Luminous Beings

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Lynn

Lynn had only a brief moment of animalistic joy as Salamandra roared in pain before the woman was on her again. Lynn had attempted to scramble away and put some space between them, but the floor was slippery from being only semi-solid at this point, and Lynn's ruined shoes did not contribute to her steady footing. In fact, Lynn had started to sink down into the floor as she stood, which was not going to bode well when one of them ran out of juice. If we got sealed in this shit when Archie comes out, we're dead. As she stumbled backwards Salamandra was on her, bringing her head down to smash Lynn's face with her own.

At this same time, Lynn's mind was processing what her next steps were - calling it a plan was overly generous, but she had two steps figured out as her stomach cramped once again. The third, most likely, was getting choked to death by Salamandra or eaten by Archie - or, at a distant third, devoured by the skull beast walking around outside. A pleasant but incredibly unlikely fourth possibility was that Keaton was able to MacGyver a high-powered rifle out of egg rolls and discarded forks in the back and proceeded to kill all three with one bullet.

Lynn's next step was going to be a doozy. She had about five seconds, she reckoned, before she could pull it off.

But in-between that and step two - which was Archie breaking through that wall and clawing apart everything in his way, Lynn knew what she needed to do. If Keaton managed to get through to him, I can't be glowing when he comes, Lynn thought. And I need to get clear from this bitch, which is not -

Lynn tried to twist her face, to bring her forehead down to intercept the blow, but she had no positioning and not enough time. Salamandra's forehead smashed into her nose and Lynn felt the lightning-flash pain of her nose breaking for the third time in her life. Lynn screamed, her flames scorching up and disintegrating the rest of her clothing as well as a good deal of Salamandra's, filling the air around them with more putrid smoke. Lynn's eyes watered from the pain and she felt a boiling trickle of blood rush down her nose for a moment, but Lynn forced herself to sideline the pain for just a second. She needed just a second more.

Her stomach cramped tight enough to make her think, for one brief, pain-addled moment, that she was pregnant, and her legs went weak. Lynn stopped struggling to pull herself away from Salamandra, trying to pull herself in closer instead. Under the woman's iron grip, this was easy. She reached up and grabbed the back of her shirt as best she could reach - Lynn had wanted the back of her hair, but there was no such luck there, Lynn was far too short - and Lynn hurled up three meals' worth of Chinese food up onto her attacker. She was aiming for the eyes, but trying to maintain any semblance of accuracy when your eyes are full of tears and smoke and your head is ringing from a probable concussion is somewhat difficult. Lynn spewed, and spewed, and gasped and spewed again.

A particularly disgusting, but noteworthy fact about Lynn is that her internal body temperature is hotter even than her outside body temperature. When she commits as much as she has in a fight such as this, her stomach burns like a blast furnace. A great deal of Lynn's energy had gone into keeping the acidic bile that now dripped off Salamandra as superheated as the rest of her. Shaky from the impact and from hurling, Lynn couldn't help but grin (a tooth was knocked out that she did not even register) at her masterpiece. A sludge of well over a thousand degrees, acidic, foul-smelling, and overwhelming in volume had torn the lining off Lynn's throat and had splattered onto Salmamandra. Eyes and hands, Lynn thought. Please try to cover your face or my mouth.

Lynn was no chemist, but she had a rudimentary understanding of heat transfer just by nature of her powers. Best Lynn could figure, they had a nice little bubble of superheated steam around them that wasn't going anywhere, and was keeping the two of them nice and warm and toasty. Lynn was firing as much of her energy as she could into Salamandra, and as close as they were, this bitch had to be working overtime to be taking it all. Lynn knew she could not maintain this for very much longer, but if her gamble - her only real shot at winning - was to work, she wouldn't have to. She didn't know how efficient the older woman's powers were, but what felt to Lynn like thirty gallons of boiling vomit had to put a dent in her capacity. Lynn was fully aware that trying to super-charge her opponent to the point of combusting was not, perhaps, the soundest strategy, but if Lynn had been committed to the soundest strategy she would have walked out with Natalie and gotten clear.

It's not every day you get to throw up on a childhood icon. Let alone a murderer. Let alone whatever Salamandra would've been if she'd taken Archie.

Lynn had hoped she could keep a lid on the rather explosive mixture of adrenaline and a full stomach until Archie had come out to play, thinking that even the lizard's scales couldn't take liquid that hot, but that had not panned out. Now it just meant she'd have to go find a real big stick to beat his ass with once she finished up Salamandra - or so she told herself. Lynn tried to gather her strength to break free from Salamandra, but she was stunned for just a moment - there is physiologically just about no way to deal with projectile vomiting and getting your nose broken within five seconds and stay in fighting shape throughout. Lynn shook her head (a terrible idea - her nose split open with pain once again) and tried to gather herself, but she knew Salamandra's next hit was coming. She tensed, readying for the blow - either my nose or my snatch, I'm guessing.

"You still hungry now, bitch?" Lynn spat, a thick clot of superheated blood splattering onto what pitiful shreds remained of the older woman's clothes. She gasped for air. How much oxygen are we burning? Lynn wondered vaguely. The two of them were causing some serious damage to this place, and one way or the other, it couldn't last much longer. Anytime now, Gennedy, you worthless fucking fascist, anytime now.

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Lynn

Cordelia Lynn Holmes was no one's fool, although she certainly felt like one for a brief moment.

There were a fair number of skills that Lynn had acquired that are worth mentioning here. Firstly, Lynn had learned a long time ago the very valuable and difficult lesson that comes from getting punched in the face, really hard. It sucks. It's unpleasant. Your head spins, your ears ring, your thoughts scatter like the employees of this Chinese restaurant when Salamandra walked in.

But you also learn you aren't made of glass. When you can piece yourself back together from anything short of an atom bomb given enough time and calories, doubly so. If it was going to have killed you, it would have done it then and there, Lynn always figured. So drop an f-bomb and keep swinging.

Second, Lynn had learned how to get her ass kicked before. This is a rarer brand of wisdom. Most people can take a punch, but few people can take an absolute ass-beating. The deep, primordial knowledge of knowing that someone has more power than you and can do whatever they want to you is harrowing. If this was someone's initiation into the ass-beaten community, they may have panicked, or screamed, or shut down entirely. Curling up on the ground and trying to take it was not the most unreasonable of responses.

However, Lynn had spent a pretty mean stint in parahuman juvy, where damn near everyone was bigger than her and got real tired of the shit that came out of her mouth. With Spoon's favorite kind of necklace on, there wasn't much Lynn could do but grind her teeth together and take it. Lynn had gotten the shit beaten out of her more times than she could remember.

Salamandra was just the bitch who elbowed her in the face this week.

Now, Lynn would be the first to admit that she had not expected whatever judo bullshit Sally had pulled on her, and Lynn would probably go further to describe martial arts as a whole as "some pussy stuff you do when you can't really fight". However, Lynn also had enough pain tolerance and punched-in-the-face discipline to know that wouldn't help her. Lynn also had known Salamandra had fire powers, but not whatever specifics she was packing. Lynn was a bit too busy trying to put this bitch down to stop and really contemplate all the possibilities there. So, Lynn all in all would say Salamandra was a dirt underhanded bitch, which she would perhaps have anticipated better had she not rushed in headlong. And in all fairness, her last fight ended when she set off a DIY nuclear warhead in a kitchen, which was as close to underhanded as it got. Secondly, Lynn felt the brief jolt of fear from Sal reaching out and grabbing her - which shut down about Plans A through Y that Lynn had cooked up for most fights, and let it push her harder. Lynn's jaw hurt, but she'd been hit worse, and knew that if you slowed down to think about it, you just got hit again. Lynn knew the next hit was coming, and didn't care when it came. The flip side, Lynn thought, Is she can't hurt me with heat either.

Lynn's stomach cramped for a brief moment, and the back part of Lynn's mind - the part that wasn't getting her ass beat, took very careful note of that, as well as the glimpse of Archie starting to stretch out, sitting perfectly still. Shot clock's on, Lynn thought to herself. It would've been regardless. The corpse outside would've come in or something. Lynn was burning pretty intensely - not as hot as she could maximally go, but Lynn was looking to kill this bitch.

There were a few minor problems with that. For starters, Lynn could feel her heat being wicked away about the time the sprinklers above exploded with the harsh shrill of the fire alarm. Water rained down around them and sizzled off her and Salamandra alike. She didn't know if it was going to be more of a detriment to her or to the would-be rapist, but Lynn figured at the rate her day had been going, it was safe to assume the former. Second, she was still currently on the floor, which began to melt as Lynn crashed down onto it. Not one to sit still, she was already rolling as Salamandra brought her foot down. Once you got on the ground, you were dead. Everyone could kick your teeth out, and even though Lynn wouldn't have known the fighting terms for it, she knew you didn't have leverage or options. Staying off the ground was one of the first things she'd learned from the academy of running her mouth too much. One of the few advantages of being Lynn's size was that she was a lot quicker than most of the people she fought. Salamandra would probably smoke her on any given four hundred meter sprint with those long legs, and could out-wrestle her for days, but an extra step or two for her was more time than a step or two for Lynn. It was clear Salamandra knew more fighting techniques than Lynn, but Lynn was no stranger to a fistfight. She kept her cool as her body reached the sort of temperatures you need for blast furnaces. As Salamandra's foot came down Lynn was up in a crouch and dodging the blow, half a second ahead of her. When Lynn got hit, which was frequently, she kept moving. You still got hit that way, but not as badly. As Lynn pulled herself up she braced herself for the next hit, letting the pain drive her on. Lynn had fully expected not exactly this, but the Promise to try and take her out. She didn't know what Salamandra's angle was, but Lynn was fighting for her life, and she was ready.

