Powerless (The Girl in the Box Book 40), page 19
Her eyes narrowed, then flitted right back down to the report. She didn't answer that, because what was she going to say? “Oh, yes, I totally understand – you're the foremost authority on dealing with metahuman criminals and threats, naturally you would have high levels of contact with dangerous people.”
That would have been the sane, logical, reasonable answer. But all that had apparently fled Minnesota, and instead I was dealing with the illogic and unreasonable minds of people scared like spooked cattle at the idea a person with powers was in their proximity and doing her level best to just live her life without causing problems. Too bad others didn't want to let me.
“What's the name of these other parties you've been tangling with?” she asked.
“I don't know, I'm not allowed to check their ID, and they haven't offered their names. I guess they skipped Miss Manners's class on polite introductions.”
She was not impressed by this lack of information. “We have no evidence that this incident is anything other than you destroying property.”
“Have you checked the camera footage?” I jerked my head in the direction of the light posts in the middle of the highway. Traffic was moving again, albeit slowly. Minnesota's Department of Transportation (MnDOT) had a camera system posted all along the interstate, with a livestream feature regularly used on local morning news programs. Hell, you could go to their website and view it yourself if you were of a mind to.
Lt. Mann kept eminently, almost reasonably calm, which provided a stark contrast to the utterly maddening nature of her every comment. “Maybe they've been altered.”
“Why, did you alter them? Because I've been kinda busy trying to keep assholes from killing your citizens and then being cuffed for my efforts. Kinda tough to do any hacking when I'm stuck in the back of a police cruiser.”
She didn't rise to my bait. Just kept playing it stupidly cool and pretending to read the report for the thousandth time. She wasn't even bothering to flip pages to make it seem like she was really reading. What artifice. “If we let you out, what assurance do we have that this isn't going to happen again?”
“The same assurance you have of waking up any given morning: none.” I shifted in my seat, wishing I could just break the cuffs theatrically and flip her the bird for kicks. But then the jig would be up and she'd know I'd somehow dodged my state-appointed darting, and I'd get darted for sure, probably multiple times, and in places the ice wouldn't cover.
“I'm sick of dealing with your shit,” she said. She definitely meant it, too.
“Great,” I said. “Let me go. I was heading to Wisconsin, anyway, so cut me loose and I'll GTFO so I won't be your problem anymore.”
Her perfectly plucked eyebrows descended into a V. “You can't leave the state right now. You're the subject of multiple open investigations.”
If I could have thrown up my hands, I would have. “What the actual eff...? First you say you've had enough of me, but now you're saying I can't leave? Do you sense the inherent conflict here, or is the cognitive dissonance not great enough for your tiny mind to wrap itself around? Because I'm starting to think it's not that you want me gone.” I leaned forward slightly and looked at her with a death glare. “I'm starting to think that you – and the State of Minnesota – just want me to be defenseless so someone will kill me and put us all out of your misery.”
There was a flash of something behind her eyes and I watched her first – and most truthful – response to my fiery rant vanish behind tightly-closed lips. When she had herself under control, she answered. “I'm concerned about the safety of all Minnesotans.”
“Well, I am a Minnesotan, and you seem to be doing your level best to make sure some asshole with powers knocks me off,” I said, looking away so I didn't spit in her face. “You don't want me to stay, but won't let me leave. Makes total sense. I guess I'll just hang around and keep dealing with these assholes that want to murder me in whatever manner the situation dictates. You can come clean up the scene afterward.”
Her jaw tightened. “I don't like this – any of this – any more than you do.”
“I don't care what you like at this point.” I kept my eyes nailed outside the window, watching traffic go by. “Know this – if I saw a metahuman villain coming at you, ready to murder your ass, I would offer you just as much help as you're offering me right now – absolutely none. Don't ever call me or my agency for assistance again. I'd tell you to eat shit, but I don't feel it's enough. Go hook yourself up to the main sewer line and gorge for a day, will you?”
