Agrippa
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Wake-up Call – Chapter 10 – Perspectives From The Dominos
🕑 Added 2021-09-15 01:39:37 +0000 UTCDaniel Hebert
‘I am fine, dad. Problem solved.’
I read the phone message from Taylor for the third time, my shoulders finally sagging in relief when I allow myself to believe the words I’m reading—and the thinly disguised message they contain. I will never again question the utility of these bloody machines, not when this thing just saved me from a heart attack.
“Danny? Since when do you have a phone?” Kurt asks me from across the table.
“Teenage daughter. Brockton Bay.” I answer dryly. And he chuckles.
“Took you long enough,” Lacey grunts, and I can’t help the look I shoot her. Which isn’t that great of an idea, given that both she and her husband can fold me like a camping chair, but since when have tempers cared about logistics?
There are some murmurs of assent from the other assistants, though, so I would better change the subject because, apparently, my refusal to have a cellular phone until my city has been put under siege by a mad terrorist hasn’t earned me any sympathizers.
“Right. Now that that’s out of the way…” I put my elbows on the table and lean on my fist, trying not to clench it and barely succeeding. “Are we all in agreement?”
The murmurs change in tone and looks are exchanged. Toby, who has been around longer than me and towers over half the room, even if nowadays he can only use the machinery rather than unload things by himself while decrying the laziness of youth, clears his throat.
“I am not even sure what we are agreeing to, Danny Boy.”
I sigh. I can’t help it.
“What we should have done from the beginning.” I lean back, palms flat on the table, stabilizing me. “Heck, it’s even a classic for the union, Toby: we protect our own and keep the business clean. A junkie from the Merchants gets here and tries to get us to unload an unregistered boat? Bat to the knee. Skidmark gets uppity and shows up to rough us up a bit? Bullet through the skull. No more bullshit. The gangs have had long enough to hang themselves with all that rope we’ve been handing them; it’s time someone tied the noose.”
“Skidmark? A black guy and ‘tying the noose?’ I can’t say I’m all that comfortable with those implications, Danny—” Phil, Irish as good whiskey and paler than a KKK laundry load, starts to say before Gretta, who looks like Aretha Franklin had a fling with Arnold Schwarzenegger, cuffs him over the head. He looks at her reproachfully, and she rolls her eyes in that way that all married men know means you’re that close to a comfortable stay at the closest sofa.
“Kaiser doesn’t come here all that often, Phil, but I am sure we could also accommodate him. We can all show him why the armed forces no longer parade around in full plate.” A bit of joking, Danny, it will make this go down easier. Come on, guys, you know me: Lanky Hebert, Danny Boy, that guy who used to be fun to hang around with before… Everything.
“And that is?” Kurt asks with a raised eyebrow. And I almost groan.
“If it’s light enough to move in, it’s not thick enough to stop a bullet, Kurt. Come on, my daughter’s in high school and could tell you that.” Don’t point at him. Too aggressive.
“Oh, sorry we all don’t have a fancy high school diploma.”
“… Lacey, correct me if I am wrong, but don’t you two go to the Boston Ballet at least twice a year?”
There’s a chorus of gasps around the room, and Kurt shoots me a betrayed look as Lacey cackles and a glint is born in Toby’s eye that promises hours of fun are ahead. Pity I will miss most of it in the office.
“Yeah, that’s all fine and good, Danny, but…” Herman hesitates, and it feels wrong to see such a strong man fidgeting like that. “But what about Hookwolf? Lung? Or what about… afterward?”
And that’s the thing, isn’t it? There are things we definitely can’t handle. And things we shouldn’t have to.
“Anyone you can’t put down? You run and hide. Lung comes around and there’s not much we can do other than hope Armsmaster finally does what should come natural when a knight meets a dragon. About our families… We protect them, Herman. We thought we were doing it by keeping our heads down, but after the past few days… Any of you feel like that is still the better option?”
And I look at them. Really look at them, taking their measure and letting them know it, my eyes meeting theirs one by one till they finally land on Gerry.
Gerry. Big, burly, black Irish. Fallen on hard times due to the endemic lack of work only to finally ended up as a henchman. Gerry’s case should not have been exceptional… if not for the gang he ended up with.
