Paris 2: Je t’Aime
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The first thing they did was climb the Eiffel tower. It had been too long since they stretched like this, and they were happy for the exercise. Careful not to damage the metal as they launched themselves up the giant construction's leg, they reached the summit in time for dawn. Hanging on to the antenna with one hand, they swung around to observe the city, see just how massive this sprawling city was, how big a city would have to be to fit fourteen million people. 

 

Pretty big, turns out. 

 

“Hey Penny.”

 

Yeah?

 

“You know what the best thing is about the top of the Eiffel tower?”

 

What?

 

“It's the only place in Paris where you can't see the Eiffel tower.”

 

See, I knew it was coming, and yet…

 

They settled. 

 

The sun had allegedly come up, but there was no stark difference between night and day with rainfall this heavy. Crouched on the giant spire, rain ran off them in rivulets. 

 

I've missed this 

 

“Me too.”

 

I want to go hunting. There's something out there hurting people, and in this weather, nobody's going to look up. 

 

“Are you ready?”

 

Are you gay?

 

“Pot calling Kettle, over.”

 

Honestly I don't know why she puts up with us 

 

“Because we're wonderful and a joy to be around.”

 

That's true 

 

“And because we can turn into a seven foot tall monster and she's into that.”

 

That is also true. 

 

They descended and stalked the rooftops, attention divided one time, split the next, as they scanned the city with more senses than she would be able to explain. 

 

Penumbra had been with Max for five years, and had been the reason all of this had kicked off. Their personalities and needs were different but, at this point, thinking of them as separate people would be inaccurate. Neither was fully whole without the other anymore. When they aligned fully, they were Spite, and the Distinction vanished altogether. Spite was not something bad people often survived seeing. Penumbra themself was a sweetheart. 

 

When Victoria had met them, Penny being a passenger with Maxine hadn't really bothered her much. Sure, really on it would weird her out when Penumbra was fronting, their voice being wildly different from Max’s, like steel on a whetstone, but honestly, their full form, when they were one, had made her feel things. Penumbra was a part of their little family and neither Max nor Victoria would have it any other way. 

 

Maxine thought back on that time of their life often, and with difficulty. Initially, Penumbra had tried to alleviate her dysphoria by digging through her brain and warping her body to fit what they thought she wanted and needed. They hadn't been far off the mark, all things considered. But they'd also given Maxine the power to do this herself, by virtue of existing inside her, and her internalised fears had caused her to push back against this transformation subconsciously. It had been an extremely painful time in her life, where the body she'd always needed was in her grasp and taken away on a daily basis. But with training, therapy, and working closely with Penumbra, she was able to keep her new form permanently. But that was months later. 

 

But it was also the time of her life where she'd met Victoria, wonderful Victoria, who had still been a year away from earning her PhD, and Rue, who was now like a baby sister to them. Victoria had helped her figure out the extent of her connection with Penny and, once, worn Penumbra herself and saved Max's life and probably the whole city with it. They had been hopelessly in love and their mutual tendency towards honest and open communication had led to a relationship that was as invigorating as it was nurturing. They made each other better people. 

 

Rue had been an old schoolmate who had known her pre-transition and had ended up a petty supercriminal to pay for her mother's medical bills. Through exposure to Maxine and Victoria, she had come to some major realisations about herself too, choosing a new name and pronouns soon after giving up het erstwhile life of crime. When Maxine’s powers evolved to also allow her to heal others, Rue and her mother had been among the first to be helped, and she'd been so grateful she didn't stop crying for hours. 

 

And Penumbra had always been there. She broke her reverie when she noticed Penny purring at her surface thoughts. 

 

I love you too baby 

 

“Every time.”

 

It's nice to be appreciated 

 

“You big doof.”

 

Ha ha you love me 

 

“Oh shit I do.”

 

Gay

 

—-

 

Ceecee, Muhammad and Rue arrived at the lot. It was a piece of fallow land next to a park. There were wood planks and steel beams and a couple of containers converted into makeshift offices. Muhammad nodded at them. He'd seen Rue at work but Ceecee was new. 

 

“Maxine said you wouldn't need materials for the construction, just ’a shit-ton of snacks’, oui?” He leaned into the back of the van and raised the lid off of one of the boxes, revealing wrapped sandwiches, protein bars and off-brand energy drinks. 

 

“Perfect,” Ceecee grinned.  

 

They thanked him as Rue unloaded the boxes and started up the generator. After Muhammad drove off Rue looked around. Coast was clear. She summoned a building that looked French enough, based primarily on the architecture they'd seen driving here. An old mansion would be a nice change of pace. Then, adjacent to it, a lower, more functional building. Few stairs. The triage building would need to be mostly ground floor. After a second, she did add an observation deck and a second floor. 

