“Can’t say, can we?” Lisa said.  She tossed the phone in the air and then caught it.  “Say one of us has something to hide that Cherish could reveal to the others.  Nobody’s about to admit it.”

That seems likely. Hell, maybe this is how we learn about the Travelers’ backstory?

There were glances all around.

“But I think I have an idea.”  Lisa smiled.  It was her old smile.  The scar was there, but it no longer pulled her mouth into a perpetual half-frown.

Hell yes.

I can’t even see that smile and I’ve still missed seeing it.

I suppose the unfrowning has to do with Brian healing her, like with Taylor’s small scars and such.

“Brian, got any books here?  Or magazines?”

“Upstairs.  Aisha, go grab something.  Any book on the floor of my room.”

Alright… I’m not seeing the plan yet, but I trust she knows what she’s doing.

“Why-”  She hesitated when she met his eyes.  “Whatever.”

It was a minute before Aisha ventured back downstairs with a novel.  It looked like a suspense thriller.

You know it’s thriller, thriller night!

“Here’s the deal.  Everyone closes their eyes.  We close our eyes while the others take their turns tearing a page out of the book.  The higher the page number, the worse our inner thoughts and secrets.

…what.

Oh, are they going to collect the pages, then look at the numbers without knowing who picked which ones, in order to evaluate how bad the inner thoughts and secrets are overall?

That makes sense.

The last page, Uh, three hundred and fifty-five, we’ll say, is the worst of the worst.  Unforgiveable to the point that someone here would kill you and the rest would be okay with it.”

Sheesh.

“Nothing saying she’ll tell the truth,” Alec said. 

Of course. Lisa might be able to help with detecting lies, though.

“And she’s in a position to say stuff that could create doubt or tension in our ranks,” Trickster pointed out.

“True,” Lisa conceded.  “But here’s the thing.  I’m getting the vibe she wants us to turn her down, so we’ll figure out the real scoop later and regret it.”

Hah! “I could’ve told you so!”

“What, you mean something like Siberian being here?  ‘Don’t you wish you’d asked me to tell you where she was, because she’s standing fifteen feet away from you’?” Alec asked.  “Yeah, that sounds like my sister.”

Pffft.

“How sure are you?” Brian asked Lisa.

“That there’s more to it?  Seventy five percent, to ballpark it.”

Worth a shot, I think.

“Bad idea,” Brian said.  I found myself nodding in agreement.

And now these two are on the same page in much the same way they used to be before Extermination. Nice. 🙂

Lisa raised the phone to her ear.  “Nope.  Don’t suppose we can change your mind?”

Oh, is she talking directly to Cherish?

There was a pause before Lisa hung up.  “Eighty-five percent sure there’s more to this story than she’s letting on.  She was all too okay with saying goodbye for someone chained up in a hot metal prison cell.  That, or she thinks we’re going to call back.”

Cherish might be right about that last thing, the way this seems to be going.

Sundancer spoke up, “Can’t we?  What are we really risking, here?  I mean, what’s at stake?  The worst case scenario, if we let her talk?”

The worst case scenario is that she tattletales you, and you’ve got the actual Tattletale with you…

“Words,” Bitch dismissed me.

Yeah, but you asked.

“Words, sure.  I’ll make it simple, then.  I consider you a friend, I’ll help you when stuff goes down.  And you… do whatever you think is right.  Do what you want to do.  I won’t stress about it, and unless you fuck with me like you did when we fought Dragon, I’m not going to hold it against you.”

This is probably a better way to put it to her, yeah.

I still don’t really get why Taylor considers Rachel a friend, but she does and she’s damn well going to act like it regardless of Rachel’s opinions.

She set her jaw, clearly irritated at the reminder.  Whatever.  I’d needed to make my point.

If she had been intending to give me a response, I didn’t hear it.  Lisa ventured back into the room, and all eyes turned to her.  She held her hand over the lower half of the phone.

Yo. So what does Coil have to say?

“For those of you who haven’t been in contact with Coil, we ended up locking Cherish in an overturned boat’s hold in the Boat Graveyard.

That’s up near the Trainyard, isn’t it?

She’s there now, with food and water, totally isolated, several layers of confinement, including but not limited to chains.  She wants to strike a deal, in exchange for details on Siberian and the Nine.”

Not surprising. I figured she would latch onto them asking as a bargaining chip, which is why I said the hard part was getting the info they wanted out of her. What does she want in return for that bargaining chip?

