SG/Admin: (2/2) Rough Cut #1 - Previously on the League
Eric Burns
eaburns at annotations.com
Tue Sep 20 12:21:36 PDT 2016
ROUGH CUT PART 2 OF 2 - DO NOT RELEASE
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"*Susan?!*" Alice demanded.
Elizabeth looked at Alice, then looked away, "I'm sorry," she said.
"She's ideal."
"We agreed, damn it! We agreed we would keep her *out* of this life!"
"We did. She didn't." Elizabeth showed her the file.
"She's been a vigilante for five years?" Alice asked, softly.
"Yeah."
"And you never told me?"
"She made me swear not to, Alice. She knew you were against it. Part
of you hadn't accepted how far she had come. That she wasn't a child in a
woman's body any more."
"And you let her become some vigilante of the Northeast?"
"I didn't 'let' her do anything, Alice. She followed the calling of
her blood."
"Fighting crime?"
"Hunting."
"And now you're going to use her. Use her to *hunt* the League."
"She's perfect, Alice. She's absolutely perfect. She's beautiful but
has almost as much presence as Bruce did. She can train Lochaber as well or
better than anyone -- even Rip. And she's good at what she does, Alice.
She's better than I was. She's better than you were. She's... she's as good
as Akane was back in the day."
"And look how great that turned out for Akane."
# # #
{{They're her friends, Lil,}} Elizabeth heard echo through her mind.
And with that echo she felt Alice's pain -- her pain at being protected
from a hard truth -- her pain at Elizabeth herself, as well as her sister.
{{You're asking Susan to take her friends down.}}
}{They were my friends too,* Elizabeth sent back. }{And I trust her,
Alice. More than anyone else I could ask, I trust Susan. I trust her to see
this through, and I trust her not to go too far.}{
"I... need to go jogging," Alice said verbally. "Work out a few kinks.
Sometimes, the world only makes sense when I'm running, y'know?"
"...sure. Do you know when you'll be back?"
Alice shrugged. "Hard to say."
}{But you... will be back?}{
Alice looked at Elizabeth, and despite herself, her lips quirked into
a smile. {{Moron,}} she thought back. {{You don't need to ask that. Even
now.}}
# # #
Kirby frowned. "Why doesn't the Rogers Foundation just recruit the
League into Lochaber?"
Mandy sighed. "In a nutshell? Someone doesn't want heroes coming back.
Until we can figure out who's doing it and how they're getting away with
it, we can't go legitimate."
Kirby made a face. "You're fighting symptoms, when you should be
treating the disease. If you find out who's messing with the system
*sooner* rather than later, you can maybe get it dealt with *before*
Lochaber starts making your lives *really* hard."
"Okay," Mandy said. "Tomorrow, we'll start an in-depth investigation.
But we need to do it hand in hand with protecting the city. People *die*
when we're not on the streets, Kirby. There are no acceptable losses."
# # #
"All right. What do you want, Kirby?"
"To keep the secret of the League's location, your leading them, and
all the stuff that would make Mom's blood pressure explode?"
"Essentially."
Kirby smiled a bit. "I want in."
"Kirby, we don't send *nine year olds* out into combat."
"Why not? Uncle Tim wasn't much older when he started, and I'm way
better trained than he was."
"Stuff it, kid. If it's a choice between you outing us and me
endangering your life, I'll give you my L-Phone to call your mom right now.
Here's my offer: three nights a week, after my work, I'll 'tutor' you. On
those nights, you'll help me. Call it an internship. You do what you're
told, and in return you'll get experience and see how we do things."
"And help fight crime?"
"In *support,* not on the field. Period."
"But--"
"No buts, kiddo. You stay in the base, and if you break the rules,
you're out."
Kirby's lip curled. "Aren't you scared I'll tell Mom?"
"Nope." Mandy grinned. "You like the League. You like what we do. You
don't want to see us broken up any more than we want to be arrested."
# # #
[August 1998]
Trudy cocked her head. "What did it feel like?"
"What? Betraying the closest friends I ever had -- a family who can't
look me in the eye now?" *The only man I ever loved,* she didn't say out
loud.
"Nah, I know what *that* feels like. I meant the Sensation stuff. What
did it feel like?"
