Chapter Text
The door closed behind Snap. I took my time turning back around, my gaze noting every nook and cranny of the cheap building. It was divided into three sections; there was a large lobby in the center with cheap armchairs scattered around, on my right was a small office where the landlady worked, and last was a little kitchen opposite the office. It was comfortable, predictable, scrubbed clean of harsh contrasts and bright colors. And yet I was terrified.
My body thrummed with a nervous energy. I paced. It was damn near impossible for me to keep still like this. I’d managed to avoid thinking about what was going to happen - what the consequences of my failure would be- but I wasn’t going to be able to keep that up forever. Didn’t I consider myself a rationalist? Or at least, someone that aspired to know true things? It was time to start thinking about my future. I’d had enough of being pushed around by outside forces and my own neuroses, I was so goddamn tired of failure, so fucking done with treading water and hoping for the best.
The capes - the handlers- seemed content to wait quietly while I worked through my issues. Playback sat with legs crossed and hands in his lap, giving me a disarming smile when I looked his way. His partner, on the other hand, practically radiated danger. He looked strong - strong enough to easily overpower me- confident, and well-equipped; that was without even considering his powers, which he’d quite happily displayed could remove any of the defenses I set up. What were his limits? Touch, perhaps? What determined what he could reset and how much? There just wasn’t enough information for me to know for sure.
I halted that train of thought, shaking my head. What was I thinking? Was I really planning to fight a pair of Protectorate heroes? What would that accomplish? I went to the kitchen, hoping a little solitude would help get my thoughts in order. The counter looked like polished granite, but a touch revealed it was only a thin layer over cheap composite wood. I closed my eyes, trying to mentally travel back to somewhere safe, to the small rooms and offices where I’d talked for the first time about feelings that had lain dormant and buried most of my life. In that, at least, I had no regrets.
I pushed my chair back into place and sat down, taking a sip of water to try and cover my nervousness. Not that it mattered, probably. Didn’t he say he was in Watchdog? That was where they put powerful thinkers, wasn’t it? I wondered what his power was.
“Hello Carmilla,” Playback said, keeping his hands still. “I’m afraid we haven’t properly introduced ourselves, with everything that’s happened. My name is Playback. Are you familiar with what a thinker is?”
“Yeah, I think so. They’re capes that know things they shouldn’t be able to. Like enhanced skills or seeing the future.” I’d read up on a lot of cape stuff over the years, given how goddamn fascinating it all was, but I’d been disappointed to find almost nothing aside from the basics everyone knew. Each source seemed to contradict the others, and sometimes themselves.
“That’s right. I have the ability to see into people’s pasts, further back the more I interact with them. My power works automatically to create these recordings, but I choose whether to look through each history. Are you following me so far?”
“Yes,” I said, not certain I wanted to know where he was going with this.
“Good,” he said, giving me a wry smile. “I’m here to interview you and figure out exactly what happened and why. Think of it as an informal debriefing. Next, we’re going to talk about your options and figure out a plan for the future. Any questions so far?”
“Am I-” My voice caught in my throat, my mouth suddenly dry. I took a sip of water and continued more quietly. “Am I going to be in trouble?”
There was almost nothing I feared more than getting sent to prison - to a prison for men- and having to deal with a toxic, violent social atmosphere for years and years, constantly terrified of being hurt - or worse- , having to hide myself again. I wouldn’t - couldn’t- go back to pretending. It just wasn’t a fucking option.
This time I managed to stop the spikes before they grew more than a few feet tall. I tried to consider it a victory. With calming breaths, I coaxed them back into the floor and spread them out into a harmless sheet of metal.
“I’m sorry,” I said, unable to bring myself to meet his eyes.
“You haven’t done anything wrong, Carmilla. And you most certainly aren’t in any trouble.” As far as I could tell he was sincere. Though if he’d looked a bit farther into my past he’d see all sorts of things I’d done wrong, a veritable barrage of shit. I’d failed as a student, as an actor, as a- a son, as a friend, and most recently -my nightgown sticky with blood and vomit, the incongruous thought that I’d never be able to look at it the same way again- as a roommate. I was fucking drowning in failures.
