“Why Vista?”
“She was alone. And could smell how strong she was. Read about her online, too. Internet was all I had for a long time. Now I’ve got them. They’re pretty obedient, and it’s nice to have company. I haven’t had any physical contact with anyone for a while, and they like giving me hugs. Except the sixth.”
“Sixth,” Miss Militia said.
“Not as obedient. She ran off. Gibbering something about killing her family.”
Miss Militia thrust her index finger toward the door, and the Wards were gone in a flash, running for the stairwell.
“Can we negotiate?” Miss Militia asked, her voice oddly calm given the ferocity of the gesture and the threat against one of her colleagues’ family.
“Not really a negotiation… but I can offer you a deal.”
“What’s the deal?”
“Kill the Undersiders. Or hand them to me so I can torment them before I kill them. You can do it any time you want to. Just… knock them out, or hurt them, or find a way to tell me where they are. If it’s a choice between hurting one of you or hurting one of them, I’ll hurt them. I promise. If I’ve taken someone hostage, you probably have a little while before the hostage is dead. Just know that I’ll trade you any of my hostages for any Undersider, any time, any situation. When the Undersiders are all dealt with, I’ll sniff out and kill all of the clones I’ve made, then I’ll let you try to kill me. Or imprison me. Do whatever. I don’t care anymore, because I don’t think I’ll be me much longer. I don’t think I’m even me right now. Not the me I was… I’m rambling.
“They took away my only chance. My only chance to get well. Until they’ve paid for that, I’m going to make this hard on you, heroes. I don’t think I can die, and I don’t think I’m that easy to stop in other ways. I’ll hunt you down, I’ll copy you until you’re all used up, let your copies ruin your reputations and your lives, and then I’ll eat you. I’ll do it to each of you, one by one, until you realize it’s easier to go after the Undersiders than to come after me. Give me my revenge, and this ends.”
18.y (Donation Interlude #2; Crusader)
“Water torture,” Justin said. “It’s what the C.I.A. uses.”
“No, please.”
Justin shook his head. “What good is begging going to do? There’s hardly a point to torture if you want it.”
“The victim can aspirate water during water torture,” Dorothy commented, as though she were commenting on paint shades. “But I could have been doing it wrong.”
“Burning, then. Start on the back, chest and stomach, work our way to the extremities. They say a burn hurts worse than any other pain, inch for inch,” Justin said. “By the time we work our way to the face, the armpits, or the soles of the feet…”
“Oh god.”
“Scarring,” Geoff said, looking up from his newspaper. “Chance of infection. He’d be facing as much risk as he would with the water torture. It might even be harder to treat. Harder to explain if we had to go to a doctor.”
“Razors?” Justin suggested.
“Razors could work,” Dorothy said. “I’m good with a razor.”
“Hear that?” Justin asked. “She’s good with a razor.”
“Please. There has to be another way.”
“There are a number of other ways,” Dorothy said. “Tearing out your teeth, fingernails and toenails is one. Castration, force feeding, breaking bones, rats, flaying…”
“I meant besides torture.”
“Psychological methods,” Justin suggested.
“Isolation,” Dorothy offered. “Sensory deprivation, intoxicants. Would you like cream in your coffee, Geoff?”
“No thank you, dear.”
“The bacon is done. Why don’t you two come and eat?” Dorothy offered.
Justin sighed. “Come, Theo.”
The boy gave them wary looks as he stood from the armchair and crossed the length of their hotel room. Dorothy had laid out a veritable feast: bacon, eggs, english muffins, toast, french toast, a bowl of strawberries, a bowl of blueberries, and a bowl of fruit salad. There was orange juice and pots of both coffee and tea. She was just setting down a plate of bacon, leaving barely enough room for anyone’s plates.
It would have been too much for eight people to eat, but she didn’t seem to realize that. She smiled as Justin ushered Theo to the table and sat down. Her clothes were more fit for a job interview than for a fugitive, with a knee-length dress, heels, earrings and makeup. Geoff, like his wife, was too well dressed for the occasion, wearing a button-up shirt beneath a tan blazer, his hair oiled and combed back neatly.
