Taylor, long before falling asleep had expected to have nightmares. They do start up, but are quickly banished by a door banging open. She’s on her feet, armed and ready to go in an instant. She’s put through a number of rapid tests by a grim man, before he gives her a single nod of approval.
“It seems we’ve managed to patch the roughest holes in your readiness. You’re wanted in the library.”
Taylor all but runs from the room. In the days and hours to come, there are no whips, no punishments. Oh, they are waiting and ready in the wings, but there’s no need for them. Her reading is curated, but learning about the Lore of Bureaucracy is a passion of hers and applying the theoretical lessons within to practical matters of Administration afterwards is so sensible a choice, at times she finds herself wondering what the catch is.
“I spent many days in that library.”
Taylor looks up, going across the library and in the polished reflection of a cabinet she sees herself.
“I’ve fond memories of them.” Judicca tells her reflection.
“Judicca!”
“Coming!”
More books and tests make her forget all about it as the dream carries on. But once she wakes, Taylor can’t help but wonder if Judicca was addressing her.
It’s one of the nicest dreams she’s had since getting her powers. In a more fanciful moment, she may even for a moment consider this as a way for her powers to apologize.
It’s a silly thought, but it does make her feel better. Remembering the nightmare that kept her up most of the night is hard, only a few details remaining. It’s the fear that she felt awake that stays with her, but she can’t recall what made her so scared anymore. Something about a clown and a peacock?
The very thought, the question causes an Encyclopaedia to shudder deep in her, not in the Card but deeper. Like someone asking for a passphrase or a code. Taylor resolutely buries that question and decides not to think about it and the potential of getting an answer fades.
It’s scary. But the idea that she’ll get warning next time, that she can control if she is about to mess with knowledge she isn’t meant to know somehow paradoxically helps. Taylor is against ignorance, on principle, but somewhere in her language lessons for the tongue spoken in her dreams are famous sayings. Saying like “An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded.” and "Knowledge is power, guard it well." as well as “Ignorance is your best defence.”
The sayings speak of the kind of threats that even ignorant of them, she doesn’t want to imagine or think about.
***
During her morning shower, she thinks about her costume ideas. Having slept on it, she wants to balance ambition and means. Sure it would be nice to have a professional costume, or a fancy one, but realistically, what can she do now? Not what’s easy, but what’s possible?
Taylor decides that making an actual costume of the armored clothes she has is the best option. If she makes some additions, spaces to slip in extra armor, then when she can get her hands on some store bought inserts, it should be fine. She’ll need to look into what’s available, but for the first outing, she can scrap something together.
It was a silly idea to try and be sexy anyway. Practical is much more important. And now that the pressure to make sure she’s never caught unarmed is off, and she has a plan for some armour, it’s about time she decides what her next project is going to be. And Taylor? Taylor feels like she’d doing alright on the investigation front, which means she needs to find some way to deal with the trio, at least in the short term. She’s aware that it takes time in any bureaucracy to get anything done.
She talks to Dad a bit, before he heads out to work. About the investigation, her sewing. Her first day back. It’s small talk, but meaningful small talk, if that makes sense. He doesn’t help, he offers but she just looks at him and keeps talking after a short break. If he could help, he would have.
It’s not fine… but it’s alright. Better than before, even if it feels like something got broken along the way.
She’s getting ready for school when the phone rings. It’s a nurse from the hospital. One of those roaming ones that tend to go out and help old people.
“PRT has been trying to reach you, but they can’t seem to find any mobile numbers and your home number isn’t in their files. So they asked us to relay when we schedule the home visit. Agents have already been through the hospital, but they want another check of your home for trace amounts of the drug or any “exotic effects” it might have had on you, as well as another blood sample. They’ve also asked if they could re-document your injuries with photo evidence for the case. So can I pencil you in for tomorrow morning, or afternoon, they’re really insisting to get to it while the trail is still as fresh as it can be?”
“Sorry, I’ll call you back!” She squeaks, slamming the phone receiver down. It’s only after she’s done it that it occurs to Taylor how suspicious that looks and how little the nurse will appreciate it. In an instant, Taylor decides that that? That could not have gone worse. So she tries again as the world twists around her.
“Sorry ma’am, that’s the first I’ve heard of it. Not the PRT being on the case, but trying to reach us. I’m sure I’ve called them from this number myself, so I don’t really know how you got roped into all this.”
Taylor can hardly believe what she’s saying. It’s like she’s imagining what a smooth, super spy type would say and it’s coming out of her mouth.