"...it," Maria half-whispered. "...it was just... touch. He made me
feel like he was touching me. Good touches and bad touches -- touches that
felt wonderful and touches that felt hideously painful."
"And you ate it up with a spoon and did whatever it took to get more
of the good feeling? Including betraying the Mob, fighting them, *hurting*
them, and *beating* them? And nearly getting them killed in the process?"
"*Yes,*" Maria hissed.
Trudy nodded. "Would you do it again? If Sensation walked through the
door and offered to get you off in my office right here, right now, but
only if you punched a hole through my chest, would you do it?"
"Yes," Maria said. "If Sensation walked through the door, alive and
with his powers intact, I would kill or torture you if it meant he would
touch me for just ten seconds. I would do it for the pleasure. I would even
do it for the pain. I betrayed my closest friends for him. You wouldn't
even merit a pause."
Trudy half-smiled. "It's good to know these things. You're hired,
Silverado. I *knew* you're an addict. I didn't know if *you* knew. And now
I do."
# # #
[November 2007]
"For the record, You can call me Carillon, and you all work for me.
Internalize that fact quickly and we'll all be pretty happy. For the next
four weeks, you six are *mine,* I will train you and refine you. You will
be my weapon and my arsenal alike. Halfway through, we will announce you to
the world and begin to patrol the streets. At the end of that training, I
will oversee you as you each train six recruits of your own. Four weeks
after *that* your recruits will train six recruits of *their* own, and no
one in this city will stand before us. Do you understand me?"
"Yes *ma'am!*"
# # #
Susan moved her face next to Brick's. "If you ever -- *ever* --
challenge my authority while we are in a real combat situation, I will cut
your heart out, Michael Johannson. I will hold it in my hand while it beats
its last, and then I will bury it beneath an ashwood tree at least one
hundred years old. And a year and a day after that, your bones will tear
themselves from their coffin, the tree will animate with your tortured
spirit, and both will seek me out to serve me for a hundred years plus one.
And *they* will *never* talk back. Do you understand *that,* 'Brick?'"
"...yes..." the terrified man said in a tiny voice.
"Good." Susan smoothly took to her feet. "Get up. We need to
doubletime to catch the others."
# # #
"Susan freaking Liddell?" Darrin sounded incredulous. "Alice's
retarded sister?"
"Oh, Jesus," Maria said. "Here we go. You can't even open your mouth
without offensive slurs falling out of it!"
"I mean it," Darrin said. "I remember when she first started hanging
around the Acadely. It was like talking to a nine year old!"
"Hey!" Kirby said. "Watch your mouth."
"Sorry, l'il K -- it was like talking to a *stupid* nine year old."
# # #
"She's not disabled," Roger said, softly. "She was *never* disabled."
"He's right," Cairi said. "By the time I departed this mortal coil,
she was almost scary smart. Doctor T. did something with her, and Doctor
Burns had something to--"
"I was involved with that too," Roger said, sitting up. "We...
resolved the dissonance in her nature."
"What does that mean?" Dani asked.
"It means trouble," Mandy said, finally speaking up again. "Susan's
half faerie."
"She's as much alien as human, from our point of view," Roger said,
"After we helped her, she evolved like crazy. Sometimes, in really scary
ways."
"That's the thing," Mandy said. "She's probably the most loving person
I've met, and I'm pretty sure she'd plunge a knife into your eye without a
second thought."
# # #
"If you fight 'Carillon' herself--" Mandy said.
"We don't hold back?" Dani asked.
"You won't have the chance to hold back. I wouldn't rule out her
taking half the team down by herself. And that includes Hazard and
Reflects."
Dani snorted. "Don't go overboard, Mandy. I'm sure she's tough, but
we've got the edge on her in experience and I'm pretty sure I'm still
thermonuclear."
"Oh God," Darrin said. "She didn't just make an overconfident
statement, did she?"
"She did," Cairi said.
"Elvis damn it, we *talked* about this, Boomer," Maria said.
"Okay, okay. It all goes back to the public. The public loves us and
the cops love us. If Susan goes all alien freaky half-elf, the public won't
stand for it. If they take us out, we'll finally get enough of a backlash
to force some changes through. Seriously, it's win/win."
