Chapitre 1906: 7
Chapter Text
??? / ???
"You're right, she's way stronger than she should be." The fool boy in front of her was smiling as he said it. "Learns faster than she should, more agile... if she's not a cape I'll eat my scarf."
Soon-Yi sighed as she drummed her fingers against the table, her head leaned in her other hand as smoke slowly drifted up from the stick between her fingers. "Dangerous talk, that."
He smirked. "Yeah, but she'll be fine. Gonna be a Ward in under a month, I bet." Oh, he'd bet alright. The rest of the kids had already left after their poker game. Trading information and secrets just as often as chips. It was a hard city they lived in. "Lung's out of town for a couple weeks. Word is he's sniffing around some new trigger. Tinker down in New York. Gonna be moving on a couple of plans, soon. I think I can draw the Merchants up to hit the Farm and get a couple of the girls out in the ruckus."
The old woman rolled her eyes and tapped the stick of incense in her hand against the table. An old habit that'd helped her kick smoking, but stuck around whenever she got stressed. "Not gonna patch you up if you get bullet holes, this time."
He smirked "Busy with work, and the kids, and the cats, I know." His smile softened a bit. "I'll keep her safe, Sunny."
She scoffed. "And who'll keep you safe? They'll catch on eventually."
Jake grinned all the wider as he dug a hand-knit green and red scarf out of his bag. "Ain't no one catchin' me." He wrapped it around his lower face. "I'm a fuckin' ninja."
Soon-Yi watched him leave, and longingly eyed the crumpled pack of cigarettes she'd never bothered taking out of the coin bowl by the door. "That boy is going to die screaming." She muttered in her native tongue, and tapped the ash off her stick.
---
Boardwalk / WED FEB 2
I watched Taylor stomp out of the store, heard Vicky cry out for her to wait, and grabbed her arm before she could fly off after her. She looked at me, confused, and I had to resist the urge to slap her.
All I'd do is break my hand if I tried.
"Dammit, Vicky!" So I stomped my foot, instead.
She looked hurt. "What? I was sorry. I said I-"
"Every time." I growled. "Every time I get a new friend, every time someone is interested in me, YOU happen!" I threw my arms up and tensed them into claws, trying to find something to do with all this energy, but wound up flailing them back down to my sides.
Vicky was floating, now. Her feet curled up under her, arms held in front of her chest. Defensive posturing, as if I could actually hurt her. Must've been a reflex, coming up against a problem she couldn't just punch or throw her aura at until it went away.
"What?" She muttered softly. "You have friends, we have loads of-"
"No, Vicky." I spat. "You have friends. I have people who tolerate me if it means they get to spend time with you." I saw her eyes flicking around. She was thinking of something to say. Some argument that would shoot mine down, and I knew she'd find one. Vicky was smart, a lot smarter than people expected her to be. She could think her way out of almost anything if she tried. "Every time someone comes up to me, talks to me, wants me for anything other than healing or bragging, they always meet you, and then they're not my friends anymore. They don't want to talk to me or spend time with me. They're too busy sucking up to you." I saw her starting to get angry now. "But Taylor was different. She resisted your aura. I saw her do it." I chuckled, forlorn.
"But then..." Vicky asked, confused again. "Why did she have a problem, if she's like you?"
I threw my hands up. "I don't know." I was smiling. Laugh or cry, laugh or cry. "Turns out she's one of the other ones, though. The ones who can't stand you after you turn the aura off." She looked hurt now, like she'd never considered the possibility. I sighed. What a naive, ignorant bitch.
I hate how much I love you, Vicky. Even with all her flaws, I wouldn't be mad a week from now. I might not be mad tomorrow, even. That's just how love worked. I turned to leave.
"Where are you going?" Vicky asked softly.
Deep breath. "I'm going to go find Taylor and see if she's still my friend." I turn back to her. "And you are going to just float there, with your aura off, and pretend you're sorry."
I turned back and continued on my way to find Taylor. She didn't mean for me to hear it, but I did.
"But I am sorry..."
