- Pronouns
- They/Them
Fixed, thank you.
Wolf Spider (Worm) (Complete)
- Thread starter The Laurent
- Start date
Fixed, thank you.
- Location
- ⇙
Amp has definetely figured out the side effects of her power, so I wonder what she intends to do about it. Since Rachel was the first to notice, although she's not completely sure what's happening, I wonder if someone else also noticed?
Since we now reached the breaking point, I hope things will slowly start to get better from now on.
Since we now reached the breaking point, I hope things will slowly start to get better from now on.
So, test of character for Charlotte, kind of glad that she doesn't seem to have realized what she was doing before, i hope she doesn't have the idiotic idea that she knows better than Taylor so it's not doing harm, they already missed a chance to hurt the Butcher because of Amp.
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I don't think we can really say that Char was in the wrong, there? The Butcher isn't actually dumb, and I think any wounds would have been pretty costly at the most optimistic.
- Location
- East TN
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Hers
I agree completely. Taylor was way out of line and all Rachel was trying to do was have her leave before things escalated to the point of one of them saying something they can't take back. Taylor, the queen of escalation, pushed and pushed until she finally came out with a MAJOR slap. Telling Rachel that 'she is a problem' has trashed their relationship, most likely permanently.
Just because the ship is Taylor/Rachel, it doesn't mean we get a happy ending or the relationship at least lasts.
There's a good Dragon Age FPC/Morrigan where the relationship ends because FPC pushes and Morrigan pulls back. And then you have things like the HP mate!Hermione/Fleur that draws from Poe, where Hermione abandons Fleur after only a few months and then when they finally meet again at the final battle Hermione is killed.
Noooooo! I would use a sad face emote here but I would rather use my words.
I was fearing this response and maybe I should have just shut up instead of saying anything. I apologize.
This chapter is really good and I'm invested. Please don't get depressed over this. You are infinitely more useful than I am in fanfiction.
Speaking of this chapter, it really can go both ways. It depends on Rachel. How angry she is and understanding is the lever here. She can leave the camp and screw off.
The thing I expect to happen is this. Rachel is going to go after Amp. I don't know how far she will go but it is love. If she really just think this is a phase because of what Charlotte did and very little to do with Taylor, it can get very ugly very fast.
Collar 6.6
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Collar 6.6
Most of the camp didn't even realize the world had changed, had fallen apart. Because of course it didn't matter for them right now. When Rachel left, as I knew she'd do eventually, maybe even by tomorrow, then where would we be?
But they couldn't know it. It wasn't their business to keep up with the love affairs of the parahumans protecting them. Maybe they talked a little too much about it, but… I wasn't going to let them see anything here.
Rachel could have her stuff, I'd give it back to her, or pass it on to her, and then I had work to do. She was at fault, and so I wasn't going to spend more than one afternoon crying about it. I told myself that, but then…
We weren't going to care for the dogs together, we weren't going to just sit and relax by each other's side, we weren't going to have sex, and that surely cleared up hours of my week…
Nevermind what we weren't going to do. Because it didn't matter. It was over and done with, and good riddance.
But who did I want to talk to. Charlotte? And mention the silly accusations against her?
Stefanie? Maybe, with her parents too, if I could make sure they didn't talk about it.
Greg? ...I liked Greg, but I wondered how he'd feel about one of the people he played video games with leaving.
Parian? Ah, yes, because that would go well. Her, her parents, her life that was revolving around its own love problems.
I had a ton of friends now that I didn't have before, people that were willing to work together with me… but I knew none of them quite as closely as I knew Rachel. No, as I'd thought I'd known Rachel.
So I pulled my costume on on Friday and just walked the camp, checking in on everyone. When I got to the campfire, they were looking at me, clearly aware of something, I didn't know how.
They included Stefanie, in her Pelter costume and yet looking young and vulnerable as she said, "Arachne, we should talk."
"No thank you, Pelter," I said. "Thanks for saying that, but I don't think I'd like to talk about anything except running the camp. Are we good on food?"
"Yes, of course," Pelter said.
"That's good. What about medical supplies."
"Well, we are, but--"
"But what?" I asked, leaning forward, aware that I was on edge, and just as aware that my voice had increased slightly in volume.
"N-nothing," Stefanie said, and she looked hurt. It was easy to forget that she was two years younger than me, most of the time, considering how she stuck to the background doing all of the work. But I could see it now, and it hurt.
I took a breath and tried to find something nice to say, something that wouldn't lead to another fight. "You've been doing a good job," I said, leaning forward, stretching slightly as I stood up. "I appreciate everything you've done to help out around here. Maybe I should do some of that work myself. So as to not burden you too much."
"You could look it over," Stefanie suggested, hopefully. No doubt she'd be looking for a way to talk to me about Rachel.
"Fine," I said. "After I eat."
*******
I took my time, too. I ate slowly and carefully, I didn't have to rush to go see how Rachel was doing, or worry about her dogs. I had all the time I needed, and it was more than I wanted.
Finally, I walked with her into the nearby apartment building, going up to the third floor, walking slowly. My bugs could see all, so I knew that Greg was playing video games rather than working on the suit, though it was true that he'd probably been working at least some of the night. Parian was sewing in her room, and it wasn't yet time for the hangdog routine of Flechette showing up and then not going to see Parian because she didn't know what to say.
We sat down in what looked like a living room, messy clothes and all. I could hear her Mom hustling around in the kitchen, and her Dad was down in the camp, looking over a few things. I just leaned in and relaxed on the couch, trying to focus on the words in front of me.
It was all quite simple, really. In theory. You had the amount you invested into something, the amount it cost, and the benefit, and you then tried to balance the two so that it worked. We weren't a business, we didn't get money directly from feeding people, but we did get donations, and according to these numbers, those donations had only increased over the last week or two.
I assumed it was sort of a show of support? One that hadn't ended just because there were rumors of lawsuits inbound. I supposed that was good, but the truth was that we were burning through money really fast. We hadn't touched the money Rachel and I had brought here. Or rather, we'd replenished it, and it was even a neat little tally mark, now that I was looking.
A column where if we had to dip into that money, it was immediately put back into, though apparently we'd only had to do that during the first week where it actually mattered, keeping track like that.
"You know how to balance a book," I said.
"You learn these things," Stefanie said, trying to play it off. "Balance is key, and…"
I looked at her, and waited to see what she'd say.
"Whatever you fought with her about, surely it's not… how serious is it?" Stefanie asked.
I took a long breath, trying to push back my anger at Rachel to focus on saying what would work best now. "It's very serious. We're through. It's bad that we're through, but that just happens when one party can't see sense, and insists on insane conspiracy theories and…"
Stefanie was looking at me. "What conspiracies?"
"That Charlotte was turning me against her," I said.
"Well, that's just not true," Stefanie said, quietly. "And what?"
"I think, maybe she was just pretending to like me and this whole camp because she was attracted." I took a breath. "Let's not talk about this." It hurt, that kind of thought. I didn't want to believe it. But.
"We can do that, I'm sure we can." Stefanie said it hesitantly. "And in the meantime, why don't we take a look at this line here. It's the food, and it'll go up if we ever get the economy back started up: there's only so long people can donate food, so I was thinking that we might want to find someone to make a deal with. Or rather, order in bulk? It wouldn't be that hard, really. And going through third-hand…"
There it was. Practical concerns with practical solutions. Math and careful analysis. This was what I liked to do. I was my mother's daughter, and that meant making the smart moves. It meant knowing when something, or someone, was a lost cause, and finding ways to deal with it.
It meant being an adult. I was sixteen. Even with Rachel gone, even with all of that chapter over, I was going to get a GED and leave this all behind. I was going to… I didn't even know. I should have a plan. College? A job? But I couldn't think of anything. The future felt vague, trapped and hidden away, in some dark place filled with bugs and silence.
The bugs hadn't buzzed or made noise. No bees, and the flies themselves were silent, that was one of the first thing I figured out. How to make it stop… slightly. How to make them not do something. Stillness, silence, darkness, and vulnerability.
I talked to Stefanie, while not being there at all. I talked to her without feeling the words hit my head. I was a hollow thing, my rage and doubt stuffed inside the dark crevices of my body, slimy and gross and defiled by their presence.
Poetry finally came out, and it was as gross and maudlin as I'd expected it would be.
*******
Dad came by, after an hour or two of talking with Stefanie and then patrolling the camp. He came on a truck, which took him all the way up to a block away from the camp before it decided, apparently, that the going was too rough for the rest of the way. Maybe its tires were weak.
Either way, there he trudged along, head held high, unaware of what had happened. Unaware of a lot of things.
I sighed, looking up from the papers and the charts, the plans and the diagrams whose contents I almost couldn't remember, and said, "Dad's coming. I should go talk to him."
. I could talk to Dad, and pretend that nothing had happened. It'd be better than some of the options out there, and hopefully he'd leave none the wiser.
He was right the whole time about Rachel, and I didn't want him to have time to gloat, or tell some sad story about his first crush. I didn't need it, I thought, breathing heavily, trying to brace myself for a conflict that I wasn't sure if I'd actually win.
Not that actually winning had seemed to help much. No matter what I won, it didn't end anything. I didn't know when any of it would end.
Dad stopped at the edge of the camp, and I approached, stalking through the camp slowly, my bugs gathering up, and then dispersing when I realized that I was preparing for a fight, not a talk with my Dad.
Finally, I reached him, and pulled my mask off and gave the best smile I could manage.
Dad winced, looking almost unnerved. "Hey Dad! I don't have much time to talk, but I'm glad to see you! So, how has it been going with the rebuilding and the port? I've heard a lot about the E88, are they really all cleared out? If so, great. What about Coil, the Undersiders, and Accord? Are they giving you any problems? I think--"
"Taylor," Dad said, holding up a hand, his expression grave. "'Wag the Dog' sent a message to me online."
"Wait, you get online?"
"Yes. Taylor. I get online. The port is doing well, and things are coming together, the E88 really are gone, and both Accord and Coil seem content to just monitor the situation. Maybe they're selling drugs or bribing people, but I've seen neither. And the fight you had with your girlfriend. She told me about it last night."
"Already? And she's not my girlfriend anymore. You were right. She was bad news," I said, all but growling the words out.
"That's not the story that Cassie told me about you two. Or about the argument," Dad said.
I stared at him, "You too? She was in the wrong, she told me to leave, we're broken up, you were right, you win. So what are you even playing at?"
"I care about you, Taylor. I shouldn't have to say that, but I don't care about winning an argument with you. I care about your happiness…"
Dad looked at me and sighed, pushing at his glasses in a nervous, uncertain habit.
"Yeah, I've seen where that goes," I said, and then bit my lip. "Okay, that came out wrong."
"I've fought with your mother before," Dad began.
"You weren't there. That was it. It was over," I said. "And you were right the whole time. She was bad for me."
"Cassie told me what she heard, and it wasn't the end. It was a fight, and a bad one, but--"
"Oh come on, don't tell me you're taking her side!" I said.
"I'm not taking a side at all. I'm Switzerland," Dad said, smiling slightly as if he were remembering something. Maybe he was. "But I think that there's more to this. Maybe she's wrong about Amp, but if she feels left out, maybe you could talk it through with her. I've had fights with your mother before. Once, I even thought it was done with, that we were through. We didn't talk for almost three weeks, and I felt as low as could be."
Despite myself, I wanted to know. Now because he was right, because he was wrong: a fight almost implied that one party wasn't completely and totally wrong. And that party wasn't me. I was right, she was wrong, and that meant that it was less a fight and more me realizing the truth of how little she actually cared for…
For everything I'd done for her, for every way I'd tried to connect to her, for everything I cared about, except perhaps my body.
"And then you got over it. But Rachel's not like that," I said. "She's blunt and open about things."
"Did she break up? Did she say: it's over?"
"No, but I know her, Dad. I know she meant it. And… a relationship is mutual sacrifices. You've said that before. I have, haven't I?"
"And she didn't sacrifice?" he asked.
"Some, but a relationship can't be a bunch of grudging sacrifices, especially when one party does it more."
"Did they feel like sacrifices?"
"Not at the time," I said. "But now they do."
"Taylor, I don't know if you should talk to her right now, but I think you should consider that maybe you're reacting too strongly," Dad said. "I don't want to be your life coach, but I think…"
"What?" I asked, crossing my arms.
"I think she's been more good for you than bad for you. Even with the fight you got into at school. You're happier and more driven now. Or you were. I made peace with all of this when I ate dinner with her. I… don't know if I can say I like her, but I approve of her. But I also understand if it doesn't work out, that can happen. But don't assume it won't work out, and don't assume that she's to blame. Or even that you're to blame. Sometimes the blame just… exists." Dad frowned and admitted, his glasses slipping down his face slightly. "I don't know if I am making sense, but I had to come. I just…"
"You can go now, if you want," I said. "I've heard what you had to say, and you're wrong, but I'm sure you love me and I'm sure you mean well. But I don't need you to awkwardly blame me for this."
"I'm not blaming you…"
"Maybe you aren't," I said, lowering the tone of my voice. "But you're taking her side? I just don't want to talk about it. It's over. It's done with. You're wrong, but you were right when you worried. You were right."
"No," Dad said. "I don't think I was. Even if it fails, don't let that destroy the moments you had. I don't…" Dad frowned. "Think of what you enjoyed. Learn from it, if it's really over." Dad shook his head. "I also wanted to come to check on the camp. There's a lot of talk about the team, you know."
"My team," I said, even though really, it didn't matter. Being in charge, being the leader. But Charlotte was right when she said that someone had to lead.
"People mostly talk about you and Bitch," Dad said. "And Parian. The others, most people don't know much about them. But everyone talks about them in the same breath as New Wave." Dad smiled wide, "You've achieved something. Don't think you haven't."
"All of those people saved, and it's just…" I hesitated. "You won't think I'm a terrible person if I tell you?"
"Yes?" Dad asked. "I mean, no I won't."
"It feels like it's trapping me. Maybe that's how she feels. I have to constantly be on guard for a fight, and if I lose then hundreds of people will be enslaved and hurt. I feel like I'm stuck in place, I feel like something has to give, and soon. And I don't know what. So maybe everyone talks about us, but out here, it's different. It's its own little world, and I don't know." I sighed. "I can understand how Rachel might want to leave. Even if it's not something she should do, that anyone should do."
"I don't know what to say," Dad said, with a shrug. "You can hand off responsibility, but you have a task in front of you. You have to do it, even if it's tough."
He was right, of course. But I'd seen where that led: to the world breaking your heart, if someone else didn't do it to you first. To strugglingly valiantly again and again until it started looking less like bravery and more like folly.
But then it was his folly: I'd been startled and worried when he'd given up on it, and so could I really blame him? If it was a behavior that, when stopped, was a bad sign? "Yeah," I said. I turned away and said, "Is there anything else?"
"Stay safe, Taylor," Dad said.
"I know."
"I love you."
I sighed, trying not to sound tired as I said, "I know that too."
"Well, I'm going to keep on saying it, until you hear it," Dad said. "Until…" he waved his arm a little vaguely, as if indicating some distant future that he was striving towards. As if he had a plan, when in truth I wasn't sure if he did. He was just waiting and seeing whether things changed. Would they?
Thus far change had been painful, uncertain, and not always good, and never simple. So I wasn't going to hold my breath for it, honestly.
"I'll do the best I can," I said. "You do the same. Hopefully the Butcher takes her time in coming back."
*******
On Saturday, the freeze continued, as I caught up on all of the work that was done. I had time, even, to start reading all sorts of books that I hadn't been able to get to when Rachel was there. After all, I'd had to teach her, so I couldn't do books with vocabularies that would lead to endless questions. It was simple, and so of course it was much, much better when I didn't have someone holding me down.
But the first book I chose was boring, too dull and conversational, and more than that, too willing to digress, to move away from the point rather than just stating it outright. And perhaps a little sexist, or at least, I didn't really buy the romance at all.
Dashing hero and princess, pah. They'd probably get divorced once they found out they shared nothing in common except chemistry, and the way that the princess was entirely useless was annoying too, and so I abandoned the book with a groan and tried another. '
But that one was too cheery and optimistic, too hopeful that the main characters could all just talk it out, and come to some sort of happy ending, as if that's how the world worked. So I ditched that book too, and was about to try on a third when there was a scream.
I couldn't see anything immediately with my bugs, but when I hurried out the door, I saw them in the sky.
One was a woman, dressed in chains and leather, holding what seemed like a huge supply of grenades. The other was a man in baggy pants and a rock T-shirt, his body pierced so many times I wondered if he woke up in pain. He had nothing more than his bare hands.
Both of them flew, so fast that the swarm of bugs I set out couldn't quite catch them, and the woman lobbed grenades downward.
They hit the ground, scattering around.
Unsure what to do, I had my bugs pile on top of the grenades, because I wasn't sure if I'd be able to lift them up with the bugs and do anything useful at all.
The man, on the other hand, shot out laser blasts that hit several of the tents and set them alight.
A second passed as they turned around, still a blur, though I made a screen of bugs so they couldn't see past them, and yelled, "Scatter!"
Bug guts coated the ground as the grenades exploded, each sounding like a deep, loud drumbeat.
Shrapnel went far as people screamed and ran and they came around again just as Pelter ran right out of the apartment building, stone in hand.
