by wildbow
“Sure.”
I stood from my bed and began going through the box of DVDs that Coil had supplied with the TV. Most were still in the tight plastic wrap that they’d been bought in. I looked through, then handed some to Brian before turning back to the bag to keep browsing.
What the hell were we supposed to watch? I didn’t want anything that would ruin Brian’s mood or remind him what had happened, so horror was probably out, I was sick of the high intensity stuff, but I couldn’t stand romance or bad comedies.
“Going back to the earlier topic,” Brian said. “The subject of leadership, being in charge…”
I winced.
“You took over today. Are you wanting that to be a permanent thing?”
I turned around. “No. Not permanent. Just until—” I stopped short. How to put it?
“Until?”
“When I was getting really obsessive about what I was doing, when I was losing sleep and making mistakes, I deferred control.”
“To Trickster,” Brian said. I could see a shadow pass over his expression.
“Yeah. And that’s a bad example because it didn’t work. It’s just that we both know you’re not getting enough rest. So maybe I can pick up the slack in the meantime.”
Brian sighed. He didn’t look any happier.
“I don’t want to make you unhappy,” I said. “I’m not wanting to oust you, or co-opt your role permanently or completely. You were the leader, even if we didn’t really establish an official title over it. But we can divide the duties for the time being. Tattletale handles the information angle of things, I maybe keep Bitch reined in and handle the spur of the moment calls, while you handle Regent and Imp and all the rest.”
“Which is less than it sounds like, especially when you and Tattletale contribute on ‘the rest’ in little ways.”
“No—” I started, then I sighed. “Maybe, yeah. I don’t want to come off as manipulative or anything. Like I said, I don’t want you to be unhappy, but at the same time I do want the whole team to get by in the meantime.”
“You don’t sound manipulative,” he said. His fork hit the plate with a clatter. “Jesus, this sucks. I know you’re right. I know this is for the good of the team, and if I could just get over this shit—”
“It’s not that easy. Don’t do yourself a disservice and expect too much.”
“My whole life, I’ve been bigger than my peers, I’ve been stronger than most. Spent my time around pretty powerful guys. Boxers, martial artists, other criminals. I didn’t have many friends, but they were the people who were around me, you know? And they were the types to go after you if you show any weakness.”
“You get shot, nobody’s going to call you a wimp. I don’t see why it’s different if the damage is mental or emotional instead of physical.”
“I know, but you’re not getting it. I was the type to go after someone if they showed a vulnerability. Wasn’t until I’d had my powers about a year, Aisha tells me I was being an asshole, just like one of her stepdads used to be. So I tried to be better, but I always wanted to protect her, always wanted to help others. Teach you and Alec to fight, step up and take charge when a situation demanded it. Sometimes when a situation didn’t.”
“Yeah.”
“So it isn’t just about me trying to adjust. Christ, it’s me having my world turned upside down. It’s others protecting me, others helping me, others covering me in a fight, others taking charge. Aisha’s the one fixing things for me. And you—”
“Me?”
“This thing with Coil. Don’t think I’m so obsessed with what’s going on with me that I don’t see it. It’s like a burden’s fallen from your shoulders. You’ve got concerns, but you’re more relaxed. You’ve got hope that you didn’t have twelve hours ago, and it’s dramatic enough that your posture’s changing. Even since we left the mall, it’s like you’re slowly convincing yourself that this is over, Coil’s going to follow through, we’ll move on to taking care of our territories and everything works out in the end.”
I folded my arms. “I don’t think that. Like I said, I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“You say that, you tell yourself that, but I don’t know that you’re feeling it. I’m worried you’re setting yourself up for a massive disappointment, and that you’ll be affected enough that you won’t be able to deal when it happens. But I’m mostly worried that all that will happen and I won’t be in a position to help because I’m distracted by my own shit.”
“You don’t have to take up all the slack. We have other teammates.”
“Lisa isn’t exactly a heavy hitter, and let’s not fool ourselves into believing that Alec, Rachel or Aisha are going to offer any meaningful emotional support.”
“We’ll manage,” I said. “We’ve managed this far.”
“More or less. Problem is, ‘managing’ is fine, up until we don’t manage, if that makes any sense. Then it’s over.”
I sighed. “How did Genesis put it? There’s no use in getting worked up over it if we can’t plan around it or do anything to change it. So we’ll each do our own imperfect jobs of taking care of each other and taking care of ourselves, and be as ready as we can for whatever comes up.”
He sighed.
“We’re not perfect. We’re flawed people, and as much as I want to help you in every way I can, I know I can’t. I don’t—I’m not good at this. I don’t know how to act, or what to say. But I like you. I care about you. I’m going to do my best, even if I know it’s not good enough. And I won’t expect any more of you.”
He nodded, but he looked glum.
“No hard feelings?”
He shook his head. He didn’t look happy.
“I won’t be leader forever.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Might be better that you keep the job, even if I do bounce back eventually.”
“Except I don’t want the job.”