My palms pressed into my eyelids, and I forced myself to focus on the present. There was still something I’d wanted to ask.
“If you can see people’s history, why do you need to bother interviewing me?”
Hard Reset snorted, startling me a little. “I’ve asked him the same damn thing; apparently it’s polite to take up an hour of people’s time on what amounts to a formality.”
“To put it another way,” Playback said, giving him a mock-glare, “I prefer to get each individual’s own perspective on what happened in order to give their actions context.” Hard Reset seemed to roll his eyes under his helmet. I got the impression this was a conversation they’d had many times.
“Furthermore,” Playback continued, seeming to ignore his partner’s antics, “My power works more quickly when there is a seed of information for it to work with. And most importantly, I want to make it clear that you don’t have to let me look and you won’t get in any trouble for refusing. Of course we’d like more detailed information, but there aren’t any lives depending on it and it would be a terrible breach of both your trust and my own ethics to look at your past in detail without permission. Do you understand?”
I did. I turned the words over in my mind a few times, but of course I had no way to verify whether or not he’d already looked into my past. Frankly, just revealing the nature of his powers was an enormous show of trust; he could have bullshitted about them, but I didn’t think that was very likely. On balance I felt like I could trust him on this. I nodded.
“Very well. First, do I have your permission to record the rest of this interview?”
I nodded again. He took a small audio recorder and placed it on the table next to him, pressing a button to presumably start recording.
“First things first, please state your full legal name followed by today’s date.”
He’d put a noticeable emphasis on ‘legal’. My lip curled, but there was no avoiding it.
“My legal name is Christopher Frederick Lindholm, but my preferred name is Carmilla. The date is November 4th, 2009 at uh-” I looked at the clock, “10:32 AM Pacific Time. Christ, I can’t believe it’s still this early.”
He gave me a smile I generously interpreted as apologetic, though it seemed to falter a little under the sour look I gave him. The rational part of me acknowledged that he probably needed it for proper documentation, that he meant me no harm, that he’d quite pointedly used my actual name earlier. I acknowledged those points, but I was too worn out and emotionally exhausted to give a shit.
He’d better have a damn good reason for this, I grumbled internally.
He cleared his throat before continuing. “Next, I need your verbal permission to look into your past with my power. I’d like to reiterate that there is no obligation to do so, legal or otherwise.”
I gave it some thought. If I looked at my actions from an outside perspective, from one less mired in my own self loathing and negativity, there really wasn’t anything I would be ashamed of people knowing. It was terrible and I hadn’t been at my best, but I don’t think any reasonable person would have expected otherwise.
It would be nice if I could be reasonable with regard to myself. - Useless. You’re like a child. Worthless. Lazy. Crazy. Immature. Spoiled. Oversensitive.- But that was probably a pipe dream for the foreseeable future.
“You can look into my past, but I take no responsibility for what you find there whatsoever.”
“Really? None at all?”
I forced a grin onto my face. If it looked a little sickly neither of them saw fit to comment. “Nope, all of that stuff was past Carmin. I’m present Carmin. Therefore, I take no responsibility.”
“Sounds like solid logic to me.” Hard Reset piped in. Well, tuba-ed in anyway. He had a pretty deep voice.
“Says the man that literally punches things back in time.”
“That’s wrong.” Hard Reset snapped, making it a judgement. His jaw looked carved from stone as he said, “I can kick ‘em back in time too.”
That startled a laugh out of me, and for the first time in what felt like years I let myself relax a little.
“Now that the formalities are out of the way,” continued Playback, all smiles once again, “There’s something I need to know.”
Just like that I was tense again. What was next?
“How are you, Carmilla? How are you feeling?”
I blinked. “In all honesty? Pretty fucking awful. I’m not sure if I even want to get into it.”
“Would you prefer to move on to something else?”
