Chapter 1: A New Day
January 11, 2011, Brockton Bay, New Hampshire
"You're late, Hess."
Sophia cringed. That voice was the last one she wanted to hear right now, but she had been expecting and dreading it since she arrived at school. She supposed it was easier for her bully to just wait near her locker than it was to catch her at the entrance. "I don't have it, Taylor, but I can pay double next time."
The tall brunette glared at her. She and her crew were surrounding Sophia in a half-circle, making it impossible for her to get away. The red-headed girl next to Taylor popped a bubble from her chewing gum and rolled her eyes. "Shit, Tay, Hess here is so poor she can't even afford twenty." Sophia glared at the bitch, Emma. She thought she was special just because her dad was a divorce lawyer and she was best friends with Boss Hebert's kid.
Hebert smirked at the red-head's comment, then said, "Are you asking for charity, Hess? Do you need help from your betters?"
Sophia felt a sadly familiar indignant rage starting to build, but she viciously pushed it down. "You're not better than me, Hebert," she said with a scowl.
The other girl moved quickly, stepping up and into Sophia's space. "You want to bet?" The two girls glared at each other from inches away for a solid thirty seconds. Then Hebert took a step back and said, "It sets a bad precedent if I let you slide a week. How are you going to make it up to me?"
Sophia's frown deepened. What was Hebert fishing for? To her shame, she paid her protection money. Her father's job was dependent upon staying in Danny Hebert's good graces. More importantly, without the protection of the DWU, the PRT, or one of the other gangs, being black in the same city as the E88 was bad news. The gangs knew who was protected and who wasn't. The gang recruits at Winslow High were supposed to follow the same rules, but it was up to Taylor and her crew to enforce that for DWU dependents. So, she paid when Taylor came calling, even if she hated it. It seemed like the girl wanted something else, now, though, and was using her inability to pay as an excuse. "What do you mean?"
Taylor stared at her for a few moments. "You know Richie Washington has the hots for you?"
The black girl's expression turned confused. "So?"
"So, if somebody was to get close to him, she could learn all kinds of things," said Hebert.
Sophia's control over her rage slipped a bit. "He's a fucking Merchant!" That meant he was destined for the gutter, even if he was one of the more clear-headed stoners in school at the moment.
"Duh!" said Emma. "Why do you thinks she wants you to get close to him?"
Now it made a sick kind of sense. Sophia knew that the DWU had an understanding with the Empire, but the Archer's Bridge Merchants also had a presence in the Docks, and relations with them weren't nearly so good. Richie Washington was the number two Merchant at Winslow. Hebert was probably hoping to learn something to help her father. In a tight voice, she said, "I'm not going to whore myself out to a Merchant just to spy for you, Hebert."
With a mean-spirited smile, Madison, one of Taylor's more sycophantic hangers-on, asked, "What do you whore yourself out for?"
With a sneer and an aggressive glare, Hess returned, "Nothing you could provide, Clements." To her inner satisfaction (and slight confusion), the short girl flinched.
That seemed to anger Taylor, though. "You owe me, Hess."
"I told you, I'll pay you next week," she growled.
"Not good enough!" said Taylor. The girl looked like she might be about to get physical, but if so that would be new. Sophia ran track and was in pretty good shape, which made her a harder target than average. Hebert looked like she had muscle, though, and she also had a height advantage.
Before things could come to blows, Madison said, "Maybe you should tell Mike that he has a free shot at her little brother?"
Sophia saw red. Mike Chilton was the head of the E88 at Winslow. He was a vicious son-of-a-bitch, which was why he was number one despite only being in junior year. The seniors had all learned to defer to him. If he got the nod to take a free swipe at her brother Aaron, then he would take it, and he wouldn't care that the kid was still in junior high. "Don't you fucking dare!"
"What are you going to do about it?" asked Emma before Taylor could respond. The thin girl had seemed a little caught off guard by Madison's suggestion.
Desperate for some way to protect her brother, Sophia said, "Does your father know you're threatening the families of union members, Hebert? What would he say if somebody told him about it?" The man was known to have a violent temper, and she wouldn't be surprised if his family had felt the brunt of it.
Taylor's eyes widened, then narrowed again. Quietly, she said, "You need to learn to keep your mouth shut."
Sophia could see the punch coming, but somehow she wasn't able to dodge out of the way in time. She felt the blow strike the side of her head, dazing her. She tried to slide sideways, out of the path of the expected follow-up blow, but her opponent still managed to nail her hard in the stomach. The blow knocked the wind out of her. Taylor then charged forward, slamming her against the inside of the open locker door, the locking mechanism digging into her side. There was a brief pause in the blows, during which Sophia tried to wheeze in a breath. She could then feel Hebert grab her, dragging her over a few inches. She felt a shove, and then the door of the locker slammed, catching one of her wrists where it was still hanging out. She gave a started scream, and then her hand was pushed inside and the door was slammed shut. The light grew dim, limited only to the thin rays coming through the door vents. Sophia kicked back against the door, and yelled, "Let me out of here you fucking bitch! Ahh!" The only response was cruel laughter from the crowd of girls outside.
