by wildbow
“I could keep it this way,” Wanton joked.
“No you couldn’t,” Tecton said. “You’ll forget about it, switch to your other form without absorbing it and wind up bashing someone unconscious with a foot-long silicon club.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Campanile, and saw him standing by the trashcan, no longer endowed. He didn’t look quite so ludicrous now. Freakishly tall, yes. Not freakishly long, so to speak.
“Sorry,” he said.
I shrugged. “I figure I’ve got blackmail material now. Just need to get my hands on the security camera footage.”
He smiled and shook his head. “Welcome. Be good.”
“I don’t think these guys are setting the bar that high on the ‘good’ scale,” I told him.
He clapped one hand on my shoulder, then turned around to go up the stairs, leaving.
Annex had fled, but Wanton was taking his time in leaving, with Tecton giving him the occasional push to get him to walk faster. Over by the computer bank, Grace and Golem were wrestling with something.
“Do it,” I heard her.
“No way, no way,” Golem responded.
“Do it. Just a little.”
She said something else I didn’t make out. It didn’t go much further before Golem gave in.
Wanton doubled over mid-stride, falling to the ground. Once he realized what had happened, he started thrashing in his effort to get the offending object out of his pants. I had to avert my gaze before he inadvertently flashed me.
“Geez, guys,” Tecton groaned. “Too far.”
Golem rushed over, apologizing, while Wanton cursed at him, throwing the lump of plastic at his teammate. Grace had fallen out of her chair laughing, and Cuff had done the opposite, putting her unburned arm on the desk and burying her face in the crook of it.
In the midst of the chaos, I made my way over to the computer bank and leaned over the keyboard, typing in the username and password I’d been given. The desktop was up and running in heartbeats. Access to nice computers was apparently a perk of being a hero.
I dug around for the files on the local powers, and began studying. I tried, anyways. Grace’s continued laughter was so infectious and unashamed I couldn’t help but join in.
My new home, for better or worse.
Scarab 25.2
“Sorry… I’m… so…”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
I could sense him slowing, using the bugs I’d planted on his costume. I stopped and waited for him.
“It’s fine, Theo. You’re doing me a favor.”
“Doesn’t feel like it,” he said. He bent down, hands on his knees.
I waited for him to get his breath.
“I might throw up,” he added.
I backed away a step. “Just getting the chance to run, it’s cool. Not many others are willing to meet me at seven to run, much less six weeks in a row. Grace is athletic, but she got sick of it fast.”
He mumbled something I couldn’t make out.
“What?”
“I’m not athletic.”
“You’re getting better. We just got a whole two blocks. That’s not bad. About as good as I was when I started.”
“Not fair to you, make you suffer for how much I suck.”
“It’s fine. It’s nice to get outside. Kind of a pain to have to get someone to come with if I want to go outside for no particular reason. If I don’t get the exercise here, I can use the treadmill back at the headquarters. Don’t feel obligated, if you’re not enjoying this.”
“I don’t. I’m… it’s good. I want to get fit.”
“Well, in that case, don’t worry about it. We’re both benefitting,” I said.
He made it another few steps before he was hunched over again, still breathing hard.
I felt a pang of sympathy, suppressing a smile at the same time. “Come on. We’ll walk one block, then try running another, walk the rest of the way.”
He was still panting for breath as he obliged.
I found myself missing Brockton Bay. It wasn’t the most beautiful city, or the most active. Or the most anything. There were already things going on around the portal, but it wasn’t a city with a lot going for it, and it hadn’t been even before the intense series of events had laid waste to the shoreline, set a water-filled crater in the northwest corner of the downtown area and left an entire swathe of the city so fucked up with random, horrifically dangerous effects that it had to be walled off.
Maybe I wouldn’t have felt the same way if I hadn’t grown up there, but I liked the balance in Brockton Bay. The way there was everything I could want, as far as malls, shopping centers, theaters. It was a big enough city. Yet there was just as much room to wake up early in the day, when others weren’t out, and have Brockton Bay to myself.
Chicago wasn’t like that. It was busy, and it was busy in a way that got in my way. People were already up if I got up at six in the morning to go run. Some were still up from the previous night, having spent the entire evening at clubs or whatever else. Everything was taken to an extreme, it seemed, in drama, opinions and ideas. It made it a little harder to sympathize with Chicago’s equivalents to the people I’d been helping in Brockton Bay. A little harder to sympathize with anyone, really.
I was feeling cramped. I wasn’t a social person at my core, and being here, like this, never allowed to be out and on my own, it rankled. I liked time on my own, with the internet or a good book, even a bad book, to get my mind settled down, my thoughts in order. It wasn’t that I didn’t like people, that I didn’t like company, but too much was too much, and I had no elbow room here.
Whether they knew it or not, the PRT directors had found a fitting way to punish me. Hopefully it wouldn’t go any further than this. I’d done as they asked, I was staying under the radar, and though I didn’t plan to stay there, I didn’t think they had any reason to make my life more difficult. I had my suspicions that my phone and computer were tapped, so I was careful about what I browsed and how I communicated.