"Someone write down the day and time she said that," Mandy said.
# # #
"I'm going to go see the Hawaiian," Roger said.
"Parvenu, I don't want you anywhere near him," Mandy said. "He's
dangerous. You know he's dangerous."
"He knows where every body is buried, Ops. He can get us on the trail.
Hell, he might already have the answers, and he owes me like three favors--"
"Ops is right," Dani said. "This guy is major league oh my God
trouble, Rog. You know that. Don't forget everything he did -- to Trudy, to
my brother, to me, to the whole freaking world--"
"Would someone *please* tell me who the Hawaiian is?" Cairi demanded.
"There's a deal in place," Mandy said. "If we break it, even down
here, the magical pact will be broken and the Hawaiian will be free to out
us officially."
"I'm going with him," Dani said. "If that bastard--"
"No, you're not. Or have you forgotten the Galatea protocol?"
"I can *handle* it," Dani said. "I'm not going to live my life in
fear, Mandy."
"Down here it's Ops, you know that. And you don't have to live your
life in fear, because you're going to live it in anger at your unreasonable
boss who won't let you go and potentially be subverted into a weapon of
mass destruction on behalf of a war criminal. Parvenu and Incandescence
will go see the Hawaiian.
# # #
Mandy spoke louder. "*Capacitor and Reflects,* I'm really sick of this
mutual hatred. If you can't cope with each other--"
"Hey, I'm more than happy to let them shoot at her instead of me,"
Capacitor said. "It's not my fault she's an unrepentant bitch."
"I *will* kill you one day."
# # #
"I don't like the idea of you making yourself the focus of every
nutjob and gang banger in the city!" Alice almost never yelled at Susan,
but when she did... "But you and I both know the real purpose of Lochaber--"
"The *real* purpose of Lochaber is to reclaim Boston from chaos and
pain," Susan said, a slight edge in her voice. "That includes the chaotic
efforts of vigilantes."
"Oh, I didn't realize you disliked 'vigilantes' so much," Alice
snapped back. "What since you've apparently *been* one for the last *five
years* without telling me!"
"I don't like causing you unnecessary pain or worry," Susan said.
"It's not my fault you still think I'm ten years old. I'll forgive you a
lot but you have to forgive me too."
"For what?"
"Growing up."
Alice stared at Susan for a long moment.
Susan looked back, defiantly.
"I would like to have had the chance to back in 2003," Alice said
softly. "You know, right about when you started lying to me?"
# # #
"Trashman!" Parvenu said, grinning. "I shoulda known you'd be here!
Let's show these--"
"Don't you two have an appointment to get to?" Trashman said, his
voice ice.
"Come on," Incandescence said. "We got the bystanders clear. Let him
clean up the trash. It's what he does."
"Yeah," Parvenu said, watching as the dumpster detective laid out two
more with a split kick. "I just don't get why he has to do it alone."
# # #
"So why do Reflects and Capacitor hate each other so much?"
Mandy paused from her mission status screen, and looked at Kirby.
"Capacitor's a hedonist. He likes surrounding himself with all the best,
and just enjoying himself instead of working hard."
"Oh." Kirby paused. "And that's bad?"
"Maria thinks so."
"So what is she?"
"A Catholic. It goes deeper, but it comes down to they don't see life
the same way, and for whatever reason they push each other's buttons like
no one's business. And there's stuff from their time in school. And
Reflects was... there was a problem with her old team, and most of them
were students at the Academy. When Reflects left them she came here.
Capacitor made it pretty clear he was on the Mob's side. And *then* after
the war Reflec*tion* joined the A.L.U. along with Capacitor's sister, and
that just cemented everything."
"Why?"
"Because Reflection and his sister both made it in, and he didn't."
# # #
Cairi didn't speak, she just stared. She stared at the man called the
Hawaiian -- clearly named for his shirt. She stared into the blackness of
his sunglasses, eyes wide and mouth opened, as she realized she was staring
at the very disgraced, very fugitive and *very* former Special Special
Agent Richard Less, of the now defunct Mega Intelligence Bureau.
# # #
Cairi's voice sounded like a hiss. "That's Richard Less, Roger! He's
wanted for war crimes in literally every nation on Earth! He joined the
ULA, launched the Genocidal Wars with them, and helped them conquer
America! He declared himself the Dictator *of* America! Not to mention he
subverted your *own wife* into a weapon of mass destruction and called her
the second Radian!