But as fast as the rock was, hurtling towards the man, he was just able to dodge it. Artificer stepped out with his laser gun a little too late, pouting at the missed opportunity as the woman threw the rest of her grenades, and the man set four or five more tents on fire, smoke now filling the air as they raced off the way they came.
People scattered away from the grenades just in time, for the most part.
The explosions didn't hurt anyone, but another tent collapsed, and we remained there, tense, as Charlotte and Parian hurried out of the apartment across the way, each of them ready for a fight…
They didn't come back immediately. I didn't know how to put out the fires, really. Parian's dolls could perhaps smother them, though, I thought. "Parian! Can your dolls put out those fires?"
I turned to someone, "Bucket chain!"
The man startled, and then yelled, "Bucket chain!" to someone else, and we got to work on putting things out.
They didn't come back immediately. We'd healed the few people who were injured, we'd saved the tents… or rather, some of the stuff in it, at the cost of a lot of electronics and all of the tents that had been set alight. We'd picked up the shrapnel and calmed people down, and were just assembled and ready for a fight when they came around again.
The same two people, though they were flying even faster this time, and seeing us all ready and gathered, waiting for them, they threw the grenades in our direction.
"Arachne, Pelter, Parian, Artificer, duck!" Amp yelled, running away from the grenade. We did, and were engulfed in the explosions of several grenades.
It stung, like someone was slapping me across my entire body, but nothing more than that, as the man shot a barrage of lasers at two more tents as they turned around, headed away.
They were going to keep on doing this, I thought, until we were worn down. Unless we could find a way to stop them. Rachel was still in her shelter, but even if I brought her here, I was pretty sure there wasn't much that she could actually help with. They'd learned something, the Teeth had.
That was that we had fewer answers to flying enemies, and that the more time they gave us, the worse things would get.
So the Butcher had devised an easy, simple, low-cost way to kill us with chip damage alone.
Except, of course, it'd become predictable if they did it a third time. Or a third time the same way.
"Pelter, Amp. I have an idea. But we'll need to do some work. Both of you go up on the building, then Pelter gets super-speed, and throws a bunch of rocks, shotgun it and keep on throwing them in their path." It was a generalized idea, but I could picture it in my head, and I bet it'd work.
Pelter held up a hand, as if we were in class. "But what if it kills them?"
"That's a good concern, but they're attacking this camp. I'm not sure how we could actually save them. I suppose we could have Parian…" I glanced over at the girl,her emotions hidden under her mask. Nobody she directly cared for had even been in danger. They still seemed to be operating under the impression that the camps were where most of our people were.
The thing was, I thought, taking a breath, was that they were right. Just barely right, but there were more in the tents than in either of the apartments, just because of how many people were still streaming here as refugees.
We were doing our best to make houses for all of them, but by now we had so many hundreds that I was wondering if it'd slip into the thousands. Probably it would, if this lasted much longer. "Stay in the tents? And then have her stuffed animals ready to catch them. They're soft, at least, and aren't likely to be hurt by catching someone."
"I guess…" Parian said.
"I'll try to keep in the area and keep an eye out," I said. "And can someone tell Rachel to be careful?" It'd make sense for them to attack her, I thought, wincing at the thought. Because surely the Butcher didn't miss that she meant… had meant, rather, a lot to me. That hurting her would be a good way to hurt me, and hurting her dogs would be a good way to hurt her.
Not that she could do that much if they really did think of attacking the shelter, since she was sorta helpless against flying attackers. But I didn't want her dogs to die, even if we were broken up.
Pelter bit her lip, and then glanced at Parian, who looked over at Greg.
"What? Oh… okay."
******
Greg must have told her, I didn't know because I wasn't watching the conversation. It'd be rude, and more than that, it'd get me pacing and worrying. Instead, we spent all afternoon waiting for an attack that didn't happen.
I had nothing to do, and so I moved, walking around and around in circles. If it wasn't for the attack keeping me leashed, I'd go on a run, at least around the block, or maybe around two blocks, so that I could burn off some of the energy.
As it was, I just paced and waited, and then ate dinner and waited, and went to bed with orders to yell and wake me up if anything happened… and waited then, there, through the dark night, where dreams ambushed me again.
I woke yearning and uncertain, to wait even more.
Then finally they came.
"Capes!" someone yelled, and I got up from where I was sitting, by one of the fires. I'd been smiling at it, just to try to practice it. It wasn't a grin, it was just a smile, and so I shouldn't have a hard time doing it. But I felt as if I were doing something wrong, as if I'd broken a rule somewhere by smiling, and that I needed to stop it.
I got up, looking at them. They were the same two people, though this time the woman seemed to be moving slightly slower, and she didn't have grenades. I assumed that her power had given her another weapon, and she flew right on at us, diving just slightly to be able to rain down green and red lasers on her part, and what looked like oil on his part. The oil sloshed on the ground, and I saw him reach into his outfit, perhaps for a match.
Which was when the rocks shot out from the building in a strong wall that slammed into them.
Both capes toppled, falling twenty feet, as dolls moved to try to block their fall. I hadn't even had time to get my bugs out, they were still buzzing and gathering.
Parian's stuffed animals caught one of them, and the other hit the ground, hard. I heard something crack, and I rushed forward, covering them with bugs as I did. They screamed and thrashed, and lasers cut into the stuffed bear that was holding the woman.
Down came Pelter, still almost a blur, and then Amp following her, and then we were on them, dragging them down and disarming them, and pulling off the patch, even though skin too came with it.
We didn't care. They thrashed as much as they could, but they couldn't actually stop us.
*****
"Tell me why you were sent?" I asked the woman, after her broken bones were mended. She'd broken both of her arms in the back, and now that I got a better look at her, even after the healing from Amp, she didn't look to be in a great condition. We'd keep them and then turn them over to the Protectorate for further questioning, but we needed to know about them and their plans. My bugs, sheerly for the safety of the shelter, had positioned themselves around where Rachel was, but hadn't quite entered the area, sticking outside nervously and uncertainly, and they showed no attack coming that way.
It looked like these two might be it, at least… for this particular attempt. Maybe there'd be a dozen more where that came from.
"Fuck you," the woman said.
"She's taken," Greg said, a stern one-liner that he seemed immediately embarrassed by, stepping back and blushing.
I shot him a glare and said, "This could go a lot easier if you just told me: is this meant to test our defenses? Wear us down?"
The woman bit her lip and said, "You're fucking us."
"Go on?" I asked, trying to relax and sound like I wasn't about to start hitting her to try to make her say something else.
"The Butcher's acting weird. It's your fault, you did something. So we're gonna fuck you up."
"Ah, is that what you're doing?" I asked, trying not to feel too happy. The Butcher acting weird could mean any number of things. I could only hope it meant that I was getting to her, that something bad was happening, something that I could use.
"... it didn't work," the woman admitted, with a cough. "Fuck you."
"You're the one taking slaves and murdering people," I said. I frowned, "And Butcher is fucking everything up. Why doesn't she just leave, then? If she's causing so many problems and getting none of what she wants."
"...she can't. Won't. Whatever," the woman said. "I'm not sayin' anything more to you, you fucking bitch."
I didn't care about the insult. I'd heard worse, and I'd heard worse from people whose opinions mattered more, but I imagined what Rachel would do if she was here. Stand up for…
I shook my head. "This is evidence that whatever we're doing, it's getting results. The Butcher isn't going herself to fight us again, because she's afraid of us."
The woman snorted. It was an ugly, piggish sort of sound, and I glared at her. "Afraid? Of you? Yeah, right."
As if it was impossible. But the impossible could happen, and people could surprise you. I was sure that she was afraid, that she was worried, that in wherever dark corner of her mind still had such emotions, she was afraid. I liked to think that, though it was impossible to be sure. But every time she'd fought us, there'd been a cost.
The burnt hand teaches best, and we'd burned her. She'd suffered for going after us, and that was good. Perhaps it'd mean she'd make a better choice in the future… like going back to Boston or New York or anywhere else. I didn't care, really, about stopping her for good. I didn't care about the whole wide world, not when right now the real danger was that this camp would suffer.
I could deal with what came afterwards.The city was still recovering, the city was still broken, and this camp was part of it. It felt as if I couldn't care about anything else, as if my head was stuffed with fears and worries, with all of the things I had to do.
"We'll see," I said, coldly. Distantly. I stood up slowly, and stretched. In the distance, Flechette and Kid Win (the former flying as low as possible) were on their way. "Parian. Flechette is coming, by the way. We can drop them off with the Wards, while they call for backup."
Parian seemed to consider that for a moment. I could see her shoulders slump slightly, as if she were facing something, and then she took a breath, "Tell her I won't see her, if she asks."
Then she turned tail and retreated.
*******
Of course I went to see Parian. Not because I didn't support her in her desire not to see Flechette, but because I wanted to resolve this. At least one of us deserved to be happy.
She was sewing when I came in, working on what looked like a costume.
"Is that for anyone?"
"Actually, no," Parian admitted, not even looking up from her work. "Just… something. I've been thinking about it. A costume for another occasion." It looked like something old-fashioned, or at least to me it looked a little like a doublet. Though I was pretty sure that few doublets had a slight plunge in their neckline like that. Nor were they as colorful as all of that. "Or for some other costume. Making things to make them. I like doing it." She was doing it by hand, not using her power at all, though all around her were her stuffed animals.
I stepped towards her, frowning at it for a moment, and then at the hat that was off to the side, with a feather in it. It looked like something that some sort of 18th century cavalier might wear, or something like that. I frowned and said, "So, I assume you don't want to talk about Flechette?"
"No. I don't."
I nodded. "Then I won't. Are you going to go back to college?"
"Maybe. I can't spend all of my time around a bunch of teenagers, I need to meet friends my own age. Mature, independent…"
Her voice sounded almost bitter, as if these were marks against them. "In control."
"Are you saying I'm immature?" I asked, trying to make it sound like I was joking. But in truth, I did wonder how we all looked to her, worrying about such minor things. Worrying, at times, about nothing at all. Getting in little spats, breaking up and then sulking… not that the latter was unique to teenagers.
"A little bit. You have a lot of weight on your shoulders, and you're not willing to shrug it off. Maybe that's a mistake," Parian said.
"Do you think I'm making a mistake?" I asked.
"In what?" Parian responded.
"You know everyone's talking about it." My voice was a little acid, and I took a breath and searched for somewhere to sit.
"Perhaps you're just thinking about it. Please, tell me," Parian said. Her voice was soft, but there was something cold and stiff in making me say it out loud.
"Breaking up with Rachel."
"Have you? Then good."
I blinked. "Good?"
"She was rough, ugly, and crude, and I do not particularly like dogs. I am a cat person, after all." Parian's face was impossible to see behind the mask, but she sounded like she meant it.
"She wasn't ugly," I said, hotly, feeling fury, and emotion in general, awakening that had been dull and distant these past few days. "She isn't. And dogs are…" I took a breath, aware of the irony.
She was the first person who'd actually approved of my choice, who'd thought it was good, and here I was… actually, when I listened to myself, yelling. Yelling at her for daring to say bad things about Rachel.
In part, they weren't the right things: it wasn't her face, or the dogs. It was the way I was apparently a burden. The way her deeds…
"Fine? So tell me, what was this fight about? What did she do wrong?"
"Okay," I said, feeling like maybe Parian would actually listen. "I think that she was only pretending to care about anything I liked to have sex with me. I was sacrificing things, and trying to work with her because I loved her, and she just… wanted stuff. And before she met me, she hurt some people. And they're suing. We're probably going to lose all of the money we have, and more, and there's nothing we can do except lessen the impact. And she's not really, really sorry about it. It's who she is."
"Ah, lawsuits." Parian seemed to almost wince at that. "And if she's admitted that she only did all of it because you wanted her to, then that's pretty clear."
I bit my lip, "She spoke about it as if it were this big burden. And she didn't deny it when I said it." I shrugged. "I want to get over her, but it's not been long enough, and she's still there. And… I don't want her to just go away either."
"Well, I know how that feels," Parian admitted. "You want to push her away, you want to pull her close. It's not fair that she comes with what she does, is it?"
"Comes with?" I asked.
"None of the lawsuits are from after you met her, right? She's always been a brute and a crude and violent person." Parian sniffed slightly. "Not my type at all, though I admit that a good set of muscles…"
I flushed, glad that I had a mask to cover my face, because of course, while Flechette and Rachel shared very, very little with each other, both were athletic girls. Just different sorts of athletes. Rachel looked like she could play football, and not the light-touch kind, while Flechette had a body a little like Sophia: made for running, made for long-limbed locomotion.
It was a matter of tastes, and I wondered at that, that we'd never talked about… that. After all, it wasn't as if I hadn't heard an earful from Greg before about girls, always delivered in that sort of wistful, annoyed tone of voice that I didn't trust, sometimes.
It wasn't as if people didn't talk about tastes all the time, and I'd had Parian in front of me all this time and I'd said nothing about it. "Well, yeah. It's a specific taste, but it's a… I mean."
"Yes. Everyone's aware of how much sex you had. Until you stopped having it. Maybe she really was just using you for the sex." Parian shrugged. "I don't know. I bet everyone's telling you you're wrong for it. Or they're thinking it, and you can feel their silent judgement." Parian took off her mask, and glanced down at the costume sadly. "That sucks. I've felt it before, felt pressured to kiss someone or make up with someone just because it's what you're supposed to do. I don't like being shackled, controlled, I want to control… and yet I don't even know how." She glared at the costume as if it were a dreaded enemy. No longer sad at it, now angry and ready for a fight. "What am I supposed to all that?"
I realized it'd stopped being about me somewhere in there, but I took a breath. "Is it her persistence?"
"Maybe. That makes me think that what she wants isn't what I want. But… she's also young for me."
I bit my lip. "Oh?"
"Am I taking advantage of her because I think she's be more willing to bend over and do whatever I wanted."
"Bend over backwards?" I asked.
"...yeah," Parian said, looking up at me, her face even more blank than her mask. "Just… it's a selfish, stupid way to go about it. You are afraid she just wanted you for sex? But she started by telling you that she wanted to have sex."
"I wanted more than that."
"And she promised more than that?"
"Girlfriends is more than that," I said. "What we had was more than that. But if it was all just window dressing." I realized I was circling around, saying the same things I'd always said, doing the same things I'd always done.
I was a dog circling the very end of my leash, straining to move beyond it. Trapped, but a different sort of trap, one that a boot couldn't just fix.
"Maybe it was. Though if so, then weren't both of you kinda dressing it up?"
I blinked, and then realized that, well. It was more than that to me, but there had been something physical at the start, and its lack had hurt. Looked over at Parian, and wondered how to explain it to her. She was older than me, so maybe she'd understand: I at once wanted the physical and our relationship had started with that, but I wanted it to be more than that, and couldn't stand the idea of it being only that.
The clock ticked for a moment as I thought, and she got back to sewing, not even using her power, her fingers nimbly making the costume. It looked… I frowned, looking at it closer. "Maybe, and this? Who is it for?"
"Nobody," Parian said, firmly. "You should really go. You can listen in and watch me if you want, I can't stop you. But you're right: if you had reasons break up with her, then break up with her. Don't go wishing for some different her. She's what you'll get if you want her. And you don't. So it seems simple enough to me."
I took a breath. She was right. If it was that simple, it was that simple. She seemed frustrated and open, and I really did want to push her. I opened my mouth, not sure what to ask. Maybe that was a sign that I shouldn't. I'd just make a fool of myself, I bet. After all, I was a kid compared to her, and maybe I shouldn't talk about all of the things I might. But then, who else was there to talk with? But maybe another time. Maybe when there was something to talk about. When the private wasn't already being hung up like dirty laundry.
Parian approved of what I did… but why did that not completely feel like a good thing?
********
Monday came, and Monday went. I kept on waiting for it to happen, for another attack, but the Butcher seemed to be busy. I wasn't sure what she was busy doing, but either way, I was ready for the attack.
Anything to get rid of the feeling that I was making a mistake, when the truth was that everything I'd said still stood. At the very least, she'd…
I'd cut myself off there, because if I got myself worked up and angry, it wouldn't stop. The camp seemed to tiptoe around me, and everyone was smiling in the kind of way I couldn't really believe, where you knew they were worried.
The camp continued as it had: another dozen people showed up on Monday, in ones and twos, bringing stories of tyranny, of people chained up and sold off. It seemed as if she even had a market, of sorts, and yet where could the money be in all of this? It wasn't as if she was going to start a plantation, and sex slaves were…
It just didn't completely make sense, it was so pointless, but that was that. So while she created her own slave society and sacked and slaughtered, apparently cutting through the E88 territory, I sat in camp and considered the difficulty of not having enough toilets, or running out of toilet paper and having to send people out running for some more before the entire campground to a halt.
I was distracted, but not distracted enough.
Tuesday came, dull and bleary, warm of course, but nothing more than that. It felt like it was going to rain, but it was the humidity, rather than any real chance that rain would wash anything away.
******
I saw them coming, of course. I was sitting in my tent, Rachel's stuff still there, wondering just when she'd actually leave. As long as she was here, still just out of reach, she was going to keep haunting me. But I didn't want to go and tell her to just leave already, because…
Because I didn't want that. Or I wanted it, but that wasn't the same as needing it, and what I needed was for this all to just be okay.
