Chapter 14
"So," Taylor said, leaning across the cafeteria table, "how have things been going between you and Emma?"
Madison bit her lip and looked around before responding. "Um, fine? We're good."
Taylor made a steeple with her fingers. "Elaborate. What are you working on?"
"I'm not sure what you mean by 'working.' We're hanging out, spending time with each other. Doing… other stuff, sometimes." Madison averted her eyes, a tingle rising in her chest. "It's nice."
Taylor shook her head, sighing. "Madison, Madison, Madison. I thought you understood. A romantic relationship isn't something you passively experience. You have to work at it. Make plans and execute them."
"I don't…" Madison said, closing her eyes. "On one hand, I get what you're saying. I want to… I don't know, take things to the next level, or whatever. But Emma said she wanted to take things slow, and I feel like I should respect that. I don't want to ruin everything by pushing her or playing games."
Taylor winced. "I'm not saying you need to be manipulative. But you have to be proactive sometimes." Taylor tapped her chin before continuing. "For example: you confessed your feelings first, right?"
Madison's heart quickened at the memory and she nodded. "Yeah, I did. I blurted it out without meaning to, really." She smiled wryly.
"Well that's just it, isn't it? You were scared, and it wasn't part of your original plan, but you knew in the moment that you had to make a move. That's what I'm talking about. Just because you're in the…
receptive role doesn't mean that you should just wait for everything to come your way. If you see an opportunity, you take it. And if you see problems further down the line, you eliminate them, with prejudice."
Madison forced out a chuckle, her throat a little dry from the intense stare Taylor was leveling at her. "Um, I'm sure Emma and I can work out any problems we have, together."
Taylor gave Madison a condescending smile. "I have no doubt. But the obstacles you encounter aren't always internal to your relationship. Do you think that Randy was the first parasite I've had to deal with?"
"W-what do you mean?" Madison asked, morbid curiosity drawing her in.
Taylor sighed and rubbed at her forehead. "Emma is… magnetic," she said. "She always has been. She's beautiful, and clever, and kind. People are drawn to her. And among those admirers there are always those who presume, the way Randy did with you. It's not just classmates, either. Grown men started hitting on her when she was twelve. Making
comments, looking at her with their repulsive eyes." Madison flinched, remembering a few unpleasant experiences of her own.
"So what am I supposed to do?" Madison asked. "I'm not strong enough to just…
destroy people the way that you and Sophia can."
"Destroying someone is easy," Taylor replied, with a small smile that made Madison shiver. "You don't need to be strong to do
that. Sure, I've been getting a little more hands-on lately, because of Sophia, but do you really believe I've been
fist-fighting these creeps up 'til now? Think, Madison, think!" Taylor pointed to her temple, her eyes glittering with fervor. "Even the frailest girl has her mind and her words, and you have other weapons besides. Do you have any idea how much damage I could do if I were as cute and harmless-looking as you?"
Madison shrunk back from Taylor's terrifying enthusiasm, but a part of her couldn't help but be fascinated. If she had mastered Taylor's methods of social warfare back in middle school, could she have beaten the bullies who had tormented her? Could she have swayed the fickle opinions of her classmates and brought them onto her side?
She was sick of being weak and helpless. Maybe this would give her a way to defend herself, and Emma as well.
Madison straightened her back. "What do I need to do?"
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Sophia had reached a tipping point where so many bizarre things happened on a regular basis that she could no longer react to each of them individually. For example, apparently Hebert had just woken up one day and decided that the Empire needed to go. No hesitation, no nothing. Hebert simply found their existence unacceptable and started working on how to get rid of them. Just like that.
The idea was futile at best. Not only did the Empire have more capes than the rest of their competition combined, they also had connections with all sorts of other skinhead groups. Even if the Protectorate decided to go at them full-bore, it would be a slog to root them out. Trying the same thing with two people? No way.
And yet, somehow Sophia couldn't muster up enough fucks to give in order to protest. She chalked it up to "just another absurd thing Hebert was doing" and that was pretty much it. It didn't help that Hebert had an insidious way of making her "master plans" seem entirely achievable.
Seriously, what's with her and the master plans? I guess I should be grateful she's not a villain.
Hebert's unflappable confidence spoke to the part of Sophia that longed for the triumph of justice over evil. Because while she told herself that she was content indulging her desire for violence by beating down street-level shit-heads, in truth she was tired of meaningless wins. Sophia had never given up the fight, of course, but in her heart she had begun to accept that she was simply delaying the inevitable. Easing the symptoms of a terminal disease. She was tired of cycling through disposable thugs while the real threats, the capes, operated with impunity.