She stared at me quietly. “We didn't ask for you to come here. With your powers. With your problems. People are scared.”
“People should be scared,” I said. “They die all the time, mostly for reasons that don't involve me at all. In fact, the only guarantee in life is that you're going to die at some point. I've dedicated my life to trying to make sure that when it does come, it doesn't come at the hands of a metahuman.” The cars were still streaming by slowly in the open lanes, people rubbernecking. I caught looks. Some of amusement, pointing me out like I was an animal in a zoo exhibit. Some of surprise, like they couldn't believe they were seeing famous Sienna Nealon all cuffed up in the back of a police cruiser. “And I didn't ask for any of this, either, by the way. Not the powers. Not the villains constantly on my ass. Not the fame. None of it. And if I could leave right now, both middle fingers extended to this state, I would do it. But apparently you just can't quit me.”
Lt. Mann apparently did not know what to say to...any of that. She fidgeted with the report at her side, ruffling the paper. “One of the officers will be over in a minute to let you out. Like I said, don't leave town.”
“Go find that sewer main and drink up, will you? See you soon, I'm sure, since these other dickfish aren't going to stop just because you say so.”
She started to say something to that, but swallowed it. It didn't look malicious; she had a sort of stunned, almost regretful look about her. Eventually she sort of nodded, and shut the cruiser door, leaving me alone again as the cars drove by, staring at the biggest freakshow attraction in the whole shitty state.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
“I am so, so sorry,” Olivia said as we rode in the back of an Uber. She was paying, which was good, because I had yet to receive a paycheck from the agency. Probably wouldn't, either, since those were about to go to lawyer fees. “I ended up stuck bouncing around in a bridge abutment. It took me two minutes to–”
“I don't really care,” I said, my conversation with Lt. Mann having drained all the social nicety out of me.
“Can we eat soon?” Traverton asked from the third-row seat. “I'm hungry.” He was sitting next to Aniya, but she said not a word. The least annoying of the remoras on my underbelly, currently.
“You can have a tall glass of 'shut the hell up' anytime you want,” I said. “Other than that, all I have to offer is knuckle sandwiches.”
Traverton flushed, pulling his head back so his weak chin almost kissed his neck. “There's a pizza place right there,” he muttered, looking at the brick restaurant just outside the window, “that's all I'm saying.”
The only thought that popped to mind right then was how it used to be a Mexican place that had killer margaritas, and how I could really have gone for one of those right about now.
No, Brianna whispered.
I tried not to think about it any further. It wasn't like I didn't have other things to worry about.
“Next time I get in a scrap with one of these Jersey Boys,” I said, the heat oozing into my words, “it'd be nice if someone – anyone, really – would give me a damned hand.” I sent a searing look at Traverton.
“That's unfair,” Traverton said. “I'm not a fighter like you.”
“It's completely fair,” I said, turning around to face him. “You know what you told me when we started this? Lies. Bullshit and lies. You said you didn't know why they were after you. You did. You owe them money. And you don't just owe money to some street corner, bargain-basement thug. No, you owe money to Omega–” Traverton stiffened, eyes getting wide, “–the metahuman mobster group that wasn't even supposed to exist anymore.”
“This is really fascinating,” our Uber driver, Lux, said. Lux was a petite female, Asian, brightly dyed red hair and freaky red contact lenses to match. I assumed Lux was not her real name, but was too polite to make mention of it. “It makes sense that metahumans would get into the organized crime racket, too.”
That prompted a moment of silence from each of us, including me, as I tried to get my raging emotions under control. Lux didn't deserve for me to blow up at her for listening and commenting. Probably.
“So...why are we not going to Wisconsin?” Aniya asked.
“The State of Minnesota love-hates me so much that they won't let me leave right now,” I said tightly.
“Wow,” Lux whispered, “that is so weird.” She was up there all by herself, four people crammed into the back of her minivan. “Because, like, they really, really hate you right now. You can see it in Governor Shipley's eyes when she talks about you at press conferences.”
