Chapter 32: Events
I flew over to the local
Palace to change into casual clothes before taking one the Warehouse's junkier-looking cars into the docks and parking a few blocks away from the loft.
"Food's here," I called as I climbed the final step. Alec was gaming in his usual spot, looking slightly worse for wear; his nose was taped up, and he had a half-dozen stitches on his chin in addition to the fading bruise around his eye. Taylor was sitting next to him, her left arm in a sling, and Aisha was leaning over the back of the couch. All three were entirely focused on the television, where Alec was currently playing something that looked an awful lot like
Metal Wolf Chaos.
"Awesome timing," Brian said. He was alone on the other couch, still laid up with a cast on his ankle. "We were fighting a losing battle to get this asshole to bring us poor, injured folk some damn food."
"I'm injured too," Alec said, pointing at his stitches. He took a look at the containers I started unloading and whistled. "Damn, that's the good stuff. Why do you have a hundred dollars of Chinese take-out?"
"Long story. Do you guys have plates?"
"Aisha?" Brian asked.
"Not my job," she said.
"I'll show you," Taylor said. She stood up and wiggled her wounded arm slightly. "Give me a hand, would you?"
"And people say
I make too many puns," I grumbled as I followed her back to the kitchen.
"Don't dish out what you can't take," Taylor said.
"Hey, I'm only complaining about people complaining. How's the arm, anyway?"
"Great. They took another x-ray after you left and said the break wasn't as bad as they thought. I'll probably have the cast off in a week or so. What's new with you?"
"Emma called me on Monday."
"Oh, yeah. That." Taylor sighed. "She started it."
I rolled my eyes. "Of course she did—"
"No, I mean—hold on, let me start at the beginning. She or one of her friends must have had a nosebleed, or something. She had all these bloody tissues in a bag, and dumped them on my head as I left class."
"She did
what?" That was
beyond aggressive. "Hitting her for that is totally fair. Holy shit."
"I didn't hit her for that, though," she said. "Paper plates in the cupboard, there."
"Oh?" I asked, bending down and grabbing the stack.
"Yeah. It was just so… petty? Pointless? Compared to the shit we got up to in costume—Lung, the bank, the
Teeth—it was just… I couldn't help it. I laughed in her face. Then she tried to slap me, and… self-defense happened."
"Huh."
"What?"
"Nothing, I'm just… impressed, I guess."
Taylor shrugged. "I grabbed her wrist, put her in a joint lock, and shoved her into the wall. It's not like she knows how to fight."
"Not by the self-defense," I said. "By the fact that you just no-sold that entire thing."
"Nose-hold?" she repeated.
"No, it's… forget it. The point is you managed to ignore that she had even tried to attack you at all."
"And that's impressive? Utensils are in that drawer, just grab the whole box."
I did just that to the box of assorted plastic cutlery. "Sure. You've weaponized the ability to not give a fuck."
That finally got Taylor to crack a smile. "I guess I did. What did she want from you, anyway?"
"A security blanket, now that she ditched Sophia. Napkins?"
Her eyes widened. "She ditched… wait, it's
Emma, why am I surprised?"
"Dunno," I muttered, mood turning sour. "What have you been doing?"
"Helping Rachel with her dogs, mostly, since we only have one arm each."
That was news to me. "She's injured too?"
"Yeah. Just a sprain, but if I wasn't helping, she'd take the sling off and make it worse."
I found the napkins myself and added them to the pile I was carrying. "I
told her that she could call me if she wanted help," I grumbled.
"She doesn't want help," Taylor said. "But she needs it, so she lets me force her to accept it. I even managed to rope Alec in."
"That's quite an accomplishment," I said. Her response was a shrug. "Drinks?"
Taylor opened the fridge. A six-pack of orange soda and some strange Japanese soft drink had taken up residence there at some point, but still no root beer. Taylor stacked a bunch of soda cans on top of my pile of stuff, and a quick flex of my power made sure everything was stuck together nicely.
"Are you coming to the fundraiser?" I asked.
"Yeah. Just us. Brian's not willing to risk it if he can't run, Alec doesn't think the money's worth it, Lisa's been super flighty since the whole Teeth thing, and Rachel is Rachel."
"Still?" I asked.
"Rachel is… still Rachel," Taylor confirmed.
"I meant
Lisa," I said.
"Yeah, she's the same. Why?"
"I guess I got my hopes up that this
would be temporary. Does she seem okay?"
"I mean, I guess? She's not really been herself this week." She frowned. "Was this because you guys were there when Shinigami killed the Butcher?"
