Battle Vixens! - 86

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Episode 86: Ain't No Rest for the Wicked

When Rowan woke up in the morning, it was typical for only the night-shift guards to be awake with him. He had been afforded a larger living space deep within VI headquarters, complete with a small kitchen/living room area of its own, and everything had been moved from his apartment to there. As far as he was aware, very few knew the exact location of this space, which was probably for the best. Anyone who wanted to see him usually found him at his office, or doing some work if away from there, and he was always there long before most of them were awake.

Today's business began especially early, with seeing a few more of the amnesiacs off. He didn't do more than down half a cup of old coffee and an energy bar before leaving to help hand them over at the airport. Despite some of their first impressions, they all seemed to feel positively about the VI, or at least about him—which was more or less the same thing—with several expressing gratitude along with their farewells. A few more flights would go out later today, but for now he could head back to headquarters to get started on some of the more usual work.

A day off from fighting really just meant he could focus on negotiations, clerical work, overseeing training, helping with research if needed...and whatever else inevitably came up today. There was always something, it seemed, but at least he couldn't complain of this job becoming overly boring or predictable.

Across the world, things were stabilizing and fitting together somewhat better overall; some places had been hit extremely hard, but nowhere was completely destroyed, and the worst-hit countries across the world were actually in the process of clawing their way back up. The VI was having to make alliances with some groups of vixens in other regions who had grown especially powerful through murder, which was a bit personally discomforting, but it at least meant they would be far less likely to show up on the VI's doorstep, or that any of their partner organizations in Japan or Europe. In fact, a few of the most individually powerful made the threat that they would work together to obliterate whoever tried to break the peace.

Ning sent him a few messages around eight, which thankfully did not involve any complications to the plan for her reveal later that day. Rather, the Giver had taken enough of an interest in her to visit, and had particularly mentioned a way in which vixens could make any clothing fit themselves. Having tested it with some ordinary clothing, her suggestion was that any armor developed for them could just be mass-produced in a single size and everyone could simply adjust it themselves—provided that this effect maintained the function of whatever it altered enough. Rowan passed this along immediately, before he even continued reading.

Then he found out that she had also provided Ning with a method of making specific people (her direct descendants) immortal, along with a way to 'give' that method to other vixens (and have it apply to their descendants). This he disseminated far less widely; Ning was willing to give the spell to whoever wanted it, but didn't really want to be the source for large numbers of vixens. Perhaps he could take on that role; it was plausible that it could be passed to more distant people through the "dream space" with Amp's help, as well.

To see whether Ning's idea held water, Rowan made a quick trip to the group working on armor and tried changing the appearance of one of their prototypes. All indications were that both the material and the functionality were maintained by the shift, if not improved by it properly fitting her. This pulled development ahead by quite a bit, enough that they might be able to start shipping the equipment out before the end of the day.

Around nine, a few messages came from Light. It hadn't directly occurred to Rowan that owning the powers of others might grow one's own in a manner similar to stealing them by killing, but it made a kind of logical sense as soon as he heard it. Since there was nobody in his office at the time, he took a moment to shift forms and try to 'release' any gain of power that may have resulted from the events of the day before. She simply relaxed and meditated on the fact that she wanted to be more powerful in order to protect everyone, and it came to her before long. Her body seemed to flow outward slightly as water, in a manner similar to its usual transformation, growing marginally taller. Afterward she felt slightly..sharper, perhaps, in a way which would be difficult to articulate; the real benefits might show themselves better later, in actual combat. Nonetheless, it seemed to have worked, so Rowan returned to human form to continue his work.

He had to admit that he missed Zeno's usual mid-morning visit with coffee. But, the research division was surely at least as busy as he was, and Dr. Bridges was needed there much worse than he could ever be as a coffee...girl. Rowan just got up and went to the cafeteria to make it himself. By then, headquarters was buzzing with activity, the other vixens on-site (including the remainder of the Puppeteer's victims) eating breakfast, and so on. He made a detour to the PR offices on the way back to listen in on the progress for Ning's reveal. It was just about time for it to start, but it sounded like they had it well in hand, and there wasn't much need for him to interfere. Nodding to Simon through the doorway, he continued back toward his office. The man had convinced the governor to sign what was essentially a blank official pardon ahead of time, "in view of Ning's heroism in the face of this crisis". Well, it would probably be good for her reelection, so maybe the convincing hadn't been all that hard.

