by John McCrae
What to write? After a second, I began writing below the title I’d put on the envelope.
I like Brian and Lisa. I even like Alec and Rachel. But they’re supervillains too. I joined them with the idea that I would get details the Protectorate needed and then betray them.
I raised the marker and frowned.
Why was this so damn hard?
I put the cap on and nervously tapped the marker against my knee. Thinking about stuff, trying to gauge my feelings, exploring my thoughts to see what it was that made that knot deep in my gut get tighter.
My dad? Was I too conscious of what he would read, how he would perceive it? Yes. But it had also been hard to write when I’d been mentally writing it for just Miss Militia. That wasn’t the whole picture.
Was I scared of arrest? No. Well, I’d seen bureaucracy at work with school, I didn’t trust the system, I fully expected to get screwed over somewhere down the line. But that wasn’t what was driving my choices. It was something more personal.
The team. Was I worried over how they would take it? Over possibly having them as enemies? Like Coil had said, there was no guarantee any action against them would be wholly successful. Tattletale would probably be able to tell a PRT team was there before they could get in position, and the team was good at making an escape in a pinch. Then I’d have one or more enemies after me, who knew everything they needed and had all the tools to make my life a living hell.
Warmer.
It did have to do with those guys, and it slowly dawned on me what it was.
I stood, then walked over to the oven.
“Taylor?” my dad spoke, quiet.
I folded the envelope lengthwise to hide the words, turned on the oven burner, then held the tip of the envelope to the flame until it ignited.
I held the burning envelope over the sink until I was sure my message was obliterated. I dropped the remains of the envelope into the basin and watched it burn up.
I didn’t want to send that email to Miss Militia because I liked those guys. That wasn’t the big realization. What made me stand up and burn the envelope was the realization that I liked those guys, I was fond of them, I trusted them to have my back…
Yet I’d always held myself at arm’s length.
It was stupid, it was selfish, but I really, desperately wanted to see what it would be like to get to know Lisa, without worrying that she would find out my scheme. I’d like to see what it was like to interact with her without having to censor myself out of fear that I’d provide that damning clue. I wanted to get to know Bitch and Alec better. And Brian. I wanted to be closer to Brian. I couldn’t phrase it any better than that, because I didn’t know if there would be any future with him beyond a simple friendship. I didn’t expect there to be. It still mattered.
I’d let myself think that I’d tried a friendship with these guys, that I had grown as a person, so it was okay to go ahead with my plan. But I hadn’t. I’d never let myself truly open up and connect with them, and I was realizing just how much I wanted to.
My reasons for going ahead with my plan were thinning out, getting harder to justify. My reputation was probably in shambles, I’d made enemies of everyone that mattered, and I had a number of felonies under my belt. As much as I might try to ignore all that and tell myself I was doing it for the greater good, my conversation with Coil had left me less sure. That wasn’t to say I believed him wholeheartedly, or that I thought he’d be as successful as he thought, but I was less sure.
Damn it, I wanted to hang out more with the Undersiders. Knowing I was out of reasons to justify sticking with the plan, all the crap that would come raining down on my head if I did go ahead with it, how much I’d loathe myself for betraying friends? This little desire for a real, genuine friendship was enough of a nudge in that direction. I could change my mind. I wouldn’t be sending any letters to Miss Militia.
I ran the tapwater over the smoking remains of the envelope, watched the remains get washed away. I watched the water running down the drain for a long time after the last scrap of burned paper was gone.
I turned off the tap, stuck my hands in my pockets, and crossed the kitchen to lean back against the door leading to the front hall, glancing briefly at the handle and lock before I leaned against the door with my back to it. I called some bugs from the living room, hallway and heating vents down the front hall and up to the door, into the mechanism of the lock. Could they move the necessary parts?
No such luck. They weren’t strong enough to manipulate the door’s internal workings, and any bugs that might be strong enough wouldn’t fit inside. Go away, I told them, and they did.
Which left me no good way to avoid dealing with my dad. I felt more guilty than ever as I looked across the room at him. He looked so bewildered, so concerned, as he watched me. I didn’t have it in me to lie to his face again.
But whatever I did was going to hurt him.
I crossed the room and he stood up, as if unsure as to what I was going to do. I hugged him tight. He hugged me back tighter.
“I love you, dad.”
“I love you too.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for. Just- just talk to me, okay?”
I pulled away, and grabbed my sweatshirt from the hook by the door. As I crossed back to the other side of the room, I fished in the pockets and retrieved the phone.
I started typing out a text.
“You have a cell phone,” he was very quiet. My mom had died using a cell phone while driving. We’d never talked about it, but I knew he’d thrown his out not long after the accident. Negative connotations. An ugly reminder.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Why?”
“To stay in touch with my friends.”
“It-it’s just unexpected. I wouldn’t have thought.”
“It worked out that way.” I finished the text, closed the phone and stuck it in the pocket of my jeans.
“New clothes, you’re angrier, lying to me, missing school, this cell phone… I feel like I don’t know you anymore, little owl,” he used my mom’s old pet name for me. I flinched a little.
