The drive to Waverly is an exercise in meditation.
My mind drifting away from the road, and me forcing it back. Trying to stay focused on my hands, on the steering wheel, on the instructions Genevieve gave me.
The messages I sent to Amelia's friends.
Every so often one of them will reply, and I will pull over, read the message, send a polite thank you back, and keep driving.
The car is second hand. Paid for in cash with money from the safehouse.
What remains of that money is with me now, in a bag on the front passenger seat.
The road is long, and gently curved, flat barren farmland on one side, railway tracks on the other. My daughter has gone to Boston. There is more farmland on the opposite side of the railway tracks.
I reach the outskirts of Waverly, a dilapidated white welcome sign, a oversized gas station designed for trucks. Houses and shops sparsely placed, with flat open ground in between. Skeletal trees and shorn grass fills the wide gaps between houses.
The city is deeply disturbing. Disquieting in a way I can not put my finger on, something off in the minds of whoever constructed this place.
I follow Genevieve's instructions, wind my way through unlabeled streets, roads with no midline, clusters of ready-pack houses with no fences between them. Eventually I reach a little white church, perched atop the slightest of hills. The carpark of the East Family Gospel church is empty, so I pull up, hide my dufflebag of money beneath the seat, and climb out of the car, folding out and upwards, glancing all around.
Good spot for sniper fire.
One of the few things I have no defense for.
I take a few steps towards the church, and don't get gunned down, so that at least is a relief. Genevieve watches me, hands behind her back, wearing the white collar and bulky black gown of her ministership.
I approach the door, wary of the building as I approach.
God I hate these things. Churches, Cathedrals, Chapels.
Places of worship, buildings full of people all believing the same thing because the pastor tells them to.
Sheep. Grand stone edifices built out of labor and money taken from the poor.
"Anyone would think you were a vampire, way you look at it."
I nod. Eyes skating left, right, back up to the building, the steepled roof, the cross above the doorway.
"You always hated churches."
"Oh?" I reach out, shake Jen's hand, still watching the church as I check that she is not an illusion.
"We used to have a couple in our neighborhood back in Brockton bay, till you chased them out."
Dangerous places. Centers of conformity. Radicalization.
Jen turns, wanders inside.
I hesitate on the threshold before following her.
The inside of the East Family Church is cool and dark. Wood polished smooth by one thousand hands, the gentle movement of supplicants, windows thin, barely enough to keep out the cold. Benches hard, flat backed.
People looking for purpose, looking for explanation. Direction.
Unable to face the raw absurdity of reality. The fundamental truth that there is no reason.
Only action and consequence.
Action and consequence.
"Why are we meeting here?"
"It's a building I have the keys to, where I can grant some level of privacy and won't have to introduce you to my husband."
"Don't care to explain me to him?"
Your former pimp. A supervillian.
"No, not that." Jen shakes her head, still walking away from me, up onto the low stage. "He already knows about you. He knows you are here, what I'm doing. I do not
lie to my husband, Michael. But you have a history of violence and so.... you do not get to meet him. You do not get to speak to the man I love."
Huh.
Not sure I deserved that.
Not from Jen.
Anyone else probably, but not Jen.
I think her words over for a few moments, and smile.
"Congratulations," I tell her "I didn't realize you were married. He's a lucky man."
"Fuck off Michael."
Genevieve turns, takes a seat, sitting on the low stage at the front of the room, her legs swinging.
I want a seat, but can't find one. The pews feel… I don't want to sit there. Instead I move, go to check the windows.
"Is your husband discreet?"
One more threat.
One more variable to deal with.
"I've made it clear that this is church business. That I am in the business of redeeming souls, and that business is best not interfered with. Also, I have an interest in protecting my goddaughter."
There's iron in this woman. There's iron in this woman and I'm not convinced that I am not about to be on the receiving end of it.
Jen watches me.
There's nothing going on out in the carpark. Nothing going on in the little patch of woods on the other side of the chapel. My daughter has gone to Boston. Light streams in through the windows. Late morning sunshine.I return to the center of the room, and Jen is still watching. Calm face. Deep dark opal eyes, and her hair cut short, and she once was a prostitute and now she's sitting in a chapel.
"I don't… I don't understand"
"Oh?"
I gesture at the room. "If they knew your history… if they knew who you were… every one of these people would turn against you."
They would hate you.
I hate it. Hate the moral absolutism of it, hate the hypocracy, hate people for not seeing the true value of this woman.
Dr Morley took me and Mother to church. Paraded her around and then returned her to the brothel. None of them believed me when I said the good doctor was beating her.
None of them believed me when he pushed her down the stairs.
Beneath my skin, bones move. Slicing through veins and sinew. Sawing at things.
It takes a flicker of will, and the process stops.
