Interlude: Tattletale
Even after finally confirming that Bakuda had passed out clutching a bottle of whiskey, Lisa still held herself together. She wouldn't allow herself to spiral into an uncontrolled breakdown, wouldn't let herself have a panic attack or fall into a stupor. Even after she was absolutely certain that Bakuda wouldn't be going anywhere from her rental apartment—the one she'd leased "just in case" as a safe house unknown to Coil—even then, she remained on edge. And not because of Bakuda, no. The insane Bomber was broken both psychologically and physically. She feared Ladybug to the point of convulsions; the mere thought of worm larvae writhing inside her made her scratch her arms bloody, gulp whiskey straight from the bottle, and continue trembling even in her sleep. No, Bakuda wouldn't run, wouldn't attempt an attack or try to build a new bomb.
Lisa walked into the bathroom, closed the door behind her, removed her clothes, carefully placed them on the washing machine, stepped into the shower stall, just as methodically closed the stall door, selected the setting, and stood under the streams of hot water.
Only now did she allow herself to let go. To stop holding back the fear, anxiety, stress, and exhaustion. Her legs gave out, and she slid down, curling into a ball with her knees pressed to her chin as water poured over her body. She was shaking violently. Throughout this day, she had been a hair's breadth from death multiple times, and she was smart enough to understand that. She had held on through sheer willpower, through the necessity of doing something, somehow saving the situation, keeping face, not showing weakness. Bakuda... she had been interested, playing games, and that was the only reason the Undersiders had survived until Taylor appeared on the scene. If she had faltered, if she had shown Bakuda that the game was lost, that she was surrendering, they would all have died long before Ladybug's insects burst onto the wasteland behind the abandoned factory in the docks. With some animal instinct, Bakuda understood exactly who among them was her rival, and she needed to break her specifically—Tattletale. That's why Lisa held on. Not because she was strong, not because she was ready for confrontation, no. Any other day of the week, Lisa would have preferred to bow before overwhelming force and get on her knees; she had enough means and resources to eventually turn everything to her advantage. But today, surrendering meant dying. That's why she held on. And then... then Taylor came. Lisa had already lost hope. She knew Taylor was home, knew she simply wasn't seeing her phone and would rush to help as soon as she saw the message. She knew how long the journey would take, knew too much... but completely missed something important.
Taylor, Ladybug, Poison Ivy—now Butcher Fifteen! She hadn't known that, truly hadn't known. There hadn't been time, because the crazy bomber Bakuda had decided her boss's death was an excellent career opportunity and began acting. And she had chosen them, the Undersiders, as her target. It was understandable why—immediately going after the Empire Eighty-Eight or the Merchants was too ambitious, but she needed to make a statement to emerge from Lung's shadow. Of the small teams, only they remained—the Undersiders. Faultline's Crew and the Travelers weren't local and were likely not in the city, but finding the Undersiders was easy, especially if you started implanting bombs in people's heads. And when the chase began, the shootout, all of that—she hadn't had time to think about Taylor. Yesterday too, the boss had called her and asked her to organize a bank robbery, which raised a bunch of questions, and the boss had pressured her, then there was Brian with his sister and custody issues, Regent stepping on Bitch's favorite sore spot, and... honestly, she'd been swamped. She hadn't tracked it. Hadn't understood. Hadn't visited the Parahumans Online forum in several days.
But when Taylor appeared before them, when she engaged in direct physical confrontation instead of hiding nearby and acting through her insects—that's when it hit Lisa. God, to think, and she still called herself a Thinker! Of course, Butcher Fourteen was in the city, the Butcher died, the new Butcher was Taylor. It all fit. And if not for personal problems, if not for new orders from the boss and the war that had started with the ABB, she would have known about this first.
