Electra
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Freedom City Guidebook
Freedom City PBP: A How-To Guide
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During the introductions, Koshiro had relaxed and leaned back against the half-wall that separated rink from lobby to look at his phone. Only the occasional glimpse of a crane swooping past in a patrol route proved he was paying attention to the goings-on at all. He grinned at whatever he was seeing on his screen, thumbed a quick text message and sent it, then looked back up just in time to hear Kimber describing exactly why she wanted to do whatever it was she wanted to do. He raised a hand. "So what's a soul scythe?" he asked. "Did I miss that part?"
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"Hey Sharl, long time no see! Looks like you've been eating pretty good in Computerland," Koshiro joked, raising one hand for a fist bump. "Careful now, I'm going to need that hand later." He nodded to Kimber when she spoke. "You know we wouldn't leave you hanging. Though it's a good thing Eve sent a plane ticket, or I'd probably still be looking for updrafts over Philly." He was distracted for a moment by his phone playing a bar of "Mr. Roboto," digging it out of his pants and checking his texts. He glanced at Sharl, then over in Tarva's direction. "Anyway, I'm Papercut!" he called out to all and sundry. "I don't know most of you because I work in Detroit now, but I control paper. It's a lot cooler than it sounds," he assured them.
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Erin sighed, and for a moment looked very much older than her doppelganger. "No, she's not, and I can't really blame her," she corrected, her shoulders slumping a bit as she closed the cupboards. "It's a really big change, and that's bad. I don't like change, and she hates change. She's scared, and there's nothing anybody can do to make it better, because even if I tell her that Pathos is never going to find her here, it won't help any because she doesn't even know what I mean!" Erin smacked one hand against the counter in frustration, but luckily it was granite and did no more than shudder a little bit. When she spoke again, her voice was so soft it was hard to hear at all. "I don't know if we did the right thing, trying to fix her. Maybe she was happier the way she was when she was in Blackstone, even if she wasn't ever going to get out. Maybe I just made things worse."
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"The windows open," Erin assured Aquaria, "they're locked from the inside but every window except the bathroom windows can open. Just try not to run over other peoples' windows unless it's an emergency, so you don't get them dirty or startle somebody." While Aquaria was exploring and Erin was checking the thermostat and the warm-air humidifier in the living room, Jessie had disappeared into her bedroom. It was slightly smaller than Aquaria's, since she didn't need a massive bathtub-bed, just a pleasantly soft full-size bed done up in inoffensive blue and gray linens. That, a night table with lamp, a dresser and a desk were the only furnishings in the room. It was bigger, but otherwise not at all dissimilar to her room at Project Freedom. At the moment, though, Jessie didn't seem to be taking any of it in, rather she was sitting on the bed with her suitcase next to her, staring at the wall and looking a million miles away. "You okay in there, Jess?" Jessie didn't answer, obviously completely lost in whatever thought or memory had popped into her head. Erin frowned and took a half-step forward, as though about to go into the bedroom, then checked herself. "She, um, probably needs a minute," she told Aquaria awkwardly. I can show you the kitchen, all the food and dishes and stuff if you want."
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"Of course," Hologram replied, ducking out of the way of actual combat while still keeping her eyes and mind focused on Silver Scream. "But that requires artistry and storytelling, really getting into the head of your audience and understanding what they value, and how to twist that against them. And if there's one thing you've always been particularly terrible at, it's knowing what the audience wants. I mean really, look at you." She gave the apparition her most withering look, though the accompanying mental barrage failed to strike home. "You look like somebody forgot to tell Lady Macbeth when the show was over, and now you're standing on an empty, dark stage, waiting for a curtain call from a theater where nobody's watching. It's grotesque and sad, but not even in that interesting car-accident kind of way." ~This isn't working~ Paige sent to Richard on a tight mental band. ~I might be distracting her a little, but she's surprisingly tough. We need to take her down somehow before she summons more of these things.~
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Koshiro gave Indira a grin that was entirely unrepentant. "Well I meant to write, but I kept using up all my stationery saving the city from disaster and doom." He flicked a finger and a handful of cranes came spiraling down like snowflakes to land on the Kinigosi. "Detroit's not like Freedom City, you haven't got a hero on every block to keep things from getting crazy. It's all on the brave and severely overworked municipal defenders! Though it sounds like you've had plenty of crazy going down the past couple years here. I'm glad to see you're all okay," he added in a quick moment of perfect seriousness. He waved to Kimber at her approach, rolling his eyes at the cheerful slam to his appearance. "Typical, I fly across three states to help you out with... I am honestly not even sure what you're doing except that because it's Young Freedom and Freedom City, it's probably ungodly dangerous, but I come anyway, and all I get is abuse!" He shook his head with great sadness. "I don't think I even recognize most of these people. Where's Sharl?"
