"They're f#$%ing assholes, b," they were assholes, too. What was mom thinking? Or did someone else put this shit show together? All the adults knew just how dangerous it was to ask Andrea to use her powers for much of anything, especially when under duress and in an agitated position, and to ask her to put herself in danger to, what? Get their rocks off at the thought that they were toughening up the youngsters? Maybe they’d forgotten just who they were dealing with. Swarm, Riley, hell, even Ian were all kind of civvies, still. Hard to say if the first two had ever been faced with any tough decisions that, either way, would have real consequences for their friends and families, the people they love. Ian might get what the stakes are, he might know internal strength in the face of abject terror, but he’d never been in a position where someone he cared about was in real danger. Closest he’d ever been was in that fight with Arsen. Shit, he still played pranks on people at the high school, I mean, funny as shit pranks, but that’s hardly the point. Like, a few months ago, Alex had nearly killed her best friend’s aunt, to save lives. She knew Andrea would never forget what she saw that day, her aunt bleeding out the back of her head, or what was left of it, on the pavement, and her best friend just collapsed on top of her, hand fifty feet back from her body, bleeding like a pig on the street from a wound that had nearly put her in an early grave. Nasty shit, that day. 

And here it was, laid out before them all over again, several months later. The same buildings, same people, same lab, even Dragoon looked just like she had that day. Before the whole, ‘getting her head smashed in,’ thing, of course, but it sent shivers down Alex’s spine all the same. That really hadn’t been a good day, for Andrea, for Alex, for anyone. It was even stranger from up here, seeing it like this. Her and Andrea had gotten there after most of the fighting, like Malcolm had graciously reminded her during their conversation earlier. The view was familiar, but only because of the videos taken by bystanders in the surrounding buildings of the first stages of the fight. By the time they’d gotten on scene the crowds were already scattered, and a lot of the immediate surroundings were in pretty rough shape. Thankfully Swarm had been there to let everyone know to get down there; she saved more lives than Alex had with her actions on that day, and kept her hands. Then again, maybe most of the destruction was only because supers responded. Who’s to say? Maybe they’d be better off running simulations where no one showed up and interfered with Dragoon, see if she just took whatever it was she was there for, Sai she supposed, and left. Alex wondered if Swarm still had that laptop, a Class S super intelligence, just lying on her bed at home or something. She supposed it didn’t matter, whatever became of Sai, no doubt Anne was in the loop and wanted the thing right where it was. There were no accidents when it came to her. 

Alex was sitting, knees to her chest, against the central mainframe of the viewing room, typing faster than anyone ought to be able to type on her little go phone. She knew her mom would be pissed that they, that she, wasn’t down there, fighting this stupid hologram. It had all the makings of turning into one of their famous four hour screaming matches followed by weeks of not talking to one another. Maybe she’d be too distracted planning her wall to notice. She hated that Andrea had been put in this position, she knew it sucked having to choose between doing something that might get your friend in trouble or doing something that might get you and your friends in trouble, and that seemed really awful and unenjoyable to boot. Alex wanted to be down there, clobbering Dragoon’s ghost, for cathartic reasons, but there was no f#$%ing way she was going to let them put Andrea through this stupid shit, and there was no way she was going to leave her alone up here. Better to deal with mom later, and find something enjoyable to do in the meantime. Speaking of enjoyable things to be doing, these jackasses didn’t know what they were in for. “Oh, Annie,” this had been easier than it should have been, getting past the locks and onto the mainframe proper. The HQ was hardwired, of course, couldn’t get onto the web from a central terminal, to keep out bugs and keep in data, but it didn’t matter, --, it was a serious design flaw, but the central terminals were Bluetooth compatible, as long as one knew how to enable it. 

They shouldn’t be, it wasn’t particularly smart, but with walls like they had everything was practically in its own individual faraday cage room to room, so outside stuff was hardly a threat. Didn’t even need to install outside hardware, no doubt this was some stupid shit Anne did so she could use her tablet more conveniently, just flip a switch, and... If everything had worked properly, the Guardians impenetrable system would have been bluejacked and was now owned, by a teenager with a psyPhone Go, courtesy of Anne Scarborough herself. A few more lines, and the speaker system in the viewing room, mostly just a semi-hexagonal glorified balcony jutting out over the training room a few floors up from its faux, ‘ground level,’ with fancy one way glass floors and walls and a series of computers that looked oddly like something people in the seventies thought future computers would look like, would be playing Disturbia. The cameras in the room would be set to loop with Andrea and Alex just sitting around, Alex on her phone and Andrea doing whatever it was she was doing, --, Alex hadn’t looked up from her phone, too busy getting into the mainframe to even notice what her friend was up to, --, and if all went according to plan, she’d get up and start dancing to the music. Was it the best choice in song, given the circumstances? Hell no. Alex didn’t even particularly like it, but it had a beat, and it was easy to lamely white girl dance to, plus she had it on her phone, no interwebs needed. “F#$% them, dude. Let’s give ‘em bugs,”.