-=≡SƧ≡=-
The tranquility of the Stratham suburbs feels like a lie, Victoria thought as she hovered above a streetlight, a breeze from the north offsetting the August heat. The houses were picture perfect; winding roads and cute cul-de-sacs, the buildings smaller than her home neighborhood up by Captain's Hill but on larger plots of land, the lack of slope giving a sense of privacy the more elevated portions of the city lack. Compared to the packed blocks of the North End, with drifting smoke and constant sirens in the distance, it was heaven on earth.
A lie, because that tranquility was bought with the pain of the poorest part of the city. A lie, because the Butcher wasn't actually contained, a teleporting moving who can burrow through rock like a blowtorch through butter? A lie, because the shimmering wall of the I95, still backed up from the tunnel repairs, wasn't a wall to the city's problems no matter how much the suburbanites might wish it.
"It's not a good idea to take your eyes off the ground, Glory." Dovetail's voice had its familiar soprano trill, her words slanted as a suggestion, never an order. The veteran hero always seemed hesitant to order the younger generation around, but Dovetail—Janet— knew her stuff, she focused on the task like no one else on the team could. Victoria wondered if that was her Protectorate training, letting her compartmentalize just like Armsmaster did.
"I'm sorry, Dovetail." Victoria apologized as the other woman gracefully swooped up to her in a shimmering trail of silver bubbles.
"Finding a mover on the ground takes vigilance." Though the tone was the same, the repetition made it seem more like chiding. "I've done the north and east segment, no sign."
"Nothing in the west," Victoria replied. Only Laserdream could cover ground faster than Dovetail, so she didn't feel bad at her comparative lack of results.
"Okay, we'll do the south together." In the dark, Dovetail's lilac piping on her white New Wave uniform could be mistaken for purple, but the woman had nothing like Aunt Sarah's air of command. She pressed on her helmet to activate her communicator. "Wonder, how are things looking back at the pharmacy?"
Amy's sullen voice crackled in Victoria's headset as well. "Ambulance is here, and I can see the BBPD car just rolling up. Must not have been a line at the donut shop."
"When you're done, maybe come meet us on Sycamore Avenue?" Dovetail suggested.
"I guess." Amy sighed.
"What if he's gone north of the highway?" Victoria asked. "It would make sense to hit-and-run back to Morning Glory's territory. It wasn't an organized hit, he took so little it must be a personal impulsive thing. Makes sense for a villain to head home after."
"I don't fault your logic," Dovetail answered with a note of stress in her voice. "But if he has headed back north we won't follow. You two are not to leave the neighborhoods your mothers specified for after-dark patrols."
She always had been nervous around her sisters-in-law, like the woman was walking on eggshells, trying to prove she was a protector. Ironically her closest friend on the team after Uncle Mike was Aunt Jess, Victoria had seen the two of them talking and joking during patrols and training.
"Fine by
me." Amy snarked.
Victoria gave a brittle smile as she replied. "Of course, Aunt Janet."
She thought it had been fine after the Butcher chased Armsmaster into the Tunnel, she'd watched carefully for hostile actors and assisted a score of civilians getting safely away from the wrecked and burning cars. Those people's lives mattered just as much as hers. It had been fine until she got home that night.
You could have died, her mother's voice echoed in her ears,
I can't lose you too. Carol had been clutching her smartphone so tightly her fingers were white, the blurry video of the Butcher kicking Glory through the highway's concrete wall, the cloud of dust and rubble looming much larger on camera than she remembered.
"I'll take the east side," Victoria said, not wanting to talk much longer. The pulse of light as she moved lit up the street in stark lines of white and black, deep shadows being cast from the streetlights and trees. Her stupid, obvious, power made this whole search a waste of time, the villain would see her coming a mile away.
The Butcher had seen me from a mile away. She was a little child's conception of what a superhero should be, Victoria thought, all flash and sparkle rather than someone who can be effective.
She flew up and down two more streets before her communicator crackled again.
"I've found him," Dovetail calmly announced. "Sitting in someone's pool house, trying to bandage himself up. Converge on 450 Winding Brook Drive, keep below sightlines."
Some of Victoria's glumness evaporated at the prospect of bringing the gangster in. She landed and ran down the street and around the block, well-trained legs propelling her forward with only enough flight to reduce her weight and give a long bounding stride. Her shimmering echo still trailed a heartbeat behind her, but it did not flare and shine and give the game away.
House number 450 was dark, with no cars in the driveway, perhaps he'd selected it for the quiet. With one great leap to kick off, Victoria bobbed up to the roof to join her cousin and aunt where they crouched on the stone tiles.
"What's the plan?" Victoria whispered.
"PRT is still twenty minutes out." Dovetail replied. "We keep our eyes on him, and engage later."
Victoria frowned, "You said he was bandaging himself, now's the best time to approach, get him to stand down while he's feeling unsure." She pictured Vult's file in her head. "He's a linear mover, he'll strike or flee if things go bad. We send one of us in and the others get ready to pursue him."
Dovetail narrowed her eyes as she looked down at Victoria. Her voice was scathing, "and as the only one here with defensive powers, you should take point, right? That's what you're about to suggest."
"He moves fast enough to dodge Amy's aura and your trap spheres." Victoria advanced her arguments.
Help came from an unexpected quarter though, and Amy cut in. "Vic tanked a kick from the Butcher, Aunt Janet. Vult can't even break through a brick wall."
Dovetail sighed, "there's a pattern here that I really want you to think about Victoria, but you're right, Vult can't hurt you. He's a thug, not a killer; no murders on his rap sheet, though there's plenty of assault and battery."
Dovetail's hazel eyes studied Victoria's blues as if considering her resolve. Eventually, she saw something that led her to a decision. "Go. I'll be on overwatch. Wonder; the gate to the yard is his likely exit point, position so you can whammy him if he takes it."
Victoria decided now was not the time to ask what changed the woman's mind, but made a mental note to inquire later. Squaring her expression as 'stern but fair paragon of justice', she ran to the edge of the roof and lept into open space. Unassisted by her power, the only light was the sodium orange of the streetlights reflected in her white costume.
She impacted the concrete lip around the square pool and tuned the flash of protective energy into an omnidirectional incapacitating blast that filled the garden. Enough to stun and startle, but far below the threshold for injury.
"Ah fucking flashbang party now? Fuck me," groaned the man slumped at the entrance to the small wooden pool house. He fumbled and dropped the roll of surgical tape he had been holding, before collapsing back against the varnished door.
"Mister Flashbang was my father, you can call me Glory." The quip escaped her lips as she subconsciously lessened the threat level. She mantled herself in white light, willing her echo to shine its brightest and illuminate the other cape. "Oh. Do you need a hospital?"
The man's top had been reduced to cinders, the greatest damage near a right hand that looked more like grilled meat than living flesh. Burnt skin showed through, tan and swarthy and oozing with fluid. Even his plastic mask looked half melted, rivulets of molten black gloop dripping down his neck.
"This fucking guy, of
course I need a fucking hospital." Vult weakly spat. In an instant, Victoria reconstructed the scene— he'd punched something hot, explosive, or both while turning his face away, and the damage was the worst on the hand where he'd made contact.
Victoria put her hands on her hips and spoke briskly, "We can get you medical attention. Anders Memorial is only five minutes flight time away, and Wonder can numb your pain en-route with her nerve control." The half-truth about her cousin's power slipped as easily from her lips as it always did.
"I can… make it on my own, just need to kick your ass… bandage myself up… and change to civvies." The gasps of pain between his words undercut the bravado in Victoria's opinion and she sighed. She didn't want to be needlessly cruel, but the risk of his reinforcements arriving was—
"Where are the rest of your gang? Why didn't you go to one of their safehouses?" She asked, her tone curious rather than confrontational as she rose into the air and drifted towards him.
"This is my house Biddy, you're… you're breaking the rules coming for me like this." His voice was panicked and brittle, as he struggled to get to his feet and failed.
"Nice try." Victoria gestured to the pool with its tasteful mosaics and the shaped topiary. "Don't think this is your style."
As she reached him his body flared with a blurry black disruption, and he shot upwards. Without his feet under him, the movement was undirected and he clipped on the edge of the poolhouse roof and somersaulted head over heels — right into Victoria's waiting clothesline move. She slammed the idiot back down onto the concrete with a yell of triumph and a burst of her forcefield, but as she stood back up after her arm was covered in blood and flakes of burnt black costume.
Could she do anything right today?
-=≡SƧ≡=-
Their bizarre procession glided through the air; Dovetail in front, Victoria behind, the unconscious villain slung between them in a hammock of cloth, Amy flying beside him, her eyes closed in concentration as she held his body together with her power. It was something out of a Wagnerian epic, attendants to the worthy souls being carried away to Valhalla.
Or unworthy soul, in this case, Victoria thought as she checked for the second time this minute that the cape was still breathing. The flight to the hospital was short, but it felt like an eternity, as the squat building on the edge of the skyscraper district grew incrementally larger before them.
The communicator in her helmet buzzed to life. "Dove, Glory, Wonder do you copy?" Melvin's distinguished voice sounded as unflappable as ever.
"Here." Dovetail answered for all of them.
"We've got a PRT update: low-rise on Sycamore Street is on fire, melting in on itself. They made Prodigal Son fighting an unknown cape there during the start of the blaze."
That was only three blocks from here, Victoria thought, and she cast her head around to look for the glow of flame and failed to find it.
"The rest of their gang?" Dovetail was as crisply professional as the dispatcher.
"Unknown. They may try and extract Vult. You and the girls are to stay and defend Anders Memorial Hospital if the fire spreads or they come for their man. Guile and Genesis are en-route to back you up, PRT squads incoming as well."
Something felt off to Victoria, and she spoke aloud. "The rest of the team?"
"Everyone on tonight is going to form up on Aldrich and move to break up the fight."
"Right, thanks, Melvin." That strategy would have the team's adults between the combatants and the hospital, protecting them. It made sense if the younger generation were to be protected rather than heroes in their own right.
Dovetail spoke a few more sentences to Melvin, but Victoria turned her attention inwards rather than listening. Her energy well was nearly full again, the minor blow to bring down the idiot mover already restored during the flight over. It seemed a waste— a tactical error to sit back and defend when she had so much to give.
"Guile incoming at seven o'clock." Dovetail interrupted her thoughts as they began a descent on the Hospitals helipad, where a squad of paramedics and a pair of PRT officers already peered up at the night sky. Victoria turned to see the tiny blue glow crest a building in the indicated direction; Eric had one of his shields active, which meant he was carrying someone. The figure clutched in the grip of his spherical orb was massive, as big as Uncle Neil or bigger, but hard to make out in the darkness.
"Keep it slow as we go down," Amy added, her voice tired and irritable. As they asymptotically approached the waiting gurney from above, Amy stretched out her hands to hover above Vult's head and torso and closed her eyes in concentration. Another sour note of guilt wormed its way into Victoria's mind, if she'd been smart enough to act before the villain, or had a reputation such that he wouldn't have tried anything…
You'll do better next time Vic. Dad's voice came to her, with a memory of a hug. A fencing competition she'd failed at, or was it judo? Mark established a quick reassurance before his customary quiet on the drive home while Mom detailed exactly what she had done wrong. He was right though, and she breathed deep and put her recriminations to one side as they finally brought the injured man in for a landing.
"Uh, Wonder, could you stay with him till we get to theater?" One of the medical staff asked as the rest examined the man's burnt and broken body.
"Fine." Amy almost spat, deliberately not looking at Victoria. She hopped up to sit cross-legged on the end of the gurney facing Vult as if meditating on his condition. She lacked a monkish serenity though as she snapped, "Well let's
go."
The medics moved fast, and the PRT jogged after them to the elevators. Victoria and Dovetail remained to wait for the other New Wave members' arrival, the glowing blue ball of Guile's power waxing as it slowly drifted closer. They could make out the figure he was carrying, at last, the bright green fur giving the clue to her identity. Genesis' current shape had a huge torso and tree-trunk arms like a gorilla or comic book superhero, a toad-like head with a mouth wider than a trash can lid, and a tiny quartet of legs arranged symmetrically below the waist.
It was a long way from the ethereal being she'd presented as in all the press conferences, and Victoria couldn't help but crack a smile at the change.
"Nice outfit Jess!" She shouted as the other duo came into land, and the glowing blue ball disappeared like a popping soap bubble. "The walkie-talkie necklace is going to be in this season."
Genesis touched a massive hand to her head in a casual salute. Her voice was rough, deep, and croakily angry as she replied. "Brute fight. Am tough. Spit puts out fire."
"Smart." Victoria agreed. Guile said nothing, but opened his faceplate to rub the bridge of his nose. Victoria sympathized, like the rest of the family his shields weren't physically tiring, but the mental effort of maintaining concentration for hours on end could wear anyone out.
Genesis dropped the salute and extended a finger and thumb to point at the edge of her mouth to make what Victoria recognized as the ASL sign for laughter. "Sorry. Voice sounds madder. Than I want."
Dovetail took command before Victoria could reassure the changer woman. "Okay, assuming you can't fly right now Genesis if you could take the street level? I'll go high on overwatch and Guile and Glory can move to reinforce as needed."
This wasn't the time to disagree with tactical plans, and they all rapidly moved to take their positions. As she hovered in front of the small hospital, Victoria could see the yellow glow of fires in the distance, and traffic was only following away.
"You know who this is?" Eric asked, now sitting on a balcony rather than flying.
"No, a protracted fight with Prodigal Son doesn't sound like anyone in the Bay," Victoria replied, running news reports and PHO threads through her mind. "The villainous brutes left are with the Teeth and if this was them—"
"Yeah, things would be a lot more Mad Max." Eric quickly agreed. "Dad says Proddy isn't anything special as strength capes go, but he's got speed. Experience too."
Victoria nodded in agreement, that sounded like what she'd heard, though the nickname was new. "Proddy?"
"What Newter calls him. We were playing online before they left town, Newt said to watch out for something stupid out of Morning Glory."
"Faultline's Crew were outside of the city? I— I suppose that's why Tails didn't reply."
"She might just be being tall, dark, and mysterious again," Eric said a little wistfully.
Victoria slowly rotated in the air, a wide grin on her face as grim thoughts were momentarily banished. "What's with
that tone, smallest cousin? You after a girl who can look down on you?" She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.
Eric rolled his eyes, "nothing Vic, she's just cool is all. It's not like I have options in this city."
"You could ask a non-cape out? They're people too."
"I'll do that when you practice what you preach." He said, his snarky tone briefly matching his elder sister Amy's usual attitude. "Cape shit is such a downer, you can't open up to someone who doesn't
get it, you know?"
Unfortunately, Victoria did know. "Yeah, you're right Eric, sorry."
"It's okay Vic. So did she help you with intel gathering in the end?"
"Yes. She was a star, I'd like to work with her some more but if she's out of the city that's not going to happen." The success with Animos still hummed in Victoria's mind. It was the right strategy; the Teeth would implode in time, she just needed someone who could do the stealth and surveillance.
"They're back now, I think." Eric hastily explained. "I saw Newter online this lunchtime, but something was up. He didn't answer any chat requests and I could see him keep joining and quitting lobbies after only a few minutes."
Victoria wasn't sure she understood the significance, her only experience with computer games was playing the PRT edition of Smash with her cousins, but if Eric sounded this worried she'd take his opinion on board. "Remember they're mercenaries Eric, it's inherently violent, a job could have gone bad if they faced villains or even heroes and lost."
"Yeah. Uh, me and Jess were going to swing by the secret apartment he has when and if this ends and we get all the civilians out." He waved at the smoldering light leaking past the buildings like dragon's flame behind black teeth slightly dismissively.
Victoria reflected on his concerned but calm attitude and tried to count how many similar situations she and her cousins had been in this year. Too many to number, at least without the aid of her journals.
Eric spoke again. "You want to come with? If Newt's there you could ask if Tails has ghosted you."
Victoria thought for a moment,
technically gathering more intelligence wouldn't be going against the restrictions her mother had set. She'd be more prepared when she was free to act again.
"Sure."
-=≡SƧ≡=-
It was more of a detour than Eric had implied, up through the narrow part of midtown and round to the condos that cling to the northern side of Captain's Hill, but they made good time after Victoria granted her energy to Jess and Eric to enhance their flying speed. At least getting home would just be a case of hopping over the Hill and descending the east face to their neighborhood. The North End had been quieter this last week, probably as the Butcher slept off her fight with Armsmaster. Victoria couldn't even hear any sirens in the distance.
"You think he'll still be up if he's even there?" Victoria asked pensively. It had been nearly midnight before they had gotten the all-clear from the PRT and the fire department, and the New Wave adults had huddled together in a secret conversation after dismissing the younger members, and it was over an hour later now.
"Yes." Jess' frog voice croaks. "Gaming days are all day."
Eric laughs, though Victoria isn't sure what the joke is.
"I see him already." Eric confidently answers as he expends another portion of her gift to surge awkwardly forward in a burst of white light.
His altered eyes should give him an advantage in the nearly moonless night, Victoria muses, but it's not X-ray vision, how could he see inside a building?
Some of that must have made it to her face as Eric continues, "He's on the roof. He ran an extension cable up there."
"Okay. We want to make a quiet landing; stop using my power and Eric can glide us in." Victoria wondered if she sounded like Dovetail did when she took command. Eric moved just as fast to fulfill her suggestion as he had for Janet's tactical plan, and the gentle blue glow of his shield embraced all three of them. This fuzzy type of shield was the smallest one he could do, and it always felt weird to Victoria, like being preserved in amber, even activity inside your body slowed and sluggish against the kinetic resistance.
It held them firmly in place as he drifted down like a falling leaf, much less ostentatious than any entrance Victoria could have made herself. She could see the orange boy now herself; illuminated by the flicker of a laptop screen, slumped belly down on the ridge of the building's roof with only a gilet to cover his chest, his tail curled round one of the chimney columns like it was some exotic ergonomic chair. His posture was relaxed, as existing in this rooftop half-world was natural and easy, but as he looked up at their arrival the blue light of Guile's shield reflected off wetness in his eyes.
He smiled though as he greeted them, his voice full of cheer. "Eric, Jess, and the radiant Glory herself? Good to see you all! Busy day saving the city? Love the hench look, Jess."
"Yeah something like that Newter," Eric hesitated over his next words as he lowered the three of them to land on the roof, the tiles creaking under the weight of Jess' enormous body.
Jess cut straight to the point and asked a simple question in her deep baritone. "You good?"
His answer was equally simple and sincere. "No."
"Help?"
"Nah." He finished sadly before he tilted his head as if listening to something distant. "I
didn't mention the address, and they didn't see me entering or leaving."
"Uh, Newter?" Eric sounded as confused as Victoria was.
"This ain't my problem if you're going to be rude—" Newter's mouth kept moving but she couldn't hear any sounds, as if he was whispering. The teenager stood up and angrily raised his hands in the air, before crossing his arms in a pose that shouted frustration.
Half a minute passed in confused silence as Victoria glanced at her teammates out of the corner of her eye before Newter spoke again, his voice loud enough to hear at last as he pointed at the other end of the roof segment. "Tails is here too. Say hi."
As one they turned to follow his finger, looking at the other chimney where a previously unnoticed figure sat cross-legged in the deepest part of the shadow. When they'd met previously Victoria had approved of Tails' baggy hoodies up top and tighter athletic wear for bottoms; it wasn't the best style but it at least worked to highlight what she seemed the most confident in. The figure she saw now was so heaped in mismatched layers of clothing it was practically lagenlook; cardigan on top of a dirty white robe on top of a long heavy dress, every inch of skin covered and head hidden deep in the fold of the hood. She must have been wearing something odd underneath as well, as it bulged and bent in odd places like there were extra limbs under there.
"Hi," Swallowtail said in her soft voice, quiet but angry like a beehive in a tree trunk. She was so perfectly still it was unsettlingly creepy.
Victoria knew she needed to steer this social situation out of dangerous waters, and that Eric and Jess wouldn't be much help. "Sorry you two, if we're interrupting something."
"No," Newter said, "I just was taking some
alone time before heading home. You know, contemplating the stars, dealing with my emotions."
"None of us should be out on our own." Tails' hissed at him, still unmoving.
"Like a buddy system would've made a difference." He snaps back.
In a moment of clarity, Victoria understood. Memories of her thirteen-year-old self wondering why Mom and Aunt Sarah were so angry, sniping at each other in the exact same undirected way, wondering why her Dad hadn't come home yet.
"I'm so sorry for you both." She kept her voice sympathetic and serious as she continued. "Who did you lose?"
There was a tiny gasp from Eric and a rumble from Jess' toad-mouth as the other two caught up.
"Newter, don't—" Tails' tried to cut him off.
"You think it'd matter? First job we do everyone will see we're down one big and burly." Newter rubs his forehead, long fingers seeming to stick to the skin as he moves them. "Gregor. We lost Gregor. He was a good guy, and now we don't have him anymore, end of story."
Victoria knew better than to pry for details, but she wondered if it was more of the ongoing gang war like the unknown cape who'd fried Vult. How much was she missing with her focus on the Teeth? How much was Armsmaster and the PRT missing?
She had never talked to Gregor; the public would understand trying to rehabilitate case 53 teenagers without any murder charges to their name, but it was an entirely different situation with an adult villainous mercenary. The team dynamic was easy to guess though; brutes were often the shield or the pillar, someone the other teammates relied on. There would be a vulnerability in that absence, that the appearance of a group of heroes would exacerbate.
"Should we. Go?" Jess croaked out, preempting Victoria's thoughts of leaving.
"Yeah sorry man," Eric added.
"No! I mean—shit maybe." Newter paused for a moment. "Yeah, maybe go. I'd rather talk to my cool friends once I've gotten through this a bit."
He tilted his head to look at Swallowtail as if he'd picked up on something unsaid. A momentary smile of mischief plays across his lips, like sunshine parting clouds of grief. "Tails, you and the other dorks are my friends, but you are
not cool."
The hood of white fabric tips forward, and even through all the layers, Victoria can pick up on dejection in that posture. The movement breaks the aura of silent malice the half-hidden figure had been projecting, suddenly she's just a tall girl in some baggy clothes. Newter's grin vanished as quickly as it formed as he winced. Eric looked like he wanted to say something but couldn't find the words.
"Alright, we should be getting home," Victoria said to break the awkward silence. "We could go along the rooftops a bit so we're not seen taking off from here?"
"Smart." Tails' whisper sounded oddly loud in her ears. "Ah, Victoria. I checked the messages."
"Oh?" Victoria only remembered sending details of the fight with the Butcher on the highway, and three—, four, maybe five? Further texts speculating about the movement of the gang. She waited expectantly for Swallowtail's apology for not responding for over a week.
"I've information I can share with you now. On villains. We can make plans. We can do
something."
Victoria's face creased in a smile of genuine warmth. Doing something sounded good to her.
"Oh, that's great! Thank you, what changed your mind."
"Sitting and watching feels— wrong now. The rules don't protect anyone. You dare to be decisive."
"Okay." Victoria wasn't sure she liked the sound of how that was phrased. As hypocritical as it was for her to say, taking your pain and loss out on villains was a dangerous path to tread. "We'll talk later. But take the time to grieve, you, uh, don't get this time back. The time when it's fresh."
Newter turned away at her words, but that hooded visage was eerily still. With a few more awkward goodbyes, Victoria, Eric, and Jess left the other capes to their lonely rooftop demimonde.
-=≡SƧ≡=-
Newter sets the bottle of amber liquid down on the glass coffee table with an audible clink. As he unscrews the lid the smell of pine and caraway fills the room with a pungent alcoholic odor.
"Woof, potent stuff." He says as he starts to decant it into smaller glasses. He wafts the fumes theatrically, despite it only being the four younger members of the crew in the half-darkened meeting room.
"Gregor said you should chill it," I say, trying to keep my tone neutral rather than critical. Akvavit, from the Latin
aqua vitae, the veritable water of life. An appropriate substance, I suppose, to toast the loss of a friend rather than their death. Gregor had still been unconscious when my domain in him fizzled and evaporated— when I'd
lost him, but his vitals were very much alive.
"I'll get ice." Elle leaps off the couch and rushes over to the meeting room's fridge.
"That's not how—" Newter starts before I interrupt him.
"It's fine, better to water this down."
Elle returns with a bowl of Melanie's fancy bartending ice, the translucent cubes gently clinking against each other, unmarred by impurities down to the limit of my trace. They crack in the glasses as Newter pours the spirit over them, the sound loud in the quiet of the closed club.
"Mel coming?" Skeeter asks me, his face unreadable.
I take a moment to check. "She got the text, but she's still on her laptop."
"If she's busy, she's busy," Newter says as he pushes a glass to each of Elle, Skeeter, and me. He uses a napkin to avoid leaving smudges of his sweat on the glasses, more considerate than he usually is in the comfort and safety of the Palanquin. He holds up his own glass to the light above the table, the liquid and the ice refracting the harsh electric bulb into something more mellow, more melancholy.
"To his health!" Newter shouts, and downs his glass. Elle follows suit, while Skeeter and I take more cautious sips. The spirit burns my lips and mouth, the intense herbal taste unpleasant enough to nearly make me wretch. But that's its purpose in a way; a distraction from pain no chemical substance could soothe. I could cut the pain out of my head, snip and
hide the memories with my power as their sharp points dig into my mind, but that would be ill-fitting. It'd be a disservice to Gregor, it would leave me a stranger here at the table of his friends.
The liquid in the bottle gently glugs as Newter tops up his and Elle's glasses. Newter taps the rim of his glass as he speaks, "So you want to do the share a memory thing?"
"He's not dead—"
"This isn't a wake—" Elle and I speak at the same time, and Skeeter shakes his head.
"Well, what is it then?" Newter snaps. I frown at that; we are just stupid teenagers cargo-cult re-enacting something they'd only heard about, only seen in movies. The other three barely had memories, and I'd not dealt with loss since my mother, and I was a child then. What
were we doing here?
I take another sip of the spirit and hide my wince from the others as I speak. "A promise. This isn't about the past, it isn't about the loss. It's about the future."
I stretch my arm out to hold my glass above the table, my broken yard-long plumes not making a sound as I lean forward from the couch. I try not to look at the tuft of black and bone-white fronds still spilling from my elbow joint, but I feel a cool touch as all three of them glance at it.
"It's about the future," I repeat. "We commit, ah, philosophically to getting him back, and the practicalities come later."
Skeeter and Elle raise their glasses to clink against mine immediately. Newter is slower to lift his glass, and his eyes are troubled. Would he rather this be a wake? Be a maudlin affair sunk in our powerlessness? He'd been acting differently ever since we'd returned to the city, his joy for life snuffed out. I hope he doesn't do anything reckless.
"Impressively put," Melanie says as she strides confidently into the room. In part, my words had been for her as well, as I traced her coming up the stairs and along the hallway, I knew she'd be able to hear. In the last sleepless day she'd found the time to clean up and dress in her short-sleeved business shirt and black pants combo, her hands and arms covered in tiny scars from where my snapped plumes had cut her, and where Skeeter's healing hadn't quite finished working.
"Having clear goals always helps. To his health." Melanie plucked the bottle of Akvavit from the table and took a deep swig before screwing the lid back on tight. As she paces back and forth she holds it by the neck, fingers tapping like some warrior on the hilt of their sword. I note with some wry amusement that she's keeping it well out of reach of these underage drinkers.
Elle and Newter down their glasses again, and Elle lets out a disproportionately loud hiccup and leans back in her chair, her vision already diffuse and scattered as she looks around the room.
"You blocking them, Taylor?" Mel asks as she walks.
"Yeah." Blotting out the omnipresent warmth of Cauldron's Watcher took a considerable amount of my focus, to tilt and think and understand the sight that cut across the dimensional stack to find us. It is the main reason apart from the damage that I hadn't been able to center myself sufficiently to pull my plumes all the way in. But I couldn't let them see me, couldn't let them judge me. Blocking as much volume as possible is important. "They know I'm doing it."
"Of course, we have to assume they passively know everything. But that's not the same as
actively knowing everything. Logically, something has to be important for the Watcher to notify the rest of the organization, or they'd have acted against us faster." Mel talks with sharp confidence, trying to convince us. "There are ways to get around them or the Dealer would not have been running free. The very fact that they have a goal means they
aren't all-powerful, or they would already have achieved it."
She turns to face the four of us and gestures widely with the bottle. "We have options if we want to pursue them."
She isn't happy, but she is energized, her heart beating with excitement. We all sit up, drawn out of our collective funk by her dynamism as she starts to lecture.
"Cauldron is professional. What they did to us in Pittsfield was meticulous and precise. Every step of it was to send a part of a message. To impress us with their power as efficiently and concisely as possible. An object lesson that says more than any amount of words could."
"Showing not telling," I whisper, and Mel briefly looks at me in approval before continuing.
"This to me suggests they are goal-oriented and resource constrained, and for whatever reason they want us to continue operating. We weren't killed or handed over to the PRT or any number of bad ends; they want us to still do what we do, but do not oppose them. Our continued existence has value, and they are rational actors." She takes a deep breath before presenting her conclusion. "There is a possibility where we can buy him back. Perhaps not with money, but we can present a value proposition where returning Gregor to us would be the most efficient way to achieve one of their goals. We'd need to discover those goals and position ourselves appropriately."
I feel the bite of small anger deep in my stomach. Giving in to those who flaunt their power over others would never sit well with me. However, I bury the feeling far below, because Mel is talking sense.
"The other route we can take is more of a search. Cauldron is not the only source of interdimensional technology. We liberate some of Haywire's work and get it to another Tinker to reverse engineer, we go to Jakarta and hunt down the rumors about a portal there, we could fund some Tinkers to blue-sky research and let them work with Taylor and Elle. We could go to Glasgow and beseech the Fairy Queen herself for a boon."
These all sounded like long shots, but the way Mel laid them out so calmly and methodically made them feel achievable. A mountain climbed one step at a time.
"Any of this is going to be hard. To become such movers and shakers Cauldron treat with us, to acquire sufficient resources to find another way to their dimension? It'll be years of work. But I'll tell you a secret - being
great has always been my plan for us, making our mark in the world, we'll just have to do it faster."
There is an intense gleam in her eye, even as her mouth is set in a grim and serious line. I see what she's doing; giving us a goal, a mission to work towards will break us out of introspection and failure.
I want it to work—
"How can we deal with—how can we impress the people who gave us powers and then tossed us out? They obviously don't think we had value! They'll have kept the good ones—have a hundred capes a thousand times stronger than us!" Skeeter's voice is bitter as he grumbles, his eyes downcast. "We're their
failed experiments."
Mel smiles like a shark as she points at him. "Listen up, Skeeter. Your power doesn't belong to Cauldron. It's all yours! You make it yours with every day you do amazing things, and you all have the potential to do so much more. If it was men like the Dealer evaluating your experimental results, consider me
unimpressed at their lack of imagination
." She spat the word like a curse.
Skeeter doesn't look up.
Mel snaps her fingers and points at him with her right hand, her left still holding the bottle causally by her hips. I trace her core muscles straightening her spine, taking a commanding pose as she speaks with brash intensity. "They are
not perfect, they
have underestimated us."
She raises her pointed finger to jab at the ceiling, piercing some imagined target in the heavens far above. "We are not going to let something as pitiful as different dimensions stand in the way of getting what we want! We are going to break through these obstacles; I'll drill a hole between worlds by
hand if I have to! We
can solve any problem, if we put the work in!"
Newter is grinning broadly, his white teeth shining in the lights, and he slowly brings his hands together to start a slow clap. Skeeter looks up to meet the certainty in Mel's eyes and gives a nod of assent. I focus my attention on the minute movements of her iris, the swirl of information in her head as vast trees of linked blades activate, memories churning through her seat of consciousness. It's ironic that my power makes me better at reading my friends—reading people I spend a lot of time with than it is at parsing strangers. I think that while this ludicrous
bombast is just another tool she's choosing to use to fire up the team
, this is a sincere thought of Mel, something from her inner self.
Displayed to prove a point, but true all the same.
I add one clap to Newter's chorus.
"So what—*hic*—what now?" Elle asks, head swiveling to look at everyone with heavily lidded eyes as she smiles.
"Short term?" Mel answers, dropping her dramatic pose. "We make money; as much free capital as we can. It gives us the flexibility to act."
"Okay, wake me when you need help counting." Elle gives one last hiccup, then leans back on her couch and dozes off in a matter of moments.
