String - Interjection 13.2

The walk back to the car was unnervingly quiet.

Our task was clear: remove Mercury and do the same to Liberation before Pandora had a chance to retaliate. Unfortunately, the method was much less clear. We had no weaknesses to exploit and no reliable backup. 

“Fight the Cains, defeat Grim,” Alice muttered to my side as we walked through the forest. “Now it's fight Pandora, defeat Liberation, and one of their damned founders. So much for a simple life.”

I huffed out an amused laugh.

“So much for carving out your own little piece of territory.”

A small, melancholic smile graced Alice’s lips as she looked ahead with distant eyes.

“I knew one of the gangs was going to have to bite the dust in order to get what I wanted. Thing is, Grim was only one guy, and my research told me he never stayed in one place for too long. All I had to do was Whittle away his influence and Gold predicted he would just… move on,” Alice rambled wistfully. “With everything that happened though, it got complicated and now we’re here.”

“Now we’re here,” I repeated. “Just look at it as removing another problem. With Pandora’s influence removed, all we’re left to contend with is The Queen’s Court and the ECU. Once the earthquakes and whoever is behind them is sorted out, Ajax won’t stick around either. We’ll be free to…” I let my words trail off as I was hit with the painful reminder that things weren’t the same anymore. I couldn’t just go back to school and resume my life. There was still Cyberspace to consider, and even if we managed to deal with them, Abby knew who I was now. “…figure things out.”

“Where would we even start?” Alice joked weakly. “Without Gold, we can barely keep up. I’m starting to feel like we’re way in over our heads.”

I snorted.

“I think we’ve long since crossed that line.”

Alice quietly let out a shaky breath before turning to look over her shoulder at the others trailing behind us. Her expression told me everything I needed to know: that this conversation was for our ears only. Prosperity would probably hear, what with her enhanced hearing and all, but I was certain Alice would take that into account.

“You think? I was overworked before, trying to manage too many things with Gold but it’s only really hitting me. I felt like I could keep up—only just, but… now?” She shook her head and gazed down at the leaves and foliage crunching beneath our feet. “I’m scared of every choice we make. I can’t predict what’s going to happen and I can’t adapt quick enough when something does go wrong. I might not look it, but I’m terrified.”

“You still haven’t taken the time you need to adjust to losing Gold. I can’t imagine what it’d be like to lose part of yourself like that,” I explained. “You won’t get over it quickly, but it will get through it. Just give it time and hey, maybe you’ll get her back.”

“God, I wish I shared your optimism.”

I chuckled weakly.

“That's all I can really do. Hope that we’ll get through all this. My friendship with Abby is gone now. Lucy is forever changed, and I’m not sure where I stand with her anymore. There’s… a lot to work through there,” I said tiredly. “Right now, all I have is you, Anomaly, and Vigil. Mom and Alex are at Cyberspace’s mercy, so yeah… I think I can say that I’m struggling to hold myself together right now. You managed to stop me from going nuclear last night.”

“Yeesh, yeah…” Alice trailed off, rubbing the back of her neck. “That wouldn’t have been good for any of us.”

“I know I can be a little… impulsive, but I don’t think my calls have been all that bad,” I said before pausing. I took a few moments to actually consider all my most controversial decisions up to this point. “Well, my ‘no weapons’ policy and what I was charging when I was starting out. Pretty stupid. I blame inexperience.”

Alice shared in my earlier amusement.

“I think it’s safe to say that inexperience is something we all have to deal with. I was crass and, despite how true it may have been, people don’t like being told their idiots by a teenager. What I mean is, I should have been more understanding when we met. I still remember what I was like when I first started out.”

“Don’t sweat the small stuff. We’re still alive. That counts for something,” I replied easily. “I get that not many Supers live long enough to learn from their mistakes. I guess we’re lucky.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Alice agreed with a light giggle. “We can’t count on that to save our bacon all the time. Sooner or later, our luck is going to run out.”

“By that point we won’t need it to survive.”

“Yes, but we need to actually get to that point for anything to matter,” Alice sighed. “We don’t have to do this, you know.”

“You’re talking about running away and leaving the city to tear itself apart?” I asked, remembering how she joked about the idea in the midst of her grief from losing Gold. “We can’t do that.”

“This is our lives we're talking about. We at least had a plan with Grim,” Alice said. “Jumping into the middle of a fight between Pandora, Ajax, and the ECU is a death sentence. We can’t go off half cocked. Sure, running won’t let us escape Cyberspace entirely, but at least it buys us time.”

“Cyberspace has my mom, and can probably get to Mia’s family before we can. You know that, and I know you’re not so heartless as to demand we leave them behind.” I said evenly. “Nothing is keeping you, though.”

