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Before we got into any of that, I told Caishen and the others that I had to check on my team. Not to mention make sure Inessa was okay. They informed me that the Spartans had already arrived and helped either chase off or capture all the other guys. Poise, Style, Hobbes, and Calvin were being interviewed at the moment, as were the Minority people. Which also made me want to go rescue them from that, of course. But it wasn’t nearly as good of an excuse. So, I had to deal with this first. Or rather, we did, since a quick call to Alloy had her bring Inessa back so she could help. Peyton also confirmed that the others were okay.
Between both of us (once she was back), Inessa and I explained everything as best as we could. The other girl did most of the ‘why’ explanation, since she was the one who could get into the whole story about the vault and her brother. Mostly I just told Caishen and the others about what I had done, though I left out the part about working with Eits. Considering how much he helped with making sure I could free the hostages, it probably would’ve been fine, but I didn’t want the Ten Towers people to know that he had my phone number and had been connected to me through that for so long. It just felt like a bad idea to give them that sort of information. Especially when I still wasn’t sure who on their team might be connected to the Ministry. I just had to give them as little information as possible, without looking like I was holding back information. Which was a delicate balancing act.
Once we were done explaining that whole thing, Caishen let out a long breath. “Okay, I think it’s obvious that we need to cancel the rest of this exhibition.” She spoke up over Inessa’s objections. “Everyone is scattered and most of them went home or to the police already anyway. And if the gangs here know about your situation, these guys might not be the only ones who come after you.” She paused to consider for a moment before adding, “How long until you finish that experiment?”
“Not long,” came the answer. “I am certain that it will be done within the week.” A small smile played across her face. “I have been waiting for this weight to be lifted for some time. This attack was not the first of its kind. It will be nice to not have to think about that.” She paused, a visible grimace crossing her face. “Though I can never forget what sort of person my brother turned out to be.”
Ohhh boy. Yeah, I wanted to say something to that, but what? How was I supposed to respond? I couldn’t even tell her about my own brother and he at least hadn’t been responsible for making what were apparently a bunch of dangerous super weapons that got him sent to Breakwater. And now, not only did she have to deal with having a brother like that, but also had random nasty pieces of shit trying to use her to open that vault so they could kill more people. How could I possibly respond to that in any meaningful way?
While I was still trying to figure that out, Caishen continued. “Do you really think you can turn off your ability to open that vault?”
“Yeah,” Bunglebotch put in, “isn’t that sort of thing impossible? I mean, it’s your DNA. How exactly do you alter your DNA without changing who you are? Messing with that sort of thing just uhh, seems dangerous? And by seems dangerous, I mean incredibly, stupidly dangerous.” Quickly, she added, “Not that you’re stupid. I mean–yeah, I mean, just… you know.”
“Eloquently put, Bungle,” Stick dryly murmured before focusing on the girl next to me. “Landmines of speaking indelicately aside, my friend there is right about it seeming dangerous. Are you certain you know what this scientist of yours is doing?“
“Yeah,” Alloy piped up from where she had been standing quietly in the background, “they’re not about to turn you into a frog-person or something, are they?” When everyone looked at her, she shrank back a bit reflexively while one of her marbles turned into a shield and attached itself to her arm protectively.
Inessa nodded. “It is… it is fine, it’s not really changing my DNA. It is more…” She paused as though considering how to explain properly. “It’s more like adding a little something to it which disguises my DNA whenever it’s read by something like the vault scanner. When it detects me being scanned that way, it throws some added… stuff in there, which makes it look as though I am not the right one after all. That’s… that’s the layman’s version that was explained to me anyway. I am afraid a more technical explanation would have to be given by my friend, and I am not ready to give up their identity. Though I could give you a phone number to call.”
“Yeah, please do,” Caishen agreed. “I’m not sure I could understand a ‘more technical’ explanation, but it’d still be nice to have.” She looked toward me then. “I think everyone owes you a real debt, Paintball. Whatever weapons might be in that secret vault, I’m pretty sure we don’t want those guys to have them.”
Ephemera, who was in a male form at the moment (they shifted into new bodies constantly, with the only constant being their very simple costume of red pants, red shoes, white turtleneck, and white ski mask), spoke up. “Yeah, dude, that was awesome. We only saw a little bit on the security cameras when we were gearing up to get over here, but seriously.” They gave me a thumbs up. “You really kicked ass out there. With and without your team.”
“Ahem,” Linesight put in, “I believe what my teammate means is simply that we’re glad you’re safe, and that you managed to help the civilians around here.”
