Prey 14.9

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“Your powers are working alright?” Tattletale asked.

I nodded.

“Bug powers, was it?  Don’t want to get it wrong.  Control them, see through their eyes-”

“No.  I can’t see through their eyes or hear what they do.  It’s mainly touch.”

“Just wanted to check.”  She paused.  “If I asked you what my power was?”

I shook my head.

“Okay.  And if I said I was born in Mexico, could you tell me where I was born?”

“Didn’t you just say?”

“Yeah.  Repeat it back to me?”

“You were born in Mexico?”

“Your short-term recollection is still good, at least.  That would be why you can retain the information Grue and I have shared over the past few minutes.  That big beetle of yours, you named it?”

I glanced at Atlas, who was crawling a short distance away.  “Atlas.”

Tattletale nodded.  “That would be the short-term memory, again. Your power probably gives you enough contact with it that you don’t lose track of who and what it is.”

“Right.”

“So long as that keeps working, we don’t need to worry about you and Grue forgetting who we are in the middle of a conversation.  But for us, we might lose track of each other if we split up, so let’s stay close, okay?”

“Okay.”

She reached out and took my hand.

“Can you use the bugs to scout our surroundings?  This will go more smoothly if we don’t need to worry about running into people.”

It made sense.  I sent my bugs out to cover the surrounding area.

The red mist was everywhere.  Color was strained out, leaving everything a monochrome red.  I could still make out the surroundings, but just enough light was filtered out that the area had settled into an oppressive gloom, with many existing shadows made nearly opaque as a result.  The drifting movements of the mist and the subtle shifts in color and shadow made me feel like things were prowling in every corner and in the edges of my field of vision.

That deep, primal prey-animal part of my psyche kept telling me something was wrong, that I was in danger.  I tried to tell myself that it was just my fear working itself up, my brain playing tricks on me.  There was nothing out there.

The weight of the gun in my hand was both a reassurance and a burden.  It would be so easy to do something I would regret for the rest of my life.

“Hate this,” I muttered.

“Me too,” Grue answered.  He put his hand on my shoulder to offer some reassurance.  “But we manage, we cope because we’re a team.  We belong together.”

My awareness snagged on someone who was walking a distance behind us, measuring their pace with ours.

“We may need to stand together as a team sooner than later,” I said. “We’re being followed.”

“By who?” Tattletale asked.  She paused, then laughed.  “Silly question, I guess.”

“Tie them up?”  she suggested.

“Right.”

My bugs gathered in out of the way spots, and the spiders began drawing out lines of silk in preparation.  I didn’t want to inform this person that I was on to their tail.

Then, just in case they decided to drop the tail and attack us, I began to gather bugs together into decoys.  Human-shaped lumps and clusters of bugs gathered in alleys and at the edges of rooftops.  Still more gathered in the street, standing in alcoves and in other hiding spots.  I invested less bugs in the ones that were further away from our pursuer, trusting that the shadows the miasma cast would help round them out.  There were no decoys our pursuer would see from where they stood, but there were now enough to give them pause.

Grue drifted away from our group to approach one of the decoys.  He extended one hand and traced his fingers through the massed bugs.  “You’re versatile.”

I felt a little uncomfortable at the compliment.  “We should keep moving.”

“You’re not tying them up?”

I shook my head.  A miscommunication on that front.  Hadn’t I recently been thinking about chemistry and intuitively understanding how your teammates operated?  The miasma might be throwing us off in that department.  “Sorry.  Need to prep for it first, I’ll make my move in a minute.  For now, we should act normal.”

“Fine.”  He dropped his hand to his side and rejoined us.  We kept walking.  I had to admire them, the way they were confident enough to avoid looking over their shoulders.  I had my bugs to track our pursuer with, and I was still feeling nervous having them behind me.

“Is paranoia a side effect of this mist?”

Tattletale nodded.  “Could be.  As the symptoms progress, you could have fits of anger, paranoia, hallucinations…”

I swallowed.

“Or it could progress in another direction.  A broader agnosia, with the inability to recognize anything, not just people.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

She nodded.

“I’m going to bind her now.  If it doesn’t work, or if she has a way of breaking free, we should run, with the decoys for cover.”

Tattletale just smiled.

The bugs swarmed our pursuer.  I’d minimized the number of bugs on them, just to be safe, with the drawback that I wasn’t getting a full picture of who they were.  The bugs couldn’t get to her flesh to sting or bite her, but they were telling me she was female in general shape.

I had them deploy the silk they had prepared.  I focused my efforts on her arms and legs.  It took only a couple of seconds to get the threads in place.

She tripped as the silk went taut mid-stride.  Raising one hand to try to catch herself, she found silk threads hampering those movements as well.  To avoid landing face first, she twisted herself in mid-air so she hit the ground with her shoulder instead.

“Got her,” I said.  “Let’s keep going.  We can lose her.”

“We should investigate,” Grue said.  “Make sure she isn’t a threat, and deal with her if she is.”

“With this miasma affecting us, there’s no way to be sure of exactly of just who we’re dealing with,” I pointed out.

“We have Tattletale.  She can tell us if this person’s a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine.”

“Tattletale’s not-”

I stopped.  Where had that come from?

“What?”  Grue tilted his head as he looked over his shoulder at me.

“I was going to say she’s not always right, but I’ve still got that black hole in my memory of her, so I’m not sure where that’s coming from.”

Grue rubbed his chin.  “Something to keep in mind, but I still think we should check this person out.”

“I agree,” Tattletale said, a slight smile on her face.  She tugged on my hand.  “Come on!”

We had to stick together.  I reluctantly followed, knowing that separating from the group could mean losing them altogether.

We stopped a few hundred feet away from the woman.  The silk strands had formed a cord around her arms and legs, and the work of the spiders had tightened the binding as she allowed it to slack.  She hadn’t made it back to her feet after falling to the ground.

Grue drew a knife.

“Hey,” I said.  I grabbed his arm.  “What are you doing?”

“She’s obviously a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine,” Tattletale said.

“Fill me in?  Because I must have missed something.  Doesn’t seem that clear to me.”

“Think about it.  Why is she wearing a mask like that, if not to filter out the miasma?  She knew about it in advance.”

“Maybe,” I said.  I could make out something like a gas mask or filter, now that Tattletale had pointed it out.  “Maybe there’s another explanation.  It could have something to do with her power?”

“It doesn’t,” Tattletale said.

Thinking about killing someone was one thing.  I’d always assumed I might have to do it out of necessity to save a teammate… I’d even come close to doing it when attacking the Nine, not long ago.  Couldn’t recall who it had been, but I’d gone all out, used potentially lethal stings and bites.

That had been at a distance.  Now we were looking at killing someone face to face.

The mask, there was another reason for it.  The-

Tattletale interrupted my thoughts.  “If you guys aren’t going to do it, I can.  She was following us, she was prepared for the miasma, and I’m positive she’s a bad guy.  My power, you know.”

“We can’t be certain,” I said.

“With my power, I’m five hundred percent sure.  Trust me,” she said, grinning.  She started toward the heroine.

“No,” I said.

“Skitter’s right,” Grue said.  “She could be playing possum.  Best to avoid being reckless.  Keep our distance and finish her.”

“That’s not what I meant.  Let’s just leave,” I said.  “I’ll make that phone call to, um-”

“Coil,” Tattletale supplied.

I nodded.  “We’ll get the information we need, get ourselves cured, or track down the Nine.”

“Cherish could lie,” Grue said.

It took me a second to place Cherish’s name.  Names were slipping from my mind too easily.  “Maybe.  We’ll use our own judgement to corroborate her facts.”

Tattletale scowled, “Have you forgotten how aggressively we’ve been going after the Slaughterhouse Nine?  The attacks, the harassment, capturing Cherish and Shatterbird.  And now you want to leave one of them there?  We don’t have to get close to her to take her out.  You have the gun.”

I stared down at the weapon in my hand.

“Trust me,” she said.

“No.”

Both Tattletale and Grue turned to look at me.

“No?”  Grue asked.  “We’re a team, Skitter.  We’re supposed to trust one another when the chips are down, have each other’s backs.”

I didn’t like the implications of that.  Like I was failing them.

But I shook my head.  “No.”

“Explain?” he asked.  He looked calm, but I could see the irritation in his posture.  Was the mist getting to him?

“The miasma… if it makes us paranoid, it could be coloring our perceptions here.  Even Tattletale’s.”

“I would know if it was,” she said.  She seemed impatient.

“Maybe.  But I’m not certain enough about that to take another life.”

“You nearly took Siberian’s,” she retorted.

“Yeah.  Sure.  But that was different.”

“I don’t see how.”

I stared at the bound woman who was prone on the ground, half-covered in my bugs.  She was looking in my direction.

“It bugs me.  This is too easy.  If the Nine were this easy to take out, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“Sounds like a pretty thin justification for backing out,” Grue said.

“Yeah,” Tattletale added.

This kind of social pressure wasn’t the sort of thing I was good at coping with.  Just going by my recollection of how we’d planned many of our capers, I could usually trust some of the others to have my back when I was arguing a point.  Or I’d had some other motive or reason to go along with them.

“Why are you pushing so hard for this?”  I asked.

“Did you forget what they did to me?”  Grue asked, his voice cold.

Him specifically?  I had forgotten, yes.  But I could remember that scene, the emotions then, every feeling that I’d experienced afterward.  Frustration, hate, pain, sympathy for the pain he must have experienced himself.  I could remember the feeling of heartbreak, because someone I cared about was gone, in a sense.

“No,” I replied.

“Where’s your anger, your outrage?  Or don’t you care?”

“I care!  It’s-”

“Then end this.”

I shook my head, as if I could clear it.  It wasn’t that I wasn’t thinking clearly, necessarily.  It was that my thoughts kept hitting that dead-end where I couldn’t reach back for context about people, about Tattletale and Grue and the Nine.  I was in the dark.

What I did know was that I’d done too many things I regretted.  I wasn’t about to add something as serious as murder to the list.

Grue must have seen something in my posture, because he shook his head and turned away.  “Give me the gun, then.”

“Just use your power,” Tattletale told him.

“I want Skitter to acknowledge that she doesn’t care enough about this team or about me to do what’s necessary.  She can do that by admitting she doesn’t have the courage to shoot and allow me to do it.”

“That’s not what this is about,” I said.  “Murder is serious.  You don’t kill without being absolutely certain it’s right.  And nothing’s certain for as long as we’re under the influence of this miasma.”

He scoffed.  “And you call yourself a supervillain?”

“I call myself Skitter.  If someone wants to stick me with some other label, that’s their issue to deal with, not mine.”

“You’re not giving me the gun?”

“No.”

He shrugged, “So you don’t care at all, about what happened to me.  You don’t care about this team.  And you’ll even look down on us while you do it.  Your contemptible friends.”

“I care.  More than you know.  But you told me, not long ago, that I should follow my heart, trust my gut.  Fine.  That’s what I’m doing.  You attack her, I’ll fight to save her.”

He barked out a laugh, “You’ll fight me?  You’re a traitor now?”

The word hit home.  I must have flinched.

“A traitor again,” he added.

I snapped my head up to look at him in surprise.

“I wonder what it says that the notion of you being a traitor is so ingrained in my impression of you that it jumps to mind, even with the mist affecting me?”

“That’s enough,” I said.

“I know you like me.  I can read it on your face, I could see the way your eyes widened when you heard my name.  You’re an open book in some ways.  And I’ll tell you right now, I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you.”

I felt a nervous feeling deep in my gut.  It wasn’t pleasant, at stark odds to what he was saying.

Grue’s words spoke to that feeling of trepidation.  “But this?  It’s telling me I could never have a relationship with you, never be close to you, because I’ll always wonder if you’ll stab me in the back or fuck me over, fail to do what’s necessary in a situation like this.  I’ll never be able to shake that image of you as a traitor.”

He kept saying that word, traitor, hammering it in.

“Unless I take this gun and shoot that woman, who you’re convinced is a member of the Nine,” I guessed what he was getting at.

“Guess I had the wrong impression of you,” he said.  The emotion in his tone was so different that it caught me off guard.  Almost contemplative.  If I thought of it as him emotionally closing down, it almost fit with the impression I associated with Grue.  At the same time, it didn’t quite jibe with what I was seeing.  Again, I felt that distinct discomfort.

Is this how I lose my mind?

I shrugged.  “I guess you did.”

I carefully holstered the gun, as if hiding it could keep it from coming up again in conversation.

A long pause reigned.

“I’m disappointed, but there’s nothing I can do about that,” he said.  Then he smiled.  He turned and began walking away.  “Let’s go.”

“Just like that?”  I asked.

“We’re leaving her?”  Tattletale asked.

“Seems we have to.  Tattletale, can you use your power to make sure the lady from the Nine doesn’t pose a danger?”

Tattletale nodded, smiling.

“Then let’s hurry.  We wasted too much time here.”

“Let me know when she’s not in your range anymore,” Tattletale said to me.  “I’ll try to use my power to make sure she isn’t following us.”

I nodded.

She hugged my arm, “You’re stubborn, but we’re still friends, right?”

I nodded again.  I felt like I was back in school, in a situation where I couldn’t say anything without saying the wrong thing.  Strange, to recall being around the bullies rather than in the company of my team.

The argument weighed on me, as did the things Grue had said, the judgements.  Had I been wrong?  Were we risking letting one of the Nine get away, to murder others?  Was I arguing because I was still clinging to old ideals, or because the miasma was making me divisive?

Even if the miasma was to blame, I hated the idea of failing the others yet again.

This situation was fucking with my head.  I still felt like I was in the middle of a fight, that heart pounding mode where I was ready for bullets or laser blasts to start flying, for me or a friend to be in mortal danger, where a split second response meant the difference between life or death.

Except there was no danger here.  The only people nearby were the woman we were leaving behind, Grue and Tattletale.

I glanced at Tattletale as we ran.  Could I trust them?  They had been in the miasma for a little longer than I had, and I was already experiencing what I could only label as paranoia.  With only a difference of minutes, Legend had been thrust into a paranoid state where he was taking a reckless, offensive course of action, eliminating everyone from the battlefield, regardless of whether they might be friend or enemy.  How much was it affecting these two?  How would it influence their actions?

More to the point, what was my best course of action here?  If I worked on the assumption that I could trust them, would they drag me into a situation that was just as bad as what we’d gone through with the bound woman?  Or if I didn’t trust them, if I allowed myself to become suspicious and take countermeasures, would that be a slippery slope that led to me trying to kill them, in fear for my own life?

We’d come close to fighting just now.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Tattletale said.

“Leave her be,” Grue told her, his voice low.

What was I supposed to do?  I didn’t trust myself to handle this alone, not with the speed at which this general unease was building up.  But I wasn’t sure I trusted them either.  Something about the argument, it felt off.  Wrong.

“She’s out of my range,” I said.  “Tattletale?”

“I’ll keep an eye out!”  She grinned.

Traitor.  I could almost hear the accusation.

I’d lied.  The woman was still in my range.

“Is there service?”  Grue asked.  I must have looked confused, because he clarified by saying, “The phone.”

I pulled my phone out of the space between my breasts and the armor at my front and checked the display.

“Yeah,” I said.  Why does that bug me?

“Call Coil,” Tattletale reminded me.  “We need to know where Cherish is.”

I found him in the contact list and made the call.

“Speaker phone?” Grue suggested.

I nodded, selected the option and hit the button.

As the first ring sounded out, my swarm sense alerted me to the bound woman breaking free of the silk strands, as if it was effortless.  Had she been playing possum after all, hoping we would get close?

I looked at Tattletale, trying to see if had any inkling that this supposed member of the Nine was free.

Nothing.  Tattletale turned to me and grinned.

“No trouble incoming?”  I asked, as the phone rang again.

She shook her head.  “All good.”

Was her power not working as well as she’d thought?  I couldn’t even recollect what it was, but she’d said she would keep an eye out… and there was something alarming occurring this very moment.

“Skitter,” Coil answered the phone.  “I’ve been made aware that Bonesaw has deployed the ace she had up her sleeve.”

“Yeah.  Agnostia… Agnosia-inducing mist.  Permanent, according to Tattletale.”

“I see.”  I could hear the sounds of typing on a keyboard.  “Agnosia… Panacea can’t reverse the effects?”

“She’s not here.  We’re trying to find her.”

“And you need Cherish for that, I suppose.”

I was grateful that he was supplying the names, because it meant I didn’t have to bog down the conversation by remembering or asking.  Grue, Tattletale and I had brought them up recently enough that it wasn’t a huge leap to remember their names.

The woman who I’d tied up with the spider silk was walking towards us.  Her progress was hampered by the decoys.  I kept my mouth shut.  It wasn’t an imminent problem, and I was more interested in gauging just how far gone Tattletale’s power was.

“Except that with the agnosia, we can’t remember where she is and go meet her.”

“Meeting Cherish would be a grave error,” Coil spoke.

“Just put us in contact with her, then?”

“Tattletale informed me of your code.  You remember how it’s put together?”

“Yeah.  My memory’s fine, it’s just my ability to identify people and remember stuff about them that’s fucked up.”

Tattletale glared at me.  Right.  She didn’t like swearing.

“Then, using a name we’re both familiar with, D-gangrene.”

“I can’t remember names.  I don’t think I can use the code.”

“Troubling.  You must understand my predicament.  For all I know, you’re a third party using Skitter’s voice to make the request.  With shapeshifters, empaths and other methods of coercion, I have to be very careful about the dissemination of information.”

“I know.”

The woman was still approaching.  Tattletale and Grue weren’t talking.

Something was wrong.

“What if we kept you on the line?”  I suggested.

“That will suffice.”

There was a pause, then the sound of background noise.  A ring sounded, different from the one before.  It was interrupted as Cherish picked up.

“I have never been so sorry to miss out,” Cherish said.  She sounded a bit hoarse.

“We’re requesting your help,” Coil spoke.

“Oh, you need my help in more ways than you’re aware of.  Not that I’m going to provide it.  Skitter’s on the line, I believe?”

“She is.”

“I’m here,” I confirmed.

“And Tattletale and Grue, of course.”  She chuckled.  “How amusing.  Seems like I’m in high demand.”

“They’re looking for Panacea,” Coil said.  “Identifying her for us would be one way to achieve revenge on the Slaughterhouse Nine for turning on you.”

“Revenge?  Not my interest in the slightest.  I’ve learned my lesson and I’ve become the poster child for team loyalty.”

Coil paused, then said, “I’m prepared to offer you some enticements.  I imagine your current quarters can’t be too comfortable.”

“Don’t suppose these enticements will be hand delivered?”

“They will be provided by remote control, as your food has been.”

“Some headphones and music would be nice,” she said.  “The sound of the waves banging on the hull is driving me crazy.”

“Such could be arranged.”

“Nah, I’m totally fucking with you.  Music, as if.”

There were too many things that seemed off.  Cherish’s tone among them.  I glanced around.  The woman was still following us, throwing herself after decoys, verifying they were false, then retracing her steps.  She was slowly closing in.  I positioned Atlas so he would be ready to distract her if it came down to it.

“You’re stalling?”  Coil asked.  “I don’t see the point.”

“Just trying to see if I can provoke a reaction from you.  There’s only so many times I can read the labels of the shipping containers before I lose my mind.  Have to amuse myself somehow.”

“What will it take for you to tell us where Panacea is?”  Coil asked.

“Oh, I’m feeling generous, and I want to see what happens.  I’ll tell you that as a freebie.  They’re at Arcadia.  Somewhere in the top floor.”

A freebie.  Something was going on, and I wasn’t aware what.  I had to piece it together, but I had so little information.

“And maybe I could offer you something, in exchange for some goodwill.  Maybe you’ll even want to let me go free, no obligations.”

The feeling of dread that had been following me wasn’t getting worse as the woman approached.  It was staying steady, like someone had a gun pointed at me, and they’d had it aimed my way for some time now.

“I’m listening,” Coil said, “But if this is frivolous or another waste of our time-”

“Nah.  Critically important.  I’ll trust that you’ll take it for what it’s worth and repay me in kind.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s simple.  Going by what I’ve been able to observe around the city, there seems to be a major concern.  Si Jack effugit civitatem, mundus terminabitur.”

“I’m not versed in Latin,”  Coil spoke, sounding annoyed.

“For shame, Coil, for shame,” Cherish said.  Her voice was too cheerful. “You can’t sell the cultured supervillain image without the ability to make quips in an ancient language.  I had the benefit of my power, languages are easier to learn when you can get a sense of what the other person’s feeling.”

“That was something about Jack?”  I asked,  “Repeat that in English?”

“Doesn’t matter anymore,” she replied.  “The message was delivered.  I’ll leave you to think about it.”

If only I could have blamed the miasma for my idiocy.  Everything clicked into place.

I kept my voice level, “I don’t think you’ll get much goodwill if we don’t understand what the fuck you’re talking about.  Coil?  We’re moving out now.”

“Report back when you’ve found the healer,” Coil told me.

I hung up before Cherish could speak, then I glanced at the others.  “Let’s go?  Arcadia high?”

They nodded.

My heart pounded with such force that my vision wavered.  I turned to head toward Arcadia high, joined by the two members of the Nine.  Stay calm, don’t let on that you know.

If I could direct the woman to us…

The miasma’s effects had almost made me lose track of her.  She was fighting, grappling with mechanical spiders.  She went from fighting like an ordinary individual to moving at high speeds and throwing crushing punches, then back again.  I couldn’t think of how to help her, and she was obviously unable to help me.

Cherish had been engaging in double-speak, saying one thing to us, while addressing the two people with me the entire time.  She’d told them about where she was being held captive, and she’d offered the most valuable information she had to avoid getting tortured to death after they’d freed her.  From the way she’d talked about the message being received, one of the people with me had to be Jack.

Jack was slated to bring about the end of the world if he left Brockton Bay, and now he knew.

Couldn’t meet their eyes, didn’t want to speak, in case I let on that I knew.  I could barely breathe, I was so afraid of letting my emotions show.

My gun was in the compartment at my back.  I’d put it away at the conclusion of our argument, and with the compartment broken in my fall from Atlas’s back, I’d been forced to put it in a place where it wasn’t easy to draw.  I couldn’t be sure I would be able to draw it and fire.  I was still handicapped, unaware of their powers.  I was fighting blind.

If Jack or the girl killed Amy, just about everyone in the city would die violently from the miasma’s effects.  But I couldn’t stop them without letting on that I knew.  Fighting them put me at a clear disadvantage, and-

“Skitter,” Jack spoke.

I didn’t waste time turning to face him.  I gripped the hair of the blonde girl beside me and virtually hauled her off her feet as I dragged her around to a position between Jack and myself.  Jack was already swinging his knife.

The knife cut the girl more than it cut me.  I could feel it raking across the exterior of my costume, failing to penetrate, but he was swinging it underhand, and it caught me in the chin, slicing through the side of my cheek and up to my temple.

I tried to keep a hold on the girl for the sake of using her as a human shield, but I saw her reach into her dress and withdraw some vials.  I shoved her toward Jack, then stepped forward to kick her square between the shoulder blades.  She collided with him, interrupting his follow-up swing.  For good measure, I drew the bugs from beneath my costume and sent them chasing after her.  Some capsaicin-laced bugs, just the few I had remaining.

Jack caught her shoulders and spun her around so she faced me.  The vials were already billowing with a chemical reaction.  She threw them at me.

I backed away, and they hit the ground between our two groups, black smoke joining the crimson mist around us.

“You’ve outlived your usefulness, Skitter,” Jack spoke.

If I’d just had a minute or two more to decide on a course of action.

“It was fun.  I almost wish I’d nominated you for the Nine.  You’re versatile, and there’s so many weak points I could have exploited if I’d had more time.  If Cherish’s information on you wasn’t so misleading, I think I could have made you shoot the heroine.  To corrupt you like that, it would have been amusing.”

I fumbled for the gun, using my bugs to get a sense for where it was.  In the same motion that I pointed it, Jack slapped it out of my hand with two slashes of his knife.  He was a dozen feet away, but the knife nonetheless connected with my weapon.

My bugs began to gather like a dark cloud, their mass casting a shadow on the already gloomy surroundings.

“So I end the world?  Interesting.”

“The source is a little unreliable,” I lied.

“Still, I would love to see how that comes about.”

“You won’t live to,” I told him.

“I’ll make sure he does,” the girl informed me.

My swarm could feel others approach from the heroine’s direction.  They were the size of dogs, and they skipped forward on mechanical legs.  The mechanical spiders.  Dozens of them, coming straight for me.

If I was judging right, they were running faster than I could.

I sent the swarm after Jack and the girl, massed into thousands of bugs.  Some groups clustered so tight together that they looked like massive, amorphous black entities, amoebas floating through a cityscape painted in shades of red and black.  Atlas heard my call and headed my way from the place I’d positioned him, too far away to join the fight for a minute or two.

The girl was already mixing something else together.  Plumes of white smoke billowed around her, almost luminescent after so long spent in the crimson mist.  My bugs died on contact with the gas.

Everything I’d learned about my enemies had been blocked.  I had no information on them, no sense of what to expect.  They weren’t so handicapped.

She tipped half the vial’s contents into an empty container and handed it to Jack.  Both protected from my power, they started backing away.

I moved to edge around the cloud of black smoke, but Jack struck me with the knife.  I had to use my forearms to cover my unprotected face.  I just had my glasses, some bugs, and a layer of cloth protecting it.  Nothing that would guard against Jack’s cuts.

When I’d lowered my arms, they had already turned a corner, running in the general direction of Arcadia high.  Running around the cloud of black smoke cost me a precious minute.  I made my way around the same corner they’d rounded, and stopped short as I came face to face with another black cloud.

Couldn’t match their speed, not with these noxious clouds slowing me down.  With the heroine lying unconscious in the street, several blocks in the wrong direction, I had no allies to turn to.  Worse, anyone I came across was as likely as not to be a threat. It was down to Atlas and me, and Atlas was especially vulnerable to both of my opponents.  I couldn’t even fly after them without risking being cut down in midair.

