“Not even going to play coy?” Victor asked.

“Why should I?” Taylor said with a shrug. “Armsmaster is convinced I have powers, yet here I am, limping along on crutches instead. I’ve been approached by several parahumans already, all looking to recruit me, at least you had the decency to be low-key about it, which is just sad.”

There was no need to mention that she had joined Toybox already, but the option was there if they didn’t take no as an answer. Victor’s eyes were rather observant, and the longer he looked her over, the more his face seemed to lose the façade of composure.

“You. Are quite interesting,” he said after several long moments. “Just what is your power, exactly?”

“What makes you think I have one?” she asked, stalling a bit for time. His own power affected the mind, and her cyber brain might have interfered with that. Did Armsmaster have some equipment that could detect it too? No, he would have been more confrontational if that was the case.

“Your mind is shielded,” he said. “Normally I can pull on the threads of skills and talent that a person possesses, but you have none.”

“Rude,” Taylor said. “Even my bullies had more tact than that.”

He laughed, a perfectly practiced thing. No doubt yet another skill he had stolen from someone undeserving of his attention. There was a reason he was one of the most feared capes in the Empire despite Hookwolf being among their ranks.

“I meant no offense, only that I cannot affect you at all. Quite curious and betrays your unique nature.”

“You want to recruit me,” she said instead of acknowledging that statement. “What if I decline? Will an Empire hit squad come after me or my family? You’ve targeted outed capes before, what guarantees would I have?”

“You speak of Fleur of New Wave,” Victor said. “That was an extraordinary situation and retaliation for attacking Marquis in his own home. She wasn’t the intended target, but the agent we sent wasn’t the brightest. Carol Dallon was supposed to die that night.”

As interesting as that was, it wasn’t that relevant to her interests. She didn’t trust a word of what he had said, but calling him on it would do Taylor little good. Of more import, he had dodged her original question. The Empire would absolutely try to press her if they thought they could get away with it.

The question was, would they accept that she had already joined another group, one that is neutral in the struggle between heroes and villains? Well, there was only one way to find out, because there was no way she was winning a fight with Victor when he had Othalla on hand for support. Not without her new body.

“You want my services?” she asked. When he inclined his head, a smirk in place, she promptly removed it from his face with her follow up. “Then tell Kaiser he can contact Toybox with a request for Cyber. Oh wait, you can’t. Toybox has the Empire blacklisted.”

The bus pulled to a stop and Taylor got to her feet, not bothering to hide that her leg was perfectly functional. She still grabbed her crutches and moved them into place. The pair made no effort to stop her so she quickly departed the bus and made her way over a block where another bus was waiting.

She hopped on board and took a seat, a shuddering breath escaping her as she let the tension uncoil from her form. She was sick and tired of capes coming after her for recruitment, she had chosen a group and that was that.

Out of the corner of her eye, Taylor noticed a blonde girl searching for a seat suddenly decide to disembark from the bus. Odd, but Taylor was too busy composing a message to Harry to care. She sent that off, along with a copy of the recordings of her encounters with Armsmaster and the Empire. She needed to get ahead of all the fallout that would accompany such a public encounter.

She was almost to Arcadia when the reply came from Dodge, he had passed the information on to her lawyer and he would be taking action, which was all well and good as that would be funding she could easily use in her civilian life. She also had a request waiting for her from Riley for a neural interface along with a six figure offer if she could have it ready by Friday.

That was something she could easily do and would knock a chunk off the debt she owed Toybox for the startup funds and supplies, so she began to spin up a design. She kept working even as she departed the bus and made her way into Arcadia’s grounds. She was a bit taken aback by how much nicer the school was than Winslow, especially with how Arcadia and Winslow’s districts had a minor overlap with her home.

It did overlap a good portion of downtown, which explained where the funding likely came from, but it still felt like a slap in the face. Stepping inside, she was struck by a wave of nausea as she lost contact with her outside cell signals all at once. It had to be a Tinkertech signal blocker of some sort.

There were still signals inside the school however, and it was the work of a moment to commandeer one of them to restore her network access. That would be a problem she needed to resolve by the time she was in regular attendance, having grown accustomed to her connections already and she didn’t like being without them.

She couldn’t help but laugh at that as she pulled up a public floor plan of the school. There were signs on the walls directing her to the office, not that she needed them with the floor plan loaded into her map program and an overlay directing her.

It made life feel a bit like a video game, and she had taken some inspiration from first person games in designing her interface. No point coming up with everything from scratch when others had done much of the groundwork for her already. It was a work in progress, which made her ability to edit the code on the fly so handy.

Tweaking the interface to give her a series of markers to follow made navigating even simpler and soon enough she was stepping into a school office for the second time that day. The secretary looked up at the sound of the door opening and immediately hopped to her feet to help her. Taylor smiled, grateful to the first person outside of Toybox that had taken an effort to assist the clearly disabled girl with something as simple as a door.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Oh honey, you should have asked for a hand,” she said, helping Taylor inside. “We’ve been pushing to get automatic doors, but you know how things can be.”

Taylor didn’t resist the assistance even if it felt so foreign to her. She was from the bad side of town, and went to the worst school in the city. That was why she was at Arcadia, to change her lot in life. Taylor took the offered seat, and the assistance in sitting down. She pulled her bag out as the secretary took her place behind the desk once more.

The paperwork Blackwell had completed was handed over before the secretary could ask what she needed, the woman frowning slightly as she saw what they were. The further she read however, the deeper her scowl became.