Carefully, I replied, “Maybe that’s a good thing. Because I sure didn’t like who I was before.”
“I did,” he murmured.
I looked away.
“Can you at least tell me you’re not doing drugs?”
“Not even smoking or drinking.”
“Nobody’s making you do anything you don’t want to do?”
“No.”
“Okay,” he said.
There was a long pause. The minutes stretched on as if we were both waiting for the other to say something.
“I don’t know if you know this,” he spoke, “But when your mom was alive, and you were in middle school, the subject of you skipping a grade came up.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re a smart girl, and we were afraid you were bored in school. We had arguments on the subject. I-I convinced your mom you would be happier in the long run attending high school with your best friend.”
I coughed out a laugh. Then I saw the wounded look on his face.
“It’s not your fault, dad. You couldn’t have known.”
“I know, or at least, I have that worked out in my head. Emotionally, I’m not so sure. I can’t help but wonder how things would have played out differently if we’d gone ahead with what your mother wanted. You were doing so well, and now you’re failing?”
“So I fail, maybe,” I said, and I felt a weight lift, admitting it out loud. There would be options. I’d picked up enough that maybe I could still pressure the faculty to let me skip a grade. I would be old enough to take online classes like Brian was.
“No, Taylor. You shouldn’t have to. The staff at the school knows your circumstances, we can definitely get some exemptions made, extend deadlines…”
I shrugged. “I don’t want to go back, I don’t want to beg and plead for help from those asshole
s in the school faculty, just so I can return to the same position I was in a month ago. Way I see it, the bullying is unavoidable, impossible to control or prevent. It’s like a force of nature… a force of human nature. It’s easier to handle, if I think about it like that. I can’t fight it, can’t win, so I’ll just focus on dealing with the aftereffects.”
“You don’t have to give up.”
“I’m not giving up!” I raised my voice, angry, surprised at myself for being angry. I took a breath, forced myself to return to a normal volume, “I’m saying there’s probably no fucking way I’ll understand why she did what she did. So why waste my time and energy dwelling on it? Fuck her, she doesn’t deserve the amount of attention I’ve been paying her. I’m… reprioritizing.”
He folded his arms, but his forehead was creased in concern. “And these new priorities of yours are?”
I had to search for a response. “Living my life, making up for lost time.”
As if to answer my statement, the back door opened behind my dad. My dad turned, startled.
“Lisa?” He asked, confused.
Lisa revealed the key she’d taken from the fake stone in the back garden, then placed it on the railing of our back steps. Unsmiling, she looked from my dad to me. She met my eyes.
I shoved my way past my dad, and he grabbed my upper arm before I was clear of the doorway.
“Stay,” he ordered me, implored me, squeezing my arm.
I wrenched my arm free, twisting it until he couldn’t maintain his grip, and hopped down the back steps, felt my knees ache at the landing. Three or four strides away, I turned back in his direction, but was unable to look him in the eyes.
“I love you, dad. But I need-” What did I need? I couldn’t form the thought. “I, uh, I’ll be in touch. So you know I’m okay. This isn’t permanent, I just… I need a breather. I need to figure all this out.”
“Taylor, you can’t leave. I’m your parent, and this is your home.”
“Is it? It really doesn’t feel like that’s the case, right now,” I answered. “Home’s supposed to be a place I feel safe and secure.”
“You have to understand, I didn’t have any other options. You were avoiding me, not talking, and I can’t help you until I get answers.”
“I can’t give you any answers,” I replied, “And you can’t help anyways.”
He took a step forward, and I quickly stepped back, maintaining the distance between us.
Trying again, he told me, “Come inside. Please. I won’t press you any further. I should have realized you weren’t in a place where I could.”
He took another step toward me, and Lisa took a little step to one side to get in his way, as I backed up again.
“Lisa?” My dad turned his attention to her, looking at her like he’d never seen her before. “You’re okay with this?”
Lisa glanced between us again, then carefully said, “Taylor’s smart. If she’s decided she needs to get away and work stuff out for herself, I trust it’s for good reason. There’s plenty of room for her at my place. It’s not a problem in the slightest.”
“She’s just a kid.”
“She’s more capable than you give her credit for, Danny.”
I turned to leave, and Lisa hurried to catch up with me, putting an arm around my shoulders as she reached my side.
“Taylor,” my dad called out. I hesitated, but didn’t turn around. I kept my eyes fixed on the gate of the backyard.
“Please do keep in touch,” he said, “You can come home anytime.”
“Okay,” I replied. I wasn’t sure if my voice was loud enough for him to hear.
As Lisa led me to her car, I had to steel myself to keep from looking back.
6.x (Interlude; Canary)
Paige’s jaw hurt. Being muzzled like an animal did that.
The other restraints weren’t so bad, but that was only in a relative sense. Her hands were buried in a pair of reinforced metal buckets, each filled with that damn pastel yellow foam. The buckets themselves were linked together behind her back, with comically oversized chain links. It would have been intolerably heavy if it weren’t for the hook on the back of her chair, which she could hang the chain on.