So polite, I thought. I looked away, taking some time to think it over. His demeanor gave me hope that this wasn’t going to suddenly flip into a proper interrogation, which was nice. Because if it did, I was fucked. Just what I’d said over the phone would be enough to convict me of all manner of things if they truly wanted to. It certainly didn’t seem likely, but I just couldn’t trust that anymore. The assumption that things would be safe, that I wouldn’t be blindsided by something I couldn’t handle, that I could trust in social conventions to protect me had been utterly crushed the moment someone I’d once thought of as a friend assaulted me in my own bedroom. Was it assault? I’d pushed first, but he’d barged into my room and ignored repeated requests to leave. And then everything that happened after…
The questions whirled in my head, a churning ocean of anxiety threatening to pull me under. I could use my power to jump long distances, to practically swim through land. What if I just ran away? I could hide somewhere my power wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone and just, and just-
No. I forced myself to focus on my breathing, desperately reaching for that brief clarity of purpose I’d felt confronting my roommates and then actually fixing something. The world tilted ever so slightly as my focus changed. It was like the difference between squinting with one eye closed and seeing with my glasses on. I’d known intellectually that my perception of the world as made up of distinct objects was merely an abstraction, a way for the brain to simplify something far too vast to faithfully recreate.
The physical forces underlying every movement and structure were laid out before me with cold precision. I moved a hand in front of my face, enhanced visualization and an intimate understanding of the vectors and forces involved allowing me to extrapolate its entire arc the instant it began moving. An idea occurring to me, I stuck my hand into the floral printed armrest and formed a coin of slate-grey metal. I flipped it into the air with a practiced motion, the coin’s trajectory unfolding before my eyes in an instant. My hand was already in place to catch it as the coin reached its apex, right up until it landed and everything went wrong.
My fingers closed a second too late to prevent it from bouncing off of my palm with the majority of its latent momentum. The coin landed on the carpet between myself and the individuals across from me with a muted thump. I blinked, letting go of the icy clarity. Mortification welled up immediately, though I was surprised to note that my face was already heated. When had that happened?
Playback smirked. “Having fun playing with your shiny new thinker power?”
I tilted my head inquisitively. “How would you even know? You been using your shiny thinker power?”
He leaned forward, taking on an almost lecturing tone. “Don’t need to. Wasn’t exactly subtle, the way you suddenly changed stance and your eyes started tracking things I couldn’t see. Something to do with trajectories, maybe?”
“I think it’s more like, uhm.” I struggled for a few moments to bring the right terminology to mind, eventually giving in and looking it up on my phone. “‘Enhanced spatial-temporal reasoning and memory.’ I can remember every place or thing I’ve seen or sensed with my power and can visualize physical systems quickly and accurately.”
He nodded, making a thoughtful sound as he leaned back in his chair. “Do you think you’re ready to talk?”
I sighed. “I don’t really know what to say. Given what- what happened, I think almost anyone would be like utterly fucking devastated. My life, such as it was, is ruined. I’m ruined. I’ve become a-” A freak. A monster. A killer. “A cape. I have no context for- I don’t have any idea what I’m supposed to do! It’s all, it’s all horrible and wrong and I’m terrified that I’m going to- I never wanted to hurt anyone! And now-” My voice twisted bitterly. “Now hurting people’s all I’m good for.”
I was breathing heavily, I realized. I hadn’t been intending to rant like that, but I was a fucking pressurized powder keg of emotions right now. If a little ranting helped relieve some of the roiling restlessness within me I was more than happy to let it.
“You know that’s not true,” Playback said, his voice gentle but firm.
I balked, my anger and self loathing pushing me to argue. Instead I forced myself to take a breath and actually think about what he said. Did I really, honestly think that more hurting, more pointless violence, was all I had to offer the world? I focused my attention on the floor right in front of my feet, well within range of my power. I formed a block of stone a few feet tall, kneeling in front of it to get a better view, and began to sculpt it with my power.
I didn’t really have any practical sculpting experience aside from messing with play-doh as a kid and a few scattered pottery projects, but my power was able to compensate for any personal incompetence in that regard. It was akin to tracing an image in three dimensions, visualizing the finished product with my thinker power and patiently iterating until the stone in front of me broadly matched what I’d had in mind. The finished product was lumpy and unrefined, but even so I found myself grinning ear to ear as I looked over my handiwork.
She wore a hooded cloak with a mask, head high and hand held in front of her as if to ward away. Her pose was unyielding, but somehow gentle. Could that be me someday, after I’d mastered my power? Someone who was powerful and confident, but equally gentle and thoughtful? Someone that could truly help people? The notions I’d had about my own potential, or lack thereof, had gone out the window the moment I’d become a cape. It was time to stop dreaming small dreams in the hope of avoiding disappointment, time to rise to the challenges before me instead of shying away from them.