There was a quick, adrenaline-frenzied whirlwind of thoughts. Cramp. Cramp. She's not fazed by the heat. She's glowing. That's something, I can do something with that. I'm at waist height. Sprinklers. Smoke. I'm below her - smoke in her eyes. Archie. Keaton. Clothes. Lynn grunted and flared as much as she could, forcing another blast of acrid smoke from her clothing up directly above her - where Salamandra was looking down. She may have been able to eat Lynn's fire, but Lynn had yet to meet someone who didn't gag at a cloud of burnt polyester. The corona of heat around Lynn brightened even as it shrunk, devoured by Salamandra and the dowsing sprinklers. Lynn's skin glowed like burning coals, shimmering across more and more of her bare skin, as most of her jeans had burnt away and her shoes were becoming a melted, runny mess. The phoenix across Lynn's back danced with the blues and reds and golds of her hair, and might have been beautiful if she wasn't about to die.

Lynn didn't know to what degree Salamandra was sapping away her strength. Keaton had shouted she was absorbing her heat, which was curious. Just the heat. Okay, we can work with that. Lynn hoped Keaton was running to grab a crowbar and knock Archie out while he was still transforming, but that seemed to not be her plan. Best Lynn could figure, he was completely out of it while he was shapeshifting, and while she didn't enjoy the idea of giving Archie brain damage, it seemed like the most surefire way of keeping the lizard from coming out. I could knock him out with smoke, Lynn thought, If I wasn't having to deal with this bitch. Without her power, Lynn was only as strong as all ninety-five pounds of her would allow for, which lost to this five foot eight, hundred eighty pound sack of human garbage every time. She could still feel that energy running through her, but it was all getting eaten by her as soon as it ignited along the surface. Fortunately, Lynn didn't need to have all her strength for the half-baked plan she had in mind. She needed maybe fifteen seconds, and one good window, and then she was going to go put the lizard to sleep for the second time. Lynn's jaw screamed with pain, but she forced it down. She could spit out her teeth when this was over. I think it's about even, Lynn thought. Lynn figured she'd have the upper hand on strength if she could shut down her absorption, somehow, but at least they were roughly square. That was more than Lynn was used to. More than the fucking lizard gave me, at least.

There was one other thing Lynn was pretty sure would work, because it had worked on literally everyone Lynn had ever met. Lynn, Salamandra's left leg beside her, shifted her weight for a split second before throwing as much force as she could into a punch at her target, a foot away and off-guard from Keaton's shout.

Salamandra's groin.

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Lynn

Cordelia Lynn Holmes was a great many things, but wise enough to avoid taking the bait was most assuredly not one of them.

Since Lynn had come on-board the Promise, she'd had a noose around her neck just loose enough to let her breath. Strapped and collared on the flight. Bound to a bed and told she wasn't medically clear to leave. Detained for something she wasn't remotely involved in by the sort of security force Lynn could only assume was literally making a game of seeing how far they could fit their heads up their own asses rather than stop these freakshows. She couldn't knock Natalie's teeth out for narc'ing on them, she couldn't slap Amelia for coming and talking to her at the cafeteria, and she couldn't knee Archie in the groin for picking flowers for every bitch who looked at him twice on this station. Up until juvy, Lynn had not ever dealt with that shit. If you insulted her, Lynn made a diss track. If you slapped her, Lynn punched back. And if you punched her, Lynn burned your fucking world down.

Lynn was five feet closer to Salamandra before she made her feet stop moving. "Keaton get the fuck out before I glass this bitch," Lynn spat out, some back corner of her mind that was desperately trying to hold back the rest, like a child trying to stop the ocean from demolishing his sand castle. And a kid was what Salamandra had made her fucking feel like. You were the one, Lynn wanted to scream, if the deep down parts, the Che parts and the Lucy parts and the cold parts, could even admit it, You were the one that was never fucking afraid. Lynn was Salamandra when she was getting beat in, or beaten by the six foot two hundred pound bitches in juvy, powerless and frail as any other hundred pound girl, curled on the floor. Lynn was Salamandra when they'd made her burn. When they'd - when they'd laughed. You didn't laugh at someone who wasn't your bitch. And Cordelia Lynn Holmes was not anyone's fucking bitch.

Not ever again.

"You Nelson Mandela sounding fuck," Lynn said back. She'd taken her hoodie off, sometime, she wasn't sure when. Lynn's hair was white, her eyes burning to match, and around her the air shimmered and broiled, the bottom of her shoes just barely starting to run out onto the floor. Where Lynn's knuckles split as she clenched them tight, steam rolled from the cuts as her superheated blood met whatever cool air was left around her. Visibly, the food in her belly had already begun to shrink. "You belong in the pen. You're Gennedy's little bitch."

Lynn spared one moment to glance at Archie, curled on the floor, grasping at his knee. Get the fuck up, Boats, Lynn thought. I -

Salamandra's next words cut through Lynn's thoughts.

She wanted a date. Archie was sixteen, seventeen?

He hadn't had any fuck-ups 'til tenth grade.

There was a man, older, screaming on the floor, his left hand smoking from the fingertips, the number Lynn had dialed in her right idly forgotten, she was gone -

"Lynn, they tried to - "

"They tried what? They tried fucking what?"

Lynn walked towards Salamandra. Ten feet. Nine. Eight. This fat bitch was probably nine, ten inches taller. Maybe eighty pounds. Lynn was going to make her eat her own fucking heart.

"Square up." Lynn hissed, hands rising to her jaw. Along the knuckles, Lynn's skin burned bright enough to hurt the eyes, and her tanktop burned and split where it came in contact with her skin, the acrid smell trailing off her. Where Lynn exhaled, there was a brief flicker of blue flame that traced her breath.

The Fire Worms were a bunch of pussies anyways, and the West Coast had shitty rap.

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Lynn

Lynn learned several things over the course of their brief dinner. The first was that her hunch about Archie not having any kind of a criminal past was backed up by his own admission - she didn't know anybody from her neck of the woods who had made it to tenth grade, let alone gotten there with a squeaky clean attendance record. Lynn did not enjoy admitting that there was the slim chance Archie didn't have some angle on this whole operation - so she didn't. There were still too many pieces missing from the puzzle for Lynn to look at the back of the box and say it was decisively a pic of Archie not being an asshole deep down. With enough time, the skeletons in everyone's closet started to rattle, and Lynn wasn't going to assume he didn't have a graveyard back there just because he had a drawl and a puppy dog smile. So what got you strapped down on their rocketship, Boat Farmer? Lynn wondered. She figured there was a good chance the lizard killed somebody, but Archie seemed remarkably well-adjusted if that was the case. Who knows, though, Lynn thought. Didn't Dahmer work at a suicide hotline or something? Keaton proved herself to be what Lynn had suspected as well. Smart. Lynn had a feeling that Keaton wasn't looking to make any enemies, but she wasn't looking to make any friends, either. What Lynn figured by that was that Keaton was willing to lie to the authorities insomuch as she could do it with her ass covered, which Lynn found partially annoying, but respected. At the very least, she wasn't still in the police station, like a certain black plague carrying, steel trap triggering rat that Lynn could think of.

Then Lynn learned she was right about Natalie too. You didn't tell the truth, you snake, Lynn wanted to scream. The truth is what they throw at you in the courtroom when you can't afford a good attorney. The truth is what you think you saw and what you told them in holding. There was no truth on the Promise. If they had so many cameras and a machine listening to their words, Lynn had no doubts they had all the truth they needed. Lynn reckoned this one would go marching to the electric chair telling herself it was just a pretty lightshow. Lynn had another, more fitting lightshow in mind, but there was no sense in escalating things here. Dumb as she may be, she's a deterrent, Lynn thought. Like a big, dumb, cop-loving nuke. It was just as likely to go off and kill her, Lynn figured, but whatever the Promise had up its sleeve was a little bit slower to go off with the two trigger-happy juggernauts at her side. Not, to clarify, to say that Lynn was scared of anyone or anything. She just had business to settle, and Natalie had earned the covetous position of being further down the list than she was the previous day.

