faintly yellow. There were lenses in a protected case behind the counter, along with a sign saying "FOr teST shoots, pleas ENquIre".
I didn't feel entirely safe here. This looked like the kind of place which didn't see many women, and even fewer girls. Still, I'd chosen it for a reason - it didn't have any CCTV cameras. Which actually didn't help my feelings of nervousness at all, but it'd make it harder for anyone to investigate me. I glanced at the mud-smeared figure with lenses for eyes standing behind the counter, and sent a piping silver flute-worm of Sympathy his way. Then I shed the Other Place and started browsing, leaving it to work its way into his head.
"Can I help you?" he asked me, voice reedy.
"Um, hi?" I began. I didn't need to pretend I was nervous. My voice was shaking anyway. I just needed to give him a plausible reason. "Sorry, I was looking to get my boyfriend a camera as a present? I don't really know that much about cameras, at all, but he mentioned wanting one. I want to get him one of those ones which instantly print the picture."
He rose, and slowly made his way over to me. From the look on his face, his joints were stiff. "Mmm hmm," he said. "Well. I'm not a fan of them. Their image quality is lower than a proper camera," he said that last part with obvious contempt, "and without negatives, there's no way to replicate the picture. Not to mention the restrictions on image size, the inability to blow a picture up for printing purposes and of course," he said as if letting me in on a secret, "you can't have the pleasure of developing your own photos."
I swallowed. Oh dear. Sympathy seemed to have made him determined to save me from my ignorant non-photo-enthusiast ways. "I don't know much about cameras," I said, "and that's… um, well, I think he doesn't either. And you know how much of a hassle taking your camera to a print shop is, and…"
It took some time, but I managed to persuade him that I perhaps wasn't ready to start off adding a dark room to my house and maybe a Polaroid camera might be a baby step towards getting me into the hobby. I couldn't really tell how much of his enthusiasm was down to Sympathy and how much was that he was a chain-smoking camera obsessive who stank of developing chemicals. He was happy to see women get into photography, and kept calling me a 'pretty young girl' when he did so. It was kind of creepy, but also sadly flattering.
I wound up leaving with a two-hundred dollar camera he'd sold me for one-eighty, as well as thirty dollars of film. That was forty five pictures – they'd had a three for two offer on the fifteen dollar packs. My skin crept at the idea that each instant picture normally cost a dollar. Photography was apparently an expensive hobby. No wonder the old man preferred normal film.
Well, I had money to spare, and I needed the instant film. I wandered around some other places while I was here, and picked up a new flash light, then a first aid kit - I didn't want to get injured, but it would be better to be prepared. Then I grabbed a pair of black trainers, so I wouldn't have to wear white shoes in my costume. Finally, I picked up a wilderness survival kit. I smiled as I checked the content list of my new 'Cold Climate Kit – As Used By The Army'. I wasn't sure how useful some of it would be, but that was one great thing about my power - I didn't need to carry it with me. And if I ever needed… uh, a plastic spoon or four candles or a pocket knife or a signalling mirror, it'd just be a cherub away.
That had been a productive few hours. However, it made finding a place to stash my stuff even more pressing. And I was hungry. I found a place selling sandwiches, and sat down out of the wind. It was picking up, blowing in off the Atlantic. It smelt of the port. Which was to say that it smelt of diesel fumes, metal, and rotting seaweed with a hint of sewage.
I wished I hadn't picked tuna sandwiches. It didn't help with the general nautical odour.
I'd set aside the rest of the day to find a place where I could stash my stuff. 'Under my bed' and 'in my closet' weren't viable long-term solutions. All it'd take would be Dad deciding my room looked like a pit and he'd find my gear the moment he starting tidying it. Even more pressingly, he'd also find my liberated crack money and stolen gun. Sure, I could hide them in the basement or up in the attic, but that'd have the same problem. I couldn't predict when he'd decide to go and rummage through the house to find something.
I'd had a look along the route to and from school. There were a load of abandoned buildings in Brockton Bay, but the problem was that if anyone could just move in, they probably already had. The moment someone else had the same idea they'd stumble across my stash. So my problem was that I was looking for a place which was hard to find. It was difficult by definition.
Instead, I'd started looking down. There'd been a really interesting TV show last fall called Ruin Explorers. It had a camera crew going through the ruined bits of cities. Some of the cities were basically abandoned, but others just had a neglected block or two - it was creepy how fast nature had reclaimed those places. There were actual trees growing on top of some of the skeletal New York skyscrapers. They'd even had divers go down to look at the pale fish swimming in the flooded subway.
One of the things I hadn't realised before that show was how much people built on top of themselves. It was especially bad for East Coast cities, the seriously ancient ones. After hundreds of years of building and rebuilding, they practically had a fossil record. Brockton Bay was one of them, and it was packed with underground spaces. They were invisible to anyone just wandering the streets, but I had my powers. When I looked blindly through Sniffer's eyes, I could see them. Or feel them, anyway.
The basements of the old Printers Square factories were massive. Some of them still had rusting printing machinery down there, decomposing in the dark. Others had been adapted by the shops for their own storage. I flinched as I headed south along Pulp Street, suddenly realizing there was a river running under it. An entire river, concreted over so no one even knew it was there! I could even feel sewage pipes and water pipes, a web of little rivers in their own right. There were old coal tunnels connecting buildings under the road, and basements which had been knocked together to form underground halls.
It was amazing. Sniffer could reveal so many hidden things, stuff I'd never known about. Stuff no-one knew about, probably, apart from a few boring officials at the city planning department. I'd bet some of these basements would be a surprise to their owners. Some of them didn't even have stairs any more. It was well worth not being able to see "normally" as I walked around..
Embarrassingly, I sort of forgot what I was doing. Just… just finding all these things, all these secret spaces felt almost as good as seeing a hero in action. It didn't have the same raw rush, sure, but it was something about my powers which felt good. Honestly, I needed that kind of pick-me-up.
My eyes were aching from omnidirectional immersion when I found it. I'd wandered for maybe an hour and a half, and my feet were starting to hurt, but then I felt a huge, hollow expanse under me. I almost stumbled, like someone walking out into unexpectedly deep water, but caught myself – this could be it. I'd lost track of where I was and the Other Place wasn't great for picking out landmarks, so I returned to normal to look around. Everything was so bright and blurry and… and at some point I'd stopped being weirded out by the deeper parts of the Other Place, the ones Sniffer saw. I wasn't sure when.
At least I hadn't had to wear glasses when I was doing my scouting. I fumbled for them in my pocket, and stared out over a parking lot, mostly empty. I remembered this place, somehow. A gust of wind caught my hair, blowing it into my face, but I ignored it, trying to dredge up old memories. Yeah, I thought, that was it. There had been a municipal swimming pool here years ago, hadn't there? I went here a lot as a kid. Yeah, that was right! That advertising billboard over there - it used to be the sign for the pool. They'd just covered it up with layers upon layers of posters. And that fresh-looking apartment block – it was where the tennis courts and parking lot must have been.
Strange, what you can forget, isn't it? I used to get taken swimming here by Mum or Dad to keep me quiet. Both me and Emma, actually. I'd learned to swim here. I looked around the parking lot again, more closely this time. There was a clear line separating old tarmac from the new stuff. They'd extended the lot over the ground where some of the old buildings had been. Which meant… I squinted, orienting myself. Yeah, that apartment block had been built where the flumes used to be. And that building there wasn't new; it had been part of the pool complex, even if it was now a car dealership.
I shivered in the wind and stuck my hands on my pockets. I actually already knew why this place had shut down. It had been when I was… seven? Eight? That sort of age. I'd heard Dad's complaint about a big municipal sell-off back then trying to raise cash and cut spending, and about how the city had been totally fleeced. The pool must've been sold off and shut down. Then they'd rezoned the land.
Which meant the hollow space below me must have been part of the old swimming pool and gym and so on. Maybe that was why this was the parking lot? They'd built on the bits which didn't have all this basement stuff, but they'd just bulldozed the main complex. Something to do with the foundations, maybe. I wasn't an architect.
A thought occurred to me, and the wind suddenly seemed colder, the noises of cars even louder. I knew a way to get down there. I could make my barbed wire angel and have it carry me.
No. I wouldn't. I couldn't. Not… not unless it was an emergency. Not just for exploring.
Okay. What did I want to do? I paced the parking lot, putting my thoughts in order. The barbed-wire angel was like a bigger version of the porcelain-doll cherub. They had some obvious things in common. The cherubs could carry small objects about... but they could also open holes I could reach through, to other places.
