by wildbow
But always, the details would be off. Things any ordinary person would take for granted were forgotten or exaggerated. Dorothy inevitably prepared too much, because it was harder for her to consider how hungry everyone was and adjust accordingly. Only two days ago, Justin had noted that Geoff would take a few minutes to read the front page of the paper, turn the page, and stop.
Now he couldn’t help but notice. It was the same thing every day. For the twenty or thirty minutes it took Dorothy to put everything together and set it on the table, Geoff would stare at the second and third pages of the newspaper.
Justin had asked about the headlines and the articles. Geoff never remembered, because he wasn’t reading. He could read, but he didn’t. He spent nearly forty minutes in total, every day, like clockwork, doing little more than staring into space, pretending to read.
Put the paper away, it’s time to eat, Justin thought. Yes dear. Mmm. Smells delicious.
“Put the paper away, it’s time to eat,” Dorothy said. She was holding the coffee pot, stepped behind Geoff, putting a hand on his shoulder, and bent down to kiss him on the top of his head. Automatic, without affection.
“Yes, dear. ” Geoff said, smiling up at his wife. “Mmm. Smells delicious.”
Jesus fuck, they scare me, Justin thought. But he plastered a fake smile of his own onto his face, grabbed one of the oven-warmed plates and served himself. Theo did much the same at the other side of the table, minus the smile.
Kayden emerged from one of the bedrooms, her hair still tangled from sleep, wearing a bathrobe. Mousy, shorter than average, looking exceedingly human, she was Dorothy Schmidt’s antithesis.
“Aster slept well last night,” Justin commented. “Didn’t hear her crying.”
“She slept through the night. We just have to maintain a routine as we keep moving,” Kayden said.
“We were just discussing ways to force Theo’s trigger event.”
“It’ll come on its own,” she said. “We have two years.”
“One year and eleven months,” Theo said.
Kayden glanced at him but didn’t respond.
“It should have happened already,” Justin pointed out. “It’s easier for children with inherited powers, and Theo’s the son of Kaiser, who’s the son of Allfather. Third generation.”
“Maybe I didn’t get powers,” Theo said, not looking up from his plate.
“Or maybe you’ve lived a sheltered enough life that you haven’t had a reason to trigger,” Justin retorted.
“I don’t want to get tortured. Physically or psychologically. There has to be another way.”
“Torture?” Kayden asked.
“It’s one line of thought,” Justin said, trying to mask his annoyance. He’d purposefully brought it up while Kayden was out of the room. “We were trying to think of methods that wouldn’t leave him unable to fight Jack when the time came.”
“No torture. Theo’s right. We can find another way.”
Justin frowned, “Every day we wait is a day we don’t have for training his abilities, and he’ll need all of the training he can get.”
“Because I have to fight the Slaughterhouse Nine and Jack Slash. And he’ll kill a thousand people if I don’t,” Theo said. “Me and Aster too.”
Justin glanced at the boy, saw the white-knuckle grip he had on his knife and fork, looked at Kayden, who had french toast speared on her fork but wasn’t raising it to her mouth. She stared off into space as the maple syrup slowly dripped down to the plate below.
She doesn’t know what to do any more than we do.
“You come from a good pedigree,” Justin commented. “Kaiser was strong enough to rule over the better part of Brockton Bay, as Allfather did before him.”
“Which doesn’t do us any good if I don’t get powers,” Theo mumbled.
“If worst comes to worst,” Kayden said, “We fight the Slaughterhouse Nine. Night, Fog, Crusader and I. Okay?”
Justin frowned, but he didn’t speak.
Theo voiced half the doubts that Justin was keeping silent, “You didn’t fight them last time. I’m not saying you were wrong to leave, but—”
“But we didn’t fight them then. You’re right,” Kayden said. “I’d hoped the others would stop them. The heroes, the Undersiders, Hookwolf…”
“And they didn’t,” Justin said. “Which means we have to assume Jack’s going to follow through. That gives us a time limit. Theo needs powers, he needs training, we need to find the Nine, and we need to stop them. What if we went to the Gesellschaft?”
Kayden glanced at the other two who were sitting at the table. Dorothy and Geoff. Neither of the two had reacted to the name of the organization that had created them. Or, at least, they hadn’t reacted outwardly.
“I’m more concerned that they’d help the Slaughterhouse Nine if it meant killing a thousand Americans,” she said. “And I’m not sure I want Theo to recieve the kind of power they offer.”
“If we contacted them through Krieg…” Justin trailed off.
“What?” Kayden asked. She let her knife and fork drop to her plate with a loud clatter. “You think they’d give us assistance with no strings attached? That we could call in a favor with Krieg and they’d give Theo powers, without the follow-up attention?”
“No. No, I suppose not.”
“They turn people into weapons,” Kayden said. “Then they decide where those weapons are best positioned, for the cause. There’s two good reasons why they wouldn’t have given fresh orders to Night and Fog since the Empire collapsed. Either they can’t get in touch with us—”
“I somehow doubt that.”
“Or Night and Fog are forgotten. Presumed dead or ignored,” Kayden finished. “In which case we don’t want to remind them that we’re still around.”