The waitress bringing food helped settle things tremendously. Again, Lynn started when Archie reached over her for a moment, but her shoulders came back down after only a second. Old habits. Lynn set to devouring everything that was put before her, eating with no semblance of grace or manners. In lock-up, they had maybe twenty minutes total to eat, including waiting in line to get food. Beforehand, Lynn had not been so culinarily deprived as Natalie, but she'd been in the same ballpark. Fast food was a bit of a fancy splurge out for her, and Lynn was leaning into the mentality that any given meal might be the last, whenever Gennedy decided to punch her ticket. So, she figured a pound and a half of Chinese food in ten minutes wasn't the worst way to go. Besides that, Lynn was eager to put some more meat on her bones. Before yesterday, Lynn had entertained the notion she might actually gain some weight and maybe manage to squeeze another inch or two out of her spine here on the Promise, but she didn't imagine she'd be around long enough for that to happen now. Still, Lynn's furnace went through a lot of coal. Better to keep it fed.

Lynn stopped eating when she saw Salamandra walk through the front door - the very reason Lynn had sat with her back to the exit (much as the clatter behind her had pissed her off). Lynn's mind went whirring and processing to place a name to a face. Wasn't she locked up? Lynn thought. Che had mentioned something about her, and for a heartbeat Lynn wasn't in a Chinese restaurant, she was sitting on the floor beside an easy chair held together by duct tape and cigarette-burn-scars, Che's dark eyes staring ahead, talking to himself more than her, with Lynn clinging to his every word. "We could be like the Fire Worms, I mean really put a fucking name out there. They want to kick me out? Fine. Don't fucking need them. Don't fucking need any of them". He swirled a bottle of beer in his left hand, the back of his right hand held to a busted lip, nursed on the cold of a ring.

"I could be a Fire Worm," Lynn said. The others couldn't, she knew, but she could, she could be firepower enough for all of them if she had to. She looked down at her arm, bruised black by the wrist, but her tattoo was starting to come in, she thought, and -

"Yeah," Che had said, staring ahead. He took another drink. "Salamandra knows what the fuck she's doing. A dozen like her and I could run this fucking city."

Lynn looked down at the side of the chair, resting a short finger against the cloth, letting her touch burn a hole in the side -

"Look alive," Lynn muttered under her breath. Lynn looked outside and saw - Christ. Her nose wrinkled instinctively. Lynn had seen some shit before, but something like that was not anything anyone could see and reasonably not take a second to process. Still, there'd be time to throw up about it later (a real possibility, Lynn thought, as the rapidly-devoured meals sat swirling in her stomach). Lynn started to say they needed to shut the fuck up and stay seated, but everyone flipped at the exact same moment. Spoons was staring past Salamandra - don't fucking stare at her, Spoons, that's asking to get your ass kicked - into the spirit world and Archie had gotten up, tried to run away, and gotten caught by her. Yeah, I believe you made it to tenth grade without any fuck-ups. Clearly nobody ever beat you up if that's how you run away. She roasted him a bit but nothing serious, Lynn thought. Archie would be fine if he didn't do anything dumb, like becoming a giant lizard.

Lynn's mind, at that moment, had a great deal to consider in a very short amount of time. Lynn, for all of her rationalizing and paranoid thinking, was not really much of a thinker. She was more instinctual. She could play the game and try to out-fox when she had to, but that was a means to an end. Lynn trusted her gut. Figuring out the fifteen ways in which Gennedy had likely bugged her apartment was the sort of rationalism built over the foundation of he's going to hurt you and not any kind of clearly-articulated thesis Lynn could put together. So Lynn glanced over Salamandra and tried to piece together the first reaction she could have based off the clusterfuck that ewnt down.

One. Guy outside. Nasty. Tough. Don't want to tussle with that. Killer. Could probably take him. Why bother?

Two. Works with Salamandra. She putting out hits on innocents now? Didn't seem like her style.

Three. She's in scrubs. Salamandra either broke out dressed as a nurse or something's fishy there. No fucking MD's for her in LA.

Four. Archie's going to get actually killed if he goes lizard. That means everybody else too, and Spoons is just going to make things worse.

Five. That hit from the Promise is coming, and this sure as hell looks like it.

Five point five. Salamandra isn't the type to do anybody's dirty work, I don't think. Maybe she'd kill some kids, but I don't know if she'd do it because the jailers told her to. Maybe. Maybe not. Doesn't explain those scrubs.

Six. If this is a breakout, I want the fuck in.

"Salamandra," Lynn said. She stayed seated in front of her food, hands on the table. Lynn was perfectly willing to throw down with her, although even in the most delusional corner of her mind, Lynn didn't favor their chances. Lynn had ridden with some tough crowds, and gotten through more than a few tough scrapes, but she knew Salamandra was a league above. Still, there was four of them and one of her. Two. There's whatever the fuck R.L. Stine motherfucker is outside. No, she said them. There's more. Lynn kept her cool, trying to keep an ear out for anything behind them other the panicked running of the restaurant staff. I'm about to blow a hole in another kitchen, aren't I? "Some of us are here under the needle too. Maybe we want in if there's something going on, if we know what it is." Lynn rolled her sleeves up, baring her tattoos. "So if you're looking for company, maybe I'll buy dinner."

There was enough distance that, if Salamandra wanted to whip her ass for that, Lynn could scramble back. If she snapped Archie's neck in retribution, not much Lynn could've done anyway. She was a bit comfortable playing with Archie as a hostage, because she figured in a worst case scenario, he went croc and Lynn could scamper away in the chaos. Some part of her, though, seemed to twist over. Good enough to eat? Lynn turned to Keaton and tried to shoot her a knowing glance. What the fuck is going on here, Denim? was mixed with Thanks for not doing any dumb shit like Spoons and Boat Farmer Before turning her eyes back towards Salamandra but pointedly not directly in her eyes. "Don't mind her," Lynn said, gesturing to Spoons. "She was just on her way out." Lynn figured Spoons could handle herself outside - she could probably bitchslap the Skull Guy back to Earth if she had to - but in here she was going to tweak out and piss Salamandra off. That meant Archie tweaking out, which meant everybody died. If I die, nobody finds out about this shit, and the kids keep getting the needle. Plus, maybe Salamandra was onto something here. If she was a prisoner, Lynn had a feeling she wasn't getting anything close to due process. Lynn couldn't really fault a sister for a little jailbreak. Now, the murdering random women on the street, that did admittedly push Lynn a little closer to the "fuck this bitch and anyone who looks like her" side of things, but Lynn was enough on the fence to hear her out, should Salamandra be in a talking mood - and Lynn figured after five years in lockup, she just might be.

And if one thing was for sure, if Gennedy wasn't behind this, the clumsiest of hits, she was going to rotisserie cook his ass for being incompetent enough to let this happen again.

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Lynn

Archie had seemed to know where he was going, which Lynn wondered if that was some subset of his powers or something. Don't lizards have like internal compasses and shit? Lynn thought. Maybe that was birds. Lynn studied him from behind as he walked in and got a table, smiling at the hostess. No, wait, he just had time to walk around when I was in the hospital. Lynn frowned, making the scar across her nose deepen a bit. I don't like this place. It was big and open and Archie had gotten them a booth in the middle of the restaurant, which Lynn grimaced at. She sat on his side - figuring it was probably wise not to sit next to Natalie, all things considered - halfway off the booth seat, with her back pressed up against it. She was situated where she could see the restaurant's entrance from where she sat, although the flurry of commotion from behind her made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

This white guy then brought tea, which made Lynn blink. She had never had hot tea. The guy reached across her to put it down before Archie and Lynn visibly tensed for a minute before unclenching her jaw and exhaling slowly. It's different here. Lynn grabbed her hot tea after Archie passed it to her, muttering a thanks as she looked down into the liquid. It stayed boiling hot in her hands, which didn't bother her, but Lynn had no idea if that would affect the flavor or whatever. She sipped on it and wrinkled her nose. Ugh. Lynn sat it down but kept a hand near it, her small fingers drumming the table. Archie said thanks for looking out for him, and Lynn glanced back at him for a moment, taking her eyes off the door. Lynn had two simultaneous thoughts, each furiously vying for her attention: He stayed with the snitch and Archie is not Che. Lynn opened her mouth and closed it. "Yeah," she said back, lamely even to her. She didn't know what to say to shit like that. Lynn wasn't watching out for them, not really. If they got taken down, Lynn's ass was as good as dead. And she figured the clock was already ticking - especially with Amelia taking her sweet, sweet time back in the station - but Lynn wasn't one to roll over and die. Lynn looked up at Keaton to ask how her powers worked but closed her mouth. Cell phones. Cara's listening. Lynn chewed on her lip as she opened up the menu, not recognizing or knowing how to pronounce anything on the menu. Isn't there General Tso's or some shit? Lynn wondered. What was a dim sum? She didn't really care. She was real hungry, and the bright side to realizing the clock was ticking was that she didn't need to worry about conserving credits. Lynn for a moment considered telling them to bring out enough food for one day in Beijing and that she'd foot the bill, but decided against it.

