Monster Interlude: Aisha

“Well Brian… what the hell have you gotten me into idiot...” Aisha sighed, her eyes focused upon the rustling trash of the area, every dammed bug in the place an irritation. “Something fucking sucks down in old Broke-back bay…”

She frowned, pulling the hoodie over her head just that bit more completely as she stepped with an unnatural care for every single motion. It would be sunset soon, and she was starting to get hungry, roaming the complex network of passages, back allies, and sometimes even out into broad daylight, where ever she could find that the oppressive feeling of eyes on the back of her neck could no longer be felt.

Her stomach rumbled.

She’d been on the move since this whole thing had started, Brian waking her in the night, getting her moving, getting her ready to skip town. She’d known her big, overbearing brother in every state imaginable, seen him beat a man almost to death for her... but this… this was something else, something different. She’d never seen Brian so dammed scared of anything in his life. His voice shook with emotion every time he spoke, his fingers trembled.

So for the first time in her life she listened to him without more than three words of argument.

She’d known.

About the powers, about the villain thing, about the ‘secret’ double life her brother had been leading. How could she not? It wasn’t as if she was blind to either the leather suit he thought he’d hidden from her, or the times he’d try his powers out in places he though had been secure. Or the sudden influx of good money into the house, where their old man was still sitting around on his ass waiting for replies to job applications which never came.

Aisha had always been many things, hyperactive, unfocused… and yeah if she admitted it to herself, just a bit needy. But stupid had never been one of those things, no matter how little her math score reflected that fact… dammed ADD. At least it proved good for something here, keeping track of all those eyes was tiring work, even as she could feel their demand building upon her once out in public.

She’d once wanted the attention… now she couldn’t help but feel the oppression inherent in the limelight.

She couldn’t stop it.

Couldn’t stop thinking about the empty horror of it all, of how she’d struggled and ran and then doubled back. Or of the blonde girl who’d found them both, her wide grin predatory as she proceeded to lay bare the facts of her brother’s hellish predicament before her as Brian growled at her to stop... pushed her against a wall as she laughed merrily even as he manhandled her in a way that Aisha would have sworn blind before that her big brother would never do.

As she told them about Amy Dallon.

As she cemented just how fucked they both were, as the bitch herself closed in. In graphic detail she began to describe the process of being taken, of being brainwashed and broken until nothing but Her whims mattered. Of how she’d done it already, again and again.

Of how everyone she’d ever touched was now a risk which Aisha could not afford to take.

The ultimate shell game, and no one whom she contacted might be a real person anymore. No hero, no PRT agent, not a single person whom she’d ever worked on at the hospital.

Nothing but peril.

And suddenly the world seemed something cold and hostile, filled with forces which could turn out to be an enemy at a moment’s notice. After all, how many had the famed healer touched over the years? How many had she infected with her power, her control?

And the coup-de-gras... that she’d taken some of her brother’s partners in crime, that she’d taken them and enhanced them. That everywhere in this bitter desolate city, every insect, every face, every, dog, everything could be ready to report her, to tell the enemy of her presence. Looking for her, seeking her out.

The chill of that reached deep into her bones.

She rushed out into the open, the big coat she’d stolen covering her body, her stance breaking up her profile in a way that Brian had taught her, changing her look as she moved quickly to each spot where attention seemed the least, her body, had become accustomed to doing so it seemed, always faster when she rushed from place to place between the damming eyes which had begun to drive her up a wall.

Every reminder that a single presence with literal billions of eyes was everywhere, and the most she could manage was to work her way through the little cracks in that limitless wall, and sometimes make a few more to slide in. Like a little mouse looking for cracks in the wall as the cat loomed large.

Her eyes darted wildly from place to place before practically scrambling to the next safe place along the way. The warmth of April was her nemesis, allowing the enemy ever more spies to single her out, to track her down and to take her.

She’d seen enough. The fight… bits and pieces, hints of its terror and blood.

She almost wish she’d never come back.

Then she could hope.

Her idiot big brother, brave and strong to a fault for her. Always for her, taking on trouble for her, fighting for her, bleeding for her.

Burdened by her.