They can’t act, Justin thought. They follow their routines like bad actors following a script. A housewife preparing a meal for her family, the husband at the table.
He’d known that the pair started every day with the same routine, like clockwork. Wake, don bathrobe, and collect a newspaper. Geoff would step into the shower as Dorothy stepped out, and she would be done grooming by the time he was through. Once they were both dressed, they’d head to the kitchen, and Geoff would read the paper while Dorothy cooked.
But always, the details would be off. Things any ordinary person would take for granted were forgotten or exaggerated. Dorothy inevitably prepared too much, because it was harder for her to consider how hungry everyone was and adjust accordingly. Only two days ago, Justin had noted that Geoff would take a few minutes to read the front page of the paper, turn the page, and stop.
Now he couldn’t help but notice. It was the same thing every day. For the twenty or thirty minutes it took Dorothy to put everything together and set it on the table, Geoff would stare at the second and third pages of the newspaper.
Justin had asked about the headlines and the articles. Geoff never remembered, because he wasn’t reading. He could read, but he didn’t. He spent nearly forty minutes in total, every day, like clockwork, doing little more than staring into space, pretending to read.
Put the paper away, it’s time to eat, Justin thought. Yes dear. Mmm. Smells delicious.
“Put the paper away, it’s time to eat,” Dorothy said. She was holding the coffee pot, stepped behind Geoff, putting a hand on his shoulder, and bent down to kiss him on the top of his head. Automatic, without affection.
“Yes, dear. ” Geoff said, smiling up at his wife. “Mmm. Smells delicious.”
Jesus fuck, they scare me, Justin thought. But he plastered a fake smile of his own onto his face, grabbed one of the oven-warmed plates and served himself. Theo did much the same at the other side of the table, minus the smile.
Kayden emerged from one of the bedrooms, her hair still tangled from sleep, wearing a bathrobe. Mousy, shorter than average, looking exceedingly human, she was Dorothy Schmidt’s antithesis.
“Aster slept well last night,” Justin commented. “Didn’t hear her crying.”
“She slept through the night. We just have to maintain a routine as we keep moving,” Kayden said.
“We were just discussing ways to force Theo’s trigger event.”
“It’ll come on its own,” she said. “We have two years.”
“One year and eleven months,” Theo said.
Kayden glanced at him but didn’t respond.
“It should have happened already,” Justin pointed out. “It’s easier for children with inherited powers, and Theo’s the son of Kaiser, who’s the son of Allfather. Third generation.”
“Maybe I didn’t get powers,” Theo said, not looking up from his plate.
“Or maybe you’ve lived a sheltered enough life that you haven’t had a reason to trigger,” Justin retorted.
“I don’t want to get tortured. Physically or psychologically. There has to be another way.”
“Torture?” Kayden asked.
“It’s one line of thought,” Justin said, trying to mask his annoyance. He’d purposefully brought it up while Kayden was out of the room. “We were trying to think of methods that wouldn’t leave him unable to fight J
ack when the time came.”
“No torture. Theo’s right. We can find another way.”
Justin frowned, “Every day we wait is a day we don’t have for training his abilities, and he’ll need all of the training he can get.”
“Because I have to fight the Slaughterhouse Nine and Jack Slash. And he’ll kill a thousand people if I don’t,” Theo said. “Me and Aster too.”
Justin glanced at the boy, saw the white-knuckle grip he had on his knife and fork, looked at Kayden, who had french toast speared on her fork but wasn’t raising it to her mouth. She stared off into space as the maple syrup slowly dripped down to the plate below.
She doesn’t know what to do any more than we do.
“You come from a good pedigree,” Justin commented. “Kaiser was strong enough to rule over the better part of Brockton Bay, as Allfather did before him.”
“Which doesn’t do us any good if I don’t get powers,” Theo mumbled.