Archie asked them how the interview went, which did admittedly pique Lynn's interest. Spoons is about to start sweating out some of those steroids, Lynn thought, her dancing fingers an inch away from her teacup, looking back over at the two of them. Now this was where the game got dangerous. They were listening. They had to be. Or maybe being followed or something. The oh-so-friendly AI peeking out around every corner. No way. If Lynn even had a cell phone, she would've snapped it in half the minute she heard that robot chatter. But Gennedy had admitted it had blind spots. Unless he's really setting us up, Lynn thought, They've got blind spots in the woods. Could the whole thing have been charades? Lynn gave it a moment's thought. Maybe the heartless Gen Man was letting them go so they'd go off in the woods, where it was "camera-free", and get caught plotting. It was possible. But Lynn didn't see the point. If they wanted to pin a case on her, they could just go ahead and do it. Not like she had a lawyer to defend herself. The boy was what swayed her. They've got that new puppy running around, nipping at their heels. No way he keeps his trap shut about that. "Interrogation," Lynn said. "Wouldn't give me a lawyer and bent a table in half to prove a point." Lynn took a drink of her tea just to feel something boiling hot rush down her throat. She had a sober feeling that a collar and the cold was coming soon. They already had that on tape in the room, so none of this was damning to Lynn. She figured there might be a chance of swaying a few of them with how fucked things were here - with Keaton, Lynn thought she might be able to chain together what was happening. Archie happens to flip out on the first day? There's a guy who sneaks onto Star Wars Alcatraz? And they carved up the fucking biology teacher worse than anyone I've seen. Lynn coughed on her tea for a second, remembering something she'd forgotten. Almost...worse. She put her cup down, wiping her mouth off with the back of her sleeve. "You know. The way you're supposed to treat kids. Because they have nobody to fucking defend them." Lynn shook her head, her tea bubbling as she gripped it in her hand, staring down at the liquid, eyes off the door for a moment. "Gennedy. What a fuckin' traitor."

Lynn let her eyes flicker between them. If Natalie had narc'ed, she'd get proper justice for it at some point, but Lynn had to admit that the bubbling rage down in her stomach for Spoons spoon-feeding the feds all they needed to give Lynn the needle was not the biggest problem on their hands. This shit was like, institutional. Even if Lynn rotisserie'd Spoons to prove a point, there'd be another Spoons tomorrow. Because nobody got it. They didn't get it. They can do whatever they want to us. Archie sat next to her, a full foot taller than her. He was next on the chopping block, or maybe Spoons. Tough call. Keaton would probably be able to squirrel away if they believed she knew nothing, which was pretty unlikely. She was like the AskJeeves of people. In juvy, Lynn would've been gunning for her from the get-go. Keaton was like the ultimate human narc, but Lynn's gut told her Keaton hadn't said anything. She'd been playing it close to her chest in the station. Amelia screamed flight risk if ever there was one. If it was her, she'd trigger the lizard, set him up for some carnage they wanted to cause anyway, and then give him the needle in the name of public safety. He'd probably take her or Spoons in the process. Then it was easy to scramble enough evidence to kangaroo court the others. Easy. More needles than the trash can at a methadone clinic. Tick tock, drip drop, they all fall down.

The waiter came back by and Lynn pointed at like three separate dishes, entirely unsure of what they were, but figured there'd be at least one decent thing amongst them. She didn't particularly care what she ate, for once.

And the whole time, there was a butcher running around. She thought of the girl in the dress. She would've smiled back at Lucy. Lynn chewed on her lip. But Gennedy could break the smile off her face and never go to court.

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Cordelia Lynn Holmes

Lynn took a moment to stare at Archie. Lynn had learned a thing or two about eye contact that did not necessarily translate well to the outside world. Staring at someone, in certain subsections of Lynn's upbringing, was an invitation to a fight - at the same time, it was a declaration that you were watching a motherfucker, and you didn't care if you had to fight them anyway. This time, however, Lynn was for once not really considering that sort of subtext in her actions. Lynn was staring up at Archie's mouth, which was over a foot above her own, and trying to determine if Archie was playing some kind of game, or was truly a giant human puppy dog. He stood there trying to talk through two donuts at once, which was a feat Lynn had never before seen attempted. What did he tell them in there? Lynn wondered. Her eyes fell to his arms and chest, and Lynn found herself how strong he was when he wasn't covered in scales and ten feet tall. Lynn shifted her weight back and forth, uneasy enough at being in a police station. If he's taking their donuts, maybe their nice cop shtick worked on him. Lynn had a bit of a dull headache. I hate this, Lynn thought. There are too many questions and no answers.

She turned and looked at Keaton and Natalie, who were talking over in their chairs. Everything in here is wired, Lynn wanted to scream. And what were they discussing, anyway? Lynn was more and more sure that Keaton was the only one who really stood a chance at getting Lynn out of this whole ordeal. If she could pick needles out of haystacks like she claimed, maybe she could help Lynn track down some dirt or something. They injected us when we came on-board, Lynn remembered. She'd melted the first needle they'd brought out, just to spite them, before they'd slapped a nullifier collar on her, and held her shivering arm steady against the cold steel of the surgical table. The faces of the Promise's staff who'd done it swam back into her field of vision and Lynn ground her teeth for a moment. There must be some way to control it. Some central unit or...or something. Lynn did not want to entertain the notion that there was any semblance of a happy ending for her on this ship. For a few foolish days she might've thought so, might've half-heartedly entertained the notion that this place was going to reform them and get them jobs and Get Them Out, but Gennedy had broken that apart. They want lapdogs like him or they want corpses. Lynn thought.

She looked back up at Archie, and without realizing, a melancholy smile stretched at her lips. She turned and followed Archie out, grudgingly admitting that she wanted food. Lynn was still not used to the regularity and availability of meals here on the Promise. As much as a group picnic with Narcy Narc and the Funky Bunch disinterested her, she had to admit that she would need to keep her energy up if she was going to be throwing any kind of weight around later, which she felt very certain she would. Friends close, enemies closer, Lynn thought. Besides, Lynn was reasonably certain, just based off how these sorts of conspiracies operated, they would want as few witnesses as possible. The threat of Archie flipping out over seeing her brains get blasted open from a grassy knoll somewhere was enough to reassure her she was not in immediate danger.

Lynn chewed on her lip. At least, assuming they weren't going to trigger another event like Freaky D had. Now did they really airlock him, or was Gennedy lying? Lynn had difficulty believing someone was able to outright sneak on-board the Promise. If he was able to, it raised interesting possibilities. Smuggling possibilities. Lynn a year before would've seen this as a way to make some side money, a few extra bucks - but this was different now. Figuring out a way off this might be the only way she survived. We saw too much, Lynn thought. Whoever narc'd - and Amelia's been in there a damn long time - is gonna get me locked up in a day, maybe two. Whoever was willing to torture a professor would kill a witness or two without any scruples.

Lynn followed Archie out, having to powerwalk to keep up with him (this put a scowl on her face), rolling her hoodie's sleeves back up as they fell down every minute or so. Lynn glanced around as she often did, eyes flickering here and there, shoulders back and fingers dancing in her hoodie pockets. They stopped walking for a moment. Two guards passed by - both older than the dead eyes puppy dog she'd seen back in the precinct - with a girl behind them. A young girl. Lynn stared at her. She had a pretty round face, and a blue skirt, and light brown skin and dark brown hair, and -

Lynn's eyes drifted down to her wrists, where she fiddled with a bracelet around her wrist. It was small and fraying, worn out cloth with a few beads on it. A camp bracelet, or something like it, made by the clumsy but practiced hands of a girl her age. The girl made eye contact with Lynn and her eyes widened for a moment, but Lynn did her best to give her a smile back. It didn't seem to set her much at ease, but the girl sheepishly smiled back and turned away, following the guards off down a path. Lynn watched them go, lagging behind Archie for a moment. No lawyers. No fucking lawyers.

Lynn closed her eyes and focused on breathing for a few seconds, then shook herself and caught back up to Archie, keeping pace with him much easier this time. Whether Natalie or Archie or Keaton or Amelia narc'd didn't matter. She'd beat their ass for it if they did, maybe leave a nice little SNITCH brand on their asscheeks or something, but it wasn't what was pissing her off now. Without realizing, smoke curled up off Lynn's hair, a ragged shock that was blue as her eyes down at the roots, the color creeping up to the red tips. Keaton. I need Keaton.

"Where are we eating?" Lynn snapped, staring at the walkway ahead of her. "I don't - " she stopped talking, biting her tongue. Archie wouldn't get it and Archie would just want to hug it out if he did. If there was one thing she'd figured out for sure about him it was that she was confident he'd never done time or skidded onto the wrong side of the law. Now Lynn figured maybe his upbringing was rough - he had gaunt enough eyes and a nice checkerboard of scars on his arms - but Archie, Lynn was willing to bet, didn't really Get It. Archie hadn't asked for a lawyer, Lynn thought. Maybe Amelia had, before she narc'd. Maybe Keaton. Not Natalie and Archie. Lynn couldn't hold their faces in her mind's eye for terribly long. It was the guards, and Gennedy. I will burn them all. Damn them. Damn them.

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Lynn

”Lynn Holmes? It’s your turn. First room on the right.” Cara announced over the intercom, informing her that her interrogation room was prepared and ready for her arrival. Gennedy had decided that the AI could do the job just fine, so he remained in his seat. It was a quaint room, one side being a one-way window for any potential observers, the room itself was furnished by two foldable chairs and a small table. Given the use case, that was all it needed. As Cara made her announcement, Archie’s own investigators appeared at the doorway and requested his presence as well. Lynn considered telling Archie not to go lizard and eat any of them, but figured some snake lawyer would twist her words on her. Lynn had a strange feeling that she could not quite articulate. She wanted to joke with Archie, but she knew when he walked in those doors, he was going to narc, and that made her want to turn the precinct into a crematorium. Lynn pushed it aside. There were more pressing matters.