Über and Leet’s gang.
Gerry hadn’t said a word since he arrived, and he flinched any time someone moved too fast.
“Well, do you, Gerry?” I ask him, hands now tightly clutching my pants under the table.
I do not resent him, not really. He didn’t know what he was signing up for at the time, he was just choosing the best out of a few very bad options, and the gaming duo wasn’t known to do the same level of evil that the other gangs did. But… He needs to act, or he will remain like this the rest of his miserable life.
“Danny, I…”
“None of that. You are one of us, Gerry. Us. Not them. You didn’t know, but you were there when all of his started, so tell us, as one of us: should we all go back to our regular lives as if nothing happened? Do we let them keep going like this?”
And he swallows, blinks a few times, and looks around the room, at the partners and friends that are putting up a brave, boisterous front because that’s the only thing you can do when the world around you stops making sense and everyone you come across on the street can blow up in a fresh new nightmare.
And Gerry shooks his head and stands a little taller.
Good lad.
“There you have it. Bakuda is the latest, but we have seen this brand of crazy before. The storm isn’t gonna pass any sooner just because we want it to,” I gesture around the table, hand carefully loose until I close it in a fist that has my knuckles go white. “So we stand up. We fight. We defend ours. And we choose our fights.”
There are some quiet nods, and I can see the crazy bitch already did half my work for me. They want this, they want an outlet, a mission, something that lets them give some kind of meaning to everything they have gone through.
So I give it to them.
“One last thing. We know who works for the gangs. We know who can snitch. We know where you live.”
I look at a very select few of the assistants, people I haven’t excluded because I am hoping I can make use out of them, because I think they are still decent enough to know who’s actually on their side when the chips fall down. I look at them, making sure everyone else knows who I am looking at and that they take notes.
“Make no mistake: this is a threat anda promise.”
And I feel the quiet undercurrent of rage beneath my skin come ever that closer to surging out. I should hate it, be ashamed of it.
The truth is… I never have. That’s what scared me so much all of my life.
And now… Now it doesn’t.
Colin Wallis
“Bakuda’s transfer to the Guild’s custody has been approved by Chief Director Costa Brown. Your arguments were convincing enough, and your personal request taken into account.” Emily lets out a deep breath and pinches the bridge of her nose before her voice drops out of her official tone and gets back to her more familiar ornery one. “Now, would you mind telling me why you didn’t even have the courtesy to inform me before doing this whole… thing?”
‘It’s better to ask forgiveness than permission,’ I don’t reply. ‘Sorry, I was trying to do some actual good, and I thought the shock may be detrimental to your health,’ I keep myself from mumbling out. ‘Because the Thinker seven with daddy issues told me so,’ I definitely don’t tell her.
“A confidential source has informed me Bakuda’s transport may have been compromised if I didn’t go straight to the highest authority.” Emily’s look sharpens, and I wonder whether the effect could be replicated for halberd maintenance.
“Confidential, as in ‘unreported contact with unaffiliated Thinker?’”
“Confidential as in ‘Protectorate Team Leader’s discretion.’”
“That’s a yes.”
“That’s a no comment.”
We stare at each other for a bit, my visor giving me a much appreciated unfair advantage in the contest that more than makes up for Emily sitting down while having me at parade rest. Fair fights are for amateurs.
“You are putting me in a very difficult position, Armsmaster.”
‘Aren’t all of them difficult given your physical state?’ I hold myself back from answering. ‘Emily, I have verbally sparred with Lisa Fucking Wilbourn and managed Taylor Overkill Hebert, you don’t get to tell me what a difficult position is,’ I restrain my headache from venting. ‘You don’t know the half of it,’ I almost let out.
“Then you will appreciate my taking a load off your shoulders. I am reassuming the leadership of the Wards, effective immediately.”
And now her eyes widen.
“Wha—I am—You said they were a distraction, that I was doing you a favor!”
“And you were. Up to the point where we found out one of them has almost managed to pull a bioterrorism attack while under your watch.”
“That’s ridiculous! It was a high school prank—”
“That almost killed Taylor Hebert and either managed to make her trigger or led her to collaborate with an unknown Thinker in lashing out against her aggressors!”
