E.L.F

March 8th, 2011

1:26pm

"That," Dad drawled from the computer screen. "Was not subtle."

"Good," I said as I held the red synthetic gem in my hands up to the focused light of my workbench lamp. I paid close attention to the glimmer where the light bounced within the tiny channels etched into the crystal. The flaws jumped out at me immediately, tiny imperfections in the design that grated on what I was beginning to suspect was mild OCD. It wasn't anything that would ruin the project, I didn't think, but I could do better. "I was not trying to be subtle."

"I thought the plan was to cooperate?" He scratched at the growing stubble on his cheek. His hair had gotten longer in the 'needs to be cut' kind of way and the bags under his eyes were very noticeable now that he no longer needed his glasses. I noticed the wrinkles in his shirts and how he had at least three cups of coffee every morning. I had yet to say anything about it.

"I am cooperating," I said. "I just want it to be very obvious how very inconvenient I could be if anyone got the idea to screw me over."

"By making the test equipment bleed?" Dad asked dryly.

I shrugged helplessly. "Yes?"

Everything was fun and games learning how to control computers with my mind until they started screaming. That had not been in the plan, but apparently the Warp thought otherwise. I wasn't going to admit it though. The only thing worse than putting a few hundred thousand dollars of machinery through a containment cycle on purpose was doing it on accident.

"If this bites you in the ass…" He warned.

"It could," I admitted. "But it won't."

My father gave me an exasperated sigh. "Taylor…"

I set my crystal down and made sure to look him in the eyes. "Dad, I could hide shit. I could, but what's the point? My rating means they expect me to be able to do anything and they'll get paranoid about it. This way, they think they know and that's less…"

"Alarming?" He finished for me.

"Yes." I shrugged with one shoulder. "I am cooperating."

We fell into that kind of awkward silence where the conversation wasn't over, but neither of us wanted to continue it. That was how it had been between us these past two weeks since I came out of my self-induced coma. All that progress? Gone. And it was my fault. I didn't know how to apologize for everything and he didn't know how to confront the girl that helped kill Leviathan. We both had super powers and the irony was that we were right back to where we started. A broken family.

"Who is it now?" I said, just to say something. "Miss Militia, right?"

"Yeah," Dad groaned, rubbing his hand on his face. He tried to smile, but it didn't come out right. He looked a bit haunted. "Perfect recall ain't what it's cracked up to be."

"Retroactive?" I asked and he nodded. I winced. All the little things you thought you forgot, hoped you forgot, wanted to forget in perfect clarity didn't sound great. Not with what we've been through and lost. I could only go back as far as the locker, but if Dad could remember everything from years ago? "It doesn't go away when you let the power go, does it?"

"Unfortunately." He looked away and I knew why he hadn't been sleeping.

Mom.

"You should say something," I tried. "Cycling works in theory, but they don't know you keep the effects."

"Only some of them, brain stuff," Dad said dismissively. "I need to get used to it anyway, it's fine."

And he shut me down.

"Vista seemed nice," I blurted out, anything to keep him talking.

"Yeah." He palmed his face again. "Yeah, they're good kids, the Wards. Not like - " He swallowed hard and looked down. "You know."

I did know.

I bit my lip and cast about for another topic.

"Look, I - " Dad cleared his throat. "Armsmaster put in a request for help I should get around to, probably looking over some designs for things. It shouldn't take long," he offered.

Dad was escaping. That was something I had gotten used to him doing the past two years. "Okay."

He tried to smile again. "Finish eating, don't get caught up on that spear."

"Promise." I bit my tongue as the video conference call disconnected. My mind immediately flashed out to the Warp. That could have gone better. It should have gone better. The least I could have done was get into his head, follow his thoughts to have a better idea of what landmines I was tripping over. I could have peeked into our immediate future for a better way like I'd done before. What if I had offered to fix his power, make it better? Change it? Then he could -

And the ease with which I was thinking about using my powers on my Dad again made my stomach scrunch into a little ball.

I needed a break.

I dropped my crystal ball into the bowl on my desk where it rolled around with the other has-beens of today, crystal orbs of blue, green and red each humming a low note only I could hear. My lab on the Rig hadn't really changed. The back wall was still covered in wraithbone with its metal scaffolding. My unfinished jetbike dominated the floor space, tilted on its side to expose the hollow underbelly. The slabs of crystal were still on my desk next to papers covered in scribbled schematics of everything from tanks to pistols. The few tools I had, mostly for measurements, were still scattered all over the floor around the bike shell. I nudged my stylus away from the edge of the desk and stood up. I felt something on my head tilt.

