Morning (Amelia)
- Location
- New Zealand
I wake, a pillow clutched to my chest, my body curled around it, blankets heaped over me. The bed is unfamiliar.
My body feels hollow and I curl up tighter, shivering, shuddering. My head is still stuffed with dregs of dreams. Falling. Pulling. Water. Motion. masked PRT officers crowding in. Cold.
"Princess, Advanced Triage Protocols. Orange and higher only...."
That's the thing that gets to me. The sensation of reaching out, touching the man's arm, and snuffing his life out. Just... my power blanking out... refusing to acknowledge the man any more.
I did that. I took that man's life away. Turned him into meat. Because that was mercy. That was all the mercy we could afford...
I did that, and Dad asked me to do it. Asked me as if it wasn't a big deal, as if...
as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
There's the sensation of Uppercrust, the man's eyes upon me. Hateful. Hungry.
And then an image of his bloated face, throat swollen, eyes popping out, desperate, dying even as his friends gave him an emergency tracheotomy.
I never saw that in person, but it plays out in the dreams. Plays out, and then I sit and watch as New York gets gets destroyed by Leviathan, millions of people screaming, and there's no shields to keep it safe.
My body clenches tighter.
I shudder. Bite my fingers, bite at my own knuckles, hoping that the physical sensation of pain will distract from the memories, hoping that the physical pain will wake me up enough to forget.
My finger come away with tooth marks marks punched into the skin. A pair of lumpy little rectangles with a line between them.
I gave a press conference too, and afterwards there was anger and fighting and violence, and I try to tell myself those were bad people, I try to shrug it off, ignore the consequences, except…
I wounded a broken city.
I did that.
My choice.
Somehow the tension subsides. I sag. Go limp. The blankets glump over me, and I feel muffled, cacooned. Like sleeping on the couch. The sleepover in the lounge back at the institute, Chene and Trinket pushed up next to me, their bodies there. Visible. Fixable. Or waking up in Rey's basement, still pilled with clothes after losing Druck one thousand times, and Rose walking around, talking to me and-
I don't want to lose people any more.
I want to win.
I get up, shove blankets away from me, unwrap myself from the pillow, force myself to stand. Tall. Proud.
I'm not beaten yet.
Light streams in through the window, and the smell of eggs wafts in under the door. Outside there is a quiet suburban street. Nice houses. Gardens.
This world isn't good enough. I keep losing people.
We have to make something better.
In a better world, I would still have my mother.
In a better world -
I look down at my feet. There's a pile of duvets, each with aggressively cutesy rainforest creatures all over them. The walls have a diagonal slash across them, so that the lower right half of the room is turquoise, while the upper left half of the room is orange. At some point, awkwardly overlapping the slash of line between the two colors is a clock in the shape of a giant cookie.
Probably those other houses are nice.
Probably those other houses don't have deliberately evil wallpaper.
I look in the bedside table. There's a phone, and a phone charger, a credit card, and a stack of envelopes with Dad's handwriting on them:
"In case you are hurt."
"In case you are being hunted by the PRT."
"Firepower,"
"In case you do not trust your own mind."
"In case someone is doing a PR hit against you."
"In case Accord has betrayed you."
"International transport"
"In case you no longer trust your power."
"Mirage,"
"In case we have been separated."
"In case I have failed you."
"In case I am gone."
Dad never told me he wrote these.
I pull out the phone, charger, and a notebook, then close the drawer.
He wouldn't have put them in the draw if any of them were things I needed to read right away.
The phone gets left charging. I check the cupboard: spare clothes and a towel on a hanger, in a vacuum sealed bag.
I take the hanger down, break the seal, and spend a few seconds trying to fluff everything back up again, before limping down the hallway to the shower.
The water is hot. Scorching. I'm pretty sure I had a shower before going to bed last night, but I don't remember.
My hands feel like claws. I focus on my breathing. On trying to get my thoughts in order. Ignoring the sensation of a man's life flicking out in my hands, because I decided it should.
