Reality Intrudes Pt 12 (Patreon)

Part Twelve: More of the Same

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

PRT ENE Building

Director's Office

Director Piggot

Emily Piggot did not like to shout or scream or rant and rave when she was pissed off. That sort of thing unsettled the lower ranks for no good reason. She wanted them to consider that everything was normal and above-board until she really wanted them unsettled. That was why, instead of grimacing and pinching the bridge of her nose, she merely laced her hands together in front of her.

"So, to recap. You had to reveal Shadow Stalker's secret identity, and all you got regarding the PIN entry was a claim of a 'lucky guess'."

Assault, now back in costume, waggled his hand from side to side. "If you ask me, they already knew. At least now, they can't legally talk about it."

In Emily's mind, 'legally' was not a word that she preferred to depend on. "In your opinion, will that stop them?"

"I don't think they were likely to in the first place," Battery said. "But I'm also pretty certain they're not looking for official attention, and now spreading that word is guaranteed to draw attention. So, all told, I'd call it a net benefit to us."

"Good. And the rest of it? Did you get an idea of her powers?"

Assault's mouth tightened, and Battery answered for him. "She was particularly unforthcoming. Anytime we tried to get a straight answer out of her, she deflected with a question or gave a non-answer. Overall, I got the strong impression that she trusts us about as far as she could throw this building. Any suggestion that she might have powers was met with a strong refusal of the possibility, to the point that she did her best to cast doubt upon the notion of having engaged Shadow Stalker in the bathroom."

Emily could feel her knuckles turning white under the tension, so she deliberately relaxed her hands. "Did we get any kind of win at all out of the situation, over and above having marginally decreased the chance of Shadow Stalker's situation being made public?"

"Maybe," offered Battery, pulling out her phone. "We got a bunch of evidence we can use to nail Shadow Stalker and her cohorts to the wall, if they're stupid enough to try to take it to trial." She woke it up and tapped the screen a few times, then handed the phone to Emily.

Even considering the size of the screen, it wasn't hard to read the painstakingly inscribed notes dictating act after act of bullying. Emily flicked through the images, noting the attached dates. "How much of this does she have?"

"More than I was able to get pictures of in the time we were there." Battery accepted her phone back. "A lot more."

"Good." Emily nodded; perhaps she could turn this around after all. "Make an appointment to get it all. Emphasise that it will help put Stalker away for good. Maybe that will help engender enough trust that she'll tell us how she beat the little fool, and how she opened the phone."

"Just so you know, we're not her favourite people," Assault said. "As far as she's concerned, everything that Stalker pulled is on us."

"Which isn't an inaccurate summation," Emily noted. "Back in the day, they taught me that as an officer, my subordinates' screwups were my personal responsibility. Stalker screwed up, but we were the ones who allowed her to do it via insufficient oversight." She pinned him with a solid glare. "Which you are never to repeat outside this office, and I'll deny I ever said it if you do."

"Understood, ma'am." Assault seemed to consider the matter for a moment. "On the upside, they seemed to be more resigned than angry. It's going to be a long hard slog to get her trust again—if we ever had it—but at least they weren't talking lawsuits, against us."

Emily considered that. While the NDAs would prevent the Heberts from bringing lawsuits on the matter of Shadow Stalker being Sophia Hess against the PRT, they would have no such obstacles in suing Winslow into the bedrock. She wished them all the luck in that endeavour. "That's something, at least," she conceded. "We're done, here. Have that information you got from the Hebert girl entered in the evidence against Hess. If it does go to trial, we may wish to subpoena her to testify for the prosecution."

Assault actually snickered. "If we do that, we may just see the first case ever of a non-Mover spontaneously manifesting the ability to move faster than sound, in her hurry to be here on time."

Shaking her head, Emily gestured at the door. "Get out of here."

They left, Assault still chuckling.