"Shinigami didn't kill Butcher," I corrected her.
"She didn't?"
"No. Also, Shinigami's where I got the food. She called me out to a restaurant to question me about who
did off Butcher, and let me keep the leftovers."
"That wasn't a long story at all," Taylor said. She paled slightly, then asked, "Wait, did
Lisa kill the Butcher?"
"Are you two coming back, or are we going to have to eat with our fingers?" Alec yelled from the living room.
"Coming!" I yelled. To Taylor, I said, "No, Lisa didn't kill the Butcher. Come on, let's go back before Alec decides to just cave-man it and gets his filthy fingers all over the food."
Alec had spread the containers out over the table behind the couches, visibly salivating over the buffet he'd constructed. I set the plates, utensils, and sodas down next to the row of containers, then made Brian a plate and brought it over. Alec, Aisha, and Taylor were busy loading their plates down with food, so I stole Alec's seat.
"Hey!"
"Hey, yourself," I shot back, then spasmed and fell off the couch. He reclaimed his seat with a triumphant smirk, but wasn't able to grab the whole couch before I jumped back on next to him. "You coming tonight?"
"Not a chance." He popped the lid off his can of coke and took a long drink, eyeing me over the top of the can. "Not for all the money in the world. You two are completely crazy, thinking this is gonna work."
"I
know it's gonna work," I said, folding my arms confidently.
"Are you a precog now?"
Yes, actually. "I have one on side." Let Coil think I'm talking about him, if he's listening.
"How?"
"Long story—"
"The other story wasn't long," Taylor interrupted.
"Other story?" Aisha asked.
"How she got the food."
"Oh. How
did you get the food?"
I laughed. "Shinigami sent me a message that basically commanded me to appear at a certain restaurant for lunch, and let me keep the leftovers."
"Why?" Alec asked.
"She wanted to know who killed the Butcher."
"Ah. What did you tell her?"
"As much as I knew," I said. Alec rolled his eyes. "How much did he offer you guys for this job, anyway?"
"Forty grand each," Brian said. "The bank job again, basically."
"Dollah dollah bills!" Aisha cackled.
"Wow, he offered me
five before I started haggling." If I was feeling charitable, I might assume he'd
expected me to haggle. I wasn't feeling charitable. "You're coming, right?"
"On crutches?" Brian asked. "Yeah, right. Hobbling around like a cripple would do
great things to my reputation. How the hell would I get away if we had to run?"
"We won't need to run. I can charm a room like no one's business," I said with far more confidence than I felt. "Your rep will be as someone who rolled up to a Protectorate event,
injured, and thumbed your nose at the entire team before walking away clean. What's not to like?"
He was unmoved. "Literally everything about that plan, for starters."
Aisha slugged him in the arm. "I can't believe you're turning down forty gee to attend a party!"
"It's career suicide!" he said. "It's like asking me to collect a bounty on my own head!"
"Come on, man," I said, "are you really going to have the two newest, greenest members represent you?"
"You shouldn't go, either. Both of you." Brian looked at Taylor, then back at me. "You're walking into a trap with no bait!"
"It's not a trap if they're not going to try to catch us," I said. "What does Lisa think?"
He sighed. "She's all for it. Says this is the last thing the boss needs to really let us in to his inner circle." I had no idea what her plan was, now that she'd cut ties to my offer of help. Probably the same thing she'd been planning before. "But
she's not going," he continued.
"Because of me?"
"Yeah. She doesn't want to come near you, and won't give anyone a straight answer as to why."
"And Rachel is too… Rachel," Taylor continued. "Come on, guys! We need at least four people to actually make an impression."
Alec and Brian exchanged looks. "You really think we can pull this off?" Brian asked.
"We can," I said.
"Don't tell me you're considering this!" Alec yelled.
"Kasey has a point. This is an opportunity to get a lot of attention without a fight."
"How much attention do we need? We robbed a fucking bank!"
"It's not just attention for us," Taylor said. "It's reminding everyone that the heroes they worship didn't do shit.
We did. It's about getting respect for taking the hits they weren't willing to take!"
"Oh, yeah, let's help memorialize the Nazi who bought it," Alec shot back. "I'm sure Cricket was a great person, when she wasn't hating minorities and gays."
"Who cares?" Aisha asked. "Dying was the best thing she could'a done for the city, and
she dead. Hats off to her."
"How about this, Kasey," Brian said. "If you explain, plain and simple, why Lisa is so damn spooked, we'll go."
"Wait, what?" Alec asked. "Whoa, man, don't volunteer me for this!"