When he was about halfway there, Warp's voice came from a few inches behind him. "Oy." Rowan managed to clamp down and avoid an instinctive reaction to her suddenly being so close, instead slowly and calmly turning around to face her.
"Yes?"

"Aah, you're no fun. Well, I've got something I need to talk about, if you have a minute."

He took a sip of his coffee before replying, "Okay. Go ahead."

"Well, I'd like to stick around and work with the VI, at least for a while, but. Got some, misgivings you could say. Which probably ought to be voiced in private."

Rowan nodded, and waved to a nearby soundproof room. Thinking on the past few turns of his route, this was the first one he'd been near in a while, which made Warp's timing seem very intentional—and implied that she already knew the function and location of these rooms quite well.

As he led her inside, she said, "You know, any o' us with fox ears can still hear conversations in these rooms if we stand close enough to the door."

"I'll keep that in mind," he replied. "So, what's this about?"

"Well. Like I told you yesterday, I used to be a hired killer," she said. "I don't remember much detail now, but there's enough to be dead certain of it. I've got no intentions of going back to that life, but to begin with, it's sure to come out sooner or later. What do you think that'll do to the VI's rep?"
"A number of vixens currently allied or even employed by the VI committed serious crimes in the few days before the monsters began appearing," he said. "Our reputation is largely built on the fact that nobody has done such things since joining us, or for the most part since becoming our allies. This situation isn't exactly the same, but our PR department is already working on it, and didn't seem very worried when I laid it in their lap."
"Hmmh.

"Wha' about you, then?" she said. "Former cop. How do you feel about working with a known assassin?"

Rowan shrugged. "You've told me that you wanted to leave that life, even well before this crisis began. It's not my job to uphold the law anymore, and anyway it's..malleable right now, when it comes to 'us'. You wouldn't be the first person offered this form of 'extreme community service', and I'd rather see you helping us than executed anyway."

"Heh. You're not like most police," she said.
"Have you met most police?" Rowan replied, neutrally.

"No' that I can remember. But..." She shook her head, seeming to decide that getting sidetracked this way was useful for neither of them.

"Well, here's my real worry. There's sure to be people still around who..employed my services at some point in time. Far as those people are concerned, I might know—might remember—that they were the ones who hired me. If I want a way to be on the good side of the law, it's hard to think of something better than turning on the lot of them, and they'll know that. Maybe I even will, once I get to remembering a little better."
"Up to you," Rowan said—although of course he would be very encouraging if she decided to do it.
"Sure, sure. But the trouble is, them knowing that means they might come after me. Even while all this is going on," she said, waving her hand in a circle in the air. "If I'm staying here, they might attack the VI itself. Is my help worth that risk to you?"

"To me? Yes," he said with no hesitation. "I'd like to think that even the people who want you dead the worst would rather wait until you aren't actively defending their lives from monsters before making their move. Maybe it'll be too late by the time you're not."
"Suppose they know that," Warp replied.
"Well then, they should consider what they're up against.

"It has been well-known from the beginning that killing one of us, while in empowered form, gives the killer the power of the killed. Because of that, the VI started out employing some of the tightest security available. But on top of that, anyone who succeeded in that murder anyway would be hated by the public, and among those looking to capture and kill them would be:" (he counted on his fingers) "every police force in America, the military of the U.S. and its allies, every one of us still alive with powers who is allied with the VI, not to mention the intelligence network that was responsible for learning the identities of you and Tobias Mond within a few days of her first attack. I think someone smart enough to want to silence you would also be smart enough to recognize how much worse it would make their life, and then decide they were better off hoping that you either never remember them specifically, or decide not to testify about them.

"But, this isn't entirely my decision to make. I'll pass the concern upstairs, in case they haven't thought of it, and at the same time express my own willingness to keep you around."

She tilted her head slightly. "Why're you so willing, knowing the risks? I don't think my power's really qui'e as good as fire or rock-throwing at killing those things."

"They're not the only enemy we may face; after all, despite what I just said, Tobias attacked us anyway. With what you learned to do thanks to Gemma, your power is even more useful than it already was for dealing with...human opponents, even non-lethally. And, since you can teleport willing allies, it's extremely good defensively in all situations too. But, most importantly: I don't just want your power. I want you."

