This time, she wasn’t feeling so sorry for herself, so she noticed much more this time. The hair salon was only superficially dusty, with cobwebs that looked almost comically intricate. She walked through one, and realized it was an illusion, likely something Alleyshadow had cooked up. She wondered if the odd sense of foreboding was a spell, or just her mind trying to protect her.
The door into the hideout proper was open, but there was no low murmur of news, like the last time.
The Ferret and Silverknight were sitting at the table, each at a laptop. Silverknight had disappeared his gloves again so he could type. Pyrocles was at a recliner, this time reading a hardback book - tiny in his large hands - called Rise of the Super that Erin didn’t recognize. All three of them looked at her as she entered and closed the door behind her.
She didn’t see Alleyshadow at first, but heard someone opening and closing cabinets in one of the side rooms.
“Hey guys, how goes it?” She grabbed a chair at the same table she’d shown her website off at, along with The Ferret and Silverknight. She wasn’t feeling as brazen as she acted, but she did not want to look meek. She was going to have to defend herself here without getting angry at them. She might be able to strike Ashlynn, but she doubted she would be able to do the same with the Plot’s favorites.
The Ferret was the first to answer, her voice modulator turned off. She just sounded like a serious Misty Mason, which still felt a little off. “Yes. Turns out McMillan had taken a liking to the Ex Machina’s teachings about advancing machine intelligence and domination over mankind. McMillan had been a follower for years. When Boron sold off their defense portion of the business, he was first inspired to start scheming.”
The Ex Machina was an East Coast big bad, in regular rivalry with villain Modulus over whose mechanical prowess is greatest.
Erin shook her head, though. Five years as a Pawn, and no one knew. She guessed he had no close family, no real friends, and - when he changed jobs - no one to call him out for acting “out-of-character” from his former life as backdrop . Janey tended to act blank when the Plot was mentioned, but not all Pawns were the same.
“I’m glad you guys caught him.”
“Quite frankly, Erin, we may not have without your help,” Pyrocles said, from his seat, having placed his book down. “You solved it for us.”
Erin shook her head. “It was a matter of time. You had all the clues too,” she motioned to Silverknight, “it just took a little more time. Once you realized Janey was missing, you’d have connected all the dots immediately.” Erin grew up learning how stories worked just to survive; she could see how this one was written for a Protagonist, to keep them engaged.
The Ferret shook her head. “Not before McMillan had started trying to cover his tracks. He’d killed the three programmers that had been working at Divinilogic for him on this project and forged their resignations over time. He was angry with Janey for putting you in as a replacement he didn’t want, partly why he took her hostage.”
“Oh.” That hadn’t broken on the news yet, and she wasn’t getting insider information anymore, but the reality matching her expectation was not light news. Six people dead.
Silverknight - Tyson sounded resigned. “I hate that I didn’t figure it out sooner.”
Me too, Erin thought, sincerely. If he had, she could have still pretended she wasn’t a little responsible herself.
“That’s not really why we came here to talk,” The Ferret said, her tone grave.
“Yeah, I figured,” Erin said, “but I need to talk about the whole kidnapping more later, if there’s time.”
The Ferret acquiesced, though Alleyshadow came out from the back room with raised eyebrows over his domino mask, looking amused. The Ferret led off the ‘interrogation.’ “How did you figure out who we were?”
Erin looked at The Ferret. “There were lots of little things. Of course, I saw Rex ‘Spectacular’ try to hit me with eye blasts, but that was hardly conclusive.” Erin held her fists under the table, still angry at the entire event, anticipating the Plot would stop her. She hadn’t meant to lead with that, but it slipped out.
The Ferret shook her head, asking, “Why didn’t you tell me then?”
“Because I didn’t have any reason to believe the lawyer Mistel Mason could protect me from him. And if he’d known I was blabbing about his identity, he’d have a reason to come back. Because I just wanted that incident to disappear rather than define my life.” Erin paused, and said, without looking at Silverknight, “Because if you planned to have him on your team, then why would I have expected you to help anyway?”
That sat quiet over the room. She didn’t break the silence, needing the time to refocus her thoughts on what she wanted to say, and not sayl. She could yell at them for their bad judgement another time.
She continued, quieter, “I had other clues about who the Cavalry was after that. Actually, you’d given it away first, Misty.” Erin had prepared this part of the little speech out after the last few days, knowing it would probably come up. The Ferret motioned disbelief, but Erin continued, “I’ve never heard anyone ever say ‘Hell’s Bells’ before in my entire life outside a movie, and I grew up here in Carolina.”
Alleyshadow gave a whoop of laughter, gesturing to The Ferret’s look of chagrin. “That wasn’t all, to be fair,” Erin said as Alleyshadow’s laughter died a little.
“From there, I had to wonder how Alleyshadow had already been in the kitchen to fight off Nathan Jing’s dragon problem.” Erin skipped over the part where she deliberately gave Tyson a hint to escape and change into Silverknight that time. Alleyshadow’s turn to be a little embarrassed. She wasn’t supposed to know by then.
Silverknight nodded, but motioned, “Anything else obvious?” He didn’t seem to realize Erin had set him up for that escape.
“And Silverknight, sorry, but…, you didn’t have gloves on when I first saw you at the water treatment plant when at a keyboard. I don’t think Silverknight had ever been seen without the full suit of armor, but given his propensity to save Janey Greyford from trouble, it just made sense that the soft-spoken black guy who was dating Janey might be the same person. It was a guess for me, but it seemed like a good one. You were still the best people to tell about McMillan, given our history.”
Erin didn’t outright point out how often it was that the Plot made Janey into a damsel in distress for The Cavalry, but if it wasn’t obvious to them, she probably couldn’t point it out.
“The son of Prometheus being an ancient literature professor followed from that guess. Everything else sort of followed, like how the Cavalry knew I’d done work on websites and such before the water treatment plant, when you had no reason to research me, except by knowing me personally. Heck, that you knew my name when you’d rescued me was a surprise. A dozen little things that just made sense.”
Shaking her head, Erin lied, “I don’t know why Doppelganger picked me, but I’m guessing they might know who you are too.” This was not a surprising jump for her to make. She’d obviously been a hostage. That she was randomly chosen as she left for work out in the middle of the suburbs was astronomically unlikely.
There was an uncomfortable silence, and Erin got the distinct impression that the Cavalry wasn’t excited to talk about Doppelganger. Alleyshadow broke the silence, saying, “Oh fuck, at the plant was when I said something like: ‘I can see why they like you’ wasn’t it?”
Everyone turned to look at Alleyshadow. Erin smiled. “Yeah, it was. Who ‘they’ were was something I’d been asking myself for days afterwards, even as my suspicions were confirmed.”
It was a good enough story, and would help Erin keep up the pretense, though she was rather tired of it. She’d rather dispense with it all together. “Though I’m not the only one who-” The Plot grabbed her with such sudden, breathtaking force that she thought she might have finally tipped over into being a Pawn. It hurt. She even started coughing, out of control, as if to mask her sudden seizure by the Plot.