"We'll go," Brian repeated. "Assuming we get a
proper fucking explanation for why Lisa's been freaking out all week. Kasey?"
I didn't know exactly what part of that experience had scared Lisa so badly, but I could guess. If we had been anywhere but the loft, I might have had a chance to give… not a full explanation, but at least some sort of framework for what might have set Lisa off. As it was, though…
Ninety eight point nine one percent chance anything I say now gets back to Coil.
"Sorry," I said.
That was that. Brian grumbled as he pulled the laptop over and started working on something. Alec unpaused his game and went back to his high-speed mecha action, and as he finished off the boss enemy and pumped his fist as the cutscene began to play, I realized that I
recognized that design.
What a
perfect fucking capstone to my life right now.
"Nice work!" Cassandra Rolins said, her talk-sprite portrait looking like it'd been peeled straight off the box art I'd seen a lifetime ago. Alec skipped the rest of the cutscene, but I'd already taken the sanity damage.
Oh god why.
———X==X==X———
Taylor and I spent most of Thursday afternoon rehearsing. I was adopting a role; PHO had formed a mostly flattering idea of who Flux was, and I wanted to play into that as much as possible. Preparation was key; a few witty lines or icebreakers in reserve would work wonders. That, and the fact that my crippling social anxiety had been ganked by my social and mental perks, should see me through.
The same extra Coil had sent to ferry us around in the past delivered Skitter and I directly to the Forsburg Gallery half an hour after the official start of the fundraiser. That was forty minutes
after we'd gotten into the car; we'd had an errand to run. Proper preparation prevents poor performance, after all.
The gallery was an ugly, lopsided building, all metal and glass with sections protruding seemingly at random, like poorly stacked blocks. Spotlights along the perimeter of the ground floor had it light up in vibrant oranges and pinks, in pale imitation of the sunset that had happened an hour ago. There was no security outside; either it was up on the top floor where the actual party was, or they hadn't thought they'd need any at all.
Skitter had needed days of work to repair her costume from the beating she'd suffered at Pile's hands, but as we stepped out of the limo, the spider silk gleamed like it was brand new, and the crude pressed-chitin panels had been replaced with pieces of glimmering black carapace that I was worried may have come from an actual xenomorph. I was in my 'new' costume, as well, massive mane of hair pulled up into a ponytail behind me.
I looked at her. She looked at me.
We nodded.
———X==X==X———
The elevator took us straight to the top, and we stepped out into an antechamber in front of the main floor. The ceiling was entirely glass, as were the walls; in another timeline, the Undersiders entered through the full-roof skylight in a shower of broken glass.
There was a single man standing to one side, holding a clipboard; he glanced up when the doors opened, returned his eyes to his clipboard, then snapped his head back to us. "Uh," he said eloquently.
"Hi!" I walked forward, plainly intending to enter the room.
"Wait, you—you can't go in there!" He took half a step to physically block us before thinking better of it and cringing away.
"I'm on the list!"
"You… what?"
I leaned towards him, reading the list upside down while I flicked through the pages until I found the entry I was looking for. "There. Florence Uxley."
The greeter stared at the name under my finger. "You can't be serious."
I pulled out the ticket print-out from the online vendor and showed it to him. Skitter presented hers as well, under ''Stephanie Kitter'. We were really terrible at this whole pseudonym business.
He stared at me, then at the tickets, then at the list, then at me again. "I, uh, I'll check?"
"Good man," I said, patting him on the shoulder. We walked past him, ignoring the fact that he immediately pulled out a phone. Who was he going to call? Everyone who would respond was already here.
The response to our entrance was immediate. Even in the sea of people, we stood out; I was two inches taller thanks to my boots, plus another six inches of hair, so I was visible over the heads of the crowd. Anyone who wasn't looking our way saw Skitter's work, instead; a writhing black mass of insects that slowly occluded the outside world as they covered the windows like a curtain. On the outside, of course; we weren't trying to be
rude.
People made way for us as we walked into the center of the room, giving me a better view of the setup. There were drinks and refreshments along the wall to the left of the entrance. Most of the heroes were standing around a stage at the back of the room, which happened to be the direction we were walking in. To one side was the kids' table, where the Wards were mingling with guests their age.
The guests themselves were a cross section of the rich and influential; a lot of old white guys, plus various businessmen and minor celebrities. I think I recognized the owner of the local
Palace franchise from a company photo Mom had shown us last Christmas. Director Piggot was in the corner, standing next to the Mayor and looking like she'd just swallowed a whole lemon. I also counted at least two local TV news crews, complete with cameras.