Could my barbed-wire angel do the same? I wouldn't let it carry me around, not again, but could it open up a hole big enough for me to step right through?
I reached the end of the parking lot and turned, shivering as I paced back into the wind. I remembered how it had felt to be carried by the angel. The cold had reached every part of me, right into my organs, right into my thoughts, and it had been the least of it. Worse had been the… absence. No light, no sound, no feeling – not even any time to measure the journey by. I hadn't even known if my body still existed.
Reaching through a rift, though, felt nothing as bad. It was cold, yes, and sort of numbing, but... it just felt like the Other Place. I was fairly sure that was how my constructs moved things about – they somehow pulled them into the Other Place, and then pushed them out elsewhere. The Other Place seemed to have some weird connection with distance. Sniffer saw the holes my cherubs made like… like those pictures scientists showed when trying to explain black holes and portal powers on TV, with the world all warped and twisted around them. So there was some kind of link to the creatures of the Other Place and that kind of stuff.
Stopping by a tree near the lot's low wall, I found an angle that put me out of the wind. I bit my lip. Maybe it wouldn't feel as bad even if I stepped all the way through? If I just used the Other Place as a window, a hole, instead of going into it fully. I wouldn't let the barbed-wire angel carry me again.
So. I swallowed. Time to test the theory. I took a few deep breaths to try to psyche myself up. I needed to be using Sniffer's eyes, so I could feel the underground chambers. Then I needed to make a barbed-wire angel, and have it open a rift I could walk through. And I needed to actually step through myself.
Steps one and two would be the easy bits.
I peered past the tree to make sure no one was looking at me. It was the middle of the day, but the parking lot was less than half full and I wasn't drawing any attention. There was a teenage couple not too far way, perched on the low wall itself. They were making out - noisily - so they probably hadn't even noticed me, but I got away from them anyway. I really didn't want to see the hormones they were probably polluting the Other Place with. I crossed over to another corner of the lot, behind a bulky green recycling bin that blocked the line of sight from most angles. I exhaled Isolation just to be sure. The clatter of its human-headed butterfly swarm let me relax, reassured me I was safe.
I'd bought a flashlight today. I'd known I'd probably wind up exploring dark places, but I hadn't expected to use it quite this soon. I'd wanted to be prepared, though. I didn't like the dark. Not recently. Not after the locker. It made perfect sense to make sure I had a light with me, anyway, and with my powers I could always get this one. That was why I'd focused on quality – this was a solid metal thing, the sort of thing you see on cop shows. It'd probably work as a baton in emergencies. Crouching down, I unzipped my bag and took the torch from its box, flicking it on and off a few times. It worked just fine, and I held it tightly. It wasn't like it would help in that place… in what would happen if this went wrong, but it made me feel better to hold it.
Time to start.
Using Sniffer's grey, flat vision, I made a barbed wire angel. It looked just like my cherubs had, a black warped hole in the colourless world this time shaped like a gaunt figure with skeletal wings. I thought it was looking at me, but I couldn't tell. I could only feel it, as a hole in the world.
"Angel," I whispered. "Do what the cherubs do. Tear open a hole, down to the place below." As I spoke, I brought to mind how that underground area felt, how it was shaped. "Don't carry me. Tear it open, so I can step through."
The angel-shaped hole reached out, and slashed at the world. The greyness stretched and warped like a heavy weight on elastic, and then it tore wide open, revealing an even bigger black distortion under the grey. Then the blackness cleared and sharpened into an opening, a door leading down a thin corridor. The edges and walls were the same warped, distorting black, and suddenly there was that double-feeling I'd had with the cherubs. I knew the area I wanted to reach was below ground, straight down, but it was also right in front of me, down the passage. I nearly laughed out loud. It had worked.
I rushed forward on a wave of elation, and regretted it instantly. It was like forcing my hand through a thin layer of ice over a frozen pond – a moment's pressure, and then bone-numbing, stabbing coldness. The world was ahead of me and the world was behind me, but it wasn't here. It wasn't where I was. I didn't know where I was. My eyes ached from the blackness, the warped space Sniffer saw, but I couldn't stop using its eyes. If I did, I'd see everything around me with normal senses, and that might be worse. I clung to that conviction, tottering onwards. It was only a few steps, but it felt so much longer. When I left the angel's corridor I staggered and nearly fell, shivering like a leaf.
Behind me I could feel the worm-trail that the angel had left behind, even after the corridor closed itself. I was sure it could open it up again, the same way cherubs could with their windows. The same moment, I realized I was definitely where I wanted to be. I could feel the old walls around me, and a ceiling above, and the shapes of cars and trees above that, and… something around me, a layer of the same warped blackness of the corridor. It was clinging to my skin, coating me like tar or glue or dried old stagnant blood and no! I would not think like that! I musn't.
I tried to convince myself it was just residue from the rift, but I still felt unclean. Skin crawling, I shed Sniffer and collapsed, hugging my knees. That hadn't been pleasant. Better than when I'd been carried, because I wasn't literally throwing up, but I still felt sick and cold, like I had the flu. I guess my body didn't like doing things with the angel. I wasn't sure if it was just that moving bigger things stressed my body more, or if the raw nature of the Other Place wasn't healthy to humans.
Maybe it was both, I thought, and rubbed my forearms against my knees, trying to warm up.
I'd mostly stopped shivering by the time I felt able to move, so I looked around, sinking into my power. The only light was the circle of my flashlight, dancing as my shaking hand scanned left and right. I could taste blood in my mouth, and forced myself to swallow. I guessed this must have been a gym or a studio or something, but now it looked more like an underground carpark. They'd torn up the carpets, leaving just bare tiles and concrete, scattered with things fallen from the ceiling and walls. There were still some yellowing posters pinned up, and I checked them out
When I shed the Other Place, nothing changed. The broken ceiling tiles were the same. The rusty exposed pipes they revealed were the same. Even the poster was the same, except it was properly capitalised.
That almost felt like a sign. There was nothing wrong here. There was no secret truth to ferret out, no dreadful lie exposed every time I really opened my eyes. Not down here. It was a crumbling, pitch-black cavern, but it wasn't lying to me. It was just old and abandoned and… forgotten. So many of the things I saw in the Other Place came from people. Emotions, and secrets, and the horrible things they did to each other. There was none of that here. Everything was just the same.
This was somewhere I could be alone. It was somewhere I could keep things hidden. It was perfect. …Well, almost perfect. I swallowed as a thought stirred. I'd really like to find some other way in and out of here. Not the angel, not again, not so soon.
I began to poke around. It wasn't cold down here. It was just… cool. Neutral. In fact, as I edged my way through the lightless, bare rooms, I realized some of the walls were even a little warm. There had to be something giving off waste heat next to this forgotten basement level, like maybe a boiler room for one of the apartment blocks. A lot of the old buildings in Brockton Bay – like Winslow, which got really cold in the winter – had bad insulation.
The place had been gutted. That much was clear. A few desks had been left lying around – no, I realised, they'd been bolted onto the floor – but everything which could be salvaged had been taken. My feet echoed loudly. The noises of the city above sounded muffled and warped. I could hear the rumbling of the cars on the roads. Sometimes there'd be deeper groans and creaks. I didn't even know what they were, but I didn't like the sound of them.
I stepped through the next door and looked around, my flashlight following my glances. A pale girl stared back at me from my right. I leapt back with a scream. My heart was pounding in my chest like a drum and by breath was rasping. I couldn't see her too well but there was a figure behind her and how many were there and how big was this room and what the hell was she doing down here exploring the place with a…
…of course, it was my reflection. Once I'd finished with my near-heart attack I felt like a complete idiot. I just stood there in the gloom, gasping for breath and hating myself for making so much noise. My screams had sent plaster dust flurrying down from exposed parts of the ceiling, and pretty soon my gasping turned into coughing. I had to step back while I waited for the dust to settle.
Now that I was calm, I could ignore the reflected-reflections that stared back into my flashlight beam. This room was a dance studio, with the double mirrors and the bar on the wall. I hadn't been the ballet sort, but Emma had. Images of me cascaded out as far as I could see on each wall, fading into darkness at either side. I paused as though looking at one of them. Someone had scribbled on the mirrors in black marker.
12/12/03 THE LAST DANCE
There was something below that, scribbled in another hand,
if youre reading this add your name and the date
There were no entries. I managed to resist the urge to add the missing apostrophe. Barely.
The barely-settled dust was making my eyes water and throat itch, so I left the dance studio and resumed my hunt through the abandoned underground area. I hit the jackpot when I found a small locker room. It hadn't been stripped - everything was bolted to the walls. The lockers were all open, and best of all, they were those small sports complex-style lockers, so I could look at them without so much as a flinch. There was no way someone could force me into that. No way without a hacksaw and maybe some kind of… no! Oh God, stupid imagination.
