RWD: 4.x (Interlude)(Taylor)

4.x (Interlude)(Taylor)

My spiders scuttled carefully across my fingers, weaving strands of dragline so fine they shimmered in the pale fluorescent glow of my makeshift workstation. The silk was a living thing under my fingers, impossibly fine and possessing a tensile strength that felt alien. I was feeding a sheet of it through the specialised sewing machine Greg had procured, the needle punching through the layered material with a series of sharp, rhythmic clicks.

The process was meditative. It gave me something to focus on besides the ever-expanding list of things that should have been terrifying. Making the bodysuits, weaving the extremely durable threads into something protective and useful, felt like imposing a tiny sliver of order on a world rapidly spinning into chaos.

“Heads up.”

I jumped, my hand twitching on the fabric. Brian stood a few feet away, hands in the pockets of his jacket. He’d moved silently, his footsteps absorbed by the vastness of the concrete floor.

“Greg says to wrap it up,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “He’s leaving in ten.”

“Okay. Thanks.” I nodded, turning back to my work and carefully guiding the last few inches of the seam. Greg picking me up and dropping me off had become routine. Our parents still believed we were dating, a convenient fiction that afforded us a level of freedom we wouldn’t have otherwise. It was a bit awkward, especially around day, but lately I have started to mind it a lot less. 

I finished the seam and switched off the machine, the sudden silence amplifying the hum of the farms brimming with bugs. When I looked up, Brian hadn't moved. He was staring at the bodysuits laid out on the table, then his gaze shifted to me. It was an odd look, contemplative and a little distant.

“What?” I asked, feeling a blush creep up my neck. I suddenly felt self-conscious, aware of the stray threads on my clothes and the smudge of dirt I probably had on my cheek.

He shook his head slowly, a faint frown creasing his brow. “I’m just trying to figure it out.”

“Figure what out?”

“You,” he said, gesturing vaguely at me, then at the whole setup. “How you can be so… okay with all this. With him.”

I bristled, a defensive knot tightening in my stomach. “What do you mean?”

“Taylor,” he said, and his tone was patient, almost gentle, which only made it worse. “The fact that you have to ask is part of it. It’s like you don’t even see it.”

Was he talking about the missile test? Or the abductions? Greg had never confirmed the details to the whole team, but he hadn’t forbidden Brian, and Alec from sharing what they knew, either. It had come out in pieces after the rocket launch, a quiet, tense meeting that had been called immediately after the after. Bakuda, crippled and coerced. Rune and Othala—Lisa revealed after a bit of prodding—prisoners held as leverage.

“Is this about the Endbringer threat?” I asked, my voice coming out more clinical than I intended. “Or the fact that he kidnapped a few villains to get them to work for us? Because if you look at it logically—”

“That’s the thing!” Brian cut me off, taking a step closer. There was no anger in his face, just a profound, weary confusion. “You’re trying to apply logic to it. We launched a missile. We declared war on the fucking United States government, Taylor. We have a pet bomb-Tinker in a box somewhere, and our boss is holding a teenage girl’s mother hostage to make her daughter play healer. And you’re… sewing.”

He was right. It was crazy. But it was a crazy that had purpose. A purpose that had gotten Sophia Hess and her cronies off my back for good. A purpose that had dismantled the Empire and saved me from having to go through with my own stupid, half-baked plan to betray them all. Greg’s methods were extreme, but they got results.

“He has a plan,” I argued, feeling the weakness in my own words. “He said Leviathan is coming. Everything he’s doing is to prepare the city, to give us a fighting chance.”

“And what if he’s wrong? What if one thing goes sideways?” Brian’s voice dropped lower. “We’re not just his employees, Taylor. We’re his co-conspirators. If he falls, we all go down. Hard. S-class threats don’t get a slap on the wrist. They get the Birdcage, or a kill order.” He ran a hand over his face. “The guy has no lines he won’t cross. No fear. He's a psychopath, Taylor. Or close enough that it makes no difference. He’s good at pretending, good at calculating exactly how far to push things, but there's no humanity left in him. It doesn’t bother him, and we’re just along for the ride.”

A cold silence settled between us. Psychopath. The word hung in the air, ugly and sharp. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it applied to a cape, but hearing it aimed at Greg… it felt wrong. 

“Is that what everyone thinks?” I asked quietly.