The Protectorate came to meet us, forming up and advancing the moment they noticed something was wrong. Armsmaster was in front, covered in gleaming armor that left only his goatee exposed. He was flanked by Miss Militia and Beacon—Erin, in costume—facepalming as hard as she could at our presence. Assault and Battery were to their right, and Triumph and Velocity on their left. I looked around, but didn't see a PRT squad in attendance. Overconfident to the extreme, not to have a single trooper here. "Hello!" I said cheerfully, sticking my hand out to shake.
Armsmaster didn't seem to have any clue how to react to that. He stared at me and my outstretched hand for a moment before deciding on a course of action. "You are trespassing," he said.
"We bought tickets!" I pulled out the print-outs and waved them in front of me. "Besides, this is a party for everyone who fought the Teeth, right?"
"This is a fundraiser for the heroes who defend the city," he growled. "You are both under arrest."
"I defended the city! And that one guy. What was his name? The one Glory Girl nearly killed?" I asked loudly enough to be heard by the entire room, then added under my breath, "Seems like
another bad place to start a fight,
sir."
"Armsmaster," Beacon hissed, loud enough for me to hear but too low to carry to the crowd. "We can't fight them here." His frown turned into an outright scowl.
"Come on, Armsmaster, surely you can put things aside for a night to celebrate 'your' success?" I asked, stressing the sarcasm on 'your'. "Because if we start comparing score," I whispered, "I think you are going to find you come up short. Congratulations on arresting an unconscious gangster, by the way."
Beacon attempted to defuse the situation by stepping forward and taking the hand I was still holding in Armsmaster's direction. "I'm Beacon. But you already knew that." The
what the fuck are you thinking was communicated purely through body language.
"Flux, freelance troublemaker, at your service," I responded with a bow.
"You are certainly making trouble," she grumbled.
"You can't be serious," Armsmaster protested.
"What's the alternative?" Miss Militia asked. She sounded defeated. "You know how it would look if we started a brawl in the middle of the gallery."
"We'll be on our best behavior. Promise!"
Armsmaster tightened his grip on his halberd. "Why did you come here?" he demanded.
"To remind everyone that you weren't the only group out there fighting," I said, once more projecting my voice to reach the whole room. "You cleaned up, but it was
us who were in the thick of it." I took a moment to sweep my eyes across the heroes that were still moving to flank us. "You certainly came through just fine. All hale and healthy."
"You think a few broken bones is bad, you should have seen us last week," Assault grumbled. Battery elbowed him.
"Ah, yes, I heard about that. Must have been quite painful. You're lucky you have such a capable healer to fall back on." I paused for effect. "We don't, unfortunately, but we fought all the same."
Armsmaster seemed content to let him talk to us; he, Beacon, and Miss Militia retreated into a huddle behind the Protectorate line. "Does your friend talk?" Assault asked.
"
When I have to," the walls and ceiling said with the voice of a million chittering, buzzing insects. Several people dropped what they were carrying in surprise or fear, plastic cups and plates bouncing across the floor.
I laughed nervously.
Holy hell, Skitter! "We, uh, try to avoid that," I said with a strained smile.
"That is… probably wise," he admitted. "Uh, could you get rid of the bugs?"
"We did promise our best behavior," Skitter said, her voice
not backed by the legion of chitinous hell; she still had the bugs hidden on her person buzzing with her words, but it was only 'off-putting' rather than 'terrifying'. The black cloud receded as the bugs pulled back to the lower floors.
I asked Assault, "You're not going to try something clever like throwing me through a window, right?"
"Of course not."
"Great!" I held out my hand, and he shook it. "I'm Flux. Nice to meet you!"
"…likewise," he said skeptically. He was a good enough sport to shake Skitter's hand as well. "If you don't mind me asking, why
did you rob a bank?"
"It was there? Just, you know, being all…
banky." I waved my hands in front of me in a suggestion of the boxy building. "Putting all that money in one place is like a challenge: 'I don't think you can steal this.' I just had to try."
Assault laughed. "Most people would call that crazy."
"I'm not a kleptomaniac. I can stop stealing any time I want!" I paused for a beat, then added. "Ooooh, food! Totally stealing that." There were a few awkward laughs from the crowd as I headed over to the table and grabbed a fist-full of carrot sticks, ignoring the various dips entirely in favor of returning to center stage. "What's up, doc?"
Assault grabbed a carrot stick from my hand just to be obnoxious. "I think I'm getting a sense for you. Thrill-seeker, huh? Rob a bank 'cause it's there. Punch the Teeth 'cause they're there. Crash a party 'cause it's there."
