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“I don't think they play at all fairly,' Alice began, in rather a complaining tone, 'and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can't hear oneself speak — and they don't seem to have any rules in particular; at least, if there are, nobody attends to them.’”
- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Oz didn’t feel well today.
He felt congested. He noticed some struggle to breathe, which could be an indication of lung cancer. His heart felt like it was skipping beats. His thoughts felt foggy, which could be early-onset dementia or perhaps some kind of poison. And his equilibrium felt off.
To be fair though, it could be his companions making him feel that way.
To borrow from Stevenson, it was frequently Oz’s fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and the last good influence in the lives of downgoing men.
He didn’t set out to live his life that way, it just sort of happened.
And life on the Consortium of Chaos team wasn’t any different, sadly.
It wasn’t that Oz hated his teammates. They were the closest things he’d ever had to friends. It was just that sometimes he believed that they deserved to be hated. Intensely.
Some days, there was a part of Oz’s mind which loathed them all.
But there was a part of Oz’s mind which secretly hated a lot of things, so that probably didn’t mean much.
And either way, there was a bigger part of his mind which recognized the fact that he…
needed them. Oz didn’t have anyone else in his life.
Just these people. Which meant that they were his cross to bear, whether he was happy with it or not.
The thing was, no matter what Amity had to say on the subject, Oz was still very much an outsider here.
He was the “New Guy,” a former adversary they allowed to attend their meetings and go into the field with them…
but Oz wasn’t family. Oz would never be family here.
He was an immigrant to their shores. And most of them made sure to regularly remind him of that.
Which was fine with Oz, honestly. He was used to living with people who didn’t like him. No one did, really. He’d grown up with his aunt and uncle, then he’d lived with the other prisoners, then he’d lived with the Freedom Squad.
Oz had been an outsider his entire life.
He didn’t mind, as he didn’t really want to be around people anyway, since they were hotbeds of disease, but that didn’t make it any less true.
Still, there were some days when he felt like he’d like to be closer to the people here.
Luckily, those thoughts were usually done away with by meetings.
Anytime he was stuck in a room with a group of Consortium members for a long period of time, he was glad they didn’t like him, because it meant they wouldn’t talk to him a lot.
Oz had always wanted to be the hero. Always wanted to be the man in the White Hat, rescuing damsels.
But his life just hadn’t worked out that way.
He had been a complete nobody at the Freedom Squad.
He had never really gotten to do anything other than the mundanities of superheroics that no one else wanted to do.
But he’d… felt like he was dead. Buried alive in the horrible people who surrounded him and the ghastly things they did to people when the cameras weren’t on.
Generally, he thought the Capes in this city were petulant and whiney, alternating between getting into useless pissing contests with each other and unexpectedly trying to doom the entire world.
Add in some unnecessary costume changes and some inevitable returns from the dead, and that was basically the industry.
He’d never once felt like a hero. It was soulless work.
Then he met Miss Quentin.
And he recognized that he no longer cared if he was the hero or the villain. Just so long as she was there too.
Within a week of meeting her, Oz had doubled the number of hours he spent going on missions with the Freedom Squad.
Started taking on his own projects, without their approval.
Dedicated himself to doing genuine good in the world.
Moved out of the Freedom Squad’s housing and had gotten his own apartment, which he tried to leave on a semi-regular basis.
Oz had begun to feel better about himself and the work, which was one of the reasons why he had sided against the Freedom Squad and had helped the Consortium defeat them.
As if to prove a point, the Consortium’s resident liaison with the city and government, Laura McPherson, shook her head.
“Listen, we’re all sorry that Wyatt was injured, but I’d really like to know what the hell happened last night and why I’ve got the mayor screaming at me for blowing up a hospital! ?!”
With Wyatt injured, leadership at the Consortium meeting was kind of up in the air.
Harlot and the Commodore were both at Wyatt’s bedside, so the control structure of the Consortium was basically all MIA.
Technically speaking, it should have fallen to Julian Sargassum, who was fourth in command because he had just been with the organization longer than almost anyone else here.
