“Okay, we're all here,” Sierra announced a short while later once the whole group had gathered in the work room of Wren’s shop. “So now can we talk about how we're going to get Paige and me the hell out of this city so we can get on to the very important business of punching our dad so many times his concussion has a nice little litter of baby concussions?”
Paige sat on one of the heavy metal tables, staring at the floor for a moment in deep thought before giving a short nod as she looked to the girl in question. “Yeah, I know the city needs us right now, but anything we do here is just a short term solution. we need to get answers out of our dad before this goes on too long.”
Roald raised his hand. “I uhh, I know we've been over this already, but before we get too into any of that, can I just say that it still might be a good idea to tell the doctors here exactly who was responsible for this and let the authorities get answers out of him? Yeah, I know they've been corrupted by the Ministry and all that. And even without that stuff, there's only so much you can trust people like that to do. But this is something big, and I think we need bigger people than us to deal with it. If more of those victims die just because we didn't tell these people that he was responsible… I don't think I could handle that.”
The rest of us exchanged looks, and I exhaled before speaking. “You're right, that's not something any of us want to be responsible for. I keep going back-and-forth about what the best answer is, and the problem is there's no way to be sure. No matter what we do, it could lead to more people dying. What if we tell them who it was, and the wrong person finds out, you know, someone who works for him, or one of his creations? He has to have more resources out there than we knew about, or he couldn't have done this much. The Banners had to have gone somewhere and been physically modified by someone to turn them into those biological bombs. Someone working closely enough with Pittman that he could make those changes. Which to me means someone with medical knowledge and tools, someone they might have called in specifically to help with this. You get what I mean? Anyone with the expertise to physically do what Pittman needed could also be the same person the authorities brought in to try to cure it. So what if we tell them what we know and Pittman finds out through that contact, making him decide to go with a new attack?”
Paige agreed. “That or there's the other possibility we talked about. What if he does want us to tell everyone just so he can get himself put into a position to escape? He wants us to be emotional and angry and point the finger at him. He's had years to set up an escape plan. Probably several different ones by this point. And you're right, he obviously has more resources than we knew about. For all we know, the second he's pulled off that island for an interrogation, he'll be able to escape, no matter what safety measures they put in place. All we know with relative certainty is that at this very second he can't get out. We can't risk changing that. We can’t make changes to the board until we know what the board looks like. He wants us to do something that changes his circumstances.”
“Which we're totally going to do,” Sierra noted. “Just not in the way he wants. We're going to go over there, beat the living shit out of him, and get that cure.”
Peyton coughed. “That's another little problem. Once we get this teleporter thing up and running, who is actually going to the island? I mean, let me put it another way. Who among us is actually going to the inescapable prison island where all the super murderers are, and risking getting trapped there forever if they can't teleport off again?” She quickly looked over at Wren. “I mean, no offense--”
Wren, for her part, shook her head quickly. “No, it's okay. I'm scared too. I haven't even seen his teleporter yet. What if I can't fix it? What if I make it worse? What if--”
Reaching a hand out to touch her shoulder, I reassured the girl. “We’ll just take it one step at a time. Don't start fretting about what you can or can't do with the teleporter until you take a look at it. No one's going to force you to make it work if it seems completely out of your wheelhouse. It's okay. This is just one plan. If you see the thing and think it can't work, just tell us and we’ll go with something else. We'll figure out something.”
She calmed down a little bit then, before telling us the actual plan for getting Paige and Sierra out of the city. With the roads and everything guarded, there was no way they could simply drive down the freeway. And the last thing we wanted was for them to get caught trying. Not only would it complicate any attempts we made in the future, but someone who looked identical to me being found trying to leave would make my life a bit of a mess. More of a mess than it already was. To say nothing of how the Banners’ adopted daughter trying to leave would look.
We had mostly jokingly talked about building a tunnel out of the city like the one we’d used to get into the Ministry’s mall base. But that would've taken a hell of a lot longer than we actually had, or wanted to spend doing it.
Fortunately, Wren’s plan didn't involve a tunnel. Instead, she had worked with that teleporter system of her own. It still needed an anchor point to safely teleport the person to, so she had created a couple of those in the shape of a bullet. All we had to do was take the rifle she provided, aim far past the area where the patrols were set up, and fire them. If all went as it was supposed to, the anchor bullets would hit and plant themselves in the ground, and these two could be transported over there. Once they got back, it would be a simple matter to teleport them back across the line with the machine itself. Apparently Wren wasn't too worried about that last part. She was mostly afraid of teleporting living matter.