She gave him a very confused look on this point. Want me how exactly!? it more or less said.

"..Excuse the dramatic phrasing," he said, seeing her reaction. "What I mean is: You're someone who wants to turn away from a life of crime, more or less, and become an honest citizen. Whatever your motivations, you want to employ what skills and powers you have to save lives. I have an opportunity to help you do that, so I'll do whatever I can to seize it."

"Ah. Well. Hope you can see where I might'ave misunderstood the way you put it the first time," she said.

Rowan took another brief sip of his coffee. "Well, thank you for bringing this up. I look forward to working with you."
"Heh..I suppose the feeling's mutual," she said, giving a somewhat unsettling grin; it was unclear whether that was intentional or not. Once the door was open, Warp teleported rather than walked out, and then off to a corner of the hallway, and then out of sight. If she ever expressed willingness, her real talent might be in intelligence gathering itself, he thought. But that didn't seem to be what she wanted to do now, unless it was—apparently—entertaining herself with knowing more about the VI than she was technically supposed to. It was a good thing their most confidential conversations didn't take place in this building at all.

An hour after he returned to his office, Rowan got a call from Clark Quinn. Before he could even say anything, the physicist said, "Rowan! I figured out what our fusion dance is. And we've already confirmed that it works."
"...Our what now?"

The idea of being mentally and physically combined with another person, in a single body with a single mind and intent, was not something Rowan had had any concept of before, and required some patient explanation from the physicist. It would have been difficult to believe if not for literally everything else they'd been through so far, but Clark's description of his experience being 'Quinn' (or possibly part of 'Quinn', it wasn't entirely clear), along with her powers, sold it fairly convincingly.

While this potentially opened up some tactical possibility, it required one party to "own" the other, which didn't seem wise to make common. Anyway, Dr. Quinn hypothesized that it was 'costly', and required the combined power of the would-be fusing parties to exceed a certain threshold. Amp was able to help the Quinns cross this threshold, but they couldn't on their own—which suggested that, even if he wanted to, Rowan would not be capable of using this technique with Cynthia at the moment. But, possibly, Light would be powerful enough to edge herself and another over that threshold. She might test that theory today, in which case he was fairly likely to hear about it. For the moment, Rowan thanked Dr. Quinn for this information, hung up, and began considering who to pass it along to, aside from the obvious.

Another call came through the VI app a while after lunch, just after Rowan returned from the airport for the last time of the day. He answered up the phone as he came to his office door. "Hello?"

"U-uh, hi um. This is uh, Gemma."
"I know that already," Rowan said patiently. "We have caller ID."
"Um—right, yeah. So uh. I, have something maybe important and definitely very weird to uh, tell you about."
"Okay. Hold on a moment."

Rowan turned and entered the soundproofed room across the hall from his office, which was specifically reserved for his use, waving over a guard at the same time and indicating he should keep anyone from coming too close to the door. Once he was inside and sitting, he said. "All right, we're clear to talk in private."
"Okay. Um.." She whispered, seemingly to herself, "so how do I..?" before continuing. "There's uhh. You know how my power includes being able to split into two bodies, that are still both me."
"Yes."
"So obviously, the uh, person I got this power from, would logically be able tooo, do the same thiiing..?"

"That would make sense."

"Well, I, found out last night that she is. I mean, she does. In fact she has sssseveral apparently human bodies running around, doing...things. I found this out because one of them, was my roommate, until I figured out that she was who she was."
Gemma seemed to hesitate for a long moment after this, possibly expecting some reaction from him. "...Go on." She obviously had more to say, which meant it was too early to react.
"She told me—I mean like, I believe it's true, that there's a 'geas' that keeps her from lying to us. To uh, 'people of this world'. And after that, she told me that she had um, lots of bodies playing the part of like, support people for organizations or people who she thought might be important, tooo, surviving all of the monster attacks. To help them. So that's why, I'm not exactly sure this is important? I'm not sure what happens if someone acts on this information in the sense of saying 'hey, you're her aren't you', 'cause like, she might just disappear and stop helping then. But I also know, a really easy way to identify people who might be her, and an even easier way to test that out.

"She likes...'jewel' names. Like, 'Diamond', 'Sapphire'? My roommate was 'Beryl'."
"...She visited me once, and hinted at that during our conversation," Rowan realized aloud.

