3.13

“I’ve been told I should be keeping a low profile. As you can imagine, this is very difficult for me. I should hope the people of this city appreciate the effort I put into becoming a supervillain. The things I do for justice, truly.

I kid. I will do what I need to do, no more, and no less.”

— Vincent Hall, Encoded Notebook; Section 3, page 77

“You’ve been real quiet.”

I grunt.

“C’mon, tell me what’s on your mind. Is it about last night?”

“Mm.”

Chloe huffs. “I, uh. I know we don’t know each other that well, but. You can talk to me, yeah?”

I roll over on the couch to face her. “…Cook’s not going to stop now, is he?”

She winces. “Probably not.”

I nod. “This can’t happen again. It’ll only go worse.”

“…Yeah.”

I sigh. “I need more information. I need to be able to track his movements. I need a way to…” I trail off.

“We.”

I blink, and Chloe gives me a crooked smile. “You’re uh. Not alone here.”

“Guess not.”

—

“I’m not sure… what to do with them.”

Ava huffs a laugh. “No one’s ever sure what to do with kids.”

“No, I mean —“ I roll my eyes. “The kid just killed someone in front of me. I don’t — that kind of thing affects you.”

Ava raises an eyebrow. “If you’re feeling that bad about it, I can recommend you a retired psych guy, but —“

I shake my head. “Not for me.”

She nods. “Ah. Yeah.”

“Mhm.”

Ava leans over, and flicks her cigarette over the railing. “You could just let them go. They’ve survived this long, I’m sure they can handle themself.”

I stare at her, and she laughs. “Yeah, yeah, alright. Why don’t you just go talk to them. They’re a kid, but — so are you.”

I scowl. The thought doesn’t sit right with me. It’s kind of hard to conceptualize.

“I’ll talk to them.”

—

“Hey.”

The kid nods. They still haven’t let go of their gun, and no one really seems inclined to take it from them.

To be fair, I can’t exactly wipe the normalizing effect from everyone at once — it takes effort to do it to myself, actually, which is why I’ve left it in place. Even knowing intellectually that the kid shouldn’t have a gun, removing it somehow makes its way down my list of priorities.

At least the safety’s on.

They look up. “…Yeah?”

Their voice is scratchy, rough with disuse. I make a mental note not to push them.

“My name’s Claire,” I offer.

They blink, and then shrug. “…People call me Racc.”

I can’t help the way my lip twitches. “Yeah? Why’s that?”

“They say I look like a raccoon,” they respond, deadpan.

I snort. “Is that why you’ve got the whole…” I wave a hand over my face, “thing going on here?” I’d thought the whole ‘sooty bandit mask’ thing was a bit strange.

They give me a sickeningly innocent look. “What do you mean?”

I think I’m beginning to get a better read on this kid.

I lean forward, frowning a little. I don’t really want to ask, but the rational part of my brain is suggesting I should.

“So. What’s up with the gun?”

Their hand tightens around the grip.

I grimace. Well, if it had to be anyone, at least I can survive getting shot.

“Not gonna take it from you. I just wanna know what the deal is. Reassure me?”

Racc’s expression doesn’t change much, but their lip twitches downwards. “…People do crazy stuff when they think everything’s normal.”

I’m about to ask for an elaboration, but their body language shutters, and they pull the gun closer. I sigh, and leave them to curl up on the bed.

Okay. Self-defense. I can work with that.

—

“You’re crazy.”

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I groan. “You already think I’m crazy, why are you so surprised now?”

Gordon shakes his head. “Yeah, but — I’m just reiterating it. It’s important to me that you know exactly how crazy I think you are.”

“It’s not anything I haven’t done before, you know that,” I point out.

He frowns. “If I remember correctly, that little stunt didn’t exactly go according to plan, did it?”

I roll my eyes. “Nah, it went perfectly. The issue was, fucker didn’t want to stay in jail.”

“You’d better not be trying anything suicidal,” Gordon warns, eyes narrowed.

“What? When have I ever —“ He cuts me off with a glare. “…It’s not. It’s just recon, I promise. I don’t want anything like back at the bar to happen again, so I need to know what’s going on.”

Reluctantly, he nods. “Yeah. Yeah, alright. I’ve got someone you can talk to.”

“Thanks.”

“Claire,” he says, before I turn to leave. “…You’re not the only one who wants that guy to rot in prison. Maybe you could… ask for some favors. Like you did for us.”

I nod. “I’ll think about it.”

—

“Yo.”

The patient looks up from the bench. Once I’ve confirmed he’s noticed me, I slowly take a seat on the bench next to him.

He nods. “’Sup.”

I shrug. “You consent to full-body modification?”

He nods again.

“Anything I should know about?”

“Uh. Got some metal in my leg. Is that gonna fuck it up?”

I shake my head and take his hand. “Nah. Ready?”

He takes a breath. “Yeah.”

It’s over in just a couple minutes. The metal plate in his leg is small, and in the end I decide to leave it and the structures around it alone.

I seal his wound and release his hand. He breathes heavily, wiping a bit of sweat from his brow.

“Um. Wow.”

“Any questions?”

“What…” He seems hesitant. I try to relax my posture, make myself look less intimidating. I don’t think it works.

He continues anyway. “What exactly… did you do?”

“Full check-up, basically. Repairing musculature, strengthening bones, rewiring your brain a little, to remove the primary reason you contacted us. You’re starting from zero, basically. Your body is, physically, perfectly healthy.” I nod at his leg. “Except for the plate, but that’s not a huge deal.”

I look down. “It’s not a perfect fix. You’re still human, and you’ll still be affected by your material conditions.”

The guy sighs. “So…”

I nod. “Sorry.”

He shakes his head. “Nah, uh. See ya — or, uh, not, I guess.” He moves to stand.

“Wait.”

Blinking, he sits back down.

“I can’t really be everywhere,” I start. “But… say you had a chance to contribute to this little… thing, we’re doing. Would you?”

He seems shifty all of a sudden. “I — is this a protection racket, because —“

“No, no. It’s —“ I sigh. “It’s just a couple favors. You wouldn’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

Narrowed eyes. “I don’t know how you expect me to trust that.”

I’d roll my eyes if I didn’t think that’d scare him off. If I really wanted to force him into something, I wouldn’t be talking with him.

Instead, I go with something a little more neutral. “The stuff we’d want you to be doing only works if you’re helping willingly. No use asking some random civilian to kill someone when you can have a professional do it instead.”

Oddly enough — or, well, not really that odd, I figured being blunt might help — he seems to relax. “Guess that makes sense,” he mumbles.

I think I’ve almost got him, but —

He still needs an incentive. It feels dirty, dangling this over his head, but I really can’t be everywhere. Not yet. Maybe never, if I end up getting assassinated before any of this gets off the ground.

So, I take a breath. “…If you accepted, I’d be in regular contact.”

He perks up. “So you’d…?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

He doesn’t smile, but his resolve appears to harden. “Alright. Okay.”

I smile, and pull out a pen and notepad. “Great. Got a phone number?”

He rattles it off, a little absentmindedly. I nod, jotting it down.

“Ah, and — what’s your name, by the way?” I ask, curious.

“Duncan.”

My smile widens, and I make sure to make eye contact.

“I have a feeling this is going to be a very successful partnership, Duncan.”

—

I stare at the mirror. I don’t look like Sera anymore.

I don’t really look like me anymore, either, whoever that’s supposed to be. My hair’s shorter, scragglier, my cheekbones higher — I look a little like I just crawled out of a dumpster, actually.

It’s to sell the disguise. I’ll probably end up having to wear patches too, apparently.

It’s disquieting, seeing a face like that looking back at me. I can’t decide if it’s better or worse than the other one — the twisted reflection, the poor imitation of my dead friend.

Why did I do that…?

Revolting. I tear my gaze away from the glass, muss up my hair a little more, and step out of the bathroom. Ava said she had someone for me to meet.

Mike’s place has been getting more homey, recently. I think he and Gordon have been talking, because the magazines have been sorted nicely in a couple shelves they must’ve dragged in from the shed or something, and some of the clutter isn’t even his. Chloe usually prefers to stay at the shack, but recently I’ve been pretty busy, and it’s more effective to talk in person than it is over the phone, so…

Ava’s standing by the open window, cigarette already lit — I’m half-tempted to give her another checkup, with how much she smokes — and another person in a leather jacket and patchy scarf lounges on the couch nearby.

“Red,” Ava greets me. Guess she figures a pseudonym would be safer here? I’m not sure I understand, considering my chosen name isn’t on any documents, but I decide to go along with it.

“This is Eileen. They’re gonna give you an in with some of the big guys — suppliers that get closer to Cook than we do.”

The person in question grunts. “Yeah. So long as you keep your end of the deal, I’ll keep mine.”

I turn to Ava. I trust her to manage this kind of thing, but if it’s important, I’d like to know.

She seems to catch my drift, even before I open my mouth. Kind of impressive, considering I look totally different, now.

She shrugs. “Nothin’ you wouldn’t have done. They give us an in, we give them an out. Simple.”

I nod. It works.

“Can you give me a rundown on who I’m meeting?” I ask Eileen.

They nod. “Yeah, uh. Top-level distributors, sort of. Makes ‘em sound professional when I say it like that, but they’re not. Just a couple guys who’ve been around longer than the others. Good at bein’ subtle — enough to go under the radar when they go from wherever Cook’s lab is on any given day.”

“He moves it around?” I ask.

They shrug. “Yeah. Dunno how.”

I sigh. “Alright. Continue?”

“Right, well. They have meetings, twice weekly. Sometimes they bring side-pieces or whatever with them, you see a lot of junk rats hangin’ around there. Way I see it, I bring you with, you keep your head down, and you can listen in.”

I scowl. “I have to pretend to be your date?”

Eileen suddenly looks uncomfortable. “Uh. Nah, not really. But that’s probably what they’ll assume. S’how it is.”

“Whatever,” I mutter, rolling my eyes. “Fine. When’s the next meeting?”

They smile, a little. “It’s, uh. Tonight, actually.”

“Great. Enough time for details.”

—

I sit on the roof, the one closer to Chloe’s shack, guitar in hand. There’s no outlet up here, and even if there were it’s not like this block would have power anyway, but it’s fine.

I play anyway. It sounds like shit without an amp, obviously, but that’s not really why I’m playing it.

I strum the guitar, and I feel a little more like myself.