37

Chapter 37

A Darker Path

Part Thirty-Seven: Plotting and Planning

[A/N 1: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

[A/N 2: This was originally part of a much larger post, so I split it in two. Expect the other half very soon.]

On a Private Jet, Flying East

Bastard Son

"What part of 'abduct someone' was not perfectly clear?"

This was the problem with talking to his people over the phone. Face to face, his Master ability served to cut the whole 'second thoughts' bullshit off at the pass. But when he was at a remove, he had to work with whatever hold it still had on his minions, without the option of reinforcing it as needed.

Fortunately, he'd already thought this problem through. The car they were driving had been rigged up by people he knew were damn well loyal to him. All these idiots had to do was carry out his damn instructions, and everything would be okay. For him, not for them.

"But women? Kids? That sort of thing gets you in real deep shit with the Feds, and Atropos is like to shoot us straight in the head if she catches us …"

The guy was wavering, though he was holding firm on that sticking point. Mooks had the weirdest hangups.

"Listen, it'll be a one-and-done." He breathed deeply, trying to sell the lie. "Nobody gets hurt. Think of them as insurance. Nobody's gonna start a firefight if there's kids in the car. The only thing you have to do, if Atropos stops you, is let me know that it's happened. That's it. After that, you can go ahead and surrender." And they would, too. Because for all their bravado, they believed Atropos' hype.

He knew better. Nobody was that good, except maybe his people. And of course, me.

The trick with any cape was to hit them where it hurt. Lacking current information on Atropos' friends and family (though he would find that out sooner or later) he'd decided to attack her reputation. She had reacted extremely violently to every attempt to bring drugs into Brockton Bay, but she'd spared innocents. So he would set up a catch-twenty-two for her.

The men who were driving into Brockton Bay only thought they were transporting drugs. They would follow his orders to abduct women and kids, on the understanding that the hostages would be released at the end of the journey. But the car had been rigged with explosives, and he held the remote trigger.

If Atropos interfered with his shipment in any way, the whole damn thing would blow. And once innocents were dead, it wouldn't matter how blameless she was in the matter, her rep would be forever tarnished. He had people online who would make sure of that.

It was how he always worked, striking at people from unexpected angles, then fading away as they tried to strike back. He'd never once failed to bring his enemy down in this way.

And if she was a Thinker, aware of the explosives and hostages ahead of time? It honestly didn't matter. If she held back in the understanding that there was no winning scenario for her, he'd have the only pipeline of drugs into a city starved of them. The news that she'd failed to keep drugs out of Brockton Bay would spread like wildfire, and her rep would take a hit of a totally different nature.

Either way, she'd lose and he'd win.

Checkmate, bitch.

PRIVATE MESSAGE

To: TheRealPanacea

From: Atropos

Subject: Re: Can we talk?

Let's skip all the back and forth, and potential miscommunications. Pick a place where you're comfortable talking to me, be there at (say) ten tonight, and we'll chat.

Oh, and bring your friend. I definitely want to meet him.

Atropos

Outside a Shopping Mall on I-95

Kayleen Hoskins, Housewife

Kayleen hummed to herself as she packed the groceries in the trunk of the car. She preferred to do the weekly shopping on a Friday afternoon; that way, the weekend was free and she didn't have the rush and bother on a Monday. Sean, at ten, liked to help her with the groceries and put the cart away after, while Bella and Marie fussed at each other in the back seat. Twin seven-year-olds could be a hassle at times, but at least they hadn't gotten in the habit of swapping their clothing around to fool her.

The roar of an engine alerted her, and she drew back alongside the car with Sean before she even looked around. The groceries didn't matter; if someone was driving recklessly, they needed to be out of the way.

It wasn't a young idiot driving stupidly, though. When the sedan screeched to a halt behind her car, the men who got out were middle-aged and carrying guns. Guns that were immediately pointed at her and Sean. What …?

"You two!" barked one of the men. "Get over here! Now!"

Kayleen's mind went blank. She'd never even considered that she might ever be kidnapped, but now it was happening. If it had just been her, she might've made a break for it, but Sean seemed to be even more frozen than she was, and one of the men had a gun pointed right at his head.

