2.1 Potestas
Horizon
Beta'ed and/or revised by;
Beta'ed and/or revised by;
Contradicting-Whispers
Atlasofremembrance
Heather Shadelight
My most heartfelt thanks.
— O —
12-28-09, Mon. Brockton General, Taylor's room. Afternoon.
"...Hero continues to build the cont-"
Click.
"...ews about Eidolon's recover-"
Click.
"...utcher is still unaccounted fo-"
Click.
Sarah stared dumbly at the turned off TV, her own pale features looking back at her, lines of stress and worry marring her face with cracks and crevices where her usual confidence and bravado bled through with each heartbeat of deafening silence.
One of her hands was gripping Taylor's almost painfully tight, the other wielded a ballpoint pen that was pressing a tad too forcefully against the paper of her notebook, said object resting against Taylor's bed and giving her a point of support for when the need to let her ideas hemorrhage out of her head and into the paper grew uncomfortably oppressive.
Three days. She had evaded being turned into a living bomb for the feathered horror by the skin of her teeth, if that. The thought of being enslaved and changed into nothing but a mindless drone to her cause, pumping out machine after machine only for her amusement and purposes was something that made bile start to claw at Sarah's stomach, threatening to burn its way up her throat and choke her to death.
The implications of an almost destroyed Boston… weren't pretty. The closest city was the Bay, and it had already been in a perilous state of decay. The various gangs, be it powered or unpowered, warring with each other in their little fiefdoms but always keeping most of the conflict to themselves.
Now? Now that such a massive quantity of refugees was about to drown the Bay, normals and capes alike, the situation had turned from a topped off powderkeg full of unstable chemicals to a sea of nitroglycerin, waiting for but the smallest spark to ignite and drown everyone and everything in hellfire.
And Sarah couldn't – wouldn't – leave. She couldn't leave Taylor here, she couldn't leave her only tie, her only bond, her only friend, alone. Not again. She wouldn't be able to forgive herself for the rest of her life; the guilt would scrub the flesh from her bones and leave nothing but the ugly thing she was, bare to the world to see and point at.
No. That wasn't an option.
Sarah sighed, stressed and with a budding headache. A quick squeeze to Taylor's hand reminded her why she was in such a dump of a city and cementing her resolve to stay when a creak from the door drew her attention, a lanky, slightly balding man poking his head in and scanning the room until she found her eyes, the man's gaze narrowing slightly in what she hoped was confusion. He stepped in, his motions hesitant and halting, and then closed the door as an afterthought after clearing his throat.
"Who are you?" He asked slowly, eyes drifting to the hand she had intertwined with Taylor's, fingers softly interlocked. The 'Why are you here?' went unsaid, but not unheard, and it raised Sarah's hackles not insignificantly.
"I'm her friend," she replied after taking a breath and closing her notebook. No need to be careless. "Her best friend, actually." She made her best effort to not narrow her eyes when looking at him, the accumulated stress of the last couple of days slowly coalescing into hostility. "And you?"
He hooked a finger into the collar of his shirt, tugging at it. "I'm her father. Danny." His hand twitched, and for a moment it looked like he was going to cross the distance to the bed, but instead he took a seat near the wall. He was silent for a minute, time which Sarah took advantage of to study the man. Thin, lanky, balding, profound bags under his eyes, mismatched and rustled clothing, and there was a subtle hint, an undercurrent of alcohol beneath the smell of cheap cologne and, surprisingly, clean clothes.
"Taylor never talked much about you, she…" he trailed off, then fell silent.
"She did talk plenty about you," she inflected the last word slightly downwards, and the tiny flinch she caught brought an ember of satisfaction into her chest. Two could play the subtext game. She caught how his eyes sharpened, even if subtly.
"And what does that mean?" His throat was tenser, his tone more snappish.
"Oh, nothing at all." Sarah smiled, squeezing Taylor's hand tighter and running her thumb across the side of Taylor's hand. "You wouldn't know how she ended here, would you?"
