Chapter Text
Thomas Calvert was a man who was always on the lookout for opportunities.
He had plans within plans, movements and shifts that would only come to fruition years from now. He had invested time, money and effort into building the foundations of his empire. It would take years before he was ready to take Brockton Bay, but in the meantime he was always watching, always keeping an ear to the ground to make sure that he wouldn’t miss anything.
It was because of this that he was one of the first to learn about the girl that would become his new pet. An abnormal report, sent by an overworked and underpaid clerk at one of the Bay’s smaller hospitals.
A car crash. Two dead. One injured. The kind of thing that happened everyday, an event so mundane that it wouldn’t even rate the evening news, not unless one of the deceased was a noteworthy person. That wasn’t the case.
The woman was a professor at the local college, the man an office worker for the dockworkers union. Nobodies. But they had a daughter. Eleven years old, still in school.
Thomas licked dry lips and narrowed his eyes as he read over the more interesting parts of the report.
It was, in a perfect world, the sort of report that would go from the hospital, to the PRT, up the chain of command, and eventually land on the desk of one of the director’s deputies. In a perfect world, a squad of PRT personnel would then rush over to the hospital ahead of the CPS and Youth Guard to secure what might be a future asset.
But the world was far from perfect, and Brockton Bay was even further still.
No, the director would never learn about Taylor Hebert and what she did to her parents.
-Four Years Later-
Lisa, and it was Lisa now, was nervous.
It wasn’t everyday that you were accosted at gunpoint and told to follow some well dressed men into an unmarked van.
It wasn’t her parents. They would never shell out the kind of cash to get people this professional to find and grab her. She ruled out the PRT and ABB soon enough. Too well armed and not nearly Asian enough. They looked professional, and sober, so they weren’t Merchants.
That left the E88, if she was remembering her Brockton Bay gangs properly. Or maybe Accord. This was only a few hours from Boston and he was just the sort to extend his reach this far to grab a Thinker off the streets.
She had to rein in her power, to keep a lid on it lest it go wild and try to learn things that she was certainly going to find out soon enough. Sarah, no, Lisawasn’t the kind of girl that would panic needlessly. This was probably one of those few times where it was okay to admit that she was terrified.
“Put this on,” one of the men said. He pushed a thick wad of cloth into hands that shook.
Lisa unfolded it, expecting a balaclava, something that would act as a mask, only to find that it was a tight black sock. No holes for the eyes or mouth, just thick breathable material like coarse wool. “Do I have to?” She asked while already knowing the answer.
They stared at her, three men in suits tailored to hide the guns they doubtlessly carried. Their sunglasses revealing nothing of their eyes but the firm lines of their mouths told her everything she had to know. Swallowing, Lisa pulled the sock over her head. She felt like someone walking to their execution. For all she knew that was exactly what was happening.
The van took a few turns, slipped off the main road and through what she felt was an alley, then stopped before backing up back onto a street. They were backtracking, moving over the same spot twice to make her lose track of them, and it was working. If she was more familiar with the Bay, and didn’t have a sock on her head and the start of a splitting headache, then maybe she could have figured out where she was being led, and from that she could have deduced who was dragging her around.
As it was, the suspicion that she was going to find out the hard way was creeping up her spine.
The van moved down an incline that levelled off a moment before it came to a full stop. The engine muttered before dying and soon all Lisa could hear was the breathing of the men around her and the hummingbird beat of her heart.
“Out,” one of them said. A hand grabbed her elbow and she was guided, surprisingly gently, out of the van.
Her sneakers thumped against a cement floor. The room she was in was large, probably subterranean. Her guard made her stop with a hand on her shoulder.
Two more men joined her. Heavy boots walking in rhythm. Her kidnappers backed off and returned to their van. She had traded guards. This was organized, planned even. Three men in similar suits. Not uniforms. Two more with nearly identical boots. Those were probably in a sort of uniform. Uniforms meant organization, meant resources. It didn’t rule out Accord or the E88.
Swallowing past a dry throat, Lisa shuffled between her new guards. She couldn’t tell if they were armed or not, but it wasn’t a bet she was willing to make.
“This way,” one of them said and Lisa was surprised to hear a feminine voice. The grip on her elbow was just as strong though as she was led deeper into whatever lair they had brought her to.
She focused on her breathing. She had to, it was that or begin hyperventilating.
Finally, after they had walked around a building whose size daunted her, Lisa was brought into a smaller room. “Hands on the table,” the feminine voice said. “Legs apart.”
Lisa grit her teeth as she was expertly frisked. They took the two phones she had on her, the wallet that she’d stolen that very morning and the knife tucked inside her sock. The woman searching her even found the wad of cash tucked into the strap of her bra. It was insulting, it was undignified, and yet Lisa couldn’t do anything but bear it as unfamiliar hands ran over her body.
“Sit.” She was pushed back, the scraping of steel on cement the only warning that there was a chair behind her before it collided with the back of her knees and she fell into an uncomfortable, straight-backed seat.
