The Major ducked under a haymaker, and retaliated with a solid hit to the man’s ribs. She felt them give, heard them break. It was a very satisfying feeling to say the least. Not that she had the time to dwell on it at the moment as two other skinheads moved to get a piece of her. She hadn’t even done anything, just took a seat at the bar, asked for some hot wings and a shot of whiskey. It wasn’t like it would actually do anything to her, not that they knew.
She laughed as she sent a man sprawling into a table, shattering it in the process. She was being very careful to keep her output within human realms, even if she was capable of taking it so much farther now.
Was it bad that she hoped she would actually get those hot wings?
Chuckling to herself, she stepped inside someone’s kick, caught their leg by the thigh, and dropped them to the ground before finishing with a solid kick to the dick. She stood and took a look around the devastated bar. Not one man remained standing, most weren’t even groaning. Her detection suite highlighted each one, color coding them based on injury. None were bad enough to require immediate first aid so she would leave it to them to make the call.
With a jaunty whistle, Taylor grabbed a glass and poured a shot. The taste was horrid, but it wasn’t like she could actually get drunk unless she allowed it via software. With that, The Major left the bar and the onlookers parted for her like the Red Sea. None made an attempt to follow.
“You get it all out of your system?” Lisa asked.
“Mostly,” Taylor agreed. Classes had been boring on the other side of things, and it was nice to be able to do something when the other half of life was frustrating. “I am a bit upset that none of the Empire capes showed.”
“You’re too eager for a fight, you realize that?”
“Against the Nazis? Always. I have spent hundreds of hours programming combat reflexes into this body,” she answered. It really was a gorgeous day and she was glad at least part of her was getting to enjoy it. “Melissa even sparred with me to ensure they worked correctly.”
The woman had a dozen different martial arts near perfected and fought like a demon. If Taylor didn’t know better, she would have assumed that she had a Combat Thinker rating in addition to her Tinkering skills. Taylor chalked it up to experience, mainly, the woman had a hardened look about her during their spars.
“Why is Coil calling me now?” Lisa grumbled before swapping back to her perky voice. “Boss, what’s up?”
“Hello, my little Tattletale,” He said in a tone that sent a chill down Taylor’s original body. She wasn’t sure if she should be grateful or curse Lisa for routing the call to her as well. “I am about to approach a potential recruitment and wanted you to provide what information you could.”
“You already have mercenaries in place,” she said, then over their secure connection, she added. “I have a camera feed from the mercs, they’re less than a block away from you. Guess you’re getting your wish.”
Coil was moving quickly, she hadn’t anticipated him trying something so brazen, but it served her purposes all the same, so she would see how it played out. The mercs piled out of a black SUV, guns at the ready as they surrounded Taylor. She looked around them, nonplussed about the situation. The rifles weren’t strong enough to penetrate her shell and the Tinkertech laser attachments were Toybox purchases. Each of those would fail to trigger anything beyond a stun setting if aimed at a Toybox member with an active transponder, which she possessed.
They would absolutely ruin her jacket however, and there would be consequences if they did. “Afternoon gents, how can I help you?”
Taylor wasn’t actually sure if they were all men, given the level of armor they were wearing, but she was reasonably certain Coil was misogynistic enough to only hire male soldiers for his private little army.
“Major,” the lean man said, pulling out a flip phone. “Our employer wishes to speak with you.”
Of course, it began to ring at that exact moment. Rolling her eyes, she held out her hand and accepted it from the man, already tracing the signal. She frowned back in the school when it didn’t go to the bond villain base like the last call she had with the man. She frowned deeper when the voice answered.
“Major, your reputation precedes you,” he answered.
Her recognition software however returned an error. Whoever was speaking to her, it wasn’t Anthony Gibson, which had disturbing implications. Either this was a body double speaking to her, or Coil was multiple people acting as one.
“I wish I could say that was mutual,” she answered. “You’re a bit of a ghost in this city other than the whole mercenary angle. Part of why I came to Brockton, actually.”
“Indeed. I will admit, hiring you would be the simplest option available to me,” he said.
Taylor had her recognition software running in overdrive, yet it was turning up nothing. A voice filter would complicate things, of course, but should be able to be countered effectively. To call it frustrating was an understatement.
“He’s having a completely different conversation with me,” Lisa supplied. “I think the multiple people angle might be accurate. The one I’m talking to is the same one that made the offer when I had a gun to my head.”
Which meant Lisa was talking to Anthony.
“Then let’s discuss terms of a contract,” the Major said easily. “Perhaps a leisurely drive through the city rather than talks in the open that might draw heroic attention?”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Granted,” he said.
The mercs moved aside and Taylor allowed them to lead her to the car, where she took a seat in the back, phone still in hand. What followed was mostly boring negotiations, but they eventually settled upon a rate for her services and even her first job. She would be assisting the Undersiders when they moved to rob the Ruby Dreams Casino, a suspected Empire front. Her software didn’t turn up anything, but she kept all the recordings for her and Lisa to go over later.
The mercs let her out closer to the docks, which was a purposeful thing, she knew. Not that Coil had voiced it, but Lisa had told her that the Undersiders were directed to make contact with her and share their plans for the job itself. So, Taylor jumped up to a rooftop and calmly waited for the Undersiders to arrive.
It didn’t take long before three massive dogs landed on the roof with her, snarling at her like the unfamiliar cape that she was. Lisa, or rather, Tattletale, gave a snarky little wave and dismounted. Striding over without a hint of fear, darkness moved behind her like a curtain as Grue followed. Neither Regent nor Bitch moved from the backs of the dogs.
