We had a school trip today, and I was both looking forward to it and sort of dreading it at the same time. We were going to PRT Headquarters downtown, and Mr. Gladly was going to be our class proctor for the event. Visiting the PRT was something that interested me, and I had heard that these school trips were special, not like the guided tours you could take as a visitor to the building. I hoped that we’d see the organization and way things worked, and it wasn’t going to be an after-school special, shallow trip.

  Of course, the trio would be in attendance. And that automatically meant that there would be some drama and a high chance of pranks. I only hoped that their ability to pull things would be a bit hampered by the fact that we’d be under close supervision throughout the trip. The class trip to PRT Headquarters wasn’t like a school trip to the museum. While the building was open to the public to an extent, it was still a secure facility, and its primary role wasn’t putting up with the antics of drama queens.

  Speaking of which, I got my first ‘prank’ when I walked onto the transfer bus. Sophia, Madison, and Emma were sitting up front and giggling, always a bad sign that something was waiting for me. It was immature this time around, so I chalked it up to Madison’s doing. Each row of seats I walked past as I progressed towards the back of the bus had suddenly filled up the moment I got there. Bags were thumped on seats, people slid over to block the space, or I got the “holding this for my friend.” All the way to the back of the bus for me, and there were Greg, Leo, and Samantha. Figures.

  Greg was a chatterbox who almost never stopped talking the moment you got on something he was interested in, hyperactive, and very annoying. Leo was also firmly in the loser’s club for his thick glasses, heavy acne, and taste in video games. Everyone called Sam ‘stinky’ at school because she was overweight and had some body odor despite being hygienic. I slid into the seat with Sam. Technically, the bench seats seated three, and between my build and Leo’s, there would have been space, but I wasn’t sitting next to Greg. I was pretty sure he liked me or something, too, because he was always awkward and trying to get me into conversations at school.

  The bus filled, and Mr. Gladly walked the aisle and did a quick head count before returning to the front half of the bus and taking a seat for himself. We got into motion, and I rested against the side of the bus and looked out the window. Sam was pretty quiet most of the time, and I wasn’t looking to get into any kind of discussion if I could avoid it.

  My mind was occupied with thoughts of how my costume was coming along. There were a few key things I still had to work on before it would be ready for use. I needed some kind of way of getting my glasses built into the suit, and the experiments that I had done so far all yielded poor results. I could get specialty sunglasses, diving goggles, or ski goggles. All had their issues. Consistent among all of them was the fact that I’d have to get a prescription from my optometrist and then send it to an optics shop or web store. The prices could be expensive, but the bigger issue was that I was a minor, and would need either a credit card for a web store or my dad along for a shop in the bay. I didn’t want my dad involved, and I also didn’t want a paper trail leading back to him either.

  The bigger goggles that were made to fit prescription eyewear under their protection, like in the case of ski goggles, looked bad, and they were expensive. Sunglasses could get knocked off really easily, and then I’d not only be struggling to see clearly, but also potentially have parts of my identity exposed. I was making a full-coverage suit for a reason. That left diving goggles. It was nice that they would keep rain or dirt out, and they fit the bug motif I was going for with the rest of the suit design. I just didn’t think I could find ones that were large enough to fit a spare pair of lenses into that would also fit my face properly.

  Isn’t Samantha into fashion design? Maybe she might have an idea. How to frame it properly…

  “Hey, Samantha?” I looked over to her, and she pulled an earbud out of her ear. I envied her cellphone and ability to tune the world out with music.

  “Hm, what was that?”

  “You’re into fashion design, aren’t you?

  She smiled a little and nodded her head.

  “You ever do anything with cosplay? Sorry if that’s a weird question.”

  Her face lit up, and she nodded with a blush. Speaking quietly so that only the two of us would hear over the stereo blasting in the bus–Mr. Gladly’s doing–and she said: “Oh, um. I dabble, just a little bit. I’d never be brave enough to go to a convention myself. I do like to watch videos online and look at blogs of people doing the work, though.”

  She looked over me and stammered: “Y-you would be great at it, though, if you ever wanted to do it. You’ve got the figure for it, you could do whatever you wanted.”

  I quirked a brow and tilted my head at her. Did she think I was going to cross-dress as a male character or something? I was not at all like the feminine anime and video game girls with outrageous figures.

  She saw my look and clarified: “You have a silhouette like a model, which is good because you can draw attention to the garment, and because you can build up and layer things way easier if you’re slim than you can if you’re heavy.”