"Life is too short to be boring."
That was not a great line. "But punching the Teeth was a public service!" I declared, wagging a carrot stick at him.
"It's shorter when you have powerful people after you," he warned me.
"I think I burned that bridge when I hit Lung so hard he flew a hundred feet down the road."
"That was you two, wasn't it?" He looked between Skitter and I. He lowered his voice and whispered, "I heard you'd already KO'd Lung before Armsmaster even got there."
"You heard right," she murmured back. I nodded and offered her a carrot stick, which prompted a hilarious are-you-fucking-serious head-tilt.
The shock of our appearance was starting to fade; people were beginning to whisper to each other, and from there it would only be a short time before they began to talk among themselves normally. I grinned and waved at the crowd before telling Assault, "We're not looking to fight. Honest."
"Not looking for trouble?" Battery asked, finally breaking her silence.
"
Always looking for trouble. But I think we've caused enough just by being here." I held my hand out to her.
"You think?" She rolled her eyes, but shook all the same.
Assault raised an eyebrow behind his mask and turned to me.
"For the company," I said.
"The company?" he repeated.
"The company. Who do you think would be more fun to hang out with, us, or the Tin Tyrant over there?"
"It is not
tin," Armsmaster growled. He'd finished his impromptu meeting. "Flux. Skitter. Out of respect for the proceedings tonight, I am willing to overlook your… history. Behave yourselves."
"We'll call it a truce," Beacon said. "And that extends to any harm you may hope to do to our reputation, as well."
Aw, well, I didn't really need the bonus anyway. "Let's lay out some
ground rules, shall we?" She took Skitter and I by the shoulder and dragged us off behind the stage while the rest of the Protectorate capes wandered off to reassure the public that no one was going to start throwing punches.
I did hear Armsmaster grumble, "I think that ship has sailed," as he stalked off, so at least I'd fulfilled the basic objective.
"What the hell are you thinking?" she hissed at me once we were out of sight.
"It's better than the original plan?"
"
This is Coil's plan?" She facepalmed again. "Well, you're causing a lot less damage, I'll give you that much."
"Less damage than what?" Skitter whispered.
"Well," I whispered back, "if the team had been in better shape, Coil would have asked us to
attack the fundraiser. Rob it, basically."
"That's insane!" she said. I shrugged. "Wait, Coil?"
"Oops," I said insincerely. "Yeah, he's your boss. He has bugs in the loft, too, which is why I never explain anything there. Err, listening devices. Not, you know—"
"Exposition later, Flux," Beacon interrupted me. "I need an honest answer. Is this the entire plan, or are you the decoys?"
"As far as I know, this is it. Wait, gimme a moment… thirteen point eight one percent chance you guys will be needed elsewhere tonight."
"You still have that power?"
"Stopped by to refresh it this afternoon," I said. "Everything going okay, B?"
"Thus far. I guess you used precog to make sure everything would line up?"
"Well, eighty percent sure."
"Only eighty percent?" she asked. "Whatever. Enjoy the party; I'm going to go make sure Armsmaster doesn't say anything stupid in his frustration." She headed back onto the floor.
My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out to see a text from an unknown number that read, '
DID YOU JUST GET ARRESTED ON LIVE TV LIKE AN IDIOT???'.
Oh, right, I gave Faultline my direct number. I laughed and replied with '
nope ;)' before slipping it back into my pocket.
"So, quick summary," I said to Skitter, ticking off point on my fingers, "I've got connections in odd places; Tattletale got a look at some of it and got spooked. Coil is a control freak who wants leverage over the people he works with, and he has serious leverage on her, which I'm still planning to help her with even though she's avoiding me. The Saint Patrick's Day comment was a clue to her, because he's known for driving the snakes out of Ireland, and Coil's got a snake motif going on. He's a real creep, by the way. Uh, what else… I have access to a very powerful but limited precog power, but it fades with use." I looked at my four extended fingers. "So basically, the TLDR is that you're seeing a bit of a conspiracy pile-up at the moment. Anything else you want to know?"
"Not really," she said carefully. "You'd tell me more if you could, right?"
"Eh," I waggled my hand, "we're sort of under a time constraint. I can tell you more now, if there's anything you want to ask before we head back out to the floor." I looked around. "This is probably a good time to ask, since I doubt anyone's listening in."
I had apparently forgotten that Taylor didn't ask questions. She shook her head, and we went back out to mingle.
———X==X==X———
The brief moment we'd been out of sight had been enough for the party to resume, and our reappearance wasn't overly disruptive. In fact, one of the news crews was feeling brave enough to approach. The perky young female reporter had to visibly steel herself before stepping in front of us, but she did it all the same. "Hello. I'm Chloe Meadows, with Channel Six News. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions?"