She continued to kick back against the locker door, using her frustration and anger as fuel to keep hammering. Finally, after what seemed like an hour but was probably less than five minutes, she paused, breathing heavy. It was then that she heard Hebert's voice coming through the door. "You need to remember who's in charge at Winslow, Hess. You're weak. Enjoy your time locked up. I'll be sure to let somebody know to let you out before I go home for the day." This was accompanied by more laughter, though it was clear that people were already moving away from the sound.
After a few more half-powered kicks, she slumped down (as much as was possible in the locker), and tried to think. Her first thought was that Hebert was a much better fighter than she expected. Maybe her father got some of the union members to teach her? Her second thought was that the staff at Winslow were all pretty much worthless. Hopefully somebody would come looking for her when she didn't show up to class? Yeah, and maybe fucking Alexandria would break through the ceiling and tear the door off of her locker while the other members of the Triumvirate tracked down and arrested Hebert and her crew. Her parents would notice when she didn't come home, but that meant at least six hours trapped here unless she got lucky. Thank God she wasn't claustrophobic. It was at that moment that she felt something crawling on the skin of her ankle. She stifled another scream, not wanting to give anybody the satisfaction if they were still listening, and tried to use one ankle to brush whatever bug was there. Just her luck to get stuck inside with a roach, or whatever the hell it was.
She froze when she felt something else crawling on the skin of her arm, then gave a short yell when something actually bit her. What the fuck? Was her locker infested or something? She didn't keep food or anything inside it, so...ouch! THAT one hurt. Sophia started to panic as she felt more and more creepy crawlies of some kind on her skin. She began banging with her foot against the door again. "Hey! Somebody! Let me out of here! There's bugs in here! Help, anybody!" It was like she had fallen into an ant hive or something. She started thrashing more, bruising her skin against the inside of the locker. Her head slammed back, dazing her, when she felt something crawling on her face. Tears started to fall, and she kept repeating over and oven, "Please, somebody, please...help me..."
Sophia Hess's vision began to waver, and then there was a vision. She saw stars, and some kind of vast creature, which was dropping bits of bright light down onto a planet below. The memory of the vision was already starting to fade as she lost consciousness.
[CONNECTION]
Down the hall, Taylor was smirking at the sound of Hess thrashing around in her locker. To think that the fucking cunt would threaten to go to her father! She deliberately wasn't thinking about what his likely reaction would be if he thought she was going against his orders that union members and their families were off limits. Ten minutes with her bugs would teach her a lesson. Of course, she wouldn't leave them there long. She wasn't trying to kill the girl, after all, and she couldn't afford to leave evidence that would let the PRT draw the right conclusions. Suddenly, her vision blurred and she passed out.
She woke up to Emma frantically shaking her. "Taylor, are you OK? Please wake up!" The rest of her crew were standing around nervously.
"I'm awake...stop shaking me," she grumbled, pushing her best friend's hands away. "Jesus."
"What happened?" asked Julia.
Taylor shook her head as she sat up. "I don't know...I just felt light-headed. I'm fine now." She began dispersing her swarm, telling the bugs in the locker to go away.
Emma still looked concerned. "We should take you to the school nurse."
"I said I'm fine," she repeated, though her focus was elsewhere.
Madison put a hand on her arm. "Better safe than sorry, Taylor. You were out for almost a full minute."
Grudgingly, Taylor nodded her head and let her friends lead her to the nurse. The whole walk, she wondered why the hell Sophia Hess was no longer locked in her locker.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
A dark-haired woman was sitting in the newspaper archives of the Brockton Bay Public Library, reading through the events of the recent and not-so-recent past. She had a relatively conservative blouse in bright blue on top of blue leather pants, an outfit that was a little too cold for the weather outside. Any observer would think she was simply skimming the headlines if they noticed the speed with which she was flipping microfiche pages. She would pause to look at a displayed page, letting her specialized contact lenses scan the information. When it was done, it would flash a light in her peripheral vision, and she would advance the page. She was averaging about a page every two to three seconds, and was keeping herself amused by actually scanning the headlines. Unfortunately, there were still a number of local periodicals that didn't have online archives, which meant that somebody had to manually scan them to get a full picture of recent events...or at least events as reported in the media.