“That might be why you should take it. I don’t know. Can we drop the subject?”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. Just… heavy topics, with lots of ramifications. And it’s hard to shake the negative thoughts. I’d rather talk along the lines of what you said before, about taking care of each other.”
“And taking care of ourselves,” I said. “Getting enough sleep, eating right.”
“Okay,” he said. There was a pause. “I slept well the other night.”
“Then stay over. There’s nothing pressing coming up, so we’ll watch movies until we fall asleep.”
He smiled a little, and for the first time in a long time there was a glimmer of that expression that had gotten my attention in the first place.
I put three DVDs into the drive so I could use the remote to play the next movie without having to get up, then pulled off the armor panels of my costume before settling into bed. My back pressed against his chest, and I could feel his breath against my hair.
I felt so self conscious that I could barely keep track of what was going on. I was thinking every unromantic thought there was: worrying if I had body odor from being in costume and running all day, wondering if I should get up to go to the bathroom now so I wouldn’t have to go as desperately as I had the other morning.
I felt his hand on the zipper at the back of my costume, lowering it an inch, then stopping. A fingertip traced from the ‘v’ where the top of my costume parted, all the way up to the the nape of my neck, then back down. I could feel his fingers on the zipper, felt every tiny hair on my body standing on end.
A million thoughts raced through my head at once. All put together, they amounted to a mumbled, “Um.”
There was no response from behind me. I could hear him breathing, I could feel the warmth of his breath, the slow rise and fall of his chest against my back. He was waiting for me to make my decision, and the thing that loomed largest in my mind was the sensation of his fingers on the tiny tag of the zipper, strong, insistent, there.
Any confidence I’d p
icked up in the past weeks or months fled. I felt as vulnerable as I had in early April, brought to tears in front of my worst enemies. Except this… wasn’t wholly negative. Not entirely: I still felt acutely aware of every vulnerability, I thought of every part of myself that I tried to ignore when I looked in the mirror in the same way I might see my life flash before my eyes before I died.
Again, thinking that way. Why couldn’t I think in a more romantic way at a moment like this? Was I broken in my own way?
“Let me get up and turn off the lights?” I asked.
His power blanketed the room. I could feel the phantom touches of it on against the thin fabric of my costume and my bare face, leaving me blind and deaf as we were plunged into darkness.
As I was plunged into darkness; he could see just as well. This totally wasn’t what I’d wanted.
“That’s not fair,” I murmured.
He placed one hand on the side of my head to get me to turn his way, then pressed his lips against mine.
I didn’t protest any further.
Interlude 16 (Donation Bonus #2)
Heavy footsteps carried him through a crowd of people who were having the worst days of their lives. There were doctors and nurses who might never be able to return to the careers they had worked so long to achieve. He saw new parents, almost all in their twenties and thirties, huddled close and openly weeping or staring into space with puffy red eyes. There were family members trying to give them support, not knowing how. Not that the extended family would be suffering any less. Police officers and detectives were trying to gather statements, well aware that the families wouldn’t know anything pertinent. Some were standing by, notepads in hand, unwilling or unable to proceed with their witnesses.
He’d known this feeling, once. To be the bystander, watching the aftermath, agonized as much by the inability to help, the lack of knowledge about what he should do as by the tragedy itself. To have it happen again and again. He banished the memories before they could take hold. It was easier to distract himself and think about the work. If there was no work to be done, he would let himself slip into that other state of mind, seeing the world coming apart, ways things could fit together.
But right now, he would focus on the job.
He glanced at the window. Four or five hours ago, these same parents might have been standing outside the window, watching their new babies sleeping. Now there was only a sheet taped up to block the view, marked for what it was by a yellow ‘x’ of police tape.
Keep walking. Something nagged at him as he set his right foot down, like a pebble in his boot, except not. He reached out, as if he were trying to move a finger, but the artificial nerves were hooked into his suit, and the impulse didn’t go anywhere in his body. He felt the air shift as the openings in his mask sealed shut. He sent out another command and the microphone came online.
When he spoke, only his ears and the microphone heard his voice. “Note to self. Prosthetics in right leg feel alien. I should check the treads on my old boots, see if one of my legs was longer than the other, maybe try to dig up recordings of myself to match my new gait to my old one. Should time adjustments to coincide with next procedure.”
Note made, he shut off the microphone, opened the vents. He saw two women embracing one another, eyes red, staring at him as he passed through the last of the gathered crowd. They were hoping for the impossible, willing it. But bringing their child back wasn’t in his hands. The best he could manage would be revenge. Or justice. The line between the two got pretty damned thin at times like this.
The local sheriff was waiting for him as he approached the waiting room.
“Defiant?” the sheriff asked. She looked small, mid-sixties, gray-haired. He suspected she was someone who had gleaned some experience in Boston or Brockton Bay and then ‘retired’ out to a smaller town in the middle of nowhere. She wouldn’t have expected to face a situation like this in her retirement, nobody would, but she was holding herself together in a way that suggested she had some experience to fall back on. She’d lost officers, and the town was small enough that people she knew would have been among the casualties, but she was all business, her chin set, her small dark eyes hard with determination.