She managed to pull herself together, not show her shock, pretend "I knew it all along," simply out of ingrained habit. But... this changed everything. During the brief time communicating with the new Taylor, who could now easily be called the Fifteenth, Lisa's head had started aching. She was already at her limit, and the presence of fifteen personalities in one body, the unpredictability and impossibility of calculating new Taylor's behavior, forced her to work at maximum capacity. The good news was that Taylor somehow controlled this whole snake pit in her head. The bad news was that despite this, all those bastards inside her skull affected her, just as she affected them. Never in her life would the previous Taylor have eaten out a young guy's eyes without even knowing who he was. These were the Butcher's actions, specifically the very first Butcher, the original, so to speak. His pattern. Taylor could allow them to act separately from her! She was the embodiment of the worst fears about the Butcher, that very thread on PHO where they speculated about "what if the Butcher possessed the body of a cape capable of creating clones—we'd have not just Butcher Fifteen, but fifteen Butchers!"
Then, standing before Bakuda, on the edge of death, looking at the muzzles of assault rifles, shotguns, and even a grenade launcher pointed at her—she hadn't had time to process all this.
And afterward—she'd had to take Bakuda home, make sure she didn't kill herself on the way or in the apartment, had to talk to her, even break out a couple bottles of gift whiskey, make sure she finally stopped shaking and either fell asleep or passed out into oblivion. So Lisa hadn't had time to think.
And only now... she pressed her knees to her chin, fighting the trembling and feeling the streams of hot water beating against her head and flowing down her face. She felt uneasy.
Ladybug was terrifying in her own right. Her ability to command millions of insects was horrifying. It wasn't as obvious as Lung's ability, or Alexandria's, or Purity's. But if you thought about it... insects were everywhere. Within the radius of her power, she became omniscient and omnipresent. Protecting yourself from her in that radius was only possible with special equipment and preparation, hermetic suits and special chemicals. And even then—not for long, until the insects gnawed a hole through. And her specially bred ant queens had jaws that wouldn't hesitate to do just that.
But even that wasn't what scared her... what scared her was Taylor's cold-blooded and cynical attitude toward... well, everything around her. She was behaving wrong. As if she'd already seen death, and not for the second or third time. Most capes, both heroes and villains, had some prohibition against killing their own kind. Few exceptions existed, those who killed their fellow capes. Because deep inside, in the very subconscious, capes considered only other capes their equals. No one admitted this, especially heroes, but in that very subconscious they considered themselves a different race. And they had the right to, because capes possessed abilities. And ordinary people didn't. As they were once called—Normals.
The PRT had banned the use of that word, banned the very concept, but it couldn't ban facts. Capes were better than ordinary people. There was no equality between capes and normals. At the legal, juridical level this was denied, but everyone understood what it was about. Somewhere in there was why the whole "civilian identity—cape identity" thing was accepted in the States. By separating one from the other, the government thereby preserved the fictional paradigm of equality. If, say, Gene Smith was a cape and Jack Wallace was a normal, then very soon Jack would realize that John had advantages in employment, in attractiveness to women, in financial success... in everything! While Jack worked his ass off, all John needed was to serve as some bank's poster boy. But if both John and Jack were equal in their civilian lives, and some John-Dreadnought was a masked hero, then there were no complaints. Although Tattletale understood that these theories didn't reveal even a hundredth of what this whole big game of "cops and robbers" was really about.
Because this game was constant. Everyone seemed to be playing. And the Unwritten Rules were exactly the rules of the game. You couldn't kill, because who would you play with afterward? If you caught and imprisoned someone—they'd be released soon. Well, not exactly released—they wouldn't be properly monitored, they'd arrange an escape. The PRT had all the hero capes and advanced technologies at its disposal, billions of dollars for cape research and entire institutes. The PRT couldn't find a way to prevent a criminal from escaping? Lisa seriously doubted that. For ninety percent of capes, she herself could devise measures to contain their power and keep them in isolation... and do it cheaply. She wouldn't believe for a second that the government lacked such capabilities. So the PRT was also participating in the game. Lisa suspected why the Big Game was being played, but usually didn't take her thoughts to their logical conclusion, because the abundance of possibilities gave her a headache. It was enough for her that this game existed and there were rules for playing it. And Taylor, Taylor was breaking them. It was like a child in a sandbox seriously taking a game of besieging a sand castle and hitting their playmate with a shovel. Who would want to play with her? The system punished such people.