“If worst comes to worst,” Kayden said, “We fight the Slaughterhouse Nine. Night, Fog, Crusader and I. Okay?”
Justin frowned, but he didn’t speak.
Theo voiced half the doubts that Justin was keeping silent, “You didn’t fight them last time. I’m not saying you were wrong to leave, but-”
“But we didn’t fight them then. You’re right,” Kayden said. “I’d hoped the others would stop them. The heroes, the Undersiders, Hookwolf…”
“And they didn’t,” Justin said. “Which means we have to assume Jack’s going to follow through. That gives us a time limit. Theo needs powers, he needs training, we need to find the Nine, and we need to stop them. What if we went to the Gesellschaft?”
Kayden glanced at the other two who were sitting at the table. Dorothy and Geoff. Neither of the two had reacted to the name of the organization that had created them. Or, at least, they hadn’t reacted outwardly.
“I’m more concerned that they’d help the Slaughterhouse Nine if it meant killing a thousand Americans,” she said. “And I’m not sure I want Theo to recieve the kind of power they offer.”
“If we contacted them through Krieg…” Justin trailed off.
“What?” Kayden asked. She let her knife and fork drop to her plate with a loud clatter. “You think they’d give us assistance with no strings attached? That we could call in a favor with Krieg and they’d give Theo powers, without the follow-up attention?”
“No. No, I suppose not.”
“They turn people into weapons,” Kayden said. “Then they decide where those weapons are best positioned, for the cause. There’s two good reasons why they wouldn’t have given fresh orders to Night and Fog since the Empire collapsed. Either they can’t get in touch with us-”
“I somehow doubt that.”
“Or Night and Fog are forgotten. Presumed dead or ignored,” Kayden finished. “In which case we don’t want to remind them that we’re still around.”
“I somehow doubt that, as well,” Justin said. “They have to know we’re alive.”
“Then what? Why leave these two in my care?”
“Because it serves their agenda,” Justin answered. He finished off his plate, spooned some blueberries onto the side, and poured himself some orange juice.
“What agenda?”
“The Empire fell. The Chosen fell. Only Kayden Anders and her Pure remain. If they hope to retain any foothold in the Americas, it’ll be through you.”
“I don’t want to give them a foothold in the Americas.”
“By the sole fact that you exist, you’re giving it to them. Your reputation, your success, it gives the Gesellschaft the opportunity to say, their cause is being furthered in the West. Even if your goals and theirs are only aligned in abstract. So they leave Night and Fog in your care, because it keeps you dangerous, it helps ensure your success, and maybe because it gives them a way to strike at you if they decide you’re a danger to the cause.”
Kayden glanced at Dorothy, studying Night’s civilian appearance.
“More coffee?” Dorothy asked, smiling.
“God, yes,” Kayden muttered. She held out her cup for a refill.
“What about you?” Theo asked.
Justin turned to look at the boy. “Who? Me?”
“Where do you stand, with the cause?” Theo asked. Justin didn’t miss the inflection at the end.
“I’m a simple man,” Justin said, smiling. “I like steak and potatoes. I like a good fight, a serious game of baseball or football. American football. I like a good woman’s company-”
Kayden cleared her throat. When Justin met her eyes, she was glaring at him. Not jealousy, more of a mother bear protecting her cub.
Justin smiled a little, more with one side of his mouth than the other. “-And I believe that they are fucking things up, out there. And the rest of the world’s letting them.”
“People with different colored skin.”
“People with differences,” Justin said. “Faggots, gimps, mongoloids. Kaiser got that. I talked to him one on one, and he had the right ideas. He got that America is ours, that they’re polluting it over time, letting these people in. But he was too focused on the big picture, and he was working with the Gesellschaft, which was way too big picture for my tastes. Still, birds of a feather. I worked under him because I wasn’t about to find others elsewhere, and I didn’t feel like going it alone. Then he introduced me to Purity.”
Theo glanced at his onetime stepmother.