I shot a look at Skitter. "You can ask, but we may not answer," she said.
"Right. Thank you." Chloe took a deep, calming breath before reaffixing her smile and turning back to her cameraman, who looked
even more uncomfortable with the situation despite being a 'safe' distance away. She went through a short intro before heading straight into the interview. "Why did you decide to attend tonight's fundraiser?"
Skitter looked at me to answer that one. It was a perfect soap-box to trash-talk the hero's accomplishments, but I'd agreed to behave, so I said, "I just wanted to be included, you know?"
"Included?" Chloe prompted.
"In the celebration. It wasn't just the heroes out there fighting this week. It's our city too, and we did our part." I was pretty sure talking ourselves up wasn't violating the agreement, and I was prepared to argue the case in the court of public opinion.
"We don't have the heroes' resources, but we showed up all the same," Skitter added, drawing attention to the sling on her arm.
"Care to share the story behind that?"
"I was dueling Xerxes, master versus master. I had the upper hand, but the Teeth arrived to bail him out."
"What's it like, fighting another master?" Chloe asked. She was fully invested in the interview now, having forgotten
who she was interviewing.
"It's different every time. Against Xerxes, neither of our minions worked on the other's, so it was down to who found who first, and I won." She shrugged. "But his help arrived first, so I guess it wasn't really a victory after all."
"Where was
your help?"
"Fighting other capes," she answered with another shrug.
"Cape fights are hectic, especially when you have movers or shakers in play," I added. "Capes often pair off just to reduce the complexity, turn one giant clusterfu—" I remembered halfway through that I was likely on live TV, "—
fluffle into a lot of little
kerfluffles."
"That's doubly true for capes on the outskirts," Skitter agreed. "As masters, neither me or Xerxes were near the center of the fight, so we were out of sight of the, uh, 'clusterfluffle'."
"What do you think of the heroes' contributions to the fight against the Teeth?"
Now
that was a softball question if I'd ever heard one. "They… did defend parts of the city."
Damning by faint praise is fair, right?
"They were certainly doing things," Skitter agreed.
"I see…" The implications hadn't been lost on Chloe, it seemed. "Would you've still fought, if the Protectorate had been more effective?"
"I would have been happier to not have been needed," Skitter said, and I nodded along with her answer. "They have access to manpower, equipment, and healing that we don't." She shifted her broken arm again. "The fact that we had to fight, without any of that, is… not great."
"Don't you think it's hypocritical to accuse the heroes of failing to defend you, when they often need to defend other people
from you?" Chloe asked, then blanched when her brain caught up to her mouth.
Skitter seemed just as shocked as Chloe at the question, so I quickly stepped in.
"That's a great question." I beamed at her. "There's probably a whole debate to be had about whether villains ought to be included in the social contract when it comes to police protection—and Protectorate, uh, protection, of course. I mean, criminals lose certain rights when convicted, like voting or the right to own guns, but those are
positive rights, things one
is able to do, while police protection is… passive? It's something you can
expect to have, I guess. I mean, you wouldn't argue that the fire department should ignore a burning car just because the owner's a criminal, right? And part of that is because, obviously, fire is dangerous no matter what, but the same logic applies to police action. If something should be stopped, it doesn't really matter who it's happening to.
"Even if you don't buy that, if you argue that being a criminal means withdrawing from the social contract, cape identities make the issue
really messy. Like, if a villain is never caught, can they be 'convicted' without violating the rights guaranteed to defendants? And even if they
can, how can that apply to their civilian identity if that's still a secret? Once we take off our masks, we're just people. Hell, we go out of our way to be 'just people', because identities are serious business. If you saw me in trouble out of costume, you'd have no idea that I robbed a bank. You'd assume I was just as deserving of protection as anyone else."
I caught myself babbling, remembered the question, and continued, "Sorry, I got off track. That's all good stuff to think about, but it's not the issue here. We weren't 'victims of violence' in the traditional sense. We're more like… volunteers. On the one hand, we chose to participate, so it's no longer a question of 'deserving police protection' like bystanders. On the other, we only did so because we didn't think the Teeth would be defeated without us."
Chloe had taken the opportunity granted by my long-winded, rambling response to take a few deep breaths and get some color back into her face. "Thank you for your thoughts," she said awkwardly, before setting her shoulders and plunging onward. "Would you say you, uh, 'volunteered' because the heroes weren't doing the job?"