Alice just gave me a sad smile.

“Things are… different now.”

I opened my mouth to retort with how not having Gold would impact her ability to function on her own, but I stopped myself. I wasn’t stupid; I recognized the look she was giving me, and it tied my stomach into knots. It was the same look she gave me when she told me that Richard had killed Gold.

“I hope you realize that I wouldn’t just leave you high and dry, not like you suspected I would when we first met.” Alice said, giving me a wary look. “We’re a team, right?”

“Not just a team. Friends,” I corrected her. A traitorous part of my mind considered otherwise, for a brief second, and I saw Alice—Sam as someone more than a friend. “Close friends.”

Alice beamed at me.

“Upgrade!”

Everyone stopped and turned to see Lucy jogging after us, stopping short in front of me. She took a moment to catch her breath.

“Change your mind?” Alice quipped.

“No, it's not that,” Lucy replied. “I need a favor. It’s really important, and if knew how to consistently use my power I would do it myself.”

Alice shot me a tentative glance before crossing her arms and nodding her head.

“Alright, as long as it isn’t going to get us killed,” Alice mused. “Spill.”

Lucy turned to me, uncertainty and guilt plastered all over her face.

“You remember Travis and his sisters, right? The ones I brought to school. Dad rescued them from a bunch of Pandora Supers that tried to take advantage of them after Grim’s rampage. They won’t have a clue what's going on or why Dad and I didn’t come home last night,” Lucy explained. “I don’t even know if they’ll still be there now that Pandora knows what happened. They’re just kids,” she stressed. “Really, I’d go there myself but—”

“It’s okay,” I held up a hand to stop her. “We’ll do what we can to get them out. Can you give me an address?”

“It’s 22-B Murchison Street. It’s hiding behind a black house with solar panels on the roof. You’ll need to be careful, it’s in Pandora territory. You’ve got to sneak in with all the fighting going on, but I imagine you were probably going to do that anyway,” Lucy rambled. “Take them anywhere away from the fighting. Your workshop. The ECU. Here. It really doesn’t matter, I just want them safe.”

“Take a breath there, girlie,” Alice chirped. “We’ll get the kiddies out. Do any of them have powers we need to worry about?”

“No, they’re all normal. There’s three—no!” Lucy stammered, her eyes going wide with horror. “Their mom… I don’t know what happened to their mom. She didn’t live with us. I don’t know where she is.”

“Well, that’s going to be a problem. We can’t exactly help her if we have no idea where to start looking,” Alice said. “Got any idea where she would have been taken? Please keep in mind we’ve got to deal with Liberation and Mercury.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Lucy remarked sourly. “Sorry I can’t be of more help. You might…” she closed her eyes and sighed in defeat. “…you might be better off just rescuing Travis and his sisters. Hopefully we can find her when this is all over.”

“We’ll do what we can,” I replied neutrally. I leaned to the side and waved at Seer. “Hey, we could use your help!”

Seer turned and gave his teammates a curt nod before jogging over to us. He slowed down and regarded Lucy amicably.

“Something wrong?” He asked.

“Can you find something out for us?” I asked. “Lucy and her father took in some wards not long after Grim’s rampage. With Wildfire gone and Lucy here, they’re left to fend for themselves. We should go pick them up before anything bad happens. Can you use your power to see if they’re in any danger?”

“What’re their names?” Seer questioned.

“Travis, Isabella, and Elizabeth,” Lucy said quickly. “Travis is our age, and the girls are younger. Does any of that help?”

Seer’s lip twitched as he lifted a hand to his temple. I could see his forehead crease in concentration. It actually looked like his power caused him a fair amount of discomfort. After a few seconds, he exhaled like he had been holding his breath.

“I need a little more information—a link,” he turned fully to Lucy and held out a hand. “Can you give me your hand? It’s easier to see things when I’m in contact with someone who knows them.”

I crossed my arms over my chest as Lucy offered him her hand. Seer knew a lot more about me than he let on, and now I knew how. He would have used his power on Abby the moment she returned last night. That’s how he knew we were going to be here, and I suspected that was what spurred him into action.

“I see them,” Seer said after a few moments. Lucy let out a sigh of relief before Seer abruptly sucked in a breath. “They’re safe for the moment. I’m not sure how long we have but they’re going to be taken from the house. Pandora Supers are going to collect them within the day.”

“Yeah,” Alice muttered. “Saw that coming. Normals aren’t really allowed to exist unsupervised in Pandora.”

“They’ll be traded off again, most likely to someone unkind. I won’t be able to watch out for them,” Lucy's tone bordered on panic. She shot me another look, this time filled with panic and desperation. “Upgrade—”

“No time to waste then.” I said, interrupting her. 

