- Location
- Chicago
Sad to hear it, but glad you're planning on coming back to it - I hope the time on other projects is refreshing. I've been enjoying Russian Caravan throughout, and I'll look forward to whatever you end up writing next!
Russian Caravan (Worm, Eldritch Horror, Crossover/AU)
- Thread starter GraftingBuddha
- Start date
- Crossover Mystery Horror
-
- Tags
- worm eldritch horror
145 - Wasps
GraftingBuddha
Retired Pooh-Bah
145 - Wasps
They had started the night well. Immediately after coming to their conclusions, they'd decided to cause a little bit of mischief. Nothing much, just a marker of their presence. The stone axe was still in front of the church, solemnly marked with rings of candles. Hannah kicked the candles over, while Sanagi levered the axe down. It toppled, but the asphalt split beneath it. Not a single split in its surface. The axe was made of stern stuff. And so, the two of them picked it up - the weight was high enough to require two people - and they dragged it to the basement. With a tremendous heave, it plummeted down the stairs and into the roiling eye-covered briar, consumed in moments by the twisting branches. Some of them were starting to inch up towards the door, and Hannah made the executive decision to leave before that became a more immediate problem. Still, their shrine had been desecrated, and that tended to make people behave irrationally. They walked into the dark streets, keeping to the edges of buildings, never emerging into the flickering lights scattered around the place. Even after months of abandonment, the street lights were still vaguely functional, if a little decayed. As they walked, Hannah surveyed her priorities.
The first job was to find a mobile phone. This was a difficult task, complicated largely by the fact that they had no idea where the cultists were. Gloves couldn't have gotten far, which suggested that there were cultists nearby - unless they made a habit of leaving children as the sole guards of their prisoners. They had a countdown ticking until they noticed the loss of Hannah's weapon, at which point they'd probably start coming in force - Cassia had known about Hannah's ability, and that meant the others probably did as well. Hannah crept silently through a side passage between two ruined buildings, keeping her ears peeled for any sign of movement. Sanagi was lagging some distance behind - without a gun, she'd be useless in a firefight, so the best thing she could do for now was stay alive and keep her eyes out. They slipped easily through the shadows, and eventually… someone came. A cultist, smoking. Hannah could see that he was missing a good number of his teeth, and his tongue had been split open repeatedly until it resembled the snout of a star-nosed mole. Her gun transformed into one with a scope, and she examined him as closely as she could. No missing limbs, which was a bother. But he had a pistol on him. Some more recon, and she determined that he was alone - he wasn't calling out to anyone, no other voices in general were on the night air, and there were no lights. Patrolling, possibly… or maybe just out on a smoke break. Even cultists might need some alone time every once in a while.
Her gun shifted once more. Ideally, she would have wanted to create a proper dart gun, but she wasn't sure of the correct dosage to use against him. Injecting random street toughs with drugs wasn't exactly good for PR, and the PRT only rarely authorised her to use tranquilisers - always taken from tinkers or labs, never her own dosages. Plus, the idea of pumping someone full of chemicals conjured out of nowhere was… well. Complicated. Instead, it shifted into a particularly powerful taser gun, military-grade, designed for riot control out on the Overseer Blocks. She motioned for Sanagi to come closer, and gestured until she understood the situation. The entire operation took less than five seconds. A pair of wires shot out of the dark, the cultist stiffened and fell to the ground twitching erratically, and the two of them ran out to secure him. They used his belt to tie him to a lamp-post, and ripped his shirt to create a makeshift gag. Hannah had an idea - wasp tactics involved irritating the opponent, needling them until they made a mistake out of sheer anger. And she had a very irritating idea indeed.
A minute later, Sanagi and Hannah were walking hurriedly away, while the cultist wriggled ineffectually against his bonds. And scrawled on his chest with a bright red marker were the words:
'Now we both have guns. Ho ho ho.'
What? She'd been trapped in a basement for days, and her annoyance had grown substantially during that time. She was allowed to make a reference or two. Honestly, thinking about something so mundane as a Christmas movie helped distract her from what she'd seen in the basement, the things the unlight had shown her. The Kingeater's - no, no, she wasn't thinking about that, she was thinking about anything else. The first cries of alarm went up after a few minutes, by which time they were safely ensconced in a dilapidated building on the fringes of town. They both had guns, which was good. But they still needed a phone - that first cultist had been useless, and Hannah had a dim suspicion that most of them wouldn't have phones at all. Didn't seem like the kind of thing cultists would just carry around. Landlines were useless, most of them had probably rotted into nothing by now.
And that meant they needed to go back on the attack, strike where they were vulnerable, pin them down until they could get a communication off. In this moment of silence, while everything beyond started to grind into motion, Hannah spoke to Sanagi.
"Are you doing alright?"
"Fine."
"You had that light around your head, looks like it had you immersed in those hallucinations."
Sanagi was silent, and Hannah reached forward to pat her on the shoulder.
"It's fine if it affected you, it affected me too. We just need to hang on a little bit longer, then-"
The officer cut her off with a raised hand and a hard glare.
"Save it. If we get out of here, we can talk. Until then, what's our plan?"
And now she was getting the same feeling she got around Armsmaster. All business, no signs of weakness or doubt. No point probing deeper. If she'd built a wall of professionalism around what she'd seen, it should last for the rest of the night. They could deal with that entire situation properly at the Rig. She outlined the remainder of her plan: the cult would most likely start patrolling outwards, likely in small groups. Splitting up was pointless, they'd just be picked off one by one, and they'd have no means of communication while separated. So, stick together, find something vulnerable. Functional cars to wreck, power generators to disable… hack away until they were in disarray. The next few minutes were an agony of stalking through the streets, going as quietly as they could, ready for combat at any moment. Hannah didn't want to kill people in cold blood, but if they shot first… well, she'd shoot last. Simple as. The cultists were out in force, patrolling the streets with guns in hand and steel in their eyes.
A little reconnaissance, examining a patrol using a scoped rifle, proved fruitful. They were using walkie-talkies, and a little scan of their pockets revealed no telltale bulges of mobile phones. Listening revealed that some of them were talking to a kind of central control, not to each other. And that gave them a nice little target. If Hannah's mental map of the town was correct, the cult was fanning out from a position in the forest… so that was where they needed to go. These weren't professional soldiers, without someone competent ordering them around they'd fall apart in moments. But first, the illusion of presence. Something she'd learned way back in her childhood had been that she wasn't remotely terrifying on her own… but she could appear terrifying if she pulled the right tricks. A trip wire could be physically harmless, but it suggested presence, that someone else knew this territory better than you and had been here long enough to master controlling it. It freaked people out. And that made people act stupidly.
One of the houses still had a functional oven, and she stuffed a few of Sanagi's bullets inside, turning it up to maximum. She repeated this in a few houses as they walked, occasionally veering off course to avoid giving a consistent impression of her route. Soon enough, the heat ignited the live ammunition, and the sound of gunfire filled the night. Cultists whirled about frantically, eyes like startled deer, posture like startled rabbits, to try and identify the source. Instead of fanning out, they stuck together in clumps, so focused on the sound that they neglected to pay attention to any scurrying figures. So, they'd desecrated their shrine, stolen a gun, and now were filling the town with disorienting noise. All in a night's work. And she took a slightly perverse satisfaction in the looks of terror on their faces. Did the poor bastards think a PRT crew had just descended?
Well, they would soon enough. Might as well get used to the idea.
They were approaching the outer limits of the town, and none of the cultists had yet caught them. Good. The plan was working swimmingly - if they found whoever was broadcasting to the cultists, they could cut the head off the proverbial (and possibly literal) snake. The forest loomed before them, dark and ominous. Bad territory for them. They didn't know it, they'd need torches to navigate safely, and with each step they were coming closer to the cult's headquarters. Bad. They needed light, and distractions. Happily, fire fulfilled both categories quite handily. Examining one of the abandoned houses revealed a gas tank, which they happily hooked up to a few slow-burning matches. A frantic sprint (well, hobble in her case) later, and… it was done. A fireball bloomed into the sky, burning gas shooting out from the house, accompanying the irregular gunfire in splitting the night's serenity. A few idle sprays with a flamethrower sent the blaze higher and higher, spreading it to multiple buildings in moments. No time for more than that, but it hardly mattered. Cultists yelled, and all thoughts of patrol were lost as they scrambled to put out the blaze. The same blaze that, coincidentally, was lighting up the forest in a stark shade of orange. Visibility had just been solved.
God, this felt good. Guerilla tactics, fighting a superior foe by using her superior knowledge… she was trapped in a cultist stronghold, vastly outnumbered, and had just come out of several days of psychological torture. And she was still winning.
She thought that right up until the hissing started.
They came from the forest, shambling forwards. They were cultists, that was for sure, but something had grown inside them. Each one had that lump on their chests - the Holy Knot, Cassia had called it - but instead of pulsing menacingly, it had hatched. Snakes emerged outwards, eyes glinting coldly in the rising firelight. They were huge, larger than they had any right to be, too large really to fit inside those poor people. Well, maybe 'poor' was the wrong word. They seemed to be enjoying the whole experience, gurgling with something resembling pleasure as snakes erupted from their flesh, sighing and panting with glee as their skin was parted and scales ripped through their throat. A single transformed cultist was almost double her height, if you factored in the snakes rising high above. She made an executive decision - Bonesaw protocols. Her rifle shifted, and suddenly it was carrying high-powered phosphorous rounds, enough to melt through anything. She barked at Sanagi as she hoisted the weapon.
"Don't let them get close, and stick tog-"
She glanced, and saw no-one. Sanagi was gone. What? Had - no, never mind, no time to think about it. A cultist drew closer, snakes starting to lash out in her direction. She remembered the feeling of those fangs digging into her skin, the numbness that their venom brought… and she could see that same venom dripping from exposed fangs. With gritted teeth, she pulled the trigger. And blaze after blaze erupted, accompanied by the agonised hissing of serpents and the joyous cries of their hosts. Happy when infested, happy when burning to death.
And Hannah made many of them very happy indeed.
Sanagi stumbled away, something burning in her head. Words, instructions, commands. She had a job to do. No - she needed to help Agent Washington, she was surrounded, she needed… did she need help? She wasn't Agent Washington anymore, was she, was it Hannah or Miss Militia? Christ, a cape, a cape had to be investigating her, she couldn't just get a talented, resourceful agent, she had to get a superpowered one. The light of phosphorous rounds was visible even here, and the writhing of dying snakes was damn beautiful in the firelight, scratching itches that had been building up ever since her imprisonment started. A voice whispered in her ear, something golden-tongued, telling her that she was needed elsewhere, that only she could perform this task, that Hannah would be quite alright. Sanagi almost relented. Almost. She focused on the feeling of coldness from the unlight, the visions it had forced on her. She'd triggered because of an attempted sacrifice, giving herself up so that her friends could try and survive. And this… Kingeater thing was poisoning it. The idea of sacrifice for sacrifice's own sake was perverse, it undermined one of the most meaningful and traumatic moments in her life. And from that memory, she went to Bisha, to his words, to the terrors he unleashed on her city. Anger built in her chest, and with a muffled shriek she tried to force the golden voice away. She had a colleague to help, and she wasn't going to be enslaved to some… some impulse! She didn't even know where it was coming from, only scraps of memories coming to mind - ziggurats, endless sunsets, perfect symbols. All meaningless.
The voice demanded that she perform her appointed task, and between gritted teeth she snarled:
"Fuck… you."
The voice relented for a moment. It seemed to be considering something. For a second she thought that she'd won, fought off the influence of this thing. And then the golden light returned, and blazed bright. Too bright. It shone out of the shattered front of her skull, silhouetted her bones against her skin, highlighted the stark black lines of her mane of filaments. It pulsed irregularly, and brought… something in its wake. Visions. Plans. She saw the path. Jadikira was waiting, and his power was substantial. If killed, the cult would fall apart. He was the linchpin around which they all revolved, removing him would deprive them of direction, command, and guidance to the Kingeater. Her beams could kill him… or, rather, some kind of gift she'd been given, something she couldn't quite grasp. The golden voice wasn't commanding anymore, it was suggesting. Why not obey, it asked? The plan was perfect, its every detail considered well in advance. She was being given a complicated mission, the kind that they only handed down to specialists. All she needed to do was give in, and she'd be carted off to her goal like a good, obedient, heat-seeking missile.
No. No. She wasn't going to give in, wasn't going to become some kind of automaton. Her feet struggled to move… and the force that was holding her back snapped away with a sense of cursory dismissal, like a skilled engineer setting aside a piece of work that, to him, was effortlessly simple, and to everyone else was impossibly complex. It was… testing her. A tiny probe. A little demonstration of why she should be glad to work for it - another force would obliterate her identity, her will, everything that made her… her. It didn't need such heavy-handed methods. If success could only be achieved through heavy-handed control, then what kind of success was it, really? How did it reflect on the order which created it? No - she could go on her own way. She had already been accounted for, her behaviours had been integrated, and deviation had been nullified. The path was established, and she would follow it. Go. Before her failures compounded and her function was compromised. The memory of the incident was already fading, she was wondering why she had stepped away from her colleague in the first place….
And she was back at Hannah's side, her gun pounding away as her skull itched desperately, eager to shed its skin and start sawing them in half. She couldn't remember why she hadn't been here from the start - other cultists, that was it, another one of these snake creatures trying to flank them that she'd taken care of with extreme prejudice. However that encounter had resolved itself, her gun didn't do much to these specimens - it slowed them a little, gave Hannah some breathing room so she could scythe them down with something rather more effective. There was chaos all around, but all the while Sanagi was thinking. Jadikira needed to die, that was certain. Hannah didn't understand how dangerous creatures like him were, she'd seen Bisha up close and personal, had witnessed the Tree of Worms. She knew that they transcended all natural limits. Hannah would approach him, gun raised, confident in victory… and then he'd pull out some kind of magic bullshit that would probably brainwash her or condemn her to a fate worse than death.
And Hannah had saved her life, kept her company in that basement, and as much as Sanagi was reluctant to admit it… she was growing fond of the agent, in her own way. Christ, she was growing fond of Miss Militia, what had her life become…
She needed to get to Jadikira and deal with him personally. No other way around it. Two problems presented themselves - the act of separation, and the act of concealment. She could imagine the situation - Jadikira dies, and then she turns around to Hannah standing there putting together the pieces, realising that skull-headed woman wearing Sanagi's clothes was probably not some random clothes-snatching skeleton fiend. Hm. Ideas. Bad ideas, but… ideas nonetheless. The cultists were starting to thin out a little, a shambling mound of snakes nothing before a wall of flaming lead. But they needed to move - the noise was attracting other patrols, armed with things rather more long-range than snakebites. One of these long-range snakebites went off in the distance, and a nearby window smashed. With a curse, Hannah and Sanagi ran into the forest, a few errant sprays from a newly conjured flamethrower setting more of the trees on fire, masking their passage.
They ran… and Sanagi acted. In a second, she was moving in a different direction, yelling over her shoulder to Agent Washington who glanced her way in shock and surprise:
"They're following us, split up!"
"Wait, d-"
But the fire had already eaten up her words, removing everything but the sharp cracks of wood splitting. The sound of her surprise, the look of shock… it cut her, a little. The agent had appreciated her professionalism, her ability to work swiftly and effectively while under pressure. It had made her preen a little every time she threw an appreciative smile or look her way. Ruining that impression wounded her on a very personal, and very professional, level. Still, she felt like this was necessary - her own inclinations were being granted some kind of reinforcement. She felt certain that this was right, that this plan needed to be fulfilled. Sanagi knew exactly where she was going - to the mound, to the place where the tree of worms had bloomed and the entire town had been swallowed (sans two sisters). Small structures seemed to confirm her suspicions, tiny shacks of corrugated metal and freshly-chopped wood, trailers with flickering lights, all the meagre dwellings where it seemed most of the cult lived. They were worn by years of travel, and marked in that particular way that only a long-term dwelling can be - tiny charms, miniscule personal touches, patches where minor damage had been repaired, even subtle changes in the choice of thin curtain used in the dusty windows.
She followed the structures, always heading uphill, always heading into the deeper thicket… wasn't as thick as she remembered, though. They'd cleared out most of it, apparently. It was strange to be here without that living light pulsing through her lungs… but then again, she had a new flavour of light to cope with now. A pulse of worry ran through her - would this work? Would she actually succeed against Jadikira, he was strong, and she didn't have any backup here. No - memories came to mind of sawing Bisha's parents in half, blazing apart a crowd of Brent Deneuves, slicing through a horde of snarling monsters. She was tough, she had power. Jadikira was just a skinny bastard with a fondness for skin. As she ran, she began doing something she knew she'd regret. She had long-since passed by the burning trees, to a range where it seemed unlikely that the fire would spread. The trailers were empty, the entire cult piling into the town - Hannah's 'wasp' tactic had worked a charm, she wasn't facing a lick of resistance up here. She ducked inside, and started grabbing any clothes she could find. She'd have to remember this trailer, or… no, dammit, no. The clothes weren't the right size, and anything which exposed too much skin was out of the question - if her association with Hannah continued, she'd definitely figure out that something was amiss, especially if the two of them hung out at the beach - no, no, focus on the business at hand. Try again. Another trailer. More wrong clothes. Another. Wrong.
And she was running short on time, if she held on too long, Hannah might deal with the others and catch up before her business could be concluded. With a growl, she ran onwards towards the mound, the sound of gunfire reassuring her that Hannah was doing just fine. She didn't like abandoning the woman, but she was probably more likely to survive tonight anyway. Her gun was terrifying, her skill was impressive, her capacity to improvise and adapt… admirable. Sanagi just had to contribute her own unique skills to this situation, that was all. She kept justifying abandoning the woman as she ran, ignoring the trailers. She was getting close, she could feel it. Her body ached as it remembered the feeling of running through these woods… well, being carried through these woods by a biker. Her eye socket throbbed with phantom pain, recalling the way it had swelled shut after a boot had almost smashed her face in. Great. That was all she needed. At least it told her she was going in the right direction. The hill was growing steeper, the trees thinner, stumps visible where the thicket had been hacked apart. And something stopped her.
A sound. Someone was whimpering like a kicked dog. A child. She… dammit, she didn't have a heart of stone. She investigated the sound, and saw a familiar face crouching in the largest trailer yet. Gloves, wearing some bizarre scrap of human skin on her head, eyes wide and fearful. Her back was stained - she'd run all the way up here, evidently, and the strain had caused some of the wounds on her back to reopen. She backed away as Sanagi came closer, staring at the gun in her hand. Dammit, dammit. She had something to do, she had a person to kill, and… there was a small child in front of her, terrified out of her mind. At least Sanagi could relate to the terror. She crouched down, staying a small distance away - past Gloves, she could see the interior of the trailer. Large, luxurious, like something a deranged cult leader would have. And hanging up were a number of… robes. Her gut rebelled at the thought. Her mind, the calculating bastard that it was, noted that it would conceal all of her skin, and was so completely unlike anything she ever wore that she'd be unrecognisable inside of it. Gloves sniffed.
"Hey… are you… doing OK?"
God, she was bad at this. Bad with kids in general. 'Doing OK', the girl had lost her mother and her cult was now under attack. Oh, and she'd been partially flayed. Of course she wasn't OK, Sanagi, you complete fucking moron. Gloves just stared blankly. She looked cold. Alright, she could understand that, nice basic instinct that could be easily satisfied. Sanagi slowly took off her jacket, stuffing her gun into her pants as she did so. She reached out, and hooked it around an unresisting Gloves' shoulders. She sank into the material, still terrified, still paralysed, but… warmer.
"Stay here. Stay out of the fighting. It'll all be over soon."
More silent stares. And she was lying - no idea if it would be over soon, no idea if it would resolve in her favour. Sanagi was beginning to feel a little awkward. She slipped past the girl into the trailer, patting her on the shoulder as she went, and touched one of the long robes. Bedazzled with charms, stitched delicately… damn work of art. Except for the human skin element, which gave her the most atrocious goosebumps. The texture was unlike anything she'd even worn, and she knew putting it on would be a painful, painful endeavour. She groaned. She couldn't believe that things had come to this. Her life had spiralled off the rails at some point, and now she was wearing skin. She turned to Gloves, who had swivelled around to stare at her. She muttered in a faintly commanding way, embarrassment colouring her tone.
"Look away. It's rude to stare."
The girl swivelled back around with the speed of the truly terrified. It was a matter of moments to discard her clothing, to fold it up neatly, and to slip the light robe over her head. It covered everything - it was strange to wear, a weird style that she'd never engaged with before. Like a loose-fitting kimono (made of human skin), with a tabard (made of human skin) draped over top. There was even a spare pair of boots (made of human skin) to slip on, which fit surprisingly well. It was a well-made outfit. An outfit made of human skin god this was so weird and wrong on every conceivable level. She was just glad that she hadn't found his underwear drawer, that would have made this entire thing even more uncomfortable. Which poor bastard got to make his boxers? She felt ridiculous, and desperately needed to take a scalding hot shower. When she turned to leave, Gloves was looking at her incredulously. Huh. From her perspective, it was like a random hobo had broken in and was now wearing her uncle's clothes which she'd stolen from his wardrobe. Which was still weird, even if she wasn't reacting to the wearing of human skin God get it off get it off get it off.
She nodded firmly to Gloves.
"Stay here. Don't follow any noises, just… stay. Everything will be fine."
If she smiled she almost convinced herself that she wasn't lying. Gloves nodded, and backed inside the trailer, hiding herself under the bed. Her eyes shone like pilot lights, and she watched Sanagi as she stepped out into the cold night air. It didn't feel right leaving things like this.
"...I'm sorry."
God, she'd made it more awkward. She slipped away, and her face began to detach, stored in one of the robe's many pouches - well, at least the person who did the sewing had good foresight, that was nice. Good to know the people involving this flaying operation were conscientious. The forest swallowed her whole, and she felt something brewing ahead. A similar cold feeling to the unlight - indeed, she saw torches blazing with that horrible stuff embedded into the trees. Her pincers clicked in happiness as they were finally released, her starmatter churned in strange motions that soothed the inside of her skull. It probably didn't say anything good that she was so… happy to have her skull exposed again. The way the wind caught on her bones was pleasingly different to the way it touched her skin. Great, she enjoyed being a skull-faced human-skin-wearing monster. At this point she looked like some kind of stereotypical villain, the kind so ridiculous that they could never emerge in real life. The path she was walking was a well-trodden one, dark soil packed into a solid mass that refused to sink beneath her skin boots. She was on a pilgrimage route, a sacred path straight to one of their holy sites, each step marked with some bone charm or gilded scrap of skin, illuminated by the unlight torches. And as she came closer… she could see why anyone would call this place holy. The monument was titanic.
And in front of it, was a certain pale gentleman bent in prayer, murmuring over a set of bone beads. He swivelled calmly as she arrived, extending to his full, terrifying height. His dark eyes were inscrutable. No reaction to her choice in clothing, nor her skull. Sanagi could understand that, certainly. There were mch stranger things in the world than her. And after seeing them… a pincer-faced skeleton woman really wasn't much of a shock. His thick, syrupy voice draped over her like a funeral shroud.
"You've come."
Click.
"Then we'll settle matters. Come, golden dog. Come, and face Jadikira, who led the Cretans from pained ignorance to a greater truth, last of the Living Gods of the Khristy, beloved servant of the Kingeater, from whom nothing more can be taken!"
His metal implement detached from his waist and flowed through his hands in smooth motions, the edge gleaming in the light of the monument. Sanagi's stars burned, and her pincers clicked rapidly… from adrenaline? Excitement? Psychotic satisfaction? Or simple bloodthirstiness?
She couldn't honestly say.
But God, she'd missed this.
They had started the night well. Immediately after coming to their conclusions, they'd decided to cause a little bit of mischief. Nothing much, just a marker of their presence. The stone axe was still in front of the church, solemnly marked with rings of candles. Hannah kicked the candles over, while Sanagi levered the axe down. It toppled, but the asphalt split beneath it. Not a single split in its surface. The axe was made of stern stuff. And so, the two of them picked it up - the weight was high enough to require two people - and they dragged it to the basement. With a tremendous heave, it plummeted down the stairs and into the roiling eye-covered briar, consumed in moments by the twisting branches. Some of them were starting to inch up towards the door, and Hannah made the executive decision to leave before that became a more immediate problem. Still, their shrine had been desecrated, and that tended to make people behave irrationally. They walked into the dark streets, keeping to the edges of buildings, never emerging into the flickering lights scattered around the place. Even after months of abandonment, the street lights were still vaguely functional, if a little decayed. As they walked, Hannah surveyed her priorities.
The first job was to find a mobile phone. This was a difficult task, complicated largely by the fact that they had no idea where the cultists were. Gloves couldn't have gotten far, which suggested that there were cultists nearby - unless they made a habit of leaving children as the sole guards of their prisoners. They had a countdown ticking until they noticed the loss of Hannah's weapon, at which point they'd probably start coming in force - Cassia had known about Hannah's ability, and that meant the others probably did as well. Hannah crept silently through a side passage between two ruined buildings, keeping her ears peeled for any sign of movement. Sanagi was lagging some distance behind - without a gun, she'd be useless in a firefight, so the best thing she could do for now was stay alive and keep her eyes out. They slipped easily through the shadows, and eventually… someone came. A cultist, smoking. Hannah could see that he was missing a good number of his teeth, and his tongue had been split open repeatedly until it resembled the snout of a star-nosed mole. Her gun transformed into one with a scope, and she examined him as closely as she could. No missing limbs, which was a bother. But he had a pistol on him. Some more recon, and she determined that he was alone - he wasn't calling out to anyone, no other voices in general were on the night air, and there were no lights. Patrolling, possibly… or maybe just out on a smoke break. Even cultists might need some alone time every once in a while.
Her gun shifted once more. Ideally, she would have wanted to create a proper dart gun, but she wasn't sure of the correct dosage to use against him. Injecting random street toughs with drugs wasn't exactly good for PR, and the PRT only rarely authorised her to use tranquilisers - always taken from tinkers or labs, never her own dosages. Plus, the idea of pumping someone full of chemicals conjured out of nowhere was… well. Complicated. Instead, it shifted into a particularly powerful taser gun, military-grade, designed for riot control out on the Overseer Blocks. She motioned for Sanagi to come closer, and gestured until she understood the situation. The entire operation took less than five seconds. A pair of wires shot out of the dark, the cultist stiffened and fell to the ground twitching erratically, and the two of them ran out to secure him. They used his belt to tie him to a lamp-post, and ripped his shirt to create a makeshift gag. Hannah had an idea - wasp tactics involved irritating the opponent, needling them until they made a mistake out of sheer anger. And she had a very irritating idea indeed.
A minute later, Sanagi and Hannah were walking hurriedly away, while the cultist wriggled ineffectually against his bonds. And scrawled on his chest with a bright red marker were the words:
'Now we both have guns. Ho ho ho.'
What? She'd been trapped in a basement for days, and her annoyance had grown substantially during that time. She was allowed to make a reference or two. Honestly, thinking about something so mundane as a Christmas movie helped distract her from what she'd seen in the basement, the things the unlight had shown her. The Kingeater's - no, no, she wasn't thinking about that, she was thinking about anything else. The first cries of alarm went up after a few minutes, by which time they were safely ensconced in a dilapidated building on the fringes of town. They both had guns, which was good. But they still needed a phone - that first cultist had been useless, and Hannah had a dim suspicion that most of them wouldn't have phones at all. Didn't seem like the kind of thing cultists would just carry around. Landlines were useless, most of them had probably rotted into nothing by now.
And that meant they needed to go back on the attack, strike where they were vulnerable, pin them down until they could get a communication off. In this moment of silence, while everything beyond started to grind into motion, Hannah spoke to Sanagi.
"Are you doing alright?"
"Fine."
"You had that light around your head, looks like it had you immersed in those hallucinations."
Sanagi was silent, and Hannah reached forward to pat her on the shoulder.
"It's fine if it affected you, it affected me too. We just need to hang on a little bit longer, then-"
The officer cut her off with a raised hand and a hard glare.
"Save it. If we get out of here, we can talk. Until then, what's our plan?"
And now she was getting the same feeling she got around Armsmaster. All business, no signs of weakness or doubt. No point probing deeper. If she'd built a wall of professionalism around what she'd seen, it should last for the rest of the night. They could deal with that entire situation properly at the Rig. She outlined the remainder of her plan: the cult would most likely start patrolling outwards, likely in small groups. Splitting up was pointless, they'd just be picked off one by one, and they'd have no means of communication while separated. So, stick together, find something vulnerable. Functional cars to wreck, power generators to disable… hack away until they were in disarray. The next few minutes were an agony of stalking through the streets, going as quietly as they could, ready for combat at any moment. Hannah didn't want to kill people in cold blood, but if they shot first… well, she'd shoot last. Simple as. The cultists were out in force, patrolling the streets with guns in hand and steel in their eyes.
A little reconnaissance, examining a patrol using a scoped rifle, proved fruitful. They were using walkie-talkies, and a little scan of their pockets revealed no telltale bulges of mobile phones. Listening revealed that some of them were talking to a kind of central control, not to each other. And that gave them a nice little target. If Hannah's mental map of the town was correct, the cult was fanning out from a position in the forest… so that was where they needed to go. These weren't professional soldiers, without someone competent ordering them around they'd fall apart in moments. But first, the illusion of presence. Something she'd learned way back in her childhood had been that she wasn't remotely terrifying on her own… but she could appear terrifying if she pulled the right tricks. A trip wire could be physically harmless, but it suggested presence, that someone else knew this territory better than you and had been here long enough to master controlling it. It freaked people out. And that made people act stupidly.
One of the houses still had a functional oven, and she stuffed a few of Sanagi's bullets inside, turning it up to maximum. She repeated this in a few houses as they walked, occasionally veering off course to avoid giving a consistent impression of her route. Soon enough, the heat ignited the live ammunition, and the sound of gunfire filled the night. Cultists whirled about frantically, eyes like startled deer, posture like startled rabbits, to try and identify the source. Instead of fanning out, they stuck together in clumps, so focused on the sound that they neglected to pay attention to any scurrying figures. So, they'd desecrated their shrine, stolen a gun, and now were filling the town with disorienting noise. All in a night's work. And she took a slightly perverse satisfaction in the looks of terror on their faces. Did the poor bastards think a PRT crew had just descended?
Well, they would soon enough. Might as well get used to the idea.
They were approaching the outer limits of the town, and none of the cultists had yet caught them. Good. The plan was working swimmingly - if they found whoever was broadcasting to the cultists, they could cut the head off the proverbial (and possibly literal) snake. The forest loomed before them, dark and ominous. Bad territory for them. They didn't know it, they'd need torches to navigate safely, and with each step they were coming closer to the cult's headquarters. Bad. They needed light, and distractions. Happily, fire fulfilled both categories quite handily. Examining one of the abandoned houses revealed a gas tank, which they happily hooked up to a few slow-burning matches. A frantic sprint (well, hobble in her case) later, and… it was done. A fireball bloomed into the sky, burning gas shooting out from the house, accompanying the irregular gunfire in splitting the night's serenity. A few idle sprays with a flamethrower sent the blaze higher and higher, spreading it to multiple buildings in moments. No time for more than that, but it hardly mattered. Cultists yelled, and all thoughts of patrol were lost as they scrambled to put out the blaze. The same blaze that, coincidentally, was lighting up the forest in a stark shade of orange. Visibility had just been solved.
God, this felt good. Guerilla tactics, fighting a superior foe by using her superior knowledge… she was trapped in a cultist stronghold, vastly outnumbered, and had just come out of several days of psychological torture. And she was still winning.
She thought that right up until the hissing started.
They came from the forest, shambling forwards. They were cultists, that was for sure, but something had grown inside them. Each one had that lump on their chests - the Holy Knot, Cassia had called it - but instead of pulsing menacingly, it had hatched. Snakes emerged outwards, eyes glinting coldly in the rising firelight. They were huge, larger than they had any right to be, too large really to fit inside those poor people. Well, maybe 'poor' was the wrong word. They seemed to be enjoying the whole experience, gurgling with something resembling pleasure as snakes erupted from their flesh, sighing and panting with glee as their skin was parted and scales ripped through their throat. A single transformed cultist was almost double her height, if you factored in the snakes rising high above. She made an executive decision - Bonesaw protocols. Her rifle shifted, and suddenly it was carrying high-powered phosphorous rounds, enough to melt through anything. She barked at Sanagi as she hoisted the weapon.
"Don't let them get close, and stick tog-"
She glanced, and saw no-one. Sanagi was gone. What? Had - no, never mind, no time to think about it. A cultist drew closer, snakes starting to lash out in her direction. She remembered the feeling of those fangs digging into her skin, the numbness that their venom brought… and she could see that same venom dripping from exposed fangs. With gritted teeth, she pulled the trigger. And blaze after blaze erupted, accompanied by the agonised hissing of serpents and the joyous cries of their hosts. Happy when infested, happy when burning to death.
And Hannah made many of them very happy indeed.
* * *
Sanagi stumbled away, something burning in her head. Words, instructions, commands. She had a job to do. No - she needed to help Agent Washington, she was surrounded, she needed… did she need help? She wasn't Agent Washington anymore, was she, was it Hannah or Miss Militia? Christ, a cape, a cape had to be investigating her, she couldn't just get a talented, resourceful agent, she had to get a superpowered one. The light of phosphorous rounds was visible even here, and the writhing of dying snakes was damn beautiful in the firelight, scratching itches that had been building up ever since her imprisonment started. A voice whispered in her ear, something golden-tongued, telling her that she was needed elsewhere, that only she could perform this task, that Hannah would be quite alright. Sanagi almost relented. Almost. She focused on the feeling of coldness from the unlight, the visions it had forced on her. She'd triggered because of an attempted sacrifice, giving herself up so that her friends could try and survive. And this… Kingeater thing was poisoning it. The idea of sacrifice for sacrifice's own sake was perverse, it undermined one of the most meaningful and traumatic moments in her life. And from that memory, she went to Bisha, to his words, to the terrors he unleashed on her city. Anger built in her chest, and with a muffled shriek she tried to force the golden voice away. She had a colleague to help, and she wasn't going to be enslaved to some… some impulse! She didn't even know where it was coming from, only scraps of memories coming to mind - ziggurats, endless sunsets, perfect symbols. All meaningless.
The voice demanded that she perform her appointed task, and between gritted teeth she snarled:
"Fuck… you."
The voice relented for a moment. It seemed to be considering something. For a second she thought that she'd won, fought off the influence of this thing. And then the golden light returned, and blazed bright. Too bright. It shone out of the shattered front of her skull, silhouetted her bones against her skin, highlighted the stark black lines of her mane of filaments. It pulsed irregularly, and brought… something in its wake. Visions. Plans. She saw the path. Jadikira was waiting, and his power was substantial. If killed, the cult would fall apart. He was the linchpin around which they all revolved, removing him would deprive them of direction, command, and guidance to the Kingeater. Her beams could kill him… or, rather, some kind of gift she'd been given, something she couldn't quite grasp. The golden voice wasn't commanding anymore, it was suggesting. Why not obey, it asked? The plan was perfect, its every detail considered well in advance. She was being given a complicated mission, the kind that they only handed down to specialists. All she needed to do was give in, and she'd be carted off to her goal like a good, obedient, heat-seeking missile.
No. No. She wasn't going to give in, wasn't going to become some kind of automaton. Her feet struggled to move… and the force that was holding her back snapped away with a sense of cursory dismissal, like a skilled engineer setting aside a piece of work that, to him, was effortlessly simple, and to everyone else was impossibly complex. It was… testing her. A tiny probe. A little demonstration of why she should be glad to work for it - another force would obliterate her identity, her will, everything that made her… her. It didn't need such heavy-handed methods. If success could only be achieved through heavy-handed control, then what kind of success was it, really? How did it reflect on the order which created it? No - she could go on her own way. She had already been accounted for, her behaviours had been integrated, and deviation had been nullified. The path was established, and she would follow it. Go. Before her failures compounded and her function was compromised. The memory of the incident was already fading, she was wondering why she had stepped away from her colleague in the first place….
And she was back at Hannah's side, her gun pounding away as her skull itched desperately, eager to shed its skin and start sawing them in half. She couldn't remember why she hadn't been here from the start - other cultists, that was it, another one of these snake creatures trying to flank them that she'd taken care of with extreme prejudice. However that encounter had resolved itself, her gun didn't do much to these specimens - it slowed them a little, gave Hannah some breathing room so she could scythe them down with something rather more effective. There was chaos all around, but all the while Sanagi was thinking. Jadikira needed to die, that was certain. Hannah didn't understand how dangerous creatures like him were, she'd seen Bisha up close and personal, had witnessed the Tree of Worms. She knew that they transcended all natural limits. Hannah would approach him, gun raised, confident in victory… and then he'd pull out some kind of magic bullshit that would probably brainwash her or condemn her to a fate worse than death.
And Hannah had saved her life, kept her company in that basement, and as much as Sanagi was reluctant to admit it… she was growing fond of the agent, in her own way. Christ, she was growing fond of Miss Militia, what had her life become…
She needed to get to Jadikira and deal with him personally. No other way around it. Two problems presented themselves - the act of separation, and the act of concealment. She could imagine the situation - Jadikira dies, and then she turns around to Hannah standing there putting together the pieces, realising that skull-headed woman wearing Sanagi's clothes was probably not some random clothes-snatching skeleton fiend. Hm. Ideas. Bad ideas, but… ideas nonetheless. The cultists were starting to thin out a little, a shambling mound of snakes nothing before a wall of flaming lead. But they needed to move - the noise was attracting other patrols, armed with things rather more long-range than snakebites. One of these long-range snakebites went off in the distance, and a nearby window smashed. With a curse, Hannah and Sanagi ran into the forest, a few errant sprays from a newly conjured flamethrower setting more of the trees on fire, masking their passage.
They ran… and Sanagi acted. In a second, she was moving in a different direction, yelling over her shoulder to Agent Washington who glanced her way in shock and surprise:
"They're following us, split up!"
"Wait, d-"
But the fire had already eaten up her words, removing everything but the sharp cracks of wood splitting. The sound of her surprise, the look of shock… it cut her, a little. The agent had appreciated her professionalism, her ability to work swiftly and effectively while under pressure. It had made her preen a little every time she threw an appreciative smile or look her way. Ruining that impression wounded her on a very personal, and very professional, level. Still, she felt like this was necessary - her own inclinations were being granted some kind of reinforcement. She felt certain that this was right, that this plan needed to be fulfilled. Sanagi knew exactly where she was going - to the mound, to the place where the tree of worms had bloomed and the entire town had been swallowed (sans two sisters). Small structures seemed to confirm her suspicions, tiny shacks of corrugated metal and freshly-chopped wood, trailers with flickering lights, all the meagre dwellings where it seemed most of the cult lived. They were worn by years of travel, and marked in that particular way that only a long-term dwelling can be - tiny charms, miniscule personal touches, patches where minor damage had been repaired, even subtle changes in the choice of thin curtain used in the dusty windows.
She followed the structures, always heading uphill, always heading into the deeper thicket… wasn't as thick as she remembered, though. They'd cleared out most of it, apparently. It was strange to be here without that living light pulsing through her lungs… but then again, she had a new flavour of light to cope with now. A pulse of worry ran through her - would this work? Would she actually succeed against Jadikira, he was strong, and she didn't have any backup here. No - memories came to mind of sawing Bisha's parents in half, blazing apart a crowd of Brent Deneuves, slicing through a horde of snarling monsters. She was tough, she had power. Jadikira was just a skinny bastard with a fondness for skin. As she ran, she began doing something she knew she'd regret. She had long-since passed by the burning trees, to a range where it seemed unlikely that the fire would spread. The trailers were empty, the entire cult piling into the town - Hannah's 'wasp' tactic had worked a charm, she wasn't facing a lick of resistance up here. She ducked inside, and started grabbing any clothes she could find. She'd have to remember this trailer, or… no, dammit, no. The clothes weren't the right size, and anything which exposed too much skin was out of the question - if her association with Hannah continued, she'd definitely figure out that something was amiss, especially if the two of them hung out at the beach - no, no, focus on the business at hand. Try again. Another trailer. More wrong clothes. Another. Wrong.
And she was running short on time, if she held on too long, Hannah might deal with the others and catch up before her business could be concluded. With a growl, she ran onwards towards the mound, the sound of gunfire reassuring her that Hannah was doing just fine. She didn't like abandoning the woman, but she was probably more likely to survive tonight anyway. Her gun was terrifying, her skill was impressive, her capacity to improvise and adapt… admirable. Sanagi just had to contribute her own unique skills to this situation, that was all. She kept justifying abandoning the woman as she ran, ignoring the trailers. She was getting close, she could feel it. Her body ached as it remembered the feeling of running through these woods… well, being carried through these woods by a biker. Her eye socket throbbed with phantom pain, recalling the way it had swelled shut after a boot had almost smashed her face in. Great. That was all she needed. At least it told her she was going in the right direction. The hill was growing steeper, the trees thinner, stumps visible where the thicket had been hacked apart. And something stopped her.
A sound. Someone was whimpering like a kicked dog. A child. She… dammit, she didn't have a heart of stone. She investigated the sound, and saw a familiar face crouching in the largest trailer yet. Gloves, wearing some bizarre scrap of human skin on her head, eyes wide and fearful. Her back was stained - she'd run all the way up here, evidently, and the strain had caused some of the wounds on her back to reopen. She backed away as Sanagi came closer, staring at the gun in her hand. Dammit, dammit. She had something to do, she had a person to kill, and… there was a small child in front of her, terrified out of her mind. At least Sanagi could relate to the terror. She crouched down, staying a small distance away - past Gloves, she could see the interior of the trailer. Large, luxurious, like something a deranged cult leader would have. And hanging up were a number of… robes. Her gut rebelled at the thought. Her mind, the calculating bastard that it was, noted that it would conceal all of her skin, and was so completely unlike anything she ever wore that she'd be unrecognisable inside of it. Gloves sniffed.
"Hey… are you… doing OK?"
God, she was bad at this. Bad with kids in general. 'Doing OK', the girl had lost her mother and her cult was now under attack. Oh, and she'd been partially flayed. Of course she wasn't OK, Sanagi, you complete fucking moron. Gloves just stared blankly. She looked cold. Alright, she could understand that, nice basic instinct that could be easily satisfied. Sanagi slowly took off her jacket, stuffing her gun into her pants as she did so. She reached out, and hooked it around an unresisting Gloves' shoulders. She sank into the material, still terrified, still paralysed, but… warmer.
"Stay here. Stay out of the fighting. It'll all be over soon."
More silent stares. And she was lying - no idea if it would be over soon, no idea if it would resolve in her favour. Sanagi was beginning to feel a little awkward. She slipped past the girl into the trailer, patting her on the shoulder as she went, and touched one of the long robes. Bedazzled with charms, stitched delicately… damn work of art. Except for the human skin element, which gave her the most atrocious goosebumps. The texture was unlike anything she'd even worn, and she knew putting it on would be a painful, painful endeavour. She groaned. She couldn't believe that things had come to this. Her life had spiralled off the rails at some point, and now she was wearing skin. She turned to Gloves, who had swivelled around to stare at her. She muttered in a faintly commanding way, embarrassment colouring her tone.
"Look away. It's rude to stare."
The girl swivelled back around with the speed of the truly terrified. It was a matter of moments to discard her clothing, to fold it up neatly, and to slip the light robe over her head. It covered everything - it was strange to wear, a weird style that she'd never engaged with before. Like a loose-fitting kimono (made of human skin), with a tabard (made of human skin) draped over top. There was even a spare pair of boots (made of human skin) to slip on, which fit surprisingly well. It was a well-made outfit. An outfit made of human skin god this was so weird and wrong on every conceivable level. She was just glad that she hadn't found his underwear drawer, that would have made this entire thing even more uncomfortable. Which poor bastard got to make his boxers? She felt ridiculous, and desperately needed to take a scalding hot shower. When she turned to leave, Gloves was looking at her incredulously. Huh. From her perspective, it was like a random hobo had broken in and was now wearing her uncle's clothes which she'd stolen from his wardrobe. Which was still weird, even if she wasn't reacting to the wearing of human skin God get it off get it off get it off.
She nodded firmly to Gloves.
"Stay here. Don't follow any noises, just… stay. Everything will be fine."
If she smiled she almost convinced herself that she wasn't lying. Gloves nodded, and backed inside the trailer, hiding herself under the bed. Her eyes shone like pilot lights, and she watched Sanagi as she stepped out into the cold night air. It didn't feel right leaving things like this.
"...I'm sorry."
God, she'd made it more awkward. She slipped away, and her face began to detach, stored in one of the robe's many pouches - well, at least the person who did the sewing had good foresight, that was nice. Good to know the people involving this flaying operation were conscientious. The forest swallowed her whole, and she felt something brewing ahead. A similar cold feeling to the unlight - indeed, she saw torches blazing with that horrible stuff embedded into the trees. Her pincers clicked in happiness as they were finally released, her starmatter churned in strange motions that soothed the inside of her skull. It probably didn't say anything good that she was so… happy to have her skull exposed again. The way the wind caught on her bones was pleasingly different to the way it touched her skin. Great, she enjoyed being a skull-faced human-skin-wearing monster. At this point she looked like some kind of stereotypical villain, the kind so ridiculous that they could never emerge in real life. The path she was walking was a well-trodden one, dark soil packed into a solid mass that refused to sink beneath her skin boots. She was on a pilgrimage route, a sacred path straight to one of their holy sites, each step marked with some bone charm or gilded scrap of skin, illuminated by the unlight torches. And as she came closer… she could see why anyone would call this place holy. The monument was titanic.
And in front of it, was a certain pale gentleman bent in prayer, murmuring over a set of bone beads. He swivelled calmly as she arrived, extending to his full, terrifying height. His dark eyes were inscrutable. No reaction to her choice in clothing, nor her skull. Sanagi could understand that, certainly. There were mch stranger things in the world than her. And after seeing them… a pincer-faced skeleton woman really wasn't much of a shock. His thick, syrupy voice draped over her like a funeral shroud.
"You've come."
Click.
"Then we'll settle matters. Come, golden dog. Come, and face Jadikira, who led the Cretans from pained ignorance to a greater truth, last of the Living Gods of the Khristy, beloved servant of the Kingeater, from whom nothing more can be taken!"
His metal implement detached from his waist and flowed through his hands in smooth motions, the edge gleaming in the light of the monument. Sanagi's stars burned, and her pincers clicked rapidly… from adrenaline? Excitement? Psychotic satisfaction? Or simple bloodthirstiness?
She couldn't honestly say.
But God, she'd missed this.
AN: OK, was looking through some old files, found a chapter I hadn't actually posted. Previous stuff still stands - on hiatus, planning things out, etc. etc.
But, hey, might as well make the Apocrypha comprehensive.
See ya in the future.
But, hey, might as well make the Apocrypha comprehensive.
See ya in the future.
132 - Getting Boring by the Sea
GraftingBuddha
Retired Pooh-Bah
132 - Getting Boring by the Sea
Brockton Bay cooked in the heat of early summer, and on the wide, grey beach, the seashells were bleeding.
It was a slow bleeding, and it had no constancy, no rhythm that a sane person could see. Sometimes red gems would appear, flowing slowly like tears made from molasses, trickling one after the other, an endless procession of droplets so perfectly formed they seemed to be utterly unique. One would catch the curves of a shell so well that it would briefly turn into a jagged star, sharp and smooth all at once. A small army of individuals marching steadily to the sand, where they could soak into a featureless red spot which would, eventually, be washed away entirely. Sometimes it was a rapid, pulsing flow - like an artery had been nicked, and an invisible heart secreted away in the convolutions of the shell was pulsing wildly, desperately, trying to repair a problem by surfeiting it until either the problem ceased or the heart did. And sometimes it was a single, solid, thump. A shell would be pristine, a mottled colour acquired only from the rigours of the ocean current, the shining of a dappled sun through boundless waves, and all of a sudden… changed. A single, perfect drop, splashing downwards like a signature. These one-drop shells almost seemed to sigh when they left - like a great tension had been released, a strain had ceased, and the shell could finally be at peace. And then the waves would come and wash away it all, shells, blood, everything. Even memory went with those crashing waves, and only a few youngsters would dimly remember when the beach was spotted in a way that was difficult to describe.
Almost no-one noticed the shells, of course. Not every shell bled, nor all of them at once. A few at a time, bleeding quietly, little travellers emerging from brittle labyrinths… that was easy to overlook. Especially with how quiet Brockton's beaches were at the moment. Leviathan's attack on Miami had aftershocks. The world was an interconnected thing, and repeated tidal waves in Miami was a hell of a butterfly's wing. A wave would crush a building in Florida, and in Brockton a strange current would rip a boat far out to sea with no warning. Shimmering jellyfish were randomly deposited from far shores as currents were malformed, and at night, when the moon hung like a great silver dollar in the sky, the mass of half-dead things shone like a vast, amorphous galaxy. A galaxy of jellyfish, it must be said, was far more interesting than a couple of aberrant shells. Almost no-one noticed… but a few did. A few.
One was a mosquito that decided to treat the shells as a little larder of its own. Mosquitoes generally shunned the thing, but this particular specimen had clearly undergone some sort of mutation, allowing it to overcome the habitual aversion of its cousins. She drank deep of it, this mosquito, at first drinking only of the droplets which had managed to reach the very fringes of the shells. Once on the sand they were absorbed in seconds, but at that vital moment, she could harvest all she needed. Her abdomen began to swell with eggs, ready to be laid in every stagnant pool she could find… but she delved a little deeper, fascinated by the odd taste. It was something she'd never experienced before. Something alien. Like… it was like the withdrawal of nectar from a glass flower, like nuclear pollen from the fat body of a Cherenkov-blue bee, like the choral rumbles of a stained-glass toad. Indescribable. To the mosquito, it was engrossing. A little more probing, a little more… her abdomen was heavy now, and she ought to leave. Indeed, a few of her kin buzzed around the exterior of the shell, humming agitatedly, sensing somehow that something was very, very wrong. The mosquito went deeper, deeper, pursuing the blood to its source, seeking it out, following the spiralling labyrinth to the beating of a tiny invisible heart, a little constant drum, signalling the approach of… something.
When the mosquito emerged, she seemed much the same. But the patterns she wove in the air during her flight, if mapped, would cause a headache in anyone who looked too deeply. She never laid her eggs, in the end. The next day she simply flew into a different shell and never returned. A few days later, every mosquito which had ever known her was dead. Not in an ominous way - they were mosquitoes, after all. Very small lifespans.
A few others found the shells. A couple of idle walkers who blinked, examined them closer, re-examined their conclusions, and walked away with the thoughts falling away with every step. A couple of unattended kids who thought it was some disgusting biological process - and thus, endlessly fascinating. Indeed, when a few Wards patrolled the boardwalk, one of them - Vista - couldn't help but wonder why the kids on the beach kept poking a shell with an expression of vague disappointment, some of them asking why it wasn't 'doing the thing'. Forgotten quickly. A man in a Hawaiian shirt had strolled down the beach at one point, collecting these shells and stuffing them inside a straining satchel with the furious gaze of someone utterly intent on a task. He'd pick up one, examine it slowly with his tongue slightly sticking out of the corner of his mouth, and usually it would be discarded into the ocean. But one or two were chosen among each batch - and he surveyed many, many batches. Sometimes a blind woman with a pair of crutches accompanied him, swinging along grunting in irritation, but never complaining at her companion's odd activity. Well, that was a stretch. She commented. And frequently.
"You keep stopping."
The man hummed, quietly examining another shell - a good specimen. The white of fresh-fallen snow, and each droplet pulsing from its depths was a tiny eye looking outwards, like an albino rabbit glaring at something it didn't know, understand, or particularly like. The woman scowled.
"Arch, you're really fucking pissing me off."
Arch glanced idly over his shoulder. His eyes were strange - it was for the best that the woman was blind. Burned out and reignited, bearing traces of both states at once. And in their collision was a complete, burning obsession.
"...they won't get in your way, Ted. Just for my own interest."
"It's still pissing me off."
He hummed again.
"You're doing well on the crutches."
"Like you give a shit."
"Easier than pushing you around."
"See, that sounds about right. Come on, keep going. I want a fucking ice cream."
"Hm."
"Order me double chocolate chip this time, don't be a cheap bitch."
"Hm."
This was the tenor of most of their conversations, and usually ended with a sullen ice cream and a tense car ride back to a dismal protein farm on the edge of the city. But this time… things were just a little different. The woman, Ellen by birth, Ted as a spur-of-the-moment decision she was adamantly clinging to regardless of the cost, was feeling unusually irritable. Saying something, that. Mosquitoes, mostly - they were acting up, and when one operated mostly by hearing, mosquitoes acting up was just about the worst thing to happen. It was interrupting her thoughts. And she had many. Bombs. Beautiful, perfect bombs, spherical, conical, square, all of them designed for some arcane purpose. Bastard mosquitoes… she could probably make something capable of killing them all. A bomb that could wipe out them and only them. Soon. Soon she'd be able to. Until then… she stumbled over the beach with the bleeding shells, her crutches crude, her prosthetic hands irritatingly simple, her legs still nothing but bare stumps concealed with artfully tied trousers… it was an effort. Every step was a nightmare, and her face ran freely with sweat. But it was something she could do alone. No more being pushed around by others - figuratively and literally. No more being a pitiable invalid. She'd hurt Cornell, she'd hurt Bisha, she'd hurt a lot of people who thought they could pin her down and make her dance to their tune.
No more.
Arch stopped again. Ellen almost ran into his back, grunting in irritation. Blindness was a bastard she was eager to kill soon enough. Great, her power could let her send a city back to the Stone Age, but it couldn't build her some fucking eyes.
"What the fuck is it now? This shell had better be worth it, or I'll take these crutches and…"
She trailed off. Something was wrong. Arch was standing very, very still. She couldn't tell, but he was staring off into the horizon, where the sun turned the sky a delicate red. The beach was better at this time. Before the night made it uncertain, but the setting sun gave everything a reality which other hours lacked. Night was formless, and the day brought warm, shifting sands. The kind that sucked at heels and slowed all progress to a halt. A nightmare for Ellen - or Ted, as she insisted being called in public. And Arch was ultimately a considerate individual. The fact that his visa had long-since expired and he was one nasty encounter away from getting deported back to England had nothing to do with the fact that he enjoyed walking on beaches in the evening. No, just… consideration for his footless, handless, eyeless roommate, and an appreciation for the hours when the sun lit the sky on fire, and the coolness was enough to make everything stable. He liked stable things. He'd seen enough chaos - the kind that kept burning behind his eyes.
A system of cells interlinked within cells interlinked within cells interlinked within one stem. An order so vast he couldn't quite understand it… and yet he tried. And as he looked into the sunset, his hand playing around yet another bleeding shell, he saw a fragment of that great order he had glimpsed in the burning tower. Between the stars, beyond the sun, lines were tracing in the gloom. Bones cast on a great dark surface. An omen, in a language he didn't understand nor could ever understand. His fingers were stained with ink from where he had been working earlier that day. His bag bulged with red-tinted shells. The stars were bound by more laws than physics could predict, and regardless of what others might think… he could see the tiny fluctuations. Dreams were easier, dreams were softer. Here, all he had were the bones of the world, shining like jewels in the dying sky. His head throbbed like an egg ready to hatch. His mouth curled into a frown.
The stars were moving.
Something was coming.
Taylor felt out of place here. This was strange, largely because she'd spent a good few weeks stuck in a place like this. The hospital was a flurry of strange beeps and bloops, pulsing machinery and twitching monitors. The people around her in the waiting room were from all walks of life, but were universally stricken with worry-lined faces, and those who had come in groups tended to cluster together like frightened hens. Taylor was alone. She didn't want to drag anyone else into this. Alone, and looking the way she did, it wasn't surprising that she felt so utterly divorced from her surroundings.
She flinched as her insects picked up a scrap of conversation elsewhere in the hospital - an old woman complaining that her lungs had grown worse recently, agitated by the dust produced by the 'Conflagration'. Taylor had saved the world, and exacerbated a pensioner's asthma in the process. Not a bad trade, in the grand scheme of things, but it still made her feel faintly shitty. The other patients kept their distance from the one-eyed, scarred girl who they were convinced had gold teeth. And didn't that make Taylor cringe internally. She was not a gold teeth person, she wasn't even a 'shiny metal' teeth person. If she was in a position where new teeth were required, she'd prefer enamel, or something textured to look like enamel. Not gaudy, hideous, but damnably non-corroding and lightweight gold. Painting them hadn't gone well, and the dentist had been happy to shove the things inside with far too much enthusiasm. Her jaw had ached for days, but at least she could chew food properly again. Except bananas. Turning metal teeth onto a banana tended to cleave through it with far too much ease to be comfortable, resulting in a distressingly loud 'clack' as metal met metal.
A woman stepped out from the office, looking around inquisitively.
"Miss Hebert?"
Taylor raised her hand.
"Wonderful, I can see you now. Come along."
The woman briskly walked away. Taylor stumbled to follow her, her gait still a little uncertain even after the crutch had ceased to be necessary. The office they entered was bland, covered in diplomas from prestigious institutions, and a half-dozen empty cups that had presumably once contained coffee. The doctor smoothly sat down behind her desk, steepling her fingers and looking appraisingly at Taylor. She abruptly felt more self-conscious about her teeth, her scars, her eyepatch, her everything, really. It would take some time to get used to all of this.
Instruct this woman to stop staring at the metal in our mouth.
They really needed to have that conversation about who actually owned this barely functional carcass.
"So, you're here to talk about your father."
"Uh, yes."
The doctor flipped through a file, checking a host of faintly ominous x-rays and graphs. Her lips were pursed. Taylor abruptly felt far more nervous. Dammit, she'd saved the world, she should be able to face a single doctor's appointment.
"We've been keeping him under observation for a while now, and I'm sorry to say that his condition simply isn't improving. There's no physical decline, not outside of the usual decline you'd expect from extended confinement to a bed. His body is completely healthy… but he simply refuses to wake up. Imaging can only do so much, I'm afraid, we're not sure exactly what's causing the coma. There are no obvious signs of neural damage, and we've reached the limits of what we can observe."
Her lips became more pursed.
"Miss Hebert, your father isn't going to be getting better any time soon. I understand that you're young, but I think you ought to be well-informed as to what's going on here, and the treatment we'll be providing."
She abruptly stood, placing a gentle hand on Taylor's stiff shoulder. The doctor tried to smile.
"We can show you the facilities we'll be using, and if you like you can visit your father afterwards."
Taylor tried to smile back. It didn't work very well.
"Sure."
The hospital embraced them entirely, swallowing the two whole as they progressed into its recesses. The corridors emptied until it was only the two of them, buried deep within a mass of concrete and advanced machinery. The doctor talked as she spoke, her tone faintly robotic - she'd done this before, more times to count, and used that routine as a shelter. This was a difficult topic, and retreating into routinised behaviour was something of a relief.
"These rooms are for our long-term comatose patients. We do everything we can to keep them comfortable, and under proper levels of observation. However, some people do express more… individual concerns, and we try to cater to those when practicable. This is one of our best rooms:"
She gestured as she came to a halt, her heels clacking loudly against the shiny floor. Taylor poked her head in - the room was currently vacant, but it looked… nice. Too nice. The bed was wide and comfortable, the sheets high-quality, and there was a small mound of machinery dedicated to monitoring and regulating all bodily functions. The doctor took her through them, piece by piece - muscle stimulants to slow any atrophy, personalised vitamin drips and nutrient feeds, subdermal monitors to ensure precise measurements, and a constant link to both a monitoring algorithm and a member of staff at the hospital. If her dad so much as breathed irregularly, he'd be noticed and attended to. This place was bigger than her new bedroom, practically the size of their living room. It had kit for days, comfortable furniture, everything she could possibly want. She was told success stories of how people were brought out of comas fully rested and ready to get back to work the next day, how their tiniest ailments were treated seconds before they became serious. It was a good room. But again… too good. She could imagine an enormous imaginary price tag stuck to the doorframe. And boy, was it enormous. She politely asked if there were any other rooms, and the doctor gave her a sympathetic look.
The next room they found was still good, but distinctly less so than the first. It was smaller, the bed was narrower, the machinery clearly older. There would be a smaller number of implants here, and those which were inserted would be of an older make and more primitive design. Monitoring would mostly be conducted by algorithm, it would be trusted to alert staff members to any discrepancies in her dad's readouts. The furniture was cheaper, the overall ambience less overtly welcoming than the first room. The window faced onto a wall, the natural light weak and pathetic. This was smaller than her new bedroom, and was clearly cheaper than their best room. It could be cheaper still if she accepted giving her dad a roommate. Still… it had perks. It had a good bed, it had clean sheets. The heating was functional, the air conditioning likewise perfectly serviceable. Her dad would be comfortable here, she understood that, but… he could have it better. She knew he wouldn't mind, but still… given that his coma was partially her fault, given that she was the one fighting Bisha, she felt guilty at the idea of stuffing him in a bargain-bin room. The doctor quietly showed her a small piece of paperwork which outlined the per annum costs of using this room. Her single eye widened. Chorei spluttered. They moved to a cheaper room.
This was their cheapest option, located at Taylor's request. The doctor was clearly reluctant - guilty that she had to show this place off, or annoyed that she was presenting something so shoddy? Whatever the reason… the room was bad. Damn bad. Mostly used by the poor and the unidentifiable, those who had no-one coming along to claim them but who had to be, according to the law, treated in a hospital as long as their conditions persisted. There were nearly a dozen beds in one long room, barely larger than the first room she'd seen. Each one was small and rickety, clearly decades old with comfort not a primary concern. There were no staff here, just an algorithm which politely dispensed bland nutrient feed and occasionally alerted a nurse to come along and massage their muscles to prevent bed sores. The other rooms had been empty, privacy was clearly a concern, but this had residents. Too cheap to afford isolation, it seemed. There was a single chair at one end of the room which could be moved around if she wanted to sit by her dad. The entire place stank of chemicals, and a grim part of her thought it could be formaldehyde. There were no windows, and the air conditioner rattled like a smoker's cough. It wasn't truly awful… but it was close. It wasn't somewhere she wanted to put her father, where he might have to live out the rest of his life. The doctor politely escorted her away, back to her bland - but clearly fairly comfortable - office.
"Now, you understand the options available - your father is being removed from observation later this week, we'll be putting him in the third room. Not that exact one, but it has a similar layout. If you'd like to put him somewhere nicer, I can arrange the paperwork… though I will need to talk, probably with your lawyer or guardian, about his health insurance."
His health insurance wouldn't remotely cover a nicer room. His life insurance was worthless, he wasn't dead so it refused to pay out. Insurance from work was useless too, he'd been injured at home. And all that was left was a cut-price medical insurance policy that he'd always treated with faint dread, nervous that he'd have to put his life in the hands of this shoddy thing. As a coma patient, he'd have to get this on a long-term basis, which made all the costs balloon outwards. Taylor felt sick. She'd done it, she'd won, she'd sacrificed so much to kill Bisha… and she couldn't pay for anything more than a rickety bed in the basement of the local hospital. If there was a chance that her dad could get better, she'd take it in a second… and she knew that just keeping him at home wasn't an option. He was a coma patient, he needed proper medical attention, not what she could manage to do with her limited experience and primitive tools. She made her excuses and left, promising to return with a guardian of some description, someone who could handle the paperwork. She had no intention to do so. She didn't have a guardian, the closest thing (legally) was Kurt and Lacey, and she'd never finalised that whole matter.
At Turk's - her - place, she scanned through the screen on a cheap laptop, trying to find anything she could. There was wonderful information about all the other treatment options available, at the higher end of the scale. Huge rooms, dedicated staff, all the implants money could buy… money she didn't have. She dug down through the pages, finding the bargain options. There wasn't much information, just a cold indicator that she could 'consult in person'. They didn't want to put pictures online. She searched elsewhere… and there the horror stories began. A scandal with the ABB, where they'd been involved in organ harvesting from a city hospital, stealing from coma patients. Another scandal where they had orderlies sell comatose women (and some men) as… well, dolls that breathed, but didn't complain. Taylor felt like she was about to vomit, her eyes glazing over yet always focusing hard on the screen, trying to take everything in. Scandals, failures, stories online about awful treatment. Some said they'd had no problems… but the problem with coma patients was that if a hospital had any problems with its treatment, they'd more than likely come up over the course of years. This wasn't a brief stay in intensive care, this was a long-term residence which might never end. A corrupt orderly, a psychotic nurse, an incompetent doctor… the longer her dad stuck around, the larger the chance that he'd fall victim to one of them. Maybe she was being pessimistic, but… hell, she'd used up all her luck a long time ago. And the world was starting to be more tight-fisted with how it distributed fortune, demanding substantial repayments and withholding future loans. She stumbled forwards through blind luck, and the world claimed a few bits of her as recompense. She was lucky enough to kill Bisha, and in exchange she was brutalised until she could barely walk. Lucky enough to survive Vandeerleuwe, and in exchange she almost died on a frozen lake. And even after all of that, she still felt as though her debt wasn't quite paid. It certainly explained her current situation.
She wanted to leave Brockton… and here she was. Stuck. She needed to give her dad the best possible chance of recovery, but to do that she needed money, which she distinctly lacked. She couldn't just ask her friends for help, they had problems of their own, had already helped her an absurd amount. Even now she was sponging off Turk by using his apartment as her own. She couldn't leave as long as her dad was in his condition, and his condition might last years… might last the rest of his life. Of her life, if she kept pushing herself. She refused to put him in that room, she couldn't even countenance the idea. Solutions rattled by, each one more delusional than the last. She sagged back on her bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. Chorei interjected, speaking for the first time in over an hour.
You are distressed.
"Well observed. Yeah, I'm distressed."
We require capital.
"Yep."
Have you considered crime?
"Of course I've considered it. But just think - I can't go around stealing from everyone, that'd make me a villain, and would put me on the PRT's radar, not to mention the police. I'm friends with a cop, I couldn't hide from them for long. And I already used my powers once in front of Armsmaster, they're definitely still keeping tabs on a bug-related cape. I could rob the gangs, but… how? And who? There are just two gangs worth stealing from, the ABB and the E88. One of them has a paranoid dragon in charge - and he doesn't have a lieutenant to take care of rival parahumans. I rob him, I have to deal with Lung, no Oni Lee to go through. E88 is big, professional. They won't just leave their money in huge piles for me to take. And that's assuming I'll be able to do anything before the PRT find me."
She sighed.
"And more than that, I'm alone. I can't drag the others into this. Turk has a business, Sanagi's a cop, Ahab's got one arm and is easily recognisable, Arch wouldn't be much help."
Hm.
"Yeah."
I can't think of a way out.
Taylor rolled over on her side, pressing her face against the bed. She sniffed.
"Yeah. Me neither."
There was silence between the two, Chorei understanding how she felt but incapable of handling it. She'd abandoned her parents, and had always regretted the decision to leave their lives so completely. She knew how it felt… but she'd never found a solution. Just wrote it off as a lost cause and absorbed herself in her work. After a few decades, it stopped mattering. A few decades more, and her hometown was completely gone. The problem became a purely emotional one. Taylor… she was in a situation Chorei had never found herself in. She didn't know how to respond, but she tried.
Would you like to watch something?
"Hm?"
Anything you want.
"...I think I'm OK."
Chorei felt a spark of indignation rise up. She was trying to help, she very rarely did this! If she was still a nun, she'd have started to talk about the impermanence of life, how one should let go of all attachments. But she'd never done that herself, not successfully. And she'd be a right asshole if she preached what she had never succeeded in practising.
Come on. Movie. Get up. You'll feel better.
Taylor groaned and sat up. She couldn't escape Chorei, nor her nagging. There was no way out of this situation from her perspective. With a long grumble, she stumped into the tiny space that passed for a 'living room' in their apartment. A tiny TV with a scratched piece of plastic where the logo used to be, which she was fairly certain had been built several decades ago and was probably irradiating her organs, flickered into life after a substantial amount of prodding. Taylor had accumulated a good few movies over the last few weeks, mostly from plundering thrift stores and delving into the world of video rental - she was surprised rental places still existed, but exist they did, clinging to the surface of Brockton like a stubborn limpet in the Boat Graveyard. It was still the middle of the afternoon, and the screen was halfway invisible in the sunlight, prompting Taylor to shut the curtains and plunge the room into a warm, musty gloom. Chorei said nothing, but Taylor could feel her growing enthusiasm. That alone cheered her up a bit - for an immortal nun, she was very easily entertained. A moving picture was as fascinating to her now as it was when she had first seen one many years ago.
Taylor slipped a disk into the battered player, tolerating the way the aged machine whined and hissed as it activated, keening reluctantly as it pored through masses of information and translated it into something visible. Lights flashed, and music began to play over tinny speakers. Taylor could sense Chorei leaning forwards eagerly - if Gallant was still around, she imagined he'd see a centipede doing some sort of excited motion, maybe figure-eights or loop-de-loops. Thinking of him sparked off more guilt, a renewed sense of impotence. She settled back into the overstuffed couch, staring vaguely at the screen. A lone man rode across the desert towards a solitary ranch, into which a frightened child ran. Music thrummed. The image stuck with her - a wanderer riding through the desert, devoid of any binding duties or crippling obligations. She thought that would be her, soon enough. Now, though… she didn't know. She just didn't know. Chorei hummed in interest as the first lines of dialogue began to fill the room. Taylor found an involuntary smile crossing her lips. At least she was sad in company. That made things marginally better, right?
'You're from Baker? Tell him that I told him all that I know already. Tell him I want to live in peace, understand?'
Her single eye unfocused a little, and Chorei had to mentally slap her a few times to refocus, to make the image she was getting that bit clearer. Taylor tried to put together more plans - but they all ran into the same set of problems. She was too young for a regular job, and even if she wasn't, she might not be able to make remotely enough money. That left cape work… and that would involve drawing attention she didn't want, forming connections that wouldn't break easily, pulling her into a world she'd been eager to never enter. Maybe she could sell the First Rifle? It was lying quietly in a wooden box buried near the protein farm, far enough that Chorei assured her it wouldn't affect any of the residents there. That could fetch a very pretty penny… no, maybe not. It was a dangerous object, still pulsing with a desire for conflict, mourning the loss of the mud token which had empowered it. By selling it to someone willing to pay a proper price, she'd only attract the wrong sort of attention. As the dialogue continued, she tried to banish those thoughts. She'd deal with it later. Opportunities would come - they had to.
'I think his idea was that I kill you. But you know, the pity is, when I'm paid… I always follow my job through. You know that.'
'No pistol amigo. It won't do you any good.'
There was a pause. Chorei began to coo a little over the character's moustache… what was the actor called? She remembered something… Lee Van Cleef, something along those lines. The actors were frozen in place. Taylor blinked/winked (not that there was much difference for her at this point), her attention sharpening. Music was continuing to play, tense strings rising higher and higher, but the actors were locked in place. Something wrong with the television? Or was this just a very artsy movie? She couldn't imagine people would rave about it so much if there were just random pauses… Chorei shifted uncomfortably. Something was definitely wrong. She reached for the set - no remote, too old. Her finger hovered over the power button…
'Don't you go changing the channel now, amigo.'
She froze. Chorei locked up in her mind, as frozen as a set of loosely aligned memories could be - which was pretty damn frozen as frozen things went. Her eye flicked up. Lee Van Cleef was staring down at her, his moustache crinkling a little as he smirked coldly. His narrow eyes were glinting like tiny stones, his cheeks seemed to be chiselled from flint. The actor he sat alongside was unresponsive, silent, paralysed. Taylor found her breath coming a little faster, reactions she'd spent weeks trying to suppress coming back at full force. All the nightmares after Bisha, all the occasional moments of zoning out… they were at the forefront of her mind, the memories as sharp as winter cold. The freakish world she'd interacted with had come back to her. It was in her home. And she was alone.
Run.
She was very much considering running. Very much so. Screw considering, she was a second away from executing. Her swarm moved to check all possible avenues of escape. Her finger continued to hover over the power button as she identified the best possible route. The window, the window - if she managed to reach it, she'd be fine. Unlock the latch, push it open, dive to the alley below. High enough to be dangerous, but not so high as to be impossible. Chorei already began to run the calculations, dredging up idle observations and mining them for data with the franticness of a woman who knew that unexpected visitors could herald very unpleasant ends. A girl stopping outside her tower on an unremarkable night had been the first in a long chain of events leading to her death, after all. How to drop, how to land, how to recover and sprint away at top speed.
'Real rude to leave a gentleman waiting. Step back, we can talk like civilised folk.'
The cowboy struck a match, sticking it into his pipe until the interior glowed red and smoke billowed around him. It looked like static in the air, nothing natural about it, a layer imposed onto a frozen picture. And still he moved. Taylor gulped, and for a second resisted Chorei's howls to run run run run run.
"What are you?"
'Irrelevant. Who is much more interesting, don't you think?'
"Alright, who? And how are you here?"
'...shucks, I had a name planned and everything. Feels silly now. Panopticon was one I was playing with - seems a bit unsubtle. Let's say… hm. Nice movie. Let's go with… Angel Eyes. Nice to meet you, Taylor.'
Angel Eyes grinned wide, his teeth flashing white as thunderbolts. The television was hissing, shivering - the dvd player was straining with the disk, flicking it forwards, backwards, forwards, backwards… it felt like the entire machine had become this thing's body. The player was his heart, pulsing over and over and over, driving him into existence. The box was his skull, and the wheezing from the back was the straining of tobacco-scarred lungs. Static strained around the edges of the screen. Taylor's hand wandered away from the power button, inched towards the power cord. All the while she kept her cold, cold eye fixed on Angel Eyes.
"And what are you? How did you get here?"
Angel Eyes grinned wider, the screen struggling to hold the image steady.
'Guess.'
Pull the cord. No, leave the cord, just run.
"No. Either tell me or I'm leaving."
Angel Eyes… twitched. There was a hint of nervousness in him now.
'Hey, come now, no need to be harsh. Just here to give some information.'
"Haven't explained what you are."
'Tinker, Christ, tinker.'
Taylor paused. Chorei was frozen in her head. Of all the things they expected… a parahuman wasn't one of them. Her eye narrowed. Lying? Quite possibly. She needed to probe deeper, make sure. Her mind wasn't itching, and reality was generally remaining stable. Nothing like what happened when the Frenzied Flame showed up, nor the force embodied in the mud token or the First Rifle… it felt… mundane. The TV was odd, but it wasn't going around leaking semi-organic fluids or chanting praises to an alien god she had no desire to get to know. Chorei was making no comments, just hovering at the back of her skull, stiff as a board, ready to act the moment it became necessary, and not a moment before, nor a moment after. Wait… what had Gallant said? Dammit, she only had a tiny window into how actual professional capes behaved. Gallant and Mouse Protector - and the latter was an independent who had rapidly become immersed in her own brand of freakishness. Right, that was it - Gallant had said stuff about masks.
"Capes don't usually approach other capes when they're unmasked."
Angel Eyes smirked.
'Hasn't stopped you before.'
Dammit. Had a point there. But that meant - shit, shit, shit. He knew about Gallant. What else did he-
'Hey, if you're going to be paranoid, do it on your own time. Your set has a terrible connection, rather not drag this out. So, amigo. Sign of good faith, hm?'
The screen changed. No more movie. Just… camera footage, grainy and unfocused. A stairwell in an anonymous tower. Taylor blinked… and dread filled her. She knew that stairwell. And as if on cue, a group ran up. A pseudo-leper. A woman in a mouse costume. A man in a Hawaiian shirt with burned-out eyes, a one-eyed Russian ex-mercenary, a woman with a skull for a head and stars instead of a brain… and her breath froze in her throat when she saw Gallant stumbling up. He looked awful. How had she not seen how close he was to breaking, how had she missed the signs? His eyes looked dry, even over the grainy camera… and his entire body sagged, energy draining out with each step. He walked with a staggering, shambling gait, barely able to keep moving in a straight line… she'd been an idiot. She was looking at the boy she helped kill, and had abandoned for his girlfriend to discover.
…one died, and the city was saved. The world, even.
Sometimes Taylor really disliked having a faintly sociopathic nun in her head. She was trying to help, and she appreciated that, but… sometimes she didn't want to be helped. Sometimes it was good to feel guilty without someone coming along to undermine it. And behind Gallant… her. Sprinting upwards, eye cold, hair matted with blood from where she'd had her skull carved up, lips stained where her teeth had been torn out by whispering worms. The footage flickered… and Angel Eyes was staring once more.
'Sign of good faith. Already being deleted as we speak, I promise that much.'
Taylor frowned.
"How can I be sure?"
The man blinked.
'...fair, amigo. Tell you what, I'll mail you the tape, you can destroy it yourself.'
"You could've made a copy."
His voice shifted to an irritated register, the sound crackling as whatever synthesiser the tinker was using strained to create a tone the character had never used.
'Be paranoid if you want. But I've got information, some you may be interested in. See, I've had my eyes on you. You were involved in that… Conflagration business.'
Be patient. Don't reveal too much. Test him, see what he knows.
"...and?"
'I'm aware you dealt with it. Not a big leap to make, towers go down, cult explodes simultaneously, all happens just after you enter this place and fight… something. All the cameras up there were fried. See, I'm aware you tussled with something nasty up there. Parahuman, possibly, but… well, I saw a lot of the weird shit that went down that night. Made it my business to help clean some of it up. All heroic-like, eh, amigo?'
The constant refrain of 'amigo' was bugging her - and wasn't it amiga? She wasn't sure, hadn't taken Spanish, but she felt like it should be amiga. Angel Eyes settled back in his chair, puffing more clouds of static from his pipe, the music looping over and over and over until it felt like she was going a little mad. Just a little.
'And I get the feeling you'd be interested in helping with that clean-up too.'
He wasn't wrong. Bisha's cult was dead, and she'd been injured during most of the cleanup, but… if she was aware of any lingering cells, anyone trying to revive his legacy, she'd come down on them like a tonne of possibly-schizophrenic bricks. She wasn't sure what schizophrenic bricks looked like, but she imagined they were painful to be struck by.
"I have no reason to trust you."
'Quite right, amigo. Quite right. But I ain't offering a partnership, not an alliance, certainly not a friendship. Just information. What you choose to do with it… that's up to you. Other people found that cult. Found things they shouldn't. One of them was Parian - local rogue. And let's just say she went missing real recently. Last night, actually. One second she's on all the relevant cameras, perfectly in sight… then gone. Walked down a dead-end alleyway and never returned.'
Angel Eyes leaned forward, his eyes shining.
'Left nothing behind but… this.'
He held up a sheet of paper, incongruously modern compared to the dated surroundings of the set. Plain, white, the kind of thing you'd drag out of a printer anywhere in the city. And scrawled on it in huge, black letters, etched so deep it pierced through in some places…
LOST
'Found this in her apartment. Here's the thing - nothing there before. No-one entered. No-one left. And suddenly the lights flicker and this thing's on her table. Ain't that just… unusual?'
Unusual. Definitely unusual.
'281 Almodovar street, amigo. Do with it what you will. And for now…'
He tipped his hat.
'Adios.'
The screen went dark.
Weariness was forgotten.
The day was oblivion.
She had purpose. She had something to focus on. She had some other cape scarred by Bisha, who was in trouble. Her body buzzed in a way it hadn't since she got out of hospital, old instincts clicking into place, everything abruptly making sense. The narrative of her life was coming together, plot holes vanishing, disappointing conclusions ceasing. She was finally back. Was it a trap? Possibly. Definitely a possibility. But she had a swarm, she had experience, and she had a nun in her skull.
Fuck it.
She was back.
Oh no no no no no no no no no.
AN: For old hands, this chapter is mostly new, but there are fragments of older chapters here. Specifically the hospital scene - if you already know about that, go ahead and skip it. The rest is new - as are the succeeding two chapters. Good to be back, fellas.
Brockton Bay cooked in the heat of early summer, and on the wide, grey beach, the seashells were bleeding.
It was a slow bleeding, and it had no constancy, no rhythm that a sane person could see. Sometimes red gems would appear, flowing slowly like tears made from molasses, trickling one after the other, an endless procession of droplets so perfectly formed they seemed to be utterly unique. One would catch the curves of a shell so well that it would briefly turn into a jagged star, sharp and smooth all at once. A small army of individuals marching steadily to the sand, where they could soak into a featureless red spot which would, eventually, be washed away entirely. Sometimes it was a rapid, pulsing flow - like an artery had been nicked, and an invisible heart secreted away in the convolutions of the shell was pulsing wildly, desperately, trying to repair a problem by surfeiting it until either the problem ceased or the heart did. And sometimes it was a single, solid, thump. A shell would be pristine, a mottled colour acquired only from the rigours of the ocean current, the shining of a dappled sun through boundless waves, and all of a sudden… changed. A single, perfect drop, splashing downwards like a signature. These one-drop shells almost seemed to sigh when they left - like a great tension had been released, a strain had ceased, and the shell could finally be at peace. And then the waves would come and wash away it all, shells, blood, everything. Even memory went with those crashing waves, and only a few youngsters would dimly remember when the beach was spotted in a way that was difficult to describe.
Almost no-one noticed the shells, of course. Not every shell bled, nor all of them at once. A few at a time, bleeding quietly, little travellers emerging from brittle labyrinths… that was easy to overlook. Especially with how quiet Brockton's beaches were at the moment. Leviathan's attack on Miami had aftershocks. The world was an interconnected thing, and repeated tidal waves in Miami was a hell of a butterfly's wing. A wave would crush a building in Florida, and in Brockton a strange current would rip a boat far out to sea with no warning. Shimmering jellyfish were randomly deposited from far shores as currents were malformed, and at night, when the moon hung like a great silver dollar in the sky, the mass of half-dead things shone like a vast, amorphous galaxy. A galaxy of jellyfish, it must be said, was far more interesting than a couple of aberrant shells. Almost no-one noticed… but a few did. A few.
One was a mosquito that decided to treat the shells as a little larder of its own. Mosquitoes generally shunned the thing, but this particular specimen had clearly undergone some sort of mutation, allowing it to overcome the habitual aversion of its cousins. She drank deep of it, this mosquito, at first drinking only of the droplets which had managed to reach the very fringes of the shells. Once on the sand they were absorbed in seconds, but at that vital moment, she could harvest all she needed. Her abdomen began to swell with eggs, ready to be laid in every stagnant pool she could find… but she delved a little deeper, fascinated by the odd taste. It was something she'd never experienced before. Something alien. Like… it was like the withdrawal of nectar from a glass flower, like nuclear pollen from the fat body of a Cherenkov-blue bee, like the choral rumbles of a stained-glass toad. Indescribable. To the mosquito, it was engrossing. A little more probing, a little more… her abdomen was heavy now, and she ought to leave. Indeed, a few of her kin buzzed around the exterior of the shell, humming agitatedly, sensing somehow that something was very, very wrong. The mosquito went deeper, deeper, pursuing the blood to its source, seeking it out, following the spiralling labyrinth to the beating of a tiny invisible heart, a little constant drum, signalling the approach of… something.
When the mosquito emerged, she seemed much the same. But the patterns she wove in the air during her flight, if mapped, would cause a headache in anyone who looked too deeply. She never laid her eggs, in the end. The next day she simply flew into a different shell and never returned. A few days later, every mosquito which had ever known her was dead. Not in an ominous way - they were mosquitoes, after all. Very small lifespans.
A few others found the shells. A couple of idle walkers who blinked, examined them closer, re-examined their conclusions, and walked away with the thoughts falling away with every step. A couple of unattended kids who thought it was some disgusting biological process - and thus, endlessly fascinating. Indeed, when a few Wards patrolled the boardwalk, one of them - Vista - couldn't help but wonder why the kids on the beach kept poking a shell with an expression of vague disappointment, some of them asking why it wasn't 'doing the thing'. Forgotten quickly. A man in a Hawaiian shirt had strolled down the beach at one point, collecting these shells and stuffing them inside a straining satchel with the furious gaze of someone utterly intent on a task. He'd pick up one, examine it slowly with his tongue slightly sticking out of the corner of his mouth, and usually it would be discarded into the ocean. But one or two were chosen among each batch - and he surveyed many, many batches. Sometimes a blind woman with a pair of crutches accompanied him, swinging along grunting in irritation, but never complaining at her companion's odd activity. Well, that was a stretch. She commented. And frequently.
"You keep stopping."
The man hummed, quietly examining another shell - a good specimen. The white of fresh-fallen snow, and each droplet pulsing from its depths was a tiny eye looking outwards, like an albino rabbit glaring at something it didn't know, understand, or particularly like. The woman scowled.
"Arch, you're really fucking pissing me off."
Arch glanced idly over his shoulder. His eyes were strange - it was for the best that the woman was blind. Burned out and reignited, bearing traces of both states at once. And in their collision was a complete, burning obsession.
"...they won't get in your way, Ted. Just for my own interest."
"It's still pissing me off."
He hummed again.
"You're doing well on the crutches."
"Like you give a shit."
"Easier than pushing you around."
"See, that sounds about right. Come on, keep going. I want a fucking ice cream."
"Hm."
"Order me double chocolate chip this time, don't be a cheap bitch."
"Hm."
This was the tenor of most of their conversations, and usually ended with a sullen ice cream and a tense car ride back to a dismal protein farm on the edge of the city. But this time… things were just a little different. The woman, Ellen by birth, Ted as a spur-of-the-moment decision she was adamantly clinging to regardless of the cost, was feeling unusually irritable. Saying something, that. Mosquitoes, mostly - they were acting up, and when one operated mostly by hearing, mosquitoes acting up was just about the worst thing to happen. It was interrupting her thoughts. And she had many. Bombs. Beautiful, perfect bombs, spherical, conical, square, all of them designed for some arcane purpose. Bastard mosquitoes… she could probably make something capable of killing them all. A bomb that could wipe out them and only them. Soon. Soon she'd be able to. Until then… she stumbled over the beach with the bleeding shells, her crutches crude, her prosthetic hands irritatingly simple, her legs still nothing but bare stumps concealed with artfully tied trousers… it was an effort. Every step was a nightmare, and her face ran freely with sweat. But it was something she could do alone. No more being pushed around by others - figuratively and literally. No more being a pitiable invalid. She'd hurt Cornell, she'd hurt Bisha, she'd hurt a lot of people who thought they could pin her down and make her dance to their tune.
No more.
Arch stopped again. Ellen almost ran into his back, grunting in irritation. Blindness was a bastard she was eager to kill soon enough. Great, her power could let her send a city back to the Stone Age, but it couldn't build her some fucking eyes.
"What the fuck is it now? This shell had better be worth it, or I'll take these crutches and…"
She trailed off. Something was wrong. Arch was standing very, very still. She couldn't tell, but he was staring off into the horizon, where the sun turned the sky a delicate red. The beach was better at this time. Before the night made it uncertain, but the setting sun gave everything a reality which other hours lacked. Night was formless, and the day brought warm, shifting sands. The kind that sucked at heels and slowed all progress to a halt. A nightmare for Ellen - or Ted, as she insisted being called in public. And Arch was ultimately a considerate individual. The fact that his visa had long-since expired and he was one nasty encounter away from getting deported back to England had nothing to do with the fact that he enjoyed walking on beaches in the evening. No, just… consideration for his footless, handless, eyeless roommate, and an appreciation for the hours when the sun lit the sky on fire, and the coolness was enough to make everything stable. He liked stable things. He'd seen enough chaos - the kind that kept burning behind his eyes.
A system of cells interlinked within cells interlinked within cells interlinked within one stem. An order so vast he couldn't quite understand it… and yet he tried. And as he looked into the sunset, his hand playing around yet another bleeding shell, he saw a fragment of that great order he had glimpsed in the burning tower. Between the stars, beyond the sun, lines were tracing in the gloom. Bones cast on a great dark surface. An omen, in a language he didn't understand nor could ever understand. His fingers were stained with ink from where he had been working earlier that day. His bag bulged with red-tinted shells. The stars were bound by more laws than physics could predict, and regardless of what others might think… he could see the tiny fluctuations. Dreams were easier, dreams were softer. Here, all he had were the bones of the world, shining like jewels in the dying sky. His head throbbed like an egg ready to hatch. His mouth curled into a frown.
The stars were moving.
Something was coming.
* * *
Taylor felt out of place here. This was strange, largely because she'd spent a good few weeks stuck in a place like this. The hospital was a flurry of strange beeps and bloops, pulsing machinery and twitching monitors. The people around her in the waiting room were from all walks of life, but were universally stricken with worry-lined faces, and those who had come in groups tended to cluster together like frightened hens. Taylor was alone. She didn't want to drag anyone else into this. Alone, and looking the way she did, it wasn't surprising that she felt so utterly divorced from her surroundings.
She flinched as her insects picked up a scrap of conversation elsewhere in the hospital - an old woman complaining that her lungs had grown worse recently, agitated by the dust produced by the 'Conflagration'. Taylor had saved the world, and exacerbated a pensioner's asthma in the process. Not a bad trade, in the grand scheme of things, but it still made her feel faintly shitty. The other patients kept their distance from the one-eyed, scarred girl who they were convinced had gold teeth. And didn't that make Taylor cringe internally. She was not a gold teeth person, she wasn't even a 'shiny metal' teeth person. If she was in a position where new teeth were required, she'd prefer enamel, or something textured to look like enamel. Not gaudy, hideous, but damnably non-corroding and lightweight gold. Painting them hadn't gone well, and the dentist had been happy to shove the things inside with far too much enthusiasm. Her jaw had ached for days, but at least she could chew food properly again. Except bananas. Turning metal teeth onto a banana tended to cleave through it with far too much ease to be comfortable, resulting in a distressingly loud 'clack' as metal met metal.
A woman stepped out from the office, looking around inquisitively.
"Miss Hebert?"
Taylor raised her hand.
"Wonderful, I can see you now. Come along."
The woman briskly walked away. Taylor stumbled to follow her, her gait still a little uncertain even after the crutch had ceased to be necessary. The office they entered was bland, covered in diplomas from prestigious institutions, and a half-dozen empty cups that had presumably once contained coffee. The doctor smoothly sat down behind her desk, steepling her fingers and looking appraisingly at Taylor. She abruptly felt more self-conscious about her teeth, her scars, her eyepatch, her everything, really. It would take some time to get used to all of this.
Instruct this woman to stop staring at the metal in our mouth.
They really needed to have that conversation about who actually owned this barely functional carcass.
"So, you're here to talk about your father."
"Uh, yes."
The doctor flipped through a file, checking a host of faintly ominous x-rays and graphs. Her lips were pursed. Taylor abruptly felt far more nervous. Dammit, she'd saved the world, she should be able to face a single doctor's appointment.
"We've been keeping him under observation for a while now, and I'm sorry to say that his condition simply isn't improving. There's no physical decline, not outside of the usual decline you'd expect from extended confinement to a bed. His body is completely healthy… but he simply refuses to wake up. Imaging can only do so much, I'm afraid, we're not sure exactly what's causing the coma. There are no obvious signs of neural damage, and we've reached the limits of what we can observe."
Her lips became more pursed.
"Miss Hebert, your father isn't going to be getting better any time soon. I understand that you're young, but I think you ought to be well-informed as to what's going on here, and the treatment we'll be providing."
She abruptly stood, placing a gentle hand on Taylor's stiff shoulder. The doctor tried to smile.
"We can show you the facilities we'll be using, and if you like you can visit your father afterwards."
Taylor tried to smile back. It didn't work very well.
"Sure."
The hospital embraced them entirely, swallowing the two whole as they progressed into its recesses. The corridors emptied until it was only the two of them, buried deep within a mass of concrete and advanced machinery. The doctor talked as she spoke, her tone faintly robotic - she'd done this before, more times to count, and used that routine as a shelter. This was a difficult topic, and retreating into routinised behaviour was something of a relief.
"These rooms are for our long-term comatose patients. We do everything we can to keep them comfortable, and under proper levels of observation. However, some people do express more… individual concerns, and we try to cater to those when practicable. This is one of our best rooms:"
She gestured as she came to a halt, her heels clacking loudly against the shiny floor. Taylor poked her head in - the room was currently vacant, but it looked… nice. Too nice. The bed was wide and comfortable, the sheets high-quality, and there was a small mound of machinery dedicated to monitoring and regulating all bodily functions. The doctor took her through them, piece by piece - muscle stimulants to slow any atrophy, personalised vitamin drips and nutrient feeds, subdermal monitors to ensure precise measurements, and a constant link to both a monitoring algorithm and a member of staff at the hospital. If her dad so much as breathed irregularly, he'd be noticed and attended to. This place was bigger than her new bedroom, practically the size of their living room. It had kit for days, comfortable furniture, everything she could possibly want. She was told success stories of how people were brought out of comas fully rested and ready to get back to work the next day, how their tiniest ailments were treated seconds before they became serious. It was a good room. But again… too good. She could imagine an enormous imaginary price tag stuck to the doorframe. And boy, was it enormous. She politely asked if there were any other rooms, and the doctor gave her a sympathetic look.
The next room they found was still good, but distinctly less so than the first. It was smaller, the bed was narrower, the machinery clearly older. There would be a smaller number of implants here, and those which were inserted would be of an older make and more primitive design. Monitoring would mostly be conducted by algorithm, it would be trusted to alert staff members to any discrepancies in her dad's readouts. The furniture was cheaper, the overall ambience less overtly welcoming than the first room. The window faced onto a wall, the natural light weak and pathetic. This was smaller than her new bedroom, and was clearly cheaper than their best room. It could be cheaper still if she accepted giving her dad a roommate. Still… it had perks. It had a good bed, it had clean sheets. The heating was functional, the air conditioning likewise perfectly serviceable. Her dad would be comfortable here, she understood that, but… he could have it better. She knew he wouldn't mind, but still… given that his coma was partially her fault, given that she was the one fighting Bisha, she felt guilty at the idea of stuffing him in a bargain-bin room. The doctor quietly showed her a small piece of paperwork which outlined the per annum costs of using this room. Her single eye widened. Chorei spluttered. They moved to a cheaper room.
This was their cheapest option, located at Taylor's request. The doctor was clearly reluctant - guilty that she had to show this place off, or annoyed that she was presenting something so shoddy? Whatever the reason… the room was bad. Damn bad. Mostly used by the poor and the unidentifiable, those who had no-one coming along to claim them but who had to be, according to the law, treated in a hospital as long as their conditions persisted. There were nearly a dozen beds in one long room, barely larger than the first room she'd seen. Each one was small and rickety, clearly decades old with comfort not a primary concern. There were no staff here, just an algorithm which politely dispensed bland nutrient feed and occasionally alerted a nurse to come along and massage their muscles to prevent bed sores. The other rooms had been empty, privacy was clearly a concern, but this had residents. Too cheap to afford isolation, it seemed. There was a single chair at one end of the room which could be moved around if she wanted to sit by her dad. The entire place stank of chemicals, and a grim part of her thought it could be formaldehyde. There were no windows, and the air conditioner rattled like a smoker's cough. It wasn't truly awful… but it was close. It wasn't somewhere she wanted to put her father, where he might have to live out the rest of his life. The doctor politely escorted her away, back to her bland - but clearly fairly comfortable - office.
"Now, you understand the options available - your father is being removed from observation later this week, we'll be putting him in the third room. Not that exact one, but it has a similar layout. If you'd like to put him somewhere nicer, I can arrange the paperwork… though I will need to talk, probably with your lawyer or guardian, about his health insurance."
His health insurance wouldn't remotely cover a nicer room. His life insurance was worthless, he wasn't dead so it refused to pay out. Insurance from work was useless too, he'd been injured at home. And all that was left was a cut-price medical insurance policy that he'd always treated with faint dread, nervous that he'd have to put his life in the hands of this shoddy thing. As a coma patient, he'd have to get this on a long-term basis, which made all the costs balloon outwards. Taylor felt sick. She'd done it, she'd won, she'd sacrificed so much to kill Bisha… and she couldn't pay for anything more than a rickety bed in the basement of the local hospital. If there was a chance that her dad could get better, she'd take it in a second… and she knew that just keeping him at home wasn't an option. He was a coma patient, he needed proper medical attention, not what she could manage to do with her limited experience and primitive tools. She made her excuses and left, promising to return with a guardian of some description, someone who could handle the paperwork. She had no intention to do so. She didn't have a guardian, the closest thing (legally) was Kurt and Lacey, and she'd never finalised that whole matter.
At Turk's - her - place, she scanned through the screen on a cheap laptop, trying to find anything she could. There was wonderful information about all the other treatment options available, at the higher end of the scale. Huge rooms, dedicated staff, all the implants money could buy… money she didn't have. She dug down through the pages, finding the bargain options. There wasn't much information, just a cold indicator that she could 'consult in person'. They didn't want to put pictures online. She searched elsewhere… and there the horror stories began. A scandal with the ABB, where they'd been involved in organ harvesting from a city hospital, stealing from coma patients. Another scandal where they had orderlies sell comatose women (and some men) as… well, dolls that breathed, but didn't complain. Taylor felt like she was about to vomit, her eyes glazing over yet always focusing hard on the screen, trying to take everything in. Scandals, failures, stories online about awful treatment. Some said they'd had no problems… but the problem with coma patients was that if a hospital had any problems with its treatment, they'd more than likely come up over the course of years. This wasn't a brief stay in intensive care, this was a long-term residence which might never end. A corrupt orderly, a psychotic nurse, an incompetent doctor… the longer her dad stuck around, the larger the chance that he'd fall victim to one of them. Maybe she was being pessimistic, but… hell, she'd used up all her luck a long time ago. And the world was starting to be more tight-fisted with how it distributed fortune, demanding substantial repayments and withholding future loans. She stumbled forwards through blind luck, and the world claimed a few bits of her as recompense. She was lucky enough to kill Bisha, and in exchange she was brutalised until she could barely walk. Lucky enough to survive Vandeerleuwe, and in exchange she almost died on a frozen lake. And even after all of that, she still felt as though her debt wasn't quite paid. It certainly explained her current situation.
She wanted to leave Brockton… and here she was. Stuck. She needed to give her dad the best possible chance of recovery, but to do that she needed money, which she distinctly lacked. She couldn't just ask her friends for help, they had problems of their own, had already helped her an absurd amount. Even now she was sponging off Turk by using his apartment as her own. She couldn't leave as long as her dad was in his condition, and his condition might last years… might last the rest of his life. Of her life, if she kept pushing herself. She refused to put him in that room, she couldn't even countenance the idea. Solutions rattled by, each one more delusional than the last. She sagged back on her bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. Chorei interjected, speaking for the first time in over an hour.
You are distressed.
"Well observed. Yeah, I'm distressed."
We require capital.
"Yep."
Have you considered crime?
"Of course I've considered it. But just think - I can't go around stealing from everyone, that'd make me a villain, and would put me on the PRT's radar, not to mention the police. I'm friends with a cop, I couldn't hide from them for long. And I already used my powers once in front of Armsmaster, they're definitely still keeping tabs on a bug-related cape. I could rob the gangs, but… how? And who? There are just two gangs worth stealing from, the ABB and the E88. One of them has a paranoid dragon in charge - and he doesn't have a lieutenant to take care of rival parahumans. I rob him, I have to deal with Lung, no Oni Lee to go through. E88 is big, professional. They won't just leave their money in huge piles for me to take. And that's assuming I'll be able to do anything before the PRT find me."
She sighed.
"And more than that, I'm alone. I can't drag the others into this. Turk has a business, Sanagi's a cop, Ahab's got one arm and is easily recognisable, Arch wouldn't be much help."
Hm.
"Yeah."
I can't think of a way out.
Taylor rolled over on her side, pressing her face against the bed. She sniffed.
"Yeah. Me neither."
There was silence between the two, Chorei understanding how she felt but incapable of handling it. She'd abandoned her parents, and had always regretted the decision to leave their lives so completely. She knew how it felt… but she'd never found a solution. Just wrote it off as a lost cause and absorbed herself in her work. After a few decades, it stopped mattering. A few decades more, and her hometown was completely gone. The problem became a purely emotional one. Taylor… she was in a situation Chorei had never found herself in. She didn't know how to respond, but she tried.
Would you like to watch something?
"Hm?"
Anything you want.
"...I think I'm OK."
Chorei felt a spark of indignation rise up. She was trying to help, she very rarely did this! If she was still a nun, she'd have started to talk about the impermanence of life, how one should let go of all attachments. But she'd never done that herself, not successfully. And she'd be a right asshole if she preached what she had never succeeded in practising.
Come on. Movie. Get up. You'll feel better.
Taylor groaned and sat up. She couldn't escape Chorei, nor her nagging. There was no way out of this situation from her perspective. With a long grumble, she stumped into the tiny space that passed for a 'living room' in their apartment. A tiny TV with a scratched piece of plastic where the logo used to be, which she was fairly certain had been built several decades ago and was probably irradiating her organs, flickered into life after a substantial amount of prodding. Taylor had accumulated a good few movies over the last few weeks, mostly from plundering thrift stores and delving into the world of video rental - she was surprised rental places still existed, but exist they did, clinging to the surface of Brockton like a stubborn limpet in the Boat Graveyard. It was still the middle of the afternoon, and the screen was halfway invisible in the sunlight, prompting Taylor to shut the curtains and plunge the room into a warm, musty gloom. Chorei said nothing, but Taylor could feel her growing enthusiasm. That alone cheered her up a bit - for an immortal nun, she was very easily entertained. A moving picture was as fascinating to her now as it was when she had first seen one many years ago.
Taylor slipped a disk into the battered player, tolerating the way the aged machine whined and hissed as it activated, keening reluctantly as it pored through masses of information and translated it into something visible. Lights flashed, and music began to play over tinny speakers. Taylor could sense Chorei leaning forwards eagerly - if Gallant was still around, she imagined he'd see a centipede doing some sort of excited motion, maybe figure-eights or loop-de-loops. Thinking of him sparked off more guilt, a renewed sense of impotence. She settled back into the overstuffed couch, staring vaguely at the screen. A lone man rode across the desert towards a solitary ranch, into which a frightened child ran. Music thrummed. The image stuck with her - a wanderer riding through the desert, devoid of any binding duties or crippling obligations. She thought that would be her, soon enough. Now, though… she didn't know. She just didn't know. Chorei hummed in interest as the first lines of dialogue began to fill the room. Taylor found an involuntary smile crossing her lips. At least she was sad in company. That made things marginally better, right?
'You're from Baker? Tell him that I told him all that I know already. Tell him I want to live in peace, understand?'
Her single eye unfocused a little, and Chorei had to mentally slap her a few times to refocus, to make the image she was getting that bit clearer. Taylor tried to put together more plans - but they all ran into the same set of problems. She was too young for a regular job, and even if she wasn't, she might not be able to make remotely enough money. That left cape work… and that would involve drawing attention she didn't want, forming connections that wouldn't break easily, pulling her into a world she'd been eager to never enter. Maybe she could sell the First Rifle? It was lying quietly in a wooden box buried near the protein farm, far enough that Chorei assured her it wouldn't affect any of the residents there. That could fetch a very pretty penny… no, maybe not. It was a dangerous object, still pulsing with a desire for conflict, mourning the loss of the mud token which had empowered it. By selling it to someone willing to pay a proper price, she'd only attract the wrong sort of attention. As the dialogue continued, she tried to banish those thoughts. She'd deal with it later. Opportunities would come - they had to.
'I think his idea was that I kill you. But you know, the pity is, when I'm paid… I always follow my job through. You know that.'
'No pistol amigo. It won't do you any good.'
There was a pause. Chorei began to coo a little over the character's moustache… what was the actor called? She remembered something… Lee Van Cleef, something along those lines. The actors were frozen in place. Taylor blinked/winked (not that there was much difference for her at this point), her attention sharpening. Music was continuing to play, tense strings rising higher and higher, but the actors were locked in place. Something wrong with the television? Or was this just a very artsy movie? She couldn't imagine people would rave about it so much if there were just random pauses… Chorei shifted uncomfortably. Something was definitely wrong. She reached for the set - no remote, too old. Her finger hovered over the power button…
'Don't you go changing the channel now, amigo.'
She froze. Chorei locked up in her mind, as frozen as a set of loosely aligned memories could be - which was pretty damn frozen as frozen things went. Her eye flicked up. Lee Van Cleef was staring down at her, his moustache crinkling a little as he smirked coldly. His narrow eyes were glinting like tiny stones, his cheeks seemed to be chiselled from flint. The actor he sat alongside was unresponsive, silent, paralysed. Taylor found her breath coming a little faster, reactions she'd spent weeks trying to suppress coming back at full force. All the nightmares after Bisha, all the occasional moments of zoning out… they were at the forefront of her mind, the memories as sharp as winter cold. The freakish world she'd interacted with had come back to her. It was in her home. And she was alone.
Run.
She was very much considering running. Very much so. Screw considering, she was a second away from executing. Her swarm moved to check all possible avenues of escape. Her finger continued to hover over the power button as she identified the best possible route. The window, the window - if she managed to reach it, she'd be fine. Unlock the latch, push it open, dive to the alley below. High enough to be dangerous, but not so high as to be impossible. Chorei already began to run the calculations, dredging up idle observations and mining them for data with the franticness of a woman who knew that unexpected visitors could herald very unpleasant ends. A girl stopping outside her tower on an unremarkable night had been the first in a long chain of events leading to her death, after all. How to drop, how to land, how to recover and sprint away at top speed.
'Real rude to leave a gentleman waiting. Step back, we can talk like civilised folk.'
The cowboy struck a match, sticking it into his pipe until the interior glowed red and smoke billowed around him. It looked like static in the air, nothing natural about it, a layer imposed onto a frozen picture. And still he moved. Taylor gulped, and for a second resisted Chorei's howls to run run run run run.
"What are you?"
'Irrelevant. Who is much more interesting, don't you think?'
"Alright, who? And how are you here?"
'...shucks, I had a name planned and everything. Feels silly now. Panopticon was one I was playing with - seems a bit unsubtle. Let's say… hm. Nice movie. Let's go with… Angel Eyes. Nice to meet you, Taylor.'
Angel Eyes grinned wide, his teeth flashing white as thunderbolts. The television was hissing, shivering - the dvd player was straining with the disk, flicking it forwards, backwards, forwards, backwards… it felt like the entire machine had become this thing's body. The player was his heart, pulsing over and over and over, driving him into existence. The box was his skull, and the wheezing from the back was the straining of tobacco-scarred lungs. Static strained around the edges of the screen. Taylor's hand wandered away from the power button, inched towards the power cord. All the while she kept her cold, cold eye fixed on Angel Eyes.
"And what are you? How did you get here?"
Angel Eyes grinned wider, the screen struggling to hold the image steady.
'Guess.'
Pull the cord. No, leave the cord, just run.
"No. Either tell me or I'm leaving."
Angel Eyes… twitched. There was a hint of nervousness in him now.
'Hey, come now, no need to be harsh. Just here to give some information.'
"Haven't explained what you are."
'Tinker, Christ, tinker.'
Taylor paused. Chorei was frozen in her head. Of all the things they expected… a parahuman wasn't one of them. Her eye narrowed. Lying? Quite possibly. She needed to probe deeper, make sure. Her mind wasn't itching, and reality was generally remaining stable. Nothing like what happened when the Frenzied Flame showed up, nor the force embodied in the mud token or the First Rifle… it felt… mundane. The TV was odd, but it wasn't going around leaking semi-organic fluids or chanting praises to an alien god she had no desire to get to know. Chorei was making no comments, just hovering at the back of her skull, stiff as a board, ready to act the moment it became necessary, and not a moment before, nor a moment after. Wait… what had Gallant said? Dammit, she only had a tiny window into how actual professional capes behaved. Gallant and Mouse Protector - and the latter was an independent who had rapidly become immersed in her own brand of freakishness. Right, that was it - Gallant had said stuff about masks.
"Capes don't usually approach other capes when they're unmasked."
Angel Eyes smirked.
'Hasn't stopped you before.'
Dammit. Had a point there. But that meant - shit, shit, shit. He knew about Gallant. What else did he-
'Hey, if you're going to be paranoid, do it on your own time. Your set has a terrible connection, rather not drag this out. So, amigo. Sign of good faith, hm?'
The screen changed. No more movie. Just… camera footage, grainy and unfocused. A stairwell in an anonymous tower. Taylor blinked… and dread filled her. She knew that stairwell. And as if on cue, a group ran up. A pseudo-leper. A woman in a mouse costume. A man in a Hawaiian shirt with burned-out eyes, a one-eyed Russian ex-mercenary, a woman with a skull for a head and stars instead of a brain… and her breath froze in her throat when she saw Gallant stumbling up. He looked awful. How had she not seen how close he was to breaking, how had she missed the signs? His eyes looked dry, even over the grainy camera… and his entire body sagged, energy draining out with each step. He walked with a staggering, shambling gait, barely able to keep moving in a straight line… she'd been an idiot. She was looking at the boy she helped kill, and had abandoned for his girlfriend to discover.
…one died, and the city was saved. The world, even.
Sometimes Taylor really disliked having a faintly sociopathic nun in her head. She was trying to help, and she appreciated that, but… sometimes she didn't want to be helped. Sometimes it was good to feel guilty without someone coming along to undermine it. And behind Gallant… her. Sprinting upwards, eye cold, hair matted with blood from where she'd had her skull carved up, lips stained where her teeth had been torn out by whispering worms. The footage flickered… and Angel Eyes was staring once more.
'Sign of good faith. Already being deleted as we speak, I promise that much.'
Taylor frowned.
"How can I be sure?"
The man blinked.
'...fair, amigo. Tell you what, I'll mail you the tape, you can destroy it yourself.'
"You could've made a copy."
His voice shifted to an irritated register, the sound crackling as whatever synthesiser the tinker was using strained to create a tone the character had never used.
'Be paranoid if you want. But I've got information, some you may be interested in. See, I've had my eyes on you. You were involved in that… Conflagration business.'
Be patient. Don't reveal too much. Test him, see what he knows.
"...and?"
'I'm aware you dealt with it. Not a big leap to make, towers go down, cult explodes simultaneously, all happens just after you enter this place and fight… something. All the cameras up there were fried. See, I'm aware you tussled with something nasty up there. Parahuman, possibly, but… well, I saw a lot of the weird shit that went down that night. Made it my business to help clean some of it up. All heroic-like, eh, amigo?'
The constant refrain of 'amigo' was bugging her - and wasn't it amiga? She wasn't sure, hadn't taken Spanish, but she felt like it should be amiga. Angel Eyes settled back in his chair, puffing more clouds of static from his pipe, the music looping over and over and over until it felt like she was going a little mad. Just a little.
'And I get the feeling you'd be interested in helping with that clean-up too.'
He wasn't wrong. Bisha's cult was dead, and she'd been injured during most of the cleanup, but… if she was aware of any lingering cells, anyone trying to revive his legacy, she'd come down on them like a tonne of possibly-schizophrenic bricks. She wasn't sure what schizophrenic bricks looked like, but she imagined they were painful to be struck by.
"I have no reason to trust you."
'Quite right, amigo. Quite right. But I ain't offering a partnership, not an alliance, certainly not a friendship. Just information. What you choose to do with it… that's up to you. Other people found that cult. Found things they shouldn't. One of them was Parian - local rogue. And let's just say she went missing real recently. Last night, actually. One second she's on all the relevant cameras, perfectly in sight… then gone. Walked down a dead-end alleyway and never returned.'
Angel Eyes leaned forward, his eyes shining.
'Left nothing behind but… this.'
He held up a sheet of paper, incongruously modern compared to the dated surroundings of the set. Plain, white, the kind of thing you'd drag out of a printer anywhere in the city. And scrawled on it in huge, black letters, etched so deep it pierced through in some places…
LOST
'Found this in her apartment. Here's the thing - nothing there before. No-one entered. No-one left. And suddenly the lights flicker and this thing's on her table. Ain't that just… unusual?'
Unusual. Definitely unusual.
'281 Almodovar street, amigo. Do with it what you will. And for now…'
He tipped his hat.
'Adios.'
The screen went dark.
Weariness was forgotten.
The day was oblivion.
She had purpose. She had something to focus on. She had some other cape scarred by Bisha, who was in trouble. Her body buzzed in a way it hadn't since she got out of hospital, old instincts clicking into place, everything abruptly making sense. The narrative of her life was coming together, plot holes vanishing, disappointing conclusions ceasing. She was finally back. Was it a trap? Possibly. Definitely a possibility. But she had a swarm, she had experience, and she had a nun in her skull.
Fuck it.
She was back.
Oh no no no no no no no no no.
133 - Unheimlich
GraftingBuddha
Retired Pooh-Bah
133 - Unheimlich
Sabah was lost.
Sabah was very very very lost.
Lost. Coming to us from Old English, from losian or los, meaning to be lost or to go astray. It had other meanings. To perish, to destroy. That felt right. To come to nothing, or to decay That felt even more correct. And… to escape. She wished. In being lost there was escape in the labyrinth there was an escape there was always a route out and no way out no way out no way out. She found herself starting back. Made sense. This place wouldn't let her go. The buildings were teeth, the streets were a sandpaper-dry tongue. She wasn't… wasn't sure how she entered this place. When had it been that she'd come here? Felt like forever, No, further back, before this place. What had she been before? Her name was Sabah. She lived in Brockton Bay. She was Parian. She had a job, she was a college student, she was studying engineering - no, no, fashion design. Iraq. Basra. The heat of the sun, barely remembered now. She was a cape. She was a cape. Memories came and went like waves, sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker, with no rhyme or reason. The first time she touched silk was sharp to the point of being painful. And… and when she became Parian was nothing at all. A hazy thing that ran away if she poked too deeply. An hour ago it'd been the other way around, and her horizons were swept up in that moment, in that dark apartment, and she'd succumbed. Fell over, shivered while things walked through the streets.
She was in… she was in a city, right? Brockton? No, not Brockton, everything was wrong, the angles were wrong, the shadows were wrong, the light was wrong - get out of the sunlight get out of the sunlight. When she saw the sun the roaring became louder, rushing into her ears, and she felt something behind her, something that had spotted her. She clung to the alleys, to the corners of streets, far away from anything too open. Good. There weren't any broad streets in this city, no squares, nothing. No planning, no logic, no grid. Just… meaningless construction, building upon building, sign upon sign, all coalescing and collapsing and merging and dividing over and over and over and over and over and- stop, stop, calm down. Her breathing was coming faster. Her dress was filthy. The drains leaked things other than mud and rain, and sometimes it leapt. And then it would cling, like a leech, and she'd be forced to either tear them free or allow the tiny black squirming masses to stick to her clothes, watching with eyes she couldn't see but she could sense. No, couldn't let them remain. Her fingers were dirty. Her fingernails were ragged. She was so very, very tired.
Sabah sagged against a wall, the brick pulsating beneath her fingers like a spongy bed of moss. Her fingers sank in, and she felt it groaning, whispering to her in a language she didn't understand. She didn't even notice at this point. What was the point? Nothing here was right. The walls pulsed and sighed, and she didn't dare go down any alleyways. She'd seen what happened to someone else who'd gone there. When the walls came to consume him… he almost seemed happy. He'd wept tears of joy that the walls greedily drunk up as they lovingly welcomed him. Did she see that? Was that imaginary? Was it just showing what it could do to her? She… no, she'd been alone, there was no-one else, she was imagining things. Lunatic. Streetlights shone down a sickly white light, the kind that cut the night apart in harsh outlines. Blocks of reality amidst a sea of indefinable things.
She passed a vending machine filled to the brim with glass bottles, each one containing nothing but a single tooth. She'd tried to make some sense of that, once. Once. But… this place ate her attention. Bite by bite, sliver by sliver, her attention was worn and digested and regurgitated. She looked at a street too long and the tarmac began to swim, taking new shapes, hungry mouths gnawing at the soles of her feet. Neon signs swam into incomprehensible symbols if she studied them, and a moment later she'd be somewhere else, surrounded by new, alien buildings and an endless whisper. The vending machine would soon be full of things worse than teeth. If she was going to guess… they were going to start speaking soon. As she ran, she could hear the first whispers.
