by Hayes, Drew
He had Nick there. Blood for blood was gospel in Nick’s world; had he been in Adam’s shoes Nick had little doubt he’d have pursued the same course of action. Oh, he’d have been smarter about it and not gotten himself in so deep, but the end goal would be the same: retribution for what had been taken.
“I suppose that’s fair, and if George is on board it’s not my place to question the deal. That brings us to the more important question, though: whether you and I are enemies or allies.”
198.
Dinner was going well, despite the initial moment of awkwardness. Eliza was steering clear of anything with alcohol: she needed her wits for a myriad of reasons tonight. She and Vince had gotten back into light conversation, catching up on the small stuff about work and school. It would all be fine, so long as they didn’t look at that damn picture on the wall. Too many memories came with that sort of image, the kind that she couldn’t afford to indulge, especially since Vince had fallen in love with someone else.
Still, every now and then she would glance at him, marveling at the utter absence of scars or burns on his face. There was a time that she’d never imagined he’d look like this again.
* * *
If she’d been asked why she was helping the stranger who’d been set on arresting her, Eliza would have claimed it was simply a matter of balancing a debt. No matter how she looked at it, he’d saved her life, and that wasn’t the sort of obligation she wanted to carry around with her. But in truth, Eliza was perhaps not quite so bound to survival above all else as she might pretend to be. Whoever this guy was, he was the sort to throw himself into danger to keep a stranger, a thief, safe. It didn’t feel right to let him die alone in the woods.
Finding the shack had been easy; dragging the guy she knew only as Tights there took more effort. Most of the burns were along his back, though his limbs and parts of his face had been scorched as well. Keeping him on his stomach, she rigged up a makeshift stretcher by replicating her clothes and then shredding them for material. It was hard work, but they couldn’t risk hanging around the site of the explosion. Whoever had made that moonshine still was going to come back, and she and Tights couldn’t risk being found, especially on the chance that person was wary about leaving witnesses.
After she’d gotten Tights into the shed, she went back and made some fake trails while obscuring the real one. It wasn’t her strongest skill set, but she only needed to buy enough time to get help. Once Tights was in an ambulance she could disappear once more, guilt free. She took her time though; it wouldn’t do to be discovered before they were ready, so it was over an hour later when she made it back to the shed.
To her surprise, Tights was awake. He’d halfway propped himself against a wall and was staring at the door. It was hard to say if he was standing watch or working up the strength to crawl outside, but his face lit up when she walked in. The expression was sincere and unexpected, and something in Eliza’s chest grew tight for a shadow of a moment.
“Well well, looks like you’re doing okay, Tights.” She kept her voice low and shut the door firmly behind her. Given the amount of dust and neglect in this shed it obviously hadn’t been in use for some while; however, she didn’t want to risk bringing unnecessary attention down on their heads. “Don’t worry, I’m about to head back to town and call you an ambulance. By tonight you’ll be getting treatment.”
“No.” His voice was raspy; he must have inhaled smoke or heat during the explosion and fallout, but it still came out with more force than she’d have thought a man in his condition capable of. “I can’t go to a hospital.”
She looked him over skeptically. Had the fire burned off all his nerve endings or something? He had to realize how bad of shape he was in. “Look, I don’t know what your story is and I’m not really in the mood to find out. But you have to go to the hospital. That fire fucked you all the way up. You need treatment, and the sooner the better.”
Tights shook his head, a painful motion that was hard to watch. “You don’t understand. I can’t go to a hospital. I’m a Powered, and my ability… you saw it for yourself. It’s not just fire either. I draw in electricity almost as often. If I had an incident in a hospital I could black the whole place out, even if they have backup generators. I’d kill everyone there who was on life support and put countless others at risk.”
“That’s a noble sentiment and all, but you look like someone dropped most of you onto a grill. I’m genuinely amazed you’re this coherent.”
“It’s not the first time my power has gotten me hurt. I have practice dealing with pain.” Despite the brave words, she could see him push down a shudder. Coping with pain wasn’t the same as erasing it, and this had to be taking a hell of a toll on the guy.
“Then what’s the game plan here? If you were hoping I’ve got some healing mojo then let me shoot that idea out of the sky right now. You’re in deep shit here, Tights, and if hospitals are off the table then I don’t know what to do for you.”
He didn’t say anything immediately; instead he just stared at her. No, not at her: past her. The guy was lost in thought or memories, drifting somewhere in his own mind. Finally, he spoke again, although that unexpected force had vanished from his voice. In its place was the kind of tired that sounded like it went all the way down to the bone. “I don’t think there is a plan. I’m just going to rest for a while and see how I feel when I wake up.” His eyelids were fluttering as he spoke; she guessed he had a few minutes of consciousness left in him, tops.
“The smart money would be on worse,” she said.
“Probably. But I don’t know what else to do. I only know I can’t drag innocent people down with me. Promise me you won’t take me to a hospital. Please.”
