The Other Way

Chapter Ten

Taylor stood on holy ground, filling out the paperwork.

She was sure that Panacea didn't need to know her list of allergies in order to heal her, but she wasn't in a position to argue. She was getting healed for free, so if Panacea wanted to keep out the riff raff with a blockade of medical forms, that was her call.

Describe in detail the extent of your injuries and/or illnesses.

For a moment, Taylor considered being honest. Arm used as chew toy by parahuman, is currently pudding. She had started to regret throwing away the pain killers. It wasn't a big deal when she had something to do to distract herself, but trying to fall asleep knowing that rolling over would send a jolt of agony through her had resulted in a miserable night.

Instead she wrote, "Arm crushed in car accident. Complete deafness in one ear." How much detail did they want? The form had half a page of blank lines, but Taylor wasn't going to fluff up an insubstantial statement to make it look more impressive. This was a hospital, not an English class.

She glanced around at the other people in the room. Taylor wasn't the only one who didn't need a wheelchair to get in, but she was in the minority. A man sitting next to her with grey hair and leathery skin was missing both legs below the knees, and more than a few of the patients had tubes sticking out of them attached to IV poles.

"So," the amputee said. "What brings you here?" His voice was raspy, like he had smoked a pack of cigarettes every day since he turned seven.

"Broken arm," she muttered, looking away.

"Broken arm?" He gripped the armrests of his wheelchair. His arms looked strong, not thick like a bodybuilder, but wiry and taut, despite the way his skin hung loose around them. "You came here to see Panacea for a broken arm?"

It was four o'clock. Panacea was expected to arrive at four exactly, but it wasn't like anyone was going to complain if their free, miraculous healing happened a few minutes behind schedule.

"It was a pretty bad break," Taylor said. She wished the man would bother someone else and leave her alone. If he knew I broke my arm fighting Hookwolf as a superhero he'd ... he'd ... But that didn't matter because he didn't know and Taylor wasn't going to tell him.

"Oh, leave the poor girl alone," a woman on the other side of the circle said. "You're getting healed for free just like everyone else. No one earns Panacea's healing, no one deserves this, but we're still here." She was a dark skinned heavyset woman who had recently said goodbye to being middle aged. Taylor wasn't sure what her ailment was, but there were purplish swellings across her neck and fingers. "When Christ the Lord healed the invalid at the waters of Bethesda, He did not ask for worth, only need, and all we here are in need of healing."

Taylor looked down and busied herself with her paperwork, going over the list of things she wasn't allergic to. She hadn't been a hero for very long, but if she had a choice between people taking her for granted and comparing her to Jesus, she'd pick the former. Heck, if everyone could just ignore her entirely whenever she put on her costume, she'd be okay with that.

"She's a parahuman, not a messiah," the amputee spat. "She has a limited amount of time to heal people each day, and she spends most of it on the ones who are actively dying. All I'm saying is that her time would be better spent if Panacea didn't waste her healing on people who didn't need it."

Before the argument could escalate further, the door opened and Panacea stepped into the room. Taylor recognized her from her pictures, all red and white robes, though Panacea tended to smile more during photo ops.

"Sorry I'm late," Panacea mumbled. "There was a school thing, and then traffic ..."

There was no resentment in response to her excuse, nor reassurances that everything was alright. Just reverent, raptured silence.

Panacea let out a tired sigh and began her work. She began at one end of the circle and took the hand of an old, bald man. Taylor watched as years seemed to fall away from the man over the course of a few minutes, and Panacea moved on to the next patient.

I met your sister, Taylor wanted to say. I saved someone that night, and the paramedics said that you were going to heal her. Did you?

But she couldn't, not out of costume in a crowd of people. Panacea made her way through the circle, healing people one by one. Some thanked her and others burst into tears, but Panacea made no reply.

When she reached Taylor, she touched her hand Taylor could feel her insides ... shift. Her ear popped and suddenly she could hear the world around her in sharp focus. The shards of bone inside her arm dissolved and reformed into their ideal shape. Beyond that, her whole body smoothed out, relaxing and strengthening herself under Panacea's command.

Throughout the whole affair, Panacea never made eye contact. She stared into the distance as she healed every physical flaw Taylor suffered from, and never looked her in the eye.

WWW

Taylor still didn't feel like she belonged in the Wards HQ. It was like she had wandered in and they hadn't thrown her out yet. But Sophia hadn't shown up, courtesy of Blackwell coming through for once, and that was definitely a step in the right direction.

As she put on her costume, she realized something. She had two working arms for the first time since her fight with Hookwolf, and had two working ears for the first time since her fight with Bakuda. Even Sophia was gone, if only for the day.

Ffor the first time in years, things were looking up.

That worried her. When everything was going wrong she could slog through, but at times like these she felt like life was trying to sneak up behind her.

Well, she had a thousand unblinking compound eyes on the back of her head. Whatever happened, she'd deal with it.

Keep telling yourself that.

Work shifts lasted four hours on weekdays, with one from one to five and another from five to nine with a team meeting right when the two shifts met, except during emergencies. Apparently the ones who went to Arcadia could leave school right after lunch time without arousing suspicion, but Taylor expected to work evenings until summer vacation.

She found Clockblocker in the lounge room in his white, clock themed costume with his mask off, sitting on the couch. He gave her a lazy wave when she entered. "Hey, Taylor. What's up?"

"Hello, Dennis." She hesitated, looking around the room. Besides the couch there were bean bags, but it was physically impossible to look dignified sitting on one. She decided to stand instead.

He glanced up from his phone after a moment. "You can sit down if you want to. Or have you been spending too much time with Miss Militia? At ease, soldier!"

Taylor smiled awkwardly behind her mask and sat down next to him.

"You know that's a Tinkertech couch, right?"

She looked down at it. It didn't feel any different than a normal one, but she didn't have much experience with advanced technology. "It is?"

"What, Kid didn't tell you about it? That's weird. Usually he's happy to talk your ear off about that sort of thing. I guess he's just trying not to scare you off."