Her hands were placed on the table before her. She waited, expecting to hear something, a threat to behave or the cocking of a gun. Instead heavy boots exited the room and the door shut with a dull thump.
Lisa fidgeted. A minute passed, then two.
The seat was digging into her upper back but she didn’t dare slouch.
She had to keep a lid on her powers. They wanted to learn everything about her surroundings but she knew that with so little to draw on all she would do was give herself a headache.
She had to wait. She could plot her escape once she knew who had captured her and what they wanted. She would have to gauge whether to over or under play her powers. Then what? Contact the PRT maybe?
They would try and force her into their little Girl Scouts program, but compared to playing waiting games in some unknown villain’s lair, going from door to door and espousing the good of the Protectorate sounded better by the minute.
The door opened. A huff of exhaled air. “Oh, for the love of...” a female voice, young, distorted by a mask.
“You can take that off,” she said. “And you don’t need to sit so stiffly, god knows I would want to slouch in your position.”
There was a clatter as a bunch of things were dropped on the table. Slowly, Lisa reached up and tore the sock off her head. It made a mess of her hair, she thought.
She blinked against the bright fluorescent light.
“Better?” The girl across from her asked.
She was tall, Lisa noticed first. At least half a head more than her, and the helmet she wore gave her an extra inch or two. It was an imposing costume, all whites and greys, like the reverse of Alexandria’s iconic outfit, but where Alexandria’s suit was cut to look imposing and sleek, the girl across from Lisa wore a costume that hid practicality behind sharp militaristic lines and armoured plates. Her helmet was hooded, with a full face visor that reflected the room’s artificial light where it wasn’t cast in shadow. She was also, Lisa noticed, wearing a sort of crown around her forehead with the symbol of a chess piece at the very front.
They were alone in the room, though Lisa couldn’t help but notice the camera pointed right at her from one corner of the ceiling.
“I want to extend our apologies,” the cape said. Lisa’s attention snapped back to her and she had the impression that the cape was amused. “We had been keeping an eye on you, Miss Livsey, ever since you started prowling around the Bay.” She tapped her forefingers on the table and Lisa noticed the pile of stuff left between the two of them. A wallet, black leather and engraved, a wad of crumpled cash, a pair of smartphones and one small knife. The cape pushed it all closer to Lisa’s side of the table. “This is all yours,” she said.
“Thanks,” Lisa said, her first words since entering the base. She didn’t move to touch any of the things on the table. Instead she continued to study the cape.
She shook her head once, as if disappointed about something, but Lisa couldn’t guess what. “Are you familiar with the unwritten rules?”
“A little,” Lisa admitted.
“Well then, Sarah,” the cape said. “We have not only done you a great disservice by taking you against your will, we also did so while you were in your civilian identity.”
Not that she had a cape identity, Lisa thought. “Yeah.” She wanted to scream at the cape, to rail at the injustice of it all, but she had more common sense than that. The cape could play at being civil all she wanted, she still had Lisa over a barrel.
The cape reached up and into her hood. Something clicked and she pulled the hood back, revealing the way her helmet wrapped all the way around her head. Then, with deft fingers, the cape undid a clasp and pulled the helmet off.
She was younger than Lisa had imagined. Fifteen, maybe sixteen. Brown hair, cut short, hung around the base of her neck in gentle curves until the cape ran a gloved hand through it. She had dark eyes with the telltale shine of someone wearing contacts and a wide mouth with just a touch of lipstick to make her lips seem fuller. “Hello, I’m Taylor, Taylor Calvert.”
Lisa stared for a moment. There was a tinny sound from the helmet on the table between them. Someone was angry that Taylor had removed her mask, that she had so easily given away her identity.
“I go by Lisa now,” Lisa said.
Taylor only smiled wider. “Lisa it is, then. If you want, we could help you build a proper false identity.”
Lisa wouldn’t take them up on the offer. “Who are you? You’re not Empire, and I don’t think you work for Accord.”
Taylor’s smile grew wry. “You know, it’s ironic that you mention Uncle Accord, he was quite interested in you.”
Lisa felt the growing pit in her stomach grow cold.
“Don’t worry, I don’t think you would be a good fit. I discouraged him already. That just leaves you in our care.”
“You still haven’t told me who you are.”
“Our organization doesn’t really use a name,” Taylor, if that was her name, admitted.
Lisa wanted to curl up and cradle her head. She was pushing her power too much too quickly. Instead she stared right into the cape’s amused eyes and glared. “I want to leave,” Lisa said.
There wasn’t a chance in hell that they were going to just let her go. Capes were precious resources. Thinkers especially so. It would be the same as her parents. They would use her power to get stronger while she suffered in quiet. But she was crafty. She’d been living on the streets for some time now. She’d figure a way out of it.
“Very well,” Taylor said. “I’ll have Isabelle escort you out. Did you want to be dropped back at the boardwalk or would you rather we bring you elsewhere?”