 

The buildings were see-through, and had a blue shimmer to them. She walked around them, examining and memorising their layouts. 

 

“You got everything?” Ceecee asked. Rue's process was always something to behold. In a flash of inspiration, she'd also added a barbed wire fence covered in tarp and a garage. 

 

“Yeah,” she answered. ”I'm thinking brick, steel and cement first. I want foundations done in an hour. Oh, and…” She looked up. The rain stopped. Or rather, it was stopped, by a giant umbrella hanging over the site. “It's gonna be a muddy mess as it is.”

 

Then, Ceecee went over to the piles of construction materials, shoving a protein bar into her mouth, and grabbed a brick. In her other hand, an exact copy appeared. She dropped it. Then another. And another. Rue created a small robot that caught the bricks in mid air and organised them on a pallet, then two more as Ceecee generated bricks at a faster and faster rate. After a few minutes, there were three cubes of bricks, five foot squared. Rue nodded. 

 

“We need about five times that. Oh, and mortar.” A small, flying gargoyle flew over to Ceecee with a sandwich, which she scarfed down. “Keep your energy levels up, okay?”

 

“Yeff ma’am,” Ceecee munched. 

 

After an hour, a veritable army of gargoyles was pouring a rapid-hardening concrete mix and laying brickwork. Steel beams were being welded together by imps wearing goggles. Rue, sitting in a floating chair, hovered in the chaos, overseeing construction, while Ceecee ate and created materials. For the simpler stuff she barely needed to concentrate, and it was fun to see things get built with such efficiency and effectiveness. No two constructs got in each other's way, and Rue had done this countless times before by now. It was simply fun to look at. Oddly satisfying. By the time it was noon, the mansion had a semblance of a ground floor, and the triage center was getting halfway done. 

 

Electronics were another thing. Rue couldn't permanently create, say, computers, she had to sleep sometimes, and a see-through screen was less than useful. Similarly, Ceecee could only generate a single material at a time and shape it somewhat. Their medical building would need to be stocked with anything they could use that wasn't too complex for Rue's constructs to build. But the buildings themselves would by done, Ceecee wagered, by about four in the afternoon. 

 

Rue floated down and she sat next to Ceecee, the chair evaporating. 

 

“It's noon. Lunch break.”

 

Ceecee looked up. With the weather like this, there was honestly no telling what time it was. She trusted her judgement and took another sandwich, handing half to Rue. 

 

“Miss Quilty?”

 

“Please, it's Rue. I keep telling you. What's up?”

 

“Is there like… A limit? To what you can do?”

 

Rue chewed the turkey sandwich thoughtfully. 

 

“Not sure. Nothing conscious, I have to direct everything. I need to be awake. Other than that? Haven't found it. Not yet.”

 

“Then… Why do this? Why not like… Go superhero? Fight crime?”

 

Rue took a sip of a foul-tasting drink with two crossed lightning bolts on the can. 

 

“You know, I could. I thought about it. But… Where does that end? I could use the constructs to look for crime and then… What? Stop petty theft? Wouldn't it be easier to then, say, summon giant robots to patrol the streets. Stop ALL crime. Maybe a curfew.”

 

She sighed. 

 

“The problem is that my ability is only useful if you think of crime in terms of bank robberies and backstreet muggings. But that's not what happens. Systems fail, and those born with more take what they can from those with less. A giant flying samurai can't stop white collar crime. It won't stop corporate abuse. The system fails people. I don't see the virtue, the ‘super’, in going after people the system has failed into desperation.”

 

She motioned at the buildings they were constructing. 

 

“I want to do this. Build homeless shelters and hospitals. Give people some semblance of a chance, of hope. I want to help prevent epidemics and rebuild towns after disasters. Do what I can to reduce the desperation that leads to someone holding up a corner store. Because I'm never going to be a fucking cop. Anyone who prowls the streets at night looking for an excuse to beat the shit out of the poor is a fascist.”

 

Ceecee looked at her with admiration.

 

“Fuck yeeeaah,” she whispered, then sat up straight and cleared her throat. “I mean, yeah. That's… Yeah… That's awesome. I… Yeah. Wow.”

 

Rue smiled and patted her on the knee. 

 

“Relax, baby Brown, you fit right in. It's why we like you so much.” 

 

She got up and winked, flying away again, resuming construction and leaving behind the stammering Ceecee Brown. 

 

—-

 

[“Please! We'll give you anything you want!”]1Translated from French.

