章 1253: 14
Discretion 2.1
"Wait, aren't you supposed to be part of New Wave?" asked Taylor.
Amelia's smirk fell and she looked down. "Not—not anymore. I quit." She let go of Taylor's hand.
"Oh."
"I'm sure we will have time to get to know each other more in the future," I said. "We should head back before the sun rises."
"R-right!" Taylor nodded forcefully.
We put our helmets and masks back on and departed.
Araliac and I didn't go back to our apartment right away. First we went to an abandoned warehouse where I knew a bunch of homeless squatters had been occupying.
I had found this place when I was originally scouting for a place to live, and had made contact with the squatters inside.
A few minutes later, two figures of approximately my and Araliac's height and build exited the warehouse with our costumes and made their way towards another series of locations. I had paid them to follow my instructions.
At one of these other locations, they would meet with a guy I found anonymously off the Internet to do odd jobs for me. That guy would then hand them some papers and glass vials with black rubber corks and a semi-transparent liquid inside.
Meanwhile, Amelia and I had switched out for new disguises I planted in the warehouse beforehand keeping only the things I actually needed like the recording devices, cash, and guns. We would look like completely different individuals when we appeared next.
But we didn't exit from the warehouse like that. No, we waited for half an hour first, secluded from the other squatters in a room upstairs. It used to be an office room, and still had an old work desk, foldable chairs, a cushy ergonomic chair, and empty shelves and cabinets gathering dust. After we wiped down the chairs quickly, Amelia sat on the ergonomic chair while I took one of the foldable ones, and we both had a couple of granola bars to eat.
I watched her eat with a tepid curiosity. I was impressed with our disguises, as she looked nothing like the old Amy Dallon. A long wig of curly brown hair covered her head, and her freckles were completely masked with makeup. Multiple layers of color-balancing concealer had been applied followed by contour and highlighter, which was able to shift her skin tone and curvature. I used similar techniques on myself to change both our looks until one could feel a very vague sense of resemblance looking at us, as if we might be siblings or cousins.
I wasn't an expert at face sculpting and disguising back on my Earth but I was familiar with the use of makeup in everyday life. As a man, some might have called me feminine for doing such, but I knew better. It was a fact that popular idols and actors all used makeup, whether male or female, and good looks could get you farther in life. There are things that makeup can add to beauty that natural features could never replicate, and in many cases the contrast between someone under expert makeup or not can be extreme. For myself, I had no lack of natural charm but my makeup and grooming skills allowed me to be like a chameleon, moving between "stunningly handsome" and "plain and average" as life demanded it. Once I'd arrived in Brockton Bay, I'd been practicing these skills and enhancing them further by researching on the web, adding more total disguise techniques to my repertoire and using them every time I went out on the streets to the casinos or shops for making purchases.
Amelia's new facial features and makeup couldn't hide her depressed mood. Her mood had been slowly declining as we separated from Skitter, and her eyes carried with them a faraway look, her mouth forming slightly into a frown in between chews and gulps.
As she finished her granola bars, she looked towards me and saw me staring.
"What? Got something to say?" she asked me.
I smiled lightly and tilted my head. "You look beautiful."
She crossed her arms and gave me a flat look. "Admiring your handiwork?"
"How did you know? I could have just been flirting with you."
"You're a narcissist."
"What are you talking about? I'm not a narcissist."
"Don't think I haven't noticed you looking at yourself in the bathroom mirror after your 'practice speeches'." She put up air quotes. "You even record your own voice so you can listen to it."
"That's not narcissism! That's serious analysis for improving the speeches."
"Sure. You also haven't looked at anybody with the barest hint of attraction. Vicky is the most beautiful girl in Brockton Bay. But you barely looked at her, even when her aura was on," she said.
"Her aura was on? You mean when we walked by her at the PRT building?" I asked.
"Yes. You didn't even notice, too busy grandstanding."
'Did you block the Master aura? Is that what happened?' I asked Agate.
'No, I didn't need to. The aura did affect you, but it only gave you the urge to bring everyone's attention to yourself, then you did your speech.'
An interesting development. I did not expect to be able to resist the aura by having a superiority complex. But that put a new light on my reasoning and actions. Was it a mistake to speak up at that time?
'It's okay, Kaleidus, I think you would have done the speech anyway, or I would have blocked the aura. It wasn't a mistake,' said Agate.
"It seems that you are right, Amelia. I have learned something about myself today, thank you." I said.
"Is that sarcasm?" She looked at me a bit incredulously.
"No, I'm very serious. I reflected on what happened, and you are right. Somehow, my narcissism caused me to not notice Glory Girl's aura. It would be dangerous not to recognize how my psychology could be affecting my logic and reasoning if my narcissism is that pervasive. But never mind that, I wasn't actually just admiring my work on your disguise, there's something bothering you, isn't there? You're wondering why the Dallons were at the PRT HQ," I said.
She frowned again. "…Yes. Do you know?"