Lisa stared. It was genuine. Or her powers read it as such. Then she saw the cape reaching for something under the table and she tensed. Her powers had been wrong before, especially when dealing with sociopaths who believed what they said. The girl dropped an envelope on the table. It was a standard banking letter, the little holes in its side showing hints of green within.
The cape pushed it closer to Lisa. She watched the cape, then the envelope with its open top. Carefully, Lisa reached out and pulled the envelope closer. A stack of twenty dollar bills thicker than her thumb poked out of the top.
“Two thousand, in unmarked, non sequential bills.” Taylor tilted her head to one side. “Think of it as an apology for kidnapping you, and maybe as hush money for not telling the white hats that we exist.”
Lisa ran her thumb through the cash, almost not believing that it was there. It wasn’t a lot of money, in the long run, but it was enough to get a decent room for a week, or to buy a few dozen proper meals and some clothes. Her power wasn’t helping. It screamed that the girl across from her was telling the truth, that she wanted Lisa to take the money and be happy with it. “What’s the catch?”
“There is none.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me!”
Taylor smiled, a small thing, but knowing. “Very well. If you want there to be a catch... our intentions were to approach you with an offer of employment. That same amount, once a month, as a retainer. More if and when you helped us with some problems.”
“You’re super villains,” Lisa accused.
“No Lisa, we haven’t been caught commiting a single crime beyond your unfortunate capture, and that was a mistake. Someone was a little too eager for his own good. We haven’t been labelled as super villains yet.”
“Yet. People who go around kidnapping girls and throwing around this sort of money aren’t on the right side of the law,” Lisa said. Almost, she threw the wad of money at Taylor, but a little voice in the back of her mind reminded her that it was two thousand dollars.
“Yet,” Taylor acquiesced easily. “We want to change things, to make things better in Brockton Bay. The way the heroes are going about it is ineffective.”
“And you think you can do better?” Lisa shot back. She seethed at the arrogance the girl displayed, a girl at least a year her junior.
Taylor leaned forwards and there was a gleam of something predatory in her eyes. “Tell me, Lisa, if I gave you a million dollars in hard cash and told you to fix the gang problem in Brockton Bay, how much good could you do? How about ten million? What if I gave you an army of mercenaries too, armed with Tinkertech? A few corporations that have political influence? A couple of moderately powerful capes? The support of a few loyal independents? Could you improve the Bay? Could you make it so that the people who live here are safer, in better health, less likely to die as bystanders in a cape fight or take their own lives because all they see is their city going to hell?”
Lisa swallowed. She could see the fervor in the cape’s eyes. More, she could imagine the kinds of things she would do with those resources. The problem would be getting them to start with, but with what little she’d seen of the base, the guards and the small pile of cash on the table so far, it wasn’t hard to imagine that the girl across from her had all of that already.
She was good, Lisa admitted. She had put her on the back foot, then presented her with the kind of opportunity Lisa had been silently craving for a long time now. With that kind of power, Lisa could do so much. She didn’t know, exactly, what she would even want to do, but it would be impressive.
“I-I just want to leave,” her mouth said.
Taylor nodded. “That’s fair.” She reached down and into the folds of her costume, then, with a gesture that had the careless look of something practiced to perfection, she flicked a card onto the table.
The card slid to a stop before Lisa, right next to the opened envelope of cash and with its script right-side up.
White Queen
Two words that took up the entire card. Lisa picked it up and flipped it over. Contact information. A PHO account, a phone number.
“Again, I’m sorry that we ended up meeting this way. It would have been far easier to convince you to join our side had we met under better circumstances, I think,” Taylor said. “But things don’t always work out the way we want them to. I’ll have Isabella escort you out. I’m afraid that you might have to wear a blindfold part of the way. We can’t afford to have you leak out too much information about us. You of all people can understand what a dedicated Thinker could do with that kind of information.”
Lisa slid the card into the envelope with the cash and then stuffed both into her jacket. She started collecting the rest of her things. The wad of cash she’d worked so hard to get seemed like a pittance next to the money burning in her jacket. “Th-thanks,” she said.
Taylor nodded once, then slid her mask back on with a hiss and click. Soon, all Lisa could see was her own reflection in the visor. “If you’re ever in a difficult situation, feel free to give me a call. The offer for employment is still on the table, and our resources are quite extensive. If you need something, there’s a good chance we can get it for you.”
The unspoken ‘at a price’ hung in the air but Lisa heard it all the same.
Taylor, no, White Queen, spun on a heel and walked out of the room with the sort of casual grace that Lisa had only seen in fighters and dancers. For all of her eloquence, Lisa doubted that the girl was a dancer.
The door didn’t click shut before a woman stepped in. She wore a black vest over a jumpsuit covered in tiny white and grey squares. The urban camouflage did nothing to hide the handgun at her side or the rifle slung over her back. She stared at Lisa with surprisingly gentle blue eyes framed in blonde hair that was brown near the roots. “White Queen said that you were to be escorted out,” she said.
“Yeah,” Lisa agreed while trying to hide the growing pangs that ran through her temples. “Yeah, get me out of here.”