I had minimal information on my opponents, while they knew enough about me to completely counter my powers.  Topping it all off, the mechanical spiders were steadily, inexorably closing in on me.  I’d lost my last fight with the things, and there were dozens more this time around.  Couldn’t fly without exposing myself to Jack’s power, couldn’t stay on the ground without getting swarmed.

I swallowed hard and held out one hand to grab Atlas’s horn as he landed.  In a moment, we were in the air, giving chase.

I wasn’t thinking about winning anymore.  I was thinking in terms of minimizing the damage when we lost.

Last Chapter                                                                                                Next Chapter

Snare 13.7

Last Chapter                                                                                                Next Chapter

“Where is he?” I growled.

“As if I’m going to tell you.  To think Jack called you the clever worm.”

“Don’t call me that.”  I felt a flare of irritation that bordered on anger.  Was that me, or was it her power at work?

Tattletale put a hand on my shoulder.  I shut my mouth.  She asked Cherish, “What do you want in exchange for your help?  You want us to let you go?”

Cherish laughed a little, and it reminded me of Alec’s own dry chuckle.  “No.  Definitely not.  In exchange for the information about what the Imp is up to, you’re going to give me medical treatment, you’re going to keep me here, and you’re going to keep me safe.”

“And for the info on Grue?”  Tattletale asked.

“I’m thinking a billion-”  Cherish winced as she moved mid-sentence and pulled at the wound.

“A billion dollars so you can scamper off to the other side of the world and live the good life while you hide from those bastards,” Tattletale finished.

“Right.  Or are you going to tell me that’s too much?  Is your teammate’s life worth a smaller amount?  Where do you draw the line, Ms. Frowny-face?”

Tattletale glanced at me.  I looked, in turn, to Coil.  He gave me a barely perceptible shake of his head.  He wouldn’t fork over the amount.

“You’re not really in a position to be making demands,” Trickster said.  “You’re bleeding to death, and we do have the ability to hurry the process along.”

Cherish shrugged.  “Bonesaw gave me the works.  Mesh sheaths for every major artery and organ, wire reinforcement for my skeleton.  It’s not going to kill me anytime soon.”

I made a mental note of that.  Chances were good that Jack, Bonesaw and the other more vulnerable members of the Nine had some similar protection.  How differently would things have played out if Ballistic had used his power and blown them up?

“I could,” Trickster threatened.  “Or we could wait and see which happens first: Either you agree to share the information we want or you slowly bleed out.”

“A game of chicken?  I’m down.”  Cherish prodded her injury with a fingertip.  It was clear it hurt, but she still stuck a finger into the hole and investigated some.  “The auto-injection pump is dosing me with painkillers and antibiotics now.  First time feeling this stuff work.”

“Letting that… lunatic perform surgery like that?” Sundancer asked, shivering a little.  “How?  Why?”

“Not much choice in the matter, but I was awake for the entire thing, and I read her emotions as she did it.  No hint of any traps or dirty tricks.”

Tattletale glanced at the bullet hole in Cherish’s chest.  “I’m suspicious it’s so routine for her that there wouldn’t even be a blip on the radar if she did try something.”

Cherish leaned forward, “Are we going to do this?  Test your perceptive abilities against mine?  Some intellectual jousting?”

Tattletale shook her head.  “She’s stalling.  She knows time’s on her side, because we need to rescue Grue sooner than later.  Longer we wait, the worse our position.”

“I admit I’m at something of a loss.” Coil sounded pensive, as he looked at our captive.  “Where do we put her?”

“Jack did research on you assholes,” Cherish cut in, still trying to distract us, “I know your schtick, Tattletale.  Pick at people’s weaknesses, tell them stuff they don’t want to know.  I can do the same thing.  I’m better at it than you are.”

“It’s a bit of a crazy idea,” I said, ignoring her.  “But what if we didn’t stash her in this base?  Or any of the others?  We put her anywhere in the city, there’s the risk that some unwitting John, Dick or Harry will come by, and she’ll get them to help her somehow.  Can’t station guards on her, so… why not the water?”

“A boat?” Ballistic asked.

“I could tell you a story,” Cherish said, “Little girl grows up with money.  Daddy pulls in six figures, maybe seven.  Massive house, I expect.  Maybe horses, a mercedes, indoor and outdoor pools…”

“I was thinking about a buoy,” I replied, speaking over her.  “Could even rig things so she’s out of sight.  Cuff her to it, we can be pretty damn sure she won’t be getting free.”

“But what about boats coming by?” Sundancer asked.

“Almost no boats on the water,” I replied.  “Coastline is a mess, thanks to Leviathan.  Ships can’t dock here.”

“Good,” Coil said.  “Then as soon as she is given some basic medical care, I’ll have my men take her out there.  I’ll need to work out measures to ensure she doesn’t escape.”

“So the little girl who wanted for nothing still found a reason to run away from home.  Spent life homeless on the streets.  Stealing and dealing for petty cash so she could eat.  What would make someone leave home like that, Tattletale?”

Coil turned to the soldier next to him, “Can you go find Pitter and bring him here?  I want her sedated sooner than later.”

The soldier nodded and headed off to find the medic.  He winked at Tattletale as he jogged by.  I’d met him.  Not one of Tattletale’s soldiers, but I’d crossed paths with him.  Fish?  Seemed like he and Tattletale were getting along.

“That’s a mistake,” Cherish smiled.  “Without my cooperation, you won’t find them.  You won’t be able to contact Imp or know where to look for her brother.”

“Tattletale?” Coil spoke.

“You already informed us on most of that,” Tattletale told Cherish.  She leaned against the wall.  “Your method of communication with Imp.  You’re planning on meeting her.  Afternoon?  Evening?”

“As if I’m-”

“Late afternoon. Thanks.”

“What?”  Cherish frowned.

“What time in the afternoon?  Four… five… six.  Six o’clock.  There we go.  Where?  Upper end of town or downtown?”

“I’m not saying anything!”

“You’re telling me everything.”  Tattletale must be reading Cherish’s tells.  Her body language, eye movements, her tone and word choice.  “Let’s see, you’re meeting Imp downtown around six.  You would have made it a place where you could talk with her for a minute while you were out of sight of the others.  Bathroom?”

Cherish didn’t move a muscle.  Maybe she realized what Tattletale was doing.

“Bathroom, then.  Same building as the rest of the Nine?  Now we just need to dig up where they are, and you’ve got no cards left.  Unless you want to share that information in good faith.”

There was no response from our prisoner.

“Hmmm,” Tattletale said.  “She’s cornered, and she’s probably contemplating something like suicide by cop.  Or whatever the term is when the other group aren’t cops.  She’d rather die than have us turn her over to her teammates, so she’ll try a gambit like using her powers, knowing we’ll probably gun her down.”

“Got any ideas?” Trickster asked her.

“She liked the dead man’s switch for her suicide collar.  Why don’t we set up something similar?  Put a soldier on guard somewhere nearby.  We schedule it so he receives a note  from us every fifteen minutes.  If he doesn’t get it, he passes a message to the Nine telling them exactly where to find Cherish?”

I could see Cherish tense.

“How do we get a message to them without them killing the messenger?”

“We can work it out.”  Tattletale shrugged.  She looked at Trickster, “You think Oliver could handle it?”

Trickster nodded. “I’ll get him on thinking up some way to arrange this.”

“Tattletale.” Coil spoke, “Can you gather the rest of the details from her before we secure her offshore?”

“So long as she doesn’t get stupid and try to do something more than talk.”

Cherish decided to speak up.  “Who’s next?  Who should I dish the dirt on?  Feeling homesick, Trickster?  Scared little boy pretending to be a leader.  It’s your fault, you know.  She blames you.  Everyone does. They’re even starting to hate you.”

“Can we talk without her in earshot?” I asked.

Coil nodded and gestured for us to leave.  His soldiers moved to Cherish’s side and gripped her arms.

“No point!”  Cherish grinned, “I’ll know what you’re talking about.  Can’t keep secrets from me!”

“But you won’t be sidetracking us,” I replied.

“You failed, you know,” Cherish said, changing tacks.  “When someone has an obsession like you do, it’s like a giant neon sign to an empath like me.  All it takes is for me to peek into Coil’s head, peek into the hearts of everyone else in this base, and I know you’ll never get what you want.  You won’t save her.  You can’t.  Window of opportunity is long gone.”

I jabbed her where the bullet hole was.  The strength went out of her legs and she fell to her hands and knees.  I stepped back, drew in a slow breath and then kicked her in the face.  She fell to the ground.

“Skitter.” Coil’s word was without inflection.  There was no admonishment or warning to it.  I took it as a reminder of where I was, which might have been his intent.

“We can talk about that later,” I told him, “My priority right now is Grue.”

Coil nodded.

I glanced down at Cherish.  “Hope Bonesaw reinforced your teeth while she was fixing you up.”

“She did,” Cherish muttered, one hand to her mouth.

I kicked her in the head once more for good measure, and then turned away, my hands raised to assure the others I was done.

“That’s enough,” Coil said.  He signaled his men.  “Take the prisoner to the coastline and find a spot to depart.”

Cherish was dragged off to a point further down the catwalk.  Her shouts reached us well after she was out of sight, “Your boss is screwing you!  All of you!  You have no idea how badly!  You’re cogs in his machine, and he’s only steps away from pulling it all together.  Get rid of the Nine, stage the final play with everyone in their proper spots, but then he doesn’t need you anymore!”

“Sowing dissension in the ranks,” Coil said.  He sounded remarkably calm given what Cherish had been saying.  “Nothing more.”

“Right.  She could be lying,” Trickster ventured.

“She is.  Mostly,” Tattletale said.

I doubted anyone believed what the three were saying.  At the same time, nobody here was in a position to walk away in response to this unconfirmed information.

“Tattletale, see to the interrogation,”  Coil ordered.

“Okay.”

“That leaves the remainder of us to decide on a way of rescuing the others.”

I fidgeted.  The idea of Brian in the hands of the Nine was… daunting.  Was Siberian eating him alive, literally?  Was he at the mercies of Mannequin?  Jack could be torturing him for details on us.  Or he could be in Bonesaw’s clutches.

Chances were good that they were pissed.  Jack excepted, maybe.  He’d seemed to like our ambush.  In any event, any anger or sadistic tendencies were likely to be taken out on Brian.

Fuck.  I kept imagining uglier and uglier possibilities.

“They’re going to be waiting and ready.  We’ll need help, I think,” I said.

“Help?” Trickster turned my way.  “You’re forgetting that the rest of the factions in the city have made a pact against us.”

“Not everybody there agreed,” I said.  “There was one group at the meeting that didn’t agree to the pact.”

“Am I remembering wrong?”  Trickster asked.  “Coil, Merchants, Chosen, Faultline’s group…”

“That’s right,” I said.

“What are you thinking, then?”  Sundancer asked.

“Coil,” I said, “You got some surveillance gear for Tattletale, right?  Can I see it?”

■

Trickster accompanied me.  We didn’t get the benefit of Bitch’s dogs.  She’d wanted to check on her territory and take care of her dogs.  I’d grudgingly agreed that she should take care of that, and Trickster and I had set off alone.

I gave him a sidelong glance as we ascended the stairs of the empty apartment building.  What had Cherish said?  Scared little boy?  She blames you.  They all do.  I could remember Sundancer’s remarks on the drama in the group and how lonely it was to be around them.  I recalled Genesis seeming less than thrilled when her team arrived last night.  Was Trickster at the center of it?  He was more ruthless than his comrades, which was interesting because his power was the least lethal.  It might have been a point of contention.  But what would he have done that the others would blame him for?

Could I comment on that?  Should I?

I remained silent.  We exited the stairwell at the fifth floor and entered a dark hallway.  I clicked on a flashlight, and we made our way down the hall.  Trash was piled everywhere, and I was all too aware of the maggots that were crawling on the floor, barely visible in the dim light.

“Which way?” he asked.

I pointed.  A side benefit of my power was that it made it pretty damn easy to maintain my sense of direction.

We tried the doors for the two apartments that led in the right direction.  Both were locked.

Trickster touched the doorknob, then looked across the floor at the trash in the hallway.  The doorknob disappeared, and a chunk of wood fell to the ground.  He repeated the process with the internal mechanisms, and the lock was effectively transported away.  He opened the door and walked inside, going straight for the windows.

“Done this before?” he asked.

I shook my head.  I was gathering my bugs, the stronger fliers, and drawing out lines of silk.  Trickster handed me the individual components.  A small spy camera, no larger than a tube of lipstick, and a similar microphone.  My bugs bound them together with silk and then stretched out more to distribute the lifting among the dragonflies, bumblebees and wasps.

“Okay, let’s see,” I muttered.

“Testing, testing, one, two, three…“  My swarm managed some semblance of the words I wanted, a mix of buzzing, chirps and clicks to form the right pitch.  Some sounds were hard or impossible to make.  The ‘puh’, ‘buh’ and ‘muh’ sounds didn’t form, and I struggled to form something that sounded like a ‘t’ in the middle of a word.  It was intelligible, but only barely.

It would have to do.

I ensured the rigging around the camera was more or less steady and then sent the swarm out the window.  I relied on my power to keep track of it while I opened the laptop Coil had provided and turned on the video feed.  When it had arrived outside the PHQ headquarters, I drew it together into a densely packed human form.

It took six and a half minutes for the Protectorate to react to the figure.  That bothered me, on a level.  Were they disorganized?  Or was it difficulty in communicating and marshaling their forces when they didn’t have phones or other means of passing on alerts?  They gathered in the lobby.  I adjusted the camera the insects were carrying and made out Weld, Kid Win, Clockblocker, Miss Militia, Battery and Legend.  There were three more capes I didn’t recognize.  Members of Legend’s team?

Seeing them gave me pause.

As Miss Militia stepped outside, I pulled on the headphones, and Trickster did the same.

“Skitter?” Miss Militia asked.

“Something like that,” I replied using my swarm.  “I wanted to talk.“

“Given what happened the last time you were here, I’m not sure we’re on speaking terms.”

“We have two of the Slaughterhouse Nine in custody.  We are prepared to turn one over into your custody.”

“What?  I didn’t hear that.”

Damn.  It sounded natural in my head, as I got them to make the noise, but I wasn’t quite there yet.  Maybe it would have been better to just pass a phone to her.  I’d gone this route for the dramatic touch, and because I hadn’t wanted them to trace us.

I rephrased, “Shatterbird and Cherish have been captured.  We will deliver Cherish to you if you wish.  We are done interrogating her.”

“Interrogation.  You mean torture, don’t you?” Legend asked from where he stood in the doorway.

“No.”

“Why?”  Miss Militia asked.  “Why the offer?”

“You can put her in secure custody, and we need your help.“

“For?”

“The Nine have captured Grue.  We mounted one successful attack this morning, we got two of theirs for one of ours.  They will be ready for a rescue attempt.  They know our powers.  Help us attack.  Help us catch them off guard a second time and stop them for good.“

“You’re not only asking us to fight the Nine, but you want us to fight alongside notorious villains.”

So I was notorious now?  Huh.  Couldn’t let that distract me.  “I’m offering you Cherish.“

I could make out Miss Militia shaking her head.  “I’ll be blunt, Skitter.  I’m not Armsmaster.  I don’t have a stake in personal glory or renown.  I’m not going to pussyfoot around, either.  Put a bullet in her skull and be done with it.  There’s a kill order on them, nobody’s going to charge you for murder.”

“Then work with us because it’s the best way to stop the Nine.”

“I refused Hookwolf when he made the same offer, and I’m going to refuse you.  The capes on my teams are good people.  I won’t throw away their lives with a reckless attack.  We’re going to develop our own strategies, plan, and find a safe way to target them.”

“And civilians die in the meantime.”  I retorted.  Grue dies in the meantime, if he wasn’t dead already.

“We’ve tried the same strategies we use against Endbringers.  Multiple teams, allying with locals.  Sometimes we get one of them.  Sometimes we get three or four.  But we lose people, lots of people, in the process.  The remaining members of their group always find some way of escaping. The fact that we tried and failed in going all-out gives them notoriety.  They bounce back after an attack like that, and they bounce back hard, with creeps, lunatics and killers flocking to them for the chance at that same sort of glory.”

“The difference between us and Hookwolf is that we’ve succeeded.  We have two of them in our custody.  You can’t bide your time, organize, and wait for an opportune moment.  They have years of experience fighting people who do that.  Anything you try, they’ve probably dealt with.  We win by catching them off guard with powers they don’t know about, powers they can’t expect and interactions between powers.  Calculated recklessness.“

“We can handle that on our own, with more calculation and less recklessness.”

“He’s studied you.  For any member of your team with more than three months of experience, he already knows everything they can do, their tricks and individual talents.  You have powers we need.  We have knowledge on their location, firepower of our own and two captives.  We’ll only pull this off if we work together.”

“Putting our lives in your hands,” Miss Militia replied.

“Only as far as we’d be relying on you,” I answered her.

“Who are you, Skitter?”  Legend asked.  He floated closer to my swarm-decoy.  “I can’t get a read on your personality or motivations, and that’s without touching on what came up at the close of the Endbringer event.”

“My teammate is in the hands of the Nine, they could be murdering more people right this second, and you’re talking about me, of all people?”

“If we’re going to offer you help, we should know who we’re interacting with,” he said.

I glanced at Trickster, then back at the image on the screen.  “What do you want to know?“

“We’ve talked with the people in your territory.  Between what they say and what came out at the hospital, I can’t help but wonder at your motives.”

“There’s someone specific I want to help.  If I can improve the lives of others at the same time, then all the better.“

“So where do you stand, then?  Where do you see yourself in terms of the sliding scale of good and evil, heroes and villains?”

I almost laughed, and some of my humor must have translated in a mental direction to my bugs, because they started making a noise that wasn’t speech.  I stopped them.  It wouldn’t have sounded much like laughter anyways.  “All of the above?  None of the above?  Does it matter?  Some of us wear the villain label with pride, because they want to rebel against the norms, because it’s a harder, more rewarding road to travel, or because being a ‘hero’ often means so very little.  But few people really want to see themselves as being bad or evil, whatever label they wear.  I’ve done things I regret, I’ve done things I’m proud of, and I’ve walked the roads in between.  The sliding scale is a fantasy.  There’s no simple answers.“

“There can be.  You could do what’s right.”

I was getting an inkling of what Bitch referred to as ‘words’.  Prattle that meant so very little in the face of what was happening in the present.  Was this the kind of irritation, impatience and anger she felt with so many social interactions?  I clenched my fist.  “Speak for yourself.  You want to hide here while my group and Hookwolf deal with the brunt of the Nine’s attention.  Just like you did with the ABB.“

“That happened under Armsmaster’s leadership.  You can’t blame us for being intelligent about how we go about this.”

I was disappointed my swarm couldn’t convey my anger.  “I can blame you for being cowards.  I’m going.  If you want to talk about morality, start by talking to Armsmaster.”

“Can’t.  He’s gone.”

I paused.  Did the Nine get him?  “Dead?“

“Escaped from his hospital room.  With our attention on the Nine, we don’t have the resources to track him down.”

“Does he know about the Nine’s threat to hit the city with a plague if he leaves?“

“I hope so.”

Fuck.  Not only was that one more uncertainty stacked onto everything, but Armsmaster was the closest thing I had to a nemesis.  Having him running around the city was not a good thing.

For a brief moment, I contemplated having Trickster teleport me to ground level, so it was me talking to the local heroes, and not just my swarm.  I could tell them that I was putting my well-being in their hands, risking them arresting me, as a gesture of good faith.

Except I couldn’t help but see myself from their perspective.  Warlord of the Boardwalk.  I’d rotted off Lung’s manhood and carved out his eyes.  I’d played an undefined role in Armsmaster’s downward slide.  I’d robbed a bank, terrorized hostages with poisonous spiders, attacked their headquarters and used insects dipped in capsaicin to cripple their junior heroes with incapacitating pain.  All the while, I’d acted with a seemingly ambiguous morality.  Was I a good guy doing all the wrong things?  Or did they see me as dangerous and unhinged?

There was no way I could put myself in their hands without knowing what they thought about me, and frankly, I wasn’t sure how to think about myself.  How the hell were they supposed to make a call?

“So.  You in?”  I tried, instead.

I could see him look back at Miss Militia, who shook her head.  “Miss Militia runs the local team, so it’s ultimately her call, but… we’ve talked about it, and I agree with her.  No.  The risks outweigh the potential benefits.”

My heart sank.  “Then one final tip.  You should know that Bonesaw’s done some surgery on all of her people.  Implanted protection for the more vulnerable parts of their bodies.  They’re tougher than they look.“

“Thank you,” Legend said.  “You might not believe me, but I wish you the best of luck.”

I snarled as I shut the laptop and turned away from the scene, calling my swarm back to me.

“That didn’t work,” Trickster said.

“No.  And we just wasted a lot of time.”

“We’ll have Shatterbird working with us, thanks to Regent, and we’ve got Imp as our man on the inside, maybe.  We’re going to outnumber the remaining five or six of them, right?  It’s not hopeless.”

“They’ll be ready for us.  They’re entrenched, they have a hostage, and we’re totally unable to fight two of them.  How long is it going to take to extricate Grue from whatever cage they have him in?”

“It’s not hopeless,” he repeated.  “Whatever they’re doing to keep Grue prisoner, if I can see him, I can free him.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.”

“Would it reassure you to know that your conversation with the local heroes gave me an idea of my own?”

My head snapped in Trickster’s direction.

“Come on.  We should hurry,” he said.

Last Chapter                                                                                                Next Chapter

Snare 13.6

Last Chapter                                                                                                Next Chapter

“We set up and act the second they stop moving,” Grue’s voice sounded through the walkie-talkie.  “Be ready to move the instant Cherish alerts them.  We maintain unbroken line of sight over the Nine and between our squads.  Notify us and change position if you lose sight of ’em.  Everyone knows what they’re doing?”

Various assents could be heard through the walkie-talkies.

“Maybe I should ask if anyone’s unsure about what they’re doing?” he asked.

There was no response.

“Good.  Hold positions.”

The strategy was mine, but Grue was more comfortable than I was as a battlefield commander.  I was okay with him taking charge here.  Preferred it.

I raised my binoculars.  Seven members of the Nine were strolling down the street.  Jack, Bonesaw and Siberian were at the head of the group, and Jack was using his knife to try to cut down anyone he saw who didn’t get under cover fast enough.  It was almost an idle amusement, rather than some mission or task he’d undertaken.  Most escaped, and he didn’t go to any particular effort to chase them down, as though he were conserving his strength.

Cherish, Mannequin and Shatterbird were in the middle of the group, Crawler behind them, trailing behind with languid, casually effective movements that resembled those of a cat.  At the very back of the group, trailing even behind Crawler, was a hulk of a man who I took to be Hatchet Face.  He looked like he was rotting alive, and there were grafts of flesh and mechanical replacement parts filling in the gaps.

The majority of my attention was on Cherish.  Through the lenses of the binoculars, I focused on her face.  I watched the movements of her eyes, her facial expressions, and the tension in her hands.  Nothing she’d done thus far had indicated she was aware of us. Her attention seemed more focused on the handful people Jack had cut down.  As they walked, she looked down at each of the wounded and dying with the detached interest one might have for a car accident by the side of the highway.  She hadn’t opened her mouth since we’d caught up with their group.

I so wanted to jump in and save those people.  But it would be suicide.  Our priority was stopping the Nine.

Part one of the plan was simple.  Up until the point we engaged, we stayed as far away as we could while maintaining a visual and some ability to act.  We knew Cherish’s power was more effective as she was closer to her targets.  If there was any element of surprise to be had, we’d have it by striking from a distance.

I spared a glance at Mannequin, changing the focus of my binoculars to the man in white.  Again, he’d replaced his parts.  His form resembled what I’d seen the first time I’d encountered him.

I turned my attention back to Cherish.  Shatterbird was saying something to her, her lips moving in the rhythms of speech beneath the glass beak/visor that covered the upper half of her face.  She was using her hands to punctuate her words.  Cherish didn’t respond.  From the length of Shatterbird’s speech, I took it to be some kind of monologue or lecture.

“Hey,” Sundancer said from beside me, “Ten or so seconds until we lose them behind that building over there.”

A quick check confirmed she was right.  The direction their group was traveling would take them out of sight.  I picked up the walkie-talkie, “Moving forward.  You guys have eyes on them?”

“Yeah,” Grue reported.  That would be our second squad.

“Yep,” Trickster said, from the third.

I was already sitting side-saddle on Bentley, with Bitch ahead of me.  My burned legs didn’t afford me much grip with my calves, so we’d taken a loop of the chain that surrounded Bentley and wound it under and over my lap and around my waist to secure me in place, connecting it with a carabiner in case I needed to get off fast.  I put one arm around Bitch for further support, and scooted forward to make room for Sundancer.

“Go,” Bitch hissed the words the second Sundancer was in position.  Bentley lunged forward, leaping to the next rooftop and landing with enough force that I wasn’t sure I could have stayed seated if I’d been riding normally.

Bentley was more of a bruiser than the other two dogs, with his front half adding up to almost twice the mass of the rear.  It made him weaker at the long distance leaps than any of the dogs I’d ridden thus far, but his powerful upper body also made him a strong climber.  It also meant he had the raw strength to carry three of us and the pair of heavy metal boxes that we’d strapped to his sides.  Our progress wasn’t fast, but we did make our way up the side of the next building, Bentley’s claws digging into the windowsills as he slowly and methodically ascended.  From that building It was one more leap and a short climb to the roof of the tallest building in the area.  I released my deathgrip on the chains and got the binoculars and walkie-talkie out.

“In position on the Demesnes Soft Tower.  Location of the Nine?”

“Lord and Tillman,” Trickster answered me.

I found the intersection.  Once I had the right general area, it wasn’t hard to spot them.  Crawler was conspicuous.

“Found them,” I informed the others.

Our setup put Grue, Ballistic and Sirius directly behind the Nine, along with the metal cases of supplies we’d strapped to Sirius’ sides.  Trickster and Regent were mounted on Genesis, who had taken a form not unlike the dogs.  The trio were positioned to the Nine’s left.  By contrast, my group, with Sundancer, Bitch and Bentley, were positioned to their right.

Each of us were a little over a thousand feet away from the Nine, three city blocks, give or take.  It meant my allies were out of range of my powers.  It was a drawback, but I hoped it would balance out.

