章 2424: 7
Interlude 1.a: Wildcard Gambit
Tattletale's thoughts were heavy as she entered the loft and quietly closed the door behind her. There were a lot of things on her mind, all of them related to the girl she'd just…befriended? They'd certainly parted amicably, and she was sure she'd made a fairly strong connection, but goddamn, that girl was seriously jaded, not to mention seriously screwed in the head.
Idealism like that bordered on psychosis.
The first thing Tattletale did when the door clicked shut behind her was to reach up and remove her mask, and like that, Tattletale became Lisa again. Then, she closed her eyes, sighed, and rubbed at the bridge of her nose.
What a fucking mess, though.
A new heroine with the power and ability to take down Lung, strong enough that she wouldn't be out of place among the Triumvirate, and as if that wasn't a fearsome enough thing, she was also so fucking jaded and simultaneously so ridiculously naïve that she had been ready to turn Lisa into sidewalk art the minute Lisa showed even a hint of hostility. It was probably a miracle she'd actually managed to get the girl to relax.
Odds were, she was gonna be in someone's hands before the month was out. Probably the Protectorate and the PRT, provided they didn't screw it up somehow, and that didn't bode well for Lisa and the Undersiders. Not as long as they were under Coil, anyway.
When she made it to the living room, it was to find Alec parked in front of the TV and indulging in some gory action game — a first person shooter of some kind, with plenty of blood and violence. Rachel was nowhere to be seen, and Lisa heard Brian moving about in the kitchen, making something to eat.
As though to remind her of all the energy she had burned through in the past couple hours, Lisa's stomach let out a sympathetic rumble. She'd have to grab something once she got changed.
"How's your girlfriend?" Alec asked without looking away from his game.
Lisa's lips pursed, but she answered and ignored the jab for what it was. "Not even singed."
Alec laughed. "You were right, then. She is fucking scary."
"She's also fifteen, and tonight was her first night out."
Alec paused his game and turned to look at her. "Seriously? And she blew through Lung just like that?"
"Just like that," said Lisa.
"I thought we said we weren't going to try recruiting her," said Brian, walking in with a plate of leftover pizza. He and Alec had already gotten out of their costumes and into something more casual.
"I still agree with that, by the way," Alec chimed in. "Really bad fucking idea."
"You were the one who said not to," Brian went on, as though Alec hadn't spoken. "That she wouldn't go for it."
"She wouldn't and I didn't," said Lisa. "But that doesn't mean I can't be her friend, either."
Alec let out a laugh. "What?"
Brian gave her a strange look, a kind of honest confusion with a tinge of skepticism.
"I think you'll have to explain that one to me. Why would she want to be friends if she wouldn't join up with us?"
Lisa waved it off. "I'll explain later," she promised. "First, though, I gotta go check in with the boss. He made it real clear he wanted to hear from me when we got back."
Brian's lips pressed together, but he didn't push. "Right."
Lisa turned around and headed off towards her room. The sounds of Alec's game — unpaused, now that the conversation was over — followed her back until she closed the door.
Alone and in the privacy of her own room, Lisa let out another sigh and peeled off the skintight spandex that was her costume; the domino mask was set down on her nightstand, where it could be grabbed and put on in a hurry. Once her costume was off and hanging on the back of her desk chair, she threw on the nearest pair of pajamas she could find, pulled out her phone, and sat down.
For a long moment, she didn't do anything but sit there, staring at her phone and silently debating exactly how much detail to give Coil. There were advantages to being vague, but also advantages to being specific, and naturally, both of those and everything in between also had their own disadvantages, too.
In the end, Lisa pursed her lips and decided to wing it; she'd pick a plan once she knew more about what Coil had available and work around his reactions, rather than sticking to any one thing. So, she pulled up her contacts list, selected the one labelled "Boss," and hit the call button.
He answered after exactly three rings — a bit of a mind game, a way of showing that he was not anxious, but also professional enough to answer almost immediately. A way of showing dominance by implying that his time was important, but also sweet-talking his employees by implying that he was willing to use it to hear what they had to say.
Slick bastard.
"Boss."
"Tattletale," said Coil's voice on the other end. "Your report?"