"Let's not speak ill of the Protectorate at their own event," I responded breezily, implying that that was the
only reason I wasn't dragging them through the mud.
"Yes, of course." She swallowed. "The fighting against the Teeth was unusually deadly, wasn't it? Cape deaths are usually rare, but in only a week, the city lost four capes, and the Teeth, six. How do you feel about that?"
About being responsible for three of them, you mean? I thought, letting Skitter field the question. She ended up delivering a respectable lecture on the topic.
"It's a matter of escalation," she said. "Well, that and reprisal. First off, the more force you use, the more force the other side brings. A fight can start with nothing but posturing, but as soon as someone throws a punch, that's the new, uh, 'level' of force. And if it keeps going from there, pretty soon everyone's throwing around attacks that will kill
someone, eventually—it's just a matter of who gets hit.
"Reprisal, though, is what happens
around the fights. If one side kills someone, then maybe the next time, the other side goes out of their way to do the same. Or, maybe the only reason they
haven't been doing that is because they know
you'd do the same. As long as everyone sticks to those rules… well, you get the status quo.
"On the other hand, if they kill one of yours—I mean, deliberately, rather than the rare 'normal' death—you have to respond to show them that there will be consequences, or they'll keep doing it. That's what happened here. The Teeth started killing, and we retaliated because that sort of tit-for-tat enforcement is the only thing that keeps the rules of politeness in place."
"Politeness?" Chloe repeated dubiously.
"Well, you said the fighting was 'unusually' deadly," Skitter pointed out. "That's because, 'usually', both sides hold back, knowing that anything they do will be answered in kind."
The reporter stared at Skitter for a moment before collecting her thoughts. "That's… very harsh."
"It's lawless," I said. "We don't have our own courts. Might makes might, and you can do what you can get away with. It's not a nice way to live."
"But you chose it anyway?"
"The alternative was being a hero," Skitter said irritably.
"Uh, right." Chloe cleared her throat nervously. "Why do you think this turned so deadly?"
"The Butcher," Skitter said.
"She went straight to killing because she knew that whoever killed her would still lose," I explained. "Her strategy was to offer a no-win scenario. Either no one kills her, and she gets to do whatever she wants, or someone kills her, and there's a new Butcher in a month."
"That's an excellent segue. Everyone is curious as to who it was who killed the Butcher. Do you have any speculation you'd care to share?"
That was the cue to exit. "It's been nice talking to you, Chloe," I said firmly, shaking her hand. Skitter did the same, and we turned and walked away without giving her an opportunity to protest. I heard her stumble through her sign-off behind us. "You did great there," I told Skitter. "I bet she wasn't expecting a couple of essayists."
"Thanks. That was actually… fun." She seemed surprised at her own words. "Where to now?"
"They say you should never meet your heroes." I paused, then grinned. "Let's ignore that, shall we?"
———X==X==X———
I was tempted to try to strike up a conversation with Piggot, just to be obnoxious, but I thought better of it and sought out Miss Militia instead. She was by the refreshment table, holding a cup despite having her mouth covered, which gave me an opportunity to grab a glass of water as well. "Miss Militia!" I said, extending a hand to shake. "I'm a huge fan!"
"Flux," she said, with more warmth than I'd have expected. "I was very surprised to see you here." She shook my hand, then Skitter's as well.
"I'm just too damn troublesome to stay away," I said. "That said, I hope I didn't cause any serious harm? Today, I mean."
"Not yet," she allowed. "I don't think you could say the same for your actions last month."
I shrugged. "At least I managed to avoid injuring the hostages."
"Yes. And got quite a bit of attention for it." She glanced at Skitter. "You also didn't follow through on your threat to harm Panacea."
Skitter shifted awkwardly under the attention. "She can't heal herself," she muttered.
"Not everyone would have respected that."
"We can be bad guys without being
evil," I said
Miss Militia made a non-committal noise. "If you don't mind me asking… why
did you decide to be, uh, 'bad guys'?"
Skitter passed to buck to me. I glanced around, but everyone seemed to be keeping a respectful distance. "I'm only speaking for myself, here, but I wasn't
just being flippant with Assault when I said I went villain for the company." I grabbed a couple crackers off the table and started munching.
She raised an eyebrow, but didn't question me further. Instead, she turned to Skitter. "And you?"
"I wasn't being flippant either," Skitter said. "I wanted to be a hero, once. Before I realized who they were."
"You're saying the law failed you?"
"Worse than just 'failing'." She took a deep breath. "A hero caused me to trigger. Or someone
calling themselves a hero, a member of the Protectorate in good standing. Through deliberate malice."
