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...like a dense molten ball of self-contradiction and frustration. Right now, though, she didn't need something to eat, She needed something to do.
************
The rest of the day passed spasmodically—little bits of time skipping by, crackly and disjointed, here and there. Taylor tried to...
XV.
Sunday began at 5:30 AM, with the piercing shrill of Taylor's alarm. It rang for three long wails before finally tugging her up out of bed, messy-haired and groggy and stumbling. She felt fuzzy, but also vaguely grateful—saved from a Mobius loop of uneasy dreams, splinters of shining bone...
Yeah, it was a minor detail I decided to change to make things flow a bit smoother. There's actually a mention of her having a phone much earlier in the fic, right before her first encounter with Lisa in the Docks. I hope I haven't crushed your suspension of disbelief too badly :V If it helps, I...
XIV.
Coming home felt strange.
Whiplash, Taylor thought, staring down at the scarred wood of the table. From insanity to normalcy. Lisa's apartment still seemed more real than her house, than the stale-quiet dining room, than her dad sitting across from her, hands clasped together. A plate...
Oh gosh, wow, okay. I promise I will find time to more thoroughly respond to this later, but for now, I just want to make it clear that I'm really happy you like the story, and I'm very, very grateful you took the time to write this up.
XIII.
Taylor's lens shattered.
Something was yanking on her entire headspace at once, pulling it outwards, going—down? in? deeper, Lisa's words surrounding her, falling away, pirouetting glitter-fractures in a slow-motion mosaic. The Web dimmed, strands flashing out like sunbursts, gunshots...
XII.
"You realize I might not even be able to fix this," Taylor said, leaning back against the headboard. "It could be something that my power can't reach. I don't even know what's wrong, specifically." Or that I even want to help you. She shoved the thought out of her mind. Just get it done...
XI.
"You're— you're kidding," Taylor said, at a loss for anything else. Even now, Lisa was still playing the upper hand. Still trying to take control. She felt the anger flare in her gut, melting away the faint pain of the headache and replacing it with prickling heat. "No. I don't care. I— I...
X.
Taylor was falling through a sky made of fire.
Bloody red and lightning yellow and sunburnt orange whizzed past, the passage of the air itself charring her skin—she knew that, somehow, knew it was burning, knew it more than felt it—and her half-gasp-half-choke breaths barely made it out of...
IX.
Taylor stalked off the bus, every step slow and deliberate, keeping her eyes fixed on the back of Lisa's neck. She was so deep in her focus, she barely noticed the bus had dropped them off in one of the swankier parts of downtown, all glass and steel and chic boutiques that catered to...
...mind was racing. What was that? She'd never seen someone's Web resist a change before—even if it wasn't really active defiance so much as moving *too goddamn fast. And Lisa had noticed, too, which was in some ways even weirder and more unnerving. Nothing she'd seen from this girl and her Web...
VII.
Taylor drummed her fingers absently against the glossy fake-wood of the desk, looking slowly around the room and trying to focus. It wasn't easy, with the thousands of twines of words, questions, and other assorted anxieties spinning in her mind, but she needed something to occupy...
Interlude: Lisa
How.
It didn't feel like a question at this point—more like an imperative. That made no sense, Lisa realized, doing a neat heel-turn on the carpet for what was easily the twentieth time that hour, but not a lot made sense right now. It fit, at least. She'd most of the day...
VI.
The busride back from the Docks passed in skips and starts of disjointed thought. Taylor's mind bounced from Lisa to Emma to the memory of her swapping nodes and back and forth and back... she could almost feel another headache coming on. Just a regular headache, not the kind that felt like...
V.
Taylor opened her mouth, then closed it, completely at a loss for what to say. Hi, I'm Taylor, I've been stalking you for the past forty-five minutes because the inside of your brain looks weird? That would go over well.
The blonde, Lisa, walked closer, her smile slowly curling into a...
IV.
World Studies was going surprisingly well. The unit on trade was pretty lecture-heavy, which meant Taylor spent most of her time at her desk, picking through Mr. Gladly's head as he tried his very best to make economic sanctions interesting. Madison was there, her usual smirking self, but...