“You know, I’m starting to think something might be wrong with you.”
Hearing me say that as the two of us stood on the roof of a building not too far from Wren’s shop a few minutes later, Paige glanced at me. Her face was covered once more by the full combat helmet and visor she wore as Poise, just in case anyone happened to notice us out here. But I could still read the uncertainty in her body language, as well as hear it in her voice as she slowly echoed, “Wrong with me?” A slight pause came then, before, “There’s so much you could be referring to.”
Snorting once, I admitted, “Yeah, okay, fair point. And you could turn that whole thing back around on me because we both know I’m the kettle to your pot when it comes to something being wrong. But for the record, I meant because you’re letting me get out of training back there.” My thumb gestured in the direction of the shop. “They’re gonna be working their butts off and you’re just letting me waltz out of there without even so much as a pushup? You must be losing it.”
I definitely saw her eyes roll through the white visor. “Hilarious. But you’re forgetting two things.”
For a moment, I tried to think of what she was referring to. But I was still a bit distracted by thinking about what was going to happen when Irelyn made it to her family’s place and we had to decide exactly how much to talk to her about. “Okay, I give up. What am I forgetting?”
Paige, in return, replied evenly, “First, it’s no fun if I’m not there to make sure you’re doing it right. And second, there’s nothing saying I can’t put you through training back at the house until Irelyn gets home. Something tells me she’s going to be busy with the authorities for awhile.”
Oh. Right, she had a point. We might not have Sierra and the others with us, but she could still put me through some personal training, just a one-on-one thing. Which, yeah, made me feel weird. Just the thought that I would be willingly going over to Paige Banners’ house with her would have been utterly absurd not so long ago. Adding in the idea that I would be training with her to learn how to better protect myself from people who wanted to hurt me? I would have thought that anyone saying such a ridiculous thing was on drugs, or screwing with me.
Yet, here I was. And as proof of how much everything had changed, I didn’t feel complete revulsion and anger when I looked at Paige. Not only because I couldn’t see her face. I knew that was her, and my insides did twist a bit. But it was more in… confusion about the conflicting feelings that kept working their way through me. Some part of me desperately wished I could actually consciously remember the time when we had been friends as children. Maybe that would help entirely erase the feelings that came from how she had been forced to treat me these past few years. But even without actively having those memories, I could still feel something that I thought came from them, something that had been reawakened in this past short while. It was like I couldn’t actively see my childhood memories, but still felt a little bit of their effects. Ghost feelings, or something.
Either way, the idea that I would be spending time in Paige’s house alone with her, working out and stuff while we both waited for Irelyn, made me blush deeply behind my mask and helmet. Firmly pushing that reaction aside as much as I could, I instead focused on replying, “Well, in that case I guess we better get over there so we can do as much training as we can, huh? But uhh, do you mind if we take a little more time than we have to? I’ve sort of got an idea that I’ve been meaning to do but keep forgetting. And if you really think it’ll take her awhile to get there…”
Paige looked at me with what was obviously curious body language. “I’ve linked myself to a few of the cameras in the police precinct they took her to for debriefing, the exterior cameras of buildings near the Conservator base, and the ones for several city blocks around the Banners’ house. I’ll know when she leaves and when she’s close to getting home. So what’s your new idea? And if it’s just ‘avoid physical training,’” she warned while raising a finger in what I interpreted to be a half-joking and half-serious threat.
Playing up my reaction as though panicking, I held both hands out, head shaking quickly. “Oh no, no, no. Absolutely not, I promise, no stalling over here. This is actually important. I think you’ll like it too, trust me. Here.” Walking over to the edge of the roof, I pointed my hands down and began to paint a blue and green line along it, a few inches wide. I carefully fed the green into the blue, but didn’t activate it. I was careful to make it look sort of like it could be a normal design on the edge of the roof as much as possible. It also wasn’t a single continuous two-colored line. I included breaks every couple feet, an inch or so of space between the lines.
Watching me do that, Paige was silent for a moment before straightening up as she realized. “You’re prepping for later, for an emergency.”
“Or any time I need to move quickly,” I confirmed before amending, “any time all of us do, really.” While saying that, I leaned over the edge of the roof and shot several red circles into discreet locations that I would be able to use either from the ground or another roof if I knew they were there. “I figure saving as much paint as possible in that sort of situation is probably a good thing. So if I paint the buildings around the store and work my way out through the city that way, adding a bit more whenever I get a chance…” My shoulders shrugged. “We’ll have to keep checking on it to see if my paint wears off eventually and redo it, and maybe this whole thing will turn out to be pointless, but--”
“No, it’s a good idea,” Paige interrupted. “You’re right, having as much paint as possible in an emergency is… is good. Plus it’ll help you move even faster if you don’t have to focus on spraying, or… shooting it out.”