"I projected my senses into Piggot's office while we were in the lobby and caught the tail end of their meeting. It seems that Glory Girl got in some kind of trouble, and Piggot gave her an ultimatum. Agree to join the Wards within three days or face charges and court. If I had to guess, knowing Glory Girl, she probably went too far with beating up a perp."
Her frown deepened. "Yeah, that does sound like her. She's done that too many times to count, only this time, I wasn't there to patch up the damage…" she trailed off with a guilty expression.
"You can't blame yourself for that. She had to learn to hold back at some point. What if someone died? You couldn't heal that and she would be in much worse trouble."
"Yeah, you're right." She sighed. "But it seems like New Wave is breaking part because of me. Three days before she has to join the Wards…"
"Again, that isn't your fault. They don't think it's your fault either, you know? They think I've Mastered you."
"That's not reassuring at all!"
I shrugged. "Hey, it's better than them hating you, right? In any case, look on the bright side, this experience will let all of you grow and become better for it. Look at what we're accomplished already tonight, where decades of New Wave and PRT efforts have failed. Staying with the Dallons was hurting you and them, it was like a cancer that had to be cut off before healing can be done, and now you're on the road to a better future."
"I don't know if I'm okay with you calling my family ties a cancer."
"You know it's the truth."
She said no more in response.
O O O
Soon the rest of the squatters also made their way out in different directions. Finally, I called for another guy I found online to come pick us up.
We got in his van right outside the warehouse, and he drove us to a private condo parking lot underground with a guard stationed to check for people coming in actually being tenants. If anyone was still following us after all that, they'd be stuck here.
Unfortunately…we were now more than two hours away from the apartment by foot and it was 7AM in the morning. It ended up being an all-nighter.
Luckily, Amelia had also made some booster drugs for us to keep awake.
Amelia thought all this was highly unnecessary…but she didn't know. If I provided the opportunity for us to be tailed or attacked, then we would be tailed and attacked. Even if nothing seemed to be happening, Coil could be kidnapping and torturing us in another timeline. I had to preempt that.
It wasn't paranoia if somebody really was out to get you. Especially not with somebody that could get you in simulated realities. Absolutely no opening could be given.
If all this failed in a simulated reality, the backup plan was to adamantly resist torture and send Agate off to find Coil in his base or office as fast as possible and kill him as soon as he gives any kind of order to kill me, forcing him to collapse that reality.
Once people started really leaving the building and going off to work, we made our way out with the crowds.
During our stays in the warehouse and in the condo, I had reviewed the recording Agate made of Piggot's discussion with Armsmaster after we left. They figured out more than I expected, but nothing that would particularly hurt me yet. They wanted more proof about my claims…which they weren't going to get if Contessa did her job.
I had given a bit more information than I'd intended with those lies they detected. I was under a bit more suspicion as a potential powerful Master or Thinker than I would have liked, given the responses associated with ratings of 9, but it also misdirected them about my actual plans.
There were tempting targets I might want to bring to my side, but their thinking was way off.
Someone like Bakuda or Squealer wouldn't work for me because I had no actual Master powers. If I had Canary, it might be better…but I doubted that I could convince her to Master people into working for me. At least, not without a lot of effort.
The biggest failure in their analysis of me was that they didn't realize that a villain like Coil could exist. Even if they figured out that I had kept information from them about infiltrators, they didn't understand the scope of Coil's operations and the fundamental rule that all war is based on deception. A well-funded and organized operation could be a major threat even without capes.
Coil was definitely biggest threat in Brockton Bay other than the PRT themselves. If I remembered correctly, he had over fifty mercenaries equipped with mass-produced tinkertech armor that was substantially superior to Kevlar, and lasers that could easily smash through steel in an instant.
That was on top of the Undersiders, four capes, plus Circus and Chariot whom he was holding in reserve. Finally, with his money he could buy the services of Faultline's Crew at any time. Lucky for me that he didn't have Dinah's precognition or the services of the Travelers yet. If he did…that would be the biggest group of capes in Brockton Bay, yet hardly anyone thought he was a threat.
That was the one thing the PRT failed to understand. They were used to fighting clear cut cape vs. cape battles, and even big name Masters like Heartbreaker or Valefor made obvious waves when they acted. Both Coil and I were playing a different game, and the PRT's unfortunate response played right into my hands.
On the surface it looked like she was taking all the right steps for beefing up security. But she made a classic mistake. A unified, trained, and disciplined army with absolute trust in its generalship is completely different from an army formed of a loose collection of different elements. The PRT was not the former. It consisted of troopers, consultants, Protectorate heroes, and even barely trained kids.
Suddenly cracking down with these groups and classifying the reason for the crackdown?
Perfect way to start a panic.
Even worse was her choice to put herself under Master/Stranger protocols. One might consider it admirable for not seeing herself above doubt…but she just made the situation easier for me to exploit.
It was 7:30AM when we got back to the apartment with a taxi ride.
Amelia and I made a quick sandwich snack before she went off to catch a few hours of sleep.
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