by John McCrae
“No, Sophia,” I said.
“No? You run, right? It was on TV.”
“I run, yes.”
“And you don’t think you were trying to emulate me? Subconsciously? I was on the track team, and there you are, a bit of a loser, looking for a way to improve yourself, and you start running?”
“Not even remotely close to the mark,” I said, feeling a note of irritation. “Not on that count. The other stuff? Maybe we are similar in respects. Maybe being a cape in this fucked up world means you have to go that route, just a little.”
“Being a person,” she said. “Dealing with reality.”
“Maybe,” I said “But if I was like you, I was better at it than you were, went further, tested the limits more.”
I could see her eyes narrow further.
“And I think it’s a pretty shitty way to exist,” I finished.
“Ouch,” she said. “You wounded me.”
I couldn’t hear anything in her voice, nor could I see anything in her expression… but her shoulders were tenser, her hands had stopped fidgeting and were still.
I stood from my chair, collecting the phone. I glanced at it.
NZ gutted. Timeline for counterattack set for 1.5 hr from now. Testing efficacy of some abilities at range. Legend, Pretender, Eidolon on board to help. Weaver has been requested for assistance and field administration.
“You’re going, then,” Sophia said.
“Yeah. You said you wouldn’t help, you’d rather scurry away like a cockroach.”
“I’m not saying I’d rather. I’m saying it’s what we should all do.”
“Either way. You’re free to convince me.”
“To beg, we’re back to that.”
“To convince me.”
She shook her head a little. “Fuck it. Let the world burn. We’ll all be better off. No pretension, no fakery, none of the tradition and ‘this is the way things are and always will be’. Hit the reset button, whoever’s left will pick things up later.”
“That sounds remarkably similar to how Jack sounded.”
“Fuck you, Hebert.”
“Fine. I’m walking away from this with a clear conscience. Sit there in your cell and worry every minute that Scion’s going to come tearing through here and wipe you off the face of the planet.”
She smirked, but I could see that tension in her neck and shoulders, still. I felt like Rachel, looking at someone and trying to piece together their natural responses, figure them out.
Or was it the opposite? Was I like Rachel in how she looked at a dog, understanding them on a level most people couldn’t?
“You’re afraid,” I said.
“Fuck you, Hebert,” she spat the words.
“You’re afraid and you’re hiding it behind a very good mask.”
“Fuck that. I hate that fakery, that false-faced bullshit.”
“You said we’re alike. You’re right. We’re both very good at putting on a front.”
She snarled the words. “There’s a difference between acting and being. I’m not faking anything.”
“Yet you refuse to do anything to deviate from your path. That’s why you’re so big on sticking to your place. If you never budge, you never have to risk seeing if the mask comes off.”
“Oh fuck the hell off, Hebert. You sanctimonious, know-it-all, orphan bitch!”
She’d picked the ‘orphan’ bit to hurt, to get a rise out of me. Yet I felt okay. Hurt? Yes. I felt something deep and important missing, and I wasn’t quite ready to let myself feel that emotion in its entirety. To hear the words in full or see the body and know my dad was gone.
I needed to do that, and maybe to do it soon, if only to pay respect to my dad.
So yeah. I hurt. I felt the sting of her words. I still felt off kilter. But I was calm.
No act. No mask. Me, and I was okay.
“Thank you, Sophia,” I said. “I feel a hell of a lot better than I did before this meeting. I don’t know if-”
“Loser.”
She’d gotten the guard’s attention with her outburst. The woman was approaching.
“-if you were right about us being similar or not. But I don’t want to be the sort of person you could compare yourself to. I’m going to be Taylor again, so thank you, for helping me come to peace with that.”
I can be Taylor without being weak. Keep the best parts of Skitter and Weaver.
I turned to leave.
“Fuck you!”