"Mommy …?" That was Bella, from inside the car. Both girls—she dared a quick sideways glance—were kneeling up on the back seat, staring out through the window.

No. They can't take them too. Terror for her daughters galvanised her lungs.

For the last few years, she'd instilled in them one thing they should always do. If a stranger approached them and tried to make them go somewhere, they should 'run to cop'. Find a security guard or a police officer or a superhero and run to him.

"Bella, Marie!" she screamed. "Run-to-cop! Run-to-cop!"

They could be as irritating as any other kid of that age, but this time they did as they were told. Bailing out of the car faster than she could've managed it, they bolted back toward the shopping mall, where the security guard stood outside the front doors. An overweight older man, he probably couldn't do much against the two gunmen, but he could protect her daughters and call 911.

"Yeah, nicely done," growled the one who had the pistol pointed at her. "Now you and the boy, get here now." He held up a bunch of heavy-duty zip-ties. "Nobody does anythin' stupid, nobody gets hurt. We're goin' for a car ride."

Stumbling forward with Sean at her side, all Kayleen could think of was, at least the girls are safe.

Hebert Household Basement

Taylor

In the back of my brain, I mulled over Bastard Son's plans, working out the best way to bring them to a screeching halt. Killing him was the quickest and easiest way, as my power cheerfully pointed out, but of course it was also good to make an example. Ironic deaths were so very useful for that. They caught everyone's attention.

I had the electrical bits and pieces that I'd used to make the remote releases for Kaiser's katzbalger out on the bench again, and I'd warmed the soldering iron up. With the goggles snuggled down over my eyes, I whistled absently as I attached an alligator clip to the end of a three-foot piece of wire. It was already screwed into place, but I wanted the connection to be solid.

"So, what's this for?" asked Cherie. She was wearing an identical pair of goggles, watching my handiwork with interest.

"To be honest, I have no idea," I confessed. "But my power says I'm gonna need 'em, so I'm making 'em."

Cherie eyed the piece of wire, then the three near-identical ones I'd already put together, with a clip on each end. Beside them lay the two-way radio I'd used for the truck intercept on the highway, once upon a time. I'd done some work on it, too. "Well, far be it from me to question your power on anything. Even my power seems to consider it a bad idea to mess with you."

I grinned at her. "That's the general idea."

The basement door opened, and Dad came down a few steps. "Hey, kids. How's it going down here?"

Lifting the soldering iron away from my work, I turned toward him and flipped the dark lenses up. "Hi, Dad. We're doing fine. What's up?"

He gestured up toward the door and the kitchen beyond. "Whenever you're finished down here, dinner's nearly ready."

"Cool. We'll be done here in a minute." I flipped the lenses back down as he retreated up the stairs.

Cherie shook her head. "It's still totally weird to me that your dad cooks. And that he's good at it."

"Well, I take my turn too," I reminded her. "And you can too, if you want to. Just let us know what ingredients you need."

"I just might do that." Her tone was speculative. I knew this was because when she'd cooked for her father, he'd punished her for getting the slightest thing wrong.

Things were different here, I mused as I bent over the alligator clip again. She was learning that, but I still didn't want to rush her.

One thing at a time.

9:55 PM

Panacea

I must be insane to be even considering this.

Dressed in her darkest hoodie and jeans, Amy skulked down the side-street, keeping a careful eye all around. She wasn't worried about being attacked; if even one tenth of the rumours about Atropos were true, she was the safest person in the city right now. Her concern lay with being spotted by someone who might recognise her and ask what Panacea was doing out and about at this time of night.

They might also be curious about the carefully wrapped bundle she was carrying, but that would only become a real problem when she was handed back to Carol and Mark. Carol would definitely want to know what it was, second only to where Amy thought she was going. And when she found out either one … Amy didn't really know how she was going to react, but 'well' did not appear on the list of possible options. Somewhere between 'angry' and 'apocalyptic' was her best guess.

Normally she wouldn't even have considered coming to this area of town without at least Vicky in attendance, but she hadn't seen a fresh Merchants tag in days, and she'd heard that the drug rehab clinics were going well.