Either way, it sounded fairly simple enough, aside from the part where we had to make sure none of the patrols happened to see any of us pointing a rifle past them. Yeah, that part could be dangerous. But then again, this entire situation was dangerous, so what else was new? It was just something we were going to have to deal with.
No matter how hard this was, no matter how dangerous it could be, we didn't have a choice. Pittman was trying to trap us, trying to give us no choice but to play his game, and we couldn't do that. I had no doubt that if he was free, this whole situation would be a hell of a lot worse than it already was. He had managed to do all this while locked up on Breakwater. The very thought of what he might be able to do if he was free and had all his resources was staggering.
So no, no matter how panicked I was, no matter how terrified I might've been about what could happen, and was already happening, to my parents, we couldn't let ourselves be trapped into playing by his rules. We had to get out of this our way.
Everything seemed to be at least as in order as it could be right then, until Fred spoke up. “Uh, hey, I've just been thinking a little bit about this, and I've got a question. The whole reason you didn't let that girl talk on the phone to the living pile of rotting garbage that is her dad is because you were afraid he had some special control thing he could use to take over, right?”
Glancing at Paige briefly, I nodded. “Yeah, I'm pretty sure he has something exactly like that. That's why Wren’s also been working on noise canceling tech to put in their suits before the whole Breakwater thing goes down.” And yes, I was still trying not to think too much about that whole situation just yet.
Fred looked back at me and shrugged. “So… how can you be sure he doesn't have stuff at this house in Utah that could take control of them? Automated defenses or whatever. You know, since you're sending just the two of them all by themselves.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
My mouth opened, then shut. I absorbed the question, slowly looking over at the other two, who were staring right back at me with the same look of realization. My palm found its way to my forehead. “God, we're idiots. You're right, what if he has defenses on that house they could just take control of you guys? Hell, that might've been why he tried to send us there in the first place. I mean, for Paige.” He still didn't know that Sierra was a thing, which was one of the few advantages we had. But he could’ve had that whole place set up to put any stray Biolems back under his control.
Murphy shrugged. “So send someone else with them. I could totally blow off school for a couple days. A road trip sounds fun.”
“We can't!” That was Wren. “I set up the teleporter on their bodies. That took a couple days all by itself to make sure it would work with the bullet system. It’d take even more time to scan one of yours in, let alone more.”
Thinking quickly, I replied, “Well, I guess it's a good thing two of us are completely identical when it comes to our bodies.” Looking at Sierra, I added, “I'll take your slot, go down to Utah with Paige, and then go into the house myself to make sure it's safe. I’m not a Biolem, his automated defenses can suck it.”
Peyton objected. “Speaking as someone with my mother, don't you think your brother might notice if you disappear for several days? You said he's been stepping up a bit, and yeah, maybe he's been content for phone calls most of the time, but I don't think you can leave for that long without him noticing.”
Before I could say anything to that, Sierra spoke up. “In that case, I’ll just have to take advantage of our similarities on this side too. I'll pose as Cassidy and go to school and her house and stuff, make things seem normal.”
Oh boy, did that idea terrify me. The thought of Sierra pretending to be me in front of my brother, my classmates, teachers, and all that made loud warning sirens go off in my head. But I shoved them aside. We didn't have any better options. We had to go with what we had. The mere fact that I did look identical to Sierra so we could do something like this was a miracle in and of itself. There was no point in pushing things.
So, after a bit more talk back-and-forth, that was what we agreed on. I was going to go down to Utah on a road trip with Paige, while Sierra stayed here and posed as me for a few days. Or however long it took. I was really hoping we could get this done in as short of a time as possible. But I also wasn't naïve enough to really believe it would be that simple. Either way, the Biolem girl would be me for a while. At least I would be able to tell Izzy what was going on so she could help out and cover as much as possible.
Yeah, this whole situation had the distinct possibility of spiraling completely out of control. But again, our options were limited.
And speaking of options, Paige and I stepped aside together to talk about something else we wanted to do. I had been thinking about it for quite a while by this point, weighing the positives and negatives. But right now it seemed like the right way to go. Paige agreed, moving downstairs to make the phone call while I talked with the others a bit more.
There was still a little bit of work to be done on the teleporters to make sure they worked properly. We would leave town tonight, once it was dark.
Soon, everyone else was dealing with that, while Paige and I left the shop together after she made that call and arranged the meeting. I still had to go home and talk to Izzy, as well as some of the things I needed to do to make sure I was ready to leave now that I was the one that would be going to Utah. Including paying another visit to my parents. I knew it wouldn't help anything, but I wanted to see them one more time before leaving.