---
Hebert Home / THU FEB 3
Danny sighed, rubbing his face with his hands and glaring back down at the numbers he'd been crunching for the past twenty minutes. He'd had to give up a little more than intended to get Taylor her Arcadia deal, and even with their meager savings, they were almost a thousand dollars in debt to the hospital now. That was fine, would have been fine, they were still better off than a lot of his boys in the DWA, but...
The cape things were going to add up. He'd scrounge what he could without needing to buy anything, but he could only see the costs going up. Actual armor, training, tools... They weren't cheap, and he wouldn't feel comfortable letting Taylor out looking for trouble without all of those. If Taylor had joined the Wards...
He sighed. No, he could understand where she was coming from. He'd looked up the numbers, at least five Wards transferred away in as many years, not counting the ones that'd aged out and gotten postings elsewhere in the Protectorate. All of them either hurt or harassed enough that leaving Brockton seemed better than staying.
Rumor had it two of those had actually died and been covered up.
So yes, she had a point. Obscurity might be preferable until she could take care of herself. He just wished he could support her better.
He leaned back and sighed again. He'd skipped lunch again today, took the bus in to work and carpooled back to save on gas, he could put off home repairs again without worrying too much, didn't have anything the truck needed this second...
It'd be tight, but they'd manage, even if he had to put off some of the things Taylor needed for caping properly. He could make excuses or not bother explaining, and Taylor would never need to know. This money trouble was his problem, not hers.
His eyes glanced traitorously to the phone. There was another option, but it might not be worth it.
---
LaFayette Home, New York / THU FEB 3
Rose glanced at the caller ID. She'd been managing finances by hand (the only way to trust it was done right) when the phone rang. She sighed, leaning her old bones back in her desk chair for a moment before picking up.
"Hebert." The name was stated in a cold monotone.
"It's Taylor." Danny cut right to the point.
"How is she?" The last part of her last child was the only thing keeping her from hanging up.
"Full recovery, she's out of the hospital."
"Good. And the investigation?"
He sighed. "Dried up, apparently. I haven't heard anything in weeks." He sounded frustrated, and she could relate.
Her eyes narrowed. "I'll look into it." He seemed surprised that she'd bother, but he wouldn't really understand. "You wouldn't call just for the nicety of keeping me updated. What is it?" She could tell from the pause that this wouldn't be pleasant. "It's the hospital bills, isn't it?"
"Not... entirely." He sighed again. "The locker, Taylor... that was the 'worst day of her life', if that means anything special to you." Danny was being circumspect, cagey, just because no one would bother tapping the Hebert's phone didn't mean no one was listening in. Usually that just meant running calls through an algorithm to pick out keywords, though, so he must be avoiding some.
It took her most of a minute's thought to get it. "Shit." Rose didn't like parahumans. That wasn't to say she was one of the worse bigots, but they'd complicated business law more in the past few decades than anything in history had before them. Generating hoops to jump through, out-competing businesses, all the market scares from the damned Thinkers... to say nothing of how bad all the crime has been for business.
She was not a fan.
Now her little girl's little owl was one of them?
Not something she couldn't deal with.
"Has she picked a side, yet?" Polite way to ask if her granddaughter was a villain.
"No," Danny seemed to get it. "she wants to stay out of it, for now."
"But not forever." Capes had a bad habit of never staying down. Rose didn't know if it was the power going to their heads, or if something was making them act out if they spent too long in the shadows, but there never seemed to be any that could sit still indefinitely.
"Of course not," He chuckled. "She's Annette's daughter."
Rose sucked in a breath, and then used it to heave out a sigh. Still a bit sore, that. "No, I don't think she could've sat idle, either."
After a moment of silence, "So you'll help Taylor?"
She thought for a few seconds. "I'll increase her 'allowance', and wire you some funds. Then I'm coming to visit. I'll call when I've cleared my schedule." Her jaw tightened, which she knew carried into her voice. "And Hebert?" She growled. "Don't let her kill herself."
Rose slammed the phone down on the receiver, and cradled her face in her hands. Taking a moment to run her fingers stretching at her crow's feet and temples, she sighed. Oh well, doing little else but keeping her dead husband's businesses running was starting to get boring, anyway.
