I pulled into my driveway, and walked to the door, groceries forgotten with the scooter.
"Amy?"
She turned, face dirty with ashes.
"You said you owed me."
I nodded.
"I need a place to stay."
I blinked.
"Of course. Is someone after you?"
She looked down, shoulders hunching over.
"Amy. Do I need to prepare a defense of this location, and if so, against whom?"
She jerked a little, meeting my eyes again.
"No."
I nodded, but increased surveillance anyway, stepping up the screens around the perimeter, setting insects patrolling out in force — not to the limit of my range, that would give away too much, but within about half that distance. The patrols further out shouldn't look like anything but random insect movements. The patrols furthest out were purely passive, and if a Thinker could tell I was sensing through an insect when I wasn't making it do anything, well… nothing I could do about that.
Besides transitioning to the best defense.
I opened the door and let her in, holding it while a pair of swarms ferried in my backpack and grocery bags, bearing them up on a tide of chitin that built beneath them like a waterspout to deposit them on the counter, and then scattering to begin the work of sorting things out and placing them in their appropriate locations.
"Can I get you something to eat or drink? Tea?"
She didn't seem to want to meet my gaze, looking over my shoulder. I checked through my swarms, but there was no one behind me in the kitchen, and no one on the other side of the wall either.
No response.
"I'd like some tea."
I turned away to put the kettle on — technically, something the swarms could do, but moving a heavy (and later hot!) kettle around the kitchen was a little hard on them.
She took a seat at the table and waited.
I looked at her, and at the rain outside, and put on one of the cans of soup I'd got that afternoon.
Chicken noodle.
After I'd fed her and rinsed the dishes, I settled down at the table again.
"Do you want to talk?"
A headshake.
I sipped my tea and sorted through my swarms, checking on the various spider breeding projects, tweaking how much silk I could divert without slowing the breeding project, arranging a more efficient beehive location pattern (and then deliberately deviating from it in order to have backups). Altogether, it was a pleasant way to spend half an hour looking out at the skyline through some of my sentry swarms.
"Is there a place I can sleep?" Amy voice was soft, verging on a mumble.
I stood. "Sure. No bed here yet, but let me show you the chaise longue I've been using."
I walked her to it and gestured at the blankets folded on it. "That's it. Bathroom's down the hall; shower needs a bit to warm up in the mornings but can get pretty hot, so don't turn it up all the way trying."
I paused a moment to see if she'd respond, then left her to it.
There were another two chaise longues in the house, but no true sofas and — until Friday — no bed for the bedframe. Were sofas easier to sell at auction? Did one of the previous owners prefer asymmetry?
Other people's furniture choices could be a mystery.
I settled in on the more comfortable of the two, still wearing my costume beneath my clothing, arms wrapped around my chest, trying not to shiver. The farmhouse was drafty enough before I'd gone to the trouble of making sure my swarms could come and go easily that the insulation was a long way from perfect — especially at night, especially trying to go to sleep. Nothing a good set of blankets couldn't fix, but my only set was upstairs with Amy right now.
Well, I could weave a blanket, but I'd been planning on using that silk for filling the first order the PRT had placed with me.
Other ways to stay warm…
Ah. There we go.
Bees.
···---···
I woke as the sky lightened toward dawn, but pleasantly refreshed. Going to bed early had its advantages.
I checked on Amy — still asleep — and on the world within the reach of my power.
Nothing stirring that shouldn't be.
I scattered the blanket of bees, sending them off to their work for the day.
I walked to the porch, thought about breakfast or a shower, but no point waking Amy early. Whatever had hit her, it had hit hard.
Instead, I stripped down to my costume and went for a run. I could have gotten some exercise clothes out, but better to train the way you'll have to perform. The last time I'd been running for my life (from an oncoming wave of burning bunker fuel), I'd had the extra weight of my costume and gear.
The time before that, too.
The farm made for an interesting criss-cross of potential trails, passing through the hedgerows, in and out of the orchard, and through field and forest alike. I set down a promising one, accelerating into a pace I could comfortably hold for miles.