He flinched, and the ember in her chest turned into a roaring forest fire, demanding release. "No," he murmured, averting her gaze. "I–"
"Liar," she hissed, cold and cutting. He opened his mouth, but she plowed on, uncaring. "Have you ever visited once, Danny?" He flinched harder, his knuckles whitening and gripping the edge of his seat. "No, of course you didn't. Do you know what I did when I got wind of what had happened, of where she was? I left everything behind, so she wouldn't be alone, so she wouldn't wake up to something unfamiliar without anyone by her side."
His face was acquiring an unhealthily red tone that was creeping downwards from his cheeks, a mixture of anger and embarrassment if she had to guess. She didn't care.
"Now listen here, I have to work to pay the hospital bills and this is the only free moment I could find-"
"Lies," she snapped again, this time more forcefully, more anger bleeding through her tongue and seeping into her tone. "Do you work literally every single hour of the day? Do you not have free days you could call on? Did you even think about visiting at all after dumping her here and leaving her alone?" He flinched harder, got redder and tenser with each accusation, each spewed word sinking into his brain akin to sweet venom.
He got up forcefully, face completely red and hands balled into fists, and Sarah had to force herself to maintain her composure. "I don't need to listen to some brat badmouthing me–!"
Sarah cut him off, a sneer pulling at her lips and almost turning into a snarl. "And I don't need to bear the words of someone who still fucking reeks of alcohol!"
At that he drew back, the fight draining out of him visibly, anger leaking like a broken sieve and leaving only a hollowed husk of a man, barely the shadow of a thought of his better days.
Pathetic.
"Get out of my sight," she sneered. He didn't nod, but he did look at Taylor, a flash of guilt crossing his features before he scuttled out of the room.
Sarah sat once again, not having noticed when she had left Taylor's side and stood up. She felt exhaustion clawing at the edges of her brain, her headache having been blown wide open into a full on migraine. She laid her head at Taylor's side, Sarah's eyes closing in a feeble attempt to block out the world. It didn't work.
She didn't know Danny all that well, but she wasn't confident in him not cutting off support – not out of malice or abandonment, but via getting into a stupid drunken brawl and having his brain splattered on the sidewalk. She was honestly surprised it hadn't happened yet, as much as the thought made her guilt pulse.
Which meant that she may have to accelerate her plans of claiming whatever she could out of her parents – because honestly, they were quite possibly dead or Ziz'd – or she ran the risk of Taylor running out of support and possibly drowning in debt.
She felt a noose coiling around her neck, inching ever closer and unnoticed until now.
Fuck.
— X —
The Bay, outskirts. Early night.
This, thought Sarah, was an unbelievably Bad Idea. Capitalization included, if it wasn't clear enough already.
She had her second work shift at the bakery in barely seven hours and the hotel she was staying at – not the one she had arrived in, another one, cheaper and somehow better – was at least at half an hour walking if she didn't want to burn cash in a cab.
Her urges, and ideas, and her general Tinkerness was really starting to get out of hand, so much so that she had had to catch herself repeatedly to not disassemble everything electronic in sight of Taylor's room. She was pretty sure that the nurse she had shared a short ride in the hospital's elevator had been worried about why she was twitching so much and trying particularly hard to not stare at the buttons or the ceiling or anywhere in concrete for fear of getting her mittens inside its deliciously techy guts and just start tinkering away.
So, here she was, inside Unnamed Junkyard Number Three – or whatever it was called – having climbed the fence with as much grace and poise as she could and falling down on her feet with barely a stumble. Yes, barely. Taylor must never know.
Sarah sighed into her bandana – because she wasn't stupid – and reached for the pocket of her black hoodie, her choice of wardrobe for what technically counted as her first cape outing, even if it was only to recover materials and gather scraps for her little creations to play with.
Her hand grabbed a tiny ball, barely the size of half her palm, and set it on the ground, little legs of mismatched metal clumsily deploying and unfurling, the camera welded as best as she could and the manipulator arms needing a jerk or two to unfold from their casing. Sarah tapped her phone, said phone held onto her forearm with just a bit of duct tape and a small amount of creativity. A lot of hours of working on its software had gone into it, trying to build at least a working interface from where she could control her Hives even if only by giving dumb, stupidly broad orders.
This was still a stupid idea, but she didn't have an alternative. Sarah was quite sure that the electronics shops near her place were all being monitored, or worked for one of the gangs, or both. She couldn't just order heaps of materials if she didn't want the PRT knocking at her door, and directly going to them for a Wards membership so she could beg for some scraps and a meager budget wasn't even something she considered an option. She liked her freedom, thank you very much.