My powers meant that they couldn't surprise me, Cassie and Stefanie, heading towards me, the latter out of costume and looking troubled, at least as far as my bugs could tell. They buzzed and hummed around the pair, who stopped in front of my tent. "Arachne," Stefanie said, her voice quiet and uncertain, "We have news."
"Come in," I said, setting down the useless book, the cover bright red but the contents as dull as a concrete wall. It felt like the book was holding me back from the interesting parts of the story, as if it were the first volume of a trilogy and they couldn't get readers too interested or they'd run out of things to say.
Cassie smiled uncertainly, the two biracial girls in very different moods. "Hey, we got news. Good news."
"What news?"
"Well, the bad news first," Stefanie said. "She has the news reports, but the Butcher has taken over a lot of the E88's territory, and there's widespread reports of violence, especially from… people getting revenge." Stefanie didn't sound as pained about that as she perhaps should.
I couldn't blame her at all. "Ah, and?"
"Apparently Grue has been driven out of his territory, as has Regent. The Undersiders faced off with the Teeth and lost, and were driven back, and so now the remnants of that gang are struggling to hold off the Butcher. If they fall, then next is…"
"Coil and Accord?" I guessed.
"Yes," Cassie said. "And neither of them are going to be able to stop the Butcher."
I bit my lip. "Probably not, no." There were other villains out there in theory: like where was Circus, where were Uber and Leet? But it really was pretty barren. "So, how long will the Butcher take in wiping them all out? Weeks? Days?"
"Accord is usually thought to be pretty tough, people are betting on him holding out. But Coil, nobody even knows what his power is," Cassie said. "Online, at least."
I didn't know either, which was enough to worry me. It was enough to worry Tattletale, or she would have struck out on her own already, and he had Dinah locked up, using her whatever power…
There was a lot I didn't know because of how secure his base was, but I knew enough to know that I had to act against Coil soon. If he was going to collapse, I needed to save Dinah to keep the Butcher from getting her hands on yet another innocent. Every day I spent caged up in this camp was another day I wasn't taking the fight to the Butcher.
"When do they think she'll attack me again?"
"Well, online the idea is that your… group, and they're starting to debate names in earnest, is too strong for the Butcher to cross, and so she'd save it for last, if ever."
I frowned, not sure I bought that sort of puffery. It was just bold words, nothing more. "Yeah, that's real likely."
"I don't think so either," Cassie said. "Especially with the fighting."
I sighed. "Yes?"
"She's broken up about you not being there. She's asked me about you," Cassie said, accusingly, looking at me with hard, disbelieving eyes.
"And what did you say?" I asked, the words slipping out fast and hard, stomping sorts of words that didn't walk when they could thunder. "It's okay, she's just herself, let me spread my arms wide, and I'll shelter you?"
Cassie's smile grew fragile, but it wasn't Cassie who snapped.
"Don't say something like that! Cassie has been nothing but polite and helpful since she got here, and that was uncalled for!"
I tried not to snort. Uncalled for? She really was trying to talk like she was the adult in the room. But I took a breath, trying to see things reasonably. "Of course you'd take her side."
"Her side? I want her to be happy. I'm sure you wanted the same thing," Cassie said.
"Fine." I crossed my arms, gritting my teeth and looking at Cassie, who looked straight at me back, not breaking eye contact, her eyes unreadable. "How is she?"
"She's cried. Not a lot, but… she's in a horrible mood and she asks about you. About how you're doing?"
"She cried? When?"
"At night," Cassie said. "What? Did you think she didn't have a heart? She's been helping dogs her whole life, she--"
"Hurt people. People who are going to sue, and going to wipe us all out."
"Unless she leaves? Unless you drive her away?" Cassie accused.
"Me? Drive her away? I figured she'd leave on her own once she realized I meant it, and that I wasn't someone she could just…" I tried breathing in and out. "She's going to leave. And I'm better… I don't want her to, but that's because I'm a fool." A fool still in love, but… there were different kinds of love, and there was a point where I wasn't going to bang my head against the wall. I wasn't wrong, she was the one who had caused the problems.
"Maybe she will," Stefanie said. "I don't know, but we do have news with the five lawsuits. One of the people agreed to drop their lawsuit if Rachel apologized… genuinely, but she was willing to accept it in writing. And another of them, one of the minor cases, is willing to settle for just a few thousand. One or two, at most. Something we can pay."
I frowned, "Oh?"
"We talked with a lawyer. Or rather…" Stefanie said. "I kinda talked to your Dad who got us a lawyer who knew his stuff. We're going to have to pay out for all of the cases that go forward, but we might be able to get them to settle, and as long as she's a hero, and we pay a lawyer to do the work, we can slow-walk it."
"Slow walk?" I asked, frowning. "What do you mean?"
"We'll lose… in two years, once it finishes getting through the court system, if we really fight it," Cassie said. "And if she's still a hero then, then I doubt the judge will charge more than damages. Same for any of the cases. Time's on our side."
For her, for me, for anyone who was a teenager whose life had changed multiple times in the last few months, that was forever. I blinked, feeling as if someone had finally…
No. It was still a problem. I shouldn't be relieved just because her acts had--
A little voice deep down inside me reminded me of how many people I'd hurt. I'd blinded people in violent spite, and thought nothing more of it. And I had my reasons, and so did she. But her reasons were wrong. None of the people who were hurt deserved it, I thought, trying to explain myself. Or perhaps I should just admit that I was flawed too. But what about the camp, what about that?
I didn't know what to say, so I said, "Well… that's great. Until we know she's left, we should continue to…"
Then I realized, no matter what, I didn't want her to suffer. Of course, if she left, I doubted they'd be able to catch her to actually force her to pay with money she didn't have. Still, looking from worried face to worried face, "Even if she does leave, continue the stalling. We have the money for it, though I bet if she leaves the BitchZone leaves with her."
"People care about you too," Cassie said, but a little weakly. It was true that, bizarre as it was considering how I was apparently viewed as a leader, it was everyone else who had the online reputation. Stefanie who had given the interview, Parian who was a known entity, Charlotte and Stefanie (again) who did most of the work with the camp, Rachel who, despite not going online at all, had somehow inspired a movement that had probably saved the camp.
If it hadn't been for that, how could we have afforded to keep all of this up? Maybe it'd be best if we hadn't: after all, these people were still here, still in the line of sight for the Teeth, but giving up this area would have meant the Merchants would have expanded, unchecked, and would have been a menace… and probably still would have fallen to the Teeth. So, all in all, I couldn't say that it was a bad thing that a bunch of people online liked her.
I liked her too. Or I had, and I could still remember things about her. The way she could soften into something, if given enough time. The fact that she cared, really cared, about her dogs. If only she could understand that people mattered too.
She was just so frustrating, but the fact that the situation could be managed meant… it was especially important that I should have talked to her about the specific allegations.
I'd need to do so, even if we remained broke up. It could give me an excuse… reason. Reason to talk to her again. "Thank you," I said to Cassie's response. "I'll need to think about this. You have it all well in hand."
"Good, though I was hoping," Stefanie began.
"Yes?"
"That you'd go and talk to Rachel now," Stefanie said.
"I'll consider it. I really will," I said, frowning a little. "I hope you don't think I'm not listening to you when you give advice."
"I know you're listening," Stefanie said. "Cassie, could you step away for a second?"
"Sure," Cassie said, rather more chipper than I would have been at being excluded.
Once she was gone, Stefanie said. "Don't mind that Cassie's a little partisan. So were you. I'm not on her side, but I am on the side that maybe it'd be better if you talked, even if it was just to cordially break up instead of turning it into…"
"I'm not that sort of person, though," I admitted. "That a cordial breakup would make sense."
"You and Rachel aren't my parents, but you'd seemed to have something that worked, and I wanted it to keep on working." She looked younger now, looking at me with something like frustration. "I know that's childish."
"You're one of the more mature people I know," I said. "A lot more mature than I can be, arguing and fighting and yelling. I'll talk to her. Soon. Maybe this weekend." I knew I was putting it off, but such was life. "Give it a few days to cool off.
*********
Time passed slowly when I was waiting. I hated being confined, and this wasn't just about the locker. I'd been the kind of kid to leap out of bed and try to go exploring when I had a fever, unless one of my parents sat by my bed and played with me, entertained my fickle mind.
Now I waited. I wanted to talk to her, but… was she really crying over me? Surely Cassie was lying, but I didn't want to check. Because what if she was lying? Or even worse, what if she wasn't.
I'd feel bad either way, but there were different kinds of regret, and different ways I could approach the problem. So I hesitated. On Wednesday it rained away half the day and I just spent the time in my tent, keeping the bugs out to see if the Butcher was going to do anything else. I knew it'd happen, sooner rather than later.
I'd be ready. This time, I decided, there was going to be no retreating, no hesitation and no running away. I wasn't going to kill her, if only because that wouldn't end well, but I wasn't going to stand for her shit.
If I had to kill all of the other capes on her team, and drive her off in fear of her life, I'd do it. Who was going to blame me? It was the Teeth: though that was a thought that justified far too many horrible things.
But I couldn't hold back. I needed to defeat the Butcher in order to protect my own. To protect the things, and the people, that mattered most to me.
I had a lot of plans.
Of course I never got to enact them.
*******
I woke up on Thursday morning, bleary and confused. Someone was moving around, and I opened my eyes. For some brief moment I expected to see Rachel. I didn't know why, because it made no sense at all. But that's what I expected, and when I didn't see her, it felt as if I'd been hit hard in the chest.
Instead it was Charlotte. She wasn't in her costume, and her eyes were dark, circles around them marking her out as someone tired.
"Taylor," she said.
"Wuh?" I asked. I wasn't a morning person, and so I groaned when I got up, rubbing at my head, aware that I wasn't sparsely dressed. "Yes?"
"I need to talk to you."
"Can it wait?"
"No, no it can't." She bit her lip and said, "I… figured something out. Something bad. I've been thinking about it for a while."
"What?"
"I was thinking about what I've said, right before you went to talk to Rachel. What people have done when I said something, and…"
She hesitated, and there was something about to overflow in those eyes, as if she were on the verge of a crying jag. "It's okay," I said.
"No. It isn't."
"It isn't?" I asked.
"No. I… I think I have another power."
I blinked slowly, sleepily, looking at her for a moment. "Like a… second trigger?" I'd heard people talking about it online, way back when. Always speculating about what a cape they liked would look like with one. Usually the ideas were basically expressions of fannish pride more than anything else: imagining ways that the cape you liked could be even more awesome.
"No. I… something I didn't notice. Something that nobody noticed. I was having an argument with one of them, and then we stopped arguing, and someone tried to get us to make up by testing powers together." Charlotte's nose wrinkled, as if the whole idea was odious. "Then when I said something… it doesn't make sense, does it? Why do I give orders to people before they get the powers? What's the point of that: unless that's just it, to give them orders."
I was slow on the uptake, so I didn't realize where she was going with this. "Okay?"
"It's not okay."
"Okay," I repeated, holding a hand up, and rubbing my eyes. I was hungry, too, and I really had to go to the bathroom. I was in no mood to really follow through the point. "So?"
"I think I can control people. Or… influence what they do," she said.
This time I blinked slower, my brain churning through the first implications. "What? Really?"
"...I think so. It's the only thing that makes sense. I've told people to do things and they've done so even when they're opposed. And not even realized it."
"Oh," I said, and now my thoughts were moving fast. "You what?!" I sprang forward, grabbing onto her as I bared her back. I wasn't a fighter, but I was pretty fit, and I had the element of surprise. "You did what?"
"I… deserve this. I ruined things," Charlotte said. "I didn't even know."
"You didn't? Or you didn't want me to know because you…" I stopped myself, taking a deep breath, but the rage was there, boiling beneath the surface. I wanted to hurt her. If this was true, and I was sure it was, then it was her fault!
She really had turned me against Rachel.
But had she? She'd used her powers on me, without my permission, in ways that disturbed me, but her advice had been to talk to Rachel to make things right. To confront her, but in a way she had to assume was positive.
The words had been mine. If there hadn't been a storm brewing, then I would have thanked her for getting me to finally talk to her and clear up the desultory clouds. Except they'd been a storm instead. And Rachel… had noticed it?
Had noticed the way that when Charlotte talked, I listened, and even did what she told me to do. She'd been the one to encourage me to take charge, encouraged me again and again. She clearly didn't want power, or she would have recognized what she could do far earlier and used it to take over. I wouldn't have even noticed, if I was this oblivious.
Because I was a fucking moron. Apparently.
"You really didn't. You don't want this," I said. "But you've fucked everything up anyways."
"I…"
"We can start a club," I said, quietly, gritting my teeth. "We can start a fucking club."
"Um," Charlotte said, uncertainly..
"Don't use your power on… wait." I held up a hand, thoughts whirring through my head, most of them useless, like: did her power not work on animals, or was it that animals didn't obey her commands? They obeyed Rachel's. Or didn't have brains in general, in the case of my bugs. "Me, or anyone else. Keep this on the downlow, but… keep it in mind. We'll have a reckoning soon, you know that, right?"
"Yes," Charlotte said in a small, terrified voice. "Why not now?"
I took a breath. "Because I have a girlfriend to talk to." I looked down at her, and then thought about a few other things I needed to do. Like get dressed.
"...within the hour," I added, flushing deep scarlet.
Had she betrayed me? If she didn't know what she'd done, then no. And yet I felt betrayed. Just like Rachel had, just like I had.
I needed to talk to her.
I needed to make this right.
*******
A/N: And thus ends Collar Arc. After the next Interlude comes the final Arc of the story. 6-A is next, on Wednesday, and is going to be Tattletale's chance to check in and look behind the curtain.
Most of the camp didn't even realize the world had changed, had fallen apart. Because of course it didn't matter for them right now. When Rachel left, as I knew she'd do eventually, maybe even by tomorrow, then where would we be?
But they couldn't know it. It wasn't their business to keep up with the love affairs of the parahumans protecting them. Maybe they talked a little too much about it, but… I wasn't going to let them see anything here.
Rachel could have her stuff, I'd give it back to her, or pass it on to her, and then I had work to do. She was at fault, and so I wasn't going to spend more than one afternoon crying about it. I told myself that, but then…
We weren't going to care for the dogs together, we weren't going to just sit and relax by each other's side, we weren't going to have sex, and that surely cleared up hours of my week…
Nevermind what we weren't going to do. Because it didn't matter. It was over and done with, and good riddance.
But who did I want to talk to. Charlotte? And mention the silly accusations against her?
Stefanie? Maybe, with her parents too, if I could make sure they didn't talk about it.
Greg? ...I liked Greg, but I wondered how he'd feel about one of the people he played video games with leaving.
Parian? Ah, yes, because that would go well. Her, her parents, her life that was revolving around its own love problems.
I had a ton of friends now that I didn't have before, people that were willing to work together with me… but I knew none of them quite as closely as I knew Rachel. No, as I'd thought I'd known Rachel.
So I pulled my costume on on Friday and just walked the camp, checking in on everyone. When I got to the campfire, they were looking at me, clearly aware of something, I didn't know how.
They included Stefanie, in her Pelter costume and yet looking young and vulnerable as she said, "Arachne, we should talk."
"No thank you, Pelter," I said. "Thanks for saying that, but I don't think I'd like to talk about anything except running the camp. Are we good on food?"
"Yes, of course," Pelter said.
"That's good. What about medical supplies."
"Well, we are, but--"
"But what?" I asked, leaning forward, aware that I was on edge, and just as aware that my voice had increased slightly in volume.
"N-nothing," Stefanie said, and she looked hurt. It was easy to forget that she was two years younger than me, most of the time, considering how she stuck to the background doing all of the work. But I could see it now, and it hurt.
I took a breath and tried to find something nice to say, something that wouldn't lead to another fight. "You've been doing a good job," I said, leaning forward, stretching slightly as I stood up. "I appreciate everything you've done to help out around here. Maybe I should do some of that work myself. So as to not burden you too much."
"You could look it over," Stefanie suggested, hopefully. No doubt she'd be looking for a way to talk to me about Rachel.
"Fine," I said. "After I eat."
*******
I took my time, too. I ate slowly and carefully, I didn't have to rush to go see how Rachel was doing, or worry about her dogs. I had all the time I needed, and it was more than I wanted.
Finally, I walked with her into the nearby apartment building, going up to the third floor, walking slowly. My bugs could see all, so I knew that Greg was playing video games rather than working on the suit, though it was true that he'd probably been working at least some of the night. Parian was sewing in her room, and it wasn't yet time for the hangdog routine of Flechette showing up and then not going to see Parian because she didn't know what to say.
We sat down in what looked like a living room, messy clothes and all. I could hear her Mom hustling around in the kitchen, and her Dad was down in the camp, looking over a few things. I just leaned in and relaxed on the couch, trying to focus on the words in front of me.
It was all quite simple, really. In theory. You had the amount you invested into something, the amount it cost, and the benefit, and you then tried to balance the two so that it worked. We weren't a business, we didn't get money directly from feeding people, but we did get donations, and according to these numbers, those donations had only increased over the last week or two.
