Page 81

“‘At any rate I’ll never go there again!’ said Alice as she picked her way through the wood. ‘It’s the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!’”

- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Present Day

The next day was not a particularly good one.

Generally speaking, Harlot was in charge of freeing people from captivity, but she was away at the moment, so there was no one specifically assigned to that role in the Consortium’s roster.

Which meant that if she wanted it done, Mull would have to do it herself.

She and Sydney had a gentleman’s agreement about such things, since both viewed “rescue” as deeply humiliating. They’d rather free themselves on their own, so there was a 36 hour grace period to accomplish it. After that, if they hadn’t escaped, it was open to anyone to do it.

That didn’t mean that Mull particularly liked the idea in the current circumstances though, so she’d intended to just free him and deal with his yelling afterwards.

Unfortunately, when she’d woken up this morning, she’d discovered that her powers were very, very broken.

Whatever unseen force controlled superpowers in this world sometimes screwed up and got its wires crossed, and if she used the powers, unintended things would happen.

Bad, possibly fatal things. Like a glitch in the code of superpowered life.

It wasn’t fun. People in the empowered community were always afraid of broken powers, because they were unpredictable.

Having them was always: “You use the power to do X, but Y happens” or “Your powers give you control over Y, but using them is actually killing Z” or “For the love of God, that power over TV remotes you think you have, will also cause the totality of existence to pop like a soap bubble! Don’t ever use it! EVER!”

Broken powers absolutely sucked and Mull was the only Cape alive who got them all the damn time. For most people, you were born with broken powers or you weren’t. For Mull, it was a constant issue.

Oz looked concerned and curious at the news, trying to gage how effective she could be today and how much danger the powers placed her in. “How broken?” He asked worriedly.

She ran a hand through her hair. “I can cause my bones to vanish.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“I wouldn’t, because it would result in all of my insides kind of sloshing together, and I’d collapse like a fleshy bag of skin and blood.

Without my skull, my brain would leak out through my ears and eye sockets.

” She held up a finger to draw attention to her point.

“But I could do it. And that’s what’s important. ”

Oz seemed less than impressed with that argument, making an unconvinced sound. “Well, those definitely sound broken, yeah. I’m glad you haven’t been using them today.” He casually walked into the bedroom to access his closet.

They had just gotten back after observing the Agletarian base for most of the day, trying to find a way in.

Sadly, security had been tightened a great deal and there didn’t appear to be any easy ways past it.

Mull was willing to risk her own life, but not Oz’s.

Plus, the Agletarians would most likely kill Poacher at the first sign of an attack, which meant it called for subtlety.

So, Mull was forced to delay and see if she could come up with a better power set tomorrow, which would be better adapted to the needs of this specific circumstance.

Oz being Oz, he’d immediately disposed of the clothes he’d been wearing all day, and took another shower. At the moment, he was dressed in an undershirt and long white flannel pants.

Did men even wear undershirts anymore? It seemed so old-fashioned, for some reason.

And who in God’s name had flannel which was different shades of white?

There was something kind of charming about the sartorial monotony which was Oswald Dimico.

Still… the man did incredible things for sleeveless white tank tops. It really accentuated his broad shoulders and strong muscles.

She tilted her head to the side, casually mentally undressing the man.

The thoughts improved her day tremendously, making her want to curl up in his bed, all warm and safe, and think about him. Scheme ways to get him into the bed with her.

“Natalie?” Oz asked, looking into his closet.

The sound of her name on his lips fanned the flame of lust even higher in her. Her powers might be broken today, but the rest of her body was functioning normally. It was eager to demonstrate that for him, at the slightest encouragement. “Yes, Oz?” Her voice sounded husky, even to her.

He pointed into his closet. “Where are all of my clothes?”

Oh.

“Umm…” Mull tried to get past her lust and focus on more important things.

Like, oh, for example, thinking up a quick and convenient lie, “Oh, I… I mean Holly she threw those out.” The other woman would forgive her.

Or she wouldn’t, but either way, it was worth it.

Upsetting Oz on a normal day was bad, but upsetting Oz on a day when he was dressed in a sexy little tank top and his biceps were putting on a show every time he moved?