“They’re moving with purpose,” Tattletale sounded over the walkie-talkie.  Trickster was sending her ongoing video with a camera and directional microphone.  “I think they’re heading to Dolltown.”

“Dolltown?”

“Parian’s territory,” Ballistic said.  “She controls these giant stuffed animals.  Cordoned off an area in my district before I made my claim.  I haven’t gotten around to dealing with her yet, with the Nine and all.”

“They’re probably trying to bait the heroes out,” Tattletale said, “Killing in the streets, then attacking one of the safe territories that aren’t controlled by us.”

“ETA for them getting to their destination?” I asked.

“One minute,” Tattletale spoke.

“Moving up,” Grue reported.  “You guys maintain visual.”

Jack was still attacking everyone he spotted.  How many lives would be lost in the meantime?  Worse, would Cherish notice our presence, or would Jack look for civilians and spot one of us on a rooftop blocks away?

Going into this with the element of surprise was almost too much to hope for.

I put my walkie-talkie down, but I kept my eyes on Cherish.  She hadn’t spoken, and there was no change in her posture.

“Grue,” Trickster said, “Get in position fast.  I see the area where Parian marked off her territory.  If they’re going to stop, they’re going to stop here.”

I used the binoculars and found the area in question.  Yellow spray paint, rain coats and scarves had been used to form a line across a street.

Grue didn’t respond, but that could easily be because he was focusing on riding.  Just in case, I asked, “You have eyes on him, Trickster?”

“Yeah.  Grue and Ballistic are heading up to a spot where they can see everyone.  No danger.”

No danger.  It was a loaded statement.  Burnscar wasn’t here, but Tattletale was ninety percent certain that the pyrokinetic teleporter was off tracking down one of the ‘hero’ candidates or Hookwolf to give them their tests.

My heart was hammering in my chest, and I knew that between one of these heartbeats and the next, one of the Nine could spot us.  If it was Jack or Shatterbird, we could be dead or bleeding out less than a second later.

“Set up,” Grue ordered.

I unclipped the carabiner and hopped down.  Working alongside Bitch and Sundancer, I helped bring the boxes we’d strapped to Bentley’s side to the edge of the rooftop.  We hurried back, Sundancer giving me a hand up.  I almost didn’t feel the pain of my legs with the tension and adrenaline that thrummed through me.  Or maybe that was the industrial strength painkillers Coil had provided.

I didn’t want to think about the fact that the drugs I’d taken might be the same ones that he’d used to drug Dinah.

A quick sweep verified that the area around ‘Dolltown’ was largely empty of people.  The flooding was bad here, and only Parian’s place was really on high enough ground to be free of it.  Just to make sure, I asked, “Tattletale?  How many bystanders?”

“Going by the video feed?  Guessing there’s between eight and twenty people in the buildings around you.”

“Then I’m set,” I replied.  I strapped the ‘seatbelt’ chain around my waist and hips and reconnected the carabiner.  Other voices echoed mine, confirming they were ready.

Halfway across the roof, Sundancer began forming her miniature sun.  I checked on the others with my binoculars.  Trickster and Regent were crouched at the corner of one building, and Genesis was dissolving.  Good.

Grue and Ballistic were arguing.  I was pretty sure.  I could see Grue grabbing Ballistic’s shoulder with one hand and pointing at the Nine with the other.

“What’s going on, Grue?” I asked.

“He’s chickening out.”

He’s supposed to handle Cherish.  I glanced at the Nine.  No sign of anything from her.  She was standing apart from the rest of the group, her arms folded.

“She looks like someone I used to know,” Ballistic said, as if that was some kind of answer.

“Who?” Trickster asked.

“Sadie.  From seventh grade.”

“Nope,” Trickster replied.  “Not in the slightest.  Your head’s fucking with you.  Get the job done.”

“But-”

Trickster’s voice was as hard as I’d ever heard it.  “Now.  Remember the deal we made.  Our promise to each other and to Noelle.  Don’t fuck this up.”

Ballistic hesitated.  Through the scope of my binoculars, I could see him holding the foot-ball sized warhead in his hands.  “She’s a human being, someone with feelings, and tastes and-”

Regent was the one who cut him off this time, “And she’s someone that has forced parents to mutilate and kill their kids and she made them enjoy it.  Then she left them to live with the aftermath.”

Regent sounded remarkably calm given the situation.

“She’s my sister.  If anyone has a right to get sentimental, it’s me, and I’m saying it’s okay to off her,” he finished.

“I-”  Ballistic broke off.

I shifted my attention to the Nine.  Jack, Siberian and Bonesaw were moving past the yellow lines.  And Cherish… Cherish was turning to look in Grue and Ballistic’s direction.  I could see her almost bounce in place as she got her feet under her and started sprinting, her mouth opening.

“Cover blown!” I shouted into the walkie-talkie.  Taking my finger off the button, I called out,  “Trickster, Sundancer!”

Sundancer sent her sun soaring around to the Nine, taking the long route so it could cut them off.  In that same moment, Trickster pointed a sniper rifle at a corpse on the street and swapped Cherish’s position with it.

Part two of the plan, after finding them and getting into our positions, was to remove Cherish as fast as humanly possible.  If we accomplished nothing else, our goal was to do that and then make a run for it.  It would pave the way for future attacks and it would slow them down.

We’d left that task to Ballistic, with the idea that Trickster would take care of Jack.  Ballistic decided he didn’t have it in him at the worst possible moment, forcing us to shift roles.

Damn him.

Cherish was struck by Trickster’s shot, blood spattering the pavement.  Her teammates left her behind.

“Don’t have line of sight to Jack!” Trickster reported.

“Hit the others,” I told Sundancer.

“You mean kill them,” her voice was quiet, her fists clenched at her sides.

“Kill them, then.”  I could see the sun growing as it flew.  It was maybe eighteen feet in diameter now.

“Just… just tell me there aren’t any civilians there, no bystanders.”

I looked through my binoculars.  The remainder of the Nine were making a break for it.  Mannequin and Siberian stood still, watching Grue and Ballistic, Crawler was barreling towards them, and Shatterbird had taken to the air.  Jack and Bonesaw were taking cover around a corner to stay out of Grue and Ballistic’s line of fire.

The thing that had once been Hatchet Face scooped up the wounded and anyone he could catch and deposited them with his group.  Bonesaw had a scalpel out and was cutting the second the people were in her reach.  A throat slashed here, a stomach cavity opened there.  Intestines and muscle strung from one individual to another, connecting them together as their faces contorted in pain.  Some struggled to stand, to strike Bonesaw or push themselves away, but deft slices with the scalpel severed tendons and ligaments.  It was a kind of grim reversal, the adults utterly helpless and weak when faced with the child.

We’ll never have another shot like this.

“No,” I said.  I even managed to sound convincing.  “No civilians!  Go!”

“Then tell me where to move it,”  Sundancer’s eyes were closed.  “I can’t see that far.”

“Out further, left, left, left,”  the miniature sun slid twenty or so feet with every order I gave as I tracked the enemy’s position and the movements of the orb with the binoculars.  “Short bit left and then out!”

I couldn’t look directly at the thing, but I saw Mannequin and Siberian wheel around as the blinding light of the orb caught their attention.  Mannequin ran, and Siberian lunged forward.

The orb slid out into position around the mouth of the alley and then rolled over Jack, Bonesaw and Hatchet Face.

“Report!” Tattetale’s voice came from the walkie-talkie.  “I don’t have visual.”

“Sundancer just hit Jack, Hatchet Face and Bonesaw.”

“Where are the rest?”

“Crawler heading for Grue and Ballistic, Mannequin running down Tillman in Regent and Trickster’s general direction.  Shatterbird’s going for the bird’s-eye view.  I don’t think she’s seen any of us except Grue and Ballistic.”

“Siberian?”

“Missing.”

“Shit.  Assume they’re all alive, then.  Sundancer’s power still in that area?”

Alive?  “It is.”

“Then keep it there!”

I glanced at Sundancer and she gave me a grim nod.

Crawler had reached Grue and was scaling the side of the building with surprising speed.  I’d taken him for a quadruped, but apparently his joints were modular.  His proportions were more simian, now, and he was climbing up the side of the building twice as fast as I could have run it if it were laid out horizontally.

Part three of the plan had been to hit them as hard as we could.  Trickster was using his rifle to take shots at Mannequin, but I couldn’t see if it was having any effect.  Ballistic finally decided to contribute, and fired a warhead at Mannequin.  Then he reached into the box he and Grue had unloaded from Sirius’s harness and grabbed two more.  He fired them into the smoke cloud that had expanded around Mannequin.

I could see Crawler reaching the edge of the roof, not twenty feet from Grue and Ballistic.

Part four of the plan?  Avoid direct confrontation.

“Trickster,” Grue said, the one word buzzing over the walkie-talkies.

Crawler disappeared, and an empty pickup truck toppled from the edge of the roof to the ground.  Crawler was back in the vicinity of the other Nine, not far from Sundancer’s burning orb.  Blocks away from Grue and Ballistic.

The monster lunged after Grue and Ballistic again, and was supported this time by Shatterbird, who conjured up a storm of glass shards to pelt the pair.  Ballistic retaliated by firing a warhead at Shatterbird, who prematurely detonated the explosive with a thick cluster of glass, shielding herself against the worst of the blast with another wall.  She drew more walls around herself and maintained her assault.

Bitch whistled, and Sirius started bounding across rooftops to head our way.  I could see Shatterbird turn and notice us.

That was fine.  I sent a payload of bugs her way; wasps and bees each carrying several spiders, and more expendable caterpillars and the like that were smeared in capsaicin.  I wanted to make absolutely sure she knew where we were and that she wouldn’t ignore us.

Crawler reached the base of the building only to be switched with yet another car, resetting his position a second time.  He roared in frustration, then turned toward the miniature sun, breaking into an all out run as he charged for it.

“Sundancer, switch off!”  I called out.

The orb disappeared, and Crawler crashed through the alleyway, only barely avoiding Jack, Siberian and Bonesaw.  The edges of the alley were unrecognizable, and the walls were on fire, but the trio were untouched.  Siberian had Jack draped over one shoulder  and another hand clasping Bonesaw by the back of her shirt, holding her high.  The pavement was a molten liquid beneath them.

I clicked the button on the walkie-talkie and informed the others, “Siberian’s granting her invulnerability to Jack and Bonesaw!”

Tattletale said something, but I missed it over the roar of noise that came with Sundancer using her power.  She was forming another orb.  Everyone else was busy with their own things.

Siberian was protecting Jack and Bonesaw.  That was both good and bad.  We’d planned this strategy under the assumption that Siberian would come for us and we’d use the dogs, Grue’s Darkness, my bug-decoys and Trickster’s teleportation to keep our distance from her until we decided we needed to make a run for it.  All of that was in line with part four of the plan, maintaining our distance and avoiding a toe to toe fight.  In the meantime, we’d intended to use our ranged abilities to take out Jack, Cherish, Bonesaw and Burnscar.

She was protecting them, which we hadn’t anticipated, but she couldn’t do that and come after us.

Or maybe she can.  I saw Siberian virtually toss Bonesaw in the air, the girl wrapping her arms around the woman’s neck as she landed.  Holding her two teammates, Siberian sprinted for Trickster and Regent.  She was fast, but it was a speed borne of her peculiar powers, more enhanced strength than augmented acceleration.  Not so different from Battery on that count.

Air resistance and inertia didn’t hamper her in the same ways.  More than that, whatever it was that made her invincible and untouchable to any outside force, she had the ability to snap it out to affect any surface she touched.  Her strength was virtually limitless, and the pavement didn’t shatter with her footfalls because she made it as untouchable as she was.

Shatterbird, meanwhile, was drawing closer, using the glass-storm to bar Ballistic’s access to the crate of explosives.  Grue’s power was serving to counter hers, and any glass that entered the darkness seemed to drop straight down like rain, bereft of her abilities.  Momentum still carried, however, and any glass shards that entered at a high enough velocity seemed to exit at roughly the same speed.

I wasn’t sure about Ballistic, his costume was among the best money could buy, but I wasn’t sure what that entailed.  Grue, at least, should be able to endure a beating.  Beneath his motorcycle leathers, he was wearing the costume I’d made for him and nearly finished.  It wouldn’t protect his head, but his helmet would serve in a pinch.

Even if they wouldn’t be cut to shreds, I wasn’t sure they would survive if Shatterbird detonated that case of rocket launcher rounds with a shard in the right place or a large enough impact.

“Bitch,” I spoke.  “The boxes!”

Bitch was sliding off of Bentley’s back, opening the first metal box and stretching out the contents.

The case was a piece of camping gear I’d noticed ages ago, when I’d first been buying things for my costume.  A watertight case for luggage with a metal frame inside that campers could stretch out to use as a drying rack for clothes and towels.

We didn’t have luggage inside.  No, the box held parts of the mannequins I’d been using for costume design.  Strung together with silk, two mannequins dangled from the frame.

Bitch adjusted the way one mannequin hung and headed over to set up the other case.

My bugs had reached Shatterbird and started attacking her.  Brown recluses, capsaicin, wasps, hornets and bees.  I’d never attacked someone like this.  Not someone who couldn’t heal.  I could see her thrashing, trying to stay aloft even as her concentration faltered.  The brown recluses were insurance of a sort.  If we happened to take out Bonesaw, it could mean Shatterbird was out of the equation as well.

The darkness Grue had generated around the rooftop disappeared all at once.  Grue and Ballistic crouched at the far corner.  Canceling the darkness was a signal.

The mannequins hanging from the first rack disappeared, replaced by the two boys.  Grue and Ballistic disentangled themselves from the metal frames and hurried to our side.

Trickster and Regent appeared soon after the other frame was up.  I could see Siberian on the rooftop.  They’d escaped just in time to avoid being caught in a melee with her.

Trickster rolled his shoulders, stretched his neck and adjusted his hat.

“Don’t waste time,” Grue growled.  “Do it.”

“Times like this call for a certain flourish,” Trickster said.  Trickster withdrew a small remote from his pocket and depressed the button.

The rooftops the other two teams had been situated on virtually shattered with the explosions.  The bazooka rounds had also carried a small collection of plastic explosives.  Since Trickster’s team had only needed the sniper rifle, their case held a hell of a lot more.

Part five done.  Baiting the hook, reeling them in, then hitting them as hard as we could.

It wouldn’t stop them, of course.  The only ones that explosion might have hurt were Shatterbird and maybe Mannequin, if he’d survived Ballistic’s attack and slipped around through some other angle.  Ideal world, it would also slow down Siberian.  More realistically, I was hoping that they’d get pissed, and they’d get sloppy.

I chanced a quick look through the binoculars.  Crawler was stampeding towards the site of the explosion, Cherish was still prone on the ground, bleeding out from Trickster’s sniper fire, and I couldn’t make out the others.

Wait, no.  I could see rubble shifting as Siberian shrugged it aside.  It was enough debris that Crawler would have been hampered, but even with her hands tied up in holding her teammates, she cast the chunks of concrete and brick aside with the same sort of ease that I might walk through a pile of balloons.  She shook her head, and her hair fanned out behind her, draping partially over Bonesaw, who was riding her piggy-back.

Jack wasn’t folded over her shoulder anymore.  He was standing, holding her hand, a wide smile spread across his face.  He said something, some exclamation, without dropping his grin for a second.

And Shatterbird?  I looked through the rubble that had been cast over the street around the building.  She was lying on the ground, struggling to her feet.  The glints of glass shards sparkled for a hundred feet around her.  I quickly tossed my binoculars aside.  They’d be a liability if she attacked us, now.

Here was the gamble.  We’d hurt them, injured their pride, we’d maybe killed Mannequin and we’d incapacitated Cherish.  If Ballistic had been on the ball, he would have blown Cherish to smithereens.  As it was, a stray bullet wouldn’t cut it.  Bonesaw’s known talents included the ability to raise the dead.

Grue used his darkness to form a dozen false-images of shadow-shrouded silhouettes on nearby rooftops.  I did the same with my bugs, but mine were animated, moving.

We’d have to run pretty damn soon.  There were seven of us, but only two dogs.  It was less than ideal.  I’d tried to get Bitch to bring another dog, but she didn’t feel any of the others were trained well enough to bear riders.

The remaining members of the Nine charged, Shatterbird rising from her position to fly straight for us, barriers of glass surrounding her.  Siberian carried Jack and Bonesaw with leaping bounds, while Crawler headed for us.

I crossed my fingers, watching intently.

Two ways this could go for the final phase of our plan.

Well, three ways.  But I was hoping the third possibility -my team getting caught and slaughtered- wouldn’t happen.

The first way this could play out was that Shatterbird’s flight over the buildings would make her faster than Crawler or Siberian, who had to climb or circumvent the obstacles.

When I’d brought this up during the meeting, assuming it would happen, it had been Tattletale who pointed out that I was maybe underestimating how fast Crawler and Siberian could be.  She was right.  Despite her ability to fly, Shatterbird was falling behind.

Which meant we went with plan B.

“You up for this, Grue?” I asked, “I could do it.  My plan, and I was first to volunteer.”

“No, you can’t run fast enough with those burns.” Grue replied, as he hurried to the side of the rooftop furthest from the Nine.  He glanced down. “Trickster, I’m ready!”

“Just need an opportunity,” Trickster said, watching the incoming members of the Slaughterhouse Nine.  They were closing a little too fast for comfort.  Sirius had arrived, and we were all getting saddled.  Bitch, Sundancer and I on Bentley, and Regent, Trickster and Ballistic on Sirius.  At Regent’s orders, Sirius moved to Grue’s side.

“Sooner than later!” Grue said.

“Do you want to die?” Trickster asked.

“No, but I’m willing to break something!”

“Your call,” Trickster said.  “Three, two, one!”

Grue leaped from the edge of the roof.  In that same instant, Trickster swapped him with Shatterbird.

She tumbled for a second, got a grip with her flight, and then steadied.

Then Regent hit her with his power.  Shatterbird flew into the corner of the roof, was thrown off-balance and tipped into the gap between buildings.

And Grue?  I cast a glance backward.  He’d dropped out of the air where Shatterbird had been flying, landing on a rooftop a distance below.  I could see him struggling to his feet.

“Go, go!”  Trickster screamed the words.

Our mounts leaped down into the same gap where Shatterbird had fallen.  We made the usual zig-zagging descent down, leaping from wall to wall, and landed on either side of Shatterbird and Genesis.

Genesis looked like a cartoon caricature of a sumo wrestler, grotesquely obese and yellow skinned with eyes like black buttons.  She was hairless, unclothed and sexless, and her skin was translucent and oily.  Through the skin, I could make out the vague figure of Shatterbird, pounding on the walls of the stomach, her mouth opening in a scream that didn’t reach us.  Glass shards were stirring around her, a blender whir cutting at the insides of Genesis’s belly.

“She’s going to cut through,” I said.  “Bitch, Regent, get the chains.  I’ll try to stop her.”

Using my bugs, I formed words against the surface of Genesis’s belly.  ‘Stop’.

Shatterbird only intensified her attempts.

I gathered some black widow spiders and pressed them gently against the shiny, translucent skin.  They were absorbed, drifting inside, and were soon crawling around the inside surface.  Genesis obliged me by opening her mouth, giving me a direct route for the bugs to travel.

“Hurry,” Regent said.  He was winding the chain around the jello-like yellow hand.  Fingerless hands gripped the chain for further traction.

Shatterbird noticed the spiders.  Her eyes widened as the volume of deadly spiders trapped in the bubble with her increased.  I raked my finger beneath the message I’d drawn with the bugs, as if to underline it.  ‘Stop’.

She did.  Glass shards fell into a pool around her feet.

“Go!”  I shouted.

We ran, the two dogs side by side, pulling Genesis behind us like a chariot.

Drawing my bugs together, I covered us as best as I was able, creating other decoys, vague chariot-shaped lumps here and there, huddles of figures.

It would all be for nothing if they returned to Cherish, revived the girl and tracked us down.

“Left!” I ordered.

Bitch steered left.  Regent hadn’t heard, but as the tension on the chains pulled Sirius to one side, he caught on and turned as well.

My bugs served as a navigation system, feeling out the shapes of our surroundings so I could work out a suitable path.  We charged onward, with me giving occasional directions, until we found Cherish lying on the ground in a pool of blood.

“Get her!”

Bitch rode just to Cherish’s left, Regent rode just to the right, and Genesis rolled right over the girl.  Cherish caught like glue, suffered an unfortunate few seconds of being dragged over the road’s surface, and was then drawn into Genesis’ bubble of a body.

My bugs gave me a sense of the Nine’s locations, and my decoys gave them pause once or twice.  We could track them more easily than they could do the reverse, and we were soon far enough away that I couldn’t sense them.

■

We only slowed when we got to Coil’s underground base.  We parked the dogs and then headed for the series of barred and locked doors.  I glanced at Shatterbird and Cherish where they knelt in Genesis’ rotund body.  We weren’t really giving away information here. Crawler had apparently come this way, not so long ago.

It was a fifty-fifty chance whether Siberian and the other Nine would come this way.  Cherish wasn’t around to give them information, but she might have provided details at an earlier point that Jack or one of the others could use to connect the dots.  We’d cross that bridge when we got to it.

Coil was there to greet us with a Tattletale and a contingent of armed soldiers.  We waited patiently as one of the soldiers scanned Shatterbird with a plastic wand.  He looked at Coil and shook his head.

“This way,” Coil ordered.

How did he set this up so fast?

Shatterbird’s cell was large, twenty feet by twenty feet across, and the walls had the same textured black rubber soundproofing as the sound recording booths I’d seen in movies and on TV.  I couldn’t see the speakers, but there was a noise similar to radio static filling the room, so loud I wouldn’t be able to hear if someone spoke.

With our weapons trained on Shatterbird, we stood by while one of Coil’s soldiers reached into Genesis’s stomach and hauled her out.  She was chained to the ceiling with her arms stretched out to her sides, then divested of her costume, left only with a silk camisole and slip.  Coil’s people wheeled in an x-ray machine and a tank of containment foam.

Shatterbird glared wordlessly at us until we’d exited the room and the heavy vault door blocked our view of her.

“She will be cavity searched and x-rayed to identify any hidden weapon or any devices Bonesaw or Mannequin might have implanted in her,” Coil spoke, after the doors were closed and the white noise was blocked out.  “Regent, we have a protective suit waiting for you.  In the event that she does acquire something she can use her powers on, or if she has concealed anything on her person that is small enough to avoid radiographic detection, the suit will shield you until you’ve finished.”

Regent nodded.

“She was bitten by brown recluses,” I said.  “I’d give her a full physical examination every thirty minutes, to be safe.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know standard treatment for bites of that kind,” Coil said.

Brooks stepped out of the crowd of nearby soldiers.  “Sir?”

“Brooks.”

“I’m familiar with the treatment for the more dangerous spider bites,” he looked at me, “It’s a protein-based venom?”

So the jerk is useful sometimes.  I hadn’t liked Brooks since Lisa had introduced me to him, but I could respect someone who knew his job.  “Yeah.”

“Seems I can leave it to you, then,” Coil said.  Brooks nodded.  Coil added, “Failing everything else, it might serve as incentive to cooperate.”

“Or cause to get desperate,” Tattletale said.  “She might do something stupid if she thinks she’ll die or suffer lifelong effects if she doesn’t get back to Bonesaw.”

“Let’s not give her the opportunity.  Regent, how fast can you seize control?”

“A few hours.”

“Start now.”

Regent headed off to get changed.

“That leaves our unexpected guest,” Coil said.  “Cherish.”

Regent hadn’t yet escaped earshot.  He turned back to us.  “She’ll have a trap on her.  Small explosive looped around her neck with a lock and a deadman’s switch.”

“Thank you,” Coil said.  “Tattletale?  See to it at the first opportunity.”

“Not a problem.”

We approached Cherish and Genesis. Cherish knelt in the small pile of glass shards that sat at the very bottom of the bubble.  Her hands were pressed against the inside of the stomach, causing it to bulge like a small child in a womb.  She was awake, but bleeding severely.

Coil gave the order, “If anyone acts out of character, take them out of action as swiftly as possible and shoot the girl.”

There were nods all around.

Cherish’s mouth moved, but the sound didn’t reach us.

“I did not expect her, and I did not take measures for containing her,” Coil said.  “Keeping her on the premises may prove exceptionally dangerous.”

“The alternative being?” Trickster asked.  “Letting her go?”

“In the euphemistic sense.  Her value as a captive is minimal and we have no way to secure her until Regent can finish using his ability on her.”

“He’s resistant to her power,” Tattletale said, “But that goes both ways.  Don’t know how well he’d be able to control her.  She might break free.  Benefits of being family, I guess.”

“Then I would suggest, as Trickster said earlier, ‘letting her go’.  We execute her and remove her from the equation,”  Coil stated.

I looked at Cherish, and her eyes narrowed.  She knew exactly what we were saying.  Killing someone in cold blood?  A little different than killing someone on the battlefield.

“Not giving you the go ahead,” I said.  “But I’m not about to stop you.  I’m washing my hands of this.”

“The intent was to remove individuals from the Nine before they could conduct their round of tests, yes?  This seems to be the most expedient route.”

“Not disagreeing,” I said.  “But I didn’t sign up to be an executioner.  I manage my district and I help defend your city from outsiders, right?”

“Quite right.  No, I think your service this morning has been exemplary.”

I only barely managed to avoid bringing up the deal about Dinah.  No, it was premature, the wrong people were listening, and I was worried he would point out the fact that my territory had been torched by Burnscar.

Best to keep quiet for now.  Rebuild, re-establish myself as leader of my territory, then raise the topic.

Whatever happened, I needed his respect.

We turned our attention to our captive.  She had raised her hands above her head in a surrender position, despite the hole in her shoulder.

“Do we risk it?” Trickster asked.  “Letting her out?”

“Nothing she can’t do outside the bubble that she couldn’t do inside,” Tattletale replied.  Coil nodded, and that seemed to be signal enough.

Genesis began to dissolve, and in moments, Cherish spilled out, wincing as she cut her hands and knees on the glass that Shatterbird had detached from her costume and weaponized.

