Differentiation 3.9
April 13th, 2011
I was genuinely shaken for possibly the first time in my entire career as a Cape. Even when my life had been at risk during my fight with Lung, the solution had been fairly straightforward. Physically injure him until he stopped moving, and failing that, pump sedatives into him.
Bakuda, on the other hand, was actively creating some kind of extremely fucked up mass-hostage situation. For all that I knew, she could have already implanted bombs inside of hundreds of people within Brockton Bay by now. Maybe even some of its Capes, if she had been aggressive enough in her strategy.
She had been allowed far too much time to develop and consolidate her position. Even worse, now that she knew someone was onto her, Bakuda would most likely begin to speed up her plans. Hopefully the acid I had sprayed onto her mask melted through it, although I didn't have high hopes of that, considering that her entire costume appeared to be Tinker-made.
The possibility of the disease I had contaminated her gang members with spreading to Bakuda through skin contact existed as well, but considering that she had somehow managed to make or acquire power armor despite her bomb specialty, she could most likely also make a sterilization or healing bomb, or pull some other bullshit Tinker-related trick out of her ass to completely negate any sort of pathogen I could develop.
Before my recent interaction with Bakuda, I had hoped that she would be a sane successor to Lung. I wanted to buy some bombs from her, even! But no, she had to instantly start committing Birdcage-worthy crimes the second she came to the Bay. She was going to be such a pain to deal with, especially if I wanted to avoid the death of any innocent people.
I couldn't do it alone. I wanted to go to the Protectorate and inform them about Bakuda's activities, but I knew that they would have an obligation to act on any information that I gave them. If I told the Protectorate, the fate of Bakuda's victims would be out of my hands. It was entirely possible that the PRT could decide that Bakuda was enough of a threat to risk the collateral damage, especially if she planned to start making larger and more destructive bombs. As much as I wanted to have faith that the PRT would do the right thing, they were ultimately an organization based on the military. Civilian casualties were a fact of life.
There had to be a better way -- a path that didn't leave Bakuda's victims at the mercy of an unfeeling bureaucracy.
I didn't really have any good options about who to tell, and I only had a few hours left before my Dad would get home.
I would have to make a deal with the devil in order to stop Bakuda.
There wasn't any good alternative. With great reluctance, I reformed the biomass surrounding the proxy until it began to resemble a cross between Madison and I (having my stature but with Madison's face, hair, and other features, for the most part), then climbed out of the Womb and made my way to my bedroom.
I booted my PC up, opened up PHO, and looked through my friend requests until I found a profile likely to belong to who I was looking for. As soon as I added the account, about a half-dozen messages popped up in my inbox. I frowned as I read through them, a bit surprised at the effort the girl had gone through to get my attention. Once I had finished reading the last of the messages, I ignored them all and began to type a message of my own.
-
♦ Private Messages from AllSeeingEye:
Placenta (Verified Cape): We need to talk in person. It's an emergency. How soon can you meet?
AllSeeingEye: So you ignore me for an entire week, but when the tables are turned, you expect me to drop everything and respond right away?
AllSeeingEye: Whatever. Are you going to let me bring the rest of my team with me, at least?
Placenta (Verified Cape): The less people who are in the know, the better. You'll see why.
AllSeeingEye: That's not very reassuring. We could meet up at the Boat Graveyard, but what's stopping you from selling us out?
Placenta (Verified Cape): We have a common enemy here, bad enough that I'm willing to temporarily overlook the fact that you're villains. I give you my word that I won't try to pull anything. I don't need to resort to cheap tricks to take down your team either way, though. I could deal with you all without the need for betrayal or subterfuge.
AllSeeingEye: Alright, I get it. Enough posturing. We can meet up, sure, but you better be arranging all of this for a very good reason. Truce rules. Meet you at the Boat Graveyard in 15min?
Placenta (Verified Cape): Okay.
-
Talking to Tattletale was stressful, even over text. Any slip up – no matter how minor – on my part resulted in her figuring out things which I'd much rather she didn't know. That being said, I was willing to pay that price if it meant figuring out a solution to the Bakuda Problem.
And, of course, she knew an acceptable meeting place before I had even suggested anything. I cut the conversation short early to avoid giving the troublesome Thinker any more tidbits of information. I had designed my proxy to have a similar height to myself specifically because I didn't want to bother waiting to fabricate new clothes within the Womb; even if the process didn't take that long, I'd rather just throw some clothes from my dresser on and get moving than waste time making new clothes.
