Thursday night into Friday morning was spent in a pleasant haze of dance and drink. But after dancing and grinding with the college girls and guys out of the University, and then the next morning I was back out at the Union with Dad, working on the bike.
"Long night?" Lacey Andrews asked as I sat back watching the cleaning solution drain from the carburetor that I had just pulled out of the wash tank.
"Sorta," I answered stifling a yawn. "Needed to get out of the house and relax, so I hit the Palanquin for a few drinks and some dancing. Place really doesn't get jumping until almost one."
The older woman nodded before sitting down on a stool next to me. "Sometimes we just need to get away from our problems," she said. "Other times we have to face them head on. Care to tell me what the problem is?"
I sighed, "Part of it is that dad and I, well, last night we fell back into that same habit of not telling each other anything that was going on," I told her. "I'm fighting to not do that, but at the same time he seems to be smothering me to a degree, treating me like I'm still 15." I sighed, deflating onto my own stool and pinched the bridge of my nose. "Look, to a degree I even get why he's worried. Less than a week ago I was 15, and I was shoved into my locker where I was transported to another dimension. I've spent seven years away from home, growing up in a town that makes Brockton seem like small potatoes. Humanis policlub would have eaten the Empire without even a burp, Hookwolf and all. Some of the other gangs around Seattle would have done the same to the other gangs around this town, and not even notice when their motorcycles ran them down. And that's assuming they were friendly takeovers. If the Sons of Sauron ran up Hookwolf, there would be a new decoration on their headquarters, and Kaiser's head would likely decorate the wall somewhere around the Carbanado section of Puyallup along with the rest of the Empire's main hitters."
"Jesus, Taylor," Lacey said pulling up a rolling stool of her own. "And you survived this?" I snorted in response.
"Survived it," I answered with a laugh. "Lacey, that's where I made a good bit of the money, that I earned in my first two years. My team and I owned the damn barrens to one degree or another. We weren't just another gang running rampant and hurting the civilians to make our money, we were the damn law that most of them turned to when groups like the Cutters and Brain Eaters came in and started causing trouble. We were their first phone call when the damn Halloweeners came around."
"You said for the first couple of years?" Lacey asked. "What happened that stopped you from continuing to protect them?"
"We became enough of a name that the corps would hire us to do their dirty work," I told her, slumping back against the workbench and casting my gaze up to the bay lights above us. "You see, policing the barrens, while a for hire job, was more a matter of blooding us, getting us contacts amongst the various groups and syndicates, and conversely, getting our name out there to the same syndicates, and the corporations. But while hooding for a paycheck pays the rent, keeps you in equipment and food, and gets you a mode of transportation, it's not the big money you need to retire. It's also not the fame or infamy that gets you a cushy corporate identity and job, and it also doesn't allow you to put enough money aside to go find out who killed you and your father."
Lacey looked at me with wonder on her face, "What do you mean find out who killed you and your father?" she asked, and I smiled.
**
"Sarah," I said as I walked back into our team's common area that evening after meeting with Detective Wallace. "I need a favor."
"I don't do favors," the blonde replied flipping the channels on the trideo. "Being owed favors is not conducive to a profitable relationship."
I sighed, letting just a hint of the frustration I was actually feeling leak into my voice. "Fine," I huffed out. "I guess I'll just have to uncover my own killers by myself."
Turning I started back toward my room only for Sarah to call out, "Wait, what? What do you mean your own killers?"
I suppressed my smile and turned back to her. Sarah had turned around on the couch to look at me, so I held up the data chip that Detective Wallace had slipped me in its case. "When they looked into my identity, they found me in the missing and presumed files in Boston," I told her. "Mom died a few years ago, grid-guide accident or so they said, but Dad and I had been trying to move on. He was burying himself in his work," I growled, "and I was being bullied in school, trying to deal with that while keeping it from him. The three girls who shoved me in that locker, they disappeared the same day my dad, and supposedly me, died."
"What do you mean supposedly you?" she asked so I tossed her the chip.
"Look at it for yourself," I told her. "All I got was the precis brief, but apparently there was two bodies, both with their teeth busted out and the bodies burnt beyond recognition. Minuteman in Boston assumed that it was me and my father, he worked the docks as a manager and the gangs were always trying to bribe or threaten him to let things through. Not that he did, but they tried all the same."
As I talked, she popped the chip from its case and slotted it into the trideo unit to look at the files. "Damn girl," she half whispered as she looked at the files coming up in front of her. "Talked it right out of the Star's own computers, how the frak did you manage that?"
"Made something of a contact in the Star that night when we got pulled in from the Arcology," I told her and got a whistle in response. "Now, are you interested in finding out people's secrets?"
"Always," she answered. "Knowing everything is my stock in trade. What do you want to know?"