And... as if that weren't enough—Taylor was becoming the Butcher. Originally—Brute, due to strength and speed, endurance and partial invulnerability. Trump—due to the ability to acquire the powers of those who killed him. Getting the personalities of those capes as a bonus. The ability for "pain impulse" or neuroemission. The ability to see blood in veins and arteries through walls and manipulate it up close. The ability to cause festering wounds. Danger sense against physical attacks. Explosive teleportation—short distances. The skill to change the shape of almost any object except organic ones—into a blade. Immunity to pain. The ability to always hit targets with ranged attacks.
The most disgusting thing about this situation was that now Lisa couldn't predict exactly how Taylor would behave. Before this incident, she had been easy to deal with, if somewhat frightening. She had already found common ground with her, they had developed some traditions, their own little jokes—that's how friendship begins. And when Lisa was typing a message on her phone, trying to hide from Bakuda—she didn't doubt for a second that Taylor, Ladybug, would come to help. She could be harsh to strangers, cruel to those who posed a threat, cold to outsiders, but if you were already "one of hers"—she would definitely help. You just needed to become "one of hers," and Lisa knew how to become one of theirs.
But Butcher Fifteen... looking at Taylor, her power was malfunctioning. One second it told her she was facing a schoolgirl who had been bullied at school, with a hero complex, with a desire to get back at the world and show that she wouldn't stoop to bullying, even if she now had the power. The next second—a father who missed his children. The next—a psychopath who dreamed of cutting out her liver and eating it raw, with finely chopped onions and coarse salt. And so on constantly.
Lisa suddenly understood exactly how she felt. Her power habitually nudged at her temples, recovering from prolonged overexertion.
Lisa Wilbourn fears Taylor Hebert. Taylor Hebert is a clear and immediate threat to Lisa Wilbourn's existence. Taylor Hebert is unpredictable and dangerous. Lisa Wilbourn won't be able to resist provoking Taylor Hebert. In the long term, they will inevitably quarrel. Lisa Wilbourn's power won't let her stay silent during confrontation; she will strike at the most painful spot, driving Taylor Hebert into a rage. Lisa Wilbourn doesn't know how Taylor Hebert will behave in that case.
"Well, no shit," Lisa muttered, tilting her head down, putting it under the streams of hot water beating from above. "Tell me something I don't know."
Lisa Wilbourn actually knows exactly how Taylor Hebert will behave. She was already betrayed once by her best friend. That friend is still alive. Taylor Hebert won't forgive a second time.
"...fuck me," Lisa groaned. "Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Bitch, how did this happen?! All I wanted was freedom, to stop being an errand girl... and what?"
Coil will most likely leave Lisa Wilbourn alone as soon as he learns of her close connection to Butcher Fifteen. Coil is rational; he will be angry, he will be displeased, but he is capable of stepping aside and not getting involved in such a conflict. Lisa Wilbourn will become an errand girl for Butcher Fifteen.
"God..." Lisa stood up, turned off the water, and for a while just stood there, watching the last trickles of water flow down her legs.
It's quite simple to arrange. Just compress the carotid artery. Wrap a towel—like this, around the neck. Slip knot. There will be no pain. There are several medications in the medicine cabinet that could help end one's life...
"Shut up," Lisa said and stepped out of the shower stall, dried herself off, made a turban from a terry towel on her head, and put on a bathrobe. She left the bathroom and looked for Bakuda, who was sprawled on the couch.
In a state of alcohol intoxication. Unaccustomed to such a state. Former college student. Craves recognition. Was a genius, a child prodigy. Dependent on others' opinions. In college, faced the fact that she wasn't the smartest, most talented, or most persistent. Death of parents in Kyushu, relatives in San Francisco took her in. That's where her trigger occurred. Went to Lung because she felt deep gratitude to him for fighting Leviathan. Was ready to do anything for him. Did everything for him. Gradually became disillusioned with him as a person. Tried to leave the ABB, but Lung...