With luck, they would forget about me until I was active again. With more luck, I wouldn’t have to worry about them much longer. The Director from Toronto, the guy I hadn’t been able to place, had already quit. Wilkins and West were still active, but the woman at the end of the table was under scrutiny.
There was stuff going on behind the scenes, and speculation was rampant on the Parahumans Online site. Satyrical’s name had come up. As far as could tell, the Vegas capes had gone rogue, and they were apparently targeting the more corrupt elements of the PRT.
I wasn’t a hundred percent sure how to feel about that, but I wasn’t complaining if someone was taking down my enemies for me, especially if it was in a more or less safe, legitimate way.
“Hey,” Theo said.
I turned to look at him.
“When you were dealing with the Slaughterhouse Nine back in Brockton Bay, you fought Jack Slash, right?”
“Yeah. Kind of.”
“Kind of?”
“He doesn’t really fight, unless he’s got his people around him and the fight’s unfair. Mostly, I was chasing him around, trying not to get killed in the process.”
He frowned.
“Worried?” I asked. “You’ll have help.”
“So will he,” Theo pointed out.
“True.”
“I’m… I’m not good at this. Everything Kaiser was, I’m not.”
“That’s not a bad thing. He was an asshole. You aren’t.”
Theo managed a weak smile. It was hard to identify just how he would react in regards to things. Backed against a wall, faced with a serious threat, he showed courage. I’d seen him on patrol, and for all his worries, he did follow through. He had against Behemoth, in what was almost his first time out in costume. Talking about his family, though, I couldn’t pin down just what he’d say or do.
The feeble smile, was that genuine? Had I hurt him, left him in a position where he wanted to defend his fa
mily but couldn’t because of what they were?
“I don’t fit the typical cape mold,” Theo said.
I resisted the urge to tell him I didn’t either, but I didn’t. I remembered a tidbit of advice I’d heard Tecton giving, and listened instead. “You’re feeling nervous. Anyone would.”
“The running, I don’t feel the difference,” he said.
“Slow gains, but they’re there.”
“The training helps,” he said. “The training feels concrete, like I’m getting significantly better.”
“You want to train when we get back?”
“I don’t have long before I have to patrol. A short one?”
“Sure. Come on. Run one more block, throw up if you have to, then we walk back.”
He made a sound partway between a gurgle and a groan, but he followed me as I took off.
Running at first, then walking, we took a different route coming back than we’d taken on our way out. The trees by the lake were aflame with autumnal colors, and I could see a handful of college students and older folk gathered, enjoying the serenity of the lake, the perfect temperature. Tranquil.
That was something I could get behind. I would have loved to sit by the lake, given the opportunity. The trouble was, I never got the chance. I was leashed to other people’s schedules, my excursions had to be in another person’s company, and nobody had really seemed keen on the idea of going out solely to go and sit at the lakeside.
As penance went, it was pretty light, but the overall effect of this restriction was wearing on me in a way that the jail cell hadn’t.
We reached the PRT headquarters, one of two in Chicago. It was squat, broad, and not terribly pretty, but it sported a statue on the roof that had been paid for by an old member, Stardust.
Once inside, we made our way up to the top floor, where the Wards’ rooms and the ‘hub’, as the others called it. It was a label that made me think of prison, and that, in turn, pushed me to think of it more as a common area or a lounge.
“Gym?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Theo said. “Let me get my stuff on. I’ll meet you there.”
I tapped into the supply of bugs that were stored in my workshop, withdrawing an assortment of flies, beetles and cockroaches, depositing the ones that I’d collected during the ‘run’. It wasn’t many, but I didn’t need much. Enough or three or four swarm clones.
I stopped by the kitchen to collect some silverware, then made my way down one floor to where the gym was.
Golem arrived a minute after I got there, decked out in his costume. It had changed from its first iteration, complete with a layer of spider silk and heavy armor over top of it. He wore a mask with a neutral, almost solemn face, and fan-like decorations at his waist and shoulders, the spaces stretching between the slats painted white, a darker metal composing the frame and edges.
The image consultant was having fits, no doubt, but the first and most important goal was for Golem to be effective. We were getting there. Image would come later.
“Hey,” Kirk greeted us, stepping out as Golem arrived. He wore a t-shirt and yoga pants, and was glistening with sweat. His head was shaved, and his skin was a striking jet black. “You guys sparring?”
“Training,” I said. “Not sparring, really.”
“Can I watch?”
I looked at Golem, “Are you okay with it?.”
“I’m the one embarrassing myself, you mean.”
“I think you’re past the point where you’re embarrassing yourself,” I said.
“You can watch if you want, Annex. Wouldn’t mind helping clean up,” Golem said. “I can’t promise it’ll be anything special.”
“Not a prob,” Kirk responded. “Kind of curious to see where you’re at.”
We made our way inside.
The area was divided, with workout machines taking up one half, and an open area for sparring and dance and whatever else on the other half. Floor panels, varying in the depth and degree of padding offered, were neatly stacked in one corner.
