Chapter Fifty-Four

Meeting Faultline the first time had been a little stressful, but it had been a business transaction and Faultline and her crew had an excellent reputation. That, and she was only there as a sort of arbiter and councillor to help Taylor. She was on Taylor’s side because Taylor was going to pay her to be on her side.

It was neat and simple and so Taylor didn't need to stress over it too much. Mister Anderson had been a bigger source of worry. He was, after all, the one with the money.

Now he was barely a footnote as she entered Faultline’s impressive office. The older man was sitting in one of the chairs before a huge metal desk that looked like it could stop a tank shell.

Faultline herself was sitting behind the desk and next to her was Labyrinth, the girl staring off towards the ceiling as if it was the most interesting thing.

Taylor had left all her sisters except Alice behind. She didn’t need them complicating things as they were wont to do.

The girl was... strange. Which was exactly how she would describe the rest of her sisters, so there was nothing unusual there. Alice had a sort of dreamy look to her, like someone who was in the middle of an enjoyable daydream and only half paying attention to the world around her. Her pale greenish-blue eyes looked across the room with a single smooth motion, focusing on different things and places as if she saw things that Taylor didn’t. Her smile never wavered; if anything, it grew larger and more serene as she took in her progenitor. One of her progenitors.

Alice was Taylor’s smallest sister. Not just the youngest. She was half a head shorter than most of the others, with delicate features and stick-thin limbs under a flowing white dress that was covered in fine lace. She looked like a porcelain doll that would crack at the slightest bit of jostling.

“Sit,” Faultline said. She gestured to the chair next to Mister Anderson’s.

Taylor sat, then she looked at little Alice -- who seemed completely at ease despite the tension in the air -- and patted her lap.

The serene smile turned joyous as the girl moved next to Taylor, turned around, and raised her arms to be lifted up. Small as she was she would have had to clamber up the seat without help. She obliged the girl and placed her on her lap, then started running her fingers through Alice’s hair. Hair that was platinum blonde save for a few reddish streaks.

“Alright,” Faultline said. “I would appreciate it if you could explain. It would save me the trouble of wondering, and make it a whole lot easier to decide how to act from here on out.”

“We can’t fault that line of reasoning,” Alice said so smoothly and with such a whispery soft voice that Taylor was almost able to pretend she didn’t hear the pun.

“I make sisters,” Taylor said. She raised her legs to the balls of her feet then let them drop a few times, making Alice bounce on her lap much to the girl’s amusement. “Sisters like Alice here. It happens whenever I touch a parahuman. Um. Shadows Stalker made Cheshire, Crochet came from Parian and so on. They’re... they’re real people.”

Taylor reached over and hugged Alice closer. It was like hugging a bagful of delicate bones. “They have their own thoughts and personalities and Panacea said that they’re as human as you or me. It’s just that I... make them.”

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“And when you touched Labyrinth it created this child,” Faultline said.

“My name,” Alice said in her whispery voice, “is Alice. Big Sis let me choose it.”

Faultline hesitated, then nodded to Alice. “A pleasure,” she said.

“It is most assuredly all mine. I wouldn’t want my birth to fracture the relationship you have with Big Sis. Or leave any cracks in its foundation. And if you’re not both friends, then meeting with my progenitor will require navigating a whole maze of troubles.”

Taylor closed her eyes. The puns were stealthy. Not even noticeable is she wasn’t paying attention. She could live with them. She lived with Cheshire. She could live with puns. “I don’t want us to be enemies either,” Taylor assured Alice.

“I don’t see that happening,” Faultline said. Her fingers drummed a beat on the surface of her desk. “Your power is... frankly it’s one of the most dangerous ones I’ve ever heard of.”

“I know,” Taylor said. “I can hardly afford to feed the sisters I have already. And they all sleep in my room. It’s going to be hard to fit even just one more in our lives.”

“I’m sorry,” Alice said.

“No, no, don’t you apologize,” Taylor replied right away before tightening her hug just a little. It wouldn’t do for her newest little sister to think she was unloved. “None of that. We’ve faced challenges before. We’ll work through them.”

Faultline watched her, eyes fixed through the visor of her faceplate. The mercenary sighed and placed a hand on Labyrinth’s head. “This complicated things,” she said.

“Not for me,” Martin said. “In fact it makes them far simpler. Less contracts or fears of having to wrangle permission from six different guardians for one.”

“We, we can still do advertising work?” Taylor asked.

“I’m not letting this opportunity pass me by. You making, having, more sisters only means more opportunities!”

Taylor nodded, then refocused on Faultline. “And you’re... okay with this?”

“What do you expect me to do? I’m not the PRT. I’m a mercenary, you’re a client. I won’t betray the information you gave me here today. And the idea of harming children is... distasteful.” She shifted on her seat. “Do you have room for all of them? Food?”

“We should be fine for a few more days,” Taylor said. It wasn’t quite a lie. With the extra money from not paying Faultline she could stop somewhere and buy packets of ramen noodles or macaroni and cheese. The girls all loved that sort of junk food anyway.

“And Alice?” Faultline asked. “She’s Labyrinth’s... clone. Labyrinth has some difficulties with her powers.”

“I can see that,” Alice said, her voice somehow conveying a depth of sadness that had Taylor’s heart sinking. “My progenitor is both blessed and cursed with great power. I... have another though. My power extends over space and time. I will be fine, I suspect. My scope is narrower but my grasp deeper.”

“Ah, we haven’t talked about that yet,” Taylor said. “I don’t even know what Alice’s power is.”

“Oh,” Alice said. “I can make anything I see flow backwards through time. But time changes things.”

“Ah,” Taylor said.

Her sisters always made things complicated, but most of the time the laws they broke were moral or legal ones.