"Oh right," I muttered as I plucked my notebook off the top of my head. How long had it been balanced there? I wondered. I set that on top of my drawing tablet and picked my way across the room to the set of counters holding my lunch.

Southwest style chicken salad and orange juice from some family run restaurant Dad had found. I hadn't always liked fruit drinks, but I tried soda. I was no longer a fan. My salad smelled alright, just the residual chemicals of whatever the lettuce had gone through barely making it through the scent of free range chicken. I wouldn't call it a diet, but in the interest of staying out of the hospital, I was avoiding everything that smelled a bit too funny. If it wasn't for the fact that I was still an All American carnivore, I would have gone completely organic and vegan.

There was a joke somewhere in there about elves that I hated myself for acknowledging.

I tried to focus on eating. I really did. Something in my head wouldn't let the temptation to do something go. I could reach around the world, down the hall and a few rooms away was nothing. No one would have to know. I was half-convinced that I could fix it, even though I knew I couldn't. Not like that. It was stupid and it could probably wait until tonight while my body slept, but I reached into the Infinity Circuit anyway. The familiar cool pulse of Farseer Vernasse's awareness came through. I reached further, grasping that melancholic note I had come to associate with her.

How do you stop yourself from always looking into the possible futures?

From changing things, because I can? How do I let things be? How do I stop myself? There were a lot of questions I wanted to ask, but something held me back. I didn't want to seem irrational or erratic. I didn't want to seem vulnerable. I guess I was afraid. Afraid that something I said or did would prove I was 'too human' after all, and I would be left alone again.

How do you stay in the present?

And the Farseer's voice chimed a clear, cold note. "I don't."

What? I sent back in astonishment. Never?

She didn't respond.

I refused to let that silence get to me, switching track to think about the implications instead. If she was always half-absent, half here and half ahead, what did that mean? Was that why she even bothered with me? Something I would do or become in the future making the effort worth it? Did she even know or was it still hazy, too many variables and too many choices to see clearly?

I thought about how it would be to live like that. To always be working some kind of future angle, unable to appreciate the present because the future was always changing. It would be lonely, wouldn't it? Your body walked the same streets as everyone else, but you've already left them behind. I guess then it wouldn't matter how many of them fell along the way. It would be easy, I thought. To write them off.

What else could they be, than just variables?

Even if the future you worked towards was better, it was still wrong to think like that, wasn't it?

Wasn't it?

I slowly made my way through my lunch, finishing off the juice and diverting from the chicken in favor of grapes. The door beeped, letting me know that someone had just used their keycard to let themselves in. I turned in time to see a few PRT squad troopers dart into the room, taking up positions in the empty spaces. They were quick, clean, professional and emotionally jumpier than rabbits in a butcher shop.

Following them was one of Brockton Bay's adult superheroes.

I'd seen him before in the papers or on TV in his red body armor and visor on the upper half of his face. At the time, he had been one of the more personable heroes. He seemed like the kind of guy that always had a smile for every situation. He wasn't smiling now.

"Hey kid," Assault said. "Orders came through. No hard feelings, right?"

You could cut the tension with a knife. And if I let it, I could see that it would only fester. So I shrugged one shoulder, a half-smile on my face as I held up my grapes.

"Can I finish my lunch first?"

Assault blinked.

"Really?" Then he laughed. I could see the way his body language changed, loosening. "We can do that, right guys?"

In response the troopers shifted, some lowering the barrels of their foam sprayers a hair. "Your call," one of them said.

I could feel the minute changes in the Warp, as some futures shifted closer, becoming more real. It was subtle and fragile, but having that control made me feel better. I plucked off the last few grapes and looked at my chicken. I sighed.

Alright then.

Guess it was time to get arrested.

March 10th, 2011

9:44am

I have now officially come full circle. After a round trip to the federal courthouse in Concord, New Hampshire I was once again in the PRT holding cells, sitting on the bed with an issued laptop looking over the news. They were replaying clips of the Winslow Storm in the background as the talking heads went over my arrest as everything and anything was suddenly relevant again. Including related arrests. I didn't know how I would feel, hearing that Emma had been cooling her heels for the better part of a month by now. There was definitely some schadenfreude for well earned misery, but the rest felt ephemeral. A highschool bully was finally experiencing some consequences.

