The welt on Roxy’s face stretched with her scowl as she picked her way through the pile of junk in front of her. It was ten pm and she was elbow-deep in garbage, looking for stuff that she could use to fix or replace her broken helmet.
She was in plainclothes, wearing a pair of faded jeans and a dark blue sweater that only did a little bit to keep out the cold. A backpack was slung over her shoulder, and a baseball cap obscured her bright red hair.
She leaned down, her fingers closing around a bundle of wires as she wrenched them out, revealing the gutted remains of an old speaker system. The cone was damaged and the casing was cracked, but other than that if looked intact. She tucked them into her bag and kept moving.
This junkyard was one of the smaller ones in the city, sitting on the edge of town where practically nobody lived. Roxy made a trip here at least once a week to just pick over what had been dropped off. It was a slog and usually took her most of the day to even get here, but it was worth it.
Her trainers squelched in the mud as she moved to the next pile. The rain from last night still lingered and made everything smell like trash even more than usual, but she didn’t mind it. Hell, she even preferred it in some ways to the orphanage. At least it was quiet.
A flicker of movement caught her eye and she tensed, turning toward it. There was more movement, and the a pair of yellow eyes peeked out from a black face. She relaxed. Just a cat.
“Scared me, buddy,” she muttered, continuing to trudge along as it darted away.
Stray cats and dogs were pretty much the only living things around here. Some time ago -- before Leviathan reared his scaly head and made it pretty much impossible to ship things across the ocean -- this area of the city had been full of packing plants. People would ship things here, they’d get sorted and packed in one of a dozen big buildings, then sent to the Docks to be shipped across the sea.
The business made a lot of jobs for the people on this side of the city. Now that it was gone though, so were the people. They packed up and moved elsewhere, leaving empty houses and the ghosts of businesses in their wake. Druggies and homeless people were about the only ones who lived out here anymore. So Roxy didn’t have to worry about anyone getting onto her about her snooping around piles of junk.
Or so she thought.
Roxy was elbow-deep in a rusted washing machine when the sound reached her. It was faint, at first, even to her ears. But it steadily gained volume until even the distant city sounds faded into the background of the noise. It was a rhythmic whirring, backed by a deeper bass that fades in and out as the volume dipped and rose again.
Roxy froze, turning her eyes to the sky just in time to watch through the rusted junkyard fence as a figure in bright red cross the street. They were riding something like a skateboard, if a skateboard had no wheels and could float three meters off the ground.
Behind the lead figure came another, darker silhouette. Literally. Cast in smokey shadow that blended into the night around them, the figure floated across the gap between two buildings, following after the first. As they landed on a roof, their form seemed to stabilize, allowing Roxy to catch the faintest glimpse of a silver mask. It glinted against the flickering streetlights, before fading as they became incorporeal again.
That was Kid Win and Shadow Stalker. Roxy recognized them from news reports and the occasional scroll on PHO. They were junior heroes, Wards under the mantle of the Protectorate. Why were they out patrolling this late?
Roxy dipped behind the washing machine was Kid Win’s visor tilted in her direction. He scanned the area she was in, seeming perplexed, before his partner caught up to him and took his attention.
Roxy pressed herself against the cold metal of the washing machine, her breath held tight in her chest. Her enhanced hearing stretched out through the quiet air, picking up the faint sound of voices from above.
“I’m not waiting around for you to pick up toys,” Shadow Stalker’s voice cut through the night, rough and impatient. The shadow had solidified on the rooftop now, and Roxy could see the angular edges of her mask as she turned toward her partner.
Kid Win’s hoverboard dipped slightly as he looked back toward the junkyard. “I thought I saw something.”
“What, a cat?” Shadow Stalker scoffed. “Nobody lives over here but druggies and bums. We don’t need to waste our time with bullshit.”
“Still, it might be worth—”
“It’s nothing.” Shadow Stalker growled. The heroine was clearly in a bad mood. “Don’t know why you’re taking this seriously anyway. This shit’s just busy work.”
Roxy listened as Kid Win sighed, his hoverboard making an odd sound. Were they leaving?
No. It turned out that sound was simply him adjusting angle. He pivoted in the air, staring down at his partner with his hands on his hips.
“Are you stupid? The ABB’s going to be out all over town after what happened yesterday. We need to be everywhere where, not just in their hotspots.”
Kid Win’s words clearly didn’t have their intended effect on his teammate. Shadow Stalker tensed, glaring at him. “The fuck did you call me?”
While Kid Win blanched, Roxy’s heart skipped a beat. After what happened last night? Were they talking about her? Had news of what she did spread so quickly? She listened closer, ears perked to their fullest She waited with bated breath for them to continue.