I spun on my heel and walked briskly to where I had parked the car. There was little protest as everyone followed along behind me. We arrived in a few short minutes, and I didn’t hesitate to peel away the vegetation surrounding the car.

“That… looks kinda small. I don’t think we’re all going to fit in—” Copycat’s protests were interrupted when I placed a hand on the side of the car and changed the model. I lamented the loss of the sporty design for all of three seconds as the vehicle lost its shape, becoming a giant floating liquid blob. It shifted and reformed, becoming a black armored van that looked closer to a kitted military humvee. “—that? Okay, nevermind.”

[Charges: 8/30]

“Everyone get in,” I shot Alice a quick look. “Orange is driving.”

I eyed Lucy lagging behind, looking torn by whether or not she should join us. There was a clear desire in her eyes, but she was scared. She wasn’t ready for this, and she knew it, but that wasn’t going to stop her from trying if she felt like she had to.

“Stay here. You need to rest,” I advised. “Once you’re feeling better, you can choose what you want to do.”

“I want to help, but I don’t think… I don’t think I’m ready,” Lucy said, watching me climb into the passenger seat. “How will I know when I am?”

I stopped briefly, turning to look over my shoulder. I gave her a sad look that she wouldn’t be able to see through my helmet.

“That’s the thing, Lucy,” I replied somberly. “No one is ever ready for any of this. The longer you survive, the more you learn to live with it.”

I couldn’t imagine anything that would have prepared me for the things I had faced and what I would undoubtedly be dealing with for the rest of my life. The best anyone could do was take the plunge and hope they were strong enough to make it back to the surface.

“I’m not sure what I was expecting,” Lucy said softly, looking downcast. I finished climbing into my seat and was about to shut the door when she spoke again. “Hey, thanks for coming. It would have been way worse if you hadn’t showed up. We’ll, erm…  figure all this out, okay? Everything, Abby included. So don’t get yourself killed, that’s my thing.”

The morbidness of the joke caught me off guard, and I audibly choked. Lucy laughed mirthlessly.

“I’ll try not to, but you know me.”

“All too well.” Lucy sighed.

“I don’t mean to interrupt, but we need to get moving.” Seer reminded.

“I won’t hold you up anymore,” Lucy said, backing away. “Thank you for this.”

I nodded and waved as she turned around and dashed back to her grandparents' cabin. I shut the door, and Alice started the engine. The dashboard was different, but she seemed to know what she was doing. Without another word, Orange took Alice’s place and hit the accelerator.

“I think I left my stomach behind,” Prosperity groaned, clutching her sides. “Maybe I’ll be safer if I transform and run alongside the van?”

“You’ll be spotted and taken back to the Citadel if you tried,” I warned, causing her to sulk. I dismissed her discomfort and turned to Vigil. “Have you still got any statues in the city after the fight?”

“I’ve only got a few left in the city. One’s watching the Citadel, another is trying to find wherever Mercury is holding up, the last one is guarding my parents house.” Vigil explained. “I’m leaving one by the cabin in case anything happens. The rest I’m moving back to the city, but they’re not that fast. We’ll beat them there.”

“Can you move the one watching the Citadel to where we’re going?” I asked. “I want to know what we’re about to head into.”

Vigil nodded. “On it.”

“So after we get these guys, where are we taking them?” Copycat asked, looking around. “The safest place I can think of is the Citadel, but I can’t imagine they’re gonna take too kindly to us rocking up to the place. They’ll throw you guys in a cell, maybe us too for disobedience.”

“Yeah,” Anomaly chimed in. “And I don’t know if taking them back to our place is such a good idea with these guys around. Cyberspace wouldn’t like that too much and we’re already on shaky ground with them.”

Both had very valid points, and I was looking for an alternative.

“Why don’t we drop them off with Lucy?” Prosperity asked. “She did offer, and I think they would be safe there. After we’ve saved the city, we can talk about other options.”

“I don’t think there’s going to be time for that,” Seer said under his breath. “After everything is over, even with the best possible outcome, we’re all going to be preoccupied dealing with the consequences, whatever they may be.”

“That’s not ominous at all,” Anomaly muttered bitterly. “How about we drop them at school? It’s away from the fighting and I reckon they’d be safe there for a while, at least until we finish doing our part.”

I had to admit that wasn’t a terrible idea. As far as I knew, schools were out during active skirmishes. We could subtly break in and leave them there in hiding until we could safely collect them.

“Sounds easy enough,” Copycat agreed. “Which school?”

“Minerva,” Anomaly replied.