I need to get online.
I need to see the response to yesterdays press conference.
Kosuke is gone. Tinker effect.
I don't know when I'll get him back. I need new Bodyguards in the meantime.
Plural. Not just one. Multiple bodyguards now.
I itch scorching water into my hair. I think about sitting down and just… letting the water flow over me. I wonder if I'll ever get tits, or if I'll always just kind of look like a boy wearing a dress. I wonder if there's any way to stop my hair looking like a birds nest made of copper wire. I try to figure out what the fuck to do with the Alcott's, and whether I should tell them about their daughter. I scrub at my face, try to get the salt off of it, try to make sure that it doesn't look like I've been crying. There's a shitty plastic Barometer on the wall of the shower, and I watch as its weather prediction changes in response to the steam filling up the room.
I'm supposed to make sure there's enough hot water for everyone else, but somehow that doesn't seem very important at the moment.
Bodyguard.
Public response to broadcast.
Is Coil still a threat?
What about Dragon?
I should hire Chene to be my secretary.
A knock at the door.
"HEY! Amy! Breakfast!"
Assault.
Can Assault be trusted. Can he be relied upon? How long will he stay with me?
I shut off the water, let it drip, trickle off of me. The sensation of individual microbes slipping and scuddering over me, losing their grip amongst the dying stream.
I adjust some of them, instinctively.
I need to make a list. Pieces of paper. Put everything in order.
What the fuck is happening with Dinah? With the Alcott's?
Where is Dad? Should I even be looking for him?
Do I need to get in touch with Mirage, make sure they are working in line with the plan?
Do I need to-
Climbing out of the shower with my leg is cumbersome. Painful and Awkward. Drying off while leaning against the countertop is worse.
There comes another knock at the door.
"Hey Amy! You doing okay in there?"
"Yup!"
"Okay!"
More Assault.
Friendly. Cheerful. Extroverted. Unstable.
Quick to anger. Quick to charm.
I finish drying. By the time I do, the towel has blood on it.
I sit down on the floor, fish out the first aid kit from beneath the counter top, put iodine onto a bandage and dab at the wound.
It feels worse than it is.
No broken bone, just a bullet hole through the muscle. A grazing shot, thanks to Shamrock.
Still hurts like a bitch to clean, or walk on.
Faultine's crew would make good bodyguards. Should I hire them full time?
Can we afford them?
I slather the wound in antiseptic goop, slap a couple pads on, wrap the injury tight as I can, then wipe off any goop that escapes around the edges. I use the hideous blue sink to haul myself back up, then unlatch the door, limp out down the hallway towards breakfast.
The hallway has textured wallpaper. Really expensive embossed stuff that looks utterly hideous, and I still remember the stupid fucking grin on Dad's face when I got back one day and he showed it too me.
I dump my towel in my room, grab the notebook, don't bother to pick up the blankets or check if the phone is ready. From the lounge, music is playing, some sort of creepy french synth stuff… there was… earth with a skull inside it on the cover? Something like that.
One of Dad's favorite albums.
Because of course he'd be into that… and of course he would leave that here.
No wonder I don't remember him playing it the last few years.
By the time I get to the lounge, Verity is happily flipping eggs, humming away along with the exceptionally unnerving music. Assault and Mrs Alcott are glaring at her. Madeline stares unhappily at the record player.
"Hey Girlo!"
I rub my eyes. There's still images of a broken city. The sensation of blood on my hands, a vague awareness of broken shattered people, my power not working because they are already dead.
"Hey Verity."
She flips the eggs, and it takes me a few seconds to realize she has eggs, which means she must have gone out.
Is it safe?
Am I safe?
Is the PRT sending people here?
My fingers rub against the fabric of my dress. It's probably a size too small now, but its mine, and its long enough, and its soft.
I was supposed to be able to trust the PRT. That was the plan. Attended Endbringer events, get on their good side and... they're still enemies.