Her maneuver was a practiced one, no doubt something she’d trained herself with in her cell or in the moments she was cuffed and unobserved. A way to buy herself a fraction of a second to use her power, where her wrists wouldn’t come in contact with the cuffs, as she let them drop from a point further up her arms to her hands. I could sense the motion with my bugs.
Her leg hooked under her chair as she made it as shadowy as she was, and she kicked out, sending the chair flying through the bulletproof glass. It rematerialized as it crashed into mine, and the two chairs in turn hit me.
I stumbled. My shin stung where the little folding chairs had hit me.
Sophia, in turn, was being held down by the guard, the handcuffs pulled taut against her wrists.
“Is this the real you, then?” I asked.
“Oh my god, you pre… pre-”
“Pretentious.”
“Cunt!“ Sophia snarled the words between her grunts of struggle. “I’m going to break you!”
“Take a minute or two to calm down,” I said. “Breathe. If you can relax, if you can look me in the eye and promise you won’t hurt me or anyone else, I’m going to give the go-ahead for you to leave.”
There was a pause, shock stopping both the guard and Sophia.
“You’re joking,” the guard said.
Sophia just lay there, her head pressed against the little ledge, panting. Her hair covered her face.
“Offer’s open just a bit longer, Sophia,” I said. “I want to take some time to get ready, and if you’re coming, you’ll need the same.”
She didn’t budge. The guard took her weight off Sophia, and only held the chain of the cuffs, twisting so Sophia’s arms were held taut above her. It must have been uncomfortable with the way her body was forced to one side, her head forced down.
Afraid.
“I’m not asking you to fight Scion. Just doing search and rescue would be fine. It’s not safe, but-”
“Will you shut up?” Sophia’s voice was muffled, not in a position to let her voice pass through the perforated space in the glass. “Fuck, I’ll do it if you stop prattling at me.”
“Look me in the eye and promise you won’t fuck with me.”
The guard let Sophia straighten.
She met my eyes, glaring as if a look alone could express a hundred different kinds of violence. “I promise.”
I shrugged. The guard looked at me, and I nodded.
“Your funeral,” she said. “I’ll go take her to the back and get her ready.”
“No need,” I said. I looked towards the ceiling. Let’s try this. “Two doors, one for me, one for her, to where the others are on Earth Bet.”
The doors opened, rectangular windows. Unlike the portals I’d seen before, these ones were dark, one on each side of the bulletproof glass.
Sophia, still cuffed, shot me an ugly sidelong glance, watching as I made my way through the portal. The door was already closing as I saw her turn and step through the other.
I didn’t want to let her loose without any observation. I’d bring her along for just a short while, then find a place to stick her.
I felt okay with this decision. Comfortable. It wasn’t a mask I was wearing, so strong it might as well have been real. No. It was something simpler.
I’m not scared of her anymore.
■
There were other, bigger things to be scared of.
The sky was overcast, but it wasn’t wholly clouds. Dust choked everything, thick and heavy. The sun was
rising, and it felt like it had been rising for some time. The issues of teleporting across time zones.
Red. The sky was a surprising red color, filtering between clouds that were almost black. It cast the tall mountains in similar shades, with deep shadows and vivid color.
My breath fogged in the air. I’d been dressed for summer. This… it was cold. The landscape around us looked like coals resting in a fire, cast in ash white, charcoal blacks and reds, but it was cold. The cold leeched warmth from my feet, even. We were on a mountainside, a broad, flat ledge that could have held three helicopters. Instead, it held one Azazel suit and a crowd of perhaps sixty.
The cold wasn’t just the altitude. The levels of dust in the atmosphere would be having an effect as well.
My bugs were having a tough time here. I clustered them against my body, more so they could benefit from my warmth than the opposite.
With the bugs so close to me, crawling on my skin, in the cradle of my folded arms, and beneath my clothes, my sense of others was limited. Even so, I could sense Rachel’s approach. I didn’t react as she set her coat over my shoulders, except to glance at her and nod my thanks.