This guy couldn’t be for real, right? He had to know how bad these burns were, to understand that without treatment he wouldn’t be long for this world. Who chose death over potentially causing trouble for others? The same kind of guy who ran down strangers he saw picking a pocket, apparently. It was tempting to tell him to fuck off, to go get the ambulance anyway. But… he’d saved her life. Dragging him through the woods didn’t make up for that kind of debt. If this was how he wanted things to go, then she owed that much to him.
“Fine. I swear: no hospitals. I’m not promising to be here when you wake up, though.”
“That’s okay. I appreciate you doing this much… what was your name?”
“Thief is fine, and I’ll keep calling you Tights. No offense, but given the situation I think I’d rather not get too personal.” It was the smart play, keeping some distance between herself and this brave yet clearly insane stranger. Unfortunately, some part of her was already wondering if she’d gone too far to be truly detached.
Tights gave a small nod but no other response. His eyes simply slid closed as sleep overtook him once more. At least he was still breathing; that was something. Quietly, Eliza slipped out the shed door and did a quick walk of the perimeter.
If there was ever a time to ditch out, this was it. From here she’d only be more involved, and when the inevitable happened, it would hurt all the worse. Tights had made his decision. She didn’t need to stick around and watch things play out. It wasn’t as though she could do much for him anyway. She should just go, run away from this city, this shed, this boy, and never look back. All she had to do was walk away and try to never think about that smile on his face just before the explosion. He’d known what was happening, and his biggest concern had been trying to make her feel okay. Really, what kind of utter nutjob did things like that in the first place?
“Goddamnit,” Eliza muttered under her breath, turning away from the shed, back toward town. If she hurried, she could hopefully steal some medical supplies before nightfall.
199.
Adam took his time considering the question, more than should have been needed by Nick’s opinion, but perhaps he was making a moment out of it. “Enemies or allies? That is a tough one. If I were dealing with one of the others I think
I’d have a ready answer for them. Vince is certainly an ally, whether he means to be or not. There’s no compromise in that one; he takes after his father. Once he got a whiff of the system being corrupted he’d do all he could to bring it to light, even though it would destroy him in the process. Alice I’d call an ally too. She’s proven herself steadfast and dedicated to the pursuit of truth. Roy and Hershel would be harder to predict, but I think between the two of them they’d eventually come down on our side. Mary… well, if someone is open with their thoughts Mary is almost impossible to lie to, so of course she’d be our ally. Actually, she was supposed to be on our team from the near-beginning. But you, Nick, you aren’t any of them. You don’t have a creed or an easily defined moral center. I’m never fully sure who you’re fighting for, and that makes it quite difficult to say if you’re on my side or not.”
Thoughtful, well-reasoned, and with a lure about Mary meant to drag the conversation off topic if he wasn’t careful; Nick was starting to realize just how much Adam had been sandbagging in the HCP. This was a level of intellect he’d never displayed during the trials and classes before. In a way, it was humbling. They’d both been playing the same game, but Adam had proven more skilled at it. He’d made it to senior year without turning a single head.
“That’s a nice speech, with one glaring hole in the logic,” Nick said. “You know damn well who I’m fighting for. It’s obvious you’re smart enough to figure it out, and even if you weren’t, Globe sure is. He juiced me up during the attack on Lander because he knows exactly whose side I’m on. I’m with my friends, the other former-Powereds, from now until the end. So if all of them would side with you, then you can count me as an ally. And if you do anything treacherous, make one single move against them, then I become your very devoted enemy. You’re clearly a capable man, so that might be a problem you can handle, but I’d be sure to make as much trouble for you as I could before I was off the board.”
“I have no doubt you would. But as you said, that only matters if my goals require hurting your friends, so there isn’t much cause for worry.”
“There shouldn’t be.” Nick rose from his pew. He’d stay clear of the lines of sight for Jerome, but he didn’t feel comfortable staying seated. Better to be moving, to have quick cover to roll behind at a moment’s notice. “And I say shouldn’t because you people have already made a lot of trouble for us. Or did you think I couldn’t figure out who slipped Michael Clark those files with the truth about us during freshman year? This is a major problem, one that only seems slight in comparison to the fact that your two associates kidnapped a pair of mine. You’ve already proven yourself willing to fuck us over when it suits your needs, why should I think dealing with you now will be different?”
Adam’s face was set; neither of the allegations had caught him off-guard. He’d clearly been preparing for this since the conversation began. “Because you’d be dealing with me. George was the one who decided that the best way to cause enough chaos for him to slip away with Mary was by letting out your secret. If she’d vanished that night without a witness to the kidnapping, you’d have all thought she went into hiding just like she did with her home in the woods. It would have been at least a day before anyone grew genuinely concerned, and by then she’d have already been back. Not the plan I’d have used, but George is a blunt man who likes to work amidst panic. I would never do that to you all. Whether you believe me or not is probably going to determine if we’re allies, or just people who stay out of each other’s ways.”
Were the others making Nick soft? It didn’t seem likely; if anything, he felt that parts of him had become more ruthless since he started letting them into his life. Yet here he was, interrogating a man who specialized in deceit and had every motivation to lie… and who Nick was reading as truthful at every turn. There was no way he was being that honest, but either such was the case or he was fooling Nick completely. The second option was valid; if Gerry had taught him nothing else it was to never underestimate his marks, so it couldn’t be dismissed outright. But Globe was the man at the top of Adam’s organization, and Globe had proven himself to be a friend already. The smartest move for the moment was to trust his skills, believe that Adam was telling the truth, and then watch like a hawk for the moment he did anything even slightly duplicitous.