Parian - no, no, Sabah, she was Sabah, she had a name - had learned not to blink for too long.
Learned not to go into the buildings.
Learned not to listen to the distant roaring, like the crashing of the sea.
Sweat trickled down her forehead, cold as dead hands grasping at her. With how these walls were breathing… maybe that wasn't too far from the truth. The taste of salt reminded her of the sea. Made her think of the roaring. The roaring wasn't waves. Waves weren't so constant. Waves didn't sound so hungry. She couldn't tell where the sweat ended and the tears began, but began they did, and cease they did not.
How did she get here?
Memories sharpening, vision darkening. Present recedes, past advances, future dwindles into nothing. Nothing lost there, the roaring was coming closer. She didn't have a future.
Started with someone at her university. Barnabas College, right, she still remembered that, this place hadn't gnawed away at that much at least. Engineering. Then fashion design, a quick shift. But she still held onto some notions of harmonious geometry, the kind of thing her professors loved to bleat about during the quieter hours. Right, right, she'd been studying, and… and someone had vanished. Not a friend, not someone she particularly liked or hated, just… a classmate. And she was a cape. Might not be a hero, but she still had a functioning conscience. Enough to drive her to investigate. Turned out the guy - Aaron, that was it - had been associating with an unusual crowd. A homeless community which lived in a few abandoned buildings, the kind that stuck to itself and refused any hints of charity with deep-seated bitterness. A nighttime jaunt brought her into contact with… yes, yes. Memories were sharpening. There was meaning in them. A pattern of causality that she could follow, and in that causality was stability. She'd been a cape investigating a case, and nothing more. Everything followed logically. Good enough to be a novel. She'd come into contact with a few homeless people, but they weren't… talkative. That was a lie, some were talkative, but invariably about the wrong things. Pointed her towards someone who might help, someone who'd been living in the buildings before… something happened, before the old crowd moved out at once and never returned. Not the same, at least.
Some new cape. Young, too. A kid, really. Utterly filthy, stank of trash, had been living in some abandoned buildings for a while, moving constantly, rarely staying in one place for long. She had the wide eyes of someone who wasn't used to company, especially not from other capes. Did she have a name… no, nothing solidified. She had an idea to do with raccoons, but that was it. Tinker, specialised in trash, seemed appropriate. Never revealed their real names to each other. But the kid had told her about how homeless people were vanishing, one by one, then in greater and greater numbers. She'd only heard… heard about something being swapped around. Some new drug. Something that they'd take once, and sometimes they'd never recover from, sometimes they'd die on the spot, and sometimes… they'd walk away with fire in their eyes. And a week later they'd be selling more of this stuff. So Parian and the kid had looked into it further, pooling their talents, their resources, their information.
She'd felt… a little protective of her, sure. She was a kid. Homeless, and never explained why that was the case. And she kept gnawing on random pieces of trash dug out from various dumpsters, nibbling around any patches of mould. Parian might not be rich by any means, mostly did promotional gigs for stores, but she could still afford the occasional hamburger. The girl had been… much more enthusiastic about their partnership once she got some actual hot, fresh food down her. And for a while that'd been it. Investigations, digging deeper… so many leads wound up nowhere. People had vanished completely, like the earth had swallowed them. But the more they probed, the more invisible bodies they found, the more spaces where people should be, now occupied by empty air. People were vanishing in huge numbers. More than should be possible, more than should ever have gone unnoticed… but so many were the homeless, the dispossessed, the isolated, the people who wouldn't be missed. One by one by one until dozens had disappeared. Their search had become more frantic, more desperate.
And then they'd found it.
They'd found a place where a dealer was still present.
Light
So much light.
Next thing Parian - no, Sabah, Sabah, she was Sabah - knew, she was running home with her eyes painfully dry, her stomach heaving, her mind burning at the sight of something she still couldn't get her mind around. It'd been a church, full of people, all of them with their mouths wide, wide, wide open, flesh like wax draped over a wire frame… and what they'd said, what they'd sung, what they'd prayed to… even now, with time between her and it, the memory was enough to make her freeze. The kid had come with her. The two had huddled in her apartment, guarding every door, every window. Trash piled up - more tools for the tinker, more power for her to use against those things. And then… then the city had begun to collapse. The two of them had looked at one another when the bombs started, began to move to the door, ready to help… and they'd seen yellow lights bloom. People were laughing in the streets.
They'd managed a few hours out there before it all went to hell. Before they'd been noticed. A desperate flight to anywhere that would take them, hiding, always hiding, never attacking the cult. It knew them. It remembered their faces, their names. And the voice, the voice that had come from those things…
No.
She wouldn't remember that voice.
She couldn't.
And then it had ended. A few climactic explosions piercing the torrential rain which covered the city, something howling, and… that was it. The cult burned. The crisis was over. Then all that remained was the cleanup, bodies hauled onto boats were they could be taken for 'disposal'. The stink had been horrific. The kid had lingered for a while, but they couldn't see one another without remembering how they'd run from the fight, how they'd hidden away, how they'd come close to the truth but had run away at the last moment. The narrative had been disrupted. Causality had broken. They should've kept going, should've investigated further. But they hadn't. Too cowardly. Too weak. And then it had ended without their help, and the world just… span on.
She could have stopped this and didn't.
She was no longer what she once was.
If there was one thing which united parahumans, it was the fact that their trauma had a purpose. It had taken them to the lowest lows, and they'd come back with something. Like a diver enduring intense pressure to reach the brightest pearl of them all. And as much as she recognised her power's weaknesses… it was validation. The kid had been the same way. Whenever they were at work, using their powers properly, everything clicked. The yellow light undermined it all. When that was around… everything turned to static, sense dissolved, and it became the new centre of their world, the new point around which all things revolved. And it was a hungry chaos, it didn't stabilise, it just ate until nothing remained. Everything they'd done… it was nothing to it. Their investigations hadn't scratched the surface, they hadn't been worth killing, and in the end, the chaos had unfolded without their interference, ended without their intervention.
She could have stopped this and didn't.
The narrative had been broken. The world had felt paper-thin. Her apartment had become a den of paranoia - measuring tapes glued to the walls, blackout curtains at first, then boards to seal the windows shut. Hoarding cans and bottles. The kid dwelled in the kitchen, building more and more esoteric things from trash… until one day she simply left. Up and departed. No note, nothing. Her eyes were wide and fearful before she went, though. Probably running to find another place, to get away from Parian's madhouse. They'd never shared names. Seen each other without their mask, sure, but never exchanged proper names. She regretted that. She regretted a lot of things. And then… then she'd made a wrong turn.
That was it.
A wrong turn.
An alleyway where the holes in her own story started to widen until she fell through them and… vanished. Something had been behind her. Something with long, long fingers, something that roared in bursts of deafening static. Something that was hunting her now, in this… this place. She'd given up trying to understand it. Understanding fed this place. Understanding made it stronger - the more attention she paid, the more it was fed, the fatter it became. She'd studied one alley for too long, tried to figure out where she was… and the bricks began to weep tears of the purest blue, the blue of liquid methane, and she knew from the moment they began that they were happy. The walls began to grow inwards, hungry for more… she ran. Only thing she could do.
The roaring was coming closer. The not-sea was approaching. Had the kid experienced this? Had the kid fallen through one of these gaps, a place where the world had worn thin and people like them could just… enter? Everything around her was void of meaning. It felt… like those awful days in the apartment, waiting for something to happen, knowing that she'd glimpsed the truth and had run from it. This place was feeding on it like a bloated tick. All the forgotten conclusions, all the unresolved questions, all of them were here - not the answers, not the endings, just… just the ambiguity. The hungering ambiguity. Something had shattered when she gave up on investigating that cult. And something black as pitch had welled out of those cracks, something hungry. And she'd simply been one of its meals.
She could have stopped this and didn't.
She sagged to the ground. The street sagged underneath her. A shopfront lay in front of her, and she could see red handprints pressing against the inside of the dark glass. Hands seeking her. Ambiguities trying to swallow her whole. The roaring was approaching - and a foul taste filled her mouth, sharp as rust. Long, long fingers in the dark. Tearing, hacking away, ready to erase her piece by piece, disappear into a mystery of her own creation. It wouldn't be quiet. It wouldn't be peaceful. There would be screaming, and some of it would be hers.
Closer.
Closer.
Footsteps.
Footsteps?
Parian opened her eyes, and someone else was here. No-one was here. No-one walked these streets but her. This place ate one person at a time, savoured them, cherished them, let them run around the taste buds until it had extracted all it wanted from her. And then the walls would crunch and she would be no more. The thing was coming, the thing with long fingers. A tooth, a single molar bearing down around her, ready to - no, no, someone was here, someone was here. Someone was shaking her shoulders, trying to bring her back to reality. Concerned eyes stared - no, one eye, just the one.
"Hey!"
A voice! Someone's voice! She'd learned not to talk in this place. The walls swallowed sound and gave nothing back. She'd stopped speaking when the walls had made it clear they enjoyed devouring speech. No, no, sharpen. The world began to clear up. A worried face was in front of her, pale, scarred. One eye. The hands grabbing her were unnaturally tough, covered in faintly shining scars, dozens and dozens, hardened until they seemed to have the consistency of metal. The graffiti on the wall opposite her was shifting like a mass of eels, reforming into something new, something hungry. An image - a silhouette of a man, standing eerily behind the girl. An absence on the brickwork. Looking at it… she felt herself sinking down a little, almost hypnotised. In it, she could see something unimaginable. Something that would take her apart, shell by shell, until nothing remained. Peel her like an onion, layer by layer, layer by layer, until nothing remained and it could cast her away into the dark. Not restful dark. It wasn't human. It wasn't modelled on a human. It was filling a human up, wearing it like a party mask, a shell covering something raw and squirming and not. The silhouette began to expand in her eyes, larger and larger, a body-mouth, a mouth-body, a stomach that was a mouth that was a jaw that was a single aching tooth and the tooth was a tower and the tower was her and she was who and what and why and where and when and how?
The girl was moving, a half-shape in front of the silhouette, unreal compared to real unreality. Presence swallowed by absence. How could she not see? How could she not see the cracks in the world? How could she not see the ambiguities which swallowed her up? How could she not hear the chewing at the edge of the world? How could she not hear the roar? Long fingers creeping around the brickwork. The girl was reaching - her fingers weren't so long, and Parian relaxed a little. Not so long. Not so-
"Sorry about this. Just… try and relax."
A pause.
"OK, Chorei…"
Light.
A blazing tapestry of self. Infinite, but understandable. Reasonable patterns, basic motifs, repeated over and over, utterly complex yet completely harmonious. Ambiguity fled. This was certain - there was variation, but within acceptable bounds. It could do a variety of things, but impossibilities existed. The margins were known and accepted. An infinity lay between zero and one, but here, it all collapsed down to understandable values. Parian looked at a mind which was stable. Which was real. And complete. It had seen stories brought to an end, ambiguity meant nothing, ambiguity didn't consume it. Not like her. Nothing like her. Dark surrounded her on all sides, the city was no more, all that remained was a true labyrinth. No minotaur. No splitting routes. Just a single path which obeyed conventional laws and always finished where it should. It was neat where she was messy and incomplete. The silhouette faded from memory and sight, graffiti squirming away, the absence disappearing. The long fingers vanished - had they ever been present? Were they her own? The labyrinth was glorious, it was something she could stare at for… the girl slapped her. Huh. Oh. Ow. That hurt.
That hurt.
She could still hurt! Unambiguous causality - a slap was painful. It was complete, in a way that this place was not. Sense was returning. Memories were falling into their right places. Something certain was before her, someone who this place had no interest in consuming. The walls were more stable around her. Everything was - even the sun (don't look at it don't look at it) was a little dimmer, a little less violent. The roaring receded slightly. Just enough for her to feel comfortable talking above a whisper.
"...who…?"
Voice was dry from disuse. How long had she been here? Days? No, couldn't be, she'd… it felt like days, certainly. But for whatever reason she knew that wasn't true. But nonetheless, her limbs were weary, her voice was quiet and stiff, her brain felt like it had been stuffed with cotton wool. Her telekinesis moved idly - it was moving. When had it stopped? When had she stopped trying to use it? When had she… this place had taken things from her. And bit by bit, she was getting them back. Even a second of certainty was enough.
"Parian, right?"
"...y…yes."
The girl was young, but held herself like she'd seen more than anyone her age should. Reminded her of the kid. Just a little.
"You sound awful. Here - water."
Her mask? Where was her - gone. Lost. She should've been more nervous at someone seeing her face, but… this place was terrifying enough, identity exposure was tame by comparison. If this girl wanted to save her, so what if she was maskless. A few blessed drops crossed her lips - cold, pure, the best thing she'd ever tasted. The cold burst throughout her chest, a spreading icy spiderweb that brought life to the lifeless. The city was clearer than ever… not always a good thing. But there were no hands, the silhouette was gone, things were starting to make a little more sense. Whatever held her here was weakened.
"T…thank you."
Her eyes widened.
"How did you get here? How-"
"Nevermind that. We're getting out, ask those questions later. I think I have the route back to where I came in."
She hauled Parian up with contemptuous ease. Each movement stirred more life into her, enough to make her thoughts more fluid, more… present. Dangers. This place had things to avoid, and she'd been here long enough - the girl was walking casually in the direction of the street. The light was dull and grey - it always looked harmless, up until you stepped into it. She reached out, grabbing the girl's arm, dragging her back.
"Don't go into the sunlight."
"...why?"
"I…"
How could she explain? That there was a roaring in the distance, that it came closer when the sunlight shone, that the sun was watching them from on high? How could she say any of that without sounding insane? With lucidity came sanity, and with sanity came reticence. She couldn't just say that - maybe this was all a hallucination, maybe-
"Don't worry about sounding crazy. I'm used to it."
"...there's a roaring. It comes closer if you stand in the sun. I think it's… watching me, somehow. Stay out of the wider streets."
The girl hummed thoughtfully, concentrating on something in the distance.
"...alright. Another route."
Something downright bizarre happened then - a flood of insects poured into the alley from all directions. For a second Parian was about to scream - but the cloud flowed past her, not even touching her clothes. The swarm spread down every path, and the girl looked focused… another parahuman? Insect control? Her immediate thought was 'that sounds fucking terrifying'. And the fact that she could think that instinctually at all was… oh, it was beautiful. She was Sabah. She was Parian. She loathed forks with bent tines. She had a blood type, she had recurring nightmares, she had interests, hobbies, loves, hates, all the things which made up a person. And she had one unsolved mystery that had consumed her life. She was a person, complete as anyone else. This place retreated a little from that thought, the roaring receding once more. The girl strode off resolutely, and Parian followed. Her telekinesis reached outwards, automatically clinging to anything small enough to be manipulated - like an infant grabbing anything it touched. It was hers. Her own power. Hers and hers alone.
Parian was alive.
Taylor was feeling particularly determined at the moment. More determined than she'd felt since Bisha. This was what she was good at, what she'd become used to doing. Running a tea shop? Barely competent. Studying for her GED? Over-reliant on a nun with an excellent memory. But dealing with the weird? Yeah, she could handle that. Hopefully. Could always get spectacularly unlucky. Let it not be said that she'd come here unprepared - a pistol in her jacket, a knife in her boot. A call was placed with Ahab and Turk, letting them know where she was going and why. If she didn't return within a few hours, they were to gather at the tea shop and… figure things out from there. Ahab and Turk could cover the shooty-shooty side of things, Sanagi could cover the laser side of things, and Arch… well, he seemed in touch with freakish things. And in the end… her dad was in a coma, her friends had dealt with death before, and she'd been putting herself at risk for months before now against things which could easily condemn her to a fate worse than death. Someone was stuck and in need of rescue - who was she to deny the call? Even if it had come from a cowboy that lived in her TV.
At some stage, usurper, we ought to discuss precisely what is considered an 'acceptable risk' and what is not. Because I believe our definitions are very, very different.
"Oh, shut up."
She murmured under her breath, ignoring the strange look that Parian gave her. She was too used to living on her own and talking freely to Chorei. Still, this place was mad enough. She'd scouted the alleyway out with her insects, detected everything she could. Dead end, piles of trash… unusually rotten, as if no-one had come to collect it in a while. Quiet road, nothing overly threatening. But then she'd found it. A wrong turn. A mosquito buzzed through the air, turned, and… nothing. Gone. She could still feel it, though. Somewhere else, where the bricks sighed and wept cold, blue liquid. More insects - then a whole swarm. All scouting out alleyways around her, identifying every possible threat. Nothing. Just another city, with winding streets and hunched buildings. Chorei sensed all of this through Taylor… and seemed to react a little. Shivered, even. Taylor had stiffened - Chorei knew more about this sort of thing than her or anyone else she knew. If she was shivering…
"Do you know what this is?"
…sometimes people walk into the dark and do not return.
"...alright, sure, but is there a more specific meaning? Any particular dangers? Anything I need to know about?"
If you are wise, you will-
"Go home, I know. We're going in regardless - if you have anything to contribute to our mutual survival, I'd be happy to hear it. Your choice."
…I know nothing of this. Only a… a feeling. After Senpou fell, after I fled Japan. I… sealed myself in a box for the journey. Easier. Safer. And in that dark hold, surrounded by nothing but shifting boxes… I could sometimes feel long, long fingers grazing against the outside. Often enough that I swore it was real. Never enough to drive me to flee.
…ah. That sounded… unpleasant. But she'd committed to this - Bisha was gone, but his scars remained. And taking care of someone affected by his presence was something she could very much get into. With a deep breath… she took a wrong turn.
The city was wrong. There was no other way of describing it. None of the angles felt right, everything was crooked. Yet… none of it was focused on her. It was bizarre - everything was half-completed. Bricks shivered at her touch, but they never did anything more. No violent reactions. No maddening whispers. No horrid creatures pursuing her. Spiders on her arm spun a constant silk thread, weaving it until it became closer to a rope - a lead connecting her back to the entrance, to the place where the wrong turn had led her. A few insects could get back and forth, it was just a matter of finding the right way of twisting, angling oneself correctly… she could get back. She could definitely get back. Her swarm had fanned out immediately, trying to find Parian. Easy enough. She was huddled in an alleyway, rocking back and forth. She'd seen a few articles with her after some promotional stunts a while back, and… yeah, the dress was unmistakable. No mask, but… eh, she barely cared. She had no intention of blackmailing her, and when they got back it would be under the cover of night.
Angel Eyes had told the truth.
How… surprisingly decent of him.
And now here they were - striding quickly back to the exit. Couldn't be this easy, never was. Chorei was squirming uncomfortably, eager to escape as soon as humanly possible. Or, in Chorei's case, mentally possible. Thoughtfully possible? Eh, didn't matter. Her hands were itching for the rifle, for her charm, for the things she knew and understood. The alleyways branched around them, and now… they'd been noticed. The phenomena followed Parian, and by extension, Taylor. This place was wrong as could be - and it was different to the other things she'd encountered. She'd suspected finding some kind of Frenzied Flame holdout, maybe a place where Bisha had gotten up to some nonsense… but this place was different. Emptier. Nothing felt real, just… shells for other things to hide inside. Things which were, likewise, absent. So that all that remained were the husks, animated impossibly, shifting with the wind, lighter than air… there was a roaring in the distance. Waves crashing, but with no gap, no pause for breath. No words in it, and no meaning. It wanted Parian… but why? Why would it… what was this place? And how had it just… emerged?
How?
Parian leaned closer, and whispered something. Her voice was strained, dry. Time was odd here. Eaten.
"D-don't think about it. It likes it when you think about it."
"It?"
"It."
Taylor tried her best. Understanding made this thing stronger, good to know. The city whined like a kicked dog, drainpipes squealing as they disconnected, joists straining as the nails supporting them warped with deafening screeches. Repeated over and over, it became a formless whine. They were nearer the wrong turn, but they had a way to go - but the city was active. And it wasn't going to be cheated. She felt something moving through her swarm. Something - yes, definitely a thing. Not a person. No arms, no legs. No, too many arms, too many legs. Smaller. Coming closer. The streets bent. For a second space obeyed an entirely new set of rules. For a second, everything was moving, the city was shifting, it rose above them, it shrank, it grew, it expanded and contracted and became a single point and they were riding upon a pinhead and…
A termite dropped into her hands.
Pale. Fat. Sunless. Fleshy. Larger than any termite she'd seen before. It turned over in her hand, struggling to right its unnaturally sized body. Little black eyes stared up at her, mandibles worked away, tiny hairs flexed and strained outwards… and it spoke.
"Incomplete?"
Its voice was like the scraping of a fork against a glass, a whining, warbling tone which could be beautiful if it wasn't so loud. Instinctually she squashed it. Not a termite. Just a… thing. She couldn't feel it at all, it had no system for her power to latch onto. And when she turned it to mush with a simple squeeze, she felt… flesh. The thing popped open, and its legs felt like they had hands, tiny, fleshy, bony hands, clinging desperately to her, and the mandibles felt like little shards of teeth, and even the hair covering it felt softer than it should, like a human's. It died quickly, and she wiped her hands off. Ready to move, ready to keep-
"...uh."
Parian's voice was quiet and scared, an edge to it which it had previously lacked. Taylor looked around cautiously - her swarm moving to compensate for her missing eye. Termites. Thousands of them. The city looked pockmarked - the walls had holes for them to squirm out of, quivering like birth canals. The walls had wept blue liquid when she arrived, and had continued to do so, little drops of dew. Now, it poured around the termites, oiling their joints, bringing them to a kind of life. The city was a womb. The termites were being birthed within it. That was the only conclusion her mind could come to… she should've have done that. A conclusion fed this place. Understanding and speculation was its sustenance - and it grew fat from even these few drops. More termites poured out, and the distant roaring came closer, closer, closer… a thousand scraping-glass voices blared into the half-light of this alien place. Their dark eyes were bright with hunger and a longing to build, to erode, to destroy and create at the same time, to undermine all things and leave behind a husk.
"Incomplete?"
Run!
"Run!"
The one-eyed girl looked alarmed. As the person that had dragged her calmly out of her reverie, forced her to experience the world again… seeing her unnerved sent a thrill of unease through Sabah's racing heart. She happily complied - the termites were scuttling closer, whispering, whispering… the girl gripped her hand and pulled. For a second she wanted to just let herself be dragged, give herself up to someone who clearly knew more than she did. Her memories whirled all around her, and the girl continued to pull - and Parian resisted. She tore her hand free and ran faster, keeping pace with all her effort. She had her mind back. She'd been trapped here for… some time. Her own fuckups had landed her in this mess, she was sure of it. The city kept whispering it to her, after all. She would not drag someone down with her, not if she could help it. She'd failed herself, Brockton, everyone who died in the Conflagration, and she'd failed that kid. Gone, and she couldn't even find the willpower to look for her.
No more.
No more.
The termites swarmed after them, and the girl's swarm met them - two armies clashing in a dozen alleyways, holding back the tide as best they were able. For a second Sabah felt a spark of hope… it died quickly. The termites were large, tough things, their bodies swollen with that same cold blue liquid which suffused the walls and clogged the drains. Against a normal person, she could imagine the girl being a terrifying foe. Humans weren't good at fighting things as swift, as numerous, as expendable as insects. But this was insect-on-insect warfare, something the animal kingdom had been honing for thousands upon thousands of years. And it had become frighteningly good at it. She could see the girl's swarm succumbing, her mouth drawing into a thin, tight line as more and more perished. No - couldn't do it on her own. Sabah might not be at her best - no fabric to hijack, no constructs to form - but she still had needles. Always carried backups, but they'd been useless in this place. Nothing to attack. Until now. Fat, fleshy termites, ready to pop…
Her telekinesis exploded outwards. Her remaining needles flung themselves into the air, rocketing outwards with cathartic force. Not strong enough to really hurt a human - but insects? Whispering insects pouring from semi-organic buildings? Oh, she could try. One, two, three - pop, pop, pop. It took barely any pressure to shred them, to send their cold blue insides spreading over the paving stones… for a second she was elated. She was back - she was doing something good. Whatever this place was, she was fighting back against it, doing what was necessary. What had to be done. The Conflagration? Never heard of it. What mattered was surviving here - a nice, neat chain of causality, no holes to be poked, no cracks to fall into. Not like before. Never like before. More were shredded, and the paving stones were becoming choked with icy blue fluid, thicker than water and reeking of rust. No - wait. Too much liquid. Far too much. It was coming from another source. As her needles penetrated deeper… her face drained of colour.
The street was a nest.
The walls were a hive.
The roaring grew closer.
Termites pouring from every surface in sight - the street lights bent under the weight of a thousand bodies leaking from their bulbs, pressed tight against glass which barely contained them. The sewers were alive with them, a wriggling carpet building higher and higher using their own bodies, slender towers which curled like living things to hook around gratings… every step was accompanied with wet crunches and the air filled with whispers. Incomplete, repeated over and over. What was incomplete? Were they incomplete, the two people running through the streets? Was the swarm incomplete? How? Why? Too many answers came to mind, most outlandish, some almost believable, none conclusive. Enough to feed the swarm more, their abdomens bloating. Sabah flinched as tiny pincers drove into her skin from termites that had spilled out of an overhanging building, biting, gnawing, trying to cut through her clothes to her skin, and when they found it, they burrowed. She cut down on a scream. Not productive. Not useful. Not good.
The one-eyed girl had a few on her, wriggling into her hair, burrowing into her flesh, trying to gnaw until they could gnaw no more… she barely seemed to notice. Her scars seemed to resist their delving pincers, and she simply seemed… immune to pain. Or at least, she wasn't showing any. Parian tried to stiffen her back, to brace herself for the inevitable bites, contenting herself with simply swatting them away. If the girl could handle it… if she could do it, so could Sabah. A weakness was found, shown to her, and the immediate response was to adamantly insist that it cease. Pain, fear… pretend they weren't present, bury them under as many layers as possible, and eventually it would work. Right? Right? The termites came closer, closer, closer, hungrier and hungrier…
Incomplete? Incomplete? Incomplete?
The girl's swarm was losing - against humans, insects had the advantage of numbers, of speed, of expendability. Against other insects… well, insects were adept at hunting and killing other insects. A fact that was both an advantage and a disadvantage right now. The fleshy termites were burying the girl's own swarm alive, barely even condescending to gnaw on their bodies. They had numbers aplenty - it was easier to smother and cook them in a fleshy oven. A few subtle changes of temperature was enough to turn their chitin into a roasting prison, and to make their legs curl up feebly before all ceased. Sabah felt claustrophobic just looking at the shambling prisons, their bodies fat and bloated like ticks, always coming closer, and closer, and closer, stinking of rust and stagnant water.
"Not far now."
The girl's voice was quiet, reassuring, confident. She'd seen worse than this before, and she'd come out mostly intact. A few scars? A lost eye? Nothing compared to the joy of surviving. Sabah ran faster. The roaring was approaching quickly. Visions of what could be producing the roar danced behind her eyes - a tidal wave of termites, whatever they were. Something stranger. Maybe the end of this place - the edge of a map being folded up, rolled away, and swallowed whole by the nothingness which lay below this place. She ran faster, more bodies crunching beneath her feet. Welts were developing across her arms and face, and her skin was sticky where bodies had been crushed into a fine paste. The swarm was bursting out in greater and greater numbers, forming a carpet that in some areas was inches deep. A great field of pale snow, until you looked closer and saw the masses of bodies. The wrong turn was getting closer, she could tell - the girl was increasing her pace, her eye was brightening with hope, soon, soon they'd be out, soon they'd-
Stone tore like the surface of a spider's egg.
A building burst. An overripe fruit letting loose a hail of a million bodies, each one fat, pale, and whispering. Dripping with the chilling blue fluid which served as womb and blood both. A roaring wave churned through the streets, and she could faintly hear more buildings bursting. The city was alive. How… had this been the constant way of things? Had every surface just been a hive for these creatures?
Incomplete?
No - couldn't be, she'd have felt it, and the sensations were all wrong - it couldn't be real, there was no chance of it, it was impossible. The termites were the tip of a vast iceberg. As tiny dark eyes looked up from her arm, a dozen sets examining her hungrily… she knew there was something else. Something she'd felt in that alley. A principle that lay behind them… one that she ran from. The termites were reduced down to a mass of chitin, legs, and cold blue liquid with a firm swipe from her other hand. No dwelling on mysteries now. Questioning the things made them faster, hungrier. They fed on ambiguity, she felt - even though that was completely fucking insane. But then again, she'd seen that yellow light.
Either she was insane, or the world was and she was only starting to realise it.
Or maybe she was just surrounded by angry termites and that was generally considered a Bad Thing.
She settled for the third option.
Nice and practical.
But the buildings had still burst. Alleyways were sealed by the churning mass. Too many to fight through, her needles couldn't work effectively against such a large number - they weren't even holding them back now, just… punishing their advance. Nothing more. A slap on the wrist before they managed to get closer, and do… something. She wasn't even sure what. The girl with the eyepatch whirled, scanning everything in sight, every escape route. The sewers were choked with bodies, the buildings were locked (and she had learned to never go inside), the alleyways were impassable. Already the swarm was coming closer, asking the same question in unison, a quiet murmur dwarfed by an ever-louder roar, one that shook the windows and burst even more stones open to reveal their squirming contents. The girl's face hardened.
She'd come to a decision.
"We have to go to the streets! No other way to the exit!"
Sabah paled. No. No no no no no.
"No, please, not there! Not where the sun can see!"
The sun was bad. The sun here wasn't like the sun up above - she could barely describe what it was like, the terror had been too great, she'd run before she could get a good look. The termites were a boiling sea coming closer, closer, clicking hungrily. To tear them apart and do… something. The bites on her arms were more than just welts, she knew that. Even if she couldn't feel it… these things had something worse in store. The girl's face was stiff with panic, and at the same time, glee. Barely perceptible, but nonetheless there. She was relishing this, it was something she was accustomed to. Being surrounded by termites in an impossible city where dark silhouettes crowded the walls and a roaring never ever ceased… she was at home, in a way.
Sabah was starting to be a little terrified of her. Just a little.
The insects helped.
"We can't. The sun will…"
She didn't know what it would do. But it wouldn't be good. The roaring was louder than ever. The girl reached out and took her hand, her grip iron if she wished it to be. She gave a comforting squeeze.
"I got you this far, didn't I?"
"...yeah, but-"
"Trust me. If I can still get you out of here, I will. I've dealt with worse."
…and somehow, Sabah believed her. She'd been alone in this place before the girl came to drag her out, using something to bring her mind back to its senses. Everything had started making sense when she arrived, not a moment sooner. She'd angered this place in a way that Sabah hadn't. The sun was burning down on the street beyond, a cold light which felt distinctly unnatural. She knew it was terrifying - knew it was something that Should Not Be Witnessed… but the girl had saved her. Without her, they wouldn't be here, she'd just be rotting away in that alleyway waiting for the walls to close in and smother her. She'd run from the yellow light, she'd run from the Conflagration. The snide whispers from the city became encouragement in her mind.
She could have stopped this and didn't.
And now she would. If only to prove this city wrong, to prove herself wrong, to prove that she wasn't the same person that huddled in her apartment for days on end, trying to ignore what she'd seen…
She would.
A nod was all that was needed. The one-eyed girl pursed her lips in an imitation of a smile, and something danced behind her eye - something coiling and twisting. The hand which had brought her back dragged her into the light, to the broad street where they could bypass the swarm and the houses bursting like overfilled blisters. To the street where they could navigate to the wrong turn, to the place which had dragged her in. A deep breath - terror was still pulsing in her throat and chest, freezing her lungs, making even breathing an ordeal.
They walked into the light.
They walked into the light.
They walked into the l i g h t.
Sabah was lost.
Sabah was very very very lost.
Lost. Coming to us from Old English, from losian or los, meaning to be lost or to go astray. It had other meanings. To perish, to destroy. That felt right. To come to nothing, or to decay That felt even more correct. And… to escape. She wished. In being lost there was escape in the labyrinth there was an escape there was always a route out and no way out no way out no way out. She found herself starting back. Made sense. This place wouldn't let her go. The buildings were teeth, the streets were a sandpaper-dry tongue. She wasn't… wasn't sure how she entered this place. When had it been that she'd come here? Felt like forever, No, further back, before this place. What had she been before? Her name was Sabah. She lived in Brockton Bay. She was Parian. She had a job, she was a college student, she was studying engineering - no, no, fashion design. Iraq. Basra. The heat of the sun, barely remembered now. She was a cape. She was a cape. Memories came and went like waves, sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker, with no rhyme or reason. The first time she touched silk was sharp to the point of being painful. And… and when she became Parian was nothing at all. A hazy thing that ran away if she poked too deeply. An hour ago it'd been the other way around, and her horizons were swept up in that moment, in that dark apartment, and she'd succumbed. Fell over, shivered while things walked through the streets.
She was in… she was in a city, right? Brockton? No, not Brockton, everything was wrong, the angles were wrong, the shadows were wrong, the light was wrong - get out of the sunlight get out of the sunlight. When she saw the sun the roaring became louder, rushing into her ears, and she felt something behind her, something that had spotted her. She clung to the alleys, to the corners of streets, far away from anything too open. Good. There weren't any broad streets in this city, no squares, nothing. No planning, no logic, no grid. Just… meaningless construction, building upon building, sign upon sign, all coalescing and collapsing and merging and dividing over and over and over and over and over and- stop, stop, calm down. Her breathing was coming faster. Her dress was filthy. The drains leaked things other than mud and rain, and sometimes it leapt. And then it would cling, like a leech, and she'd be forced to either tear them free or allow the tiny black squirming masses to stick to her clothes, watching with eyes she couldn't see but she could sense. No, couldn't let them remain. Her fingers were dirty. Her fingernails were ragged. She was so very, very tired.
Sabah sagged against a wall, the brick pulsating beneath her fingers like a spongy bed of moss. Her fingers sank in, and she felt it groaning, whispering to her in a language she didn't understand. She didn't even notice at this point. What was the point? Nothing here was right. The walls pulsed and sighed, and she didn't dare go down any alleyways. She'd seen what happened to someone else who'd gone there. When the walls came to consume him… he almost seemed happy. He'd wept tears of joy that the walls greedily drunk up as they lovingly welcomed him. Did she see that? Was that imaginary? Was it just showing what it could do to her? She… no, she'd been alone, there was no-one else, she was imagining things. Lunatic. Streetlights shone down a sickly white light, the kind that cut the night apart in harsh outlines. Blocks of reality amidst a sea of indefinable things.
She passed a vending machine filled to the brim with glass bottles, each one containing nothing but a single tooth. She'd tried to make some sense of that, once. Once. But… this place ate her attention. Bite by bite, sliver by sliver, her attention was worn and digested and regurgitated. She looked at a street too long and the tarmac began to swim, taking new shapes, hungry mouths gnawing at the soles of her feet. Neon signs swam into incomprehensible symbols if she studied them, and a moment later she'd be somewhere else, surrounded by new, alien buildings and an endless whisper. The vending machine would soon be full of things worse than teeth. If she was going to guess… they were going to start speaking soon. As she ran, she could hear the first whispers.
Parian - no, no, Sabah, she was Sabah, she had a name - had learned not to blink for too long.
Learned not to go into the buildings.
Learned not to listen to the distant roaring, like the crashing of the sea.
Sweat trickled down her forehead, cold as dead hands grasping at her. With how these walls were breathing… maybe that wasn't too far from the truth. The taste of salt reminded her of the sea. Made her think of the roaring. The roaring wasn't waves. Waves weren't so constant. Waves didn't sound so hungry. She couldn't tell where the sweat ended and the tears began, but began they did, and cease they did not.
How did she get here?
Memories sharpening, vision darkening. Present recedes, past advances, future dwindles into nothing. Nothing lost there, the roaring was coming closer. She didn't have a future.
Started with someone at her university. Barnabas College, right, she still remembered that, this place hadn't gnawed away at that much at least. Engineering. Then fashion design, a quick shift. But she still held onto some notions of harmonious geometry, the kind of thing her professors loved to bleat about during the quieter hours. Right, right, she'd been studying, and… and someone had vanished. Not a friend, not someone she particularly liked or hated, just… a classmate. And she was a cape. Might not be a hero, but she still had a functioning conscience. Enough to drive her to investigate. Turned out the guy - Aaron, that was it - had been associating with an unusual crowd. A homeless community which lived in a few abandoned buildings, the kind that stuck to itself and refused any hints of charity with deep-seated bitterness. A nighttime jaunt brought her into contact with… yes, yes. Memories were sharpening. There was meaning in them. A pattern of causality that she could follow, and in that causality was stability. She'd been a cape investigating a case, and nothing more. Everything followed logically. Good enough to be a novel. She'd come into contact with a few homeless people, but they weren't… talkative. That was a lie, some were talkative, but invariably about the wrong things. Pointed her towards someone who might help, someone who'd been living in the buildings before… something happened, before the old crowd moved out at once and never returned. Not the same, at least.
Some new cape. Young, too. A kid, really. Utterly filthy, stank of trash, had been living in some abandoned buildings for a while, moving constantly, rarely staying in one place for long. She had the wide eyes of someone who wasn't used to company, especially not from other capes. Did she have a name… no, nothing solidified. She had an idea to do with raccoons, but that was it. Tinker, specialised in trash, seemed appropriate. Never revealed their real names to each other. But the kid had told her about how homeless people were vanishing, one by one, then in greater and greater numbers. She'd only heard… heard about something being swapped around. Some new drug. Something that they'd take once, and sometimes they'd never recover from, sometimes they'd die on the spot, and sometimes… they'd walk away with fire in their eyes. And a week later they'd be selling more of this stuff. So Parian and the kid had looked into it further, pooling their talents, their resources, their information.
She'd felt… a little protective of her, sure. She was a kid. Homeless, and never explained why that was the case. And she kept gnawing on random pieces of trash dug out from various dumpsters, nibbling around any patches of mould. Parian might not be rich by any means, mostly did promotional gigs for stores, but she could still afford the occasional hamburger. The girl had been… much more enthusiastic about their partnership once she got some actual hot, fresh food down her. And for a while that'd been it. Investigations, digging deeper… so many leads wound up nowhere. People had vanished completely, like the earth had swallowed them. But the more they probed, the more invisible bodies they found, the more spaces where people should be, now occupied by empty air. People were vanishing in huge numbers. More than should be possible, more than should ever have gone unnoticed… but so many were the homeless, the dispossessed, the isolated, the people who wouldn't be missed. One by one by one until dozens had disappeared. Their search had become more frantic, more desperate.
And then they'd found it.
They'd found a place where a dealer was still present.
Light
So much light.
Next thing Parian - no, Sabah, Sabah, she was Sabah - knew, she was running home with her eyes painfully dry, her stomach heaving, her mind burning at the sight of something she still couldn't get her mind around. It'd been a church, full of people, all of them with their mouths wide, wide, wide open, flesh like wax draped over a wire frame… and what they'd said, what they'd sung, what they'd prayed to… even now, with time between her and it, the memory was enough to make her freeze. The kid had come with her. The two had huddled in her apartment, guarding every door, every window. Trash piled up - more tools for the tinker, more power for her to use against those things. And then… then the city had begun to collapse. The two of them had looked at one another when the bombs started, began to move to the door, ready to help… and they'd seen yellow lights bloom. People were laughing in the streets.
They'd managed a few hours out there before it all went to hell. Before they'd been noticed. A desperate flight to anywhere that would take them, hiding, always hiding, never attacking the cult. It knew them. It remembered their faces, their names. And the voice, the voice that had come from those things…
No.
She wouldn't remember that voice.
She couldn't.
And then it had ended. A few climactic explosions piercing the torrential rain which covered the city, something howling, and… that was it. The cult burned. The crisis was over. Then all that remained was the cleanup, bodies hauled onto boats were they could be taken for 'disposal'. The stink had been horrific. The kid had lingered for a while, but they couldn't see one another without remembering how they'd run from the fight, how they'd hidden away, how they'd come close to the truth but had run away at the last moment. The narrative had been disrupted. Causality had broken. They should've kept going, should've investigated further. But they hadn't. Too cowardly. Too weak. And then it had ended without their help, and the world just… span on.
She could have stopped this and didn't.
She was no longer what she once was.
If there was one thing which united parahumans, it was the fact that their trauma had a purpose. It had taken them to the lowest lows, and they'd come back with something. Like a diver enduring intense pressure to reach the brightest pearl of them all. And as much as she recognised her power's weaknesses… it was validation. The kid had been the same way. Whenever they were at work, using their powers properly, everything clicked. The yellow light undermined it all. When that was around… everything turned to static, sense dissolved, and it became the new centre of their world, the new point around which all things revolved. And it was a hungry chaos, it didn't stabilise, it just ate until nothing remained. Everything they'd done… it was nothing to it. Their investigations hadn't scratched the surface, they hadn't been worth killing, and in the end, the chaos had unfolded without their interference, ended without their intervention.
She could have stopped this and didn't.
The narrative had been broken. The world had felt paper-thin. Her apartment had become a den of paranoia - measuring tapes glued to the walls, blackout curtains at first, then boards to seal the windows shut. Hoarding cans and bottles. The kid dwelled in the kitchen, building more and more esoteric things from trash… until one day she simply left. Up and departed. No note, nothing. Her eyes were wide and fearful before she went, though. Probably running to find another place, to get away from Parian's madhouse. They'd never shared names. Seen each other without their mask, sure, but never exchanged proper names. She regretted that. She regretted a lot of things. And then… then she'd made a wrong turn.
That was it.
A wrong turn.
An alleyway where the holes in her own story started to widen until she fell through them and… vanished. Something had been behind her. Something with long, long fingers, something that roared in bursts of deafening static. Something that was hunting her now, in this… this place. She'd given up trying to understand it. Understanding fed this place. Understanding made it stronger - the more attention she paid, the more it was fed, the fatter it became. She'd studied one alley for too long, tried to figure out where she was… and the bricks began to weep tears of the purest blue, the blue of liquid methane, and she knew from the moment they began that they were happy. The walls began to grow inwards, hungry for more… she ran. Only thing she could do.
The roaring was coming closer. The not-sea was approaching. Had the kid experienced this? Had the kid fallen through one of these gaps, a place where the world had worn thin and people like them could just… enter? Everything around her was void of meaning. It felt… like those awful days in the apartment, waiting for something to happen, knowing that she'd glimpsed the truth and had run from it. This place was feeding on it like a bloated tick. All the forgotten conclusions, all the unresolved questions, all of them were here - not the answers, not the endings, just… just the ambiguity. The hungering ambiguity. Something had shattered when she gave up on investigating that cult. And something black as pitch had welled out of those cracks, something hungry. And she'd simply been one of its meals.
She could have stopped this and didn't.
She sagged to the ground. The street sagged underneath her. A shopfront lay in front of her, and she could see red handprints pressing against the inside of the dark glass. Hands seeking her. Ambiguities trying to swallow her whole. The roaring was approaching - and a foul taste filled her mouth, sharp as rust. Long, long fingers in the dark. Tearing, hacking away, ready to erase her piece by piece, disappear into a mystery of her own creation. It wouldn't be quiet. It wouldn't be peaceful. There would be screaming, and some of it would be hers.
Closer.
Closer.
Footsteps.
Footsteps?
Parian opened her eyes, and someone else was here. No-one was here. No-one walked these streets but her. This place ate one person at a time, savoured them, cherished them, let them run around the taste buds until it had extracted all it wanted from her. And then the walls would crunch and she would be no more. The thing was coming, the thing with long fingers. A tooth, a single molar bearing down around her, ready to - no, no, someone was here, someone was here. Someone was shaking her shoulders, trying to bring her back to reality. Concerned eyes stared - no, one eye, just the one.
"Hey!"
A voice! Someone's voice! She'd learned not to talk in this place. The walls swallowed sound and gave nothing back. She'd stopped speaking when the walls had made it clear they enjoyed devouring speech. No, no, sharpen. The world began to clear up. A worried face was in front of her, pale, scarred. One eye. The hands grabbing her were unnaturally tough, covered in faintly shining scars, dozens and dozens, hardened until they seemed to have the consistency of metal. The graffiti on the wall opposite her was shifting like a mass of eels, reforming into something new, something hungry. An image - a silhouette of a man, standing eerily behind the girl. An absence on the brickwork. Looking at it… she felt herself sinking down a little, almost hypnotised. In it, she could see something unimaginable. Something that would take her apart, shell by shell, until nothing remained. Peel her like an onion, layer by layer, layer by layer, until nothing remained and it could cast her away into the dark. Not restful dark. It wasn't human. It wasn't modelled on a human. It was filling a human up, wearing it like a party mask, a shell covering something raw and squirming and not. The silhouette began to expand in her eyes, larger and larger, a body-mouth, a mouth-body, a stomach that was a mouth that was a jaw that was a single aching tooth and the tooth was a tower and the tower was her and she was who and what and why and where and when and how?
The girl was moving, a half-shape in front of the silhouette, unreal compared to real unreality. Presence swallowed by absence. How could she not see? How could she not see the cracks in the world? How could she not see the ambiguities which swallowed her up? How could she not hear the chewing at the edge of the world? How could she not hear the roar? Long fingers creeping around the brickwork. The girl was reaching - her fingers weren't so long, and Parian relaxed a little. Not so long. Not so-
"Sorry about this. Just… try and relax."
A pause.
"OK, Chorei…"
Light.
A blazing tapestry of self. Infinite, but understandable. Reasonable patterns, basic motifs, repeated over and over, utterly complex yet completely harmonious. Ambiguity fled. This was certain - there was variation, but within acceptable bounds. It could do a variety of things, but impossibilities existed. The margins were known and accepted. An infinity lay between zero and one, but here, it all collapsed down to understandable values. Parian looked at a mind which was stable. Which was real. And complete. It had seen stories brought to an end, ambiguity meant nothing, ambiguity didn't consume it. Not like her. Nothing like her. Dark surrounded her on all sides, the city was no more, all that remained was a true labyrinth. No minotaur. No splitting routes. Just a single path which obeyed conventional laws and always finished where it should. It was neat where she was messy and incomplete. The silhouette faded from memory and sight, graffiti squirming away, the absence disappearing. The long fingers vanished - had they ever been present? Were they her own? The labyrinth was glorious, it was something she could stare at for… the girl slapped her. Huh. Oh. Ow. That hurt.
That hurt.
She could still hurt! Unambiguous causality - a slap was painful. It was complete, in a way that this place was not. Sense was returning. Memories were falling into their right places. Something certain was before her, someone who this place had no interest in consuming. The walls were more stable around her. Everything was - even the sun (don't look at it don't look at it) was a little dimmer, a little less violent. The roaring receded slightly. Just enough for her to feel comfortable talking above a whisper.
"...who…?"
Voice was dry from disuse. How long had she been here? Days? No, couldn't be, she'd… it felt like days, certainly. But for whatever reason she knew that wasn't true. But nonetheless, her limbs were weary, her voice was quiet and stiff, her brain felt like it had been stuffed with cotton wool. Her telekinesis moved idly - it was moving. When had it stopped? When had she stopped trying to use it? When had she… this place had taken things from her. And bit by bit, she was getting them back. Even a second of certainty was enough.
"Parian, right?"
"...y…yes."
The girl was young, but held herself like she'd seen more than anyone her age should. Reminded her of the kid. Just a little.
"You sound awful. Here - water."
Her mask? Where was her - gone. Lost. She should've been more nervous at someone seeing her face, but… this place was terrifying enough, identity exposure was tame by comparison. If this girl wanted to save her, so what if she was maskless. A few blessed drops crossed her lips - cold, pure, the best thing she'd ever tasted. The cold burst throughout her chest, a spreading icy spiderweb that brought life to the lifeless. The city was clearer than ever… not always a good thing. But there were no hands, the silhouette was gone, things were starting to make a little more sense. Whatever held her here was weakened.
"T…thank you."
Her eyes widened.
"How did you get here? How-"
"Nevermind that. We're getting out, ask those questions later. I think I have the route back to where I came in."
She hauled Parian up with contemptuous ease. Each movement stirred more life into her, enough to make her thoughts more fluid, more… present. Dangers. This place had things to avoid, and she'd been here long enough - the girl was walking casually in the direction of the street. The light was dull and grey - it always looked harmless, up until you stepped into it. She reached out, grabbing the girl's arm, dragging her back.
"Don't go into the sunlight."
"...why?"
"I…"
How could she explain? That there was a roaring in the distance, that it came closer when the sunlight shone, that the sun was watching them from on high? How could she say any of that without sounding insane? With lucidity came sanity, and with sanity came reticence. She couldn't just say that - maybe this was all a hallucination, maybe-
"Don't worry about sounding crazy. I'm used to it."
"...there's a roaring. It comes closer if you stand in the sun. I think it's… watching me, somehow. Stay out of the wider streets."
The girl hummed thoughtfully, concentrating on something in the distance.
"...alright. Another route."
Something downright bizarre happened then - a flood of insects poured into the alley from all directions. For a second Parian was about to scream - but the cloud flowed past her, not even touching her clothes. The swarm spread down every path, and the girl looked focused… another parahuman? Insect control? Her immediate thought was 'that sounds fucking terrifying'. And the fact that she could think that instinctually at all was… oh, it was beautiful. She was Sabah. She was Parian. She loathed forks with bent tines. She had a blood type, she had recurring nightmares, she had interests, hobbies, loves, hates, all the things which made up a person. And she had one unsolved mystery that had consumed her life. She was a person, complete as anyone else. This place retreated a little from that thought, the roaring receding once more. The girl strode off resolutely, and Parian followed. Her telekinesis reached outwards, automatically clinging to anything small enough to be manipulated - like an infant grabbing anything it touched. It was hers. Her own power. Hers and hers alone.
Parian was alive.
* * *
Taylor was feeling particularly determined at the moment. More determined than she'd felt since Bisha. This was what she was good at, what she'd become used to doing. Running a tea shop? Barely competent. Studying for her GED? Over-reliant on a nun with an excellent memory. But dealing with the weird? Yeah, she could handle that. Hopefully. Could always get spectacularly unlucky. Let it not be said that she'd come here unprepared - a pistol in her jacket, a knife in her boot. A call was placed with Ahab and Turk, letting them know where she was going and why. If she didn't return within a few hours, they were to gather at the tea shop and… figure things out from there. Ahab and Turk could cover the shooty-shooty side of things, Sanagi could cover the laser side of things, and Arch… well, he seemed in touch with freakish things. And in the end… her dad was in a coma, her friends had dealt with death before, and she'd been putting herself at risk for months before now against things which could easily condemn her to a fate worse than death. Someone was stuck and in need of rescue - who was she to deny the call? Even if it had come from a cowboy that lived in her TV.
At some stage, usurper, we ought to discuss precisely what is considered an 'acceptable risk' and what is not. Because I believe our definitions are very, very different.
"Oh, shut up."
She murmured under her breath, ignoring the strange look that Parian gave her. She was too used to living on her own and talking freely to Chorei. Still, this place was mad enough. She'd scouted the alleyway out with her insects, detected everything she could. Dead end, piles of trash… unusually rotten, as if no-one had come to collect it in a while. Quiet road, nothing overly threatening. But then she'd found it. A wrong turn. A mosquito buzzed through the air, turned, and… nothing. Gone. She could still feel it, though. Somewhere else, where the bricks sighed and wept cold, blue liquid. More insects - then a whole swarm. All scouting out alleyways around her, identifying every possible threat. Nothing. Just another city, with winding streets and hunched buildings. Chorei sensed all of this through Taylor… and seemed to react a little. Shivered, even. Taylor had stiffened - Chorei knew more about this sort of thing than her or anyone else she knew. If she was shivering…
"Do you know what this is?"
…sometimes people walk into the dark and do not return.
"...alright, sure, but is there a more specific meaning? Any particular dangers? Anything I need to know about?"
If you are wise, you will-
"Go home, I know. We're going in regardless - if you have anything to contribute to our mutual survival, I'd be happy to hear it. Your choice."
…I know nothing of this. Only a… a feeling. After Senpou fell, after I fled Japan. I… sealed myself in a box for the journey. Easier. Safer. And in that dark hold, surrounded by nothing but shifting boxes… I could sometimes feel long, long fingers grazing against the outside. Often enough that I swore it was real. Never enough to drive me to flee.
…ah. That sounded… unpleasant. But she'd committed to this - Bisha was gone, but his scars remained. And taking care of someone affected by his presence was something she could very much get into. With a deep breath… she took a wrong turn.
The city was wrong. There was no other way of describing it. None of the angles felt right, everything was crooked. Yet… none of it was focused on her. It was bizarre - everything was half-completed. Bricks shivered at her touch, but they never did anything more. No violent reactions. No maddening whispers. No horrid creatures pursuing her. Spiders on her arm spun a constant silk thread, weaving it until it became closer to a rope - a lead connecting her back to the entrance, to the place where the wrong turn had led her. A few insects could get back and forth, it was just a matter of finding the right way of twisting, angling oneself correctly… she could get back. She could definitely get back. Her swarm had fanned out immediately, trying to find Parian. Easy enough. She was huddled in an alleyway, rocking back and forth. She'd seen a few articles with her after some promotional stunts a while back, and… yeah, the dress was unmistakable. No mask, but… eh, she barely cared. She had no intention of blackmailing her, and when they got back it would be under the cover of night.
Angel Eyes had told the truth.
How… surprisingly decent of him.
And now here they were - striding quickly back to the exit. Couldn't be this easy, never was. Chorei was squirming uncomfortably, eager to escape as soon as humanly possible. Or, in Chorei's case, mentally possible. Thoughtfully possible? Eh, didn't matter. Her hands were itching for the rifle, for her charm, for the things she knew and understood. The alleyways branched around them, and now… they'd been noticed. The phenomena followed Parian, and by extension, Taylor. This place was wrong as could be - and it was different to the other things she'd encountered. She'd suspected finding some kind of Frenzied Flame holdout, maybe a place where Bisha had gotten up to some nonsense… but this place was different. Emptier. Nothing felt real, just… shells for other things to hide inside. Things which were, likewise, absent. So that all that remained were the husks, animated impossibly, shifting with the wind, lighter than air… there was a roaring in the distance. Waves crashing, but with no gap, no pause for breath. No words in it, and no meaning. It wanted Parian… but why? Why would it… what was this place? And how had it just… emerged?
How?
Parian leaned closer, and whispered something. Her voice was strained, dry. Time was odd here. Eaten.
"D-don't think about it. It likes it when you think about it."
"It?"
"It."
Taylor tried her best. Understanding made this thing stronger, good to know. The city whined like a kicked dog, drainpipes squealing as they disconnected, joists straining as the nails supporting them warped with deafening screeches. Repeated over and over, it became a formless whine. They were nearer the wrong turn, but they had a way to go - but the city was active. And it wasn't going to be cheated. She felt something moving through her swarm. Something - yes, definitely a thing. Not a person. No arms, no legs. No, too many arms, too many legs. Smaller. Coming closer. The streets bent. For a second space obeyed an entirely new set of rules. For a second, everything was moving, the city was shifting, it rose above them, it shrank, it grew, it expanded and contracted and became a single point and they were riding upon a pinhead and…
A termite dropped into her hands.
Pale. Fat. Sunless. Fleshy. Larger than any termite she'd seen before. It turned over in her hand, struggling to right its unnaturally sized body. Little black eyes stared up at her, mandibles worked away, tiny hairs flexed and strained outwards… and it spoke.
"Incomplete?"
Its voice was like the scraping of a fork against a glass, a whining, warbling tone which could be beautiful if it wasn't so loud. Instinctually she squashed it. Not a termite. Just a… thing. She couldn't feel it at all, it had no system for her power to latch onto. And when she turned it to mush with a simple squeeze, she felt… flesh. The thing popped open, and its legs felt like they had hands, tiny, fleshy, bony hands, clinging desperately to her, and the mandibles felt like little shards of teeth, and even the hair covering it felt softer than it should, like a human's. It died quickly, and she wiped her hands off. Ready to move, ready to keep-
"...uh."
Parian's voice was quiet and scared, an edge to it which it had previously lacked. Taylor looked around cautiously - her swarm moving to compensate for her missing eye. Termites. Thousands of them. The city looked pockmarked - the walls had holes for them to squirm out of, quivering like birth canals. The walls had wept blue liquid when she arrived, and had continued to do so, little drops of dew. Now, it poured around the termites, oiling their joints, bringing them to a kind of life. The city was a womb. The termites were being birthed within it. That was the only conclusion her mind could come to… she should've have done that. A conclusion fed this place. Understanding and speculation was its sustenance - and it grew fat from even these few drops. More termites poured out, and the distant roaring came closer, closer, closer… a thousand scraping-glass voices blared into the half-light of this alien place. Their dark eyes were bright with hunger and a longing to build, to erode, to destroy and create at the same time, to undermine all things and leave behind a husk.
"Incomplete?"
Run!
* * *
"Run!"
The one-eyed girl looked alarmed. As the person that had dragged her calmly out of her reverie, forced her to experience the world again… seeing her unnerved sent a thrill of unease through Sabah's racing heart. She happily complied - the termites were scuttling closer, whispering, whispering… the girl gripped her hand and pulled. For a second she wanted to just let herself be dragged, give herself up to someone who clearly knew more than she did. Her memories whirled all around her, and the girl continued to pull - and Parian resisted. She tore her hand free and ran faster, keeping pace with all her effort. She had her mind back. She'd been trapped here for… some time. Her own fuckups had landed her in this mess, she was sure of it. The city kept whispering it to her, after all. She would not drag someone down with her, not if she could help it. She'd failed herself, Brockton, everyone who died in the Conflagration, and she'd failed that kid. Gone, and she couldn't even find the willpower to look for her.
No more.
No more.
The termites swarmed after them, and the girl's swarm met them - two armies clashing in a dozen alleyways, holding back the tide as best they were able. For a second Sabah felt a spark of hope… it died quickly. The termites were large, tough things, their bodies swollen with that same cold blue liquid which suffused the walls and clogged the drains. Against a normal person, she could imagine the girl being a terrifying foe. Humans weren't good at fighting things as swift, as numerous, as expendable as insects. But this was insect-on-insect warfare, something the animal kingdom had been honing for thousands upon thousands of years. And it had become frighteningly good at it. She could see the girl's swarm succumbing, her mouth drawing into a thin, tight line as more and more perished. No - couldn't do it on her own. Sabah might not be at her best - no fabric to hijack, no constructs to form - but she still had needles. Always carried backups, but they'd been useless in this place. Nothing to attack. Until now. Fat, fleshy termites, ready to pop…
Her telekinesis exploded outwards. Her remaining needles flung themselves into the air, rocketing outwards with cathartic force. Not strong enough to really hurt a human - but insects? Whispering insects pouring from semi-organic buildings? Oh, she could try. One, two, three - pop, pop, pop. It took barely any pressure to shred them, to send their cold blue insides spreading over the paving stones… for a second she was elated. She was back - she was doing something good. Whatever this place was, she was fighting back against it, doing what was necessary. What had to be done. The Conflagration? Never heard of it. What mattered was surviving here - a nice, neat chain of causality, no holes to be poked, no cracks to fall into. Not like before. Never like before. More were shredded, and the paving stones were becoming choked with icy blue fluid, thicker than water and reeking of rust. No - wait. Too much liquid. Far too much. It was coming from another source. As her needles penetrated deeper… her face drained of colour.
The street was a nest.
The walls were a hive.
The roaring grew closer.
Termites pouring from every surface in sight - the street lights bent under the weight of a thousand bodies leaking from their bulbs, pressed tight against glass which barely contained them. The sewers were alive with them, a wriggling carpet building higher and higher using their own bodies, slender towers which curled like living things to hook around gratings… every step was accompanied with wet crunches and the air filled with whispers. Incomplete, repeated over and over. What was incomplete? Were they incomplete, the two people running through the streets? Was the swarm incomplete? How? Why? Too many answers came to mind, most outlandish, some almost believable, none conclusive. Enough to feed the swarm more, their abdomens bloating. Sabah flinched as tiny pincers drove into her skin from termites that had spilled out of an overhanging building, biting, gnawing, trying to cut through her clothes to her skin, and when they found it, they burrowed. She cut down on a scream. Not productive. Not useful. Not good.
The one-eyed girl had a few on her, wriggling into her hair, burrowing into her flesh, trying to gnaw until they could gnaw no more… she barely seemed to notice. Her scars seemed to resist their delving pincers, and she simply seemed… immune to pain. Or at least, she wasn't showing any. Parian tried to stiffen her back, to brace herself for the inevitable bites, contenting herself with simply swatting them away. If the girl could handle it… if she could do it, so could Sabah. A weakness was found, shown to her, and the immediate response was to adamantly insist that it cease. Pain, fear… pretend they weren't present, bury them under as many layers as possible, and eventually it would work. Right? Right? The termites came closer, closer, closer, hungrier and hungrier…
Incomplete? Incomplete? Incomplete?
The girl's swarm was losing - against humans, insects had the advantage of numbers, of speed, of expendability. Against other insects… well, insects were adept at hunting and killing other insects. A fact that was both an advantage and a disadvantage right now. The fleshy termites were burying the girl's own swarm alive, barely even condescending to gnaw on their bodies. They had numbers aplenty - it was easier to smother and cook them in a fleshy oven. A few subtle changes of temperature was enough to turn their chitin into a roasting prison, and to make their legs curl up feebly before all ceased. Sabah felt claustrophobic just looking at the shambling prisons, their bodies fat and bloated like ticks, always coming closer, and closer, and closer, stinking of rust and stagnant water.
"Not far now."
The girl's voice was quiet, reassuring, confident. She'd seen worse than this before, and she'd come out mostly intact. A few scars? A lost eye? Nothing compared to the joy of surviving. Sabah ran faster. The roaring was approaching quickly. Visions of what could be producing the roar danced behind her eyes - a tidal wave of termites, whatever they were. Something stranger. Maybe the end of this place - the edge of a map being folded up, rolled away, and swallowed whole by the nothingness which lay below this place. She ran faster, more bodies crunching beneath her feet. Welts were developing across her arms and face, and her skin was sticky where bodies had been crushed into a fine paste. The swarm was bursting out in greater and greater numbers, forming a carpet that in some areas was inches deep. A great field of pale snow, until you looked closer and saw the masses of bodies. The wrong turn was getting closer, she could tell - the girl was increasing her pace, her eye was brightening with hope, soon, soon they'd be out, soon they'd-
Stone tore like the surface of a spider's egg.
A building burst. An overripe fruit letting loose a hail of a million bodies, each one fat, pale, and whispering. Dripping with the chilling blue fluid which served as womb and blood both. A roaring wave churned through the streets, and she could faintly hear more buildings bursting. The city was alive. How… had this been the constant way of things? Had every surface just been a hive for these creatures?
Incomplete?
No - couldn't be, she'd have felt it, and the sensations were all wrong - it couldn't be real, there was no chance of it, it was impossible. The termites were the tip of a vast iceberg. As tiny dark eyes looked up from her arm, a dozen sets examining her hungrily… she knew there was something else. Something she'd felt in that alley. A principle that lay behind them… one that she ran from. The termites were reduced down to a mass of chitin, legs, and cold blue liquid with a firm swipe from her other hand. No dwelling on mysteries now. Questioning the things made them faster, hungrier. They fed on ambiguity, she felt - even though that was completely fucking insane. But then again, she'd seen that yellow light.
Either she was insane, or the world was and she was only starting to realise it.
Or maybe she was just surrounded by angry termites and that was generally considered a Bad Thing.
She settled for the third option.
Nice and practical.
But the buildings had still burst. Alleyways were sealed by the churning mass. Too many to fight through, her needles couldn't work effectively against such a large number - they weren't even holding them back now, just… punishing their advance. Nothing more. A slap on the wrist before they managed to get closer, and do… something. She wasn't even sure what. The girl with the eyepatch whirled, scanning everything in sight, every escape route. The sewers were choked with bodies, the buildings were locked (and she had learned to never go inside), the alleyways were impassable. Already the swarm was coming closer, asking the same question in unison, a quiet murmur dwarfed by an ever-louder roar, one that shook the windows and burst even more stones open to reveal their squirming contents. The girl's face hardened.
She'd come to a decision.
"We have to go to the streets! No other way to the exit!"
Sabah paled. No. No no no no no.
"No, please, not there! Not where the sun can see!"
The sun was bad. The sun here wasn't like the sun up above - she could barely describe what it was like, the terror had been too great, she'd run before she could get a good look. The termites were a boiling sea coming closer, closer, clicking hungrily. To tear them apart and do… something. The bites on her arms were more than just welts, she knew that. Even if she couldn't feel it… these things had something worse in store. The girl's face was stiff with panic, and at the same time, glee. Barely perceptible, but nonetheless there. She was relishing this, it was something she was accustomed to. Being surrounded by termites in an impossible city where dark silhouettes crowded the walls and a roaring never ever ceased… she was at home, in a way.
Sabah was starting to be a little terrified of her. Just a little.
The insects helped.
"We can't. The sun will…"
She didn't know what it would do. But it wouldn't be good. The roaring was louder than ever. The girl reached out and took her hand, her grip iron if she wished it to be. She gave a comforting squeeze.
"I got you this far, didn't I?"
"...yeah, but-"
"Trust me. If I can still get you out of here, I will. I've dealt with worse."
…and somehow, Sabah believed her. She'd been alone in this place before the girl came to drag her out, using something to bring her mind back to its senses. Everything had started making sense when she arrived, not a moment sooner. She'd angered this place in a way that Sabah hadn't. The sun was burning down on the street beyond, a cold light which felt distinctly unnatural. She knew it was terrifying - knew it was something that Should Not Be Witnessed… but the girl had saved her. Without her, they wouldn't be here, she'd just be rotting away in that alleyway waiting for the walls to close in and smother her. She'd run from the yellow light, she'd run from the Conflagration. The snide whispers from the city became encouragement in her mind.
She could have stopped this and didn't.
And now she would. If only to prove this city wrong, to prove herself wrong, to prove that she wasn't the same person that huddled in her apartment for days on end, trying to ignore what she'd seen…
She would.
A nod was all that was needed. The one-eyed girl pursed her lips in an imitation of a smile, and something danced behind her eye - something coiling and twisting. The hand which had brought her back dragged her into the light, to the broad street where they could bypass the swarm and the houses bursting like overfilled blisters. To the street where they could navigate to the wrong turn, to the place which had dragged her in. A deep breath - terror was still pulsing in her throat and chest, freezing her lungs, making even breathing an ordeal.
They walked into the light.
They walked into the light.
They walked into the l i g h t.
AN: So, the 'kid' mentioned in this chapter, the tinker specialising in trash, is a reference to a particularly good fic called Raccoon Knight - go and check it out, it's very fun. Trash tinker joins the Wards, pre-canon, honestly just good at making a character that feels like she actually fits into the world. Fits in so well that when I was writing this chapter out and needed a character to fill a certain slot, Raccoon Knight came to mind. Because I've already integrated her into my mental map of Brockton Bay. Character used with permission from the author.
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134 - The Five-Horned beneath the Wolf-Star
GraftingBuddha
Retired Pooh-Bah
134 - The Five-Horned beneath the Wolf-Star
Taylor was having a moment right now. She was a house divided against herself.
You omelette, you could have left the enormous doll to die in this place, but no, we had to come here and hunt her down because a handsome man in our television insisted on it. You… you fool, you foolish fool, your folly will spell the doom of us both, your skull is a one-wheeled wheelbarrow limping onwards despite the influence of gravity, spilling leaves and garden detritus and gnomes all about the back garden and it is rumpling my constructed robes, you absolute… absolute salmon of ignorance!"
She kept running, and Chorei kept screaming incessantly. At this point she was getting adept at tuning her out - she didn't mean any of this. She just liked screaming at her when she did dangerous activities, Like, for instance, running away from termites in the direction of sunlight which Parian had told her in very explicit terms should not be witnessed. But the termites were endless in numbers and hunger both. Their whispers continued, reminding her a little of the worms which had torn out some of her teeth, and set Gallant on his path down to… her hand squeezed Parian's, reminding her that the parahuman was still here. She'd failed with Gallant. She wouldn't fail again. The termites reminded her of the worms, but they were… empty. The worm had a kind of boundless malice within them - like Bisha had stripped away parts of himself and let them grow using others as fuel, host, bed, partner and victim all at once. They were intelligent, in their own way. These termites were vacant. They chanted the same words over and over and over:
Incomplete? Incomplete? Incomplete?
And there was nothing behind those black eyes. Just… empty space, and a principle animating them. The city was dead. The termites were dead. And something lingered behind it all. One of the termites landed on her arm, trying desperately and fruitlessly to bite through her scars… and in a moment of curiosity, she extended her consciousness to it. Speculation made them more powerful… but she had to know. Had to find a place to categorise them. She had no interest in their deeper mysteries, she just wanted to learn what they were - animal, vegetable, mineral? What did they serve? And how did it relate to the forces she vaguely understood. Chorei glared from inside her head… but allowed it, even helping a little as a brief foray away from her current work. Not a full grafting, not even close, but a trace of it. The kind of thing she did with Bisha all that time ago, a shock to his ego. A glimpse of the other. She tried it on the termite, and… something shuddered beyond her perception.
Something that couldn't be portrayed as a tapestry of thought - for there was no thought. Only stories, tattered and shredded, half-glimpsed in the dark. The remains of old meals, drifting upon its surface - no, no surface. Just depth. Infinite and boundless. And nothing more. Nothing at all. It was unfinished - and it would always be unfinished. In its incompleteness it was made whole, and in that paradox it found harmony. The termite was a fragment of it - no, a vessel filled to the brim with it. Feeding on that which had been half-done, on stories ended abruptly, on every conversation that ended before it was meant to. A whisper carried up to her, an invitation to welcome it deeper, to fall into the lacuna, to let the still dark waters consume her completely - the roar grew louder behind it, a pulsing undercurrent which sounded like… like a bull from the sea. A roaring thing swimming in her direction in the infinite space impossibly contained within this termite. Five horns glinted darkly in the light of unknown stars, like dulled razors, like termite mounds curving towards an unseen sky.. And behind the roar was a whisper, and behind the whisper was a roar, and within it all were words.
"...Look, once this is dealt with, that's it. No more ridiculous adventures, no more danger… and I'll explain everything. I promise."
The last words she'd said to her dad before… before everything.
Before she ran off.
Before Bisha.
Before-
She broke through, and crushed the termite. Nothing remained of it, just mush. No whispers. No horned things in the dark. The sun was coming closer. Her mind was iron, she refused to engage with the whispers, refused to engage with the feelings they evoked. She was making things right, wasn't she? Gallant's cold dead eyes stared from the dark, reproachful, a promising story cut entirely short. No. No. Parian's hand was warm, her eyes were wide, her face was flushed from exertion and panic. She was alive, and if Taylor had any power over things, she would ensure she remained that way. Chorei was silent, working frantically to hold things together - her duty was to keep Taylor's mind intact, and by extension, Parian's. She knew about light that flayed the senses - and she knew that in such stormy conditions an anchor was the best thing anyone could ask for.
Parian was breathing faster - and Chorei instinctively acted. Cowardice was a paralysing thing in most, but the nun had lived a long, long while. She'd learned to turn that cowardice into action - instead of pinning her in place, it motivated her to run, to seek, to climb, to learn. Cowardice had driven her to Senpou, and cowardice had allowed her to survive while her remaining brothers and sisters died one by one. Until Taylor, she'd had a… fairly good track record for surviving. Fairly. And Taylor could sense that Chorei knew Parian would be a problem if she started hyperventilating, panicking, shutting down in the face of the light that was rapidly approaching. Chorei reached - a small grafting, mind-to-mind. Taylor wasn't sure what she was showing Parian, or if she way saying anything, transmitting anything… but it seemed to work. Parian's breathing was more steady, and her hand gripped Taylor's a little tighter. She was more certain, and when she glanced back, she saw a pair of determined eyes staring back. Good. Chorei settled back into her conventional nest in Taylor's grey matter, concentrating fully on the task ahead. The termites were flooding in their direction, their speed increasing - as if desperate to reach them before they could reach the light. The alleyway shuddered, buildings inching towards total collapse, the road starting to quiver uncertainly in an effort to slow them down.
Termites.
Claustrophobia.
Buildings collapsing.
An unknown light ahead.
To someone else, this would've been terrifying. Something that would paralyse them, give them nightmares for a long, long time - and definitely a phobia of both alleyways and small mound-building insects. For Taylor? It made her feel alive again. Reminded her of racing through Mound Moor, through Vandeerleuwe, up to Bisha's tower in Brockton Bay, away from Brent DeNeuve's apartment… but the stakes here were personal. Just her and Parian. No world to save. No great villain to defeat. Just… something to make up for a failure she'd never been able to quite move on from. Something to make up for that visit to the hospital, where her powerlessness was made abundantly clear. The world was a vast, complicated place - by comparison, this realm was simple. Her face twitched, attempting an automatic smile. No success, but the effort had been made. The light came closer, closer, the termites were louder and louder, their whispering merging into a single roar, a howl at prey that was getting away. The buildings were shaking, discharging more and more squirming bodies. Blue freezing liquid pooled up to their ankles, writhing with many-legged biting things. Welts were mounting on their exposed flesh. The roar in the distance was louder than ever, an earthquake all around. She saw long, long fingers creep around a corner…
They emerged into the light.
All went silent.
The roaring came to an end.
All that remained was the sun beating down on them. Time seemed to slow in its presence - shadows were banished, all that remained was a flat, unflinching plain. She expected something like the Frenzied Flame - a sickening colour that leached away at all others. But this was… different. Not quite light. Not quite like any light she'd seen before, natural or otherwise. It was cold - dreadfully so. Her skin prickled with frost, and she… smelled something. Not quite blood. Not quite ozone. But something in between, something that made her nose sting and her jaw ache. The crackling power before a thunderstorm. She smelled something unfamiliar amidst it all - atoms churning and spitting like droplets of water on a hot stove. The smell of radon before an earthquake. The sound of animals howling before a disaster. Gunpowder seemed to pour around her fingertips, every particle laughing to itself and singing of things to come. Anticipation hovered, anticipation in all its glory. Parian whimpered, but kept running, even as sound ceased all around them - nothing lingered but sound's anticipation. No echoes, no repeats, only the intake of breath, the raising of a foot, the bunching of muscles. Nothing else lingered. The present was naught, the future was dust, all that mattered was the slow, steady tapping of the clock as it advanced. What did it advance to? Where did it advance from?
All that mattered was the tick-tick-tick-tick-tick. The clunking of rusty mechanisms which sounded like the shredding of a ship's hull and the pouring of icy, icy waters. Taylor… looked. She had to. Chorei struggled to hold things together on her end - an anchor keeping her stabilised even as things began to fray. She was not meant to be here, and nor was Parian. The street wasn't open - it was burned. An ice-cold scar burned through this colossal termite mound, a place where none of these things would dare tread. An event horizon - a border - the dark edge of the map - the point where all things changed. They were near the wrong turn, and on the borders of change lay… this. The termites had represented something to do with endings, something five-horned, something that fed on ambiguities and unfinished business. And this… this scar was from something else entirely. This was the herald, the outrider, the first shakings of the earth that foretold a great disaster. Not bringing it - simply announcing it. The ragged edges of the wound these termites and their ruler had made.
And the sun…
The Sun.
You could never see a star. Only the light it produced. Never see a black hole, only the event horizon where all things ceased.
She looked on the event horizon.
A bleeding star hung in the sky, carved by butcher's knives.
It blinked, and swivelled.
A wolf's eye. A dancer on the edge of nothingness and oblivion, of revolution and change, the bleeding edge of vacuum decay. Beyond it lay something else. But to her… all that mattered was the vanguard.
It was gazing at her.
She looked into the abyss, and it looked back.
Taylor ran faster, and Chorei held her together… barely. Their minds were interlinked, woven together so tightly that they could almost be mistaken for being one and the same… almost. They were distinct, yet connected. One and one combining to make eleven. Greater than the sum of their parts. Chorei couldn't have done this on her own, nor could Taylor. The star's light was flaying, the eye shredded anything it gazed upon. Each one of them would've died in a second if they'd walked here without the other. The tapestry of their linked minds strained… but it held. The wolf-star blazed bright and cold, the street was shining with compacted ice refracting its gaze over and over and over… yet she continued. Parian was stumbling. Grafting began, a second of interconnectedness. Chorei simply… added Parian to the mix, sharing in the comfort granted by experience, by past victories against similar forces, by the knowledge that it was possible to go on. The cape hesitated… and allowed the grafting to occur. A temporary unity that gave her the strength she needed to carry on. An alleyway presented itself, dark and sheltered, teeming with insects that flinched from the cold that surrounded them, a cold so deep it seemed to never leave, a cold that ate at their bones instead of dwelling in them…
A second passed.
Then another.
Time meant nothing here, but she counted it nonetheless. The star above glared down, vast and cold, silently screaming of what was to come. She ran…
And the alleyway embraced them. Innumerable bodies were crushed underfoot, and the swarm backed away from them both. They were freezing - lips were caked with frost, hair was frozen solid, even blinking was an exercise in endurance. Parian struggled to even lift her feet - the grafting was still present, and Taylor used it. It'd worked with Gallant… to a degree. It'd gotten him out of that pile of whispering worms. And this entire experience was giving her some severe flashbacks to that long, long night. Chorei took over the duty of managing the legs, driving her onwards through the ankle-deep carpet of flinching termites, while Taylor tried to send… memories, that was it. Just a few feelings, really. The sensation of dragging herself out of that frozen lake in Minnesota, the way the cold had sunk into her, killed her by degrees… and the feeling of being dragged to a source of warmth. The feeling of all that ice melting, of the shivering giving way to a calm, restful neutrality where everything worked harmoniously, her blood pumped freely, her heart pounded like it ought to, her brain functioned like brains generally did. No ice. No cold. Parian relaxed - her pace increased.
Huh. The two of them had barely exchanged a few words before running, and she'd already grafted with Parian.
What was the world coming to?
They were close - the remnants of her swarm formed a constellation of isolated viewpoints, hazy and indistinct, but the map they formed was one she understood. She followed the stars, the individual points of brightness studding the dark of this crawling, chaotic place. A map guiding them to the wrong turn. Termites seethed around them, but the cold drove them back - they flinched from the cold star which shone on high. If she was going to guess… it was a border. An edge. It marked the edge of their expansion - what came first, the star, or the limit? Whatever the case, they reeked of that division and it drove the swarm back. Not that the termites weren't trying. They piled high, forming pillars from their own bodies, scattered by the rapid advance of the two parahumans. Parian's mind was calmer than it really ought to be - and she was checking. Didn't want another Gallant situation. But Parian was running, her mind was flooded with the memories of warmth, the sensation of experienced reassurance, all the things which Chorei and Taylor had worked upon her. The wrong turn came closer, closer, the walls pulsed angrily and split to reveal yet more termites…
And there it was.
A twist.
A folding of space.
The wolf-star howled.
The termite-world squirmed.
A five-horned thing roared
And they were back. The air was filled with the sound of a city's nightlife - she'd thought this street was quiet, but compared to the eerie nothingness of the world beyond this wrong turning… it was deafening. And God, did it feel good.
Usurper…
Taylor blinked.
"...yeah?"
Parian glanced sharply in her direction, and Taylor waved her off. They were both still catching their respective breaths, and the cape didn't have the oxygen to object.
The fact that this worked is no justification for doing it again. I hope we understand one another there.
A pause.
And tell the doll creature to thank me, I worked hard to keep her mind from fracturing.
"Uh, Parian?"
The cape had no words, still catching her breath, still reassuring herself that she was back - she was about a second away from kissing the ground before reality struck home and she decided that maybe kissing the filthy asphalt wasn't the best idea. That being said, she did look tempted by a quick earthen snog. Best to intervene before she did something regrettable.
"This is going to sound very weird, but could you say 'thank you'?"
Parian blinked… then promptly started crying wildly. Everything in that city caught up with her - and a whole mess of other things, if the mumbled words amidst her blubbering meant anything. Her face quickly turned from a face simultaneously determined and terrified into a complete and utter mess, and her dress wasn't far behind. Taylor really didn't know how to deal with this. Did she… did she pat her? Did she take her out for a drink? No, shit, that wouldn't work, Taylor was still technically underage. Hm. Back to the tea shop for a drink? Did she give her a hug? Would she just accept it, or would she reciprocate and refuse to let go? Could those termites come through the wrong turn - actually, that sounded great, focus on terrifying possibilities, stop dwelling on social interactions which had become increasingly baffling and faintly alarming as time went on. Say what thou will about nightmarish termites, but at least they just ate you. Nothing awkward about being eaten by nightmarish termites from another reality. Shit, why didn't she bring tissues?
I take it back, please just tell her to stop, this is making me very uncomfortable.
Taylor flinched, and murmured in response.
"Yeah. Me too."
Patting seemed like a good trick, it was like punching but instead of destroying noses it destroyed negative feelings. Christ she needed to get out more. She patted Parian hesitantly. She locked up a little… and kept crying. Oh no. It was all becoming worse, why couldn't this emotional rollercoaster stop. She wasn't even the one on it, she was just watching someone else flail along it while feeling sympathetic vertigo.
"You… want some alcohol?"
More blubbering, and a few scattered words - oh, right, yeah, that was comprehensible. Fantastic.
"I don't even know your name!"
"Taylor."
"Thank you, thank you, I… I can't say thank you enough, I don't know… I…"
…bah. Not even thanking me, and I'm the one who… bah…
Yeah, that sounded like her. Parian sniffed, getting her voice under control.
"...what was that place? How did you find me?"
"It's a long story."
"I've got time."
"A very long story."
"Please."
"Maybe somewhere else?"
She was flailing a bit. She'd wanted to save someone, that didn't necessarily mean talking to them. Couldn't Parian just… find a motel, shower off, do something else with her time? Wait, shit, she was probably traumatised by being almost eaten by a city which Taylor still barely understood. How did… well, how did she deal with trauma? Hm. Maybe encouraging Parian to get even more into this world wasn't the best idea. And she didn't think the 'immortal nun brain roommate' plan would work very well for her - there weren't many of these immortal nuns left lying around, to her understanding, and Taylor was a big believer in sustainable possessions for trauma relief.
OK, the adrenaline was entirely to blame for that thought.
Not the fact that she was a teenager and sometimes teenagers had weird thoughts. Or so she assumed.
I cannot tell what you are thinking, but I can sense faint embarrassment. It's very disconcerting.
Well, sorry for having the capacity to feel 'faint embarrassment'. Gah. Right. Anyway. Parian was struggling to get to her feet, shaking like a leaf in the wind. She looked like a stiff breeze could probably topple her… maybe leaving her alone wouldn't be the best idea. Right, she had a phone - one thing she'd been adamant about acquiring after the business with Bisha. She'd told Turk and Ahab where she was going and at least some of why. Not the cowboy part. That would just be silly. The city continued to move around them, paying no attention to the two who had briefly had a sojourn to a very, very different place. She glanced around - the wrong turn was still there, her insects could still travel to and fro. But they died almost immediately, crushed by a mass of termites. Maybe worthwhile sealing this place off, just to stop anyone else from getting drawn here… how had it even emerged? Parian dried herself off with a definitely ruined sleeve - the entire dress was a lost cause. She was starting to look around, get her bearings… wasn't going very well, but humanity was still creeping closer, inch by inch. The hollow shell of a person she'd dragged out of that other city was starting to fill up.
"Need to make some calls. Be back in a moment."
Parian grabbed her wrist as she tried to leave, and Taylor had to resist the urge to punch her in the face. Or shoot her. Right, she still had a pistol. Wild. No, calm down, she was just… she looked desperate, down there on the ground, scraped, covered in welts and half-dried tears. Parian stared up with terrified eyes.
"...please don't leave me here."
"...sure."
The calls were brief. Ahab and Turk had been primed to move since she'd left - time hadn't gotten too strange, thankfully. They were already driving out to the tea shop, just in case, and this alley was close enough. When asked if they had anything good for sealing up alleyways, they simply responded with… well, of course they had the ability to seal up an alleyway. Jump dump some trash there, ideally the worthless kind. Turk's truck could be piled high with some crap from a nearby dilapidated building - in the meantime, they could shift a dumpster or something. Nothing more permanent - that would attract far too much attention. No-one cared about a pile of rusting barrels heaped in the entrance to an alleyway, but the government got antsy if you filled the whole thing in with concrete. Parian listened closely as she gave them instructions, her bearing improving with each passing second. She was reluctant to hang up - it meant more attempts at conversation. And she was bad at that, she didn't know how to talk to someone like… hm. She really didn't know anything about Parian. Wild.
"There's some friends coming over. Can you go back to your own apartment, or…"
The shiver told her everything she needed to know.
"I live above a tea shop, you can crash there if you want. Or you can crash with a friend."
"T-tea shop sounds good. If that's alright. I… don't want to be a burden."
"You're not."
Her response was blunt and off-the-cuff - and it seemed to hit Parian hard. How old was she? Roundabout… looked college-aged, maybe early twenties. Her clothes were filthy enough that it was impossible to connect them to her cape identity, and if Taylor remembered correctly, she wore a white mask with a blonde wig - she'd be fine. No risk of being unmasked to random strangers. Good. They waited in silence - Taylor didn't know how to talk with her, and Parian seemed unwilling to try it out. Too busy shivering. There'd be time for a proper debriefing, time to answer the important questions. How did she end up in that city? How did she interact with Bisha? How much did she know? Anything could be important, tiny irrelevant details adding to a realisation on what they were facing. Taylor glanced back at the area where space stopped obeying its own rules. A wound in the world… that felt like an adequate description. A wound, but left by what? Was this tied exclusively to Parian, or was it broader? Was she just a bystander caught up in things, or just another small part of a much larger pattern? Bisha had done… something when he destroyed that building, something she was still struggling to understand the ramifications of… maybe it had made these wounds. Maybe his death had done that.
Something she'd helped do, then.
A van pulled up in front of them suddenly, moving with absolute silence despite its size. Turk had maintained it well - no squealing brakes, no shuddering metal, nothing but a faint purr from the engine and the slight rustle from the tires. A tinted window rolled down, and a familiar face glared out. Two eyes between them, eyepatches they bought from the same store, clothes that were similarly cheap, practical, and quickly discarded as gore piled up. Turk grumbled as he stepped out, and Parian scrambled to her feet, a few needles on her person twitching agitatedly. Taylor gave her a look - it calmed her. Well, froze her to the spot. Which worked just as well.
"...so?"
"There's a… gate, I guess, just in that alleyway. Needs sealing. She was trapped inside - got her out."
He raised a single eyebrow - more silent communication, a language she'd become rather adept in over time.
'How did you find out she was there?'
She idly shrugged.
'I'll explain later, it would take too long.'
A tiny nod, and a faint narrowing of his one remaining eye.
'Anything familiar?'
She pressed her lips tightly together, and her eyebrows rose - almost helplessly.
'Nothing. It's new.'
That was all. Ahab came stumbling around the other side. Drunk as a skunk, and based on how her face was dripping with water, she'd dunked her head in something cold to try and shock some feeling back into herself. She looked… bad. Very bad. Losing an arm hadn't been good for her - even with Turk taking care of her, she was still profoundly off. Huge bags had developed under her eyes, and she had a pungency which suggested that she wasn't scouring herself as often as she probably should. Open sores wept down her face, and her mouth twisted into a crooked grin, showing off yellow, chipped teeth. Parian took a step back at the sight of her - another look, and she ceased any movements. The two ex-mercenaries stood side-by-side, Turk obviously bracing himself to catch her if necessary. Still, even drunk she had a certain… toughness about her. A precision which spoke to intensively cultivated muscle memory. Even drunk she could probably shoot well enough. She glanced between Taylor and a patch of empty air, squinting… with a nod, she settled on looking at the real Taylor. Great, she was seeing double.
"Oy-oy lads, how's the ethnic cleansing going?"
What.
What?
Ahab seemed to realise what she'd said just after her mouth closed, and pinched the bridge of her putrid nose with an expression of supreme exasperation and faint embarrassment.
"Sorry, sorry, was thinking about- nevermind. So. Alleyway, huh?"
"Yep. Mind if we get a ride back to the shop?"
"I'll let the lovely Turk handle that duty, but if you need anything shot, I can probably hit it. Probably."
She leaned in, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. Her breath stank of alcohol.
"Between you and me, the trick is to aim for both."
Definitely seeing double. Parian was looking increasingly horrified at the entire scene arrayed before her… but she'd also almost been eaten by magical termites, which really put things in perspective. Ahab finally noticed the cape, and took in her bearing, her costume, the filth covering her… and sighed.
"Please don't tell me…"
"We'll talk about it later."
"Stop picking up strays, just… gah, fine. Right, you look like shit, let's get you somewhere that isn't here."
And Parian's attitude did a rapid 180, something Ahab didn't remotely notice.
"...yeah, warm bath, liquor, ice cream, just… mong out to some Barry White, eh?"
Taylor wanted a bath, liquor, ice cream and Barry White. Maybe not Barry White. She wasn't quite sure who Barry White was, but if Ahab could aim for a raging cultist at the other end of a long street, she could probably aim for the best album on a shelf. Presumably. That made sense, right? For once, she wished that Chorei could just hear her thoughts as some convenient internal monologue, it'd make everything easier. Instead the nun was simply stewing, irritable at the sight of the woman who'd almost chopped her head off with a pair of chainsaw-axes. Which, to be fair, was something worth being annoyed about. Parian stumbled into the van with a little prodding, huddling on a low bench and shivering constantly on the brief ride back. Taylor sat opposite her, keeping an eye on the very slightly unstable cape. She said nothing, and Parian said nothing in return. Still processing what had happened, and what things would be like afterwards. The two in front were quiet, Ahab dozing, Turk concentrating on the road. Taylor looked at the girl opposite, and thought… well, she understood the feeling. The idea that things were no longer the same. Like getting sunburn for the first time. There was a realisation that skin could do that, skin could rebel, skin could turn stiff and sore, the sun itself could be a deadly enemy.
And once that lesson was learned, there was really no going back. Parian was standing at the frontier of a brave new world full of things that would gladly drive her mad, and if they didn't, would still demand serious alterations to… well, just about everything. Body. Mind. Soul, if there was such a thing. Worldview, of course. That would shatter and need to be rebuilt. Taylor remembered Gallant. He'd fallen off, clung desperately to shreds of understanding, and… failed. He'd died, and hadn't remotely understood what had killed him, what had burned his mind out and shrivelled his eyes to small, yellow grapes. She remembered the sight of raindrops falling on his open eye, sightless and staring. The feeling of Bisha laughing as he got to… to work. Her injuries ached, each and every one of them. Her knee, still sore. Every laceration that was struggling to knit back together. Her eye socket, which sometimes burned with phantom pain. Parian shivered, and Taylor… spoke.
"...you'll want to move on from this."
The girl looked up sharply.
"...I… move on?"
"Trust me. It's a rabbit hole, but it's possible to climb out. If you try."
She shrugged.
"I didn't."
"And… and how did it work out?"
She gave Parian a look. Her scars were obvious. Her injuries were apparent. She still had visible stitches poking up over her shirt from where Bisha had stuck burning nails into her collarbone. The girl's eyes widened, finally taking it all in. Yep. There it was. The stuff she tried not to look at while she was in the shower.
"...oh."
"Yeah. Just… you have family? Friends?"
"Some. My… my dad died recently, but…"
She sniffed, and Taylor felt something in her stomach. Something angry and squirming. Sympathetic. And that sympathy reminded her of the sight of her dad in that crowded room, surrounded by bodies, practically tied down to a rattling bed almost as old as he was…
"I'm sorry. But whoever you've got left - focus on them. Leave this behind. Do cape stuff, just… ignore alleyways that seem tempting, I guess."
A pause.
"...and if you find stuff like this again, call me. I'll see if I can take care of it."
Why was she offering that? She wanted to get out of Brockton, she wanted to move on, she… was sitting in front of someone who'd seen what Taylor had seen time and time again, and clearly wasn't ready to adjust. If she was pressured, Taylor imagined that she would break. She was tough, but that place had almost shattered her. If someone like Bisha, someone with malicious intent set his or her sights on Parian… that'd be it. No chance of survival in body or mind. Gallant's dead eye loomed before her, burning as cold as the wolf-star. Astrid weeping at the side of a lake. Every dead body she'd seen or sensed during the Conflagration, the people torn apart by Bisha's forces, by his bombing campaign… her dad. Comatose. Locked away like he was already dead.
Parian needed help. And Taylor couldn't bring herself to deny it.
The tea shop came up soon - Taylor helped Parian out of the truck, while Turk looked into the blockage situation. Easy enough, he reckoned. A few slugs of pitch-black coffee was able to charge him up for the long haul. Ahab helped as best she could, and Taylor entered the shop serenaded by the sound of distant barrels being dragged messily out of an abandoned structure. The tea shop was colder than usual, the liveliness of the day long-since drained away, but it still felt better than the outside. Taylor staggered up to her apartment, Parian draped over one shoulder, on the verge of passing out from exhaustion. However long she'd been in there, it'd taken a toll. Chorei was watchful but silent, unwilling to contribute much to the proceedings unfolding in front of her. Taylor could sense something odd from her - she was as conflicted as Taylor was, in some respects. Her habit was to be cold and unfeeling, to detach herself from the world and everyone in it. But she had weaknesses. Foibles. Food, particularly the unhealthy kind. Old movies. Men with excellent moustaches, apparently. And now… Taylor thought she could spy a hint of empathy in there. Just a tiny amount. Had… hm. She murmured very quietly, low enough for Parian to barely notice.
"Feeling empathetic?"
Silence. My thoughts are my own, and if you are wise, usurper, you will leave things that way. Care for your strays if you must, but do not let them harm our own chances of survival.
Right. Sure. That was definitely why Chorei seemed to be peering curiously when Parian slumped onto their couch, almost like she was making sure she wasn't hugely injured or at all uncomfortable. Taylor grunted in exertion as the girl collapsed, eyes already flickering closed, straining to stay open in the face of weariness. A faint twitch passed up her back as she realised that her apartment was… right, not the kind of place she wanted to have guests. She hadn't even removed Turk's vintage posters of Soviet-era models - though she could mostly blame that on the weird adhesive he'd used, she swore that stuff was tinker made. That, or was made from materials that were no longer legal to use in household adhesive, maybe something radioactive, carcinogenic, that qualified as a violation of the Geneva Suggest - no, Convention, Convention, the mercs weren't rubbing off on her that much. Parian glanced idly at them, at women with excellent cheekbones and… not the recommended amount of clothing for a Russian winter, she could say that much for sure.
"...nice taste."
"Not mine."
To prevent any further conversation, Taylor just unstoppered a bottle. Nothing special, just some bargain-bin whiskey Turk kept for when the moonshine ran out. She didn't try to drink too much, she knew it was an unhealthy habit - she didn't drink alone, at least. That was her consolation. Of course, she hung out with people who drank a great deal, but… wasn't drinking alone, wasn't drinking alone. That meant she was fine. Parian blinked at the sight of the brown liquid rising higher and higher… she was obviously conflicted. Taylor froze for a second - she looked middle eastern. Was she Muslim? If so, would… dammit, not even alcohol was safe now, at this point she'd just start pretending to be Turk to try and avoid yet more conversation, dammit, dammit. Parian glanced at the glass, bit her lip… and shrugged.
"Just a little."
When she saw Taylor's look of very faint surprise, her mouth twisted into a smile - the first she'd shown since they'd met. Even with the filth from the city, the residue of hundreds of termites dying around and on her, the welts lining her arms and neck, the general air of desperation… well, she looked a little better. Just a little. Closer to normality, certainly. Taylor felt a small spark of hope - maybe she'd get this one right. Maybe she'd come out of this without a body count of innocents.
"Cheers."
No explanations. She didn't feel like proffering them, and Taylor didn't much feel like hearing them. Her business was her own. They downed their drinks in a single gulp, and while Taylor relished the burn, enjoyed the relaxation that the alcohol forced on her tired limbs… Parian just fell backwards and started to snore. Huh. Well, that checked out, she was pretty tired. Taylor shrugged, and tried to orient her a little on the couch - make sure she didn't wake up with a spine curled into a question mark. A blanket, just to make sure. Taylor was going to offer her the bed, but… well, she looked pretty fast asleep. And Taylor didn't want termite juice all over her sheets. It took some time to scrub herself clean, scrub until the skin turned red and sore, until she felt herself again… but it was worth it. Crawling beneath her own sheets, hearing Parian snoring in the other room…
Felt like she'd done something right.
After Gallant. After so many ambiguous victories, or pyrrhic victories, or victories which might not be victories at all, or bittersweet victories… it was nice to just have a win. It was nice to have a situation which resolved with everyone involved alive, slightly tipsy, and asleep.
And yet… questions still boiled all around her, hovering faintly in the still, warm air of her apartment. And when the light turned off, they lingered all the same, shining dimly. Chorei was pacing inside her skull, thinking intensely, trying to piece matters together with the limited information she had available. She paused… and abruptly stood, moving to the television, turning it around so it faced the wall. Just in case. Just in case.
Questions, questions, questions.
Who was Angel Eyes?
How had this wound in the world developed?
Could more appear?
How was Parian connected?
And… something else. Something big. The wolf-star, the screaming thing which hung in the sky… she'd sensed that it was a vanguard. It was defined not by itself, but by what it guarded, what it advanced in front of. A border was only defined by the things on either side, and so it was with this thing. She didn't even have a name for it yet, a fact that was pissing her off not inconsiderably. She'd been on one side of it, she'd seen the raging edge, and she'd seen something underneath. Something moving. Something that come closer, closer, closer…
What was it?
What was coming?
…When would it be here?
Taylor was having a moment right now. She was a house divided against herself.
You omelette, you could have left the enormous doll to die in this place, but no, we had to come here and hunt her down because a handsome man in our television insisted on it. You… you fool, you foolish fool, your folly will spell the doom of us both, your skull is a one-wheeled wheelbarrow limping onwards despite the influence of gravity, spilling leaves and garden detritus and gnomes all about the back garden and it is rumpling my constructed robes, you absolute… absolute salmon of ignorance!"
She kept running, and Chorei kept screaming incessantly. At this point she was getting adept at tuning her out - she didn't mean any of this. She just liked screaming at her when she did dangerous activities, Like, for instance, running away from termites in the direction of sunlight which Parian had told her in very explicit terms should not be witnessed. But the termites were endless in numbers and hunger both. Their whispers continued, reminding her a little of the worms which had torn out some of her teeth, and set Gallant on his path down to… her hand squeezed Parian's, reminding her that the parahuman was still here. She'd failed with Gallant. She wouldn't fail again. The termites reminded her of the worms, but they were… empty. The worm had a kind of boundless malice within them - like Bisha had stripped away parts of himself and let them grow using others as fuel, host, bed, partner and victim all at once. They were intelligent, in their own way. These termites were vacant. They chanted the same words over and over and over:
Incomplete? Incomplete? Incomplete?
And there was nothing behind those black eyes. Just… empty space, and a principle animating them. The city was dead. The termites were dead. And something lingered behind it all. One of the termites landed on her arm, trying desperately and fruitlessly to bite through her scars… and in a moment of curiosity, she extended her consciousness to it. Speculation made them more powerful… but she had to know. Had to find a place to categorise them. She had no interest in their deeper mysteries, she just wanted to learn what they were - animal, vegetable, mineral? What did they serve? And how did it relate to the forces she vaguely understood. Chorei glared from inside her head… but allowed it, even helping a little as a brief foray away from her current work. Not a full grafting, not even close, but a trace of it. The kind of thing she did with Bisha all that time ago, a shock to his ego. A glimpse of the other. She tried it on the termite, and… something shuddered beyond her perception.
Something that couldn't be portrayed as a tapestry of thought - for there was no thought. Only stories, tattered and shredded, half-glimpsed in the dark. The remains of old meals, drifting upon its surface - no, no surface. Just depth. Infinite and boundless. And nothing more. Nothing at all. It was unfinished - and it would always be unfinished. In its incompleteness it was made whole, and in that paradox it found harmony. The termite was a fragment of it - no, a vessel filled to the brim with it. Feeding on that which had been half-done, on stories ended abruptly, on every conversation that ended before it was meant to. A whisper carried up to her, an invitation to welcome it deeper, to fall into the lacuna, to let the still dark waters consume her completely - the roar grew louder behind it, a pulsing undercurrent which sounded like… like a bull from the sea. A roaring thing swimming in her direction in the infinite space impossibly contained within this termite. Five horns glinted darkly in the light of unknown stars, like dulled razors, like termite mounds curving towards an unseen sky.. And behind the roar was a whisper, and behind the whisper was a roar, and within it all were words.
"...Look, once this is dealt with, that's it. No more ridiculous adventures, no more danger… and I'll explain everything. I promise."
The last words she'd said to her dad before… before everything.
Before she ran off.
Before Bisha.
Before-
She broke through, and crushed the termite. Nothing remained of it, just mush. No whispers. No horned things in the dark. The sun was coming closer. Her mind was iron, she refused to engage with the whispers, refused to engage with the feelings they evoked. She was making things right, wasn't she? Gallant's cold dead eyes stared from the dark, reproachful, a promising story cut entirely short. No. No. Parian's hand was warm, her eyes were wide, her face was flushed from exertion and panic. She was alive, and if Taylor had any power over things, she would ensure she remained that way. Chorei was silent, working frantically to hold things together - her duty was to keep Taylor's mind intact, and by extension, Parian's. She knew about light that flayed the senses - and she knew that in such stormy conditions an anchor was the best thing anyone could ask for.
Parian was breathing faster - and Chorei instinctively acted. Cowardice was a paralysing thing in most, but the nun had lived a long, long while. She'd learned to turn that cowardice into action - instead of pinning her in place, it motivated her to run, to seek, to climb, to learn. Cowardice had driven her to Senpou, and cowardice had allowed her to survive while her remaining brothers and sisters died one by one. Until Taylor, she'd had a… fairly good track record for surviving. Fairly. And Taylor could sense that Chorei knew Parian would be a problem if she started hyperventilating, panicking, shutting down in the face of the light that was rapidly approaching. Chorei reached - a small grafting, mind-to-mind. Taylor wasn't sure what she was showing Parian, or if she way saying anything, transmitting anything… but it seemed to work. Parian's breathing was more steady, and her hand gripped Taylor's a little tighter. She was more certain, and when she glanced back, she saw a pair of determined eyes staring back. Good. Chorei settled back into her conventional nest in Taylor's grey matter, concentrating fully on the task ahead. The termites were flooding in their direction, their speed increasing - as if desperate to reach them before they could reach the light. The alleyway shuddered, buildings inching towards total collapse, the road starting to quiver uncertainly in an effort to slow them down.
Termites.
Claustrophobia.
Buildings collapsing.
An unknown light ahead.
To someone else, this would've been terrifying. Something that would paralyse them, give them nightmares for a long, long time - and definitely a phobia of both alleyways and small mound-building insects. For Taylor? It made her feel alive again. Reminded her of racing through Mound Moor, through Vandeerleuwe, up to Bisha's tower in Brockton Bay, away from Brent DeNeuve's apartment… but the stakes here were personal. Just her and Parian. No world to save. No great villain to defeat. Just… something to make up for a failure she'd never been able to quite move on from. Something to make up for that visit to the hospital, where her powerlessness was made abundantly clear. The world was a vast, complicated place - by comparison, this realm was simple. Her face twitched, attempting an automatic smile. No success, but the effort had been made. The light came closer, closer, the termites were louder and louder, their whispering merging into a single roar, a howl at prey that was getting away. The buildings were shaking, discharging more and more squirming bodies. Blue freezing liquid pooled up to their ankles, writhing with many-legged biting things. Welts were mounting on their exposed flesh. The roar in the distance was louder than ever, an earthquake all around. She saw long, long fingers creep around a corner…
They emerged into the light.
All went silent.
The roaring came to an end.
All that remained was the sun beating down on them. Time seemed to slow in its presence - shadows were banished, all that remained was a flat, unflinching plain. She expected something like the Frenzied Flame - a sickening colour that leached away at all others. But this was… different. Not quite light. Not quite like any light she'd seen before, natural or otherwise. It was cold - dreadfully so. Her skin prickled with frost, and she… smelled something. Not quite blood. Not quite ozone. But something in between, something that made her nose sting and her jaw ache. The crackling power before a thunderstorm. She smelled something unfamiliar amidst it all - atoms churning and spitting like droplets of water on a hot stove. The smell of radon before an earthquake. The sound of animals howling before a disaster. Gunpowder seemed to pour around her fingertips, every particle laughing to itself and singing of things to come. Anticipation hovered, anticipation in all its glory. Parian whimpered, but kept running, even as sound ceased all around them - nothing lingered but sound's anticipation. No echoes, no repeats, only the intake of breath, the raising of a foot, the bunching of muscles. Nothing else lingered. The present was naught, the future was dust, all that mattered was the slow, steady tapping of the clock as it advanced. What did it advance to? Where did it advance from?
All that mattered was the tick-tick-tick-tick-tick. The clunking of rusty mechanisms which sounded like the shredding of a ship's hull and the pouring of icy, icy waters. Taylor… looked. She had to. Chorei struggled to hold things together on her end - an anchor keeping her stabilised even as things began to fray. She was not meant to be here, and nor was Parian. The street wasn't open - it was burned. An ice-cold scar burned through this colossal termite mound, a place where none of these things would dare tread. An event horizon - a border - the dark edge of the map - the point where all things changed. They were near the wrong turn, and on the borders of change lay… this. The termites had represented something to do with endings, something five-horned, something that fed on ambiguities and unfinished business. And this… this scar was from something else entirely. This was the herald, the outrider, the first shakings of the earth that foretold a great disaster. Not bringing it - simply announcing it. The ragged edges of the wound these termites and their ruler had made.
And the sun…
The Sun.
You could never see a star. Only the light it produced. Never see a black hole, only the event horizon where all things ceased.
She looked on the event horizon.
A bleeding star hung in the sky, carved by butcher's knives.
It blinked, and swivelled.
A wolf's eye. A dancer on the edge of nothingness and oblivion, of revolution and change, the bleeding edge of vacuum decay. Beyond it lay something else. But to her… all that mattered was the vanguard.
It was gazing at her.
She looked into the abyss, and it looked back.
Taylor ran faster, and Chorei held her together… barely. Their minds were interlinked, woven together so tightly that they could almost be mistaken for being one and the same… almost. They were distinct, yet connected. One and one combining to make eleven. Greater than the sum of their parts. Chorei couldn't have done this on her own, nor could Taylor. The star's light was flaying, the eye shredded anything it gazed upon. Each one of them would've died in a second if they'd walked here without the other. The tapestry of their linked minds strained… but it held. The wolf-star blazed bright and cold, the street was shining with compacted ice refracting its gaze over and over and over… yet she continued. Parian was stumbling. Grafting began, a second of interconnectedness. Chorei simply… added Parian to the mix, sharing in the comfort granted by experience, by past victories against similar forces, by the knowledge that it was possible to go on. The cape hesitated… and allowed the grafting to occur. A temporary unity that gave her the strength she needed to carry on. An alleyway presented itself, dark and sheltered, teeming with insects that flinched from the cold that surrounded them, a cold so deep it seemed to never leave, a cold that ate at their bones instead of dwelling in them…
A second passed.
Then another.
Time meant nothing here, but she counted it nonetheless. The star above glared down, vast and cold, silently screaming of what was to come. She ran…
And the alleyway embraced them. Innumerable bodies were crushed underfoot, and the swarm backed away from them both. They were freezing - lips were caked with frost, hair was frozen solid, even blinking was an exercise in endurance. Parian struggled to even lift her feet - the grafting was still present, and Taylor used it. It'd worked with Gallant… to a degree. It'd gotten him out of that pile of whispering worms. And this entire experience was giving her some severe flashbacks to that long, long night. Chorei took over the duty of managing the legs, driving her onwards through the ankle-deep carpet of flinching termites, while Taylor tried to send… memories, that was it. Just a few feelings, really. The sensation of dragging herself out of that frozen lake in Minnesota, the way the cold had sunk into her, killed her by degrees… and the feeling of being dragged to a source of warmth. The feeling of all that ice melting, of the shivering giving way to a calm, restful neutrality where everything worked harmoniously, her blood pumped freely, her heart pounded like it ought to, her brain functioned like brains generally did. No ice. No cold. Parian relaxed - her pace increased.
Huh. The two of them had barely exchanged a few words before running, and she'd already grafted with Parian.
What was the world coming to?
They were close - the remnants of her swarm formed a constellation of isolated viewpoints, hazy and indistinct, but the map they formed was one she understood. She followed the stars, the individual points of brightness studding the dark of this crawling, chaotic place. A map guiding them to the wrong turn. Termites seethed around them, but the cold drove them back - they flinched from the cold star which shone on high. If she was going to guess… it was a border. An edge. It marked the edge of their expansion - what came first, the star, or the limit? Whatever the case, they reeked of that division and it drove the swarm back. Not that the termites weren't trying. They piled high, forming pillars from their own bodies, scattered by the rapid advance of the two parahumans. Parian's mind was calmer than it really ought to be - and she was checking. Didn't want another Gallant situation. But Parian was running, her mind was flooded with the memories of warmth, the sensation of experienced reassurance, all the things which Chorei and Taylor had worked upon her. The wrong turn came closer, closer, the walls pulsed angrily and split to reveal yet more termites…
And there it was.
A twist.
A folding of space.
The wolf-star howled.
The termite-world squirmed.
A five-horned thing roared
* * *
And they were back. The air was filled with the sound of a city's nightlife - she'd thought this street was quiet, but compared to the eerie nothingness of the world beyond this wrong turning… it was deafening. And God, did it feel good.
Usurper…
Taylor blinked.
"...yeah?"
Parian glanced sharply in her direction, and Taylor waved her off. They were both still catching their respective breaths, and the cape didn't have the oxygen to object.
The fact that this worked is no justification for doing it again. I hope we understand one another there.
A pause.
And tell the doll creature to thank me, I worked hard to keep her mind from fracturing.
"Uh, Parian?"
The cape had no words, still catching her breath, still reassuring herself that she was back - she was about a second away from kissing the ground before reality struck home and she decided that maybe kissing the filthy asphalt wasn't the best idea. That being said, she did look tempted by a quick earthen snog. Best to intervene before she did something regrettable.
"This is going to sound very weird, but could you say 'thank you'?"
Parian blinked… then promptly started crying wildly. Everything in that city caught up with her - and a whole mess of other things, if the mumbled words amidst her blubbering meant anything. Her face quickly turned from a face simultaneously determined and terrified into a complete and utter mess, and her dress wasn't far behind. Taylor really didn't know how to deal with this. Did she… did she pat her? Did she take her out for a drink? No, shit, that wouldn't work, Taylor was still technically underage. Hm. Back to the tea shop for a drink? Did she give her a hug? Would she just accept it, or would she reciprocate and refuse to let go? Could those termites come through the wrong turn - actually, that sounded great, focus on terrifying possibilities, stop dwelling on social interactions which had become increasingly baffling and faintly alarming as time went on. Say what thou will about nightmarish termites, but at least they just ate you. Nothing awkward about being eaten by nightmarish termites from another reality. Shit, why didn't she bring tissues?
I take it back, please just tell her to stop, this is making me very uncomfortable.
Taylor flinched, and murmured in response.
"Yeah. Me too."
Patting seemed like a good trick, it was like punching but instead of destroying noses it destroyed negative feelings. Christ she needed to get out more. She patted Parian hesitantly. She locked up a little… and kept crying. Oh no. It was all becoming worse, why couldn't this emotional rollercoaster stop. She wasn't even the one on it, she was just watching someone else flail along it while feeling sympathetic vertigo.
"You… want some alcohol?"
More blubbering, and a few scattered words - oh, right, yeah, that was comprehensible. Fantastic.
"I don't even know your name!"
"Taylor."
"Thank you, thank you, I… I can't say thank you enough, I don't know… I…"
…bah. Not even thanking me, and I'm the one who… bah…
Yeah, that sounded like her. Parian sniffed, getting her voice under control.
"...what was that place? How did you find me?"
"It's a long story."
"I've got time."
"A very long story."
"Please."
"Maybe somewhere else?"
She was flailing a bit. She'd wanted to save someone, that didn't necessarily mean talking to them. Couldn't Parian just… find a motel, shower off, do something else with her time? Wait, shit, she was probably traumatised by being almost eaten by a city which Taylor still barely understood. How did… well, how did she deal with trauma? Hm. Maybe encouraging Parian to get even more into this world wasn't the best idea. And she didn't think the 'immortal nun brain roommate' plan would work very well for her - there weren't many of these immortal nuns left lying around, to her understanding, and Taylor was a big believer in sustainable possessions for trauma relief.
OK, the adrenaline was entirely to blame for that thought.
Not the fact that she was a teenager and sometimes teenagers had weird thoughts. Or so she assumed.
I cannot tell what you are thinking, but I can sense faint embarrassment. It's very disconcerting.
Well, sorry for having the capacity to feel 'faint embarrassment'. Gah. Right. Anyway. Parian was struggling to get to her feet, shaking like a leaf in the wind. She looked like a stiff breeze could probably topple her… maybe leaving her alone wouldn't be the best idea. Right, she had a phone - one thing she'd been adamant about acquiring after the business with Bisha. She'd told Turk and Ahab where she was going and at least some of why. Not the cowboy part. That would just be silly. The city continued to move around them, paying no attention to the two who had briefly had a sojourn to a very, very different place. She glanced around - the wrong turn was still there, her insects could still travel to and fro. But they died almost immediately, crushed by a mass of termites. Maybe worthwhile sealing this place off, just to stop anyone else from getting drawn here… how had it even emerged? Parian dried herself off with a definitely ruined sleeve - the entire dress was a lost cause. She was starting to look around, get her bearings… wasn't going very well, but humanity was still creeping closer, inch by inch. The hollow shell of a person she'd dragged out of that other city was starting to fill up.
"Need to make some calls. Be back in a moment."
Parian grabbed her wrist as she tried to leave, and Taylor had to resist the urge to punch her in the face. Or shoot her. Right, she still had a pistol. Wild. No, calm down, she was just… she looked desperate, down there on the ground, scraped, covered in welts and half-dried tears. Parian stared up with terrified eyes.
"...please don't leave me here."
"...sure."
The calls were brief. Ahab and Turk had been primed to move since she'd left - time hadn't gotten too strange, thankfully. They were already driving out to the tea shop, just in case, and this alley was close enough. When asked if they had anything good for sealing up alleyways, they simply responded with… well, of course they had the ability to seal up an alleyway. Jump dump some trash there, ideally the worthless kind. Turk's truck could be piled high with some crap from a nearby dilapidated building - in the meantime, they could shift a dumpster or something. Nothing more permanent - that would attract far too much attention. No-one cared about a pile of rusting barrels heaped in the entrance to an alleyway, but the government got antsy if you filled the whole thing in with concrete. Parian listened closely as she gave them instructions, her bearing improving with each passing second. She was reluctant to hang up - it meant more attempts at conversation. And she was bad at that, she didn't know how to talk to someone like… hm. She really didn't know anything about Parian. Wild.
"There's some friends coming over. Can you go back to your own apartment, or…"
The shiver told her everything she needed to know.
"I live above a tea shop, you can crash there if you want. Or you can crash with a friend."
"T-tea shop sounds good. If that's alright. I… don't want to be a burden."
"You're not."