 

Martin shrugged. His cowl and cloak obscured his face as he paced back and forth in front of the man swaying back and forth upside-down from his own chandelier, wrapped up like a Paupiette. His wife was unconscious. Dumas hadn't even touched her. She'd fainted when he flew in through the bedroom window like a whisper on the wind. 

 

[“Please! What do you want? Who are you?”]

 

Martin Dumas picked up a picture from the nightstand and looked at it. The man and his wife looked content. They would. He looked around at the opulence of the room. Old money. The man had probably never worked a day in his life. He put it back down and looked at the quivering thing he'd strung up and knelt down, brought his face level with the man's puffy cheeks. 

 

[“I know who you are.”]

 

He paused for dramatic effect. 

 

[“You are a leech.”]

 

Another pause.  

 

[“You are a parasite, bleeding the life out of this city, this country. I despise bloodsuckers like you, draining the heart out of France and its people. You have grown fat off the blood of Paris, and now I will drain you like you drained them, and feed the rich soil of its streets with what you took from it.”]

 

The man seemed too terrified to speak. Mission accomplished, Martin thought, as he looked deep into the man's beady eyes and saw himself in their reflection… 

 

And something else. Another pair of eyes, as white as his, and a grin he could not begin to match. 

 

“Hiya,” it said. 

 

—-

 

Lisa, Billy and Remy arrived at the building. It was smaller than they'd thought it'd be, but it was blocked off by white tarp and swarming with people in Hazmat gear. There were several armed guards outside. 

 

“Jesus,” Lisa remarked, ”they're not fucking around.”

 

They drove up to the guard at the gate to the parking lot and showed their badges. He radioed something in and let them through. The rain was ceaseless, and once parked they hurried to the closest nearby tent set up outside. A woman in white overalls and a surgical mask approached them. 

 

“Qui êtes-vous? Que faites-vous ici?”

 

Lisa did her best. 

 

“Nous sommes… Un… Une? Team… Équipe spécialisé…”

 

“English?”

 

“God yes.”

 

“What do you doing here? Vite.”

 

“We are a specialised team. The mayor requested us. We have experience with this sort of thing. We are authorised to look at and treat the infected, and even relocate them if we have to.”

 

The doctor almost rubbed her face and remembered she was wearing eye protection. 

 

“Fils de pute,” she mumbled, then called over a lab assistant. “Allez vérifier leur identités avec le bureau du mairesse.” Then she turned back to the Lisa and her team. 

 

“Very well. Put on the suits then follow me.”

 

Despite Billy’s muffled protests, they hoisted themselves into Hazmat suits and followed the doctor, Bisset, into the building. Most of it had been repurposed into a laboratory, the other patients evacuated to the APHP in the city center. They were definitely not fucking around. They finally got to a disinfection tunnel, and on the other side were two dozen beds, about half filled. Every one of the patients, most sleeping or, Lisa noticed as she read the labels on the IV’s, heavily sedated, was severely emaciated. Their skin was grey and pulled tight over their bodies, giving them an almost mummified appearance. If it wasn't for the fact that they were stirring, that their eyelids fluttered, it would have been easy to mistake them for dead.  

 

“Can we have the room, please? One minute.”

 

Bisset spun around, but didn't seem willing to take the risk that these people might be who they’d said they were. 

 

“Fine. Deux minutes.” She turned to the room. “Tout le monde dehors!”

 

Everyone shuffled their way to the airlock. Lisa got a lot of stinkeye but she ignored it with practiced ease. Doctor Bisset was the last to leave, just after the armed guards, watching them with suspicion. 

 

“I don't think she likes us very much,” Billy said. 

 

“She's terrified,” Remy countered. “Everyone in this building is. It's practically leaking out of the walls.”

 

“Ew, did you have to phrase it like that?”

 

“Hush you two,” Lisa said, investigating the patient in the bed closest to the door. “No heartbeat but,” she opened one of its eyes, “immediate pupil response.”

 

The infected patient stirred. Billy nervously moved closer, and with a blue-gloved hand carefully parted its lips. 

 

“Well, Maxine will be happy, at least,” He said as he bared four long, sharp gleaming fangs.

—-

.

Maxine observed a man in what looked like a leather-and-spandex Phantom of the Opera outfit glide from roof to roof with amusement. Finally, he came to a stop on a roof overlooking a promenade, and descended into a window across the street with barely a sound. 

 

Impressive 

 

“We can do that too.”

 

Why don't we?

 

“We're better than that.”

 

Nah

 

“Nah.”