The Alcott's seem to move around sort of automatically, setting out plates and saucers, and checking out the windows apprehensively, like birds trying to figure out if they are allowed to go outside.
The music builds towards something.
Are we enemies? Are we on the same side?
Is anyone on my side?
I glance at Verity, at Madeline.
Madeline who has powers, but pretends she doesn't.
Verity who plays along with the lie.
Are you my allies?
The music continues: like one long continuous intake of breathe, and then a tilt… a sound like wind, echoing towards silence, something building, something-
Verity catches me watching her, gives me a wink, hands me a plate full of eggs and hash browns. My hands take hold of it instinctively. My brain continues trying to parse the music, to understand what instrument is playing, connect the tone to some sort of story. There's a beat like footsteps.
"Sit down, chook. Get some food in you."
I nod. Let myself drift to the table.
Verity turns off the music. The silence feels like relief. The landline phone is still on the floor where I left it last night.
Verity would want me to tell the Alcott's about their daughter.
Dad would want me to think through the strategic implications. To make use of the knowledge, or test the security of various different actions.
Ihina wouldn't care. She wouldn't understand why I was asking the question. She'd just do something – keep secrets, or open her mouth depending on the moment.
Rey… Rey would want me to tell them. Rey and all of that boston crew would want me to tell them.
… well… maybe some of them would want me to ask Dinah first, but for the most part-
"I found your daughter."
My hands are tight around the cutlery as I meet Mrs Alcott and Mr Alcott's eyes.
As I look away.
They frown. Confused.
It's all wrong, too abrupt.
I was meant to put them at ease first- tell them I have good news, hype it up, make it... make them remember me when they remember this moment. Fuck.
"She's staying with a friend of mine. I can call her if you want me to."
Mrs Alcott opens her mouth, raise her hands. Mr Alcott nods, and says something, reaching out to take my hand from the other side of the table, both of them trying to draw me in, draw me closer, and -
No.
Too much.
Too much too much.
I pull back, lean over, get the phone. Anything to keep my hands busy, to appear occupied and keep them at arms length.
God, I hope it isn't the wrong Dinah or something.
Would that even make sense?
I don't want to touch them. Don't want... their emotions getting smeared all over me.
I'm meant to feel good right? I'm meant to feel warmth or something?
Instead I just call the number, Bad Apple answers, and I ask her to put Dinah on the line.
"Hey... ummm... I have your parents here."
Then I hand the phone over, step back, step out, ducking under one of their arms, away from the table, and I just....
Verity is watching me.
That's what this play was for. Making Verity trust me more, securing her as an ally, except I fucked it up because I'm not soft enough, because I'm too...
I kind of hate it. Verity watching.
Watching and judging me. Evaluating.
Just like Dad.
Just like Ihina.
Kosuke.
Me.
She gives me a wink as I lean up against the wall, reaches past the Alcotts to rescue my plate, and hands it over to me.
She knows. Somehow she knows that I had to think about it, that I had to make a decision.
I picked right though, right?
Telling them's what I'm supposed to do?
I watch the pair.
I eat my eggs and watch them as they laugh, and talk too quickly, and stumble over one another, and somehow it doesn't reach me. I just stand in the corner of the room, watching.
Mostly I just notice the taste of the scrambled eggs. The herbs, salt and pepper, the hash browns.
I don't feel anything, but I don't regret it either.
It was the correct thing to do, regardless of strategy.
Eventually the phonecall is finished, the phone gets handed back to me.
"Thank you Amelia," the voice is hazy, somehow bright and weightless like a cloud. "I wasn't sure if you were going to tell them."
Dinah Alcott...
"It... it was the right thing to do."
"Hmm."
I fucking hate precogs.
"Good news Amelia. You've got an eighty seven percent chance of seeing your Dad again before this is all over."
What?
"Talk again soon."
There's the sound of the phone moving, being handed over to someone. Rey down the other end of the line: "Miracle girl?"