Her response was blunt and off-the-cuff - and it seemed to hit Parian hard. How old was she? Roundabout… looked college-aged, maybe early twenties. Her clothes were filthy enough that it was impossible to connect them to her cape identity, and if Taylor remembered correctly, she wore a white mask with a blonde wig - she'd be fine. No risk of being unmasked to random strangers. Good. They waited in silence - Taylor didn't know how to talk with her, and Parian seemed unwilling to try it out. Too busy shivering. There'd be time for a proper debriefing, time to answer the important questions. How did she end up in that city? How did she interact with Bisha? How much did she know? Anything could be important, tiny irrelevant details adding to a realisation on what they were facing. Taylor glanced back at the area where space stopped obeying its own rules. A wound in the world… that felt like an adequate description. A wound, but left by what? Was this tied exclusively to Parian, or was it broader? Was she just a bystander caught up in things, or just another small part of a much larger pattern? Bisha had done… something when he destroyed that building, something she was still struggling to understand the ramifications of… maybe it had made these wounds. Maybe his death had done that.
Something she'd helped do, then.
A van pulled up in front of them suddenly, moving with absolute silence despite its size. Turk had maintained it well - no squealing brakes, no shuddering metal, nothing but a faint purr from the engine and the slight rustle from the tires. A tinted window rolled down, and a familiar face glared out. Two eyes between them, eyepatches they bought from the same store, clothes that were similarly cheap, practical, and quickly discarded as gore piled up. Turk grumbled as he stepped out, and Parian scrambled to her feet, a few needles on her person twitching agitatedly. Taylor gave her a look - it calmed her. Well, froze her to the spot. Which worked just as well.
"...so?"
"There's a… gate, I guess, just in that alleyway. Needs sealing. She was trapped inside - got her out."
He raised a single eyebrow - more silent communication, a language she'd become rather adept in over time.
'How did you find out she was there?'
She idly shrugged.
'I'll explain later, it would take too long.'
A tiny nod, and a faint narrowing of his one remaining eye.
'Anything familiar?'
She pressed her lips tightly together, and her eyebrows rose - almost helplessly.
'Nothing. It's new.'
That was all. Ahab came stumbling around the other side. Drunk as a skunk, and based on how her face was dripping with water, she'd dunked her head in something cold to try and shock some feeling back into herself. She looked… bad. Very bad. Losing an arm hadn't been good for her - even with Turk taking care of her, she was still profoundly off. Huge bags had developed under her eyes, and she had a pungency which suggested that she wasn't scouring herself as often as she probably should. Open sores wept down her face, and her mouth twisted into a crooked grin, showing off yellow, chipped teeth. Parian took a step back at the sight of her - another look, and she ceased any movements. The two ex-mercenaries stood side-by-side, Turk obviously bracing himself to catch her if necessary. Still, even drunk she had a certain… toughness about her. A precision which spoke to intensively cultivated muscle memory. Even drunk she could probably shoot well enough. She glanced between Taylor and a patch of empty air, squinting… with a nod, she settled on looking at the real Taylor. Great, she was seeing double.
"Oy-oy lads, how's the ethnic cleansing going?"
What.
What?
Ahab seemed to realise what she'd said just after her mouth closed, and pinched the bridge of her putrid nose with an expression of supreme exasperation and faint embarrassment.
"Sorry, sorry, was thinking about- nevermind. So. Alleyway, huh?"
"Yep. Mind if we get a ride back to the shop?"
"I'll let the lovely Turk handle that duty, but if you need anything shot, I can probably hit it. Probably."
She leaned in, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. Her breath stank of alcohol.
"Between you and me, the trick is to aim for both."
Definitely seeing double. Parian was looking increasingly horrified at the entire scene arrayed before her… but she'd also almost been eaten by magical termites, which really put things in perspective. Ahab finally noticed the cape, and took in her bearing, her costume, the filth covering her… and sighed.
"Please don't tell me…"
"We'll talk about it later."
"Stop picking up strays, just… gah, fine. Right, you look like shit, let's get you somewhere that isn't here."
And Parian's attitude did a rapid 180, something Ahab didn't remotely notice.
"...yeah, warm bath, liquor, ice cream, just… mong out to some Barry White, eh?"
Taylor wanted a bath, liquor, ice cream and Barry White. Maybe not Barry White. She wasn't quite sure who Barry White was, but if Ahab could aim for a raging cultist at the other end of a long street, she could probably aim for the best album on a shelf. Presumably. That made sense, right? For once, she wished that Chorei could just hear her thoughts as some convenient internal monologue, it'd make everything easier. Instead the nun was simply stewing, irritable at the sight of the woman who'd almost chopped her head off with a pair of chainsaw-axes. Which, to be fair, was something worth being annoyed about. Parian stumbled into the van with a little prodding, huddling on a low bench and shivering constantly on the brief ride back. Taylor sat opposite her, keeping an eye on the very slightly unstable cape. She said nothing, and Parian said nothing in return. Still processing what had happened, and what things would be like afterwards. The two in front were quiet, Ahab dozing, Turk concentrating on the road. Taylor looked at the girl opposite, and thought… well, she understood the feeling. The idea that things were no longer the same. Like getting sunburn for the first time. There was a realisation that skin could do that, skin could rebel, skin could turn stiff and sore, the sun itself could be a deadly enemy.
And once that lesson was learned, there was really no going back. Parian was standing at the frontier of a brave new world full of things that would gladly drive her mad, and if they didn't, would still demand serious alterations to… well, just about everything. Body. Mind. Soul, if there was such a thing. Worldview, of course. That would shatter and need to be rebuilt. Taylor remembered Gallant. He'd fallen off, clung desperately to shreds of understanding, and… failed. He'd died, and hadn't remotely understood what had killed him, what had burned his mind out and shrivelled his eyes to small, yellow grapes. She remembered the sight of raindrops falling on his open eye, sightless and staring. The feeling of Bisha laughing as he got to… to work. Her injuries ached, each and every one of them. Her knee, still sore. Every laceration that was struggling to knit back together. Her eye socket, which sometimes burned with phantom pain. Parian shivered, and Taylor… spoke.
"...you'll want to move on from this."
The girl looked up sharply.
"...I… move on?"
"Trust me. It's a rabbit hole, but it's possible to climb out. If you try."
She shrugged.
"I didn't."
"And… and how did it work out?"
She gave Parian a look. Her scars were obvious. Her injuries were apparent. She still had visible stitches poking up over her shirt from where Bisha had stuck burning nails into her collarbone. The girl's eyes widened, finally taking it all in. Yep. There it was. The stuff she tried not to look at while she was in the shower.
"...oh."
"Yeah. Just… you have family? Friends?"
"Some. My… my dad died recently, but…"
She sniffed, and Taylor felt something in her stomach. Something angry and squirming. Sympathetic. And that sympathy reminded her of the sight of her dad in that crowded room, surrounded by bodies, practically tied down to a rattling bed almost as old as he was…
"I'm sorry. But whoever you've got left - focus on them. Leave this behind. Do cape stuff, just… ignore alleyways that seem tempting, I guess."
A pause.
"...and if you find stuff like this again, call me. I'll see if I can take care of it."
Why was she offering that? She wanted to get out of Brockton, she wanted to move on, she… was sitting in front of someone who'd seen what Taylor had seen time and time again, and clearly wasn't ready to adjust. If she was pressured, Taylor imagined that she would break. She was tough, but that place had almost shattered her. If someone like Bisha, someone with malicious intent set his or her sights on Parian… that'd be it. No chance of survival in body or mind. Gallant's dead eye loomed before her, burning as cold as the wolf-star. Astrid weeping at the side of a lake. Every dead body she'd seen or sensed during the Conflagration, the people torn apart by Bisha's forces, by his bombing campaign… her dad. Comatose. Locked away like he was already dead.
Parian needed help. And Taylor couldn't bring herself to deny it.
The tea shop came up soon - Taylor helped Parian out of the truck, while Turk looked into the blockage situation. Easy enough, he reckoned. A few slugs of pitch-black coffee was able to charge him up for the long haul. Ahab helped as best she could, and Taylor entered the shop serenaded by the sound of distant barrels being dragged messily out of an abandoned structure. The tea shop was colder than usual, the liveliness of the day long-since drained away, but it still felt better than the outside. Taylor staggered up to her apartment, Parian draped over one shoulder, on the verge of passing out from exhaustion. However long she'd been in there, it'd taken a toll. Chorei was watchful but silent, unwilling to contribute much to the proceedings unfolding in front of her. Taylor could sense something odd from her - she was as conflicted as Taylor was, in some respects. Her habit was to be cold and unfeeling, to detach herself from the world and everyone in it. But she had weaknesses. Foibles. Food, particularly the unhealthy kind. Old movies. Men with excellent moustaches, apparently. And now… Taylor thought she could spy a hint of empathy in there. Just a tiny amount. Had… hm. She murmured very quietly, low enough for Parian to barely notice.
"Feeling empathetic?"
Silence. My thoughts are my own, and if you are wise, usurper, you will leave things that way. Care for your strays if you must, but do not let them harm our own chances of survival.
Right. Sure. That was definitely why Chorei seemed to be peering curiously when Parian slumped onto their couch, almost like she was making sure she wasn't hugely injured or at all uncomfortable. Taylor grunted in exertion as the girl collapsed, eyes already flickering closed, straining to stay open in the face of weariness. A faint twitch passed up her back as she realised that her apartment was… right, not the kind of place she wanted to have guests. She hadn't even removed Turk's vintage posters of Soviet-era models - though she could mostly blame that on the weird adhesive he'd used, she swore that stuff was tinker made. That, or was made from materials that were no longer legal to use in household adhesive, maybe something radioactive, carcinogenic, that qualified as a violation of the Geneva Suggest - no, Convention, Convention, the mercs weren't rubbing off on her that much. Parian glanced idly at them, at women with excellent cheekbones and… not the recommended amount of clothing for a Russian winter, she could say that much for sure.
"...nice taste."
"Not mine."
To prevent any further conversation, Taylor just unstoppered a bottle. Nothing special, just some bargain-bin whiskey Turk kept for when the moonshine ran out. She didn't try to drink too much, she knew it was an unhealthy habit - she didn't drink alone, at least. That was her consolation. Of course, she hung out with people who drank a great deal, but… wasn't drinking alone, wasn't drinking alone. That meant she was fine. Parian blinked at the sight of the brown liquid rising higher and higher… she was obviously conflicted. Taylor froze for a second - she looked middle eastern. Was she Muslim? If so, would… dammit, not even alcohol was safe now, at this point she'd just start pretending to be Turk to try and avoid yet more conversation, dammit, dammit. Parian glanced at the glass, bit her lip… and shrugged.
"Just a little."
When she saw Taylor's look of very faint surprise, her mouth twisted into a smile - the first she'd shown since they'd met. Even with the filth from the city, the residue of hundreds of termites dying around and on her, the welts lining her arms and neck, the general air of desperation… well, she looked a little better. Just a little. Closer to normality, certainly. Taylor felt a small spark of hope - maybe she'd get this one right. Maybe she'd come out of this without a body count of innocents.
"Cheers."
No explanations. She didn't feel like proffering them, and Taylor didn't much feel like hearing them. Her business was her own. They downed their drinks in a single gulp, and while Taylor relished the burn, enjoyed the relaxation that the alcohol forced on her tired limbs… Parian just fell backwards and started to snore. Huh. Well, that checked out, she was pretty tired. Taylor shrugged, and tried to orient her a little on the couch - make sure she didn't wake up with a spine curled into a question mark. A blanket, just to make sure. Taylor was going to offer her the bed, but… well, she looked pretty fast asleep. And Taylor didn't want termite juice all over her sheets. It took some time to scrub herself clean, scrub until the skin turned red and sore, until she felt herself again… but it was worth it. Crawling beneath her own sheets, hearing Parian snoring in the other room…
Felt like she'd done something right.
After Gallant. After so many ambiguous victories, or pyrrhic victories, or victories which might not be victories at all, or bittersweet victories… it was nice to just have a win. It was nice to have a situation which resolved with everyone involved alive, slightly tipsy, and asleep.
And yet… questions still boiled all around her, hovering faintly in the still, warm air of her apartment. And when the light turned off, they lingered all the same, shining dimly. Chorei was pacing inside her skull, thinking intensely, trying to piece matters together with the limited information she had available. She paused… and abruptly stood, moving to the television, turning it around so it faced the wall. Just in case. Just in case.
Questions, questions, questions.
Who was Angel Eyes?
How had this wound in the world developed?
Could more appear?
How was Parian connected?
And… something else. Something big. The wolf-star, the screaming thing which hung in the sky… she'd sensed that it was a vanguard. It was defined not by itself, but by what it guarded, what it advanced in front of. A border was only defined by the things on either side, and so it was with this thing. She didn't even have a name for it yet, a fact that was pissing her off not inconsiderably. She'd been on one side of it, she'd seen the raging edge, and she'd seen something underneath. Something moving. Something that come closer, closer, closer…
What was it?
What was coming?
…When would it be here?
- Location
- FarEast
Glad to see you return to this project. There is not enough horror works here.
New chapters are great, I'm looking forward for what's to come.
New chapters are great, I'm looking forward for what's to come.
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135 - Obscure Proverb: Stand Ye Not Between a Seamstress and a Cyclops lest the Cyclops invoke Orthodox Christ
GraftingBuddha
Retired Pooh-Bah
135 - Obscure Proverb: Stand Ye Not Between a Seamstress and a Cyclops lest the Cyclops invoke Orthodox Christ
Come now, usurper, one more!
Taylor sweated and panted, her back practically sticking to the floor. Her forehead was slick with sweat. With a grunt, she heaved herself upwards, fighting through the discomfort, breaking through the layers of weakness that she'd accumulated during her time in hospital. Her brain had no thoughts in it, which suited her quite nicely. Exercise purified, purged, made the world nice and simple. Her stomach raised up, and up, and up… until it almost touched her upright legs. She let out a sigh and collapsed back down.
Splendid, usurper, splendid! I could feel that one!
Taylor gave a mute thumbs up to the sky, catching her breath. Her workout routine had gradually become more and more brutal and unforgiving. She'd done stretches and gentle exercises aplenty, but now that her body was inching back towards a state resembling 'healthiness', she was eager to get back into the swing of things. If she wasn't sweating like a pig and panting like a dog by the end, she was wasting her time. She stumbled back to her feet, glancing around the room as she did so. It was strange how much had simultaneously changed and remained the same. This wasn't the room in which she'd spent most of her life, but it was hers nonetheless. When she'd arrived it'd clearly been someone else's, marked with little features that suggested an inhabitant with particular habits - habits that she didn't share. But bit by bit it had shifted. Mostly. The primitive duvet had been replaced with something more her taste, the curtains had been upgraded significantly, the slightly strange smell from the bathtub had been systematically eradicated on every front. But she knew this was just a temporary stopping point, a place she could rest, recover, get herself together and get ready to move on properly.
Sure, she didn't know where she was going to move on to, but the knowledge that these were temporary digs gave everything a slightly transient quality. As soon as she resolved the situation with her dad, she'd be gone, moving onto bigger and… well, not bigger and better, just different things. And until then, she lived like a traveller. The wardrobe was packed with clothes, sure… but they weren't exactly hers. She hadn't mustered the willpower to go clothes shopping, wasn't ready to go through the rigamarole of picking through nearly identical tops while trying to figure out which ones were somehow 'her colour'. Thrift stores had sufficed. Mostly. And it turned out that Turk hadn't removed all his stuff - a tiny crawlspace over her bed contained an old box of clothes he'd presumably stopped wearing some time ago. As a consequence, when she donned her outfit for the day, she wore a slightly baggy pair of tracksuit pants that were trying very hard to convince people they were Adidas-branded, and a dark green sweater over top. She looked ridiculous, she was aware of this… but she wasn't willing to splurge on clothes until she had a good understanding of what she was buying them for. Was she going somewhere cold, hot, wet, dry? What was she expecting to do there? Until she had those answers, she wasn't going to commit to anything.
We are observed.
And there it was. A reminder that she still had business in Brockton. Scars made by Bisha that no-one else knew how to patch, not to her knowledge. Parian was awake. Slept like a log during the night, at least. She was looking cleaner, having taken some advantage of Taylor's bathroom, but there was a hollowness about her. Certainties had been undermined. And in lieu of them, new certainties and rationalities could be inserted. A little change here, and she could end up walking down a very unpleasant path. Taylor wiped off her forehead, aware of how absurd she looked with her mismatched clothes and her flushed expression.
Be confident. The vulnerable are always impressed by confidence.
And how did… right. Cult leader. If Chorei started trying to exploit Parian for money, she was going to get a firm mind-slap. Wasn't sure how that could be accomplished, but she'd figure it out. Poking her brain had apparently stung, she remembered that much from the time her head got drilled open. Maybe threaten that again? No, no, that would just be silly. Right. Doll-woman, still wearing a filthy Victorian gown. What a surreal day.
"Uh."
Eloquent as always.
"Hi."
And the eloquence gets better and better!
Chorei was being a bit of an asshole today, apparently. Parian tried to smile a little, but her eyes didn't reflect it. She looked tired.
"...I just wanted to thank you. Again."
She took a deep breath.
"But we need to talk. About what happened in there."
Taylor's face hardened.
"You don't want to know about it. Just… move on."
Parian glared right back, her voice rising to challenge Taylor's.
"My family lives in this city, if this starts happening again… look, I saw… I saw the thing which started the Conflagration. Me and another cape. And it… it made no sense. None at all. This was the same. I can't just leave, I have friends, family, people I want to keep safe - how can I do that if there's things out here I know nothing about? What happens if my mom walks down a street and disappears, and what if there's no-one to save her?"
Her voice trailed off, and the fear in her eyes was bright, quivering, fragile. She was… dammit. Taylor struggled to think of what to say. In silence, she moved downstairs, Parian following. It was time for the shop to open… but they never got many visitors this early. They could stand to have a few more moments of silence. Routine calmed her. The TV was a mute black monolith, still turned against the wall so it couldn't see them. She wanted to be out of earshot as well, just in case. Whoever Angel Eyes was… he or she had some interest in this sort of thing, and information was a valuable commodity when it came to the supernatural. She had no interest in throwing valuables around with no thought to who might catch them. The shop was empty, warming up as the morning grew to full strength. Kettles were set to simmer, pots were examined - some needed a little additional scrubbing. Tannin could enter into the brew, alter the taste, but excessive soap could likewise spoil it. She'd developed a good system, but it demanded attention. Attention she was happy to lavish on it while Parian leant against a nearby wall, watching cautiously.
"...so?"
Her voice was accusing, and there was a hint of desperation to it.
Do not tell her too much. She cannot know what you are, she cannot know of me. Mysteries protect us, ambiguity shelters us, they are soft, cloying, comforting. Certainty is sharp. Certainty will kill us - once we are identified solidly, we become part of the world. And as part of the world, we may die like anyone else.
Chorei's voice was low, panicked. She was remembering her death, something she'd never truly moved on from. And… she had a point. Certainty made this all too mundane, and once it was mundane, it became a tool. Useful for her. Incredibly useful, actually. But for Parian… no, certainty would just make her overconfident, drive her down a route which would turn her to ash if she stepped wrong. She had a family. Taylor didn't, not anymore. She could afford to dabble in this stuff, and if she was told that her dad going into a coma would be the result of her dabbling, maybe she wouldn't have ever…
Anyway.
"It's hard to explain. Let's just say that there are… other things, besides parahumans and regular humans. A third category."
She paused. Parian was staring intensely, filing all this information away as gospel truth.
"And it's a dangerous category. The guy who started the Conflagration was part of it. And you… I guess you know what he was like."
The girl flinched. So, she'd seen the Frenzied Flame. Her eyes weren't shrivelled, and even trapped in that place she hadn't succumbed to that particular strain of burning despair… good, she wasn't infested by it. Knew to be afraid. Good. Fear was an entirely appropriate response. Confidence got you and everyone you loved killed or worse.
"...no, I don't think you do know, actually."
Parian froze.
"Did he speak to you?"
She shook her head.
"Good. Let me put it this way - I saw him once just talk someone into triggering. There's a town out west which doesn't exist anymore, just… wiped out. Which is good. Because when he arrived, he didn't destroy it, that was for someone else to finish off. If you've met him, then just imagine a whole town affected by his abilities. I don't know what hell's like, but I can imagine it looks something like that place."
Parian was afraid. Good. Very good.
"Those buildings which blew up during the Conflagration weren't empty. They were stuffed with people infested with these… things. Imagine being trapped inside a wall, under a floor, inside vents, anywhere that'll fit you. And there's a worm in your skin, whispering constantly, destroying your mind one word at a time. I said this guy made someone trigger by talking. Well, these things spoke with his voice."
Her last remaining eye was cold, unblinking. It had to be, for any of this to work.
"So trust me when I say - you do not want to get involved in this. Just… leave. I'll try to settle any business like this. You know where I am. I'll give you my number, too. I'll… see what I can do, but don't try and solve this by yourself. Alright?"
Parian leaned over the counter, her eyes feverish.
"No, not alright. If he's that dangerous, if he's-"
"He was. He's dead. And even if you knew any of this before the Conflagration, you couldn't have stopped it. He barely lost as it was."
"But my family - my friends. The people who live in my neighbourhood. If they start vanishing, if they start…"
Taylor placed down a teapot with more force than she intended. The sound of it slamming into the hard wood echoed through the store. Parian was being an idiot. If… no, no internal monologue, she'd just tell her to her face.
"This stuff existed before you. It'll exist after you. People just vanish, that's not anything new. Think of it like a natural disaster - if you know the warning signs, you run. And sometimes people are killed by them. That's it. Might as well get angry at an earthquake. Nothing's really changed from the moment you went into that city, the only thing which changed is you. The world's exactly the same."
Taylor struggled to get her temper back under control. She got why Parian felt the way she did, she got it, but she was being an idiot.
"I'm sorry about all of this. I am. But… you don't want to investigate this. It starts with trying to just prevent it, trying to stop it from happening to you again, or to someone else… and then you end up dead, insane, worse, or you lose things."
She paused.
"...you lose a lot of things."
Parian was shivering. She looked feeble. No chance of standing up to the things out there, the things that no-one properly understood. If she was clever, she'd leave. If she was cowardly, she'd leave. It didn't matter which she was, all that mattered was leaving this other world behind, and letting it become nothing but a series of recurring nightmares. A reminder not to wander down dark alleyways. She focused on another pot that needed cleaning - her hands were shaking, just a little. Scarred. Barely hers anymore. Chorei was silent, watchful, knowing full well that it wasn't a good idea to bother Taylor when she was like this. Good. She scrubbed hard, gripping her tools until her knuckles turned white and she felt like they were about to break. She worked… and a hand came down over her own. She almost tried to catch it, crush it out of instinct… no, just Parian's. Just her hand. She looked up. The girl was standing there, leaning over the counter, one hand on Taylor's, her eyes brimming with… concern? No. No, she didn't get to feel concerned. That wasn't her place. She should be scared. Scared enough to leave this other world behind and never, ever return. Not if she knew what was good for her.
Taylor didn't deserve concern.
"Thank you for saving me. Really. I… don't want to think about what could've happened in there without you."
She took a deep breath.
"And… I understand if you can't talk about this kind of thing. But if you're the person who can deal with this, we're going to work together, understand?"
She was trying to sound authoritative. Didn't work. Taylor had heard giants speak, Parian might be older than her, but she was also shorter. Which… meant something, presumably. Taylor could almost certainly take her in a fight. And she only had one mind. Taylor had two. And one of them was an elderly asshole with a fondness for moustaches. She had numbers on her side, dang it.
"Can you help me if this happens again?"
"I can try."
"Then do it. Help. You're…"
She leant closer, her voice dropping to a whisper.
"You're a parahuman, right? The bugs aren't…"
Rapid flapping gestures. What did she… oh. Right. The other.
"No. Parahuman. Same as you."
"Right, and I've never heard of you. Nothing about anyone with insect control. We're both parahumans - it's our job to help people, right? And if you can help with this, if no-one else can… please. If anyone I know ends up in that city, if I end up there again…"
Gallant's dead eye. Astrid weeping by a frozen lake. The piles of dead in the streets. Her dad lying prone on the stairs. Every person who presumably died when Mound Moor collapsed. The tree of worms that swallowed a town whole. Bisha's parents, delusional but kindly until their son drove them mad. The cult who'd been born from the desperate and the despairing, their minds ripped away and replaced with savage cruelty and yellow fire. Chorei screaming in panic as she was dragged backwards by her own centipede, begging for help, begging for another chance.
"I can't promise success."
"...but you'll try?"
"...OK, I can promise that. I'll try. If you get into trouble again, or if someone you know gets into trouble… I can try to help."
She paused.
"And if you feel something in the air - this… uncanny feeling, like every instinct is telling you to leave? Well, follow it. Don't be afraid of running."
A small, half-mad laugh escaped Parian's throat.
"No need to worry about that, I'll run. And no more alleyways."
"...good."
And that was all. Taylor returned to her task, busying herself with mundane, repetitive activities. Parian lingered for a while, had a little tea, but neither much felt like talking. Parian was processing what had happened, what she was going to do next, and Taylor… Taylor just felt happy that she'd kept someone from following in Gallant's footsteps. The knot of guilt in her stomach loosened, just a little. She was making amends, right? She was doing things well. The cape picked at a corner of her ruined dress, looking oddly forlorn. Hm. Did she make that herself? Maybe… well, she could probably get her one of those spider silk suits, but it'd need to be hidden, and she'd have to be secure with it, come up with a proper alibi for obtaining it, she didn't need her stuff ending up in an evidence locker with the PRT. After about half an hour, she abruptly stood and made for the door. She'd been working up the courage for that for a while now, the courage to step out into the street on her own and walk away, confident that she wouldn't wind up stolen away by those… things. Her hand paused over the handle, and she seemed to realise something.
"...I'm really sorry, do you have any… clothes? I can get a taxi back home, but…"
"Upstairs, take what you want from the wardrobe."
Tell her to stay away from The Shirt, it's mine and I want to keep it.
Taylor considered disobeying. The Shirt needed to be purged. The Shirt couldn't be worn under any circumstances. Allowing Parian to take it would mean it'd be out of her life, but then she'd know about The Shirt. She would witness the Shirt. And that was unacceptable.
"...stay away from the third drawer down. That's mine."
"Really? Anything? Other than the… third drawer down?"
"Yeah. It's thrift store stuff, I can get more. Except for the third drawer down. That's off-limits."
"...alright then."
When she returned, she looked… dammit, how did she wear it better than her? She didn't even fit, she was too short for Taylor's clothes, her frame was wrong, how did those clothes look… oh. Actual colour coordination. That made sense. Chorei was seething a little in displeasure at how she was able to pull off the 'one step above homeless' look that Taylor enjoyed going for these days. Well, 'enjoyed' was a strong word, but she definitely had a look, and hadn't made any moves to depart from it. Parian passed by the counter, a plastic shopping bag holding the remains of her costume. Like this, she looked even more hollowed out by her experience. Needed more muscle mass. She paused - and Taylor feared more questions, some more attempts at investigating what this stuff was, and how she could fight it. And then she'd have to drag out more horror stories… no, just retell Mound Moor with certain details omitted. That'd put the fear on her. That'd put the fear in anyone.
"I never got your name."
Taylor blinked.
Uh.
She…
No, she hadn't. Nothing about her name. Right, made sense, if she was going to give over her number, she probably needed her name as well… best to hold off on the surname stuff, that felt vulnerable. Chorei murmured softly, encouraging her to just pick an alias - something classy yet unremarkable, something excellent yet distinctly forgettable. Taylor would've told her that it was impossible to pick a name like that, but she didn't want to appear completely schizophrenic in front of the cape who should be viewing her as a professional who knew exactly what she was doing. Which she was.
"Taylor."
…should've picked something along the lines of… hm. Tomoe Schrodinger.
That was the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard, and she'd heard some very, very silly things. Parian paused, leaned in a little, checked to make sure no-one was listening, and murmured:
"Sabah. Nice to meet you."
"Hm."
Thank Christ for Turk's speech patterns. No, wait, she wanted to be specific. Thank Eastern Orthodox Christ for Turk's speech patterns, they made being taciturn so much easier. No wonder he used them so often, conversations were… difficult. They hadn't always been this difficult, had they? Was it just the topic that was hard to talk about, was it something… most of her life was something she simply couldn't talk about with most people. She could have a close circle of friends who knew what she was about, knew what she dealt with, and knew enough to not look at her with pity in their eyes. Parian patted her on the shoulder, her smile sympathetic - dammit - and she walked away, dialling up a taxi with a phone a far sight better than Taylor's own. Well, Taylor's phone was a brick that could resist most things short of a direct gunshot, and even then could soak up the damage pretty damn well. So what if it occasionally shrieked at her in Bosnian, and so what if all voices heard through it were robotic to the point of soullessness. Regardless. Parian - Sabah - called herself a taxi, and a few minutes later vanished. Back to her home, back to wherever she belonged when not being attacked by talking termites.
There was a moment of silence as Taylor worked on more teapots, teacups, checked over the stores of food to ensure nothing was going off, everything was still suitable for the day's work… she practically ran this place by herself at this point. Turk had his name on all the relevant documents, but she was the one opening it, closing it, running it, minding it, doing everything required except for paying the bills. Not that she minded. If this was going to be a long-term gig, she might ask for a raise. As it was… he was doing her a solid just by letting her live in his apartment rent-free. The cash that changed hands was largely just to keep her alive. She needed the entertainment, anyhow. The GED was coming along swiftly - too swiftly to occupy her for long. Turned out having a nun adept in memorising whole books stuffed into her head with literally nothing better to do was pretty useful when it came to learning. Sure, she thought elements of biology were too rude to ever discuss, that chemistry was boring when you took the alchemy out of it, and that physics was entirely composed of occult ravings… but literature, that she was good at. As long as it didn't involve too many raunchy scenes, then she'd dissolve into fits of giggles and tutting.
Centuries old, she reminded herself. This woman was centuries. Old. Literally older than any human had any right to be. And reproductive biology had unmade her. Completely and utterly.
This woman had killed people in the past.
What a fucking existence she was leading.
And with the GED handled, she needed entertainment. Something to distract her. And the tea shop had sufficed. It kept her hidden, as well. The only real footprint she left on the world was the GED - she was almost entirely doing it out of habit at this point, rumbling through online courses using the ancient machine that passed for a laptop which Turk kept around. Otherwise… Taylor Hebert might as well have vanished from the face of the earth. Too many bodies had vanished during the Conflagration, she was likely just a single missing person report among… who knew how many. The hospital was another trace of her, admittedly, but… she hadn't returned. Wanted to play it safe. If things went poorly, people could come and find her, drag her off to the foster system. Wouldn't be a problem once she got on the road, but until then, she needed to be quiet. And at the moment, it was easy to be quiet. Everyone else was simply making too much noise for her to be heard.
Until she'd gone out and rescued Parian. And apparently Angel Eyes knew who and what she was.
She scrubbed harder. Needed to get out. Needed to sort out things with her dad, and then she was gone. In the meantime she could look into these scars, make sure nothing bad was coming. And if it was, take care of it. And that was it. Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted.
I know what you're thinking.
She froze for a second before continuing her work. No-one else was here. She could speak freely.
"...go on."
You're… hm. I'm guessing, but I believe you think of this… Parian creature as a-
Taylor interrupted. She knew what Chorei was going to say.
"Maybe I am. I know things have changed, but… I don't want more people dead because of me. If I have to do risky things for that to happen… fine. I can live with that."
I was-
"Just because I want to leave doesn't mean I can't do some good while I'm here. I mean, I met you because I wanted some closure on Brockton, wanted to do one good thing before I left. And maybe I want to keep doing that until I absolutely have to go."
Please, just list-
"I know how you did things, I know you want me to just leave it all, just sit in my apartment and prepare for leaving to somewhere quieter and safer. But I do things differently, I see a problem like this, I want to fix it. Alright?"
Chorei was silent, and when that silence was broken her voice was very, very small.
I was going to agree with you.
Taylor blinked.
"...oh."
I agree. Do as you wish, pursue what you desire. I… without my centipede, without a body, I…
She paused.
Your emotions are raw. Mine are not. I am old, I recognise that, and… heavenly Buddha, it is hard to express this. Sometimes when one rests beside a roaring fire, one comes away with some of the heat within them. Nesting in one's bones. Borrowed. Nothing more.
Chorei seemed to shiver.
…I have borrowed a certain amount. I agree with you. Do what you must to satisfy your own moral inclinations, but… please, keep us alive. It was pleasing to see her walk out of that door, living. I would have been saddened to see her die. Perhaps not as much as you would be, but still… I beg that you keep the two of us alive to enjoy our freedom. I have died once. You could not imagine the… happiness I feel when I see you engaging in matters which, I am sure, are of no import to you. But to me they are everything. Do what you like. I content myself with the display, with the sensations the world elicits in you. All I ask is that the display continues for as long as possible.
She sighed.
Have some tea. I miss it.
Taylor gladly complied. Alcohol was enjoyable, but it had a… dirtiness to it. A burning reminder that she was succumbing to stress or regret, hammered in with every sip. Reminded her too much of taking painkillers, made her think of seeing the drunks who thronged the streets after dark, their noses blood-filled and pulsing, inflamed by alcohol until they looked ripe to burst. Too close to an addiction for her tastes. Tea, though, was clean. Innocent. Hers. And, evidently, Chorei's. The brew before her was a simple one - just mint, really. Curled, dried mint leaves steeped in boiling water, a few shavings of wormwood thrown in to give it a little bitterness. Green leaves yielded golden water, the shade of a fading sunset, the kind which turned the sky coral-pink with ragged strips of saffron in place of clouds. The aromatic steam rose high into the air, a swirling haze that enveloped her completely. For a second, the two of them were silent, enjoying the tea as best they could. The night hadn't even been terrifying. Tense, yes. Exciting, definitely. But it wasn't… horrifying. Termites, a world beyond, a wolf-star, it was just… something else. She'd seen Bisha, she'd definitely seen worse than what lay past that wrong turn. She sighed quietly, and thought.
She wanted to leave Brockton. That much was certain. What she'd do after leaving was… up in the air. But leaving seemed to be further and further away, an exit retreating into the distance until mists of uncertainty consumed it entirely. Her dad was in hospital, comatose, and there wasn't a quick and easy way to overcome that. All she could think of doing was acquiring money to give him the treatment he needed. For a time after that visit, she'd thought… well, she'd felt paralysed. Like after everything she'd been through, it was all over. A dramatic encounter with her own personal rival, and then a long, slow decline. Like those actors who just… sagged after a while. Their careers sputtered and never quite died, their faces started to show the signs of age barely held back with botox and tanning beds, eye sockets like deep fried meat, eyes like burned-out lightbulbs. Stretched. Faded. Already done their biggest hits, now it was just the long, slow march to retirement. After Bisha, just hunting for money felt… pathetic. She didn't want to be overly indignant, but she'd helped save this city - possibly even the world - and she was hunting for pennies to keep her dad comfortable in hospital.
And then Angel Eyes had shown up and told her about Parian. She'd run into a situation she barely understood and come out because of the skills she'd honed for use against Bisha and his lot. She'd saved someone. Couldn't get her dad out of a glorified waiting room for the morgue, but she could pull a woman dressed like a Victorian doll out of a city made of termites. Woo. But… dammit, the questions were burning. Things she could do. Problems she could solve, if she only poked a little. What were those termites? What was that city? What was the star? And who was Angel Eyes? Just a tinker with an altruistic bent, or something more? Something sinister? And if so, what was his (or her) goal? Did their abilities extend only to televisions, or further? She sipped the tea aggressively, eye flickering from side to side as she mapped out a course of action. Automatically, she reached for a small pad and pen she kept under the counter. Idly, she scribbled down what she knew. The basic facts, from which she could build outwards. She was used to this - and it scratched an itch she didn't know needed scratching. Something she could control, something that mattered, something that could impose a little order (somehow) onto a world which was spiralling out from under her, leaving her unmoored and adrift.
Too many uncertainties. Too many questions left to answer. Chorei watched silently, and only interjected after she'd spent a solid minute staring at the sheet of notepaper, realising just how much blank space was left around each of these 'certainties'.
You're… considering investigating this?
"Considering. Yeah."
…and you are aware that this will almost certainly be hazardous to our continued existence?
Taylor sighed.
"...I'm aware. But I don't want to leave Brockton with something like this hanging over me. Don't want to commit to just finding money for dad while things could all fall apart again. I mean, what happens if those termites get through and start multiplying out here? What if more of those wrong turns open up?"
Chorei was quiet for a moment.
Do as you wish. I realise that I cannot avert this course of action. If you were unwilling to run from Bisha, I do not believe I can sway you from running at this issue fist-first. But I shall expect suitable compensation for the risk - films and food, primarily. And once we resolve this matter, I expect several months of peace. At minimum.
Taylor let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding, and nodded. Chorei was… odd. Paranoid to a fault, a little cowardly, downright sociopathic in some respects, and age had made her colder than any human ought to be. But she was also lonely, desperate for company, eager to experience the pleasures of simply being alive again… and against Bisha, she'd helped whole-heartedly. He'd killed her fellow monks and nuns, and she was instrumental in actually putting him down for good. Without her, Taylor would have died in her own house, her skull cracked open like a walnut. And now here she was, accepting that Taylor needed to investigate this, she needed to see what was going on - and ideally, stop it. Parian had almost been consumed, how many others had suffered similar fates? How many hadn't been rescued? If these were scars left by Bisha, then she was eager to repair them. At least one bit of damage he'd caused that she could actually fix - and quite possibly only her. If she'd had to take care of Bisha, then she could take care of this. Closure? Maybe. A desperate swing at relevance in an attempt to make herself useful? Succumbing to the familiar (if self-destructive) because it was better than the looming, depressing unknowns which surrounded her on all sides?
…eh. Possibly.
Best not to think about it too hard.
Brainpower like that was better spent on investigations.
Information was needed. If there was one thing that she understood about the forces which occasionally decided to violate reality, it was that they had been around for a long, long while. And the longer something was around, the higher the chance that it'd left behind some traces. Chorei's cult could be connected to weird emanations around the world, all fixated on the image of using vermin to rise higher. Bisha's cult had predecessors from South America to Byzantium and beyond, cellars with charred bodies that had offered themselves up to the Frenzied Flame. Whatever Mouse Protector had associated with was known by Chorei, interpreted through a Buddhist lens. She assumed that the force which lay within her scars, in the now-vanished mud charm, in the First Rifle was similar - occurring throughout history, over and over, leaving footsteps as it went. A path she could follow if she was careful enough. And she knew one person who had… some expertise with this whole field. Researching the arcane and the obscure, filtering through mounds of nonsense to extract what mattered. Taylor braced herself, and brought out her phone. More calls needed to be made. Turk needed to come and mind the shop. Her pre-arranged spar with Ahab would need to be rescheduled. She needed to visit a certain protein farm, where a certain wheelchair-bound tinker and a man with an awful shirt awaited.
Time to go and see Arch.
Miles away, across the city, a metal crate filled with marbles and pine needles shivered.
A red star twinkled in the early morning light, before the sun consumed it and nothing remained.
And Victoria Dallon stumbled out of her bed, groaning.
Come now, usurper, one more!
Taylor sweated and panted, her back practically sticking to the floor. Her forehead was slick with sweat. With a grunt, she heaved herself upwards, fighting through the discomfort, breaking through the layers of weakness that she'd accumulated during her time in hospital. Her brain had no thoughts in it, which suited her quite nicely. Exercise purified, purged, made the world nice and simple. Her stomach raised up, and up, and up… until it almost touched her upright legs. She let out a sigh and collapsed back down.
Splendid, usurper, splendid! I could feel that one!
Taylor gave a mute thumbs up to the sky, catching her breath. Her workout routine had gradually become more and more brutal and unforgiving. She'd done stretches and gentle exercises aplenty, but now that her body was inching back towards a state resembling 'healthiness', she was eager to get back into the swing of things. If she wasn't sweating like a pig and panting like a dog by the end, she was wasting her time. She stumbled back to her feet, glancing around the room as she did so. It was strange how much had simultaneously changed and remained the same. This wasn't the room in which she'd spent most of her life, but it was hers nonetheless. When she'd arrived it'd clearly been someone else's, marked with little features that suggested an inhabitant with particular habits - habits that she didn't share. But bit by bit it had shifted. Mostly. The primitive duvet had been replaced with something more her taste, the curtains had been upgraded significantly, the slightly strange smell from the bathtub had been systematically eradicated on every front. But she knew this was just a temporary stopping point, a place she could rest, recover, get herself together and get ready to move on properly.
Sure, she didn't know where she was going to move on to, but the knowledge that these were temporary digs gave everything a slightly transient quality. As soon as she resolved the situation with her dad, she'd be gone, moving onto bigger and… well, not bigger and better, just different things. And until then, she lived like a traveller. The wardrobe was packed with clothes, sure… but they weren't exactly hers. She hadn't mustered the willpower to go clothes shopping, wasn't ready to go through the rigamarole of picking through nearly identical tops while trying to figure out which ones were somehow 'her colour'. Thrift stores had sufficed. Mostly. And it turned out that Turk hadn't removed all his stuff - a tiny crawlspace over her bed contained an old box of clothes he'd presumably stopped wearing some time ago. As a consequence, when she donned her outfit for the day, she wore a slightly baggy pair of tracksuit pants that were trying very hard to convince people they were Adidas-branded, and a dark green sweater over top. She looked ridiculous, she was aware of this… but she wasn't willing to splurge on clothes until she had a good understanding of what she was buying them for. Was she going somewhere cold, hot, wet, dry? What was she expecting to do there? Until she had those answers, she wasn't going to commit to anything.
We are observed.
And there it was. A reminder that she still had business in Brockton. Scars made by Bisha that no-one else knew how to patch, not to her knowledge. Parian was awake. Slept like a log during the night, at least. She was looking cleaner, having taken some advantage of Taylor's bathroom, but there was a hollowness about her. Certainties had been undermined. And in lieu of them, new certainties and rationalities could be inserted. A little change here, and she could end up walking down a very unpleasant path. Taylor wiped off her forehead, aware of how absurd she looked with her mismatched clothes and her flushed expression.
Be confident. The vulnerable are always impressed by confidence.
And how did… right. Cult leader. If Chorei started trying to exploit Parian for money, she was going to get a firm mind-slap. Wasn't sure how that could be accomplished, but she'd figure it out. Poking her brain had apparently stung, she remembered that much from the time her head got drilled open. Maybe threaten that again? No, no, that would just be silly. Right. Doll-woman, still wearing a filthy Victorian gown. What a surreal day.
"Uh."
Eloquent as always.
"Hi."
And the eloquence gets better and better!
Chorei was being a bit of an asshole today, apparently. Parian tried to smile a little, but her eyes didn't reflect it. She looked tired.
"...I just wanted to thank you. Again."
She took a deep breath.
"But we need to talk. About what happened in there."
Taylor's face hardened.
"You don't want to know about it. Just… move on."
Parian glared right back, her voice rising to challenge Taylor's.
"My family lives in this city, if this starts happening again… look, I saw… I saw the thing which started the Conflagration. Me and another cape. And it… it made no sense. None at all. This was the same. I can't just leave, I have friends, family, people I want to keep safe - how can I do that if there's things out here I know nothing about? What happens if my mom walks down a street and disappears, and what if there's no-one to save her?"
Her voice trailed off, and the fear in her eyes was bright, quivering, fragile. She was… dammit. Taylor struggled to think of what to say. In silence, she moved downstairs, Parian following. It was time for the shop to open… but they never got many visitors this early. They could stand to have a few more moments of silence. Routine calmed her. The TV was a mute black monolith, still turned against the wall so it couldn't see them. She wanted to be out of earshot as well, just in case. Whoever Angel Eyes was… he or she had some interest in this sort of thing, and information was a valuable commodity when it came to the supernatural. She had no interest in throwing valuables around with no thought to who might catch them. The shop was empty, warming up as the morning grew to full strength. Kettles were set to simmer, pots were examined - some needed a little additional scrubbing. Tannin could enter into the brew, alter the taste, but excessive soap could likewise spoil it. She'd developed a good system, but it demanded attention. Attention she was happy to lavish on it while Parian leant against a nearby wall, watching cautiously.
"...so?"
Her voice was accusing, and there was a hint of desperation to it.
Do not tell her too much. She cannot know what you are, she cannot know of me. Mysteries protect us, ambiguity shelters us, they are soft, cloying, comforting. Certainty is sharp. Certainty will kill us - once we are identified solidly, we become part of the world. And as part of the world, we may die like anyone else.
Chorei's voice was low, panicked. She was remembering her death, something she'd never truly moved on from. And… she had a point. Certainty made this all too mundane, and once it was mundane, it became a tool. Useful for her. Incredibly useful, actually. But for Parian… no, certainty would just make her overconfident, drive her down a route which would turn her to ash if she stepped wrong. She had a family. Taylor didn't, not anymore. She could afford to dabble in this stuff, and if she was told that her dad going into a coma would be the result of her dabbling, maybe she wouldn't have ever…
Anyway.
"It's hard to explain. Let's just say that there are… other things, besides parahumans and regular humans. A third category."
She paused. Parian was staring intensely, filing all this information away as gospel truth.
"And it's a dangerous category. The guy who started the Conflagration was part of it. And you… I guess you know what he was like."
The girl flinched. So, she'd seen the Frenzied Flame. Her eyes weren't shrivelled, and even trapped in that place she hadn't succumbed to that particular strain of burning despair… good, she wasn't infested by it. Knew to be afraid. Good. Fear was an entirely appropriate response. Confidence got you and everyone you loved killed or worse.
"...no, I don't think you do know, actually."
Parian froze.
"Did he speak to you?"
She shook her head.
"Good. Let me put it this way - I saw him once just talk someone into triggering. There's a town out west which doesn't exist anymore, just… wiped out. Which is good. Because when he arrived, he didn't destroy it, that was for someone else to finish off. If you've met him, then just imagine a whole town affected by his abilities. I don't know what hell's like, but I can imagine it looks something like that place."
Parian was afraid. Good. Very good.
"Those buildings which blew up during the Conflagration weren't empty. They were stuffed with people infested with these… things. Imagine being trapped inside a wall, under a floor, inside vents, anywhere that'll fit you. And there's a worm in your skin, whispering constantly, destroying your mind one word at a time. I said this guy made someone trigger by talking. Well, these things spoke with his voice."
Her last remaining eye was cold, unblinking. It had to be, for any of this to work.
"So trust me when I say - you do not want to get involved in this. Just… leave. I'll try to settle any business like this. You know where I am. I'll give you my number, too. I'll… see what I can do, but don't try and solve this by yourself. Alright?"
Parian leaned over the counter, her eyes feverish.
"No, not alright. If he's that dangerous, if he's-"
"He was. He's dead. And even if you knew any of this before the Conflagration, you couldn't have stopped it. He barely lost as it was."
"But my family - my friends. The people who live in my neighbourhood. If they start vanishing, if they start…"
Taylor placed down a teapot with more force than she intended. The sound of it slamming into the hard wood echoed through the store. Parian was being an idiot. If… no, no internal monologue, she'd just tell her to her face.
"This stuff existed before you. It'll exist after you. People just vanish, that's not anything new. Think of it like a natural disaster - if you know the warning signs, you run. And sometimes people are killed by them. That's it. Might as well get angry at an earthquake. Nothing's really changed from the moment you went into that city, the only thing which changed is you. The world's exactly the same."
Taylor struggled to get her temper back under control. She got why Parian felt the way she did, she got it, but she was being an idiot.
"I'm sorry about all of this. I am. But… you don't want to investigate this. It starts with trying to just prevent it, trying to stop it from happening to you again, or to someone else… and then you end up dead, insane, worse, or you lose things."
She paused.
"...you lose a lot of things."
Parian was shivering. She looked feeble. No chance of standing up to the things out there, the things that no-one properly understood. If she was clever, she'd leave. If she was cowardly, she'd leave. It didn't matter which she was, all that mattered was leaving this other world behind, and letting it become nothing but a series of recurring nightmares. A reminder not to wander down dark alleyways. She focused on another pot that needed cleaning - her hands were shaking, just a little. Scarred. Barely hers anymore. Chorei was silent, watchful, knowing full well that it wasn't a good idea to bother Taylor when she was like this. Good. She scrubbed hard, gripping her tools until her knuckles turned white and she felt like they were about to break. She worked… and a hand came down over her own. She almost tried to catch it, crush it out of instinct… no, just Parian's. Just her hand. She looked up. The girl was standing there, leaning over the counter, one hand on Taylor's, her eyes brimming with… concern? No. No, she didn't get to feel concerned. That wasn't her place. She should be scared. Scared enough to leave this other world behind and never, ever return. Not if she knew what was good for her.
Taylor didn't deserve concern.
"Thank you for saving me. Really. I… don't want to think about what could've happened in there without you."
She took a deep breath.
"And… I understand if you can't talk about this kind of thing. But if you're the person who can deal with this, we're going to work together, understand?"
She was trying to sound authoritative. Didn't work. Taylor had heard giants speak, Parian might be older than her, but she was also shorter. Which… meant something, presumably. Taylor could almost certainly take her in a fight. And she only had one mind. Taylor had two. And one of them was an elderly asshole with a fondness for moustaches. She had numbers on her side, dang it.
"Can you help me if this happens again?"
"I can try."
"Then do it. Help. You're…"
She leant closer, her voice dropping to a whisper.
"You're a parahuman, right? The bugs aren't…"
Rapid flapping gestures. What did she… oh. Right. The other.
"No. Parahuman. Same as you."
"Right, and I've never heard of you. Nothing about anyone with insect control. We're both parahumans - it's our job to help people, right? And if you can help with this, if no-one else can… please. If anyone I know ends up in that city, if I end up there again…"
Gallant's dead eye. Astrid weeping by a frozen lake. The piles of dead in the streets. Her dad lying prone on the stairs. Every person who presumably died when Mound Moor collapsed. The tree of worms that swallowed a town whole. Bisha's parents, delusional but kindly until their son drove them mad. The cult who'd been born from the desperate and the despairing, their minds ripped away and replaced with savage cruelty and yellow fire. Chorei screaming in panic as she was dragged backwards by her own centipede, begging for help, begging for another chance.
"I can't promise success."
"...but you'll try?"
"...OK, I can promise that. I'll try. If you get into trouble again, or if someone you know gets into trouble… I can try to help."
She paused.
"And if you feel something in the air - this… uncanny feeling, like every instinct is telling you to leave? Well, follow it. Don't be afraid of running."
A small, half-mad laugh escaped Parian's throat.
"No need to worry about that, I'll run. And no more alleyways."
"...good."
And that was all. Taylor returned to her task, busying herself with mundane, repetitive activities. Parian lingered for a while, had a little tea, but neither much felt like talking. Parian was processing what had happened, what she was going to do next, and Taylor… Taylor just felt happy that she'd kept someone from following in Gallant's footsteps. The knot of guilt in her stomach loosened, just a little. She was making amends, right? She was doing things well. The cape picked at a corner of her ruined dress, looking oddly forlorn. Hm. Did she make that herself? Maybe… well, she could probably get her one of those spider silk suits, but it'd need to be hidden, and she'd have to be secure with it, come up with a proper alibi for obtaining it, she didn't need her stuff ending up in an evidence locker with the PRT. After about half an hour, she abruptly stood and made for the door. She'd been working up the courage for that for a while now, the courage to step out into the street on her own and walk away, confident that she wouldn't wind up stolen away by those… things. Her hand paused over the handle, and she seemed to realise something.
"...I'm really sorry, do you have any… clothes? I can get a taxi back home, but…"
"Upstairs, take what you want from the wardrobe."
Tell her to stay away from The Shirt, it's mine and I want to keep it.
Taylor considered disobeying. The Shirt needed to be purged. The Shirt couldn't be worn under any circumstances. Allowing Parian to take it would mean it'd be out of her life, but then she'd know about The Shirt. She would witness the Shirt. And that was unacceptable.
"...stay away from the third drawer down. That's mine."
"Really? Anything? Other than the… third drawer down?"
"Yeah. It's thrift store stuff, I can get more. Except for the third drawer down. That's off-limits."
"...alright then."
When she returned, she looked… dammit, how did she wear it better than her? She didn't even fit, she was too short for Taylor's clothes, her frame was wrong, how did those clothes look… oh. Actual colour coordination. That made sense. Chorei was seething a little in displeasure at how she was able to pull off the 'one step above homeless' look that Taylor enjoyed going for these days. Well, 'enjoyed' was a strong word, but she definitely had a look, and hadn't made any moves to depart from it. Parian passed by the counter, a plastic shopping bag holding the remains of her costume. Like this, she looked even more hollowed out by her experience. Needed more muscle mass. She paused - and Taylor feared more questions, some more attempts at investigating what this stuff was, and how she could fight it. And then she'd have to drag out more horror stories… no, just retell Mound Moor with certain details omitted. That'd put the fear on her. That'd put the fear in anyone.
"I never got your name."
Taylor blinked.
Uh.
She…
No, she hadn't. Nothing about her name. Right, made sense, if she was going to give over her number, she probably needed her name as well… best to hold off on the surname stuff, that felt vulnerable. Chorei murmured softly, encouraging her to just pick an alias - something classy yet unremarkable, something excellent yet distinctly forgettable. Taylor would've told her that it was impossible to pick a name like that, but she didn't want to appear completely schizophrenic in front of the cape who should be viewing her as a professional who knew exactly what she was doing. Which she was.
"Taylor."
…should've picked something along the lines of… hm. Tomoe Schrodinger.
That was the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard, and she'd heard some very, very silly things. Parian paused, leaned in a little, checked to make sure no-one was listening, and murmured:
"Sabah. Nice to meet you."
"Hm."
Thank Christ for Turk's speech patterns. No, wait, she wanted to be specific. Thank Eastern Orthodox Christ for Turk's speech patterns, they made being taciturn so much easier. No wonder he used them so often, conversations were… difficult. They hadn't always been this difficult, had they? Was it just the topic that was hard to talk about, was it something… most of her life was something she simply couldn't talk about with most people. She could have a close circle of friends who knew what she was about, knew what she dealt with, and knew enough to not look at her with pity in their eyes. Parian patted her on the shoulder, her smile sympathetic - dammit - and she walked away, dialling up a taxi with a phone a far sight better than Taylor's own. Well, Taylor's phone was a brick that could resist most things short of a direct gunshot, and even then could soak up the damage pretty damn well. So what if it occasionally shrieked at her in Bosnian, and so what if all voices heard through it were robotic to the point of soullessness. Regardless. Parian - Sabah - called herself a taxi, and a few minutes later vanished. Back to her home, back to wherever she belonged when not being attacked by talking termites.
There was a moment of silence as Taylor worked on more teapots, teacups, checked over the stores of food to ensure nothing was going off, everything was still suitable for the day's work… she practically ran this place by herself at this point. Turk had his name on all the relevant documents, but she was the one opening it, closing it, running it, minding it, doing everything required except for paying the bills. Not that she minded. If this was going to be a long-term gig, she might ask for a raise. As it was… he was doing her a solid just by letting her live in his apartment rent-free. The cash that changed hands was largely just to keep her alive. She needed the entertainment, anyhow. The GED was coming along swiftly - too swiftly to occupy her for long. Turned out having a nun adept in memorising whole books stuffed into her head with literally nothing better to do was pretty useful when it came to learning. Sure, she thought elements of biology were too rude to ever discuss, that chemistry was boring when you took the alchemy out of it, and that physics was entirely composed of occult ravings… but literature, that she was good at. As long as it didn't involve too many raunchy scenes, then she'd dissolve into fits of giggles and tutting.
Centuries old, she reminded herself. This woman was centuries. Old. Literally older than any human had any right to be. And reproductive biology had unmade her. Completely and utterly.
This woman had killed people in the past.
What a fucking existence she was leading.
And with the GED handled, she needed entertainment. Something to distract her. And the tea shop had sufficed. It kept her hidden, as well. The only real footprint she left on the world was the GED - she was almost entirely doing it out of habit at this point, rumbling through online courses using the ancient machine that passed for a laptop which Turk kept around. Otherwise… Taylor Hebert might as well have vanished from the face of the earth. Too many bodies had vanished during the Conflagration, she was likely just a single missing person report among… who knew how many. The hospital was another trace of her, admittedly, but… she hadn't returned. Wanted to play it safe. If things went poorly, people could come and find her, drag her off to the foster system. Wouldn't be a problem once she got on the road, but until then, she needed to be quiet. And at the moment, it was easy to be quiet. Everyone else was simply making too much noise for her to be heard.
Until she'd gone out and rescued Parian. And apparently Angel Eyes knew who and what she was.
She scrubbed harder. Needed to get out. Needed to sort out things with her dad, and then she was gone. In the meantime she could look into these scars, make sure nothing bad was coming. And if it was, take care of it. And that was it. Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted.
I know what you're thinking.
She froze for a second before continuing her work. No-one else was here. She could speak freely.
"...go on."
You're… hm. I'm guessing, but I believe you think of this… Parian creature as a-
Taylor interrupted. She knew what Chorei was going to say.
"Maybe I am. I know things have changed, but… I don't want more people dead because of me. If I have to do risky things for that to happen… fine. I can live with that."
I was-
"Just because I want to leave doesn't mean I can't do some good while I'm here. I mean, I met you because I wanted some closure on Brockton, wanted to do one good thing before I left. And maybe I want to keep doing that until I absolutely have to go."
Please, just list-
"I know how you did things, I know you want me to just leave it all, just sit in my apartment and prepare for leaving to somewhere quieter and safer. But I do things differently, I see a problem like this, I want to fix it. Alright?"
Chorei was silent, and when that silence was broken her voice was very, very small.
I was going to agree with you.
Taylor blinked.
"...oh."
I agree. Do as you wish, pursue what you desire. I… without my centipede, without a body, I…
She paused.
Your emotions are raw. Mine are not. I am old, I recognise that, and… heavenly Buddha, it is hard to express this. Sometimes when one rests beside a roaring fire, one comes away with some of the heat within them. Nesting in one's bones. Borrowed. Nothing more.
Chorei seemed to shiver.
…I have borrowed a certain amount. I agree with you. Do what you must to satisfy your own moral inclinations, but… please, keep us alive. It was pleasing to see her walk out of that door, living. I would have been saddened to see her die. Perhaps not as much as you would be, but still… I beg that you keep the two of us alive to enjoy our freedom. I have died once. You could not imagine the… happiness I feel when I see you engaging in matters which, I am sure, are of no import to you. But to me they are everything. Do what you like. I content myself with the display, with the sensations the world elicits in you. All I ask is that the display continues for as long as possible.
She sighed.
Have some tea. I miss it.
Taylor gladly complied. Alcohol was enjoyable, but it had a… dirtiness to it. A burning reminder that she was succumbing to stress or regret, hammered in with every sip. Reminded her too much of taking painkillers, made her think of seeing the drunks who thronged the streets after dark, their noses blood-filled and pulsing, inflamed by alcohol until they looked ripe to burst. Too close to an addiction for her tastes. Tea, though, was clean. Innocent. Hers. And, evidently, Chorei's. The brew before her was a simple one - just mint, really. Curled, dried mint leaves steeped in boiling water, a few shavings of wormwood thrown in to give it a little bitterness. Green leaves yielded golden water, the shade of a fading sunset, the kind which turned the sky coral-pink with ragged strips of saffron in place of clouds. The aromatic steam rose high into the air, a swirling haze that enveloped her completely. For a second, the two of them were silent, enjoying the tea as best they could. The night hadn't even been terrifying. Tense, yes. Exciting, definitely. But it wasn't… horrifying. Termites, a world beyond, a wolf-star, it was just… something else. She'd seen Bisha, she'd definitely seen worse than what lay past that wrong turn. She sighed quietly, and thought.
She wanted to leave Brockton. That much was certain. What she'd do after leaving was… up in the air. But leaving seemed to be further and further away, an exit retreating into the distance until mists of uncertainty consumed it entirely. Her dad was in hospital, comatose, and there wasn't a quick and easy way to overcome that. All she could think of doing was acquiring money to give him the treatment he needed. For a time after that visit, she'd thought… well, she'd felt paralysed. Like after everything she'd been through, it was all over. A dramatic encounter with her own personal rival, and then a long, slow decline. Like those actors who just… sagged after a while. Their careers sputtered and never quite died, their faces started to show the signs of age barely held back with botox and tanning beds, eye sockets like deep fried meat, eyes like burned-out lightbulbs. Stretched. Faded. Already done their biggest hits, now it was just the long, slow march to retirement. After Bisha, just hunting for money felt… pathetic. She didn't want to be overly indignant, but she'd helped save this city - possibly even the world - and she was hunting for pennies to keep her dad comfortable in hospital.
And then Angel Eyes had shown up and told her about Parian. She'd run into a situation she barely understood and come out because of the skills she'd honed for use against Bisha and his lot. She'd saved someone. Couldn't get her dad out of a glorified waiting room for the morgue, but she could pull a woman dressed like a Victorian doll out of a city made of termites. Woo. But… dammit, the questions were burning. Things she could do. Problems she could solve, if she only poked a little. What were those termites? What was that city? What was the star? And who was Angel Eyes? Just a tinker with an altruistic bent, or something more? Something sinister? And if so, what was his (or her) goal? Did their abilities extend only to televisions, or further? She sipped the tea aggressively, eye flickering from side to side as she mapped out a course of action. Automatically, she reached for a small pad and pen she kept under the counter. Idly, she scribbled down what she knew. The basic facts, from which she could build outwards. She was used to this - and it scratched an itch she didn't know needed scratching. Something she could control, something that mattered, something that could impose a little order (somehow) onto a world which was spiralling out from under her, leaving her unmoored and adrift.
- Bisha left wounds in the world
- People can fall through those wounds
- Termites live behind them, connected to something unknown
- They're connected to a weird star
Too many uncertainties. Too many questions left to answer. Chorei watched silently, and only interjected after she'd spent a solid minute staring at the sheet of notepaper, realising just how much blank space was left around each of these 'certainties'.
You're… considering investigating this?
"Considering. Yeah."
…and you are aware that this will almost certainly be hazardous to our continued existence?
Taylor sighed.
"...I'm aware. But I don't want to leave Brockton with something like this hanging over me. Don't want to commit to just finding money for dad while things could all fall apart again. I mean, what happens if those termites get through and start multiplying out here? What if more of those wrong turns open up?"
Chorei was quiet for a moment.
Do as you wish. I realise that I cannot avert this course of action. If you were unwilling to run from Bisha, I do not believe I can sway you from running at this issue fist-first. But I shall expect suitable compensation for the risk - films and food, primarily. And once we resolve this matter, I expect several months of peace. At minimum.
Taylor let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding, and nodded. Chorei was… odd. Paranoid to a fault, a little cowardly, downright sociopathic in some respects, and age had made her colder than any human ought to be. But she was also lonely, desperate for company, eager to experience the pleasures of simply being alive again… and against Bisha, she'd helped whole-heartedly. He'd killed her fellow monks and nuns, and she was instrumental in actually putting him down for good. Without her, Taylor would have died in her own house, her skull cracked open like a walnut. And now here she was, accepting that Taylor needed to investigate this, she needed to see what was going on - and ideally, stop it. Parian had almost been consumed, how many others had suffered similar fates? How many hadn't been rescued? If these were scars left by Bisha, then she was eager to repair them. At least one bit of damage he'd caused that she could actually fix - and quite possibly only her. If she'd had to take care of Bisha, then she could take care of this. Closure? Maybe. A desperate swing at relevance in an attempt to make herself useful? Succumbing to the familiar (if self-destructive) because it was better than the looming, depressing unknowns which surrounded her on all sides?
…eh. Possibly.
Best not to think about it too hard.
Brainpower like that was better spent on investigations.
Information was needed. If there was one thing that she understood about the forces which occasionally decided to violate reality, it was that they had been around for a long, long while. And the longer something was around, the higher the chance that it'd left behind some traces. Chorei's cult could be connected to weird emanations around the world, all fixated on the image of using vermin to rise higher. Bisha's cult had predecessors from South America to Byzantium and beyond, cellars with charred bodies that had offered themselves up to the Frenzied Flame. Whatever Mouse Protector had associated with was known by Chorei, interpreted through a Buddhist lens. She assumed that the force which lay within her scars, in the now-vanished mud charm, in the First Rifle was similar - occurring throughout history, over and over, leaving footsteps as it went. A path she could follow if she was careful enough. And she knew one person who had… some expertise with this whole field. Researching the arcane and the obscure, filtering through mounds of nonsense to extract what mattered. Taylor braced herself, and brought out her phone. More calls needed to be made. Turk needed to come and mind the shop. Her pre-arranged spar with Ahab would need to be rescheduled. She needed to visit a certain protein farm, where a certain wheelchair-bound tinker and a man with an awful shirt awaited.
Time to go and see Arch.
* * *
Miles away, across the city, a metal crate filled with marbles and pine needles shivered.
A red star twinkled in the early morning light, before the sun consumed it and nothing remained.
And Victoria Dallon stumbled out of her bed, groaning.
136 - Arch's Farch and Sarch (formerly Turk's)
GraftingBuddha
Retired Pooh-Bah
136 - Arch's Farch and Sarch (formerly Turk's)
Getting to the protein farm was… interesting. God, it felt good to be planning things again, doing something that wasn't just moping around getting back in shape, recovering from her injuries, doing everything passively. Even Chorei was a little livelier than usual, delighting in the rush of new stimuli that came with rapid action. It was hard to tell, but she was positively wriggling - one legacy of Gallant was the image of Chorei as a centipede squirming around inside her brain. And no matter what she tried, she couldn't get away from that visualisation of her… situation. So Chorei wriggled, and did so happily. Anyway. Getting to the protein farm. Turk didn't quite trust Ahab to drive to the protein farm on her own, and Sanagi was busy with her actual job. Honestly, Taylor hadn't spoken to the cop in a few days now, both of them occupied with their own lives. Funny how that happened - one day they were always close together, sharing a car, a room, a maddening labyrinth… and then she got back home and needed to get back to her actual job. To pay her bills. And her mortgage. Because even women with skulls instead of a head (as opposed to most people, who had skulls… and a head? Needed to rethink that entire description) needed to work to live.
Maybe she'd participate in this once it started to escalate, as it inevitably would. She imagined the sound of millions of termites burning in the light of her screaming laser beams - not a combination of words she ever expected to put together in her own head - and felt a certain amount of excitement. This felt right. Getting her… group back together, preparing for something new, investigating. She had control over this. Not total control, of course. For instance - cars. The protein farm was outside of town, in the industrial wasteland which had once been a power plant, and she still lacked the ability to drive. It was faintly embarrassing asking for help there, but she got the feeling that both Turk and Ahab needed some time outside. The shop was locked up, and the three began to quietly drive through the chilly morning air in the direction of the protein farm.
Grey.
The sky was grey, the earth was grey, and grey mists rolled out from the looming, groaning rust monoliths which lingered despite everything. Trees hung heavy with strange moss, and the fat, dried bodies of protein grubs lined the road where crates had split, containment had been breached, or simply accidents had occurred. They never survived long out here, not without their toxic beds, but they somehow managed to squirm a fairly impressive distance before they slowed to a crawl, then a halt, and finally dried up and died, leaving nothing but a husk and a trail of shiny, sticky matter behind them. The silver roads increased in number as they approached the farm, and Taylor felt her heart rate increasing. This was it. This was what she was meant to do - and she was eager to begin work. Parian had felt great - not the person, but the experience of rescuing her. Just felt… right. After so long stuck inside a tea shop recovering from her injuries, looking at the world moving on without her, leaving her behind to try and piece a life together even as the world she saved just marched on ahead… it was good to do something only she could do. Good to feel useful. Was this how Turk and Ahab felt, sometimes? Was this what happened after years of combat, years of service, and then… retirement? Ahab certainly revelled in combat, but Turk was always more taciturn. Taylor could confidently say that it was deeply unpleasant to feel useless. Not just useless, though - obsolete. She's performed her function and was now no longer needed, the world seemed to say. The narrative was over. The story complete. She could rest - deal with her wounds, deal with the nightmares, and move on. Take the nun as a parting gift, and go. She'd ceased to be relevant.
…well, could an irrelevant tool help Parian out of that city? Would an obsolete component be out here, looking for more answers, ready to investigate these wounds and make sure they ceased to open? Would something useless be able to do any of this?
She was fine.
She was completely fine.
Turk drummed his hands on the steering wheel, and spoke - Ahab was asleep, otherwise the van would have certainly been filled with the sound of one of her off-colour anecdotes at this point. All that filled the air at the moment was the purring of the engine, the grinding of loose stone beneath the wheels, and the deep rumble of Turk's voice. Good. Distracted her from her own thoughts, which was turning towards the bitter.
"...you look excited."
"Hm? Oh. I.. guess I am. Familiar territory, is all."
"You're like my brother."
Taylor froze. Turk had a brother? Had he ever mentioned that? She couldn't recall if he did, but… this was unusual. He talked about his time as a mercenary every now and again - when he chose to talk at all - but his life before Otselotovaya Khvatka was almost never discussed, except with reference towards how he had entered O.K. All she really knew was that he was definitely Russian - not Ukrainian, not Belarusian, not from any other region in that corner of the world. If she was going to work out his age, he must've been around when the Soviet Union collapsed in the 90s. She didn't know as much as she should about that period. Just the basic features. But she'd heard a little from her dad about it… one of his colleagues at the union was Latvian, and had apparently fought in Czechoslovakia in the 90s. Bad time. Maybe it was unpleasant for Turk to recall, maybe it was irrelevant, maybe it was simply private. That was always a possibility, he was a very private man. She still didn't know his real name, after all - nor Ahab's. It was a boundary she was happy to maintain… or was simply unwilling to breach. Too cowardly, maybe. Or too inexperienced. Hardly matter. For now… Turk kept talking.
"After the CCCP collapsed, my brother… stayed in the war business. Me, I like money. Fought for it, moved on when it wasn't coming in, stopped fighting once I had enough to retire. Fighting is ugly, gets you killed. But if it makes money… there are worse professions I can think of, and they pay worse too. He liked the fighting, though. The money was a bonus."
He paused.
"...I went to O.K. when the time came to re-enlist. He stayed in the army. Fought until his leg was blown off in Chechnya. Mine. Was wearing a toe-ring at the time, says he saw kids running away with pieces of it. I say he's mad, but… well, not my foot. They discharged him, he sat in a bar for a few years shouting at anyone who would listen, then got his gun working again, stuck some wood to his stump, got back to work. Man with a gun is a man with a gun - and if you're careful, you won't need to move very quickly. He didn't. And then he did. Lost most of his fingers to a wild dog out in Kyrgyzstan. Didn't go back to the bar this time, his favourite one had closed down, and he was too old to find a new favourite. Just stole a key to an old armoury and became an arms dealer."
His mouth twisted into something that, on someone else, might've been a smile.
"Got shot at by rebels using the AKs he sold, he bragged about it one Christmas. Broke his nose when I found out - he took it. No point getting into a fight. Good money in his business, he could afford to get a whole new nose if he wanted. And he always got to visit warzones, that was what he liked. The warzones. Did all deals in person, sold to everyone. Parahuman warlords, police forces, even the Chechnyans. He said if they found his toe ring from the 90s, he'd give them a truckload of guns for free. Then he got a bad client, lost most of his money, got the gold teeth pulled out of his head by a mad Congolese warlord. Want to know what he did?"
"...go on."
"Rode in a cargo plane to Mexico, called in a few contacts, now he sells guns to American gangsters. Bullets to replace the gold teeth he lost. Last I heard he was in Gallup. Having… grand old time - not for me. Hate tequila. He says it tastes like violence. I say it tastes like piss. We agree to disagree."
He fell silent for a second, lost in thought. Taylor watched with a single narrow eye, waiting patiently. This was… interesting. She had the image of Turk, albeit presumably fatter, with one leg instead of one eye, bullets instead of teeth, and a crate of guns to sell to anyone who would take them. Too crippled to fight, but not so crippled that he was condemned to remain away from a warzone. Gallup… right, that was an exclusion zone in New Mexico, if she remembered correctly. Too many villains. Cartels fighting to the death, using the place as an arena for their larger struggles. Sometimes a hero would go in like some sort of bold cowboy, ready to clear things up… she remembered that image from parahuman studies if nothing else. The sight of heroes crucified against the walls of the zone, with warnings daubed underneath them. Stay out. Villains coming in usually fared better. They, at least, had no delusions of clearing Gallup up - content to make their money as a hired thug for one of the gangs, isolated from the law enforcement agencies of the outside world. Names idly came to mind, nothing associated with them. Vague memories of old classes she was happy to forget, largely. Los Zetas. The Stone Kings. Las Soledades. Chorei had her own thoughts on the matter, of course.
…I am increasingly glad that I elected to go east instead of west when Senpou fell. Be cautious around this man. Madness may run in the family.
Yeah, that seemed about par for the course with her.
"...the point. Cling too tight to your business, you end up with one leg, few fingers, and a warlord pulling your teeth out. I moved on - and I only lost one eye in the process. Back home, when I was younger, I saw… families begging for their pensions when the Union fell. They'd slaved away for years at their jobs. Never left. Never complained. And they got nothing back. No duty is worth getting lost in till you can't find a way out. Not even this."
He paused again.
"How is your father?"
Taylor stiffened. They were friends. He was allowed to ask questions like that. But… she had no obligation to answer. There was no requirement for her to discuss her issues, how her dad was trapped in a coma from which he might never escape, how she needed money to get him the treatment he needed - the treatment she owed him, for dragging him into all of this. She remained silent, and Turk sighed, sounding faintly… guilty? Bizarre. He didn't say anything else for the rest of the journey, until they rumbled to a halt outside the squat, grey building that passed for a dwelling out here. It looked livelier than usual, admittedly. Arch had spruced it up just a little - lights were on, dust was clear, the curtains looked faintly new. Even from the outside it was obvious that someone was living here. Taylor tried to put the conversation with Turk out of her mind. She was good at investigating this kind of thing, and then promptly getting rid of it. Chorei was willing to go along with it. And if Turk wasn't - if anyone wasn't - then fine. She could make her own way. She liked her companions, but she wasn't going to stop investigating this because they might not be at her side.
This was just something she had to do. Whether she liked it or not.
And thankfully, she did like it.
Liked it a hell of a lot better than the alternative.
Turk wandered off to go and examine his protein sheds, making sure none of the seals were breaking. He clearly preferred this kind of practical work to the mad rambling that was certain to erupt between Taylor and Arch. Ahab was left behind in the truck, fast asleep and clearly drunk. Taylor stopped beside her, opening the door up to get a proper look. When awake she was constantly moving, sliding from one foot to another, like her body had no idea what to do with the energy it'd usually use on her lost arm. Asleep… she looked ragged. She murmured something in her sleep, something that Taylor couldn't understand - foreign language, no clue which one. Taylor felt a stab of guilt. Another thing she'd caused. Gallant had died, and Ahab had lost an arm. She'd stopped taking care of herself - no wonder Turk had elected to go and live with her. Bad skin. Bad teeth. Bad hair. Clothes rumpled and dirty, mismatched until her own outfit felt… normal by comparison. Taylor watched her for a moment, trying to get her thoughts in order. Should she… wake her up? Apologise? The two had spoken since Bisha, quite a lot actually, but it was always instrumental. Always about immediate events, or anecdotes which had long-since passed their expiry date. Nothing about how she was feeling. Ahab didn't want to answer. Taylor didn't know how to ask.
The woman shifted uneasily, her brow furrowed. Bad dreams, seemed like. Taylor reached out, intending to… what? Pat her? Tuck her in? Wake her up? Chorei was silent. She didn't know how to deal with this either. She'd run away from so much, and along the way she'd left behind a great deal. Maybe too much. Taylor felt something crawling on her shoulder, and swatted automatically. By the time her hand made contact, she realised what was wrong. Something was crawling, and she couldn't feel it. Her hand moved slowly away from the point of impact… nothing. Nothing at all. Just a feeling. A termite on her shoulder, murmuring 'incomplete?' over and over and over. Feeding on that which was unresolved or ambiguous. Delighting in endings which never came, in stories which trailed off and were never finished. Just a memory. Nothing more. She was fine. Ahab was still sleeping when Taylor quietly brushed some of her hair out of her face - she was starting to absent-mindedly chew on a few strands, that was all. The door shut silently, and all was well. The grey world lingered, and Arch awaited.
Speaking of whom - he looked weird when he opened the door. His fingers were stained with ink, his shirt was marked with splashes of the same stuff, and he looked like he hadn't washed in days. Smelled like it, too. Behind him, the farm was a distressing mix of order and chaos. Things were clean, well-organised, no filth, no grime, no vermin that she could sense beyond a few woodlice which were nesting in the air conditioner. But within the order was just… lunacy. Empty bottles littered half of the surfaces, and invariably a candle had been stuffed into each. She'd call it a fire hazard, but the building was mostly made of stone - not much to actually burn. There were books scattered everywhere, open to random pages, propped by anything that could hold the sheets down - knives, forks, pens, and in one case an empty pistol - one that Turk had supplied to the house, thankfully. Inexplicable firearms were always alarming, this at least was vaguely explicable. Arch puffed away at a cigarette, pausing to tilt his head to one side. His eyes were as burned-out as ever.
"Oh. Hello, Taylor."
"Hi. Can I come in?"
"Sure, go nuts, not up to anything - tea?"
OK, this seemed more sane. She almost accepted… but then she saw the state of the kitchen. Not filthy. Just… disorganised. And in the centre was a huge bag. A giant, industrial-sized container of teabags. Bad teabags, too. The kind that she couldn't sell at the shop, not if she wanted to keep any clientele for longer than… no, not even a single visit, longer than half a visit. Less, conceivably. And the mugs around it were stained black on the inside - good god. Her standards were too high for this place. Still, he was striding over, delicately avoiding a stack of books which appeared to be in German, before plucking a few bags out and setting a much-abused kettle to boil some water, which it did in spluttering, stuttering gasps. Arch leaned against the counter, opened his mouth… and someone interrupted.
"Who the fuck is it?"
Oh no.
Oh no indeed.
Ted hauled herself out of her room - prosthetic hands clicked into her crutches, and heavy sunglasses hid the holes where her eyes used to be. Every inconvenience along the way, every near-fall, every collision, every delay, was enough to work up her temper a little more. By the end, she was downright frothing. Her face was twisted into a ferocious scowl, and she glared vaguely in Taylor's direction. Somehow the lack of eyes made it worse - eyes being the window to the soul and all, turned out that losing them just removed that window. Which meant that the soul was unvarnished, uncut, unfiltered, and raw. And of the many things which could be said about Ted's soul - unpredictable, chaotic, bitter, riddled with genius - the overriding impression was anger. Taylor didn't bother to smile - no point.
"It's Taylor."
She paused. Was it time for pleasantries?
Ask her how she is, the sooner she starts talking about herself the sooner she'll stop looking like our homicide is imminent.
OK, bit of an overreaction, Taylor could probably push her over and threats of imminent homicide would cease. Not spoken threats, certainly, but the capacity to act on those threats would be significantly diminished. Presumably. She reminded herself to stay away from those crutches, they could probably contain a self-defence bomb of some kind.
"...how are you?"
"I'm a fucking nugget, dipshit. And this asshole can't keep anything clean. Top of the world. How are things with you? How's the walking life treating you?"
Taylor felt painfully awkward. Arch, the angel that he was, interjected.
"Tea?"
"No more fucking tea from you."
She leant forwards, her tone adopting a conspiratorial tone yet remaining at its previous (very loud) volume. Passive-aggression, then. Good? At least it wasn't active aggression.
"This asshole made me a… a fucking milky brew a few days back, or whatever crap he spouts instead of actual English. I swear to fucking Christ, the spoon was standing up, should have just put the cow in there and been done with it. I tried to drink it and it slammed into me. All the tea. All at once. Solid block, like solid fat."
Arch murmured noncommittally from the kettle which looked to be on the verge of exploding. Being around someone so… loud appeared to have made him a little less talkative. That, and the fact that he always seemed to be listening to something else, distracted by thoughts too important to be ignored. Everything else was engaged with only after a moment's delay, and with a sense of idle distraction. No wonder Ted was being so… Ted.
"You forgot to take the spoon out and it hit you in the face."
"No it fucking didn't, you're just shit at tea. Get some goddamn coffee sometime."
"It was just the spoon."
"It wasn't, if someone else had made that I might think they were a fucking biotinker, but no, you're just a British person trying to make something edible, so of course it turns out like a block of fucking gelatin instead of tea."
"It was tea. Fairly sure."
"Stop that. You're making me sound insane. I'm not insane, I don't put fucking candles in fucking bottles and leave them everywhere. You're the insane one here. I'm a pillar of fucking normality, I'm mundanity manifest."
"Hm."
"Keep humming and I'll commando-crawl into your room and hook a car battery up to your testicles."
"Hm."
"Go fuck yourself."
This woman alarms me.
She alarmed Taylor as well. Just a little. No, not a little, a lot, this woman had scarred the city permanently and had levelled Bisha's towers… and her reaction to it all was disappointment that the explosions hadn't all succeeded. No, disappointment was wrong - she was absolutely incandescently furious. Ted clacked away on her crutches, swinging in the vague direction of the kitchen. She moved with the certainty of someone who had wandered this area too many times to count, and had failed more often than she'd ever admit. Explained how she so adeptly avoided the bottles with motions too quick and precise to be anything but muscle memory. Arch brewed three mugs, and with a grumble Ted extended her prosthetic hand. The archaeologist automatically started to adjust it to hook around the mug itself, anchoring properly, locking the false fingers in place. And just to be sure, he dropped an insulated straw into it - hm. Considerate. Given that Ted wasn't reacting to this with any definable expression, ignoring it completely and utterly, she assumed this was entirely out of his own volition. Ignoring it was a petty act of defiance. How… decent. Arch mulled over his drink, examining the patterns of the milk as it spread throughout the dark water. He hummed lightly as he did so, and Ted turned to look (by a given definition) at Taylor once more. Her tone was harsh, but tinged with curiosity.
"Been a while."
"...yeah, I guess it has. What do you guys… get up to?"
She was trying to do small-talk.
"I'm learning to walk again. I'm actually doing things with a mind to the future. This one just sits around reading shit and muttering."
"...what did you have in mind? For the future, I mean."
Ted grinned wickedly, tapping the side of her nose with an entire prosthetic hand.
"Wouldn't you like to know."
"...yeah, that's why I asked."
"Oh, right. None of your business. But I won't be here forever. Appreciate me while you can."
I dislike this woman. I dislike this woman a great deal. So very… disorderly. Chaotic. Unpleasant. In my era such hellions rarely lived long - and they rarely lived well. This one was clearly not beaten enough as a child - novices at Senpou were often beaten. And it worked wonderfully for us.
Arch interjected before things could escalate any further, or Ted could get more active in her insults, shifting from implied to downright overt. Taylor had no idea how he lived with this woman, she was insufferable. She was used to chaotic people, but never people so… neurotically chaotic. A displeasing combination of erratic and fixated, content to insult everyone around her and utterly sensitive to any insults thrown her way. The fact that Arch was still sane spoke, she thought, to one of two things. Either he was a superior level of sane to her, and capable of resisting such irritations. Or he was completely broken and she could barely make any difference. At least he was still capable of conversation. Speaking of which.
"So, Taylor, what brings to our slice of heaven?"
Ted grumbled venomously.
"...heaven has more worms than I expected. And for some reason the British were allowed in."
Taylor interjected.
"Stuff's happening."
Arch tilted his head to one side, narrowing his eyes.
"Stuff?"
Taylor raised her eyebrows.
"Stuff."
Arch blinked in surprise.
"Oh. Of course. Stuff."
Ted smacked him over the head with one of her crutches - another bit of muscle memory, her aim was uncanny. Arch barely reacted to it, frowning very slightly as he placed a hand over his tea to stop it spilling out.
"I assume you're communicating with complicated facial movements, right?"
They… weren't not doing that.
"Some of us don't have fucking eyes. What stuff. Is it to do with Bisha?"
"...by a certain definition, yes."
Oh no.
Ted froze. Arch closed his eyes. Taylor wondered what she'd unleashed. The woman began to shake, a combination of fear and rage passing through her. The tea was quietly set down… and she lunged back to her own room, from which the sound of clattering scrap could be heard, along with… promises. Violent promises. The kind where anyone connected to Bisha would be destroyed by bombs that turned people inside out, that sustained brain activity even when such brain activity should be impossible, that slowed time's progress to a crawl, that stretched, crushed, infected, disintegrated, flayed, and generally reduced humans down to piles of howling meat. Taylor found her skin crawling at the things she muttered about, sometimes escalating to a roar, then back to an insidious whisper once again. The woman was possessed - she'd never moved on from what had happened. And while it was fair enough to not forgive Bisha for severing her hands and feet, tearing out her eyes, locking her up and forcing her to build bombs for him… yeah, it was entirely fair to hate him, and Taylor was very much in the anti-Bisha camp. But for all that, she'd clearly been nursing her grudge, never letting her hatred of him die away. If she could bring him back and kill him again, she would. If she could find any of his remaining servants, she'd inflict on them what was intended for their master. Taylor despised Bisha, and was eager to wipe out any last traces of his influence, but… she had a life outside of that.
Right?
…I wonder how she builds her pyrotechnics without any hands?
"Hey, Arch?"
No response, too busy slurping at his tea with the air of someone who'd seen this all before and had very little reason to be especially alarmed. Somehow. She soldiered on regardless.
"How does she make bombs without…"
"Oh. Right. That. She started doing it quietly, using her teeth. Once I caught her at it, she conscripted me to help build a few. For all her… abrasiveness, she's actually very good at giving instructions."
Taylor blinked.
"Arch, it's tinkertech. I think it's kinda defined by the fact that normal people can't build it. I don't think instructions from a tinker qualify anyone to build the things she builds."
Arch took a long, deep sip of his awful, awful tea.
"...man, that's wild."
And that was all. How… utterly infuriating. She was certain there was an explanation here - maybe Ted's abilities were tailored for this, maybe it was a response to getting her hands chopped off. She was fairly sure this had never been addressed back at high school. Seemed much too useful to ever be taught in those linoleum-paved halls. Probably had a fancy name, too. Nuts. She'd need to… right, research. Why she was here. Arch seemed to remember this at around the same time, and his eyes sharpened up, his entire demeanour becoming more professional.
"So? Stuff?"
Taylor relayed all that she could. The termites, the wrong turn, the… star. The feeling of being inside a wound teeming with vermin. The ambiguity, the emptiness, the hunger that surrounded her and Parian. Her hands weren't shaking - hm. Why had she suddenly thought that? Sure, her hands weren't shaking. Why would they? She was fine. This was what she wanted to do - this was something she was good at, something that was utterly necessary. Calmness was natural after all the experiences she'd had. A part of her wondered if maybe it was odd to be so calm after emerging from a city made of termites, but… well, she'd been through worse. Of course she had. This wasn't personally connected to her, there was no deep-seated fear that it was preying on, nothing- she felt the shadow of insectile legs cross over her hand. For a moment, she wanted to lunge at it, to smash it out of existence… no, no, just her imagination. She was fine. All of this was just another issue to take care of, a lesser derivation of something much more terrible that she'd already helped destroy.
Just another problem to handle.
Gallant's dead eye stared out of the dark. The haggard faces of her friends as the forces arrayed against them took things, one at a time. Mouse Protector staggering out of a damaged building with a crazed look on her usually-cheerful face. Ahab's arm, torn away by some unnatural beast. The bodies in the streets. The cultists she'd cut down without remorse, one after another. Her dad lying sprawled on the stairs, her last words to him that she would call. Calls she never made. Conversations she'd never had. Might never get to have again. No matter what she tried.
She was fine.
Wasn't she?
Arch's burned-out eyes looking into her own, and she felt Chorei wriggling slightly, ill-at-ease. Right, the story. No more distractions, no introspection, she was fine. Her fingers drummed an agitated rhythm on the counter as she continued, mechanically listing off all that she'd done, all that she'd seen, all that she'd felt, and all that she suspected. She omitted any mention of Angel Eyes, though. She wanted to find out more about them, how much they knew, and what they were truly capable of. Once she understood that, she fully intended to confront them, clip their wings before they got too high. On a rational level, she understood that a tinker poking into this kind of business would be awful. The idea of some tinker specialised in hacking televisions beaming out… say, footage of Bisha's ascension, or a recording of that termite-infested city, or a picture of the wolf-star, to thousands upon thousands of homes was horrifying on every conceivable level. On an emotional level, she disliked the invasion of privacy. If Angel Eyes wanted to help her, they could be a damn sight more open about it. Maybe it was petty, but the pettiness had enough rationality covering it to be faintly acceptable.
Faintly.
Arch listened, nodded when appropriate, sipped his tea at every available opportunity, and his fingers started to twitch. He was eager. Very eager indeed. The moment her mouth shut conclusively, the moment her story came to an end… he rushed off, slamming the mug down roughly as he went. Books were plucked from stacks - they had the tatty, dog-eared quality of second, third, fourth-hand books. Some didn't have covers at all, just paper exposed to the world, invariably marked with tea rings from years past. How he'd gotten hold of these was a question for another time - from what she understood, he was dirt poor. Unless he'd broken open another parking meter for change, which was… definitely a possibility, now she came to think about it. She watched him calmly as he scrambled for the right volumes, muttering frantically to himself, eyes twitching wildly in his skull. Accompanied by the constant hateful murmuring of Ted… she was in a madhouse. A complete madhouse. Books from a dozen different areas piled up on the counter.
Books of mythology, some serious, some clearly frivolous, but all of them marked with underlined passages. Paranormal research, too - bargain-basement stuff, cheap paperbacks where badly paid writers shivered in a graveyard for a few hours and hacked a book out of the experience, enough to pay the bills.
Archaeological texts on… well, a whole slew of sites with names she didn't recognise. Çatalhöyük. Moula-Guercy. Herxheim. Images of bones, stone tools, strange idols… nothing explicitly unnatural, but it all had a patina of indescribable antiquity to it. Everything was pockmarked, dirt-stained, and half-formed. None of the bones looked like they came from a human, too shattered, too deformed. None of the tools looked like something a person should be using, the handles were wrong, the edges angled incorrectly. And the idols looked like nothing a human should worship. Too ugly. Too instinctually unpleasant.
Anthropological discourses on everything and nothing, detailing a whole raft of peoples from around the globe, none of which she had any real knowledge of. Foreign faces stared impassively up from the table, people with strange face ornaments and headdresses, standing in the blazing heat or hideous cold of far-flung countries. Anthropologies of everything from economy to religion to organisation to architecture.
And… poetry. A hell of a lot of poetry. And none of it she recognised. All were old, ragged things, some looking like they had genuinely hailed from over a century ago - and they wore their age poorly. A Hymn to the Cockroach People. Wildflowers at Dawn. The Yarrow Compendium. Nothing she knew. Nothing popular, nothing classic. Arch had been… busy. As he worked, she saw scraps of paper sandwiched between volumes, covered in scrawlings which looked half-demented. Her concern grew as she saw repeated references to things the two of them had seen - giants, shining worms, yellow fire, a serpent swimming in blazing sea - and things which she couldn't begin to imagine.
The madhouse ambience continued.
And Taylor shivered, just slightly.
Getting to the protein farm was… interesting. God, it felt good to be planning things again, doing something that wasn't just moping around getting back in shape, recovering from her injuries, doing everything passively. Even Chorei was a little livelier than usual, delighting in the rush of new stimuli that came with rapid action. It was hard to tell, but she was positively wriggling - one legacy of Gallant was the image of Chorei as a centipede squirming around inside her brain. And no matter what she tried, she couldn't get away from that visualisation of her… situation. So Chorei wriggled, and did so happily. Anyway. Getting to the protein farm. Turk didn't quite trust Ahab to drive to the protein farm on her own, and Sanagi was busy with her actual job. Honestly, Taylor hadn't spoken to the cop in a few days now, both of them occupied with their own lives. Funny how that happened - one day they were always close together, sharing a car, a room, a maddening labyrinth… and then she got back home and needed to get back to her actual job. To pay her bills. And her mortgage. Because even women with skulls instead of a head (as opposed to most people, who had skulls… and a head? Needed to rethink that entire description) needed to work to live.
Maybe she'd participate in this once it started to escalate, as it inevitably would. She imagined the sound of millions of termites burning in the light of her screaming laser beams - not a combination of words she ever expected to put together in her own head - and felt a certain amount of excitement. This felt right. Getting her… group back together, preparing for something new, investigating. She had control over this. Not total control, of course. For instance - cars. The protein farm was outside of town, in the industrial wasteland which had once been a power plant, and she still lacked the ability to drive. It was faintly embarrassing asking for help there, but she got the feeling that both Turk and Ahab needed some time outside. The shop was locked up, and the three began to quietly drive through the chilly morning air in the direction of the protein farm.
Grey.
The sky was grey, the earth was grey, and grey mists rolled out from the looming, groaning rust monoliths which lingered despite everything. Trees hung heavy with strange moss, and the fat, dried bodies of protein grubs lined the road where crates had split, containment had been breached, or simply accidents had occurred. They never survived long out here, not without their toxic beds, but they somehow managed to squirm a fairly impressive distance before they slowed to a crawl, then a halt, and finally dried up and died, leaving nothing but a husk and a trail of shiny, sticky matter behind them. The silver roads increased in number as they approached the farm, and Taylor felt her heart rate increasing. This was it. This was what she was meant to do - and she was eager to begin work. Parian had felt great - not the person, but the experience of rescuing her. Just felt… right. After so long stuck inside a tea shop recovering from her injuries, looking at the world moving on without her, leaving her behind to try and piece a life together even as the world she saved just marched on ahead… it was good to do something only she could do. Good to feel useful. Was this how Turk and Ahab felt, sometimes? Was this what happened after years of combat, years of service, and then… retirement? Ahab certainly revelled in combat, but Turk was always more taciturn. Taylor could confidently say that it was deeply unpleasant to feel useless. Not just useless, though - obsolete. She's performed her function and was now no longer needed, the world seemed to say. The narrative was over. The story complete. She could rest - deal with her wounds, deal with the nightmares, and move on. Take the nun as a parting gift, and go. She'd ceased to be relevant.
…well, could an irrelevant tool help Parian out of that city? Would an obsolete component be out here, looking for more answers, ready to investigate these wounds and make sure they ceased to open? Would something useless be able to do any of this?
She was fine.
She was completely fine.
Turk drummed his hands on the steering wheel, and spoke - Ahab was asleep, otherwise the van would have certainly been filled with the sound of one of her off-colour anecdotes at this point. All that filled the air at the moment was the purring of the engine, the grinding of loose stone beneath the wheels, and the deep rumble of Turk's voice. Good. Distracted her from her own thoughts, which was turning towards the bitter.
"...you look excited."
"Hm? Oh. I.. guess I am. Familiar territory, is all."
"You're like my brother."
Taylor froze. Turk had a brother? Had he ever mentioned that? She couldn't recall if he did, but… this was unusual. He talked about his time as a mercenary every now and again - when he chose to talk at all - but his life before Otselotovaya Khvatka was almost never discussed, except with reference towards how he had entered O.K. All she really knew was that he was definitely Russian - not Ukrainian, not Belarusian, not from any other region in that corner of the world. If she was going to work out his age, he must've been around when the Soviet Union collapsed in the 90s. She didn't know as much as she should about that period. Just the basic features. But she'd heard a little from her dad about it… one of his colleagues at the union was Latvian, and had apparently fought in Czechoslovakia in the 90s. Bad time. Maybe it was unpleasant for Turk to recall, maybe it was irrelevant, maybe it was simply private. That was always a possibility, he was a very private man. She still didn't know his real name, after all - nor Ahab's. It was a boundary she was happy to maintain… or was simply unwilling to breach. Too cowardly, maybe. Or too inexperienced. Hardly matter. For now… Turk kept talking.
"After the CCCP collapsed, my brother… stayed in the war business. Me, I like money. Fought for it, moved on when it wasn't coming in, stopped fighting once I had enough to retire. Fighting is ugly, gets you killed. But if it makes money… there are worse professions I can think of, and they pay worse too. He liked the fighting, though. The money was a bonus."
He paused.
"...I went to O.K. when the time came to re-enlist. He stayed in the army. Fought until his leg was blown off in Chechnya. Mine. Was wearing a toe-ring at the time, says he saw kids running away with pieces of it. I say he's mad, but… well, not my foot. They discharged him, he sat in a bar for a few years shouting at anyone who would listen, then got his gun working again, stuck some wood to his stump, got back to work. Man with a gun is a man with a gun - and if you're careful, you won't need to move very quickly. He didn't. And then he did. Lost most of his fingers to a wild dog out in Kyrgyzstan. Didn't go back to the bar this time, his favourite one had closed down, and he was too old to find a new favourite. Just stole a key to an old armoury and became an arms dealer."
His mouth twisted into something that, on someone else, might've been a smile.
"Got shot at by rebels using the AKs he sold, he bragged about it one Christmas. Broke his nose when I found out - he took it. No point getting into a fight. Good money in his business, he could afford to get a whole new nose if he wanted. And he always got to visit warzones, that was what he liked. The warzones. Did all deals in person, sold to everyone. Parahuman warlords, police forces, even the Chechnyans. He said if they found his toe ring from the 90s, he'd give them a truckload of guns for free. Then he got a bad client, lost most of his money, got the gold teeth pulled out of his head by a mad Congolese warlord. Want to know what he did?"
"...go on."
"Rode in a cargo plane to Mexico, called in a few contacts, now he sells guns to American gangsters. Bullets to replace the gold teeth he lost. Last I heard he was in Gallup. Having… grand old time - not for me. Hate tequila. He says it tastes like violence. I say it tastes like piss. We agree to disagree."
He fell silent for a second, lost in thought. Taylor watched with a single narrow eye, waiting patiently. This was… interesting. She had the image of Turk, albeit presumably fatter, with one leg instead of one eye, bullets instead of teeth, and a crate of guns to sell to anyone who would take them. Too crippled to fight, but not so crippled that he was condemned to remain away from a warzone. Gallup… right, that was an exclusion zone in New Mexico, if she remembered correctly. Too many villains. Cartels fighting to the death, using the place as an arena for their larger struggles. Sometimes a hero would go in like some sort of bold cowboy, ready to clear things up… she remembered that image from parahuman studies if nothing else. The sight of heroes crucified against the walls of the zone, with warnings daubed underneath them. Stay out. Villains coming in usually fared better. They, at least, had no delusions of clearing Gallup up - content to make their money as a hired thug for one of the gangs, isolated from the law enforcement agencies of the outside world. Names idly came to mind, nothing associated with them. Vague memories of old classes she was happy to forget, largely. Los Zetas. The Stone Kings. Las Soledades. Chorei had her own thoughts on the matter, of course.
…I am increasingly glad that I elected to go east instead of west when Senpou fell. Be cautious around this man. Madness may run in the family.
Yeah, that seemed about par for the course with her.
"...the point. Cling too tight to your business, you end up with one leg, few fingers, and a warlord pulling your teeth out. I moved on - and I only lost one eye in the process. Back home, when I was younger, I saw… families begging for their pensions when the Union fell. They'd slaved away for years at their jobs. Never left. Never complained. And they got nothing back. No duty is worth getting lost in till you can't find a way out. Not even this."
He paused again.
"How is your father?"
Taylor stiffened. They were friends. He was allowed to ask questions like that. But… she had no obligation to answer. There was no requirement for her to discuss her issues, how her dad was trapped in a coma from which he might never escape, how she needed money to get him the treatment he needed - the treatment she owed him, for dragging him into all of this. She remained silent, and Turk sighed, sounding faintly… guilty? Bizarre. He didn't say anything else for the rest of the journey, until they rumbled to a halt outside the squat, grey building that passed for a dwelling out here. It looked livelier than usual, admittedly. Arch had spruced it up just a little - lights were on, dust was clear, the curtains looked faintly new. Even from the outside it was obvious that someone was living here. Taylor tried to put the conversation with Turk out of her mind. She was good at investigating this kind of thing, and then promptly getting rid of it. Chorei was willing to go along with it. And if Turk wasn't - if anyone wasn't - then fine. She could make her own way. She liked her companions, but she wasn't going to stop investigating this because they might not be at her side.
This was just something she had to do. Whether she liked it or not.
And thankfully, she did like it.
Liked it a hell of a lot better than the alternative.
Turk wandered off to go and examine his protein sheds, making sure none of the seals were breaking. He clearly preferred this kind of practical work to the mad rambling that was certain to erupt between Taylor and Arch. Ahab was left behind in the truck, fast asleep and clearly drunk. Taylor stopped beside her, opening the door up to get a proper look. When awake she was constantly moving, sliding from one foot to another, like her body had no idea what to do with the energy it'd usually use on her lost arm. Asleep… she looked ragged. She murmured something in her sleep, something that Taylor couldn't understand - foreign language, no clue which one. Taylor felt a stab of guilt. Another thing she'd caused. Gallant had died, and Ahab had lost an arm. She'd stopped taking care of herself - no wonder Turk had elected to go and live with her. Bad skin. Bad teeth. Bad hair. Clothes rumpled and dirty, mismatched until her own outfit felt… normal by comparison. Taylor watched her for a moment, trying to get her thoughts in order. Should she… wake her up? Apologise? The two had spoken since Bisha, quite a lot actually, but it was always instrumental. Always about immediate events, or anecdotes which had long-since passed their expiry date. Nothing about how she was feeling. Ahab didn't want to answer. Taylor didn't know how to ask.
The woman shifted uneasily, her brow furrowed. Bad dreams, seemed like. Taylor reached out, intending to… what? Pat her? Tuck her in? Wake her up? Chorei was silent. She didn't know how to deal with this either. She'd run away from so much, and along the way she'd left behind a great deal. Maybe too much. Taylor felt something crawling on her shoulder, and swatted automatically. By the time her hand made contact, she realised what was wrong. Something was crawling, and she couldn't feel it. Her hand moved slowly away from the point of impact… nothing. Nothing at all. Just a feeling. A termite on her shoulder, murmuring 'incomplete?' over and over and over. Feeding on that which was unresolved or ambiguous. Delighting in endings which never came, in stories which trailed off and were never finished. Just a memory. Nothing more. She was fine. Ahab was still sleeping when Taylor quietly brushed some of her hair out of her face - she was starting to absent-mindedly chew on a few strands, that was all. The door shut silently, and all was well. The grey world lingered, and Arch awaited.
Speaking of whom - he looked weird when he opened the door. His fingers were stained with ink, his shirt was marked with splashes of the same stuff, and he looked like he hadn't washed in days. Smelled like it, too. Behind him, the farm was a distressing mix of order and chaos. Things were clean, well-organised, no filth, no grime, no vermin that she could sense beyond a few woodlice which were nesting in the air conditioner. But within the order was just… lunacy. Empty bottles littered half of the surfaces, and invariably a candle had been stuffed into each. She'd call it a fire hazard, but the building was mostly made of stone - not much to actually burn. There were books scattered everywhere, open to random pages, propped by anything that could hold the sheets down - knives, forks, pens, and in one case an empty pistol - one that Turk had supplied to the house, thankfully. Inexplicable firearms were always alarming, this at least was vaguely explicable. Arch puffed away at a cigarette, pausing to tilt his head to one side. His eyes were as burned-out as ever.
"Oh. Hello, Taylor."
"Hi. Can I come in?"
"Sure, go nuts, not up to anything - tea?"
OK, this seemed more sane. She almost accepted… but then she saw the state of the kitchen. Not filthy. Just… disorganised. And in the centre was a huge bag. A giant, industrial-sized container of teabags. Bad teabags, too. The kind that she couldn't sell at the shop, not if she wanted to keep any clientele for longer than… no, not even a single visit, longer than half a visit. Less, conceivably. And the mugs around it were stained black on the inside - good god. Her standards were too high for this place. Still, he was striding over, delicately avoiding a stack of books which appeared to be in German, before plucking a few bags out and setting a much-abused kettle to boil some water, which it did in spluttering, stuttering gasps. Arch leaned against the counter, opened his mouth… and someone interrupted.
"Who the fuck is it?"
Oh no.
Oh no indeed.
Ted hauled herself out of her room - prosthetic hands clicked into her crutches, and heavy sunglasses hid the holes where her eyes used to be. Every inconvenience along the way, every near-fall, every collision, every delay, was enough to work up her temper a little more. By the end, she was downright frothing. Her face was twisted into a ferocious scowl, and she glared vaguely in Taylor's direction. Somehow the lack of eyes made it worse - eyes being the window to the soul and all, turned out that losing them just removed that window. Which meant that the soul was unvarnished, uncut, unfiltered, and raw. And of the many things which could be said about Ted's soul - unpredictable, chaotic, bitter, riddled with genius - the overriding impression was anger. Taylor didn't bother to smile - no point.
"It's Taylor."
She paused. Was it time for pleasantries?
Ask her how she is, the sooner she starts talking about herself the sooner she'll stop looking like our homicide is imminent.
OK, bit of an overreaction, Taylor could probably push her over and threats of imminent homicide would cease. Not spoken threats, certainly, but the capacity to act on those threats would be significantly diminished. Presumably. She reminded herself to stay away from those crutches, they could probably contain a self-defence bomb of some kind.
"...how are you?"
"I'm a fucking nugget, dipshit. And this asshole can't keep anything clean. Top of the world. How are things with you? How's the walking life treating you?"
Taylor felt painfully awkward. Arch, the angel that he was, interjected.
"Tea?"
"No more fucking tea from you."
She leant forwards, her tone adopting a conspiratorial tone yet remaining at its previous (very loud) volume. Passive-aggression, then. Good? At least it wasn't active aggression.
"This asshole made me a… a fucking milky brew a few days back, or whatever crap he spouts instead of actual English. I swear to fucking Christ, the spoon was standing up, should have just put the cow in there and been done with it. I tried to drink it and it slammed into me. All the tea. All at once. Solid block, like solid fat."
Arch murmured noncommittally from the kettle which looked to be on the verge of exploding. Being around someone so… loud appeared to have made him a little less talkative. That, and the fact that he always seemed to be listening to something else, distracted by thoughts too important to be ignored. Everything else was engaged with only after a moment's delay, and with a sense of idle distraction. No wonder Ted was being so… Ted.
"You forgot to take the spoon out and it hit you in the face."
"No it fucking didn't, you're just shit at tea. Get some goddamn coffee sometime."
"It was just the spoon."
"It wasn't, if someone else had made that I might think they were a fucking biotinker, but no, you're just a British person trying to make something edible, so of course it turns out like a block of fucking gelatin instead of tea."
"It was tea. Fairly sure."
"Stop that. You're making me sound insane. I'm not insane, I don't put fucking candles in fucking bottles and leave them everywhere. You're the insane one here. I'm a pillar of fucking normality, I'm mundanity manifest."
"Hm."
"Keep humming and I'll commando-crawl into your room and hook a car battery up to your testicles."
"Hm."
"Go fuck yourself."
This woman alarms me.
She alarmed Taylor as well. Just a little. No, not a little, a lot, this woman had scarred the city permanently and had levelled Bisha's towers… and her reaction to it all was disappointment that the explosions hadn't all succeeded. No, disappointment was wrong - she was absolutely incandescently furious. Ted clacked away on her crutches, swinging in the vague direction of the kitchen. She moved with the certainty of someone who had wandered this area too many times to count, and had failed more often than she'd ever admit. Explained how she so adeptly avoided the bottles with motions too quick and precise to be anything but muscle memory. Arch brewed three mugs, and with a grumble Ted extended her prosthetic hand. The archaeologist automatically started to adjust it to hook around the mug itself, anchoring properly, locking the false fingers in place. And just to be sure, he dropped an insulated straw into it - hm. Considerate. Given that Ted wasn't reacting to this with any definable expression, ignoring it completely and utterly, she assumed this was entirely out of his own volition. Ignoring it was a petty act of defiance. How… decent. Arch mulled over his drink, examining the patterns of the milk as it spread throughout the dark water. He hummed lightly as he did so, and Ted turned to look (by a given definition) at Taylor once more. Her tone was harsh, but tinged with curiosity.
"Been a while."
"...yeah, I guess it has. What do you guys… get up to?"
She was trying to do small-talk.
"I'm learning to walk again. I'm actually doing things with a mind to the future. This one just sits around reading shit and muttering."
"...what did you have in mind? For the future, I mean."
Ted grinned wickedly, tapping the side of her nose with an entire prosthetic hand.
"Wouldn't you like to know."
"...yeah, that's why I asked."
"Oh, right. None of your business. But I won't be here forever. Appreciate me while you can."
I dislike this woman. I dislike this woman a great deal. So very… disorderly. Chaotic. Unpleasant. In my era such hellions rarely lived long - and they rarely lived well. This one was clearly not beaten enough as a child - novices at Senpou were often beaten. And it worked wonderfully for us.
Arch interjected before things could escalate any further, or Ted could get more active in her insults, shifting from implied to downright overt. Taylor had no idea how he lived with this woman, she was insufferable. She was used to chaotic people, but never people so… neurotically chaotic. A displeasing combination of erratic and fixated, content to insult everyone around her and utterly sensitive to any insults thrown her way. The fact that Arch was still sane spoke, she thought, to one of two things. Either he was a superior level of sane to her, and capable of resisting such irritations. Or he was completely broken and she could barely make any difference. At least he was still capable of conversation. Speaking of which.
"So, Taylor, what brings to our slice of heaven?"
Ted grumbled venomously.
"...heaven has more worms than I expected. And for some reason the British were allowed in."
Taylor interjected.
"Stuff's happening."
Arch tilted his head to one side, narrowing his eyes.
"Stuff?"
Taylor raised her eyebrows.
"Stuff."
Arch blinked in surprise.
"Oh. Of course. Stuff."
Ted smacked him over the head with one of her crutches - another bit of muscle memory, her aim was uncanny. Arch barely reacted to it, frowning very slightly as he placed a hand over his tea to stop it spilling out.
"I assume you're communicating with complicated facial movements, right?"
They… weren't not doing that.
"Some of us don't have fucking eyes. What stuff. Is it to do with Bisha?"
"...by a certain definition, yes."
Oh no.
Ted froze. Arch closed his eyes. Taylor wondered what she'd unleashed. The woman began to shake, a combination of fear and rage passing through her. The tea was quietly set down… and she lunged back to her own room, from which the sound of clattering scrap could be heard, along with… promises. Violent promises. The kind where anyone connected to Bisha would be destroyed by bombs that turned people inside out, that sustained brain activity even when such brain activity should be impossible, that slowed time's progress to a crawl, that stretched, crushed, infected, disintegrated, flayed, and generally reduced humans down to piles of howling meat. Taylor found her skin crawling at the things she muttered about, sometimes escalating to a roar, then back to an insidious whisper once again. The woman was possessed - she'd never moved on from what had happened. And while it was fair enough to not forgive Bisha for severing her hands and feet, tearing out her eyes, locking her up and forcing her to build bombs for him… yeah, it was entirely fair to hate him, and Taylor was very much in the anti-Bisha camp. But for all that, she'd clearly been nursing her grudge, never letting her hatred of him die away. If she could bring him back and kill him again, she would. If she could find any of his remaining servants, she'd inflict on them what was intended for their master. Taylor despised Bisha, and was eager to wipe out any last traces of his influence, but… she had a life outside of that.
Right?
…I wonder how she builds her pyrotechnics without any hands?
"Hey, Arch?"
No response, too busy slurping at his tea with the air of someone who'd seen this all before and had very little reason to be especially alarmed. Somehow. She soldiered on regardless.
"How does she make bombs without…"
"Oh. Right. That. She started doing it quietly, using her teeth. Once I caught her at it, she conscripted me to help build a few. For all her… abrasiveness, she's actually very good at giving instructions."
Taylor blinked.
"Arch, it's tinkertech. I think it's kinda defined by the fact that normal people can't build it. I don't think instructions from a tinker qualify anyone to build the things she builds."
Arch took a long, deep sip of his awful, awful tea.
"...man, that's wild."
And that was all. How… utterly infuriating. She was certain there was an explanation here - maybe Ted's abilities were tailored for this, maybe it was a response to getting her hands chopped off. She was fairly sure this had never been addressed back at high school. Seemed much too useful to ever be taught in those linoleum-paved halls. Probably had a fancy name, too. Nuts. She'd need to… right, research. Why she was here. Arch seemed to remember this at around the same time, and his eyes sharpened up, his entire demeanour becoming more professional.
"So? Stuff?"
Taylor relayed all that she could. The termites, the wrong turn, the… star. The feeling of being inside a wound teeming with vermin. The ambiguity, the emptiness, the hunger that surrounded her and Parian. Her hands weren't shaking - hm. Why had she suddenly thought that? Sure, her hands weren't shaking. Why would they? She was fine. This was what she wanted to do - this was something she was good at, something that was utterly necessary. Calmness was natural after all the experiences she'd had. A part of her wondered if maybe it was odd to be so calm after emerging from a city made of termites, but… well, she'd been through worse. Of course she had. This wasn't personally connected to her, there was no deep-seated fear that it was preying on, nothing- she felt the shadow of insectile legs cross over her hand. For a moment, she wanted to lunge at it, to smash it out of existence… no, no, just her imagination. She was fine. All of this was just another issue to take care of, a lesser derivation of something much more terrible that she'd already helped destroy.
Just another problem to handle.
Gallant's dead eye stared out of the dark. The haggard faces of her friends as the forces arrayed against them took things, one at a time. Mouse Protector staggering out of a damaged building with a crazed look on her usually-cheerful face. Ahab's arm, torn away by some unnatural beast. The bodies in the streets. The cultists she'd cut down without remorse, one after another. Her dad lying sprawled on the stairs, her last words to him that she would call. Calls she never made. Conversations she'd never had. Might never get to have again. No matter what she tried.
She was fine.
Wasn't she?
Arch's burned-out eyes looking into her own, and she felt Chorei wriggling slightly, ill-at-ease. Right, the story. No more distractions, no introspection, she was fine. Her fingers drummed an agitated rhythm on the counter as she continued, mechanically listing off all that she'd done, all that she'd seen, all that she'd felt, and all that she suspected. She omitted any mention of Angel Eyes, though. She wanted to find out more about them, how much they knew, and what they were truly capable of. Once she understood that, she fully intended to confront them, clip their wings before they got too high. On a rational level, she understood that a tinker poking into this kind of business would be awful. The idea of some tinker specialised in hacking televisions beaming out… say, footage of Bisha's ascension, or a recording of that termite-infested city, or a picture of the wolf-star, to thousands upon thousands of homes was horrifying on every conceivable level. On an emotional level, she disliked the invasion of privacy. If Angel Eyes wanted to help her, they could be a damn sight more open about it. Maybe it was petty, but the pettiness had enough rationality covering it to be faintly acceptable.
Faintly.
Arch listened, nodded when appropriate, sipped his tea at every available opportunity, and his fingers started to twitch. He was eager. Very eager indeed. The moment her mouth shut conclusively, the moment her story came to an end… he rushed off, slamming the mug down roughly as he went. Books were plucked from stacks - they had the tatty, dog-eared quality of second, third, fourth-hand books. Some didn't have covers at all, just paper exposed to the world, invariably marked with tea rings from years past. How he'd gotten hold of these was a question for another time - from what she understood, he was dirt poor. Unless he'd broken open another parking meter for change, which was… definitely a possibility, now she came to think about it. She watched him calmly as he scrambled for the right volumes, muttering frantically to himself, eyes twitching wildly in his skull. Accompanied by the constant hateful murmuring of Ted… she was in a madhouse. A complete madhouse. Books from a dozen different areas piled up on the counter.
Books of mythology, some serious, some clearly frivolous, but all of them marked with underlined passages. Paranormal research, too - bargain-basement stuff, cheap paperbacks where badly paid writers shivered in a graveyard for a few hours and hacked a book out of the experience, enough to pay the bills.