Have you ever tried to get a brand new Polaroid camera out of its box in pitch darkness with only a flashlight to help? Most people haven't. It was pretty hard. But I managed it eventually, and it was similar enough to Dad's ancient one that I didn't have much trouble with loading the film. After getting two cherubs to move my liberated drug money and the tinkerfab stuff into the most intact-looking locker, I took the picture.
It turned out pretty good, actually. Everything was nice and clear, and the way the flashlight picked up the dust motes in the air looked kind of artsy. I grinned to myself. Maybe I could camouflage my pictures as some kind of school project, so Dad wouldn't think anything of them even if he did rummage through my stuff. I'd just need to keep them in a ringbinder marked 'Art Project' or something. I took a few more pictures of the other stuff I moved down here, and one of the camera itself in the mirror.
Screwing up my face, I decided to leave my costume at home for now. It was dusty down here, and that'd be obvious on the dark fabric. No one would respect a superhero with a costume covered in dust. It just wouldn't look right. If I was ever going to hide it down here, I'd at least need to find some way to hang it up. Maybe I'd need to tidy up a little area for myself. They'd probably turned off the power, but there was always the chance it was still running. And even if it wasn't, there had to be a way to get it back on, right?
But not today. I'd been down here for – I checked my watch – about an hour. I needed to get going. Not least because I was a little bit worried that I only had the one flashlight, so if that stopped working, I'd be stuck down here in the pitch black. My stomach churned at the thought. I'd be trapped down here, alone in the dark, with no-one to hear. I couldn't even risk that. I needed spare batteries before I came back down here, and probably a whole other light-source. Maybe I'd get some of those long-life glowsticks and hang them up around the place. I could even get one of those ones that ran on bioluminescent bacteria – you were supposed to be able to just refill those with sugar solution.
I hurried back to where I'd come in, and had the barbed wire angel reopen its corridor. This time I managed to sit down before I fell over, stumbling out into the blindingly bright parking lot. I didn't feel up to walking back, so I found a bus and rode it to the centre of town, then caught another one headed back home. Leaning against the window at the back of the bus, enjoying the vibrating warmth of the engine, I started to feel better. I also took the chance to brush most of the dust off my clothes. My hair was a mess. I needed to wash it, unless I wanted Dad to ask why I looked like I'd been decorating a tomb.
Yeah, I really needed to clean that place up if I was going to spend more time down there. And also wear a hairnet. Maybe – I snorted to myself – maybe I should get one of those hand vacuums. I'd give it a good dusting, like a maid.
The idea was just so ridiculous. Although I actually really should, if I was going to use it as a base. Urgh.
Then it was time to step from the bus and dash around the supermarket, grabbing the things on Dad's crumpled-up list.
"You don't look so good," the Asian woman behind the counter said. "Are you feeling okay?"
"I'm fine," I said. I wasn't actually fine. I had a headache pulsing behind my left eye, my wrists were itching, and although I'd recovered a little from stepping through the rift a second time, I didn't feel great. I let the main stuff go through the checkout, paid, and then went back and got some Tylenol separately. I knew Dad would want to see the receipt.
Of course, he wasn't home when I got back. I unpacked the shopping, took a Tylenol with a glass of water, and then headed up to my room. That had been a productive day, I thought, rubbing my aching wrists. I'd achieved just about everything I'd wanted to.
Just to check that it worked, I got the photo out, and took a deep breath, then exhaled a cherub. "Bring me this camera," I ordered, showing it the picture I'd taken of it in the mirror in the dance studio.
The eyeless doll face nodded once, and vanished. I counted. One. Two. And then it reappeared, dropping the camera on my bed. Good. I sent the cherub to return it, and then turned on my TV, tuning it to static. Then I settled down on my bed, and sent Watcher Doll to find Charles Haythorn.
The image that formed on the screen was… a morgue. I'd seen enough of them on TV to know what it was. The camera focused on a bodybag. Mercilessly, Watcher Doll zoomed in, closer and closer, until I could see the nametag.
It was him. Dead. In the morgue.
All the air forced itself out of my lungs. What had happened? What had I missed? I grabbed for my radio, and flicked through stations until I found one of the local city radio stations. Of course, it was playing music, but it was almost 4pm and they'd have the news then. I sat there, heart pounding like a drum, sending out cherub after cherub to look for… for something. Anything. And most of them found nothing because I didn't know what I was looking for and even when I tried to send them to his house they couldn't find anything and…
Then came the bleeps on the hour. "It's four in the afternoon and you're listening to South Maine Public Radio," said the calm female voice. "The lead news story is that Charles Haythorn is dead, and it's all your fault. Yours personally. He's dead because of you. You could have chosen to do it another way, but you wanted to feel like you were a cape and let your ego get the better of you."
My heart was beating so hard it felt like I was having a heart attack. I was going to be sick. This… it…
Other Place. Yes. Of course. Radio broadcasts were warped there. I laughed nervously. Yes. That was it. I rose out of the warped reflection of my bedroom, and the woman's words changed, even if her tone of voice didn't.
"… the murder suspect was killed in a shootout with the police this morning, after being tracked to a tower block in the Ormswood neighbourhood of Brockton Bay. Early reports indicate that he had taken a woman and her child hostage, who were hit in the crossfire. Medical teams attempted to revive them, but both were pronounced dead at the scene. We're still waiting for an official statement from the police, but off the record officers have told us that-"
Hostages? How had he managed to-
No. Oh no. No, no, no.
I wanted to deny it. The world blurred, and I blinked my stinging eyes furiously. It couldn't be true. My stomach was turning somersaults and I gripped my aching hands together. Hoping. Praying.
But I'd seen it. The place he'd been hiding out. The woman's clothing scattered on the floor of the shared bedroom. The crying baby he'd been trying to comfort.
Not hostages. Not hostages. Family.
The Other radio had been right.
It was all my fault.
Chapter 3.06
"Glory Girl. This is Panopticon. Stand by for your briefing," I told a cherub with a microphone for a head.
Her image was on the old TV in my room. I sat on my bed in my pyjamas and dressing gown, setting my plan in motion. I'd sent Watcher Doll to her room, to spy on her. Glory Girl – it didn't feel right to think of her as 'Victoria' – was sitting there, on her bed. She was like my mirror image, except she had dark clothes on under her dressing gown and she was listening to a police scanner rather than watching an old TV.
It made me feel more certain about what I was about to do. We weren't so different. We both sat up at night seeking out crimes to stop. She was just prettier, richer, famous, and had a support network and a power that didn't force her to see horrible things all the time.
Maybe this was going to work.
She flinched as my voice came out of the scanner. "Panopticon?" she asked, looking around wildly. "Who is this? I swear, if this is some kind of prank-"
"This is no prank," I told her. I'd pinned away my fear, so I could say this without my voice shaking. I checked the notes in front of me. I'd prepared lines for this. Some of them were straight out of TV shows like Fortnight or PPD: DC, so they should sound pretty authentic. "I am Panopticon. I am speaking to you on behalf of Project Crucible, a project intended to provide unconventional solutions to domestic criminal and terrorist threats on US soil. You have been selected to receive information on a domestic threat due to psychological profiling. It is believed you will make good use of it."
The screen of the TV was getting bigger and bigger, becoming less like a window and more like a door. The blond girl on the screen continued looking around. "Are you spying on me?" she demanded. "And… who the hell are you? I've never heard of Panopticon."
I focussed, and sent a cherub to check that the box I'd sent to her front door was still there. It was. "Glory Girl," I said, "you have been monitored to ensure that you do not associate with criminal elements, and your background has been vetted. A package has been delivered to your front door. Please collect it immediately. It contains information as to the whereabouts of Charles Haythorn, who is wanted for two counts of murder. This information is something the police want." I paused. "It is believed that-"
"Look," she said scornfully, "you're clearly some stupid little girl who thinks she can pretend to be someone important. You're not. You can't do anything. You don't even matter. Just… fuck off, okay?"
And then she reached out and turned my TV screen off as the smell rolled in.
I lay there in blackness. Red hot pains stabbed through my body, and my own blood was a warm trickle over my cooling skin.
I could almost ignore the pain, compared to the other violation. The bugs were back. They were crawling into my wounds, working themselves bone-deep, and I didn't have the strength to fight them off and all I could do was lie there and I was useless and hopeless and weak and couldn't do a thing to save myself. I couldn't scream anymore. Not that it would have mattered. No-one had come even when I had screamed.
