Finding a layout for the prison turned out to be a lot easier than Alyssa had expected. Sure, it was a bad idea to just go online and look it up — that kind of thing was a surefire way to get on a watch list real quick — and the city didn’t have a public record of it either. Thankfully however, Amy had a very good memory. Letting her take control for a minute, she drew a fairly detailed map of dubious accuracy. Still, a map that was all rooftops and that, somehow, included various smells and at least one sound, was still fairly useful.
Alyssa, Tony, Serena and her Mom all stood around the kitchen table, with the blinds down and the overhead light on. There was the distinct sense that maybe the air ought to be hazy but none of them smoked and incense gave Alyssa a headache and who cares about what ought and oughtn’t anyway?
“Okay,” Alyssa said, pointing at the side-building, “last time they kept him here. It’s been a week so it’s safe to assume he’s been moved. His trial was a couple of days ago.” She looked at the clock. “It’s now five in the afternoon. He’s going to be moved to the new super-admax prison tomorrow morning at ten AM.”
Supermax sounds so much cooler than it actually is. Like, it sounds like the world’s biggest super soaker. Or an ice cream. Instead it’s just a big box.
“Do you have any idea of where he might have been moved?” Tony asked. “It’s a big prison and for something like this, you don’t want to just start guessing. If you get in danger, you might end up surrounded by some pretty dangerous types.” Before anyone said anything, he crossed his arms. “I don’t mean the prisoners.” Good boy.
“That’s a good point,” Lauren said. “To the people in jail, you’re probably going to look like a superhero, and everyone knows superheroes beat them up, so they’ll either be scared or angry with you, but obviously the real threat is going to be the guards. We want to have as few of them where you need to be as possible. Which I think is going to be here.” She pointed to a central building that was separated from the others, connecting only with a skybridge. “They’ll probably keep him in solitary, and I think that’s going to be here. What? I’ve seen the inside of a prison.” Mom is so cool. I can not get over how cool she is.
“Okay, so we get the guards out of there, and get me in,” Alyssa said. “How?”
“Prison riot?” Serena asked with a cartoon hyena grin.
“That only works in movies and video games,” Anthony said. “Plus, it would make things way more dangerous for Alyssa.” Reluctantly, he added, “and for Arsonal, I guess.”
“Lance Kendrick,” Alyssa said. “Speaking of which, I think I have an idea.”
“Oh no,” was the consensus. Oh yes.
“So a few years back there was that big prison fire in Ohio that got everyone so mad for a while, right?” Alyssa said.
“Yeah. People died,” Mom said. “Baby, no.”
“I want to hear her out,” Serena said. “What happened?”
“So it was kind of reinforced that in case of a major fire, evacuating the prisoners is actually not the main priority of a prison. Staff goes out first, and sometimes they’ll even like, put prisoners back in their cells, and then call the fire brigade. Getting the inmates out is like, something they do if they have time to spare.”
“Oh no,” Anthony repeated.
“So what that means is that, if there’s a major fire, the guards evacuate but leave the prisoners in their cells,” Alyssa continued. “It would work as a diversion, and I could get in and out before anyone notices!”
Lauren held up her hands. “Okay, two things. First of all, prisons are mostly concrete and steel. Those things don’t burn very well. So if you want to start a proper fire, you’re going to have to make a fire-fire. And I don’t know if you remember but twenty people died in that fire, Aly. That’s not a risk you should take.”
“Oh, I don’t want to actually start a fire, Mom,” Alyssa said mischievously. “But if we can make it look like a fire, a big enough one, that should get the guards to start panicking and move to the exits.” She caught her mom’s eye. “Last time, I realized a couple of things. The roof is protected but not super well guarded, and I think I can squeeze in through one of the reinforced windows up there. The roof of the main building has wooden rafters. It’s very easy to get up there and set off some kind of chemical reaction.”
“Something that creates a lot of smoke, but doesn’t kill you,” Serena said, excitedly, and started pointing at the map. “If you set off a bunch of those here in the main building, and then a couple more in the central one, then people will think the roof is on fire and evacuate.”
Lauren raised an eyebrow. “How?” There was a moment of silence, until finally Tony spoke up with the most resigned sigh Alyssa had ever heard him sigh.
“I can get us a couple of smoke machines,” he said. “Don’t ask.” Well, you know what that means. We’re going to have to ask him at some point and we’re not going to leave him alone until he tells us the undoubtedly embarrassing story of why he knows where to get a bunch of smoke machines on short notice. I bet there’s a photoshoot involved somehow. Oh my god, do you think there’s headshots of Anthony out there somewhere, shirtless, walking through smoke, looking like a 2008 vampire?
“Okay, that’s a start, but it’s not everything,” Alyssa said, only barely managing to keep a straight face. “Bu-ut, I think we can also set a couple of small real fires in, like, a guard building. Not enough to spread or anything, but just enough to burn and create smoke in the ventilation system. Enough for the smell of fire to be everywhere, you know? And if there’s a bunch of these all over, nobody will figure out how and where it’s started or how to put it out.”
“This isn’t like in the movies, Aly. Real life ventilation systems don’t have an easily removable hatch that you use to climb into,” her mom said.
“Mom, I can lift a car. That’ll be fine.” Might even be able to throw one if we’re in a particularly good mood. Or a bad one, really. They chuckled. “So we set a couple of fuses for those. I avoid getting seen, and when the fires go off I also turn on the smoke machines.”
“You need something more,” Serena said. “You need people to panic right away, not think straight.” She snapped her fingers. “Power outage!”
“We already told you, a prison riot is a terrible idea,” Lauren said.
“No, not a real one. But if all the lights go out, they’ll think it’s a power outage. Then the emergency power or whatever it is kicks in, but everyone’s going to be so rattled that if they smell smoke, they’ll think it’s related and start moving to the exits.”
“Okay,” Tony said. “Okay. Hypothetically. You succeed. The lights go out, fires start, the guards realize there’s an electrical fire somewhere and it, like, sets the fixtures on fire or whatever, and they evacuate. You get in, and get to the cell. Then what? They’ll be calling the fire department and probably backup.”
“If they get suspicious, they could call the national guard. That’s what happened in Ohio,” Mom said. “And everyone’s going to know what Kendrick looks like.”
“I fly,” Alyssa said cheerfully. “It’s going to be heavy but I got him up real high once before, and that’s when he was carrying a bunch of welding gear and stuff. If I go up high enough, I can glide away without anyone noticing.”
“If you say so,” Tony said. “I still say this is an awful idea.”
“I know,” Alyssa said with a sigh. “But I’m doing this. This is where I start making things right. I have to do this.”
“We both do!” Amy said. “It’s my purpose in life to help fix things. This is what Alyssa needs, so it’s what I need.”
Lauren sat down. “After you get him out, you can’t come here. What’s next?” She looked scared and tired and full to the brim of anxiety. For the briefest moment, Alyssa wondered if maybe her mom needed a symbiote of her own. Yeah, not my call to make. I don’t even know what made me. Can only Penny do it? Can I split as many times as I want? Oh my god I’m not ready to be a mother.
“Well, Penumbra gave me the location of a safehouse. It’s just on the edge of the city proper. It’s an abandoned apartment they’ve used as a base a couple of times when they were pulling triple shifts away from home.” Alyssa pursed her lips together sheepishly. “They don’t get enough sleep.”
“And then from there?”
“Getting Kendrick out of the country is going to be a priority. We can get him across the bay, we’re good,” Alyssa said. “I can’t fly him that far, but once he’s on the road to Canada, he’s basically good. Especially if I can get him out of the city. There’s going to be a manhunt, but they won’t expect him to be able to fly.” She sighed. “And after that I’m going to have to head out of the state for a while.”
“How long for again?” Tony asked.
“Where are you gonna go?” Serena asked.
Alyssa looked at her Mom. “I’ll let you know in just a second. First… this might be my last time in this house for a while, so I want to spend some time with just the two of you. After that–”
“I want my daughter all to myself for a bit,” Lauren said.
Alyssa reassured Anthony and Serena for a good hour. It was all going to be okay, after all, and she did know what she was doing. Ish. and it wasn’t like this was goodbye. After tonight, she was still able to move around the city as Alyssa. Still, they thought it was best for her not to come home just in case she was made and followed.
There were hugs. There were a couple of kisses. Promises. They’d see each other tomorrow. Everything was going to be okay. When Serena and Tony went home, Alyssa waved them off, past the broken remains of the sign out front. It was a symbol of pride for her now, now that she knew the story behind it.
When she went back inside, she practically bumped into her mom, who wordlessly handed her a glass of wine and then walked her to the living room. The couch cushions had been put on the ground, and Lauren sat down on one of them. Alyssa sniffed the glass carefully. “Are you sure I should?”
“Your heroic – or should it be villainous? – break in is several more hours from now,” Lauren said. “You’ll be fine. If you want it, of course.”
“Worst case scenario, I can flush the alcohol out of our system,” Amaranth said.
“Wait, we can do that?” Alyssa said. “That’s awesome!”
“Don’t abuse it, Donut,” Lauren said. “Sit.”
“I told you not to call me that,” Alyssa pouted.
“Only if you stopped being sweet. And you clearly didn’t. I’m glad you and the others finally figured out that you have two hands. I’m proud of you,” Lauren said.
“Thanks, Mom,” Alyssa said and sipped the wine. It was very sweet. “I’m sorry this all got so big and real.”
“I always knew you were going to change the world,” she said. “You were always going to be too big for the suburbs. Even when you were little you were talking about helping the city and helping people. Like, even before T.J. died.” Lauren shrugged. “You just grew up a lot faster than I thought you would.”
“Yeah.”
“Baby,” Lauren said and put her hand on Alyssa’s head. “Forever.”
The last syllable stuttered out of her mouth as a quiet sob. Tears rolled down Lauren’s face, and there wasn’t anything more to say after that. Alyssa scooted up next to her mom. They held each other, taking turns crying, until the time came to leave.
Redshift was about to become the world’s worst supervillain.
Finding a layout for the prison turned out to be a lot easier than Alyssa had expected. Sure, it was a bad idea to just go online and look it up — that kind of thing was a surefire way to get on a watch list real quick — and the city didn’t have a public record of it either. Thankfully however, Amy had a very good memory. Letting her take control for a minute, she drew a fairly detailed map of dubious accuracy. Still, a map that was all rooftops and that, somehow, included various smells and at least one sound, was still fairly useful.
Alyssa, Tony, Serena and her Mom all stood around the kitchen table, with the blinds down and the overhead light on. There was the distinct sense that maybe the air ought to be hazy but none of them smoked and incense gave Alyssa a headache and who cares about what ought and oughtn’t anyway?
“Okay,” Alyssa said, pointing at the side-building, “last time they kept him here. It’s been a week so it’s safe to assume he’s been moved. His trial was a couple of days ago.” She looked at the clock. “It’s now five in the afternoon. He’s going to be moved to the new super-admax prison tomorrow morning at ten AM.”
Supermax sounds so much cooler than it actually is. Like, it sounds like the world’s biggest super soaker. Or an ice cream. Instead it’s just a big box.
“Do you have any idea of where he might have been moved?” Tony asked. “It’s a big prison and for something like this, you don’t want to just start guessing. If you get in danger, you might end up surrounded by some pretty dangerous types.” Before anyone said anything, he crossed his arms. “I don’t mean the prisoners.” Good boy.
“That’s a good point,” Lauren said. “To the people in jail, you’re probably going to look like a superhero, and everyone knows superheroes beat them up, so they’ll either be scared or angry with you, but obviously the real threat is going to be the guards. We want to have as few of them where you need to be as possible. Which I think is going to be here.” She pointed to a central building that was separated from the others, connecting only with a skybridge. “They’ll probably keep him in solitary, and I think that’s going to be here. What? I’ve seen the inside of a prison.” Mom is so cool. I can not get over how cool she is.
“Okay, so we get the guards out of there, and get me in,” Alyssa said. “How?”
“Prison riot?” Serena asked with a cartoon hyena grin.
“That only works in movies and video games,” Anthony said. “Plus, it would make things way more dangerous for Alyssa.” Reluctantly, he added, “and for Arsonal, I guess.”
“Lance Kendrick,” Alyssa said. “Speaking of which, I think I have an idea.”
“Oh no,” was the consensus. Oh yes.
“So a few years back there was that big prison fire in Ohio that got everyone so mad for a while, right?” Alyssa said.
“Yeah. People died,” Mom said. “Baby, no.”
“I want to hear her out,” Serena said. “What happened?”
“So it was kind of reinforced that in case of a major fire, evacuating the prisoners is actually not the main priority of a prison. Staff goes out first, and sometimes they’ll even like, put prisoners back in their cells, and then call the fire brigade. Getting the inmates out is like, something they do if they have time to spare.”
“Oh no,” Anthony repeated.
“So what that means is that, if there’s a major fire, the guards evacuate but leave the prisoners in their cells,” Alyssa continued. “It would work as a diversion, and I could get in and out before anyone notices!”
Lauren held up her hands. “Okay, two things. First of all, prisons are mostly concrete and steel. Those things don’t burn very well. So if you want to start a proper fire, you’re going to have to make a fire-fire. And I don’t know if you remember but twenty people died in that fire, Aly. That’s not a risk you should take.”
“Oh, I don’t want to actually start a fire, Mom,” Alyssa said mischievously. “But if we can make it look like a fire, a big enough one, that should get the guards to start panicking and move to the exits.” She caught her mom’s eye. “Last time, I realized a couple of things. The roof is protected but not super well guarded, and I think I can squeeze in through one of the reinforced windows up there. The roof of the main building has wooden rafters. It’s very easy to get up there and set off some kind of chemical reaction.”
“Something that creates a lot of smoke, but doesn’t kill you,” Serena said, excitedly, and started pointing at the map. “If you set off a bunch of those here in the main building, and then a couple more in the central one, then people will think the roof is on fire and evacuate.”
Lauren raised an eyebrow. “How?” There was a moment of silence, until finally Tony spoke up with the most resigned sigh Alyssa had ever heard him sigh.
“I can get us a couple of smoke machines,” he said. “Don’t ask.” Well, you know what that means. We’re going to have to ask him at some point and we’re not going to leave him alone until he tells us the undoubtedly embarrassing story of why he knows where to get a bunch of smoke machines on short notice. I bet there’s a photoshoot involved somehow. Oh my god, do you think there’s headshots of Anthony out there somewhere, shirtless, walking through smoke, looking like a 2008 vampire?
“Okay, that’s a start, but it’s not everything,” Alyssa said, only barely managing to keep a straight face. “Bu-ut, I think we can also set a couple of small real fires in, like, a guard building. Not enough to spread or anything, but just enough to burn and create smoke in the ventilation system. Enough for the smell of fire to be everywhere, you know? And if there’s a bunch of these all over, nobody will figure out how and where it’s started or how to put it out.”
“This isn’t like in the movies, Aly. Real life ventilation systems don’t have an easily removable hatch that you use to climb into,” her mom said.
“Mom, I can lift a car. That’ll be fine.” Might even be able to throw one if we’re in a particularly good mood. Or a bad one, really. They chuckled. “So we set a couple of fuses for those. I avoid getting seen, and when the fires go off I also turn on the smoke machines.”
“You need something more,” Serena said. “You need people to panic right away, not think straight.” She snapped her fingers. “Power outage!”
“We already told you, a prison riot is a terrible idea,” Lauren said.
“No, not a real one. But if all the lights go out, they’ll think it’s a power outage. Then the emergency power or whatever it is kicks in, but everyone’s going to be so rattled that if they smell smoke, they’ll think it’s related and start moving to the exits.”
“Okay,” Tony said. “Okay. Hypothetically. You succeed. The lights go out, fires start, the guards realize there’s an electrical fire somewhere and it, like, sets the fixtures on fire or whatever, and they evacuate. You get in, and get to the cell. Then what? They’ll be calling the fire department and probably backup.”
