I didn’t respond right away. For one thing, I was going to relish the sight of Emma finally getting the short end of the stick. For another, I couldn’t shake the notion that this was some kind of trap. For so long, it had been two steps forward, and one step back. Why should things be any easier now?
I picked up my phone and put it to my ear to see if the call was still connected. “Hello?”
“Taylor?” My dad was still on the other end of the phone.
“It’s okay,” I said. I met Emma’s eyes. “Emma tried to pick a fight. They’re taking her to the front office now.”
There was a pause on his end. “…Do you need me to come?“
“You said you were busy with something. I doubt anything will come of this, so don’t stress over it. Want to meet tomorrow?”
“Okay. Good luck.“
“Thanks. Love you,” I said. The memories Emma had just stirred up flickered through my mind’s eye.
“You too,” he replied.
I hadn’t taken my eyes off Emma. She glared at me up until the moment the guard hauled her around, forcing her to march toward the school.
“You, in the sleeveless t-shirt, and you, girl with the haircut,” the guard said, “And you, the blonde in the purple shirt. You’re witnesses. Inside.” He’d named two of the people who’d been hanging outside, both with the telltale look of people who’d stayed in Brockton Bay, and one of Emma’s friends.
There was some hesitation from a girl with the right half of her head shaved. Her friends nudged her, and she joined the group.
Eyes were on us as we collectively headed in the direction of the office. Emma pulled her hand free of the guard’s grip, and sullenly marched at the head of the group. Once or twice, she tried to change course, but the guard gave her a little push to keep her moving. It meant that every set of eyes was on her from the moment where we entered the school to the point we reached the front office.
Principal Howell had given up on managing the late arrivals when we turned up, and was on the phone at the very back of the office. Seeing us, she looked almost relieved to have a distraction. One finger pointed the way to her office, and she quickly wrapped up her call, cupping one hand around the mouthpiece to drown out the babble of voices from the gathered students.
We had to take very different routes to get there, with the counter in the way. By the time we arrived, she was seated behind her desk. Emma and I took our seats in front of the desk, with the guard and the three witnesses lined up behind us.
The principal wasn’t terribly attractive, and her roots gave away her bleached hair. Just going by her appearance, and by the colorful blouse and scarf she wore, she didn’t give me a sense of an authority figure. I didn’t get the sense she’d stayed in Brockton Bay these past few months.
Then she spoke, and my initial impressions were banished the instant I heard her hard tone. “Collins? Thirty words or less, give me the rundown.”
The guard answered her, pointing to Emma, “Extended argument was initiated by the blonde one. The one with the glasses tried to back out. Blonde escalated to pushing and shoving, I stepped in.”
“Okay,” she said. “Witnesses, any commentary? Keep it short.”
“What he said,” the girl with the half-shaved head said, sullen. “The one who started it, I think her name was Emma? Yeah. Um. She’s a bitch.”
This was somehow surreal. I wondered if I was caught in some kind of trap. The Ambassadors didn’t, to my knowledge, have anyone with a power that could mess with my head. Maybe Haven or the Fallen had someone like that, capable of trapping me in some kind of warped world where things actually turned out okay, leaving me in a state where I never wanted to leave.
Such a world wouldn’t necessarily have Emma in it in the first place, though. Or Greg.
“Emma didn’t do anything wrong,” the blonde in the purple shirt said. “There’s a history. She was only responding to some stuff that happened before.”
“I don’t care about what happened before,” the principal said. “I care about keeping the peace. We’ve already had three fights with weapons, and the day isn’t even half over. No less than ten fistfights. Nearly a third of the students attending this school were in Brockton Bay during the recent crises. Some were Merchants, others were members of the white supremacy groups, and many more either found or are still taking refuge in a territory held by the current crime lords of Brockton Bay. Friction is inevitable, I’m certain many of my students have post traumatic stress disorder, and any number of students haven’t yet made the transition from being a survivor to being an ordinary student.”
She leaned her elbows on the desk.
“That’s fine. I’m willing to accept trouble as a fact of life, given recent events. It would be unfair to hold you-” she paused to eye me, the girl with the hair and the boy in the sleeveless t-shirt, “-to the same standards as any other student, given what you’ve been through.”
“That’s not fair,” Emma said.
“Emma,” the principal said, “What you did was monumentally stupid and dangerous.”
Again, that surreal feeling. This would be the point that I woke up to find I was still buried in Echidna, experiencing some warped reflection of past events, only in a more pleasant vein. Or maybe this scene twisted around and I’d realize I was in some modified agnosia fog and everyone around me was a member of the Nine.
Principal Howell continued, “You there, your name?”
“Terry,” the boy in the sleeveless t-shirt said.
“Did you bring a weapon to school today?”
“No.”
“Have you been in a fight, in the last few weeks?”
“A few.”
“Okay. And you, miss?”
“Sheila, and yeah. Brought a weapon.”
“Do you have it on you?”