That was simply too big a disaster to contemplate.

Holly needed to be sacrificed for the greater good.

She would have done the same. “They were depressing.”

Oz didn’t seem at all convinced by the lie. “Yesterday, you said you loved the monochromatic look.”

“But that was yesterday, Oz.” She shrugged. “Today, I realize that the clothes were dragging you down. Color. You need more color in your life. Bright yellow, sky blue, neon green. Scarlet red. Color.”

“I’m perfectly happy with white.” He started to look through the closet, searching for something her ‘slash and burn’ style wardrobe de-cluttering might have overlooked. “ Your standard outfit is white.” He reminded her.

“No, Multifarious’ standard outfit is white.” She corrected. “ My outfits are very colorful.”

“Fine.” He seemed to give up on that issue, possibly just thankful that she was Natalie at the moment. “What clothes did you get me as replacements?”

She pursed her lips in thought, admitting the point. “Oh… yeah, that would have been a good idea.”

Oz turned to look at her in the horrified, exasperated, and grotesquely fascinated way he usually did when he thought she’d just done something crazy. “You threw away all of my clothes without getting me new ones? ”

“Just put on the clothes you’ve been wearing all day, no problem.”

“They’re dirty.” He reminded her .

“So?”

“So I already threw them into the building’s incinerator.”

“You throw away your clothes after wearing them? Once?”

“Not always.” He shifted on his feet. “Just on days when I’m outside a lot.” He looked towards the windows suspiciously. “There are a lot of germs out there…”

She tried to refrain from rolling her eyes, then pointed towards the other room. “Well, there’s probably some clothes in all of those giftwrapped packages in the hall closet. Just take some of those.”

Oz let out a sigh. “No, there’s not.”

“Well, this will be good for you too then.” She brightened, getting to her feet. “I’m still reading that book on exposure therapy, and being forced into something new is good.”

“Therapy rarely relies on ‘force.’” He deadpanned.

“Oh, you know what I mean.” She made a face at him.

“Look, you’ve cut yourself off from the world.

You’re getting more and more isolated and weird.

Pretty soon, your whole life is going to be nothing but obsessions and rituals and also paradoxically hating them, and I’m sorry, I won’t allow that.

” She shook her head defiantly at that idea.

She was determined to help Oz, whether he liked it or not.

“Things are going to get healthier for you, starting now.”

“So…” he held out his arms helplessly, “what exactly am I supposed to wear for the rest of the day then?”

Natalie gestured to his current attire. “Just go with that.” She was completely fine with that idea. That sounded like a hell of a day to her.

“I don’t think so.” Oz shook his head, his own orderly little mind shocked and appalled at the idea of wearing pants and a shirt out of the house, because someone at some point decided that they were the wrong design of pants and shirt, and even though they covered the exact same areas as actual clothes, these would be socially inappropriate to wear outside.

The whole thing was ridiculous.

Still… Natalie was pretty sure she cared about such things today too. As the day wore on, she seemed to be paying more and more attention to proper behavior and etiquette. Although her powers were broken, her personality was pretty conservative. Which was interesting.

A new idea occurred to her. “Don’t worry, dear. I know what to do.”

*** *

Fifteen minutes later, Natalie was idly swinging her feet off the edge of the bed, waiting for Oz to emerge from the bathroom.

“Why do you have these clothes?” He asked again, still behind the door.

“I keep some outfits in different sizes on hand, just in case I have grow-y powers.” She explained.

“It’s very important to look your best, even if you aren’t quite sure what you’ll look like on any given day.

” She smiled sweetly at the door. “You only get one chance to make a first impression, after all.”

Her smile faded, recognizing that this was going to be a long day.

She was like… some kind of nice person today. Ick.

As personalities went, “Mrs. Cleaver” wasn’t one of her favorites.

She casually cleaned the titular cleaver knife on the skirt of her 1950s era party hostess dress, which was black and had little chalk outlines of bodies embroidered on it.

The look was emphasized by a demure necklace of interlocking grenade pins, with matching earrings, and completed with several other knives which dangled from the conservative belt of her waistline.