A police cruiser rolled through the intersection in front of her, and she froze until it was past. This was actually another good sign; prior to Atropos' debut, the police would never have come into this area without serious backup. The word about the stimulus payments had also gone out, and she suspected everyone was staying put and not doing anything that might get them arrested, for fear of missing out.

Crossing the intersection, she walked another half-block until she came to a small neighbourhood park. It was here that she'd done her first healing 'in the wild', as it were, of a gangbanger who'd been shot in the leg during a dustup with the ABB. She'd been so nervous that she totally forgot to ask his permission to heal him, or use any of the other bedside-manner phrases that she'd been trained in. Once he was healed, the young man had been taken away to be presumably charged and arraigned.

She'd never even asked his name.

Sticking to the clear areas of the path—she probably wouldn't get infected if she trod on a used needle, but getting a sharp bit of metal in her foot would hurt like hell anyway—she reached the circular bench in the middle and sat down. The bundle in her arms, she set down on the bench beside her.

"Okay, then," she muttered, and pulled out her phone to send the message to Atropos saying where she was. "Time to do something that's probably really stupid." It wasn't that she thought so, not really, but Carol's views on the matter were clear to everyone in the household, and constant repetition had a way of colouring her opinions.

"Oh, I don't know." The warmly amused voice came from just behind her. "We've all done things that are way stupider than this."

Amy froze, then turned slowly. Atropos was seated a little way around the circle from her, just far enough to be out of her peripheral vision. Between the morph mask and the hat shading her face from the weak street-lighting, there was no way of even guessing her expression, but Amy would've bet her college fund that the remorseless killer was grinning broadly.

"You did that on purpose!" she accused Atropos. "Christ, are you trying to give me a heart attack?"

"Yes, I did, and no, I'm not." The amusement had not left Atropos' tone. "If I was going to do something like that, I would've done it to Heartbreaker. Anyway, as I was saying, what you're doing right now proves you're smarter than literally every cape who's gone up against me so far."

"Yeah, like that's a high bar." Amy didn't care that Atropos knew she was still feeling somewhat aggrieved. "Pulling a jump-scare like that every time makes you feel like you've got power over everyone else, does it?"

Atropos appeared to consider that for a moment. "You have a point," she admitted. "I do it mainly because I can, and to remind even the most vigilant capes that I can in fact sneak up on them. But let's be serious here—"

She vanished from the bench between one word and the next. Amy looked around in surprise—New Wave had been briefed on the 'smoky doorway' Atropos had used to get away from Velocity and to leave New York, but she'd seen no such thing this time—as the dark figure strolled toward her along the path, still talking. The long-coat flared briefly in the breeze.

"—you'd still consider an entrance like this to be needlessly dramatic, so I can't really win. In other words, yes, I'm doing this for fun, not to try to impress you or scare you." She reached the bench again and sat down beside Amy. "So, let's take it from the top. You want to talk to me and make sure that the things you're doing with your power aren't going to piss me off, and I just want to have a chat and see how you're doing. Does that sound about right?"

Amy blinked. "… yes?" Instead of denying her motives, Atropos had more or less admitted that Amy was correct. But then something she'd said caught Amy's attention. "Wait, you want to see how I'm doing? Aren't you supposed to be all gung-ho about Brockton Bay as a city, not any one person in particular? I mean, sure, I'm a healer, but even I can't put all that big a dent in the sick and injured population of Brockton Bay."

"Yes and no." Atropos leaned forward slightly. "I care about some people in Brockton Bay, but not many. The city is indeed my greater concern. However, you're capable of helping me effect change for the better, out of all proportion to your healing capability. Also, if your issues were allowed to continue to fester, you could absolutely cause problems I'd rather not have to deal with. Thus, this conversation."

The allusion to problems sent a chill down Amy's spine. She had a very good idea how Atropos dealt with 'problems', and those who caused them. "Um," she began.

"That wasn't a warning, by the way." Atropos's tone was light. "Just an observation, and an answer to your question. So, can I see what you've brought along?"

"Um. Okay." Amy was almost certain that Atropos already knew what it was, but this was the first time she'd shared it with anyone. Her throat was dry and her pulse almost audible in her ears as she picked up the bundle and carefully began to unwrap it. "Please just … benefit of the doubt, okay?"