Taylor wasn't sure what Clockblocker meant by that, but they didn't know each other very well. Ever since she joined the team, they hadn't seen each other much besides that first day when she had attacked Shadow Stalker on sight. She regretted nothing, but that still probably wasn't a very good first impression.

"Did he make it?"

"No, Kid Win specializes in guns. You can have a lot of fun on this couch, but I've yet to make it shoot anything. This is Armsmaster's work. He whipped it up when he had gotten drunk in his workshop, realized that he couldn't use it to fight crime, and sent it over here. True story."

She frowned skeptically. "Okay. So what does this Tinkertech couch do?"

"Like I said, Armsmaster made it, and whenever he makes something it does, like, twelve different things at once. Honestly, I'm still trying to figure it out, though I found out about the built in mini-fridge on the first day." He reached down under the armrest and opened up a side compartment. "Pepsi or Coke?"

"Um, either?"

"Well, we're sponsored by Pepsi, so we get these for free," he said, tossing her a can.

Taylor hesitated. She felt more confident with her mask on, more like Myriad than boring, wimpy Taylor, but she took it off anyway and put her glasses on. "That ... doesn't seem like Tinkertech, honestly."

"Yeah, but that's just part of it," he went on. "It also has an advanced kind of memory foam in the cushions." He bounced on it while sitting to demonstrate, and she found herself following suit. "Feel that? That perfect balance of softness and firmness? That is low-resilience viscoelastic polyurethane foam right there. Tinkertech super science caressing your butt to give it the care and love it deserves."

Taylor stopped bouncing immediately. "Um, okay."

"Yeah, I think Armsmaster was experimenting with Dragon's containment foam and made this by accident. The third thing is that this couch has its own built-in security system."

"Really?"

He nodded. "Uh-huh. It sets off a siren, notifies the Protectorate, and puts the entire PRTHQ on lockdown ... whenever it catching someone making out on it."

She blinked. "What?"

He held up his hands defensively. "I know, right? They're fine sending us at serial killers, mass murderers, and goddamn Endbringers, but unregulated teen hormones? That's where they draw the line."

She looked at him skeptically. "That doesn't make any sense at all."

"I know! And we all got beds just down the hall which, I don't know if you've checked yet, do not have built-in PDA alarms." He studied her reaction, and she couldn't keep the skepticism from her face. "I'm getting the impression you don't believe me."

How to phrase this. "I guess I'm not used to Tinkertech being so commonplace. The elevator still makes me nervous."

He nodded. "Got it. No, totally. I found out about the couch the hard way. And if you don't believe me, I can prove it to you real fast."

Before he could map out what he had in mind, the door opened and Gallant and Kid Win came in. "Hello, hello," Gallant said cheerfully.

"Hey Dean," Clockblocker said. "How'd patrol go?"

"Great. Nearly everyone we met wanted to borrow Chris's hoverboard."

"And every time I had to tell them no," Kid Win said, "because I don't want Miss Piggy to carve out my spleen."

"Why would she care?" Taylor asked.

"Liabilities," Gallant said. "She doesn't want anyone falling off and suing us." He put a hand on Kid Win's shoulder. "Don't worry. She'll have the waiver forms finalized in no time." He turned to Taylor. "And Taylor, why am I not surprised to see you back already?"

She hesitated. "I, uh, I figured that I haven't been working here long enough to start milking sick days just yet."

He laughed. Taylor didn't know how to laugh right; whenever she tried, it always sounded forced or bitter or, or just wrong. Gallant's laugh sounded easy and confident without being at anyone's expense, the sort of laugh that people imitated when they were learning how to do it. "After catching four major Empire villains two days ago, you could take the whole month off and no one would challenge you on it." He glanced at the clock on the wall. "Though ... if you'd like to test out your new arm, could you help me with something?"

"Sure." She set her unopened Pepsi can on the armrest and got up. Wait, she thought. What did Clockblocker mean about proving it? She pushed that thought away. He was probably just teasing her anyway. "What do you need?"

Kid Win glanced at her as she passed by, but he didn't say anything. "You know," Gallant said, leading her down the hall, "Chris made my power armor for me. Just after he joined he had gotten access to all the PRT Tinker designs and wanted to figure out what his specialty was. He never even made a suit for himself, but he made this for me."

"That seems ... nice," Taylor said. And odd. Maybe she was just selfish, but she wanted to make sure that she was as well protected as possible before getting into a fight. And if she could only protect one of her teammates, she'd focus on someone who had to get close to use their powers, like Clockblocker or Aegis instead of a Blaster like Gallant.

But ... but Gallant had a way about him. He was patient and encouraging in a way that made people grow confident while he was around. Taylor could imagine Chris, maybe twelve or thirteen at the time, not sure what he could do but eager to try, and Gallant offering him a thumbs up and willing to be his guinea pig.

"Absolutely," Gallant agreed. "This suit saved my life more times that I can count, and he never even wanted to take credit for it." They reached his room. "But I will say this about power armor: it is a hassle to take off. Could you give me a hand?"

Taylor froze, not sure if she had heard him right. "Um, what?"

"It enhances my strength, so it doesn't matter how heavy it is when I'm wearing it, but as soon as I disconnect the pieces I can barely lift it." He paused as though noticing her discomfort. "You can leave the door open if you feel uncomfortable, but it's good for everyone to become familiar with the more technical equipment, just in case it gets damaged in the field."

Focus. He's probably wearing something underneath. Between Clockblocker's teasing and Gallant's innocent requests, her face was going to melt. "Sure. That makes sense. What do you want me to do?"

He ran her through the basics of what to push and twist to take the pieces of his armor off and where to place them on the charging stand so they'd be ready when he needed them next. "So," he said after they started on his left arm, "you got healed today. What did you think of Panacea?"

"I'm not sure," she said, detaching his forearm piece. "You probably know her better than I do. I only met her this once, and I didn't talk to her."

