Sowing Doubt Ch. 9 (Patreon)

Chapter Nine

I couldn’t hear expressions, obviously. What I could do was read the barely audible noises that faces made whenever they took on expressions. However, learning the sound of each expression a person made was not simple. I could do it for easy expressions sometimes. Blanket strokes expressions like smiles and frowns all tended to have a similar noise. To learn the expressions of an individual, especially more complex ones or ones that weren’t given often, might take ages.

I did not, however, need any practice at all to hear the expression of dumbfounded condescension I heard in Director Piggot’s next words.

“Yes. Coda. That would help. How do you know?” she asked through gritted teeth, while meaning ‘Are you a complete idiot?’ as clearly as a person could without actually saying it. 

I flushed, embarrassed as hell in person. I wasn’t in person though. I was miles away, safe from her condescension. So I was new to this! Fuck her! 

I made my stolen voice appear from behind the director’s desk as if a person were standing in the room. Then decided, fuck that. 

“Sorry, for not knowing if it would actually help,” I said, making each word appear from a different section of the room as if I were a person jumping from wall to ceiling to floor. The woman shook as if suddenly afflicted by a mild epileptic fit and held her ears over her head. 

I brought the voice back to one location, but I didn’t make my tone any less annoyed. I was the one helping them do their job. “I’m a bit overwhelmed at the moment! It's not like I wanted to risk all the trouble I’m sure talking to you like this might get me in! Let alone practically exposing my identity and my powers!” 

The director took a moment to collect herself. Then, surprising me, she seemed to calm down. “You’re right, Coda. I apologize. Could you please tell us how you found the bomber?” 

I was prepared to continue arguing with another shitty authority figure. I was honestly so shocked at her change in attitude, that I lost my train of thought. 

“I… uhh. Okay. W-well, I’m not sure the bomber is there, but fifty five of the noises the bombs make are all located at the same location, along with several other noises that I’m not familiar with. They could just be sounds I haven’t run into yet, but as far as I knew before getting my powers, radios didn’t make sound themselves,” I replied. 

“They don’t,” Dragon said. 

I blinked. “I… uhm… okay. Well. I can hear them.” 

Dragon and Director Piggot both remained silent for a moment. 

“We’ll come back to that later. Where are the bombs located?” Piggot demanded. 

“Deep in the trainyards,” I said. “It’s hard for me to give you exact locations. I could lead someone there, but I don’t think I’d be able to tell if I was leading them into a trap. The general location is near a gas station. Two blocks away. The teller keeps saying “Welcome to The Red Rooster, when people come in, though I’m not familiar with that side of town,” I replied. “Uhm… A lot of drug deals go down in the back parking lot there. I’ve heard them before.” 

“Don’t become distracted please, Coda. The bomber,” Dragon prodded. I nodded before realizing I was nowhere near them and felt stupid. 

“Yeah. Th-the stockpile is in a room three stories up. There are two other buildings directly south but the rest of the area is just railways.” 

I suddenly heard a scream of horror from that room. The sound of flesh cutting. I’d heard it enough from scalpels and surgeries at hospitals, and… well. It was the bay. 

“Someone is being hurt there. Bad,” I continued. “Right now. A man just screamed, and someone cut open his skin.”

“Alright. Coda, I need you to coordinate with–!”

“Well what do we have here?” came a voice from behind me. 

I jumped, turning behind me to see a punk looking jerk wearing a leather jacket and smoking a cigarette. He looked so fucking stereotypical that I almost laughed. He had an honest to god mohawk. 

Unfortunately, behind him were two other big looking guys. 

I shied away stepping back into my thin sound cone so I could hear everything they did. “Wh-who are you?” 

“Not really very important. The question is… who, the fuck, are you?” he asked approaching me slowly. He didn’t do anything overtly threatening and he didn’t actually look like he belonged to any of the gangs. He was older than me, older than high school age, but not by much. 

“Coda? Are you still there?” Director Piggot asked half the city away. 

“Got… tied up. Sorry. I’ll be coordinating.” I replied. Despite the fact that I was being accosted, I found that I could split my focus among the director, Velocity, the Protectorate capes in town, and almost as many other perspectives as I needed to. I could hold more than one conversation at once, simultaneously being terrified of these thugs while calmly speaking with the director in another person’s voice.

I somehow suspected that would not remain true, if these thugs suddenly tried to hurt me. 

I gulped. “I’m n–!” 

I cut off what I was about to say. I wasn’t nobody. I was somebody right now. Without me… hundreds of people might actually die. That gave me courage I didn’t know I had. The courage to talk directly to these people who seemed to want to hurt me.