  “Oh. I don’t really think about fashion much, or at all, but that makes sense. My mind was wandering just now, and I thought of a question with that kind of stuff.”

  “Oh? Well, um. You can ask if you want, I might know, or I could look it up.” She waggled her smartphone.

  “I’m sure there are a lot of people who cosplay who wear glasses-” I was interrupted by the bus hitting a hard bump or pothole, which bounced me up off the seat a few inches, sitting in the last row as we were. “Oof. Anyways, people who wear glasses that conflict with their costume, like maybe the costume has a helmet or something? Prescription glasses are expensive, you know? What do they do?”

  I’d hit on a topic she was into based on her expression lighting up.

  “Yeah! A big part of why I like costume designers and cosplay people is because they tend to work with scrap materials, crafting supplies, and other low-cost stuff, so that anyone can do it with some average household materials! So, um, is the helmet pretty closely fitted to the head? It’s not an exaggerated design where there is space to get glasses on under it?”

  I nodded.

  “And contacts wouldn’t work, right?” She asked.

  “Right,” I agreed.

  I tried them, and they were awful.

  “So don’t laugh if this sounds dumb, but you know what most people would do in that situation? Just use hot glue. It’s like the duct tape for cosplay. It fixes everything.”

  I worked through it. “So, just hot glue the lenses directly into the helmet? That won’t damage the lens? Most are soft plastic now.”

  “Nope! It shouldn’t! If you were really concerned, you could maybe glue the frame with the arms taken off, but the nice thing about hot glue and why it’s a pretty common crafting glue is that it’s low temperature enough not to damage most fabrics and foams. And it cools very quickly, too. The hold is pretty good, unlike super glue.”

  “...Isn’t the whole point of super glue that it has a really strong hold?”

  “Oh, it does, but it’s not flexible, and it doesn’t handle shocks well. Fabric stretches and flexes, and it’s only really good on hard surfaces.”

  “Oh. Huh.” I thought it over. I could probably get some goggles that would fit individual lenses, that were still shock and impact-rated. “That’s a really good idea, actually. Thanks, Sam.” She nodded with a little smile and stuck her earbud back in.

  A little while later, we arrived at our destination, and the bus offloaded front to back. Mr. Gladly took roll as we stepped off, checking our names off a list on a clipboard and getting us through the main entrance to the lobby. Ours and three other Sophomore classes were in this morning's time slot. Other grades were going at different times. We gathered in parts of the lobby divided by those metal posts with seatbelt straps by class, and the various friend groups congregated according to social rank and circle.

  I was in the losers’ club, but if it meant I didn’t have to deal with the trio, that was perfectly fine by me. They weren’t too far off, joking around and laughing about something or another, but I kept a lookout to see if they were glancing my way at all. That was a good indication that they were up to something. The coast seemed clear.

  Someone wearing a bright lanyard drew my attention away. “Hello! I’m Morgan Rivera, I work here, and I’m going to be walking your class through…” I looked her over when she was introducing herself to Greg. She had on some professional wear that looked sort of expensive, and her makeup was very well done. She was also really attractive, but not precisely in the traditional sense. She was pretty muscular. Initially, I got very Glory Girl sort of vibes from her, with her blonde hair, blue eyes, and clear complexion. She was probably a preppy girl in high school; no doubt she had graduated from Arcadia. There was that sort of silver spoon, upper-class ease and confidence in the way she presented herself.

  Just like the trio. Or what the trio thought they were. I already categorized her in my mind and put her in the compartment I thought she most likely fit into. I disliked her from the onset. She was looking at me. Oh, right. Introductions.

  “Taylor,” I said, and stuffed my hands into my hoodie. I went back to trying to keep an eye on the three girls. The tour guide lady was talking to Greg, or should I say, Greg was info-dumping on her, but she seemed engaged for whatever reason. I guess I’d engage too if I was getting paid to do it. They were talking about the Wards or something. The lady raised her voice some and said something about Phoenix Strike sucking, and I saw Sophia’s head turn like it was on a swivel and look straight at her.

  Huh? What’s this?

  She had my attention now, and I felt smug that I’d nailed my impression of her. Those sorts always ran in the same circles. She waved to Sophia from alongside me and greeted her. I blinked when Sophia gave her the type of look she’d give me. Strange.

  “You know her?” I asked the tour guide. She nodded and told me that she had competed against her in track before. That explained the muscles. I looked back at Sophia, smirking about something while Emma and Madison laughed. The tour guide leaned in close to me and whispered: “You probably know this already since she’s in your grade, but she’s a real fucking cunt.”

