Amaranthine

The shocked silence fell again, but was broken much more unceremoniously by Cait’s low whisper of “Ooohhhh shiiiiiiitttt.”

Kennedy barely restrained herself from slapping her out of habit, keeping her composure instead. It wasn’t like she wasn’t thinking the same goddamn thing. Her mind was racing, trying to make the information streams she had meet in the middle. She couldn’t. Her Mom wouldn’t lie to them about this, and, well, The Council had no reason to lie, if they were asking for help now. Sure, Watchdog had said things were fine, but he seemed to be a street-level Altered, no reason he’d know what the top was up to, and he’d also obviously been downplaying the situation in the city. So why the fuck hadn’t the team known this was going to be a rescue mission of sorts?

“No,” Kennedy said, “we aren’t here for that. We were sent by Director Swan as protection detail for NanoSmith, on a long requested tech exchange, now that things in DSM have calmed down. We had no intel of any trouble in your city until one of our Guardians happened to do a flyover a few days ago.”

“That is….” The Chairman said, his already pale face going a shade paler. “That is extremely concerning. We have been negotiating aid with Director Swan for weeks. Over a month now, in fact.”

Kennedy felt the hairs on the back of her neck begin to rise as loops closed her head, unable to ignore the similarities to what had happened with Dawn and Chance.

No, he’s fucking dead. You killed him yourself. You saw his soul get eaten. There’s more than one explanation for this kind of thing in the World of the Waves.

“That hasn’t been happening on our end,” Kennedy said, hoping none of her panic was showing outwardly, even as Cait beat it back on the frontlines of her insides. Thank god for that girl. “I’m not privy to all of your conversations with my mother, or who she thought was you, but from what I understand they were much the same, but in reverse.”

“So you… what? Just came for a health and wellness check?” Splice asked, sarcasm dripping from her voice as she leaned forward to sneer across the table.

“Yes and no,” Kennedy responded, not rising to the bait. She was probably freaked out too, and dealing with Cait inured you to these things. “We really are here for a tech exchange.”

She inclined her head towards Mark, and continued.

“Judging by his reaction, that part was consistent on both ends. The other reason was as we said. A flier reported signs of conflict and the Ironhide horde. The horde hasn’t bothered DSM, and as you might expect, we were too busy dealing with our own issues and the fallout from them to keep a close eye on Technocago of late.”

Splice scoffed, but sat back in her seat.

“Orwell?” Chairman Zebrowski asked, turning to the man, whose eyes had taken on a familiar looking static.

“Nothing, least not in the places I’m looking,” Orwell replied, eyes flicking left and right even as static played over them. On second look, it wasn’t the same as Sharon Smart’s, more like the weird jumble you got when rewinding an old VHS tape. “If someone’s fucking with the communications system, they aren’t doing it from any place that makes any sense.”

The Chairman nodded, clearly frustrated. “Okay,” he said, “When we’re done here, get Mark to find you a Meta-Brain that specializes in comm tech, figure out what you could be missing. Does anyone have any good ideas as to why this is happening?”

Could my father be doing this? He couldn’t have before, but…

Kennedy thought of her father breathing in The Bookkeeper’s soul, and the wicked smile he’d worn afterwards.

She shook herself. It wasn’t always going to be that. It couldn’t.

“Whoever’s doing it, they’re clearly doing it in both directions,” she thought aloud, the logic settling her mind a bit. While two well coordinated impostors wasn’t out of the question, it wasn’t the same as they’d experienced during the Character Crisis. “I don’t think the real messages were reaching either of us. Bring us up to speed on Orwell, what did he just check?”

“Orwell is Spliced into PlasLoad’s powerlines, and can effectively use them as CCTV. He is currently checking all likely access points to the comms network in the city.”

So that’s what Watchdog meant by high pervert-potential. Kennedy let that thought stay silent, and nodded.

“If he’s finding nothing, given the omnipresence of these lights, it’s likely that this is being done outside of the city, or through an Altered ability,” she conjectured, not giving voice to the third option: or he’s in on it.

“Out of the city seems unlikely,” Chairman Zebrowski mused, “I imagine you all dealt with the horde on the way in. Impressive, given you were going through blind.”

“Like I said, we had some warning,” Kennedy said absently, gears turning in her head. “Still, this seems like an odd coincidence. It’s not impossible the horde and comms discrepancies are connected somehow.”

“Are you suggesting that the Beasts are capable of this?” Point Defense asked, the first contribution he’d made to the discussion.

“Maybe? Who the fuck knows. The increase in Ironhides points to further evolution amongst the Coonbeasts, and when we fought them in New Davenport they proved able to plan much better than expected.”

She got an uncommon burst of shame from Cait at that. The girl would show her dick and balls to national television at the drop of a hat, but get her stuck in a slime and all the sudden she was embarrassed. Still, this was something of a red herring she was laying. She did not think the Beasts were doing this. A human element seemed far more likely.

“Regardless,” she continued, “it would be foolish to dismiss the possibility out of hand.”

“Fair enough…” The Chairman agreed, before releasing a beleaguered sigh. “I don’t think this is a mystery we will solve with discussion. I’m moving on to the reason we were calling for help in the first place.”

“Is it not the Beasts?” Kennedy asked

“Of course it’s the Beasts!” Splice snapped, and Kennedy firmly decided she didn’t like the woman, no matter how good those tattoos would look pressed against Cait’s skin. Her loss.

“Splice! Please,” The Chairman chided. “But yes, Kennedy, the Beasts are the issue. As you saw, we have things more or less in hand aboveground. Technocago is immensely well fortified, and the city itself is likely as safe a place as is possible, at least where PlasLoad’s lines run. They do not, however—”

“Run into the sewers,” Cait groaned, piecing things together surprisingly quickly. The Chairman nodded gravely.

“Indeed,” he agreed. “Our city is far different than yours. It runs on an intricate network of powers and technology which combine to keep it safe, affluent, and healthy. Unfortunately, that means our individual abilities are not well-suited or well-accustomed to combat where the City’s infrastructure is not there to back us up. The sewer system is a relic, no longer even in use, and as such is cut off from the lines we Splice abilities and tech onto.”

“So you called for a team of stand-alone badasses,” Qi said, a bit of dragon’s pride coloring her voice.

“Just so,” Chairman Zebrowski said. “We’d like you to see what you can do about clearing the system, meanwhile we will look into the communications discrepancies between our cities.”

Kennedy nodded, glad to have a more concrete goal than the nebulous aim of figuring out who was messing with them, and why.

“Right, well, you got the right team,” she said. “We were killing Ironhides before it was cool.”

She looked out over the city, lit brightly now not by the sun, but by a billion bulbs, lines, and lamps. Suddenly, she felt very tired.

“Maybe we start tomorrow though,” she said, the drain of the day catching up to her again. It had been a long one, full of fights, surprises, and new experiences. “Got someplace we can bunk up for the night?”