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A little way behind Frost, the doors opened again, and this time a rush of fluttering, flapping wings announced the new arrival. Thousands of paper cranes poured through the door like a mad flock of tiny migrating birds, all different colors and textures. They formed a brief cyclone, then a column, then scattered to the winds to reveal a good-looking young man with dark hair and a black leather jacket. Koshiro McMillan, sometimes better known as Papercut, had definitely done a little filling out since his days at Claremont Academy, getting a bit broader in the chest and shoulders, a little taller, and losing most of the habitual slouch. And though it might have seemed impossible, he looked to have lost some of the sullen attitude as well. He grinned broadly in Kimber, Eve, and Indira's direction. "Hey, Young Freedom! You miss me?"
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Paige will use mental blast against Silver Scream again, hoping that if she can get the villainess to fold, the lackeys will decamp. DC 27 will save.
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Erin jumped at the sudden explosion, one hand going automatically for the bat that was not hanging on her hip right now, then realized what was going on and laughed while the sky exploded with colors. "Your partner in crime, I take it?" she asked Trevor, then leaned over the edge herself. "Thanks, Redbird!" Briefly, automatically, she checked to be sure that the rubbernecking from travelers on the bridge had not caused any accidents, but again, it was Freedom City. No matter what strange things happened, everyday life went on. She patted the concrete by her side, inviting him to sit on the edge next to her, then leaned in close once he sat down. Interlacing her fingers with his, she watched as the sun finally dropped completely behind the city skyline, leaving them in deep blue twilight. "I wish your grandpa was here," she finally said. She wished a lot of people were here, wished she could call her mom and dad, wished she could yell and jump around with her sister. "I think he'd be really happy for us."
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Erin happily kissed him back for quite awhile before taking a break to inspect her new piece of jewelry. "It's gorgeous," she declared, holding it out to catch the faint backsplash of light from the bridge's powerful halogen streetlights. "And I won't have to worry about breaking it. You always pick out the very best accessories." She sat down crosslegged on the side of the support tower that faced south, away from the lights of downtown, but toward Bayview and Claremont. "We should... I don't really know. We should tell people. Like, our teammates will want to know... oh god, Mark." She put her knuckles against her mouth to stifle a burst of laughter. "Maybe we should just, like, get married right now before he has a chance to start planning a wedding."
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When she thought about it, Erin wasn't sure exactly when she'd started tearing up, but she thought it was probably somewhere around the part where she made his life better. Because it was ridiculous when she thought about it, really, that she made his life better when it was him who had saved her on a thousand different days and nights, pulling her out of the ruins of her past and giving her a future to look forward to, and now... She was even less equipped than Trevor to put her complicated feelings into words, so instead she hauled him to his feet, maybe even a little off the ground as well, and kissed him with all the things she couldn't say, trusting he would understand. But finally she managed to break off and step back long enough to give him the important words. "Of course I will. You're all I need for the rest of my life." She lifted her hand, pale, sturdy, nails unpolished, faint calluses on it from her weapons, and put it in his to let him slide the ring on.
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"I suspect people here are pretty experienced in staying out of the way of potential danger," Fleur commented, glancing around at their immediate surroundings. The nearest bystanders were quite a ways away, and though they definitely seemed interested in the brand new garden, it didn't look like they planned on investigating while strangers were still nearby. "And you're absolutely right about Talos, Dragonfly, but he's who we've got to work with right now, since he's got most of the people and the organization. Why don't we start heading in their direction, peaceable-like, and see what happens? Cerulean, Artoo, you stay back a bit, just to be safe." Raising her hands in the air in a gesture of nonviolent intent, Fleur began walking forward as far as the edge of her new garden, then beyond it, then bringing it with her in the form of new plants that sprang up in her wake, a little corridor of green. "We mean you no harm!" she shouted, hopefully loud enough for machines with sensitive pickups to hear. "We come in peace, and we'd like to speak to Talos!"
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Erin turned from her contemplation of the city at Trevor's cough, only to find him on one knee in front of her with a ring box in his hand. She swore she could feel every drop of blood draining from her face, then flooding immediately back into her brain with a force that left her dizzy. "Oh my god..." She put her hand over her mouth to stifle what was probably going to be a rather hysterical little giggle, and looked from his face, to the box in his hand, then back to his face. "Yeah, definitely not pie," she agreed inanely, breathless laughter still in her words.
