[RFC] Going Native. (With Edits)

[Dartz]

I've had a wormfic ongoing for a while - original given the Rough title, 'Insecurity!'. A Couple of people hgave suggested it might linger a bit too long on the setup, so I had a go at trimming the first few dozen parts down to something a little bit shirter and faster.

Curious how it worked out, and whether going over the fic with a lawnmower is a worthwhile exercise.

--

“Good Morning, Shadow Stalker.”

That rabbit-in-headlights look never failed to make my day. Sometimes she got violent, sometimes she just wondered how, most times, her mouth would goldfish open, while the others stood and stared.

I grasped my Power and stepped back before she composed herself, and in a flash it'd never happened. Lost to deadtime.

Hess hurried passed, the terrible trio already late for the daily lunchtime struggle session. Whether today would be the day or not, I didn't know. I knew we were in the run-up to it.

My locker stood a metaphor for myself; a bit of a bloody mess.  It meant a struggle to find the notebook I needed for before the bell rang.

It meant being still focused on a cubic metre of school-rubbish, crash helmet and riding gear when something slammed into the side of my head, knocking me onto my arse. A football bounced off the tiled floor beside me, followed by laughter.

“Hah!, Nice catch, Mick.”

“Yeah man, right in the head and like, BAM! on his ass!”

Fuck. My turn today. I didn't know their names. I couldn't be arsed learning. One year held-back, a few centimetres taller, and the four of them walked around like they owned the place.

Sighing, I stepped back, and caught the football on the second try.

“Hey, Nice catch, man...”

“Try make it hard next time.” I passed it back with a gentle kick. It wasn't too different from a rugby ball. They'd find someone else to bother today, and that's good enough for me.

Butterflies are amazing creatures. Amazing the difference they make. The formed the single bit that flipped between a few moments of respect and few moments ridicule.

Ironic. I'd joined in the ranks of 'normal kid' now. Nobody special,. Bit tall. Bit on the larger side. Maybe a bit quiet, but understandable really. Just one of hundreds looking to keep their head down and just do their time in Winslow in peace. Having a little experience helped.

Who am I?

I am not the protagonist you were expecting. I am not even a background character.

Thankfully.

The bell rang and the bustle began. Taking the back stairs to class let me avoid the worst of the crush - a path I knew would take me passed the girl's bathroom and the possibility that today would be the day.

I considered turning back and taking the longer way around, chancing the crowd just so I could avoid knowing. I choose the risk of knowing over the risk of getting blindsided again. Every hair prickled on my neck as I reached the top of the stairs. My knees ached from the strain of the climb.

I stopped for a moment, regaining a little strength before forcing myself to walk through the corridor.

I saw Taylor backed into the space between two rows of lockers, surrounded by the three of them. What a perverse relief. At least one more day to go.

She saw me.

She looked right at me.

Why do you walk past?

Just like everyone else. I did nothing. Just like everyone else, I had my own crosses to bear and Taylor couldn’t be one of them.

The sound of footsteps running up behind me sent a quick jolt of adrenaline into my veins.

“Hey! Hold up, Ian?”

I glanced back, releasing the fist I'd made with my left hand. Once beaten, twice shy.

“Damien. What's up?”

Damien stood shorter than me, with fair shaggy hair like a an escapee from a Spielberg film grown up a few years, but a couple of ratchets up on the fitness level to the point where he might've been able to take me in a fight if I didn't have my advantage.

“Airplanes. Airplanes are up.”

Most of all however, he was a decent human being. Even if the pun obliged me to roll my eyes.

“You got the assignment?”

“Sure thing. Solid B grade.” He slipped few white sheets from his backpack, offering them to me. Freshly printed on crisp paper, On Parahuman Society and its Future. “And a summary clipped to the back incase you get asked any questions.”

I took it with a cheeky smile, leafing through it quickly to make sure I hadn't been handed something like the Unabomber manifesto as a prank. Especially with that title.

“Grand...” I said.

“Got my Math?”

You don't get anything for free in this world.

“One A-rated maths assignment.”

Easier for me to do. Twenty minutes at a computer, not that I told him that. Then print.

“Boys,”

Cursing through my teeth, I recognised the voice immediately. Step back....

Footsteps jogged up from behind me. This time, I expected them.

Hey, hold up, Ian?”

“Damien, What's up?”

“Glory Girl, man?”

Butterflies? Time to change things a little. Probably not the best idea to trade papers in the middle of the corridor. Well, do we look like experienced drug dealers?

“Poster get delivered?”

“Finally!” he grinned

“That's a glorious poster.”

“Damn fine,” his grin broadened.

Oh yes. That's what I liked about being sixteen again. The simple pleasures.

“Boys?”

Gladly. As welcome as a fart in a space station.

“What?” Damien was fast off the draw.

“We weren't doing nothing.” I tried not to sound like a whining kid. Naturally, that made it plain as day that we weren't doing something. Or something like that.

“Bags. Let's see what you've got in there.” He smiled like our best friend as he screwed us over.

I felt my power latch back into place. A moment later, became fifteen seconds earlier.

“Glory Girl man,” said Damien, grinning.

“Hey, ah, can we go a different way?”

He blinked owlishly, caught off-guard by the sudden swerve “We'll be late,”

I didn't care. “Better a tardy than getting caught with this. Trust me. There's a trap ahead.” I pointed at an office door.

“Alright,” he breathed “You've been right about stuff like this before.”

Both of us turned to take the long way around, back past Taylor and Friends, down the stairs, then back up the middle with the rest of the crush. My knees complained at the rush, but better some aches than getting busted.

“Boys! Stop right there.”

“Fuck’s sake!” Everyone flinched, my voice carrying down the corridor.

Kobayashi Maru. Fifteen seconds didn't help when your downfall had been set up minutes earlier.

“There's only one person in this school who uses partial differential equations in High School math, or so I'm told. And that same person doesn't use American English spellings in his essays.

And wasn't he so sickeningly pleased with himself?

Damien deflated.

“Fuck’s sake.” I admit it. I am not an eloquent man.

With hindsight, it should have been obvious. It mightn't have been the worst injustice in Winslow high, but fuck me if it didn't annoy.

-

I skated through the rest of the morning.

Industrial arts gave me something to focus on, to let the frustration cool, running parts off on the engine lathe for the class. The machine let me be myself, to be who I used to be for a few minutes at least.

The fun lasted until someone branded a kid with a file that'd been heated to somewhere between bloody-hot and absolute glowing hellfire with a gas torch meaning the rest of us spent the last half of the session sitting in stone silence while the teacher glared at us.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

The scream chilled me to the bone.

After a hungry hour’s wait wishing I could either be eating, or back on the machine, lunchtime finally arrived. I took laser aim at the food, forgetting everything else.

The habit refused to die.

I bobbed and weaved through the queue, earning a few curses in the process as I grabbed my fair share. Then a little extra, with a few cartons of froot-joose stuffed in the pockets of my jacket for later.

Another habit which refused to die.

I'd half finished before Damien sat down on the bench opposite, dropping his tray down on the table. My eyes fell on the pea that rolled free from the edge. I didn't even look up at him, jealously pulling my own tray towards myself. I didn't breath. I didn't speak.

“I don't know how you eat that shit,” he said.

I swallowed, taking a breath while I loaded my plastic fork with as much as it'd carry.

“Still better than rations,” I said, filling my mouth with another slab of mystery meat and synthetic mashed potato. “First lesson for survival.” I smiled. “Food and water.”

He prodded at the mystery meat with his fork, stirring it around its bath of brown slime and onion.

“I don't think this qualifies as food.”

“If you’re hungry enough, everything is food.”

I didn't even flinch as I scooped up another mouthful. It reminded me of dogfood. It tasted little better. You learned not to chew.

“I’ve never been that hungry,”

A thought rushed in with a vicious sting. You’re going to find out soon enough.

I filled my mouth with a sliver of meat before any words could escape. The weight of what that meant, fell on my shoulders, stirring things up from the back of my mind that I really didn’t want in the front.

Damien stopped poking at the slab of meat.

“You okay?”

I looked up at him. Thanks for asking.

“It’s alright,” I forced myself to say.

It didn’t feel alright. I couldn’t tell myself how it felt. Just that it did, sitting heavy like fat on the brain.

Six weeks to go. Tension rippled through my body.

For a moment it seemed crazy that life continued as normal, that nobody knew even though nobody could know. People queued for food, grabbing buns, butter and a quick chat. Insults were traded. Fights arranged. Girls babbled together, swarming some poor unfortunate who’d been served the white bread sandwich of poverty because her parents hadn’t kept her lunch account current.

Fuck’s sake.

“Aki’s In the library, I think,” Damien said, still poking at the meat with his plastic fork. “She didn’t get her stuff finished last night so she’s catching up.”

Thanks. I took a breath. The weight didn’t leave.

“She know we got caught?” I said, putting my thoughts to more practical things.

“I messaged her,” he said, flipping the screen open on his phone to show me. “Roberta and Alan got their stuff handed off too.”

“Grand,” I breathed. I threw a quick look over my shoulder. Nobody for now. Getting nabbed earlier had raised my paranoia – even if the noise of the cafeteria could swallow everything we said.

“They’ll be watching me us for a while,” he said, before finally plucking up the courage to take a bite. Hunger won out in the end.

My hand swirled the last morsel of meat through the jellied gravy, mopping up the remains

“Aki’ won’t be able to keep up on her own.”

“Not for long,”” he said through a full mouth. “In a few weeks it’ll be over anyway.”

I looked up from my plate, feeling my appetite vanish. Fuck’s sake.

After a moment, he managed to swallow. “Yeah, Summer can’t come fast enough.”

Six weeks to go.

--

Given the choice between taking two full week's detention and re-doing two assignments, or taking a taking a day and touting on all those involved, I took the weeks. Buy the ticket, take the ride. No sympathy for the devil as a good man once said. Take a seat in a full detention hall and take the time to get my homework done, then get the guts of the assignment for World Affairs done before I got bored.

My hand rubbed at the brace on my right knee. A long day had started it aching again.

The assignment on the desk in front of me proved one simple thing.

Worm was a story. This was a World.

By the time detention ended, the school had emptied. Only the last few extra-curricular stragglers and the janitor remained, leaving an eerie pine-scented quiet behind.

Empty schools always felt strange.

A crash helmet, some armour and a spare key waited in my locker. My bike had been parked where the bicycles were kept; a four-hundred-dollar rusty shed of a Honda that pre-dated parahumanity and came with a registration plate ominous enough that nobody even thought about stealing it.

The alarm on my phone reminded me that work started in an hour. A message, offered something more interesting than responsibility.

Damo: With Aki at Brokton Knights. They let you out yet?


The Honda carried me to the Brockton Knight's Arcade, lit up in glorious cyberpunk neon purples, pinks and blues. A few of the tubes had broken, but I thought that just added to the effect. It wouldn’t look right to be clean.  I chained the bike up outside, then stuck it in third gear and pulled the lever off.

I marched inside with my helmet hung off my belt feeling like a hero. Heavy crash-boots and armoured leather makes anyone feel invincible. Inside, the electric heat embraced me, the scent of bubblegum and warm electronics crawling up my nose.

I doubted the place had changed much in two decades, except for the addition of some chattering pachinko machines to the usual chiptune electronics and thrumming music piped in from overhead.

The people I searched for waited in the back, taking up two of six seats at an old Villains and Vigilantes booth. I preferred Space Opera, but being late came with a penalty – the game had been chosen for me.

“Hey, he finally shows up,” said Damien, waving me over.

“Hi!” Akiko bubbled. Say what you want about said-bookism, but I wouldn't be surprised if she triggered with the Power to make little candy love-hearts start popping into the air around her.

Akiko revelled in being the stereotype of every Japanese schoolgirl you ever saw. Shorter than average, with jet-black hair that seemed to have been varnished dead straight, broad cheeked and obsessed with the Kitty to the point where her hair at been speckled by a dozen jolly-rancher coloured flecks.  She proudly wore a DDID tattoo on her arm – not a real one, of course.

I liked her.

That's exactly what I meant to say and no more.

I took breath, dropping any mental baggage behind the chair. “Andy and Roberta not here yet?”

“Called ahead. Said they were busy.”

“Within five minutes of each other, too.”

“Shared study time?”

“I didn't say that...” The smirk on her lips said it far better.

“So, loser pays?” Damien suggested.

“Christ man, I can't afford to lose.”

“You can afford to go hungry then?”

I could've used my power to win every game, but I lost. It's easier to lose to friends. And more fun. The three of us laughed and had a great time. I could go into the minutiae of it, but there's no point. We were just three teenagers being friends.

Time melted away around us through match after match

On my first run through the school mill, I missed out on this sort of thing. My own fault really, I made the mistake of keeping too much to myself, of living in the grey box and just doing the work, getting the grades and grinding forward.

I suppose that's the advantage of experience. I could take a different route. I could choose to be happy, rather than do what the responsible ones called the right thing.

Akiko's phone chimed three times bringing the game to an end. She glanced at her, her smile dissolving in a instant, like she'd been told a grandparent had died or something. She scratched at the back of her neck, glancing between the both of us like she expected us to jump on her or something.

“Something happen?” Me and Damien spoke at once, glanced at each other, then focused on her.

“Sumimasen, ehno.”  She giggled, covering her mouth. “Ah...I got to go.” She jumped to her feet, fumbling her way out of the game booth, nearly tripping over her own feet “Talk tomorrow, Bye!”

She made it halfway to the door before she finished speaking. Me and Damien watched her leave, breaking into a full-on run before the door'd even closed. “That's been happening a lot lately,” he said.

“I hadn't noticed,” I said.

“Do you notice anything?

I shrugged. “Probably some family thing.”

My phone picked the wrong moment to sound out the Imperial march, putting the final coup-de grace between the eyes of what'd been mostly a decent afternoon.

“You too!”

I glanced at three-line screen, only needing to see where the message had come from to know it'd be a howler. A look at my watch confirmed it.

“The oulfella. I should've been at work an hour ago.”

“Shit,”

I borrowed one of Akiko's sayings. “Shikata Ga Nai.”

“Yeah. Shit happens.”

So it goes.  But for a crap start to the day, it hadn't turned out too bad, had it? Both of us stepped out into cold night air. A looming sky threatened rain in the morning, but for the time being it stayed dry. I'd get a bollocking from the oulfella when I got across town, but it felt like a fair price to pay.

Life's too short to miss out. I knew that too well.

“That's him!”

I turned my head towards the voice just in time to see the knife.

My Power pulled me out of the way.

--

The first time I got myself into a fight, the idea of accidentally hurting someone frightened me more than getting hurt. Funny that. Most people are like that at the start. It got scrappy in the way children's fights usually did. Neither of us really hit that hard. It ended in tears, not blood. We were both only ten.

The second time, a world away, half-starved and struggling to walk, I grabbed a hurley and cracked it hard over a man’s skull.  I hit him so hard his legs folded beneath him, dropping his body to the ground with pale pink blood trickling from his eyes and ears.

Both of us hungry. But I had rations.

The third time happened a week before the Christmas break, in Winslow. A group of ABB kids jumped me. The first time, they caught me by surprise. One the second try, fighting back earned me a knife to the gut. Third time around, my hands found a fire extinguisher, and I knew who had the blade.

There’d been others – the usual scraps and punch ups that happened when teenagers had something to prove. I could hold my own end and not be an easy target. I’d lived in the City long enough to learn my lessons.

I knew what to do.

“Damien. Stop,” I said, my voice turning cold.

He laughed “What? You think Gladly's around the corner?”

The expression on my face stopped him dead in the street.

“Two gangers. Asians.”

Adrenaline echoes thrummed in my veins, my heart clenching. I took hold of my Power, clenching my hands into fists, then turned and walked in the other direction.

Easiest way to win. Either one of the dickheads could’ve had a gun in the back pocket, and Samuel Colt Trumped many Powers.

“Hey man, how could you know that?”  Damien paced after me.

My mind’s eye saw the Knife again. It saw teeth. It saw eyes staring at me. It could still see the green of their t-shirts. Two of them, one with a blade, the other with a bat. With each pace, the pieces fell into place.

They'd been waiting.

My mind locked.

Motherfucker.

“How do you know?”

I didn't answer.

“How do you always know?”

I could hear footsteps, rushing up behind. I knew who owned them. Every muscle in my body stretched taut.

I looked at him. He looked behind, his jaw dropping wide.

“How?” he breathed.

I ran, pushing my legs, buying seconds for my power to latch into place. The universe folded inside out, twisting and wrenching itself around me, snapping mind and body back in the blink of an eye.

I stopped dead, Damien walking on a few more steps before turning to face me.

“Hey man, what is it?”

“We're about to be attacked.”

Now I knew. We didn’t have a choice. Adrenaline raced in my veins

He laughed. Again. “Get out!”

“Two Asians. Waiting for us.” I pointed to the alley.

He took a single, long breath, looking back over his shoulder to the alleyway. “Right.”

I had a Power. I could do it. I'd done it before. Maybe that's why. After so many months, a revenge attack?

“How do you always know this shit?” Damien asked me, again.

“Doesn't matter,” I said, through my teeth, hoping I wouldn't be heard. “We can't run. We have to fight.”

No other option. I tried to walk away, but they chased us. That proved it.  My fingers found a weapon in my pocket – an old Leatherman knockoff going rusty around the rivets. My sweaty palms fumbled on the metal grip, struggling to unfold it. The blade locked itself into place.

He stared at it.

“Surely. You can't be serious,”

“I am serious. And don't call me Shirley.”

Okay, that's just mandatory. Call me a moron, but bringing just my fist to a knife-fight seemed like a stupid thing to do. At least this gave me a chance. It made me feel better. Feel safer.

I had armour. I had a Power.

Damien sighed, resigning himself to it.

“Thanks mate,” I said, with a thin smile.

He snorted. “Fuck you man. If you get your dumb Irish ass kicked, I'll never pass math.”

I hugged the shopfronts on my left, remembering something I'd watched about Castles on Discovery Channel before it'd degenerated into inane reality TV.

On my side I had reach and strength. They had a blade and a baseball bat. I had a Power. I had a friend. My guts twisted themselves tight into a knot, every muscle in my body pulling to run away. They’d run us both down if I tried. I had to do this.  My fingers clenched tight on the grip-handle of the tool, skin blanching white.

I took one deep breath, letting the building adrenaline march me towards certain pain. I could take it. I could do it.

I glanced at Damien, his face glistening with nervous sweat. He seemed to grok my intent, stepping just ahead of me, both fists clenched. He'd get pasted if I got this wrong, but we could always try again.

I heard feet running.

I dived. We crashed into each other, my shoulder and fist burying themselves in someone's stomach. The shock of the impact numbed my fingers. Something bit at my wrist, before scraping off the armour in my jacket. My blade clattered free from my fingers as both of us rolled on the concrete. He grabbed. I puinched. Something caught me in the face and rang my bell for a moment

I scrambled to my feet while he clutched at his stomach, winded. My boot kicked his knife away, sending it skittering into the street.

Damien took a hard a hit to the chest with the baseball bat, knocking him to the floor, with his arms around his guts, panting.

I struggled for breath, a deep ache thrumming inside my arm. Nothing serious. It didn’t feel serious. My hand clenched into a fist. No pain, only a strange tightness. Still OK. No need for my Power.

The second stood a few meters away from me. He matched me in height, both of us standing eye to eye. I knew I had a few kilos on him. He stared at me through strands of sweat-slick hair, both hands gripped tight on the bat's handle, ready to strike out on my skull.

Or something. Baseball's not my thing, alright?

He glanced down at his friend, still struggling to his feet.  “Fuckers knew we were there, Dai.”

Dai managed to groan, still with his hand pressed on his stomach, a dark patch spreading around his fingers. He panted for air, raising his hand “Daijobou,” he managed to say, before dropping back down onto his face. He gasped for air, rolling onto his side.

His own knife must’ve got him somewhere in the scuffle.

I panted for breath, high on adrenaline. Every single bone in my body fizzed as I stood there, daring the one with the bat to make the first move. He stretched the bat towards me, aiming the tip of it at my head, telling me exactly what he planned.

My Power hummed, reminding me I still had the advantage

His eyes went wide, like he'd sat on a live sparkplug. Something slammed into him – causing him to step back. The bat dropped from his grip, cracking against the concrete of the path before bouncing back to knee-height. Both of us looked down to see a single arrow-bolt projecting from his chest – six inches of black carbon shaft topped with four white feathers.

“Cape...” he managed to slur as his eyes rolled up into the back of his head. His legs crumbled beneath him, his body dropping into a heap on the footpath.

“What?” I said.

Something clicked beside my ear, answering the question.

The thought to grab at it raced through my mind, chased by the idea that it might’ve been something far more dangerous than a switchblade.

Gun?

Common sense won. Slowly I turned, raising my hands. Something warm crawled along my arm, tickling under my jacket, running down to my shoulder.

Coming face to face with the Shiny End of a crossbow stood every hair in my body stand on end, especially when the person holding it hadn't been there a second ago.

Shadow Stalker.

Sophia. Standing there, looking up at me through a scowling Ayn Rand mask. Blocked patterns on her cloak absorbed the outline of her body, making it hard to tell where she stopped, and fabric began.

“Stand down,” she ordered.

Pro-tip. Don't argue with the point of a crossbow.

I stood there, staring down at her. “They attacked us,” I said, trying not to sound like a petulant kid. Would my Power work before the tranquilliser took hold? Could I grab it?

I think I could take her.  

Damien, still struggling for breath, took one look at me and shook his head. Don’t even think about it.

“I saw,” Shadow Stalker said, lowering the weapon. “Sit down against the wall and wait.”

The windowsill of a closed Pollo's gave me a comfortable place to sit and cool off as the adrenaline wound down. Damien shuffled in beside me, with his arm around his stomach.

“Hah. That was lucky,” he wheezed, rubbing at his gut. “That's why Brockton is the best.”

I looked at him, but didn't feel the need to say anything else. My whole body had begun to shiver. Sweat stickied up my gloves, my right arm still half numb and thrumming from whatever hit it. A girl with a purple skunk-stripe in her hair grabbed a snapshot with her phone from the other side of the street, before running.

Shadow Stalker zip tied each of the gangers with their arms behind their backs, not exactly being gentle about it either with a heavy stomp on the back to stretch their arms tight.

Dai struggled a little, earning a sigh and a bolt from a crossbow in the back for his trouble.

“Two gang members, ABB. Sycamore and Vale. Both have been tranquillized – one wounded. Two civilians - one wounded.”

She seemed to speak to herself, but I guessed her mask had some sort of intercom. I looked at Damien, still holding himself like his gutsa would spill if he let go.

“You alright?”

“She means you, dumbass. Your arm,”

He pointed a finger at it. A steady drip-drip flowed from the cuff, plashing in bright red spots on the concrete path. Three scarlet pools had formed, with another dribble running down my trouser leg. I held my arm in front of my face, watching the blood seep out from a split in the leather.

Something had grazed off the armour, slashed the jacket and nicked my arm deep enough to draw blood. Nothing serious. It didn't even hurt that much, not like the last time I'd been stabbed. I gripped it with my good hand, keeping the red in.

Shadow Stalker watched me.

“It's not that bad,” I said, trying to wave her off.

The Ayn Rand mask said nothing, turning away from me.

“Fine,” Damien shrugged. “Bleed to death why don't you. Getting me into a stupid fight like this.”

“It couldn't be helped,” I said, looking at him.

“We could've run away.”

I rapped a knuckle on my braces. “Not very far,”

“I don’t have to outrun them, just you.”

Alright, maybe some Americans do understand the concept of black humour after all. I gave him a wry smile and a dig in the shoulder.

“Then how would you pass maths?”

Both of us laughed, dry as a desert.

I sat there shivering, cold fingers crawling all over my body as I watched Shadow Stalker check both the gangers for weapons, cleaning them out. She found my multitool in the road. That metal face scowled at me and I grabbed for my power, just in case.

Bystanders snapped pictures. Probably tourists.

She marched over to me, boots stomping on concrete. I pushed myself to my feet, steadying myself with a hand on the steel shutter behind.

Shadow Stalker offered it to me on an open palm. My Power hummed in the back of my mind, reminding me I had a way out

“Take it,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Before Armsmaster sees it.”

I blinked. What? That’s completely out of character.

“Tanks...”   That’s how I tended to pronounce ‘thanks’.

My blood slick fingers grabbed it from her hand, snapping the blade shut before she accused me of drawing it on her. The mask scowled, offering no warning of what happened next.

She stepped back, turned away, and left me standing there bemused, holding a bloody knife in my hand.

Apparently I'd arrived in the weird alternate version of Worm where Sophia isn't a complete bitch who takes pleasure in fucking everyone over, just because she can.

Knowing better than to look a gift horse in the mouth, I stuffed the tool into my back pocket and tried not to smile at her as I sat back down.

Damien nudged me from behind. “Dude, I read online that she's supposed to be a complete hardass.”

I gave a quick shrug. “I amn't complaining.”

The full weight of the day hung from my shoulders while I sat there staring at my arm and the patterns my own blood had left on the palm. I gripped my arm tighter, trying to stem the flow a little.

My ears thrummed, like an engine running inside my head. My eyes closed for a moment.

“Hey man,” Damien nudged me. I looked up

Commander Riker of the Ultramarines chapter loomed in the traditional superhero power pose. The shock of his sudden teleportation left me open jawed, wondering how he’d managed it.

“What happened here?”

Damien got the jump on me. My mind just spun in neutral. “These two guys were waiting for us. They tried to jump us but we spotted them. It was self defense man,”

“You spotted them?”

“Ian did,”

Armsmaster looked at me. Son of a bitch. I charged up my best petulant teen glare and grabbed for the first answer I could think of.

“I was walking along. I saw them hide in the alley. I recognised them as Asians”

He took exactly half a heartbeat to consider.

“You're lying.”

I took none.

“No I amn't!”

I stood up, almost managing to get eye-to-eye with him. The benefit of being a big Irish bastard. My legs went to jelly, but I caught myself with my good hand. No falling over drunk for me.

His head moved, glancing down at my arm, then at me. He araise his arm, tapping a single finger on the side of his visor.

“This tells me otherwise. Care to start with the truth?”

An angry growl rose out of my throat while I rifled through the back of my mind for anything that didn't end in 'Your under arrest' or 'Interested in Joining?'

No. Not joining with you.

My Power flickered, threatening to die out, before finally lurching to life. The world crunched and slurred around me, more a drunken stagger in time than a neat step, before crashing back into place with a jolt that left my head spinning.

I looked around, trying to place myself in the conversation.

“Well...”

Something I'd overheard one of the black lads say at school. Don't talk to those boys in blue. They ain't gonna ever help you.

Good advice.

“I take the Second,”

“You mean the Fifth,” he said.“Which only applies in cases where the answer might incriminate you.”

Damien nudged my shoulder. “Dude, don't be a dick. You'll get us into trouble.”

Armsmaster's the dick.

“Listen to your friend. We can sort this out here, but if you insist, we can take it to the local police station.”

“I saw them in the alley,” I said.

“How?”

“I had a way of seeing them.”

“A way?”

I have a fucking Power you thick-headed dope, but I don't want to say that out loud. Because then, what little bit of a life I've managed to put together and start actually enjoying will get pulled apart by you and your circus of caped insanity.

Because Sophia will know. You will know. I'll get the Pitch. I'll get pushed into wearing a cape because I know it'll make my family's life so much easier and then, hey, I'm the one fighting Skitter and friends and I really, really don't like the taste of cockroaches.

Fuck that.

'Um...” My mouth goldfished before my mind crashed into gear. “I saw them,”

“We've established that,” he said through his teeth. “I want to know how, when you would have been walking down a street with no clear view through any window.”

I watched him, rocking back and forth, blurring out of focus. How much did I have to drink?  I tried to breath, swallowing a cluster of deep, gasping breaths to clear my head. It failed.

I looked up at him, opened my mouth.

My Power triggered on its own, the universe collapsing around me in a dizzying whirl of colour and….

Something I just couldn’t remember.

--

My head felt like an elephant had used it for a chair.

Laying back on the bed, I closed my eyes and waited, trying to block out the usual noise of a hospital emergency department.

“Could you not just let it go, Ian?”

My eyes shot open. The mammy had arrived by teleporter, standing beside my bed her face set into that professional, piercing scowl practiced by all Irish Mammies.

“What?”

“That bike's worth, what, four hundred dollars? The insurance on this alone is over two thousand. Is it really worth fighting?”

Money? She's more concerned with money? Caught on the hop, my mouth found a gear before my brain caught the look of pain on her face.

“How the fuck am I supposed to know they're not going to hurt me anyway?”

I stood up, staggered, then caught myself like a drunk,

“If you don't give them a reason to...” she stepped back and I see that shot of fear in her eyes.  I had a full head and shoulders on her in height. She breathed. “...your father was worried sick trying to call you and he still has to run the pub. Have you any idea what you're putting us though?”

Yeah. I do. I had the right of this.

“Ah for fuck's sake, leave it out. It's not my fault!”

“If it's not your fault, then why does it keep happening?”

“Because I'm in a shithole school in a shithole city on a shithole world!”

Silence. Only a few machines chirped. Yeah. I said it out loud. Someone mumbled a complaint

“But you don't have other children getting into fights... how many thousand of them are there now. And this is how many times?”

She got close to me. Almost close to tears. But I'm right. She cupped my hand in hers with the warmth only a mother could manage. I snatched it back. I'm right.

“They attacked me!”

I knew I'd lost when she just buried her face in the palm of her hands and shook her head slowly from side to side.. She'd never see it my way. I could probably have pretended to see it hers if I bothered my arse.

But I didn't.

I could've just used my Power to spare everyone the stress.

But I didn't.

Using my Power would be backing down.

“Let's just get you home.”

The cashier declined the debit card, so the bill found it's way towards inflating the family credit account. Outside, the night had gone stone cold, rain still threatening to roll in off the bay. I followed her across the car-park.

“My bike’s still at the arcade…”

“Get it tomorrow.”

I glared. She didn't even look at me.

A wood-panelled Buick LeSabre in Griswold Green awaited.

Everyone called it a heap of shit. I liked it. It had seats that just sort of absorbed your body and coddled, especially when the heater decided to work. The engine rumbled along far away in another world like something from an ocean liner while the suspension drifted along undisturbed by salt-eaten roads beneath.

Brockton rolled by the window, a vision into the Days of Pearly Spencer. As familiar as home now.  A month away from being washed away. My fingers drummed on the door.

Over a month away, I reminded myself. Still time to run. Maybe I'd get lucky. I already had an alternate universe version of Sophia. This time around, how about Leviathan takes out other city? I'd like that.

Fuck Boston. Or Philadelphia. Or Portland.

Both of us sat there in silence, neither wanting to risk the first word. I looked at her. She looked at me, then looked away.

That hurt.

My Power bristled at the back of my mind, impotent now to save me from this fuckup, but still desperate to do something, a child in the back seat of my brain constantly nagging.

Can I do something? Can I do something? Can I do something?

The cut on my arm throbbed.  Gripping my hand into a fist proved nothing permanent had been damaged. Even the stitches had been more uncomfortable, than painful.

A familiar apartment block loomed into view – squat and stump like compared to the older steel cages around it - thick concrete columns framing sheets of glass. An half-rusted Civil Defense sign over the parking garage told the world of the shelter beneath. Just thinking about it made my blood run deathly cold, an ice-rain chill trickling down my spine.

We pulled in to our assigned parking spot and she shut down the car's engine. It dieseled over before finally settling down, leaving us in silence.

I reached for the doorhandle.

Locked. Trapped.

She breathed, a long draw filling her chest, the way all Mammies do, just to let you know how much pain and suffering you're causing them, giving time to brace for the guilt trip.

“Why does this keep happening? Is something wrong?”

I saw the look of pain in her eyes. I heard the strain in her voice. I tried the doorhandle again.

“You're not leaving this car until I get an answer.”
 
The mammy sat there, still waiting.

I thought I could tell her about my Power. But in fifteen seconds?

“Well?”

“If I didn't stand up for myself, I'd just become a target,” I said. “This place isn't like home.”

“No. It isn't.”  She shook her head. “But, I'm worried about you. This fighting was never like you, Ian.”

And where have I heard that before? Maybe something in dead time, maybe not. She tried to grab my hand, I pulled it back.

“I have to stand up for myself.”

“And make yourself a bigger target?”

“No, just....”

The words escaped me. How the fuck did this work?

“What?” she pushed.

“I amn't the same person I was a year ago.”

Fucking Understatement. She softened slightly.

“I know. But, this is a dangerous city. If this keeps happening, eventually it's going to go too far.”

She didn’t get it.

“It wasn't my Fault!”

In such tight confines, my voice resonated of the windows. Her skin bleached white in front of me.  My power latched back into place.  Try again!

Back to the start, fifteen seconds earlier. I did what I should've done the first time. I looked her right in the eye and drew a long, deep breath.

“It's late. Can we talk about this tomorrow?”

“Alright. Tomorrow,”

With luck, once put on the long finger it'd get forgotten about.

--

Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting everything in a hard white light or black shadow. Green linoleum floors shimmered like shallow water, reflecting the light strips. Panels of concrete had been painted a clean white, then allowed to dirty. A sign on the wall pointed the way to the nearest staircase.

The lift had been closed for repairs again.

I followed the mammy up the concrete fire-stairs. Despite the argument in the car, she still waited to make sure I was OK. I wondered why, before remembering it hadn’t actually happened. Bitterness still simmered in the back of my mind.

She really didn’t get it.

My knees complained about the climb. My physio would complain about me working them so hard.

But I made it.

The mammy worked at the lock of a heavy firedoor. The number 47 in brass marked it as home. As close to home as I’d ever get.

The door’s hinges squeaked at complaint as the mammy pushed it open. I followed her in, pull the door shut behind it.

Archie had waited with as much patience as a black jack russel could manage. All the energy pent up during the day exploded out in an apoplexy of sound and joy

the little black Jack dog vibrating with apoplectic joy, trying to jump up and kiss, sniff and taste where I’d been all day.

The black nose found the bandages in my arm. The dog stopped, gazing up at me with brown eyes filled with absolute compassion. How dare someone hurt the feeder!

I rewarded his concern with a soothing ear-scratch.

The mammy busied herself in the kitchen, cleaning up the last of the night's cold dinner while I retreated to my fortress of solitude, accompanied by my trusty sidekick.

The door to my bedroom latched shut behind me. The dog scampered to the bed. I took a moment to gather myself exhaling a long breath before following him shedding my jacket and trousers, then boots, then disassembling the braces that kept my knees from fucking themselves while I walked.

A full-sized floor-to-ceiling window could've given me a commanding view of the city if we'd been higher than the fourth floor. Opposite, sat my bed with a stack of bookshelves above it. I had a desk-study with something that could've been called a mid-range computer four years ago and a wardrobe full of budget clothes.

Beside the PC, there were photographs of me, at a home I knew. My brother who I knew for a whole day before he drowned.. A class photo with nobody I recognised, but a uniform that I did. And dozen other frozen moments that'd never been mine but kept up the pretense.

They weren't the mother and father I grew up with. This wasn’t my family. I wasn’t their son.

But they were. And I was.  Familiar enough to be a cruel reminder. Or a comfort, depending on the day.

To their pictures, I’d added others of my own.

One with Armsmaster, and me wearing the ‘Rescue Harness’ I’d built to earn a plastic trophy that sat on my desk, and the money to buy the bike. One on the observation deck of a building I once watched dissolve live on television on a Tuesday afternoon in September, looking out over a different Manhattan. A couple, with Damien and Akiko doing the things friends did in Brockton bay. One with Madison Clemens, whom I think you know…

Real moments that I owned. I’d done that. I’d been there.

I felt something but for the life if me I couldn’t place it. It just sat there, pressing in my mind. I sprawled myself on my bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to tease my mind apart and get to the heart of it.

Archie settled up on the bed at my feet and started licking at my toes That dog pulled a smile to my lips, clearing my head for a moment.

I sat up, giving the dog a gentle scratch behind the ears. Alright. It's time to take a principled stand. I know I'll make some enemies with this, but I have to just outright say it. Cats suck. Cats look down on you. Dogs are awesome. Good Dogs are always glad to see you. And I know I've made mortal enemies, more than if I'd joined the Nine or shipped Sophie/Taylor....but I don't care.

A man has to have his principles.
 
A snort of a laugh earned me a puzzled look from the dog. My reflection in the window answered with a wry smile. It cleared the air and gave my mind a chance to breath.

The gears of plot and time had begun to mesh around me. The story began in a matter of days. In a house not too far away, Taylor worked on her costume. The Undersiders had knocked over a casino four weeks ago. Glory Girl had been battering Empire thugs. Paige McBee stood trial on CNN. Speculation simmered on  the wider web about when and where the next Endbringer would hit.

I knew all of it. I had it all worked out once.

I worked out all the little strands that led to a Bad End – the sort of stuff that frightened even the nightmares away and left me lying awake at night in a cold sweat. Make the wrong call and I'll be lucky if I die screaming.

Call me a coward if you want. You're not sitting here.

I couldn't avoid the end. I couldn't get off. But I could try enjoy the ride while it lasted. And make the best of what came after.

---

I hated public transport.

Mitching from school on a Friday morning to go grab my bike gave me a chance to suffer Brockton Bay's public transit for the first time in months while I caught up on what the Mill had been doing.

Akiko; Talk with Lisa at lunch.

Not Lisa Wilbourne. Lisa Banbridge - a girl who lived in Emma Barne's social orbit.

Me; Better you than me
 
Akiko; She scam someone I think. We can use

Something clicked.

Motherfucker.

I marked her in the schedule as taking Lisa's work, blocked out a day on our common calender when she couldn't work on anything else, then added some of her workload to my own, before offering the rest out to whomever was free.

Andy grabbed some of it for himself.