Kid Win raised his hands defensively. “Look, I’m just saying, we’re not the only ones who got stuck with the crappy routes. Vista and Aegis were stuck on the Boardwalk all day–like anything’s gonna happen there. The Director wants us keeping an eye out all over.”
“Piggot can kiss my ass,” Shadow Stalker muttered. “Fuckin’ Lung got taken down last night. Why aren’t we jumping on that and dealing with the rest of these scumbags instead of walking around in the middle of nowhere with dick in our hands?”
Roxy froze. What? What were they talking about?
Kid Win shifted. “We don’t know how they’re going to react. If we go around poking the the es the beehive right after the queen is killed, there’s no telling what kind of swarm we’ll get. It’s best just to wait these things out and make sure nothing happens in the meantime.”
Shadow Stalker stared at him. “What kind of stupid metaphor was that?”
Kid Win shrugged, though there was a note of sheepishness to it. “ Well... The new capes above controller, right? I thought it seemed appropriate.”
Shadow Stalker muttered something that sounded suspicious like ‘nerd’, and the kicked off towards the next building. Kid Win followed after her, and soon enough, the two Wards were on their way.
But Roxy didn’t move. She was still stuck on what they had said.
Someone took down Lung? The same Lung who battled the entire PRT ENE to a standstill on his first day in the city? The same guy who fought freaking Leviathan one-on-one and managed to come out alive? Someone got the better of him?
And not only that, they did it with bugs.
Roxy’s hands curled into fists at her sides, heat blooming in her cheeks as frustration curled in her chest and made itself cozy. She wanted to scream.
That wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t. Roxy had been working for weeks, hitting targets, building gear, working to make a name for herself. And in one night, some random nobody with a bug power got all the glory? Got to take down one of the biggest villains in the city?
Are you fucking kidding me?
Roxy’s jaw clenched so hard her teeth ached. She could feel the familiar burn of tears behind her eyes, but she blinked them away furiously. She wasn’t going to cry. Not here, not over something this stupid.
But it was stupid. It was so incredibly, unbelievably stupid that she’d put in all this work, taken all these risks, and what did she have to show for it? A few posts on PHO speculating about her, while someone else got to be the one who mattered?
It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.
Roxy looked up at the sky, tracking the distant shapes of the Wards as they disappeared over the rooftops. Her fingers drummed against her thigh, agitated. She wanted to hit something, or to scream or-or cry or anything!
Instead, Roxy gathered the last of the salvageable parts she’d found, shoving them into her bag and hefting it kver her shoulder. The motion made her ribs protest, and she winced at the lingering ache.
Screw this newbie. They’d probably be dead in a few days anyway once the ABB got ahold of them. Roxy would keep doing her thing, and eventually, she’d be recognized. Let little miss queen bed have her fifteen minutes of fame.
Roxy trudged back through the junkyard, her mood fouler than when she’d arrived. The walk home felt longer than usual, every step punctuated by the phantom echo of Kid Win’s voice in her head.
By the time she reached the orphanage, it was past midnight. She’d stayed out later than she’d meant to, lost in her own head. The building loomed before her, dark and quiet, and for a moment she considered just climbing to her window and avoiding the front door entirely.
But that would mean leaving her salvage outside, and she wasn’t about to leave her hard-earned parts in some bush to get rained on. So she circled around back, found the loose panel in the fence she’d discovered months ago, and slipped through into the overgrown yard.
She was almost to the side door when the porch light flicked on.
Roxy froze, her hand half-raised toward the door handle. The light spilled across the overgrown grass, illuminating her in all her guilty glory for the figure standing just in the doorway.
Said figure didn’t move, arms crossed over her chest and her face set in that particular expression of disappointment that Roxy knew all too well. She was a heavyset woman in her fifties, grey-streaked hair pulled back into a severe bun, and she looked like she’d been waiting for a while.
“Roxanne Adeline Schaffer.”
Roxy’s jaw tightened at the use of her full name. “I can explain.”
“Can you?” The matron stepped aside, gesturing for Roxy to come in. “Because I’ve heard a lot of explanations from you over the past few months, and none of them have been particularly convincing.”
Roxy’s shoulders tensed as she walked past her and into the dim hallway. She kept her bag close, hyper-aware of the parts rattling around inside. If the matron decided to search it, she’d have a lot more explaining to do.
The woman closed the door behind them and led the way into the kitchen. The refrigerator hummed in the corner, and the smell of burnt coffee lingered in the air. The matron pulled out a chair and sat down, gesturing for Roxy to do the same.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The matron just looked at her, her eyes tracing over Roxy’s face.