I suppose this is the Crew deciding on a new course of action, but I still have more personal worries. "Mel, ah, Cauldron
know. About me I mean, everything. They must know what I've done, they could tell the PRT about—"
I swallow and choke on my words as I feel my bones itch. Eventually, I force it out, "They could tell them about the hospital."
"Good question. I don't know the answer." Melanie responds matter-of-factly.
"'Some', he said." Skeeter sounds like he's trying to be reassuring. "The dealer I mean."
"Skeeter's right, Taylor," Melanie adds quickly. "The implications have been agents in the PRT, rather than control of the organization directly. It would make sense, they wouldn't be able to keep a secret like that if it was widely known within the organization. Perhaps it's another hold they want to imply they have over us."
"Okay." I sullenly answer.
"We'll operate as if any high-level Protectorate member could know, but not the people on the ground. If we have the opportunity, we do some surveillance for real answers. Does that suit?"
"I suppose." I feel suddenly guilty about bringing up my own worries when Gregor is lost and we've just crossed a multidimensional conspiracy, so I look for a change of subject. "Julian is looking for you, Mel."
"Oh?"
"Knocking on your office door."
She strides over to the door of the meeting room, stopping for a moment to put the bottle of Akvavit back in the drinks cupboard, before poking her head out into the corridor.
"Report." Her tone is all business as the door manager gracefully hurries toward her. As ever the ex-triad gangster exudes a tightly coiled physicality despite the sharpness of his suit. I wonder if we'd had someone that formidable, that trained, with us in Pittsfield if things would have gone differently. If we'd had gotten a shot off at the red-haired woman. But Julian would never compromise on leaving his family even for a short trip.
"I talked to his roommates. It is as you suspected; he packed up and left this afternoon only leaving his phone behind, and didn't even pay his share of the rent."
"Idiot." Melanie cursed. She spoke calmly as they stood in the corridor, correctly assuming I am listening. "Swallowtail, do you still have Matthews?"
I searched the shape of my domain for our bartender-turned-driver-turned-runaway, it had only been twelve hours or so since I last made him mine.
"In a rental, in Calais in Maine, queuing to cross the border into New Brunswick," I whisper, and
emphasize it so she and Julian can hear. Reminding Julian of our capabilities during this moment of weakness seemed wise to me, and the little release of tension in Mel's hands told me she agreed.
"I'll take this as putting in his notice. Get the number plate on the car please Swallowtail, I'll pass it on to a PI I know in Halifax tomorrow morning. He could have just
talked to me about the break clauses in his contract."
Mel seems full of energy despite it being nearly three in the morning, eager to tackle a soluble problem. She turns to Julian and starts giving orders. "Julian, go wake up Yuan and have him change all the access codes and get Matthews' call log to me. I'm going to check the armory and the strongbox. Once Yuan's to work, I want a list of anyone Matthews talked to here at the club between our return and him bailing, I'm not going to dawdle on damage control.
Dismissed."
"Ma'am." Julian nods respectfully and is already taking his phone out when Mel whirls on her heel and begins a march down to the locked rooms on the ground floor. She's left the rest of us to organize ourselves, but that's a mark of respect I suppose; confidence in our sensibilities.
I finish the last of my glass of spirit, the burning alcohol now diluted by melted ice. It had flavored the experience, made it something more somehow, but I wouldn't be rushing to drink the harder stuff again. The rawness of the mixing of taste buds and pain receptors in my mouth brought to mind the sensation of being watched, and I wonder again how and why my power had chosen to connect my senses so
viscerally.
Elle gives a little snore and the three of us look at her slumped form.
"Ah, Gregor normally carries her to bed," I say, and as one Newter and I turn our heads to look at Skeeter.
"Fine," he grumbles, holding his palm up in the air. "But someone else watches her."
Before I can think about volunteering, Newter steps in. "Sure man, I was going to rustle up a midnight snack anyway, watch some vids. Meet you by the bedrooms?"
"Fine."
"You want any food yourself ketchup-boy?"
Skeeter rolls his eyes at Newter's grin and banter, shaking his head in the negative.
"What about you, thistledown-girl?"
It takes me a moment that he's referring to me, and I wince as I clutch my arms and their chaotically asymmetrical extrusions tightly to my torso. I
hide from their sight as I feel my spine tingle with need. They both blink and turn their gaze away from the hole I've torn in their perceptions.
"Too soon? Sorry, Taylor." Newter does sound genuinely chagrined.
Skeeter tips his hand in the bowl of ice water and flicks the droplets at Newter. "Doofus."
Newter stands up straight on his tiptoes and clutches his chest as if he'd been mortally shot. He topples backward, at the last moment turning it into a somersault that fluidly twists into a sinuous quadrupedal rush for the door, the trim muscles of his back stretching and contracting with effortless grace. In a blink, he's gone in a puff of theatricality.
I guess it is a
little funny.
"If you're still here Taylor," Skeeter speaks as he gathers Elle's sleeping form up into his lanky arms. "Do you mind if we do a memory dive, uh, tonight?"
"I don't have the focus right now," I answer quickly. It's probably true; I'm definitely not in my normal frame of mind, my power slipping its leash to twist my body.
"Right, later then." He answers as he hoists the slumbering girl up with a bit of hydraulic assistance in his skinny back muscles. The corners of his mouth are set in a frown he's not quite doing a perfect job of concealing.
I sit alone in the meeting room for a while; I should sleep, but my thoughts buzz in my head insistently, demanding immediacy. Mel's short-term plan does sound rather like a continuation of what we did before, mercenary work for the payout. It is tricky though to operate in the city with things as they were; the Teeth running rampant and the villains with money keeping their heads down. Taking trips outside the city could pay, but we lost money in travel, and every excursion into territory that isn't
mine is a risk we could lose more members.