First, however, was the meeting Paige had set up. The two of us were in costume as we made our way through the city, listening to all the sirens going off from all directions. Things were getting worse. Even worse than they had been before Pittman made his move. They had already been stretched while we had every Star-Touched in the game. But now? Now things were rapidly getting very bad. Just hearing those sirens, and looking online at people talking about stores being robbed, various attacks throughout the city, and more made my stomach clench in on itself. Yeah, there were still no signs of the Fell gangs making their moves just yet, but I knew that wouldn't last forever. Hell, something told me they were probably at least partially behind the rising violence among the minor criminals, trying to stretch the system we had as far as it could go and exhaust people before they made their own real moves.
In any case, eventually the two of us reached our destination, a small, unused shop that had been a bakery not so long ago. After checking to make sure the coast was clear, Paige input a code on the electronic lock next to the back door, which beeped affirmatively. We walked through the cramped back room and kitchen, then into the front where the counter was. Sitting there, eating a doughnut from a box that was clearly not from this shop (considering it hadn’t produced donuts for at least a few weeks), sat a familiar figure in a dark red bodysuit that had swirly black lines all over it, along with dark boots and gloves, and a pair of red goggles with attached gas mask.
Cavalcade used two fingers to push the pink box from one side of the table she was seated at to the other. “Help yourselves. I just couldn’t stand to wait around this old place and not get some doughnuts, you know? Psychological thing, I guess. But hey, they’re pretty good.”
“I’ll save it for later,” I replied easily before adding, “You uhh, you came after all.”
“I keep my deals,” the woman informed me simply, before adding, “That’s why I don’t make them unless it’s in my best interest.”
Paige grunted softly before staring back at the woman. “I bet you’ve been offered a lot of deals over the past couple days.”
Cavalcade’s tone gave away nothing. “Maybe. The city does suddenly find itself rather busy. Fortunately for you, I got your call first. Almost before everyone else knew what was going on and how bad it actually is. Kinda makes a girl curious. You got some sort of inside source?”
I made my own tone give away nothing as well, forcing it to be as flat as possible while images of my parents’ current condition ran through my head. “Maybe.”
“Intriguing.” With an obvious smile, Cavalcade leaned forward to stare at both of us. “Okay, well, the girl there managed to call me the night this all started and put down a retainer for a meeting, and for me to not agree to any other jobs until then. Or rather, until now. This is that meeting. I’ve got another potential one lined up twenty minutes from now. Unless, of course, we come to some arrangement beyond delaying me from taking another job. Or did you have to empty all your piggy banks just to buy yourselves these past couple days?”
In answer, Paige reached into her pocket before tossing a one inch thick bound-together stack of hundred dollar bills onto the table. “There’s a hundred there. Ten thousand dollars. You get another one of those every three days that you keep doing this job.”
Before replying, Cavalcade checked out the money, making sure it was all there and real before setting the stack down carefully. “And what job is that, precisely?”
“We’re sure the gangs have been trying to hire you to help out with whatever they want to do,” I noted. “Maybe even some of the Stars, since they’ve been… depleted.” Swallowing, I added, “We want to put you on retainer. Don’t do any other jobs for any criminals, but you can take any job you want for Stars if they want to pay you to do something. And be ready to help with anything we ask for until we’re done retaining you, once this whole situation calms down. We’ll pay extra for that. The ongoing retainer is just to stay away from any of the Fell jobs.”
Cavalcade absorbed that, shifting in her seat. “Let me get this straight. You’re going to pay me ten thousand bucks every three days in exchange for me not taking any criminal jobs. But I can still take legitimate ones. And then just make myself available to come help you out when you need it. Which you’ll pay extra for.”
My head bobbed once. “Exactly. Any other job you want as long as we don’t need you and it’s not a criminal one. Stick to that and you keep getting the money.”
“How do I know you’re good for it?” the woman asked idly, tapping the stack of bills. “That’s an awful lot of dough to throw around. Just how many rich grandparents do you people have?”
Paige answered simply. “We’re good for it. And if we miss a payment, you can just drop the agreement and do whatever you want. This installment is for the next three days. So we’re good until then. It’s win-win for you.”
For a moment, Cavalcade didn’t respond. Then she rose, picking up the money. “Yeah, we’re good. You’ve got my number. Keep the doughnuts.” Turning, she walked to the front door, pocketing the cash on her way. “Pleasure doing business with you.
“I can’t wait to see what job you need help with first.”