Blushing a little under the mask and helmet, I offered a helpless shrug. “No big deal. I mean, I just happened to be around, and what was I supposed to do, let those guys hurt people? I didn’t even know what was going on, not really. I was just…” Trailing off, I kicked the ground lightly. “I was just in the right place at the right time. And anyway, we would’ve been caught if it wasn’t for Skip.” Quickly looking toward the girl, I added, “Thanks for jumping in like that. I don’t think I could’ve gotten out of that without you. Devil’s Due was about to make me call Alloy back when you jumped in.” Under my breath, I muttered, “Next time I see that guy I’m gonna punch him so hard he’ll never wanna tell me to do anything again.”
Skip, in turn, simply spoke in that same flat voice that made it unclear what she was feeling. “I’m glad I was able to help. But as you said, it was simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time. I was scanning the park for the source of the disturbance and was about to move on to where your team was fighting when someone told me where you were.”
That made Caishen look at her. “Someone told you? One of the civilians?”
Her head shook. “I have no idea. The voice came from one of the loudspeakers meant for announcing events through the park. I could make out no details about it, but they told me where you were and that Devil’s Due was going to make you do something terrible.”
At first I was confused. Then I realized, Eits. Our call had disconnected when he left, but apparently he was back. Or maybe he’d simply kept control of the cameras or something. Either way, he’d sent help as soon as I was in trouble. It was a thought that made me blush even more, and I was yet again glad that these guys couldn’t see that reaction.
“A mysterious helper,” Caishen mused before focusing on me. “Any idea who that could be?”
Oh boy, how was I supposed to answer that? A few dozen increasingly stupid possibilities ran through my head in the next second, before I simply replied, “I might, but I’m not sure. And it’s kind of a personal thing anyway.”
To my relief, the woman accepted that, though she did look like she wanted to dig deeper. She resisted the urge, however, and simply moved on. So, I did a little more talking with them about what happened. There wasn’t much else to say, but I did make sure Inessa was okay yet again before heading out. Caishen reminded me to make an official report when I did my periodic check-in with the cops, and noted that I should probably take my entire team with me, since they hadn’t done that part yet.
Finally, Inessa gave me a hug (leaving me standing there staring blankly and trying not to giggle like an idiot), before Alloy and I headed off together. The Ten Towers people were going to take over the job of keeping Inessa safe until she could finish that whole vault removal thing. Which was good, since I was pretty sure they’d do a much better job than I could have at that moment. After everything that had happened, I was so tired I could barely stand upright, let alone get involved in another fight. All I wanted to do was fall down and sleep for a bit, though that wouldn’t happen for awhile.
At the last second, as Alloy started to lift us off together on one of her marble boards, I turned back and called toward Caishen, “Oh! There’s a guy in the port-a-potties over there! You uhh… you might wanna get him out of there before the dude dies from the smell.
“I really don’t want to get in trouble with violating the Geneva Conventions or something.”
*****
Unfortunately, I barely had time to check in with the others for a few minutes near one of the side exits from the park. I had just made sure everyone was okay, and thanked them for showing up, when I got a text on my phone from Eits. Glancing at it, I saw the message, ‘Arleigh and brothers looking for you. Seem really worried. You might want to have an excuse ready for where you were.’
Yeah, that made me do a double-take. They were looking for me? Why? What– okay, no time to think about that. If they looked too hard and started wondering how I’d disappeared so effectively… fuck. That could be bad.
“Sorry, gotta go play at being me for awhile,” I interrupted while Paige was starting to talk about Banneret. “The Cassidy me, I mean. I uhh, thanks again, guys. Seriously. I would’ve been pretty screwed without you. And so would Inessa.”
“Yeah, and we definitely wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to your idol,” Sierra replied a bit slyly, looking me up and down. “Did you get her autograph? Or give her yours?”
“I–that’s not–” I was blushing even more, waving that off with both hands. “Never mind, I’ve gotta go. I’ll check in with you guys as soon as I don’t have a bunch of people wondering where the hell I am.” With that, I extended my arm to use a bit of paint to pull myself to a roof where I could change. But then I paused and glanced back toward Paige. “Oh, and I’ll have to tell you about how I was combining paint colors to get new effects.”
The blonde girl started to nod absently before her gaze snapped toward me as she actually processed what I’d said properly. “Wait, you did what? Paintball, you did what?! Damn it, Paintball!”
But I was already gone, leaving the others behind for the moment as I sent myself flying across the street, over several parked police cars and an ambulance. A few random civilians scattered around shouted up at me, and I waved but didn’t slow down. Now was not the time to get caught up with something else.
Instead, I made sure I was out of sight before hurriedly summoning my normal clothes back in the back. I did a quick change, glanced around once more, then lowered myself to the ground in the alley. Finally, I took my civilian phone out and looked at it. Oh, right, about twenty-seven missed calls and texts. Fantastic.