 

Inside, a man and a woman had just been accosted by the Flying Frenchman. The woman instantly fainted. The man took a kick to the gut and doubled over. Effective. He wrapped the man up like a roast on a string and seemed to effortlessly hoist him up by the chandelier. She was impressed it didn't come down. FF was clearly intimidating the man and while she was a big fan of the theatrics herself, she thought perhaps watching someone get tortured wasn't quite her ballgame. They jumped across and landed on the balcony fence without a sound, crouching down. The man had knelt down and was whispering to his prey. Perhaps it was best to cut the tension gently. 

 

Hiya,” they said. 

 

French Flier twisted around into an impressive combat stance in a cloaked flurry. She was surprised at his calm demeanor. Most people threw out at least one “What the fuck” upon seeing them for the first time. Or they screamed. But French Fry here simply circled them trying to find a better angle which he was unlikely to find. He was clearly sizing them up, intimidated by their teeth. 

 

“Il n'échappera pas à la justice,” He said.

 

“‘He won't escape justice’, right? My old French teacher would be proud.”

 

The man recoiled. “Un American?” He said with disgust. 

 

“Une, merci beaucoup. But yes. Don't hold it against m-” Their face exploded. 

 

They fell backwards onto the pavement and growled. 

 

An explosive?

 

They got up when their cell phone rang. They had an earpiece in - changing in and out of shapes to reach into a pocket had quickly proven to be uncomfortable - and answered. 

 

“Maxine? I think your hunch was right. I think this is a vampire attack.”

 

“Little busy, but I think so too.”

 

They launched themselves back up and over the balcony. The man had left the door to the hall ajar. 

 

“Call you back. Have a Vampire to catch.”

 

Spite crashed through the door. He'd been lying in wait, apparently. Another explosion which they blocked with their forearm. 

 

“Knock that off or I will eat you!”

 

It was only half of a joke. The man sprinted down the hallway. Spite gave chase. Just as they were about to grab him, he somersaulted backwards and kicked them in the back of the head. A kick like that would have knocked an ordinary person out cold, she thought. As they turned around, they saw him in a fighting stance again, another micro-explosive in the palm of his hand. When he flicked it at them, masked by a swirl of his cape, they caught it out of the air and there was a slight ‘whoomph’ from their closed fist. 

 

“I'm going to stop you, you vampiric weirdo.”

 

He lunged at them with a kick that would have shattered a normal man, but Spite grabbed him with a speed that was neither normal nor man, and slammed him through an adjacent wall, where he lay still. They stepped over to him. He was breathing heavily. Quite raspily, even. Like, it was getting worse, too. Almost like his lungs were collapsing. As they might do when you throw a normal, mortal person through a wall, like someone who was most definitely not a Vampire but a thirty-something vigilante. 

 

“Ah, beans,” they said. 

 

—-

 

Martin Dumas felt himself dying as the creature stood over him. It had bested him so easily, after all the years he'd spent training, training to hold the city’s true criminals to justice. He had sworn on the lives of his parents to rid this city of its corruption, to hunt down its millionaires and billionaires and make them pay. And then this monster had come along and ended his noble crusade. He wanted to cry, but couldn't, unable to breathe in. As the thing knelt down next to him he wondered if this was what was causing the strange new illness. If it was the “Corbeau” behind it all. As he saw its teeth, glistening, he hoped he'd die before it ate him. 

 

Then suddenly, they retracted. The dark slime je thought was the monster’s skin retracted, and a young woman, his age, with striking features and an exasperated expression appeared. Maybe he was hallucinating? It didn't matter. He was not ready to die, but a beautiful young woman sitting over him was not the worst thing to see before meeting your maker. Then she said something je found confusing. 

 

“I'm very sorry. This is going to hurt.”

 

It did.

 

—-

 

Back on the other side of the airlock, Lisa discussed their findings with the rest of the team, looking over the medical charts of the patients Doctor Bisset had graciously given them. Apparently their security check had cleared and with the suspicion lifted she was happy to work with people who had seen unusual symptoms like this. In fact, Lisa wagered, she was happy to be talking to someone who didn't seem freaked out by all this. Because it was so very clearly vampires but if this was something that had happened before, at least it might not be supernatural. 

 

“So you've seen them. What do you make of this?”

 

Lisa raised one of the X-rays. 

 

“I've seen hyperdontia and aversion to sunlight like this before. Once in Kabul,” she mused. It was a half-truth. What they'd seen there had been a mouthful of fangs, and had turned out to be the machinations of a cult, not an infection. 

 

“The other was in London. Then it was paired with hypertrichosis. Same neurological symptoms and behaviors.”

 

“You are saying this has happened before?”

 

“Yes, but it's not common and not well documented. Superstition usually leads the patients to be killed. You get why.”