“For now, I think we can be allies.” Nick sounded sure and doubtless, for there was no gain in letting Adam see his uncertainty. “Globe wants what we want: the truth. If you’re on that team, and you do right by us, then I don’t care what kind of weird shit you and George need to work out when it’s done. I do want something from you as a sign of goodwill, however: tell me about Mary. Why did Globe try and take her?”
“Haven’t you figured it out by now?” Adam asked.
“I’ve got my pet theory, but if I told you then you could just agree. I’d rather hear your explanation and see how closely it lines up with my own deductions.”
Slowly, making sure the gesture wouldn’t seem aggressive, Adam lifted a hand with two fingers up from the pew. “The plan was a simple one. I’d spent the whole first year watching you all from a distance, sometimes wearing other people’s bodies so you wouldn’t notice. I’d gotten a good sense of who you all were. Mary presented a unique opportunity, one that we decided to utilize. See, there were only two ways kidnapping her could go.” The middle finger of Adam’s hand lowered, leaving only the index extended.
“One, which was more likely by far and ended up being the way things shook out, was that someone would notice she was missing and send up the panic-signal. While everyone else was scrambling, I turned into Coach George. He’d given me all his passwords and I could fool every bit of biometric security, meaning this offered us the perfect opportunity to hack into the database where the information we needed was stored. As I said, we both know that’s how things happened. But there was another possibility.”
The middle finger rose back up alongside the index, making a peace-sign on Adam’s hand once more. “Plan two was that we got Mary away without incident, out to where Globe and the others were hiding at the time. He’d have talked to her, opened up his mind and let her see the truth. When she believed us, which she would, Mary would have fallen on our side. She’s not the trusting type, or at least wasn’t then. That’s why she listened to everyone’s thoughts so frequently. Finding out the system was corrupt wouldn’t even have been a big shock for her. Once she was with us, we’d have had a telepath that could, with a lot of focus and special training, learn to hear specific voices from miles away. That range of hers is amazing, Nick. If she’d been learning to search that sea of thoughts instead of swing heavy objects I daresay she’d be the greatest information gathering asset in the world. Virtually no one would be safe; they could have their thoughts monitored with no idea it was happening. Keeping a mind controlled takes a lot of discipline; most people screw up at least a little bit of the time. With Mary, the moment that happened it would be game over.”
“So either way, you get information,” Nick surmised. “Be it through encrypted data or a new mole with spectacular telepathy. Having a win-win is nice, but it cost George and Persephone their covers to do it. Not the greatest trade to make, given their positions and authority.”
“In the second option, we’d have kept them in place since the kidnapping would never be discovered. But it was decided that if we did get the encrypted data then the trade was worthwhile. Uprooting Charles is the best shot we have at yanking everything into the light. That’s the main goal of Globe and his people. If you’re on board with that, then I think we can work together. If not, then let’s be done with this.” Adam stared at Nick, his eyes briefly darting upward for a fraction of a second. He knew someone was up there, ready to strike, and he was still delivering an ultimatum. It was ballsy. Nick respected ballsy.
“Send word to your boss that I’m interested in making some deals. Just me. Keep the others out of this for now,” Nick said. “If things go bad, my reputatio
n can take a little more smearing.”
200.
No one had ever called Eliza the nurturing type. It wasn’t her style. She focused on self-reliance and survival above all else. True, if one really looked at a few of the homes where she’d been fostered, they might discover that the younger kids constantly found unexpected bits of food in their possession, food that was mysteriously never reported as missing, but no one would have thought the silent girl with the dark curls was responsible for it. She barely ever talked to anyone, never attempted to bond or connect. Eliza was passing through, getting by. It was how she’d made it this far with just her wits and a useful ability as her tools.
So it was as much of a surprise to Eliza as it would have been to anyone else when the days passed and she found herself still in that shack with Tights, taking care of him. Although she knew “taking care” was a generous term for what she was doing; it was more akin to fighting back the inevitable than really helping him heal. She’d made a hospital run to steal an armful of drugs, nearly getting snagged in the process, and by duplicating them she was at least able to keep Tights medicated. He never complained about the pain, which had to be insane; he’d merely wince and readjust his position on the cheap padding she’d used to make him a mattress. The guy was tough as hell, and the more time they spent together, the less surprised Eliza was by that.
With no television, books, or radio on hand, all they could do in that shed was talk – first about the situation, then eventually about themselves. They never exchanged names, however. She knew he might be gone any day, and hearing his name would make the loss harder. Tights never pushed the issue, either. He probably knew what she was doing and didn’t mind letting her keep some distance. It was the kind of man he was, she slowly learned. Hearing his story – born a Powered, unwanted by the system, found by a stranger who became his father only to die a few years earlier – it hurt her to listen to, perhaps because there were so many moments that echoed her own life scattered in.