It was strange, the way life went sometimes. You were quiet, knew your way around checkpoints. You were never screened, but everyone thought you were. You slipped through the cracks of the DUP’s meticulous web across Seattle. No one raided Seattle. Too arrogant to believe they could have missed a Conduit right under their noses. And you were connected to everything. So you knew when another Conduit was in town.
He wasn’t that hard to track down, actually. He learned to zip around town, leaving obvious marks behind him and then tended to fly around with a bunch of holographic angels. He led her to the other two, who you just watched in silence and from afar. You’d gotten sloppy and accidentally hovered just out the corner of a camera’s lens.
You caught your footing and turned the corner, none the wiser until the DUP showed up to bare down on you with everything it had. You had to pulled the biggest blow of power you ever had and you were officially on the watchlist as “more dangerous” than Delsin Rowe. You scared them by slipping through. You were more than capable of handling yourself, but the boys needed training... desperately. Eugene was an easy fix, games with multiple positions to be jumped around. He hated Madden, but he soon learned to control all of his angels at the same time so they weren’t just flying around like over-powered hummingbirds.
Delsin... was a bit more distracted. He was constantly off to save the world one way or another. And he was soo sloppy. You got him into the blueprints for DUP modifications, live plan-changes, and he flies up to every camera to destroy satellite towers and take apart busses.
You had the most evolved power out of you all. If you could think it, you could make it. And sometimes, make things happen. It was hard to explain and neither boy had this particular trait. Delsin was all for it and he even grabbed your arm, but he received nothing. You suspected you needed an adrenaline rush from both of you to sync up your bodies enough to transfer your powers, but you weren’t going to tell him that.
Stuck in the dark for fear of conflict, you helped Delsin gain Augustine’s power and trap her in her own element. You made the perfect cage for her until the Conduits you all could scrap together made the decision on what to do with her.
You expected them to demand her death. It surprised you when many came to her defense. While Curdun Cay was no palace, they weren’t injured. They’d been safe with their own kind. It was suggested that she needed help and training... like they had.
“No!” you barked back at the man with the pointed noise.
He held his hands out, appeasingly. He watched the holograms materializing around you, flickering into existence while energy simmered off of you like any other Conduit element. The woman behind him watched with learning eyes.
“I refuse,” you settled firmly.
Delsin held his hands out to Brooke Augustine, who’s hands were bound and locked, but was otherwise free and in her own clothes. “Someone has to watch her.”
“Eugene,” you offered. There were only so many Conduits you trusted trusted.
Delsin gave you an even look.
You tilted your head. Okay, fair. “Fetch.”
“Fetch knew her in the prison. She’d not unbiased.”
You stepped closer to him. “Neither am I! I’ve been running from this bitch for seven years,” you explained loudly. “I have no kindness, no sympathy, no patience. She tests me, she dies.”
Augustine started at the implication that she borne that kind of fear and hatred. To see it close up, her own kind shying from her even when she was powerless. It was the kind of power she needed in the military, not around young Conduits she made afraid.
Delsin slowly inched toward the door, a half-way expectant grin perked on his mischievous face.
You faced him with hands out. “Wait, where’s she gonna sleep?” you called. You lived in an apartment, which Delsin had brought the director to, with only one bedroom and very limited space.
He shrugged as he slipped out the window. The neon around Augustine’s wrists slowly vanished. She rotated her wrists and regarded you evenly. “I could always find my won accommodations.”
Holographic locks materialized in front of the doors and windows, and they all clicked with more locks than they actually had. “You’d be dead before you left the complex,” you promised, turning to walk into the hall. You opened a door and pulled out a few blankets. You set them on the couch arm-rest and kicked the wooden frame. Almost making a show out of it, you pulled the cushions off, never taking your eyes off the Concrete Queen. You grabbed the metal handle-bar beneath where the cushions went and pulled it out. It was already dark by the time he’d come to the conclusion you’d be caring for her. It was nearly midnight by the time he got her there and it took very little time to explain the why. You set up the fold-out bed and turned your back to go to your own bed.