Sheila reached into a back pocket and withdrew a keychain. A piece of metal dangled from the end, a bar that could be gripped, and two spikes that stuck out in front. It was like brass knuckles, but not quite. The same principle applied.
“Thank you. If you could hand them to Collins, I’d appreciate it.”
Sheila gave Collins a wary look.
“Or you could step outside,” Howell suggested.
“Yeah,” Sheila replied. “I’ll do that.”
She turned on her heel and stepped out of the office.
“And you? Your name?”
She was looking at me. I responded, “Taylor Hebert.”
“Were you armed?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“She handed over her weapon without a fuss,” Collins said. “Cheap knife, basic sheath.”
“And, if pushed, if you’d had it, would you have used it?” the principal asked.
I hesitated.
“You won’t get in trouble if you say yes. Be honest.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Define ‘pushed’.”
“Nevermind. Have you used it?”
“That one? No.”
“But you have used a knife?”
I nodded, reluctant. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the walls were going to close in around me, screwing me over.
“I hope you’re getting my point,” the woman said, turning back to Emma.
“You’re saying they could have hurt me,” Emma replied, sullen.
“Would have, in some cases. This isn’t the city you’re used to, nor the same students.”
“It’s fine,” Emma said.
“We’ll see. Just putting you into the computer. Emma… what was it?”
“Barnes,” I supplied. “E-S at the end.”
She typed on the computer keyboard to her right. “And Taylor… Hubert?”
“Hebert. E-B-E.”
More typing. “Hebert. Just give me a second to pull records… damn. Fancy new school, you’d think they’d give us better equipment.”
She hit the power button. The computer took a minute to reboot.
Long
seconds passed. Nobody spoke.
The screen flared back to life.
“Hm,” she murmured.
“What is it?” Collins asked.
“A number of past incidents. And we got the emails from Winslow High School, I did a search for their names, and there’s one that post-dates the Endbringer attack. It’s apparently a series of text messages between an Emma Barnes and Sophia Hess. There’s a great deal of discussion of the ongoing bullying campaign against Taylor here.”
I glanced at Emma. She’d gone pale.
A final ‘fuck-you’ from Sophia? Guess she wasn’t a friend after all.
The principal looked me square in the eye. “Would you like to press charges?”
I couldn’t even think straight, hearing that, it was so out of tune with my expectations.
No. I was still seated on the hard plastic chair, Emma to my immediate left. This was reality.
This was everything I’d wanted, as far as the Emma situation: to enjoy a small victory, to see her house of cards come tumbling down. To actually get to press charges? To see justice?
“No,” I said. Emma’s head snapped to face my direction with enough speed that I thought she might have given herself whiplash.
“Why not?” Principal Howell asked.
Because I’m a supervillain, and I don’t want the scrutiny. Because her dad’s a lawyer with connections, and it won’t work…
“Because she’s not worth the trouble,” I gave her the first answer that I could think of that wouldn’t cause any more problems. Time spent on this is time I can’t devote to my territory. I don’t want more conflict. Not with all the other issues surrounding this.
“The school can take action against her without your consent,” she said.
“Feel free. I want to be done with her, that’s all.”
“Very well. Emma? I’ll see you again in September.”
“September?”
“The summer classes we’re offering are very much a privilege. Now, I’m sure you’ve faced your share of stresses in having to relocate twice in a short span of time, but I’m not inclined to extend the same leniency to you that I’m extending to those who’ve been through so much more.”
I suspected Emma was at least as stunned as I was.
“When you return, we can discuss whether you’ll repeat the tenth grade, and whether you’ll repeat it here. I’ll have had time to review the emails and past records…”
She tapped a few keys on the keyboard, then frowned. “…What was I saying? Right. Given the possibility that Taylor might choose to attend in the future, and even just the basics I’m reading here, it may not be conscionable to let you attend as well.”
“This is ridiculous. My dad’s a lawyer. There’s no way he’ll let this happen.”
“Then I expect we’ll have a great many discussions in the future. Collins? Would you please take her to the front? I’d like a word with Ms. Hebert.”
“Will do.”
Maybe not a delusion. A trap? Head games from Accord? Or was she an Ambassador, trying to curry favor? I wasn’t sure what every member of the Fallen or the Teeth could do. Could one be a shapeshifter? Something else?
The door shut behind Collins, leaving the principal and I alone in the room.
“Satisfactory?” she asked me.
“What?”
“Is this end result satisfactory? If you were holding back because you were afraid your membership among the Undersiders might come to light, rest assured I can be discreet.”
She did know something.
“I- I’m not sure I understand.”
“It doesn’t matter. I got the impression you didn’t want to be treated any differently.”
“Who are you?”
