Trump Card (Worm AU) [Complete]

This omake was supplied to me by Luan Mao, on ff.net. Enjoy.

Hax and Regent: The Rematch

by Luan Mao

Taylor was taking a rare break from school and villainy, just hanging out on the boardwalk by herself, when her power pinged. The cape who'd walked into the restaurant had a powerset she recognized.

The girl stiffened, then carefully looked over. It was him! It was that bastard who'd drugged and kidnaped her! Well, he'd kidnaped Alibi, but he thought he was kidnaping Taylor.

There weren't any heroes around whose powers she could copy. Not even any other villains. She moved her power's spotlight over to the boy. Beggars can't be choosers.

Beggars don't have to be stupid about it, though. Taylor had Alibi give Uber and L33t a heads-up.

As soon as the voice started whispering the new power to her, Taylor smirked and hid her face behind her cup of soda. She had to have her target in sight for her borrowed power to work, but she'd be able to snipe and cause him trouble and get away with it clean.

Taylor struck when the boy walked past an occupied table. A twitch of his arm smeared a hamburger across a jock's face. The resulting shouting and apology and shoving were all she could have wanted.

When the boy was picked up and thrown into another jock's meal, Taylor couldn't hold it in any more. She collapsed over her table, screaming with laughter.

"You! I recognize you! You're that girl! How are you doing this?"

Busted! Before Taylor could think of a plausible denial or even get up to run away, her hand twitched and dumped her soda in her lap.

"Hey!" she yelled as the boy laughed at her.

"What's the matter, beanpole? You wet yourself when you laugh?"

Trying to blot up some of the wetness with a handful of napkins, Taylor waved her other hand at the boy as he stomped toward her. "What's the matter, spaz?" she taunted as his legs tangled up and he fell over again. "Can't wal—guh."

Taylor's taunt was interrupted by her hand shoving itself into her nose and mouth.

"What's the matter, spaz?" she heard. "Trying to pick your nose and eat it?"

The nascent brawl between the jocks settled down while Taylor and the boy attacked each other, leaving the other customers with nothing to do but look at the two clumsy, soiled teens flailing around on the floor. Taylor should have been able to find a way to use her borrowed power more effectively, but couldn't concentrate because of pulling a napkin dispenser onto her head and being made to cross her eyes so that she couldn't see straight. On the plus side, the boy looked like the victim of an axe murderer, with ketchup dripping from his entire head.

And the crowd still wasn't doing anything, just standing around watching and filming it with their cell phones. And pointing and laughing.

And help still hadn't arrived. Where were Uber and L33t? The other Undersiders? Even the ordinary police?

Taylor finally crawled close to the boy. She'd planned on strangling him with her bare hands but he looked so bedraggled she couldn't bring herself to do it. Either that or she couldn't do it because there were too many witnesses.

"Call it a draw?"

"Yah. We both get out of here with as much dignity as we can."

"Right. No dignity at all. I'll get you next time."

 

Trump Card

Part Nineteen: Meeting the Undersiders


A/N: Thanks to @Harper Potts for the name suggestions.


Friday, January 21, 2011

Über strolled up to Hax's workroom door, and paused. Sometime in the last few days, the newest member of the team had made up a large poster and attached it to her door. It was red and yellow, with black lettering. The image was of a large hourglass, with half of a stylised human figure in each end. Bold and forbidding, the text was just as arresting:

DANGER.

RELATIVISTIC HAZARD.

DO NOT ENTER.

KNOCK AND WAIT.​

"Well, that's different," he murmured. He did not even consider disobeying the warning; long association with L33t had taught him that one did not lightly ignore even the most unusual of strictures when it came to dealing with Tinker tech. Raising his fist, he knocked briskly; shave-and-a-haircut, two-bits. The door opened before he was able to finish the tune.

<><>​

I looked up from the device I was working on when I heard the first knock. Setting my goggles back to normal, I pulled a cover sheet over what I was working on and headed toward the workbench; just as I reached it, I heard the second knock. Placing the soldering iron on the bench, I checked the two clocks on the wall. They showed different times, obviously, but that was no cause for alarm; I would have been astonished and irritated if they had matched.

The series continued as I headed for the door; a knock every second or so. I flipped a switch, pulled the latch over, then opened the door. Über stood there, knuckles raised in the act of knocking. "Hey," I greeted him. "What's up?"

He went to say something, then stopped, and pointed at the door; or rather, at the bright red-and-yellow poster that I'd pinned to it. "'Relativistic Hazard'," he quoted. "'Knock and Wait'."

"That's what it says," I agreed. I was rather proud of the hourglass motif.

He looked at me expectantly. "So what it actually means is ...?"

"Ah, right. I'm running a time dilation field. Currently, I've got it set at five times normal. If you were to cross over the interface while it was running, you'd spend a significant fraction of a second with part of your body acting and reacting at five times the speed of the rest. I'm pretty sure that could lead to problems."

"Problems?"

I shrugged. "Strokes, heart attacks, brain aneurysms, death. Things like that.”

“Wait, wait,” he muttered, shaking his head and ignoring my feeble attempt at humour. “Back up a bit. You're speeding time up?”

“Only inside the work room,” I pointed out, reasonably enough. “I know I'm using more power than normal, but I'm happy to pay for the excess out of my share. And I'm getting so much work done.”

“I know this sounds like a really silly thing to say to a tinker who built a gun that can theoretically stun Alexandria,” he responded plaintively, “but isn't that kind of dangerous? Plus, you know, ageing faster than normal?”

“It's a monobloc field,” I assured him. “Homogenous. It doesn't have the ability to differentiate, or to gradiate. So even if it did fluctuate, the whole field fluctuates, and I wouldn't notice a thing.”

“But if the field sped up to its maximum – what is its maximum, anyway?”

“Theoretically, about two-fifty to a thousand times,” I suggested. “Realistically, with this rig and the power constraints, fifty, or a hundred if I don't care about blowing fuses.”

“Okay,” he countered. “So what if there's a power surge or something, and it clocks up to a hundred and you don't notice? What then?”

I shrugged. “I'd age three months in a day. And I'd eat three months' worth of food in a day. Which you guys would notice. But it's not something I'm really worried about.” I stepped back into the workroom and gestured him in. “See the two clocks?”

“Yeah,” he replied with a frown, “but wouldn't they just keep track of whatever time rate they're running at?”

“The one on the left does, yes,” I agreed. “But the one on the right is actually rigged to run in time with a modulated radio pulse that comes in from the outside; the pulse is sent from a transmitter connected to another clock. That way I can keep track of elapsed time inside the work room versus elapsed time outside.” I pointed to the red object mounted on the wall between them. “That thing keeps an eye on both clocks, and measures the ratio of their respective speeds. If it varies more than a few percentile outside of whatever I've set it to while the dilation field is running, an alarm goes off. If it's a big discrepancy, the dilation gets shut down as well.”

Über eyed the two clocks, currently running in step with each other, though showing considerably different times. “So if this one shows three hours thirty ahead of that one … “ he noted.

“It means I've been in here for almost an hour, and done nearly five hours' worth of work,” I explained. “I work in the dilation field for an hour or two after I get up. Gives me a twenty-eight to thirty-two hour day; I catch twelve hours of sleep in the field at double speed to compensate.”

“Wow.” He shook his head. “Is it working? Are you getting extra stuff done?”

“Oh god, yes,” I told him. “I've got my big stun rifle back up to scratch, with extra modes for unusual targets such as Glory Girl. And I finished putting your He-Man sword back together, too.” Turning to the bench, I hefted the ersatz Sword of Power.

The look on his face when I showed him the finished product made the work I'd put into recreating it definitely worth the effort. “Wow …” he murmured, reaching out, taking it from me, almost caressing the blade. Turning to me, he shook my hand. “Thanks. L33t's gonna flip when he sees how good a job you did on this.”

I grinned. “Well, don't break this one too soon, okay? Repairs are expensive.”

“Oh god, no.” He seemed lost in contemplation of his sword; when I cleared my throat, he actually jumped slightly. “Huh? What?”

“Uh, did you actually want me for something, or were you just asking about the poster on my door?”

Visibly, he dragged his attention from the sword. “Oh, uh, yeah. L33t and I were talking, and we're pretty flush for funds right now, even after all the new stuff we've just been buying. We wanted to talk about getting minions in again.”

“Minions?” This wasn't something I'd even considered before; I was just getting comfortable with the dynamic that I had with the boys. “Is this really a good idea?”

“Well, that's want we want to talk about,” he informed me. “I mean, you've earned your place on the team. We're not going to make a decision like this without giving you a chance to make your case for or against.”

I tilted my head. “Huh. So it's actually going to be a discussion, not 'we're doing it no matter what you say'?”

His laugh was genuine. “Hah! God, no. After the Coil thing, and the armoured car, and the rest of it? You get your say.”

“Okay, let's go talk about it.” I started from the work room, then paused. “Uh, while we're at it, is it okay if I bring up some suggestions of my own?”

He chuckled warmly. “I think we can definitely stand to hear whatever you've got to say.”

<><>​

L33t handed me a soda from the fridge, then opened his own; we both sat down. “So what's Alibi up to?” he asked idly.

“Math quiz,” I replied, equally idly. “She's going to get a pass mark, but not spectacularly so.”

“You know that you could get a hundred percent on it,” Über pointed out. We both knew that I was already tapping into his power. I had decided that Alibi was going to get eighty-four percent on the test; a good solid pass mark, but nothing that would turn heads.

“Well, duh,” I agreed readily. “But it might look a little suspicious if I suddenly started getting perfect marks in every class I attended.”

“Fair point,” he conceded. “But I still think that you should get a perfect score in just one of your classes, just once, for shits and giggles.”

“Maybe when I'm closer to graduating,” I suggested. “So, minions.”

“Minions,” agreed L33t. “We've had them in the past, when money was good. It's good now, so we were thinking maybe we could stand to get a few in.”

“Well, I'm not totally sure about this,” I confessed, “but then again, I'm new to the whole 'supervillain' thing. Minions are things I've never had to consider. Apart from having to pay them, what are the other downsides of having minions?”

L33t blinked. “Uh … being stupid and breaking my tech.”

Über scratched his chin. “Not following orders.”

“Not wanting to wear the costumes.”

“Dropping out of character in the middle of a job.”

“Hogging the sofa when it comes to gaming.”

“Not wanting to game.”

“Filling the fridge with that weird Swedish beer.”

“Filling the fridge with yoghurt and celery.”

“Abandoning us in the middle of a job.”

“Betraying us in the middle of a job.”

“Bringing their girlfriends to see the base.”

Über turned to L33t. “That was only that one guy.”

“And?” L33t spread his hands. “Three different girlfriends, dude.”

“Good point.”

“Wow,” I observed. “Okay, so what are the upsides of having minions?”

L33t grinned. “Having people we can order around. That's so cool, right there.”

“Having more manpower on jobs,” Über added.

“Being able to do more elaborate jobs.”

“Backup. Backup is good.”

“Lookouts are also good.”

“We can take on bigger jobs.”

“Take a bigger haul.”

“Street cred.”

L33t snorted. “I don't think we're lacking in that right now, dude.”

“Good point,” Über replied again. “Actually, you know something?”

“What?”

He nodded to me. “With Hax on the team as a full member, we're getting nearly all the upsides and none of the downsides. I mean, how good's it been for us since she joined?”

“Well, true,” admitted L33t. “But we don't have anyone we can order around.”

"Don't look at me," I warned them. "Ask politely and I might do stuff for you. But I don't do orders."

"Yeah, no." Über shook his head. "I wasn't about to try. So what are your views on having minions?"

"Hm." I thought about it. "Having more help around to do the heavy lifting would be cool. But I'm a little leery about the idea of having guys around – big, hefty guys – who aren't the most inclined to follow the rules." I gestured to myself. "Being a girl, and not that strong, I mean."

"Wait, you're a girl?" exclaimed L33t in well-simulated surprise. "When did that happen?"

Über and I burst out laughing; the fact of me being a girl had been one of L33t's main objections to my joining the team. Suffice to say, he'd gotten over it.

"So wrong, dude," Über told him, elbowing him in the ribs. "I don't see you bringing that up when she serves her mom's lasagna recipe."

"Well, duh, I'm not stupid," retorted L33t, returning the elbow with interest.

"Oof. Okay, fine. Anyway, yeah, I do get it." Über nodded to me, while he held L33t apparently effortlessly in a headlock. "Crime does tend to attract people of a less than moral standpoint -"

"Well, no, duh!" retorted L33t, his voice a little muffled from being somewhere under Über's armpit.

"- but you can sit in on the interviews if you want, and help weed out any undesirables." He released L33t, who sat up and scooted away from him, face red.

"I suppose," I responded, a little dubiously.

"Hey, if you don't like the idea, we can skip it altogether," L33t assured me. "You're one of us. You get right of way over minions."

"Actually, there has been something I've been wanting to bring up," I suggested diffidently. "It's sort of related."

"Yeah?" asked Über.

"Yeah. A couple of days ago, I got into a chat online ... "

<><>​

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Setting my fingers to the keyboard – thanks to Über, my already-good typing skills were now world class – I began my answer. Apparently saving a teenage girl from a supervillain, and handing said supervillain over to the forces of law and order, had

My computer pinged, indicating that a PM had come in with my name on it.

something to do with it. Or maybe the mods loved the .gif I sent them of Armsmaster doing the macarena. And before you ask, I am not allowed to post it online, or even send it to anyone.

I hit Enter to send the message back to the thread, then clicked through to where the PM awaited my attention. It was from someone called All-Seeing Eye, and the title was Regarding Coil – thank you. Okay, that's interesting. I clicked it open.

There was a link to an IRC channel attached. Curious, I connected to it, and was greeted almost instantly.

The bright, chatty tone disarmed me just a little, probably as it was intended to. Still, my jaw muscles were a little taut as I typed the reply.

I leaned forward a little, a chill running down my back.

The chill dissipated somewhat, although it didn't go away altogether.

I shook my head.

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise up.

This allowed me to relax slightly; I'd been a little worried. But before I could reply, she posted again.

Dammit. She was too good; either she was guessing really well, or she had information from somewhere. Where, I had no idea.

Her reply made me blink.

<><>​

Friday, January 21, 2011

"Wait, wait," L33t blurted. "Another gang wants to team up with us?"

"Well, it is the Undersiders," Über pointed out. "They tend to stay on the down-low."

“I don't know anything about them,” I confessed. “Who's in the group, apart from Tattletale?”

"Grue, Regent and Bitch," L33t told me. "They're pretty good."

“Regent's the guy who abducted Alibi, right?” I waited for Über to nod, then went on. “And you mentioned Bitch once before. Who's she? It is a she, right?”

“She's a tough bitch, is what she is,” L33t explained. “She's got a public identity; her name's Rachel something or other. She can make dogs grow into great big lizard-like monsters and control them with her mind or something. Cops've been after her for the last few years, but she's always been one step ahead of them. Came to Brockton Bay, joined the Undersiders. Nobody likes her, and the feeling's mutual.”

“Huh. Wow.” I considered that. “Okay, what about the other members? Tattletale and Grue?”

Über nodded. “They say Tattletale's a mind reader, a psychic. Or maybe it's just her who says that. All I know is that she's got this creepy I-know-everything-about-you vibe going on. If she says anything to you, anything at all, it's because she's trying to psych you out. Just remember that.”

“And then there's Grue,” L33t provided. “That's gotta be a Zork reference.”

“Zork?” I frowned. “What's that?”

“Old text-based game,” Über explained. “A grue was a critter that you never saw. But if you tried to move around in the dark, one always turned up and ate you.”

“And this has to do with him how exactly … ?”

“He generates darkness,” Über told me. “Total blackness. Can't see, can barely hear. Scary as hell. And the word is, you can't see a thing, but to him it's like daylight.”

“I've heard that sometimes people have gone into that darkness and never come out,” L33t added. “Just vanished.”

“Bullshit.” Über made a rude noise. “That sort of thing belongs on the tinfoil-hat section of the PHO boards.”

“All I'm saying is that I heard it from someone who said they talked to someone who saw it happen.” L33t's voice was defensive.

“How could they see it happen if you can't see through the darkness?” I asked reasonably.

“See?” Über gestured in my direction. “She agrees with me.”

“I was just saying,” L33t muttered.

“Anyway,” I cut in, anxious to forestall an argument – L33t tended to follow the more way-out theories, and Über liked to tease him over them - “is there any more, or is that all of them?”

“Oh, that's all of them,” Über confirmed. “So they want to do some sort of teamup, huh? Well, they're not the ABB or the Empire … “

“ … who wouldn't piss on us if we were on fire … “ L33t added caustically.

“ … but at least they aren't a bunch of total screwups like the Greater Good.”

I snorted. I couldn't help it; even I had heard of the Greater Good. They'd been a bunch of less-than-adept parahumans who had banded together under the banner of 'for the greater good'. Unable to agree on anything else, including tactics or a team leader, the so-called team had bumbled from one mishap to the next for about six months, before fragmenting, its members vanishing into well-deserved obscurity.

“So you think it's a good idea?” I ventured.

L33t scratched his chin. “Don't want to rush into something like this,” he cautioned. “There's things we have to consider first.”

“You're just saying that because we've never teamed up with anyone before, and you're not sure how it works,” Über teased him.

“Sure we have!” L33t objected. “We've worked with Coil -”

Über rolled his eyes. “We were employed by Coil. There's a difference.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” L33t grumbled. “Just saying, we don't want to jump headfirst into this.”

“We can talk to them,” I pointed out. “See where they stand on the matter. If we can agree on terms and conditions, I don't see why we can't do something. Especially given that Tattletale's saying that we've done them a huge favour by getting Coil arrested.”

I was personally less than eager to meet the Undersiders, given the somewhat forbidding descriptions that I'd been given, but if they were all powered, I could deal with that.

Better than I could with minions; I was used to meeting big, husky men, given that most Dock Workers fitted that description, but those I had met had also been very polite due to my father being in a position of authority over them. Minions … not so much.

“Sounds like a plan,” agreed Über. “Get in touch with Tattletale and work out a date to meet with them.”

“Uh, where were we going to meet?” I asked, somewhat belatedly. “Not here or their base, surely.” Villains might work together, but that level of trust didn't come overnight. And I couldn't see us meeting at Fugly Bob's, in or out of costume.

L33t shook his head. “Nah,” he replied, having apparently gotten over his misgivings. “We'll have the meet at Somer's Rock.”

“Where's that?” I asked, somewhat dubiously.

Über grinned. “You'll see.”

<><>​

“You're kidding me. They're interested?”

Lisa nodded. “I think so,” she told Brian. “At least, Hax got back to me and suggested a meeting at Somer's Rock.”

“Well, that's a start,” he replied. “You're sure Hax is all that?”

She gave him a level stare. “You saw the Youtube clips.”

“Well, yeah, but -”

“But nothing. That was on the level, all the way. Since Coil was taken in, we're vulnerable. Not many people knew we were working for him, but even discounting that as a factor, we could always ask him for the odds on success for a job.”

“If he wasn't too busy, or concentrating on something else,” he reminded her.

“Still, he was our safety net,” she pointed out.

“You hate his guts.”

She didn't argue. It was true. “Yeah, but we were useful to him, and so he hadn't used us up – yet. Now? We're on our own. But if we can come out of this with some sort of working relationship with them, I think we'll have a better chance of survival.”

“The most laughed-at villains in Brockton Bay.” His tone was dour.

“Up until last week,” she corrected him. “Now? People are taking notice of them. I think we should jump in now, before Kaiser tries to recruit them into the Empire.”

Reluctantly, he nodded. “I'd far rather have them on our side than working for those racist fucks.”

“So we agree to the meeting?”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Let's meet.”

<><>​

“Okay,” I told them, swivelling away from the computer. “Meeting's set for two o'clock tomorrow afternoon.”

“Excellent,” Über noted. “That'll give us time to get our costumes back in order.”

“Costumes?” L33t looked startled. “What costumes?”

I frowned. “He's got a point. You guys generally costume up for the theme of the job you're doing. You don't have set costumes.”

“I was thinking, we could reprise the Judge Dredd costumes we used for the bank job,” Über suggested.

“I don't like wearing the same costume twice,” L33t grumped.

“That's because whatever gadget you used with it is generally trashed by the end of the job,” Über pointed out. “But that's not a concern any more, is it?”

L33t blinked. “Oh yeah,” he recalled. “Oh boy. Oh boy.” He turned to me. “Could you -”

“Let me know what it is that you want, and I'll get right on it,” I promised him. “All you have to do is supply the materials.”

“Sure,” he agreed readily. “Let me go check -”

“Uh, just one more thing,” I interrupted as he started to get up from the sofa. “Something that's been nagging at me for a bit.”

“What is it?” asked Über.

“The team name,” I told him. “When you were Über and L33t, that was fine for the pair of you. But now there's three of us, and saying 'Über and L33t and Hax' is a bit of a mouthful, don't you think?”

“No,” L33t stated right away. “No. I like being part of Über and L33t and Hax. It tells people who we are. I don't want a team name.”

Über was rubbing at his chin. “I think she might have a point. A team name tells people what we are.”

“Not you too!” L33t gave him a wounded look, like a puppy that's just been kicked.

“No, no, hear me out,” Über went on. “Something gaming related, of course. Final Boss, maybe. Or Level Up. Or Pwnage.”

I nodded. “Or Multiplayer?”

L33t looked up, with something approaching interest in his expression. “Those actually don't sound too bad.” He stood up, struck a pose. “Fear us, for we are … Pwnage!”

“Pwnage,” I repeated, a little dubiously. I'd been hoping for Multiplayer.

“Pwnage,” L33t stated again, a little more enthusiastically. “I guess it doesn't suck all that much.”

Über was looking at me. “Hax, are you okay with Pwnage?”

“Sure. If it means what I think it means, it's the perfect name for the team.” I gave him a grin to show that I was actually good with it.

“Pwnage,” muttered L33t, then repeated the word, changing intonations each time. “Pwnage. Pwnage? Pwnage. Pwnage!”

“L33t?” prompted Über. “Yes or no?”

L33t struck another pose. “Give me Pwnage or give me death!” he proclaimed.

“I think that's a yes,” I murmured to Über.

“I think you're right,” he agreed, just as quietly.

<><>​

Alibi looked up as Dad opened the back door.

“Hey, kiddo,” he greeted her/me.

“Hey, Dad,” she/I replied. “Uh, just so you know … “

He got it almost immediately. “Ah, right.” His face fell just a little. “I thought we were going to have weekends together, at least.”

She/I got up and went over to hug him. He returned the hug. “It's stuff we've got to do,” she/I explained.

“Not another crime?” he asked, his expression a mixture of trepidation and interest.

“No, a meeting,” she/I explained. “Tomorrow. I'll be home tomorrow afternoon.”

“Oh, good,” he responded with a smile. He looked her/me up and down, and shook his head slowly. “I still can't believe that this really isn't you.”

She/I swept the hair back off of her/my neck and showed him the bare skin. “No control unit, see? But in a very real way, this is still me. After all, this body is referring back to my brain for anything but basic actions. I'm the one giving it prompts to carry on this conversation.”

He gave a slight shrug. “Well, I'm just glad that you're here to talk to, even if it's not the 'real' you. Whatever that means, these days.”

“You'll always be important to me, Dad,” she/I assured him. “That's the main reason I built Alibi. So I could have a separate life, and spend time with you, instead of cutting all ties. In a very real way, Alibi keeps you safe.”

“Yeah, I guess so. I'm glad you told me the truth, though. About you and Alibi.”

“Well, I don't like keeping secrets from you.” She/I tilted her/my head. “So, what's for dinner?”

“Now that's the Taylor I know.” He opened the cupboard and pulled out a pan. “Want to help me put together your mom's lasagne recipe?”

She/I smiled. “Love to.”

<><>​

Saturday, January 22, 2011

I climbed out of the back of the van and looked around. “This isn't the best part of town.”

“That's the general idea.” L33t straightened his costume as I reached back into the van for my stun rifle. It was configured into its generic 'big-ass gun' format; I slung it over my shoulder.

“The general idea?” I activated the armour's holocloak, keeping track of its performance via my HUD.

“Yeah,” Über replied as he came around the van. His costume was immaculate, and he wore it as impressively as a 'real' Judge might; but then, his power let him pull that sort of bullshit. “Villains need a place to meet, so we have Somer's Rock. It's neutral territory. Not a great part of town, but as supervillains come through regularly, the mundane criminals tend to give it a wide berth.”

“It's known as a supervillain meeting place?” That didn't strike me as being particularly safe. "What about the heroes?"

"Unwritten rules," L33t explained. "We don't commit crimes on or around the property, and they don't disturb us in the course of our business there."

Über nodded. "Also, once in a while, a hero might want to have a sit-down meeting with a villain about something or other. Not saying they always pick the Rock, but it's been known to happen."

“Right,” I agreed, still feeling as though something was a little off about the idea. “Let's go do this, then.”

“Definitely,” agreed L33t. He settled his pistol in his holster; built to look like a Lawgiver, it was a design that I'd resurrected for him. Doing his best to swagger, he headed up the street; we followed him.

<><>​

From the outside, Somer's Rock looked like a dive. It was as nondescript as they come, with iron bars on the windows and closed curtains. Probably looks better on the inside, I told myself.

“They're already here,” I murmured; my light-spot was still on Über, but the cape detector in my goggles had picked out four dots inside. “Four of them.”

“Roger that,” Über replied, just as quietly. He pushed open the door, and we entered.

My goggles adapted to the lower light level in the room, adjusting upward slightly. There were exactly seven people in there, apart from us; three who looked like staff, and four teenagers or young adults. The latter were in costume, which explained their presence; the goggles settled a red dot on each of them. Of the waitstaff, the two guys were behind the bar; they looked like brothers, maybe twins. The woman wore a slightly decrepit waitress uniform and a sour expression.

I revised my earlier opinion; the place didn't look better on the inside. Everything was dull, drab and depressing, right down to the staff. No-one smiled to welcome us, no-one made a move to ask us if we wanted anything.

That is, until a girl got up from where she was sitting at a corner table. Her costume was dark purple, as far as I could figure, with some sort of eye on the front. She had messy blonde hair, and a grin that looked positively smug. I mentally tagged her as 'Tattletale', and moved the light-spot on to her.

The information stream hit me like a fire hose. Mentally, I staggered under it, but didn't falter. It was more than just the power; it was everything.

She's older than me, not over eighteen. Seventeen? No, sixteen. Not local. Not with family, no family nearby. Not close to family, family problems. On her own, runaway, spent time on the streets. Genuinely grateful towards us/me, definitely happy to see Coil taken down. Really was forced into the Undersiders, but still likes working with them. Curious. Curious about everything, needs to know everything, needs to have the answers. Guilty about something in her past, related to how she got her powers, her need to know. Curious about me, how I got my powers -

I cut that stream off, took a breath. Looked around. Everywhere I looked, information just offered itself to me. The guys behind the counter were indeed twin brothers; the girl was their sister, and she was deaf. She'd been deaf since an accident when she was a child. She hated it when people spoke to her because she had never been good at lip-reading, but she thought Über was kind of hot -

Whew. No. Wow. I deliberately didn't look at Über and L33t; I didn't need to know their deeper secrets. Looked toward the big guy in the skull-faced motorcycle helmet and leathers; I figured this one was Grue. He had responsibilities he was trying to fulfill, he worked out, did martial arts, but not any particular style. He was just as built under those leathers as his physique suggested, and he was looking at me with some interest – no!

With some effort, I wrenched the light-spot away from Tattletale, dumped it back on Über. If that's the way she sees the world, she can keep it.

Tattletale's grin had widened. I knew that she knew what I'd just done. I wasn't sure exactly what clues my armour would give away, but with that power, I knew I'd be able to derive something from watching me.

“Undersiders,” Über greeted them; I realised with a start that only a few seconds had passed.

“Über, L33t and Hax,” the big guy greeted us; his voice echoed hollowly in his helmet.

“Actually, we're going by Pwnage now,” L33t corrected him. “'Cause that's what we are.”

I shared an amused glance with Über; L33t had certainly embraced the name.

Grue – it had to be him, because I had Regent and Bitch picked out by eye now – nodded. “Pwnage, then,” he agreed. “Lets sit down and talk.”

Two of the tables had been pushed together; as we sat down, I pushed the light-spot on to Regent. It was as I had figured; he could get into someone's nervous system and cause involuntary movements. More; if he spent time working on them, he could eventually gain more or less total control of their body. And he'd be able to take them over again, as often as he wanted, so long as he was within range. A chill went down my back; that's kind of scary.

Bitch's power, on the other hand, was pretty straightforward. She could make dogs grow; this also healed minor injuries and got rid of things like parasites. This also gave her an innate understanding of how dogs thought and reacted. But it wasn't mental control; if she wanted a dog to do something, she'd have to give an order. Huh.

Grue's power was also interesting. Über had been right; he could generate darkness from his body, and he could see through it. It would stop all light, radio waves, whatever. It muffled sound, but didn't stop it altogether. It didn't eat people; L33t had been given bad information.

Reluctantly, the waitress came over to the table we were sitting around. I couldn't eat or drink anything in the armour, so I shook my head, but the others took their orders. In the meantime, I steeled myself and pushed the light-spot back on to Tattletale. If there were nuances to be had in this meeting, she was even better at spotting them than Über.

“Right then,” Über declared, sounding more like a Fortune 500 investor than a supervillain. “To business.”

And the meeting began.


End of Part Nineteen

Part Twenty