When I was done, I moved her to an out of the way corner of the room, reasoning that I owed the landlady some sort of apology for causing so much damage to the apartments.
I sat back down, dusting off my hands as if I’d used a chisel and hammer. It was so satisfying to make something, to improve things just a little. Maybe I could come to like this power.
Deep breaths. I rubbed my hands together, forcefully reminding myself that I was here and not there. “Alright, I feel a little better now. No I don’t really think hurting’s all I’m good for, I just said that out of self-loathing and frustration. I do think I can bounce back from this with enough emotional labor and therapy, but my primary concern right now is keeping my power from hurting anyone else.”
I paused.
“Are there any books on parahuman psychology you’d recommend?”
He blinked. “Uh, well, there’s the Parahumans 101 textbook. If you want anything more advanced than that you’ll want to talk to the local PRT office’s resident expert. I think she’s still on site actually, you’ll probably be able to talk to her once we’re finished.”
“Thank you Playback, I’ll do that.”
“So, do you think you’re ready to talk about what happened?”
I paused, but eventually nodded. It really had helped to get some of my feelings out there. Was that what he’d been intending?
“Where do you want me to start? This morning, or what ultimately lead to the shitshow sitting before you? Do you wanna know about my childhood?”
Hard Reset chuckled at my weak attempt at humor, for which I awarded him twelve Carmin points.
“I just need context for the event itself. Why do you think it happened when it did instead of earlier or not at all?”
“Bits and pieces of it have been around for as long as I can remember. But the thing with the roommates started about two and half months ago, when the people I’d been living with during the summer moved out and three new people moved in. One of them was a former dormmate, someone I once considered a friend. I didn’t know the other two beforehand, but I figured I could trust him.”
You’re pathetic. So stupid. Spoiled. Worthless. Why can’t you do anything right?
Thanks for the pep talk, Ray, I thought bitterly. Just what I needed right now.
“Bill and his girlfriend, I can’t remember her name. Anyway. It started with little stuff at first. Them being mad at me for leaving the lights on, me being more stubborn about it than I probably should have. Things escalated. They worked each other up about me I think, feeding on each other’s anger. There was always more stuff that was somehow my responsibility to deal with right now or I’d be a terrible roommate.
“I tried, you know? I really wanted it to work out, because I sure as hell didn’t want to move back in with my parents. They’d loudly complain about me right outside my room, tell me to my face I was a disgrace or worthless, harass me every time I had the nerve to show my face. Which was every fucking day. I don’t know how many times they made me cry. They cut off my access to the internet and then gloated about it in front of me, and Bill had the nerve to call me crazy after I screamed at him.”
I took a deep breath, trying to keep hold of my anger. I emphatically did not want to make any more spikes.
“And so we come to this morning. I’d- I’d already agreed to move back in with my parents, told my roommates it was going to happen. Despite this, I wake up to find they’ve hidden the fucking toilet paper because apparently I didn’t contribute enough to the apartment or some horseshit. I had absolutely had it with their shit at this point, so I decided to get a little revenge.”
I smiled humorlessly.
“You see, when they cut off my access to the internet all they’d done was change the wifi password without telling me what it was. And so all I had to do was press the button on the back of the router, which reset it. It was briefly satisfying. A few minutes later Ray burst into my room to berate me, refusing all requests to leave; eventually, I tried and failed to push him out. He pushed back a lot harder, and now here we are.
“Gotta say, in retrospect? Wasn’t fucking worth it.”
“You specifically triggered when he pushed you? Not before or after?”
“As far as I’m aware, yeah. Do you want me to go into what happened after?”
I really hoped he’d say no.
“Please do.”
Fuck.
“I’m not totally sure what happened right after that, I was pretty preoccupied with my brain leaking out of my ears from information overload. I saw Bill snatch my laptop from the bed but that’s about it. Once I came to the entire apartment was changed.”
He gestured for me to go on. I sighed.
