“Alright, you pack of fresh murderbird guts,” Creeper looked over Sally and the others while leaning on the wall beside the door of Epsilon Hotel’s courtyard, “let’s have a sound-off. I need to know how I’m gonna set this up.”
Sally shot glances from the corner of her eye at the other operatives—her team-mates—assembled beside her while standing at attention.
“Eduardo, Henrietta,” Henri broke the silence before it lived to see another second, “but unless any of you are long-lost relatives, call me Henri. Icepick Hotel, callsign Lycan.”
“You a Shifter category?” Creeper spoke up.
“Dionysian, actually.” A grin creased Henri’s lips.
“Huh. That’s a rare cat.” Creeper gestured for the rest of the group to continue.
“Meran, Ira.” Ira’s voice was mostly wind-chimes as she took a slight step forward. “Alpha Hotel, callsign Preta. Spectre category.” Ira was still in her tank-top. She gave not so much as the slightest sign of discomfort when the chill wind washed over her, ruffling her hair.
Sally watched Creeper nod.
“Uh, Lockheed, Mal.” Mal shuffled forward, the only person present whose shoulders remained slouched. He tugged the loose brown jacket tighter around him. “I’m… I’m not really-”
“Right now, you’re one of us.” Creeper interjected. “You ever had your Abnormality categorized?”
Mal nodded once, twice.
“What’d you roll up?”
He took a step closer to Henri, casting his eyes down. “I don’t think…”
Henri put a hand on his shoulder.
Mal sighed, then folded his arms. “Faust.”
Sally blinked despite herself. Her eyes roved over the modest horns that broke through the skin of Mal’s brow with a new appreciation—which almost became caution, before she quashed it. That wasn’t fair of her, especially considering the looks and whispers she herself attracted.
Creeper whistled, low and long. “Rarer still. You really can pick ‘em, Nolan.”
Sally inclined her head, then tried to offer Mal a smile. His eyes never left the ground.
“Maki, Amara,” said the young woman to Ira’s left. Her black hair was cropped short, and her dark brown eyes struck Sally as almost bored. Amara’s Corps jacket hung open on her shoulders, revealing a stocky frame, and knuckle tape that extended all the way up her forearms. Her right hand was encased in a black glove.
“Alpha Hotel, callsign Grateful. Revenant category.”
“I’m Revenant category, myself,” Creeper gave Amara a thumbs-up, which Amara returned in an instant. Creeper’s mottled face broke out into a smile. “Quick moves, Maki. Rare in a freshie, I like that.”
Out of everyone here, the only person Sally couldn’t say she liked was Amara, probably because Ira’s weird fervour had led to Sally’s only introduction to Amara being this morning, when they’d walked through the doors of Epsilon Hotel.
“Theodora-Nola, Sally.” Sally said, completing the roll-call. “Epsilon Hotel, callsign Gorgon. Hex category.”
“Yeah, yeah, Nolan,” Creeper waved her off, “this is your show, we should all know who you are.”
Sally suppressed a chuckle as Creeper peeled herself off the wall, and began to walk a circuit of the assembled operatives.
Sally, after years of being keenly aware of the reflection in the mirror that others faced when she went out, had no fear or hesitation when it came to meeting Creeper face to face. Her single reservation was that Epsilon’s exceedingly casual veteran’s collage of facial scars, callouses, mottling, and other Abnormality-generated quirks made it incredibly difficult to discern any expressions that weren’t overt or obvious, such as a smile.
Creeper didn’t flash any teeth as she went over Sally’s squad-mates, and the pit of Sally’s stomach began to gnaw at her with baby teeth. Creeper completed one pass, then another, and then a third pass around Sally and company, before coming to a stop with her back turned to the newly graduated Corps operatives.
“So.” Creeper’s armoured jacket-collar obscured the back of her head.
Sally squeezed her thumbs to prevent any nervous cheek-biting.
“Anyone have any squad-name ideas,” Creeper turned on her heels, “or are we going to stick with the official designations?”
Sally barely stifled a whoop. She looked to Henri, who winked at her, then over to Ira, who was absolutely beaming.
“I was thinking Stepsister.” Sally said, as Creeper withdrew a tablet.