A thin, fit man with short brown hair came up behind her. "Are you almost done, love?" he asked in a soft Received Pronunciation accent.
"Almost," she replied as she continued the regular flipping. "This is the last of the Brockton Bay Gazette." Her accent was hard to place. It was somewhat reminiscent of people who relocated frequently as a child and picked up a plethora of regional speech patterns. "Are you done with your list?"
"I am, though the library layout was odd," he replied.
She finished her review and shut down the microfiche reader. As she started to pull the reel out of the machine to return it to the box, she asked, "How so?"
He grimaced. "While this world looks a lot like the ones we know, there's something off. A lot of the military theory is shelved under philosophy, for example. They also don't have a horror section. I had to find Stephen King in the children's section."
The woman got up and walked the boxed reel over to the shelf, taking care to place it in the correct spot rather than just leaving it in the reshelf cart. "Is that not appropriate for children?"
He shook his head. "I might have thought so when I was a vampire, but generally not." He gestured to what was obviously the entrance to a broom closet. She looked at him with a raised eyebrow and a slightly saucy smirk, but proceeded inside. The man followed her inside and closed the door. Out loud, he said, "We're ready to leave, Sammy."
There was a brief flash of light visible from under the door, and then the closet was empty.
The two appeared on a transport platform facing a glowing hologram of a silver-haired teddy bear, the floating avatar of their starship's artificial intelligence. "Welcome back, William, Vala. I've processed the information you sent back, if you'd like to join the others in the conference room."
The raven-haired woman, Vala, grinned at the avatar. "Thank you, Sammy."
The two began walking down the corridor of the starship Smug Advocacy, the flagship of the powerful beings known simply as the Family. The corridor was painted a soft pastel blue with gray stripes breaking up the straight lines. The floor was a dark gray rubber-like substance. For a starship, it was an oddly aesthetically pleasing combination. The whole ship was actually quite comfortable, which was convenient, as it was the home base of the Angels, the group whose members included both of them as well as a variety of other displaced outcasts from all of creation.
"Do you think we'll have leave time while we're around this Earth," asked Vala idly. "Your world does have some interesting shopping."
William smirked. "Not really my world, is it? We didn't have nutters running around in tights beating up criminals with superpowers."
She laughed at his comment. "No, you had demons from hell wandering around. Not exactly an improvement if you ask me."
William Pratt had spent centuries as the vampire known as William the Bloody, also called Spike thanks to his propensity for using railroad spikes to torture his victims. For most of that time, he was a bloodthirsty monster, albeit a slightly atypical one with an above-average number of humanizing habits. He had finally fought to regain his mortal soul, and had then sacrificed himself to close a gateway to Hell. The Family had retrieved an artifact from an evil law firm that happened to contain said soul, and a Family bioshaper had built him a new and improved human body. This was, in his admittedly limited experience, somewhat typical of them. Now he contributed what he could to the Angels -- skill at fisticuffs, an in-depth knowledge of the mystical, occult and ill-omened, a desire to do good, and the education of a 19th-century gentleman. The last was being supplemented by independent study using resources from a variety of realities, including a few that were far in advance of his home Earth.
He took his companion's teasing as well-intentioned. Vala Mal Doran knew what it was like to have a demon inside. She hadn't been born on Earth, instead growing up on one of the many human worlds in her home universe. She was a thief, a con artist, and a treasure hunter who had fallen afoul of an alien parasite that took over her body. That species of parasite, known as the Goa'uld, had used human hosts to create an interstellar empire...an empire of slaves that they used to satisfy their egos, perversions and sadistic whims. Being a host left you aware of every atrocity committed, but without any agency to prevent them. She had been rescued when the Family had taken exception to the existence of the Goa'uld. She retained some of her Goa'uld's lore and knowledge of high technology, as well as her original streetwise savvy and skills at breaking and entering.
The couple came to a well-appointed conference room that already had a number of occupants, human and otherwise. The avatar of the ship's AI was at one end of the table, waiting for them to arrive. On the side closest to the door sat a statuesque blonde woman named Annika Hansen, though she also answered to, "Seven." She still had visible implants from her time as a member of a collective cybernetic species. The Family had offered her a job when it became clear that her home culture would forever be suspicious of her motives after she was freed from the collective. At the table on the other side sat three more people. Anya Harris was a now-human former Vengeance Demon with a penchant for capitalism and skill as a witch. Faith Lehane was a Vampire Slayer, a mystically-empowered warrior chosen by powers in another plane of reality. The third was a relative newcomer, a large man named Flint Marko. A friend of the Family had sent him to them to find a cure for his daughter's illness. Marko had been a supervillain on his home world, but mostly that had been to pay for his child's medical care. With that no longer necessary, he had joined the Angels. The man was a shapeshifter and a silica kinetic, and was slowly integrating himself into the team.
