17: Assemblage

Olivia looked from side to side, uncertain what she should say, or even if she should say anything. I guess this is what me and Ben were doing before. Does this mean we keep fighting? Their group of four spread around the dim workshop, half the lights on the high ceiling not even giving off so much as a flicker when they’d first turned them on. The whole place smelled like the dust of her own abandoned apartment mixed with certain hints of car. Not exhaust, but of chemicals and oil that gave her a light headache. 

Ben slouched off to the side. He’d taken off his mask around the other two to eat, and didn’t bother to put it back on. No one seems like they’re keeping a secret. I guess we’re all kind of shoved together now. Olivia finally got a look at the police who’d been with her over the last day. Nomad rubbed the stubble on his square chin, a small frown tugging at the corners of his lips. Square described his whole face, from chin to furrowed brow. 

Olivia didn’t have to crane her neck as far down with Nomad as she did with most people. Delta, however, stood shorter than anyone Olivia had ever met, not that she had met more than a handful. She leaned back in a swiveling office chair, a set of metal rods with handles arrayed behind her. Her short, dark hair didn’t seem to get in her eyes or mouth like Olivia’s sometimes did.

“We find the rat, work our way up, clear our names,” said Nomad. “I have a life I’d like to live, and it doesn’t involve having a warrant out for my arrest for forever.”

“No one’s heard from Cyrus since we escaped, have we?” said Delta. 

“It’s been a day already. I wouldn’t turn down his help, but we can’t just sit around and wait for him to throw holy water at whatever we do.”

“What’s that about Cyrus?” asked Ben.

“He helped us escape. He got shot in the head, but got better.”

Ben blinked. “Sure, why not? What do we got here besides our fine selves? Guns?”

“No,” replied Delta.

Nomad leaned forward, confused. “You’re wearing the same clothes you were yesterday. You didn’t pack any clothes? Any supplies? Anything at all in a safehouse?”

“I’ve got important stuff.” She waved her hand towards a sleek black tower that came up to Olivia’s knee. Several fans hummed within. “I’ve got a back door into MHU servers from here. I’ve got access to my own private bank accounts. I’ve got enough components to put together anything we need. This place is signal proof. I’ve got plenty of stuff here.”

“To be clear,” said Nomad, locking eyes with Delta. “You stocked this place with a full soldering set up, computers worth three months of my salary, and some crazy signal blocking thing. But you didn’t include food, guns, or a change of clothes.”

“Fuckin’ techies,” said Ben with a laugh.

“Tell me you’re not leaving the building and using your phone,” said Delta, her face paling. “They can track that.” How? It’s just a phone, right?

“I know. I haven’t. Back to the original question,” replied Nomad.

“That stuff is easy to get,” said Delta. “I’ve got money for everything.”

“What?” asked Nomad.

“Sold cool shit,” said Ben.

Delta rolled her eyes at him. “I’m an electrical engineer with a power. I sold three patents a couple years ago so I’d have a fall back in case everything went bad. And everything has gone pretty bad, hasn’t it?”

“How can we use this money? Our faces are plastered all over the news so we can’t just go out and get it. Are we just going to have stuff delivered to this empty warehouse?” 

Delta frowned, without a response. Nomad turned to Ben. “It turns out we don’t have anything. If you don’t feel like donating it, we don’t have it.”

“I’m a minimum wage slave, I don’t got donations,” replied Ben. 

“Wait, what? Why would you bother with that?” asked Delta.

“If you’re lookin’ for a vigilante, you got time to go through every minimum wage schmuck like me, just goin’ through life? Dime a dozen. Also means I don’t gotta fake paperwork. But I do know how we can piss off Sanchez some more, an’ get everyone armed an’ supplied. Just gotta find his people”

“Finding people is that easy, huh?” asked Delta, in a tone that Olivia took a second to recognize as sarcasm. “Fuck, all the MHU has to do is listen to you.” Why is everyone being so mean? We’re all helping, aren’t we?