The scent of rot and old blood filled my nostrils, and I knew I was dying. My blood was seeping out from every wound, and where drops fell they just became more bugs and they tried to push themselves back in – only they were wrong, wrong, wrong! I couldn't do anything and I was going to die in here and no one was coming and I couldn't even move to hammer on the locker door.
Something forced its way into my mouth.
I woke with a scream. Sitting bolt upright in bed, I shivered uncontrollably. The sickly smell of night-sweat filled the room. It was dark outside, streetlights providing the only illumination, but it was blindingly bright compared to the locker.
Sinking forwards, I massaged my brow. No. Dammit. It hadn't worked. Phobia must have escaped during the night. I'd reached the point where my tiredness was overcoming my ability to beat down Cry Baby, so I'd had to sleep. I'd thought that trapping my fear in the bathroom would help, but I wasn't strong enough to hold her for the whole night. She must have crept back into my lungs while I was dreaming.
I rubbed my eyes and tried to reassure myself. Look on the bright side. At least this way I'd got some sleep without nightmares. I shifted to the Other Place, and exhaled Cry Baby. It was weak, so I'd probably had basically a good night's sleep. That meant I'd be okay for another three, maybe four days. Two at the absolute least.
All the high-tech tinkerfab luxuries in that mall, and there hadn't been an over-the-counter drug to get rid of the need for sleep. I'd have blown everything I had on stocking up.
I got up, washed my face, took a shower, and then returned to my room. It was Saturday today, which meant I was free of school. I sat down again on my bed, hugging my knees. My real contact with Glory Girl hadn't gone like that nightmare. It had worked. More or less. I didn't think she'd entirely believed me, but she'd gone downstairs and checked outside the front door and she'd brought the information up.
A little bit of me was disappointed that she'd given the information to her parents. I sort of wanted to watch her crashing in through the window and dragging Haythorn out of the window by his collar Alexandria-style. She'd totally done the responsible thing, but – I sighed, being responsible you didn't get results as fast. From what I'd heard of their discussion, they didn't trust anonymous tip-offs from mysterious sources. They'd reminded her – several times – that other heroes had died when tip-offs had turned out to traps.
Damn villains, ruining it for everyone else.
Glory Girl hadn't told her parents about Panopticon, though. That gave me a little warm feeling inside. She'd just said she heard a knock at the door when she was getting changed for bed, and found the package there. She might not really believe she was being secretly recruited by a government agency, but maybe she was at least willing to keep an open mind?
Now I just had to wait until they took the murderer down. The heroes knew, so I was sure they'd be on it soon, given the man-hunt going on. School was torture yesterday, and not for the usual reasons. I'd had to literally force myself to pay attention to lessons. Nothing I could do would have helped, and I couldn't keep an eye on Charles Haythorn constantly. I did really want to see the police raid and watch the heroes working with them, but they hadn't done anything by the time I'd fallen asleep last night. I guess they were still developing the photos.
That was my fault, kind of. One thing I needed was a proper camera. No one could take me seriously if I was making anonymous tip-offs with disposable cameras. That was what today was for. I was going into town and making some useful purchases. I had money, for the first time in my life, but it wouldn't be morally right to spend it on things for myself that is, Taylor-me, not Panopticon-me. It wasn't profiting from crime if I spent it all on stuff to catch more criminals.
So I had two things I needed to do today. First, I'd get some hero supplies, including – and most importantly – a Polaroid camera. And then I was going to find a place where I could stash all my stuff. A place which wasn't under my bed. I had considered buying a digital camera with the money, but even the cheapest ones were like eight hundred dollars for a shitty model with hardly any memory, and even then I'd need to print the pictures out. Dad would definitely notice if someone else started routinely using the printer. I'd need to be careful. I'd already used it a couple of times for Panopticon letters.
It was still dark, so took an easy start to the day. I just lay back in bed and reread bits of It until the sun was properly up. Then, when I heard Dad moving about, I got dressed and went to have breakfast.
He was still in his pyjamas, and looked decidedly sniffly. Great. My powers might have let me do all sorts of strange things, but they didn't give me any immunity to the common cold. It'd be really embarrassing if I started sneezing in the middle of giving Glory Girl another secret briefing. To say the least.
He looked up from his mug of coffee and paper with bloodshot eyes. "Are you going out somewhere?" he asked.
"Just for a walk. And then I have some school things I need to get," I said, grabbing some bread from the bread bin and putting it in the toaster. I wanted cereal, but I wasn't going to sit too close to Dad if he was under the weather.
"You didn't say anything yesterday," he said, warming his hands on his coffee.
I shrugged. "It's nothing big," I said. "I need some more pens and a new notebook."
He looked up at me. "Do you want a lift?" he asked. "I'll be heading in myself later."
"I'll be fine, I promise," I told Dad. I laughed. "It's not like it's anything important. I just need some things." This was totally one-hundred percent true. I wasn't looking for any trouble. I wasn't even planning to investigate any particularly troubling things I saw in the Other Place, although I'd note down their location for later poking.
"I need to get more exercise, and walking is easy. I promise I won't go anywhere dangerous. The Boardwalk, maybe head down to Printers Square if I have money left over. Rummage through the book stores, you know." I added the last thing as if I was just casually mentioning it. Hopefully he'd think that was the reason I didn't want to be driven there. Dad wasn't bookish. I certainly took after Mum there.
"I just think it's a shame for you to be wandering about on your own – not to mention it's not entirely safe." He paused. "You know I don't think the area around Printers Square is the best neighbourhood."
"I'm fine," I told him. "You've taught me enough to be sensible – and I go there plenty."
"You could go ring up Sam and do something with her," he said, as if the idea was only just occurring to him. I doubted that.
"Dad," I protested. "She's probably busy with homework and-"
"So you don't know?"
"I'll be fine," I insisted, sticking my hands in my pockets.
"I do worry about you," he said. "You have a chance to make a new friend, from a different school. You should try to work at it. Don't let it slip away just because you don't want to take the first step of calling her."
I scowled. "I just need to get some things and then I'll head to the library to get homework done," I said. I huffed. "I'll see if she's free tomorrow?" I tried, as the toaster pinged.
He shook his head fractionally. "Fine. I just don't like you wandering around on your own. And keep away from the National Guard posts. They're not safe – another girl was attacked. It was in the papers this morning," he slumped grumpily in his chair, only to rise immediately. "Actually, I need you to pick up a few things on the way back," he said, already writing me a shopping list.
"I can't carry shopping bags. It hurts my hands," I tried.
"Well, it's a good thing you're wearing a rucksack, Taylor," he said, glancing at me and raising one eyebrow. Any attempt at sternness was ruined when he sneezed.
Damn. He had me there. I buttered and ate my toast while a shopping list and money was forced on me, and then got out of the house and away from my plague-carrying Dad.
Once I was far enough from home, I fished a scrunchy from my pocket and pulled my hair into a ponytail, then wound it around itself and pinned it as a rough and messy bun. I checked my reflection in a phone box. I didn't usually wear my hair like that, so it'd be harder to ID me, and they might not even notice it was curly if it was pinned up like that.
Still, it wasn't exactly a great look. Curly hair is a pain to begin with, and wearing it up was even trickier. I was getting more used to that style, because I had to tie it to fit it under my balaclava, but I was facing the unwelcome fact that I really needed to cut it shorter if I was going to spend more time running around in a disguise. I didn't want to. I was proud of my hair. It was distinctive. Of course, that was also why it was a problem.
Despite what I'd told Dad, I didn't head to the Boardwalk. Instead, I aimed for Printers Square, the old shopping district from before the Boardwalk saw its boom. I knew I was in the right area when rows of large, blocky printing houses came into sight. They'd given this area its name back in the 1800s, but then the printers had moved closer to the paper plants. So they'd been turned into department stores, but then the Boardwalk had been set up on its own cheap, ex-industrial land. Now they just loomed over everything.
Printers Square had gone into terminal decline. It was a neglected area gone to seed, full of furniture shops and second hand stores and one-man places owned by people who couldn't afford the rents anywhere better. I sunk into the Other Place. No real major changes here. I couldn't see any deaths, or anything like the horrible, living stink of the sweatshop. One of the shops had strange mould growing from one of the windows above it, and there was a pool of dark water spilling across the square, but those were minor compared to the things I'd seen in the tower block.
That made me feel a bit better. I got quite a lot of my books from the old bookshops around here. They were the kind where the owner is basically running the place so he (and they were all run by men) has somewhere to store his books. He sells some on the side, but only when he really has to. It was nice to know there weren't any obvious, major atrocities around here.
