I am not--technically--under arrest, and this is not--technically--a cell. But the door is locked. I am monitored between interrogations and tests. They keep drawing blood and then mysteriously losing the samples. I think that might be my fault, somehow. I have certainly been here longer than the police can hold me without charging me with something. But I am not surprised that the usual rules have been set aside. There is chaos out there. I'd like to be part of it.
I tell myself to be patient. This isn't the Paragon PD. This is the LAPD and the FBI, and they don't have the first idea about how to work with superheroes because we don't exist. Didn't exist. I catch myself smirking in the mirror. My half-familiar reflection loses her smile. The truth is, I'm stalling. Waiting for them to decide what to do with me.
I walk over to the mirrored window and put my hands on it. So. Here it is. I'm... immortal, more or less. Young, fit, phenomenally dangerous. Also attractive and female. I turn my back on the mirror. It only feels awkward when I dwell on it. Other than the whole 'losing my mind' thing, I lucked out with Badb.
When I was younger, I used to play question games... what if you could live forever, but you had to give up the life you were living to do it? Your family, friends, home... your name. Your reflection. Everything.
The door opens. The man who walks in is physically the least intimidating looking person I've seen since I surrendered. The shuffling walk, the weak chin. The way his watery eyes don't linger too long on the places where my costume is tight. All a mask that hides his essential nature. But I can smell the blood on his hands.
"So, Miss... Bad B? Bad'b?" he stammers, sinking into his seat like a man a decade older.
"Badb," I correct him. "Like Maeve. Irish." I take the seat across the table from him.
He gives no sign he's anything other than a bureaucrat out of his depth. He shuffles his papers around. "Sorry. I've got a tin ear. Six years of Spanish as a kid, and I can't order a taco." He laughs nervously. "Anyway. My name is James Carlson, with the Department of Defense, but you can call me Jim. I see you were in a fight in San Pedro. With two others who'd been, ah, changed?"
He asks other questions I've answered before. I repeat myself. The game is to understand his true questions before he learns the answers. We go back and forth a while. Neither of us is getting anywhere. I get bored.
"I'd like to leave," I announce.
"You've caused enough trouble. Your little vigilante rampage has the gangs spoiling for a fight and their neighbors on the march. I don't want to hear about another demonstration turning violent."
"There was a riot? Over me?" I'm torn between dismay and a certain perverse thrill. I give in to the latter. "How sweet!"
"You think this is funny?" Finally, a reaction. But it seems off, somehow.
I shake my head. "No, it's not funny. But you're not a cop. You don't care what happens in South Central or Echo Park or Skid Row. You never have. So why are you really here?"
Carlson pulls several folders out of the middle of the stack, and slaps them down on the table in front of me. "We don't need a bunch of delusional misfits running around taking the law into their own hands. And quite frankly, we can handle the morons robbing banks in broad daylight without your help. It's just a matter of time. But you have these... abilites. You say you want to help. And I want you out of my hair."
"What hair?" But I start at the back and flip through their contents at random, until I find the maps. Afghanistan. Iraq. I am not a detective or a spy. Unless I spontaneously develop some kind of sixth sense I'm not going to be much use there. Fighting terrorists isn't the hard part, finding them is. North Korea, Iran. The temptation to start a war is frightningly strong, and I recoil like the folders are full of scorpions.
"I'm not interested in your political agenda," I tell him.
"Darfur."
That bears consideration. What's more heroic than stopping genocide in progress? Where would a goddess of battle and chaos be stronger than a country tearing itself apart? But I don't like being manipulated.
"You just want me out of the country. All of us. So you can keep things under control."
"Now you're being paranoid," he says.
"Am I?" I think about it. I have the advantage of knowing things Badb wouldn't have been aware of, while her aspects have only sharpened my thoughts along certain lines. Tactics, conflict... fear. The event that changed us is utterly inexplicable. No wonder he's scared. The accepted laws of physics weren't just yanked out from under him. Every time we use our powers, we're demonstrating that they're still broken. Anything is possible.