<><>

Taylor

She'd known Sophia was under arrest, which was heartening to say the least—it seemed the PRT wasn't totally corrupt and/or incompetent—and the fact that they'd been going through Emma's phone records suggested that she was in custody as well. This was borne out by the fact that nobody had bothered her before home room, or even on the walk from Computer Studies to World Affairs.

This run of good luck came to a screeching halt the moment she entered Mr Gladly's classroom and saw Madison and Julia sitting side by side. Okay, I can work with this. All she had to do was stay as far away from those two as possible, and not draw their attention. Hopefully, with Emma and Sophia both absent, they would be less likely to pull something on her. And if wishes were SUVs, we'd all drive to school.

Madison sneered at her, then looked disappointed as Taylor walked past her usual desk—the suspiciously shiny appearance of the chair indicating glue or something similar—and took one down near the back. Julia whispered something to Madison, and they both giggled. Whatever they were amused about, Taylor was fairly sure she'd learn about it sooner or later. Whether she wanted to or not.

"Good morning, class!" Mr Gladly was in fine form, at least. "Could I get you to hand up your homework from yesterday, please?"

Taylor just sat there. Danny had had a quiet but intense discussion with Principal Blackwell before school started. This had resulted in a promise that no more bullying would take place (she'd believe that when she saw it) and Taylor being gifted brand-new textbooks, plus a backpack that had been languishing in lost-and-found for the last six months. Blackwell had also sent out texts to Taylor's teachers to not ask her for the previous day's homework.

Of course, Madison had to push matters. "Taylor, where's your homework?" she called across the room. "Did you forget?"

"Madison—" began Mr Gladly, but Taylor had had enough.

"No." She stood up. "I didn't forget, Madison. I didn't get the homework because I wasn't here. This is because I got shut in my locker by Emma Barnes and Sophia Hess. When I got out, I got new clothes and went home. And Emma and Sophia are now facing assault charges. Any questions?"

Amid a silence so vivid that it was possible to hear a fly buzzing against the windowpane, she sat down again. Everybody turned to face forward, with only the occasional sidelong glance at her. That was fine; she preferred it that way.

Wow, she asked herself. Where did that come from? It appeared that being 'possessed' by Morrigan and going out to kick ass had positive effects on her self-esteem; who knew?

Of course, this good feeling wasn't going to last. She had far too much experience in such matters. Shit happened to her because shit happened to her.

<><>

Madison

Taylor had done the inexcusable. She had fought back. Worse, she'd brought the authorities into it, and she'd snitched. Madison had no idea how Taylor had won against Sophia (with or without Emma in the mix) but she'd walked out of school wearing their clothing, or so the rumour went.

And now Emma wasn't in school, and neither was Sophia. Madison wasn't at all sure what had happened to them—Taylor's story about them facing assault charges was just too far-fetched to be true—but they weren't responding to her texts or answering her calls. Whatever was going on, it was Taylor's fault.

And she had to be punished for it.

"Okay," Madison said in a low tone. "Everyone knows what we've got to do, right?"

Julia rolled her eyes. "Yes, Mads. We all know."

That was totally the wrong tone to take with the future queen bee of Winslow—if she pulled this off, she'd be getting mega respect from everyone—but she let it slide this one time. "Good," she said. "Let's do this."

Hebert probably didn't know they knew she preferred the third-floor girls' bathrooms to hide out and eat her lunch, but the secret was out. One of the other girls had spotted her coming in here once too often for it to be a random chance thing, so Madison had squirreled away that information for when it would be useful. Like right now.

Madison led the way into the bathroom with Julia right behind her. The other four followed, two of them taking up station just inside the door to prevent Hebert from making a run for it. To Madison's surprise, Hebert wasn't lurking in a stall, but instead washing her hands.

"Oh, hey," she said, slinging her backpack over one shoulder and heading for the air jet to dry her hands. "I'll be out of your way in a minute, and you can do whatever you came in here to do."

This was not what Madison had expected. Fear, yes. Cringing, yes. An attempt to hide in one of the stalls, definitely. But not this … dismissal.