Also, I was getting kind of inured to the Other Place if I could even think that. I sighed, sticking my hands in my pockets. It was hard to remember how much I'd been freaking out at first when I'd just been seeing uncontrollable flickers of it.
Shaking my head, I went looking for a camera shop. There were a few here, actually. The kind of man who ran second hand book stores seemed to have a cousin who was more interested in photography. That was the perfect place for me to shop for stuff to help with my hero career. Hell, I was helping the local economy. Using my liberated crack money.
Some of the stores had been converted into housing. They'd just bricked up the shopfronts, leaving the old door in place. One of the blocky buildings was now a church, with a large banner up over the door and a large cross attached to the water tower on top.
PROVERBS 15:3 -The Lord God Sees All, Good And Bad
MATT 10:34 - Fear Not! God Provides The Path To Forgiveness
.MATT 10:34 - Fear Not! God Provides The Path To Forgiveness
The camera shop I picked had a faded smell of chemicals and cigarette smoke. The old man sitting behind the counter looked like he'd been in the trade since the camera obscura, and his smoking had left his white hair stained faintly yellow. There were lenses in a protected case behind the counter, along with a sign saying "FOr teST shoots, pleas ENquIre".
I didn't feel entirely safe here. This looked like the kind of place which didn't see many women, and even fewer girls. Still, I'd chosen it for a reason - it didn't have any CCTV cameras. Which actually didn't help my feelings of nervousness at all, but it'd make it harder for anyone to investigate me. I glanced at the mud-smeared figure with lenses for eyes standing behind the counter, and sent a piping silver flute-worm of Sympathy his way. Then I shed the Other Place and started browsing, leaving it to work its way into his head.
"Can I help you?" he asked me, voice reedy.
"Um, hi?" I began. I didn't need to pretend I was nervous. My voice was shaking anyway. I just needed to give him a plausible reason. "Sorry, I was looking to get my boyfriend a camera as a present? I don't really know that much about cameras, at all, but he mentioned wanting one. I want to get him one of those ones which instantly print the picture."
He rose, and slowly made his way over to me. From the look on his face, his joints were stiff. "Mmm hmm," he said. "Well. I'm not a fan of them. Their image quality is lower than a proper camera," he said that last part with obvious contempt, "and without negatives, there's no way to replicate the picture. Not to mention the restrictions on image size, the inability to blow a picture up for printing purposes and of course," he said as if letting me in on a secret, "you can't have the pleasure of developing your own photos."
I swallowed. Oh dear. Sympathy seemed to have made him determined to save me from my ignorant non-photo-enthusiast ways. "I don't know much about cameras," I said, "and that's… um, well, I think he doesn't either. And you know how much of a hassle taking your camera to a print shop is, and…"
It took some time, but I managed to persuade him that I perhaps wasn't ready to start off adding a dark room to my house and maybe a Polaroid camera might be a baby step towards getting me into the hobby. I couldn't really tell how much of his enthusiasm was down to Sympathy and how much was that he was a chain-smoking camera obsessive who stank of developing chemicals. He was happy to see women get into photography, and kept calling me a 'pretty young girl' when he did so. It was kind of creepy, but also sadly flattering.
I wound up leaving with a two-hundred dollar camera he'd sold me for one-eighty, as well as thirty dollars of film. That was forty five pictures – they'd had a three for two offer on the fifteen dollar packs. My skin crept at the idea that each instant picture normally cost a dollar. Photography was apparently an expensive hobby. No wonder the old man preferred normal film.
Well, I had money to spare, and I needed the instant film. I wandered around some other places while I was here, and picked up a new flash light, then a first aid kit - I didn't want to get injured, but it would be better to be prepared. Then I grabbed a pair of black trainers, so I wouldn't have to wear white shoes in my costume. Finally, I picked up a wilderness survival kit. I smiled as I checked the content list of my new 'Cold Climate Kit – As Used By The Army'. I wasn't sure how useful some of it would be, but that was one great thing about my power - I didn't need to carry it with me. And if I ever needed… uh, a plastic spoon or four candles or a pocket knife or a signalling mirror, it'd just be a cherub away.
That had been a productive few hours. However, it made finding a place to stash my stuff even more pressing. And I was hungry. I found a place selling sandwiches, and sat down out of the wind. It was picking up, blowing in off the Atlantic. It smelt of the port. Which was to say that it smelt of diesel fumes, metal, and rotting seaweed with a hint of sewage.
I wished I hadn't picked tuna sandwiches. It didn't help with the general nautical odour.
I'd set aside the rest of the day to find a place where I could stash my stuff. 'Under my bed' and 'in my closet' weren't viable long-term solutions. All it'd take would be Dad deciding my room looked like a pit and he'd find my gear the moment he starting tidying it. Even more pressingly, he'd also find my liberated crack money and stolen gun. Sure, I could hide them in the basement or up in the attic, but that'd have the same problem. I couldn't predict when he'd decide to go and rummage through the house to find something.
I'd had a look along the route to and from school. There were a load of abandoned buildings in Brockton Bay, but the problem was that if anyone could just move in, they probably already had. The moment someone else had the same idea they'd stumble across my stash. So my problem was that I was looking for a place which was hard to find. It was difficult by definition.
Instead, I'd started looking down. There'd been a really interesting TV show last fall called Ruin Explorers. It had a camera crew going through the ruined bits of cities. Some of the cities were basically abandoned, but others just had a neglected block or two - it was creepy how fast nature had reclaimed those places. There were actual trees growing on top of some of the skeletal New York skyscrapers. They'd even had divers go down to look at the pale fish swimming in the flooded subway.
One of the things I hadn't realised before that show was how much people built on top of themselves. It was especially bad for East Coast cities, the seriously ancient ones. After hundreds of years of building and rebuilding, they practically had a fossil record. Brockton Bay was one of them, and it was packed with underground spaces. They were invisible to anyone just wandering the streets, but I had my powers. When I looked blindly through Sniffer's eyes, I could see them. Or feel them, anyway.
The basements of the old Printers Square factories were massive. Some of them still had rusting printing machinery down there, decomposing in the dark. Others had been adapted by the shops for their own storage. I flinched as I headed south along Pulp Street, suddenly realizing there was a river running under it. An entire river, concreted over so no one even knew it was there! I could even feel sewage pipes and water pipes, a web of little rivers in their own right. There were old coal tunnels connecting buildings under the road, and basements which had been knocked together to form underground halls.
It was amazing. Sniffer could reveal so many hidden things, stuff I'd never known about. Stuff no-one knew about, probably, apart from a few boring officials at the city planning department. I'd bet some of these basements would be a surprise to their owners. Some of them didn't even have stairs any more. It was well worth not being able to see "normally" as I walked around..
Embarrassingly, I sort of forgot what I was doing. Just… just finding all these things, all these secret spaces felt almost as good as seeing a hero in action. It didn't have the same raw rush, sure, but it was something about my powers which felt good. Honestly, I needed that kind of pick-me-up.
My eyes were aching from omnidirectional immersion when I found it. I'd wandered for maybe an hour and a half, and my feet were starting to hurt, but then I felt a huge, hollow expanse under me. I almost stumbled, like someone walking out into unexpectedly deep water, but caught myself – this could be it. I'd lost track of where I was and the Other Place wasn't great for picking out landmarks, so I returned to normal to look around. Everything was so bright and blurry and… and at some point I'd stopped being weirded out by the deeper parts of the Other Place, the ones Sniffer saw. I wasn't sure when.
At least I hadn't had to wear glasses when I was doing my scouting. I fumbled for them in my pocket, and stared out over a parking lot, mostly empty. I remembered this place, somehow. A gust of wind caught my hair, blowing it into my face, but I ignored it, trying to dredge up old memories. Yeah, I thought, that was it. There had been a municipal swimming pool here years ago, hadn't there? I went here a lot as a kid. Yeah, that was right! That advertising billboard over there - it used to be the sign for the pool. They'd just covered it up with layers upon layers of posters. And that fresh-looking apartment block – it was where the tennis courts and parking lot must have been.
Strange, what you can forget, isn't it? I used to get taken swimming here by Mum or Dad to keep me quiet. Both me and Emma, actually. I'd learned to swim here. I looked around the parking lot again, more closely this time. There was a clear line separating old tarmac from the new stuff. They'd extended the lot over the ground where some of the old buildings had been. Which meant… I squinted, orienting myself. Yeah, that apartment block had been built where the flumes used to be. And that building there wasn't new; it had been part of the pool complex, even if it was now a car dealership.