"What, no pleasantries?" said Tattletale. "No, 'I'm glad you're alive, Tattletale?' Especially since you sent us against Lung."
"I'm glad you're alive, Tattletale," Coil said, voice entirely flat. The maddening thing was not knowing whether he was actually glad he hadn't lost her or if he was just mocking her. "Now, your report?"
Tattletale pursed her lips again. He had no tells; there was no eagerness, no rush, nothing. He could just as easily be eager to hear what had happened as he could be tired and impatient. It might even have been that he didn't even care, and it was just another method of establishing who had the power.
"Lung went down," Lisa said, deciding to start off vague. Gauge exactly how much he already knew. "Armsmaster picked him up. Last I saw, he was foamed and on his way to a PRT holding cell. Probably won't stay there, though."
The PRT and their damn revolving door cells; anyone with enough capes could rely on being broken out by their allies, a luxury that the Undersiders probably wouldn't have. Knowing Coil, he'd just as soon cut them loose as rescue them.
"I see." There was a short moment of silence. "And when he gets out, he'll likely come after the Undersiders again."
"He'll probably have bigger things to worry about; no way Kaiser's gonna let this one pass him by."
"A valid point," Coil conceded effortlessly. "Very well. Make whatever preparations you need. In meantime, I'll see about finding a replacement." Replacement? Tattletale wondered if she'd heard him right. "My condolences for Regent."
What?
It…made no sense. Lisa tried to wrap her head around it, tried to figure out where the line had come from, but for the life of her, she had no idea why Coil would think Regent was dead. If they'd actually fought Lung, then maybe…
Something went wrong, she realized. She had no idea what or how, but for some reason, Coil had gotten a report or something that told him Regent had died.
This was an opening.
Carefully, Lisa cracked open the door to her power and let it trickle out.
[Show of power. Intended to imply resources you don't know about.]
Right, right, that much was obvious. Coil had done that kind of thing before, too, like a reminder every now and again about who held whose leash.
[Received report. Report stated Regent died.]
More obviousness.
[Report conflicts with actual events.]
And she'd moved on into uselessness. If she wanted anything more, she'd have to knock Coil off guard. Lisa unstuck her mouth and said, "Regent is fine."
A long silence followed, and for several seconds that felt like minutes, Coil didn't say anything at all.
[Is surprised] Lisa's power supplied. [Trusted source. Trusted source's information. Trusted accuracy of information. Trusted implicitly that information would be accurate.]
So it was someone he'd thought would never lie to him, or else that person was in a position where they wouldn't lie to him ([More likely] her power added helpfully, as though she hadn't already known that that was how Coil worked). In her own experience, that would mean that either the person in question was somehow indebted to him or on his payroll, like Grue, or else they were being forced into it, like Lisa, and lying would be too dangerous.
Either way, the implications were enormous. A reliable source, somehow unreliable now? That could be any number of things, from simple human error to powers that conflicted with each other. Even still, Coil had never really been wrong like this, before, so how…
"I…see," Coil said at length. "It seems there's an error I need to correct."
[Is not happy to be surprised] No duh, power. [Is intending on interrogating other agent. Will go to extreme methods to verify source of inaccuracy. Other agent likely to be tortured or killed.]
Whoa. Okay, this was serious. Coil was a scumbag, but in all of her experiences with him, what he usually relied upon was the threat of violence. Aside from the pistol he'd had her threatened with when he, uh, coerced her into his employ, the most he'd ever done was remind her that he had her on his leash. She'd never once seen him actually directly hurt someone before, like pull out the tacks and thumbscrews and make him talk.
If he was going to go that far, this must've really shaken him — but what, exactly, was the cause?
"I understand there was another parahuman at the fight — unaffiliated?"
Apocrypha. Of course he knew about Apocrypha, but if he was going to mention her, why not do it by name? Surely he had to —
[Does not know her name. Other agent was not in position to hear it. Other agent was too far away. Other agent did not see your conversation with her. Other agent did not see her conversation with Armsmaster and Miss Militia.]
Holy shit. That meant that he had no idea what her powers were.
"Yeah," Lisa found herself saying. "A girl. About my age."