At the end of the table opposite from Sammy's avatar sat a large, reptilian being. She had pitch black scales edged with red highlights that were visible from the right angle. She could also hide them and fade into the darkness like a shadow. As a natural quadruped, she was sitting on her tail in lieu of a chair and using her front legs to review a digital tablet, her claws operating the controls easily. This was Metis of the Family, sponsor of their band of adventurers, investigators and miscreants. She looked over at William and Vala as they came in with a terrifyingly toothy smile. "Welcome back," she said with a slight sibilance. "I take it you found everything?"
"They did," answered Sammy before either of the two could respond. "The information supplemented what was available online, and it paints a rather disturbing and confusing picture."
Metis quirked a brow-ridge. "This world is more than just an evil mirror. How so?"
Sammy frowned. "We came here because the quantum signature of this reality showed a familiar resonance with that of the Skitter-verse. It was familiar because it was similar to the relationship between the realities of the Federation Starfleet and the Terran Empire." The Family had met a Starfleet officer name Miles O'Brien, and had, in the process of bringing him home, discovered that his reality was being forced into contact with what could best be described as an, "evil mirror universe," where the inhabitants of one were mirror images in temperament and morality of their duplicates in the other. It had been thought that this forced contact was the cause of the two realities' strange reflection...but that had changed with their discovery of their current reality. It was a mirror of another superhero universe, one containing a girl named Taylor Hebert who had the power to control insects, and who went by the name Skitter in costume. This reality and that one, however, didn't have similar circumstances to those of Starfleet and the Empire. In the latter case, the dimensions had been forced together as part of an attack by an external threat. No such factor was obvious here. They were here to try and see if they could discern what the true cause of the strange similarities and apparent moral inversion was.
"While there are many examples of duplicates of people in Skitter's universe, the overall circumstances are different in ways that are hard to explain," continued the avatar. "The most intriguing points have to do with Scion and the Endbringers. Unlike in Skitter's universe, the Endbringers do not attack and destroy cities on a regular interval. They appear, on average, once a year, and have hit fewer targets. As an example, while Kyushu in Japan of this Earth was sunk by the Endbringer Leviathan, the island of Newfoundland is still intact and above sea level. Scion, the being we know to be behind human superpowers in this reality, exists, but his pattern of behavior is very different. While, 'the golden man,' in the other known versions of Brockton Bay seemed to wander at random, doing heroic deeds of wildly varying import, the one in this universe is seen far more infrequently, and always appears during a great crisis or major disaster."
"Wait," interrupted Marko. "You're saying this powerful hero just helped out based on what, the weather?"
Metis nodded. "Something like that. He was effectively an idiot savant who was literally following the advice of a random homeless man. He could stop a forest fire one day, then spend the next day doing nothing but rescuing cats stuck in trees."
"He is not so random here. There are also a number of powerful people lacking doubles in this reality. The Triumvirate here includes Legend, Alexandria and Hero. My first assumption, that the villain Siberian had killed Eidolon instead of Hero in this reality, proved to be incorrect. Eidolon apparently never existed. There is also no evidence that the supervillain Marquis ever had a daughter, so the healer Panacea also does not exist," said Sammy.
That news seemed to visibly discomfit Metis. Panacea, civilian name Amy Dallon, was a close friend of the Family in the version of Brockton Bay where they first revealed themselves to humanity. Instead of commenting on that, Metis said, "Does Dragon exist?" Dragon was an artificial intelligence, one whose "father" perished when the city-killing Leviathan destroyed Newfoundland in the Family's home reality.
Now it was Sammy's turn to look mildly upset. "I can find no evidence that Mother ever existed in this reality. The Baumann Parahuman Containment Center also does not exist, and perhaps as a consequence of that, kill orders for the most dangerous villains are far more common." Dragon was the warden for the most secure prison ever devised for dangerous parahumans, except that it was never constructed in this reality.
"Kill orders?" asked Flint. In his world, heroes, with a few well-known exceptions like Frank Castle, almost never killed their enemies.
"Despite the close parallels with Skitter's world, there is much here that is...perhaps the best term is, 'darker,' than there," explained the AI. "There are numerous examples in recorded history. In the United States, for example, the Declaration of Independence is very similar, but ascribes a natural right to, 'life, loyalty, and the pursuit of competence.' The Emancipation Proclamation rooted its justification in the concept that only the state had the right to control the freedom of its citizens. The second amendment of the Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms, but for the purposes of defending one's honor and promoting one's agenda."