"Here?"
"Here."
Miss Militia stared at Skitter for a few moments, mulling over her words. "That is a serious accusation."
"I can't prove it," Skitter said. "I
tried. No one listened to me. No one cared. But… I don't need to. It's over with." She looked up, meeting Miss Militia's eyes with her lenses. "I've chosen my path."
"I'm sorry to hear that." Miss Militia took a moment to work the straw in her cup through her scarf and take a drink, then asked, "When you say it's 'over with', what do you mean?"
"I mean it doesn't matter anymore."
"Then do you have a reason to remain a villain?" she asked.
"You mean other than the criminal record?" Skitter replied. "I'm not going to turn myself in, if that's what you asking."
"Even if showing up here in costume almost accomplished the same thing," I added.
Skitter elbowed me with her good arm. Miss Militia ignored my joke. "The robbery does complicate things."
"Shadow Stalker." Skitter sighed, letting her shoulders slump. "I wasn't trying to hurt her that badly. That was an accident."
Miss Militia took another drink. "I guessed as much," she said. "I'm not sure that's much comfort to her, though."
The conversation died, and after an awkward goodbye, I wandered off to find someone else to annoy.
———X==X==X———
"Miss me?" I asked as I drew even with the Wards' table.
"Oh god," Clockblocker whispered.
"Relax," I drawled. "It's a truce! At a party! Besides, we didn't hurt you too badly, right?"
"We're down a member," Vista said.
"That wasn't our fault."
"
Everything that happened is your fault! Or would a roaming cloud of mace have climbed down Stalker's throat without you?"
"Truce, guys," Gallant reminded us. "Let's calm down and not scare people, okay?"
"I don't think she's going to have much luck there," Clockblocker said, looking at Skitter.
Skitter shrugged. "If life gives you lemons, make a lemon costume." She cleared her throat. "I am sorry for what happened to Stalker, for what it's worth. I was
trying to be nonlethal."
"Sorry isn't going to fix it," Vista shot back.
"Neither is your attitude," I replied. Vista opened her mouth to reply, but thought better of it. "Anyway. We had a great skirmish, right? Fun all around?" I glanced at Kid Win. "I did save you from a nasty fall, you know."
"Yeah, I know," he grumbled. "And turned me into a goddamn joke."
"Aw, come on, you're more popular than ever! Besides, it's not like
I started the photoshop thread."
He shrugged. "It wasn't my idea."
"Yeah, I figured. They were trying to distract people, get them talking about anything other than…"
"How badly we did?" he suggested sullenly.
"I was more thinking of the Glory Girl thing."
"Oh."
"I wish I'd only had to deal with a lamppost," Aegis said.
"I didn't think a pole would hold you. Sorry about your arms."
"I've had worse."
"Good, good." I looked over the group. "Clockblocker! How are you doing?"
"Good?" he squeaked.
"Is he arachnophobic?" I asked Gallant.
"No, he's… it's a long story."
"Oh, yeah, I say that all the time when I don't want to explain something."
"Which is always," Skitter added. "You guys were all okay, though, right? I didn't sting you with anything venomous."
Browbeat nodded. "The director mentioned that. A city full of black widows and brown recluses, and no spider bites anywhere."
"Plus, we even managed to avoid hurting the hostages.
Despite your heroism," I added to the person currently stomping towards us.
Victoria Dallon wasn't in her costume, but she still looked ready to launch herself straight at my throat. "
Flux."
"Glory Girl!" I said happily. "Have fun in the vault?" I held my hand out. She took it and squeezed as hard as she could, crushing it into a lump. We both stared at my hand as I slowly raised it in front of my face.
She paled. "I… what the hell? You're supposed to be a brute! What the hell!"
I released the rubbery effect, causing my hand to snap back to normal. "Just kidding," I said as I wiggled my fingers. "You really ought to be more careful."
"You… you…!" Victoria was actually hovering an inch off the floor, poised to strike, before she took a deep, calming breath. "You… are quite possibly the
bitchiest villain I have ever arrested."
"You haven't arrested me."
"I will."
"I look forward to it," I said. "It'll make for a great photo in the papers, right?" I turned back to the Wards, then remembered to ask, "Say, where's your sist—"
Then I was flying across the room. Someone screamed as I slammed into a crowd of people and knocked them to the floor like bowling pins before rolling to a stop at Armsmaster's feet.
For a long, surreal moment, the entire floor was dead silent.
I raised my hand in front of my face, index finger extended, and solemnly announced, "I would like to report a crime."
He responded by tasing me.
———X==X==X———