“Sophia’s statement clearly—”
“You will forgive me if I take with the proverbial grain of salt anything Miss Hess says while the investigation is ongoing.”
Another pause. More strained than the last, and I can almost hear a cheeky blonde quipping about how much time I am wasting given my specialty.
Note to self: freshen up on cognitohazard countermeasures.
“Is this your final decision?” she asks, more for formality’s sake than anything else, given the frost on her tone.
“It is, Director.” A hint of respect to ease up on the aggression. Let her keep face while she still has enough power to make my life interesting.
“Very well. You will have the paperwork tomorrow. Good job on capturing Bakuda.”
“Thank you, Director.”
“Dismissed.”
With a nod of acknowledgement, I walk out of the office and keep a steady pace while rushing to my lab.
“Well, that was tense,” Dragon’s soothing voice whispers in my ear.
“It had to be done,” I answer, taking advantage of the subvocalization systems in my armor.
“I am not saying otherwise, Colin, it’s just… Are you sure you can’t tell me what’s going on? With Bakuda and those instructions?” And there’s that hint of something in her usually steady tone that could be pain or worry or anything in between, and it makes me feel like a heel.
“I trust you with my life, you know that, right?” I try to reassure her.
“I do. But you aren’t trusting me with this.” And I guess I failed.
“It’s not… Look, I am not proud of some things I have done, and I am trying to make up for them.”
“What does that have to do with—”
“I can’t betray their trust, not again. I have been asked to keep a secret, and I will do it until they tell me otherwise.”
I am already in the elevator, waiting for it to drop me at the garage so I can take my bike and drive to my workshop, lamenting once again the sheer stupidity of using two whole buildings for what should be the same department if colorful costumes didn’t get in the way.
“Oh,” she says, and I don’t feel the need to add anything to that.
It’s not until minutes later, when I am taking full advantage of not needing to follow the speed limits and the sharp wind of the night has left my exposed jaw pleasantly numb, that I hear her voice once again caressing my ear.
“I am proud of you, Colin.”
And I can’t help the smile that stretches across my face.
Lung
I stare at the blackened stump where I have used my fire to sear off my own arm after the black crystal started creeping up my flesh.
The skin bubbles in slow motion, my regeneration already working to erase any trace of my injury.
Of my friend’s death.
I saw Oni Lee’s eyes as the mix of explosions consumed him in slow motion, each one interacting with the other in a way that I find hard to believe Bakuda hadn’t intended from the beginning. I saw his surprise, undisguised, and the very dredges of fear he still had left in him flaring up.
And rage explodes around me.
How dare they!
How dare the halfbreed betray me!
How dare the whole city turn against me! Against the Dragon of Kyushu!
How dare the bug bitch leave me for dead and set this travesty in motion!
How dare my friend die!
My fire rushes over my skin, turning my couch to ashes that whiten before the scorching air that surrounds me blows them away. The tiles of the floor are already blackened and cracked, and a single stomp is enough to reveal the cement beneath. I can already write down this house, so—so—
I roar.
I unleash the flames, no longer contained around me, and I set them rushing up the walls, consuming everything that is wooden and cracking everything else. I am surrounded by bright yellow, orange and red, licking at my skin, tickling at my wound, and I wish I could feel scales glide from beneath frail flesh, but I don’t need the strength of the dragon for this. No, for this Kenta is enough.
And so I punch through the walls with never flagging strength, with power that is not increasing, but also undiminished. I throw a piece of plaster behind me to the satisfying sound of cracking glass, and I keep going until the roof of the room falls down on me.
Only then, as I look at the night sky through the hole left in this building and I rest under the weight of the rubble, as flames rage all around me in their hungry dance, do I allow myself to stop.
Bakuda. Bug bitch. Armsmaster.
The dragon shall have vengeance.
Taylor Hebert
I am freaking out.