Lynn gave it a full ten seconds before she started to rise from her chair slowly - just long enough that the guards glanced about nervously and began to slowly reach towards their belts. Lynn did another glance around. She noted a dark-skinned security guard and a young looking one following him like a puppy. Pretty boy puppy, Lynn thought. He looked young. Real young. Lynn gave him a once-over as she walked to the room, trying to sess him out. They hiring kids for dumb muscle, now?

Lynn came into the room and looked at Gennedy. Old. Pissed off looking. Probably used to scaring kids shitless. Eh. She came and sat down in the chair, resting her hands on the table. Lynn looked at him, smiling softly and genuinely. Her hair was back in a ponytail, which afforded the option of seeing it change color slowly and in its totality. At the moment, it was blonde, campfire yellow.

Lynn said nothing.

Gennedy met Lynn’s gaze with disinterest. Maybe even indifference to who or what she was. With his right hand, he reached for his cup of coffee, and with his left he produced a recorder from his pants pocket. He finished his sip, and then placed the cup on the table. Once he was ready, he pressed play on the recorder and spoke for the first time.

“My name is Gennedy Hardin, head of The Promise security division, investigating the death of Doctor Arthur Coleman. I am speaking to Cordelia Lynn Holmes on her relations to this incident.” He said, simply. He looked to Lynn’s eyes. “Please state your full name in confirmation.”

Lynn blinked. Hmm. Yes, she remembered him now. This guy had been at the orientation right before everything went to shit. And conveniently gone when it all did. Some head of security I’m looking at. Lynn knew enough about how this worked to know that she had to tell them her name. Beyond that, a slim part of her entertained the notion that some kind of audio trail might behoove her. Assuming that recorder is actually running. This is a kangaroo fuckin' court if I've ever seen one. “Cordelia Lynn Holmes.” Lynn said, her tone neutral. She had not said her full name in a long time. Cordelia. “I want my lawyer.”

“No.” was all Gennedy said in response, his tone more bored than it was anything else. “Today is October 19th, current time is 9:32AM.”

Lynn grinned at that. Well, at least the old fuck was honest. There was a quiet place in her gut that had gathered together since the night before. She’d had her fair share of run-ins with the law before, had her day in court, everything. But not like this. Lynn knew what was up. Lynn knew it was only a matter of time. Maybe days. Maybe in a holding cell for this case, maybe in her dorm, maybe maybe maybe. If there weren't lawyers here, there sure as shit wasn't going to be this much of an investigation for a dead gangbanger. Lynn kept her smile, unforced. “Am I not under arrest, then?”

“You are a Parahuman. You have no rights with regards to penal action or criminal investigation.” he explained. “Now, perhaps I am behind on things, but I believe I am the one to be asking you the questions this morning. Am I correct?”

Lynn shrugged. “Maybe. If I don’t get a lawyer, maybe I get to ask you questions. Hey, doesn’t that mean you can’t be in law enforcement, either? This is all pretty new for me too.”

“Let’s keep it new to you. I don’t want to have to see any of you again if I can help it.” Gennedy stated. He released his grip on the table’s metal leg closest to him, which was now crumpled like tissue paper. His patience was already wearing thin with this one. “You will get no lawyer. You will answer the questions I ask you. You have nothing to worry about if you are innocent. Am I clear?”

“Careful, Ginny,” Lynn said. “You are a Parahuman. You have no rights to penal action.” Lynn leaned back, her feet dangling off the ground. “Let’s cut the shit, man. If I have no rights, there’s nothing keeping you from throwing me away for no reason. And there’s nothing stopping you from beating the shit out of me to get what you want. So why should I help you either way?”

“You are correct.” Gennedy said. “You should help, because your boyfriend out there will probably want someone to take to dinner after all this is over. May we proceed?”

Lynn opened her mouth but closed it wordlessly. Close, you fucking idiot. Lynn thought. If he thinks Archie and I are a thing, that’s a little wiggle room in my corner. And if you ask why he wasn’t around to stop your boyfriend at orientation like you almost did, you’re running face-first into those carving knives faster than the dead doctor did. Lynn smiled. There was a death threat on the recording, now, for whatever that was worth. “Fire away. But I know nothing, and you know I know nothing.” Lynn studied him for a moment. This one is used to bending things the way he wants. And he doesn’t give a fuck about doing it to kids. And the balls it takes to sit in this room without a nullifier on means no one’s ever called him on his shit for it, either. Lynn thought about everyone in the waiting room. She knew...she knew what they were going to say. That she was there. That she’d been there. For all she knew Spoons had hidden a fucking stenographer in the bushes. But for some reason Lynn was still pissed off this fuck was going to do it to them. They were just Clarita and Megan but a little older. Lynn had never felt more like Lucy, squinting into the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights. Dance with me, you fucking meathead. They can’t keep up, but I’ll roast your shoes off your feet and keep on going.

Gennedy snorted at this, smiling and shaking his head. “Let it be made known that I do have a sense of humor.” he said, directing his eyes to the recorder. “Please tell me about the events leading up to the body’s discovery?”

Lynn shrugged. “No idea what body you’re talking about. Sorry about your doctor friend. Don’t know anything about a body.” If this isn’t legal, then lying isn’t perjury.

Gennedy’s grin seemed to fade at this, and he seemed more exasperated than anything else. “Would you like me to show you the video footage that we have of you, Ms. Nelson, Ms. Plasse, and Ms. Ellis entering the woods after Mr. Anderson?”

“First, man, I don’t know these people’s last names. Second, I don’t see every person who took a walk in the woods last night in that holding cell.” Lynn looked around. “I see a bunch of scared kids. Seems to me if, what’s her name, Carrie was watching everything, you might see who killed this friend of yours, and you wouldn’t have to question me.” Lynn nodded her head, as if having a realization. “But, I reckon there’s not this footage, because otherwise you would see who killed this guy. So maybe you’re hoping you can scare a kid or two into confessing to some dumb shit.” Lynn smiled. Behind it, she felt like her heart was burning hotter than a sunny day in hell. She had a soft spot for those stupid kids, for reasons apparent to almost anyone but her. “I’d love to see the footage. You’ll see me walking into some woods. Later, you’ll see me walking out. Red Riding Hood and Smokey the Bear came with me. Smokey and I don’t get along too well most days, but last night we picnicked. Hell, he even got to third base. Can I go yet?”

Gennedy brandished his phone, and turned it sideways. He played a five minute video clip of Archie going into the woods, screaming, and the others piling in after him. Several minutes later, Lynn, Amelia, and Keaton exited alone. “I have just shown Ms. Holmes the video evidence of her association.” He said out loud. He looked to Lynn once again. “During this video, Ms. Ellis called Promise Security informing us of the body’s discovery. There are no cameras in the woods of The Promise. We- I am interrogating you as to what you saw, so we may find who did this to Doctor Arthur Coleman and put them to justice. You are not here under criminal charges. Are you sure you do not wish to change your answer?”

“Make it a true double Jeopardy, Alex,” Lynn said. Lynn's incorrect use of Jeopardy terminology was apparently lost on her.They have no cameras in the woods, Lynn noted. He wouldn’t tell me that if they were going to let me walk. No fucking way. “ You sure talk about justice a lot for a guy who doesn’t give kids a fucking attorney. You have footage of me in the hospital thirty minutes before this happens? Criminal charges don’t mean anything because you just said you could lock me up for no reason anyway. I don’t see me looking at a dead body on that video. I see me walking in the woods. Any half-decent lawyer could get me off, which is why I can’t have one.” Lynn grinned. He said we, Lynn thought. And didn’t correct himself the second time. Someone else is in this room. “Another question, Gin and Tonic. How long can an unsolved murder go on before parents want their kids back home, and you guys lose tuition money?”

“With regards to penal and criminal investigation, yes. I can. I would like to avoid the paperwork, if possible.” Gennedy stated, then looked Lynn in the eyes. “Long enough.”

He bit back the threats. She didn’t need to know that she wouldn’t be the first that had never had the opportunity to contact a lawyer, and likely wouldn’t be the last. He didn’t want to make a mountain out of a molehill. Not over a minnow like this. “Well, should you decide not to say any more. You are free to go. In the event that your friends give us an official statement, we will be in contact. Ms. Ellis seems to be the rule abiding type. Perhaps she will be more cooperative.”