Strips of metal had been tightened just under her armpits, near the bottom of her ribcage, her upper arms and waist, with two more bands around each of her ankles. Chains seemed to connect everything to everything else, preventing her from moving her arms or legs more than a few inches in any direction before she felt the frustrating resistance and jangling of the chains. The heavy metal collar around her neck, thick enough around it could have been a tire for a small vehicle, blinked with a green light just frequently enough that she forgot to anticipate it. She got distracted and annoyed by its appearance in her peripheral vision each time it flashed.
The irony was, a pair of handcuffs would have sufficed. She didn’t have enhanced strength, no tricks to slip her restraints, and she wasn’t about to run anyways. If any of that was a real possibility, she wouldn’t have been allowed in the courtroom. The prosecution had argued that she could have enhanced strength, that she could be a flight risk, and her lawyer hadn’t done a good enough job of arguing against it, so the restraints had gone on. Which meant she got trussed up like Hannibal Lecter, as though she were already guilty. Unable to use her hands, her hair, the vibrant and startling yellow of a lemon, had slipped from where it was tucked behind her ears and strands now hung in front of her face. She knew it only made her look more deranged, more dangerous, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it.
If she had been able to, she would have had a comment or two to make about that, or at least she could have asked the lawyer to tidy her hair. She would have argued with the man that had been hired as her defense, instead of waiting hours or days for a response to each of her emails. She would have demanded that her basic rights be met.
But she couldn’t say anything. A leather mask reinforced with the same metal strips that were on her body and a cage-style grille of small metal bars was strapped over her lower face. The interior of the mask was the worst thing, because the arrangement extended into her mouth, a framework of wires keeping her mouth fixed in a slightly open position, her tongue pressed down hard against the floor of her mouth. The barbaric setup left her jaw, her tongue and the muscles of her neck radiating tension and pain.
“Silence. All rise, please. This court is now in session, the honorable Peter Regan presiding.”
It was so hard to move with the restraints. Her lawyer gripped the chain running between her armpit and her upper arm, to help her get to a standing position, but she stumbled anyways, bumped into the table. There was no way to be graceful when you were wearing restraints that weighed half as much as you did.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?”
“We have, your honor.”
Paige watched as the clerk delivered the envelope to the judge.
“In the matter of the state of Massachusetts versus Paige Mcabee, as to the count of attempted murder, how do you find?”
“Not guilty, your honor.”
Paige sagged a little with relief.
“In the matter of the state of Massachusetts versus Paige Mcabee, as to the count of aggravated assault with a parahuman ability, how do you find?”
“Guilty, your honor.”
Paige shook her head as well as she was able. No! This wasn’t fair!
She almost missed the next line. “…sexual assault with a parahuman ability, how do you find?”
“Guilty, your honor.”
Sexual assault. The words chilled her. It wasn’t like that.
“Is this your verdict?”
“Yes, your honor.”
“Paige Mcabee, please direct your attention to me,” the judge spoke.
She did, eyes wide, shellshocked.
“Determining sentencing for this case is not easy. As your lawyer has no doubt made you aware, you do fall under the umb
rella of the TSPA, or the three strikes act. At the age of twenty three, you have been convicted of no prior crimes.
“According to the witnesses heard in this court, you first demonstrated your abilities in early 2009. You were vocal about not wanting to become a member of the Protectorate, but you also expressed a disinterest in a life of crime. This state, in which an individual does not identify as hero or villain, is what the PRT classifies as a ‘rogue’.
“It is in our interests to promote the existence of rogues, as the proportion of parahumans in our society slowly increases. Many rogues do not cause confrontations, nor do they seek to intervene in them. Instead, the majority of these individuals turn their abilities to practical use. This means less conflict, and this serves the betterment of society. These sentiments mirror those that you expressed to your family and friends, as we heard in this courtroom over the last few weeks.
“Those facts are in your favor. Unfortunately, the rest of the facts are not. Understand, Miss Mcabee, our nation uses incarceration for several reasons. We aim to remove dangerous individuals from the population and we do it punitively, both for justice against transgressors and to give other criminals pause.
“Each of these applies in your case. It is not only the heinous nature of the crime that must be addressed by the sentencing, but the fact that it was performed with a power. Laws are still new in the face of parahuman criminality. We become aware of new powers on a weekly basis, most if not all warranting careful and individual attention in respect to the law. In many of these cases, there is little to no precedent to fall back on. As such, the courts are forced to continually adapt, to be proactive and inventive in the face of new circumstances that parahuman abilities introduce.
“It is with all of this in mind that I consider your sentencing. I must protect the public, not only from you, but from other parahumans that might consider doing as you did. Placing you in standard detention proves problematic and exorbitantly expensive. It would be inhumane and harmful to your body to keep you under restraint for the duration of your incarceration. Special facilities, staff and countermeasures would have to be arranged to keep you in isolation from other inmates. You pose a significant flight risk. Finally, the possibility of you re-entering society, by escape or parole, is particularly concerning, given the possibility of a repeat offense.