Thursday, June 16th, 2011, 22:11

“Are you comfortable? Is there anything I can get you?” Jessica Yamada asked.

“A… okay,” the staff employee said. What had her name been? Worthwhile? No. Worth-something. She was elderly, and took more time than was necessary to go through the letters, “M… okay. M, n, o, p, q, r,s t, u…”

A… M…

“Stop,” Jessica said. “I can guess.”

“I have to continue,” the older woman said. “Patient’s right to communicate. T, u, v, w, x, y… Y. Third letter is Y.”

“We’ve been over this, Victoria,” Jessica said. “You know that’s something I don’t have any power to give you.”

Victoria blinked three times, the signal for the alphabet. The older woman started. As Victoria’s right eye was the only one open, she started with the second half. “M, n, o, p… P, okay.”

Victoria switched eyes, closing one and opening the other. First half of the alphabet.

“A, b, c, d, e, f, g, h…”

Another blink.

“H. Okay.”

“Phone?” Jessica interrupted, before the reading started again.

A blink. Affirmation.

“I’ve explained you can’t phone her. She’s gone to the birdcage-”

Jessica paused. Her own heart rate was climbing, her breathing involuntarily quickening. She felt a bead of sweat running down the back of her neck. The old woman had stepped out of her chair, backing away.

“Stop that,” Jessica said, her voice firm. She’d managed to keep her voice from trembling.

The sensation didn’t fade.

“She went to the birdcage because she wanted to,” Jessica said. “And we let her because there were serious concerns about her unleashing an epidemic if she had another psychotic break.”

Three blinks. To the old woman’s credit, she stuck to doing her job. “A, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i… I, okay.”

“Victoria,” Jessica said, and she wasn’t able to hide the tremor this time, “if you want to communicate with me, I’m going to insist that you turn your power off.”

Victoria reduced the effect of her power, scaling it down to a general sensation of unease.

“Thank you. Returning to our previous topic, Amy had to be contained somewhere. Everyone involved agreed on that point. There was too much danger, otherwise, with the possibility of uncontrollable, incurable plagues that could eat through plastic or metal.”

Jessica waited patiently as the staff member went down the list. I. D. O. N. T. C. A. R. E.

I don’t care.

“Others do care, Victoria,” Jessica Yamada informed her patient. “Amy cared. She knew her own limits and her own potential, for good or for ill. It wasn’t an easy decision, for her or for the authorities, but that decision was made with everyone’s best interests at heart.”

Again, the letters.

N. O. T. M. I. N. E.

Not mine. Not in my best interests.

“She didn’t feel that she could fix you, or that it was right to use her power on you again.”

Two blinks. Negation.

“You… that’s not what you meant?”

Blink. Agreement. Three blinks to signal for the board.

A. L. O. N. E.

“Not entirely, Victoria,” Jessica said, her voice gentle. “There are others who care about you.”

No blinks, now. Long seconds passed.

“Back to my original question. Is there anything we can do to make you more comfortable?”

B. A. T. H.

“Excellent,” Jessica said. “We’ll see what we can do. Anything else?”

Two blinks. No.

“I’ll be seeing you for a longer appointment next Tuesday, then,” she said. “Tell any of the staff if you would like to get in touch with me before then. I’m on-call, twenty-four-seven.”

One blink.

Jessica exited the room. The door sealed shut as it closed behind her.

“Well?” the head nurse asked.

“Some headway,” Jessica said. She took off her suit jacket and folded it over the nearest chair. Her back was drenched with sweat, shoulder-blade to belt. “Hard to endure.”

“She’s upset. Understandably.”

“I know. But I’ll take her on as a patient, and hopefully we can get her in a better head space. Thank you again, for letting me overstep my duties. It helps me to open a dialogue if I can offer her something she wants or needs.”

“You can’t offer her what she really wants.”

“But a bath is a good starting point. Is it doable?”

“Yes. We’re well equipped for disabled patients. We’ll lower her in with hoists.”

“She won’t break? Or tear?”

“No. She’s far more durable than she appears. For better or for worse, she retains her invincibility.”

“I see.”

“Who’s the next patient on your caseload?”

“Sveta.”

“Garotte. I know you’ve heard the instructions about the protective safeguards a thousand times-”

Jessica sighed.

“-But I have to go over them anyways. There are regulations, Jessica, as you well know. You’ll be wearing a type-C reinforced protective suit. The suits include both an inner and outer layer, the inner layer-”

“Has a button in the palm. I can withdraw my fingers from the outer glove and press the button. At random intervals, you’ll buzz me surreptitiously…”

“And we expect you to press the button to verify that you’re okay. You can press it twice in the event of an emergency.”

“The damn thing has malfunctioned and interrupted three of my last seven sessions with her.”

“It’s what we have for the time being. If you don’t verify your own safety or if you signal an emergency, we’ll employ containment foam through the sprinkler system.”

“And I’ll be stuck here for another hour, with another four pages of paperwork after the fact.”

“Is she your last patient for the day?”

“No. I’m scheduled to see Nicholas after.”

“Sadboy.”

Jessica didn’t correct the head nurse. She hated using the codenames; it reinforced the idea of the patients being less than human. “Yes. I’ll see him, then I’m done for the day. I’m on rotation with the PRT for Friday-Saturday, then I have Sunday all to myself.”