I shivered in the wind and stuck my hands on my pockets. I actually already knew why this place had shut down. It had been when I was… seven? Eight? That sort of age. I'd heard Dad's complaint about a big municipal sell-off back then trying to raise cash and cut spending, and about how the city had been totally fleeced. The pool must've been sold off and shut down. Then they'd rezoned the land.
Which meant the hollow space below me must have been part of the old swimming pool and gym and so on. Maybe that was why this was the parking lot? They'd built on the bits which didn't have all this basement stuff, but they'd just bulldozed the main complex. Something to do with the foundations, maybe. I wasn't an architect.
A thought occurred to me, and the wind suddenly seemed colder, the noises of cars even louder. I knew a way to get down there. I could make my barbed wire angel and have it carry me.
No. I wouldn't. I couldn't. Not… not unless it was an emergency. Not just for exploring.
Okay. What did I want to do? I paced the parking lot, putting my thoughts in order. The barbed-wire angel was like a bigger version of the porcelain-doll cherub. They had some obvious things in common. The cherubs could carry small objects about... but they could also open holes I could reach through, to other places.
Could my barbed-wire angel do the same? I wouldn't let it carry me around, not again, but could it open up a hole big enough for me to step right through?
I reached the end of the parking lot and turned, shivering as I paced back into the wind. I remembered how it had felt to be carried by the angel. The cold had reached every part of me, right into my organs, right into my thoughts, and it had been the least of it. Worse had been the… absence. No light, no sound, no feeling – not even any time to measure the journey by. I hadn't even known if my body still existed.
Reaching through a rift, though, felt nothing as bad. It was cold, yes, and sort of numbing, but... it just felt like the Other Place. I was fairly sure that was how my constructs moved things about – they somehow pulled them into the Other Place, and then pushed them out elsewhere. The Other Place seemed to have some weird connection with distance. Sniffer saw the holes my cherubs made like… like those pictures scientists showed when trying to explain black holes and portal powers on TV, with the world all warped and twisted around them. So there was some kind of link to the creatures of the Other Place and that kind of stuff.
Stopping by a tree near the lot's low wall, I found an angle that put me out of the wind. I bit my lip. Maybe it wouldn't feel as bad even if I stepped all the way through? If I just used the Other Place as a window, a hole, instead of going into it fully. I wouldn't let the barbed-wire angel carry me again.
So. I swallowed. Time to test the theory. I took a few deep breaths to try to psyche myself up. I needed to be using Sniffer's eyes, so I could feel the underground chambers. Then I needed to make a barbed-wire angel, and have it open a rift I could walk through. And I needed to actually step through myself.
Steps one and two would be the easy bits.
I peered past the tree to make sure no one was looking at me. It was the middle of the day, but the parking lot was less than half full and I wasn't drawing any attention. There was a teenage couple not too far way, perched on the low wall itself. They were making out - noisily - so they probably hadn't even noticed me, but I got away from them anyway. I really didn't want to see the hormones they were probably polluting the Other Place with. I crossed over to another corner of the lot, behind a bulky green recycling bin that blocked the line of sight from most angles. I exhaled Isolation just to be sure. The clatter of its human-headed butterfly swarm let me relax, reassured me I was safe.
I'd bought a flashlight today. I'd known I'd probably wind up exploring dark places, but I hadn't expected to use it quite this soon. I'd wanted to be prepared, though. I didn't like the dark. Not recently. Not after the locker. It made perfect sense to make sure I had a light with me, anyway, and with my powers I could always get this one. That was why I'd focused on quality – this was a solid metal thing, the sort of thing you see on cop shows. It'd probably work as a baton in emergencies. Crouching down, I unzipped my bag and took the torch from its box, flicking it on and off a few times. It worked just fine, and I held it tightly. It wasn't like it would help in that place… in what would happen if this went wrong, but it made me feel better to hold it.
Time to start.
Using Sniffer's grey, flat vision, I made a barbed wire angel. It looked just like my cherubs had, a black warped hole in the colourless world this time shaped like a gaunt figure with skeletal wings. I thought it was looking at me, but I couldn't tell. I could only feel it, as a hole in the world.
"Angel," I whispered. "Do what the cherubs do. Tear open a hole, down to the place below." As I spoke, I brought to mind how that underground area felt, how it was shaped. "Don't carry me. Tear it open, so I can step through."
The angel-shaped hole reached out, and slashed at the world. The greyness stretched and warped like a heavy weight on elastic, and then it tore wide open, revealing an even bigger black distortion under the grey. Then the blackness cleared and sharpened into an opening, a door leading down a thin corridor. The edges and walls were the same warped, distorting black, and suddenly there was that double-feeling I'd had with the cherubs. I knew the area I wanted to reach was below ground, straight down, but it was also right in front of me, down the passage. I nearly laughed out loud. It had worked.
I rushed forward on a wave of elation, and regretted it instantly. It was like forcing my hand through a thin layer of ice over a frozen pond – a moment's pressure, and then bone-numbing, stabbing coldness. The world was ahead of me and the world was behind me, but it wasn't here. It wasn't where I was. I didn't know where I was. My eyes ached from the blackness, the warped space Sniffer saw, but I couldn't stop using its eyes. If I did, I'd see everything around me with normal senses, and that might be worse. I clung to that conviction, tottering onwards. It was only a few steps, but it felt so much longer. When I left the angel's corridor I staggered and nearly fell, shivering like a leaf.
Behind me I could feel the worm-trail that the angel had left behind, even after the corridor closed itself. I was sure it could open it up again, the same way cherubs could with their windows. The same moment, I realized I was definitely where I wanted to be. I could feel the old walls around me, and a ceiling above, and the shapes of cars and trees above that, and… something around me, a layer of the same warped blackness of the corridor. It was clinging to my skin, coating me like tar or glue or dried old stagnant blood and no! I would not think like that! I musn't.
I tried to convince myself it was just residue from the rift, but I still felt unclean. Skin crawling, I shed Sniffer and collapsed, hugging my knees. That hadn't been pleasant. Better than when I'd been carried, because I wasn't literally throwing up, but I still felt sick and cold, like I had the flu. I guess my body didn't like doing things with the angel. I wasn't sure if it was just that moving bigger things stressed my body more, or if the raw nature of the Other Place wasn't healthy to humans.
Maybe it was both, I thought, and rubbed my forearms against my knees, trying to warm up.
I'd mostly stopped shivering by the time I felt able to move, so I looked around, sinking into my power. The only light was the circle of my flashlight, dancing as my shaking hand scanned left and right. I could taste blood in my mouth, and forced myself to swallow. I guessed this must have been a gym or a studio or something, but now it looked more like an underground carpark. They'd torn up the carpets, leaving just bare tiles and concrete, scattered with things fallen from the ceiling and walls. There were still some yellowing posters pinned up, and I checked them out
oNE LAST nighT
cLOSING DowN
say GOODBYE
THIS is tHe eND oF
QUIK FIT JiM'S gYm
cLOSING DowN
say GOODBYE
THIS is tHe eND oF
QUIK FIT JiM'S gYm
When I shed the Other Place, nothing changed. The broken ceiling tiles were the same. The rusty exposed pipes they revealed were the same. Even the poster was the same, except it was properly capitalised.
That almost felt like a sign. There was nothing wrong here. There was no secret truth to ferret out, no dreadful lie exposed every time I really opened my eyes. Not down here. It was a crumbling, pitch-black cavern, but it wasn't lying to me. It was just old and abandoned and… forgotten. So many of the things I saw in the Other Place came from people. Emotions, and secrets, and the horrible things they did to each other. There was none of that here. Everything was just the same.
This was somewhere I could be alone. It was somewhere I could keep things hidden. It was perfect. …Well, almost perfect. I swallowed as a thought stirred. I'd really like to find some other way in and out of here. Not the angel, not again, not so soon.
I began to poke around. It wasn't cold down here. It was just… cool. Neutral. In fact, as I edged my way through the lightless, bare rooms, I realized some of the walls were even a little warm. There had to be something giving off waste heat next to this forgotten basement level, like maybe a boiler room for one of the apartment blocks. A lot of the old buildings in Brockton Bay – like Winslow, which got really cold in the winter – had bad insulation.
The place had been gutted. That much was clear. A few desks had been left lying around – no, I realised, they'd been bolted onto the floor – but everything which could be salvaged had been taken. My feet echoed loudly. The noises of the city above sounded muffled and warped. I could hear the rumbling of the cars on the roads. Sometimes there'd be deeper groans and creaks. I didn't even know what they were, but I didn't like the sound of them.