“And I think we’re more in sync, Kayden and I,” Justin said. “If Kaiser was the visionary, the guy on top, the guy with the dream, working to achieve something over decades, then Purity’s the detective working the streets. And that’s the kind of simple thinking I can get behind.”
“So you don’t support the Gesellschaft?” Theo asked.
“I can’t support what I don’t understand,” Justin said. “And what I do understand is that we need to give you your trigger event before it’s too late. Because Jack and his gang of psychopaths are the sort of freaks I can’t stand, and I’ll be fucked if we let him beat you on this count. They don’t get to beat us, and you’re one of us.”
Theo drew in a deep breath, as if he was going to say something, and then heaved it out as a sigh, slow and heavy.
“Whether you like it or not,” Justin added, just under his breath.
Theo glanced at him. He hadn’t missed the comment.
At a normal volume, Justin said, “You’re vetoing the torture, where we’d be trying to get him to a trigger state in a safe, controlled environment. We need another game plan.”
Kayden sighed. “For now? We’ll let Dorothy clean up. Have you two done your morning sparring?”
Justin shook his head.
“Give Theo some training while I shower, then you two can wash up. Get dressed to go out. I have one idea regarding Theo’s trigger event.”
Justin stood with a plate in hand, but Dorothy was already walking around the table, her heels clicking on the tile. She took the plate from him, smiling.
“Come on, then,” Justin urged the boy. “Let’s see how much of it’s sinking in.”
“Not much,” Theo said.
“Probably not,” Justin replied. He reached for his power and stepped out of his body, a spiritual mitosis. A ghostly image of himself, wearing the same clothes, crossed the ‘living room’ of the space the hotel had given them. He created two more replicas of himself, one walking until its legs were sticking through the couch.
“Four against one?” Theo asked.
“You think the Nine are going to play fair? Now, do you remember priority one?”
“Self defense.”
“Protection comes first, always. The core of any martial art or self defense. Perception’s second. Know what’s going on, because it’ll help you protect yourself, and it’ll help you identify the right moment to strike. Arms up. Let’s see your stance.”
Theo raised his arms in the ready position, positioned his feet further apart.<
br />
Justin looked the boy over. He’d lost a little weight, though he wouldn’t look much skinnier if he kept exercising like he was. He’d put on muscle, and look just as bulky, at least for a while.
But that stance…
Justin suppressed a sigh. Those one thousand people are fucked.
■
“Harvard,” Justin said.
“This way,” Kayden said. She had Aster in a harness, the baby’s head resting against her chest.
“You know your way around Harvard? Color me impressed.”
“I looked it up online. This way. I’d rather not spend too much time in public.”
Justin noted the crowd of older teenagers and twenty-somethings. It was summer, but the school wasn’t empty. With the warmth of summer, the students were wearing shorts and short sleeves, as well as short dresses. Justin smiled at a group of girls as they passed by. One of them looked over her shoulder at him, gave him a glance that roved from head to toe and back up again.
“Justin,” Kayden said, raising her voice.
“Coming,” he said. Damn.
They made their way across the campus. Dorothy and Geoff had stayed behind, leaving Kayden, Justin and Theo to carry out the errand with Aster in tow.
They reached a tower, built to match the other buildings of the campus. Justin held the door for Kayden and Theo, pausing to note the lettering across the entrance: ‘Dept. Parahuman Studies’.
Fitting. Kayden’s plan was clear, now.
They entered the elevator, and Kayden checked a slip of paper, hit the button for the ninth floor. She tucked it into a pocket behind Aster’s back, then kissed her sleeping daughter on the forehead as the doors closed.
“We should get in and out fast,” Justin commented.
Kayden pursed her lips.
“Always have to consider that someone made us, and that they’re calling the authorities.”
“I know,” she said.
“Fuck Coil,” Justin snarled.
Kayden glared at him, and her eyes and hair both glowed with a trace of light. Some free strands of hair lifted as the light touched them, as if they were buoyant, or as if Kayden was underwater and slowly sinking. “Watch your language around Aster.”
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