I helped kill Leviathan. That would put anything into perspective.

This time around, Dad was in my cell with me, nursing a straight black coffee and wincing every time something he didn't like hearing came over the laptop's speakers.

"They are never going to get tired of you, are they?" He asked.

"The media?" I clarified as I started another video. "Nope." There was another megathread on PHO, I noted idly. That sounded like loads of fun. "Avoid PHO."

Dad sighed.

"What are they saying?" He asked, as if I would tell him to avoid it just to blab anyway.

I gave him a look. "Avoid it."

"Alright!" He held up his hands, and coffee, in surrender.

The intercom gave a sharp crackle.

"Hebert?" A male voice I didn't recognize said. I reached out with my mind, just enough to brush under the ripples their presence caused. PRT agent? "You've got a visitor."

Dad sat up in his chair. "Lawyer?"

"A one Alan Barnes?" The man responded.

Dad hissed, standing up as his coffee cup crinkled in his hands. "Lawyer."

Alan Barnes. My first reaction was a lot like my father's. Emma's dad had a lot of nerve showing up wanting to talk to me after his daughter shoved me in that locker. My second reaction wondered why? What did he stand to gain from this? Did he somehow think I could influence his daughter's upcoming trial? Was he going to threaten to influence mine?

I was asking these questions, but I knew how to get the answers. I reached out for the Warp, and sifted through the threads. A third option presented itself. I could use him, I thought. Not now, but later down the line?

He was going to remember everything he hadn't told the police. He was going to make sure Emma was put away for a very long time and Stalker for even longer. He was going to make Madison's life miserable.

And he was going to thank me for it.

"Is he expected?" The agent asked hesitantly.

"No," I said. "But it's fine. I can meet with him."

My father turned to me, face scrunched up in this incredulous look. "Taylor, it's Alan."

"I am aware," I said dryly.

"Do you have any idea - "

"He can't do anything to me," I cut him off before he got worked up. Before he said something he would regret later. "Dad, they can't do anything to me." He was my father. Worrying about me was part of what fathers do, even if it was overblown. But it was going to cause problems. Now. Soon. Later. "You're worried about me and I get that. This is - everything, it's a lot." I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Too much. But you are not helping when you're like this."

He raised his voice. "I'm trying - "

"You are failing." He reeled back and I felt the sympathetic spike of self-loathing bite deep. I released it into the Warp. "You need to sleep more. Take a week off not doing any work for anyone. No Union, no powers."

I could hear it in his mind when it sunk in what I was saying.

Still useless.

The tentative name for him was Board, a Trump that could take on thinker powers from any other parahuman in his range. Except for the one parahuman they were really hoping he could copy.

But then, I wasn't a parahuman.

"Hebert?" Came over the intercom again. "Your lawyer is here as well. Priority?"

"Lawyer first, Mr. Barnes later," I said as I put the laptop on the bed. I glanced over at Dad's slumped figure. "Let me go?"

He nodded miserably. He knew what I was really asking. "Okay, kiddo. I'll try."

The door opened with the electronic clicks and beeps. I held out my arms for the cuffs.

"Mr. Hebert?" The trooper called around me.

"Yeah." Dad walked out of the room ahead of me, dumping his cup of coffee in the nearest trash can. "Let's get this show over with."

My lawyer was a shorter black woman dressed how lawyers on TV dressed, in a sharp dark-skirted suit complete with a black tie and expensive looking watch. Her short, frizzy hair was dyed an orange color and her hazel eyes missed nothing behind slim wire frame glasses. She shook my hand calmly.

"Hello again, holding up alright?" Her name was Arlene Grayson and she had a very calm, unruffled emotional map. Her thoughts were similarly practical. She was on my side, because the numbers worked out.

I was worth millions of people.

"Yes." Dad echoed me as we sat down at the square table. The visiting room was a bland four walls and a ceiling kind of space. One of the fluorescent lights by the door flickered and I was sure there was monitoring equipment installed somewhere. I could hear the electronic humming of something in the walls at certain spots. Cameras?

"I'm trying to look at it like you said. These - " I held up my cuffed wrists. "Are a positive."

"They are," Arlene said as she opened her briefcase. "Most in your situation would find themselves in full restraints, straitjacket, automated devices, ball and chain, the kitchen sink."

