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Russian Caravan (Worm, Eldritch Horror, Crossover/AU)

Russian Caravan (Worm/???)

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A girl with a parasite in her skull enters a tea shop run by a one-eyed Russian. She sits besides a woman who looks like a leper, and is descended from Alexander the Great (apparently). They are shortly joined by an irascible police officer and a faintly bewildered archaeologist. And then they start talking about another man who drinks fire.

The evening gradually becomes worse.

Crossover between Worm and multiple properties assembled into a hodgepodge, including Elden Ring, Cultist Simulator, Sekiro, and somehow Metal Gear.
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Russian Caravan - Title Page
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    • GraftingBuddha

    GraftingBuddha

    Retired Pooh-Bah



    Russian Caravan


    Eldritch Horror, Excessive Violence, and Tea.


    A girl with a parasite in her skull enters a tea shop run by a one-eyed Russian. She sits besides a woman who looks like a leper, and is descended from Alexander the Great (apparently). They are shortly joined by an irascible police officer and a faintly bewildered archaeologist. And then they start talking about another man who drinks fire.


    The evening gradually becomes worse.    ​

    Crossover between Worm and multiple properties assembled into a hodgepodge, including Elden Ring, Cultist Simulator, Sekiro, and somehow Metal Gear.

    Or, alternatively, for the time-pressed:

    Taylor fights the eldritch with tea shop buddies. Fic cover by the inestimable Joe Duncan

    Another cover! But this one has spoilers. Steer clear of this until you've finished the Bisha arc.
    Once more, by the delightful Joe Duncan.
    And here's some music to listen to, if you have more songs to contribute, go right ahead!

    View: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1urIwqMClYidkuKWalC0DI?si=Lif5-XVoRz6k1JS1v4a-7w&pt=5565ec394e6c34686a79204fc7437513
     
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    • 1 - First Encounters of the Aromatic Kind
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    • 1 - First Encounters of the Aromatic Kind

    Turk grumbled. This was quite usual for him. The circumstances prompting the grumbling, however, were quite unusual. When he had set up shop in Brockton Bay, he assumed that there would be a measure of… well, oddness. Assorted gangs, powered and unpowered criminals, a startlingly high number of parahumans in general… And, naturally, there were countermeasures for these issues. None of them seemed quite appropriate for this situation.

    A girl, teenage, tall for her age, weak enough to crumple after a single punch, crashed through the door. The little bell above jingled happily, and the girl flinched. Now, teenage girls in and of themselves are not enormously concerning. Irritating, yes. But concerning? Hardly. He could quite confidently say, however, that this was possibly the first time a teenage girl had entered his shop smelling so distinctly of orange juice. Indeed, she was quite covered in the stuff. Not only that, but the girl was panting as though she had just been running quite some distance. This was unusual. He continued polishing a cup while he thought.

    The usual countermeasures weren't entirely useful here. In the event of a common criminal, he had a gun. He also had a stick, in case he had the good china out and didn't want to shatter it with loose buckshot. The two were quite effective. In the event of a parahuman, of course, there were more… specialised solutions, some homemade, others obtained from old PMC buddies. In the former category, a can of spray-on deodorant filled with something rather more volatile than deodorant, placed next to a lighter. This was thoroughly useful for many parahumans. The human brain generally dislikes fire, so even parahumans with some substantial resistances tended to panic momentarily in the face of the stuff. That would give him enough time to load one of his nastier shells into his shotgun. In the latter category, a small canister which resembled a portable speaker… if a portable speaker created noise loud enough to deafen an ordinary man, and for those with enhanced hearing? Downright incapacitating. None of these were particularly helpful. Despite how the girl was sitting in one of his chairs at one of his tables making the entire place smell like orange juice, he could not shoot her, whack her, burn her, or deafen her. Well, he could.

    But Turk was a man of admirable restraint.

    In fact, now he came to think of it, it was quite strange that his first thought had been 'how do I kill this person'. Some of his colleagues would blame this on his poor personality. A therapist might call it an expression of PTSD, brought on by his time in Africa. Turk would call the former a bastard and the latter a bitch-dog with a face like a fish's clunge.

    The girl coughed, and Turk almost threw something at her.

    * * *

    Taylor was not having a particularly good day. First, she had woken up precisely one minute before her alarm went off. This was exceptionally annoying - wake up maybe twenty or thirty minutes beforehand, fantastic, gave her time to sit in bed and contemplate things. Right when the alarm went off? Not as fun, but still workable - immediate motion and action keeping her awake and distracted. Waking up late was simply bad. Waking up with one minute before the alarm? Downright infuriating. Gave her enough time to wake, be annoyed, and dread the coming alarm - but not enough time to have proper contemplation, nor so little time that movement and the flurry of preparation necessary for any school day would distract her from the unpleasantness of waking up.

    Then school happened.

    The trio had been their usual delightful selves. Today's tally included some half-hearted insults, followed by an hour of Parahuman Studies with a pencil (wielded by Julia, she thought) jabbed into the back of her head any time Mr Gladly moved his gaze away even for a moment. Then, orange juice in the hair. And as the juice ran past her eyes and she could see again, she saw Sophia standing with a number of rather rough-looking girls. She ran.

    Running was generally a good strategy. Perhaps if she'd understood that before the… well, the incident, a measure of remarkable unpleasantness might be avoided. That being said, while that misfortune had been… unfortunate, it had laid the seeds for her present escape. After all, she had started running the moment the orange juice hit her hair - not when she opened her eyes and saw Sophia.

    A few insects, scuttling their way into the recesses of various people's clothing, had given her a measure of warning. Not enough to avoid the juice - but enough to realise that the situation could quickly become much, much worse.

    She ran with the speed of the truly desperate and the slightly unfit. A body unused to running for extended periods panicked, fight-or-flight giving her legs unprecedented speed and force as she fled. She'd pay for it tomorrow morning. Hell, she'd pay for it a few hours from now. But it was still better than the alternative. As she dashed away, though, an awful sight confronted her, something completely mundane yet unfathomably awful.

    Traffic. And a closed crossing.

    Indeed, the traffic was so intense that she dared not jayrun (as opposed to jaywalk) across. So, with a sense of dread, she turned in a different direction, running on a route she hadn't gone down before - or at least, not for a very long time. She was puffing like a furnace now, legs burning, and muscles complaining that, as a matter of fact, this was quite exceeding their usual workload and they didn't appreciate it one little bit. She barely noticed what was happening around her, even her insects drifting away from her perception as her world compressed down to the bare necessities - burning muscles, overworked lungs, the slap of sneakers on urban concrete, the howl of cars… nothing existed beyond this bubble of perception.

    Eventually, her disgruntled muscles became irritable enough to unionise and conduct a general strike. Adrenaline, that old strike-breaker, that veritable Pinkerton, had sadly exhausted its efforts earlier and was no longer in a position to do its duty. She looked around, still panting, and noticed an open shop - a small place, sign out of view, relatively empty. She crashed through the door (this being a comment less on her speed, and more on her lack of coordination reinforced with weariness), and sagged into an available seat. She breathed deeply for a few seconds, recovering her senses, and eventually found the wherewithal to look around.

    The store was… pleasant. Very pleasant, in fact. It was homey, cosy in a way that spoke of a passionate owner. The sort of place that should be owned by an apple-cheeked grandmother with a twinkle in her eye. With a sense of escalating glee, she noticed that there was nary a coffee bean in sight, no food smells, no crowds, no yelling… the only thing which pervaded the air was the delightful smell of tea in all of its stages. Dry tea leaves on the shelves, brewing tea leaves in simple teapots, and ripe and ready tea leaves sitting in steaming mugs and cups. She looked towards the counter, expecting the aforementioned fruit-faced elder with shiny eyes.

    The sight that greeted her was rather different.

    Instead of senescent individual with a face resembling a fruit high in fibre, vitamin C and antioxidants, with eyes twinkling with merriment and cataracts, she saw a rather large one-eyed man, almost her father's age, looking at her with deep suspicion while he murderously polished a delicate china tea cup. Everything about the man spoke of imminent violence. His bare arms were scarred, his clothing brutally functional, his single eye intensely directed at her, his thin mouth fixed into a cold scowl.

    She stared at him.

    He stared at her.

    She was consciously aware of the orange juice dripping out of her hair, the sweat which was running into her eyes, and her very unladylike panting. She tried her best to stop panting, but it appeared as though her lungs had joined the muscle union and was now on strike. Her sweat ducts, however, were evidently engaged in a dirty protest.

    The man continued staring. He had been polishing the same cup for some time.

    "Tea?"

    She startled. With a sense of embarrassment, she realised the man had said something, his lips barely moving in the process.

    "Excuse me?"

    "Tea."

    He tapped a sign near the counter, which read 'paying customers only'.

    "Oh, yes please. What do you have?"

    "Tea."

    "...Earl Grey please."

    He grunted, before turning around. Taylor sagged into herself, tired, sweaty, filthy, and slightly embarrassed. What a lovely combination. She returned to the man - he was turned away now, hunched over a stovetop. He began plucking various tins from shelves while a fancy-looking kettle came to the boil, producing a melodious whistle as it did so. He immediately took it off the heat, waiting for a moment as he blended together several varieties of leaves. While interesting, there was only so much she could see from her position, and she glanced back to the ceiling, her breath finally coming under control.

    She remained in that state for an unknown length of time, her perception, again, compressing down to her breathing, her thoughts, and her muscles - hardly any room for one-eyed tea shop owners. And then, with a crisp 'click', a tiny hourglass was set down on the table. Shortly afterwards, a teapot, a teacup, and a small plate of toast covered in some unidentifiable grey relish.

    The man was standing right in front of her. He was ever larger up close. He grunted.

    "Tea. Drink when done."

    He had a Russian accent, she could tell - or at least, she thought it was Russian. She wasn't very good at telling accents from that part of the world apart. He flipped the hourglass over, and the white sand began to run through with a barely audible rustle of grains.

    The man stalked back to his counter, and began examining a number of interesting implements which… apparently had some involvement with tea making. She wasn't sure why he had a can of deodorant at the front, but hey, who was she to question the teamaker's art, deodorant and all.

    The hourglass slowly ran out, and she promptly poured a cup. It was… interesting. Not quite the Earl Grey she was used to. She sipped… and the taste was something fabulous. There was bergamot, of course. But there was something smoky, something like Lapsang Souchong at the edge of her tongue. Subtle, but present - enhancing the Earl Grey rather than overpowering it. The teapot itself poured with a clear stream, no splashes, no bubbles - in all honesty, she was wondering if she could buy this teapot and take it home. With a tentative nibble, she made a crack at the toast. Again, bizarre, but strangely delicious. The relish was some kind of anchovy paste, spread thinly over buttered toast. The saltiness was pleasant alongside the tea. She was, of course, hungry, but this food and this tea seemed to demand a certain slowness. Drink it too quickly and it becomes hot water. Eat it too quickly and it becomes salty toast. And so, in an empty store, with a one-eyed Russian, Taylor had possibly the first truly relaxing moment of her day.

    She sat back. Life felt… well, just a little calmer. Less jagged, with the edges smoothed away in a haze of aromatic steam.
    * * *​

    Turk glanced at the girl. While nearly imperceptible, he smiled.

    She wasn't quite as stressful as she first appeared
     
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    • 2 - Tea.
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    • 2 - Tea.

    Taylor was cheerful. Optimistic, even. Now, had you only met Taylor Hebert, say, a week prior, you would have been unsurprised by this. Sure, the kid was rather gloomy in the mornings, positively sullen in the afternoons, but as the school day began inching towards an inevitable conclusion, her mood would generally pick up. For those who knew Taylor Hebert for longer than a single week, her cheerfulness was downright uncanny. After all, much hadn't changed.

    Her father was still distant. The trio was still monstrous. School was still, at best, a painful chore, and at worst, an unstable minefield. Her powers continued to develop, her suit continued to take form in the basement as dozens of spiders worked every hour she was home, but she had yet to try either out in a proper heroic situation. The one aspect of her life which had shifted was the introduction of a third place.

