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  ￡ - Foundations 1.2

  ?1.2

  (January 2nd, 2011)

  So I wasn't dead. That was… good.

  If there was an afterlife, I was sure my parents would be happy. After closing up the massive chunk of my living room that had been opened up to the elements, I once more sat on the couch, and sobbed my heart out.

  He was dead. I was in the middle of nowhere, and my dad was dead, and I had superpowers. Every kid wanted to have superpowers growing up, but this wasn't worth it.

  Of course it wasn't. I wouldn't've murdered somebody to get my powers — whatever they were — so inversely I would gladly give them up to save him, or most anyone else for that matter. But that wasn't something I could do. I was stuck with this, and I hated it.

  My tears dried eventually, salt water and mucus swept off my face by tissues that came from nowhere. What was I even supposed to do, as an orphan? Call the police? I was uncertain, of both the whats and the whys.

  Would I go live with Gram? New Hampshire was nice, but I wasn't sure that's what I wanted.

  I groaned, stretching my arms and legs. That could be discussed when the time came for it. I needed to keep moving, keep doing things. Spiralling more here wouldn't help. I'd eaten, I'd hydrated, I was able to move forwards.

  There was a phone on the coffee table, exactly where I expected it to be. I reached out to grab it, flipping it open and entering a few numbers.

  "Nine-one-one, where's your emergency?"

  "My-" breath caught in my throat. "I was, in a car crash," I looked at the clock that we- that was on the wall. "Three hours ago. I don't know where. Thirty or so miles north of Brockton Bay."

  "Where are you now, ma'am." the operator specified. My call was weird, the circumstances, spontaneous access to a cell phone.

  Two miles per hour for three hours, if I was generous. "Six miles from where I started. Same, um, road. I-I don't know what direction I've been walking, but it was the way we were headed to get home."

  "Home being Brockton Bay?"

  I replied after some delay, "Yes." answering in the affirmative.

  "No GPS, road signs?"

  "No," I curtly responded.

  "Was there anyone else in the vehicle with you? Someone travelling ahead or behind…?" I- yes, he- my- "Ma'am?"

  I shook. "My dad, he was-" There was a voiceless sob.

  "Is he injured?"

  "Dead. He's dead."

  ?1.2

  It felt like that word had lost some meaning. Dead, died, deceased, he didn't feel gone, mom hadn't felt gone until a couple days after. I'd cried in those first days, but it was different, less nagging. I hadn't gotten to the nagging part yet, is what I meant.

  The conversation with the operator had taken uncomfortably long, only to be followed up by an equally arduous talk with a PRT dispatcher. They'd asked for explanations, and I hadn't lied. They were very patient with me as I talked around the topic, easing me into it.

  A handheld GPS had given me my coordinates, a compass had given me a direction, and a huge fold out map had let me use the two to orientate myself with my exact location.

  The snow was a touch lighter than it was early. I moved my house off the road, and set several spotlights outside, shining straight up to act as beacons for the incoming authorities. It was all too trivial.

  Some superheroes could jump extra high or teleport to frisbees. I could sip hot chocolate on my porch, and make buildings fly with my mind.

  I frowned, knowing full well how dangerous that made me. Heroes spent a lot of time reinforcing the idea that they were capable of keeping people safe, that was their whole thing, even a non-capegeek like me could see that. But villains, they were what happened when people weren't careful. All parahumans were walking weapons, some to the point that regular people didn't even stand a chance at stopping them. I was probably one of those.

  I'd need to be careful not to kill anybody. Not now, but in general. One brick to the skull could be fatal. I'd need to internalise that. In my own head I was a skinny little girl, maybe higher than average pain tolerance, but undeniably weak. Yet now I could point, snap my fingers, and then boom, dozens crushed in the rubble, utterly eviscerated.

  I didn't want to hurt people.

  It was something of a no brainer that I'd join the Wards. That's what they were there for, first thing on their website's mission statement, according to the computer on my lap. No clue how I had power, or wifi, especially fast wifi. There had to be some black magic fuckery going on with that. I'd bet the plumbing worked too.

  Glancing over my shoulder, I punched a hole through the outer wall of my house, establishing line of sight with the kitchen sink. Not that I necessarily needed line of sight. My telekinesis turned one of the knobs, and water flowed.

  Could I solve world hunger or something, just summoning food and farming equipment in the most impoverished places? It was worth asking about.