Carlson hasn't shown me all the folders yet. He still has cards to play. I want to see them.
"I'm getting bored with men with guns."
His fingers move to the next folder in the stack, and then pause. Mr. Carlson doesn't like me. The world has come unglued, and I'm being a smart-ass. His lip curls with distaste, and his fingers move to the folder on the bottom.
"You'd rather stay here?" he asks.
"You can't hold me."
He pushes the folder across the table at me.
Inside is a single, grainy photograph, likely taken through some sort of night-vision camera. It's me, me as I am now that is. Badb. Standing over my wife and daughter as they sleep. I don't even remember going back to the house.
My shadow falls over him as I rise, and I can see emerald fury reflected off his watery eyes. He pushes himself backward instinctvely, his face turning to chalk.
"If you touch them--"
Though he looks like he's on the verge of a heart attack, Carlson heaves himself to his feet to face me. "What? You'll kill me? I don't think so."
"You'll wish I had. You can't stop me," I remind him, "You can't even hurt me. My powers have a price. I'll forget them. I'll forget everything. But before I do, I'll destroy everything you care about."
"You won't," he sneers. "You want to be a hero."
My left hand is around his throat, dragging him over the table, right hand cocked back, ready to start breaking the bones of his face one my one. My eyes must be blazing now, his whole face is limned with green and shadows seem to be gathering palpably around me.
"And you're a villain."
"Hit me, then," he croaks. He's gasping, shaking, but those are purely physical, instinctive reactions. The result of my powers. His eyes are clear of panic.
The doors crash open, cops spilling into the room, shouting and pointing guns. I could fight my way out of here, but then what? I drop him onto the table and let the officers slam me back into my chair, and lay it on me. I don't fight them. Pain is transitory.
Carlson regains his breath and his diginity, and waves the cops off of me. "My twelve year old loves comic books. Lucky thing, he was playing World of Warcraft when it happened. He told me you'd pull something like that."
"And if I'd been playing a villain?"
"I'd be reading from a different script. We're not stupid, you know. The President was in a safe and secret location twenty minutes after this mess started, and we've been skeet shooting would-be super villains on the White House lawn ever since."
"You can't control this. Things are still changing. If you hurt them--"
Carlson looks at the tense cops in the room. "Did I say one word about hurting anyone? Did I?" He looks at me again. "Somewhere in your head is a normal person, who knows this isn't a four-color comic book melodrama. I don't like you, I don't like what's happened, and I'd just as soon wave my hands and make everything go back to normal, or failing that, ship the lot of you to Antarctica. But I can't." He pauses, rubbing his chest. "You maniacs are giving me an ulcer, but I'm not going to hurt your families. Okay?"
He's wrong about one thing. It wasn't my 'normal' self that had held me back. It was the cypher with her memories falling apart that I'd never thought important. The one who chewed bubble gum and cracked jokes while she fought robots. My inner idealist, maybe, and I never even gave her a name.
So I hadn't hit him. But I wasn't bluffing.
Maybe he hadn't been, either. Or maybe I was just losing my mind.
"Okay," I say.
"Great." He waves off the cops. Two of them stay by the door, just in case. "Now look. We have no idea why or how this happened, whether it will happen again, how long it might last. Okay? And clearly, some of you are, ah, disoriented by the situation. You want to join the military, we'll send you overseas. You want to go home and try to go back to your old life--" he taps the picture, "we will provide counselling, temporary identification, all that stuff. But you can't go running around beating the crap out of people because they look at you funny."
"But--"
"But nothing. You're not a cop. You're not in the army. Some nut shows up spoiling for a fight, sure, you can defend yourself. That's it."
"But--"
"However," he says, steamrolling on, "If you are so hell-bent on risking life and limb playing hero that you just can't help yourself--" he grimaces, like he's swallowing a particularly harrowing insect, "--it does happen that we have a situation on our hands."