“Look, computers an’ headquarters are great, but you wanna find someone, you talk to his friends,” replied Ben. “Everyone’s got ‘em. Way more fuckin’ consistent than putting numbers in a screen or whatever y’all were doin’. One of his guys, me an’ ‘liv’ got him a couple days ago, just got out on bail. Dumb enough to keep his real driver’s license on him when I went through his pockets, I know where he is.”

“He didn’t talk to us in the MHU, why will he talk to us now?” asked Nomad, doubt written across his face.

Skulker grinned wider and jerked a thumb at Olivia. “We got a scary feral to sic on him. We got no pesky laws between us an’ him. We follow him for a while an’ tag his friends. We home invade. You ain’t cops anymore, we got all sorts of options.” I’m not that scary, am I? Those people are way scarier.

Nomad nodded, considering. “If we can’t use our phones, how will we coordinate? Any ideas? Or are we all just going to be in shouting range of each other at all times?”

“I’ve got parts,” replied Delta. “I can get us all some secure push to talk radios. I’ll just have to put them together. Won’t take more than a few hours.”

“Just like that?”

Delta snorted. “Yeah, they’ll be a little earpiece, a mic, and a little thing you can clip to your belt. I’ve got the band hopping and encryption set up already, it’ll take like two minutes to install. I can fine tune the range and power once we know what kind of range we’ll be operating in. It’ll be mostly undetectable, and if they do find it they’ll get nothing but gibberish. Basic stuff.” What?

Nomad sat upright with a smile, straightened his shoulders, and addressed the room, “Then we’ll be busy tonight. Delta can get to work on those comms. Skulker, you want to go through the back with me and figure out what we do have? After that we’ll map out where we’ll hit tonight.” At least he sounds like he knows what’s going on. 

“Sure.” Without fanfare, Ben teleported to the door, leaving Nomad to catch up. 

What about me? Should I help with something? Olivia looked around the cavernous room again. Equipment, shoved into a sloppy pile in the corner, caught her eye. Could I organize that? I don’t know what any of that stuff is. What if I break something? She stepped over their beds, little more than a threadbare blanket on the ground for her and Nomad, to join Delta.

Delta had her helmet before her on a wooden table with a blue rubber mat on top. A panel on the back of the helmet was open, and she fiddled with something within. She looked up for a moment at Olivia’s approach, but otherwise remained focused on her work. Olivia sat down on the edge of a second chair, trying to make sure her wing didn’t accidentally get in Delta’s way. Olivia took a minute to consider what to say. 

“So, what are you working on, Delta?” asked Olivia. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Delta’s eye twitch. Did I say something wrong?

“You can call me Amanda. And what I’m working on,” she trailed off as she concentrated. Olivia heard a zap, and smelled a whiff of something burnt. “Is getting ready to install one of those comms. There we go!” Something else made a strange noise from the helmet. “Getting ready to install a comm in my helmet.”

“Do you need any help?” Wait, no, I have no idea what to do. 

“What can you do?” asked Delta. Wait, her real name is Amanda. That sounds nice.

“I don’t know. I can hear and see really well.”

“Hold on a second,” said Amanda. “You’re basically half dragon, right?” Olivia looked up and nodded cautiously. I guess? “Can you breathe fire?”

“I don’t think so. I could try but that doesn’t seem like a good idea in here.” I’ve never tried that before. 

“You seem bored. A lot of my stuff is really delicate on the inside, I’m probably the only one here who can work with it without breaking it. Excuse me a second,” said Amanda.

“Oh, sorry,” said Olivia, moving out of the way as Amanda hopped up from her chair to a clear spot on the table, getting closer to eye level with her. Olivia remained sitting, tapping the side of a claw against her folded forearm. “I just kind of miss flying. It’s quiet up there.”

“Quiet?” Amanda prodded.