"Public information to start with," I told her. "I know what my dad was like at home, and what his work hours were supposed to be. That said, we were both good at keeping our secrets from each other, so there were likely things that I wasn't privy to. We need to build a timeline of the four identities we know," I stopped for a second shaking my head. "No, the five, mine needs to be included in that since I don't…" I trailed off at that point. "The last year and a half is a bit fuzzy for me because there is a part of me that doesn't want to remember, the betrayal, the pain, I need to look at it as someone else, as the person who died that day."
"And when we find the ones responsible, they die slowly, right Taylor?" I heard Alisha ask from behind me, causing me to turn and find her and Rhonda standing there.
"How much of that did you hear?" I asked with a sigh. I hadn't intended to include the rest of the team in this, just Sarah, and only because I needed the intelligence to answer the questions.
"Enough," the taciturn rigger answered. "And I agree with Alisha, we find out who's responsible for this, and we make them pay, with interest."
I blinked at that, and then mentally shook it off. "This isn't going to be a quick investigation," I told them. "I'm going to be spending years earning the money to both pay Sarah for this and pay for whatever bribes or informants it takes to get the information for this."
"Doesn't matter Tay," Alisha said shaking her massive head. "We're in it till the end. We'll find them, and we'll get them, be it before a judge or a firing squad, but one way or another, we'll get them."
"Agreed," was all Rhonda said and I had to just look at them in shock.
"Alright then ladies," Sarah said using her deck to spread the data sheets out on the trideo projection. "If you're done with the mushy stuff let's look at what we currently have."
**
"The cops in Boston had been fairly thorough for a pair of corpses that were so severely burned," I told Lacey. "But with no apparent leads after a couple of weeks, the case went to the back burner. After eight months, it was already a cold case, the files not kept on the active server. Or at least they weren't until I showed up."
"And then with a live, but amnesiac victim?" Lacey asked.
"They reopened the case," I answered. "But since I didn't have any information to feed them other than not apparently being the other body, they then had one kidnapping, one murdered UCAS citizen, and one Jane Doe that they couldn't identify that had also been murdered."
"Have you told your father about this?" Lacey asked and I shook my head.
"Lacey," I said, "If I told him half the shit I've pulled over the last seven years, he'd either have me committed or keel over from a heart attack. Solving a murder that just so happened to be his and my alternates in that world, maybe I could tell him about that, but it was one of the last things I ended up doing before that last mission. Getting justice for them, I burned almost every favor, every contact, and spent almost every penny I had to do it, but I managed it in the end."
"And the people responsible?" she asked.
"As the saying goes Lacey," I said, my smile turning feral. "Dey sleep with de fishes," I finished throwing on a bad mafia accent. Looking at her, I could see her shudder ever so slightly, so I let my smile go back to what it had been before. "As to the rest of the problem last night, I suggested to Dad that he needed to see a therapist, and he danced around it like he didn't know what I was talking about."
At that Lacey snorted, "Big tough Danny Hebert, see a shrink," she half-laughed. "Part of me says that will be the day, but I get the feeling that you'll drag him to one by the ear if he doesn't at least see what our insurance will cover."
My smile went up to a thousand watts, "You know me so well Aunt Lacey," I told her. "Now I need to go get something to eat and then go home and start pricing parts to see how hard I need to hit the gangs to rebuild this old girl."
"Word of suggestion Taylor," Lacey said as I got up, so I nodded in response. "Ask your dad who is where and what they have," she told me. "He has some of the best intel on the gangs around the bay, if for no reason than to keep us safe and out of any potential lines of fire or attempted lynching."
My smile softened and I nodded. "I will Aunt Lacey, I will." And with that I picked the carburetor up and put it in the parts bin carefully before washing my hands and heading to get dad and I something to eat. I would get us something from the food truck outside and then take it to his office. We needed to discuss my activities anyway.
**
For some reason, the food truck was serving fried fish today, "What is it about fishy Friday's?" I muttered to myself as I got dad and I both a serving British style 'fish and chips' and headed up to his office. In the outer office, his secretary, a battered looking older woman named Edna stared at a pack of cigarettes on her desk as if they were either the devil incarnates, or held the secret to life, the universe and everything else. "Forty-two," I told her, causing the woman's gaze to snap up to me.
"What was that, Taylor?" she croaked out. Edna had been a teacher in Illinois before marrying the wrong man and following him to Brockton some fifteen years ago. The local school board didn't want her, so she got a job as the head secretary in the Union Hall. The husband had disappeared somewhere along the way, but she had stayed on.
"The answer to the secret of life, the universe and everything," I answered giving her an easy smile. "The way you were staring at your smokes, you were questioning either how evil they were, or if they knew the answer."