A crowd had gathered. Everyone from the meeting, minus Saint, was present. There were also innumerable others who hadn’t been at the meeting. Some I recognized, many I didn’t. Here and there, portals opened and people stepped through, joining the crowd.
“Long time,” I heard someone say. Boston accent.
I turned around. It was Weld, with his partner, the tendril-girl that wound around his body. He hadn’t been talking to me.
No, his focus was on Sophia.
“Hey chief,” she said.
He gripped the two loops of her cuffs, and absorbed them into his hands. She rolled her shoulders, then rubbed at her wrists.
“Don’t cause trouble,” Weld said. “Too many people on edge here.”
“Yeah,” Sophia said.
Then Weld left, returning to his group.
Sophia was left standing there alone, cold in her prison sweats.
Time passed. I’d hardly arrived in the nick of time, for the main event. I walked around the edge of the ridge, navigating around clusters of people, then approached the Azazel.
Tattletale was within, her attention on the computer screens. Defiant was leaning over her, giving instructions.
I left them alone, joining Rachel and Imp, where they sat with their backs to Bastard’s side, feet inches from a precipitous drop. Grue was keeping more of a distance, simultaneously watching and keeping as far away from Bonesaw as he could manage.
“No more malls,” Imp was saying. “No more going shopping, no more reality TV, no more stupid boy bands to make fun of…”
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Talking about everything I’m going to miss,” Imp said. “I’m trying to start from the outer edges and work my way in towards the biggest stuff. Work up my courage to say, you know…”
“You’ll miss us?” I asked.
“Aw, you’re so full of yourself!” Imp said. “It’s so sweet! I was going to say, um, those creepy little kids who look way too much like their big brother? I’ll miss them way more than I should. I’d miss them more than I’d miss you.”
I reached over and pushed her head a little, trying to mess up her hair and failing to do so before she’d pulled away. I found a seat beside Rachel.
Bastard’s chest rose and fell. It was one element of an uncomfortable seat. Warm, but not quite cozy enough for me to nod off. It was too cold, for one thing, and I felt my rear end going numb from the cold before I’d been sitting for a minute. Even more alarming was the general sensation that someone was gently pushing me towards the ledge, then easing up, pushing me, easing up.
If he lurched to his feet for any reason, I wasn’t entirely sure I would be able to stop myself from being shoved over the precipice. I should have worn my flight pack.
“I don’t have a lot,” Rachel said, breaking the silence. “Haven’t ever had much more than I could take with me if I left home. Had money, but it was just a number I couldn’t really follow on a computer I didn’t have.”
“You have something now,” I said.
She bobbed her head in a motion that was almost too slow to be a nod. “Yep.”
I didn’t elaborate. We watched the crimson sunrise.
“Don’t want to lose it,” Rachel said. “Any of it.”
I-
I couldn’t even complete a thought, hearing that. Damn it, Rachel, don’t say that, don’t remind me.
I thought of my dad.
Of my mom, though that was a wound I’d thought I’d healed.
I thought of my hometown, which wasn’t quite home anymore.
I thought of my pride, my mission, neither of which I quite had anymore.
I lowered my head, bringing my knees up to support my arm as I nestled my face into the crook of my elbow, burying it into the fabric of Rachel’s jacket. This was too public. The wolf’s overlong body provided a barrier between us and everyone else, but… too public.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. My tears were hot against my face.
“Why the fuck are you sorry?” Imp asked.
I raised my head up just a little, trying to pull myself together. “Feeling kind of- my feelings are all over the place. A little unhinged.”
Imp didn’t look my way, instead turning the narrow black lenses of her mask skyward. “It’s been a bad day, in case you haven’t noticed. You’re allowed to feel bad. It’s kind of normal.”
Normal.
I’d been thinking of my feelings as being off-kilter, out of control, unreasonable and irrational.
Were they just regular feelings? Emotions that weren’t being reined in by my discipline and bottling everything up, by distraction and disconnection?