He opens his last folder, and sets another photo down in front of me. It has that off-kilter 'Final Transmission' look to it.
Ghost Widow.
I tell myself to be patient. This isn't the Paragon PD. This is the LAPD and the FBI, and they don't have the first idea about how to work with superheroes because we don't exist. Didn't exist. I catch myself smirking in the mirror. My half-familiar reflection loses her smile. The truth is, I'm stalling. Waiting for them to decide what to do with me.
I walk over to the mirrored window and put my hands on it. So. Here it is. I'm... immortal, more or less. Young, fit, phenomenally dangerous. Also attractive and female. I turn my back on the mirror. It only feels awkward when I dwell on it. Other than the whole 'losing my mind' thing, I lucked out with Badb.
When I was younger, I used to play question games... what if you could live forever, but you had to give up the life you were living to do it? Your family, friends, home... your name. Your reflection. Everything.
The door opens. The man who walks in is physically the least intimidating looking person I've seen since I surrendered. The shuffling walk, the weak chin. The way his watery eyes don't linger too long on the places where my costume is tight. All a mask that hides his essential nature. But I can smell the blood on his hands.
"So, Miss... Bad B? Bad'b?" he stammers, sinking into his seat like a man a decade older.
"Badb," I correct him. "Like Maeve. Irish." I take the seat across the table from him.
He gives no sign he's anything other than a bureaucrat out of his depth. He shuffles his papers around. "Sorry. I've got a tin ear. Six years of Spanish as a kid, and I can't order a taco." He laughs nervously. "Anyway. My name is James Carlson, with the Department of Defense, but you can call me Jim. I see you were in a fight in San Pedro. With two others who'd been, ah, changed?"
He asks other questions I've answered before. I repeat myself. The game is to understand his true questions before he learns the answers. We go back and forth a while. Neither of us is getting anywhere. I get bored.
"I'd like to leave," I announce.
"You've caused enough trouble. Your little vigilante rampage has the gangs spoiling for a fight and their neighbors on the march. I don't want to hear about another demonstration turning violent."
"There was a riot? Over me?" I'm torn between dismay and a certain perverse thrill. I give in to the latter. "How sweet!"
"You think this is funny?" Finally, a reaction. But it seems off, somehow.
I shake my head. "No, it's not funny. But you're not a cop. You don't care what happens in South Central or Echo Park or Skid Row. You never have. So why are you really here?"
Carlson pulls several folders out of the middle of the stack, and slaps them down on the table in front of me. "We don't need a bunch of delusional misfits running around taking the law into their own hands. And quite frankly, we can handle the morons robbing banks in broad daylight without your help. It's just a matter of time. But you have these... abilites. You say you want to help. And I want you out of my hair."
"What hair?" But I start at the back and flip through their contents at random, until I find the maps. Afghanistan. Iraq. I am not a detective or a spy. Unless I spontaneously develop some kind of sixth sense I'm not going to be much use there. Fighting terrorists isn't the hard part, finding them is. North Korea, Iran. The temptation to start a war is frightningly strong, and I recoil like the folders are full of scorpions.
"I'm not interested in your political agenda," I tell him.
"Darfur."
That bears consideration. What's more heroic than stopping genocide in progress? Where would a goddess of battle and chaos be stronger than a country tearing itself apart? But I don't like being manipulated.
"You just want me out of the country. All of us. So you can keep things under control."
"Now you're being paranoid," he says.
"Am I?" I think about it. I have the advantage of knowing things Badb wouldn't have been aware of, while her aspects have only sharpened my thoughts along certain lines. Tactics, conflict... fear. The event that changed us is utterly inexplicable. No wonder he's scared. The accepted laws of physics weren't just yanked out from under him. Every time we use our powers, we're demonstrating that they're still broken. Anything is possible.
Carlson hasn't shown me all the folders yet. He still has cards to play. I want to see them.