And that meant that she absolutely could not let him know. Not unless and until he asked her to work up a full dossier, and even then, she'd specifically leave some parts out. The plan Lisa had already started concocting looked like it was even more likely to work, now, and there was no way she was going to give Coil more cards than she absolutely had to.
"And she survived?"
[Is trying to find discrepancies. Is trying to narrow down source of discrepancies. Is trying to verify level of accuracy of other agent's report.]
A stab of pain lanced through her temples, but she ignored it.
Okay, then. She just had to be vague enough that everything she said was technically true, so that if and when he got more specifics from someone else, he couldn't claim she'd lied to him at any point. The only other people likely to have any information about Apocrypha's power were Armsmaster and Miss Militia, and provided they didn't file a threat assessment for her with any haste, Lisa could keep the exact nature of her new wildcard's powers a secret.
"Of course," Lisa said. "Lung wouldn't have gone down if it wasn't for her."
Technically true, the best kind of truth.
"Powers?"
"She's a pretty high end Breaker," Lisa fibbed. Again, it was technically true, too. "Not someone I'd want to face in a fight."
Understatement of the year, there.
"Can she be recruited?"
[Wants her either under his thumb or out of the way. Willing to resort to bribery. Willing to resort to threats. Willing to resort to assassination.]
Shit. Not good. Not good at all. Did he think that Apocrypha was the reason why the report was wrong? Equally important question — was she? If he decided she was, then he might just get rid of her before Lisa was ready to try and throw him off, and if he attacked Apocrypha in her civilian identity, he might actually manage to kill her. If she actually was, then that made her even more valuable to Lisa.
Okay. Play it cool. If he thought she was trying to recruit Apocrypha, he might just be satisfied with that.
"Maybe," Lisa told him. Of course she couldn't — not to the Undersiders, at any rate. "I'm already working on it. I'm meeting her tomorrow."
"Good. Keep me updated, and before you make any solid offers, compile a dossier on her for me. I want to know who my new subordinate is going to be."
[Doesn't want to take chances. Wants to be sure before committing to any action. Will resort to drastic measures if he thinks it's necessary.]
Shit, shit, and double shit.
This was a really, really fine line. Lisa would have to be extremely careful going forward — if she screwed up with Apocrypha, she had a Triumvirate level cape as her enemy, and worse, as an enemy who hated Lisa for betraying her. If she screwed up with Coil, if he figured out she'd never planned on recruiting Apocrypha and had always known it wasn't possible, her whole plan could fall apart around her ears, and if he ever realized she was behind it…
She clamped down on her power to keep it from showing her different scenarios for how Coil would punish her little mutiny. Not only did she have a headache coming on from overuse, but she absolutely did not want to know.
No. She had to do this right, and do it right the first time. She had to play her cards right so that Apocrypha was on board with her plan, and she had to play them so that Coil had no idea what was in her hand. She wouldn't get a second chance.
"Got it, Boss."
Click.
Lisa let her arm drop and absently thumbed the "End Call" button as she sighed. She ran a hand through her hair, then brought it back down to pinch the bridge of her nose. The Thinker headache that was starting to rear its ugly head was one that would probably put her out of commission for most of tomorrow morning.
"Shit."
There were way too many ways this could go wrong. What had she been thinking, concocting this whole convoluted plan?
Oh right. I was thinking I could get out from under Coil's fucking thumb.
Yeah. Right. It all came back to that plan for getting out from under Coil's thumb, being her own woman again, making her own choices. She wouldn't even have bothered if her freedom wasn't on the line. That was all it was about.
Lisa let out a throaty chuckle and tossed her phone haphazardly onto her desk. "You're usually much better at lying to yourself, you know," she whispered to the open air. "Admit it. You just saw a lonely girl and figured she could use a friend. Everything else came after that."
Ah, geez. She was gonna turn into fucking Mother Theresa, at this rate.
Lisa sighed again — it seemed like she was doing a lot of that, tonight — and forced herself out of her chair as her belly rumbled. Her stomach was starting to make demands of her, and much as she liked to brood and stew and ruminate over every minor detail, as was the nature of her power, she'd regret it if she didn't grab at least a slice of pizza or two.