The clicked ticket in the wall, punctuating every second of silence between them. Roxy fought to keep still, struggling to cope with the noise slicing through the silence. The dripping of the coffee pot made her eye twitch, and the sound of someone snoring upstairs made her want to drum her fingers on the table just to drown it out. Her hands shook with nervous energy and the desire to do something, anything, to make the world quite again.
I need my headphones, she thought, desperately wishing she hadn’t taken them out.
The matron seemed oblivious to her discomfort, staring at Roxy with steely grey eyes. After a moment, she spoke.
“Do you want to tell me where you’ve been?”
Roxy’s jaw worked. “Out.”
“That much is obvious.” The matron’s voice was tired more than angry. “What I want to know is why you keep doing this. You’ve been slipping out at least twice a week for the past month, Roxanne. I’ve let it slide because you’ve been keeping your head down during the day, but this can’t continue.”
Roxy stared at the table, her fingers curling against the wood. “I just needed some air.”
“At this hour?” The matron sighed, reaching up to rub her temples. “There’s fresh air right outside your window, and even in the backyard if you really need it. Girls your age don’t need to be wandering the streets in the middle of the night, no matter how tough you think you are.”
“You don’t get it.”
“You’re right. I don’t.” The matron’s voice hardened, her patience clearly wearing thin. “I don’t get why a girl with your potential keeps throwing it away. You’re smart, Roxanne, but you refuse to apply yourself, you pick fights, you wander the streets at all hours, and now you’re coming home with bruises.”
Roxy’s hand drifted unconsciously to her temple, where the welt from the wrench still throbbed dully. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing,” the woman insisted, leaning forward. Her voice dropped to a grave murmur. “You think I don’t see what’s happening? You think I haven’t watched a dozen girls just like you go down this same path? They start sneaking out, they start fighting, and then one day they’re gone. Either dead, or in a gang, or worse.”
“I’m not like them.”
“Then prove it.” The matron’s voice cracked slightly, and Roxy blinked. “I’ve been doing this job for twenty-two years, Roxanne. I’ve seen kids come through here with nothing, and I’ve watched them leave with even less. I don’t want that for you. You’re a good kid, and I know you can be a better adult with just a hint of discipline.”
For a moment, something flickered in Roxy’s chest. Something warm and unfamiliar that she didn’t quite know what to do with. And then the matron kept talking.
“And if you don’t shape up,” the woman turned away. “I’m afraid that even with your smarts, you aren’t liable to make it far in life.”
The words hit a little too close to home. The warmth vanished, replaced by the familiar burn of resentment.
“I understand,” Roxy said, her voice flat.
The matron searched her face, clearly unconvinced. But after a moment, she sighed and stood up. “Go to bed. And if I catch you sneaking out again, you’ll be on restriction until you turn eighteen.”
Roxy stood and was gone before the woman even finished her sentence. That night, Roxy kay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Her hands curled into fists at her sides, and she could feel her blood pounding in her ears. That was just her life. She put in all this work for months, risked her life more times than she could count, and for what? To get a lecture from some washed-up old bat who thought she knew how Roxy’s story would play out?
You won't make it far in life...
What did she know? Roxy was barely even here. The only time the matron saw her was when she was in trouble. She had no idea what Roxy was actually capable of. None of them were.
It doesn’t matter, Roxy thought, forcing herself to breathe slowly. I’ve got money now. I’ll be out of here in a few days, and then none of this will matter.
The thought mollified her somewhat, and Roxy reached into her pillow case for her headphones, shoving them over her ears and cranking the volume until the world finally faded away.
[TONE]
The next morning, Roxy woke before the other girls in her room. She dressed quickly and quietly, plodding out of the room in just socks, shoes held in hand.
The orphanage was quiet at this time of day--long before the sun came up. There were one or two people away, but they stayed in bed, shifting as they tried to go back to sleep, completely unaware of Roxy skulking through the halls.
She made her way to the upstairs bathroom as usual. She locked the door behind her and climbed onto the sink, reaching up toward the drop ceiling. Her fingers found the familiar edge of the loose tile and pushed it aside, reaching into the dark space beyond.
Her hand searched the dusty cavity, patting along the wooden beams and grime. She felt around, and paused.
She didn’t feel anything.
Her breath caught in her throat. She swept her arm in a wider arc, knocking against cobwebs and dust, but found nothing but empty space. No bag. No cash. No nothing.
“No, no, no,” she breathed, her heart hammering against her ribs as she searched more frantically, running her hands along every inch of the cavity she could reach. The tips of her fingers scraped against rough wood and insulation, but nothing solid met her touch. She pushed deeper, ignoring the way the dust made her nose itch and her eyes water, stretching until her shoulder ached from the angle.