"I'm getting bored with men with guns."
His fingers move to the next folder in the stack, and then pause. Mr. Carlson doesn't like me. The world has come unglued, and I'm being a smart-ass. His lip curls with distaste, and his fingers move to the folder on the bottom.
"You'd rather stay here?" he asks.
"You can't hold me."
He pushes the folder across the table at me.
Inside is a single, grainy photograph, likely taken through some sort of night-vision camera. It's me, me as I am now that is. Badb. Standing over my wife and daughter as they sleep. I don't even remember going back to the house.
My shadow falls over him as I rise, and I can see emerald fury reflected off his watery eyes. He pushes himself backward instinctvely, his face turning to chalk.
"If you touch them--"
Though he looks like he's on the verge of a heart attack, Carlson heaves himself to his feet to face me. "What? You'll kill me? I don't think so."
"You'll wish I had. You can't stop me," I remind him, "You can't even hurt me. My powers have a price. I'll forget them. I'll forget everything. But before I do, I'll destroy everything you care about."
"You won't," he sneers. "You want to be a hero."
My left hand is around his throat, dragging him over the table, right hand cocked back, ready to start breaking the bones of his face one my one. My eyes must be blazing now, his whole face is limned with green and shadows seem to be gathering palpably around me.
"And you're a villain."
"Hit me, then," he croaks. He's gasping, shaking, but those are purely physical, instinctive reactions. The result of my powers. His eyes are clear of panic.
The doors crash open, cops spilling into the room, shouting and pointing guns. I could fight my way out of here, but then what? I drop him onto the table and let the officers slam me back into my chair, and lay it on me. I don't fight them. Pain is transitory.
Carlson regains his breath and his diginity, and waves the cops off of me. "My twelve year old loves comic books. Lucky thing, he was playing World of Warcraft when it happened. He told me you'd pull something like that."
"And if I'd been playing a villain?"
"I'd be reading from a different script. We're not stupid, you know. The President was in a safe and secret location twenty minutes after this mess started, and we've been skeet shooting would-be super villains on the White House lawn ever since."
"You can't control this. Things are still changing. If you hurt them--"
Carlson looks at the tense cops in the room. "Did I say one word about hurting anyone? Did I?" He looks at me again. "Somewhere in your head is a normal person, who knows this isn't a four-color comic book melodrama. I don't like you, I don't like what's happened, and I'd just as soon wave my hands and make everything go back to normal, or failing that, ship the lot of you to Antarctica. But I can't." He pauses, rubbing his chest. "You maniacs are giving me an ulcer, but I'm not going to hurt your families. Okay?"
He's wrong about one thing. It wasn't my 'normal' self that had held me back. It was the cypher with her memories falling apart that I'd never thought important. The one who chewed bubble gum and cracked jokes while she fought robots. My inner idealist, maybe, and I never even gave her a name.
So I hadn't hit him. But I wasn't bluffing.
Maybe he hadn't been, either. Or maybe I was just losing my mind.
"Okay," I say.
"Great." He waves off the cops. Two of them stay by the door, just in case. "Now look. We have no idea why or how this happened, whether it will happen again, how long it might last. Okay? And clearly, some of you are, ah, disoriented by the situation. You want to join the military, we'll send you overseas. You want to go home and try to go back to your old life--" he taps the picture, "we will provide counselling, temporary identification, all that stuff. But you can't go running around beating the crap out of people because they look at you funny."
"But--"
"But nothing. You're not a cop. You're not in the army. Some nut shows up spoiling for a fight, sure, you can defend yourself. That's it."
"But--"
"However," he says, steamrolling on, "If you are so hell-bent on risking life and limb playing hero that you just can't help yourself--" he grimaces, like he's swallowing a particularly harrowing insect, "--it does happen that we have a situation on our hands."
He opens his last folder, and sets another photo down in front of me. It has that off-kilter 'Final Transmission' look to it.
Ghost Widow.