"Yeah?"
"She can't stay here. The Alcott girl - you need to move her."
My body feels hollow and I curl up tighter, shivering, shuddering. My head is still stuffed with dregs of dreams. Falling. Pulling. Water. Motion. masked PRT officers crowding in. Cold.
"Princess, Advanced Triage Protocols. Orange and higher only...."
That's the thing that gets to me. The sensation of reaching out, touching the man's arm, and snuffing his life out. Just... my power blanking out... refusing to acknowledge the man any more.
I did that. I took that man's life away. Turned him into meat. Because that was mercy. That was all the mercy we could afford...
I did that, and Dad asked me to do it. Asked me as if it wasn't a big deal, as if...
as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
There's the sensation of Uppercrust, the man's eyes upon me. Hateful. Hungry.
And then an image of his bloated face, throat swollen, eyes popping out, desperate, dying even as his friends gave him an emergency tracheotomy.
I never saw that in person, but it plays out in the dreams. Plays out, and then I sit and watch as New York gets gets destroyed by Leviathan, millions of people screaming, and there's no shields to keep it safe.
My body clenches tighter.
I shudder. Bite my fingers, bite at my own knuckles, hoping that the physical sensation of pain will distract from the memories, hoping that the physical pain will wake me up enough to forget.
My finger come away with tooth marks marks punched into the skin. A pair of lumpy little rectangles with a line between them.
I gave a press conference too, and afterwards there was anger and fighting and violence, and I try to tell myself those were bad people, I try to shrug it off, ignore the consequences, except…
I wounded a broken city.
I did that.
My choice.
Somehow the tension subsides. I sag. Go limp. The blankets glump over me, and I feel muffled, cacooned. Like sleeping on the couch. The sleepover in the lounge back at the institute, Chene and Trinket pushed up next to me, their bodies there. Visible. Fixable. Or waking up in Rey's basement, still pilled with clothes after losing Druck one thousand times, and Rose walking around, talking to me and-
I don't want to lose people any more.
I want to win.
I get up, shove blankets away from me, unwrap myself from the pillow, force myself to stand. Tall. Proud.
I'm not beaten yet.
Light streams in through the window, and the smell of eggs wafts in under the door. Outside there is a quiet suburban street. Nice houses. Gardens.
This world isn't good enough. I keep losing people.
We have to make something better.
In a better world, I would still have my mother.
In a better world -
I look down at my feet. There's a pile of duvets, each with aggressively cutesy rainforest creatures all over them. The walls have a diagonal slash across them, so that the lower right half of the room is turquoise, while the upper left half of the room is orange. At some point, awkwardly overlapping the slash of line between the two colors is a clock in the shape of a giant cookie.
Probably those other houses are nice.
Probably those other houses don't have deliberately evil wallpaper.
I look in the bedside table. There's a phone, and a phone charger, a credit card, and a stack of envelopes with Dad's handwriting on them:
"In case you are hurt."
"In case you are being hunted by the PRT."
"Firepower,"
"In case you do not trust your own mind."
"In case someone is doing a PR hit against you."
"In case Accord has betrayed you."
"International transport"
"In case you no longer trust your power."
"Mirage,"
"In case we have been separated."
"In case I have failed you."
"In case I am gone."
Dad never told me he wrote these.
I pull out the phone, charger, and a notebook, then close the drawer.
He wouldn't have put them in the draw if any of them were things I needed to read right away.
The phone gets left charging. I check the cupboard: spare clothes and a towel on a hanger, in a vacuum sealed bag.
I take the hanger down, break the seal, and spend a few seconds trying to fluff everything back up again, before limping down the hallway to the shower.
The water is hot. Scorching. I'm pretty sure I had a shower before going to bed last night, but I don't remember.
My hands feel like claws. I focus on my breathing. On trying to get my thoughts in order. Ignoring the sensation of a man's life flicking out in my hands, because I decided it should.
I need to get online.
I need to see the response to yesterdays press conference.