"Yeah. And—for the other—you know the whole, 'nonviolence' thing..? If you just try to throw something harmless at someone and you can't, like literally your body won't let you, then it's her. That's how I..confirmed it, when I suspected Beryl was, her."

"That also makes sense."

While he waited to see if she had anything more to say, Rowan tried to think of the best way to act on this information—or to not act. Gemma seemed not to take this pause especially well. "U-um, I'm really sorry I didn't call or anything sooner, to tell you. The thing is I was kinda really overwhelmed, right after it happened, a-and.."
"Anyone would be," Rowan said, trying his best at a reassuring tone.

"I also got, distracted too. I don't know if you know this but I'm, very very easily distracted, a lot of the time."

"Truthfully, I'm not sure what advantage it would be to know this sooner," Rowan said. "I don't really know what's best to do with it now. I can't sit on any information that may be useful or important, but I may know someone who fits your profile, who would almost certainly hear about it if I passed it upstairs." On the other hand, a secretary doesn't exactly have top-level clearance...

"I uh. So that thing, where you know something and you wanna tell someone, but it might wreck things if you do, or if you're not...careful enough how. That's—you get that, right?"

"Sure." More than she knew, maybe.
"On um...on Wednesday. When she explained a bunch of things to Light, she also a-admitted to being Beryl and..put her in that position, with needing to not tell me."
"Or, by extension, anyone else," Rowan inferred.
"Yeah. Um."
"Do you fault her for it?"
"No," she answered right away. "Not at all. She's still kinda..sorry about it though, from what I can tell."

"It's not healthy to be sorry about getting pinned to a wall," Rowan commented. "Either way, thank you for sharing this with me. I'll be as careful with it as I know how."

"Okay.

"Uhhmm..oh, r-right! She also said—no. She implied that she'd be sending more information maybe, about which kinds of monsters are gonna show up, and where. But, didn't tell me how, or who'd get it. And, it wasn't..a direct statement, soo...? But if you or, someone else starts getting some kind of unexpected messages from like..a glowing twitter account or something..?"
"I'm sure we'd notice that either way," Rowan said. "But thanks for the heads up."

Once he was off the phone with Gemma, Rowan's next order of business was to contact Frank. While the man had the utmost trust in his staff, there was a general awareness that one could never be too careful. There was a direct line, text only, intended mostly for extreme emergencies, and Rowan was one of few people with access to that line. This was largely a matter of composing his message carefully.

Was informed reliably that Giver employs multiple bodies of ordinary human appearance in support roles at various organizations. Goal appears to be helping world survive monster attacks, therefore likely unwise to confront any potential suspects.

In a game of telephone, information is lost because each person along the line only passes along what he feels is most important. There was no telling what else the Giver had told Gemma that she didn't think should be passed along, but Rowan trusted that she had given him what mattered. In turn, he decided that the clue and the test from Gemma were unimportant unless someone asked him for more details. Rather than doing that, Frank just responded: Understood.

Whether he liked it or not, Rowan's new job had him playing games with information.

The public on the whole didn't know any of Warp's history, and it would be a long while before they did, if the VI's PR department had its way. The other amnesiacs' true identities, if known, were not revealed to the press, so this looked to be just more of the same from the outside. Clark's idea of fusion would likely only be passed to a few relevant people from above, and otherwise would amount to yet another inexplicable thing that Light's group could do and seemingly nobody else could—the press were getting used to being stonewalled about such things, and seemed to accept it for now. The research department's findings were still highly classified, and Magus was thought by the public to simply be another "ordinary" vixen.

Ultimately, Rowan had kept the fact that he knew who Zeno was from her almost out of habit until it was relevant—although he could very well convince himself it was because they hadn't had much opportunity to speak privately after he found out. Cynthia didn't know about her father, and whatever he had done to her to make her distrust and suspect any figure of authority. She didn't know that Dawn had killed her—had promised to do so, and followed through, possibly driven by the guilt of murdering that man. Neither of them knew that she had burned down the one place she might have ever called home herself. Dawn didn't know that she had been dying of cancer; she likely didn't have any memory of the concept of cancer, still. Until they remembered it for themselves..it was wrong to burden them with that knowledge.

Perhaps there would be a day when everyone could know every truth, but for now...their survival would have to be enough.