So while Sophia still had her doubts, the fact remained that Hebert had a
plan. A concrete strategy to accomplish something other than gradually giving ground. Sophia found the girl's clarity of purpose… attractive. The temptation for clean and complete victory was too appealing to ignore.
Besides, could Sophia really pussy out while goofy-ass Hebert went gunning for the Nazis? Hell no. She'd never be able to live down the shame.
The first step in the plan was to plant bugs at some of the Empire-affiliated locations they had learned of during the "Randy Neutralization Project." Eager as Sophia was to lay some hurt on skinheads right away, she acknowledged the value of gathering intelligence. Her early attempts at vigilantism had taught her the risks of impatience.
Their first target was a house. A nice house. Some people had a vision of the Empire as meth-peddling dumbasses who ran around throwing out the Hitler salute and beating up minorities, but the unfortunate truth was that many people involved with the Empire were "normal" citizens, or at least not open criminals. There were "militia" types, and political activists, and a bunch of other people who were nicer to put in front of a camera than some whack-job screaming "sieg heil." They had normal jobs and normal houses. They didn't want to kill minorities, oh no. They were just concerned about the burden that immigrants were putting on their communities, or they thought that American culture was under attack, or whatever other bullshit they could cook up to avoid outright saying that they were looking for an excuse to hurt people a different color than them.
That being the case, Sophia wasn't surprised that some suburban yuppie was hosting Empire meetings at their unnecessarily big house. She doubted that any actual crimes would take place there, but Randy's messages suggested that the Empire used it for social events and such. Since it wasn't as well-guarded as some of their business fronts, it was low-hanging fruit to place bugs and hope for useful chatter.
Hebert adjusted her baseball cap and pulled on some thin gloves. It was the middle of the day, and while the PRT gave them a lot of slack when it came to independent patrols, breaking into a private residence without a warrant would be crossing the line. So instead, Sophia and Hebert were relying on basic disguises just in case some nosy neighbor spotted them. Both of them were dressed like they were on a run, and Sophia had tied her hair back and wore sunglasses.
"You ready?" Hebert asked. Sophia nodded. "Alright, let's go."
Hebert jogged across the lawn and up to the gate into the backyard. She tried the gate, found it locked, and pulled herself over the top of the fence without hesitation. Not to be outdone, Sophia vaulted over as well. They hustled along the side of the house, gravel crunching under their sneakers as they skirted the disgustingly well-kept landscaping. They turned the corner and came up to the back entrance, a windowed wooden door that led onto a patio. Locked again. Luckily, doors were more of a formality for Sophia. She began to reach forward and paused as Hebert pulled out a pair of lock picks.
"Seriously?" Sophia asked. "Do you even know how to use those?"
Hebert smiled sheepishly. "A little. Your way is probably faster."
"Think you can do it in under ten seconds?" Sophia challenged.
Hebert gave her a thumbs up and slipped the picks into the lock.
Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven.
Click. The door swung open.
Sophia gave Hebert an incredulous look. Hebert shrugged. "Must've been an old lock." She gestured into the house. "Ladies first."
Sophia tried not to growl at the childish provocation. Hebert got under her skin with the stupidest stuff, somehow. Sophia shook her head and stalked into the house. They hadn't found any alarms when they cased the place, but better safe than sorry. She peeked around the corners. "Clear."
Hebert stepped into the kitchen next to her and shrugged off her backpack. "Okay, let's make this quick." She slipped a toolbag out and hurried to the far side of the kitchen. "One here, one in the living room, and one in the master bedroom upstairs." She withdrew a screwdriver and dismounted the faceplate of the electrical outlet next to the sink. Then, with smooth and practiced motions she attached a gadget that looked like a tiny circuit board to the wiring.
"Where did you get that from, anyways?" Sophia asked, keeping one eye on the street through the window.
Hebert hummed. "Secret."
"The queen of over-sharing is keeping secrets?" Sophia raised an eyebrow.
"A lady must maintain an aura of mystery," Hebert said, making a flamboyant gesture at herself.
Sophia snorted. "A lady. Right."
"Okay," Hebert said, carefully reseating the power outlet cover. "This one's set. Living room time."
They made their way down the hall and into the living room. Sophia tensed as they entered, the smug suburban aesthetic radiating from the obsessively arranged collection of white, beige, and light blue furniture and decor. To compound the horror, the owners also had some sort of nautical fetish, sprinkling every available surface with starfish and sailboat shit.
"Hold on a second," Hebert said. She took out her phone and snapped a few pictures of the room. "Alright. Let's do the one… behind the couch." She glided over and pulled the furniture aside with one hand.