“I’m sorry about the inconvenience. My Dad’s already out and I’m not supposed to make medical decisions on my own. I’ll get in touch with him right after school and call you as soon as I get back. I’m really sorry about the difficulties, we don’t have cell phones and I need to go.”
The spy in her head sounds a bit British. The nurse is happy to let her go and give her the contact numbers, both for the PRT field office for the agents, and for the nurses station that handles out-patient care. Convenient, but it doesn’t solve her main problem: she’s healed.
Taylor is still wearing the bandages, because she knows that cuts that big don’t’ heal that fast. For some of them to be gone is fine, but all of them? Especially the big one on her stomach?
“What am I going to do?” she wonders.
Her thoughts keep skittering around her head for a while, finding no real answer.
***
Pressed for time, Taylor leaves the decision for later and is soon out the door. While on a bus she considers her options for school. Listening in and trying to follow them around didn’t work out so well last time. The best experience she’s had was simply trying to stay unnoticed. She isn’t about to let them walk all over her, but there’s a difference between bullying and assault. One is a drain on her time and energy, and some of her limited funds, but not worth the kind of response Taylor is now equipped and ready to give.
The other she will respond to, immediately, or it will keep escalating like it did last time. She’s learned how easy it is to kill on accident, and it’s not happening. She refuses for her life to end in an accident.
***
School is difficult. Taylor shares most classes with at least some member of the trio or their hanger on, so leaving early and leaving quick is something of a habit. Doing so on time, every time, is much easier with her new awareness. She can’t count on a clock, they’re broken, but most of the kids in class have cell phones and they aren’t shy in checking them. They start fidgeting as the bell draws near.
She didn’t have much time for it, but after yesterday, she’s prepared for today. Slim jeans, not the kind that stick to her skin, but the kind most girls wear when they’re wearing pants. They’re uncomfortable, but not too bad. A standard black sweatshirt. Some simple makeup. A pair of dark sunglasses and a baseball cap. Well, two of them. One for class, dark red, and a black one for after. And a scrunchie for her hair.
Taylor doesn’t like putting her hair up, it only invites pulling, but for once, it’s for a good cause. As the end of class draws near, she can hear her classmates getting ready in subtle ways, while the ones in the back are braver. It’s obvious. So long before the teacher stops talking she’s cleared her desk and is ready to go. When the bell rings, she doesn’t bolt. It doesn’t fit with the song already starting up in her head as most everyone tries to pack up and leave.
Taylor isn’t first out the door. Not with where she’s been allowed to sit. But she’s in the first third and that enough. She slides past a couple of the hangers on, already gathered outside, but not enough of them to block her in, not yet. And once in the crowd, it doesn’t take much to lose them at all. It’s not like they’re going to run after her.
“Some days they might, but not this soon.”
Soon enough she’s around the corner, up a pair of stairs and changes her regular glasses for shades, puts up her hair and switches on a different cap. Switch everything back before class, get there right after the teacher, because she can take up positions near the faculty rooms to see them coming. It’s a simple plan. But so long as they can’t catch her right after class, or find her during breaks, their options are limited.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Taylor still has to clear her chair from a spilled soft-drink before chemistry, but that’s about it. She spends the whole school day avoiding everyone, and her lunch behind the school. She’s always avoided the back, because that’s where the gang kids go. Except they are not alone. There’s this nook in the back where students light up joints, and one of them actually shoots up in the corner. Merchants or just addicts. But nearby, yet not with them, with them, are the rejects. Not the loner rejects as she was, but the group of rejects.
It’s one of the oddest feelings in the world to take a seat in what is definitely not a group, but is a grouping. Black clothing, metal jewelry, piercings are all prominent among the group. So is poor personal hygiene. Sparky is here, though he doesn’t seem to notice or recognize her when she takes up a spot somewhere in the middle yet off to the side.
She has no idea why there, it’s simply where the song led her. It’s only later, when Madison asks Sparky if he’s seen her during lunch, or on breaks, that his absent minded “Nah, she never comes around to hang with my kind of people.” that she realizes it’s good he didn’t. Apparently, none of her bullies thought to check themselves, not in person. She saw Sophia giving them a glance from the track field, but it was at quite a distance.
Her attempts to be invisible are a success. While sitting behind the school, she notices Nami Takamoto from the archery club in the group on the bleachers near the ABB kids. In the same kind of “nearby, but not with them, with them” kind of group that each of the gang kids seem to have. Nami doesn’t notice her, and from what she can tell, she’s sitting with freshmen girls, chatting. The group is mostly Asian, but not all of them are.
Taylor isn’t about to reveal herself, not while she’s trying not to attract attention, but she files the detail away for later consideration.