  A rumble came down the road, sirens blaring. I fixed my wall, vanished the cocoa, put on gloves, and then removed the glass screen that was protecting my pouch from unnecessary chills, all in the span of a couple seconds. The first emergency vehicles went right past me, off to find the car wreck. A minute later — a short minute — had a van pulling to a stop by my temporary abode.

  It was matte black, sporting lilac stripes and green white flashing lights. It didn't have a siren. I picked up the phone I still had, describing the vehicle.

  "Yeah, that's them. Confirmation on my end."

  "Okay, thanks. Can I hang up now?"

  "If you want to."

  "Well, bye. Have a good day- er, night?"

  The PRT dispatcher sighed. "You too, kid." I hung up, closing the phone, and dropping it out of this plane of existence. People were exiting the van. Part of me had been expecting agents in full tactical gear, sheets of chainmail mixing with kevlar, faceless helmets.

  The paramedics who I saw were much more of a reasonable expectation. Clad in minimal garbs featuring both PRT and medical heraldry, they paused some distance away from me. I stepped off the porch- stumbling at the last step that I'd forgotten about, but catching my balance just fine. "Hi," I said lamely. Letting my house disappear, leaving behind only imprints on the snow.

  "Hello," one of them greeted, a woman with black hair and tanned skin. "My name is Rita, I'm with the parahuman response team. Would you mind riding with our ambulance as we get you back to Brockton Bay?" she said, indicating towards the parked vehicle.

  I nodded walking over. "Not at all." I replied, for clarity's sake. She opened the back of the van, hopping in and offering me a gloved hand.

  I accepted the minor assistance. The gap wasn't that tall. "Just so you know, we will be heading to the PRT building near the centre of town. It has both medical and law enforcement facilities, both of which will be able to maintain your privacy."

  I sat down on the stretcher, looking at my shoes. "The police will want some sort of statement, for the crash?"

  "That is likely, yes" There were a couple other people in the ambulance with us, but she was the only one talking to me. "May I give you a brief medical exam while I have you here?"

  I looked up to meet her eyes. Some sort of micro expression played off her face, it wasn't any of the ones I was familiar with. "Sure," I agreed.

  She… was already smiling a bit, but my response made it more noticeable. "Great!" She stood at the same time I felt the van slowly rolling into motion. When she sat back down with a clipboard in hand, and my gloves had ceased to exist. Rita clicked a pen. "Name and date of birth?"

  "Taylor Hebert, June eleventh, nineteen ninety-five."

  She wrote that down, I assumed. "Any difficulty breathing?"

  "No, ma'am."

  "Pain?"

  "Bruises on my upper arms. Sore leg muscles. Not as bad as it was… before." I could feel my eyes start to tear up. There was some lingering phantom pain, dread even. "I had rather bad frostbite, but it disappeared."

  "Okay," she casually accepted, before grabbing a blood pressure monitor. "Could you roll up your sleeve for me?" I did so, holding out my arm for her to attach the cuff. "Thank you." The thingy inflated, and we waited for several seconds. "One thirty-two over seventy-five. A little high, but expected given the circumstances."

  My eyebrows scrunched together.

  She put away the equipment, then opened another drawer. "You want a cookie?" I- what? "Candy bar, chocolate milk? Strawberry milk?" The fuck was she talking about? "Water?"

  "Uhh, no thank you?"

  "You sure?"

  "Why do you even have those?"

  She shrugged. "Just an obscure bit of policy. First time in three years that there's been an opportunity for it. There's actually people keeping track of that, believe it or not."

  "Oh," I fidgeted with my thumbs. "Am I alive?"

  More face things from her, and from the others at the edge of my vision. "As far as I can tell, yes. Why do you ask?" She sat down, putting her full attention on me.

  I hunched inwards a tad more. "I wanted to know." Her lips were pressed thin. "Sorry."

  The paramedic relaxed her face. "It's a medical question, I'm a medical professional, it's what I'm here for."

  I'd killed the mood. My clothes felt tight, constricting. Why did I have to ask that? It's not like she would've said no. I leaned back, staring at the ceiling. The PRT building had an interesting interior. I ghosted through my snapshot of it, getting a feel for how it was constructed. Very sturdy, lots of cubicles.

  My mind drifted some more, to the Protectorate headquarters and then the offices of the Dockworker's Association. Dad had a picture of me and Mom on his desk, similar to the one on his nightstand.