"I know," Roger said, softly.
"Why are we even *talking* to him?"
"Because he knows things we need to know. And because...."
"Because *what?*"
"You need to know three things about the Hawaiian. First off, he
really was that dangerous, and there's a good reason everyone else hates
him. Second off, I don't hate him, even after everything with Dani, and you
know I'd gladly sacrifice my unliving soul for her. I hate who he was, and
I hate what he did, but he's...."
"He's what?"
"The third thing is this. Sometimes... sometimes, when you're a given
person, and you're pushed all the way to the extreme of that person, you
break. That person dies, and the person you become is as far away from who
you were that you're someone else, and the only rational thing to do is
accept who you are isn't who you were."
"That was remarkably circular," Cairi said.
"Maybe so. Maybe so."
# # #
"We need some information--" Roger started.
"We all have needs," Less cut in. "We need life. We need hope. We need
oxygen. We need food. We need fucking gin. Do I have any gin? No. Life
sucks sometimes." Less looked back at Cairi. "So, do I call you
Incandescence, Hellfire, Matchstick, Ms. Richards, Cairistiona, Cairi, or
'Not Christina Ricci?'"
Cairi blinked. "Wha-- how... how did you know that?"
The man smiled a wicked smile. "I'm Richard Less, Firecrotch.""
# # #
Cairi's hair began to smolder and her eyes began to glow. "I've had
just about enough--"
Less whirled and pointed at Cairi. "You say you know what I did," he
snapped. "But you haven't followed my life. You haven't seen what I've
seen. You never even saw me take a shower. You don't know anything about
me. You just know what you've been *told.* Which means you don't know
anything at all."
# # #
"No wonder they named you 'Dick,'" Cairi muttered.
"Don't ever call me Dick," Less said cheerfully. "It's not healthy."
"Not healthy? What, are you going to kill me again?'
Less whistled sharply. "Leverage!" I shouted. "Leverage! C'mere boy!"
The cutest damn dog who ever lived ambled out of the bedroom. Less
reached down and scratched him behind the ear. "You like him?" he asked.
"Yes--" Cairi said, almost involuntarily.
Less pressed the barrel of a Glock into Leverage's skull. "Good to
know. Here's how this works. If you ever, *ever* call me Dick again, I will
shoot this dog in the head. If you fail to correct your friends when *they*
call me Dick, I will shoot this dog in the head. If you do not work
tirelessly and ceaselessly to reinforce to everyone on the fucking planet
that my name is Richard Less and no one ever calls me Dick, not once, not
even to *themselves,* I will shoot this dog in the head. Do you believe me?"
"You're insane," Cairi breathed.
"Do you believe me?"
"...yes."
"What's my name?"
"...Richard."
"What do *you* call me?"
"...Mister Less?'
Less pulled the gun away from Leverage's skull. "Outstanding."
# # #
"Richard," Roger said, his voice quiet now. "We need to know who's
responsible for this."
"Define 'this.'"
Cairi still sounded angry, but she was serious now. "Giant concrete
walls in Boston. Exclusionary zones. Federal, state and local legislation
against heroes. The rise of crime in the streets."
"And we need to know why," Roger added.
I looked at them, and chuckled. "And you honestly think Chinese food
is out of the question? I may be the only one in the room with a
metabolism, but if we're gonna take that kind of time, I'm gonna get pretty
fucking hungry."
"You mean you know the answers?" The chick sounded surprised.
"What's my name?" I asked her.
"Richard Less."
"Then don't sound so surprised."
# # #
"So... but.... what middleman would be involved here? There's all
these criminal groups, but they all have different agendas," Cairi said.
"Different and *insane* agendas," Roger agreed.
"Agreed and agreed. But what do they have in common?" Less asked.
"Damn it, aside from their being criminals in the first place, there's
nothing that really ties them all together." Roger sounded frustrated.
"Nothing?" Less asked with a slight smile.
The dead kid shook his head. "Nothing. They have different goals,
different powers, different methods, different... gear...." his voice
trailed off.
"Roger?" the Cairi asked.
