Recoil (a Worm fanfic)

Recoil

Part 3-4: Acceptable Losses​

Wednesday, March 16, 1994
Chicago PRT Offices

I stood to attention and saluted smartly. "Major Hamilton, sir."

He returned it. "At ease, Lieutenant Snow." A faint line creased his brow as he observed me. "You have something for me?"

Relaxing a little, I clasped my hands behind my back. "Nothing I can put on paper, sir. It's about that matter we discussed on the playing field."

His head came up. "Shut the door, Snow."

I did as I was told, then returned to my position in front of his desk, at parade rest.

Major Hamilton was old-school military. He had been facing mandatory retirement from the regular army when the opportunity came to transfer across to the brand-new PRT and he had jumped at the chance. His balding head, half-moon glasses and neatly-trimmed white moustache might have given him the air of a kindly uncle, but the brain behind those shaggy eyebrows was still as sharp as a tack.

I sincerely liked the man, and I regretted the deceptions that I had played upon him, that I would yet play upon him, but these were things that had to happen.

Reaching into his desk, Hamilton retrieved a hand-held radio. He tuned it to a popular music station and turned the volume up a little; we would be able to hear one another, but no-one outside the room would be able to distinguish our voices over the background music.

Placing the radio on the desk between us, he leaned forward slightly, picking up a pencil with which to take notes. "Report."

I took a deep breath. "It's either New York or Los Angeles, sir. Not less than one week, not more than two."

His face did not change in expression, but his knuckles whitened. The pencil jammed into the pad so deeply that the tip of the lead snapped off. "You're certain about this, Snow?"

"As sure as I can be, sir. New York will cause disruption; LA already has conflict ongoing with the racial unrest. By my data, either one is a prime target. All the other indicators point to one or the other."

"But it can't be both."

I shook my head. "No, sir. I'm getting real-time data from each one. I'll keep working on it."

His faded blue eyes glinted at me from behind the spectacles. "When do you think you'll have a definite answer?"

"Not sure, sir. The numbers keep changing. But I'll try to get you as long a lead time as possible."

Abruptly, he nodded. "Good work, Snow. Keep me apprised. Was that all?"

Almost, I lost my nerve. Almost, I said no. But I had to lay the groundwork.

My nod was almost tentative. "Sir, there's something else. Something I've been getting a whiff of, while doing my other research." I paused, as if reluctant to go on.

His tone was sharp. "Spit it out, Snow."

I took a deep breath. "The instigator. I might be able to find the instigator."

Major Hamilton stood up so quickly that his chair rolled backward on its castors. There was a soft thump as it hit a filing cabinet; we both ignored it. "The instigator? You're sure of this?"

I shook my head quickly. "Not at all sure, sir. Just a hunch. And I won't be able to confirm anything until after this attack." I looked him in the eye. "And if that doesn't happen when and where I end up predicting it does, I'll have to start fresh. I won't be able to depend on any of my conclusions."

Slowly, reluctantly, he nodded. "Understood, Snow. Keep me posted, on both accounts. Dismissed."

"Sir, yes, sir!" I saluted; he returned it. Turning, I opened the door and left his office; as I did so, I heard the music die away.

I headed for my quarters; I had two letters to write.

-ooo-​

Saturday, March 19, 1994
Brockton Bay

Andrea's latest conquest was a black college girl, who couldn't have been a day over nineteen. She had been sweet and submissive, with long black curly hair, and had reminded Andrea altogether too much of Taylor. Despite the girl's willingness to stay over, Andrea had called her a cab and sent her on her way before midnight.

The temptation to let her stay had been strong. Too strong. Andrea had sent her away before she could convince herself that letting the girl sleep over a night or three wouldn't do any harm.

Now, she sat at her computer, decrypting the latest pair of letters from Gladys and Danny. The financial information scrolled down the screen, and she carefully copied it down. Then the letter from Taylor to her; sweet and loving, with an aching loneliness that whispered to her from every line. Her lingering inclination to get back in touch with the black college girl grew weaker and weaker, as she read Taylor's words through, carefully and lovingly.

And then came the postscript.

Instructions, on how to get in touch with a certain person. A person who could make things; a Tinker, in fact. A particular item, with very specific properties, that needed to be acquired from that person. Her eyes widened as she took in exactly what the item was supposed to do. Awareness crept into her mind, awareness of exactly how serious Taylor had been, when she had told Andrea what she was willing to do, in order to carry out her goal.

There was one other thing that she had to get, but that was much easier.

Carefully, she noted down those instructions as well. Then she read through the letter again, letting the words fill her soul, warming her from the inside out. Pressing her fingers to her lips, she gently touched the screen, where the phosphor letters spelled out Taylor's name. Gone now was even the slightest temptation to get back in touch with the college girl.

It's time to help save the world.

She wasn't quite sure how what she was getting would help save the world, but she had faith that Taylor knew what she was doing.

-ooo-​

Wednesday, March 23, 1994
Chicago PRT Offices

Lisa strapped on the helmet, covered as it was with green metallic scales, and turned toward me, swirling the iridescent green cape around her. “How do I look?” she asked cheerfully.

Well, damn, I commented. I am seriously impressed. I thought nothing could beat your velociraptor wrangling antics.

The backdrop to the latest adventure was … stunning. We were situated in an immense valley, with jagged peaks reaching for the sky far to the left and right. Snow-clad mountaintops reflected the brilliant sunlight; overhead, twin moons showed identical daytime crescents. In the distance, a city apparently composed of various shades of crystal bid fair to emulate the mountain peaks, sending back rainbow scintillations from towers and spires, impossibly tall and slender. Closer to us, a tremendous grandstand was filled with people dressed in multicoloured finery; they waved banners of various colours.

Lisa chuckled. “Sometimes you've got to change things up a little.” She clicked her tongue; the enormous creature lying alongside us, clad in the same iridescent green scales as her cape, leaned its huge head down to sniff at her hand; each snuffle sent puffs of warm, spicy air over the both of us.

She stepped forward, reached up, and scratched the dragon behind one spiky 'ear'; it stretched its long neck slightly, and crooned, soft and low.

And then it yawned, six-foot-long jaws opening to reveal fangs as long as my forearm but needle-sharp, and a startlingly pink tongue that curled up at the tip like a cat's. Another gust of warm, spicy breath washed over us.

Wow, I muttered. I think Peter Jackson wants your special effects budget.

She snorted laughter; the immense creature closed its mouth, and one large reptilian eye turned to observe me with interest.

You realise, I went on, that even though this is a dream, there is nothing you can say or do that will make me get on one of those things alone.

“Oh, I knew that,” she assured me. “That saddle up there's a double.”

Great, I muttered. So instead of getting on a dragon by myself like a certified lunatic, I get to share one with a certified lunatic.

“They're perfectly safe,” she insisted, with an almost straight face. “They hardly ever try to eat their riders.”

Forget I asked, I replied, rolling my eyes. Oh, and one other thing.

“Yes?” she asked innocently.

I indicated the ground crew, moving around, tending to the dragons. One and all, they were male. Tall, muscular. And not a one of them was wearing a shirt. And when they weren't doing anything, they seemed to just stand there, flexing.

Is that eye candy there for you or for me? I asked bluntly.

She grinned. “Yes.”

I raised an eyebrow. Really? You're gonna play it that way?

She sighed. “You have no problem with spacecraft, dinosaurs or dragons, but you have issues with me having good-looking guys in my little fantasy world?”

I - I stopped. There was no way that sentence was going to end well. Point taken. Enjoy your little beefcake show.

“Thank you,” she grinned. “I most certainly will.”

With entirely unnecessary help from a tall, brawny young man, she ascended to the dragon's saddle. I declined similar assistance, and climbed up there myself. Settling into the saddle, I made sure that the straps over my thighs were buckled down correctly, as was the strap around my waist.

Lisa looked over her shoulder at me. “Ready?”

Ready. I put my arms around her waist, braced myself.

She whistled shrilly. On either side of us, huge iridescent green wings unfurled, spread, lifted … and then beat downward, once.

Twice.

Three times.

We were airborne.

I whooped as we gained altitude, the ground falling away beneath us at a prodigious rate. Lisa was yelling too. From her exultant tone, she was enjoying herself immensely, glorying in the rush of flight. But no more than I was.

It was awesome.

So what's my job? I yelled in her ear, once the dragon's flight steadied out.

“Gunner!” she yelled back. “Down by your right knee!”

Oh, right, I replied. Reaching down, I slid my hand into the grip; it folded around my hand, almost feeling alive as it did so. When I pulled it out, the barrel was a good four feet long, looking like a cross between a short medieval lance and a long-barrelled rifle.

Who am I shooting at? I asked next.

At that moment, she made some sort of signal to the dragon; it flipped a wing and rolled. As it did so, a streak of bright red light, with an actinic violet core, blasted past us, missing by a matter of yards. My head whipped around; not fifty feet behind us, a second behemoth of the skies banked around for another shot, this one covered in red scales. Its rider was grinning beneath his similarly-coloured helmet.

"Them," Lisa explained succinctly.

I extended my arm straight back and snapped off a shot; the gun-lance jolted my arm, but not significantly. My beam was bright green, with a sun-bright yellow centre. The dragon behind us evaded, but that lost him his position on our tail. Our dragon, apparently noting this, pulled up and around in a turn that compressed my spine in ways it probably wasn't intended to go. I tried to keep aim on the other team's dragon, but the g-forces dragged my arm down and off target.

“Good shooting,” Lisa praised me.

I missed, I called back.

“Gave 'em a fright,” she retorted, turning so that I could see her grin. “They won't be so careless, the next time.”

The 'next time' came about half a second later; again, our dragon evaded in a manoeuvre that left both Lisa and me hanging head down, and me, specifically, acutely grateful for the safety straps. I fired three shots during that pass; the opposing crew fired four. I was fairly certain I'd grazed the rider – his left arm was hanging limp – but one shot from the opposition struck our dragon's wing. The great beast began to labour.

But I was learning how this worked, and I tapped Lisa's shoulder with my left hand. Down and around, I instructed her.

“You sure?” she responded. “That'll - “

I know what it will do. Down and around.

“I hope you know what you're doing.” She gave the signals to the dragon, which half-turned its head to look quizzically at her. She gave the signals again, more emphatically. It obeyed; I got the impression that it was as dubious as its mistress.

We tilted up on one wing, and dived, then turned at the bottom of the dive. This put us almost directly alongside the other team … but with my left side to their right side. The enemy gunner grinned, taking his time as he brought his gun-lance around to bear on us.

But I was already acting. In the dive, I'd undone my safety straps, hanging on with my left hand to Lisa's waist belt. So even as we came level, I flung myself out of the saddle, swinging around with all my weight on my left arm. And I brought my right arm – and the gun-lance – into alignment, and fired.

Three shots went into the dragon, then one into the gunner, and one into the pilot. Stunned, they slumped in the saddle; the dragon, ancient instincts taking over, began to glide back down toward the ground, far below.

Lisa grinned as she helped me back into the saddle; the dragon assisted by diving, to reduce my effective weight. “That was damn ballsy,” she praised me.

I grinned, doing up my safety straps one-handed. Well, you know me. If I'm doing a Hail Mary pass, it's probably Tuesday.

She nodded. “Can't argue with that.”

We glided back down toward the ground, taking a victory roll past the stadium. The spectators waved bright green banners, cheering our victory. As the dragon backwinged and touched down to the ground, Lisa pulled her helmet off and shook her hair out. A new cheer greeted her, as we climbed down to the ground.

“Looks like it's about time for you to wake up,” she told me. “Kiss before you go?”

I nodded, and leaned down to her. She kissed me; her lips tasted of dust and blood. One of the ground crew grabbed my shoulder and shook me hard.

-ooo-​

I came out of the trance; a hand was shaking my shoulder. Gradually, I responded, lifting my head from my desk. A sheet of paper came with it, glued to my cheek with drool. I peeled it off, glanced at it, dropped it on the desk.

"Lieutenant Snow, how much sleep have you had in the last ninety-six hours?"

Turning toward the speaker, I made a vague attempt at saluting. My glasses were askew; I straightened them.

"Major Hamilton, sir," I mumbled.

Hamilton returned the salute and frowned; my uniform was rumpled, with a coffee-stain on my right sleeve cuff. I knew it was there; I had carefully applied it, some hours previously.

He looked around my office; normally neat and tidy, right now it was anything but. Stacks of paper covered in arcane graphs and charts lay across my usually pristine desk; several had slipped, and quite a few sheets lay on the floor underfoot. On one corner of the desk, a coffee-cup lay on its side, the spilled dregs staining several unfortunate sheets into illegibility. My computer was on, running a repeating image of graphical representations of racial tension in Los Angeles. Post-it notes were stuck to every available surface, bearing cryptic notations, some of which actually meant something.

I was quite proud of the mess; I had spent some time getting it just right.

"Answer the question, Lieutenant," he snapped.

I took a deep breath, pretended to try to focus. "Sleep, sir? Couple of hours 'round midnight, night before last, I think." I got up off the stool, stood to attention, swayed artistically. "I'll be fine, sir, with some coffee in me."

He shook his head. "No, Lieutenant. Your Sergeant Kinsey is going to put you to bed, now. And he's not going to let you up for at least twelve hours." He shot an irritated glance at Kinsey, who was at that moment attempting very hard to blend into the wallpaper. "As he should have done days ago."

“Don't blame him, sir,” I protested. “Ordered him to leave me alone so I could work. Coffee. Need coffee.”

“Sergeant Kinsey,” he snapped. “Escort Lieutenant Snow to her quarters. She is not to leave them for the next twelve hours. Do you understand?”

Kinsey nodded. “Sir, yes, sir!” he barked.

“Sir,” I protested weakly. “My work. So close.”

His eyes wavered, just for a moment. But then he firmed his jaw. “I can't let you kill yourself doing it, Snow,” he told me. “You're my best analyst. You have your orders. Go.”

I allowed myself to be guided away from my office. Even if Hamilton brought the other analysts in on this while I was asleep, they would get exactly nowhere. The graphs and charts were mostly meaningless to anyone but me. They were just for show. As was this little act; but I needed Hamilton to believe that I was burning the candle at both ends, to get this data to him in time. I couldn't make it look easy.

Of course, all of this was window-dressing; I already knew exactly when Behemoth was due to attack. But I had to make it look good. And so I allowed Kinsey to escort me to my quarters.

Besides, I was feeling rather tired.

-ooo-​

Saturday, March 26, 1994
Chicago PRT Offices
0149 hours, CTZ

The phone beside the bed rang in Hamilton's ear. He came slowly and grudgingly out of a deep slumber, clutching at the shreds of his dream. At his side, Junie rolled over and mumbled something in her sleep.

It took three tries to snag the handset. Only his ingrained sense of duty prevented him from slamming it down again, so that he could go back to sleep. With his other hand, he felt for his glasses on the side table.

“This is Major Hamilton. Make it good.” His voice was a sleepy growl. Whoever was on the other end was going to be one very sorry sonovabitch.

“Sir, it's Lieutenant Snow.” That got his attention, just a little. Snow was a good girl. She didn't make frivolous calls. But what she said next didn't make any sense at all to his sleep-befuddled mind. “I've – the numbers have matched up. I know where it's going to be, sir.”

He barely refrained from blasting her with an onslaught of profanity. “Where what's going to be, Snow? Make sense.”

“Behemoth, sir,” she blurted. “It's going to attack New York.”

Abruptly, he recalled what she was talking about. Some of the sleepiness went away, as did much of the anger, but some still remained. “And you couldn't have waited a few hours to tell me this?” Fumbling his glasses on, he peered at the bedside clock. “It's two in the goddamn morning, Snow.”

“Sir, no, I couldn't,” she hurried on. “Sir, it's happening today.”

He froze. Adrenaline surged through his bloodstream, chasing down any remnants of sleep and beating hell out of them. He strove to calm his racing thoughts, to put them in some sort of order.

“Sir?” asked Snow in his ear. “Are you still there?”

He took a deep breath. “Say that again,” he ordered.

“Sir,” she reported crisply. “My best analysis is that Behemoth is going to strike New York City sometime in the next twelve to twenty-four hours.”

Her words, unexpectedly, calmed him. He hadn't heard wrongly. There were protocols to be followed. He felt centred, certain of himself. His thoughts began to fall into order. He knew what to do.

“How sure are you of this, Snow?” He had to ask the question, no matter how insulting it sounded.

He heard an indrawn breath, a deep one. “I'd stake my reputation on it, sir,” she told him quietly.

“You may just be doing that right now,” he told her grimly. Now that he was thinking more clearly, he had time to wonder about something. “Why are you awake at this misbegotten hour, anyway?”

“I – I've been up for a while, sir,” she confessed. “Working on this.”

Which meant that she hadn't slept that night. Which meant that she'd probably gone back to working straight through, once Kinsey had let her leave her quarters.

If she hadn't … she might just have missed the deadline. He might have woken up to find the attack under way.

I'll let it go, this time.

“You go to bed now, Snow,” he told her gruffly. “You've done enough. I'll take it from here.”

“Thank you, sir,” she replied; he thought he heard a yawn after the end of the last word. “Good night, sir.”

“Good night, Snow,” he replied, and hung up.

Then he sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and switched on the bedside lamp. At his back, Junie mumbled a protest and pulled the covers over her head. He ignored her; taking a deep breath, he dialled a number from memory.

It's not only Lieutenant Snow's reputation that's at stake, here.

It was a credit to his faith in her that he did not pause in dialling the number, all the way to the last digit.

Two rings later, the phone was picked up.

“Chief Director Costa-Brown speaking.”

“Ma'am, this is Major Brian Hamilton, PRT Intelligence Division, Chicago offices,” he reported.

“I know of you, Major,” she replied coldly. “Why are you ringing me at this ungodly hour?”

“Ma'am, my best analyst, Lieutenant Snow -”

“Snow?” she interrupted. “Lieutenant Taylor Snow?”

“Uh, yes, ma'am,” he agreed. “She, uh, just woke me with a piece of very frightening information.” There was no further interruption, so he carried on. “She tells me that Sierra Mike Alpha is going to be attacking New York City in the next twelve to twenty-four hours.”

She didn't hesitate for a moment. “And you believe her?”

“Ma'am, she's brilliant and eccentric and makes intuitive leaps like no-one I've seen before. And she's right far more often than not. Plus, she just about killed herself over the last week, trying to work this out for me. So yes, I'm strongly inclined to believe her.”

“One more question, Major. Why am I speaking to you, rather than Rankine?”

He decided to go for broke, and spoke as frankly as he dared. “Because I didn't want to have to spend time convincing him, then giving him enough information to convince you, ma'am. I believe Snow is correct. We do not have a moment to waste.”

Some of the frost had left her voice when she replied. “Well done, Major. We'll speak again.” She hung up.

Shakily, he lowered the handset to the cradle, the switched off the light. He lowered himself to the mattress once more, then Junie rolled over.

“What was that all about?” she mumbled.

He sighed. There was no sense in worrying her. “I'll tell you in the morning. Go back to sleep.”

He climbed out of bed and went to his study. Picking up the phone there, he dialled a number.

“Director Rankine? Hamilton. Yes, sir, I know how early it is. There's something you need to know … “

-ooo-​

Saturday, March 26, 1994
New York City

When the Behemoth – tagged by the PRT as Sierra Mike Alpha, for 'Subterranean Menace A' – first emerged from the Marun Field in Iran, there had been no thought that it would ever return. After all, it had faced the massed power of all the parahumans that had been able to arrive in time. Casualties had been taken, but it had been driven away.

And then, it had dug itself out of the earth once more, in Sao Paolo. The destruction had been even more devastating, the casualties more horrifying. More parahumans had faced it; more had died. It had been driven away once more, but at a terrible cost. No more was it thought to be just a Middle Eastern problem, or even an Asian problem. It had emerged on the other side of an ocean, on a whole different continent.

After the second emergence, hasty think-tanks were convened, not to find ways to kill it – that was left up to the parahumans – but to minimise the death and destruction that it left in its wake. Shelters were posited, in which cities could hide their populations; not unlike the bunkers left under many cities in the aftermath of the nuclear-war scare of the sixties. But these would take time to design, to install, even with parahuman – especially Tinker – assistance.

In the meantime, the other wartime staple, the air-raid siren, had been revived. Emplacements around every city, broadcasting on every radio and TV channel, would warn the population of a city of the approach of the Behemoth. Optimistically, this would give them time to find some sort of shelter, or get out of the city.

New York, as one of the bastions of the PRT and the Protectorate, had sirens aplenty installed by the morning of the twenty-sixth of March, nineteen hundred and ninety-four.

In the chill of the morning, at two minutes past three, these sirens began to wail.

-ooo-​

Saturday, March 26, 1994
New York City
8:34 AM, EST

Alexandria hovered over New York City, scanning the rooftops below, her expression intent, as if she could divine the location of the Behemoth by willpower alone. Legend moved up alongside her.

“I'm thinking of turning the sirens off,” he commented. “I think everyone's gotten the message.”

She became aware once more of the sirens; they had been sounding non-stop for the last five hours and more. In her concentration, she had tuned them out.

“No,” she decided. “If we turn them off, then some idiots are going to think that it's all clear, and start coming back. And we can not afford that.”

“Hm,” he agreed, but didn't go away. Instead, he just hovered there, biting his lip. He was rarely this hesitant; normally, he would come right out with what he wanted to say.

“Spit it out,” she invited him.

“Well,” he began hesitantly, “this information you've got … what if it's wrong? One PRT analyst, in Chicago, decides that Sierra Mike Alpha is going to attack New York, today? Specifically?”

She fixed her gaze upon him; he didn't flinch, he didn't back off. Slowly, she nodded. “You make a good point,” she admitted. “But the timing is about right. The location – well, we don't have anything to go on for location, save for the last attack, when it emerged in a populated area. There's nothing to say that it won't do that again.” She paused. “But that doesn't mean much, I agree. However, there's one last factor.”

“What's that?” he asked.

“I've met the analyst in question,” she replied. “She … impressed me. She's the one who came up with the improved Master-Stranger protocols. And half a dozen other things, all of which have improved the running of the PRT without ever making the public eye.”

Legend raised an eyebrow. “Christ. Someone impressed you? That would have taken some doing.”

Alexandria tilted her head in acknowledgement. “She has a reputation for brilliant intuitive leaps, for hunches that pan out more often than not. Even before the PRT formed, she had a degree in parahuman studies, criminology and psychology. Her commanding officer rang me directly; I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. And besides … “

He nodded. “Yeah. And besides, it's better to run the sirens for a day and call it a 'drill' than call it off, just before the monster leaps up out of the earth and kills eight million people.”

-ooo-​

The day wore on. The sirens continued to wail, to remind everyone that the Behemoth was coming. More and more parahumans arrived every hour, were assigned regions to patrol. Each was issued a radio and given strict instructions; if the creature emerged, they were to keep well back, and call for assistance. All the assistance.

Heavy vehicles rumbled through the otherwise deserted midtown streets, carrying those parahumans without some sort of Mover ability. Radios crackled, but no-one called in a sighting. Overhead, the largest assemblage of flying parahumans that had ever come together in one place orbited the city, touching down here and there on the tallest buildings.

Elsewhere, every roadway, every bridge, every tunnel, was packed bumper-to-bumper with cars. Traffic jams were broken up whenever possible, by grim-faced, heavily-armed NYPD, SWAT and even PRT troopers. All traffic was decreed outbound only; both sides of every bridge and tunnel were given over to such traffic.

In New York Harbour, every boat that could be considered even remotely capable of doing so was dropping its moorings and putting out to sea. The surface of the water was dotted with craft crowded so closely together that only the fact that they were all travelling in roughly the same direction was preventing several collisions a minute. Horns and sirens sounded non-stop, echoing over the water. Several harbour patrol boats, backed up by Coast Guard cutters, were doing their best to keep order, but it wasn't easy.

Among the parahumans, the initial apprehension, the enthusiasm, began to wane. They had arrived keyed up for a battle, but it had not eventuated. Food supplies were flown in, served in shifts to parahumans, who went out again, to resume the endless patrolling. Grumbling, at first here and there, became widespread. If this was a drill, people asked, then why didn't they call it a day? And if it wasn't, then where the hell was the creature?

And then the first of Hero's seismic devices began to register something. A disturbance, moving closer.

Coming to the surface.

The word went out. Parahumans stopped grumbling as the apprehension took hold again. They began to converge on Central Park, where the strongest mini-quakes were being registered.

It was no hoax, no drill.

Behemoth was coming to New York City.

-ooo-​

Saturday, March 26, 1994
New York City
1:16 PM, EST

“Surround the park!” Legend's voice was urgent but steady. “Brutes to the fore, flyers in the air. We'll try to contain the creature here; force fields and barriers, behind the Brutes. Be warned; it can leap high and far. Be ready to take cover at a moment's notice; it can use sound and lightning as a weapon.”

His voice carried to the other parahumans, even as the PRT troops that had delivered them to the site fell back. Normal humans, without even the meagre gifts the lowest-tier parahumans boasted, stood no chance at all in this coming battle.

Beside him, Eidolon pointed. “There.”

Below the Protectorate – the four heroes who formed the core of the larger teams – the water of the Reservoir was rippling in an odd manner. Waves splashed up on the shore, then receded dramatically. And then steam began to boil from the centre of the large body of water.

“How deep is that?” asked Hero, hovering on the steady thrust of his jetpack.

“Up to forty feet in places,” Alexandria replied absently.

“Christ,” muttered Legend. “The Behemoth is at least forty-five feet tall. What's the bet that the water doesn't hamper him at all?”

Eidolon turned to him. “We can at least make it tougher on the bastard.”

Legend nodded; he and Eidolon struck downward at the same time, using their powers in concert. Where Legend's blue beam hit, the water froze, ice radiating outward at a spectacular rate. Eidolon's ray was more subtle; it struck, without seeming to have any effect whatsoever. But the waves stilled, and suddenly, from within, the water began to freeze. The two effects met, combined, and the Reservoir was frozen solid.

Except for a thirty-foot-wide space in the middle, which was still boiling steam. Mud and rocks began to spit upward as well.

Both Eidolon and Legend, without even bothering to confer, turned their respective beams on the last unfrozen section. For a moment, even, it seemed that they would succeed; the water became sluggish, and the rocks seemed to freeze in motion.

And then the central hundred feet of the frozen lake exploded up and outward, huge chunks of ice flying through the air. Only the reflexes of Legend and Eidolon, who vaporised the largest sections, and the force fields that had already been set up, managed to prevent anyone from being seriously injured.

But now, in the hole that had been created, the monster now stood. Sierra Mike Alpha, better known as the Behemoth, had arrived.

Alexandria was the first to react. With a battle cry, she rocketed downward at the foe. It answered with a roar that shook the leaves from the trees, shattered the ice filling the Reservoir, and broke many nearby windows.

Eidolon and Legend followed shortly after; Hero stayed aloft to provide fire support.

The Battle of New York had begun.

-ooo-​

Saturday, March 26, 1994
Chicago PRT Offices
1832 hours, CTZ

Once the battle was over, the monster routed, the news began to roll in from the stricken city. Aerial shots of the devastation in Central Park, the charred remains where he had blasted his way out of the force-field cordon, were brought to us in living colour. The damage total was immense; several buildings had been brought down by the monster's rampage through the streets of New York. Others had been severely damaged, but not destroyed.

The death toll had been horrendous; not everyone had been able to get off the island. There had been those who had been trying to leave, and those who, despite the official warnings, had stayed on because they couldn't or wouldn't leave. These had still been in the city when Behemoth arrived, and many had paid the price. More numerous were the PRT troopers, the police officers, the firefighters, the military and reservists, who had done their duty while fire and destruction were raining down about them.

And of course, the capes. They had faced Behemoth directly. Heroes and villains had stood shoulder to shoulder, had faced the unbeatable, had bought time for more civilians to get away, and had died doing so.

For New York, it was a victory, dearly bought with the blood and lives of its defenders, a horrible victory, but a victory nonetheless. For the PRT, it was a public-relations coup like none other. Heroes and villains alike had heeded the call, had fought side by side.

Had died, side by side.

I was reminded, viscerally, of the devastation, the losses, of the last time I had faced the monster. Intellectually, I knew that today was a victory; Behemoth had been driven off with a relatively low death toll. Barely a tenth of the capes who had faced him were dead. More were injured, but most of those would recover. The civilian casualty list was only in the low thousands.

Only.

I couldn't watch it, not when I knew that if I had told Hamilton earlier, more lives would have been saved. Would it have been so bad, to have told him the day before? To give the population of New York another six or twelve hours to evacuate?

The timing had been critical; too soon, and it would look too easy. Too late, and far more people would have been dead. No matter which way I looked at it, I could not find a perfect answer.

I thought it would be easier than this.

-ooo-​

There was a sharp rapping at the door to my quarters. I ignored it, curled on my bunk, tears still fresh on my cheeks.

“Lieutenant Snow!” It was Hamilton's voice. “Please open your door; you have a visitor.”

I staggered off my bed, ran my fingers through my hair. Found my glasses. Stumbled to the door. Opened it.

Chief Director Costa-Brown stood there, alongside Director Rankine.

I came to attention, saluted. “Chief Director. I'm sorry, I … “ My voice trailed to a halt.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” she told me bluntly. “May I come in?”

I stepped back. “Uh, yes, ma'am. Sorry for the, uh, mess.”

She stepped inside, closing the door behind her, and eyed my quarters critically. My office had been disarranged with a purpose in mind; here, the mess was less deliberate and more spur of the moment. When I had gotten here after watching the images of the aftermath of New York, I had been … distraught. Many of my small knick-knacks lay about on the floor; I had thrown everything I could get my hands on, at the walls, at the floor. I had screamed curses until my throat was raw. At the height of my temper, I had kicked a hole in the thin wall-boarding. And then I had collapsed upon my bunk, sobbing.

“Sit,” she ordered me, pointing at the bunk. Obediently, I sat.

Bending down, she picked up my chair from where it was jammed beneath the small desk – I vaguely recalled kicking it there, partway through my mental break – and righted it, turning it to face me. Sitting down upon it, she observed me.

“You've done some very fine work,” she began.

“Uh, thank you -” I began.

She cut me off. “That didn't require an answer. It was a statement of fact. I was impressed by you when I first met you at the White House; were you aware of that?”

I blinked. “I – no, I didn't know that, ma'am.”

Her smile was faint, rather dry, but it was a smile. “After that meeting, I made it a point to keep up with your work. You are known to be brilliant on occasion, intuitive when it suits you, and right far more often than you're wrong.” She shook her head slightly. “But today … “

I waited, but she did not continue. “Uh, today, ma'am?”

Her gaze upon me sharpened considerably. “Today, you astonished me. You managed to do something that none of our Thinkers, none of our precogs had managed to do. You predicted, accurately, the time and place that the Behemoth was due to emerge. How did you do that, exactly?”

I took off my glasses, scrubbed my face with my hands. “Ma'am, I look at the data and things just … fit together. I can't tell you how I know things, I just know them.”

“I see.” Her gaze upon me was razor-sharp, flaying away the layers of my pretence, or so it felt. “When we last met, I asked you if you were a parahuman, if you had powers. You told me that you did not.” She leaned forward. “Is this still the case?”

I put my glasses back on, met her gaze. “Ma'am, I'm not the world's foremost expert on parahuman powers. But I know a good deal about how they work, how people get them. How to spot them. I would know if I had powers. And to the very best of my knowledge, I do not.”

She held my gaze for a long moment, but I refused to look away, refused to fidget. I was telling the absolute truth; I did not have powers. Lisa had powers, but Lisa wasn't me. I believed that, implicitly.

I had to.

Because I didn't want my best friend, my last link with the world I had left behind, to be dead.

She nodded once, sharply. “Very well. Be that as it may. I would like to extend to you an offer to come work directly with the upper levels of the PRT. A high-powered think-tank. You have proven yourself to be a problem-solver of the highest order, and your input would be greatly valued.”

I stared at her, then shook my head convulsively. “Ma'am,” I whispered. “Thank you, but I can't.”

She stared at me; I wrapped my arms around myself.

“What do you mean, you can't?” she demanded.

I began to rock back and forth on the bed, hugging myself. “I'm sorry,” I whimpered. “I can't do that. Not again. I can't make that sort of decision over life and death. Please don't make me.”

“Snow,” she stated flatly, “people would have died no matter what you did today. What you did saved lives. You can't blame yourself.”

I shook my head. “And the people who wouldn't have even been there? The people who died in accidents, trying to get away? The people who died when Behemoth collapsed the Holland Tunnel? I killed them, as surely as if I had put a gun to their heads, myself. I can't do that, not again. I can't face it.”

I was hunched over, not looking at her, not wanting to face her. Not wanting her to see my deception. Part of what I was saying was true; I didn't want to become part of a group tasked with solving problems. Certainly, I could help make the world a better place. But the problems I would be faced with solving would not be the problems I wanted to solve. And I've always done much better without oversight.

“Snow,” she began.

I put my hands over my ears, shaking my head. “No,” I whimpered. “No, no, no.”

Alexandria knew how to read people; I knew how to fake psychological reactions. It just remained to see who would give up first.

She tried to speak to me a few more times; I refused to listen. I heard her get up, walk to the door. She paused then, and spoke. “If you ever change your mind, Snow, let me know.”

I gave no indication that I had heard her; after a moment, she sighed, opened the door, and left.

A few minutes later, I heard the door open again. Footsteps trod across the floorboards, paused in front of me.

“Snow.”

Major Hamilton's voice was soft; I barely heard it. He knelt before me. “Lieutenant Snow,” he asked quietly, compassionately. “Are you all right?”

Lieutenants do not hug Majors. It's not a done thing. There are probably regulations about it, somewhere. But I flung my arms around him, and did my best to pretend to burst into tears.

He must not have read that regulation either, because he put his arms around me, and patted me gently on the back.

After a while, I found that I didn't have to pretend; the tears came all too easily.

-ooo-​

Chicago PRT Offices
Sunday, March 27, 1994

I stood at attention before Major Hamilton's desk.

“I'm very sorry, sir,” I told him, my voice subdued. “It won't happen again.”

He shook his head impatiently. “Snow,” he told me in a tone of voice that combined amusement with exasperation, “you did nothing wrong. You were overwrought and were suffering from a lack of sleep.”

I took a deep breath. “Sir -”

He raised a finger. “I wasn't finished, Snow.”

“Yes, sir.” I waited.

He leaned forward on his desk with his elbows. “What you did yesterday was nothing less than a miracle, Snow. You warned us in enough time that a great many people were able to evacuate the city. The damage and the casualties were both far less than they could have been. Whatever did happen there was not your fault.”

I knew better; even without my input, Behemoth would have been driven away with only relatively minor damage to the city. Less now, due to me, but my warning hadn't been crucial. Nor had it allowed them to drive him off with no casualties, no damage. I had merely … shifted things around, a bit.

After a pause, he went on. “And as for how you reacted afterward; well, I can't blame you for that either. You're a brilliant young officer, but you've never seen large-scale casualties before.”

Oh, how wrong you are.

-ooo-​

I had been in Endbringer battles before, and more, but two things were different now. The first was that I had normally been able to put my emotions away from me, into my swarm, to allow me to think and act with clarity. The second was that previously, I had been in there, in the action. Not responsible for it. This time around, I had made decisions, supplied information. Caused a lot of it to happen.

It was sobering, jarring. But in a way, it was comforting. It made my next big step just a little easier. Because for that step, only one person was going to have to die.

-ooo-​

I took a deep breath. “I still should have handled it better, sir.”

He chuckled warmly. “Lieutenant Snow, if you believe that you're the first young officer to have cried on my shoulder, then … well, to be honest, you'd be correct, but there are many that have come close. And I must admit, it was a first to have to ask your Sergeant to help me tuck you into bed, but it was somewhat refreshing to find that there were feet of clay under your perfect exterior, after all.”

I was a little startled. “I, uh, sir, I don't think I'm -”

“Perfect?” He smiled paternally. “Of course you don't. But that's the appearance that you present. You try so hard to get it right every single time. And you do get it right so often.” He leaned forward, lowering his voice slightly. “I'll let you in on a little secret, Snow.”

“Uh, a secret, sir?”

A nod. “Yes. You see, I've been in this game since before 'military intelligence' became a joke phrase. And if there's one thing I've learned, it's that even if you do manage to get the right information to the right people at the right time, nine times out of ten, it's either obsolete, they ignore it, or it doesn't make a difference anyway.”

I blinked. “Oh.”

Lowering his glasses, he looked at me over them. “'Oh' is right, young Snow. So often, we suffer disappointments. What just happened yesterday, no matter what else it was, was not a disappointment. We made a difference. Never forget that. And just for the record? Although I am officially unhappy that you turned down Director Costa-Brown's offer, I am unofficially rather pleased. I am selfish enough, you see, that I don't want to lose my best analyst to Washington.”

The feeling in his voice was plain enough that I felt a flush rising in my cheeks. “I, uh, I like it here too, sir.”

“Good.” He cleared his throat, sat back in his chair, and squared his shoulders. “And in other matters, it has apparently been decided that our contribution to the victory yesterday was sufficient to warrant a promotion and a medal for you, and a promotion for myself. The medal will be forthcoming in a ceremony this evening, but I am pleased to state that the promotions are effective immediately. Congratulations, Captain Snow.”

He stood, walked around his desk, and solemnly shook my hand. I gripped his hand firmly. “This means that you're a lieutenant colonel now, sir?”

His eyes twinkled behind the half-moon glasses. “As sharp as ever, Captain Snow. Well done.” His uniform jacket was hanging over his chair; he put it on, revealing his new rank insignia.

Of course. He didn't want me to make the connection until he told me.

“I'm not sure that I'm really ready, sir,” I ventured. “After yesterday and all … “

He nodded understandingly. “I can see why you would feel like that, Snow. Which is why I am also authorising four weeks of convalescent leave for you, effective as of tomorrow morning. Doctor Oaks has signed off on it. Go home, reconnect with your friends and family. Smell the flowers. Unwind.” He smiled again, warmly. “It will all still be here when you get back.”

I smiled back. “Thank you, sir. And congratulations on your promotion as well.”

“I couldn't have done it without you, Captain. And that's the honest truth. Dismissed.”

I saluted, about-faced, and marched from his office.

I was now a captain. Another step complete.

-ooo-​

When I got back to my quarters, Kinsey was laying out my uniform jacket. Without much in the way of surprise, I noted that it bore captain's insignia.

“You knew,” I noted.

He turned and treated me to a parade ground perfect salute. “Captain Snow,” he greeted me; it seemed to me that there was a smile hidden somewhere on that impassive visage.

I saluted him back. “Sergeant.” I paused. “When did you find out?”

“The lieutenant colonel spoke to me about it last night, ma'am.”

I raised an eyebrow. “But you didn't see fit to tell me about it this morning.”

Not a flicker disturbed his expression. “It did not seem to be my place, ma'am.”

I sighed and gave up. “Well then, I presume he told you that I'm taking four weeks off, as of tomorrow. So you're going to have to find something else to do.”

“Oh no, ma'am,” he replied blandly. “Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton has assigned me to accompany you on your leave.”

I stopped, stared. “You're joking.”

He shook his head. “No, ma'am. Where you go, I go. Those were almost his exact words.”

“We'll see about that,” I retorted grimly, and left the quarters at the double.

-ooo-​

I knocked once on the frame of Hamilton's office door, then entered. He looked up mildly at me as I saluted.

“Ah, Snow, you're back,” he greeted me genially, returning the salute. “Was there something you would like to discuss with me?”

Standing at attention, so that I would not be tempted to bang my fist on his desk, I gritted out, “I understand that you're assigning me Kinsey as a nursemaid on this leave, sir. I would like to register a protest.”

A pronounced line formed between his bushy brows as he stared at me. “A nursemaid, Snow? Surely not.”

“What else would you call it, sir?” I retorted. “I'm going on medical leave. For a mental breakdown. Is Kinsey along to make sure I don't do anything stupid, like hurt myself, or go AWOL?”

His brows lowered. “Are you likely to do something like that, Snow? No, no, don't answer that. The question is both insulting and ridiculous. No, of course Sergeant Kinsey isn't along for anything so mundane as that. If I thought that was ever a danger, I would not be sending you on leave; I would be sending you straight to therapy.”

His reasonable tone, his open expression, allowed me to collect my thoughts. I began to feel more than a little foolish. “I … uh, sorry, sir. Then may I ask why you're sending Kinsey along with me?”

“To protect you from Director Costa-Brown, of course,” he replied, as if it were the most logical thing in the world. “She wants you on her team; after all, you predicted New York. Just having you there would be a huge feather in her cap. So Sergeant Kinsey will be going along, to run interference for you. Just in case the Chief Director's people have decided to not take no for an answer, and choose to approach you there.”

The last of the anger drained away from me. “ … oh.” I flushed. “I'm really, really sorry, sir.”

He smiled gently at me. “I value you quite highly, Captain Snow. Both as a person, and as an analyst. I would not have you forced into any decisions that you did not agree with.”

I nodded. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I appreciate the forethought, sir.” Coming to attention, I saluted. “May I be dismissed, sir? I suspect I may need to apologise to Sergeant Kinsey.”

Casually, he returned the salute. “Dismissed, Captain.”

By the time I had left the office, he was already scanning the papers before him once more.

I didn't go immediately back to my quarters. I had a bit to think about.

Hamilton sending Kinsey along with me to Brockton Bay wasn't something I had anticipated, but it was something I could work around, given time.

I was just going to have to be careful about it.

End of Part 3-4

Part 4-1​

 

Recoil

Part 4-1: Back to Brockton Bay​

I lay full-length on a surfboard, wearing my Skitter-patterned bikini and a pair of my old yellow swimming goggles. Lisa lay on her back alongside me,on her own board; she wore her Tattletale bikini. Around us, the ocean was vast, with slowly heaving green swells, affording the occasional glimpse of an island in the distance ahead of us. The crash and boom of breaking surf was a distant underpinning to the screeches of seagulls overhead.

The sun was warm on my back. I lay in comfort, my chin pillowed on my crossed arms.

New hobby, huh? I murmured.

“I kinda like it,” Lisa replied, just as lazily. “Lets me think about things.”

It is very relaxing, I admitted.

Lisa rolled her head sideways to shoot me her fox-like grin. “If you can't relax inside your own head … “

As I recall, I teased her, that was always a problem you had.

She snorted. “Yeah. One thing about being dead, it kinda changes your perspective on life. You learn to take the long view.”

I decided to not even go there. Yeah well, with the way things were going, I was never sure that I was going to get a long life. Given all the shit that was happening around me.

“But you were always in there, slugging,” Lisa told me. She rolled up on to her elbow. “And now you're here, fixing shit.”

I stirred the water with a fingertip. It was cool and inviting. I could just roll off the board. Submerge myself in it. Still a lot of shit to fix.

“Are you surprised? It's only been what, four and a half years? There's thirty years of problems for you to overcome, here. And you know how it gets more difficult if you try to tackle a specific problem too early or too late.”

Yeah, yeah, I know. I turned to face her. Just kind of gets on top of me from time to time, you know?

Lisa sat up and turned so that her legs were dangling off the edge of the board. “You know what your problem is?”

What's my problem?

“You need to get laid.”

I snorted. Please tell me you're not volunteering.

Mischief danced in her eyes.“Nope.”

Then you're referring to Andrea. Which might be a little difficult, given that I've got Sergeant Nursemaid along. She has enough trouble getting me alone long enough to break through my defences as it is.

She rolled her eyes. “No, not Andrea. Although she is very good for you.”

I eyed her. Do tell, then.

Playfully, she splashed water at me. “Make your problem into your solution, duh!”

It took me a few seconds to track her logic. Kinsey?

She nodded, eyes bright, grin lurking on her lips. “He's just your type. Big, brawny, built like the side of a barn. And he's got a thing for you.”

I sighed. I made a play for him once before, remember? When I got drunk off my head at the wedding reception. He turned me down. I think that's a pretty definite 'no'.

She shook her head. “Many factors there, most of which involved his sense of duty and the fact that he also respects you as much as he thinks you're hot. So he's not about to do anything that's not one hundred percent your idea.”

Also, I pointed out, if I did that thing, and he didn't just turn me down flat because of regulations, and we got caught, so very much shit promptly lands on us from a great height, and our plans get set back so far it's not funny. Not least of which being that I'd lose him as a right hand man.

Lisa shrugged. “Don't get caught?”

Says everyone involved in every ill-advised venture in history, ever. Besides, if I swing and miss, or even if I do get him into bed, he's going to see me differently. And I'm not sure if I'm ready for that.

Lisa pulled her legs out of the water; she knelt up on her board and began to paddle, starting herself moving in toward shore. “You do realise that everything you do makes people look at you differently. If you start something with Kinsey, he's more likely to be on side when the real shit starts going down.”

I followed suit, digging my hands deep into the cool green water. And if he decides that I'm a bad person and a bad officer for making a move on him?

Lisa shot me a glance. “You really think that's likely?”

It might happen. My tone was defensive.

“Pfft, yeah. Right. Kinsey thinks you walk on water.” She patted the water alongside her board to illustrate; ripples spread out from her hand.

Kinsey had to help Hamilton put me to bed when I totally fell apart after Behemoth. And there was that aforementioned drunken pass. I'm not sure what Kinsey thinks of me, but 'perfect' is not it.

We were in a current now, and the water was rippling around us as we moved toward the shore. The swells were starting to build higher, and the troughs falling lower.

Lisa shook her head. “Nobody's perfect. But you've done amazing things. Kinsey can see that.”

The roar of breakers was louder now; I had to raise my voice slightly. But what if it goes bad?

Lisa grinned at me. “What if it doesn't?”

I had no time to answer; a massive swell was rising under us. We paddled frantically to get on top of it. She climbed to her feet with the ease of what looked like long practice; I wobbled upright, trying hard not to let the damn board slide from under me.

The swell under us continued to grow and build, the water humping up as the ocean bed got shallower. All of a sudden, we were standing on the crest of a travelling mountain of ocean, rolling in toward the shoreline at what seemed to be a breakneck pace.

Lisa yelled in exhilaration; I was concentrating on shifting my balance so that I didn't slide down the face of the wave, or fall off the back. Around us, it started to break, white shreds tearing loose and being whipped away by the wind. The wave thundered in toward the shore; I grinned tightly, enjoying myself immensely despite the seeming danger.

At the last moment, I lost it; the board slid forward, I came off, and the breaker dumped on top of me. Tons of green water surrounded me, and I couldn't even figure out which way was up; bubbles were going in all different directions. But I pulled my billy-cord in, grabbed my board, and let it buoy me to the surface. The wave receded, leaving me knee-deep in water, with sand in my ears. And everywhere else. My goggles had protected my eyes, but they were about the only parts of me that hadn't gotten sand in them, or so it seemed.

Lisa was standing on shore, waving; I trudged out of the water to meet her, carrying my board. On the way, I spat out sand, and removed a strand of seaweed that was decorating my hair.

I thought you said it was easy?

Her grin was unrepentant. “I said it was fun.”

I nodded, reluctantly. Yeah. It was fun. I smiled. Thanks for bringing me here. And thanks for the talk.

Her look was serious. “Think about what I said. He's a good man.”

I sighed. I'll think about it. No promises.

She hugged me; I returned it. Warm skin to warm skin, reminding me unexpectedly of Andrea. Comforting.

Without her needing to prompt me, I kissed her. Her lips tasted of salt water as well as dust and blood.

I closed my eyes …

-ooo-​

Monday, March 28, 1994
Interstate 90
New York State

… and opened them, to see the highway rolling past; Kinsey was a steady, stolid presence in the driver's seat. I could hear the thrumming of the tyres over the blacktop, the music playing very softly in the background. No, not music. A sounds-of-nature tape. Breaking waves and screeching seagulls.

How much of that made it into my dream? I wondered.

Carefully, trying not to be too obvious about it, I stretched. A few vertebrae popped; Kinsey glanced over at me, made very brief eye contact, nodded, then put his attention back on the road.

“I trust the captain enjoyed her nap?” he observed blandly.

“The captain,” I replied, “prefers to sleep in a bed. But yes, Sergeant, I did enjoy the nap. Thank you.” I paused. “Where are we?”

“New York State Throughway, ma'am,” he responded crisply. “We're twenty minutes out of Buffalo.”

I blinked. “I must have needed that sleep more than I thought. How long was I out?”

I saw his eyes flick to the dashboard clock. “Two hours, forty-five minutes, ma'am. Since just after we bypassed Erie.”

The clock, I saw, read 17:21. We'd been on the road more than eight hours. The sun wasn't down yet, but it would be in another couple of hours. And Kinsey had to be tired of driving.

“Pull over at the next rest stop,” I told him. “I need to get out, stretch my legs. And then I'll take over driving for a bit.”

“Ma'am, a captain does not drive a sergeant,” he responded automatically.

“I'm not a captain at the moment,” I retorted testily. “I'm on leave. Off duty.” I plucked at the collar of my decidedly non-regulation blouse. “Not in uniform.”

“Ma'am, a captain is always a captain,” Kinsey replied quietly, with a note of gentle admonishment. “One does not simply put off the rank with the uniform.” He paused. “In any case, I am on duty.”

I stared at him. “You are?”

He nodded. “Yes, ma'am. Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton specifically ordered me to accompany you to Brockton Bay, and to maintain a protective detail on you, until you returned to duty. If I were not on duty, I would not be obliged to carry out that order. As I am carrying out that order, I am therefore on duty, and I must act accordingly.”

I thought for a moment. “And if I ordered you to let me drive?”

He raised an eyebrow. “That would depend, ma'am.”

“On what, exactly?” I queried, eyeing him suspiciously.

“On whether the captain considers herself to be still a captain, and thus able to issue such orders, or whether she considers herself to be a civilian at the moment, and thus unable to give lawful orders to serving members of the PRT.” His face never cracked a smile, but I got the distinct impression that he was grinning broadly.

“And of course, if I consider myself to be a captain,” I worked out, “we're back to 'captains do not drive sergeants'. Right?”

“Exactly correct, ma'am,” he praised me.

I shot him a dirty look. “Do you practise being a smartass barracks-room lawyer, or does it come naturally?”

“I was an MP before I came into your service, ma'am,” he reminded me. “I had to know the regulations forward and backward, so that the other smartass barracks-room lawyers couldn't trip me up.”

I had to smile. He had neatly trapped me. No matter which way I went, he won the argument.

“Okay, fine, Kinsey. You got me. I don't do the driving.”

“Very good, ma'am.” His voice was as bland as ever, but I still got the impression that he was smiling. Sergeant Kinsey had hidden depths; I only glimpsed them every now and again, but it was always educational when I did.

“But you can still pull over at a rest stop. I would like to get out and stretch my legs.”

He nodded. “Of course, ma'am. Batavia'll be coming up soon; there'll be gas stations there.” A glance at the fuel gauge. “And it'll be a good place to fill up, too.”

I made a snap decision. “Tell you what, Kinsey. We're not going to make Brockton Bay tonight. Pull in to Batavia, and we'll find a motel. Head off first thing tomorrow.”

He nodded judiciously. “Very good, ma'am. I would have liked to press on to Rochester, but I don't believe that the captain is in any particular hurry … ?”

I snorted. “If I was in a hurry, Sergeant, we would have taken a plane. And you know how much we both love flying.”

He didn't quite snort in reply, but I knew the direction of his thoughts. Kinsey was a big man, broad and muscular. Not as tall as me, but there were quite a few men who weren't as tall as me. Neither of us was built to fit comfortably into a cramped airline seat, except maybe first class, and we didn't rate that.

Ironically, Andrea could have shelled out enough money to finance us on a first-class flight around the world, and not noticed the loss. But I couldn't access our shared funds for something like that, not without someone noticing. So it was either a long car drive, or an uncomfortable flight, and Kinsey had noted, I wasn't in any particular hurry. Also, he and I were quite comfortable in one another's company for hours at a time; we had proven that on the road trip at the beginning of the month, the one that had gone via New York, and taken us three days to get to Brockton Bay. This time it would take us two easy days, as we were travelling a much more direct route.

-ooo-​

While Kinsey was filling the car, I went in to pay for the fuel. While I was there, I picked out a few odds and ends, such as chap stick – driving in air conditioning tended to dry out the lips – and a bottle of chilled water for Kinsey. Bringing my purchases to the counter, I enquired about nearby motels.

“Oh, that's easy, ma'am,” the attendant replied. “You turn right, around the corner, and half a block down that way. Can't miss it. Big purple neon sign.” As he spoke, he swiped the items and bagged them, then rang up the purchase. “With the fuel … that'll be fifty-one seventy-three, ma'am.”

I pondered on the honorific, then decided that, despite the fact that I was only about four or five years older than him, he was actually being polite and not ironic.

As I was pulling the purse out of my handbag, the sliding door behind me whooshed open, and two men entered. I half-turned my head to get a look at them, and immediately, my instincts went to high alert; long coats, collars pulled up, baseball caps pulled down, sunglasses which they had not taken off once they got into the store.

I shoved my purse back into the bag, then closed my hand over something else. “Get down,” I told the polite young man in a low voice. “Get down now.”

He stared at me. “Ma'am?”

“Holdup,” I snapped, then turned as one of the men started toward us. They were both bringing long-barrelled weapons out from under their coats; I dropped my handbag, maintaining my grip on the Glock 26 that I kept in my handbag. It wasn't a big pistol, of a size to fit in my handbag more than anything else, but it was still a reasonably deadly weapon, in trained hands. And I had spent many hours at the range, making sure that yes, I was trained.

Before their gun barrels were even halfway to the horizontal, I had my weapon up and aimed, one hand braced over the other.

“Drop the guns!” I screamed.

The idiot facing me didn't listen, didn't drop his gun; the barrel kept on coming up. It was a shotgun, I registered absently, the pump-action type. His buddy started to turn, the shotgun barrel swinging around toward me.

I didn't hesitate another instant. Body armour was a thing, and he was only fifteen feet away, so I discarded the idea of a centre-mass shot. Plus, his shotgun was almost high enough to shoot me in the feet; if I didn't put him down now, he could still tag me. My sights were already on the bridge of his nose; I squeezed the trigger twice. The pistol jolted against my palm, and each flat crack echoed loud in the enclosed space.

Crimson blossomed across his face; he crumpled without a sound. The shotgun did not go off when it hit the floor, which was something I had been a little worried about. Modern weapons do not, as a rule, go off when dropped, but when a dead man's finger is tangled in the trigger guard, anything can happen.

His buddy was still turning, gun barrel still tracking toward me, but he should have turned left and not right. As it was, his right side was facing toward me, his arm a perfect target. This time, I fired three times; wrist, elbow, shoulder. The pistol jolted with each shot, but tracked nicely; each shot went exactly where I wanted it.

His hand convulsed, and he blew away a sunglasses display before dropping the shotgun. It clattered to the ground, and he followed a moment later, falling to his knees. His left hand reached over to clasp his ruined right arm, and then he slumped over on to his side. I stepped over, kicking the shotguns away from the wounded and dead men respectively. Then I checked for a pulse in the first man I had shot. I didn't expect to find one, and I was correct; even coming out of a subcompact pistol, one nine-mill bullet will put some hurt on a man. Two will ruin his whole day, and that's if you don't hit something vital.

I glanced out into the forecourt, and noted Kinsey on the way in. He had a third man, similarly dressed to the other two, whose right arm seemed to be dangling oddly. Kinsey had his left arm in an iron grip, and a large-calibre automatic pistol pressing up under the man's jaw.

The sergeant said something as he entered, but I didn't catch it; after five shots from my pistol and the blast from the shotgun, my ears were ringing like a church bell. This is why we use ear protection.

"What?" I half-shouted.

He caught on immediately. Good man, Kinsey. “Caught this one trying to crash the party,” he repeated, raising his voice and speaking more slowly. He glanced over the carnage. “You're not hurt, ma'am?”

“No, Sergeant,” I assured him, then half-turned toward the attendant. He was still standing, still goggling at the two men on the floor. In turn, I raised my voice. “Call nine-one-one. Now.”

He nodded convulsively. “Yes, ma'am,” he declared, snatching up the phone.

Kinsey and I shared a glance. Civilians.

-ooo-​

The police detective handed me my ID back, and turned to a fresh page of his notepad. I tucked the ID away, maintaining an expression of mild interest, although I was starting to feel a little irritated.

"Now then, uh, Ms Snow," he began.

I cleared my throat politely. "Captain Snow, if you don't mind," I reminded him gently. "I went through a great deal of training and hardship to get my commission, after all."

"Fine," he retorted. "Captain Snow it is, then. How is it that a twenty-two year old woman ends up as a captain, anyway?"

I wasn't quite sure whether he was most dubious about my gender or my age - he looked to be about forty, himself - but I got the impression that he was trying to bait me out. If I responded in kind, he'd have an excuse to push harder. My instinct was to escalate, to destroy him, but there was more than one way to escalate.

"That, Detective ... Fowler, was it?" He nodded. "Right. That information, I'm afraid, is classified. I am bound by law not to tell you, or anyone else lacking the appropriate clearance."

Fowler's expression was akin to that of someone who had just bitten into an orange and found it to be a lemon. "Classified," he grunted. "Right. How the hell does a promotion end up being classified?"

"When it's a matter of national security," I replied sweetly. "If you want to know any more, I suggest you call my commanding officer, at the number I gave you. Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton."

"I'll do that," he growled. “Fine. So what's the PRT doing in this part of the country, anyway? Those three jokers you took down aren't parahumans. They're just a bunch of lowlives that've been hitting the gas stations and diners in the area.”

“Never thought they were,” I replied. “But when someone pulls out a shotgun in my general direction, I tend to object.”

“If by 'object' you mean 'shoot them in the face',” he translated, "yeah, I got it. But I had a look at that pocket pistol you say you popped them with. How the hell did you nail them from across the room like that? It's got an accurate range of about five feet.”

“One,” I stated, “our armourer worked it over and accurised it for me. Two, I was captain of the pistol team in ROTC, all the way through college. Three, I've been shooting every week since I joined the PRT. But I'd like it back once you're finished with it, please. It's a new model from Glock, and it's not in general circulation yet.”

“No can do, Captain,” he replied, loading the honorific with irony. “What you did might be a righteous shoot, being self defence and all, but whatever concealed carry license you've got from Illinois won't fly here. So your weapons are gonna be confiscated until further notice. And that's if we don't charge you for carrying concealed without a license.”

I sighed and pulled out my ID wallet again. “Look again, Detective,” I told him, flipping it over to show the concealed carry authority. “That's not a state issue. That's Federal. Because I'm a Federal employee. It's good for anywhere in the United States.”

He stared at the card. “How the fuck – seriously, what the fuck are they doing, issuing something like that to you PRT guys? I'm a cop, and I can't get something like that.”

“I'm Intelligence Division,” I told him. “And that goes no farther than you and me. I get to carry concealed because sometimes I might have to go undercover. Sergeant Kinsey gets to carry concealed, because he's my protective detail.”

He gritted his teeth. “But you're on leave. You don't get to keep using that card when you're off duty -”

“Detective Fowler, do you stop being a detective when you go home and take your badge off?” I interrupted. “No? Because the same goes for me. I don't stop being a captain just because I'm out of uniform. I'm a captain in the PRT, and that's the beginning and the end of it. So I'll have my gun back, please. Also, Sergeant Kinsey will need his service weapon returned to him as well.”

“It'll be done,” he growled. “But you never answered my question about what you were doing here.”

“Just passing through, actually,” I told him. “We were going to get a motel, just down the road -”

“No, you're not,” he replied bluntly. “We're going to return your weapons, get your details, then you're going the get the fuck out of my town before you shoot someone else. Or by all that's holy, I will find something to arrest you on.”

I wanted to snap back at him, but something told me that if I pushed any harder, he'd dig his heels in. And as it was, I didn't want to antagonise the locals any more than absolutely necessary.

“... fine,” I responded. “We'll go. Get out of your town. Leave you alone.”

“Why, thank you so very much,” he retorted sarcastically. “Just one thing before you go. Unless it's classified, of course.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Are you two some kinda special ops team? Counter-terrorism or something? Or just a straight up assassination squad?”

I grinned; I couldn't help it. “Nope. I'm an intelligence analyst. He's just along for the ride.”

Leaving him staring at my back, I went to collect our weapons.

-ooo-​

2005 Hours
Interstate 90
New York State

The highway sign informed us that just past the overpass was Exit 47, which led on to Interstate 490, by which we could reach LeRoy, which we didn't need, and Rochester, which we did. Kinsey stayed in the right-hand lane; when the exit came up, he eased back to forty and indicated to move over. As we took the exit, several cars accelerated and whipped past us.

I had been silent since we left Batavia, but now I turned to Kinsey.

“Sergeant, that's the first firefight I've ever been involved in. Was there anything I should have done differently?”

He took one hand off of the wheel to rub at his chin with finger and thumb; stubble rasped under his fingertips. “I really can't say, ma'am. I wasn't there at the start.”

I nodded, acknowledging his point. “Okay, but what would you have done differently?”

A pause, while he frowned in concentration. I listened to the tyres on the road, the murmur of the engine, while he worked through it.

“Would've tapped 'em both in the head,” he decided at last. “Less muss, less fuss. Dead perps are easier to handle than live prisoners.”

“Think I should've, too?” I asked. “I mean, I killed that one guy because I was a bit rushed, but the other one was a good second away from lining up on me. It was an easy shot.”

“I would have,” he told me honestly. “But ma'am, you're not me. You made the call to take that one alive, and you did it. I can't fault that.”

I nodded slowly. “Thanks, Kinsey. I appreciate it.”

There was almost a smile on the hard planes of his face. “You're welcome, ma'am. I'm just glad to see that being an intel weenie hasn't made you totally soft.”

I snorted. “Soft, my ass. Next chance we get, we're going on the mat, and seeing just how soft I've gotten.”

This time, he showed his teeth, ever so slightly. “Always willing to oblige, ma'am.”

-ooo-​

Some little time later, Kinsey shook my shoulder, jolting me out of a light doze. “Hm? What?”

“We're here, ma'am,” he advised me. “First motel I came to that had vacancies.” He gestured through the windshield at the motel frontage before us; a grinning cartoon cowboy pointed at a lit-up 'VACANCY' sign.

I nodded, still collecting my thoughts. “Okay, thanks, Kinsey. I'll just go get us rooms.”

Opening the door, I swung my legs out of the car, then gasped as the cold air hit me. It had to be thirty degrees at the most, out there. Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I stood up and closed the door.

One good thing about the chilly night air; it woke me up. By the time I reached the reception desk, I was feeling as though I'd just jumped into a freezing-cold swimming pool.

The attendant, a wizened old man, peered at me through Coke-bottle-thick horn-rimmed glasses.

"Welcome to the Ten-Gallon Motel," he quavered. “Can I help you?”

I nodded. “You've got rooms vacant?” I asked.

He shook his head mournfully. “Nope.”

I turned my head to stare again at the lit-up sign outside. It clearly stated 'VACANCY'.

“But your sign -” I began.

“We don't got rooms,” he told me. “We got a room. That's all. Convention in town, or some such.”

“Ah,” I responded. Almost, I turned and left. But I paused. I really didn't want to spend any more time on the road, tonight. “Not a double?” If I was to share a bed with Kinsey … I wasn't sure what would happen. Either something really good … or something really bad.

He was shaking his head again. “Nope. Two singles. You an' your man, you want a double, you c'n push 'em together.”

I sighed. The air in the office smelled of old man and carpet slippers. “We'll take it.”

-ooo-​

The room was a little musty, so I turned on the ceiling fan as soon as I entered. Kinsey followed, lugging our suitcases. I knew that mine was not light, and I had no idea how heavy his was, but he made light work of them. I really could not help noticing how his muscles bulged under his shirt. As he placed the cases on the floor, one beside each narrow, uncomfortable-looking single bed, I locked the door and flipped the latch over.

My heart thumped in my chest as I turned to look at him. This can go so many ways right now, many of them bad. He looked back at me, and I had the uncomfortable feeling that he could see right into my thoughts.

I cleared my throat. “Kinsey.” I need you to take me to bed and make love to me.

He straightened his back. “Yes, ma'am?”

I chickened out. I felt myself chicken out. “You shower first. I'll want a long one, and I don't want to use up your hot water.”

A firm nod. “Yes, ma'am.”

Opening his suitcase, he extracted his toiletries from it, as well as various clothing. Humming some sort of march, he entered the tiny bathroom and closed the door behind him. Closing my eyes, I slowly beat the back of my head on the door behind me.

I faced Leviathan. Echidna. Behemoth. I let Brian be my boyfriend. Why can't I take this step?

'Regulations' seemed to be the only answer. And it seemed a most inadequate one.

-ooo-​

Once Kinsey was out of the shower – two minutes and forty seconds, by my watch – I waited until he was in bed, then turned out the light and went to take my own shower. I ran the water hot at first, cleaning the grime of the day off of me. Then I ran it cold, until I shivered under it, until my thoughts of sneaking by 'mistake' into Kinsey's bed were quashed.

The shower finished, I towelled myself dry as vigorously as I could, then dressed in my night clothes and wrapped myself in my bathrobe. Turning off the light before I exited the bathroom, I navigated across the room and climbed into my bed.

Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately), Kinsey wasn't there by 'mistake' to share it with me.

Pulling off the bathrobe and draping it on the end of the bed, I snuggled down under the covers. Warmth returned, and with it comfort, despite the lack of softness in the mattress itself. I was just drifting off to sleep when I heard Kinsey's voice in the darkness.

“Ma'am.”

I blinked myself back to awareness. “Yes, Kinsey?” I ventured, my heart rate picking up.

“Is the captain aware that she talks in her sleep?”

I froze. I'd slept in the car, twice. Had conversations with Lisa in that time. It had been so long since I had slept with anyone not in the know, that I'd almost forgotten that little aspect about my dream forays within my own head.

“I … had thought I might, but I wasn't sure. Did I say anything damaging, Kinsey?”

“Nothing of any real note, ma'am,” he replied. Was that amusement I heard in his voice? “It wasn't very clear. You mentioned my name a few times, once in the context of Sergeant Nursemaid.”

Ah. So that's what he's amused about.

“I – I'm sorry, Sergeant,” I blurted, my cheeks heating up until they must be surely glowing in the dark. “I really don't think of you that way.” How I'm starting to think of you, however, is something else altogether. Dammit.

“That's all right, ma'am,” he assured me. “I just thought you might need to know about it.”

“I appreciate it, Kinsey,” I told him. “I really do.”

“Good night, ma'am.”

“Good night, Kinsey.”

Rolling over, I snuggled down again and closed my eyes. I must have been really tired, because despite my disquieting thoughts, I was asleep in moments.

-ooo-​

Tuesday, March 29, 1994

We were up early the next morning; Kinsey's internal clock woke him at five AM, rain or shine. While he freshened up in the bathroom, I picked up the room phone and dialled out.

It took a few rings for Hamilton to pick up, but pick up he did.

“You've got Hamilton.”

“Sir, this is Captain Snow.”

“Ah, Snow. I heard about the little adventure you had in Batavia. Their constabulary has been on the line to me. The impression I get is that they're a little upset over how efficiently you dispatched the would-be robbers.”

I grimaced. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. They didn't seem to like the PRT very much there.”

He let out a warm fatherly chuckle. “I wouldn't worry about that, Snow. I'm just pleased that you came out of it in one piece.”

“Me too, sir,” I assured him. “Kinsey did his bit, too.”

“I am aware, Snow,” he agreed. “The local news has gotten ahold of it, by the way. I'm keeping your identities suppressed, but it's a feather in our caps to show the PRT in a positive light like this.”

“Is it really positive?” I asked dubiously. “I shot that one guy right in the head.”

“By the time they finished interviewing that young man, the attendant, you'd better believe that it's positive,” he told me. “Besides, those men had a reputation for being trigger-happy. You reacted first, you reacted fastest, and you reacted correctly.”

“Oh, uh, thank you, sir.” I paused; Kinsey had just emerged from the bathroom. “I need to get ready to go. Would you like to speak with Sergeant Kinsey?”

“Certainly. And once again, Captain, well done.”

I felt myself blush, just a little, from the praise. Getting up off the bed, I nodded to Kinsey. “Hamilton,” I murmured as I passed him the phone. He nodded, and took it.

-ooo-​

I took the room key, and walked back down to the front desk to pay the final bill. The predawn chill elicited a shiver, but it wasn't as bad as it had been the night before. There was a younger man at the desk this morning; he accepted the keys and the final payment with barely a word; I guessed that he wasn't a morning person. By the time I got back to the car, Kinsey had put the cases back in the trunk, and was waiting for me.

We stopped to grab an ad hoc breakfast at a roadside convenience store. Kinsey had coffee, I had iced tea, and we each enjoyed a couple of piping hot bagels and an apple turnover. Back on the road again, the glow in the east heralded the coming sunrise. As we traced back down I-490 to I-90 again, I settled back in my seat to examine my current feelings regarding Kinsey.

It figured that I felt a certain physical attraction toward the burly sergeant. As Lisa had so helpfully pointed out, he was my 'type'; tall and muscular. I only had her word that he had a 'thing' for me, but then again, she didn't have a habit of lying to me.

On the other hand, she had never hesitated to manipulate me, if she considered it to be in my best interests. Of course, I also considered my love life to be not necessarily her business, so there was that, too.

I decided to leave that line of enquiry for later; what bothered me was what had nearly happened the night before. I'd been shaken by the firefight, as brief as it was. Adrenaline had poured through my system, and then it had been over; danger done. The antagonistic attitude of Detective Fowler had gotten under my skin; even after we had left Batavia behind, it had continued to rankle. I had queried myself, second-guessing the decisions made in the heat of the moment.

Seeking validation of my actions from Sergeant Kinsey had reassured me, but his reassurance had also made me feel closer to the man; that, in conjunction with Lisa's suggestion that I sleep with him … hm. That's probably it.

It wasn't so much an epiphany as a slowly blossoming glow of realisation, of self-understanding. I knew now that it hadn't been sex that I had been craving (well, not only sex), but the closeness, the intimacy. The physical approval of a man whom I both liked and respected.

And who, if I was honest with myself, had a very impressive set of muscles.

But I wasn't sixteen any more; I had more control over my needs, my wants, my desires. I had worked alongside Kinsey for months, had trained with him in the gym. Even now, in the car, I didn't feel overwhelmed by his presence. My impulses were once more under control.

They had to be.

I had work to do.

-ooo-​

The last few hundred miles seemed to simply vanish under our wheels. Now that I had figured out what was going on (or rather, not going on) between myself and Kinsey, I was just that little bit more at ease with the man. We conversed on many topics, from music to sports to reading tastes. There were many areas in which we diverged, of course, but it was interesting to see what things we had in common.

By unspoken mutual agreement, we did not speak of what had happened in Batavia. Not once, then or later, did I ever seriously wonder if I should not have simply stood there and let them rob me. That wasn't who I was; not any more. That hadn't been me for quite some time.

We also spoke of what we'd be doing once we reached Brockton Bay. I knew I'd be seeing a lot of Andrea, of course; the problem was that Kinsey's presence was likely to inhibit those activities which she intended to pursue with me. And while I knew that he was unlikely to report any such activities to Hamilton, nor did I want to strain his loyalties.

Were I to sleep in her apartment, while he slept elsewhere, I figured that he would be concerned; after all, his stated purpose for coming along with me was to provide a personal protection detail. Unfortunately, considering what other things I had planned to get done while I was in town, his 'protection' was the last thing I wanted.

I'd have to be sneaky about this.

-ooo-​

We rolled into Brockton Bay just after midday. It was a beautiful spring day; temperatures were in the mid-sixties, thanks to that geographical peculiarity which gave the city mild winters and warm summers. Overhead, a brilliant sun beat down out of an almost cloudless sky.

I directed Kinsey to drive up Lord Street; to our right, the Boardwalk gave way to the Bay itself. There was still no floating Protectorate base, still no real Protectorate presence in the city. That would come, in time, along with the PRT. Villainous activity in Brockton Bay was due to rise sharply in the next few years, alongside the drop in shipping activity, and the PRT and Protectorate would come in to provide a balance.

Do I want it to be that way, or should I change it?

It was a conundrum; if I worked to prevent the events that led to the creation of the Boat Graveyard, that led to the ferry being shut down, then I might change matters further down the line, change them in ways that I did not expect or want.

Just for instance, if the upswell in villainous activity in Brockton Bay did not happen, then the heroes might not come to the city to balance out the situation. Or they might, but not in such numbers; after all, Marquis, Allfather and Galvanate were already extant within the city. Max Anders would be a few years younger than me, if I recalled correctly; the chances were that he had already triggered. The Empire Eighty-Eight would start growing with the demise of Lord's Port, attracting more neo-Nazis, or simply just those people who liked to hurt others and didn't care about ideology, to their banner.

If that wasn't bad enough, the Merchants would also start adding to their numbers. Skidmark was probably only just starting out, if he'd even triggered yet. I decided to check with Lisa whether they were out-of-towners who came to the Bay with the influx, or homegrown villains. Whichever one, they definitely deserved to be removed from the history books.

The ABB, of course, would never arrive in Brockton Bay. I intended to make sure of that.

-ooo-​

“Down this way,” I directed Kinsey. As we wended our way through Downtown, I noticed a new high-rise under construction. That's odd. It wasn't one that I recalled. I made a mental note to ask Lisa about it as well.

It was interesting to watch Brockton Bay in action, more than a decade before I would have become the de facto ruler of a great chunk of it. Before vicious villain gangs became a fact of life, before the city started to become more than a little worn around the edges. Before the PRT and the Protectorate had come to put their own stamp on the city. I had renewed my knowledge of it while I was going to school, and then college, but my time away had changed my perspective, altered the way I saw the world.

Brockton Bay had changed, but not all that much.

I had changed, quite a bit more.

Batavia had proven that.

-ooo-​

Andrea opened the front door of her apartment at the third knock. She was dressed to go out, with a light coat over T-shirt and jeans. On seeing me, she dropped her handbag and quite literally leaped into my arms, wrapping her legs around my waist.

“Taylor!” she squealed, kissing me soundly.

I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her in return; not quite as thoroughly as she had just kissed me, but still firmly enough to show that I had missed her.

“Hi sweetie,” I grinned. “It's good to see you, too.”

“Missed you, missed you, missed you,” she chanted, then kissed me again.

I returned this kiss as well, then the half-dozen or so that followed. Finally, I managed to make her hold off long enough to get her attention. “Andrea, this is Jim Kinsey. He's -”

“Oh, I remember you,” Andrea told him over my shoulder. “You were the sergeant who came to pick up Taylor when she got drunk at the reception. I'm Andrea Campbell.”

My head was half-turned toward Kinsey, and I saw his eyes open slightly at this. I had no idea what had been going through his mind when he saw Andrea greeting me in this fashion, but I knew that she'd just managed to impress him.

“That's right, ma'am,” he replied. “Sergeant Kinsey, at your service.” He held out his hand; without missing a beat, Andrea let go of me with one hand and shook hands with him under my left arm.

“You can put me down now, Taylor,” she told me with a grin. “Come on in, and bring Sergeant Kinsey with you.”

I held her while she unwrapped her legs from my torso, then set her on her feet. We followed her inside, and Kinsey shut the door.

“So what are you doing back in town so soon?” asked Andrea, leading the way to the living room. “And how come you aren't in uniform? You always show up in uniform.”

“That's because we just drove in from Chicago,” I explained. “Plus, I'm on leave. Four weeks.”

Andrea's face lit up all over again. “Yay!” Then she frowned. “But … didn't you have a week off, for Gladys' wedding?”

I sighed, sitting down on the sofa; Andrea immediately sat beside me, as close as she could. Just for a moment, I recalled picking that sofa out at the store, debating with Andrea the pros and cons between it and half a dozen others. This room was full of memories of that type, and I knew it would be a wrench when I had to leave again.

“It's convalescent leave, sweetie,” I explained.

Her eyes grew round. “What? Are you hurt? What happened?”

I shook my head wearily. “No, I had a bit of a mental break. I needed to get away, get my head back together. So my commanding officer gave me four weeks off.”

Kinsey coughed discreetly; we both looked at him.

“Uh, sorry to interrupt, Ms Campbell, but which way is the bathroom?”

Andrea immediately pointed. “Down the hallway, second on the right.”

He nodded politely. “Thank you, ma'am.” We watched him stride off down the hallway.

As soon as the door closed behind him, Andrea turned to me and stage-whispered, “Please tell me you're hitting that!”

I shook my head, restraining the impulse to roll my eyes. Is everyone going to get in on the act? “I can't,” I whispered back, stressing the second word as hard as I dared.

“What?” she blurted, frowning. “Is he gay or something?”

“No!” I shook my head again, keeping one eye on the hallway in case Kinsey returned. “Well, at least, I don't think so. It's just … it's complicated.”

Andrea had no such qualms about rolling her eyes. “When it comes to you and sex, everything's complicated.”

“Whereas for you, it isn't,” I replied dryly.

She grinned proudly. “Nope!”

I drew a deep breath. “Okay. Explanation as to why I'm not sleeping with Sergeant Kinsey. He's a sergeant, and I'm a captain -”

“You're a captain?” she blurted. “When did that happen?”

“A few days ago,” I told her. “Look, this is important -”

“Did you bring your uniform? I wanna see you in your uniform.” Leaning close to my ear, she whispered a suggestion regarding myself, my uniform and her, which had me blushing furiously.

“Wow,” she remarked in some satisfaction, leaning back to observe my flushed face. “You really haven't been getting any.”

“Like I told you,” I growled. “Anyway, regulations say that I'm not allowed to fraternise within my chain of command, and nor is Sergeant Kinsey.”

She made keep-going motions with her hands. “Which means … ?”

I heard the toilet flush. “We're not allowed to sleep together,” I told her hurriedly.

She frowned. “Really? And what happens if you do?”

The washbasin tap came on. Thank god he belongs to that minority of the human race that actually washes their hands afterward. “All sorts of trouble. Lots and lots. Big black mark on the record.”

“Oh, that's easy, then,” Andrea told me lightly. “Just don't get caught.”

“Or don't do it at all,” I reminded her. “Which is what the rules actually mean.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Meh. That's no fun.”

“It's the way I'm playing it,” I told her, just as the bathroom door opened, and Kinsey came back down the hallway.

“Anyone want drinks?” asked Andrea brightly. “I'll get drinks.” She hopped up from the sofa and darted into the kitchen, while Kinsey lowered himself into an armchair.

“I roomed with her at college,” I explained, half-apologetically. He nodded understandingly.

“Yes, she did!” called out Andrea from the kitchen. I winced; I had forgotten how the acoustics went in this apartment. “And boy, the stories I could tell you!”

I cringed, imagining some of the stories that Andrea could tell. But then, I reminded myself, I once made a drunken pass at him in my underwear. I'm not sure if she can top that.

“I could tell you stories as well, ma'am,” he called back unexpectedly. “Or rather, I could, if they weren't classified.”

Andrea popped her head out of the kitchen, eyes round. “Classified? No shit?”

Kinsey nodded firmly. “As you say, ma'am, no shit.”

“Holy crap, Taylor, you never said you were working with classified stuff. This makes you at least twenty percent cooler. Wow. Holy crap.” She disappeared back into the kitchen, then reappeared, bearing a tray with drinks on it. “It's only fruit cordial, but it's sweet and it's cold,” she apologised.

“Something being classified is a fairly good reason for not talking about it in the first place, Andrea,” I told her with a grin. “And you didn't have to get us drinks, but thanks.”

She stuck her tongue out at me, then leaned over to present Kinsey with his drink. She'd done something to the neckline of her t-shirt, so that it gaped open when she bent forward. His eyes were drawn irresistibly to the opening, and what lay within; I knew for a fact that she was not, at present, wearing a bra. So, I was fairly sure, did Kinsey – now.

With a self-satisfied look on her face, she sat back beside me on the sofa, dropping the tray on the cushion beside her. I sipped at the drink, trying to ignore her antics. It was actually rather nice. As was having Andrea cuddled up to me; after a few moments, I put my arm around her, and she snuggled into me, just like old times.

“So you're here for four whole weeks?” she asked.

I nodded. “Less travel time. We'll be heading off on the morning of Saturday the twenty-third.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Driving. Stupid cars. If you flew, you could have been here day before yesterday. And stay another day and a half.”

“Says the girl who's perfectly suited for airline seats,” I pointed out. “When I fly, my knees end up around my ears. And as for Sergeant Kinsey … “

“Say no more,” Andrea replied with a grin. “When he flexes, they have to sell him another seat.”

Kinsey smothered a cough, which I was fairly certain was there to cover a laugh. As it was, I hid a smile behind my cup; her comment wasn't all that far off the mark.

The conversation went on; Kinsey proved capable of holding up his end, and I soon had need to visit the facilities myself. When I returned, the banter was flying thick and fast, Andrea flirting outrageously with Kinsey. She was having a ball, eyes bright and grinning broadly. He seemed to be enjoying himself as well, but he wasn't responding to her signals in any direct way.

As I sat back down, Andrea snuggled under my arm again, and looked up at me. “So, where you staying while you're in town?” she asked cheerfully. “Stinky old motel room, or a bed with nice fresh sheets … like, say, right here?”

I glanced at Kinsey. He looked blandly back at me. “Motel rooms do have a certain lack of charm about them,” he commented.

I frowned. “Well, do you still have the bed in the spare room?”

“Sure,” she responded at once. “But only one, and it's a single.” Snuggling in even more tightly to my side, she added, giving me her most adorably big-eyed puppy-dog look, “You could share my bed if you really wanted … ”

I wanted. I did actually want that. But I was torn. Do I want Kinsey knowing without a doubt that I will be sleeping with Andrea?

Kinsey cleared his throat. “If you wish, ma'am, I could get a motel room for myself, while you take the spare room … “

While you sleep with your girlfriend in private, he meant. At that moment, I could have kissed him.

I shook my head definitively. “No, Sergeant. If I'm not sleeping in a motel, you're not sleeping in a motel.”

“Thank you, ma'am,” he replied, with a certain amount of gratitude.

“If the spare room turns out to not be to your taste,” I went on, “I have other friends around town. I'm sure that the Heberts would be happy to put you up if necessary.”

Andrea nodded. “Yeah, Danny's moved into college accommodations.”

That figured. To be closer to Anne-Rose, no doubt.

“We'll see, ma'am,” he observed blandly. “I once slept soundly through a category four hurricane in the Bahamas; I'm sure that your spare room will bear no terrors for me.” In short, he was telling me that no matter what he heard, he would hear nothing.

I cleared my throat. “So anyway. When we got here, you looked like you were just going out, Andrea. Maybe we should let you get on your way.”

She glanced at her watch. “Won't matter. Next bus isn't due for another half hour.”

“We have a car,” I told her. “We can give you a lift.”

“Sure!” she agreed enthusiastically. “But only if you agree to stay here.”

I glanced at Kinsey; he did not seem to be against the idea. Nor was I, for that matter. “Okay, we'll see how it goes.”

“Yay!” She kissed me again, leaped up, and bustled back into the kitchen with the tray and empty cups. I was left staring bemusedly at Kinsey.

“Sorry about that,” I told him, in a much lower tone of voice than before. “She's only got one speed; flat out. Maybe I should have warned you.”

He cracked a faint smile as he got up. “That's fine, ma'am. This is not going to be a boring stay, I can see that now.”

I rolled my eyes. “Any number of other words, yes. Boring, no.” He offered me his hand; I accepted, and he assisted me to my feet.

Andrea came out of the kitchen again. “Where'd I leave my coat and handbag?”

“There and there,” I told her, pointing.

She snatched them up. “Well, what are we waiting for?”

“Us, apparently,” I commented dryly. “Come on, Kinsey.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he agreed, equally dryly.

-ooo-​

We had parked a little way down the block, and Kinsey walked ahead to the car. Andrea and I strolled sedately along behind.

“Well,” she observed brightly, “he's not gay.”

“I told you he wasn't,” I pointed out.

“You thought he wasn't,” she corrected me. “The way he looked down my top, he's not gay. But he didn't come on to me at all when you were out of the room, and I was doing everything but give him a lap dance.”

I waited for her to continue. “Which means … ?” I prompted.

“Which means that he's waiting for you to give the signal,” she told me, rolling her eyes. “Which I'm still not entirely certain as to why you haven't.”

“I did,” I told her, lowering my voice as we got up toward the car. “But he turned me down.”

She stared at me. “Fuckin' what?”

I shook my head tightly. “I'll tell you about it later.” To forestall further argument, I opened the back door of the car, and let her get in. I was about to close it, but she grabbed my wrist and dragged me in as well. Not that I tried too hard to oppose her.

“Very well, ladies,” announced Kinsey from the front seat, “where would you like me to drive you to?”

Andrea giggled. “Onward, James,” she ordered grandly.

He started the car; I snorted. Andrea looked at me questioningly. “His name really is James,” I reminded her; she giggled again.

She gave Kinsey directions that seemed to lead us back into the Downtown area. I spotted the same strange high-rise that I had seen before. I got quite a good look at it, as Andrea's directions didn't seem to have a fixed destination; the more I looked at it, the more I was certain that I did not recall it from the Brockton Bay of my day. Perhaps it was knocked down for something newer?

“Uh, Andrea,” I ventured, after our fifth pass through the city, “are you looking for something, or are we just driving around?”

“Little bit of column A, little bit of column B,” she informed me airily. “Hey, what time is it?”

I checked my watch; she couldn't, as her left arm was around my waist. “Getting close to three,” I told her.

She grinned broadly. “I got a great idea.”

-ooo-​

Kinsey braked the car to a halt outside Winslow High School. “What, exactly, are we doing here again?” he asked. It was just after three; children were boiling out through the doors and down the steps.

“To see Mrs Gladys Knott,” I informed him cheerfully. “One of the teachers. In fact, it was her wedding reception I was attending, when we were here last.”

He raised an eyebrow. “May I enquire as to why?”

I smiled. “We went to school here together. She's one of my best friends.”

“'S'true,” Andrea confirmed. “Taylor's known her even longer than she's known me.”

“You might want to stay by the car, Kinsey,” I instructed him. “One of these little brats might steal it, if you're not careful.”

“Ma'am, yes, ma'am,” he responded firmly. Andrea and I got out of the car; Kinsey got out as well, and took up a position next to the driver's side door. I hoped for the childrens' sake that they wouldn't try to steal the car; I was fairly sure that he wouldn't shoot anyone who tried, but I wasn't totally sure.

Most of the kids were gone by the time we reached the front steps of the school. Andrea nudged me as we started up them. “So spill!” she urged. “What happened? How did you manage to get him to turn you down?”

I sighed. “Remember, the last time I was here? I got drunk?”

She nodded. “Drunk? You were fuckin' plastered.”

“Don't remind me. Well, Kinsey got me back to the motel room, and got my uniform off me, because it had spots on it, and I kind of made a pass at him. In my underwear.”

She laughed out loud. “And he turned you down?”

“It's what Lisa told me, anyway.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, no wonder! He's got all sorts of rules going on with him! He turned you down 'cause you were drunk, not 'cause he didn't want you.”

I gave her a suspicious sideways glance. “Are you and Lisa reading each others' mail? Because she said more or less the same thing.”

“Oh, wow!” she exclaimed. “How is Lisa, anyway? Tell her hi from me!” Grabbing me, she pulled my head down to her level and pretended to call directly into my ear, “Is she treating you all right in there?”

I rolled my eyes. Lisa and Andrea had always gotten along, even though they could never converse directly, except when I was in a trance. “Get off,” I told her without heat. “Or I'll put you over my knee and spank you.”

“Promises, promises,” she giggled.

A smile crept over my face, even as I shook my head. It was as Kinsey had said; staying with Andrea was never going to be boring. I had grown unused to her presence; four weeks in Brockton Bay was going to bring back a lot of reminders. And make it a lot harder to leave.

“Ah, this should be the classroom,” I told her, and knocked on the door.

A moment later, it opened. Gladys stood there, looking so much like the Mrs Knott I had known in my time that a lump rose in my throat. “Taylor!” she exclaimed; like Andrea, she hugged me. Unlike Andrea, she did not leap into my arms, or kiss me.

I returned the hug, even as my vertebrae creaked. “Are you still exercising,” I grunted, “or do you just bench-press Franklin every morning?”

“Yes,” she grinned, and I blushed as the accidental double-entendre caught up with me. Andrea, delighted, laughed out loud again.

I sighed. “It's good to see you too, Gladys,” I told her. “But this isn't just a social visit. I need something from you.”

“Come in, then,” Gladys invited. We trooped into the room, and Andrea shut the door. Then they both turned attentively toward me.

“You know how, once upon a time, you told me that I only had to ask and you'd help me out?” My gaze was on Gladys, my voice low but steady.

Gladys nodded. “I remember. Are you asking?”

I took a deep breath. “Yeah. I'm asking.”

She looked me in the eye. “What do you need?”

I glanced from her to Andrea and back again. “I need you to help me kill someone.”

End of Part 4-1

Part 4-2​