  I grabbed an MP3 player, slotting in a pair of earphones. Music files were considered objects. That wasn't how computer files worked, but who was I to complain? Dr. Rita didn't say anything as I did my thing. She'd been acting kinda weird this whole time. Admittedly, so was I, but it felt purposeful with her. Some sort of training.

  It felt like I was flip flopping between two extremes, one where I was made of glass, another where I could flick my wrist and shatter the world. My music helped, bringing in something familiar to ground me. The feeling reminded me of a fever, hot and cold, the worst of both.

  I was alive. The people around me were real. They were safe. I could trust them. They wouldn't hurt me. I wouldn't hurt them. I repeated those lines in my head a few times, refusing to be overwhelmed with mania or despair.

  ?1.2

  We arrived at the PRT headquarters just fine. Rita helped me along, still walking on eggshells. I hoped that it wouldn't always be like that, surely they weren't this wary of full time Wards, right?

  The building looked taller in person. I stumbled ascending the brief stoop that connected the private parking garage to a side entrance of the main building, catching myself on the door frame. One of the people behind me was carrying the snacks I'd been offered earlier. Apparently they kept gift boxes in cold storage, and now that it'd been taken out they couldn't put it back in. Everything I didn't choose to keep for myself would be spread around the building at the director's discretion.

  'Who came up with that?' I wondered. There had to be an extreme bureaucratic gap between command and field for there to be something so useless being enforced. Dad had frequently complained about such policies on a local level.

  Had. He had.

  My eyes felt like it was peak allergy season in spring. They guided me to a conference room, one with plush chairs and a security camera in the corner, saying a few things that I half listened to. I took a seat, watching as they left, Rita giving me one last smile and wave as she shut the door. I guess they didn't have many people call them immediately after getting powers, for them to be going through so much effort for me.

  I summoned somebody's sketchbook, just a random person's, I didn't know who's. Anne had used to let me flip through hers, and it was always more interesting than anything I'd seen in a museum, so I flipped through this one. Sketchbooks were the sort of art that never got shared. They were unfinished, raw and pure, unfiltered in ways that the end products often weren't.

  High school art students fucking around to find out. I had almost a thousand of these, all of high quality, supposedly. I could only assume that my power had a mechanism that let it semi-accurately know my preferences. To a limited extent, I soon found out after asking which sketch book I would like the most and it gave me a list about a hundred entries long.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  I could feel a migraine starting to form, when there was a knock on the door. "Um, come in?" I ventured, putting the sketchbook away. A man with a red visor peaked inside before entering. The rest of his costume matched the visor in colour, featuring that very generic light tactical armour that was popular nowadays. I think the speedster wore a helmet, so this was probably Assault.

  He gave a singular wave of his hand in greeting. "Hi there, I'm Assault. You may or may not recognise me from the local Protectorate." he said with an easy going smile. "Taylor, right?"

  He pulled up a chair, sitting across from me but actually having his chair be a good couple feet from the table, and leaning back to create a comfortable amount of space between us. "Yeah," His smile shrank. I took off my glasses and started cleaning them with a microfiber cloth. It was an excuse to avoid eye contact.

  "Okay," he replied lightly. "Is there anybody you'd like to call? These situations usually go better if there's an adult to coordinate with. That can be a relative, close family friend, or even a lawyer for the sort of people that just have lawyers lying around." That was a joke, I think.

  I'd paused my rubbing. "No, no one like that." Nobody that I wanted to bring into this. I resisted the urge to apologise again.

  He drummed his fingers on the soft armrest of the office chair, slouching slightly to one side. "That's fine, it's not entirely necessary." He sighed. "I want to make it very clear that you aren't a suspect here, Taylor. Nobody is accusing you of any crimes. But there is an investigation into your father's passing being started. You have the right to not make an official statement on any of the events that transpired. We'd like to have one, but you don't need to give me one, and you won't be treated any differently if you choose to remain silent on the subject." he informed me.

  I put my glasses back on. "Do I need to write it down?" I muttered, eyes fixed on the table between us.

  "If you want to, or we could do an audio recording."

  "Audio recording. Easier." I decided.

  He set a device on the table, clicking it on and saying introductory lines about the nature of the recording, then prompted me to start.