 

Doctor Bisset bowed her head. “Oui, je comprends. Mais, if it is so rare, why have you seen two cases?”

 

Lisa’s jaw clenched. Kabul was from before she joined LIT. She'd been the only survivor, then. It's what got her in with the rest of the crew , if she was honest about it. Which she wasn't going to do to a random stranger, no matter how attractively French she was. 

 

“In Kabul I was one of the… first to encounter the symptoms, and with my surgical background I became the only expert. That's why we were in London, and why we're here.”

 

She smiled reassuringly at Dr Bisset. 

 

“You're in good hands.”

 

Just then, her phone went off. 

 

“Maxine! Good news?”

 

“Uhhhh…”

 

She wasn't going to call them Spite over the phone. 

 

“Talk to me.”

 

“I think I caught a superhero.”

 

“Well uh…” Lisa paused. ”Take the specimen to Base Camp.” She wasn't going to call it Camp Ratatouille in front of Bisset. “We'll examine it there.”

 

“Copy!”

 

—-

 

It was six in the evening when Victoria drove the third van into Camp Ratatouille. There were a few ambulances there, rolling stretchers with sedated patients, covered in sheets, into the medical building. They'd used up some of the last of their funds to buy equipment and confiscated the rest from the hospital. Doctor Bisset hadn't been happy about it her mood and attitude had flipped on a dime when Lisa had told her they could treat, and cure, these patients, and that there was no risk of contamination. The biggest problem was the original disease vector, which was still out in the city somewhere. But future victims should be brought to the LIT base camp. 

 

Maxine had returned and her “catch” put in a bed in the mansion, which was now also furnished. Billy was on grumpy guard duty. V found her at a desk in the lobby of the mansion, eating a pizza with extra olives as she typed out a report on her laptop. She visibly brightened up as Victoria walked in, and jumped up, wrapping her arms around her neck. They shared a kiss. 

 

“Mmm, olive-y.”

 

“Glad you like it. It's all the rage.”

 

“So a little birdie told me you caught a superhero?”

 

“Well,” Max said as she sat down, “far as we can tell, he's human, no powers. But he's fast, V. Olympic level athlete. Strong. Word gadgets. We just don't know what he wants. But he was flying from rooftop to rooftop like a Vampire Bat so I had to, yknow?”

 

“Yeah. I take it you messed him up?”

 

“Baby, I messed him up good. I decided to take him with me in case he knows more. Didn't want him falling into the hands of the police, yknow?”

 

Victoria kissed her again. 

 

“Quick thinking as always, love. He's upstairs?”

 

“Yeah, under guard.”

 

“And the others? In the triage center. I was about to head over there after recharging,” she gestured at the pizza and the seven pizza boxes on the floor next to it, “and get some healing done.”

 

“Sounds good, babe, looks like you got a handle on things.”

 

Max walked to the door as she fired finger guns at Victoria. 

 

“Learned from the best.”

 

“Love you, dork!”

 

“Love you too!”

 

—-

 

Maxine stood in the medical building. The last of the EMT’s left the room. Lisa was going from patient to patient, double checking their IV’s. Ceecee was, out of sight, generating gallons of sedative. Once they were done here, Max considered, they'd be able to donate the surplus to the city. Ellie was in a second story office overlooking the floor, typing away at patient files and cross-referencing with their own “Weird” files, as well as trying to establish a pattern to the infections. 

 

She walked over to the first bed and put her hand on the woman in it, connecting with her. She was clearly dead. But also clearly not. Something was keeping her alive but it was also what killed her. This was going to be tricky. Maxine lay both hands on her arm, and began to do what she could. Slowly, her blood began to flow again. Forcing dying cells to replicate, oxygenate. Then restart the heart. That hurt, she could tell, the woman spasmed even in her induced coma. Then finally… She found it. A bacterium, ever so small, in her brain. Something a scan wouldn't even pick up on. Something decidedly unnatural. She killed it. 

 

The woman began to convulse violently jerking against her straps. She and immediately forced oxygen back into the woman's cranium. Finally, she broke off the fangs. The woman began to relax again, and slowly regained colour. She wasn't going to wake up right away, but, as far as Maxine could tell, she was going to be okay. 

 

“Ayyy,” Rue said, walking up behind her, “you did i-ohmygod you look like garbage.”

 

Max took the high five anyway. This had taken a lot out of her, despite the pizza’s. Every one she healed after this would be easier, but not easy. “Yeah, these are tough. It's gonna be a long night. Bring me something to eat if you can?”

 

“On it, chief!” Rue ran out again. 

 

“You ready for this?”

 

Let's fucking do this. Let's cure some god damn vampires. 

29