I am in bed, an infuriating, motor-mouth blonde sleeping beside me with the cutest pout I have ever seen as she seems to deal with whatever it is dreams offer someone who has gotten used to not being alone in her head, and I just defeated the second and third supervillains of my career after barely escaping the trap laid by an archetypical mastermind to lure me to the dark side, reconciled with the superhero who failed me when I was just starting out, had one of my bullies unmasked as a junior superhero who moonlights as a nascent serial killer and my oldest friend psyche dismantled in front of me, not to mention working as a search and rescue volunteer during one of the bloodiest, weirdest attacks this city has ever seen, all of this in the span of three days!
So, yeah, I am freaking the fuck out.
Speaking of which, I have also lost my virginity and started what my better half (or so she would like to claim) has described as a ‘torrid lesbian relationship.’ Which, given the amount of sex… Apt.
The sex… I mean…
Down, girl. Down.
No, that doesn’t mean go down on Lisa. Really, just… enjoy the silence, Tay. God knows it’s a scarce resource.
… And now I am calling myself with her nickname. I got it bad, don’t I?
I am sure this is the part where her Power would interject something inappropriate yet insightful. I almost envy her that, as mine only interjects how much uncooked meat the diner down the street just threw away. I am really thankful for whatever part of my power ensures I don’t quite consciously process things I don’t mean to, but the intellectual knowledge is still vaguely disturbing. I guess I need to get used to it.
Also, dad knows.
I am of two minds about this. On the one hand, I am relieved I no longer need to hide, even if part of the superhero fantasy always let me separate my life from my heroics. It’s just… I know Lisa is right, that it not only isn’t practical but is liable to cause a lot of problems sooner or later.
Well, of course I agree, it isn’t like she unmasked me behind my back. No, she just methodically explained why I should do it myself.
Something that would seem far less sinister if I hadn’t witnessed her surgically take apart two girls with just her words up close and personal. And that’s not counting Panacea, because she at least seemed salvageable afterward.
She’s terrifying.
Cute, scatterbrained, funny, endearing, and terrifying, because not only can she turn that off when she means business and lets the true extent of her power unfold, but also because there’s a part of me that can’t help but wonder how much of it is deliberate, how much is carefully constructed to elicit a specific reaction in me, and I know some of it is just Emma getting in my head once again and making me doubt anything good that happens to me, but…
“Tay…” she whispers, and I freeze.
I look down, expecting to see green eyes analyzing me, dissecting my fears, deftly constructing a façade designed to fit into the cracks left in mine… But I see a frowning, sleeping face, and a hand clutching the silk pajamas she bought me on our last shopping trip.
“Tay… Don’t leave…”
And my heart melts, or breaks, or both.
I lie back down and turn over, wrapping her in my arms, and I feel her body relax as I kiss her brow.
“Shhh… I’m here, Liz. With you.”
And the frown melts into a relieved smile as she nuzzles into my meager chest.
She’s cute, exasperating, funny, endearing, a scatterbrained mess of a genius.
She’s terrifying.
I hold her closer, my arms tightening as I hear her happy murmur.
She’s mine.
Yumi Tanaka
I open my eyes to see a wonderful dream.
I make sure to blink twice, to reassure myself I am not living through some anesthesia-induced delirium, but not, it’s all real.
A whole laboratory full of Dragon-tech tools and equipment, and nobody else in sight!
“Is this Paradise?”
“I don’t think so, Miss Tanaka, but I thank you for your appreciation of my designing sensibilities,” a voice answers me from a carefully hidden speaker.
Dragon.
“Heh, of course I appreciate it. I have just gone from a basement full of scavenged materials to a laboratory fully stocked by the most famous Tinker in the world! Just imagine how much more I can do now!”
I leap off my cot, the brief disorientation at getting up so quickly not enough to impede me from examining what looks to be a 3D printer capable of extruding biological materials. Interesting… Clone in a bomb? No, I would need a variety of samples… But maybe I could program a neutral biological lattice, expanding to fill gaps in a functioning organism, replicating structures as it infiltrates the original organs and bones… Explosive healing. Yes, I think I can—
“The most famous? Not the best Tinker in the world?” Dragon interrupts me.
“Not anymore, no,” I answer, irritated at her having me made lose track of—
“It seems they were right to warn me, Miss Tanaka.” And I freeze.
“They?”
“She, more explicitly.”