If you called Project Management an art, I could just about manage a few deviantart-worthy doodles in the corner of a napkin. That still put me ahead of the majority of kids out there when it came to running things.

In another life, I'd been an engineer, an apprentice of the Tao of Scotty. Now....

My phone chirped in my pocket.

Damo; Yo buddy still alive?

Me; No.

Damo; Cool. Ger Hero's Autograph.

Me; Line's too long.

Damo; Mayb u in hell?

I looked out the window.

Me; No. Not going to school yet

From Damo; Tell me about it. WA today >,<.

Me: Fuck no. Dodging that. See you lunchtime

Damo; Right man, lunch.

The bus stopped two blocks from where I'd parked the bike, leaving a short walk that took me past the spot where, last night, I'd been in a fight for my life. The footpath had been jetwashed clean of any blood. The Pollo's from the night before had filled with tourists.

I found the bike sitting as I'd left it, unmolested by anyone. It came to life with unusual enthusiasm, both of us sputtering off in a blue haze. I raced through the streets, taking the long route back to the school, enjoying the morning air.

Bet had changed me, I mused.

A sick part of my mind added 'for the better'. I had friends at school. I did things. I had motivation. Drive. Energy. Self-respect. How fucked up is it that?

The multiverse had a cruel sense of irony at the best of times.

So what? I had shit to do when I got there.

My phone buzzed in my pocket again. I pinned it against the handlebar with my clutch-hand. Few morons live long enough to master the are of Texting while riding a motorcycle. Few Morons have a Power that lets them rewind until before they hit the truck...

Damo; Assignment on Capes for WA. Easy

Me; SS and Defiant?

Damo; U mean Arsmaster, rite?

Oops. Too late to take it back.

Me; Sure.

Damo; Effects of capes on world

A red light gave me time to think.

Me; Shouldnt be hard.

An assignment with a five-word answer. “And then things got worse.”

Another message came through.

Akiko; Lisa Late. Makn me wait

Me; Be careful

Something felt wrong about this, a spark deep inside lighting a smouldering dread. I twisted the throttle, racing to the school. Honestly, I expected some sort of ambush, a screw job of some sort to stick Akiko in the frame to earn brownie points with the administration or some other fucked up plan.

It wouldn't be the first time.

Tearing into the schoolyard at near 50 would earn me an expulsion if anyone reported it. So what? If the Mill got blown open I'd be fucked anyway.

I rode around the back of the school, skidding to a halt outside the rear entrance. What I saw there stopped me cold.

Taylor. Standing just outside the doorway, looking at me, a dozen different colours and flavours of soft-drink dripped from her body. A trail of sticky liquid followed her, snaking back into the building.. Her long hair had matted down onto her shoulders in tangles. Her clothes clung tight to her body, showing just how lean she was.

Like a drowned cat.

“Ah for  fuck’s sake,” I managed to say. My Power fizzed at the edge of my mind, demanding to be triggered, just to keep me from realising it, to let me live the rest of the day without knowing.

Today's the day.

Gestation. Insinuation. Whichever one the fuck it'd been called. We'd crested the climb and the ride had begun. Leviathan. The Slaughterhouse. All of it started today, as inevitable as the sudden stop after a long fall.

She turned away, realising no help would come from me.

My Power fired.

Back to the start, Taylor Staring at me again. Maybe I could?

I couldn't.

Did I really want to be a part of all that? I'd had enough of this shit, thank you very much, without taking on the responsibility for the entire goddamned planet. What if I give her a lift home and she changes her mind or something?

The chain gets broken. Bad End

My Power fizzled, reminding of the night it’d been born, in the midst of all those possibilities for fucking reality up. It churned itself, pressing inside my skull, begging to be let out.

She turned away, realising no help would come from me.

My Power fired.

And if I don't, what then? Up until this moment, I could be any kid in the universe. I could've been bystander #4, or some random piece of background colour – something that didn't matter. Something that either died or lived or, most likely, had the brains to get out of the city before it all went to hell.

Taking Taylor home would mean joining the narrative, joining the story, stepping up on to the dance floor and becoming a part of it – fair game for everyone and everything and all those fucked up things that came with it.

Or just being a single tag on a page.
 
Again, Taylor turned away,

Again, I fired my Power.

I might've watched her a dozen times, each time coming to the realisation that no help would come. I saw it in her eyes. The guilt bit deeper each time around. Grinding me down. No matter how I felt, or what I thought about the future that wouldn’t be fixed anymore.

My Power betrayed me.

Even as I tried to talk myself out of it, it became inevitable. Just the two of us at the back of the school. Nobody watching. Nobody to jeer, or to pressurise. Nobody to laugh at Locker Girl or any of the other shit. Just me, her, and a decision to make.

Ultimately, something simpler than The Fate of the World made the decision - I just couldn't bring myself to be that much of a scumbag.

Nothing else mattered. None of her history or her future. Just how I felt right then.

It's easy to turn away in a crowd, but placed on the spot, on my own, with nobody to see but myself and her, I had no choice. This isn't a story with a narrative to protect. I'm here right now.

My Power fired one last time.

The world reset. Taylor looked at me. I spooled up the nerve, grabbing hold of reality. I knew what I could do. Nothing major. Nothing world shaking. But it'd make me feel better about myself.

“Hey Taylor!” I called out. “How're you getting home?”

She stopped. Officially, we had entered unknown territory.

“There's a bus,” she said through thin lips, caught off guard.

“Eh,” I nodded towards the pillion seat. “I can take you.”

Welp, I'm fucked.

--

[Black Aeronaut]

Sorry I haven't gotten around to reading this until now.

Dang. Some interesting stuff here. Fifteen second rewind ability, butterflies abound, Taylor's dead, and Hess isn't quite vile. Let's see where you go with this.

[Dartz]

Actually, now that I think about it, that scene could probably be chopped too and re-arranged to a later part.  Then expanded with two additional parts to actually bring the story to a point.

I think this basically cut the wrodcount in half. More than in half. To get to the same place

[Black Aeronaut]

Oh! Okay. Still rather interesting. Did I misread what you had up here earlier? I was kinda drowsy when I read through it.

[Dartz]

Taylor's not dead. It was offered as an example of how things could go wrong. But if it causes confusion it gets nuked.

[Black Aeronaut]

Ah, okay then.

So down the rabbit hole of unknown possibilities you go. That fifteen-second-rewind is going to be getting a LOT of use, I can tell.

[Dartz]

And More:

------------

Worm was a story. This was a World.

From day zero I knew, I had to be here for a reason. It sounds almost ridiculous – bordering on solipsism, but it made the most sense. It explained everything.

I am the external force to the system.

People do not simply wake up as their younger, pointy-bearded self without a bloody good reason. With the shit I knew and the whole train of coincidences that led to me here, through Leviathan to getting off the Amtrak in Brockton Bay.

There had to be a fucking reason for it, right? For something like this to happen.



Something, somewhere wanted me here. The only reason it could want me here with what I knew, was to save the world. It falls to me to right the wrongs and make the right shit happen when it needs to. I'm special. This is my reason for being here. It seemed logical. It made for a bloody handy crutch. Something to keep me going, in spite of this place.

I sat down, and worked at it. I worked out my own plan to save the world. – to do everything right first time.

I knew I'd forget things.

Not being a moron, I wrote it all down on my computer, straight off the top of my head. All the little details, the triggers, the dates, the pivotal moments. If you-know-who ever showed up, I'd even planned for that. I must've put down over a megabyte of notes – maybe more. Stuff I'd glanced at in WoG threads that'd never made it to fiction. Even a few fanfics came with a good ideas to write down and think about. Hours upon hours were poured in to plotting the right course, the right things to say or do, the right moment to give just that little nudge.

Because I couldn't afford to fuck this up.

Approach it as an engineering project, rather than a heroic one. Man, Materials, Method, Machine, Environment all done up in Herringbone diagram charting my own personal path to victory, all the little causes aiming towards each effect I wanted.

But Worm was a story. This was a World.

And a million words couldn’t compare to the breadth and depth of an entire planet.

Something came up on the news. An anniversary in Boston. Remember Damsel of Distress? A one-note character who served just to suffer at the hands of the Nine? Not in reality.

She killed a fucking honest to Christ Kaiju in Boston.

So try a new plan. A different idea? Maybe try the You Know Who route for protection?

A young, upcoming hero given the name Teastailí triggered with the ability to move between doorframes, brought in a rogue, amnesiac Case 53 named Cichoil. Na Fianna had already welcomed him with open arms.

I recognised the pattern.  My biggest asset stopped being an asset the moment I use it. After that, another nobody who just knows too much. One more nemesis to make a new hero look good.

I knew so little, because none of it mattered to the story of Taylor Hebert.

And what I had to do changed with everything I found out. What if I do this? What if I do that? Be careful, one slipup and the world ends. Try a new route. Same roadblock.

Or that one cape I didn’t think of.

Again.

Again.

Hammering my head against a brick wall. I know enough to know where I start. But what next? Try to befriend Taylor. Save her from the Locker. What now? What happens to the whole of the 20th century if someone trips Gavrilo Princip on his way to have a sandwich and stops some damn foolish thing in the Balkans?

How much inertia does history really have? Only time travellers know the truth for sure but I stared the question in the face. History is nothing but the unlikely sum of infinite coincidence, someone once said. I couldn't disagree. Reality is so unlikely.

Try again. What if I try this?

Watch it all fall apart. Again. The same problems – the same uncertainties. I stared at the future.

It all seemed so inevitable.

One more go.

Then shatter when the drive I had it all stored on hit the wall with a scream.

I staggered to my feet. Months of work and sleepless nightmares crash to a head. I feel the break, hot like capsule filled with liquid had broken in the back my head. The string I'd hung my sanity to finally snapped. I stood, dazed for a moment, like my mind missed a gear. My thoughts caught up.

I ran from the apartment in a haze of a panic. One thought rang clear.

I'm done here. More an impulse, than a solid phrase. It clanged around in the back of my mind. I'm leaving now. I took the lift to the top of the building, glaring at a scrawled swastika with the 14 words beneath it.

Another reminder. Another reason to go. Even if the fuckin eejit who drew it did it backwards.

If I'm lucky, maybe I'll finally wake from the nightmare.

The roof was cold. The autumn rain bit. I paced around on the gravel, shivering. I stepped up once. Then talked myself down. Again, I stepped up. I talked myself down. In the back of my mind, it whispered and whirled around, spoken almost by the people I knew more than myself.

He jumped. He killed himself. He just hit the ground. Why. He jumped. He's after committing suicide. He just killed himself.

I caught the intruders. Alarmed, I walked towards the door. It felt inevitable. Irresistible. I stopped, before pacing again.

My whole body wrung itself taught, trying to tear itself apart. In the back of my head, a pulse threatened to become a headache. The busy sound of city traffic rose up from below, calling. I stepped up to the parapet for the third time and looked over.

Fifteen stories. Straight down.

It'd take 2.1 seconds to hit the ground. Give-or-take. I could do the sums in my head.

Fuck me, I remember thinking.

Above, the sickly yellow cloud broke, the stars above watching me. For some broken reason, I found myself thinking about Taylor and the final line. We're all so small.

He just jumped. He's falling. He killed himself. He's dead. He ended his life. He fell. He's gone. I could hear everyone say it. I could see it through their eyes.

The void called and I answered. My feet moved. I felt the wind scream through my mind. Hard concrete rushed up to meet. Windows flashed by. I tumbled.

I looked up. I reached back for the parapet

I'm going to die.

It rang clear as a church bell.

I've just killed myself.

I really don't want to die.

I Panic. I Scream. I reach out to try grab anything. Nothing but thin air find my fingers. Because I know – even if I couldn't save the world – I could've saved myself. I could've made it through everything. I could've been okay.

If only I...

Bang.

It hits. Mid-thought, like lightning through the skull, shattering my mind and I see it as a train of cat-scan images, discrete slivers in 3 dimensions of something that dwarved time and space itself, making a full-on scream-through bombing run over the solar-system spalling shattered world-sized missiles off in glittering rain. One missile aims towards me, laser guided, zooming in like the last few seconds of a wartime missile-eye newscast and I could see myself looking up at the incoming hellfire like one of so many hapless feckers broadcast live to the world on CNN.

I know what's happening. I try to run. Too late.

Hey you, you poor dumb fuck, I choose you.

And then...

I'm back on the roof, stepping up to the parapet, feeling like I woke up from a nightmare. I stepped down, dazed and dizzy, my head ringing like a bell. Maybe I didn't...

My Power slammed home, alien energies bolting through my brain, filling my body and confirming everything I wished I didn't know. It didn't fade like a dream – it lingered like the worst nightmares, chiselled in the back of my mind.

I can still remember it.

Congratulations! You've just had your very own genuine Trigger Event.

Bet won without ever getting close to showing half of its worst. And Bet rewarded me with one final insult. It welcomed me as its own child in the most complete way imaginable. It did it just to spite me. The one in ten-thousand roll that came up just for me.

That's what you earn for being arrogant enough to think it's all about you being the one. I'm sorry if you were expecting a badass story, making deals for vials of awesome Power, or something deliciously disgusting. Like I said, I did it to myself.

Beaten, empty, exhausted, with nothing else to do, I stumbled back towards the lift. The same Swastika waited for me. A hot flash of anger and hard punch left a dent in the metal wall. I couldn't take it out on the universe, but I could annoy some Nazi somewhere.

I made it back to a cold and empty apartment.

The wreckage of the drive made its way to the bin, along with everything on it. The backups still lived on another drive.

The idea to try again came to the front. The newborn Power simmering in my mind warned of the consequences.

I looked at what I’d have to do, and realised why each and every attempt would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to be that much of a heartless scumbag – to make the hard, cold blooded choices.

My finger found the delete key

My Power brought it all back again, more to prove that it could, than anything.

I deleted it all for the second time. Erased. Gone. Overwritten with zeroes then formatted clean.

I had time.

Time to make a start on being okay.

Time to make a good few months, a good two years and do what I wanted, rather than getting to the end of it with a massive ball of stressful, terrified regrets Skitter-style.

I went to school. I made friends.

--

“Thanks,” Taylor said.

Both of us waited for different shoes to drop. After a few moments without mysterious fedora-wearing visitors or a terrible threesome to give chase, we both assumed we’d get away with it.

The world continued to turn.

I gave her the usual run-through I gave all passengers on how not to get us both killed by gimballing around corners, and how to communicate over the noise of the engine. I waited for her to squelch into place on the slab of a passenger seat before booting the engine back to life.

She gripped tight as the bike lurched, steadied herself, then clung-on to the tail.

That's all it took. Nobody stopped me. Nobody stopped her.

The pair of us passed out of the school gates, took a right turn, and left the pages of the story for something new.

The idea shot through me like a bullet, turning up the heat on the idea simmering at the back of my mind. Tonight, the girl on the back of my bike would don the Cape for the first time, go bug a dragon, meet some new friends and be back home in time for breakfast.

Or something like that.

A tap on my shoulder told me to take the next right.

A quick detour to avoid a bollicking from the cops caused her to tense, expecting the worst for a few minutes, before we turned back to the main streets.

Another left. Another right. Riding like I carried a statue of glass on the back.

Back on track, she relaxed. The future sat on my pillion seat. Try not to Crash. Try not to get her arrested. The weight of the world hung of the back of my bike, clinging to my every thought and action. Every twist of the throttle could turn an apocalypse into a total annihilation.

Both of us sat on edge.

My fingers blanched white.

Another tap, another left onto Lord Street then a short sharp jerk on the throttle, followed by two rapid pats.

Stop.

Outside an old house that I knew probably had one gammy step, and which looked a lot more comfortable than our apartment. Her costume sat in the coal chute, waiting for tonight.

She stepped off the bike, taking a moment to fix her hair and glasses.

“Thanks,”Taylor said.“But I won't join your group.”

“I don't remember asking,”

“That's what everyone like you wants,” she said. Bug powers or what, I couldn't escape the fact that those eyes seemed to bore through my mind, like she could read my soul. Her eyes just seemed that much bigger than they should’ve been.  “That's the only reason people like you help anyone.”

“And what's that?”

“Because there's something in it for you.”

She stood and stared, letting the accusation bed in. A little gratitude wouldn't go amiss, I mean, I did just potentially enter the fucking firing line for you.

I clenched my hand on the handlebar, grounding the thought to earth.

“Y'know, maybe I was just trying not to be a complete shitehawk.” It came out with far more of a snap then a I wanted, but I didn't care. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

“Maybe you should head back to school before they start looking for you,”

“They won't give two wet shites,” I shrugged. “Probably glad to be rid of me.”

“That's nothing to be proud of.”

My Power fizzled in the back of my mind, offering me a way out.

I took it, took a breath and felt her step off the back of the bike.

“Thanks,”Taylor said, again. “But I won't join your group.”

What could I say, when she's already made her mind up about me.

“The least I could do after yesterday, that's all,”

Let's go with that. Let's leave it at that.

Again, her eyes studied, staring through me. I stared back, daring her to disagree.

“I'll see you around, so,” I said, throttling the bike before she had a chance.

My effort gained me a stained pillion seat, sticky leathers, the knowledge that Taylor probably didn't like me anyway, and the afternoon off school.

So not a complete bloody waste.

Honestly, what could I have done to make that go better? Even with my Power, I can't really manipulate people – I just don't have the skill.. And what sort of sick fuck would I be to use what I knew about her to fuck with her head?

Who the fuck would do that, honestly?

Would you?

Maybe I could've gone all out, to make her like me, but honestly, that'd make me no better than fucking Emma. Just using private shite I know to really fuck with her.

Yeah. I'm done.

--

This is the point where normally we'd get some sort of an interlude or something spoken in Taylor's voice that gave the second part of the Rashomon puzzle and told what she made of the whole experience, and what disastrous little breezes have or haven't been whipped up by my butterfly wings.

I guess you'll just have to live in the same suspense I did.

She didn't like me. Well, it's not like I expected anyone to fall madly in love over one random act of kindness.

At least now, I wouldn't get dragged into the whirlwind. My conscience had been soothed. My few moments of interaction with the plot had ended. I'd added maybe a footnote to Chapter one and maybe a new name to the taglist.

If I even deserved one.

My phone chimed in my pocket, bringing me back to the real world

Damo: Wher u at?

Me: Lord Street

Damo: Whatre u doing there?

Me: Gave a friend a lift home

Damo: Weve Lisas stuff Its fuckin gonzo

Me: Really

Damo: mailed u Aki is all WTF

Me: Grand. Will grab it in library.

Damo: Tell Aki, she wants to talk

Me: This might be too much trouble.

Damo: Too late

Fuck.

Me: Will talk later when I see it.

It rang before I could put it back in my jacket pocket. Mam's number.

“Yeah, what do you want?”

“Ian, where are you?”

“At School?”

With surprisingly heavy traffic in the hallway.

“Then why did they call wondering where you are?”

Bollocks. I used my Power to turn my phone off before taking the call, rather than worry about dealing with that.

Why do I have to be the only student Winslow gives a shit about?

--

What started as a well-intentioned visit to the library to catch up on schoolwork in peace and quiet quickly devolved into a load of bollocksing around on the internet about North American capes and their tendency to appropriate cape-names from European mythology – and then complain and branding when EU capes dipped into the same well.

In another window, I had the rest of the Mill in chat with the final answer to the Lisa question.

Akiko; She has our next quiz.

Damo; Yep

Me: Shit.
Me; Did she say what she wanted with it?

Akiko; Told me to figure it out myself. I could take the deal or leave it.

Andy; What I want to know is how she got it?

Akiko: Not on netwrok

Andy; And if we can make money out of it.
Andy; Just cos I wont work for free.

Roberta; Not worth much?

Akiko; Not worth anything. Most people in class passing fine. Just us nerds.

So. What's her game? Why would she want to pass a class she didn't even take? Tattletale I amn't. I couldn't see the wood for the trees.

Me; Do we still want to work with her?
Me; Ive a veryu bad feeling about this.

Akiko;. Me too.
Akiko; But I really need Gym credit. And cheer will do it.

Andy; What happened to not wanting to work with her?

Akiko; I think I figured out how to handle her
Akiko; I walked away. Told her No. She threatened me.
Akiko;  I handled it.

Damo; Cool. Mind me asking how?

Akiko; Why?

Damo; Dont want to piss the entire cheer off.

Akiko; No No nothing like that. Just reminded her of some new facts she didnt know.

Damo; Im intrigued

Me; AOL!

Roberta; ?? AOL?

Me; Obscure meme, you wouldn't remember

Akiko; Ive changed in a year. Thats all.
Akiko;  I have this

Me; If you want to do it. But this feels wrongness

Stupid autocomplete.

Roberta; Your decision Akiko

Akiko: I will be careful.

Roberta: Good enough for me

Damo: Your call Aki.

Andy; Go for it.

That decided that.

Damo; Bells ringing here, time to go.

Me: Righto. Ill have everyones schedules before you get home.

Roberta: Member. Im busy Thursday.

They ran back to class. I sat back in my chair. Having a Power helped me become a sane and well-adjusted human being.

The thought brought a smile to my face as I wiled the last school hour away, browsing the list of traders at the Market today and what they sold. I found a new headlight,  a fresh set of contact points and two lightweight batteries – nothing that broke the bank, but useful nonetheless. All things that'd make the Honda a little bit happier.

All things that let me feel in control of my life again, like an adult.

I picked up my phone to give the trader a call, only to find I'd turned it off a few hours earlier. The phone took its time rebooting, with a half dozen voicemail messages waiting

All came from the same number. Bollocks. Back to being sixteen again. Biting the bullet, I called the Mammy. The phone didn't even ring once.

“Oh Jesus Ian, you're alright,”

Oops.

“Yeah, ran out of battery. Sorry”

“I was in the horrors trying to call you.” Just so I knew how much being so careless made her suffer. “God help me the school called and told me you never showed up and you left this morning and after last night I was almost ready to start calling the police have you any idea...”

It actually brought a guilty smile to my face.

“Mam, mam... I gave a friend a lift home. Some bullies doused her with minerals. I gave her a lift. That's all.

It had the virtue of being true. Except the friend part.

“You should've told me!”

“Yeah mam. I'll be going to the Market to find some bike parts before work.”

“Fine,” she sighed, making it clear again just how much extra suffering I'd caused. “Be back before six. Or your dinner will be in the dog.”

No matter what you do, an Irish mammy will always find a way to make you feel guilty for it.

------


The sun began to slip behind Captain's Hill, pulling a long shadow across the city. Only the tops of the tallest buildings were still picked out by the burning sunset. A metaphor for the world at large? Something about it seemed familiar, like I'd heard it before.

I parked around the back of a single story concrete building that’d optimistically been named the Brockton Bay Brewing Company– a ripping backfire through a rusted exhaust disturbing the beer garden. I had the key for the cellar door on my keyring. It'd begun life as a Cold War bomb shelter, even with both hands, lifting it open could be tricky. Getting several centimetres of steel to shut without losing fingers -even with the help of some gas-sprung assistance - was an art.

Creaking wooden stairs lead me down into a harshly lit bunker filled with steaming stainless steel machinery. I couldn't help but feel a little spark of pride seeing it all gleaming in there under flourescent light.

“I'm here!” I called out, dropping my jacket on an old wooden stool.

“I heard,” the oulfella answered from the bar. “You're ten minutes late,”

“Had to go around a gang war.”

“Again?”

“Up at Sycamore. The Empire's fighting the Asians again.”

“So long as it stays over there.”

I climbed up the concrete stairs into the bar proper, the low humm of conversation and the scent of cool beer enveloping me, mingled with polished pine and stale farts. At six on a Wednesday evening, only a few were sipping away on a quiet pint after work. Otherwise, the bar was mostly empty.

The decor mixed Irish and American in almost equal parts, a few of the usual ornaments of an Irish pub mingling with that warm, almost wooden-cabin feel that the best American bars offered. Memories of home hung on the walls along with the usual neon tat every local bar had to rely on to set the mood. Less Cape-stuff than everywhere else in the Bay, which some people appreciated. A pool table earned me easy money for a few months before people got wise.

The decorations from the annual Reinforcin' O' T'stereotypes had finally been taken down, save for one Leprechaun that'd hurl insults at people when given a 25 cent coin.  He sat at the end of the bar, handling tips.  A deerslayer shotgun and a box of cartridges lived beneath it in easy reach in case something happened.

Like I said, equal parts Irish and America.

The oulfella stood beside the taps, more focused on achieving 'The Perfect Pour' than the fact that I'd come up from the cellar.  While sober or not watching the rugby, he was the quiet man, shorter than me but somehow managing to seem bigger, starting to get a little bit on the overweight side and with the hair greying. Not quite over the hill, but getting closer to the top with every Day. He still wore a scar under his eye from a hurling accident when he'd been my age.

“There's a problem with one of the controllers and the system went into alarm If it's not fixed in an hour, we lose the whole brew.“

I'll bet you thought I served drinks. Yeah. No. That would be illegal, for a start.

“What sort of problem?”

“I don't know. It just shut down after giving a warning on one of the flowrates through the lower kieve. The system really needs better failure messages.”

He'd latched over into manager mode. That made me tech-support.

“I'm sorry it's not Aspentech,” I deadpanned.

“I didn't mean it like that,” he said, his tone softening as he looked at me for the first time. “Try fix it. Or at least get the beer moving. We lose a lot of money if you don't.”

I'll be honest, I loved doing this sort of thing. Problem solving. Not the silly sort of philosophical problems like saving a potential Hitler from the Titanic, but practical problems. I loved making shit work.

At the apparent age of fifteen, I designed and built the entire fucking control system for the microbrewery. Guess what? In another life, control systems and datalogging and renewable energies had been my profession.  It provided stainless steel proof that everything I knew had been real and that this had all really happened to me. It'd probably all be gone in a month's time....

That hit me like a brick. Take a deep breath.

I took ten minutes outside getting some evening air to clear my mind, sitting on the open cellar door. Everywhere else had closed down for the night, save for some of the other bar. A nightclub nearby vibrated the ground.

An airliner cruised overhead.

Beyond, the city lights washed out the majority of the stars, except for one brilliant point sailing high above. Not a shooting star or a space station, but something else.

A cold chill ran its fingers along my spine. I wondered if it watched me. I decided not to care.

I went back inside and fixed the problem – nothing more than a stuck valve asking for a system reset. No big deal. The beer must flow. Back upstairs to report my extreme success, I noticed Mr. Quinlan from Winslow had taken up his usual station propping up the bar.

The oulfella discussed the vagaries of the brewing process with a dockworker who dabbled in homebrew while Van Morrison played quietly on the stereo to provide background ambience.

All normal.

Until Two men entered. I felt the hair on the back of my neck bristle, recognising both of them immediately; Ryan and Armin. A pair of fucking white skinheads in red-lace boots and leather jackets, grinning like they owned the place. Armin, with a face like a gammon ham, threatened to burst from his black jacket. Ryan had his skin drawn taught across his bones, like he hadn’t eaten in a month, stubble extruding from his chin under pressure.

Fucking stereotype nazis.

“Hey! Hey! It's that time of the month,” Ryan announced. Everyone's eyes went to him as Armin took up lookout by the door.

My eyes immediately went to the shotgun.

One of these days, BAM! Right in the face. I'd have a few seconds to enjoy it just before stepping back, and all they'd ever know of it would be the stupid grin I was wearing.

Because I fucking hated Nazi's.

I hated the studded leather jackets they wore. I hated the Sig runes. I hated the Totenkopf tattoos that flashed up from under their sleeves. I hated their Fourteen Words and I hated how the oulfella just sighed and reached for the envelope he'd prepared earlier.

“A thousand dollars, all there,”

Ryan whipped it out of his hand, grinning like a farmer surveying some particularly fat livestock. I stood there like a boiler with a stuck safety valve, pressure building into the red.

“The Empire sends its thanks.”

The oulfella said nothing, just nodding submissively. Ryan looked at me.

“So, you're the boy who built that shiny stuff downstairs huh?  You some sort of tinker?”

Fuck. I felt myself step back. A footstep. Honestly, I didn't know. The idea of getting swallowed up by the Empire machinery sent an electric jolt of fear up my back. Yeah, I wouldn't go willingly, but that wouldn't stop them, would it? They'd just put the screws on people I might've cared about until I finally signed on the dotted line. And once they did that, they had me. Because nobody else would want anything to do with another fucking Nazi, would they?

That's how it worked. I might not be the sharpest, but I knew enough to know that giving them any idea of me having a power would end in a swastika-daubed hell for everyone.

So I said nothing. I just stared right through him, breathing through my nostrils.

“Kaiser said to look out for any tinkers, didn't he, Armin?”

“He did, Ryan. So, what's your power boy?”

His hand slipped inside his jacket, the threat implicit. Again, I thought about the shotgun. It seemed the fast way out.  The oulfella looked at me, fear in his eyes. Just like a year ago. The safety valve in my mind finally popped, and I knew exactly what I had to say.

“Yeah, I have a tinker power,” I said, forcing myself to breath. “It's a rare one too. It's called reading the fuckin' manuals and not being a gobshite.”

They both looked at each other, weighing that up. The whole bar went quiet. The oulfella shrank back, wringing both of his hands together. Yeah, that was exactly what he didn't want me to do. I didn't give a shit. If it went south, I could just undo it again. It'd hurt like hell, but I could do it. Let the steam out, but avoid the consequences. Come up with something smarter.

“I like you boy,” said Ryan, his grin broadening into something that almost savage. “That's why we ain't going to kick the shit out of you this time. C'mon Armin.”

“Right man, more cows to milk.”

The oulfella deflated audibly. I think the whole bar just let out the breath they'd been holding when the door closed behind them.

If they'd discovered my power, I'd've been fucked. Yet another reason not to get involved with anything, if I needed one. Chances were I wouldn't get the luxury of a group as 'pleasant' as the Undersiders if I did.

I glanced at the oulfella for a moment, before retreating downstairs to safety. Footsteps followed me

“Fighting in school is one thing. But for Christ's sakes Ian don't fuck with people who have guns.”

His voice rang of the walls, and I knew I'd hurt him bad. I'd frightened him, left him standing there powerless with the certain knowledge that I was about to get my head kicked in with nothing he could do about it.

“I just..... It's....”

I stepped back out of there rather than try explain it. Back up to the bar, right as the door closed and everyone was breathing their sigh of relief. I stood at the end of the bar, watching the oulfella stew, wanting to say something to me, but not wanting to do it in front of people.

He couldn't know I had a power.

He watched me, waiting for his chance, right up until someone asked him for another beer and it had to be pushed aside.

“I'm going home.” I said. “I have homework to finish,”

A cowardly white lie, but I didn’t care. He waved me off, more concerned with doing his job right than chasing after me to give me a howler. It'd be morning at least before I saw him again if I got out of there fast enough.

The Honda took four hard kicks before it finally fired up, spitting fire and rattling bones.

Still, riding back to the apartment through the 'bay gave peace. In a lot of ways, it wasn't that different from home.  Different gangs generated bomb threats that came with a little more destructive potential maybe, and the buildings downtown reached higher while the urban blight had a different cause, but both cities shared most of the same basic elements.

Gangs, drugs, a homeless problem and a good burger place that existed nowhere else.

One the worst of days, it mocked. On the best, it could almost be home.

Right now, it sat somewhere in between.

I thought it’d been a good day.

Aside from the Nazis.

---
The radio woke me up in the morning, painfully early. Is there anything more frustrating that forgetting to unset your alarm for the weekend?

You're listening to Marty in the Morning, Brockton Bay Radio Nova on Saturday morning and it's the top of the hour and time for the news.

This morning's headline. Landslide in California. Heavy rain in the Los Angeles valley triggers a mudslide. Dozens still missing. Emergency services and California National Guard responding. Parahuman teams en-route. More information as we get it.

The Dockworkers Association backing Mayor Christner's Project 2013 to rejuvenate the
Docks promising tax breaks and city support to any new businesses setting up shop in the new renovations.

Medhall Pharmaceuticals announces fifty jobs in an expansion of it's Brockton manufacturing facility, the news welcomed by the City Council. Chief Executive Max Anders affirmed his commitment to Brockton Bay's future in a public statement yesterday evening.

And now with Today's weather, Amy Wallis. And how does it look out there Amy?

Click. The radio went silent.

Oops.

What more can you say when you've just doomed the world?

Maybe I worried about nothing. Maybe I got the date wrong. Maybe a single random act of kindness just fucked the world. Maybe if I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and said 'Bloody Contessa' three times, the answer would appear. Or a path to something. How about a trade? Not for Power, or money or influence, but blissful ignorance.

Now what?

Fuck.

A morning shower cleared my head.  Maybe, in the last few months, I'd gotten stronger. Or something. I hope. I didn't spiral. I didn't crash. I stared it in the face and let myself understand. Grey eyes stared back at me through the mirror, framed by clammy strands of dark hair.

My fingers drummed on white porcelain. Only one idea came to mind.

“Easier said than done,” I said to myself.

A thump on the door snapped me out of it.

“Ian! Don't take all day in there.”

Back to the real world. The Mammy insisted.  Alright. Mam. I have a Power. I thought about it. Mam, I'm a Parahuman.  Hey, you'll never guess who got Powers...

They aren’t my real family and I still can't be that cruel to them.

Another hard thump shook the door. “I'm going to throw up!”

“You better hurry up,” the oulfella added, sounding more amused than concerned.

“Alright!”

I could go a couple of days without shaving. A quick axe-bath and a towel around the waist  saw me ready to face the world.

I slid the door open. A woman half my size shouldered me out of the way with enough force that I had to catch myself on the outside wall. The door slammed shut behind, biting at my heel

The sound of early morning prayers before the white porcelain altar filled the apartment. The oulfella looked at me over the top of his tea mug.

“Your cooking?”

He calmly set his mug on the table, placing his glasses on top of his copy of The Sun.“You might say that.” The sly expression on his face said far more than that.

One. Two. Three. Plink! The penny hit the floor so hard it bounced a caught me on the nose.

“FUCK!”

The dog barked an answer, before hiding under the table.

“Basically,” the oulfella said in a flat voice. I stood there watching the second head grow on his shoulder. “Well, we thought it was time we started looking to the future again,”      

My mouth outdragged a stalled brain. “Jesus Christ, in this town? With all the shit that's going to happen?”

How could anybody be so cruel to a child?

He looked through me, looking at another man and not a child. “It's time to move forward.   We thought about the future, when we had you and your brother.” He took a breath, placing his hands flat on the table. “We still want to try for that. Even here. Even knowing the risks.”

“Even if you knew it would happen again?” It hissed through my teeth

“We thought about it.” He smiled at me, then nodded, confirming the worst.“Even if I knew, I'd still want to try.”

A brick to the face would've been more welcome. My power sparked, leaving it all to deadtime, dumping my back outside the bathroom door with the mammy puking last night's dinner down the jacks and me standing there struggling to get a hold of myself.

They thought it all through. They didn’t know. I wouldn’t ruin it by telling them.

“Yes?” the oulfella said, placing his copy of The Sun on the table.

“Snapper?” I said.

“It was going to be a surprise.” He chuckled. “I'll have to talk with the bank during the week and maybe you might have to share a little of what you're earning, but it's about time.”

“Congratulations,”

What else could I say?  Of all the little things. That child deserved so much better than it'd ever get. The weight of the universe crushed until I thought my eyes would burst and my brains pop through my ears.

They didn't know. They wouldn't care if they did. They'd try anyway.

I needed space to think. With my braces snapped on beneath a pair of jeans, a cheap t-shirt that barely fit and a good pair of boots, I knew exactly where to find it.

“I'm going out,”

The Mammy didn't even look up at me from her bowl of cereal.

“Don't forget, physio appointment at 1.”

As if I could, having to wear those poxy braces all the time.

The world might’ve been doomed – but life carried on in the meantime.

--

A year ago, I wandered in a daze of disbelief as everything familiar disintegrated around me, replaced by cruel imitations and terrible reality. I stumbled through life, looking for something to hold on to, something to give me being here a purpose beyond Hah! Fuck You! You poor dumb fuck!

I found one.

That kept me going. It kept the aspidistra flying.

For a while.

Until I crash-landed.

At my lowest, face down in the dirt after the hardest of hard landings, I reached out. I found friends. I found a life.

When you get right down to it, I think that's the real difference between me and Taylor. Nobody kept me down. Nobody stopped me from crawling back out. People even offered a hand.

A shallow swell lapped at the pilings for the boardwalk as I stared out over the water. Behind me, the first of the evening neon flickered to life, some shops closing for the day, other bars still just opening. The day shift of tourists gave way to the night shift of clubbers.

In a months' time, it would all be gone. All of it washed away. Now, it vibrated with life. Tourists snapped photographs of Protectorate headquarters as it shone against the darkness, searchlights on the derrick illuminating the bottoms of the clouds.

Damien nudged me on the shoulder “Jesus man, don't look so serious.”

“Just thinking,” I said, folding my arms and leaning down onto the wooden railing.

“About what?” He propped himself up with his elbow, looking at me. His denim jacket hung open to reveal a gaudy Miss Militia t-shirt.

“It's all going away, eventually.” I said, staring out into the night. “Endbringers, end of the world. It'll all come to an end.”

A punch to the shoulder stung. “We come out for a drink on a Saturday and you have to be so goddamn morbid again.”

“Nah, Not morbid,” I said with smile. “Just a reminder to enjoy it while it lasts, because it's never going to come again.”

“Man. You need this more than I do.”

I swallowed a mouthful and it warmed my body to the core, spreading to my fingertips. Warm sake on on cool evening, watching the night roll in off the bay with friends, that sounds almost suspiciously like an ideal of heaven to me.

Time to be courageous. Time to trust my friends. Take a deep breath. My Power warmed itself up, acting as backstop to my fuckups, letting me know I could abort if I had to.

“I have a secret,” I said, before swallowing another mouthful of sake. “And it's a really fucked up one.”

Damien didn't miss a beat.“You secretly like Star Trek.”