“It’s just, in a lot of the stories from Ancient Earth, there’s always a stepsister,” Sally began explaining when Creeper’s calloused brow rose, but her face grew flush with embarrassment. It sounded childish out loud…
To Sally’s surprise, Amara snorted, then offered her a tired smile. “I get it. Good name.”
“I mean, I was thinking something more along the lines of ‘Praying Mantis Antichrist,’ or ‘Death-reaper,’ but Stepsister works just fine.” Henri shrugged, and Mal stifled a chuckle halfway behind her.
Ira nodded her own quiet encouragement, though her eyes were glued to the tablet in Creeper’s hands.
“Stepsister it is, then.” Creeper entered the name into the ranking database, and Sally’s brief shame fell away in the face of anxious excitement. Creeper slipped a stylus out from a pocket in the tablet, offering both to Sally.
Sally signed on her profile, now listed under the squad readout entitled “STEPSISTER.”
She passed it to Henri, who signed in a neat hand. Henri gave it to Ira, who marked an ‘X’ over the line, then Amara added her messy scribbles to the rest. Creeper took the tablet, scrawled something below the squad, and slid the stylus back into the tablet’s niche.
When Epsilon’s ranking vet handed it back to Sally, STEPSISTER was a fully signed, formal squad listed in the Fury Corps’ team roster.
“Thank you so much, Corporal.” Sally offered Creeper a salute, which the older woman waved away.
“You kids have fun out there, be safe.” Creeper smiled her snaggle-toothed smile. Sally returned it, then looked down to scroll through the available assignments tab-
“Uh, Corp- Creeper?” Sally slid the stylus out from the niche. “You forgot to sign us for outreach clearance.”
Creeper tapped her chin with one finger. “Mm, nope. I didn’t.”
“There’s no signature here though, ma’am.” Sally blinked.
“There sure isn’t, freshie,” Creeper tapped the edge of the tablet, “you catch on quick.”
The world fell out from beneath Sally’s feet, though she remained upright and still.
“I don’t understand,” she began. Henri was at her side in an instant, as was Ira, whose happy vagueness was now crystal-clear concern. Amara kicked at some loose stones in the courtyard.
Creeper shrugged. “You’re a brand-new team. Can’t throw you to Bat Country when you’ve never worked as a unit before, it’d eat you alive. It’ll do that no matter what, but a cohesive team stands a chance of sticking in its craw, at least.”
“But we’ve all done unit-training at the Academy.” Sally said.
“Corporal, I assure you, I placed eleventh overall in the Academy’s cooperative exercises, while Operative Maki placed twelfth,” Ira’s gaze was steady, her face expressionless. “We are more than capable of performing as a functioning unit.”
“My callsign’s enough, Ira.” Creeper met Sally’s pale green gaze easily. “I know your placement in boot camp. I’ve also read your psych evals, personality profiles, you name it.”
Amara flinched. Sally didn’t see Ira move so much as a hair.
“You’ve never worked as a team in the field, and believe me, you can’t ever replicate the feel of fieldwork at the Academy, no matter how hard they try,” Creeper continued. “You don’t even know what each other’s powers are, or how they fit together.”
“Please, Creeper, I- We really need this. Squads cleared for outreach get preferred over others for big assignments.” And assignments in Bat Country always meant better rankings, but Sally kept that to herself.
Creeper sighed. She rolled her shoulders—drawing a chorus of cracks and pops into the cold air—then stretched her neck from side to side—producing yet more of the same—then pinched the bridge of her nose.
Sally waited for Creeper to look up again, resisting the urge to blink. The buzzing threatened to crawl into the back of her eyes, but she fought that back, too, fingers an inch above the goggles hanging around her neck.
“Aw, freshie,” Creeper groaned, “don’t fix me with those big eyes and think I’ll give in.”
“I’m not, ma’am,” Sally said, as she continued to do just that, “I would never, ma’am.”
“Damnit.” Creeper took the tablet from Sally, then looked around at the other operatives before thumbing the screen. “Fine. You think you’re really ready? Fine. Just one condition, first.”