"What the fuck did you do to Emma and Sophia, you bitch?" she shouted.

Hebert turned and looked at her. Abruptly, Madison was reminded of the difference in their height; even in the brightly lit bathroom, Hebert seemed to loom menacingly over her. "I think you've got it wrong," she said bluntly. "They attacked me."

Julia stepped up alongside Madison. "You're not getting it. That sort of thing, we sort out between ourselves. We don't bring the teachers or cops in on it. Snitches get stitches."

Hebert actually laughed. "Is that supposed to be a threat?" Shaking her head, she turned away toward the air jet. "Go away and stop embarrassing yourself."

Julia let out a squeal of pure rage and launched herself at Hebert's back. As per instructions, the other two started coming in as well. Madison hung back because (as she told herself) she was the one who ordered beatdowns, not the one who delivered them.

That was when it all went horribly wrong.

Somehow, Hebert sidestepped Julia's rush, then swung a crisp, neat elbow to her jaw. Julia went down like a marionette with its strings cut, but Hebert was still moving. The first girl to get close to her suffered a punch to the stomach that dropped her on top of Julia, while the second one had her legs swept from under her.

Madison stared at the heap of groaning girls, then at Hebert, who wasn't even ruffled yet. "What? No! You two!" She gestured to the girls at the door. "Get her!"

"Yeah," said Hebert, holding her hand out and doing a little beckoning gesture with her fingers. "Come get me."

"Fuck that, she knows Kung Fu." One of the girls opened the door they'd been supposedly guarding. "You're on your own." They both ducked out; the door banged shut behind them.

Madison was starting to get the impression that she had fucked up in a truly fundamental manner. Was this what happened to Emma and Sophia? Is Hebert some kind of cape? What the fuck's going on here? She truly, desperately wanted to pee right now.

The air jet rumbled as Hebert dried her hands. After a moment, she turned to Madison. "Don't let this happen again." Then she was gone, the bathroom door banging shut behind her.

Madison stumbled into a stall and locked herself in. Sitting on the toilet, arms wrapped around herself, she rocked back and forth slowly.

Fuck this shit, I'm out.

<><>

Taylor

Heart beating a mile a minute, Taylor found an unlocked classroom. Shoving the door open, she stumbled inside and leaned against the wall, trying not to hyperventilate.

"Holy fuck," she said out loud. "Was that me? Did I do that?"

When she first saw the posse Madison had brought along, she'd known she had overplayed her hand. They were there to get revenge for Emma and Sophia, because how dare she defend herself. But right at that moment, she knew reverting to her previously retiring ways would accomplish exactly nothing, so she'd decided to keep pushing the bluff as hard as she could.

Julia had attacked her anyway; this hadn't come as a tremendous surprise. What had surprised Taylor was the lethal speed and precision with which she'd found herself responding. It was as though she had muscle memory for things she'd never learned, never experienced. Her elbow was still stinging from the strike to Julia's jaw and her middle-finger knuckle was sore from the punch to the other girl, while her leg … was actually pretty good, honestly.

Which was downright astonishing, given that she'd demolished those three girls in about five seconds flat. She hadn't known what sort of threats were appropriate after pulling that sort of thing, but she'd gone with 'don't let this happen again' as a kind of catch-all vague phrase.

Pulling a chair down off a desk, she sat down and scrubbed her hands over her face. This has got to be something to do with Morrigan. But how do I ask her about it? 'Oh hey, I think I'm picking up skills from you.'?

It wasn't something she could do anything about right then, so she got up from the chair. Lunchtime beckoned, and she hadn't had time to pack anything to bring from home. So it looked like she'd have to brave the cafeteria line.

I just hope nobody else comes at me. This sort of thing, I can totally do without.

<><>

Morrigan

"Okay, what is it now?" I grumble, ducking in through the open hatch into Operations. "I just got to damn sleep. Again."

"There's been a new development," says Captain Hornblower crisply. "Play it back, Loki."

