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I pounded my fists against the locker door as hard as I could. I tried to shout, beg, scream, anything that would get someone to help me, but nothing came out. Every time I tried to take a breath, I instead found myself gagging on the putrid stench of the rotten filth they had filled my locker with.
Not they. Emma. Sophia. Madison. The traitor and her cohort. That was who had trapped me in here. Alone. There must have been dozens of people in the hallway who saw them push me in here, but no one lifted a finger to help me. I was trapped, covered in filth, and I was all by myself with no one but the flies for company.
As I slowly lost myself to despair, my thoughts were interrupted by falling backward. Not through the door; it was as if the wall itself had opened up to let me through. For a moment, I thought I might have busted through the wall somehow, but what I saw wasn’t the classroom that should have been there.
Instead, I was surrounded by bookshelves. Gazing up, I could not find the top of the shelves. They simply rose up as far as the eye could see, spiraling into infinity. Lit by the occasional candle lining the frames of the shelves, they held a dizzying appearance of a tunnel into the abyss.
At the far end of the room was a fireplace. In front of that fireplace sat a thin man quietly reading a book. He was wearing what I at first thought was a corduroy jacket, but I then realized it was a mesh of small ropes tightly woven together. On his face was a set of glasses that seemed to swirl as if he were wearing two-dimensional vortexes.
My attention was drawn from the man by small hands grabbing mine and dragging me to my feet. In front of me was a tiny creature. It had short horns and a leathery tail whipping behind it. Its lips parted in a grinning snarl that revealed pointed teeth. The creature seemed to ignore gravity as it quickly brushed the remains of the locker’s filth off of me and straightened my sweatshirt.
“My Lord,” said the tiny thing, “your 9 o’clock is here.”
The man at the fire looked up at that and grinned a toothy grin. “Thank you… You,” he said to the creature. “Please, Taylor,” he continued as he gestured at the chair next to him, “be welcome as a guest in my home.”
“Said the spider to the fly,” I responded without even thinking. My eyes flew wide when I realized what I had said. I had no idea who this cape was, but he was clearly powerful enough that if he wanted, I would never be seen again.
To my relief, he only laughed. “True,” he admitted, “but I have enough flies. I want another spider.” He held out a small mug with a smile. “Tea?”
I carefully accepted the mug as I sat down. Once it was in my hands, its shape morphed slightly. As it shrank and the lip flared to form a more typical teacup shape. “Thank you,” I said, “not just for the tea, but for getting me out of the locker. I didn’t think anyone was coming.” I took a sip of the tea. Lemon ginger with a hint of honey. Not my favorite, but it was good.
“Oh, I’m afraid you’re still in the locker,” he said casually as he took a sip of his own tea.
I froze, the teacup having barely left my lips. “What?” I asked softly.
“What do you know of how a parahuman gets their powers?”
I blinked. Where was this going? “Not much,” I admitted. “They have a moment where they need powers to do something, and then the powers are there.”
“Close,” he said, “That is pretty much what the PRT would have you believe. What they don’t tell people is that it requires suffering and desperation. Many capes describe it as the worst moment of their lives. Something like being betrayed by a friend and being shoved in a locker full of,” he coughed slightly, “waste products.”
“Then I…”
“When this happens,” he continued as if I hadn’t tried to speak, “the parahuman has a vision of the multidimensional being that grants powers. Most forget these visions, but a few remember.” At that, he spread his arms and gave a small bow. “I am a multidimensional being that grants powers.”
I sat in silence for a moment before something he said caught up to me. “You switched articles.”
“Did I?”
“You said capes get a vision of the being that grants powers, but you called yourself a being that grants powers.”
He said nothing for a moment and simply poured more tea into his cup. “And what does that mean?” he asked at last.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “This is the first I’ve heard about powers coming from a being and not just… coming.”
“That is okay. Admitting that you do not know something is the first step to acquiring knowledge.” He took a long sip of his tea.
“It means that while I do grant powers to people,” he explained after a moment, “I have never done so on Earth Bet before. All powers you know come from one of two entities that are partnered together. I am a completely different kind of entity with very different goals and methods. I also grant powers in a very different way.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I make deals,” he said. “I negotiate with people, and they give me something in exchange for a bit of my power. It’s usually an employment-like relationship, but sometimes it is a one-time deal. The entities you are used to simply implant a parasite inside you at a moment of great despair and take what they want from you.”
He waved his hand, and an image of a golden crystal appeared in his palm. It was impossibly complex and hurt my eyes to look at, its shape defying geometry. “What is that?” I asked him.