“Any plans?” the head nurse asked.

“I’ve learned not to make any. There’s always a crisis of some sort.”

They’d reached the changing room, and Jessica pulled on the protective inner-suit. The suit fit close to her body, smelled faintly of someone else’s sweat, and consisted of a stretching mesh covered in fine chain link. The entire thing was reinforced by a grid of metal bars, complete with oiled hinges at each joint, so she had a near-full range of motion. Zipping it up, it went straight up her neck, the bars running vertically down her throat. She couldn’t look down without getting jabbed in the soft flesh beneath her jaw.

It made it harder to get the outer suit on. The entire thing was one piece, like footie-pyjamas, and the fabric was heavy, with alternating layers of insulated fabric and more chain mesh.

She liked to go into situations armed with knowledge. When she’d been new to the job, fearing her first week of work at the asylum, she’d researched all of the protective measures, even running down the patents that were public access to see what they entailed.

Odd as it might have sounded, she’d stopped doing that as of late. It wasn’t due to a growing confidence. Just the opposite. Now that she had a better grasp of what her patients were capable of, it was easier to hope the people designing the safeguards were doing everything they needed to. It was better than researching it and knowing they weren’t.

The heavy fabric exterior suit fit her like hazardous materials gear, bulky, broad, leaving a great deal of empty space between her body and the fabric. Protective airbags of more reinforced cloth inflated to fill that space.

She stepped into the dock, and the door behind her shut. The next door opened.

The room was empty. The wall had a mural painted on it, ocean waves and beautiful architecture that Jessica couldn’t place as belonging to any particular era or culture. There was a short, translucent table littered with painting and drawing supplies, and what looked like a cat’s tiered scratching post, extending floor to ceiling, securely bolted to both. Mirrors were fixed to the wall, to show that the room’s resident wasn’t hiding behind it.

“Come on out, Sveta,” she said. She clenched her teeth and braced herself for the ambush.

Sveta had been waiting above the door. Tendrils snaked around the neck of the protective suit, and cinched tight in a moment.

Even with her full knowledge of the suit’s protective qualities, Jessica felt her heartbeat quicken.

Deep breath.

Her breath caught in her chest as she heard the faintest, almost inaudible sound of metal creaking.

More tendrils had caught her legs and arms, and even lashed across the room to catch the only points available to hold, the two-inch diameter bolts that held the scratching post ‘bed’ to the ground.

“So sorry,” Sveta whispered. “Sorry.”

Jessica felt her arm jolt as one set of tendrils lashed up the length of her right arm to catch her gloved fingers. Each finger was pulled in a different direction, but the metal reinforcement in the outer glove held, and her hand wasn’t crumpled like tissue paper.

“Relaxation exercises, Sveta. Don’t try to fight the instincts all at once, don’t worry about me…”

Sveta convulsed, contorted, and every part of her drew tighter. Jessica heard something metal give way, felt a small component tap her shoulder, bouncing around the interior of the outer suit before settling in her boot.

Calm. Sound calm. “…Just focus on your extremities. Flex them, release them, repeat.”

Another contortion. Jessica forced herself to take a deep breath, simultaneously cursing whoever had let this defective equipment go back in the changing room.

“I’m so sorry,” Sveta said. “I’m trying, but it’s making it worse.”

“Take your time,” she replied, defying every instinct that was telling her to get out of this dangerous situation: to press the button, fight or panic. Like Sveta’s, her instincts weren’t serving her best interests here. Unlike Sveta, she could fight them.

Sveta contorted, and an airbag gave way in the suit’s midsection.

“Oh!” Sveta said. She’d noticed, and the realization coincided with further constriction. “Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs. Yamada! No, no!”

“It’s fine,” Jessica lied. Too many things were going wrong with the suit, all at once. Why? There had to have been an altercation between another staff member and a violent patient. The only reason this many safeguards would be giving way would be if the suit had sustained recent damage.

Except it had gone unreported, and the suit had gone back on the shelf.

“Should have- we should have done this through the glass,” Sveta moaned. “I’m sorry. I like you. I don’t want you to die.”

“We’re striving to socialize you, right? That’s our goal? We can’t do that without regular human contact.”

“I’m going to kill you. I don’t want to but I’m going to. I’ll-”

“Hush,” Jessica said, sounding far, far calmer than she felt. “Take-”

She nearly said take a deep breath. She corrected herself. “-a few seconds and keep doing your relaxation exercises. Flex your extremities, relax them. Flex, relax, steadily work your way up, inch by inch. Look at me. I’m not worried. I’m in this suit. I feel safe. Okay?”

“O-okay.”

“I want you to think of all the progress we’ve made since the start of the year.”

“But something popped in the suit just now.”

“We wear the same suits for multiple patients. That was a safeguard to protect any patients that might collide with us. It’s not meant for you. Don’t worry.”

Jessica hated lying to her patients.

“It’s not- it’s okay?”

“It’s okay,” Jessica soothed. “You remember our goal, right?”

“Christmas?”

“I think you’re well on your way to your goal. That’s what you think of when you’re trying to be positive, right? You can celebrate Christmas with a few other patients, people who you can’t hurt. I just met one of them, I think. A new patient of mine. She’s someone who could use some friends.”