How long had it been since I'd run for training or fun, instead of for my life?
I thought it was since that Sunday, waiting for Coil to leave his house so I could investigate.
Not quite two weeks ago.
That had been a nice loop. The creek, particularly: there was something about water noises that was just calming.
My old route, up along the Boardwalk and Docks and back, had been mostly about the ocean view and the people-watching.
It was a little early to say what the character of this set of trails would be, but the farm looked to be more of a cross-country course. Hilly, rough terrain, jumping fences or stooping to pass through gaps in the thorny hedges, paths crisscrossing in a tangled mess.
The interesting kind of run.
Running felt different in a place so full of insects — in a place I could afford to fill with insects, without causing alarm. The moment-to-moment problem-solving of varying pace and stride to cope with the terrain remained, but without the intensity of surprise normal to running through such rough terrain.
I could feel every foothold on every path, see the whole farm from a dozen angles inward at once, and as many more outward — see myself running and simultaneously observe the way the eastern sky moved from violet to peach, wiping away the stars as it changed, the land below still dark except for where the city's streetlights glimmered in the black: a squared-off, regular set of ersatz constellations.
And while I watched this slow change, I also moved my body through the trails, picking new routes as I went, idly considering the fastest ways to move from point to point. Then the safest. Then the trickiest. I made a game of it, trying not to leave a trace behind, to avoid crushing plants or stepping in mud. I could see how to move, always, but I couldn't always manage that kind of precision.
Still.
Fun to try.
By the time the sun itself crested the horizon, my legs burned pleasantly and I'd been considering possible routes through the trees, running them in mind's eye — but not with my body, of course. Awareness of my surroundings could do a great deal, but it didn't make me more graceful or able to take a fall, just more certain of my steps.
Something worth thinking about. The Protectorate probably had spent some time on the problem of how to get around an urban or other broken-terrain environment… maybe they had a class I could take? It might be reserved for members, but no harm in asking. I knew that they did run training camps for capes who weren't directly part of their organization, but I thought most of those were attempts to ensure smoother coordination in Endbringer fights.
I let the irregular, urgent rhythms of running through rough terrain smooth my thoughts away, and relaxed.
A timeless moment later, I felt Amy stirring, and turned my path back toward the farmhouse.
The sun had a gap between it and the horizon now, and I could see the city below stirring.
Not a bad way to wake up.
I slowed my pace and walked the last hundred yards to the house, breathing deep and even.
I made my way to the shower — there's nothing like a hot shower after exercise.
Those would be a good set of trails. Might be hard to share it with anyone without something like my costume: too many thorns. Might be hard even so: lots of false trails and bad footing. All the better for defense, really.
Outside the shower, I set spiders to cleaning my costume. Silk can be finicky, but people had long ago worked out how to wash it. I could have gotten away with hand-washing it pretty safely (it's the heat and drying that typically does damage). Silk and the reinforced insect carapaces I used as armor? That combination didn't come with a tag and washing instructions, though I suppose I'd have to write some for the suits I'd be supplying the PRT. Besides, this way I could touch it up while I cleaned it: why throw something in the washing machine if you can get it reviewed by the original tailor?
I'd had other plans for the day — more errands, more trying to settle in — but I could put those on hold.
I owed Amy.
I'd planned on taking two days off anyway, and stretching that to cover the daylight hours of Thursday wouldn't be a big concession — criminals really were more active after dark. If she still needed help come Thursday night… I'd have to think about it. A lot would depend on how the Empire was taking things: they'd have noticed he was missing by now, but the reaction could be anything from a smooth transition of power (hard, if he might be coming back) to renewed civil war (unlikely, at least so quickly).
Clean, I dressed once more, called "Shower's free!" and made my way downstairs.
By the time Amy ghosted down the stairs to join me, I had tea ready and pancakes coming off my skillet.
"Morning." I spoke without turning around.