Lynn shrugged. “Sure thing, boss. I just got out of the psych ward though. Who’s to say what my testimony’s worth. Plus, that lizard jostling me around when I was busy doing your job.” Lynn stood up, hands in her pockets. He wasn’t letting her go this easily for no reason. He could bluster all he wanted, but even if they put her at the scene, it didn’t matter, because they could in no way pin her to that murder. She looked him dead in the eyes. I’m already taking the fall for this and you know it, she wanted to tell him. You traitorous fuck. You sit up here and scare little parahuman kids who don’t know any better shitless and tell yourself you’re big and tough. Pussy. If you were on Earth instead of beating up kids and fucking up police reports up here maybe we wouldn't be where we are. “Oh, some advice, man,” Lynn said. “Maybe you should go after the guy who fucking steel booted a child in the face on the first day of class. That’s the guy I’d be looking for. But I’m not one to know how you lawyer-less folks run things up here.”

Gennedy gave Lynn a knowing smile. “Already taken care of, Ms. Holmes. You are free to go.”

So they’ve already killed that fucker, Lynn thought. Or he’s in on it. Either way, Lynn felt fairly confident she came out ahead on this interrogation. Lynn gave Gennedy a smile that she hoped expressed all her hate. “Free’s a funny word, ain’t it, Gin?” Lynn asked. Then she turned and walked out into the waiting room. I need to talk to Denim, Lynn thought. Denim had come and sat down right next to her at the start of this, which moved her up several notches in Lynn's book. Denim has some balls. And she stayed quiet which means she has some brains. Lynn figured there was a good chance all of them had sold her up the river, but if Denim hadn't, maybe there was still a way out of this. They'd hammer the others until they remembered seeing Cordelia Lynn Holmes waving a butcher's knife at the scene of the crime an hour before anyone got there, Lynn was sure, but Denim might just have stayed quiet. If she can figure stuff as good as she claims maybe we can track this bastard down.

“Free to walk, boys and girls,” Lynn said with a smile. “Move.” Lynn said to the guards, walking to the exit. She looked up at Puppy Dog again, trying to study him as much as possible. His eyes, Lynn thought. I’ve seen his eyes before. Lynn stopped at the door. “What are you waiting for, Boat Farmer? Let’s go.” Lynn eyed him, trying to see what he'd said from the way he was standing. Even if he'd snitched, Lynn wanted them out of the station as quickly as possible. These guys would take any excuse to do whatever they wanted. Lynn didn't intend to give it to them.

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Lynn

Lynn walked.

She was fuming.

Literally.

Her ears were ringing and Lynn's hands were buried deep into her pockets. She feared if she had them at her sides, she'd have nothing to keep her from igniting and burning a trail visible from - well, space - through the forest. Faces swam up into her field of view. Natalie. Clarita. Archie. Che. Amelia. Megan. Keaton. Lucy. For a brief moment she couldn't remember if it had been Archie who had stayed behind at the scene or Che, if the dead body had been wearing a Promise uniform or -

Lynn closed her eyes and stopped walking. It had been some twenty minutes, and even she could not stay truly furious that long. Her heart still thundered in her ears but it was slower, more methodical. Amelia and Keaton had come along for a bit before Lynn told them to say nothing to the police when they got brought in. Absolutely nothing. The police had nothing on them. But someone was going to talk.

The faces swam back. Someone always talked. Even if they didn't rat her out right away. Someone would. They'd threaten Spoons or Archie or Keaton with jail time and one of them would blubber away. I cannot believe I am fucking thinking this but Amelia may be the one person I can even halfway fucking rely upon right now.

Lynn looked around the forest. It was poorly lit aside from the light the glowing girl gave off, which made the shadows dance behind every branch, flickering and darting away as Lynn turned to face them square-on. She was as alone as she reckoned she could be. The gentle rush of the river had let her a while ago, and Lynn saw no signs of any academic buildings or anything nearby. She thought back to what happened, trying to organize her thoughts. That was how people got caught. They didn't get organized. Lynn closed her eyes, pushing the fear that she'd be killed next out of her mind for a moment. She had practice with that.

Evidence. Lynn didn't touch anything at the scene and didn't leave any hair that wasn't ash. She didn't think there was any hard evidence, and if the ground was muddy, she was sure there were enough footprints to make hers clearly distinguished.

Motive. Lynn didn't know that guy. He wasn't a cop, so he didn't deserve to die out of hand. So there was nothing there.

Opportunity. Lynn frowned. There was no way Lynn could've carved him up, and no burn marks on him, anyway. Plus she had to have tortured him - there was no way she had time to do that in the hospital. She'd been under constant surveillance. Lynn frowned. Cara.

Lynn chewed on her lip, which was already close to bleeding in the brisk air. It didn't matter they had nothing on her. She was an easy fall guy, she knew, and she didn't expect to not get locked up for this, but they had no solid case at all. I was always going to get the needle. Before I came on this fucking spaceship. Before I ever met Che. Before any of this shit. They should've put it in my arm the minute my mother looked in my eyes and saw they'd changed. And they should've stuck her, too. Camera footage of her going in the woods, and that was literally it. They've got me in the hospital, spotted by the nurses an hour before. They have, like, medical logs and shit. Damnit they had nothing on any of them. Nothing. Why did you call the cops? Lynn thought, furiously. Or maybe she said it out loud. She wasn't sure. I could've kept you all safe. I wouldn't have fucked up this time. Lynn stared into the dark, eyes blank. "I could've lived, you stupid shits," Lynn muttered. "We all could've lived." The hit-by-Archie. The Freaky-D thing. This. There was something going on. There always was, but Lynn knew it. Amelia disappearing when the beast came out, and telling them this just crucially, implicating them all. Keaton coming up oh-so-conveniently. Natalie calling the feds. There was something here. Something. Maybe all of them.

Lynn sat down in the woods. She dimmed down her flames and listened for a moment, quiet. She heard nothing.

Lynn took off her hoodie and folded it gently. "Cara," Lynn called out.

There was only silence. Cordelia Lynn Holmes did not own a cell phone.

She waited. "Cara," she said again.

Nothing.

Lynn looked around the woods. "Come the fuck out if you're here," Lynn said into the dark. If there was some fucker out here carving people up, maybe this was what the principal did to get his rocks off or something, Lynn didn't intend to be a sitting duck in a holding cell.

Nothing.

Lynn waited ten more minutes. Then she rose to her feet and put her hoodie back on slowly. She'd calmed down, her mind clear. As clear as it could be. They'd seen too much, Lynn knew. Someone was going to talk. Someone was going to say something. They always did. And if they got to talking, that meant they'd pin this on Lynn. She was the easy fuckin' mark. Fresh out the psych ward and we place her at the scene of the crime. Lynn had a sneaking suspicion there weren't going to be much in the way of lawyers or due process on this ship. Then they'd put the collar in. Then they'd come cleaning house. Che would be fuckin' proud, wouldn't he.

Lynn closed her eyes and focused. She ran her mind at it every angle she could think of, but it didn't matter. She wished Denim was here to Rain Man some other way.

But best Lynn could see it, she was dead in a week. Maybe two. They'd pin her for this. They always did. She'd been guilty of everything from the oven overheating halfway across the house when she was six to the juvy officer burning his toast at home one morning. Then they put a necklace on her. Then she's crippled. Then they get her. Lynn hadn't really expected to make it eight years of probation without getting airlocked. Maybe part of her had. The dumb part. The flowers part. Flowers got you a bullet here. She should've told Archie to fuck off the minute he asked her what her name was. The truth was it wouldn't have mattered. If not today, then it would've been tomorrow.

There were still a lot of kids on here. Lynn closed her eyes. She couldn't fight these fuckers. If she tried to burn down the police station or something they'd just activate the killswitch remotely. Lynn started walking back to the dorms, mind racing. Probably not much time, not much time at all. Lynn walked quickly, tripping and stumbling as she went. Her mind wasn't focused.

Finally, Lynn settled upon a building she had not ever set foot in before. A library. Lynn sat down at one of the computers and was able to get onto the internet. (rebelgirl2016 and tysonVfrazier, respectively, get one into Lynn's gmail, for the curious). Lynn stopped for a moment, trying to figure out who to talk to.

The girls. No. That was...no. She frowned. This was a long shot if ever there was one. It relied on Hardwin being not only smart enough, but giving enough of a shit, to help her. She then typed in the email address of her case manager. Dear Ms. Hardwin, Hey. I am good. Just got out of the hospital but not hurt. I am emailing to let you know things are really good here. I actually think some of my teachers are like Gary. I think I saw Clarita here in one of my classes. Anyway please tell Daniel I'm good as soon as you can because I know he was wondering. I will for sure talk to you again by Saturday. Lynn. she hit send and anxiously watched the loading screen. It appeared to have gone through. Lynn figured maybe they could catch it anyway, but...but fuck it. She had to try something. She ran back through the email, thinking. Hardwin had to have known that was code. There was no way Lynn started off a letter saying dear, and she and her case manager had mutual disdain to begin with. Lynn could not remember addressing her by "Ms." at any point in her life, aside from possibly as "Miss Lucifer". Gary was - well, Gary was in fucking prison, so that ought to ring a bell. She certainly didn't see Clarita up here. And the only person who worked for the government whom Lynn had ever felt a shred of respect for was her public defender.

She turned back to look at the rest of the library. The few students who were in there studying were failing to hide their glances at the tattooed girl who walked in, flickering occasionally, and typed an email with the emotional intensity of a man on death row.