“Letting her go?  No,” Brian said.

Yeah, that needs to be out of the question.

“Not what she wants.  She just wants a chance to talk to us,” Lisa looked at each of us in turn.  “Two minutes to address us, and then she dishes out the dirt, gives us the location on the Nine, the details on Siberian and answers any other questions.”

Hm. Alright, seems fair enough. We might get some interesting tidbits out of it.

I’d like to suggest a video call, if they have devices capable of that. That way she can address them without being in range to manipulate their emotions.

“Yeah,” I told Bitch.  “We’ve been over this.  I really don’t know how to make it clearer.  If it came down to it, I’d risk my life to save yours.”

That is how Taylor does things.

“Why?”

But yeah, why is that, exactly, besides her tendency to value other lives above her own?

“I- I don’t know if I can really say.  You’re my friend.  We’ve been through a hell of a lot of crap together.  We back each other up because we have to.”

That doesn’t sound like friendship, that sounds like the Travelers.

“You think I’d back you up?”  The question was a challenge, brusque, barely-but-not-quite-anger.

I don’t.

Maybe these days we’re getting close to that point.

“Don’t know.  Does it matter?”  I glanced at Brian.  He was paying attention to what I was saying.  I felt momentarily self-conscious, struggled to find words that wouldn’t provoke a negative response from one of them.

It kinda does, though I can understand if part of Taylor’s motivation is that if she backs Rachel up, Rachel might one day grow to return the favor.

I settled for a middle ground as I thought aloud.  “Life’s not fair.  It’s not even, not balanced, not right.  Why should relationships between people be any different?  There’s always going to be an imbalance in power.

Holy fuck this is an unhealthy message.

I mean, sure, things are, in practice, going to be that way quite frequently, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strive to make it healthier, more fair.

The other person might have a higher social standing, they might have money, or more social graces.  Isn’t it better to stop stressing about quid pro quo and just do what you want or what you can?”

Alright, fair enough. With the full quote, it works.

“You’d want to know, right?” I asked.  “You wouldn’t want to give her the benefit of a doubt if she was playing you.”

Makes sense to me.

“You assholes are saying I’m gullible.”  If Bitch had hackles, they’d be standing on end.

No, they’re saying “better safe than sorry”.

Her fists were clenched at her side, her feet planted apart, as if she’d be ready to start swinging, whistling for her dogs to attack, at any moment.

“Hey,” I raised my voice.  “Answer the question!  Would you want to know?”

Firmness. Even in the question itself, she’s enforcing that.

“Yeah, but-”

“Then we get in touch with Cherish.  We get an answer from her.  She’d know.”

Nice, I was right about the method. And hey, I’m down for some more Cherish.

The difficult part is going to be getting it out of her, though.

“No.  It’s not-”  Bitch stood abruptly, and Bastard yipped.

It’s not what? Fake?

“Rachel,” Lisa tried, but Bitch turned away.

“There’s one way we could try to find out,” I said.

Interrogating Cherish?

Bitch turned at me and glared.  There was a viciousness in the look that I couldn’t blame entirely on her grudge against me or the current conversation.

Come on, Rachel, Taylor’s throwing you a bone here.

No dog pun intended, but if a doggy brain were to make her like to chew on metaphorical bones, that’s a bonus.

Just like Brian, there was a minefield there.  I couldn’t hope to guess at what would press her buttons.

Yeah, I’m sorry, I don’t think I can help you much. I’m a cat person.

“No,” Bitch clenched her fist, and I could see her dogs responding to her body language, tensing.  “Don’t buy it.”

…why not?

Is it that you wanted there to be someone who actually could relate to your animal-like mind, even if it was Siberian?

“Why not?”  Lisa asked, her voice gentle.

“What she said made too much sense.  She said things and she understood.  I’m fucked up.  I know I’m fucked up.

Maybe she’s actually like that, regardless of how real her body is. But conversely, maybe she’s just really good at acting.

Maybe she’s Maybelline.

Not good at dealing with people.  But I could deal with her.  I understood her.”

This would require quite a solid understanding of Rachel to act, though. I’m inclined to believe Rachel’s right, that it’s not entirely an act.

“That doesn’t mean she didn’t lie, Rachel,” Lisa said.  “It only means she understood you well enough to know how to deceive you.”

The question then is how? She’d been following Rachel, spying, yes, but a lot of it doesn’t really spell itself out without watching for a long time.

Cherish may be key to it, I suppose.