"I draw my faith from Christ, Michael, not from Christians."
There is no Christ. Only people. Only our choices. I was nine years old.
"And besides, they
do know my history. They know the name I was born to. They know about my employment in the bay. The criminal convictions, the time spent as a drug courier. None of these people care about that. People are better than you think Michael."
"Huh."
Can't say I expected that.
The feeling is disquieting, something out of place.
I wander over to the side of the room, slump down against the wall.
Legs splayed out, eyes closed.
I feel numb. Washed out. A being without flesh. Only the gentle sensation of my bones pressing in on my awareness. Disjoint pieces, a skeleton with the rib cage moving in and out as I breath.
I wasn't strong enough to kill him till I was twelve. Until I had learned to control my power.
"Is she like her mother?" Jen asks.
"Hm?"
"Amelia. Is she like her mother?"
Is she?
There's a flicker, a sensation of memory.
Diana laughing, down in the harbor. Arguments with Diana, arguments with Amelia.
Diana smiling, looking up from a book. Amelia looking up from her e-reader. Anxious.
Ahhh my princess.
Why did you have to go to Boston?
Of course, its a stupid question.
The threat was Mirage. The threat was a creature
I brought into her life, not the city itself.
"She's more anxious," I reply. "She's a worrier."
"Like you."
I nod. "Diana wasn't like that. Diana was courageous."
I taught her that.
I taught Amelia to be afraid.
I don't regret that choice.
I only ever wanted her to be safe.
"Aside from that? Aside from the anxiety?"
I played her music. The same tracks Diana used to play in her attic apartment. Johnny Clegg. Tracy Chapman on repeat.
I open my eyes. Stare out across the church. Across the stiff backed wooden pews, out through the window, into the flat grey sky.
"Yes," I reply "She's like her mother. She… Diana would be proud of her."
I wanted that.
That's something I wanted for my daughter.
Genevieve smiles, indulgent. Warm. "She'll be fine."
Against the Simurgh? An Endbringer?
Amelia is an S-class threat, a target, a-
I feel hollowed out. Filled with light. fragile. "How can you know that. How can you… what difference does it make?"
"I was reading about it while you were driving over. There's been research. Studies. Simurgh only latches on to what's already there. It's only about fifteen percent of the population who are vulnerable."
-
That's all it takes. That's all it takes to-
"If your daughter is like her mother, she'll be safe."
It's lies.
It's lies to try and make me feel calm.
"You've never even met Diana."
A chuckle. I realize I'm staring up at the roof. Not looking at Genevieve.
"Not true. We got Valerie to spin you some story about All Father's goons bothering her, and me and Carla went over to visit… get the low down on your new Lady."
Huh.
Outplayed once again.
"She was cool. I can see why you liked her. Very French, very tragic."
It's not enough.
It's not enough for her to be like her mother, for her to….
"She likes people," I say.
Why. Why did I say that? What difference does it make.
"She... I brought her up to know that allies… a good reputation… its a critical resource. Friendship is an asset."
"That's how you see this here? I'm an asset to you?"
I turn, look at Genevieve for a minute. Just really look at her. The inquisitive eyes, the bulky ministerial robe, her hands.
"…. Yes." I tell her "You're intelligent. I believe you are a genuinely good person. That's valuable."
Jen rolls her eyes.
I turn away. Slouch back into staring across the pews. Staring out the window.
"I've realized…. Amelia didn't learn the lesson I intended. She doesn't care about people being useful to her, she doesn't…. she cares about peoples opinions because their good opinion of her is something
she wants."
There's a sound. My phone, the device chirping away inside my pocket. I pull the phone out.
"She lets other people opinions dictate what she does. That's just something that
matters to her, and when I noticed, I thought it might be a problem, I thought about training her out of it,-"
becoming a slave to public opinion. Peer pressure. Societal morality. Love is a liability. Attachment pulls you down "- but I didn't think that's something Diana would have wanted, so…."
So what?
You're going to take your advice from a dead woman now?
I glance down at the phone, tap at it. Another message from Amelia's friends.
10:10am
You have received
3 new messages.
Oh- hi Amy's Dad.
10:10am
Amy called us yesterday morning.
There was some kid from Brockton
Bay who needed a place to lie low;
Amy asked if we could take her.
10:10am
Anyway- we asked the adults,
and they said it was okay, so
Amy and that Dinah girl are due to
arrive in the next day or so.
10:10am
Boston was attacked by the Simurgh.
My daughter went to Boston.
My daughter went to Boston to collect the most powerful parahuman precog currently recorded.
I tilt my head back.
Stare up at the roof of the church, the raw wooden beams.
Like an upturned ship.
I'm sitting in a church, and somehow it feels like absolution.