“Fuck you! Everyone likes Star Trek.”

A hard knuckle to the shoulder made him wince.

“Ow.”

Akiko giggled.

The world may have been doomed, but I didn't want to be anywhere else.

I didn’t want it to go away.

--

The one thing nobody tells you about Leviathan is the sound. A thousand jet engines blowing through a thousand waterfalls all at once. The thunder, the screams, the collapse of a nearby building, even the sound of my own heartbeat in the dark sloshing through water rushing for the emergency door, all of it lost.

Even my mind washed away in a tidal wave of white noise.

Mindless. Thoughtless. Blank with Terror, a tide of pushing bodies carried me up the ramp against the force of rushing water, washing me up onto the kerb.

A gloved hand hauled me to my feet, drawing me to eye level with a black, visored mask. The hand pointed to the shelter's steel blast-door, a flood of water pushing it closed onto the crowd.

“Hold that door! Das ist Ein Befehl!”

His order rang in my mind as clear as a church bell on Sunday. So I did. I held it against the force of the water, locking my knees against a concrete kerb. I held the door long after the shelter flooded, drowning anyone still trapped inside in churning murk. I held until my knees buckled then gave out and still my mind screamed at me to swim back and hang on, despite the agony. The door slammed shut, breaking the spell, leaving me thrashing for something solid to hang onto as the current grabbed hold.

My world turned to pain, noise,shit, salt and aching cold. Tumbling, scrambling, screaming, gasping, drowning. Naked bloody pain and nothing else kept me awake, sucked feet first through a portal into darkness.

Something hard caught my jacket, pinning my body in place as the water rushed up over my face. Dead after three days, killed by Endbringer.

This is how I die.

Luck took over before this became a short story. My jacket tore. The current carried me through darkened corridors, bashing my body against furniture, doors and railings. Hard edges jabbed, punching the air from my lungs. A gasp for air found only bitter black water, burning my lungs. My body wretched, convulsing, puking, then gasping again.

My arm wrapped around a railing, hauling me over onto my back, cracking my skull off hard concrete stairs. Two clear breaths on my back gave me a flash of hope. Trying to stand up on two ruined legs stole it again.

Agony screamed, leaving me on my back. Black water boiled up, rising past my waist.  carrying shards of debris. Papers. Staplers. Photographs. A cape figurine. A body of a man, face down with his shirt and shoes missing.

That's me in a few minutes.

One single clear impulse filled my mind.

No. No way. I don't want to die. Not here. Not after three days. Not without even knowing why this happened. Why I'm here in a place with Endbringers and Capes and Bad Canary on the radio that, three days ago, had been nothing more than words on a page.

Stairs stretched away up to another landing.  If you want to know why this happened. If you want to see tomorrow morning. If you want to take just one more breath. That's what you have to do, if you want to live. Either grit your teeth and crawl, or drown.

I did.

Hand over fucking hand I did it, chased all the way by a rising tide, jamming ice-picks into my knees the entire way up. I crawled it, sick and screaming through four stories until the building hit an outcrop of bedrock and settled.

Over a year later, my legs still ached. They'd never be normal. But I survived.

The noise came back at night, rushing through the pipes in the building, filling the silence and flooding into my mind. The same terror echoed in my thoughts to the racing drumbeat of my heart.

In the darkness, hard edges on furniture mutating into concrete, the shine on the floor turning to liquid water, my skin soaked wet and cold. A glass of water from the kitchen tap didn't quench the pressure in my mind.

It crushed down, every muscle in my body pulling itself tight, screaming to run nowhere. My jaw clench, panting breaths hissing through my teeth. My fists crushed onto the kitchen table edge, grounding out the panic.

My body's charge drained away, leaving me standing with my head pulsing, Power running  at full throttle with nothing to do.

My breathing slowed as I took control, easing back down, feeling more like I'd run for my life, than run to the kitchen.

Energy faded away, leaving me standing sick and empty. Outside, a fire-engine's siren moaned through the street, pulling me back to Brockton Bay. It sounded so different from home.

I slumped onto a sofa.

Only a month to go before I went through it all again. That inexorable force of un-nature would roll in off the sea, and it'd destroy everything familiar all over again. Curling into a ball wouldn't make it go away. Nothing will make it go away. You might aswell try and stop a hurricane.

I could only leave.

And still lose everything I had. For the third time.

My phone buzzed on my desk, lighting the room up a flaming orange from the sceen. I felt a smile cross my  lips. Only one person would message me this late.

Akiko: “You awake?”

Me: “Weather,”

Akiko: “Me too ^_^;”

It was that kind of night out.

Me: ”Heavy isn’t it?”

Akiko; “Yeah,”
Akiko; “I’m tired.”

Me; “Me too”

Akiko; “Staying up?”

Me; “Until it stops.”

Both of us wanted to talk about the same thing, but neither of us wanted to be the first, just in case the other didn’t. The Leviathan sat in the room with us, rattling the windows with every gust of wind.

Misery loved company. I glanced back at my reflection in the window, being washed down by the rain. Another message buzzed in from Aki… my thumbs typed a quick response.

The wind drummed on the glass. The sound rolled around the room and I found myself feeling damp all over, looking up at the ceiling and expecting the water to cascade in once more.

I couldn’t go down into a shelter when it came back. I didn’t have to go down into a shelter.

I didn’t want to leave the city. I didn’t have to leave the city.

The idea came on strong. Still buzzing like a charged battery at 1am, with nothing better to do, I tried on my school project for the first time in months.

It took an hour to untangle the harness, rewind one of the cable spools and realise the batteries had drained themselves. Five month's neglect allowed spots of corrosion to sprout on the frame, dragline cables and relay box. The spool bearings still spun freely, as did the cable runners. Nothing had seized. Both batteries had been drained, one of the relayu  had stuck open and the latch on the storage compartment in the right 'blade'-rack had jammed.

All hard technology, built in a month at school. The battery-packs and van-der-waals clamps had been inspired by Hero, before being researched, analysed, sanitised, diluted then bottled up to be sold through Radioshack a decade after being invented. All the rest, you could build yourself if I gave you the plans.

I am no 'Fucking Tinker'. I am an Engineer. I cannot break the laws of physics, but I do  have the Power.

It felt good to wear it.

Powerful.

Heavy.

I stood infront of my bedroom window, legs apart in the traditional pose. A pair of boxes for carrying tools and equipment hung at my side, cantilevered off the harness on my back to sit level. Heavy springs stolen from an attic staircase creaked and squeaked as they kept it all some in some semblance of balance. I took hold of both triggers, trying the buttons with my fingers. Both of them had converted from old 1911 lowers, switches wired up to the grip-safety and trigger, adding another thumbswitch to act as a brake/rewind control, then welding on a brake lever from a bicycle to act as a quick release for whatever attached to where the slide and barrel normally sat. I tried the triggers, being answered by the 'ting' of relays latching behind my back. Both ammeters on my wrists twitched, before centering at zero. Voltmeters twitched before dropping to offscale-low.

A smile scrawled its way across my lips. Reflected in the glass, I saw who I could've been. Maybe if I hadn't read the story, if I'd been a real native, or just that little spark more reckless, I could've done it.
I should’ve done it sooner.

The dog stared at me, thinking, tail tic-tocking

“You think I'm a gobshite, right?”

He scratched himself. Basically, Yes. Maybe, I thought, swallowing a sick lump in my throat.

The dog turned and padded away, nuzzling himself through the bedroom door, I watched his tail disappear, his shadow lingering behind before the door creaked shut, leaving me alone with my own reflection.

Another message from Aki lit my phone up again, setting the reflection on fire. I glanced at it - time to go to bed.

The rain had eased off.

This is my life. It's messy. It's scrappy. It's fucked up and broken at times. But on some deep level below the spark of my Power and beginning of rationalisation it felt right.

My life here felt like something worth fighting for. Maybe I had gone mad. You're free to offer your own theory.

With over a month to go, three out of Four didn’t seem like bad odds.

--

My good deed on Friday earned me a note from the mammy, excusing me for the day, due to an obvious injury. The cut on my arm itched, even after the bandages had been replaced.

“Ani, Hunter, Sparky and Karen.” Andrew handed me a jump drive. “Also have stuff on it from Julia for Cho.”

I checked the running totals on my locker door. “Grand. We're ahead. That leaves Cho in the red.”

“I'll remind her she needs to actually do stuff for people too.” Andrew nudged me in the shoulder. “Look at that. What do you think Sophia's done to her now? Lighter torture?”

I looked over my shoulder. Taylor walked by, scorched and singed around the edges.

“That's fucked up,” I said, trying to hide the smile.

Everything would be okay.

“Unh. And the peckerwoods kicked the shit out of some someone up on the third floor on Friday afternoon – some debt thing. At least the Asians won't be dicking around for a while since Lung got nailed.”

I looked at him, remembering a painful lesson I'd gotten months before on American slang.  A pale scar cut between my lip and chin, reminding me of the time I thought 'Peckerwood' was somebody's name.

Pro-tip – it’s not.

“Nah. It just means his Lieutenants go buggo and try break him out. The cycle continues”

He put a finger to his lips. “Maybe Bakuda will blow up the school?”

I looked around. Paint peeled from walls. One of the tiles on the floor had cracked and lifted, revealing the concrete beneath. Metal cages shielded the lights overhead. Even the windows on ground level had been fitted with bars.

One of the posters opposite my locker, in five languages, advised Asian students who to go to for help when the ABB came knocking for tribute.

“Where else would they go for recruits?” I said.

“Good point. Catch you later?”

“Detention. Again. Remember?”

“Shit.”

“No sympathy for the devil,” I breathed.

“I’ll catch you later.”

With a few moments to myself in the crowd, I marked May 15th off on my calendar. A Sunday. Five weeks to go. Enough time to get cold feet again. Enough time to think it through. Time to be sure. Yeah, this is what I want to do. This is how I want to do it.

By rights, I should've started this months ago.

Sophia made her arrival with a bang, trying to catch me off guard with a fist to the door. It worked well enough to pull a smile across her lips, right up until my Power dropped her into deadtime.

“So, you're the one who runs this Mill thing?”

For a moment, she back-footed me, a little tense fizzle running through my body. Getting surprised in Winslow never meant anything good. One moment, bustling corridor, the next a dark-skinned girl half my size had filled my personal space completely.

In one heartbeat, my eyes tracked her from foot to eye. Her eyes really did have that predator intensity to them. I know 'Black Panther' has different connotations in the States than what I really mean – guess how I found that out too - but honestly, that's the first thought that came to mind. Hess had a cat-like leanness to her, the same intensity in her eyes, the same tension right before pouncing.

Right. Time to take control. I stepped back, consigning the last Fifteen seconds to deadtime. It made for just enough time to get myself into the right space for dealing with her.

I picked my moment. I tried to force myself to be cheerful. I'd worked sales before. This was no different.

“Morning,”

She blinked, caught off guard with her hand in the air, ready to knock the door shut. It took her less the a heartbeat to gather herself. Good. It kept us both on equal footing.

The flash of irritation in her eyes drew a thin grin to my lips.

“I want to know what you were doing with her.”

She hissed that word through her teeth.

“Who the fuck is Her?”

I already knew. But I wanted to make her to say it.

“Hebert.” Sophia leaned in towards me, trying to dominate my space.

I shrugged, consciously not looking at her. “I gave her a lift home.”

She folded her arms.

“You're trying to get her to join, aren't you?”

“I don't have time for this bollocks.” I said, slamming the door shut. “You know how we work. If you don't like it, that's not my problem.”

She leant back against the locker door, looking down at the floor in front of her, matching me.

“Maybe it's Akiko's,” she said, her voice quiet enough that I had to strain to hear her over the bustle of the corridor. “It'd be a shame if someone found out. That'd ruin her future.”

Fuck's sake.

“Somehow, I don't think Princeton will give two dry shites about a week's detention and a slap on the wrist.”

“But a juvie record?”

That caught my attention.

“What do you mean by that?”

She smiled at me. It wasn't a nice smile, more a smug, sneer than anything happy. “You're the smart one, you figure it out.”

Her eyes went to a poster on the noticeboard opposite my locker.

Sophia let the insinuation hang in the air as she turned and left. Bitch, I thought, clenching my fist. Sophia or one of her cronies touts to the authorities, accusing Akiko of being ABB. The story gets backed up by a helpful Ward named Shadow Stalker?  By the time the mess gets sorted out, if at all, her life would be ruined

I'd known her for six months. Akiko didn't get involved in things like that.

That set my mind.

--

Being a teenager is like spending your whole life in that moment in the party where everyone's on a buzz and having a good time and someone decides to say 'Hold my pint and watch this'.

You know it's stupid. But you can't help yourself.

The idea takes hold. It carries you along, and the next thing you know you wake up the next morning to a broken leg and a dozen text messages calling you a fucking moron for trying to jump a bicycle over the canal.

Not that I'd ever done that.

Adding a shard of Scion to the mix had the same effect as adding Red Bull to Vodka.

Beating Taylor to World Affairs meant a full-bore sprint across the school, down a flight of stairs, then back through the crowd bustling around their lockers getting ready. My Power carried me through the crowds, saving me from another broken leg, but not from the thrumming pain in my knees.

My own fault for doing exactly what my physio had told me not to do but it got me there in time to catch her coming down the corridor. She slipped through the crowd, keeping tight clutch on her backpack. A cackle of laughter from a group of girls snapped her head around, ready for the worst. It didn't come – the girls came from another year.

Now, don't take this the wrong way because I don't mean it like that at all, but she looked like prey. She broadcast that edge to the world, like a deer moving in long grass expecting the wolves to jump at any moment. Glancing, verifying, dodging, scanning for where the next attack might come from.

I stepped forward.

“Taylor. We need to talk.”

She stopped. Her eyes stared through me. My skin crawled. Maybe whatever lived on my skin crawled, all in the same direction.

“I hope you don't think I owe you anything for the ride on Friday,”

“No,” I said, forcing myself to smile, stepping in front of her. In hindsight, probably not the best way of forcing her attention.“We talked it through and decided to ask you to join.”

“Why?”

Option One. The usual pitch.

“Because you're pretty good.”

She took a breath.

“You're working with them.”

Just a flicker of anger around the word 'them'. A stress on her lips. Otherwise, Taylor kept her calm, her voice steady and even. No prizes for guessing who she meant. I’d done assignment’s with Emma Barnes name on them.

“We work with anyone.”

That's the rule.

She stepped forward. “And that's your problem.”

“I don't see how,”

“People like you are why people like Sophia, Emma and Madison are able to skate through school. So long as you don't understand that, we have nothing to talk about.”    

On the back foot, my mouth moved first. “You've got it wrong!”

Completely. Her expression darkened.

“No, I don't think....”

To hell with this. Bang. Gone to deadtime. I think I might've preferred the bugs than trying to argue with her. The world folded over itself, dumping me right back to the start.

“Why?” asked Taylor.

A little later than I wanted. Time to run with argument number two; Appeal to cooperation. Gathering my thoughts took a moment, damping down on the lingering simmer of anger.

“Humans are cooperative animals. We're better when we work together. It lets us cover our weaknesses.”

She stopped. Considering? I pushed.

“Like, I'm good at STEM things, but bad at US History or English,” I said, forcing a salesman's smile.“So we all trade the subjects we're good at, for ones we aren't.”

“You're all cheating together.” Her voice remained even, more a statement than an accusation.

“Collaborating,” I corrected.

“So how does she fit into it?”

Fuck. I saw the spiral coming. My Power recharged and I triggered it. Back to the start. Alright. If Sophia's the point of pain, why can't I turn that around?

“Why?” Taylor asked, again.

I took a breath.

“Because Sophia got in a strop after seeing me give you a lift yesterday and tried to tell me not to talk to you, because she thought I was asking you to join.”

This time, I had the advantage of telling the truth.

“That sounds pretty dumb.”

Was that a spark of amusement I saw in her eyes?

“Well, yeah. But I don't respond well to being being blackmailed.”

She seemed to listen. Her hands went to her jacket pockets. She took them out a moment later, then looked right through me.

“So. I do this, and she just makes it worse on me,” she said, her voice hardening just a little. “I'm the one who'll pay for it, for standing up to her.”

“That's a fair point.”   

My Power latched into place, reminding me that I could restart.

“Girls don't work like guys. You can't just oppose them,” she said.“And you can't just beat her half to death and hope to get out of it.”

Yeah, I carried a reputation. You put one arsehole in hospital. Her eyes went to the bandages around my arm, making the obvious conclusion.

“He came at me with a knife.”

I tried not to laugh, but my face betrayed me.

“What's so funny?”

Getting lectured by the queen of escalation herself on using too much force. Oh, she'll learn soon enough, sure she will.

“I panicked,” I diverted the question. “And I'll never live that down, will I?”

A genuine smile came to my lips.

“No,” she shook her head. She paused, seeming to realise something as the edges of her lips turned slightly up. “And No. I'm out. One thing I promised my dad I'd never do was cheat at school.”

A firm tone told me I had no chance of changing her mind.

“Alright,” I breathed, grasping at the back of my head. “Your call.”

Now, here's the part where I could've gone full arsehole. I could've been the person who said. I could've put on my best Thinker's Grin and oozed out the possibility that Sophia's only causing a problem because of Taylor herself or something to that effect. It might even have worked. I preferred the valiant defeat, with a little mutual respect, over being a complete shitehawk, but getting what I wanted.

Enough had been done to shut the voice in the back of my head up. The pressure eased. That's all the mattered.

The school bell rang, ordering us to class. Taylor ran at a steady jog. I followed with a limp, adjusting the brace on my leg to take more of the weight.

I followed her through the door, only a few seconds beh

“Taylor, Ian,” Gladly looked at us both with the closest thing that amounted to a stern glance he could ever manage. “Any later and I'd have you both written up for a tardy. Take a group.”

Only one remained with two spare seats. Taylor gave me a glance out the side of her eyes, almost accusing me of setting it up.

Honestly, No. Do I look that clever?

The whispers began, rising up from Madison's group.

“Ooh, maybe they were doing it?”

“Of course not, what could anybody see in a complete beanpole like her? He must be blind.”

Sophia gave me a glare that could strip lead paint. I smirked back at her. Greg's backpack snuck up and tripped me.

“See,” Julia giggled as I caught my fall on the desk.

My Power made sure that never happened.

Damo and Akiko waited at a table, with two spare seats. I sat first, slinging my backpack underneath. Taylor glanced at all three of us in turn, then around the room looking for alternatives.

Between Greg, Sparky and Julia – and us – she chose us.

No really, I didn't plan that at all. Do I look like Contessa?

Akiko and Damien looked to me for an explanation. I shrugged. It'd have to wait.

Damien placed a folder on his desk. “So, stuff we talked about last night. What've we got?”

“What a world without Capes would be like,” I said, placing a sheaf of handrwitten pages on the table. “ I did the AU history, so we could contrast.”

Basically, home. So I cheated. Sue me. I help run a cheating syndicate.

Akiko skimmed the bullet points. “This is Aleph.”

“Well, yeah, but without any influence from here,”I said. “Like that hurricane in New Orleans or the Japan earthquake. Or the technology differences.”

Taylor sat and listened, marking through her own papers, scratching with a pen.

“That nuclear accident would be a lot worse,” added Akiko, shifting like she sat on a thorn.     “Like I said yesterday, I looked at disaster management. We are better at handling crisis than they are...”

She offered a folder, filled with photographs from Japan. One of a blasted power plant reminded me where I came from.

“But that's not really a cape thing, is it?” asked Damien, leafing through a few of the pictures.

“Aleph does not have them. I think it is a Cape thing,” said Akiko, offering sheaves of printed notes. “Even without them. Powers work much better in disasters. Look at
Panacea?”

Bad example, I thought, with a cringe.

“Wouldn't you hate to be her?” said Damien  “Anyway I looked at Military, like how wars and weapons work.” He added photographs of predator drones, F-22's and other hardware long cancelled or mothballed on Bet. He had missiles. “They'd still have all their nuclear weapons and all their cold war stuff pointed at each other.”     

“And most of it still works,” I added. For a value of 'works'.

“They all go on about the attacks and capes and stuff, but they're the ones still one lazy operator away from global thermonuclear war. And they can't prepare for it because they don't think it's possible. At least we're aware of our threats so we can deal with them.”

Except for the big one, I didn't say. I glanced at Taylor, recalling everything. There sat the person responsible. Skitter. Weaver. Taylor. Khepri. She looked more like a librarian, than anything I'd read about. Last night, she rotted Lungs balls off.

Funny that. A little mouse of fear nipped in the back of my mind. Maybe this time, I'd ruined it all somehow. But, I reminded myself, I decided not to worry about that anymore.

“Law enforcement,” said Taylor, taking it as a cue to speak “With qualified capes handling some of the workload, real cops can train better, and be a lot more versatile .” Taylor offered a thick folder to the desk, easily doubling our pagecount. “I did more, on the tinkertech boom, fashion, cape celebrities.” She looked at myself, and Akiko. “And maybe immigration too.”

All annotated and supported by actual newspaper clippings pinned alongside each paragraph. She even went into detail about how Star Trek VIII differed in each timeline.

“This is good,” said Damien. He turned a page. His eyebrows raised. “Really good.”

She frowned. “I already said I won't join.”

Damien and Akiko looked to me for an explanation.

“Doesn't matter,” I tried to deflect it. “We need to get this yoke together.”

So now, turn it into something that'd win a bar of chocolate. Jump, puppies, jump!

We huddled. We hustled. We bounced ideas off each other. Taylor slipped into the group, rapidly finding her feet in a way that almost felt natural. She chipped in, she countered. We argued. We battered it all together into something truly mighty. We kept going long after we agreed everyone else would've given up.

Not for chocolate. Not for token treats like dogs, but to prove that we could fucking do it regardless. We'd do it with middle fingers raised. Any cabbage could do a shite job and call it a protest. It took real skill to show up the teacher and go places Gladly would never think of.

Maybe Taylor took it as her chance to show the terrible trio up along the way. A little nip in return for the hell they gave her.

When the time came, Greg stumbled and mumbled through his own presentation, before going off on a long tangent about various the differences in the Star Wars prequels and the differences in the origin of the force.

Madison made a better hash of the same presentation.

A quick game of Jan-Ken-Pon elected Taylor to be our unwilling representative. My Power helped me win quick. Hers didn't. She lost fair and square. Unfortunately.

The whispers began as Taylor stepped up.

“Oh they probably just stole ours anyway.” A girl named Shiori giggled.

Well, the fox smells her own hole.

“Quiet please,” said Gladly, his voice barely rising above the chorus.

Sophia simmered. The whispering continued, tickling at the edge of our hearing. Akiko looked at me, blaming me.

Taylor spoke. And kept speaking for a good two minutes longer than any other group had managed.

She stopped. She thanked everyone for listening. She sat down.

“Hasegawa, Hebert, Miller, Sullivan, that was....” Gladly began, stopping to go on a hunt for the right word. Fucking awesome, I didn't say. “...Comprehensive.”

That little flutter of embarrassment made it all worthwhile.

Next group. They took half the time to hit a quarter of the points.

Gladly, for all the fandom and the student body hated him, kept to his word. Really, we just wanted to make him spend his own money. Not like dogs begging for treats.

Not at all.

They have these things in America called Reese's Pieces that're like crack in orange packets. Don't try them unless you like selling your soul to a higher power for a little ball of peanut butter in a shell. All while being congratulated on a job well done.

What?

Quinlan wouldn't be as kind about us showing up late, so I left everyone getting theirs

“Ian,” Taylor's voice said, behind me.

“Yeah,” I stopped, waiting for her to catch up.

She stopped, less than a foot away from me. The scent of coconut shampoo tickled my nostrils, mingling with the unmistakeable ashy smell of singed hair.

Did I put too much bodyspray on this morning, I wondered? Where did that come from?

“I won't have anything to do with you assholes. The answer's No.” She stared right through me, almost making me believe it. “So leave me alone before I tell Gladly how you do it.”

Standing two doors way, Sophia's eyes went wide. I caught the plan immediately.

“Well, fuck you very much then!”

And I said it with a smile. Thanks.

I think.

--

My right knee throbbed, the pain following me to the school canteen. It crawled up the bone, pulsing with each step. Trying to walk straight-kneed numbed the worst of it, but not all.

Thanks, Leviathan. I could've done without the reminder, thank you.

It slowed me up getting to the queue. It hamstrung me, trying to cross the canteen floor.

He slapped his tray down beside be me.

“You actually asked Taylor to join?”

“Sophia saw me give her a lift yesterday and jumped to conclusions. I showed her I wouldn't be blackmailed.”

No big deal.

He took a breath, sitting back in “Man, you keep doing things like that you'll have problems.”

“You told me...”

“Yeah well,” he caught it. “You got to balance it. Some people you stand up to, just so everyone knows you're not a complete pushover.” He paused.“ But some people are just too dangerous to fuck with.”

“I can handle Sophia,” I said, before sipping from a carton of Froot Joose.

He gave me a dubious look, thinking about it as he twirled a spork in his 'mash potato'. “I don't know. She has something on the school. You got suspended for a month for self-defense. She got a slap on the wrist for the locker thing. And that was sickening. I could smell it on the second floor.”.

“I can handle her,” I said again. My Power rose in the back of my mind.

He took a breath – looking away for a moment. My mind’s hand clasped my Power tight, ready to make it all dissolve to dead time if it had to.

“Look, man,, so I'll say this. You can’t keep doing this shit,” He stared, right through me. “The only reason the ABB didn't retaliate over the guy you broke, is because he wasn't a full member yet.” He paused, just letting it sink in. “They would've fucking hurt you for a stunt like that.”    

I sat back, feeling a prickling unease crawl up my spine. My eyes glanced around.  Some of the gangs stood out – the ones who wanted you to know. The rest dissolved into a thousand bodies, trying to have what passed for a meal.

To the point where I started second guessing myself, even about some people I knew. Maybe?

“You've been here long enough to think you know it, but you really don't. Not yet. It took Aki' years to find her way.”

I couldn't disagree. I sat forward, resting my face in my hands for a moment, waiting for my head to clear.

“This place is fucked up,” I managed to say.

“Well, You keep picking fights with people it’ll fuck you up. You’ll end up lying in a pool of your own blood.”

That nearly happened to us both. I saw the worry in his eyes - probably that I’d drasg him down with me.

“I know Sophia.” I said, with as much assurance as I could muster. “I know what her thing is.”

He blinked. “What,”

I breathed, trying to suppress the Vulpine Grin that had to be common to anyone with a Power that let them know. “I figured it out last Thursday,”

“Fuck!” His hands slammed on the table, drawingevery set of eyes in

“Yeah,” I breathed, feeling just a little quiver of unease.

He leant right over, the both of us suddenly aware that everyone could hear. My Power begged me to imake it go away - to never happen. To never take the risk in the first place.

“You know what happens if people even talk about knowing that?” he hissed, skin turning white. “I mean, how?”  He took a moment to gather himself    “How’d you find out.”

My Power loomed in the back of my mind. I swallowed the fear and I told him the truth, pushing through it despite the pressure in the back of my mind.

“The same way, I knew if we tried to run away, those lads would’ve chased us.” He sat back, giving me space.”Or the fella I put in the hospital with the extinguisher - how I knew he had the knife….”

“What…”

I saw the look on his face and I had to stop. Fear. Like i’d grow a second head that would loom over the table and eat him whole.

At the last instant, I chickened out. I used my Power to undo the whole goddamned lot, leaving me still sitting there with that strange sense of lingering guilt an unease, and him looking through me with that same fear.

He blinked, again. “What,”

Fuck.

I should’ve followed through. My Power danced in the back of my mind, relieved it hadn’t been revealed. I hated it for it.

But I could also try again.

I gathed my thoughts, filling the silence.  “I can handle meself,,” I said, calmly. “I really can.”

That’s how I pronounced it, ‘Meself’.

He looked right through me, almost looking disappointed that I hadn’t figured it out. Another one doomed to die in a pool of their own blood “You think you can…”

My hand found a coin in my pocket, I turned.  Time to try again.

“Can I show you something?”

“Your knife?”

“Just give me a minute.” I held up my mand, feeling that  thrill of anxiety, my Power pulsing in time with my heart“You wanted to know how I always know,”

I showed him the coin - a shiny quarter dollar.

“Call it? Heads or tales.”

His mouth opened. His breath caught.

“Just trust me,””

“Alright,” he breathed, not looking convinced. “Heads,”

In the back of my mind, I realised I’d already gone too far. I couldn’t just wipe this away - without things being even worse.

I flipped the coin. Tails.

His arms folded. He didn’t look impressed.

On my second try, It came up heads.

He watched that coin come up heads or tails as he called it, time and time again. I must’ve hit thirteen straight calls. I think I made a total of twenty attempts, but I didn’t bother counting.

The penny dropped at thirteen. I watched the realisation wash across his face and let the coin hit the table, a rush of excitement racing up through me.

“That’s how I knew if we tried to run away, those lads would’ve chased us. Or the fella I put in the hospital with the extinguisher - how I knew he had the knife, because he stabbed me…. Or every other fight.”

I amn’t being a fucking moron mate.

“You’re…”  The words died in his mouth.

“Yeah.” I nodded “I’m one of the tomatoes.”

“Holy shit.” he breathed, settling back into his chair.

He looked at me. He looked at the ceiling. He looked around, as if he expected a

“Yeah,” I smirked.

“Holy shit,”  he said again.

“Yeah,” I said again. “Don’t tell anyone,” I added, with a chuckle in my throat.

Meanwhile, the cafeteria passed us by, completely oblivious.

--

The first time my phone rang, I ignored it. Both my hands were full trying to regenerate the Gramme filters. Yes, that Gramme. The filters formed part of the wastewater recovery and purification system, something the law required us to have.

The phone rang again, five minutes later. I glanced at it.

Akiko.

Why would she call me at work?

I caught it on the last ring.

“Yeah.”

“What did she say?”

If she could've grabbed me through the phone, she would've.

“Nothing much,” I tried to deflect it.

“What. Did. She. Say?”

Her voice pulled tight, a twinge of fear biting at my ear. I went with the truth, expecting an angry denial.

“She'd go to the cops and frame you for being in the ABB.”

Silence. The worst answer she could've given me. The pieces slipped into place and I knew without her telling me. I bet you're fucking smiling for figuring it out before me. You can even give me that golfclap, if it makes you feel better.

“I see,” she finally said, all the colour gone from her voice.

The phone line went dead. I stared down at the green screen, grasped my Power and triggered it, letting time fold back around me. Nothing else seemed appropriate.

“She told me she'd blow the entire Mill out of the water. So I called her bluff.”

“That's Okay.” I heard the relief. I heard the smile and it stabbed. “If she does that, She will make enemies.”

“Yeah. She's just blowing steam.”

“Fine. We'll talk to morrow. Ja ne,”

“Later”

Click. The phone went back into my pocket and I swallowed the urge to break something expensive.

I lied. Shoot me. I felt like a shitehawk for it. But I couldn't let her go through with telling that. I can't change it. I can't unlearn it. I can't forget. But I can let her live without ever having to tell me.

My best friend thinks I'm going to get hurt. My other friend has been a member of the fucking ABB all along. And I have five weeks to get ready before it all gets washed away anyway.

The oulfella noticed the expression on my face immediately.

“Bad news?”

“Just learned something about a friend of mine that I wish I didn't know.”

“Whatever it is, I'm sure it doesn't change who they are.”

I think he expected something else entirely - the usual teenage shite and not this.

“Yeah,” I breathed, not looking up at him. “It doesn't.”

It just meant a friend of mine could either get frozen in time, dissolved like the wicked witch, warped into grotesque fucking monster of a thing or worse at the whim of some mad yoke who's just been pissed off. But it didn't change who she was. Not at all.

That's not fucking right. How in the name of God did she end up in a gang? Someone like that?

“Well, get back to work. We're short for the week.”

Not now John, we gotta get on with this. It kept me from thinking about it. Not really. But I managed.


--


--------------------------


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■

♦Topic: My Friend Just came out to me
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay ► Help

BBThrowaway95 (Original Poster)
Posted on April 12, 2011:

Throwaway because I know how sensitive some people can be about these things.

A friend of mine came out to me today. Just seemed to force himself to say it out of nowhere. Like, Bam. I have a Power

It makes a lot of stuff make sense. I'd been thinking something was a little strange. He never really seems to get caught out by shit, dodging at the last minute or slipping out. I mean, there's things you just can't get out of I know but he always seemed to know it was coming.

How the fuck are you supposed to talk about shit like this?

That scares the shit out of me because he's always getting into fucking fights with people. Some guys snuck up on him at school and he put the one with a knife in hospital. The school just assumed he'd seen him draw it and called it self defense. A coupla nights ago someone tried to mug us on the street and he knew it before it happened. He drew a knife and managed to put one of them down before Shadow Stalker showered up and ended it.


On the one hand, it's kinda cool that I've met someone who has a power and on the other I'm sitting here wondering if he's been using it on my the entire time. There's something about it that feels a little skeevy, like I've been lied to the entire time I knew him.

I just want to know what the fuck do do. I don't want to see another friend getting in way over their heads making a bad decision. And I don't really want to loose a friendship either. But if I do nothing, it's only a matter of time before he gets caught by the wrong person and then it gets messy.  Either he goes to far too quick or one of the local heavy hitters takes an interest,

Any advice?

[Note from Judge:  Okay. Given the likely subject matter I'm placing all your posts in this thread on moderated for the time being. I know you mean well. It will just give me time to edit anything that might potentially out our young friend's identity and keep everyone safe.]


(Showing Page 1 of 1)
[INDENT]
► The Fake Kid Win
Replied on April 12, 2011:
One of Us! One of Us! One of Us!

We don't bite.

Let Him know he's welcome at Boards ► America ► Brockton Bay ► Teams ► W-ENE

► Laser Augment
Replied on April 12, 2011:
I'm going to assume you're probably a teenager. And if 'some guys' snuck up on you with a knife I can guess what school you go to too. You have my sympathies, kiddo.

He's placed a lot of trust in you by talking to you. He wouldn't do that if he thought you would do wrong by him. It sounds like you might even be the first person he's been able to work up the courage to talk to.

► Judge
Replied on April 12, 2011:
Sounds like your friend has a solid Thinker Power. Maybe precog?

Young people especially are vulnerable to being negatively influenced or used by others as their Powers emerge.

The best thing you can do, is tell him to go to the local PRT office were he can be assessed for suitability for the Wards, Or just meet people trained in giving guidance to young people in living with their powers, if he isn't interested in donning the cape. They can protect young Parahumans, even ones who don't want to join.  They provide Codenames. Records. Backup. Protection.

Even counselling if needs be.

It's the best deal out there.

[/INDENT]
End of Page. 1, [U]/U]

[Dartz]

--

The clock radio in my bedroom decided to tease me, waking me up with the same exact song I'd woken to on my very first day on Bet.

Bad Canary. Night Storm

Brockton Bay Radio Nova took up the 'Free Bird' cause with a vengeance.

A year later, I still enjoyed the song. By the time I finished my morning shower, the mammy had already gone to Arcadia. The oulfella had gone to the bar. I ate breakfast alone and basically went through all the usual steps that'd suggest an isolated, empty and unhappy home life to an outside observer.

I liked it. Less pretending. Less stress. It let me feel like something of an adult again, looking after myself. Even if I had to go to school, rather than do something useful. Wheelieing through rush-hour traffic in the morning would've been stupid dangerous for anyone else, but not for me.

I parked in my usual spot, chained to the usual rail, getting ready for a normal day. The little techniques for day-to-day survival came naturally. Small things, like doublechecking my surroundings for anyone watching before trying to take my helmet or riding gear off, or chaining the bike with my back to the wall.

I could've just fucked off and had a day of it, but I didn't. I faced Tuesday morning at Winslow High School head on. Just having the freedom to leave made choosing to stay easier.

My two biggest problems waited for my behind those iron-bar windows.

Sophia glared across the yard as I locked the bike up.

A shiver of anger rolled through my body. Did you read it yet?

Fuck’s sake. My Power gloated in the back of my mind - looming large, teasing me for not trusting it. A night’s sleep had dulled the pain of betrayal down to a dull fucking ache - but it still fucking hurt.

It stewed in the back of my mind, even if I had no idea what to actually say.

My locker waited for me. I gripped the lock on my locker door, pulling my head against the steel of the door, soaking the heat away. The parasite in my brain came off the boil.

Powers would be cool if I didn't know a thing about Powers.

My fingers drummed on the back of the metal.

Nobody online thought Damien’d done the wrong thing. Nobody online knew he’d outed me to fucking Shadow Stalker. Behind closed doors, the Protectorate machine would be cranking up. My life as it has been would come to a fucking end. My biological and cultural distinctiveness would be added to their own. My Powers would adapt to service them.

I would be assimilated.

I closed my eyes and opened the locker. A slow breath grounded the tension out. Whatever happened tomorrow - today still had to fucking happen. The sun would rise, the world would turn - it couldn’t be stopped. My eyes opened to find the expected melange of books, notepads, and lunchwrappers, crowned by a single pristine yellow post-it note.

It hadn’t been there on Friday. It hadn’t been slipped in through the vents. Either someone opened the door - or they didn’t need to.

Cold fingers crawled up my spin. I glanced back, first over my right shoulder, then my left. I grasped hold of my Power, reassuring myself

One just large enough to prove that someone had either opened the lock, or didn’t have to. It’d been written out, in rapid, scratched pen.

“Thinker 2. Tinker 1.

Meet me at the corner of Caldwell and Revere. Tomorrow. Midnight. Wear something that hides your identity.

You know who I am already.“

Fuck it anyway. My fingers crushed the paper, mushing it down into the bottom of my pocket. Fuck it all. My hand slammed the door shut.. It clattered hard like a lambeg drum, drawing a yelp from a girl walking behind me, bouncing back halfway open before I closed it again.