I assumed it was sort of a show of support? One that hadn't ended just because there were rumors of lawsuits inbound. I supposed that was good, but the truth was that we were burning through money really fast. We hadn't touched the money Rachel and I had brought here. Or rather, we'd replenished it, and it was even a neat little tally mark, now that I was looking.
A column where if we had to dip into that money, it was immediately put back into, though apparently we'd only had to do that during the first week where it actually mattered, keeping track like that.
"You know how to balance a book," I said.
"You learn these things," Stefanie said, trying to play it off. "Balance is key, and…"
I looked at her, and waited to see what she'd say.
"Whatever you fought with her about, surely it's not… how serious is it?" Stefanie asked.
I took a long breath, trying to push back my anger at Rachel to focus on saying what would work best now. "It's very serious. We're through. It's bad that we're through, but that just happens when one party can't see sense, and insists on insane conspiracy theories and…"
Stefanie was looking at me. "What conspiracies?"
"That Charlotte was turning me against her," I said.
"Well, that's just not true," Stefanie said, quietly. "And what?"
"I think, maybe she was just pretending to like me and this whole camp because she was attracted." I took a breath. "Let's not talk about this." It hurt, that kind of thought. I didn't want to believe it. But.
"We can do that, I'm sure we can." Stefanie said it hesitantly. "And in the meantime, why don't we take a look at this line here. It's the food, and it'll go up if we ever get the economy back started up: there's only so long people can donate food, so I was thinking that we might want to find someone to make a deal with. Or rather, order in bulk? It wouldn't be that hard, really. And going through third-hand…"
There it was. Practical concerns with practical solutions. Math and careful analysis. This was what I liked to do. I was my mother's daughter, and that meant making the smart moves. It meant knowing when something, or someone, was a lost cause, and finding ways to deal with it.
It meant being an adult. I was sixteen. Even with Rachel gone, even with all of that chapter over, I was going to get a GED and leave this all behind. I was going to… I didn't even know. I should have a plan. College? A job? But I couldn't think of anything. The future felt vague, trapped and hidden away, in some dark place filled with bugs and silence.
The bugs hadn't buzzed or made noise. No bees, and the flies themselves were silent, that was one of the first thing I figured out. How to make it stop… slightly. How to make them not do something. Stillness, silence, darkness, and vulnerability.
I talked to Stefanie, while not being there at all. I talked to her without feeling the words hit my head. I was a hollow thing, my rage and doubt stuffed inside the dark crevices of my body, slimy and gross and defiled by their presence.
Poetry finally came out, and it was as gross and maudlin as I'd expected it would be.
*******
Dad came by, after an hour or two of talking with Stefanie and then patrolling the camp. He came on a truck, which took him all the way up to a block away from the camp before it decided, apparently, that the going was too rough for the rest of the way. Maybe its tires were weak.
Either way, there he trudged along, head held high, unaware of what had happened. Unaware of a lot of things.
I sighed, looking up from the papers and the charts, the plans and the diagrams whose contents I almost couldn't remember, and said, "Dad's coming. I should go talk to him."
. I could talk to Dad, and pretend that nothing had happened. It'd be better than some of the options out there, and hopefully he'd leave none the wiser.
He was right the whole time about Rachel, and I didn't want him to have time to gloat, or tell some sad story about his first crush. I didn't need it, I thought, breathing heavily, trying to brace myself for a conflict that I wasn't sure if I'd actually win.
Not that actually winning had seemed to help much. No matter what I won, it didn't end anything. I didn't know when any of it would end.
Dad stopped at the edge of the camp, and I approached, stalking through the camp slowly, my bugs gathering up, and then dispersing when I realized that I was preparing for a fight, not a talk with my Dad.
Finally, I reached him, and pulled my mask off and gave the best smile I could manage.
Dad winced, looking almost unnerved. "Hey Dad! I don't have much time to talk, but I'm glad to see you! So, how has it been going with the rebuilding and the port? I've heard a lot about the E88, are they really all cleared out? If so, great. What about Coil, the Undersiders, and Accord? Are they giving you any problems? I think--"
"Taylor," Dad said, holding up a hand, his expression grave. "'Wag the Dog' sent a message to me online."
"Wait, you get online?"
"Yes. Taylor. I get online. The port is doing well, and things are coming together, the E88 really are gone, and both Accord and Coil seem content to just monitor the situation. Maybe they're selling drugs or bribing people, but I've seen neither. And the fight you had with your girlfriend. She told me about it last night."
"Already? And she's not my girlfriend anymore. You were right. She was bad news," I said, all but growling the words out.
"That's not the story that Cassie told me about you two. Or about the argument," Dad said.
I stared at him, "You too? She was in the wrong, she told me to leave, we're broken up, you were right, you win. So what are you even playing at?"
"I care about you, Taylor. I shouldn't have to say that, but I don't care about winning an argument with you. I care about your happiness…"
Dad looked at me and sighed, pushing at his glasses in a nervous, uncertain habit.
"Yeah, I've seen where that goes," I said, and then bit my lip. "Okay, that came out wrong."
"I've fought with your mother before," Dad began.
"You weren't there. That was it. It was over," I said. "And you were right the whole time. She was bad for me."
"Cassie told me what she heard, and it wasn't the end. It was a fight, and a bad one, but--"
"Oh come on, don't tell me you're taking her side!" I said.
"I'm not taking a side at all. I'm Switzerland," Dad said, smiling slightly as if he were remembering something. Maybe he was. "But I think that there's more to this. Maybe she's wrong about Amp, but if she feels left out, maybe you could talk it through with her. I've had fights with your mother before. Once, I even thought it was done with, that we were through. We didn't talk for almost three weeks, and I felt as low as could be."
Despite myself, I wanted to know. Now because he was right, because he was wrong: a fight almost implied that one party wasn't completely and totally wrong. And that party wasn't me. I was right, she was wrong, and that meant that it was less a fight and more me realizing the truth of how little she actually cared for…
For everything I'd done for her, for every way I'd tried to connect to her, for everything I cared about, except perhaps my body.
"And then you got over it. But Rachel's not like that," I said. "She's blunt and open about things."
"Did she break up? Did she say: it's over?"
"No, but I know her, Dad. I know she meant it. And… a relationship is mutual sacrifices. You've said that before. I have, haven't I?"
"And she didn't sacrifice?" he asked.
"Some, but a relationship can't be a bunch of grudging sacrifices, especially when one party does it more."
"Did they feel like sacrifices?"
"Not at the time," I said. "But now they do."
"Taylor, I don't know if you should talk to her right now, but I think you should consider that maybe you're reacting too strongly," Dad said. "I don't want to be your life coach, but I think…"
"What?" I asked, crossing my arms.
"I think she's been more good for you than bad for you. Even with the fight you got into at school. You're happier and more driven now. Or you were. I made peace with all of this when I ate dinner with her. I… don't know if I can say I like her, but I approve of her. But I also understand if it doesn't work out, that can happen. But don't assume it won't work out, and don't assume that she's to blame. Or even that you're to blame. Sometimes the blame just… exists." Dad frowned and admitted, his glasses slipping down his face slightly. "I don't know if I am making sense, but I had to come. I just…"
"You can go now, if you want," I said. "I've heard what you had to say, and you're wrong, but I'm sure you love me and I'm sure you mean well. But I don't need you to awkwardly blame me for this."
"I'm not blaming you…"
"Maybe you aren't," I said, lowering the tone of my voice. "But you're taking her side? I just don't want to talk about it. It's over. It's done with. You're wrong, but you were right when you worried. You were right."
"No," Dad said. "I don't think I was. Even if it fails, don't let that destroy the moments you had. I don't…" Dad frowned. "Think of what you enjoyed. Learn from it, if it's really over." Dad shook his head. "I also wanted to come to check on the camp. There's a lot of talk about the team, you know."
"My team," I said, even though really, it didn't matter. Being in charge, being the leader. But Charlotte was right when she said that someone had to lead.
"People mostly talk about you and Bitch," Dad said. "And Parian. The others, most people don't know much about them. But everyone talks about them in the same breath as New Wave." Dad smiled wide, "You've achieved something. Don't think you haven't."
"All of those people saved, and it's just…" I hesitated. "You won't think I'm a terrible person if I tell you?"
"Yes?" Dad asked. "I mean, no I won't."
"It feels like it's trapping me. Maybe that's how she feels. I have to constantly be on guard for a fight, and if I lose then hundreds of people will be enslaved and hurt. I feel like I'm stuck in place, I feel like something has to give, and soon. And I don't know what. So maybe everyone talks about us, but out here, it's different. It's its own little world, and I don't know." I sighed. "I can understand how Rachel might want to leave. Even if it's not something she should do, that anyone should do."
"I don't know what to say," Dad said, with a shrug. "You can hand off responsibility, but you have a task in front of you. You have to do it, even if it's tough."
He was right, of course. But I'd seen where that led: to the world breaking your heart, if someone else didn't do it to you first. To strugglingly valiantly again and again until it started looking less like bravery and more like folly.
But then it was his folly: I'd been startled and worried when he'd given up on it, and so could I really blame him? If it was a behavior that, when stopped, was a bad sign? "Yeah," I said. I turned away and said, "Is there anything else?"
"Stay safe, Taylor," Dad said.
"I know."
"I love you."
I sighed, trying not to sound tired as I said, "I know that too."
"Well, I'm going to keep on saying it, until you hear it," Dad said. "Until…" he waved his arm a little vaguely, as if indicating some distant future that he was striving towards. As if he had a plan, when in truth I wasn't sure if he did. He was just waiting and seeing whether things changed. Would they?
Thus far change had been painful, uncertain, and not always good, and never simple. So I wasn't going to hold my breath for it, honestly.
"I'll do the best I can," I said. "You do the same. Hopefully the Butcher takes her time in coming back."
*******
On Saturday, the freeze continued, as I caught up on all of the work that was done. I had time, even, to start reading all sorts of books that I hadn't been able to get to when Rachel was there. After all, I'd had to teach her, so I couldn't do books with vocabularies that would lead to endless questions. It was simple, and so of course it was much, much better when I didn't have someone holding me down.
But the first book I chose was boring, too dull and conversational, and more than that, too willing to digress, to move away from the point rather than just stating it outright. And perhaps a little sexist, or at least, I didn't really buy the romance at all.
Dashing hero and princess, pah. They'd probably get divorced once they found out they shared nothing in common except chemistry, and the way that the princess was entirely useless was annoying too, and so I abandoned the book with a groan and tried another. '
But that one was too cheery and optimistic, too hopeful that the main characters could all just talk it out, and come to some sort of happy ending, as if that's how the world worked. So I ditched that book too, and was about to try on a third when there was a scream.
I couldn't see anything immediately with my bugs, but when I hurried out the door, I saw them in the sky.
One was a woman, dressed in chains and leather, holding what seemed like a huge supply of grenades. The other was a man in baggy pants and a rock T-shirt, his body pierced so many times I wondered if he woke up in pain. He had nothing more than his bare hands.
Both of them flew, so fast that the swarm of bugs I set out couldn't quite catch them, and the woman lobbed grenades downward.
They hit the ground, scattering around.
Unsure what to do, I had my bugs pile on top of the grenades, because I wasn't sure if I'd be able to lift them up with the bugs and do anything useful at all.
The man, on the other hand, shot out laser blasts that hit several of the tents and set them alight.
A second passed as they turned around, still a blur, though I made a screen of bugs so they couldn't see past them, and yelled, "Scatter!"
Bug guts coated the ground as the grenades exploded, each sounding like a deep, loud drumbeat.
Shrapnel went far as people screamed and ran and they came around again just as Pelter ran right out of the apartment building, stone in hand.
But as fast as the rock was, hurtling towards the man, he was just able to dodge it. Artificer stepped out with his laser gun a little too late, pouting at the missed opportunity as the woman threw the rest of her grenades, and the man set four or five more tents on fire, smoke now filling the air as they raced off the way they came.
People scattered away from the grenades just in time, for the most part.
The explosions didn't hurt anyone, but another tent collapsed, and we remained there, tense, as Charlotte and Parian hurried out of the apartment across the way, each of them ready for a fight…
They didn't come back immediately. I didn't know how to put out the fires, really. Parian's dolls could perhaps smother them, though, I thought. "Parian! Can your dolls put out those fires?"
I turned to someone, "Bucket chain!"
The man startled, and then yelled, "Bucket chain!" to someone else, and we got to work on putting things out.
They didn't come back immediately. We'd healed the few people who were injured, we'd saved the tents… or rather, some of the stuff in it, at the cost of a lot of electronics and all of the tents that had been set alight. We'd picked up the shrapnel and calmed people down, and were just assembled and ready for a fight when they came around again.
The same two people, though they were flying even faster this time, and seeing us all ready and gathered, waiting for them, they threw the grenades in our direction.
"Arachne, Pelter, Parian, Artificer, duck!" Amp yelled, running away from the grenade. We did, and were engulfed in the explosions of several grenades.
It stung, like someone was slapping me across my entire body, but nothing more than that, as the man shot a barrage of lasers at two more tents as they turned around, headed away.
They were going to keep on doing this, I thought, until we were worn down. Unless we could find a way to stop them. Rachel was still in her shelter, but even if I brought her here, I was pretty sure there wasn't much that she could actually help with. They'd learned something, the Teeth had.
That was that we had fewer answers to flying enemies, and that the more time they gave us, the worse things would get.
So the Butcher had devised an easy, simple, low-cost way to kill us with chip damage alone.
Except, of course, it'd become predictable if they did it a third time. Or a third time the same way.
"Pelter, Amp. I have an idea. But we'll need to do some work. Both of you go up on the building, then Pelter gets super-speed, and throws a bunch of rocks, shotgun it and keep on throwing them in their path." It was a generalized idea, but I could picture it in my head, and I bet it'd work.
Pelter held up a hand, as if we were in class. "But what if it kills them?"
"That's a good concern, but they're attacking this camp. I'm not sure how we could actually save them. I suppose we could have Parian…" I glanced over at the girl,her emotions hidden under her mask. Nobody she directly cared for had even been in danger. They still seemed to be operating under the impression that the camps were where most of our people were.
The thing was, I thought, taking a breath, was that they were right. Just barely right, but there were more in the tents than in either of the apartments, just because of how many people were still streaming here as refugees.
We were doing our best to make houses for all of them, but by now we had so many hundreds that I was wondering if it'd slip into the thousands. Probably it would, if this lasted much longer. "Stay in the tents? And then have her stuffed animals ready to catch them. They're soft, at least, and aren't likely to be hurt by catching someone."
"I guess…" Parian said.
"I'll try to keep in the area and keep an eye out," I said. "And can someone tell Rachel to be careful?" It'd make sense for them to attack her, I thought, wincing at the thought. Because surely the Butcher didn't miss that she meant… had meant, rather, a lot to me. That hurting her would be a good way to hurt me, and hurting her dogs would be a good way to hurt her.
Not that she could do that much if they really did think of attacking the shelter, since she was sorta helpless against flying attackers. But I didn't want her dogs to die, even if we were broken up.
Pelter bit her lip, and then glanced at Parian, who looked over at Greg.
"What? Oh… okay."
******
Greg must have told her, I didn't know because I wasn't watching the conversation. It'd be rude, and more than that, it'd get me pacing and worrying. Instead, we spent all afternoon waiting for an attack that didn't happen.
I had nothing to do, and so I moved, walking around and around in circles. If it wasn't for the attack keeping me leashed, I'd go on a run, at least around the block, or maybe around two blocks, so that I could burn off some of the energy.
As it was, I just paced and waited, and then ate dinner and waited, and went to bed with orders to yell and wake me up if anything happened… and waited then, there, through the dark night, where dreams ambushed me again.
I woke yearning and uncertain, to wait even more.
Then finally they came.
"Capes!" someone yelled, and I got up from where I was sitting, by one of the fires. I'd been smiling at it, just to try to practice it. It wasn't a grin, it was just a smile, and so I shouldn't have a hard time doing it. But I felt as if I were doing something wrong, as if I'd broken a rule somewhere by smiling, and that I needed to stop it.
I got up, looking at them. They were the same two people, though this time the woman seemed to be moving slightly slower, and she didn't have grenades. I assumed that her power had given her another weapon, and she flew right on at us, diving just slightly to be able to rain down green and red lasers on her part, and what looked like oil on his part. The oil sloshed on the ground, and I saw him reach into his outfit, perhaps for a match.
Which was when the rocks shot out from the building in a strong wall that slammed into them.
Both capes toppled, falling twenty feet, as dolls moved to try to block their fall. I hadn't even had time to get my bugs out, they were still buzzing and gathering.
Parian's stuffed animals caught one of them, and the other hit the ground, hard. I heard something crack, and I rushed forward, covering them with bugs as I did. They screamed and thrashed, and lasers cut into the stuffed bear that was holding the woman.
Down came Pelter, still almost a blur, and then Amp following her, and then we were on them, dragging them down and disarming them, and pulling off the patch, even though skin too came with it.
We didn't care. They thrashed as much as they could, but they couldn't actually stop us.
*****
"Tell me why you were sent?" I asked the woman, after her broken bones were mended. She'd broken both of her arms in the back, and now that I got a better look at her, even after the healing from Amp, she didn't look to be in a great condition. We'd keep them and then turn them over to the Protectorate for further questioning, but we needed to know about them and their plans. My bugs, sheerly for the safety of the shelter, had positioned themselves around where Rachel was, but hadn't quite entered the area, sticking outside nervously and uncertainly, and they showed no attack coming that way.