“A vice principal in well over her head,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “I didn’t see it firsthand, but I’ve felt the effects of this… long series of disasters. My predecessor made it through, past an Endbringer attack, past food shortages and disease, past the roving gangs, the thugs and looters, past the Slaughterhouse Nine, an amnesia fog and a takeover of the city. So many things. And at the end of it all, just when things started to get better, he couldn’t adjust. He got in a fight, was punched in the head, and died soon after of an embolism.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Seventeen years working together. He was like a brother. I told myself I would keep the peace. Someone gave me a list of names, and I recognized your name on that list. So perhaps I support certain students and keep an eye on the ones who would inevitably cause trouble anyways.”
Tattletale. She arranged this.
“I’m not confirming or denying that I am such a student-”
“Of course.”
“-but why? What do you get out of it?”
“Peace. It’s an ugly road to travel to get there, but it’s peace. I lost one good friend and boss to the crises here, I won’t lose anyone else. Particularly not my students.”
Why did she have to tell me? I would have been content to be ignorant here. This was a perversion of justice. The fact that it was perverted in my favor didn’t matter.
“Treat me like you would anyone else,” I said.
“I will.”
I couldn’t quite believe her. If she was currying favor with Tattletale, helping to solidify Tattletale’s hold and perhaps feeding Tattletale information on more troublesome gang members, I wasn’t sure I could trust her to stay impartial here.
I’d won, so to speak, but this small revelation had taken the justice out of it.
“I’m going to go,” I said.
“I need you to fill out some paperwork, so everything’s organized for Emma’s suspension. Are you a student?”
“No.”
“Are you intending to be a student?”
“No.”
“Okay. Then I’ll have you fill out a form as a visitor. Let me reboot my system again, print what you need, you can fill out one short page, and I’ll manage the rest.”
I was about to protest, to give some excuse and go, but the phone rang. She picked up and pressed one hand over the mouthpiece. “Wait at the front, a secretary will bring it to you.”
I couldn’t refuse without intruding on the conversation. I stepped outside.
Emma was at the front, too, slouched in a chair with Collins standing beside her. No doubt she’d had a secretary let her call her dad, or would as soon as the opportunity came up.
I stood at the opposite end of the room.
I felt numb. A little disgusted with how things had turned out, that the only reason this system seemed to be working was because it was already corrupt to a fundamental level. I could still feel some of the anger and irritation from the argument with Emma, the thrill of adrenaline…
I raised a hand to adjust my glasses and found my fingers were shaking. I was trembling, and I couldn’t identify why. None of the emotions I could single out would account for this kind of response. Even all put together, they shouldn’t have gotten me halfway here.
I had a lump in my throat, and I felt like I might cry, and I wasn’t sad. Was I happy? Scared? Relieved? I couldn’t sort anything out in the jumble.
Was my emotional makeup that fucked up?
I found a chair and fell into it, rather than sitting. I focused on deep breaths, on using my power to contact my bugs and detach myself from things.
“Hebert? Taylor Hebert?” A secretary was calling out for me.
I stood and made my way to the front, where I got the paper, already attached to a clipboard.
Some had already been automatically filled in, and there was a header asking me to double-check the details. My name, my age and grade, the address…
I stopped.
Address: 911 Incoming St.
Alt Address: 9191 Escape Ave.
I looked up in the direction of the principal’s office. She was standing at the window, staring at me, a phone pressed to her ear.
She mouthed a word at me
. ‘Run’.
Someone knows I’m Skitter.
20.04
From the moment Charlotte had sent her text, I’d been bracing myself for the worst case scenario. I’d resolved the situation with Greg, and I’d had just enough time to let my guard down before things started falling apart for real.
A guard stopped me in my tracks before I was three steps out of the office, arresting me mid-stride by setting his hands on my shoulders.
I resisted the urge to fight him. I wasn’t sure I could, without a weapon, my armor or powers, and it threatened to make the situation worse. He peered down at me, but I averted my eyes, staring down at the ground so he couldn’t get a straight look at my face.
“No running, kid,” he said.
He let me go, and I resisted the urge to breathe a sigh of relief.
My thoughts were a mess, a jumble of half-finished thoughts, ten times worse than it had been earlier in the day. Somehow, in the midst of it, I managed to establish a few priorities. Slip out, get rid of evidence, assess the threat, and then address it.
I walked slower. I had the papers I’d removed from the clipboard, and I started tearing them up as soon as the guard had disappeared through the doors of the office.
On a more strategic level, I drew on a share of the handful of bugs in the school to get a sense of my surroundings. I’d be letting people know Skitter was present, if they noticed the odd movements of the flies and ants, but I had good reason to believe someone already knew.
Either the people after me were the good guys, and it didn’t matter if I clued them in, or it was one of my other enemies, and the heroes showing up could be a good thing.
Arcadia High consisted of two longer buildings joined by a third, joining them to form something like a capital ‘H’. The main office, where I was, and all the other administrative and staff-related facilities seemed to be located around the center. The only exits from this immediate area would open into an open space where I would be surrounded by walls lined with windows, all looking down at me. Worse, the doors all had the heavy horizontal bars that suggested they were emergency exits, and an alarm would sound if I used them.
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