Homeless 1.3

By ten or so, the dripping has progressed to a downpour. The cloud cover overhead has deepened to an even, sullen gray, and the gloom of the day is exacerbated by the low visibility due to the heavy rain. The McDonald's shift manager has been giving me dirty looks for two of the last three hours, indicating quite plainly that I've worn out my welcome unless I wish to buy something else. I'm not keen on spending more money here, given the cost to benefit ratio is even worse for me than it was before I wound up with a carnivore's digestive system. Finally, I walk up to the counter, but rather than buy yet more garbage, I ask for a newspaper one of the stack beneath the cracked plastic case bolted to the counter. The date reads April 14, 2011.

I slide a dollar across the counter, and pick up the newspaper that the woman grudgingly gives me. I glance it over as I start to open it, and stop, my original intent of using it for a makeshift umbrella delayed as I read the headline:

Preparations for Augustus Country Club Wine and Dine to be Moved Indoors Due to Expected Rain

I stare at the sidebar numbly.

Progress Against the Gangs: Lung in Serious, Stable condition; Awaiting Trial

I snap my head up, looking outside at the steadily pounding rain. Consulting Sherrel's memories isn't much help, there are large swaths of the city she never went to unless she was high on drugs and her latest invention. I turn to face the shift manager, who is still looking at me with hope, that I'll either buy something or leave her McDonald's. I dawsh both hopes at least temporarily. "Sorry, one last thing. Can you give me directions to the bank?"

She fakes a smile and asks, "Which one?"

"Bay Central."

CYOA​

The newspaper is only partially effective. It does nothing to stop my pants legs from soaking through, followed by the fur on my lower legs. The boots are surprisingly water tight, although with the water leaking into them from my legs the point is more or less moot. The rain obscures street signs, and I blend in surprisingly well given the number of people suttling about trying to avoid the rain. There's a lot of pedestrians for a city this size, especially when you take the rain into consideration. I'd have expected at least a few of them to be taking the bus.

I pause, soaked and slowly dissolving newsprint sheltering my head, as I see something that could be much more useful to me: a discarded umbrella. One of the spars is snapped, the fabric ripped, and the stem bent; it looks like some idiot attempted to use it as a make shift crowbar. A closer look reveals there's a broken hinge too. For most people, this would be useless, but me? I look around. Nobody's nearby. I smile, picking it up, and invoke my power onto it. The stem straightens, the spar reforms, the hinge repairs, and the fabric mends itself. Another furtive glance shows that nobody is paying more than cursory attention to me, so I make a show of fluttering the "new" umbrella, opening and closing it a couple times, then opening it fully and continuing on my way.

The heavy pattering of rain on the water resistant fabric is especially loud to me, considering the positioning on my feline ears. I strain my eyes through the heavy rain, reading signs as best I can, my brisk walk turning into a jog as I hurry. I'm a little hazy about the dates, but it was only two or three days after Lung was captured that the Undersiders hit Bay Central Bank. I'd briefly considered trying to stop Dinah's kidnapping, but with only Preservation and my case 53 body, all that would accomplish is getting me killed or giving Coil two powerful capes under his thumb instead of just one. I might be able to break free, if my powers decided to unlock themselves in his captivity, but that isn't a gamble I'm willing to take. Even if I managed to break free, I have no desire to go through the kind of withdrawals I could expect from the sort of drugs Coil would be likely to dose me with. Although I might be immune to drugs, now, given I'm not going through any withdrawals despite the fact that Sherrel was a hard core druggie second only to her boyfriend, but I'm still not particularly eager to test it.Not to mention, I don't want to learn the hard way that my alternate timeline selves can't hold up under torture and spill the eventual extent of my powers. The notion of Coil with complete control over a high level wizard and cleric gives me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. The discernible difference between 'twentieth level wizard' and 'demigod' is at best a matter of semantics. Adding on the powers of an equal level cleric is a recipe for nightmare. The summoned monsters either one can access can probably hold their own against most capes, and your average wizard or cleric usually summons them as distractions.

I'm jerked out of my thoughts by a blaring car horn. I skip backwards on wet pavement in the poorly marked crosswalk and almost fall as the car's tires screech a bit. If the streets were smoother I'd be looking at injuries but the cracked asphalt gives the car enough traction to stop in the driving rain. The driver is a man in his mid thirties and he's screaming things about my ancestry that are not only categorically untrue but also genetically impossible. As a bit of pettiness I extend my claws a touch as he passes. The sound of his squealing tires drowns out the sound of the trio of long scratches I leave in his door as he tries to bully his way into a break in the traffic.

Checking the street signs again, I'm less than a hundred feet away from the bank. There's a white van parked next to it in an adjacent alley— the robbery is already in progress. I quickly move next to the van, reluctantly closing the umbrella before I snap it in half over my knee and stuff it into my trench coat. I can repair it later. The eaves of the bank building are covering about half of the van, the water from the roof pouring over the vehicle in half sheets.

If I stop the robbery, can I keep Taylor from becoming a warlord? Can I stop Coil from unleashing Noelle on the city? What kind of butterflies am I unleashing if I do this?