Edna chuckled and shook her head. "Been trying to quit," she said. "Doc said that if I don't their likely to kill me in ten years or less."
"Well," I said with a chuckle. "We all have to die of something, and you know what George Burns said when a reporter asked him what his doctor said about his habits."
"No what?" Edna asked intrigued.
"Well the reporter says to Burns, 'You chase women a quarter your age, smoke like a chimney and drink like a fish, what does your doctor say about that?" I tell her. "And Burns response was, 'Nothing, he's dead"
Edna started to chuckle at that, "Oh God, that's so George Burns," she said before looking at her phone. "Your dad should be off his conference call by now, just slide on in. Just stay quiet in case its not finished, ok." I nodded and slipped through the door two plates of battered cod and French fries in my hands.
**
Inside Dad was just hanging up the phone as I entered the room. "Lunch time already huh?" he said coming out from behind his desk to take one of the paper boats of fries and fish. "How are things going with the motorcycle?"
"I have her stripped all the way down and a list of parts to find," I answered sitting down in one of the visitors' chairs. "The question then becomes how to pay for it."
"You want to hit another gang holding," he said with a sigh. "I really wish you would find another way."
"Dad," I said with a sigh, "You know the employment prospects around town better than I do." Putting my fish down I spread my hands in front of me "Where am I going to find a job that pays enough for me to put money back to open my own place?"
"I could make you a place here," he suggested. "You're apparently a good enough mechanic that the guys would accept you joining the crew."
"And who would you have to lay off of the crew to give me a place?" I asked lifting an eyebrow. "I know you Dad; you bring in anyone and everyone you can when you can to make sure that they have work. If you're giving me a job, then someone else is losing out when I can make money another way, and its entirely legal."
"If its legal," Dad said shooting me a look. "Then why isn't everyone doing it?"
"Because their scared and/or don't have the training?" I half asked, half answered. "Honestly, I don't know the full reasoning behind it, but people seem to have been convinced that the normal people can't stop the parahumans around them. I mean, look at what we have here in the bay, Kaiser and about half the Empire's heavy hitters? High powered sniper rifle and their done, especially if you hunt them down one or two at a time. Same would probably work for the ABB so long as you took Lung with a headshot with an anti-material rifle. The Merchants you just have to find so that you can take them out while they are high."
"If its so easy," dad said sitting back in his office chair. "Then why haven't the gangs been dealt with already?"
"That I can't answer," I said sitting back I the chair I was in and putting my basket in my lap. "There is something going on that I can't quite put my finger on, something that doesn't make any sense. I can't speak to elsewhere, but the PRT and Protectorate here in the Bay are severely understaffed, and severely penetrated by the gangs. Its most of the reason why I'm going to be sandbagging tomorrow when I go in for power testing."
"And that it might not be as easy as you think it should?" he asked. "Did that thought ever cross your mind?"
"Honestly yes, it did," I answered. "It's why I started looking into what happens when the PRT actually manage to arrest someone around here. There hasn't been a parahuman get shipped out of town successfully in ten-years, and the last time a major villain was shipped out, it was Marquis. Doesn't that sound a bit fishy?"
"Yes it does," he answered with a frown. "And you want to bypass that by taking the gangs from the bottom. Their money and their grunts." I nodded. "You know that if you pile onto one of them, then the other two are gong to be ready for you when you finish with the first."
"Yeah," I answered. "But the other two gangs are pretty well outside the docks and more risk for less reward cash wise. That said, yes, I need to keep things balanced or else either the other gangs are going to be waiting for me, or their going to start a gang war as they fight it out over the Merchant's territory."
"If you're going to do this," Dad said, "I want you to have some backup."
"I would love to have a new team," I told him. "But what I really need in a team I don't know if you have access to."
"Why don't you tell me what you're looking for," Dad said, "and I'll see what I can find."
I shrugged, "Well, I need a weapons backup, basically someone who's good with a gun and I can trust at my back." Dad nodded at that. "Then I also need a hacker or communication specialist and a driver. The first to get us the intel and the second to get us in and out quickly. That said, I doubt many former military members with those skills aren't somewhere else and already employed."
"You'd be surprised," Dad responded pointing at me with a fry from his basket. "The union tends to get the oddballs who can't make it in the modern corporate culture but did a tour or two in the service. I'll look through the lists I have of trustable people and bring you a few files to look at tonight."
"Thanks dad," I said with a smile.
**
In the end, Dad gave me a handful of locations that I could check out over the weekend before I went and caught the bus home. The idea was that I would fix dinner while doing parts research and pricing, one of the things that Rhonda taught all of us about fixing up a vehicle was to expect to spend at least half of what you paid for it in repairs within the first year, unless you were rebuilding it, then it was all on the front end and the real fun was in sourcing the parts.