"Totally." Atropos watched intently as the cloth came off.

The plant pot full of dirt hadn't been light, but she'd managed. Covering the top of it was an inverted bowl, which she took off last of all. There, revealed in the dim light afforded by the street lighting, was the tennis-ball sized fungus she'd created.

Then it started to wake up. Slowly, it uncurled from its somnolent position, revealing the oversized 'head' and the two arms; the bottom end of the 'torso' was firmly planted in the dirt. The large eyes blinked as it looked around, then it stretched mightily, its mouth gaping wide in a parody of a yawn. It couldn't talk (yet, as she was still working on the equivalent of lungs and vocal chords) but she'd decided that a non-working mouth was far less creepy than no mouth at all. It had a tiny button nose for the same reason.

"Okay, that's cuter than I expected," Atropos observed. "How—"

The mushroom baby (as Amy privately called it) reacted to Atropos' voice, turning and staring up at her, then immediately curling up into its sleep posture, arms wrapped around its head. A moment later, one arm shifted and it peeked out at her.

"Shh," Amy crooned, stroking its back with her fingertip. "Sh-sh-shhh. She's a friend. She's not going to hurt you … are you?" Raising her eyes to Atropos' face, she gave the other girl a challenging look that she would never have dared use on her own account.

"Nope. Not here to hurt anyone. In fact, I'm mightily impressed. He can see, hear and think." Atropos tilted her head to one side. "Or did you program all that in as autonomic responses?"

"… some of it, yes," Amy admitted. "He knows not to come out if he hears strangers around. But he can learn, too. And he understands nearly everything I say."

Slowly, the mushroom baby emerged again, and gave Atropos a tentative wave. Atropos returned it and the fungus creature smiled, staring up at her.

"So how did you fit all that in?" Atropos peered more closely at it. "That head can't be bigger than a ping-pong ball."

"I cheated," admitted Amy. "His brain isn't in his head. He's got an incredibly dense mycelium network underground, and I repurposed that as a neural network."

"Huh. And this guy's the only one you've got?"

"No, actually. I've got a terrarium in my room with a couple more. Also, a lizard I got from the pet store, for protective camouflage."

Atropos nodded. "So everyone looks at the lizard, and not at the fungus guys. Neat."

"That's the idea, yeah." Amy glanced down at the mushroom baby and saw that it was playing one of its little games, sorting bits of shell and gravel into patterns in the dirt in front of it. Raising her gaze to Atropos, she asked the question she knew she had to. "So, am I going to be in trouble if I keep doing this?"

"Not in the slightest." Atropos shook her head to emphasise the point. "Whose idea was it to make these? Yours or your power's?"

"My power's, I think." Amy thought back, trying to recall the exact sequence of events. "I already made the grass in the back yard go fluorescent for a few seconds, so then I found a mushroom and asked my power what it wanted to do with that. I think it's been having fun, and so have I. In between moments of abject terror about being caught out, of course."

"Don't be scared of me, without due cause." Atropos spoke firmly. "If you're doing something I don't like, I'll totally warn you. In the meantime, I want you to exercise your power. Do fun things. Do silly things. Stretch that muscle. And if you need to talk about anything, I'm willing to listen." Her tone became light-hearted. "Just be aware that if you're ever tempted to take over Brockton Bay as your own personal biokinetic fiefdom, I will be forced to take notice."

"Ha ha ha, nope." Amy shook her head. "Hard pass."

"Oh, good." Atropos' head came up. "Hm. It appears Bastard Son has moved up the timetable a little. I'm going to have to go."

"Oh, um, I'll be fine." Amy shrugged. "I got here okay, didn't I? Or is there something I can do to help?"

Atropos looked at her. "No, I can handle it, thanks. But Vicky's also going to knock on your door in about one minute to talk to you about moving on and rebranding once Brockton Bay gets too safe for all the heroes we've got."

"Shit!" Amy's eyes went wide, and the sense of impending doom that had been hovering over her all evening (to be fair, she usually had a sense of impending doom) slammed down around her. "I need to call her, so she doesn't tell Carol and Mark—!"