    A sociological theory propounded back in the 80s was that of the 'third place' - somewhere that isn't work, and isn't home, but is nonetheless a space for relaxation and socialisation. To the English, that place was once the pub or the gentleman's club. To the Brazilians, the barber shop apparently has an allure few men can resist. To Taylor, that third place was a small, cosy tea shop not far from Winslow, run by a one-eyed taciturn Russian. At least, she assumed he was Russian. She hadn't quite mustered the willpower to ask, and he was hardly volunteering the information. The shop was ideal in many respects - relatively close to school and home, quiet at the times of day she found convenient to visit, and, by and large, surprisingly high quality.

    She found herself visiting it nearly everyday after school, popping in for a quick pot of something or other. And as a single visit turned into five, and five into ten, and ten into nearly twenty, the Russian behind the counter gradually became less taciturn. More accurately, he became bored enough to engage in some limited conversation with the teen who paid promptly and was generally very quiet. It started on a gloomy Thursday, when Taylor came to the counter to pay for her tea (a pot of Moroccan mint, with a small amount of wormwood for extra bitterness) and food (a shortbread which, by its irregular shape and unusual warmth, seemed to be homemade). As the Russian fumbled for change, she abruptly spoke.

    "So… I just wanted to thank you."

    He glanced up, single eye narrowing. He grunted quizzically.

    "The tea's really been wonderful."

    A look of faint satisfaction crossed his face.

    "Thanks."

    And that was all.

    Gradually, more conversations occurred. Some shorter, most slightly longer. She would ask him about the interesting mixtures of leaves he seemed to experiment with over the course of the day, he would grunt appreciatively at any compliment given. She would refrain from asking any questions, and he returned the courtesy. It took nearly a week for them to exchange names - a gloomy Tuesday, this time. Taylor had arrived at the shop, having had a particularly unpleasant day, and entered to see her favourite spot (comfortable chair in the corner angled to watch both counter and window) taken. With an internal grumble she took a different, less favoured seat.

    The visit had passed uneventfully, the tea was pleasant as usual (Darjeeling with some strange cheese-and-toast combination she thought might have been Welsh Rarebit), but the loss of her seat irritated her profoundly. Her day was unpleasant, of course, but there was hardly any point grumbling about that. Yesterday was unpleasant too, and tomorrow may well continue the general pattern. She hadn't even considered the possibility of not getting her favourite table. And thus, when she arrived and found it taken, it seemed a final crowning insult, the universe kicking her while she was down. And while she tried to stay out of the trio's way at school, avoiding them whenever possible, she could hardly not notice the bland-looking man munching and slurping away while half-heartedly reading the newspaper.

    The Russian appeared to notice this, and when she stood up to leave, he asked her his first real question (one that wasn't simply 'tea?').

    "What is name?"

    Taylor nearly jumped.

    "Uh, Taylor. Taylor Hebert."

    "Herbert?"

    "Heee-bert"

    He grunted, and scribbled it down on a loose napkin. He paused for a second, and Taylor clutched her money nervously. She would have been fidgeting something fierce had it not been for her powers - that being said, the spider hunched in a small cupboard did perform an impressive fidgety jig. Finally, the Russian pointed at himself.

    "Turk."

    And that was the end of that conversation. Money and a nod of thanks were exchanged, and then Taylor was on her way home, still processing what had just happened.

    The next day, she arrived to find a small piece of card on her favourite table, proclaiming in a tight, neat hand:

    - Reserved: Taylor Heeebert -

    She was so touched she almost forgave the spelling error.
    * * *​

    The next few weeks were a blur - but a rather pleasant blur, as opposed to the rather nastier blurs of months past. Life was… good, for once. Her jogging was growing more accomplished by the day, her suit was nearing completion, school was oddly uneventful, and Turk had been experimenting with some interesting uses of cinnamon and cloves. He'd even hinted at using some ginseng in future - God bless Chinatown.

    But, well, good things don't typically tend to last in Winslow. In Brockton Bay. On Earth Bet in general.
    * * *​

    Turk glanced up sharply, hearing the bell jingle frantically as someone crashed through it. It was the teen - Taylor Heeebert (Hebert he mentally corrected, she'd been very firm about that. Silly name). She seemed… quite upset. Downright distraught, really, as she collapsed into her favourite seat (reserved, he was proud to note). And yet there was no orange juice to be seen, her bag was completely intact, there was nary a bruise to be seen. He stood behind the counter awkwardly. There was no-one else in the store. No distractions. No excuses, either.

    He shifted from foot to foot uneasily. And then did what he did best. Well, second best.

    Taylor looked up as a pot of sweet-smelling tea 'clunked' onto the table. She smiled blearily, and then looked back down, sagging into herself.

    Turk didn't quite know what to do. Running away was always an option. Damn, his usual response to someone else being sad was to get them a drink. But, as a responsible business owner, he had no inclination whatsoever to plonk a bottle of bathtub moonshine in front of an underage girl and call it a day. So, he sat down, arms lying on the table in a slightly convincing simulation of 'relaxed' - that is, if they weren't rigidly fixed in position.

    "Um."

    The girl didn't respond. This was unfortunate. In fact, she seemed to be quite ill - shaking, making an odd sound, and… ah, hell. The girl was crying. Quietly, but constantly. He glanced up to the ceiling, envisioning his bathtub moonshine and how it could make all these problems go away. Suppressing the urge, he poured a cup of tea for her and for himself (he was, honestly, a little annoyed she hadn't even tried it, this was a damn good blend of his).

    A moment later, he reached over and patted her on the back. He wasn't very good at it.

    The girl sniffled.

    "You alright?"

    He mumbled, a bit quieter and more hesitantly than he intended. Taylor glanced up, seeming to notice him properly for the first time. She smiled, face puffy.

    "I'm… I'm fine. It's no problem."

    Turk might only have one functioning nostril, but even he could smell that bullshit. He said as much. Taylor sniffled again.

    "It's just school. So, what's this tea? Smells good."

    Her tone was dull, her smile forced. Turk really hated today. It was somehow pushing all his buttons. He didn't even need to say anything. He simply waited.

    "Emma - one of the… people at school, she… she said some stuff."

    And then the floodgates were open. Verbally and literally. She was crying more openly now, and explained how Emma - wasn't sure who she was but she sounded like a bitch - had mocked her openly about how she had… he froze with his tea in mid-air as she explained that Emma had mocked her for crying for over a week after her mother had died.

    He had to remind himself that punching teenagers in the face was generally frowned upon here.

    Taylor fell silent, crying subsiding now, but her face still bore the marks. Puffy cheeks, red eyes… Turk really didn't have much of an idea what to do. He set his tea down on the table, and tapped his fingers together thoughtfully.

    And then, he talked.
     
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    • 3 - Mercenaries, Insects and Ocelots
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    • 3 - Mercenaries, Insects, and Ocelots

    "Long time ago, back when I was young, I left my home to join the army. Served, did well, left. Joined PMC - private military company. Otselotovaya Khvatka - real home-grown PMC, all-Russian, founded by some old war hero, the works. I was paid better and I did more interesting work. No more guarding shitty posts in Siberia, now I got to really see the world. Really do… well, something. Anything."

    He paused, sipping at his tea. Taylor was watching him carefully.

    "Was out in what used to be Sudan, back in '93. Endbringers really fucked that country - international trade collapsed, US stopped being so… generous with its international aid. When the famine hit, country was on the edge. Then the False Mahdi showed up, whole mess of parahumans at his side, started a civil war. Once a civil war like that starts, there's no going back. Endbringers, parahumans, natural disasters… they all break a country down. And once a country's beaten down enough, the parahumans just start crawling out of the woodwork."

    He snorted.

    "Friend once said: Endbringers create hard times, hard times make parahumans, parahumans stop good times from coming again."

    He sipped his tea, silent for a moment.

    "We were touring, clearing a few problem areas… really, just making sure some important places didn't get overrun. Nothing major. One day, we were on patrol, and some… man, I think, stepped in front of us. Hard to get a look at him, the sand was boiling around him. Almost beautiful. One of my comrades, Sergei, didn't run fast enough. Flayed alive. Heard him scream for his mother. Didn't look back. Couldn't. Next day, we found a village flayed the same way. And in that village was another parahuman, triggered by the sand guy. I saw fire come out of his hands, and I ran. Didn't look back. Could have."

    Turk sighed.

    "Left Sudan shortly after that. Got transferred. Moved on. New friends, new mission, new gear. Moved on. Then, moved on again. Moved on enough, now I'm here. Maybe that sand asshole is still killing soldiers, maybe that kid is still burning people alive. But they sure as shit aren't here. I am."

    Taylor was completely still. Turk fixed her with his single eye, pinning her in place.

    "Hard times seem… hard. But you can always move on. You're, what, fourteen?"

    "Fifteen."

    "Fifteen. Well, three years, you leave. Find something else. Forget this place, forget… what's-her-name, Emma, make something of yourself."

    He sat back.

    "We build worlds around ourselves. Little globes, self-contained, self-sufficient. Unlike a planet, though, it's easy to escape these. Drive for a day. Fly for an hour or two. Get a new job. And all those things which loomed so large in your old world become dots on the horizon of the new. Earth's a big place. Lots of places to begin again."

    The two were silent for a time. Taylor didn't dare to speak, even though Turk seemed to be done. A few minutes passed, the teapot gradually emptied, and Turk stood. He pointed at the pot.

    "On house."

    And with that, he was back behind the counter, polishing a teapot with the intense attention of someone trying not to think about anything else, looking for any excuse to avoid engaging with the world. Taylor sympathised.

    An hour later, she was gone. A few hours after that, and Turk was collapsed on an aged sofa with a dirty glass of bathtub moonshine. Soon after, he was asleep. Taylor was not. She lay awake, staring at the ceiling. Sleeping felt pointless. Her bugs were working industriously, but the suit itself was basically complete. At this point she was just adding more padding. With a sigh, she banished her spiders back into darkened corners and hidden lairs, sent the ants back to their colonies, sent every insect back to its special home. Soon, she was the only one in the house to feel out of place.

    She thought about Turk. His advice was… well, weird. Look past the present, because you can always move on. She'd thought about that, of course, but she hadn't realised how bound she was to Brockton Bay. Everyone she knew was here. Her dad, her… well, her acquaintances, her enemies. She had no sympathetic ties to anyone outside of this grey little town on the Atlantic coast. She thought about how he had left home, how he had joined the army, joined a PMC, seen the world… and now he seemed to be very much on top of things. He ran a tea shop, and didn't seem to be particularly affected by the grime of the Bay. She'd seen so many succumb to the gangs, so many eaten alive by the concrete jungle. And yet this one-eyed Russian was running a tea shop in the middle, and seemed completely at ease.

    She thought about her dreams of being a hero. Using her powers to really change the city for the better. But Turk's words… his attitude towards parahumans. 'Endbringers create hard times. Hard times create parahumans. Parahumans stop good times from coming again'. She didn't hate her powers, but… there were people in the Bay with better powers than her: Panacea could heal almost anything, Armsmaster could build his way out of almost any problem, and Dauntless… hell, Dauntless was pegged for a spot on the Triumvirate, once he was strong enough. And yet, the Bay still succumbed to rot, gangs still roamed freely, villains still outnumbered heroes - a situation that didn't seem likely to change. Maybe she'd become a hero, and then a few years from now, some psychopath would trigger, some new Ash Beast or Nilbog, and then… poof, gone.