Like a dozen frog’s tongues, tendrils snapped across the length of the room to the ‘bed’, encircling it. In another second, as though each tendril were elastic bands stretched to their limits, Sveta had shifted there, her tendrils gripping the post as she hung from it. Jessica was free.

Sveta was little more than a very pale face with thin tendrils streaming around it like hair. Small organs dangled from the largest of the tendrils that extended from the back of her face. A small symbol marked the girl’s cheekbone: a stylized ‘c’, in black.

It took Sveta a second before she relaxed enough to let the tendrils uncoil from the post. The tendrils settled in the air, in a rough facsimile of where a person’s limbs might be. She’d positioned herself so that the organs could rest on the ‘shelves’ on the post.

“I’m sorry,” Sveta said, eyes downcast.

“I’m fine. I understand,” Jessica soothed. She shifted position, and one tendril snapped out to catch her leg, gripping her around the knee, squeezing and twisting with a strength that could have torn every ligament in her knee and wrenched Jessica’s calf from her upper leg. Sveta flinched, closed her eyes for a second, and the tendril moved back to the post. The suit had held. No damage done.

“Can… can you tell me about her? The girl you just saw?”

“I can’t talk to you about my patients, just like I couldn’t tell them about you.”

Sveta clutched the pole harder. “I understand. Was she… was she a bad guy? Like me?”

“Do you think you were a ‘bad guy’?”

“I killed people. Yes.”

“It wasn’t you. It was your power.”

“I still killed people.”

“I think that’s a good topic for today’s session. But there’s a few things I want to cover first, before we get into the meat of it, so let’s put a pin in that topic for now.”

“Okay.”

“She was a superhero, I can say that much without betraying any confidence.” And you’ll hear it from the staff sooner or later. Better to hear it from me. “There may be wiggle room. Maybe I could convince one of the hospital staff to stop by, and she could tell you a bit about the new patient through the intercom? If the patient gives consent?”

Sveta’s eyes lit up. “Yes please.”

“I can’t make any promises.”

“I understand.”

“Now, have you been keeping that journal?”

Sveta snatched a notebook off of the small table with the art supplies, reaching out and bringing it to her faster than the eye could follow. She passed it to Jessica with just as much speed and force. Even with the air bags filling the void in the protective suit and offering a cushioning effect, Jessica had to take a step back to catch her balance.

“May I?”

Sveta nodded, bobbing the mask with the mass of tendrils behind it.

The bed-post contorted into an ‘s’ shape as the girl twined around it. It indicated some kind of negative emotion. Jessica paged through the recent entries. The letters of the words were exaggerated, and they got more so as the writer got agitated. Worries, daydreams about being human, the vividness of her imagination when she pictured places like she’d drawn in the mural, her day-long spell of depression after waking up from a dream where she’d been human, in bed with a boy…

Jessica closed the book. None of this was so unusual, capable of explaining the sudden anxiety she saw now. “Can I ask what’s bothering you?”

“I… why aren’t you scared of me?”

“Because I have no reason to be,” Jessica lied, meeting the girl’s eyes.

The truth is that it’s because I’ve spent more time in the company of monsters than Legend, she thought. Trust me, honey, you aren’t the scariest I’ve run into, not by half.

■

Friday, June 17th, 2011, 10:15

“You’re not the person that was here last week,” the redheaded boy said, shutting the door behind him.

“We rotate. The PRT doesn’t want any therapist developing a bond to the point that they could manipulate a cape. By rotating through three or four for a given area, they can ensure that one therapist will be able to identify manipulations on the part of any of the others.”

“Doesn’t that kind of defeat the point? Not letting us develop a bond, no trust?”

Yes, Jessica thought, but she said, “It’s not my place to say. Is that what you’re hoping to get, here? A one-on-one relationship? A bond of trust?”

“And now it begins,” he said. “Answering questions with questions.”

“An unfortunate fact of the job. Would you like to sit?”

The boy let himself sink into the chair.

“What should I call you?” Jessica asked. “I prefer to use real names wherever possible, but I understand if you’d prefer the confidentiality of a codename.”

“Clockblocker. Dennis. Whatever. You get crucified, drawn and quartered if you betray our secret identities, right?”

“Nothing that graphic, but the penalties are severe, and they include extensive jail time, and forfeiting the credentials it took me eight years to get. You strike me as someone who’s paying a great deal of attention to the workings of the system. Where people are, how they’re operating.”

“I have to, don’t I? You ignore that stuff, you get fucked,” Dennis said.

“That’s the second time in two minutes you’ve brought up consequences. Is that something that concerns you? Consequences?”

“In the last three months, my dad’s leukemia came back, Leviathan destroyed a third of my hometown, the Endbringer killed my best friend and teammate, and another of my teammates, the Undersiders abducted one of my teammates-”

“Shadow Stalker.”

“Yeah.”

“I talked to her after that incident. Anyways, I’m sorry to interrupt. I’m trying to frame it all in my head.”

“They left her so fucked up she went and broke her parole. Um. It’s all been unravelling. People I care about and rely on are getting knocked around, screwed over by dumb luck or because they let their guard down. Aegis, Gallant, Amy and Victoria, Battery, Shadow Stalker…”

“Did you care about Shadow Stalker?”

“She was a teammate.”

“I know. But the way your thoughts seemed to connect there, it sounded like something more.”

Dennis shrugged. “It makes me sound like a sleazebag if I say it, but I can get away with that here, right?”

She let herself smile a little, “Yes.”

“She was hot, and when you spend four or five hours a day with the same people, and you’re a guy, and the one girl in the group that’s around your age is that good-looking, maybe you look forward to seeing her.”

“That doesn’t make you sound like a sleazebag. It makes it sound like a perfectly normal teenager with a mild crush.”

“Maybe? Not really; I couldn’t stand her as a person. It still sucked balls, hearing what I did about her going to juvie, on top of everything else.”

“Did you see yourself in her shoes, at all?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re very mindful of consequences and the dangers you’re facing. Are you afraid you’ll suffer a similar fate?”

“I dunno. No. If I’m worried about anything like that, it’s that there’s a worse fate waiting out there for me.”

“A worse fate?”

“With all the stuff the capes bring to the table, there’s a hundred bad endings that are possible that wouldn’t have been possible thirty years ago. You hear about what happened to Victoria and Amy Dallon?”

Victoria. The vivid mental picture disconcerted her briefly. “Um. Yes I have.”

“Case in point,” Dennis shrugged. “And there’s all the stuff that went down with the Slaughterhouse Nine, too.”

“Scary business.”

Dennis shrugged.

“Are you sleeping well?”

“Way I’ve been working, sleep isn’t a problem. Head hits the pillow, I’m out.”

“And the stress of all of this, it’s not affecting your diet?”

“No. I mean, my diet’s not great, but that’s just trying to work around shift schedules and crap, you know?”

“I know,” Jessica smiled. “Work makes it hard on me too. I was going to walk you through some coping methods for anxiety, but it seems like you’re getting by.”

“Too busy to think, really. I prefer it that way. I don’t know if anxiety’s the right word.”

“No? What word would you choose?”

He paused. “I dunno.”

“Take your time. It’s not a big deal if you can’t come up with one.”

“It’s… I feel like there’s probably a word, in another language, but English doesn’t have it. Not despair, but… that feeling you get when you’re losing?”

“You feel as though you’re losing?”

Dennis nodded, leaned back in the leather seat. “We’re fighting a war. The consequences don’t seem to hit the bad guys as hard. We fight Leviathan, and people act like we won, because the casualty rates were lower than they’ve been in nine years. Slaughterhouse Nine come, and again, there’s a lot of people who act like it was a victory because only half of them made it out of the city. Nobody but me seems to notice that, hey, those guys still lived. They escaped.”

“Maybe they share the same thoughts you do, but they don’t want to face that reality because it scares them.”

“Maybe.”

There was a long pause.

“Looking at the general notes from your last appointment, you gave the a-okay for him to mention that you were working on some coping mechanisms for your anger?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to keep working on that, or do you feel like it’s more under control?”

“It’s pretty much under control. I was… my dad was dying, then. Amy healed him.”

“I see.”

“I… I regret this.”

“Regret what?”

“Joining the Wards. The rules, the bureaucracy. It’s… fuck, I mean, I appreciate having the resources. Guys to make the costume, even this.”

“Talking to me?”

“Sure. Make sure my head’s screwed on right. But at the same time, being stuck in a classroom after Leviathan attacks, because the rules say I have to be in school a certain number of hours a day? It’s fucked. I wonder if the villains are winning because they don’t have to worry about that stuff.”

“Could be.”

“I don’t get it. I almost think I could be okay with things if I understood them. Why the fuck do they get away with this shit?”

“I can’t give you the answers you want, and I’m afraid that answers to questions of that magnitude aren’t going to appear nearly as fast as we want them to.”

“I know.”

“But you’re very observant, Dennis. I’ve already said as much. I find that we often find what we’re looking for the moment we stop actively searching for them. Perhaps spend less time looking for the answer, and keep an eye out for opportunities to learn the answer.”

“Psychobabble,” he said, smiling a little.

“Sorry,” she said, returning the smile with one of her own.

■

Friday, June 17th, 2011, 13:01

“Jessica?” Weld asked, peeking his head in the door.

“Come in,” she said. “It’s good to see you, Weld. It’s been a little while.”

Weld closed the door and settled in the reinforced chair she’d brought into her office in anticipation of the appointment.

“Have you picked a name?” she asked.

He chuckled lightly. “I’m Weld. That’s it for now.”

She nodded. Studied him, at ease in his chair, hands folded across his stomach.

“So. A lot’s happened,” she said.

“Endbringer, Slaughterhouse Nine. Losing control of the city. Did you come from out of town?”

“Yes.”

“Was it on the news? What’s been going on here?”

“It has been. I try to catch the eleven o’clock news, and it seems there’s a new story every night, detailing recent events in Brockton Bay.”

“What kind of picture does it paint?”

“Of?”

“Of the city. Of us? The villains?”

“Things look worse than they are, if you go by what’s on television. It paints a positive picture of the local heroes, I have to say. Not entirely undeserved, if you ask me.”

“Thanks for saying so,” Weld said.

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I’m not. It’s only been five days since the Slaughterhouse Nine fled. Smoke’s clearing, and I’m not liking where we’re at.”

“Where are you at?”

“Villains who took territory before everything went to hell are still holding the territory after. Us? We’re not in good shape. We lost Battery.”

“I heard. I’m sorry.”

“We got hit harder, and while they’re picking up the pieces, nobody’s jumping to help us.”

“No?”

“Flechette’s going back to New York before too long. Nobody’s replacing her, or any of the ones who died. Maybe they think we’re cursed, or maybe it’s career suicide to try to help a city that can’t be helped.”

“Does that matter to you? Career?”

“Some. There was mention of me maybe climbing the ranks. I’m marketable, but I’m a freak, too.”

She thought of Sveta. “It sounds like you’re being unfairly harsh on yourself.”

“It’s how it was explained to me.”

“I see. That’s unfortunate, that a colleague would make you out to be a freak.”

“Water off my back. Honest. It doesn’t bother me.”

“Is there anything-“

She stopped as his phone rang.

“Sorry,” he looked genuinely guilty as he reached for the phone, “Way things are-“

“I totally understand. Please, go ahead.”

He answered. “Weld here… yes. Skitter? With Parian. I understand. No, I get it. We’ll see if we can track her.”

He was already out of her seat. “If it’s okay-“

“Go. You have a team to lead.”

“Flechette said the local villains in power just made a move on a Rogue friend of hers. I’ll… could I wrangle a longer session next week?”

“That could be arranged. Go,” she said.

He was at the door when she called after him, “and Weld, I want you to pick a proper name!”

■

Friday, June 17th, 2011, 18:01

“Fuck them! Fuck her!”

“Lily-“

“Fuck! Fuck!” Lily paced.

“Lily, please, could you sit?” Jessica asked.

Lily stopped, resting her hands on the back of the armchair.

“It’s clear something happened,” Jessica said. “You ask me to come, and that’s totally, one hundred percent okay, but I can’t do anything to help until you explain what happened.”

“They got her.”

Jessica felt her heart sink. “Who?”

“Parian. Skitter got to her.”

“The Rogue your teammate mentioned. Was she hurt, or killed, or-“

“Turned.”

“Turned?”

“She changed sides. Ran into Skitter, with Ballistic wreaking havoc in the background. Knew something was up. Tattletale fucking with our heads or something. Then Skitter goes into this good cop bad cop routine, but she’s using Ballistic as the bad cop, the idea that if we don’t go along with her plan, he’ll try to kill us. Makes Parian an offer she can’t refuse.”

“Power? Money?”

“Money. Two hundred thousand dollars, so that Parian’s friends and family who were mutilated by the Slaughterhouse Nine could pay for surgery. So Parian could go to school.”

“A lot of money.”

“And she asks Parian to leave. And it’s… it rips my heart out, because she’s my one good friend here. Because she’s more, I… I can’t remember if I’ve talked to you about it. You PRT therapists all sort of blend into each other.”

“We’ve talked about it. You had feelings for her.”

Lily folded her arms on the back of the chair, rested her forehead against her wrists.

“Did you tell her about those feelings?”

“No. No I didn’t. I was thinking about it, but now I can’t ever, because if it pushes her away, she’ll be totally, completely beyond my reach. Completely on their side.”

“Do you think she reciprocated?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes, I thought yes. Other times, I thought yes, but not nearly as much as I had feelings for her. And there were other times I thought definitely no. But I couldn’t ask because by the time I got up the courage, the Slaughterhouse Nine had murdered most of her family and her friends, and the ones who weren’t dead were… altered. Fuck, my feelings weren’t even on the third page of the list of priorities there. It was about taking care of her, helping her. It’s what you do for friends.”

“It is. It sounds like she was lucky to have you.”

“And then Skitter waltzes in and… it’s like, she slithers right past your defenses.”

“How’s that?”

“I can’t even put it into words. You run into her, and you can’t even look straight at her without feeling your skin crawl. Like when someone’s got something wrong with their eye and your own eye starts watering… only with her it’s because of the bugs.”

“Okay.”

“And then she talks, and she sounds so idealistic, and naive. I don’t know how you sound idealistic and naive with a swarm of cockroaches and bees crawling over your face, but she does. And so you let your guard down. And then she starts making sense. And that was the point where Sab- where Parian started lapping it up.”

“Did she make sense to you?” Jessica asked.

“I had a feeling about what was happening, said as much. Now, I don’t know. There’s only two good answers for it.”

Lily walked over to the door and picked up the satchel she’d brought into the office. She returned to the chair and sat, plopping the satchel down on the coffee table.

“What is it?” Jessica asked.

“The thing that lets me know which of the two it was.”

“And what are those two answers?”

“Either my gut was right, and Skitter was just feeding us info that Tattletale prepared, just to fuck with us… or Skitter was right.”

“And this satchel contains the answer?”

“It does.”

“May I?” Jessica leaned forward.

“No.”

Jessica stopped.

“I can say no, right? You don’t have the right to search my things.”

“You can,” Jessica said, leaning back. “And I won’t touch it. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Lily said. Her eyes were damp. “Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t change what happened with Parian. Won’t change the choice she made.”

A tear fell free, and Lily wiped it away with her sleeve.

“Fuck, so stupid. I go up against Leviathan, go up against the Slaughterhouse Nine, and this is what fucks with my head? This is the moment I want nothing more than to go home, to go home and just crawl under the covers?”

“You could.”

“Can’t. I… It’d mean I couldn’t do the costume thing again. Not the same way. Gotta tough it out.”

Lily didn’t look tough, Jessica observed She looked like a heartbroken, homesick teenager.

She couldn’t say that, though.

Jessica stood from her chair and approached the girl. When Lily realized what Jessica was doing, she gratefully accepted the offer of a shoulder to cry on.

Lily’s cell phone rang. She pulled away, breaking the hug, but she didn’t answer the phone. “Never fucking ends. Didn’t think it would be like this.”

“Are you going to answer?” Jessica asked.

“Can’t. Not like this.”

“May I? I’m not sure if it’s against the rules, but-“

“Yes. Please. But-” Lily paused, and the cell phone rang again before she spoke, “Don’t mention I was there? With Parian? I wasn’t supposed to be.”

Jessica nodded and answered. “Mrs. Yamada answering for Flechette.”

“Miss Militia here. Could you please inform Flechette that Triumph has been hospitalized? Anaphylactic shock.”

“Which hospital?”

“Oh god,” Lily said, eyes going wide.

“The one attached to the PRT headquarters. Flechette knows where.“

“We’re in the building,” Jessica said. “I understand if you’re busy, but could you contact me in my office, when you have a free moment?”

“I will.“

Jessica hung up and returned the cell phone. “The hospital in this building. It’s Triumph.”

Lily stood, pocketing the phone. “What happened?”

“Anaphylactic shock,” Jessica answered.

“Skitter.”

Jessica didn’t answer.

Lily wiped the tears from her face. She drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Her expression hardened, her shoulders squaring. There wasn’t a trace of the emotion she’d shown just moments before. “Do I look okay? Presentable?”

Jessica nodded.

“Thank you.” Lily was already moving, snatching the satchel from the table, striding for the door. It slammed shut behind her.

Jessica sat in her chair and tried not to dwell on just why it bothered her that Lily had been able to switch personas so easily. Did the career demand it? Why couldn’t a teenager just be allowed to be vulnerable, at a time they felt vulnerable?

The phone rang five minutes later.

“It’s Miss Militia. You wanted me to contact you?”

“Yes. I just… I’ve seen half your Wards today. They aren’t doing well.”

“I know,” Miss Militia said.

“They’re losing faith.”

“I know.”

■

Saturday, June 18th, 9:01

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in?”

“Hi. I’m Kid Win,” the boy said. He wasn’t in his suit, though. He looked like he’d just come from the shower, and his brown hair was still damp. He extended a hand and Jessica shook it. “Clockblocker said we had a different therapist this week.”

“Protocols. Can I ask how Triumph’s doing?”

“He’s okay. Recovered. Assault and some of the others are more upset over it. We’re calling in the big guns.”

“That must be a relief. To have others pick up the slack. To deferring some responsibility, after having a heavy burden on your shoulders for some time.”

Kid Win shrugged. “Dunno. I am excited to see Dragon’s stuff.”

“I can imagine.”

A silence stretched on. Jessica tried to get a grasp on this boy, reconcile him with the one filled with self-doubt that she’d read about in Mr. Camden’s files.

“Um. I still don’t really get what we’re supposed to do here,” Kid Win said.

“We talk. It’s safe territory. A place where you can vent about your issues.”

“I kind of prefer to work through problems on my own.”

“It’s very common for tinkers to be introverts. But sometimes we all need a person to bounce ideas off of. Non-tinker ideas. Sorry, it’s a rule I have.”

Kid Win smiled sheepishly, “I kind of subjected Mr. Kiles to a rant about types of modular equipment, a few days ago. I think he needed therapy by the time I was done.”

“Do you have any ideas you want to bounce off me? It’s been a rough month.”

Kid Win shook his head.

“Nothing?”

“I don’t know if this is me.”

“If what’s you?”

“Needing to bounce ideas off people. Needing therapy. All my problems so far, they’ve stemmed from me trying to fit myself into everyone else’s mold. It’s only when I broke away from that, started thinking on my own, that things started to make sense, all the pieces of the machine working in unison.”

“Given your tinker background, I’m not sure I can tell: is that a metaphor, or a literal machine?”

“Metaphor.”

“Okay. Your life didn’t start making sense until you stopped worrying about what others think. But I’m not being judgmental, and I don’t intend to change your mind about anything. I don’t want to make you conform.”

“I’m… I still don’t think I want the therapy,” Kid Win said. “Can I opt out?”

“I’m afraid not. Why don’t you want it?”

“I’m more comfortable going the other route. I’d rather walk my own path and be a little screwed up, than walk everyone else’s path. I’m okay with thinking in a way that’s outside of the norm. I’ve been happier since I started down that road.”

“How does that impact your duties with the Wards?”

“It doesn’t. I mean, I stick to the rules,” Kid Win said, with a measure of confidence. “Funny, how it’s easier to do that when I’m being more unconventional.”

“I’m still not sure I understand. Can you give me an example of what you mean by unconventional?”

“It’s like… if I did this therapy thing, and I mentioned how I’m not bummed and pissed off about what’s going on with the villains and all that, if I talked about how I’m actually happier now, when everyone else is miserable and stressed, I feel like you’d talk me out of it.”

“I don’t want to do anything like that.”

“If you ask me a question,” he asked, “Do I have to answer?”

“You wouldn’t get in trouble, no. Is there a particular question you don’t want to answer?”

“It’s not that. I… I guess I’m saying I’m done here.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a pair of headphones. “No offense. But I feel like having thirty minutes to kick back and take some notes on stuff is going to be a hell of a lot better for my mental health than talking. No offense.”

She was offended, but she didn’t say so.

■

Saturday, June 18th, 11:06

“Um? Hi?”

“Please come in. Would you rather me call you Vista or Missy?”

“Vista.”

“Vista it is. Nice to meet you.”

Vista sat down in the armchair. It took her a second to get comfortable. Her feet didn’t touch the ground if she sat all the way back, and she was forced to sit awkwardly upright if she couldn’t lean against the chair back.

“I heard they called in the big guns.”

“Dragon.”

“Pretty big as guns go,” Jessica said.

“Are you doing that on purpose?”

“What?”

“Talking down to me.”

“No. I didn’t think I was talking down to you.”

“It sounded condescending.”

Jessica took a deep breath. “What can I do for you, Vista? Is there anything you want to share?”

“Have you been here?”

The non-sequitur caught Jessica off guard. “I’m not sure I follow.”

“Have you been in Brockton Bay since this all started?”

“No. I travel for work, and stay in hotels. On the weekends, or when I’m not working, I stay in Boston.”

“How are you supposed to help when you don’t understand?”

The question might have sounded accusatory, but it rang as more curious instead.

“Why do you ask?”

“Because I’ve been trying to help the others, and a lot of the time I can’t. So how can you do it, when you don’t even know? When you have no idea what we’re talking about?”

“I went to school for a long time.”

“Does that teach you how to talk to someone when their mentor’s just been attacked?”

“Are you talking about Triumph?”

“Is it why you ask a lot of questions? Because you don’t know?”

“I ask questions,” Jessica said, “Because only you can give your perspective on things. I know a lot of what’s happened. Some from research, some from your colleagues. But the only opinion and viewpoint that matters to me when you’re in that chair is yours.”

“Hmph,” Vista huffed..

“Where do you stand?” Jessica asked. “What’s your view on things? Summing it all up?”

“Sucks,” Vista said.

“I can believe it.”

“When I go on patrol, I can’t go alone, not until I’m fourteen. So I spend the most time with everyone. I hear what they say, and we talk about everything.”

“If there are doctors and field medics, maybe you’re the equivalent of a field therapist?” Jessica suggested.

Vista wasn’t amused in the slightest. “Don’t be condescending.”

“I’m talking the same way I would with anyone else. I promise.”

There was a pause. Jessica sat quietly, letting it stretch on. In a pinch, a resounding silence could prompt a patient to open up.

Vista finally said, “Weld said I’m the team’s heart.”

“I can imagine him saying it.”

Vista gave her a dirty look. “I couldn’t help Shadow Stalker, but Weld said she was beyond helping.”

Jessica nodded.

“…But I think I got through to Clockblocker. For a while I thought he’d fly off the handle at Weld.”

Jessica almost replied, but kept her mouth shut.

“I feel like there’s two ideas and they’re playing tug of war with my head,” Vista confessed. She gave Jessica a look, as though she were daring her to say something. “Yeah. One part of me, it’s like… I want us all to stay together. Aegis died. Gallant died. Battery died. Velocity died. Dauntless died. Browbeat died, Armsmaster retired and Shadow Stalker went to jail. And now even after it’s all over, Triumph gets hurt?”

“I think I’d feel pretty spooked, after all that,” Jessica said. “It’s a lot of people to be losing, in the space of a month.”

“I just… I want to do what I can to keep us together. Keep people fighting. But..”

“But what?”

“The other part of me? The colder part that’s being very logical, very rational? It says that won’t happen. We won’t stay together. Can’t. One by one, horrible things will happen to us. My friends will die, and if they’re lucky, they’ll die fighting. And I’m somehow okay with it. What does it really matter when the world’s supposed to end in two years?”

“I… I’ve heard about that. It’s pretty strictly limited to the PRT, though, and there hasn’t been any strict confirmation.”

“We don’t have very good precogs,” Vista said. “Not ones that can see that far ahead and still make sense of it all.”

“Does it… are you bothered? Looking at things that way? Thinking that your friends will die violently? That the world will end?”

“No. I’m… very okay with it, when I think about it clinically. It’s the way things are, isn’t it? The way the world works.”

“I don’t think so,” Jessica confessed.

“That part of me, that feels like that? It’s telling me I’m going to die. It’s inevitable, it’s soon, and it’ll be horrible,” Vista said. “Therapy that.”

Was she serious, or was it a challenge?

“Okay,” Jessica said, somber “I’ll try.”

“Just like that?” Vista’s eyes widened a little.

“Just like that. Believe it or not, I’ve handled worse things than a young woman torn between fatalism and wanting to help her friends stick together. I can’t tell you anything about your teammates, but I can arm you with some tools, so your field-therapy is more effective. If that part of you is better equipped, maybe it’ll get a bit of an edge in that tug of war that’s going on inside your head. Sound good?”

Vista nodded.

■

Sunday, June 19th, 17:39

Jessica fumbled to find the ringing phone. She had to move the pizza box and the bag of chips to reach it, reclined back on her bed the second she hit the call button, muting the television. The pants she’d put on only for long enough to answer the door and pay the delivery guy slipped to the floor.

“Yeah,” she said, suppressing a sigh. “No, I’m not busy. Isn’t he Richmond’s patient, though? He’s away? Fuck me. Okay. I’ll be there in an hour.”

■

Monday, June 20th, 12:50

Jessica paced back and forth in her office.

Somehow, when she’d left after seeing the Wards on Saturday morning, she’d let herself believe that things were largely resolved. Dragon had been en route. Not just one suit, either.

When she’d heard, on Sunday, that the suits had left the city, unsuccessful in their mission, she’d allowed herself to believe that things, at least, hadn’t gotten worse.

She’d seen Clockblocker in the morning. There had been a shift conflict with Weld having to watch Vista on her shift, and he’d rescheduled for the afternoon.

Now this. She’d never felt more useless. The Wards had intervened to stop a mad villain from attacking the local debate, and it had all gone tragically wrong. They hadn’t finished tallying the dead.

The Wards were okay, at least. Physically.

Nobody came to her office all day. Too much to be done.

Waiting nervously, restless in her inability to offer any assistance at all in a crisis like this, she headed up to the roof and bummed a cigarette from one of the interns, smoking for the first time since grad school.

■

Tuesday, June 21st, 6:10

Jessica sat on the edge of the roof, legs dangling. She was on her fifth cigarette.

“Mrs. Yamada?”

The voice startled her, because it didn’t sound quite human. She turned around.

Oh. Wow.

Eidolon.

“Could I ask for a few moments of your time?” he asked.

“I… yes. I should warn you I predominantly work with juveniles.”

“I know. I’m not looking for therapy.”

“Oh.”

He didn’t say anything as he crossed the rooftop. Somewhere downstairs, the local heroes were gathering. The Undersiders were present as well. Another threat. Flechette had been right. It didn’t end.

She felt a pang of sympathy for her Wards. Vista had asked her how she could dispense advice, when she hadn’t experienced it for herself. The response that Jessica had been unable to frame was just this. That if she did, if she found herself under that same pressure, she wouldn’t have the objectivity. Besides, if she was unbalanced, how could she hope to offer any aid to another person?

It was a bittersweet thing that nobody had asked her to. She wanted to help, but she was glad she didn’t have to, because she wasn’t sure of her own emotions, now.

Except Eidolon was asking. One of the most powerful men in the world.

He sat down beside her. He pulled his hood back, letting it fall around his shoulders, then undid the clasp for his mask. He set the glowing mask down on the edge of the roof, beside her cell phone and cigarettes.

He looked so average. Heavy cheeks, thinning hair, a big nose, thick brows. More ugly than attractive, but not so much that he’d draw attention walking down the street.

And still, she felt like it was hard to breathe, as though his very presence sucked the air away. She felt like she might if someone had a gun to her head, with no intention of pulling the trigger. It was there, devastating power that could end her existence in a heartbeat. The fact that he didn’t plan to use it didn’t matter.

This, Sveta, she thought, is why I can be around you and be so calm. Because I’ve been around monsters like this.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Eidolon said, sounding very normal, “because there are few I can trust to listen. I might have found a priest, but it’s late, and there are so few good ones out there. I’ve used psychometry to view the past few days of your life. You’ll do what I need you to do.”

How am I supposed to respond to that? “I… okay.”

“I’m losing my powers. Slowly but surely. If this goes much further, mankind may lose this war.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Against the Endbringers, there are really only two individuals who can stop them, drive them away. Scion is one. I’m another. Each of us is worth a hundred other capes, if not more. I’m not boasting when I say this. But my powers are getting weaker every day, little by little. Whatever vast, improbably deep well parahumans tap into to use abilities, I suspect mine is running dry.”

“And only Scion will be able to stop them, after you’ve lost your powers? I’m sorry. I’m thinking slowly tonight. Been awake for a long time.”

“It’s fine. You’re exactly right. They really only need two or three critical victories, and it all ends. And they will win more without me there.”

Jessica nodded. I can’t process all this right now.

“When I fight, Mrs. Yamada, I feel as though my lost power is somehow within reach. Reserves I have not yet touched, maybe. Or a fresh well. It is something, but it is there. The problem is that I rarely get to truly fight. Do you understand?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“I hope that tonight is one of those moments. I hope to fight, to fight seriously. With the information we have about this threat, I can feel confident that the situation would be salvageable if I fail. Even in the worst case scenario, this could be ended with a strategic missile strike. In my absence, the heroes would have weeks to adjust, to change their battle plans and compensate, before the next Endbringer arrived.”

“You’re talking about dying?”

“Here, at least, I can fight this monster, and where I might never make the gamble against an Endbringer, I hope to fight this thing to the death. Hers or mine.”

To the death.

He continued, “If I can find that untapped well of power, then it will be worth it. If I can’t, then there’s no point to me existing anyways.”

“Surely you have something else to live for.”

He gave her a look that was both incredulous and pitying. She felt a pang of sympathy for Vista, and how she’d reacted when she felt like she was being condescended to.

Maybe life doesn’t offer anything suitably interesting or profound to a man who’s been as powerful as Eidolon is, she thought.

“I…” Jessica said, “Why me? What am I doing?”

“You know, now. If I die, you can explain what happened. But I’ve read you, and I don’t think you will tell others until the fight is over, and you won’t tell others what I planned if I succeed, tonight.”

She stared at him.

“If you were a priest,” he said, “I would have you say a prayer and bless my endeavor tonight. I will settle for having you wish me luck.”

“Good…” she had to get her words in order, “Good luck.”

He nodded.

Then he took off.