“Major, a pleasure!” Tattletale said. “Bossman said he hired you to help with a tricky job.”
“That was what we agreed upon,” the Major answered with a smirk. Lisa’s virtual avatar was laughing uncontrollably in the corner of her eye. “I’m supposed to work with you and another free agent by the name of Cyber.”
“Hear that Tats?” Regent called out. “Your girlfriend is gonna be helping too!”
“Naturally he figured out my modified brain instantly,” Lisa’s avatar said. “Had to explain things a bit to get him off my back.”
That was understandable, but some heads up about it would have been appreciated all the same. She eyed the white masked boy warily, because she knew his true power as well as his former identity, and no doubt her own body had left him completely mystified.
Grue was shaking his head, the shadows moving with him as he did. “Can we stay focused? I’m not happy that the boss has been assigning others to assist us. You remember what happened the last time Cyber stuck her nose in things, do we really want a repeat of that mess?”
“I’m afraid I wasn’t briefed on that,” the Major said. Lisa’s avatar snorted. “Do I need to be worried about working alongside this Cyber?”
“Less alongside and more annoying voice in your ear,” Regent said casually. “Speaking of annoying, the hell are you made of? My power doesn’t work for shit on you.”
“Trade secret,” the Major said. “I am more or less Master proof thanks to my power. Not willing to test that against people like Heartbreaker, but it’s been solid so far.”
Regent flinched at the mention of his father, which had been the intended reaction. “Mysterious and creepy. Fuck it, Tats, you can have her, maybe get a threesome out of it. I want pictures if you do.”
“Oh god,” Lisa’s avatar groaned.
Not being able to resist, Taylor opened up a second window in Lisa’s HUD showing the original Taylor’s face and spoke through it. “You know, he has a point there, we could do just that.”
Taylor smirked as Tattletale’s face darkened in the afternoon sun. She found it cute when she managed to get her girlfriend to blush.
“Sorry, that wasn’t part of my contract,” the Major said aloud. “Might be up for it at the after party.”
“Taylor, I swear to god,” Lisa’s avatar groaned.
“Let me have my fun, Lise,” Taylor said with a grin. “Banter helps calm the nerves anyway. Hopefully it dislodges the stick up Grue’s ass.”
“Fat chance of that,” Lisa muttered before she took out a flip phone and tossed it over. “I suppose as the ideas girl, briefing you on things will be up to me. Keep that on you, I’ll be in touch.”
“Aww, not inviting me back to the clubhouse?” the Major asked. “I’m hurt.”
Grue grunted, the sound distorted by the darkness billowing off of him. “Aren’t you a little old to be flirting with teenagers?”
“Jealous?” the Major asked, eyeing him up and down. “You aren’t terrible to look at either.”
Rather than join in the verbal play, he turned around and marched back to the hellish dogs that had prompted Bitch’s PRT designation. Lisa chuckled and back at Arcadia the final bell sounded. Lisa waved and moved to join the Undersiders back on the dogs. Taylor didn’t wait for them to depart before she turned and took a running leap off the building and began to make her way back to her burgeoning base.
She and Lisa did have plans for the afternoon, but Taylor knew she had another conversation that would be needed instead. A quick message was sent to Lisa, informing her of the plan, which got a thumbs up in return.
----------------------------------------
Back at Arcadia, she grimaced as she pulled out her phone. Taylor knew she needed to go through with it, and the hesitation she felt would only make it worse. He had brought heroes in knowing full well they had done nothing but hurt her.
Pulling up her contacts, she dialed her father.
It was about time she met his girlfriend face to face and had a frank conversation. Making a double date of it was just prudent when one’s girlfriend was a Thinker 9. He answered on the third ring.
“Taylor?”
“Dad,” she said tersely. “Dinner at home, we’re both bringing our girlfriends and we are going to discuss a few things. I’ll handle the cooking.”
“That’s terribly short notice,” he said. “I’m not sure Hannah will be able to make it.”
“Tell her to make the time.” It came out a bit snappier than she had intended, but he had earned that much from her. “I’m going to explain to you exactly how fucked up what you tried to pull was. If you still don’t get it, well… I don’t exactly have to continue to come home, now do I?”
Before he could answer, she ended the call. Hopefully that would be enough to get the point across but somehow she doubted it. It was almost funny, for all the talk of secret identities and all, not one person had respected hers in the slightest. Meanwhile, villains like Kaiser could sit on their little thrones atop skyscrapers while their minions butchered people in the streets.
The hypocrisy did not sit well with her, and if Taylor was being honest with herself, she would be perfectly okay with throwing those rules away. Her father was the only anchor she had left to encourage her to do so, and even if she distanced herself, she knew he would continue to be such an anchor.
How she would have loved to just toss those supposed rules to the wind and make sure that Kaiser took a long fall from his tower, or that Lung got an anti-material round through the skull. She wasn’t a murderer, but she was almost certain she could be a killer when an asshole deserved it.
Taylor blinked, and ran through her thoughts again and didn’t like what she saw.
Maybe it was her power pushing her, but she didn’t feel entirely human anymore, and that was more than a little concerning. It was bleeding over into her thoughts, and her girlfriend, who was likely the most grounding element in her life, had been elevated similarly.
Well, that was something she would need to address, but it could wait until after they had dinner.
“Lisa, hope you’re ready for an awkward night,” she said.