Fun. I didn’t even want to think about the headaches that power would cause.
I put the folder away carefully, picked out another. Lost Garden. High threat level, low crime rate, low engagement level and moderate activity level. Leader, Barrow. A powerful shaker, similar to Labyrinth, only rather more single-minded in what he did. He couldn’t leave the altered area he created around him, only extending it slowly to an area while letting it fade behind him, an effect described as ‘a depression’ with overgrowth extending into the surrounding neighborhood. Tattletale’s own notes in the file suggested he was making slow but steady progress towards Brockton Bay, and that he had been since the portal appeared.
I flipped through the rest of the file. What kind of people gravitated towards someone like that? Apparently a lot of very young parahumans, boys and girls around Aisha’s age, had gathered around the middle-aged Barrow. A little creepy, when I imagined that collection of capes and the resulting dynamic.
I put the folder away, returned to the boards. Brockton Bay had several more. Money. Planning. Property acquisition priorities. Property sales. A whiteboard with the word ‘door’ written in red, circled and underlined several times, surrounded by question marks.
Who would own the portal?
A single blue-lettered whiteboard with pale blue index cards. At the very top was the title, in bold black letters: Powers: Source.
I looked at the index cards that were fixed onto the board with magnets. There were no real answers there. Only questions and theorizing. It was Tattletale’s stream of consciousness distilled.
the whole? pieces of greater puzzle but don’t know what shape it takes. place person thing or something less concrete? what are powers? Mirror/extrapolation a consideration? is there link between there and here?
why? power distribution aimless simple chaotic. mistake? something go wrong? is this only part of something greater? scheme or something more base?
why trigger events? why go to trouble? Connection to the source? tied to something primal or some scheme? simple or complicated?
what is deviation between cauldron and typical trigger? was there leak to water supply from cauldron? Parasite? look into epidemiology. prob not. get someone’s story about process for getting powers from Cauldron for hints.
Who has answers? if not thinkers then capes with closer connection to passenger? PRT? Cauldron? S9? other gov’ts? what channels can I use to get these answers? theft, coercion money goodwill barter? have to set a value for an answer before raising idea with coil Skitter
I frowned and stepped away.
The last board, far right, was backed by black construction paper. At the top, printed on white index cards in bold black letters: ‘End of the World’.
The board was disturbingly empty. Jack’s picture was in the upper left corner with pieces of paper arranged below it, tracking everything that he’d done since he left the city. Each piece of paper had names of known entities he’d interacted with in any direct fashion. Sites the Nine had attacked, a string of small towns as they progressed in a zig-zagging fashion away from Brockton Bay.
Capes recruited to the group, capes slain.
The other three-quarters of that board were almost entirely clear, but for one index card in the upper-right:
limits to Dinah ability: can’t see accurately points of interaction with power immune capes, precogs, situ change Thinkers. Limited sight past points of interaction. these are ‘stoppers’
Hartford: No known stoppers in area.
Enfield: No known stoppers in area.
Chicopee: No known stoppers in area.
Southbridge: No known stoppers in area.
Boston, Charlestown Area: Yes stoppers, no direct interaction b/w any stoppers and Nine. call to dble check with Still. no interaction
Toybox: No known stoppers.
It made a lot of sense. Tracking Jack’s trail of destruction from the point he’d left the city, finding the point where Dinah couldn’t or shouldn’t be able to see, using them to narrow down possibilities.
But the expanse of black on that board was daunting, considering everything that was at stake.
I made my way to the desk, set my backpack down on the ground, and took a seat in Tattletale’s chair. I pressed the power buttons for each of the other monitors, and they flickered on. Checking the drawers, I found a remote, and turned each television on in turn.
Two televisions dedicated to news, one to business, each on mute, with captions spelling out the words as the reporters spoke.
The password I’d entered had apparently logged me into the computers as a guest. I kicked off my shoes and set my feet on the desk, as I’d seen Tattletale do, slipping into her shoes for a moment.
Everything was arranged so it was in clear view: monitors, televisions, bulletin boards. Looking at the notes, the different colors, the disorder and the number of questions, it made me think of a kind of paranoid schizophrenia, seeing connections everywhere. Except she was right.
Even logged in as a guest, I could see vestiges of the programs she’d installed on her main accounts: a stock ticker, a news ticker, weather, time, trending topics, social media feeds, several alert boxes for when pages relating to certain topics were updated or created. Even the background was a series of four video feeds from cameras that overlooked Brockton Bay.
That was just what was worked into the desktop, with no windows opened.
The monitors flickered with new information at a speed that was two or three times that of the televisions, and the material on the televisions wasn’t exactly slow-paced. The bulletin boards, conversely were static. It was like a physical representation of what was going on in Tattletale’s mind. Information streaming in, details from other sources intruding as I tried to focus on only one. And always, there were the questions in the background, the same ones marked on the bulletin board. Things to keep in mind while she took in other details, constantly seeking out the connections that tied things together. Did she simply sit here, taking it all in, while using her phone and the computer to manage the Undersider’s business?
No small wonder she had overloaded on her power.
I opened up a browser window on the computer, logged into Parahumans Online.
Two new tabs. A search for Skitter, a search for Taylor Hebert.
‘About 95,000 posts relating to Skitter.’
‘About 5,200 posts relating to Taylor Hebert.’
I sighed, closed the tabs, and then investigated the board for Brockton Bay. It wasn’t anything I wanted to read.
I had checked most of the pages up to the halfway point on page two of the Brockton Bay sub-board when the heavy metal door clicked and opened. Tattletale- Lisa stepped out, wearing an oversized t-shirt and pyjama pants. My momentary confusion on how to define her was due to the fact that her hair was down, which I associated with Tattletale, while she was in civilian clothes, which was naturally fit for the name ‘Lisa’.
“Su- oh hell,” she broke off, recoiling in pain in the face of the dim lights and the glow of the various screens and monitors, shielding her eyes.
I hurried to reach for the dimmer switch, but she was already calling out a command, “System, lights off.”
The lights went out.
“System, screens off.”
The televisions and computer monitors went dark.
“Sorry,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Thought you’d have recovered more.”
“Nah,” she said. She still wasn’t opening her eyes, and was speaking with a care that suggested even the sound of her own voice hurt her. I could see dark circles under her eyes. She probably hadn’t slept recently. “But no big.”
“You could go back to bed,” I said.
“No way am I missing this,” she said. “My chair.”
I climbed out of the chair and turned it around so the seat was available to her. She made her way there as if she were an old woman, eased herself into the seat and reclined, putting her fe
et on the desk. One arm draped over her face so her eyes were hidden in the crook of her elbow.
“This setup… all of this is too much for you,” I said. “You’re trying to handle too much at once.”
“Ironic,” she mumbled, “Coming from you.”
I took a seat on the edge of the desk. “You’re bombarding yourself. You should try to tackle one thing at a time.”
“Can’t. I focus on one thing, I let others fall by the wayside. Too many bases to cover.”
“Maybe you should let things fall by the wayside,” I commented. “Is it so important to understand where powers come from? Isn’t it enough to run the city, watch out for enemies, and maybe devote weekends to figuring out this business with Jack?”
She groaned.
“Sorry,” I said. I was only giving her more cues and prompting involuntary uses of her power, making the problem worse. Asking questions was cruel, with her like this.
“No. No, it’s okay. It’s all related. I described my power as being like a massive, three-dimensional game of Sudoku, right? Spaces get filled in.”
“Yeah.”
“This… if I get stuck somewhere, maybe there’s something on the periphery that helps me figure it out from another angle. If I’m going to tackle the problem, I gotta tackle the whole problem. Helps keep the facts straight. Notice sooner when the wrong piece of information’s in a spot.”
“You forgot to note that Accord buys powers,” I said. “Came up a little while ago, didn’t see them on the back of the green board.”
She put her feet down on the ground, as if she was going to spring up and make the necessary adjustment, then seemed to think twice about it. She rested her elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands.
“I’ll do it,” I said.
“Index cards are on the shelf by the door.”
I got up and walked over to the shelf, fished around until I found the green index cards and a black felt-tip pen. I wrote down, ‘Reminder: Accord buys powers from Cauldron to empower qualified underlings. They don’t know much about process, but he will.’
I pinned it up in the ‘Likely’ section.
When I was done, I glanced back at Lisa, still resting her head in her hands.
I let a minute or two pass in silence, while she got her bearings.
“So,” she finally said.
“So.”
“Sorry I took so long to show,” she said.
“Not a problem,” I said. “I enjoyed the peace. A moment of quiet before the storm.”
“I’m not messing up your schedule? What time is it? Eight?”
I started to shake my head, then realized she wasn’t looking at me. Hard to tell in the gloom. “You aren’t. And it’s about seven forty-five.”
“Not sure I follow this plan of yours. That’s a bad sign, if I can’t get my head around it.”
“You’re not exactly in the best shape.”
“Still.”
“Still,” I echoed her, sighing. I leaned against the wall, hooking my thumbs in my pockets. “Maybe you’re right.”
She slowly raised her head, grimaced, and then shifted back to a reclining position, moving at a glacial speed. I felt a pang of sympathy.
“Can I get you anything?” I asked.
“Drugs don’t help.”
“Something besides drugs, maybe. Water.”
“No. Nothing makes a difference except time, being very still, very dark and very quiet. Let’s just…”
She trailed off.
“Let’s just what?” I prompted.
“I was going to say we should get this over with, but… we don’t want that, do we?”
“No,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
Silence lingered.
I stared at the room, all the unanswered questions now illegible in the darkness, reduced to shades of dark gray on black, and black on dark gray.
Those questions were Lisa’s province. My focus was on the team, the dynamics of the group, and the how we handled those beyond our inner circle. Our enemies, allies who could become enemies. Even the public at large had to be handled, managed, addressed as a possible threat.
Those were the concerns I had right now.
“Wish I could use my power more,” Lisa said, “Give you advice so you’re going in with your eyes wide open.”
“I wish you could too. Don’t be upset with yourself, though. I didn’t give you much advance warning, and you’d already overloaded your power. The sentiment’s enough.”
“It’s not, really. Fuck me. I’m not very good at this. Being uncertain. Frustrated. Disappointed in my inability to offer anything…”
She trailed off.
I thought of the Lisa I knew, her personality, her general demeanor. Slightly reckless, confident, cocky. Fearless.
“And scared?” I offered.
“Scared,” she agreed.
I’d never really seen her vulnerable. I’d seen her hurt, had seen her reactions after her arm had been dislocated, after Jack had slashed her face open. I’d seen her worried, even spooked, when the Endbringer was en-route, and when she’d been concerned for me.
But this was Lisa, temporarily bereft of her powers. A mere mortal.
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
“You know, Rachel said thank you last night,” I said.
“Yeah?”
“Got me thinking,” I said. “Don’t know if I ever said it to you. I owe you the most, in a way.”
Lisa smiled, but it wasn’t a joyful expression. She murmured, “Don’t know if you should be that thankful. What I did, bringing you on board, trying to help you, if I can even call it help, considering where we wound up.”
“The means justify the end, maybe,” I suggested.
“Maybe.”
“I appreciate it, whatever the case,” I told her.
“Then you’re welcome,” she said.
She changed position, and I made out a nearly imperceptible noise of pain.
“And I think that’s my cue to go,” I told her.
She frowned, “Damn. That’s it?”
I shrugged. “What more is there to say?”
“I’m supposed to give you advice. Some insight. But I’m crapped out.”
“Give it a shot anyways,” I suggested.
She frowned. After a few seconds, she said, “Give ‘em hell.”
“Will do,” I said. I approached her, then leaned down and wrapped my arms around her, while she was still sitting in the chair. One gesture, as if it could convey everything I couldn’t say with words.
Grue had worried I was fatalistic. That wasn’t quite the term that applied, here. But the underlying idea was sound.
We’d established something of a rule, way back when, on the night we’d first found out about Dinah and her powers, the same night Leviathan had arrived. I’d very nearly turned my back on the group, and Tattletale had established a rule.
No goodbyes.
I collected my backpack, turned, and then left, wordless.
The sun and the heat were working on destroying the fog that had settled around the city in the wake of the grim weather. The result was that the sky was very blue overhead, the city still harboring traces of the early morning’s fog. It couldn’t be later than nine.
I wasn’t wearing a costume, but I wasn’t hiding in clothing I wouldn’t normally wear, either. A simple white tank top, black running pants and running shoes. For all the bystanders could see, I was Taylor Hebert, indistinguishable in appearance or fashion from the girl who’d appeared on the news.
Nobody gave me a second glance. I moved with purpose, and that was enough. The eyes in the crowd looked right past me.
It had taken me some time to get used to the sheer obliviousness of people. Even Rachel, with her distinct appearance, had been able to manage with brief public appearances. It was less about getting caught, more about escape routes. Being spotted while I was on my way to visit Grue and Citri
ne would have been problematic. Being spotted on my way back to my territory wasn’t a problem. By the time the heroes could respond, they wouldn’t be cause for any concern.
The same principle applied here. The only distinction was why the heroes weren’t a cause for concern.
Tension sang through my body with every step. My stomach felt hollow – I hadn’t had much of an appetite this morning.
At the same time, I felt an almost zen calm. My thoughts were clear. I’d already decided on a plan of action. It was a similar calm to the one I’d experienced against Dragon and Defiant.
I approached the PRT headquarters. Many of the bugs I’d infested the building with on my last visit were still there, and the occupants of the building had adjusted to them. Nobody gave a second thought to the bugs that made contact with them, unless it was to absently slap at a mosquito or brush an ant from their leg.
I could sense Tagg in his office, talking on the phone.
People were filing in through the front doors, some were employees, others were tourists, eager to check out the newly opened gift shop and inquire about a tour. It was puzzling. Did Tagg not anticipate another attack? Or had he decided that my attack with my bugs was the very extreme to which I was ready to go? The full extent of the threat I posed when angered?
The PRT officers stationed just inside the door, grown men and women who had the job of looking out for troublemakers, barely glanced at me as I joined the crowd and walked right under their noses.
Then again, I’d said something to Regent about that. Attacking from an unexpected direction, doing the last thing one’s enemy expected. This was definitely that. There was no way they expected me to walk into the building, first thing in the morning on a sunny day, when they hadn’t even done anything in recent memory to provoke me.
I made my way into the center of the lobby and stopped to looked around.
Maybe it was that I was standing still, while the rest of the people in the lobby were moving. If not moving against the flow, resisting it. But someone noticed me. A PRT officer by the front desk. I could see him out of the corner of my eye, reaching for his weapon.
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