“Let me see if I got all of this. You’re a Tinker.”

Taylor nodded, picking at her fried rice.

“You’ve been one since you woke up in the hospital.”

“Not quite, but close enough,” she said softly.

“And you signed up with a villain adjacent organization rather than work with the heroes.”

Taylor scoffed. “Given the heroes pushed me over the edge and proved they were no better than the school? There’s no way I could ever work with them. I didn’t want to join a gang, so Toybox seemed my best option.”

Her father glared for a moment, but she didn’t flinch. It helped that she was currently running dozens of background connections into the local cellular networks and getting to work on tracking the information she would need for the coming days.

“I don’t like this,” he said after a moment.

“I’m sorry,” Taylor said half-heartedly. “Unfortunately, my choices were limited due to my Tinker specialty. The PRT doesn’t look kindly on wet Tinkers, which I certainly qualify as.”

“You removed your brain,” he said, voice flat. “Yes, I would say that qualifies.”

“Technically I had the help of Surgeon and Cranial,” Taylor started.

“Not the point,” her father said, slamming a fist on the table, causing Taylor to freeze up.

Danny Hebert had a temper, everyone that knew the man was well aware of it. Taylor had witnessed it on more than one occasion, especially following the botched investigation into the locker, but never had he directed it in her direction. Taylor was taken aback, so taken that even her background processes halted for a moment.

Her father caught himself in that same instant, visibly deflating as he did. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

The softness of his voice was almost as startling as his earlier explosion of anger. Taylor wanted to lie, to preserve something between them, but she needed to be honest. No more secrets or deceptions, not if she was going to earn his trust back, to repair what they had lost.

“Because I knew you would try to stop me,” she said honestly. “I needed to get this part done, otherwise none of my other tech would have worked worth a damn. If you signed me up for the Wards, they wouldn’t have allowed it.”

“If you knew all that, then why tell me now?” he demanded, though the fire had gone out.

Well, it was time to reignite it. “I’m telling you because I don’t want us to keep drifting apart like we have been. I don’t want this to be another step towards us never speaking again. I’m telling you because I’m returning to Winslow, with a fully functional cyber warfare suite built into my head. Recording systems, hacking, you name it I can do it, and you can bet that my bullies won’t stop just because I’m on crutches.”

Taylor knew it deep within herself, Emma wouldn’t give up just because she was crippled. Whatever her goal, she would keep pushing for it no matter how unattainable it seemed, no matter how it looked to others. She was stubborn like that.

The unknowns were Madison and Sophia. Picking on a cripple seemed beneath Sophia, as her entire goal seemed to be to get physical reactions out of Taylor. She had never given in, not once wanting to sink to her level, so she wasn’t sure how Sophia would react to her target being hobbled on crutches. Madison would follow one of the other’s example, she just wasn’t sure who it would be.

“I don’t intend to be there for more than a day or two at most,” Taylor said, drumming her fingers on the wooden table. “Once I have this proof, I’m using it to force a transfer to Arcadia, and to hell with Winslow. Then, when I’m gone, I’ll dump some dark secrets of Blackwell’s into a reporter’s inbox and leave it at that. No way she ignores all that gang violence without having some skeleton or other in her closet.”

“Taylor, I can’t even begin to tell you how illegal that is,” her father said.

She laughed. “Well, it’s a good thing I’m not a hero, I don’t have to play by their rules.”

“That isn’t something to be proud of,” he said with a groan. “You’re risking jail time if you do this.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Better than letting everyone get away with what they’ve done,” Taylor said with finality. “I’m tired of being the victim, I refuse to sit back and do nothing while they continue to do as they please to me. And so, I will fight back in a way that only I can.”

With that, Taylor retrieved her tablet, wirelessly linked to her mind, she replayed a moment of their conversation on the screen. Her father finally seemed to understand what she was doing, she then took off her glasses, the catalog purchased device was no longer needed for their display, and tapped them. “They won’t have a clue that it wasn’t my glasses doing the recording, and with my pending upgrades, I won’t need them much longer either way.”

“You’re broadcasting that you’re a villain if you go through with this,” he said.

Taylor shrugged. “I will certainly imply, if needed, that they were a gift from some important people. I’m already dabbling in blackmail, implying more isn’t much of a further sin.”