William, who had taken a seat at the table, nodded his head and added, "That is very similar to some of the things I saw in the public library. Attitudes seemed harsher, and more fixated on usefulness and power. Some of the Dr. Seuss books were...disturbing."
"Some of the newspaper headlines seemed to make light of events that sounded unpleasant," said Vala. "It's like heroes and villains are almost expected to incur a significant amount of collateral damage in terms of lives and property."
"That is in line with the attitudes of the Terran Empire," commented Seven. "It is well documented that the Imperial Navy used extremely painful methods of discipline, and advancement through assassination was relatively common." The Borg Collective, the 'species' which had formerly assimilated her, had obtained a significant amount of data about the mirror universe from captured Federation vessels and personnel.
"So, does any of this bring us any closer to understanding why this mirror universe exists?" asked Anya. "That is why we came here, isn't it?"
There was a moment of silence, and then Metis replied, "Our best option here may be investigating the most obvious differences between this world and its mirror."
"If I may suggest something slightly selfish," said Sammy, "we could begin at the last known address of Andrew Richter in Newfoundland. It is likely the Endbringer targeted Newfoundland because he created Mother. Perhaps if he still lives, it is because he never gained his powers, or he may have different powers."
The Angels looked at each other. Nobody seemed to have any better suggestions.
"What's Canada like in this world?" asked Faith.
Sammy turned to look at the Slayer. "It is similar in many ways to your world, and also to Skitter's. The government-affiliated hero team is still the Guild, though this one is run by Narwhal and Hearthrob."
"Hearthrob?" questioned Metis.
Sammy nodded. "He is this world's version of Nikos Vasil, who was known on Skitter's world as Heartbreaker before his unusual disappearance."
"Does he have a goatee?" asked Vala with a smirk.
The AI turned a skeptical look on the woman. "There is no correlation between facial hair and morality, Vala. In any event, from his press pictures, he appears to have what is called a, 'soul patch.'"
"Definitely evil," claimed Faith, to a round of good-humored chuckles around the table.
Still smiling, Metis said, "I think we have a plan. Come up with an action plan we can review before tomorrow, and if everything looks good, then we can go ahead with the investigation."
With that, the meeting broke up, the participants heading to attend to their own matters elsewhere aboard the ship.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Sophia woke up to find herself staring at a foam-board drop ceiling in a dimly lit classroom. She groaned quietly and pushed herself up to a sitting position. Running her hands over her arms, she could feel the welts from insect bites.
"What the fuck just happened?" she asked out loud.
Nobody answered her, not that she was expecting an answer. She began to slowly push herself up to her feet. Whatever had happened, she felt dazed and a little weak. Without thinking, she reached out for something to help support her weight, only to grab onto a heavy metal projection screen leaning against the wall. The bulky item tilted away from the wall at her tug and began to fall. She tried to back off, but stumbled and fell back onto her backside. She closed her eyes with a wince as she could see that it was going to catch her legs.
There was a loud clang, then a rattling crash. Surprisingly, there was no pain. She opened one eye to peek, wondering if she had gotten insanely lucky with the accident. What she saw caused her to open both eyes and stare. She raised her hand and looked at the transparent, shadowy form that took the place of her skin. The metal screen was lying on the floor, passing through her body. She backed up, scooting away from the fallen screen on her butt. When she was clear of it, she made an instinctive mental effort, and her body turned back to human flesh and blood.
"Huh."
Sophia had a sneaking suspicion that she was currently in the seldom-used classroom that was actually behind her locker. She must have turned to her shadowy form and fallen through the wall. Getting to her feet, she went over to the wall where she thought her locker was located. Another act of will had her arm turn to shadow...but just her arm. She reached through the wall, and felt around the bottom of the locker until she found the textbook she had dropped when that bitch had shoved her inside. Grabbing it, she was able to pull the now shadow-form book through the wall.
"Well...that's kind of cool."
She supposed she could make a living stealing shit from behind locked doors. Of course, the PRT would be after her. Her eyes widened as she realized that they would be after her regardless. The law said new parahumans were required to register. She was pretty sure she wouldn't be doing that. She had no desire to join the Wards, and if she registered without joining then the gangs would know about her before the end of the day. It was taken as simple fact that there were spies for all the gangs embedded in the local PRT offices. Everybody in Brockton Bay had heard about the Laborns. The son, Brian, had triggered, and had registered without joining the Wards. He, his father, and his sister had all been found murdered less than a week later. The walls were covered in pro-Nazi graffiti, but the jury was out on whether it was actually the E88 or another gang trying to blame them. The kid must have said, "no," one too many times.