"I know. But when you hear the same sound for too long, you start to tune it out. That helps when you're trying to focus on more important things, but people don't become less important just because they've been there for a while. And I value your opinion."

Taylor blushed, and she knew that Gallant could see her emotions as easily as he could see her face. "When I first decided to be a hero, I didn't want to be the kind of cape you read about or see on the news. I just wanted to go out, do some hero stuff, then get out before people started asking questions. But Panacea ... Panacea can't do that. I mean, short of sneaking into a hospital and ninjaing someone's cancer when they're unconscious, but that's not practical. Then there are the people she heals, and some of them take her for granted while others treat her like she's the Second Coming, and I don't know which is worse."

He raised his eyebrows at that. "That's incredible."

"What is?" Taylor said, setting down the latest piece of armor. It didn't need to plug into anything, she just needed to stick it on a magnet. "Do you think I'm wrong?"

"No, just the opposite. I've known her since before she triggered, and honestly you have a better grasp of her situation than I do. I've been trying to get her to take a break for a while, but, well, it's the classic hero trap. You start out patting yourself on the back for all the people you save, but before you know it you're beating yourself up for all the people you failed, and then you're convinced that taking the day off means killing half a dozen people." He gave her a sidelong look. "Fortunately, no one here struggles with that sort of thing."

"Hey! I'm fine. I've never felt better in my life. I have no reason to take the day off."

That was true. Panacea didn't just heal her injuries; she rejuvenated her. Everything from the soreness she had from not sleeping well, a blister on her toe from running, and the acne on her chin was gone without a trace. Besides, what was she going to do with a day off? Wait for another day at school? No thank you.

"Hey Dean?" she said, only partially to change the subject. "People can't lie to you, right?" Lisa had told her as much, and Kid Win had verified it so Taylor wouldn't arouse suspicion by knowing too much.

"Not to my face, unless they have an ability that counters mine."

Taylor nodded. "Good. I want to talk to the doctor that did the MRI for the Alcott girl. I want you to come with me."

He gave her a flat look. "You think the doctor might be lying."

She shrugged. "Maybe."

He didn't point out the obvious, that a PRT doctor conspiring to botch MRI tests to aid criminal syndicates working to kidnap parahuman children was not the most likely of theories. Taylor appreciated that.

"Sure," Gallant said instead as he stepped out of the last piece of his power armor and put it on the stand. "Say, tomorrow at four?"

She nodded. That would give them an hour before she needed to go on patrol. A better hero would be doing this for the missing girl, but the larger reason was because the conspiracy theory about the fake MRI results had been Lisa's idea, and Taylor wanted to know how much she could trust her.

As soon as she left Gallant's room, she nearly bumped into Kid Win.

"Hey Taylor," he said, sounding nervous about something. "Uh, got a moment? I want to give you something."

"Okay, sure," she said. Despite herself, she felt nervous as she followed him. At school, the only times someone focused on her was when they had some cruel prank in mind. Having people go out of their way to be nice to her was going to take some time getting used to.

"So, what did Dean want?"

"Oh, just some help taking off his armor." That still sounded wrong in her head, but maybe she just had a dirty mind. "He said you made it for him."

"Oh yeah. Ages ago. Um, you know he's dating someone, right?"

Taylor blinked. "Yes, I know. I met Glory Girl before I met him."

"Oh. Well, as long as you know." He cleared his throat as they entered what Taylor assumed to be Kid Win's room. "Anyway, I heard about your fight yesterday."

"Yeah." Taylor looked away. She had nearly gotten Miss Militia killed. Would have, if Armsmaster hadn't shown up when he did. "We were supposed to catch them by surprise, and instead they caught us by surprise."

"So I was thinking about that—can I see your phone? Thanks. So I was thinking about that and starting Tinkering. It's not really polished so there might be some bugs to work out—get it? Because ... anyway, I want you to have this."

He gave her back her phone and a small, black cube about a centimeter wide. "What is it?"

"It's an antigravity camera. It has mass, but no weight. I wanted to make it small and light enough for your bugs to carry, so ... Armsmaster's the one you want when your making really small tech, but I hit a block the other day when I was in my workshop, so ... yeah."

After linking it to her phone, the screen had a view from the camera's perspective. Taylor had a dragonfly pick up the device, and it seemed so light that a housefly could do the same if it had a way to grip it. Her mind raced with the possibilities. She could use her swarm as periphery vision, and if she noticed anything suspicious, she could fly in Kid Win's camera for all the details.

"Oh Chris, it's perfect!"

He grinned awkwardly. "The audio is crap, just so you know. And the battery life needs work. And it's really fragile, so I don't know how long it will last before it breaks. Anyway, let me know how it works out for you."

With that, the two of them headed over to the meeting room.

"Hey Chris?" Taylor asked as they walked. "Can I ask you something? Why did you make a suit of power armor for Gallant, but not for yourself?"

He shrugged. "What would I need power armor for? I play with guns. You don't need super strength to shoot guns."

"You don't need super strength to shoot empathic energy blasts, either."

"Meh. He had been masquerading as a Tinker for a while by the time I joined, going around wearing what were practically tin foil mittens because no one could tell the difference. Seriously, it was embarrassing and I had to do something."

"Ah."

They walked in silence a moment longer before he stopped. "So it's like this. Technically I could make cheap knock-offs of Armsmaster's power armor for the whole team. Hell, if I wanted I could download some of Dragon's designs and have everyone run around in giant mechs. It would take me forever and a half, but I could do it.

"But, see, I don't want to. Every Tinker has a specialty, and I figured out after making Gallant's suit that power armor isn't mine. Can I make it anyway? Sure. You can't mass produce Tinkertech, and you need at least a basically competent Tinker to recreate it, so I could spend all my time in my workshop regurgitating the inventions of greater minds, and it might be better for the team if I did. But ... but call it narcissism or vanity or whatever, but I don't want to work all day doing what any Tinker can do when I still don't know what I can do." He stopped and looked at her. "Does that make sense?"