Glowing orbs crossed by flickering specks of darkness, the buzzing of a voice that vibrated all around me, as if the whole room was inside of her, as if I was inside her, as if she had already decided to—
“No! She’s not here, she isn’t, she can’t—”
“Calm down, Miss Tanaka, I was only asked to pass a message along to you. I can assure you you are alone in there and nobody can come in.”
The buzzing… It’s only in my mind. I can forget it. She’s not here. Just a message. From her.
“What… what does she want?” I shouldn’t want to know, but… Maybe it’s more prudent to listen. Yes. Not because I… No, it’s just prudence. Caution.
“She says… She says you still haven’t proven you deserve to live. But that she is eager for you to show otherwise.”
And I relax at the message. It’s… better than I feared. Much better. I am even happy to hear it, to know she thinks I can do it, I can rise up to the challenge and prove, once and for all—
“She also tells me she will check up on you. From time to time.”
What? But… But this is closed and nobody is supposed to come in until I have… Until I have killed the Endbringers. Only then she will reveal---only then will I show my face to the world and…
No. It doesn’t matter whether it’s hidden and sealed off from the world. Not to her. She told me as much.
“Understood, Dragon. I better start working, then.”
“Of course. I will leave you to it.”
So I go back to the biological printer, possibilities already shuffling in my whirring mind, and I lose myself in the flow of ideas and motion, of imagination and materialization, until…
Until I hear an intermittent buzzing, almost like morse code. Far too deliberate for a natural insect.
And my muscles lock up with dread at her presence, but also…
She’s watching me.
So I also… smile.
Coil
My Tattletale’s confirmed Bakuda’s capture, even if the Protectorate hasn’t yet announced an end to the ongoing crisis, which suggests non-standard measures have been taken to ensure nothing goes amiss during Miss Tanaka’s transfer.
A pity. As volatile an asset as she has proven herself to be, her technology would have proven an invaluable boon to my forces. Especially with Trickster’s abilities. Ah, well, you can’t win them all.
Chasing every prize is the best way to end up with none.
Take, for instance, young Miss Wilbourn. An intelligent young woman, far more powerful than she herself realizes, someone who could very easily orchestrate in years the kind of thing that would take me decades. But she’s inexperienced, impulsive, foolish.
So she dedicates her efforts to turn the Undersiders into a successful, yet apparently harmless band of merry thieves. And she recruits Miss Hebert into the fold, increasing her apparent value to me by linking it to that of a very powerful master in the making.
She is poised to become a trusted lieutenant, even with the rocky start to our relationship. I certainly appreciate all of her efforts in that direction, and then…
And then Miss Hebert gets in trouble at her school, and all of Miss Wilbourn’s efforts go down the drain, because she can’t help but act impulsively and wreck her own long-term prospects. I would be disappointed if I wasn’t so amused.
To top it off, far from being content with having made a mistake and going back to what remains of her previous plans, she then decides to double down. The Undersiders will remain under Grue’s leadership, and she and Skitter will act independently until the situation with Shadow Stalker resolves itself so that they don’t taint the rest of the team by association. Admirable. Self-sacrificing and almost noble, given the circumstances.
Farcical.
I let her play at it, at the independent agent, knowing full well how disastrous the whole endeavor is set to be, knowing her efforts will be for nothing, that her lack of focus will make sure of it.
And then she succeeds. And I ponder.
Because that’s not like my Tattletale, to have the will and drive to set a goal and follow through with such ruthless efficiency. I know her well enough by now.
So, this success must be due to Miss Hebert’s influence. A determined individual, by all accounts.
And now I have the two of them working together, unaffiliated to the Undersiders, but still under my sway. For as long as Shadow Stalker’s situation isn’t dealt with.
Hmmm.
Dinah Alcott
I look at the far too bright light glaring off the white tiles covering the walls of the room where the man who isn’t a nurse takes care to keep me useful. I am lying on a cot, my temples throbbing after the latest barrage of questions, the… candy that isn’t, but that I don’t want to name barely enough to keep me aware through the pain.
And I… I can’t resist.
Once more. Please.
Just once.
“Chances… Chances I will see mom again if they survive the next week?”
