Dawn in Brokton Bay brought relief from its increasingly dangerous nights. Scaracely had the sun broke the horizon before a wave people left their apartments, their fortresses, praying that they’d make it back before dark. Before the Bay, the real Bay, woke up. The streets were quickly filled with this tide of citizens hurrying to work or school. Traffic devolved into a honking parking lot before 7 am passed. There, among this throng of humanity, working its way to Arcadia Highschool was a powder blue van with tinted windows and a familiar driver.

John Gold rubbed his eye. “Damn contacts.” He muttered.

“Did you forget your eye drops again?” Alex Davis, CN Omni, asked from the passenger’s seat, without looking up from his phone.

“No.” John lied.

“Then use them and stop bitching.”

“I’m driving.”

Alex looked at John, then at the parking lot the road had become just outside the window. No-one was actually driving right now. He looked back at John. “You forgot them.”

“I didn’t forget, it’s just not safe--”

A weight appeared in John’s pocket. Instinctively John reached into his pocket and he felt it. A vial of eyedrops, that blessed medicine. John spared a glance into his rearview mirror. Maya was trying very hard to appear enraptured by the view outside the van’s window. 

John pulled out the vial of eyedrops triumphantly and showed them to Alex, “see?!”

Alex’s eyes narrowed; he seemed to sense something untoward had just taken place, but said nothing as he went back to his phone. John for his part, caught Maya’s eyes through the rearview mirror and mouthed a thank you. Maya shrugged an awkward ‘you’re welcome’ before movement to her right drew both of their attention. 

Victoria Lewis, CN Web-Mistress, was holding her camera at awkward angles taking innumerable selfies in rapid succession. “Ugh, I can’t quite get the light--” reaching up she turned on the dome light. Then took another dozen selfies. Examining each in excruciating detail she shoved the phone into Maya’s hand. “Here Maya take a picture.”

Maya moved to obey before Victoria shouted, “wait!” Maya froze. Victoria put her hand under her chin and looked out the window wistfully. She held the pose for a solid ten seconds. Maya made no move, still frozen by the abrupt command.

“Take the picture.” Victoria mumbled, her voice obscured by her refusal to move her hand from what she thought was the perfect pose. Maya obeyed, snapping off three pictures in quick succession. 

“Did you get it?!” Victoria abandoned her pose and leaned until her head nearly collided with Maya’s. Maya awkwardly held the phone towards her. Victoria put her hand on Maya’s shoulder as she scrolled through the trio of photos, their cheeks touching. Maya looked up at the rear view mirror, her eyes pleading.

Before John could help, Victoria grabbed the phone put her arm around Maya’s shoulders and took a picture as she gave the shy heroine a peck on the cheek. Then Victoria immediately pulled away and examined the picture. “Oooh, that’s cute! This’ll do numbers!”

Maya’s face was frozen, as if she couldn’t quite process what had just happened. John’s eyes lit up. “Victoria!” 

“What?”

“That’s harassment!”

“Oh get the stick out of your ass Crush, we’re both girls.”

“A. It’s John out of armor.”

“John’s a shitty name, you should change it to Crush.”

“oooh, she said the s-word.” Arthur Grey, the youngest member of the wards, added from the back seat.

“B.” Crush put the van in park so he could turn around and look Victoria in the eye. “Do something like that again, without permission, and you’re on back seat middle hump duty for a month.”

“YOU GONNA TAKE THAT VICTORIA?!” Luca, the current occupier of the backseat middle hump and sufferer of Danny Holtman’s (CN Blink’s) sloppy sleeping habits, challenged her. With the wild eyes of a torture victim and drool caked on his shoulder from the first time Danny rolled in his sleep this commute, Luca made his desperate gabmit to antagonize Victoria. “WHO DIED AND MADE HIM LEADER?! YOU DON’T HAVE TO TAKE SHIT FROM HIM!”

“oooh, he said the s-word.” Arthur commented.

Victoria looked at Luca’s situation. Then at Danny currently leaned against the back window, a fresh line of drool dripping from the window onto the van’s faux wooden panel. Then she looked back at John. “Fiiiiine, I’ll ask my queen’s permission next time.” She smiled an apology at Maya who immediately found something very fascinating out the window.

“Coward.” Luca spat, sinking back into his suffering in silence.

John sighed and began to wind up to continue his lecture when a voice from the passenger’s seat interrupted him. 

“Traffic’s moving.” Alex declared.

“F—” John turned around and put his foot on the pedal, only for the engine to rev uselessly reminding Crush he’d put the vehicle in park. Quickly, too quickly, John put the van in gear before the engine returned to idle causing the vehicle to lurch forward as the transmission protested its harsh treatment.

“Don’t break the fucking van!” Alex shouted. Phone held in his left hand as his right clutched the handle above his door for security. 

“ooooh, he said the--”

“Shut up!” John shot at Alex. Instead, Arthur stopped talking, the look on his face approaching that of a chastised puppy. John stuttered for a second on feeling Arthur’s face drop. “N-not you Art.”

Arthur sank back into his seat, saying nothing. 

“Bullying the kid John?” Alex asked smugly.

“Just shut up Alex.” John muttered, defeated. The guilt he felt as Arthur’s shoulders sagged was too intense for him to continue the verbal spar. The ‘drive’ continued in silence for a time. John in guilt. Alex in quiet triumph. Maya was just embarrassed. Victoria was concerned with whether her new pic was good to post or if Maya’s expression would turn off too many people. Arthur was sullen. Danny was snoring. While Luca plotted his revenge on every single one of them for making him endure this hated position two days in a row. A reasonable person would blame miserable luck at losing Rock, Paper, Scissors 8 times in a row, but Luca had been driven far past reason.

As the ‘drive’ continued the silence grew more and more oppressive. Compounding the discomfort, John’s eyes REALLY started itching. After sitting in traffic without having moved for a full 30 seconds, John muttered a hearty, “screw it.” He put the van in park and pulled out the eye drops. 

“Tell me if traffic starts moving.” He asked Alex. Alex nodded absentmindedly as he continued to look at his phone. As John applied the eye drops, as the liquid relief coated those hateful colored contacts, he felt something. The unmistakable feeling of a 5.56 round being chambered in the vehicle next to him.

John tensed, ready to catch a metric shit ton of bullets, but nothing came. Blinking through artificial tears John looked to his left. Next to him was a windowless white van. Visible to Crush’s naked eye was a single driver, male, white, upper-30s and far too interested in the road in front of him. Crush’s senses told him that behind the driver, in the van’s back, were five men armed with M16s and a will to use them. 

“Traffic’s moving.” Alex said. Only to be greeted by Crush’s outstretched hand. “Radio.” Crush demanded. Without protest, Omni opened the glove box revealing the short wave and handed its receiver to Crush. 

“What’s going on?” Maya asked first. Crush held up a finger indicating he needed a second. 

“This is PRT-314, do we have an assault team on 5th?”

“Say again 314.” The garbled response came over the radio as Crush eased the van to move forward along with his heavily armed neighbor.

“We have armed personnel in a white van on 5th, plates--” Crush slowed slightly so that the rear seated passengers might have an angle on the plates.

“539 KF6!” Power-Broker called before Crush had a chance to ask.

“539 Kilo Foxtrot 6.” Crush repeated.

“No assault teams outbound. Standby.” Central said. The demeanor of everyone in the van had changed as soon as Crush had asked for the radio. Anticipatory professionalism Crush might call it. Except for Danny, Danny was still sleeping. Crush sighed putting the radio receiver to his chest.

 “Cyber, wake Blink up.”

Without hesitation, and maybe a bit more cruelty than Crush was comfortable with, Cyberpunk grabbed Blink’s nose. With a snort Danny jerked awake. 

“I’m up! I’m up!” The bleary eyed teen called slapping Cyberpunk’s hand away. Rubbing his newly freed nose Danny asked with a note of accusation, “heck was that for?”

“Got a situation Blink.” Cyberpunk responded without a hint of satisfaction. Crush was certain Cyberpunk rather relished the order to wake up the sloppy parahuman. Blink glowered, guessing much the same as Crush, but he stayed silent.

“PRT-314? Be advised, registration is to a known felon. Go wild.”

“10-4” Crush intoned, he handed the receiver back to Omni and looked at Web-Mistress.

“Web, can you seize control of that van?”

Web-Mistress closed her eyes for a second, then nodded. 

“On my mark.”

Crush looked at Omni. “Omni? You have the wheel.”