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I get it." For the team, it might be best for Kid Win to take the best tech he had access to and manufacture that, but for the world it was better for him to add something new to the archives. "And you specialize in guns?"

He nodded. "And let me tell you, it's frustrating. It's not that hard to make a nonlethal gun, but after I'm done with that, you know, what else is there to do? Redesign it to not kill people harder? So I started working on something big, something for emergencies instead of the day to day routine. I spent, like, two weeks sick as a dog from all the ADD meds I was on, finally managed to finish my Alternator Canon, and then ..." His voice trailed off as they entered the meeting room. "I'll tell you later."

"Alright!" Aegis said. He stood up from the couch where he had been sitting and took position in the middle of the room. He, Vista, and Browbeat seemed to have arrived in the past few minutes. "It looks like everyone's here, so let's get started."

Clockblocker glanced around. "Sophia's not coming today?"

"No, she had a school thing."

Taylor smiled as she put her mask back on. Sophia's "school thing" was after-school detention, and as long as Taylor stayed on Blackwell's good side, Sophia stayed on the south side of sanity, and Taylor kept a few thousand compound eyes on her for every hour of the day, then Sophia might keep on having "school things" for weeks to come. Followed by her parole hearing.

Vista's response was less muted. "Yes, yes, no Hess!" she shouted, pumping her fists in the air like a cheerleader.

Dean, the one person in the room in plain clothes, gave her a half-hearted scolding look. "You don't need to say that every time she doesn't show up."

Vista grinned, a little pink in the face, and looked down.

"Big things first," Aegis said, ignoring both of them. "People are starting to calm down, but they're still scared. People in ABB territory are worried that what's left of the gang is going to implode with them in it, and they're worried that the Empire is going to just take the ABB's place in the docks. The gang's down to Oni Lee, but they still have a lot of unpowered members."

"Are we going to try to finish them off?" Taylor asked. Everyone looked at her, and she instantly regretted making herself the center of attention. She thought she heard Clockblocker snigger.

"Uh, no," Aegis said. "There's already a power vacuum in the city, and we don't want to make it worse. Armsmaster and the rest of the Protectorate are on top of things, but ideally the ABB restablizes as a much smaller gang like what Skidmark's group has right now. The biggest concern is the Empire becoming the dominant power in the underground, but Armsmaster is dealing with that too. Our concern is making our presence known and reminding the public that they have people on top looking out for them."

Taylor frowned. That seemed ... vague, as far as team objectives went, and pretty wishy-washy. Taking out the rest of the ABB before they had a chance to recover made sense, and taking the fight to the Empire as the new number one enemy made sense too, but patting people on the head and telling them that the heroes were doing everything in their power to keep them safe—when they clearly weren't ...

"So Dennis? Robert? Keep that in mind when you're patrolling downtown today. Vista? You're taking Myriad down boardwalk. Smile, talk to people, and let them know that the city is not on the brink of bursting into flames, because even with Bakuda in custody, that rumor has been spreading around. And I'll be manning the consoles for the next shift."

"You're taking porn duty again?" Clockblocker said. He winced theatrically and shook his head. "I get it, man. Breakups are rough."

"First of all, there's no breakup. We went on two dates, didn't click, and so we're not going out for a third one. Secondly, the computers are for coordinating our team with the PRT and the Protectorate as well as looking up the database for relevant intel. If Director Piggot catches you using said computers for viewing pornography, she will—"

"Watch it with you?"

Aegis stood in silence for a moment, then let out a long breath. "Ugh. Moving on." He checked a list on his phone. "Robert? A reminder about tomorrow. So ... you're reminded."

Browbeats massive shoulders sagged. "Got it. Is it too late for me to call in sick?"

Aegis shook his head. "It's community outreach. You don't have to like it, you just have to pretend to like it." He shrugged. "It's a bunch of second graders. Talk to them about the importance of education, not doing drugs, and throw in an amusing anecdote or two, and you get second and third period off free."

"So, I'm not planning on getting shot today," Browbeat said, "but if I did ..."

Dean reached over and patted him on the back. "Don't worry about it, Rob. Kids that age love you no matter what you do, they'll forget everything you tell them no matter what you say, and it's good practice for all the other PR events."

Browbeat seemed to relax a little, but he didn't say anything.

"Next on the list," Aegis continued, "the beach barbecue Saturday night. Check the sign up list if you want to bring anything, and if you need a ride there ..." His voice trailed off as he squeezed his eyes shut. "Dammit, Dennis, that's going to be in my brain all day."

Clockblocker shrugged. "What can I say? I'm the best at what I do."

"Yeah, you need to die."

"That's fair."

He checked his phone again. "Last thing, Taylor, you got a letter." He took out an envelope and offered it to her.

Taylor blinked. "What?"

Clockblocker sighed dramatically. "I remember when I still got fan mail. It's like after you've been around here for a few weeks, they forget all about you."

Taylor took the envelope and stared at it. "But ... what for?"

"Oh, gee, I don't know," Visa said, rolling her eyes. "Maybe it's because you're responsible for five of the six villians locked up upstairs or something."

"Can't be," Clockblocker said. "It has to be because she's new."

Technically she had been involved with all six, but Armsmaster had left her name out of Lung's report. Even then, she had merely been around while the Undersiders dealt with him. Against Bakuda, that had been dumb luck with an extra portion of dumb. If it weren't for both the Undersiders and the Wards helping her out, she'd have ended up either dead or mutilated. As for the four Empire villains, she hadn't done much more than tag along while Miss Militia and Armsmaster saved the day.

Still, she thought, nice reminder that we got a bunch of super powered mass murderers hanging over our heads like the Sword of Damocles. Seriously, who designed this building?

"But that is about it," Aegis said. "Unless someone has anything else to bring up, that's a wrap."

One by one, the heroes went their separate ways, leaving Taylor with Vista. She glanced down at the letter in your hand. Fanmail? Weird. "I'm just going to drop this off in my room, then I'll meet up with you at the elevator."