“I know, right?” I leaned forward, putting my hand on Lux's passenger seat. “It just oozes out of her, doesn't it?”
“Totally. She wants to pass that law against you existing like I want to be playing Apex Legends right now.”
I cocked my head at her. “Oh. Well. Okay. Anyway, MN BCA has informed me I'm not to leave town, which apparently includes Western Wisconsin. A real shame, too, because I had big plans to visit River Falls, maybe hit the Ellsworth Creamery and have some cheese curds.”
“Those are sooo amazing,” Lux mumbled, mostly to herself.
“Are they? I've heard good things.” I turned my angry eyes back on the road as Lux turned onto our office street. “Point is...apparently I'm not going anywhere.” I settled my gaze, sullen, on the seat in front of us. “Which really sucks for me. And the State of Minnesota if this bullshit keeps going on. Which it will.” Everyone else was silent, even Lux. I guess it was hard to argue with truth when you heard it.
CHAPTER FIFTY
“Hey, it's me,” I said to Reed's voicemail after I got the beep. “Just tried to leave Minnesota for the greener pastures of Wisconsin and got stonewalled by your pal Lt. Mann. She told me I'm not to leave the state right now, because of the squabbles I've had the last few days. Probably need to add that to the lawyers' list of things to sue about. Oh, and also – Omega's back. Anyway, call me. Bye.” I hung up.
I stood in Reed's office, and looked out the windows in disgust. How was it that I'd gotten stuck with the damned dregs? Olivia was nice and all – she sat at her desk with her back to me, nothing but a bonnet of blond hair staring at a computer – but she'd yet to make herself so much as a microscopic amount of useful in the last two days of brawls. Instead, she chattered my damned ear off, seeking my approval but not really giving me reasons to approve of her performance and leaving me nothing but annoyed.
Traverton sat back in a chair again, a near-perfect straight line of slacker, hands tucked behind his head. Except he did care, he cared a lot, but only about his worthless neck, which my dumb ass had offered to protect. In terms of useless body parts, my dumb ass was probably worse than his worthless neck, if it came down to it; he at least had a self-defense mechanism built in that kept him from getting into constant battles in spite of the sword of the law hanging over it, ready to chop it off.
Aniya caught my gaze, sitting far, far apart from the other two. Whether she was attempting to separate herself from them and the ire I was directing their way unknowingly, or she just didn't like the smell of them, I couldn't say. But I saw her looking, and this was as good a time as any to try and get a monkey off my back.
I walked to the office door and pulled it open. “Aniya...we're kind of in a mess here. You might want to do some touristy things for a few days until we get it resolved. Head for the Mall of America, do some shopping. Ride the riverboat in Stillwater, Minnesota's scenic and beautiful birthplace. Hell, get some of those cheese curds over in Ellsworth. That'd be a good time. Anything to get clear of this shitshow before the next, inevitable battle.”
Aniya cocked her head at me, then stood, making her way to me with shuffling steps. “No,” she said, not backing off as she came toward the door, making me back up so she could step inside, “I don't think so.”
I tried to conceal my exasperation, but probably failed. “Why the hell not? Do you have a death wish?” Yeah. Failed.
She helped herself to the chair opposite Reed's desk, which suggested to me it was storytime. Or at least time for another of our little chats. Whatever. Her check was the only bright spot for me in the last few days, so I sat myself down in Reed's chair, probably a little heavily because I was carrying everyone in the office on my back at present, but whatever.
“You mentioned the name 'Omega,'” Aniya said. “What is this...Omega?”
“Last letter of the Greek alphabet,” I said, not in the mood to render explanation.
Aniya said nothing, merely staring at me expectantly.
“Fine, it's a metahuman criminal organization that used to have tendrils all over the damned world.” I sighed. “Apparently, they do again, thanks to...whoever restarted it.”
“You know who this is?” she asked, really not breaking the eye contact. Kind of creepy.