It looked like these two might be it, at least… for this particular attempt. Maybe there'd be a dozen more where that came from.
"Fuck you," the woman said.
"She's taken," Greg said, a stern one-liner that he seemed immediately embarrassed by, stepping back and blushing.
I shot him a glare and said, "This could go a lot easier if you just told me: is this meant to test our defenses? Wear us down?"
The woman bit her lip and said, "You're fucking us."
"Go on?" I asked, trying to relax and sound like I wasn't about to start hitting her to try to make her say something else.
"The Butcher's acting weird. It's your fault, you did something. So we're gonna fuck you up."
"Ah, is that what you're doing?" I asked, trying not to feel too happy. The Butcher acting weird could mean any number of things. I could only hope it meant that I was getting to her, that something bad was happening, something that I could use.
"... it didn't work," the woman admitted, with a cough. "Fuck you."
"You're the one taking slaves and murdering people," I said. I frowned, "And Butcher is fucking everything up. Why doesn't she just leave, then? If she's causing so many problems and getting none of what she wants."
"...she can't. Won't. Whatever," the woman said. "I'm not sayin' anything more to you, you fucking bitch."
I didn't care about the insult. I'd heard worse, and I'd heard worse from people whose opinions mattered more, but I imagined what Rachel would do if she was here. Stand up for…
I shook my head. "This is evidence that whatever we're doing, it's getting results. The Butcher isn't going herself to fight us again, because she's afraid of us."
The woman snorted. It was an ugly, piggish sort of sound, and I glared at her. "Afraid? Of you? Yeah, right."
As if it was impossible. But the impossible could happen, and people could surprise you. I was sure that she was afraid, that she was worried, that in wherever dark corner of her mind still had such emotions, she was afraid. I liked to think that, though it was impossible to be sure. But every time she'd fought us, there'd been a cost.
The burnt hand teaches best, and we'd burned her. She'd suffered for going after us, and that was good. Perhaps it'd mean she'd make a better choice in the future… like going back to Boston or New York or anywhere else. I didn't care, really, about stopping her for good. I didn't care about the whole wide world, not when right now the real danger was that this camp would suffer.
I could deal with what came afterwards.The city was still recovering, the city was still broken, and this camp was part of it. It felt as if I couldn't care about anything else, as if my head was stuffed with fears and worries, with all of the things I had to do.
"We'll see," I said, coldly. Distantly. I stood up slowly, and stretched. In the distance, Flechette and Kid Win (the former flying as low as possible) were on their way. "Parian. Flechette is coming, by the way. We can drop them off with the Wards, while they call for backup."
Parian seemed to consider that for a moment. I could see her shoulders slump slightly, as if she were facing something, and then she took a breath, "Tell her I won't see her, if she asks."
Then she turned tail and retreated.
*******
Of course I went to see Parian. Not because I didn't support her in her desire not to see Flechette, but because I wanted to resolve this. At least one of us deserved to be happy.
She was sewing when I came in, working on what looked like a costume.
"Is that for anyone?"
"Actually, no," Parian admitted, not even looking up from her work. "Just… something. I've been thinking about it. A costume for another occasion." It looked like something old-fashioned, or at least to me it looked a little like a doublet. Though I was pretty sure that few doublets had a slight plunge in their neckline like that. Nor were they as colorful as all of that. "Or for some other costume. Making things to make them. I like doing it." She was doing it by hand, not using her power at all, though all around her were her stuffed animals.
I stepped towards her, frowning at it for a moment, and then at the hat that was off to the side, with a feather in it. It looked like something that some sort of 18th century cavalier might wear, or something like that. I frowned and said, "So, I assume you don't want to talk about Flechette?"
"No. I don't."
I nodded. "Then I won't. Are you going to go back to college?"
"Maybe. I can't spend all of my time around a bunch of teenagers, I need to meet friends my own age. Mature, independent…"
Her voice sounded almost bitter, as if these were marks against them. "In control."
"Are you saying I'm immature?" I asked, trying to make it sound like I was joking. But in truth, I did wonder how we all looked to her, worrying about such minor things. Worrying, at times, about nothing at all. Getting in little spats, breaking up and then sulking… not that the latter was unique to teenagers.
"A little bit. You have a lot of weight on your shoulders, and you're not willing to shrug it off. Maybe that's a mistake," Parian said.
"Do you think I'm making a mistake?" I asked.
"In what?" Parian responded.
"You know everyone's talking about it." My voice was a little acid, and I took a breath and searched for somewhere to sit.
"Perhaps you're just thinking about it. Please, tell me," Parian said. Her voice was soft, but there was something cold and stiff in making me say it out loud.
"Breaking up with Rachel."
"Have you? Then good."
I blinked. "Good?"
"She was rough, ugly, and crude, and I do not particularly like dogs. I am a cat person, after all." Parian's face was impossible to see behind the mask, but she sounded like she meant it.
"She wasn't ugly," I said, hotly, feeling fury, and emotion in general, awakening that had been dull and distant these past few days. "She isn't. And dogs are…" I took a breath, aware of the irony.
She was the first person who'd actually approved of my choice, who'd thought it was good, and here I was… actually, when I listened to myself, yelling. Yelling at her for daring to say bad things about Rachel.
In part, they weren't the right things: it wasn't her face, or the dogs. It was the way I was apparently a burden. The way her deeds…
"Fine? So tell me, what was this fight about? What did she do wrong?"
"Okay," I said, feeling like maybe Parian would actually listen. "I think that she was only pretending to care about anything I liked to have sex with me. I was sacrificing things, and trying to work with her because I loved her, and she just… wanted stuff. And before she met me, she hurt some people. And they're suing. We're probably going to lose all of the money we have, and more, and there's nothing we can do except lessen the impact. And she's not really, really sorry about it. It's who she is."
"Ah, lawsuits." Parian seemed to almost wince at that. "And if she's admitted that she only did all of it because you wanted her to, then that's pretty clear."
I bit my lip, "She spoke about it as if it were this big burden. And she didn't deny it when I said it." I shrugged. "I want to get over her, but it's not been long enough, and she's still there. And… I don't want her to just go away either."
"Well, I know how that feels," Parian admitted. "You want to push her away, you want to pull her close. It's not fair that she comes with what she does, is it?"
"Comes with?" I asked.
"None of the lawsuits are from after you met her, right? She's always been a brute and a crude and violent person." Parian sniffed slightly. "Not my type at all, though I admit that a good set of muscles…"
I flushed, glad that I had a mask to cover my face, because of course, while Flechette and Rachel shared very, very little with each other, both were athletic girls. Just different sorts of athletes. Rachel looked like she could play football, and not the light-touch kind, while Flechette had a body a little like Sophia: made for running, made for long-limbed locomotion.
It was a matter of tastes, and I wondered at that, that we'd never talked about… that. After all, it wasn't as if I hadn't heard an earful from Greg before about girls, always delivered in that sort of wistful, annoyed tone of voice that I didn't trust, sometimes.
It wasn't as if people didn't talk about tastes all the time, and I'd had Parian in front of me all this time and I'd said nothing about it. "Well, yeah. It's a specific taste, but it's a… I mean."
"Yes. Everyone's aware of how much sex you had. Until you stopped having it. Maybe she really was just using you for the sex." Parian shrugged. "I don't know. I bet everyone's telling you you're wrong for it. Or they're thinking it, and you can feel their silent judgement." Parian took off her mask, and glanced down at the costume sadly. "That sucks. I've felt it before, felt pressured to kiss someone or make up with someone just because it's what you're supposed to do. I don't like being shackled, controlled, I want to control… and yet I don't even know how." She glared at the costume as if it were a dreaded enemy. No longer sad at it, now angry and ready for a fight. "What am I supposed to all that?"
I realized it'd stopped being about me somewhere in there, but I took a breath. "Is it her persistence?"
"Maybe. That makes me think that what she wants isn't what I want. But… she's also young for me."
I bit my lip. "Oh?"
"Am I taking advantage of her because I think she's be more willing to bend over and do whatever I wanted."
"Bend over backwards?" I asked.
"...yeah," Parian said, looking up at me, her face even more blank than her mask. "Just… it's a selfish, stupid way to go about it. You are afraid she just wanted you for sex? But she started by telling you that she wanted to have sex."
"I wanted more than that."
"And she promised more than that?"
"Girlfriends is more than that," I said. "What we had was more than that. But if it was all just window dressing." I realized I was circling around, saying the same things I'd always said, doing the same things I'd always done.
I was a dog circling the very end of my leash, straining to move beyond it. Trapped, but a different sort of trap, one that a boot couldn't just fix.
"Maybe it was. Though if so, then weren't both of you kinda dressing it up?"
I blinked, and then realized that, well. It was more than that to me, but there had been something physical at the start, and its lack had hurt. Looked over at Parian, and wondered how to explain it to her. She was older than me, so maybe she'd understand: I at once wanted the physical and our relationship had started with that, but I wanted it to be more than that, and couldn't stand the idea of it being only that.
The clock ticked for a moment as I thought, and she got back to sewing, not even using her power, her fingers nimbly making the costume. It looked… I frowned, looking at it closer. "Maybe, and this? Who is it for?"
"Nobody," Parian said, firmly. "You should really go. You can listen in and watch me if you want, I can't stop you. But you're right: if you had reasons break up with her, then break up with her. Don't go wishing for some different her. She's what you'll get if you want her. And you don't. So it seems simple enough to me."
I took a breath. She was right. If it was that simple, it was that simple. She seemed frustrated and open, and I really did want to push her. I opened my mouth, not sure what to ask. Maybe that was a sign that I shouldn't. I'd just make a fool of myself, I bet. After all, I was a kid compared to her, and maybe I shouldn't talk about all of the things I might. But then, who else was there to talk with? But maybe another time. Maybe when there was something to talk about. When the private wasn't already being hung up like dirty laundry.
Parian approved of what I did… but why did that not completely feel like a good thing?
********
Monday came, and Monday went. I kept on waiting for it to happen, for another attack, but the Butcher seemed to be busy. I wasn't sure what she was busy doing, but either way, I was ready for the attack.
Anything to get rid of the feeling that I was making a mistake, when the truth was that everything I'd said still stood. At the very least, she'd…
I'd cut myself off there, because if I got myself worked up and angry, it wouldn't stop. The camp seemed to tiptoe around me, and everyone was smiling in the kind of way I couldn't really believe, where you knew they were worried.
The camp continued as it had: another dozen people showed up on Monday, in ones and twos, bringing stories of tyranny, of people chained up and sold off. It seemed as if she even had a market, of sorts, and yet where could the money be in all of this? It wasn't as if she was going to start a plantation, and sex slaves were…
It just didn't completely make sense, it was so pointless, but that was that. So while she created her own slave society and sacked and slaughtered, apparently cutting through the E88 territory, I sat in camp and considered the difficulty of not having enough toilets, or running out of toilet paper and having to send people out running for some more before the entire campground to a halt.
I was distracted, but not distracted enough.
Tuesday came, dull and bleary, warm of course, but nothing more than that. It felt like it was going to rain, but it was the humidity, rather than any real chance that rain would wash anything away.
******
I saw them coming, of course. I was sitting in my tent, Rachel's stuff still there, wondering just when she'd actually leave. As long as she was here, still just out of reach, she was going to keep haunting me. But I didn't want to go and tell her to just leave already, because…
Because I didn't want that. Or I wanted it, but that wasn't the same as needing it, and what I needed was for this all to just be okay.
My powers meant that they couldn't surprise me, Cassie and Stefanie, heading towards me, the latter out of costume and looking troubled, at least as far as my bugs could tell. They buzzed and hummed around the pair, who stopped in front of my tent. "Arachne," Stefanie said, her voice quiet and uncertain, "We have news."
"Come in," I said, setting down the useless book, the cover bright red but the contents as dull as a concrete wall. It felt like the book was holding me back from the interesting parts of the story, as if it were the first volume of a trilogy and they couldn't get readers too interested or they'd run out of things to say.
Cassie smiled uncertainly, the two biracial girls in very different moods. "Hey, we got news. Good news."
"What news?"
"Well, the bad news first," Stefanie said. "She has the news reports, but the Butcher has taken over a lot of the E88's territory, and there's widespread reports of violence, especially from… people getting revenge." Stefanie didn't sound as pained about that as she perhaps should.
I couldn't blame her at all. "Ah, and?"
"Apparently Grue has been driven out of his territory, as has Regent. The Undersiders faced off with the Teeth and lost, and were driven back, and so now the remnants of that gang are struggling to hold off the Butcher. If they fall, then next is…"
"Coil and Accord?" I guessed.
"Yes," Cassie said. "And neither of them are going to be able to stop the Butcher."
I bit my lip. "Probably not, no." There were other villains out there in theory: like where was Circus, where were Uber and Leet? But it really was pretty barren. "So, how long will the Butcher take in wiping them all out? Weeks? Days?"
"Accord is usually thought to be pretty tough, people are betting on him holding out. But Coil, nobody even knows what his power is," Cassie said. "Online, at least."
I didn't know either, which was enough to worry me. It was enough to worry Tattletale, or she would have struck out on her own already, and he had Dinah locked up, using her whatever power…
There was a lot I didn't know because of how secure his base was, but I knew enough to know that I had to act against Coil soon. If he was going to collapse, I needed to save Dinah to keep the Butcher from getting her hands on yet another innocent. Every day I spent caged up in this camp was another day I wasn't taking the fight to the Butcher.
"When do they think she'll attack me again?"
"Well, online the idea is that your… group, and they're starting to debate names in earnest, is too strong for the Butcher to cross, and so she'd save it for last, if ever."
I frowned, not sure I bought that sort of puffery. It was just bold words, nothing more. "Yeah, that's real likely."
"I don't think so either," Cassie said. "Especially with the fighting."
I sighed. "Yes?"
"She's broken up about you not being there. She's asked me about you," Cassie said, accusingly, looking at me with hard, disbelieving eyes.
"And what did you say?" I asked, the words slipping out fast and hard, stomping sorts of words that didn't walk when they could thunder. "It's okay, she's just herself, let me spread my arms wide, and I'll shelter you?"
Cassie's smile grew fragile, but it wasn't Cassie who snapped.
"Don't say something like that! Cassie has been nothing but polite and helpful since she got here, and that was uncalled for!"
I tried not to snort. Uncalled for? She really was trying to talk like she was the adult in the room. But I took a breath, trying to see things reasonably. "Of course you'd take her side."
"Her side? I want her to be happy. I'm sure you wanted the same thing," Cassie said.
"Fine." I crossed my arms, gritting my teeth and looking at Cassie, who looked straight at me back, not breaking eye contact, her eyes unreadable. "How is she?"
"She's cried. Not a lot, but… she's in a horrible mood and she asks about you. About how you're doing?"
"She cried? When?"
"At night," Cassie said. "What? Did you think she didn't have a heart? She's been helping dogs her whole life, she--"
"Hurt people. People who are going to sue, and going to wipe us all out."
"Unless she leaves? Unless you drive her away?" Cassie accused.
"Me? Drive her away? I figured she'd leave on her own once she realized I meant it, and that I wasn't someone she could just…" I tried breathing in and out. "She's going to leave. And I'm better… I don't want her to, but that's because I'm a fool." A fool still in love, but… there were different kinds of love, and there was a point where I wasn't going to bang my head against the wall. I wasn't wrong, she was the one who had caused the problems.
"Maybe she will," Stefanie said. "I don't know, but we do have news with the five lawsuits. One of the people agreed to drop their lawsuit if Rachel apologized… genuinely, but she was willing to accept it in writing. And another of them, one of the minor cases, is willing to settle for just a few thousand. One or two, at most. Something we can pay."
I frowned, "Oh?"
"We talked with a lawyer. Or rather…" Stefanie said. "I kinda talked to your Dad who got us a lawyer who knew his stuff. We're going to have to pay out for all of the cases that go forward, but we might be able to get them to settle, and as long as she's a hero, and we pay a lawyer to do the work, we can slow-walk it."
"Slow walk?" I asked, frowning. "What do you mean?"
"We'll lose… in two years, once it finishes getting through the court system, if we really fight it," Cassie said. "And if she's still a hero then, then I doubt the judge will charge more than damages. Same for any of the cases. Time's on our side."
For her, for me, for anyone who was a teenager whose life had changed multiple times in the last few months, that was forever. I blinked, feeling as if someone had finally…
No. It was still a problem. I shouldn't be relieved just because her acts had--
A little voice deep down inside me reminded me of how many people I'd hurt. I'd blinded people in violent spite, and thought nothing more of it. And I had my reasons, and so did she. But her reasons were wrong. None of the people who were hurt deserved it, I thought, trying to explain myself. Or perhaps I should just admit that I was flawed too. But what about the camp, what about that?
I didn't know what to say, so I said, "Well… that's great. Until we know she's left, we should continue to…"
Then I realized, no matter what, I didn't want her to suffer. Of course, if she left, I doubted they'd be able to catch her to actually force her to pay with money she didn't have. Still, looking from worried face to worried face, "Even if she does leave, continue the stalling. We have the money for it, though I bet if she leaves the BitchZone leaves with her."