I marched through the corridors with a purpose, even if my brain hadn’t figured out what that purpose was.

-

I first met Madison on my third day in Brockton Bay. Her bright eyes and cheery smile still sent a thrill through my body, reminding of a summer mistake I couldn’t take back.

My breath caught in my throat, neon desire glowing inside, begging me to try again

Her dark hair shimmered as it cascaded over her shoulders, drawing my eyes down to a low cut red-t-shirt that led my gaze straight to the dark gulf between both breasts that’d been soft against my chest, then on to the full curves of her body, her hips stretching her jeans taught.

We both traded tight smiles - You remember that night too? I could still feel the ghost of her warmth in my arms.

Oh, and Emma Barnes was with her too. With rust-red hair, elegant clothes that had to be more expensive than what Madison wore, and a pus on her like her sharp nose had caught the faintest wiff of dog-shite in the air.

“Oh, it's you.”

I stood a head taller than her and she still tried to look down on me, another lust-filled insect beneath her contempt. She made a show of brushing her rust-coloured hair from her face.

“Where's Shadow Stalker?” I said, forcing eye contact.

My hands went to my pockets. Emma looked like I'd stabbed her with a live sparkplug. Madison gaped.

“How do you know that?”

Oops. My Power kept my secret. In my defence, she distracted me.

She opened with the same blister, words popping out of her mouth.

“Yeah, it's me. Where's Sophia?”

Emma sneered, “What does a thug like you want with her?”

That bit. My fist clenched and released.

“She has an assignment in with us.”

“She was here earlier,” Madison piped in with a bright smile filling her face. Emma stabbed her with a sharp look. “It's her vocational day today.”

At a guess, Ward bollocks, right? No problem.

I shot her a grin. “Thanks, Mads,”

Her giggle thrilled dragging up hot memories of summer and my first months in the Bay with her slim figure warm in my arms. We both drifted through it, sharing a smile, wondering if maybe, we said the right thing right now we could have that again in a racing heartbeat.

Her fingers grasped at the blue clips in her hair. I just had to….

Emma stewed, stepping in front of her friend, murdering the memory once and for all.

“Shouldn't you be somewhere?” she growled. “That isn't here.”

Right you are, princess. Down to business. No more reminders of the dumbest thing I ever did. Take a breath.

“If you see her,” I said, staring her down. “Tell her the answer's yes. Sophia'll know what I mean.”

Don't look at me like that. What choice do I have?

Confusion flickered across Emma's face for a single heartbeat before she caught herself. Appearances had to be kept up.

“Fine, whatever. Go away.” She prickled, spinning on her heel with a flick of her hair, throwing up the wall. Her royal highness can no longer tolerate your axe body spray.

Or the idea of being left out of the loop by her pet parahuman.

Right. That's that done. Sophia's note crumpled inside my pocket as I crossed the school. Aki'd gone to Knott's class. Taylor'd gone missing.

Sophia knew.

Armsmaster of Borg probably knew.

A letter would arrive. Or a summons to the principal’s office to be met by a sour-face Blackwell flanked by a pair of blank-face protectorate goons and a cheerful suit with a contract.

Fuck’s sake. Until then, life went on.

A hard slap to the back of the skull knocked me to the ground. I caught myself on my hands, panting. Adrenaline surged - expecting the worst. Laughter chased. A battered football landed point-first on the ground, before flopping to its side. My Power triggered.

I caught the football on the second try.

“Fucking Twice!?” My voice echoed in the corridor, pulling all eyes to me. The egg-shaped ball cannoned from my toe, tumbling through the air, clattering off a light before ricocheting to the ground in front of three people.

They still didn't have names that I knew.

It bounced into their leader's hands. I'd meant it to hit his grinning face.

The trio marched towards me. I stood my ground. They circled around. I stepped back. The crowds in the corridor watched, eager for another brawl.

“Just testing it wasn't a fluke the other day,” the leader said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Hey, Sully, right? You're sharp, could use someone like you.”

His hand right hand extended, my new best friend according the shining grin filling his round face, pink as a ham. The hair on my neck prickled. Hard eyes stared through me. My own hand went to my pocket.

“I don't do sport,”

A knuckle tap against the brace on my legs explained why.

“That's the beauty of it, Sully. The gym's got a beast of a physio, sponsored by Medhall.”

Paranoia bit deep into my back. They fucking knew. Somehow they knew. I stepped back. The noose tightened as all three stepped in, circling around. The grin broadened. My power snapped back to life.

His eyes dropped to the pocket where I held my multitool. My fingers worked the blade open, just in case. The air drew thick in around us, their bodies turning tense, pulsing with too many steroids. Behind the smile, I saw his mind work, his free hand clawed over his own pocket, ready to draw.

The other two probably did the same. I didn't dare break eye contact to check.

I get him. His friend gets me. My Power gives me the edge.

The smile remained. Savage, daring me to fight, to give them a reason. He made a show of leaning forward, to share some hidden secret, staying just far enough away to dodge if I took a swing.

My hand gripped tight, blood coming up to the boil. My Power pulsed in my ears, winding itself up.

“You're still kinda new here, so you probably don't know it yet. But this is the kinda city where being in with the right crowd can really open a lot of doors.” His voice oozed from his lips, slick as a salesman. That right hand still hung there, waiting for me to grasp. “Especially if you get in early.”

Just take the hand. Be friends. Join the team. Have a lot of fun being a part of something. Life gets easier when you stand together. And we all pull together, marching to the future. Become part of something bigger. See those slant-eyed fuck's over there? They're hurting your new mate Jimmy here, the same guy who helped you out last night. Here's a gun. Stop 'em.

Two words came to mind. My fingers clenched tight on the handle, ready to back them up. Drumbeats thrummed in my ears, drowning out the little voice of sanity that begged me to slip out of the noose.

The world beyond crushed down to nothing, the trio and me spotlighted on the stage. I had to act. I had to do something.

Two stood behind me, beyond arm's reach. A snap of a glance told me they had weight and size on their side, a year older than me at least a year. One with a broad face a heavy gut and sunken eyes – the same guy who'd won a spelling competition a few months back. The other, thinner, with bony cheeks. He had a hand in his pocket too. All three wore the same orange jersey.

Sponsored by Medhall.

“So, what do you say, brother?” His eye winked. His free hand hovered. His other held behind his back.

I'd be a fucking moron if some traitorous part of my mind didn't wonder if it'd make life easier for the bar. Heil a little. March a little. Pay lip service. Like going to Mass. You didn't have to give a fuck about God, just play along like the rest to keep up appearances, be part of the community, well respected in the village.

Get a nice Germanic cape name when Kaiser figured me out...Schroedinger or something. Sure, didn’t Hitler have an Irish cousin?

The bubble in my brain burst. Clarity crashed back. Five better words followed.

“I got shit to do.”

Nobody questioned it. Everybody saved face since everyone had shit to do. Two quick steps took me through a gap between them, walking away.

Just like that.

I tackled a problem like a sane and normal person, walked away, and felt bloody good about it too. My hand still clutched the tool in my pocket, in case they changed their minds. They talked as I Ieft.

“Told you the Mick wouldn't go for it.”

“Yeah, but you see what he did to that slope last year?”

So that's why. You break one scumbag's skull and nobody ever forgets.

Adrenaline drove my body along in high gear all the way to morning physics class, burning for action. A fourteen hour day stood between me and the traditional 'First Night Out'. My mind spun through ideas, sketching things out in my copybook when I should've been drawing up experiments.

A shadow loomed over.

I looked up to be assaulted by the image of the absent minded professor with the scraggling beard formed from tangled hair the colour of an Irish summer sky.

“What's this?”

“Electrical circuit,” I answered.

Just drop it. He picked it up instead, grabbing the notebook without even asking. Nope. You're just a fucking kid. Nothing more. I'll do what I goddamned want in here in my own little domain.

“And the calculations?” He pushed, skimming through them, sketches of circuit diagrams and ideas. He leafed through the numbers, a page or two of calculations scribbled and scratched out before I remembered how to do it right. Of all the people who might have an idea, who might call the police.

Then came the questions. Then came the offer. What the fuck do I have to be the one the administration of Winslow gives a bollocks about?

Why not someone who actually needs it?

He eyed me up, grey eyes looking down on me through thick spectacles. “Dwell time on an inductance as function of the capacitance, am I right? Cycle time? What's this supposed to be? A weapon?”

The engineers among you can guess what I'm doing.

Trying not to laugh, for a start.

“Trying to build something for my da's bar. It's a level sensor.”

I lied through my teeth and dared him to call me on it. I could see the thought go through his mind. Why so much voltage for a level sensor?

Don't worry, I had an answer for that. I had my Power. I had my way through.

The notepad dropped to my desk with a crack

“Well. At least try and give me the illusion of paying attention. And remember, unfortunately you're graded on your ability to remember this curriculum, not how to put any of this to any practical use in the real world.”

He concluded I wasn't worth the effort.

Thankfully.

Another morning class dragged itself out into hours, my mind screaming along with the accelerator pinned to the floor. No second thoughts. Not one step back. The elastic in my brain cut and all the pent up energy and tension snapped into action.

Nobody told me to stop. Nobody cared. Girls babbled. Greg talked at Julia about Star Trek The school walls greyed out. The world outside the barred windows rolled on, shining with colour.

Lunchtime arrived.

Nothing happened.

The note turned over in my fingers. Twelve hours until the cape went on and I couldn't think of anything else. It ballooned inside my skull, squeezing the world out.

Thinker 2. Tinker 1.

Fuck’s sake

I tried to sort my feelings out, but I couldn’t. Anger, frustration, excitement - a twinge of neon lust and a pang of betrayal warred inside me, crashing and crunching together into an emotional mulch

“Hey, man, what's up?” said Damo

If my mouth hadn’t been full of mystery meat I might’ve said something both of us regretted. I looked up at him, glaring back while I chewed. I fished the note from my pocket, put it on the table, and slid it over to him

“What?”

I swallowed. The mystery meat stuck in my throat for a second, demanding a second gulp before I could speak.

“That was in my locker this morning,” I said.

He picked it up. He unfurled it in his hands.. The colour drained from his face as he read it. He looked at me

“I’m fucked,”I said.

The words settled in the air between us. He looked at the note. He looked at me. I waited for him to say something, afraid of what I might say if the space between us didn’t get filled.

“Sorry man. I just wanted to help,”

The wrong thing. For the Right reasons. The weight of it settled on my shoulders. My life had already ended. I’d become a walking ghost.

“Mate, you just summed up a million words,”

He settled back into his chair, drawing a slow, uneasy breath. His eyes scanned the room around him, stopping at each table, and each little clique in turn. They ignored us as they usually did

“How’d they know?”

My Power squirmed, spinning in place with nothing to do. It couldn’t change what’d happened last night, no matter how much I wanted it to. It pressed on the inside of my skull, pulsing, begging for a chance.

It gave me the chance to tell him

“Sophia Hess is Shadow Stalker,”

Obviously. The tone of my voice cut deeper than I meant. The look of shock on his face passed in a moment

“Oh. Shit,” he breathed. He fucked up. He knew. It stabbed him right to the chest. That's all the mattered. Now move on and get the fuck over it. The benefit of being an adult stuck in a teenager's body – sometimes I could almost make a passable impression of being a sensible human being.

His head napped around, snatching at glance at Emma as she came through the doors, then back to me.

“She's calling you out?”

“I don't know,”I said, scratching at my lunch with a plastic spork. “I'll figure it out when I get there.”

Alright, and sometimes the impression fell apart.

“You're actually going?” He blinked. “It's probably a trap y'know.”

He stabbed a slab of mystery-'meet' with his spork to make the point.

“It probably is.” I gave a gallic shrug. Like those guys at Chernobyl, ordered to go flood the reactor with water. Either they went, and found it was still there and they had to fix it, or they were already fucking dead and didn’t know it yet and getting a face full of nuclear reactor wouldn’t change that.

“Yeah,” Damien continued.” She's a complete power-tripper. She'll pin you down as the new villain on the block just to prove she can.”

Yep.

“But I know her weakness.”

“Water?” he snorted.

“Electricity.” I grinned. “And I'm pretty good with the canned Thor.”

“It's still fucking retarded when she has the backing of an entire organisation of heroes and the rule of law behind her. Between the Nazi's, the Asians, the Merchants – the most dangerous gang in this city is still the cops y'know.”

“We have evidence.” I took a bite, hoping he'd drop it.

“The school had evidence.” he pushed, pointing a finger right at me.

A spark flickered in my mind. Finally, a reason, something good enough to justify to the rationalist weirdos out there. Hah! I have a reason for doing this. You can't disagree with it.

“She's a power tripper, right? She'll do what she has to do to force me into it. At least I can go on my terms rather than being bounced into it.”

Click. Another landmine realisation. Yep, you're fair game too y'know. She'll get to me through you. She'll do anything to you just to force me to fight.

I hated the look in his eyes. My Power had been right all along. Bloody idiot. My power crackled in the back of my mind, giggling to itself. Either I could go with the argument that shut him up and made him feel like shit, or I could get proved wrong.

Maybe? Maybe not? Maybe he needs to know anyway?

Fifteen seconds passed.

I ached to undo it, to make it go away. Sorry, too late. This ride's departed. Sit back. Enjoy. This happened because you wanted it to happen. My Power gloated at me. This is what happens when you ignore me. This is how bad it feels.

“Aki needs to know.,” he said.

Shit, I forgot about that.

I regretted everything.

I regretted telling Damien about my power. I regretted not telling him sooner. I regretted getting involved by picking Taylor up. I regretted not doing it sooner. I regretted jumping….

I couldn’t do anything about it
--

Dancing with the sausage creature through Brockton Bay's rush hour traffic blew off the stress of the day, my power keeping me one step ahead of the monster's mangled, moaning grasp.

Damien lived two streets over from Taylor - to the point where I passed her house on the way to his. I could’ve passed her home a dozen times and never noticed. The whole area had been built at the same time - a company town for the dockers financed by brazen new money long since spent.

Timber-framed houses styled like miniature second empire mansions lined streets with names Lord Street and Albert Square. The names on the signs glorified the guilded families who’d once owned half the city.

A hard century had taken the paint off most of the houses, and the rooves off some. A few had been boarded up.

Damien’s house stood behind a waist-high rusted chainlink fence on the corner between two streets. A formerly blue Pontiac sat where the lawn should’ve been, the sea air inexorably returning it to the earth from where it came. A plastic Saturn pickup waited in the drive, faded and cracked but still running.

I parked my bike behind a coal-bunker where it wouldn’t be seen from the road, chaining it to a water pipe. Akiko’s bicycle already waited, chained to a gas-main.

I could trust Aki, and wake up Asian. I could let her swing in the breeze and…. I couldn’t think of any reason why not. It seemed the logical thing to do - the cold-minded solution. Aki had joined the gang, of course she’d be loyal to it.

I choose to trust her - doing anything different just didn’t feel right. Better to hang together, than hang separately. At least I’d have company on the gallows.

My body ached to run. I sat back on the Honda’s saddle for a second, only to remind myself that I could still go anytime. I didn’t have to face them both with my terrible secret.

I chose to do it anyway.

I pushed the doorbell. It didn’t ring. I gave the timber door three sharp knocks with the plastic armour on my knuckles. Footsteps beyond counted down to my doom as they approached. My Power loomed again in my mind, reminding me I had the chance to take it back. It wound itself in knots in the back of my mind, begging me to trigger it

Three locks latched, counting down. The door hinged open with a horror-show creak

“Finally got released?” asked Damien, making a point to look behind me.

“Der Grammerfuehrer was late.”

“Aki’s in my room upstairs,”

The house had the smell of heat and moisture, iron radiators hissing, crackling and sizzling with raw heat. Timber floorboards creaked underfoot. Gaslights refitted with electric bulbs cast warm light on a century of family photographs on the varnished timber wall. A photo of his mam sat above a box of brass medals, and a framed, folded American flag.

We all had our own crosses, I guess.

I preferred the house to our apartment. The warmth of a true home enveloped like a blanket as I followed him up creaking timber stairs. Decades of feet had had worn the edges of each step smooth.

Damien’s room waited right at the top of the stairs, inside what used to be an attic. The door opened to the smell of feet, knockoff Tomahawk body spray and hot metal.

His bed lived against one timber partition wall, with its own dedicated radiator. A small desk was piled with schoolbooks, comics and sketchbooks. A dozen posters drawn from films that everyone but me knew had been pasted across the walls.

And old television sat in the corner, perched on a stack of hardback books. Cables trailed from it to an Atari. Akiko sat beside it, snuggled in a well worn beanbag, gazing down

“We’re ready,” said Damien.

He sat himself on the edge of his bed. I took a comfortable looking space on the floor close to the radiator to soak in the heat.

“So what is so important?” said Aki. Her eyes moved from Damien to me, looking for a reason why her afternoon had been interrupted.

For a moment, neither of us knew how to answer the question. My hand found a ten cent coin in my pocket. I rolled it between my fin

“Heads,” I said, and flicked the coin

I caught it in one hand and showed her. Heads.

“Is that it,”?

I gave her a wan smile, and made my second attempt. Then a third.

She saw me flip a coin ten times, and call the result each time. I watched her gaze morph from mildly annoyed, to an intense, staring curiosityt.

Well. Here goes. Aki stared, eyes begging for information

She smirked. “It is a dummy. A fake coin.”

Damien’s expression remain flat. She looked to me, still waiting for the punchline.

“No,” I shook my head. I took a breath to force down the lump in my throat. “I’ve a Power,” I told her. “My Power lets me succeed at things.”

Disbelief stared back at me. My mouth went dry.

“Usotsuki..” she whispered.

Silence. she stared. Around, the room shrunk back, retreating into the void beyond my mind. My power thrummed, throbbing in the back of my skull, begging to fire, begging for me to laugh it off as a joke

No. I want to tell them. I really do. Akiko needs to know.

Something inside burst, a hot liquid pop in the back of my neck that seeped down the inside of spine. Time ticked forward, past the point of no return. The pressure released, leaving my sitting, slack-jawed struggling to find the right words.

You're on your own now, mate. You didn't listen to me, now look. This is all your fault.

“No. I amn’t” I breathed.

Aki sat in her chair, looking like she'd taken a wet fish to the face.

What happens now? I wondered. No sympathy for the devil, I guess. At least I made my choice.

“How?” Aki breathed, leaning towards me “How did it happen?”

And I knew what she meant too. Dwelling pulled my head into that space again.

Falling.

Tumbling.

Accelerating.

Regretting.

Trigger.

The Power thrilled in the back of my mind, resonating in the instant. Cold fingers of death crawled over my body, room revolving around as my mind tumbled through the moment.

I caught myself. Yeah, I did that. No need for a long story. No need for the lead up. Just the simple facts, to save my own sanity.

“I got into a bad place. I jumped off a building. Halfway down I regretted it. My Power triggered.”

She inhaled through a half open mouth, placing her hands on her lap. Her fingers grasped.

“Fuck,” Damien spat, sending a shock through the room.“If I knew I shouldn't have let them talk me out of it.”

The grin he wore on his thin face ate shit for breakfast, dinner and tea.

I laughed. Damien laughed. Aki didn’t. She sat there, lips moving as she tried a few syllables on for size, but found nothing that fit.

“What?” I asked.

“That...... is that what it takes?”

I nodded. “It happens when you're just so fucked up, when you're panicking, you're trapped and you just can't find a way out, eventually it just breaks through and you trigger.”

“So....”She inhaled.“How is that even fair!” Her voice rang back off the walls as she jumped to her feet. The chair clattered over onto its side. I pulled myself up against the drawers. She stepped forward. “After all.... after everything and you get a Power and what happens to me?” she jabbed herself in the chest with her finger.“What makes you so different?”

Dumb. Fucking. Luck.

I used my Power to cheat her out of the truth. Again.

Again, she asked me what it took.

I looked away from her, at the bandages on my arm, still feeling the echo of the moment. “I don't know really.”

I couldn’t tell if I felt worse for lying, but I didn’t feel better. It sat like a rat heavy on my shoulders, gnawing at the back of neck, urging me to tell the truth anyway.

“What else?”

Of course she could read the moment.

My power returned, charging through my brain, reminding me I could end the moment anytime I wanted. Go back, try a different route maybe just leave it with a demonstration..

No - no going back. I just needed to figure out how to drop the next mountain on her.

Damien made the choice for me. “Shadow Stalker knows who he is,” he blurted out. He sucked on his lower lip “Because Sophia Hess is Shadow Stalker and she recognised a post I made last night.”

Something tickled the back of my skull, a sensation like hair crawling over my brain. Aki’s face looked for a moment like something had broken inside her, her eyes glassing over as her open mouth struggled to find the words to fill it. Her breath shook, her hands clawed in front of her.

She looked at me, she looked at Damien. She looked ready to burst out of her skin and scream.

The room grew pregnant, waiting for something to happen. We all looked at each other, hoping someone else would fill the silence.

“So na...” Aki slumped into her chair, energy draining from her body.

Job done.

She sat there processing, looking like her whole world had collapsed down around her.

I hated that look with every fibre in my body. My power triggered and the universe folded back over itself in an eye-blink.

“What else,” Akiko asked, again.

I let Damien explain, again.

Her reaction didn’t change.

My Power activated for a second time, letting me run through it once more, dangling the possibility of another way, another answer

On the third run through, I tried to speak. I failed to find any other words.

And on the fourth, the fifth and sixth.

Finally, I resigned myself to it, staring at my boots while everything played out exactly as it did the first time around. Except I didn’t look at her face. I didn’t look at anything. I let the moment pass staring at the floor while my Power spun its wheels in my brain.

A cold draught of air snapped me out of it, the night breeze pulling at the curtains. Aki's beanbag sat empty. A pair of french doors leading out onto the balcony, creaked in the breeze.

“Shit,” I snarled. A dreadful thought rang in my mind. I rolled to my feet, racing through the curtains after her. She already stood by the railing, looking out over the glittering city below, her body rigid with tension, arms locked supporting her against the metal.

“Hey wait!” I yelped.

Her body spasmed, her head snapping around to face me

“I...” she gasped. She looked out over the rail.“You thought I was going to!”

“Well...” I felt my cheeks flush.

In fairness, given the tone of the conversation....

“Thanks,” she gave me a warm smile.“Anyway.”

“Anyway?” I stepped forward.

“I just wanted to think,” she said, letting the rail take her body weight.“What could I do with a Power?”

I leaned back against the cold iron, feeling it soak the heat of the moment out of my back. I thought for a second

“And Power......” I stumbled over my own tongue, taking a moment to gather my thoughts. I looked up at her, not obviously listening to me. “A Power doesn't make the problem go away it just. It gets you out of the moment.” The words came to me a moment later.“ But It doesn't actually solve the problem.”

My thanks to the Word of God for that one. My Power hummed along, reminding me I could push it a little further.... maybe explain myself better. I had a way out if I fucked it up again.

It gave me the nerve to look her in the eye and say what I really meant.

“My Power saved me from the jump sure, but everything that brought me up to the roof – it didn't do a damn thing about it.” I looked down, pursing my lips for a moment, before feeling myself smile as the words came on their own. “The last six months helped me deal with that.”

A faint smile showed she'd grasped the implication. Never let anyone say I didn't mean it either. My Power kept my body from splattering on the concrete, but it didn't save my life.

“I...” She started. Her expression darkened into a frustrated scowl.“English is a poor language.”

I snorted. She smiled. Our eyes met. Something sparked in the moment. It died as she looked away over the city, leaving a vague emptiness behind. Nothing would happen.

“One day this city will wash away too. And we will be free again.” she said, staring into the night. “We have learned to swim.”

I wondered how she knew. Then I realised what she meant.

We'd both reached that parapet moment, herded to the point where we had no other option but to jump. We both had our one bad day. A Power beyond our own reached down, with an offer neither of us could refuse.

And we both had a price to pay our deal on Chickasaw mountain.

------------------------

I made it home just in time to meet the Mammy introducing Missus Freeman from upstairs to the very Irish concept of ‘The Notions.’ With the pair deep in conversation, I thought I could make it to the safety of my room

A bark from Archie ruined my chances.

Both pairs of eyes locked onto me.

“And what time is this?” The mammy’s voice cut. “Any longer and the dinner would’ve been in the dog.”

The dog, of course, looked up at me with his bright brown eyes. Of he course he’d betray me - I’d cost him a fancy meal.

I triggered my power, folding back in time to the moment before I opened the door. I’d a pack of M&M’s in my pocket - one or two would be enough to keep him quiet without making him sick.

My hand pushed the door open a second time. The Mammy and Missus Freeman continued their discussion on Notions and ‘The Crab Bucket’. A pair of sweets satisfied the dog, and I slipped into my room unnoticed.

I finished my dinner.

I finished my homework.

I finished my work at the bar as I normally did

I cashed out my Reno Online account.

I needed money. My power helped. So long as I kept it to a limit to fly under the radar, or got into a lobby with a good mix of Bingo players, I could get my own pocket money.

---

The school hustle swept me along to my first class of the morning, mind drifting elsewhere.

The mill cranked on, running on automatic. Assignments made it to where they needed to go. Payments were taken.

Life continued, oblivious to the future. I followed, unable to stop thinking about it.

It seemed ridiculous - to be carrying on the charade of a normal life when later that night, I’d be putting on a costume and heading out into the night.

Industrial Arts gave me a chance to tinker in the old fashioned way, getting up to my elbows in the classroom machinery, before heading into lunch smelling of machine oil and teen spirit.

My skin crawled as I turned a corner, touched by feeling that someone, somewhere watched. I stopped, my head snapping around. Nothing beyond the usual mill of teenagers pushing past each other, cliques huddling in their own corners. The Serengeti continued as usual.

Ever see those African nature documentaries where the solitary gazelle is standing in the grass. The camera sees the lion sneaking up, and the Gazelle smells the bastard sneaking up, but for the life of him he just can't see where the attack is about to come?

Somewhere upwind maybe?

My Power sparked into life, tingling at the tips of my fingers, ready to go, ready to fire, ready to give that little bit of an edge that made the difference.

You can fight, it assured.

I stood there, wound up and ready to spring, body burning for action.

Nothing happened.

Not a thing.

Fuck you Shadow Stalker and your fucking paranoia. The energy dumped through my first through someone's locker door. The haze cleared, my surroundings filtering into my mind.

Four Nazis. Five Asians. A thinning crowd in the corridor. My subconscious had just beaten my conscious mind to the realisation.

I raced on to the canteen, stabbed by a sudden pang of hunger. A few scavenged cartons of Froot Joose joined the school-issue meal. Compressed pea-fibre, breadcrumbs, chicken-skin shreddings, deep fried yellow-dyed flour sticks and 'brown sauce'.

Yum.

I took a seat at our corner table, opposite Akiko. She didn't even look up from her tray, hunching over it until every last stain of food had been removed.

We both shared that tendency. We both had the same teacher. She just took that lesson to its logical conclusion, doing what she had to do to get away from Sophia.

You can say 'Fuck the bitch' all you want. I couldn't. We're still friends, after all.

Damo dropped into the seat beside me, slapping his tray onto the table. The other two had decided to eat out somewhere or something leaving it up to us three. A finger of chicken rolled free, bouncing on the floor before settling against the wall.

Aki' watched it roll, waiting for him to pick it up.

She frowned as he stabbed another with his fork instead. “Mouttai nai”

“Five second rule,” he shrugged, swallowing the next finger whole. He shuddered as it oozed down his throat. Hunger proved a better sauce than Frank's.

I looked at her with a smirk on my lips. Don't worry, he'll learn soon enough. Four weeks to go. She scratched at her neck for a second, settling herself back into her chair

“So Ieba,” She began. “I had a thought last night.”

Aki pulled a single jump drive from her pocket, placing it on the table in front of her.

“Just one?” Damien poked.

She scowled at him, flashing a middle finger. He smirked, chomping a spork full of chips. Somehow, it felt just a little hollow.

After a few moments, her smirk returned. “Maybe we don’t need to out-fight Shadow Stalker.”

--


I had a shopping list – capacitors, coils, contactor blocks, and some cable, among other things. In another world, Homeland Security hellfire drones would be winging their way to my neighbour's house as I searched. In Brockton Bay, you could buy anything at the Market without even raising so much as an eyebrow.

This world might be worth saving after all.

Someone explain to me how the world with Endbringers, Parahumans, Murderhobos Ashbeasts and Sleeper could, in some bent and fucked up way, seem more rational and less insane than mine.

“It's right back this way,” Aki beckoned us through the crowds, snapping me out of it.

“You sure this is OK?” Damien looked at the group of men standing beside one of the stalls selling katsu curry chicken and ramen. My mouth watered at the scent. It took me a few moments longer to spot their shirts.

Even in the market, the gangs lurked.

They eyeballed all three of us as we walked pass. My skin prickled.

“My Father knew Mister Ishimori in Nagasaki. He ran an electronics shop. I'll speak for you.”

Aki led on. It's OK. I won't betray you. The idea simmered in the back of my mind, my hand never far from my tool.

My multitool you feckless rogues.

Okay, I'll admit I did have a bit of a thing for the denim skirt and zettai ryouki look she had going, especially with the black jacket hanging open to a taught green t-shirt.

She led us to a stand under a green awning.

“This is a bad idea...” he said, into my ear. “You know....”

“Yeah. I figured it out.”

He seemed to relax.

“Besides. We've an advantage,” I added, with a smirk

His hand clutched tight around a new tazer in his pocket. Thanks for the vote of confidence.

Aki led us to a stand built around a dozen plastic bins filled with meticulously ordered electronic components. Not just capacitors, but whole phone PCB's, screens, batteries, chargers – a real Tinker's paradise.

Behind, a short, man in round shape, with bowl-cut black-hair and square-lensed glasses waited, the edge of his lips curling up.

So, definitely not going to overcharge me then.

“I will talk,” aid Aki, stepping in front.

It's one thing to hear her speak with the softest hint of a Japanese accent in English, but an entirely different thing altogether to hear her go full bore in her native language. Her voice threw off the shackles of an imposed tongue, mutating her into a new person. Stronger, harder, more direct, speaking her true mind.

“Holy shit,” said Damien, under his breath.

I thought the same, but not in so many words.

Aki stopped. The stall owner gazed at me, reading my mind. I met his gaze.

He gave me one and two fingers instead.

“Sen Ni-hyaku dollar.”

He answered in Japanese to keep me from arguing, and I knew it. His pronunciation of 'dollar' proved it. Guess he expected an ordinary American, unaware that a world existed beyond the two shining seas, and not a recovering weaboo who picked holiday destinations solely because his favourite anime had been set there. Aki opened her mouth to translate. I cut her off.

“Sen Dollar...”

They were the first numbers I thought of. I think it was a flat thousand. The look of surprise on his face made it worth the effort. Yeah, I understood you.

“Sen Hyaku.”

“Deal.”

I offered a handshake. He sucked a breath through his teeth. My hand pulled my wallet from my pocket. Damien's eyes saucered as I counted out the money.

Yeah.

For my troubles I became the proud owner of a duct-tape-wrapped box of potentially stolen electronics. A late night's work could turn it into something....useful.

Damien watched me slip my wallet back into my jeans pocket, his hand still resting on the bulge in his jacket. He didn't ask the question. I didn't answer it either.

Akiko bubbled her thanks to the stall owner, earning a warm thanks in return.

“So, half price, like I promise.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Anything for a friend.” She said it with a smile.

Paranoia bit deep in the pit of my stomach. Maybe she had another motive? I forced myself to trust her – against my better judgement, or against the whining of my backseat passenger, I'll leave that up to you.

Aki dived deep into bins of old computer parts, scavenging. Damien pecked at the pirate video nasties, lifting them from their racks, before slipping them back into place. I itched to go home and get working, my palms prickling with sweat.

Slow, deep breaths cooled my head. It didn't stop me from fidgeting when we found a spare park bench to sit and eat dinner. For the first time in months, I found it hard to eat.

“For once you aren't hungry.?

“It's six hours to my first cape-fight against an experienced ward.”

Some encouragement would've been nice.

“You don't trust my plan?”

Sorry, Aki.

“I don't trust any plan that involves me being the only one risking my bollocks.”

And I amn't about to jinx it by telling you what it is, either.

Damien chuckled. “My dad served as a REMF in 'nam. It's the family tradition.”

“The fuck is a REMF?”

“A rear echelon motherfucker,” he answered.“Smart enough to keep around on base while the grunts go out in the shit.”

“Someone has to run the server,” said Akiko.

“And the other two have shit to do.” I groused.

“Dude, you got the Power,” he said. “Besides, if she beats your ass, she won't have any reason to bother us anymore. That's why you're doing this, remember?”

Hoisted by my own petard. Fuck sake.

“This whole situation's fucked up.”

“Not my fault.”

“Nobody's fault,” I said. Technically mine for not telling Hess to fuck off, but so it goes. Technically his for blowing my cover, but so it goes. Nothing could change what happened now.

Damien's gaze accused. “We got no choice but to stick together,” he said.

Nobody said much after that. Reality bit down hard.

Steel coloured clouds hung overhead, pressing us down. Only Akiko really ate, but even she just picked at things. A bite here, a bite there, but nothing more. Half a box of chicken went into nearest bin, food for the homeless or the seagulls.

We walked together to the bus, kicking at stones and cans.

The spark had gone, Damien said it. The silence proved it. Not today, not tomorrow but soon enough. We'd fall apart, going our separate ways over time until eventually, without realising it, we'd stopped being friends and just become people we used to know. Or I got burned, birdcaged or broken by the PRT PR department.

Fuck. I kicked a stone into the road, bouncing it off someone's parked Buick.

“It might've been easier if I hadn't told anyone.”

They both looked at me. Aki shrugged.

“You want to know what?” said Damien, sitting on the bustop bench supporting himself with his elbows on his knees. He looked down at the tarmac before looking up at me. “You know what I thought when you told me?”

I pushed forward, looking out into the street, rather than right at him. “I'm scared to know.”

My Power rose to the surface. I made it wait.

“I thought, if I had Powers, at least I know I'd have a certain job. Isn't that weird?”

Aki watched, leant against the bus-stop with her legs crossed, making a show of obviously not listening, just as I obviously didn't appreciate how cute she could be in a denim miniskirt with thigh-hugging dark tights.

“Well...” pushed Damien.

“I think you just made the best argument ever for joining the Protectorate,” I said, with a shrug.

“So why have you not done that yet?”

“It'd be a job for life sure, but.........”

The laughter started. What I’m about to say. What I’m about to do. Fighting Wards and Endbringers. A job for life, sure.

“What's so funny,” she asked.

“Nothing, really.”

Well. Maybe not entirely poisoned.

I'd end up a Ward, probably. But I'd go kicking and screaming the whole way in.

--


My bedroom stank of hot electronics, sweaty teenager, wet dog and cold stew.

I sat on my bed, all fingers and thumbs trying to get the last few cable connections to mate. Wiring things up to work on a bench, that’s easy. Wiring things to work as part of clothing that has to be taken on, taken off, and tolerate being bounced around in a fight, that’s hard.

Doing that and having it all work first time?

Maybe I did earn a Tinker rating.

I knew how to build it, even if I couldn’t always translate that to my fingertips.

Aki clattered away at her laptop – a sleek black model set up beside my clunky desktop - making a desperate attempt to ignore the dog snuffling at her feet, hungry for the dregs in the bowl.

Archie yapped for attention. Aki bolted rigid in her seat, staring at the dog, tethered to the desk by a static-strap, pinned by a locked door, with no option but a bloody fight to the death against razor-sharp fangs, gleaming for blood.

[Destination?]

[Agreement]

[Infestation?]

[Agreement]

[Insinuation?]

[Nah Fuck it. Couldn’t be arsed.... ]

An open door and a stomp of a boot on the floor encouraged the mutt out before trigger warning turned into Trigger Event. Probably not.

Never, I hope.

“Thank you,” she breathed, grounding the panic through the desk.

Damien watched, sitting with his back against the window at the other end of the room, glancing at us both, looking like the lost orphan that didn’t get let in on the joke.

Don’t worry, you’ll get it soon enough if you stick around.

“Is it ready?” he asked.

“Unh,” Akiko nodded, remembering herself. “I need to test it first. You mind, Ian?”

In my hands, I held a half finished helmet, fitted with a pair of goggles. Cables trailed from the helmet to a plastic box the size of a deck of cards containing a single PCB, with a power supply taped beneath it.

Without thinking, I flicked the switched. A sharp crack and the acrid scent of escaping blue smoke left me sitting dumb for a moment, wondering what’d happened

Two pairs of eyes stared at me. You didn’t just blow that, did you? Knowing I had a Power that helped what that sort of shit brought out the biggest pair of shit-eating grins I’d ever seen.

My Power spared a few hundred dollars worth of mobile phone motherboard from dying a second time. I’d forgotten to adjust the power supply to something the board could swallow.

A turn of a screw, a flick of a switch and white light shone up from the remnants of the keypad.

“It lives!” I hissed between my teeth, looming over the board.

Aki giggled. She got it. Programmer or engineer – that Frankenstein moment when the system finally came to life and became a working thing always thrilled. The spark of creation, the engine of innovation.

The culmination of the Tao of Scotty.

A screen suspended over one of the goggle lenses turned opaque white. Another one set into the left glove beside the keypad showed the Nokia logo. Chimes tingled in the earpiece inside the helmet. Cables ran to a mic inside the facemask, another hidden in one of the filters, just beneath the surface. A tan ribbon led down from the phone’s camera desoldered, re-cabled, then tucked in behind the other lens.

Care to guess what’s been planned yet?

“Ready to test the uplink?” Aki asked, bubbling in her chair.

“We have about four gig on the sim, right?”

“Unh,” she nodded. “4 hours at that bitrate.”

“Right, right.”

Load the program. Log in to a brand new Streamster account, broadcast, then wait. A black screen showed on Aki’s computer, waiting for the livestream.