Tattletale bent down and looked at the device that hung around Cherish’s neck.  “Small explosive, combination lock.  A bit paranoid?”

“No such thing as too paranoid,” Cherish said, glaring.  “Between my brother and the crap that Bonesaw and the rest of the team want to subject me to, knowing I’ll die if I leave that thing alone long enough actually helps me sleep at night.”

“Can’t have that,” Tattletale said.  Changing the topic, she asked, “You like computers?”

“Computers?” Cherish startled.  She seemed to intuit what Tattletale was doing.  “Not saying.”

“Clever girl, but even that’s enough of a clue.  Let’s see… four, five, four five.”  Tattletale tugged on the lock.  “Nope.  Three, seven, three, seven.”

The lock popped open.  Cherish’s eyes opened wide.

“There goes your bargaining chip.”

“I’ve got more,” Cherish said, her chin rising a fraction.

“Do tell,” Coil said, dryly.

“Certain teammate of yours paid me a visit.  Imp, I think her name was?  So hard to remember.”

“What did you do to Imp?” I asked.  Grue is going to freak out.

Cherish smiled, “She decided to help me get back at the Nine.  They’re planning on inflicting a fate worse than death on me, you see.  There was a reason I pretended not to notice you were all waiting in ambush.  Thought maybe the brat passed on word somehow, until you used that sucker-teleport on me and shot me.  Suppose you’ll have to give me medical attention and keep me alive if you want the rest of the story.”

“And your other bargaining chip?” Trickster asked.

“Grue.  I can sense him with my power.  I can also sense my team.  They got their hands on darkness boy.”

I swear my heart stuttered mid-beat.

Cherish smiled, but her glare didn’t fade in intensity.  “My teammates and I already talked on the subject of Jean Paul, aka Hijack, aka Alec, aka Regent…  You got Shatter, and you got me.  We’re compromised.  No way they’re going to accept us back with open arms.  They’d kill us first.  So no, don’t get your hopes up.  My teammates aren’t going to agree to a hostage exchange.”

Last Chapter                                                                                                Next Chapter

Snare 13.5

Last Chapter                                                                                                Next Chapter

Bentley had been turned on his back, and Sirius had one side of Bentley’s ribs in his jaws, pulling. Bitch was holding the other side, tugging on it with her entire body in an effort to pull it apart.  Bastard was chained to a streetlight, lying on the ground with his chin on his front paws.  He had shrunk from the size he was before.

She’s alive.  After Bitch had gone incommunicado, I’d worried Burnscar had gotten ahold of her.

The flesh of the bulldog’s monstrous form was decaying, sloughing off and putrefying into a liquid slop over the span of seconds.  As the tissues connecting the bones disintegrated, they became loose, bending in place.  Bitch was trying to get the ribcage apart before the remainder of the flesh collapsed in on the dog’s real body.

“Found her,” I spoke into my phone as I hurried towards her, my rain boots splashing.  “Yeah.  Contact the others about meeting.”

The pain in my legs made me gasp if I stretched my foot out the wrong way, and each gasp only triggered the pain in my ribs.  The air was heated, though there were no fires in the immediate area.  The hot, smoke-filled air combined with the pain in my ribs to punish even my shallower breaths.

“The fuck are you doing here?”  Bitch asked.

I drew my knife and held it by the blade, extending the handle towards her.  “Helping.”

She didn’t respond, but she took the knife and climbed partway into Bentley’s body to start cutting him out of the protective sac.  I stepped in and used my shoulder to help leverage the ribcage open.  My legs screamed with the strain, but I could deal with the pain.  It would be better to suffer some pain than let Bitch get crushed inside Bentley’s chest cavity.

She climbed out with the bulldog draped over her arms, falling to her knees the second she was free.  She laid Bentley down on the ground.

“Is he okay?”

She checked.  “He’s breathing.”

“Good.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t act like you care.”

“I do care.”

“Fuck you.  You heard what that psycho whore said and now you think I like you.  I don’t.”

“I’m not thinking anything along those lines.”

“You’re probably already trying to figure out a way to use it against me.  Fucking hate people like you.  Manipulative, two faced-”

“Hey!” I shouted, cutting her off.  Sirius growled at me.

Bitch brandished my own knife, pointing it at me.  “Do you know how much fucking simpler my life gets if I get rid of you?”

“It doesn’t.  You might get the Nine off your case for a few days, but you’d be facing every test after that all on your own.  Believe it or not, I’m on your side.  I want to help you through this mess.”

“Don’t bother.  Go, leave.”  The knife didn’t waver.

“I’m not going anywhere unless you’re coming with me.”

“Getting cocky because you think I can’t cut you.  Don’t forget that you can be chewed.”

I gave Sirius a glance, making sure to keep my head still so I didn’t give off any sign of hesitation or doubt.

“If you were going to hurt me, you would’ve done it while Burnscar was threatening you.”

“I don’t like being told what to do, so no, I wouldn’t have.”

I doubt that, I thought.  You don’t like being told what to do by a stranger, maybe, but I’d bet you could be happy if you had a stable environment and consistent leadership.  “If you carry out their tests and join them, they’ll be telling you what to do for the rest of your life.”

“I don’t care about the test!” she shouted.  I could see Sirius tense, ready to attack.  “I just want to be left alone!”

“I know the feeling.”

“You don’t know anything!”

“Screw that!”  I jabbed a finger in her direction.  “Maybe my life hasn’t sucked as much as yours did, but I’ve been there!  I’ve been hounded every fucking day by people who only wanted to make me miserable!  Every day, getting so tense that I’d feel like throwing up in the shower before leaving for school, and I’d have headaches before noon!  I spent weeks hiding in the bathroom during lunch breaks because they wouldn’t fucking ease up on me!”

“Boo hoo.  I could tell you what I put up with.”

I shook my head, and took a deep breath.  I forced myself to calm down before I spoke.  “I’m not interested in a pissing contest, Rachel.”

“Because you’d lose.”  She poked the knife in my direction, as if to punctuate her statement.

“Because this isn’t a competition, and yeah, I’d lose.  I’m trying to tell you that we’re not that different.”

She scoffed.

God, my legs and feet hurt.  My ribs weren’t exactly sunshine and rainbows either.  I felt like I had to do something to distract myself.  If it hadn’t been my legs that hurt, I would have wanted to pace back and forth, or run, or something.  I tried to focus on Bitch.  “Fine.  Don’t believe me.  Here’s the nitty-gritty facts, then.  You’re a member of our team.  We need you, and whether you like it or not, you need us.”

She scowled.  “I-”

“Don’t say you don’t.  Don’t say you could manage on your own.  You’ve seen these guys, and you’re not stupid.”

She looked down at Bentley, putting one hand in front of his snout, as if to check he was still breathing.  “All you’re spewing out of your mouth-hole are words.  You only want to help yourself.”

I wished there was something I could have hit, something I could have thrown.  I settled for an enraged groan.  “What’s it going to take to convince you!?  Why can’t you understand that I can and have put myself in harm’s way for you?  That despite all the shit between us and everything we’ve gone through, you’re my friend?”

“You are not my friend,” she didn’t look up at me as she uttered the words.

“Fine!  I’ve accepted that.  But you’re my friend, even if I don’t like you half the time.  You’re my teammate.  We’re similar.  The only difference is that you went through your shit years ago, and I just got through dealing with mine a few weeks after I joined this team.  We’ve traveled down the same paths.  Whether you like it or not, we’re kindred spirits.  We both struggle with the social-”  I trailed off.

Bitch had reacted to something I’d said towards the end there, flinched, almost.

I sighed.  This isn’t accomplishing anything.  I looked at my territory.  The plumes of smoke had turned the sky a gray-black in color, some of which glowed faintly orange with the reflected light of the fires.  The occasional spark floated through the air from one of the fires that burned around a nearby corner.

She broke the lingering silence, “Coil told me that people would leave me alone if I got powerful enough.  If I had allies, if I had money, if I scared my enemies enough.”

“When was this?”

“Before I joined the Undersiders.  He didn’t tell me who he was.  Left me a phone with some cash, then called me a while later.  Fucking words that sounded good.  Learned my lesson.”

She’d spent years on her own, on the streets with only the company of her dogs, running any time a cop or cape came after her.  I itched to ask her if she’d suddenly had an increase in the amount of trouble she faced before she came to Brockton Bay.  Trouble that could be precipitated by a certain ambitious supervillain?

No, it wasn’t the time.

“You know that joining the Nine would get you the opposite of that.  It wouldn’t be the kind of power that gets you left alone.  It would be a life of being constantly chased, always in the company of people who are ten times as manipulative and two-faced as you think I am.”

“I know,” she spat.

She picked up Bentley, then adjusted her grip to touch his nose with one hand.

Whatever.  Down to brass tacks.  I gave her a second to cool down, then spoke, “They killed your dog, hurt Bentley, killed my people and torched my territory.  I want to take these fuckers down, no holds barred, and we’re going to need your help if we want to pull it off.  Screw going on the defensive, I-”

“You had me at no holds barred,” she growled, rising from her crouch.

I didn’t dare to open my mouth, not with the risk of angering her and changing her mind.  I nodded instead.

Together, we limped back to my lair.  Every step I took was a chore.  Where Grue and I had supported each other, Bitch didn’t offer me anything.  It bothered me a little; we could have ridden Sirius if we’d cooperated to help each other onto his back, but that wasn’t apparently in the cards.

My bugs found Genesis a few blocks away.  Or, rather, they found something that approximated a blend between a slug and a rabbit.  My bugs identified two bulbous eyes, two tentacles or floppy ears and a body that hugged the ground.  The insects I had resting on the surface of the water could feel it flowing up and to the sides of the slug.  A small mouth jetted streams of it at the fires of a building near her.  I assumed it was Genesis.  Educated guess.

One of these days, I was going to run up against something strange and assume it was her, only to be unpleasantly surprised.

I drew words and symbols with the bugs.  Shortly after, the flow of the water stopped and the consistency of her body began to break down.  She was on her way back.

Charlotte had taken the kids away, so my lair was empty as we made our way inside.  Bitch assessed the area and then headed into the bathroom, going for the first aid kit.

“Want help?”

She glared at me.  Answer enough.

I headed upstairs and stripped my mannequin of the costume I’d largely completed.  Then I removed my rain boots and began the torturous process of peeling out of the costume I was wearing.  I’d put off investigating the damage in favor of finding Bitch sooner.

Removing my mask wasn’t a problem, but unstrapping my armor and getting my arms out of the sleeves made my ribs ache.  A fresh bruise had layered on top of the old one, black and purple over a purple-green.  I had to pause for a minute to catch my breath before I began on the legs.

I’d been wearing waterproof tights under my costume, and I cringed to think of the fact that I’d been wading in filthy water with the injuries exposed.  I got the first aid kit I’d brought down from my room and found a pair of tweezers.  Tatters of melted plastic from the leggings clung to the creases and edges of the burn.  Slowly, carefully, I worked my way down, removing the black fragments, digging in where necessary.  Every area I cleaned, I disinfected.  The largest burn covered my right heel, the top of my foot, and half of my calf, but the toes were okay.  The other marked the left ankle, heel and a patch small enough to cover with my hand on the shin.  There was less damage, but there was more melted spandex crusting it.  If I had second degree burns, it would be there.

The disinfectant virtually hissed as it touched my burns.  I applied it liberally, then got out the gauze and antibiotic cream.

It hurt as much as the lingering effects of Bakuda’s pain grenade, but there was also the knowledge that it would take forever to heal.  I wouldn’t be able to wear skin-tight leggings over the injured area.

Bastards.  This pain was nothing compared to what they’d subjected my people to.  How many people had lost parents, loved ones, friends?  Homes?  I couldn’t even complain to myself about the burn without feeling guilty.

Genesis was the first one to arrive upstairs, carried by one of her remotely controlled images, a crude rendering of a man who draped her in a chair and then faded as she woke.

“I couldn’t put out any of the major fires,” she said.  For someone who had just spent four fifths of the day sleeping, she looked exhausted.

“Thank you for trying.”  I took the wire cutters to the inside of my burned costume’s leggings.  Each squeeze got me only half an inch of cut material.

“What next?”

“I’ve outlined a basic plan with Grue.  He contacted the others.  They should be arriving shortly, and we’ll all discuss it together.  Tattletale doesn’t think Burnscar’s going to come back anytime soon, but I’ve laid out spider-silk tripwires over the area, just in case.”

“A plan?”

“Of attack.  It’s easier if we wait until everyone’s arrived before I get into it, so I’m not repeating it too many times.  Might even be smarter, if Cherish is looking in and trying to read my emotions to figure out what we’re doing.”

“Attack?”

“Being careful and being on the defensive isn’t getting us anywhere.”

“It’s keeping us alive.”

I shook out my costume and examined it.  Progress was too slow.  I put down the wire cutters and got the plastic lighter from my utility compartment.  I proceeded to burn through the material on the inside of the leggings, from the cut I’d made all the way to the crotch, then back down the other side, putting out any flame that lingered.  I was nearly done when I finally responded,  “I don’t think it is.  We’re still dying.  It’s just… slower.  Can you honestly tell me we’re going to survive another two confrontations like this?”

“So you want to be aggressive instead?  Suffer a fast death?”

“Yes to the first part, no to the second.  Look, they’re good because they’re experienced.  Jack has been doing this for years.  He knows the exact balance he needs to strike, to be unpredictable enough that we can’t plan against them, but clever enough that we can’t catch them off guard.”

“But you want to try.  To catch them off guard, I mean.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s suicide.  Like, what are the odds you’re going to make it through a third round?  If we have a fifty-fifty chance of dying in a given confrontation, that’s, what, a one in eight chance?”

“You’re better at math than I am.  Sure.  Except we’re not going to fight them head on.  Tell me, what are the limits on your abilities?”

“There really aren’t any.  If it makes sense, if it’s self-sustaining, with organs and an energy supply, it’s easier on me.  I don’t need to take up as much of the load with personal effort.  Bigger and denser forms are more taxing, too.”

“What about materials?  What can you use to put a body together?”

“I… don’t know.  I can control it, sorta, but my power chooses for me.  I visualize it as I use my power, I drift off, and I go into that sort of twilight state when you’re just barely almost asleep, and your mind wanders.  Anything I haven’t firmly put together in my head gets filled in with the stray thoughts and imagination.  I never put too much effort into the material, unless I wanted something like armor or stone skin.”

So ridiculously powerful.  If I had her power… damn it.

“And special abilities?  You can give them to your forms?”

“I have to visualize the mechanism, the organs or whatever that make it work.  I only have a limited time before I’m knocked out, so time I spend on that is time I’m not working on other stuff.  Like the form I was just using, you didn’t see it, but-”

“I saw it.”

“Right.  The bugs, right.  Well, I visualized the water suction system and the water gun, but because I didn’t focus on the body, it didn’t have arms or legs, and it was slow, and because it didn’t have vital organs, it drained me.”

“Okay.”  I held up my costume with the legs and feet reduced to tatters.  I turned my attention to a box behind my chair, tucked beneath a shelf of terrariums.  A small tide of roaches lifted it and carted it to me.  Inside were the scraps of fabric and mask left behind after Mannequin’s first retreat.  I hadn’t wanted to spare any material.

“Why are you asking?”

“Trying to assess the resources we have at our disposal.”

I heard a car door slam outside.  That would be either Grue or a collection of the others.

Genesis used her hands to shift her position in her seat.  I glanced at her legs.  They were thin.  Atrophy.  She’d been in a wheelchair for a while.  When I looked up, I saw she’d caught me looking.

“If you have a question, I’d rather you ask than keep wondering.”

I felt my face heat up, and quickly turned my attention to the fabric of my old costume.  I used the roaches to arrange a patchwork on the floor, using the tattered scraps.  My spiders crawled from the terrariums to begin connecting the pieces.  It didn’t have to be pretty.

“Really.  Ask.”

“Were you disabled because of your power?  A side effect, or something that happened in costume?”

She shook her head.  “I’ve been in a chair since I was four.  No, if anything, it’s the other way around.”

Other way around?  My first thought was trigger event.  The second was, maybe that idea about people being stronger if they get their powers at a younger age is true after all.

As I mentally categorized my musings, I felt them connect with a bunch of other thoughts.  Of the six Travelers, three were among the more powerful capes in Brockton Bay that I’d met.  In terms of sheer destructive effect, Sundancer and Ballistic were top-notch.  Genesis was top of the line in sheer utility and versatility, a combatant that could endlessly return to the battlefield with whatever form she wanted, provided that her real body was left unmolested.  Topping it off, Noelle was apparently so powerful she had to be kept in quarantine.  Trickster was impressive, if not quite in the same class as his teammates, and I had no idea what Oliver was all about, since he didn’t have powers, as far as I knew.

How had they come together?  If I ran with the theory that Genesis somehow had her trigger event at four and was more powerful as a result, did that mean the other powerful members of the group had done something similar?  If so, how were they connected?

Or was I thinking along the wrong lines?

My bugs counted the people who’d exited the car and were heading through the storm drain.  A group.

“The others are coming in.  Your team and Regent.”

She smiled a little, but it was almost a sad expression.  Resigned.

Back when I’d first talked with Sundancer, I could remember asking her about her experience with the Travelers.  What was it she’d said?  Intense, violent, lonely.  Lonely despite the fact that they were constantly in each other’s company.  I couldn’t exactly remember what Sundancer’s explanation for that loneliness had been.  It had been vague, hadn’t it?

Seeing Genesis’s expression, I suspected Sundancer wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

The others made their way upstairs, followed by Bitch.  They gathered around my room, all standing.  I moved to stand, myself, but Trickster gestured for me to stay seated.

“You okay?” Regent asked.

“Alive.  Hurts like hell.”

Through my swarm-sense, I felt a truck park outside.  Grue let himself in through the front door.

Before long, all were present.  Grue dialed Tattletale and put the phone on speaker.

“Yo,” her voice came through.  “Me and Coil here.”

“Skitter wants to attack the Nine, remove a tester before they get their turn.”

Trickster whistled.  “Risky.”

“Look at it this way,” I said.  “Um.  How many police forces and superteams have tried to beat the Nine?  How many divisions of the Protectorate or alliances of cape teams have tried to beat them?”

“Lots,” Trickster said.

“Too many to count.  The Nine play things like my team does on good days.  They pick their fights, avoiding confrontations or disappearing when they aren’t certain they can win.  When they do fight, they hit where it hurts.  We do that.  Look at what Regent did to Shadow Stalker, what I did to Lung on both occasions.  And they terrorize their victims.  We do the same thing, unintentionally or not.  Grue is scary with the darkness, Bitch’s dogs make people shit themselves.  Me?  Everyone’s at least a little creeped out by bugs.  Tattletale and Regent are unnerving in a whole different way.  The Nine are us on steroids.”

“That’s not a very flattering comparison.”  Grue folded his arms.

“No.  But I think it’s on target, and I don’t think it’s a total coincidence that they wound up considering two members of our group for the Nine, Cherish’s motivations aside.  So let’s avoid playing things like Jack wants us to, let’s not do things the way better heroes have tried and failed.  We play this like they play this.  Unpredictable, calculated recklessness, we don’t get caught up in a fight, and we think through every part of the plan.”

Grue shook his head a little, as if in response to some thought that crossed his mind.

“You will have my assistance,” Coil said, “Jack Slash needs to die, and you’ll have access to all of my resources should you move forward.”

“Alright.  Thanks.  Bitch is on board, I think?”

Bitch nodded.

“Everyone needs to be willing to do this if we’re going to move forward.  I’m not just talking about attacking these guys.  Sundancer, Ballistic, you guys have been holding back for a long time.  I know it’s asking a hell of a lot, but… are you guys prepared to kill?”

Silence hung in the air for a few long seconds.

“Yeah,” Ballistic said.  “If it’s monsters like that?  I think I could.”

Sundancer hesitated.  She hugged her arms against her body, lips pursed.

“Mars,” Trickster said, his voice quiet, “You’ve killed before.”

“Accidentally.”

I thought back to her hesitation to use her power, back when we’d fought Oni Lee and Lung together.

“These guys aren’t bystanders, they’re not people,” Ballistic said.  “They don’t even resemble people.  They’re freaks, monsters.  The worst this planet has to offer.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“By killing them, you’re saving dozens, even hundreds of people,” I said.

“It’s not that simple!”

“It really is,” I replied.  “I don’t think we need an answer now, but you need to let us know before we begin.”

“What else do you need?” Lisa asked, through the phone.

“We can’t do anything until you find them.  I know the local technology is down, but-”

“But the local police and capes brought in emergency communications, just like Coil did for us.  I’ve been listening in on the radio transmissions.  Narrowing it down.  I could pull an all-nighter, listen in, and figure it out.”

“That’s as good an excuse as any,” Grue said.  “If I’m going to help with this, I need to know that you’re on the ball.  I don’t do this unless everyone that’s going to be on the battlefield gets six hours of sleep before we begin.  By that time, Tattletale will have a location.”  He faced me square on as he said it.

“I don’t have normal sleep patterns,” Genesis replied, “In fact, I need to be awake to recharge.”

“Exceptions allowed, of course,” Grue said, without turning away from me.

Six hours of sleep, with everything I had on my conscience?

“Sure,” I lied.  “But we attack first thing in the morning, or as soon as Tattletale pins them down.”

“First chance,” he agreed.

“Is there any possibility that we could deploy Noelle?”  I asked Trickster.

“No,” Trickster said.

“If she’s as powerful as you say-”

“If Noelle used her power in this battle you’re talking about, everyone loses.”

The Travelers were way, way too fond of that line.

“Then, Coil, what kind of munitions do you have?”

“Most.  I can provide virtually anything, given time, but for tomorrow morning?  Well, tell me what you need.”

“I’m thinking explosives.  How much can you provide?”

“Hold on,” Lisa cut in.  “You’re talking about Ballistic and Sundancer using their powers without limits, you want to use Noelle, now explosives?”

“And I’m talking about me using black widows, brown recluses and every nasty bug I have at my disposal.  I’m talking about us packing guns and grenades.  All of us.  No holds barred.”

Trickster rubbed his chin.  “Okay.  They broke the unspoken rules between capes, so there’s no reason to actually follow those rules.  Sure.  But do you actually have a plan?”

“Yes,” I replied.  “Keep in mind that this could change pretty dramatically depending on where we find them and what they’re up to when we run into them.”

There were some nods from the others around the room.  My bugs had finished connecting the tattered pieces of fabric.  It wasn’t pretty, but a few tugs to test it showed it was as sturdy as anything I’d made.  I draped it over my lap.  Until my legs healed, I’d be wearing my new costume for my upper body, with the tattered cloth as a skirt to protect my burned legs.

Then I told them what we’d be trying to do.

Last Chapter                                                                                                Next Chapter

Snare 13.1

Last Chapter                                                                                                Next Chapter

Brian was waiting for me as I passed through the door and into Coil’s underground base.  He held a paper out to me.

Sirs and Madams,

The terms of engagement are as follows:
1.  Three days to each member of the Slaughterhouse Nine so we can conduct our tests.  Tests will be performed one after the other, with eight rounds in total.
2.  A successful test or the removal of a candidate who has failed a test will earn the tester bonus time.  3-12 hours for a successful test depending on the number of candidates remaining and 24 hours for an execution.
3.  Should a tester suffer a sound defeat at the hands of any individual during their allotted time, they will be penalized one day of allotted time.
4.  Each tester operates independently, with no hands-on assistance from other members of the Slaughterhouse Nine.  Assistance may be bought, bartered or otherwise rendered in a hands-off manner, possibly including medical assistance, information, provided equipment and suggestions.
5.  Candidates may receive assistance, hands-on or otherwise, from Brockton Bay residents only.  We are fully aware that Legend and his teammates are in Brockton Bay.  Should they interfere with a tester, all candidates will lose the protection of any rules, all terms offered here will cease and the threat implied in point eight will be carried out.  This only applies to confrontations with the active tester.
6.  The Slaughterhouse Nine will handle the punishment of any members of their own team, in the event of failures, the inability of the tester to perform at least a partial round of testing or killing a candidate without notification.
7.  Should the defending parties have two or more candidates remaining when the eighth round of testing concludes, the Slaughterhouse Nine will depart Brockton Bay without incident and refrain from returning for three years at a minimum.
8.  If and when the Slaughterhouse Nine do eliminate five of the six candidates, or if any candidates leave the city, the Slaughterhouse Nine are prepared to penalize the city for their failure.

Mannequin is the first to carry out his round of testing.  He has two days remaining.

We will be in touch.

“Where is everyone?” I asked, handing the paper back to him.

He pointed down the hall.

“Christ,” Brian said, shaking his head as he walked, rereading the terms.  He opened the door for me.

Coil was inside, at the end of a long table.  The Undersiders sat at one side of the table, with Circus sitting at the farthest edge, beside Coil.  The Travellers, minus Noelle, sat along the other side.  I took note of the blond teenager who wasn’t even wearing part of a costume.  Oliver.  Coil was the opposite, as fully covered as ever.  Everyone else was costumed but they had their masks and helmets off.

I got my first good look at Lisa since I’d left her bleeding in Ballistic’s headquarters.  The scar ran from the corner of her mouth to the corner of her jaw, and dark stitches ran down the length of it.  The slang term for this kind of injury was a Glasgow smile or a Chelsea smile, but the term seemed ill-fitting.  Where Lisa often had a grin on her face, the cut pulled the corner of her mouth down into a perpetual lopsided-frown rather than a smile.

Bitch gave me a dark look as I entered, but many of the others were smiling.

“The people in my territory are singing your praises, Skitter,” Ballistic said.

“My territory too,” Alec added.

“I didn’t do anything that special.  My power did the work.”

“And you kicked Mannequin’s ass,” Trickster said.  He leaned back in his chair, balancing on two of the legs, his feet on the table.  “You had a busy night.”

“Honestly, I didn’t kick his ass.  He got some of my people, he thrashed me, I got a piece of him.”

“No,” Lisa said, her voice quiet.  She couldn’t really move one corner of her mouth when talking, so her words came out slightly slurred.