The two of us stood there awkwardly for a second, staring at each other as those weird feelings continued to make my stomach flip over. Finally, I coughed and turned. “Can you use those cool cyber sensors or whatever to help me find some good spots to put some of this paint?”
She agreed after a brief hesitation of her own, and we set out to do just that. For the next little while, the two of us worked our way in a circle around the spot where Wren’s store was. Then we did so again, moving one building further out to prepare those ones. I took my time, since it required a fair bit of paint to prepare each of these things. At Paige’s suggestion, I made most of the paint look like random graffiti so it wouldn’t stand out that much, including using colors that probably wouldn’t be useful on a wall like that so it looked more natural. I just hoped we wouldn’t run into a situation where it was an emergency and I tried to activate the paint on a piece of graffiti, only to realize it was real and not my own stuff. That would be pretty embarrassing, and potentially dangerous. Which was probably why Paige announced that she was going to continually quiz me about which pieces were actually mine, so I’d better memorize them.
Honestly, focusing on all this helped a bit, since it meant I couldn’t completely obsess over what was going on with Irelyn. And I was pretty sure Paige appreciated the distraction too, even if it probably wasn’t as effective for her.
Eventually, we did start making our way toward her place. Or the Banners’ place, as she put it. Even now, it seemed like Paige didn’t see that as her house. Maybe even especially now. On the way, I asked again if she had any inkling of where her adopted parents could be, and she again insisted she didn’t have the slightest idea aside from the belief that Pittman had done something to them. From the way she said it, I was going to guess she didn’t think it was anything good.
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I also left a few paint bits on other buildings along the way, though not nearly as much as I had near the store. Eventually I would work my way out and add pieces of my own fake graffiti everywhere I thought it might be useful. Though come to think of it, was that ‘fake graffiti’ or just ‘my graffiti?’ I was still vandalizing places, even if it was for a good reason.
Eh, whatever. The point was, with Paige’s help I prepped more buildings for potential situations. Plus, while we were doing that, I came up with the idea of ‘signing’ the graffiti. Not with my own name, obviously. And not as Paintball. Instead, I signed them as Andy Garris. The initials AG, for Avant-Guard. It wasn’t the hardest thing to see through, obviously. But that little stylized signature would remind me of which pieces were mine.
Of course, Paige still insisted that I not sign all the ones around the shop. She rightfully pointed out that doing so could potentially lead bad guys right to our base. Which was already in enough danger considering Oscuro knew it had some connection to a Tech-Touched and Paintball. Part of me wondered how much of them leaving the place alone was out of fear of how prepared it would be by this point, and how much was because the Ministry told them to. Possibly because dealing with Tech-Touched was supposed to be Braintrust’s job or whatever.
And that just reminded me that Wren was still working on the thing Glitch had requested. I still wasn’t sure agreeing to do that was a good idea. Actually, I was pretty sure it was a bad idea. But we really couldn’t afford to have a big fight with those guys at this point. We already had more than enough to deal with. Nor was it a good idea to rock the boat where the Ministry was concerned. We needed to make it look like we were playing along as much as possible. Which, sadly, meant the best play we had was for Wren to make the device for them.
Oh fantastic, I’d managed to distract myself from one huge situation by obsessing over a different one. Which wasn’t even anywhere near the complete list of problems and potential emergencies occupying the back of my mind. What even was my life, at this point?
Eventually, Paige and I reached the area near the Banners’ property. We both took a long time to make sure we weren’t being followed or watched, and even then we went through the back forested area on the far side of the lot rather than going through the front. According to Paige, there were hidden cameras as well as motion sensors dotted throughout the trees so she would know if anyone was behind us, or followed our trail.
Reaching the high stone wall after going through a half-mile of forest, I gave us a spot of blue paint to leap up and over it. And just like that, I was back on the Banners’ property for the first time since that fateful night of Paige’s birthday. In the distance, I could see the garage I had broken out of. The garage where I was supposed to wait for Paige to kill herself.
Following my gaze, Paige seemed to flinch slightly before speaking quietly. “A lot has happened since then, huh?” Her voice caught just a little bit as she was talking, like she was having emotions about the whole thing. “Things are different now.”
“Different,” I agreed softly, swallowing hard as my own emotions played havoc with my brain. It felt like I should say more, but I had no idea what. In the end, I simply gestured to the house. “We should head inside, right? You said something about getting dinner on before we do the training thing. And what about Irelyn? Where uhh, where is she now? Wait, have you figured out whether she’s herself or Flea?”