    Really, what the hell could she do. She saw her future, clear as day. A few Nazis taken down, maybe a Merchant… but then she'd be gone. Eaten up by the city. Some punk would get lucky, or her enemies would adapt and learn how to stymie her every effort - she'd read the PHO threads, seen how little so many could do. A new ward would show up, stun everyone, and then they'd go into the background. New Wave wiped out Marquis years back - and what happened? Nothing. Heroes drove out the Teeth, drove out the Butcher, and what happened? New Butcher. New Teeth. Maybe they'll come back and finish the job one day. She'd just be another statistic. Emma's words had cut her deep. She'd thought her powers made her… well, special. Elevated her. Like her suffering was finally vindicated. Bullies, school, these things would fade away. But instead, a few choice words had her sobbing like a child, comforted by some one-eyed Russian she barely knew. She was still human. A swarm of bugs didn't change that. Being a hero wouldn't change that. And humans break eventually - physically, mentally, they break. And another body washes into the gutter.

    She thought about her dad, sleeping fitfully in the next room. He'd been fighting his whole life to keep a dying industry alive… well, that was an exaggeration. She'd never say this to him, but she knew that the docks were dead. All the union did was keep its starving orphans warm, until eventually they'd get the message and move on. Endbringers made times hard, and she'd been affected by that her whole life. She'd been to the union, seen familiar faces slowly fade away. Some moved on, others couldn't take the stress anymore, some she'd see on the streets, faces marked by hunger and desperation. Sometimes she would walk past the old shipping containers near the waterfront, converted into cheap housing as part of some brilliant new plan. And she saw thin, mean faces stare from the cloudy plastic windows, saw meagre tins of food heated over portable stoves, saw crumbled futons and sleeping bags with shivering forms huddled inside them. The Last Depression wasn't going to end anytime soon. And she could hardly change that.

    Become a hero and contribute nothing meaningful, be trapped in a system you can't control, and eventually be used up in some pointless battle. Stay a human and become a creature of solitary desperation, a creature that shuffled to work and back with no sense of a greater world, a creature with dead eyes and a mind filled with suspicion and mistrust. She saw herself, gangly and sickly, huddled in one of those shipping containers, waiting to die. Just another whey-faced invalid, ignored by the world - though she was used to that. Too ugly, too unremarkable to build some scrap of domestic happiness. Too poor to afford comfort. Too weak to change anything.

    What a shitshow.

    She decided. Brockton Bay wouldn't eat her alive - she wouldn't allow it. Her dad might live here, her every connection might be here, and for all that imprisoned her, it freed her in other ways. She could leave. Could pack up her life and start again. And nothing would follow her. Emma wouldn't trek across a continent to make a snide remark, Madison would die after walking a mile, and Sophia… well, Sophia would laugh, chalk this one up as a 'win', and would promptly forget she existed. Winslow and its myriad cruelties would fade into memory. Just an ugly building in an ugly city. And she refused to be trapped in either.

    The next day, she returned to the tea shop, and asked Turk to help her.
     
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    • 4 - Mother of Invention
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    • 4 - Mother of Invention

    Turk was resistant. Taylor was adamant. Between the two, a compromise was eventually hashed out. And so, a week later on a relatively pleasant Saturday, Taylor woke up precisely on time, leapt from her bed, and prepared for the day to come. She was thoroughly looking forward to the middle of the day. That's when she trained with Turk. When he showed her skills she'd never really considered. He didn't show her how to fight, he showed her how to win (it turned out that fire and attacking the genitals was a good tactic for most people, if shooting them was out of the question). How to exercise properly with minimal equipment. How to repair minor wounds. Hell, he'd even mentioned teaching her how to do some limited car repair - apparently it helped when wandering from place to place. Everywhere needs car repair. They did all of this after school and on weekends. Turk was, understandably, reticent for Taylor to skip school altogether - less out of devotion to the education system of Winslow, more out of fear of being dragged into whatever fuss would be dredged up by her playing truant.

    The middle of the day was hard, but enjoyable. Purposeful. She hadn't felt this way since she started working on her suit - which had long been completed, and now gathered dust in the basement, concealed behind some loose boxes. The beginning and end were marginally less appreciated. Having finished her shower, she trooped downstairs for a quick breakfast and… there he was.

    Danny Hebert looked up from his cereal, catching Taylor's eye for a moment before looking away.

    "Hey Taylor - how'd you sleep?"

    She grunted in response. Danny accepted that, Taylor noticed with a twinge of resentment. She didn't dislike her father, not really. But she wasn't exactly a brimming cup of filial piety. He'd retreated into his work, into the daily routine. He was a firebrand at the union, of course, but home fell by the wayside. He spent his time working himself to death for a home he barely cared for and a daughter he barely saw. When Taylor had resolved to disentangle herself from the poisonous mess of Brockton Bay, she'd partially been motivated by the sight of what had happened to her father over the years, going from a proud, outspoken, loving parent to a reticent husk not even capable of noticing her ordeal over the last year. It'd taken the locker to get him to finally pay attention.

    She paused in shovelling cereal into her mouth. She was being unfair. Her father was a good man. Overworked, tired, still grieving… but he wasn't a bad parent. She genuinely enjoyed their time together, but she'd have appreciated it if that time was even slightly larger. She munched disconsolately. Times like this she fully understood why she had come to her decision. Life here was… complicated. Too complicated for her. And she wanted no more of it.

    A few minutes and a muttered goodbye later, she was on her way to the tea shop. She'd barely mustered the effort of an excuse, mumbling something about studying at the library. Turk was waiting at the shop, attending to the customers he received this time on Saturday. She had quickly realised that Turk wasn't some sort of two-faced salesman, wonderfully cheerful with customers but privately deeply reticent and taciturn. He was just bad with people as a rule. New customers were unnerved. Old customers took it in stride and enjoyed the tea. She still shuddered when she remembered the small child who had called him a pirate, on account of his eyepatch. For all she knew, the man had actually fought pirates. Still, the child survived. The parents, too, which was downright good fortune.

    Turk curtly gestured to a side room, which she entered gladly, shucking off her coat and backpack in the process. Without a thought, she dropped to the floor and started with a set of push-ups. Then sit-ups. This continued for some time - and she was seeing some serious results. She was hardly a body builder, but she was definitely acquiring a little more tone and mass - a fact which the trio had seen fit to remind her of. Still, interesting to go from being mocked for puking after every email to being mocked for working out. Not pleasant, but interesting nonetheless.

    Shortly after, Turk arrived - one ear open for the jingling of the door. And without a word he slapped her in the face. Well, more accurately, he tried to. Taylor had been outraged when he'd first done that. The next time she dodged. Now she retaliated, driving a fist into his jaw… a hair too slow. His head moved out of the way, turning a solid blow into a glancing hit, and she too late noticed his knee driving into her midsection. It had taken perhaps two seconds, and she was wheezing on the floor, resisting the urge to send some particularly nasty lice at him.

    Thankfully for Turk, Taylor was a pillar of serenity and peace, standing far above the crass impulses of the masses.

    Taylor's mouth had sadly never joined this pillar, and a few choice words slipped out. Turk's lips twitched into a small smile.

    An hour later they were sitting in the shop, Taylor pressing an ice pack to her cheek, wincing when she moved too much. Turk was sipping tea with a faintly satisfied air. The place was almost empty, and Taylor finally plucked up the courage to ask him a question that'd been bugging her for some time:

    "Turk?"

    Grunt.

    "You joined a PMC when you were young - what was it like?"

    He looked at her sharply, remaining silent. After a moment passed, he sighed.

    "Interesting work. Bloody work. Glad I don't do it anymore. Bad for soul."

    Taylor sagged back, faintly disappointed. Turk pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes.

    "...But it was very interesting. Made some good friends. Learned some good skills. Made some good money."

    He leaned back, warming to his theme.

    "Otselotovaya Khvatka was pretty big, though. Smaller PMCs do very different work. We did almost everything - guard duty, search and destroy, reconnaissance, private security, that sort of thing. Others are more focused. Desperado LLC mostly just does targeted attacks, going after specific parahumans. Or humans. But mostly parahumans."

    He glared at her.

    "I hope you're not thinking of joining one."

    She spluttered a few excuses - truth was, she was a little interested. Seeing the world, doing something important, making real friends… and then moving in with a pile of cash and better skills? Sounded at least a little appealing.

    "They wouldn't take you. PMCs don't train anyone, not really - I joined the army, they trained me up, then I took those skills to O.K. after I'd done my time. Only exceptions are parahuman PMCs. Not many of those, but they're not exactly picky."

    Taylor stiffened. She hadn't told Turk about her abilities. No point - he didn't need to know, she didn't want to tell. Nothing productive would come from it. At least, that's what she kept assuring herself. Her insects twitched, expressing those tics which would otherwise betray her.
    "Did you fight parahumans?"

    This was as close as she got to talking about her abilities. The PRT, the Protectorate, the gangs, they all projected the image of parahuman unassailability. Emma's barb had put a substantial seed of doubt in her mind. One girl, armed with personal information, had reduced her to tears. Her! A person who could have melted Emma's flesh with ten thousand biting pincers. Not that she ever would, but… well, she was stronger than Emma. But the red-headed bitch had still managed to hurt her. And that was a normal girl, no powers (that she knew of) and no training. Turk had mentioned fighting parahumans before… if a normal could fight a parahuman and win, that was training she was desperately interesting in receiving.

    "Yep. Not pretty."

    Turk was infuriatingly reticent.

    "C'mon Turk - you mentioned some guy out in Sudan, surely you've fought others."

    "Didn't fight him, he mopped the floor with us and we ran away."

    "You were in O.K. for years, don't tell me you just wandered around a jungle for all that time listening to Fortunate Son and moping."

    Turk bristled. OK, Turk didn't like Fortunate Son. Won't bring it up in future.

    "Sure, I've fought parahumans. Most are easy - unless you're a brute or have something protecting you, a bullet to the head kills you the same as everyone else. Most countermeasures involve shooting them. Master? Shoot them from a long way away. Blaster? Shoot them from a very long way away. Stranger? Get a machine to shoot them instead of a human."

    "And if shooting wasn't an option?"

    "Shooting is always an option. Sometimes it just doesn't work. Field outposts had tech for more specialised targets. Drugs are always good - sedatives make 'em sleep, hallucinogens stop them telling friend from foe… Sonic weaponry, tinkertech stuff we bought from Toybox, traps which leverage strength against an opponent, immobilising them. All sorts of techniques. Personal favourite were PA-brand Secateurs."

    Taylor, taking a page from Turk's book, waited patiently with a stoic, hard gaze fixed on the man.

    "Big scissors. Enemy can't hurt you if they don't have a limb to do it with. Blades immobilise, internal chainsaws slice away. Works more than you'd think."

    Taylor gulped. She dropped the line of questioning, sinking into her own thoughts. Killing parahumans… she'd thought about it, obviously, but never wanted to do it. But here was this mercenary talking about killing them like it was nobody's business. While she had no interest in committing murder, she was interested in the idea that simple ingenuity could defeat people vastly superior in many other respects. She only had bugs at her disposal, after all. She was basically useless against any parahuman immune to bug bites - only capable of blinding them with huge numbers of bodies. Turk had given her some ideas, though - using bugs to deliver sedatives, for instance. Coat their chitin, maybe? Stops it affecting the bug, but if it comes into contact it could apply it to the target pretty easily. She'd need to do more research, of course, she wasn't aware of many types of sedatives. Another thing to do in Ms. Knott's class.

    The remainder of the day passed very pleasantly. Training, resting, training… Turk was fully aware she had no opportunity to train while at school, so took brutal advantage of the fact that she had an entire school day to rest her aching muscles, pushing her to her every limit. Limits that would be shattered in time, she hoped. Soon, far too soon, the sun was setting, turning the tea shop a bright golden colour, the furniture casting long, dark shadows. She sat at the counter, sipping from a final cup of tea - Oolong - trying to delay heading back home, trying to delay concealing her bruises from her father, trying to delay having to lie to him about even more things.

    And then a leper walked through the door.
     
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    • 5 - The Lazarite
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    • 5 - The Lazarite

    The woman was a leper. Or, at least, she strongly resembled one of those poor souls afflicted by that most Biblical of diseases. Lesions, some of them weeping, dotted her exposed flesh - and her uncomfortable movements suggested more lesions concealed beneath clothes which chafed something fierce. Her eyes flicked about from spot to spot, alert to anyone approaching her. She twitched nervously. Her eyes were yellowed and thick with corruption. A rat's nest of split ends and unruly tufts completed the image of general decay and overall decline. And yet, there were many features which suggested that whatever disease she had wasn't quite leprosy.

    Lacing through her were veins stained a deep black, standing out sharply on slightly yellowed skin. She lacked not a single limb - save, that is, for a solitary finger which seemed to have been severed with something rather more direct and forceful than the slow decay of leprosy. And most damning of all, she reacted to external stimulus rapidly. When the bell jingled, she flinched with her entire body, not a single part moving slower than the other. When she sat, she adjusted herself in ways that only those sensitive to every bodily irritation - in short, those with total access to the fruits of their nerves - can do. The woman, to put it simply, had some of the signs of leprosy… but only some. In other details, she seemed remarkably well-put together. For someone covered in lesions, that is.

    Taylor froze when the women entered. Not that she was alarmed - of course not - but she was… put off guard by the entry of someone so obviously diseased at such a random moment. She continued to be frozen as the woman moved into the shop and sat down at the counter. She blinked when Turk silently poured her a small glass of some transparent liquid from an unmarked glass bottle. The woman downed it in a single gulp, making her appreciation known in a hoarse rasp.

    "Thanks, Turk."

    Turk nodded stoically. And then, silence. Turk poured her another, poured himself one, and the two sat quietly for some time. Taylor's hand twitched around her now-cold tea. Damn. She'd been enjoying that one. Turk looked up at her as she went to leave.

    "Hey, Taylor - want you to meet a friend of mine."

    Taylor stumped over the counter, setting her bag down and plonking her exhausted carcass onto a stool. She smiled at the woman beside her, who was looking over with unabashed suspicion.

    "Nice to meet you - I'm Taylor."

    "I gathered."

    She rasped, rapidly replacing the words with more of the unidentified liquid - which, at close range, was quite pungent. Turk grunted. The woman twitched. She pointed at herself, reluctantly.

    "Ahab."

    Taylor blinked.

    "Like the captain?"

    "Not my real name. But it's the one you're getting."

    Taylor glanced at Turk, who shrugged apologetically.

    "Callsign - some of us like to keep using them. Easier than our real names."

    "Wait, is Turk not your real name?"

    "Of course not."

    "What is your real name?"

    "None of your business."

    Silence prevailed, as it so often does in situations of severe awkwardness. While they were talking, the woman had downed another glass and was pouring her next refill. And while Taylor, as a reasonable person with a good sense of what is good for you and what is bad for you, did not have a great fondness for severe alcoholism… well, to put it bluntly, Ahab was looking mildly more approachable now. Less twitchy. Less… blunt. She even smiled.

    "So, how'd you meet this lump?"

    Taylor startled.

    "Well… uh, I just started going here, and…"

    Words failed her. She enjoyed being efficient with her words, and yet there seemed no efficient way of explaining her current position. It had taken several chapters to get to this point, and by gum, she wasn't in the mood to regurgitate several chapters, some of which involved perspectives other than her own. Turk, the wonderful cyclops that he was, saved her in her hour of need.

    "She got ass kicked. I show her how to avoid in future."

    Ahab nodded sagely, spilling a tiny amount of the foul-smelling drink as she did. Taylor thought she saw the table smoke a little where the liquid hit it.

    "Wise. The ass is a vital part of the body, and it must be protected at all costs. Thus do we call the ass a 'bun' and we also call the rabbit, that most delicate of animals, the 'bun'. Ancient humanity truly had great knowledge of themselves and the world."

    Taylor blinked. Ahab was entirely serious, and a look of bleary contentment was plastered across her scabbed face.

    "I'm… not sure that's how it works. I think 'bun' is a contraction of 'bunny' in the latter case. I think the term for an… ass (she hesitated saying it, the word unpleasant on her tongue) comes from its similarity to a pair of buns. You know, like, bread."

    Ahab nodded sagely once more. She continued to nod. After several seconds of nodding she replied.

    "And yet the bread bun is delicate too, invaluable even! Bread is the protection for the sandwich's delicious contents. And yet, the bun must be protected - with it gone, the sandwich goes with it. Thus, the ass."

    She continued to nod all the way through, sinking slightly lower.

    "What?"

    Ahab snapped upright, thrusting an arm in her face.

    "Silence! Be be-pus-ed!"

    Taylor shrieked. Her arm really was quite hideous, and it did seem to be... well, not exactly watertight. Just replace water with a sweet-smelling yellow-green discharge. As she scrambled away, her ass hitting the floor with a painful 'thump', Turk chuckled. Then, with sublime Slavic subtlety, he interjected once more:

    "Stop talking about buns. Ahab, tell her about Alexander"

    Ahab brightened up immediately, and stood up, staggering as she did so, to deliver an impassioned address. She was swaying quite alarmingly.

    "Ah yes, Alexander the Great! Son of Phillip of Macedon, conqueror of all he surveyed, master of legions and nations!"

    She smiled blearily.

    "Great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granddad"

    She paused.

    "Add another great. Or take one away. Not sure. Lot of greats"

    She giggled thickly.

    "Great for great!"

    Taylor was irritated. Here she was, exhausted, drinking tea, and a drunk pseudo-leper thought it appropriate to burst in and start abusing the English language (abusing in a certain sense - her actual English was damn good, better than Turk's in some respects, but her irritating usage of the word 'bun' had awakened a certain fury. Damn it, she'd read good word play before, and this most certainly was not that!) as much as she clearly abused her liver. And now she was just spouting pseudo-history.

    "For you see! I am a descendent of the Kalash, who dwell in the hinterlands of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Before, well, uh, everything happened. We were descended from the armies of Alexander - you can totally tell, we have fair hair, blue, green, grey eyes, Greek features, whole deal. I think some scientist proved it one time. I think. Could have happened. It's definitely conceivable. Behold my aquiline nose!"

    She thrust it up in the air. The effect was ruined slightly by the fact that it was covered in sores and scars to the point that its actual shape was slightly indeterminate.

    "And while the others of my people claim descent from his soldiers, I have a greater (ha!) pedigree! My family is descended from the big man himself."

    "How could you possibly tell."

    "My granddad told me. And his granddad told him. Also, we drink like fiends and die young. Also, we weep whenever we think about conquering things. Also we respond to tricky problems primarily using knives, swords, or... well, anything sharp. Also, hair."

    She swept her ratty hair into a pseudo-cowlick.

    "Pretty compelling, huh?"

    Taylor remained steadfastly un-compelled. Re-pelled, perhaps, but compelled she was not. She thought, in fact, that 'Ahab' (a name which had sounded ridiculous when she first heard it and was even more ridiculous now) looked positively ludicrous with her bad hair swept into a bad cowlick which only served to expose a lesion-bedazzled forehead. She also had bad roots. Taylor was feeling very petty today.

    "No more."

    And Turk, once more, saved the day. Ahab quietly returned to the counter, demurely sipping her liquor(?). Taylor sullenly returned to her stool. Well, she returned to the stool next to her stool. She wasn't in the mood to be 'be-pus-ed' - whatever the hell that meant. Now her excitement had subsided, actually, Ahab seemed strangely… sombre. No more theatrics. Just a pseudo-leper drinking strong liquor with a solemn expression.

    "How are you doing, Ahab?"

    She sighed.

    "Surviving. Doctor gave me some new cream - seems to be working alright so far. Kid screamed at me on the way over."

    Turk silently poured another glass. She drank deeply, and leant back as far as the stool would safely allow her.

    "What about you, Turk? How's the shop?"

    "Same as usual. Taylor's been acceptable company. Punches like a… well, I'd say a grandmother, but my grandmother punched like a truck."

    Taylor grumbled. Proper grumbling - inarticulately muttering and mumbling while covering the whole thing in a veneer of only faint, as opposed to intense, displeasure - was an art she was gradually learning. A nearby spider did give a rather more expressive huff. Well, as close to a huff as a spider can get. Ahab turned and gave Taylor an appraising look.

    "Yeah, I can see that. You know, I could show you a few things - Turk and I are old PMC buddies."

    "You were in Otselotovaya Khvatka?"

    "Nice pronunciation. But no. Crossrifle Ltd., smaller group, mostly did work in what used to be Central Asia. Got this pretty mug during an excursion in former Kazakhstan."

    Her face darkened.

    "Turk and I linked up through a mutual friend. He helped me settle in, I help drink his bathtub moonshine."

    Turk smiled briefly, sipping at his bathtub moonshine. Taylor quietly moved the bottle away from her. She'd heard the stories, smelled the fascinating aroma coming from upstairs, and had no interest in being too close to what was, quite possibly, a chemical weapon.

    "It's a good arrangement."

    Ahab snorted. Turk chuckled. Taylor stared. And the three fell into a companionable silence - two old soldiers and one young parahuman sharing a counter in a tea shop, watching the sun go down. Eventually, Ahab fell asleep, and both Turk and Taylor were necessary to drag her up to a battered couch. And then, Taylor was gone - back home. Past the broken step, past the old door, past the dozing form of her father, and up to bed. She barely felt the pillow before she fell into a dark, dreamless sleep.

    Saturday was a good day.
     
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    • 6 - Nevsky, Arachne, and Queen Baldwina IV
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    • 6 - Nevsky, Arachne and Queen Baldwina

    Ahab was a rock thrown into the centre of the calm pool which was Turk and Taylor's routine. The ripples were… substantial, at first. Taylor keenly noticed every time the scarred woman was in the shop, keeping one eye on her at all times. Ahab, likewise, took time to get used to Taylor. It took nearly a week for her to be friendly without the assistance of alcohol… Taylor assumed. That sort of dependence doesn't exactly go away. For all she knew, Ahab drank herself blind in the morning, afternoon, and evening - for all she knew, she'd never seen sober Ahab, and maybe she never would, sober Ahab being a sad and twisted thing brutalised into a weak half-life by the immeasurably vaster presence of drunk Ahab. But maybe she was leaping to judgements too quickly. It was quite possible.

    And yet, the ripples gradually subsided, as ripples are wont to do. Ahab became more relaxed in Taylor's presence, and Taylor in Ahab's. Eventually she even mentioned the trio - admittedly, that was more or less mandatory. The state of her bag demanded some explanation, and the one she gave left Ahab with a fiery look in her cloudy eyes. She didn't say anything, not a word, but the next day she asked Taylor if she'd like any help with her training. Apparently she and Turk had had a 'chat'. And speaking of the Russian cyclops, he'd been the stable pillar amidst the ripples, utterly implacable. Ahab and he were good friends. Taylor and he were relatively friendly. That was all. To shift from one metaphor to another, the rogue planetoid of Ahab crashed into the Turk system, momentarily upsetting its motions, until cosmic stability was again restored in the celestial sphere, which danced within a nebula of tea-smoke. Taylor realised this metaphor was rather getting away from here. She promptly decided to stop.

    Ahab's training was very different to Turk's - though she could tell Turk was glad for the help. The shop wouldn't run itself. Where Turk was a steady generalist, teaching her how to win a fight and stitch a wound in the same day with the same sense of stoic necessity, Ahab oscillated wildly between lessons. On bad days she taught Taylor how to set traps, how to win a fight as quietly as possible, how to exert an air of menace ('why fight when you can win by looking scary?'). On good days she'd drag in a small animal and show Taylor how to prepare it, how to prevent infection from parasites or any nasty form of food poisoning… the first time she did this, Taylor assumed she was in a bad mood, and had struggled to butcher the bird presented to her. Over time she realised that this was Ahab in damn good humour - Ahab, on days like that, had managed to crawl out of bed, dress, and go out to find something at an early hour. Then, she had dragged it to the tea shop, and showed Taylor to prepare it, all without the aid of (much) alcohol. Good days were usually followed by bad days, where a tipsy Ahab would fall asleep with Taylor in a painful headlock. When that had first happened, Taylor had to wait, red-faced, for Turk to notice the faint snoring. He'd remained stoic the entire time, but she could tell he was tickled pink by the sight.

    A particularly odd Wednesday had her arriving to see Turk and Ahab standing, alone, singing… something. She assumed they'd be singing some dirge or drinking song, something exceptionally rude no doubt. Instead, she was greeted with the sound of blaring orchestral music, and the two old soldiers singing, well…

    A British tar is a soaring soul!
    As free as a mountain bird!
    Each energetic fist, must be ready to resist
    A dictatorial wo-

    They cut off abruptly, noticing Taylor enter. Turk was comically wide-eyed, Ahab had her mouth hanging open awkwardly, and the music was still blaring as loud as the speakers could go. Taylor blinked. Turk coughed.

    "...Do you like Gilbert and Sullivan?"

    "...Do I like Gilbert and Sullivan."

    "Да."

    In all honesty, she barely knew them. A brief encounter here, a brief reference there… the only protracted contact she had with the two was through her mother, who she remembered humming one of their songs. Wasn't sure which one, though. But the sight of her two friends (friends? It seemed odd to call people nearly twice her age 'friends', but they'd certainly been a friendly force in her life), neither of whom were English, singing songs by a pair of Englishmen from the 19th century was… well, it was quite the experience.

    "I know of them."

    Ahab sighed.

    "Children! No taste."

    Turk nodded ruefully.

    "My father sang their tunes almost every day. I mean, he was eccentric, but the songs were still… how do the English say? Absolute bangers."

    Ahab cackled.

    "Absolute bangers! Yes, that is Gilbert and Sullivan indeed. I had a comrade in Crossrifle who loved them. We learned the words just so we didn't have to listen to him singing it all solo. Terrible voice."

    She paused.

    "Well, mine ain't so hot either. But hey, can't just rely on my stunning good looks these days to get by."

    Turk patted her on the arm.

    "You're still as stunning as the day we met."

    "We met after I got a faceful of biohazards"

    They both turned to see Taylor giggling in a surprisingly un-Taylorian way. Turk raised an eyebrow. Taylor burst out laughing, and had to be helped to a chair, where she sat for a few moments, tears streaking her face. She wheezed out:

    "You… you people are ridiculous."

    Turk looked affronted. Ahab too. The music from H.M.S. Pinafore was still playing at full blast. After a few moments, Ahab started laughing. A moment later, Turk expressed a solitary giggle. And so they sat for a few minutes, listening to the music and drinking tea. Well, tea with a little something extra in Ahab's case. The light began to dim, Turk returned to his counter, Ahab joined him, Taylor remained to enjoy her tea (Lapsang souchong). And someone entered.

    It has been observed that what must come up must, inevitably, come down. Thus is the law of gravity, and of fate. No rise without a fall, no fall without the promise of a rise. With the latter axiom in mind, Taylor must have been ready for quite a precipitous rise. Hell, she expected to be downright exalted after today. And if she wasn't, well, then fate was a cruel, ice-hearted bitch with no sense of justice.

    Because Emma Barnes had walked in.
    * * *​

    Taylor froze. Emma smiled, along with the small group of girls around her - no Sophia, she noticed, but Madison's sickly-sweet smile was as constant as ever. Turk and Ahab, however, continued to talk quietly, only a brief glance showing they were aware of new customers. And so, without a word to stop them, Emma and her group sat down at Taylor's table.

    "Taylor! So surprised to see you here - I didn't know Daddy's budget extended to this."

    "Maybe she's spending the money she makes from her other job."

    "Sounds about right - Daddy dearest struggling to pay the bills, and Taylor snuggles with Merchants to pay for tea for just herself."

    The chorus of pecking, heckling abuse was far too familiar. But for all its familiarity, hearing it here, in the same place where she trained to escape from Brockton, in the same place where she chatted with Turk and Ahab, where she took refuge from the thousand little cruelties of the day-to-day… it hurt. It hurt a lot. One of her last refuges was gone - those chairs where her friends had sat were occupied by those petty, spiteful things which until now at least had the charity to stay at Winslow.

    Her insects twitched angrily, pincers clicking and legs bracing, ready to surge forth and hurt these things which had invaded one of her last sanctums. She barely restrained herself. Barely. Her face remained fairly impassive, her aggression, her spite, her desire to hurt them projected into the rustling of a thousand unseen wings. Ahab looked over, raising an eyebrow.

    "Friends of yours, Taylor?"

    Emma glanced at Ahab, eyes widening momentarily at the sight of her face. Then, she smiled sweetly.

    "Oh, yes, just saying hi to darling Tay-Tay!"

    She leant over, lowering her voice.

    "Really? No friends at Winslow, so you, what, start being all buddy-buddy with people like that?"

    The girls snickered. Emma's smile turned colder, crueller.

    "Aw, are you gonna cry for a whole week again?"

    Taylor froze. Emma had used that insult once. Once. And she had run crying to Turk's shop. And here it was again. Nowhere to run this time, though. Her teeth were grinding, her body ready to lash and break something.

    And then there was the sound of a cup slamming down. The girls looked up to see a glowering one-eyed Russian staring at them.

    "You want to order."

    He tapped the sign reading 'paying customers only'. Emma, irritably, pulled out a few dollars with the ease of someone who has far more ready in reserve, who has no fear of running out of money.

    "Tea, fine, whatever."

    She stomped over, slammed the bills down, and turned away to return to the table. Ahab glared at the redhead keeping a good distance from her.

    Turk coughed.

    "What?" She snapped.

    "Money no good."

    Taylor could see her former friend's teeth start grinding.

    "Just give me some tea."

    Turk silently tapped another sign: 'We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone'.

    "Well-"

    "If not paying customer, get out."

    "Listen-"

    Turk leant forwards, dwarfing Emma. His one eye was burning bright with anger.

    "If not paying customer. Get. Out" he ground through clenched teeth.

    There was silence for a moment. Emma processed someone actually refusing her, someone actually refusing to back down. Turk was just waiting to bring out his stick. The girls were speechless. Taylor was internally screaming.

    "Fine. Girls!"

    And with that, the troupe had vanished, and the air seemed to clear. Turk's teeth were still clenched, Ahab still looked ready to bite someone, but… there was peace. Taylor's head sank down into her arms, and she breathed deeply. She was mortified, completely humiliated. This nasty little piece of her life had crawled into her sanctuary, and now her friends - who she'd been trying so hard to impress, who she'd been training with using all her strength - would see her as no-one but another victim. Another weakling who couldn't even stop a group of girls. She couldn't even muster the will to look them in the eye.

    She stayed in that position for a few moments, trying to get her emotions back under control, her insects chittering madly as they scuttled through the walls and under the floors.

    Until the sound of an orchestra started to break the silence, blasting from a set of cheap speakers on a battered CD player. Ahab's raspy voice interjected.

    "...His nose should pant, and his lip should curl…"

    Turk's impressive bass joined in.

    "...His cheeks should flame, and his brow should furl…"

    Taylor smiled, face hidden by her arms. She sat up, looking at the pair of soldiers. Turk was pouring two… no, three glasses of his bathtub moonshine, one distinctly smaller than the others. He gestured for her to come. She was hesitant. He was adamant. Thankfully, she remembered the lyrics for this song.

    "...His bosom should heave, and his heart should glow…"

    The three joined in as one, their voices not remotely harmonious or melodic, completely disjointed and out of sync…

    "And his fist be ever ready for a knock! Down! Blow!"

    But it made Taylor smile. As the music thundered on, Ahab and Turk downed their drinks, and Taylor tried to do the same.

    And so this Wednesday in the year of our Lord two thousand and eleven, Taylor sang Gilbert and Sullivan with a pseudo-leper and a Russian cyclops, her insects humming in their various ways, and learned what it was like to drink fire.
     
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    • 7 - Tension and Meatloaf
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    • 7 - Tension and Meatloaf

    The morning routine was as follows - wake, struggle to emerge from the comforting cocoon of one's covers, succeed in the struggle but nonetheless have a creeping feeling that 'twas only a Pyrrhic victory, slip into clothes which are always too itchy, too cold, too… well, not one's covers, and stumble downstairs for a spot of breakfast. The operative word here, of course, is was. Nowadays, Taylor woke with a greater sense of purpose at a far earlier time, engaged in the bizarre act of 'jogging' (the term and the activity were definitely invented by the same lunatic), and only then began to ease into the routine miseries of the school day. Indeed, while her jogging inevitably left her breathing heavily and streaked with sweat, the feeling of banishing all conscious thought into a haze of instinct and aching limbs was… well, it was certainly preferable to the aforementioned routine miseries.

    Winslow was the same as it always was. Grimy. Unpleasant. Run-down. But it was tinged with a new flavour today, which Taylor savoured as a veritable educational sommelier.

    Anticipation.

    Taylor had wrestled with the idea of simply leaving Winslow. Many of her problems stemmed from the place, and with her newfound resolution to sever herself from those webs which bound her into an ugly, nasty, brutish and terribly short life, departing from Winslow seemed to be the most obvious first step. Of course, her options were… limited. She'd recently looked at the possibility of sitting her GED, studying independently at home. That would allow her to drop out of Winslow while still scraping something resembling a 'qualification'. She'd mentioned it to Turk, who had been, well, Turk. He was very Turk-ish about it (meaning that he behaved as Turk was often wont to do, not implying that he acted in a way characteristic to the country of Turkey. She wasn't sure he'd even been to Turkey. She wasn't sure if she'd ever met a Turkish person). That is to say, he grunted and suggested that she should just drop out. Of course, his education had been limited to some half-hearted attempts by a very small number of underpaid and overworked teachers. He'd left as soon as he was able, and learned a great deal on his own. Sure, quadratics were beyond him, but he could hotwire a tank in twenty seconds, and the influence of extreme boredom had made him better read than some of her own schoolmates.

    Taylor had politely elected to ignore him. The GED seemed to be the best option - as satisfying as dropping out completely would be, if there was one hold Brockton Bay had over her which she didn't remotely begrudge, it was the influence of her mother. Her mother, the English professor. Her mother, who had insisted that her daughter receive a good education. She could only internally justify dropping out to sit her GED - she still got a qualification out of that, and that alone would open a few doors, and hopefully allay her conscience. But dropping out entirely was quite unjustifiable, at least to the part of Taylor which still held true to her mother's ideals of the power of education.

    And with this resolution in mind, Winslow suddenly became rather different in her eyes. She looked on the stained walls, the gang symbols, the apathetic teachers with a sense of… well, satisfaction. For all she knew, this was one of the last times she would actually look upon these familiar sights. And while she wouldn't miss them one little bit, it was still an ending. Quite a dramatic ending at that, one that marked the conclusion of a particularly miserable chapter of her life. And an ending of that sort is always worth paying attention to. Of course, this didn't make her appreciate Winslow any more than she had previously. In fact, what had previously been an indefinable stew of gang colours now resolved into a startling clear picture. She saw clearly the colours of the ABB, the E88, even the rancid Merchants. She marked well the lines of their faces, these young gang aspirants, noted the sullen hatred of the E88, the brashness of the ABB (the natural fruit of having a gigantic man-dragon as one's leader), and the twitching, wide-eyed nervousness of the few Merchants.

    She saw how the E88 was a strange combination of the boldly hateful, those who wore their hearts on their sleeves, mixed with the quiet and sullen who boiled with deep-seated loathing. She saw how these groups distrusted each other, the large and brash leery of the weedy and spiteful. And yet, in the face of the ABB, they united into a single body. The ABB, too, had many sub-groups. Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Mongolian, Vietnamese, Burman… and dozens of sub-groups within them. She barely noticed it before, but now it was thrown into sharp clarity by her newfound attention. A group would talk, and then suddenly a pause would come - a moment of awkwardness, a moment where a Chinese kid would suppress an unpleasant comment about a Japanese kid, or vice versa. And then, the authority of the dragon would reassert itself and the group would resume a veneer of civility.

    Winslow was… strange, when observed closely.

    The day marched onwards, class after class passing with little to differentiate them. 'Class' meant little to Taylor nowadays - the only division in the school day worth marking these days was 'in school' and 'out of school'. Everything in the former category blended into a tasteless soup. The latter category was where anything interesting lived. But a growing sense of unease weighed heavily on her as the day progressed. By English, she was looking around a little nervously. By Computer Science, she was on tenterhooks. The trio were… absent. Not 'gone', but absent from her day. No violence from Sophia. No comments from Emma. No contributions by Madison. She saw them, a flash of red hair, a muscled and violent shape, a simpering smile… but they never escalated to actual contact. The last time this sort of thing happened, they'd been planning something remarkably foul. Taylor's insects were aflutter, tracking everyone in her range, her mind twitching the moment a person came too close or moved too quickly.

    At lunch, the mystery only deepened. She spied Emma in the corner of her eye, and, reticent to look over, her insects tracked her every movement. To her surprise, she didn't move over. She didn't seem to be doing much of anything - sitting quite still, and chattering to her friends with a great deal of urgency. Her hands were flapping about, almost killing one of her mosquitos. Sophia was hunched, tense as anything, speaking very little. Her fists kept clenching and unclenching. Madison looked downright nervous. Taylor's caution transformed into curiosity. None of this was directed at her, she thought. No pointing fingers, no muffled giggles, none of the hallmarks of an escalating scheme. Just nervousness, tension, and a marked lack of attention to Taylor. She wasn't sure if this was better or worse.

    By Parahuman Studies, she wasn't even paying attention to the teacher, on edge for reasons she couldn't quite fathom. The trio remained dormant. No casual violence, no pencil shavings spilled on her desk, no unpleasant pranks… and then it hit her. Or, rather, it didn't hit her. Julia, who typically sat behind her and plagued her with a dozen little irritations throughout the lesson, was being… quiet. Too quiet. A solitary tiny fly crawled on her desk, on her seat, all around, and found absolutely nothing. Julia was gone.

    The lesson passed in a haze. She was just absent. Nothing serious. Just an absence. Every student had one now and again. But the nervousness of the trio kept her guessing - did they know something? Had something happened to Julia? Their silence and inactivity gave her no answers. She shouldn't be so worked up about one of her bullies being absent from school, but the sharp observation she'd been gifted by her imminent departure made her keenly aware of any change. Another day, she'd have written Julia off as a simple absence. But today, she had noticed the trio's tension, she had noticed a certain… tenor about the school, primarily amongst the girls. More focused on their phones than usual, less willing to gossip. Times like this she was profoundly irritated at her lack of friends - at least they could have clued her in.

    The end of the day brought nothing new. No events. No dramatic reveals. Just silence. And as she filtered away from the building, something hit her. Well, someone. A dark shape bumped into her shoulder, the muscle behind it giving it force even if the figure hadn't intended it. An automatic 'sorry' came from the figure, half-hearted in its delivery, but painfully familiar. Sophia Hess looked behind her, processing what she'd said and who she'd said it to. She scowled. Taylor remained blank. And then, she was gone. No passing comment. No retribution. Hell, it seemed like Sophia had bumped into her by accident. Sophia never bumped into her by accident. Sometimes 'by accident' but never by accident. She walked home quickly, not even going to Turk's teashop. She had business to attend to at home.

    Home was the same as ever. Her father was out, still working. She fixed herself a cup of tea (grimacing as she did so. Turk had spoiled her, and a bag of cheap green tea didn't quite have the same hit it once did) and went upstairs. There was some work to do from school, but it sat in her bag unattended to. She sat at her desk and waited. Silence reigned. She tapped her fingers impatiently. Stood and paced. Sat down again. Sipped her tea. This continued for maybe an hour. And then there it was! The sound of keys jangling as they were withdrawn from a pocket, the sound of the peculiar hop-jump her father used to evade the rotten step, the rasping of metal in a lock… and then the sigh as he dropped his briefcase and collapsed in a chair. She knew these sounds well, and generally only marked them with a shouted 'hello'. Now they seemed like an overture.

    She walked downstairs. She saw her father. She took a deep breath.

    "Dad - we need to talk."
    * * *​

    Silence reigned again, reasserted its dominion after a brief interregnum of noise, a civil war of discussion. Her father was very still.

    "I… don't know how to respond."

    Taylor grimaced.

    "I didn't know things were so bad at Winslow…"

    Taylor internally fumed. Because you never asked.

    "You were so quiet after the incident that, well, I thought things had improved"

    Because you. Never. Asked.

    "I'm not sure if studying for the GED is a good idea, Taylor. Down at the union, well, there's lots of guys who said they'd study for their GED when they were young. I think almost all of them regret it. High school, it opens doors, Taylor-"

    Taylor cut him off.

    "I know it does. But I'm not staying there any longer than I have to. I'm barely learning anything."

    "But what do you intend to actually do? It'll be hard to get into a college if you do this."

    "About that, I… don't know if I want to go to college."

    Her father looked sharply at her.

    "It just seems like I'll get nothing from it I couldn't get through practical experience."

    "...practical experience."

    "Yeah (a little defensively). Like, do I need a college degree and a high school diploma to, I don't know, repair cars?"

    "Do you want to repair cars."

    "Well, no, but it was just an example. There's stuff I can do without going to college, is all I'm saying. And if I don't want to go to college, why waste time at high school?"

    Danny sighed. He looked tired. He always looked tired. His next words were ones he struggled to say, and Taylor struggled to listen to.

    "Taylor, when… when your mother passed, I made a promise to raise you in a way that would make her proud. And there have been… problems (no shit), but I… Annette would have killed me if she found out I let her only daughter drop out of high school."

    "Dad, mom was an English professor. I don't know if I could do that. I just… I don't know why I should go to college for no reason but 'I'm meant to go'."

    "But what would you do, Taylor, what would you actually do instead of going to college?"

    "I don't know!"

    That was a lie. She knew she'd be asked this, and she'd come up with lie after lie… but this one, this unsatisfying lie which solved nothing, was perhaps the only one she felt comfortable saying. She could hardly tell him that she was a parahuman and she wanted to cut herself off from Brockton Bay. She could hardly tell him about her vague thoughts about joining a PMC, or the army, or the PRT, or… hell, anything. Something to get her out of the Bay. She tried again, piecing together the sentence as she said it.

    "I… I want to do something practical. Something I can just do, and I can enjoy. I just don't know if I need to go to college for that."

    Danny wasn't sure how to react. He was a union leader - he was a practical person, he worked with practical people. He could see the appeal, but… Annette had always been the intellectual. She'd definitely know what to say now. He didn't know if the practical life he saw others around him lead was something she would enjoy. Hell, he didn't know if that kind of life was even possible nowadays. He'd seen enough good men fall off the bandwagon, good practical men. Taylor was still talking.

    "...maybe the military, maybe the police…"

    He froze, the idea of his Taylor in fatigues, in a uniform, gun in hand. His Taylor with some horrific injury that he was too weak to stop her from getting. Every worst case scenario flashed through his mind.

    "...I definitely could do it, I know I could study for the GED, it wouldn't be impossible…"

    Danny held up a hand, silencing her.

    "Taylor. I am your father. I'm not going to let my daughter drop out of school based on some half-baked idea to join the military."

    "It was just an idea!"

    "Yeah, the other one was 'the police' - Taylor, you know what it's like out there, why would you want to join the police here in Brockton-"

    "Maybe I don't want to stay in Brockton!"

    Silence.

    "What?"

    "Maybe… maybe I don't want to stay here forever. Maybe I want to leave."

    Danny sighed. He knew this was coming. Hell, if he were her age he'd be reluctant to stay. If he had the money to move, wasn't so tied to the union… no point dwelling on the 'ifs'. The two were completely silent, the day slowly inching towards twilight, casting their faces into gloom. Neither dared to move to turn on a lamp. Inside Danny, something clicked. He saw Taylor doing something, anything. Leaving the Bay, moving to another city, doing something useful, something rewarding. A small-town cop. A grease monkey in a quiet chop shop. A… soldier (he shuddered internally) stationed on a base in the middle of nowhere, actually making friends, regaining the confidence he'd been so heartbroken to see vanish from his little girl over the past few years. The two Heberts were very different people, but in that moment, they were of exactly the same mind.

    "...I'll look into it."

    Taylor blinked.

    "Thanks, Dad." she said simply. Danny flicked a light on, both of them flinching as it suddenly illuminated the gloomy room. A moment later, he was in the kitchen. The sound of food being prepared echoed through the house. Taylor, after a second's hesitation, followed him. And in total silence, Danny and Taylor prepared dinner. Meatloaf. From one of Annette's recipes.
    * * *​

    And the next day, Taylor arrived in Winslow to see a police car parked outside.
     
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    • 8 - An Interrogation by an Irascible Investigator which Incredibly Irritates an Ingenue
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    • 8 - An Interrogation by an Irascible Investigator which Incredibly Irritates an Ingenue

    Taylor paused. This was new. Well, somewhat new. The police often came by to check out Winslow. It wasn't exactly uncommon to look up from one's work and see a uniformed officer dragging some kid who'd been waving a switchblade around, or worse, a gun. And sometimes it was limited to a brief interrogation in the principal's office, and prompt release. Many kids here were gang members - it was distressingly regular to see the police picking a few people out for questioning after a major gang attack. Taylor suspected that it was partially an attempt to show force - kids generally didn't fight back, didn't whip out a piece and start blasting away, especially not at school. So, you could get some questioning in with minimal risk to yourself. Taylor rather cynically imagined the cops eagerly trying to snatch up the duty of questioning kids at Winslow, rather than bashing down the door of some hovel filled with enough guns to mount a small insurrection.

    Maybe she was being a bit uncharitable. Ever since the police had dropped her case following the incident, she'd not thought very highly of the local fuzz.

    Entering the school proved that this was quite different from the usual visits. Students were tense, eyes twitching nervously - usually, only Merchants were that agitated. Typically only a pair of officers were here, but it seemed like nearly half a dozen had trooped into Winslow. The trio was remarkably well-behaved, Taylor was pleased to see. Though that didn't exactly surprise her - they still looked extremely anxious. Indeed, because of the police presence, most of Winslow was very quiet. No fights, no bullying - people were very much on their best behaviour. And every so often over the intercom someone was asked to come to the principal's office. Most were familiar names - girls who had helped bully her, a boy she thought had been Julia's boyfriend for a brief time… Emma Barnes, Sophia Hess, Madison Clements, each one trooping off resignedly and returning looking as anxious as before.

    And then: "Taylor Hebert, please report to the principal's office immediately" came rasping over the dated intercom system. Taylor startled upright in her seat, people's eyes flicking over to her, some as surprised as she was. She wasn't Julia's friend, she was just a victim of Julia - at least, when directed by the core trio. She didn't quite seem to have the imagination to do anything alone.

    She trooped out, eyes on her back, and walked through the eerily empty corridors. In the absence of students, the school seemed strangely forlorn. The graffiti became simple decay, not the marks of living people. The rusted lockers no longer looked 'well-worn' - they just looked like rusting hunks of metal that should have been scrapped some time ago. 'Forlorn' was the correct word - without people, Winslow became a building, and not a particularly pleasant one. People charged it, gave it meaning. Even with Taylor's unpleasant memories of the place, it was hard to muster up strong emotions in the face of such dispassionate emptiness.

    Taylor was most certainly not doing deep internal ponderings to keep herself calm and distracted. No sir. Deep internal ponderings for the sake of deep internal ponderings only in this brain.

    Blackwell's office came up sooner than expected. Seems like the distracting internal ponderings had worked. She hesitantly knocked, and a female voice called out 'please come in' - obviously it was meant to be polite, but the voice had a bite to it, likely from spending a day interviewing teenagers, that twisted it into something curt and blunt. Taylor complied. Naturally, she was familiar with Blackwell's office - but it seemed very different to the last time she was here. No principal, for one. And with her gone, the office lost the charge of 'principal's office'. It was just a small office with far too many papers and a rather ugly desk. Its new occupant, though, took this vacant shell and charged it with new significance. A policewoman, uniformed, sat behind Blackwell's desk. She'd evidently only been here since the start of the day, and yet the desk already looked more organised, more military-esque in its arrangements. Lines of neat pencils and pencils, stacks of crisp paper - many now filled with clear and well-formed letters - and a steaming cup of black coffee to complete the image.

    The policewoman was young-ish - Taylor wanted to say mid to late twenties. She was Asian - though Taylor wasn't sure whereabouts. She had an air of deeply irritated politeness about her. She picked up her coffee with absolute care, but chugged the rancid-looking drink with hasty, undignified gulps. She wrote neatly on good paper, but her knuckles were white as she gripped. Everything about her was restrained… but only just. Taylor sensed that if this woman had her way, she'd have no qualms about being brusque to the point of rudeness, and wouldn't have such a neat desk.

    The woman looked up from her writing, gesturing for Taylor to sit. For a moment, there was just the sound of rushed scribbling and a ticking clock. Finally, the policewoman laid down her pen and steepled her fingers (her shoulders hunched aggressively as she did so, and her jaw tightened).

    "Taylor Hebert, yes?"

    "Yes ma'am."

    The policewoman subtly preened at the respect. Ah, the little things you treasure after a day of interviewing recalcitrant teens.

    "My name is Officer Sanagi. I've brought you in to ask you a few questions. Nothing serious, we're just trying to get a complete picture of things. Is that alright?"

    The last words were reluctantly forced out.

    "Yes, of course." Taylor replied, keeping it as cool as she could.

    "Good. Now, may I ask the nature of your relationship with Miss Julia Henderson?"

    "...Honestly, we didn't really have one. She sat behind me in Parahuman Studies, that's about it."

    "Hm. Other students have reported that you and Miss Henderson were often seen together."

    "Well, we were in the same class, maybe that's what they meant…"

    "Hm."

    Sanagi scribbled for a moment, her paper angled in such a way that Taylor couldn't see what she was writing. When you were surrounded by a field of bugs capable of sensing a great deal, having something hidden from you was surprisingly irritating.

    "And where were you on the night of the 21st, last week?"

    "I was… at home, I think. Yeah, I was at home."

    More scribbling.

    "Did you know anything about Miss Henderson's home life? Any details?"

    "Nothing. We didn't really know each other."

    True enough. The most she knew of Julia was that she was doted on enough to afford some quite nice clothing, but evidently not too wealthy - she was at Winslow, after all. She knew that she was unimaginative, spiteful, willing to dogpile on Taylor, maybe for brownie points with Emma and her cronies. Not a hugely impressive specimen, in short. But she was hardly going to say any of this.

    "I see. Well, thank you for your time. You can return to class."

    Taylor stood to leave, but Sanagi suddenly interrupted.

    "Actually, one more thing. Have you seen Miss Henderson wearing any… memorabilia lately? Unusual symbols, odd clothing, that kind of thing."

    "...not that I can think of."

    "I see. Sorry for keeping you."

    And with a curt gesture to the door, Sanagi was back to work, scribbling intensely. Her eyebrows were ever-so-slightly furrowed.

    * * *​

    Taylor walked away, outwardly expressionless, but internally… well, there wasn't really a simple verb for 'commanding her bugs to tag Sanagi and follow her wherever she went, listening in to her every conversation'. Her control over her bugs was still relatively crude, but she was getting better at hearing small snatches of conversations - a helpful product of her training with Turk. Put bluntly, she was getting very used to using her bugs as an augment for her personal skills. Instead of biting from a long distance, using bugs to read people's subtlest movements, reading them from every possible angle. It certainly helped in their sparring. And in this case, it helped keep track of Officer Sanagi, and even hear a word or two.

    She retreated back to class, completely ignoring the teacher as she quietly listened in on Sanagi. Most of it was nothing. Fuzzy impressions of 'scribbling' and occasional bursts of dialogue between her and other students. What she could understand was useless. Still, this was a good bit of exercise - it'd been a few days since she'd had to actively try out listening through her bugs for an extended period. As the hours wore on, she found herself improving - if only minutely. Or perhaps she was just getting better at filling in the gaps between the garbled words that came through.

    And as the day came to an end, she heard a few words, picked out from the hazy white noise that she usually picked up from her bugs.

    …Luminous… Centre… damn cult

    She grinned.
    * * *​

    Sanagi was annoyed. Sanagi was usually annoyed, but today was particularly bad. She was woken up by an abrupt phone call, demanding that she be present at the station in less than an hour. She barely had time to struggle out of bed and into her clothes, shovel some dry cereal into her face (she'd forgotten to buy milk, another thing to annoy her), and dash out of the door with a quick 'bye' to her mother. And then, having barely made it to work, she found that she'd been assigned high school duty. Contrary to opinion among recruits, high school duty - specifically, Winslow duty, was not a coveted position. Several hours stuck in an ugly building interviewing teenagers, many of whom were in gangs and thus had no interest in talking to a cop. At least it wasn't life-threatening, but still… no-one got promoted after interrogating teens who on good days could muster maybe two proper answers before lapsing into monosyllables. She couldn't believe she used to be one of those turds.

    Still, appearances mattered, and she had her setup cleanly laid in front of her. Her father had been part of the Japanese navy back when there was a Japanese navy, and he'd drilled the habit of neatly organising one's workspace into her from a young age. She complied, because she knew full well that it made her look more professional and competent. Internally, she'd gladly abandon the practice. Screw a mug of good coffee, give her a pitcher of stuff that'll turn her teeth black. Screw neatly organising one's desk, chaos comprehensible to her and her alone was the way to go. But alas, sometimes the world forces one to abandon one's principles in the name of 'tidiness' and 'basic professionalism'. Goddammit, she was raised in America, she was allowed to do American things - like bad organisation and sacrosanct weekends. But no, 'Etsuko, you must behave properly in this country if you wish to be taken seriously, just because their standards are low does not mean we must descend to their level! And whatever you do you must look better than the filthy Korea-' she cut off her reminiscences.

    She loved her father, and cherished her memories of him, but the man seemed to have an individualised vendetta against every damn country in East Asia. It didn't even seem fair, half the countries didn't exist anymore. Well, Japan wasn't in much better condition, but… ah, heck, who was she to begrudge her father's passionate distaste for other people. She'd been dealing with a bunch of ABB members earlier today, and frankly, that didn't leave her with much in the way of pan-Asian goodwill.

    Speaking of the kids she was interrogati - chatting to, there were four kids she didn't quite know how to handle. Emma Barnes seemed odd, real queen bee type, but Sanagi had seen all sorts of people like her - everyone has a breaking point, mental or physical, and Barnes seemed like someone who'd hit the former, and hit it hard. Madison Clements was normal enough, but completely helpless when left on her own, without a posse to back her up. Sophia Hess unnerved her. Something about the eyes. Taylor Hebert, though, that was a tough cookie. Said nothing of value, basically a write-off, but there was something about her which stuck in the imagination. She dressed down, unwilling to attract attention. But the way she held herself, the way she seemed to be in complete command of her environment, it spoke to her being someone who had far more experience than her skinny frame implied. Still, nothing much to do now. Hebert was enough dead lead.

    The Henderson case was like a frog. Slippery, constantly trying to leap away, and you got the feeling that prolonged contact was unhealthy. Sanagi propped her feet up on the principal's desk (she was alone, who was going to begrudge her a little laxity) and scowled. The kid vanished over the weekend. Apparently she had a meeting with some friends on Sunday, and when she didn't show they contacted her house. Turns out they hadn't seen her since Saturday - thought she was heading to their place. So, police get contacted, and because Mr and Mrs Henderson have cash (and work for the mayor, so they get an in with the BBPD), the coppers had to devote some extra resources to this. And Sanagi got the short straw.

    She whipped her feet off the table, knocking a pencil to the floor, as she heard someone enter. It was one of her colleagues, Davison. Nice enough guy with a weak chin and a bad moustache. He sighed, leaning against the wall.

    "You got anything?"

    "Nothing. Everyone says the same thing, nothing remarkable, nothing unusual, just here one second and gone the next. You?"

    "Nothing. Still, I'll save the details for the report."

    "Sounds good to me. So, coffee sound - wait, hold up."

    "Hm?"

    "You checked her locker?"

    "Yup, thing was clean. Nothing remarkable."

    "Follow me, I want to give it a look myself"

    Sanagi stood up, moving quickly to the door. She exited, and found the locker belonging to Miss Henderson. She ran her hands along the inside, and… there. Just like that case from a few years back. The locker itself was clean, but scratched into the back wall was a symbol - barely visible in light, completely invisible in the customary gloom of a locker. It was nothing, really. Just a series of three circles, arranged in a venn diagram-esque pattern in a vertical line. If Miss Henderson had more time, the symbol might have a series of rays branching away from it.

    They snapped a few pictures, and then they were back in Blackwell's office (the lady hadn't taken kindly to being evicted, but hey, what was she going to do. Plus her chair was comfy). Davison was chewing some tobacco (another thing which spoiled a man who was, in other ways, quite pleasant), Sanagi was downing another mug of coffee. And 'downing' was the correct word. Davison broke the silence, tobacco balled into his cheek to allow him to speak.

    "So, you recognise the thing?"

    "Damn right. Same symbol from the Everett case two years ago. We got a match for it back then, but nothing came of it. Might get better luck now."

    Davison said nothing. He just waited, patiently. No cop wants to be the guy who asks incredulous questions to prompt a smarter cop to elaborate.

    "Luminous Qigong Centre. Damn cult. And that" she tapped the image now on display on a small screen, "...is their symbol. People who go there love putting it on things, apparently it brings luck."

    She smirked.

    "And little miss Henderson seems to have been a member."

    * * *​

    Taylor smirked as she sat at a computer in the lab - Knott's work was already done. Luminous… Centre. Searching 'luminous centre Brockton Bay' yielded, at the top of the page: Luminous Qigong Centre. Other side of town. 'Mindfulness' place, lots of meditation for stupid teens and bored mothers. She'd heard of it, but hadn't thought anything of it.

    But Officer Sanagi clearly thought there was a connection.

    Time to have a chat with Turk and Ahab.
     
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    • 9 - Twitch
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    • 9 - Twitch

    The streets were submerged in early evening gloom as she walked to Turk's tea shop, the sky lit a delicate pink by the setting sun. Clouds streaked the sky like strings of ragged saffron. And beneath this display, Taylor trudged, mind occupied by other things. Her insects flitted about erratically, expressing the actions her own body declined to produce. Brockton Bay wasn't a nice city by any means, but even with the beautiful sky and the mild weather, the looming buildings seemed like towering termite mounds. Inside, in a million concrete tunnels, people scurried, laboured, plotted. And in one of them was a teenage girl that Taylor had no great fondness for. She frowned slightly. Her thoughts were interrupted by the welcoming lights of Turk's tea shop.

    If the uncanny is so often defined by great spaces, by the quality of limitlessness, then Turk's tea shop was made profoundly 'canny' by its small space, its cosiness. The image of a city of termite mounds and rat warrens faded away, replaced with the smell of brewing tea and the sound of her two friends talking quietly, faces lit a gentle gold by the lamps scattered about the place. Even Ahab's face looked welcoming, lesions and all. Though perhaps that was aided by the friendly look in her eyes, dulled only slightly by the influence of liquor. Turk gave her a brief jerk of the head as an acknowledgement of her arrival. She'd seen guys do that to each other - she'd more or less nicknamed it a 'dude greeting'. She wasn't sure if she should feel flattered that Turk considered her one of the guys.

    She sat, and the man immediately handed her a cup of tea, poured from the pot he was using. Interesting stuff - black tea, strong hints of cinnamon and cloves. Probably one of his homemade blends. She remained silent, sipping quietly, drinking in the feeling of being with friends in a cosy space. She almost regretted breaking the quiet.

    "So, I was at school today."

    Turk nodded slowly.

    "...it is a Tuesday, yes. "

    She sent a brief scowl his way. At school she was quite content to use her insects to exert any emotional impulse, leaving her face relatively blank, but at the tea shop she made a conscious effort to be more expressive.

    "Not what I meant. There were police there - one of the students disappeared over the weekend."

    Ahab grunted.

    "That's the Bay for you."

    Taylor shushed her.

    "Not finished yet - police were asking people questions, and I managed to find out something… well, something interesting. Apparently they're suspecting some place called the Luminous Qigong Centre."

    The two old soldiers blinked at her, expressions blank. Turk coughed.

    "I assume this means something."

    "Not really. But… well, I want to look into it. I was wondering if you had any insight into it, given your experience."

    "And why do you want to look into it?"

    Taylor was silent again, and sipped slowly. This gave her time to formulate something resembling an answer.

    "She's one of the girls I've mentioned to you."

    Ahab stiffened. Turk paused mid-sip, lowering his cup slowly.

    "Ah."

    A pause.

    "So why are you trying to find her? I thought you… what, wanted to leave the Bay, do something else with your life."

    "I know, I know. But I don't want to leave with something like this hanging over me. I want a fresh start, total blank slate. I don't think you can get that with the knowledge that you could have saved someone."

    "Might be completely unconnected. For all you know she was stabbed in an alleyway and hasn't been found yet. No need to involve a weird… what, yoga studio?"

    Turk grumbled.

    "Yoga is Indian. Qigong is Chinese. Moving meditation."

    "Trust me, this place doesn't look authentic - mostly for bored mothers. But I checked it out online, there were a couple of news articles about - guess what - people associated with the place disappearing."

    She sighed.

    "Look, I know it's tenuous. But I want to check it out. Just for closure. I don't want to leave Brockton with that hanging over my head."

    Silence prevailed once more, Turk and Ahab communicating non-verbally while Taylor returned to her cup. It wasn't much - a raised eyebrow, a twitch of the mouth, a sideways glance. A whole conversation without words, it seemed to Taylor. Turk remained stoic, but Ahab audibly groaned.

    "Fine. I'll help. But we're getting Fugly Bob's afterwards, and you're paying."

    "You know that stuff will kill you."

    "Please, liquor kills my family, and sometimes violence. No descendant of great-granddad Alex has died of overeating."

    Any awkwardness left in the air disappeared as Taylor and Ahab began to bicker about Alexander the Great. Turk remained impassive as an Easter Island moai, as was his habit. And soon, the only light illuminating the trio came from the dim lamps, as the sun gave up the ghost and slipped beneath the horizon.
    * * *​

    The three retired upstairs, and sat around a small battered laptop in one of Turk's rooms - he'd been uncharacteristically flustered when they came up, and had spent a few minutes shoving things into cupboards and into other rooms. The worst part was that the room had quite a low ceiling, so Turk, being the large man that he was, had to poke around at a bent angle, his arms hunched in front of him so that he resembled a very large pangolin. For a one-eyed Russian ex-mercenary, it was quite the sight. Taylor clicked through various webpages, talking animatedly about what she'd found regarding the Luminous Qigong Centre.

    "So, the place gets founded back in 1999, just after Leviathan attacked Kyushu. Founder is from Japan, so it makes sense. Place starts out (she picked out a picture) looking very traditional. You know, mostly for the Japanese community in Brockton. Was pretty successful, there's a small newspaper article about them from 2000 which talks about them. Still, very quiet."

    She was silent as she brought up some more pictures and pages, shifting from an array of grainy photos and newspaper articles to more glossy brochures, and plain, unadorned police reports obtained from outdated websites.

    "And then it gets weird. So, new management takes over in 2001, and the place becomes… bigger. More customers from the wider Bay, fewer locals, more accessible. But people really love it, there are just… tonnes of rave reviews. And they start up with some private classes, too, which people recommend. Of course, then people start disappearing who are connected to the place. Nothing hugely news-worthy, but the police definitely pick up on it. No warrants, though. No arrests. Place is still operational."

    Turk scratched his chin. Ahab refrained from scratching hers - the chin sore was a mite bit sensitive today. He hummed thoughtfully.

    "So you think this group was involved in this girl vanishing?"

    "I'm saying it wouldn't be unprecedented."

    Ahab flopped back onto a squashy sofa, grunting as she did so.

    "And now you want to check out a slightly dubious yoga ('Qigong' muttered Turk) studio because you want to find a girl who's been bullying you for several years without a shred of remorse. Because… what, closure?"

    "Yes. I need to… I need to properly end things. Take care of business, you know? Once I have my GED, I'm out of here. I don't want this to dangle over me the whole time."

    Ahab looked at her dubiously. Taylor was silent. She hadn't told them about being a parahuman, and frankly, she didn't intend to. But her powers were a strong influence on her decision to pursue Julia. She'd decided to avoid the Protectorate, the Wards, everything - the whole cape scene in Brockton was a black hole she'd never escape from, so she had no intention of even entering. But there was a niggling feeling in the back of her mind that she needed to do something with her powers, something that she could feel proud of. Just because she didn't want to become a 'hero' didn't mean her every heroic urge was dead and gone. If she could leave on a high note, knowing that she'd saved someone using her abilities, she'd feel… complete. Her bullies abuse her to the point that she develops powers, and then she saves one of her bullies using those same powers, before vanishing into the sunset.

    She had an English lecturer for a mother, and damn it, those long talks about narrative structure had stuck. A tiny part of her raged against this, insisted that she cut every single tie and leave, don't get bogged down in some random girl vanishing. She felt a headache coming on, and her insects twitched. And the little part was gone, and all that remained was a determination to do something.
    [CONFLICT GENERATION FUNCTION UNCOMPROMISED]

    The three continued to talk, avoiding the topic of motivation. Finally, they hit on a plan. Turk and Ahab both had arms at their disposal, and military training. Turk and Ahab would be the face and hands of the operation, and Taylor would run intel - thank God for Turk's box of earpieces. Taylor was a little put out by being shoved out of the line of fire, but if she wasn't going to tell them about her powers, she had to accept being treated like the fifteen-year old that she, well, was. Police reports indicated that the centre was reluctant to allow anyone access to its records, and while the coppers had to go through official channels to get a warrant, the three amigos had no such limitation. It was a qigong centre, for crying out loud - not too hard to get into.

    Taylor poked around on the internet, finding as many photos as she could of the interior of the centre. The remodelling a few years back had been extensive, and the rush of publicity had left a very large digital footprint. She clicked through picture after picture, slowly building up an image of the interior. This was an act, of course. She had every intention to swing by the place later, using her insects to feel out the inside, and then report back to them with a 'blueprint made from scavenged publicity materials'. Hopefully they'd buy it.
    * * *​

    Taylor eased her way down the stairs, bare feet silent against the carpeting. She quietly eased into her sneakers - she was wearing her most unremarkable clothing, and had spontaneously decided to wear her spider-silk suit underneath. Can't go wrong with some extra protection, she figured. She opened the back door just enough to get out without hitting the part of the hinge which squeaked loudly. She sidled through the narrow gap, again thankful for both her jogging and the regular training with Turk and Ahab. Taylor breathed the cold night air, insects stirring restlessly in her range. And a moment later she was moving down the road.

    It took roughly twenty minutes to reach the centre. It was a painfully modern building, all plate glass and featureless concrete. Posters in gaudy colours bedecked the outside, the plastic grins on the relaxing customers turned surprisingly sinister by the harsh street lights. In the silence of the night, the building seemed eerie, its featurelessness making it seem almost void-like. Without people in the wide lobby, one couldn't help but notice the white, empty space. The blank walls. The cavernous quality of the ceiling. A modern building like this one was soulless, and in the absence of the living, that soullessness transformed into a kind of hunger. Wide windows gleamed like eyes in the street lights. The large glass doors seemed like an open mouth.

    Taylor leant against a wall in a nearby alley, focusing on her insects. There weren't many in the building… but she only needed a few. A cockroach sidling through a narrow vent, a spider spinning a web in a janitor's closet, a thousand little jumping and scuttling things that no-one ever noticed. Even a small ant colony underneath a tree on the pavement marched into action, trooping through pipes and vents to enter. With a satisfied grin, Taylor pulled out a piece of paper, balancing it on one knee - an ungainly solution, but an effective one. A torch clasped between her teeth allowed her to see the emerging blueprint, the cavernous rooms turning into winding corridors turning into poky cupboards. Piece by piece she understood the building. Finally, she made it to the filing cupboard - the feeling of cold metal cabinets under chitinous limbs was unmistakable, as was the feeling of cardboard and paper within a slightly opened drawer. No other room quite resembled this one - some offices were scattered here and there, but none had this quantity of filing cabinets, or were so plain in terms of decoration.

    And then, a cockroach vanished.

    Taylor blinked, almost dropping her pen. The cockroach hadn't died - she'd had insects under her control die in the past, and there was always a feeling. A wrench as their bodies were torn open, a crushing pressure, a tiny spike of pain… nothing major, nothing debilitating, but certainly noticeable. But here, there was only absence - as though the cockroach had simply faded from existence. She sent a few bugs exploratorily outwards, ensuring that, yes, the cockroach had been well within her range. So why had it vanished? She tried to remember the pictures she'd seen earlier that day - apparently the owner's office was at the top of the building, near where the cockroach had vanished. But the cockroach was still some distance away from that, closer to… huh, that was odd. Her memories recalled nothing in that part of the building, she assumed it was just more exercise rooms. More bugs moved inwards, and, with no sense of wrongness or danger, they too vanished from her senses.

    And then something entered her range. Something big. An insect, without a doubt, but… huge. She felt dozens of legs, clicking pincers, a hard shell, a sinuous body… a centipede, of some sort, but there was no living centipede she knew of which was so huge, easily as long as a human torso, if not longer. She froze, her breath catching in her throat. Her pen dropped from cold fingers.

    The centipede was not under her control. She could sense it, but couldn't control a single leg, a single antenna. Indeed, the thing was… vertical. Moving without moving. The legs twitched, not touching the ground, and yet the centipede moved about. It suddenly went still.

    WITNESSED

    Taylor shrieked, jerking off the wall, moving away rapidly. There was a feeling of intense wrongness inside her skull, as though her brain was itching. Her body felt as though there were a thousand tiny legs scuttling over it, and she resisted the urge to slam her eyes and mouth shut, the childhood terror of a filthy insect scuttling down her throat coming back with force. She was sweating, her eyes were twitching. She must look a state. And worst of all, her… her back was wrong. She had an image, she saw the model skeleton in one of the school labs, she saw the spine with its many vertebrae… and the little extruding parts, like tiny legs… and suddenly they were legs, and the spine was a gigantic centipede, twitching and puppeting the rest of the body. Before she knew what was happening, her hands flew to her back, scratching furiously until her fingernails came back red.

    "Hey!"

    Taylor shrieked again, seeing a figure standing at the front of the alleyway, holding a light. Something about it was familiar, the voice, the figure, something, but Taylor had no mind for that. Shoving the nearly-completed blueprints in her pocket, she sprinted away. The figure temporarily gave chase, but panic gave Taylor the upper hand. She ran all the way home, and as she crashed into the garden, she fell to her knees. Her lungs were on fire. Her legs were on fire. Her eyes were streaming with tears.

    She felt sick. How could this have happened? How could she have been… reduced so? She was a parahuman, dammit, and she was training with two ex-mercenaries! But one giant… hideous centipede had reduced her to near tears. It was the Emma incident all over again. She ran an arm down her face, soaking up the sweat and tears. Her power had been reliable for months, controlling any insect. Her old fears of spiders had completely subsided - because nothing insectile was outside of her control. And there was something she could sense, she could feel, but which she could not control.

    And it had seen her.

    She stilled. The horror of the encounter with the centipede was still burning through her mind, but something had struck her. She remembered the voice.

    Officer Sanagi had been at the building. And had seen her face.

    That night she dreamt of eyes with a hundred legs, squirming inside hollow spines, watching and twitching endlessly.
     
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