Archaeological texts on… well, a whole slew of sites with names she didn't recognise. Çatalhöyük. Moula-Guercy. Herxheim. Images of bones, stone tools, strange idols… nothing explicitly unnatural, but it all had a patina of indescribable antiquity to it. Everything was pockmarked, dirt-stained, and half-formed. None of the bones looked like they came from a human, too shattered, too deformed. None of the tools looked like something a person should be using, the handles were wrong, the edges angled incorrectly. And the idols looked like nothing a human should worship. Too ugly. Too instinctually unpleasant.
Anthropological discourses on everything and nothing, detailing a whole raft of peoples from around the globe, none of which she had any real knowledge of. Foreign faces stared impassively up from the table, people with strange face ornaments and headdresses, standing in the blazing heat or hideous cold of far-flung countries. Anthropologies of everything from economy to religion to organisation to architecture.
And… poetry. A hell of a lot of poetry. And none of it she recognised. All were old, ragged things, some looking like they had genuinely hailed from over a century ago - and they wore their age poorly. A Hymn to the Cockroach People. Wildflowers at Dawn. The Yarrow Compendium. Nothing she knew. Nothing popular, nothing classic. Arch had been… busy. As he worked, she saw scraps of paper sandwiched between volumes, covered in scrawlings which looked half-demented. Her concern grew as she saw repeated references to things the two of them had seen - giants, shining worms, yellow fire, a serpent swimming in blazing sea - and things which she couldn't begin to imagine.
The madhouse ambience continued.
And Taylor shivered, just slightly.
137 - A City Without Streets
GraftingBuddha
Retired Pooh-Bah
137 - A City Without Streets
"...so, based on what you've said, there are a few key motifs. Insects, obviously, but more than that - ambiguity. You said it felt like you were inside a wound. Like… this was something Bisha had left behind, right?"
"What's that about Bisha?!"
"Nothing, go back to your bombs."
Taylor shuddered at the mad cackle which emerged from Ted's 'workshop' - which seemed to be a pile of scrap she was poking at with hooks she'd attached to her stumps. She moved with expert precision - good thing, too. It all looked terrifyingly volatile. Right, Arch.
"The termites kept repeating 'incomplete' over and over. And when… I tried to look into one of them, there was just something empty. It felt… yeah, just incomplete, really. And by being incomplete, it was complete. Does that make any sense?"
"...too much sense, honestly. And you got there by just taking a wrong turn down an alleyway?"
"Yeah, why, does that add anything to it?"
Arch grinned shakily.
"Oh. Definitely. So, we're looking at incompleteness, ambiguity, wrong turnings, insects… let's get to work."
And like that, it began. Deja vu struck. The same feeling she had in her own room back when Chorei was still alive, reading through articles on centipede cults around the world. The same feeling in Barnabas College where the two of them had scoured the archives for any mention of the Frenzied Flame - though they didn't know its name at that point. Books fluttered open and closed, indexes were scanned, and a heavy old computer was booted up to try and get some extra information when necessary. Arch's initial choices were instinctual - mentions of intimacy in some old cultures and sites, close quarters particularly. Claustrophobic caves where people would scrabble around for purchase, would daub images on the walls with shaking hands by the light of animal-fat candles, creating gods that loomed out of the dark. Gods that appeared only when close, only when trapped by narrow, twisting passages, only when the last drop of effort had been dragged out of them by the climb. Caves where bones marked the failures, the rejects… and those who, perhaps, had dropped dead on the sight of their god so close, so real, the totality of it highlighted by their pounding hearts and heads, by the wavering light that gave the images motion, by…
Arch's strangeness was contagious, it seemed.
In Senpou, we met the centipedes in the dark. Alone. Lit only by a small lamp we cradled in the palm of our hands. It was… symbolic. The dark of ignorance, and the light of knowledge leading us to enlightenment. But the meeting room was always small. Intimate. The abbot said it was to stop us from losing our way, to stop us from lingering in the dark for too long. I wonder… perhaps? Perhaps he knew of this… phenomenon. But I have no knowledge of a world of termites lying behind a wrong turn. It was never mentioned in any of our texts - and I perused them all many, many times.
Chorei fell silent, lost in her own thoughts. Taylor already knew a great deal about Senpou, just from having the nun's memories blasting through her skull for weeks before their grafting. But… she'd never seen the day she met her centipede. All she got from Chorei were memories of her as a young woman, quietly walking through a small, dark chamber, hearing something rattling in the corner. Chitin piling atop itself as a huge body shifted to face her. Frantic murmuring of calming mantras, one hand on the lamp, the other on the beads at her waist. She'd been in her… mid-twenties. Been in the temple for almost a full decade, every second of those years spent preparing for this moment. Still afraid. She knew what the centipede would bring her, but she was afraid of it nonetheless. Fear of death drove her forwards, but fear of the insect halted her steps and made her stumble more than once. Then there was a flash, something coiling around her, her robes tearing as an enormous set of pincers set to work, a howl as it began to graft. Clawing at the mats as her spine was slowly replaced. Praying over and over - until the prayers ceased, and all that remained was a faint laughter bubbling from her throat. Wide eyes realising that she was no longer alone. Chorei and a centipede had entered the room. And Chorei had left. A little heavier in some ways. A little lighter in others. And taller. Definitely taller. Taylor snapped back to the present, breathing a little heavier than usual. Been a while since she'd seen the nun's memories.
Still wasn't pleasant, even after everything.
Chorei remained still, dwelling on old thoughts, pondering these… things which lay behind the world. She glanced around - Arch was still working away at another book, examining the records of… huh. That was weird. That was just the register of names for a gentleman's club - the Honourable and Facetious Society of Ugly Faces (tetrum ante omnia vultum). She gave him a look. He shrugged idly, murmuring that it had some relevance, she just needed to squint a little bit. Hm. Maybe this was something that people with depth perception understood better than her. More rattling from another room. Ted was content with her bombs. Busy getting them ready for… anything that could demand a bomb. Which was a surprising number of situations, to be fair, but not quite as many as Ted clearly thought existed. Not that Taylor minded, of course. Unnerving to be in the presence of them, sure, but at least they were being handled by a trained profession. Handled might not be the right work. Hooked? They were being hooked by a mad tinker. Oh no, that was much more alarming. Tea. Turn to tea. Tea wasn't alarming. Tea had no bombs.
She sipped lightly at her mug. Oh no, the tea was awful. No, it was fine, it was fine, just something to warm her up while she worked, she'd had her sleep interrupted and she needed a small hit to keep working optimally. Really, she barely cared about how it hadn't been stored properly, how the kettle needed cleaning, how using teabags in general was a shortcut she didn't enjoy taking, how the milk and sugar weren't to her - no, calm down, not everyone runs a damn tea shop. Chorei had no such inhibitions and grumbled gladly and loudly about everything and anything that displeased her. Grand. Taylor turned back to her reading - the cave paintings were useless, though interesting. Nothing definitive. Made sense, this phenomenon seemed to creep in around the edges of other things, and if that was the case, it would almost always be overshadowed. She glanced idly to another book - skirting mythology. She preferred things with a basis in fact - nice hard data to grapple with, genuine organisations or individuals, historical records with their issues discussed and accounted for… a slim paperback which claimed to elaborate the mysteries of pre-Christian Irish mythology didn't seem like it would be remotely reliable. She was honestly surprised that Arch even had a book like that rattling around.
…hm.
That looks promising.
It did indeed. A hefty tome on a site out in Turkey - but what caught her eye was a picture. The book was open, and the page it was turned to had a huge photo picked out in full colour. A statue of a woman seated on a throne. Poorly sculpted, but clearly passionate. Bad lighting threw it into sharp relief against a dark background, a sheer white surface of mottled rock that looked closer to a natural rock formation than anything man-made. This only added to its strangeness. A woman, rotund, wide-hipped, with… oh, great, the book had a convenient word for it. Steatopygous. That sounded better than 'had an ass large enough to conceivably be an unfortunately-placed conjoined twin'. Massive chest, too. And… that was what caught her eye. Not the chest itself, but the things inside it. The woman - faceless, any features worn away by time - had a hollow torso. Her… breasts, sure, that sounded professional, were half-broken, revealing that her chest contained a vast cavity, filled to the brim with… skeletons. Animal skeletons, exoskeletons, masses of chitin… empty eye sockets from bleached vulture skulls stared out from a gap, silently watching her through the page. And around them were dead insects, ants, spiders, centipedes, cockroaches… no termites that she could see, and the text was mute on the topic. But the image of insects writhing inside something else, just a single splinter away from emerging, a whole hidden world ready to burst free… it stirred something in her.
…she resembles that woman who was with the hooligan in the hospital.
What was she… oh. Right. Voodoo Child's new squeeze. Fair comparison, though she wasn't as… rotund as this statue. She skipped to the front of the book, trying to get to grips with the site itself. Çatalhöyük. Neolithic site out in Turkey, existed roundabout 7000 BC, excavated for a while back in the 50s and then subsequently only barely picked over. A few archaeologists had poked around a few decades later, yielded some good results, but then things started to shut down fairly quickly. Black market took over, stripped the site bare, not assisted by the government focusing on other matters, and corrupt officials using the site as a gift shop for any parahuman they wanted to stay in their area. Military action had only made it all worse, as did the increasing reluctance for countries to engage in… cross-border research. She'd heard a little about that when looking at colleges abroad, isolationism was on the rise in Europe and few were willing to shell out for foreigners to come and take advantage of their universities… or in this case, their ancient sites. In the end, the place was barely scrutinised. Shame. Looking at the maps… it was a town, a whole damn town, buildings packed close together.
Very close indeed. No wrong turns to be found. Everything fed into each other, every building was low-ceilinged and packed wall-to-wall. Apparently the only way to navigate between buildings was over the rooftops, and within the buildings themselves there were only crawlspaces. She flicked to the notes on their culture, their religion… bulls. Picture after picture presented itself, and she felt a certain amount of claustrophobia start to wash over her. Every dwelling in this place was small, cramped, full of containers that, when filled, would have made the entire place stink of plant matter. No way of getting to the other rooms except by crawling through a narrow hole in the wall, into chambers that were somehow even smaller. And over it all… the bulls. Sculpted heads, unnaturally huge, protruding from the walls. Like the house was growing inwards. All around them, red handprints, as if the people inside were pounding on the walls, desperate to be let out. And the bull heads loomed, dominating everything they surveyed, horns sharp enough to take out an eye… benches flanked by masses of horns, like huge ribcages ready to fold inwards on anyone unlucky enough to take a seat.
For just a moment, she imagined being there. Chorei's memories underlaid it all, memories of being in a tight, wooden box on the way over to America, the fiercely cold, stuffy air which surrounded her, immersed her like a burial shroud, cloying, covering, stifling - and each feeling became Taylor's, each memory was something she had experienced too. The tight corridors of this streetless city where no wrong turns could be found, where bulls loomed, where horns protruded upwards from monstrous idols, where dead animals clattered inside hollow statues, where people would emerge every morning blinking in the light, pale and sun-starved… the cracks in the idol loomed wider, wider, wider, the skeletons inside clicking and churning, and now they were moving, very slightly, little clicks at a time, joints shifting back into position, empty sockets staring vacantly out at her, the shapeless features of the woman's face now aligning into something empty and awful, something inchoate, something that smiled in the dark of a city with no wrong turns and no places out of the sight of the great bulls… and the smile was Bisha's, and Taylor abruptly remembered being back on that rooftop. Research like this had led her there, scrambling for answers, finding them, and not liking what she found. The feeling of something vast and incomprehensible burning through her mind, the feeling of something folding her fingers back until they locked into new positions, the feeling of her knee snapping out of place, the feeling blazing scissors in her mouth, ready to snip out her tongue, the feeling of heat, heat, heat in the air, the sweet taste of a shrivelled eye on her tongue… the sound of a drill coming closer and closer and closer and closer and-
Taylor closed the book quietly, trying to get her breathing back under control.
She was fine.
She was fine.
She'd moved on. Bisha was dead. She had a job to do. As long as she had a job to do, she would be alright. Tried living like a regular civilian, and all that happened was she got bored and twitchy. Living like a normal person meant dealing with the fact that her dad was in a coma, that she didn't have the money to care for him properly, that her life was going off the rails, any vague plans she'd once had disintegrating into dust in her hands. No, she was good at this sort of thing, and it was useful. And if she was being useful, she could dedicate herself to this. Her breathing was increasing again, and she tried to restrain herself - counting from one to five and backwards slowly, timing her breaths, calm, calm. One second at a time.
Taylor?
Chorei's voice was small - almost frightened. What? The immortal nun was frightened? No, she was in the same boat as Taylor. She'd agreed to go along with this. Taylor gritted her teeth. The book. Arch glanced up from his own studies, one hand turning the pages, the other scribbling frantically at a sheet of note paper. Page numbers, quotations, references to look up, random doodles… his constant motions slowed to a halt, and all that remained was the sound of Ted scrambling for more parts, muttering venomously to herself, completely and utterly obsessed with her work. Must be a tinker thing. Or a Ted thing. Maybe both.
"...doing alright?"
Taylor's reply was sharp, short. A little too loud for comfort.
"Fine. I'm fine."
She paused, trying to get herself steadied.
"...how's the research?"
"Oh, slow. Can't expect all the answers at once. But I'm making some headway - just a little."
"...you were looking at the membership for a club."
"A relevant club."
"It was called the… society of ugly faces, or something. How's that relevant?"
"Facetious Society of Ugly Faces, yes. Very old. Very distinguished. Very ugly - membership requirement. Quoth, Jos Farmer, merchant, little eyes, one bigger than the other, long nose, thin jaws, large upper lip, mouth resembling the mouth of a shark, rotten set of irregular teeth, set off to great advantage by frequent laughing. Long and narrow visage, looks upon the whole are extraordinary haggard, odd, comic, and out of the way. In short, possessed of every extraordinary qualification to render him a Phoenix of the Society, as the like will not appear again in a thousand years."
He stumbled to a halt, and Taylor blinked. Chorei blinked as well.
Goodness.
"Huh. Are they… all like that?"
Arch grinned slightly, a certain amount of mania fading from his eyes.
"Not all. He was a special example. Jonathan Parr here just had a very punchable face. Oh, and a hideous grin."
How ghastly.
"Chorei thinks that sounds… uh, ghastly."
Arch blinked.
"...oh, you know, I completely forgot you had a nun riding around in your skull. Morning, Chorei. Sorry I didn't say hello earlier."
All is forgiven. But let this man know that he would fit in well with this… collection of characters.
She relayed the message. Arch leant back slightly, humming thoughtfully.
"...large nose, thuggish brow, bad hair, bad teeth."
Taylor paused for a second, thinking…
"Wide mouth. Gangly. Strange ears."
"...never noticed the ears."
Taylor lifted up her hair very slightly - she grew it this long for a variety of reasons, not just because it was one of her few features that she liked. The ears were another one. They weren't hideous, just… come to think of it, maybe at some point she'd started wearing her hair a certain way and had simply grown used to them not being very visible, to the point that seeing them revealed felt weird and foreign. She'd… never quite gotten out of the habit of wearing her hair a certain way. Hm. And ears were weird - just weird fleshy fins, big old satellite dishes nailed to the side of one's skull. Chorei groaned as Taylor thought that, a certain trace of the sensation making its way across the grafting. Just enough to matter.
Oh, goodness, now I'm thinking that way, I don't even have ears anymore and yet I find myself thinking that way, your brain is awful.
"...not that strange. But right on the money for the other ones."
They paused for a second, sipping at their awful, awful tea. Taylor's breathing had stabilised. Her thoughts were normal. Everything was fine. Everything was as it should be. This was… just like with investigating Bisha. And she'd survived that. She'd had a purpose then. Everything else had faded away before it - just like now. Another threat was menacing Brockton, and she was skipping some of the intermediate stages - the desperate flailing, the hazardous encounters which usually got her horrendously injured, the slow burn where she barely understood anything until it was all too late… yeah, skipping that entirely. Get to the research, use the knowledge she'd acquired over the last few months to understand it properly, and then go out and… and…
"You people are fucking freaks, you know that, right?"
Thanks, Ted. Blow things up. Blow a lot of things up. Shoot them, drown them in bugs, graft them, punch them, drown them in an ice lake, roundhouse kick them, laser them, do stuff to make them disappear violently. Just like she'd done a bunch of times already. Chorei. Bisha. The Giants in Vandeerleuwe. Bisha's parents. The machine that had replaced Frida. Bisha. She'd done this before, she could do it again, she was good at it and she understood it. Arch hummed lightly as he sipped, drumming his fingers idly on the cover of a closed book. The silence drew out longer and longer, and Taylor felt the need to break it. Her thoughts weren't being especially productive today.
"...remember when we did all this back at the college?"
"Hm? Oh, right, with Bisha. Yeah, I remember."
He paused.
"Good lunch, I recall."
"Good wine, definitely."
"I'll level with you, Taylor, I've never been able to tell the difference between good wine and bad wine. It's all just… spicy grape juice."
"Hm. Actually, small question - why are we researching here? I mean, why not back up at the college? Feels like they have more resources, is all."
"Tried."
"And?"
"No luck. Some of Bisha's lot broke in during the Conflagration, torched a whole bunch. Let's just say they're being… strict about who gets into their library. I could probably get in, but I'd need to provide credentials, references, and that just means I make a paper trail. And, uh, I'm probably not meant to be in the country right now. So… yeah."
"...that explains all the books here, I suppose."
Arch hummed affirmatively, and Taylor felt another question rising to the fore
.
"Speaking of which, how did you actually get these? I mean… no offence, but you don't work, and you didn't come here with much cash, so…"
Ted's ears pricked up from across the room, and she bellowed at the two of them.
"Yeah, you can thank me for that, damn parasites."
She was really just a charming individual. Arch shrugged idly, the words sliding off him. Whether it was out of some natural talent or cultivated through repetition didn't really matter, the point was that he wasn't snapping under the pressure of being around a half-mad bomb tinker constantly. Taylor mused that it was probably due to the whole… well, everything they'd experienced. A bomb tinker didn't mean much when he'd seen Mound Moor from beginning to end.
"She's right. Good at instructing people, not perfect, but it works. Turns out you can make a pretty penny by repairing TVs, phones, cameras… easy for her, and it makes a bit of cash. No paper trail, too."
"...and you spend it all on books."
"What else would I spend it on?"
"...good point."
She paused, and called over to Ted.
"Hey, so, were you always able to instruct people in building stuff? Just curious."
Ted grunted angrily, her constant irritation spiking when being interrupted.
"Typical. Parahuman yourself, but you don't research shit about being a parahuman. Me, I learned things before my debut, studied like hell. You probably just wandered around and expected things to fall into place, hm?"
Actually she wandered around and then killed me. So, hm, close enough.
Oh no they were agreeing with each other. Ted continued, her question purely rhetorical.
"Ever heard of the Manton Limit? Powers usually try not to kill their own user, adjust to cooperate with them. Derived from the Limit is the Sandhurst Constant. Powers will almost always adjust to be usable. Guy uses powers through his eyes, eyes get torn out, his voice becomes capable. Tinker can build shit, tinker loses hands and eyes, tinker becomes more capable of instructing others."
She paused.
"Not perfect. Not reliable. Not something to experiment with, if you were getting any stupid ideas. But my power is just fantastic enough that it'll do anything to be used. Even share itself with you freaks."
She became much less vulgar when she was explaining her powers. Hm. Taylor had done research on the Cornell Bomber, just to make sure that Ted wasn't too unstable… what she'd found hadn't exactly been encouraging. But nonetheless, it implied that she was a student. And evidently she could still lapse into old habits. Vulgarity declined, clarity improved, everything became sharper when she was just explaining nice, neutral, clean data. The woman continued to work at her own bombs, an assortment of messy cylinders that probably used to be old pipes, now stuffed with cables, assorted powders, everything necessary to turn… well, to borrow from her dad, everything necessary to turn a protest into a Convincing Protest. Anyway. Made sense that the two were doing something with their time, even if it was to acquire books and bomb materials. As long as the feds weren't coming down on them, they should be fine - hell, Ted, was a tinker, she could probably make a bomb out of a chip packet, some sponges, a bottle of lighter fluid and an unstuffed teddy bear.
…she made an internal resolution never to bring that up to Ted, she'd probably take it as a challenge, and Taylor would be responsible for yet more violations of the Geneva Sugg- Convention. Geneva Convention, dammit, these mercenaries were brain parasites.
I believe you came here for a reason, usurper.
Right. Research. Taylor flipped open the book on Çatalhöyük, scanning the pages quickly. The statue of the seated woman was… unremarkable, in other details. Nothing that could pinpoint an exact purpose - too degraded for any greater evidence to be taken. And so it lingered in the realm of 'used for ritual purposes', a category that included just about anything that wasn't being assigned a definite, specific use. Though… the bulls. The endless bulls. Those seemed a little more pertinent - the woman was only depicted a few times, while the bulls were present in almost every house at the site. Whoever had lived here, they loved their bulls. And… hm. That was something. Most of the bulls were conventionally sculpted, but one had become just a little more… imaginative. Originally a head with two horns, but evidently some artist had inserted another three at various spots, cracks around their bases indicating that they were clumsily inserted into a pre-existing sculpture. And… she read deeper. The house itself was at the very last stage of occupation, and was, in many details, unremarkable. Only the five-horned bull head and the abundance of tinder on the floor made it seem remarkable. She flicked around for anything else on the topic - right, that was something.
'Twiss et al (2008) specifically, and Verhoeven (2000) more generally have examined the phenomenon of deliberate burning at sites across the ancient Near East, from Çatalhöyük to Tell Sabi, and it does appear as though there was a strain of culture which incentivised the regular burning of houses. House 52 at Çatalhöyük appears to have been deliberately and carefully burned, and promptly a new house was built on the foundations. House 78 (the 'five-horn house') appears to have been consigned to a similar fate, but the site was abandoned before the burning could take place. It is entirely possible that the additional three horns added to the bull sculpture are a coincidence, but it is equally possible that the horns were added with the expectation of the house's destruction. It would account for the fact that no equivalent sculptures are found elsewhere at any layer, and would add a distinctly ritualistic dimension to the house burning, taking it away from previous theories which supposed a sanitisation process as the likely intention. The sherds found within the West Mound…'
Taylor scanned a little further, finding nothing of interest. Just a five-headed bull head looming outwards, glaring ferociously. It… right, she'd felt something to do with the number five and with horns in that termite mound. Definitely familiar, and it didn't seem like much of a coincidence. She showed it to Arch, explaining her own suspicions - and Arch leaned forward, suddenly rather eager.
"Hm. Hm. Not really my field, but I've read about Çatalhöyük - neat little site, shame it wasn't excavated more. You know, it's funny - the image of a five-horned bull occurs elsewhere."
Taylor raised a single quizzical eyebrow.
"Quinotaur, it's called. I remember something like… hold on."
Chaos abruptly took control of the house. Several stacks of books fell over as Arch scrambled to find some obscure document. Most of these books were cheap, plundered from the depths of second-hand shops or yard sales, and it was noticeable. For everything that looked appropriately serious, there were two or three books which were too slim to contain much of value, too outdated to have much usable data, or too… fanciful. She didn't have much time for the poetry, or the weird novels, or the works clearly written by strung-out hippies who had decided to make their latest acid trip faintly productive. Huh. Sanagi was rubbing off on her, she never used to dislike hippies. Still didn't, but the derisive tone in her thoughts was distinctly Sanagi. As Arch rummaged, Turk finally finished with his examinations, and poked his head in through the door. He surveyed the carnage, blinked at the sight of Ted giggling to herself as she clicked more components into place, and finally settled on Taylor. The two exchanged glances for a second - just a second. Turk's question about her dad had… hit her. A lot. And she wasn't willing to engage with those feelings quite yet. The cyclops frowned slightly, nodded, and stepped inside to fix himself some coffee. No tea for him - his standards were higher than Taylor's, and the sight of that industrial sack of teabags was enough to make him shiver.
"Any luck?"
"Some stuff to do with bulls. Nothing much else."
Now, if Turk was a man of frivolity (which he was not), he'd have said something to the effect of 'sounds like bullshit to me'. But Turk was not a man of frivolity, and thus he did not. But he thought it. He thought it hard while he focused on the coffee, a black brew only slightly less repulsive than the tea Taylor was still sipping at despite her every instinct screaming that she shouldn't. Arch poked his head out from a pile of books, clutching one triumphantly. He staggered over, picking his way through the mess he'd created, flicking the book open to a particular page. Taylor was able to get a quick look at the cover - Primer on the Salian Franks, and the author's name was obscured by Arch's hand. He flicked through page after page, the text too cramped and small for her to read, the images black and white. A cheap book, on cheap paper… but it had a quality of denseness to it. Whoever had written this wasn't very interested in making some basic primer, they'd put time into it. With a satisfied hum, the archaeologist held the book open for her to see. Turk glanced over, curious - and Taylor leant forwards with her last eye burning. Information. The face of the enemy. Everything clicking together as it should - her fingers were already itching for a weapon, her scars were starting to ache like a storm was on the way, and her swarm was jittering.
An image loomed back at her, depicting some… creature. A woodcut from the 17th century, apparently, of a creature called the 'quinotaur'. The tail of a fish, the upper body of a bull, and five horns protruding from its forehead. It roared out of a churning deep river, the waves lapping against its side like small dark knives, foam blurring the edges of the creature until it seemed to be only half-real, shimmering into existence like a mirage. Its eyes bulged, and… in its jaws was a woman, clothed in simple fabric with brooches weighing her down, her face twisted into a rictus of terror. Nearby, a crowd of soldiers stood, all of them wearing long cloaks and bearing great spears. Their eyes were cold as they watched the huge bull drag the woman deeper and deeper into the river, where its huge tail coiled endlessly. The sunlight caught on the edges of its horns, turning them into a crown of shining crescents. There was something… unnatural about the image. Something hard to express. Maybe it was the way the quinotaur had its eyes slitted like a goat, maybe it was the uncannily realistic expression of terror on the woman's face, the way her mouth gaped in a silent scream, the way her hair tumbled free from the golden pins which had once held it in place, the way the men at the bank simply stared at the affair with resigned detachment.
Arch was speaking, and she came back to the world.
"...right, so, quinotaur is only mentioned once, really. The Merovingian dynasty, after the Romans left, wound up taking over most of France, bits of Germany too. Sorry about the lack of detail, really not my field, but… right, here we are. Can't quite remember who said it, but apparently the dynasty was founded by a guy called Merovech, and he was apparently the son of a human woman and… that."
He gestured at the creature.
"Burst out of a river, kidnapped the wife of a king, had a kid with her. As you do."
Taylor blinked.
"...that's unusual. Did he just… go around bragging that he was the son of a fish-bull?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. Let's see… ah, here we are. Chronicle of Fredegar, only one that mentions the quinotaur story. Author thinks that maybe it was an attempt to tap into some pagan beliefs among the Franks the Merovingians were conquering, giving themselves a kind of divine legitimation. Not uncommon, really. Weird part is the five-horned bull, just seems… out of place. And Fredegar is being nice to Merovech, doesn't seem like something he'd go around making up. But… hm. Interesting. Right, so, Priscus, Roman historian, wrote about the Huns, he said that Attila declared war on the Franks because their king died and his son, who had fair, long hair, was maybe not legitimate. Priscus isn't the best source, but still… interesting. Might just be an explanation for his name, though. No real evidence the Merovingians called themselves the descendants of gods."
He paused.
"...hm. That's… odd."
Oh?
"Oh?"
"The author of this thing, Irma Leibnitz, she references this other author - Maenchen-Helfen - on the topic of the quinotaur and Attila. Old, looks out of print. Probably rare. I don't have that book, though, but… hm. Looks like Leibnitz was just stealing a source from a source. She cites another book, by a lady called Kaarina Ihle, talks about the Huns, and that looks more accessible. More recent, actually published in a proper journal… here we are, 'the Song of Ildico, the Quinotaur, and Cultural Encounters between the Huns and the Alans'. Might be able to get hold of that… should be online, but probably only accessible through the college. Nuts."
He sagged back in his chair, a little deflated. Taylor's head was swimming a little. Five-horned bulls. The 'song of Ildico'. The Huns, apparently. Dammit, her knowledge of early medieval Europe was lacking, why oh why didn't she take the early medieval Europe history course at Winslow, why did she have to do parahuman studies instead. Oh, woe is her that she didn't tap into the vast corpus of literature on the Huns which Winslow had available in its library, sandwiched between the dog-eared fantasy novels and the resolutely untouched classics. Gah.
…the West is baffling. Alans, Franks, Huns, Merovingians, I swear you just make these names up to infuriate people. I swear that Alan and Frank are just normal names, did historians make a habit of naming peoples after themselves? At least we had the decency to name our ancient periods for good reasons - when I left, we had begun to discuss matters of… yes, the Yayoi, and that was named after a neighbourhood in the new capital where a pile of objects were found. That's a reasonable name, none of this 'Alan' or 'Frank' nonsense.
"...Arch, did the name Alan come first, or did the Alans the people come first?"
"Don't know. Probably the latter."
Hmph.
"So… we need to get to the college to get this article."
"Most likely."
Turk grumbled, slurping at his coffee.
"Never broken into a university before, but I'll fetch the balaclavas."
Arch grimaced.
"Not quite the right option here. We'd need to get into their database, get the article, then leave. Don't suppose you know anyone who goes to Barnabas College?"
Taylor pondered. Did she? She didn't really… know people, honestly. Though… Parian, unmasked, had seemed a little older than her. College aged, presumably. Maybe not at Barnabas, but if she had institutional access to journals she could probably pluck it out. And she did owe Taylor a favour… need to play it safe, of course. If she got the impression that Taylor was doing important research about this wrong turn, then she might get involved, do her own research. And if she did that, she'd end up doing exactly what Taylor had tried desperately to stop her from doing. She only had so many scary stories, and she got the feeling that diminishing returns would take hold if she used them too often. Bah. Something to think about. Maybe she could get inside on an open day or something. Worth considering. They tried to keep researching for a while, but they kept running across the same barrier - dead references. A book would hint at something interesting, they'd look into it, and a footnote leading to a rare, out of print, or simply inaccessible book or article would come up. No more five-horned bulls, and any book which mentioned it was either simple and dismissive, or referenced the same damn books. Maenchen-Helfen. Ihle. The Song of Idilico, whatever that was - a document which appeared nowhere, no matter how hard she looked. Arch didn't have the largest medieval library, and evidently he'd been more interested in the area surrounding the weird centipede cult that Taylor had once found mention of while researching Chorei. Rapidly they reached its limits, and they were left with nothing else. Taylor found herself scanning the membership rolls of the ugly-face club simply out of desperation, trying to find anything accessible. Her heart was beating a little faster - this wasn't enough, she didn't know any weaknesses, anything that could really guide her down the right path to understanding her enemy. Even with Bisha she'd been able to find some interesting mentions of his origins, and with Chorei she'd gained a deep sense of how old her enemy was, a sense that had led her to bringing all the force she could muster against the nun.
Is this club entirely relevant?
Taylor didn't know. She really didn't. No idea what Arch had seen in this thing, it was just a list of members, an account of fees paid on initiation, for monthly dinners, for venues… nothing else. The only thing of vague interest was a mention of the 'great swaddling fish' which they apparently spent a good amount of money keeping clean and repaired, but given the nature of this club, it was probably just some ridiculous costume they insisted on wearing. She closed the book with a thump. Nothing there. Nothing she could use. Her fingers drummed idly on the counter, and she tried to run through her options. She needed to do more research. She needed a target. If she didn't find one… she'd just be back to stewing in the tea shop, trying to figure out how to bleed some money out of the city without being caught. A problem she couldn't just solve through investigations, fighting things, exposing herself to more and more danger until…
Usurper, rest. You barely slept last night. This matter can wait. We have reached the limits of our scholarship for now.
Taylor scowled, something that Arch and Turk both noticed. Even Ted had given up on her bombs for the moment, and was listening to something on the battered old laptop which Turk had left here on his last visit. The two men glanced at each other, then back at her.
"...is Chorei saying something?"
Yes, I am.
"Yes, she is. Telling me to stop studying for now."
Arch smiled very slightly.
"I hate to agree with the immortal brain-nun, but she has a point. At this point we're just reading things for the sake of reading them. Not that I don't enjoy that, of course. But it's not very helpful for your purposes. Go on, there's other things to look into, I'm sure. I'll see what else I can find."
Turk grumbled.
"He's right. Chorei, too."
Oh, no, she wasn't getting ganged up on by two friends and the nun in her skull.
"...no time. No idea how many more of these things have opened up, how many people have disappeared into them. No-one else can deal with it. And… if killing Bisha made it happen, then I'm partially responsible. Maybe they're close to doing something huge, maybe-"
Turk raised a hand, interrupting her.
"Maybe. So we observe, research, plan. We do it properly. Let Arch do his research, we'll do what we can. Call Sanagi, see if there have been any disappearances around that alleyway we blocked up. There are other people here. We can help. I'll call Vatslav."
He paused.
"...he handles my guns. If you want to prepare, prepare. But don't exhaust yourself on work you're not specialised in doing."
That wasn't how it worked, dammit. She did everything she could because she was… adequate at it, and two pairs of eyes were better than one. She'd seen this city, she had an insight the others lacked. She needed to do research, needed to stake out sites, needed to investigate in every way she possibly could. The idea of staying out all night and collapsing into a dreamless sleep was one she relished, the idea of exhausting herself on these books and simply passing out at some ungodly hour in the morning sounded wonderful. What was the saying… right, once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. And if Bisha had taught her one thing, it was that waiting for enemy action meant it was usually too late. Better to spring into action after a single encounter than wait around for confirmations, better to be paranoid than to let a catastrophe creep up without being noticed or prepared for.
I… cannot believe I am agreeing with the man who helped kill me. But he has a point. Rest. I did not do everything in my cult. If I was capable of doing everything, there wouldn't have been a need for a cult at all. You see?
She did, but she didn't like it. Taylor glared at the book in lieu of glaring at any of the others… the tinny noise from Ted's headphones made her realise that even Ted was out of it. Even Ted was taking a break. That… probably said something. It was getting fairly late… they'd spent the better part of a day doing this. Ahab had just slept for most of it, apparently she'd never quite gotten to sleep after last night and had simply entered into a coma when she hopped into the car. Arch looked like he'd resist her trying to continue, and Turk was angling towards the door. Her fingers twitched, eager to continue… but Chorei's nagging was building up. She was trying to stop Taylor from researching, and she was easily one of the most paranoid people Taylor knew. Maybe… maybe it was worthwhile getting some rest. Maybe. Possibly. Certainly conceivable. And she didn't want Turk to just look for guns on his own, she wanted to find out his contacts. She had other things to do, that was all. Maybe Parian could be contacted about the article. She had other things to do, that was all. Turk tapped her on the shoulder, and she followed him.
Just had different work to do, that was all.
No time for resting.
"...so, based on what you've said, there are a few key motifs. Insects, obviously, but more than that - ambiguity. You said it felt like you were inside a wound. Like… this was something Bisha had left behind, right?"
"What's that about Bisha?!"
"Nothing, go back to your bombs."
Taylor shuddered at the mad cackle which emerged from Ted's 'workshop' - which seemed to be a pile of scrap she was poking at with hooks she'd attached to her stumps. She moved with expert precision - good thing, too. It all looked terrifyingly volatile. Right, Arch.
"The termites kept repeating 'incomplete' over and over. And when… I tried to look into one of them, there was just something empty. It felt… yeah, just incomplete, really. And by being incomplete, it was complete. Does that make any sense?"
"...too much sense, honestly. And you got there by just taking a wrong turn down an alleyway?"
"Yeah, why, does that add anything to it?"
Arch grinned shakily.
"Oh. Definitely. So, we're looking at incompleteness, ambiguity, wrong turnings, insects… let's get to work."
And like that, it began. Deja vu struck. The same feeling she had in her own room back when Chorei was still alive, reading through articles on centipede cults around the world. The same feeling in Barnabas College where the two of them had scoured the archives for any mention of the Frenzied Flame - though they didn't know its name at that point. Books fluttered open and closed, indexes were scanned, and a heavy old computer was booted up to try and get some extra information when necessary. Arch's initial choices were instinctual - mentions of intimacy in some old cultures and sites, close quarters particularly. Claustrophobic caves where people would scrabble around for purchase, would daub images on the walls with shaking hands by the light of animal-fat candles, creating gods that loomed out of the dark. Gods that appeared only when close, only when trapped by narrow, twisting passages, only when the last drop of effort had been dragged out of them by the climb. Caves where bones marked the failures, the rejects… and those who, perhaps, had dropped dead on the sight of their god so close, so real, the totality of it highlighted by their pounding hearts and heads, by the wavering light that gave the images motion, by…
Arch's strangeness was contagious, it seemed.
In Senpou, we met the centipedes in the dark. Alone. Lit only by a small lamp we cradled in the palm of our hands. It was… symbolic. The dark of ignorance, and the light of knowledge leading us to enlightenment. But the meeting room was always small. Intimate. The abbot said it was to stop us from losing our way, to stop us from lingering in the dark for too long. I wonder… perhaps? Perhaps he knew of this… phenomenon. But I have no knowledge of a world of termites lying behind a wrong turn. It was never mentioned in any of our texts - and I perused them all many, many times.
Chorei fell silent, lost in her own thoughts. Taylor already knew a great deal about Senpou, just from having the nun's memories blasting through her skull for weeks before their grafting. But… she'd never seen the day she met her centipede. All she got from Chorei were memories of her as a young woman, quietly walking through a small, dark chamber, hearing something rattling in the corner. Chitin piling atop itself as a huge body shifted to face her. Frantic murmuring of calming mantras, one hand on the lamp, the other on the beads at her waist. She'd been in her… mid-twenties. Been in the temple for almost a full decade, every second of those years spent preparing for this moment. Still afraid. She knew what the centipede would bring her, but she was afraid of it nonetheless. Fear of death drove her forwards, but fear of the insect halted her steps and made her stumble more than once. Then there was a flash, something coiling around her, her robes tearing as an enormous set of pincers set to work, a howl as it began to graft. Clawing at the mats as her spine was slowly replaced. Praying over and over - until the prayers ceased, and all that remained was a faint laughter bubbling from her throat. Wide eyes realising that she was no longer alone. Chorei and a centipede had entered the room. And Chorei had left. A little heavier in some ways. A little lighter in others. And taller. Definitely taller. Taylor snapped back to the present, breathing a little heavier than usual. Been a while since she'd seen the nun's memories.
Still wasn't pleasant, even after everything.
Chorei remained still, dwelling on old thoughts, pondering these… things which lay behind the world. She glanced around - Arch was still working away at another book, examining the records of… huh. That was weird. That was just the register of names for a gentleman's club - the Honourable and Facetious Society of Ugly Faces (tetrum ante omnia vultum). She gave him a look. He shrugged idly, murmuring that it had some relevance, she just needed to squint a little bit. Hm. Maybe this was something that people with depth perception understood better than her. More rattling from another room. Ted was content with her bombs. Busy getting them ready for… anything that could demand a bomb. Which was a surprising number of situations, to be fair, but not quite as many as Ted clearly thought existed. Not that Taylor minded, of course. Unnerving to be in the presence of them, sure, but at least they were being handled by a trained profession. Handled might not be the right work. Hooked? They were being hooked by a mad tinker. Oh no, that was much more alarming. Tea. Turn to tea. Tea wasn't alarming. Tea had no bombs.
She sipped lightly at her mug. Oh no, the tea was awful. No, it was fine, it was fine, just something to warm her up while she worked, she'd had her sleep interrupted and she needed a small hit to keep working optimally. Really, she barely cared about how it hadn't been stored properly, how the kettle needed cleaning, how using teabags in general was a shortcut she didn't enjoy taking, how the milk and sugar weren't to her - no, calm down, not everyone runs a damn tea shop. Chorei had no such inhibitions and grumbled gladly and loudly about everything and anything that displeased her. Grand. Taylor turned back to her reading - the cave paintings were useless, though interesting. Nothing definitive. Made sense, this phenomenon seemed to creep in around the edges of other things, and if that was the case, it would almost always be overshadowed. She glanced idly to another book - skirting mythology. She preferred things with a basis in fact - nice hard data to grapple with, genuine organisations or individuals, historical records with their issues discussed and accounted for… a slim paperback which claimed to elaborate the mysteries of pre-Christian Irish mythology didn't seem like it would be remotely reliable. She was honestly surprised that Arch even had a book like that rattling around.
…hm.
That looks promising.
It did indeed. A hefty tome on a site out in Turkey - but what caught her eye was a picture. The book was open, and the page it was turned to had a huge photo picked out in full colour. A statue of a woman seated on a throne. Poorly sculpted, but clearly passionate. Bad lighting threw it into sharp relief against a dark background, a sheer white surface of mottled rock that looked closer to a natural rock formation than anything man-made. This only added to its strangeness. A woman, rotund, wide-hipped, with… oh, great, the book had a convenient word for it. Steatopygous. That sounded better than 'had an ass large enough to conceivably be an unfortunately-placed conjoined twin'. Massive chest, too. And… that was what caught her eye. Not the chest itself, but the things inside it. The woman - faceless, any features worn away by time - had a hollow torso. Her… breasts, sure, that sounded professional, were half-broken, revealing that her chest contained a vast cavity, filled to the brim with… skeletons. Animal skeletons, exoskeletons, masses of chitin… empty eye sockets from bleached vulture skulls stared out from a gap, silently watching her through the page. And around them were dead insects, ants, spiders, centipedes, cockroaches… no termites that she could see, and the text was mute on the topic. But the image of insects writhing inside something else, just a single splinter away from emerging, a whole hidden world ready to burst free… it stirred something in her.
…she resembles that woman who was with the hooligan in the hospital.
What was she… oh. Right. Voodoo Child's new squeeze. Fair comparison, though she wasn't as… rotund as this statue. She skipped to the front of the book, trying to get to grips with the site itself. Çatalhöyük. Neolithic site out in Turkey, existed roundabout 7000 BC, excavated for a while back in the 50s and then subsequently only barely picked over. A few archaeologists had poked around a few decades later, yielded some good results, but then things started to shut down fairly quickly. Black market took over, stripped the site bare, not assisted by the government focusing on other matters, and corrupt officials using the site as a gift shop for any parahuman they wanted to stay in their area. Military action had only made it all worse, as did the increasing reluctance for countries to engage in… cross-border research. She'd heard a little about that when looking at colleges abroad, isolationism was on the rise in Europe and few were willing to shell out for foreigners to come and take advantage of their universities… or in this case, their ancient sites. In the end, the place was barely scrutinised. Shame. Looking at the maps… it was a town, a whole damn town, buildings packed close together.
Very close indeed. No wrong turns to be found. Everything fed into each other, every building was low-ceilinged and packed wall-to-wall. Apparently the only way to navigate between buildings was over the rooftops, and within the buildings themselves there were only crawlspaces. She flicked to the notes on their culture, their religion… bulls. Picture after picture presented itself, and she felt a certain amount of claustrophobia start to wash over her. Every dwelling in this place was small, cramped, full of containers that, when filled, would have made the entire place stink of plant matter. No way of getting to the other rooms except by crawling through a narrow hole in the wall, into chambers that were somehow even smaller. And over it all… the bulls. Sculpted heads, unnaturally huge, protruding from the walls. Like the house was growing inwards. All around them, red handprints, as if the people inside were pounding on the walls, desperate to be let out. And the bull heads loomed, dominating everything they surveyed, horns sharp enough to take out an eye… benches flanked by masses of horns, like huge ribcages ready to fold inwards on anyone unlucky enough to take a seat.
For just a moment, she imagined being there. Chorei's memories underlaid it all, memories of being in a tight, wooden box on the way over to America, the fiercely cold, stuffy air which surrounded her, immersed her like a burial shroud, cloying, covering, stifling - and each feeling became Taylor's, each memory was something she had experienced too. The tight corridors of this streetless city where no wrong turns could be found, where bulls loomed, where horns protruded upwards from monstrous idols, where dead animals clattered inside hollow statues, where people would emerge every morning blinking in the light, pale and sun-starved… the cracks in the idol loomed wider, wider, wider, the skeletons inside clicking and churning, and now they were moving, very slightly, little clicks at a time, joints shifting back into position, empty sockets staring vacantly out at her, the shapeless features of the woman's face now aligning into something empty and awful, something inchoate, something that smiled in the dark of a city with no wrong turns and no places out of the sight of the great bulls… and the smile was Bisha's, and Taylor abruptly remembered being back on that rooftop. Research like this had led her there, scrambling for answers, finding them, and not liking what she found. The feeling of something vast and incomprehensible burning through her mind, the feeling of something folding her fingers back until they locked into new positions, the feeling of her knee snapping out of place, the feeling blazing scissors in her mouth, ready to snip out her tongue, the feeling of heat, heat, heat in the air, the sweet taste of a shrivelled eye on her tongue… the sound of a drill coming closer and closer and closer and closer and-
Taylor closed the book quietly, trying to get her breathing back under control.
She was fine.
She was fine.
She'd moved on. Bisha was dead. She had a job to do. As long as she had a job to do, she would be alright. Tried living like a regular civilian, and all that happened was she got bored and twitchy. Living like a normal person meant dealing with the fact that her dad was in a coma, that she didn't have the money to care for him properly, that her life was going off the rails, any vague plans she'd once had disintegrating into dust in her hands. No, she was good at this sort of thing, and it was useful. And if she was being useful, she could dedicate herself to this. Her breathing was increasing again, and she tried to restrain herself - counting from one to five and backwards slowly, timing her breaths, calm, calm. One second at a time.
Taylor?
Chorei's voice was small - almost frightened. What? The immortal nun was frightened? No, she was in the same boat as Taylor. She'd agreed to go along with this. Taylor gritted her teeth. The book. Arch glanced up from his own studies, one hand turning the pages, the other scribbling frantically at a sheet of note paper. Page numbers, quotations, references to look up, random doodles… his constant motions slowed to a halt, and all that remained was the sound of Ted scrambling for more parts, muttering venomously to herself, completely and utterly obsessed with her work. Must be a tinker thing. Or a Ted thing. Maybe both.
"...doing alright?"
Taylor's reply was sharp, short. A little too loud for comfort.
"Fine. I'm fine."
She paused, trying to get herself steadied.
"...how's the research?"
"Oh, slow. Can't expect all the answers at once. But I'm making some headway - just a little."
"...you were looking at the membership for a club."
"A relevant club."
"It was called the… society of ugly faces, or something. How's that relevant?"
"Facetious Society of Ugly Faces, yes. Very old. Very distinguished. Very ugly - membership requirement. Quoth, Jos Farmer, merchant, little eyes, one bigger than the other, long nose, thin jaws, large upper lip, mouth resembling the mouth of a shark, rotten set of irregular teeth, set off to great advantage by frequent laughing. Long and narrow visage, looks upon the whole are extraordinary haggard, odd, comic, and out of the way. In short, possessed of every extraordinary qualification to render him a Phoenix of the Society, as the like will not appear again in a thousand years."
He stumbled to a halt, and Taylor blinked. Chorei blinked as well.
Goodness.
"Huh. Are they… all like that?"
Arch grinned slightly, a certain amount of mania fading from his eyes.
"Not all. He was a special example. Jonathan Parr here just had a very punchable face. Oh, and a hideous grin."
How ghastly.
"Chorei thinks that sounds… uh, ghastly."
Arch blinked.
"...oh, you know, I completely forgot you had a nun riding around in your skull. Morning, Chorei. Sorry I didn't say hello earlier."
All is forgiven. But let this man know that he would fit in well with this… collection of characters.
She relayed the message. Arch leant back slightly, humming thoughtfully.
"...large nose, thuggish brow, bad hair, bad teeth."
Taylor paused for a second, thinking…
"Wide mouth. Gangly. Strange ears."
"...never noticed the ears."
Taylor lifted up her hair very slightly - she grew it this long for a variety of reasons, not just because it was one of her few features that she liked. The ears were another one. They weren't hideous, just… come to think of it, maybe at some point she'd started wearing her hair a certain way and had simply grown used to them not being very visible, to the point that seeing them revealed felt weird and foreign. She'd… never quite gotten out of the habit of wearing her hair a certain way. Hm. And ears were weird - just weird fleshy fins, big old satellite dishes nailed to the side of one's skull. Chorei groaned as Taylor thought that, a certain trace of the sensation making its way across the grafting. Just enough to matter.
Oh, goodness, now I'm thinking that way, I don't even have ears anymore and yet I find myself thinking that way, your brain is awful.
"...not that strange. But right on the money for the other ones."
They paused for a second, sipping at their awful, awful tea. Taylor's breathing had stabilised. Her thoughts were normal. Everything was fine. Everything was as it should be. This was… just like with investigating Bisha. And she'd survived that. She'd had a purpose then. Everything else had faded away before it - just like now. Another threat was menacing Brockton, and she was skipping some of the intermediate stages - the desperate flailing, the hazardous encounters which usually got her horrendously injured, the slow burn where she barely understood anything until it was all too late… yeah, skipping that entirely. Get to the research, use the knowledge she'd acquired over the last few months to understand it properly, and then go out and… and…
"You people are fucking freaks, you know that, right?"
Thanks, Ted. Blow things up. Blow a lot of things up. Shoot them, drown them in bugs, graft them, punch them, drown them in an ice lake, roundhouse kick them, laser them, do stuff to make them disappear violently. Just like she'd done a bunch of times already. Chorei. Bisha. The Giants in Vandeerleuwe. Bisha's parents. The machine that had replaced Frida. Bisha. She'd done this before, she could do it again, she was good at it and she understood it. Arch hummed lightly as he sipped, drumming his fingers idly on the cover of a closed book. The silence drew out longer and longer, and Taylor felt the need to break it. Her thoughts weren't being especially productive today.
"...remember when we did all this back at the college?"
"Hm? Oh, right, with Bisha. Yeah, I remember."
He paused.
"Good lunch, I recall."
"Good wine, definitely."
"I'll level with you, Taylor, I've never been able to tell the difference between good wine and bad wine. It's all just… spicy grape juice."
"Hm. Actually, small question - why are we researching here? I mean, why not back up at the college? Feels like they have more resources, is all."
"Tried."
"And?"
"No luck. Some of Bisha's lot broke in during the Conflagration, torched a whole bunch. Let's just say they're being… strict about who gets into their library. I could probably get in, but I'd need to provide credentials, references, and that just means I make a paper trail. And, uh, I'm probably not meant to be in the country right now. So… yeah."
"...that explains all the books here, I suppose."
Arch hummed affirmatively, and Taylor felt another question rising to the fore
.
"Speaking of which, how did you actually get these? I mean… no offence, but you don't work, and you didn't come here with much cash, so…"
Ted's ears pricked up from across the room, and she bellowed at the two of them.
"Yeah, you can thank me for that, damn parasites."
She was really just a charming individual. Arch shrugged idly, the words sliding off him. Whether it was out of some natural talent or cultivated through repetition didn't really matter, the point was that he wasn't snapping under the pressure of being around a half-mad bomb tinker constantly. Taylor mused that it was probably due to the whole… well, everything they'd experienced. A bomb tinker didn't mean much when he'd seen Mound Moor from beginning to end.
"She's right. Good at instructing people, not perfect, but it works. Turns out you can make a pretty penny by repairing TVs, phones, cameras… easy for her, and it makes a bit of cash. No paper trail, too."
"...and you spend it all on books."
"What else would I spend it on?"
"...good point."
She paused, and called over to Ted.
"Hey, so, were you always able to instruct people in building stuff? Just curious."
Ted grunted angrily, her constant irritation spiking when being interrupted.
"Typical. Parahuman yourself, but you don't research shit about being a parahuman. Me, I learned things before my debut, studied like hell. You probably just wandered around and expected things to fall into place, hm?"
Actually she wandered around and then killed me. So, hm, close enough.
Oh no they were agreeing with each other. Ted continued, her question purely rhetorical.
"Ever heard of the Manton Limit? Powers usually try not to kill their own user, adjust to cooperate with them. Derived from the Limit is the Sandhurst Constant. Powers will almost always adjust to be usable. Guy uses powers through his eyes, eyes get torn out, his voice becomes capable. Tinker can build shit, tinker loses hands and eyes, tinker becomes more capable of instructing others."
She paused.
"Not perfect. Not reliable. Not something to experiment with, if you were getting any stupid ideas. But my power is just fantastic enough that it'll do anything to be used. Even share itself with you freaks."
She became much less vulgar when she was explaining her powers. Hm. Taylor had done research on the Cornell Bomber, just to make sure that Ted wasn't too unstable… what she'd found hadn't exactly been encouraging. But nonetheless, it implied that she was a student. And evidently she could still lapse into old habits. Vulgarity declined, clarity improved, everything became sharper when she was just explaining nice, neutral, clean data. The woman continued to work at her own bombs, an assortment of messy cylinders that probably used to be old pipes, now stuffed with cables, assorted powders, everything necessary to turn… well, to borrow from her dad, everything necessary to turn a protest into a Convincing Protest. Anyway. Made sense that the two were doing something with their time, even if it was to acquire books and bomb materials. As long as the feds weren't coming down on them, they should be fine - hell, Ted, was a tinker, she could probably make a bomb out of a chip packet, some sponges, a bottle of lighter fluid and an unstuffed teddy bear.
…she made an internal resolution never to bring that up to Ted, she'd probably take it as a challenge, and Taylor would be responsible for yet more violations of the Geneva Sugg- Convention. Geneva Convention, dammit, these mercenaries were brain parasites.
I believe you came here for a reason, usurper.
Right. Research. Taylor flipped open the book on Çatalhöyük, scanning the pages quickly. The statue of the seated woman was… unremarkable, in other details. Nothing that could pinpoint an exact purpose - too degraded for any greater evidence to be taken. And so it lingered in the realm of 'used for ritual purposes', a category that included just about anything that wasn't being assigned a definite, specific use. Though… the bulls. The endless bulls. Those seemed a little more pertinent - the woman was only depicted a few times, while the bulls were present in almost every house at the site. Whoever had lived here, they loved their bulls. And… hm. That was something. Most of the bulls were conventionally sculpted, but one had become just a little more… imaginative. Originally a head with two horns, but evidently some artist had inserted another three at various spots, cracks around their bases indicating that they were clumsily inserted into a pre-existing sculpture. And… she read deeper. The house itself was at the very last stage of occupation, and was, in many details, unremarkable. Only the five-horned bull head and the abundance of tinder on the floor made it seem remarkable. She flicked around for anything else on the topic - right, that was something.
'Twiss et al (2008) specifically, and Verhoeven (2000) more generally have examined the phenomenon of deliberate burning at sites across the ancient Near East, from Çatalhöyük to Tell Sabi, and it does appear as though there was a strain of culture which incentivised the regular burning of houses. House 52 at Çatalhöyük appears to have been deliberately and carefully burned, and promptly a new house was built on the foundations. House 78 (the 'five-horn house') appears to have been consigned to a similar fate, but the site was abandoned before the burning could take place. It is entirely possible that the additional three horns added to the bull sculpture are a coincidence, but it is equally possible that the horns were added with the expectation of the house's destruction. It would account for the fact that no equivalent sculptures are found elsewhere at any layer, and would add a distinctly ritualistic dimension to the house burning, taking it away from previous theories which supposed a sanitisation process as the likely intention. The sherds found within the West Mound…'
Taylor scanned a little further, finding nothing of interest. Just a five-headed bull head looming outwards, glaring ferociously. It… right, she'd felt something to do with the number five and with horns in that termite mound. Definitely familiar, and it didn't seem like much of a coincidence. She showed it to Arch, explaining her own suspicions - and Arch leaned forward, suddenly rather eager.
"Hm. Hm. Not really my field, but I've read about Çatalhöyük - neat little site, shame it wasn't excavated more. You know, it's funny - the image of a five-horned bull occurs elsewhere."
Taylor raised a single quizzical eyebrow.
"Quinotaur, it's called. I remember something like… hold on."
Chaos abruptly took control of the house. Several stacks of books fell over as Arch scrambled to find some obscure document. Most of these books were cheap, plundered from the depths of second-hand shops or yard sales, and it was noticeable. For everything that looked appropriately serious, there were two or three books which were too slim to contain much of value, too outdated to have much usable data, or too… fanciful. She didn't have much time for the poetry, or the weird novels, or the works clearly written by strung-out hippies who had decided to make their latest acid trip faintly productive. Huh. Sanagi was rubbing off on her, she never used to dislike hippies. Still didn't, but the derisive tone in her thoughts was distinctly Sanagi. As Arch rummaged, Turk finally finished with his examinations, and poked his head in through the door. He surveyed the carnage, blinked at the sight of Ted giggling to herself as she clicked more components into place, and finally settled on Taylor. The two exchanged glances for a second - just a second. Turk's question about her dad had… hit her. A lot. And she wasn't willing to engage with those feelings quite yet. The cyclops frowned slightly, nodded, and stepped inside to fix himself some coffee. No tea for him - his standards were higher than Taylor's, and the sight of that industrial sack of teabags was enough to make him shiver.
"Any luck?"
"Some stuff to do with bulls. Nothing much else."
Now, if Turk was a man of frivolity (which he was not), he'd have said something to the effect of 'sounds like bullshit to me'. But Turk was not a man of frivolity, and thus he did not. But he thought it. He thought it hard while he focused on the coffee, a black brew only slightly less repulsive than the tea Taylor was still sipping at despite her every instinct screaming that she shouldn't. Arch poked his head out from a pile of books, clutching one triumphantly. He staggered over, picking his way through the mess he'd created, flicking the book open to a particular page. Taylor was able to get a quick look at the cover - Primer on the Salian Franks, and the author's name was obscured by Arch's hand. He flicked through page after page, the text too cramped and small for her to read, the images black and white. A cheap book, on cheap paper… but it had a quality of denseness to it. Whoever had written this wasn't very interested in making some basic primer, they'd put time into it. With a satisfied hum, the archaeologist held the book open for her to see. Turk glanced over, curious - and Taylor leant forwards with her last eye burning. Information. The face of the enemy. Everything clicking together as it should - her fingers were already itching for a weapon, her scars were starting to ache like a storm was on the way, and her swarm was jittering.
An image loomed back at her, depicting some… creature. A woodcut from the 17th century, apparently, of a creature called the 'quinotaur'. The tail of a fish, the upper body of a bull, and five horns protruding from its forehead. It roared out of a churning deep river, the waves lapping against its side like small dark knives, foam blurring the edges of the creature until it seemed to be only half-real, shimmering into existence like a mirage. Its eyes bulged, and… in its jaws was a woman, clothed in simple fabric with brooches weighing her down, her face twisted into a rictus of terror. Nearby, a crowd of soldiers stood, all of them wearing long cloaks and bearing great spears. Their eyes were cold as they watched the huge bull drag the woman deeper and deeper into the river, where its huge tail coiled endlessly. The sunlight caught on the edges of its horns, turning them into a crown of shining crescents. There was something… unnatural about the image. Something hard to express. Maybe it was the way the quinotaur had its eyes slitted like a goat, maybe it was the uncannily realistic expression of terror on the woman's face, the way her mouth gaped in a silent scream, the way her hair tumbled free from the golden pins which had once held it in place, the way the men at the bank simply stared at the affair with resigned detachment.
Arch was speaking, and she came back to the world.
"...right, so, quinotaur is only mentioned once, really. The Merovingian dynasty, after the Romans left, wound up taking over most of France, bits of Germany too. Sorry about the lack of detail, really not my field, but… right, here we are. Can't quite remember who said it, but apparently the dynasty was founded by a guy called Merovech, and he was apparently the son of a human woman and… that."
He gestured at the creature.
"Burst out of a river, kidnapped the wife of a king, had a kid with her. As you do."
Taylor blinked.
"...that's unusual. Did he just… go around bragging that he was the son of a fish-bull?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. Let's see… ah, here we are. Chronicle of Fredegar, only one that mentions the quinotaur story. Author thinks that maybe it was an attempt to tap into some pagan beliefs among the Franks the Merovingians were conquering, giving themselves a kind of divine legitimation. Not uncommon, really. Weird part is the five-horned bull, just seems… out of place. And Fredegar is being nice to Merovech, doesn't seem like something he'd go around making up. But… hm. Interesting. Right, so, Priscus, Roman historian, wrote about the Huns, he said that Attila declared war on the Franks because their king died and his son, who had fair, long hair, was maybe not legitimate. Priscus isn't the best source, but still… interesting. Might just be an explanation for his name, though. No real evidence the Merovingians called themselves the descendants of gods."
He paused.
"...hm. That's… odd."
Oh?
"Oh?"
"The author of this thing, Irma Leibnitz, she references this other author - Maenchen-Helfen - on the topic of the quinotaur and Attila. Old, looks out of print. Probably rare. I don't have that book, though, but… hm. Looks like Leibnitz was just stealing a source from a source. She cites another book, by a lady called Kaarina Ihle, talks about the Huns, and that looks more accessible. More recent, actually published in a proper journal… here we are, 'the Song of Ildico, the Quinotaur, and Cultural Encounters between the Huns and the Alans'. Might be able to get hold of that… should be online, but probably only accessible through the college. Nuts."
He sagged back in his chair, a little deflated. Taylor's head was swimming a little. Five-horned bulls. The 'song of Ildico'. The Huns, apparently. Dammit, her knowledge of early medieval Europe was lacking, why oh why didn't she take the early medieval Europe history course at Winslow, why did she have to do parahuman studies instead. Oh, woe is her that she didn't tap into the vast corpus of literature on the Huns which Winslow had available in its library, sandwiched between the dog-eared fantasy novels and the resolutely untouched classics. Gah.
…the West is baffling. Alans, Franks, Huns, Merovingians, I swear you just make these names up to infuriate people. I swear that Alan and Frank are just normal names, did historians make a habit of naming peoples after themselves? At least we had the decency to name our ancient periods for good reasons - when I left, we had begun to discuss matters of… yes, the Yayoi, and that was named after a neighbourhood in the new capital where a pile of objects were found. That's a reasonable name, none of this 'Alan' or 'Frank' nonsense.
"...Arch, did the name Alan come first, or did the Alans the people come first?"
"Don't know. Probably the latter."
Hmph.
"So… we need to get to the college to get this article."
"Most likely."
Turk grumbled, slurping at his coffee.
"Never broken into a university before, but I'll fetch the balaclavas."
Arch grimaced.
"Not quite the right option here. We'd need to get into their database, get the article, then leave. Don't suppose you know anyone who goes to Barnabas College?"
Taylor pondered. Did she? She didn't really… know people, honestly. Though… Parian, unmasked, had seemed a little older than her. College aged, presumably. Maybe not at Barnabas, but if she had institutional access to journals she could probably pluck it out. And she did owe Taylor a favour… need to play it safe, of course. If she got the impression that Taylor was doing important research about this wrong turn, then she might get involved, do her own research. And if she did that, she'd end up doing exactly what Taylor had tried desperately to stop her from doing. She only had so many scary stories, and she got the feeling that diminishing returns would take hold if she used them too often. Bah. Something to think about. Maybe she could get inside on an open day or something. Worth considering. They tried to keep researching for a while, but they kept running across the same barrier - dead references. A book would hint at something interesting, they'd look into it, and a footnote leading to a rare, out of print, or simply inaccessible book or article would come up. No more five-horned bulls, and any book which mentioned it was either simple and dismissive, or referenced the same damn books. Maenchen-Helfen. Ihle. The Song of Idilico, whatever that was - a document which appeared nowhere, no matter how hard she looked. Arch didn't have the largest medieval library, and evidently he'd been more interested in the area surrounding the weird centipede cult that Taylor had once found mention of while researching Chorei. Rapidly they reached its limits, and they were left with nothing else. Taylor found herself scanning the membership rolls of the ugly-face club simply out of desperation, trying to find anything accessible. Her heart was beating a little faster - this wasn't enough, she didn't know any weaknesses, anything that could really guide her down the right path to understanding her enemy. Even with Bisha she'd been able to find some interesting mentions of his origins, and with Chorei she'd gained a deep sense of how old her enemy was, a sense that had led her to bringing all the force she could muster against the nun.
Is this club entirely relevant?
Taylor didn't know. She really didn't. No idea what Arch had seen in this thing, it was just a list of members, an account of fees paid on initiation, for monthly dinners, for venues… nothing else. The only thing of vague interest was a mention of the 'great swaddling fish' which they apparently spent a good amount of money keeping clean and repaired, but given the nature of this club, it was probably just some ridiculous costume they insisted on wearing. She closed the book with a thump. Nothing there. Nothing she could use. Her fingers drummed idly on the counter, and she tried to run through her options. She needed to do more research. She needed a target. If she didn't find one… she'd just be back to stewing in the tea shop, trying to figure out how to bleed some money out of the city without being caught. A problem she couldn't just solve through investigations, fighting things, exposing herself to more and more danger until…
Usurper, rest. You barely slept last night. This matter can wait. We have reached the limits of our scholarship for now.
Taylor scowled, something that Arch and Turk both noticed. Even Ted had given up on her bombs for the moment, and was listening to something on the battered old laptop which Turk had left here on his last visit. The two men glanced at each other, then back at her.
"...is Chorei saying something?"
Yes, I am.
"Yes, she is. Telling me to stop studying for now."
Arch smiled very slightly.
"I hate to agree with the immortal brain-nun, but she has a point. At this point we're just reading things for the sake of reading them. Not that I don't enjoy that, of course. But it's not very helpful for your purposes. Go on, there's other things to look into, I'm sure. I'll see what else I can find."
Turk grumbled.
"He's right. Chorei, too."
Oh, no, she wasn't getting ganged up on by two friends and the nun in her skull.
"...no time. No idea how many more of these things have opened up, how many people have disappeared into them. No-one else can deal with it. And… if killing Bisha made it happen, then I'm partially responsible. Maybe they're close to doing something huge, maybe-"
Turk raised a hand, interrupting her.
"Maybe. So we observe, research, plan. We do it properly. Let Arch do his research, we'll do what we can. Call Sanagi, see if there have been any disappearances around that alleyway we blocked up. There are other people here. We can help. I'll call Vatslav."
He paused.
"...he handles my guns. If you want to prepare, prepare. But don't exhaust yourself on work you're not specialised in doing."
That wasn't how it worked, dammit. She did everything she could because she was… adequate at it, and two pairs of eyes were better than one. She'd seen this city, she had an insight the others lacked. She needed to do research, needed to stake out sites, needed to investigate in every way she possibly could. The idea of staying out all night and collapsing into a dreamless sleep was one she relished, the idea of exhausting herself on these books and simply passing out at some ungodly hour in the morning sounded wonderful. What was the saying… right, once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. And if Bisha had taught her one thing, it was that waiting for enemy action meant it was usually too late. Better to spring into action after a single encounter than wait around for confirmations, better to be paranoid than to let a catastrophe creep up without being noticed or prepared for.
I… cannot believe I am agreeing with the man who helped kill me. But he has a point. Rest. I did not do everything in my cult. If I was capable of doing everything, there wouldn't have been a need for a cult at all. You see?
She did, but she didn't like it. Taylor glared at the book in lieu of glaring at any of the others… the tinny noise from Ted's headphones made her realise that even Ted was out of it. Even Ted was taking a break. That… probably said something. It was getting fairly late… they'd spent the better part of a day doing this. Ahab had just slept for most of it, apparently she'd never quite gotten to sleep after last night and had simply entered into a coma when she hopped into the car. Arch looked like he'd resist her trying to continue, and Turk was angling towards the door. Her fingers twitched, eager to continue… but Chorei's nagging was building up. She was trying to stop Taylor from researching, and she was easily one of the most paranoid people Taylor knew. Maybe… maybe it was worthwhile getting some rest. Maybe. Possibly. Certainly conceivable. And she didn't want Turk to just look for guns on his own, she wanted to find out his contacts. She had other things to do, that was all. Maybe Parian could be contacted about the article. She had other things to do, that was all. Turk tapped her on the shoulder, and she followed him.
Just had different work to do, that was all.
No time for resting.
138 - An Unheard Song
GraftingBuddha
Retired Pooh-Bah
138 - An Unheard Song
Taylor liked to think that she wasn't vulgar.
Not out of some deep-seated moral objection, she just… found that swearing was more effective when done rarely. The Khans swore like sailors, and in the end, none of it meant anything. She'd been called a bitch, a shit, a fucker, a cunt, a whole variety of unpleasant words, and it had washed off her due to the sheer quantity. Like the Three Stooges trying to get through the same door, too many vulgar words meant none of them actually made an impact. With this understanding of how inflation works in the context of vulgar vocabulary in mind…
Taylor was fucking angry.
It'd been a few days… no, almost a full week. Time had slipped away quickly. She polished her teacups aggressively, and Chorei murmured some vague consolations. Research had gone nowhere. And it'd been so promising, too. Well, not at the protein farm. They'd reached some hard limits very quickly, one great issue being that almost all primary sources were utterly locked away from them. The 'Chronicle of Fredegar' was only available at absurd prices online, a sum none of them were willing to shell out on, and even then there were apparently myriad issues with all available translations. All serious academics just translated their own, apparently, and that meant they were cut off unless they were interested in learning some Vulgar Latin.
Archaeological works were even worse, too expensive or rare for them to get, usually printed only for a couple of universities and then left in some dusty archive for years. Huge, ponderous tomes which other works cited happily, hinting at the information contained within. The Song of Ildico was unmentioned no matter where they looked, the only information they'd found on the name was that Ildico was apparently the last wife of Attila the Hun. Nothing about her in any major history books, just a girl who'd been in his bed when he died of a nosebleed from excessive drinking. Apparently. Some anonymous monk in the 9th century thought it was an assassination by Ildico herself, but… that was it. Some loose connections to Norse mythological figures which never went anywhere solid. Çatalhöyük likewise had nothing more to offer. Nothing more on the five-horned bull which wasn't just rampant speculation.
Nothing but speculation, dead references, sources none of them could access… and that was if they found anything of relevance. It'd taken hours to get round to calling Parian - not remotely because Taylor felt embarrassed about calling up someone she'd just rescued to call in a favour - but once she had, things were… smooth. Mostly. Parian had answered quickly, her voice quiet and flat, rapidly returning to a semblance of life when she realised who was calling her. Frantic acceptance, and Taylor had insisted that this was entirely for her own interest, mostly out of curiosity, just a field she was vaguely interested in studying. She didn't know if Parian had bought it, but she'd gotten hold of the article regardless. Well, she'd tried. A few searches, an encounter with a recalcitrant printer, and finally she had a few sheets of paper to slide over the counter for Taylor to peruse. For a moment, there was exaltation. Kaarina Ihle, on the Song of Ildico, the Quinotaur, and Cultural Encounters between the Huns and the Alans. Parian had looked… guilty when she provided it. Even if she'd identified herself as Sabah, Taylor couldn't help but think of her as Parian - she was a cape, first and foremost. Just someone who owed her a favour and should be kept far, far away from this business if at all possible. Only when every other avenue was exhausted had she reached out - she consoled herself with that knowledge.
The article had been flipped open…
And black bars faced her.
"...censors got to it."
Taylor blinked, a certain amount of fury building up in her.
"The censors?"
Parian shifted awkwardly.
"Yeah, more common in Europe, I think. Suppression Bureau, over in Britain. Article was published there and got censored before it reached us. They… get nervous about some things."
"Why."
Parian flinched from her harsh tone.
"They just… do. Simurgh thing, maybe. Not many get censored, so people don't really complain all that much."
Dammit. Dammit, dammit. Of all the… she had to deal with censors now? She had to deal with some bureaucrat who had decided to black out half the words in this article? She flicked through the pages quickly, trying to get to grips with anything that could be useful. Acknowledgements, gone. Bibliography, gone. Most of the text itself, gone, not to mention every single footnote. It was like looking at a damn bar code. Only a few scraps remained, woefully out of context. The conclusions were entirely obliterated beneath a flat plane of black, not a single letter escaping the censor's hand. Gaps where anything could fall, gaps where there should be information. For a second, Taylor thought she could feel long, long fingers gripping the edges of the doorframe behind her… her swarm confirmed there was nothing there, but the feeling lingered of being watched by something that laughed. She remembered the sight of that… bull creature in the book at the protein farm. The quinotaur. Five horns gleaming like crescents in the pale sunlight, eyes bulging with an expression she couldn't quite identify, a screaming woman gripped in its jaws. Apathetic soldiers standing to the side, watching the thing consume. A burning building in the prehistoric night, a crudely sculpted head consumed by the flames as people huddled in their tiny homes, pinned in place by the gaze of more mundane bulls. Taylor's hands were curled into fists.
"...are you alright?"
"Fine."
"I'm sorry I couldn't find anything better, but-"
"I said I'm fine."
Calm yourself. Breathe. I will count - come now, breathe.
Taylor tried to follow along, tried to stabilise herself. Chorei had a good voice for meditations. She was cold, half-heartless, but her voice was smooth and calm. She'd guided herself through thousands of meditations - tens of thousands, conceivably - and knew how to calm others with murmured mantras and guided breathing. Calmness began to drain the anger away, like lancing a boil. Or bursting a termite and letting the frigid blue matter spill outwards. She was calm. She was calm. Her swarm accepted the remainder of the emotions, twitching angrily while her face adopted an expression of absolute serenity. Right. Parian. She was looking downright guilty - looked bad in general, honestly. Welts from the termites lined her arms, tiny red bumps which looked terribly itchy. Taylor had gotten off lightly. Form-concealing clothing, scars along her arms and over most of her body, patches where the termites simply couldn't get through. She had her own welts, of course, but they were nothing compared to the injuries inflicted by Bisha or Frida. Easy to ignore, especially with Chorei helping to suppress a few nerves here and there.
"...I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It's fine. It was just… it was nothing."
She paused.
"...how are you holding up?"
Parian tried to smile or laugh. Didn't go especially well.
"Oh. You know. Still here. Not walking down any alleyways."
Well, that was good. Actually…
"Have you had any dreams? Just out of interest."
"Just… back in the city. Mostly."
"Mostly?"
"One, last night. Wasn't back in the city then. I was just in my room."
Taylor tilted her head to one side, eye narrowing. She knew enough at this point to say that nothing was totally irrelevant - dreams could contain some important detail, visions could hold some vital revelation, nothing and everything was important in a situation like this. She'd come to understand the Grafting Buddha's whole deal not through reading, nor from being taught, but by having a few centuries-worth of broken memories stuffed inside her skull which she randomly lived through for about a month or so. Parian's knuckles were white as she gripped the edges of the counter, and her teeth ground against each other nervously. Her eyes flicked from place to place, unwilling to settle on any one thing. Too paranoid to let any part of the room remain unobserved for long. Conscious effort not to glance behind herself.
"...I was in my room, but there was something wrong with it. Like… everything was crooked. Doors wouldn't close right. Nothing fit. Nothing aligned. Sounds like nothing, I know, but… then my phone rang. I can't remember picking it up, but on the other end was this… voice, I think."
"You think?"
"It wasn't like any other voice I've heard. Just this rattle, like two buildings were grinding against each other, and… and it just said 'still here' and hung up. That's when I woke up. Couldn't get back to sleep for a while after that."
Taylor tried to think of what to say. Did she… console her? Nothing of importance there, nothing she could use. Just… hm. A hint of the thing clinging to her, even after leaving. That could be concerning.
"Stay out of alleyways. And… this will sound weird, but until this is settled, can you check in once a day? Same time, ideally. Just so I know if you get…"
She trailed off, but the implication was obvious. The last thing she wanted was for Parian to just disappear without a trace. Maybe Angel Eyes could track her down again, but… who knew? Maybe she'd be particularly unlucky. Maybe the gate would close behind her. Maybe she'd be trapped in there too long to be removed. Maybe the termites would attack immediately instead of waiting for her to get softened up by the city itself, ripe enough for them to consume. Parian nodded quickly. The two remained in an awkward silence for a moment, and Taylor turned her attention to the tea set arrayed before her, cleaning it with the maximum possible amount of attention she could muster. Not difficult to do any of this, but it occupied her hands, let her avoid just succumbing to a stilted silence which made both partners feel extraordinarily awkward. Parian went for her own cup of tea, but downed it too quickly to enjoy, and left before anything else could happen. Taylor was glad to see her go. Easier than conversation. The moment the door closed, though… she checked the article from beginning to end, trying to extract anything.
One.
She got one useful piece of information.
The Song of Ilico was an old medieval manuscript, which no longer existed. Technically, all that remained was the Song of Kriemhild, but some scholars had tried to figure out what the original had been like, but… not much luck. The Song of Kriemhild was a German work, supposedly written by Attila's last wife, claiming responsibility for his death and elaborating her reasons for it. And that was it. The reasons were blacked out. The speculation on the original? Gone. And the actual argument of the article, the parts which talked about the cultural similarities between the Alans and the Huns… reduced down to discussions of similar cauldron decorations and cranial deformation practices. And that was it. Rows of data which were surely useful to someone else, but not remotely useful to her. The song sounded fascinating, and yet apparently the Song of Krieimhild was exclusively in High German, was of dubious authorship, and existed only in a few copies. Two in private hands, and one in a library in Berlin. That was it. That was the entire article.
Fuck.
How… irritating.
Chorei sounded… almost relieved. Typical. Of course she'd be relieved at that, of course she'd be relieved that the two of them were going to be staying out of things. No such luck for her, Taylor was committed. Research had run into a dead end, then. No other ideas on where to go, this article was like a black hole sucking up opportunities and avenues into the black bars which locked away anything useful. No bibliography, no footnotes… she'd never heard of the Suppression Bureau, but she already despised them.
And that left only a few more options that she'd explored fully over the next few days.
Sanagi had been called. Too busy to do much, but she checked the missing persons reports. Nothing remarkable. Lots of people were missing - Taylor included. So many hadn't been recorded, or processed correctly, and the pile was too vast to filter through. Two calls, a few minutes each. Once with a question, the second with an answer. And the answer had been no. Nothing. Nothing at all. Sanagi had apologised, explained that she was snowed under with work, that they were short-staffed after the Conflagration and she really couldn't spare the time to come and help investigate. She was on thin ice, what with vanishing for weeks to go to North Dakota, and she… wanted to keep her job for as long as possible. No idea how long that would hold out, of course, what with the terrifying skull. Another dead end.
She'd staked out the alleyway again. Her insects had found nothing. No wrong turns. No-one came to check up on it. All she'd done was a series of aggravated sit-ups in the back of a van while her swarm examined the same spots over and over to find nothing. The city with the termites was inaccessible, and there was no trace of there ever having been such a city. Why? Why had they just… did they respond like this to a threat? Were they acting like the insects they were already impersonating? A tunnel gets infiltrated - block it up, pretend it never existed. Turk was kind enough to drive her around the city now and again, her swarm checking for any wrong turns… nothing. Every. Damn. Time. Nothing. She'd had to unload her stress on a punching bag she'd set up in the side room of the tea shop. It was easy to tell how bad a night had been from how purple her knuckles were at the end of it. She'd started at a faint lilac. By the time Turk had politely told her that the patrols weren't doing anything, she was operating at something close to indigo. Nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing, despite days of patrols, night after night of minimal sleep and worsening temper. She'd turned down offers from Ahab for dinner, offers from Arch to swing by on one of the long walks he and Ted took on the beach, offers from Turk to just give things up and let everything play out, accept that it wouldn't go anywhere while she was watching.
Refusals. Each and every one.
She had no time.
The only suggestion she'd taken up was from Turk. He'd… looked into more weapons. When her fists felt too bruised to continue punching things, when even her scars couldn't quite hold up to the abuse she was putting her muscles through, she'd looked into guns. Handguns, she was adequate at. Not astounding. Not awful. She practiced when she could down at a firing range, but that was all. Turk, she knew, could run around wielding a shotgun, a rifle, a pistol, a knife, all manner of weapons in all manner of situations. So she'd taken up his offer to look into expanding her repertoire. He'd probably hoped that it would distract her, help relieve a little stress. When he saw her hauling around some ancient AK he'd been dragging out for years… well, she couldn't quite tell for sure, but the look in his eye was pretty damn telling. He was a little nervous of her using that at the firing range, he was especially nervous of how much she enjoyed it. The thump of the stock into her shoulder, the clacking of the mechanism as it fired, reloaded, all of it perfectly smoothly. The feeling of disassembling and reassembling her guns, feeling how each piece clicked together and worked to produce a perfect result each time… well, it was more satisfying than the rest of her life at the moment.
Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
And if she was waiting, she was thinking.
And if she wasn't thinking about the mission, she was thinking about her dad.
And if she thought about her dad, she felt a paralysis creeping over her limbs. She felt all the terror of that long, long night coming back to her, all the feelings she'd spent weeks repressing. Chorei was a help, but… she'd always just been a temporary solution to these problems. Helped keep things under wraps in the moment, but now that time was wearing on, Taylor found herself growing used to her presence. And as familiarity increased, her feelings got past the nun, and each one felt like an icicle through her skull. Cold. Burning. Piercing. She'd… she'd checked on him. Stood outside the hospital and made sure he was still alive, his organs weren't yet harvested, his condition wasn't deteriorating. Hard to tell a huge amount through her insects, but she was trying. And once this mess was dealt with, she could settle down to the ugly business of making money. Once this was over, she could focus. But only after - now, she was too scattered, too dedicated, she didn't have any opportunities to stand still and work on the money situation. But once the termites were dealt with… sure, she could get to work. But only then. Only. Then.
…Usurper, I feel as though you might be trying to distract yourself. Perhaps it would be wise to…
"Shut up."
Taylor growled under her breath, unwilling to engage. She had work to do. She was just… waiting for a while, that was all. Just for things to pay off. She focused on the ache in her knuckles, her shoulder, all the places she was working out or steadily grinding down through repeated practice on the firing range. She'd been entirely using Turk's collection, something that did irritate her a little, but… well, beggars couldn't be choosers. Wait. Someone was at the door. Her insects felt the visitor, and she paused in her ministrations. Someone was outside - tall, broad, wide head, young-ish face, dressed in simple, pragmatic clothing. She glanced up as the man pushed his way inside. Older than her, but not by much - early twenties at most, though time spent outside had given his face the consistency of old leather. He carried a long duffel bag, weighed down with a variety of heavy implements that she couldn't quite sense through the small spiders which lingered in its dusty recesses. Flat eyes stared at her, and his mouth twisted into a frown. There was something familiar about his face, something she couldn't quite put her finger on. A… solidity, a heaviness, a presence that she knew, she definitely knew, but couldn't quite name. There were enough differences to confuse everything, something to do with the eyes, the hair… just enough to scramble her impressions.
The man coughed quietly, looked around surreptitiously, and walked closer. Taylor braced herself.
"...you're Taylor, si?"
…is this man a Russian Mexican?
This man was a Russian Mexican. His voice was accented like Turk's, but here and there were splashes of something distinctly Mexican. It was bizarre to hear, but… well, he knew her, clearly. She nodded silently, already reaching for the pistol she kept under the counter, just in case. Best to go for mundane methods before resorting to the swarm, keep it as a nice little 'I win' button if things got out of hand. She felt capable of fighting him without it, anyway. The man tried to smile a little, but it didn't reach his eyes… hell, it hardly reached his lips, all she had was a faint movement of stubble to indicate that the attempt had even been made. Damn it, this man was familiar.
"Good. Turk sent me. I'm Vatslav. You know me?"
His tone was short, businesslike. Vatslav… right, Turk had said something about his gun dealer being named Vatslav. Did that mean… ah. She walked out from behind the counter, quickly locking the door to the shop, drawing the blinds down so no-one could just look in. Vatslav hummed approvingly, and began to unpack his wares. No more pleasantries. Just business. Her swarm kept an eye on him, though - a stranger with guns was a stranger with guns, even if he knew three useful names. Vatslav, Taylor, Turk, names anyone dedicated enough could probably get together. No threatening moves on his part - the guns were unloaded. He didn't even carry one on himself, just a small knife up his sleeve and another in his boot. Made sense, the last thing a gun dealer likely wanted to happen was being caught out for concealing a firearm in his jacket. When she returned, he was already polishing a little dust from the surface of a… hm. She really needed to learn more about guns, she spent enough time around them. All she could say was that it was a rifle, looked… bolt-action, that was the word. She came closer, examining it. Vatslav began to talk, his voice low and calm, slipping into the role of arms dealer quickly and efficiently.
"Turk said you wanted a gun, not a pistol."
"That's right."
"Brought a few. Tell me if you need more."
She peered closely at the rifle… and Vatslav, thankfully, continued. Good. She really didn't know this thing.
"M40A3, same that the Americans used in Operation Thunderbird out in the dead zones. I can get a new stock, better for your shoulder. Replaced the sight with one from P.A, better than the German one, more resilient."
He paused.
"Serial number isn't gone, not yet. I'll file that off when necessary, pass it through some other methods to prevent reclamation. Useless on tinkertech, but it'll do its job against regular investigations. Best I can do without destroying the gun."
Taylor nodded along, pretending that this meant something to her. He could be lying through his teeth and she'd be none the wiser. Chorei was silent, utterly suspicious of the man and his weapons. Understandable, she was nervous of anything more advanced than a musket - and even then, she disliked muskets strongly. Too loud. Everything was too loud for her - Taylor was just glad they didn't have noisy neighbours or the nun would've been insufferable.
"I've modified it a little, but I can find a more pristine version if you want it. Mostly the sights. I can find a night sight if you need it."
"Won't be necessary."
"If you say so. Light enough for you?"
Taylor hefted it - light enough, definitely. Even tired out, she could hold it easily enough. She kept her finger firmly off the trigger - Turk had flicked her nose every time she made a mistake with her trigger discipline, and told her that his old instructor had poked him under the eye with a nail whenever he messed up. Checked the magazine - empty. Safety - on. Good. She aimed at the wall, pressing her cheek into the stock… comfortable, but a little ill-fitting. Vatslav watched impassively, and she felt the urge to do this right, to not be judged by someone who clearly knew more than she did. After a second, she lowered it. She could work with this. Having some extra range would be appreciated - a little bit of versatility. And her insects were excellent at finding targets, guiding her aim… if she trained, she could probably ditch the sight altogether, reduce the chance of lights reflecting off the glass. Might work, who knew. Vatslav took it back, cleaning the surface with an oil cloth - no fingerprints from either of them. Good move.
"And here's the other. Pistol. M1911A1. Older, but pristine condition. Made in the 90s, mostly for the Marines. Same basic model that's been in use since World War One. Serial number is still intact, I'll take care of that if you want me to. Much more customised than the rifle."
She glanced up sharply from the pistol, a little heavier than she was used to, but it felt… reassuring.
"How so?"
"Iron-welded frame, scraped down to increase precision. Front strap chequered so it digs into the hand, prevents slipping. Regular hammer's replaced with a ring hammer, enhances cocking control and hammer-down speed. Base of trigger is whittled so you can use a high grip, trigger is a long type… trigger pull, 3.5 pounds. Pound and a half lighter than usual. Cocking serrations to the top part of the slide. A few other small details."
Taylor blinked.
"...huh."
Vatslav shrugged self-consciously.
"Learned how to modify from young age. That's all."
"And it works?"
"As expected. Don't expect miracles, but it's well-made. Turk should show you the rest, he's used pistols with these modifications in the past."
"Got it."
She was much smoother with this - her stance adjusted, her eye narrowed, her entire bearing shifted to accommodate this new weapon. This was… good. The gun, and the situation. She felt at ease, preparing for something tangible. Nothing else existed. It was like when she was working out, but… she did that often enough that it had ceased to distract her effectively. This felt simple. And in that simplicity was honesty, in that honesty was a distraction from all the other things she was wrestling with. The gun was… excellent. The modifications were subtle, but they were good. Enough to make the entire experience more of a pleasure than it had any right to be. When she finished checking it over, she was downright reluctant to give it back. Vatslav tried to smile again, understanding her feelings… didn't work very well, but she appreciated the sentiment. That was all - just two guns, both chosen by Turk ahead of time. Vatslav was tight-lipped on why, but… well, if Turk chose to relate to her using guns, sure. She could work with that. Unusual that he sent the dealer to get in touch, but she wasn't going to complain. Nice to have another contact.
She sensed Turk approaching the tea shop.
A few words sent Vatslav's bag into a concealed corner, and he slumped into a chair with a cup of quickly-made tea. Her swarm tracked the ex-mercenary, and by the time his hand reached to knock on the door, she'd already flicked the blinds up and had the key in the hole. His hand paused as he listened to the sound of her unlocking everything… he was impassive when the door opened, staring down at Taylor. His eyes flicked around, and he sighted Vatslav. The two shared a curt nod. Something clicked. Taylor glanced at Vatslav, glanced at Turk… and the resemblance was uncanny. The fact that she hadn't noticed it before was purely because of the eyepatch. Sure, she'd seen Turk without an eyepatch, once. Back during their first infiltration of Chorei's building. Never since. Seeing young, tanned, part-Mexican Turk without an eyepatch was something she simply couldn't parse, and so he'd been placed into a category of his own, despite the wideness, the solidity, the same thin lips, the same stance which spoke to years of combat.
…I believe the two may be related.
And Chorei was late as usual. Bad with faces, probably a consequence of being in the same monastery for years on end and then building a cult from people she primarily viewed as food for the centipedes, hosts for the eggs, threats, or meat shields. Taylor narrowed her eye.
"Are you two…?"
Turk shrugged.
"Nephew."
What.
What?!
Vatslav nodded over, barely interested.
"Uncle."
Did… right, he had a brother, so he had a nephew. For a moment she was wondering if Turk had a secret son that he just never talked about. He'd been a mercenary for a while, he probably had a few kids scattered around the world. The two of them didn't exchange any pleasantries - they shared a habit for silence, and had evidently arranged the guns some time in advance. No hugs, no handshakes, nothing but a curt nod to acknowledge one another's existence. Turk strode to his counter, attending to his teapots, glancing occasionally at the bag squirrelled away out of the sight of any customers. Taylor leant against the doorframe, watching the two completely ignore one another. Well, completely ignore each other for a few minutes. As kettles began to boil, Vatslav grumbled and dragged out a few things from the bag. Cigarettes. A wheel of cheese. Vodka. All of them seemed like something Turk and only Turk would enjoy. The cigarettes lacked any health warnings, and the logo depicted a moustachioed man gesturing grandly into the middle distance. Cyrillic label, unreadable. They looked potent. The cheese came in a packet marked with a red crayfish, and bore the distinct air of something made on an industrial scale. And finally, the vodka. No label. The bottle looked recycled from something else. Definitely, without a doubt, without a shadow of uncertainty, illegal. Turk took the gifts, examined them, sniffed at the cheese, and promptly lit up one of the cigarettes. A curt nod was all the thanks Vatslav received - that and a plate of toast slathered with anchovy paste. The two remained in perfect silence, one smoking, the other eating… until finally Turk broke the silence.
"How is he?"
"Getting married next spring."
"Again?"
"New one. Felina, knifemaker for the Zetas."
"He knows how to pick them."
"She is alarming. Only half a tongue."
"...he knows how to pick them."
"Indeed."
These Russians are mad. I can't believe we ever lost to them.
Silence once more. Taylor watched them curiously - so this was Turk's family. His nephew, God, it felt weird thinking that. Turk was a monolith, a pillar of stability and security, the idea of him with family, the idea of more silent Russians wandering around shooting things and fermenting bathtub moonshine was… not alarming, exactly, but it was definitely odd. Why had… oh. It clicked. Everything clicked. He'd told her that she reminded him of his brother. The one who'd become an arms dealer, lost his leg, his fingers, his teeth, and finally what remained of his sanity, apparently. The one who'd loved violence too much, lost himself in it to the point that nothing of him remained. Only his role, only what he thought he was good at. Taylor's lips hardened to a thin, white line. It was a theory - just a theory - but she thought Turk might be trying to guilt-trip her into giving up this investigation. Into letting it play out. Into returning back to the miserable state she was in before, the state where she accomplished nothing and just… existed, at the mercies of a world which refused to grant her any. Well, no. Not happening. She had a goal, and she was going to pursue it. There were problems to deal with, couldn't he see that? He'd been around when she dragged Parian out, he'd seen the red termite welts lining her arms and face, he'd driven her back here, for crying out loud.
Why couldn't he understand that she needed this?
"How is business?"
Turk's voice was quiet and cautious, his eye focused on his work to the exclusion of all else.
"Good. Going to New Hampshire soon."
"Then?"
"Back to Gallup. More business."
"Quiet?"
"For now. The Cihuatateo are restless. Zetas are thinking of taking care of them… but too many unaffiliated are in town. Unwilling to move until they pick a side."
"Good business."
"Very good business."
More silence. Taylor spoke up, trying to assert some control over the situation.
"Going to be in town much longer?"
Vatslav glanced over, surprised at her interjection… but his tone remained polite, his stance guarded.
"Few weeks. More clients. All confidential."
"...hm."
Turk shot her a look.
He is… hm. Perhaps if he grew a moustache, he-
Taylor silenced Chorei with violent swiftness. Just… no. God. What was wrong with this - right, nun, no longer part of her order, living vicariously through her, basically the same as a weird divorced grandma who continually asked about her love life. Right, fine, she could work with that, so long as Chorei ceased to interject at the worst possible moments. Christ. Chorei flailed a little, but finally settled down. Taylor could feel irritation boiling off her, and underneath it… a certain guilt. She understood what she'd done, even if she didn't quite regret it.
"Is it easy to get into? Selling guns, I mean."
"...tolerable. I have good connections. Hard to break into the business."
He paused, crunching at some toast.
"Easy outside of America. Lots of guns lying around, easy to find an armoury. Not like here, they get… angry when you raid an armoury. Have to go to South America to find those."
"And you do?"
"Sometimes."
More silence. Turk coughed quietly.
"Is he… any better?"
Vatslav shot him an odd look. Ha! Confirmation, Turk didn't usually ask about this, this was a deliberate attempt to try and make her feel guilty. Well, good damn luck on that front, she knew what she was doing was necessary, and she wouldn't be-
"No."
"Felina?"
"She helps. Sometimes."
"Good. No more injuries?"
"Some. You should visit him."
"No."
And that was all. The entirety of their conversation. Taylor blinked. She expected… more guilt, she supposed. More of his brother being a monster, or a sad wreck of a man, or… anything, really. Not just some arms dealer living in Gallup with a new wife on the way. Vatslav finished his meal, nodded to Turk, stood, and began to leave. No goodbyes. The bag lingered, the guns inside weighing it down. She watched incredulously as it all panned out, the whole situation ending quietly. A brief conversation, a few gifts, and that was all. What in… what? How did any of this… Vatslav closed the door behind him quietly, nodding to her when she turned to see him go. The moment he vanished from sight, Taylor whirled on Turk. She was annoyed. She was very, very annoyed.
"So, what was that all about?"
Turk shrugged.
"Guns."
"From your nephew. Why would you-"
She paused, getting her temper back under control. She was fine, she was fine. No memories coming up. Nothing at all.
"Is this some kind of guilt trip? I can't stop what I'm doing, you know that. It's just a job I have to do, same as Chorei, same as Bisha."
…hmph.
"It's just another job. I don't… need people telling me I can't do it. Alright?"
Turk looked down at her, impassive. She'd rumbled him. She'd called him out. She liked the guy, but he was bad at this whole emotional manipulation business, downright awful. Bringing in his nephew to make her think about the path she was going down - it'd be easier to just call in Ahab, maybe sit everyone down for an intervention. Not that it'd work. She had a task to accomplish, with or without them. Couldn't he understand that this was all she was good for. She had no goals in life, no real achievements she could put on paper besides killing things that generally were difficult to kill, no qualifications, no glory, nothing. Her dad was in hospital, and she couldn't do shit. So she did this instead, because she was good at it, because it was all she was good for at this point. All.
Turk opened his mouth, and she braced herself for lies, misdirections…
"It was your birthday."
Taylor froze. Her thoughts collapsed.
What?
It…
Had it been her birthday?
The Bisha incident had been in… May, yeah. And then she'd been in hospital for a while, and then she'd been absorbed with this, and… shit. June. It was mid-June. She was sixteen. When had that happened, when had that snuck up on her? She could drive, that was… neat. The wind drained from her sails. Turk hauled the guns onto the counter, patting the bag. It was her… present. Her birthday present. She stared blankly down at it. Turk had just been… he'd… Taylor looked up at him, not sure quite how to feel. The ex-mercenary's eye had… pity in it. Genuine pity. Had he seen this before? Had he seen people forget their own birthdays because they were too obsessed with something, had he… she didn't deserve a birthday, those were for people with less to do, people who needed holidays from time to time, people who had normal lives that could be broken up by vacations, breaks, weekends, birthdays, parties… she didn't get a normal life. She'd given it up when she never called her dad, when she just let him live alone while she went off to ruin herself body and soul, when she came back to find him already in a coma. She didn't deserve a birthday, she didn't…
Happy birthday.
Somehow, the sound of Chorei - the woman who'd almost destroyed her mind, the woman who'd started her on this long, dark road, the woman she knew inside and out to a degree she knew literally nobody else - saying 'happy birthday' in a quiet, hesitant tone, like she hadn't said it to anyone in a long, long while… somehow that broke something. She nodded to Turk.
"Thank you. I'm… sorry."
"No need. Guns."
"Guns, yeah. They're… fantastic."
"Hm. Vatslav does good work."
"...he does."
The two remained in silence.
"I-"
"Drink?"
Turk understood her. Her mouth closed gratefully. He knew she was sorry. He knew she was struggling.
She nodded again.
And on an overcast June day, the sun very slightly breaking through the clouds to form a dim golden curtain… the two of them enjoyed a drink together. It was small, as birthdays went. But it made her happy. Her hand shook as she raised her glass, no matter what she tried. Even after a few glasses, the shaking wouldn't quite go away. No-one else was there - just the two of them. Turk knew her. He really knew her. She couldn't do anything larger than this. Even a quiet drink was almost enough to unmake her. They didn't say anything after a while. Nothing but small scraps of conversation that died too quickly to be of any note. Nothing major was said. No arguments, no clashes, nothing. The two of them just stood, drank, and listened to the sound of the rain as it began to start - a light, summer rain. The kind that washed down in sheets that never seemed to stick, evaporating before they could form puddles, a hazy mist that gave the world beyond the indistinct quality of a dream. As the bottle approached half-empty, Turk ceased. He clapped her on the shoulder. Once that would've been enough to make her stumble. Now, her scars soaked it up, her muscles took what the scars couldn't, and she remained absolutely still.
And that was all.
Taylor liked to think that she wasn't vulgar.
Not out of some deep-seated moral objection, she just… found that swearing was more effective when done rarely. The Khans swore like sailors, and in the end, none of it meant anything. She'd been called a bitch, a shit, a fucker, a cunt, a whole variety of unpleasant words, and it had washed off her due to the sheer quantity. Like the Three Stooges trying to get through the same door, too many vulgar words meant none of them actually made an impact. With this understanding of how inflation works in the context of vulgar vocabulary in mind…
Taylor was fucking angry.
It'd been a few days… no, almost a full week. Time had slipped away quickly. She polished her teacups aggressively, and Chorei murmured some vague consolations. Research had gone nowhere. And it'd been so promising, too. Well, not at the protein farm. They'd reached some hard limits very quickly, one great issue being that almost all primary sources were utterly locked away from them. The 'Chronicle of Fredegar' was only available at absurd prices online, a sum none of them were willing to shell out on, and even then there were apparently myriad issues with all available translations. All serious academics just translated their own, apparently, and that meant they were cut off unless they were interested in learning some Vulgar Latin.
Archaeological works were even worse, too expensive or rare for them to get, usually printed only for a couple of universities and then left in some dusty archive for years. Huge, ponderous tomes which other works cited happily, hinting at the information contained within. The Song of Ildico was unmentioned no matter where they looked, the only information they'd found on the name was that Ildico was apparently the last wife of Attila the Hun. Nothing about her in any major history books, just a girl who'd been in his bed when he died of a nosebleed from excessive drinking. Apparently. Some anonymous monk in the 9th century thought it was an assassination by Ildico herself, but… that was it. Some loose connections to Norse mythological figures which never went anywhere solid. Çatalhöyük likewise had nothing more to offer. Nothing more on the five-horned bull which wasn't just rampant speculation.
Nothing but speculation, dead references, sources none of them could access… and that was if they found anything of relevance. It'd taken hours to get round to calling Parian - not remotely because Taylor felt embarrassed about calling up someone she'd just rescued to call in a favour - but once she had, things were… smooth. Mostly. Parian had answered quickly, her voice quiet and flat, rapidly returning to a semblance of life when she realised who was calling her. Frantic acceptance, and Taylor had insisted that this was entirely for her own interest, mostly out of curiosity, just a field she was vaguely interested in studying. She didn't know if Parian had bought it, but she'd gotten hold of the article regardless. Well, she'd tried. A few searches, an encounter with a recalcitrant printer, and finally she had a few sheets of paper to slide over the counter for Taylor to peruse. For a moment, there was exaltation. Kaarina Ihle, on the Song of Ildico, the Quinotaur, and Cultural Encounters between the Huns and the Alans. Parian had looked… guilty when she provided it. Even if she'd identified herself as Sabah, Taylor couldn't help but think of her as Parian - she was a cape, first and foremost. Just someone who owed her a favour and should be kept far, far away from this business if at all possible. Only when every other avenue was exhausted had she reached out - she consoled herself with that knowledge.
The article had been flipped open…
And black bars faced her.
"...censors got to it."
Taylor blinked, a certain amount of fury building up in her.
"The censors?"
Parian shifted awkwardly.
"Yeah, more common in Europe, I think. Suppression Bureau, over in Britain. Article was published there and got censored before it reached us. They… get nervous about some things."
"Why."
Parian flinched from her harsh tone.
"They just… do. Simurgh thing, maybe. Not many get censored, so people don't really complain all that much."
Dammit. Dammit, dammit. Of all the… she had to deal with censors now? She had to deal with some bureaucrat who had decided to black out half the words in this article? She flicked through the pages quickly, trying to get to grips with anything that could be useful. Acknowledgements, gone. Bibliography, gone. Most of the text itself, gone, not to mention every single footnote. It was like looking at a damn bar code. Only a few scraps remained, woefully out of context. The conclusions were entirely obliterated beneath a flat plane of black, not a single letter escaping the censor's hand. Gaps where anything could fall, gaps where there should be information. For a second, Taylor thought she could feel long, long fingers gripping the edges of the doorframe behind her… her swarm confirmed there was nothing there, but the feeling lingered of being watched by something that laughed. She remembered the sight of that… bull creature in the book at the protein farm. The quinotaur. Five horns gleaming like crescents in the pale sunlight, eyes bulging with an expression she couldn't quite identify, a screaming woman gripped in its jaws. Apathetic soldiers standing to the side, watching the thing consume. A burning building in the prehistoric night, a crudely sculpted head consumed by the flames as people huddled in their tiny homes, pinned in place by the gaze of more mundane bulls. Taylor's hands were curled into fists.
"...are you alright?"
"Fine."
"I'm sorry I couldn't find anything better, but-"
"I said I'm fine."
Calm yourself. Breathe. I will count - come now, breathe.
Taylor tried to follow along, tried to stabilise herself. Chorei had a good voice for meditations. She was cold, half-heartless, but her voice was smooth and calm. She'd guided herself through thousands of meditations - tens of thousands, conceivably - and knew how to calm others with murmured mantras and guided breathing. Calmness began to drain the anger away, like lancing a boil. Or bursting a termite and letting the frigid blue matter spill outwards. She was calm. She was calm. Her swarm accepted the remainder of the emotions, twitching angrily while her face adopted an expression of absolute serenity. Right. Parian. She was looking downright guilty - looked bad in general, honestly. Welts from the termites lined her arms, tiny red bumps which looked terribly itchy. Taylor had gotten off lightly. Form-concealing clothing, scars along her arms and over most of her body, patches where the termites simply couldn't get through. She had her own welts, of course, but they were nothing compared to the injuries inflicted by Bisha or Frida. Easy to ignore, especially with Chorei helping to suppress a few nerves here and there.
"...I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It's fine. It was just… it was nothing."
She paused.
"...how are you holding up?"
Parian tried to smile or laugh. Didn't go especially well.
"Oh. You know. Still here. Not walking down any alleyways."
Well, that was good. Actually…
"Have you had any dreams? Just out of interest."
"Just… back in the city. Mostly."
"Mostly?"
"One, last night. Wasn't back in the city then. I was just in my room."
Taylor tilted her head to one side, eye narrowing. She knew enough at this point to say that nothing was totally irrelevant - dreams could contain some important detail, visions could hold some vital revelation, nothing and everything was important in a situation like this. She'd come to understand the Grafting Buddha's whole deal not through reading, nor from being taught, but by having a few centuries-worth of broken memories stuffed inside her skull which she randomly lived through for about a month or so. Parian's knuckles were white as she gripped the edges of the counter, and her teeth ground against each other nervously. Her eyes flicked from place to place, unwilling to settle on any one thing. Too paranoid to let any part of the room remain unobserved for long. Conscious effort not to glance behind herself.
"...I was in my room, but there was something wrong with it. Like… everything was crooked. Doors wouldn't close right. Nothing fit. Nothing aligned. Sounds like nothing, I know, but… then my phone rang. I can't remember picking it up, but on the other end was this… voice, I think."
"You think?"
"It wasn't like any other voice I've heard. Just this rattle, like two buildings were grinding against each other, and… and it just said 'still here' and hung up. That's when I woke up. Couldn't get back to sleep for a while after that."
Taylor tried to think of what to say. Did she… console her? Nothing of importance there, nothing she could use. Just… hm. A hint of the thing clinging to her, even after leaving. That could be concerning.
"Stay out of alleyways. And… this will sound weird, but until this is settled, can you check in once a day? Same time, ideally. Just so I know if you get…"
She trailed off, but the implication was obvious. The last thing she wanted was for Parian to just disappear without a trace. Maybe Angel Eyes could track her down again, but… who knew? Maybe she'd be particularly unlucky. Maybe the gate would close behind her. Maybe she'd be trapped in there too long to be removed. Maybe the termites would attack immediately instead of waiting for her to get softened up by the city itself, ripe enough for them to consume. Parian nodded quickly. The two remained in an awkward silence for a moment, and Taylor turned her attention to the tea set arrayed before her, cleaning it with the maximum possible amount of attention she could muster. Not difficult to do any of this, but it occupied her hands, let her avoid just succumbing to a stilted silence which made both partners feel extraordinarily awkward. Parian went for her own cup of tea, but downed it too quickly to enjoy, and left before anything else could happen. Taylor was glad to see her go. Easier than conversation. The moment the door closed, though… she checked the article from beginning to end, trying to extract anything.
One.
She got one useful piece of information.
The Song of Ilico was an old medieval manuscript, which no longer existed. Technically, all that remained was the Song of Kriemhild, but some scholars had tried to figure out what the original had been like, but… not much luck. The Song of Kriemhild was a German work, supposedly written by Attila's last wife, claiming responsibility for his death and elaborating her reasons for it. And that was it. The reasons were blacked out. The speculation on the original? Gone. And the actual argument of the article, the parts which talked about the cultural similarities between the Alans and the Huns… reduced down to discussions of similar cauldron decorations and cranial deformation practices. And that was it. Rows of data which were surely useful to someone else, but not remotely useful to her. The song sounded fascinating, and yet apparently the Song of Krieimhild was exclusively in High German, was of dubious authorship, and existed only in a few copies. Two in private hands, and one in a library in Berlin. That was it. That was the entire article.
Fuck.
How… irritating.
Chorei sounded… almost relieved. Typical. Of course she'd be relieved at that, of course she'd be relieved that the two of them were going to be staying out of things. No such luck for her, Taylor was committed. Research had run into a dead end, then. No other ideas on where to go, this article was like a black hole sucking up opportunities and avenues into the black bars which locked away anything useful. No bibliography, no footnotes… she'd never heard of the Suppression Bureau, but she already despised them.
And that left only a few more options that she'd explored fully over the next few days.
Sanagi had been called. Too busy to do much, but she checked the missing persons reports. Nothing remarkable. Lots of people were missing - Taylor included. So many hadn't been recorded, or processed correctly, and the pile was too vast to filter through. Two calls, a few minutes each. Once with a question, the second with an answer. And the answer had been no. Nothing. Nothing at all. Sanagi had apologised, explained that she was snowed under with work, that they were short-staffed after the Conflagration and she really couldn't spare the time to come and help investigate. She was on thin ice, what with vanishing for weeks to go to North Dakota, and she… wanted to keep her job for as long as possible. No idea how long that would hold out, of course, what with the terrifying skull. Another dead end.
She'd staked out the alleyway again. Her insects had found nothing. No wrong turns. No-one came to check up on it. All she'd done was a series of aggravated sit-ups in the back of a van while her swarm examined the same spots over and over to find nothing. The city with the termites was inaccessible, and there was no trace of there ever having been such a city. Why? Why had they just… did they respond like this to a threat? Were they acting like the insects they were already impersonating? A tunnel gets infiltrated - block it up, pretend it never existed. Turk was kind enough to drive her around the city now and again, her swarm checking for any wrong turns… nothing. Every. Damn. Time. Nothing. She'd had to unload her stress on a punching bag she'd set up in the side room of the tea shop. It was easy to tell how bad a night had been from how purple her knuckles were at the end of it. She'd started at a faint lilac. By the time Turk had politely told her that the patrols weren't doing anything, she was operating at something close to indigo. Nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing, despite days of patrols, night after night of minimal sleep and worsening temper. She'd turned down offers from Ahab for dinner, offers from Arch to swing by on one of the long walks he and Ted took on the beach, offers from Turk to just give things up and let everything play out, accept that it wouldn't go anywhere while she was watching.
Refusals. Each and every one.
She had no time.
The only suggestion she'd taken up was from Turk. He'd… looked into more weapons. When her fists felt too bruised to continue punching things, when even her scars couldn't quite hold up to the abuse she was putting her muscles through, she'd looked into guns. Handguns, she was adequate at. Not astounding. Not awful. She practiced when she could down at a firing range, but that was all. Turk, she knew, could run around wielding a shotgun, a rifle, a pistol, a knife, all manner of weapons in all manner of situations. So she'd taken up his offer to look into expanding her repertoire. He'd probably hoped that it would distract her, help relieve a little stress. When he saw her hauling around some ancient AK he'd been dragging out for years… well, she couldn't quite tell for sure, but the look in his eye was pretty damn telling. He was a little nervous of her using that at the firing range, he was especially nervous of how much she enjoyed it. The thump of the stock into her shoulder, the clacking of the mechanism as it fired, reloaded, all of it perfectly smoothly. The feeling of disassembling and reassembling her guns, feeling how each piece clicked together and worked to produce a perfect result each time… well, it was more satisfying than the rest of her life at the moment.
Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
And if she was waiting, she was thinking.
And if she wasn't thinking about the mission, she was thinking about her dad.
And if she thought about her dad, she felt a paralysis creeping over her limbs. She felt all the terror of that long, long night coming back to her, all the feelings she'd spent weeks repressing. Chorei was a help, but… she'd always just been a temporary solution to these problems. Helped keep things under wraps in the moment, but now that time was wearing on, Taylor found herself growing used to her presence. And as familiarity increased, her feelings got past the nun, and each one felt like an icicle through her skull. Cold. Burning. Piercing. She'd… she'd checked on him. Stood outside the hospital and made sure he was still alive, his organs weren't yet harvested, his condition wasn't deteriorating. Hard to tell a huge amount through her insects, but she was trying. And once this mess was dealt with, she could settle down to the ugly business of making money. Once this was over, she could focus. But only after - now, she was too scattered, too dedicated, she didn't have any opportunities to stand still and work on the money situation. But once the termites were dealt with… sure, she could get to work. But only then. Only. Then.
…Usurper, I feel as though you might be trying to distract yourself. Perhaps it would be wise to…
"Shut up."
Taylor growled under her breath, unwilling to engage. She had work to do. She was just… waiting for a while, that was all. Just for things to pay off. She focused on the ache in her knuckles, her shoulder, all the places she was working out or steadily grinding down through repeated practice on the firing range. She'd been entirely using Turk's collection, something that did irritate her a little, but… well, beggars couldn't be choosers. Wait. Someone was at the door. Her insects felt the visitor, and she paused in her ministrations. Someone was outside - tall, broad, wide head, young-ish face, dressed in simple, pragmatic clothing. She glanced up as the man pushed his way inside. Older than her, but not by much - early twenties at most, though time spent outside had given his face the consistency of old leather. He carried a long duffel bag, weighed down with a variety of heavy implements that she couldn't quite sense through the small spiders which lingered in its dusty recesses. Flat eyes stared at her, and his mouth twisted into a frown. There was something familiar about his face, something she couldn't quite put her finger on. A… solidity, a heaviness, a presence that she knew, she definitely knew, but couldn't quite name. There were enough differences to confuse everything, something to do with the eyes, the hair… just enough to scramble her impressions.
The man coughed quietly, looked around surreptitiously, and walked closer. Taylor braced herself.
"...you're Taylor, si?"
…is this man a Russian Mexican?
This man was a Russian Mexican. His voice was accented like Turk's, but here and there were splashes of something distinctly Mexican. It was bizarre to hear, but… well, he knew her, clearly. She nodded silently, already reaching for the pistol she kept under the counter, just in case. Best to go for mundane methods before resorting to the swarm, keep it as a nice little 'I win' button if things got out of hand. She felt capable of fighting him without it, anyway. The man tried to smile a little, but it didn't reach his eyes… hell, it hardly reached his lips, all she had was a faint movement of stubble to indicate that the attempt had even been made. Damn it, this man was familiar.
"Good. Turk sent me. I'm Vatslav. You know me?"
His tone was short, businesslike. Vatslav… right, Turk had said something about his gun dealer being named Vatslav. Did that mean… ah. She walked out from behind the counter, quickly locking the door to the shop, drawing the blinds down so no-one could just look in. Vatslav hummed approvingly, and began to unpack his wares. No more pleasantries. Just business. Her swarm kept an eye on him, though - a stranger with guns was a stranger with guns, even if he knew three useful names. Vatslav, Taylor, Turk, names anyone dedicated enough could probably get together. No threatening moves on his part - the guns were unloaded. He didn't even carry one on himself, just a small knife up his sleeve and another in his boot. Made sense, the last thing a gun dealer likely wanted to happen was being caught out for concealing a firearm in his jacket. When she returned, he was already polishing a little dust from the surface of a… hm. She really needed to learn more about guns, she spent enough time around them. All she could say was that it was a rifle, looked… bolt-action, that was the word. She came closer, examining it. Vatslav began to talk, his voice low and calm, slipping into the role of arms dealer quickly and efficiently.
"Turk said you wanted a gun, not a pistol."
"That's right."
"Brought a few. Tell me if you need more."
She peered closely at the rifle… and Vatslav, thankfully, continued. Good. She really didn't know this thing.
"M40A3, same that the Americans used in Operation Thunderbird out in the dead zones. I can get a new stock, better for your shoulder. Replaced the sight with one from P.A, better than the German one, more resilient."
He paused.
"Serial number isn't gone, not yet. I'll file that off when necessary, pass it through some other methods to prevent reclamation. Useless on tinkertech, but it'll do its job against regular investigations. Best I can do without destroying the gun."
Taylor nodded along, pretending that this meant something to her. He could be lying through his teeth and she'd be none the wiser. Chorei was silent, utterly suspicious of the man and his weapons. Understandable, she was nervous of anything more advanced than a musket - and even then, she disliked muskets strongly. Too loud. Everything was too loud for her - Taylor was just glad they didn't have noisy neighbours or the nun would've been insufferable.
"I've modified it a little, but I can find a more pristine version if you want it. Mostly the sights. I can find a night sight if you need it."