“She’s Flea,” the other girl replied while walking across the grounds toward one of the mansion’s side doors. “The cops who were supposed to be debriefing ‘Irelyn’ were actually in on the whole thing. I mean, in on who Irelyn is. They work with the Conservators a lot and help cover some of their secret identities in an emergency. You know, like this.” She gestured for me to head into what turned out to be the main kitchen, then followed after. “Silversmith and Brumal are talking to her and Trivial right now. I don’t know what they’re saying, can’t get a connection inside the Conservator building without being too obvious. But they went in together. My guess is they’ll be busy for at least another hour. Especially since they’ll have to run through CHACE protocols again.”
“CHACE,” I echoed. “That’s uh, Clear Head And Clear Eyes? The system they go through to make sure someone hasn’t been corrupted, controlled, brainwashed, shapeshifted, anything like that.”
Her head bobbed absently while she started to take things out of cabinets and one of the three massive refrigerators lining one wall. “That’s it, yeah. They have a lot of different ways to check that sort of thing, but it’ll take awhile. If I know anything about their system, and I do, they already ran both her and Trivial through them a few times before sending them back here. But the people here will do it again anyway.”
“How much have you, uhh, talked to Irelyn since she was rescued?” I hesitantly asked while glancing around the large kitchen. This whole place seemed hauntingly empty and quiet with no staff working here anymore. I had no idea how Paige and Sierra dealt with that. Nor did I know what Sierra was going to do if Irelyn chose to stay in the house with Paige after everything she’d been through. For some reason, Paige didn’t think that was likely.
“Not a lot,” she replied quietly, seeming pretty focused on measuring out water for a pot to put on the stove. “Just enough to tell her I’d be here when she gets back and that she should come over so we can talk.” The other girl paused then, and I heard her swallow with her back to me. “I have no idea how that’s going to go. So… you know what, maybe this was a bad idea. You being here, I mean. She’s gonna want to talk about what happened, and we don’t want her knowing about your parents--”
“Don’t we?” I found myself saying that without stopping to think too much. “I mean, would her knowing the truth be a bad thing, honestly? We know she’s not part of the Ministry. She can’t be. So would it really be terrible to have someone like her know the truth so she could be on our side?”
Before the other girl could respond to that, the phone in my pocket buzzed. It was Peyton. So I tugged it out and answered. “Okay, if you’re calling to complain about Sierra putting you through--”
“It’s their dad,” Peyton interrupted. “He called on that special phone and wants to talk to you. I mean, the person he talked to before. He said we’d really regret it if we don’t let him through.”
Blinking, I glanced toward Paige. She could obviously hear the other girl just fine, and had a look of annoyance mixed with resignation. In the end, she nodded for me to take it.
So, sighing at the fact that we had to deal with this asshole having another hissy fit, I told Peyton to go ahead and forward the call to my phone. Then I adjusted my voice changer to the male one I’d been using on these calls and waited through a couple clicks until I could hear the man breathing. Only then did I speak. “You really need to stop calling so much. Can't you tell we're just not that into you?”
Unlike the other times he had called recently, the man's voice was eerily calm. “You should have worked with me. We could have come to an arrangement. Now you forced my hand. Tell my daughter she had her chance.”
I started to retort, but the line went dead. That was all he needed to say, apparently. I guess he wasn't feeling that chatty, I announced, while turning to glance at Paige. But she wasn't looking back at me. Her gaze was focused off in the distance, staring at nothing as she mumbled something about ‘all the ambulances and firetrucks.’ Abruptly, she pivoted and snapped a command for the television to turn on to a certain channel.
My eyes turned that way as well, following hers even as I saw some sort of breaking news alert. On the screen, the news anchor was saying something about a biological attack. I was still trying to process what was going on as the image switched to show a reporter standing on a roof a couple buildings over from the Conservator headquarters talking about how the authorities wouldn't let anyone in the building and medical staff weren’t giving any update on the victims.
“Victims?” I found myself asking in confusion while a steady feeling of dread kept rising in me. “What victims? What biological attack?”
“My father,” Paige answered in a brittle voice that was clearly on the edge of breaking entirely. “He did this. He wanted me to know he did this.” Her eyes found mine. “Cassie, he sent one of his biolems in the building, that's the only explanation. He must've filled it with some sort of gas or something.”
“Gas?” I echoed. “Paige, what are you talking about?” Some part of me knew, had already caught up, but my conscious mind wouldn’t accept it until she spelled it out.
“He set off an attack inside the building,” she explained, voice shaking. “Cassie, Irelyn was in there, a-and your dad.
“And I don’t even know if they’re alive.”