Alec was still playing his video games when Lisa came back into the common area, and Brian had long since finished off his own pizza and was watching Alec play with a vague interest. When she came closer, he turned to her as though he'd heard her coming, and she didn't need her power to read the question on his face.
"Gimme a second to grab something to eat, or I'm gonna keel over," she said, and Brian nodded.
She made her way over into the kitchen and pulled out the box of leftover pizza. There weren't that many other options, and she needed something cheap, greasy, and unhealthy to take her mind off of her mood — comfort food, in other words.
Once she'd pulled out a pair of pieces, stuck them on a plate, and set them to warming up, she reached back into the fridge and poured herself a glass of water. Then, she gulped half of it down in one go, popped a couple of aspirin (not that conventional medicine could cure a Thinker headache), and refilled it again.
By that time, her pizza had warmed up, so she grabbed her plate and her glass, strode into and across the living room, and took a seat on the same couch as Brian.
It was really obvious that he wanted to start asking the moment she sat down, but Brian, at least, was mostly a nice guy, so he waited until she'd scarfed down her pizza and taken a few sips of her water before he actually began with the questions.
"So," he said, "you said you'd explain. Explain."
"Just what I said." Lisa shrugged. "I'm making friends with her."
"You're the one who said that she wouldn't join us, though," Brian reminded her, as though she'd forgotten. She hadn't. "And we all agreed that we didn't want the heat she'd bring down on us if she joined, so we weren't going to even bother trying to recruit her."
"And that hasn't changed," Lisa countered. "Like I said, she's too much of a goody-two-shoes to join a bunch of villains. It took a lot a sweet-talking and a couple of fibs just to convince her we were actually a group of independent heroes — the fact that almost all of our jobs have been against other gangs and their business fronts helped with that — just to sit there and talk with me."
"So?"
"So, if she'd really thought I was a villain, she would've fought me right then and there."
"Wouldn't have risked that at all if you hadn't stayed behind."
"I stayed behind to make friends with her," Lisa told him a little irritably.
"Why?" asked Brian. "You just said you weren't trying to recruit her, so what difference does it make whether or not you're friends?"
Lisa looked at him incredulously. "Don't tell me you can't see the benefit of having a hero that strong on your Christmas card list."
Brian grimaced and rubbed tiredly at his cheek. "Okay, yeah," he said, "I can see that. Still wasn't something you needed to do. The Undersiders are small time — chances are, she would've never known we existed, if you hadn't gone out there and talked to her."
"She would've found out, eventually," said Lisa. "If not from me, she would've eventually heard about us from Armsmaster or Miss Militia. At least like this, there's enough of a rapport that she'd hesitate to actually fight us."
"And that's good and all," said Brian, "but what if she decides she likes us so much that she wants to join? We already all agreed that that kind of firepower would put an awful lot more attention on us that we want to have."
"And I keep telling you, she won't," Lisa argued. "Brian, you're not getting it. This isn't some lonely, helpless newbie with…with bug control or something like that. She's the real deal. Goodness, justice, mercy, righteousness, that sort of thing. The kind of hero the Protectorate likes to talk about in their PR, but doesn't really exist. She and Legend would get on like best friends."
Brian shook his head. "You're not exactly selling this as a good idea."
"Because she's not just a hero, she's also jaded as fuck." Lisa scowled and leaned back into the couch. "And really fucking lonely. Bullied, maybe? Abusive home life? I dunno, but I did get a good enough read on her to see that she has major trust issues."
"So…what? Is this some kind of pet project of yours? Help out the lonely, bullied girl, even if she might be an enemy, later on?"
"God, Brian." Lisa rolled her eyes. "Did it ever occur to you that maybe I wanted a friend who also happened to be a girl? You guys are nice and all, but I can't exactly go clothes shopping with you."
Brian opened his mouth.
"If you say Rachel, you're really missing the point."
Brian's mouth snapped shut with a click, and he gave a grunt. "Fine. I know better than to try and win an argument with a Thinker. Just make sure this doesn't blow up in our faces."
"I know that better than you do," Lisa reminded him.
She was the one walking this fucking tightrope, after all, and she was a good enough Thinker that she had people wondering whether or not she was actually as psychic as she claimed. She didn't need him to tell her exactly how messy it would be if the proverbial shit hit the fan.