"Sometimes I wish I could turn you off," Lisa grumbled, turning away from Bakuda while her power vividly showed what exactly Lung had done to her. "Before, everything was simple—she's an enemy, she needs to be killed. Just had to ask Ladybug to devour her and that's it."
Lisa Wilbourn is lying to herself. Lisa Wilbourn is glad that Taylor Hebert didn't kill Bakuda. Lisa Wilbourn doesn't pity Bakuda; she doesn't care whether she lives or dies. Lisa Wilbourn believes that killing Bakuda would have meant a dangerous precedent in Taylor Hebert's behavior. Lisa Wilbourn is glad that Taylor Hebert still has some barrier against killing a person, especially a cape. Lisa Wilbourn extrapolates the situation with Bakuda to herself. How will Taylor behave when they quarrel? Lisa Wilbourn wants to live.
"Yes, damn it, I want to. Preferably somewhere on a sandy beach far from all this with a piña colada in a tall glass," Lisa sighed. "But you can't blame me for that."
A soft buzzing sounded from the phone lying on the coffee table, and Lisa, even before seeing the screen, already knew who it was. Speak of the devil... She picked up the phone, slid the green circle, and brought it to her ear. She slipped back into the role of "playful and confident, all-knowing and non-judgmental, understanding good old friend."
"Hello? Tay-tay, you only call me when you need something," she said, needling Taylor from the very first words.
"Hm. Look who's talking," came the voice from the phone. "I need Henry McCallister. And... I know I owe you for his last visit. I'll pay my debts later. I can do it with gold dust, by the way. And I still have half the money from your last bribe."
Determined mood. Voice sounds tense. She was just in direct confrontation. Killed someone again? No, more likely—disciplined someone. Ready to pay, she really does have gold dust. Where from? Ah, yes—ants. Lisa Wilbourn can't let her pay. Lisa Wilbourn wants Taylor Hebert to consider her a friend. Lisa Wilbourn wants to live.
"Henry? I'll call him now. And you don't owe me anything—today you saved me from certain death, though in the future I'd be grateful if you warned me in advance."
"About what?" the voice on the phone sounded surprised. "You asked me to come yourself."
"About who you are now! I was worried!" Tattletale lied shamelessly into the phone. "About you! You should have called me, we could have figured something out together. After all, I'm your best friend. Okay, okay, a colleague you can have a drink or two with after work at the nearest bar."
"I'm still underage, and I might take that as a date invitation," the voice on the phone chuckled.
Joking in response. Lisa Wilbourn attracts her as a person. Lisa Wilbourn attracts her as a sexual object. Taylor Hebert fears that Lisa Wilbourn has too much power over her, influences her decisions. Lisa Wilbourn doesn't want to become the object of Taylor Hebert's romantic affections—it would lead to catastrophe. Lisa Wilbourn wants to be her friend. The kind who will always stay close, even when love fades. Lisa Wilbourn must not reject Taylor Hebert's advances in a harsh manner. Lisa Wilbourn must not let Taylor Hebert drag her into bed. The best approach is to joke about it as if she's available. This won't let Taylor Hebert go too far while not offending her.
"I'd love to see the bar that would refuse to serve you a drink if they knew who you are," Lisa shrugged, knowing Taylor couldn't see the gesture. "And as for the date, you know how things are between us. You're the one who keeps turning me down, heartbreaker. You could always slay the dragon and carry me off on your white horse to your magical kingdom. Otherwise, I'm a girl without principles—do whatever you want with me."
"I'll remember that," the voice on the phone sounded amused, and Lisa mentally nodded. Everything was fine; she was behaving exactly as needed. Just as she'd expected.
"And... I just sent you Henry's number. Paying his bill is my concern—please don't worry about it. By the way, let me ask—what do you need him for?"
"Well..."
"You're planning to go to the PRT?! Seriously?! Taylor!"
"Damn... nothing gets past you," the voice on the phone sighed. "I wanted to consult with you about it too. Look, here's the thing..."