“Yeah,” replied Olivia. “There’s a lot going on here and everywhere else. It’s kind of a headache to deal with all the time. Not when I’m up high though.”

“What do you hear right now?”

“Uh, well, this place creaks a lot. The fans of the computers are kind of loud, and so is the air heater thing. There are cars on the street. I hear all that, and it’s all the time. I hear heartbeats and breathing if there’s nothing else.”

“That’s, like, some really good hearing. If you have a problem with that you can just tell us, you know.”

“Yeah. I know. I’m really sorry. I didn’t… didn’t know what to say. And… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt anything you were doing or anything.”

Amanda cut her off. “Don’t worry, don’t worry, it’s fine. Now that I think about it, why did you hide all this time?”

“Oh, I was scared. I didn’t know what was going on, and Skulker mentioned something about a lab. I was hoping to just stay out of the way, I guess.”

“Skulker, huh?” said Amanda with a slow nod. “You don’t have to hide.”

Sorry. “OK,” Olivia mumbled, eyes glued to her feet. 

“Something else you want to talk about?” she asked. 

“I…um…well…” Olivia trailed off again. She closed her eyes for a moment. Why am I so bad at talking? Just say something. “I might not be so helpful for this,” she said in a rush.

“Why is that?” asked Amanda.

“Do you remember that fight where you and Nomad found me?”

“Yeah. That was only yesterday.” 

“I forgot stuff,” Olivia mumbled. She dared not look up, to see a look of disgust or fear or loathing on Amanda’s face.

“What do you mean? Like what happened or something?” 

“No,” said Olivia, the words coming easier. “I forgot names. I know people said stuff, but I didn’t understand what they said. I forgot how to talk. Everything I did wasn’t thinking. And it was angry and violent. I was honestly trying to kill them. Like, screaming to myself to kill them. I think I did. And I don’t want to hurt or kill anyone, especially not you guys, and I might forget everything again and attack you guys again and I want to help and keep you guys from getting hurt and I’m more trouble for you guys than I’m worth and I don’t know what to do.”

The silence, though it only lasted for two seconds at most, dragged on for an eternity. Olivia flinched as Amanda took in a breath. “Have you ever been angry before?” she asked.

The question took Olivia by surprise. Maybe? Probably annoyed. Not like that. Not that strong. Or intense. “No.”

“That might be it. You’re a feral. You’re in uncharted territory. I won’t know how you’ll react to everything. But now you know how to recognize it, and to avoid it.”

“I’m really scared that I’m going to do something bad to one of you guys for some reason, or you guys get hurt because I’m not able to do something.” In the silence that followed, a thought struck Olivia. “I killed someone. Is something wrong with me?” It seems wrong.

“That feeling is human empathy. It’s not something wrong, it’s good that you have it,” said Amanda.

“No. I get that. But I killed someone. Why don’t I feel worse?”

“What do you mean?”

Olivia paused for a moment, struggling to find the words. “It’s bad, but I’m still just going. I’m just eating and sleeping like normal. It’s like it should be worse? I don’t know.”

“You weren’t being crazy. They were trying to kill you,” Amanda pointed out.

“Yeah. But, I’m me,” replied Olivia, spreading her wings out a few inches to demonstrate.

“Olivia!” She flinched back at the tone of disappointment and outrage. Sorry. “Don’t think like that. You do not deserve to curl up and die just because of who you are. Those attackers. Do you know who they were?”

“Sanchez? Or, you know, people who worked for him?”

“Do you know who that is?” asked Amanda.

“A bad guy?”

“And how do you know that?”

“Ben, oh, Skulker said so.”

“He seems to have adopted you. Have you told him any of this?”

“No.”

“Why?” asked Amanda. “You know you can talk to the rest of us, right? We’re not going to laugh at you or anything. Well, maybe Skulker.”

“I didn’t… I don’t want to waste your time or anything.”