Scanning through them, I saw that three different calls were from my parents, along with a text. Another call was from Simon, and the rest were all from Arleigh. She sounded increasingly frantic to know where I was and that I was okay, which might have been sweet if it wasn’t Arleigh. Obviously something was going on. I really didn’t believe she cared about me enough to check in that many times. Why would she be that upset at the idea of me being hurt?
Shaking that off, I quickly called my mother back. As the call went through, I took a deep breath and composed myself. Or rather, uncomposed myself. Was that even a word? I sure wasn’t decomposing. Either way, I jumped up and down a few times and shook my head back and forth. Time to play this up.
It only rang once before my mother’s voice immediately came through as the call connected. “Cassidy? Cassidy, are you alright?” She didn’t sound completely freaked out or anything, but there was a definite uncertainty and worry in her voice. Weirdly, I felt a flash of guilt about making her upset. That was stupid, right? She had helped hurt plenty of other people much worse than just being worried about me for a few minutes. And yet, the feeling was there anyway. Stupid unreasonable and illogical feelings.
“I’m okay! I’m fine, Mom!” I was talking too loudly, intentionally making myself sound even more upset and confused than I was. After all, this was supposed to be one of the first times I’d been in any sort of situation like this. The first time since I’d hid in the bathroom at the hotel to avoid the Scion troops back. I injected embarrassment and confusion into my voice. “I saw those guys show up while I was getting nachos, so I hid under one of the cars in the parking lot. But I dropped my phone when I was… when I was…” I swallowed hard, giving it a three count before quietly finishing, “When I was running away. I dropped my phone and I couldn’t get to it. There were guys all around and I didn’t want to–I mean I was trying to–I mean–”
“Shh, it’s alright.” Mom sounded relieved. “It’s okay, principessa, you did just fine. Have you spoken to the police yet? Your father will be there soon. Where are you?”
“I’m… I’m gonna talk to the cops in a second. I’ll be near the skate entrance,” I informed her, already walking that way. “Mom, my battery’s getting really low. I’ll talk to Dad as soon as he gets here. I’m okay. I’m fine.” Even as I said that, I made sure to sound like I was anxious and jumpy, but not enough to make her even more worried. I needed my mother to be convinced I was fine, but not suspicious about how fine I actually was.
Boy was this a hard tightrope to walk. So I just told my mother I loved her and would see her soon, then disconnected. By that point, I had reached the park. There were cops all around, but they were focused on getting the bad guys I had tied down all loaded into cars to be taken in. No one paid much attention to me as I looked around before spotting Ryder standing by himself. He saw me at the same time and made a point of lifting his phone to his ear, then nodded to one side. Following the direction he was indicating with my gaze, I finally found Arleigh. She was with her dad, standing off by themselves away from everyone else. From the look of things, they were deep in conversation.
So, I took my Paintball phone out, holding it to my ear after glancing around once. Immediately, I could hear voices. Arleigh and her father’s voices.
“–told you, I tried to find her,” the girl was saying.
In the distance, I could see Trey Fosters hold up a hand with a single finger raised. “One job, Arleigh. In this whole operation we gave you one single job. When everything went down, you were supposed to make Cassidy Evans see you protect her. You were supposed to be the one who kept her safe. I thought you could handle that much, at least. Everyone else was doing the important things. The Ministry has their agents in place now. They can do their jobs. The Sidorov girl’s worried now. She’ll accept protection. Their protection. So we can find out exactly how this DNA-lock removal works and get it off your little brother. Everyone else succeeded at their parts in this despite unexpected interference.”
Wait, hold on, was that what this entire thing was about? I found myself rocking back on my heels a little bit and that revelation. The Ministry had approved this entire thing just so they could get some guards close enough to Inessa to figure out how she was getting rid of her own ability to open her brother’s vault, so they could do the same with Errol? That was… that was…
I didn’t have time to think about what that was. Arleigh’s voice suddenly filled my ear through the phone. “There she is!”
Oh, me. She had spotted me. Quickly putting the phone away, I looked around as though I had just heard a hint of her raised voice in the distance. Finally ‘spotting’ her as she shouted my name, I waved a bit awkwardly and took a few steps that way.
Before I could reach them, however, my dad was there. He came racing across the grass, taking just a second to shout a greeting toward Mr. Fosters before taking a knee in front of me. The next thing I knew, he was pulling me up against his chest in a tight embrace. “Cassidy, oh, Cassidy. You’re alright.”
“Yeah, I… I’m okay, Dad,” I managed, returning the hug after a second. “I’m just really confused right now. But… but wait.
“Where’s Izzy?”
Heretical Edge and Summus Proelium 