Can I be Alexander, and cut the gordian knot somehow? Follow Mel's example and turn problems into assets? I think back to the lobster restaurant, at the devastating tranquility Nonpareil had unleashed on us all, an image so beautiful a tear comes to my eye at the memory of it. If there is anyone who could deal with the Butcher without falling to the traditional problem with stopping the Butcher, it would be the Elite master's imbued objects. She just wouldn't, as it's more
profitable to leave it to the heroes.
I pick out my burner phone from the layers of clothing I've hidden myself in and search my domain once again. A shape I'd captured a few hours ago; a cascade of blonde hair and a frankly unfair figure for another teenager to have. I cast my scan to her location and consider the surroundings. Glory—Victoria is sitting in a bedroom drinking cocoa with another parahuman girl I recognize as Wonder. Despite the terrible pressure of her 'bioelectric' aura pressing down on the cells of her cousin's body, the other girl seems far less intimidating in her pajamas; a small girl with an overabundance of freckles. Eric is asleep in an adjoining room, his parents two rooms over, and from the size and darkness of the clothes in the cupboards, I infer this is Wonder's room and Victoria is only visiting for some reason. Something about the idea of a casual sleepover gives me a pulse of sadness I don't understand.
I write my text quickly, pausing only to shape the words to my audience, and send it.
Burner #23 << Hello Glory. Continuing from our conversation earlier, I believe that I have located an opportunity to progress your anti-Teeth strategy.
Through my scan, I trace as Victoria's phone beeps and she quickly checks it.
Glory >> !
Glory >> !!!
Glory >> !!!!!
Glory >> Well spill!
She looks up at Wonder, smiling brightly despite the other girl's frown, and speaks. "It's Swallowtail, she's a good kid and has been giving me deets on the Teeth."
I rankle a bit about being called a 'kid', and again at her spilling my name and secrets so freely, but continue with my plan.
Burner #23 << There is a location that has been heavily fortified by a villain in the city. If the Teeth can be enticed to assault it at a point when civilians are not present, I believe the nature of the defenses will cause considerable non-lethal attrition.
Glory >> :glory_dancing: wicked [Emoji not found]
As she relates the scheme to Wonder, the other girl's pinched frown deepens. "Victoria this doesn't smell right, why would a villain offer up tips like that? She or her boss is trying to trick you! Does she think we're stupid enough to start a pitched battle in the city?"
Back at the Palanquin, I scowl, is the hero even listening to what I said?
"She's not suggesting times or anything, how could it work as a trap?" Victoria counters, "at the very worst, we'll have a location for a villain's safehouse. It'd help us and the PRT with planning."
I suppose I hadn't thought of that, Victoria—Glory betraying me and using the information for her own ends. On the other hand, if they do hit Nonpareil, that's a strike against villains in the city, and will leave a
rich villain needing protection in a hurry. I fix the memory of her base in my head, it's barely been a week since I narrated their lair to Mel's attentive pen and the details are still fresh. The squat half-brick tower wasn't the most impressive piece of real estate in the Brockton central business district, but it had clearly been chosen for its location with quick and direct routes to the airport and interstate.
Burner #23 << The office block on the corner of Islington and Lafayette. The Norton building. The basement is protected, and the substreet entrance facing Islington is the vehicle access to their lair. I think the offices above are civilians, but it's empty at night. Sometimes there is even no villain presence, and that would be an ideal time for the Teeth to be ensnared. The whole basement is set up to stupify intruders.
I breathe out, thinking deeply about how to best phrase this, how to create the words that will set things in motion.
Burner #23 << Do what you think is right with this information. Research Nonpareil's 'art' and ask if you want that sort of person running your city.
"The Elite? Victoria no!" Wonder protested, "This is what Uppercrust meant, they'll be prepared for us. If you think your mom is mad now, she'll literally explode if she finds you're engineering a fight between sadistic killers and the fucking cape mafia."
Now that is an
interesting thing to hear, and I pull out my notebook to record the connection between New Wave and the 'token good' Elite leader. I try to ignore my feeling of disquiet when the terrible pressure of Wonder's perception
constricts around Victoria's brain; refraining from the urge to hide my temporary ally's weakness. However, much as I might dislike it, Wonder is merely checking brain activity, crudely gauging emotional states, not meddling.
Time for one last gentle push.
Burner #23 << I'll leave the planning to you, but I can assist further. I saw in the news about the fight on the interstate, I feel guilty I wasn't here to give a warning.
Victoria smiles. It's not a happy smile, but I've seen it many times before; on Mel, on other climbers as they eye a difficult wall, on sports people in general. The grin of someone looking for a problem to focus on.
Glory >> talk more tomorrow. Im in.
-=≡SƧ≡=-
Authors Notes:
- Long one today, but I needed to cover a good bit of ground with the Victoria section.
- I do enjoy the idea of a rooftop world these mover capes and hangers-on operate in, it feels comic booky, but also authentic to teenagers who can't easily go out as normal people.
- Everyone copes with grief and powerlessness in their own way - Faultline for example puts on a bitching soundtrack and gets to work.
- Had trouble with fitting the 'Taylor cases Nonpareil's stronghouse' into the narrative since this is the information she found at the end of 4.11, but putting it there made the chapter end weirdly. So I took a bit of heist movie formatting where flashbacks to information gathering happen as decisions are made. Hopefully it doesn't feel weird.
- Thanks to Red Wolf for the beta read.
- Next update September the 16th!