Amanda failed to repress a sigh. Sorry. She said, “Don’t be afraid to mess up, Olivia. There’s a good balance to be struck between shyness and outgoing-ness, and right now you’re in the painfully shy category. Bottling everything up isn’t healthy.”

“OK,” said Olivia quietly.

Amanda nudged her with a smile on her lips. “Is anything going to come out of that OK, or is that ‘OK, make the talking stop’?”

Olivia smiled slightly, saying, “No, not that. I guess you’re right. Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” said Amanda, giving her a brief one armed hug. Olivia leaned in a little, reluctant to accidentally knock her off the table.

Ben, from the entrance to the shop, called out, “Have a nice heart to heart? Or you still freakin’ out, ‘liv’?” When did you come back? “Oh, yeah, Delta, can me an’ Chris use those tool boxes in the back? Or those super special to you or somethin’?”

Something hardened in Amanda’s eyes. She hopped off the table and marched up to him. “You lunatic. You dragged a scared, unarmed, untrained girl into firefights?” she hissed, jabbing a finger into Ben’s chest. 

He shrugged. “I asked her.” Amanda’s head rocked back. “What? I kept askin’, she kept sayin’ yes. Did you when you dragged her into a cell?”

“How was she supposed to know? Instead of telling her anything you fed her some lie about mad scientists.”

“An’ you were gonna throw her in a lab an’ forget about her.” 

“Paranoid nonsense.”

“Was I wrong?”

“Yes! She doesn’t know anything else and you dragged her into fights that could have gotten her killed. Did you tell her anything about what she was walking into? A bunch of people tried to murder her because of you.”

“Look at her! What else she gonna do? She coulda backed out, any time.”

“You know what? You are just the worst asshole I’ve ever met,” Amanda burst, hands forming fists. “You are an idiotic, dishonest psychopath who can’t keep his mouth shut.”

“Dishonest? From a cop? Hon, you keep talkin’ like that, I slit your throat.” Olivia couldn’t see one of his hands.

No. Olivia took a deep breath. Amanda and Ben were more focused on each other, about a foot from each other’s faces. They did not notice her until she placed a hand on each of their shoulders and gently separated the two of them, fully extending her arms.

“I really can’t thank either of you enough. You’ve really helped me out. And I will throw you both through opposite walls before you two try to hurt each other. Do you understand me?” Olivia spoke slowly and softly, making sure there was no opportunity for any misunderstanding to occur. Please listen. Please listen. Please just listen.

Ben shot her a strange look, almost surprised. “Look, cops, journalists, an’ politicians will knife you the moment they can.”

“No. She helped,” replied Olivia.

“He used you as a bullet sponge!” burst Amanda, halfway through waving her hands in exasperation.

“He still came to help me. Please stop, both of you.”

She looked to Amanda, busy glaring at Ben, then to Ben, who said, “I’m thinkin’ it’d be best if we all took a step back.”

“I agree,” said Amanda through gritted teeth.

“Thank you,” Olivia said, releasing both. She watched carefully as Amanda returned to her workbench and Ben retreated to the other side of the shop. Then a thought struck her. “You two aren’t going to attack each other when my back is turned are you?”

“Not unless they start it,” said Ben and Amanda simultaneously.

Olivia’s shoulders slumped the moment their backs were turned, a tension she didn’t know she had released. Exhaustion set in, though she’d barely done more than wake up, eat, and talk. Will they be mad at me? She looked down at her scaled hands. Shouldn’t they be sweaty? It feels like they should be. Why does it feel like that? She jumped when Amanda called her over. 

“Tonight, do you want to come with us?” asked Amanda.

I don’t know. I can’t just do nothing. What if you guys get hurt? “I want to help,” replied Olivia.

Amanda locked eyes with her. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“You know people will probably try to kill us. We might have to do the same.”

I don’t want you guys to get hurt. “Yes.”

She gave her a small nod. “OK. If that’s what you want.”