I stepped through the next door and looked around, my flashlight following my glances. A pale girl stared back at me from my right. I leapt back with a scream. My heart was pounding in my chest like a drum and by breath was rasping. I couldn't see her too well but there was a figure behind her and how many were there and how big was this room and what the hell was she doing down here exploring the place with a…
…of course, it was my reflection. Once I'd finished with my near-heart attack I felt like a complete idiot. I just stood there in the gloom, gasping for breath and hating myself for making so much noise. My screams had sent plaster dust flurrying down from exposed parts of the ceiling, and pretty soon my gasping turned into coughing. I had to step back while I waited for the dust to settle.
Now that I was calm, I could ignore the reflected-reflections that stared back into my flashlight beam. This room was a dance studio, with the double mirrors and the bar on the wall. I hadn't been the ballet sort, but Emma had. Images of me cascaded out as far as I could see on each wall, fading into darkness at either side. I paused as though looking at one of them. Someone had scribbled on the mirrors in black marker.
12/12/03 THE LAST DANCE
There was something below that, scribbled in another hand,
if youre reading this add your name and the date
There were no entries. I managed to resist the urge to add the missing apostrophe. Barely.
The barely-settled dust was making my eyes water and throat itch, so I left the dance studio and resumed my hunt through the abandoned underground area. I hit the jackpot when I found a small locker room. It hadn't been stripped - everything was bolted to the walls. The lockers were all open, and best of all, they were those small sports complex-style lockers, so I could look at them without so much as a flinch. There was no way someone could force me into that. No way without a hacksaw and maybe some kind of… no! Oh God, stupid imagination.
Have you ever tried to get a brand new Polaroid camera out of its box in pitch darkness with only a flashlight to help? Most people haven't. It was pretty hard. But I managed it eventually, and it was similar enough to Dad's ancient one that I didn't have much trouble with loading the film. After getting two cherubs to move my liberated drug money and the tinkerfab stuff into the most intact-looking locker, I took the picture.
It turned out pretty good, actually. Everything was nice and clear, and the way the flashlight picked up the dust motes in the air looked kind of artsy. I grinned to myself. Maybe I could camouflage my pictures as some kind of school project, so Dad wouldn't think anything of them even if he did rummage through my stuff. I'd just need to keep them in a ringbinder marked 'Art Project' or something. I took a few more pictures of the other stuff I moved down here, and one of the camera itself in the mirror.
Screwing up my face, I decided to leave my costume at home for now. It was dusty down here, and that'd be obvious on the dark fabric. No one would respect a superhero with a costume covered in dust. It just wouldn't look right. If I was ever going to hide it down here, I'd at least need to find some way to hang it up. Maybe I'd need to tidy up a little area for myself. They'd probably turned off the power, but there was always the chance it was still running. And even if it wasn't, there had to be a way to get it back on, right?
But not today. I'd been down here for – I checked my watch – about an hour. I needed to get going. Not least because I was a little bit worried that I only had the one flashlight, so if that stopped working, I'd be stuck down here in the pitch black. My stomach churned at the thought. I'd be trapped down here, alone in the dark, with no-one to hear. I couldn't even risk that. I needed spare batteries before I came back down here, and probably a whole other light-source. Maybe I'd get some of those long-life glowsticks and hang them up around the place. I could even get one of those ones that ran on bioluminescent bacteria – you were supposed to be able to just refill those with sugar solution.
I hurried back to where I'd come in, and had the barbed wire angel reopen its corridor. This time I managed to sit down before I fell over, stumbling out into the blindingly bright parking lot. I didn't feel up to walking back, so I found a bus and rode it to the centre of town, then caught another one headed back home. Leaning against the window at the back of the bus, enjoying the vibrating warmth of the engine, I started to feel better. I also took the chance to brush most of the dust off my clothes. My hair was a mess. I needed to wash it, unless I wanted Dad to ask why I looked like I'd been decorating a tomb.
Yeah, I really needed to clean that place up if I was going to spend more time down there. And also wear a hairnet. Maybe – I snorted to myself – maybe I should get one of those hand vacuums. I'd give it a good dusting, like a maid.
The idea was just so ridiculous. Although I actually really should, if I was going to use it as a base. Urgh.
Then it was time to step from the bus and dash around the supermarket, grabbing the things on Dad's crumpled-up list.
"You don't look so good," the Asian woman behind the counter said. "Are you feeling okay?"
"I'm fine," I said. I wasn't actually fine. I had a headache pulsing behind my left eye, my wrists were itching, and although I'd recovered a little from stepping through the rift a second time, I didn't feel great. I let the main stuff go through the checkout, paid, and then went back and got some Tylenol separately. I knew Dad would want to see the receipt.
Of course, he wasn't home when I got back. I unpacked the shopping, took a Tylenol with a glass of water, and then headed up to my room. That had been a productive day, I thought, rubbing my aching wrists. I'd achieved just about everything I'd wanted to.
Just to check that it worked, I got the photo out, and took a deep breath, then exhaled a cherub. "Bring me this camera," I ordered, showing it the picture I'd taken of it in the mirror in the dance studio.
The eyeless doll face nodded once, and vanished. I counted. One. Two. And then it reappeared, dropping the camera on my bed. Good. I sent the cherub to return it, and then turned on my TV, tuning it to static. Then I settled down on my bed, and sent Watcher Doll to find Charles Haythorn.
The image that formed on the screen was… a morgue. I'd seen enough of them on TV to know what it was. The camera focused on a bodybag. Mercilessly, Watcher Doll zoomed in, closer and closer, until I could see the nametag.
It was him. Dead. In the morgue.
All the air forced itself out of my lungs. What had happened? What had I missed? I grabbed for my radio, and flicked through stations until I found one of the local city radio stations. Of course, it was playing music, but it was almost 4pm and they'd have the news then. I sat there, heart pounding like a drum, sending out cherub after cherub to look for… for something. Anything. And most of them found nothing because I didn't know what I was looking for and even when I tried to send them to his house they couldn't find anything and…
Then came the bleeps on the hour. "It's four in the afternoon and you're listening to South Maine Public Radio," said the calm female voice. "The lead news story is that Charles Haythorn is dead, and it's all your fault. Yours personally. He's dead because of you. You could have chosen to do it another way, but you wanted to feel like you were a cape and let your ego get the better of you."
My heart was beating so hard it felt like I was having a heart attack. I was going to be sick. This… it…
Other Place. Yes. Of course. Radio broadcasts were warped there. I laughed nervously. Yes. That was it. I rose out of the warped reflection of my bedroom, and the woman's words changed, even if her tone of voice didn't.
"… the murder suspect was killed in a shootout with the police this morning, after being tracked to a tower block in the Ormswood neighbourhood of Brockton Bay. Early reports indicate that he had taken a woman and her child hostage, who were hit in the crossfire. Medical teams attempted to revive them, but both were pronounced dead at the scene. We're still waiting for an official statement from the police, but off the record officers have told us that-"
Hostages? How had he managed to-
No. Oh no. No, no, no.
I wanted to deny it. The world blurred, and I blinked my stinging eyes furiously. It couldn't be true. My stomach was turning somersaults and I gripped my aching hands together. Hoping. Praying.
But I'd seen it. The place he'd been hiding out. The woman's clothing scattered on the floor of the shared bedroom. The crying baby he'd been trying to comfort.
Not hostages. Not hostages. Family.
The Other radio had been right.
It was all my fault.
Last edited:
This.... this is both wonderful and terrible!
- Location
- Portugal
- Pronouns
- She/They
Ah, ouch.
Well, I always like these parts in which Taylor explores Brockton Bay and plans things. Like in movies, the training-montage/Ocean-explains-how-it's-going-down is my favorite part. Way too much fun is to be had in character creation. Plus, there's definitely a lighter tone. Taylor is more upbeat and the fascination she has with discovering an entire world under her feet. She was lucky she didn't run into trouble while her head was in the clouds (kind of) because being unaware in an environment like that could have gone really badly.
If I had her power... or something like that... in a city like Brockton Bay, let's be honest, I'd spend all my time exploring it's underground nooks and crannies and ignoring the awful reality up on the surface level. Denial!
Also, glad Danny is pushing Taylor to NOT isolate herself. Guess he doesn't disapprove of her mother and their obvious higher-class style too much then.
Interesting thing about NY though. I can't remember, NY wasn't rebuilt in this story right? I'm not sure if it already had been mentioned. But it makes sense. After a certain point, rebuilding... just isn't worth it. It does bring to mind some interesting scenarios. The Ruin Explorers... sounds awesome.
