25

“Are you sure you want to stop here kid? This isn’t the nicest neighborhood.” The taxi driver asks. It was an innocent enough question, even a fair one.

The neighborhood wasn’t the nice kind, it was on the wrong side of the metaphorical train tracks. It wasn’t the kind of place children should be, not that it stopped them. You could see them on every corner, looking out for cops or heroes. Foy didn’t understand why they bothered really, the cops wouldn’t come around without hero support, and the only heroes that came around were the crazy ones.

Like me. Foy thought as she paid the driver. The man was right to worry, she might be able to fit in to this neighborhood, but he had picked her up at a nice hospital. It was unlikely he was happy to even be stopping. He might have been worried about even driving into the neighborhood, he certainly didn’t stick around, driving off well above the speed limit.

No one bothered her as she walked down the road to the empty apartment building that was her’s. It had only been her’s by right of occupation until the heroes had bought it for her. They offered a nicer place, in a nicer neighborhood first of course, but this is where she came from. Where she had been born, by one way of looking at it. A person can’t just leave that behind.

They had bothered her when she first moved in, the crackheads on the first floor, the brothel on the second. Or what passed as a brothel in this neighborhood. They were all gone now, scared off. No one wanted to challenge her authority over her domain now. This run down concrete block had been her’s in every way that mattered before the heroes had given her the deed.

It had a certain character to it. It was notable as being the only building without graffiti, no one had dared. The first floor windows no longer had glass, just boards that had been cannibalized from the floor. One of the second floor windows was blocked by what looked like a large cabinet, a second was covered by ivy, and a third only had several pieces of broken glass.The top floor had all the windows, and lace curtains, it even had a coat of paint. Only the top floor.

There was only one way to the top floor. The fire escape had rusted beyond the point in which it could be used, and the first staircase had collapsed due to water damage. If anyone had tried to use the elevator in the last decade Foy would have been surprised. The remaining staircase was a small cramped one in the back, when she had first moved in, and everyone else out, three flights of stairs had been an effort. Not so much anymore.

Because of all of this it was a surprise to find the room she had designated her living room, occupied. The person was sitting in her high backed leather chair. It was a good chair for brooding in, all dark brown, and large enough to tuck her feet under her. Not that she brooded much, but when she did, Foy used that chair.

The person occupying it was wearing what looked like a black suit, complete with black shirt, and tie. It only looked like that, it was very formfitting yet still gender obscuring, stylized power armor, all metal of some kind. The person was wearing black gloves to match of course, they had the only color on them gold lines tracing the index, middle, and ring fingers down to the wrist. The persons head was shaped like a department store manikin, all generic.

“What do you want Alecia? I have to be somewhere in an hour, and it’s going to take a while to get ready.” Foy asked, feeling just a bit annoyed.

“Oh come on, does everyone know who I am these days?” Prysim replied.

“I found out when you put your lab underneath the tower, that was stupid on your part.” Foy answered.

“It wasn’t stupid, it was hubris. Know the difference, it might save your life sometime” Prysim said.

“I am busy, so why are you here?” Foy asked.

Normally Foy was good at reading body language, she suspected it was one of the quirks of her powers. Prysim was downright freaky in that regard. She didn’t have any. The last time they had met, on the roof top there was body language, even through the power armor. Now there wasn’t, not even to talk. It was unnerving, which wasn’t something Foy was used to anymore.

Prysim took her time answering, like she was thinking over her answer. “Thank you.”

“What?” Foy asked, with slight disbelief.

“Thank you, and I won’t say it again. You helped save my son, when I should have been there but couldn’t. So what do you want?” Prysim said.

“What do I want? You come into my home, to pay off some debt of pride? I didn’t do it for you, I did it for Keanan. I don’t want anything from you.” Foy said stalking past Prysim, towards her bathroom. “I want to get ready to go meet your son, and the rest of our team for dinner. I don’t want to deal with spoiled little princesses going through a rebellious phase.”

“Is that what you think of me? A spoilt little princess, just trying to piss my parents off. Not quite right, I’m more a victim of circumstance than anything.”

“Bull-fucking-shit, you aren’t a victim, you have never been a victim you have too much pride for that. You would never allow yourself to be a victim, regardless of the circumstances you will always come out on top. So don’t give me that crap, some of us have been real victims, so don’t pretend it makes you a villain, you did that all on your own.”

“I suppose you have, I can help with that.”

“Go to hell.” Gaslight slammed the door behind her as she stalked out of the room.

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