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"I used to live in California," Holly told Thaelia. "You should definitely go there if you can, you'll probably like it a lot. Most things are better there. It's warmer there, and our house was bigger. And there aren't earthquakes hardly ever, you just do drills about them in school in case one happens. At my school there, we played lacrosse instead of stupid softball, and I was really good at it. All my friends and I were on the team together. And you can see movie stars, like, all the time, and sometimes I got to be on TV. That's what I wanted to do when I grew up, be a real movie star, not like my mom and dad." She scowled down at her half-eaten pizza. "But now I hafta be a superhero instead, and live in Freedom City, and have really stupid homework like not thinking about things. It sucks." She gave them a brief look as though half-expecting to be chastised for her strong language before settling in for a sulk. At least she seemed far too distracted by her own woes to pick up on any subtext from her babysitters.
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She tilted her head up to look at the top support post for the bridge, then grinned at Trevor. "Yeah, okay. But only because I've got shorts under the dress. Climb on." Despite their difference in height, years of practice made running with Trevor on her back a simple matter. On her own, she could've made it to the top in a single leap, but given the extra weight, decided it was both prudent and fun to spread it out a bit. She raced down the empty pedestrian walkway before vaulting over the traffic, thirty feet above the roadbed, only to catch hold of the cables and swing briefly onto the wider access pathway cable, then bounced across the road once more to do the same thing on the other side, another sixty feet up. A few people were slowing their cars to rubberneck, but this was Freedom City, and that kind of stuff was for the tourists. One more quick leap had them on the broad concrete top of the bridge support, the wind whipping a bit harder at this altitude, but the sunset even more striking without the traffic and the city in the way. It was rather cleaner than Erin had expected it to be, given the birds who tended to roost here, and for the first time she got an inkling that this might not have been an entirely spontaneous idea. But it was a good idea, a very nice idea. She straightened out her clothes as Trevor disembarked. "I don't suppose you brought pie," she teased with a smile.
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Jessie did not seem inclined to respond to that line of conversation at all, or indeed to any line of conversation Aquaria could come up with as they drove through the crowded streets of Freedom City. Erin mustered herself to tell Aquaria that she would be able to close the vents in her room and there was a humidifier waiting for her at the apartment, but she also did not seem to be feeling particularly chatty. It was something of a relief when they pulled into the parking garage beneath the DuTemps building, using a keycard Erin pulled from a cubby in the dashboard, and navigated into one of the two spots reserved for Apartment 906. "And here we are," Erin told her two passengers as she hopped out of the truck. "Home sweet home." The parking garage was clean and well-lit, but otherwise not particularly exciting as far as these things went. As they headed for the elevator with suitcases in tow, Erin handed each of them a small ring of keys. "Here's front door, storage area, laundry room, and mailbox," she explained. "Use your door key for the elevator. There's a doorman in the lobby, so you don't have to worry about coming in on foot. And there are some superheroes in this building, but most of the tenants are just normal, so keep that in mind."
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"Yeah," Erin agreed, lacing her arm through his since his hands were tucked away. She stepped onto the pedestrian walkway that ran along the bridge, smiling as the wind whipped her skirt flat against her legs. "I'd never ridden a motorcycle before the first time you took me up on this bridge," she recalled. "I don't think I'd ever felt so terrified and free at the same time." She tilted her head back to look up at the cables, gone to golden and copper in the sunset. "I think..." She hesitated for a second, then plunged on. "When we went up those cables and we stopped at the top and we could see the whole city and all the lights, I think that was the first time I thought that being a superhero might actually be something good." She rested her head against his shoulder, paying no attention to the cars that were rushing by just a few feet away. "Funny to think it was so long ago now. A quarter of our lifetimes, almost."
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"Probably not for a few days," Erin replied apologetically, "it's kind of the middle of summer. But there's a little pond at the manor, and a bunch of sprinklers, you'll probably like it pretty well. Just remember you've still got to keep taking classes too, that's part of the whole groundskeeper deal. You don't want to have to work outdoors in hot weather and snow all your life, it's not good for you. You get your GED and take some classes, we can teach you how to be a mechanic or a security guard and you'll be better off." "What about me?" Jessie asked suddenly, her arms still folded tight over her breasts, her chin tucked almost to her chest. "What do you have lined up for me to do?" Erin took a long and very modulated deep breath, pressing her lips together for a moment before speaking. "We talked about this already," she reminded Jessie. "You're going to go to Freedom City University and get a degree in something. Whatever you want, I don't even care. Underwater basket-weaving. You've got an opportunity to do something not everybody gets to have." "If it's such a good opportunity, why didn't you do it instead?" Jessie retorted sullenly. In private, on previous days, Jessie had confided to Aquaria that she was happy about the opportunity to go to school, and a little overwhelmed that everything was being provided for her to make that happen, so this was something of an abrupt attitude shift. "You've got money and a rich boyfriend. There wasn't anything stopping you." There was a beat of silence while Erin's fingers tightened around the steering wheel, hard enough to make visible divots. "Because," she said very carefully, very clearly, "I wanted to prove to myself that I could make it on my own, without needing help or anybody propping me up. You obviously can't, so there's nothing for you to prove. You may as well take the opportunity." Jessie flinched but did not reply, and the drive continued in thick silence.