“Alright, alright. After I got my bearings it didn’t take long to figure out that the effect had spread through the entire apartment building. I dealt with the hazards in my own apartment pretty quickly, but I was conflicted about going into other people’s apartments. I was forced into action when I heard someone getting caught in a trap in the apartment below mine. I helped as best as I knew how, but I realized I couldn’t afford to wait for emergency services to arrive. Everything’s sort of a blur after that, rushing around desperately trying to keep anyone else from getting hurt.
“I remember the injuries though. A man with a spear in the side. A woman tangled up in razor wire. A couple trapped under rubble. A young boy who fell in a pit and broke his legs. Some seemed grateful for my assistance, while others were… upset.”
Let go of me you fucking freak!
Please don’t hurt my son.
You killed him.
I shook my head, reaching for a little more of the focus I found in my power. The roiling mass of pain and confusion inside of me seemed less daunting, something I could regard analytically instead of being pulled under and losing all perspective.
“Anyway,” I continued, voice flat and cold. “After I got the boy back to his parents, I jumped into the next apartment and collided with a woman living there. I apologized to her and explained the situation, and she told that she heard screaming from the apartment next door.”
My cup was shaking ever so slightly, threatening to spill water on me. I made my hands stop. My foot began to tap rapidly almost immediately, which I reluctantly decided to allow.
“So I went there. And there were two people in the apartment, a man and a woman. The man had a leg caught in a small pit. It was lined with spikes, angled downward to punish all attempts to escape with further injury; unfortunately, he’d obviously tried very hard to escape. He was pale, and-”
Come on Carmin, Some part of me thought, Just a little further, you can do this. Then you can rest, for real this time.
I didn’t believe me.
“I think I knew he was dead the moment I saw him. He’d just lost so much blood. I tried to help, tried to bandage the wounds, but I don’t think there was anything I could have done. Then I left. The last apartment didn’t have anyone hurt so after that I climbed onto the roof and called 911.”
What I didn’t add was that before I’d left, I’d started being able to sense the body with my power. And I never forgot anything I sensed with my power. Not that I wanted to, really. I didn’t deserve to.
“I’m sorry,” Playback said, turning off the recording device. He curled his lips down in a way I didn’t recognize. “You didn’t deserve any of this.”
There was a moment of panicked confusion before I let go of my thinker power and was suddenly able to interpret his expression again. A sympathetic look, that was all. What…?
“Thank you,” I said, mostly to cover my confusion.
“As someone that saw the whole thing from your perspective? You did everything you could have. Like Snap said, you couldn’t have known something like this was going to happen, you had no context for how to act in that sort of situation. Considering the circumstances, I think your actions were downright heroic.”
“Laying it on a little thick there, don’t you think?” I said, my smile making it hard to hit the cynical tone I was aiming for. “Hero this, hero that. You can just say you want me to join the Protectorate.”
Hard Reset snorted, giving me a small smile. “Smart girl.” Despite everything, I felt a small thrill at being gendered correctly.
Playback gave me a grin that seemed more genuine than the polite smiles I’d seen from him earlier. It made him look a little younger.
“You’re right of course, the Protectorate is always looking for more members and I’m certain Snap would appreciate some more help around town. Even if you decide not to join, your conduct today gets you a lot of points in our book. This easily could have been a complete disaster, but your work containing it prevented serious injury or death to at least several dozen people. We need people that can keep a level head in a crisis and respond to constantly changing situations; we need people like you.”
“What’s the health insurance like?”
He blinked, but recovered momentarily. “The Protectorate’s policy is to provide full support for its LGBT members, including any necessary medical interventions. If you mean the health benefits in general, we’ve got some of the best in the nation. Dental, therapy, access to regular testing at some of the most advanced facilities in the world. Trust me, it’s covered.”
“Can they help get my name changed? Like officially, I mean.”
He nodded.
“Alright, I’m willing to hear you out. But I’ll wanna see some statistics.”
There was that grin again. He reached behind under his chair and pulled out a briefcase, retrieving a smattering of paperwork from inside. A pause, eyes searching for somewhere to put them down. I obliged, growing a simple wooden coffee table between us with my power. He nodded gratefully, and started to lay the papers out in front of us.