She nodded, and paused behind me.
"Can I…"
"I've got it."
She drifted toward the table, where I joined her with a stack of flapjacks, butter, and honey.
My plates and silverware were mismatched too, but that wasn't really an problem except for formal meals, and I didn't expect to be playing hostess to high society any time soon.
We ate in near silence, broken only by the addition of some bacon as dessert.
I rinsed the dishes and settled back down at the table with a fresh cup of tea. She'd said she didn't want to talk, and I could honor that. I could wait as long as she needed before she started talking — well, at least until tomorrow evening. It wouldn't even be a waste of time: I'd just work through my swarms.
Two hours of sitting in at the kitchen table in silence proved enough.
"How do you deal with becoming a villain?"
I blinked. That was a disturbingly well-informed question. How would she even…
She sputtered a moment, waving both hands back and forth. "Not you! Me…"
I blinked again.
That was just disturbing.
Panacea was the greatest healer the world had ever seen, fixing in seconds or minutes what a surgeon could take hours to do… if it could be done at all. Her cape name wasn't a boast, but a fact: if someone reached her alive, they lived. She couldn't fix brains, and she couldn't fix dead, but within those limitations, she had done more good more widely than almost any of the heroes, ever. Right up there with the heavyweights who made their names fighting Endbringers. Tens of thousands owed their lives to her, literally. I was one of those. There were several small sects that revered her as an avatar of Guanyin! She'd built this deserved reputation as a girl not yet out of high school.
"You're a villain?"
I checked my swarms. Probably a misunderstanding, but best to be prepared.
She had her mug of tea in her hands, and was staring into its depths as if it had the answers she wanted.
"I don't think so. Not yet. But it's only a matter of time."
A pause.
She looked up, her words rapid. "I just want to let them die. For them to go away. To leave me alone. I slept in today, and I know there are people I could have helped, and I'm… I liked it! And then, when…"
She just trailed off.
I thought about that, wondered what she wasn't saying. Nothing to do but address what she'd said.
"You liked sleeping in, or you liked thinking about them dying?"
"Both, maybe." Her voice was small.
"Well, let's test which it is."
She blinked.
"Take a few days, sleep in. Eat. Relax. See what you think about when you're not stressed."
My father had taught me that. Mom had always been absent-minded — loving, but she'd forget to feed herself, let alone me, when she was in a book or lost in thought. I'd inherited a little of that single-mindedness, which meant that Dad was the one who had to insist that we get enough sleep, enough food. He called it checking the fuel gauge: if you couldn't get something done, or couldn't see the point anymore, maybe you were just out of gas. With what I was doing lately, I couldn't afford that.
I wondered if anyone had ever taught Amy that.
"But there are people who will…"
"Amy. You've done a lot of good for a lot of people, me included. No hero is out there constantly, except Scion, because they'd go nuts if they tried. And some days I'm not too sure if he hasn't lost it already."
No smile.
Well, I'd never been good with jokes anyway.
"Something to think about, anyway. Any time you want to talk, I'll be here. Any time you don't want to talk, don't worry about it. Plenty of work I can do."
She looked down.
I closed my eyes, and went back to work.
Weaving was more productive when I was personally supervising.
···---···
We had spent hours in silence — even getting through a light lunch (tuna, on crackers) with hardly a word.
She'd taken a walk afterward, through the property.
I kept an eye on her remotely.
She walked slowly, and didn't seem to be headed in any particular direction.
Once, she stopped in the orchard and touched a tree — it promptly produced two apples for her.
Healing wasn't the half of what she could do, then.
But when she came back in, she just nodded at me and resumed her chair in silence.
I went back to weaving. It would mean delaying the PRT's order very slightly — most of the delay was just waiting for more spiders to mature — but I could get her a new costume for when she left. Some extra protection.
I wondered if the fact that she hadn't made a living costume for herself was proof that her power wasn't broad enough, or that her imagination wasn't wide enough. Or, I supposed, that she thought imitating Nilbog in any way was probably a bad idea.