She could not unsee the moment that that… thing… stepped out, the blond girl who’d helped them at its feet, head caved in and limp, while Brian too lay there… unmoving. She didn’t remember much else, standing away from it all… heart beating like a horrified snare drum, drilling away at the hellish beat.

She was alone.

Nothing could help her now… nothing could…

Again and again her mind circled about though what she’d seen.

She shook her head... no.

None of that, can’t spend time thinking about that, what was done was done, and now she needed to undo it. She needed to be the strong one for once, that bitch had taken her brother, and she had to hold out hope against all hope that she kept him alive, that his mind could be healed of whatever influence she’d laid down... that everything could be ok, just like that idiot had promised her.

“One cheeseburger please.” She spoke, subdued. She could feel every stare, even the briefest of glances. They both spooked and invigorated her. Made her want to retch in fear, made her want to stand and soak them all up.

Everyone in the shitty little fast food place was staring at her. Every single one of them boring down with uncanny intent upon her.

Well, upon her jacket. They’d focus upon it for the next little while, until either she got the hell out, or the charge ran out, and they wouldn’t be any the wiser that they’d just spent several moments staring at a flipping coat like it was the most dammed interesting sight in the world.

Sometimes, Aisha had learned, one needed to generate interest in order to avoid it.

She got outside just in time for the interest to fade, for her jacket to go back to being regular, but a bit oversized on a girl her frame. Enough for her to make it as uninteresting as possible while walking where real dangers might lay. The interest made something inside of her fill up, some strange new part of her which craved everyone’s eyes… or maybe it wasn’t that new… maybe.

She ate slowly, no telling when next she’d go for a meal. After all, every meal meant money, and every bit of money meant exposing herself to the risk of other people, and even more so to the risk of those all seeing eyes.

At the very least she’d spent the last week learning how not to get caught, how to avoid the sweeps of insects, and where were the nice safe spots to sleep, away from the billions of prying eyes.

Apparently whatever had been going on with the ABB, it had seen them create a strange tinker toy that kept the bugs away.

She nicked one the moment that she realized just what it had been doing.

Another bite into her cheese-burger came as her hand glowed, touching the jacket and pumping it full; priming it with a distinct lack of interest, so eyes would slide from it as she pulled it’s hoodie over her head. She’d taken to doing this during her investigations, slipping in between everyone’s notice as she tried her best to piece together the puzzle, never exposed for long, always cautious, always watchful.

She was hunted.

And she was the hunter.

If nothing else she’d inherited her brother’s determined nature, a stubbornness they both got from their mother.

Aisha wondered about, staying uninteresting, she’d probably get low soon if she tried to keep this up too long, but along the way she managed to pick up a few strands of conversation.

“Yeah, ABB’s gone quiet all of a sudden since night before. Stopped ‘recruiting’ too.” She listened in on two guys in a corner of one of the nicer neighborhoods, Empire territory. The evident tattoo of their affiliation clear to see even as she strolled right next to them, listening intently as their gazes occasionally slid past her. “The boss says Kaiser’s looking for a good time to take the advantage.”

“Yeah, but this is Lung we’re talking about. We don’t get first strike on him…” The other grimaced, thumb tracing lightly over a scar on his cheek.

“Way I see it, let someone else take the first dammed risk. PRT’s antsy about something, and that fight the other night… I hear some of the new capes, the ones that pissed off Lung a week or three ago, were involved. If they go first strike then he focuses on them, give our people a window to smack him down before he gets started too hard. Home team advantage taken.”

“Dangerous game to be playing with Lung, fucking jap bastard might be an idiot, but he’s a strong one. And only gets stronger when things go down. And we’ve still got Coil to fucking worry about too.”

Coil... she remembered that name. The blond girl had said something about him before they were forced to part… something about a pickup that Aisha was supposed to go to in order to be ‘safe’. As if there was any safety from this, the oppressive eyes which she could feel sliding by even as she stood here listening. And picking their pockets.

What? They E88 scum, she had to do that on principle.

Fuck... her reserves were starting to lower. She’s been wondering about too long.

Quickly she started moving again, proceeding to a nice safe zone, to nestle herself into and activate the stray ‘Bug bomb’ which she had stolen. F