You’d settled in by the time he finally called. You sat on your bed, blankets over your pajama-clad form, book in hand. Marking it, you set it down to pick up the vibrating phone. “You better have a better solution than a shrug.”
“Where is she?” Delsin asked through the phone.
You leaned to the side, finding her clothes on the floor by the couch and the covers shielding the lump of her body shape. “My fold-out couch.”
“Is she asleep?”
“Doubtful.” You sat straight again. “Are you even sure she sleeps?”
“She’s human. She did the best she could with what she had.”
“She was wrong.”
“So was I, once. I need you to help her like you helped me.”
You rolled your eyes. “You needed holographic projection lessons. She needs... a moral compass transplant. Not the same degree.”
“Just, get her back into the world. See how Conduits really are. Help her help people for real.”
You groaned. “You suck,” was your only answer.
You could hear the smile in his voice. “Thanks,” he sang like the annoying turd he was. “Try to get some sleep.”
“Yeah, that’s likely.”
*~*
Just like you suspected, you didn’t sleep. But Augustine did. You’d already made breakfast and done laundry before she started to stir. Her plate was on the counter when she sat up, her hair a nest still in its bun. “Breakfast,” was your cold greeting. “Or technically lunch. You slept in.”
She started moving, cordially folding your blankets and making the couch back into a couch. She ate in her underwear and you turned the A/C down just a few notches before dropping her concrete-free, clean and warm clothes on top of the blanket on the armrest.
You were already dressed and sipping coffee in between doing the dishes you’d used for breakfast.
When she was dressed and her hair was done, she stood awkwardly, looking uncertain. It wasn’t a look you’d seen on her before, but you didn’t mind it.
“I figured for your redemption track, first step is getting you doing the right thing for once. Then, we’ll work on getting what you’re doing back into the public eye. Community Service, volunteer work came to mind, but I’m not leaving you alone and I’m not risking you joining Lifeline. So! Today...” You held out a helmet. “We’re taking out DUP signs.” She took it and you went for the door, turning back to face her. She followed like the soldier she’d been trained to be and you guided her down the halls before you both walked down the DUP-infested town.
Civilians shied away from the feared former director. You took no notice as you led her to one of her checkpoints. The platforms were entirely out of concrete and you punched video energy at a tower topped with speakers. It came tumbling down and the civilians screamed and ran. You spared a bit of energy to heal one caught in the crossfire before rolling your eyes and facing the stunned ginger. Your arms resumed the position of one across your middle and one elbow propped on the wrist of your horizontal one. “Take it down,” you commanded.
She just stared at you before looking at her masterpieces. “You must be-”
“I’m not,” you answered evenly.
You would’ve made a good soldier, Augustine noticed. An even better general. Or a trainer at Curdun Cay. Her cold brown eyes appeared almost gold in the sun. Not to mention the fire being born in her eyes. “Do you have any idea how long-” she started again.
You rolled your eyes again, stepping away. “Seven years, blah blah, protecting Conduits, blah blah. As one of the people who spent the past seven years terrified of you, I know how much energy and effort you put into this. I put just as much energy and effort into escaping it and you, rendering your precious organization useless.” You pointed at the tower again, glancing at the triangle towers to make your next target. “Now, take it down or I will take it down for you.” Your voice hardened with fury, the air charging with video waves. Small manifestations of holograms shown red and black, intimidating Augustine by accident as you broadcasted your rage.
She gaped at the image of your anger at her actions, her existence. This was more than seven years pent up. “I cannot imagine what I did to make you hate me so.”
Your power died out as you laughed coldly. “You don’t remember,” you wheezed, unable to contain yourself. You glared with her with icy amusement. “That’s okay.” You held your fist out to the cement, deep scarlet energy penetrating the hard structure. You grabbed her bicep with an iron fist. “If I did to somebody what you did to me, I wouldn’t want to remember either,” you rasped in a coarse voice, tense with emotion. Jumping, your holographic wings flapped and took you both into the air.