I saw her work her tongue in her mouth and then take a sip of water, wincing.  Brian had updated me: the cut had probably damaged one or more of her salivary glands, and she’d have dry mouth until it healed.  Maybe forever.  The really scary part was that she might have suffered some nerve damage as well.  How much of that half-frown was because of the direction of the cut and the way the stitches pulled, and how much was because her nerves were damaged enough that her face was drooping?

She caught me looking and gave me a wink.  She took another gulp of water and cleared her throat before speaking again.  “They took one day from Mannequin because they thought he lost.”

“If the enemy thinks they lost,” Brian said, “That’s a good enough reason to think you’ve won.”

I privately disagreed, but I didn’t say anything.  I pulled up a chair and sat at the corner of the table furthest from Coil, wincing at the pain in my ribs as I bent down.

“So,” Brian said, “You intend for something like this to happen when you made your suggestion, Tattletale?”

Lisa shrugged, “Sorta.  Thought he’d take the bait, didn’t know how far.”

“It’s not all advantageous,” I said, thinking aloud.  “Yes, we’re now in a position where we could win, with some planning or luck, and the plan we were hashing out at our last meeting might be easier, now.  But we’re also facing pretty heavy consequences if we fail… heavier consequences.  And there’s a lot of places where this could go wrong.  We don’t even know who all the candidates are.”

“Me, Bitch, Armsmaster, Noelle, probably Hookwolf and someone in Faultline’s crew?”  Alec said.

“No.  Jack said they picked two heroes.  Hookwolf, yes.  But their last pick is a hero, not one of Faultline’s,” Lisa said.

“And we can’t say for sure who this person is or what actions they plan to take,” I said.  “Too much hinges on everyone else’s willingness to cooperate and play by the rules, and the stuff that happened at the last meeting of the city’s villains makes me skeptical.”

Brian nodded.  “It’s important that we find this person, make sure they play along, so we don’t wind up losing before this game of theirs even starts.”

“There’s other problems here,” I said, “We can’t forget what Dinah said about Jack.  If he leaves town, it could mean disaster.  If we win, we could all lose in the long run, because it’d mean he left town and Dinah’s prophecy would come true.  Hell, a lot hinges on whether the Protectorate is on the same page as us.  If they arrest him and take him out of town…”

“It could mean the end of the world.”

“Right,” I said.

“Hookwolf has proposed an all-out attack,” Coil spoke for the first time since my arrival.  “He wants to gather the more powerful members of his alliance together into an army and attempt to overwhelm the Nine and kill Jack Slash in the chaos.”

“That won’t work.”  Brian shook his head.  “These guys specialize in dealing with crowds, and they’re experienced when it comes to that sort of thing.”

“Hookwolf believes our local capes are collectively strong enough to do what other groups couldn’t.”

“Maybe they are, but I wouldn’t bet on it.  We should be focused on what we can do,” Brian said.

“You guys are better set up for information gathering and escapes,” Trickster said.  “We could take them on, depending on who it is and how small the group is, but I don’t know how well we’d do in those circumstances.”

“We should mix up our teams, then,” Brian said.  “Just between us, we’ve got three candidates.  Noelle, Regent and Bitch.  Three targets.”

“Crawler couldn’t reach Noelle where we’ve got her stashed,” Trickster said, “I’m not sure what the others could do.”

“What about when Siberian comes after Noelle?” I asked.  “Will the same measures stop her?”

“Probably not,” Trickster replied.

“This would be a lot easier if you’d tell us more about her,” I pointed out.  “Unless you think she can hold her own against the Nine, we’re going to be helping protect her.”

Trickster frowned.  “There’s not much to say.  She’s in containment, and if she doesn’t stay where she is, things would get worse, fast.”

“So she’s dangerous, and she’s not entirely in control of her power?”

He tilted his chair forward until it was flat on the ground and set his elbows on the table, hands clasped in front of his mouth.  He glanced down the table at his teammates.  I wasn’t sure, but I thought maybe he glanced briefly at Coil.

With a resigned tone, he told us, “She’s dangerous enough that if Siberian got to her, I think she’d make it out okay.  The rest of us wouldn’t.”

The table was silent for a moment.  I could see something in the faces of the Travelers.  Pain?  It wasn’t physical, so perhaps it was emotional?  It could be fear, guilt, regret, or any number of other things.

Trickster’s words reminded me of what Sundancer had said back when she and I had fought Lung.  Sundancer had held back in using her power because she was frightened about hurting bystanders or killing the people she attacked.  Her power was too hard to use without hurting someone.  Ballistic was the same.  Was Noelle another case of the same thing?  That same too-powerful ability, only on a greater scale?

Brian sighed.  “We’ll deal with Noelle’s situation when it comes up.  We have three targets they’re going to be coming after, with a fourth if we consider that Mannequin’ll be after Skitter.  If we split into two groups, then we can maintain enough offensive power to defend ourselves against the ones like Mannequin, Burnscar, Jack or Shatterbird.”

Sundancer cut in, “Which makes me wonder…  Sorry if this is a crummy idea, but what if we waited for Jack’s turn, and then tried to kill him?”

“No guarantees there,” Brian answered her.  “I think we’ll have to be proactive in going after him.  Maybe we can use Hookwolf’s distraction, maybe he’ll get cocky and make a mistake.”

“Doubt it,” Tattletale said, “He’s lasted years doing what he does.”

I couldn’t help but nod in agreement.

“Besides, he goes last,” Tattletale finished.

“To get back to what you were saying, you were proposing dividing the teams?” Coil spoke.

“Yeah,” Brian said.  “Bitch has offensive power of her own.  Skitter does too.  If there’s no complaints, we could play this largely geographically.  Maybe me, Imp, Bitch and Skitter?  If you guys can put your differences aside?”

“No problem,” I said.

“Whatever,” Bitch answered, noncommital.

It was only when Brian mentioned Imp that I realized Aisha was present.  I’d almost missed her.  I wanted to believe that it was because she was sitting at the end of the table and there were four of my teammates between us, but I couldn’t be sure.  It would be damn nice if there was some sort of gradual immunity to her power.

“And maybe someone else who isn’t raw offense?  Circus?”  Brian suggested.

Coil spoke before Circus could reply.  “No.  I pulled her off of a task as a precautionary measure, as I had one aspect of my long-term plans derailed last night with Trainwreck’s demise at the Nine’s hands.  I would rather she did not fall to an unfortunate coincidence of the same nature.”

“What happened?”  Sundancer asked.

“They’ve eliminated the Merchants,” Coil said.

I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.  The Merchants were scum of the worst sort.  It wasn’t just that they polluted everything they touched and did some reprehensible things.  They reveled in it.  They wanted to be the lowest of the low.  On the other hand, it was a point for their side.  Seven or eight parahumans we no longer had to fight the Nine with.

“Also, I would prefer her involvement in my operation stay under wraps.  She can defend Noelle and myself for the time being.”

“Then Trickster?  Or Genesis?”  Brian asked.

“I would rather stay close to Noelle,” Trickster said.  “If Genesis is willing, that would be fine.”

“And that leaves Ballistic, Sundancer, Trickster, Noelle, Regent and Tattletale for the second group.  We stay together, we keep an eye on our territories to watch for trouble from Hookwolf’s contingent, and we keep an eye out for opportunity.  Tattletale?  You’re good watching the downtown areas?”

Lisa nodded.

“And Skitter has the sensory abilities to check areas of the Docks where the Undersiders have territory.”

“I’ll need to visit each area in turn.  Unless we have some people to pass on messages, and a means of communication.”

“I arranged a delivery,” Coil said.  “You’ll each be provided with a satellite phone before you leave, with mobile phones to use when the towers are in operation again.  It won’t be immediate, but I have shipments of new generators, appliances, laptops and other necessities on the way.  With the information Hookwolf has provided us about Shatterbird’s power, I think we could shield the most necessary pieces of equipment with soundproofing in case of a repeat incident.”

“My bugs did hear something just before the blast hit,” I said.  “Is her power ultrasonic?”

“Something like that.  Tattletale believes that Shatterbird’s power causes glass to resonate at a very particular frequency, where it generates that same resonation in other pieces of glass with the aid of her power, perpetuating the effect until it runs out of large pieces of glass to affect.”

“And,” Lisa said, “She probably has a reason for hitting the entire city like she does.”  She took another drink of water.  “Big pieces of glass help transmit the signal, maybe smaller shards help her in another way.  Probably helps or allows more delicate movements.”

“I’m not saying I’m not happy to be getting more concrete information on how they operate.  I just wish it was against the ones we don’t have any idea how to stop.  Like Crawler and Siberian,” I said.

“We use the same strategy we used to fight Aegis,” Brian said.  “When fighting an opponent who won’t go down, you run, you distract, you occupy them with other things, and you contain them to buy yourself time to do what you have to do.”

He was right.  It just wasn’t ideal.  Avoiding or containing them was easier said than done, for one thing, and it was less an answer than a stopgap measure.

“We’ve addressed the most pertinent crisis, then,” Coil said.  “Is there anything else?  Any ideas or requests?”

“I had an idea,” Aisha said.

“No,” Brian said.  “I know what you’re about to say, because we talked this over.  It’s a bad idea.”

“Let’s hear it,” Trickster spoke up, leaning forward.  Brian scowled, and Aisha smiled wickedly.

“The biggest threat from these guys is that they could strike at any time, from any direction.  So why don’t we spy on them?  We find out where they are, and then we keep tabs on their movements.  I can handle one shift, Genesis does the next.  They won’t notice me, and Genesis can stay concealed.”

“It’s far too risky,” Brian said.  “You joined this team so I could stop you from getting yourself killed.”

“It would be nice to know what they’re up to,” Trickster cut in.

“They won’t even know I’m there.”

“You think they won’t know you’re there,” Brian said.  “There’s a distinction there.  It’s important, and it could either lead to a minor advantage-”

“A huge advantage,” Aisha said.

“-Or it could lead to you being turned into a human test subject for whatever fucked up idea Bonesaw had recently,” Brian finished, ignoring her.

“No!  I got a power, and it’s a useful power.  Except you don’t want me to use it, because you think it’s going to stop working all of a sudden, or someone is going to see me-”

“Dragon saw you,” Brian said.  “And you’re only alive because she doesn’t kill people.”

Looking at Brian and Aisha, I knew this discussion would get worse before it got better.  I cut in before either of them said something regrettable.  “Imp.  It’s a good idea, but they do have a way of sensing you.  Cherish can sense emotions, and if Dragon is any indication, your power primarily works through sight, hearing and touch.  Like Grue’s.  She can probably find you and track you down.”

“We don’t know that,” Aisha said.

“It’s a pretty good educated guess, I think.  I know you want to be useful, but we can make more use of you if you’re with us, going up against someone like Mannequin or Shatterbird, who are far less likely to be able to see you.  Help us defend ourselves.”

“This sucks!”

“Imp,” Grue said, as he glanced at the others at the table and frowned, “We’re in the company of our employers and our peers.  Let’s stay professional and discuss this after.”

“Professional?  You asshole, you’re the one who’s refusing to use my talents because I’m your sister.  I’ve been on the team longer than Skitter was when you guys were robbing a bank and fighting the ABB.”

“You’re younger, and she’s more level-headed-”

“Enough,” Coil said.  It served to shut them both up.

For a few seconds, anyways.  Aisha scowled.  “Enough is right.  I’ll see you guys later.”

“Hey!”  Brian stood from his seat.

I think I wasn’t the only one to look up at him and wonder why.  He looked at us, similarly confused, and then sat down just as quickly as he’d stood.

Lisa looked pensive.  I nudged her and asked, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she replied.  Then she looked at Coil, “Hey, while you’re asking for suggestions, I have an idea?”

“Anything helps.”

“You think you could get your hands on some surveillance hardware?  Skitter’s working on some new costumes, and I was thinking we could have something like small cameras mounted on our masks or helmets.”

“I can inquire with my usual suppliers.  Why?”

“Well, we’ve got one teammate that’s sort of hard for the rest of you to keep track of, and I think it might help.  And if nobody objects, I’m kind of wanting to take a less hands-on approach from here on out.  I’ve batted a pretty low percentage as far as injuries over the last few months of action… Glory Girl, Bakuda, Leviathan, now this incident with Jack.  If I had a means of communication and the gear to give me some eyes on the scene, I think I could be more useful.”

Coil looked at Brian.

“I gave you a hard time about your having to take the same risks as the rest of us, back when you first joined, but I think you’ve done your share.  So long as you’re contributing,” Brian said.

Coil nodded. “I’ll see what we can prepare.”

Lisa smiled a little, using only the one side of her mouth.

■

Our canine mounts raced through the streets with impunity.  The glass that covered the roads, the lack of windows, windshields or working dashboards in the few cars that still ran all contributed to the glacial pace of traffic.  There was little for the dogs to watch out for, no moving vehicles and few bystanders.  Every stride the dog took made the bag I was carrying bang against my hip and made every injury I had explode with pain.  I clenched my teeth and endured it.  There weren’t many other options.  I could hardly complain to Bitch.

Bitch was well in the lead, and there was a kind of aggression to how she rode.  She pulled ahead, evading cars by only a couple of inches, forcing them to swerve, and she goaded Bentley faster with kicks and shouts.

We hadn’t raised the topic of Bitch and her nomination for the Nine.  I think the others hadn’t wanted to add tension and the possibility of argument or violence to the already complicated situation.  I know I hadn’t.  My last real interaction with Bitch was when we’d parted ways after the fight with Dragon.  I’d told her we were even, but there had been some anger and hurt feelings on both sides.  I was the last person she wanted to have grilling her.

Bitch made Bentley slow to a walk as she reached my territory.  It still took us a good thirty seconds to catch up.

Using my power, I signalled Sierra and Charlotte.  Grue, Bitch and I climbed down from our dogs and then led them forward.

“Mannequin slipped by you once,” Grue said.  “You going to be able to keep an eye out?”

“I had some ideas, but I’m running low on resources,” I said.  “Let me see what I can do.”

Genesis began to appear a short distance away, near Bitch.  A blurry, beige and yellow, vaguely human-shaped figure coalesced into being.  The shape then sharpened into features and alter in hue until there was the figure of a teenage girl, vaguely cartoonish.  By the time we reached her, she looked indistinguishable from a regular girl.  She had auburn hair, freckles, and thick glasses.  A small smile touched her face as she stretched her arms and legs.

“Everything good?” Grue asked her.

“Good enough.  I’m going to keep this shape until Coil’s people can deliver my real body.  Then I’ll need to recuperate some.”

“Sure.”

Bitch scowled at me.  Bastard, her puppy, stood beside her.  He had received the brunt of her power, and looked roughly as large as an adult great dane.  The features were different from her usual dogs.  The spikes had more symmetry to their arrangement, and the muscles looked less like tangles.  It tugged briefly on the chain that led from her hand to its collar, and she pulled back sharply.  It didn’t pull again, though it was easily powerful enough to knock her over.

My people met us as we entered the neighborhoods where my lair and the barracks we’d set up were.  Sierra and Charlotte were in the lead, the three ex-ABB members behind them.  The O’Daly clan stood at more of a distance, all either members of the family, friends or romantic partners.  Other, smaller families filled in the gaps.  My ‘gang’ numbered nearly fifty people in total.

“Holy crap,” Genesis said.

“It’s why we wanted to set up base here,”  Grue said.  “Skitter’s the most established of us.”

“I’ve been focusing on structural repairs and building when I’m not helping my teammates,” Genesis said.  “I don’t have many threats to get rid of, and it was the best way for me to be productive.  And meanwhile you’re further than I expected to get in half a year.”

I couldn’t bring myself to feel proud.  “I guess I’m motivated.”

Genesis whistled, looking around.  There were some looks of confusion as she strode forward into the crowd.  I suppose it was unusual for a teenage girl to be in the company of three known supervillains and a mass of monstrous dogs.

“Sierra,” I said.  “Status?”

“We’re nearly done with the second building.  There isn’t a lot of elbow room, so we’ve been cleaning up the road.”

“Good.  No trouble?”

“Not that I know of.”

I pulled the bag from over my shoulder and handed it to her.  “Distribute these to the people in charge of the various groups.  Work it out so you can pass on messages quickly, and get any necessary information to me asap.”

“Okay.”  She grunted as she took the bag.

“Genesis,” I spoke.  “You said you were doing some rebuilding?”

She slapped her stomach, “Made some mortar, just a matter of sticking stuff back where it’s supposed to be, if it’s obvious enough.”

“Want to see what you can do, before your body gets here?”

She nodded and headed off.  My minions rapidly backed away from her as she began dissolving.

“Charlotte?”

“Yes?”

“How set up is the building you guys were working on?”

“Mess is cleaned out, but we haven’t moved much in.”

“That should be fine.”

“We ready?” Grue asked.

I turned to face him and Bitch.  “Just about.  Bitch, there’s a space set aside that we can use for your dogs.  We’ll patrol through the various territories in an hour or so, stop by your territory and pick up some supplies for them, and you can bring your dogs here.”  I had to resist adding an ‘if that’s okay’.  Firmness would work best with her, even if it did carry the risk of provoking her.

“Fine.”

“Good,” Grue said.  “Let’s go rest and eat.  We can wait for Genesis and the other gear Coil’s dropping off.”

I had enough bugs nearby to start setting up my early warning system.  With the assistance of a horde of flying insects, I began guiding spiders through various points of my territory.  They drew out lines of silk across alleyways and doors, windows and rooftops.  I couldn’t spare the spiders, so I placed ants on each line.  They would feel it if there was a vibration, not as well as the spiders, but well enough.

Ten thousand tripwires for Mannequin to navigate past.

My expectation was for the lines to maybe give me an early warning of Mannequin’s approach, sometime in the coming hours, maybe in the dead of night.

I didn’t expect to find him in the span of a minute.  A figure on a nearby rooftop was striding through the webs and avoiding the bugs.

I stopped.  “Mannequin.”

Everyone else froze.  Even the dogs seemed to mime their master’s stillness.

But he was already leaving, moving with surprising swiftness as he pushed through another few lines of webbing at the edge of the roof furthest from us.  A second later he was on the ground, moving through an alleyway.

“We could go after him,” Grue asked.

“We couldn’t catch him, I don’t think,” I said, “And he may be trying to bait us into a trap.  Or maybe he wants to loop around while we give chase and kill my people.  Shit, I didn’t think he’d come so quickly.”

“We weren’t exactly inconspicuous.”

I frowned.

Mannequin was on guard for a trap, enough that he’d probably noticed the tripwire and decided to retreat.  Mannequin and I had an estimation of one another, now.  Neither of us wanted a direct confrontation.  Both of us would be wary of traps or trickery.  He was a tinker, he would have prepared something to ward against the tactic I had employed last time.  Topping it off, amassing people to please Coil had the unfortunate side effect of making me more vulnerable to Mannequin’s attacks.  He could hurt me without even getting close to me, the second I let my guard down and gave him an avenue for attack.

The only ambiguous advantage we had over him was that he was working with a time limit.  He needed to test Bitch and get revenge on me, in addition to dealing with all of the other candidates, and he had less than forty-eight hours to do it.

I wasn’t so sure that was a good thing.  It was beginning to dawn on me what we were in for.  Forty eight hours of being on the edge of our seats, unable to sleep deeply, constantly watching for attack from Mannequin or from Hookwolf’s contingent.

When we were done, we faced seventy-two hours of the same thing.  We’d be that much more tired, that much more likely to make a mistake.  Then we’d have to do it again.  And again, and again.  Eight rounds in total.  From my altercation with Mannequin, I knew we wouldn’t make it through even the first few encounters without some loss, some injury or casualty.  By the time the eighth round of testing rolled around, what kind of condition would we be in?  What condition would my territory be in?

I’d initially seen Tattletale’s deal with Jack as a good thing, a miniscule chance at success, with some drawbacks and negative points.

The more I dwelled on it, the more daunting it seemed.

“You okay?” Grue asked me.

“A little spooked,” I admitted.

He set a hand on my shoulder.  “We’ll make it.”

Speaking from the perspective of someone who had gone toe to toe with these guys, I wasn’t so convinced.

Last Chapter                                                                                                Next Chapter

Plague 12.2

Last Chapter                                                                                                Next Chapter

I’d spent nearly sixteen years in Brockton Bay, living a half-hour’s walk away from the ocean and I couldn’t remember ever being on a boat.  How sad was that?

I mean, I was sure I’d been on a boat before.  My parents had to have taken me on the ferry when I was a baby or toddler.  I just didn’t remember any of it.  My parents were introverts, by and large, and their idea of an outing had been more along the lines of a trip down the Boardwalk, a visit to the Market or going to an art gallery or museum.  Maybe once in a while we’d go to something more thrilling like a fair or baseball game, but no… this was the first time I could remember being out on the water.

It was exhilarating, the boat ride.  I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it.  I loved the feeling of the wind in my hair, the slight turbulence as the boat bounced on the short waves.  It wasn’t that different from how I had enjoyed riding Bitch’s dogs, and there was none of that primal, deep-seated worry that the hulking monster I was riding would turn around and snap my face off.  I’d almost think I had been destined to fly, based on how thoroughly I enjoyed myself, and that it was only bad luck that I’d gotten other powers instead… except I remembered flying with Laserdream as the Endbringer attacked, and  that hadn’t been the most enjoyable experience.  That might have been a special circumstance; I’d been dealing with the fact that I’d had a broken arm, I’d recently puked my guts out, I’d been soaking wet, and an Endbringer had been working on wiping my hometown and everyone I cared about from the face of the planet.

That day would almost feel like something that had happened in a dream, if I hadn’t spent every hour of every day since living in the aftermath.

Coil’s people had dropped us off along with two sleek motorboats, depositing them at the water’s edge.  Grue was in one boat with Bitch, her three dogs and a puppy she had on a long chain.

I wasn’t sure if the puppy conveyed the image we wanted, but with her attitude towards me lately, I wasn’t willing to comment and risk her going off on me.  She’d remained angry after I’d called her out on her screwing me over and setting me up for Dragon to arrest, but she’d left me more or less alone.

The puppy was cute.  It was skittish, especially around people, which seemed a little odd.  It wasn’t the kind of dog I’d expect Bitch to favor.  Too young, not vicious or intimidating in appearance.  On the other hand, skittish as it was, it had an aggressive streak.  It constantly hounded Bentley, nipping at his flanks, then spooking and running away the second the bulldog looked at him.  It had made for a fair amount of noise when we’d been getting the boats into the water.  One for Bitch, her dogs and Grue, one for the rest of our group.

Our boats weren’t out on the ocean.  We traveled through the area downtown where Leviathan had collapsed a section of the city.  It was now more or less an artificial lake.  The water was fairly still, lapping gently against the ruined roads and collapsed buildings that surrounded the crater, but with the speed these boats were capable of going, even waves a half-foot high made us ramp slightly off one and then crash down onto the next with a sudden spray.

Tattletale was at the back, steering the thing.  It seemed counter-intuitive, with the boat going the opposite direction she pushed or pulled the stick.  Still, she seemed competent at it.  Better than Grue, which I found slightly amusing.

From time to time, I was finding myself in a strange emotional state.  As I stayed alert for it, I was able to catch those moments, try to pick them apart for what they were.  The high-end motor whirred and the boat bounced over the waves, the wind and water getting in my hair, all while we headed into the most ridiculously dangerous and unpredictable situation we’d been in for weeks. It was one of those moments; I felt almost calm.

For a year and a half, I’d spent almost all of my time in a state of constant anxiety.  Anxiety about schoolwork, my teachers, my peers, my dad, my mom’s death, my body, my clothes, trying to hold conversations without embarrassing myself, and about the bullies and what they would do next.  Everything had been tainted by the constant worries and the fact that I’d constantly been preparing for the worst case scenarios and maybe even setting up self-fulfilling prophecies in the process.  I’d spent every waking moment immersed in it.  Either I was stressing over something I’d done or something that had happened, I was concerned with the now, or I was anxious over what came in the future: distant or near.  There was always something.

And that was before I’d ever put on a costume and found myself caught up in my double-crossing plan against the Undersiders and everything that had stemmed from that.  Before Dinah and running away from home, before I’d decided to go villain.  Stuff that made some of what I’d been worried over before seem trivial.

So why could I feel calm now?

I think it was that realization that there were moments where I was helpless to act, oddly enough.  This boat?  Speeding across the Endbringer-made lake?  I had to be here.  There was no other option, really.  As I clutched the metal rim of the boat with one hand while we soared forward, the wind in my hair, I could accept the fact that I couldn’t do anything in this time and place to get Dinah out of captivity sooner.

With that in mind, I surrendered myself of that responsibility for the present.  Much in that same way, I cast off all the other worries, great and small.

A light flashed ahead of us.  Three blinks, then two.

“Regent!” Tattletale called out.

Regent raised a flashlight and flashed it twice, paused, then flashed it twice again.

There was one flash in response.

Grue slowed his boat as we reached our destination.  Our meeting place was in the center of the lake, one of the buildings that still partially stood above water, leaning to one side so a corner of the roof was submerged, the opposite corner peaking high.  Tattletale didn’t slow our boat like Grue had his, and instead steered the boat in a wide ‘u’ to ride it up onto the corner of the roof.  Regent and I hopped out to grab the front of the boat and help pull it up.  When Grue rode his boat aground as well, a little more carefully, we helped him too.  Bitch hopped out and spent a moment using gestures and tugs on the puppy’s leash to get her dogs arranged and settled.

Hookwolf and his Chosen had situated themselves at the corner of the roof that stood highest from the surrounding water.  Hookwolf stood with his arms folded, densely covered in bristling spikes, barbs, blades and hooks, only his face untouched by the treatment, covered by his metal wolf mask instead.  Othala, Victor and Cricket were sitting on the raised edge of the roof behind him.  Stormtiger floated in the air just beside Cricket, and Rune had levitated three chunks of pavement into the air behind the group, each the size of a fire truck, like weapons poised at the ready.  She sat on the edge of one of the chunks, her feet dangling over Victor’s head.  Menja stood just behind Rune on the floating piece of shattered road, twelve feet tall, fully garbed in her valkyrie armor, a shield in one hand and a long spear in the other.