Extreme feel-good measures that wouldn't do anything. I saw one future with a repurposed collar, the kind they usually wore when facing the Simurgh with the time limit removed, but a trigger installed. It was a distant future, but not so distant as to have been impossible. The fact that it reminded me of what I've been told of the Imperium made seeing that possibility worse.

"PRT is good for something," Dad joked weakly.

"It's a bit of an odd situation, working with the PRT on the defense," Arlene allowed. "Usually they would be the prosecution."

"Too useful to sit in a cell," I said. Dad winced.

Arlene's eyes cut to me for a moment, before she inclined her head. "Unfortunately, we're still looking at a two month timeline for the proceedings, even with time not being waived." She preempted Dad's question. "Ah, there is a sixty day limit on when trials must take place, ignoring everything else."

"Is there - " Dad grimaced. "Is there anything we can fight here?"

"The kidnapping charges," she replied immediately. She rifled through the papers in her briefcase, finding what she was looking for with a snap of her wrist. "The basis is rather weak circumstantial evidence, I suspect it will be dropped before the second hearing. Private flight dropped out of contact in roughly the same time period."

"It won't be a problem," I said quietly. That I could see clearly.

Arlene paused. "I'll take your word for it."

"And my other option is pleading guilty, right?" I asked.

She nodded. "A No Contest or Guilty plea would expedite things, right up to the sentencing. Or…"

"Plea bargain?" Dad asked. He was clenching his fists rhythmically and I knew none of this could be good for his blood pressure. "Making some kind of deal for a lighter sentence?"

"As you said," my lawyer stated with a small, grim smile. "Too useful for a cell."

She didn't know about the deal the PRT was putting together. But she suspected.

"How much can I push for?"

"House arrest is unlikely," Arlene said. "Even if the charges didn't paint you as a violent offender - "

"I - " I moved to protest immediately.

Sophia.

I closed my mouth.

" - part of the usual provisions is whether or not you are able to maintain the cost of your internment," She continued as if I hadn't said anything. "If you can reasonably 'imprison' yourself. And given your powers, the answer is no."

I wasn't sure if even the Birdcage could imprison me. No one else was either.

Dad ran a hand through his hair. "Cuffs and a tracking bracelet not enough, huh?"

"No," was the bland reply. "As far as the 'light touch' goes, this is it."

And just like that, I could feel a future crystallize. Suddenly I knew how it was all going to work. I knew where I could guide events. I could see it. I must have jerked in my chair or something, because when I pulled away from the future, both my dad and my lawyer were staring at me.

"Does the PRT's light touch extend to where I'm imprisoned?"

"By my understanding of the situation, upon incarceration you would qualify as a Category A prisoner. Someone who is an extreme risk to national security in the event of an escape." She sighed. "Sitting in a county jail is not an option."

"You want...to transfer?" Dad asked slowly. "Out of the Bay?" His eyes darted back and forth. "LA?"

"Out of the country," I said.

My lawyer slowly closed her eyes. "How big of a spectacle are we talking about here?"

"Massive," I said unapologetically. "Most in my situation wouldn't just be in cuffs, right? I want to be treated fairly, no special treatment. This?" For emphasis I reached into the Warp and tore my cuffs to atoms. "This does nothing."

To her credit, Arlene Grayson barely reacted to the show of force. She lifted a finger from the table, then dropped it. "You do understand the only facility eligible aside from PRT holdings is the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center?"

"I don't need to go that far." I leaned forward in my chair. "I just need Dragon."

Arlene raised an eyebrow. "I would advise against assault with a parahuman ability."

"Dragon is invisible to me, I can't see her. My Master rating? Useless."

"And this is on record?" Arlene asked to confirm.

I thought back to that meeting that seemed like it was forever ago, with Dad and the directors of the PRT officers around the country. "Yes."

She thought it over. "The request would have to go through the judge and prosecution, we can work on the wording." She smiled her little grim smile again. "Do I want to know why you want harsher imprisonment?"

"In Canada?" Dad echoed.

Dragon was the one my Master power wouldn't work on. Everyone else was fair game.

"I follow the news," I said. "I know what they are saying. The court of public opinion is…" I searched for the word. "Contentious. Brockton Bay is ground zero. I need to get away from that. I want to make as good a showing as possible, even if it's uncomfortable. I can handle it."

I wouldn't have to worry about how I was going to get to Nikos Vasil.

I was going to make him come to me.

All he needed was a little push.