"Won't be necessary."
"If you say so. Light enough for you?"
Taylor hefted it - light enough, definitely. Even tired out, she could hold it easily enough. She kept her finger firmly off the trigger - Turk had flicked her nose every time she made a mistake with her trigger discipline, and told her that his old instructor had poked him under the eye with a nail whenever he messed up. Checked the magazine - empty. Safety - on. Good. She aimed at the wall, pressing her cheek into the stock… comfortable, but a little ill-fitting. Vatslav watched impassively, and she felt the urge to do this right, to not be judged by someone who clearly knew more than she did. After a second, she lowered it. She could work with this. Having some extra range would be appreciated - a little bit of versatility. And her insects were excellent at finding targets, guiding her aim… if she trained, she could probably ditch the sight altogether, reduce the chance of lights reflecting off the glass. Might work, who knew. Vatslav took it back, cleaning the surface with an oil cloth - no fingerprints from either of them. Good move.
"And here's the other. Pistol. M1911A1. Older, but pristine condition. Made in the 90s, mostly for the Marines. Same basic model that's been in use since World War One. Serial number is still intact, I'll take care of that if you want me to. Much more customised than the rifle."
She glanced up sharply from the pistol, a little heavier than she was used to, but it felt… reassuring.
"How so?"
"Iron-welded frame, scraped down to increase precision. Front strap chequered so it digs into the hand, prevents slipping. Regular hammer's replaced with a ring hammer, enhances cocking control and hammer-down speed. Base of trigger is whittled so you can use a high grip, trigger is a long type… trigger pull, 3.5 pounds. Pound and a half lighter than usual. Cocking serrations to the top part of the slide. A few other small details."
Taylor blinked.
"...huh."
Vatslav shrugged self-consciously.
"Learned how to modify from young age. That's all."
"And it works?"
"As expected. Don't expect miracles, but it's well-made. Turk should show you the rest, he's used pistols with these modifications in the past."
"Got it."
She was much smoother with this - her stance adjusted, her eye narrowed, her entire bearing shifted to accommodate this new weapon. This was… good. The gun, and the situation. She felt at ease, preparing for something tangible. Nothing else existed. It was like when she was working out, but… she did that often enough that it had ceased to distract her effectively. This felt simple. And in that simplicity was honesty, in that honesty was a distraction from all the other things she was wrestling with. The gun was… excellent. The modifications were subtle, but they were good. Enough to make the entire experience more of a pleasure than it had any right to be. When she finished checking it over, she was downright reluctant to give it back. Vatslav tried to smile again, understanding her feelings… didn't work very well, but she appreciated the sentiment. That was all - just two guns, both chosen by Turk ahead of time. Vatslav was tight-lipped on why, but… well, if Turk chose to relate to her using guns, sure. She could work with that. Unusual that he sent the dealer to get in touch, but she wasn't going to complain. Nice to have another contact.
She sensed Turk approaching the tea shop.
A few words sent Vatslav's bag into a concealed corner, and he slumped into a chair with a cup of quickly-made tea. Her swarm tracked the ex-mercenary, and by the time his hand reached to knock on the door, she'd already flicked the blinds up and had the key in the hole. His hand paused as he listened to the sound of her unlocking everything… he was impassive when the door opened, staring down at Taylor. His eyes flicked around, and he sighted Vatslav. The two shared a curt nod. Something clicked. Taylor glanced at Vatslav, glanced at Turk… and the resemblance was uncanny. The fact that she hadn't noticed it before was purely because of the eyepatch. Sure, she'd seen Turk without an eyepatch, once. Back during their first infiltration of Chorei's building. Never since. Seeing young, tanned, part-Mexican Turk without an eyepatch was something she simply couldn't parse, and so he'd been placed into a category of his own, despite the wideness, the solidity, the same thin lips, the same stance which spoke to years of combat.
…I believe the two may be related.
And Chorei was late as usual. Bad with faces, probably a consequence of being in the same monastery for years on end and then building a cult from people she primarily viewed as food for the centipedes, hosts for the eggs, threats, or meat shields. Taylor narrowed her eye.
"Are you two…?"
Turk shrugged.
"Nephew."
What.
What?!
Vatslav nodded over, barely interested.
"Uncle."
Did… right, he had a brother, so he had a nephew. For a moment she was wondering if Turk had a secret son that he just never talked about. He'd been a mercenary for a while, he probably had a few kids scattered around the world. The two of them didn't exchange any pleasantries - they shared a habit for silence, and had evidently arranged the guns some time in advance. No hugs, no handshakes, nothing but a curt nod to acknowledge one another's existence. Turk strode to his counter, attending to his teapots, glancing occasionally at the bag squirrelled away out of the sight of any customers. Taylor leant against the doorframe, watching the two completely ignore one another. Well, completely ignore each other for a few minutes. As kettles began to boil, Vatslav grumbled and dragged out a few things from the bag. Cigarettes. A wheel of cheese. Vodka. All of them seemed like something Turk and only Turk would enjoy. The cigarettes lacked any health warnings, and the logo depicted a moustachioed man gesturing grandly into the middle distance. Cyrillic label, unreadable. They looked potent. The cheese came in a packet marked with a red crayfish, and bore the distinct air of something made on an industrial scale. And finally, the vodka. No label. The bottle looked recycled from something else. Definitely, without a doubt, without a shadow of uncertainty, illegal. Turk took the gifts, examined them, sniffed at the cheese, and promptly lit up one of the cigarettes. A curt nod was all the thanks Vatslav received - that and a plate of toast slathered with anchovy paste. The two remained in perfect silence, one smoking, the other eating… until finally Turk broke the silence.
"How is he?"
"Getting married next spring."
"Again?"
"New one. Felina, knifemaker for the Zetas."
"He knows how to pick them."
"She is alarming. Only half a tongue."
"...he knows how to pick them."
"Indeed."
These Russians are mad. I can't believe we ever lost to them.
Silence once more. Taylor watched them curiously - so this was Turk's family. His nephew, God, it felt weird thinking that. Turk was a monolith, a pillar of stability and security, the idea of him with family, the idea of more silent Russians wandering around shooting things and fermenting bathtub moonshine was… not alarming, exactly, but it was definitely odd. Why had… oh. It clicked. Everything clicked. He'd told her that she reminded him of his brother. The one who'd become an arms dealer, lost his leg, his fingers, his teeth, and finally what remained of his sanity, apparently. The one who'd loved violence too much, lost himself in it to the point that nothing of him remained. Only his role, only what he thought he was good at. Taylor's lips hardened to a thin, white line. It was a theory - just a theory - but she thought Turk might be trying to guilt-trip her into giving up this investigation. Into letting it play out. Into returning back to the miserable state she was in before, the state where she accomplished nothing and just… existed, at the mercies of a world which refused to grant her any. Well, no. Not happening. She had a goal, and she was going to pursue it. There were problems to deal with, couldn't he see that? He'd been around when she dragged Parian out, he'd seen the red termite welts lining her arms and face, he'd driven her back here, for crying out loud.
Why couldn't he understand that she needed this?
"How is business?"
Turk's voice was quiet and cautious, his eye focused on his work to the exclusion of all else.
"Good. Going to New Hampshire soon."
"Then?"
"Back to Gallup. More business."
"Quiet?"
"For now. The Cihuatateo are restless. Zetas are thinking of taking care of them… but too many unaffiliated are in town. Unwilling to move until they pick a side."
"Good business."
"Very good business."
More silence. Taylor spoke up, trying to assert some control over the situation.
"Going to be in town much longer?"
Vatslav glanced over, surprised at her interjection… but his tone remained polite, his stance guarded.
"Few weeks. More clients. All confidential."
"...hm."
Turk shot her a look.
He is… hm. Perhaps if he grew a moustache, he-
Taylor silenced Chorei with violent swiftness. Just… no. God. What was wrong with this - right, nun, no longer part of her order, living vicariously through her, basically the same as a weird divorced grandma who continually asked about her love life. Right, fine, she could work with that, so long as Chorei ceased to interject at the worst possible moments. Christ. Chorei flailed a little, but finally settled down. Taylor could feel irritation boiling off her, and underneath it… a certain guilt. She understood what she'd done, even if she didn't quite regret it.
"Is it easy to get into? Selling guns, I mean."
"...tolerable. I have good connections. Hard to break into the business."
He paused, crunching at some toast.
"Easy outside of America. Lots of guns lying around, easy to find an armoury. Not like here, they get… angry when you raid an armoury. Have to go to South America to find those."
"And you do?"
"Sometimes."
More silence. Turk coughed quietly.
"Is he… any better?"
Vatslav shot him an odd look. Ha! Confirmation, Turk didn't usually ask about this, this was a deliberate attempt to try and make her feel guilty. Well, good damn luck on that front, she knew what she was doing was necessary, and she wouldn't be-
"No."
"Felina?"
"She helps. Sometimes."
"Good. No more injuries?"
"Some. You should visit him."
"No."
And that was all. The entirety of their conversation. Taylor blinked. She expected… more guilt, she supposed. More of his brother being a monster, or a sad wreck of a man, or… anything, really. Not just some arms dealer living in Gallup with a new wife on the way. Vatslav finished his meal, nodded to Turk, stood, and began to leave. No goodbyes. The bag lingered, the guns inside weighing it down. She watched incredulously as it all panned out, the whole situation ending quietly. A brief conversation, a few gifts, and that was all. What in… what? How did any of this… Vatslav closed the door behind him quietly, nodding to her when she turned to see him go. The moment he vanished from sight, Taylor whirled on Turk. She was annoyed. She was very, very annoyed.
"So, what was that all about?"
Turk shrugged.
"Guns."
"From your nephew. Why would you-"
She paused, getting her temper back under control. She was fine, she was fine. No memories coming up. Nothing at all.
"Is this some kind of guilt trip? I can't stop what I'm doing, you know that. It's just a job I have to do, same as Chorei, same as Bisha."
…hmph.
"It's just another job. I don't… need people telling me I can't do it. Alright?"
Turk looked down at her, impassive. She'd rumbled him. She'd called him out. She liked the guy, but he was bad at this whole emotional manipulation business, downright awful. Bringing in his nephew to make her think about the path she was going down - it'd be easier to just call in Ahab, maybe sit everyone down for an intervention. Not that it'd work. She had a task to accomplish, with or without them. Couldn't he understand that this was all she was good for. She had no goals in life, no real achievements she could put on paper besides killing things that generally were difficult to kill, no qualifications, no glory, nothing. Her dad was in hospital, and she couldn't do shit. So she did this instead, because she was good at it, because it was all she was good for at this point. All.
Turk opened his mouth, and she braced herself for lies, misdirections…
"It was your birthday."
Taylor froze. Her thoughts collapsed.
What?
It…
Had it been her birthday?
The Bisha incident had been in… May, yeah. And then she'd been in hospital for a while, and then she'd been absorbed with this, and… shit. June. It was mid-June. She was sixteen. When had that happened, when had that snuck up on her? She could drive, that was… neat. The wind drained from her sails. Turk hauled the guns onto the counter, patting the bag. It was her… present. Her birthday present. She stared blankly down at it. Turk had just been… he'd… Taylor looked up at him, not sure quite how to feel. The ex-mercenary's eye had… pity in it. Genuine pity. Had he seen this before? Had he seen people forget their own birthdays because they were too obsessed with something, had he… she didn't deserve a birthday, those were for people with less to do, people who needed holidays from time to time, people who had normal lives that could be broken up by vacations, breaks, weekends, birthdays, parties… she didn't get a normal life. She'd given it up when she never called her dad, when she just let him live alone while she went off to ruin herself body and soul, when she came back to find him already in a coma. She didn't deserve a birthday, she didn't…
Happy birthday.
Somehow, the sound of Chorei - the woman who'd almost destroyed her mind, the woman who'd started her on this long, dark road, the woman she knew inside and out to a degree she knew literally nobody else - saying 'happy birthday' in a quiet, hesitant tone, like she hadn't said it to anyone in a long, long while… somehow that broke something. She nodded to Turk.
"Thank you. I'm… sorry."
"No need. Guns."
"Guns, yeah. They're… fantastic."
"Hm. Vatslav does good work."
"...he does."
The two remained in silence.
"I-"
"Drink?"
Turk understood her. Her mouth closed gratefully. He knew she was sorry. He knew she was struggling.
She nodded again.
And on an overcast June day, the sun very slightly breaking through the clouds to form a dim golden curtain… the two of them enjoyed a drink together. It was small, as birthdays went. But it made her happy. Her hand shook as she raised her glass, no matter what she tried. Even after a few glasses, the shaking wouldn't quite go away. No-one else was there - just the two of them. Turk knew her. He really knew her. She couldn't do anything larger than this. Even a quiet drink was almost enough to unmake her. They didn't say anything after a while. Nothing but small scraps of conversation that died too quickly to be of any note. Nothing major was said. No arguments, no clashes, nothing. The two of them just stood, drank, and listened to the sound of the rain as it began to start - a light, summer rain. The kind that washed down in sheets that never seemed to stick, evaporating before they could form puddles, a hazy mist that gave the world beyond the indistinct quality of a dream. As the bottle approached half-empty, Turk ceased. He clapped her on the shoulder. Once that would've been enough to make her stumble. Now, her scars soaked it up, her muscles took what the scars couldn't, and she remained absolutely still.
And that was all.
139 - Golden Almonds
GraftingBuddha
Retired Pooh-Bah
139 - Golden Almonds
Vicky was not having a good day. Not remotely. She'd woken up on the wrong side of the bed with her hair all over the place, feeling like she'd somehow slept on every awkward spot conceivable. She didn't even know you could get pins and needles in some of those spots, but nonetheless, here she was. Needled and pinned. Dreams had been weird, too. Hardly remembered any of them, but… something familiar. Something achingly nostalgic. And there was a scent over it all, one that she could barely… right, tea, that was it. Only thing she really got out of that dream, really. Tea and nostalgia. Wild. She stepped down onto the floor… and flinched. It was almost summer, but somehow the hardwood floors of her house soaked up the cold from the winter and generously distributed it throughout the rest of the year. Could just have carpeting, but no, apparently good wooden floors were where it was at. She grumbled and floated the rest of the way to the bathroom.
She hesitated for a moment as she passed Amy's room - empty, all of her personal effects long since taken to her new PRT-approved pad. There had been some early discussion about using it as a storage room, but Vicky had kicked up enough of a fuss that the family had settled into an uneasy stalemate. It felt wrong, just pretending like she had never lived here. Hell, mom had put up some new photos from their last family outing earlier this year, and Vicky couldn't help but flinch every time she saw them - no mousy brown hair, no expression that crossed regularly between surliness and reluctant happiness, no endless freckles. If this rate kept up, soon enough their mantlepieces would be crowded with photos devoid of Amy, burying the older ones under the weight of years. There was probably a visual metaphor in that somewhere, but Vicky wasn't interested in finding it.
She kept on floating. Bathrooms were easy. No emotional baggage there. No pictures, no meaningful memories.
As she stepped into the shower, a thought presented itself. She shrugged. Might as well - usually helped cheer her up. Pinching her nose shut, she floated upwards and began to do somersaults in the middle of the expansive shower, muttering a muted 'wheeee' as she did so. It took a dozen rotations before she realised that it wasn't working, and she settled to a halt, grumbling. That usually worked, but today was an unusually cranky day, or so it seemed. Breakfast didn't improve her mood. She'd hoped for a fairly lonely breakfast, where she could gather her thoughts, plan out the remainder of her Saturday. God, this was her day off and she still felt tired, wasn't damn fair. Instead, her mother was sitting there, drinking a small cup of coffee, reading the newspaper with an intense expression. She glanced up sharply as her daughter floated down the stairs.
"Don't float everywhere, it's bad for your legs."
Vicky grunted noncommittally as she floated to the pantry, her feet very slightly grazing the ground as a small surrender to maternal authority. She floated back with a heaping mound of cereal, the most unhealthy brand she could possibly find. Her mother sniffed as she saw the titanic pile of chocolate and marshmallow-infused goodness. She turned back to her newspaper with a frown when Vicky started eating it morosely, shovelling spoonful after spoonful down with no care for appreciating the delicate flavours of this abomination against nutrition. As she felt her mother's gaze leave her, Vicky took more leave to glance around the room, practically eating by instinct alone. She didn't even like this cereal all that much, and eating in general was a chore and a half, just a mindless way to fill up the empty minutes. Her mother was resolutely reading her newspaper, scanning it intensely as if trying her best to pretend there was no-one else in the room. Things had been awkward ever since the Conflagration - everyone else had been en route to the Leviathan fight, but the moment Vicky had heard about the bomb in the mall she'd just left, the same mall that presumably still contained Dean, she'd catapulted out of the tiltrotor and had soared back with all due haste.
Too late, though. Dean was already gone. Vanished, and no-one knew where. She'd hunted all over the city, desperately trying to find any sign of him. Nothing. Just chaos and monsters. She'd fought them as best she could, trying to help people get to the Endbringer shelters. They'd been relentless, and there were just so many. The PRT had to call in an old cargo vessel just to haul all the bodies out to the Rig for processing - Vicky had the unfortunate fate of being up in the air that day, downwind of the ocean. The stink was… quite something. Her costume still faintly smelled of the weird dusty sweetness that the bodies exuded after death, no matter how many times she washed it. During that horrible night, she'd done everything she should have done, saved civilians, protected the city, acted like a hero should. On her own, no less - she'd met startlingly few capes out on the streets, mostly just PRT troopers. The heroes she could understand, they were busy in Miami, but the villains? Typical. Claim that you're protecting the neighbourhood, your 'people', making sure they stay safe and sound… then turn tail and run the moment things get just a little bit 'completely on fire'. But despite all her work, she couldn't save Dean. She remembered flying to that tower in the pouring rain, seeing fire blooming from it, seeing the buildings surrounding it collapse into rubble… and finding nothing but a twisted, charred body, and what remained of Dean staring open-eyed into the rain.
And like that, her life had dropped out from beneath her. It had been bad enough without Amy, bad enough with the agreements the PRT put before them. Her mother had explained everything, over and over, trying to convince her that this was the best option for everyone. Amy was an incredibly valuable healer, they said. She'd be under immense pressure to do her job at all times, they said. The risk of emotional or physical breakdown was too substantial, the consequences of such a breakdown too disastrous, to allow her to operate freely. In PRT custody, she'd have staff working with her at all times to make sure she was in fighting shape, implants to monitor and guard against mental breakdown. That sounded reasonable as grounds for regular mandatory therapy sessions, maybe a permanent handler, but not for being locked up in the Rig like some pet monkey. It'd taken her a while to figure out why her parents had accepted the deal, mostly by sneaking a look at some paperwork she was definitely not allowed to see. What she'd found had been… unpleasant.
Independent hero groups cost a lot, she knew that. She'd seen her mother worrying about bills, poring over spreadsheets and trying to scrape together some extra cash. She remembered it being a lot worse when she was younger, though. The paperwork told her more than she wanted to know… more than she'd like to have hidden from her, though. The PRT had always agreed to cover between 10-50% of the cost of all property damages caused while doing heroic cape work. Standard deal for independent groups like New Wave. Sounded good on paper, until you realised that a single errant blast could rack up millions in damages. And half a million was still half a million. New Wave was mostly composed of blasters and brutes, of course they caused property damage when they went up against villains. It wasn't deliberate, just… inevitable.
Especially when the villains realised they were reluctant to damage anything, and did their best to force them into positions where they had to in order to keep fighting. If they had a choice between demolishing a wall to rescue a hostage and leaving that hostage to die, they'd always choose the former, they weren't monsters. But walls were surprisingly pricey, as it turned out. With Amy under the PRT's supervision, though… the paperwork said they'd treat New Wave as a 'secure, reliable, and valuable ally, warranting substantial support to ensure their continued functionality'. 95-100% of costs, not to mention shared patrol routes, access to PRT resources and support, they even threw in subsidised dental care and priority access to Amy's powers. The whole thing stank. They'd sold Amy.
And then the PRT had swooped back in for the whole Conflagration mess. Oh, they had excuses, long excuses with plenty of citations and support. Doctors said he could recover, that physically he was still mostly fine, that there was always a chance of his brain healing - powers made everything complicated, there were no 'guaranteed' medical diagnoses anymore. Amy couldn't do brains, but one day there might be a tinker or a healer who could. But, publicly, the PRT insisted that he was dead. With his shrivelled eye, where he was found, and who he was lying next to… the PRT said it would cause a public panic if that knowledge made it into the public sphere. If Ordeal knew the civilian identities of Wards, he could have known the identities of other Capes too, heroes and villains both. His gang hadn't been totally apprehended, so he could have told a whole group of people before he died or vanished. That would be bad enough, but all the bodies of the people he mastered also had shrivelled eyes dripping with boiling yellow fluid. Best to let Gallant die, and for Dean to lie comatose in a hospital bed for as long as was necessary. No point starting a debate over a potentially mastered Ward, inciting public hysteria for no reason. It stunk, as badly as the Amy deal had stunk. It wasn't heroic, it felt calculating, brutal, like something a corporate cape would do, or a villain. A dead Gallant sacrificing himself for civilians played better with the public than 'Gallant had his mind burned out, was possibly mastered, and all of this was done by a villain who possibly knew his civilian identity'. The former was heroic. The latter was complicated, raised too many questions.
And questions were inconvenient.
She'd fought loudly with her parents when they'd brought the NDA out. Hadn't yelled like that since Amy had left, honestly.
She'd had plans with Dean.
Plans for leaving. Making something of themselves elsewhere. He could get away from his dad, from his dad's company. She could try and be a hero in a place with marginally less baggage. It wasn't cowardice, she told herself. Just moving on. Fresh start.
Plans.
Gone, now.
All gone.
She floated back upstairs, still morosely crunching the remains of her cereal. Her room felt cold, and she tried to muster some enthusiasm for the one project that was giving her some kind of purpose these days. Better than dwelling on Dean or Amy. She opened up her wardrobe, parted some of her clothes… and there it was. The Board - so important that it deserved a capital B. A few pictures and many scraps of paper strung across a cork board, connected by coloured string. She hadn't put together a proper system for what the colours meant, but it felt like a good place to start. She looked to the centre of her elegantly constructed web, scratching her chin thoughtfully. A note reading 'shrivelled eye' connected to the silhouette marked 'Ordeal'. Also connected was 'mud ball', 'bomb tinker', 'changer/blaster?' and a whole raft of others.
She'd marked down every lead, every potential cape working with Ordeal, every object and site connected to his work. She only had publicly available pictures, but she had managed to scavenge a surprisingly large amount. But the connections eluded her. What was Ordeal's powerset? Who had killed him, and how? And why had they vanished afterwards instead of claiming credit like a normal person? She had hunted through every forum, every wiki, every book she could scavenge from the university's library that mentioned anything like this. No parahuman acted like this, no parahuman hid in the shadows and blew up a building without once announcing their existence. Even Teacher, the goddamn poster-child for criminal masterminds, had announced himself once he'd committed his largest crimes.
Some of her teachers thought it was because parahumans often had emotional issues particularly connected to weakness or helplessness, and cultivating a larger-than-life public persona was a reflexive coping mechanism. Thinkers especially - triggering because of knowing too little, abruptly becoming the smartest person in the room… well, none of that spelled out subtlety. These were the teachers with psychiatric backgrounds… others suspected there was something to be found in the neurological changes inherent to a trigger event; they tended to be more biological in their interests. And it wasn't just Ordeal, he had a gang, a cult even, and none of them had declared their names. One of the few solid leads she had was the Cornell Bomber - appeared, held a university hostage, then vanished. Soon enough, bombs were striking Brockton Bay, but the Cornell Bomber had, according to all reports, been extravagant and bombastic. Not some cunning snake-in-the-grass, content to tinker and not to claim credit. Vanishing and silently bombing a city at the orders of someone else just didn't gel.
Had Ordeal been mastering people? How did he even go about that, mastering was a complex process which rarely came down to 'scaggity scone your freedom is gone', masters went about their work in very different ways. Emotional manipulation, muscular control, subliminal suggestions, hormone control, or something potent within a narrow range of use. There was range, duration, limitations on number of affected people or the complexity of the orders they could receive. And not all masters could control random people, a good number simply built or… birthed minions which were instinctually loyal. There was a procedure to masters, established patterns which were commonly associated with them.
Ordeal hadn't fit the psychological profile, and he'd demonstrated unusual maturity - hiding, waiting, acting in the shadows - which suggested experience. Where were the sloppy first tries, the messy attempts when he was still figuring everything out? And was it even a 'he' - she knew nothing about the thing she'd found on the rooftop, it was too deformed to determine anything beyond 'it's real damn spooky'. And it was spooky, that much was absolutely true. It was… hard to explain. Like seeing a prehistoric tree stump, the kind that were impossibly preserved throughout the millennia. And looking at it, you couldn't help but imagine what else had been there, the brain struggling to find a pattern where none existed. Looking at that body elicited the same reaction, but stronger. The pattern was shattered and impossible to piece together, but the ghost of it remained. A faint outline in the air, forming something that… made her eyes itch when she tried to imagine it.
She stopped thinking about the body.
She had enough headaches already.
Had Heartbreaker suddenly gone more delusional? No, all the news reports suggested he was still in Canada. Valefor? Nope, he'd been in Miami shrieking about the End Times. Any other famous masters? Nope, the ones that were powerful enough to do something like this were tracked at all times. So who the fuck had done this, and what the fuck was their power?! And where were their accomplices?! Just… gah! Her Board of Infinite Madness was sealed back behind the wardrobe, and Vicky leant back against it, nostrils flaring in irritation. That goddamn Board was a rabbit hole, no, a black hole that sucked up time and gave back nothing in return. And she was adamant to remain unslurped.
Needed to get some air.
With a grunt, she floated out of the front door, squinting in the bright sunlight. It was much warmer now, but the air hung heavy with moisture. Leviathan's attacks always did this, apparently. Too much water in the air, evaporating from the flooded remains of whatever city he'd levelled, turning whole swathes of a country into damp swamps for a little while. Brockton hadn't been too badly hit, apparently. Miami must somehow be more a swamp than usual right now, she mused, before shuddering. The thought alone was unpleasant. She pondered what to do - it was a Saturday, she had an entire… god, she had hours before she was able to climb back into bed.
Most of her friends from Arcadia had bailed, left town, were still in the process of moving back after the dust had settled. The Wards were nice enough, but… well, they weren't friends. And she'd been introduced to them through Dean, had known their idiosyncrasies and habits through Dean, and meet-ups with them had always included Dean. Too many painful memories. She ran through the list of places she knew and could vaguely stand visiting. Coffee shops? No, the best ones were associated with Dean, the worst ones weren't worth visiting, and the ones in the middle had already drained enough of her allowance. Cafes? Same as coffee shops. Libraries? She was briefly interested by that idea, momentarily entertained by the prospect of sitting in a quiet pile of books, maybe getting on with some of the work for her parahuman studies class.
But no matter how she tried to encourage herself, her brain simply refused to spark into motion, her body refused to snap to attention. She scowled. This had been happening for days. She knew what she should be getting up to, knew that she had hobbies which interested her, motivated her. But none of them were doing anything, not at the moment, not since Dean had been put into his seemingly permanent coma. Everything had been drained of colour, her old hobbies felt like childish entertainment. Her home felt like a foreign country, one with a language she didn't speak and didn't understand. And day by day her memories of Amy, Dean… they were becoming sepia-tinted, gradually losing their colour and vividness. Nothing that had once entertained her continued to do so. God, she was being dramatic today. She took off into the sky, trying to forget everything, focusing on the sunshine. The city spread before her in a great concrete tapestry, the scars left by the Conflagration far too visible for comfort - big sooty marks where towers used to be, spreading patches where buildings had been stained grey by billowing dust, roads looking like pockmarked faces after rubble had collapsed onto them. And that was ignoring the myriad tiny deformities left behind by the bombing campaign.
A thought occurred.
There was a part of town she hadn't visited in a while. But she'd heard good things about the shops there - it was a bit run-down, too run-down for Dean to take her out there for any dates, too far away to be conveniently visited on her own most days… but she was in the mood for some tea, hard to say why. Maybe it was the dream, but that thought vanished as quickly as the memories of the dream itself, leaving behind only the inclination. Ah, what the hell. She had a day to kill - not just waste, but a proper premeditated murder of hours, hacking through each one until she arrived back in her bed, until she could get back to the work that at least kept her vaguely entertained. Or sleep. Whichever came first. And if there was one thing she understood, it was that there was nothing more miserable than lying awake fully aware that a day was wasted and the next will suffer the same fate. Needed to tire herself out a little. She soared in a particular direction, blonde hair flying behind her.
Eh, might as well.
Taylor was having a… day. Rigorous exercise in the morning to keep her alert, to tighten herself up, to force her muscles to stay firmly attached to her bones instead of sloughing off in a heap. No practice with her new guns, not until she had some time to head to a firing range. Or to the protein farm, whichever opportunity came sooner. Her desk was crowded with papers, most of them nonsensical - scraps from Arch's books committed to writing, half-hearted theories on what was going on. None of it tied into anything cohesive, of course. Just… ramblings. She had far too little evidence for these termite things, just scraps of data from her time in that city, a few anecdotes she'd managed to squeeze out of Parian to corroborate her own observations, and the scholarship that seemed vaguely relevant. Nothing satisfying. Not like with Chorei, where it felt like delving into something older and vaster than her. Not like with Bisha, where every article, every book, all of it felt like she was slowly but surely piecing together the face of her enemy. Appropriately, these things were ambiguous. They existed only in the margins of research, never the main focus, only something vaguely hinted at by authors concerned with more serious things. Burrowed deep into data, sleeping quietly, moving slightly when she dug them out.
And at the centre of it all, the image of the Five-Horned Bull. The Quinotaur. The father of a dynasty, a god powerful enough to be associated with the first Merovingian. A god feared enough that it could only be represented in Çatalhöyük in buildings about to be consigned to the flames. Always at the edge of understanding, never the main event. An origin, but not the apex. Margins but never the centre. And every time she wrestled with the data and failed to come to a conclusion, she felt as though the Five-Horned was somehow mocking her. She felt long, long fingers creep around a doorframe, heard something chuckling in the distance, felt her skin itch with welts that had long-since departed. They couldn't even attack her mind properly, only hovered around the fringes, retreating the moment she noticed them.
She'd started locking all her doors at night. Just in case. And when she turned the lights off in the shop, when she went upstairs to sleep, she felt… she felt like there might be something behind her. Something growling quietly, a roar like the crashing sea, and in her more fanciful moments she thought she imagined the screams of the woman who'd been plucked from the bank, dragged into the deep while her family watched silently from the fringes, unwilling or unable to intervene. She felt hot breath on the back of her neck, and… then it was gone. The feeling was only there for a second. Just long enough to know it had existed… but never enough for her to do anything with it. No time for confrontation, analysis, or engagement…
She shambled downstairs, the exercise not serving much purpose for her mind. All of it just felt… woolly. The encounter with Turk and his nephew hadn't helped. Just made her think that she was becoming obsessed, that she needed to move on. But she couldn't. She had a job, and… she could barely pretend to herself anymore. When she looked in the mirror she saw a single tired, tired eye, a pale face that occasionally flushed after an intense bout of exercise, and… a flash of gold teeth. A few scars poking above the neck of her shirt. A black patch covering up the vacant hole that had once been her eye. When things were calm, all she had was a thick, stuffy feeling in her throat, a grittiness on her skin, and the sensation of her eye socket aching. Phantom pain. Nothing more. But the ache became worse when she had nothing to do but regular, repetitive work. Clean the teapots. Her eye socket would ache. Scrub the kettles. Her fingernails would itch. Serve customers, keep her face blank, and all the while she'd feel like she could punch someone in the face if they came too close.
She wasn't violent by nature, she kept telling herself.
Just energy which didn't know where to go.
Couldn't turn the reactor off. Couldn't just let it die away. Had to keep it running. Who cares if the world didn't need it anymore?
At least she had company during the long, long hours.
Usurper, I have been… thinking, over these last few days.
"That's unusual."
Silence, impudent one. I have been thinking. In my time, birthdays were not celebrated commonly - especially not for those of my status.
"Your family was pretty rich, right? I mean, you owned land. If I remember correctly."
Or would it be 'if you remember correctly'? Dammit, why wasn't there a proper vocabulary to refer to the immortal nun living inside her skull. One that wasn't part of a psychological diagnosis. Chorei seemed to be waving her hand dismissively.
Rich by the standards of our village. By the standards of even a moderately successful merchant, we were one step removed from being paupers. By the standards of a mid-sized cadet branch of a greater family, we were barely elevated from peasants. Your upbringing was, I believe, more luxurious than mine.
"...OK, point made. Sorry."
Hmph. Birthdays were not celebrated in my time. And by the time they were celebrated, I was… a little too old. And busy. Only after the Americans invaded, when things were too chaotic for me to think of getting my cultists to make me a cake. And it felt wrong to celebrate my birth, when there were other events far more serious to consider. Escape, survival, reproduction…
"Uh-huh."
But now my vows are gone. My duty is no more. Even my centipede has departed.
She paused.
I would like a birthday, I think.
Her voice was oddly… hesitant. Even faintly nervous. She was struggling with this. Taylor thought she glimpsed a hint of why. She was a firmly disconnected individual. Even in life she'd been set apart from the world in a very, very obvious way. America had been a strange, frightening place on her arrival, but it had attractions she had found some joy in. Food. Films. Film stars, particularly. And apparently birthdays. Something that was hers and simultaneously completely new. Connected to her homeland, but not so connected it was painful to recall. A little bit of pageantry, all for herself. But still, too busy. Too much work. Too embarrassing. But now… no limits. Taylor remembered her own 'birthday'- a few drinks and a pair of guns from an old friend. A reminder of how she might've gone too far this time, become too paranoid, too obsessed. She'd tempered her approach, she promised herself that. No more endless stakeouts, just… once every few days. Arch was working away, nothing major yet. Sanagi had promised to let her know if anything happened on her end - and promised to meet up as soon as possible. Too much work. If Chorei wanted a proper birthday, sure. Why not? Might even be fun.
"No objections here. So… when is it?"
I don't know.
"What?"
We reckoned our dates by a different calendar. A Chinese calendar, but I understand that the calendar has shifted in the last few centuries, and it was already altered by being in Japan… there is much that is uncertain. Not least… well, it's difficult to remember. It was a very long time ago.
"Alright, so… you could just make up a birthday."
…would that be appropriate?
"I won't tell if you won't."
…I suppose no-one but us knows any better. Hm. How about today?
"If you want me to go and buy some cheap cake, sure. If you want something I need to prepare for…"
Oh, no, no, no, no cheap cakes. I find them repulsive. I think my birthday shall require preparation. Yes, I shall require… I shall require a steak dinner. Steak, and whiskey, and… and a film! Oh, and broccoli fried with anchovies! And there must be a present of some description - yes, a present. A gift. Tribute!
She was growing more excitable, shedding her years with each word. When she began she was ancient. By the time she talked about steak, she was simply very, very old. When she declared her desire for tribute, she was practically no older than Taylor - maybe even a little younger. The woman had… issues. Still, the idea of throwing the woman who lived in her head a birthday party felt not quite as insane as it probably was. She'd forgotten her own - and to be blunt, Chorei seemed more likely to remember her own birthday than Taylor was. Much more likely. Especially if there was 'tribute' involved. Hell, Taylor could get behind a steak dinner and a movie. Felt quiet. Easy to prepare. No idea about the broccoli, though. She murmured as she cleaned out a tea caddy, making it ready for a new load of rich, dark leaves, each one curled into a delicate coil, sliver piled on sliver until the glass container was fit to burst.
"Well, as long as you don't just want a pile of burgers…"
Of course not, too many burgers diminishes their value. No, a steak. A proper steak. I long for one - the enormous ones that you Americans so enjoy.
"Not really a steak person, but sure. I can go for that."
And whiskey!
"...like, Japanese whiskey?"
No, Kentucky whiskey! Bourbon!
"Huh."
What?
"Never thought of you as a Kentucky whiskey person, I guess."
What, did you think I would enjoy sake?
Taylor felt like she was walking around broken glass. Chorei's tone was dangerous - but her tone was always dangerous, no matter how young she sounded, she was still the person that had threatened to use her as an incubator for her centipede's eggs and had actively tried to overpower her mind. When wasn't her voice dangerous in some way?
"...maybe?"
A snort. Casual. Derisive. Good.
Typical American. No, no sake for me. Too familiar, and I only ever drank it in my childhood, at certain meals. Far too familiar for comfort. Beer is bad for my - and your - figure. Furthermore, it tastes of urine. Vodka tastes of nothing at all. Gin is a little too sharp. Cocktails are perplexing. No, no, whiskey. Forever and always. And never that awful… moon stuff you insist on drinking from time to time.
"Alright, Kentucky whiskey. I'll… see if I can find some. What about the date?"
Anytime.
"How about when you got into my head?"
Thematically appropriate, but an entire year away from now. Unacceptable. With your lifestyle, neither of us may be alive then. Perhaps… it is June, yes?
"Yep."
December, then. I adore the snow.
"December it is. Any particular date?"
…ask the next customer to pick a random number between one and thirty-one.
"Really?"
If you can find a die with thirty-one sides, then perhaps not. Otherwise, content yourself with the knowledge that most of our customers already think you're bizarre.
Taylor grimaced. She had a point, even if Taylor didn't want to admit it. She'd tried to smile at customers, but… well, Turk's regulars were unnerved when they were served by someone with actual expressions. And she didn't like smiling. Out of practice. And Chorei hadn't been much given to smiling in life or in death. Being stone-faced was easier. And these days she didn't feel much like smiling anyway. She'd tried in the mirror, just to check that it was still possible. Not… quite right. Too rusty, her mouth squeaked when she tried to move it so unnaturally. There was a stiffness it had never before possessed, a hint of unfamiliarity. Harder than it once was. Fighting and training were easier than ever, but the idea of… going out, doing the things teenagers tended to do, those seemed faintly unattainable. She'd resigned herself to that fact. But sipping moonshine with an ex-mercenary as her birthday celebration, with a pair of guns as presents… it brought a lot of things into sharp relief.
A lot of things.
Anyway. Speaking of customers, there was one coming now - her swarm sensed a figure coming along the street. Just a single insect checked them over, her swarm was fairly dispersed at the moment. Instinctually she gathered a few more, making sure that any threat could be swiftly countered. The figure approached, closer - female, tall. Very tall, actually. Unnaturally so. Two more insects joined the first, ensuring that she remained a permanent fixture of Taylor's mental map of her whereabouts. Her work became robotic as she focused on keeping everything together - track the visitor, gather the swarm, move to places where an ambush could be executed swiftly and easy. A few flies checked the position of her guns - rifle, upstairs. Pistol, in a compartment beneath the counter. She unlocked it with one hand, preparing herself to draw and fire the moment it became necessary. Better safe than sorry.
The girl entered.
Something was wrong.
I cannot hear her footsteps.
Neither could Taylor. Her swarm identified the source of their confusion immediately, before her eye could do much more than flick to study the girl's face. Familiar. The swarm was a distraction, though. A few flies were perfectly in alignment, one right where the legs should be on a girl this tall… nothing. No legs. No feet. Her eye flicked downwards. Pants. Shoes. Empty air. Bad. Very bad. It said something that her first response was to check for the signs she'd become familiar with over the past few months. No shrivelled eyes, nothing that would suggest the influence of the Frenzied Flame. And she had none of the… ambiguity of the Five-Horned (as she'd taken to calling it when scribbling down notes, easier than writing 'the termite thing' over and over and over. More grandiose, too). She was downright overt, absolutely no hint of subtlety. None of Vandeerleuwe's ugliness, no shining scars, no centipedes or grafted limbs, nothing at all. Only when her mind had flicked through the weird forces she'd encountered did she come to the much, much more reasonable conclusion.
Parahuman.
Blonde. Flying. Openly - no reservation about being unmasked.
Only one cape she knew of which fit that description, only one in Brockton Bay. One with a very, very good reason to find her and turn her into a pretzel made entirely of flesh, broken bones, and screaming.
Glory Girl.
Oh no. She's found us.
Taylor's thoughts were less PG.
Fuck!
AN: OK, so, for anyone who read the original version of this back in the Apocrypha - the first chunk of this chapter should be very familiar. The rest is new, though. If you don't feel like reading it, here's the basic rundown on the small changes I've made. Skip this otherwise.
- Vicky dreams of nostalgia and tea, maybe giving her an inclination towards heading to the tea shop. Just a nudge.
- Vicky was intending to leave Brockton Bay at some point with Dean. He wanted to get away from his family, and so did she, especially after Amy was taken in by the PRT. Still hero work, but interested in branching out
- Vicky dreams of nostalgia and tea, maybe giving her an inclination towards heading to the tea shop. Just a nudge.
- Vicky was intending to leave Brockton Bay at some point with Dean. He wanted to get away from his family, and so did she, especially after Amy was taken in by the PRT. Still hero work, but interested in branching out
Vicky was not having a good day. Not remotely. She'd woken up on the wrong side of the bed with her hair all over the place, feeling like she'd somehow slept on every awkward spot conceivable. She didn't even know you could get pins and needles in some of those spots, but nonetheless, here she was. Needled and pinned. Dreams had been weird, too. Hardly remembered any of them, but… something familiar. Something achingly nostalgic. And there was a scent over it all, one that she could barely… right, tea, that was it. Only thing she really got out of that dream, really. Tea and nostalgia. Wild. She stepped down onto the floor… and flinched. It was almost summer, but somehow the hardwood floors of her house soaked up the cold from the winter and generously distributed it throughout the rest of the year. Could just have carpeting, but no, apparently good wooden floors were where it was at. She grumbled and floated the rest of the way to the bathroom.
She hesitated for a moment as she passed Amy's room - empty, all of her personal effects long since taken to her new PRT-approved pad. There had been some early discussion about using it as a storage room, but Vicky had kicked up enough of a fuss that the family had settled into an uneasy stalemate. It felt wrong, just pretending like she had never lived here. Hell, mom had put up some new photos from their last family outing earlier this year, and Vicky couldn't help but flinch every time she saw them - no mousy brown hair, no expression that crossed regularly between surliness and reluctant happiness, no endless freckles. If this rate kept up, soon enough their mantlepieces would be crowded with photos devoid of Amy, burying the older ones under the weight of years. There was probably a visual metaphor in that somewhere, but Vicky wasn't interested in finding it.
She kept on floating. Bathrooms were easy. No emotional baggage there. No pictures, no meaningful memories.
As she stepped into the shower, a thought presented itself. She shrugged. Might as well - usually helped cheer her up. Pinching her nose shut, she floated upwards and began to do somersaults in the middle of the expansive shower, muttering a muted 'wheeee' as she did so. It took a dozen rotations before she realised that it wasn't working, and she settled to a halt, grumbling. That usually worked, but today was an unusually cranky day, or so it seemed. Breakfast didn't improve her mood. She'd hoped for a fairly lonely breakfast, where she could gather her thoughts, plan out the remainder of her Saturday. God, this was her day off and she still felt tired, wasn't damn fair. Instead, her mother was sitting there, drinking a small cup of coffee, reading the newspaper with an intense expression. She glanced up sharply as her daughter floated down the stairs.
"Don't float everywhere, it's bad for your legs."
Vicky grunted noncommittally as she floated to the pantry, her feet very slightly grazing the ground as a small surrender to maternal authority. She floated back with a heaping mound of cereal, the most unhealthy brand she could possibly find. Her mother sniffed as she saw the titanic pile of chocolate and marshmallow-infused goodness. She turned back to her newspaper with a frown when Vicky started eating it morosely, shovelling spoonful after spoonful down with no care for appreciating the delicate flavours of this abomination against nutrition. As she felt her mother's gaze leave her, Vicky took more leave to glance around the room, practically eating by instinct alone. She didn't even like this cereal all that much, and eating in general was a chore and a half, just a mindless way to fill up the empty minutes. Her mother was resolutely reading her newspaper, scanning it intensely as if trying her best to pretend there was no-one else in the room. Things had been awkward ever since the Conflagration - everyone else had been en route to the Leviathan fight, but the moment Vicky had heard about the bomb in the mall she'd just left, the same mall that presumably still contained Dean, she'd catapulted out of the tiltrotor and had soared back with all due haste.
Too late, though. Dean was already gone. Vanished, and no-one knew where. She'd hunted all over the city, desperately trying to find any sign of him. Nothing. Just chaos and monsters. She'd fought them as best she could, trying to help people get to the Endbringer shelters. They'd been relentless, and there were just so many. The PRT had to call in an old cargo vessel just to haul all the bodies out to the Rig for processing - Vicky had the unfortunate fate of being up in the air that day, downwind of the ocean. The stink was… quite something. Her costume still faintly smelled of the weird dusty sweetness that the bodies exuded after death, no matter how many times she washed it. During that horrible night, she'd done everything she should have done, saved civilians, protected the city, acted like a hero should. On her own, no less - she'd met startlingly few capes out on the streets, mostly just PRT troopers. The heroes she could understand, they were busy in Miami, but the villains? Typical. Claim that you're protecting the neighbourhood, your 'people', making sure they stay safe and sound… then turn tail and run the moment things get just a little bit 'completely on fire'. But despite all her work, she couldn't save Dean. She remembered flying to that tower in the pouring rain, seeing fire blooming from it, seeing the buildings surrounding it collapse into rubble… and finding nothing but a twisted, charred body, and what remained of Dean staring open-eyed into the rain.
And like that, her life had dropped out from beneath her. It had been bad enough without Amy, bad enough with the agreements the PRT put before them. Her mother had explained everything, over and over, trying to convince her that this was the best option for everyone. Amy was an incredibly valuable healer, they said. She'd be under immense pressure to do her job at all times, they said. The risk of emotional or physical breakdown was too substantial, the consequences of such a breakdown too disastrous, to allow her to operate freely. In PRT custody, she'd have staff working with her at all times to make sure she was in fighting shape, implants to monitor and guard against mental breakdown. That sounded reasonable as grounds for regular mandatory therapy sessions, maybe a permanent handler, but not for being locked up in the Rig like some pet monkey. It'd taken her a while to figure out why her parents had accepted the deal, mostly by sneaking a look at some paperwork she was definitely not allowed to see. What she'd found had been… unpleasant.
Independent hero groups cost a lot, she knew that. She'd seen her mother worrying about bills, poring over spreadsheets and trying to scrape together some extra cash. She remembered it being a lot worse when she was younger, though. The paperwork told her more than she wanted to know… more than she'd like to have hidden from her, though. The PRT had always agreed to cover between 10-50% of the cost of all property damages caused while doing heroic cape work. Standard deal for independent groups like New Wave. Sounded good on paper, until you realised that a single errant blast could rack up millions in damages. And half a million was still half a million. New Wave was mostly composed of blasters and brutes, of course they caused property damage when they went up against villains. It wasn't deliberate, just… inevitable.
Especially when the villains realised they were reluctant to damage anything, and did their best to force them into positions where they had to in order to keep fighting. If they had a choice between demolishing a wall to rescue a hostage and leaving that hostage to die, they'd always choose the former, they weren't monsters. But walls were surprisingly pricey, as it turned out. With Amy under the PRT's supervision, though… the paperwork said they'd treat New Wave as a 'secure, reliable, and valuable ally, warranting substantial support to ensure their continued functionality'. 95-100% of costs, not to mention shared patrol routes, access to PRT resources and support, they even threw in subsidised dental care and priority access to Amy's powers. The whole thing stank. They'd sold Amy.
And then the PRT had swooped back in for the whole Conflagration mess. Oh, they had excuses, long excuses with plenty of citations and support. Doctors said he could recover, that physically he was still mostly fine, that there was always a chance of his brain healing - powers made everything complicated, there were no 'guaranteed' medical diagnoses anymore. Amy couldn't do brains, but one day there might be a tinker or a healer who could. But, publicly, the PRT insisted that he was dead. With his shrivelled eye, where he was found, and who he was lying next to… the PRT said it would cause a public panic if that knowledge made it into the public sphere. If Ordeal knew the civilian identities of Wards, he could have known the identities of other Capes too, heroes and villains both. His gang hadn't been totally apprehended, so he could have told a whole group of people before he died or vanished. That would be bad enough, but all the bodies of the people he mastered also had shrivelled eyes dripping with boiling yellow fluid. Best to let Gallant die, and for Dean to lie comatose in a hospital bed for as long as was necessary. No point starting a debate over a potentially mastered Ward, inciting public hysteria for no reason. It stunk, as badly as the Amy deal had stunk. It wasn't heroic, it felt calculating, brutal, like something a corporate cape would do, or a villain. A dead Gallant sacrificing himself for civilians played better with the public than 'Gallant had his mind burned out, was possibly mastered, and all of this was done by a villain who possibly knew his civilian identity'. The former was heroic. The latter was complicated, raised too many questions.
And questions were inconvenient.
She'd fought loudly with her parents when they'd brought the NDA out. Hadn't yelled like that since Amy had left, honestly.
She'd had plans with Dean.
Plans for leaving. Making something of themselves elsewhere. He could get away from his dad, from his dad's company. She could try and be a hero in a place with marginally less baggage. It wasn't cowardice, she told herself. Just moving on. Fresh start.
Plans.
Gone, now.
All gone.
She floated back upstairs, still morosely crunching the remains of her cereal. Her room felt cold, and she tried to muster some enthusiasm for the one project that was giving her some kind of purpose these days. Better than dwelling on Dean or Amy. She opened up her wardrobe, parted some of her clothes… and there it was. The Board - so important that it deserved a capital B. A few pictures and many scraps of paper strung across a cork board, connected by coloured string. She hadn't put together a proper system for what the colours meant, but it felt like a good place to start. She looked to the centre of her elegantly constructed web, scratching her chin thoughtfully. A note reading 'shrivelled eye' connected to the silhouette marked 'Ordeal'. Also connected was 'mud ball', 'bomb tinker', 'changer/blaster?' and a whole raft of others.
She'd marked down every lead, every potential cape working with Ordeal, every object and site connected to his work. She only had publicly available pictures, but she had managed to scavenge a surprisingly large amount. But the connections eluded her. What was Ordeal's powerset? Who had killed him, and how? And why had they vanished afterwards instead of claiming credit like a normal person? She had hunted through every forum, every wiki, every book she could scavenge from the university's library that mentioned anything like this. No parahuman acted like this, no parahuman hid in the shadows and blew up a building without once announcing their existence. Even Teacher, the goddamn poster-child for criminal masterminds, had announced himself once he'd committed his largest crimes.
Some of her teachers thought it was because parahumans often had emotional issues particularly connected to weakness or helplessness, and cultivating a larger-than-life public persona was a reflexive coping mechanism. Thinkers especially - triggering because of knowing too little, abruptly becoming the smartest person in the room… well, none of that spelled out subtlety. These were the teachers with psychiatric backgrounds… others suspected there was something to be found in the neurological changes inherent to a trigger event; they tended to be more biological in their interests. And it wasn't just Ordeal, he had a gang, a cult even, and none of them had declared their names. One of the few solid leads she had was the Cornell Bomber - appeared, held a university hostage, then vanished. Soon enough, bombs were striking Brockton Bay, but the Cornell Bomber had, according to all reports, been extravagant and bombastic. Not some cunning snake-in-the-grass, content to tinker and not to claim credit. Vanishing and silently bombing a city at the orders of someone else just didn't gel.
Had Ordeal been mastering people? How did he even go about that, mastering was a complex process which rarely came down to 'scaggity scone your freedom is gone', masters went about their work in very different ways. Emotional manipulation, muscular control, subliminal suggestions, hormone control, or something potent within a narrow range of use. There was range, duration, limitations on number of affected people or the complexity of the orders they could receive. And not all masters could control random people, a good number simply built or… birthed minions which were instinctually loyal. There was a procedure to masters, established patterns which were commonly associated with them.
Ordeal hadn't fit the psychological profile, and he'd demonstrated unusual maturity - hiding, waiting, acting in the shadows - which suggested experience. Where were the sloppy first tries, the messy attempts when he was still figuring everything out? And was it even a 'he' - she knew nothing about the thing she'd found on the rooftop, it was too deformed to determine anything beyond 'it's real damn spooky'. And it was spooky, that much was absolutely true. It was… hard to explain. Like seeing a prehistoric tree stump, the kind that were impossibly preserved throughout the millennia. And looking at it, you couldn't help but imagine what else had been there, the brain struggling to find a pattern where none existed. Looking at that body elicited the same reaction, but stronger. The pattern was shattered and impossible to piece together, but the ghost of it remained. A faint outline in the air, forming something that… made her eyes itch when she tried to imagine it.
She stopped thinking about the body.
She had enough headaches already.
Had Heartbreaker suddenly gone more delusional? No, all the news reports suggested he was still in Canada. Valefor? Nope, he'd been in Miami shrieking about the End Times. Any other famous masters? Nope, the ones that were powerful enough to do something like this were tracked at all times. So who the fuck had done this, and what the fuck was their power?! And where were their accomplices?! Just… gah! Her Board of Infinite Madness was sealed back behind the wardrobe, and Vicky leant back against it, nostrils flaring in irritation. That goddamn Board was a rabbit hole, no, a black hole that sucked up time and gave back nothing in return. And she was adamant to remain unslurped.
Needed to get some air.
With a grunt, she floated out of the front door, squinting in the bright sunlight. It was much warmer now, but the air hung heavy with moisture. Leviathan's attacks always did this, apparently. Too much water in the air, evaporating from the flooded remains of whatever city he'd levelled, turning whole swathes of a country into damp swamps for a little while. Brockton hadn't been too badly hit, apparently. Miami must somehow be more a swamp than usual right now, she mused, before shuddering. The thought alone was unpleasant. She pondered what to do - it was a Saturday, she had an entire… god, she had hours before she was able to climb back into bed.
Most of her friends from Arcadia had bailed, left town, were still in the process of moving back after the dust had settled. The Wards were nice enough, but… well, they weren't friends. And she'd been introduced to them through Dean, had known their idiosyncrasies and habits through Dean, and meet-ups with them had always included Dean. Too many painful memories. She ran through the list of places she knew and could vaguely stand visiting. Coffee shops? No, the best ones were associated with Dean, the worst ones weren't worth visiting, and the ones in the middle had already drained enough of her allowance. Cafes? Same as coffee shops. Libraries? She was briefly interested by that idea, momentarily entertained by the prospect of sitting in a quiet pile of books, maybe getting on with some of the work for her parahuman studies class.
But no matter how she tried to encourage herself, her brain simply refused to spark into motion, her body refused to snap to attention. She scowled. This had been happening for days. She knew what she should be getting up to, knew that she had hobbies which interested her, motivated her. But none of them were doing anything, not at the moment, not since Dean had been put into his seemingly permanent coma. Everything had been drained of colour, her old hobbies felt like childish entertainment. Her home felt like a foreign country, one with a language she didn't speak and didn't understand. And day by day her memories of Amy, Dean… they were becoming sepia-tinted, gradually losing their colour and vividness. Nothing that had once entertained her continued to do so. God, she was being dramatic today. She took off into the sky, trying to forget everything, focusing on the sunshine. The city spread before her in a great concrete tapestry, the scars left by the Conflagration far too visible for comfort - big sooty marks where towers used to be, spreading patches where buildings had been stained grey by billowing dust, roads looking like pockmarked faces after rubble had collapsed onto them. And that was ignoring the myriad tiny deformities left behind by the bombing campaign.
A thought occurred.
There was a part of town she hadn't visited in a while. But she'd heard good things about the shops there - it was a bit run-down, too run-down for Dean to take her out there for any dates, too far away to be conveniently visited on her own most days… but she was in the mood for some tea, hard to say why. Maybe it was the dream, but that thought vanished as quickly as the memories of the dream itself, leaving behind only the inclination. Ah, what the hell. She had a day to kill - not just waste, but a proper premeditated murder of hours, hacking through each one until she arrived back in her bed, until she could get back to the work that at least kept her vaguely entertained. Or sleep. Whichever came first. And if there was one thing she understood, it was that there was nothing more miserable than lying awake fully aware that a day was wasted and the next will suffer the same fate. Needed to tire herself out a little. She soared in a particular direction, blonde hair flying behind her.
Eh, might as well.
* * *
Taylor was having a… day. Rigorous exercise in the morning to keep her alert, to tighten herself up, to force her muscles to stay firmly attached to her bones instead of sloughing off in a heap. No practice with her new guns, not until she had some time to head to a firing range. Or to the protein farm, whichever opportunity came sooner. Her desk was crowded with papers, most of them nonsensical - scraps from Arch's books committed to writing, half-hearted theories on what was going on. None of it tied into anything cohesive, of course. Just… ramblings. She had far too little evidence for these termite things, just scraps of data from her time in that city, a few anecdotes she'd managed to squeeze out of Parian to corroborate her own observations, and the scholarship that seemed vaguely relevant. Nothing satisfying. Not like with Chorei, where it felt like delving into something older and vaster than her. Not like with Bisha, where every article, every book, all of it felt like she was slowly but surely piecing together the face of her enemy. Appropriately, these things were ambiguous. They existed only in the margins of research, never the main focus, only something vaguely hinted at by authors concerned with more serious things. Burrowed deep into data, sleeping quietly, moving slightly when she dug them out.
And at the centre of it all, the image of the Five-Horned Bull. The Quinotaur. The father of a dynasty, a god powerful enough to be associated with the first Merovingian. A god feared enough that it could only be represented in Çatalhöyük in buildings about to be consigned to the flames. Always at the edge of understanding, never the main event. An origin, but not the apex. Margins but never the centre. And every time she wrestled with the data and failed to come to a conclusion, she felt as though the Five-Horned was somehow mocking her. She felt long, long fingers creep around a doorframe, heard something chuckling in the distance, felt her skin itch with welts that had long-since departed. They couldn't even attack her mind properly, only hovered around the fringes, retreating the moment she noticed them.
She'd started locking all her doors at night. Just in case. And when she turned the lights off in the shop, when she went upstairs to sleep, she felt… she felt like there might be something behind her. Something growling quietly, a roar like the crashing sea, and in her more fanciful moments she thought she imagined the screams of the woman who'd been plucked from the bank, dragged into the deep while her family watched silently from the fringes, unwilling or unable to intervene. She felt hot breath on the back of her neck, and… then it was gone. The feeling was only there for a second. Just long enough to know it had existed… but never enough for her to do anything with it. No time for confrontation, analysis, or engagement…
She shambled downstairs, the exercise not serving much purpose for her mind. All of it just felt… woolly. The encounter with Turk and his nephew hadn't helped. Just made her think that she was becoming obsessed, that she needed to move on. But she couldn't. She had a job, and… she could barely pretend to herself anymore. When she looked in the mirror she saw a single tired, tired eye, a pale face that occasionally flushed after an intense bout of exercise, and… a flash of gold teeth. A few scars poking above the neck of her shirt. A black patch covering up the vacant hole that had once been her eye. When things were calm, all she had was a thick, stuffy feeling in her throat, a grittiness on her skin, and the sensation of her eye socket aching. Phantom pain. Nothing more. But the ache became worse when she had nothing to do but regular, repetitive work. Clean the teapots. Her eye socket would ache. Scrub the kettles. Her fingernails would itch. Serve customers, keep her face blank, and all the while she'd feel like she could punch someone in the face if they came too close.
She wasn't violent by nature, she kept telling herself.
Just energy which didn't know where to go.
Couldn't turn the reactor off. Couldn't just let it die away. Had to keep it running. Who cares if the world didn't need it anymore?
At least she had company during the long, long hours.
Usurper, I have been… thinking, over these last few days.
"That's unusual."
Silence, impudent one. I have been thinking. In my time, birthdays were not celebrated commonly - especially not for those of my status.
"Your family was pretty rich, right? I mean, you owned land. If I remember correctly."
Or would it be 'if you remember correctly'? Dammit, why wasn't there a proper vocabulary to refer to the immortal nun living inside her skull. One that wasn't part of a psychological diagnosis. Chorei seemed to be waving her hand dismissively.
Rich by the standards of our village. By the standards of even a moderately successful merchant, we were one step removed from being paupers. By the standards of a mid-sized cadet branch of a greater family, we were barely elevated from peasants. Your upbringing was, I believe, more luxurious than mine.
"...OK, point made. Sorry."
Hmph. Birthdays were not celebrated in my time. And by the time they were celebrated, I was… a little too old. And busy. Only after the Americans invaded, when things were too chaotic for me to think of getting my cultists to make me a cake. And it felt wrong to celebrate my birth, when there were other events far more serious to consider. Escape, survival, reproduction…
"Uh-huh."
But now my vows are gone. My duty is no more. Even my centipede has departed.
She paused.
I would like a birthday, I think.
Her voice was oddly… hesitant. Even faintly nervous. She was struggling with this. Taylor thought she glimpsed a hint of why. She was a firmly disconnected individual. Even in life she'd been set apart from the world in a very, very obvious way. America had been a strange, frightening place on her arrival, but it had attractions she had found some joy in. Food. Films. Film stars, particularly. And apparently birthdays. Something that was hers and simultaneously completely new. Connected to her homeland, but not so connected it was painful to recall. A little bit of pageantry, all for herself. But still, too busy. Too much work. Too embarrassing. But now… no limits. Taylor remembered her own 'birthday'- a few drinks and a pair of guns from an old friend. A reminder of how she might've gone too far this time, become too paranoid, too obsessed. She'd tempered her approach, she promised herself that. No more endless stakeouts, just… once every few days. Arch was working away, nothing major yet. Sanagi had promised to let her know if anything happened on her end - and promised to meet up as soon as possible. Too much work. If Chorei wanted a proper birthday, sure. Why not? Might even be fun.
"No objections here. So… when is it?"
I don't know.
"What?"
We reckoned our dates by a different calendar. A Chinese calendar, but I understand that the calendar has shifted in the last few centuries, and it was already altered by being in Japan… there is much that is uncertain. Not least… well, it's difficult to remember. It was a very long time ago.
"Alright, so… you could just make up a birthday."
…would that be appropriate?
"I won't tell if you won't."
…I suppose no-one but us knows any better. Hm. How about today?
"If you want me to go and buy some cheap cake, sure. If you want something I need to prepare for…"
Oh, no, no, no, no cheap cakes. I find them repulsive. I think my birthday shall require preparation. Yes, I shall require… I shall require a steak dinner. Steak, and whiskey, and… and a film! Oh, and broccoli fried with anchovies! And there must be a present of some description - yes, a present. A gift. Tribute!
She was growing more excitable, shedding her years with each word. When she began she was ancient. By the time she talked about steak, she was simply very, very old. When she declared her desire for tribute, she was practically no older than Taylor - maybe even a little younger. The woman had… issues. Still, the idea of throwing the woman who lived in her head a birthday party felt not quite as insane as it probably was. She'd forgotten her own - and to be blunt, Chorei seemed more likely to remember her own birthday than Taylor was. Much more likely. Especially if there was 'tribute' involved. Hell, Taylor could get behind a steak dinner and a movie. Felt quiet. Easy to prepare. No idea about the broccoli, though. She murmured as she cleaned out a tea caddy, making it ready for a new load of rich, dark leaves, each one curled into a delicate coil, sliver piled on sliver until the glass container was fit to burst.
"Well, as long as you don't just want a pile of burgers…"
Of course not, too many burgers diminishes their value. No, a steak. A proper steak. I long for one - the enormous ones that you Americans so enjoy.
"Not really a steak person, but sure. I can go for that."
And whiskey!
"...like, Japanese whiskey?"
No, Kentucky whiskey! Bourbon!
"Huh."
What?
"Never thought of you as a Kentucky whiskey person, I guess."
What, did you think I would enjoy sake?
Taylor felt like she was walking around broken glass. Chorei's tone was dangerous - but her tone was always dangerous, no matter how young she sounded, she was still the person that had threatened to use her as an incubator for her centipede's eggs and had actively tried to overpower her mind. When wasn't her voice dangerous in some way?
"...maybe?"
A snort. Casual. Derisive. Good.
Typical American. No, no sake for me. Too familiar, and I only ever drank it in my childhood, at certain meals. Far too familiar for comfort. Beer is bad for my - and your - figure. Furthermore, it tastes of urine. Vodka tastes of nothing at all. Gin is a little too sharp. Cocktails are perplexing. No, no, whiskey. Forever and always. And never that awful… moon stuff you insist on drinking from time to time.
"Alright, Kentucky whiskey. I'll… see if I can find some. What about the date?"
Anytime.
"How about when you got into my head?"
Thematically appropriate, but an entire year away from now. Unacceptable. With your lifestyle, neither of us may be alive then. Perhaps… it is June, yes?
"Yep."
December, then. I adore the snow.
"December it is. Any particular date?"
…ask the next customer to pick a random number between one and thirty-one.
"Really?"
If you can find a die with thirty-one sides, then perhaps not. Otherwise, content yourself with the knowledge that most of our customers already think you're bizarre.
Taylor grimaced. She had a point, even if Taylor didn't want to admit it. She'd tried to smile at customers, but… well, Turk's regulars were unnerved when they were served by someone with actual expressions. And she didn't like smiling. Out of practice. And Chorei hadn't been much given to smiling in life or in death. Being stone-faced was easier. And these days she didn't feel much like smiling anyway. She'd tried in the mirror, just to check that it was still possible. Not… quite right. Too rusty, her mouth squeaked when she tried to move it so unnaturally. There was a stiffness it had never before possessed, a hint of unfamiliarity. Harder than it once was. Fighting and training were easier than ever, but the idea of… going out, doing the things teenagers tended to do, those seemed faintly unattainable. She'd resigned herself to that fact. But sipping moonshine with an ex-mercenary as her birthday celebration, with a pair of guns as presents… it brought a lot of things into sharp relief.
A lot of things.
Anyway. Speaking of customers, there was one coming now - her swarm sensed a figure coming along the street. Just a single insect checked them over, her swarm was fairly dispersed at the moment. Instinctually she gathered a few more, making sure that any threat could be swiftly countered. The figure approached, closer - female, tall. Very tall, actually. Unnaturally so. Two more insects joined the first, ensuring that she remained a permanent fixture of Taylor's mental map of her whereabouts. Her work became robotic as she focused on keeping everything together - track the visitor, gather the swarm, move to places where an ambush could be executed swiftly and easy. A few flies checked the position of her guns - rifle, upstairs. Pistol, in a compartment beneath the counter. She unlocked it with one hand, preparing herself to draw and fire the moment it became necessary. Better safe than sorry.
The girl entered.
Something was wrong.
I cannot hear her footsteps.
Neither could Taylor. Her swarm identified the source of their confusion immediately, before her eye could do much more than flick to study the girl's face. Familiar. The swarm was a distraction, though. A few flies were perfectly in alignment, one right where the legs should be on a girl this tall… nothing. No legs. No feet. Her eye flicked downwards. Pants. Shoes. Empty air. Bad. Very bad. It said something that her first response was to check for the signs she'd become familiar with over the past few months. No shrivelled eyes, nothing that would suggest the influence of the Frenzied Flame. And she had none of the… ambiguity of the Five-Horned (as she'd taken to calling it when scribbling down notes, easier than writing 'the termite thing' over and over and over. More grandiose, too). She was downright overt, absolutely no hint of subtlety. None of Vandeerleuwe's ugliness, no shining scars, no centipedes or grafted limbs, nothing at all. Only when her mind had flicked through the weird forces she'd encountered did she come to the much, much more reasonable conclusion.
Parahuman.
Blonde. Flying. Openly - no reservation about being unmasked.
Only one cape she knew of which fit that description, only one in Brockton Bay. One with a very, very good reason to find her and turn her into a pretzel made entirely of flesh, broken bones, and screaming.
Glory Girl.
Oh no. She's found us.
Taylor's thoughts were less PG.
Fuck!
140 - Stage Fright
GraftingBuddha
Retired Pooh-Bah
140 - Stage Fright
Glory Girl had found her.
Violent delights had violent ends.
It felt… fair, in a way. She'd fucked up with Gallant. Gotten him killed when she could've done better, she could've kept him alive if she had paid even a little more attention to his condition. Tried to make up for it with Parian, dragging her out of that termite nest, but… well, a right didn't correct a wrong. Saving Parian had felt good in the moment, felt good for a while, but then it had all started to drain away. When the leads dried up, when the research hit dead end after dead end, when everything started to get fuzzy and worn around the edges like a loose piece of felt… well, it was hard to get away from that dead eye staring unblinking at the falling rain. Glory Girl floated closer to the counter, and Taylor found herself feeling… almost resigned. Almost. For a second she was willing to accept what happened, something she'd earned, a fitting end to a short but bright career which had, she liked to think, contributed more than it destroyed. For a second, she let the blonde came closer and closer without any resistance or preparation. Just for a second. Then instincts kicked in. Her hand flicked to the gun. If necessary she could distract her - brute or no, light, sound, and pressure could stun anyone for a second. Beside the gun - a can of deodorant filled with something that certainly wasn't deodorant, and next to that a lighter. Brute or no, fire was fire. Distractions would give her time to retreat, get to a better position.
God, she was bright. Ever since grafting with Chorei, she'd been able to see who was a parahuman and who wasn't - an aura shimmered around them, flavoured indelibly by their power. For Sanagi it was a faint dusting of stars around her skull and the sound of clicking. For Gallant it had been rushes of emotion and flashes of colour, and a constant sensation of being watched in some way. For Mouse Protector it was shards of light rapidly appearing and disappearing, never remaining still long enough for her to get a bead on them. And Glory Girl… was bright. She had a field of what she could only describe as gravity around her. Everything seemed to revolve around her, nothing was permitted to exist which wasn't inflected by her presence. The wood grain beneath her feet seemed, for a second, to accord to a different pattern, one that flowed inwards so that she became the culmination of the entire room - a centre that shifted, surrounded by a field of lines that shifted along with her. A blink, and the impression was gone - but all the lights seemed to point towards her, creating a spotlight. She wasn't sure if it was terrifyingly impressive, or cloying - it highlighted the bags under her eyes, the faintly stringy quality of her hair, the way she was ever-so-slightly hunched - a hunch that vanished as she approached.
Reposition. Plan. Escape.
Those were her only options.
If she had a better position, she could get to something more potent, something to keep her pinned long enough for her to escape to a safe position. Her insects could gather in proper numbers. Glory Girl was an Alexandria package - flying, tough, and that was about all she knew. PHO was of limited use, too much speculation, not enough hard evidence or reliable sources. Even heroic capes would keep elements of their powers hidden, and Glory Girl was no exception. How did her invulnerability work? Hm. Strangulation could be an option, perhaps just stuffing her mouth with bees until she stood still. A hostage would be ideal - but she'd come without any partners, any backup. Excessively arrogant, appropriately confident, or simply ill-informed? The swarm found no-one else who resembled a cape in the vicinity. Here without approval? Entirely possible, going on a one-person revenge quest didn't seem like something New Wave would sign off on. Especially not out of costume. What was the point of that, actually - why turn up with nothing but her normal clothes? Any surprise had been lost the moment she floated through the door, and she was a fairly recognisable individual. More thoughts, more plans, more contingencies, all of them flowing through her mind at a hundred miles an hour. Her eye was fixed on Glory Girl, one hand was kept above the counter, the other was gripping the pistol tightly. Vatslav knew his business, this thing felt good.
I am alarmed that you have not run. In that case, may I put in my suggestion - run.
Chorei paused, and Taylor drummed her fingers lightly, silently indicating for her to go on.
This one is dangerous. I did my research when I established myself here - and she was one object of significant tension. She occupied the demographics my cult typically exploited, and at one time she actually took a sample lesson. We stayed far, far away, made no moves to capture her. She is strong, she is unsubtle, she is impulsive, and she has two families of parahumans ready to lend support at a moment's notice, not to mention the rest of the PRT. Listen well when I say to run, for I do not ask it frivolously. Run.
In any other circumstance, Taylor would actually obey. This was a bad situation. But she could fly - running would require a distraction of some kind. As the girl floated closer… she made no moves to attack. No murderousness was in her eyes, just a faint curiosity. Only a few seconds had passed - any element of surprise she might have gained was now long-lost. If Chorei was right, if she was impulsive… this seemed an odd course of action.
Run. Run. Run.
She wasn't attacking. She didn't even look threatening, just… floating a few inches above the ground. Her hands weren't curled into fists, her arms weren't braced for any impacts. Taylor had seen people getting ready for a fight, people who anticipated imminent violence. And none of those signs appeared on the cape's person. Her eyes were wrong. They were faintly unfocused, drifting from one thing to another, nothing remotely important. There was no strategic value in a table with nothing on it - no, wait, she was a brute, anything throwable had strategic value. But even if she was planning something, she wasn't focusing on anything long enough. Just idle glances, nothing catching her attention properly. If she wanted to fight Taylor, she'd have her eyes fixed, she'd be twitchy, she'd be focused, there wouldn't be any of this… mundane fidgeting. Unless that was what she was planning - get her off guard. Her hand tightened around the pistol. Aim for something other than the face. Chest, possibly. Easier to hit. She came closer - accuracy became non-issue. The knee, then. The inside of the elbow. Non-fatal, even for a non-brute, but enough to stun her for a moment. If she was halfway invulnerable… the crotch, maybe. No-one got up after being shot in the crotch, even a brute would need a moment.
Closer.
She looked tired.
"Sorry, is this place open?"
What?
What? Seriously, what? Why would… was this another bluff? She was already close, was this just her toying with Taylor? Come on, get it over with - fight her, insult her, do something predictable, don't just… ask if this place was open. She'd let Gallant die, and now she was just stewing in her own ennui, waiting for something to come along to fight because she was too cowardly to confront anything which hurt. Her mouth hardened. Come on, come on, come on - fight her! Do something!
"Hello?"
Mocking. Well, two could play at that game. Her voice was tense, her hand was still clasped around her gun. She wouldn't be caught off guard. She'd fought Bisha, she could handle one flying brick who thought she could play a few mind games. She'd had several fights inside her own mind, she was a professional at mind games, she had experience. Now, if only she could invite Glory Girl into her own brain for a quick tussle, then maybe that experience could pay off. As it was, she was feeling tense and pissed. Pissed and tense. Pense. Tissed. She was ready to shoot something or someone.
Good morning, this is your sanity calling, just wondering if there's going to be any hold up with running away, because I distinctly remember telling you to run away.
Chorei was not her sanity. Chorei was the opposite of her sanity. The fact that the two were agreeing on almost everything at the moment was irrelevant.
"Hello."
"Uh, hi. Is this… place open?"
"Yes."
Her teeth were pressed together, it was an effort to get them open for sound to pass through. Glory Girl was looking a little nervous - good, be nervous, her game had been cottoned on to.
"So… do I just… sit down anywhere?"
"Sure."
"...uh, cool."
She paused, then floated backwards to a table. Good spatial awareness, yet more indications of her capacity for planning, she'd definitely scouted this place out, or had anticipated some kind of conflict which necessitated properly analysing everything around her. She tried to not maintain eye contact, but it was obvious she felt uncomfortable with letting Taylor out of her sight. Ergo, floating backwards like some kind of… airborne Michael Jackson with less dramatic cheekbones. God, stress was giving her strange thoughts.
She is sitting, this is an ideal oppo- oh no, she has a table at her disposal. Gun, gun, gun, gun, gun, use the gun you silly American, why are you so willing to use it at every time but the most pivotal?!
Gun was still an option. For now. What else did she… no, just the gun, the improvised flamethrower, and that was it. Nothing useful at close-range, just a knife she'd taken to keeping in one of her boots. Useless against a brute. Her swarm, though, had gathered in large enough numbers positioned around the right entry points. It would take a moment to descend, long enough for Glory Girl to hurt her badly. Her hands itched - if necessary, she could do what she did with Parian. A temporary grafting, not complete, not remotely cohesive, but enough to stun her. Overwhelm her with memories and run. Right. She had weapons, good. Excellent, even. She remained behind the counter, making a show of polishing a teacup slowly and carefully. Glory Girl twiddled her thumbs - bracing herself for battle, loosening up her joints. Subtle, but not subtle enough. A second passed… and her voice cut through the air, almost making Taylor jump. Almost. It certainly made Chorei squeak like an alarmed rodent.
"So… tea, right?"
She coughed awkwardly.
"I mean, this place serves tea? I… heard it sells tea."
"Yes. This is a tea shop."
Smooth, Taylor, mucho smooth. Sounded exactly like a proper human with nothing to hide. Chorei made no comment, she'd decided to use her noncorporeal state to its fullest advantage by wailing at a pitch no human should be able to reach. Thankfully, this was all happening in Taylor's head, which meant the sound couldn't exactly jar her ears or do anything more than… well, be vaguely annoying. She was fine. Absolutely fine. And Glory Girl was leaning back in her seat, continuing to brace herself for battle by twiddling her thumbs aggressively, continuing to adamantly refuse to fight her, to confront her, to do the thing she was meant to do. There was no way this was all just a coincidence - that a cape who had every reason to hate her had come to a tea shop where she worked at the precise time she was working, specifically quite early in the morning so there would be no witnesses.
"...any recommendations? Sorry, never been before, so…"
She shrugged helplessly.
She was good. Whatever her mind game was, it was working. She was about to explode. Genuinely explode, like Ted had spiked her awful tea with a tiny bomb now ticking away in her guts. Well, if she exploded, Glory Girl would get to sit there covered in gore, probably regretting that she didn't get this over with as quickly as possible, before the stress-induced detonation occurred. Right. Recommendations. Play it cool, play it cool, she was… she was James Bond, she was Maggie Holt in the kingdom of the wasp-dragons, she was a fucking cucumber soaked in liquid nitrogen.
I can't read your thoughts, but based on how you're trying to relax your face, you're attempting to be calm and collected. You're not calm and collected, you're two seconds away from imploding.
Exploding, thank you very much. Imploding was something one did after a period of sustained embarrassment, exploding was what one did after stress. Chorei wouldn't know, she'd had a centipede instead of a spine for a very, very long time, probably had dosed her brain in enough pheromones to make implosion/explosion entirely impossible. Did centipedes make pheromones? Pheromones - scents - aromas - tea. Right, she'd asked for recommendations. Play it cool. She was definitely James Bond but with one eye and worse taste in food.
"It's all good."
She paused. Needed more than that. Become the cucumber, be the cucumber, look into the mirror and see nothing more than an unnaturally animated creeping vine fruit. She had no eye and she was a schizophrenic cucumber.
"...we have a good blend of Earl Grey and lapsang souchong."
There, that was adequate, she had sentences. Glory Girl nodded. She nodded. Nothing more, she wasn't flying over, she didn't shriek some battle cry, she didn't drop any hints. Oh no, she was speaking.
"Oh, that sounds great. I'll go for that."
Turn. Use the swarm to keep an eye on her - her ploy to make her turn her back wouldn't amount to anything, she could still reach her gun, she could still cover her eyes with bugs. Nothing had changed. But the ball was in her court - Glory Girl had made her play. And Taylor had already countered it. Unless she already knew about the bugs and would charge through any distractions regardless - two kettles present, one already full of warm water. Bring it to a boil. Faceful of steam should distract her. Get ready to duck. If she predicted that, lunge forwards, grab the gun, fire a few times, grab the flamethrower. Her hand was poised over the gas - fill the shop with just a little, give the flamethrower some oomph that the cape wouldn't expect. A voice - she almost executed her plan then and there.
"Sorry, but… what's this place actually called? I didn't see a sign on the way in."
Oh no, she noticed. I told you that we should have attended to that, nuts to your Slavic friend's sign-related sensibilities.
Play it cool. She was fine. A twitch, and Chorei was handling the hands situation. Taylor could take over in a second if necessary, but it was nice to delegate certain duties to someone else. It was just tea - even the paranoid nun could handle that easily enough. Even if she was a moment away from having a panic attack. Eh, they were both close to panicking, she wasn't special. She kept her voice low, level, cool. Her shit was together. Her shit was a black hole it was so together, her shit was attracting small moons it was so together, her shit was influencing spacetime it was so completely and utterly together.
"I don't know either. Owner never mentioned it, and I forgot to ask."
She shrugged. Easier than continuing to speak. She tried to emulate Turk - Glory Girl was being adamant in her refusal to engage. A spark of doubt flared up - was this just a coincidence? Was this entire situation the ungodly incestuous child of paranoia, boredom, and guilt? Guilt and paranoia had a child, the child then had a child with boredom, and the resulting spawn then mated with paranoia and the final creature mated with guilt. And now that creature was giving boredom a little side-eye, just to turn this family tree into a family circle. Even if this was just a coincidence, Glory Girl was still a threat. Hm. Maybe… just distract her, keep her at a distance, let her leave without any second thoughts. Time to disobey every instinct honed from catering to the customers who came to this place, time to be a bad tea shop… waitress? Minder? Teamaker? Time to be a bad teamaker.
"...huh. Alright, fair enough."
The cape paused.
"Sorry, mind if I keep talking? Forgot to bring a book."
She was calm, she was the centre of the universe, she'd dealt with worse than this.
"Sure."
"...nice place, worked here long?"
"A few weeks."
"Good job?"
"Good enough."
"Any interesting customers?"
"...not really."
Would this girl not just shut up? Just… sit there, take the tea, drink the tea, leave, never return. Let this entire embarrassment come to an end. It was fairly obvious that she wasn't here for violence, but she still had every reason to begin violence if the right information was brought to light. And that information was, at present, much more likely to emerge than it had been a few minutes ago, when she wasn't inside this shop and likely had no idea who Taylor was or where she worked. The infinite unknowns were coalescing into something definite, and Taylor did not like it.
I sense irritation. Be aware that the irritation is shared. She… is being calm. But we ought to play things safe, hm? Feel the tranquillity that only years of meditation can produce. Navigate this situation, and when it is concluded, we shall feast on something fatty and distinctly unhealthy.
Calmness radiated from her. It almost worked, if she didn't pay attention to the seething undercurrent of terrified paranoia. Still, the two were operating in tandem. She was being nice and taciturn, doing everything necessary to provide a poor impression. But the tea… she'd do it properly. Professional pride and practicality in perfect alignment. If she made an awful teapot, she might spark conflict, might linger in her memory. Still, no reason to get fancy. Ah, snacks - definitely necessary. Earl Grey and lapsang souchong paired with… hm. Teacake, the one with a little lemon peel. Paired well with the bergamot. She carefully cut a slice, not too thick, not too thin, soft enough to be easily cut apart with the side of a fork… the tea was ready. She lost herself in the haze for a moment, welcoming the aura of calm that Chorei was trying so very hard to produce. It was working. Good. Excellent, even. She poured it carefully, focusing on the minutiae of the activity while her swarm kept tabs on the cape behind her. Picquot ware for the teapot, a single piece of metal, no seams, better at retaining heat. Smooth pour. Recently scrubbed. Teacup… her fingers idled over a few choices, but she resolved fairly quickly on a wide, fairly flat teacup with a ring of green and gold around the rim. Matching saucer. Good for cooling, good for aroma. She was calm. She was fine.
The kettle boiled, and she sprang into motion, barely able to slow her movements down to something faintly normal. Wait for a moment, let the water cool so the flavour of the tea wouldn't be eradicated. Pour slowly, move in circular motions. No reason, just felt good to do it, made her feel nice and occupied. Her breathing was under control. She was fine. Plate everything up. Ready the swarm, ready herself for grafting - no access to the gun now. She stepped out from behind the counter and began the long walk to Glory Girl's table. Her aura continued to attract all attention… but as she stepped closer, it looked… hollow. Fragile, in a way. Attracting attention but incapable of handling pressure for long. Odd. She set the tray down quietly, and flipped the hourglass over. The near-imperceptible sound of white grains rustling against one another entered the air - inaudible if it wasn't for the unending awkward silence that she'd helped to cultivate.
"Wait until the timer's done. Then pour."
Smile? Maybe? No. Keep a stoic expression. Make no indication of being approachable. She was fine. Glory Girl nodded in thanks, and Taylor turned on her heel, returning to her little fortress. Where she had a gun, a flamethrower, and tea. All the things a growing lass needed. Polish the teapots. Check the tea leaves. Make sure the kettles were all doing their kettle-y thing, as kettles tended to do. But always worth checking. An unkettling kettle was something to be concerned about. All the kettles were kettling, she assured herself. Superb.
"Oh, sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Vicky."
Names are dangerous. I recommend a pseudonym.
And the last time Chorei had suggested a pseudonym she'd said 'Tomoe Schrodinger', which was painfully unbelievable. No, best to stick to the truth. Reduced any room for a disastrous mistake in future - a friend calling over using her real name, a document with her face and real name on it, something that could make Glory Girl think that she was hiding something. Which she was. But she didn't need to know that.
"Taylor. Nice to meet you."
Oh, she was improvising. Hoorah. Glory Girl - Vicky - shifted in her seat, watching the hourglass go by. She was struggling to find something to say - was this what people did these days? Constantly struggle for new things to say? Why couldn't they just be content with silence, silence was easy, silence was safe. Vicky glanced up after a moment, and noticed… damn. She saw a few books on the edge of the counter, some papers underneath them. Scraps of her research that she liked to keep around. Nothing much, really. But it kept her entertained during the quieter moments - and Chorei enjoyed the mental stimulation.
"Reading anything good?"
"...some stuff, yeah."
"I mean, if you have any recommendations I'd love to hear them. Finding reading a real bore at the moment, could use something new."
"Just history. Nothing very exciting."
She floated over - God, that was still alarming. Peered down at the book. Blinked at the cover.
"...archaeology, huh?"
Taylor aggressively polished a teacup.
"Yeah."
"Never heard of - sorry, how do you pronounce it"
"Çatalhöyük. Chattel-hoy-uck."
"Looks pretty advanced - do you study up at the university or something?"
Why would…
"No. I'm sixteen."
Still felt weird saying that. Vicky floated backwards for a second, an indefinable expression crossing her face. What was she doing? Why was she looking at her like that? So what if she came across as a little older, it was a natural consequence of the work she did. Parian had been surprised as well by that particular 'revelation', if it even qualified as one. She was sixteen. So what. The cape looked around her age, nothing special, lots of adolescents had jobs. So why was she looking at her like that. Why- her eyes flicked to the scars. The golden teeth at the back of her mouth. The eyepatch. Was…
Was she being pitied?
Paranoia gave way to regular old irritation.
She didn't get pitied by some cape who just stumbled in and decided to probe more than she had any right to. Certainly not a cape that, based on her general bearing, was still suffering from the fact that her boyfriend had his mind burned out as a consequence of her own incompetence. She couldn't believe that she'd been afraid of her, she was clearly ignorant. Anyone with any knowledge of who she was and what she did would never go around pitying her.
"Oh, I was just… uh, curious. I haven't seen you around Arcadia."
"Homeschool."
More pity, oh, go fuck yourself. Pardon the vulgarity, but go fuck yourself. Even Chorei was joining in - responded badly to pity as well, treated it as an insult, something she neither wanted nor deserved. Pity was something for others, who did smaller things of less importance. At least, in the nun's now non-existent eyes.
Take your pity and place it somewhere the sun cannot reach. Neither of us have any need for it. Usurper, the tea is done.
"Your tea's ready."
Vicky flinched backwards. Good. She returned to her table - good. Pour the tea, eat the cake, pay your bill, leave. Do what the other customers do. And stop asking questions. For a few minutes, she complied with these silent commands. She drank tea. She ate cake. But she did so slowly. Taylor did what she could to distract herself - a little more washing up, a few more checks. When those ran out, she turned to the book. Just Arch's primer on Çatalhöyük, most of it was dry data, but a fair amount was vaguely interesting. She'd looked into getting hold of something on the Merovingians and the Huns, but that would take some time. Not to mention money. Honestly, sometimes she thought that she could solve all her money problems if she managed to get a job in academic publishing, they must be making a killing if these prices were at all representative.
Some interesting things had cropped up on a more detailed reading - stratigraphic analysis had shown that the weird statues of women filled with dead animals and insects only appeared right towards the end of the site. The burning of five-horned bull heads dated from the earliest periods, but burning in general tapered off as time went on. She'd had a momentary thought that maybe they'd… gone to the other side, so to speak. Gone from invoking the bull just to burn it, to praying to something thematically aligned with it - a person filled with insects. As the place became less and less occupied, maybe there were only a few families left, huddled in a labyrinth of windowless buildings in a streetless city, gnawing at bones as they prayed frantically to a goddess of dark places, of wrong turnings, of a world where structures heaved with tiny, gnawing bodies. Praying over and over until one by one they vanished, swallowed up by the walls and the impossible corners. Until all that remained were silent, watching statues dedicated to a thing they should have feared, and frescos of enormous bulls - aurochs - surrounded by hordes of tiny people. Hunting them? Praying to them? Or being devoured by them?
"...I mean, if you want I could look into some university stuff. I do a parahuman studies course up there, if you're interested they might let you do something to do with archaeology. I think there's a couple of professors up there who'd be interested, probably happy to have someone new along."
More pity. Unwanted, unneeded. And the offer was unnecessary - she couldn't go around leaving a paper trail of her existence.
"I'm fine. But thanks."
"...okay."
Her voice was small. What, was she ashamed at not helping some poor Conflagration-scarred invalid? Well, she'd have to just take that hit like a champ, get up and try her schtick on someone else. Maybe she should be alarmed at how quickly paranoia and guilt had turned to seething irritation. She remembered Bisha's mocking smile, what he'd become in the end, a churning mass of impossibilities shaped into what a delusional narcissist would call a god. Serenaded by whispering voices chanting his praises over and over, ready to sweep forth and consume. Anger had helped. The cold, slow-burning anger which was embodied in her mud charm, now long-gone. It warmed, sometimes it burned, and it always moved. A second heartbeat, always at her side. The First Rifle had been the same. Being irritated, being angry, that had helped her. The constant flood of adrenaline in her veins. It had kept her functional when everything else fell to pieces. If she'd been isolated from that warming, furious rivalry, she'd have collapsed after her head was drilled open, no, before that. She'd likely have never survived Mound Moor. Maybe not even Chorei. She'd thought it had died away into nothing but ashes, but… here it was again. Warming her, crackling at the tips of her fingers.
She'd adapted to fighting Bisha. Those adaptations would serve her well in any future conflict. This was just a consequence of not being able to exert herself properly against a foe. That was all. She was fine.
The parahuman is unwilling to continue. Good. Leave things as they are. We've done it - we're safe. The… hm, yes, an American sporting metaphor. The ball is out of the stadium, now you must simply clear the bases and score a touchdown, before saluting the star-spangled banner. Yankee doodle and so on and so forth.
If Taylor watched more sports, she'd probably groan at that. As it was, she found it faintly funny. Eh, not like Chorei was going to embarrass herself around anyone but her, might as well let her slumber in ignorance of how baseball and football worked. Vicky did as she was meant to do, no more questions, no more offers. Taylor was doing just fine. She felt a tiny spark of guilt at having shut her down so often… no, it was better for both of them. Vicky could move on to someone who actually needed help. Taylor could get back to her normal life. And all would be well. She had leads she could still follow, places she could still stake out.
Seeing Glory Girl just… float in had made everything clear. She had work left to do, and only so much time to do it before everything went wrong. Before Glory Girl found out who had been there when Gallant died, before the city figured out that she was alive and tried to take her into child protective services.. Might as well burn the candle at both ends. Worked against Bisha, after all. Find the termites, wipe them out, then start making money as quickly as possible. Not sure how she could accomplish that, but that wasn't the point. She couldn't do anything with her dad until that situation was concluded, anyway.
"Thinking of staying in Brockton?"
Weird question. Very weird question. Hard to be noncommittal.
"Probably going to leave. Just have to finish a few things first."
Vicky smiled sadly. She looked tired.
"Yeah, you're not the only one. Feels like half of Arcadia just… packed up and left."
"Hm."
"I've been thinking of leaving too, just… try and clear the cobwebs out. Had some plans before, but… yeah, need to clear up some things first."
Interesting. Mildly so, but… interesting nonetheless.
"Oh?"
"I mean, why not? Plenty of stuff to do elsewhere."
"Mm-hm."
Why was she talking about this? This was… personal. Too personal. At least it wasn't about her, that would be downright uncomfortable. Chorei was moving in a confused fashion, trying to figure the cape out.
"...well, who knows."
"Understandable."
"Where would you go? If you left Brockton that is, just out of interest."
And now things were downright uncomfortable. Lovely.
"Not sure. Minnesota seems nice."
"Oh? You been?"
"Once."
"Nice - been meaning to get out there. Like the cold, then?"
"Kinda."
"Cool, cool…"
She trailed off. Another conversation aborted. An idea was starting to bloom, just a little. There was a moment of silence… and then her phone rang. The chunky device began to play an atrociously compressed Bosnian song which she was fairly certain was just a patriotic song from the 90s. But remixed, apparently. Glory Girl jumped a little at the noise, but Taylor moved quickly to silence it - Parian's number. Hm. She shrugged apologetically at the cape, internally thankful for the interruption. At least it would be over soon, her tea was almost gone, her food had almost vanished. Soon. A few button pushes later, and she was connected. She moved into a side room, dropping her voice low as she did so.
"What is it?"
"It's… uh, Sabah."
"Yeah, I know. What is it?"
"Not a… not a huge deal, but I was looking into this… alright, I was trying to find someone I used to work with when we were investigating… things, and I was going to some old haunts, and I thought I found something. Just… a hunch, I guess, thought there might be some information there."
Dammit, why couldn't people just fucking listen, did people ever actually listen to her words or did they just flail around in a solipsistic haze making up everything around them? Was she just an inconvenient bystander while they pranced around on their star-studded unicorn of delusion?
"What did you find?"
"It's like that city. Same feeling. You know… you know what I mean? I'm not sounding totally crazy, am I?"
"Not at all. Tell me where, I'll be right over."
Oh goodness, not again… ah, do what you will, my words are fruitless. But I wish to express my right to complain. And there will be food at the end of this - fatty and unhealthy, I insist on it.
"You know that old… uh, I think it used to be a meatpacking plant, but decades back. Nothing now, just homeless people. Anyway, it's down by the docks, I think… Canal Wharf. Not sure of the address. You'll know it when you see it."
Taylor was deeply missing working with nice, professional ex-mercenaries and cops. They tended to give proper addresses. Still, it was enough to work with. She put in another call, leaving a voicemail with Turk - she'd need to close up early. She felt bad about this, but it wasn't like they were getting much business anyway at the moment. The only thing keeping them open was the fact that Turk owned the building and was practically living off his retirement fund anyhow. She checked over the stoves, the pots, the tins, ensuring everything would remain secure when she left. Taylor poked her head out into the main body of the shop, her heart already beating faster as she imagined the thrill of the chase, the absolute glee of finding something to take apart. Back to what she was meant to do. Back to a place where her irritation and instincts could actually pay off. Vicky blinked at the sight of Taylor's tense face, already a little flushed in anticipation of the work to come.
"Sorry, something came up. I need to close things down here. You're done?"
The cape looked down at her plate.
"Uh… yeah, done. Is everything alright?"
"Just a friend. Need to head over. Sorry, can't stay and chat."
God, it felt good to just brush conversation off using necessity as an excuse. Felt right. Vicky stood sharply, looking more purposeful.
"Do you need a ride?"
…
What?
She needed a ride, yes. But she was going to get a taxi, or more likely, she'd wait for Turk to pick her up and take her there. The docks were too far away to reach on foot comfortably, especially with her knee being stiff after Bisha had folded it backwards with a single kick. The bone throbbed at the memory. So what if she needed a ride?
"...I'll find one."
"I've really got nothing else to do today. I can fly you over, if you like."
Oh no no no no no no
Chorei's aura of tranquillity fractured. Shit. How to respond, how to…
"I'm… fine. But thanks for the offer."
"Well, if you want I can fly over, take a message, or…"
"It's personal. Sorry."
"There aren't any taxis around, so…"
"I can wait for a friend."
The phone buzzed - a text. Parian.
Someone's here
Shit. Shit. Shit. She needed to get over there now - dammit, this is why she didn't let people investigate on their own, they just got into trouble while she was too far away to help. Solo investigations were nice in theory but awful in practice, all that happened was information was unequally dispersed, people did stupid things because they weren't kept up-to-date on what the other investigations had discovered, and if things went wrong, backup was hard to come by. Fuck. Why couldn't she just drive. Chorei whirled around in a haze of panic - she couldn't drive, never learned how, too terrified of being behind a wheel. The roar of the engine, apparently, just gave her the shakes - the feeling of having a vast machine under her control. Her centipede had hated it, she hated it, and thus there were no other options. As much as she loathed admitting it… she needed a ride. Ahab's house was a good distance away, if Turk was even there. He had a life of his own, she couldn't just expect him to be available at all times. Sanagi? Busy with work, definitely, and the police station was too far away for her to get here quickly. She was the only one used to these termites, only one who could handle them. God, fuckitty fuck fuck - Christ, she was being vulgar today. Stress, damn stress.
Vicky floated over, looking resolute.
"Seriously, I'm happy to help."
Taylor really didn't want her help. She really didn't. Her phone was heavy in her hand, a reminder that Parian needed help, that she'd blundered into something she didn't understand and couldn't deal with. Someone was there. Someone dangerous, most likely. Someone who could cause problems for all of them.
You do not realise the peril you are encroaching upon Taylor Anne Hebert, you don't remotely understand, and your lack of understanding will doom the both of us! We've survived Bisha, I don't want to meet my next and final end at the hands of this blonde freak!
Spurn her, reject her, insult her mother if you must but get us out of here and never look back. Do not let her carry us, do not let her realise what we've done, do not let her come to any realisations of any manner whatsoever. Get her out of here, then get to the docks. We cannot investigate your termites if we are reduced down to something which can fit into a tin can.
Deny her.
And then get to work.
I beg you, do not compromise our survival. Do not invite such… unneeded risk into our shared existence.
Unneeded?
She needed to get to the docks.
She needed to investigate what Parian had found and who she had seen.
And she needed a ride.
A spark of guilt flared in her at the sight of the girl's… faintly desperate face, even behind the shimmering, attention-hungry aura. She looked lonely. And Taylor, in her own way, had contributed to that loneliness. She just wanted to help. After all the paranoia, once things were reduced down to simple practicalities, matters became far, far clearer. Chorei screeched faintly in the back of her mind.
"...fine."
And Taylor A. Hebert's fate was sealed.
Glory Girl had found her.
Violent delights had violent ends.
It felt… fair, in a way. She'd fucked up with Gallant. Gotten him killed when she could've done better, she could've kept him alive if she had paid even a little more attention to his condition. Tried to make up for it with Parian, dragging her out of that termite nest, but… well, a right didn't correct a wrong. Saving Parian had felt good in the moment, felt good for a while, but then it had all started to drain away. When the leads dried up, when the research hit dead end after dead end, when everything started to get fuzzy and worn around the edges like a loose piece of felt… well, it was hard to get away from that dead eye staring unblinking at the falling rain. Glory Girl floated closer to the counter, and Taylor found herself feeling… almost resigned. Almost. For a second she was willing to accept what happened, something she'd earned, a fitting end to a short but bright career which had, she liked to think, contributed more than it destroyed. For a second, she let the blonde came closer and closer without any resistance or preparation. Just for a second. Then instincts kicked in. Her hand flicked to the gun. If necessary she could distract her - brute or no, light, sound, and pressure could stun anyone for a second. Beside the gun - a can of deodorant filled with something that certainly wasn't deodorant, and next to that a lighter. Brute or no, fire was fire. Distractions would give her time to retreat, get to a better position.
God, she was bright. Ever since grafting with Chorei, she'd been able to see who was a parahuman and who wasn't - an aura shimmered around them, flavoured indelibly by their power. For Sanagi it was a faint dusting of stars around her skull and the sound of clicking. For Gallant it had been rushes of emotion and flashes of colour, and a constant sensation of being watched in some way. For Mouse Protector it was shards of light rapidly appearing and disappearing, never remaining still long enough for her to get a bead on them. And Glory Girl… was bright. She had a field of what she could only describe as gravity around her. Everything seemed to revolve around her, nothing was permitted to exist which wasn't inflected by her presence. The wood grain beneath her feet seemed, for a second, to accord to a different pattern, one that flowed inwards so that she became the culmination of the entire room - a centre that shifted, surrounded by a field of lines that shifted along with her. A blink, and the impression was gone - but all the lights seemed to point towards her, creating a spotlight. She wasn't sure if it was terrifyingly impressive, or cloying - it highlighted the bags under her eyes, the faintly stringy quality of her hair, the way she was ever-so-slightly hunched - a hunch that vanished as she approached.
Reposition. Plan. Escape.
Those were her only options.
If she had a better position, she could get to something more potent, something to keep her pinned long enough for her to escape to a safe position. Her insects could gather in proper numbers. Glory Girl was an Alexandria package - flying, tough, and that was about all she knew. PHO was of limited use, too much speculation, not enough hard evidence or reliable sources. Even heroic capes would keep elements of their powers hidden, and Glory Girl was no exception. How did her invulnerability work? Hm. Strangulation could be an option, perhaps just stuffing her mouth with bees until she stood still. A hostage would be ideal - but she'd come without any partners, any backup. Excessively arrogant, appropriately confident, or simply ill-informed? The swarm found no-one else who resembled a cape in the vicinity. Here without approval? Entirely possible, going on a one-person revenge quest didn't seem like something New Wave would sign off on. Especially not out of costume. What was the point of that, actually - why turn up with nothing but her normal clothes? Any surprise had been lost the moment she floated through the door, and she was a fairly recognisable individual. More thoughts, more plans, more contingencies, all of them flowing through her mind at a hundred miles an hour. Her eye was fixed on Glory Girl, one hand was kept above the counter, the other was gripping the pistol tightly. Vatslav knew his business, this thing felt good.
I am alarmed that you have not run. In that case, may I put in my suggestion - run.
Chorei paused, and Taylor drummed her fingers lightly, silently indicating for her to go on.
This one is dangerous. I did my research when I established myself here - and she was one object of significant tension. She occupied the demographics my cult typically exploited, and at one time she actually took a sample lesson. We stayed far, far away, made no moves to capture her. She is strong, she is unsubtle, she is impulsive, and she has two families of parahumans ready to lend support at a moment's notice, not to mention the rest of the PRT. Listen well when I say to run, for I do not ask it frivolously. Run.
In any other circumstance, Taylor would actually obey. This was a bad situation. But she could fly - running would require a distraction of some kind. As the girl floated closer… she made no moves to attack. No murderousness was in her eyes, just a faint curiosity. Only a few seconds had passed - any element of surprise she might have gained was now long-lost. If Chorei was right, if she was impulsive… this seemed an odd course of action.
Run. Run. Run.
She wasn't attacking. She didn't even look threatening, just… floating a few inches above the ground. Her hands weren't curled into fists, her arms weren't braced for any impacts. Taylor had seen people getting ready for a fight, people who anticipated imminent violence. And none of those signs appeared on the cape's person. Her eyes were wrong. They were faintly unfocused, drifting from one thing to another, nothing remotely important. There was no strategic value in a table with nothing on it - no, wait, she was a brute, anything throwable had strategic value. But even if she was planning something, she wasn't focusing on anything long enough. Just idle glances, nothing catching her attention properly. If she wanted to fight Taylor, she'd have her eyes fixed, she'd be twitchy, she'd be focused, there wouldn't be any of this… mundane fidgeting. Unless that was what she was planning - get her off guard. Her hand tightened around the pistol. Aim for something other than the face. Chest, possibly. Easier to hit. She came closer - accuracy became non-issue. The knee, then. The inside of the elbow. Non-fatal, even for a non-brute, but enough to stun her for a moment. If she was halfway invulnerable… the crotch, maybe. No-one got up after being shot in the crotch, even a brute would need a moment.
Closer.
She looked tired.
"Sorry, is this place open?"
What?
What? Seriously, what? Why would… was this another bluff? She was already close, was this just her toying with Taylor? Come on, get it over with - fight her, insult her, do something predictable, don't just… ask if this place was open. She'd let Gallant die, and now she was just stewing in her own ennui, waiting for something to come along to fight because she was too cowardly to confront anything which hurt. Her mouth hardened. Come on, come on, come on - fight her! Do something!
"Hello?"
Mocking. Well, two could play at that game. Her voice was tense, her hand was still clasped around her gun. She wouldn't be caught off guard. She'd fought Bisha, she could handle one flying brick who thought she could play a few mind games. She'd had several fights inside her own mind, she was a professional at mind games, she had experience. Now, if only she could invite Glory Girl into her own brain for a quick tussle, then maybe that experience could pay off. As it was, she was feeling tense and pissed. Pissed and tense. Pense. Tissed. She was ready to shoot something or someone.
Good morning, this is your sanity calling, just wondering if there's going to be any hold up with running away, because I distinctly remember telling you to run away.
Chorei was not her sanity. Chorei was the opposite of her sanity. The fact that the two were agreeing on almost everything at the moment was irrelevant.
"Hello."
"Uh, hi. Is this… place open?"
"Yes."
Her teeth were pressed together, it was an effort to get them open for sound to pass through. Glory Girl was looking a little nervous - good, be nervous, her game had been cottoned on to.
"So… do I just… sit down anywhere?"
"Sure."
"...uh, cool."
She paused, then floated backwards to a table. Good spatial awareness, yet more indications of her capacity for planning, she'd definitely scouted this place out, or had anticipated some kind of conflict which necessitated properly analysing everything around her. She tried to not maintain eye contact, but it was obvious she felt uncomfortable with letting Taylor out of her sight. Ergo, floating backwards like some kind of… airborne Michael Jackson with less dramatic cheekbones. God, stress was giving her strange thoughts.
She is sitting, this is an ideal oppo- oh no, she has a table at her disposal. Gun, gun, gun, gun, gun, use the gun you silly American, why are you so willing to use it at every time but the most pivotal?!
Gun was still an option. For now. What else did she… no, just the gun, the improvised flamethrower, and that was it. Nothing useful at close-range, just a knife she'd taken to keeping in one of her boots. Useless against a brute. Her swarm, though, had gathered in large enough numbers positioned around the right entry points. It would take a moment to descend, long enough for Glory Girl to hurt her badly. Her hands itched - if necessary, she could do what she did with Parian. A temporary grafting, not complete, not remotely cohesive, but enough to stun her. Overwhelm her with memories and run. Right. She had weapons, good. Excellent, even. She remained behind the counter, making a show of polishing a teacup slowly and carefully. Glory Girl twiddled her thumbs - bracing herself for battle, loosening up her joints. Subtle, but not subtle enough. A second passed… and her voice cut through the air, almost making Taylor jump. Almost. It certainly made Chorei squeak like an alarmed rodent.
"So… tea, right?"
She coughed awkwardly.
"I mean, this place serves tea? I… heard it sells tea."
"Yes. This is a tea shop."
Smooth, Taylor, mucho smooth. Sounded exactly like a proper human with nothing to hide. Chorei made no comment, she'd decided to use her noncorporeal state to its fullest advantage by wailing at a pitch no human should be able to reach. Thankfully, this was all happening in Taylor's head, which meant the sound couldn't exactly jar her ears or do anything more than… well, be vaguely annoying. She was fine. Absolutely fine. And Glory Girl was leaning back in her seat, continuing to brace herself for battle by twiddling her thumbs aggressively, continuing to adamantly refuse to fight her, to confront her, to do the thing she was meant to do. There was no way this was all just a coincidence - that a cape who had every reason to hate her had come to a tea shop where she worked at the precise time she was working, specifically quite early in the morning so there would be no witnesses.
"...any recommendations? Sorry, never been before, so…"
She shrugged helplessly.
She was good. Whatever her mind game was, it was working. She was about to explode. Genuinely explode, like Ted had spiked her awful tea with a tiny bomb now ticking away in her guts. Well, if she exploded, Glory Girl would get to sit there covered in gore, probably regretting that she didn't get this over with as quickly as possible, before the stress-induced detonation occurred. Right. Recommendations. Play it cool, play it cool, she was… she was James Bond, she was Maggie Holt in the kingdom of the wasp-dragons, she was a fucking cucumber soaked in liquid nitrogen.
I can't read your thoughts, but based on how you're trying to relax your face, you're attempting to be calm and collected. You're not calm and collected, you're two seconds away from imploding.
Exploding, thank you very much. Imploding was something one did after a period of sustained embarrassment, exploding was what one did after stress. Chorei wouldn't know, she'd had a centipede instead of a spine for a very, very long time, probably had dosed her brain in enough pheromones to make implosion/explosion entirely impossible. Did centipedes make pheromones? Pheromones - scents - aromas - tea. Right, she'd asked for recommendations. Play it cool. She was definitely James Bond but with one eye and worse taste in food.
"It's all good."
She paused. Needed more than that. Become the cucumber, be the cucumber, look into the mirror and see nothing more than an unnaturally animated creeping vine fruit. She had no eye and she was a schizophrenic cucumber.
"...we have a good blend of Earl Grey and lapsang souchong."
There, that was adequate, she had sentences. Glory Girl nodded. She nodded. Nothing more, she wasn't flying over, she didn't shriek some battle cry, she didn't drop any hints. Oh no, she was speaking.
"Oh, that sounds great. I'll go for that."
Turn. Use the swarm to keep an eye on her - her ploy to make her turn her back wouldn't amount to anything, she could still reach her gun, she could still cover her eyes with bugs. Nothing had changed. But the ball was in her court - Glory Girl had made her play. And Taylor had already countered it. Unless she already knew about the bugs and would charge through any distractions regardless - two kettles present, one already full of warm water. Bring it to a boil. Faceful of steam should distract her. Get ready to duck. If she predicted that, lunge forwards, grab the gun, fire a few times, grab the flamethrower. Her hand was poised over the gas - fill the shop with just a little, give the flamethrower some oomph that the cape wouldn't expect. A voice - she almost executed her plan then and there.
"Sorry, but… what's this place actually called? I didn't see a sign on the way in."
Oh no, she noticed. I told you that we should have attended to that, nuts to your Slavic friend's sign-related sensibilities.
Play it cool. She was fine. A twitch, and Chorei was handling the hands situation. Taylor could take over in a second if necessary, but it was nice to delegate certain duties to someone else. It was just tea - even the paranoid nun could handle that easily enough. Even if she was a moment away from having a panic attack. Eh, they were both close to panicking, she wasn't special. She kept her voice low, level, cool. Her shit was together. Her shit was a black hole it was so together, her shit was attracting small moons it was so together, her shit was influencing spacetime it was so completely and utterly together.
"I don't know either. Owner never mentioned it, and I forgot to ask."
She shrugged. Easier than continuing to speak. She tried to emulate Turk - Glory Girl was being adamant in her refusal to engage. A spark of doubt flared up - was this just a coincidence? Was this entire situation the ungodly incestuous child of paranoia, boredom, and guilt? Guilt and paranoia had a child, the child then had a child with boredom, and the resulting spawn then mated with paranoia and the final creature mated with guilt. And now that creature was giving boredom a little side-eye, just to turn this family tree into a family circle. Even if this was just a coincidence, Glory Girl was still a threat. Hm. Maybe… just distract her, keep her at a distance, let her leave without any second thoughts. Time to disobey every instinct honed from catering to the customers who came to this place, time to be a bad tea shop… waitress? Minder? Teamaker? Time to be a bad teamaker.
"...huh. Alright, fair enough."
The cape paused.
"Sorry, mind if I keep talking? Forgot to bring a book."
She was calm, she was the centre of the universe, she'd dealt with worse than this.
"Sure."
"...nice place, worked here long?"
"A few weeks."
"Good job?"
"Good enough."
"Any interesting customers?"
"...not really."
Would this girl not just shut up? Just… sit there, take the tea, drink the tea, leave, never return. Let this entire embarrassment come to an end. It was fairly obvious that she wasn't here for violence, but she still had every reason to begin violence if the right information was brought to light. And that information was, at present, much more likely to emerge than it had been a few minutes ago, when she wasn't inside this shop and likely had no idea who Taylor was or where she worked. The infinite unknowns were coalescing into something definite, and Taylor did not like it.
I sense irritation. Be aware that the irritation is shared. She… is being calm. But we ought to play things safe, hm? Feel the tranquillity that only years of meditation can produce. Navigate this situation, and when it is concluded, we shall feast on something fatty and distinctly unhealthy.
Calmness radiated from her. It almost worked, if she didn't pay attention to the seething undercurrent of terrified paranoia. Still, the two were operating in tandem. She was being nice and taciturn, doing everything necessary to provide a poor impression. But the tea… she'd do it properly. Professional pride and practicality in perfect alignment. If she made an awful teapot, she might spark conflict, might linger in her memory. Still, no reason to get fancy. Ah, snacks - definitely necessary. Earl Grey and lapsang souchong paired with… hm. Teacake, the one with a little lemon peel. Paired well with the bergamot. She carefully cut a slice, not too thick, not too thin, soft enough to be easily cut apart with the side of a fork… the tea was ready. She lost herself in the haze for a moment, welcoming the aura of calm that Chorei was trying so very hard to produce. It was working. Good. Excellent, even. She poured it carefully, focusing on the minutiae of the activity while her swarm kept tabs on the cape behind her. Picquot ware for the teapot, a single piece of metal, no seams, better at retaining heat. Smooth pour. Recently scrubbed. Teacup… her fingers idled over a few choices, but she resolved fairly quickly on a wide, fairly flat teacup with a ring of green and gold around the rim. Matching saucer. Good for cooling, good for aroma. She was calm. She was fine.
The kettle boiled, and she sprang into motion, barely able to slow her movements down to something faintly normal. Wait for a moment, let the water cool so the flavour of the tea wouldn't be eradicated. Pour slowly, move in circular motions. No reason, just felt good to do it, made her feel nice and occupied. Her breathing was under control. She was fine. Plate everything up. Ready the swarm, ready herself for grafting - no access to the gun now. She stepped out from behind the counter and began the long walk to Glory Girl's table. Her aura continued to attract all attention… but as she stepped closer, it looked… hollow. Fragile, in a way. Attracting attention but incapable of handling pressure for long. Odd. She set the tray down quietly, and flipped the hourglass over. The near-imperceptible sound of white grains rustling against one another entered the air - inaudible if it wasn't for the unending awkward silence that she'd helped to cultivate.
"Wait until the timer's done. Then pour."
Smile? Maybe? No. Keep a stoic expression. Make no indication of being approachable. She was fine. Glory Girl nodded in thanks, and Taylor turned on her heel, returning to her little fortress. Where she had a gun, a flamethrower, and tea. All the things a growing lass needed. Polish the teapots. Check the tea leaves. Make sure the kettles were all doing their kettle-y thing, as kettles tended to do. But always worth checking. An unkettling kettle was something to be concerned about. All the kettles were kettling, she assured herself. Superb.
"Oh, sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Vicky."
Names are dangerous. I recommend a pseudonym.
And the last time Chorei had suggested a pseudonym she'd said 'Tomoe Schrodinger', which was painfully unbelievable. No, best to stick to the truth. Reduced any room for a disastrous mistake in future - a friend calling over using her real name, a document with her face and real name on it, something that could make Glory Girl think that she was hiding something. Which she was. But she didn't need to know that.
"Taylor. Nice to meet you."
Oh, she was improvising. Hoorah. Glory Girl - Vicky - shifted in her seat, watching the hourglass go by. She was struggling to find something to say - was this what people did these days? Constantly struggle for new things to say? Why couldn't they just be content with silence, silence was easy, silence was safe. Vicky glanced up after a moment, and noticed… damn. She saw a few books on the edge of the counter, some papers underneath them. Scraps of her research that she liked to keep around. Nothing much, really. But it kept her entertained during the quieter moments - and Chorei enjoyed the mental stimulation.
"Reading anything good?"
"...some stuff, yeah."
"I mean, if you have any recommendations I'd love to hear them. Finding reading a real bore at the moment, could use something new."
"Just history. Nothing very exciting."
She floated over - God, that was still alarming. Peered down at the book. Blinked at the cover.