People's lives were on the line – I would have plenty of time to play dress-up once Bakuda was handled, or after I had a semblance of a plan to deal with her, at the very least. I wore a dark colored hoodie and matching sweatpants, as was tradition for me.
I exited the house and started running towards the Boat Graveyard at a steady pace. Nobody paid me any mind as I headed southeast, not stopping until I had reached the place where I had originally encountered the Undersiders.
Only two of the Undersiders were present this time, as far as I was able to tell. Just Grue and Tattletale, alongside one of Bitch's monsters. They might have seemed like a weak set of opponents, but I was willing to bet that Tattletale had set something up in order to stop me from ambushing them outright.
"Hi," I began lamely, "Thanks for actually showing up."
"I didn't expect that you would actually respond to us, so I was a bit surprised when you messaged me out of the blue. I'm glad you did, though – I'm dying to know what made you decide to reach out to us despite your little hero charade," Tattletale said.
She managed to insult me without giving me any valid reason to be upset about it. If I contested any of her statements, it would just highlight my own insecurities and give her more ammunition to work with. I had to accept her slight, because every alternative available to me was worse.
Tattletale was a social Thinker, then. Even worse than a normal Thinker. It was as if this city had been specifically designed to annoy me and slow my progress down. Thinkers weren't all that common, and Tattletale either had a natural quick wit, a close connection to her power, or an unusually expansive and generalistic power. I didn't like any of those possibilities.
"Are you actually going to give me answers about this, once I tell you what's going on? You know, innocent people's lives are at risk here. I need you to work with me," I demanded.
I couldn't help but worry about Tattletale's intentions. She was positioned well to double-cross me, and although I could probably take her down with me, her powers gave her an inherent advantage over me. I wished that I could just subdue her and get a proper look at her Shard connection, but that would be immoral. Bakuda came first; I could figure out her powers later.
"Yeah, probably," Tattletale responded, "It would help if you weren't being intentionally vague, but I get it. You want to make us some kind of offer we can't refuse. I'll make you a counter-offer. I know who you are, Taylor Hebert. Don't freak out, I haven't told anyone. If you try to kill or clone me, or any other weird, fucked-up bio-striker stuff, I do have counter-measures prepared, so don't bother."
Ugh. It was a bit unbelievable how easily my identity had been compromised – I hadn't even done anything to draw all of this scrutiny! Some part of me wished that I had been given a simpler power; something without all of these moral implications and factions vying for control or influence over me.
Above all else, I just wanted to become powerful enough to be left alone. I wanted time to experiment with my powers, but everybody had their own ideas for my future. I had no choice but to compromise, yet people kept trying to push me in specific directions which would benefit them the most.
It was frustrating.
Of course, the option to sit back and do nothing was always available to me, but doing so would come at the cost of innocent lives. Bakuda's victims hadn't all chosen to be inducted into her gang, and it was wrong to let them succumb to her machinations. That thought was the main thing restraining me as I thought of an appropriate response for Tattletale and Grue.
"This wasn't what we agreed on. If you want to go there, Lisa, then Taylor deserves to know who we are. It's fucked up that you outed her in the first place, even if you're scared of her powers," Grue interjected before I could formulate a response.
Grue seemed upset. Presumably, he had told me Tattletale's name in response to her exposure of my identity. Why was he sticking up for me? It was perfectly reasonable for Tattletale to use my civilian identity against me in this situation, even if it greatly upset me for her to do so.
"You don't get it. Taylor doesn't get it. None of you seem to realize what's going on here. Yeah, I'm sure whatever you called me here for is serious, Taylor, but you're all missing the forest for the trees. Taylor, you have no clue about the extent of your abilities. Brian, I don't volunteer secrets like this unless I have a very good reason to," Tattletale said.
Lisa and Brian. That didn't narrow down their actual identities much for me, and I wasn't inclined to go searching for more information. Still… they already knew my civilian identity. As problematic as that fact was, I wasn't able to do much about it at the moment.
"You've been hiding things. If you've got such a good reason to give up some of your secrets, then go ahead; don't let me stop you," Grue said, clearly upset.
"I've been keeping you safe. There's only so much I can tell either of you without putting you at risk. Taylor, you're being played. Someone wants you to do their dirty work, and you're blindly going along with it."
Who was she talking about? Alexandria? Even if she wanted me to deal with criminals where the Protectorate wasn't able to, I didn't have much of a problem with that. I didn't understand why she would bring something like that up; a social Thinker should have been able to find better ammunition to rattle me with.
I had come into this conversation assuming that Tattletale would quickly find all of my deepest, darkest secrets. That had not been the case. Sure, she knew more than she had any right to know, but it wasn't like she was ripping every last thought out of my mind.
As an afterthought, I adjusted my proxy to mute any facial expressions or physical reactions that could serve as cues for Tattletale. If her grasp of the situation wasn't absolute, then I could gain an advantage by denying her information.
"Lisa…" Grue warned.
"No, she needs to hear this. Maybe you need to hear this, too, Brian. You're walking into a trap, Taylor. Whatever choice or wiggle room you think you have? It doesn't exist. You don't have an easy way out of this, and I'm sorry that I can't tell you more, but it's better that you know the odds you're facing than to let you keep walking around cluelessly," Tattletale said.
"Can we not talk about this right now?" I grimaced.
"You really don't want to know more?" Tattletale questioned me.
"I do. But there's a more urgent problem. You guys have been pretty open with me so far, so I'll be open with you. I ran into Bakuda the other day, and I learned a little bit about what she's been up to. I need your help to figure out how bad the situation is," I told the pair.
"You fought her?" Tattletale asked, although the question didn't seem directed wholly at me.
"I was disguised. I found out she has some kind of lab in the north-east end of the city, and she's been putting bombs inside of people's heads," I told them.
There wasn't an easy way to say it. Hopefully, Tattletale would have a few answers.
Tattletale and Grue proceeded to grill me about the specifics of my encounter with Bakuda. Both of them were alarmed about the situation, of course, and the more details I provided Tattletale about my interaction with the bomb Tinker, the more confident she became in her conclusion.
"To summarize," Tattletale began, "Bakuda has approximately sixty-four bombs implanted by now. Ordinary people, not anyone important. No mega-bombs yet, most likely. She's got some kind of remote activation system set up; disrupting the signal she uses to activate her bombs is probably our best bet, if we can figure out how she's transmitting. What the Undersiders can do is limited – we've been hired for something else, but I don't want Bakuda to set those bombs off any more than you do. I need to do some further research tonight. If you could find out the location of the ABB's safe-houses for me, that'd be a big help. Any questions?"
"Nope. I think that's all the information I have for you right now; I'll let you know if I find out anything else," I replied.
"Well then. We're out of time. Let's talk tomorrow. Bakuda won't pull off anything major between now and then, most likely. Sorry about, you know, using your identity against you. I hope you understand why I did it," Tattletale said regretfully.
"If you tell anyone, I'll kill you," I assured her.
"I know," Tattletale frowned, "It's mutually assured destruction. We can talk about it more once Bakuda is gone. You can bring news about Bakuda to the Protectorate, but not yet. I need to check a few things out first."
"Okay, I won't. Thanks for helping me."
"Don't mention it," Grue replied.
The two of them said their goodbyes to me, then departed on the back of Bitch's monster, which had shrunk a decent amount over the course of the conversation. Maybe that was a weakness of hers – time limited minions?
I had more important things to worry about. Meeting with a villain group like the Undersiders could potentially ruin my reputation, and even give Alexandria and the Protectorate ammunition to work with in their goal to get me into the Wards.
Sixty-four people's lives hung in the balance, though. If I wanted to claim to be a hero – not to the world, but to myself – then I needed to step up in situations like this. Right now, I still had an intel advantage on Bakuda, and hopefully Tattletale would strengthen that advantage every day.
I was paying a heavy price for it, but I could make up for that later.
I directed my proxy to submerge itself within the Bay, entering my Womb via its secondary entrance. It had been growing well; I had steadily dissolved pockets of granite where it was not structurally necessary in order to give me more space to centralize organs. I was more focused on consolidating my current position than expanding out much further, at least for the moment.
I left my proxy in the Womb in order to give it a bit of time to rest. It wasn't that my proxy needed sleep, but after keeping it active for a long while, it was always a good idea to hook it up to the Womb and let it adapt to the new data that it had collected.
The proxy was ultimately a biological creation, and I couldn't simply get past its need to process data by shunting that data off to the Womb's brain while keeping it active and disconnected. Transmitting all of that information was inefficient and energy intensive, and it wasn't feasible to adapt the proxy's core much outside of the Womb. Plugging the proxy into the Womb allowed a much more direct and efficient form of data transfer, similar to the logic behind my consciousness transfer.
The more I used the proxy, the more strange quirks and limitations like this I picked up on. Sometimes I thought of it as a second power, although it had not been directly copied nor taken from anyone or anywhere. It simply came into being.
These were the kinds of questions that Tattletale could answer, but this was also the kind of information that Tattletale could destroy me with. No, I needed to investigate the limits of my power on my own.
All of that could wait, at least for a few hours.
-
When my actual body awoke, I felt tired. The day's events were beginning to catch up to me, but I didn't have anything stressful planned for the rest of the afternoon, thankfully.
I dressed myself in a slightly nicer set of clothes than usual – a long skirt instead of sweatpants, and a sweatshirt that hid my figure a bit less than my typical hoodies. I didn't want to make a bad impression on Vista's Mom.
My Dad came home soon after I finished dressing myself, and he seemed to approve of my decision to dress a bit more formally than usual. He wasn't dressed in anything special himself – just a polo shirt, a belt, and a pair of jeans – but his outfit certainly didn't look sloppy.
We didn't have to wait at the house for long, as the time of the meeting with Vista and her mom quickly approached.
The drive to the north end of the Boardwalk was quite short, and my Dad and I entered the arcade together right on time. I felt a bit anxious and excited at the prospect of exposing my civilian identity to Vista, but it was too late to back out now, even if I wanted to. My excitement was slightly dulled as I thought about Tattletale's revelation about my own identity, and her claim that I was being manipulated.
I'd have time to think about that later. For now, I needed to focus. It was difficult to stop my thoughts from wandering, especially as I had forbidden myself from altering my emotions for the evening. I was becoming a bit too reliant on my ability to mute my emotional responses, and I had no reason to do so in my civilian identity.
This wasn't Winslow. It had been actual years since the last time I had just… met a friend and hung out. I wasn't quite sure what to expect.
My Dad and I scanned the crowd. I told him what 'Vi' looked like: blonde, short, and pale. That could describe a lot of people, but I had already seen Vista's biology. If I was truly stumped in my search for her, I could try visualizing the blueprint, but I valued Vista's privacy enough to not immediately resort to that option.
It didn't take long for a pair of figures to distinguish themselves, thankfully.
"Ms. Biron, is that you?" My Dad exclaimed.
"Danny? Why, it's been quite a while!" The woman, presumably Ms. Biron, responded in a smooth tone.
Ms. Biron was tall, blonde, and intimidatingly attractive. Looking closer, I began to notice slight similarities to Vista. It was difficult to believe that my petite friend would have the potential to have so much of a growth spurt, but it made sense upon further reflection. When I was Vista's age, I was maybe four inches shorter than I was now, at least, and I wasn't completely done growing yet. Maybe she was just a late bloomer.
When I looked at the girl standing at Ms. Biron's side, I was able to identify her as Vista immediately: she shared her mother's emerald-green eyes, and it felt like fitting a final puzzle piece into place as I looked at the two of their faces side-by-side.
"Yes, it has. It's been months – have you been doing well? I've had my hands full recently with work. Things actually aren't too bad for the Dockworkers right now," My Dad replied.
"That's great! I'm not too bad. Hanging in there, you know? You've got one of your goals accomplished – are you going to try and get Mayor Christner to re-open the ferry crossing next?" Ms. Biron asked.
Vista looked surprised that our parents actually knew one another, and I couldn't help but feel shocked too. My Dad had plenty of connections – it was part of his job to represent the Dockworkers, after all – but I never pictured him as a 'high society' type.
My Dad frowned, "I doubt I'll have any luck. There's no money for it, or so he says. You've heard him and I have this conversation half a dozen times – I'd rather not repeat myself, I'd have to say things unfit for polite company. That reminds me – what brought you here today? My daughter Taylor asked me to come along to meet a friend, and I couldn't help but agree."
"I'm in a similar situation," Ms. Biron smiled, "Maybe our daughters are here to meet up with one another? I heard something about a Cape event the other night, if that rings any bells."
"Taylor mentioned that too; it's a small world. Well, kiddos, knock yourselves out. I'll be with Ms. Biron over there if you two need anything."
My Dad pulled out his wallet and handed both of us five dollars, but Vista's mom followed it up by giving her twenty bucks and telling her to split the tokens with me. I couldn't tell if she was trying to one-up my Dad for some reason, or if she was just so wealthy that blowing twenty bucks at the arcade wasn't a problem. I knew my Dad budgeted everything, so it meant a lot that he had brought me here and given me funds at all. Vista's mom had trivialized that on some level, even if she was just being generous.