Lynn just laughed, drawing their focus more. Christ, I'm really fucked this time. She wished that butcher knife had hit her a few feet higher. It would've saved her some trouble.

Lynn went back to her dorm and got into her bunk. She slept surprisingly well. Corpses often did.

Lynn came to the room calmly. She had slept the best she had all week, unperturbed by hospital monitors or nurses coming along and taking her temperature a little more brusquely than was strictly warranted by medical science. When they came to her door, she let them knock. She had a suspicion there was no warrant, and she had preparations to make, anyway. Lynn put on as many articles of clothing as she could onto herself, for once not needing to cinch her belt to the final slot. Lynn had dealt with her fair share of power-nullifiers in her time, and did not intend for the world to see her shivering and blue like a little bitch in the middle of the precinct compound.

That, and it was funny to make the cops wait.

Lynn said absolutely nothing as she walked along to the station, aside from idly noting the physical characteristics of her captors/escorts. One was tall. Another had a noteworthy mole. Lynn refrained from asking about its effect upon his sexual life. She could play nice when there was a gun to her head. Or, at the very least, she could hold her tongue until she could really piss someone off.

When she came in, only Archie was already there, eating a donut. Damnit Boat Farmer, she thought. Once you eat the donuts you’re putty in their hands. She gave him a nod that, she hoped, revealed nothing, and kept going to her seat, sitting down calmly. Lynn was used to waiting. Lynn was used to waiting on a police line-up. She was used to the uncomfy chairs and the harsh fluorescent lights. She had been given donuts before, and coffee, and she’d been given a baton to the back. It depended on the mood. Where you got into trouble was you started eating the donuts, and your fat ass forgot they had one hand on the baton the whole time. Lynn leaned her head back and stared ahead aimlessly, saying nothing, staying quiet. She ran over her evidence in her head, but she was not doing it with the ferocity of the night before. Lynn had put it together. They found out too much. Maybe one of the dumb ones got to walk away from this, but Lynn was toast. She was more toast than she had ever been. They will all sell you up the river, Lynn thought. And yet she wasn't upset. She felt weirdly, truly happy. She almost wanted to joke with Archie, or think of something to piss Spoons off before she had to walk inside. I should be livid, Lynn thought, and she was, when she thought about what was going to happen next. They're going to keep doing this. Maybe her email reached somebody. Maybe, maybe.

A death sentence was kinda liberating, Lynn mused, which was difficult for her to wrap her mind around. She had never expected to live very long, but she had never expected to die so soon either. In scary situations, you just didn't think about it, and she'd never much imagined life beyond 22 or 23, but this was different. One day, or the next, or the next, they were going to kill her. She was a burnout with no one to miss her, and she'd seen some Skull and Crossbones shit. It just made sense.

She leaned back and waited, and thought about the kids.

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Lynn

Lynn's anger at Amelia simmered off into something closer to disgust. Unsurprisingly, Amelia just wanted to play at being criminal. The guy kicked a kid in the face with a steel-toed boot and you went chasing for his autograph, Lynn wanted to scream at her. That was decidedly un-Lucy of her, but it was there. Lynn wanted to ask if she'd ever been kicked with a steel-toed boot, or if she'd care to experience, but -

But that would not help. Lynn closed her eyes and grinded her teeth with the sort of intensity that normally reduced enamel to dust. She had to focus. She would have time to customize an ass-beating for each one of them later but right now they needed to focus, get their story straight, and get clear. Lynn did not have high hopes that any of them would manage to keep quiet and avoid narc'ing for much longer than a few days, but that was a few days to come up with alibis and whatnot. Maybe somebody else would get pinned for it in the meantime and they'd be in the clear.

Lynn wanted to laugh at that.

Lynn also, as a sign of how serious the situation was, neglected to comment on Amelia diving back into the closet, although the temptation did occur to her. Lynn searched her instincts about Amelia. She knew there was something fishy about some of these fuckers, but she couldn't pin down what. Amelia's story seemed to check out. If she was involved in all this, why would she make running away so obvious? Beyond that, Lynn didn't think Amelia had the stomach for it. She was taking the love scratches on the cadaver a little seriously. Everyone was, but she had to admit that Amelia's reaction - of sprinting away before remembering she could teleport, seemingly (Lynn, unsurprisingly, not having the tightest grasp on the quantum mechanics behind Amelia's abilities) - didn't really track with someone who was in on this conspiracy. Her gut instinct on meeting Amelia had been that this girl had not ever seen any real shit. Lynn's standards for real shit were, also unsurprisingly, pretty specific to whatever Lynn herself had personally endured, but this was tracking. She's a weak link, Lynn thought, And I think fifteen minutes in a police room would get a confession out of her, but I don't think she's in on this. There was always the chance Lynn was wrong. Lynn was very willing to assume there were errors in her logic so long as it allowed her to continue her suspicions of someone. So she wasn't clearing Amelia, per se, but she loosened up her grip on Amelia and stood up. "What'd this Jigsaw bitch look like?" Lynn asked, her tone still sharp and clear. Keep channeling Lucy, Lucy always knew what to do. Lynn, by virtue of a number of tough scrapes, had a knack for keeping cool in crisis situations. People who froze up in a street fight or panicked and ran when there were gunshots did not tend to have the opportunity to improve their skills in future encounters.

Of course, the debilitating drawback was that Lynn could never really turn it off. When she slept. When she walked around. When a car honked suddenly or someone shouted out of nowhere.

Lynn stood, her mind whirring. Smoke drifted out of her ears absentmindedly, so faint as to be barely perceptible to someone without augmented vision. Torturing this guy? That made sense, Lynn supposed. No law enforcement up here, and no real way of getting contact down to earth. Between the Big Brother AI and whatever system they had to get internet and stuff here, Lynn figured they had a pretty ironclad system of censorship on communications. Lynn had figured this was the next base thing to a FEMA camp when they'd strapped her into the shuttle, but Lynn had not been blessed with a myriad of options for her life at that point. Add in a bunch of kids and no lawyers and no protection and -

Lynn was shaking. She was going to tear that AP Bio bitch's throat out. They could make kids go missing even easier than this poor fucker. Little girls. Foster kids. Juvy kids. Kids with no moms or dads or case workers or -

Keaton spoke and Lynn blinked. She was back in the woods with the others. "I - the fuck?" Lynn said, staring at Keaton. Denim had those Dustin Hoffman powers from that movie. She stared at her, bewildered. Lynn had no idea you could even have powers like that. Everybody she'd known back on Earth had had, like, directly applicable shit. There was a guy who could move things with his mind, just barely, who got his ass beat by casino staff for fudging die rolls. Another guy could make enough electricity to tase you, but it left him in a coma for the rest of the day. But this mind stuff? Lynn wondered what Denim could tell about her from just looking at her. Did she know anything about Lynn? Lynn felt naked in front of her, like they'd tied that hospital gown back around her, flimsy in the cool breeze. Regardless, it explained how she'd found them out here, Lynn guessed, and that might be useful figuring out what was going on here - although Lynn wanted to know more about what she could do with that. There was a non-zero chance Keaton didn't have these powers, and was just saying this to go along with the narrative. That would track. Maybe she and Amelia are both in on this. I hadn't considered that. They both bounced as soon as Archie started to get scaly. Maybe they knew.

Lynn glanced back at Amelia. It was possible. But not particularly likely, she was forced to admit.

"Okay, what we need to - " Lynn stopped as Natalie spoke. Her words almost didn't register. There was a ringing in her ears from somewhere. Lynn's hair was blazing, short-cropped and ragged though it was in the week since Archie's freakout. Lynn was ten feet closer to Natalie before she had processed what the girl had said. There was no way to make the words in her head coalesce into something that could come out of her mouth, she could only grab her and make her understand the magnitude of what the fuck she had done, Christ, she was stupid, so stupid, to have even gotten into this situation with Dipshit Flower Boy and the others, hadn't she learned?

Lynn stopped, standing in place. Heat roiled off of her, the few inches around her hot as an oven. Lynn's eyes glowed like charcoals someone had dowsed in lighter fluid as she looked up at Natalie, still about ten more feet away. There was some faraway part of her that was keeping her foot rooted in place by telling her that if Lynn stayed here to roast this bitch like a Thanksgiving turkey, they would for sure get her, and they would get her for the dead body too, and she'd be strapped to a chair with a needle in her arm by the end of the week. Archie would flip out. They could pin this all on her. That was what they wanted. They wanted this scapegoat. The psychic had said they dumped it here. There was still a chance. There was still a tiny chance to walk away but -

Fuck that. I'm not a little bitch. Who does this overgrown Linkin Park album think she is? None of them get it. Not a single fucking one. And she doesn't think twice before calling the feds right to us? Right fucking to us? Like they won't be able to track the rest of us down? They're gonna put a cleaver in all their heads and put my prints on the knife. I've been here one week and she thinks she can do this to me. Fuck me over to get ahead. I should've known. I should've blown out that kitchen with her in it, I should've - Lynn could feel a throbbing pain in her right kneecap, like it was splitting open, and the sound of sirens. Lynn was shaking, visibly, from the anger. She was so close. She was on the right path. She wasn't getting caught up in any stupid shit. She was trying to keep her head down. Then Spoons has to ruin everything. Spoons. Spoons was the pain in her kneecap and the way that silver collar around her neck felt and the bloody Promise uniform on that dead body. Spoons was having to spend in a week in the hospital when everybody else got to walk away after two days. Spoons was all of that. Spoons was fucking dead.