"...archaeology, huh?"
Taylor aggressively polished a teacup.
"Yeah."
"Never heard of - sorry, how do you pronounce it"
"Çatalhöyük. Chattel-hoy-uck."
"Looks pretty advanced - do you study up at the university or something?"
Why would…
"No. I'm sixteen."
Still felt weird saying that. Vicky floated backwards for a second, an indefinable expression crossing her face. What was she doing? Why was she looking at her like that? So what if she came across as a little older, it was a natural consequence of the work she did. Parian had been surprised as well by that particular 'revelation', if it even qualified as one. She was sixteen. So what. The cape looked around her age, nothing special, lots of adolescents had jobs. So why was she looking at her like that. Why- her eyes flicked to the scars. The golden teeth at the back of her mouth. The eyepatch. Was…
Was she being pitied?
Paranoia gave way to regular old irritation.
She didn't get pitied by some cape who just stumbled in and decided to probe more than she had any right to. Certainly not a cape that, based on her general bearing, was still suffering from the fact that her boyfriend had his mind burned out as a consequence of her own incompetence. She couldn't believe that she'd been afraid of her, she was clearly ignorant. Anyone with any knowledge of who she was and what she did would never go around pitying her.
"Oh, I was just… uh, curious. I haven't seen you around Arcadia."
"Homeschool."
More pity, oh, go fuck yourself. Pardon the vulgarity, but go fuck yourself. Even Chorei was joining in - responded badly to pity as well, treated it as an insult, something she neither wanted nor deserved. Pity was something for others, who did smaller things of less importance. At least, in the nun's now non-existent eyes.
Take your pity and place it somewhere the sun cannot reach. Neither of us have any need for it. Usurper, the tea is done.
"Your tea's ready."
Vicky flinched backwards. Good. She returned to her table - good. Pour the tea, eat the cake, pay your bill, leave. Do what the other customers do. And stop asking questions. For a few minutes, she complied with these silent commands. She drank tea. She ate cake. But she did so slowly. Taylor did what she could to distract herself - a little more washing up, a few more checks. When those ran out, she turned to the book. Just Arch's primer on Çatalhöyük, most of it was dry data, but a fair amount was vaguely interesting. She'd looked into getting hold of something on the Merovingians and the Huns, but that would take some time. Not to mention money. Honestly, sometimes she thought that she could solve all her money problems if she managed to get a job in academic publishing, they must be making a killing if these prices were at all representative.
Some interesting things had cropped up on a more detailed reading - stratigraphic analysis had shown that the weird statues of women filled with dead animals and insects only appeared right towards the end of the site. The burning of five-horned bull heads dated from the earliest periods, but burning in general tapered off as time went on. She'd had a momentary thought that maybe they'd… gone to the other side, so to speak. Gone from invoking the bull just to burn it, to praying to something thematically aligned with it - a person filled with insects. As the place became less and less occupied, maybe there were only a few families left, huddled in a labyrinth of windowless buildings in a streetless city, gnawing at bones as they prayed frantically to a goddess of dark places, of wrong turnings, of a world where structures heaved with tiny, gnawing bodies. Praying over and over until one by one they vanished, swallowed up by the walls and the impossible corners. Until all that remained were silent, watching statues dedicated to a thing they should have feared, and frescos of enormous bulls - aurochs - surrounded by hordes of tiny people. Hunting them? Praying to them? Or being devoured by them?
"...I mean, if you want I could look into some university stuff. I do a parahuman studies course up there, if you're interested they might let you do something to do with archaeology. I think there's a couple of professors up there who'd be interested, probably happy to have someone new along."
More pity. Unwanted, unneeded. And the offer was unnecessary - she couldn't go around leaving a paper trail of her existence.
"I'm fine. But thanks."
"...okay."
Her voice was small. What, was she ashamed at not helping some poor Conflagration-scarred invalid? Well, she'd have to just take that hit like a champ, get up and try her schtick on someone else. Maybe she should be alarmed at how quickly paranoia and guilt had turned to seething irritation. She remembered Bisha's mocking smile, what he'd become in the end, a churning mass of impossibilities shaped into what a delusional narcissist would call a god. Serenaded by whispering voices chanting his praises over and over, ready to sweep forth and consume. Anger had helped. The cold, slow-burning anger which was embodied in her mud charm, now long-gone. It warmed, sometimes it burned, and it always moved. A second heartbeat, always at her side. The First Rifle had been the same. Being irritated, being angry, that had helped her. The constant flood of adrenaline in her veins. It had kept her functional when everything else fell to pieces. If she'd been isolated from that warming, furious rivalry, she'd have collapsed after her head was drilled open, no, before that. She'd likely have never survived Mound Moor. Maybe not even Chorei. She'd thought it had died away into nothing but ashes, but… here it was again. Warming her, crackling at the tips of her fingers.
She'd adapted to fighting Bisha. Those adaptations would serve her well in any future conflict. This was just a consequence of not being able to exert herself properly against a foe. That was all. She was fine.
The parahuman is unwilling to continue. Good. Leave things as they are. We've done it - we're safe. The… hm, yes, an American sporting metaphor. The ball is out of the stadium, now you must simply clear the bases and score a touchdown, before saluting the star-spangled banner. Yankee doodle and so on and so forth.
If Taylor watched more sports, she'd probably groan at that. As it was, she found it faintly funny. Eh, not like Chorei was going to embarrass herself around anyone but her, might as well let her slumber in ignorance of how baseball and football worked. Vicky did as she was meant to do, no more questions, no more offers. Taylor was doing just fine. She felt a tiny spark of guilt at having shut her down so often… no, it was better for both of them. Vicky could move on to someone who actually needed help. Taylor could get back to her normal life. And all would be well. She had leads she could still follow, places she could still stake out.
Seeing Glory Girl just… float in had made everything clear. She had work left to do, and only so much time to do it before everything went wrong. Before Glory Girl found out who had been there when Gallant died, before the city figured out that she was alive and tried to take her into child protective services.. Might as well burn the candle at both ends. Worked against Bisha, after all. Find the termites, wipe them out, then start making money as quickly as possible. Not sure how she could accomplish that, but that wasn't the point. She couldn't do anything with her dad until that situation was concluded, anyway.
"Thinking of staying in Brockton?"
Weird question. Very weird question. Hard to be noncommittal.
"Probably going to leave. Just have to finish a few things first."
Vicky smiled sadly. She looked tired.
"Yeah, you're not the only one. Feels like half of Arcadia just… packed up and left."
"Hm."
"I've been thinking of leaving too, just… try and clear the cobwebs out. Had some plans before, but… yeah, need to clear up some things first."
Interesting. Mildly so, but… interesting nonetheless.
"Oh?"
"I mean, why not? Plenty of stuff to do elsewhere."
"Mm-hm."
Why was she talking about this? This was… personal. Too personal. At least it wasn't about her, that would be downright uncomfortable. Chorei was moving in a confused fashion, trying to figure the cape out.
"...well, who knows."
"Understandable."
"Where would you go? If you left Brockton that is, just out of interest."
And now things were downright uncomfortable. Lovely.
"Not sure. Minnesota seems nice."
"Oh? You been?"
"Once."
"Nice - been meaning to get out there. Like the cold, then?"
"Kinda."
"Cool, cool…"
She trailed off. Another conversation aborted. An idea was starting to bloom, just a little. There was a moment of silence… and then her phone rang. The chunky device began to play an atrociously compressed Bosnian song which she was fairly certain was just a patriotic song from the 90s. But remixed, apparently. Glory Girl jumped a little at the noise, but Taylor moved quickly to silence it - Parian's number. Hm. She shrugged apologetically at the cape, internally thankful for the interruption. At least it would be over soon, her tea was almost gone, her food had almost vanished. Soon. A few button pushes later, and she was connected. She moved into a side room, dropping her voice low as she did so.
"What is it?"
"It's… uh, Sabah."
"Yeah, I know. What is it?"
"Not a… not a huge deal, but I was looking into this… alright, I was trying to find someone I used to work with when we were investigating… things, and I was going to some old haunts, and I thought I found something. Just… a hunch, I guess, thought there might be some information there."
Dammit, why couldn't people just fucking listen, did people ever actually listen to her words or did they just flail around in a solipsistic haze making up everything around them? Was she just an inconvenient bystander while they pranced around on their star-studded unicorn of delusion?
"What did you find?"
"It's like that city. Same feeling. You know… you know what I mean? I'm not sounding totally crazy, am I?"
"Not at all. Tell me where, I'll be right over."
Oh goodness, not again… ah, do what you will, my words are fruitless. But I wish to express my right to complain. And there will be food at the end of this - fatty and unhealthy, I insist on it.
"You know that old… uh, I think it used to be a meatpacking plant, but decades back. Nothing now, just homeless people. Anyway, it's down by the docks, I think… Canal Wharf. Not sure of the address. You'll know it when you see it."
Taylor was deeply missing working with nice, professional ex-mercenaries and cops. They tended to give proper addresses. Still, it was enough to work with. She put in another call, leaving a voicemail with Turk - she'd need to close up early. She felt bad about this, but it wasn't like they were getting much business anyway at the moment. The only thing keeping them open was the fact that Turk owned the building and was practically living off his retirement fund anyhow. She checked over the stoves, the pots, the tins, ensuring everything would remain secure when she left. Taylor poked her head out into the main body of the shop, her heart already beating faster as she imagined the thrill of the chase, the absolute glee of finding something to take apart. Back to what she was meant to do. Back to a place where her irritation and instincts could actually pay off. Vicky blinked at the sight of Taylor's tense face, already a little flushed in anticipation of the work to come.
"Sorry, something came up. I need to close things down here. You're done?"
The cape looked down at her plate.
"Uh… yeah, done. Is everything alright?"
"Just a friend. Need to head over. Sorry, can't stay and chat."
God, it felt good to just brush conversation off using necessity as an excuse. Felt right. Vicky stood sharply, looking more purposeful.
"Do you need a ride?"
…
What?
She needed a ride, yes. But she was going to get a taxi, or more likely, she'd wait for Turk to pick her up and take her there. The docks were too far away to reach on foot comfortably, especially with her knee being stiff after Bisha had folded it backwards with a single kick. The bone throbbed at the memory. So what if she needed a ride?
"...I'll find one."
"I've really got nothing else to do today. I can fly you over, if you like."
Oh no no no no no no
Chorei's aura of tranquillity fractured. Shit. How to respond, how to…
"I'm… fine. But thanks for the offer."
"Well, if you want I can fly over, take a message, or…"
"It's personal. Sorry."
"There aren't any taxis around, so…"
"I can wait for a friend."
The phone buzzed - a text. Parian.
Someone's here
Shit. Shit. Shit. She needed to get over there now - dammit, this is why she didn't let people investigate on their own, they just got into trouble while she was too far away to help. Solo investigations were nice in theory but awful in practice, all that happened was information was unequally dispersed, people did stupid things because they weren't kept up-to-date on what the other investigations had discovered, and if things went wrong, backup was hard to come by. Fuck. Why couldn't she just drive. Chorei whirled around in a haze of panic - she couldn't drive, never learned how, too terrified of being behind a wheel. The roar of the engine, apparently, just gave her the shakes - the feeling of having a vast machine under her control. Her centipede had hated it, she hated it, and thus there were no other options. As much as she loathed admitting it… she needed a ride. Ahab's house was a good distance away, if Turk was even there. He had a life of his own, she couldn't just expect him to be available at all times. Sanagi? Busy with work, definitely, and the police station was too far away for her to get here quickly. She was the only one used to these termites, only one who could handle them. God, fuckitty fuck fuck - Christ, she was being vulgar today. Stress, damn stress.
Vicky floated over, looking resolute.
"Seriously, I'm happy to help."
Taylor really didn't want her help. She really didn't. Her phone was heavy in her hand, a reminder that Parian needed help, that she'd blundered into something she didn't understand and couldn't deal with. Someone was there. Someone dangerous, most likely. Someone who could cause problems for all of them.
You do not realise the peril you are encroaching upon Taylor Anne Hebert, you don't remotely understand, and your lack of understanding will doom the both of us! We've survived Bisha, I don't want to meet my next and final end at the hands of this blonde freak!
Spurn her, reject her, insult her mother if you must but get us out of here and never look back. Do not let her carry us, do not let her realise what we've done, do not let her come to any realisations of any manner whatsoever. Get her out of here, then get to the docks. We cannot investigate your termites if we are reduced down to something which can fit into a tin can.
Deny her.
And then get to work.
I beg you, do not compromise our survival. Do not invite such… unneeded risk into our shared existence.
Unneeded?
She needed to get to the docks.
She needed to investigate what Parian had found and who she had seen.
And she needed a ride.
A spark of guilt flared in her at the sight of the girl's… faintly desperate face, even behind the shimmering, attention-hungry aura. She looked lonely. And Taylor, in her own way, had contributed to that loneliness. She just wanted to help. After all the paranoia, once things were reduced down to simple practicalities, matters became far, far clearer. Chorei screeched faintly in the back of her mind.
"...fine."
And Taylor A. Hebert's fate was sealed.
This interaction between Vicky and Taylor was hilarious. I was cackling like a madman while reading it. Seriously, one of the best fanfics that I've read in the fandom. Although didn't Vicky rescue Taylor from that roof after Bisha got Rifled or is my memory playing tricks on me? And, as an aside, do you, dear Author, make a plan for your story first or prioritize worldbuilding and then try to assemble interesting bits into a cohesive whole?
I apologize if my post is badly comprehensible. Writing in English be hard.
I apologize if my post is badly comprehensible. Writing in English be hard.
GraftingBuddha
Retired Pooh-Bah
Glad you're enjoying things!
To clarify, Vicky didn't rescue Taylor, she was just seen approaching the tower while Taylor was being carried away.
And I don't really plan all that much. I mean, I have the vague outlines of things sketched out, the ideas I want to explore, but a lot is very much up in the air. Sometimes I change the direction of whole arcs because things just didn't feel right when executed as-planned. Worldbuilding is something I do a lot of, though. Even if elements are invented on the fly.
Well, always happy to write cringe.
Eliciting a strong emotion in a reader is always good, after all.
Bisha, by the delightful SorrySorrow
Here's a little piece of fanart that I'd like to offer as tribute to the Outer Gods.
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141 - Professor Taylor A. Hebert, PhD in Street Strife, Masters in Asskicking, Bachelors in Locker Maintenance
GraftingBuddha
Retired Pooh-Bah
141 - Professor Taylor A. Hebert, PhD in Street Strife, Masters in Asskicking, Bachelors in Locker Maintenance
Vicky's day had just improved. A little. Don't get her wrong, the tea shop had been an exercise in willpower as she tried to not cringe herself out of existence, like some sort of… very awkwardly-shaped ouroboros. And she'd floated the whole time, never a good sign. Floating constantly was a reminder that she could always back out, could always just fly away somewhere and ignore the rest of the world. Not that she did, very often. The world was too important to just ignore, the people in it demanded her attention. But the reminder was nice. The knowledge that she still had that level of control over herself. More control than most people had. Floating a tiny bit above the ground had helped her when journalists mobbed her after her trigger, after her debut, during those first few months where her presence was a novelty instead of a faint disappointment. Helped Amy, too, when she… well, it helped if you had a giant blonde get out of jail free card hovering around at all times. Apparently. Amy hadn't complained when she plucked her away from some particularly probing journalists. She'd floated constantly in the tea shop, even when she was sitting down there was a tiny window of space underneath her. Nothing holding her down. Nothing keeping her trapped. She was here because she wanted to be here, nothing more.
Taylor had been… stiff. On seeing her, Vicky couldn't help but feel a spark of pity. Scarred by the Conflagration, most likely - she'd seen enough of those swirling scars on people around the city. Simurgh zones used to have the tattoos on the back of people's hands, places attacked by Behemoth often had people with branching lightning-bolts burned into their skin from power that impossibly lingered in severed cables and broken machinery, and people from Brockton Bay would sometimes have those little red, scaled swirls. The skin turned to liquid and back to a solid just as quickly, the ripples immortalised. So she'd tried to start a conversation. The idea of just letting someone stew in their own boredom and memories… well, it wasn't something a hero did. Not remotely. Even when Taylor was resistant, she kept going - some people were like that, unwilling to engage in conversation but inwardly desperate for it. And… she wanted to help someone. When everything else became increasingly complicated, it was nice to go back to something simple. Helping people. And there were definitely enough people in Brockton Bay who needed her help - who needed anyone's help. And if Taylor's twitchiness told her anything, it was that she wasn't getting the help she needed from the people around her.
So she'd tried. When monosyllables greeted her, she went deeper. Talked about books, but that went nowhere. Talking about her job was evidently pointless. The only thing that elicited any response was talking about her own thoughts of moving away from Brockton. She couldn't quite say why she'd spilled the beans there. It was private, but… well, sometimes it helped reticent people when they could just sit back and listen to someone else. Helped acclimatise them to opening up. Might take a few other conversations in future, but she could see Taylor engaging more as time went on. The book, though… what had it been called? Right, something on a site in Turkey, Çatalhöyük or something. Looked interesting, but… faintly eerie. The number of small notes scribbled in the margins of the bent pages, the faint scraps of images she'd caught a glimpse of. Bulls, cramped rooms, strange murals of tiny people surrounding enormous beasts… there was something she couldn't quite put her finger on, but it was definitely uncanny. She'd resigned herself after a while to the fact that this conversation wouldn't go anywhere. Taylor was content to be silent. Well, sure. She could come back in future, try again, clearly she was more interested in listening than talking. It was petty, but she wanted to help. She knew that if she didn't, if she just wrote this off as a case of 'oh well, I tried, bye bye', she'd end up awake in the middle of the night staring at the ceiling, feeling a sharp core of guilt pressing against the inside of her sternum.
The girl was younger than her, was scarred, had lost her eye, had lost her teeth and for some inexplicable reason had replaced them with gold, and in general held herself like some of the veterans she saw every so often, usually at fundraisers. The twitchiness, the unwillingness to do nothing, the constant tension, the hostility to any kind of social interaction.
She hadn't been able to help Amy have a normal life that wasn't policed by the PRT.
She hadn't been able to save Dean.
She'd seen piles of bodies in the city, people she'd failed to rescue in time.
So she was sure as hell not going to fail to help some lonely girl who worked alone in a tea shop.
The 'urgent situation' had come as if on cue - a thing she could help with in a tangible way, direct action for a clear result. Perfect. Well, not perfect, obviously. There was an urgent situation happening, those were never perfect. But… eh, she knew what she meant. She was happy to help but wasn't happy to have to help. If that made any sense. Taylor had been resistant, naturally, but had eventually caved in. Must've been very urgent, then - all the more reason for Vicky to help out as much as she could.
So she swept up Taylor, braced herself, and plunged into the endless blue sky, feeling the breeze course through her hair, feeling purpose animating her every movement.
This was what she was meant to do.
And it felt amazing.
Taylor did not feel amazing.
Neither did Chorei.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
The nun was screaming. Loudly. It sounded like someone was splashing water on a cat, she yowled, screeched, and generally made a complete mess of herself while running around Taylor's mind in panicked circles. This was better than Taylor, of course. She wasn't screaming, she wasn't howling, she certainly wasn't yowling and squeaking like some deranged possum, but she was without a doubt panicking. Unlike Chorei, though, she couldn't express any of this. Flying was… not fun. She didn't enjoy it one little bit. Her jitters could be passed off into the swarm, and she'd definitely been in worse situations, but… dammit, her lizard brain was roaring at her loudly, instructing her that flying like this was not something people generally were meant to do. Hundreds of generations of Heberts were gathered together inside her DNA, from great-great-great grandfather Comte de Hebert who lost his fortune while attempting to search for a fountain that could cure his syphilis, to a very agitated monkey which sat in the corner and stared ferociously at everyone around it. One by one, they voted that flying outside the confines of an aeroplane was something no decent Hebert ought to do, and that she should be condemned strongly for this action. The union of lizard-brain-cells and ancestral monkeys was declaring a general strike in her stomach.
And now they were moving faster oh God she was feeling it-
Eeeeeeeeeeeee
Oh, so Chorei was still wailing. Good to know. The wind ripped through her hair, and Vicky held her tightly - to her limited credit, she flew like a professional. High enough that no-one could get any pictures, slow enough that she wasn't suffering whiplash, steady enough that motion sickness was minimised - downright non-existent, in fact. If they gave out licences for this sort of thing, she'd probably have one. Did flyers have to get licences for going through cities? Did they carry trackers to make sure that aircraft couldn't collide with them? Was there a maximum speed they were permitted to reach? The irritating minutiae were pleasing to focus on, distracted her from the fact that she was one slip away from plummeting to a violent and unimpressive death. Just slip, whee, splat. Oh no she was giving her quite conceivable death onomatopoeia, that was never a good sign. She assumed. Definitely seemed like a bad sign.
"Hold your hair!"
What? What was she - oh. Her hair was flying into Vicky's face. A lot. And based on her expression, she didn't appreciate the distraction. Taylor gathered as much as she could in her hands, bunching it together into a particularly ineffective helmet. Vicky spat out a few loose hairs. Where was Chorei's tranquillity when she needed it? Where were her mantras? She projected a little of her annoyance to the nun, who briefly ceased to screech mindlessly. She felt a mixture of fear and embarrassment pulse through her - the awareness that she was observed when she had her small mental breakdown. She began to mumble a little, the volume building louder and louder until the mantra was all she could hear. Not English, not Japanese, something else - she shivered when she realised what it was. Chorei was chanting in the clicking, whirring language of the immortal centipedes she'd once had instead of a spine. It was a language Taylor could never reproduce, couldn't even understand. No human throat could ever mimic it… but Chorei had, for a long time, been something very distant from humanity. And she remembered the motions, the feeling, the essence of being infested. Even without her centipede, she could still make the sounds.
No chance of recording her words on paper. No hope for gaining meaning from it. Good.
As much as she hated to admit it, though, the mantra was working. Chorei was digging into something she found utterly calming, so deep-seated that even now it could repel some of the fear overwhelming her. Piece by piece, the swirling, chittering song drained away her fears. She could feel the grafting between her and Chorei like a finely-stitched dress, something that had no need to strain or flex - it was perfectly-fitting, and required no alterations. She relaxed into the song, letting Chorei's aura of calm sustain her. Bit by bit, she came under control. Her heart rate decreased. Her breathing became more regular. The wind was just wind, the city was just an assortment of colours in her vision - no depth perception, so it was easy to start conceiving of it as a flat matte painting. Just scenery. She remained stiff as a board, but… her eye was cold and calm. The docks were approaching. She was irritated at how noticeable this whole excursion made her, but… a few grainy photos of a curly-haired girl wouldn't amount to much. A paper trail could. Just… get dropped off, tell Vicky to leave, then investigate Parian. Simple as.
…she missed the unity she'd once had with her friends. She missed being able to just snap her fingers and assemble them in a moment. But they had lives of their own, things they needed to do, problems they needed to overcome. It left her feeling a little unmoored. She hadn't even been able to grab her gun - that seemed like an immediate recipe for trouble with a heroic cape carrying her around. Just her swarm, her grafting, and a few knives. That was it. Pathetic, really. She wanted Sanagi to help her out, for her to show up and be exceedingly passive-aggressive to whatever they faced. She wanted Turk or Ahab to come and shoot things, or Arch to… well, he wasn't so good in combat, but he could still give some kind of useful advice. Even Ted, an individual she had little connection to and minimal fondness for, was still a known factor. Parian was someone she'd met a handful of times, and Vicky was entirely new. In a sense.
Well. She could handle it alone. The last few months had toughened her up - and she'd have Parian around. Feeble or no, flying needles were flying needles. If she had any fabric to animate… well, that sounded like a party to her. And… there. A great grey mass huddled near the docks, by the side of a sluggish brown canal. The meat packing plant. Her dad had mentioned it a few times, absolute mess of a place. Built years back, stank up the area, went down around the same time as the power plant outside of town. Same parent company, apparently. Good thing that it had shut down too, there'd been murmurings of a scandal to do with the meat itself. Probably using horse meat or something - it wasn't serious enough to warrant anything more than a few idle mentions on the news and a swiftly-settled lawsuit, the details of which she'd never been quite clear on. Whatever had happened, it was closed now, and had been for years. But as she looked at the tumorous growth hunched under the glare of surrounding buildings, she thought… that looked like somewhere Bisha would hide out. Like the abandoned factory Ahab, Turk, and Mouse Protector had taken out. A complex inhabited by homeless people, easily occupied by a cult which knew how to stay out of sight. Interesting. Very interesting.
Vicky made a surprised noise when Taylor calmly pointed downwards at a street a block or so away from the meat packing plant, hand steady even in the strong wind. What, alarmed at someone not turning to a pile of goo after spending a little while up in the air? She'd had her head drilled open. Vicky's mind games had no chance whatsoever.
"There, please."
A moment of hesitation, and then a quick descent. She spied a few people looking up, but it turned out that a person flying through the air was actually quite hard to keep track of. Their pace decreased as they approached the asphalt, slowing just enough that nothing would be cracked. When they landed Taylor felt almost nothing, just a faint impact to suggest that landfall had been made. Her legs were… fairly steady. Her swarm accepted the jitters and shivers, Chorei's chanting calmed the rest. Vicky made no moves to stop her from simply hopping down, brushing her hair back into place, then turning on her heel and nodding politely.
"Thanks. Don't worry about the bill for your tea."
Vicky blinked.
"...no problem. Sorry, are you sure you want to be here? It's not the nicest-"
"It's fine. Thank you for the ride. I owe you one."
"Mind if I ask what the situation is?"
Taylor narrowed her eye. Vicky was trying to get information out of her - wouldn't work. She might not know about the Gallant situation, but she was still a potential threat. Hell, Taylor didn't want to expose another person to the weirdness she regularly engaged with. Parian was enough. Parian was too many, actually, Parian knowing about this was a bad thing, adding someone else would just be heaping more shit onto the proverbial pile. Gosh, she was feeling vulgar today, her inner monologue was rarely this… unpleasant. And she couldn't even blame the bikers, she was spending her time around… oh, no, she could blame Ted. Yeah, that Ted, corrupting the youth mentally while shredding the youth physically. With her bombs. Because… ah, it wasn't that funny anyway. So maybe the flight had knocked a few things loose, who cared. She didn't
Your brain feels scrambled. Like eggs.
…
I would like some scrambled eggs after this.
OK, Chorei was a little disoriented as well. Excellent knowledge to possess. She gave Vicky a look.
"Sorry, but it's very personal. Thank you again for the ride."
Best to be curt. Almost rude. Vicky blinked rapidly as she quickly walked away, a few insects tagging her to ensure that she wasn't doing anything untowards. She remained floating, looking around awkwardly, opening and closing her mouth a few times. What, did she want a grovel? Taylor didn't grovel, except for strategic reasons, in which case the grovelling was invariably followed by gratuitous violence. Or lasers. Whichever was more satisfying/convenient at the time.
"Hey, look, I-"
Taylor turned on her heel, keeping her face as impassive as possible.
"Thank you for the ride. Forget about the bill."
"No, it's not that, look, if there's something wrong, I want to h-"
"It's personal."
"...really?"
Her voice was small, tinged with awkward hesitation, and a distinct sour note of suspicion. A part of Taylor wanted to imagine that Vicky had absolutely no suspicions regarding her until this precise moment. Another part wrestled that part into submission and insisted that she always had doubts, and if she didn't, was going to have doubts anyway so provoking them here and now wasn't much of a difference. If the Frenzied Flame had taught her anything, it was that time could be crammed together into a tight ball where all was one, and in that state of mind, eventually was now and once upon a time all at once. So, really, what was the point in distinguishing between them? Oh wow she was more shaken up by that flight than she was willing to admit.
"Really. It's very personal."
She paused.
"...family stuff."
Taylor rubbed her scarred arms in feigned embarrassment. That should do it. Imply that it was to do with the Conflagration, that it was horrendously personal, that it was something she should be keeping enormously private. Vicky glanced at what she was doing, and her eyes widened. She was clearly resisting the urge to clap her hands over her mouth in sheer mortification.
"Oh my God, I'm so sorry - do… you need a ride back?"
"No. I can find my own way home."
"...alright. But stay safe, you hear? You make good tea."
Another pause.
"I'll definitely visit again."
Was that more suspicion in her words? God, this day was just getting… no, no, just go into the plant, punch things, shoot things, roundhouse kick things if her knee felt up to it (if would feel like it if she forced it to). That would work off the stress. Solve the Vicky situation at a later date. For now, nod politely, leave. Keep a few insects around her to make sure nothing untoward was going on. As she turned a corner, the cape rose into the air, presumably squinting in an inquisitorial manner. Punk. Taylor shivered slightly - Vicky had a point, admittedly. This was a bad part of town. Windows boarded up, buildings either abandoned or entirely used by squatters. Bright eyes glared out from shadowy recesses, and the street was uneven beneath her feet. Everything had the dusty, sweet smell of Bisha's servants - if she looked into the cracks in the asphalt, she could see yellow matter deeply caked into the earth. Even a few fragments of bone from his enhanced servants - this place had been a warzone a scant few weeks ago. And now it was evidently back to its usual business. That is to say, no business at all. Good number of insects, though. The walls were brimming with them. It was an exercise in patience getting them out without anyone noticing, but in time she was able to develop quite a horde. Enough to deal with anything in her way. Her knives were secure. Vicky lingered… and flew up. She thought she could sense a hint of exasperation through her insects - just a little. Might be her imagination.
She tracked her up until her range ceased, and Glory Girl vanished. Well. That had been… comparatively painless. Certainly could've been much, much worse. No-one died, no bones were broken, and she'd gotten here without any substantial delays. Hooray. Her pace increased, and soon she was jogging lightly through the scarred streets, avoiding craters left by Ted's bombs, dodging puddles of dried liquid from Bisha's cultists.. A few glances confirmed that no-one appeared to be observing her from above. She was fine. She could do what she was meant to do. Even Chorei was settling down, no more ramblings, no more screeches, not even any mantras. She was as dedicated to this as Taylor was - eager to see what happened, bracing for any kind of battle she could try her hand at winning. She had all she needed - and she felt alive.
The meat packing plant was nearby, just a block or two - no-one interrupted her. Good. She didn't need any distractions. But hungry eyes watched her from the shadows of a dozen run-down buildings, cautious at the sight of anyone in their part of town that wasn't ragged and weatherbeaten. Her swarm identified each one, nothing their stooped posture, their lean faces, the pockmarked scars along their arms from repeated injections. The scent of salt was in the air, and every single brick of every single building was soaked with the stuff. Rats scurried through gutters, and she could feel the fleas riding on their backs. Strange sea life inhabited the sewers around here - Leviathan's attacks always stirred up the sea bed, waves ripping upwards and casting odd life into the strangest places. She'd heard horror stories about bright lights coming from underground in Miami, teams going below to find a horde of half-dead anglerfish, their teeth shining brightly in the torchlight. Definitely a myth, of course. Definitely. And in Brockton… every drain in this street opened into a tiny galaxy. Jellyfish, formless and quivering, lay prone and shining. Tentacles stretched around them like haloes of kelp. Strange particulates in their great shapeless bodies caught the morning light, and glimmered like stars which lay beneath the earth. She glanced down… and saw a rat. A rat had entered a jellyfish, and was swimming in its interior. A rat swam amongst the stars, tiny eyes glittering like gemstones, fur turned a matte black by the moisture it immersed itself in. Nebulas formed and disappeared as it squirmed, its tail struck the stars from this underground sky, a single swipe and a dozen were gone.
It glared up at her.
She moved on. Leave the rats to their underground galaxies. She had meaty business to attend to.
The meat packing plant was a huddled thing primarily composed of red rust and corners. It simply had too many - and drainpipes surrounded it on all sides, conveying matter away to some unknown location. Based on the sluggish brown waters of the canal that flowed beside it… well, looked easy enough to get rid of any waste. It looked like a tick surrounded by twisting hairs, a nest of pipes that rumbled and gurgled idly in the morning silence. Her swarm moved in - a good number of new insects were already in the building, and they added to her numbers. She had thousands, more than enough. They scanned every room while she waited outdoors, observing calmly. No need to turn or fidget, the insects took away her agitation, and gave her more eyes than anyone could possibly need. No-one approached as she went through the plant. Rusted rooms littered its interior, each one warped by moisture and age until it seemed like an organic cell - a honeycomb of irregularly shaped containers where strange matter lingered. Chairs that had grown into the floor, tables that had long-since sagged and decayed, lights staring down with empty glass eyes, all the power long-since gone. And her insects could… feel something. A presence in the air. A pressure that bore down around her, a feeling like she was standing on the edge of a vast cliff, the wind cutting into her skin…
The same as in that city.
And as she went deeper into the complex, she sensed more. Her hand instinctively went to her phone, dialling in Parian's number. It rang while she searched - rooms with no clear purpose. One that looked like a server room, if it had been invented by some 19th century submarine engineer. Rotten to nothing at this point, but still baffling. A room simply full of cow skulls, and while none of them had horns, the memory of that five-horned bull surging from the river made her shiver. And… ah. Interesting. A long, long room, with a surprisingly new trestle table. And on that table, a pile of weapons rusting into oblivion. Her insects could feel the mustiness around these pipes wrapped in barbed wire, guns stolen from across the entirety of America, ammunition waiting patiently in containers that were being overcome by rust-red fungus. The same mustiness that had surrounded Bisha's cult centres, the mustiness that clung to his cultists in a sickly haze. The stench that had pervaded Mound Moor. Oh, she was here, she was close, she was at home - in a strange way.
The phone clicked, and a voice echoed through its tinny speaker.
"Hello?"
"It's Taylor. I'm at the plant."
"How did you… never mind. Where are you?"
"Outside the front."
"I'm nearby, I'll come to meet you. Do you have a… mask?"
"No."
"...oh. I'll be right there."
The girl came scurrying over a building - a few blocks away. Hm. She was dressed down, explained why she hadn't recognised her. Costumes made everything easier for her power. Still more fashionable than Taylor, though. She looked… haggard. Sleepless nights, if Taylor was going to hazard a guess. The girl caught her breath, unused to running like this. Taylor waited. She had time. A few seconds later and the cape was ready to talk.
"...how did you get here so fast?"
"Nevermind. How did you find this place?"
"Just… just curious, is all. I had… a friend, back when I was looking into the people that started the Conflagration. We lost touch, but… I knew she hung around this area. I was just passing through, but I felt… I felt something when I saw this building. I can't quite…"
"You said you saw someone."
"I did. Some… guy, a couple of guys actually. Homeless, looked like. But the guy in front was… weird. Long hair, big beard, kinda… scrawny, like a junkie. But he had so many burns around his face, I was surprised he could still talk."
"What did he say?"
"Wanted his men to come in and do… something, I lost them at that point. But it seemed urgent."
"You didn't follow them."
"No, no, I waited for you. Should I have-"
"No. You did the right thing."
Taylor cracked her neck from side to side, relishing in the feeling. Her swarm was finding… ah. Most of the complex was abandoned, but there were a few people buried deep inside, on the killing floor. The drains, the hooks, the decaying boltguns, all of them told her what this place had once been - and the stink of copper travelled through the enhanced senses of her swarm. It was choking, stifling. Damn near overwhelming in person, she imagined. Five people, just five. They were working overtime, scrambling to disassemble what felt like piles of junk to her insects, but which were surely something more. The people, though… one felt human, but the other four were distinctly not. She could tell the moment her insects landed on them. A small fly made contact, simply verifying the man's presence, and… it vanished. She felt a sensation of being drawn inside, legs kicking feebly as flesh like quicksand enveloped the tiny body, and then… nothing. Just the feeling of being torn apart by dozens of pincers. She had an idea for what these things were - dammit, she could've used her gun right around now. Or the flamethrower. Still, she had ideas. She turned to Parian, who was shivering slightly at being so close to the plant.
"Do you think you could go inside?"
"...are they still in there?"
She gave her a look.
"Sorry, stupid question. Do you need my help?"
"Help would be appreciated. But if you're going to panic in there…"
Parian's face tightened up.
"No, no, I… if this is related to that city, I need to help. I know what you said, I know-"
"If things get out of hand, we retreat. You have needles?"
"Yeah, I… try to always bring them. Also…"
She unslung her backpack - good, she was learning to not travel unprepared. The interior of the bag was packed with a basic survival kit - rations, a wind-up torch, water, some pills that she assumed were antibiotics, painkillers… hm. Good move on her part, though it did betray a certain amount of paranoia. Taylor had to remind herself that she wanted Parian to stay out of this business - just one job, though. This felt small-scale, not remotely on the same level as Bisha. Dangerous, but manageable. And there were only five - she could manage that. Parian was just a little extra backup. Just in case. Her spiders began to spin long strands of silk, joining them together until she had a few ropes. Immobilisation would suffice if she couldn't dish out enough firepower to kill whatever these things were. Parian dug deep into the bag… and brought out fabric. A lot of fabric. Cheap stuff, and colourful. Hm. She glanced around nervously, and Taylor quietly used her swarm to encourage any nearby figures to get to a much further distance. A nod reassured Parian that she wouldn't be observed, and needles flowed outwards, sliding into the fabric, pushing it outwards, power flowing through them to give the cloth a facsimile of life. Bit by bit, it started to animate, growing larger, larger, stepping free from the bag, and…
Gorilla. That was a giant stuffed gorilla.
…I feel a faint urge to hug this creature, an urge I am sure is unnatural. I will work to excise it.
She blinked.
"How strong is it?"
Parian beamed a little, proud with her creation - it was definitely a gorilla, she could say that much. A giant cuddly gorilla, with big stitched-on eyes and a mouth that hung open in a friendly grin. Dammit, this was undermining her seriousness a little, she was about to enter a horrific meat packing plant and Parian was… Parian was out here doing the funky monkey.
"Strong enough. It can crush metal if necessary - and the fabric is tougher than it should be. Much tougher."
I no longer wish to hug this creature.
"Good to know. You need a mask?"
"Oh, hold on-"
She pulled a cloth mask over the bottom half of her face. Not as gaudy as the one Taylor had seen her wearing during promotional stunts, but it served its purpose. They weren't doing anything public here - though Taylor had to give credit to her, she'd gone out as a civilian, and had nonetheless packed all she needed to do her job as a parahuman. She looked… elated. Taylor wondered if that was how she looked at the moment. Eager to find some catharsis - Taylor needed to do something or she'd go insane, and Parian clearly had some tension built up from her own incident with the termites. Again, a pulse of guilt - she really shouldn't be involving Parian in this. She'd been remaining at a distance, concerned with her own life, not poking into business like… well, she'd found the plant by accident, called Taylor immediately, and hadn't entered before she arrived. She'd done everything that Taylor would've wanted her to do… and now Taylor was dragging her inside regardless, because she needed the backup.
A pulse of guilt. A realisation of what she should do. Parian was shivering in the cold, she looked thin, haggard, worn down by the stress of her own encounter with that other city - an encounter which lasted much longer than Taylor's. She was scrappier than Taylor had thought, but… still, this could be exceedingly risky. Gallant's dead eye hovered in the back of her mind, and she momentarily pictured Parian that way. Hung up on a meat hook, gored by something impossible, shot by a cultist, or simply driven mad to the point that nothing remained of who she was. Parian twitched uneasily as Taylor thought for a long, long moment. She knew what she needed to do. Pragmatic rationalisation followed swiftly, but it was a sharp, pulsing core of guilt in her stomach that informed the decision.
"Stay at a distance. I'm going in."
Parian blinked. Her resolve wavered, and her voice was small.
"What about-"
"That gorilla is more than enough. The risk is anyone trying to shoot you to neutralise it. You're best served by staying out here and guiding it."
There, that sounded like she'd come up with this rationally. Parian scowled.
"It can go beyond my line of sight, but I can't see through it."
Hm. Problem.
"Can you sense it at all?"
"...well, yeah, I can sense things through it, but only direct disturbances to the thread itself. Nothing more."
And the problem just became workable. More practice would make it better, but… Parian was maintaining a large, powerful gorilla, Taylor had more experience in combat, not to mention greater resilience. The biggest vulnerability here was Parian herself. One bullet could put her out of commission. She'd be an idiot to drag her inside where these things were waiting. Not to mention the risk of any panic attacks or breakdowns.
"I can work with that."
Her swarm descended, finding every individual stitch, every needle. Flies and cockroaches located the right points, and dug in. Parian's flinches told her everything she needed to know - she could feel the pressure.
"Follow in the direction my insects are tugging. I'll be able to guide you fairly precisely - and if I tug on this thread three times, I'm in combat. Then just follow my lead. Here, let me give it a go."
The experiment was brief, and, to Parian's frustration, very successful. She could sense a great deal through the threads, enough that complex guidance was fairly easy. The gorilla could be commanded to duck, to weave from side to side, to lift specific objects and crush them… her swarm was already excellent at multitasking, and it was fairly easy to keep tabs on this particular creature. Parian huffed in annoyance as the gorilla returned to its original position, looming impassively over the two of them… well, if it wasn't for the fact that it looked irresistibly cuddly. Chorei was silent, but a tiny part of her was evidently enthused over the possibility of commanding her own giant stuffed gorilla. Immortal nun. Immortal. Centipede. Nun.
Christ almighty.
"We're good. I'll be going in - stay in touch with your phone. My swarm should be good at checking for anything, but if I don't respond to any messages and I stop guiding your gorilla, feel free to get help. You know where the tea shop is, here's the number for it - ask for Turk, tell him where we are and what to do. Understood?"
She paused.
"One more thing. If I ask you to come into the plant, if I ask you to go against anything I've said, get me to say a passphrase. You'll ask me… what swims in an underground galaxy. And I'll reply 'giant rats'. Alright?"
Parian looked alarmed.
"Look, it's unique. Not easy to get any of that through guesswork."
"...I suppose so? Right, I understand, but… you're going in alone. Are you particularly tough? I'm just saying, you-"
Taylor quietly bent down and picked up a segment of pipe that had detached from one of the nearby houses, slowly growing into the ground. Her scarred hands fit easily over it, barely feeling the rough texture or the sharp edges as anything but soulless sensory input - nothing more. She gripped tight, and the scars strained, her muscles contorted, and her frame focused… the pipe snapped. Parian's eyes were wide as the pipe clattered to the ground in two ragged pieces, pinched and torn like a particularly ugly loaf of bread.
"Anything else?"
"...no, no, we're good."
"Fantastic."
She paused, and tried to think of something impressive to say. Something that could give Parian the operational calmness necessary for this all to go off without a hitch, something that would reassure her that Taylor mostly knew what she was doing, and that this would just be a distant nightmare soon enough. The kind of thing she should've said to Gallant. Her mouth parted, and… nothing emerged. She couldn't think of anything good. What was she meant to say, that 'one aspect of something vast and horrible will soon be probably dealt with, there's loads of other aspects that you know nothing about, but best of luck with the rest of your life'? Maybe 'I can't say for sure what will happen in there, maybe I'll die in seconds to something I couldn't begin to comprehend, but if I do, just run away and presumably you'll live a little bit longer'? She sighed internally, and Chorei consolingly patted her on her brain's back, sensing a feeling of disappointment and embarrassment pulsing through her grey matter. Oh, that was an idea. Taylor reached out and planted her hand on Parian's shoulder. The girl sagged slightly - shit, put too much force into that. Taylor stared awkwardly at the shorter girl, figuring out what to say. Uh. Hm. Maybe - no. How about - nah.
She patted her a few times.
"Bye."
Parian looked baffled. Taylor walked, then broke into a jog. The gorilla followed, and Parian lingered. Good. She really had nothing else she could think of saying, she'd exhausted all her tact on Vicky. Speaking of whom - no, still nowhere in her range. Right. Into the meat packing plant, where the coppery stink could embrace her. Yeah, this felt like something she could deal with.
I swear, sometimes I wonder how you managed to kill me.
Sometimes Taylor did too.
Vicky's day had just improved. A little. Don't get her wrong, the tea shop had been an exercise in willpower as she tried to not cringe herself out of existence, like some sort of… very awkwardly-shaped ouroboros. And she'd floated the whole time, never a good sign. Floating constantly was a reminder that she could always back out, could always just fly away somewhere and ignore the rest of the world. Not that she did, very often. The world was too important to just ignore, the people in it demanded her attention. But the reminder was nice. The knowledge that she still had that level of control over herself. More control than most people had. Floating a tiny bit above the ground had helped her when journalists mobbed her after her trigger, after her debut, during those first few months where her presence was a novelty instead of a faint disappointment. Helped Amy, too, when she… well, it helped if you had a giant blonde get out of jail free card hovering around at all times. Apparently. Amy hadn't complained when she plucked her away from some particularly probing journalists. She'd floated constantly in the tea shop, even when she was sitting down there was a tiny window of space underneath her. Nothing holding her down. Nothing keeping her trapped. She was here because she wanted to be here, nothing more.
Taylor had been… stiff. On seeing her, Vicky couldn't help but feel a spark of pity. Scarred by the Conflagration, most likely - she'd seen enough of those swirling scars on people around the city. Simurgh zones used to have the tattoos on the back of people's hands, places attacked by Behemoth often had people with branching lightning-bolts burned into their skin from power that impossibly lingered in severed cables and broken machinery, and people from Brockton Bay would sometimes have those little red, scaled swirls. The skin turned to liquid and back to a solid just as quickly, the ripples immortalised. So she'd tried to start a conversation. The idea of just letting someone stew in their own boredom and memories… well, it wasn't something a hero did. Not remotely. Even when Taylor was resistant, she kept going - some people were like that, unwilling to engage in conversation but inwardly desperate for it. And… she wanted to help someone. When everything else became increasingly complicated, it was nice to go back to something simple. Helping people. And there were definitely enough people in Brockton Bay who needed her help - who needed anyone's help. And if Taylor's twitchiness told her anything, it was that she wasn't getting the help she needed from the people around her.
So she'd tried. When monosyllables greeted her, she went deeper. Talked about books, but that went nowhere. Talking about her job was evidently pointless. The only thing that elicited any response was talking about her own thoughts of moving away from Brockton. She couldn't quite say why she'd spilled the beans there. It was private, but… well, sometimes it helped reticent people when they could just sit back and listen to someone else. Helped acclimatise them to opening up. Might take a few other conversations in future, but she could see Taylor engaging more as time went on. The book, though… what had it been called? Right, something on a site in Turkey, Çatalhöyük or something. Looked interesting, but… faintly eerie. The number of small notes scribbled in the margins of the bent pages, the faint scraps of images she'd caught a glimpse of. Bulls, cramped rooms, strange murals of tiny people surrounding enormous beasts… there was something she couldn't quite put her finger on, but it was definitely uncanny. She'd resigned herself after a while to the fact that this conversation wouldn't go anywhere. Taylor was content to be silent. Well, sure. She could come back in future, try again, clearly she was more interested in listening than talking. It was petty, but she wanted to help. She knew that if she didn't, if she just wrote this off as a case of 'oh well, I tried, bye bye', she'd end up awake in the middle of the night staring at the ceiling, feeling a sharp core of guilt pressing against the inside of her sternum.
The girl was younger than her, was scarred, had lost her eye, had lost her teeth and for some inexplicable reason had replaced them with gold, and in general held herself like some of the veterans she saw every so often, usually at fundraisers. The twitchiness, the unwillingness to do nothing, the constant tension, the hostility to any kind of social interaction.
She hadn't been able to help Amy have a normal life that wasn't policed by the PRT.
She hadn't been able to save Dean.
She'd seen piles of bodies in the city, people she'd failed to rescue in time.
So she was sure as hell not going to fail to help some lonely girl who worked alone in a tea shop.
The 'urgent situation' had come as if on cue - a thing she could help with in a tangible way, direct action for a clear result. Perfect. Well, not perfect, obviously. There was an urgent situation happening, those were never perfect. But… eh, she knew what she meant. She was happy to help but wasn't happy to have to help. If that made any sense. Taylor had been resistant, naturally, but had eventually caved in. Must've been very urgent, then - all the more reason for Vicky to help out as much as she could.
So she swept up Taylor, braced herself, and plunged into the endless blue sky, feeling the breeze course through her hair, feeling purpose animating her every movement.
This was what she was meant to do.
And it felt amazing.
* * *
Taylor did not feel amazing.
Neither did Chorei.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
The nun was screaming. Loudly. It sounded like someone was splashing water on a cat, she yowled, screeched, and generally made a complete mess of herself while running around Taylor's mind in panicked circles. This was better than Taylor, of course. She wasn't screaming, she wasn't howling, she certainly wasn't yowling and squeaking like some deranged possum, but she was without a doubt panicking. Unlike Chorei, though, she couldn't express any of this. Flying was… not fun. She didn't enjoy it one little bit. Her jitters could be passed off into the swarm, and she'd definitely been in worse situations, but… dammit, her lizard brain was roaring at her loudly, instructing her that flying like this was not something people generally were meant to do. Hundreds of generations of Heberts were gathered together inside her DNA, from great-great-great grandfather Comte de Hebert who lost his fortune while attempting to search for a fountain that could cure his syphilis, to a very agitated monkey which sat in the corner and stared ferociously at everyone around it. One by one, they voted that flying outside the confines of an aeroplane was something no decent Hebert ought to do, and that she should be condemned strongly for this action. The union of lizard-brain-cells and ancestral monkeys was declaring a general strike in her stomach.
And now they were moving faster oh God she was feeling it-
Eeeeeeeeeeeee
Oh, so Chorei was still wailing. Good to know. The wind ripped through her hair, and Vicky held her tightly - to her limited credit, she flew like a professional. High enough that no-one could get any pictures, slow enough that she wasn't suffering whiplash, steady enough that motion sickness was minimised - downright non-existent, in fact. If they gave out licences for this sort of thing, she'd probably have one. Did flyers have to get licences for going through cities? Did they carry trackers to make sure that aircraft couldn't collide with them? Was there a maximum speed they were permitted to reach? The irritating minutiae were pleasing to focus on, distracted her from the fact that she was one slip away from plummeting to a violent and unimpressive death. Just slip, whee, splat. Oh no she was giving her quite conceivable death onomatopoeia, that was never a good sign. She assumed. Definitely seemed like a bad sign.
"Hold your hair!"
What? What was she - oh. Her hair was flying into Vicky's face. A lot. And based on her expression, she didn't appreciate the distraction. Taylor gathered as much as she could in her hands, bunching it together into a particularly ineffective helmet. Vicky spat out a few loose hairs. Where was Chorei's tranquillity when she needed it? Where were her mantras? She projected a little of her annoyance to the nun, who briefly ceased to screech mindlessly. She felt a mixture of fear and embarrassment pulse through her - the awareness that she was observed when she had her small mental breakdown. She began to mumble a little, the volume building louder and louder until the mantra was all she could hear. Not English, not Japanese, something else - she shivered when she realised what it was. Chorei was chanting in the clicking, whirring language of the immortal centipedes she'd once had instead of a spine. It was a language Taylor could never reproduce, couldn't even understand. No human throat could ever mimic it… but Chorei had, for a long time, been something very distant from humanity. And she remembered the motions, the feeling, the essence of being infested. Even without her centipede, she could still make the sounds.
No chance of recording her words on paper. No hope for gaining meaning from it. Good.
As much as she hated to admit it, though, the mantra was working. Chorei was digging into something she found utterly calming, so deep-seated that even now it could repel some of the fear overwhelming her. Piece by piece, the swirling, chittering song drained away her fears. She could feel the grafting between her and Chorei like a finely-stitched dress, something that had no need to strain or flex - it was perfectly-fitting, and required no alterations. She relaxed into the song, letting Chorei's aura of calm sustain her. Bit by bit, she came under control. Her heart rate decreased. Her breathing became more regular. The wind was just wind, the city was just an assortment of colours in her vision - no depth perception, so it was easy to start conceiving of it as a flat matte painting. Just scenery. She remained stiff as a board, but… her eye was cold and calm. The docks were approaching. She was irritated at how noticeable this whole excursion made her, but… a few grainy photos of a curly-haired girl wouldn't amount to much. A paper trail could. Just… get dropped off, tell Vicky to leave, then investigate Parian. Simple as.
…she missed the unity she'd once had with her friends. She missed being able to just snap her fingers and assemble them in a moment. But they had lives of their own, things they needed to do, problems they needed to overcome. It left her feeling a little unmoored. She hadn't even been able to grab her gun - that seemed like an immediate recipe for trouble with a heroic cape carrying her around. Just her swarm, her grafting, and a few knives. That was it. Pathetic, really. She wanted Sanagi to help her out, for her to show up and be exceedingly passive-aggressive to whatever they faced. She wanted Turk or Ahab to come and shoot things, or Arch to… well, he wasn't so good in combat, but he could still give some kind of useful advice. Even Ted, an individual she had little connection to and minimal fondness for, was still a known factor. Parian was someone she'd met a handful of times, and Vicky was entirely new. In a sense.
Well. She could handle it alone. The last few months had toughened her up - and she'd have Parian around. Feeble or no, flying needles were flying needles. If she had any fabric to animate… well, that sounded like a party to her. And… there. A great grey mass huddled near the docks, by the side of a sluggish brown canal. The meat packing plant. Her dad had mentioned it a few times, absolute mess of a place. Built years back, stank up the area, went down around the same time as the power plant outside of town. Same parent company, apparently. Good thing that it had shut down too, there'd been murmurings of a scandal to do with the meat itself. Probably using horse meat or something - it wasn't serious enough to warrant anything more than a few idle mentions on the news and a swiftly-settled lawsuit, the details of which she'd never been quite clear on. Whatever had happened, it was closed now, and had been for years. But as she looked at the tumorous growth hunched under the glare of surrounding buildings, she thought… that looked like somewhere Bisha would hide out. Like the abandoned factory Ahab, Turk, and Mouse Protector had taken out. A complex inhabited by homeless people, easily occupied by a cult which knew how to stay out of sight. Interesting. Very interesting.
Vicky made a surprised noise when Taylor calmly pointed downwards at a street a block or so away from the meat packing plant, hand steady even in the strong wind. What, alarmed at someone not turning to a pile of goo after spending a little while up in the air? She'd had her head drilled open. Vicky's mind games had no chance whatsoever.
"There, please."
A moment of hesitation, and then a quick descent. She spied a few people looking up, but it turned out that a person flying through the air was actually quite hard to keep track of. Their pace decreased as they approached the asphalt, slowing just enough that nothing would be cracked. When they landed Taylor felt almost nothing, just a faint impact to suggest that landfall had been made. Her legs were… fairly steady. Her swarm accepted the jitters and shivers, Chorei's chanting calmed the rest. Vicky made no moves to stop her from simply hopping down, brushing her hair back into place, then turning on her heel and nodding politely.
"Thanks. Don't worry about the bill for your tea."
Vicky blinked.
"...no problem. Sorry, are you sure you want to be here? It's not the nicest-"
"It's fine. Thank you for the ride. I owe you one."
"Mind if I ask what the situation is?"
Taylor narrowed her eye. Vicky was trying to get information out of her - wouldn't work. She might not know about the Gallant situation, but she was still a potential threat. Hell, Taylor didn't want to expose another person to the weirdness she regularly engaged with. Parian was enough. Parian was too many, actually, Parian knowing about this was a bad thing, adding someone else would just be heaping more shit onto the proverbial pile. Gosh, she was feeling vulgar today, her inner monologue was rarely this… unpleasant. And she couldn't even blame the bikers, she was spending her time around… oh, no, she could blame Ted. Yeah, that Ted, corrupting the youth mentally while shredding the youth physically. With her bombs. Because… ah, it wasn't that funny anyway. So maybe the flight had knocked a few things loose, who cared. She didn't
Your brain feels scrambled. Like eggs.
…
I would like some scrambled eggs after this.
OK, Chorei was a little disoriented as well. Excellent knowledge to possess. She gave Vicky a look.
"Sorry, but it's very personal. Thank you again for the ride."
Best to be curt. Almost rude. Vicky blinked rapidly as she quickly walked away, a few insects tagging her to ensure that she wasn't doing anything untowards. She remained floating, looking around awkwardly, opening and closing her mouth a few times. What, did she want a grovel? Taylor didn't grovel, except for strategic reasons, in which case the grovelling was invariably followed by gratuitous violence. Or lasers. Whichever was more satisfying/convenient at the time.
"Hey, look, I-"
Taylor turned on her heel, keeping her face as impassive as possible.
"Thank you for the ride. Forget about the bill."
"No, it's not that, look, if there's something wrong, I want to h-"
"It's personal."
"...really?"
Her voice was small, tinged with awkward hesitation, and a distinct sour note of suspicion. A part of Taylor wanted to imagine that Vicky had absolutely no suspicions regarding her until this precise moment. Another part wrestled that part into submission and insisted that she always had doubts, and if she didn't, was going to have doubts anyway so provoking them here and now wasn't much of a difference. If the Frenzied Flame had taught her anything, it was that time could be crammed together into a tight ball where all was one, and in that state of mind, eventually was now and once upon a time all at once. So, really, what was the point in distinguishing between them? Oh wow she was more shaken up by that flight than she was willing to admit.
"Really. It's very personal."
She paused.
"...family stuff."
Taylor rubbed her scarred arms in feigned embarrassment. That should do it. Imply that it was to do with the Conflagration, that it was horrendously personal, that it was something she should be keeping enormously private. Vicky glanced at what she was doing, and her eyes widened. She was clearly resisting the urge to clap her hands over her mouth in sheer mortification.
"Oh my God, I'm so sorry - do… you need a ride back?"
"No. I can find my own way home."
"...alright. But stay safe, you hear? You make good tea."
Another pause.
"I'll definitely visit again."
Was that more suspicion in her words? God, this day was just getting… no, no, just go into the plant, punch things, shoot things, roundhouse kick things if her knee felt up to it (if would feel like it if she forced it to). That would work off the stress. Solve the Vicky situation at a later date. For now, nod politely, leave. Keep a few insects around her to make sure nothing untoward was going on. As she turned a corner, the cape rose into the air, presumably squinting in an inquisitorial manner. Punk. Taylor shivered slightly - Vicky had a point, admittedly. This was a bad part of town. Windows boarded up, buildings either abandoned or entirely used by squatters. Bright eyes glared out from shadowy recesses, and the street was uneven beneath her feet. Everything had the dusty, sweet smell of Bisha's servants - if she looked into the cracks in the asphalt, she could see yellow matter deeply caked into the earth. Even a few fragments of bone from his enhanced servants - this place had been a warzone a scant few weeks ago. And now it was evidently back to its usual business. That is to say, no business at all. Good number of insects, though. The walls were brimming with them. It was an exercise in patience getting them out without anyone noticing, but in time she was able to develop quite a horde. Enough to deal with anything in her way. Her knives were secure. Vicky lingered… and flew up. She thought she could sense a hint of exasperation through her insects - just a little. Might be her imagination.
She tracked her up until her range ceased, and Glory Girl vanished. Well. That had been… comparatively painless. Certainly could've been much, much worse. No-one died, no bones were broken, and she'd gotten here without any substantial delays. Hooray. Her pace increased, and soon she was jogging lightly through the scarred streets, avoiding craters left by Ted's bombs, dodging puddles of dried liquid from Bisha's cultists.. A few glances confirmed that no-one appeared to be observing her from above. She was fine. She could do what she was meant to do. Even Chorei was settling down, no more ramblings, no more screeches, not even any mantras. She was as dedicated to this as Taylor was - eager to see what happened, bracing for any kind of battle she could try her hand at winning. She had all she needed - and she felt alive.
The meat packing plant was nearby, just a block or two - no-one interrupted her. Good. She didn't need any distractions. But hungry eyes watched her from the shadows of a dozen run-down buildings, cautious at the sight of anyone in their part of town that wasn't ragged and weatherbeaten. Her swarm identified each one, nothing their stooped posture, their lean faces, the pockmarked scars along their arms from repeated injections. The scent of salt was in the air, and every single brick of every single building was soaked with the stuff. Rats scurried through gutters, and she could feel the fleas riding on their backs. Strange sea life inhabited the sewers around here - Leviathan's attacks always stirred up the sea bed, waves ripping upwards and casting odd life into the strangest places. She'd heard horror stories about bright lights coming from underground in Miami, teams going below to find a horde of half-dead anglerfish, their teeth shining brightly in the torchlight. Definitely a myth, of course. Definitely. And in Brockton… every drain in this street opened into a tiny galaxy. Jellyfish, formless and quivering, lay prone and shining. Tentacles stretched around them like haloes of kelp. Strange particulates in their great shapeless bodies caught the morning light, and glimmered like stars which lay beneath the earth. She glanced down… and saw a rat. A rat had entered a jellyfish, and was swimming in its interior. A rat swam amongst the stars, tiny eyes glittering like gemstones, fur turned a matte black by the moisture it immersed itself in. Nebulas formed and disappeared as it squirmed, its tail struck the stars from this underground sky, a single swipe and a dozen were gone.
It glared up at her.
She moved on. Leave the rats to their underground galaxies. She had meaty business to attend to.
The meat packing plant was a huddled thing primarily composed of red rust and corners. It simply had too many - and drainpipes surrounded it on all sides, conveying matter away to some unknown location. Based on the sluggish brown waters of the canal that flowed beside it… well, looked easy enough to get rid of any waste. It looked like a tick surrounded by twisting hairs, a nest of pipes that rumbled and gurgled idly in the morning silence. Her swarm moved in - a good number of new insects were already in the building, and they added to her numbers. She had thousands, more than enough. They scanned every room while she waited outdoors, observing calmly. No need to turn or fidget, the insects took away her agitation, and gave her more eyes than anyone could possibly need. No-one approached as she went through the plant. Rusted rooms littered its interior, each one warped by moisture and age until it seemed like an organic cell - a honeycomb of irregularly shaped containers where strange matter lingered. Chairs that had grown into the floor, tables that had long-since sagged and decayed, lights staring down with empty glass eyes, all the power long-since gone. And her insects could… feel something. A presence in the air. A pressure that bore down around her, a feeling like she was standing on the edge of a vast cliff, the wind cutting into her skin…
The same as in that city.
And as she went deeper into the complex, she sensed more. Her hand instinctively went to her phone, dialling in Parian's number. It rang while she searched - rooms with no clear purpose. One that looked like a server room, if it had been invented by some 19th century submarine engineer. Rotten to nothing at this point, but still baffling. A room simply full of cow skulls, and while none of them had horns, the memory of that five-horned bull surging from the river made her shiver. And… ah. Interesting. A long, long room, with a surprisingly new trestle table. And on that table, a pile of weapons rusting into oblivion. Her insects could feel the mustiness around these pipes wrapped in barbed wire, guns stolen from across the entirety of America, ammunition waiting patiently in containers that were being overcome by rust-red fungus. The same mustiness that had surrounded Bisha's cult centres, the mustiness that clung to his cultists in a sickly haze. The stench that had pervaded Mound Moor. Oh, she was here, she was close, she was at home - in a strange way.
The phone clicked, and a voice echoed through its tinny speaker.
"Hello?"
"It's Taylor. I'm at the plant."
"How did you… never mind. Where are you?"
"Outside the front."
"I'm nearby, I'll come to meet you. Do you have a… mask?"
"No."
"...oh. I'll be right there."
The girl came scurrying over a building - a few blocks away. Hm. She was dressed down, explained why she hadn't recognised her. Costumes made everything easier for her power. Still more fashionable than Taylor, though. She looked… haggard. Sleepless nights, if Taylor was going to hazard a guess. The girl caught her breath, unused to running like this. Taylor waited. She had time. A few seconds later and the cape was ready to talk.
"...how did you get here so fast?"
"Nevermind. How did you find this place?"
"Just… just curious, is all. I had… a friend, back when I was looking into the people that started the Conflagration. We lost touch, but… I knew she hung around this area. I was just passing through, but I felt… I felt something when I saw this building. I can't quite…"
"You said you saw someone."
"I did. Some… guy, a couple of guys actually. Homeless, looked like. But the guy in front was… weird. Long hair, big beard, kinda… scrawny, like a junkie. But he had so many burns around his face, I was surprised he could still talk."
"What did he say?"
"Wanted his men to come in and do… something, I lost them at that point. But it seemed urgent."
"You didn't follow them."
"No, no, I waited for you. Should I have-"
"No. You did the right thing."
Taylor cracked her neck from side to side, relishing in the feeling. Her swarm was finding… ah. Most of the complex was abandoned, but there were a few people buried deep inside, on the killing floor. The drains, the hooks, the decaying boltguns, all of them told her what this place had once been - and the stink of copper travelled through the enhanced senses of her swarm. It was choking, stifling. Damn near overwhelming in person, she imagined. Five people, just five. They were working overtime, scrambling to disassemble what felt like piles of junk to her insects, but which were surely something more. The people, though… one felt human, but the other four were distinctly not. She could tell the moment her insects landed on them. A small fly made contact, simply verifying the man's presence, and… it vanished. She felt a sensation of being drawn inside, legs kicking feebly as flesh like quicksand enveloped the tiny body, and then… nothing. Just the feeling of being torn apart by dozens of pincers. She had an idea for what these things were - dammit, she could've used her gun right around now. Or the flamethrower. Still, she had ideas. She turned to Parian, who was shivering slightly at being so close to the plant.
"Do you think you could go inside?"
"...are they still in there?"
She gave her a look.
"Sorry, stupid question. Do you need my help?"
"Help would be appreciated. But if you're going to panic in there…"
Parian's face tightened up.
"No, no, I… if this is related to that city, I need to help. I know what you said, I know-"
"If things get out of hand, we retreat. You have needles?"
"Yeah, I… try to always bring them. Also…"
She unslung her backpack - good, she was learning to not travel unprepared. The interior of the bag was packed with a basic survival kit - rations, a wind-up torch, water, some pills that she assumed were antibiotics, painkillers… hm. Good move on her part, though it did betray a certain amount of paranoia. Taylor had to remind herself that she wanted Parian to stay out of this business - just one job, though. This felt small-scale, not remotely on the same level as Bisha. Dangerous, but manageable. And there were only five - she could manage that. Parian was just a little extra backup. Just in case. Her spiders began to spin long strands of silk, joining them together until she had a few ropes. Immobilisation would suffice if she couldn't dish out enough firepower to kill whatever these things were. Parian dug deep into the bag… and brought out fabric. A lot of fabric. Cheap stuff, and colourful. Hm. She glanced around nervously, and Taylor quietly used her swarm to encourage any nearby figures to get to a much further distance. A nod reassured Parian that she wouldn't be observed, and needles flowed outwards, sliding into the fabric, pushing it outwards, power flowing through them to give the cloth a facsimile of life. Bit by bit, it started to animate, growing larger, larger, stepping free from the bag, and…
Gorilla. That was a giant stuffed gorilla.
…I feel a faint urge to hug this creature, an urge I am sure is unnatural. I will work to excise it.
She blinked.
"How strong is it?"
Parian beamed a little, proud with her creation - it was definitely a gorilla, she could say that much. A giant cuddly gorilla, with big stitched-on eyes and a mouth that hung open in a friendly grin. Dammit, this was undermining her seriousness a little, she was about to enter a horrific meat packing plant and Parian was… Parian was out here doing the funky monkey.
"Strong enough. It can crush metal if necessary - and the fabric is tougher than it should be. Much tougher."
I no longer wish to hug this creature.
"Good to know. You need a mask?"
"Oh, hold on-"
She pulled a cloth mask over the bottom half of her face. Not as gaudy as the one Taylor had seen her wearing during promotional stunts, but it served its purpose. They weren't doing anything public here - though Taylor had to give credit to her, she'd gone out as a civilian, and had nonetheless packed all she needed to do her job as a parahuman. She looked… elated. Taylor wondered if that was how she looked at the moment. Eager to find some catharsis - Taylor needed to do something or she'd go insane, and Parian clearly had some tension built up from her own incident with the termites. Again, a pulse of guilt - she really shouldn't be involving Parian in this. She'd been remaining at a distance, concerned with her own life, not poking into business like… well, she'd found the plant by accident, called Taylor immediately, and hadn't entered before she arrived. She'd done everything that Taylor would've wanted her to do… and now Taylor was dragging her inside regardless, because she needed the backup.
A pulse of guilt. A realisation of what she should do. Parian was shivering in the cold, she looked thin, haggard, worn down by the stress of her own encounter with that other city - an encounter which lasted much longer than Taylor's. She was scrappier than Taylor had thought, but… still, this could be exceedingly risky. Gallant's dead eye hovered in the back of her mind, and she momentarily pictured Parian that way. Hung up on a meat hook, gored by something impossible, shot by a cultist, or simply driven mad to the point that nothing remained of who she was. Parian twitched uneasily as Taylor thought for a long, long moment. She knew what she needed to do. Pragmatic rationalisation followed swiftly, but it was a sharp, pulsing core of guilt in her stomach that informed the decision.
"Stay at a distance. I'm going in."
Parian blinked. Her resolve wavered, and her voice was small.
"What about-"
"That gorilla is more than enough. The risk is anyone trying to shoot you to neutralise it. You're best served by staying out here and guiding it."
There, that sounded like she'd come up with this rationally. Parian scowled.
"It can go beyond my line of sight, but I can't see through it."
Hm. Problem.
"Can you sense it at all?"
"...well, yeah, I can sense things through it, but only direct disturbances to the thread itself. Nothing more."
And the problem just became workable. More practice would make it better, but… Parian was maintaining a large, powerful gorilla, Taylor had more experience in combat, not to mention greater resilience. The biggest vulnerability here was Parian herself. One bullet could put her out of commission. She'd be an idiot to drag her inside where these things were waiting. Not to mention the risk of any panic attacks or breakdowns.
"I can work with that."
Her swarm descended, finding every individual stitch, every needle. Flies and cockroaches located the right points, and dug in. Parian's flinches told her everything she needed to know - she could feel the pressure.
"Follow in the direction my insects are tugging. I'll be able to guide you fairly precisely - and if I tug on this thread three times, I'm in combat. Then just follow my lead. Here, let me give it a go."
The experiment was brief, and, to Parian's frustration, very successful. She could sense a great deal through the threads, enough that complex guidance was fairly easy. The gorilla could be commanded to duck, to weave from side to side, to lift specific objects and crush them… her swarm was already excellent at multitasking, and it was fairly easy to keep tabs on this particular creature. Parian huffed in annoyance as the gorilla returned to its original position, looming impassively over the two of them… well, if it wasn't for the fact that it looked irresistibly cuddly. Chorei was silent, but a tiny part of her was evidently enthused over the possibility of commanding her own giant stuffed gorilla. Immortal nun. Immortal. Centipede. Nun.
Christ almighty.
"We're good. I'll be going in - stay in touch with your phone. My swarm should be good at checking for anything, but if I don't respond to any messages and I stop guiding your gorilla, feel free to get help. You know where the tea shop is, here's the number for it - ask for Turk, tell him where we are and what to do. Understood?"
She paused.
"One more thing. If I ask you to come into the plant, if I ask you to go against anything I've said, get me to say a passphrase. You'll ask me… what swims in an underground galaxy. And I'll reply 'giant rats'. Alright?"
Parian looked alarmed.
"Look, it's unique. Not easy to get any of that through guesswork."
"...I suppose so? Right, I understand, but… you're going in alone. Are you particularly tough? I'm just saying, you-"
Taylor quietly bent down and picked up a segment of pipe that had detached from one of the nearby houses, slowly growing into the ground. Her scarred hands fit easily over it, barely feeling the rough texture or the sharp edges as anything but soulless sensory input - nothing more. She gripped tight, and the scars strained, her muscles contorted, and her frame focused… the pipe snapped. Parian's eyes were wide as the pipe clattered to the ground in two ragged pieces, pinched and torn like a particularly ugly loaf of bread.
"Anything else?"
"...no, no, we're good."
"Fantastic."
She paused, and tried to think of something impressive to say. Something that could give Parian the operational calmness necessary for this all to go off without a hitch, something that would reassure her that Taylor mostly knew what she was doing, and that this would just be a distant nightmare soon enough. The kind of thing she should've said to Gallant. Her mouth parted, and… nothing emerged. She couldn't think of anything good. What was she meant to say, that 'one aspect of something vast and horrible will soon be probably dealt with, there's loads of other aspects that you know nothing about, but best of luck with the rest of your life'? Maybe 'I can't say for sure what will happen in there, maybe I'll die in seconds to something I couldn't begin to comprehend, but if I do, just run away and presumably you'll live a little bit longer'? She sighed internally, and Chorei consolingly patted her on her brain's back, sensing a feeling of disappointment and embarrassment pulsing through her grey matter. Oh, that was an idea. Taylor reached out and planted her hand on Parian's shoulder. The girl sagged slightly - shit, put too much force into that. Taylor stared awkwardly at the shorter girl, figuring out what to say. Uh. Hm. Maybe - no. How about - nah.
She patted her a few times.
"Bye."
Parian looked baffled. Taylor walked, then broke into a jog. The gorilla followed, and Parian lingered. Good. She really had nothing else she could think of saying, she'd exhausted all her tact on Vicky. Speaking of whom - no, still nowhere in her range. Right. Into the meat packing plant, where the coppery stink could embrace her. Yeah, this felt like something she could deal with.
I swear, sometimes I wonder how you managed to kill me.
Sometimes Taylor did too.
142 - I Am the Beast I Worship
GraftingBuddha
Retired Pooh-Bah
142 - I Am the Beast I Worship
…you know, usurper, we had a name for people who worked in places like this.
"Hm?"
Burakumin. Those that engaged in the slaughtering of animals are impure - as are gravediggers, tanners, and executioners. This place is impure to a degree that would have horrified the elders of Senpou. Only once did we allow a butcher to cross our threshold and enter the inner confines of the temple. Once. And he was purified extensively, his name was taken, he was altered until he could no longer invite impurity into our most holy of places. And he was never permitted to enter the inner sanctum.
"...Chorei, I'll level with you, you were in a temple that worshipped centipedes. I'm really not sure if you guys could talk about purity or impurity."
Then please, call this place pure if you like, oh most supreme arbiter of purity. Let not the nun who has spent many centuries engaged with such matters interrupt your enlightened musings.
"Aren't Buddhist nuns meant to be vegetarian?"
Not all of us.
"Mm-hm."
Shut up.
Taylor ignored the nun. Her ramblings aside, this place felt impure - on a deep, and instinctual level. The corridors felt longer than they needed to be - not quite so long that they felt as though they were violating reality, but nonetheless long. It was like… everything had been mismeasured by a tiny amount. The plans had been misread, certainly. An inch here, an inch there… decimal places shifted, numbers misinterpreted, plans shoddily drawn and poorly executed. Tiny margins of error, nothing in the grand scheme of things, but enough to strike her as unusual in some hard-to-define way. It made everything feel unsafe. If they couldn't get the measurements right, what else had gone wrong? Were those wart-like rivets secure? Was this rust just rust, or something more virulent, infiltrating her lungs and spreading in thin, delicate, hair-like roots? The walls quivered slightly as she went, no matter how carefully and quietly she tried to step. Jaws ready to snap shut. A throat ready to convulse and throw her deeper into this rusting hulk of a building. She walked down one of these too-long corridors, the walls pressing a little too tightly for comfort, the ceiling pressing down like something was resting on top of it - the groaning metal added to the impression, and for a second she remembered that image of the quinotaur once more.
Horns could tear through this metal easily. Branchless trees piercing through, pale and gently curving, tapering to a vicious point stained as red as the walls where the creature had been at work. She felt too-long fingers grazing the sides of the wall, coming away with flecks of rust beneath the nails.
She focused on her swarm.
Nothing. No bull. No termites. No spies. And the structure was sound enough to endure - squatters seemed to occasionally use this place, if the piles of fresh rags and rotten sleeping mats were any indication. Bisha had used it too, as a cult centre. Presumably a minor one, but still - it said something about the structural stability of this place. Her swarm was hovering lightly around the men working away on the killing floor, surrounded by detritus of the previous occupants. They were still hard at work disassembling things made entirely out of scrap, piling the assorted metal, wood, and organic matter higher and higher in a disorganised fashion. They were working quickly, but not as quickly as they could. The central figure was easy to track - he strode around, not helping with the general effort, but content to watch and direct. He'd organise the others to haul a heavy piece together, or would simply poke them if they were getting too slow for his liking. But even so, they could be going much, much faster. The people doing the work were harder to keep tabs on. Their flesh absorbed her insects, and she had an idea why. Still, their clothes were fine - and they dressed in all-concealing rags, layers and layers of coats and shirts and sweaters and aprons, layered until they were practically invisible. But the knowledge that a few shed clothes would render them incredibly difficult to track reliably put her on edge.
The gorilla was reassuring, at least.
Eerily silent for how large it was, standing a full head higher than her, and evidently many times tougher. It moved a little clumsily at first, but Parian's ability to control it using Taylor's orders improved with each step. At the beginning it's been a nerve-wracking exercise to get it through a single door without shattering something. Now? She squeezed through a door that had rusted half-open, and the gorilla easily followed, guided by the twitching of a thousand insects. No sound from the men, no barked orders. Just a poke here, a jab there, a few sharp gestures when they needed to work together. Her swarm was ready - good variety of insects, she'd even managed to exploit a wasp nest beneath the plant, a bulging mass of tubes and compacted matter where a hive had built up over the years. She liked using wasps. Fast. Painful. And instinctually unnerving to most people. Some could walk over piles of cockroaches without flinching, but no-one could just let a wasp buzz right by their ear without complaint. And by complaint, she meant flailing and screaming.
"Everything alright?"
Parian's voice was tinny over the mobile phone. Not as good as a walkie-talkie - she didn't have that many minutes on her phone, this entire mission would be coming out of her paycheck - but it was serviceable enough.
"Fine. Stay quiet."
"...alright."
A knife was drawn smoothly from her boot, held firmly in the stance Ahab had drilled her in over and over again until the hilt seemed to be moulded to fit the contours of her hand perfectly. KM2000, a souvenir from one of Ahab's friends who'd done some work in Europe during the Silesia Crisis. The killing floor came closer, closer, the too-long corridor stretching on ahead of her. This place stank of copper, but… not quite the same as from blood. She'd become far too familiar with that particular smell - this felt more mechanical, like copper wire ripped out of a house. The mustiness from Bisha's cultists was here, of course, but dulled by age. When Bisha died, it seemed like his cult lost something vital. A link to their god had been severed, and with it, their every remaining trace in the world was drained of significance. It was just musty in here, nothing more. Her breathing came a little faster, but… she was fine. The smell wasn't as intense. And she had a job to do - she could set aside nervousness if she had a job, terror was nothing in the face of purpose. She came closer, closer, closer, flanked on both sides by dark handprints stained into the walls, only slightly darker than the rust that surrounded and pervaded them.
It was cold. Bitterly so. The same cold that had lingered in that other city - the tiny red dots which used to be welts itched sympathetically. Taylor felt sharp. Everything was honed, everything was as it should be. It all made sense. The killing room came closer, and Taylor crouched lower to the ground, her swarm directing the gorilla to do the same. She could hear movement. Parian was remaining outdoors, as instructed, and was also remaining silent as the grave. Her breathing was steady, her heart was pulsing rapidly, her eye was unblinking and absolutely focused. This was what she lived for. It was bizarre to say, but… this was probably the most alive she'd felt since pulling Parian out of that wrong turn. Everything since had a layer of film over it, like a stew that needed skimming, like a pot being cleaned, the surface dancing with various colours reflecting from globules of compacted fat. And now the film was gone. The world felt real again - she felt everything here, the cold air, the groaning corridors, the rust beneath her boots, the vents that rattled like a smoker's lung, the stink of copper and dust, each and every room her swarm had examined, each and every item of rotten furniture and crumbling equipment. And the men ahead were bright lights shining in the gloom.
She was made for this.
God, she felt alive.
She poked her head into the killing floor, remaining low to the ground, trying to be as stealthy as possible. Her clothes were dull and didn't catch the eye easily - good. No sign of detection. The gorilla remained a little behind her, utterly still so long as her swarm instructed it to do so. Her eye narrowed at the sight of the men working away - definitely abnormal. She could only see the workers at the moment, the leader was just out of view. But they were odd. Wide, shambling, their fists low to the ground and their backs bent. Like apes, but… wrong. Their faces were exposed to the air, and there was something uncanny about them. Eyelids swollen shut, until all that remained were tiny slits with no visible eyes within. Lips puffy and ragged, stained with an indefinable brown fluid. No teeth she could see, just mouth-flesh the colour of autumn leaves. The rest of the skin was utterly putrid. Pale, leached of colour, in a way that reminded her of a deep-sea fish brought to the surface. Wet, slimy, and veins pressed clearly against the surface. Too much matter inside, all pushing outward against a world that didn't exert remotely enough pressure to contain it all. Her idea was solid. She thought she understood what these things were - but they looked tough. Any reservations about letting Parian help faded completely. She'd need the backup from her gorilla.
Taylor braced herself, and sidled closer, picking her spots carefully. Insects scuttled over the floor, feeling every imperfection, every spot which seemed thinner or more porous than the others. Not perfect, but they guided her motions well enough. No sounds. She was behind a railing overlooking the killing floor, a rickety staircase to her right leading downwards. Huge drains in the ground, meat hooks shining dully in light from outside - the ceiling was rotting, and every so often the overcast sky was clearly visible, as dull and regular as any mass-produced fluorescent light. No carcasses remained, nothing but a table of weapons from Bisha's occupation of the place, and the scrap totems raised up by these new threats. She couldn't see these totems very clearly, but… they looked deliberate. Not just piles of junk, but genuine works of art sculpted by loving hands. And now they were being ripped to pieces in ugly chunks, the waste piled high - cans of gasoline lingered at the side of the room. They intended to burn it all. Weird. She crept closer, and… there he was.
The big man.
He was… skinny. If the men surrounding him were characterised by clumsy largeness, this man was painfully thin. He stomped into view, borne by heavy cowboy boots that didn't remotely fit his feet. The man's shirt was the colour of a white curtain stained yellow by exposure to constant nicotine, and a brown corduroy jacket hung loosely over his frame, almost swallowing him whole. Ragged brown hair clung to his head, greasy and unkempt, clearly not his highest priority. Lice swarmed in it, and she held them in reserve. No-one liked it when their scalps erupted into a burning, itching sensation - no-one human, at least. And she wasn't so sure about this guy. He turned slightly, gesturing to one of his men, and his face… well, it was damaged. A thin beard clung to his chin, the same consistency as his hair. Bright eyes stared outwards from hollow sockets. And everything was scorched. Flesh melted and reset, forming a little ocean of rippling skin and charred muscle. His mouth was forced into a half-grin by the burns, no matter how hard he was clearly trying to frown. He scratched one of the barely-healed burns with fingernails the colour of wet sand, twitching nervously from side to side. Her initial impression was that he was a flunky for someone else, not an important leader of any kind. Bisha and Chorei had both projected absolute confidence in front of their men - there was no way this guy was in charge of a whole organisation. Maybe a lieutenant. But the burns… they were interested. Only mostly healed. So, they were recent - caused by the Conflagration? Or a result of poking around Bisha's old haunts?
Taylor paused.
She was used to attacking passively. Not assaulting things without being assaulted in turn. She faced so many things which could sense her through her swarm that at this point it felt odd to just… attack. Preparations could be made, of course. The gorilla was directed to hunch over slightly, to brace for a leap. Her swarm was double-checked, then triple-checked. Everything where it should be. Her route was planned. Down the stairs, don't bother vaulting over the railing, looked too delicate to support her weight. Let the swarm conceal her movements - maybe make some kind of decoy out of bugs, that could be useful. Worth practising before she tried it - ah, hell, why not. She was having a whale of a time right now. Swarm-clones to distract - even if they were crude, they were still dark masses obscured by a swarm. Real enough to create a moment of hesitation, enough for her to get closer. The gorilla would handle the larger ones, she would go for the leader. He looked vulnerable enough - soft spots aplenty for her knife, and if necessary she could perform a very quick grafting. Just enough to stun him, or to allow Chorei to get to work on him. Even when the body was invulnerable, the mind rarely was. Just had to figure out how to crack it open, that was all.
She braced.
Best of luck, usurper.
A tiny smile tried to cross her lips. Failed, of course. But the effort was made. Her muscles tightened, her back straightened, the ache from her Bisha-inflicted scars faded into nothing more than background noise.
Now.
Taylor's swarm descended. A biting, ripping thing, an impenetrable cloud of stingers, pincers, and roaring, roaring wings. The walls let them free, hundreds at a time, and the drains were choked with bodies surging upwards in ordered rows. She could feel everything, every antenna twitching, every leg moving, every individual wing beat. And her own body was in motion, too. The gorilla sprung above her as she ducked to go down the stairs - the men looked up only to see a huge creature barreling downwards in complete silence. She could sense Parian stiffening outside, focusing on her work. Good. They were all in alignment. Perfect. The four men gathered around the scrap pile were the focus of the gorilla - her swarm couldn't get to them without being absorbed. But as a felt fist crashed into them, sending them flying… yeah, she'd made the right choice. Two pounded into the back of the slaughterhouse before she could even reach the bottom of the stairs. They got up, of course. But slowly. Carefully. Trying not to tear themselves open. The others tried to hack into the gorilla, their fists unnaturally powerful. No such luck - it moved with uncanny grace, the felt bending and flexing to avoid the strikes. The creature had no interior, no stuffing - any semblance of rigidity was a choice, and nothing more.
Taylor sprinted across the floor, the loose drains rattling beneath her feet. Hazy shapes which vaguely approximated humans formed from the swarm, shambling in the vague direction of the men. Not hugely convincing, but distracting enough to hold their attention for a moment. The skinny man backed up, his burned face twisting into a rictus of…
Wait.
That wasn't pain. Or anger. Or anything she expected.
He looked scared.
His mouth opened, exposing rotten teeth, and he shrieked at her. She anticipated insults of some kind… she didn't anticipate this.
"Please, just leave us alone!"
Taylor almost stopped. What? No-one just… what? Who would run around begging for clemency in a situation like this? This guy was, conceivably, trying to open gates to somewhere beside reality where a giant nest of termites would devour anyone that entered. The gorilla conjured from one of his victims pounded into one of the men, splitting his skin - inside, nothing but termites. He struggled to hold himself together, to pin the skin together once more… no such luck. The fleshy insects writhed in pools of frigid blue ichor, murmuring to themselves as their pincers clicked feebly. Not so tough outside of their nests, good to know. Her swarm could take care of them - here, she had numbers aplenty. Flyers could grab the termites and take them to places where escape was impossible, or could simply dunk them into the rest of her seething army to be ripped apart in seconds. In the city she'd been hesitant, uncertain. Constantly improvising. Here, she was ready.
The man began to run into the depths of the plant, his feet pounding a sharp staccato on the half-rotten floors. Taylor followed. The gorilla was handling the men just fine - she could deal with this one. She dashed after him, ducking and weaving to avoid any clumsy fists coming her way. The men were tough, but her gorilla was bigger, stronger, and significantly faster. So far, this was going flawlessly. Her swarm had already mapped out this part of the facility - she knew the dead ends, the loops, each and every room, corridor, stairwell… she knew it better than this man did, that much was clear. The sound of battle faded behind her, and her swarm-clones dissolved into their constituent parts, working overtime to keep the termites from escaping the facility. She was thorough - Bisha had left scars in the world, and she was committed to not leaving any more fallout.
Take nothing but lives, leave nothing but dust, that kind of thing.
God, that sounded like something Chorei would say. Or Ahab. No, Ahab would have made some off-colour remark to go with it.
Back to running.
She was good at running. Even with her gammy knee.
The only sound in these winding rusty corridors was the heaving of the man's breath, the pounding of hard soles on the metal floor, and the slow, steady advance of Taylor - quieter and swifter by far. Even with a head start, he wouldn't escape. She'd identified all the ways out. He was dead in the water And yet he kept wailing in a voice that made her feel viscerally angry.
"Why can't you just leave us? We've not done anything to you!"
She ignored him. Too busy running… but her hand did clench a little harder around her knife. Stop complaining. This was something she had to do - just the way things were.
"Please, please, God, just let me go, I don't want to-"
"Shut up."
She gave into her irritation, so what. The man took this as evidence of his success at breaching some invisible barrier, and his voice became more hopeful. She was getting closer, closer, she could feel his stink, like he'd been exclusively bathing in the putrid canal outside.
"Please!"
That was all he got.
Taylor leapt, and tackled him to the ground. The gorilla was finishing off the men, crushing some of the larger concentrations of termites. Alone, they'd have been a threat to her, but with a giant brute on her side… yeah, piece of piss, to use one of Arch's sayings. He buckled easily, her scarred arms unrelenting despite his feeble struggles. God, he was weak. She felt a cruel satisfaction wash over her as she drove him downwards, slamming his head into the ground, feeling his loose bones jangle in the putrid sack he called skin. The man tried to get away - she had to give him that. But it was a pathetic attempt in the grand scheme of things, and a knife to his throat silenced any struggles for the foreseeable future. Her swarm began to move, ready to provide backup if necessary. He had no reinforcements. No magical powers. Nothing. Just a skinny man with a burned face who looked faintly like Charles Manson. She pinned him… and thought. Again, this was unusually aggressive for her. Typically he'd have tried something by now, she'd fight back, and in the process he'd be obliterated. But he was just being feeble. She wasn't going to graft until it was absolutely necessary, and stabbing him coldly felt… wrong. He was whimpering, for crying out loud. Say what you will about her, she'd never stabbed a whimpering man whose first response to her presence was desperately running away.
"Stop struggling."
He stopped. God, he was taking all the fun out of this. Her irritation must've shown in her tone, because what she could see of his face looked, somehow, even more terrified.
"Start talking. Who are you?"
"Uh, look man, I don't want any-"
Her knife pressed deeper.
"Talk."
"Please, I just-"
No words. Just knife.
"...don't have a name, alright? B… my old boss took it."
A chill ran up her spine.
"You're talking about Bisha."
"Please don't say his name, please. Look, I know you killed him, but please, we're not - we don't want any trouble from you. Disassembling our markers and everything, right? Not causing any trouble."
"Stop rambling. You were part of Bisha's cult. Why didn't you die like the rest?"
"Escaped! I… I was burning, I was burning so bad, in here, actually. Down on the killing floor. My friends burned up, but… but I lived."
"How?"
His voice was calmer - talking about being saved was enough to settle him a little. She knew this was good for an interrogation, but… dammit, it wasn't good for her own irritation. She'd wanted to fight something today.
"The… the termites, man. They dug me out. In the walls, you know. Been living here for a long, long while, since this place closed, I guess. I feel through, and they… they put out the fire, they put me back together. Made my blood cold so I couldn't burn no more. Let me go. Said I was… said I was ripe. Incomplete. They loved me for that. Loved me for being a fuck-up.The boss never loved me, he was just… just using me, man. But these little dudes love me. They love me like you wouldn't believe. Don't want me to change, don't want me to become like them, they just love that I'm a fuck-up and the fact that I'm a fuck-up makes me beautiful, you know?"
His voice was downright ecstatic now. She didn't know what he meant, but she could vaguely comprehend it. She glanced around nervously, her swarm working overtime to check everything. No termites in the walls, none around here. She was fine. This guy was just being weird. No surprises there, but she'd hoped he'd be a violent sort of weird.
"You've been opening gates around the city."
"...gates?"
"To these termites. Is that not something you're doing?"
"No, man, no, I open, like, rehab for people. My parents… can't remember their faces, boss took that away, but they tried to get me into rehab once. Maybe it would've helped. So… I just help others, you know? Hold the candle to the head, let the skin peel free, let the bugs crawl out from where they were always hiding."
He giggled slightly, and she felt something squirm inside him. Her knee raised off his back, but her knife remained. Her swarm was poised, the gorilla was approaching. If he tried anything…
"You're trying to help people."
"Yeah, man, you get it! Gotta help them - the bugs told me about it. When… when the boss left, it's like there's a black hole in your stomach. Like you lost a bit of yourself. Your past, your present, your future, man, all gone. But now… now I roll the nickels, man. They tell me the gaps make me better. Man, you look into the gaps and see gaps, I look there and I see nests, and man, they're singin'. I'm not bad, really, I'm not. I just see people, I want to help them, man, like I was helped. Spread the love, you know?"
Broken.
Chorei was right. His laughter was shattered. His mind was clearly cracked in some important way. Bisha had burned out most of him, and these termites had come in to fill the gap. A tiny, paranoid part of her wondered if that was why she'd been feeling these… things, around the edges of her vision. Long, long fingers creeping around doorframes, seeing the bulging eyes of a five-horned bull whenever she went to sleep. Maybe there were gaps in her. Maybe that was why the termites had tried to rip her apart - they thought they'd found a new home. She shivered, just a little. Just a feeling. She was fine. He wasn't even playing mind games with her, he was just rambling to himself. Every word that passed his lips calmed him down - she wasn't interrogating him, just telling him to go to his happy place and describe what he saw in his own words. The gorilla was here, looming ominously above the two of them. The man was rambling again, and she pressed the knife into the soft flesh of his neck, his Adam's apple bobbing wildly around it. Silence.
"...alright, you've explained the termites. What about the star?"
The man's eyes bulged, almost popping from their sockets. His body thrashed, stronger than before, and she could feel small insects wriggling through his bloodstream and around his muscles, playing the fibres like strings on a vast musical instrument. He shook his head wildly.
"Answer me."
"P-p-please, don't make talk about that thing, man, the termites don't like the light."
"What is it?"
"I don't know, lady, it's just… it's bad, we don't talk about it. Always in front of us. Always behind. Always at the edge. It stays there, which is good, and we don't go to meet it. Y…you see? C'mon, lady, don't make me talk about it, it hurts…"
Taylor paused, trying to get her thoughts in order. What other questions did she have? What more information could she extract?
"Any accomplices? Is anyone else building these gates?"
"No, man, just me, just me, just me. B…but I've got some buddies, people who wanted to go inside. And… and there's some I haven't closed yet. Please, if you let me go, I'll leave - won't come back. All my buddies will come with me, I promise. Please, we haven't done anything to you…"
Lying.
Chorei was right. Lying through his teeth. No buddies. This felt like a finale for him - he'd been terrified of her finding him, and she doubted that her entry into that other city had gone unnoticed. He'd been shutting gates down, making sure everything was quiet. That was why she hadn't found anything - dammit. He'd almost gotten away with it, too, if Parian hadn't… her mind went back to Angel Eyes. Had he known? Had he somehow arranged this? This day was just getting worse and worse - first Glory Girl, now a disappointing target, and now the suspicion that she was being pulled around by something or someone that knew more than she did. None of these were things she liked. Individually, they were unpleasant. Together, they were enough to make her want to punch something. Like this man. She resisted the urge. Honestly, she just didn't want any of him clinging to her - being this close was bad enough. He'd said this was where he became what he was - felt like a good place for him to end things. For someone so obsessed with ambiguities and incomplete endings, he sure was trying to be thorough at ending his presence in this city.
Her last question was important. Very, very important.
"How many people?"
"Twenty seven."
His tone was proud. He was proud of what he'd done. Her grip tightened. Twenty seven people taken and either devoured or exposed to a fate worse than death. Twenty seven. Twenty. Seven. It became a mantra for her, something reminding her why she was here, what she was intending to do, what she had to do.
…did she kill him now?
It felt cold, killing him when he was pinned like this. Reminded her too much of Frida and Astrid, and reminded her too little of Bisha. But… no, he'd done something monstrous. He'd gone around opening those gaps - twenty seven people gone, by this man's hand. So what if he thought it was for their own good, he'd already racked up a body count higher than most serial killers. Any court would convict him in seconds… but she couldn't let him into the normal justice system. Too risky for something as aberrant as him. Who could say if these termites were truly what he said, or if they had another goal in mind, a bigger one? She couldn't leave him alive, it was far too dangerous. But… he wasn't one of Bisha's. He hadn't had his mind completely burned out, he was talking, he was reasoning. He could be afraid of her - be afraid of death, too. It was one thing to put a cultist out of their misery in the midst of a heated battle, it was quite another to do it to a feebly struggling man who was clearly insane, but not… not Bisha insane. Fuck, she wanted to fight something unambiguous today, she'd wanted to do what she liked doing. Not… this. Not whatever this freakish situation was. Goddammit, she was pissed again. Her day needed some stress relief, and instead she had this guy. No name. And he'd been running from her, disassembling his 'markers'... no, just going elsewhere to continue his work. He wasn't repentant, he didn't think what he was doing was remotely wrong, he just wanted to do it far, far away from her prying eye.
What are you waiting for, usurper? Slice his throat. End him.
Chorei was very, very tempting. Her knife pressed deeper - she felt momentarily attracted by the idea of just getting the gorilla to crush his skull like an overripe fruit. Nice and distant. But that felt like cheating, like cowardice. She'd made her bed, time to lie in it. This was what she wanted, wasn't it?
The man sniffed.
"...no offence, man, but you've got some gaps yourself. Can recommend some guys for that."
"Shut up."
"You're hurting, lady - I can tell. Talk to me, I can help."
"Shut. Up."
He was being adamant.
"Look, lady, I want to help you, I'm offering because I want to, I can show you how to make it all better, y'know? Not changing you, just… showing you how beautiful all the imperfections are. Ain't so bad, huh?"
Kill him. Kill him now.
"...woah. Hey, check that out."
Her swarm moved to check. No distractions, but… she froze. Something was at the end of the corridor. Something unnatural.
'Incomplete?'
She glanced upwards, momentarily taken away from the rambling idiot beneath her. A… thing was standing there. Her brain wanted to identify it as a bull, or a cow - the body was too decayed to really tell. The flesh hung from the bones, brown and wasted, the flesh beneath practically a liquid. Its stomach hung low to the ground, weighed by corruption. Her brain wanted to call it a bull or a cow. Her eye didn't. Her eye knew that something was very, very wrong. The bull was headless. Just a… gap. A spasming hole where the throat entered the torso, ringed by twitching, rotting muscle. A single eye staring at her, leading into an interminable dark tunnel. Her knee elevated from the man's back, and the gorilla braced at her command. The headless bull just stood there, calmly watching the two of them. She looked closer, straining with her normal vision - wasn't letting her insects get close, not yet. Provoking the headless bull seemed like a bad idea for the moment. Termites were crawling in and out of the rent which had once been a throat, and… oh. She saw something around the fringes of the neck, things she hadn't seen before.
Mounds. Termite mounds, built from compacted bone and rust. Delicate flutes ringing the throat, holes from which more of the fleshy creatures could emerge, chattering to themselves in their bizarre, repetitive way. A single eye, and five mounds surrounding it. A bull with five horns. Taylor was frozen in place, and her swarm was utterly, painfully still. She stared, and the single, bleeding eye stared back at her, weeping a perpetual trail of fleshy termites and frigid blue ichor, splashing onto the ground in wet heaps. The sound of impossibly whispering termites filled the air. Incomplete. Incomplete. Incomplete. She stared at the bull, and the bull stared back, termite-mound-horns forming a messy crown around its single, glaring eye. No other movements. No shifting. No charging. Nothing to suggest aggression. Her knife was still, and her voice had a calm she very much was not feeling right now.
"What is it?"
"...it's back, man, it's back, it's back, I thought it had gone, I thought…"
He paused, choking back a sob. Useless. Lost in ecstasy. The bull was unmoving, but she could feel it staring her down, examining her closely. Her swarm was poised. The gorilla was ready. Parian was still alive outside the plant, no-one had gone to try and hurt her, nothing was wrong except for this.
…I recommend caution.
Yeah, thanks Chorei, wonderful contribution. The nun had no idea what to do - too surprised. The pacing felt wrong here - wasn't this thing meant to come later? Wasn't it meant to be a culmination to something, a… no, it was a thing of ambiguities and incompleteness. Of course it would emerge abruptly and without warning. History proceeded as normal until the day a bull sprung out of the sea, mated with a woman and produced a dynasty of kings. No mention before nor after, only the event, shrouded in ambiguity and uncertainty, a tale cut off before it had a chance to really start. Sometimes she entered a meat packing plant with a target in mind, pinned him to the ground, wrestled with the morals of killing him, and then a headless bull wandered out and stared blankly while weeping termites. Standing before her was the living embodiment of the notion that 'shit happens'.
Caution is irrelevant. Now I recommend running.
Chorei was cracking a little, and her nervousness was infectious. Taylor quietly sent the gorilla in front of her, blocking her view for a moment - a good shield. She hauled the man up to his feet - he was a little shorter than her, and she could easily see past him. The bull lingered, pulsing with corruption and rot. She could see the bloody marks where meat hooks had stretched the creature open, where bolt guns had shredded, where whirring blades had cut it apart. It was a slaughtered animal, infested from within. The same as the things the gorilla had just killed, staining its fabric with putrid blue liquid. Just another thing to kill. The man, though, kept rambling to it, praising it, loving it with each and every word that slipped past his charred lips. She needed to get him out of here - if she was going to guess, this place was rich with sympathies for that other city. Too rich. Get to another location, tie him up, get her allies by her side. Turk or Ahab would know what to do. Cowardice of a sort, but it could be masked behind pragmatic professionalism fairly easily.
"Come on. We're moving."
"No we're not."
His voice was certain. None of the nervousness that had characterised him before. Even his shaking had stopped, the squirming beneath his skin had ceased. He felt more sure of himself. Good and not good at the same time - if only he could've been more secure in his power before the headless bull had shown up. A horrible rasping sound filled the air - intercoms set into the walls, the wires long-severed or rotted, the grilles rusted shut, yet impossibly they projected sound outwards. A groaning, gargling noise that made her think the bull itself was talking, sound creeping out of its ruined throat with the slowness of the termites nesting in its stomach, a great greasy sack hanging beneath it throbbing with unnatural life. And Taylor felt, just for a moment, that it was the voice of the plant, the voice of something vast and old and covered in rust. Or the voice of the man, the voice his body couldn't possibly hold, a voice so great that it had escaped to find a newer, more adequate host.
Floor 15 open for cleaning
Chamber 23 ready for processing
A pause, and the sound rattled through the corridors, pulsing and quivering like something living and breathing and hunting. The walls were melting a little - she could feel rust pool around her feet. Taylor could hear Parian over the phone, squeaking questions. What was happening. Who was speaking. What should she do. Taylor's insects kept the gorilla in place, even as it shifted uneasily. Calm. Remain calm. Her mind was buzzing.
Shipment 18382 in bay 7
Floor 451 is contaminated, requesting cleanup
Taylor backed away, her knife at the man's throat. He walked with her, calmly, ignoring the blade. He was coming with her for another reason. The gorilla retreated with her, and the bull continued to stare. No movements, but the termites continued to build up. She kept going, and… the man stopped. No time like the present - she ripped the knife across his throat. He stumbled, and she felt a strange kind of relief wash over her. Not the sight of him dying. He couldn't die to a knife wound, her prevarications hadn't actually affected her chances of winning. One failure she could scrub off her permanent record - she'd done what she could. Termites wept from the wound, larger and more vicious than any of the others she'd seen. But the realisation that he couldn't die made her… oddly happy. She'd done everything that was possible for her to do at this time, and now she should probably start running. The man slowly turned, the gorilla behind him, the bull behind them both.
"We're leaving. I promise. But please… don't come after us again. We really don't want to fight."
His smile widened, looking almost apologetic even as his throat-wound-hive bloomed and whispered.
Drain 7263b clogged with fat, dispatch custodial staff
Take cover when the siren sounds.
"Peace?"
Taylor said nothing.
She simply commanded the gorilla to crush. And crush it did - a moment of splintering bone and parting skin was all she saw before she ran. The sounds were more effective at conveying her success than anything else. Even if it didn't kill him, it felt good. The gorilla continued to smash downwards, and her swarm identified the bull was remaining absolutely still - but a presence was moving ahead of it. Hard to articulate what it was, but it was definitely a feeling. Like something was stalking her, something invisible and deadly, something that only needed to touch her and it would become real again. The bull was absolutely still, its hooves digging into the softening metal beneath, but the idea of a hunt went ahead, serenaded by the clicking whispers of a thousand thousand termites. Taylor sprinted away, her breath scalding in her throat. As terrified as she was right now, as utterly horrified by what she'd seen and heard… this was something she understood. Terror was something she could work with, she could ride the wave of adrenaline out of here and towards something better. Oh, she felt fantastic, she had a target, a real, honest-to-God target. She'd seen his face, found elements of his backstory, found one of his bases. Now she just needed to get out so that knowledge could pay off - her swarm was jittering as she moved, expressing every excited motion she was craving to execute.
That was probably a little concerning.
But who was going to judge her?
The excitement in your mind is concerning, and I am judging you very harshly right now. Run, usurper, run faster.
Ah, well, she couldn't exactly go around telling people that she was judging Taylor. And if a judgement was made and nobody heard it, would she still get out of this meat packing plant without a headless bull killing her?
This is not an exit
Corridor 2828 is obstructed by: you
Water can be gnawed
1 1 2 3 5 5 5 5 5
Meat shipment 20.1.8 has arrived
Oh, she was alive.
…you know, usurper, we had a name for people who worked in places like this.
"Hm?"
Burakumin. Those that engaged in the slaughtering of animals are impure - as are gravediggers, tanners, and executioners. This place is impure to a degree that would have horrified the elders of Senpou. Only once did we allow a butcher to cross our threshold and enter the inner confines of the temple. Once. And he was purified extensively, his name was taken, he was altered until he could no longer invite impurity into our most holy of places. And he was never permitted to enter the inner sanctum.
"...Chorei, I'll level with you, you were in a temple that worshipped centipedes. I'm really not sure if you guys could talk about purity or impurity."
Then please, call this place pure if you like, oh most supreme arbiter of purity. Let not the nun who has spent many centuries engaged with such matters interrupt your enlightened musings.
"Aren't Buddhist nuns meant to be vegetarian?"
Not all of us.
"Mm-hm."
Shut up.
Taylor ignored the nun. Her ramblings aside, this place felt impure - on a deep, and instinctual level. The corridors felt longer than they needed to be - not quite so long that they felt as though they were violating reality, but nonetheless long. It was like… everything had been mismeasured by a tiny amount. The plans had been misread, certainly. An inch here, an inch there… decimal places shifted, numbers misinterpreted, plans shoddily drawn and poorly executed. Tiny margins of error, nothing in the grand scheme of things, but enough to strike her as unusual in some hard-to-define way. It made everything feel unsafe. If they couldn't get the measurements right, what else had gone wrong? Were those wart-like rivets secure? Was this rust just rust, or something more virulent, infiltrating her lungs and spreading in thin, delicate, hair-like roots? The walls quivered slightly as she went, no matter how carefully and quietly she tried to step. Jaws ready to snap shut. A throat ready to convulse and throw her deeper into this rusting hulk of a building. She walked down one of these too-long corridors, the walls pressing a little too tightly for comfort, the ceiling pressing down like something was resting on top of it - the groaning metal added to the impression, and for a second she remembered that image of the quinotaur once more.
Horns could tear through this metal easily. Branchless trees piercing through, pale and gently curving, tapering to a vicious point stained as red as the walls where the creature had been at work. She felt too-long fingers grazing the sides of the wall, coming away with flecks of rust beneath the nails.
She focused on her swarm.
Nothing. No bull. No termites. No spies. And the structure was sound enough to endure - squatters seemed to occasionally use this place, if the piles of fresh rags and rotten sleeping mats were any indication. Bisha had used it too, as a cult centre. Presumably a minor one, but still - it said something about the structural stability of this place. Her swarm was hovering lightly around the men working away on the killing floor, surrounded by detritus of the previous occupants. They were still hard at work disassembling things made entirely out of scrap, piling the assorted metal, wood, and organic matter higher and higher in a disorganised fashion. They were working quickly, but not as quickly as they could. The central figure was easy to track - he strode around, not helping with the general effort, but content to watch and direct. He'd organise the others to haul a heavy piece together, or would simply poke them if they were getting too slow for his liking. But even so, they could be going much, much faster. The people doing the work were harder to keep tabs on. Their flesh absorbed her insects, and she had an idea why. Still, their clothes were fine - and they dressed in all-concealing rags, layers and layers of coats and shirts and sweaters and aprons, layered until they were practically invisible. But the knowledge that a few shed clothes would render them incredibly difficult to track reliably put her on edge.
The gorilla was reassuring, at least.
Eerily silent for how large it was, standing a full head higher than her, and evidently many times tougher. It moved a little clumsily at first, but Parian's ability to control it using Taylor's orders improved with each step. At the beginning it's been a nerve-wracking exercise to get it through a single door without shattering something. Now? She squeezed through a door that had rusted half-open, and the gorilla easily followed, guided by the twitching of a thousand insects. No sound from the men, no barked orders. Just a poke here, a jab there, a few sharp gestures when they needed to work together. Her swarm was ready - good variety of insects, she'd even managed to exploit a wasp nest beneath the plant, a bulging mass of tubes and compacted matter where a hive had built up over the years. She liked using wasps. Fast. Painful. And instinctually unnerving to most people. Some could walk over piles of cockroaches without flinching, but no-one could just let a wasp buzz right by their ear without complaint. And by complaint, she meant flailing and screaming.
"Everything alright?"
Parian's voice was tinny over the mobile phone. Not as good as a walkie-talkie - she didn't have that many minutes on her phone, this entire mission would be coming out of her paycheck - but it was serviceable enough.
"Fine. Stay quiet."
"...alright."
A knife was drawn smoothly from her boot, held firmly in the stance Ahab had drilled her in over and over again until the hilt seemed to be moulded to fit the contours of her hand perfectly. KM2000, a souvenir from one of Ahab's friends who'd done some work in Europe during the Silesia Crisis. The killing floor came closer, closer, the too-long corridor stretching on ahead of her. This place stank of copper, but… not quite the same as from blood. She'd become far too familiar with that particular smell - this felt more mechanical, like copper wire ripped out of a house. The mustiness from Bisha's cultists was here, of course, but dulled by age. When Bisha died, it seemed like his cult lost something vital. A link to their god had been severed, and with it, their every remaining trace in the world was drained of significance. It was just musty in here, nothing more. Her breathing came a little faster, but… she was fine. The smell wasn't as intense. And she had a job to do - she could set aside nervousness if she had a job, terror was nothing in the face of purpose. She came closer, closer, closer, flanked on both sides by dark handprints stained into the walls, only slightly darker than the rust that surrounded and pervaded them.
It was cold. Bitterly so. The same cold that had lingered in that other city - the tiny red dots which used to be welts itched sympathetically. Taylor felt sharp. Everything was honed, everything was as it should be. It all made sense. The killing room came closer, and Taylor crouched lower to the ground, her swarm directing the gorilla to do the same. She could hear movement. Parian was remaining outdoors, as instructed, and was also remaining silent as the grave. Her breathing was steady, her heart was pulsing rapidly, her eye was unblinking and absolutely focused. This was what she lived for. It was bizarre to say, but… this was probably the most alive she'd felt since pulling Parian out of that wrong turn. Everything since had a layer of film over it, like a stew that needed skimming, like a pot being cleaned, the surface dancing with various colours reflecting from globules of compacted fat. And now the film was gone. The world felt real again - she felt everything here, the cold air, the groaning corridors, the rust beneath her boots, the vents that rattled like a smoker's lung, the stink of copper and dust, each and every room her swarm had examined, each and every item of rotten furniture and crumbling equipment. And the men ahead were bright lights shining in the gloom.
She was made for this.
God, she felt alive.
She poked her head into the killing floor, remaining low to the ground, trying to be as stealthy as possible. Her clothes were dull and didn't catch the eye easily - good. No sign of detection. The gorilla remained a little behind her, utterly still so long as her swarm instructed it to do so. Her eye narrowed at the sight of the men working away - definitely abnormal. She could only see the workers at the moment, the leader was just out of view. But they were odd. Wide, shambling, their fists low to the ground and their backs bent. Like apes, but… wrong. Their faces were exposed to the air, and there was something uncanny about them. Eyelids swollen shut, until all that remained were tiny slits with no visible eyes within. Lips puffy and ragged, stained with an indefinable brown fluid. No teeth she could see, just mouth-flesh the colour of autumn leaves. The rest of the skin was utterly putrid. Pale, leached of colour, in a way that reminded her of a deep-sea fish brought to the surface. Wet, slimy, and veins pressed clearly against the surface. Too much matter inside, all pushing outward against a world that didn't exert remotely enough pressure to contain it all. Her idea was solid. She thought she understood what these things were - but they looked tough. Any reservations about letting Parian help faded completely. She'd need the backup from her gorilla.
Taylor braced herself, and sidled closer, picking her spots carefully. Insects scuttled over the floor, feeling every imperfection, every spot which seemed thinner or more porous than the others. Not perfect, but they guided her motions well enough. No sounds. She was behind a railing overlooking the killing floor, a rickety staircase to her right leading downwards. Huge drains in the ground, meat hooks shining dully in light from outside - the ceiling was rotting, and every so often the overcast sky was clearly visible, as dull and regular as any mass-produced fluorescent light. No carcasses remained, nothing but a table of weapons from Bisha's occupation of the place, and the scrap totems raised up by these new threats. She couldn't see these totems very clearly, but… they looked deliberate. Not just piles of junk, but genuine works of art sculpted by loving hands. And now they were being ripped to pieces in ugly chunks, the waste piled high - cans of gasoline lingered at the side of the room. They intended to burn it all. Weird. She crept closer, and… there he was.
The big man.
He was… skinny. If the men surrounding him were characterised by clumsy largeness, this man was painfully thin. He stomped into view, borne by heavy cowboy boots that didn't remotely fit his feet. The man's shirt was the colour of a white curtain stained yellow by exposure to constant nicotine, and a brown corduroy jacket hung loosely over his frame, almost swallowing him whole. Ragged brown hair clung to his head, greasy and unkempt, clearly not his highest priority. Lice swarmed in it, and she held them in reserve. No-one liked it when their scalps erupted into a burning, itching sensation - no-one human, at least. And she wasn't so sure about this guy. He turned slightly, gesturing to one of his men, and his face… well, it was damaged. A thin beard clung to his chin, the same consistency as his hair. Bright eyes stared outwards from hollow sockets. And everything was scorched. Flesh melted and reset, forming a little ocean of rippling skin and charred muscle. His mouth was forced into a half-grin by the burns, no matter how hard he was clearly trying to frown. He scratched one of the barely-healed burns with fingernails the colour of wet sand, twitching nervously from side to side. Her initial impression was that he was a flunky for someone else, not an important leader of any kind. Bisha and Chorei had both projected absolute confidence in front of their men - there was no way this guy was in charge of a whole organisation. Maybe a lieutenant. But the burns… they were interested. Only mostly healed. So, they were recent - caused by the Conflagration? Or a result of poking around Bisha's old haunts?
Taylor paused.
She was used to attacking passively. Not assaulting things without being assaulted in turn. She faced so many things which could sense her through her swarm that at this point it felt odd to just… attack. Preparations could be made, of course. The gorilla was directed to hunch over slightly, to brace for a leap. Her swarm was double-checked, then triple-checked. Everything where it should be. Her route was planned. Down the stairs, don't bother vaulting over the railing, looked too delicate to support her weight. Let the swarm conceal her movements - maybe make some kind of decoy out of bugs, that could be useful. Worth practising before she tried it - ah, hell, why not. She was having a whale of a time right now. Swarm-clones to distract - even if they were crude, they were still dark masses obscured by a swarm. Real enough to create a moment of hesitation, enough for her to get closer. The gorilla would handle the larger ones, she would go for the leader. He looked vulnerable enough - soft spots aplenty for her knife, and if necessary she could perform a very quick grafting. Just enough to stun him, or to allow Chorei to get to work on him. Even when the body was invulnerable, the mind rarely was. Just had to figure out how to crack it open, that was all.
She braced.
Best of luck, usurper.
A tiny smile tried to cross her lips. Failed, of course. But the effort was made. Her muscles tightened, her back straightened, the ache from her Bisha-inflicted scars faded into nothing more than background noise.
