A Darker Path Pt 14 (Patreon)

Part Fourteen: End of the Line

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

PRT ENE, Conference Room A

Later That Afternoon

Director Piggot

Emily let her eyes rake over the room, reading the atmosphere in a sweep. Only PRT, Protectorate and Wards were present; she'd declined New Wave assistance this time around. Some of the people in the room were tense and some apprehensive, while Assault was doing a good impression of having dozed off. She cleared her throat theatrically; as expected, Battery elbowed him lightly in the ribs.

"Last night," Emily began deliberately, "was a shit show." She paused for a beat, then shook her head. "Correction; it would have been a shit show by any other metric, but for the fact that every single one of you obeyed orders, carried out your duties to the best of your ability, and there were no friendly casualties."

She stopped talking and looked around the room again. Her words seemed to have had the desired effect; after the faux chewing out, the praise was coming across twice as welcome. This was good; the last thing she wanted was a bunch of troops and capes who were unwilling to put in the effort because they didn't think it was worth it.

"Lung is dead, it's true," she said. "The Dragonslayers, as well. But that's not down to us. We didn't kill any of them. They died because they were stupid." She paused to allow a brief wave of chuckles to run its course. "We couldn't have stopped the Dragonslayers from attacking Lung, and attempting to save them from him would almost certainly have resulted in them still dead, and some of our own dead or injured. The forces we had available to engage him would not have been sufficient to force a retreat, and in any case I would not have ordered Aegis or Glory Girl to take on Lung. It might seem callous, but I am not prepared to sacrifice our younger and brighter heroes to save a couple of idiots in power armour. Neither was I prepared to send any of you against Atropos, just because Lung was too arrogant to leave town when warned."

Assault lifted two fingers in lieu of raising his hand. She gave him a nod of acknowledgement.

"Pretty sure taking Lung on wouldn't have done any good anyway," he said. "According to Atropos' post on PHO, they were there for her, and she decoyed them onto him. They came to the Bay to kill her, which meant they were gonna die no matter what. It seems to be her style."

"That is what my analysts have decided, yes," she confirmed. "I put in a query to Watchdog, to see what their Thinkers could figure out about her. It didn't go well. Two of their capes reported 'Vantablack' and 'infinity squared' as indicators for the danger level of directly engaging her, while a third one went into fetal position, mumbling about eyes in the darkness. That precog has now taken to wearing a tinfoil hat and refuses to even acknowledge the fact that Atropos exists."

The last trace of the previous humour was now gone from the room. Watchdog's reputation was not the best, unsurprisingly so as its predictions were usually so arcane or obscure that little real use could be made of them. Such an unequivocal series of statements left little to the imagination, and conveyed Emily's point to her captive audience. Don't be stupid when it comes to Atropos.

"Now," she said. "As anyone with eyes can probably see by now, Atropos is warning the villains off not only with her words but with her methods. Coil had his throat cut twice with the same weapon. Kaiser had a sword shoved all the way through his head. Lung died to a type of acid I still have trouble believing wasn't created by some demented Tinker. Each time she kills her target, she uses a more extreme method. If Skidmark had the common sense God gave a stunned gerbil, he would be out of town by now, and he may well be." She frowned. "But because that would actually make my life easier, I'm going to assume he isn't. Any questions so far?"

Aegis raised his hand. "I just want to verify that we're still on the same rules of engagement with Atropos."

Emily nodded. "You're only to engage her in the case that she poses a clear and present threat to the life or well-being of an innocent or a teammate," she confirmed. "Considering the way she killed Lung, I believe this is more imperative than ever. I do not intend to lose anyone to her just because they thought they could pull off a high-profile capture. On the other hand, we can still save Skidmark by taking him into custody, and I fully intend to make that happen if at all possible."

This time it was Kid Win who raised a hand. "We looked all over where the Merchants usually hang out, but we didn't spot Skidmark once last night, not even after the thing started with Lung. It's like he dug a hole and pulled it in after himself."