"Cairi... they may all be different, but... but they're all the same,
too. They have powers and gear."
She blinked and got it. "They need resources."
"Which means someone has to be supplying them! No, not just supplying
them. *Empowering* them."
"And for all their power and all their grand sounding goals, none of
them have any presence outside of Boston, which means--"
"--they have to be going to a common supplier," they answered in
unison.
Less chuckled. "Welcome to intelligence."
"So, money," Cairi said. "Low level officials, inspectors, even cops
must be getting paid off.
"It's more than that," Roger said. "Someone's got to set up the supply
lines and pass them through the walls to wherever these processing plants
or factories are, all without being noticed, all in a city that's currently
as hard to move through as a space station under martial law. That doesn't
just take money. That takes influence."
"Which only makes sense if the supplier is working towards the same
end as the people who set the walls up in the first place. They didn't just
create ghettos with the walls. They created the conditions--"
"--that led to the formation of active gangs threatening the ghettos.
And that creates fear--"
"--and fear creates the power to increase control over the population."
# # #
"You'd be surprised how much of life comes down to resource
management," Less said, dropping cheese on the floor for Leverage to eat.
"You want to field an army? You got to feed and clothe them too. So far,
you guys have had it pretty swank. Even on the run, you've got Brainy Smurf
providing you tactical info, sweating the details, making sure your yuppie
phones have their yuppie batteries. When you guys are crouched in a hovel
one door down from a meth lab and across the hall from a pack'a Net.trolls,
you're going to learn just how dearly a bag of baked Lays comes, much less
the tools you need to fight a war against shadowy overlords."
"We won't let it come to that," the dead kid said. He sounded firm.
"You should write down just when you said that," I said. "Seriously.
There's nothing that'll keep you quite as happy when you can't nail your
wife for six months 'cause she can't take her clothes off without killing
the rest of your team like reviewing that quote."
# # #
"So what is it you're providing for *us?*" the dead kid asked.
I shrugged. "Confirmation and a roadmap. What you do with it's up to
you."
"And what do you get out of it in return?"
I grinned. "I have my little projects, and it's always nice to get
some forward motion on them."
"So you're using us?"
"Oh yeah."
# # #
[August, 1997]
His pants were black, his skin and hands were stained with blood, even
though the sword was clean. He turned, looking at her with hard grey eyes.
"You're not Dreamweaver," he said softly.
"N-no," Cordelia said. "I'm... my name's Cordelia. I'm a Dreamer.
D-Dreamweaver couldn't -- there was--"
The man snorted, turning away. "They send children to see me, now?"
Cordelia shivered. "I'm no kid," she said. "My mother disappeared
within the first week of the war. There's armed troops in my city, and a
ton of the kids I've known since forever are dead now. What makes you think
there's a kid left in America?"
# # #
[November, 2007]
Snapdragon grinned. "Hey -- Cordelia, they got a codename for you yet?"
"Call sign," the requisitions officer snapped. "You don't have
codenames, you have call signs."
"Whatever. What's it going to be, Deal?"
Cordelia looked at herself in the mirror once more, smiling softly at
what she saw. "Reverie," she murmured. "Call me Reverie."
# # #
"Then we can use the paper trail to find the supplier," Incandescence
said. "And that means we can find out just who's letting them flood the
streets with chaos and using the resulting fear to exert control--"
"That's not what you do," Kirby piped up. "You've got to shut them
down!"
"What?" Parvenu turned to the boy. "I know it seems like we have to
focus on the street issue, but as long as we do that, we're really treating
symptoms of the problem instead of--"
"I know that," Kirby said, in that tone of voice young boys had -- the
one that said 'you're really an idiot, aren't you?' "That's not why we need
to shut down the suppliers! The whole setup needs the gangs to work in the
first place. Take out the supplier and the gangs will suddenly be cut off.
Whoever's using the supplier as their middleman will have to replace those
supplies and keep the gangs in gear or Boston'll start making up ground
fast. That'll flush them out of hiding and then they can be caught. And we
can get real evidence then, and that means the good cops will shut them
down, and then we win!" Kirby looked around. "Right?"
Incandescence and Parvenu looked at each other."
"How the Hell did you come up with that plan?" Parvenu asked.