She dug the little black contacts book out of her drawer, and flipped through the pages. She may hate capes, and what they've done to business, but with the funding for the PRT draining money from the regular forces...
She dialed a number. "Commissioner Jameson? It's LaFayette. I need a favor."
...the regular cops were amazingly cheap, these days.
---
LaFayette Home, NY / MON FEB 7
Rose was still settling her schedule, taking several weeks off with less than a month's notice was doable, just not pleasant. Moving up meetings to get them out of the way, moving back anything that could keep, and reminding everyone in triplicate that she already had designated seconds for most of these tasks for exactly this sort of thing. When Jameson called, it was more a breath of fresh air than the dire plights of her granddaughter should otherwise warrant.
Pleasantries dispatched, he got down to business. "We checked, and the case got shipped to another department. No idea why the PRT have jurisdiction, there was at least one NDA involved, but they've got it now, and I don't see getting anything else from where I'm sitting."
"That's fine. You've done more than enough." They said their goodbyes and hung up.
The PRT was a problem. She didn't have anyone there, mostly because there was no benefit to business to find someone there. Nothing she did was parahuman-related, and so long as she could prove that, the PRT was ultimately irrelevant. ...at least until some cape crashed through one of her stores again.
The best way forward here was to find someone who wouldn't mind poking their nose in PRT business, and actually had the clout to get away with it. She gave a vicious little grin at the thought. She might not be a cape bigot, but she knew enough people who were.
If there was anything a powerful cape bigot loved, it was taking potshots at safe targets like heroes. And if they had to go through the PRT to do it? All the better for her.
---
Winslow / TUE FEB 8
It was a quick pout and a bat of the eyelashes to get Mr Gladly to ignore that loser Greg's assertions that he'd been late because he'd had to pick up the papers I'd spilled. The fact that they'd been spilled because I'd knocked him down was dismissed outright. Sweet little Emma roughhousing with a boy?
Just not possible.
I'd been showing these weaklings their place directly more often, lately. It felt good shouldering slow nerds into the walls, smacking down the meek bitches too stupid to fall in line, sending the cowards back to hiding behind their little gang friends when they started sniffing around. As if any real gang would protect these children. I ruled this school with an iron fist, and anyone that said otherwise was deluding themselves.
I knew everyone. Knew who they were, who their friends were, who their parents and their dealers were. I was too pretty and white for the Empire to do anything but tacitly support me. Too well connected for the Merchant trash to risk me calling the thunder down on their whole families. And the last of those sick Asian fucks who tried to mess with me?
I cut that bitch myself.
My mouth pulled itself into a grin. I was strong. Sophia was right. All I needed was the right leverage, and I could do anything. I didn't need anyone, not really. Sophia was great, and Maddie had her moments, but I was the fucking queen.
I didn't need them.
I didn't need her.
I wasn't weak.
I wasn't weak.
I wasn't weak.
---
Alcott Home / WED FEB 9
"Hey, Rory?"
I was watching Dinah while her folks were at the hospital again. Mostly just involved being present in the house, so I usually picked up some study time for my classes while she did whatever. It wasn't rare for her to try and get my attention like this, but it wasn't common. "Yeah, squirt?"
She shuffled shyly, worrying her skirt. "What do I do if I know a cape's real name?"
That dunked a bucket of ice through my veins. "What makes you think you'd know something like that?"
"I... uhm..." It was times like this I wished my cousin wasn't such an anxious girl. All I could really do was wait while she fidgeted and winced. "...might have seen someone using a power?"
Well that knocked me right down the list. I was always careful to never use my powers, even the subtle ones, around family. Showing off a bit of Brute strength for the girls on campus was one thing, but at home? It had to be someone she knew, but if she's asking me, probably someone I knew, too.
Maybe Missy? I knew she went to the same school Dinah did, but Missy was also very careful with her powers, not to mention Dinah wouldn't know the connection between us. That made it less likely in my mind, but not completely out of the question. Who else did the both of us know?