"Frightened rats have a habit of doing things like that," she agreed. "Tonight, we've got one target instead of two. The Wards will be carrying out patrols in other parts of the city, while the Protectorate capes will be scouring known hideouts and haunts for Skidmark, with PRT backup and support. If you find him, you subdue and arrest him. Let me be brutally honest; we should've done this long ago, but we allowed ourselves to be distracted by other matters. This won't be 'protective custody'. It will be arrest, pure and simple. Followed by charging with multiple crimes and then being held for trial."

"One more question." Assault had two fingers up again. "If we spot Skidmark at the same time as Atropos does, and it looks like she's going to get to him before we do, are we expected to face off against her to save someone like him?"

Emily leaned forward, fully aware that the recording for this meeting was audio only. She was also aware that every word she spoke on the topic would be scrutinized to a fare-thee-well by armchair generals, long after the fact.

"Yes," she said, shaking her head firmly from side to side. "Yes, you are." She paused. "Does anyone not understand? Raise your hand if you need further clarification."

Every hand stayed down.

<><>

A Little Later

Tenebrae

Brian raised his hand and knocked on Director Piggot's door, then waited.

"Enter!" she called from within.

Opening the door, he stepped inside, closing it carefully behind him. "Tenebrae reporting as ordered, ma'am."

"Mr Laborn," she said blandly, looking him over. "Unfortunately, I don't hear much from your side of things, so how are you getting along with the other Wards?"

He noted her use of the word 'other', intended to convey that he was already a part of the team. "Reasonably well, ma'am. I don't necessarily have much in common with some of them, but everyone's giving me a fair shake. I'm getting a good vibe out of it. Vista's already met Aisha, and they're getting along frighteningly well."

"Good, good." She clasped her hands together, giving the impression that she was now getting to the nitty-gritty of the matter. "Have you been following the news today?"

The sudden change in topic caught him off balance. "Uh … no, ma'am. Has something important happened?"

"Not in the grand scheme of things, no. But there was a cape battle at about nine this morning, in one of the more run-down areas that the Empire Eighty-Eight used to control." Her concentration on him redoubled. "All the evidence points toward Hookwolf being attacked and killed by your ex-teammate, Hellhound. Rachel Lindt."

By the time he absorbed what that meant, it was already too late to look shocked, so he didn't. Instead, he told the simple truth. "Unfortunately, that doesn't surprise me."

"I'm going to need you to explain that." There was no mistaking the command as a request.

He took a deep breath. "Hookwolf was just stubborn enough to stick around and see if Atropos could really kill Lung. And Rachel … Rachel hated Hookwolf with a passion. Definitely enough to kill him. See, he used to preside over dogfights, which left dozens of dogs dead or mutilated. Rachel's power makes her empathise very strongly with dogs. I've known her to yell at people for carrying their dogs everywhere or putting stupid sweaters on them. If she was leaving town, and knew Hookwolf was still here … yeah, I can see her going out of her way to kill him before she left."

"I see." She rubbed her lower lip with her thumbnail. "Is she likely to take this anger out on anyone else? Are we going to see a wave of random citizens killed by monster dogs because she thinks they deserve it?"

Hoping he was right, he shook his head. "I don't really think so, no. Hookwolf was the main offender in all this. Now that he's dead, Tattletale will be telling her to get out of town, and she listens to Tattletale … sometimes."

"I see." She paused for another long moment. "One more question, regarding the upcoming meeting with Atropos."

Right on cue, a chill ran down his back. "Yes, ma'am?"

"You're fully aware of your role in this, yes?" Her gaze was intent again. "This may have been set up by Deputy Director Renick, but I have no intention of allowing it to go wrong."

He nodded. "To be Aisha's chaperone and big brother, and to get her out if she offends Atropos. Also, to observe and report on my impressions of Atropos."

"Excellent. Now." She leaned forward slightly. "I understand you didn't volunteer for this. What are your feelings about simply being told that you're doing it?"

"Complicated." He took another deep breath. "I'm scared, of course. I've never killed anyone. Not really sure I could, if it came down to it. If Atropos could murder Lung and Kaiser so theatrically, to a schedule, all the while manipulating the people around them like puppets on a string, I doubt I'd stand a chance against her. But …"

"But …?" She made a go on gesture.