I almost missed it in the gloom, but when I did spot it, it was almost impossible to ignore.  On every patch of skin I could see in the Chosen’s group, scars and scratches had just barely healed over.  There were still faint indents and lines of pale skin that marked where the deep lacerations had been.  The little scars made patterns across their skin, some spraying out from a single point, others running parallel to one another, going in the same direction like a snapshot of rainfall imprinted on their skin.  With that many scratches and scars, they must have been hit hard.

Faultline’s group was gathered to one side.  Faultline, Newter, and the new member Shamrock wore more concealing costumes than their usual.  Faultline’s face was covered in a tinted visor, and her arms and legs were covered in opaque gloves and leggings.  Labyrinth and Spitfire were fully decked out in their usual concealing robe and fire-retardant suits, respectively.  Only Gregor showed skin.  The barnacle-like growths of spiral shells that covered his skin had multiplied on one side of his body, until there was more shell than skin.  The skin around it was crimson enough that it stood out in the gloom.  It looked tender.

I saw a flash of light above us, and spotted Purity in the air high above the rooftop, using her power to create a flare of light, extinguish it, then create it again.  There was an answering series of flashes from across the water.  It was a different set of signals than the ones she’d set up with us.  It made sense for the light signals to be different from group to group, so Purity could keep track of who was coming and where from.  The main reason we’d agreed on this meeting place were the seclusion it offered, and the fact that it was just hard enough to access that the Nine wouldn’t be able to approach without us knowing.  Hopefully.

All at once, an incoming boat made its presence known.  As though a switch was flipped, there was the sound of something that sounded like the combined noise of radio static coming from a bank of speakers, an eighteen wheeler with the muffler off and an onrushing train.  It wasn’t just noise – the vehicle flickered with flashes of electricity and lights that people could probably see from anywhere downtown.

Seeing it approach, I had no doubt it was a tinker contraption.  It was the size of a small yacht, but it looked outfitted for war, with what looked like tesla coils crossed with old school tv antennae fueling its forward momentum and sending arcs of electricity dancing over the waves in its wake, as though it was riding on a current of lightning.  Various guns had been placed haphazardly around the upper deck, each manned by a Merchant.  Skidmark stood at the highest deck with Squealer, the driver.

Squealer had apparently never grasped the concept of elegance in design.  From what I’d read and heard, she went for size, augmentations and additions when she built her vehicles.  She was kind of the polar opposite of Armsmaster in that regard.

The hull of their boat scraped against the edge of the building, nearly running over the boat that Grue and Bitch had come in on.  All of the lights shut off, and the Merchants descended onto the roof.  Skidmark, Squealer, Mush, Scrub, Trainwreck, the telekinetic whirlwind lady with the long hair and one other.

Another reason for this meeting place had been subtlety, keeping out of sight and off the radar.  The Merchants apparently hadn’t gotten the message.

“Hey!” Hookwolf growled, “What part of keep a low profile don’t you fucking understand?”

Skidmark smirked, raising his chin to give it an arrogant tilt, “We did.  My Squealer built a box that cancels out light and noise at a certain distance.  Nice and in your face up close, almost invisible and silent when far away.  Isn’t that right, baby?”

Squealer just smiled.  It probably wasn’t as sexy or cute as she thought it was.  Aisha, when left to her own devices, was a pretty girl who dressed trashy.  Squealer, I felt, was more of a trashy woman who dressed trashy.

“Hey, Faultline,” Skidmark’s smirk dropped off his face as he realized who else was present.  “What the motherfuck were you doing, fucking with my party!?”

“You had something we needed.”  Faultline’s response was as measured and calm as Skidmark’s question wasn’t.

“Who hired you, bitch?  Tell me and my Merchants won’t come after you in revenge.  All you’ll have to do is return that shit you stole or pay me back for it.  Maybe you can spit-polish my knob for a little goodwill.”

“Not going to happen.”

“Then forget sucking my cock.  Pay me back and tell me who hired you and we’ll call it even.”

She shook her head.  It was more the kind of head shake that accompanied an eye roll.

Skidmark went on, “You’re mercenaries.  Don’t tell me you don’t have the cash.  I’ll only ask for five mil.  One for each vial you took.”

Fautline didn’t answer him.  Instead she looked at Hookwolf and asked him, “Did we really need to invite him?  Does he contribute anything to this discussion?”

“He has nine powers on his team,” Hookwolf responded.  “Ideology isn’t important.”

“He doesn’t have an ideology.  He’s just an idiot.”

“Enough of that,” Hookwolf snarled, his voice hard with a sudden anger.  “We don’t fight amongst ourselves.  Not on neutral ground.  Both of you shut the fuck up.”

Faultline shook her head and leaned over to whisper something to Shamrock.  The Merchants settled themselves on the side of the roof opposite our group.  Skidmark gave Grue the evil eye.  Was he still resentful over what had happened at the last meeting?  Being denied a seat at the table?

Another series of flashes served to alert us, indirectly, of incoming arrivals.  The Travelers appeared soon after.  Trickster, Sundancer, Ballistic each stood on the back of some kind of turtle serpent.  I couldn’t make out Genesis’s form in the gloom.  What little light was available came from the moon and Purity’s radiance from where she floated above us.  I could have used my bugs to get a feel for the shape Genesis had taken, but my habit was generally to place my bugs on clothing where they wouldn’t be noticed, and Genesis was effectively naked.  I didn’t know anything about them, but they were our allies.  I didn’t want to irritate her and upset anything between our two groups.

Coil was the last of us to arrive, maybe because he’d wanted to be fashionably late.  The two soldiers who’d driven his boat stayed behind.  Purity set down by where the boats had landed, followed by Fog and Crusader, who I hadn’t seen in the dark.  Night stepped out of the lake, between our parked boats and onto the roof, water streaming from her cloak.  Had she been the just-in-case measure if an incoming boat hadn’t known the signal?  She would be invisible in the pitch black gloom beneath the water’s surface, which would mean she wasn’t in her human form.

The way the Travelers and Coil had positioned themselves, we’d formed a haphazard ring.  From the top of the roof, going clockwise, the arranged groups were Hookwolf’s Chosen, Faultline’s crew, us, the Pure, Coil, the Travelers and the Merchants.

“It seems everyone is here,” Coil spoke, taking in the collected villains.  Forty-ish of us in all.

“Not quite everyone,” Hookwolf replied.  “Victor, Othala.”

Othala touched Victor, and Victor raised one hand.  A fireball appeared in it, then disappeared as he clenched his hand.  He repeated the process two more times.

“Who are you signalling?” Purity’s asked.  Her hand flared with light, ready to fire.

“It would be a grave and stupid mistake if you invited the Nine,” Coil told Hookwolf.

“We’re not stupid,” Hookwolf said.  Three answering flashes appeared over the water.  I heard the faint noise of a boat motor.  Everyone present on the roof readied for a fight, turning towards either Hookwolf or the incoming boat.  I used my power to call on local crabs, and to draw out the bugs I’d stored in the boat, keeping them close to me.

There were three more flashes, close, and Victor responded again.  In moments, the boat arrived.  It wasn’t the Nine.  It was the good guys.

Miss Militia was first out of the boat, and Battery activated her power to haul the boat up onto ‘land’ in a flash before stepping up to Miss Militia’s side.  Triumph, Weld and Clockblocker rounded out their group.  Our circle made room, though half the people present seemed to be tensed and ready to use their powers with the slightest excuse.

“It seems we have a problem,” Miss Militia spoke, as her group took her place between the Pure and us Undersiders.

“We do,” Hookwolf said.  “Two problems, actually.”

“Two?” Purity asked.

Hookwolf pointed at the Travelers, then pointed at Grue and the rest of our group.  “They’re being cocky, think they’re being clever.  Figure we should get all this out in the open, at least so you’re aware.  You too, Coil, Miss Militia.”

“Perhaps you’d better explain,” Coil responded.

Hookwolf pointed at each of us in turn, “Grue has been making attacks against my people in the upper downtown area.  Howling has been heard in the Trainyard.  Bitch.  Regent was sighted in the college neighborhoods.  Skitter made a move to take over the Boardwalk and claim it for herself.  Tattletale is either abstaining, or more likely, putting herself in the middle of the Docks and keeping her head down.”

“So?” Tattletale asked.

Hookwolf ignored her.  “Downtown we’ve got Ballistic attacking my people in the upper downtown neighborhoods, north of this lake here.  Sundancer was spotted in the shopping district, Genesis at the downtown coast, near the south ferry station. Trickster has been driving looters out of the heart of downtown, the towers.  You seeing the pattern?  All of them alone.  Most of them making moves to take a piece of the city for themselves.”

“We already knew they were talking territory,” Miss Militia responded, “This isn’t a priority.  The Nine-”

“They haven’t taken territory,” Hookwolf snapped back, “They’re taking the city.  Split it up all nice and proper between them, and now they’re taking advantage of the distraction the Nine are giving them to secure their positions before we fucking catch on.”

Grue looked at Trickster, and there was some kind of unspoken agreement between them.  Knowing Grue, I was certain he was deliberately ignoring Coil.  No use volunteering more information than necessary.

Trickster spoke, “We didn’t know the Nine were around before we put this into motion.”

There was a flicker of surprise on Purity’s face.  “So Hookwolf is right.  You are taking over.”

“Something like that,” Grue responded.

What was Hookwolf’s game?  Had he brought everyone here under a different pretext so he could ambush us on this front?

“This isn’t of any concern to us,” Miss Militia spoke, stern.  “The only reason we’re here is to get information on the Slaughterhouse Nine, their motives, and strategies for responding.”

“That might help you in the next week or two, but a month from now you’ll be regretting it,” Hookwolf told her.

“Quite frankly, I don’t think we have any other choice,” Miss Militia replied.

“We do,” Hookwolf said.  “They want us to lose our territories to them while we busy ourselves dealing with the Nine-”

“That’s not our intent,” Trickster cut him off.

“Pigshit,” Skidmark muttered.  He looked angry.  Even Purity had a hard cast to her face, or what I could see of it through the glare of her eyes and hair.  These were people who thought highly of themselves.  Whether that self-esteem was deserved or not, they didn’t like being played for fools.

All at once, this meeting had become about us versus them.  The Travelers and the Undersiders against everyone else.

Hookwolf said, “Then agree to a truce.  So long as the Nine are here, you’re hands off your territories, no fighting, no business.  We can arrange something, maybe you all stay at a nice hotel on the Protectorate’s tab until this is dealt with.  That’ll mean we can all focus on the real threat.”

Stay in a hotel until the Nine were dead, arrested or driven out of town.  He couldn’t seriously expect us to do that.

“I’m inclined to agree,” Coil answered, after a moment’s consideration.  “Perhaps now is an opportune time to share this information:  I have sources that inform me that should Jack Slash survive his visit to Brockton Bay, it bodes ill for everyone.”

“That’s vague,” Faultline spoke.

“I’ll be more specific.  Should Jack Slash not die before he leaves Brockton Bay, it is very likely the world will end in a matter of years,” Coil spoke.

“Bullshit,” Skidmark answered.  The others were showing varying reactions.  I doubt many bought it.

“You contacted us to say something very similar a couple of days ago.” Miss Militia said, “But I have the same questions now that I did then.  Do you have sources?  Can you verify this?  Or provide more information?”

Behind her, Weld reached into his pocket and withdrew his smartphone.

“More information?  Yes.  I have sought further details and pieced together a general picture of things.  Jack Slash is the catalyst for this event, not the cause.  At some point in the coming years, Jack Slash kills, talks to, meets or influences someone.  This causes a chain of events to occur, leading to the deaths of anywhere from thirty-three to ninety-six percent of the world’s population.”

That gave everyone pause.

Coil went on, “If Jack Slash is killed, the event is likely to occur at some point in the more distant future instead.”

“Dinah Alcott,” Weld spoke.  All eyes turned to the metal-skinned boy.

“Beg pardon?” Coil asked.

“Thursday, April fourteenth of this year, Dinah Alcott was kidnapped from her home and has not been seen since.  Dinah had missed several weeks of classes with crippling headaches in the months before her disappearance.  Investigation found no clear medical causes.  Police interviewed her friends.  She had confided to them that she thought she could see the future, but doing so hurt her.”

“You think Dinah is Coil’s source.  That makes a lot of sense.”  Miss Militia turned from Weld to Coil, and her voice was heavy with accusation, “Coil?”

“I did not kidnap her.  I offered Dinah training and relief from the drawbacks of her abilities on the contingency that she immediately cut off all contact with her family and friends and provide me a year of service.”

He lied so smoothly, flawlessly.  What really rattled me was hearing him refer to her as Dinah for the first time.  Coil added, “She took a week to decide, then contacted me during one of her attacks.”

Of course, the heroes weren’t about to take his word for gospel.  Miss Militia’s lips pursed into a thin line.  “Could I contact her to verify this?”

“No.  For one thing, I have no reason to let you.  Also, the process of gaining control of her power requires that she be kept strictly isolated from outside elements.  A simple phone call would set her back weeks.”

“So Coil has a precog,” Hookwolf growled, “That explains how he always seemed to fucking get the upper hand when he pit his mercenaries against the Empire.”

Coil clasped his hands in front of him, “I knew you might come to these conclusions if I volunteered this information.  You all should already know I am not a stupid man.  Would I weaken my position if I did not wholeheartedly believe that what I was saying was correct?  Jack Slash must die, or we all die.”

“And to maximize our chances for this to happen,” Hookwolf added, “The alliance of the Travelers and the Undersiders must concede to our terms.  They hold no territory until the Nine are dead.”

Coil deliberated for a few seconds.  “I think this makes the most sense.”

Skidmark and Purity nodded as well.

Coil’s response caught me off guard.  He was throwing us to the wolves to maintain his anonymity in things.  I felt my heart sink.

It made sense, on a basic level, and I could see why the other groups were agreeing.  I mean, our territory wasn’t worth risking that the world ending.  Coil was apparently willing to delay his plans, or pretend to delay his plans while he carried them out in secret.  But I would be giving up my territory, condemning Dinah to more days, more weeks of captivity.

I really didn’t like that idea.

“Easy decision for you guys to make,” Trickster said, chuckling wryly, “You’re not giving anything up.  In fact, if we went with your plan, there’d be nothing stopping you from sneaking a little territory, passing on word to your underlings to prey on our people, consolidating your forces and preparing them for war, all while we’re cooped up in that hotel or wherever.”

He was right.  I could imagine it.  Not just weeks, but months lost.  We’d just lost the element of surprise thanks to Hookwolf outing us here, and the local villains and heroes were now all too aware of the scale of what we were doing.  Add the fact that they would get a breather?  A chance to regroup and prepare?  To retaliate?  Regaining any of the ground we lost while we helped hunt down the Slaughterhouse Nine would be excruciating.

In those weeks or months it took to retake territory and slog ahead with constant opposition, there could be further delays.  It would mean that my plan to efficiently seize the Boardwalk and surrounding Docks would fall apart.  I’d have to pull away from my people and my neighborhoods to help the others fight off attacks.  I wouldn’t be able to offer exemplary service to earn Coil’s trust and respect in the mess that ensued.  The opportunity to free Dinah would slip from my grasp.

Worst of all, there was no reason for it.  We’d claimed more of the city as our territory than they had assumed, and now Hookwolf was building on that, giving them reason to worry we had other sinister motives.

“No,” I murmured, barely audible to myself.  I could see some of the other Undersiders -Grue, Tattletale and Bitch- turn their heads a fraction in my direction.

“No,” Grue echoed me, his voice carrying across the rooftop.

“No?” Coil asked, his voice sharp with surprise.  Was there condemnation in there?  It was  very possible we weren’t going the route he wanted.

Grue shook his head, “We’ll help against the Nine.  That’s fine, sensible.  But Trickster is right.  If we abandoned our territories in the meantime, we’d be putting ourselves in an ugly situation.  That’s ridiculous and unnecessary.”

Trickster nodded at his words.

“If you keep them you’ll be putting yourself in an advantageous position,” Purity intoned.

“Don’t be stupid, Undersiders, Travelers.” Faultline cut in, “You can’t put money, power and control at a higher priority than our collective survival.  If Coil’s precog is right, we have to band together against the Nine the same way we would against an Endbringer.  For the same reasons.”

“And we will,” Trickster said.  “We just won’t give up our territory to do it.”

“Because you’re hoping to expand further and faster while the Nine occupy the rest of us,” Hookwolf growled. “We agree to this like you want, and you attack us from behind.”

“We haven’t given you any reason to think we’ll betray a truce,” Grue told him, his voice echoing more than usual, edged with anger.  The darkness around him was roiling.

“You have.  You’re refusing the terms,” Purity said.

Hookwolf was manipulating this.  He wasn’t as subtle about it as Kaiser had been, it was even transparent, what he was doing.  Dead obvious.  At the same time, the scenario he was suggesting was just dangerous and believable enough to the Merchants, to his Chosen, and to the Pure that they couldn’t afford to ignore it.  Coil couldn’t talk sense into them without potentially revealing his role as our backer.  Even the heroes couldn’t counter his argument, because there was that dim possibility that he was right, that they would lose control of the city to villains if we continued to grab power.

Which was admittedly the case.  Dealing with the local heroes was one of our long-term goals, for Coil’s plan.

We were fighting for Coil’s plan and Coil wasn’t helping.  He remained silent, inscrutable, sticking to the situation that worked best for him and him alone.  Damn him.

“You’ll be earning the enmity of everyone here if you refuse,” Hookwolf said.  Was there a hint of gloating in his tone?

“We’ll be ruining ourselves if we agree, too,” Grue retorted.

“I strongly recommend you agree to this deal,” Purity said.

“No, I don’t think we will,” Trickster said.

“No,” Grue echoed Trickster, folding his arms.

That only provoked more argument, along many of the same lines.  It was clear this was getting nowhere.

I turned to Miss Militia, who stood only a few feet from me.  When I spoke to her, she seemed to only partially pay attention to me, as she kept an eye on the ongoing debate.  “This isn’t what we need right now.  Hookwolf’s made this about territory, not the Nine, and we can’t back down without-”  I stopped as she turned her head, stepped a little closer and tried again, “We, or at least I have people depending on me.  I can’t let Hookwolf prey on them.  We all need to work together to fight the Nine.  Can’t you do something?”

Miss Militia frowned.

“Please.”

She turned away from me and called out, “I would suggest a compromise.”

The arguing stopped, and all eyes turned to her.

“The Undersiders and Travelers would move into neutral territory until the Nine were dealt with.  But so would the powered individuals of the Merchants, the Chosen, the Pure, Coil and Faultine’s Crew.”

“Where would this be?  In the PRT headquarters?” Hookwolf asked.

“Perhaps.”

“You were attacked as well, weren’t you?  Who did they go after?”

“Mannequin went after Armsmaster.  Armsmaster was hospitalized.”

That was some small shock to everyone present, though I might have been less surprised than some.  Armsmaster as a prospective member for the Nine.

“What you suggest is too dangerous,” Faultline said.  “We’d all be gathered in one or two locations for them to attack, and if Armsmaster was attacked, we could be too.”

“And their whole reason for being here is recruitment,” Coil spoke, “Perhaps the plan would work if we could trust one another, but we cannot, when many here were scouted for their group, and may turn on their potential rivals to prove their worth.  We would be vulnerable to an attack from within, and we would be easy targets.”

“We could make the same arguments about ourselves,” Grue pointed out, “If we agreed, we’d be sitting ducks for whoever came after us.”

“I think the Protectorate can help watch and guard nine people,” Coil replied, “I’m less confident of their ability to protect everyone present.”

So Coil wasn’t willing to play along if it meant losing his ability to stay where he was, but he was willing to make life harder on us, his territory holders.  Did he have some plan in mind?  Or was he just that callous?  Either way, he was an asshole.

“No.  I’m afraid that compromise won’t work,” Hookwolf said, squaring his shoulders.

Miss Militia glanced my way.  She didn’t say or do anything, but I could almost read her mind: I tried.

Hookwolf wasn’t about to give up anything here.  He had us right where he wanted us, and he was poised to kill two birds with one stone: The Nine and his rivals for territory.

“It seems,” Hookwolf said, “The Travelers and the Undersiders won’t agree to our terms for the truce.  Merchants, Pure, Faultline, Coil?  Are you willing to band together with my group?”

Purity, Coil and Skidmark nodded.  Faultline shook her head.

“You’re saying no, Faultline?”

“We’re mercenaries.  We can’t take a job without pay.  Even a job as important as this.”

“I will handle your payment here as I did for the ABB, Faultline,” Coil said, sounding just a touch exasperated.

“And Miss Militia?” Hookwolf asked, “A truce?”

“Keep the business to a minimum, no assaulting or attacking civilians,” Miss Militia said, “We still have to protect this city, there’s no give there.  Don’t give us a reason to bother with you, and we’ll be focused wholly on the Slaughterhouse Nine in the meantime.”

“Good.  That’s all we ask.”

The leaders of the new group crossed the roof to shake hands.  In the process, things shuffled so that our group, the Travelers and the heroes were near the bottom of the roof.  The heroes moved off to one side, as if to guard us from any retaliation, making the separation in forces all the more obvious.

“You guys are making a mistake,” Grue said.

“I think you have things the wrong way around,” Hookwolf said.  “Nobody wants to break the peace at neutral ground, so perhaps you should go before things get violent?”

Tattletale asked, “You won’t let us stick around and discuss the Nine, who they attacked, what our overall strategies should be?  Even if we aren’t working together as a single group?”  She paused, looking deliberately at Faultline, “You know, the smart thing to do?”

She was met only with cold stares and crossed arms.

There was little else to be said or done.  We’d lost here.  I turned and helped push our boat into the water, then held it steady as everyone piled in.  Tattletale had started the motor, and we were gone the second I’d hopped inside.

Last Chapter                                                                                                Next Chapter

Interlude 11f (Anniversary Bonus)

Last Chapter                                                                                                Next Chapter

If each of the tens of trillions of universes were like pictures, then they were organized into a mosaic, constantly rearranging itself and shuffling.  Taken in as a whole, it was a muddle.  Depending on how it shuffled, sometimes patterns emerged.  A predominant color, perhaps, or lots of scenes that were blurs of motion and activity.

But there was more to it.  There were faint sounds, for one thing, and they weren’t just two-dimensional.  Just the opposite – they were each a fully realized world, and each was continuous, like a slideshow or film reel that extended vast distances forward and backward from any of the scenes of focus.  Things got even more complicated when each of the slideshow reels forked out and branched as they moved further away.  The only thing stopping them were the terminus points.  The first terminus wasn’t complicated.  The now, the present.  It moved inexorably, steadily forward, consuming the individual realities as they ceased to be the future and became the now.

The other terminus was somewhat more ominous.  Every branch ended at some point, some sooner than others.

Dinah Alcott knew that those branches were ones where she had died.  Right now, there were a lot of them, more coming into view with every passing second.  Almost all of the images in the mosaic were either black or crimson.  Either the lights were on and everything was covered in blood, or they were off, and she was effectively blind.

She concentrated, and the mosaic organized into two portions, one slightly larger than the other.  In one half, that death-terminus came very soon.  In the other, it was some distance off.  She judged the size of the individual parts, and the number snapped into her head.

43.03485192746307955659 percent chance she would die in the next thirty minutes.  The chance was steadily ticking upward with each passing second, with possible realities becoming impossible and fading from her view, or being replaced with other possibilities, effectively shifting over to the other side.

Anxiety crept up on her.  She wanted her ‘candy’, to take the edge off, to help clarify her thoughts.

She knocked on the door to her room.  She heard Coil say something on the other side and tested the knob.  Finding it unlocked, she stepped through.

Coil sat at his desk, on the phone.  She didn’t want to talk to him, but she wanted to die less.

“It’s unfortunate,” Coil was saying.  “Step up recon, call in a secondary team to ensure twenty-four seven surveillance.  We’ll want a replacement for our Leah the moment they start recruiting again.  Yes.  Good.  Let me know.”

He hung up.

“Coil?”

“What is it, pet?”

“Forty-four point two zero three eight three percent chance I die in the next half-hour.”

He stood from his desk.  “How?”

“Blood or darkness.  Don’t know.”

“The chance I die in the next thirty minutes?”

She thought, and felt the mosaic shift into a new configuration.  Coil’s face predominated each tiny scene, active, speaking and alive in some, unmoving or dead in the others. “Forty two point seven zero nine percent for the worlds where I don’t die.  Don’t know about the worlds where I’d die first.”

“And, say, Mr. Pitter?  The chance he dies?”

“Forty point-”  She stopped as Coil raised a hand.

“So whatever it is, it happens here, and involves everyone here.  Chance of survival if we leave?”

“Ten point six six four-”

“No.  Chance the average person in the city lives if we leave?”

“Ninety-nine point-”

“So we’re targets.  It’s not an attack on the city.  If we mobilize the squads?  To one decimal place?”

“Forty-eight point one percent chance I survive, forty-nine point nine percent chance you survive.”

“No difference.  Worse if anything,” he said.  She nodded, and he rubbed his chin, thinking.

Time was running out.  She fidgeted.

“I need some candy, please.”

“No, pet,” Coil said, “I need you focused.  What-”

She interrupted him, which always she tried to avoid doing, but she was feeling desperate.  “Please.  I’ve been using my power a lot.  I’m going to get a bad headache, and then I won’t be useful to you.”

“No,” he said, with more ferocity than she had expected.  “Pitter isn’t here to administer it, and won’t be until this situation is over.  Listen.  Chance that we survive Crawler’s attack if my soldiers use the laser attachments I’ve provided?  The purple beams?”

Crawler?  It took her a second to get her mental footing.  Coil was using his power.  She wasn’t sure how it worked, but she could always tell when he was doing it because the numbers always started changing all at once, and he knew things he couldn’t.  He’d know about things and numbers she might have told him, except she didn’t remember telling him.

“Thirty Nine point one-”

“If I deploy the Travelers that are on site at the moment?”

“Thirty point-”

He pushed his monitor off his desk in a fit of anger.  It crashed to the floor, pieces of screen rolling and sliding onto the rug at one end of the room.

Striding around the desk, he seized her by the arm and pulled her out of his office.

“Candy.  Please,” she said, whispering.

“No.”

