Broken

Chapter 3

She moved through the shelves of the local market. Picking, selecting.

She moved swiftly enough.

Paid. Headed out to the street.

Walked.

Came to a complete halt.

Standing in front of her, a woman her own age. Her precise age, she knew damn well.

Olive drab combat trousers. Black vest, with vivid, garish green lettering on. Scarred visibly. Musculature plainly visible. Black hair, cropped to about two inches in length.

“Hey, sis.” She said to the dumbstruck other. “Long time no see.”

“For fuck’s sake.” She said after a while. “Just drop in anytime, huh?”

“Hey, you know me. Don’t like to be pinned down.”

“And that’s why you joined the S.J.A., huh?”

“Er, no. That’s so I can do this superhero gig properly.”

“So you are willing to make some sacrifices, then?”

“Some.” She paused. “So, going to show me whatever hovel it is your living in now?”

They stepped in.

She theatrically collapsed onto the couch, grinning up at her sister as she glared at her.

“What? Don’t tell me you didn’t do it at least once.”

“No.”

“Stop lying, it don’t suit you Blos.”

“Don’t call me that.” She said, kicking her sister’s feet off the couch, sitting down herself.

“If anyone has the right to, I do.” She replied, slouching in her chosen seat. “Alright place, I suppose.”

“Better than those squats you were staying in when you were in Berlin.”

“Hey, that was a great place. Had great people.”

“But half the floorboards were missing.”

“Those were the last occupants.”

“And besides, this place is better.”

“Meh. Six out of ten.”

“It has air conditioning.”

“Eight, then.”

They say in silence for a while.

“So…” Buttercup began.

“Yeah.”

The silence stretched for a while longer.

“How your studies going?”

“Going good…my tutors say I’m doing good.”

“But how you affording this place with all that study?”

“Research assistant.”

“No shit.”

“Nope. None.”

“Where?”

“Over in Cityville.”

“That place is a dump.”

“You obviously haven’t been there for a while.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, it’s got some science hero running around there. You know, laden with advanced tech. Doing pretty good for himself, I hear.”

“Himself?”

“Well, I’m fairly sure…”

“Do you know this guy? It ain’t that kid who, you know…”

“No! I’m certain.”

“…sure?”

“Yes!”

“Ah, right. Good. Just so as your sure…”

“Stop trying to bait me, Buttercup.”

“I don’t need to try. I just do it.”

“Yeah, well, least I still am doing my superhero thing.”

“Yeah, so am I! So are we all-”

Her sentence cut off mid syllable.

The silence stretched, uncomfortably.

“Have you…heard from her at all?”

Buttercup shook her head. “No. Not in a while. Last time I heard from her, she said she was going to board a plane somewhere.”

“Where?”

“Don’t know.”

“When was this?”

“Couple months ago.”

She didn’t say anything for a while. She let her hand cover her face.

She spoke, eventually.

She spoke quietly.

“It’s my fault.”

“No, Blossom, it ain’t your fault. We know what happened. We were all there.”

“No, it is. I was our leader. I’m the eldest. I didn’t help her when I could.”

“We were ambushed. Harder than we ever had been before.”

“Before that. The way I spoke to her. She wouldn’t be as bad if I hadn’t-”

“This is not your fault.”

“But, I couldn’t even speak to her afterwards…”

“You were hurt bad too, remember?”

“Yes, but I…”

“I spoke to her. I couldn’t get through to her either. I don’t blame her. We were only seventeen when it happened.”

“But in all these years, I’ve…”

“You’ve done everything in your power. Everything. She chose not to use her powers. It was her choice to do that.”

“Not just that. Everything else.”

“Not everyone finds their course in life as easily as we have. Some people take years. Bubbles is one of them, I guess.”

“Maybe…”

“You know I’m right.”

“Yeah…I suppose…”

She hitched in a breath, and untangled her arms from behind her sister’s back.

“I…”

She paused.

“I’ll go fetch you a drink. You’re a guest in my home, after all…”

Buttercup stared at the ceiling as her sister moved about, trying to mask her thoughts with activity.

Blossom still hadn’t gotten over it. Damn.

But then…had she herself gotten over the events of six years ago? It was hard to imagine such a thing.

She still had flashbacks. She’d refused any psychological treatment from the agency. And she tried to stay awake as much as possible. Kept going until exhaustion forced her into a dreamless sleep.

She hadn’t stopped working in years. And when she wasn’t working, she was pushing for new experiences.

Was this a defence mechanism, she wondered? A way of protecting the mind by keeping it busy, to keep it off what had happened…

But now she could think of those days with only a pang of terror, now. At least in the day, she could.

“Tea up.”

“This is what you get for studying in England, sis.” Buttercup muttered, taking the cup regardless.

“What, get an education?”

“No, develop strange habits.”

“Oh, fuck away off. I partied harder than you ever did.”

“Yeah? Give me one example.”

She sat, silently, in her spacious apartment.

It had been a birthday gift to her. Her eighteenth birthday present.

She’d acted ecstatic.

But she’d already been wanting more than what she could be given.

She wanted what she could take for herself. What she could manipulate into getting for herself.

So she’d left it alone. She’d gone into higher education quietly, without a fuss. She had thrown herself into her studies. Done perfectly.

She had started to make alliances, even then, as she scrimped and saved. She’d made a few experiments, excursions into business enterprise. Testing herself.

Most had failed, or had failed to live up to her expectations.

But every time, she learnt.

She learnt what people wanted, and it was not the same as her. They wanted perfection given to them. They didn’t want to earn it.

It sickened her.

Very few people were as she was…seeking perfection in themselves and everything around them.

Even…people who had spurned her.

She envied them, yes. But she admired them. They too had come from privilege. A different privilege than herself, true enough, but privilege all the same.

And they had earned everything they were now getting.

The approaching respect of the scientific community. A career in law enforcement.

She wondered what the other was doing…and wondered how it would astound the world, when she was ready.

But she, herself…she was ready now. She’d seized power, increments at a time.

Rapidly seizing power in her chosen department, with another, more personally satisfying one, on the horizon.

Within her grasp soon enough.

She’d taken this apartment when she’d started her professional career.

Already there were whispers of her imminent rise to power. She was being courted already.

Courted. Heh.

It was an appropriate term, everyone thinking of by her old nickname, in their way. Thinking she would be powerful one day, not realising what power she already had.

And she still had decades in which to become ever more powerful…

It stirred in its sleep.

It was restless.

Something was waking it.

In the absence of a mouth, it still smiled.