"But … Aisha needs me to be there. And I'm not about to mess this up for her. Too many other people have treated her needs and wants like she's worthless. So, I'm going to be there for her."

"A laudable goal." Her eyes didn't shift away from him. "Do you see any obstacles to you being in the Wards, going forward?"

"Not really." He knew that was a nothing answer, so he tried to elaborate. "Triumph already spoke to me and asked that exact question. He also informed me that as the Wards team leader, he was in the loop about me being an ex-villain; just as a heads-up, not as something to hold over me. I told him that so long as he was okay with my past, I was good with being in the Wards."

"I'm glad to hear it." Brian would've bet a large amount of money right then that Triumph would soon be called into the Director's office, to hear the other side of that same conversation. "You'll be doubling up with Gallant on the console tonight, to nail down any problems you have with procedures there. Understood?"

He nodded firmly. "Yes, ma'am. Understood."

"Good. Dismissed."

<><>

Danny

Pleasant odours wafted through the kitchen as Danny stirred the pasta dish Taylor had started before he got home. It was nearly ready; he figured another fifteen minutes to finish cooking, and another fifteen after that before they could eat. Definitely better than the mac & cheese they'd subsisted on far too many times when he was in his depressive moods.

"Dad?" Taylor leaned in through the doorway from the living room. She'd been doing her homework upstairs, and was even now holding an exercise book. "Can I ask you a question, or are you busy?"

"Not that busy," he said. Giving the pasta one last stir, he put the lid back on the pot and turned to face her. "I'm not sure how I'll be able to help with your homework, but feel free to ask anyway."

"This is a Brockton Bay thing," she said, stepping all the way into the kitchen. "Mr Gladly wants us to do a report on the aftermath of the gangs. What's likely to stop happening now that Oni Lee and Lung are out of the picture, and what the remainder of the ABB's probably going to keep doing, stuff like that."

"Wow, he's not pulling any punches, is he?" Danny asked, leaning against the table while he thought about the question. It wasn't a topic he would've thought a high school teacher would introduce. But then, he wouldn't have expected four major capes to be killed in a row, either.

She rolled her eyes in typical teen fashion. "He likes to think he's avant-garde and ahead of the curve, whatever that means."

That wasn't actually too far from the impression Danny had gotten during the one meeting he'd had with the man. "Well … the ABB has been doing the protection racket since forever, backed by Lung. I suspect that'll go by the wayside. Likewise, the drug trade is likely to at least walk itself back to levels sustainable by non-capes. Then there's the prostitution …" He grimaced.

"The ABB runs prostitutes?" Taylor looked surprised and troubled. "I never knew that."

Danny hadn't wanted to go there, but Taylor was a bright kid and she would've put the pieces together eventually anyway. "The rumour is that the ABB grabs girls off the street in poor neighbourhoods, and they end up in the unlicensed brothels. I don't know how true this is, but I have heard stories about girls just vanishing."

"Jesus." She shook her head. "Why don't the cops do anything? Or the PRT?"

He shrugged. "Poor neighbourhoods. Most of the tenants have prior experience with law enforcement that isn't so great, and they don't trust the cops to listen. And to be fair, some cops are on the take, and others just plain don't care. As for the PRT, you've got to prove it was a cape crime before they can step in."

"I thought we were better than that." Her hand, where she was holding the exercise book, had clenched so much that her knuckles had turned white. "Someone should do something."

Lacey's words came back to him. She's taking out the trash, and it's well past time it was done. "Someone is doing something, remember?"

She looked up at him. "So, you think Atropos is doing the right thing?"

A hollow chuckle came to his lips. "Not necessarily the right thing, but … sometimes, all you've got are bad options. And if I'm being brutally honest, I'm not sure anything less would actually work for this city, right now." He fixed her with a stern gaze. "Don't quote me on that."

"Wouldn't dream of it. Thanks, Dad!" She turned and headed back through the living room again.