Now.
Taylor's swarm descended. A biting, ripping thing, an impenetrable cloud of stingers, pincers, and roaring, roaring wings. The walls let them free, hundreds at a time, and the drains were choked with bodies surging upwards in ordered rows. She could feel everything, every antenna twitching, every leg moving, every individual wing beat. And her own body was in motion, too. The gorilla sprung above her as she ducked to go down the stairs - the men looked up only to see a huge creature barreling downwards in complete silence. She could sense Parian stiffening outside, focusing on her work. Good. They were all in alignment. Perfect. The four men gathered around the scrap pile were the focus of the gorilla - her swarm couldn't get to them without being absorbed. But as a felt fist crashed into them, sending them flying… yeah, she'd made the right choice. Two pounded into the back of the slaughterhouse before she could even reach the bottom of the stairs. They got up, of course. But slowly. Carefully. Trying not to tear themselves open. The others tried to hack into the gorilla, their fists unnaturally powerful. No such luck - it moved with uncanny grace, the felt bending and flexing to avoid the strikes. The creature had no interior, no stuffing - any semblance of rigidity was a choice, and nothing more.
Taylor sprinted across the floor, the loose drains rattling beneath her feet. Hazy shapes which vaguely approximated humans formed from the swarm, shambling in the vague direction of the men. Not hugely convincing, but distracting enough to hold their attention for a moment. The skinny man backed up, his burned face twisting into a rictus of…
Wait.
That wasn't pain. Or anger. Or anything she expected.
He looked scared.
His mouth opened, exposing rotten teeth, and he shrieked at her. She anticipated insults of some kind… she didn't anticipate this.
"Please, just leave us alone!"
Taylor almost stopped. What? No-one just… what? Who would run around begging for clemency in a situation like this? This guy was, conceivably, trying to open gates to somewhere beside reality where a giant nest of termites would devour anyone that entered. The gorilla conjured from one of his victims pounded into one of the men, splitting his skin - inside, nothing but termites. He struggled to hold himself together, to pin the skin together once more… no such luck. The fleshy insects writhed in pools of frigid blue ichor, murmuring to themselves as their pincers clicked feebly. Not so tough outside of their nests, good to know. Her swarm could take care of them - here, she had numbers aplenty. Flyers could grab the termites and take them to places where escape was impossible, or could simply dunk them into the rest of her seething army to be ripped apart in seconds. In the city she'd been hesitant, uncertain. Constantly improvising. Here, she was ready.
The man began to run into the depths of the plant, his feet pounding a sharp staccato on the half-rotten floors. Taylor followed. The gorilla was handling the men just fine - she could deal with this one. She dashed after him, ducking and weaving to avoid any clumsy fists coming her way. The men were tough, but her gorilla was bigger, stronger, and significantly faster. So far, this was going flawlessly. Her swarm had already mapped out this part of the facility - she knew the dead ends, the loops, each and every room, corridor, stairwell… she knew it better than this man did, that much was clear. The sound of battle faded behind her, and her swarm-clones dissolved into their constituent parts, working overtime to keep the termites from escaping the facility. She was thorough - Bisha had left scars in the world, and she was committed to not leaving any more fallout.
Take nothing but lives, leave nothing but dust, that kind of thing.
God, that sounded like something Chorei would say. Or Ahab. No, Ahab would have made some off-colour remark to go with it.
Back to running.
She was good at running. Even with her gammy knee.
The only sound in these winding rusty corridors was the heaving of the man's breath, the pounding of hard soles on the metal floor, and the slow, steady advance of Taylor - quieter and swifter by far. Even with a head start, he wouldn't escape. She'd identified all the ways out. He was dead in the water And yet he kept wailing in a voice that made her feel viscerally angry.
"Why can't you just leave us? We've not done anything to you!"
She ignored him. Too busy running… but her hand did clench a little harder around her knife. Stop complaining. This was something she had to do - just the way things were.
"Please, please, God, just let me go, I don't want to-"
"Shut up."
She gave into her irritation, so what. The man took this as evidence of his success at breaching some invisible barrier, and his voice became more hopeful. She was getting closer, closer, she could feel his stink, like he'd been exclusively bathing in the putrid canal outside.
"Please!"
That was all he got.
Taylor leapt, and tackled him to the ground. The gorilla was finishing off the men, crushing some of the larger concentrations of termites. Alone, they'd have been a threat to her, but with a giant brute on her side… yeah, piece of piss, to use one of Arch's sayings. He buckled easily, her scarred arms unrelenting despite his feeble struggles. God, he was weak. She felt a cruel satisfaction wash over her as she drove him downwards, slamming his head into the ground, feeling his loose bones jangle in the putrid sack he called skin. The man tried to get away - she had to give him that. But it was a pathetic attempt in the grand scheme of things, and a knife to his throat silenced any struggles for the foreseeable future. Her swarm began to move, ready to provide backup if necessary. He had no reinforcements. No magical powers. Nothing. Just a skinny man with a burned face who looked faintly like Charles Manson. She pinned him… and thought. Again, this was unusually aggressive for her. Typically he'd have tried something by now, she'd fight back, and in the process he'd be obliterated. But he was just being feeble. She wasn't going to graft until it was absolutely necessary, and stabbing him coldly felt… wrong. He was whimpering, for crying out loud. Say what you will about her, she'd never stabbed a whimpering man whose first response to her presence was desperately running away.
"Stop struggling."
He stopped. God, he was taking all the fun out of this. Her irritation must've shown in her tone, because what she could see of his face looked, somehow, even more terrified.
"Start talking. Who are you?"
"Uh, look man, I don't want any-"
Her knife pressed deeper.
"Talk."
"Please, I just-"
No words. Just knife.
"...don't have a name, alright? B… my old boss took it."
A chill ran up her spine.
"You're talking about Bisha."
"Please don't say his name, please. Look, I know you killed him, but please, we're not - we don't want any trouble from you. Disassembling our markers and everything, right? Not causing any trouble."
"Stop rambling. You were part of Bisha's cult. Why didn't you die like the rest?"
"Escaped! I… I was burning, I was burning so bad, in here, actually. Down on the killing floor. My friends burned up, but… but I lived."
"How?"
His voice was calmer - talking about being saved was enough to settle him a little. She knew this was good for an interrogation, but… dammit, it wasn't good for her own irritation. She'd wanted to fight something today.
"The… the termites, man. They dug me out. In the walls, you know. Been living here for a long, long while, since this place closed, I guess. I feel through, and they… they put out the fire, they put me back together. Made my blood cold so I couldn't burn no more. Let me go. Said I was… said I was ripe. Incomplete. They loved me for that. Loved me for being a fuck-up.The boss never loved me, he was just… just using me, man. But these little dudes love me. They love me like you wouldn't believe. Don't want me to change, don't want me to become like them, they just love that I'm a fuck-up and the fact that I'm a fuck-up makes me beautiful, you know?"
His voice was downright ecstatic now. She didn't know what he meant, but she could vaguely comprehend it. She glanced around nervously, her swarm working overtime to check everything. No termites in the walls, none around here. She was fine. This guy was just being weird. No surprises there, but she'd hoped he'd be a violent sort of weird.
"You've been opening gates around the city."
"...gates?"
"To these termites. Is that not something you're doing?"
"No, man, no, I open, like, rehab for people. My parents… can't remember their faces, boss took that away, but they tried to get me into rehab once. Maybe it would've helped. So… I just help others, you know? Hold the candle to the head, let the skin peel free, let the bugs crawl out from where they were always hiding."
He giggled slightly, and she felt something squirm inside him. Her knee raised off his back, but her knife remained. Her swarm was poised, the gorilla was approaching. If he tried anything…
"You're trying to help people."
"Yeah, man, you get it! Gotta help them - the bugs told me about it. When… when the boss left, it's like there's a black hole in your stomach. Like you lost a bit of yourself. Your past, your present, your future, man, all gone. But now… now I roll the nickels, man. They tell me the gaps make me better. Man, you look into the gaps and see gaps, I look there and I see nests, and man, they're singin'. I'm not bad, really, I'm not. I just see people, I want to help them, man, like I was helped. Spread the love, you know?"
Broken.
Chorei was right. His laughter was shattered. His mind was clearly cracked in some important way. Bisha had burned out most of him, and these termites had come in to fill the gap. A tiny, paranoid part of her wondered if that was why she'd been feeling these… things, around the edges of her vision. Long, long fingers creeping around doorframes, seeing the bulging eyes of a five-horned bull whenever she went to sleep. Maybe there were gaps in her. Maybe that was why the termites had tried to rip her apart - they thought they'd found a new home. She shivered, just a little. Just a feeling. She was fine. He wasn't even playing mind games with her, he was just rambling to himself. Every word that passed his lips calmed him down - she wasn't interrogating him, just telling him to go to his happy place and describe what he saw in his own words. The gorilla was here, looming ominously above the two of them. The man was rambling again, and she pressed the knife into the soft flesh of his neck, his Adam's apple bobbing wildly around it. Silence.
"...alright, you've explained the termites. What about the star?"
The man's eyes bulged, almost popping from their sockets. His body thrashed, stronger than before, and she could feel small insects wriggling through his bloodstream and around his muscles, playing the fibres like strings on a vast musical instrument. He shook his head wildly.
"Answer me."
"P-p-please, don't make talk about that thing, man, the termites don't like the light."
"What is it?"
"I don't know, lady, it's just… it's bad, we don't talk about it. Always in front of us. Always behind. Always at the edge. It stays there, which is good, and we don't go to meet it. Y…you see? C'mon, lady, don't make me talk about it, it hurts…"
Taylor paused, trying to get her thoughts in order. What other questions did she have? What more information could she extract?
"Any accomplices? Is anyone else building these gates?"
"No, man, just me, just me, just me. B…but I've got some buddies, people who wanted to go inside. And… and there's some I haven't closed yet. Please, if you let me go, I'll leave - won't come back. All my buddies will come with me, I promise. Please, we haven't done anything to you…"
Lying.
Chorei was right. Lying through his teeth. No buddies. This felt like a finale for him - he'd been terrified of her finding him, and she doubted that her entry into that other city had gone unnoticed. He'd been shutting gates down, making sure everything was quiet. That was why she hadn't found anything - dammit. He'd almost gotten away with it, too, if Parian hadn't… her mind went back to Angel Eyes. Had he known? Had he somehow arranged this? This day was just getting worse and worse - first Glory Girl, now a disappointing target, and now the suspicion that she was being pulled around by something or someone that knew more than she did. None of these were things she liked. Individually, they were unpleasant. Together, they were enough to make her want to punch something. Like this man. She resisted the urge. Honestly, she just didn't want any of him clinging to her - being this close was bad enough. He'd said this was where he became what he was - felt like a good place for him to end things. For someone so obsessed with ambiguities and incomplete endings, he sure was trying to be thorough at ending his presence in this city.
Her last question was important. Very, very important.
"How many people?"
"Twenty seven."
His tone was proud. He was proud of what he'd done. Her grip tightened. Twenty seven people taken and either devoured or exposed to a fate worse than death. Twenty seven. Twenty. Seven. It became a mantra for her, something reminding her why she was here, what she was intending to do, what she had to do.
…did she kill him now?
It felt cold, killing him when he was pinned like this. Reminded her too much of Frida and Astrid, and reminded her too little of Bisha. But… no, he'd done something monstrous. He'd gone around opening those gaps - twenty seven people gone, by this man's hand. So what if he thought it was for their own good, he'd already racked up a body count higher than most serial killers. Any court would convict him in seconds… but she couldn't let him into the normal justice system. Too risky for something as aberrant as him. Who could say if these termites were truly what he said, or if they had another goal in mind, a bigger one? She couldn't leave him alive, it was far too dangerous. But… he wasn't one of Bisha's. He hadn't had his mind completely burned out, he was talking, he was reasoning. He could be afraid of her - be afraid of death, too. It was one thing to put a cultist out of their misery in the midst of a heated battle, it was quite another to do it to a feebly struggling man who was clearly insane, but not… not Bisha insane. Fuck, she wanted to fight something unambiguous today, she'd wanted to do what she liked doing. Not… this. Not whatever this freakish situation was. Goddammit, she was pissed again. Her day needed some stress relief, and instead she had this guy. No name. And he'd been running from her, disassembling his 'markers'... no, just going elsewhere to continue his work. He wasn't repentant, he didn't think what he was doing was remotely wrong, he just wanted to do it far, far away from her prying eye.
What are you waiting for, usurper? Slice his throat. End him.
Chorei was very, very tempting. Her knife pressed deeper - she felt momentarily attracted by the idea of just getting the gorilla to crush his skull like an overripe fruit. Nice and distant. But that felt like cheating, like cowardice. She'd made her bed, time to lie in it. This was what she wanted, wasn't it?
The man sniffed.
"...no offence, man, but you've got some gaps yourself. Can recommend some guys for that."
"Shut up."
"You're hurting, lady - I can tell. Talk to me, I can help."
"Shut. Up."
He was being adamant.
"Look, lady, I want to help you, I'm offering because I want to, I can show you how to make it all better, y'know? Not changing you, just… showing you how beautiful all the imperfections are. Ain't so bad, huh?"
Kill him. Kill him now.
"...woah. Hey, check that out."
Her swarm moved to check. No distractions, but… she froze. Something was at the end of the corridor. Something unnatural.
'Incomplete?'
She glanced upwards, momentarily taken away from the rambling idiot beneath her. A… thing was standing there. Her brain wanted to identify it as a bull, or a cow - the body was too decayed to really tell. The flesh hung from the bones, brown and wasted, the flesh beneath practically a liquid. Its stomach hung low to the ground, weighed by corruption. Her brain wanted to call it a bull or a cow. Her eye didn't. Her eye knew that something was very, very wrong. The bull was headless. Just a… gap. A spasming hole where the throat entered the torso, ringed by twitching, rotting muscle. A single eye staring at her, leading into an interminable dark tunnel. Her knee elevated from the man's back, and the gorilla braced at her command. The headless bull just stood there, calmly watching the two of them. She looked closer, straining with her normal vision - wasn't letting her insects get close, not yet. Provoking the headless bull seemed like a bad idea for the moment. Termites were crawling in and out of the rent which had once been a throat, and… oh. She saw something around the fringes of the neck, things she hadn't seen before.
Mounds. Termite mounds, built from compacted bone and rust. Delicate flutes ringing the throat, holes from which more of the fleshy creatures could emerge, chattering to themselves in their bizarre, repetitive way. A single eye, and five mounds surrounding it. A bull with five horns. Taylor was frozen in place, and her swarm was utterly, painfully still. She stared, and the single, bleeding eye stared back at her, weeping a perpetual trail of fleshy termites and frigid blue ichor, splashing onto the ground in wet heaps. The sound of impossibly whispering termites filled the air. Incomplete. Incomplete. Incomplete. She stared at the bull, and the bull stared back, termite-mound-horns forming a messy crown around its single, glaring eye. No other movements. No shifting. No charging. Nothing to suggest aggression. Her knife was still, and her voice had a calm she very much was not feeling right now.
"What is it?"
"...it's back, man, it's back, it's back, I thought it had gone, I thought…"
He paused, choking back a sob. Useless. Lost in ecstasy. The bull was unmoving, but she could feel it staring her down, examining her closely. Her swarm was poised. The gorilla was ready. Parian was still alive outside the plant, no-one had gone to try and hurt her, nothing was wrong except for this.
…I recommend caution.
Yeah, thanks Chorei, wonderful contribution. The nun had no idea what to do - too surprised. The pacing felt wrong here - wasn't this thing meant to come later? Wasn't it meant to be a culmination to something, a… no, it was a thing of ambiguities and incompleteness. Of course it would emerge abruptly and without warning. History proceeded as normal until the day a bull sprung out of the sea, mated with a woman and produced a dynasty of kings. No mention before nor after, only the event, shrouded in ambiguity and uncertainty, a tale cut off before it had a chance to really start. Sometimes she entered a meat packing plant with a target in mind, pinned him to the ground, wrestled with the morals of killing him, and then a headless bull wandered out and stared blankly while weeping termites. Standing before her was the living embodiment of the notion that 'shit happens'.
Caution is irrelevant. Now I recommend running.
Chorei was cracking a little, and her nervousness was infectious. Taylor quietly sent the gorilla in front of her, blocking her view for a moment - a good shield. She hauled the man up to his feet - he was a little shorter than her, and she could easily see past him. The bull lingered, pulsing with corruption and rot. She could see the bloody marks where meat hooks had stretched the creature open, where bolt guns had shredded, where whirring blades had cut it apart. It was a slaughtered animal, infested from within. The same as the things the gorilla had just killed, staining its fabric with putrid blue liquid. Just another thing to kill. The man, though, kept rambling to it, praising it, loving it with each and every word that slipped past his charred lips. She needed to get him out of here - if she was going to guess, this place was rich with sympathies for that other city. Too rich. Get to another location, tie him up, get her allies by her side. Turk or Ahab would know what to do. Cowardice of a sort, but it could be masked behind pragmatic professionalism fairly easily.
"Come on. We're moving."
"No we're not."
His voice was certain. None of the nervousness that had characterised him before. Even his shaking had stopped, the squirming beneath his skin had ceased. He felt more sure of himself. Good and not good at the same time - if only he could've been more secure in his power before the headless bull had shown up. A horrible rasping sound filled the air - intercoms set into the walls, the wires long-severed or rotted, the grilles rusted shut, yet impossibly they projected sound outwards. A groaning, gargling noise that made her think the bull itself was talking, sound creeping out of its ruined throat with the slowness of the termites nesting in its stomach, a great greasy sack hanging beneath it throbbing with unnatural life. And Taylor felt, just for a moment, that it was the voice of the plant, the voice of something vast and old and covered in rust. Or the voice of the man, the voice his body couldn't possibly hold, a voice so great that it had escaped to find a newer, more adequate host.
Floor 15 open for cleaning
Chamber 23 ready for processing
A pause, and the sound rattled through the corridors, pulsing and quivering like something living and breathing and hunting. The walls were melting a little - she could feel rust pool around her feet. Taylor could hear Parian over the phone, squeaking questions. What was happening. Who was speaking. What should she do. Taylor's insects kept the gorilla in place, even as it shifted uneasily. Calm. Remain calm. Her mind was buzzing.
Shipment 18382 in bay 7
Floor 451 is contaminated, requesting cleanup
Taylor backed away, her knife at the man's throat. He walked with her, calmly, ignoring the blade. He was coming with her for another reason. The gorilla retreated with her, and the bull continued to stare. No movements, but the termites continued to build up. She kept going, and… the man stopped. No time like the present - she ripped the knife across his throat. He stumbled, and she felt a strange kind of relief wash over her. Not the sight of him dying. He couldn't die to a knife wound, her prevarications hadn't actually affected her chances of winning. One failure she could scrub off her permanent record - she'd done what she could. Termites wept from the wound, larger and more vicious than any of the others she'd seen. But the realisation that he couldn't die made her… oddly happy. She'd done everything that was possible for her to do at this time, and now she should probably start running. The man slowly turned, the gorilla behind him, the bull behind them both.
"We're leaving. I promise. But please… don't come after us again. We really don't want to fight."
His smile widened, looking almost apologetic even as his throat-wound-hive bloomed and whispered.
Drain 7263b clogged with fat, dispatch custodial staff
Take cover when the siren sounds.
"Peace?"
Taylor said nothing.
She simply commanded the gorilla to crush. And crush it did - a moment of splintering bone and parting skin was all she saw before she ran. The sounds were more effective at conveying her success than anything else. Even if it didn't kill him, it felt good. The gorilla continued to smash downwards, and her swarm identified the bull was remaining absolutely still - but a presence was moving ahead of it. Hard to articulate what it was, but it was definitely a feeling. Like something was stalking her, something invisible and deadly, something that only needed to touch her and it would become real again. The bull was absolutely still, its hooves digging into the softening metal beneath, but the idea of a hunt went ahead, serenaded by the clicking whispers of a thousand thousand termites. Taylor sprinted away, her breath scalding in her throat. As terrified as she was right now, as utterly horrified by what she'd seen and heard… this was something she understood. Terror was something she could work with, she could ride the wave of adrenaline out of here and towards something better. Oh, she felt fantastic, she had a target, a real, honest-to-God target. She'd seen his face, found elements of his backstory, found one of his bases. Now she just needed to get out so that knowledge could pay off - her swarm was jittering as she moved, expressing every excited motion she was craving to execute.
That was probably a little concerning.
But who was going to judge her?
The excitement in your mind is concerning, and I am judging you very harshly right now. Run, usurper, run faster.
Ah, well, she couldn't exactly go around telling people that she was judging Taylor. And if a judgement was made and nobody heard it, would she still get out of this meat packing plant without a headless bull killing her?
This is not an exit
Corridor 2828 is obstructed by: you
Water can be gnawed
1 1 2 3 5 5 5 5 5
Meat shipment 20.1.8 has arrived
Oh, she was alive.
AN: Okay, that's all for this week - but I have some fun news!
Bisha fanart!
Check out this truly delightful work by the equally delightful SorrySorrow here on SV. Please. It's very cool.
Bisha
Bisha fanart!
Check out this truly delightful work by the equally delightful SorrySorrow here on SV. Please. It's very cool.
Bisha
GraftingBuddha
Retired Pooh-Bah
Holy hell my guy that's absolutely awesome, thanks so much for making it!Here's a little piece of fanart that I'd like to offer as tribute to the Outer Gods.
And don't think I didn't notice the collar he's holding.
You monster.
143 - A Sequence of Undesirable Occurrences
GraftingBuddha
Retired Pooh-Bah
143 - A Sequence of Undesirable Occurrences
Parian was having a not particularly good day. By certain definitions, it could even be described as not superb. If taken to the absolute limits, it could perhaps be called bad. And if someone was inclined to break those limits and transcend to a newer, more exotic frontier of vulgar pessimism, it could be called completely fucked. It had started well, of course. The worst days started well, helped get her hopes up. She'd had no nightmares, had woken up precisely when she intended to, got on with normal coursework like a normal student would, even managed to repair her dress from that… anyway. She'd done everything she was meant to do - and more. As the measuring tapes glued to the walls of her rooms looked more and more insane, as the sun seemed less and less like a giant staring eye, and as her own mind felt increasingly like her own, she had decided to do something she'd been intending to do for a long, long while. She needed to find… dammit, she really needed to get that girl's name, it was very awkward to keep referring to her internally as 'the raccoon cape' or 'the trash tinker'. Epithets were no subject for an actual damn name, in her opinion. She'd been willing to unmask herself in future, for crying out loud - the idea of going by 'Parian' for her entire professional life felt completely silly. And Parian was a good name, not… whatever it was to do with raccoons.
Anyway.
Those termite things had been obsessed with incompleteness, ambiguity, and interrupted stories. When she'd been in that city, all she could think about was her own shame at not pursuing the man that started the Conflagration. For a time she thought that it was just… well, a delirious mind reliving guilty events over and over and over. But a point had been made. She wanted to resolve a few loose threads in her life - and finding that trash tinker was the first step there. Parian had fallen into that huge, impossible termite nest - if that kid had been in the same situation with no-one to rescue her… well, Parian didn't know what she'd do. But she had to try. Because that was what capes did. She might not be the best cape in town - not the strongest, not the bravest, not the most experienced - but she still had duties imposed by her powers. And helping out people that were in need was one of those duties.
And here she was. Outside a meat packing plant. Listening to impossible sounds over her phone. Taylor's quick response had been… honestly, just a little bit alarming. How had she gotten here so fast? And why did she come without guns, equipment, why did she only arrive with her insects? It didn't seem like her to rush into things without a speck of preparation - her actions in that termite nest had been so precise, too utterly perfect for the situation, there was no way she hadn't been planning going inside for some time beforehand. Probably driven to enter by Parian's disappearance - probably been observing the wrong turn for a while. But she'd arrived, seemed eager to begin and then… had become instantaneously colder. Gone from being happy to march inside alongside Parian, to being utterly committed to leaving her inside, no matter what she needed to do to achieve it. The bug plan seemed good, but… she'd been hyping herself up to go inside since before making the call. The feeling had been unmistakeable, the quivering in the ear, the weird sense of ambiguity hovering over the whole place… it was just like the termite nest. Enough to make the speckled red dots on her arm flare up, reminding her of those delving, whispering pincers, the feeling of tiny flesh bodies spilling out of the walls onto her, the chilling blue liquid they swam in when out of sight, the sound, the sound…
…maybe it was for the best that she'd been left outside. Even if it frustrated her enormously, at least she was helping in a manner where a panic attack was unlikely. Her gorilla existed entirely as a set of threads being tugged around, a constellation of perception inside the plant. She felt it being dragged slowly through corridors, the rust on the floor jarring against some of the strings, and then… violence. The feeling of being jerked around viciously, instructed to crush things. And she'd done so. Her perception through the threads wasn't perfect, but she could feel the vibrations as bodies were crushed, the scuttling sensation as termites burst from those same bodies, the cold chill that soaked into the fabric of her creation. She didn't know what was happening in there, but she trusted Taylor. The girl had saved her once, she could probably be trusted to handle a particularly large stuffed gorilla and a couple of hellish termites. No, a lot of hellish termites. A very, very, very large amount of hellish termites and her arms were itching again and she could feel something around the corner from her something coming closer and closer reaching with long, long fingers and the sun was-
No. No. Not again.
Never again.
And then the sounds had started. The phone had buzzed with them, something that roared or whispered, something that was speaking to Taylor and to her. Impossibly, it was speaking to her, in a way that made her feel like there was something nesting in the phone itself. Something coiled around the speakers, mouth opened wide as it poured venom into her ear.
You never got away.
She'd almost dashed the phone against the road when she'd heard that. Almost. But… but Taylor was still there. Past the murmuring whisper, there was the sound of footsteps running down a long, long metal corridor. She could feel the threads of her gorilla twisting, shifting - her heart pounded as they began to twist impossibly. Inverting into shapes nothing should be able to make, shapes that made her head hurt and her teeth itch. She could feel it, all of it. The ways her threads moved, and the form they were taking. Space was liquid. A little disturbance, and it could flow, it could ripple, it could be channelled. Space was a soup of particles with an infinity of void within them. The space between one and two was an eternity of unrecorded decimals - and her threads were forming one of them, a number never conceived of, so vast it transcended the need for an ending, simply went on and on and on, a number that loomed above and around her, a number could carve into the world and make it flow. Her telekinesis relaxed, she tried to let the threads go - her nose was bleeding, she could feel the hot copper run over her lips beneath the mask. But as she tried, she felt it - an ambiguity of space. A shivering influence in the world, a reminder that some corners had yet to be explored, some stories came to an end before their time, some events occurred without precedent or explanation. Sometimes people wandered into the dark and never came back. The last thing she felt from her threads was a cold, cold place, and the gnawing of uncountable jaws. One by one, her threads were snipped, faster than she could relax her control. As the last perception winked out, her senses returned to her.
Her nose was bleeding. Her eyes were watering. Her throat was hoarse. And the phone continued to whisper. There were no words, now. None that she recognised. It spoke a language without syntax, vocabulary, anything. Just a garbled thing which somehow transmitted meaning, impossibly. It was telling her that she had never escaped. That the termites were underneath her skin. That their nest had many openings for her to fall through. It was a bright morning, but every building around her seemed to cast long shadows into the street. Dark places where nothing could be seen. Every alleyway stretched out longer and longer, sound and light swallowed whole by those dark recesses. She had a sense of being in a vast, impenetrable labyrinth. Too many side paths. Too many distractions. A thousand wrong turns she could make. Was that manhole cover just a manhole cover, or was it hiding something else? Were those pipes gurgling with old water, or something more solid? Were they underneath her skin? The welts itched, and she briefly remembered reading about wasps that injected eggs into their prey, let them stew and hatch in a warm, safe burrow, ready to consume everything around them. There were still red dots on her arm from the bites. Were they just healing welts, or little eggs, ready to hatch, ready to breed, ready to…
"Shut up!"
She screamed into the phone, trying to drown out the voice. She couldn't remove the device - Taylor was saying something, Taylor needed help, Taylor needed to be listened to. And she couldn't listen if this voice kept talking, this impossible, ear-aching voice which sounded like the churning of fat at the end of a long, rusting sewer. It continued to murmur, speaking of the wonders beneath the earth, of the way she could relish in her own incompleteness, exist as a thing of ambiguities and half-events, something that bound others but was never bound to them, capable of influencing without being influenced. Freedom, pure and simple. And all she needed to do was let them hatch, and to the nest she would be taken. All she needed to do was accept.
"Shut up! You hear me, shut up!"
It didn't. If anything, it got louder. Parian's screaming got louder and louder, her eyes watered with tears she'd been suppressing for a long, long while.
"I'm not going with you, you hear me? There's nothing underneath my skin, there's nothing-"
"Are you alright?"
Her head twitched. Someone was floating there. Someone blonde. Her brain froze for a moment, and the phone drifted out of her perception. That was… she was… oh. Oh dear. That was Glory Girl. That was just straight-up, out-of-costume Glory Girl. And Parian was standing here screaming into a phone like it owed her money - a phone that even now echoed with those unnatural noises, and the sound of Taylor running frantically through the corridors of the meat packing plant.
"...hi?"
This day really was fucked.
This situation was fucked, and Taylor was living for it. Not that she'd ever admit this to anyone, of course. Least of all to Chorei, who was whimpering just a little at what the hell was happening around them. Eh, she could probably feel her enthusiasm anyway. The flood of adrenaline, the realisation that all her stymied research meant nothing in the face of this. Everything reduced down to the pounding of her heart, the pumping of her lungs, the movement of muscle upon muscle, arteries pulsing with hot blood… the fear that maybe she'd been growing too obsessed, the paranoia over Glory Girl, all of it, nothing. Because she was in an awful place chased by something somehow even more awful than the rusting abandoned slaughterhouse which used to be occupied by Bisha's cult. Nothing remained by this moment. She ran, and her swarm expressed all of her excitement in erratic jitters. She wasn't sure if the bull was chasing her, but something was. The building itself, maybe. Her boots were making grotesque sounds as they impacted the floor, like the sound of people messily kissing - the rust was sucking at her heels, the building had the consistency of mud. A building pretending to be intact for a long, long time… and now it had been invaded. Now it had no need for structure. A pendulum of liquid rust began to seep down from the ceiling, a teardrop, a cocoon, a splash of venom from a monstrous spider, a globule of saliva from the jaw of the bull pursuing her. Her swarm felt nothing behind her, but she could feel something.
Long, long fingers around each doorframe. Something buzzing in the distance. The clattering of hooves on the floor. And the sighing, gurgling sound of that empty throat-eye, bursting with termite mounds that spiralled like grotesque horns.
She ran faster. The gorilla was gone. Her swarm had felt it twisting away, lost in an ambiguity of space. The nameless man had been much the same - slipping sideways through the world, one last assurance that he had no quarrel with her, that he'd be out of this city as soon as he could. Her message had been received and delivered. But the building was hungry. And he couldn't stop it from snapping at her, couldn't stop it from trying to devour her whole. An incomplete story could have an abrupt ending. The rustling rust seemed to tell her something - that she should've stopped with Bisha, should've been content with a quiet, uninspiring life afterwards. Cared for her dad. Sorted her life out. Ignored this other world, left it to its own devices. It had been here before her birth, it would linger after her death. Be content with the ripples she'd made, and leave it there. She had a conclusion to rest in - why had she not lingered? She ignored that voice. She had to do this - no-one else could. The building and the headless bull rumbled in agreement. If she wanted a new chapter of her life to begin, and not just an epilogue… she made herself vulnerable to this thing. If she looked for a new ending, she should be prepared for something that made things end abruptly and unsatisfyingly.
Taylor burst into the main killing floor, the meat hooks shining dully in the morning light. The rust was crawling on the walls. There was a distant, distant roar - like the building was reshaping, or like the bull was readying itself to charge. She had no idea what it could even do, but caution seemed to be her best friend in situations like this. Leave. She had evidence. She had a target. She had what she needed - now all that was required was a swift escape to make all those things worth something. The drains were packed with dead termites, and she could see the hollow skins which had once held the swarms. The intercom continued to shriek at her, but now it was becoming increasingly unintelligible. Lists of numbers, describing hundreds of killing floors which all required cleaning, decontamination, purging… or were ready for use. Bays that couldn't possibly exist, rooms numbers that were suited for a skyscraper. She stepped forward - and her foot sank a good few inches into the half-liquid floor. Something was behind her. She refused to look - wouldn't give it the satisfaction, wouldn't open herself up for any kind of mental influence. Her foot sank another inch deeper, and she could feel termites gnawing around it - no, couldn't just push down, she'd only sink deeper. Already her other boot was starting to descend, swallowed whole by the rust.
The railing! The railing - close enough to grab. Still solid enough, too - her fingers left imprints in the metal, but she honestly wasn't sure if that was a consequence of her unnatural strength or some further rebellion against reality. It was enough. The presence came closer, she could almost feel its breath on her neck, cast out by a pair of rotten lungs, a toothless, vacant mouth opening wider and wider, ringed with termites poking out of the flesh, teeth like a lamprey. She heard the rushing of a vast river, the slap of waves against the side of a creature which should not be. Termites were starting to gnaw through the tough leather of her shoes, whispering all the while - heave. One last tug, and she was free - her boot was left behind, and she glanced behind to see it being consumed utterly, crushed by metal that was suddenly a hell of a lot more solid than it had once been. The railing supported her - her final boot-clad foot pressed into the soft sides of the staircase, carving a foothold. Not much, but enough. A heave, and she was up - the presence was still close, but it was slow, the sensation of breath on the back of her neck receded.
Taylor's own breathing was coming faster and faster, her heart was racing, she felt alive. Her swarm mapped out a route back, landing on every surface to check the structural stability. Things were quickly breaking down here - she felt like this place was sliding down a vast plughole. The ambiguities of space were increasing. More and more insects were simply vanishing, experiencing a cold world and a harsh, staring sun, before they were torn apart by thousands of gnawing pincers. Bisha had consumed this place, and a new boss had moved in - or maybe it had always been here. But now it was being torn away, removed to a new location where it could blossom anew. If she was caught inside when that removal occurred… well. Too bad for her. Her swarm spread out, detecting more and more, identifying a perfect route back to the rest of the world. And… something emerged into her perception. Bursting in from above. Everything came crashing down for a moment, her plans dying around her. How had… why had… what?
I told you! I told you going with her was a terrible idea!
In Taylor's defence, she'd been thorough. Insects had checked for Glory Girl's presence, and her own eyes had watched the skies. Had she… had she elevated to a great height while still keeping track of Taylor? Why would she be that suspicious? Did she know something? Paranoia began to overcome her - no, she was talking to Parian. Dammit, dammit. She'd been too eager to get here, too incautious… maybe her swarm had missed her approach while she was distracted with this bull. Her multitasking was good, but immediate personal danger could blind her to the fringes of her power. Didn't help that things like this usually needed her full attention. Maybe she'd just made a mistake. Dammit. Whatever the case, Glory Girl was here. And she was close to the plant. For a second, she felt a mix of emotions - anger at the cape for following her, anger at herself for letting it happen, nervousness at being found out and pummelled until her body could conceivably fit into a soup can. And guilt. There was a lot of guilt. Gallant's dead eye staring unblinking into the rain. She imagined this building devouring Glory Girl, the bull lunging to gore her with its nest-horns, a flood of insects raining outwards, too many for even her powers to resist. A few mistakes, and that would be her fate. A few mistakes, and Taylor would have another death on her hands. And even if she didn't die, she could still be broken. Sent gibbering back home, to be cared for by parents that couldn't begin to understand what she'd been through. Her gait was unsteady as she ran, only one boot remaining. Had to get to the exits. All enthusiasm was gone, now she had to make sure others survived - when it was just her, it was simple. Now, everything had become more complicated.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
Her attention was being drawn by other things - she dashed past an open room, and inside were racks and racks of cow skulls, bleached by age and then mottled through rot and damp. Empty sockets glared at her, and she felt something moving within them, ambiguities of space generating and disappearing… run faster, before it could seize her. The walls were weeping, whispering. There were mouths behind the rust, teeth made of jagged metal, tongues replaced with a squirming termite embedded into the soft, gossamer-thin flesh. Whispering over and over and over, incomplete, incomplete - the intercom was howling at her, a language she couldn't begin to understand. She almost imagined it was the language of Çatalhöyük, the half-made speech which was offered up to those bloated goddess writhing with insects, to the five-horned bull that could only be created in a house about to be destroyed. Never allowed to exist on its own - only an ending. The headless bull was behind her, she knew it, even if she refused to look at that pulsing eye-throat-mouth. The walls of the corridors were lined with pictures now, drilled into the wall - artwork designed to relax the workers at this place, keeping them calm while they sawed meat apart and boxed it up. She glanced at one of them, almost by accident.
Taylor saw a woman hung on a meat hook. Smiling broadly. Her belly was swollen with termites. Her face was familiar - when she realised who it was, she decided to not look at any of the other pictures. Even when they, too, began to whisper through their pigments, began to depict secrets that she desperately wanted to know. The last days of Çatalhöyük, the sight of a burning five-horned bull in the ruins of an ancient house, the things they did in this place before the termites invaded, long before Bisha arrived.
Her attention was split. She couldn't afford to pay attention to everything - she needed to keep Glory Girl away from this place. The exits were close, but not close enough, and her pace was being slowed by the softening floor. Had to keep her distracted. She was already turning away from Parian, already glancing at the plant, suspecting what needed to be done, what she could do. Ideas rushed by, some realistic, others painfully silly. Attacking with the swarm to drive her back, no, wouldn't work. No guarantee of doing any damage, might just confirm her suspicions. Make everything messier. Trust Parian to do it? No, couldn't rely on her here, she was still affected by the whole mess in the alleyway. Her phone was buzzing idly - still working, even after this place went to hell. She could hear Parian spluttering through it, trying to tell Glory Girl that nothing was wrong, that she was just hanging around in this awful part of town, and no she hadn't seen Taylor go anywhere - and who was Taylor anyway? - and yes, Glory Girl could go home please and thank you. No, not an option. Which left… dammit. Didn't leave much left that she could… hm. It was difficult, but it was possible for her to communicate through her swarm. A buzzing, unpleasant sound, sure, but still vaguely comprehensible.
She dodged a falling pool of rust, bulging with termites that were straining against the sides, gnawing at the edge of their womb.
Dammit. She couldn't concentrate enough - communication would be possible, but it would be obvious that she was interrupted by other things. And Glory Girl had just been with her, there was no guarantee that she wouldn't just recognise Taylor's mode of speaking, or maybe the buzzing would be inflected with her own voice, or… gah. More ideas - and one seemed better than the others. Probably produced of absolute lunacy, but hey, she was being pushed here. The meat packing plant was almost over, she just needed to get Glory Girl away. And to do that, she needed…
"Hey, Chorei?"
Stop talking, continue running!
"I can do both. You can handle limbs, right?"
…where are you going with this?
"You can take over parts of me. You did it back in the tea shop."
I did. Why?
"Can you handle my power for a bit?"
What
"I just need you to talk to Glory Girl, alright? She's never met you, you'll be better at seeming like an entirely different person."
No! No, I won't - that's an awful idea! Why don't I take over the legs and you take over the conversation?
"Just need to delay her while I get out. Once I'm out, we can do something else, I'll figure that part out later. Just… keep her outside."
Your ideas grow worse and worse by the day, what, are you going to suggest we use nuclear weapons against our foes next?!
"How about you stop complaining and maybe tr-"
Taylor was forced to halt as her feet sank into the floor once more, and the presence came closer, closer… it strode atop the liquid metal like it was perfectly sound, and still she didn't dare to look back at it. The swarm said there was nothing. And looking would only paralyse her, open her up for an attack. Best to run. The pictures on the walls were full of men and women with suspicious eyes, glaring down at her. The rooms were full of whispers, and strange, crawling things that weren't quite insects. She saw grey trees poking through the floors, saw burning fruits held in iron cages… reality was breaking down, but the door was close. Her progress was slowing down to intolerable levels, but she could still make it - yet, each step was a conscious effort, a process of plunging into the soft material, hauling herself back up by the few handholds she could find, like staggering through a knee-deep pool of honey. Her breath was coming faster and faster, her forehead was soaked with sweat, her lungs felt like a pair of straining bellows… she tried to gasp out a few words.
"You want to handle this? Sure you're… you're up to it?"
She hauled her leg up from the ground, using a faintly solid part of the wall as a support. Not perfect, but still vaguely workable. But she'd spent a while getting used to this fashion of movement, Chorei hadn't taken command of her legs for longer than a few seconds at a time, and always in a controlled environment. The nun rumbled disconsolately.
…you make a fair point. But remember your oath - dinner.
There was no switch to be flipped. One moment, Chorei was a bodiless presence. And the next, Taylor felt that awareness disperse into her swarm, insects forming neural pathways, guiding this intelligence outwards so it could form a mouth composed of a thousand bodies, a mouth that could speak into the cold morning air. Her mind narrowed down to the meat packing plant. She was fine. Chorei could handle it. She'd run a cult for a while, she probably knew how to get people to leave the premises without invoking suspicion.
Probably.
Hopefully.
Intestinal corridor 1727 is undergoing contractions. Prepare for evacuation when alarm sounds.
Oh, shut up.
"Look, just tell me what's going on - is there something happening in there?"
"No, no, nothing, nothing at all, everything's fine."
"Don't I know you from somewhere?"
"No, definitely not, just a… just a… member of a radical libertarian militia, just out here spray-painting things, but I left all my paint at home, I feel very embarrassed, please leave."
Vicky pinched the bridge of her nose. She had no idea who this girl was, but she looked familiar. Something about the combination of height and voice, something she'd definitely experienced before. Hard to say where. Bah. Whatever the case, she was close, she could smell it. Taylor had run off, acting about as suspicious as it was possible to act, and Vicky had retreated to a safe distance. Once you got high enough, it was easy to disappear from sight - especially on such a cloudy day. Then it was an exercise in squinting very, very hard. Very hard. Oh, and binoculars. Never leave home without them - because sometimes shops were closed and it was inconvenient to fly down and check and it was hard to tell from too high up and… anyway. Binoculars. Useful. For instance, now. Though if Taylor had been part of a crowd, it would've been impossible to track her. But alone, in a fairly barren neighbourhood, heading a short distance? Piece of cake. Certain things were still obscured, though. She knew the direction, and she knew where Taylor had disappeared, but specifics were completely unknown. The building she'd entered, anyone she'd talked to… all of that was beyond her sight. But if she was a betting girl (which she wasn't), she'd say that this completely not suspicious individual standing outside an abandoned meat packing plant screaming unintelligibly into a phone was connected in some way.
She didn't know what was going on. But she was committed to investigating it. There was no way this was just a normal family emergency. This place reeked of the Conflagration, the yellow liquid dried into craters on the road, the suspicious stares from all the residents… If she was going to guess, she'd say that Taylor had decided to come here because she was being pressured, or one of her friends was under threat. The PRT was patrolling much of the city, but some parts were so desolate and quiet than they barely got a patrol passing through a few times a day. Nothing resembling a permanent presence. Maybe - and at this thought her heart skipped a beat - maybe one of her friends was being threatened by some holdover from the Conflagration. It was a silly idea, but she imagined some of those creatures lingering, maybe threatening some local people, trying to bleed them dry while they prepared for another strike. Or maybe Taylor was honestly just visiting family - but if they were here, there was probably something else going on. And if Vicky could help, she would.
She'd failed Dean. She'd failed Amy. She wouldn't fail this one random person she'd met in a tea shop.
…funny what she chose to fixate on sometimes.
And as she moved closer, as the girl on the ground started to splutter ineffectually… things became weird. She saw insects - a vast flood of them. Ants, spiders, cockroaches, flies, woodlice, a teeming black mass of chitinous bodies, all moving with a singular purpose. Instinctually she floated upwards, and braced herself. Cape. Definitely a cape. Maybe someone who triggered recently, maybe an opportunistic villain. Depended on how pessimistic she was feeling today. But whatever the case, the swarm didn't look friendly. She backed up quickly, trying to make some distance while she figured out what to do. The girl on the ground didn't look terrified - just nervous. Hm. Definitely connected, then. She was spiralling to dozens of new conclusions, most of them completely impossible. Was this Taylor? It felt like the obvious conclusion to make, that Taylor was a cape doing cape business… had she helped a villain? Her fists rose, more out of instinct than anything else. Her forcefield should keep some of these things out, and if she got some speed she should be able to crush a good number of them. Standard policy for masters who controlled swarms of minions - find the parahuman, take them out as quickly as possible. But where were they coming from? They were boiling from every direction, out of the sewers, from the drains, out of windows…
And then a voice blared from the swarm. A loud, and completely unfamiliar voice. The idea that Taylor was behind this diminished, just a little. This voice sounded nothing like the deeply standoffish girl she'd carried over here, it was bombastic, it was arrogant, and heavily accented. So either Taylor was a painfully good actress, or something else was happening. Her mind also entertained the possibility of multiple parahumans - a whole gang of them, conceivably. Maybe? Definitely in the realms of possibility. Ambiguities were clouding everything - how many parahumans, what affiliation, what nature, just… what?
"Begone from this place, blonde one."
Well, that was definitely unusual.
"...uh."
"I said begone! Lest I… infest your undergarments with lice!"
"Sorry, who are you?"
The voice seemed a little taken aback by her casual response. Well, duh. She'd seen weirder. If this was a new cape, best to be open - sure, it looked villainous, but you never knew. Maybe this was some homeless guy or gal that'd been injured by the Conflagration. Again, more ambiguities, weighing down on her limbs.
"I…"
It paused.
"Do you not see the insects? The many, many insects?"
"Yeah, are you controlling them?"
"Wh- of course I'm controlling them, I'm…"
Another pause.
"I am the swarm! My consciousness is dispersed within this great chitinous brain - you stand in the sight of my body, my mind, my very soul! I have transcended the limits of humanity, and now I demand that you vacate this area immediately, lest my anger wax strong and my fury grow hot!"
"But why though."
"Because I will… sting you! Many times, with varying combinations of insects, in a variety of unpleasant places!"
"If you want to try…"
"Just leave. None of this business concerns you, parahuman."
"What business?"
"Please stop shouting at me, I know this is going poorl- look, in the old days I just made strange noises in Japanese until people left me alone, or I sent my lawyers after them. I rarely conversed with investigators, what did you expect fr- never mind. This is my domain, and I need explain nothing to you. Begone, this I do command. Begone, for this is private property and you are trespassing. Begone, I say."
Vicky drifted closer.
"No."
"...I will choke you with bees."
"You'll try, maybe. I'm just looking for someone - girl, yay high, dark hair, one eye?"
"I know nothing of this creature."
"She was in this area. In your domain."
The girl below spoke up, finally getting her senses together.
"Oh, I saw her! She ran off in… uh, that direction."
Vicky gave her a withering look. She knew bullshit when she heard it. Seriously, this whole thing felt like a farce - whatever was happening here, she had every intent of getting to the bottom of it. Taylor was obviously connected to this, and was trying to hide something. Maybe she was this bug parahuman, maybe she wasn't. But this deception was honestly getting a bit annoying - did they think any of this would work? She hovered closer, and the swarm did nothing. Just a few jitters to express its discomfort. Seriously, the bugs were alarming at first glance, but her power outstripped them. She amplified her own aura, feeling it radiating outwards - the swarm parted like the Red Sea, whatever lay behind it feeling pretty damn intimidated. Maybe this thing was trying to cloud her brain with ambiguities and alternate possibilities - more parahumans, of unknown affiliation, of unknown strength, in an unknown location… probably meant to paralyse her. Well, too bad.
Because sometimes the Glory Train just got going and refused to stop. Even when a Plague of Egypt was standing in the way.
…though she could probably handle most of those, now she came to think about it.
Her aura was as much of a shield as her actual shield. Sometimes she disliked this part of her ability - emotional manipulation didn't strike her as particularly heroic - but in times like this it felt entirely wonderful. The swarm buckled and fled, scattering into smaller clouds. The entire farcical delay with the voice had only lasted less than a minute. When it attempted speech once more, it was scattered, full of static. Focus broken. Good. Vicky dove towards the meat packing plant, ignoring the wisps of insects that stood in her path. They were smashed apart by her forcefield, not a single body coming closer to actually making contact. Too fast to be stopped. Best thing to do in situations like this was act decisively, and sometimes being decisive meant some minor roof destruction. This place was abandoned, too, so that meant no-one was going to sue her this time. Her speed decreased very slightly in anticipation of someone being directly under her. Manslaughter never looked good. The girl in the street was yelling something, something to do with… termites?
No time to listen.
She'd stumbled onto something here - and by complete accident, no less. Something big. Something serious. Something that she could solve. Maybe Taylor was some secret supervillain, and if so, she'd just had the worst run of bad luck she'd likely ever experience. Or maybe she was in trouble, and Vicky could help her. Or maybe something else was going on, but either way, she was diving in and seeing what happened, because that was what heroes did. The voice gurgled back to life, the swarm reforming around her. More confusion, probably - more smokescreens to stop her from doing what was right. Whatever that was.
"...never paid for your taster session, you miserly American hussy."
What?
The insects descended - and Vicky ripped past them. As anticipated, even the full might of the swarm couldn't keep her back, not when she had a target in mind. The meat packing plant - they'd surged to defend it, there was something in there, something important. She'd never been close to this place before, but her mom had ranted about the lawsuits. Years and years of highly productive work for the legal ecosystem, the kind of thing that could pay off a dozen families' mortgages and put their kids through college, all shut down because apparently the company involved wanted to take care of it quietly. A few settlements and it was gone. Some of her mom's friends had wept when they saw the paperwork go up in flames. Literally. The company took privacy very, very seriously. Much more seriously than they took construction, apparently - the roof looked fragile, almost putty-like. Easy to break - she slammed into it, crushing the metal aside. Her feet braced, ready to hit the floor in the most dramatic pose she could possibly muster (simply out of practicality, it was helpful to stun people with the knowledge that they were going up against someone with vast reservoirs of experience)...
She saw two things, and felt another.
She saw Taylor standing there, one-eyed, staring incredulously. Seething insects surrounded her - cape, maybe she was the one with the swarm, maybe she was a prisoner, maybe she was an unrelated cape, but shenanigans were afoot. Vicky tried to grin at her, maybe say something like 'sorry, felt like dropping in'... but then she saw the second thing.
And that really changed the tenor of the morning.
She couldn't quite describe it. There were squirming fleshy bodies pouring from a red hole. There were horns brimming with life. There were long, long fingers, and a tang of something stronger than rust wrapping around her tongue over and over. The atmosphere was putrid and cloying, and a quivering lamprey-mouth exhaled more stinking air to choke everything in its vicinity. She plunged through the roof, and…
Plunged through the floor. It rippled like water, rusty and thick, swallowing her lower half whole. She felt things gnawing at the edge of her forcefield.
And something began to rise up behind her.
Something with teeth.
Something with horns.
Something that hungered.
Parian was having a not particularly good day. By certain definitions, it could even be described as not superb. If taken to the absolute limits, it could perhaps be called bad. And if someone was inclined to break those limits and transcend to a newer, more exotic frontier of vulgar pessimism, it could be called completely fucked. It had started well, of course. The worst days started well, helped get her hopes up. She'd had no nightmares, had woken up precisely when she intended to, got on with normal coursework like a normal student would, even managed to repair her dress from that… anyway. She'd done everything she was meant to do - and more. As the measuring tapes glued to the walls of her rooms looked more and more insane, as the sun seemed less and less like a giant staring eye, and as her own mind felt increasingly like her own, she had decided to do something she'd been intending to do for a long, long while. She needed to find… dammit, she really needed to get that girl's name, it was very awkward to keep referring to her internally as 'the raccoon cape' or 'the trash tinker'. Epithets were no subject for an actual damn name, in her opinion. She'd been willing to unmask herself in future, for crying out loud - the idea of going by 'Parian' for her entire professional life felt completely silly. And Parian was a good name, not… whatever it was to do with raccoons.
Anyway.
Those termite things had been obsessed with incompleteness, ambiguity, and interrupted stories. When she'd been in that city, all she could think about was her own shame at not pursuing the man that started the Conflagration. For a time she thought that it was just… well, a delirious mind reliving guilty events over and over and over. But a point had been made. She wanted to resolve a few loose threads in her life - and finding that trash tinker was the first step there. Parian had fallen into that huge, impossible termite nest - if that kid had been in the same situation with no-one to rescue her… well, Parian didn't know what she'd do. But she had to try. Because that was what capes did. She might not be the best cape in town - not the strongest, not the bravest, not the most experienced - but she still had duties imposed by her powers. And helping out people that were in need was one of those duties.
And here she was. Outside a meat packing plant. Listening to impossible sounds over her phone. Taylor's quick response had been… honestly, just a little bit alarming. How had she gotten here so fast? And why did she come without guns, equipment, why did she only arrive with her insects? It didn't seem like her to rush into things without a speck of preparation - her actions in that termite nest had been so precise, too utterly perfect for the situation, there was no way she hadn't been planning going inside for some time beforehand. Probably driven to enter by Parian's disappearance - probably been observing the wrong turn for a while. But she'd arrived, seemed eager to begin and then… had become instantaneously colder. Gone from being happy to march inside alongside Parian, to being utterly committed to leaving her inside, no matter what she needed to do to achieve it. The bug plan seemed good, but… she'd been hyping herself up to go inside since before making the call. The feeling had been unmistakeable, the quivering in the ear, the weird sense of ambiguity hovering over the whole place… it was just like the termite nest. Enough to make the speckled red dots on her arm flare up, reminding her of those delving, whispering pincers, the feeling of tiny flesh bodies spilling out of the walls onto her, the chilling blue liquid they swam in when out of sight, the sound, the sound…
…maybe it was for the best that she'd been left outside. Even if it frustrated her enormously, at least she was helping in a manner where a panic attack was unlikely. Her gorilla existed entirely as a set of threads being tugged around, a constellation of perception inside the plant. She felt it being dragged slowly through corridors, the rust on the floor jarring against some of the strings, and then… violence. The feeling of being jerked around viciously, instructed to crush things. And she'd done so. Her perception through the threads wasn't perfect, but she could feel the vibrations as bodies were crushed, the scuttling sensation as termites burst from those same bodies, the cold chill that soaked into the fabric of her creation. She didn't know what was happening in there, but she trusted Taylor. The girl had saved her once, she could probably be trusted to handle a particularly large stuffed gorilla and a couple of hellish termites. No, a lot of hellish termites. A very, very, very large amount of hellish termites and her arms were itching again and she could feel something around the corner from her something coming closer and closer reaching with long, long fingers and the sun was-
No. No. Not again.
Never again.
And then the sounds had started. The phone had buzzed with them, something that roared or whispered, something that was speaking to Taylor and to her. Impossibly, it was speaking to her, in a way that made her feel like there was something nesting in the phone itself. Something coiled around the speakers, mouth opened wide as it poured venom into her ear.
You never got away.
She'd almost dashed the phone against the road when she'd heard that. Almost. But… but Taylor was still there. Past the murmuring whisper, there was the sound of footsteps running down a long, long metal corridor. She could feel the threads of her gorilla twisting, shifting - her heart pounded as they began to twist impossibly. Inverting into shapes nothing should be able to make, shapes that made her head hurt and her teeth itch. She could feel it, all of it. The ways her threads moved, and the form they were taking. Space was liquid. A little disturbance, and it could flow, it could ripple, it could be channelled. Space was a soup of particles with an infinity of void within them. The space between one and two was an eternity of unrecorded decimals - and her threads were forming one of them, a number never conceived of, so vast it transcended the need for an ending, simply went on and on and on, a number that loomed above and around her, a number could carve into the world and make it flow. Her telekinesis relaxed, she tried to let the threads go - her nose was bleeding, she could feel the hot copper run over her lips beneath the mask. But as she tried, she felt it - an ambiguity of space. A shivering influence in the world, a reminder that some corners had yet to be explored, some stories came to an end before their time, some events occurred without precedent or explanation. Sometimes people wandered into the dark and never came back. The last thing she felt from her threads was a cold, cold place, and the gnawing of uncountable jaws. One by one, her threads were snipped, faster than she could relax her control. As the last perception winked out, her senses returned to her.
Her nose was bleeding. Her eyes were watering. Her throat was hoarse. And the phone continued to whisper. There were no words, now. None that she recognised. It spoke a language without syntax, vocabulary, anything. Just a garbled thing which somehow transmitted meaning, impossibly. It was telling her that she had never escaped. That the termites were underneath her skin. That their nest had many openings for her to fall through. It was a bright morning, but every building around her seemed to cast long shadows into the street. Dark places where nothing could be seen. Every alleyway stretched out longer and longer, sound and light swallowed whole by those dark recesses. She had a sense of being in a vast, impenetrable labyrinth. Too many side paths. Too many distractions. A thousand wrong turns she could make. Was that manhole cover just a manhole cover, or was it hiding something else? Were those pipes gurgling with old water, or something more solid? Were they underneath her skin? The welts itched, and she briefly remembered reading about wasps that injected eggs into their prey, let them stew and hatch in a warm, safe burrow, ready to consume everything around them. There were still red dots on her arm from the bites. Were they just healing welts, or little eggs, ready to hatch, ready to breed, ready to…
"Shut up!"
She screamed into the phone, trying to drown out the voice. She couldn't remove the device - Taylor was saying something, Taylor needed help, Taylor needed to be listened to. And she couldn't listen if this voice kept talking, this impossible, ear-aching voice which sounded like the churning of fat at the end of a long, rusting sewer. It continued to murmur, speaking of the wonders beneath the earth, of the way she could relish in her own incompleteness, exist as a thing of ambiguities and half-events, something that bound others but was never bound to them, capable of influencing without being influenced. Freedom, pure and simple. And all she needed to do was let them hatch, and to the nest she would be taken. All she needed to do was accept.
"Shut up! You hear me, shut up!"
It didn't. If anything, it got louder. Parian's screaming got louder and louder, her eyes watered with tears she'd been suppressing for a long, long while.
"I'm not going with you, you hear me? There's nothing underneath my skin, there's nothing-"
"Are you alright?"
Her head twitched. Someone was floating there. Someone blonde. Her brain froze for a moment, and the phone drifted out of her perception. That was… she was… oh. Oh dear. That was Glory Girl. That was just straight-up, out-of-costume Glory Girl. And Parian was standing here screaming into a phone like it owed her money - a phone that even now echoed with those unnatural noises, and the sound of Taylor running frantically through the corridors of the meat packing plant.
"...hi?"
This day really was fucked.
* * *
This situation was fucked, and Taylor was living for it. Not that she'd ever admit this to anyone, of course. Least of all to Chorei, who was whimpering just a little at what the hell was happening around them. Eh, she could probably feel her enthusiasm anyway. The flood of adrenaline, the realisation that all her stymied research meant nothing in the face of this. Everything reduced down to the pounding of her heart, the pumping of her lungs, the movement of muscle upon muscle, arteries pulsing with hot blood… the fear that maybe she'd been growing too obsessed, the paranoia over Glory Girl, all of it, nothing. Because she was in an awful place chased by something somehow even more awful than the rusting abandoned slaughterhouse which used to be occupied by Bisha's cult. Nothing remained by this moment. She ran, and her swarm expressed all of her excitement in erratic jitters. She wasn't sure if the bull was chasing her, but something was. The building itself, maybe. Her boots were making grotesque sounds as they impacted the floor, like the sound of people messily kissing - the rust was sucking at her heels, the building had the consistency of mud. A building pretending to be intact for a long, long time… and now it had been invaded. Now it had no need for structure. A pendulum of liquid rust began to seep down from the ceiling, a teardrop, a cocoon, a splash of venom from a monstrous spider, a globule of saliva from the jaw of the bull pursuing her. Her swarm felt nothing behind her, but she could feel something.
Long, long fingers around each doorframe. Something buzzing in the distance. The clattering of hooves on the floor. And the sighing, gurgling sound of that empty throat-eye, bursting with termite mounds that spiralled like grotesque horns.
She ran faster. The gorilla was gone. Her swarm had felt it twisting away, lost in an ambiguity of space. The nameless man had been much the same - slipping sideways through the world, one last assurance that he had no quarrel with her, that he'd be out of this city as soon as he could. Her message had been received and delivered. But the building was hungry. And he couldn't stop it from snapping at her, couldn't stop it from trying to devour her whole. An incomplete story could have an abrupt ending. The rustling rust seemed to tell her something - that she should've stopped with Bisha, should've been content with a quiet, uninspiring life afterwards. Cared for her dad. Sorted her life out. Ignored this other world, left it to its own devices. It had been here before her birth, it would linger after her death. Be content with the ripples she'd made, and leave it there. She had a conclusion to rest in - why had she not lingered? She ignored that voice. She had to do this - no-one else could. The building and the headless bull rumbled in agreement. If she wanted a new chapter of her life to begin, and not just an epilogue… she made herself vulnerable to this thing. If she looked for a new ending, she should be prepared for something that made things end abruptly and unsatisfyingly.
Taylor burst into the main killing floor, the meat hooks shining dully in the morning light. The rust was crawling on the walls. There was a distant, distant roar - like the building was reshaping, or like the bull was readying itself to charge. She had no idea what it could even do, but caution seemed to be her best friend in situations like this. Leave. She had evidence. She had a target. She had what she needed - now all that was required was a swift escape to make all those things worth something. The drains were packed with dead termites, and she could see the hollow skins which had once held the swarms. The intercom continued to shriek at her, but now it was becoming increasingly unintelligible. Lists of numbers, describing hundreds of killing floors which all required cleaning, decontamination, purging… or were ready for use. Bays that couldn't possibly exist, rooms numbers that were suited for a skyscraper. She stepped forward - and her foot sank a good few inches into the half-liquid floor. Something was behind her. She refused to look - wouldn't give it the satisfaction, wouldn't open herself up for any kind of mental influence. Her foot sank another inch deeper, and she could feel termites gnawing around it - no, couldn't just push down, she'd only sink deeper. Already her other boot was starting to descend, swallowed whole by the rust.
The railing! The railing - close enough to grab. Still solid enough, too - her fingers left imprints in the metal, but she honestly wasn't sure if that was a consequence of her unnatural strength or some further rebellion against reality. It was enough. The presence came closer, she could almost feel its breath on her neck, cast out by a pair of rotten lungs, a toothless, vacant mouth opening wider and wider, ringed with termites poking out of the flesh, teeth like a lamprey. She heard the rushing of a vast river, the slap of waves against the side of a creature which should not be. Termites were starting to gnaw through the tough leather of her shoes, whispering all the while - heave. One last tug, and she was free - her boot was left behind, and she glanced behind to see it being consumed utterly, crushed by metal that was suddenly a hell of a lot more solid than it had once been. The railing supported her - her final boot-clad foot pressed into the soft sides of the staircase, carving a foothold. Not much, but enough. A heave, and she was up - the presence was still close, but it was slow, the sensation of breath on the back of her neck receded.
Taylor's own breathing was coming faster and faster, her heart was racing, she felt alive. Her swarm mapped out a route back, landing on every surface to check the structural stability. Things were quickly breaking down here - she felt like this place was sliding down a vast plughole. The ambiguities of space were increasing. More and more insects were simply vanishing, experiencing a cold world and a harsh, staring sun, before they were torn apart by thousands of gnawing pincers. Bisha had consumed this place, and a new boss had moved in - or maybe it had always been here. But now it was being torn away, removed to a new location where it could blossom anew. If she was caught inside when that removal occurred… well. Too bad for her. Her swarm spread out, detecting more and more, identifying a perfect route back to the rest of the world. And… something emerged into her perception. Bursting in from above. Everything came crashing down for a moment, her plans dying around her. How had… why had… what?
I told you! I told you going with her was a terrible idea!
In Taylor's defence, she'd been thorough. Insects had checked for Glory Girl's presence, and her own eyes had watched the skies. Had she… had she elevated to a great height while still keeping track of Taylor? Why would she be that suspicious? Did she know something? Paranoia began to overcome her - no, she was talking to Parian. Dammit, dammit. She'd been too eager to get here, too incautious… maybe her swarm had missed her approach while she was distracted with this bull. Her multitasking was good, but immediate personal danger could blind her to the fringes of her power. Didn't help that things like this usually needed her full attention. Maybe she'd just made a mistake. Dammit. Whatever the case, Glory Girl was here. And she was close to the plant. For a second, she felt a mix of emotions - anger at the cape for following her, anger at herself for letting it happen, nervousness at being found out and pummelled until her body could conceivably fit into a soup can. And guilt. There was a lot of guilt. Gallant's dead eye staring unblinking into the rain. She imagined this building devouring Glory Girl, the bull lunging to gore her with its nest-horns, a flood of insects raining outwards, too many for even her powers to resist. A few mistakes, and that would be her fate. A few mistakes, and Taylor would have another death on her hands. And even if she didn't die, she could still be broken. Sent gibbering back home, to be cared for by parents that couldn't begin to understand what she'd been through. Her gait was unsteady as she ran, only one boot remaining. Had to get to the exits. All enthusiasm was gone, now she had to make sure others survived - when it was just her, it was simple. Now, everything had become more complicated.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
Her attention was being drawn by other things - she dashed past an open room, and inside were racks and racks of cow skulls, bleached by age and then mottled through rot and damp. Empty sockets glared at her, and she felt something moving within them, ambiguities of space generating and disappearing… run faster, before it could seize her. The walls were weeping, whispering. There were mouths behind the rust, teeth made of jagged metal, tongues replaced with a squirming termite embedded into the soft, gossamer-thin flesh. Whispering over and over and over, incomplete, incomplete - the intercom was howling at her, a language she couldn't begin to understand. She almost imagined it was the language of Çatalhöyük, the half-made speech which was offered up to those bloated goddess writhing with insects, to the five-horned bull that could only be created in a house about to be destroyed. Never allowed to exist on its own - only an ending. The headless bull was behind her, she knew it, even if she refused to look at that pulsing eye-throat-mouth. The walls of the corridors were lined with pictures now, drilled into the wall - artwork designed to relax the workers at this place, keeping them calm while they sawed meat apart and boxed it up. She glanced at one of them, almost by accident.
Taylor saw a woman hung on a meat hook. Smiling broadly. Her belly was swollen with termites. Her face was familiar - when she realised who it was, she decided to not look at any of the other pictures. Even when they, too, began to whisper through their pigments, began to depict secrets that she desperately wanted to know. The last days of Çatalhöyük, the sight of a burning five-horned bull in the ruins of an ancient house, the things they did in this place before the termites invaded, long before Bisha arrived.
Her attention was split. She couldn't afford to pay attention to everything - she needed to keep Glory Girl away from this place. The exits were close, but not close enough, and her pace was being slowed by the softening floor. Had to keep her distracted. She was already turning away from Parian, already glancing at the plant, suspecting what needed to be done, what she could do. Ideas rushed by, some realistic, others painfully silly. Attacking with the swarm to drive her back, no, wouldn't work. No guarantee of doing any damage, might just confirm her suspicions. Make everything messier. Trust Parian to do it? No, couldn't rely on her here, she was still affected by the whole mess in the alleyway. Her phone was buzzing idly - still working, even after this place went to hell. She could hear Parian spluttering through it, trying to tell Glory Girl that nothing was wrong, that she was just hanging around in this awful part of town, and no she hadn't seen Taylor go anywhere - and who was Taylor anyway? - and yes, Glory Girl could go home please and thank you. No, not an option. Which left… dammit. Didn't leave much left that she could… hm. It was difficult, but it was possible for her to communicate through her swarm. A buzzing, unpleasant sound, sure, but still vaguely comprehensible.
She dodged a falling pool of rust, bulging with termites that were straining against the sides, gnawing at the edge of their womb.
Dammit. She couldn't concentrate enough - communication would be possible, but it would be obvious that she was interrupted by other things. And Glory Girl had just been with her, there was no guarantee that she wouldn't just recognise Taylor's mode of speaking, or maybe the buzzing would be inflected with her own voice, or… gah. More ideas - and one seemed better than the others. Probably produced of absolute lunacy, but hey, she was being pushed here. The meat packing plant was almost over, she just needed to get Glory Girl away. And to do that, she needed…
"Hey, Chorei?"
Stop talking, continue running!
"I can do both. You can handle limbs, right?"
…where are you going with this?
"You can take over parts of me. You did it back in the tea shop."
I did. Why?
"Can you handle my power for a bit?"
What
"I just need you to talk to Glory Girl, alright? She's never met you, you'll be better at seeming like an entirely different person."
No! No, I won't - that's an awful idea! Why don't I take over the legs and you take over the conversation?
"Just need to delay her while I get out. Once I'm out, we can do something else, I'll figure that part out later. Just… keep her outside."
Your ideas grow worse and worse by the day, what, are you going to suggest we use nuclear weapons against our foes next?!
"How about you stop complaining and maybe tr-"
Taylor was forced to halt as her feet sank into the floor once more, and the presence came closer, closer… it strode atop the liquid metal like it was perfectly sound, and still she didn't dare to look back at it. The swarm said there was nothing. And looking would only paralyse her, open her up for an attack. Best to run. The pictures on the walls were full of men and women with suspicious eyes, glaring down at her. The rooms were full of whispers, and strange, crawling things that weren't quite insects. She saw grey trees poking through the floors, saw burning fruits held in iron cages… reality was breaking down, but the door was close. Her progress was slowing down to intolerable levels, but she could still make it - yet, each step was a conscious effort, a process of plunging into the soft material, hauling herself back up by the few handholds she could find, like staggering through a knee-deep pool of honey. Her breath was coming faster and faster, her forehead was soaked with sweat, her lungs felt like a pair of straining bellows… she tried to gasp out a few words.
"You want to handle this? Sure you're… you're up to it?"
She hauled her leg up from the ground, using a faintly solid part of the wall as a support. Not perfect, but still vaguely workable. But she'd spent a while getting used to this fashion of movement, Chorei hadn't taken command of her legs for longer than a few seconds at a time, and always in a controlled environment. The nun rumbled disconsolately.
…you make a fair point. But remember your oath - dinner.
There was no switch to be flipped. One moment, Chorei was a bodiless presence. And the next, Taylor felt that awareness disperse into her swarm, insects forming neural pathways, guiding this intelligence outwards so it could form a mouth composed of a thousand bodies, a mouth that could speak into the cold morning air. Her mind narrowed down to the meat packing plant. She was fine. Chorei could handle it. She'd run a cult for a while, she probably knew how to get people to leave the premises without invoking suspicion.
Probably.
Hopefully.
Intestinal corridor 1727 is undergoing contractions. Prepare for evacuation when alarm sounds.
Oh, shut up.
* * *
"Look, just tell me what's going on - is there something happening in there?"
"No, no, nothing, nothing at all, everything's fine."
"Don't I know you from somewhere?"
"No, definitely not, just a… just a… member of a radical libertarian militia, just out here spray-painting things, but I left all my paint at home, I feel very embarrassed, please leave."
Vicky pinched the bridge of her nose. She had no idea who this girl was, but she looked familiar. Something about the combination of height and voice, something she'd definitely experienced before. Hard to say where. Bah. Whatever the case, she was close, she could smell it. Taylor had run off, acting about as suspicious as it was possible to act, and Vicky had retreated to a safe distance. Once you got high enough, it was easy to disappear from sight - especially on such a cloudy day. Then it was an exercise in squinting very, very hard. Very hard. Oh, and binoculars. Never leave home without them - because sometimes shops were closed and it was inconvenient to fly down and check and it was hard to tell from too high up and… anyway. Binoculars. Useful. For instance, now. Though if Taylor had been part of a crowd, it would've been impossible to track her. But alone, in a fairly barren neighbourhood, heading a short distance? Piece of cake. Certain things were still obscured, though. She knew the direction, and she knew where Taylor had disappeared, but specifics were completely unknown. The building she'd entered, anyone she'd talked to… all of that was beyond her sight. But if she was a betting girl (which she wasn't), she'd say that this completely not suspicious individual standing outside an abandoned meat packing plant screaming unintelligibly into a phone was connected in some way.
She didn't know what was going on. But she was committed to investigating it. There was no way this was just a normal family emergency. This place reeked of the Conflagration, the yellow liquid dried into craters on the road, the suspicious stares from all the residents… If she was going to guess, she'd say that Taylor had decided to come here because she was being pressured, or one of her friends was under threat. The PRT was patrolling much of the city, but some parts were so desolate and quiet than they barely got a patrol passing through a few times a day. Nothing resembling a permanent presence. Maybe - and at this thought her heart skipped a beat - maybe one of her friends was being threatened by some holdover from the Conflagration. It was a silly idea, but she imagined some of those creatures lingering, maybe threatening some local people, trying to bleed them dry while they prepared for another strike. Or maybe Taylor was honestly just visiting family - but if they were here, there was probably something else going on. And if Vicky could help, she would.
She'd failed Dean. She'd failed Amy. She wouldn't fail this one random person she'd met in a tea shop.
…funny what she chose to fixate on sometimes.
And as she moved closer, as the girl on the ground started to splutter ineffectually… things became weird. She saw insects - a vast flood of them. Ants, spiders, cockroaches, flies, woodlice, a teeming black mass of chitinous bodies, all moving with a singular purpose. Instinctually she floated upwards, and braced herself. Cape. Definitely a cape. Maybe someone who triggered recently, maybe an opportunistic villain. Depended on how pessimistic she was feeling today. But whatever the case, the swarm didn't look friendly. She backed up quickly, trying to make some distance while she figured out what to do. The girl on the ground didn't look terrified - just nervous. Hm. Definitely connected, then. She was spiralling to dozens of new conclusions, most of them completely impossible. Was this Taylor? It felt like the obvious conclusion to make, that Taylor was a cape doing cape business… had she helped a villain? Her fists rose, more out of instinct than anything else. Her forcefield should keep some of these things out, and if she got some speed she should be able to crush a good number of them. Standard policy for masters who controlled swarms of minions - find the parahuman, take them out as quickly as possible. But where were they coming from? They were boiling from every direction, out of the sewers, from the drains, out of windows…
And then a voice blared from the swarm. A loud, and completely unfamiliar voice. The idea that Taylor was behind this diminished, just a little. This voice sounded nothing like the deeply standoffish girl she'd carried over here, it was bombastic, it was arrogant, and heavily accented. So either Taylor was a painfully good actress, or something else was happening. Her mind also entertained the possibility of multiple parahumans - a whole gang of them, conceivably. Maybe? Definitely in the realms of possibility. Ambiguities were clouding everything - how many parahumans, what affiliation, what nature, just… what?
"Begone from this place, blonde one."
Well, that was definitely unusual.
"...uh."
"I said begone! Lest I… infest your undergarments with lice!"
"Sorry, who are you?"
The voice seemed a little taken aback by her casual response. Well, duh. She'd seen weirder. If this was a new cape, best to be open - sure, it looked villainous, but you never knew. Maybe this was some homeless guy or gal that'd been injured by the Conflagration. Again, more ambiguities, weighing down on her limbs.
"I…"
It paused.
"Do you not see the insects? The many, many insects?"
"Yeah, are you controlling them?"
"Wh- of course I'm controlling them, I'm…"
Another pause.
"I am the swarm! My consciousness is dispersed within this great chitinous brain - you stand in the sight of my body, my mind, my very soul! I have transcended the limits of humanity, and now I demand that you vacate this area immediately, lest my anger wax strong and my fury grow hot!"
"But why though."
"Because I will… sting you! Many times, with varying combinations of insects, in a variety of unpleasant places!"
"If you want to try…"
"Just leave. None of this business concerns you, parahuman."
"What business?"
"Please stop shouting at me, I know this is going poorl- look, in the old days I just made strange noises in Japanese until people left me alone, or I sent my lawyers after them. I rarely conversed with investigators, what did you expect fr- never mind. This is my domain, and I need explain nothing to you. Begone, this I do command. Begone, for this is private property and you are trespassing. Begone, I say."
Vicky drifted closer.
"No."
"...I will choke you with bees."
"You'll try, maybe. I'm just looking for someone - girl, yay high, dark hair, one eye?"
"I know nothing of this creature."
"She was in this area. In your domain."
The girl below spoke up, finally getting her senses together.
"Oh, I saw her! She ran off in… uh, that direction."
Vicky gave her a withering look. She knew bullshit when she heard it. Seriously, this whole thing felt like a farce - whatever was happening here, she had every intent of getting to the bottom of it. Taylor was obviously connected to this, and was trying to hide something. Maybe she was this bug parahuman, maybe she wasn't. But this deception was honestly getting a bit annoying - did they think any of this would work? She hovered closer, and the swarm did nothing. Just a few jitters to express its discomfort. Seriously, the bugs were alarming at first glance, but her power outstripped them. She amplified her own aura, feeling it radiating outwards - the swarm parted like the Red Sea, whatever lay behind it feeling pretty damn intimidated. Maybe this thing was trying to cloud her brain with ambiguities and alternate possibilities - more parahumans, of unknown affiliation, of unknown strength, in an unknown location… probably meant to paralyse her. Well, too bad.
Because sometimes the Glory Train just got going and refused to stop. Even when a Plague of Egypt was standing in the way.
…though she could probably handle most of those, now she came to think about it.
Her aura was as much of a shield as her actual shield. Sometimes she disliked this part of her ability - emotional manipulation didn't strike her as particularly heroic - but in times like this it felt entirely wonderful. The swarm buckled and fled, scattering into smaller clouds. The entire farcical delay with the voice had only lasted less than a minute. When it attempted speech once more, it was scattered, full of static. Focus broken. Good. Vicky dove towards the meat packing plant, ignoring the wisps of insects that stood in her path. They were smashed apart by her forcefield, not a single body coming closer to actually making contact. Too fast to be stopped. Best thing to do in situations like this was act decisively, and sometimes being decisive meant some minor roof destruction. This place was abandoned, too, so that meant no-one was going to sue her this time. Her speed decreased very slightly in anticipation of someone being directly under her. Manslaughter never looked good. The girl in the street was yelling something, something to do with… termites?
No time to listen.
She'd stumbled onto something here - and by complete accident, no less. Something big. Something serious. Something that she could solve. Maybe Taylor was some secret supervillain, and if so, she'd just had the worst run of bad luck she'd likely ever experience. Or maybe she was in trouble, and Vicky could help her. Or maybe something else was going on, but either way, she was diving in and seeing what happened, because that was what heroes did. The voice gurgled back to life, the swarm reforming around her. More confusion, probably - more smokescreens to stop her from doing what was right. Whatever that was.
"...never paid for your taster session, you miserly American hussy."
What?
The insects descended - and Vicky ripped past them. As anticipated, even the full might of the swarm couldn't keep her back, not when she had a target in mind. The meat packing plant - they'd surged to defend it, there was something in there, something important. She'd never been close to this place before, but her mom had ranted about the lawsuits. Years and years of highly productive work for the legal ecosystem, the kind of thing that could pay off a dozen families' mortgages and put their kids through college, all shut down because apparently the company involved wanted to take care of it quietly. A few settlements and it was gone. Some of her mom's friends had wept when they saw the paperwork go up in flames. Literally. The company took privacy very, very seriously. Much more seriously than they took construction, apparently - the roof looked fragile, almost putty-like. Easy to break - she slammed into it, crushing the metal aside. Her feet braced, ready to hit the floor in the most dramatic pose she could possibly muster (simply out of practicality, it was helpful to stun people with the knowledge that they were going up against someone with vast reservoirs of experience)...
She saw two things, and felt another.
She saw Taylor standing there, one-eyed, staring incredulously. Seething insects surrounded her - cape, maybe she was the one with the swarm, maybe she was a prisoner, maybe she was an unrelated cape, but shenanigans were afoot. Vicky tried to grin at her, maybe say something like 'sorry, felt like dropping in'... but then she saw the second thing.
And that really changed the tenor of the morning.
She couldn't quite describe it. There were squirming fleshy bodies pouring from a red hole. There were horns brimming with life. There were long, long fingers, and a tang of something stronger than rust wrapping around her tongue over and over. The atmosphere was putrid and cloying, and a quivering lamprey-mouth exhaled more stinking air to choke everything in its vicinity. She plunged through the roof, and…
Plunged through the floor. It rippled like water, rusty and thick, swallowing her lower half whole. She felt things gnawing at the edge of her forcefield.
And something began to rise up behind her.
Something with teeth.
Something with horns.
Something that hungered.
144 - Oh No Everything's Melting
GraftingBuddha
Retired Pooh-Bah
144 - Oh No Everything's Melting
Taylor wanted to scream at Vicky. Not desperately. Not out of fear. Mostly out of sheer, unrelenting spite. Put bluntly, she was feeling very adolescent at the moment. She'd been investigating, doing her job, figuring out who was behind all of this termite business. And she'd done it with minimal injuries! This operation had been flawless, for instance. Sure, it was… difficult to get out, especially when the floors started turning into a metallic swamp, but it was still workable. But she had leads, she had data, she had everything she once lacked. Who needed to dig through piles of barely-relevant academia, who needed to scrounge around for mentions of the 'Song of Ildico' or the culture of the Huns or the archaeological remains of Çatalhöyük? Who needed to sit around rotting in a tea shop, stewing in her own ineffectiveness? No, she had something to go on now. The face of her enemy was known, if not his name. His allies were known - those termite-men, the skins filled with writhing bodies. And this place was tied to him, this place had a pre-existing sympathy for these creatures. And the questions this raised were enough to occupy her for… well, long enough.
And here came this dumb fucking blonde to ruin it all. To dive in and change the rules of the game. This had exclusively risked her, Taylor A. Hebert, and no-one else. Parian was outside, her friends had barely been warned that she was even going here, no time for them to come and assist, to come and risk themselves. This was her operation, this was hers to win or lose based on her own talents and luck. No strings attached. No-one to worry about. And here Glory Girl was, diving through the roof, sinking into the floor, grinning like an idiot. Probably thought she had come to save her - or maybe she just wanted to be a smartass. Whatever the case, this situation had just become invariably worse. She peeled through the roof, the building practically opening before her with eager hunger. The floor swallowed her bottom half, the rust rippling in waves where it was disturbed. And the smile fell from the cape's face. Taylor didn't need a moment to think - she just lunged. She might be pissed at her, might be incredibly pissed at this dumbass fuc… well, annoyance or no, she had still helped damage this girl's life by letting Gallant die.
And she'd be damned if she ruined it any further.
The building was a wasting hulk of rot and rust, and the structure seemed to be weeping this putrid, necrotic soup from sore-like growths which went deeper than the walls should allow. She almost imagined that it was the remnants of this place's old work. A remnant of what had once been, what had called these termites through in some way. No, more than the termites - the bull. She could feel it behind her, swimming through the rot, cantering above the rust, weeping insects from a throat-hive that stretched back into fathomless dark. Deeper than the carcass of a bull should really be able to accommodate, riddled with more impossible sores weeping yet more termites into the world. The eye-throat loomed, the horn-hives speared into the air like the points of a crown, and… no, no, get the image out. She was getting desperate, that was all. Her mind was going to poor places as a consequence, that was all. Needed to move.
I'm sorry. I couldn't stop her.
Taylor wanted to snarl something at the nun, but… she sounded genuinely guilty. She'd been given responsibility, and she'd failed. If she had a body, Taylor imagined that Chorei would be bowing her head with shame. Hard to yell at a shameful nun, even a nun like Chorei. Vicky's eyes were wide - staring at the bull behind Taylor. She lunged, ripping her feet around from the melting floor, feeling welts develop from the termites which writhed and bred in the cold depths. The walls were weakening, but there were spots of solidity, areas which hadn't yet succumbed to the influence of the bull. The sores - the sores. Deeper than they should be. Her hands were guarded by shining scars, she could endure anything that emerged - and as she plunged into the sores, she felt that assumption being pushed to its limits. The chill of the other city lay beyond them - but the walls of the sore were strong, had to be for any of this to work. Termites gnawed desperately, trying to get through to her flesh. Only a few succeeded in finding the spots which weren't totally covered - her hands would be a mix of white and red after this, scars and welts. Stars and stripes. Heh. Vicky was trying to move herself out, trying to fly upwards, but the floor was hungry. It longed for her in a way that it didn't long for Taylor. The building was content to consume Taylor, but Vicky… Vicky it wanted. And it wouldn't give her up easily.
And something was rising behind her.
Something like the bull.
No… the thing that was wearing the bull. The thing inside it, beyond it, beside it, above it… all around it, and all around them. The building wanted her, and it was coming to collect in person. Vicky started to turn, to try and face the impossibility. Taylor was finding it hard to describe - not because the horror was too great, but because it simply was not. Her eye refused to latch onto it. Always drifting. Never settling. All she could see were the ambiguities it wore like a coat - meat packed into boxes, meat that burned with fire that outpaced light. A growth that outpaced every limit and hungered for a blooming that could never come. A man standing atop a building, screaming and weeping fire, wordless and senseless. No god but himself, and he was dying - nothing to pray to. Nothing to hope for. And… other, lesser ambiguities. Too fine to notice, woven tight like chainmail. Little flashes of light from the could-have-beens and the prematurely severed. Every never-was, every stillborn event. And beneath… nothing at all. Nothing but a lonely, ethereal noise. Like a finger sliding against the rim of a glass cup. Vicky began to turn - Taylor pushed down on the sore, ignoring the feeling of flesh parting around her, and dove for her. One hand reached for another sore, the other reached downwards.
"Don't look at it!"
Vicky blinked. Terror was in her eyes… and something angrier, too. An unwillingness to be pitied, a longing to save herself. Hm. She grabbed for Taylor's hand anyhow, and for a second almost jerked her arm out of her socket. Too much strength. She amended herself, gritting her teeth as she limited her power. Taylor held on for dear life, feeling the ragged edges of the sore start to give way, felt herself descending lower and lower to a ground which seemed to bloom with hungry, rusting mouths. Vicky pulled, and Taylor hauled. Stupid move. Very stupid. If the cape couldn't fly out, what was the guarantee that Taylor could manage anything? The ambiguity came closer, closer, hungrier and hungrier… ideas spiralled, most too ridiculous to consider. Chorei was trying to think of something as well, but for the moment was struggling. Needed something. Needed a way out. Wait. Idea. Not a good one, by any means, but workable. She reached out, grafting momentarily. Vicky's mind was a shimmering, burning thing - too impulsive by far, and riddled with a surprising number of insecurities. Taylor tried to ignore it all. Emphasis on tried - her mind was loud, if nothing else. But she wasn't here to listen - just here to be.
This building was devouring Vicky faster than it was devouring Taylor. Made sense. If what she sensed meant anything, it was that Vicky had enough ambiguities for this place to see her as appetising prey. Appetising enough to send something more than a rotting carcass. Whereas Taylor was, in some way, not appetising. Maybe it was the fact that she'd made contact with and embraced other forces, maybe it was some quality of her character, maybe it was the nameless man influencing it still, forcing it to reject her out of fear of what she could do to the structure. Whatever it was, the building was reluctant to go after her. And that gave her an opening. For a moment, a brief, perfect moment, Taylor and Vicky were linked. She could feel the building creeping around the cape, trying to advance upwards, to devour her whole, strong enough to resist even her flight. She remained in contact, and her own presence blared outwards. The building… retreated. Just a little. It still hungered, but Vicky was rapidly becoming tainted goods. She could sense a great presence watching carefully, trying to pick around any contaminants to reach the meal it so desired. No such luck. Chorei got to work with the grafting, holding threads together even as the rust tried to erode them. Vicky's eyes widened as she felt something shift. Tried to fly - bad fucking move.
"Don't fly, just… hang on. Need to stay in contact."
The moment Taylor let go would spell the end to this grafting, and the building would immediately start devouring her once more. Needed to remain in contact. Needed to. And simply flying upwards and outwards wasn't an option, the floor was still hungrily seeking her out, only when Taylor focused could she make it relax slightly. Vicky nodded shakily, trusting her fate to the hand of a near-stranger. No wonder she'd gotten stuck here, trusting a random stranger felt like something a cape this impulsive would do. And… and it was working. The rust was still clinging, but it was lesser, just enough for Taylor to make some progress. One of her legs began to emerge from the mire, and the building keened for her. The cloaked ambiguity started to reach out with long, long fingers, composed of matter impossible for her to describe. Her mind raced, and her swarm rushed to challenge its pace. Black, chittering bodies followed through the hole Vicky had made, buzzing angrily as it sought out… well, just about anything that could be remotely useful. Ropes of silk were made quickly, unnaturally tough webs spreading across the entire corridors. More handholds - if the walls could support them, that is. Old hooks, old fixtures, old pipes… all of them served as anchors. Hopefully it would be enough. But the ambiguity - her insects could find no purchase on it. Threads slid away, and any insect which reached the interior simply… vanished. Swallowed whole by a vacant gap in reality.
Shit, shit, shit…
The thing reached closer and closer, ready to drag Vicky downwards and out of sight. Where the building itself failed, the ambiguity would rip apart the grafting and resume the natural sate of affairs. The cape was struggling not to turn around, trying desperately to get out of the mire without ripping Taylor's arm off. Her strength was great, but the building was greater. It longed for her, and it wouldn't let her go without a fight. She was like a lion caught in a tar pit. Could bite someone's head off, could chase prey across the sprawling savannah, but there were things out there which turned strength into weakness, size into crippling weight, speed into nothing at all, and gravity into a slow, inevitable killer. Her eyes were wide, frightened - and still a hint of pride in them. A hint of something that refused to die even in circumstances like these. Remarkable, in its own way. Confusion was blinding her to the reality of what was happening - good. Very good. She hauled harder, desperately trying to figure out how to get rid of the ambiguity that came closer and closer, fingers stretching until they resembled nothing remotely human.
…I may have an idea.
"Happy for… suggestions."
Taylor managed to hiss out between gritted teeth. The wall was caving - and Vicky was still not out of the floor, just one of her knees had managed to poke above - marked by the filth of this place, a few insectile bodies tumbling free and sinking into the floor with disappointed murmurs of 'incomplete'. Vicky looked around frantically, assuming Taylor's words were intended for her. A loose pipe was snatched up, torn from the walls with a thunderous screech, and swung wildly behind her. Taylor didn't see what happened to it - but she heard the whining, ethereal noise increase in volume, becoming almost ear-splitting for a moment, before… well, Vicky's eyes somehow got even wider when she saw the pipe in her hands once more. Not metal. Something… earthier. She dropped it with a small gasp when termites began to burrow out of the material, whispering 'incomplete' over and over and over, eager to escape their unexpected nest. The floor accepted the nest gladly, swallowing it whole in a matter of seconds. And the ambiguity had barely been delayed for a moment. Vicky grimaced.
"Sorry, this won't be pleasant."
And a pressure began to fill the air. A sense of dread washed over her - the feeling of being a small animal confronted by something much, much larger, every instinct screaming to run and hide. That by itself wouldn't be remarkable. She'd experienced that too many times to count. But this was different - like the feeling was being forced on her. Her brain wasn't coming to this feeling by some rational chain of thought, it was skipping too many steps. Now, Taylor might not have too much experience in parahumans, but she could guess what was happening. Glory Girl made people afraid. She knew that much about her - and right now she was trying to make everything around her as terrified as possible. The building… did nothing. No response. No need to engage. It had no feelings, no emotions. Just hunger. And hunger denied fear - hunger was fear, and anger, and love and hate and everything in between. If anything, this was making it happier. A fear of starving only made it long for her more. Vicky was clearing straining to use it, focusing with all her might. And the ambiguity only grew larger. Taylor acted on instinct, squeezing tight with her scarred hand, and using her still-intact boot to kick Vicky lightly. Just a tap, just enough to wake her up.
"Stop. It."
"Is it-"
"Not. Working."
Her voice was tight. The feeling was unpleasant, and it was a challenge to get words out from a mouth that desperately wanted to stay shut, to keep its teeth clamped together, to remain utterly silent in the face of a superior predator. The cape hesitated… and the pressure relaxed. A second had passed. No more room to manoeuvre. No time left to get her out.
My idea!
Right, Chorei had a thought.
I… this place longs for incomplete things, yes?
So it would seem.
It hungers for the cape because she is incomplete, more so than yourself.
And?
Give me access to your powers again. I have an idea.
Taylor didn't hesitate. Chorei was a strange creature - but in situations where survival was paramount, she had a unique talent for simply acting. Panic wouldn't paralyse her, wouldn't stop her from doing what was necessary. Surprisingly good at improvisation when pushed beyond the stultifying influence of paranoia. And in the end, there simply wasn't time for internal debate. Her power flipped hands, and Chorei's intelligence projected into it. The building shuddered. And a body began to coalesce behind the ambiguity. Insects crammed themselves together in unnatural patterns, forming arms, legs, a torso, a faceless head. Taylor could sense Chorei in that swarm - living inside it, putting more of herself into it than she probably should. The ambiguity was frozen. The building was conflicted. The bull behind her vomited more termites, but remained still - it was a reminder, nothing more. It had no will of its own. Still, she refused to look at it. Refused to think about how close it was, close enough to touch, close enough for the stinking air that passed for breath to wash over her in sickly waves, close enough for her to hear the sticky sound of skin disconnecting and reconnecting to putrid muscle as termites squirmed ceaselessly in the interstitial space.
The building was hovering in a state of absolute confusion. A buzzing voice filled the air.
"Why not go for something a little more well-aged, you… rusting reprobate!"
Yep, she was terrified. Calm Chorei rarely raised her voice. Terrified Chorei couldn't help but yell.
What should it go for? The cape who clearly had something it hungered for, some ambiguity it wished to live in and feed on? Or the nun who had quite literally been killed before she could do what she was meant to do - breed more centipedes capable of granting immortality, revive Senpou Temple on a smaller scale? Two abrupt endings hovered nearby, two wells of potential that could be exploited and harvested until nothing remained. The ambiguity was torn. The building was quivering. And Chorei was trying to focus on every memory of Senpou, every memory of her old purpose, her cult, everything that the building would feed on. Taylor was… downright impressed. It was a good move - and it was working. Vicky was sliding out of the rusting bog with greater speed, but her eyes kept drifting to the bull, the dilation of her pupils suggesting that it was closer than even Taylor had suspected.
"Look at me. Don't look at it."
The cape tried. She pulled, Taylor pulled in turn - the wall gave way, and Taylor knew what she needed to do. Ropes of spidersilk hung around the corridor, some of them presumably tough enough to rely on. But to do so she'd need to let go of Vicky for a moment, just to leap across. That was all. A second of being helpless in this hungry building - even distracted it was still ravenous. Its appetite was rapidly rising to meet the meals presented to it. Even now the ambiguity was starting to shiver, and Taylor imagined another thing like it pushing out of the mass of incomplete endings that surrounded it. It was a void, it could reshape itself to whatever it was consuming. They didn't have long. Not long at all. She fixed her eye on Vicky's, trying to project as much confidence as she could. Irritation was forgotten, just for a moment. Her voice was low, firm, and calm.
"I'm going to leap, alright? I'll let go for a second, but I'll still be here. Understand?"
She nodded without hesitation.
Nice to work with a professional.
A second passed as the two got into position, and… she let go. Vicky's face was hard as ice as she sank deeper, and Taylor pushed off the crumbling remains of the wall to reach one of her hanging threads of silk. It was attached to a few hooks in the ceiling, embedded deep in the metal - not likely to come loose. And the ceiling seemed to be dissolving slower than the walls or floor anyhow. She grabbed, and the rope held - but she could feel quivers running along it. Not much time at all. Vicky reached desperately, and Taylor grabbed her hand as quickly as she could. They were close - the moment Vicky was out of the mire, she could fly off, ideally with Taylor in tow. At this angle, Taylor could see where the bull had once been. She blinked. Nothing but empty air, and the scent of something rotten. For a second she felt hope - nothing, just paranoia. Just a fevered mind and a terrifying place. And then Vicky screamed.
A horn pierced her side. A horn that was a termite mound, filled to bursting with fleshy bodies. Vicky screwed her eyes shut, clearly expecting some horrid scream, some flailing, probably a relaxation in her grip. She thought this was it. But if Taylor had learned one thing over the last few months of pain, struggle, and nonstop fucking injuries, it was this - to hang on. She gritted her teeth and kept moving, even as the horn scraped against her ribs. The bull was shifting, attempting to gore her deeper. Yeah, good luck. She'd had her skull drilled open and nails plunged into her collarbone, this thing was nothing. Just another rival for her to overcome, another in a long line of more impressive foes. Some uncanny livestock was nothing compared to what she'd faced in the past - and soon it would just be another thing to have the occasional nightmare about, another thing to mull over some of Turk's moonshine. In fact… oh.
Oh yes.
The ambiguities. The face of her enemy. The bull. She had grudges against them, powerful grudges. And she could feel something boiling up within her, a force she thought had abandoned her. The power of perpetual striving. Oh, fuck, this felt amazing - boiling and rasping and pure in a way that nothing else was. A part of her brain squealed in glee at the sensation - this was where she was meant to be, this was what she meant to work with. Struggle, conflict, improvement, earning power through valorous struggle. Who can avert the finality of battle? Who can deny the conquest which occurs at the edge? Who can challenge the force in scars and atoms and nations and the thrumming of angered heartstrings? Her arms were weapons, her legs were engines, her heart was a blazing furnace. Her mind was a razor honed to an edge so sharp it faded from sight when viewed horizontally. A turn, and she was no more, just force being applied indiscriminately and perfectly. Oh, fuck yes. The power of scars hummed through her, and the bull seemed to hesitate for a second. Taylor hissed.
"Get. Out."
And she willed. Every wound a door, every door a path to glory. And the bull had opened a door in her side, a wide, gaping door that it was trying desperately to infest. Bad, bad fucking move. The power of scars wasn't quite as strong as it had once been - she lacked her charm, her rifle - but it was enough. Enough to remind it that she wasn't something to trifle with. Enough to remind it precisely why its servant had decided to run rather than fight her. The horn began to retreat, but the damage was done. Termites were squirming out, gnawing at the vulnerable flesh. It hurt like hell, but… it was pure. Something to overcome. Chorei was saying something, but her voice was distant, locked up in the swarm. The building was rushing to consume it - she could see hallways start to collapse like chambers in a wrecked submarine, one after the other, termites pouring through. The building sensed that its prey was getting away. The swarm moved - and she sensed it flowing deeper into the complex. Chorei was taking a risk - and it was working. The building followed her, the ambiguity too. The bull was still hesitant, and she thought she could smell termites burning - she'd hurt it a little. Good.
One final heave, and Vicky was free.
And that was all.
The cape gripped Taylor's arm with all the strength she'd been suppressing, and soared upwards with all the speed she could safely muster. The building moaned as they left, longing for their presence. It turned its attentions to Chorei… and her presence ceased. Taylor felt the nun slide back into place in her own mind, the swarm now back under Taylor's full control. The building shivered, uncertain - and then it began to resolve. Corridors opened up like they hadn't just been melting. The ambiguity faded. The bull vanished. All soft edges ceased, and all that remained were hard, unyielding metal walls and floors with defined corners and limits. She could feel termites crawling into grains, scuttling down pipes monitored by her swarm before simply… vanishing. Making a wrong turn and sliding out of existence. By the time they had soared to the ground beyond, the building had become downright normal. Taylor's side was burning, her arm was aching where Vicky was pulling her, her hand was sore where she'd dragged the cape out of the mire… and she felt fucking alive in a way she hadn't in so, so long. Even rescuing Parian hadn't been so… so lively.
Speaking of whom.
The ground rushed to meet the two. Taylor sprawled messily, getting her breathing back under control. Vicky made it a few steps before sagging and vomiting messily into a sewer grate. Parian watched the two helplessly, struggling to think of what to do.
Are you alright?
"Fine."
Parian and Vicky looked at her strangely, but she ignored them. Chorei had saved her bacon - she deserved some audible thanks.
"...thank you."
You're most welcome. And I have not forgotten your promise.
The two looked happy for a moment… and then reality crashed down. Vicky's voice was eerily calm.
"Taylor. I say this with all politeness, but what the fuck."
"I tried to stop her from following you, but-"
Taylor held up her hand, silencing them.
"Counterpoint. I have a hole in my side. Mind if I get that looked at?"
Vicky spluttered, looking like an absolute mess - her bottom half was stained with rust, patches of her pants were worn away to reveal flesh marked by welts. Huh. Weird. Thought she was a brute. Eh, either way, she was alive and her mind looked fairly intact. Mostly. She hadn't been in there for long, just a few minutes. Probably fine. Hopefully.
"...fine, but we're talking about this, because there is… there is something going on."
"Well observed."
"Shut up. I just…"
She sagged down to the sidewalk, sounding a little broken.
"I just wanted to help you, I thought you were in trouble or something."
Taylor tilted her head to one side.
"...really?"
"Yeah! You know what, yeah. I just wanted to help you. And then I thought you were a villain, or a rogue, or something, and I kinda wanted to investigate, and-"
Parian grumbled passive-aggressively, and Vicky shot her a sharp look.
"What was that?"
"Nothing."
"No, go on, say what you were going to say."
"...so this is entirely on you."
"What was I meant to do?!"
"Leave! Why would you stay, why would you go inside the ominous meat packing plant?!"
Taylor intervened. Things were spiralling out of control, and her side was hurting.
"Vicky, shut up. Sa… Pa… you, shut up too. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't want to stay near the… ominous meat packing plant. If anyone has a car, I'd appreciate it."
She paused. Huh. Weird how thoughts came and went.
"...and can anyone think of a number between one and thirty one?"
Oh my, you remembered. How… thoughtful.
Yeah, she'd better be grateful, her side was on fire right now.
They were in a taxi. Parian had apparently gotten a cab here, and Vicky couldn't carry both of them. Which meant spending some cash on a taxi whose driver was very much regretting heading in their direction. Glory Girl was unrecognisable beneath the layer of grime and rust, Parian looked like someone who was desperately trying to not be conspicuous and in the process had become obscenely conspicuous. Seemed to be the colour coordination. And Taylor was… well, she had a hole in her side. A hole that was itching pretty damn badly. She tried to focus on the power of scars, the power of tissue building up and up, strength earned through glorious conflict, and… just wouldn't come. Dammit. She could burn the horn out of her, but she couldn't heal the injury. It was a combination of things, both a difficulty in grasping that strength, and something standing in her way. Something blocking her up. The cabbie glanced over his shoulder, considering starting a conversation. Then he saw Vicky rocking back and forth slightly while muttering to herself, and Parian just staring blankly into the distance… and decided against it.
Good move.
The cabbie is declining to speak with us, this is excellent. Never speak with the drivers of Jinrikisha, their attention is for the road. And if they're talking, they're likely trying to distract you from other things, like their… gambling hall buddies attempting to sneak up and rob you in a dark alleyway. I speak from experience.
Oh, good old prejudiced Chorei. What a kidder. Though her tone was definitely flavoured by genuine happiness - she had a birthday. An actual birthday to celebrate. Seventeenth of December, a number off-handedly suggested by Vicky and confirmed rapidly by Parian. She'd promptly started rambling about the plans she could make, the films she was interested in watching. Not westerns - Angel Eyes had left an impression on them. Speaking of whom, Taylor was getting the feeling that he'd been involved in this mess. What, Parian just so happened to be in a particular area when the leader of this whole termite infestation was also hanging around, and also Vicky showed up at exactly the right time to give her a ride? Taylor was accustomed to coincidences, but this reeked of someone manipulating things. Which she wouldn't mind, but she was being manipulated too. Not a pleasant feeling. But for now, the termites were a more pressing threat - Angel Eyes could wait. Anyone manipulating things like this would leave traces, markers of his influence. And that would allow her to follow the tinker back to his own turf, and have a more… personal conversation. When she had time.
Her fists were itching in anticipation.
And her side… shit, her side was burning. She pulled her shirt up a little, examining the ragged wound. Bleeding, naturally, but not as much as she feared. Still enough to soak her shirt and make it come away like a fresh band-aid. A hole in her side, leading up to her ribs. A little further and it would've pierced her lungs. And there was… fuck, something was inside the wound. Something crawling. Pieces of the horn had been left behind, shards that burst with fleshy termites. If she focused, she thought she could hear whispering - just a few of them, but enough to gnaw away unobstructed. Shit, shit. She tried to remain as calm as possible as she spoke, but a little of her nervousness must have entered her voice. This was something she needed to deal with now, no time for a hospital or for getting back to the tea shop.
"Sorry, does anyone have any… pliers?"
Vicky turned slowly to stare at her.
"Did you just ask for-"
"Pliers. Does anyone have any?"
Parian scrambled in her backpack, withdrawing a pair that looked more suited for cutting chain link fences. A smaller model, of course, just for the sake of practicality… but it would have to be enough. She sent a few lice inside the wound, ignoring the itching sensation their legs produced… a sensation that faded almost immediately. Flesh was painless, after all. Once you got deep enough there was nothing but a cold numbness - but feeling a breeze on her exposed muscles was about as enjoyable as it sounded, pain response or no. The lice tracked the termites, finding two of them, both gnawing in opposite directions. Not too far into her yet, she could still… yes, still close enough to reach.
"Hold my leg."
Was all she said before she lay back - her head on Vicky's lap, her legs almost poking out of the window. Parian supported her as best she could, but her face was pale. Terrified. The cabbie glanced back again, surveyed the situation, and just turned the music up. Excellent move, she'd need to tip him using Parian or Vicky's money, whoever had more at the time. She'd pay them back at some point, but… eh, just give them some store credit, that felt reasonable. Vicky couldn't look away as Taylor got to work. The pliers were long enough to reach inside, and she gritted her teeth as the cold metal grazed the sides of the wound. The lice directed her precisely, as did a few lice scattered on the operational end of the tool. Chorei hummed mantras of calming, draining some of the pain away - just like with Bisha. Less of a burden this time, though, so the nun could actually take away the majority of it. Still uncomfortable, of course. One termite realised what was coming and started to scramble, gnawing wildly, anything to get a way out. No such luck. One delicate click, and she had it pinned around the thorax. It squirmed and whispered - no escape. It was delicate extracting the thing, and Parian had a small container ready - a few crumbs indicated that it'd once been the receptacle for her lunch. Well, a little snack for the termite now. It clunked into the thing, abdomen twitching uncannily as it brimmed with icy blue liquid. The other termite was in full fight-or-flight, and thankfully for it, both equated to the same action - gnawing.
Not for long. One click, and it was out, joining its brother in the smooth plastic box. No purchase for their pincers, none at all. Well, that was… relatively easy. The pliers were stained, so she wiped them off on her shirt - already ruined by blood from the wound, she'd need to burn it anyway. Once the metal shone to her satisfaction, she flipped the thing over and held it out, handle-first, to Parian. Who stared at it. Taylor blinked. Come on, take the pliers, they're yours. Come on, come on - she tilted her head to see Vicky with eyes wide as saucers, looking upon Taylor like someone might look on a dangerous viper which had just landed in their lap. Do you thrash and get rid of it, risking a bite in the process? Do you remain perfectly still and hope it leaves? Or do you just remain paralysed out of fear and hope for the best? Fear made things easier, fear took away options. And Vicky had evidently defaulted to paralysis. God, Taylor missed working with mercenaries, they weren't remotely squeamish. Hey, soon enough she might be able to do - the tea shop was getting closer and closer. With a grunt, her leg came down, her head came up, and she sat calmly between the two staring capes.
Their stares make me uncomfortable. Just a little amateur surgery, nothing to be alarmed about.
Yeah, see, Chorei got it.
"...here are your pliers."
"...you can have them."
Taylor gave her a look.
"I have my own pliers, I don't need more. Take it, they're fine. Just sterilise them in some alcohol."
"They were in your side, I-"
"Are you going to use them for more surgery?"
"What? No, why would-"
She shoved the pliers into Parian's arms.
"Then you're fine, just sterilise them later. Use something high-proof."
Vicky made a distressed noise.
"...who are you?"
Taylor gave her another look - she was just full of looks today.
"I'm Taylor. I work at the tea shop."
"No, really, who-"
She realised there was a cabbie nearby, and her voice dropped to a whisper.
"What was that place? Who was… I've never heard of a parahuman like that, do you know who it was?"
And now the moment of truth. Parian was stiff as a board, Chorei was silent… either she lied or told the truth. Or a half-truth. A quarter-truth, if at all possible. A singular shot of truth. But… Vicky had run into the building with minimal preparation, expecting that she could get out of it. All she'd known was that Taylor might be in there, and that was enough to dive in feet-first and almost die to a liquid floor. Impulsive, clearly. And that impulsivity would kill her if she was working on incomplete information. If she wanted to keep this cape alive - and she did, no matter how quickly she'd ruined a perfectly pleasant escape - then she'd need to be mostly honest. She lowered her voice to match Vicky's, murmuring in a barely-audible tone.
"Not a parahuman. I'll explain later."
Vicky nodded calmly and stared at the back of the cabbie's head until they arrived.
That was a lie.
She flipped her shit almost immediately, but to her credit, she did it quietly. Taylor tuned out the chorus of 'what the fuck are you talking about', accompanied by an undertone of 'what the fuck just happened' and barely paying attention to the lilting solo of 'who the fuck are you, really and why the fuck did you pull termites out of your chest wound, what the actual fuck is wrong with you, and-' OK the solo had run its course and her interest had declined. Parian stared awkwardly at the back of the seat. Taylor tried to watch the buildings go by, but wound up defaulting to just listening to Chorei's running commentary on things. Complaints about the quality of the seats, the speed of the cabbie, the general condition of Brockton's roads…
I tell you, usurper, risking one's existence really… works up an appetite. Our body requires nourishment.
Her eye narrowed. Hopefully that was enough of an indicator of her response. 'Our' - Chorei didn't even pay rent to live up there in her skull, she had no right to call it 'our'. Taylor was the one who ran the damn thing. Mostly.
Come now, you promised.
…she did. And Chorei had performed above and beyond what was expected of her, she'd improvised, planned, used Taylor's abilities fairly competently for someone who'd only experienced them vicariously for the last few weeks, never actually using them herself. She'd earned a treat. And her voice was still shaking, she seemed to be in disbelief that she'd actually risked her existence so… casually, without sufficient preparation. Eh, why not. This bleeding wound wasn't going to heal itself, she needed some protein to rebuild the damaged flesh. A murmur to the cab driver sent them screeching off-course, and Vicky's ramblings fell silent. Again, the indignant stare, and this time Parian was joining in.
"I'm going to Burger Duke, do you guys want anything?"
She could tell they wanted to refuse out of principle. She could really tell. Vicky scowled.
"Why."
"I'm hungry. All that running worked up an appetite."
"You're not… too nauseous?"
"Seen worse."
The hint of disbelief in the cape's expression rapidly gave way to something more… unnerved, once she saw that Taylor was entirely serious. But if Taylor could go to Fugly Bobs immediately after finding packets of still-living dusty meat in a building which tried to erase her ego and replace it with that of a cult-indoctrinated stoner… well, a headless bull full of termites couldn't do much to dampen her appetite.
Another scowl. Parian pinched the bridge of her nose, clearly exhausted by… well, just about everything. Though… as they pondered her words, clearly they came to their own conclusions. Parian mumbled quietly.
"I wouldn't mind a burger, actually."
Vicky looked at her disbelievingly.
"Really?"
"Well, I didn't go inside, and I didn't have any breakfast, so…"
"...both of you are insane."
She was half-right.
And this was how an innocent, carefree serf to the Burger Duke found herself increasingly alarmed by the spectre of a very unnerved Glory Girl, some college student who looked like she was about to have another mental breakdown, and a one-eyed kid that insisted on poring over their menu like some of the elderly retirees they occasionally had coming through.
The food was pretty good.
Vicky munched passive-aggressively at a few pilfered fries.
Parian was disappointed by the special sauce.
Chorei was clearly just surprised that she was still alive.
And Taylor was just enjoying getting back to the normal state of affairs.
Huh. Risking one's existence built up an appetite in everyone, apparently. God, this was reminding her of Brent DeNeuve, and the irresistible urge for a massive, deeply unhealthy burger after almost having her ego erased. At least now she knew the behaviour wasn't concerning. The cab driver was just pretending none of this was happening. What a guy, Taylor was almost tempted to see if she could keep him on retainer. A discrete, always-available ride would've made sure this situation never happened, where she was next to a constantly vibrating cape, whose vibrations could probably shatter Taylor's bones if she was so inclined. The tea shop approached, a comforting slice of reality amidst so much chaos. Parian relaxed a little on seeing it, and Vicky only became more utterly tense. She knew things were coming to a head, and this place represented that apex. Anticipation was bad enough, explanation could sometimes be worse. Especially with the things she'd seen. The fleshy termites squirmed inside their tupperware prison. The cab drive was paid swiftly and quietly by Vicky, delving into a store of cash that looked… well, enviable. Taylor didn't like to think of herself as greedy, but she did need money. No, probably shouldn't be slobbering over every unearthed dead president she saw. Sounded unhealthy. Anyway. Tea shop. Familiarity. Warmth. Maybe a little nip of something or other, she deserved it after the bullshit she'd just experienced. Still, evidence was evidence. Progress was progress, even if it accumulated baggage along the way. Blonde, overly powerful and impulsive baggage.
At least this baggage paid for her cab. And her own meals.
Good thing, too, Taylor was fairly sure she was precisely one altruistic tea shop owner away from homelessness.
A few people were standing around inside - she glimpsed Turk's eyepatch, and… ah. Greasy, unkempt hair. A few flashes of diseased skin. And one arm. She grimaced - right, of course Ahab would be around. Still felt awkward talking to her, but maybe this encounter would change things. She needed something to do, might as well help kill these termites - if she was able, of course. Ah, who was she kidding, a flamethrower and some derring-do would probably be enough. She pushed the door open, her temporary companions following hesitantly… and Ahab turned. Two of the three ceased. Taylor continued, trying to inch her mouth into something approximating a smile.
"Hey, A-"
And the pseudo-leper rushed forward to headbutt her in the face.
Ow.
…it was going to be a day, wasn't it?
Taylor wanted to scream at Vicky. Not desperately. Not out of fear. Mostly out of sheer, unrelenting spite. Put bluntly, she was feeling very adolescent at the moment. She'd been investigating, doing her job, figuring out who was behind all of this termite business. And she'd done it with minimal injuries! This operation had been flawless, for instance. Sure, it was… difficult to get out, especially when the floors started turning into a metallic swamp, but it was still workable. But she had leads, she had data, she had everything she once lacked. Who needed to dig through piles of barely-relevant academia, who needed to scrounge around for mentions of the 'Song of Ildico' or the culture of the Huns or the archaeological remains of Çatalhöyük? Who needed to sit around rotting in a tea shop, stewing in her own ineffectiveness? No, she had something to go on now. The face of her enemy was known, if not his name. His allies were known - those termite-men, the skins filled with writhing bodies. And this place was tied to him, this place had a pre-existing sympathy for these creatures. And the questions this raised were enough to occupy her for… well, long enough.
And here came this dumb fucking blonde to ruin it all. To dive in and change the rules of the game. This had exclusively risked her, Taylor A. Hebert, and no-one else. Parian was outside, her friends had barely been warned that she was even going here, no time for them to come and assist, to come and risk themselves. This was her operation, this was hers to win or lose based on her own talents and luck. No strings attached. No-one to worry about. And here Glory Girl was, diving through the roof, sinking into the floor, grinning like an idiot. Probably thought she had come to save her - or maybe she just wanted to be a smartass. Whatever the case, this situation had just become invariably worse. She peeled through the roof, the building practically opening before her with eager hunger. The floor swallowed her bottom half, the rust rippling in waves where it was disturbed. And the smile fell from the cape's face. Taylor didn't need a moment to think - she just lunged. She might be pissed at her, might be incredibly pissed at this dumbass fuc… well, annoyance or no, she had still helped damage this girl's life by letting Gallant die.
And she'd be damned if she ruined it any further.