The clock on the wall said it was a quarter past ten, which meant that she had been out for almost an hour. She had missed a class, which at Winslow wasn't that big a deal. The good news is that she was in the middle of a free period, which meant she had some time to figure out what to do. Her temptation was to cut for the rest of the day so she could figure out what her powers actually did, besides obviously turning her into some kind of shadow person. She wondered if she could see herself in a mirror when she was fully shifted? The problem with that was that she was supposed to be stuck in her own locker, and people might notice if she just disappeared. She didn't really feel like getting back in her locker and waiting for rescue, though. Apart from being uncomfortable and boring, the school also seemed to need to call an exterminator. She didn't like thinking about the ramifications for the cafeteria food. Even so, it wasn't like the quality would go down just because of a few bugs. It might even improve the nutrient content.
Was it possible to open a locker from the inside? They were supposed to keep people out, not in, right? Going back to the wall, she shifted back to her shadow state and looked at the inside of the locker door. The problem was that the inside of the locker was pretty dark, with the only light being from the air vents. Her ability to see in the dark seemed to be slightly improved when she was shadow, but not enough to figure out the mechanism for the door lock. Withdrawing back into the classroom, she wondered if it would be easier looking in a locker that was closer to the overhead light? She moved over a few feet, then shifted again and began pushing through the wall. She only made it a few inches before there was a sudden flaring pain, and she was knocked back into the room, and also back to her physical form. It felt like her nerves were on fire, and she couldn't control her limbs. After the better part of a minute, her twitching stopped. She muttered a slow, "Fuuuccckkk..." under her breath. A little more rest allowed her to sit up. She looked at the wall where she had tried to pass...and noticed the electrical socket just to the right of where she had tried to enter. She wasn't immune to electricity in her shadow? That would complicate things.
After a few more minutes of rest, she got up. Shifting her hand to shadow, she began to slowly press against the wall in the same area. After several attempts and a couple of comparatively minor shocks, she thought she could feel when she was too close to an electrical field. The technique required her to move slowly, however, so it wouldn't be very practical if she actually had to hurry. Doors and windows would probably be pretty safe, but walls would be risky, at least in buildings that had power. Of course, there were more than a few abandoned buildings in the Bay. She wondered for a second how she was figuring all of this out so quickly? Did her power include a thinker power, too? Nobody would say she was dumb (at least nobody but racist fucks whose opinions didn't matter), but she was mostly an average student. While that made her slightly above the Winslow average, it really wasn't anything to brag about. Thinking about it, she realized that, at least where her power was concerned, she had kind of an instinctive feel for what she could and couldn't do. The electricity had caught her by surprise because she hadn't considered the matter before. When she had more time, she was going to have to think about it carefully.
For now, she tried to find a locker that was near a hall light, but wasn't blocked by electrical lines. She finally found one, and also discovered that the actual locking mechanism for the locker door was a pretty simple mechanism that just blocked the bar connected to the door latch. The whole thing looked cheap, but the important thing is that it should be possible to open the door with a ruler pushing at the right spots. The tricky part was that it had to be done at both the top and the bottom of the locker to work. She could probably just do one and push the door out a bit, then work the other. She pulled back out from the other kid's locker. It was probably the locker of the stoner kid down the hall if the pervasive smell of weed was a clue. She could still smell in her shadow state, but it was slightly muted, almost like she was breathing through a mask.
There was a ruler in the teacher's desk in the classroom, and she had shortly phased back into her own locker. She reversed her facing, though, so that she could more easily work the lock. Hopefully, nobody would notice the discrepancy, assuming anybody was watching. It took her about ten minutes of fiddling with the lock to get the door open. Trying to undo the bottom first had been a mistake, because the door didn't have enough flex to keep the metal tab out of the locking slot. The top was able to push out, though, and then it was just a matter of putting enough force into it at the bottom. She finally popped the door open, and stumbled a bit as she half-fell out into the corridor. Looking around, she saw that there was a janitor down the hall cleaning up some kind of mess, but the man didn't even look up from his task. She noticed wires running up to his ears, so he may not have even heard her over whatever music was playing. Closing her locker door, she saw that the top edge wasn't flush anymore, and it was a little harder to get it to close. That probably wasn't a bad thing, as it suggested that she had forced her way out from the inside in a pretty concrete way.
She began heading toward the girl's restroom by the stairwell. Checking herself in the mirror and then heading to the cafeteria seemed like the best approach. She could worry about her powers later.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Flint checked the time and verified that it would be after school hours on Sineya station, even if it was just after lunch on board the Smug Advocacy. The ship's hours generally shifted to match their current ground-side location if they expected to be there for more than a few days as a matter of practicality. Of course, in space, the maintenance of day-night cycles was fairly arbitrary, and most of the crew needed only a limited amount of sleep thanks to Family biotech. Flint didn't have a Family symbiote, but his power had altered his biology rather dramatically, and he already hadn't needed to sleep more than a few hours a night. He made the call.