“I somehow doubt that, as well,” Justin said. “They have to know we’re alive.”
“Then what? Why leave these two in my care?”
“Because it serves their agenda,” Justin answered. He finished off his plate, spooned some blueberries onto the side, and poured himself some orange juice.
“What agenda?”
“The Empire fell. The Chosen fell. Only Kayden Anders and her Pure remain. If they hope to retain any foothold in the Americas, it’ll be through you.”
“I don’t want to give them a foothold in the Americas.”
“By the sole fact that you exist, you’re giving it to them. Your reputation, your success, it gives the Gesellschaft the opportunity to say, their cause is being furthered in the West. Even if your goals and theirs are only aligned in abstract. So they leave Night and Fog in your care, because it keeps you dangerous, it helps ensure your success, and maybe because it gives them a way to strike at you if they decide you’re a danger to the cause.”
Kayden glanced at Dorothy, studying Night’s civilian appearance.
“More coffee?” Dorothy asked, smiling.
“God, yes,” Kayden muttered. She held out her cup for a refill.
“What about you?” Theo asked.
Justin turned to look at the boy. “Who? Me?”
“Where do you stand, with the cause?” Theo asked. Justin didn’t miss the inflection at the end.
“I’m a simple man,” Justin said, smiling. “I like steak and potatoes. I like a good fight, a serious game of baseball or football. American football. I like a good woman’s company—”
Kayden cleared her throat. When Justin met her eyes, she was glaring at him. Not jealousy, more of a mother bear protecting her cub.
Justin smiled a little, more with one side of his mouth than the other. “—and I believe that they are fucking things up, out there. And the rest of the world’s letting them.”
“People with different colored skin.”
“People with differences,” Justin said. “Faggots, gimps, mongoloids. Kaiser got that. I talked to him one on one, and he had the right ideas. He got that America is ours, that they’re polluting it over time, let
ting these people in. But he was too focused on the big picture, and he was working with the Gesellschaft, which was way too big picture for my tastes. Still, birds of a feather. I worked under him because I wasn’t about to find others elsewhere, and I didn’t feel like going it alone. Then he introduced me to Purity.”
Theo glanced at his onetime stepmother.
“And I think we’re more in sync, Kayden and I,” Justin said. “If Kaiser was the visionary, the guy on top, the guy with the dream, working to achieve something over decades, then Purity’s the detective working the streets. And that’s the kind of simple thinking I can get behind.”
“So you don’t support the Gesellschaft?” Theo asked.
“I can’t support what I don’t understand,” Justin said. “And what I do understand is that we need to give you your trigger event before it’s too late. Because Jack and his gang of psychopaths are the sort of freaks I can’t stand, and I’ll be fucked if we let him beat you on this count. They don’t get to beat us, and you’re one of us.”
Theo drew in a deep breath, as if he was going to say something, and then heaved it out as a sigh, slow and heavy.
“Whether you like it or not,” Justin added, just under his breath.
Theo glanced at him. He hadn’t missed the comment.
At a normal volume, Justin said, “You’re vetoing the torture, where we’d be trying to get him to a trigger state in a safe, controlled environment. We need another game plan.”
Kayden sighed. “For now? We’ll let Dorothy clean up. Have you two done your morning sparring?”
Justin shook his head.
“Give Theo some training while I shower, then you two can wash up. Get dressed to go out. I have one idea regarding Theo’s trigger event.”
Justin stood with a plate in hand, but Dorothy was already walking around the table, her heels clicking on the tile. She took the plate from him, smiling.
“Come on, then,” Justin urged the boy. “Let’s see how much of it’s sinking in.”
“Not much,” Theo said.
“Probably not,” Justin replied. He reached for his power and stepped out of his body, a spiritual mitosis. A ghostly image of himself, wearing the same clothes, crossed the ‘living room’ of the space the hotel had given them. He created two more replicas of himself, one walking until its legs were sticking through the couch.
“Four against one?” Theo asked.
“You think the Nine are going to play fair? Now, do you remember priority one?”
“Self defense.”
“Protection comes first, always. The core of any martial art or self defense. Perception’s second. Know what’s going on, because it’ll help you protect yourself, and it’ll help you identify the right moment to strike. Arms up. Let’s see your stance.”
Theo raised his arms in the ready position, positioned his feet further apart.
Justin looked the boy over. He’d lost a little weight, though he wouldn’t look much skinnier if he kept exercising like he was. He’d put on muscle, and look just as bulky, at least for a while.
But that stance…
Justin suppressed a sigh. Those one thousand people are fucked.
* * *
“Harvard,” Justin said.
“This way,” Kayden said. She had Aster in a harness, the baby’s head resting against her chest.
“You know your way around Harvard? Color me impressed.”
“I looked it up online. This way. I’d rather not spend too much time in public.”
Justin noted the crowd of older teenagers and twenty-somethings. It was summer, but the school wasn’t empty. With the warmth of summer, the students were wearing shorts and short sleeves, as well as short dresses. Justin smiled at a group of girls as they passed by. One of them looked over her shoulder at him, gave him a glance that roved from head to toe and back up again.
“Justin,” Kayden said, raising her voice.