  I took a deep breath. "My dad and I were driving home after going out of town to ice skate at a spot that his family used to visit back when he was my age. It was snowing badly, so visibility wasn't great. The crash happened when an oncoming car- light grey sedan, crossed into our lane. I don't know if it was drunk driving or ice on the road or both, but my dad swerved to the right, avoiding collision." I paused, eyes roaming the room. I went on to describe the rest of what happened, steadying myself every few sentences, right up until when I'd found myself back home.

  I strangled the sobs trying to escape down to a short series of shudders, then gave myself a box of tissues to help clean up my face. Didn't even need to take off my glasses, they just stopped existing once I didn't want them there.

  "Is- is that enough?" It was all I had in me.

  Assault's voice was very gentle, just like everyone else I'd met tonight. "It's plenty. Thank you, Taylor." He clicked the recorder off.

  Dispersed fluids from objects I'd summoned didn't count as objects, but even non-summoned fluids could be banished if taken in by something I'd made. I got the impression buckets would work, but wasn't sure if trashbags and solid debris would. What even was my life right now. I huffed. "This is so fucked." I voiced quietly.

  Assault cleared his throat. "Unless you have any questions, I'll be, ah, taking my leave. A social worker will be with you shortly, to talk about your living situation." He scratched the back of his neck. "I'm not really qualified for that."

  I watched as he stood, taking his time presumably so that I could interrupt him if I wanted. I didn't. The empty room once again left me alone with my thoughts.

  Minutes passed, the door opened. A slightly pudgy man in business casual dress entered. "Taylor Hebert?" I nodded, making an affirmative noise. "Nice to meet you. My name's Denver Miller, but I'm from Philly, and I'll be your caseworker going forward."

  He raised a hand for me to shake. I summoned an empty glove and had that shake his hand for me.

  He chuckled awkwardly, taking a seat. The man started talking. I didn't listen very closely. Until, "-can't really let you go unsupervised," caught my attention. "Typically that means temporary placement in a group home until we can find next of kin. Or often a suitable foster home, but given the particularities of how your case is likely to develop, that'd take more vetting than normal."

  I felt heckles rising at the back of my neck. "But I have a house."

  He slumped slightly. "You'd need to be sixteen to live on your own, and have a reliable source of income."

  I rested my hands on the building, my metaphysical hands, raising my eyebrows. "But I have a house." I repeated.

  Mr. Miller closed his eyes for a couple seconds. "Okay, honestly, I couldn't stop you from staying at your house if I tried. Hypothetically I, or anyone else who you're supposed to be in the care of, could call the police, but they'd just ask politely. Might need a warrant too, not sure." He straightened his posture. "I'll be frank with you Taylor, do you intend to join the Wards? I'm not a member of the PRT, but your intentions there will significantly impact the legal leniency of the situation."

  I should've been expecting that, but I hadn't. I wasn't in the right headspace for these discussions, yet they needed to happen. "I, uhh, yes?" I hadn't given it much thought. It made sense, it was what I knew should be done, it fit my situation.

  "Okay then," he wrote something in the folder he had open. "So, you're not technically in the system yet. The law prefers that we get everything sorted immediately, and we often do sort first and file later, but until then it's somewhat acceptable for you to stay at your house for the next few nights. There will probably be a court hearing soon to decide where you'll be going. You'll have a court appointed special advocate, and it's likely that your interests will align, so you should work with them however you can. Their job will be to help represent what they believe to be your best interests, so it'll be important that they know what those interests are."

  That was spontaneously more legalese than I was expecting.

  He was only getting started. "If you were to join the Wards as you plan to, it may be possible that the PRT takes you in full time. They usually avoid that if they can, but- you may be familiar with monster capes, or case fifty-threes as the more official term. They're the most prominent examples of that. With the Wards base as your official residency you might be able to spend most of your nights at your house, as they'd be much more lenient on that front than most of the other options, assuming that your father owned the house and that it's fully paid off. If not, the Wards do make a small salary, but I don't know how that math would work out." He tapped his papers. "It says here that you still have a maternal grandmother, currently living in New Hampshire, but you haven't brought her up at all. She'll be contacted. The courts will likely want you to go live with her, but if you were to join the Wards here that would give you a better argument against relocation." He kinda lost me at that point. Something about, "-the Youth Guard-" and, "-internal policy is for a tribunal-" along with, "-the fact that legally there isn't much difference between being a ward of the state and being a ward of the PRT specifically. Though either way they'll still try and get you into a foster home eventually."