"You're welcome." He wandered through into the living room himself and found the remote. Ten minutes of TV before it was time to start serving dinner sounded about right.

<><>

Taylor

Path to Ending the influence of the ABB in Brockton Bay.

Once Skidmark is dead, post on PHO and call them out for everything Dad said; the protection, the drugs, the kidnapping girls and the prostitution. That'll get their attention and put them on notice. And then if they come after me, or if they just ignore me and keep doing it …

Taylor's musings were interrupted by a sudden flash of a vision. Her power had shown her things before, but never as clearly as this. It was an unused warehouse, she knew this instinctively. Arrayed on the floor, sprawled in death—she knew that too—were young women and even girls, some she was sure were younger than herself. Their throats had been cut, the blood allowed to pool together into one grotesque lake in which they were the islands. A gleaming pair of shears, the blades dulled with blood, lay nearby. Words, written on a nearby wall in the same blood, read: THEY OFFENDED ATROPOS. It was 'signed' with a rough outline of shears.

The image she saw wasn't immediate, she knew that instinctively. It would come about after midnight, as a direct result of the message she intended to send. The perpetrators would be deliberately attempting to draw attention away from themselves and toward her.

Such an act would entirely overturn the Path she was setting out on by meeting Aisha. No matter how she protested or proved she was elsewhere, and that she had no reason to murder them, the PRT would never begin to trust her. Whether they placed a Birdcage sentence or even a kill order on her, it would hamper further Paths to an unacceptable degree.

In addition, they sought to dilute her brand, to put their mark on the name of Atropos, and that was unacceptable. I kill in the name of Atropos. Nobody else has my permission to do so.

Deep down, she was aware that allowing the deaths of the girls would be wrong in another way altogether, but she didn't allow that to affect her conclusions. The would-be perpetrators were going to die anyway. Nobody screws with my Paths.

Another Path unfolded itself in her mind. How to End that shit before it happens. She smiled grimly. Congratulations, dipshits. You just got my attention.

<><>

10:03 PM

Squealer

Sherrel pulled aside the sheet of galvanised iron and tapped in the eight-digit passcode. When the door clicked open, she strode on into the garage, flicking just one light switch on the panel just inside the door; a ceiling flood came on, bathing the massive truck in light. "All aboard, assholes!" she proclaimed, hitting the remote fob that unlocked the armoured doors.

"Fuck you too," Skidmark said fondly, smacking her ass on the way past. "I'm not an asshole, I'm the asshole. 'Cause I supply the best shit in town."

A joke like that was like a guy's dick, Sherrel decided. It would be much more appreciated if he didn't whip it out every chance he got. "Yeah, yeah," she said out loud. "If you're brewin' any farts, let 'em out now, 'cause we're gonna be locked in with each other for the next two hours an' change, an' I didn't sign up to drive no rolling Dutch oven."

"One time," whined Mush. "One fuckin' time." He pulled the truck door open and climbed up inside, then scrambled back into the nest he'd made up for himself.

"Once is enough for one of your farts," Sherrel sniped back, and climbed up into the cab while Skidmark went around to the passenger-side door.

"Hey," said Skidmark as he climbed in. "How come you gave me an ejector seat to sit in?"

Sherrel shrugged. "I always build ejector seats. Sometimes I just don't rig 'em to eject. Yours is safe. It's not connected to shit."

"Oh. Okay."

Once they were all in and settled, she pressed the button to power up the oversized engine. All the dashboard lights came on, one after the other, until she was satisfied that the vehicle was in proper running order. Then she flipped up a cover and pressed a green button. Below the button was a label that promptly lit up: CLOAKING FIELD ACTIVE.

"Time to hit the fuckin' road, bitches!" crowed Skidmark. "Put your head between your legs and kiss your nasty ass goodbye, 'cause we're going to town."

Sherrel pressed the button on the remote taped to the dash, and the large roller-door rumbled and squeaked and squealed upward until it was out of the way. Letting out the clutch a little, she idled the truck forward until it was clear of the garage, then hit the button again. As they pulled away onto the road, she could see in her rear-view camera that the garage door was rumbling downward again.