Kosuke is gone. Tinker effect.
I don't know when I'll get him back. I need new Bodyguards in the meantime.
Plural. Not just one. Multiple bodyguards now.
I itch scorching water into my hair. I think about sitting down and just… letting the water flow over me. I wonder if I'll ever get tits, or if I'll always just kind of look like a boy wearing a dress. I wonder if there's any way to stop my hair looking like a birds nest made of copper wire. I try to figure out what the fuck to do with the Alcott's, and whether I should tell them about their daughter. I scrub at my face, try to get the salt off of it, try to make sure that it doesn't look like I've been crying. There's a shitty plastic Barometer on the wall of the shower, and I watch as its weather prediction changes in response to the steam filling up the room.
I'm supposed to make sure there's enough hot water for everyone else, but somehow that doesn't seem very important at the moment.
Bodyguard.
Public response to broadcast.
Is Coil still a threat?
What about Dragon?
I should hire Chene to be my secretary.
A knock at the door.
"HEY! Amy! Breakfast!"
Assault.
Can Assault be trusted. Can he be relied upon? How long will he stay with me?
I shut off the water, let it drip, trickle off of me. The sensation of individual microbes slipping and scuddering over me, losing their grip amongst the dying stream.
I adjust some of them, instinctively.
I need to make a list. Pieces of paper. Put everything in order.
What the fuck is happening with Dinah? With the Alcott's?
Where is Dad? Should I even be looking for him?
Do I need to get in touch with Mirage, make sure they are working in line with the plan?
Do I need to-
Climbing out of the shower with my leg is cumbersome. Painful and Awkward. Drying off while leaning against the countertop is worse.
There comes another knock at the door.
"Hey Amy! You doing okay in there?"
"Yup!"
"Okay!"
More Assault.
Friendly. Cheerful. Extroverted. Unstable.
Quick to anger. Quick to charm.
I finish drying. By the time I do, the towel has blood on it.
I sit down on the floor, fish out the first aid kit from beneath the counter top, put iodine onto a bandage and dab at the wound.
It feels worse than it is.
No broken bone, just a bullet hole through the muscle. A grazing shot, thanks to Shamrock.
Still hurts like a bitch to clean, or walk on.
Faultine's crew would make good bodyguards. Should I hire them full time?
Can we afford them?
I slather the wound in antiseptic goop, slap a couple pads on, wrap the injury tight as I can, then wipe off any goop that escapes around the edges. I use the hideous blue sink to haul myself back up, then unlatch the door, limp out down the hallway towards breakfast.
The hallway has textured wallpaper. Really expensive embossed stuff that looks utterly hideous, and I still remember the stupid fucking grin on Dad's face when I got back one day and he showed it too me.
I dump my towel in my room, grab the notebook, don't bother to pick up the blankets or check if the phone is ready. From the lounge, music is playing, some sort of creepy french synth stuff… there was… earth with a skull inside it on the cover? Something like that.
One of Dad's favorite albums.
Because of course he'd be into that… and of course he would leave that here.
No wonder I don't remember him playing it the last few years.
By the time I get to the lounge, Verity is happily flipping eggs, humming away along with the exceptionally unnerving music. Assault and Mrs Alcott are glaring at her. Madeline stares unhappily at the record player.
"Hey Girlo!"
I rub my eyes. There's still images of a broken city. The sensation of blood on my hands, a vague awareness of broken shattered people, my power not working because they are already dead.
"Hey Verity."
She flips the eggs, and it takes me a few seconds to realize she has eggs, which means she must have gone out.
Is it safe?
Am I safe?
Is the PRT sending people here?
My fingers rub against the fabric of my dress. It's probably a size too small now, but its mine, and its long enough, and its soft.
I was supposed to be able to trust the PRT. That was the plan. Attended Endbringer events, get on their good side and... they're still enemies.
The Alcott's seem to move around sort of automatically, setting out plates and saucers, and checking out the windows apprehensively, like birds trying to figure out if they are allowed to go outside.