“I suspect I do, yes.”
“Interesting,” she said, thinking. “Tell me about this.”
I tried to control my eyeroll. I'd say I succeeded, but I definitely caught a brief flash of the ceiling in the center of my field of vision, so...nah. “They were my original bete noir,” I said. “They sent...so very many people after me. Came at me from every angle. Sovereign and Century mostly wiped them out. In the war.”
She formed her lips into a tight circle. “This Sovereign and Century...they are the ones who the bald man worked for?”
I raised an eyebrow in slight surprise. We'd talked about Oberheuser some. “Supposedly. According to our Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
“And you met this...Sovereign?”
“I did,” I said. “Many times.”
She screwed up her face questioningly. “He is...arch villain, but you meet him many times? Without fighting?”
“When he appeared to me at first,” I said, trying oh-so-hard to retain that precious, finite, vanishing resource called “Sienna's Patience,” “he looked like a teenage boy, and presented himself as such. To get close to me.”
“Ah,” Aniya said.
“How does that work?” Olivia was standing at my office door now, Traverton a few steps behind her. Now they were all listening to Storytime with Sienna, and I found myself somehow even more irritated than before. “Didn't he have contact with like, major leading lights in the meta world for centuries before he met you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“And they didn't recognize him? Like, your bosses at the Directorate?”
“My boss,” I said tightly, “singular, did not recognize him, no.” I frowned, pursing my own lips. “He looked different, everyone said. He'd changed his appearance somehow.”
“Like a shapeshifter?” Olivia looked right at Traverton.
Traverton's dull eyes almost bugged out at the attention, and he shook his head wildly. “I can't change my looks like that. Not in human form. That's a different type of meta.” He waved a hand at himself. “Trust me. If I could look different than this...I would.” He followed it with a weak laugh, and if I'd been more kindly disposed toward him, I might have felt pity.
Instead, I was beset by an urgent desire to get the hell out of this storytime shit. “Anyway, he–”
“I still don't understand,” Olivia said, “you're telling me there's a type of meta out there that can change their own face?”
Traverton nodded. “Supposedly. My dad told me about them when I was growing up. It's not as easy as my transformations, though. Really painful. Takes extra time if you're trying to become someone specific. You know, in order to match the features. The metas he'd met with that power – and there was a cloister of them – kept to themselves, because they didn't like to use their powers.” He shrugged broadly, then got pensive, which must have hurt given how dumb he was. “I wonder if they got wiped out in the war?”
“Probably,” I said. “Sovereign did end up with their powers, so it stands to reason he absorbed them somewhere. Anyway, point is, that's why no one recognized him when he came calling at our Directorate. He had a different face than he'd worn through the years of contact with all those other metas.”
“What was he like?” Olivia asked. I checked Aniya's expression; she wore none of the irritation I did. Apparently she was unbothered by these clowns horning in on her Q&A time.
“He was a possessive douche who wanted to marry me because no one else could touch him without being absorbed,” I said.
“That...that can't be the only reason,” Olivia said. “I mean, there were other succubi out there he could have touched.”
“Sure. There was my mom, whose husband – my father – he'd killed because of a beef they had when he sunk the Edmund Fitzgerald,” I said, ticking them off on my fingers.
“...The one from the song?” Traverton asked.
I didn't dignify his dumb ass by condescending to answer. “Or my aunt, who was an absolute – and I'm using a technical term here – psychohosebeast.”
“Worse than you?” Traverton slapped his hands over his mouth after that one slipped out.
“More mercurial,” I said, surprisingly uninspired to violence by his insult, “less stable.” If such a thing were possible given my current, teakettle-whistling-before-boiling-over state of mind. “Also a damned thief. Plus she was more murderous, and lecherous. A real winner of the recessive gene lottery.”
“I like how those last two are almost an afterthought, you know,” Olivia said, looking slightly stricken, “after the worst thing, which is apparently the thieving.”