Omni put his hand on the dash and Crush could feel millions of nanites flood into the vehicle seizing its operations. Crush kept his hands on the wheel though he was very much a vestigial driver now.

Crush closed his eyes letting his senses flow. He seeped into the van through its windows. His power found the van’s occupants and wrapped gently around their throats and limbs. It was so gentle that none of his targets even itched.

“Mark.” Crush tightened his grip as Web-Mistress mentally commanded the white van to keep driving as if nothing was wrong. The six men in side flailed as a power beyond their kin began to strangle them. The men in the back stamped their feet as they were lifted towards the roof by their throats, the noises of their struggle inaudible, but Crush could feel their mouths open he could feel the spittle coming out. The driver didn’t struggle visibly. Crush forced his body to remain upright even as he gagged for breath. 

Crush held them like that until one-by-one each occupant passed out. As each passed out, Crush released their throats and gently placed the unconscious bodies on the van’s floor. Sometimes he put them on top of each other; he didn’t have infinite room. The driver was the last to go dark. Releasing the driver’s throat, Crush did a once over of each of the gunmen, making sure he hadn’t accidentally crushed their windpipes. All were breathing, some a little shallowly, but nothing life threatening. Crush finally opened his eyes. He held the driver in place as Web-Mistress directed their van into a parking garage. Omni ceded control of their blue van back to Crush, who followed the van in. 

Omni picked up the receiver this time. “This is PRT-369, following up on 314’s situation, we have armed subjects, unconscious, at the Benson’s Garage on 5th and Malone. They are in a white van with plates 539 Kilo Foxtrot 6.”

“10-4, 369, officers in bound, can you sit on them?”

Omni looked back at Blink. Blink sighed and took a picture of the garage. Then pulling up his photos on his phone he began to scroll looking for a picture inside the Ward dorm. “Home, home, home,” he muttered.

“Roger.” Omni reported.

“10-4.” Central signed off.

“Home… got it! Okay, see you at school.”

“Wait! Take Arthur with you.” Crush said. 

Blink raised an eyebrow. Power-Broker looked at Crush through the rear view mirror. Power-Broker’s expression was somewhere between excited and relieved. Excited at being able to potentially miss first period, relieved because Crush just showed he did not in fact hate him now.

“No solo missions till Piss Vampire’s caged or dead remember?”

Blink shrugged. Then held out a hand towards Power-Broker, “let’s go suit up squirt.” Power-Broker took the hand and then they both vanished. 

“You really gonna assign Blink a baby sitter?” Omni asked bemused.

“Wouldn’t you?”

Omni didn’t say anything at that, but Crush felt him restrain a nod. They waited in that parking garage for a few minutes before a flash of light heralded the coming of Blink and Power-Broker, suited up. Almost immediately Crush put the van in gear and drove out of the garage, continuing back to the school. Power-Broker gave a wave as they drove off.

“Oh, by-the-by.” Web-Mistress began, apparently deciding on a filter to use for her new profile picture. “I disabled the cameras on the way in. Really should ask me to do that next time.”

Crush frowned, she was right, but he wouldn’t admit that. “Please don’t destroy private property.”

“Oh I’m sorry, I can turn them back on~”

“… good job Victoria.” 

“Mmhmm.”

Maya got a pensive look on her face. “I really hope we didn’t just knock out some government black ops team or something.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“It was Danny’s idea.”

“Agreed.”

“I tried to stop him.”

“What an awful thing he did.”

Luca spread his legs. He was almost moved to tears by the amount of room he suddenly found himself possessing. He had one man to thank for it, one man with the presence of mind to send his two unintentional torturers off on a meaningless assignment. “God bless you John.”



[tpb]Last Night[/tpb]

Joan Gold was terrified. Not that the emotion was showing on her face. She’d meticulously programmed herself for this encounter. All that her face, nonverbal cues and even hormones would show was well-intentioned concern. 

Still, that didn’t stop her real mind, the mind locked behind a thousand layers of contingent programming from being terrified of the woman in front of her.

The pale-skinned tiny asian woman holding Joan’s hand, leaning forward in a pose that radiated kindness, sincerity and gratefulness, had killed a dozen capes in about a week. This was Mari Sasaki now known as Wraith, a member of the Truly Free and possibly their most insane.

Joan just hoped that instability made her malleable. 