Well, I always like these parts in which Taylor explores Brockton Bay and plans things. Like in movies, the training-montage/Ocean-explains-how-it's-going-down is my favorite part. Way too much fun is to be had in character creation. Plus, there's definitely a lighter tone. Taylor is more upbeat and the fascination she has with discovering an entire world under her feet. She was lucky she didn't run into trouble while her head was in the clouds (kind of) because being unaware in an environment like that could have gone really badly.
If I had her power... or something like that... in a city like Brockton Bay, let's be honest, I'd spend all my time exploring it's underground nooks and crannies and ignoring the awful reality up on the surface level. Denial!
Also, glad Danny is pushing Taylor to NOT isolate herself. Guess he doesn't disapprove of her mother and their obvious higher-class style too much then.
Interesting thing about NY though. I can't remember, NY wasn't rebuilt in this story right? I'm not sure if it already had been mentioned. But it makes sense. After a certain point, rebuilding... just isn't worth it. It does bring to mind some interesting scenarios. The Ruin Explorers... sounds awesome.
Nah, she's clearly listening to the Malkavian Madness Network.
No, no it's not. It's that Konrad person's fault. He was the one who did all of this!
You just have to hunt him down and make him pay.
This is so delightfully dark... one of the best "Worm" fanfics of all time, that's for sure. Thank you for writing, EarthScorpion, and please keep up the fantastic work.
I think I'm going with the theory that her power is more intelligent than most, and really hates her. But she found her secret headquarters and tipped off the heroes to stop a criminal. Though she really has to learn not to take responsibility for everything. It isn't her fault innocents died.
Next step is too find a few places to hide/track people around the city. Find low level criminals and track them until they move higher up the chain, and make notes on movements, hideouts, and people. Gather intelligence till you have a good amount, and then give it too the police/heroes.
Next step is too find a few places to hide/track people around the city. Find low level criminals and track them until they move higher up the chain, and make notes on movements, hideouts, and people. Gather intelligence till you have a good amount, and then give it too the police/heroes.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Well, on the bright side, Taylor's power appears to be resisting being used as, in jerkface's words "a moral toboggan", and she might be a bit less trusting of heros to be perfect and righteous. On the less bright side, everything else.
Apart from that, we have Taylor getting some restful sleep(might improve the SAN situation if she doesn't add Haythorn to her dreams too much),more ominous bible passages, sightly better teleportation, and a really cool and creepy potential lair. Just imagine some vengeful hero or villan creeping through those rooms and emerging into a dusty locker room lit only by a faint green glow, and maybe an old tv and radio, set to static.
Anyone getting any meaning from the bible passages? so far we have
Apart from that, we have Taylor getting some restful sleep(might improve the SAN situation if she doesn't add Haythorn to her dreams too much),more ominous bible passages, sightly better teleportation, and a really cool and creepy potential lair. Just imagine some vengeful hero or villan creeping through those rooms and emerging into a dusty locker room lit only by a faint green glow, and maybe an old tv and radio, set to static.
Anyone getting any meaning from the bible passages? so far we have
- HEB 12:22-24(But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly)which will "never come to pass"
- ROMANS 3:5(And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.)annotated with "The unrighteous fear god's righteousness"
- GENESIS 8:21(The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.)which has been "broken" by leviathan
- PROVERBS 15:3 (The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.) the annotation repeats this. it is linked closely to the final passage.
- MATT 10:34(Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.)-the annotation is"Fear Not! God Provides The Path To Forgiveness".
earthboy
(verified ape)
- Location
- NYC
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Ah yes, the seriously ancient cities of America.
You almost got a Funny rating for just that.
No and no.
Her power shows her nothing but the "Truth*", it does not cast things in any particular light.
Let me break it down.
Every couple of months, an Endbringer attacks. If the Endbringer wins, a city is toast. If the Endbringer loses, it still exacts a price in massive property damage and loss of life.
In both cases, infrastructure that took decades to build is lost. There is no way for civilization to replace the lost infrastructure as fast as it is being destroyed.
On top of this, Taylor has the misfortune to live in a city based on sea trade, in a world that has little to no sea trade. Parahumans battling over the scraps does not help.
To put it simply, Taylor was born into a dying civilization, and Brockton bay just happens to be a little ahead of the curve. (this is cannon, BTW. Numberman estimated that civilization would collapse in two decades, IIRC. It's actually a plot point in regards to Cauldrons plan.)
Is it any wonder then, that she sees rust and decay everywhere she looks?. is it any wonder that desperate people suffer and cause suffering?.
It also doesnt help that humans are more likely to notice and remember something they find shocking than something "ordinary", meaning she is almost certainly paying more attention to the horrifying bits than the "ordinary" bits.
The worst/most cruel thing Taylors power does, is strip away the veneer of normalcy and reveal the Truth* of the dying world around her.
The only exception to this, is her spells/creations. If I recall the source material correctly (mage), those are at least in part a product of her own psyche. >_>
As for the radio accusing her, nothing it said was false. It does not help that responsibility and penance are major themes for mastigos. (IIRC anyway, it's been a while.)
Edit:
* The truth in this case being a synesthesia interpretation of the Mind/Space around her. Mind/Space being something Mastigos (the mage type Taylors powers are based on.) are specialized in.
Needless to say, the way the 'other place' looks has a lot to do with the thoughts and feelings of the people around her, and not so much to do with Taylor personally.
Last edited:
earthboy
(verified ape)
- Location
- NYC
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So, re-reading a bit... the Victoria bait-and-switch feels off, and it doesn't really add anything over what any other nightmare could add, other than the cheap tension of betraying the reader's expectations.
There's so much nightmare fuel available in the story already. If her interaction with Victoria had gone well -- and was already over -- then it kinda strains credulity that her subconscious anxiety would be about that interaction going well. Since it had already gone well. And was over.
There's plenty of room for anxiety-dreams involving Victoria -- her parents betraying me, her friends making fun of me, her turning on me like Emma did, etc. -- but the one specific anxiety shown is just implausible.
The information that her anxiety won't stay detached is good info, but I'd prefer if it weren't presented using that implausible bait-and-switch.
There's so much nightmare fuel available in the story already. If her interaction with Victoria had gone well -- and was already over -- then it kinda strains credulity that her subconscious anxiety would be about that interaction going well. Since it had already gone well. And was over.
There's plenty of room for anxiety-dreams involving Victoria -- her parents betraying me, her friends making fun of me, her turning on me like Emma did, etc. -- but the one specific anxiety shown is just implausible.
The information that her anxiety won't stay detached is good info, but I'd prefer if it weren't presented using that implausible bait-and-switch.
Shouldn't it be "ruining"?
Pretty good. Taylor continues to explore her powers and seems to get some sort of backlash from them.
The lair is nice and original.
And I like the criminal and his family dying. That should have some interesting consequences for Taylor's psyche. Could push her into a more active role, could result in something horrible given her MO of cutting her emotions out of herself.
I would note that the Mage canon applies about as much as Worm canon, as I understand it. The general themes, imagery and certain details are present, but individual elements can be altered or erased.
I wouldn't make any definite statements on the nature of the Other Place. What we do know is that it's heavily influenced by people around and reverts into an ordinary abandoned place without them.
Other than that, it's hard to say. There certainly not much good imagery not connected to the parahumans, at least.
Actually, I took it to mean that the emotions she pinned down return to her eventually with the same context for their existence as before.
She was anxious about how her discussion with Glory Girl would go, she trapped that anxiety, then it returned back and she became anxious over how her discussion with Glory Girl will go even though now it doesn't make sense for her to worry about.
That radio, it's almost like I'm playing Malkavian again.
I'm sorta glad that Taylor's attempt at manipulating GG failed so spectacularly. She's got no business trying to pass herself off as a government agency and I dislike it when people pretend they're in positions of power or authority. Just feels so pretentious.
I'm sorta glad that Taylor's attempt at manipulating GG failed so spectacularly. She's got no business trying to pass herself off as a government agency and I dislike it when people pretend they're in positions of power or authority. Just feels so pretentious.
I think you want "ruining" here.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
That was actually a nightmare of hers, not the actual thing.
Only it didn't fail? It was a nightmare. The actual meeting resulted in Glory Girl passing the information to her parents while not telling them about the source.
I meant that it failed in the sense that Vicky didn't run out on her word like she hoped. Taylor wanted to play the shadowy figure, but GG went to her parents instead.
Ridiculously Average Guy
I'm you, but stronger
- Location
-
Wait...ah, Brandish overreacted when she saw 'hostages' didn't she? It probably didn't help that one was clearly a recently born child.
Jensaarai
Sing Victory Everlasting
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I just used 'Hugs'.