"People care about you too," Cassie said, but a little weakly. It was true that, bizarre as it was considering how I was apparently viewed as a leader, it was everyone else who had the online reputation. Stefanie who had given the interview, Parian who was a known entity, Charlotte and Stefanie (again) who did most of the work with the camp, Rachel who, despite not going online at all, had somehow inspired a movement that had probably saved the camp.
If it hadn't been for that, how could we have afforded to keep all of this up? Maybe it'd be best if we hadn't: after all, these people were still here, still in the line of sight for the Teeth, but giving up this area would have meant the Merchants would have expanded, unchecked, and would have been a menace… and probably still would have fallen to the Teeth. So, all in all, I couldn't say that it was a bad thing that a bunch of people online liked her.
I liked her too. Or I had, and I could still remember things about her. The way she could soften into something, if given enough time. The fact that she cared, really cared, about her dogs. If only she could understand that people mattered too.
She was just so frustrating, but the fact that the situation could be managed meant… it was especially important that I should have talked to her about the specific allegations.
I'd need to do so, even if we remained broke up. It could give me an excuse… reason. Reason to talk to her again. "Thank you," I said to Cassie's response. "I'll need to think about this. You have it all well in hand."
"Good, though I was hoping," Stefanie began.
"Yes?"
"That you'd go and talk to Rachel now," Stefanie said.
"I'll consider it. I really will," I said, frowning a little. "I hope you don't think I'm not listening to you when you give advice."
"I know you're listening," Stefanie said. "Cassie, could you step away for a second?"
"Sure," Cassie said, rather more chipper than I would have been at being excluded.
Once she was gone, Stefanie said. "Don't mind that Cassie's a little partisan. So were you. I'm not on her side, but I am on the side that maybe it'd be better if you talked, even if it was just to cordially break up instead of turning it into…"
"I'm not that sort of person, though," I admitted. "That a cordial breakup would make sense."
"You and Rachel aren't my parents, but you'd seemed to have something that worked, and I wanted it to keep on working." She looked younger now, looking at me with something like frustration. "I know that's childish."
"You're one of the more mature people I know," I said. "A lot more mature than I can be, arguing and fighting and yelling. I'll talk to her. Soon. Maybe this weekend." I knew I was putting it off, but such was life. "Give it a few days to cool off.
*********
Time passed slowly when I was waiting. I hated being confined, and this wasn't just about the locker. I'd been the kind of kid to leap out of bed and try to go exploring when I had a fever, unless one of my parents sat by my bed and played with me, entertained my fickle mind.
Now I waited. I wanted to talk to her, but… was she really crying over me? Surely Cassie was lying, but I didn't want to check. Because what if she was lying? Or even worse, what if she wasn't.
I'd feel bad either way, but there were different kinds of regret, and different ways I could approach the problem. So I hesitated. On Wednesday it rained away half the day and I just spent the time in my tent, keeping the bugs out to see if the Butcher was going to do anything else. I knew it'd happen, sooner rather than later.
I'd be ready. This time, I decided, there was going to be no retreating, no hesitation and no running away. I wasn't going to kill her, if only because that wouldn't end well, but I wasn't going to stand for her shit.
If I had to kill all of the other capes on her team, and drive her off in fear of her life, I'd do it. Who was going to blame me? It was the Teeth: though that was a thought that justified far too many horrible things.
But I couldn't hold back. I needed to defeat the Butcher in order to protect my own. To protect the things, and the people, that mattered most to me.
I had a lot of plans.
Of course I never got to enact them.
*******
I woke up on Thursday morning, bleary and confused. Someone was moving around, and I opened my eyes. For some brief moment I expected to see Rachel. I didn't know why, because it made no sense at all. But that's what I expected, and when I didn't see her, it felt as if I'd been hit hard in the chest.
Instead it was Charlotte. She wasn't in her costume, and her eyes were dark, circles around them marking her out as someone tired.
"Taylor," she said.
"Wuh?" I asked. I wasn't a morning person, and so I groaned when I got up, rubbing at my head, aware that I wasn't sparsely dressed. "Yes?"
"I need to talk to you."
"Can it wait?"
"No, no it can't." She bit her lip and said, "I… figured something out. Something bad. I've been thinking about it for a while."
"What?"
"I was thinking about what I've said, right before you went to talk to Rachel. What people have done when I said something, and…"
She hesitated, and there was something about to overflow in those eyes, as if she were on the verge of a crying jag. "It's okay," I said.
"No. It isn't."
"It isn't?" I asked.
"No. I… I think I have another power."
I blinked slowly, sleepily, looking at her for a moment. "Like a… second trigger?" I'd heard people talking about it online, way back when. Always speculating about what a cape they liked would look like with one. Usually the ideas were basically expressions of fannish pride more than anything else: imagining ways that the cape you liked could be even more awesome.
"No. I… something I didn't notice. Something that nobody noticed. I was having an argument with one of them, and then we stopped arguing, and someone tried to get us to make up by testing powers together." Charlotte's nose wrinkled, as if the whole idea was odious. "Then when I said something… it doesn't make sense, does it? Why do I give orders to people before they get the powers? What's the point of that: unless that's just it, to give them orders."
I was slow on the uptake, so I didn't realize where she was going with this. "Okay?"
"It's not okay."
"Okay," I repeated, holding a hand up, and rubbing my eyes. I was hungry, too, and I really had to go to the bathroom. I was in no mood to really follow through the point. "So?"
"I think I can control people. Or… influence what they do," she said.
This time I blinked slower, my brain churning through the first implications. "What? Really?"
"...I think so. It's the only thing that makes sense. I've told people to do things and they've done so even when they're opposed. And not even realized it."
"Oh," I said, and now my thoughts were moving fast. "You what?!" I sprang forward, grabbing onto her as I bared her back. I wasn't a fighter, but I was pretty fit, and I had the element of surprise. "You did what?"
"I… deserve this. I ruined things," Charlotte said. "I didn't even know."
"You didn't? Or you didn't want me to know because you…" I stopped myself, taking a deep breath, but the rage was there, boiling beneath the surface. I wanted to hurt her. If this was true, and I was sure it was, then it was her fault!
She really had turned me against Rachel.
But had she? She'd used her powers on me, without my permission, in ways that disturbed me, but her advice had been to talk to Rachel to make things right. To confront her, but in a way she had to assume was positive.
The words had been mine. If there hadn't been a storm brewing, then I would have thanked her for getting me to finally talk to her and clear up the desultory clouds. Except they'd been a storm instead. And Rachel… had noticed it?
Had noticed the way that when Charlotte talked, I listened, and even did what she told me to do. She'd been the one to encourage me to take charge, encouraged me again and again. She clearly didn't want power, or she would have recognized what she could do far earlier and used it to take over. I wouldn't have even noticed, if I was this oblivious.
Because I was a fucking moron. Apparently.
"You really didn't. You don't want this," I said. "But you've fucked everything up anyways."
"I…"
"We can start a club," I said, quietly, gritting my teeth. "We can start a fucking club."
"Um," Charlotte said, uncertainly..
"Don't use your power on… wait." I held up a hand, thoughts whirring through my head, most of them useless, like: did her power not work on animals, or was it that animals didn't obey her commands? They obeyed Rachel's. Or didn't have brains in general, in the case of my bugs. "Me, or anyone else. Keep this on the downlow, but… keep it in mind. We'll have a reckoning soon, you know that, right?"
"Yes," Charlotte said in a small, terrified voice. "Why not now?"
I took a breath. "Because I have a girlfriend to talk to." I looked down at her, and then thought about a few other things I needed to do. Like get dressed.
"...within the hour," I added, flushing deep scarlet.
Had she betrayed me? If she didn't know what she'd done, then no. And yet I felt betrayed. Just like Rachel had, just like I had.
I needed to talk to her.
I needed to make this right.
*******
A/N: And thus ends Collar Arc. After the next Interlude comes the final Arc of the story. 6-A is next, on Wednesday, and is going to be Tattletale's chance to check in and look behind the curtain.
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- Location
- United Kingdom
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I really love this story. It's difficult to read, sometimes, but they all feel like real people. No one is 2 dimensional, everyone has their own motivations.
Which results in conflicts where everyone is right from their own POV, which feel more real than most fics. Hence why it's difficult to read.
I need to get on with reading your other works, I think.
One thing;
Was this a typo or Taylor making a mistake?
Which results in conflicts where everyone is right from their own POV, which feel more real than most fics. Hence why it's difficult to read.
I need to get on with reading your other works, I think.
One thing;
Was this a typo or Taylor making a mistake?
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Fixed! And, feel free to check one of them out. I mean, not sure which one I'd recommend first?
- Location
- United Kingdom
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oh, I've got like 4 tabs of "Things The Laurent has written that I need to read" so I'll just get started on those, I think.
- Location
- ⇙
Charlotte did the right thing. Good on Taylor's that she noticed that it wasn't all Charlotte's fault. I doubt things will immediately work out after the talk, but admitting you fucked up and trying to fix it is a good start.
This is definetely caused by the power patches. I wonder what exactly that longterm effect is.
Darchias
Pokemon Professor
- Location
- Texas
Or it could be caused by the infectious diseases brewing in her bloodstream...
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Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Or not using alcohol on the area where she's been applying patches, and living in unsanitary conditions.
Though I'd laugh if she somehow got Cholera from the shitty water.
Damn Taylor that was brutal I save the two updates to read on a slow day and I get Tay freaking out over her reputation more than Rachel being her partner.........Team Rachel.
I guess Tay is one of those people who live for the job and their families have to just take it.
Rachel don't take that crap!
I guess Tay is one of those people who live for the job and their families have to just take it.
Rachel don't take that crap!
Hotdog Vendor
Author of 'Sisters of Rail'
- Location
- (5 + 3 * sqrt(5)) / 8
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Unnecessary punctuation marks:
Missing words?
Collar 6-A (Lisa)
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Collar 6-A (Tattletale)
The dead had plenty of tales to tell, but then so did the living. She crouched in front of the screen, frowning, trying to bring it all together. She'd been working on this so, so long. She'd been struggling with it for so long. She had nothing to compare it to, of course.
She'd always been about short-term goals. Lisa Wilbourne had lived first from grade to grade, and then from meal to meal, all the way up until she'd been captured and forced to be more than that. Even now, she sometimes thought too narrowly. Lisa was working on it, but it was a hard thing to buck.
Her little area in the apartments they'd moved into was very small, and very cramped, a rat's nest of cups, plates, and papers, all of them purposefully disorganized. All the better not to be seen for what they really were.
Nowadays, she barely slept a few hours each day, and sometimes there was even less than that: she'd been busy, and part of what she was doing was on her laptop, right here. It wasn't secure, but that's why she didn't write down or email anything important to anyone.
At the moment she was in a forum, typing a post. "I think they should be called the Pack. It makes sense, doesn't it? Arachne and Bitch are the center of the whole team, the couple, and those around them are like their family. A Pack, thus. I think it is perfectly logical and reasonable, when you think about it. Pack! Pack! What a perfec"
"Hey! Whatchu doing, nerd?" Regent asked, smirking a little bit. Alec was a very pretty boy, and the fact that she didn't find him attractive was at least one piece of evidence that really, she never was and never would be interested in other people.
But she did find him amusing, especially the way he acted around her even after she'd all but taken over the gang. In everything but the technicalities, she now ran the Undersiders, something she couldn't have imagined doing even two months ago. It was enough to run anyone ragged, especially since her plans were ones that Coil wouldn't approve of.'
At all.
Of course, nowadays she spent all of her time thinking about Coil's goals… and then thinking of ways to thwart them.
"Nerd stuff," Lisa said, smiling at Regent as he read her comment.
"Man, you really liked Rachel, did you? With all you're doing with this stupid stick up for them and intimidate and bribe people thing. What next? Will you show up in court when…" Regent said it all casually, clearly not giving a shit about what she answered, really just wanting to know her answer because it'd relieve his boredom.
And certainly, Regent had cause to be bored lately. After all, they'd been driven out of their territory, and now were on standby, waiting for the circumstances of the big push-back that would deal with the Butcher for good.
If Coil actually had a way to win, at this point. He apparently had given up on the possibility of the Pack--as Lisa was going to insist on calling them until it stuck--solving his problem for him. Coil's plan instead seemed to be a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Ambitious, but seemingly assuming that the Butcher would solve herself for him.
For the first time since she'd known him, Lisa started to consider the possibility that Coil was not in control of events.
That wasn't going to stand, of course, he was going to try to find a way to get back in the saddle, but Lisa had noticed something very, very important about his power. It was the simplest thing in the world, something a child could have figured out, and in fact Aisha did the moment Lisa put the facts to her.
"No, that'd only hurt her case. But I don't see any reason why we shouldn't help the Pack. I think they're alright, and I wish that Coil would just see how much good they could do against the Butcher. No matter how--"
"Whoa, whoa. I'm not your goddamn audience," Regent said. "I don't give a shit. Just do whatever plotting you think is necessary and leave me to throw peanuts at people."
"Well, that's good. As long as you're mostly throwing them on the bad guys," Lisa said with a smile that shared with him just a little of that sarcastic cynicism that was his stock in trade. The way he couldn't find it in him either to give a shit… or allow others to stand there self-righteous and sure of themselves.
"Oh, you know it, girl," Regent said, playfully, then he shrugged. "You know, if we could get close enough, I could control the Butcher. Imagine her under our control. It'd be like piloting some sort of… of… come on, you're a nerd, give me something."
"Gundam?" Lisa offered with a shrug. It'd been her brother who'd been the closet geek, the one who had always followed the developments in alternate-universe Japan.
"Yeah, one of those or whatever. What do you say? C'mon, does your plan involve me having any fun, at least?"
"Plenty, actually," Lisa said, quietly. "For one, I think I know at least one cape that'd really help you if we could just grab him. It isn't the Butcher, but I've always wanted a flyer, and the Teeth have one."
"Ah, is that all it takes to make you happy?" Regent asked. "Step back boys, unless you can fly?"
"Or girls. Anyone, as long as they can go up." Lisa shook her head. "We also need a brute, yesterday."
"God, we got creamed out there," Regent said, then frowned. "Where did that saying even come from?"
Creamed? She could imagine, and no doubt her powers could tell her, but part of being smart was not getting a headache right before the biggest possible event imaginable.
She'd not realized that when she first got her powers, but sometimes you had to control what you knew and when.
"Dunno. What I do know is that you should go and talk to Aisha."
"About what?"
Lisa gave him a sidelong look.
"Oh, right. All knowing nerdling," Regent said, casually. "Of course you realized."
"I'm not going to tell Brian."
"Good, then I'll not have to kill you." He said it so casually, but it wasn't as if he hadn't killed before. So perhaps he really meant it. Certainly, Lisa knew that she wasn't liable to be able to just tell everyone that he was misunderstood.
Except he was, to an extent. She understood Regent rather more than she'd ever understood Rachel, honestly. Even Aisha was less of a mystery than that girl: besides the obvious.
Besides the fact, Lisa thought as she pressed 'post' that she was clearly deeply in love with Taylor, if unable quite to express it.
That much was so obvious that it'd take a fool to miss it.
"Well, good. I hadn't been planning on dying," Lisa said. "A little too busy for that."
Alec snorted. "You should get something to eat, and pause the shitposting."
"You?" Lisa asked, flipping to a secondary account on another site as she began to type something. "Tell me to stop…"
"Hypocrisy keeps the demons away," Alec said, with a lazy little wave.
******
The first lesson that Coil seemed to have missed was that of networking. His view of the world seemed only to narrow as the pieces fell off the board, as the game changed. He didn't seem to understand, all of a sudden, just how much these online struggles and shifting understandings mattered.
He didn't get: or he did and didn't realize the implications, that if it wasn't for Lisa, then the Pack would turn on Coil and kill him. She was keeping them at arm's length, trying to justify both fear of them and yet not elimination, and she was doing it all because after a brief spout of worry, Coil had decided that Arachne was at most a long-term worry, and one that he could use to his own advantage.
The peanut gallery was going to keep on throwing peanuts, but they mattered. They filled seats, and they helped create a landscape that all of his understanding seemed not to fully grasp.
It was bizarre, because all of his plays were about reputation, but he missed that last part of it. The way he'd discredited the E88, the way he was trying to line up people against the Teeth without actually considering the Protectorate… or maybe he simply assumed that he'd sweep Piggot out of the way.
When Lisa was on top, she'd be far more careful.
*******
She finally took his advice an hour later, crouching down and opening the fridge. One thing about living with a bunch of other teenagers was that their choice in food was horrible. Brian had his beer that he nursed now that things had turned south, then there was pizza, candy that Aisha had thrown in there even though it didn't need to be chilled, a few, very lonely looking pieces of fruit, every condiment known to man despite none of them being used…
Lisa was just inspecting the salsa and considering whether three days expired would really be that bad. After all, they did guesstimate a little bit with these things, and there were chips, at least, in the pantry.
At least, there had been, and she wasn't going to use her powers to check on that either.
Or she could always have pizza, but she didn't feel like it.
There was probably some moral lesson in the fact that she could at once plot for the life of her and everyone she had come to care for, and also worry about pizza taste, and whether there was any ranch, or why everyone had ordered pizza that only one of them liked.