“This is horrible,” she said. “How did Winslow allow all of this?”

“I have no clue,” Taylor lied. “I don’t particularly care either. I just want to go to school without always watching over my shoulder out of fear.”

“No student should feel afraid at school,” the secretary said. “I’ll see to it personally that this is completed as quickly as we legally can. Do you need any accommodations for your disability? Panacea attends this school and she has been known to help if asked.”

Taylor frowned at how they had just offered the services of a student like that, which suggested it happened regularly. She wasn’t sure how to take that. Sure, Amy was an open cape, but to just suggest that she would use her power like that? It didn’t sit well with Taylor and she needed to nip that right away before they tried to guilt the healer.

“Ah, don’t bother her,” Taylor said. “Panacea already tried. She can’t heal brain damage.”

“Oh,” the secretary said, deflating a bit. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Taylor smiled, figuring there was something she could say that was a severe bending of the truth, but close enough. She sent a quick message, along with her completed schematic since she was messaging Riley anyway and waited only seconds for Riley to confirm that she could use her idea.

“I do have an appointment with Surgeon however, she has a history with treating brain injuries and seemed hopeful from the brief exchange we had after Panacea wasn’t able to help.”

“So, this is temporary?” she asked.

Taylor nodded. “I should be back on my feet within the week unless there’s some unknown complications.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” the secretary said with an earnest smile. “Do you have a number so we can reach you once we have a start date set?”

Taylor nodded and gave her one of the numbers that she had assigned for her communications suite, and labeled that one strictly for civilian use. Nothing worse than being outed through a simple slip in op-sec.

“Is that everything?” Taylor asked after a moment.

“Yes,” the secretary said, but when Taylor moved to get back up, the secretary raised a hand. “Let me call you an escort to help you get to the bus. That’s the least I can offer.”

Taylor smiled, but didn’t argue. It wouldn’t do to make too much of a scene and she wanted to start off at Arcadia on a good note. Meeting whoever this escort would be, and getting to know them would give her a leg up, so to speak.

The secretary made a call, asking for a student, not specifying anyone in particular, just that she needed someone to help a girl to the bus. Taylor half expected Glory Girl, given she was in attendance, but the odds of a hero being called in were absurdly low, even after the offer to get Panacea to check her over.

A few minutes passed, and the door opened again. Taylor shifted to get a good look at the new arrival and blinked for a moment, then promptly cut off the signals to her tongue before she blurted something egregious.

Standing in the doorway was Dodge, in civvies. Harry, his name was Harry, she needed to remember that. She did not need to make that slip, even if Toybox was largely on a first name basis, cape names were still said often enough there was a risk. Reactivating her tongue, she smiled and got to her feet.

“You must be the prospective student,” he said easily. “It’s nice to meet you, Miss?”

“Taylor,” she said. “I’d offer to shake your hand, but mine are a bit full.”

He snorted and shook his head. “She can never meet Dennis.”

“On that, we agree,” the secretary said.

He gestured for her to follow and she did so, stepping out into the empty hall with him. Once they were alone, he turned to her with a discerning eye. “Do you have anywhere else to be today?”

“Not really,” she agreed. “Was planning to drop by to work on a project of mine.”

“Ah right, Riley mentioned that,” he said. “Well, you could do that or you could sit in on a class or two, get to see what a proper school is like.”

“I’m surprised to see you are a teacher,” Taylor said. “Especially in this city.”

He smiled, but it was a bit pained. “Brockton has its issues, but I’d love to see her in a better place for what actions I take, no matter how small. I’m just a substitute teacher in my civilian life, and knowing you were aiming for Arcadia, I took the opportunity when presented, even if it is a bit of a commute.”

Taylor could certainly respect that decision, it was foolish, but Brockton was her home, flaws and all. She didn’t have any illusions that even with her powers, she could make a dent in the cesspit her city had become, but her new body would certainly be able to do things most normal humans couldn’t. Still, traditional heroics didn’t sit well with her anymore, not after meeting Armsmaster. People weren’t pawns to be cast aside just because they weren’t useful.

“Well, one class won’t kill me,” she said. “What do you teach, anyway?”

“Science, funny enough,” he said. “Tinkers tend to be good at that subject, who would have guessed.”

Taylor snorted, but didn’t disagree.

“I’ll try to not upstage you in your own class then,” she said with a grin.

He laughed. “If this was computer science, I might have been worried, but we’re currently discussing the state of the universe itself and how the discovery of Aleph and other dimensions affected our understanding of physics. This one is all me.”

Stepping inside the classroom, all eyes immediately fell on Taylor. She wilted slightly under the attention, hating that without a plan she fell back on old habits. It would at least sell the impression that she hadn’t been well off at Winslow at least.

“Hello everyone, sorry about that,” Harry said easily. “This is Taylor, who will be joining us in the near future.” Taylor propped herself on her crutches and freed a hand for a simple wave. “She’s just here to get a feel for classes, so be sure to give her a proper Arcadia welcome once we wrap up.”

“So, ask her if she’s a new Ward?” a blonde girl asked from near the back.

Several people chuckled at that, and Taylor focused on the girl in question. She seemed familiar in a vague way, and a quick check with her analysis software confirmed the suspicion.

Harry shook his head, but there was a fond smile on his face. “No, Victoria, nothing of the sort. Now, who can tell me about multiverse theory?”