Suddenly, I wasn’t quite so afraid anymore. That could have to do with my sudden resolve, but it was mostly because the three of them had just stepped into the thin area of my cone. 

I held my quivering hand and stared at the man who’d spoken. Not coldly though. He hadn’t threatened me yet. Perhaps…

I reached into my pocket and slowly pulled out a mask. It was an uncomfortably hot balaclava that no sane person would wear in mid April. 

They stopped, staring at me as I slowly held it out and then put it over my head. 

“Bullshit…” they said, getting the implication as I looked back at them, my hair uncomfortably bunched out behind me. 

“Not bullshit,” Not Bullshit. “NOT bullshit.” nOtBulLsHit.

The voices echoed all around them, from all directions in their own tones now that I had their tethers. 

“Listen,” I told them sharply. “I don’t know who you are, but you don’t look like gang members.” 

They looked back at me and I realized they’d each been trying to find the source of the sounds I was placing in their ears. Their eyes were wide. 

“I don’t want to hurt you. Listen. How would you guys like to be heroes tonight? Because this town really fucking needs some,” I said. 

Mohawk blanched. “We look like heroes, girlie?”

It would’ve sounded tough, but his voice squeaked. Neither of his companions seemed to notice. They were smaller than he was and not as… flamboyant. But they couldn't be gang members. Mohawk was hardly the Empire’s type of sign and the other two were hispanic. Not drug dealers because who the hell would they deal to in this ghostly part of town?

I suddenly noticed the torn appearance of the jacket. It was old. Like. Goodwill-wouldn’t-take-it old. The chains he had hanging from his pants were rusted. The other two looked little better, and none of them looked particularly well fed. 

Did these guys… live here?

“You don’t look like gang members. That means you can help me,” I said sharply. 

It was a big risk but I walked straight up to the three of them, and they actually backed away from me. I was so startled I almost backed up myself. 

“Help you!? You come into our place and expect us to–!”

“There are bombs scattered all over the city. Right now. My power lets me detect them. If I don’t stop them from going off as soon as I can, then you can expect a lot of people to suddenly start finding these trainyards of yours a very attractive place after their houses are blown to pieces. So what’s it going to be? Try to hurt me, and inevitably get your asses kicked, leave and forget you ever saw me, or… step up. I need help.”

As I spoke, I simultaneously directed velocity to turn and head up a few blocks, but not to go any further because he was getting very close to the bombs. Further south, I was letting the director know about all this. Along the coast I could feel Armsmaster as he crossed the river in a Helicopter and spoke to him. 

At my request, the capes in the city who were costumed and on patrol lowly whispered their names. “I am Miss Militia. I am Dauntless. I am Triumph. Assault and Battery were apparently not on patrol tonight, but all of a sudden, I knew where all the members of the Protectorate were as they converged on the location of the bombs.

I… could hear… everyone. But, more importantly if I wanted them to. Everyone could hear me.

And suddenly, I had an idea. A mad mad idea. I needed… help. Over two hundred bombs, but each one could harm tens, hundreds, even thousands of people for those in trains or on major highways. 

Thousands of people that I could warn. Right… now. 

I thought about telling the director of my plan but decided against it. She wouldn’t listen. This was right. This was something I needed to do. 

“You… holy shit you’re serious?” Mohawk said. 

I frowned as I looked up at him. In his ears, my voice appeared without moving my lips. “Deadly, serious .”

I reached out with my powers, preparing a voice mixed from hundreds of others to be as generic and calming as I could make it. 

'So much for my anonymity,' I thought ruefully. 

I Spoke.

“Ma’am, my name is Coda. Don’t be alarmed. I’m a cape working with a protectorate with sound manipulation powers. Please do not panic. There is a man two train cars ahead of you, and I believe he is holding a bomb. He does not know I know about this and has no intention of detonating it now. Please, calmly exit the train. Do not be alarmed when others do the same. I am warning them as well.”

“Sir, my name is Coda. I am an independent hero working with the protectorate. Please don’t panic, but you are in the vicinity of a bomber. Don’t change your behavior. Instead, I need you to calmly walk towards the staircase and make your way to the first floor and out of the building. Others will be joining you. I’ve warned them as well.”

“Miss, my name is Coda…”

“Young Man, I’m sorry to startle you. My name is Coda…”

“Good evening. My name is Coda…”

“Please do not be alarmed… I’m speaking to you individually. I’m a cape with the Protectorate and my name is Coda…”

...

“Daniel Hebert, my name is Coda…”