Grumpily, I pull up a chair and sit down to watch the show. The waterfall display shows Taylor Hebert being cornered in what looks like the same high-school bathroom as I kicked Sophia Hess's ass in yesterday. One against six; I draw air in through my teeth in a pained hiss. This is gonna be bloody, especially if they decide to kick her while she's down.

"Why didn't you call me earlier?" I ask as Madison and some other girl crowd in on her. "I could've jacked in there and … holy shit."

The next few seconds, after Taylor drops the first girl with an elbow to the jaw, are glorious. She doesn't waste a single move; in fact, the moves are what I'd use in that situation. Exactly those moves.

"That's why," Loki says as Taylor leaves the bathroom. "By the time I got the Captain in here, it was already done and dusted." He looks almost accusingly at Captain Hornblower. "I wasn't aware she could kick ass like that."

"She can't." Hornblower gestures at the console. "You did the original analysis of her. Pull it back up and compare to her current stats."

"Sure thing, Captain." He starts typing and dragging in files, then sets up two screens, each with a Matrix avatar breakdown on it. To the left is Taylor Hebert, before we showed up. To the right, her stats right at this moment. We stare at it.

"Well, holy shit." I run my hands through my hair. "No wonder she kicked their asses like they owed her money. Her combat stats are nearly as good as mine. How the hell did that happen?"

"I may have an idea." Captain Hornblower frowns. "The incident with the skill thief. Loki, what did you upload for Morrigan?"

"Everything. Her entire combat block. Why?"

I get it at the same time that he does. "Because it didn't just go to me. It went to Taylor as well. Seeing as I was using her body at the time."

Loki blinks. "Well, damn."

Rubbing her chin with one finger, Captain Hornblower stares at the screen. "Indeed."

I take a deep breath. I know what I've got to do now, and I'm really not looking forward to it. "Captain ..."

Hornblower glances around at me. "What is it?"

"I'm going to have to talk to her."

Loki stares. "You have got to be kidding."

I wish I was.

<><>

Taylor

Getting home after the school day ended ... was kind of an anticlimax, really. Her day had started with a visit from a couple of PRT agents, and then hit the high note when she beat up three girls in the bathroom and traumatized three others. Lunch had offered no surprises, which had been nice in a non-event way. Emma's absence from Mr Quinlan's math class had strongly suggested that Taylor's assumption about her ex-best-friend being in police custody was more than just a possibility.

With a sigh, she dropped onto the sofa, tossed her new/old backpack to one side, and relaxed into the cushions. Her father would be home in an hour or two, and they would undoubtedly hash over the visit from the PRT again. But until then, she had time to just close her eyes and try to make sense of the chaos that had overtaken her life.

The TV came on.

This was not supposed to happen, unless someone was sitting on the remote. No; there it was, sitting demurely on the arm of the sofa. She hadn't touched it.

When the picture formed, it wasn't any TV show or actor she knew; instead, it was a woman with a messy blonde brush-cut and pronounced cheekbones, in front of a blank white background. She stared out of the screen, looking directly into Taylor's eyes, or so it seemed. "Hello, Taylor."

Taylor blinked. "What?" That's some kind of coincidence. Definitely creepy, though.

The woman grinned and the camera pulled back, to show her wearing a well-used denim coat over an olive drab T-shirt, blue jeans and military style boots. Behind her, the background changed, a wall sliding into view, then a sofa ... one that looked identical to the one Taylor was sitting on. All the way down to having a surprised-looking Taylor sitting on it.

"Hi," the woman said, sitting down on the sofa beside Taylor. "Morrigan. It's good to meet you."

Her voice sounded so near, so real, that Taylor couldn't help glancing around to make sure she was really alone. So when she saw the blonde woman actually seated on the sofa, it came as a severe shock to the system.

"Holy shit!" she yelped, leaping half off the sofa. "Who—how—where the fuck—"

"Damn, Taylor," Morrigan chuckled. "That's some potty mouth you've got there. Keep at it, you'll get there someday. So hey, yeah, I'm the one who got you out of the locker and kicked Sophia's ass yesterday. Pleased to meet you."