The image of the girl who answered the call changed from mild interest to excited happiness. "Daddy!"
A smile broke the normally stern visage of Flint's face when he saw his daughter. "Hey, girl! How was school today?"
"It was soo cool. We had an Asgard come in and explain how magic and physics interact with each other," she exclaimed, her voice rising and falling rapidly as she spoke.
He cocked his head to one side. "An Asgard? You mean like Thor?" Marko had met the thunder god on several occasions, and a couple of them had even been friendly...or at least not overtly hostile.
His daughter shook her head rapidly. "They're not like our Asgard. These are aliens that look a little like those gray aliens in that weird movie that we saw on cable."
At her words, a vague recollection came to him from the Angel "allies and enemies" briefing packet about a highly advanced race that looked like the kidnappers from Communion. "Huh. What was he like?"
"It was a girl alien," she corrected. "Her name was Idunn. She was nice, though I don't think her people show their emotions much. She knew a lot about science and magic, and Maggie's father is a wizard who uses magic that interferes with technology. He's got bracelets that stop that, and Idunn was really interested when she heard about that. She also talked about the Family a lot. She said she was the first member of her species to actually meet them, when they rescued her from being stuck in a damaged starship."
Flint smirked at that. From his interactions with Metis and the stories told by the others, it seemed like the lizards had a thing about saving people. Combined with their slightly odd sense of humor, they reminded the reformed villain of Spider-man, albeit with an underlying aura of menace that was more like Doom. Then again, he could also draw parallels to Doc Strange and the Fantastic Four. The Family were kind of like all the metas in New York crammed together in lizard-shaped packages. "That sounds fun. Is everything all right at Danielle's?" Danielle Faez was his daughter's best friend, and her parents were watching over her while Flint was out on assignment. The girl's parents were both researchers in the technomancy group, and neither of them did field work.
"They gave me the spare bedroom, because Danielle's bed is only a single, but we stayed up talking and I fell asleep next to her anyway. We had something they called manakish for dinner, and it was kind of like pizza." The girl stumbled a bit at the food name, obviously focusing on how to say it properly. "Did you know Danielle has a teddy bear that talks to her, but it isn't one of those mechanical ones like they have in the stores back home? Her mom said it has something called a, 'minor guardian spirit' inside. It's actually like a really smart dog."
He listened for a bit as his daughter chattered on about various things. Finally, he asked, "And how are you feeling? Any tingles? Pain?" His daughter had had a rare genetic disorder that had caused partial paralysis, and she had needed regular care to ensure that her breathing and heart rate stayed normal. The Family had healed her, but he was still worried about her.
The girl rolled her eyes. "Dad! I'm fine. When Ianthe heals people, they stay healed. That's what everybody says." The purple healer of the Family had a well-deserved reputation.
"I know, girl. Despite that, I'm going to be back in a few days and we're going to go to the doctors for a follow-up." He wasn't taking any chances with her.
His daughter wasn't happy to have to go for another checkup, but she also knew she wasn't going to be able to convince him that it wasn't necessary. That didn't stop her from making a half-hearted effort to do so. Finally, it was time to end the call. "All right, Mary, I have some things I have to lookup. You be good for Mister and Missus Faez."
"I will," she said sincerely. "I love you, daddy."
He gave her a wide smile in return. "Love you too, baby girl."
After the call ended, Flint began looking through the briefing packets for the various known versions of Brockton Bay, focusing on the specific individuals mentioned by Sammy and Metis during the meeting. He also flagged the overview article on the Asgard, curious about the alien that had come to speak to his daughter's class. The Angels had a lot of information available on a massive range of topics. Flint had never been one to spend a lot of time on planning and intelligence gathering, but that had mostly been due to a lack of available resources, not a lack of ability. Unlike some of his friends in the villain community, he hadn't seen being a villain as a viable long-term career. Crime had been more an act of desperation than anything else. Now that Mary was healthy and safe, he had options, and he was going to take advantage of those options for her sake, as well as his own.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The rest of school had been uneventful. Hebert had apparently had to go to the nurse for some reason, so she and her posse had been preoccupied for a long time. She hadn't seen her until late in the afternoon in last period. The girl had given her a piercing look right before the end of the day that was a little worrisome. Sophia had also been puzzled when she took a good look at her locker at the end of the day. The only sign of any insects had been the body of a single dead ant. The insect bites she remembered feeling had also seemed to disappear, which made her wonder if she had imagined the whole thing. Had she had some kind of psychotic break and hallucinated the insects, which then caused her to trigger? It was all confusing, and she skipped her normal after-school workout to head home. The bus ride home was uneventful, but she hadn't come to any conclusions by the time the bus reached her stop and she got off.