They sat in silence for some time, the food having long since grown cold. Taylor passed the time by working on her software, integrating it further with her mental interfaces and preparing for her eventual new body. It helped fill the silence while her father worked through whatever issues he had.

She had laid a lot at his feet, Taylor knew and understood that, but his acceptance wasn’t a requirement for her plans. She wanted his approval, she wanted to have her father back. There was no doing that with secrets between them, but it also ran the risk of alienating them forever. She had taken the risk, and now it was up to him to decide what to do with the knowledge.

“Okay,” he finally said. “What do you need from me?”

----------------------------------------

The weekend passed in a flurry, much of Taylor’s time was spent at Toybox working on her future body, something that had been coming along faster thanks to Riley’s help, even if it was all done over the net. Taylor had linked into her tablet, giving Riley real time access to Taylor’s own files and visual feed.

The body wasn’t ready, not by a long shot, but it helped her feel like she was getting things done. It also helped that Riley was sharp as hell and a lot of fun to work with. They talked about all kinds of things idly as they worked, and Taylor knew Riley had been through hell. She was adopted, having triggered when villains attacked her parents.

She didn’t go into who had saved her, or when. Taylor wasn’t an idiot, and knew her adoptive father was likely involved. Jacob never denied having powers, just insisted he wasn’t a Tinker. Not that it really mattered, but it was something that had interested her in their conversations. Riley had expressed similar curiosity into what Emma had done, and Taylor had seen a different side to the small girl when she put together how Taylor had wound up crippled.

She was certain that if she didn’t have plans in motion to deal with Emma, that Riley would have called in some favors or something to deal with Emma herself. That thought was oddly warming, in that someone actually cared enough to do something to help. Indeed, most of Toybox had offered contributions to the plan to get Emma to suffer some consequences for her actions.

Vivian’s offer was probably the most disturbing, as even Emma didn’t deserve to live the rest of her existence in a gray boy bubble. Bakuda’s creations could be terrifying, and Taylor didn’t want to dabble with them too much. Vivian had just grumbled, letting her know the offer remained open. It was touching in its own way, and it made her feel warm that even the most acerbic member had accepted her as a part of Toybox.

All of that had been great in its own way, but the weekend was now behind her and Taylor had to return to school despite all of their last minute protests. Taylor had called the Protectorate at the number Armsmaster had left, one last plea to release their findings only to be met with another recruitment speech. That plea had fallen on deaf ears. The police said it was out of their hands, and the school refused to do anything without the authorities getting involved.

So be it.

They wanted to play things that way, Taylor would fight fire with napalm. She disabled her left leg, it fell limp once more. A reminder of what they had taken from her, and what she had reclaimed. Sure, Taylor could use her cyber brain to cheat, pass a GED with little effort, but she wasn’t going to let her bullies win by running her out of school completely.

Winslow was a shithole, getting into Arcadia and succeeding would be the best revenge she could get. So, she hobbled her way to the bus, and began the journey to the school. Even as she rode along, she ignored all the eyes on her. Many were students who would be getting off the bus with her, who knew exactly how she had wound up in the locker.

The reactions ranged from pity to surprise, but she wasn’t concerned with that. No, she was busy messaging her companions at Toybox while also keeping her dad up to date with a text feed on his computer at the DWU. All the while, she was digging into Winslow’s servers, making sure that backups of all her reports were kept where Blackwell couldn’t just delete them again. It had been a bitch and a half to recover, but she had managed it, and when the vultures came, they would find those deleted files, fully intact and recoverable.

A smile crept to her lips as Winslow came into sight. Taylor had to report to the office first thing, and then she would be expected to attend her classes as if nothing had happened. It was time to upend those expectations. She waited for everyone to file off ahead of her, then she got her crutches out and under her. It was awkward and clumsy, and she nearly fell down the steps of the bus, not that anyone moved to help her, nor did she expect them to.

She took a breath, winded from the exertion and steeled her nerves as she began the slow and methodical approach to the school itself. She had a plan, she knew what she was doing, and she didn’t even care if she got injured further. As long as she survived the day, it would all come together in the end. Her body was expendable now, so long as her head wasn’t damaged she could bounce back.

And so, Taylor held her head high in defiance and entered Winslow High for hopefully the last time.