The school day both drags with the constant tension, and rushes by her. But apart from some juice, and a couple of spitballs that mostly hit her cap, it was an uneventful day. If stressful.
There was however, one stand out moment. When everything seemed to go exactly right, and even the light in her pool promised opportunity, almost like the last time a new star was born in her web she pushed and-
-She’s been ducking into side corridors and bathrooms for months. Recently, she’s expanded her hiding places to include parts of the basement. But something about the basement layout doesn’t quite make sense. There’s an old floorplan for running in case of a fire, old and smudged, and something about it… a feeling that there is some mystery there, something out of place.
The certainty that there is something here that matters is coming out of nowhere and impossible to deny.
Maybe it’s a little childish, but in her head, the whole thing becomes “The Basement Mystery.” and her first real case.
***
By the time she made it home, Taylor felt worn down by the constant learning while on high alert for hours. Her plan for the day calls for homework and study after, but she was planning on a nap tonight. She decides to switch things around. Taylor doesn’t bother calling Dad about the PRT. She decides it’s better to get it over with quickly and limit the questions. She calls the nurse desk and tells them to come in the morning. She’ll tell him when he comes back. It’s her choice, not his.
A short nap later, and it’s time to hit the books.
*
It goes well. The revision in particular helps. Taylor knew that when left in peace, and allowed to study, she could excel as a student. Being left alone is the problem. But as she reads line after line, a soft, dispersed pleasure, lingers in her head, satisfaction with a job well done.
Still a bit leery of her power, when the web starts humming with potential again, she hesitates for a moment, before deciding that it’s her powers, and she’s used it this way multiple times, without any problems. And so, she pushes on the pool of light, wanting for more. Suddenly, the web becomes a hungry abyss that swallows both her pools of light, leaving her empty.
Her head hurts, and dazed, she collapses to back to bed as the web shines, in glittering, captivating patterns. She spends some time in that daze, almost dreaming of her classes, from today and the past, before coming to some minutes later by the clock.
Taylor isn’t quite sure what’s happened, but lessons from the past semester are sitting at the front of her mind, as fresh as if she just heard them. Lessons from weeks of classes feel almost crystal clear. As the emptiness in her light pools yawns at her within, she isn’t sure it was worth it.
She’d resolved that, going forward, she was only going to push it if all her pools of light are full.
*
With evening fast approaching, Taylor just has time to start thinking and asking around on the phone about the kind of work she might be able to do. As a fifteen year old, her options and working hours are limited. At least, if she wants to do legal jobs. And Brockton Bay is not a great centre for job opportunities.
Legally, she finds no success. Even flipping burgers isn’t an option, as everyone is filled up on cheap labor. There just aren’t any jobs to be had, not for a part time teen from Winslow, not in this city. Her powers aren’t a help either. She could risk it, buy some drawing pencils and try her luck at the boardwalk selling portraits, but it’s not only risky, it probably needs some kind of permit. It’s not like most of her powers are of the kind she can sell.
The risk of discovery if she tries to use most of them is too great for little gain. The option of taking from the gangs as a cape is there, but it’s not exactly a safe or consistent source of income. The best she comes up with is trying to buy stuff that’s torn, or dumpster diving for ruined clothes and try to fix them, but she has no idea how she’d sell them after, or if it would make a profit with everything involved. It’s not like she’s a professional seamstress with a shop.
On the illegal side of things, while she finds the idea repulsive, selling drugs is always an option, but in Taylor’s honest opinion, it’s a stupid one. She could try to mug someone, but the risks vs the rewards don’t appeal. And that’s before she even considers the morality of it. It’s not like she knows worthy targets to hit for low risk, and no real harm. Victimless crimes are the stuff of movies, not real life.
What she does find, after hours of pouring through wanted adds and websites, are a couple of sketchy listings.
“Wanted, female house servant to come in once a week on the weekend and help around the house for 2-4hs. Cooking, cleaning experience preferred. Uniform to be provided. Comfortable in their own skin. Reasonable rates.”
Taylor had been skeeved out by the listing, but had still called the number to check. The man on the line was offering 16$/h, double the minimum wage. He was open about his interests and told her that her age wouldn’t be a problem. If the first uniform didn’t fit right, he’d figure something out.
“No touching” he’d promised.
She believed him. It hardly mattered. She did not want to be ogled by some disgusting older man while she served as a cleaning girl.
It took a lot out of her to decide to seriously consider it as an option, instead of dismissing it. But soon enough, she’d be risking a lot more than discomfort. If it could pay for weapons, armour, tools to keep her alive? Taylor figured she could power through, for her goal. Even if the idea made her skin crawl and there was some risk, she’d be better suited to defending herself if things went wrong than most girls her age.