"See you there," Vista said.

In her room, Taylor was about to leave it with the rest of her stuff, but she hesitated. Fanmail, she thought again. She knew that heroes got letters like these, but she had always assumed that would happen to other heroes. Of course, she had never imagined joining the Wards either, or using her position to strong arm her principal into giving a crap about bullies.

Shaking her head, she tore open the envelope. If she didn't at least look at it, her mind would be back here wondering what it said throughout her entire patrol.

A quick scan of the letter told her that it wasn't fanmail. It was full of legal terms and formal language.

A court order.

"What?" she said aloud. "I'm being sued?"

WWW

Aegis told her that he'd handle it. Not how, not by when, just that he'd handle it. Apparently, working for the government meant that people saw you as a bottomless money well and the world was full of bloodsucking lawyers looking to drain you dry. Even more apparently, Bakuda was a sore loser and after killing several people and planting bombs in the heads of over a hundred more, she took issue with Myriad biting her with a black widow. In self defense.

She wondered how that argument would hold up in court.

But Aegis was going to take care of it. The PRT had expert lawyers on retainer and a fund set aside for dealing with liabilities such as these, so Taylor didn't need to worry about her dad losing their home because she wanted to play hero.

She worried anyway.

She tried to focus on the here and now, where she patrolled the Boardwalk with Vista. She brought her swarm with her, never again wanting to be caught without it and surrounded herself with anything that could fly while a carpet of spiders, roaches, and everything else followed at her feet.

She wasn't sure why she bothered, though. The Boardwalk was the safest part of town, kept clean by the city to look good for tourists. Tourism was a major part of Brockton Bay's economy in the summertime, but even in April the streets were full of visitors pointing cameras at anything that looked interesting.

More often than not, Myriad found the cameras pointed at the two of them.

"Is it always this bad?" she asked.

"What, the flash photography?" Vista replied. "It's usually a lot worse. Normally everyone's all up in your face wanting you to sign something and take a picture with you. Compared to that, this is pretty nice. I think it's because of you."

"Me?"

Vista nodded and gestured toward the swarm. "There's nothing like a cloud of mosquitoes to keep people at a polite distance. I know how well you can control your bugs, and I'm still screaming on the inside being this close to them. Paparazzi Pete over there couldn't be paid to come close enough to bother us."

"Oh. Should I ... get rid of them?" Even as she said it, Myriad wasn't sure she could follow through. After what happened with the Empire, she wouldn't travel without a healthy supply of bugs on hand any more than she'd walk around naked.

"No! Of course not, unless you want people shoving pieces of paper in your face for you to sign. I get it worse than anyone because I'm, like, 'cute and approachable' or something. When Shadow Stalker runs into that kind of nonsense, she just, you know, uses her way with people. When try I do that, Miss Piggy chews me out for projecting a 'negative public image,' but Stalker can get away with it because it's 'an integral part to her public persona,' or something."

Sophia getting away with everything short of murder? What a surprise. "That does sound like her," she said.

"So what's the deal with you two, anyway?"

Myriad shrugged, not wanting to get into it. No now, not on a busy street. "You don't like her either."

"Yeah, I dislike her. You loathe her. Big difference."

"Maybe I'll tell you sometime."

"Sure, sure, keep your secrets. Meanwhile, I have to share all my secrets about going on patrol."

"Like what?"

"Like ... street contacts. They're essential if you ever want to find out what's going on in the city. Come on, I'll introduce you to one." Vista led her to a round-faced Hispanic man running a churro stand. "Hey, Ramirez. What's up?"

"Vista!" the man said. "It's good to see you." He picked up a churro with a napkin, injected some caramel filling into it, and handed it to her. "Who's your friend? I haven't seen you before, are you new?"

"Uh ..."

"Yeah," Vista said. "She just started, what, last week was it? Give or take. Myriad, this is Ramirez, Ramirez, this is Myriad."

Myriad kept her swarm away from the man's churro stand and made sure that her bugs didn't do anything that would bother a health inspector. "Hello."

"Hello yourself." He eyed her swarm, but he kept his tone cheerful. "Churro?"

Myriad took it. She couldn't eat it with her mask on, but taking it was less trouble than explaining that. She felt like she ought to pay the man, but she hadn't thought to bring any money with her. This same thing had happened when she had gotten coffee with Glory Girl, so maybe this sort of thing was common, vendors giving free stuff to heroes for cheap advertising.

No one ever tells you that when you become a hero, you get a free churro.

Vista wore a visor that covered only the upper half of her face and had already started munching on hers. She had used her power to make it several times its normal size. Could she eat the whole thing like that? Maybe her power would wear off after it reached her stomach because of ... the Manton Effect or something.

"So, anything new going on?" Vista asked.

"Well, let me see. I think I may have seen someone selling drugs this morning, but he scampered off before security arrived. There was, uh, a bit of commotion an hour ago, but that could have just been someone in a hurry. Other than that, it's been quiet."

Of course it had been quiet. This was the Boardwalk, the one nice place in the city. Only ... it wasn't nice. It just looked nice. One of the worst things about her powers was that there some things that she didn't want to know about bugs, like how many of them were in the kitchen of whatever restaurant she was eating at. She learned early on that nothing was clean; the nicer places just did a better job of faking it.

If I were criminal scum working on Boardwalk, where would I be? The main streets, where she and Vista were, definitely wouldn't cut it. Even when a couple of heroes were posing for tourists, the enforcers were notoriously brutal when dealing with shoplifters, panhandlers, and everyone in between.

What kind of crime even took place in this part of town? White collar? No, that was more of a downtown thing. And Myriad didn't know how to recognize tax evasion or money laundering on sight. A scam? Conartists? Well, they had just passed a coffee shop that charged eighteen dollars for a single cup, and if that wasn't a scam she didn't know what was.

