“Not at that time, no,” she said, utterly serious. “So…if Sienna dusted those crooks in self-defense, why is she still public enemy number one?”
“Because President Harmon was a meta running a scheme to take over the world by boosting his metahuman telepathic powers so he could mind-control everyone.” She raised an eyebrow, then the other, and I felt compelled to further explain. “That…sounds really stupid when you just blurt it out that way, doesn’t it?”
“Little farfetched, yeah,” she admitted. “Boosted powers? Telepathic president? Man…you people deal with some weird stuff.”
“You can say that again.”
Chase got a little gleam of mischief in her eye. “You people deal—”
“We do, we really do,” I said, nodding along.
“So why is everyone avoiding you like you’re a black hole?” Chase asked. “Like you’re a bomb on the plane. Or a snake on a plane.”
“Probably because Samuel L. Jackson isn’t around to announce me as such,” I said, looking around for J.J. He’d supply the Samuel L. Jackson line if he heard Chase reference it, I was sure of that much. “Look, Chase…”
“Oh, man. Is this the part where you shut me out because this isn’t any of my business?”
I took a deep breath, biting down that first instinct, because…it kinda was her business. “No,” I said. “You’re riding into this storm with us, so…it’s totally your business now. The reason they’re avoiding me is probably—and I’m just guessing here—because I’m projecting a black hole, and no one wants to ask how I really feel, even though they can hear us talking.”
“As usual, you’re amazingly self-aware,” Veronika announced from a couple rows back. “You keep it up and you’ll be self-actualizing in no time.”
“That sounds dirty,” Friday said. In his sleep, I think.
“We’re having to sneak into the UK,” I said, looking Chase right in the eyes. “Do you know why?”
“They’ve got a metahuman ban,” she said. “The whole EU does.” She laughed grimly. “I’ve had to dodge it for years for work.”
“Do you know how it happened?” I asked, smacking my lips. She shrugged. “Out of the country and away from the internet when it went down?” She didn’t react save for a subtle hardening of her attitude to tell me she wasn’t amused. “Fine, I’ll tell you—it’s because I went to Rome and got into a fight just outside the Vatican with a meta who wanted to create a nation state of his own in Italy, starting with killing the Pope and taking over the Holy See to make it his evil fortress.”
Chase’s eyes widened subtly. “Seriously? That plan? The weirdest shit. Grandiose much?”
“I don’t choose my own villains,” I said with a sigh. “Anyway, I stopped these guys, with help from, uh, the Goddess Diana and another Poseidon who was a priest. But it was a pretty ugly incident, and so the EU decided they’d had about enough of meta shenanigans, and just slapped a blanket ban on us. It was still pretty early days for our kind being out, and they’d lost most of their meta population in the war, so…anyway. Meta ban. It’s on me.” I thumped my chest lightly. “So anyway…when we get to York…”
“We’re going to have to kinda…lay low, aren’t we?” she asked, getting it.
“Like a snake on—not a plane—its belly.” I leaned back in my seat. “This rescue mission? Would have been a lot easier if not for my mess in Italy a few years back. So, you want to know why people are avoiding me? It’s because I’m a pit of worry for my sister, who I have the luxury of knowing is innocent, and who is as powerless as she’s been since the end of the war, is trapped behind enemy lines, basically, in an EU country, and might not even make it to the rendezvous. But if she does,” I said, finally drawing close to the grey crux of worry that was hanging around my neck right now, “I don’t know that we’re going to easily be able to hang out waiting for her, because the minute we pop off this plane, if anyone recognizes us—”
“We’re in the soup,” Chase said, nodding along. “And not good soup either, like chicken and wild rice. Probably bad soup, like that thin, crappy tomato stuff that tastes like watered down ketchup.”
“Close enough,” I said, giving her that one. And I just let her think it over, as I looked out the window and saw the coast on the horizon.
We’re coming, Sienna, I thought, but didn’t dare say aloud for fear someone would hear me and think—I dunno, decently of me, maybe. And for fear that maybe…in spite of all the things she’d done wrong in her life…it would be my screw-up that ultimately killed my sister’s chance to escape the UK.
And just maybe…kill her, too.
30.
Sienna
I was screwed over by Edinburgh again, and I didn’t really have a lot of options available to me that I liked.
The mob behind me broke into a run as soon as I saw them, so, naturally, I broke into a run too, pounding down the street at meta speed, cries of angry and disgruntled people starting to bellow out from behind me. Waverly Station was right ahead, and there was no point in politely pretending I wasn’t a meta when a randomly assembled street gang of people dressed in…
Whoa.
While my lead pursuer might have been dressed in quite the, ah…aesthetically displeasing ensemble, what with the shredded jeans and all, his fellow members of the Kill Sienna Gang were not following his fashion example. I saw men in suits, women dressed for the office, two people looking like they were homeless, someone who might well have been on their way to a punk rock concert…
I was about to be killed by horde of Edinburghers who probably wouldn’t have associated with each other under normal circumstances. Yay for bringing people together. I was a unifier.
Waverly’s triangular roof stuck up straight ahead, and I tried to decide whether it’d be better to leap the wall and try to hide in the crowd or dodge this lot and circle around to the main entrance. Hopefully they hadn’t hacked my stolen phone (a very Jamal thing to do, but hopefully not a very Rose one) because if so, the damned game was up on my current destination and also my final one.
My boots thudded against the sidewalk and I shoved past an old lady wearing a head scarf. She let out a cry of shock as I jetted past, almost knocking her over just by momentum. I looked back to see her astounded face…
And also my tattered jeans pursuer running a hell of a lot faster than a normal human would, leaving the rest of the angry mob behind.
Okay, well, that gave me something to work with. I might be able to outrun most of them if I could just get rid of this guy.
I decided, screw it, and vaulted the wall, finding myself landing in the Waverly Station carpark. That seemed like a fine option for a game of hide and seek, which was what I was planning to play with Mr. Blonde. I knew the next train to York was leaving in twenty or thirty minutes, but that was a long time to try and dodge him.
I cursed when I landed, because not only did it hurt, but this wasn’t actually a car park at all. I must have misread the sign, because instead I found myself in a passenger drop-off zone. I could even see a damned train, though it was just behind a fence.
Shiiiiiiit. This did not help at all, really.
Deciding there was not a lot of point in being coy, I broke for the train and sprinted. With a short, controlled leap, I made it over the fence into Waverly proper, and found myself not on a platform. I was on the damned tracks, and there was a train in front of me, pulling slowly into the station, driver gawking at me open-mouthed.
Getting run over slowly might have been a metaphor for my life of late, but it wasn’t really going to work for me, so I sucked it up, ignored the pain in my ankle, and leapt again, skittering over the roof of the train, staying below the arched glass that made up the ceiling to the station, and slid off onto the platform on the other side.