"Are Mommy and Daddy done arguing now?" Alec interjected. "I'd like to go back to playing my video game, if you don't mind."
Brian made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat, shot Alec a glare, and then he stood up from his spot, gave Lisa one last glance, and walked away. Lisa watched him go, frowning, and even though she had won the argument — for what little of an argument it was — she could not find it in herself to be happy about it.
Brian…wasn't exactly a bad person. A bit jaded, dealt a crappy hand by parents who probably had no business being parents, and stressed out trying to care for the only person in his life who really mattered to him (and Lisa knew she had no right being upset about that), but not the devil, nor even his second nephew twice removed.
She couldn't tell him what she was planning. Couldn't tell him just how much of an asshole their boss was. Couldn't try and convince him to find another employer. Unless she had a better offer, she couldn't do any of that and expect him to pick her side, not when it would mean losing a steady income and even the veneer of legitimacy Coil gave him so that he could take custody of his younger sister.
"D'you think he forgot that he doesn't actually have a room here?" Alec asked somewhat unkindly.
Lisa didn't answer immediately.
She couldn't tell Alec, either. Well, she could, but the absolute best case scenario was that Alec skipped town and found somewhere else to set up shop. More likely, he'd stay on until it looked like Coil was going to go down, then move on and attach himself to some other group. In either case, there wasn't enough of a connection for him to choose Lisa over Coil, not without — like Brian — Lisa being able to provide a better offer than Coil was currently giving him.
Lisa glanced down the hall.
Rachel… Yeah. Rachel would probably be the easiest to convince, but that particular mess had its own set of problems. They weren't exactly on the best of terms, and Lisa was aware that she could be a bit of a bitch (heh), but she was not entirely heartless: without the Undersiders, Rachel would have much more trouble taking care of her dogs. She was also violent enough and ambivalent enough about human life that she might kill someone over the mistreatment of a dog, and Lisa put good odds on her running afoul of Hookwolf and his dogfighting rings, if the Undersiders broke up and she stayed in the Bay.
More likely, she'd just…drift. Eventually, she'd make it somewhere else, cut out a little slice for herself, and move on whenever things got too hot.
At the end of the day, Lisa was alone. It might not be next week, it might not be next month, but soon enough, she was going to be free of Coil. Provided Apocrypha still wanted to be friends after that, she would also have a friend in one of the strongest heroes in the Bay — probably the country. Safety, security, and whatever money she could swindle out from Coil's nose between now and then.
She just had to tear apart her entire team and their lives to do it.
Were it so easy.
Lisa sighed — again — and pushed herself onto her feet. There was no point in worrying about the heavy stuff when she had a Thinker headache trying to bust her head open from the inside out; she'd just wind up making herself feel worse.
"I'm going to bed," Lisa told Alec. "And I've got a massive headache, so try to keep the noise down, yeah?"
"Going to see your girlfriend tomorrow?"
"Why? You jealous?"
"No," said Alec. "You're not my type. Neither is Tall Girl — those muscles don't really do it for me."
Lisa thought about telling him that the muscles Apocrypha had had almost all came from Siegfried, but it would be funnier when he saw her again for himself. For now, it was her own private joke.
"Whatever. Just keep the noise to a minimum. I need my beauty sleep."
"Yeah, yeah."
Fortunately, Alec was not that much of an asshole, or at least he didn't want to risk Rachel's wrath, so he didn't do something as jerkish as turn the volume up all the way on the TV, and Lisa left him to it and went back to her room. The light on in the kitchen told her that Brian was there — probably brooding a little and nursing a soda while he waited for Alec to get tired and go to bed so he could crash on the couch — but she didn't hear so much as a peep from Rachel's room.
Lisa's door clicked shut behind her, and she took a minute to stretch out a little in the dark. Then, she grabbed her phone and set an alarm for late morning, so that she could be up early enough to have time to put on some makeup and some nice-but-not-too-nice clothes. She took a glance at her closet — or what passed for one in her room — and decided that she'd pick something out later.
For now, she climbed into bed, closed her eyes, and settled down into her pillow for a nice, long sleep.
After all, she had a date tomorrow.
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
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