No, if there was anything happening on the Boardwalk, it would be under the rug and in the holes in the wall, so that's where she sent her bugs, searching for trouble. The back alleys and side streets, away from the main foot traffic. Between her swarm and Kid Win's camera a dragonfly was carrying, she'd know about anything going on within a few blocks.

"So I gotta ask," Vista said after she finished talking with her street contact. "Where'd you get your costume?"

"What?" Myriad asked, focusing on her swarm.

"Your costume. You didn't get it from us, and the doctors couldn't cut through it when they tried to look at your arm. Heck, Hookwolf couldn't cut through it, and the first time I ran into that guy, he tore through my costume like it was tissue paper."

"Oh." She didn't like to think about Hookwolf swinging her back and forth like a chew toy. "Uh, I made it."

"Really?"

She nodded. "Wove it from spider silk."

"You're kidding."

"Black widow dragline silk is pretty strong for its weight. It's not as good as the Darwin bark spider, but ..."

Her swarm picked up something, three figures in a back ally with the sudden, thrashing movements that she had come to associate with violence. After she knew where to look, or even thought to look at all, it had taken a depressingly small amount of time. But no matter what part of the city she was in, this was still Brockton Bay.

She took off at a run, and Vista followed close behind.

"What's going on?" Vista yelled.

"A fight!" Myriad called back. "A mugging or something. This way!"

Right when she began to wonder if the shorter girl could keep up with her, the ground shrank in front of her like a compressed accordion. She stumbled and nearly fell as Vista caught up.

"This way?"

"Y-yeah." Holy crap this was disorientating. Vista's space warping was pretty much how Myriad had always imagined drugs would be like, only without the water colors. And she had never been interested in drugs.

Her swarm gave her a decent image of the landscape, and a few nauseating turns later (which she let Vista take the lead on), they found the fight.

Only it wasn't a fight. It was a beating. There were two grown men against one girl. She was a little older than Vista and had blood dripping out of her nose and down her chin.

The two men were wearing enforcers uniforms.

The pieces fell together in her mind. This wasn't a crime. This was just the opposite. There was never any crime on the Boardwalk, not with the enforcers around. There was nothing to do here except to leave and get back to real cape work: looking good for tourists.

"Let go of her," she said instead.

The two enforcers looked her up and down. Armsmaster had told her that her costume made her look like a villain. That hadn't been intentional, but she'd never had time to design a new one and she wasn't famous enough for people to recognize her as a hero. But Vista was with her, and she was one of the more iconic heroes in the city.

"That's okay," the taller of the two enforcers said. "We can handle this, thanks."

Myriad had left most of her swarm behind when she had started running, but there were always more bugs nearby. Ants, beetles, roaches, and flies congregated around them, surrounding the two men. "That wasn't a request."

The taller enforcer let go of the girl, but he didn't look happy about it. "Look, I don't know who you are, so I'm gonna say you're new. Let me guess, you just joined the team? First time in costume? It's a rookie mistake, really, to rush in without knowing all the facts, so let me fill you in. This little bitch? She's a thief. We caught her shoplifting and we brought her back here to show her how things work. We're just doing our jobs here, so I strongly suggest that you get back to doing yours."

"You're job," she said softly. The girl was black and the two enforcers were white. "If you want to beat up black people for a living, the Empire Eighty-Eight is always hiring." Her swarm came closer and closer with every word. "But if you joined them, you'd have to face consequences, wouldn't you?"

"Hey! This isn't a racial thing."

"No," Myriad agreed. "It isn't. How long did you have to look for a job that gave you an excuse to hurt people for a living?" Taylor knew people like that. It wasn't about justice, the common good, or keeping order. It was about violence, about making yourself feel strong. And attached to that—attached to it like a leech—it was about making other people feel weak.

Why had she been so surprised to find Sophia Hess behind that mask? Where else would she have gone to hurt people without question besides the one group in the city that was beyond question?

"Woah, it's not like that, Miss," the shorter of the two enforcers said. He was a red-haired man with sideburns. "We keep things clean here. What we do might not be pretty, but this is the only part of the city where people can feel safe."

"Yeah!" the taller man said. "And if you don't like it, you can take it up with our manager."

Myriad ignored them and turned to the girl they had been hurting. She was pretty for her age, an early bloomer who had, for some reason, gone out of her way to dress as trashy as possible with cutoff shorts, fishnet stockings, and not a whole lot above the waist either. "What's your name?"

The girl hesitated. "Ai-Ashley."

"Tell me, Ashley. Do these men make you feel safe?"

"Hell no."

"That doesn't count!" the taller enforcer said. "She's a worthless—" He broke off in a coughing fit when a fly flew down his throat.

"Could you tell me in your own words what happened?" Myriad asked.

"Well, I was minding my own business, doing some window shopping, you know, when ... when these two creeps came up and started hitting on me. And I, well, I kind of told them that they looked like pigs and smelled like dogs, and they ought to just pick one motif and stick with it. That's ... that's when they grabbed a pair of sunglasses off the rack, held them up in the air, said real loud that I had stolen them, then dragged me back here."

"That's not what—"

Myriad raised her hand to silence him. "Do you have any proof to support your story?" she asked the enforcers. "Security camera footage, other witnesses, anything?" They hesitated and glanced at each other. "No? Well then, you said you brought her back here to show her how things are done. Let me show you how things are done. You're both under arrest."

"What? You can't arrest us just for doing our job!"

"If your job involves you commiting a crime, then yes I can. Even if this girl is guilty of shoplifting, she'd be charged with a slight misdemeanor and have to pay a fine. Assaulting a minor, however, is a serious offense."

"A fine?" the tall one spat. "A fine's not going to do a goddamn thing! You know what makes the Boardwalk different from the rest of this hellhole of a city? Us. Not you super freaks in spandex, but people like us willing to make the hard choices and get our hands dirty!"

Myriad stepped closer to him and her swarm, which had finally arrived and had pooled around her feet. "Is that what you recommend? Throw out due process and human rights, and just hurt people until they finally get the point?" A spider crawled across his face, and he swatted it away. "Because I can do that better than you could possibly imagine."

