Seven
“That was intense,” Iago said, as Tucker, the last of their group, arrived.
“Anybody seen,” Demi stopped, then pointed at Mayumi, sitting in the open back seat of a squad car. “There she is.” Demi quickly led their way through a growing crowd of protestors, milling about in small groups, all looking shell-shocked.
“It’s good to see you,” Mayumi said.
“And now in stereo?” Iago said.
“You’re kind of wishing they’d shot out your eardrums, aren’t you?” Tucker asked.
“Just a little,” she smiled, but moving her face seemed to aggravate her wounds, so she followed it with a grimace. “Do we have a plan?”
“Well,” Iago said, feigning concentration, “the plan was to get arrested and find you. So mission accomplished.”
“Was there anything else after that part?”
“Improvise and try to survive?” Mikaela said.
“That’s probably the important bit, I guess. They take everybody else’s phones?”
“Yeah,” Tucker said, still distracted.
“We figured we’d wait to think through an escape plan- if necessary- until we could talk to you,” Mikaela said.
“I’m going to put a pin in ice dick,” Mayumi said.
“I think they call that a Prince Albert,” Demi said.
“Drake, how many people can you teleport at a time?” Mayumi asked, ignoring her. “Max, life or death.”
“Usually one, maybe two,” Drake replied.
“Doesn’t help us in an emergency, then.”
“So unless we get advance warning, and can sneak people out the back in small groups…” Mikaela trailed off.
“And even then, they’ve got our details,” Tucker said. “We bust out of custody and we might as well run off and join Rox’s runaways.”
“I could probably pull enough duplicates out of reflective surfaces to run interference.”
“Much as I like the idea of them coming face to face with a literal army of black women, that’s going to read as an escalation. “
“I assume we want a nonviolent solution, so I’m out,” Mayumi said.
“If we were outside, and it were raining, maybe I could have made electricity arc between them like a hellish damn lightning strike…” Demi said.
“So Iago, can you knock the ceiling down with a giant ice dick- or anything hot or cold related?”
“Same basic problem with plausible deniability,” he replied.
“So, Tucker, what have you got?”
“Telepathy works a lot like the rules of Inception meets hypnosis. I can convince them to do something they wouldn’t do, but I can’t make them believe it was something they would do. Over time, you can manipulate someone into becoming what you want, it’s just slow, subtle work. I brute-force these cops minds and it will leave the equivalent of a broken window; mind-control isn’t the obvious explanation, but they’ll probably blame it on Breed and react with more violence. But there might be a more, well, not elegant, solution, exactly, but subtler. If it’s looking like the cops are taking a turn for the violent, I could take over their autonomic nervous system, and make them shit themselves.”
“Violently?” Iago asked.
“Depending on what they’ve got in proximity to their colon. On that note, I’ll start priming the pump; unless they’re ready to use the bathroom, I can’t just make them, spontaneously. What I can do is start their bowels moving overtime. Shouldn’t take too long, and they’ll have some uncomfortable cramping in the interim, too.”
“If we have to get out of here through force, it was always going to be messy; I prefer this kind of mess to violence,” Mikaela said.
“You just say that because you aren’t the one who’s going to have to launder their drawers,” Iago said.