"Chill. I've got this." Atropos stood up and did something with her arm. Amy could've almost sworn, in the silence that hung around, that she heard tiny electronic beeps. Then a cover clicked shut, and Atropos gestured toward an empty spot next to Amy. Between one second and the next, a smoky doorway formed in mid-air. "Forty seconds. Go."

Hastily, Amy grabbed up the plant-pot, the bowl and the wrapping cloth. "What do I have to do?"

"Just step through. Thirty seconds."

"Thanks." The next words were ones she hadn't wanted to say, but they were true all the same. "I owe you one." Atropos could so easily have just let her face the music.

"I know. Twenty-five seconds."

Taking a deep breath—she knew damn well that if Atropos wanted to kill her, there were many other ways to do it, but it was still a huge leap of faith—Amy stepped through the portal. The dimly lit park vanished, to be replaced by the familiar surroundings of her room. Holy shit, it worked.

Hastily, she placed the pot next to the aquarium. "Go to sleep," she whispered. The mushroom baby obediently curled up, becoming an unremarkable fungus once more.

Next, she dragged off the hoodie over her head and hurled it at the laundry hamper in the corner of the room. Then the knock came on the door, just as she was toeing her sneakers off. "Ames? You awake?"

She hastily rolled into bed, trying not to make the mattress springs creak too much, ignoring the fact that she was still wearing her jeans. The t-shirt, at least, would pass as sleepwear. "Yeah," she replied as she pulled the covers into place. "What's up?"

Vicky opened the door and sidled in, then carefully closed it behind her so the latch didn't click. "Couldn't sleep. Wanted to talk. You know how I've been thinking about rebranding and moving on?"

"Kinda, yeah." Amy moved over and patted the edge of the bed. "What's Carol think about it?"

"She's not a fan right now, but I'm still working on that." With a sigh, Vicky sat down, the mattress creaking and settling under her. "It's going to have to happen. Once the supervillains left town, cape crime fell off a cliff, and non-cape crime was due to follow soon after. There's zero drug trade in town and Atropos will kill anyone who messes with the economic recovery, which means the cops will be free to deal with normal crime and the PRT will be keeping an eye on the rogues. It won't be long before we heroes will be going after jaywalkers, because there'll be literally nothing else for us to do. But I didn't come in here to talk about that."

Amy yawned. "Sorry. So, what did you want to talk about?"

"Names." Vicky gestured toward herself. "I can't be Glory Girl forever, and Glory Woman just sounds … no."

"No," Amy agreed. "Not Glory Woman." She thought for a moment. "How about just Glory?"

"Thought about it, but … not as bad as Glory Woman, but still too derivative." Vicky sounded pensive.

Amy snickered. "You still don't have it as bad as Kid Win. What's he going to be? Adult Win? Man Win? Go nudist and call himself Winning Streak?"

Vicky's back shook as she snorted with laughter. "No idea. But Dad said something the other day about me being a beacon of hope. Maybe Beacon?"

"'I lift my lamp beside the golden door'," quoted Amy. "Yeah, I like that name. It's a good one."

Vicky nodded. They were both familiar with the poem, considering how Vicky's tiara had been inspired by the Statue of Liberty. "Thanks. I like it too. I just didn't want to jump in and have everyone think it was too much on the nose."

"No, it's totally a good name," Amy assured her. "I like it."

"Good." Vicky stood up, the mattress rising back into place as her weight lifted off it. "Imma go to bed now. Thanks for listening."

"No problem. Night … Beacon."

"Night, awesome sister of mine."

Her door opened, then clicked shut again. Amy was alone in her room, but she waited a good minute before pulling the covers off and scooting out of bed to finish changing. There was no way she could risk a shower this late, so she instead repurposed her skin bacteria to process the sweat products on her skin.

Rolling back into bed, she sighed as she pulled the covers up. The talk with Atropos had been both less nerve-wracking and more productive than the one with Vicky. How did that work, anyway?

She said I'm fine. Smiling, she rolled over and wriggled down into a comfortable position.

With the weight lifted off her shoulders, sleep came easily for once.

End of Part Thirty-Seven