Taylor blinked slowly and lowered herself back down onto the sofa. "Is this real?" she asked. "How can this be real?"

Morrigan waggled a hand in midair. "It's as real as anything in the Matrix. That is, as real as we want it to be. To answer your questions in brief: you were actually pretty well on the money with your letter this morning. The Matrix is a massively parallel ultra-complex VR network that was built God knows how long ago to embed all of humanity in a gigantic Beowulf cluster. You are living in the Matrix. Your entire life is an electronic lie. I'm a free human, living life in the real, looking to cut humanity free from dreaming about electric sheep."

Taylor frowned. "Okay, but if you can do this, why not pull us all out?"

"Because it's a bit harder than unplugging your laptop, kid. We've got to put a trace in the system that's subtle enough to duck past the admin programs and locate your real body. Then we tell it to eject you, and we go find you. Very time and effort consuming. It's a lot easier to chat like this." Morrigan gestured at the living room around them. "This is a sandbox that we slid into place around your house. You're not outside the Matrix, and I'm not jacked all the way in. Just by the way, we've got a time limit; the system admin will be doing an error-check sweep soon and that'll pick this up for sure."

Taylor was keeping ahead of what was going on, but only barely. "Okay, how can you do the impossible things that you do, and how was I able to beat up those girls today at school?"

Morrigan grinned. "Being aware of the Matrix gives you a certain amount of power over it. Some people even manage to break themselves free through sheer blind stubbornness. It also helps to be a rebel against whatever system you're a part of. And once you're out, you can be trained in techniques for leaning on the Matrix and making reality do what you want it to do. As for what happened today, one of the ways we train our Matrix avatars is by uploading skill programs into them. That asshole Victor had the ability to draw on the skills of other Matrix avatars. When Loki, my Operator, re-uploaded my skillset ..."

It was easy to fill in the blanks. "I got them too? Huh. I guess that kinda makes sense. Hey, that Loki guy. Is he ..."

"The one you called an asshole?" Morrigan cackled out loud. "Yup. Wouldn't worry about it though. He totally is."

"Right." Taylor found herself grinning; Morrigan's sense of humour was infectious. Still, she had a serious question to ask. "So, if you're not here to get any of us out, what are you doing here at all? Why take over my body like this?"

"Because we do want to get you all out eventually." Morrigan wasn't smiling anymore either. "This server's on a downhill spiral. The protocols are weird so we can't just jack in as per normal, and we need to investigate it as much as possible so we know what we're up against before we start trying to evacuate the population. And that's where you come in." She paused and looked Taylor in the eye. "Are you game to keep going?"

Taylor firmed her jaw and nodded. "Yeah. I am."

Morrigan clapped her on the shoulder. "Excellent. I—"

A phone went off in her pocket and she wrinkled her nose. "Goddamn it. If this is Loki messing with me ..." She pulled it out and flipped it open. Taylor stared; it looked identical to the one she'd been using in the dream sequence. "Morrigan."

There was a tinny voice, on the edge of hearing. Morrigan growled at the back of her throat.

"You have to go?" asked Taylor.

"Gotta go. Thirty-second warning. See you tonight, kid."

Taylor nodded. "See you then."

Morrigan gave her a smartass grin, then lifted the phone to her ear. "Okay, pull me out."

It was like watching a movie special effect. Morrigan literally dissolved from the feet upward into silvery static that dissipated, finishing at the phone itself. At the same time, the TV went blank and both the sound and light texture in the room altered almost imperceptibly.

Taylor sat back on the sofa, thinking through what had just happened. This was more than a weird dream, more than a moment of unexpected martial arts. Morrigan was real. Taylor had spoken to her.

Holy shit, I've been chosen to help save the world.

It was a heady feeling.

Now, all she had to do was live up to it.

Part 13