Her mother and little brother were both home. Her mom worked slightly irregular hours as a hostess at a local restaurant, so it was always a tossup on whether she would be there. Her dad's work was slightly more regular, though it did vary based on what jobs the DWU was able to get. Today, he was going to be late. Both parents had to work to make ends meet. Luckily, the housing market in Brockton Bay was depressed along with the local economy, so they almost always had enough money to cover rent and necessities. Sophia knew there were kids at Winslow who had it a lot worse. Of course, there were also those who were better off, like Taylor's friend Emma. It was hard not to be a little envious of the girl, who took every opportunity to brag about her wardrobe and her occasional modeling shoots. You would think she was the next cover-girl the way she talked, though in reality most of her work had been minor teen fashion gigs. Sophia hadn't seen any of her pictures. They weren't the kind of magazines she read, preferring the Women's Sport version of Sports Illustrated and Vibe, though she did read her mother's copies of Essence occasionally. She doubted that the pale-skinned redhead would be doing much modeling for black publications like that, anyway. The local Bay Teen was available for free, but the local rag didn't have the money to pay for professional photography sessions.
"Hey, squirt," she greeted her brother as she came into the family kitchen. He scowled a little at the nickname, but just said, "Hey," in response, not bothering to look up from his homework.
"Is that you, Sophia?" came their mother's voice from the living room.
She went to the refrigerator to get a glass of juice while calling out, "Yeah, Mom, I'm home."
As she was downing the glass of orange juice, her mother poked her head into the kitchen. "You skip the gym today, honey?"
"Yeah, I didn't feel like going," she said, hoping her mother wouldn't press. That hope was futile.
Her mother gave her a skeptical look. "Did something happen?"
Sophia frowned. She hadn't told her mother about her issues with Hebert. Her mom knew that the girl's dad had a lot of power at the union, and she didn't want to worry her. "I just had a run-in with another girl at school today. It wasn't anything serious."
"Was it gang-related?" asked her mother. That was a common assumption, and unfortunately one that couldn't be dismissed easily, as Winslow was a hotbed for gang activity. While the Empire was the worst, getting the attention of any of the gangs was a bad idea, and her parents were both afraid that either Sophia or Aaron would end up mixed up with them somehow, either as members or victims.
Putting the plastic glass in the sink, the teen shook her head and said, "No, just a white girl bragging about her money." That was close to the truth without actually being true.
"Sophia?" said her mother suspiciously. The woman looked tired, but she was a little too sharp to accept that non-answer.
Sophia sighed. "It was nothing. It wasn't a gang thing." Technically, this was true, as the DWU wasn't really a gang, and Hebert's clique didn't count. "Just somebody got up in my face, and I got angry."
Her mother looked her up and down, probably looking for clues. "Were you fighting?"
"No!" she replied, rolling her eyes. Why couldn't her mother ever just take her word on stuff like this?
Of course, that led to having to listen to ten minutes of her mother expressing her concerns and asking her for additional details, but eventually she was able to convince her that nothing serious had happened. Her mother finally let it go with a sigh and a muttered comment about teen-aged drama, like it was Sophia's fault that some girl was a bitch to her.
The rest of the evening passed with Sophia doing what little homework she had while her mother and brother watched television. There was some kind of blooper show playing that had them both laughing, but she was too preoccupied by what had happened earlier to pay much attention. After her mother and brother both went to bed, she was still up, scrolling through her phone. Mostly, she was just reading the PHO forums, looking for some kind of insight or epiphany that didn't come. Her father got home around ten. He saw that she was still up, and nodded to her as he went through and into the kitchen. He came back with a beer and settled down into the recliner, the seat creaking a little under his large frame. "How was school today?" he asked in his deep baritone.
She thought about her day, and her inability to come to any conclusions. Looking at her dad, who looked exhausted but genuinely interested, she came to a decision. "Something happened today."
"Something bad?" While her father could get angry, and she had seen it before, he generally had to work that up from a slow burn, and he wasn't as quick to jump to conclusions or suspicions as her mother.
She sighed again. She seemed to be doing that a lot today. "It could be," she replied.
His lip twitched into a slight frown. "Anything I can help with?" he asked simply.
"I hope so," she replied. She raised up her hand, and let the hand up to the wrist fade into shadow mode. "Dad, I'm a cape."
His eyes widened slightly comically, and she might have giggled under other circumstances. After a moment, he said, "Well...that's a hell of a thing. How did that happen?"
It was pretty late when they finally went to bed, but Sophia was at least able to sleep well. They still had a lot to talk about, but her dad had her back, and that meant a lot.