Brian sighed. “I can’t speak for Rachel or Alec. Alec is just watching the train wreck for entertainment, and Rachel… she respects Greg. Fears him, too. It’s a simple dynamic for her. But Lisa? She’s terrified. She sees it. I know she does, even if she won't talk openly about it. And Paige… well, you know Paige isn't exactly objective. She’d probably would follow him into an Endbringer fight with a water pistol if he asked her to. Her opinion doesn’t count.”

I looked down at the spider-silk bodysuit on the table. It was smooth and cool to the touch, a perfect, seamless creation. Order from chaos. Greg’s influence in tangible form. I didn’t know what I thought. Part of me was just as scared as Lisa, but another, larger part felt a strange sense of security. With Greg in charge, it felt like for the first time, someone was actually steering the ship instead of just letting it drift toward the rocks.

Pushing the uncomfortable thoughts away, I changed the subject. It was a clumsy deflection. “What about me? What do you all think of me?”

Brian’s expression softened. “We like you, Taylor. I know Lisa respects you. Alec’s Alec—hard to tell. Rachel's...getting there, I think. Regardless, you’re one of us. You’re smart, you’re tough. You’ve earned your place.”

"And you?" I asked, the question tumbling out before I had a chance to reconsider, suddenly desperate for something—approval, maybe, or validation—that I couldn’t quite articulate. I pressed, not entirely sure why, or what I wanted to hear. "How do you see me?"

He met my gaze directly, and his answer came easily, with an honesty that was far more brutal than any criticism. "Honestly? You remind me of Aisha," he said, shrugging lightly. "I think you’re a great friend. You’re like a little sister to me, honestly. Someone I want to look out for."

Like his sister.

The words didn’t register at first. They just hovered there, meaningless sounds. Then they sank in, one by one, and it felt like the bottom dropped out of my stomach. A cold, heavy weight settled in my chest, and the warmth I’d felt earlier evaporated, leaving behind a hollow ache. Friend. Little sister. I managed a nod, fighting the sudden, embarrassing sting behind my eyes.

“Oh,” I said. The sound was small, empty. “Right.”

I started gathering my things, moving with a jerky, clumsy haste. My hands fumbled with the zipper on my backpack. I couldn’t look at him. I could feel his gaze on me, feel his confusion radiating like heat.

“Taylor, did I say something—”

“No. It’s fine,” I cut him off, my voice tight. “I just… I need to go. Greg’s waiting.” I slung my backpack over my shoulder, not bothering to pack the half-finished suit. I just needed to be away from him. Away from the pity I was sure was dawning on his face.

Greg’s workshop was a pocket of sterile order in the cavernous warehouse. Racks of meticulously organized components lined one wall, and the air smelled of ozone and hot metal. He wasn’t at the workbench, where a massive, half-assembled piece of machinery sat under a work lamp, its purpose a complete mystery to me. Instead, he was at his computer terminal, his back to me, staring intently at the screen.

I stopped a few feet from the doorway, my earlier emotional turmoil feeling distant and foolish in the face of his intense focus. He seemed to have forgotten I existed.

“Greg?”

He didn’t turn. “One moment.”

I stepped closer, my gaze drawn to the monitor. It was a news feed, but scrambled, overlaid with dozens of translucent data windows scrolling with text and complex charts. The main image was of a city I didn’t recognize, filmed from a helicopter. There was smoke. In the corner of the screen, a still image of the Simurgh, the angelic, terrifying Endbringer, was displayed next to a headline I couldn’t quite make out.

“What’s going on?” I asked, a new, much colder fear beginning to displace the ache in my chest. “Is that…?”

“She’s deviating from her established patterns,” Greg said, his tone as flat and analytical as if he were discussing a faulty engine. He finally leaned back, swiveling his chair to face me. His eyes, the unnerving ice-blue of them, scanned my face for a fraction of a second before dismissing whatever he saw there. “Her movements are erratic. The data is corrupted with a high degree of memetic noise and disinformation. It’s impossible to get a clear picture right now.”

He gestured dismissively at the screen, as if waving away a global catastrophe. “We’ll table it. It will gain clarity in time, or it won’t. Wasting resources on it now is inefficient.” He stood up. “Are you ready to leave?”

I swallowed, the lump in my throat a mixture of leftover humiliation and fresh dread. Leviathan. The Simurgh. My own stupid crush felt like a speck of dust next to a mountain.

“Yeah,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “I’m ready.”