Besides, things that replicated more things? That sounded suspiciously like the machine army. Oh, this? Nothing, just a presigned kill order, why do you ask?
Yeah, that'd go over marvelously.
Her phone chimed, and she approached a pile of scrap that somehow had a car jammed in the middle of it, her little bot waiting for her inside the opened trunk of the car, inside next to her drone various electrical components laid waiting for her, that even if they were of low quality, could serve her in making more advanced drones used to make more advanced drones in a never-ending circle jerk of making things to make better things. Fucking Tinkers.
Sarah almost snorted, but the crunch of gravel on heavy boots somewhere around this pile of scrap alerted her that she may have been a tad too loud.
Fuck.
She slowly, methodically looked around, and found herself in a position where there were only a couple of spots where she could hide, and none where at hand except the rusty, disgusting trunk of the car. The thought of getting herself into a confrontation didn't even cross her mind, as ludicrous as it was. The only thing that she had that counted as a weapon was her gutted, improvised taser, and if whoever was around turned out to be hostile and had any kind of armor, she was dead.
Once more, the crunch of gravel beneath various boots this time told her to hurry up, and hurry up she did. She waved her drone away, and it dropped to the floor, scuttling around until it disappeared from sight some fifty feet to her right.
Sarah was greatly regretting her choice of coming here for materials while she fit herself into the trunk as quietly as humanly possible. If the person or people that were around that corner turned out to be friendly, all was good and joy and smiles then. If not, well, caution never killed anyone. She hoped.
She heard more boots, drawing closer, and Sarah closed the door to the trunk, leaving nothing but the barest slit from where light could seep in. Sarah passed the next five minutes in complete silence, until she saw someone stop just in front of where she was, and she felt her breath coming up painfully short once she caught sight of the sidearm and professional-looking gear, even if she could only see a hint of it.
"...no sir, I don't think she's here. Do we proceed with the search?"
What? What the fuck?! Who knew that she was a Tinker? The why was easy to differ, since everyone and their dog wanted a pet Tinker, but it was the how what it baffled her.
It couldn't have been her parents, since the optics of having one of your children… pass away, and the other trigger and run away shortly after coult paint everything they tried or said in the worst light possible. No, they would have kept quiet, besides the PRT had more important concerns than a runaway teen parahuman if said parahuman wasn't something like flying artillery.
"...yes sir." And he looked like he was turning towards her. Sarah didn't like that at all, and she wasn't embarrassed to admit that she panicked a bit, until she remembered her drone. Her single drone. If it could make enough noise in the deafening silence it could drive away this jackass and leave her with a straight shot towards the fence. That sounded like a sound plan. Please let it be.
Sarah tapped her phone again, and set the Hive in 'search mode' which now that she noticed after being in silence, made a lot of noise.
The guy in front of her stiffened, then quickly marched towards the noise, leaving Sarah with enough peace of mind to lift the door slightly, and confirm that indeed, he was a merc. That… wasn't good. At all.
As silently as she could, she exited the trunk and started walking as smoothly as possible, intent on making the least amount of sound possible. She mourned the loss of her hive, but she could always get it back later, even if buried under layers of junk.
She had had another two close calls with pairs of mercs, but a hasty retreat inside a tub covered with a dirty, dirty rag and three agonizing minutes inside an unpowered refrigerator saw her at the foot of the fence, Sarah throwing caution to the wind for a moment and climbing like a woman possessed, beating her previous record by a significant factor and immediately starting to run towards the city proper, usually avoiding the more traversed path. The way had been fraught with a lot of scares and potential ambushes her mind kept coming up with, but at the end of her twenty minute run, she collapsed under her own weight after locking the door to her apartment, flopping bonelessly onto the bed and puffing and huffing in exhaustion, both mental and physical.
The fact that she still had to get up tomorrow for work tore a laugh out of her chest, a slight manic, jagged edge to it.
Someone was hunting her. Just the last thing she needed in the shit cake that was her life, the problems and issues piling up relentlessly and seriously threatening to drown her.
At least Taylor was still okay.
What a day.