“Signal in here’s shite,” I murmured, checking the display. 1 Bar. Maybe.

The laptop echoed my words, chattering blocks of colour coalescing into a choppy video filled with glaring lights and a Japanese girl with her jaw hanging open, gazing at herself onscreen, gazing at herself onscreen.

“Yatta! It works! I am so Leet!”

The dog answered from outside with a bark. A spasm bolted through her body, stunning her enthusiasm dead.

Damien sat up. “It actually worked?”

“Oh ye of little faith,” I said with a grin, aiming the helmet at him.

He shielded his face with his elbow. “Dude, no.”

The alarm on my watch chimed. One hour to midnight.

Nobody said a word. We traded glances, waiting for the silence to break. Something that’d almost started as a game just transformed into something real, exceeding our minds, becoming something solid.

I am really going out there, in costume, to fight against a fucking Ward with a no-holds-barred brand and the attitude to back it up.

Every muscle in my body begged to go. Every shred of common sense begged me to stop. My heart drummed in my chest, driving me forward.

This could end so badly and I knew it. It hurt to know it.

To see it coming.

I couldn’t stop myself.

What would they think if I stopped now? When happens when Sophia tries to push me into it? A thousand and one justifications rushed forward and smothered my qualms, leaving them writhing in the pit of my stomach.

Did Taylor feel like this?

Did anyone?

Banging like a hammer in my head, begging me to go.

“Let’s do it.”

“Man,” Damien breathed, face turning pale. “Whatever happens out there. Good Luck.”

“Thanks.”

Aiko said nothing, the expression on her face a confused muddle of pain and concern, and relief that she got to be the one safe at home.

We snuck passed the mammy, carrying everything in sports bags to the lift. Nobody said a word on the ride up.

Cold air greeted on the roof, the Brockton night crisp and fresh. My mind rolled through the last time I’d been up there – the night I got my Power.

That falling sensation rushed up, roaring in my ears, my Power thrilling in the back of my mind.

No. No backing down. No cold feet. This is happening.

My riding leathers made a good base, something lightweight and flexible, that could take a beating, tolerate a hard landing and, most importantly, zip together to keep bugs out. A kevlar military helmet with an added flare at the neck kept my head safe. A green poncho would keep the water off the power boxes. Sorting out the manoeuvre gear took longer, getting it properly balanced, strapped up and ready to run. Two fresh batteries brought it to life for the first time in months. Relays chattered. Motors whined. The display in the lens came to life, overlaying the world with white terminator-text before settling on a chat window.

Both blades touched. Lightning arc’d, shedding firefly sparks from the steel. The scent of rust and ozone filtered through the mask, battery gauges on my glove twitching.

Hot energy flooded my body a kick of adrenaline snapping me wide awake as I nestled my helmet into place. They spoke, I answered on autopilot, not really minding. I forgot what they said a moment later, washed from my mind.

A hundred visions ran through my mind of how this could go. Most ended badly. It’d hurt sure, but I’d win tomorrow.

Akiko snapped a photograph, showing it to me.

Hands on both triggers, blunt blades locked into the trigger handles, cables running to the harness under the poncho.

“Holy shit,” I breathed.

That's me. That's who I am. That's a real fucking cape in the picture and not some moron in riding leathers with a half-assed cosplay.

I am not a pretender.

I transformed. In a real, tangible way, I became something else.

Not a costume.

Not a congoer.

But a genuine cape.

For better or worse.

Whatever happens, at least I can say I did it.

All I had to do was step up to the parapet, and jump. My Power would help me figure out the rest along the way.

When Jack Slash is dead at my feet and I'm barking orders at a traumatised Bonesaw while taking my rightful and bloody place as the new leader of the Slaughterhouse 9, you can look back at this moment and go 'heh'.

--

[Dartz]

Wind roared in my ears.

Whining motors wound me forward.

Ammeters on my wrist twitched.

Petons snapped back into their launchers, jolting the motors.

Pain thrummed through my legs.

Soaring.

Swinging.

Riding a ballistic trajectory along the street.

My stomach hung at apex.

Feet forward.

The roof rose up.

My feet touched concrete at a running speed, a jolt running up through my bones. I stumbled, running forward to catch myself, arms forward to stop the fall.

A whirring air-conditioner condenser did the job for me, clattering against the left spool, digging into my ribs.

Third time lucky so. A scrappy landing, but no broken bones or twisted ankles, just another ache in my chest where the corner of the condenser had jabbed.

I called it a pass, just to keep moving.

A moment’s rest let me catch my breath, building the nerve to go again. My batteries still had a good charge. The phone found a good signal from a nearby mast. My legs had taken the worst of it, but I could, as they say, deal.

I walked to the parapet, picking my route across the street to apartment block on the far side. A few steps back gave me a runup. My heart stopped as I jumped, ten stories above hard concrete.

The ground rushed up.

I aimed my body.

A twitch on the triggers fired both petons.

Motors whined as they spooled out cable under power, keeping the weight off the flying peton.

Both latched onto glass, van-der-waals forces locking them in place.

Flicking two switches reversed the spools. A jerk at my waist pulled me forward, turning an accelerating fall into a turning swing.

I forced myself to look at my target, ignoring the traffic flashing below. Don’t look at what you don’t want to hit.

A camera strobed.

Caught.

Fuck.

Fuck it anyway I’m in costume.

Leaning into the strap pulled me away from the wall, a thumbed adjustment to the motors turning me parallel to the street.

Full power pulled me upwards, swinging up in a tight arc into the vertical, accelerating under electric power.

Two red switches released the petons, spools revving up with a shriek.

Momentum carried my body in what could almost pass as a graceful arc to a position barely a meter above the building roof.

For the first time, I landed on the first try.

My legs hated me for it. Pain shot up from my ankles, ringing in my knees.

I pushed on, too focused on the basic practicality of moving to think about anything else.

With a few weeks dedicated practice, some parkour lessons from a good traceur and maybe a new pair of legs from a random act of Panacea, I could see myself actually achieving a fluid rhythm with the gear.

On my first night out it took five hours to make the half hour journey.

I leave it up to yourself to do the sums.

Five. Bloody. Hours.

Barely able to walk, I chanced a few minutes rest, pacing slowly to keep muscle from going stiff. Every step crushed my knees in a vice.

I could take it. My legs couldn’t, but I could.

Pacing the roof gave me time to think, time to clear my head. Ideas sparkled in my mind, little hints of ways that my gear could be improved. Step one, something to take the shock of landing and running off my legs…

Maybe another time.

The phone rang in my ear. Step 2 on the road to heroism; get Solid Snake’s codec as a ringtone.

“Akiko…” I said.

“You made it,” her voice answered. “That looked awesome.”

Of course it did, she got the edited version where everything went right first time, rather than the other four and a half hours left on time’s cutting room floor.

“Yeah,’ I breathed, my voice pulling tight as another lightning pain shot up my leg.

I pushed myself to keep walking, step by step.

“Anything on the scanner?”

“No police,” she said.

Good.

“Nothing to do but wait then.”

“Call’s messing with the stream, hang up.”

‘Right, right.”

Nothing to do but wait. And wait.

And watch the clock grind past midnight, second by second. Breath by breath. Heartbeat by heartbeat. My mouth parched. My body soaked. My legs ached. My mind spun through possibilities.

How do I fight her?

Why am I really doing this?

I shook it off. Down that road lay madness. I’m doing it because if I don’t, Sophia’ll force me. She’ll take it out on my friends. Now I’ve backup. I’ve friends. I’m going into this with open eyes and…

Wham!

It bolts through my knee, kicking me off my feet with a scream of pain that cut through the knee. Landing hard on metal, I catch myself with both hands having just enough presence of mind to look for where the attack had come from.

A body, formed in black, silhouetted by red light, aiming at me.

That was quick. I used to be a cape too, but then I took an arrow to the knee….

My power triggered and I spun to face he. Something popped in my knee, a bite of pain shooting up the muscle. I stepped through it, swallowing it down. The glint of an arrowhead drew my eyes to the crossbow aimed at where I had been standing.

She stood there, a human whisp of smoke backlit by the neon glow of a Budweiser ad. The light filtered through the particles of her body, shimmering as she stepped forward. A shadow coalesced on the rooftop, expanding from her feet as her body turned solid, reaching forward to touch me.

That randian sneer turned to face me

‘I knew it,” the mask hissed.“Precog, huh? Some sort of spider-sense?”

My Power gave me some headspace to think, to come up with something better than ‘You shot me’, something that didn’t give too much away.

“You read comics?”

No answer.

She stepped to the side, making to circle around, her steps singular and tense, giving a moment to pounce between each. The crossbow aimed at my mask. Energy crackled across the back of my neck, begging to turn and run. Muscles in my body pulled tight, asking to fight.

I stood my ground. Running gives the predator what they want. It triggers the instinct and starts the chase.

“You going to shoot me?”

The mask’s expression didn’t change. Reset. Try again. Something that gives me more control.

She circled. She raised her crossbow again. I raised my blade to guard, again.

“You going to try shoot me?”

“Not yet,” she answered, her voice calm and even.

A threat?

Both blades sparked blue lightning off each other, a friendly reminder that I had options too.

She paused mid-stride, betraying a moment’s hesitation. I saw the thought. ‘He could hurt me with those’.

She could be faster. She had range. But I could dodge. She had the energy advantage, but I had the awareness. She had the backup, I had video evidence. She had skill, I had size.

I had a weapon that’d fucking damage her if I took the chance and made it stick. She knew I’d take it too. The blades might be blunt pieces of steel, but enough weight moving fast enough against the tip would deal some bloody pain.

She’d probably win the fight. I just had to make the risk of losing high enough to not make it worth the effort. You might be the predator, the panther circling around, but this fucking bull’s got horns big enough to hurt if you fuck it up. Ones I haven’t even shown her yet.

I’m missing something, amn’t I?

I held one blade across my body, with another in-front, aimed at her. She circled, keeping her crossbow between myself and her body. I put a blade between myself and her, stepping forward. The other held by my side, ready for a follow through.

“What do you want?”

“Same thing you do.”

It sounded like an accusation.

“I doubt that,”

“No. I’m right,” she said. The mask hid the smirk I could hear on her lips. “You wouldn’t be here in costume if you didn’t want it. You wouldn’t have hurt yourself to get here…”

The crossbow aimed at my knee. I put the other leg in front of it.

“You’re going to have to fill me in,”

I played dumb.

“You’re the genius, you figure it out.”

Fuck’s sake.

“I thought you were trying to trap me. Stitch me up as the newest villain in town.”

“I thought about it,” she said, her voice dangling the possibility that maybe she’s still thinking about it. “But they’d just suck you into the Wards anyway and then they’d either brainwash it out of you in San Diego, or stick you in some shithole like Madison where you won’t cause trouble. That’d be a waste.”

Didn’t tell me anything.

My Power set me back. The crossbow aimed at my knee. She doesn’t want me in the Wards. She doesn’t want to frame me either – she wanted something about me…

Plink. The penny dropped.

‘You want to work with me?”

“Got it in one,”

She almost sounded impressed.

“Why?”

“Because of all the rogues in this city, you're the only one who really gets it.”

“What the fuck is it?” I snapped at her.

“What it means to be a survivor. To stand up and fight for the last breath, no holds barred. Real life or death. You or him. I saw it, in your eyes.”

My blood chilled. She knew…

“When you get right down to it, none of the Wards will do that. Too concerned about public opinion to do what needs to be done.”

Something rang deep inside me. I snorted it down, borrowing a Tattletale-line from an old fanfic I remembered. “Did you have the snail dream too?”

Her head turned. “Snail dream?”

“I saw a Snail, crawling along the edge of a straight razor. This is my dream. This is my nightmare. Crawling along the edge of a straight razor, and surviving.”

“If you actually read biology, you'd know the snail doesn't care. It can deal.”

Somebody’s not a fan of the classics, then. Even after I went through all the trouble of matching Brando’s delivery. I folded my arms.

“Answer’s No.”

Because seriously, that’s the answer I’m supposed to give, isn’t it?

“And why not?”

As if it’d be the most natural thing in the world.

Shouldn’t it be obvious? I mean really?

“Because I trust you about as far as I can throw you, that’s why.”

“Shame,” she shrugged her shoulders. “This is your one shot at freedom. Work well enough as a rogue, the protectorate’ll leave you alone. None of the pretence. None of the bullshit. Just the freedom to act. Or you wait and let them catch up to you and become some marketer’s toy, a stuffed man with no mind of your own.”

She struck me to the core and I knew….

There it sat, all served up on a plate like roomservice, exactly what I wanted. All I had to do was say yes.

My heart stopped. Something felt wrong, right at the back of my mind, a warning screamed. A sick feeling in my stomach. A feeling of rats crawling across my skin.

Sophia’s the enemy. Sophia’s everything we hate. The apotheosis of a fandom’s impotent fury and desire to do something to help a fictional character as penance for all the times we turned our backs on real ones.

Yeah, I went there.

So….

…when Sophia bloody Hess turns around treats you as an equal, maybe it’s time to take a look in a mirror and ask what the fuck you’ve done wrong with your life.

When the shit she says makes a horrible sort of sense…when it resonates in your soul and finds some sort of home in your bones that has you listening. I know I’m supposed to disagree with her. I’m supposed to turn around and spit in the face, and turn my nose up and be the good person, But…

I needed space.

Time to get my head straight.

More than I’d get from fifteen seconds glaring at that sneering mask waiting for the answer to her offer.

An offer I couldn’t refuse. The reason I came still stood She’d push me into it if I didn’t say yes. I’d pave the first flagstone to hell if I did.

Time for a third option. A single step and a shot of pain up the bone gave it to me. Turn it back, make it her fault.

“Dealing with this bollocks fucked my legs and you know it.”

Your fault, not mine. You fucked your own golden goose. I would’ve done it if you hadn’t hurt me.

The mask considered. I held my blade, daring her to attack. She stepped forward. I stood my ground. The moment she’d moved, I’d step-back and hit first.

The crossbow aimed. I braced.

She took a step back

“I don’t need a lame duck slowing me down.” Shadow Stalker scorned. “Offer stays open until your legs heal up, or you fuck something up on your own and get swallowed by the Protectorate.”

Her body faded out with each step away, crossbow still aim at my face until nothing but a faint whisp remained, a vaporous ghost fading out like a double-exposure on an old film camera.

The phantom launched into the air, vanishing into the afterglow of the city lights.

I waited.

And waited.

Nothing.

A sigh of relief escaped my lips. The phone’s chime broke the silence in my head. A button-press answered the call.

“Wow,” Akiko’s voice said.

“You heard that?”

“Yes.”

“Fucked up, huh?”

“Yes.”

“I wish it was a fucking fight she wanted.”

She groaned. “Now we will get no subscriptions.”

What?

I growled through the mic. “So, the secret’s out,”

“Nyah~….”

“I’m going fucking home,”

“Buses have stopped.”

“Fuck sake,”

Well, I’d walked kilometres on a hurt leg before so what the fuck, I could do it again. I needed the time.

“My apartment is closer,” she suggested. “And my parents are away.”

Score! The pain in my legs retreated. Standing up again brought it back with a vengeance, grinding to the bone as muscled pulled.

One step convinced me I wouldn’t be using the manoeuvre gear to do more than get down off the roof.

Nobody saw me do a reverse-batman down the wall, thankfully. Step by step, feeding the cable out, riding the spool-motors the entire way down. The scent of hot plastic filtered through the mask, motor windings slow-cooking themselves.

Each step shot stabs and jabs up through my legs, bolting up my back. My panting breath accompanied each step, forcing myself to keep moving. I’d done it before.

I could do it again. No big deal.

One foot in front of the other. Step by step, black cold concrete passing underfoot.

Tapping that memory tapped everything that came with it. The hunger. The dread. The desperation. The reminder that objects in the rear view mirror were always closer than they appeared.

You or him, she said.

Him….

The image of that man, tired grey eyes fixed on the brown bags I carried. The sensation of his hands grasping at my jacket, reaching for the rations, begging, attacking, pleading. A pang of hunger bites deep and I’m just so hungry and so is everyone else and I can’t stand the idea of being this hungry anymore and I want him to just fuck off and leave me alone and in a thrill of panic it just happens.

My arms swing. I hear the crack of a man’s temple and feel the shock run up my arm. He drops dead to the ground with a meaty thump, pink blood trickling from his nose. One last breath rattles through the lips and then…

Nothing.

I killed him. Dead as disco in one shot. Either the concrete or the hurley, it didn’t matter. One of them did it for him. One moment there and starving the next, dead and nothing. Stilled. Face down on the footpath. Glass eyes stared at their own reflection as my soul chilled, the realisation settling in like winter frost.

Cold and slow, clinging on in the shadow. A desolate sensation bigger than my mind, but concentrated in my body, rippling through every muscle and leaving me sick.

Not quite regret.

I don’t regret surviving.

Not quite joy.

I amn’t glad I killed him.

I still don’t know. Can it be both? What do you think?

How I felt didn’t change the fact. I killed him. I did that.

In the dark, that’s who I am.

He died.

I lived with that.

Sophia Hess saw it. She saw me in the dark and liked it. On some level, Sophia had the ugly measure of me.

How fucked up is that?

I could see my final destination. It’d happen in a flash – a moment’s panic with my back against the wall.

Trapped by time.

Trapped by circumstance.

Another bloody case of Skitter syndrome.

Alright. I can deal with that. Can I?

I think you’re laughing. You’re right too. Really, being sober, one option remained.

Salvation sat in the bay, lit up with shining searchlights reaching for the heavens screaming join the Protectorate you fucking gobshite rather than take the retarded edgelord route.

Get your shit together and go.

But when you look out over the black water of the bay and see that rig sitting there, light up as paragon of a steel Christmas tree, glimmering with manicured hope and feel nothing but sick?

You think of being hollowed out.

Being stuffed with a marketer’s branding.

Being ground against the media schedule; look good, keep up the image, be the shining paragon of hero for all the little kiddies, now, go stop Lung. Of having to work with Sophia and treat her like human being. Being close to people who might figure out my little secret.

What would you do?

That’s not for me.

That’s fucking terrifying.

What sane person wants to be a celebrity? A celebrity with a chance of death and dismemberment every Thursday night. Bugs. Bombs. Behemoth.

Standing in the drizzle, I see my reflection in a pool of water on the footpath. This is who I want to be. Who, or what that is I don’t know but it feels right, right down through my bones. Fast, swift, striking, moving. Riding my Power like a motorcycle. Given time and practice, that’s what I’d be.

Almost soaring. Free. Happy.

That’s the heart of it, I think. Maybe you can understand?

So. That’s my plan. Get some space. Think it through. Because right now I'm on the road to hell and I know it. And knowing's half the battle, right? Thanks Sophia. You kept me from going to a really stupid place.

A whooping cheer congratulated me from high above. Startled, I looked up to see the source – a heeled boot attached to a lithe, toned leg extending up a pair of white panties, accelerating towards my face.

Not again.

My Power triggered.

Fifteen seconds to impact. I already had a plan. My hands tightened on both grips, checking the blades were still locked in their sheath.

I focused myself on walking, trying to play dumb, listening for the attack. Moisture fogged the inside of my goggles, sweat trickling down the bridge of my nose. My footsteps counted out the seconds, adrenaline drowing out the pain in my knees.

I looked up, raising both blades across my face.

No panties?

She hit the road instead, fragments of concrete pattering off my jacket The dust cleared, revealing Glory Girl in all her majesty, crouched in the superhero pose with her fist drilled into tarmac.

I stood, awestruck, gazing as she drew herself up to her feet, long strides of toned legs carrying her inexorably towards me with the steady tak-tak of high-heels on tarmac. A shining white leotard clung to her body the way I desperately wanted to, cheerleader’s skirt swaying with her hips as she stepped. Golden hair cascaded from her shoulders, shining white cape streaming behind her.

Crystal eyes fixed mine, staring through me.

I raised my blades, rooting myself to the ground. Fight back, my body urged. My heart raced. My trousers went taught. My feet moved. The wall behind drew closer.

“I got one name for you. Andrea Young. Ring a bell?”

Her voice hit like a slap.

My lips moved. “Who?”

“Don’t play ignorant.” She loomed, the world around her receding into the shade of her radiance. “An innocent college student. One of your boys beat her within an inch of her life this afternoon.”

I blinked. “Huh?” Caught in the spotlight, it took a moment for the penny to drop. She couldn’t have? “Do I look like a fucking Nazi?”

Dressed in black armoured leather, wearing a helmet with a flair over the neck, a pair of tinted goggles and a facemask with a filter on either side….

No, I see no resemblance. Do you?

Her arms folded beneath her chest.

“Yes.”

Ahm…How many villains happened because some overzealous hero spotted a newbie who couldn’t afford a shiny sparkly glam-metal costume or didn't like the idea of being the obvious target and decided to judge a book by its cover.

Some bloody cliché.

“Well…….” Fixed in place by that steel eyed glare, my mind struggled to find the words, any words to convince.Every impulse screamed to just nod. Gears ground, but the thought slammed home. “I amn’t alright!”

She leaned over. Looking for anything other than her iron gaze, my eyes fell down to the shadow between her breasts.

She pushed. “Then who the hell are you and what’re you doing out here?”

Ah, a ward called me out here to fuck with me and waste my time and try start some fucked up Frank Castle vigilante yoke. I wanna be a hero. I want to fight. I stopped dead, mind firing blanks, looping through ideas. Words died on my lips as she loomed large above me, crushing me down with awesome power.

“You going to say something?”

Eventually. Whenever my mouth stopped goldfishing for something to say. When the truth won’t be believed, maybe a half assed lie.

My lips moved.

“I built some stuff, came out to test it and hurt my leg,” I said, my voice gaining strength “I’m walking home because the poxy busses don’t start until four!”

“Oh….” She broke the spell, despite not taking a step, giving my mind more space to work “So why’d you try fight back then?”

“Because I had no idea who the fuck you where!” I barked.

She blinked owlishly.

“Oops,” she smirked, feigning shame while not really being sorry. My fault for not caring what I looked like, not hers for jumping to the wrong conclusion. “Tell you what .To make it up to you I’ll call my sister, she’ll fix your legs.”

Wait.

Wow.

…”Thanks.”

I guess. What else could I say?

What am I supposed to say? I stood, transfixed as she fetched a mobile from her belt pack, flicking it open. She pinned it between slender shoulder and delicate neck, waiting for it to wring though.

“Hey sis. Yeah, it’s me….. I need your help..”

A pause. She flinched.

“No, no… I missed this time.” Glory Girl almost sounded sheepish.“This one’s actually a new hero on his first night out. He hurt his leg.”

My nerves fizzled. She called me a hero.

“Well it’s not my fault. He looked like a Nazi,”

“Hey,” I protested. She held up a hand. Shush!

One arm went to her hips. “No I did not have a blonde moment. He totally asked for it dressing like that”

She scowled.

“That’s a completely false parallel and you know it.”

An exasperated sigh.

“Fine. Next time, I promise.”

The phone clasped shut in her hand and she returned it to her pocket.

“See. Told you. Sorted.”

Wow.

…”Thanks.”

I guess. What else could I say? Even the chance of having the pain in my knees just vanish after a whole year of living. It went beyond excitement and straight through to disbelief.

One single thought filtered through.

How would I explain that to my parents?You’re not half crippled anymore, how’d that happen?

Glory Girl broke into my thoughts. “So what’s your Power anyway?”

“Thinker,” I said, without thinking.

She smirked. “I can see that. Manoeuvre?”

Now, I hate to explain the joke but I realise not many of you would have the worldly experience to know this. An important thing you need to know about my native accent is that it has an atrocious habit of making ‘th’ sound like a hard ‘t’, three, sound like tree.

So, she probably heard ‘Tinker’

“Yeah,” I nodded, knocking on the metal of the spool.

She paced around, body racing to fight. “Still don’t know how you managed to see me coming I was coming in wicked fast over your shoulder…”

A sour look from her burned, like I’d hacked the game on her. Smirking inside my mask, I kept stumm.

“Still don’t know how you knew I knew.”

Her eyes zoomed in.

“You had a limp.” A finger pointed at my leg. “Then you didn’t, right after you grabbed both handles. Figured they were a weapon of some sort and you were trying to hide that you spotted me by playing cool.”

“Shit,”

You sure she’s a blonde?

“Yeah, that’s experience.”

Her chest swelled with pride. She figured that all out just by watching me? Glory Girl’d been doing this for years, of course she knew. Amazing,

“Fuck,” I said, feeling like I’d shrunk on the spot.

The phone chimed in my ear. I cancelled the call. It chimed again. I cancelled again. A text message chirped up onto the screen

:: Sugoi Sugoi…. Ne.

Glory Girl’s head snapped around. Dread rolled up inside me. “What’s that?”

The phone chirped again.

::Busted

My hand covered the screen. Tension rippled through my body, bracing for the hit. She could cartwheel a skip with a half-hearted kick and I knew it.

“I amn’t an idiot.” I ground through gritted teeth. My hands tended towards the blade handles. I caught them, getting a handle on myself. “I have a livestream camera feed going in my helmet in case something went wrong, so someone could call the Protectorate. You’ve a fan”

The smile came out forced. Her aura dimmed, easing the pressure.

“Hmmm….”She inspected me, looking for obvious lenses or cameras. I stepped back. So this is going on the internet?”

I shrugged., failing to look her in the eye “Wasn’t planning on it.”

“Too bad, …”

Another chirp brought a new message on screen.

::It is. It will now.

“You want it?”

“Sure, tag along and take some video of us nailing some Nazis”

::Sugoi [][][][][]….

The phone couldn’t display the rest.

She paced between the pools of orange light thrown down by the streetlights. I sat on a bollard in the shade, ignoring the shooting pain in my knee. Gone, just like that, all I had to do was wait.

A signing bonus for the good guys? I flexed my knee. Bones ground. Tendons screamed. It hurt so much more than it ever had before, getting its last licks in before being erased for good.

Panacea emerged from the shadows of a side-street, face shaded by the cowl of her nurses habit. She kept to the dark, lurking behind the radiance of her sister.

“What kept you?” Glory Girl asked, sounded almost exhasperated.

“The homeless,” she sighed, slipping around her sister. She took one look at me, sizing me up. I tried to stand straight. “I see what you mean.”

“I don’t look like a fucking Nazi!”

She shrugged. “Yeah. You sort of do.”

Glory Girl giggled.

“Fuck’s sake.”

Panacea’s tired eyes just glared. Heavy bags hung beneath, adding years to her face. “Just give me your hand,”

Tentatively, I pulled my sleeve back,

“Do I have your permission to heal you?”

A lump crawled up the back of my throat.

“Please,”

Sure, she only ever turned people into her willing lesbian love slaves in that one fanfic. Panacea’s fingers brushed like a live wire, energy pulsing through my whole body at once. My Power died, leaving me naked against whatever she decided to do. Tendrils of energy numbed my arm, a thrill of terror rising up as her grip firmed, spreading through my body.

Instincts begged to fight. The world shrunk away. Glory Girl went dark. Nothing remained but Panacea and me, her mind crawling over every atom of my body.

Pinpricks danced through my knees. Panacea’s jaw hinged open.

“How are you still walking?”

A nervous smile came to my lips. “One foot in front of the other, one at a time,”

Her head slowly shook. My phone chimed another message. It went unread. My knees bubbled, cords of Power tracing up and down muscles, centipedes skittering through my veins.

A gasp rose through my throat. The connection broke. Exhilarating sensation crashed back.

Then…

Nothing but the sound of my own gasping breath inside my facemask.

“That should undo the worst of it,” she said, not even looking up at me.“It’s better to heal the rest of the way naturally, or the limp will stay.”

I swallowed, hinging my knee. Stiff, tight, like I'd just spent the last hour sat on the toilet reading fanfic on my phone, but pain-free. Nothing

“Thanks.”

Panacea said nothing, looking up to her Sister, rather than bothering to listen to me. For her it was Thursday. Glory Girl stepped forward, growing in stature as she took another breath.

“Now we’re supposed to give you the speech about accountability, the value of heroism and doing the Right Thing and then offer to join, but I think it’s better to just go beat up some bad guys instead.”

That broad, shining grin on her face couple with the spark in her ice-blue eyes drew me in. I could barely nod.

Both hands went to her hips. “So what do we call you anyway?”

Ahm. Cape names are hard. Under the spotlight,my mind came up blank, offering my own name first before realising just how stupid that’d be. My hands clenched both throttles. Pulled deep from the depths of my arse the answer emerged…. Sie sind das essen, wir sind die….

“Jaeger?”

I liked it immediately.

Glory Girl rolled her eyes. “Again with the Nazi,”

“You put it into my bloody head!” I snapped.

Her broad shoulders shrugged. “It suits for tonight.”

Panacea said something, lost behind her sister. I paced, trialling my new legs, bouncing, jumping, shocking the knees, just to make sure.

A quick jog across the street, then back again, did nothing. No pain. No grinding. No aches. No bruises.

The laughter didn’t stop, half manic, half insane, almost giggling inside the mask. No black mark on my soul. No dark bargains. Just one spark of good luck that made putting on the costume worth everything.

All copacetic, like, as the locals say.

Life’s not all naval-gazing, self-deception and edgelord bollocks. Sometimes good things happen.

“So, Jaeger, let me fill you in….”

My cape-name.

The mask hid the stupid grin I wore.

----

Just following Glory Girl made everything worthwhile.

Mind, body and soul sang in harmony, the last year of my life drifting from my back as I swung through the streets. None of it mattered. The stress, the doubt…

I should’ve done this sooner.

Building to building, building confidence each time, hours of trial and error reduced by my Power to moments. Another swing ended with a bone-crunching thump.

My Power left only the ghosts of pain behind, carrying me up to next roof. Fresh legs carried me across to the next parapet, leaping into free space.

::Wer u goin?

I looked up at Glory Girl making graceful weaves through the sky.

“Following that arse.”

A draught of a sea breeze filtered through my mask, tickling inside my nostril leaving the trace of salt on my mouth. Sweat tickled down my forehead, prickling at my nose, crawling down my neck.

::700mb

Otherwise known as hurry the fuck up. Four hours me arse, it had taken fifteen minutes to eat through it all.

“Yeah, Yeah,”

At least I won’t have to worry about stumbling across Lung or something.

Another swing brought me crashing through the roof of the old Redmond Welding building, dropping into the gloom with a heartstopping scream. Shards of rust followed me into the black, my Power triggering in terror before the final splatter.

My second attempt clattered my body onto the apex of the roof, adrenaline echoes ringing. A moment’s pause let me catch my breath and plan. Rust had eaten the lower levels into steel swiss cheese, but the top of the roof above the loft had been shielded from the sea air by the bleached-pink sign looming over. Unlike the faded reminder of the city’s former glory, it almost looked new.

Dogs barked in the distance. My panting breath drowned them out. My heart drilled through my chest. Every part of me would hurt in the morning. No part of me cared.

My feet rattled the galvanised steel sheets, carrying me over the loft to the far end of the building.

I launched.

Petons latched onto the building opposite.

A fat bug cracked its guts across my goggles, followed by a second, then a third. Something pattered against my shoulder, buzzed in my ear. I didn’t swat, aiming for the building head.

A clean landing kept my momentum, kept me running.

The hulk of an old chiller gave me cover to take my goggles off and clear the guts off with the back of my glove.

::ew.

“Yeah. Downside of moving fast.”

Tipping my facemask up drained the worst of the sweat, a few wipes cleaning the worst of it.

Stiff legs carried me away, running full pelt. Sheer adrenaline swung me across the gap between buildings, putting distance between me and escalation.

Glory-Girl circled above, looking to see if I’d finally splattered myself.

Not in this timeline.

She feathered onto the roof beside me, her feet not making a sound as she touched down.

“Problem?”

My skin prickled, the weight of her aura pushing into my mind. I breathed, breaking eye contact, body at war with itself trying to sort out naked relief, the echo of terror and teenage kicks all at once.

“Nobody ever said anything about costumes being sweaty, sticky messes.”

A lie that had the benefit of being true.

“And people think we only wear this getup for PR reasons,”

She planted herself on the roof, the single-piece leotard she wore beneath her skirt stretching taught against firm muscle. Her chest swelled to the rhythm of her breathing Sweat-sheened bare skin glimmered under the electric light.

My mouth opened. Nothing came out.

I stepped. My hand clenched. All I had to do was reach. The pressure built, threatening to burst out. What if she saw? What if she knew?

“Yeah,” I managed. My whole body tingled, a shiver running through my spine.

She stepped into the air. A thousand teenaged fantasies took flight chasing after her, leaving my body shivering behind with my mind conjouring up a million million-to-one chances.

I chased them all, riding the wires, finding momentum. Trial and error had mutated into a solid foundation. Rooftop to rooftop, keeping pace, legs carrying me faster and faster, making more landings than I failed.

This is me.

This is what I’m meant to be.

Why I’m here, why I went through everything. No great plans, no world-saving shenanigans, this moment right here and now.

This one moment made it all worthwhile. The one thing mind, body, Power and soul agreed on. Somewhere I knew it had to be the backseat passenger grabbing at the wheel but I couldn’t care. It doesn’t matter why or how.

It felt right.

All good things come to an end. Hours collapsed into moments.

Glory Girl landed herself on the roof of an old shipping office, overlooking a dockside bar. The Protectorate’s rig watched over us both, shining in the night. Pink Neon shone above the bar’s shuttered front windows, spelling out the name. The Richmond

Taking a moment to catch my breath again, I paced to keep my muscles from going stiff. Waves lapped at the shoreline below, tongues of seawater wrapping themselves around steel pilings.

The whole world shone neon, glowing with new life.

Glory Girl looked to me. “You ready, Jaeger?”

Yes. With all my fucking heart. I just nodded.

“You got any gear that can see in there?”

No. Shit. The question stung, sounding more like an accusation. My mind added the ‘why dont’ in front of it. Panic in my chest begged for an answer, something to make up for it. An idea sparked, bringing a smirk to my lips.

“Info-chan?” I congratulated myself on remembering not to use Aki’s name. “You know anything about this place?”

Glory Girl gave me a puzzled look. A message came through a moment later.

::1 min ^^

Somewhere, I knew she giggled. Power or not, she’d gained a codename too. They’d talk about her on PHO. Verified Cape? Who is this Info-Chan?

“Wait a minute,” I relayed, finding it hard not to swagger.

Glory Girl held on hand on her hip, glaring at me, body taught and straining for action. A shiver crawled up my spine, my eyes switching between her and the building…

…maybe.

A chime in my ear killed the desire, trickling down.

:plans

Downloading slurped a whole fifty meg of data. My fingers tapped through a set scanned blueprints from when the bar had been last renovated, keypresses zooming in. Glory Girl’s gaze urged.

“2 floors. Living space upstairs – two apartments. Bar downstairs with the bar and a storeroom at the back. Basement cellar where they’d store kegs.”

“And no idea who’s in there.” she pushed.

Whatever part of my mind conjured up the idea, I hated it immediately. I couldn’t stop myself. Just to show her what I could do. The thought hung on my lips, begging to be spoken. I knew how to find out. She’d already given me the answer.

“You think I look like a Nazi?”

She caught the ball. “You really want to try that?”

“He’s panicking. He knows you’re after him.”

“They might’ve sent reinforcements,” she smiled.

“One way to find out?”

“But what about your accent?”

“Ayuh, I reckon I could do a wicked good impression though. Just gotta remember to hate the Yankees, talk like a Kennedy, and everythin’ will be copacetic.”

Never in my life have I seen so much hatred in a person’s eyes. Totally fucking worth it.

“Now, how do you get the information out without tipping them off,” she challenged.

The answer sat waiting on my head, ready to go.

“You have a mobile?”

Did I just ask Glory Girl for her phone number?

“A mobile?”

Right, America.

“Cell, what’s your Cell?”

Her lips pursed into a pout. “What’s yours?”

“603-867-5903”

She raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yeah, what?”

“Nothing,” she murmured.

Something that made me cringe as she flipped her phone open, tapping with her thumbs. Was it something I said? Something about my phone number? A thousand anxious possibilities raced through my mind as I paced across the roof.

::My Cell. GG

If I’dve known she’d give mobile number so easily, I’dve put the cape on sooner.

“Going to forward it to Info-chan, so she can tell you what I’m seeing.”

A scowl flashed across her face, the objection hanging in her open mouth. She reached the same conclusion I did. Narrating ‘My first visit to a Nazi club’ would end it a quick and violent death.

“Fine…”

My fingers sent her phone number through with a few taps. Her phone buzzed an answer a moment later.

“Yeah,” she answered with a press of a button. Her eyes rolled as Aki assaulted through her earpiece.

“Ready?” I proposed.

“Fine…”

She didn’t sound concerned. My feet carried my body up to the parapet. My breath panted against the inside of the mask, hot and moist, sucking the sweat from my brow. My heart drummed in chest. Below, streetlights sparked off distant puddles simmering on the tarmac.

An echo of that night thrilled in my mind, resonating with my Power.

Again, I jumped. Wind rushed in my ears, accelerating.

Concrete realisation crushed down.

The real hell of being 16. Sometimes, you don’t realise important things until it’s far too late.

Like the fact that Glory Girl had tried to talk me out of pretending to be a Nazi just to scout out their base. Or, that I really didn’t want to pretend to be a Nazi just to scout out their base. Or that I really, really didn’t want to be on my own, surrounded by Nazi’s who might have more than baseball bats to hand.

Or who might be something other than human.

My Power hummed. I could trip it. Stand back up on the roof. Calmly realise that maybe, just maybe, pretending to be Empire might not be the smartest idea I ever had and ask Glory Girl if she had any other plan of action with her experience in the field.

But the idea of turning around an explaining that to Glory Girl somehow seemed ten times worse than running the risk of bumping into Hookwolf and friends and getting hammered by cold reality.