“Coming,” he said. Damn.
They made their way across the campus. Dorothy and Geoff had stayed behind, leaving Kayden, Justin and Theo to carry out the errand with Aster in tow.
They reached a tower, built to match the other buildings of the campus. Justin held the door for Kayden and Theo, pausing to note the lettering across the entrance: ‘Dept. Parahuman Studies’.
Fitting. Kayden’s plan was clear, now.
They entered the elevator, and Kayden checked a slip of paper, hit the button for the ninth floor. She tucked it into a pocket behind Aster’s back, then kissed her sleeping daughter on the forehead as the doors closed.
“We should get in and out fast,” Justin commented.
Kayden pursed her lips.
“Always have to consider that someone made us, and that they’re calling the authorities.”
“I know,” she said.
“Fuck Coil,” Justin snarled.
Kayden glared at him, and her eyes and hair both glowed with a trace of light. Some free strands of hair lifted as the light touched them, as if they were buoyant, or as if Kayden was underwater and slowly sinking. “Watch your language around Aster.”
“She doesn’t understand.”
“But she will, one day. Get in the habit now.”
Justin sighed. “Will do. We going in hard or soft?”
“You could rephrase that. But this is a soft entry.”
“Right.”
They departed the elevator as it reached the ninth floor. Kayden double checked the slip of paper, and they began the process of figuring out where the room was. It wasn’t intuitive, as the rooms didn’t seem to be numbered sequentially.
They stopped at one door that was labeled ‘914’, with a nameplate below reading ‘Dr. Wysocki’.
“What the hell kind of name is Wysocki? Polack?”
“He’s one of the top researchers on Parahumans,” Kayden said. “The best in the Massachusetts area.”
“You’re the boss, and it’s your call,” Justin said, shrugging. “Just saying I pointed it out in advance.”
“What difference is it going to make?” Theo asked. “Doesn’t make any difference to his ability to do his job.”
“So cute,” Justin said. He gave Theo a pat on the cheek, and the boy pushed his hand away in irritation.
Kayden knocked, and the door swung partially open.
A young man, no older than twenty-five, hopped out of his swivel chair, pulling earbuds from his ears. “Ah. Hi?”
“We had a few questions,” Kayden said.
“I’ve never had a student bring their family before.”
“We’re not students,” Kayden said. She strode into the room, and Justin gave Theo a push on the shoulder to prod him forward. When everyone was inside, he closed the door and stood with his back to it.
“Huh. I thought I recognized you, would have been from class,” the man said.
“We’re not students,” Justin echoed Kayden’s words. His tone didn’t have the intimidating effect he’d hoped for. The young man’s forehead was wrinkled in concerns of a different sort.
“You’re not here for the office hours? Figures. I sit around for three hours twice a week, five straight weeks, someone finally shows and they aren’t a student.”
“You’re Wysocki?” Justin asked.
“No,” the young man gave him a funny look. “You’re really not students. I’m the T.A. Filling in while he’s at an event. Peter Gosley.”
He extended a hand, but nobody accepted it.
“Fuck,” Justin said. “This is a waste of time.”
“If you have questions…” Peter trailed off, letting his hand drop.
“Trigger events,” Theo said, his voice quiet.
Peter’s eyes fell on the boy, widening slightly. “You have powers? You just got them?”
“I need them,” Theo answered.
Peter gave them a funny look. “I… I’m not sure I understand.”
“Tell us what you know about trigger events, and perhaps we’ll expla
in,” Kayden said.
“I… that’s a broad field. What do you want to know?”
“How to have one,” Theo said.
“Trust me, there isn’t a single government out there that isn’t trying to pull it off. None have had much success with the various methods they’ve tried. Not to the point that anyone else has been able to copy their methodology. If anyone was succeeding, it’d be off the radar. Maybe the Protectorate.”
“What methods have they tried?” Justin asked. “The governments.”
“Anything? Everything. Drug induced panic attacks. Kidnappings. Torture. Some with willing participants, some even with participants in the dark. The Queensland Trials—”
“Stop,” Kayden said. Peter stopped. “Participants in the dark? And nothing worked?”
“It sometimes worked, a lot of stuff sometimes worked. The problem is, the act of getting a trigger event tends to throw a controlled situation into disarray. A government or organization pours hundreds of man hours and half a million dollars into identifying people who might be parahumans, by whatever metric they’re using, tracking them, covertly acquiring them, and inducing the parahuman state… and it’d work one in two hundred times. Half of those times, they’d wind up with a parahuman in an agitated state and things would fall apart. So a lot of the successes end up being failures of a diffferent sort.”
“But they haven’t found a consistent way of getting people to trigger?” Kayden asked.
“No. Fact is, it’s harder when you’re trying to provoke a trigger event. Even if the participant doesn’t know you’re trying it.”
“Why?” Kayden asked.
Peter shrugged. “There’s theories. There’s the specific trigger theory, which suggest that each individual demands a particular kind of trigger event, so any attempts to force it are essentially attempting the wrong form of trigger. There’s the specific circumstance theory, which is different, because it suggests that it’s not just a particular type of trigger that’s demanded, but the specific time or event.”