“Abby’s school. Yeah. That’ll work.” Copycat nodded. “Alright, what are we doing after that? Going for Mercury, right? That’s… well, I was gonna say ‘challenging’ but I think ‘suicidal’ is more accurate. He’s gotta be surrounded by body guards. Getting to him means getting through all of those guys.”

“Just gotta catch ‘em by surprise is all. We’re good at that,” Anomaly rolled his shoulders. “Send him running, then we jump Liberation. He can’t take all of us all at once.”

“Assuming they’re in the same place,” Vigil spoke, not sounding thrilled. “If it were that easy, this fight would be over before it even started. Give Ajax and the ECU some credit. They aren’t flailing buffoons who don’t know how to fight. They’re doing all they can to end this with minimal casualties.”

“Vigil is right. It’s not that simple,” Seer murmured with a hand on his head. “Mercury is well defended, I’ve seen it. I extrapolated some possibilities based on Prometheus’s information, and every time he is surrounded by some of his best. A lot of the time, Liberation is there along with that Mentalist with the book.”

“Augur,” I mused. “He’ll be helping coordinate the fight against Ajax. If he’s advising, they’ll know we’re going to be moving against them and catching Mercury off guard is going to be borderline impossible. They’ll be waiting for us.”

“Even the best Mentalists have their limits,” Copycat said. “There’s every possibility he’s too busy focusing on Ajax and the ECU to pick up on our movements.”

“Maybe, but we can’t rely on that being the case, they followed us before, we’re absolutely on their radar.” I countered before looking back to Seer. “How far can you use your power? Is there any possibility that the house we’re going to now is trapped? I don’t want Pandora to catch us unaware.”

Seer’s expression strained as he delved deeper into his power. The veins on his forehead became more pronounced as he pushed harder. I wasn’t familiar with his limits; however, it seemed like he was overexerting himself, but we needed every advantage we could get. If that meant Seer needed to go a little overboard, then so be it.

“Traps…!” Seer gasped like he had almost suffocated. “Unlikely, very unlikely but not impossible. I’m sorry, I can’t view everything. Even with the information we have, it’s hard to follow up on every possibility,” he sucked in another lungful of oxygen. “Tread carefully, though. The whole area is being watched.”

That piece of information came as no surprise.

“Hey, so… what if they’re not there?” Anomaly asked. “What do we do if they’ve already been taken?”

“We find them,” Prosperity replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I can transform and follow the scent they’ve left behind.”

I looked back at Seer.

“What’re the chances of that?”

“Probable,” he said swiftly. “There’s a good chance they’re still there, and just as good of chance they’ve already been taken. I can only see a few reasons as to why. Pandora rounding up all of their followers to keep them safe, or to use them as hostages. Likely both,” Seer rubbed his forehead, clearly struggling with a headache. “That’s another reason why our side hasn’t been able to make a move. Unnecessary loss of life… but with Chronos giving orders, that will only stall them for so long.”

“How can someone like that not be kicked out?” Vigil asked, baffled at the idea. “It’s barbaric. Bloodthirsty!”

“Chronos gets results,” I muttered as I brought up her file on my visor. A quick scroll listed all her accomplishments within the organization, and every award she received was drenched in blood. “At the end of the day, lives will be lost but order will be restored. That’s how she operates. She’s the person the ECU brings in when situations are almost unsalvageable."

“We had no idea she had that kind of reputation. We were notified of her transferring months ago, and that was before Grim even made a peep,” Copycat looked puzzled. “If she and Ajax weren’t here for Grim or Pandora, then what the hell are they here for?”

As if it were summoned by Copycat’s question, the earth beneath us groaned and began to shake. Orange had to slow down and pull over as the asphalt cracked and splintered as far as the eye could see.

As quick as it came, it was gone.

“That,” I breathed. “They’re here for whatever is causing that.”

Copycat and Prosperity turned to Seer as if he had the answer. The rest of us slowly turned to look at him as he slowly raised a hand to his head. We watched him delve again, but this time there was a visceral reaction. He twitched before lashing out, jolting back into his seat.

“Woah—hey!” Copycat exclaimed, catching Seer’s elbow to the face. “Dude! You okay?”

“Seer!” Prosperity shouted.

He was frantic and shaking, reaching for the door handle. He practically fell out of the car and onto the side of the highway.

“What the fuck?!” Alice shouted, having switched back from Orange. “Get him back in the car before someone sees!”

I ripped off my seatbelt and activated my camouflage before jumping out of the car. Copycat was leaning out of the door, trying to reach for Seer as I raced to his side. The Rookie was on his knees, dry heaving, and before I could even say anything, he unleashed the contents of his stomach all over the concrete.

“Ga…ea…” was all I heard him say before he collapsed.