The plan was simplicity itself: they would drive around Brockton Bay in the invisible, soundless armoured truck until well after midnight. Once Atropos admitted defeat in her nightly PHO post, they could head back to base. Fuck Atropos, and fuck every cape she'd already killed. They were smarter than everyone.

<><>

11:30

Lord Street

Taylor

I pulled over in my 'borrowed' car and parked at the side of the road. Currently I was wearing all but the mask and hat; to any curious passer-by, I would have seemed to be a slightly more formally-dressed motorist than normal. I was happy to maintain that illusion for just a little while longer.

Although I saw and heard nothing—Squealer's cloaking tech was sincerely bullshit—I knew exactly when the truck was about to pass by, at something over the speed limit. I knew where I could've gotten a rifle with armour-piercing rounds, to blind-snipe him through the window, but I'd chosen instead to go with the most horrifyingly spectacular kill I could manage under the time constraints. So, as it whipped by, I merely pressed the first remote button.

Under the dash of the hurtling monstrosity, a timer was now counting down.

14:59

14:58

14:57

14:56

<><>

11:45 PM

Armsmaster

Colin changed down a gear and cruised around a corner, mindful of the PRT van trailing him at a discreet distance. The area he was in had long since been marked out for Merchant activity; the trick was determining what was old and what was fresh. As he was scanning the street ahead for movement, his radio earpiece crackled.

"Assault here. We've located what we figure is where Squealer's been working. Signs of fresh activity, last day or so. No sign of her, Skidmark or Mush. Tyre tracks of a large vehicle, in the ten-ton range, also not here. Over."

"Armsmaster copies," Colin answered automatically. "Send me your location. I might be able to—"

He broke off because the impossible had just happened. Just as he'd been slowing to take another turn, a large Tinker-built truck had appeared in the middle of the intersection, right in front of him. Trailing shreds of electricity, it went from totally invisible and silent to extremely present and thunderously loud as it boomed though the intersection and off down the street.

Colin locked up the front and rear wheels on his bike and skidded to a halt, staring in the wake of the vehicle.

"Ah, Armsmaster, you're gonna have to repeat your last," Assault replied. "You cut out in the middle there, over."

"Never mind," Colin snapped, jamming his bike into gear. "Everyone, home on my signal. I just spotted them. In pursuit. Armsmaster, out."

As his bike left a long smoking trail of rubber in the haste of its acceleration, he locked his sensors onto the receding truck.

You're not getting away this time.

<><>

Skidmark

The meth in his pipe was the best quality, and Adam was enjoying his night to the fullest. Who gave a shit that some pretentious wannabe assassin was after his hot-shit ass? Nobody could get to him. Nobody and nothing. They didn't even know where he was. They couldn't see him.

"Run, run, run, as fast as you can," he slurred. "Can't catch me, 'cause you got shit for brains."

"Fuck," muttered Squealer, peering at the rearview camera. "They can see us."

"No, they can't," Adam said automatically. "Your cloaking thingy don't let them. We're 'visible and shit."

Squealer glared at the green button and pressed it several times in a row. The little message about the cloaking field never changed. She then tried to wedge her nails under a dashboard panel, which didn't budge. "Well, we've got three PRT vans and a chopper, plus Armsmaster and Velocity, all trying to climb up our exhaust pipe. I think they can fucking see us."

"Oh. Shit." Adrenaline flushed through his system, prodding him toward a semblance of sobriety. "Want me to do anything?"

"I'll let you know," she said tensely. "In the meantime, strap the fuck in."

Muttering to himself, he started fumbling with the five-point straps. What was the point of a cloaking field, he wanted to know, if it didn't cloak?

<><>

11:59 PM

Taylor

Humming to myself, I finished using the yellow spray paint to mark out a large rectangle in the middle of the road, then placed the can itself right on the edge of the rectangle. As I heard the sound of a distant engine, I knew it was nearly showtime; reaching into my pocket, I took out the second remote and held it in my left hand. Then I stepped back until I was about three yards back from the rectangle, and waited.