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Erin blinked in surprise, then grinned. "You know I'd do anything for you, even sit in the FCU auditorium for three hours to watch faraway tiny you walk across the stage in your cap and gown. But if you've got something else you'd rather do, I am all for it." She looked from his suit to her own dress. "We could always go dancing, we haven't done that in forever. Or did you have something else in mind." The idea that Trevor was ready to blow off a social obligation for fun was both pleasure and relief, things were really starting to get back to okay again.
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He was only waiting a minute before Erin joined him, still rummaging in her purse to make room for her collapsed bat along with her wallet, phone, and communicator. With everything finally arranged to her liking, she looked up at him and smiled. "You're looking very sharp, Mr. Graduate." Erin was looking pretty sharp herself in a deep blue dress with knee-length skirt and subtle golden accents worked in throughout, a nod to the school colors and to her own costume, once upon a time. Dull gold headband and sandals completed the look, and would be eminently practical if for some reason a fight were to break out. Graduation days could be pretty fraught, but at least this year she hadn't felt compelled to wear her uniform under her clothes. She reached out and took his arm, squeezed it lightly. "Summa cum laude, that's pretty amazing. And it means something this time and everything," she added with a chuckle. Headmaster Summers had added the distinction to all their diplomas when they'd graduated Claremont, mostly as a sign to show he'd believed their story of the end of the multiverse, but since that was an honor that wasn't actually given out on the high school level, it wasn't much of a resume-builder. "I'm really proud of you." Leaning in, she risked her makeup to give him a quick kiss. "We'd better go or we're never going to find a parking place."
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Signing out today was streamlined very much by the reams of paperwork Aquaria and Jessie had filled out and signed in the days before their release, but Erin was still finishing up her share by the time Aquaria came back down with the bags. Jessie stood nearby, her face and the messy blonde bob of her hair all but lost in the hoodie she'd insisted on wearing to match her friend. She and Erin appeared to be ignoring each other for the moment. Erin picked up the bags as though they weighed nothing, then all but body-checked Jessie out the front door and down the steps of Project Freedom. "All right, here we go. Jessie, you're in the middle, Aquaria, you've got the window seat." "Maybe we should wait till after lunch," Jessie suggested, blinking in the bright sunlight. "We haven't had a chance to buy any groceries, and we'll need food-" "Already taken care of," Erin interrupted as she tossed the bags into the bed of the truck. "I talked to the dietitian here, got you a pantry full. You're all stocked up for the next little while. You'll like the DuTemps Building," she told Aquaria, nudging Jessie into the truck even as the other girl obviously struggled to find another objection. "It's cool-looking, got a castle built right on top of it. There's a museum and stuff that you can tour. And once you're settled in, you can meet some of the other heroes who live there." "I forgot Doctor Baxter's phone number!" Jessie burst out, suddenly struggling to get out of the truck. "I need that if I need to talk to him!" "It's in your phone!" Erin retorted, extending an arm to bar her double from leaving. "What phone?" Jessie demanded. "I don't have a phone!" "Trevor thought you should both have phones in case people need to get in touch with you. The apartment has a phone, but you'll each have a cell phone with the important numbers programmed in." As soon as Jessie stopped struggling and Aquaria was buckled in, Erin started the truck and drove away as hastily as decorum allowed. "Really, Jess, it's gonna be okay. It's not going to be that different from Project Freedom, except you get to pick your own meals and bedtime," she said, obviously trying to be supportive. Jessie did not look convinced.
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Jessie took full advantage of both the distraction and the ducking, and was half under the table by the time they were both finished eating. By the time they'd bused their trays and cleaned the table, it was very nearly time to go. Jessie slumped down with her elbows on the damp tabletop and stared morosely at the large round clock on the wall. "She's going to be late," Jessie predicted glumly. "We may as well go back to the room." At that exact moment, the cafeteria door opened and Wander strode in, looking slightly disheveled and more than a little harried. She immediately zeroed in on Jessie's table. "There was a car accident," she said by way of explanation, if not quite apology. "Nobody died, but it was a hell of a mess. My truck's outside. You ready to go?" Jessie nodded hesitantly, then looked toward Aquaria for confirmaton.