Gripping her wrist so hard it hurt, he drew her into the main area of his underground complex.

“Get battle ready!” Coil shouted.  It was so out of character for him to shout.  “Threat incoming!”

The soldiers that were at ease in the lower area of the base jumped to action, grabbing weapons and protective wear.

It wasn’t going to make a difference.  The numbers weren’t changing enough.  But he was already upset, so she didn’t tell him that.

Trickster, Oliver and Sundancer appeared, running along the metal catwalk.  Sundancer had her mask off, and her permed blond hair was damp against her scalp with sweat.  Oliver was in casual clothing, like Trickster.  He was good looking, his features chiseled.  Athletically built.  Trickster wasn’t.  He had a hook nose and long hair that didn’t suit him, but she knew he was smart, and she would have guessed it even if she didn’t know, just going by the way he looked at stuff.

“What’s going on?” Trickster asked.

“My pet has graciously informed us that Crawler of the Slaughterhouse Nine is less than thirty minutes away from entering this complex and murdering us all.  Suggestions outside of the obvious would be appreciated.”

“Trickster and I could go and try to stop him,” Sundancer suggested.

“Outside of the obvious, Sundancer.  I’ve asked my pet.  You try that and we’re all more likely to die.”

“Why?”

“He’s a regenerator,” Coil answered, sounding irritated at having to explain, “And he regenerates exceedingly quickly.  More to the point, he has the added advantage that any part that grows back is stronger than it was before, typically with extra features, growths and increased durability to render him more resistant to whatever hurt him or give him other capabilities.  These adjustments are not only permanent, but he’s been working on it for some time.”

Trickster added, “I read up on these guys after you mentioned them the other night.  Crawler eventually becomes immune to whatever was hurting him, and he’s that much less human, afterward.  He wants to get hurt, wants to further his transformation, like a crazed masochist or someone with a death wish.  Throws himself into suicidal situations and then comes out stronger.  Which may be why he’s here.  The soldiers?”

Coil shook his head, “He’s immune to conventional ammunition and explosives, and most likely to most unconventional forms of ammunition and explosives as well.  The laser attachments might have some small effect, but not enough to draw him here.”

“Which makes me wonder all of a sudden how he found us,” Trickster added.

Coil shook his head, “One thing at a time.  If he is here because he’s seeking someone who could harm him, the only individuals on site who would be capable are Sundancer and your Noelle.”

That gave the three teenagers pause.

“Noelle?  But who even knows about Noelle, except-”

Coil raised his hand to silence Trickster.  “Pet, the chance that Crawler would seek out Noelle first, given the opportunity?”

She felt the images filter out until she was looking at a pattern of scenarios.  The vague shape of the hulking figure, the open vault door.  The images snapped into two groups, one vastly larger than the other.

“Ninety three point four percent.”

“Shit,” Trickster swore.  “That’s why he’s here.  Just like Leviathan, Crawler’s coming after her?”

“I find every piece of evidence we gather only supports our working theory on your teammate,” Coil said.  He turned to Dinah, “The chance of survival if we were to give him what he wanted?  Give him access to Noelle?”

“Hey, no,” Trickster said.

“Eighty-one point nine percent chance we survive the next hour-”

“A start,” Coil noted.

Something about the image bothered her.  She pushed forward, seeing the possible realities that unfolded after that.  Very, very few extended any meaningful distance into the future.

“Six percent chance we survive the next five hours.”

Coil stopped, then sighed.  “Thank you, pet, for clarifying that.”

She nodded.

“Awesome,” Trickster responded, his voice thick with sarcasm.  With a more serious tone and expression, he said, “Let’s not give him access to Noelle.  Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Coil conceded.  “Any further ideas?”

Time’s running out.  She looked at the numbers for herself, even though she felt the initial throbbing pains at the base of her skull that foretold the encroaching headaches.  53.8 percent chance I die in the next thirty minutes.

“Pet,” Coil said.

What she didn’t get from his tone, she grasped from the vague images she saw of her most immediate possible futures.

“No,” she pleaded, before he’d even told her what he wanted.

“It’s necessary.  I want you to look at a future where we survived, and I want you to tell us what happened.”

“No.  Please,” she begged.

“Now, pet.”

“Why is she so against this?” Trickster asked.

“Headaches,” Dinah answered, pressing her hands to her head,  “It breaks my power.  It takes days, sometimes weeks before everything is sorted out and working again.  Headaches the entire time, until everything is sorted out, worse headaches if I try to get numbers in the meantime.  Have to be careful, can’t muddle things up.  Can’t lie about the numbers, can’t look at what happens, or it just becomes chaos.  Safer to keep a distance, to make and follow rules.  Safer to just ask the questions and let things fall into place.”

“We don’t have time to play twenty questions,” Coil said.  “Would you rather die?”

Would she?  She wasn’t sure.  Death was bad, but at least then she’d go on to the afterlife.  To heaven, she hoped.  Finding an answer and surviving would mean days and weeks of absolute hell, of constant pain and not being able to use her power.

“Pet,” Coil said, when she didn’t give him an immediate response, “Do it now, or you won’t get any more candy for a long while.”

She could see those futures unfolding.  He would.  She could see the pain and the sickness she experienced, the full brunt of her power without her candy to take the edges off, complete with all of the details she didn’t want.  Worst of all were the feedback loops.  To go through withdrawal from the drugs, from her ‘candy’, while simultaneously being able to see and experience echoes of the future moments where she was suffering much the same way?  It was a massive increase in the pain and being sick and mood swings and insomnia and feeling numb and skin-crawling hallucinations.  There was no limit to these echoes, the feedback from her futures.  It would never kill her, knock her out or put her in a coma, no matter how much she might want it to.

She had come close to experiencing it once, early on in her captivity.  Never again.  She would obey Coil in everything he asked for before she risked that happening again.

“Okay,” she murmured.  She picked out one of the paths where they survived.  Even looking too closely at it made her head throb, like it was in a massive vise and someone had just cranked it a fraction tighter.  Some of the possible worlds around the fringes of her consciousness disintegrated into a mess of disordered scenes as she pushed forward.  The scenes and images of the less possible worlds flew around her mind like razor-sharp leaves in a gale, cutting at everything they touched.  “It hurts.”

“Now, pet.  As quickly as you can.”

He didn’t know.  It was something else, like trying to will herself to stick a hot poker in her body, in her brain, knowing it would remain there and burn her for weeks before it cooled.

But she did it, because as much as it would hurt, it would hurt more if she didn’t get her candy.  If Crawler got his hands on her, it wouldn’t hurt at all after those first few moments of pain, but that was bad too.  It meant dying.

She focused hard on that scene, taking it from an image small and vague enough that it could have fit on the end of a pencil to something full size.  Her head exploded with pain.  She caught fragmentary images as she felt herself double over and heave the contents of her stomach onto the metal catwalk and Sundancer’s legs and feet.

Sundancer could have yelled, but she didn’t.  Instead, she fell to her knees and grabbed Dinah by the shoulders to steady her.  It was just in time, because Dinah felt fireworks erupt in her brain, felt her body go spastic.  Too much, too fast.  The image was overly sharp and detailed, overwhelming her senses, shredding all sense of time and present.

It was long moments before she could even piece together what the others were saying and doing.  She was lying down, her head on Sundancer’s lap, a cold cloth against her forehead.  Oliver leaned next to her, holding a bowl of cold water.

“-running out of time!” Trickster shouted.  Coil stood just behind Trickster, arms folded, staring out over the railing, at his underground base.

“Give her a moment,” Sundancer said.  “Whatever that was, it just knocked the poor kid out.”

“That deadline she gave us?  It’s here.  Now.”

“I know, but pressuring her won’t help anything.”

A smell hit her.  Like the bitterest black chocolate in the world and overly strong coffee, the odor so thick on the air that she could taste it.  With her already upset stomach, it made her want to retch.

“Smells bad,” she said.  “Make the smell go away.”

“She’s conscious.  Is this smell a clue?” Trickster turned.

“No.  It’s a symptom,” Coil answered him, not turning to look at her or them.  “She may be dizzy, dazed, or she may rub or scratch at herself until she fully recovers.  Don’t let her scratch her corneas or rub herself until she bleeds.”

Dinah tried to recall what she’d seen.  “Darkness.”

“You mentioned that earlier, pet.”

“We were in the dark, and it smelled like meat.  It smelled like sweat, too.  And we were all pressed in close together.”

“Where?” Coil asked.

“There was a metal door in front of us.  Big.  The vault door downstairs.”

“Noelle’s room,” Trickster said, an instant before Dinah put the pieces together.

“How many of us, pet?”

“Everyone here was there,” she looked towards the soldiers.

“Is she in there?”

“She was.  Yes.”

Coil turned and swept her up in his arms.  Her skin crawled at the contact of her body against his.  She didn’t say or do anything about it, in part because she wasn’t able, too sick, hurting too much.  The other reason was because she had seen the numbers shift each time she flinched away from his touch or made her disgust known.  Little differences.  He was angrier with her, more curt, if she pulled way, if she complained about it.

There was safety in the numbers, in following the rules she set on herself.  It kept her power in order, it ensured Coil was tolerant with her, and it meant she didn’t have to go without her candy for even a short time.

Coil took the stairs two at a time as he descended to the ground floor, Trickster, Oliver and Sundancer hurrying after him.

“You,” Coil called out, not even bothering to recall the employee’s name, “The vault door.  Open it.  Squad leaders, organize your groups!”

There was a faint crash in the distance, and a vibration rippled through the complex.

“Pet, the chance that Crawler kills us, now that we’ve undertaken this route?”

“I don’t.  I can’t.”  Her head hurt so much.

“Try,” and in his hard tone, she heard the unspoken threat of having her candy taken away.

She did.  The scenes had no order to them.  They were all jumbled, and trying to pull some semblance of order and sense into them was like thrusting her hands into fire and razor blades, thrusting her mind into fire and razor blades.  A long groan of pain was drawn from her throat, and the strength went out of her body.

“You’re killing her!” Sundancer gasped.

“No,” Coil said, as if from a place far away.  “I’ve had her use her power to check.  This may be miserable for her, but she can’t die from it.”

Coil touching her, that overpowering phantom smell, the fear, the nausea…

“I need to barf.”

Coil set her down and held her by the wrists as she leaned forward to cough up mouthfuls of bile.  Her stomach was already empty of food.

“The number, pet?”

Sundancer bent down to hold her, so her shoulders weren’t being twisted with her arms held behind her by Coil.

“Three point one percent,” Dinah gasped out.

“Reassuring,” Coil said.  The vault door opened before them.  “Trickster?  Would you announce our imminent arrival to Noelle?”

“Yeah,” Trickster sighed.  “Fuck.  I hate to do this, but can I get a number?”

“Trickster!” Sundancer admonished him, sounding horrified, “You can see how much pain it’s causing her.”

“It’s important.  Kid, what’s the chance that Noelle kills us?”

There was another series of crashes, closer.

Dinah shook her head, “Please.  I just want to put everything back together.  Every time I use my power, it all falls apart and it hurts.”

“Pet, it’s the last question we’ll ask you tonight.  I promise,” Coil said.

So she did.  She reached for the number.  It can’t kill me.  It doesn’t do permanent damage.  It just hurts.  It’s my brain telling me my power shouldn’t be used to find answers like that.

The words she used to convince herself did little to soften the pain that came with digging for a number once more.  She screamed, and tears flowed down her face as she sank into Sundancer’s arms, screwing her eyes shut.

“Nine point eight percent,” she managed.  Was she being carried?  They were venturing inside, past the first of the two heavy vault doors.  How much time had just passed?  Where was Trickster?

“That’s good information to have, pet,” Coil said, from somewhere near her.  “Squad leaders.  As you gather inside the containment room, I want you organizing your troops into ranks, your backs to the door.  Weapons need to be locked, loaded and ready to fire.  Be sure to equip the laser attachments and battery packs.  Don’t venture any further than ten paces inside.”

There were affirmative responses.  Dinah could hear guns cocking.

Another crash, the closest yet.  The sound of rubble and concrete falling echoed through the underground complex.

“He’s here,” Coil said.  “Last people inside, hurry.  Close the first door.”

Dinah opened her eyes.  They were in a concrete room with steel girders at set intervals, as if forming a cage against the inside of the room.  It smelled like meat that had gone bad.

The second vault door slowly swung closed as the last few stragglers slipped through the gap.  Employees, technicians, people in suits, some soldiers.  They packed in close at the end of the room closest to the door, their bodies pressing against her.  Three fifths of the chamber were left unoccupied.

And on the other side of the room – darkness.  Trickster was emerging.

“How is she?”  Coil asked.

“Scared.  Hungry.  She said she didn’t get her meal tonight,” Trickster answered, his voice quiet.

Coil folded his arms.  “She did.  I personally observed the delivery.  I suspect she’s needing more food as of late.  Unfortunate we find this out now.”

“She asked me to turn out the lights on this end of her room.  Said it would be easier if she can’t see us.”

“Do it,” Coil ordered.  He strode over to one of his squad captains and spoke in the man’s ear.  Dinah thought she might have overheard something about night vision goggles.  She closed her eyes, as if it could help shut out the pain that continued to tear through her skull.

The pink of the light shining through her eyelids turned to black as the lights went out.

“I’m sorry,” A girl’s voice whispered in Dinah’s ear.  Sundancer?

Dinah tried to answer, but her voice came out in a croak.

“I’d help you if I could, but I can’t, you understand?” Sundancer whispered to her.  She had her arms around Dinah.  She smelled like barf, but that was Dinah’s fault.  “It’s not just that my friends and I are in a bad spot, or having to help Noelle, or even that I don’t think I could save you on my own…  We made a promise to each other, when everything began.  Fuck, it sounds so stupid, sounds so lame, when I say it like that.”

There was a crash nearby, the sound of metal on metal.

Then a massive impact against the vault door made the room shudder.

Sundancer kept talking, as if oblivious to the ongoing attack.  “When you’ve been through hell and back again with a group of people, when you’ve all lost everything, and you collectively stand to lose more?  I- I don’t even know what I’m saying.  Maybe there’s no justification for letting you go through what you are.  I just… they’re all I’ve got.  I’m sorry.”

Dinah reached up and fumbled around until she found Sundancer’s hand.  She didn’t have a response, couldn’t speak if she’d been able to think of what to say.  She just held the hand tight.

A series of hits collided with the metal door.  A roar rattled through the air, painfully loud despite the muffling effect of the intervening wall.  It was a roar heavy with frustration and anger.

There was the sound of guns cocking.  She almost missed it in the midst of the steady, relentless crashes that came from the metal door.

“I’m so hungry,” a girl’s voice echoed through the chamber.  She’s close.

“I know, Noelle,” Trickster answered.  “Just a little while.  Let’s go back to the other side, away from these people.”

Noelle sounded like someone who was very, very tired.  “Can’t wait.  Can’t wait at all these days.  I can smell them.”

She wants food as badly as I want my ‘candy‘, Dinah thought.  The difference is that she can and will take what she wants, even if it means eating one of us.  I don’t have that power.

God, her head hurt.  Worse, she knew this was the calm before the storm.  Her head would hurt more with every passing hour until she wanted to die.

“You can hold on,” Trickster said, his voice gentle.  “You don’t want to come any closer than that.  You know what your power does.  None of us want that.”

“No.”

“And these guys, as good as they are, I can’t be positive that one of them won’t shoot you in a moment of panic.  We don’t want that either.”

“I’d live.  Don’t want to, but I’d live.”

“You would.  But would I?  Would Oliver and Marissa, if you went berserk?  They’re in here too.”

Sundancer spoke up, calling out, “Remember the promise we made together.”

Noelle didn’t reply.  The silence lingered, punctuated by the heavy blows on the metal door, echoing through the concrete chamber.

“Come on, Noelle.  Let’s go back, before you or someone else here does something they’ll regret,” Trickster urged.

The banging continued.

“Come with me, Krouse?  We can talk alone?”

“That sounds good,” Trickster said.

Dinah felt the tension in the room ease.  The pain in her skull didn’t get any better.  She set about the tedious task of trying to reorganize the images in her head.  Building a house of cards in an unpredictable wind.  Every time the numbers changed, what she’d started to sort out fell apart.

She’d have to wait until a period of calm before she made any real headway.  The passage of time would help as well.  Then it wouldn’t be so painful to use her ability.

She got caught up in the painstaking operation, and it was some time before she realized the banging had stopped.  Still, the gathered people in the room waited.  Just in case Crawler was bluffing them, waiting until they opened the door.

Long minutes passed before Coil gave the order.

Dinah was blind.  Her power too fragile and painful to use, so she couldn’t see the future that awaited them outside the door.  Her heart pounded in her throat as the door was opened.  The first squads moved out, fanning through the complex to find if Crawler was lurking in some corner of the underground base.  They returned and gave the all-clear.

Emerging from the gloom, she squinted in the face of the flourescent lights.  Claw marks gouged the outside of the solid steel of the vault door, each at least half a foot deep.  The catwalk had been torn down at one side of the complex, and innumerable boxes of weapons and supplies had been crushed or scattered across the floor.

“Candy?” she asked.  “My head hurts.”

“You can have your candy, pet.  Go to your room, I’ll call Pitter in and send him to you.”

With her armed escort, she headed to her room.  She collapsed gratefully on her bed.

She knew she’d regret it, but she used her power.  She had to know.  It would be one more use, to hold her over, and she would stop using her power for the next few days, at least.  Weeks, if Coil let her.

She clutched her covers and bit her pillow as her head erupted with pain.  More than half of the groundwork she’d so carefully laid in place over the past hour fell apart as she pulled the scenes into two groups.  Minutes passed before she had her number.

31.6%.

More than four percent higher than it had been yesterday.

Thirty-one point six percent chance she’d get to go home someday.

Last Chapter                                                                                                Next Chapter

Infestation 11.1

Last Chapter                                                                                                Next Chapter

I stared down at the metal walkway as I caught my breath.  I had one gash at the side of my head, and another trickle ran from beneath the armor of my shoulder, down my arm and to my fingertip, where it dripped almost in sync with the head wound.  It should have hurt, but it didn’t.  Maybe it would when the shock wore off.  If so, I didn’t look forward to it.

Trickster, Ballistic and Circus lay in front of me.  Another cape had fallen over the railing and lay on the concrete floor below, unmoving.  They were all either unconscious or hurting badly enough that I didn’t need to worry about them.

I swallowed hard.  My heart had climbed up so far into my throat that I almost couldn’t breathe, and my heartbeat felt oddly distant and faint for how terrified I was.

Coil’s base was deserted.  I knew his men were out on patrols, that the only people in here were a handful of the capes that were working for him.  He’d left it almost undefended.

If I was going to act, I’d have to do it now.

My costume’s feet lacked hard soles, so I should have been nearly silent, but the interior of Coil’s base was deathly silent and my feet were slamming down on the metal walkway as I ran.  The noise of singing metal filled the dark space, echoing, seemingly louder with each step I took.

The thrum of the metal rang through the air even after I came to a stop.  I’d reached my target; a reinforced door, identical to so many others in the complex.  With the labyrinthine mess of metal walkways and the dozens of doors, I might have missed it.  The only thing telling me I was in the right place was the smudge of ash left behind from when the soldier had put out his cigarette on the wall.

I opened the door, and it was far too loud, creaking, then banging into the wall with a crash despite my last-second attempts to stop its momentum.

The room looked like a prison cell.  It had concrete walls and floor, a cot and a metal sink and toilet.  Coil and Dinah were both there.  I couldn’t say whose presence left me more devastated.

I could say Coil’s presence was the worst thing, because it meant my info was bad.  His power meant I was probably fucked on a lot of levels, that the odds were suddenly astronomically against me.  I was caught.  My gut told me that I wouldn’t make it out of the compound in one piece, now.  He was washing his hands in the sink, he turned to look at me, apparently unconcerned by my presence.

But no.  As I stared at Dinah and registered what I was seeing, I realized the image would be burned into my mind’s eye forever.  She lay on the cot on her side, her eyes open, staring at me, through me.  A bloody froth was drying at one side of her mouth and at the edges of one nostril.  I didn’t consider myself a religious person, but I prayed for her to blink, to breathe, to give me some relief from that cold horror that was gripping me.

I was too late.

My vision practically turned red as I charged Coil, drawing my knife as I ran.  I felt him use his power, and suddenly there were two of him, two of me, two cells with two dead girls named Dinah Alcott.

In one of those rooms, I stabbed Coil in the chest.  There was no satisfaction in doing it, no relief.  I’d lost, I’d failed in every way that counted.  The fact that I’d put him down barely mattered.

In the other room, he stepped back out of reach of my first lunge, raised one hand and blew a handful of pale dust into my face.  While I was blindly slashing in his direction, he grabbed the wrist of my knife hand and held it firm in his bony hand.

That room where I’d succeeded in stabbing him faded away.  The only me that existed, now, was coughing violently.  My knees buckled as I coughed hard enough to bring up my lungs, unable to get the powder out of my nose and mouth.  I pulled at my hand, trying to free it from his grip.  Futile.

“Stop,” he ordered me, and my struggles stilled, though I was still finishing my coughing fit.

“Diluted scopolamine,” he spoke, his voice calm, sonorous.  He let go of my wrist, and pushed at the knife in my hand.  I let it drop.  “Also known as Devil’s Breath.  The vodou sorcerers, the Bokor, were said to use this along with the venoms of the puffer fish and other poisons.  With these substances, they could create the ‘zombies’ they were so famous for.  These zombies of theirs were not raised from the dead, but were men and women who were forced to till fields and perform crude labor for the Bokor.  The uneducated thought it magic, but it was simple chemistry.”

I waited patiently for him to continue.  The notion of fighting or responding didn’t even occur to me.

“It strips imbibers of volition and renders them eminently suggestible.  As you can see, I attempted to use it on my pet, and the results were… tragic.  The price of hubris, I suppose.”

He sighed.

“Take off your mask,” he instructed me.

I did.  My hair fell across my face as I let my mask fall to the ground.  My cheeks were wet with tears.  Was that from before, from when I’d first seen Dinah?  Or was I able to cry about my present circumstance, even if I was helpless to do anything about it?

He touched my cheek, brushed a tear away with his thumb.  He stroked my hair, and the gesture felt strangely familiar.  The way his hand settled on the back of my neck and gripped me there didn’t.  It felt… possessive.

“Pet,” he intoned, and fresh terror shook me to my core.

“You couldn’t have succeeded.  This was terribly unwise.”

“Okay,” I murmured.

No, no, no, NO.

I didn’t deserve this.

My eyes fell on Dinah.  She still stared at me, eyes wide and unblinking, and I couldn’t help but see the look as accusing.

I did deserve this.  It was thanks to me that she’d been kidnapped.  Thanks to me that she’d been made into Coil’s slave.  Karma, perhaps, that I’d take her place.

The strength went out of me.  My head hung, and I stared at my feet.

Tears streamed down my face.  I didn’t wipe them away.  I wasn’t sure I could.

“Look at me, pet,” Coil instructed, and I did.  I was glad to, like a compliant, eager to please child.  A part of me wanted more orders.  In that drug induced haze, I wanted to lose myself in obeying, wanted to serve.  That way, at the very least, I wasn’t to blame for my own actions or the tragic consequences that followed from them.

Coil removed his mask, and I stared.

I recognized him.  He was someone I knew all too well.

They were both tall, thin.  How hadn’t I seen it?  Coil’s costume could must have been designed to highlight his skeletal structure, make him look thinner and more bony.  All it had taken, beyond that, would be an affected change to his voice and different mannerisms.  I’d been unable to see it.

So dumb, so stupid.

I could understand it, too.  He’d been struggling to fix things, watching people failing to find work, knowing it was the city government that was to blame.  I could remember him telling me how he’d make the city work again, how he had all the answers.  I knew how hungry he was to do it.

He’d gotten powers.  He’d started to put plans into motion so he could do just that.

“Welcome home, pet,” he spoke, and he didn’t speak in Coil’s voice.  The voice I heard was my father’s.

■

I woke up, and for a long moment I stared up at the ceiling of my room and reassured myself that it was all a fabrication of my own scumbag mind.  It had been a nightmare or a terror dream; I wasn’t positive on the differences between the two.  It was my brain drawing together all my guilt about what we’d done to Shadow Stalker, the role I’d played in Dinah being kidnapped and leaving my dad; knitting it all into some convincing, disturbing scenario.  Not the worst I’d had, but there was at least some repetition and familiarity with the usual ones.

Fuck.

It had felt way too real, and it had sucked.  My shirt stuck to me with the damp of my sweat, the room was warm, but I still shivered.

My alarm clock sat on the ground by my inflatable mattress.  I picked it up and turned it around so the I could see the green numbers of the digital display.  Five forty in the morning.

Time to wake up, I supposed.  There was no way I was going to be able to fall asleep again in the next few hours.  It wasn’t just the idea of having another nightmare.  The dream had left me with a feeling of an impending deadline.

How long could Dinah be expected to hold on?  I doubted Coil was taking bad care of her, so she wouldn’t die of malnutrition or overdose on whatever drugs Coil was giving her.  Still, there was a limit to what the human mind could handle.  How long until Coil pushed her abilities too far?  If she was getting headaches from the use of her power, there was a chance she could suffer more severe issues if pushed to use it more often.  Pain generally signified something was wrong.

I was also worried I wouldn’t earn Coil’s trust and respect.  Until this was resolved, I wouldn’t be able to rest, take it easy, or have a day to myself.  Not in good conscience.  Depending on what happened, it might be a long, long time before I could relax again.

What worried me more than anything was the idea that I might save Dinah, only to find that Coil had broken her spirit or her will to the point that she couldn’t go back to her old life.  I worried that, like in my nightmare, I would be too late.

With this in mind, I sat up and tossed the sheet aside.  I reached for my glasses, by the alarm clock, then stopped.

Instead of putting on my glasses, I stood and made my way to the bathroom adjacent to my room.  Alongside fresh supplies of toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, tweezers, shampoo, conditioner and all that, I had a small box with packages of disposable contact lenses, daily use.

