Realign 14.h
Sunday, August 12
The massive chopper rolled to a stop, and Hannah kicked the stand into position and took a moment to look at the building in front of her. It was nowhere special, just another apartment building a short distance away from the business sector. Nothing that would deserve more than a passing glance. She, however, looked at it with a sense of hope.
Hope that this would give her the answer about where Vista had vanished.
No one was sure exactly when the girl left. The last time she had actually been seen was by a random PRT mechanic on Saturday just over a week prior, and she had been acting more reclusive and overall secretive for the entire week before then. Ever since she came back from a weekend trip with some friends of hers from school as a last hurrah for the summer. In hindsight, it should have been obvious that something was wrong when Vista had volunteered to take over Console duty so Flambé and Cherry Bomb could go on patrol with Starmetal.
She was ashamed to admit it, but at the time Hannah had thought it only a passive-aggressive way for Missy to show her anger at a newcomer having fewer restrictions than she herself did. It was atypical behavior for Missy personally, especially recently, but that was not to say it was unexpected from a teenage girl in general. Not to mention, she and Chevalier had been busy dealing with the increased activity coming from the Wolfhead gang and the rumors that Cricket was present at some of the assaults the Philadelphia PD had been called about, leaving Sere in nominal authority over the Wards. He was a decent comrade, Hannah had nothing bad to say about him from that angle, but he made no secret about his lack of desire to deal with the Wards.
As a result of all that, no one was suspicious about her absence until the press conference on Tuesday when she failed to appear alongside the rest of the Wards. Robert sent a text message, which was ignored. Hannah tried to call her but was directed straight to voicemail. It was only once they were back at base that they could barge into Vista's room, mentally prepared for another screaming match.
What they found was so much worse.
Protectorate barracks were nothing special and had little in the way of excess space, but they always had enough nooks and crannies for the inhabitants to personalize it to their own tastes. Missy's room was no different, and the last time Hannah had seen the interior it had all the normal touches of a lived-in room. When they opened the door, however, it had been almost completely empty. The only personal items remaining were two cell phones and a stack of paperwork sitting on the desk.
The phones were in some ways the more immediately worrying sign. All Protectorate capes were provided two phones. One was to be carried when they were on duty, and they had locators that were constantly active and voice activation in case of emergencies. The other was to be carried when they were not in costume and was for personal use; with the exception of a greatly enhanced firewall that would protect any confidential information that had to be discussed with an off-duty hero, it was no different than any other normal phone out on the market.
Why she left both phones on her desk was explained by the first page of the paperwork, and it was the letter that kicked off what was almost a full manhunt. The letter itself was formal and impersonal, stating only that Vista was resigning from the Wards effective the same Saturday she had last been seen. No reason why had been given other than an unhelpful sentence that described her and the Protectorate's priorities as
'no longer fully aligned' and said she did not feel that continued membership was in either of their interests. Everything beneath that two-paragraph letter painted an even more concerning picture. A form relinquishing any claim on her imaging and franchise rights. NDAs prohibiting her from disclosing classified PRT information. A form giving the PRT permission to hold her trust fund in escrow until she provided a new financial institution where it would then be transferred.
The legal department looked at it immediately, and their conclusion was the one Hannah did not want to hear. This was not a cry for attention or an action taken in haste. Vista had completed every single form the PRT required for a Ward to resign, and as Legal informed them, the Youth Guard and Congress had decided that even though underage capes needed parental permission to join the Wards, they did not need it to quit. She could leave any time she wanted, and there was nothing they could do to stop her so long as she signed all the paperwork.
Discovering
that little fact had left a bad taste in her mouth, and the fact that a second set of forms had been submitted through the PRT's human resources department where it had been routinely filed rather than sent to Chevalier just made it worse.
That had started the search for the now-former Ward, mostly to get an answer of why. Why did she quit? Why did she tell no one about her decision? After those questions, Hannah wondered where she planned to live and how she planned to support herself. Questions she normally would not expect Missy to have considered before striking out on her own, though after this surprise, Hannah was reluctant to assume that was the case.
The easiest way to track her down was by tracking her personal phone, but leaving it behind took that option off the table. The next idea was to stake out her school and catch her as she left. Sadly, all that did was remind them how hard it was to catch a cape who did not want to be found and could warp space to ensure that. None of the teams caught even a peek of her, and the only explanation they had was that she was slipping out a side door or a window and leaping across the relatively short distance to a nearby rooftop.
By the end of the week, they even bent to sheer necessity and reached out to Calamity Witch. Both she and Robert were reluctant to do so initially; based on the independent hero's comments some months before, neither of them expected her to offer assistance bringing Vista back to the PRT to answer questions, and in the small chance she did not already know about Missy's decision, they would be letting her know that Missy was available for recruitment. It was still an avenue they had to check, but when they did try to contact her, she was strangely unreachable.