One of the two other capes with arguably as much command over life as Panacea, he now ruled a small domain — thoroughly overrun with his creations — where once the town of Ellisburg had stood. It had proved easier to wall it off than wage war against his hordes, particularly when there was always another Endbringer attack coming.
Besides, it wasn't as if there were any survivors left to abandon.
A buzz from one of my phones roused me, and I checked it.
Amy looked over at me. "Work?"
I shook my head. "Visitors."
I thought about it.
"There shouldn't be trouble, but you might want to be out of the way unless you want to make conversation."
She shook her head, and retreated to the upper floor.
I pulled on some baggy civilian clothes over my armored costume, and settled back in my chair.
It wasn't long to wait.
Gravel crunching announced the arrival of James and Lisa in a pickup truck; I rose and greeted them in the yard.
"Welcome back."
Lisa hugged me — a surprise, but not an unwelcome one.
James shook my hand — a firm grip, but not a crushing one.
I led them onto the porch.
"Can I get you anything?"
"Some tea, with honey, please." James inclined his head to Lisa, and she nodded. I put the kettle on, and then rejoined them on the porch, sitting in the empty chair between them.
We sat there together, facing out over the city to the bay for a few minutes.
I broke the silence first. "So what brings you back here?"
"We can't just come for your company?" Lisa was smiling, but then she usually was.
"You could. Did you?"
James leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I'm interested in a referral."
I nodded. "Looking at getting out?"
His jaw tightened, something that I wouldn't have seen with my peripheral vision alone.
"The boss won't be able to deliver on his half of our bargain anymore. Lisa picked up enough money… but money wasn't the important thing, to me."
I nodded.
Lisa was leaning back, eyes half-closed. "Speaking of which, if you check in with your banker, you'll find that there's been a deposit."
"Thanks, but that's hardly necessary."
She smiled. "Some of us were recruited at gunpoint, and were really glad to get out from under."
Had any of them been recruited that way except her?
"Besides, it seemed safer to bring money and announce our retirement before you went out and ended another villain's career."
I nodded.
She jerked upright. "And you have. Personally. Krieg! …and no one living knows. Knew. Shit."
I turned my head to look at her as she shrunk away. Whatever the hell her power was, it made it dangerous to even have a secret in her general vicinity. Tattletale was a good name for her.
"I owe you. And you're a friend." I kept my voice calm.
I noticed James, behind me, had spread his arms slightly, fisting his hands. There were swarms in the area, of course, but it shouldn't come to that.
She shivered. "I need a drink."
"Don't have any."
She shivered again.
James relaxed his hands a little, spoke. "Smooth."
I turned to him, tilted my head a little. "Thanks."
He nodded.
"It won't be an issue." His voice was deep and even.
"It never would have been, unless you'd changed tactics significantly."
He shrugged. "I needed someone with pull on the legitimate side of things — family stuff — and had what I had to trade."
I thought about that.
Family was important.
"Did I cross you up, with Coil?"
He shrugged again. "Different set of problems. I'm hoping I can use some of the money we got out to get your lawyer to fix them."
I nodded. "He's good at what he does."
Upstairs, a swarm made its way into my backpack, withdrawing a notebook and chewing a small piece of paper free.
Downstairs, the kettle whistled and I rose to get it, returning with three mugs and a jar of honey.
"Orange Pekoe for you, and hot chocolate for you, right?"
James and Lisa nodded, and took their mugs.
We watched the skyline darken toward sunset together.
"Alec and Rachel?"
"Thinking their options over. Will probably wait and see how things go for us."
I nodded. Wise of them. I hoped they took this chance, but they didn't need to be reckless about it.
Lisa spoke up again. "Taylor, you can't wage war singlehanded on the villains of Brockton Bay."
I nodded.
"I haven't been. Lung against the Empire, New Wave against Coil… and it sure looked like you put the Merchants against the Empire yourself."
James had a good poker face.