He liked her right away.
“Yes ma’am,” He shifted his spear to his left hand, extended his right hand to shake hers.
“Miranda Goering. Sheriff. No need for that kind of formality here.” She sounded like she said something similar on a routine basis. She frowned. “I… would have a hard time expressing just how much I appreciate your being here.”
How was he supposed to respond to that? He couldn’t think of a response.
She was studying him. Her eyes settled on his weapon, the fourteen foot long spear. “How on Earth do you carry that spear indoors?”
“It folds, and it can contract to be half the length,” he said.
“I see,” she said. She shook her head, as if stirring herself from idle thoughts. Back to the nightmare. “Do you want to start in the nursery?”
He shook his head. “No. I can guess what happened, and I doubt there’ll be anything I can use there. Show me the other scenes.”
Wordlessly, she turned and led him to the stairwell. He noted the gouges on the walls. Two or three inches deep, with blood spatters following each. Plastic had been taped down over each individual mark and spatter. Evidence cards were stuck next to each. He could guess the culprit. Jack.
Another impulse sent to his hardware, and his spear broke down into three loosely connected sections as they made their way down to the next floor. A practiced motion let him catch the weapon under his arm. “You have any local parahumans?”
“Three. Nothing notable. Edict and Licit, a low-rated master and a low-rated shaker. We also have one villainess who occasionally tries to make it in one of the big cities and then retreats back home when she can’t cut it. Calls herself Damsel of Distress.”
He reconnected his spear as they passed through the door. “I know her. Mover and shaker. Storms of unevenly altered gravity, time and space. Edict and Licit keep her in check?”
“They manage with our help. Why do you ask?”
“The Slaughterhouse Nine are recruiting. Their numbers are down, and they’ll be looking for a quantity of new members more than they’re looking for quality. At least until they’re stable enough that they can afford to be picky. Once they can, they’ll replace the weakest recruits with better ones. I don’t want them to get that far.”
“I understand. But would they want her? Damsel of Distress? Her lack of control over her power holds her back. I won’t say she isn’t a problem, but she’s never been a priority threat to anyone.”
“She’s a heavy hitter. They can give her control, or they can use that lack of control. Let’s not forget that they might be looking at Edict and Licit. I’ll need you to send me their files as well, please.”
“Of course.”
He didn’t really need the files. The PRT had provided access to everything except the highest level secured files. He suspected that Dragon would be able to gain access to those if the need arose. Still, asking the sheriff had let him gauge whether she was really as cooperative as she seemed, and her level of connection to the hometown heroes. There had been no resistance, which was reassuring.
She led the way to the area at the front of the ground floor. They stopped at the perimeter of the scene. He could see the path that Hookwolf had traveled, the bodies and body parts that littered the area, each covered by sheets or squares of cloth. There was little to be done about the blood. Every officer present was from out of town, and everyone was staying to the edges of the area. There was more evidence than there was ground to tread on.
Defiant examined the area. “They hit the nursery first, Jack and Siberian moving elsewhere in the building. Your officers got the call, but didn’t have enough details to know what they were getting into. They came in through the emergency room here, and Hookwolf was waiting for them.
Am I correct?”
“Yes,” Sheriff Goering said, staring down at the sheet in front of her. Her composure was slipping, emotion seeping into her posture and expression, softening that hardness.
Again, he wasn’t sure what to say. He needed her in control, but any reassurance threatened to make things worse. He didn’t want to upset her, but everything about this was upsetting. There was no denying that. She would regret it if she broke down in tears here, and it would waste his time when he needed to be in pursuit.
“Tell her it’s not her fault,” Dragon spoke in his ear.
“It’s not your fault,” he told the sheriff. “They planned it this way. I would guess they controlled the information that was reported to your station to keep you in the dark, then would have had Hookwolf sitting in the lobby in his human state, indistinguishable from anyone else that was waiting for a turn.”
“That fits what we know,” she replied. She looked up at him.
“They have years of practice in this, and this is what they’re doing, ninety-nine percent of the time. Hit isolated areas, terrorize. Sometimes it gets reported in the media, because it’s sensationalist, and sometimes it goes unreported—”
“Back on track. Cut the digression.”
“—There was nothing you could have done differently, knowing what you did,” he finished, feeling like he was leaving his explanation incomplete. If it were him on the other side of things, he’d want the full picture, but he would take Dragon’s advice.
“You’re right. But that doesn’t make it much easier.”
“No,” he agreed. “I don’t expect it would.”
The lens of his right eye clicked through multiple frequencies and resolutions, until the scene stood out in high detail. The blood shone ultraviolet, and even particles of dust were highlighted. The entire area stood out with fingerprints, footprints and frost-like patterns where air currents had layered dust over walls and windows. He began to pick his way through the scene, setting his feet down only where there wasn’t any evidence to be damaged.