The hot fantasy of parahuman heroics won out as my boots made contact with the roof opposite.

I’m doing it.

I’m actually fucking doing it.

Steam drifted up from the vents beside me, cloaking around my body as I stepped onto the roof. Music thrummed through the floor, deep, driving bass firing the soul. Waiting on the roof, one single sentry jumped to his feet, stumbling over his own laces before catching himself on a vent.

He stood half a head taller than me. A Michelin-man jacket in midnight blue bulked him out to twice my size, big enough to hide a full-bore shotgun. A small voice inside asked if I really thought this was a good idea.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

Alright. Time to look the GM in the Eye. Take a breath. Roll to Bullshit.

“Am I the first?”

Maybe not a complete match to the local accent.

“First?”

But good enough. Keep going. I could still run away if I blew it.

“Reinforcements,” I said. My voice rasped against the masks’s valves. “You’re lookin at New Wave droppin in any minute now.”

If you’re going to lie, cloak it in the truth. It’s easier. Especially if Info-chan had the sense to censor that bit.

“You with us?”

My right hand sheathed its blade, before offering a handshake.

“Yeah brother.”

His arms folded.

“So. In accord with Nature’s Laws. Nothing is more right….”

My hand hung there. Shit. Thunder-Flash bollocks.

Try again.

Back to touchdown.

“Info-chan. In accord with Nature’s Laws. Nothing is more right than?”

I waited. Michelin man jumped to his feet, tripping again. I stood my ground, blades held low in my hand. The screen in my googles remained blank.

He caught himself. My hands clenched tight on the grips of both blades. My Power recharged as my mouth parched dry. Seconds ticked.

“Who’re you?”

Shit! Try something else.

“In accord with Nature’s Laws. Nothing is more right”

He stopped, dead, caught off-guard. His eyes glanced around the roof, to the aircon vents, the water tower and the remains of the old billboard foundation. What lurked in the shade? Shadows danced at the edge of my sight, threatening a surprise attack.

“…than the preservation of one’s own race,” he said. One hand hovered over his waist, clawing to grab something in a flash.

Gun. My skin bristled. It had to be.

One thing that could beat my Power. Bullet in the brain-pan. Splat. Game over while waiting for the reset button to reset.

Fuck me, I mouthed. There sat proof. This was not your oulfella’s game of Villains and Vigilantes.

What now?

My mouth outran my brain, remembering the first time around.

“Am I the first?”

His hand hung. His eyebrow raised. His face came into sharp focus, rounded off by years of fast food, rough stubble begging for a razor’s edge under the jaw. Beady eyes fixed me in place.

“First?”

The phone chimed, a message popping up onscreen.

::Than preservation of ones own race.

“Damn,” I breathed, clenching my teeth. My Power latched, coming back to life. The safety-net untied the knot in my stomach.

“What?”

The hand clawed closer. A bulge formed in my mind around some imagined hand cannon.

“Reinforcements. You’re looking at New Wave droppin’ in any minute now.”

My eyes fixed on the hand. He fixed his belt.

“Didn’t hear we asked for any help.”

“You think you need to ask?” I tried to smirk, hoping it carried in my voice.

“Right, Right.”

I’d like to say I had the sang-froid to calmly step forward and plan through the entire conversation to get the exact information I needed. Really, my mind just stuck itself in the same thought-burning loop, churning over and over again.

Don’t fuck this up. Don’t fuck this up. Don’t fuck this up. Don’t fuck this up.

Another message onscreen broke the mantra

::Sry. How many + guns??

Right. Prizes for guessing where the prompt really came from. Take a breath. Try to sound like I belonged.

“So. How many guys you got up here?”

“Six,” he answered with a swagger, leading me towards a door.

“Guns?”

Holy shit. I can’t believe this is still working.

“A few. Got my glock.” He patted at his hip.

“18?”

Only Glock I knew. The GM stared at me. Roll the dice.

“15,” the sentry answered.

“Nothing heavy?”

“No. Who else Kaiser sending through?”

What other Empire capes could I remember off the top of my head?

“Hookwolf. Fenja. Menja….”

I counted them off with my fingers.

“Shame….”

“Shame?”

“What Hookwolf’d do…..”

I thought I saw fear. I thought I saw remorse. I knew that I really didn’t give a fuck about the deep personal motivations of an Empire thug. He turned his back to me. I drew both blades with a savage grin.

Crack.

One supercharged jolt from the batteries put him down like a dropped sack of spuds, spasming himself unconscious. A couple of quick borrowed zip-ties around his wrists and ankles made sure he wouldn’t get up again. On a whim, I pocketed his Glock to keep it from being used against me.

One down.

Now what?

Really. I didn’t have to do anything more. Honestly, I just couldn’t help myself. Standing at the door, I pulled it open. A pall of thin grey smoke rose up to meet, bringing the smell of burnt Mellow Virginia through my nostrils.

My stomach turned.

“Jacob?” A voice reached up.

My mind hung a moment, hovering around the threshold of the door.

“He’s fine,” I answered, finding the nerve to step through. It latched behind, sealing me in, just in time for a pair of tired eyes to greet me.

I looked up at a thin high-cheeked face with a sharp jaw, a single broken fag pinched between tight lips.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Jaeger. Kaiser sent me.”

The fag twitched as he sucked on his lips. He stared into the goggles.

“Never heard of you…”

Ahm….

“It’s my first day.”

His hand slipped towards his wallet. Gun! Flashed through my mind. My blades whipped free, one in each hand. His eyes spasmed wide. His hand drew. His body dropped with a crackle of raw electricity and a meaty thump. A crinkled fag-packet landed on the ground beside his pocket.

“CAAaaaape!” his friend beside me yelled. A body dived for cover behind a couch. Shouts rose up from below.

Shit.

My Power triggered. Now for a different approach. The longer they don’t realise I’m a threat, the more I can fuck them up. If I could stop them from getting downstairs, or lock a door

“Jacob….” A voice reached up again.

Adrenaline thrilled through my body, recalling the last time.

“He’s cool,” I answered.

Grey eyes looked down at me. “Who’re you?”

“Jaeger. Kaiser sent me.”

“Who?” His hand hung beside his pocket.

I couldn’t run. I had to push forward. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

“I’m new.”

I don’t know if he heard the smile on my lips.

“Welcome to the club,” he offered his right hand.

I took it with a hard grip and shook it. There was an irony there, when you think about it. How did Adolf Hitler get his start again?

::Find who beat Andrea??

Right. Mission.

“You stay up here. Wait for the signal…”

“Says who?”

He stood his ground, hand pressing against the bulge beneath his leather jacket. Yeah, I got a gun.

“Says the person with two swords and a fucking Power,” I snarled through my mask.“We got friends coming in. You think you can take on New Wave with that peashooter?”

Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me don’t call me on it. I’m so far out on a fucking limb here and this could go so fucking badly and thank Christ these fuckers can’t see my face because I’m bricking it…

All he saw were a pair of blank of goggles and a twin-can mask, breathing hard, a faint glow from meters built into the gloves. Steel blades glinted under the incandescent lights. A full harness of steel hung from my waist, two heavy containers slung by my hips.

The man took a breath, gauging me.

Black armoured leather. Flared helmet. Glaring goggles. Lightning flashes of metal clasps.

The man stepped aside.

Wow. This really works. This is working. What the hell do I do now? Keep going. Passed another open door on the first floor.

Holy fuck, I know that eejit.

He looked at me. Right at me. Right through me. I felt it. If he knew.

My Power loomed.

Earlier that morning, he’d asked me to join. The same kid, wearing the same orange jersey with same medhall sponsorship and that same best-mate smile which had asked me to join.

I looked him right in the eye, grabbing hold of my Power, daring him to recognise me. Hey Mick, nice costume. He shook my hand instead.

“Glad to have ya, brother.”

I nodded, swallowing the lump. A deep vader-breath pulled in dry, stale air. The filters cleared up the smoke, keeping me from coughing.

My goggles scanned the room. CNN on the telly in the corner broadcast the news, showing preparations for some event tomorrow. Two men, one tall, one short, circled a pool table, sizing up their next shots. Both had a decade on me or more.

Cigarette ash smouldered in the tray on the coffee table set in front of a worn leather couch. A scarred baseball-bat leant against it. Only the flag with the crossed grenades picked it out as anything more than a social club.

Right. Time to be the prick

“So, which one of you stomped the porch monkey?”

Don’t ask how I first heard that.

“Ayuh,” the shortest raised his cue. A crisp set of red laces decorated his steelcaps.

“New laces?” I said.

“Yeah men,” he grinned, bold as brass. “Man I just saw that bitch,” he laughed, nervous eyes scanning the room. “Fucking queen never worked a day in her life and she’s going through college on my dime because of some liberal affirmative action and I’m here working three goddamned jobs and can’t even afford a fucking dentist and so, Bam! No more teeth”

Every nodded sagely. An old story. I kept up appearance.

“Ayuh,” the tall one agreed, before taking a crack of a shot. “Freeloaders taking honest white men for a ride. What’s this country coming to? Fucking traitors get their day soon.”

Everyone nodded sagely. An older answer. I kept up appearances, scanning around.

Yes. Racist fucks really talk like this. This thing is not a parody. Poe's law lives and it stood right in front of me breathing through gleaming white teeth, wearing the strange air of civilised respectability.

Everyone looked to me. My mind struggled to scratch something together, gathering something from a past life.

“Yeah man, make America great again,” I said.

It really was the first thing I thought of. Honest. And totally not a commentary on an election I never saw finish.

“Make America great again. I like that,” said the kid beside me, placing a heavy hand on my shoulder. I shrugged it off with a grunt.

“Touchy,” he mumbled, holding both his hands up.

“Make America white again?” asked the taller.

“Yeah,” shorty agreed. ‘We could use that.”

Dear God, what have I unleashed? Someone’s going to call that a commentary on something, I guarantee it.

To be brutally honest, for a moment, I almost got it. Say the right words, make the right gestures, nod your head at the right time and kick the shit out of the wrong people and you were welcome.

You are one, with us.

We are part of something.

Still. No sympathy for the Devils, as the man says. They bought their ticket, now how do I take them for a ride? A fire axe sat in the cabinet beside me, alongside some old hose. I’d played enough games to know what they were really there for. I could strap the door shut, maybe break the handle

::!

I blinked, taking a moment to wonder what that meant. The window shattered an instant later with a whoop of joy, a cold draught dragging sparkling shrapnel behind a white blur. Something crunched against the wall beside me, landing with a thump and a groan. My eyes opened.

Shorty lay slumped over, looking like a doll broken in half.

Tallboy stood, pool cue in hand, not sure what’d just happened.

“Dad,” said the boy beside me, his voice shrinking in the background.

Glory Girl stood in her radiance, legs apart, thin red cape drifting on the breeze behind her.

“Nobody move!”

Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. My heart thumped.

Darkness encroached around, enveloping the room until only she remained, a human beacon holding back even our own thoughts. My hands hovered beside both sheathed blades, mind frozen on the last instruction.

Every thought crashed against the wall inside my head.

Nothing existed except Glory Girl and her awesome bodysuit, standing, daring someone to attack, powerful legs rooting her to the spot.

“Do something dude,” the kid behind me breathed, his voice shaking.

My thoughts ground against stone, muscles straining to work. Fingers found the grips of the blades. Their weight filled my hands, sliding free, gaining momentum. Metal scratched against metal, building momentum. Glory Girl’s eyes glanced at me, then the kid behind me. His breath shivered as the full force of her aura came to bear.

Tallboy’s hand reached for his waist, clawing at something. My mouth found a gear.

“Gun!”

Her head snapped. He drew. The aura collapsed. My mind sprung free. The kid beside me had enough time to realise how badly he’d been fucked before both blades shocked him off his feet.

Glory Girl launched tallboy into the ceiling with a swinging kick.

The body landed in a heap. His gun skittered across the floor.

Footsteps drummed down the stairs outside, door bursting open. The barrel of a gun met my face, sweeping through the room. Thoughtly, I lashed out. His eyes widened, mind taking a moment to process and wonder why a ‘friend’ was attacking. My first strike knocked the gun from his hand, sending it skittering across the floor.

He grabbed hold, wrestling me to the wall. Metal crashed against concrete. One, two three hard blows with my fist caught him on the nose. Just enough to knok him back. A stab at my stomach knocked the wind out of me but the adrenaline carried me through, grunting. The pommel of the sword met the side of his chest and he dropped with a crack of lightning. Yeah. I don’t need to use the pair to do it.

Glory Girl had disappeared. So had the gun. Two men lay on the ground. Shorty and Tallboy. A third from the stairs groaned at my feet.

The kid had gone missing.

I scanned the room. A shadow loomed behind me. The bat beside the couch had gone missing.

He swung the bat. My blade parried, shock running up the arm. The shot stunned my arm, my fingers spasming, shock grounding through my feet. My fist caught him across the side of the face. He stepped. I lunged, crashing into his body. He toppled with a yell. Hands grasped at my costume straps, pulling me off my feet with a yelp of fright.

We landed in a heap, my body across his.

A hard blow to the face cracked my mask against my nose, bringing tears to my eyes. Instinct took over. One. Two. Three. The shock ran up my elbow as it slammed down hard against something made of bone. I pushed myself off. He lay there, face bloodied, nose askew, struggling to move

Done.

Fucker.

A gunshot shook the building. Followed by another heavyweight thump as somebody soft met something hard.

Then nothing.

Only my own panting breath and the roar of blood in my ears. My body shook, driven by adrenaline to do more than just stand a wait. My eyes scanned round.

Three men, either groaning or unconscious. One kid curled up in a ball, blood gushing from his nose. My arm thrummed. My legs ached. My heart threatened to burst free.

A savage grin crossed my lips and I waited for the last one to make his way up. My blades hung ready by my side.

Glory Girl shouldered the door open, a flash of her aura stunning my mind long enough for her to stride past, long legs carrying her into the room. Her chest rose and fell in time with her breath, matching mine. Her grin shone radiant as she stood

“Tie ‘em up and I’ll call my sister.”

The rest of it happened much as you’d expect. You've probably read the original Interlude. Panacea arrived and made sure nobody’d had their life permanently ruined in her own sinister way.

Again.

I sat on the roof in the cold air, winding down from the greatest high of my life, a strange sense of disbelief swimming through my body. Every single hair on my body fizzled with excitement, my mind turning itself through loops begging to go again.

I just passed the fucking tutorial level, and I was ready to pay full price to play the game.

Fighting and winning.

It felt like life.

I’ve been such an eejit, haven’t I? My Power hummed in agreement. Somewhere deep inside, I knew better, I knew where the idea came from

It didn’t matter.

::That was so cool.

Info-chan summed it up in one line on my goggles.

A new life pulsing in neon colour, vibrant, thrumming with energy, beckoning, enticing – begging me to step forward and claim it. I got it. I finally got it. A diamond bullet to the brain. A brand new apocalypse.

I really could do things that mattered.

This made two. Twice I'd stood in the narrative and twice things had been different in some small way.

“First time’s always intense,” Glory Girl hovered beside me, winding down from the same adrenaline high. A shock ran through my body, grounding fast.

“It took me far too long to do it,” I admitted.

She dropped to her feet, standing with one arm held akimbo, the other brushing the breeze-blown hair from her face. “Mom’ll kill me for saying it, but the Wards really could use someone like you,”

“I want to wait a few weeks,” I said, making a conscious effort not to focus on her.

“The sooner, the better. Being a solo act in this city’s so dangerous you might as well commit suicide.”

That stabbed, a heartbeat snap into the moment, falling. Trigger warning. She caught the flinch immediately.

“Oh geez, I’m sorry.”

Her whole body seemed to shrink, the pressure on my mind receding. I saw the real her, wearing a sheepish smile, embarrassed in the moment. It drew a genuine smile to my lips, hidden by the mask. Maybe even a little ashamed myself for reacting so much.

“It’s okay, really,” I waved it off. Really. “I just have to work some personal things out first.”

Really.

Freed from her shame, she grew three size in my mind again, crushing me down.

I thought I could’ve said something else, something about looking after her sister or how fucked her mind might really be by the stress of it all, but it died inside of me. What if she got angry? What if I tripped her little trigger?

The aura loomed, smothering my words.

That’s my excuse.

I stood and stared over the city, just trying to hang on to the moment.

The whoop of approaching sirens and blue lights strobing in the street signalled the end of all good things. Reality had arrived to intrude.

“Now for the real fun,” she said, through gritted teeth.

“Yeah. No,” I said with a shrug, making for the roof edge.

One firm hard grasped the strap across my back. "Oh no you don't...."

Goddammit. I had better things to do than spend a half-hour explaining myself to blank-face stormtroopers in SWAT gear.

Just don't ask them if they know Governor Tarkin. They've heard the one before.

--

Aki exploded when I landed on her roof.

“That was so awesome,” she panted. Her mouth opened. Japanese came out. She stopped, blushed, and composed her words again. “Like. In the face. And Glory Girl…. Ano…. Ano…” she gasped, outrunning herself again.

Wearing only short and a t-shirt, she shivered against the cold. My eyes glanced down. Very obviously cold, too.

One free hand levered my facemask and helmet off, steam rising from my hair. The helmet clattered down onto the rooftop.. I stood opposite her, struggling to breath. Formerly fresh-legs burned from the exertion.

A thick smile crossed my lips, chased by a childish giggle.

“It fucking was, wasn’t it?”

She laughed, smothering it behind her hand, looking up at me with bright, shining eyes.

“Hai…”

We stood, catching our breath. She’d run up the stairs from her apartment below. I’d swung across the city. She placed her hands on my shoulders, light, almost imperceptible through the leather.

My heart stuttered at the possibility.

My own hands pressed against her waist, soft skin giving way, fuelling the drive to just pull her tight.

My mouth watered. She sucked on her lips, body turning tense in my hands. Sweat glistened across her broad face. Jim Steinman wrote whole operas about this moment. Both of us, sixteen years old and sparking in the dark, hungering for the taste of each other’s lips.

She pushed free.

The chill took hold of my body. Not tonight. That look of naked pain on her face stung.

“Your clothes are downstairs,” she said, her voice flat.

Why? What had I done wrong? She turned and walked, leaving me bewildered, standing in the cold with my helmet leaning again

“What was that?” I asked.

She glanced back, as if I should’ve known the answer

“What’d I do?” I demanded.

No answer.

I followed.

The roof door squealed shut behind me. My gear rattled with each step

“What happened?”

No answer. She turned a corner. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, throwing a hard blue light against the walls. Paint peeled in flakes beneath my touch.

She threw me a hard glance, pushing open a veneered door. Light poured out from inside, harsh and white. I followed her in, slipping out of my boots before the step up on to the timber floor.

She stood alone in a silent apartment, almost offering it as her explanation. That’s why, asshole.

I saw.

Dishes piled in the sink for days. Clothes scattered across the floor, unwashed. Cans of food left open and mouldering. Papers thrown on the table and the floor – dozens of typed sheets scattered haphazardly, dropped where they’d fallen. Shards of broken ornaments sat spilled on the ground.

The pieces crashed into place.

And I couldn’t ignore them.

I had the power. I could do things that mattered. Maybe, I could do this now. Maybe I could ask her.

“Your bag’s by the couch. Get changed in the bathroom.”

I stared down at the helmet in my hands. My costume. My other face. The hero I could be. I’d have to do it.

“Akiko,” my voice tried.

She just stood with her back to me, focused on the picture of her family hanging on the wall.

“I'm going to ask you a pretty hard question, and I need an answer quickly, or I can't do anything.”

She stepped away. Her head turned back over her shoulder, looking at me through the side of her eye.

“What is it?”

At least she listening. We did it again, just to set a marker with my Power. Now for step two.

Please God don’t let me fuck this up.

I looked right at her, stared straight through her skull with a laser gaze, and took a shaking breath “I know you're ABB.” And that slapped her across the face. She snapped to face. Her eyes golfballed, her mouth hinging open to protest, to scream a denial. If I’d been closer she’d’ve slapped me across the face. “I can try get you out with my power. Do you want me to try?”

I promised myself. I’d move hell to make it happen. I meant it.

She stood.

Completely blindsided. Hit by a brick.

Well sorry, I only have fifteen seconds, how fucking subtle can I be?

She turned. She looked away. She scanned the room. She eyed me, gauging my chances. Not just mine, but the whole Protectorate. I’d do it. I 'djoin. There's my fucking condition. They'd do it. They'd have to do it.

She gauged the whole world’s chances to save her, for something good to possibly happen and save her.

Tears welled up her eyes. My stomach turned. I knew the answer. I waited anyway, counting the timer down in my mind.

“No,” her head shook. Her face twisted into a mask of fear and pain and I hated it. “Please don't do anything, my par-.”

My Power triggered, gunning the moment, banishing it to dead time. Fuck it all. That’s all I needed to know. I won’t admit to feeling just a little relieved, released from my own unspoken promise.

I’ll admit to hating it.

“What is it?” she asked, again.

“I already asked,” I said, swallowing the truth. “I used my Power.”

“What'd you ask me?” she pushed.

My head shook slowly. “Nothing,”

She scowled at me. “Fine…”

I stood on that timber floor, turning it over in my head.

Damn them for doing this to her.

Damn her for getting into it in the first place.

And damn me for not being able to do anything.

“Akiko,” I said, my voice lost in the mess of the apartment. “Keep yourself safe, please.”

That’s all I could do. All I could hope for her.

Slowly, she turned to face me, tears glistening down her cheeks.

“Thank you very much.” I like to think she knew I’d figured out her secret, even if I didn’t need to say it. Maybe that’s why her smile came back. Soft, sad, stinging, but still welcome. “And you, please,” she breathed. “Good Luck.”

I bowed. “Arigatou Gozaimashtou.”

My eyes turned up just in time to see her do the same, dark hair cascading over her shoulders. We stood up, sharing an awkward smile and an uneasy squirm. Our hands reached out, tentative, testing the air between us. We touched. Hand to shoulder. A hot thrill through my bones begged for more, for a gentle moment threatening to pull in to something closer – warmer.

But no. Not tonight.

We stepped back, fatigue hanging from our bodies. It’d already been a long day. Neither of us needed to say any more. No denials. No excuses.

She went to bed.

So did I, taking the couch to myself in a t-shirt and shorts.

In the darkness before sleep, sanity returned. I tried to reassure myself that really, I couldn’t have done anything. Not against Bakuda or Oni-Lee or a thousand conscripts with shotguns and baseball bats.

No matter what I told myself, it just rung hollow.

Having a Power, couldn’t keep me from feeling utterly powerless.


No. To hell with it. I’m doing something.

I just need to figure out what.

And how.


The first one of you to say Good, the Bitch deserves it, gets a punch in the mouth. Seriously. Fuck you.
--

[Dartz]

And with apologies to Bob.

-----

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♦The state of play in Brockton Bay Pt 3
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
(Showing Page 301 of 301)

►Lib1rn (Original Poster)
Posted on September 13th, 2010:

Since the Previous thread's topped 500.

Keeping everyone in the know. People's lives might depend on what you post. So keep that in mind before you hit send.


► Herriot
Replied on April 14, 2011:

Okay. You see This thread here. Now, that’s an Emipre Safehouse in The Richmond getting hit by Glory Girl and some n00b.

Up until a week ago the whole area was solid ABB.

This whole Lung getting captured thing has really upset the apple cart we all knew. Three days ago two [slurs] knocked in asking for their monthly protection.

This morning two peckerwoods knock on the door and tell me I’m part of the Empire now and they want their pound of flesh before the end of the week, to get on the right side before the Day of the Rope comes to Brockton.

This is fucking ridiculous.

(User Warned for this post. Comment by Judge: Really? I get the frustration, but keep it civil)

► General Antagonist
Replied on April 14, 2011:

Not sure which is worse.

Not sure if the ABB aren’t going to come out like a cornered rat.


► Binkadocious
Replied on April 14, 2011:

With what?

2 capes. One that just sorta appears to follow orders and one whos sole claim to fame is a bomb threat in Princeton. Face it, without Lung, they’re really nobody.

What does the Empire have? Empire’ll win.


► BayFresk
Replied on April 14, 2011:

Wait and see.

Something funny’s been happening with my Japanese neighbours.

► Binkadocious
Replied on April 14, 2011:

Like What?


► BayFresk
Replied on April 14, 2011:

A week ago, you could set your watch by them. .

Then they go missing. Come back at strange hours in the day sort of thing. Like, they were missing all last night but their teenage kid was home, and then there’s a lot of shit happened late last night. Lots of weird noises

Anybody else have neighbours?

► Binkadocious
Replied on April 14, 2011:

Y’see. There’s your problem. They got teenagers. And you know what teenagers do when their parents are away


End of Page. 301 of 301,

--
♦One year on
In: Boards ► Places ► Europe ► Ireland ► After Hours
►MegaGurrier (Ar Bhain na Muice)(Moderatoir)
Posted on February 10th, 2014:

So. It’s been a year since that day.

How’s everyone doing?

Same rules apply.

(Showing Page 22 of 40)

► Stocious_One (Sued by Denis O’Brien)
Replied on March 14, 2011:

The Bang Bang's back in action. For better or worse. Things are getting back to normal. A sort of clean and shiny normal.

Still. No Hairy Lemon. Who'll look after the dog's now?

►Dad_Zebra(Still Alive….)
Replied on March 14, 2011:

The character of the city’s been gutted, drowned under the muck and filth. All that’s replacing it is thick steel and sheer glass just like every other city the world over.

Sure it’s ‘Dublin’

But it’s not mine.

I don’t recognise this place at all anymore. It could be any European city built out of my town

► Small_Far_Away(On Craggy Island)
Replied on March 14, 2011:

Well, what the fuck do you expect? The whole fucking thing’s beneath a couple of hundred yards of muck

What were we supposed to do?

Dig it all up?

Plough it to green fields and let Cork be the bloody capital?

Build some twee American-style image of what the city used to be? A carbon copy in fake red-brick?

Get some cop on why don’t you?

It’ll never be the town we grew up in. So what? The town we grew up in was destroyed. The rest of the world can put up with it, why can’t we? Why do the Irish always have to put on the poor mouth?

► Muir Eireannach(Cold. Grey)
Replied on March 14, 2011:

Not this again….

I’ve had enough of this bollocks.

► TweeTwee(Brewmaster)
Replied on March 14, 2011:

I miss Ryans pub. I’m tearing up just thinking about it. When you step outside and the smell of roast barley from the brewery across the river. We’d drop in for a pint coming off shift with the rest of the team and it’d just be hopping.

All the great boozers are gone.

► Fonzi (Blast it with Piss)
Replied on March 14, 2011:

Mulligans is still open

► TweeTwee(Brewmaster)
Replied on March 14, 2011:
There is no Temple Bar anymore, how is there a Mulligans?

► Fonzi (Blast it with Piss)
Replied on March 14, 2011:

Up in Stoneybatter. The last true pub in Dublin.

►RyanCian (Indicators Optional)
Replied on March 14, 2011:

The Brazen Head just opened up again. Looks well done on the inside too. Not too modern, not to overdone and the pint’s right.

► Dad_Zebra (Still Alive…. )
Replied on March 14, 2011:

It’s not the original. We played an Ars Magica game in the old one once. All the PC’s met up in the exact same pub, 800 years ago. At the same table.

You can’t do that now.

End of Page. 22 of 40, >>


--

♦So, Everybody’s seen *that* video
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay ► Capes

Needtocomeupwithaname (Gargoyle) (Original Poster)
Posted on April 14, 2011:

Link here if you didn’t.

Since I need to do more.

Brockton Bay’s newest entry onto the cape scene took the unusual step of sending a recording back to home base, in case he got into trouble while testing some new gear. He hurt his leg somehow, and we join him making his way through the Richmond trying to get home.

In summary.

*Glory Girl mistakes him for a Nazi. He dodges her attack. Panty shot.
*They team up.
*Cleavage shot of Glory Girl
*Panacea makes an appearance and defuckulates his leg.
*We move through the streets of Brockton Bay Docklands riding some sort of wire-swing contraption.
*We arrive at an Empire 88 holdout.
*Info-chan is the voice on the other end of the line.
*Cleavage shot of Glory Girl.
*We swing over to the roof to be challenged by a sentry
*Speak 14 words to enter.
*Sneak in and around, gathering intelligence.
*Violence happens.
*Cleavage shot of Glory Girl.
*Skinhead who put a woman in hospital gets put in hospital.
*Stream cuts somewhat abruptly, like whatever it ran off ran out of data.

Now. What does this tell us about our new southie wannabee?

Name seems to be Jaeger.

(Showing Page 1 of 3)

► Dendromedary
Replied on April 14, 2011:

Tinker 2./ Mover 4. If he got good at that he’d be moving fast, and keeping high.

No. Wait. Maybe Thinker Power too.

How’d he know the password?

► Bernstein Beer
Replied on April 14, 2011:

That’s like being amazed at having your account hacked when yours password is Password1

Any messhungener can pick up the Nazi schtick if you live in certain parts of this city, whether you want to or not. Or does anyone honestly think they haven’t heard the promises that the Day of the Rope is a coming. Especially in the last week.

I’ve never known Nazi’s for creativity.

► Brackish_Water
Replied on April 14, 2011:

Creativity.

Like using ‘Birth of a Hero’ as a soundtrack.

Again.

There is more out there than Two Steps from Hell.

► DerricotPie
Replied on April 14, 2011:
Cliches work

Kinda fits the swing.

I hafta ask though. Who, or what is Info-chan?

► Kyoki no Kyoku
Replied on April 14, 2011:

Probably whoever was making the recording. Home base support on speed-dial. Gotta love it. It’s the most useful talent ever.

It means we’re not dealing a complete moron. Sure he’s alone, in a dark part of town with untried gear in an unkind world, but he’s at least got someone watching his ass to call 9-1-1 if he gets in trouble.

And that someone’s smart enough to grab building plans on a minute’s notice, and probably relaying what’s she watching on screen to Miss Prom Queen on the roof, since he’s busy doing the whole heiling and marching and marching and heiling thing down below. (And creepily well for a non-Nazi…)

Smart enough not to go charging in without scoping the place out first. Dumb enough to think going in there pretending to be a Nazi is a good idea. Lucky enough to pull it off. Foolish enough to post a video online. Aware enough to edit anything identifying out of it.

Kid’s got potential.

Especially if you take the little lie of just being out to test some gear at face value.


► Point_me_at_the_Sky
Replied on April 14, 2011:

Dress like a villain and people will assume you're a villain, no matter what your real intention is.

Also the worst imitation of a New Hampshire accent I’ve ever heard.

► Lehane (Faithless)
Replied on April 14, 2011:

Not Southie. Definitely not one of us.

Sounds more like Australian to me. You don’t hear that too often. Maybe someone who got stranded, or got out before they set up the checkpoints?

Small wonder he’s keepin a low profile then. INS will be up his ass to make sure he’s not one of hers pretty damn sharpish.

Also, he who fight’s monsters and all that. Jaeger might be a reference to this.

► Morgenstern (Know your enemy…)
Replied on April 14, 2011:

Jaeger was taken as a cape-name. Changed his name to Stormfront after shacking up with Fuhrerprinzip in LA because they had that dispute with MacDonald and the NAA. Been free since.

Why do I feel dirty for knowing that?

I vote it sticks.

Just look at the way he swoops down on that guy. Both blades touch and he drops.

ZZaaaapp! Thud.

It’s just so right.

► XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied on April 14, 2011:

Hah! Jokes on you. I set mine to Password 2. They’ll never guess that.

He’s already been doing this for a long time. You think somebody using a sort of swing catapult like that has had a lot of practice or training to avoid going splat.


► Meeksa
Replied on April 14, 2011:

KNO…. Lie? Kinda makes sense.

End of Page. 1 of 3,

(Showing Page 2 of 3)


► Dendromedary[/b]
Replied on April 14, 2011:

I don’t think anybody believes that. Maybe he does. But you know what they’re like….

Why the full costume if it was a gear test? That’s a lot of gear.

This has been planned for a long time. This isn’t just some spur of the moment thing thrown together by a kid in a bedroom in one night.

Cowboy's right. He's had practice.

► Hardron Prime
Replied on April 14, 2011:

“Swing Catapult”. I like that.

Another vote for Jaeger. Especially since the last guy spelt it with the two dots. And sucked.

► Kyoki no Kyoku
Replied on April 14, 2011:

He’s not smooth enough to be practiced.
But definitely assisted.

And definitely lying about why he was out there.

The more I think about it, the more I have my suspicions. Too many kids like this meet bad ends.

► Tiron Heel
Replied on April 14, 2011:

[CONTENT REMOVED]

Judge: Okay yeah, there’s calling for restraint which is okay even against Nazi’s because hey, they’re human beings too. And then there’s the whole Day of the Rope Turner Diaries tangeant. Enjoy the break.


► DellGriffen
Replied on April 14, 2011:

I see what you mean.

It’s like each jump with the swing catapult is his first one and he’s just sort of barely making it each time.

I think some sort of secondary power. Something kinaesthetic. Like Circus? It lets him succeed in gymnastics.

And be Shadow Stalker’s boyfriend. Swooping down from the darkness to strike down the evildoors

Also. Reported.

► Hardron Prime
Replied on April 14, 2011:

Who will save us from Zombie Hendrix and the Evil Doors?

► Lambsbridge_Runaway
Replied on April 14, 2011:

Official release to law enforcement services from the office of the local PRT and straight into the wiki:

Codename: Jaeger (Prev. Chariot).
Age: 13-17 estimated
Sex: Male

Provisional evaluation is:
Tinker 3. (Mover 3).
Thinker 2. (Precog)

Tinker specialisation appears to be electrical equipment, as evidenced by the design of the harness. Not enough information to speculate further. Classification to be amended pending acquisition of a sample, or further encounter

Costume confirmed to include some form of integrated cellular communications device, with camera, recording and text capability. Ostensibly to allow a remote individual to call for assistance if in trouble.

Equipment shows a tendency towards being light and flexible.

Known allies: “Info-Chan”.

Combat style: Fast. Hit and Run.

Known to carry a pair of blunt ‘blades’ that are electrically charged and can induce severe stuns in an unprotected human, equivalent at least to a high energy Taser shot. Possible risk of severe injury to individuals with pre-existing or latent heart conditions as a result. Blade pommels appear to contain some form of lightweight momentary stun.

The PRT would like to speak to Jaeger on non-criminal matters.
Jaeger is not currently a suspect in any active investigation.
Jaeger is not assumed to be a direct threat to the public. Normal precautionary procedures to be followed until otherwise indicated.


Codename: “Info-Chan”
Age: Unknown.
Sex: Female:

Provisional Evaluation is:
Tinker 0

Possible parahuman power. Classification to be amended pending further encounters.
Specialisation may be computers and technology.

Known Allies: “Jaeger”

Combat-Style: Unknown.

Noted for Information Technology.
Codename suggest possible east-asian cultural base.

Info-Chan is not currently a suspect in any active investigation.
Info-Chan is not assumed to be a direct threat to the public. Normal precautionary procedures to be followed until otherwise indicated.


► Hardron Prime
Replied on April 14, 2011:

“Prev. Chariot”

So, already known to the PRT as a parahuman, but this is the first time putting on the Cape and being spotted in public.

Chariot’s probably a better name, IMHO.Can I change my vote? No Nazi connotoations for a start.


► TheFakeKidWin (Verified Cape)
Replied on April 14, 2011:

Dude, I know you’re reading this. I did too when it was me. Feels cool, right? Everyone talking about you, calling what you did awesome. Being their hero....

The Protectorate just want to talk. Honest. Discuss options, none of which mean you have to sign up.

Drop me a PM, even with a throwaway.


► Meeksa
Replied on April 14, 2011:

Like clockwork.

‘We are the WENE’s. . Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Your Powers will adapt to service us. You will be Assimilated. Resistance is Futile.


End of Page. 2 of 3,

[Inquisitive Raven]

The actual hyperlink in the PHO interlude is munged.

[Bob Schroeck]

And with apologies to Bob.

For what? The size of the post? If I didn't want big posts it wouldn't have been allowed by the board software.

I'm continuing to enjoy this even though I know absolutely nothing about Worm.

I saw typos and errors that need fixing; don't have the time to log them all for you now, but one did make me giggle... "naval-gazing" is the act of watching military ships.

[Dartz]

One of the handles should be familiar. Thought it'd be an amusing in-joke, but nobody spotted it.

Anyway - the last of the extant parts. The story's had a lot of the first half cut out to streamline it and remove some deadweight. But this part's just as it was, just concatenated.

---
For the first time in over a year, the rain on the window didn't wake me up.

My phone woke me in the morning with Darth Vader’s march. My hand grasped for the nightstand where it normally charged, finding only free space. Fingers fumbled for the sound, finding it buzzing on the floor.

“Why aren’t you at school?”

No hello. No, where were you? Nothing at all. The fog of sleep hung over my brain. Showing the quick wit expected of a new born hero, I answered.

“Huh?”

“It’s ten in the morning, and the school just called your mother.”

I bolted awake. My head snapped around. Akiko’s apartment.

My mouth goldfished a moment. One glance at the phone’s screen confirmed the time “I overslept.”

“What were you even….”

“I thought you left that on silent.”

Akiko stood bleary-eyed in the doorway, one hand rubbing the sleep from one eye. A pink hello-kitty nightdress hung loose on her slim body.

Silence answered from the phone.

Shit.

“Oh. I see,” said the oulfella after a few moments. The grin on his lips carried through his voice. “Just be careful. I amn’t ready to be a grandfather just yet.”

My mouth opened, ready to deny everything before realising the alternative probably wouldn’t be much better.

I threw a glance at Akiko, covering her mouth to hide a giggle.

“Your mother will go mental if you don’t give her a call. You know how she worries.”

“Yeah, Yeah, I’ll call”

Probably not.

“I’ve to go to do some business this afternoon so you’ll need to open the bar up after school.”

“Right, right,” I sighed, giving Akiko a tired look.

The call cut off.

She stood in her bedroom doorway wearing just that single nightshirt. I sat wearing nothing but a light bedsheet and boxer shorts.

A smile flickered between us, a spark that threatened to catch into an ember.

“What is it?” she asked.

I held the phone open in my hand as an explanation.

“Real life.”

The moment hung. The weight of ‘real life’ settled on both our shoulders. Back to the mundane world, as if the last night never happened.

“Ano…” she killed the silence. “I need to edit that video.”

“And I need a shower,” I said.

The heavy smell of teenager lingered in the air.

She disappeared back into the darkness her hacking den. My bare feet found warm wooden floor, along all the aches and pains you’d expect after a night of paraheroics. Muscles groaned and complained at being asked to stand, in my chest arms and legs. Habit had me rubbing at my knees, soothing phantom pains that no longer lingered.

Only a faint stiffness remained.

Thank you Panacea.

She’d even patched up the cut on my arm, and I’d all but forgotten about that. Not even a scar remained. Only the aches in my muscle and a fading pink line across the bridge of my nose and cheek proved I’d done anything at all last night.

My mind spun, trying to understand just how in the hell I’d gotten to this point.

That happened.

That really happened.

-

Cold rain soaked through my jacket, sending shivers through my body. Akiko clung to me, gripping tight as I powered the bike through traffic. And I really didn’t know what I wanted to do right now.

Just something.

Something had to be done.

Faced with the enormity of saving the entire world, of getting every single little thing right, the only thing I could do was jump. Get me the fuck out of here, I can’t handle all this.

Faced with the opportunity to do one little thing - to try without knowing the consequences - every fiber of my body begged to charge in, boots and all, blades swinging.

Winslow waited for us and my decision, looming grey against the dead-television sky. The yard sat empty, only a few smokers taking shelter under the bike-sheds. Shite weather and gnawing nicotine made fast friends from otherwise enemies.

Cold fingers closed around my body as she saddled off the bike, letting the rain crawl down the back of my jacket. She stood, helmet under her arm, waiting, letting the rain soak down her hair.

My fingers raised the goggles off my face. She handed the helmet to me, wearing a wan smile.

“After school?”

“I am busy after seven.”

“Right.”

Prizes for guessing with what.

Jaeger and Info-chan stood in the yard, trading glances as if we’d both shared some sort of mutual apocalypse, transcending the mundane into the new adrenaline-fired reality beyond.

It didn’t have to be this way. We both had our own Power.

I got a fast bike. We could hit the road and get out of the city. We’re old enough, we could probably muddle through with my Power and her intelligence. She’s smart. I can fight. Figure out where to go. How to get there. We’d make our own path. Head north to Portland or South to Portsmouth. Just hit the motorway and gone.

Try for the real American dream. No matter how badly fucked up you are, you can always start again and have a chance.

But real life didn’t work like that. She’d already said no. I knew why.

The clockwork normality waited.

The fat security guard at the door eyeballed us, maybe recalling he hadn’t seen either of us go by that morning. Inside, lunchtime thronged. Air thick with pine-scent detergent and teen spirit, consumed us both.

The grey cloak of normality laid over the neon of last night, the real world swirling around while I compulsively refreshed the cape world on my phone.

Who thought people being fascinated with me would be so fascinating?

I drifted through the school, my mind swinging back to the previous night, the rush of soaring between buildings echoing in my veins, begging to go back for one more go.

A chirp from my phone warned of another response to a watched thread. Another Jaeger comment. Another quick shot of adrenaline and a giddy smirk

Me, the sour mannered arsehole from Winslow, secretly wire-swinging hero and beater of Nazis Jaeger.

It felt like the ultimate prank, like being a coockoo in the nest. The Empire kids here had no idea what I’d done.

The mess in my locker welcomed. My hands went through the automatic process of stuffing the afternoon’s books into my bag, as if I’d been there all day. I sure didn't miss having to carry a full day's worth of schoolbooks around on my back. American High Schools won in that respect, at least.

Footsteps approached from behind. Tension rippled through my body, bracing for a fight. A glance back brought a smile to my face, and a flood of relief to my body.

“Hey man, what’s up?”

“Glory Girl’s skirt,” Damo answered with a luscious grin, settling himself back against his locker.

A giddy thrill rolled through my body.

“I guess you saw the video,”

“Half the school did.”

Holy fuck. I breathed, letting the feeling pass through me. Half the school. And over four thousand views on the web already, gaining a thousand an hour.

“So. Sophia?” he asked.

“She wanted to recruit me to do some stupid vigilante thing. I told her to fuck off.” I said, with a shrug from my shoulders. “She won’t bother us again.”

I fucking hope she won’t.

“So, You got it?”

His tone turned tentative, almost like he was asking me for drugs or something. My fingers found the memory stick in my pocket, offering it to him.

“Full video. I’ll email the FileBomb link later,”

He snatched it with a grin.

“Wicked cool.”

“Ayuh,” I nodded. “Aki’s plan should work…”

His jaw hinged open, looking up at me like I’d spontaneously sprouted a second head on my shoulder.

“What?”

He blinked, before raising a single hand to wave it off. “Nothing.”

“So what’d I miss?”

“Usual shit.” He said with a sigh. “It’s Thursday in Winslow high. And us normal people had to pick up the slack while you two did something more interesting than algebra.”

“I’ll bring you next time, I promise…” I teased.

“Fuck no.” his locker door slammed open. His hands searched for a folder, finding it in moment. “I like not getting the shit kicked out of me, thanks.” He offered it to me. “I’d rather do a dozen math assignments.”

I took it, thumbing through it quickly. The mundane Mill demanded that Paraheroics wait. Assignments needed to be done. We could have fun while the balance that kept the Mill safe toppled. Karma would fuck everyone if this aspidistra ever stopped flying.

“You did it all?”

“Yup,” he nodded, almost boasting.

Reality demanded. I unzipped my backpack to slip the folder in. A heavy lump of plastic and steel slumped over with a thunk, drawing the eye.

“Oh fuck me,” he breathed. A black Glock stared back up at him with its cyclops barrel, resting on top of my own notepad.

Yeah. I brought a gun to school. Just so as you know, the same one I picked up on the roof. It didn’t just vanish into thin air.

“It’s going for a swim on the way home,” I assured him. “I just didn’t want to leave it with Aki.”

His face fell, catching what I meant immediately.

“She okay?”

“I amn’t sure.”

Really, how else could I sum it up? He looked back at me, reading, sensing more than I wanted to or could, talk about. This whole fucked up situation hung in the air above us like a Vogon fleet.

“I hear you,” he said, taking breath. “But what can you do?”

That almost sounded like an accusation. Why don’t you do something? Guilt stung. I swallowed it.

“I thought I could get in touch with the Protectorate.” I glanced at him, gauging his expression. “Help her out, and I’ll join up….”

Bite the bullet.

“You dumbass,” he cut back. “They wouldn’t give a shit about some random girl. They’d just let the cops arrest her and some judge will nail her to the wall to set a big public example for the benefit of the rest of America’s innocent youth.” He breathed. His stare convinced me.

“You know how it works man?”

I wanted to disagree. I knew I couldn’t. It’d happen all too easily. She’d live long enough to lose her life to the oxymoronic justice system of America. What was that Frank Castle quote? This isn’t justice, this is punishment. Especially after Bakuda’s upcoming bombing campaign.

They’d hit her with every single one, just to show they’d nailed someone to the wall.

I gave him a wan smile, glancing down at Jaeger’s own PM box on my phone.

“It’s okay. They didn’t even answer me.”

He’d find out why soon enough. I already knew. Whatever I did, I’d do it by myself.

--

Someone once defined a Trigger event as a little death – some eejit who didn’t know what that meant in French, probably. Whether that came from some Let’s-read on the internet I knew or some offhand comment on PHO, I couldn’t remember.

Just like death.

Just as unwanted. Just as awful. Just as irrevocable

What you are out the other side, isn’t what you were when you came in. The worms go in. Unlike death, they don’t go out.

I’m trying to put it in terms you can understand. I’m here now, you’re there still. I know you’re looking in at me, and I’m trying to think of a way you’d understand it. A quick, succinct way, to frame it in a way you’d grok right in the chest.

I think I’d call it a personal September 11th​.

You never forget it.

It sits there, lording itself over you. It’s the thing that finally beat you – that cracked your personal aura of invincibility and left you ruined in the dirt.

You failed. You broke. It’s your fault you weren’t strong enough to push through.

And then it sits itself there as the new normal. Completely fucked up and changed forever, but you can’t really imagine it ever being any different.

You wall it off, guarding yourself against that one moment, against anything that even hints at it coming again. You try to step forward, to stand up and then it’s there with its tongue tickling in your mind’s ear.

“Hey, you remember that time when you….”

Remember that time you thought you could save the world? When you thought you could work out every single little path and do the right thing at the right moment?

You can’t forget.

But you can rebuild, I guess.

That night, I learned I couldn’t take on the world.

Last night, I learned I could do things that mattered.

And this? This mattered. Akiko mattered.

I didn’t want to save the world. I thought I had to. I thought wrong and got punished for it.

But I wanted to do this. Call it selfish. Call it mad. Call it the backseat driver in my head. The wider consequences just didn’t matter anymore compared to losing Aki.

My pen scratched through idea after idea in my notebook, scribbling through the problem. This is me. This is all of me. Who I used to be a year ago, and who I am now working together. This is me at my strongest. This is my best chance.

This is the Tao of Scotty and this is my true power, while my Power eked out the day to help me think, buying time, iteration after iteration. Sketch. Scribble. Erase from time to buy more.

I can do this.

Jaeger can do this.

How do I neutralise her bombs? Turn it around. First how do I build them?

How do I build a Bakuda-type glance-and-boom detonator?

Approach it like an engineer. This is my final product. How do I get to this point? What does it do when it's done? What exactly does it need to do to function at a top level? Now, break it down into sub-functions. What do each of these individual components have to work? Break it down even further if you have to. Down into steps, then build back up from there into a full path.

So, getting each individual sub-function to work. What exactly does it need to do, what're the constraints? Make a list of what needs to be done.

Analyse a problem. Understand it. Take what I already know. Learn what I need to know. See how I can build a solution out of that. This isn't Tattletale bullshit. This isn't Tinkertech. This is Engineering.

I need x, y and z technologies to make it work. If I amn't sure about Y, make assumptions, If I assume I can find unobtanium hardware that'll do y for the time being, how do x and z work with that? What would it look like? Has anyone built anything like that y before, and how? Chances are if it's possible, it's in the Radioshack catalogue with a pricetag. If it still doesn't exist, it has to be invented.

How do I invent something? The same way. Take what I know. Either something that does a similar job and already exists to act as a starting point, or something that can do a similar job, even if it's not supposed to. I might not have Y, but V is almost Y, it just needs a little bit added to it. That's a lot easier to do that do Y from scratch. Maybe even patch it together from a whole lot of I's because it sort of looks like three of them joined together.

Once you have a defined path, that roadmap towards success, the rest is just assembly and testing.

Uncounted dead hours in three left me with a notebook filled with notes on how to make a remote, vision-targeted and auto-triggered bomb system.

How I’d do it. How I hoped Bakuda might’ve done it.

Followed by the awful realisation that if anyone in Winslow ever saw what’d I’d drawn, and what sat waiting in my locker, they’d probably assume something entirely different. Gladly’s smiling face threatened a doom more crushing than anything as he stalked between the desks, waffling on about the collapse of the Soviet Union or something pointless. My Power saved me from suspicion, at least.

Ask me a question. Step back for an answer.

My Power dominated his.

I gave the answer. “Leonid Toptunov.”

I’m sure you’ve heard of his one bad day. It spread itself over most of Russian and western Europe, in both universes.

“Huh,” he blinked. I shot him a victorious grin as the words died in his throat. “Well, anyway. This would go on to…..”

At that point, my mind switched over to next channel, lurid with possibility. Why have the Learning Channel, when you have Parahumans Live? The unreality of afternoon class melted away beneath the glare of the new real. The real world, with its adrenaline, its strength, the ability to stand up and matter. To do something that people would actually talk about.

That’s me. They’re all talking about me like I’m some sort of hero. Those snatched glances at phones under the table. The buzz of my phone in my pocket.

They talked about me.

My power buzzed along, changing, reworking, tweaking, driving.

Herding.

Let it.

Nothing else mattered, even as my body zombie’d through the motions of life, my mind existed elsewhere. Papers were handed to their owners. Payment received. I didn’t do any of it.

Real life demanded I suffer detention. Jaeger begged to just run for it. To break through those doors and live in the thrill. Maybe I could blame the friend in the back of my mind banging the hammer. Maybe that just gave me the excuse.

I forced myself to go. Appearances had to be maintained or people would get suspicious. Don’t fuck this up before I even start.

Damo waited for me outside the library door. His face radiated with barely contained excitement.

“You see the news man? About the bank?”

I knew what he meant. He didn’t need to show it to me on his phone’s screen. Some no-name villain with ‘bug control’ powers.

“Already read it, man”

Years ago.

--

Time on the bike meant time for my head to clear. Splitting lanes inches from death had that effect. Mortal risk smothered all other worries. Wind the throttle on and watch the needles dance as the world turned backwards, snatching the holeshot between two buses.

Racing on the razor’s edge of death brought a funny sort of peace. Nothing mattered but survival. No space remained for anything else.

I stopped outside the Market, lingering on the idling bike for a few moments in thoughtless contemplation. Heavy eyes stared back up at me from the reflection on speedometer glass. I killed the engine, listening to it ping softly to itself as it cooled between my legs.

My hands grasped tight, confirming I really did live in this body, then released.

Do I really want to do this?

A slow breath gave pause for any doubts to surface. A few moments of consciously consciousless thinking let my mind wander wordlessly through itself and its own desires and dreams.

Nothing.

“I want to do it,”

It couldn’t be justified. It couldn’t be sane.

It just felt right.

Rain and the evening news kept the market mostly empty. Stalls had already begun to close. A few of the last stragglers glanced at me as I walked past, making a bee-line to the same electronics seller as the day before. Part of me hoped he hadn’t fucked off early because of the rain. Part of me smirked at the prank being played on the ones who still remained.

Could anyone tell?

Last night’s hero going out incognito to buy parts and equipment. Meanwhile, Jaeger’s thread sat idle, already forgotten about in the buzz over the new villain in town.

Everybody loved a good villain, I guess.

The same old man from Nagasaki waited, still smiling. He took more money than he did the last time we met, emptying my poker winnings. Fuckit anyway, I could win more.

Next stop. Aki’s apartment, after a quick blast across town.

The gangs lay low. Police and Protectorate made themselves conspicuous. The city air crackled with tension, heavy as an oncoming thunderstorm. Hot sweat and cold rainwater spray soaked through my jacket.

The cordon around the bank ground rush hour to a halt. I filtered through on the bike. A twist of a wrist and a leather pannier relieved a blind Pontiac driver of a wing mirror after he tried to pinch me against the side of a street bus.

Meanwhile, the Undersiders stashed the takings of their robbery in the trainyard. Where and when, I didn’t know. What time Bakuda showed up tomorrow, I didn’t know, just that it’d happen.

Hanging around the yard meant risking discovery. Meanwhile, real life begged me to take part instead.

Fuck’s sake.

Going to Bakuda meant getting screwed by Winslow and taking the hit on my personal life – maybe getting discovered. Fighting Bakuda head on meant…..

….Maybe I could do it. Come swinging out of nowhere and catch her completely by surprise.

That’d come as a right shock.

But then she’s spent hours wiring the whole place into her own personal explosive domain. Gangbangers would be crawling over it for hours beforehand

Fuck!

Instinct begged to fight. Sanity warned me not to.

Maybe with The Undersiders help?

The idea floated for a moment, before I sunk it.

Why the fuck would they help me? Answer me that?

I had my own plan. One I could do, by myself. No Undersiders. No Protectorate. No fucking problem. Just between you and me, as the villain says

Y’know how Skitter learned the whole rule through fear thing from Bakuda? Right, well, the one thing Skitter did different – or would do different, or whatever….


People feared Skitter. People didn’t hate Skitter.

People feared Bakuda. People will hate Bakuda.


It’s better to be feared than be loved. But you should never let yourself become hated.

Machiavelli said something like that. Once the fear’s gone, what’s keeping the people who hate your guts from hanging you with them?

The bike came to a halt outside Aki’s apartment block. The first few evening lights already shone out from small windows set into a browned steel facade. A bicycle rack gave me a handy place to strap up the bike, beside a garish Kawasaki with four shining stacked exhaust-pipes taller than me, a purple candy fairing aimed at the sky, velour seats and a gleaming chrome sissy bar.

A Bososuku bike. Little Yaklets lived here.

The hair on the back of my neck prickled as I pushed open the front door. Cold metal creaked. Two men stood inside, staring me down.

I stared back.

Yeah. You want to make something of it? I got shit to do here and I am not an easy fucking target. The pair traded glances, grasping at pockets of their ill-fitting jackets. Their bodies tensed, a few whispers being traded. Neither of them really carried that gangland swagger, but they still carried knives. A familiar weight in my jeans pocket soothed.

Tension crackled across my skin. An unfamiliar weight hung in my jacket, threatening a more dangerous option.

I passed. They said nothing.

Thank Christ.

Whatever made them nervous, it wasn’t me.

Bloody Bakuda.

A lift opened at the back of the lobby, going down. A quick jog carried me inside. One finger pushed the button for Aki’s floor, and another used the ‘door-close’ button to trip the fireman’s override.

The poor bugger in the basement would have to wait a little longer.

The ride up gave me time to try ignore the Katakana graffiti scrawled on the mirror on the back wall, and the rough looking teenager in the mirror

Since when did I become the person you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley?

Crack. Thump.

The moment hung over the back of my mind like an albatross offering the answer. Yep. You did that.

Fucked if it matters. Fuck Sophia for dredging up shite I thought I dealt with. The door opened and cut the thought off.

The same corridor I’d walked through last night led me to Akiko’s door. The same walk, but a different feeling. Nervous energy crackled at the tips of my fingers. My heart drummed inside my chest. My mouth parched, a sick sensation crawling up the back of my throat.

The doorway waited. Apartment 402.

A funny little thing, that. A coincidence that’d mean nothing to nobody not familiar with early 90’s anime from another universe. My hand clenched in sympathy. One deep breath gave me the nerve to knock on her door.

My knuckles rapped once.

Silence answered.

I tried again.

Rapid shuffles answered from inside, fumbling for something. My phone buzzed in my pocket. My fingers flipped it open. A message sat onscreen

Aki ::U outsid

“Yeah”, I answered, tentatively.

My fingers slipped the phone into my pocket, grasping something heavy. My body went rigid as the door unlocked, every nerve anticipating the ambush.

The door cracked. Light shafted across the floor from inside. Tension crawled through my body. My feet stepped back.

It crept open.

Akiko stood, wearing the face of a kicked puppy expecting the next boot to drop. My body relaxed in an instant.

“Sumimasen,” she breathed “Ah. Everything is here,”

The tension crept back, gnawing at the pit of my stomach. The shadows inside morphed into things other than curtains and chairs. A flash of brass mutated into the spark of a blade. The steel frame of a chair transformed into a gun lurking under the table.

“Everything Okay?”

No.

“Yes,” she waved it off. “Okay,”

The smile that pulled across her lips couldn’t have been more fake if it’d been cast in plastic. It chilled.

I following her in, shuffling my feet out of my boots to leave them by the door. Only one other pair of shoes stood beside them. The dishes had been cleaned from the sink. The sheets I’d left on the couch had been meticulously folded away. The scent of fresh forest flowers clung to every surface, mingling with the nose-tingling spice of Chicken Katsu.

A single microwave dinner sat half-eaten on the kitchen table, beside her laptop.

“Everything is in the closet,” she said. “In the bags under the coats.”

Aki stepped around me like a child in field of landmines. I swallowed, sensing the weight in the air. Part of me wondered what’d happened. Part of me knew the answer and didn’t want to think about it.

Fuck it. Time to nibble on the crust of the shit sandwich.

“Aki,” She looked at me. I breathed. The words caught in my throat. I found different ones. “Will you be giving Cho her assignment tomorrow?”

“Ah…” she stopped, appalled for a moment. Her eyes stared at the second head on my shoulder, wondering for a moment. “I will get it done.”

Jaeger’s begged for me to go anyway, but that decided it. Stick with the original plan.

Sorry. I amn’t going to be doing anything awesome and worthy of fanart tomorrow.

“Thanks,” I said. “I need to get to work.”

“Ja ne,” she said, her mind already on other things.

She had real shit to do. So did I. Teenage problems seemed so small again when faced with actual you-will-die-if-you-bollock-this-up consequences.

Time to grow up.

Again.

I glanced at my phone while walking down the corridor. Dinah hadn’t made the news yet. The plot moved on, irrespective of whether I cared about it or not. It didn’t matter. This did.

The mammy wondered where I’d gone.

I didn’t answer.

Time to go to work. Real life still demanded I participate, even while my body ached to be elsewhere. The manoeuvre gear hung off my back in two bags, clattering as I walked. The lift carried me down, my head drumming with ideas the whole time. My fingers drummed on the handrail.

The door opened. My feet carried me outside. The Kawasaki had gone. A figure loomed over my bike with its back to me.

“Get away from that!”

My voice echoed back off the glass walls of the building opposite. The figure sprang back, catching his own heel on a footpath crack, falling over backwards onto the flat of his arse with a thump. Both bags dropped from my shoulder with a clatter, my hand already clasping for the weight by my hip.

Fucking thieves.

“Whoa dude!” he yelped, pushing himself away with his hands. “Just looking. Seriously man.”

Panic widened his eyes.

Oh. Right.

My body fizzled, tension shaking through my frame. Shallow breaths waited for the attack. The hairs on my neck tickled as they always did, expecting the hit from behind.

I glanced back.

I glanced at him, sitting.

It hit me in the face.

What the fuck is going wrong with me?

“Sorry bud,” I said, offering him a hand instead. He grasped it, his grip warm despite the rain. The red mist parted and I became human again. My Power quietened, defeated.

The light of humanity shone in the kids eyes, a nervous smile crawling across his lips.

“Yeah. I understand man. No offence taken.”

My body relaxed after I pulled him to his feet. We both took a moment to stand, both expecting the next shoe to drop. Bright eyes in the centre of a broad, clean Korean face stared at me, still not sure if the ragged looking Irishman wouldn’t reveal a set of brass knuckles with a swastika on them.

“Honda four,” he said, looking down at the bike.

“Yeah?” I answered.

Distant sirens rose above the night air, carrying over the top of skyscrapers. The gangers inside loomed in the shadows at the back of my mind, already sneaking up on me while I stood talking.

I swallowed it with a breath.

“That’s a piece of history. The first of the four cylinders,” he placed a hand on the blue paint on the tank. Fingertips stained the paint.

Not quite the last V8. And he’d never heard of Henderson or Motto Guzzi, but that could be forgiven.

“The oulfella hates it,” I breathed, forcing myself to relax.

“Huh?”

“He was always into the Kawasaki’s instead. Threatened to disown me for buying a Honda,”

He threw me a broad grin. “Hate to break it to you man. Your old man’s right.”

My hand settled on the cool metal of the fuel tank. The slight against the machine’s honour would have to be defended, somehow.

"Old Kawasakis are for old men,”

“And old Honda’s…”

“For people who just want to get places and can’t afford something new.”

“Hmm,” he offered me his hand.

I took it with a firm grip and shook.

“Be seeing you, “ I said.

“You too man. Take it easy.”

He left me outside, still holding the fading warmth of his grip in my hand

A few moments of genuine human interaction – no Power, no future, no tomorrow – just a shared moment over a motorcycle. A few moments could bandage the soul. Despite the shard of Scion banging the hammer, I could still be a good person

Jaeger’s costume hung from both sides of the bike’s tail handily enough, both bags staying clear of the exhaust.

I straddled the bike, gripped the bars and kicked the engine to life. No one action could possibly be more badass that kickstarting a motorcycle in one hard booted stomp.

The machine settled into its usual idle as my body settled down. My fingers drummed on the rubber grips while I weighed my chances with a Sober mind.

Right. Time to get to work.

--

Evening traffic thinned as I raced back across the city, Jaeger’s costume clattering against the support frame on the bike’s tail. My power hummed along in the back of my mind, thoughts about taking the direct route to Bakuda coming forward again.

A backfiring gearshift swung the bike around the back of a rumbling bus, dodging a grey cloud of diesel cancer. With a twist of the wrist, throttle butterflies yawned open, sucking gulps of cold night air through four carburettors.

The pub and its dipso's waited for me to open it up. I parked around the back rather than deal with them.

The familiar smell of old farts and beer embraced as the back door opened for me. I shouldered my way in, dragging my costume behind me. The costume found its home beneath a washback tank. My fingers found the electrical switches. Neon signs buzzed their complaints at being forced into life. Stools clattered onto the floor. Chillers rattled and hummed. Cold blue light shone from the fridges.

Even as the grinning leprechaun jeered. I refused to play the diddly-eye shite on the radio. Cape Metal from Thunderblade filled the silence, at a lower volume.

Rule 666 – if it exists, there is metal of it.

The clock on the wall counted down to opening time as I checked the lines to the taps delivered clean, fresh beer to the nozzle, tweaked the carbon dioxide a little to get the gas right, and poured a golden pint for myself.

It settled by the drip tray while I opened the locks and latches on the front door. A man shouldered past me, crashing the door against the wall.

“Took you long enough, kid” he sneered.

My body twitched

“Not by my watch,” I glanced at it on my wrist. “Or City permits”

He stared me down.

I glanced him over, noting the suit he wore, the polished shoes, and the tired look in his pleading eyes, waiting to drink his children's college money. The sort who shuffled to work hung over every morning looking down on the true alcoholics pissing in the gutter.

Sure. the only people who really cared about what time a pub opened at were the ones who depended on it opening.

“Just beer me, kid. Bottle a Schlitz,”

The emphasis on kid, stung.

Right. Time to introduce this bollocks to true Irish cuntstomer service with a reading from the book of O’Leary.

“You can stop being a prick, or your kids can find out what their da looks like sober,”

A cocky grin crossed my lips. He loomed. His fist clenched. My Power crackled to life. I could take him.

“You want to know how to lose a customer?”

“Let dickheads like you in?”

His face reddened. Nostrils flared. The image of a bull crossed my mind. I could do the matador thing.

You’re on my ground mate.

He took a breath, weighed up the options, snorted, and stepped back out the door, leaving me standing, revved up with nothing to fight.

“Kid,”

A bolt ran up my body. The voice came from the doorway behind me, from the mouth of a man my mind dubbed the skinny professor. His thinning hair and spectacles earned him the label. A pair of green eyes looked down on me through the milkbottle glass, judging me like some specimen

“Will yous stop talking down to me like that,” my mouth snapped.

“Well, I don’t know your name.”

Amazing how a pair of raised hands and an apologetic smile can make you feel like an utter shitehawk.

“Ian,” I said.

"Your dad said I could leave these flyers, Ian, you mind taking them?”

His hand extended, offering a sheaf of blue flyers. My hand took them from him. I glanced at the heading. ‘Right to Fire’.

“Alright,” I said. “I’ll leave them at the bar,”

The smile he’d forced dissolved between my eyes, the brightness of his eyes fading tired.

“Thanks,” he answered, not really meaning it. Another rusted knight from the Union.

The professor left me alone without saying another word. I set up a workstation at the end of the bar, busying myself in my project as the evening rush began.

Not exactly the picture of a welcoming host, but nobody polite questioned a teenager with schoolbooks and a soldering iron.

“What’re you working on?” someone asked, peering at the breadboards and cables. “Looks complicated,”

One of the usual faces I saw around. Greying around the edges with beady, curious eyes that had to inspect everything. I didn’t know his name, but the oulfella did.

“School project,” I answered, hoping by force of will that he got the message.

“Hmmm?”

He leant towards me, inspecting my work. The hair on the back of my neck prickled.

“Wouldja fuck off and let me work!” my mouth snapped.

Silence fell. All eyes stared The red mist cleared. He looked at me like a man who’d sat on a live sparkplug. Murmurs circled around the bar. My eyes whipped between faces, all of them focused on me.

Fuck sake.

My Power saved the business from a flurry of shitehawks and their spite reviews.

The clock snapped back. The beady eyes stared, waiting for their answer.

I took a breath. My mind cleared.

“I need to get this bloody thing finished mate,” I said, my voice still sharp. “It’s due in the morning.”

“Ah. Well. Education comes first.”

His smile mirrored the one I forced myself to wear.

“Kid’s gotta get a education,” someone said.

Beady-eye left it at that. One thing nobody would begrudge.

My mind submerged itself into the work, chasing the Frankenstein moment when an idea leaps of the drawing board and becomes a working reality. Every round ordered dragged me up for air for a moment before I dove back in. My body pulled pints. My fantasies went to heroic places.

The first datalogger blinked into life, a tiny red LED pulsing out the newborn heartbeat.

In the name of God, now I know what it feels like to be God.

Test it. Fix it. Start the next one. Serve another round of beer. Dive back in. Start a little production line behind the bar.

Another drink for the bead-eyed man.

A cold draft of night air rolled up through the cellar door, chilling up my spine. The cellar hatch slammed shut. Footsteps approached from below.

The shotgun waited under the bar.

The oulfella emerged from below. A shudder of horror rolled through me. I shook it off.

He looked down at me, sitting at the bar surrounded by my tools and a steaming soldering iron. I looked up at him, dressed in his old brewery jacket, hair damp from the rain.

“You didn’t call your mother,” he said. Just a fact, not an accusation.

“No credit,” I lied, looking at my tools, hoping he’d say nothing else.

He just looked, his lips forming into a thin line. Maybe he’d call me on it. Maybe he’d let it sit. The judgment would come. My Power couldn’t save me from it.

“Well, I need you all the way to closing tonight,”

Fuck.

“But I’ve a school project to finish!”

“Well, you can do that downstairs,”

Fuck sake.

"That's Bollocks!"

“”It’s what has to happen, we need the money.” He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t yell. He just stated the fact with absolute certainty, leaving it a few short moments to sink in, before turning his gaze to the toys on the table. “Unless you want to share the money you used to buy those.”

My body shook. My mind scanned for a way out. I stood, open-jawed, powerless with my Power whirling in neutral.

I did the only thing I could.

“Fuck it!” I screamed.

The oulfella rolled his eyes.

Well, I’m sorry. I can’t fucking help it. One of my friends is about to run the Bakuda gauntlet. The whole city’s about to turn to shit, there’s an Endbringer coming in and I can’t tell you any of that because then…..

Because I know adults can’t be argued with when you’re stuck in a sixteen year old body.

--


My second night in the cape lacked the excitement and glamour of my first. No flashing blades, or adrenaline-fired fist fights. No Nazis. No Glory Girl. No Glory Girl’s awesome rack. No videos live on PHO. No thread talking up my achievements and skill and how awesome my moment had been.


I faced nothing but darkness, shit, and an ice-cold hosing-off at half four in the morning outside the bar to get rid of the smell before packing the costume away.


The true gritty side of being a cape that nobody showed.


I rode home through deserted streets. Even the gangs had gone to bed. Only the drunks, the homeless and the capes remained outside.


My feet carried me up the stairs to the apartment. I’d mastered the art of the silent entry


Only the dog stayed awake late enough to say hello to a tired and yawning Jaeger, a cosy bundle of black fur waiting to soak up all the cold from my body.


Job done. Time to wait. Time to lie in bed, gazing at the reflection in the mirror on the other side of the room.


Time to wonder just what the fuck had gone wrong inside that kid’s head to turn him into such a different person from who I had been.


Maybe you can tell me. If you think you know.

I need help with this. But it needs to wait.


The dog guarded me for the rest of the night.

--

Morning came as it always would.

Morning passed as it always did.

Breakfast found me picking at pop-tarts, alone except for the dog. The dog had to spend the day with the neighbours. Because I amn’t a cruel fuck who locks a dog up all day while he’s away, and neither are my parents.

Little Arya next door got a kick out of Archie. Archie got a kick out of her.

Maybe one day I’d have a little sister just like her.

The thought warmed me to the core, melting the edgelord front away for just long enough for me to get caught smiling.

A little sun shone on my soul, and I didn’t turn to dust. I call it a win, even if I earned more than a few disturbed looks for my momentary good humour before I could hide the evidence inside my sullen black helmet.

Showing feelings in an almost human way? If you want a never-ending train of Irish misery, go read fucking Peig.

The pressure seemed bearable for the time being. I had acted, writing my own story for the first time. The future had become unset. I’d earned some small hand in my own fate.

City streets rolled beneath the wheels of my bike, carrying me towards another school day.

My body ran through the motions of the day. I rode across the same schoolyard as I always did. I chained the bike to its usual lockup, giving my surroundings a quick scan.

The usual morning crowd seemed to have thinned.

Nobody seemed to mind me. My fingers pulled the ignition fuse on the Honda to be sure. A deep breath swallowed a yawn. My hands rubbed the fatigue from my eyes. Robo-Taylor I amn’t.

A wide yawn carried me through the open doors. As always, the fat guard eyed me with suspicion. I glared back at him.

My locker waited, filled with the normal kipple of life; school-books, copies, worksheets from a dozen different classes – even ones I didn’t take, a can of body-spray to replace a shower on a busy day, and the remnants of yesterday’s lunch.

My hand braced me against the shelf as I swallowed another yawn.

Not even the little fizz of adrenaline simmering in my body could keep me awake. And I fucking hated the six-hour-shots.

“Hey man, what’s up,”

My body started. My Power shivered, looming. Damo’s face popped out from behind my locker door. A bleary eyed look over my shoulder greeted him

“Glory Girl’s skirt,” I answered.

Nothing else came to mind. Neither of us felt like laughing. He stood looking at me. I stood looking at him. A deep yawn stretched my jaw wide.

“Jesus dude you look like hell,”

He said it with a smirk on his face. Hell looked down at him through tired eyes.

“I spent last night in a sewer,” my throat croaked out.

He blinked. “Why the hell would you do that?”

I breathed, turning my eyes towards the kipple in the locker, before looking right back at him. “Cape shit,” I covered the truth with the truth.

He looked at me, taking a long breath through his nose, biting his lip for a moment. My Power loomed to life with a quick reminder that I could save our friendship from an awkward moment.

“Just don’t be a dumbass,” he said.

“You know me better than that,” I said, forcing a thin smile to my lips. His expression “I’d regret it if I did nothing,”

“Just don’t be a dumbass, dude,” he repeated.

Yeah, he knew me better than that. He placed a hand on my locker door, threatening to say something else for a moment, before letting it drop and swing by his side. The corridor bustled around us both as it usually did, oblivious.

Gladly basked in the attention of a team of teen girls begging for a better grade. The most popular kid in school at last.

Two ‘brothers’ in their orange medhall Jerseys helped a third along the corridor. He limped along, looking with a black eye and a bandage keeping his nose straight.

My elbow carried the bruise. My nose carried a red mark from where my goggles had pinched. His body carried the rest. I’d seen him the other night. Damien had seen him on the video. Along with every other student in Winslow who fucking hated these gang bastards, and finally had one of them to act as the lightning rod for all of our collective hate, frustration and anger.

A single hand went up from the crowd, terminating with a single raised finger.

“Sieg Heil!”

The laughter started. Followed by fruit-juice. And sure the brothers shepherded him through it, and maybe someone would earn a stomping in return, since appearances had to be kept up, but for the time being, nobody thought it’d be them.

It brought a savage smile to my lips.

Damien looked at me.

I looked at him.

Yeah, I did that.

“Well, his life is ruined,” said Damien.

I couldn’t tell how he felt from that, and I didn’t push the point. He took a breath. I swallowed another yawn. To me, it didn’t sound like he cared at all.

That’s the way things were here in Winslow.

“Man, you’re lucky,” he said, after a moment.

“Huh,”

“You got the easy way out now,” he said. “Away from this shit.”

My brain ground around trying to figure out what in the name of God he was shitting on about. Another yawn escaped my lips. My fingers ran through my hair.

“I feel like shit,” I managed to say.

“Well, day’s about to get a whole lot worse,” he said.

He didn’t know just how much. We had the next episode of the Uber and Leet show, the start of Bakuda’s bombing campaign and World Fucking Affairs.

A faint tapping on the locker door caught my attention. I turned to find a dark-haired girl glaring up at me, like she’d just found out I’d dropped that fly in her soup

“That girl of yours was supposed to do an assignment for me today, but she’s not here yet.” She said. “And now I’m going to fail.”

Every single nerve in my body went cold at once.

“Oh….” I breathed.

I needed an answer to this.

--

Gladly smiled at the class. Taylor’s seat remained empty. So did Akiko’s. So did Sophia’s.

I hated him. I hated the blackbird, greyed up with chalkdust. I hated the white paint on the concrete walls behind him. I hated the wrong world map that sat tagged up on the wall beside the door. I hated the shite wheelie-bin plastic of the seats that sweated on hot days and numbed on every day.

I hated everything about being in that room, with Aki still outside. My hands worked under the table, tapping out a quick message to her phone.

A little green tick on the screen told me she saw it. Thank Christ. The phone buzzed in my hand as she answered. A quick thumbs up.

Okay. Small miracles. What could I do? Try make plans for later, that’d tell me.

::You up for Arcade after scool?

Aki :: K

Okay. She agreed. That means she’s OK. Right, now to see where she is, or will be at any rate.

ick you up on my bike from were?

It took moments for the answer to come back.

Aki :: K
Aki :: My place.

I felt myself grin. My fingers worked.

::Own some n00bs

Autocorrect fixed the ‘P’. We could set ourselves up parasiting free games off people trying to beat us. Like we always did.

Received.

No answer

I waited. Gladly lectured. The world closed down to the phone in my hand. Time ground forward, tic by toc.

Still no answer.