Fucking Brutes. Hebert lay down on her side and got to work.
"You really think we're going to get anything useful out of this?" Sophia asked.
"Hard to say," Hebert said. "That's surveillance for you, unfortunately. Most of it is a waste of time, until it isn't. Hey, can you hold this?" Hebert asked, waggling a penlight. Sophia rolled her eyes and obliged, squatting down to point the light at the outlet. "Great, thank you," Hebert said. "So, yeah. It might take a while, but it only takes one careless person saying something they shouldn't. We'll wire up a few more places over the next few weeks. Cast the net wider."
"Uh-huh. And if I asked why you seem to have so much practice at this…"
"Mystery," Hebert said, wiggling her fingers and grinning.
"Fuck off." Sophia huffed. "You almost done?"
Hebert stuck her tongue out in concentration as she twisted together a few more connections. "And… done!" She reached out her hand with a mischievous look. "Help?"
Sophia stood and grabbed Hebert's forearm, pulling the other girl roughly to her feet. "Don't fuck around. We're on a mission."
"So mean," Hebert said, a bizarrely satisfied smile on her face. She took out her phone and opened the photos of the room. "Okay… couch goes… here. Side table goes there, at that angle. There. Does that look right?"
Sophia leaned over to look. "That ugly-ass throw pillow is off. It was on the other side of the couch." Honestly, who needed so many useless pillows?
"Ah, good eye. I bet you're good at those 'spot the difference' games," Hebert said, carefully resetting the pillow to its original position.
"Yeah. My mom got me a bunch of those 'I Spy' books as a kid." Sophia shook her head. "Who cares about that? Are we good or what?"
Hebert took a last glance between the photo and the couch and nodded. "Everything back in its proper place. Like we were never even here," she said, snickering and rubbing her hands together gleefully as she made her way to the stairs.
This fucking dork, I swear.
"Keep an eye on the street, would you please?" Hebert said. "I'll be down shortly."
"Yeah, yeah. Go," Sophia said, waving dismissively.
Hebert saluted and hurried up the stairs, her footsteps eerily silent.
Sophia posted up by a window with a view of the road, scanning the cul-de-sac for threats. After a minute, an SUV circled around, and Sophia's eyes narrowed as she waited for it to pass. It didn't. Instead, it pulled up
right into the goddamn driveway.
"Hebert!" Sophia whisper-yelled. "We've got company! Get your ass out of there!"
"Still working!" Hebert called back. "Go out the back. I'll meet you outside."
Sophia hissed and hustled down the hallway, locking the back door and shadowing out just as she heard the front door open. She dashed through the backyard, cursing as the gravel crunched with obnoxious loudness at every step. She peeked through the slats of the gate before pulling herself over the top.
Sophia jog-walked up the sidewalk, trying not to look like someone fleeing the scene of a felony. She bent down as if to tie her shoe, glancing furtively at the side of the house as she waited for Hebert to come out. After an agonizing minute, she spotted one of the second-floor windows opening. Hebert poked her head out, waved to Sophia cheerfully, then pulled herself out onto the roof. She shut the window behind her and hopped off, breaking her landing with a roll.
"Let's go, let's go!" Hebert said, grinning as she ran up to Sophia.
They took off together down the road.
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Sophia cleared her throat. "So, uh, you're pretty good at sneaky shit, huh?"
I smiled. "I suppose you could say that. Thank you."
Sophia rolled her eyes. "Right. Well, I wanted to ask you something. A favor," Sophia said, her jaw tightening. I could tell she was really struggling with the idea of asking for help, so I quashed my natural instinct to needle her.
"Of course," I said. "What do you need?"
Sophia took a deep breath. "You know how Dennis shared that stupid shipping video with the two of us?"
With a herculean effort of restraint, I kept my expression neutral. I would like some praise here, readers. No one else will ever know how hard I had to struggle in order to keep from smiling like a fool. But I had to be strong. For my Sophia. She wanted this moment to be serious, so thus it would be.
"Yes, I saw that," I said with elaborate nonchalance.
Sophia folded her hands together in front of her face. "I want payback. Normally I would just smack his dumb fucking head, but that's not enough this time. I want something… diabolical."
"And so you came to me. Because you trust me to do this for you."
Sophia sighed and closed her eyes. "Yeah."
I suppressed a squeal of joy and nodded solemnly. "I won't let you down."
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Emma rubbed a small circle on Madison's shoulder. "You alright?" Madison had seemed on edge lately, scrutinizing everyone as if expecting them to become a threat at any moment. It was the way she used to act, back when she had to worry about being the target of petty bullying every day.