We moved to the open area, but we didn’t set up any padding for the floor. My bugs flowed through vents and from the hallway outside, and they filled the room, covering every surface.
The bugs congealed into a human figure, and Golem took action. His fingertips ran along the white ‘fans’ at his waist, then he jabbed one hand inside. A hand of concrete lunged out of the floor to dissipate the swarm.
A little slow, but not bad.
Another part of the swarm congealed into a rough decoy, and Golem clutched it in a fist of concrete. Faster this time. The bugs seeped out through the gaps in the fingers as the hand retreated into the floor’s surface.
Each panel of the fan was a different material. Concrete, steel, granite, wood. Common materials were in easy reach. Less common ones were a gesture away. Two at once, this time. Two figures to strike. Golem caught one with his right hand, but I moved the other as he reached for it with his left. He wasn’t quick enough to catch it, and the angle was poor.
I drew a butter knife from the pocket of my shorts, raised it above my head.
Golem was watching for it. He dug his fingertips into the topside of one panel, his thumb into the underside. Identical digits sprouted from the knife, forming half of a fist that had closed around the edge. The knife became a club, one with no cutting edge.
I threw the weapon aside and turned my attention towards creating more decoys.
I feinted, now, misleading him about where my clones were moving. He struggled but managed to deliver the hits. Dragonflies and faster insects formed a more mobile body, and I avoided the strikes, right up until he started creating hands that sprouted forth from limbs that were already sticking out of the ground: branching barriers to limit movement. I tried to simulate the general effect of the obstacles, and Golem took the opportunity to deliver a finishing blow, crushing another swarm-decoy.
“Hit them harder now,” I said. Running, I tried to raise expectations for myself. Here, I did much the same for Golem.
The movements became more violent. A hand cupped around one swarm and then pulled it against the ground, melding back into the surface. Bugs were squished against the spacial distortion field, and my swarm’s numbers were severely reduced.
Another was squashed against the wall, but the surfaces were different materials, and the hand couldn’t simply sink back in. This time, there was an audible thud, eliciting a heavy rattling from the exercise machines on the other side of the gym.
I drew my swarm together into a rough shape, not a person, but something larger, a touch bigger than Crawler, smaller than Echidna, bipedal.
He hit it, and I reformed it.
“Hit it harder,” I said.
He hit it again, drawing two hands together as if he were squeezing it. There was no substance to the monster’s body, though. I judged that he wasn’t doing enough damage and simply reformed it. The monster advanced on him.
I stepped a little closer, raising my voice. “Come on, Theo! Hit harder!”
Golem dropped a foot as one leg slipped into the concrete floor. A facsimile of his boot rose out of the floor, complete with cleats. The speed and force of it would have been enough to lift one of Rachel’s dogs, so I obliged by moving the ‘body’ of the swarm monster, raising it.
As the foot continued to rise, Golem’s leg disappearing up to the knee in the floor, he pushed one hand into the fan, causing a limb to drop from the ceiling right above the rising spiked platform that was Golem’s boot. My creation was sandwiched between the two, and the collision had enough of an impact to make Kirk and I stumble. I had to turn my head to keep the dust from getting in my eyes.
“Is that—” Golem started.
Before he finished the sentence, I had a second butter knife drawn, the tip pressed to his throat.
“Keep your eye on the threats,” I said.
“Not very fair,” Kirk commented. “Playing dirty.”
“No,” Golem said. His voice waver
ed, which was odd, considering I wasn’t doing anything that was actually threatening. Something else had shaken him. Had he taken the lesson to heart? “I’s good. That’s the kind of lesson I need to know. It’s why I’m training.”
“Jack’s going to throw some scary motherfuckers at you,” I said. “But he’ll be looking for an opening. Always, always watch your back. Don’t forget to watch your friend’s backs too. You probably won’t die if you do, but you might wish you were dead, when you see what Jack and his gang do to them.”
Golem withdrew his arm from the panel, but his leg was harder to free from the ground. By the time he was standing straight, the leg that stuck out of the floor had become more or less permanent. In another area, fingertips stuck out of the floor. There were also the branching ‘trees’ of hands that had formed barriers. Without us even asking, Kirk stepped forward, his body liquefying as he flowed into the surface, smoothing it all out as though we’d never been there.
When he was done, he emerged to survey his work.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Interesting to watch. Figuring out ways to apply his power?”
“Pretty much. Tricks for his repertoire, building some familiarity with using his abilities, attacking to recognize threats and attack without hesitation when needed.”
“You really buy that Jack’s going to wake up from some cryogenic sleep just to fight some kid who didn’t even have powers when they last met?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Believe it or not, with what I know of Jack, it makes perfect sense.”
“Huh.”
“You’re on board, right?” I asked. “With the plan?”
Kirk nodded. “Seems a little crazy, but doesn’t hurt, given the stakes.”
“End of the world,” Golem said.
“End of the world,” I agreed. “We’ll get as many on board as we can. Either we avert it, or we soften the blow.”
“Assuming we can figure out what it is,” Golem said.
“Yeah,” I said. “You said you had patrol soon?”