Needless to say, that coincidence filled neither of them with confidence.
It was only when a trooper involved in the search made a random comment about heading home after the end of his shift that Hannah realized they never looked in the most embarrassingly obvious place. That was what led her to sit on her motorcycle staring at this otherwise unremarkable building: it was in this building where she had rented out an apartment in order to have an address listed with her civilian identity. Neither she nor Missy ever truly moved in, living instead on base, but it was readily accessible and she knew Missy had a key.
Leaning the bike to the side, she climbed off and started walking to the stairs. Either this would give her answers, or it would be a very short waste of time.
She was on the third floor and climbing to the fourth when she heard her name being called.
"Oh, Hannah! It's nice to see you for once," an older woman said, wobbling her way over with a cane. Patricia
'Just call me Patty, dear, everyone does' Mann was the wife of the apartment's owner and was the kind of person all capes quickly learned to hate dealing with. She was neither malicious nor strictly speaking a busybody, but she was part of that special group of people who were naturally inquisitive about other people and their lives and easily remembered trivial details. The kind of neighbor who was wonderful to have if someone locked themselves out of their apartment or needed a cup of sugar, but terrible if, like Hannah, they had a secret identity they wanted to keep safe. "Why, I can't remember the last time I saw you walking around. It's almost like you're a ghost."
Hannah forced herself to chuckle along with the old woman. "They keep me busy at work," she replied, trying to remember if she had made any specific claims other than that she worked as a transcriptionist for the PRT. It was a convenient excuse for why she would never be able to talk about what she actually did, not with everything she supposedly saw being highly confidential. "It seems every day I'm there before the sun rises and not leaving until long after it sets."
"That would make things difficult," Patty said with a nod. "You know how us old folks are. Early to bed and nothing important enough for us to get up until late. Still, I hope we get to see you more often soon. It's nice that we're finally seeing little Missy more. She's been so much like a hermit some of us were starting to get worried."
Hannah released an internal sigh. Missy
was living here. Probably it was the first place she thought to go, which made her own panic that much more embarrassing. "She can be very shy until she gets to know people. Then there's what happened to her parents…"
Patty lost her smile at that reminder. They never claimed that she was Missy's mother, not when the difference in skin tone made any blood relation dubious at best, but it was far easier for people to believe that she had been a friend of Missy's parents and therefore the person they trusted to take care of Missy after they died in the escape from the Simurgh's attack on Brockton Bay. It was so close to the truth that no one would have any problems remembering it, and no one with any decency would want to reopen those wounds.
"Yes, then it's doubly good she's starting to act like a normal teenager again. Although speaking of being a normal teenager," Patty added with a faint frown, "could you ask her to turn the music down a little? Enjoying herself is all well and good, but I've heard some comments from some of the other tenants."
Hannah winced. She had heard some of what passed as 'pop music' on the radio and pitied anyone who had to withstand what could generously be termed an auditory assault. "I'm very sorry about that. I'll ask her to turn down the noise."
What is a cyborg's favorite kind of music?
"That would be much appreciated, dear."
With the obligatory social niceties exchanged, Hannah all but ran up the rest of the stairs. Her apartment was in the back corner of this floor, and when she reached the door she understood what Patty meant. She could not hear the music, not well enough to hear any words, but an irregular thrum seemed to come through the thin door and windows. Deciding to start with the obvious this time, she wrapped her hand around the knob and turned.
The door opened easily, and she had to wince again. She was expecting some generic boy band singing their lungs out, but what she got was worse. Loud guitars and drums, and over it all a man screaming about something or other. The radio was sitting on an entertainment center she knew she had not purchased, and after closing the door to protect everyone else's eardrums she hastily crossed the tiny living room and pushed the button to turn it off. She sighed at the blessed silence.
That silence meant she could hear a girl still singing along to music that was no longer there. "
—le vie, adios, good riddance, fuck you!"
Heavy metal
Hannah blinked in surprise at the foul language coming from the girl. While she was still processing that, something clinked in the apartment's kitchenette, and Missy walked out from behind the partial wall blocking it from the rest of the living room to investigate, a towel over one shoulder and a spatula in her hand. A frown crossed the girl's face when she saw who was there. "Oh. It's you."
Hannah did not have an immediate response. Her eyes were fixated on the riot of color that was Missy's new hairdo. Any thoughts about Missy even possibly being able to take care of herself were rapidly disappearing. Shoving that strange sight away, she finally replied, "It's me. I hope you have a good explanation for your actions. You've had a lot of people worried about you."
Missy scoffed and turned around to walk back in the kitchen. "Not that worried, obviously. I've been here every night, and no one's come by to look for me until now."
That one Hannah had to give her.
'We didn't think to look here' was not a defense she would have accepted in Missy's shoes either. That did not mean the girl was in the clear. "We would have been less worried if you had simply told us what you were planning to do."
If she was expecting Missy to be apologetic, she would have been sadly disappointed. As it was, she was already half-prepared for the girl's scoff just before she came back into sight, a plate stacked with four or five pancakes in one hand and a bottle of chocolate syrup in the other. She set them both on the bar built into the kitchen next to a glass of milk, then she looked up to see Hannah's questioning look at her food combinations. She crossed her arms and said defensively, "Maple syrup doesn't go right with chocolate chip pancakes.
"Anyway. I would have thought that why I didn't tell you directly was obvious. I just didn't want to deal with yet another argument. I'm entirely within my rights to quit the Wards, and I have. This decision has been a long time coming. The only thing arguing with you and Chevalier would have done is get all of us angry without changing the outcome at all. I was already tired of all that and just wanted my resignation over and done with."
"You could have come to us beforehand. We could have worked something out." Even as Hannah said this, she knew she was lying. She could only assume that the reason Missy would leave was the Youth Guard restrictions on the Wards, the same ones that Brockton Bay had ignored and Philadelphia did not. There was little Hannah could do about that, not when Director Paulson and Robert were firm in their insistence on following those rules.
Missy gave her a dark half-smile. "Considering I told Chevalier two months ago that I was planning to quit, we've had plenty of time to 'work something out'. I don't know if more time would have done anything."
"Maybe if you had spent time trying to talk to us instead of planning to run, we could have worked together. It was obvious from all the time you spent looking stuff up that you made up your mind long ago," she pointed out. That was in some ways the most upsetting part. The amount of research she must have done to navigate all the ins and outs took time and effort. That Missy would spend time and effort trying to get out of the Wards instead of finding a place for herself within the system was disturbing, as was the part that beyond complaining about the restrictions she never came to any of them with potential compromises. Missy had, in fact, refused any and all compromises Robert offered her.
Missy shrugged and poured chocolate syrup over her pancakes, then cut into them. "Communication's a two-way street. You never talked to me or tried to work with me, either."
"We tried to work with you plenty of times! Chevalier suggested several different compromises, and you threw them all back in our faces!"
The girl savored her first bite for a moment, then pointed the tines of her fork at Hannah. It was actually discomforting just how calm and in control Missy looked, as though she was safe from any consequences of her actions. "Not really. Offering me something I don't care about isn't a compromise. It's an empty gesture, and it says I'm not important enough for anybody to care about my opinions. That's fine. I found a team that does, and I expect we'll all be happier for it."
"You mean Calamity Witch."
Looking up at her, Missy's eyes half closed, and she gave Hannah a thin smile that made the folding knife in her pocket return to its normal a pistol on her hip. That was a smile she had seen several times over her career, almost always on villainous Tinkers and Thinkers who thought they had the upper hand. It was not an expression that should ever sit on a hero's face. "Sure."
"I deserve to know who this new team is," she told Missy. Her voice held more heat than it normally would, but everything about this was putting her on edge.
From the way Missy's eyes narrowed and her smile grew even more sinister, she knew it too. "Hate to break it to you, but I'm independent now. Unless you plan on arresting me, the Protectorate deserves to know only what I think they should know. Everything else is my own business."
"I'm not just a member of the Protectorate. I'm also your legal guardian.
That is why I should know."
"Ah." Finally Missy's expression becomes something more normal, though the fact it has become slightly sad was equally concerning in its own way. Or, perhaps she realized she had made an important misstep and she did owe Hannah an explanation. "Actually... No, you're not." She held up one hand when Hannah opened her mouth to chime in. "My guardian is Hannah Washington. Thing is? I don't know that I've seen her since we moved to Philadelphia."
Hannah stared at her in confusion. That did not make any sense. What was Missy trying to claim? How could she both be her guardian and not be? How could she legitimately claim that Hannah was not herself?
Was Missy just delusional, or was she implying something that Hannah was could not find?
"Any time she wants to visit, I'm more than happy to talk to her." Missy picked up a small remote and pointed it at the stereo system. "But to you or the Protectorate at large, I have nothing to say. I'm my own woman now."
A click, and the radio started playing again.
"Hello, hello," a woman's voice crooned to a background of electric guitar.
"Remember me? I'm everything you can't control."
In case you're wondering, Missy's musical preferences do not match my own. I only have one of these songs on my playlist 
I was tempted to include In This Moment's "Whore" just for the shock Miss Militia would have on hearing Missy sing that, but that song wasn't released until 2013 and it's honestly the theme song for an entirely unrelated character of mine.
We'll have a bit of a delay in starting next week because I really should work on my other story for a chapter or two.