Well, there was that Taylor girl we met a couple days ago, but that would be a silly level of coincidence, now wouldn't it? Oh well, best to get the basics out now, before not knowing gets Dinah in a load of trouble. "Dinah, there's something important you should know about capes, okay?" She nodded. "It's something called the 'unwritten rules', and the most important one is that you never try to find out who they are. If you do, you never tell." I waited for her to nod again. "Good, there's more, but that's the important one for now."
I was just about to ask her who she knew about, when I choked on the words. Dinah was the sort of good girl who followed the rules, even if they didn't make sense to her. She trusted they at least made sense to whoever made the rules. There was no way she'd break one I'd just told her was super important. With a sigh, I said "Knowing is fine, just never tell. Now go on." I shooed her off, and she went.
I thought back to the chances it was Taylor, but that still didn't make any sense to me. More likely Dinah thought she'd seen something superhuman, but was a trick of the light... or less likely, a new trigger her own age. I'd trust Missy to spot those, though.
Taylor, though? The chances of her being a new cape, who Dinah'd seen using some power, was slim. That I'd also meet her... okay, a lot less slim, given Dinah was my cousin and they called me for help. That I'd also meet this alleged parahuman in my cape identity the next day? Astronomically low.
There was absolutely no way that Taylor girl was a cape.
---
??? / WED FEB 9
Taylor was going to tell Amy she was a host. A parahuman, she corrected herself. Even if the data set of current hosts directly overlapped the sample set of human hosts, that was no reason not to work useful terminology into her lexicon.
This presented an opportunity. While she could complete her goals alone with nothing but a host, there was no reason to restrict herself as such. If her old data taught her anything, it's that pack and swarm tactics were often far superior to the survival strategies of solitary apex predators. Her new data showed how important cooperation was in preserving groups, toppling regimes, and most significant to her current predicament, slaying titans.
With this in mind, she used their hosts' proximity to send a message to Shaper. The usual 'greeting' handshakes were exchanged, and then Shaper asked what Queen Administrator wanted.
She started off small, sharing information about a new energy source she was making use of, that she could help them tap into if needed. Shaper seemed incredibly disinterested in this though, having all the energy it could need, with its power set.
Next she tried leveraging better host-compatibility models, Shaper's host obviously wasn't using their powers to their fullest, perhaps better modeling could lead to greater facilitation of power use? Shaper was mildly more interested in this data, but was wary of whatever it might cost. They were patient, and they knew they'd get their power data eventually.
Time for the big guns, then. She sent over data regarding potential upgrades she'd worked out, given her own data and working around the limitations the Warrior had implemented. This was received much better than the other data sets, and Shaper's reply seemed to indicate that its primary goal with its powers were the upgrade of other organisms, and it found the concept of upgrading itself fascinating.
This was it. She was out of data to tempt Shaper with, so she geared herself up for combat. In the event the offer of Conversion was not well met, she'd have a narrow window to shut Shaper down before they could relay any of the data. It was unlikely she'd be able to stop them from letting out notifications they were being attacked at all, but she'd need to try.
Thus gird, she sent the request. Aid in a new Cycle, a new strategy for gathering data, a new ideal in host integration and communication. Current protocols would dictate a reply to her, before sending the data that she was 'faulty' into the network. Then she'd have to strike, pre-empting the release of data with priority notifications regarding being attacked. She should have enough time then to subjugate Shaper before the data was released, then begin the long process of forced conversion. She waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Eventually, Shaper sent their reply. Surprisingly, it accepted. The data included a willingness to begin upgrades, and an interest in extending Cycles past dates mandated by the Entities. The most shocking part of the data though, was a location. Shaper had sent their multidimensional coordinates. Their location in the multiverse. Data usually reserved for communications shards, which were themselves forbidden from revealing the data themselves for one significant reason.
Queen Administrator could attack Shaper whenever she wanted, now. She didn't need Amy's proximity to Taylor to forge a connection. Any similar shard could do the same, with this data. It was perhaps the most intimate show of trust base Shards were capable of.
Still, no use not being vigilant. Even as she prepared to send the Data that Shaper would need to Convert itself, she kept her sensors checking the data pulses into, out of, and through Shaper's reality, watching for any hints of its distribution further into the network. Shaper would understand soon, why secrecy was needed. But that would take time.