What next? What could I do? The phone pulsed in my hand. My heart stopped. What happened at the other end of the radio connection?

The phone buzzed.

Aki ::K

Why so long? Paranoia on my part? Or something else? Maybe she’d been distracted for a few minutes on her end? Maybe something innocent?

No. Not with Bakuda coming into play.

Something felt wrong. More wrong than I’d thought. The sensation crawled across my skin. I had to try.

::You OK

The answer came back, confidently quick.

Aki:: :thumbsup:

Too quick? My fingers tapped back

::Sure

Seconds timed out. My breath held.

Aki:: :thumpsup:
Aki:: CU l8r

Either she needed to get rid of me, or I had gone off a little too paranoid. Just a smidge. My fingers drummed on the table a moment. My chest drew a breath. A slim smile crawled across my lips.

Off hand, I tapped out a final message just to set the date.

::What time?

The message went out. My power simmered. My body tensed. The world continued to turn. Class murmured along in a sort of Bokeh of sound, out of focus of my mind.

No answer.

I waited.

I counted seconds.

I counted minutes.

My Power pressed against the inside of my skull.

::This message could not be delivered to the intended recipient.

The universe crushed in around those words as they penetrated through, the lights on reality going down, leaving my hand in the spotlight. Nothing could’ve happened to her but the worst. No innocent explanation existed.

One awful possibility formed, crystal clear in my mind.

A voice from the darkness penetrated my bubble.

“If it’s important enough to be worth sending message during class about, maybe it’s important enough to be worth sharing with the class,”

I looked up at him, still smiling, completely oblivious to reality I lived in. A few giggles circled, hungry for some little tidbit of juicy gossip to suck on for a few hours. Expectant faces stared.

My body numbed. My mind emptied, crushed to a singularity. My power tripped, snapping me back to a point where my hands held a screen still waiting for the message to return to sender. Gladly lectured on, not looking at me yet. A tremor rolled up my arm. My hand clenched tight around the phone, tensioning it out. My breath caught up in my throat.

The phone buzzed its warning again.

::This message could not be delivered to the intended recipient.

Okay, I told myself, trying to gather my thoughts.

My body quivered, begging me to do more than just sit. I slipped the phone into my pocket before drawing a slow breath, trying to centre myself, trying to kill my worst first instinct.

Alright, I thought, maybe….

“Ian, take it out,” Gladly’s voice interrupted. “I saw you slip it in,”

Teenage giggles followed. A week ago I would’ve laughed too. My head snapped to him, standing there with ruler in one hand, and the other open towards me.

“If it’s important enough to hide, maybe it’s important enough to be worth sharing?”

He still smiled. The class still hungered for gossip. I looked at him like he’d just kicked my dog. The smile fell from his lips.

“It’s not…..serious?”

Everyone waited expecting something. My gaze danced between dozens of staring eyes, fixed on me for the next move. Sparky and Madison silently begged. Damien looked scared – no, worried. Greg grinned, waiting for the bomb to go off.

Everyone expected me blow up, right there and unleash that Irish temper at full volume.

Under the glare of the classroom I had to do something. My mouth opened. The class drew a collective breath.

“What the fuck am I doing here?”

My eyes went to Damien for an answer. He said nothing, looking more like a rabbit under a spotlight. My head snapped to Gladly, who seemed to shiver just a little as my eyes locked with his.

I stood, bundling my notebook and worksheets into my backpack, before slinging it over my shoulder. Gladly’s voice raised a pointless half-hearted protest. I ignored him.

My chair scratched against the floor as I stood. I marched to the door, hearing feet shuffling and chairs moving behind me. A single boot slammed the door open, clattering it against the wall. My heart raced as I ran along the corridors, bootfalls thumping and squeaking on the polished floor, echoing off the steel lockers. Panacea’s new legs carried me faster than I’d ever been able to run before – in any life.

In an hour, I’d be riding the wires, boots aimed at Bakuda’s face. The image thrilled through me.

My locker waited for me with my riding leathers heaped in the bottom.

Boots off. Leggings on over my jeans, fighting against cowhide cut tight-enough to keep the armour in it from moving in a crash. Footsteps charged up from behind me. A shot of panic injected itself into my veins. I fumbled with the waist buttons, racing against a fight with my legs tied.

The school had to try and stop me.

My fingers won the race. I spun round ready for a fight. Damien scrambled to stop

“What the hell was that?” he panted, struggling for breath.

Showing crystal-clear self-awareness, I blinked. “Huh?”

“Something happen?”

I looked at him, my jaw hinging open, words escaping before I could form them. For a half-second, I wondered what I’d even been planning on doing, before catching up with myself and realising I had nothing beyond ‘Go!’

“Aki told me she’d be here today, but she’s not.” I said, rushing the words out. “I sent her a message, to meet after school, and she said okay. I asked her what time, and the connection dropped.”

His face went blank.

Isn’t it obvious? I wondered.

“Maybe her phone battery died or, y’know, she went into a basement.” He said. “Or the AZN’s finally called in their favour,”

I looked down at him. Really? With Bakuda in the city and Lung in prison and all this shit that’s about to happen?

“That’s how it works. You’re in a shitty place and you’re desperate, so you just reach out for help and someone in a colourful T-shirt smiles and says they’ll make it all better,” he gave me a rueful smile. “And it is until they call in the favour.”

Oh.

That had a ring of familiarity to it.

I breathed, catching my thoughts.

He couldn’t understand, because he hadn’t read the story. I thought about just leaving it hang, letting the afternoon do the explanation for me. That seemed unfair somehow. I could afford to at least try explain – see what happened. My mind searched for a way to package it up into nice fifteen-second long chunks.

Something I could take back if the worst happened.

“Bakuda,” I forced myself to say, despite the thing in my head doing loops to stop me. “Bakuda put radio controlled bombs in peoples heads and conscripted them into an army.”

I looked at him, trying to gauge his reaction.

Brain bug-out horrified. As you’d expect. Welcome to my world. He stared. Like I’d grown a second head on my shoulders and hadn’t noticed yet. My body tensed, a twist forming in my stomach. My Power loomed. I took a breath. Time for the next punch.

If I could tell him about my power, I could tell him about this.

“I spent last night rigging radio receivers to pick up the signal. So I could figure out how to jam it or some shite like that,”

The idea wormed its way into his brain, insinuating itself right into the deepest seat of shuddering terror. My Power screamed at me to shield him from the truth.

What if he asks how I found out? What then? What if he calls the cops – or worse? A thousand different disasters unfolded in my mind.

I forced myself to ignore them. If I could talk about my Power, I could talk about this.

The chance to take it back sailed by and instantly, I wanted to. Sorry, too late.

“Jesus,” Damien’s voice finally peeked out from the safety of his throat. “Like……Jesus.”

I sighed. “Yeah.”

He didn’t ask how I knew. He settled himself back against the metal door of a closed locker beside me.

“Fucking anybody,” he breathed.

My breath caught.

Fucking anybody.

A bomb didn’t need to be snuck through security inside a backpack, when you could sneak it inside the person wearing the backpack.

“What can you do?” he asked me.

My mouth opened. I stepped up to the mic, but nothing came out. A wave of nausea rose up to fill the space left inside.

I looked at him, looking to the person with the Power for the answer. You’re the bloody parahuman with phenomenal cosmic Power doing spirals in your brain, what can you do?

“You going to tell the Protectorate?” he asked me.

It sounded more like a suggestion. My hand went to my phone in my pocket, Jaeger’s account waited on PHO. My thumb ran across the keypad.

Message Kid Win, asking for a meeting?

The idea hung around in the back of my mind. Kid Win alone might work. Kid Win might bring along bigger, blue-er friends.

Somehow, I don’t think that big blue bollocks will be too interested in dealing with another bloody teenager who just wants to make a deal.

Worse than that?

What if they asked the really hard questions? I dithered with the idea, trying to work it out anyway, exploring the possibilities, trying to work it all out.

One final thought brought that crashing to the ground.

Remember what happened the last time you thought you could work it all out.

I couldn’t undo any of it.

I couldn’t step back and palm it off. I couldn’t step back a day and not bother coming to school. I couldn’t step back a month and live in those few days forever. I couldn’t put the cape on six months ago and do it fucking right first time. I couldn’t forget that feeling of just hanging there in that instant before gravity took hold, a single step beyond that bloody ledge with no way to step back. No matter how much I wanted to.

My power buzzed in the back of my mind, gloating at me. Want to risk fucking up again? Want to risk regretting again?

My hand still worked my phone between my fingers. Jaeger’s account still waited for me. The idea loomed each time I saw Akiko’s final message. It lingered at the top of every breath.

I had to make a choice. I couldn’t take it back.

I could go to the Protectorate now, with nothing but an empty tip.

Or I could go with something they could actually use. The radio logs, or even the actual detonation commands. Things they wouldn’t have without me.

Like trusting Akiko. Telling everyone about my Power. Donning the cape. Joining the Mill. Even, just telling Damien.

I had my plan. It made sense. I just needed to see it through.

That’s my decision.

I’m sticking to it.

“I need something to tell them first,” I said. “And I won’t get that until tonight.”

He looked sick for a moment. He swallowed it. He looked at the far wall, maybe thinking something would spring from the wall to help, then looked at me again, resigned to his fate.

He didn’t agree?

My Power whispered to me. I could still take it back. Take the other path. Be sure of being right.

A faint smile crawled across his lips “So, what the fuck would’ve happened if I hadn’t stopped you being a moron?”

An amused snort escaped from my nose, chased by a rush of relief. The pressure in my head released. My Power faded. My thoughts cleared.

Things made sense again.

On some level.

We both sat, not saying anything to each other, with the cold metal of the locker doors behind us. Classes continued around us, murmurs of voices escaping under the doors.

Soft footsteps approached.

We both looked up. Gladly loomed over us, looking paternally displeased with the pair of us.

“Do you mind explaining what that was about?”

We looked at each other.

“Just some bad news,” I said, offering him a little white truth. “It’s OK now.”

Gladly had the opportunity to be the absolute prick I’d always pegged him as. I stared him down, pulling myself to my feet, ready to argue. Damien stood behind me. My lips pressed together into a petulant snarl.

His expression softened with sympathy. An uneasy shudder rose through my body.

“I’ll write you boys a pass for now.” He said. “Just promise you’ll go to your next class.”

Thanks, I guess.

He returned to a class that had probably already begun to go wild in his absence, leaving us both alone with handwritten pieces of paper letting everyone know we had a permission to be out of class.

I didn’t look forward to watching the Uber and Leet show. I knew I’d hate myself, if Akiko got herself hurt. But this made sense. It gave me the best chance of doing something right.

The very idea of being chewed up by the Protectorate merchandise machine made my skin crawl. But the alternative would be worse.

I knew that.

Someday soon, I had to face the people who thought they were my parents, and tell them the awful truth. That seemed worse somehow.

And then I had to face a fucking Enbringer.

After that, whatever the fuck happened.

--

The machinery in the school’s workshop drowned out the noises outside the building. Being the only person in the class – including the teacher – who knew how to run the lathes gave me steady work to finish.

The machines had introduced me to the Mill.

The machines took their scrap of flesh as punishment for working while tired.

My Power saved my skin. My brain had begun to shrivel up like a sponge left in the sun. Spots and stars danced along the back of my eyes.

By the time afternoon maths had begun, things at the trainyard had ended. The whispering continued in the back of class. Skitter’d gained some new fans among those who followed the Cape scene.

The die had been cast.

And I’d only recently learned that actually referred to a fucking dice-roll, and not casting metal. Either way, the meaning didn’t really change.

In my pocket, my phone buzzed.

A single message waited onscreen

Aki ::Im OK

In the middle of Afternoon maths, I screamed.

My Power saved my blushes. I huddled over the glowing screen. Sheer fucking joy fired my chest. I didn’t believe in God, but I thanked the fucker anyway. Small miracles saved my soul.

Another message followed.

Aki ::U no?

My joy cooled in a heartbeat. She knew. So I answered.

::Yeah.

Of course I could undo it. My Power damned me with the knowledge that I could make that answer never happen. Eradicate it from history, so she’d never know.

But that served no purpose anymore. I only really had the one answer to give.

One final message came back.

Aki ::Sorry

I wanted her to know that I understood why. That, on some level, I didn’t really see a difference between us. We both hit the bottom. We both reached up for help. And that help damned us both in different ways.

My fingers typed.

::I understand

I waited. I held my breath.

The network answered on her behalf.

::This message could not be delivered to the intended recipient.

Fuck
---

The lights in the pub went dark. The machinery in the basement fell silent. The Cape world, reached out and touched the real world.

The radio lived on, supported by its batteries.

Explosions rocked the city, rattling the windows and sending little fingers of terror crawling down my spine. I wondered if my Power would save me from a bomb upstairs. Or maybe I’d go upstairs and find ten thousand years had passed by in an instant.

That’s how Terror worked. Every little thing out of its usual place gnawed with the possibilities of Horror.

The oulfella had the candles going on the bar, and on every table. Couples made the best of the privacy the gloom gave. A torchlight and a calculator let the oulfella make change and keep the books straight.

Life carried on. The radio kept us updated.

I wondered if it crossed anyone’s mind that we might be targeted. I wondered if they cared. Life had to carry on.

The obvious question still had to be asked.

“Are we going to close?”

Somebody had to say it. I’d feel like an utter shitehawk if the place blew up and I hadn’t at least suggested we shut the doors.

The oulfella broke his summing for a moment to think. He didn’t even look at me. “Not when we do our best night’s business on a Friday,”

How could I disagree? I didn’t feel like arguing the point, missing either the desire or the energy. With a little luck, my Power would save us. Fifteen seconds to duck and cover.

My eyes still shuttled between every handbag, backpack, wallet and purse. In the spark between detonation and destruction, could I save everyone?

“How’re things downstairs?”

Or, are we going to lose the whole bloody lot?

“I can do everything by hand,” I assured. My jaw hinged wide open into a deep yawn. “Like the last time.”

The last power cut, not the last mass-bombing.

He waited for something. I waited for the same thing, propping myself up with a hand against the doorframe.

“Yeah?”

“Aren’t you working down there?”

I glanced at my watch. “I’m on me break,”

A raised eyebrow answered me.

“Union rules.” My arms folded across my chest.

Now he looked at me. A couple of heads on the other side of the bar took notice. I glanced at the audience, then at the oulfella looking down at me with that sort of amused disapproval parents normally reserved for toddlers covered in chocolate.

“What Union?”

A smirk crossed my lips. My shoulders shrugged. “Just meself for the time being.” An unexpected yawn punctuated

“It’s your own fault for staying up so late. What were you doing?”

“Studying with a friend,” I lied quickly.

Judging by his amused expression, he assumed something completely different from the truth. Teenagers would be teenagers and all that.

“Just be careful Ian,” he warned.

“I will.”

As careful as I could possibly be, gallivanting through the streets and sewers of Brockton Bay in manoeuvre gear while planning to take on one of the most dangerous villains in the city all by myself

Four sandwiches waited in one of the under-bar fridges – kept cold by the inertia of the bottles around them. The chime on my watch forced me to go back to work before I’d finished the third.

Somehow. Running from valve to valve at the command of a stop-watch got the blood flowing. The body kept moving. The brain shrivelled like a sponge under the sun.

No space remained to worry about Akiko.

Jaeger’s gear waited in a pair sports-bags under one of the vats, hemmed in by crates of bottles and two bags of brewer’s malt. A bundle of wires sprouted from a half open zip, teasing me with possibilities.

My watch reminded me I still had to make it through the next four hours without passing out, despite the beginnings of a headache pulsing in my temples.

I sat for a moment to let my head catch up, glancing at the ghost of my reflection in a dead computer monitor that normally kept the entire system alive.

My eyes closed.

My eyes opened.

The oulfella loomed over me, inspecting me with an amused an amused glint in his eye.

“I think you might want to get to bed early tonight,”

I couldn’t disagree. Especially when the cops mistook me for a drunk on the ride home.

--

Early to bed, early to rise, as the wise man said. My phone woke me at 4.

The dog stared at me as I left, black eyes gleaming with curiousity. His tail ticked from side to side, asking for an explanation.

“Don’t tell anyone,” I warned him, placing a flat palm on his head. My fingers scratched the fur behind his ears. He shook my hand off, ears slapping. The tail continued metronomic tic-toc wag.

Not yet anyway.

Not until I finished this.

The apartment door snicked shut behind me, a single paw scratching on the steel. A torch under my arm lit the blackened corridor, washing out the dim red glow from the exit signs. The better parts of the city had power back. I didn’t have the luck of living in one of the better parts of the city.

The night air tasted of sulphur and ozone, a column of thick smoke rising up from the rig in the bay, drifting across the moon.

Empty streets allowed me to wind the old Honda to exhilarating speed through dark streets. Green lights strobed from the few PRT vehicles parked on street corners, troopers having bigger concerns than a speeding biker.

A few amateur astronomers had decided to take advantage of the surprise darkness, setting their telescopes up on the concrete foundation of an old warehouse long demolished. Sparking braziers kept them warm.

A backfire from the exhaust send them diving for cover.

Sorry. Can’t help that.

I parked the bike in its usual space behind the bar. The CCTV systems recorded nothing without power. A heavy chain through the wheel and frame would keep it safe.

The scent of roast barley and sweet wort lingered in the brewery, tainted by chemical cleaners, and sweat from Jaeger’s costume.

Donning the cape by torchlight took time, fighting against heavy boots and braces I didn’t need anymore, but might’ve given my knees a chance after a hard landing. I hated myself for not taking the care to pack the cables away properly, cursing while teasing tangles apart. It took time to adjust the straps so everything balanced properly and didn’t pull.

I’d gotten faster at it, but still miles from being practiced.

By the time I reached the roof, the first orange gloamings of dawn burned below the horizon.

Green flashes sparked up between distant buildings, chased seconds later by fire-work crackles. A pillar of white flared up to the sky, vanishing in an instant, leaving only the glare in the back of my eyes.

Nobody would mind another cape out in the dark, minding their own business, not with Miss Militia out and about going full-auto on someone popping off canned lightning.

Right. Time to go.

Three rooves in, my phone buzzed in my pocket. My hand flicked it out, half expecting a message from Aki’. That Poker site’s chat app had woken up.

Lib1rn: What has you up so late?
Lib1rn: Or early?
Lib1rn: Up for making some money?

Me: Sry! Busy atm.

Lib1rn: K. Talk soon!

Annoying.

Bringing my phone with me had seemed like a good idea – in case I had a problem or Akiko decided to try make contact. I stuffed it into the battery box, in the space between the terminals. I had a spare voltmeter, some torches, a pack of ‘fresh scent’ wipes, and a first aid kit I’d pulled from under the tail of my bike.

The SIM for my headset still had no credit on it, but it had memory.

It’d have to do.

Crossing the city took less time. A little extra practice made for fewer broken bones this time. The yard had been cordoned off on the surface, a single purple-and-black van sat idling with its green lights flickering, a squad of faceless troopers watching over.

The bulk of the PRT had more important things to worry about.

Nobody guarded the stormdrain I used to get into the sewer.

Berry-scented wipes in the mask-filters proved their value. My torchlight reflected from black, foaming water, slashing around my boots. Flecks of paper and solid debris drifted by. Rats skittered into the distance, claws scratching on brick. Red eyes glimmered in the black, staring at the intruder.

I swallowed a lump of nausea, forcing myself to go forward.

Getting sick inside my mask would be fun.

Again.

The first recorder waited where I’d left it, zip-tied to the top-rung of a greasy ladder. The backs of the blade carriers scratched against the concrete liner of the manhole. I had the thought that maybe bringing the full manoeuvre gear with me had been a bad idea.

I checked the memory card.

A satisfied smirk crossed my face. It’d recorded something. For all my luck, probably PRT chatter and WIFI waffle. It only occurred to me after I’d sloshed back into the water that someone might’ve booby-trapped them to catch any snoopers.

A loud laugh escaped my mouth, reverberating off the slick brick wills. It cackled back at me, resonating. Glowing eyes in the distance fled.

The second and third recorders waited for me. The fourth had been covered in something sticky like pan-grease that I didn’t want to identify. It’d cascaded down the shore, covering the ladder. A chunk of it sloughed off, splattering across the top of my helmet and goggles.

A fresh wet-wipe cleared the worst of it. Another one banished the stink of warm meat from my mask.

An idea sparked in my head. My stomach lurched. I forced myself to ignore it, dropping back into the water below, erupting a fountain of black water, pale foam and other things.

Next time I went out in costume, I promised myself it’d be somewhere far more glamorous than a city sewer, sloshing my way through filth and shite with only the surprised rats for company.

Nothing.

Then again, somebody had the job to maintain all this. Somebody had to clamber down those ladders in full-gas mask and haz-chem to make sure the water flowed, and I’m sure that somebody went home happy to a warm shower afterwards.

And a good paycheck.

“While here I am in taped-up leathers and goggles,” I breathed to myself. The rats didn’t tell me why.

I pulled myself up the final ladder, boots struggling for grip on the grime. Visions of getting dunked in shit-water flashed through my mind, even if my Power would save me before the foetid splash.

At the top of the ladder, I found the worst thing possible.

Nothing.

Had somebody found it?

My breath shook. My hands clasped tight on the rungs, expecting the attack to come from anywhere. The torch on my helmet flashed off dripping water and corroded metal. No strings, no machines, no laser catch-nets. No beeping spheres.

Just a scuff on the rung where it’d been fitted.

Did it fall off?

I clambered down, the ladder, kicking my boot through the water, searching for it by feel. Nothing?

But I remembered tying it on.

Somebody found it.

Somebody took it away.

Fuck.

Rather than wait to get caught, I ran to the stormdrain. Maybe the PRT found it, maybe somebody else. I hoped never to find out. I scrambled up the ladder to the stormdrain that’d let me in.

My elbow hinged it open above my head, heavy iron clanging down to the tarmac. My head popped over the lip.

Feet. A purple and black bodysuit. A very shapely body, and a grinning dirty-blonde in with a single-eye mask. The stylised eye on the breast confirmed my worst fears

“Hi,”

Right. Well, that’s who found it. Not doing this here. Nope. Nope. Nope.

My Power put me halfway down the ladder. I dropped the rest of the way, landing arse-first into the water. Scrabbling to me feet, I ran back picking another manhole.

Heavy cast iron hinged up with a squawk. My eyes peered over the lip.

Feet.

“Hi,” she said again.

My Power triggered, dropping me down into the drain again. Right so. Fuck, if she’s using her Power to follow me, I’ve a problem.

Okay.

What can I do against someone with that sort of artificial intuition?

The rats didn’t answer.

I pondered for a moment. What did I know about Tattletale? A few seconds gave me the answer. Her Power needed something to grow from, a seed of information. She knew where I started, maybe a little bit about me – that might give her a guess at where I ended up.

But introducing some utter randomness, maybe.

I had a coin in my pocket. Heads or tails decided which direction I took. Heads, left, Tails, right. Walking forward, doubling back, according to the dictates of the coin.

I found another manhole – one I hadn’t wired. I asked the coin for permission to take it. Heads for yes, Tails for no.

The coin answered Tails.

I kept walking to the coin. I doubled back again. I circled around, following the coin. A second manhole approached, a shaft of light beaming through the grate.

I asked the coin for permission. It answered heads.

Slowly I climbed. The grate hinged over.

Purple feet.

“Hi,”

My gaze rose to meet that fucking grin.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!”

“Are we going to keep doing this, or are you going to come up here and chat?”

Nope.

This time, I heaved the manhole cover open.



“Hi there,” I said. “You’re looking for a chat?”


I refuse to call the grin she wore Vulpine, but I struggled to come up with a better description. I’d worn it myself, more than once.


“You ready to climb out of there, or will we keep going?”


With no better option, I hauled myself out into the morning sun, dripping shit-water and slime. I scanned around, finding myself in an overgrown stockyard behind a red-brick warehouse. Tattletale herself stood in front of me. Boots on gravel behind drew my attention.


Two tail-wagging dogs, being generously rewarded by their stiff backed mistress gave me all the explanation I needed. That’s how they followed me.


“So, you’re the one who put these receivers here.” She sat herself down on a concete stump, crossing her legs. Her right hand held the grime-covered datalogger I’d built.


Yeah, that’s about as bad as Bakuda herself finding them. I glanced over my shoulder, looking for a quick way out. Dropping down the shore again seemed like the best idea.


The dogs stared, standing themselves on either side, covering without approaching. The tail of the largest tic-toc’d with interest. Her power’d take time to trigger.


“If you hurt my dogs.” Bitch snarled at me, catching my intent.


“You know what a dog does when it’s cornered,” I cut back, my mask hiding my grin. Both trigger sets waited in their holsters. I had a pair of blades. Maybe a good shock would put one down – a second if I got lucky. I’d get enough warning to make the first move. I glanced at both voltmeters, then back up at Tattletale. I glared, feeling the adrenaline rise inside me.


“…that’s not why we’re here,” Tattletale tried to say.


Bitch ignored her. “If you hurt my dogs. My dogs hurt you.”


Just a fact. Nothing more.


“If you two could stop.” Tattletale’s voice cut clear. “Besides, his gear would probably fry itself anyway, it’s so wet. ”


I understood why the Protectorate called her Hellhound. ‘Bitch from the Undersiders’ could get ambiguous.


“So. Why are you, here? Really?” she asked me.


I took a breath, staring at her. “I’m going to let you tell me. I think you know,”


Show your hand.


“I’ll tell you what I know,” She grinned. “I know you didn’t set out to go Nazi hunting with Ol Glory Hole herself, or even do some Tinker testing. Something else brought you out that night, something you couldn’t really prepare for. Something you thought you needed to record. Then you released that video - not to show the world how awesome you are with your fancy swing-catapult, because it’s really pretty basic - but to let someone else know that you had a recording. Because you’re blackmailing them. “


Her Power said all that? From What? My breath quickened.


“I think you know something you really, shouldn’t know,” she finished, doing the Cheshire Cat thing that everyone with a Thinker power did when they just had to show you what they knew.


As Bill said, Baby, you ain’t kiddin’.


A cold chill crawled up mine spine. My hand clenched.


Okay. Maybe her Power got that from the video. It all depended on what she thought I knew. And if nobody in a black fedora showed up, maybe it didn’t matter.


I took a moment, trying to think of my best non-committal, but failed. I’d let my Power save me if it had to.


“The sort of thing that’ll cause an unholy shitstorm if it gets out.”


She loomed without moving, eager to keep going. My Power grew large – maybe once I knew, I could spit it back at he and not be on the back-foot.


Behind me, Bitch’s Doberman mask revealed nothing about the face behind. She waited for me to move.


“Because,” Tatteltale’s eyes gleamed, a single finger touched her lip, like she had a secret to share. “It’s a Ward. It’s a Ward who has something to lose if that recording gets out. If they were just doing the recruitment thing then there’s nothing to hide, so they were probably doing something the Protectorate really wouldn’t like. And, I think it’s somebody you know personally – which means you know them personally…”


Oh. Oh that’s so much worse than bloody fedoras.


“Like I said.” I breathed, keeping my awareness behind me. “I’m new to this, but even I know that when real names get involved, so do real people. And I’ve people I need to protect too, you understand?”


“Yeah, I do.” She settled back, re-crossing her legs. Her eyes never left me. “But that’s just what I got from a single video.” She rested her head on her hand, drumming her fingers on her temple. “So, why are you here? And what are you doing with these? Or would you like to know more?”


The hair on the back of my neck prickled.


I called her bluff.


I wished I hadn’t. That’s all I’ll say.


My Power saved me.



“I found out about Bakuda’s plans. I thought if I found the control signal, I could figure out a way to jam it…. I’d stop her.”


Her expression soured. The dogs stepped claws ticking on concrete. The hair on the back of my neck prickled.


“So. You figure out a way to jam the signal, what’s your next move? You think maybe you can walk up to the Protectorate and tell them, hey, I knew something bad would happen and I said nothing so I’d could get the data and do it all myself, Oh, by the way, here’s what I want….. you know how that sounds?”


…fuck. Again. I gritted me teeth.


“If I jam the signal. I break the one thing she has controlling them…” I started….


Her eyes gleamed. You triggered my trap card. “As opposed to fucking Lung who just escaped three hours ago, or Oni Lee, or that perfectly effective grenade launcher…. An entire bank-full of people know a pistol only holds six shots, but none of them wants to be the one person who gets shot.”


Ah. Even I knew I didn’t think this through. I didn’t need it thrown back at me.


“The hell am I supposed to do then?“ Even muffled by the filters my voice echoed. “I missed it. You want to know how I got here? I found out about it four days ago, when some Ward…. “


My arm swung. Dogs snarled. Images of sharp teeth raced through my mind.


My Power fired, giving me space for my head to catch up. I lurched through thoughts, hating the feeling of being under the microscope.


I wondered if, maybe someway, I could tell her the whole bloody lot and let her power ding-ding-ding off the list, before finally snapping the clock back that one last time so I could just say I told her everything – and she fucking hated it.


I gathered my thoughts. She couldn’t obviously tell if I’d used my Power. I could use it to get space – get out of the moment


“I missed it. I found out a few days ago when that bloody Ward decided to tell me.” There’re two girls on the Ward’s team, and Vista doesn’t count. “When they sort of decided that I needed to be part of some vigilante team going no-holds barred because nobody else will do what needs to be done, and if I didn’t do it, they’d fuck her over,”


“Your video? So you can threaten to go to the Protectorate.”


Her gaze interrogated.


“Nah, I know what they’ve covered up with this already.”


Her expression shifted, becoming almost hungry. Shit.


“A Ward they’ve been covering for?” The gears whirled in her mind. Dots joined.


My Power saved me from giving her something to bite on, lurching back so I could choose my words better, next time.


“Your video?” she asked again, for the first time. The grin on her face softened, her interrogating eyes widening slightly.


“Nah,” I said. “The first rule of the bureaucracy is to protect the bureaucracy.”


I wondered if she’d noticed. I wondered if any Power-spawned revelations had lingered somewhere in the back of her mind. She didn’t show it.


“So, releasing the video publically, where it can’t be covered up and would probably go viral if they tried, they’ll drop her. Or pull her probation?”


I felt myself smirk inside my mask. I felt Bitch move behind my back. I checked. Her eyes stared. The dogs looked to her.


“Or probably just get –uh - reassigned to a Craggy Island somewhere.” I nearly said ‘her’, letting my cynicism show.


But, in reality, that’s how it usually goes. You can have your fanfic fantasies of a Dreyfuss degredation – that only really happens when the bureaucracy needs a scapegoat to sacrifice to tabloid guillotine to keep them from looking too high.


“And now she’s dealt with, you’re here to rescue you friend?”


I nodded. Now give me the fucking thing.


“In that case, I think I have a proposal to make…” Tattletale waved the logger


I didn’t need to be a genius to put two and two together. I’d dirt on a Ward. I’d a Ward’s name. She had something I wanted, and I had something she wanted. And I knew what cards she held up her sleeve.


And so, Taylor finds out about Sophia and we’re right back at massive Shitstorm, only now, everyone knows who told.


“I amn’t some shitehawk who names names,” I snapped.


She flinched. Footsteps moved behind me. Paws shuffled. Tattletale covered, shifting herself. Her legs uncrossed. I glanced back. Both dogs had stepped forward.


“If the name gets out – how many people outside the Protectorate would know such a thing?”


Smug bitch. So that’s her angle. She already knows. She wants me to do something else.


“So, you know who it is?” My head cocked. “Right well, fuck that. You probably know who to ask about it to then?”


Again, caught just a little by surprise. She almost looked disappointed. But you don’t fucking blackmail me.


The dogs advanced, bodies turning taught, ready for the command. One of my hands went to a holster. You want to do that? Bitch looked ready, but I’d see it coming. Tattletale stood, her face turning stern.


You sure you want to do this, it seemed to ask.


My sanity caught up with my mouth a moment later. Maybe I didn’t want to play the card – not all the way. Lay it face down, just to leave the possibility, but without making the threat. That could get fucked up fast.


“I amn’t so fucking stupid that I don’t know what that means if you know us both. You know someone in there. Now, can we not go to that place because it’s really, really fucking shitey.”


Tattletale reached behind herself anyway. My hand went to my chest, leaving the other one free.


“Stop.”


Not angry. Not snarled. Just a calm, firm statement that left us each looking at each other, wondering what to do next. Bitch being the voice of reason surprised both of us and her voice carried, without being alarming.


“What?” we both said in unison, looking to the puppy mask for an explanation.


“You’re both acting like dogs.”


Just a fact. Nothing more. Look, you even obeyed a command like good little puppies. Fuck sake.


Tattletale tossed the logger at me before I could gather myself. I caught it in both hands, just like she wanted.


She advanced towards me with confident stride. Her hands held steady, just in front of her, at body height. Obviously not making any funny moves. I watched, ready to ditch the logger if I had to.


She stopped, at my shoulder, just out of blade range, fixing me with that smirking stare.


“Don’t jump to conclusions. And try not to get yourself killed or arrested taking the next step.”


“Hadn’t planned on it,” I managed to say, getting the feeling I may have completely misunderstood something very important.


She glanced at me, her smile thinning to a sliver.


I hadn’t planned on anything really.


Tattletale said something to Bitch – something smothered by my helmet. The other girl nodded, body wincing, before whistling after the dogs. Both dogs followed her at her heels.


Only by watching her walk did I realise how badly she’d been hurt – and how well she’d hidden it.


I wondered if the rest of the team had been near – covering in case things got messy. I wondered how well my blades would’ve actually done if I’d had the chance.


Most of all, I wondered just what side of that I’d come out on.


Which meant I probably hadn’t come out on the winning side.


--


I cleaned my gear off behind the bar.


Tattletale had been right about one thing. The water’d gotten in the mic and motors. The motors survived. The mic didn’t.


It recorded nothing but me crackling static.


Tattletale knew me. She knew what happened with Shadow Stalker. Somehow, she’d found her identity too. Maybe through Taylor somehow.


“I know this asshole from your school – has he had any trouble with any students?”


“He tried to get me to join his cheating syndicate to make a point to Sophia Hess – I think she was trying to blackmail him or something. Oh, by the way, she’s the same girl who triggered me.”


Ding.


And of course, if that got out, who’d the Protectorate blame? Just do this one little thing, and it stays quiet. Oh, and this one thing after that – and after that. Something like that.


Just hinting at Taylor cut her off. Guess what, I amn’t a complete fucking moron. That had taken her by surprise. Should that have offended me?


I had the thought that maybe Lisa hadn’t Taylor what she knew yet. I decided it didn’t really matter. It didn’t really matter to me.


I knew Sophia. Sophia knew me. Tattletale knew both of us. She’d drop Sophia in it, to put me in the firing line if I didn’t work for it. But I ‘knew’ Taylor too. It felt like a sort of Mexican stand off, but I couldn’t be sure.


I couldn’t really play the Skitter card anyway. It still felt cuntish. Tattletale probably knew I wouldn’t.


I wondered what sort of favour the Undersiders might try call in. I wondered about going to the Protectorate instead, to get away.


You knew about the mad bomber, and did nothing to stop them?


That wouldn’t go well either, would it? Tattletale had a point there, unfortunately.


So, what next?


I had five memory cards worth of data to sift through for an answer. I had to figure out how to do that first. Then figure out what to do with it when done.


What could I do then?


What could Jaeger do? His goggles didn’t have the answer.


My phone waited on top of the cleaned-up blade carrier. It reminded me - other people had skin in this game. Whether they liked it or not, they needed to know.


I dialled Damien’s number. He answered on the third ring.


“Hey man, what’re you doing?”


“Shitposting in a magical place, you?”


“Working some things out. We need to talk“


“What happened?”


“I need somewhere quiet and private”


“Shit. My dad’s little hunting cabin?”


“Sure.”

"And Bring your old man's shotgun."

I glanced at Aki’s profiles. None online since yesterday.

--

[Bob Schroeck]

One of the handles should be familiar.

(goes and looks) Kyoki no Ongaku? That's close to "Kyoki no Kyoku"...

[Norgarth]

One of the handles should be familiar.

(goes and looks)  Kyoki no Ongaku?  That's close to "Kyoki no Kyoku"...

there was also
► Lehane (Faithless)
from Boston, which I assumed was a reference to the Slayer Faith Lehane from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

[Bob Schroeck]

Missed that one. That's what I get for going backwards up the post and stopping at the familiar handle...

[Dartz]

I've change the name - thanks for reminding. I remember looking for it for the longest time - thinking I got it mixed up with something else and then going with what made sense.

Worm has a unique tone that few wormfics math - that's probably the best way to put it.

And this yoke was always meant to have a unique tone compared to most wormfics.

[Star Ranger4]

Okay... so, you've done the improbable, Gotten me to dig into a six year old completed fic.

And having done so, I think I've gotten to the point the 'Wormverse-You' seems to be most concerned about, the attack by Leviathan on Brockton Bay, in specific the carnage when the shelter is breached. At the moment I am assuming that Mammy and Ouldfella are among the casualties the first time you experience this (as compared to just reading about it)? That aside from Worm-you remembering your life here in this (ie the one where you are just writing about all this, not living through it) universe, the worm you also remembers loosing a large number of loved.... or cared for alot ones... the 'first' time through, before worm-you's powers 'officially' trigger?

Either way, I am seeing quite a few grammar errors I am assuming come from the difference between Gaelic, the queen's english, and Amurican. (yes, a phonetic misspelling to get the accent across). Will be going back and doing a line by line to help isolate them regardless of if you decide they needed fixing or not.


Oh, and I find an Irishman following the Tao of the Scotsman (Scotty) kind of hilarious in its own right.

[Dartz]

It'll always be a littlke rough.

Basic line is that we arrive in the Bet version of our home in time for it to get washed away - and then get dumped into Brockton bay on some sort of 'New Business' Green Card. I probably cut it that bit too far if it's not clear.