the place to be

[point_b]

Bella finds it.

"Alli!" she twines. "C'mere."

"You c'mere. Easier for you."

"No, you need to come look at this, seriously."

"Okay, fine, where are you?"

"Garage."

So Alli comes out to the garage. Their parents aren't home; Charlie's working, Renée is volunteering with some of the refugee kids at a shelter, trying to find which have parents who just wound up somewhere else, which need adopting, which are going to wind up coming of age adrift in the bursting-at-the-seams system. It's just them, not attending school, recovering.

"Whoa," says Alli. "So when you said you were at the garage, you meant that you were at the freakish restaurant that someone put in our garage."

"This isn't somebody's idea of remodeling," Bella says. "It's too big to be the garage."

"Do you think it's safe?"

"I think one of you should go in first, for sure."

"We don't actually know if I work that way," say two Alli voices, but Bella pushes one of them towards the door anyway.

Nothing happens.

The Allis converge, inside the bar. Bella follows.

Comments

[whatamithinking]

"I apologize for misusing the word. I didn't mean that it was irrational, but apparently I misremembered what phobia meant."

[thinkering]

"I block you, right?"

[whatamithinking]

"Yeah. I couldn't even tell you were there if I had my eyes closed."

[thinkering]

"Good. I'd be phobic if I weren't immune, Ziz'll do that to people. ...Ziz is an alternate name for the Simurgh."

[alli_oop]

"Anyway, if one of us could just telepathically convince the Junebugs or whoever that we really went here, we'd probably have to do it a bunch of times. There are a lot of Junebugs, long chain of command."

[whatamithinking]

"I...really do not work well in a chain of command. I work well on teams with one or maybe a few leaders whom I personally trust. The people I consider myself answerable to at home consist of my parents. And I was less referring to the fact that I was a telepath and more to the fact that Papa was."

[point_b]

"We're not answerable to the Junebugs unless we're participating in their operations. We're minors and went for partial membership. They handled the evac well though."

[thinkering]

"My chain of command is kind of shit," acknowledges Lorica. "I'm probably going independent when I age out of the Wards. It's badly organized, I think - parahumans as a group are psychologically damaged high-powered people, the Protectorate basically has to accept any would-be members who register on the powers scale and haven't recently eaten more than four babies, and you have all these sharp edges rubbing directly against each other until something breaks and someone destroys a city block. If I were running it every cape would get a nonpowered personal assistant with a compatible personality to run interference for them. I'm trying to compensate as best I can with robots, myself, I have a smart little software 'bot that I trained to handle most of my correspondence and scheduling and I'm trying to get people to talk to it instead of me if there is the least hint that we aren't going to be best friends."

[whatamithinking]

"That is actually better than my reason. Not that my reason isn't perfectly good, but wow, that's pretty terrible."

[point_b]

"How much of an exaggeration is 'recently eaten more than four babies'...?"

[thinkering]

"It almost certainly depends on how well-publicized the baby-eating was and whether they think they can sell the public on a new cape identity. I mean, if the Protectorate thinks they can control the cape. I don't think they'd recruit Nilbog, he'd go in the Birdcage. I have my suspicions about anybody lower down on the threat level who promises to be good. Which, you know, would be sort of admirable if they were doing it because they wanted to be reasonably merciful."

[whatamithinking]

"It's worlds like yours that make me almost wish I was a less ethical person so I could make everyone behave better. ...I never would, but everyone has massively inappropriate fantasies sometimes."

[thinkering]

"Join the club. I actually wouldn't stop you if you wanted to, say, go after the Slaughterhouse Nine from a nice safe distance. Some things justify that."

[whatamithinking]

"What is the Slaughterhouse Nine? And if they're evil enough to justify brainwashing, do you have any idea where they are, my sister can fly pretty damn fast."

[thinkering]

"They're a rotating-membership group of nine appallingly destructive capes. I don't know where they are but I could find out where they were last causing mayhem. They've all got a kill order on them and as a group they're classed in the same tier as Endbringers. But if I block you whatever they've got to keep native Masters and Strangers and such from doing the same thing might give you a problem too."

[whatamithinking]

"Unless we know for sure that it would I think it's worth a shot."

[thinkering]

"If I can call you in for contract hits on supervillains I could get you a list. Although most of them don't rate a kill order. I don't think any of the villains currently active in my city do, you have to do something more than be conspicuously a neo-Nazi."

[whatamithinking]

"...I would also like to do something less drastic than that about them if you also have Nazi supervillains. Dad's a Holocaust survivor."

[thinkering]

"I understand the impulse. But as organized supervillainy goes E88 is sort of on the more civilized side. They run illegal businesses, hold odious opinions, and get into fights with superheroes, but they hold it down to background radiation and check the other local parahuman gang activity to an extent. Plus, villains often show up to Endbringer fights, under truce, and help. The S9 are one thing, smalltimers who might be able to get Leviathan to leave even two minutes sooner are another thing."

[whatamithinking]

"Ugh. Fine, since you're the one holding the door I won't make the time you'd have to do it in longer by going after them, but if they happen to get in my way I don't promise to hold back any more than 'no brainwashing.'"

[iamnotpolaris]

"Don't you think I should be making promises or not, given that I'm the no brainwashing option? But yeah, no going after the Nazis, no matter how tempting it is."

[thinkering]

"I mean, if Nazis attack you, make them eat asphalt or forget how to walk or whatever," says Lorica. "That's an occupational hazard they deal with anyway, occasionally attacking people who can fight back at a higher level. But don't hunt them down at home. I'm sure I can find you enough kill-order threats to turn your stomach if you - where will the door lead?"

To the same place whence you came.

"So my workshop, if one of you brings me my computer I can look up where to find all sorts of troubling targets, but do mind you're absolutely taking your lives into your hands - I can brief you based on public information but there's always gaps and someone may be able to directly counter or route around you."

[whatamithinking]

"It's just Nazis are a little more personal for me. And I did say I wouldn't go out of my way to attack them."

[thinkering]

"Yeah. So I'll hold the door and you can run and get me my computer and -"

Lorica approaches the door. It disappears.

"What kind of Shaker bullshit is this place pulling now?"

[whatamithinking]

"Oh for fuck's sake."