“Thank you so much for the information you gave Sullivan last night Mastermind. That cape was a very bad person and there’s no telling how many people you’ve saved with just this act of kindness. I insisted I meet you after…. Oh you can’t imagine just how horrible that ‘hero’ really was.”

Truth.

Horrible? Joan’s secret mind thought ruefully. Volcanic, Wraith’s latest victim, was one of the few people in Brokton Bay that seemed genuinely good. He was also a combustion specialist with less than stellar control over his powers. It was only a matter of time before he burned down the wrong building, maybe one she gave a shit about. He was too unpredictable to leave running around.

“It was my pleasure.” Joan said, oozing sincerity. “I’m just so glad there’s someone like you able to… to finally stand up to these people.”

Lie. Hard to fool her own lie detector admittedly.

“Don’t worry Mastermind.” Wraith patted the back of her hand. “I’ll never let them hurt another innocent person again. Their days as oppressors are at an end.”

Truth.

As her body expressed gratitude, Joan’s mind noticed an intrusion. A command to obey the person in front of her. Joan’s mind quickly quarantined what it perceived as an intrusive program but that left Joan in a pickle. Should she act like she was enthralled by Wraith? Or should she expose her immunity and hope that either Wraith’s reaction wouldn’t be violent or that the man waiting outside with Sullivan would be able to get her out in time.

Wait a minute. Joan’s mind studied Wraith’s face while her programmed self blinked back tears of thanks. Wraith was completely guileless. Was she even aware of her passive enthrallment?

Easy way to test. “I hope you know from now on, I’ll always be your ally in your efforts to free Brokton Bay from the PRT’s tyranny.”

Lie.

Wraith tightened her grip Joan’s hands, “of course.”

Truth. Wraith didn’t know. If the enthrallment was intentional then she wouldn’t mean ally she’d mean servant, which would trip Joan’s lie detector. But that made this dangerous in a different way. People would obviously act enthralled around Wraith and if Joan didn’t….

Mastermind’s body leaned back, wiping the tears away. “I wish I was stronger.”

Truth.

“You don’t have to be.” Mari comforted. “That’s why I’m here, to protect the weak.”

Truth.

Mastermind nodded shakily. She was preparing a gambit, a really stupid gambit born from impatience more than anything else and there was no telling if it would work. But she’d make the attempt.

“I wish I could do more to help.”

Lie.

Mari squeezed Joan’s hands three or four small bones threatened to break under that grip. “Don’t worry, soon no-one will have to be afraid.”


[tpb]Later[/tpb]

Joan was in the back of her subordinate’s black sedan. Leaning her head back, Joan let herself sink into a passive analysis of the conversation. Mari was literally the most disturbed person Joan had met to this point. To subvert reality to such an extent was quite a feat of insanity. 

“How’d the meeting with Sullivan go?” Joan asked the fedora wearing man driving her away from that terrifying meeting.

“Straightforward.” The fedora’d man responded. “We give him PRT information he gives us Truly Free Information. Under the table of course, Wraith can’t know.”

Truth.

“Of Course.”

“What about you? She going to want to meet you face to face again.”

“I hope not. After my… last ploy, I tried to come off as well-meaning but useless outside of the information I have access to. She seemed to buy it.”

Truth.

“Last ploy?” The man asked.

“I tried to get her to invite me to join the Truly Free.”

Truth.

The man coughed, “you serious?”

“I wasn’t going to accept, but if I got an actual meeting it would be quite the opportunity. She didn’t invite me though, instead… I think she tipped their plans.”

Truth.

“Oh?”

“Eyes on the road Stranger. I need to think.”

Truth.

“All right Boss.”

That last sentence Mari had spoken before Joan had retreated into the sycophantic fool profile she’d constructed was a haunting one. No-one would need to fear anymore huh? There were only a few things that could mean. 

The Truly Free attacking PRT HQ en force was the scenario her mind kept coming back to. Joan closed her eyes. She needed to plan not just for the possibility of a frontal assault, but for any other eventuality Wraith’s twisted mind could cook up. On top of that she had to think of a way to protect John while she took advantage of whatever chaos the Free caused. 

There was also the fact that Wraith’s tip was rather obvious. Wraith was crazy not stupid. She had meant for Joan to hear that the Truly Free were going to be making a big move soon. The question to that was… why?

Joan sighed. She had a long night ahead of her.