None of Madison's old bullies should have had the nerve to even look at her sideways; Emma had made it excruciatingly clear that Madison was
hers. Only the most willfully blind girls were able to cling to the delusion that Madison was out to steal their boyfriends, or whatever other jealous bullshit they had cooked up. And even among those stubborn few, Emma doubted they would do anything more than grumble.
Then again, Emma had also doubted that Jennifer would ever return to her bitchy bullying ways after what Taylor had put her through. Some people were just too dumb to avoid repeating the same mistakes.
If someone
was bothering Madison, Emma would teach them a lesson that stuck
. She wasn't feeling particularly merciful in the wake of the Randy and Pals Purge.
Madison took hold of Emma's fingers and squeezed gently. "It's nothing. I'm fine."
"Really?" Emma asked.
Madison hesitated. "Well, I mean… it's not that big of a deal. I just realized that I don't really know any of your other friends apart from Taylor and Sophia."
Emma raised an eyebrow. "I'm not really that close to anyone else I hang out with at school. Most of them are just people I talk to in class."
"Not even… what's her name, Julie? Julia? That girl with the bangs, in Algebra."
Emma blinked. "I guess? I don't know her that well, though. What's this about? Are you worried about what I said about keeping our relationship discreet? I'm not ashamed or anything. It's just not… safe, to be totally out." Even after removing Randy and his buddies from the school, the Empire's presence in the city was still too pervasive. Sophia and Taylor couldn't be around all the time to protect them.
"No, it's not that," Madison said, shaking her head. "Although I'm still not happy about that. Why should we have to hide? It's bullshit."
"I know," Emma said, pulling Madison into a hug. "I'm sorry. It's not fair."
Madison hugged back tightly for a few seconds, then sighed. "Anyways, it doesn't matter. I just wanted to know more about the people around you. Taylor said—" Madison tensed in Emma's arms. "Never mind. It's nothing."
Emma's eyes narrowed and she turned Madison around, plastering on a warm smile. "What did Taylor say? You know you can't always take her seriously, right?"
Madison bit her lower lip, averting her eyes. "She just gave me some advice. It's… whatever."
Emma took Madison's face in her hands. "Madison…" Emma said, working her fingers gently into Madison's hair, "tell me what Taylor said."
Madison's eyes fluttered closed and she hummed contentedly. "Okay."
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Dennis took the elevator with Taylor down to the Wards area, his mind flicking through the patrol for anything noteworthy to write down in his report. The evening had been uneventful, as usual. The typical Wards patrol routes didn't take them deep into gang territory, and the occasional petty criminals they came across were rarely dumb enough to stick around when they saw capes coming. Fortunately, Dennis got along well enough with Taylor that they could make conversation and break up the monotony. It was doubly fortunate since the eggheads in the strategy department had decided to pair them up more often.
The higher-ups usually liked to pair Taylor with Sophia, which was a no-brainer since the two of them were a natural comedy duo. Put them in a room together and they immediately started acting like an old married couple. Their dynamic was great for generating sound-bites to make the Wards seem like a fun youth group that
definitely wasn't about fighting super-powered maniacs and felons.
However, the strategy folks had determined that Dennis and Taylor constituted the overall most effective pair of Wards from a combat perspective. Dennis' power was incredible for capturing villains, but apart from his Striker ability he was a squishy mortal like anyone else. Taylor's ability to grant others her weird form of invincibility canceled out that weakness. All they had to do was have Dennis hold onto Taylor's shoulder, and he could stroll up and freeze the bad guys at will. Thus, the powers that be insisted that they patrol together on a regular basis to build up their teamwork.
So far Dennis had managed to push back against the "optimal" solution that the strategy team had come up with, which was apparently to put him in some sort of god-awful baby harness thing that would hang from Taylor's torso. Because yeah, it would work… but at what cost?
They stepped out of the elevator and Dennis started to head to the boy's locker room.
"Hey, Dennis?" Taylor said, her voice slightly muffled by her helmet.
"Yeah?"
"I know it probably wasn't your intent, but you've helped me make significant progress. Thank you."
"Um… you're welcome? Not sure what you're talking about, though."
"Oh, I know. But I'm grateful nonetheless." Taylor sighed. "Which is why I'm conflicted about what I have to do next." She patted Dennis on the shoulder. "Please understand that none of what's coming is personal." The armored girl nodded curtly and walked away.
Dennis stared at her departing form for a few long seconds, then shook his head and wandered off towards the locker room. He warily checked the corners before entering.
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