“So the first thing you’ll want to look at is the relative risks…”
-||-
Nearly an hour later I’d exhausted all the basic questions I could think of. Pay, the risk of death or injury, what my legal status would be were I to join, whether I’d be able to relocate to Seattle -to which the answer was a surprisingly emphatic yes-, where I’d be staying -at a house kept by the PRT for precisely this sort of thing-, and all manner of other logistical minutia. My hand was sore from filling out a seemingly endless stream of forms, which I’d forced myself to go over in detail. Mostly just admonitions about the terrible consequences of exposing confidential information. Not that I would have anyway, that would be horribly rude.
Everything I’d heard and saw so far had been promising, but I’d be a fool if I didn’t at least take a day to think about it and get a second, third, and fourth opinion.
“Thank you,” I said, meaning it. “You’ve given me a hell of a lot to think about. If I do decide to join, who should I call?”
“Myself, Snap, the local PRT office, any of them would be fine. Here.” He laid a business card with his logo on top of the intimidatingly large pile of papers in front of me. “Feel free to call me if you ever have questions or need help with something.”
I thought for a moment. “Well it’s not really, like, relevant, but I was sort of wondering what brought you guys over here? Olympia’s not exactly a hub of criminal activity, at least compared to whatever important thinker shit you’re usually doing.”
“Excellent question. I was in the area as part of an ongoing investigation, and when the call came in I felt that HR and I had relevant skill sets for the situation. And I’m quite capable of doing my ‘important thinker shit’ wherever I happen to be sitting, thank you.”
I was curious about what could have possibly been happening here that was worthy of his time, but I figured he’d have told me about it if he could. He had a forthrightness I admired.
“Very well,” I said. “Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. It’s all a lot easier to deal with when I know what my options are.”
He nodded, looking serious. “It’s the least I can do. Is there anything else before we wrap up?”
I stared at the floor for long moments. When I looked up to speak, my voice was nearly a whisper. “The man that, that-” That I killed. “That died. What was his name? Who was he?”
“Carmin-” Playback started, sounding pained. “Carmilla, please don’t do this to yourself. It wasn’t-”
I met his eyes, jaw clenched stubbornly. We stared in silence for long moments, both willing the other to give in. I needed to know, and some part of him must have seen that. He turned away first, letting out a soft sigh.
“His name was John Powell. He was studying to be an environmental biologist, and from what I can tell he was a kind person loved by his friends. His death was a terrible tragedy Carmilla, but it wasn’t your fault. I know that doesn’t change how it feels, but you’ll drive yourself crazy if you hold yourself responsible for things out of your control. I say this from personal experience.”
“Thank you, but how do you know all that stuff about him?” I would think about the stuff he was saying, I would, but right now I needed a topic change.
“Ah,” he said. “It’s not perfect, but my power can still get some information from the recently dead.”
I nodded, thinking about the implications of that little factoid.
“Now to our final piece of business, what to do about your former roommates.”
I sat up, suddenly alarmed. What was going to happen?
“What are my options?” I asked.
“Well you could try and prosecute them, but I’m afraid there’s very little evidence either way. And with their injuries considered, it all adds up to a big legal mess.”
I thought for a moment. Did I really want to go through a whole court battle, getting my name dragged through the mud on the stand? Months of work for what would probably amount to a slap on the wrist? Was it really worth it?
“Is there an option that let’s me avoid seeing or talking to them ever again?”
He smiled. “That’s exactly what I was going to suggest. Some PRT personnel could impress the importance of discretion on them and provide assistance with finding somewhere else to live.”
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
“That would be wonderful. Thank you so much for your help. Is there anything else?”
“No, ma’am.” He replied sharply, offering a hand to shake,“I hope we can meet under better circumstances someday soon. And thank you for being so cooperative. It makes our jobs much easier.”
“Me too,” I said, taking it, “It’s really been a pleasure.”
He gave me a grin and a nod and picked up his briefcase, heading toward the door. Hard Reset gave me a nod of his own before following. Playback paused briefly in the threshold.
“Oh right,” he said, turning my way. “And I’ll make sure to get your laptop back.”
I was left alone with my thoughts and a pile of paperwork, one clear idea piercing through the haze of regret and painful emotions.
I’m going to be a superhero.