“If they get suspicious, they could call the national guard. That’s what happened in Ohio,” Mom said. “And everyone’s going to know what Kendrick looks like.”
“I fly,” Alyssa said cheerfully. “It’s going to be heavy but I got him up real high once before, and that’s when he was carrying a bunch of welding gear and stuff. If I go up high enough, I can glide away without anyone noticing.”
“If you say so,” Tony said. “I still say this is an awful idea.”
“I know,” Alyssa said with a sigh. “But I’m doing this. This is where I start making things right. I have to do this.”
“We both do!” Amy said. “It’s my purpose in life to help fix things. This is what Alyssa needs, so it’s what I need.”
Lauren sat down. “After you get him out, you can’t come here. What’s next?” She looked scared and tired and full to the brim of anxiety. For the briefest moment, Alyssa wondered if maybe her mom needed a symbiote of her own. Yeah, not my call to make. I don’t even know what made me. Can only Penny do it? Can I split as many times as I want? Oh my god I’m not ready to be a mother.
“Well, Penumbra gave me the location of a safehouse. It’s just on the edge of the city proper. It’s an abandoned apartment they’ve used as a base a couple of times when they were pulling triple shifts away from home.” Alyssa pursed her lips together sheepishly. “They don’t get enough sleep.”
“And then from there?”
“Getting Kendrick out of the country is going to be a priority. We can get him across the bay, we’re good,” Alyssa said. “I can’t fly him that far, but once he’s on the road to Canada, he’s basically good. Especially if I can get him out of the city. There’s going to be a manhunt, but they won’t expect him to be able to fly.” She sighed. “And after that I’m going to have to head out of the state for a while.”
“How long for again?” Tony asked.
“Where are you gonna go?” Serena asked.
Alyssa looked at her Mom. “I’ll let you know in just a second. First… this might be my last time in this house for a while, so I want to spend some time with just the two of you. After that–”
“I want my daughter all to myself for a bit,” Lauren said.
Alyssa reassured Anthony and Serena for a good hour. It was all going to be okay, after all, and she did know what she was doing. Ish. and it wasn’t like this was goodbye. After tonight, she was still able to move around the city as Alyssa. Still, they thought it was best for her not to come home just in case she was made and followed.
There were hugs. There were a couple of kisses. Promises. They’d see each other tomorrow. Everything was going to be okay. When Serena and Tony went home, Alyssa waved them off, past the broken remains of the sign out front. It was a symbol of pride for her now, now that she knew the story behind it.
When she went back inside, she practically bumped into her mom, who wordlessly handed her a glass of wine and then walked her to the living room. The couch cushions had been put on the ground, and Lauren sat down on one of them. Alyssa sniffed the glass carefully. “Are you sure I should?”
“Your heroic – or should it be villainous? – break in is several more hours from now,” Lauren said. “You’ll be fine. If you want it, of course.”
“Worst case scenario, I can flush the alcohol out of our system,” Amaranth said.
“Wait, we can do that?” Alyssa said. “That’s awesome!”
“Don’t abuse it, Donut,” Lauren said. “Sit.”
“I told you not to call me that,” Alyssa pouted.
“Only if you stopped being sweet. And you clearly didn’t. I’m glad you and the others finally figured out that you have two hands. I’m proud of you,” Lauren said.
“Thanks, Mom,” Alyssa said and sipped the wine. It was very sweet. “I’m sorry this all got so big and real.”
“I always knew you were going to change the world,” she said. “You were always going to be too big for the suburbs. Even when you were little you were talking about helping the city and helping people. Like, even before T.J. died.” Lauren shrugged. “You just grew up a lot faster than I thought you would.”
“Yeah.”
“Baby,” Lauren said and put her hand on Alyssa’s head. “Forever.”
The last syllable stuttered out of her mouth as a quiet sob. Tears rolled down Lauren’s face, and there wasn’t anything more to say after that. Alyssa scooted up next to her mom. They held each other, taking turns crying, until the time came to leave.
Redshift was about to become the world’s worst supervillain.