Nothing.
“Nonononono...”
Roxy’s breath came in short, ragged gasps. She climbed down from the sink, her legs unsteady, and stared up at the ceiling as if the tile might suddenly reveal itself to be a trick of the light. No such luck.
She pressed her back to the wall, sliding down until she hit the cold tile floor with shaking hands. Her chest felt tight, like someone had wrapped a belt around her ribs and was pulling it tighter with every breath.
Six thousand dollars. Six thousand, two hundred, and eighteen dollars. Every cent she’d scraped together over weeks of risking her life, of sneaking out, of fighting grown men with nothing but her tech and her nerve. Gone.
Her vision blurred. She blinked rapidly, trying to clear it, but the tears kept coming. The small bathroom seemed to close in around her, the walls pressing inward while the hum of the pipes and the drip of the faucet amplified until they were deafening.
I was so close.
A sound escaped her throat, something between a sob and a scream. Her hands balled into fists at her sides, her fingernails digging into her palms hard enough that she half expected them to come away bloody.
She’d been so careful. Nobody knew about her stash, she was sure of it. She never snuck out when other people were awake, was never followed, so how…
“Fuck!”
The word tore out of her, raw and ugly. She lunged to her feet and lashed out at the closest solid thing that wasn’t the wall.
Her fist slammed into the mirror. The glass shattered with a crack, glass shards falling into the sink and scattering across the flood. Pain blossomed in her arm and Roxy looked down. A jagged piece of glass protruded from the meat of her hand, glinting in the fluorescent light.
The pain was actually helpful, somehow. It cut through the panic, gave her something to focus on besides her missing money. She reached up and gingerly pinched the glass shard between her fingers, pulling it free with a sharp breath. More blood welled up, dripping onto the floor and staining the tile crimson.
She turned on the faucet and thrust her hand under the cold water, watching it run pink as it swirled down the drain. As she cleaned the wound, she glanced up. Her reflection stared back at her, distorted by the broken glass. Her face was pale and streaked with tears, and the welt on her head somehow seemed even worse than yesterday. She was a sorry sight.
She took a long, shuddering breath. Then another. The water continued to run over her hand, the sound of it almost soothing against the chaos in her head. Slowly, deliberately, she forced her breathing to slow.
Get it together, she told herself, her jaw tight. Freaking out isn’t going to fix anything.
Roxy shut off the water and grabbed a handful of rough paper towels from the nearly empty dispenser, wrapping them around her hand. The bleeding slowed but didn’t stop. She’d need to bandage it properly, maybe steal some supplies from the first aid kit in the kitchen.
She put that on the backburner for now, focusing on the most important question. That being, who was responsible for this?
The matron? It was possible. But if she’d found the cash, wouldn’t she have confronted Roxy about it? Wouldn’t she have asked where a thirteen-year-old orphan got six thousand dollars?
The other kids? Roxy’s mind raced through the possibilities. Some of them snuck out too, though not as often as she did. Any one of them could have stumbled across her hiding spot just by being a little nosy, but six thousand dollars wasn’t the kind of thing you kept quiet about. Someone would have noticed if one of the orphans suddenly had that kind of cash.
Her Shatter-Picks were in that bag, Roxy realized suddenly. She used them to get into the junkyard. If whoever stole it went through it and found those, realized what they were…
Roxy stared at herself in the broken mirror, her pulse thudding in her ears as she thought about what to do.
The choice was obvious. Someone had her money, her bag, and some of her tech. If any of that was traced back to her, she was screwed.
Her workshop still had the majority of her gear; her Thumpers, lance, and helmet were all safely tucked away in the shipping crate with most of her things. It wasn’t everything, but it was more than she’d had when she started.
It’ll suck sleeping on the ground, but I can’t stay here, she thought, already imagining the best way to pack her meager belongings without anyone noticing. She’d fill a bag with essentials and disappear while everyone was at school.
She was essentially upending her life, but there wasn’t really much else she could do. She could sit around here and wait, but that was inviting trouble. Eventually, someone would connect a pair of lockpicks that used sound to shatter metal, and the new cape who’d been going around busting up crackhouses and ABB fronts. Someone would come knocking, whether it be the heroes, or people with far less scruples about killing a kid or several for fucking with their cash flow.
Roxy took a deep breath, clenching her fist and focusing on the pain instead of the panic sitting in her chest. This was just a setback, and in some ways, she was getting what she wanted. Just not in the way she wanted it.
She’d make do, though. She had been clawing her way up from the dirt her whole life, and this time, she wasn’t starting from nothing.