Aisha, for instance, had a terrible taste. Or rather, she liked to order absolutely vile pizza and then hog it to herself. Or see the look on people's faces. Toppings that just shouldn't be on a pizza, and certainly not in combination. Pineapple and mushroom?
Lisa smiled slightly, knowing that since she could think of Aisha, that meant that either she hadn't yet gone in for the check-up on the camp that Lisa had finally ordered, or she was back from it and she'd soon had company.
As it was, the door opened and she stood up holding the box of pizza as Brian stumbled in, bleeding.
Brian was a big guy, tough and strong, even if she'd become increasingly sure that for all of his leadership skills, he just didn't understand the complexities that were involved with the… well what to call it? There was a 'side game' in this game of crime bosses, and it involved the vials.
She'd managed to reason out a lot about the kind of people who would just sell these, and none of it was good. But if they hadn't already interfered, then they weren't going to do so, at least not anytime soon.
As to why Coil had to go through Accord rather than ordering it directly? Lisa couldn't quite make sense of that, and even her power had seemed a little vague on the specifics.
"Grue," Lisa said, hurrying forward. He wasn't in his costume, but the costume was draped over his shoulder, so he must have gotten out of it before he got in here.
He stumbled towards the couch, which was old and gross enough that it wouldn't really be made any more intolerable by someone bleeding on it. So she let him, even as she reached under the couch and dug out the first aid kit she kept there.
"Lisa," he said, frowning.
"How bad is it?" Lisa asked.
"Over a thousand people are running. The Butcher's taken over most of our former territory, and the people we're protecting… she's been killing some of them. Any of the ones who were working with us that didn't leave when we told them to get out." Brian frowned. "I went back."
Lisa started, "You what?"
"Needed to grab a few things. At least a dozen people dead. At random. She's making fucking examples. She's losing her mind."
Lisa frowned and began to realize that it was quite possibly literal in this sense. But the kind of literal that led to a mountain of dead bodies. "Ah, and so everyone is fleeing rather than live under her rule?"
"Yes. The camps are clogging, just as they were about to… you know."
Lisa had done a careful analysis of just what would happen over the next year, and the first step was for the camps to finally start shrinking in favor of housing, both public and otherwise. It'd have to happen. Even the camp was temporary, though the more that Lisa observed it, the more she expected it to create its own little sub-community when it spilled out. A neighborhood of sorts, bound by the hardships, the troubles…
But that was optimistic talk at the moment, while the Teeth had free reign.
"I do," Lisa said, as she pulled out the bandages and began to work. "Is Coil still going to do it on Friday? Did you check with him?"
"Yeah… you sure about it?" Brian was frowning, uncertain and no doubt plotting retreat if she had doubts.
"Yes. Those vials are our replacements. He can't accept us, we've been weakened too much." Without Rachel, they really weren't that powerful: she was their movement and their heavy hitting combined, and so her departure for good had been completely contrary to any of Coil's plans. Not that he'd ever admit that.
On Friday he was organizing a huge trade with Accord. Six more vials, this time given away in person. Enough to build up an army he hoped would deal with the Butcher. And he could make it from people far more loyal than, say, Lisa.
Or Regent or Aisha or Grue. He could send them in the path of the Butcher or just quietly eliminate them, and there were other deals to be made.
Accord had promised to send Coil some beggars, a team that apparently needed help, and had been forced to temporarily stay under Accord's thumb in exchange for his own… efforts to find a cure.
Within a week or two of the meeting, the Travelers would be here, and the Undersiders would be even more badly outnumbered.
And still he smiled, and no doubt assured them that a few of the vials would join the Undersiders as team members.
"Brian, are you in? We're going to that meeting, and we'll see from there."
"I am," Brian said. "The way he smiles, you know the bastard's planning something."
He winced as Lisa finished bandaging him up, but that was a good thing. Because he'd certainly be necessary. They'd need everyone they could get if the first plan failed.
"Just be careful. You didn't give anything away, did you?"
"You haven't told me anything to give away. Just that we shouldn't trust him and that it keeps up…"
Lisa knew that he had to be asking Dinah about their loyalty. There were so many things going on at once, though, that hopefully it'd slip down the chart. After all, he was committing most of the rest of the money he had on that. He'd spent a fortune on the first set, and this second set? He'd win or he'd go broke.
Maybe both.
Lisa needed the deal not to go through, because that money… it was the only way she was going to fulfill her end of the bargain.
Now if only Aisha would show up.
******
Second there was the treachery. Nobody trusted him. Nobody believed he'd carry through on his promises, not if they actually took the time to listen to him. People trusted Lisa, and she was using this to build up her response. As long as she held the trust of Grue, as long as he knew exactly what was going on here with Coil's plans, then that was enough.
And Accord? Accord didn't need to be told that Coil was treacherous, but whatever hint of friendship they had… that's the target. Sometimes you didn't have to destroy someone, sometimes you could focus on instead using word of mouth to let them destroy themselves.
Sometimes you let them push themselves further and further out there, and then shone a spotlight on them, and show the world what they are… and where they were. At the end of a long, long limb. And there it was. There was the moment when the branch creaked, where everyone looked and pointed, and he was still oblivious to the idea that he wasn't someone who inspired loyalty.
Lisa would inspire loyalty. Lisa knew that she could be a lesser evil than Coil at his best, that she could make the Undersiders great, and in doing so begin to build something at last. The city needed her, and perhaps it was just Arachne, knowing her and seeing her.
Or perhaps these were urges that she'd been suppressing for so long that when it came out, it seemed like from nowhere. Once she had refused to allow herself to be used, refuse to be a piece, rather than the player, in a game. Once she'd written stupid, rich-girl essays about what she'd do to alleviate poverty.
Step one of Lisa's new plan to make Brockton Bay a better place started with a dead snake.
*********
Aisha was late.
Lisa didn't pace, or complain. She understood that there was something important that she was waiting for, even when she didn't remember Aisha. She just sat and read the book, which was a work of history. History at least was simpler, in that predicting what would happen wasn't quite so easy, and it provided useful information. The journey and the destination were both separate, as well.
How things happened mattered as much as that they happened. It looked like a line, but it was something other than that, something far more interesting, and--
"Boo!"
"Ah!" Lisa said, loudly, even though she wasn't surprised. "Aisha, good to see that you're back."
"Imp, reporting for duty, and we have bad news, boss."
"What?"
"Everyone's favorite couple's still broken up."
Lisa frowned, "I might have to push them back together somehow, if this keeps up."
"And here I was, wanting to, uh." Imp glanced away. She was in her costume, and Aisha's costume was very basic, but enough to blunt the impact of what she was implying.
"Wait, again?" Lisa asked.
Aisha had admitted that once, curiously, she'd sorta… stuck around in the area when Rachel and Taylor were doing what young couples everywhere did.
Which seemed to Lisa to be a case of being far, far too nosy, more than anything.
"Hey, I mean. What if they did pillow talk that was important?" Imp asked. "Wasn't there that book about the Romero Men?"
"Romeo Men," Lisa corrected. Soviet spies who'd slept their way to important secrets, since everyone tended to overlook the women who wrote the documents that were classified.
It was not the first case of a woman being overlooked, and it was certainly not the last. Up until now. Still, it was going a little too far. Rachel and Taylor had their own private relationship, and nobody should meddle too closely or watch it, other than Lisa, who was just doing it for their own good.
She was going to meddle in the right way, for the right reasons, which is what really mattered. "Yeah, those," Aisha said. "So what are you going to do to get them together?"
"I… don't know yet," Lisa admitted, frowning. "Surely they should be perfect together?"
"I thought so. It's kinda cute, in a weird way. Though Rachel's a lot more badass than Taylor, you know!"
"Different people have different opinions," Lisa said, thoughtfully. Taylor wasn't perfect, and sometimes what rubbed off on her from Rachel was the exact wrong set of instincts to be a team leader. But she was learning, that much was obvious. She'd managed to luck and fight her way into a team, and she was going to keep on getting better at it, given time.
She was a smart girl, and she didn't even have a power to make it better, to help show her the obvious things, like why her brother died. Yet she was also someone who apparently held a grudge.
"Yeah, but the other people are dumb," Aisha said, with an outstretched tongue to show her opinion of them.
"Tomorrow at noon, you should show up to see if they've made up. I have to tell them tomorrow night," Lisa said. "Either way, you need to pass on the message for me."
It was Aisha that was the key. Without her, this entire plot fell to pieces, and she was someone that Coil couldn't really plan for. She'd be nearby and yet… not quite, as the third and final backup plan.
Aisha had never murdered anyone.
But Lisa would ask her to do it, if that's what the team needed.
"I can do that," Aisha said. "But what if they're watching me? Can't you use that radio I stole?"
"I… might, but I'm not sure if I should trust Artificer. He gets excitable, and I know that Coil…"
There it was. Coil had to know at least a little about what Artificer did, but the question was whether he could find a way to hack it. It was unlikely, but what if he had an agent in the camp?
No. Not what if. He had an agent in the camp, but Taylor was purposefully playing it all close to her chest, in a way that gave Lisa a little hope that she'd learn.
That she'd show some sense and be amenable to the final part of the plan.
"Oh, right. Well, that works," Aisha said. "I'm tired, do you need anything from me?"
"No, I don't," Lisa said, and noted that when Aisha turned to walk off, she was actually going in the direction of Alec's own small room, rather than her closet. Yes, she had turned a closet into a room. No, Lisa didn't get why.
Lisa frowned, and knew that she'd have to tell Brian very, very soon: and also that he'd probably noticed but was in denial.
*******
"Are you sure?" Accord asked, quietly. Denial was not something that he engaged in that often, but he'd trusted Coil.
Wrongly, in fact. Coil wasn't betting all his money on six vials. He was betting all his money on his ability to murder Accord.
Take the vials for himself. Use Regent's power to co-opt one of the Ambassadors, and eliminate the rest… and then seize all of Accord's funds and contacts.
"I am."
"If that is so, then we can talk. You'll be ready if there is a sign of betrayal?"
Coil could avoid acting, realize that going against Coil was a mistake… but in that case, the deal would go through, and the Undersiders would be forced to go after Coil anyways, to steal the vials and survive.
"We will be," Lisa said quietly, nodding. "And in exchange, we can keep the vials we have? You keep the money, excepting a… hundred-thou finder's fee."
"Yes. This seems equitable."
Three vials, and a hundred thousand dollars. It wasn't much to try to take over Coil's entire organization and run it as he did, but it was enough to try. And the vials that Aisha had taken were the ones most likely to give direct powers of the sort that they needed.
"Good," Lisa said quietly. "We shouldn't talk too long. I've sent you the papers and information on my analysis of his choice."
That was what she'd been spending all of her time and all of her headaches on. Because if she could get Accord to eliminate Coil, then…
But would it be Accord who eliminated Coil?
That remained to be seen.
Lisa grinned, broad and confident--confidence masking uncertainty--and finished the call with a few more details, and hung up.
It was Wednesday night. Soon.
********
And that was it. The final fact. That you could win every battle and lose the war.
Imagine, say, a man is considering a simple question: to go through with an operation or not to go through with an operation. He considers the pros and cons, and in one timeline this man doesn't. In the other he does, and Arachne is directed like a wrecking ball towards his enemies, who suffer and bleed, while being warned off of directly going after Coil or his assets, the Undersiders.
Say you are Coil: clearly you should keep this timeline, and not the one where you did nothing. It was clearly the better one.
And each time, each time a certain tattletale feeds you more and more lies, more and more a diet of victories that hide defeat within them. You can't go back, you can't reload to before you let it happen, and you need victories.
When she helps push Panacea towards proactiveness with a subtle push at the right moment--nothing more than a target for her to lash out at--who can really disagree with the idea? After all, it led to the spectacle of the E88 pressed on all sides, even by a healer… a healer whose weak attachment to New Wave made her ripe for the pickings, should this man truly conquer the city.
Because, as this tattletale knew, you planned on controlling both sides of the game. Planned on talking out of both sides of your mouth. So a hero, an unstable, clearly grieving hero, could be useful.
So you let it play. Again and again you closed off options and avenues: victory could be like that, could catch you by surprise.
Lisa hadn't planned to become a future Warlord. She hadn't planned to think about doing something good for the city. She'd just seen a way forward, a way to survive.
A world where she could live, and also Arachne and Rachel as well, at least for a time. It was a fleeting vision, like a single line of a fast-moving chat conversation that you searched through the logs for. But even this fleeting vision was important.
Even trapped, couldn't he just slither out of his skin? If Accord acted, who was to say it wouldn't be a body-double. The man had one, and nothing could be done to the double, because Coil would rightly understand that this was an attempt to narrow down his options.
But let us say that the ambush didn't happen all at once, until he was committed… and at the same time, say.
Someone else was going after him.
Lisa was going to get him coming and going.
So after she hung up with Accord, she prepared to contact Taylor.
Friday. It'd all end on Friday.
********
A/N: Thanks to @NemoMarx.
The dead had plenty of tales to tell, but then so did the living. She crouched in front of the screen, frowning, trying to bring it all together. She'd been working on this so, so long. She'd been struggling with it for so long. She had nothing to compare it to, of course.
She'd always been about short-term goals. Lisa Wilbourne had lived first from grade to grade, and then from meal to meal, all the way up until she'd been captured and forced to be more than that. Even now, she sometimes thought too narrowly. Lisa was working on it, but it was a hard thing to buck.
Her little area in the apartments they'd moved into was very small, and very cramped, a rat's nest of cups, plates, and papers, all of them purposefully disorganized. All the better not to be seen for what they really were.
Nowadays, she barely slept a few hours each day, and sometimes there was even less than that: she'd been busy, and part of what she was doing was on her laptop, right here. It wasn't secure, but that's why she didn't write down or email anything important to anyone.
At the moment she was in a forum, typing a post. "I think they should be called the Pack. It makes sense, doesn't it? Arachne and Bitch are the center of the whole team, the couple, and those around them are like their family. A Pack, thus. I think it is perfectly logical and reasonable, when you think about it. Pack! Pack! What a perfec"
"Hey! Whatchu doing, nerd?" Regent asked, smirking a little bit. Alec was a very pretty boy, and the fact that she didn't find him attractive was at least one piece of evidence that really, she never was and never would be interested in other people.
But she did find him amusing, especially the way he acted around her even after she'd all but taken over the gang. In everything but the technicalities, she now ran the Undersiders, something she couldn't have imagined doing even two months ago. It was enough to run anyone ragged, especially since her plans were ones that Coil wouldn't approve of.'
At all.
Of course, nowadays she spent all of her time thinking about Coil's goals… and then thinking of ways to thwart them.
"Nerd stuff," Lisa said, smiling at Regent as he read her comment.
"Man, you really liked Rachel, did you? With all you're doing with this stupid stick up for them and intimidate and bribe people thing. What next? Will you show up in court when…" Regent said it all casually, clearly not giving a shit about what she answered, really just wanting to know her answer because it'd relieve his boredom.
And certainly, Regent had cause to be bored lately. After all, they'd been driven out of their territory, and now were on standby, waiting for the circumstances of the big push-back that would deal with the Butcher for good.
If Coil actually had a way to win, at this point. He apparently had given up on the possibility of the Pack--as Lisa was going to insist on calling them until it stuck--solving his problem for him. Coil's plan instead seemed to be a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Ambitious, but seemingly assuming that the Butcher would solve herself for him.
For the first time since she'd known him, Lisa started to consider the possibility that Coil was not in control of events.
That wasn't going to stand, of course, he was going to try to find a way to get back in the saddle, but Lisa had noticed something very, very important about his power. It was the simplest thing in the world, something a child could have figured out, and in fact Aisha did the moment Lisa put the facts to her.
"No, that'd only hurt her case. But I don't see any reason why we shouldn't help the Pack. I think they're alright, and I wish that Coil would just see how much good they could do against the Butcher. No matter how--"
"Whoa, whoa. I'm not your goddamn audience," Regent said. "I don't give a shit. Just do whatever plotting you think is necessary and leave me to throw peanuts at people."
"Well, that's good. As long as you're mostly throwing them on the bad guys," Lisa said with a smile that shared with him just a little of that sarcastic cynicism that was his stock in trade. The way he couldn't find it in him either to give a shit… or allow others to stand there self-righteous and sure of themselves.
"Oh, you know it, girl," Regent said, playfully, then he shrugged. "You know, if we could get close enough, I could control the Butcher. Imagine her under our control. It'd be like piloting some sort of… of… come on, you're a nerd, give me something."
"Gundam?" Lisa offered with a shrug. It'd been her brother who'd been the closet geek, the one who had always followed the developments in alternate-universe Japan.
"Yeah, one of those or whatever. What do you say? C'mon, does your plan involve me having any fun, at least?"
"Plenty, actually," Lisa said, quietly. "For one, I think I know at least one cape that'd really help you if we could just grab him. It isn't the Butcher, but I've always wanted a flyer, and the Teeth have one."
"Ah, is that all it takes to make you happy?" Regent asked. "Step back boys, unless you can fly?"
"Or girls. Anyone, as long as they can go up." Lisa shook her head. "We also need a brute, yesterday."
"God, we got creamed out there," Regent said, then frowned. "Where did that saying even come from?"