On the other hand, if I'm here, all sorts of hell gets unleashed on this city if I do nothing. Maybe I can do some good, and get the Undersiders press ganged into the wards. If nothing else, they'll be safe enough if they get captured nice and loud. Coil can't afford to disappear them immediately, and by the time he's worked out anything I should have figured out a way to blast his identity— and his operations— wide open.

Okay, then. I try and get them captured for their own safety.

Just down the block, across from the bank, I can barely discern a teenager in a skin tight body suit, white, with what looks like gray toned shapes in motion across it, although what those shapes are is hard to tell with all the rain. I peek out from my shelter to try and get a better angle, only to be rewarded with a blatting splattering of run off water from the eaves up above me, which drenches my hair and knocks my hat off. I stifle a curse, bending down to grab it and seek the semi shelter of the eaves again. Call it the difference between slow soaking and fast soaking. Both miserable, but I'll delay the highest tier of discomfort as long as possible.

Within a few minutes, the rain starts to ease up a little, not close to stopping, but visibility is improving somewhat. The first costumed teen has been joined by several others, someone in a body suit and helmet, both red with white trim, and another much shorter in a skirted costume in white and green waves. I can make out enough detail now to see that all of their costumes seem to have visible, sturdy looking armor plating beneath the exterior layers, strategically placed to look heroic but still protect anything vital.

That has to be the wards. Which means in moments, Glory Girl will probably be up on the roof. Looking further down the street, shadowy shapes almost completely obscurred by the falling rain are cordoning off the road. They're getting ready to make their move.

I scan the area, seeking a way to the roof. There! A fire escape. I climb up on top of the van. The lowest section of the fire escape is caged off and locked by wire mesh, but if from here I could get above that. Maybe I can intercept Glory Girl before she goes in. She— Oh. Right. Hot head. Plan B, then.

Should have made a plan B. I'm still bemoaning the lack of it when someone shouts from the street, "You! Stop right there!"

I whirl in place, slipping a little, the run off over the edge of the van splatting against the rim of my hat and almost knocking it off me again. I fix it, and get as good a look as I can. Red with white trim, shield emblem. Aegis, then. I snap out in a voice barely louder than the rain, "Shut up! Cover the damn front!"

He simply stares at me, and for a moment I wonder why he didn't fly up here, until I remember the bait and switch the Wards attempted. I stop, then hop down. I wince as the roof of the van 'plunk's loudly, imagining the information Tattletale must be getting if she can hear any of this.

Aegis— or rather, Clockblocker— is still standing there as I land on the wet pavement, water splashing up my pant legs and contributing to just how much the day has sucked so far. I scurry over to him, pulling him as close to the wall as possible under the shelter of the eaves. "Shut up and listen. The Undersiders are in the bank. I don't know for a hundred percent certain but if their negotiations went well then they've got a new member, a bug controller."

"How do you-"

"I said shut up and LISTEN! She doesn't just control bugs, she can sense what they sense, and can control every bug, all of the, within her range. I think it's something like two blocks. Next-"

The sound of shouting from the front of the bank draws both our attentions. He starts to rush out, and I grab his costume. "Wait! You have to listen be-"

There's a funny strobing sensation, a flicker in the world around me, and Clockblocker has vanished from in front of me.

"-fore you..." And I realize my vision is blocked by something over my eyes, and I can't move more than an inch in any direction.

"Hey! HEY! What the actual FUCK?!"

From somewhere to my left, where there had been a van, I hear a voice. "She's active!"

Someone else snaps out, "Thinker protocols!"

Wait, what?

I meanage to turn my head a little, my fur and hair pulling painfully from the foam they're buried in. "Hey, why am I-"

"Ma'am, be silent or you will be gagged." Footsteps splash nearby to in front of me, although it's hard to precisely tell where because I can't swivel my ears. "I will ask you yes or no questions, and you will nod or shake your head to respond. If you make any verbal statements, you will be incapacitated. Do you understand?"

Is he for real? My mouth is hanging open. He snaps out, "I said, do you understand?"

I nod wordlessly, my mouth clamping shut.

"You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney. You are under arrest for complicity in commission of a felony armed robbery with a parahuman power, as well as multiple counts of assault and battery against a Ward. Do you understand what I have just told you?"

I shake my head as vigorously as the containment foam allows, which isn't very.

A little further away, I can hear Clockblocker, I think, saying, "-tried to stop me from getting to the fighting. I'm pretty sure she was a lookout, and I think she has either a thinker or master power, not strong, but enough to keep me occupied while they dealt with Aegis-"

"Do you speak and understand English?"

I grit my teeth, wanting to protest, but if thinker protocols mean what I think they do, they'll probably sedate me or something before I can get a full word out. I nod.

"Do you understand what a police arrest is?"

I hesitate, consider playing dumb, before I nod. Playing dumb will only hurt me in the long run.

"Do you understand that you are guilty of complicity in the bank robbery and the assaults against the Wards by the other Undersiders?"

Okay, that is so obviously confession bait. I shake my head vigorously.

Another voice cuts in, gruff, strong and assertive. "She understands fine. I'll take it from here." I hear metallic footsteps on the wet asphalt and I get the sinking feeling that it only gets worse from here. "Get her to Protectorate Headquarters immediately."

End 1.3