It didn't take long.

<><>

Armsmaster

Colin gritted his teeth and tried again to ease up alongside the oversized truck, but Squealer was just too good a driver. All she had to do was dance her multi-ton vehicle sideways a few feet, and he'd be kissing asphalt. Letting off on the throttle, he backed off again.

"Console, this is Birdseye One, I have eyes on Atropos. She's about four hundred yards ahead, standing in the middle of the road, over."

"Shit," muttered Colin. He activated a HUD window and got an image from the chopper's cameras. Sure enough, there she was, standing foursquare just on the other side of a large yellow rectangle that had been painted on the road. Her long-coat blew sideways in a dramatic fashion as she raised her right hand, index and middle fingers pointed gun-fashion.

This is what she did with Kaiser.

There was a roar of exhaust from the massive truck as Squealer evidently decided to accelerate and run Atropos down. Colin had a feeling in the back of his mind that this was a) precisely what Atropos had expected them to do, and b) a very bad idea.

On the transmitted image, just as the timestamp ticked over to midnight, Atropos' hand kicked up, as though she'd fired an imaginary pistol. At the very same instant, visible on another image, the top of the truck cab burst open and Skidmark blasted out, riding an ejection seat ...

... which promptly flipped over forward, rocketing downward at an angle until it hit the roadway directly ahead of the speeding truck. With Skidmark under it.

The truck had a low front bumper. This caught the upturned ejection seat and forced it down onto the road as the truck kept going. Unfortunately, the seat was not constructed of the best materials, which meant that first it and then its contents—that is, Skidmark—were ground off onto the asphalt.

Squealer had to have realised this immediately, as the engine note changed and Colin heard the brakes come on. Then they came off again, and the engine roared once more. Off again. On again. Off again. On again.

When the truck finally came to an agonizing halt right in the middle of the yellow rectangle—from the way it stopped, Squealer had yanked something vital from under the dash—it was far too late for the boss of the Merchants. To put it bluntly, he had been smeared over more than two hundred yards of roadway.

Colin stopped his bike and climbed off. Just as he went to walk past the length of the truck, Atropos herself appeared at the front and raised her hand in a 'stop' gesture. He paused just for half a second, wondering what her intent was. Then he heard a slight metallic creaking; a moment later, with multiple pings and clangs, every single lug-nut broke away from the truck, and all six wheels came off at once.

The entire chassis hit the asphalt with an almighty crash, and the wheels rolled in all directions.

When he looked again, she was gone.

<><>

An ABB Safe House

Johnny Quan had always known the ABB were the 'bad' guys—good guys didn't extort money or services with menace—but he hadn't considered them to be the bad bad guys. He'd joined under coercion, and he'd done what he was told, mainly because he didn't want to be shot or stabbed or burned to death. But now, Oni Lee was dead, and Lung was dead, and many of the previous upper echelon were quietly filtering away.

Which Johnny thought was a good idea, but his colleagues seemed to have other priorities in mind. Specifically, the girls working under them in the unlicensed brothels. Minding them was a job Johnny had been doing for some time, and as he didn't consider himself a bad guy, he tried not to be an asshole with them. It was just a job, nothing personal. No need to make it any harder on them.

"So why don't we just, you know, go?" asked Johnny. "Once the girls realise we're gone, they can get out. They've got families to go back to." He really wasn't looking forward to facing the angry parents of any of the girls, which was why he was pushing to just leave.

"Can't do that," said Pham. "They know our faces. They talk to the cops, give our descriptions, we're fucked, see?"

"Well, it's not like we can take them with us." They had two cars. The girls wouldn't fit, not with all the luggage that was also going.

"No." Ken Tanaka was a big guy. "We gotta wait until we know if this Atropos bitch is gonna keep coming at the ABB. If she is, we gotta bail. And we can't leave them to tell the cops about us."

The penny finally dropped. "Kill them?" He shook his head. He hadn't signed up for this shit. "They'll get us for murder one. That's worse than just minding the girls."

