“Maybe.  But… no,” he changed his mind after thinking for a second.  “I think both you and Lisa could be a lot more aggressive.  It kind of worries me that you aren’t.”

Taylor, sure, but Lisa… I guess Lisa could use blackmail to make people willingly submit to her reign?

“Worries you?”

“If you aren’t taking out the other gangs in your territory and turning a profit, why should Coil bother keeping you there?”

Aaand we have a thing for Taylor to worry about in this Arc. It’s kind of close to what I was talking about earlier with Coil’s expenses towards Taylor’s altruism. If Taylor doesn’t figure out a way to turn a profit instead of just blindly spending to help people, she risks Coil going back on things. And isn’t Taylor’s main objective across Arcs currently to prove her worth to Coil, in order to convince him that she’s more useful than Dinah?

Of course Taylor doesn’t want to stop helping people, but Brian has a point.

“First of all, I’m totally prepared to squash any troublemakers the second they make themselves known around here.”

Yeah, I don’t question that part. We’ve seen Taylor do this already.

“Assuming you can find them.”

“I can.  Second of all, Coil didn’t say a thing about turning a profit.  He has money.  Scads.”

Hm, true enough.

“He has his own money.  Money that he has to devote time and attention to earning.  If your territory never starts earning for him and just becomes some black hole that sucks up tens of thousands of dollars of his money each week, you think he’s going to be okay with that?”

But yeah, this is a valid point.

I didn’t like that he was mentioning that.  Sore spot for both of us.  “Just following my instincts.”

Yeeeah, of all the people to get that from, Brian might be the worst.

“And maybe pushing yourself a little too hard, too fast in the process.”

“Mmm,” I offered a noncommittal response.

Yes. Yes, she is. If you can help her cut herself some healthy slack, that would be nice.

I could have asked how Bitch fit into his interpretation of events, but I already knew the answer.  Normal rules didn’t apply to her.

Yep. Rachel doesn’t count, because she’s Rachel.

“I think all this ties more closely into how our individual powers work than it does to gender.”

Probably, yeah. Hard to use the darkness and oblivion as more than defensive measures in combat, Tattletale’s power is almost useless for direct combat, and what else is Alec supposed to do? Manipulate people’s nerves to make them help themselves? Make them trip over winning lottery tickets?

Granted, they all do have access to the Coil resources Taylor is making use of to help people.

“Little girl?”

“You know what I mean.  Look at it from his perspective.”

That’s the kind of thinking that led me down the train of thought at the end of this post.

“What if I recruited him?  Gave him the opportunity and the power to help others?”

Hm… It’s an interesting idea, but I’m not sure he’d accept. First being upstaged by Taylor like this, and then immediately after getting asked to work under her?

“He’d be intolerable.  I mean, sure, things would get better in the short-term.  But over the long haul? You’d wind up with someone who criticizes every last thing you do, every last call you make, to make himself feel better about the fact that he isn’t the one in control, the one calling the shots.”

Yeah, that too. Charlotte might become someone who’s willing to call it as she sees it when Taylor does something she doesn’t think is good, but she’d fill that sort of role in a much more healthy way, criticizing Taylor when and only when she saw a need to criticize her, when there’s something to criticize, in the interest of genuinely helping. This guy would just criticize for the sake of criticizing, in the interest of feeling better about himself.

“Fuck,” I said.  “I thought you said you weren’t good with people.”

Hah! He did, didn’t he!

Then again, it’s not the first time he’s shown an understanding of how people act in response to certain things. For instance, there’s the way he deliberately added an incomplete description of his power because it was easier to catch people off guard with the finer details if they thought they knew his power than if they didn’t know anything about it. That wasn’t anywhere near as thorough as this, though.

“I’m not good with girls, mainly.  Guys?  Or ‘manly’ guys like him?  I’ve met enough people like him in the gyms with my dad, in fighting classes.”

That’s fair.

“Taking up a side business in extermination?” he asked me.  I thought I detected a note of humor in his voice.

Yes, clearly. :p

“Assisting my people.  Some goodwill will help when I’m more firmly in power here.”  I couldn’t help but sound a mite defensive.

“Yep.  That guy over there will be singing your praises.”

“Yeah, I was thinking of inviting him as my plus one to the boxing club gala this weekend. Have some fun beating the crap out of each other in formal clothing.”

I looked over my shoulder at the ‘dad’ who’d been giving me a hard time.  He was ignoring Sierra and Charlotte, who were talking to the larger group of people.  Instead, he watched the bugs cart the dead rats down the street, as if he thought I would slack on the job.

I would imagine that would be the more interesting sight anyway. :p

“I don’t understand people sometimes.”

I don’t know if anyone does, really.

“My guess?  When everything went to hell, he told himself he’d be the ‘man’ for his family.  Take charge, provide, protect.  He failed.  Then some little girl waltzes in and takes care of all that all at once?”

Ah, yeeah, that might spur some irritation.

I could sense Grue a block away, my bugs settling on his helmet, unable to see as they got close.  I could feel that faint push of the darkness billowing away from him.  He’d been watching for a minute or two.

Oy. You’re keeping the boy waiting.

Though to be fair, when you set the location, you weren’t expecting him to be close.

“If there’s nothing else that’s pressing?” I asked.

Silence, a few shaken heads.  I turned to go and meet Grue where he stood at the corner of one building.

See ya! Enjoy your newly ratless house!

“Okay.”

“And measuring cups.”  I smiled behind my mask.

Oh yeah, good call.

Seriously, this whole scene is a fantastic display of Taylor fulfilling her promise to improve things for people in her territory. I love it.

The only question is when it’s going to cross Coil’s line. How long until Coil decides it’s costing more than it’s worth to him?

“We can’t pay you back for this, even if you give us a loan, we won’t be able to.” the mom said.

So they were assuming I was putting myself in some loan shark role.

Well, if not assuming, then at least being prepared for the possibility. It’s a very reasonable reaction, especially since Skitter is supposedly a villain.

Get them indebted to me, leech them for cash.

“It’s on the house,” I waved her off.

“Thank you,” she said, again.  I felt bad for feeling the way I did, but I thought her gratitude was a little muted for what I was giving her.

Hm, yeah. I guess maybe she just doesn’t know how to feel? Again, Skitter is supposedly a villain, but here she is doing things that are not only non-villainous but insanely altruistic for them, for no apparent compensation. Mix not being sure how to feel about that, with not being sure what she’s hearing is true, with it not having fully sunken in what Skitter is actually doing for them and that it’s really happening… Yeah, I could see that leading to some

lack of

enthusiasm.