Creamed? She could imagine, and no doubt her powers could tell her, but part of being smart was not getting a headache right before the biggest possible event imaginable.
She'd not realized that when she first got her powers, but sometimes you had to control what you knew and when.
"Dunno. What I do know is that you should go and talk to Aisha."
"About what?"
Lisa gave him a sidelong look.
"Oh, right. All knowing nerdling," Regent said, casually. "Of course you realized."
"I'm not going to tell Brian."
"Good, then I'll not have to kill you." He said it so casually, but it wasn't as if he hadn't killed before. So perhaps he really meant it. Certainly, Lisa knew that she wasn't liable to be able to just tell everyone that he was misunderstood.
Except he was, to an extent. She understood Regent rather more than she'd ever understood Rachel, honestly. Even Aisha was less of a mystery than that girl: besides the obvious.
Besides the fact, Lisa thought as she pressed 'post' that she was clearly deeply in love with Taylor, if unable quite to express it.
That much was so obvious that it'd take a fool to miss it.
"Well, good. I hadn't been planning on dying," Lisa said. "A little too busy for that."
Alec snorted. "You should get something to eat, and pause the shitposting."
"You?" Lisa asked, flipping to a secondary account on another site as she began to type something. "Tell me to stop…"
"Hypocrisy keeps the demons away," Alec said, with a lazy little wave.
******
The first lesson that Coil seemed to have missed was that of networking. His view of the world seemed only to narrow as the pieces fell off the board, as the game changed. He didn't seem to understand, all of a sudden, just how much these online struggles and shifting understandings mattered.
He didn't get: or he did and didn't realize the implications, that if it wasn't for Lisa, then the Pack would turn on Coil and kill him. She was keeping them at arm's length, trying to justify both fear of them and yet not elimination, and she was doing it all because after a brief spout of worry, Coil had decided that Arachne was at most a long-term worry, and one that he could use to his own advantage.
The peanut gallery was going to keep on throwing peanuts, but they mattered. They filled seats, and they helped create a landscape that all of his understanding seemed not to fully grasp.
It was bizarre, because all of his plays were about reputation, but he missed that last part of it. The way he'd discredited the E88, the way he was trying to line up people against the Teeth without actually considering the Protectorate… or maybe he simply assumed that he'd sweep Piggot out of the way.
When Lisa was on top, she'd be far more careful.
*******
She finally took his advice an hour later, crouching down and opening the fridge. One thing about living with a bunch of other teenagers was that their choice in food was horrible. Brian had his beer that he nursed now that things had turned south, then there was pizza, candy that Aisha had thrown in there even though it didn't need to be chilled, a few, very lonely looking pieces of fruit, every condiment known to man despite none of them being used…
Lisa was just inspecting the salsa and considering whether three days expired would really be that bad. After all, they did guesstimate a little bit with these things, and there were chips, at least, in the pantry.
At least, there had been, and she wasn't going to use her powers to check on that either.
Or she could always have pizza, but she didn't feel like it.
There was probably some moral lesson in the fact that she could at once plot for the life of her and everyone she had come to care for, and also worry about pizza taste, and whether there was any ranch, or why everyone had ordered pizza that only one of them liked.
Aisha, for instance, had a terrible taste. Or rather, she liked to order absolutely vile pizza and then hog it to herself. Or see the look on people's faces. Toppings that just shouldn't be on a pizza, and certainly not in combination. Pineapple and mushroom?
Lisa smiled slightly, knowing that since she could think of Aisha, that meant that either she hadn't yet gone in for the check-up on the camp that Lisa had finally ordered, or she was back from it and she'd soon had company.
As it was, the door opened and she stood up holding the box of pizza as Brian stumbled in, bleeding.
Brian was a big guy, tough and strong, even if she'd become increasingly sure that for all of his leadership skills, he just didn't understand the complexities that were involved with the… well what to call it? There was a 'side game' in this game of crime bosses, and it involved the vials.
She'd managed to reason out a lot about the kind of people who would just sell these, and none of it was good. But if they hadn't already interfered, then they weren't going to do so, at least not anytime soon.
As to why Coil had to go through Accord rather than ordering it directly? Lisa couldn't quite make sense of that, and even her power had seemed a little vague on the specifics.
"Grue," Lisa said, hurrying forward. He wasn't in his costume, but the costume was draped over his shoulder, so he must have gotten out of it before he got in here.
He stumbled towards the couch, which was old and gross enough that it wouldn't really be made any more intolerable by someone bleeding on it. So she let him, even as she reached under the couch and dug out the first aid kit she kept there.
"Lisa," he said, frowning.
"How bad is it?" Lisa asked.
"Over a thousand people are running. The Butcher's taken over most of our former territory, and the people we're protecting… she's been killing some of them. Any of the ones who were working with us that didn't leave when we told them to get out." Brian frowned. "I went back."
Lisa started, "You what?"
"Needed to grab a few things. At least a dozen people dead. At random. She's making fucking examples. She's losing her mind."
Lisa frowned and began to realize that it was quite possibly literal in this sense. But the kind of literal that led to a mountain of dead bodies. "Ah, and so everyone is fleeing rather than live under her rule?"
"Yes. The camps are clogging, just as they were about to… you know."
Lisa had done a careful analysis of just what would happen over the next year, and the first step was for the camps to finally start shrinking in favor of housing, both public and otherwise. It'd have to happen. Even the camp was temporary, though the more that Lisa observed it, the more she expected it to create its own little sub-community when it spilled out. A neighborhood of sorts, bound by the hardships, the troubles…
But that was optimistic talk at the moment, while the Teeth had free reign.
"I do," Lisa said, as she pulled out the bandages and began to work. "Is Coil still going to do it on Friday? Did you check with him?"
"Yeah… you sure about it?" Brian was frowning, uncertain and no doubt plotting retreat if she had doubts.
"Yes. Those vials are our replacements. He can't accept us, we've been weakened too much." Without Rachel, they really weren't that powerful: she was their movement and their heavy hitting combined, and so her departure for good had been completely contrary to any of Coil's plans. Not that he'd ever admit that.
On Friday he was organizing a huge trade with Accord. Six more vials, this time given away in person. Enough to build up an army he hoped would deal with the Butcher. And he could make it from people far more loyal than, say, Lisa.
Or Regent or Aisha or Grue. He could send them in the path of the Butcher or just quietly eliminate them, and there were other deals to be made.
Accord had promised to send Coil some beggars, a team that apparently needed help, and had been forced to temporarily stay under Accord's thumb in exchange for his own… efforts to find a cure.
Within a week or two of the meeting, the Travelers would be here, and the Undersiders would be even more badly outnumbered.
And still he smiled, and no doubt assured them that a few of the vials would join the Undersiders as team members.
"Brian, are you in? We're going to that meeting, and we'll see from there."
"I am," Brian said. "The way he smiles, you know the bastard's planning something."
He winced as Lisa finished bandaging him up, but that was a good thing. Because he'd certainly be necessary. They'd need everyone they could get if the first plan failed.
"Just be careful. You didn't give anything away, did you?"
"You haven't told me anything to give away. Just that we shouldn't trust him and that it keeps up…"
Lisa knew that he had to be asking Dinah about their loyalty. There were so many things going on at once, though, that hopefully it'd slip down the chart. After all, he was committing most of the rest of the money he had on that. He'd spent a fortune on the first set, and this second set? He'd win or he'd go broke.
Maybe both.
Lisa needed the deal not to go through, because that money… it was the only way she was going to fulfill her end of the bargain.
Now if only Aisha would show up.
******
Second there was the treachery. Nobody trusted him. Nobody believed he'd carry through on his promises, not if they actually took the time to listen to him. People trusted Lisa, and she was using this to build up her response. As long as she held the trust of Grue, as long as he knew exactly what was going on here with Coil's plans, then that was enough.
And Accord? Accord didn't need to be told that Coil was treacherous, but whatever hint of friendship they had… that's the target. Sometimes you didn't have to destroy someone, sometimes you could focus on instead using word of mouth to let them destroy themselves.
Sometimes you let them push themselves further and further out there, and then shone a spotlight on them, and show the world what they are… and where they were. At the end of a long, long limb. And there it was. There was the moment when the branch creaked, where everyone looked and pointed, and he was still oblivious to the idea that he wasn't someone who inspired loyalty.
Lisa would inspire loyalty. Lisa knew that she could be a lesser evil than Coil at his best, that she could make the Undersiders great, and in doing so begin to build something at last. The city needed her, and perhaps it was just Arachne, knowing her and seeing her.
Or perhaps these were urges that she'd been suppressing for so long that when it came out, it seemed like from nowhere. Once she had refused to allow herself to be used, refuse to be a piece, rather than the player, in a game. Once she'd written stupid, rich-girl essays about what she'd do to alleviate poverty.
Step one of Lisa's new plan to make Brockton Bay a better place started with a dead snake.
*********
Aisha was late.
Lisa didn't pace, or complain. She understood that there was something important that she was waiting for, even when she didn't remember Aisha. She just sat and read the book, which was a work of history. History at least was simpler, in that predicting what would happen wasn't quite so easy, and it provided useful information. The journey and the destination were both separate, as well.
How things happened mattered as much as that they happened. It looked like a line, but it was something other than that, something far more interesting, and--
"Boo!"
"Ah!" Lisa said, loudly, even though she wasn't surprised. "Aisha, good to see that you're back."
"Imp, reporting for duty, and we have bad news, boss."
"What?"
"Everyone's favorite couple's still broken up."
Lisa frowned, "I might have to push them back together somehow, if this keeps up."
"And here I was, wanting to, uh." Imp glanced away. She was in her costume, and Aisha's costume was very basic, but enough to blunt the impact of what she was implying.
"Wait, again?" Lisa asked.
Aisha had admitted that once, curiously, she'd sorta… stuck around in the area when Rachel and Taylor were doing what young couples everywhere did.
Which seemed to Lisa to be a case of being far, far too nosy, more than anything.
"Hey, I mean. What if they did pillow talk that was important?" Imp asked. "Wasn't there that book about the Romero Men?"
"Romeo Men," Lisa corrected. Soviet spies who'd slept their way to important secrets, since everyone tended to overlook the women who wrote the documents that were classified.
It was not the first case of a woman being overlooked, and it was certainly not the last. Up until now. Still, it was going a little too far. Rachel and Taylor had their own private relationship, and nobody should meddle too closely or watch it, other than Lisa, who was just doing it for their own good.
She was going to meddle in the right way, for the right reasons, which is what really mattered. "Yeah, those," Aisha said. "So what are you going to do to get them together?"
"I… don't know yet," Lisa admitted, frowning. "Surely they should be perfect together?"
"I thought so. It's kinda cute, in a weird way. Though Rachel's a lot more badass than Taylor, you know!"
"Different people have different opinions," Lisa said, thoughtfully. Taylor wasn't perfect, and sometimes what rubbed off on her from Rachel was the exact wrong set of instincts to be a team leader. But she was learning, that much was obvious. She'd managed to luck and fight her way into a team, and she was going to keep on getting better at it, given time.
She was a smart girl, and she didn't even have a power to make it better, to help show her the obvious things, like why her brother died. Yet she was also someone who apparently held a grudge.
"Yeah, but the other people are dumb," Aisha said, with an outstretched tongue to show her opinion of them.
"Tomorrow at noon, you should show up to see if they've made up. I have to tell them tomorrow night," Lisa said. "Either way, you need to pass on the message for me."
It was Aisha that was the key. Without her, this entire plot fell to pieces, and she was someone that Coil couldn't really plan for. She'd be nearby and yet… not quite, as the third and final backup plan.
Aisha had never murdered anyone.
But Lisa would ask her to do it, if that's what the team needed.
"I can do that," Aisha said. "But what if they're watching me? Can't you use that radio I stole?"
"I… might, but I'm not sure if I should trust Artificer. He gets excitable, and I know that Coil…"
There it was. Coil had to know at least a little about what Artificer did, but the question was whether he could find a way to hack it. It was unlikely, but what if he had an agent in the camp?
No. Not what if. He had an agent in the camp, but Taylor was purposefully playing it all close to her chest, in a way that gave Lisa a little hope that she'd learn.
That she'd show some sense and be amenable to the final part of the plan.
"Oh, right. Well, that works," Aisha said. "I'm tired, do you need anything from me?"
"No, I don't," Lisa said, and noted that when Aisha turned to walk off, she was actually going in the direction of Alec's own small room, rather than her closet. Yes, she had turned a closet into a room. No, Lisa didn't get why.
Lisa frowned, and knew that she'd have to tell Brian very, very soon: and also that he'd probably noticed but was in denial.
*******
"Are you sure?" Accord asked, quietly. Denial was not something that he engaged in that often, but he'd trusted Coil.
Wrongly, in fact. Coil wasn't betting all his money on six vials. He was betting all his money on his ability to murder Accord.
Take the vials for himself. Use Regent's power to co-opt one of the Ambassadors, and eliminate the rest… and then seize all of Accord's funds and contacts.
"I am."
"If that is so, then we can talk. You'll be ready if there is a sign of betrayal?"
Coil could avoid acting, realize that going against Coil was a mistake… but in that case, the deal would go through, and the Undersiders would be forced to go after Coil anyways, to steal the vials and survive.
"We will be," Lisa said quietly, nodding. "And in exchange, we can keep the vials we have? You keep the money, excepting a… hundred-thou finder's fee."
"Yes. This seems equitable."
Three vials, and a hundred thousand dollars. It wasn't much to try to take over Coil's entire organization and run it as he did, but it was enough to try. And the vials that Aisha had taken were the ones most likely to give direct powers of the sort that they needed.
"Good," Lisa said quietly. "We shouldn't talk too long. I've sent you the papers and information on my analysis of his choice."
That was what she'd been spending all of her time and all of her headaches on. Because if she could get Accord to eliminate Coil, then…
But would it be Accord who eliminated Coil?
That remained to be seen.
Lisa grinned, broad and confident--confidence masking uncertainty--and finished the call with a few more details, and hung up.
It was Wednesday night. Soon.
********
And that was it. The final fact. That you could win every battle and lose the war.
Imagine, say, a man is considering a simple question: to go through with an operation or not to go through with an operation. He considers the pros and cons, and in one timeline this man doesn't. In the other he does, and Arachne is directed like a wrecking ball towards his enemies, who suffer and bleed, while being warned off of directly going after Coil or his assets, the Undersiders.
Say you are Coil: clearly you should keep this timeline, and not the one where you did nothing. It was clearly the better one.
And each time, each time a certain tattletale feeds you more and more lies, more and more a diet of victories that hide defeat within them. You can't go back, you can't reload to before you let it happen, and you need victories.
When she helps push Panacea towards proactiveness with a subtle push at the right moment--nothing more than a target for her to lash out at--who can really disagree with the idea? After all, it led to the spectacle of the E88 pressed on all sides, even by a healer… a healer whose weak attachment to New Wave made her ripe for the pickings, should this man truly conquer the city.
Because, as this tattletale knew, you planned on controlling both sides of the game. Planned on talking out of both sides of your mouth. So a hero, an unstable, clearly grieving hero, could be useful.
So you let it play. Again and again you closed off options and avenues: victory could be like that, could catch you by surprise.
Lisa hadn't planned to become a future Warlord. She hadn't planned to think about doing something good for the city. She'd just seen a way forward, a way to survive.
A world where she could live, and also Arachne and Rachel as well, at least for a time. It was a fleeting vision, like a single line of a fast-moving chat conversation that you searched through the logs for. But even this fleeting vision was important.
Even trapped, couldn't he just slither out of his skin? If Accord acted, who was to say it wouldn't be a body-double. The man had one, and nothing could be done to the double, because Coil would rightly understand that this was an attempt to narrow down his options.
But let us say that the ambush didn't happen all at once, until he was committed… and at the same time, say.
Someone else was going after him.
Lisa was going to get him coming and going.
So after she hung up with Accord, she prepared to contact Taylor.
Friday. It'd all end on Friday.
********
A/N: Thanks to @NemoMarx.
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
- Pronouns
- They/Them
This is definitely in part a way to look behind the screen at a bunch of actions that didn't make sense otherwise.
So I fell behind a bit, but I'm super excited to find out how exactly Taylor manages to say "I'm sorry, you were right. Char was mastering me without me realizing it", without Rachel literally running off to murder Char on the spot.
Also Taylor and Parian are kinda assholes. It was sweet that Cassie got Danny to try to talk some sense into his stubborn ass daughter though.
Been listening to the worm audio book recently and I had forgotten how hard Lisa pushed Taylor towards Brian in canon. Making her a secret internet shipper is a delightful way of playing off that established tendency towards matchmaking.
I am curious what exactly Aisha said to TT that lead her to realize the key to beating Coil's power. The pruning his options by serving him up victories strategy Lisa outlines is a nifty one.
Also Taylor and Parian are kinda assholes. It was sweet that Cassie got Danny to try to talk some sense into his stubborn ass daughter though.
Been listening to the worm audio book recently and I had forgotten how hard Lisa pushed Taylor towards Brian in canon. Making her a secret internet shipper is a delightful way of playing off that established tendency towards matchmaking.
I am curious what exactly Aisha said to TT that lead her to realize the key to beating Coil's power. The pruning his options by serving him up victories strategy Lisa outlines is a nifty one.
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