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Life didn't go back to normal after the funeral, there was no way it could do that, but it did begin to settle into a new routine. Ted and Janet didn't stay long after the formalities were completed, heading back to their own lives with awkward platitudes and air kisses. It had been strange having them there, but it was even odder with them gone. Trevor and Erin rattled around the house like the last Cheerios in a value-sized box, unanchored without Travis' quiet but always palpable presence. Erin started inviting Redbird into the house more often, via the still-experimental holoprojectors in a half-dozen of the rooms. It wasn't the same, but the boisterous AI did bring some life into the house. Most of the funereal flower arrangements obligingly died on schedule in the week after the funeral, but a half-dozen stubborn holdouts continued to bloom. Not knowing what else to do, Erin left them in the front parlor and kept watering them. It seemed unsporting to abandon them at this point, and maybe a little mean. Once the post-funeral week ended, Erin went back to work and Trevor returned to school, both of them picking up more of the threads of normal in their lives. It took Erin several weeks to get everything back in order after her prolonged absence; Steve was a decent second in command, more than decent in a tactical situation, but his typical responses to any complex employee requests tended to range from a blank stare to a baffled shrug. Just trying to sort out the vacation schedule for her team was enough to make her wish she'd done a lot better in her math classes. But nothing too crazy had happened while she was gone, and everything was back running smoothly soon enough. That gave her more leisure time to devote to her main current hobbies of worrying about her family. Project Freedom was starting to make a lot of noise about Jessie being ready for less-supervised release, an announcement that had stunned both the former Erin Whites. Honestly, Erin had just kind of assumed that Jessie would be in Project Freedom for a long time, maybe forever, or in another group home. Letting her out did not seem like a good idea, but since the doctors were pretty insistent, Erin figured they'd better do it right. Jessie would have an apartment someplace safe and quiet, she would go to school and get a real education and then... Well, hopefully it would take a really long time to get to the "and then." She worried about Trevor too, quite a bit, though she tried to keep it on the down-low so that he wasn't aware of it. Erin wasn't quite sure how successful she was with that, since Trevor was way too good at reading her for anything to stay secret for too long. Since the night of the funeral he'd seemed to be a little better, a little more present in this new reality, but it wasn't easy to know what he was thinking or feeling. His final projects at school were taking a lot of time with graduation looming large on the horizon, so it wasn't as though they had gobs of time to talk. Erin thought about it, then put her own name on the vacation schedule in a week nobody had claimed yet. They could get away together, just the two of them for a few days or a week, turn off the communicators and hope for no apocalypses. In the meantime, she picked out a graduation dress and a graduation present , kept watering the invincible chrysanthemums, and finally started reorganizing the biggest kitchen.
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Despite Fleur's best efforts to get the antibodies under control, a lucky blow to the face from one of them sent her to the ground for a minute, dazed and aching. This new attack, piled on top of the injuries she'd already incurred, was enough to have her longing for a quick teleport home to cuddle up with a few aspirin and a bright sunny room for awhile. She missed the sun. She missed the earth. And there wasn't going to be any earth if they didn't finish this job. Fleur staggered to her feet and wiped away a smear of blood from her lip, then grabbed another handful of seeds and threw it. Surely there could only be a finite amount of antibodies on one Communion ship!
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"A little of all of the above," Paige explained, shooing a few flies away as she covered the uneaten salad with a plastic lid. "The school gets some government grants, like most private schools, but the bulk of the funding comes from private donors and tuition. There's a sliding scale, so families who can't afford to pay can still send their children, but most of the families make some sort of contribution either in tuition or volunteer hours or both. And there's funding from a lot of superheroes and hero organizations. Everyone realizes by now that finding, supporting and educating metahuman children is the best way of avoiding accidents and supervillainy in the future. "But it's definitely a challenge," she added with a laugh. "Daedelus and ArcheTech and some other groups have been great about providing state of the art technology for safety and powers management, but it still gets wild and wooly some days. They keep the student-teacher ratio low and a lot of the teachers have powers themselves, so it doesn't tip into any more anarchy than your normal elementary school most days. But it's the only school of its kind in the world right now. Nicholson sponsors student families to move into the city from all over the world, so their children aren't separated when they attend the school." She regarded Starlight with mild curiosity. "Do you know someone who might be a candidate to attend?"