The second one wasn’t much better:
“Wanted, upstanding teen to help spread joy. Distribution of wicked party fliers on the Boardwalk. Pretty girls preferred. Flexible hours. 8$/h.”
Taylor felt this one had layers. “Upstanding” for “We don’t have permits”, so she’d be on her own with the Enforcers. A pretty girl probably wouldn’t get in trouble, but would she? She wasn’t sure, not with that “wicked” there. It could just be some kind of PR wording. But Taylor felt it more likely it was some kind of code for drugs and copious amounts of drinking and sex. Which would make the Enforcers stopping her an issue greater than getting expelled, or fined.
It was minimum wage too.
The final listing was both the best and worst one:
“Wanted, resilient, calm assistant with sure hands. Working with chemicals. No job experience necessary. Discipline mandatory. Small risk of serious injury.”
When she’d seen it, for a moment, Taylor had actually thought it was a drug lab, just advertising in the papers. The add was small, and in the corner. Calling the number, she was answered by a crotchety old woman. Ill tempered, foul mouthed, she was looking for an assistant three times a week, in the evening. Taylor would be coming home late, at night. The job was making soaps and detergents for local laundromats.
Her English wasn’t great, but it was understandable. Taylor wasn’t sure what language the curses were in.
There would be no taxes, or reporting her to any official authority. It was a job under the table. Not strictly illegal, but very grey. Apparently, few people wanted it, and most desperate for work who did try fucked it up, either hurting themselves or ruining her batches. The old woman needed help when setting up new ones. Taylor still wasn’t actually sure it wasn’t some kind of clearing ground for aspiring meth cooks. But she could check it out.
The listing offered 10$/h for the first week, and 12$/h for the second one.
Those three were her only real offers.
*
After considering it for a while, there’s only one real choice she can live with, Taylor finds.
She decides to take up the physically risky one. Working with chemicals and fumes isn’t going to be fun, and she has been warned the heat will wear her down. Coming home tired at night has its own risks as well, but Taylor was ready to defend yourself. 10$/h for the first week, and 12$/h for the second one wasn’t bad money, for a teen. It would take at least six hours a week out of her weekly schedule, before travel time, but might give her access to some chemicals, if she needs them
***
When Dad comes home for dinner, she tells him about her job hunt. He isn’t happy to hear it, but resignation has had time to set in. The PRT involvement brings him right out of his decaying mood.
“You didn’t say anything about tinkertech drugs, Taylor.” Danny says, anger stirring.
“I didn’t know about them. We still don’t. All they said is they found trace amounts on one of the syringes. It’s possible it’s nothing, or that even if it is something, that I didn’t get any of it on me. It’s not like there was only one syringe in there.”
Taylor is trying to be comforting and reasonable, but internally she winces. It’s painful and irritating to be questioned about this, like this, and it doesn’t come out right. It sounds dismissive but it’s too late to back out now.
Dad is not amused and his anger boils over.
“You can’t just decide on your own when and if you’re going to call the police to our house Taylor! You’re still a minor!”
He doesn’t hit Taylor, or anything. But for the first time in a long time, there’s plenty of shouting. On both sides.
Feeling her base pool refill as she’s sent to her room as a child, too late to matter, doesn’t help Taylor’s mood. If she could, she wants to do over that conversation.
“I didn’t mean it that way, but does he have to be such a… argh!” She shouts in frustration. He never helps. Rarely. Ok, he helped with the archery club, but it’s not like she planned to keep this from him. She was just busy, and they weren’t really talking, especially about the investigation. It’s a difficult topic.
Obviously.
“Damn it.”
He is sticking around tomorrow morning, but Taylor has no idea what his plans for the visit are. She’ll just have to make her own, alone. She's used to it. While playing video games without sound. Because she needs to lay off, relax before sleep, any maybe they’ll help.
***
Taylor didn’t know what to think. At least as a short distraction from her troubles, the games worked. There were a lot of them in here. One was about a walking worm, another about a monkey. In one she played as some kind of pillow-headed child. She had bombs and could blow herself up. The quiet noises were weird, like they were trying for cute but aimed at eight-year olds. The little green guy running around was better, but still didn’t hold her attention for long. It was the only one Taylor considered coming back to. That and driving games. Those were fun, but got old quickly, much like the sport games.
The fighting games were good for her boom, but lost their appeal once she calmed down.
She still hadn’t decided what to do tomorrow when sleep overtook her.