"Nah. They won't. I been thinking about this, see?" Pham produced a large pair of shears. "We off 'em with these. Cut their throats. Put a message on the wall, 'They have offended Atropos' or some shit like that, see? Cops'll eat it up. They'll be all over the known murderer and we just walk. Free and easy, see?"

"Yeah, I see. And I'm not going to let you do it." Johnny reached for the gun in his waistband, but Ken grabbed his arms and held them behind him. "Hey, let me go!"

"Don't think so." Pham waved the shears in front of Johnny's eyes. "We can practice on you, see?"

"You first." The voice, that of a teenage girl, came from across the room. Johnny and the other two looked around, to see a dark-clad figure. She was also holding a pair of shears, but hers looked a whole heap deadlier.

"The fuck?" Ken stared, then his brain apparently caught up with his eyes. "Fuck, it's her!"

He let go Johnny's arms as Pham dropped the shears and scrabbled for the pistol he had tucked into his own waistband. But Atropos moved faster than either one of them. All Johnny saw was skeins of light reflecting off the shears as she crossed the room and slashed, then turned and slashed again. By the time he heard the double thump on the ground, he was huddled over in a kneeling position with his arms doubled over his head.

He heard footsteps moving across the floor, then they stopped beside him. The urge to piss himself was almost unbearable. Cloth whispered as she leaned down next to him. Her voice was a murmur next to his ear.

"Do better."

He stayed there for the next fifteen minutes, then peeked around cautiously. She was gone, only the cooling bodies of Pham and Ken showing that she'd ever been there.

Somehow, he knew that for the rest of his life, whenever he closed his eyes, he would hear those two words.

<><>

Danny

He was asleep when the sound of the twanging side-gate reached his ears and folded itself into his dreams, making him stir and roll over. When the back door opened, then closed with a definitive thump, the noise insinuated itself past his dream state and into his subconscious, where it ticked over a red flag. Someone is in the house.

Then the basement door opened and closed. He opened his eyes, just barely, not even sure why, and that was when he heard the footsteps. Crossing the living room and climbing the stairs.

Jarred fully awake by the realisation that the slow, steady boot-steps were not in his imagination, nor part of any dream, he sat up in bed. Grabbing the first thing that came to hand, a heavy flashlight, he crossed the room as quietly as he could. Then he wrenched the door open and clicked the flashlight on, shining it into the face of the intruder—

"Hi, Dad," said Taylor. She was wearing a familiar costume, carrying a broad-brimmed hat in one hand and a cloth mask in the other. "Looks like you caught me."

Her straightforward, matter-of-fact tone disarmed him; there was no attempt at denial or concealment of the truth. "Taylor?" he asked, still not sure if this was a dream or not. "You're Atropos?"

"Well, if I'm not, I'm for damn sure wearing her costume," Taylor confirmed with a breezy grin. "I'd say it's a long story, but it's really not. I've been taking steps to clean up Brockton Bay, the only way that'll stick."

This was rapidly becoming too much to deal with in his barely-awake state. "But … you're my daughter."

It was almost like a conjuring trick. The morph mask went on, then the hat over the top. A menacing stranger stood there, terrifying in the circle of illumination cast by the flashlight. A stranger who spoke with Taylor's voice. "And I'm also Atropos."

Just as fast, she removed them again, and grinned at him. "It's me, Dad. Really."

He felt he should protest, but not quite how. "You're … you're killing people."

She nodded, then shrugged. "You were right, this afternoon. This is all that'll work for this city, right now."

It was unfair, he felt, to use his own words back at him. "Can we talk about this in the morning?"

She gave him a flashing grin. "Absolutely. Night, Dad."

"Night, Taylor." He turned and went back into his room.

I have absolutely no idea how to handle this.

<><>

Taylor

As Dad's door closed, I went along to my room and got out of my costume. I hadn't sweated all that much, but I grabbed my pyjamas and trotted along the hallway to the bathroom for a shower anyway. As I turned my face to the spray and mentally composed the PHO post I'd be putting up in a few minutes, I smiled.

Path to End the need to lie to Dad about this: complete.

Part 15