Kirby shrugged. "I'm the son of Trashman and Healer."
# # #
"The Hellfions?" Incandescence asked. She sounded amused. "Not
Hellfiore, or Hellfired, or Hellfireans? Man, I sort of wish I still had a
publicist on staff, Shiny."
# # #
Kirby looked confused. "Those three. 'Sparky.' 'Shiny.' 'Boomer.' What
the heck?"
"Oh." Parvenu shrugged. "I can't help you with that.
"It's simple," Hazard said, standing back up. She pointed a thumb over
her shoulder at Incandescence. "She's Sparky."
Incandescence slid out of her chair, shifting to point at Reflects.
"She's Shiny!"
Reflects had preemptively stood already, making her own gesture back
to Hazard an elaborate, showy one. "She's Boomer! And! We are--"
The three shouted in unison, executing an elaborate move with their
arms that was somewhere between competative cheerleading, something the
Power Rangers would come up with when drunk, and the semaphore signals one
would desperately flag towards a distant boy scout camp. "Chicks! With!
Attitude!"
The three held pose for a long moment.
"O...kay," Kirby said slowly. "So... the Hellfions. They're a new
gang, then?"
# # #
"So-if-the-Hellfions-are-using-the-same-suppliers-how-can-we-turn-that-to-our-advantage?"
Reflects repeated in a slight monotone.
"Oh -- you're asking me? I'm an intern, remember?" Kirby smiled.
"Sorry -- you'd just had some good insights. I just thought--"
"I'm not saying I don't have an answer."
Parvenu turned to look at Kirby. "You do?"
"Sure. Right now the Hellfions are new -- that means they're still
getting used to how they do things, and almost everyone's a recruit instead
of a vet. Which means they're probably way sloppier than the other gangs
when going, say, to a secret base to meet with their suppliers. "
# # #
"Be that as it may," Ops said, "how do we take the opportunity this
lead represents given our current team and our current mission. Like we
said the last time this came up -- we can't risk the lives of civilians
even if it means--"
"We have to cut this off at the source," Parvenu said. "Preferably
*before* Lochaber arrests us."
"We can *totally* take Lochaber," Hazard said. "Don't even worry."
"You and your Murphy invocations," Incandescence said, grinning.
"I'll take care of it," Ordinal said, softly.
There was a pause in the room.
"You?" Hazard asked. "What -- are you going to get Rip in?"
Incandescence turned away. Silently, Reflects put a hand on the fiery
girl's shoulder.
"Rip's in the midwest doing important things," Ordinal said. "Don't
worry. I know someone who can handle this."
"You do?" Capacitor asked.
"Yes." Ordinal looked at Ops. "But he won't do it for free."
Ops frowned. "We don't exactly have petty cash, Ordinal."
"I'll pay for it," Reflects said -- she being the best off of the
team, financially. "How much are we talking?"
"Twenty five dollars a day, plus expenses."
There was another pause.
"And... this guy doesn't *suck?*" Capacitor asked. "At those prices?"
Ordinal smiled, almost nostalgically. "You haven't seen the expenses
yet."
# # #
"Oh my," Darrin said, rolling his eyes. "Is it the fifteenth already?
Where ever does the time fly?"
"Shut up. It's been a bad couple of days, all right? It's not like you
won't get something out of it, too."
Darrin pushed the door shut. "Oh, I know. How I do know. Because if
there's something that never gets old, it's having you condemn me for
liking sex during the day and then showing up unannounced expecting it at
night."
ROUGH CUT - NOT FOR RELEASE
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Elizabeth stared at the monitor.
"Told you," Alice said with a grin.
"That... was... entirely missing the point of a synopsis."
"I know, right?"
"I mean... it was longer than some posts!"
"I *know,* right?!"
"I... need to call my agent."
"What -- I don't think you can block this--"
"Block it?" Elizabeth slowly smiled. "It's episode length. I want to
get *paid* for it."
Alice paused. "Yeah, I'm calling my agent too. God I love this
partnership."
DO THEY LOVE THIS PARTNERSHIP?
DOES EVERYONE FEEL CAUGHT UP?
DOES *ANYONE* FEEL CAUGHT UP?
GOD, I NEED A DRINK.
Superguy.
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