He stumbled backward, his bravado and self-righteous indignation crumbling beneath his feet. Then he ran. He didn't get far, though. The ground in front of him swelled up, sloping upward into an impassable wall, and he fell backward as Myriad's bugs swarmed him. She was glad Vista stepped in when she did. Myriad could handle two ordinary men by herself, but knowing that Vista was supporting her on this meant a lot.

Especially because she had no idea how to do the next part.

"Hey, Vista?" she said softly to her teammate. "Would you mind calling this in please?"

"Sure," she said, and she began dialling the police. Myriad knew that they needed to pass this on to the police, but she wasn't sure about the exact procedure.

She moved closer to the fallen enforcer who was writhing on the ground. "If you stop to focus," she said softly, "you'll notice that none of the thousand creatures under your shirt and up your pant legs are biting you. None at all. All of them can. Do not run."

The man's breathing slowed and he gingerly rose to his feet with an expression on his face that suggested that he had just lost several years of his life. The other enforcer, which Myriad began mentally referring to as the smart one, remained stock still the entire time.

"Thanks for backing me up," she said after moving back to Vista.

"No problem," she replied. "I just hope you know what you're doing."

Uh ... "Honestly, I'm just doing what feels right. I don't like bullies, not even ones wearing uniforms."

Vista nodded. "I get that. Piggot might not, but we'll deal with her later."

Right. Piggot. Her last—and only—conversation with the woman hadn't gone well. But like Vista said, later.

Ashley approached the two of them. She had wiped most of the blood off her face, but she still looked nervous. "Is something wrong?" Myriad asked.

"Uh, no, nothing's wrong. Hey, thanks for, you know, stepping in like that. I mean it. But, um, is it okay if I ... go now?"

Myriad cocked her head. "Now? It would mean a lot if you were here to give a statement to the police when they arrive."

"Yeah. I'd love to, I mean it, but my folks get really upset if I'm not home on time."

"On time," Myriad repeated. "It's not even seven yet."

"... They're paranoid. Also, I live in Empire territory, so, you know, maybe they're not that paranoid."

Myriad considered offering to walk the girl home, but she suspected that Ashley was more worried about talking to the police than racist gangsters. Maybe she wasn't very confident in the worth of her word against the word of two enforcers. Maybe she wasn't used to the law being on her side and she wasn't willing to take a leap of faith now. Or maybe the enforcers had been telling the truth and Ashley really had been shoplifting. Maybe Myriad had jumped into the situation and had sided with whoever she could identify with more easily instead of who was right. Maybe this whole thing had been a huge mistake.

"Well, travel safely." She had picked up enough evidence of Ashley's abuse from her fly cam, so the girl's actual presence here wasn't essential. Myriad looked down at the churro in her hand that she hadn't been able to use or get rid of, and realized that she had been holding on to it the entire time. Not exactly the image she had wanted to present. It was crushed slightly where she had been holding it, but other than that it was still good. She offered it to the girl. "Before you leave, would you like a churro?"

WWW

Director Piggot had been waiting to see them by the time their patrol was over, and she was not happy. She demanded to know what in God's name they had been thinking while refusing to accept any answer other than that they had not been thinking at all. She went on to suggest in a tone of irony that they might as well go after the police for kidnapping everyone they put in jail.

Myriad tried to explain that the enforcers had been acting in clear violation of their authority, which was not difficult because as a private security force instead of licensed law enforcement, they didn't have any authority to violate.

Vista, meanwhile, stepped on her foot and broke into a fit of coughing that sounded like, "shut-up."

Ultimately, they were punished with a modified patrol schedule. Neither of them would be allowed to patrol the Boardwalk area for the foreseeable future, which Myriad didn't mind, or patrol together, which she did mind. They were also required to write formal apologies to the two enforcers they had arrested, explaining that they were wrong, stupid, foolish, and sorry for the inconveniences had caused for the two men as well as for the city as a whole, and then sign them.

It would be Myriad's first time giving anyone her autograph as a cape.

"I shouldn't have dragged you into that," Myriad said as they got into the elevator. "I'm sorry you got in trouble."

Vista was about to press the button to send them down when she stopped and turned to her. "No."

"What?"

"No. Stop. You are not responsible for me. If anything, I'm responsible for you. I've been here longer. I didn't 'go along with you,' I agreed with you. If I were on my own, would I have done the same thing you did? No, not really. I think I would have broken things up without calling the police, but then I would have wished I did. You did what you thought was right, I did what I thought was right, and heck, even Piggot did what she thought was right, so we're all right people running around in circles doing the right things."

Myriad let out a breath. Honestly she was more worried that Vista might blame her than she was about any punishment that the director might give them. "Is she always in such a bad mood?"

"Oh no, that was her in a good mood," Vista said, pressing the button to their headquarters.

"Really?"

"Yeah. She's always cheerful when she gets to throw the book at us. Gallant checked."

Ugh. Sadism was the worst trait for an authority figure. "What's her problem?"

Vista shrugged. "Maybe she just hates kids. Or capes. Or both. Gallant says that she's just more worried about capes abusing their powers than people without powers abusing their powers. You know, because they don't have any."

"But that ... that's dumb. You don't need that much power to abuse it. Piggot is more powerful than any cape in the city just because of her position." And the only cape Myriad knew who abused her power was Shadow Stalker, which Piggot ignored because she only did it as Sophia.

"Yeah, well, the whole PRT is designed to keep capes in check, even though the only capes they have any authority over is us heroes. You're just lucky you joined after that bank robbery a couple weeks ago."

The elevator door opened to the Wards HQ, and the two of them stepped out. "I keep on hearing about that. Kid Win got put on probation because of what went down, didn't he?"

"Yeah, he got the worst of it, but it sucked for everyone. We all got our pay docked to pay for the collateral damage we caused—and by we I mean Glory Girl who isn't on the team and doesn't get paid anyway. So I'm pretty much working for free until ... what year is it again?"