The music builds towards something.
Are we enemies? Are we on the same side?
Is anyone on my side?
I glance at Verity, at Madeline.
Madeline who has powers, but pretends she doesn't.
Verity who plays along with the lie.
Are you my allies?
The music continues: like one long continuous intake of breathe, and then a tilt… a sound like wind, echoing towards silence, something building, something-
Verity catches me watching her, gives me a wink, hands me a plate full of eggs and hash browns. My hands take hold of it instinctively. My brain continues trying to parse the music, to understand what instrument is playing, connect the tone to some sort of story. There's a beat like footsteps.
"Sit down, chook. Get some food in you."
I nod. Let myself drift to the table.
Verity turns off the music. The silence feels like relief. The landline phone is still on the floor where I left it last night.
Verity would want me to tell the Alcott's about their daughter.
Dad would want me to think through the strategic implications. To make use of the knowledge, or test the security of various different actions.
Ihina wouldn't care. She wouldn't understand why I was asking the question. She'd just do something – keep secrets, or open her mouth depending on the moment.
Rey… Rey would want me to tell them. Rey and all of that boston crew would want me to tell them.
… well… maybe some of them would want me to ask Dinah first, but for the most part-
"I found your daughter."
My hands are tight around the cutlery as I meet Mrs Alcott and Mr Alcott's eyes.
As I look away.
They frown. Confused.
It's all wrong, too abrupt.
I was meant to put them at ease first- tell them I have good news, hype it up, make it... make them remember me when they remember this moment. Fuck.
"She's staying with a friend of mine. I can call her if you want me to."
Mrs Alcott opens her mouth, raise her hands. Mr Alcott nods, and says something, reaching out to take my hand from the other side of the table, both of them trying to draw me in, draw me closer, and -
No.
Too much.
Too much too much.
I pull back, lean over, get the phone. Anything to keep my hands busy, to appear occupied and keep them at arms length.
God, I hope it isn't the wrong Dinah or something.
Would that even make sense?
I don't want to touch them. Don't want... their emotions getting smeared all over me.
I'm meant to feel good right? I'm meant to feel warmth or something?
Instead I just call the number, Bad Apple answers, and I ask her to put Dinah on the line.
"Hey... ummm... I have your parents here."
Then I hand the phone over, step back, step out, ducking under one of their arms, away from the table, and I just....
Verity is watching me.
That's what this play was for. Making Verity trust me more, securing her as an ally, except I fucked it up because I'm not soft enough, because I'm too...
I kind of hate it. Verity watching.
Watching and judging me. Evaluating.
Just like Dad.
Just like Ihina.
Kosuke.
Me.
She gives me a wink as I lean up against the wall, reaches past the Alcotts to rescue my plate, and hands it over to me.
She knows. Somehow she knows that I had to think about it, that I had to make a decision.
I picked right though, right?
Telling them's what I'm supposed to do?
I watch the pair.
I eat my eggs and watch them as they laugh, and talk too quickly, and stumble over one another, and somehow it doesn't reach me. I just stand in the corner of the room, watching.
Mostly I just notice the taste of the scrambled eggs. The herbs, salt and pepper, the hash browns.
I don't feel anything, but I don't regret it either.
It was the correct thing to do, regardless of strategy.
Eventually the phonecall is finished, the phone gets handed back to me.
"Thank you Amelia," the voice is hazy, somehow bright and weightless like a cloud. "I wasn't sure if you were going to tell them."
Dinah Alcott...
"It... it was the right thing to do."
"Hmm."
I fucking hate precogs.
"Good news Amelia. You've got an eighty seven percent chance of seeing your Dad again before this is all over."
What?
"Talk again soon."
There's the sound of the phone moving, being handed over to someone. Rey down the other end of the line: "Miracle girl?"
"Yeah?"
"She can't stay here. The Alcott girl - you need to move her."
Last edited:
