Sunday had been… pretty quiet. I'd spent the day at my mother's grave sitting crosslegged on the grass letting the April sun warm me a little, looking at the empty plot next to her. It's not like there was a body left to inter, anyway, and I'd have to pick some kind of cenotaph for him sometime. Right now, the city was enough of a mess that waiting seemed appropriate.
Less than a week ago now, I had set out to be a hero. To take all the misery, all the bullying, and make it worthwhile… somehow. I'd thought nothing could be worse than what I faced at school. I'd been wrong.
Badly wrong.
Yesterday morning, I'd thought I'd join the Wards today. Now, I wasn't sure if they would take me. Or even if they should. I'd killed Bakuda, deliberately. Partly in simple revenge for my father, partly in an effort to keep the ABB from using what she'd already created.
That part had succeeded beyond my wildest dreams… and nightmares. She'd had a deadman switch on her, and countdowns for bombs all over the city had been set in motion with her death.
I still didn't know the magnitude of what I'd set in motion.
News reports were fragmentary, but the radio this morning said there were over 700 confirmed deaths from all causes over the past few days, with many more in critical condition or missing, and the total expected to rise substantially over the days ahead. The major highway interchange was in pieces, and multiple power substations had been bombed in Bakuda's attempt to distract from Oni Lee's breakout attempt. One of her big bombs had blown a dam about forty-five minutes upstate, and she'd done something fancy with the timing of when the turbines had gone up that had caused a cascading power failure throughout the state and into parts of the neighbouring ones. Another one had pretty much leveled City Hall.
It could have been so very much worse: in the hours before dawn on a Saturday morning, most of the targets she'd chosen — presumably for maximum casualties and chaos — were as deserted as they'd get. Even the loss of power was well-timed: it was out for most of the weekend, and most people just stayed home and ate their pantry down a little.
Some of the misses were still nightmarish.
There was a playground in Harbour Park that was now apparently encapsulated in a bubble of frozen time. The effect hadn't caught anything but the squirrels and a family's cat, and local kids were already making a game of trying to throw stones into it... but it was clearly planned to be an act of startling cruelty.
And not all of her bombs had missed. Studio, the most popular nightclub on the Boardwalk, had been pretty packed when Bakuda's attempt at 'improving' a disco ball had gone off. Almost everyone had gotten out alive, but most were blind and it looked like the survivors would all be deaf. Similarly, a number of houses in neighbourhoods throughout the E88 part of the city had gone up in flames (or in one memorable case, ice) with lethal results for the families sleeping within.
The aftermath had gone about as well as one could hope.
Some had gone out to loot, but a rapid Protectorate response was credited with dispersing small crowds before things got out of control. A lot of people had broken out the candles and some of those had started fires, but the Bay's Fire Departments had done very well indeed. I think they'd only actually lost people to Bakuda's take on a firebomb, and they weren't really equipped to deal with normal napalm anyway.
Power was already back pretty much everywhere, with a few exceptions, and even those were expected to be replaced by the end of the week.
The world had had a lot of experience in disaster recovery, since Behemoth appeared, and this could be taken in stride.
Mostly.
Information was scarce enough about what the government was doing: I didn't begin to know what was going on in ABB territory, or whether Lung and Oni Lee were still at war with E88, what the lesser gangs were up to… that kind of information would take legwork. I could do that. I'd done it before, to find Bakuda, and I could do it again now. The problem…
The problem was that I wasn't sure about what I wanted to do.
The last time I left this cemetery, I'd gone forth with the idea of cleaning up all the gangs in Brockton Bay. To try and keep others from losing their fathers, and to make that change a monument for my own. The fact that the ABB was so badly hurt was proof that I could break the gangs. My mistake had been my failure to anticipate Bakuda. I hadn't known enough when I acted, and it had cost people their lives.
So. I needed more information.
I could get that.
What else did I need? Right now, I had the Protectorate and Lung both looking for me, and both of them knew enough to look for me out of costume. I'd evaded them so far, but I couldn't count on that luck lasting forever.
I laughed, bitterly.
My luck over the last few years had been terrible. No — no relying on luck. I'd make my luck instead.
I hadn't even noticed myself standing. I'd set my own affairs in order, and then… and then we'd see. Today, I hadn't helped with the search and rescue… because I wasn't sure where I'd end up after I was found, but I was sure it would start with custody — protective or otherwise. That was the first thing to fix.
I produced my phone, inserted the battery, and made a call.
Two rings later, precisely, someone picked up.
"Ms. Hebert — or do you prefer Skitter?"
Someone who knew my name. Were they watching me? Was he a Thinker with some kind of power over numbers, including phone numbers? Had he traced my call somehow, in seconds?
Or had I simply dialed a phone number given only to me?
"The Number Man?"
"Yes."
"Ah… Skitter, I suppose. I have some cash I would like to deposit."
"Quantity?"
"Ah… about a duffel-bag full?"
"Trusting."
Something in his clipped disapproval rubbed me the wrong way.
"If I can't trust you, I shouldn't deposit anything. If I can…"
A pause.
"Interesting. Place the bag behind the Dockside Marriott at 9 p.m. — we'll arrange pickup." With that, he cut the connection. I removed the battery, and headed off at a steady walk to retrieve the caches I'd made only three days before. And to get a duffel bag.
···---···
I had tried to count the money while packing it away, just in case, but there were well over ten thousand bills involved — and I was only confident of that because I figured out how many inches a stack of a hundred bills was, and then counted inches. I had no idea how much money I had, but I did know how many pounds of money I had: about 40.
I left the bag where and when I'd been instructed, tagged it, and settled down on a distant bench. I gathered swarms back where the bag was — just in case.
At least if the Number Man took it, I'd still have the lunchbox emergency fund.
Not a minute later, the bag lifted and moved. I looked through one of the denser swarms, positioned on a nearby rooftop, and saw a sharply dressed woman lift the bag and carry it around the corner. I attempted to shift my viewpoint to the swarm with an angle into that alley and had a brief moment of double vision before it resolved into a clear view of a completely empty alley.
Huh. Well, that probably wasn't a random thief.
A quick phone call confirmed that he'd received the funds.
"Now that I have some funds on deposit… can you recommend a good lawyer?"
···---···
Monday morning found me in an enormous conference room, looking at the box of pastries and the pitcher of icewater, my back to floor to ceiling windows with a magnificent view of both the skyline and the bay itself. I felt terribly out of place in my hooded sweatshirt, windbreaker, and jeans… but that's where my appointment had directed me.
I'd spread out my awareness almost instinctively while I waited, though this high up I could feel the way my range was smaller at ground level. I'd been playing around with sensing people, testing my fine control by using individual insects, and it turned out the mosquitos provided a sense of where people were in the area, and a sense... of flavor, I guess you'd call it. The ability to see and hear through my insects had been tremendously useful, if unreliable — I still couldn't tell if the headaches which occasionally accompanied my efforts were from the concussion, or whether I was doing it wrong somehow — but I was pretty sure that I didn't want to learn how to smell through my swarms, so I stopped trying. There were other games to play, like sending an insect out of my range with instructions to return. Pretty pointless, but fun — like throwing a tennis ball against a wall, blindfolded. The time passed quietly, and after about half an hour the conference room door opened.
In walked a man in a perfectly tailored suit, right down to the burgandy pocket square that matched his double-Windsor silk tie. His face in profile looked tailored too: Hollywood good looks, smooth and symmetrical enough that it looked fake. The scar on the other side of his face didn't so much break the symmetry as explain it: a good surgeon could fix most things. Whatever left that was apparently beyond merely human skill.
"Skitter?" he asked. He had a nice smile: professional, but warm enough that it felt like he really meant it.
"Yes."
"Quinn Calle. What can I do for you? I have to say, while it's not unusual to get a referral, it is unusual for a parahuman with a profile as low as yours to need the kind of services we provide."
I shrugged. "I'd rather not have the Protectorate looking for me."
He nodded. "Entirely reasonable. Why don't you tell me about why they are looking for you, and we'll see what I can do. It will, of course, be completely confidential."
I laid out the events leading up to my father's death and my departure from custody. I had to give him credit, he didn't even bat an eye, nor did his easy smile so much as waver. He did, however, ask a question.
"So why not join the Wards? From what you've said, they're looking for you to keep you safe, not put you away for good."
I shrugged. "Four reasons. I don't want to end up in foster care — that's a legal issue, and you're a lawyer."
He nodded. "Family law isn't my specialty, but the firm does have experts in it."
"What is your specialty?"
His smile widened, just a bit. "Parahumans. It has its risks, but it's quite a fascinating field."
I nodded. "The second reason is all those bombings. They're my fault."
He leaned back slightly. "Really? All the news reports are blaming that on Bakuda."
"She had a deadman switch on her creations. And I killed her."
He blinked, once. It was... almost reassuring to see that he could be surprised.
"I don't think it will come as a surprise to you to know that much of my work for parahuman clients deals with criminal matters. Under these circumstances — your age, your father so recently murdered, your own substantial injuries, the concussion... I could all but guarantee an acquittal for you. Without considering any question of self-defense — you were in fear for your life at the time?"
"More from Lung. I mean, Bakuda was trying to kill me too, but Lung's... scarier."
He nodded. "That just makes it easier."
"It's more than that — the money I used for your retainer? While I was looking for Bakuda, I found an ABB drug warehouse, and, well…"
He paused. "And you want to keep it?"
"When Tattletale gave me the money at the cemetery, she said cash was freedom. Mr. Calle, if I couldn't afford you... I wouldn't have a choice. I could hide, but if I were ever caught I'd go straight to the foster system, and into the Wards."
"Which you don't want to do. What are the other reasons for it? You were happy to try out for them, earlier."
"Shadow Stalker. I know who she is, and she knows who I am. She bullied me at school... for years. I ended up in the hospital because of her. She gave my real name to the ABB — maybe accidentally, maybe not."
At that, he rocked back, fingers tapping madly.
"That's... a serious set of allegations. And would demand delicate handling. Do you have evidence for it?"
"Beyond my own testimony? Not really. The letter Bakuda sent me, which indicated how she'd found out, burned in the explosion. And the locker incident — I didn't see who shoved me in, but I know who was behind it."
"What about how you found out her identity? That's something that will influence how the Protectorate approaches this — they don't like anyone unmasking their capes."
"She gloated over me while I was recovering from my concussion on the Protectorate base. Said if I'd known my place, maybe I wouldn't have killed both my parents." Funny, how I could say that and not feel anger towards her. I didn't feel much of anything, actually. Just a sort of calm distance, as I recalled the episode.
"Both?"
"My mother was maybe trying to reach me on her cellphone when she died in a car crash. No way to know if it made a difference, but it was something Sophia liked to use to hurt me — talking about phones, flashing theirs, talking about their parents…"
One eyebrow rose.
"One of the things I'd like you to do once you've figured out how I can legally keep clear of the Wards is to make sure they discipline her. Prison would be nice. I always wondered why the school authorities didn't come down on her."
On the other hand, I was trying to ruin her life right now, so maybe this is just what I felt like when I was really angry.
"That... I can't guarantee. The Protectorate hates bad PR, and this qualifies — but that means I know that they will react, not how. Worst case, they'll want to buy your silence somehow."
I smiled. "I'm not sure they could afford it."
"All right. And your fourth reason?"
I paused, and steepled my fingers. "I'd like to take some time to myself. To think. And maybe to do some things that I need to do, first."
He looked at me, mouth briefly open, and then licked his lips.
"Clear enough. Anything else I ought to know about your preferred living circumstances, negotiating limits, or other goals?"
For the next two hours he probed me on hypotheticals from how I'd like to live to how I'd get an education to what kind of services I could offer as a rogue. I had no idea whether or not he could do what I'd asked him to do, but it was a good indication of competence. The meeting closed with him explaining that he'd be back in touch in shortly, and that he thought there would be grounds for a talk with the Protectorate soon after.
Hopefully, that would keep me from being chased by the Protectorate.
That just left the one who would kill me if he caught me.
Progress.