Vista and I left our parents to chat – I already got enough of Dad's work talk at home, I didn't need any more of it during my time with my friend. Once we were out of their sight, Vista turned to face me.
"Um, I'm Missy. It's nice to meet you."
"Hi Missy," I responded, and reached out to shake her hand, "I'm Taylor."
I had overheard her name before, but this felt like a much more proper introduction. I followed Missy as she went to exchange our cash for tokens, and we both ended up with quite a few of them.
"It's been years since I last came here," I said, my voice tinged with nostalgia, "I used to come to the arcade pretty often, a few years ago."
"So you're rusty?" Missy prodded.
"We'll see," I told her, "What do you want to do first?"
A slightly vicious expression crossed her face, and I began to get nervous, made worse by how quickly she responded.
"Air hockey!"
No, she wouldn't dare. Just to make sure, I gave her a warning.
"No cheating. Got it?"
She smirked, "I would never."
-
I lost to her twice before I began calling her out. Her power seemed to give her an advantage with positioning objects, and if that wasn't bad enough, she was actively warping the table! I couldn't exploit any vulnerability in her defenses if she closed the gap without having to move an inch. It was a rather banal use of her powers, but if she wanted to show off, she was accomplishing it.
She sent the puck darting across the table, and I desperately tried to slow it down. I spent as much time trying not to accidentally send the puck into my own goal (which had already happened a few times during previous games) as I did trying to attack Vista's goal.
I finally got control of the puck and shot it at the perfect angle to score my first point of any of the games so far.
Then, without moving, the puck slammed into the edge of the table, sped up as it rebounded, nearly quicker than I could react. I pushed myself to my limits as I nearly flung myself over the table, setting up a desperate defense and regaining control of the puck.
Except that's not what happened. The puck curved around my hand and continued in a straight line towards the goal. The game was over, ten to zero, again. I was getting a bit frustrated.
"What's wrong, Taylor? Losing to a little girl?" Missy gloated.
"No more air hockey. And I didn't lose to a little girl – I lost to a dirty cheater," I chided her.
"Yeah, yeah, if that makes you feel better about losing, then sure," Missy replied.
"Do you have no shame?" I pleaded.
"I'm teaching you a lesson. You're strong, but you need to think smart. Maybe if you lose to me enough times, you'll figure out a way to keep up."
Missy was cocky, but I couldn't hold it against her. It was a bit inspiring to see the level of creativity and control she had over her powers, even if I was on the receiving end of their effects.
We ended up playing a few other games, and Missy shamelessly used her powers to win in all of them. I got tired of listening to her gloat, and challenged her to a game she couldn't cheat at – one on an arcade machine.
She may have had faster reflexes than me, but I had more experience with these kinds of games. I won a string of victories and made her eat her words. It was a lot of fun, to be honest. She had a competitive spirit that encouraged me to let loose a bit more than I otherwise would.
My Dad called us over to inform us that he'd bought some pizza that the arcade offered. It smelled a bit like cardboard and didn't taste good, but I happily ate with my Dad and the Birons.
I hadn't gotten the chance to ask her about Bakuda, but she had nonetheless given me needed advice. I had quietly offered to patrol with her tomorrow afternoon with Kid Win, and she promised to ask Director Piggot if it was possible. A lot of my plans relied on getting her assistance, but I didn't want to ruin this moment by badgering her about Bakuda or the Empire, even if it was tempting.
We exchanged phone numbers before my Dad and I left, and I promised to see her again soon. My time with Missy had been… nice. Nothing unexpected happened, nobody unpleasant showed up; I simply had a moment to be myself.
I enjoyed it, for I knew that it wouldn't last.
-
A/N 2: This feels like a natural ending point to arc 3! What do you think?
If I end it here, what interludes are you guys the most interested in seeing?
There's no canon basis for Danny to know Ms. Biron, but I like the idea.
The Birons are wealthy, they live in the Towers I think, and Vista knows Triumph well enough to consider him a mentor. I think it makes sense that her family would be ingrained with the 'old money' of the Bay, the kind who attend balls and events by the Mayor. Danny also strikes me as the sort of guy to manage to get into those events, but mainly to badger the Mayor about infrastructure.
On an unrelated note, does anyone know any good fics/WoGs that flesh out the Boston and NY Wards/hero teams? They'll probably show up in the next few arcs, and canon is pretty sparse except for Legend's team and a few outliers.
Regardless, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Thanks for reading, leave your thoughts below!