Lisa just scrunched up her face and said "We hit a stash-house, made it look like the Empire. Coil was taking a page out of your book. But this is the kind of thing that'll get you killed!"
I shrugged. "Someday. Not yet."
She continued. "Remember how I said most of this is cops and robbers? People dressing up and playing tag? What you're doing is way the hell over the line."
I sipped tea rather than answer.
When I was calm enough, I replied in a perfectly even tone.
"What happened to my father was over the line."
She recoiled at that. "And that's why it's over the line! Pull shit like that, and you get someone out for blood. Someone like you. And all kinds of collateral damage! A large chunk of the city is ash, Taylor."
I nodded.
"And people haven't finished fixing the damage from Bakuda's bombs, either. I know."
She sighed.
A small cloud of bugs flew out, bearing a scrap of paper with Quinn Calle's number. They deposited it on the side table by James and departed.
"I'll call him, let him know I gave you the number."
James nodded. "Thanks."
He stood, taking the paper.
Lisa and I stood as well.
"It's never boring. And, if I'm retiring… it's Brian." He shook my hand.
"Pleasure to meet you, Brian."
Lisa hugged me again, and this time I hugged her back.
"Take care of yourself, Taylor."
"You too."
As the twilight darkened, the pickup truck made its way down the hill.
I thought about Amy, and dinner… and then simply went to where I'd slept last night.
Early as it was, I was tired.
I pulled the bees about me, and slept.
···---···
Once more, the lightening sky woke me.
Again, I rose while Amy was still sleeping, again set out for a morning run.
It was just as beautiful as yesterday, but I didn't feel the same sensual joy in pushing myself, finding the limits of my body and glorying in the effort.
I kept thinking about last night. The Undersiders retiring, the Merchants dead or captured, Coil dead, the ABB gone but for Lung, Faultline out of town on a long-term job… things really were down to the Empire. And the Empire, last one standing though they were, had lost six capes in the last three weeks — five of those fatally. Purity and Crusader could probably be counted as constructively lost to the Empire, if they really were trying to go vigilante. Eight.
Three weeks ago, I estimated that the Empire could call on fifteen capes.
More than half, gone.
Those losses could be replaced, with time.
If they were given time.
I wouldn't make that mistake.
Even after the Empire was gone, other gangs would come. Krieg had named the Teeth — an old Brockton Bay gang, driven out by the Empire a decade past — and the Fallen — a group of villains who worshipped (or claimed to worship) the Endbringers — as being on the move. And they wouldn't be the only ones interested in expanding into this town.
Still, things were going well.
Then why did my feet feel leaden?
The memory of seeing Lisa flinch, of seeing Brian prepare for a fight in her defense?
The fear that, in wiping out the gangs, I was leaving ruin in my wake?
Amy's unknowing question, "How do you deal with becoming a villain?"
I made my way back, showered, and waited in the kitchen in silence.
When I felt Amy approaching, I started in on scrambled eggs.
Twice during breakfast she opened her mouth, but she didn't say a word.
I wasn't feeling talkative anyway.
It wasn't until I was rinsing the dishes from lunch that she got up her courage to ask "Who were they? The visitors, I mean."
I took a moment, putting the dishes up, to think about what I could say, what secrets weren't mine to tell and which of mine would do no harm.
"Villains, kind of. People Coil forced to work for him, looking for a referral to my lawyer so they can get out of the business safely and cleanly."
She opened her mouth once, twice.
I continued. "What your family did with Coil… made a difference for a lot of people. Not just Dinah Alcott."
I was halfway outside when I noticed her tearing up, and I turned around.
"Are you ok?"
Stupid question.
I moved closer, embraced her awkwardly.
She stiffened at the contact, and then hugged back.
Five minutes later, we were outside on the porch and she was doing her best to work her way through my entire supply of kleenex.
I came back out with tea for her — herbal, with honey.
Something my mother had done for me when I cried.
A long time ago, now.
I sipped my own tea and waited.