  What?!

  I looked at her, my brain trying to scramble around and figure out if this was yet another ploy of theirs. She looked like she really meant it.

  Did Sophia cheat at track, or something? She probably would do things like that, come to think of it.

  I found myself grinning a little bit without even thinking about it, and the guide lady smiled back, her eyes twinkling mischievously.

  Greg inserted himself back into the conversation, and she looked away to talk to him. I glanced at the ID badge hanging over her bust.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Morgan Rivera.

  A couple of minutes passed, and we went ahead and got started. The tour was long, and I was actually enjoying it because it was a fairly deep dive and comprehensive tour. There was a little bit of gimmick stuff here and there to try and wow people and get their attention drawn to various things, but it wasn’t too bad. The tou- Ms. Rivera seemed to like, really know what she was talking about as we went from floor to floor. There was a time or two I thought about asking a question, but I didn’t want to chance drawing attention to myself.

  We did what was called “Operations” first, which turned out to be the part where the street officers worked. I was able to get a good look at the gear they wore, and while it seemed a bit excessive at first, Ms. Rivera explained the basic elements and considerations. Officers had to deal with engagements with supervillains, heavily armed gang members, and groupies, and a lot of the big guns they carried were really non-lethal despite looking excessively lethal to my untrained eyes.

  Eating breakfast with Dad this morning before school, I had some juice and a cup of coffee, and I was low-key scoping out bathroom stops because there hadn’t been any time up until now at school. When we finished the tour of the Public Relations floor, there was a brief break where people were getting extra goodies. I set my bag of stuff they had handed out to each of us on a water fountain and darted into the women’s bathroom. I relieved myself and was about to leave the stall when I heard the door hiss open and sneakers on the tile walk in. Without even thinking about what I was doing, I brought my legs up and rested my shoes on the seat, hiding like we were in Winslow.

  The door hissed open again, and someone else walked in extra quietly. I thought I was being silly, maybe, then I heard Ms. Rivera speak: “Is your neck okay? I’m sorry if I bruised it.”

  I heard a familiar snort, and then Sophia of all people responded: “You shouldn’t be. And you shouldn’t apologize, either. You always go too easy on people. Yesterday was the first time you proved there’s some fight in you.”

  What the heck!?

  “Well. It wasn’t my intent to lose my cool and scream in your face, and I felt bad about it. It wasn’t professional.”

  Maybe she’s a coach or personal trainer too? She looks like she could be, certainly. But she said she really didn’t like Sophia! Do you get to pick your clients at a gym, or are they assigned to you as a trainer?

  My mind whirled with the possibilities. She truly seemed like she didn’t like Sophia. Surely this wasn’t ano-

  “Like I said yesterday, our job isn’t to be professional. It’s to win.”

  Oh, so it is sports-related.

  “Keep your voice down; there are civilians right outside, and one of them could be snooping.” I held my arms around my knees and bit my lip to keep silent. The term civilians kept looping in my head.

  They started talking much quieter, and I was having a hard time making out what they were saying between the noise outside, the soft music playing in the bathroom speakers, and the sound of my own heart racing in my chest.

  “...you’re a pussy pushover…” Sophia’s voice was barely audible over the background but sharp and insulting in ways I was deeply familiar with.

  So they really don’t get along, then. This is hard to keep track of.

  I tapped my power and tried to get a better idea of what was going on. There weren’t a ton of bugs in here; the place was kept almost distressingly clean, but no place was entirely free of bugs. I got blurry and indistinct shapes of the two standing, their body language looked a bit confrontational: arms crossed, facing each other directly. It made my head hurt to try and concentrate on it, so I went back to listening.

  Something about reports and meetings… She called Morgan a name, or to fuck off, or something… Hating people like her.

  Morgan was speaking again, and she was speaking more calmly than Sophia was, and it was extremely hard to make out. I could have sworn she said something about killing someone, but there’s no way that was right.

  Sophia, again, agitated, lectured: “Who cares if you killed someone by accident? They’re drug dealers, criminals, murderers. Racists.” Something about a dog-eat-dog world. I couldn’t make out the rest, and she stomped off.

  Why is Sophia talking to Ms. Rivera like that? I mean, sure, she talks to a lot of people like that, and they for sure know each other, even if they’re not friends. Didn’t sound like there was any love lost between them; it was a pretty cat-fight exchange. But what was that about killing people? Drug dealers and criminals?