The building was a wasting hulk of rot and rust, and the structure seemed to be weeping this putrid, necrotic soup from sore-like growths which went deeper than the walls should allow. She almost imagined that it was the remnants of this place's old work. A remnant of what had once been, what had called these termites through in some way. No, more than the termites - the bull. She could feel it behind her, swimming through the rot, cantering above the rust, weeping insects from a throat-hive that stretched back into fathomless dark. Deeper than the carcass of a bull should really be able to accommodate, riddled with more impossible sores weeping yet more termites into the world. The eye-throat loomed, the horn-hives speared into the air like the points of a crown, and… no, no, get the image out. She was getting desperate, that was all. Her mind was going to poor places as a consequence, that was all. Needed to move.
I'm sorry. I couldn't stop her.
Taylor wanted to snarl something at the nun, but… she sounded genuinely guilty. She'd been given responsibility, and she'd failed. If she had a body, Taylor imagined that Chorei would be bowing her head with shame. Hard to yell at a shameful nun, even a nun like Chorei. Vicky's eyes were wide - staring at the bull behind Taylor. She lunged, ripping her feet around from the melting floor, feeling welts develop from the termites which writhed and bred in the cold depths. The walls were weakening, but there were spots of solidity, areas which hadn't yet succumbed to the influence of the bull. The sores - the sores. Deeper than they should be. Her hands were guarded by shining scars, she could endure anything that emerged - and as she plunged into the sores, she felt that assumption being pushed to its limits. The chill of the other city lay beyond them - but the walls of the sore were strong, had to be for any of this to work. Termites gnawed desperately, trying to get through to her flesh. Only a few succeeded in finding the spots which weren't totally covered - her hands would be a mix of white and red after this, scars and welts. Stars and stripes. Heh. Vicky was trying to move herself out, trying to fly upwards, but the floor was hungry. It longed for her in a way that it didn't long for Taylor. The building was content to consume Taylor, but Vicky… Vicky it wanted. And it wouldn't give her up easily.
And something was rising behind her.
Something like the bull.
No… the thing that was wearing the bull. The thing inside it, beyond it, beside it, above it… all around it, and all around them. The building wanted her, and it was coming to collect in person. Vicky started to turn, to try and face the impossibility. Taylor was finding it hard to describe - not because the horror was too great, but because it simply was not. Her eye refused to latch onto it. Always drifting. Never settling. All she could see were the ambiguities it wore like a coat - meat packed into boxes, meat that burned with fire that outpaced light. A growth that outpaced every limit and hungered for a blooming that could never come. A man standing atop a building, screaming and weeping fire, wordless and senseless. No god but himself, and he was dying - nothing to pray to. Nothing to hope for. And… other, lesser ambiguities. Too fine to notice, woven tight like chainmail. Little flashes of light from the could-have-beens and the prematurely severed. Every never-was, every stillborn event. And beneath… nothing at all. Nothing but a lonely, ethereal noise. Like a finger sliding against the rim of a glass cup. Vicky began to turn - Taylor pushed down on the sore, ignoring the feeling of flesh parting around her, and dove for her. One hand reached for another sore, the other reached downwards.
"Don't look at it!"
Vicky blinked. Terror was in her eyes… and something angrier, too. An unwillingness to be pitied, a longing to save herself. Hm. She grabbed for Taylor's hand anyhow, and for a second almost jerked her arm out of her socket. Too much strength. She amended herself, gritting her teeth as she limited her power. Taylor held on for dear life, feeling the ragged edges of the sore start to give way, felt herself descending lower and lower to a ground which seemed to bloom with hungry, rusting mouths. Vicky pulled, and Taylor hauled. Stupid move. Very stupid. If the cape couldn't fly out, what was the guarantee that Taylor could manage anything? The ambiguity came closer, closer, hungrier and hungrier… ideas spiralled, most too ridiculous to consider. Chorei was trying to think of something as well, but for the moment was struggling. Needed something. Needed a way out. Wait. Idea. Not a good one, by any means, but workable. She reached out, grafting momentarily. Vicky's mind was a shimmering, burning thing - too impulsive by far, and riddled with a surprising number of insecurities. Taylor tried to ignore it all. Emphasis on tried - her mind was loud, if nothing else. But she wasn't here to listen - just here to be.
This building was devouring Vicky faster than it was devouring Taylor. Made sense. If what she sensed meant anything, it was that Vicky had enough ambiguities for this place to see her as appetising prey. Appetising enough to send something more than a rotting carcass. Whereas Taylor was, in some way, not appetising. Maybe it was the fact that she'd made contact with and embraced other forces, maybe it was some quality of her character, maybe it was the nameless man influencing it still, forcing it to reject her out of fear of what she could do to the structure. Whatever it was, the building was reluctant to go after her. And that gave her an opening. For a moment, a brief, perfect moment, Taylor and Vicky were linked. She could feel the building creeping around the cape, trying to advance upwards, to devour her whole, strong enough to resist even her flight. She remained in contact, and her own presence blared outwards. The building… retreated. Just a little. It still hungered, but Vicky was rapidly becoming tainted goods. She could sense a great presence watching carefully, trying to pick around any contaminants to reach the meal it so desired. No such luck. Chorei got to work with the grafting, holding threads together even as the rust tried to erode them. Vicky's eyes widened as she felt something shift. Tried to fly - bad fucking move.
"Don't fly, just… hang on. Need to stay in contact."
The moment Taylor let go would spell the end to this grafting, and the building would immediately start devouring her once more. Needed to remain in contact. Needed to. And simply flying upwards and outwards wasn't an option, the floor was still hungrily seeking her out, only when Taylor focused could she make it relax slightly. Vicky nodded shakily, trusting her fate to the hand of a near-stranger. No wonder she'd gotten stuck here, trusting a random stranger felt like something a cape this impulsive would do. And… and it was working. The rust was still clinging, but it was lesser, just enough for Taylor to make some progress. One of her legs began to emerge from the mire, and the building keened for her. The cloaked ambiguity started to reach out with long, long fingers, composed of matter impossible for her to describe. Her mind raced, and her swarm rushed to challenge its pace. Black, chittering bodies followed through the hole Vicky had made, buzzing angrily as it sought out… well, just about anything that could be remotely useful. Ropes of silk were made quickly, unnaturally tough webs spreading across the entire corridors. More handholds - if the walls could support them, that is. Old hooks, old fixtures, old pipes… all of them served as anchors. Hopefully it would be enough. But the ambiguity - her insects could find no purchase on it. Threads slid away, and any insect which reached the interior simply… vanished. Swallowed whole by a vacant gap in reality.
Shit, shit, shit…
The thing reached closer and closer, ready to drag Vicky downwards and out of sight. Where the building itself failed, the ambiguity would rip apart the grafting and resume the natural sate of affairs. The cape was struggling not to turn around, trying desperately to get out of the mire without ripping Taylor's arm off. Her strength was great, but the building was greater. It longed for her, and it wouldn't let her go without a fight. She was like a lion caught in a tar pit. Could bite someone's head off, could chase prey across the sprawling savannah, but there were things out there which turned strength into weakness, size into crippling weight, speed into nothing at all, and gravity into a slow, inevitable killer. Her eyes were wide, frightened - and still a hint of pride in them. A hint of something that refused to die even in circumstances like these. Remarkable, in its own way. Confusion was blinding her to the reality of what was happening - good. Very good. She hauled harder, desperately trying to figure out how to get rid of the ambiguity that came closer and closer, fingers stretching until they resembled nothing remotely human.
…I may have an idea.
"Happy for… suggestions."
Taylor managed to hiss out between gritted teeth. The wall was caving - and Vicky was still not out of the floor, just one of her knees had managed to poke above - marked by the filth of this place, a few insectile bodies tumbling free and sinking into the floor with disappointed murmurs of 'incomplete'. Vicky looked around frantically, assuming Taylor's words were intended for her. A loose pipe was snatched up, torn from the walls with a thunderous screech, and swung wildly behind her. Taylor didn't see what happened to it - but she heard the whining, ethereal noise increase in volume, becoming almost ear-splitting for a moment, before… well, Vicky's eyes somehow got even wider when she saw the pipe in her hands once more. Not metal. Something… earthier. She dropped it with a small gasp when termites began to burrow out of the material, whispering 'incomplete' over and over and over, eager to escape their unexpected nest. The floor accepted the nest gladly, swallowing it whole in a matter of seconds. And the ambiguity had barely been delayed for a moment. Vicky grimaced.
"Sorry, this won't be pleasant."
And a pressure began to fill the air. A sense of dread washed over her - the feeling of being a small animal confronted by something much, much larger, every instinct screaming to run and hide. That by itself wouldn't be remarkable. She'd experienced that too many times to count. But this was different - like the feeling was being forced on her. Her brain wasn't coming to this feeling by some rational chain of thought, it was skipping too many steps. Now, Taylor might not have too much experience in parahumans, but she could guess what was happening. Glory Girl made people afraid. She knew that much about her - and right now she was trying to make everything around her as terrified as possible. The building… did nothing. No response. No need to engage. It had no feelings, no emotions. Just hunger. And hunger denied fear - hunger was fear, and anger, and love and hate and everything in between. If anything, this was making it happier. A fear of starving only made it long for her more. Vicky was clearing straining to use it, focusing with all her might. And the ambiguity only grew larger. Taylor acted on instinct, squeezing tight with her scarred hand, and using her still-intact boot to kick Vicky lightly. Just a tap, just enough to wake her up.
"Stop. It."
"Is it-"
"Not. Working."
Her voice was tight. The feeling was unpleasant, and it was a challenge to get words out from a mouth that desperately wanted to stay shut, to keep its teeth clamped together, to remain utterly silent in the face of a superior predator. The cape hesitated… and the pressure relaxed. A second had passed. No more room to manoeuvre. No time left to get her out.
My idea!
Right, Chorei had a thought.
I… this place longs for incomplete things, yes?
So it would seem.
It hungers for the cape because she is incomplete, more so than yourself.
And?
Give me access to your powers again. I have an idea.
Taylor didn't hesitate. Chorei was a strange creature - but in situations where survival was paramount, she had a unique talent for simply acting. Panic wouldn't paralyse her, wouldn't stop her from doing what was necessary. Surprisingly good at improvisation when pushed beyond the stultifying influence of paranoia. And in the end, there simply wasn't time for internal debate. Her power flipped hands, and Chorei's intelligence projected into it. The building shuddered. And a body began to coalesce behind the ambiguity. Insects crammed themselves together in unnatural patterns, forming arms, legs, a torso, a faceless head. Taylor could sense Chorei in that swarm - living inside it, putting more of herself into it than she probably should. The ambiguity was frozen. The building was conflicted. The bull behind her vomited more termites, but remained still - it was a reminder, nothing more. It had no will of its own. Still, she refused to look at it. Refused to think about how close it was, close enough to touch, close enough for the stinking air that passed for breath to wash over her in sickly waves, close enough for her to hear the sticky sound of skin disconnecting and reconnecting to putrid muscle as termites squirmed ceaselessly in the interstitial space.
The building was hovering in a state of absolute confusion. A buzzing voice filled the air.
"Why not go for something a little more well-aged, you… rusting reprobate!"
Yep, she was terrified. Calm Chorei rarely raised her voice. Terrified Chorei couldn't help but yell.
What should it go for? The cape who clearly had something it hungered for, some ambiguity it wished to live in and feed on? Or the nun who had quite literally been killed before she could do what she was meant to do - breed more centipedes capable of granting immortality, revive Senpou Temple on a smaller scale? Two abrupt endings hovered nearby, two wells of potential that could be exploited and harvested until nothing remained. The ambiguity was torn. The building was quivering. And Chorei was trying to focus on every memory of Senpou, every memory of her old purpose, her cult, everything that the building would feed on. Taylor was… downright impressed. It was a good move - and it was working. Vicky was sliding out of the rusting bog with greater speed, but her eyes kept drifting to the bull, the dilation of her pupils suggesting that it was closer than even Taylor had suspected.
"Look at me. Don't look at it."
The cape tried. She pulled, Taylor pulled in turn - the wall gave way, and Taylor knew what she needed to do. Ropes of spidersilk hung around the corridor, some of them presumably tough enough to rely on. But to do so she'd need to let go of Vicky for a moment, just to leap across. That was all. A second of being helpless in this hungry building - even distracted it was still ravenous. Its appetite was rapidly rising to meet the meals presented to it. Even now the ambiguity was starting to shiver, and Taylor imagined another thing like it pushing out of the mass of incomplete endings that surrounded it. It was a void, it could reshape itself to whatever it was consuming. They didn't have long. Not long at all. She fixed her eye on Vicky's, trying to project as much confidence as she could. Irritation was forgotten, just for a moment. Her voice was low, firm, and calm.
"I'm going to leap, alright? I'll let go for a second, but I'll still be here. Understand?"
She nodded without hesitation.
Nice to work with a professional.
A second passed as the two got into position, and… she let go. Vicky's face was hard as ice as she sank deeper, and Taylor pushed off the crumbling remains of the wall to reach one of her hanging threads of silk. It was attached to a few hooks in the ceiling, embedded deep in the metal - not likely to come loose. And the ceiling seemed to be dissolving slower than the walls or floor anyhow. She grabbed, and the rope held - but she could feel quivers running along it. Not much time at all. Vicky reached desperately, and Taylor grabbed her hand as quickly as she could. They were close - the moment Vicky was out of the mire, she could fly off, ideally with Taylor in tow. At this angle, Taylor could see where the bull had once been. She blinked. Nothing but empty air, and the scent of something rotten. For a second she felt hope - nothing, just paranoia. Just a fevered mind and a terrifying place. And then Vicky screamed.
A horn pierced her side. A horn that was a termite mound, filled to bursting with fleshy bodies. Vicky screwed her eyes shut, clearly expecting some horrid scream, some flailing, probably a relaxation in her grip. She thought this was it. But if Taylor had learned one thing over the last few months of pain, struggle, and nonstop fucking injuries, it was this - to hang on. She gritted her teeth and kept moving, even as the horn scraped against her ribs. The bull was shifting, attempting to gore her deeper. Yeah, good luck. She'd had her skull drilled open and nails plunged into her collarbone, this thing was nothing. Just another rival for her to overcome, another in a long line of more impressive foes. Some uncanny livestock was nothing compared to what she'd faced in the past - and soon it would just be another thing to have the occasional nightmare about, another thing to mull over some of Turk's moonshine. In fact… oh.
Oh yes.
The ambiguities. The face of her enemy. The bull. She had grudges against them, powerful grudges. And she could feel something boiling up within her, a force she thought had abandoned her. The power of perpetual striving. Oh, fuck, this felt amazing - boiling and rasping and pure in a way that nothing else was. A part of her brain squealed in glee at the sensation - this was where she was meant to be, this was what she meant to work with. Struggle, conflict, improvement, earning power through valorous struggle. Who can avert the finality of battle? Who can deny the conquest which occurs at the edge? Who can challenge the force in scars and atoms and nations and the thrumming of angered heartstrings? Her arms were weapons, her legs were engines, her heart was a blazing furnace. Her mind was a razor honed to an edge so sharp it faded from sight when viewed horizontally. A turn, and she was no more, just force being applied indiscriminately and perfectly. Oh, fuck yes. The power of scars hummed through her, and the bull seemed to hesitate for a second. Taylor hissed.
"Get. Out."
And she willed. Every wound a door, every door a path to glory. And the bull had opened a door in her side, a wide, gaping door that it was trying desperately to infest. Bad, bad fucking move. The power of scars wasn't quite as strong as it had once been - she lacked her charm, her rifle - but it was enough. Enough to remind it that she wasn't something to trifle with. Enough to remind it precisely why its servant had decided to run rather than fight her. The horn began to retreat, but the damage was done. Termites were squirming out, gnawing at the vulnerable flesh. It hurt like hell, but… it was pure. Something to overcome. Chorei was saying something, but her voice was distant, locked up in the swarm. The building was rushing to consume it - she could see hallways start to collapse like chambers in a wrecked submarine, one after the other, termites pouring through. The building sensed that its prey was getting away. The swarm moved - and she sensed it flowing deeper into the complex. Chorei was taking a risk - and it was working. The building followed her, the ambiguity too. The bull was still hesitant, and she thought she could smell termites burning - she'd hurt it a little. Good.
One final heave, and Vicky was free.
And that was all.
The cape gripped Taylor's arm with all the strength she'd been suppressing, and soared upwards with all the speed she could safely muster. The building moaned as they left, longing for their presence. It turned its attentions to Chorei… and her presence ceased. Taylor felt the nun slide back into place in her own mind, the swarm now back under Taylor's full control. The building shivered, uncertain - and then it began to resolve. Corridors opened up like they hadn't just been melting. The ambiguity faded. The bull vanished. All soft edges ceased, and all that remained were hard, unyielding metal walls and floors with defined corners and limits. She could feel termites crawling into grains, scuttling down pipes monitored by her swarm before simply… vanishing. Making a wrong turn and sliding out of existence. By the time they had soared to the ground beyond, the building had become downright normal. Taylor's side was burning, her arm was aching where Vicky was pulling her, her hand was sore where she'd dragged the cape out of the mire… and she felt fucking alive in a way she hadn't in so, so long. Even rescuing Parian hadn't been so… so lively.
Speaking of whom.
The ground rushed to meet the two. Taylor sprawled messily, getting her breathing back under control. Vicky made it a few steps before sagging and vomiting messily into a sewer grate. Parian watched the two helplessly, struggling to think of what to do.
Are you alright?
"Fine."
Parian and Vicky looked at her strangely, but she ignored them. Chorei had saved her bacon - she deserved some audible thanks.
"...thank you."
You're most welcome. And I have not forgotten your promise.
The two looked happy for a moment… and then reality crashed down. Vicky's voice was eerily calm.
"Taylor. I say this with all politeness, but what the fuck."
"I tried to stop her from following you, but-"
Taylor held up her hand, silencing them.
"Counterpoint. I have a hole in my side. Mind if I get that looked at?"
Vicky spluttered, looking like an absolute mess - her bottom half was stained with rust, patches of her pants were worn away to reveal flesh marked by welts. Huh. Weird. Thought she was a brute. Eh, either way, she was alive and her mind looked fairly intact. Mostly. She hadn't been in there for long, just a few minutes. Probably fine. Hopefully.
"...fine, but we're talking about this, because there is… there is something going on."
"Well observed."
"Shut up. I just…"
She sagged down to the sidewalk, sounding a little broken.
"I just wanted to help you, I thought you were in trouble or something."
Taylor tilted her head to one side.
"...really?"
"Yeah! You know what, yeah. I just wanted to help you. And then I thought you were a villain, or a rogue, or something, and I kinda wanted to investigate, and-"
Parian grumbled passive-aggressively, and Vicky shot her a sharp look.
"What was that?"
"Nothing."
"No, go on, say what you were going to say."
"...so this is entirely on you."
"What was I meant to do?!"
"Leave! Why would you stay, why would you go inside the ominous meat packing plant?!"
Taylor intervened. Things were spiralling out of control, and her side was hurting.
"Vicky, shut up. Sa… Pa… you, shut up too. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't want to stay near the… ominous meat packing plant. If anyone has a car, I'd appreciate it."
She paused. Huh. Weird how thoughts came and went.
"...and can anyone think of a number between one and thirty one?"
Oh my, you remembered. How… thoughtful.
Yeah, she'd better be grateful, her side was on fire right now.
* * *
They were in a taxi. Parian had apparently gotten a cab here, and Vicky couldn't carry both of them. Which meant spending some cash on a taxi whose driver was very much regretting heading in their direction. Glory Girl was unrecognisable beneath the layer of grime and rust, Parian looked like someone who was desperately trying to not be conspicuous and in the process had become obscenely conspicuous. Seemed to be the colour coordination. And Taylor was… well, she had a hole in her side. A hole that was itching pretty damn badly. She tried to focus on the power of scars, the power of tissue building up and up, strength earned through glorious conflict, and… just wouldn't come. Dammit. She could burn the horn out of her, but she couldn't heal the injury. It was a combination of things, both a difficulty in grasping that strength, and something standing in her way. Something blocking her up. The cabbie glanced over his shoulder, considering starting a conversation. Then he saw Vicky rocking back and forth slightly while muttering to herself, and Parian just staring blankly into the distance… and decided against it.
Good move.
The cabbie is declining to speak with us, this is excellent. Never speak with the drivers of Jinrikisha, their attention is for the road. And if they're talking, they're likely trying to distract you from other things, like their… gambling hall buddies attempting to sneak up and rob you in a dark alleyway. I speak from experience.
Oh, good old prejudiced Chorei. What a kidder. Though her tone was definitely flavoured by genuine happiness - she had a birthday. An actual birthday to celebrate. Seventeenth of December, a number off-handedly suggested by Vicky and confirmed rapidly by Parian. She'd promptly started rambling about the plans she could make, the films she was interested in watching. Not westerns - Angel Eyes had left an impression on them. Speaking of whom, Taylor was getting the feeling that he'd been involved in this mess. What, Parian just so happened to be in a particular area when the leader of this whole termite infestation was also hanging around, and also Vicky showed up at exactly the right time to give her a ride? Taylor was accustomed to coincidences, but this reeked of someone manipulating things. Which she wouldn't mind, but she was being manipulated too. Not a pleasant feeling. But for now, the termites were a more pressing threat - Angel Eyes could wait. Anyone manipulating things like this would leave traces, markers of his influence. And that would allow her to follow the tinker back to his own turf, and have a more… personal conversation. When she had time.
Her fists were itching in anticipation.
And her side… shit, her side was burning. She pulled her shirt up a little, examining the ragged wound. Bleeding, naturally, but not as much as she feared. Still enough to soak her shirt and make it come away like a fresh band-aid. A hole in her side, leading up to her ribs. A little further and it would've pierced her lungs. And there was… fuck, something was inside the wound. Something crawling. Pieces of the horn had been left behind, shards that burst with fleshy termites. If she focused, she thought she could hear whispering - just a few of them, but enough to gnaw away unobstructed. Shit, shit. She tried to remain as calm as possible as she spoke, but a little of her nervousness must have entered her voice. This was something she needed to deal with now, no time for a hospital or for getting back to the tea shop.
"Sorry, does anyone have any… pliers?"
Vicky turned slowly to stare at her.
"Did you just ask for-"
"Pliers. Does anyone have any?"
Parian scrambled in her backpack, withdrawing a pair that looked more suited for cutting chain link fences. A smaller model, of course, just for the sake of practicality… but it would have to be enough. She sent a few lice inside the wound, ignoring the itching sensation their legs produced… a sensation that faded almost immediately. Flesh was painless, after all. Once you got deep enough there was nothing but a cold numbness - but feeling a breeze on her exposed muscles was about as enjoyable as it sounded, pain response or no. The lice tracked the termites, finding two of them, both gnawing in opposite directions. Not too far into her yet, she could still… yes, still close enough to reach.
"Hold my leg."
Was all she said before she lay back - her head on Vicky's lap, her legs almost poking out of the window. Parian supported her as best she could, but her face was pale. Terrified. The cabbie glanced back again, surveyed the situation, and just turned the music up. Excellent move, she'd need to tip him using Parian or Vicky's money, whoever had more at the time. She'd pay them back at some point, but… eh, just give them some store credit, that felt reasonable. Vicky couldn't look away as Taylor got to work. The pliers were long enough to reach inside, and she gritted her teeth as the cold metal grazed the sides of the wound. The lice directed her precisely, as did a few lice scattered on the operational end of the tool. Chorei hummed mantras of calming, draining some of the pain away - just like with Bisha. Less of a burden this time, though, so the nun could actually take away the majority of it. Still uncomfortable, of course. One termite realised what was coming and started to scramble, gnawing wildly, anything to get a way out. No such luck. One delicate click, and she had it pinned around the thorax. It squirmed and whispered - no escape. It was delicate extracting the thing, and Parian had a small container ready - a few crumbs indicated that it'd once been the receptacle for her lunch. Well, a little snack for the termite now. It clunked into the thing, abdomen twitching uncannily as it brimmed with icy blue liquid. The other termite was in full fight-or-flight, and thankfully for it, both equated to the same action - gnawing.
Not for long. One click, and it was out, joining its brother in the smooth plastic box. No purchase for their pincers, none at all. Well, that was… relatively easy. The pliers were stained, so she wiped them off on her shirt - already ruined by blood from the wound, she'd need to burn it anyway. Once the metal shone to her satisfaction, she flipped the thing over and held it out, handle-first, to Parian. Who stared at it. Taylor blinked. Come on, take the pliers, they're yours. Come on, come on - she tilted her head to see Vicky with eyes wide as saucers, looking upon Taylor like someone might look on a dangerous viper which had just landed in their lap. Do you thrash and get rid of it, risking a bite in the process? Do you remain perfectly still and hope it leaves? Or do you just remain paralysed out of fear and hope for the best? Fear made things easier, fear took away options. And Vicky had evidently defaulted to paralysis. God, Taylor missed working with mercenaries, they weren't remotely squeamish. Hey, soon enough she might be able to do - the tea shop was getting closer and closer. With a grunt, her leg came down, her head came up, and she sat calmly between the two staring capes.
Their stares make me uncomfortable. Just a little amateur surgery, nothing to be alarmed about.
Yeah, see, Chorei got it.
"...here are your pliers."
"...you can have them."
Taylor gave her a look.
"I have my own pliers, I don't need more. Take it, they're fine. Just sterilise them in some alcohol."
"They were in your side, I-"
"Are you going to use them for more surgery?"
"What? No, why would-"
She shoved the pliers into Parian's arms.
"Then you're fine, just sterilise them later. Use something high-proof."
Vicky made a distressed noise.
"...who are you?"
Taylor gave her another look - she was just full of looks today.
"I'm Taylor. I work at the tea shop."
"No, really, who-"
She realised there was a cabbie nearby, and her voice dropped to a whisper.
"What was that place? Who was… I've never heard of a parahuman like that, do you know who it was?"
And now the moment of truth. Parian was stiff as a board, Chorei was silent… either she lied or told the truth. Or a half-truth. A quarter-truth, if at all possible. A singular shot of truth. But… Vicky had run into the building with minimal preparation, expecting that she could get out of it. All she'd known was that Taylor might be in there, and that was enough to dive in feet-first and almost die to a liquid floor. Impulsive, clearly. And that impulsivity would kill her if she was working on incomplete information. If she wanted to keep this cape alive - and she did, no matter how quickly she'd ruined a perfectly pleasant escape - then she'd need to be mostly honest. She lowered her voice to match Vicky's, murmuring in a barely-audible tone.
"Not a parahuman. I'll explain later."
Vicky nodded calmly and stared at the back of the cabbie's head until they arrived.
That was a lie.
She flipped her shit almost immediately, but to her credit, she did it quietly. Taylor tuned out the chorus of 'what the fuck are you talking about', accompanied by an undertone of 'what the fuck just happened' and barely paying attention to the lilting solo of 'who the fuck are you, really and why the fuck did you pull termites out of your chest wound, what the actual fuck is wrong with you, and-' OK the solo had run its course and her interest had declined. Parian stared awkwardly at the back of the seat. Taylor tried to watch the buildings go by, but wound up defaulting to just listening to Chorei's running commentary on things. Complaints about the quality of the seats, the speed of the cabbie, the general condition of Brockton's roads…
I tell you, usurper, risking one's existence really… works up an appetite. Our body requires nourishment.
Her eye narrowed. Hopefully that was enough of an indicator of her response. 'Our' - Chorei didn't even pay rent to live up there in her skull, she had no right to call it 'our'. Taylor was the one who ran the damn thing. Mostly.
Come now, you promised.
…she did. And Chorei had performed above and beyond what was expected of her, she'd improvised, planned, used Taylor's abilities fairly competently for someone who'd only experienced them vicariously for the last few weeks, never actually using them herself. She'd earned a treat. And her voice was still shaking, she seemed to be in disbelief that she'd actually risked her existence so… casually, without sufficient preparation. Eh, why not. This bleeding wound wasn't going to heal itself, she needed some protein to rebuild the damaged flesh. A murmur to the cab driver sent them screeching off-course, and Vicky's ramblings fell silent. Again, the indignant stare, and this time Parian was joining in.
"I'm going to Burger Duke, do you guys want anything?"
She could tell they wanted to refuse out of principle. She could really tell. Vicky scowled.
"Why."
"I'm hungry. All that running worked up an appetite."
"You're not… too nauseous?"
"Seen worse."
The hint of disbelief in the cape's expression rapidly gave way to something more… unnerved, once she saw that Taylor was entirely serious. But if Taylor could go to Fugly Bobs immediately after finding packets of still-living dusty meat in a building which tried to erase her ego and replace it with that of a cult-indoctrinated stoner… well, a headless bull full of termites couldn't do much to dampen her appetite.
Another scowl. Parian pinched the bridge of her nose, clearly exhausted by… well, just about everything. Though… as they pondered her words, clearly they came to their own conclusions. Parian mumbled quietly.
"I wouldn't mind a burger, actually."
Vicky looked at her disbelievingly.
"Really?"
"Well, I didn't go inside, and I didn't have any breakfast, so…"
"...both of you are insane."
She was half-right.
And this was how an innocent, carefree serf to the Burger Duke found herself increasingly alarmed by the spectre of a very unnerved Glory Girl, some college student who looked like she was about to have another mental breakdown, and a one-eyed kid that insisted on poring over their menu like some of the elderly retirees they occasionally had coming through.
The food was pretty good.
Vicky munched passive-aggressively at a few pilfered fries.
Parian was disappointed by the special sauce.
Chorei was clearly just surprised that she was still alive.
And Taylor was just enjoying getting back to the normal state of affairs.
Huh. Risking one's existence built up an appetite in everyone, apparently. God, this was reminding her of Brent DeNeuve, and the irresistible urge for a massive, deeply unhealthy burger after almost having her ego erased. At least now she knew the behaviour wasn't concerning. The cab driver was just pretending none of this was happening. What a guy, Taylor was almost tempted to see if she could keep him on retainer. A discrete, always-available ride would've made sure this situation never happened, where she was next to a constantly vibrating cape, whose vibrations could probably shatter Taylor's bones if she was so inclined. The tea shop approached, a comforting slice of reality amidst so much chaos. Parian relaxed a little on seeing it, and Vicky only became more utterly tense. She knew things were coming to a head, and this place represented that apex. Anticipation was bad enough, explanation could sometimes be worse. Especially with the things she'd seen. The fleshy termites squirmed inside their tupperware prison. The cab drive was paid swiftly and quietly by Vicky, delving into a store of cash that looked… well, enviable. Taylor didn't like to think of herself as greedy, but she did need money. No, probably shouldn't be slobbering over every unearthed dead president she saw. Sounded unhealthy. Anyway. Tea shop. Familiarity. Warmth. Maybe a little nip of something or other, she deserved it after the bullshit she'd just experienced. Still, evidence was evidence. Progress was progress, even if it accumulated baggage along the way. Blonde, overly powerful and impulsive baggage.
At least this baggage paid for her cab. And her own meals.
Good thing, too, Taylor was fairly sure she was precisely one altruistic tea shop owner away from homelessness.
A few people were standing around inside - she glimpsed Turk's eyepatch, and… ah. Greasy, unkempt hair. A few flashes of diseased skin. And one arm. She grimaced - right, of course Ahab would be around. Still felt awkward talking to her, but maybe this encounter would change things. She needed something to do, might as well help kill these termites - if she was able, of course. Ah, who was she kidding, a flamethrower and some derring-do would probably be enough. She pushed the door open, her temporary companions following hesitantly… and Ahab turned. Two of the three ceased. Taylor continued, trying to inch her mouth into something approximating a smile.
"Hey, A-"
And the pseudo-leper rushed forward to headbutt her in the face.
Ow.
…it was going to be a day, wasn't it?
The Tree of Worms, by the inestimable SorrySorrow
Another piece of fanart to satisfy the insatiable hunger of the Eldritch deities. One of my favorite moments in the fic.
145 - Misericorde
GraftingBuddha
Retired Pooh-Bah
145 - Misericorde
Taylor fell to the ground, clutching at her nose. Yep, definitely bleeding. Probably needed to pour some alcohol over it, too, Ahab's forehead looked about as clean as the rest of her. Chorei was absolutely silent, too shocked to speak. And the others were… well, doing surprisingly little. Parian squeaked in alarm, Vicky was still processing almost being eaten by a meat packing plant, and inside the shop Turk was doing absolutely nothing. Leaving Taylor to fall to the ground with no-one to pick her up, Ahab's rotting face dominating her view. She looked… furious. And awful. More awful than usual, somehow. She was just starting to fixate on the bizarre growth beneath one of her eyes when the pain from her nose started to actually reach her brain - Chorei worked instinctually, suppressing the pain, leaving her nose nothing more than a numb, bleeding lump on the front of her face, a chunk of ground hamburger that'd adhered to her following her meal. Nothing more. But the taste of copper on her lips was unmistakable, and the sheer fury on Ahab's face kept her anchored to reality. She looked pissed.
"What the fuck were you thinking?"
Taylor had never heard her this angry. Ahab always seemed to swerve between being simply depressed and being the most excitable one in any given situation. It was unnatural to see her face twisted into a deep scowl or her eyes bloodshot with anger. Taylor glared upwards, suppressing her feeling of unease with blank indignation. Ahab didn't wait for a response, just started ranting.
"Oh, so you run off and just go and do shit by yourself, and leave the rest of us to, what, mind the damn shop?"
She slapped at her chest with her single remaining arm.
"Absolute dipshit, you think you're the only one who needs this?!"
Oh.
Oh dear.
Taylor… really hadn't thought about that. Not deliberately, just… by accident really. She'd heard about Parian, decided to get down there as quickly as possible, no time for calling anyone els- no, she could've probably waited for a little bit, or arranged with Ahab to keep her around. But… dammit, no, even if she did think about this, of course she hadn't dragged her along. Ahab wasn't adept at dealing with the sort of thing that inhabited the meat packing plant. Against cultists, she was astounding. Against something like this… no, she would've just been a burden for Taylor to take care of. And with her arm, there was… Taylor looked up at the ex-mercenary, and saw something unnerving in her eyes. Something doom-driven. The look she'd sometimes seen in the Khans, way back during her journey to North Dakota. Too many years they didn't want, didn't need. Too much age, weighing down like tiny weights suspended on hooks driven into their lower eyelids. The bulging growth beneath one of her eyes really didn't help with this impression. Burned-out, not like Arch, more like a… more like a still-blazing car wreck than a dead fire. All retorts died on her lips, stained a cheerful fire-engine red by matter that smelled distinctly like the inside of that abandoned slaughterhouse. Give it a few years. Age it properly. Then it'd have the rusty stink.
"Uh."
And that was Vicky, surprised, but unwilling to intervene - Ahab and Taylor clearly knew each other, and the cape had been through enough today without intervening in some weird spat. Ahab glanced up, took her in, noted the details of her appearance, and spat messily on the ground. The colour of standing water in a dust bowl.
"And you're bringing more strays back - for crying out loud, come on, this is getting ridiculous."
She sighed, wiping a hand across her face. She looked tired, and a little guilty.
"...for fuck's sake, get up. We need to talk."
Taylor complied, wiping her nose off. Ahab strode away, shoving the door to the tea shop open. Everyone else followed, but Vicky paused for a moment before entering.
"You're alright?"
…she was asking if Taylor was alright. Vicky was the one who'd just been exposed to the batshit world that Taylor inhabited, she was the one who should be feeling… ah, nevermind. She shrugged idly. Her nose was numb, a consequence of Chorei's aid, and she'd definitely suffered worse wounds. Little things like this dwindled into nothing when she remembered what else she'd experienced. Metal jaws around her ankle. Burning scissors in her mouth. Even the termites in the car had been worse - a quick check, they were still here. Good. Squirming, whispering quietly. Alive. Excellent.
"I'm fine."
"...if you say so."
And that was all. Seconds later, they were all gathered in the tea shop, surrounding a few pots of something that smelled… strong and green. Everyone was staring suspiciously at one another - with the exception of Ahab, who just looked miserable, and sipped away at something distinctly stronger and less green than the tea before her. Silence reigned for a minute that seemed to stretch away into eternity. Taylor felt oddly peaceful. Adrenaline had passed, and all that remained was the hollow feeling of death evaded, like her body had started to drag itself down into the grave, had decided against it, and was now feeling oddly weightless as it leapt back into the air and sailed into the dark. Hollow as an egg ready to crack under the slightest pressure. It was… good, the same feeling she got after a good workout. Better than alcohol. Better than any exercise. Better than most things, to be perfectly honest. And it was this knowledge that made her feel guilty whenever she looked at Ahab. Vicky snapped under the pressure of waiting, attracting attention to herself by slamming her hands down on the table. She was restraining herself, at least… but there was still a definite dent left behind. Turk grumbled at the sight.
"Alright, so if no-one else is going to ask - what the fuck just happened?"
And here we go.
Parian raised her hand slightly.
"I… would actually be pretty interested too."
Taylor sighed as she stuffed a small amount of tissue up her still-bleeding nose. Her voice was nasal and reedy as a consequence.
"...it's nothing. Just a leftover from the Conflagration."
Vicky's eyes sharpened to needlepoints. Good. Distracted.
"What."
"...think of that place, and these things, as bottom feeders. They're just here to pick over some remains. I'll take care of it."
"I… wait, you still haven't explained what they are, exactly."
She's sharp. Clearly wants to talk about the Conflagration and its consequences, but is keen enough to know when you're distracting her. Hm. Tread carefully.
"...think of it like this. If there are parahumans, people that can just use powers who showed up one day, is it really surprising that there's other weird things out there? Like, say, termites which breed inside buildings and show up after big disasters?"
Vicky blinked, and took a deep breath, trying to keep herself calm.
"That raises a lot of questions, you understand?"
"I'm aware."
"Are you going to answer any of them?"
"It wouldn't help you."
She was being honest there. Explaining the quinotaur stuff, the archaeological traces, the whole situation with Bisha… it would just overwhelm her. If there was one thing she was eager to do, it was keep her blinkered. These things were small fry, in the grand scheme of things. Small enough that she likely wouldn't get her mind burned out by them.
"Wait, wait… so, termites, they somehow know how to alter buildings, and they were inside that… bull thing, and that's it? That's the explanation? They 'just kinda happen sometimes'?"
"I specified when they happen."
"Yeah, 'after big disasters' - why, why would that have any bearing on things, why would they emerge for that reason, what are they, you can't just say 'oh, parahumans are a thing, why not anything else', because parahumans actually obey laws, there's a field of study for them, do you just think that no-one else has actually found out about…"
She took another deep breath.
"I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to distract me. It won't work. Now tell me exactly what these things are, or…"
Parian spoke up, voice quiet, hands shaking very slightly.
"...I just encountered them a week ago. I don't really understand them, but… they feed on things which are incomplete."
"...what?"
"I don't get it. But they do, they just… look, when I thought about them like something a parahuman would make, I found nothing. They made no sense. But when I started thinking about them as… well, like something out of a fairy tale, then it started to click."
"So you're saying to abandon all logic, then."
Turk grumbled, entering into the conversation with the delicate ease of a substantially sized Russian cyclops trying to explain the inexplicable. So, about as delicate as can be expected.
"Don't bother with what they are."
He paused as all eyes turned to him.
"Bother with how to kill them, hm?"
Ahab grinned slightly, but her eyes remained sad.
"Yeah, that's the way to do it. Trust me, uh… sorry, what was your name?"
"Vicky."
"Oh, shit, Glory Girl. Wild. Anyway, I'm Ahab. Nice to meet you."
"...uh."
"Anyway. I've seen shit that'll turn you white, and I understand none of it. Hasn't hurt me at all."
Vicky looked pointedly at her stump. Ahab growled.
"That was from one of those freaks that got churned out during the Conflagration. Teeth. Jaws. Normal shit. I don't get what made those teeth and jaws, and honestly, I'm pretty chill with that fact. I don't know how tanks work, but I've helped blow up enough of them."
She tilted her head to one side, filthy hair falling like a putrid curtain.
"What, you didn't play with Lego when you were younger?"
A pause.
"...every instinct is telling me that that explanation is bullshit and I shouldn't be accepting it. Literally every instinct."
Taylor mumbled around a cup of tea.
"Yeah, well, it's the best you're getting."
"Fine. I'll ask more later. But for now - what are they doing? And how can they be stopped?"
Her face was hard as stone. She looked utterly professional.
"If anyone else had walked into that plant, they wouldn't have come out alive. So, how do we get rid of them? You seem to know everything, and if you're not willing to explain the entire situation, you can at least tell me that much."
Taylor blinked. That was… a surprise. A pleasant surprise, definitely. She'd been downright worried that Vicky would start flying around throwing things at people until she started getting some straight answers. And if Taylor had learned one thing from the last few months, it was that Turk and Ahab's method for this shit was definitely better than hers. These forces swallowed up research and gave nothing back in return. Understanding required experience, and experience demanded losing a part of oneself. Taylor understood things like the Grafting Buddha, but that had come at a heavy cost - she shared her mind with someone else, and she couldn't help but look at people differently now that she knew how a human mind looked, and how easily it could be subsumed into another. The world felt different after the things she'd experienced, and it was something that could never be rolled back. Turk, on the other hand, had seen a healthy amount of this shit and had come away looking basically the same. Taylor could wrestle with the dissolution of her mind, Turk just shot shit and went home to drink moonshine.
Turk's route didn't seem to lead to people getting their mind burned out.
Turk's route wouldn't have led to Gallant dead, staring unblinking into the rain.
Snap back to reality. Vicky was still expectant. She was a hero, and she wanted to help - understanding could come later. There was something desperate in her, though - something in her eyes. Reminded her too much of Ahab. Of herself. The same urge to do something rather than sit around watching the world spin onwards.
"...right, sure. But a few ground rules before we do anything."
"Ground rules?"
"You followed me, you dove into that building yourself and almost got both of us killed. I'm tempted to just kick you out, not like anyone will actually believe you."
"The PRT would still investigate you if I told them about this. All of you."
Time to bluff. Taylor couldn't afford another run-in with the PRT. They'd already accosted her once, a second arrest would make the wheels of bureaucracy grind into motion once the great mechanical eye of the state was directed onto her. Putting her into the foster system. Investigating the loss of her eye, the presence of her scars, tracking her journey across the USA. Connecting her to Vandeerleuwe, to the Khans, to Mound Moor... Maybe even finding out about her powers, and press-ganging her into the Wards unless she wanted to just get pawned off on some random family at the other end of the country, monitored to make sure she didn't run away. Too many disasters to count, and she couldn't afford a single one. Vicky could ruin everything if she so chose.
"And what would they find?"
Her gaze was bold, her expression was firm. Vicky blinked, the wind taken a little out of her sails. Not used to having the PRT so utterly ignored. Her swarm was expressing all her nervousness, and Chorei was providing a constant murmur of advice, and Taylor even allowed her a little control over her face and hands - the nun had an excellent poker face.
"Exactly. You've got no evidence of anything happening, just your word. By the time the PRT figured out even a fraction of what's going on, those termites will be long gone. And the person who made them."
Vicky turned to glare at Turk, the oldest one in the room.
"Is she just ordering you guys around?"
"Да."
"So she gets to set the ground rules? None of you are going to say anything?"
Ahab shrugged.
"Hasn't let us down thus far. Mostly. Sorry about the, uh…"
Taylor waved her off. Turk was silent, but grumbled in agreement with Ahab. Parian was just staring into her tea with an expression usually reserved for shell-shocked veterans. Taylor felt a small burst of guilt - shouldn't be involved in this, but she couldn't exactly tell her to piss off after coming all this way. The important thing was presenting a united front, even if that involved keeping Parian around. Make things seem organised, professional.
Vicky scowled, and Taylor could smell victory in the air.
"First. You do what I say, when I say it. No backtalk, no hesitation, just do it. I don't work with people who can't follow orders."
"Jawohl."
"Shut up. Second, no-one else gets brought into this. I know you have a family of capes behind you - do not mention any of this to them. If you do, we're done."
"They could help."
"They could also die, or suffer fates worse than death. If you want that on your hands, go ahead. If you don't, then shut up and listen."
"Anything else? Would you like me to write this down?"
"Third. We do everything quietly. No flashy costumes. No showboating. And don't think like a cape when you fight these things. It won't work."
Mouse Protector had tried. And while she was still alive, she'd clearly changed a little. No idea where she was at the moment, but… well, Chorei had said something about another force, something called the Fool's Razor. And Taylor really wanted to minimise the amount of weird forces intruding into affairs, and especially the amount of weird shit getting into Vicky or Parian's heads.
Chorei hummed happily inside Taylor's head, clearly pleased at how she was taking charge. If she allowed Vicky to get a second word in, she'd just cause issues. The two had grafted very briefly, but from that contact she'd determined one very, very important little trait in the cape. It was hard to detect - but there was a structure to her thoughts. An orderliness that honestly reminded her a little of Sanagi. The same willingness to be a cog in a system, to be part of something bigger. A trust in institutions which Taylor personally lacked. She couldn't relate to the impulse, but… she could definitely exploit it. By presenting herself as a singular authority figure, by making it clear that she was in charge and that her group was united behind her, she turned this from a loose gang of vigilantes fighting something incomprehensible into a group of professionals who knew exactly what they were dealing with, and were willing to give a certain cape a small internship. Unpaid, naturally. And unsuitable for any future job applications. But still - Vicky as an equal partner here sounded awful. Vicky as a subordinate sounded workable, if not entirely pleasant.
Vicky floated upwards slightly, glaring fiercely.
"If you're going to play it that way, I have some ground rules of my own. First, you tell me everything you know about the Conflagration and this whole… termite stuff. Understood?"
"I'll tell you what's relevant."
"You don't get to judge that."
Parian looked up, exhausted. Her voice was oddly stiff and scratchy, like she'd been yelling at the top of her lungs until recently.
"Look, I've not been involved with these people for long, but… you don't want to know about half this stuff."
Vicky clearly disagreed. The others joined in on Parian's side. Turk rumbled, then Ahab rasped, and finally Taylor raised her eyebrows meaningfully.
"You do not want to know. Know too much, your skull explodes. True story."
"Yeah, friend of mine knew a little too much, now he's hunched in a farm going completely insane. Also he sweats too much. I, by contrast, just drink. Much healthier."
Vicky seemed to know when a battle was lost - no way of getting out information without actually pummelling them half to death. Taylor braced her swarm just in case, and she could sense Turk and Ahab making ready in their own way. If Vicky tried any funny business, she'd get drowned in bugs, punched in the face by an unnaturally strong scarred hand, possibly flamethrower'd, and… well, she wasn't sure about Ahab, but it was presumably unsanitary.
"...tell me about the Conflagration, then. You said these things are connected. Well, how. Go on, tell me, or I'll… fuck it, I'll take my chances with the PRT."
She was lying. For whatever reason, she was reluctant to talk to the PRT. Hm. Well, that was one thing uniting them. Taylor exchanged glances with the others. They had enough tact to know that bringing up Gallant was a bad, bad move - things were delicate enough already. And his body had been left next to Bisha's, which meant claiming him as a kill would be equally unwise. Even an idiot would be able to make the leap from 'they killed Bisha' to 'they were involved with Gallant's death'. And Vicky, while impulsive, reckless, and far too much of a meddler for anyone's comfort, was most certainly not a complete idiot. Half-idiot, possibly. Quarter-idiot, minimum. But full-idiot, not a chance in hell.
"...we helped end parts of it."
"How?"
"There was… a guy in charge. We didn't fight him, but we found out part of what he was planning and put a stop to it."
"How."
"Bombs."
Vicky froze.
"...you were involved with those buildings?"
"Most of them. Repurposed some of the tinkertech bombs that were lying around the city, hooked them up to the foundation, levelled them."
"Explain. And fully, I don't want to keep poking you for answers."
Turk rumbled to life, his low voice and military bearing giving him a certain level of credence that Taylor lacked. She'd pretended to be a tea shop waitress. Turk, on the other hand, seemed… honest. Doubtful that he could hide much of anything - at least to someone who'd just met him. He was too solid to be duplicitous.
"The man in charge was infesting bodies. Wanted to use them as sacrifices. They were already dead - we put them out of their misery, disrupted his operation."
"But you didn't kill him?"
"Not personally."
Parian spoke up again.
"I… saw him too, just before everything… went to hell. He was bad. Really bad. Like… that plant was terrible, don't get me wrong, but this guy was worse. I met him. Once. Then I spent the next few weeks locked in my apartment, glueing measuring tapes to the walls and refusing to go outside under any circumstances. Still have nightmares."
Vicky glanced around, once again witnessing a wall that was aligned against her, reluctant to give up any information. She had more questions. And Taylor, largely, was content with answering them… if it wasn't for Gallant, she'd answer all of them. The girl struggled to find some new words, some new angles to probe… and Taylor could see a hint of desperation in her eyes. A knot of guilt twisted in her stomach. She felt dirty, deceiving her like this. But… it was for the best. If Gallant was still around, she imagined that he'd want his girlfriend to stay the hell away from this kind of thing. And the last thing she wanted was another death on her hands.
"...at least tell me about the guy who started it. Ordeal."
Taylor took a deep breath.
"Not called Ordeal. His name was Bisha, and he was… cruel. Very cruel. Most of his cult is gone now, but… it was bad."
"How bad."
Ahab gestured with her stump.
"One of his boys bit off my arm."
Taylor nodded, and gestured to her own eye.
"And this thing didn't just fall out on its own."
Vicky's eyes widened.
"Uh."
"Him, or his people, also… pulled some of my teeth out, put nails through my collarbones, broke my knee, and almost snipped out my tongue. Not to mention all the burns. Oh, and he personally put a drill into my skull."
"...what."
"I got better."
"Sorry, you survived all of that?"
"Mostly."
"And now you're dealing with his leftovers."
"More or less."
"Why? Why would you..."
Taylor blinked. She'd... not really thought about it as an option.
"Just something I have to do."
An expression somewhat resembling respect washed over Vicky's face. Ah. That made sense. Of course she'd be content working beside someone who had given themselves to the fight against the inhumane and the inhuman.
"...don't think I'm done. But tell me about these termite things. More importantly, tell me when we're going out to squish a few."
"...I'll need to do some more research before we move again."
"We know where they are."
"They're leaving the meat packing plant, as I understand it. Trying to get out of town, possibly. But I should be able to find somewhere else they're heading, if I have some time."
"Do you know what they're planning?"
"Feeding on the remnants of the group that started the Conflagration."
Vicky's hands clenched into fists.
"Some of them survived."
"Some. Not many. Probably only a very, very small number - they're feeding on people who were affected by the Conflagration as well. Sa… this one was dragged into their nest for that reason."
"And that's it? Feeding?"
"They're simple."
"And how do you know all this?"
"I spoke to the one shepherding them. If you see a guy with… alright, brown corduroy jacket, straggling beard, messy, uncut dark hair, serious burns around his face, skin looks like it's moving, if you see anyone matching that description, call me."
"I can help look for him. I know how to-"
"I have my own contacts. Let me work, I'll get back to you."
"And until then?"
"Stay put."
"Stay put? That's it? Everything that just happened in there, and you're telling me to stay put. I just got nearly eaten by a damn building, and you're telling me to sit on my thumbs until you say I can move, I mean, what gives you the…"
Vicky trailed off. Taylor didn't reply. She just stared. Everything that needed to be said here had already been stated, and Vicky knew it. The silence allowed her to stew in her own thoughts, to come to the right conclusions, and… there. She sagged dejectedly.
"...this makes no sense."
Turk nodded wisely.
"This is correct. Tea?"
"I'm good."
"Moonshine?"
"...I'm good."
"Oh."
A long pause.
"Whiskey?"
"It's barely the afternoon."
"Of course. Beer."
"I'm seventeen."
He calmly placed down a substantially sized packet of biscuits. Vicky glared angrily at them… before quietly munching on a small handful withdrawn with faintly alarming speed. Taylor sagged into a chair and tried to get herself back under control. She just needed a second, that was all. Her mind whirled with possibilities. Vicky was handled, at least for now. A crisis had been averted. For a second it had been touch and go, but… well, she'd been overwhelmed with impossibilities and was willing to work with the only people who could explain and handle those impossibilities. Angles needed to be investigated. The leader of the cult seemed like he'd be going to ground for a while, keep away from her at all costs. But… something was wrong about what he'd said. He'd been dismantling those totems, scrapping it all, and yet the entire building had still rebelled. That didn't feel much like a dismantling to her. And if she kept an eye on the place, it seemed unlikely that he'd be coming back. So they had a place with a guaranteed connection to his group. They were clearly disassembling them for a reason, and clearly needed to show up in person, couldn't just will them to cease, or dismantle them from the termite nest which lay behind and beside the world.
Could be a vulnerability.
But it raised more questions. The place had some pre-existing sympathy with these termites, the man had said that they'd been around before, they'd simply woken up to welcome him after the Conflagration came to an end. And there was something about that place, something… in the ambiguities she'd seen covering an absolute void, there'd been boxes of meat, each one burning with strange fire, pulsing with eerie fruit. Something else had happened there. Something had welcomed the termites in, and they'd been dormant ever since, waking up only when new meals presented themselves. Maybe if she could find out what had welcomed them, she could find… well, something. Information, presumably. Something more, ideally. The pair of fleshy insects squirmed inside their small plastic prison, whispering to one another in voices too small for anyone outside the container to really understand. She had test subjects. Good.
Vicky was munching angrily away, Parian was staring downwards… ideally, neither would be involved. She had one idea for keeping Vicky occupied without exposing her to additional danger. A few stakeouts around some likely locations. The termites and their leader seemed likely to be in hiding, so there was little possibility of an actual encounter. Especially if he knew that Vicky was working with Taylor and could call her in at a moment's notice. The silence was abruptly broken by the cape laughing, a faint, desperate laugh that she'd heard far too often to be surprised by. Seemed like everyone who was exposed to her side of things developed that dry-as-dust laugh. Fantastic, she was already halfway to a full mental breakdown.
"...I just wanted some tea. This was my day off, I just… wanted a place to relax."
Taylor grimaced.
"If it's any consolation, I've been thinking exactly the same thing all day."
"Somehow I'm not too broken up about that."
"Hm."
"...actually, sorry, what's your name?"
She looked pointedly at a certain Russian cyclops.
"Turk."
"...so how do you guys…"
"She wanted tea. Things spiralled from there."
Vicky looked at the pungent green cup with a faint air of suspicion. Tea, it seemed, was a gateway to the impossible and incomprehensible. If Turk had been more of a coffee person, perhaps none of this would have happened the same way. Eh. Who knew.
Taylor's side ached, and Turk noticed her wincing - he calmly set to work with a needle and thread, disinfecting her wound, sewing up her side. It was deep, but… she was frustrated at how she was incapable of sealing it up like she'd done with worse wounds in the past. She'd put her skull back together, the jagged outline from the replaced shard was still visible in the right light. But now… without her charm, she couldn't do it. Just couldn't hack into the same force. The loss of one of her best tools frustrated her - and she was momentarily convinced that the best course of action was to drive right back to the New Canyon, dive into the mud and emerge with a new token. But in her heart of hearts she knew that would probably just kill her. The last time she'd had a distinct, worthy rival in mind. This time… she had a hippy who was more terrified of her than she was of him. Not a rival. Not the kind the canyon would recognise.
Another lead to follow up on, then.
God, she felt like an underworked dog walker.
Because she was at her happiest with a whole mass of leads in her grasp.
Time wore on. Vicky was clearly reluctant to leave, but leave she did - flying into the distance with a sour expression on her face. Crisis averted… but Taylor was still going to pack a bug out bag, just in case she needed to make a quick getaway. Chorei mumbled quietly as the cape left.
There is a nearby access point to the sewers, I have some supplies stored there.
Taylor blinked.
How do you Americans put it? Ah, this is not my first… hm, rodeo. Yes, that was the word. I always kept things ready for a quick escape - indeed, that was what I intended to do the night you… well.
Good to know. Parian was next to depart, looking like she'd run a marathon - dark circles under her eyes, and a general air of weariness. As she made for the door, though, Taylor took her aside into a side room, and gave her a look.
"You look like shit."
"...is it that obvious?"
"Yeah. Thanks for calling me about that plant, but… stay at a distance. Don't get involved."
"...I still need to find my friend."
"Go nuts. But stay out of this. You're not built for it."
"Not long ago I would've told you to fuck off for saying that."
"And now?"
"I don't really know. I…"
She shivered.
"I'll… try to stay out of things. But I'll keep in touch. Just so…"
She trailed off. Just so Taylor would know if she'd gone missing, if she was trapped in another nest. Didn't seem likely. The cult here was unwilling to engage with Taylor if they didn't have to, and Parian was pretty clearly tied up with her little operation. Still, no point taking unnecessary risks.
"Good. And… thanks. Again. I was struggling to find leads, that meat plant was…"
She paused.
"...how did you know to go there? Just out of interest."
Parian shrugged.
"I… don't really know, honestly. I knew my friend used to spend time in that part of town, so… I just went."
"This is going to sound weird, but has anything been going on with your TV?"
"My TV?"
"Yeah, anything… I don't know, just wondering what gave you the inspiration to head to that part of town today, of all times."
"...nothing I can think of, sorry. But I guess… I just woke up thinking that I should get on with this, you know? Like, some days I wake up and I can barely get out of bed, but today was just… I woke up, and I knew I should get to work on this now, I shouldn't just sit around thinking or planning. So I packed my bag and left, got a taxi up, that was it."
"You just woke up that way."
"Guess so. Sorry I can't be more help."
"...no, no, that's fine. Safe journey."
"You too."
She blinked as she realised what she'd said, and glanced to the staircase which led to Taylor's room.
"...just realised how stupid that sounded."
"I'll try not to slip and fall."
A rare smile from both of them. And that was all. The tea shop was deserted save for Turk and Ahab. It wasn't evening quite yet, but it was definitely wearing into the late afternoon. Nonetheless the door remained locked to customers. Things needed to be talked about. Plans needed to be made. Turk was, as per usual, calm and understanding. He suggested that he could remain closer to the shop, take over more shifts. If only to stop Taylor's excursions from driving his business into the ground, of course. If she made a habit of running off at weird hours of the day, he'd probably lose all his regulars. And that was simply unacceptable. There was little in the way of specialist equipment he could reliably bring in. Guns they already had in abundant quantities, ammunition too. Bombs were pointless to obtain when they had a bomb tinker sitting around in a protein farm nearby. Flamethrowers were hard to get hold of. Good flamethrowers were very hard to get hold of. The PRT had a monopoly on almost all of the things, the ones easiest to obtain were incredibly dated and prone to malfunctioning. Which, for a flamethrower, was generally considered a Bad Thing. But he promised to look into getting some repurposed units the police occasionally used to disperse tear gas, then seeing if he could just get them retrofitted to serve their original purpose.
Stakeouts were arranged. Plans were developed. Promises were made. They knew who they needed to visit, and why. And that would have to be enough. The adrenaline was completely gone, the hollow feeling was fading away, and all that remained was a desire for more. Her days, which had for a while seemed painfully empty, now seemed packed. She had things to do, again. She had an enemy to face, a problem to confront, a cult to dismantle. Sure, the Vicky situation was seriously tainting it, but… she could work around that. More than willing to work around some uppity cape if it meant defeating this sort of thing again. Her hands itched for her gun, her muscles ached for more exertion, she had to force her mind to slow down from its frantic calculations. She barely noticed Turk standing to leave until his hand fell heavily on her shoulder. She glanced up from a notepad filled with scribbled ideas. The man looked oddly… mournful, in his own way. No idea why.
"Sleep. You need it."
"Just a bit longer."
"...hm."
A heavy pause, in which his eye bored deep into her. Abruptly, his gaze softened, and a sigh escaped his lips.
"Ahab?"
The pseudo-leper looked up from her drink, eyes faintly unfocused.
"...nah, leave me here."
Everything ground to a halt. Turk grumbled.
"Yeah, leave me. Want to sleep somewhere else. And I need to talk with Taylor."
"I can wait in car."
"We might be a while."
"...hm."
He shot them both worried looks. Again, no clue why. Her memory went back, briefly, to her incredibly awkward birthday celebration. The suggestion that she was getting too into things. Maybe he'd had a point… but that point had very much expired. She had actual, tangible business now, something solid to grapple with. Maybe she could wrestle with the idea of living a peaceful life after the termite situation was handled, but not a second before. The ex-mercenary sighed, and left. The two remaining people in the shop glanced to see the lights of his truck activate, and to hear his engine roar into life. Seconds later, he was gone. And only the two of them remained. Taylor's nose had stopped bleeding, but a few traces of tissue paper lingered around the edges of her nostrils. Her lips felt gummy and thick where blood had caked onto them, a feeling that didn't go away even when she washed her face. Ahab looked down awkwardly at the sight of her bruised face, drumming her fingers idly on the table to try and work out some excess energy. Silence reigned for a long moment… and Taylor felt the need to break it. Ahab looked like shit, and she felt guilty for not keeping her in the loop.
The two needed a chat.
"Hey, Ahab."
A thought occurred.
"You want something to dr-"
She wasn't even able to finish before a suspiciously large bottle of clear liquid was plonked onto the counter. She stared at the label - World Marshal Gin, with a man's grinning face serving as the logo. Huh. Wild. Those guys made gin. She tried to smile at Ahab, who was busy pouring herself a full glass.
"Mind if I borrow some?"
A single singed eyebrow raised up.
"What, were you going to give it back after it's been drunk?"
"...been thinking about getting Turk's bathtub moonshine going again. So, maybe."
A flash of yellow teeth.
"Shit, I can get behind that. Cheers."
The liquor tasted like nothing and everything - too many flavours, and simultaneously none at all, everything suppressed behind a feeling of burning. Her chest filled with warmth, her mind started to slow down for the first time in hours.
"You're really getting into this, hm?"
"...sure, I guess. Something that needs to be done."
"No, this isn't just about you doing a job, you're excited. I can tell. You've got the look about you."
"I have a look?"
Ahab barked out a quick laugh.
"Damn right. It's all in the teeth, you grind them a little when you're excited about things."
"...fine, I'm a little excited. Do I actually grind my teeth?"
"Nah, of course not. Not every emotion has a specific tell - but I can sense that you were planning something. And now you've revealed yourself. Grandpop Alexander was a master strategist, too - I didn't just inherit his good looks."
We have been outwitted by a living septic tank.
"Chorei called you a living septic tank."
Why would you tell her that? She almost chopped my head off, she's clearly deranged!
"Well, tell her that she's dead and I'm not."
You rotten whore.
Taylor politely declined to relay that particular insult… but she got the feeling that Ahab would've enjoyed hearing it. Probably best not to mention that Chorei was occasionally being given control over Taylor's swarm, that might give her the bargaining chips necessary to prevent her constant mockery. Ahab downed her glass quickly, shivering slightly… and she leaned closer. Her breath was foetid and warm, her demeanour desperate and shivering.
"I want in."
Oh dear.
"You want in."
"Yeah. With all of this. Everything you're doing, count me into it."
Taylor sized up Ahab. She was a competent mercenary, a fierce fighter… and she only had one arm. Plus, the outrageous drinking problem. And the depression. The erraticness. Even with something like this, Taylor wasn't sure how useful she could realistically be. And fighting with an invalid at her side would… well, it wouldn't be the easiest thing. Her attention would be constantly split, her enemies would have an obvious target to go for. Vicky had almost turned a fairly bad situation into a downright fucked situation, and she had super strength. Ahab had one arm and a hell of a lot of attitude. The ex-merc's brows were low, her eyes were dark, and her teeth were bared. The anger was back, the kind of long-simmering anger that took in a thousand ingredients over the years, every grievance and slight mulled over until the flavour was too potent for anyone to stomach. In that anger, she could see the fury at her own appearance, her prematurely ended career, and… other things, too deep for Taylor to really understand. Things she'd never talked about with her.
"Don't you fucking pity me, Taylor. I like you, but you're not allowed to pity me. I have one arm, I can still shoot, I can still smash someone's face open. My legs work. My eyes work. My brain works. So what if my arm is in some monster's stomach?"
She paused, and her eyes narrowed.
"...how's your dad?"
Taylor stiffened.
"Fine."
"You know we lived together on that farm for a while? Seemed like a good guy, even if he disliked me for… well, being a bad influence on you. But I felt guilty. Had nothing to do, so I visited my old farm-mate. What do I find? Him stuck in a crowded room, and after a little bit of pushing I find out that you haven't visited in a while. What's up with that?"
"I visit. I just stand outside the hospital, use my swarm to check on him. I don't want to leave a paper trail… they want me to sign some paperwork, but there needs to be a guardian present. A guardian I don't have."
"You visit. Good to know. And now you're just throwing yourself against this problem over and over and over and over until something breaks, because it's easier than dealing with him?"
Taylor's voice became harsher.
"Don't go there."
"What, you don't like being pitied?"
"Just don't go there."
Ahab's eyes were bright.
"You don't like being pitied. I don't like being pitied. You get to go and hunt things to relieve stress and get away from the things you can't control. I get stuck at home while my body rots away. So don't you think for a second about leaving me here, understand?"
Taylor was silent.
"Do you understand?"
Taylor snapped. Ahab shouldn't have brought up her dad.
"Yes, I understand. But maybe you can understand that I don't want to drag you around everywhere. Maybe you can understand that these are things only I can deal with, and that I can't have vulnerabilities running around in the crossfire."
"Vulnerabilities? Is that what you think about me?"
She knew she'd gone too far. But the rage was up in her, a red heat that overpowered everything, even the reasonable cries of Chorei as she tried to get everyone to settle down and talk like sane people.
"Maybe a little."
"Fuck off. Fuck. Off. I don't need your pity, and I'm no-one's vulnerability."
"You have one arm. You have a drinking problem."
"I've had a drinking problem since before we've ever met, never stopped me then, won't stop me now."
"It's gotten worse."
"Maybe that's because I've been sitting around like a useless lump. Maybe if I got to go out there and hunt beside you, things would get better."
"You have one arm."
"Then get me another one."
Everything came to a halt. Ahab looked hungry, and she sipped eagerly at her drink, powering herself up for her next diatribe.
"See, I still have that translation of Chorei's old book. Been giving it a read. And I… well, there's these mentions of limbs getting grafted. And some of the research you did mentions the same thing. So, I guess… well, if you've got the person who wrote that book knocking around in your head, just saying…"
Reality crashed back down.
"No. Definitely not."
"Why?"
"Grafting is dangerous. It's not just attaching a limb, there's… baggage. Chorei and I grafted, and now she lives in my brain. My power and I grafted, somehow, and that caused all kinds of weird things to happen - the thing tried to replace me with Chorei, you know that?"
"You have Chorei in your skull, why not use her? She knows more than you, I'm sure."
I will not be used like some… screwdriver.
"I… I can't."
"Why not. Your objections are about the mind-to-mind stuff, this is just the body. Any risks there?"
"I…"
The grafting is a complex process. Limbs are… well, easy enough, as rites go. But there are hazards to avoid, pitfalls to evade. A living limb can retain some elements of its owner, a dead limb can slowly convert a body into a rotting state similar to a corpse… but these may be evaded with enough skill. I myself have grafted limbs in the past, though we never placed a huge emphasis on it back in Senpou. The Long-Arm Sect was always more invested in that particular miracle of the Grafting Buddha.
Her face stiffened. Chorei was being helpful, delivering all necessary information. And why? Why did she have to? Why couldn't she just shut up, or say that the rite was impossible? Ahab could sense what was happening, could tell through the expression on Taylor's face.
"...she's telling you something. Go on. What's she saying."
When I was a child I lost a few fingers to a wild dog. As a nun I received more injuries - the centipedes are demanding, and mine chose to sever a hand and a few toes before it consented to graft. Finding replacements was something of a priority, as you might imagine. Grafting another person to a new limb would be challenging, but it lies within the realms of possibility. I received new fingers from my old teacher, in fact. The process is entirely achievable.
Taylor didn't want to relay this. She'd grafted a limb before, the weird part-organic, part-mechanical head of Frida. That had been to save her own life, and she'd never forgotten the experience. Never desired to repeat it, either. It wasn't just attaching some advanced prosthetic, grafting involved actually integrating an entire body part into the circulatory and nervous systems, reshaping other elements of the body to accommodate it. It was invasive. She hadn't just had a head attached to her ankle, she had a second head that so happened to be on her ankle. She could feel breath flowing through it, blood pumping in, complex exchange mechanisms making sure it remained healthy and functional… she could even feel parts of it flowing into her, droplets of oil that merged with her blood, ideas of machinery pulsing into her DNA… ripping it off had been the smartest thing she'd done that day. And the sight of her doppelganger in Mound Moor with the dozens of limbs had been enough to dissuade her from any further experiments. She could have found an eye, shoved it in her skull and grafted it, but the idea of letting someone else's eye integrate perfectly into her body was too much for her to stomach.
She tried to explain this, but Ahab wasn't hearing it.
"You're not grafting to yourself, you're grafting to someone else. I wouldn't ask you to do this to yourself."
"But the feeling of it, you-"
"If it's that repulsive, I'll grab my axe and hack it off again, content that we explored this path and found nothing. Might splurge on a prosthetic in that case. Why not give it a go?"
"But don't you understand the risks? Chorei said there could be weird mental influences, physical problems…"
"Could be. Chorei's up there, it's not like I'm dealing with an amateur. I need a new arm to be properly functional, she has the capacity to attach one. Simple as that."
She paused, and her voice became more plaintive.
"...please, I need this. I need to be useful. And if you can help me…"
"I don't even know if I can, and the side-effects-"
"I don't care about the side-effects, because I won't have long to worry about them, will I?!"
Taylor was completely frozen. Even Chorei was silent. The universe seemed to have ground to a halt. Ahab took a deep, shaking breath. Everything about her was exhausted. She regretted saying this, but… like Taylor, she'd evidently committed, and couldn't go back. No matter what, there was no retreating from what she'd said. Only advancement was possible, rush forward and hope there was something better on the other side.
"...I guess I'd need to tell you sooner or later."
"Tell me what."
"I'm not well. I don't know how long I have left. Alive, that is. Doctor's say that whatever's in my veins is killing me, rotting me from the inside out. I've got a few years of physical functionality, then a year of declining mental state until… well, you know. No way of purging it. Even Panacea wouldn't go for it back at the Rig. Just… there, rotting me away, until my heart is black and my brain is sludge. I'll go blind, too. Just to make sure that I can't see what's happening."
Taylor's entire body was numb. Ahab continued, her voice becoming louder and louder, veins popping at the side of her head as she became more furious at herself, at Taylor, at the world in general.
"Now, if I have a choice between dying in my chair back home, one armed and useless, or burning out to help someone I care about… shit, it's not even a choice. I want to help you, I won't take no for an answer. These last few months, I know they've been rough, but I've had a purpose. Something to fight against. Issue is that I keep surviving. So, just… let me help. Please. I need to. It's all I have left."
Her face wasn't crossed by a crooked grin or a reluctant grimace, her eyes weren't bright and eager. She looked very much like a walking corpse, dead-eyed and expressionless. Taylor had no idea how to cope with this. Ahab was dying. The woman had saved her life, and she was dying. Sure, Taylor had suspected there was something wrong with her, but not this. A pulse of regret ran through her - she'd left Ahab behind in Brockton while she went out into America. No wonder she'd been so irritated. Taylor imagined fighting giants with her in Vandeerleuwe, or the bikers before that. She imagined Mouse Protector's first meeting with them if Ahab was around. Journeying through the termite's nest to rescue Parian. Moments that were simply… lost. A finite supply that was smaller than she had imagined. A few years? Taylor wouldn't even be twenty before she…
Taylor grabbed Ahab into a hug. The ex-mercenary stiffened, surprised at the sudden contact… then relaxed. She hugged back, awkwardly. She wasn't very good at hugging, hadn't had much practice lately. Also, only one arm. The two just stood there, hugging over the table, Taylor unwilling to let Ahab go. She clung as tightly as she could, afraid that if she released her, Ahab would just… fall away, spiralling into the dark like Frida's body in the black waters of that lake. She imagined Ahab's last years spent one-armed and drunk inside a dusty house, or laid up in a crowded hospital room where apathetic nurses forced her to cling to life for a few months more… and her resolve crystallised. Her next words were simple, she didn't trust herself to be more eloquent.
"I'll help."
Ahab opened her mouth in anticipation of an objection… then slammed it shut with the rasping click of chipped teeth sliding against one another. She sniffed, drawing back, clearly trying to force a whole mass of emotions back down into her chest.
"Oh."
She shakily smiled, and her voice was small.
"...thank you, Taylor."
"It's fine, just-"
"No, really, Taylor, you have no idea how much that means. I… understand if it's difficult for you, but really. Thank you. You're a good friend."
"It's just fair, given all you've done-"
"Oh, shut up."
Ahab gripped her in a tight one-armed hug. The two were silent, then… and contented themselves with their tea. No alcohol yet - Taylor remembered what Arch had said about the stuff. Drink when you don't need it, avoid it when you do. And she very much needed a drink right now. The tea soothed the senses, calmed the nerves, made her emotions sink back down into her chest where she could work through them in a calmer manner. The tea shop filled with pleasant aromas, and no other customers would come, not now, not with the door locked and the blinds drawn. They had it all to themselves. And Taylor wouldn't have had it any other way.
Taylor fell to the ground, clutching at her nose. Yep, definitely bleeding. Probably needed to pour some alcohol over it, too, Ahab's forehead looked about as clean as the rest of her. Chorei was absolutely silent, too shocked to speak. And the others were… well, doing surprisingly little. Parian squeaked in alarm, Vicky was still processing almost being eaten by a meat packing plant, and inside the shop Turk was doing absolutely nothing. Leaving Taylor to fall to the ground with no-one to pick her up, Ahab's rotting face dominating her view. She looked… furious. And awful. More awful than usual, somehow. She was just starting to fixate on the bizarre growth beneath one of her eyes when the pain from her nose started to actually reach her brain - Chorei worked instinctually, suppressing the pain, leaving her nose nothing more than a numb, bleeding lump on the front of her face, a chunk of ground hamburger that'd adhered to her following her meal. Nothing more. But the taste of copper on her lips was unmistakable, and the sheer fury on Ahab's face kept her anchored to reality. She looked pissed.
"What the fuck were you thinking?"
Taylor had never heard her this angry. Ahab always seemed to swerve between being simply depressed and being the most excitable one in any given situation. It was unnatural to see her face twisted into a deep scowl or her eyes bloodshot with anger. Taylor glared upwards, suppressing her feeling of unease with blank indignation. Ahab didn't wait for a response, just started ranting.
"Oh, so you run off and just go and do shit by yourself, and leave the rest of us to, what, mind the damn shop?"
She slapped at her chest with her single remaining arm.
"Absolute dipshit, you think you're the only one who needs this?!"
Oh.
Oh dear.
Taylor… really hadn't thought about that. Not deliberately, just… by accident really. She'd heard about Parian, decided to get down there as quickly as possible, no time for calling anyone els- no, she could've probably waited for a little bit, or arranged with Ahab to keep her around. But… dammit, no, even if she did think about this, of course she hadn't dragged her along. Ahab wasn't adept at dealing with the sort of thing that inhabited the meat packing plant. Against cultists, she was astounding. Against something like this… no, she would've just been a burden for Taylor to take care of. And with her arm, there was… Taylor looked up at the ex-mercenary, and saw something unnerving in her eyes. Something doom-driven. The look she'd sometimes seen in the Khans, way back during her journey to North Dakota. Too many years they didn't want, didn't need. Too much age, weighing down like tiny weights suspended on hooks driven into their lower eyelids. The bulging growth beneath one of her eyes really didn't help with this impression. Burned-out, not like Arch, more like a… more like a still-blazing car wreck than a dead fire. All retorts died on her lips, stained a cheerful fire-engine red by matter that smelled distinctly like the inside of that abandoned slaughterhouse. Give it a few years. Age it properly. Then it'd have the rusty stink.
"Uh."
And that was Vicky, surprised, but unwilling to intervene - Ahab and Taylor clearly knew each other, and the cape had been through enough today without intervening in some weird spat. Ahab glanced up, took her in, noted the details of her appearance, and spat messily on the ground. The colour of standing water in a dust bowl.
"And you're bringing more strays back - for crying out loud, come on, this is getting ridiculous."
She sighed, wiping a hand across her face. She looked tired, and a little guilty.
"...for fuck's sake, get up. We need to talk."
Taylor complied, wiping her nose off. Ahab strode away, shoving the door to the tea shop open. Everyone else followed, but Vicky paused for a moment before entering.
"You're alright?"
…she was asking if Taylor was alright. Vicky was the one who'd just been exposed to the batshit world that Taylor inhabited, she was the one who should be feeling… ah, nevermind. She shrugged idly. Her nose was numb, a consequence of Chorei's aid, and she'd definitely suffered worse wounds. Little things like this dwindled into nothing when she remembered what else she'd experienced. Metal jaws around her ankle. Burning scissors in her mouth. Even the termites in the car had been worse - a quick check, they were still here. Good. Squirming, whispering quietly. Alive. Excellent.
"I'm fine."
"...if you say so."
And that was all. Seconds later, they were all gathered in the tea shop, surrounding a few pots of something that smelled… strong and green. Everyone was staring suspiciously at one another - with the exception of Ahab, who just looked miserable, and sipped away at something distinctly stronger and less green than the tea before her. Silence reigned for a minute that seemed to stretch away into eternity. Taylor felt oddly peaceful. Adrenaline had passed, and all that remained was the hollow feeling of death evaded, like her body had started to drag itself down into the grave, had decided against it, and was now feeling oddly weightless as it leapt back into the air and sailed into the dark. Hollow as an egg ready to crack under the slightest pressure. It was… good, the same feeling she got after a good workout. Better than alcohol. Better than any exercise. Better than most things, to be perfectly honest. And it was this knowledge that made her feel guilty whenever she looked at Ahab. Vicky snapped under the pressure of waiting, attracting attention to herself by slamming her hands down on the table. She was restraining herself, at least… but there was still a definite dent left behind. Turk grumbled at the sight.
"Alright, so if no-one else is going to ask - what the fuck just happened?"
And here we go.
Parian raised her hand slightly.
"I… would actually be pretty interested too."
Taylor sighed as she stuffed a small amount of tissue up her still-bleeding nose. Her voice was nasal and reedy as a consequence.
"...it's nothing. Just a leftover from the Conflagration."
Vicky's eyes sharpened to needlepoints. Good. Distracted.
"What."
"...think of that place, and these things, as bottom feeders. They're just here to pick over some remains. I'll take care of it."
"I… wait, you still haven't explained what they are, exactly."
She's sharp. Clearly wants to talk about the Conflagration and its consequences, but is keen enough to know when you're distracting her. Hm. Tread carefully.
"...think of it like this. If there are parahumans, people that can just use powers who showed up one day, is it really surprising that there's other weird things out there? Like, say, termites which breed inside buildings and show up after big disasters?"
Vicky blinked, and took a deep breath, trying to keep herself calm.
"That raises a lot of questions, you understand?"
"I'm aware."
"Are you going to answer any of them?"
"It wouldn't help you."
She was being honest there. Explaining the quinotaur stuff, the archaeological traces, the whole situation with Bisha… it would just overwhelm her. If there was one thing she was eager to do, it was keep her blinkered. These things were small fry, in the grand scheme of things. Small enough that she likely wouldn't get her mind burned out by them.
"Wait, wait… so, termites, they somehow know how to alter buildings, and they were inside that… bull thing, and that's it? That's the explanation? They 'just kinda happen sometimes'?"
"I specified when they happen."
"Yeah, 'after big disasters' - why, why would that have any bearing on things, why would they emerge for that reason, what are they, you can't just say 'oh, parahumans are a thing, why not anything else', because parahumans actually obey laws, there's a field of study for them, do you just think that no-one else has actually found out about…"
She took another deep breath.
"I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to distract me. It won't work. Now tell me exactly what these things are, or…"
Parian spoke up, voice quiet, hands shaking very slightly.
"...I just encountered them a week ago. I don't really understand them, but… they feed on things which are incomplete."
"...what?"
"I don't get it. But they do, they just… look, when I thought about them like something a parahuman would make, I found nothing. They made no sense. But when I started thinking about them as… well, like something out of a fairy tale, then it started to click."
"So you're saying to abandon all logic, then."
Turk grumbled, entering into the conversation with the delicate ease of a substantially sized Russian cyclops trying to explain the inexplicable. So, about as delicate as can be expected.
"Don't bother with what they are."
He paused as all eyes turned to him.
"Bother with how to kill them, hm?"
Ahab grinned slightly, but her eyes remained sad.
"Yeah, that's the way to do it. Trust me, uh… sorry, what was your name?"
"Vicky."
"Oh, shit, Glory Girl. Wild. Anyway, I'm Ahab. Nice to meet you."
"...uh."
"Anyway. I've seen shit that'll turn you white, and I understand none of it. Hasn't hurt me at all."
Vicky looked pointedly at her stump. Ahab growled.
"That was from one of those freaks that got churned out during the Conflagration. Teeth. Jaws. Normal shit. I don't get what made those teeth and jaws, and honestly, I'm pretty chill with that fact. I don't know how tanks work, but I've helped blow up enough of them."
She tilted her head to one side, filthy hair falling like a putrid curtain.
"What, you didn't play with Lego when you were younger?"
A pause.
"...every instinct is telling me that that explanation is bullshit and I shouldn't be accepting it. Literally every instinct."
Taylor mumbled around a cup of tea.
"Yeah, well, it's the best you're getting."
"Fine. I'll ask more later. But for now - what are they doing? And how can they be stopped?"
Her face was hard as stone. She looked utterly professional.
"If anyone else had walked into that plant, they wouldn't have come out alive. So, how do we get rid of them? You seem to know everything, and if you're not willing to explain the entire situation, you can at least tell me that much."
Taylor blinked. That was… a surprise. A pleasant surprise, definitely. She'd been downright worried that Vicky would start flying around throwing things at people until she started getting some straight answers. And if Taylor had learned one thing from the last few months, it was that Turk and Ahab's method for this shit was definitely better than hers. These forces swallowed up research and gave nothing back in return. Understanding required experience, and experience demanded losing a part of oneself. Taylor understood things like the Grafting Buddha, but that had come at a heavy cost - she shared her mind with someone else, and she couldn't help but look at people differently now that she knew how a human mind looked, and how easily it could be subsumed into another. The world felt different after the things she'd experienced, and it was something that could never be rolled back. Turk, on the other hand, had seen a healthy amount of this shit and had come away looking basically the same. Taylor could wrestle with the dissolution of her mind, Turk just shot shit and went home to drink moonshine.
Turk's route didn't seem to lead to people getting their mind burned out.
Turk's route wouldn't have led to Gallant dead, staring unblinking into the rain.
Snap back to reality. Vicky was still expectant. She was a hero, and she wanted to help - understanding could come later. There was something desperate in her, though - something in her eyes. Reminded her too much of Ahab. Of herself. The same urge to do something rather than sit around watching the world spin onwards.
"...right, sure. But a few ground rules before we do anything."
"Ground rules?"
"You followed me, you dove into that building yourself and almost got both of us killed. I'm tempted to just kick you out, not like anyone will actually believe you."
"The PRT would still investigate you if I told them about this. All of you."
Time to bluff. Taylor couldn't afford another run-in with the PRT. They'd already accosted her once, a second arrest would make the wheels of bureaucracy grind into motion once the great mechanical eye of the state was directed onto her. Putting her into the foster system. Investigating the loss of her eye, the presence of her scars, tracking her journey across the USA. Connecting her to Vandeerleuwe, to the Khans, to Mound Moor... Maybe even finding out about her powers, and press-ganging her into the Wards unless she wanted to just get pawned off on some random family at the other end of the country, monitored to make sure she didn't run away. Too many disasters to count, and she couldn't afford a single one. Vicky could ruin everything if she so chose.
"And what would they find?"
Her gaze was bold, her expression was firm. Vicky blinked, the wind taken a little out of her sails. Not used to having the PRT so utterly ignored. Her swarm was expressing all her nervousness, and Chorei was providing a constant murmur of advice, and Taylor even allowed her a little control over her face and hands - the nun had an excellent poker face.
"Exactly. You've got no evidence of anything happening, just your word. By the time the PRT figured out even a fraction of what's going on, those termites will be long gone. And the person who made them."
Vicky turned to glare at Turk, the oldest one in the room.
"Is she just ordering you guys around?"
"Да."
"So she gets to set the ground rules? None of you are going to say anything?"
Ahab shrugged.
"Hasn't let us down thus far. Mostly. Sorry about the, uh…"
Taylor waved her off. Turk was silent, but grumbled in agreement with Ahab. Parian was just staring into her tea with an expression usually reserved for shell-shocked veterans. Taylor felt a small burst of guilt - shouldn't be involved in this, but she couldn't exactly tell her to piss off after coming all this way. The important thing was presenting a united front, even if that involved keeping Parian around. Make things seem organised, professional.
Vicky scowled, and Taylor could smell victory in the air.
"First. You do what I say, when I say it. No backtalk, no hesitation, just do it. I don't work with people who can't follow orders."
"Jawohl."
"Shut up. Second, no-one else gets brought into this. I know you have a family of capes behind you - do not mention any of this to them. If you do, we're done."
"They could help."
"They could also die, or suffer fates worse than death. If you want that on your hands, go ahead. If you don't, then shut up and listen."
"Anything else? Would you like me to write this down?"
"Third. We do everything quietly. No flashy costumes. No showboating. And don't think like a cape when you fight these things. It won't work."
Mouse Protector had tried. And while she was still alive, she'd clearly changed a little. No idea where she was at the moment, but… well, Chorei had said something about another force, something called the Fool's Razor. And Taylor really wanted to minimise the amount of weird forces intruding into affairs, and especially the amount of weird shit getting into Vicky or Parian's heads.
Chorei hummed happily inside Taylor's head, clearly pleased at how she was taking charge. If she allowed Vicky to get a second word in, she'd just cause issues. The two had grafted very briefly, but from that contact she'd determined one very, very important little trait in the cape. It was hard to detect - but there was a structure to her thoughts. An orderliness that honestly reminded her a little of Sanagi. The same willingness to be a cog in a system, to be part of something bigger. A trust in institutions which Taylor personally lacked. She couldn't relate to the impulse, but… she could definitely exploit it. By presenting herself as a singular authority figure, by making it clear that she was in charge and that her group was united behind her, she turned this from a loose gang of vigilantes fighting something incomprehensible into a group of professionals who knew exactly what they were dealing with, and were willing to give a certain cape a small internship. Unpaid, naturally. And unsuitable for any future job applications. But still - Vicky as an equal partner here sounded awful. Vicky as a subordinate sounded workable, if not entirely pleasant.
Vicky floated upwards slightly, glaring fiercely.
"If you're going to play it that way, I have some ground rules of my own. First, you tell me everything you know about the Conflagration and this whole… termite stuff. Understood?"
"I'll tell you what's relevant."
"You don't get to judge that."
Parian looked up, exhausted. Her voice was oddly stiff and scratchy, like she'd been yelling at the top of her lungs until recently.
"Look, I've not been involved with these people for long, but… you don't want to know about half this stuff."
Vicky clearly disagreed. The others joined in on Parian's side. Turk rumbled, then Ahab rasped, and finally Taylor raised her eyebrows meaningfully.
"You do not want to know. Know too much, your skull explodes. True story."
"Yeah, friend of mine knew a little too much, now he's hunched in a farm going completely insane. Also he sweats too much. I, by contrast, just drink. Much healthier."
Vicky seemed to know when a battle was lost - no way of getting out information without actually pummelling them half to death. Taylor braced her swarm just in case, and she could sense Turk and Ahab making ready in their own way. If Vicky tried any funny business, she'd get drowned in bugs, punched in the face by an unnaturally strong scarred hand, possibly flamethrower'd, and… well, she wasn't sure about Ahab, but it was presumably unsanitary.
"...tell me about the Conflagration, then. You said these things are connected. Well, how. Go on, tell me, or I'll… fuck it, I'll take my chances with the PRT."
She was lying. For whatever reason, she was reluctant to talk to the PRT. Hm. Well, that was one thing uniting them. Taylor exchanged glances with the others. They had enough tact to know that bringing up Gallant was a bad, bad move - things were delicate enough already. And his body had been left next to Bisha's, which meant claiming him as a kill would be equally unwise. Even an idiot would be able to make the leap from 'they killed Bisha' to 'they were involved with Gallant's death'. And Vicky, while impulsive, reckless, and far too much of a meddler for anyone's comfort, was most certainly not a complete idiot. Half-idiot, possibly. Quarter-idiot, minimum. But full-idiot, not a chance in hell.
"...we helped end parts of it."
"How?"
"There was… a guy in charge. We didn't fight him, but we found out part of what he was planning and put a stop to it."
"How."
"Bombs."
Vicky froze.
"...you were involved with those buildings?"
"Most of them. Repurposed some of the tinkertech bombs that were lying around the city, hooked them up to the foundation, levelled them."
"Explain. And fully, I don't want to keep poking you for answers."
Turk rumbled to life, his low voice and military bearing giving him a certain level of credence that Taylor lacked. She'd pretended to be a tea shop waitress. Turk, on the other hand, seemed… honest. Doubtful that he could hide much of anything - at least to someone who'd just met him. He was too solid to be duplicitous.
"The man in charge was infesting bodies. Wanted to use them as sacrifices. They were already dead - we put them out of their misery, disrupted his operation."
"But you didn't kill him?"
"Not personally."
Parian spoke up again.
"I… saw him too, just before everything… went to hell. He was bad. Really bad. Like… that plant was terrible, don't get me wrong, but this guy was worse. I met him. Once. Then I spent the next few weeks locked in my apartment, glueing measuring tapes to the walls and refusing to go outside under any circumstances. Still have nightmares."
Vicky glanced around, once again witnessing a wall that was aligned against her, reluctant to give up any information. She had more questions. And Taylor, largely, was content with answering them… if it wasn't for Gallant, she'd answer all of them. The girl struggled to find some new words, some new angles to probe… and Taylor could see a hint of desperation in her eyes. A knot of guilt twisted in her stomach. She felt dirty, deceiving her like this. But… it was for the best. If Gallant was still around, she imagined that he'd want his girlfriend to stay the hell away from this kind of thing. And the last thing she wanted was another death on her hands.
"...at least tell me about the guy who started it. Ordeal."
Taylor took a deep breath.
"Not called Ordeal. His name was Bisha, and he was… cruel. Very cruel. Most of his cult is gone now, but… it was bad."
"How bad."
Ahab gestured with her stump.
"One of his boys bit off my arm."
Taylor nodded, and gestured to her own eye.
"And this thing didn't just fall out on its own."
Vicky's eyes widened.
"Uh."
"Him, or his people, also… pulled some of my teeth out, put nails through my collarbones, broke my knee, and almost snipped out my tongue. Not to mention all the burns. Oh, and he personally put a drill into my skull."
"...what."
"I got better."
"Sorry, you survived all of that?"
"Mostly."
"And now you're dealing with his leftovers."
"More or less."
"Why? Why would you..."
Taylor blinked. She'd... not really thought about it as an option.
"Just something I have to do."
An expression somewhat resembling respect washed over Vicky's face. Ah. That made sense. Of course she'd be content working beside someone who had given themselves to the fight against the inhumane and the inhuman.
"...don't think I'm done. But tell me about these termite things. More importantly, tell me when we're going out to squish a few."
"...I'll need to do some more research before we move again."
"We know where they are."
"They're leaving the meat packing plant, as I understand it. Trying to get out of town, possibly. But I should be able to find somewhere else they're heading, if I have some time."
"Do you know what they're planning?"
"Feeding on the remnants of the group that started the Conflagration."
Vicky's hands clenched into fists.
"Some of them survived."
"Some. Not many. Probably only a very, very small number - they're feeding on people who were affected by the Conflagration as well. Sa… this one was dragged into their nest for that reason."
"And that's it? Feeding?"
"They're simple."
"And how do you know all this?"
"I spoke to the one shepherding them. If you see a guy with… alright, brown corduroy jacket, straggling beard, messy, uncut dark hair, serious burns around his face, skin looks like it's moving, if you see anyone matching that description, call me."
"I can help look for him. I know how to-"
"I have my own contacts. Let me work, I'll get back to you."
"And until then?"
"Stay put."
"Stay put? That's it? Everything that just happened in there, and you're telling me to stay put. I just got nearly eaten by a damn building, and you're telling me to sit on my thumbs until you say I can move, I mean, what gives you the…"
Vicky trailed off. Taylor didn't reply. She just stared. Everything that needed to be said here had already been stated, and Vicky knew it. The silence allowed her to stew in her own thoughts, to come to the right conclusions, and… there. She sagged dejectedly.
"...this makes no sense."
Turk nodded wisely.
"This is correct. Tea?"
"I'm good."
"Moonshine?"
"...I'm good."
"Oh."
A long pause.
"Whiskey?"
"It's barely the afternoon."
"Of course. Beer."
"I'm seventeen."
He calmly placed down a substantially sized packet of biscuits. Vicky glared angrily at them… before quietly munching on a small handful withdrawn with faintly alarming speed. Taylor sagged into a chair and tried to get herself back under control. She just needed a second, that was all. Her mind whirled with possibilities. Vicky was handled, at least for now. A crisis had been averted. For a second it had been touch and go, but… well, she'd been overwhelmed with impossibilities and was willing to work with the only people who could explain and handle those impossibilities. Angles needed to be investigated. The leader of the cult seemed like he'd be going to ground for a while, keep away from her at all costs. But… something was wrong about what he'd said. He'd been dismantling those totems, scrapping it all, and yet the entire building had still rebelled. That didn't feel much like a dismantling to her. And if she kept an eye on the place, it seemed unlikely that he'd be coming back. So they had a place with a guaranteed connection to his group. They were clearly disassembling them for a reason, and clearly needed to show up in person, couldn't just will them to cease, or dismantle them from the termite nest which lay behind and beside the world.
Could be a vulnerability.
But it raised more questions. The place had some pre-existing sympathy with these termites, the man had said that they'd been around before, they'd simply woken up to welcome him after the Conflagration came to an end. And there was something about that place, something… in the ambiguities she'd seen covering an absolute void, there'd been boxes of meat, each one burning with strange fire, pulsing with eerie fruit. Something else had happened there. Something had welcomed the termites in, and they'd been dormant ever since, waking up only when new meals presented themselves. Maybe if she could find out what had welcomed them, she could find… well, something. Information, presumably. Something more, ideally. The pair of fleshy insects squirmed inside their small plastic prison, whispering to one another in voices too small for anyone outside the container to really understand. She had test subjects. Good.
Vicky was munching angrily away, Parian was staring downwards… ideally, neither would be involved. She had one idea for keeping Vicky occupied without exposing her to additional danger. A few stakeouts around some likely locations. The termites and their leader seemed likely to be in hiding, so there was little possibility of an actual encounter. Especially if he knew that Vicky was working with Taylor and could call her in at a moment's notice. The silence was abruptly broken by the cape laughing, a faint, desperate laugh that she'd heard far too often to be surprised by. Seemed like everyone who was exposed to her side of things developed that dry-as-dust laugh. Fantastic, she was already halfway to a full mental breakdown.
"...I just wanted some tea. This was my day off, I just… wanted a place to relax."
Taylor grimaced.
"If it's any consolation, I've been thinking exactly the same thing all day."
"Somehow I'm not too broken up about that."
"Hm."
"...actually, sorry, what's your name?"
She looked pointedly at a certain Russian cyclops.
"Turk."
"...so how do you guys…"
"She wanted tea. Things spiralled from there."
Vicky looked at the pungent green cup with a faint air of suspicion. Tea, it seemed, was a gateway to the impossible and incomprehensible. If Turk had been more of a coffee person, perhaps none of this would have happened the same way. Eh. Who knew.
Taylor's side ached, and Turk noticed her wincing - he calmly set to work with a needle and thread, disinfecting her wound, sewing up her side. It was deep, but… she was frustrated at how she was incapable of sealing it up like she'd done with worse wounds in the past. She'd put her skull back together, the jagged outline from the replaced shard was still visible in the right light. But now… without her charm, she couldn't do it. Just couldn't hack into the same force. The loss of one of her best tools frustrated her - and she was momentarily convinced that the best course of action was to drive right back to the New Canyon, dive into the mud and emerge with a new token. But in her heart of hearts she knew that would probably just kill her. The last time she'd had a distinct, worthy rival in mind. This time… she had a hippy who was more terrified of her than she was of him. Not a rival. Not the kind the canyon would recognise.
Another lead to follow up on, then.
God, she felt like an underworked dog walker.
Because she was at her happiest with a whole mass of leads in her grasp.
* * *
Time wore on. Vicky was clearly reluctant to leave, but leave she did - flying into the distance with a sour expression on her face. Crisis averted… but Taylor was still going to pack a bug out bag, just in case she needed to make a quick getaway. Chorei mumbled quietly as the cape left.
There is a nearby access point to the sewers, I have some supplies stored there.
Taylor blinked.
How do you Americans put it? Ah, this is not my first… hm, rodeo. Yes, that was the word. I always kept things ready for a quick escape - indeed, that was what I intended to do the night you… well.
Good to know. Parian was next to depart, looking like she'd run a marathon - dark circles under her eyes, and a general air of weariness. As she made for the door, though, Taylor took her aside into a side room, and gave her a look.
"You look like shit."
"...is it that obvious?"
"Yeah. Thanks for calling me about that plant, but… stay at a distance. Don't get involved."
"...I still need to find my friend."
"Go nuts. But stay out of this. You're not built for it."
"Not long ago I would've told you to fuck off for saying that."
"And now?"
"I don't really know. I…"
She shivered.
"I'll… try to stay out of things. But I'll keep in touch. Just so…"
She trailed off. Just so Taylor would know if she'd gone missing, if she was trapped in another nest. Didn't seem likely. The cult here was unwilling to engage with Taylor if they didn't have to, and Parian was pretty clearly tied up with her little operation. Still, no point taking unnecessary risks.
"Good. And… thanks. Again. I was struggling to find leads, that meat plant was…"
She paused.
"...how did you know to go there? Just out of interest."
Parian shrugged.
"I… don't really know, honestly. I knew my friend used to spend time in that part of town, so… I just went."
"This is going to sound weird, but has anything been going on with your TV?"
"My TV?"
"Yeah, anything… I don't know, just wondering what gave you the inspiration to head to that part of town today, of all times."
"...nothing I can think of, sorry. But I guess… I just woke up thinking that I should get on with this, you know? Like, some days I wake up and I can barely get out of bed, but today was just… I woke up, and I knew I should get to work on this now, I shouldn't just sit around thinking or planning. So I packed my bag and left, got a taxi up, that was it."
"You just woke up that way."
"Guess so. Sorry I can't be more help."
"...no, no, that's fine. Safe journey."
"You too."
She blinked as she realised what she'd said, and glanced to the staircase which led to Taylor's room.
"...just realised how stupid that sounded."
"I'll try not to slip and fall."
A rare smile from both of them. And that was all. The tea shop was deserted save for Turk and Ahab. It wasn't evening quite yet, but it was definitely wearing into the late afternoon. Nonetheless the door remained locked to customers. Things needed to be talked about. Plans needed to be made. Turk was, as per usual, calm and understanding. He suggested that he could remain closer to the shop, take over more shifts. If only to stop Taylor's excursions from driving his business into the ground, of course. If she made a habit of running off at weird hours of the day, he'd probably lose all his regulars. And that was simply unacceptable. There was little in the way of specialist equipment he could reliably bring in. Guns they already had in abundant quantities, ammunition too. Bombs were pointless to obtain when they had a bomb tinker sitting around in a protein farm nearby. Flamethrowers were hard to get hold of. Good flamethrowers were very hard to get hold of. The PRT had a monopoly on almost all of the things, the ones easiest to obtain were incredibly dated and prone to malfunctioning. Which, for a flamethrower, was generally considered a Bad Thing. But he promised to look into getting some repurposed units the police occasionally used to disperse tear gas, then seeing if he could just get them retrofitted to serve their original purpose.
Stakeouts were arranged. Plans were developed. Promises were made. They knew who they needed to visit, and why. And that would have to be enough. The adrenaline was completely gone, the hollow feeling was fading away, and all that remained was a desire for more. Her days, which had for a while seemed painfully empty, now seemed packed. She had things to do, again. She had an enemy to face, a problem to confront, a cult to dismantle. Sure, the Vicky situation was seriously tainting it, but… she could work around that. More than willing to work around some uppity cape if it meant defeating this sort of thing again. Her hands itched for her gun, her muscles ached for more exertion, she had to force her mind to slow down from its frantic calculations. She barely noticed Turk standing to leave until his hand fell heavily on her shoulder. She glanced up from a notepad filled with scribbled ideas. The man looked oddly… mournful, in his own way. No idea why.
"Sleep. You need it."
"Just a bit longer."
"...hm."
A heavy pause, in which his eye bored deep into her. Abruptly, his gaze softened, and a sigh escaped his lips.
"Ahab?"
The pseudo-leper looked up from her drink, eyes faintly unfocused.
"...nah, leave me here."
Everything ground to a halt. Turk grumbled.
"Yeah, leave me. Want to sleep somewhere else. And I need to talk with Taylor."
"I can wait in car."
"We might be a while."
"...hm."
He shot them both worried looks. Again, no clue why. Her memory went back, briefly, to her incredibly awkward birthday celebration. The suggestion that she was getting too into things. Maybe he'd had a point… but that point had very much expired. She had actual, tangible business now, something solid to grapple with. Maybe she could wrestle with the idea of living a peaceful life after the termite situation was handled, but not a second before. The ex-mercenary sighed, and left. The two remaining people in the shop glanced to see the lights of his truck activate, and to hear his engine roar into life. Seconds later, he was gone. And only the two of them remained. Taylor's nose had stopped bleeding, but a few traces of tissue paper lingered around the edges of her nostrils. Her lips felt gummy and thick where blood had caked onto them, a feeling that didn't go away even when she washed her face. Ahab looked down awkwardly at the sight of her bruised face, drumming her fingers idly on the table to try and work out some excess energy. Silence reigned for a long moment… and Taylor felt the need to break it. Ahab looked like shit, and she felt guilty for not keeping her in the loop.
The two needed a chat.
"Hey, Ahab."
A thought occurred.
"You want something to dr-"
She wasn't even able to finish before a suspiciously large bottle of clear liquid was plonked onto the counter. She stared at the label - World Marshal Gin, with a man's grinning face serving as the logo. Huh. Wild. Those guys made gin. She tried to smile at Ahab, who was busy pouring herself a full glass.
"Mind if I borrow some?"
A single singed eyebrow raised up.
"What, were you going to give it back after it's been drunk?"
"...been thinking about getting Turk's bathtub moonshine going again. So, maybe."
A flash of yellow teeth.
"Shit, I can get behind that. Cheers."
The liquor tasted like nothing and everything - too many flavours, and simultaneously none at all, everything suppressed behind a feeling of burning. Her chest filled with warmth, her mind started to slow down for the first time in hours.
"You're really getting into this, hm?"
"...sure, I guess. Something that needs to be done."
"No, this isn't just about you doing a job, you're excited. I can tell. You've got the look about you."
"I have a look?"
Ahab barked out a quick laugh.
"Damn right. It's all in the teeth, you grind them a little when you're excited about things."
"...fine, I'm a little excited. Do I actually grind my teeth?"
"Nah, of course not. Not every emotion has a specific tell - but I can sense that you were planning something. And now you've revealed yourself. Grandpop Alexander was a master strategist, too - I didn't just inherit his good looks."
We have been outwitted by a living septic tank.
"Chorei called you a living septic tank."
Why would you tell her that? She almost chopped my head off, she's clearly deranged!
"Well, tell her that she's dead and I'm not."
You rotten whore.
Taylor politely declined to relay that particular insult… but she got the feeling that Ahab would've enjoyed hearing it. Probably best not to mention that Chorei was occasionally being given control over Taylor's swarm, that might give her the bargaining chips necessary to prevent her constant mockery. Ahab downed her glass quickly, shivering slightly… and she leaned closer. Her breath was foetid and warm, her demeanour desperate and shivering.
"I want in."
Oh dear.
"You want in."
"Yeah. With all of this. Everything you're doing, count me into it."
Taylor sized up Ahab. She was a competent mercenary, a fierce fighter… and she only had one arm. Plus, the outrageous drinking problem. And the depression. The erraticness. Even with something like this, Taylor wasn't sure how useful she could realistically be. And fighting with an invalid at her side would… well, it wouldn't be the easiest thing. Her attention would be constantly split, her enemies would have an obvious target to go for. Vicky had almost turned a fairly bad situation into a downright fucked situation, and she had super strength. Ahab had one arm and a hell of a lot of attitude. The ex-merc's brows were low, her eyes were dark, and her teeth were bared. The anger was back, the kind of long-simmering anger that took in a thousand ingredients over the years, every grievance and slight mulled over until the flavour was too potent for anyone to stomach. In that anger, she could see the fury at her own appearance, her prematurely ended career, and… other things, too deep for Taylor to really understand. Things she'd never talked about with her.
"Don't you fucking pity me, Taylor. I like you, but you're not allowed to pity me. I have one arm, I can still shoot, I can still smash someone's face open. My legs work. My eyes work. My brain works. So what if my arm is in some monster's stomach?"
She paused, and her eyes narrowed.
"...how's your dad?"
Taylor stiffened.
"Fine."
"You know we lived together on that farm for a while? Seemed like a good guy, even if he disliked me for… well, being a bad influence on you. But I felt guilty. Had nothing to do, so I visited my old farm-mate. What do I find? Him stuck in a crowded room, and after a little bit of pushing I find out that you haven't visited in a while. What's up with that?"
"I visit. I just stand outside the hospital, use my swarm to check on him. I don't want to leave a paper trail… they want me to sign some paperwork, but there needs to be a guardian present. A guardian I don't have."
"You visit. Good to know. And now you're just throwing yourself against this problem over and over and over and over until something breaks, because it's easier than dealing with him?"
Taylor's voice became harsher.
"Don't go there."
"What, you don't like being pitied?"
"Just don't go there."
Ahab's eyes were bright.
"You don't like being pitied. I don't like being pitied. You get to go and hunt things to relieve stress and get away from the things you can't control. I get stuck at home while my body rots away. So don't you think for a second about leaving me here, understand?"
Taylor was silent.
"Do you understand?"
Taylor snapped. Ahab shouldn't have brought up her dad.
"Yes, I understand. But maybe you can understand that I don't want to drag you around everywhere. Maybe you can understand that these are things only I can deal with, and that I can't have vulnerabilities running around in the crossfire."
"Vulnerabilities? Is that what you think about me?"
She knew she'd gone too far. But the rage was up in her, a red heat that overpowered everything, even the reasonable cries of Chorei as she tried to get everyone to settle down and talk like sane people.
"Maybe a little."
"Fuck off. Fuck. Off. I don't need your pity, and I'm no-one's vulnerability."
"You have one arm. You have a drinking problem."
"I've had a drinking problem since before we've ever met, never stopped me then, won't stop me now."
"It's gotten worse."
"Maybe that's because I've been sitting around like a useless lump. Maybe if I got to go out there and hunt beside you, things would get better."
"You have one arm."
"Then get me another one."
Everything came to a halt. Ahab looked hungry, and she sipped eagerly at her drink, powering herself up for her next diatribe.
"See, I still have that translation of Chorei's old book. Been giving it a read. And I… well, there's these mentions of limbs getting grafted. And some of the research you did mentions the same thing. So, I guess… well, if you've got the person who wrote that book knocking around in your head, just saying…"
Reality crashed back down.
"No. Definitely not."
"Why?"
"Grafting is dangerous. It's not just attaching a limb, there's… baggage. Chorei and I grafted, and now she lives in my brain. My power and I grafted, somehow, and that caused all kinds of weird things to happen - the thing tried to replace me with Chorei, you know that?"
"You have Chorei in your skull, why not use her? She knows more than you, I'm sure."
I will not be used like some… screwdriver.
"I… I can't."
"Why not. Your objections are about the mind-to-mind stuff, this is just the body. Any risks there?"
"I…"
The grafting is a complex process. Limbs are… well, easy enough, as rites go. But there are hazards to avoid, pitfalls to evade. A living limb can retain some elements of its owner, a dead limb can slowly convert a body into a rotting state similar to a corpse… but these may be evaded with enough skill. I myself have grafted limbs in the past, though we never placed a huge emphasis on it back in Senpou. The Long-Arm Sect was always more invested in that particular miracle of the Grafting Buddha.
Her face stiffened. Chorei was being helpful, delivering all necessary information. And why? Why did she have to? Why couldn't she just shut up, or say that the rite was impossible? Ahab could sense what was happening, could tell through the expression on Taylor's face.
"...she's telling you something. Go on. What's she saying."
When I was a child I lost a few fingers to a wild dog. As a nun I received more injuries - the centipedes are demanding, and mine chose to sever a hand and a few toes before it consented to graft. Finding replacements was something of a priority, as you might imagine. Grafting another person to a new limb would be challenging, but it lies within the realms of possibility. I received new fingers from my old teacher, in fact. The process is entirely achievable.
Taylor didn't want to relay this. She'd grafted a limb before, the weird part-organic, part-mechanical head of Frida. That had been to save her own life, and she'd never forgotten the experience. Never desired to repeat it, either. It wasn't just attaching some advanced prosthetic, grafting involved actually integrating an entire body part into the circulatory and nervous systems, reshaping other elements of the body to accommodate it. It was invasive. She hadn't just had a head attached to her ankle, she had a second head that so happened to be on her ankle. She could feel breath flowing through it, blood pumping in, complex exchange mechanisms making sure it remained healthy and functional… she could even feel parts of it flowing into her, droplets of oil that merged with her blood, ideas of machinery pulsing into her DNA… ripping it off had been the smartest thing she'd done that day. And the sight of her doppelganger in Mound Moor with the dozens of limbs had been enough to dissuade her from any further experiments. She could have found an eye, shoved it in her skull and grafted it, but the idea of letting someone else's eye integrate perfectly into her body was too much for her to stomach.
She tried to explain this, but Ahab wasn't hearing it.
"You're not grafting to yourself, you're grafting to someone else. I wouldn't ask you to do this to yourself."
"But the feeling of it, you-"
"If it's that repulsive, I'll grab my axe and hack it off again, content that we explored this path and found nothing. Might splurge on a prosthetic in that case. Why not give it a go?"
"But don't you understand the risks? Chorei said there could be weird mental influences, physical problems…"
"Could be. Chorei's up there, it's not like I'm dealing with an amateur. I need a new arm to be properly functional, she has the capacity to attach one. Simple as that."
She paused, and her voice became more plaintive.
"...please, I need this. I need to be useful. And if you can help me…"
"I don't even know if I can, and the side-effects-"
"I don't care about the side-effects, because I won't have long to worry about them, will I?!"
Taylor was completely frozen. Even Chorei was silent. The universe seemed to have ground to a halt. Ahab took a deep, shaking breath. Everything about her was exhausted. She regretted saying this, but… like Taylor, she'd evidently committed, and couldn't go back. No matter what, there was no retreating from what she'd said. Only advancement was possible, rush forward and hope there was something better on the other side.
"...I guess I'd need to tell you sooner or later."
"Tell me what."
"I'm not well. I don't know how long I have left. Alive, that is. Doctor's say that whatever's in my veins is killing me, rotting me from the inside out. I've got a few years of physical functionality, then a year of declining mental state until… well, you know. No way of purging it. Even Panacea wouldn't go for it back at the Rig. Just… there, rotting me away, until my heart is black and my brain is sludge. I'll go blind, too. Just to make sure that I can't see what's happening."
Taylor's entire body was numb. Ahab continued, her voice becoming louder and louder, veins popping at the side of her head as she became more furious at herself, at Taylor, at the world in general.
"Now, if I have a choice between dying in my chair back home, one armed and useless, or burning out to help someone I care about… shit, it's not even a choice. I want to help you, I won't take no for an answer. These last few months, I know they've been rough, but I've had a purpose. Something to fight against. Issue is that I keep surviving. So, just… let me help. Please. I need to. It's all I have left."
Her face wasn't crossed by a crooked grin or a reluctant grimace, her eyes weren't bright and eager. She looked very much like a walking corpse, dead-eyed and expressionless. Taylor had no idea how to cope with this. Ahab was dying. The woman had saved her life, and she was dying. Sure, Taylor had suspected there was something wrong with her, but not this. A pulse of regret ran through her - she'd left Ahab behind in Brockton while she went out into America. No wonder she'd been so irritated. Taylor imagined fighting giants with her in Vandeerleuwe, or the bikers before that. She imagined Mouse Protector's first meeting with them if Ahab was around. Journeying through the termite's nest to rescue Parian. Moments that were simply… lost. A finite supply that was smaller than she had imagined. A few years? Taylor wouldn't even be twenty before she…
Taylor grabbed Ahab into a hug. The ex-mercenary stiffened, surprised at the sudden contact… then relaxed. She hugged back, awkwardly. She wasn't very good at hugging, hadn't had much practice lately. Also, only one arm. The two just stood there, hugging over the table, Taylor unwilling to let Ahab go. She clung as tightly as she could, afraid that if she released her, Ahab would just… fall away, spiralling into the dark like Frida's body in the black waters of that lake. She imagined Ahab's last years spent one-armed and drunk inside a dusty house, or laid up in a crowded hospital room where apathetic nurses forced her to cling to life for a few months more… and her resolve crystallised. Her next words were simple, she didn't trust herself to be more eloquent.
"I'll help."
Ahab opened her mouth in anticipation of an objection… then slammed it shut with the rasping click of chipped teeth sliding against one another. She sniffed, drawing back, clearly trying to force a whole mass of emotions back down into her chest.
"Oh."
She shakily smiled, and her voice was small.
"...thank you, Taylor."
"It's fine, just-"
"No, really, Taylor, you have no idea how much that means. I… understand if it's difficult for you, but really. Thank you. You're a good friend."
"It's just fair, given all you've done-"
"Oh, shut up."
Ahab gripped her in a tight one-armed hug. The two were silent, then… and contented themselves with their tea. No alcohol yet - Taylor remembered what Arch had said about the stuff. Drink when you don't need it, avoid it when you do. And she very much needed a drink right now. The tea soothed the senses, calmed the nerves, made her emotions sink back down into her chest where she could work through them in a calmer manner. The tea shop filled with pleasant aromas, and no other customers would come, not now, not with the door locked and the blinds drawn. They had it all to themselves. And Taylor wouldn't have had it any other way.
AN: Sorry, just one chapter today - but an extra-long one, if that helps. Next two chapters are likely to be a bit more... relaxed, in their own way. Still going to have plot progression, of course, but it's also some regular character interaction. Because I like writing it. Sanagi will return. Probably just one chapter tomorrow too, but I can promise a probable return to two on Thursday.
And one thing - going quiet for a bit after Wednesday next week (17th). Going on holiday until the start of June. Might hack out a few chapters while waiting in airport terminals, but... eh, who knows.
And one thing - going quiet for a bit after Wednesday next week (17th). Going on holiday until the start of June. Might hack out a few chapters while waiting in airport terminals, but... eh, who knows.
GraftingBuddha
Retired Pooh-Bah
Holy hell dudeAnother piece of fanart to satisfy the insatiable hunger of the Eldritch deities. One of my favorite moments in the fic.
Bitchin' as always
Never thought I'd be so delighted to see a bunch of weird Norwegian-Americans getting vored by their wormy dads.
Ahab is my favorite character, I'm glad to see her getting love. Though, of course, mouse protector is a close second. And you asked earlier about your characters and if there was anything you should change, but honestly I love your creation. The only thing I could ask for is more interactions between these unique, fun, and deranged(minus Turk) characters.