Finally she spoke. "It just hit me that she's gone."
I blinked.
"Who?"
"My m… well, my adoptive mother, I guess."
She was adopted?
"Brandish is dead?"
She nodded, and blew her nose again.
I shook my head, and drank.
"What happened?"
"Some case 53 — the inhuman looking parahumans — named Noelle wanted to look human again, took Mom hostage. She had some freaky cloning power — could make evil twins with a touch, and they'd have the same power as the original, or close. Had a few with her when she came, I think."
Noelle. Lisa had given that name to the prisoner Coil kept behind the vault doors. She'd survived the building collapse, and gone hunting for healing or revenge, or both. Another unintended consequence laid at my feet. A foreseeable consequence, unforeseen and unforestalled.
And this one cost Carol her life. She'd taught me something about how death didn't need to mean defeat, the last time we'd talked. The last time we'd ever talk. I don't think either of us had expected it to be personally relevant so soon.
Time enough to worry about her work with Fortress later; for now the best way to pay the debt I owed her — and her daughter — was to help Amy.
If I could.
"So it was a standoff. She had a hostage, and a couple of evil Brandish-twins, plus some other clones I never saw hidden outside, and we had the rest of the family, plus Eidolon."
"Eidolon?"
"Mom," she smiled a moment, "Mom always said to deal with Eidolon if you had to deal with the Triumvirate. Legend might charm you into something, and Alexandria could trick you into anything, but Eidolon would play it straight. He was at dinner to talk about Fortress and Coil."
I nodded.
"All of you, and Eidolon, and it was a hostage situation?"
"We'd trained for it. For someone taking a hostage to get healed, I mean. Uncle Neil had worked it out."
I thought it through.
"They'd have to let you touch her."
She nodded.
"I can't make case 53s look normal — it's something about how their power works on them — but I can heal them, or do other things. And if I could knock her out, that should be it. Most Masters, their minions stop when the Master goes down. So…"
"You knocked her out…"
"And then there was another me, and she went down and her minions didn't go down. Victoria got me clear, but then she got caught and Noelle got back up and… it was a mess."
I thought about the part of the fight that I'd seen, the end. A couple of minutes, maybe, for Eidolon to find the right selection of powers and just end it.
A short fight, given the degree of powers involved.
A very long time to watch your family fight among themselves.
"And Brandish didn't make it through."
She shook her head.
"It's stupid, really. Some of the clones started saying things, because there were things they could say that would hurt worse, secrets people had kept…"
I blinked. Clones, with the powers of the original and their memories?
That could have gotten bad.
Very bad.
What if she'd reached Eidolon?
"I got distracted by… something… my clone was saying, and then Noelle was going for me again, and Mom bought me time to get behind Shielder's forcefield — everyone who couldn't fly did that — and… she got caught in one of those fireballs… nothing left."
She pulled another tissue out.
I thought about the picture painted by her fragmentary description. She found out she was adopted, maybe from a villain, and then watched the woman she'd thought was her mother die in a way that Amy would feel was her fault.
All in all, she was holding together pretty well.
I thought back to my own losses.
A swarm upstairs stirred, seeking one of the small caches I had established — just in case.
"Amy, this isn't something that will pass quickly. I don't know how long it'll last. I can tell you that if you go to a psychiatrist, you'll be in therapy for months. Take a month and spend it on a beach somewhere sunny, and you'll probably get the same effects — but you'll enjoy it a lot more. Or spend that time here, if that's what you prefer."
A group of insects came through the door, bearing a lunchbox. Alexandria.
"Take this as a partial thanks from someone whose life you saved. Take it as proof you made a difference with what you did. And if nothing else, take it from someone else who's been there: cash is freedom for you right now."
She looked up at me, eyes still bright with tears.
I shrugged.
"I don't have answers on how you should handle this. I don't know why you're not comfortable with your surviving family. My own attempts at coping have… issues. But you'll always be welcome here."
The silence after that stretched out into a long afternoon.