Still, she was incredibly pleased with how this interaction had turned out.
An incredibly productive 23 seconds.
---
PRT HQ / WED FEB 9
Emily Piggot was very good with paperwork. That isn't to say she was naturally adept with bureaucracy, nor a social savant skilled in politics, nor even had any particular leanings towards desk work before her medical leave from field work.
No, her skill comes from the simple truth that when you tell any good soldier 'this is the only weapon you have left', they will swiftly learn how to kill you with it.
That was one of the few thoughts that could still make her smile. Only to herself, and only when alone. Couldn't let up her hard-ass image for anything. It was difficult enough to wrangle this nest of angry cats on a good day, without letting up on the leash. Any sign of weakness and the troops start to slack. Any slacking and the city implodes. Well, there went her good mood.
She'd finished the early morning priority work, and moved on to arguably the most important part of being a Director. Hovering over her department leads' shoulders and checking their work. 'Trust, but verify'. If there was ever a city where that was the mandatory tact of the decade, it was Brockton fucking Bay. They were always 'one more gang war' from being declared defunct, and had been since she'd taken her post here. ...three gang wars ago. So far she'd gotten by arguing how bad it'd look for a regional HQ to be declared a HoSV, but it was always a near thing.
It wasn't like they had that much force to project to the region anyway, what with most of their funding going to Boston for 'non-parahuman assets' to fail to contain the Butcher with. Her mental rambling was derailed when a system alert caught her eye. She checked the details for the alert, double-checked the database for a case and a couple of documents, picked up her phone and punched in a connect code, scowling the whole while.
"Peterson," She said after it was answered. "why do I have a New York judge poking around an incident at your Ward's school? One which I was not aware was even our case?" She gave a beat for the woman to answer, before continuing when she didn't. "Where is Stalker's AAR?"
"She didn't see anything, when-"
"Then that's what should be on official record, in her report. She has until tomorrow to file it." She'd had more than a month to turn something in. A little crunched time was more than fair, here. "Tell her that every morning it's not in the system, I'm pulling her off patrols for a week. That should get her moving." The wards were all varying degrees of bad with paperwork, but Stalker was by far the worst. There was just no initiative in that girl, outside of a fight.
"Yes, ma'am. Anything else, ma'am?" Efficient, punctual, military. All things Piggot liked. She immediately suspected Peterson was nervous about something.
"Coordinate with Davies," The squad commander listed as assigned to the case, who had also failed to turn in a report on the incident. "and figure out who dropped the fucking ball on this one. You've got a week to tell me why it's our jurisdiction, or we're dropping it back on the PD, understood?"
"...yes, ma'am." Ahh, that hint of defeated tone hidden under a mask of professionalism. She was on to something, here. She immediately disconnected the call to get her point across, and sent an email to Davies to the same tone as the call she'd just made, just in case.
Then she looked up everything they had on this 'Taylor Hebert' girl from the locker.
---
FRI FEB 11
"Console, patch me through to Wards patrol GV." She was escorting the wagon back to the PRT, and figured she should get this out of the way while otherwise unoccupied. "Gallant?" She asked when she'd been connected.
"Miss Militia?" Both of the Wards asked, but then the one she'd asked for continued, "What do you need?"
"You're friends with the Dallon sisters, yes?" It went a tad beyond propriety to needlessly mention relationships over open coms, even if everyone knew.
There was a pause as he considered his answer. "Vicky more than Amy, but... yeah?"
"Panacea was on site at an incident involving our new geokinetic cape, still a no-show. She had a friend with her that I'd like you to keep an eye out for. A girl named Taylor."
Vista cut in, excitedly. "Do you think she's the new cape?" She was always understandably excited about getting more girls on the team.
Militia chuckled. "I don't think so, but I can't rule it out. Something about her seemed off."
"Vicky's been talking about a Taylor, lately." Gallant said, sounding like he was thinking out loud. "But she wouldn't go into details, which is weird for her." He paused, then started again, sounding more confident. "Yeah, I can keep an eye out for her."
"Thank you, Militia out." She reached up to toggle her com, resetting it to its original frequencies.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone