I nodded. Maintain eye contact.
“You’re just down the hall. Here.”
I checked out the bedroom. It was better than my cell, but plain. The fact that I could come and go when I pleased was a plus, even if I was confined to the building when I didn’t have an escort.
“I can buy stuff to make it my own, right?”
“Yeah. But you should know that they’ve got cleaners to do the PRT supplied laundry, sheets pillows, towels, the generic skintight suits. You’ll have to do your own laundry, and that includes any sheets you buy or whatever.”
“Got it,” I said. I very nearly glanced down to make sure the protrusion in his skintight outfit was still there, stopped myself. Even in my peripheral vision, it stood out. Seriously, that thing’s as long as my forearm.
“Computer’s here. PRT issue laptop. Take some time, remove the crap. If you don’t know how, or if you’re not sure what’s dead weight on the system, ask Tecton. Username is your codename, password to start with is your birthday. Month-day-year, followed by your middle name. Once you type that in, it’ll set everything up automatically and prompt you for a new password.”
“Okay.”
“You’ve got a small bathroom just down here,” he pointed down a short hallway, “No shower, sorry. There’s one in the main area, not a lot of privacy, but you’ll figure out the patrol schedules, and figure out when you can go shower without a chance of being bothered, if you’re shy.”
Shy. I very nearly cracked a smile at that. He was the one who should be bashful, but he just radiated confidence, instead.
“I’ll manage.”
“Let’s see… there’s the phone and earpiece, they’ll get that to you soon. Identification, the same. Can you think of anything you need?”
“A few million Darwin’s bark spiders,” I said. “I could do with even just a hundred, but it’d mean a slow start.”
He didn’t even flinch. “We can probably arrange it.”
“Black widows would work too. Easier to find, but not nearly as good. Maybe just need an escort so I can go out for walks.”
“We could arrange that. I’m going out in an hour, meeting some kids at the hospital. If you don’t mind the detour, we could swing by a park or something.”
I tried not to imagine him in the pediatric’s wing of a hospital. You’d need to change. Or wrap something around your waist.
I didn’t voice my thoughts.
“The hub is right down here, bottom of the stairs. Command center, nook-slash-temporary bedrooms, spare costumes, televisions and everything else.”
Tecton, Wanton and Annex were at the bottom of the stairs. Grace, Golem and Cuff were sitting at the computer bank against the one wall, but they were watching. Grace had a wicked smile on her face.
I realized why. The bastards. They were pulling the same trick Campanile had, stuffing something in the front of their costumes. Tecton, for his part, wore a mechanical suit, so he’d simply bulked out the crotch portion of his armor with additional armor plating. Obvious, not even trying to hide what they were doing. Wanton gave me a cheeky smile as I made eye contact with him.
For my part, I managed to keep my expression straight.
Over the course of seconds, Annex seemed to get more and more uncomfortable. I made eye contact and maintained it as he squirmed.
“She’s not reacting, and I’m feeling really, really dumb,” he said.
“Aw, Annex, c’mon,” Wanton groaned. “She would’ve cracked up.”
Grace was laughing, now. Cuff, by contrast, wasn’t moving her eyes from the computer screen. She was probably the ideal target for this kind of prank.
“Don’t sue me for sexual harassment,” Annex told me.
I smiled a little. “I’m not going to sue. I’ve been around people who did worse.”
“It seemed funnier when we were talking about it before,” Tecton said. “It’s… kind of awkward, right now.”
“It is funny,” I said, smiling, “You guys did get me, I was so busy trying not to stare at Campanile that I barely heard what he was saying about the tour.”
There were a few chuckles.
“I was thinking it was a bad idea,” Golem said, “With your background, that you might not like being picked on. They gave me one, but I thought it was a bad idea to test you.”
“It was a terrible idea,” Tecton said. “Juvenile. But sometimes you need a cheap laugh.”
“They’re embarrassing themselves worse than they’re embarrassing me,” I told Golem. “I’m okay with it. I’m glad to have an initiation into the group. Could have been far worse.”
“Alright guys, joke’s over,” Tecton said. He unclasped and removed the metal codpiece from his armor. “She’s right. We’re just embarrassing ourselves now. Get rid of the damn things. And I don’t want to see them lying around anywhere.”
“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.
25.02
“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 w
hole 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 family 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 w
ith 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.
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