  "Can that be future me's problem?" I asked after what felt like hours.

  He scrunched his eyelids shut, finally slowing down. "You know what, yes, yes it can." He shut his folder and stood up. "Too late to get you anywhere tonight anyways. Can I give you a ride home?"

  I joined him on my feet, stretching languidly. Gosh, what time was it? Surely… A clock appeared on the table, displaying a time that was definitely not what it was frozen at in my template. "Hey, is that accurate?" I asked, pointing briefly at the clock.

  Mr. Miller checked his wrist watch. "Yep, within a few seconds."

  Oh, so it was nearly midnight. "Sorry." I said as I followed him out of the room.

  "Don't apologise, it's what I'm here for. Besides, you're interesting, and not even in the euphemism for lots of paperwork way. Still a medium amount of extra paperwork though."

  We made our way through the building without further conversation. Slower than I would've on my own, I kept having to purposefully walk with smaller steps. I hadn't noticed how short he was when we'd both been sitting. Should I even care about that, with everything that'd happened, why was my mind there instead of elsewhere?

  I tried not to fidget. It still felt like I could trip over my own feet and collapse the building. It felt like an itch, a fly buzzing in my ear, I just didn't know what to do with it. I was at once both tired and antsy. Hungry, but where thinking of food made me nauseous. I brought forth a little carton of milk, using its straw to poke a hole in the top.

  We passed through the lobby. It wasn't open to visitors this late at night, but the lights at the PRT never turned off. My caseworker checked himself out, handing over his visitor's pass. I hadn't had one of those.

  The cold winter air caught me by surprise. Instinctive, I'd already started reaching for my power, halfway there before I'd even noticed what I was doing. I felt a coat almost pressing against my palm, eager to come forth, whispering knowledge of its many desirable qualities directly into my skull.

  'Creepy.' I felt, purposefully pushing it away. Sure, it was unlikely anybody would notice even now that we were outside, but it wasn't a habit I wanted to form. I needed to be secretive, I had plenty of experience with that, just needed to use it.

  Mr. Miller led me into the public parking lot, cutting through the empty rows to reach his little red minivan, unlocking it with a click of his keys. As I buckled I became distinctly aware of the fact that I was getting into a car with a man at least twice my age, who was practically a stranger, and that I hadn't shared with anyone where I was going or what I was doing. It was dumb, an impractical level of paranoia when I could ostensibly squash him like a bug if I were to be threatened. Besides, he was trustworthy. He had no reason to wish me ill, and had rather notably expressed the opposite.

  We drove in silence for the first half of the journey, then I guided him when we were in the general area. This time I summoned the coat before stepping out into the snow. Not so much putting it on as huddling in it as I crossed the lawn. I didn't have keys on me, yet there was no need to grab the spare when its replicant was already in my hand. Miller stayed parked until I opened the door, assuring for himself that I got inside safely, or so I assumed.

  The coat and keys were gone by the time I'd locked everything up behind me. I was home, for real this time. It was the exact same.

  Still, I breathed a sigh of relief, stripping off my layers one by one, boots, socks, sweater, pants, all of them came off, leaving me in just my shirt and underwear. No bra, obviously. Didn't need one, not with so many layers. The blinds were shut, so it's not like I was flashing anybody. Just wanted to be able to breathe again.

  I lazily munched on a peanut bar at the base of the stares, limbs spread out and hair in desperate need of a brushing. All that dry air couldn't've been good for it. It'd have to wait till after breakfast on the morrow.

  Crumbs were objects still, so my mess cleaned itself. I still needed to eat more, but didn't feel like subjecting myself to real food with all its dishes and silverware. My solution was to use more finger food, corn dogs and egg rolls and chicken tenders that I needed to be careful with so that the sauce didn't get on the carpeted stairs. The last one was oily. I didn't feel like walking to the sink, thus the sink found its way to me.

  I'd start doing stuff normally again, as using my powers like this clearly wasn't healthy… but that could wait till tomorrow.

  A bundle of pillows floated me up the stairs, and I almost went into my bedroom before reluctantly heading to the bathroom to brush my teeth. And piss, that too. Brushing required that I at least sit mostly upright, but my eyes were closed nearly the entire time. It was kind of a half-assed job.

  After that I finally — finally — collapsed into bed. I didn't even want to think about how long the day had been. Too long, too much, too tragic. I'd deal with it all in the morning.

  I think my face was wet.

  .