“That,” he said, “Is the [Administrator], your parasite.” Reality seemed to bend around the word “Administrator,” lending it a definitive weight that a mere word shouldn’t possess.
“I’m a cape?”
“You would have been, if I had not interrupted. You might still be, if you so choose. Like I said, I offer people deals. So, here is my deal for you,” he leaned forward, brandishing the image of the Administrator, “In exchange for your connection to the Administrator, I will give you some of my power.”
“Why?” I asked. “If you already have that much power, why do you need more?”
“There is always more power to be had,” he said sadly, “And where there is more power for me to have, there is more power for my enemies to have. The Administrator works in a different way than my own powers. My hope is that, with her help, I can apply a force multiplier instead of just an additive effect. More bang for my buck, so to speak.”
I paused to consider this, “So what do I get? If I’m going to have powers either way, does it matter?”
At this, he tapped his nose. “An excellent question! Sometimes, it matters what powers you get. If you keep the Administrator, you will have the power to control all of the invertebrates around you for hundreds of meters. You will be feared as a great power among parahumans. The unrivaled Queen of Brockton Bay.” He leveled a flat stare at me. “But your power will not get you out of that locker.”
I gulped at that. “I’m going back,” I stated with resignation.
“You never left,” he reminded me. At this, he waved his hand, and a ghostly silhouette of his hand moved forward to grab his teapot. This hand brought the teapot over to refill my cup and then set the pot back on the table.
“The technique is called Mage Hand. Among other things, it can open a locker door while you are on the inside.” He spread his hands before him, as if a magician bowing after a performance. “This is merely the tip of the iceberg. Work for me, and your power will only grow over time.”
I took a deep breath as I considered his offer. “What would you need me to do?”
“For now, nothing,” he said. “But opportunities will arise for you to make…connections. I’m a deal maker, and if you put me in touch with people who want to make deals on Earth Bet, you’ll get a cut. In time, maybe I’ll annex Earth Bet. If that happens, I’ll need a governor or viceroy.”
I blinked. “What?”
“I am but a single piece of a vast empire,” he elaborated. “Everything you know; Earth Bet, Earth Aleph, and all of the other Earths attached to them that no one talks about, are single lines on a page of reality. A single line on a single page in a single book on a single shelf in a vast library. And I,” he paused for dramatic effect, “have a library card.”
“Well,” he continued after a moment, “more accurately, I know which window has a loose latch, so I can sneak in. The librarian keeps trying to throw me out. But I digress. The organization I work for is but one among many, and we are not all friendly with each other.”
He nodded with some seriousness. “We need resources. Material, industry, technology, and personnel. Earth Bet has all four in plentiful amounts, waiting for us to access them. What we need to make that happen is someone who can take the reins. Claim what you need to take control of the world and then pay a steady tithe to me.”
“You want me to be a villain?” I asked.
“If that’s what it takes,” he admitted. “I don’t care about your methods. Be a hero, or be a villain. Be loved, or be hated. So long as you make connections and help entrench my power. The more successful you are, the more power I will grant you. One day,” he gestured at himself, “you may even have my job.”
I raised an eyebrow at that. “I could be a multidimensional being that grants powers?”
“Of course!” he exclaimed. “In fact, I started my career in a similar position to where you are now. I was a lowly mortal tasked by a being beyond my comprehension to acquire the equipment they might need. I was successful enough that I was promoted. We always reward accomplishments, so you might one day be in my shoes.”
“Of course,” he continued, “to give you that much power all at once would drive you mad. Much better to let you slowly acclimate to it. Some slight madness may occur, but nothing that will break your mind.”
I thought about it for a moment as I sipped my tea. I always wanted to be a hero. It would be hard to do that with a morally ambiguous backer and while being slightly mad. But it would also be hard to do that as “Bug Girl.” Maybe I could use his strange powers to at least pretend to be a hero.
“Okay,” I said, “you have a deal.” I reached forward to shake his hand.
He took my hand in a firm but friendly handshake. “Excellent, just sign here.” With that, he produced a piece of paper and a pen. It was our agreement in writing. I quickly skimmed it and noted that even if I failed to help him conquer Earth Bet, I got to keep the power equal to what I had already sold them. Apparently, the Administrator was worth quite a bit.
“I look forward to working with you, Taylor,” he said. “If you need to reach me, just call for Mephistopheles.” With that, he snapped his fingers, and I was back in the locker.
I had a brief moment of panic, but I could feel my new power flowing through me. The ghostly form of my own hand emerged and then disappeared through the locker door. Only a few seconds later, I had opened the door and banished what filth remained attached to me with another use of my new power.
I smiled. Time to get to work.