But Julian was deeply apathetic about such things—to say nothing of the fact that most of the room would ignore him anyway—so he passed off his responsibilities to his…
girlfriend? Fiancée? Queen? Oz wasn’t sure how to refer to the woman, but in any case, the Consortium’s press agent, Bridget Hanniver, was leading the meeting at the moment.
She and Julian had gotten very involved with each other while the rest of the Consortium was busy in Agletaria, and were for all intents and purposes now a formal “couple.”
Oz had no real issues with Bridget. She was fairly normal. She hadn’t been around the others long enough to go mad yet.
“We did not ‘blow up the hospital,’ the hospital blew up.” Bridget reiterated, already used to calling the Consortium team “we,” despite the fact that she was nowhere near the hospital last night.
She seemed to have no difficulty finding her place here and instantly being accepted by the others.
In the space of a couple of weeks, the woman had gotten further on that front than Oz had in months of living here.
“That’s an important distinction that you’re failing to grasp.
” She ran a hand through her hair. “If you have questions about that, perhaps you should ask the Agletarians about it.” She pointed to Oz.
“Oz and Multifarious have uncovered some compelling evidence linking them to this.”
“I am not Multifarious.” Natalie informed them seriously. “Today I am…” she gave her characteristic dramatic pause, “ Brick House! ”
The room fell into silence as everyone took that in.
They were all used to Natalie switching between personas every day, but it just invited them to rate her choice of codename.
And, obviously, it rarely was a main topic of conversation on a day when the Consortium was in genuine peril.
In the instant case though, it was probably just the unexpected novelty of having Natalie sitting at the table without her Kilroy face mask and computerized voice box.
Not that Oz could blame them for that. He also found looking at Natalie… distracting.
The mask had been damaged in her fall from the roof, and it hadn’t been repaired yet. Oz was perfectly happy with it being gone.
“Well, at least Mull’s finally off the pogo stick.” Mack thought aloud, looking for good news in all of this. “I hated that day.”
“And it’s better than the time she claimed to have the ‘power of apples.’” Cory Henderson Henries, AKA “Vaudeville,” agreed. “I still don’t know what that means.”
“Remember ‘Jive Turkey’?” Amy asked the room. “That one was remarkably festive, since it was the holidays.”
Marian didn’t look up from whatever it was she was doing. “It took me forever to deal with the legal fallout of that time she was claiming to be ‘Boba Fett’ though.”
Cynic nodded, agreeing with his wife. “Murder and kidnapping are one thing, but trademark infringement is not cool.”
“The Lucasfilm/Disney people were not amused.” Marian agreed.
“Those fuckers are mean .” Cynic made a face. “I’ve been evil for centuries, but those motherfuckers are scary.”
“Speaking of which,” Bridget looked utterly thrilled to be at the meeting, “when do I get a codename?”
Emily didn’t look up from her nails, her tone sounding bored. “All in favor of making Bridget’s codename ‘Bridget’?”
Hands shot up disinterestedly, eager to end the issue and move on.
Bridget’s smile faded. “But… but that’s not fair.” She protested disappointedly.
“Fear not. They lack that power, my love.” Julian soothed, patting her hand in comfort. “You decide whatever you would like your codename to be and I shall make it so.”
“I don’t care about codenames, I don’t really care about the Agletarians, I care about Mercygiver .” Oz crossed his arms over his chest. “I want to know what we intend to do about him?”
Cory frowned in confusion. “Who?”
“They both tried to kill her last night, so I don’t know why you’re so focused on one over the other.” Bridget argued.
“Because one of them almost succeeded.” Oz snapped.
McPherson didn’t look impressed. “The Agletarians almost succeeded too. And unlike Multifarious’ other attacker, the Agletarians killed a dozen people… who you failed to save .”
“We got everyone we could. That wasn’t our fault.” Lexington defended. “Personally, I’m amazed we did as well as we did.”
“They were in the hospital, in all fairness, some of them were probably half dead to begin with.” Arnold Benedix, AKA “Traitor,” added seriously, like it was the height of logic. “If they were completely healthy, they wouldn’t have been there at all, right?”
The room stared at him in silent amazement.
“What?” Arnold looked confused. “What’d I say?” He rolled his eyes, obviously feeling picked upon. “Oh, like I’m somehow the asshole now, is that it?”
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- Page 31 (Reading here)
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