Creeper handed the tablet back to Sally: an assignment dominated the screen, green and confirmed for STEPSISTER.
“If you can handle this one, as a team, I’ll sign off.” Creeper put her hands up in mock-surrender.
It was Sally’s turn to grin at the corporal as her team clustered around to get a look at the tablet.
* * *
Sally looked up from the sat-view and street-view pics of the construction site displayed on her phone to get a look at the ultraplex in its infancy. Not even into the second month of its construction, and the thing could’ve easily been mistaken for some plast-iron and metal behemoth’s skeleton clawing its way up through the earth.
The Core was still miles away to the south, but Sally still thought this neighbourhood didn’t need another ultraplex. Its fully-formed brothers and sisters loomed in relatively even distances; this would be the first ultraplex to cut those patterned spaces short.
She slipped her phone in her pocket, then started approaching the perimeter Nirvana City Guard had created around the construction site. The N.C.G. officers stood behind their barricade of titan-foam and support vehicles, weapons at the ready—none of them were Warlock-grade guns, so Sally assumed they’d been waiting on the Corps.
Sure enough, the officer in charge waved them through the perimeter without any conflict over jurisdiction or authority, even despite their apparent age. Sally didn’t let the relief that washed over her at having avoided the horror stories and PR nightmares that often arose between N.C.G. and new Corps operatives show, and strode into the ultraplex’s grounds, the rest of Stepsister in tow.
“We’re dealing with a spriggan,” Sally said as she keyed up her earpiece. “Imp class, sixth circle. It’ll use the environment to its advantage, it’ll meld with it if things go sour. If it formed here or somewhere similar, that means it can co-opt plast-iron and titanium.”
“No problem.” Henri cracked her neck.
“It’s after an emotion, so let’s keep this low-to-no contact.” Sally looked for less obvious entrances as her team fanned out. “Quick run-down on our toolbox, ladies and gentleman?”
“I hit. I can break plast-iron and titanium,” Henri spoke into her comm. “so melding won’t save it.”
“I can take however many hits,” Amara piped up, “but I’ll slow down if I take a headshot. I’ll reset if there’s any decapitation.”
Reset? Sally didn’t have time to ask, moments away from an entrance to the building too small for construction-golems—the surveyor’s entrance, then.
“Ira?”
“I am invulnerable for now. If you figure out what emotion it is feeding on, let me know. Then I will become more vulnerable, but the spriggan will likely become easier to eliminate.” Ira’s comm bore the faintest hint of crackle and hiss. Sally tapped at her comm, wondered of Alpha Hotel’s reputation for preparedness if their new operatives didn’t get clean comms.
“Alright. Mal?” Sally hadn’t been sure of Mal accompanying them on this mission, but he’d signed the deputization forms, and Creeper had insisted. Sally chanced a look over her shoulder to find the horned boy sticking close to Henri, as usual.
Silence reigned over the comm channel.
“Mal, what are you bringing to our toolbox?” Sally repeated.
“Come on, it’s okay here, it’s okay with them…” Sally caught Henri’s whisper in the background of Mal’s mic.
“I can see it,” Mal hesitated in the middle of words, stumbling over others, “where things are weak, I mean. I can see where it’s weak.”
“…Okay, good.” Sally said after a moment. That’s all he could do, and he was in Faust category? Sally’s estimation of the Lockheeds’ cruelty and fanaticism grew. “That’s actually really useful.”
Sally stopped before the surveyor’s entrance to the bowels of the unfinished ultraplex, and drew her sidearm.
The rest of Stepsister converged on the entrance behind her, and drew their weaponry.
“I’ll take point. I’m always point-woman.” Amara said, and Sally moved aside to let her pass. Amara carried a scattergun, though Sally didn’t know whether she’d modified it for Warlock rounds, or was content with standard flechettes. An axe-blade hung where a bayonet might be mounted.
“Entry on my mark,” Sally whispered. She could almost feel the air tighten around her as her squad tensed in preparation.
“Three. Two. One.” Sally counted one heartbeat, a second heartbeat, a third heartbeat. “Go.”
Amara plunged into the dim of the ultraplex, and Sally, Henri, Mal, and Ira hurtled in right after.