Somewhere along the line, I’d stopped thinking about my feelings as being mixed up or fucked up and stopped concerning myself with them altogether. On a level, I’d blamed my passenger.
But I wasn’t sure I could justify that with what I was experiencing now. Why would the passenger take away, gain ground in subsuming my identity and then give it back, all like this?
Was it just me?
Fuck. I wasn’t sure I wanted this to be me and me alone.
I lowered my face into my elbow again.
Why?
What was it all for?
I drew in a breath, trying to keep my breathing level so I wouldn’t give any audible clues as to what was going on, and it backfired. My breath hitched and I released a little hiccup of a sob. It was all downhill from there.
I didn’t care anymore. I wasn’t about to mentally berate people for caring about secret identities when we were so far past that, and then care about my reputation or how I looked.
Screw it. If I was going to be Taylor again, I wouldn’t give a fuck.
Rachel put her arms around my shoulders in a clumsy hug that squished my shoulder. Then, with the hand of that same arm, she reached up and put her hand on my head, rubbing left to right and back again. My head rocked with the motion.
Soothing, but… ridiculous enough that I let out a little half-sob, half-laugh.
Which was probably even better than anything else.
I let my head settle against her shoulder, and she left her hand on my head, no longer rubbing.
We watched as the sunrise continued, the red of the atmosphere leaking through the gaps in the clouds.
I felt the tears stop at one point, and rubbed them away. I had to try twice before I could voice a question. “How’s Grue doing?”
“Ask him,” Imp said.
I shook my head.
“He’s okay. Cozen made it out okay, but Rook didn’t. So Cozen’s getting a promotion.”
“To leader?”
Imp nodded.
“Ah.”
Is there even anything to lead? How do you manage a group of thieves when everything that’s worth stealing is slowly being erased fr
om the planet’s surface?
I wouldn’t push it.
“I’m-” Imp started.
“Ready,” someone in the crowd called out, interrupting her.
Every single person on the broad, flat ledge of the mountainside turned.
I wiped at my face again with my hands, then stood, a little alarmed at how the stiffness of the cold hampered my movements, and the nearby ledge that yawned before us.
But no, no disasters. We made our way around Bastard’s sleeping form and joined the group.
The first of the portals opened.
A broad-shouldered man with facial hair like that of a homeless man’s stepped through. He wore prison sweats with the words ‘Baumann Parahuman Containment Center’ across the shoulders.
“Is this safe?” Someone asked. A girl, in her early teens.
“They sent everyone to their cells. Maybe a speedster could slip through, if they knew what was happening, but we have a lot of people here,” a man next to her said.
“You didn’t answer the question,” Imp said. “No, it’s not safe. These guys are assholes.”
The man with the beard turned to glare our way, inexplicably, looked momentarily confused, and then walked forward. The crowd parted to let him through as he approached the edge.
I’d done my reading on these guys while making my way to Sophia, waiting for her to arrive. If this went balls-up, we’d be stuck between these guys and Scion. I’d wanted to know.
The man with the beard was Gavel. Cell block leader. A vigilante who had gone after families, particularly spouses and children, all so he could break his enemies before his namesake weapon could. He’d been notorious in the days before the three strike rule or even the code. Even with that, people had lost patience with his ‘mission’ when a villain had threatened to detonate a small bomb, and Gavel had called a bluff that wasn’t a bluff. Gavel had walked away. Many, many others hadn’t.
A woman ventured forth. Her hair was long, her features matronly. She wore a prison uniform that had been cut apart and pieced together into heavier cargo pants and a jacket. Lustrum. Part-celebrity, part-antihero, she’d gathered a following of college-aged feminists, building up an almost religious fervor, before giving the fateful orders that turned things violent, pushing her thousands of followers to humiliate men, often violently. Things soon escalated to the point that more fanatical followers were emasculating and murdering men, even carving up followers who weren’t playing along.