  My mind was racing a mile a minute, and I waited to make sure Ms. Rivera had left the bathroom and someone else had entered before leaving and getting my PRT goodie and informational bag from where I’d stashed it by the fountain. The tour was getting back on track shortly. We went to the research division next, which would have been cool, except I couldn’t stop thinking about that entire exchange. It just didn’t make sense, no matter how many times I tried to switch my viewpoint around to consider what the implications were.

  They seemed very different from one another. Ms. Rivera seemed well put together and composed, and I was pretty sure they’d been talking about training for sports or in a gym or something in the first part of the encounter. Sophia wasn’t a great student, but was a sorta successful jock on track. She didn’t dress super nicely, probably the worst of the trio now that I thought about it, usually in sporty clothing. I didn’t get the impression her family was very well off.

  So what about the talk of killing criminals and drug dealers? I could maybe see Sophia doing some kind of vigilante justice crap like that, but not Ms. Rivera. I dug through my gift bag for clues. Two T-shirts, some coasters and posters, pins and stickers. A handful of booklets talking about what to do in emergencies, like an Endbringer attack or a major supervillain crisis. I was looking over a big laminated fact sheet that could be hung up with some included poster adhesives or magnets. There was a bunch of phone numbers on it.

  PRT Emergency Services Dispatch, PRT Emergency Healthcare Services, PRT Crisis Hotline, PRT Trigger Event Hotline… There were so many branches and subdivisions… What’s this? PRT CrimeWatch Reporting Tipline? Hmm.

  I furrowed my brows in thought as the tour group oohed and aahed at some laser zapper thing being shot behind polarized safety glass. The buzz of it firing reminded me of my bugs. Reporting Tipline. Was it possible that Sophia was an informant? She didn’t seem the type, but I guess that was also entirely the point. Was Ms. Rivera an informant? It had been Sophia telling her, “So what if you killed someone on accident.” I mean, she literally worked for the PRT, she wouldn’t use an anonymous tipline, she’d just go through her official channels.

  Had one of them been involved in reporting something, and someone had gotten killed because of it? It was plausible in my mind, but it kept nagging away at me. The theory sort of fit, but would have made way more sense if the conversation had been reversed. It just didn’t add up, and it bothered me. And it still didn’t explain their weird dynamic. Sophia clearly didn’t like Ms. Rivera, and Ms. Rivera, while more professional, certainly didn’t seem to like Sophia, either.

  There was the fact that it was odd for members of the trio to break off and do stuff on their own. They obviously did things in their private lives, but they tended to stick to each other like fly tape at school. Sophia must have split off with the intent of having a private moment away from the other two with Ms. Rivera. Probably tailed her into the bathroom like she’d done to me so many times.

  My mind was brought back to the present as we entered an elevator and went to the last stop on the tour. The headquarters of The Wards. People were excited and talking in hushed tones like we were in a theater and a big Aleph blockbuster was about to start playing soon. When the doors opened, people at the front of the elevator gasped, and as we shuffled out, I got to see why. The corridor down to a door that looked like it belonged in a bank vault was all reflective chrome. Ms. Rivera held up a thumbs-up in front of the door and it unsealed with exactly the kind of sound I’d expect it to make: utterly silent.

  Inside was a weirdly dome-shaped and partitioned area, very visually distinct and entirely different than what we’d seen elsewhere in the building. The place looked like it could survive a nuclear blast, or something of the sort.

  “Yooo! What’s up, Winslow!?” Kid Win called out from on top of a flying hoverboard; he was slowly drifting around the large central room.

  People started cheering and clapping like crazy. He seemed to be enjoying himself, too. He did a little demo of his flying skills, then shot some laser pistols into a cardboard cutout figure, and people cheered louder. Hopping off his flying skateboard he directed most of the class over to one recessed alcove where there was a bunch of seating and beanbags for some interactive Q & A. Most of the class was hardcore into that, and some of the others wandered around checking the place out, which we’d already been told was fine.

  The thing that had caught my eye was a curved wall section with full-size mannequins of The Wards team, each totally decked out in their gear. One of my goals while I was here was that I wanted to try to get some ideas for my hero outfit. This was the perfect opportunity to do it, while everyone else was mostly distracted with Kid Win or doing their own thing. Nobody else was looking at the display.

  I made my way over. I had done a little research on PHO about utility belts, but a lot of the information on there was based on a mix of media, interviews, and no small amount of speculation. The wiki was tightly moderated, and things that were speculative were clearly marked as such, but this was a great chance to get an up-close look and see first-hand.

  I had recently finished a streamlined storage pack that was attached to the back of my suit, and I had been trying to brainstorm ideas of what to put in it. It wasn’t terribly huge, but I had some space to work with and needed ideas. Glancing over the outfits, I decided to take a look at Phoenix Strike’s setup. She was very mobile and didn’t fly or anything, and that probably shaped her decision-making process. She was sorta lame as far as heroes went. She didn’t seem to have much in the way of powers. Her page listed her as a very low-level brute and mover. She was best known for being the most forgettable of the Brockton Bay Wards.

  Her belt looked pretty rugged despite not being super bulky. Black, in contrast to the rest of her suit, and clearly military, or maybe police-inspired. The metal buckle was weird; it was something I didn’t recognize at all. I leaned forward to try and get a look inside the numerous differently shaped pouches on the belt.

  “Taylor, right? Did you enjoy the tour?” It was her, Ms. Rivera. I’d been so caught up looking at the display that I hadn’t paid attention to her approaching me.

  “I thought it was pretty informative, all things considered.” I couldn’t get a good angle to look into the flaps of the pouch without being super obvious about what I was doing, even though the lighting inside the display was very bright.

  “Fan of Phoenix Strike? I noticed you seem into the costume.”

  I wonder if she knows? I was still a little apprehensive about that whole thing in the bathroom earlier. She nodded and proceeded to rattle off the entire contents of the belt like she knew it stone cold. Even going and pointing out specific things and where they were placed.

  Whoah.

  I looked at her and considered. There was a handful of things I thought about saying, then thought twice about. The way she seemed to know this stuff inside and out was impressive. I thought about the potential that maybe she was an officer or something. I said, “I sorta figured you just worked here as a tour guide or office worker, but you seem to know a heck of a lot about some of the more detailed things.” That sounded worse than what I had meant.

  She didn’t seem put off by it at all, nodding at me and smiling. “You could say I wear a lot of different hats around here. Office paperwork, meetings, PR, outreach, and even doing some personal assistant work for some of the heroes.”

  Outreach. I wonder if informants would fall under that?

  She handed me a business card, and I looked at it. It said: Parahuman Response Team, East Northeast: Brockton Bay. There were the same sorts of numbers on it that I’d seen on the laminated sheet in my bag, albeit significantly pared down. I was confused by it. Flipping it over, she’d written her name and phone number on the back. She had very girly handwriting.

  I thought about her relation to Sophia, and looked up from the card to her face.“Is this… For what, exactly?” I asked. “You do this for everyone on the tour, or what?”

  She tilted her head and told me that yes, everyone got contact information, but that she’d taken notice that I was paying attention during some parts of the tour in a way that had caught her attention. That I could ask her any questions I might think of later. She smiled warmly and then tacked on: “Or if you just want to chat sometime. Shoot me a text.”

  That would require having a cellphone. But maybe it wouldn’t hurt to have someone I could ask questions to. And maybe I can glean some more information about what the story is with her and Sophia.

  “I don’t-” I sighed. “I don’t text. I don’t have a cellphone. Just a regular landline at home.” There was one thing I could think of right away that she had said about the contents of the utility belt. “What’s CS gas?”

  She laughed out loud rather abruptly, and I felt like she might have been laughing at me. I was so used to that being the norm that it made me really defensive when talking to others. She waved a hand and composed herself, going on to explain that she felt she was perpetuating a bad habit imparted on her of using technical terms and names for things, and that it was ‘just’ tear gas.

  I knew from movies and the news what that was. Apparently the name “CS gas” referred to the chemical composition of the gas and was the official name it had within the military and law enforcement.

  I peered up at Phoenix Strike’s almost egg-like helmet. It encapsulated her entire head, there were no eyes or facial features whatsoever, only an emblazoned symbol of a bird’s head in the bright orange highlight colors of her suit. There were some holes for what might be lenses and other sensors hidden in the helmet, but I got the impression that it was tinkertech in nature.

  She must have a respirator or filtration system in there if she carries tear gas on her belt. I wonder what else her helmet does. I wonder if I could put some kind of pocket into the inside of my mask to stick one of those medical masks in? Would that work against teargas? I wonder if it would make breathing hard.

  We chatted a bit more, and I was left with the impression that Ms. Rivera seemed pretty sincere and really knowledgeable about PRT and cape things. Not at all like what I had her pegged as at first. She split off shortly thereafter and guided us back out to the main lobby to head back to Winslow. I was quiet on the bus ride back.

  I had an awful lot of things to think about.