"Natalie," she said. "You - " Lynn forced her mouth shut. She could feel her heart beating itself against her thin chest, like it wanted to get out and strangle her too. Witnesses. Three of them. You can melt her eyes like candle wax and one of the other three will get you down. Amelia will get away and get the cops. Natalie can punch you into the stratosphere if you do this. Archie will grab you from behind. Her face was cherry red, a literal vein pulsing on her forehead. Think logically through your actions, she could hear the counselor saying, When these moments of emotional stress come. We hold onto our anger because it makes us feel powerful in situations we cannot control. If Lynn stayed, she was confident she could kill Natalie. She might die. She'd definitely be arrested. And they'd kill her for breaking her probation terms. They might torture her. They might lock her up somewhere in this place and filet her like that man on the river. And all that might happen and there was the chance she might not get to kill Natalie first. That meant it wouldn't be worth it. That meant she would get the needle for nothing. Lynn was not a bitch, and Natalie had made them all look like bitches, but Lynn was not trying to die today.

"Natalie," Lynn said, a hairsbreadth more control measured in her voice. Her eyes were wide and not particularly focused on the other girl. "I am getting out of here, because I am not a complete fucking narc, and I do not want to die." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "If they ask you who else was here when you found the human cutting board, you think about what the cafeteria looked like when you walked out of the fucking freezer before you answer. You think real fuckin' hard." She stared up at Natalie, every single ounce of her desire to break her in half pouring into her glare. I was so close. You people are fucking ruining this for me. You're going to get me killed. You're going to get me arrested and killed because it's all a fucking game to you rich pricks. This is the same thing as before. Sons of bitches like you always do this. Always. A part of her felt cold and small, curled up beside a singed, sixty-five pound bag of potatoes in a musty storeroom. I saved you people. Lynn didn't care how strong she was. She didn't care if Natalie ripped her in half. She would get her. She would get her for this. All of my life you people have been trying to fuck me over and not a single one of you has gotten me in the dirt yet.

Lynn bit her tongue as hard she could, salt and iron filling her mouth. It gave her something to focus on. "Those of you who don't want to wind up like the river rat, you leave. I don't care if you come with me or not, but you don't fucking mention I was here." Lynn felt like explaining to them the specific ramifications of that course of actions, but stopped herself. She opened her mouth, closed it, and turned and walked away from Natalie at a quick but controlled pace. Her anger was there, oh it was there and it wanted to burn this forest down and let the feds try to figure out whose teeth were whose, but Lynn was walking and her more composed response to crises was coming back. You never ran. Running was what got you caught. Lynn kept her arms folded across her hoodie so she could get them up quickly if Natalie tried to jump her from behind like the coward snitch she was. There would be no fingerprints from Cordelia Lynn Holmes at the scene. She kept her hair burning to keep any of her hair from drifting out.

Lynn's list of people who needed a thorough and immediate ass-beating had expanded. There was whoever this Biology lady was, and there was Spoons.

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Lynn

Lynn was pissed. Amelia had implicated herself in all the shit that was going down - you brought all this to me, I was going to keep my fucking head down, but you brought this - and immediately tried to run off to narc to whoever her handler was. Spoons had found some large, tree-shaped spoons to bend, which was doing wonders for keeping whoever did this from noticing there were witnesses. Archie had grown a foot, which as previously mentioned, really only increased the already insurmountable height advantage most people had on Lynn, but it had the unfortunate effect of making her feet dangle a few inches off the ground. This undercut any pretense of authority Lynn previously possessed. Historically speaking, most had realized that it was unwise to point this out to her. Last but not least there was Denim, who was hyperventilating but covering her face up, standing still. Before Archie had started to grow bigger he'd mentioned picking flowers, which made Lynn's eyes narrow further and the temperature of her body jump up a few more degrees. That graffiti-spraying idiot was right, Lynn fumed (literally). She knew Archie wasn't as dumb as he looked. Cesar would be proud.

Lynn looked around at this clownfuckery. All of them were acting like it was the first time they'd seen a dead body. Jesus. Any one of them was going to bring the heat down on all of them, which notably meant also bringing the heat down on Lynn, who did not fancy getting assigned Spoons' old necklace. Spoons was making enough chaos to alert the cops back on Earth, Amelia couldn't have looked more guilty if she was running away in a white Bronco at ten miles per hour, and Archie was about to kill them all. To Denim's credit, she was at least standing still and quiet, although she looked too scared to move. You're all acting like a bunch of children, Lynn wanted to scream.

Lynn paused.

She took a deep, deep breath. Lucy. The oldest sister at the Johnsons. First house. What was the sort of thing Lucy would always do when shit like this was happening?

Lynn forced her glow to dimmer down, the air temperature immediately around her and Archie dropping back to normal and Lynn's hair settling to a faintly pulsing red. She kept her tone steady and sharp but tried to keep from shouting, which was difficult, because any one of them, namely Amelia's conspiratorial ass, was going to get her killed. Lucy always kept her voice calm and didn't try to yell over them. Her logic was it just made everybody yell more. Lynn hoped the same principle applied to de-escalating superpowered teenagers.

"All of you - " she started, biting her tongue. She was planning on saying Stop acting like you're in first class and see the South Tower on the horizon but decided that was most decidedly not what Lucy would have said to the other girls. "Look - you - " she bit her lip and forced herself not to absolutely lose her shit on these kids. They're kids. Treat them like kids. They're just Clarita and Megan. "Spoons, keep crying and sitting there. You're gonna be fine." Lynn realizing the callousness of this statement seemed unlikely. "Archie, I want you to sit down and sit on your hands. Sit on them. Right now." She had no idea what the fuck that would accomplish but it seemed like it would occupy his non-lizard brain for a minute, and buy her a half second of time if he snapped. She turned over to Denim. Keat? Keats? Ketty? Was Ketty a name? "Denim," Lynn said. "You are the star fucking pupil of the day. Stay there. Keep breathing. Try not to throw up on your second jacket." Lynn let go of Archie - notably not when he tried to pry her off, because Lynn did not do things because people wanted her to do them, and would not brook any insinuations she did - and moved over to Amelia, grabbing her by the other wrist. Lynn let enough heat to serve as a pleasant reminder come back into her hand. "If any of you would like a cigarette, I suggest you get one." she pulled out her pack with her free hand and threw it to the ground, apparently forgetting no one else could light them with a literal snap of their fingers.

Lynn did not like this one bit. If she had free rein, she would've been looking through Amelia's teeth for some kind of dental forensics that might point to some answers. Unfortunately, Lynn figured violence was just going to make any of the others lose their minds, and there was a one in three chance that doing so resulted in getting her ass beat by a giant lizard. This left the girl who could throw a tree at Lynn's head at the speed of sound and the mystery girl who shows up as soon as they find the corpse. These were not what Lynn considered ideal possible outcomes. At least, Lynn thought, You tried. She was not exactly succeeding at being the older sister figure. Well, Lucy got pregnant like four years later anyway. For a brief, bewildering moment, Lynn realized Lucy was younger when she got knocked up than she was at this present moment. That startled her, but she pushed it aside for the moment. She tried to force herself to see them all as about ten years younger, which made their behavior more excusable. Denim's older than me, Lynn thought. Why's she even nauseous? That wasn't that bad. Just make it go away. That was what Che had taught them, after all. You just made it go away and you could do anything.

However, there were too many coincidences here for Lynn to fully believe what her better judgment - which sounded increasingly and suspiciously like her court-ordered therapist - was saying, that their behavior was excusable. Amelia, at least, had information, and while they were far too close to the scene of the crime for Lynn's liking, she wasn't going to give the teleporter a chance to weasel away. Lynn figured at least they were all dying that way.

"I too," Lynn said, not breaking eye contact with Amelia, "Have questions." Lynn figured she had a chance of tanking a hit from the lizard or Spoons. Denim, who the hell knew. But if Amelia decided to blink the both of them into outer space, kick Lynn towards the nearest black hole, and blink back inside, she was going to make sure she was reading her copy of Snitches Weekly in Braille for the rest of her life. Lynn forced her tone to stay steady. This was such a mess. Either she didn't find out why this girl knew so much about the corpse, and they put her under the needle for breaking probation by being involved with a murder on her first week, or she got the straight truth a fist at a time and Archie and Spoons turned her into a well-cooked mound of bloody paste. Archie was still a good eight inches too tall for Lynn's liking. Spoons was probably one bloody nose away from snapping again, but she seemed to have collapsed, so she was probably fine for a while. Amelia certainly wasn't running with any gangs. "And would love to hear some answers. None of us are going anywhere until you tell us what's up, and also importantly, none of us are going to say shit about this dead body when we do leave here." Lynn glanced around briefly. "Which should be soon. Start talking."