Myriad remembered Lisa telling her how heroes never made any money. "I'm sorry to hear that." Her apology sounded trite. Most apologies were, in her experience.

Vista shrugged it off. "It doesn't matter. I didn't join the team for the money."

"Then why did you?"

Vista stopped and looked up at her. "Do you want the whole story?"

Myriad hesitated, realizing how personal a question she had just asked. On the other hand, she had never been good at making small talk. And, more and more, she needed a reason to stay. "I do, if you don't mind telling me."

"Okay." She took a deep breath. "This ... this might take a while."

They reached Vista's room, and the girl led Myriad inside. Myriad had seen a few of the Wards' rooms, and they had all seemed utilitarian. Each one came with a bed and a nightstand, and the rest was up to whomever the room was assigned to. Gallant had a stand to place and recharge his armor. Kid Win's room was cluttered with bits and pieces of half-finished inventions. Myriad's room was even more austere, and used it only for a place to store her stuff while she was out in costume.

Vista's room, though, was different. It wasn't just a room she was assigned to. It was a room she lived in. Vista kicked a discarded pair of socks under her unmade bed, then picked a miniature couch off the nightstand and expanded it with her power until it was large enough to sit on. Pictures covered the walls, hundreds of them, of Vista and the rest of the Wards, both in and out of costume, smiling, having fun, or just being silly, a photo album on perpetual display.

Vista sat on her bed and took off her visor, and Myriad sat on the couch. "First of all," she said, taking a deep breath, "are your parents still together?"

Taylor shook her head. "My mom died about ... three years ago. Car accident."

Vista nodded. "Mine got divorced. I know that sort of thing happens to like half the kids in the country, but it was hard for me. Before that, I knew that no matter how bad things got at school or wherever, I could always leave it all behind when I went home, and even when my parents fought, I knew that they loved me more than anything." She rolled her eyes at her own naivete. "You know. Stupid kid stuff.

"Then they separated. My mom stayed where she was and my dad found a nice apartment downtown, and every one or two weeks I would pack my bags and go from one house to the other. It was ... inconvenient, but it was something I could deal with.

"They both started acting really nice to me afterwards. They used to both be really frugal and overprotective, but after the divorce they just let loose. Did I want my bedroom a different color? Sure! It was my room anyway, and painting it would be a fun bonding experience with Mom. Did I want to go to a concert? It was a school night, but my grades were fine anyway. That R rated movie I wanted to see? My dad wanted to see it too, and a little brief nudity was nothing a ten-year-old girl couldn't handle.

"I didn't mind it at first, not compared to everything else. Having a full wardrobe at each house meant that I didn't need to pack as much before trips, and at the time I thought that they were trying to make it up to me for getting me caught up with their issues. That was before I realized what they were doing. They were both trying to be my favorite parent, not because they loved me, but because they hated each other. Nothing would hurt my dad more than losing me, and nothing would hurt my mom more than seeing me choose my dad over her. My parents became enemies, my home became a battlefield, and me?" Her face twisted in disgust. "I became the weapon of choice.

"For a while I tried to be the mediator, to not play favorites, and let my parents know that I loved them both the same, but it sucked because whenever I complained about one to the other, they'd encourage me and tell me how the other parent never really loved me in the first place and the divorce was all their fault and that we were better off without them, and when I complained about my mom to my mom or my dad to my dad, they'd get so defensive and remind me that it was always my dad who was never at home or how it was always my mom who was always on our case to look good for the neighbors. I had two houses but no home, two parents but no adults, and I needed one solid thing in my life and it could not be me.

"Then I triggered. It must have happened in my sleep or something, because one morning I just had powers. After months of feeling like I was stretched between opposite ends of the city, I could stretch anything I saw. I joined the Wards because I needed to get away from home, and I met the team. Gallant was the absolute best and really helped me open up about what I was going through, which was what I needed then. Triumph was the team leader at the time, and when he saw what I could do he pushed to let me go out on patrol instead of shut me away to console duty and PR events, which was a huge risk on his part because at the time I had all the survival instinct of a lemming.

"Pretty soon I had friends, responsibilities, and structure here. The Wards might not be for everyone, but it was exactly what I needed. Even when Triumph graduated into the Protectorate, not much changed. The team was always there when I needed them, not just out fighting crime, but everywhere. I guess ... I guess the reason I'm on the team is because they are my time, the only one I have right now. And I wouldn't have it any other way."

Taylor watched her in silence for a moment, and her gaze drifted up to the pictures on the wall. They were all team pictures, but in a way, they were family pictures, too. She envied that. "Gallant said that you haven't ... come out to your parents yet." Was that the right term for it?

"I haven't."

"Where do they think you are all the time?"

"Well, right now my mom thinks I'm at my dad's house, and my dad thinks I'm at my mom's house. I visit them every now and then, and if they ever had a civil conversation with each other for two minutes they'd know something was up, but ..." She shrugged. "I've been doing this for two years now and they haven't noticed."

That ... that was messed up, but Taylor could relate in her own way. After her mom died, her dad had shut down for a while and she would sometimes spend several days at a time at ... at Emma's place, because even if it wasn't her home, it was at least a home. Her dad had been empty for so long afterwards that seeing him while knowing what he used to be like hurt.

It took courage for Vista to talk about that, courage to share her weakest moments. Not the sort of courage to get into cape fights with super villains, but something ... deeper. Something that Taylor needed right now.

She took off her mask and blinked owlishly at Vista until she put on her glasses. "Do you still want to know what my deal is with Sophia?"

Vista's eyes widened. "Sure. I mean, if you want to talk about it."

Taylor took a deep breath. "I first met her about a year and a half ago, right before I started high school ..."

WWW

A/n So I thought up Vista's trigger event several chapters ago, figuring that it had something to do with her parents' divorce. After I wrote this chapter, I found out that Ward actually goes into it in a lot of detail. The canon version isn't that different, but it does have more dogs in it. I'll try to be canon compliant in this story, but I've only read Worm.