I hated contacts so, so much.  I’d tried them in middle school, at Emma’s recommendation, and they had never felt comfortable.  That, and I had never figured out how to put them in properly.  It seemed like ninety-nine out of a hundred times, they flipped inside out to cling to my fingertip instead of sticking to my eye.

True to form, it took me four minutes to get the contacts in, and I found myself blinking every two seconds after I did have them in.

At least I could see.

I walked through my new base of operations wearing an oversized t-shirt and a pair of underwear.  Not exactly fitting attire for a supervillain.

My new abode was three stories tall, which made it taller than Grue or Bitch’s places, which were the only ones I’d seen thus far, but it was narrow.  A cafe had stood here, before, but it had been flattened by one of the first waves to hit the city.  Coil owned at least one of the companies that was managing the restoration and reconstruction efforts, and over the past two and a half weeks, as his crews had started clearing and rebuilding on the Boardwalk, he’d had them set up some buildings, all squashed together.  When the Boardwalk was fixed up, these same buildings would be at the westmost edge of the same block that had the stores, restaurants and coffee shops.  If the Boardwalk ever got going again, they would be prime real estate.

Ostensibly to protect these new buildings until people started buying up the properties, each had been set up with heavy metal shutters to seal the windows and wall off the front.  It made the building dark, with only faint streams of light filtering in through the slats at the top of each shutter.

The topmost floor was mine and mine alone.  Taylor’s.  It was living space, with a bedroom, bathroom and kitchen.  The bedroom was spacious enough to serve as a living room as well as a sleeping area.  The first things I’d done after Coil’s men had unloaded the furniture and supplies was to hook up an internet connection and computer and get my television mounted on a wall and connected to a satellite.

The second floor, as I liked to think of it, was Skitter’s.  It was for my costumed self.  It still needed more than a few things to complete it.  I flipped a switch in the stairwell, and tinted flourescent lights lit up on the undersides of the shelves that ran along two adjacent walls, floor to ceiling.  Each shelf was lined with terrariums and backed by strategically positioned mirrors so that the light filtered through the front of the terrariums and into the room.  Only a few were occupied, but they each had the same general contents – a layer of dirt and pieces of irregularly shaped wood.

I hit the second switch, and chambers in the lid of each occupied case opened to release their inhabitants.  As they crawled through the case, the spiders were lit up by the lighting so that their shadows and the strange shapes of the wood were cast against the panes of hard plastic, distorted and larger than life.  I’d seen a picture on the web of the same thing, done on a far smaller scale.  I had hopes that the effect would be suitably impressive and intimidating once all of the terrariums were full.

It would be doubly impressive once Coil’s special effects technician stopped by and outfitted a case with a series of switches that a large bug could move – a beetle or something.  If I could direct the beetle to release the bugs, turn the lights on or off or even open the lids of the terrariums, all while appearing to sit motionless in my chair, it would be that much more effective for any audience I happened to have in the room.

Terrariums aside, the room was sparse.  Six empty pedestals sat just beneath the shuttered window, each standing just a little beneath knee height.

After touring the place yesterday morning and spending some time browsing the web to see what was available, I’d gotten in contact with Coil and named every possible thing I could think of that I could use for the space.  The current contents of the rooms on this floor and upstairs had been delivered last night.  The stuff I was waiting on was harder to come by, and it would be unreasonable to expect it to be available and in place within this short span of time.

I did have a chair, here, way too large for me.  It was positioned in one corner, so that it was framed by the two walls of terrariums.  It was black leather, and broad enough that I could comfortably sit cross-legged on it.  I’d loved the idea since I’d seen one like it in Brian’s apartment.  It was the one concession I was making in regards to atmosphere and appearances.  A series of smaller seats were positioned so they faced the larger chair and the terrariums.

A large abstract painting hung above the stairs on the right side of the room.  I’d seen a similar one online and had liked it, so I had found the artist’s gallery and stumbled onto this.  It was the first thing I had asked Coil for, and he’d delivered a large framed print far faster than I might have expected.  I liked how it tied into the room and echoed the shapes cast against the front panes of the terrariums.  The black lines were painted on the background of reds and yellows in a way that seemed spidery.

I stared at the painting for a minute, seriously worried that I would see the abstract image from a different angle and realize I’d had Coil get me a eight-foot by five-foot painting of a hairy wang or a headless chicken or something.

Making my way down the stairs, I found the ground floor surprisingly cool.  The weather was warming up, and with the shutters closed, I’d found my room warm, sticky in the humid air.  I’d foregone pajama bottoms, had slept with just a single sheet, and had slept with my feet uncovered.  Goosebumps prickled my bare legs as I stepped on the cool hardwood floor.

The ground floor here wasn’t much different from the one at Grue’s place.  There was an area with bunk beds, albeit fewer than Grue’d had, a bathroom, a small kitchen and an open area that didn’t yet serve a purpose, stacked with boxes.

All this was mine.  My lair.  It felt so empty.

I knew that would change as it filled with furniture and necessities.  The place was already something of a luxury.  More than half of Brockton Bay was currently lacking plumbing or electricity, with more than a few unfortunate individuals having neither.  In the process of setting up these buildings, Coil had ensured I was provided with both.  Trucks would be coming and going through this area as clearing and construction continued, and Coil had informed me that these trucks would be discreetly resupplying me with water, ensuring my water heater had propane, emptying the aboveground septic tank and refueling the generator.

As the city was rebuilt and standard utilities were put back in order, these special measures would be set aside, I’d get hooked up to those, and my lair would be lost in the surge of urban growth.  Ideal world.

It was nice to be able to enjoy those luxuries, but the Dinah situation took all of the joy out of it.  I had hot showers and the ability to wash my dishes because Coil had provided them.

I grabbed a cell phone from the kitchen counter and dialed Coil.  I didn’t give a fuck about the fact that it was 5:45 in the morning.

It bothered me, calling him, relying on him.  It made me feel complicit.  Inconveniencing him, even a little, felt good.

“Yes?”  His question was curt.

“It’s Skitter.”

“What is it, Skitter?”

“I need a loan of some guys.”

“How many?”

I looked around the living room, “Eight?  A truck would be a good idea, if you can get one here.”

“I can.  These men you require, are you needing gunmen or-”

“Just regular guys, anyone up for some exercise.”

“I assume there’s no rush?”  He was being more curt than usual.  Maybe I’d woken him up.  I didn’t really care.  He could deal, if I was working on something that helped him.

“No rush.”

“Then I’ll have them there in an hour.”

“An hour, then.”

He hung up.

It was a lot of time to kill.  Free time sucked when you didn’t want to be alone with your thoughts.

I wanted to run, but it was awkward.  The fenced off areas, construction zones and flooded streets of the Boardwalk didn’t really make a sprint around the neighborhood that doable.  Besides, it was dangerous enough I might stand out.

In the end, I went against my better judgement and decided to go for a run.  I dressed in a pair of shorts and a tank top, donned my running shoes and ensured I had both my pepper spray and my knife.  I unstrapped the knife’s sheath from the back of my costume, then threaded a belt through it so I could strap it around my waist.  I put the sheath itself under my waistband and the handle of the knife under my top.

I stood in front of the full length mirror in my bedroom to check how visible the weapon was.

It wasn’t exactly hidden, but it wasn’t conspicuous either.  I adjusted it slightly, then called a small collection of bugs to me.  It was a little creepy, having them crawl on my skin, beneath my clothes into my hair, but that stopped when they reached their destinations – above my socks, in my hair and between my bra and my top.  I was cool with it so long as they weren’t directly on my skin.

Did I look different?  My skin had a light tan, now. I’d spent more time outdoors in the past few weeks.  In the week and a half I’d spent in the shelter, I hadn’t exactly had books or TV, so I’d walked during the day, making my way across the city to check on the loft and to see the state of my dad’s house.  I’d walked at night, too, when I’d been unable to sleep, but people hardly tanned doing that.

I couldn’t pin down exactly how or why, but the definition in my face and body had changed.  It was possible I’d had a growth spurt.  Some of it was perhaps the tan giving more accent to the features of my body or face.  Maybe it was that I’d been eating a pretty lean diet when I was staying at the shelter, coupled with the fact that I’d been so active over the past two months.  I hadn’t spent six hours every day sitting around in school, I’d been in fights, I’d been running, and I’d ridden the dogs.  I had some muscle definition in my arms, now, and I thought maybe I was standing straighter.  Or maybe it was all those minor things helped by the simple fact that I was dressing differently, that my hair hadn’t been cut in a while, and that I wasn’t wearing my glasses.

To say I barely recognized myself was.. how could I put it?  It was true, but I could also remember myself months ago, when I’d look at my reflection and I would be so focused on the flaws and the things I didn’t like about myself that I never felt familiar with the person I was seeing in the mirror.  It was as though it was always a stranger I was looking at, and I would be left vaguely surprised at the combination of features across from me.

This was not recognizing myself in a very different way.  There were still things I didn’t like, like my wide mouth, my small chest and the lack of curves or any real femininity.  My scars stood out with my slight tan, a teardrop shaped mark on my forearm where Bitch’s dog had bitten me, a wavy mark on my cheek where Sophia had dug her fingernails in,and a line by my earlobe where she’d tried to tear my ear off.  But my physical flaws no longer consumed my attention when I looked at myself. I felt comfortable with my body, like I’d somehow earned it, the way it was, and it was mine now.  I wasn’t sure if that made any sense, even to myself.

If there was anything about myself that I didn’t like, it was primarily psychological.  Guilt was a big one.  The idea that my dad might dislike me if he got to know me, now?  That was another.  That my mom, were she alive and showing up at the door, might be disappointed in me?  Sobering.

As he’d done with his own underground base, Coil had set my lair up with a discreet entrance and exit.  Leaving through the front door would be conspicuous, if I started working with anyone beyond my teammates.  Skinny teenage girl with black curly hair entering and leaving the same building that the skinny teenage villain with black curly hair was operating out of?  No.

I made my way to the building’s cellar, opened a hatch and entered the adjacent storm drain.  The same builders that had put the building together had blocked off the drain so the water flow wouldn’t make it impassable, and I was left with a clear route down to the section of beach where the storm drains emptied.

I wasn’t sure if Coil had plans to keep the city’s workers from trying to unblock the drain, but I supposed that was the sort of thing we could rely on him to handle.  In the meantime, a third of the storm drains were too clogged with rubble and detritus to drain, and another third didn’t connect to anything anymore.  Add the fact that most of the storm drains were a little out of the way of regular foot traffic, and it wasn’t too conspicuous.

I started running the moment I reached the beach, glad for the chance to resume my routine.

It was a strange environment, eerie.  The wooden pathway, the literal boardwalk that had run in front of the stores, was now a skeletal ruin that loomed above the piles of trash that the bulldozers had all pushed to one side, twice as tall as I was.  The beach had been cleared, which was a feat unto itself.   The work of the bulldozers and the crews with rakes had revealed the packed, dirt-like layer from beneath the loose sand.  Opposite the trash piles, by the water, there were mounds of irregularly shaped pieces of concrete, set to break up the waves and prevent the highest tides from dragging the trash, debris and machinery into the ocean.  Two mounds looming on either side, with a space cleared in the middle for the trucks and any foot traffic.

A scene up ahead caught my attention.  Two pieces of machinery lay in a heap just below the lip of the boardwalk above.  A bulldozer and an eighteen wheeler with a crane-mounted claw attached had both been driven or pushed over the edge of the boardwalk and onto the beach.  The cab of the truck with the claw had been partially crushed by the bulldozer. Though it was barely past six in the morning, a group of laborers were already there, some on the ledge above, others down on the beach, all gathered around the trucks.

Spray paint had been used to draw the same crude symbol on both the side of the eighteen wheeler and the concrete wall separating the beach from the Boardwalk above.  A capital ‘M’, with two taller lines drawn vertically through it much the same as you’d do with a dollar sign.  The Merchants.

It fit their modus operandi.  They had been bums, drunks and addicts, looked down on others, before Leviathan came.  In the wake of what Leviathan had done to the city, leaving everything in shambles, with social services gone or in chaos and even basic utilities in short supply, everyone else had been brought down to their level.  The Merchants were even, I suspected, thriving.  With strength in numbers and virtually nothing holding them back, they had become like pack animals.  They roamed the city in bands of three to twenty, robbing, raping, pillaging and stealing.  They were settling in some of the better areas, the neighborhoods that still had power or water, and forcing the existing residents out.

Or, worse, I could imagine that some were moving in and keeping the residents around for their own amusement.  It was not a pleasant thought.  The kind of people who had gravitated towards the Merchants tended to have a lot of resentment.  Specifically, they had resentment towards people who had what they didn’t.  If they happened upon a family with Kate the soccer mom, Tommy, the kid with more video games than teeth, and Joe the blue-collar worker with a steady job?  If they weren’t letting them go?  I was guessing that hypothetical family would be in for a hell of a rough time.

It might have sounded silly, that line of speculation, but I’d spent time in the shelters.  I’d heard about how vicious and depraved the Merchants were getting.

Anyways, this?  This whole situation?  They liked it.  They wanted to keep things this way, and that meant they were going to stop anyone else from fixing it.  They would intercept supplies, attack rescue workers and they would push construction vehicles into a heap on the beach.

I’d have to deal with these guys.  It wasn’t just intercepting any groups that made their way into my territory.  That was easy, all things considered.  No, I also had to deal with the small army that would come marching through here wanting retaliation over my having kicked the asses of any groups that had made their way into my territory.

I could call on the others, if such a situation arose, and I expected them to call on me if the same thing happened.  But people would take time to get here, and the Merchants, the Chosen or whoever else was making trouble could keep making trouble until the reinforcements arrived.  It was tricky, and I didn’t know for sure how I’d handle things if-

“Taylor.”

My reaction wasn’t much different than if someone had stabbed me in the stomach with an icicle.  I’d thought of that mental image in particular because of the cold, horrible feeling in my midsection; fear, guilt.  My thoughts immediately went back to my nightmare from earlier.  I turned to look.

“It’s you,” my dad spoke, “Wow.”

He stood on the ledge above me.  He was more tanned than I was.  He wore a short-sleeved button-up shirt and khakis and held a clipboard.  It set him apart from the other laborers, and the man who stood just behind him, wearing a gray t-shirt and jeans.  I knew in an instant, my dad was in charge around here.

Looking at him, I couldn’t imagine how I might have thought he was Coil.  Even in a dream.

“Just out for my regular run.”

Surprise etched his face, “You’re running during this…?!”

He made a visible effort to close his mouth.  It made me feel uneasy.  What thought process or concern was keeping my dad from opening his mouth about my running?  He’d been worried about it when the streets were relatively safe.  Was he that spooked at the idea of scaring me off again?

He looked at the man who was standing near him, murmured something.  The man walked over to join the others in observing the damage around the damaged vehicles.

We were left more or less alone.

“You got my messages?”  I asked.

“I’ve listened to that answering machine so many times-” he stopped.  He was a good distance away, but I could see the lines in his forehead, “I miss you.”

“I miss you too.”

“I… I don’t know how to ask.  I’m afraid to ask you to come home, because I’m not sure I can stand to hear you tell me you won’t.”

He paused, for a long moment.  Waiting for me to jump at the opportunity.  I stayed silent and hated myself for it.

“Well,” he said, so quiet I could barely hear him, “You can always come home.  Any time, any reason.”

“Okay,” I told him.

“What are you doing with yourself these days?”

I struggled to find an answer, and was saved by the bell.  One of the men by the wreck shouted, “Danny!” and my dad turned.

My dad ran his fingers through his hair, “I need to go handle this.  Can I… How do I contact you?”

“I’ll leave you a message on your answering machine,” I said, “With my cell phone number, and my email in case I’m in an area where cell service is down.”

“Email?” he asked.  “Where are you that you have access to a computer?”

A few blocks from here.

“Just outside the city limits,” I lied, “Not far from the Market.”

“So you’re out of the way of any trouble,” My dad noted, with a touch of relief.  There was a noise as someone began prying one of the truck doors open, and my dad turned his head, frowning.  “But what are you doing here this morning?”

“I was going to stop by the house, see if it was in okay shape,” I lied again.  Was this the extent of my interactions with my dad?  Always lies?  “Keeping up with my running.”

“I see.  Look, I have to go, but I do want to talk again, soon.  Lunch, maybe?”

“Maybe,” I offered.  He offered me a sad smile, then turned to go.

I moved my hand to adjust my glasses, and wound up waving at my face.  I was wearing my lenses.

“Dad!” I called out.  He stopped.  “Um.  I’d heard the Slaughterhouse Nine were around.  Be careful, warn others.”  I pointed at my face.

His eyes widened.  I could see the thought process, the realization.  He took off his glasses and hung them from his shirt’s front pocket.  I wasn’t positive that was much better.

“Thank you,” he said, squinting slightly at me.  He raised a hand in an awkward half-wave, and I returned it with one of my own.  As if by mutual agreement, we turned to leave at the same time, both of us going in separate directions.  He hurried to where he was needed, and I turned to run back to my place.  My lair.  I hadn’t run nearly as far as I’d wanted, but I wasn’t up to continuing.

I checked the kitchen clock as I entered from the cellar.  I had thirty minutes.  I took the time to shower and don my costume – my sleeve was still crusty and stained yellow-white where it had come in contact with the foam, but at least it wasn’t sticky anymore.

My mask wasn’t wearable with the contacts.  I’d taken lenses out of an old pair of glasses and set them into the construction of my mask.   I debated it for a few moments, then I decided to use the remaining time to fix it.  With my knife’s point, I set about undoing that particular piece of work, prying the lenses out.

I finished with enough time left over to grab and eat a breakfast bar.  Coil’s people were punctual, rapping on the metal shutter at six forty-five.

Alright.  This was it.  I pulled on my mask.

Time to claim my territory.

Last Chapter                                                                                                Next Chapter

Parasite 10.6

Last Chapter                                                                                                Next Chapter

The residual foam on my glove made my hand sticky as I reached into the compartment at my back and grabbed my baton.  It took me two tries to get my thumb onto the button so I could whip it out to its full length.

I strode towards Bitch, weapon in hand.  Tattletale hurried to catch up to me, turning to keep an uneasy eye on the ongoing fight with the Protectorate.

“Hey, Skitter!” Tattletale grabbed my shoulder.

I whirled to face her, hand clenching my baton.  I could see the change in her expression as some piece fell in place for her.

“Shit,” she swore, “Hey, listen-”

She didn’t get a chance to finish.  White smoke billowed around us.  My first thought was that our adversaries were using some sort of bug spray.

The way today was going, it would be just my luck.

I held my breath and hurried out of the cloud, Tattletale following, and searched for the source.  Assault was taking on Regent and Imp, while Grue and Shadow Stalker were dealing with Battery and Weld.  Bitch and her dogs, on the other hand, were facing down Triumph.  Not the matchup I would have chosen, taking on the guy with the sonic shout using dogs with sensitive hearing.

I almost went after Bitch right then and there, but self-preservation won out over any desire for retribution.  As Tattletale and I made our way around the cloud, I spotted Miss Militia.

A black-green energy crackled in her hand, and she lobbed a grenade my way.  I scrambled back, only for it to turn out to be another canister of smoke, billowing out between Miss Militia and me.

Why the smoke?

The bees I had in the smoke were acting funny.  I was surprised to find out why.  I’d known that beekeepers used smoke to pacify the bees before collecting the honey.  My assumption had been that it acted as a tranquilizer, putting them to sleep.  In reality, it was forcing them to revert to instinctual behavior.  It made them want to eat and feed and to flee.  For those near enclosed spaces or even the corners of walls or the foundations of buildings, it made them adjust their wingbeats to divert the flows of oxygen.

If she’d been intending to use the smoke to screw with my insects, she’d underestimated my power.  I canceled out the instincts and sent the bugs through the smoke, blind, feeling out for her.  I found her running towards us, through the smoke.

“She’s coming!” I shouted.

In retrospect, that was a mistake.

Much as I might have warned Tattletale and the others, I’d also informed Miss Militia on my location.  I turned to run, but she was already raising her gun to fire with an ear-shattering crack.

From the way it cut past my bugs, and the wake of disturbed air the pellets left behind them I could only guess she’d just grazed me with a shotgun.  I collapsed sideways to the ground, and the pain came a heartbeat later, radiating over half of my upper body, from my shoulder to my right butt cheek.  I was guessing it was nonlethal ammunition – it could well have been lethal, for the sheer degree of hurt it delivered, if my costume had prevented it from penetrating.

Before she could shoot again, I directed my bugs to her hands and eyes, hoping to incapacitate her.  I still had a small few of the capsaicin-loaded bugs, and sent them all her way.

As hard as it was to see in the smoke, there was still faint light.  That light disappeared the instant Grue used his power.

Miss Militia was staggering and reeling as her hands and face lit up with stings and burns.  The gun wasn’t in her hands anymore, which meant we weren’t at risk of getting shot.  I sent more bugs across to the other members of the Protectorate, to try to disable them.

Tattletale fumbled around and found me in the darkness, clasped her hand around the same hand I held the baton with, and helped me to my feet.  She gave me her support as we limped away.  Nothing seemed to be broken, judging by what I felt.

The darkness disappeared after we’d traveled across the street.  Grue greeted us.  “Dragon?”

“Kaput, thanks to Tattletale,” I spoke.

He looked back the way we’d come, “Damn that smoke.  Listen, Tattletale, head down this street, wait for us.  Skitter and I are going back in to find and retrieve the others.”

I supposed that would be another benefit of using the smoke.  If you didn’t expect to be able to see, then it didn’t hurt to deny your enemy that same privilege.  Miss Militia had been thinking about this.  If her team wasn’t so sparse on members, she could have done a lot more damage.

“My bugs are telling me they’re over there, there and there,” I pointed in the direction of our teammates.  “That’s all I can do for you.  I kind of got shot, not sure I’m up to running around.”

His head snapped around to face me, “Shot?”

“I’m okay, it was nonlethal.  I think,” I assured him, “Go!”

He did, glancing over his shoulder to look at me before disappearing back into the midst of the darkness.

Tattletale and I made our escape.  We got three blocks away before we found a spot to hide.  Tattletale got out her phone and began sending messages, presumably to Grue and Coil.

Our hiding place was the lobby of an apartment building.  Boards had been placed over the windows, and there were signs that some people had camped out here, not long ago.  It was otherwise similar to Grue’s apartment complex.  Less tidy, obviously.

“You okay?” Tattletale asked me.

“That question seems to come up a lot.”

“I’m sorry.  I knew the gun would inevitably overheat, and what little I could read off of Dragon told me she’d deal with that above anything else.  I didn’t think you’d be stuck there, too.”

“No.  Your gun thing there saved my skin.  The real problem was…” I trailed off.  I still had the baton in my hand – the residual containment foam meant I’d probably have to peel the glove away from the weapon.  I clenched the weapon tight.

We sat in silence for nearly ten minutes before the rest arrived as a massed group.  Shadow Stalker was limping, and two of the dogs were their normal size, draped across Bentley’s back, but everyone was more or less intact.

Bitch’s eyes widened fractionally as she saw me.

I was already standing, barely feeling the hurt from where I’d been grazed.  Blood pounded in my ears, and I could feel the buzz of my insects.

“How-” she started.  I didn’t let her finish.  My baton held in both hands, I struck her in the upper thigh.  When she didn’t fall, I let go of the baton and backhanded her.  She toppled, and protests and shouts echoed around me.

It hurt.  Damn it, I’d never really hit someone with my hands before.  I wondered if I’d managed to break something.

There were still bugs on some of my teammates.  I could sense them approaching, Grue and Imp moving to stop me.  I ducked out of the way of their hands before they could grab me, and then held up my baton, menacing them.  I cast a momentary glance towards Shadow Stalker, then augmented my voice with the buzzing and chirping of my swarm, “Don’t.”

“What the hell are you doing!?” Grue roared.

“Ask her,” my response was barely above a growl.

Grue glanced down at Bitch, who was rubbing her chin, opening her jaw wide, as if testing it.

I dropped down to a crouch so quickly that my knee slammed into the ground.  I grabbed the upper end of the baton and pulled it over Bitch’s head, forcing the bar between her teeth, pulling back hard.

Grue moved to stop me once more, and I shook my head.  He hesitated, then stopped.

Bentley was pacing towards me, snarling at the attack on his owner.  I met his gaze with my own, unflinching, and he didn’t lunge to attack, maybe because he didn’t want to hurt his master in the process.  I didn’t break eye contact with the dog as I spoke with the swarm buzzing in accompaniment, “Regent, this isn’t for Shadow Stalker’s ears.”

“Got it,” Regent spoke.  Shadow Stalker moved to the bench by the elevators, sat down, and buried her face in her arms, covering her ears.  Regent informed me, “She can’t hear much of anything, now.”

“Bitch,” I pulled on the bar, eliciting more struggling from Bitch, “Just tried to fuck me over in the fight with Dragon.  Shoved me into the foam.”

Bitch made a muffled noise, then jabbed me in the side, where I’d been grazed by Miss Militia’s shotgun.  It hurt, and in the interest of keeping her from doing it again, I shifted my position so I could force Bitch onto her back against the ground, her head pinned down by my baton.  She could still hit me and jab me, but my shins could take a lot more abuse than her jaw could.  I belatedly realized I’d taken my eyes off Bentley, but he didn’t maul me.  When I looked up, I saw Tattletale had a grip on his chains.

“You’re a coward, Rachel,” I spoke, “You just did the very same thing you hate me for almost doing.  You stabbed me in the back.  You fucked over your own teammate.”

She mumbled something around the bar.  The look in her eyes made me seriously worry she would kill me when I let her go.

“I’m in a position to hurt you now, and I’m pissed enough to do it,” I spoke, my voice low.  “But I won’t.  This vendetta against me ends, now.  You got your shot at me, you fucked it up.  If you’re still mad at me, you fucking better cope, got it!?”

She snarled out two muffled words.  I suspected they were rude.

When I spoke next, I bent low and whispered the words for her and her alone, “When you’re tossing and turning and trying to sleep, remembering what I did and said here and getting pissed off about it?  Remember that you were the weak one.  You embarrassed yourself, fucked up, you were the weakling, the wuss who couldn’t even confront me face to face.  And knowing you like I do?  I’m betting it’s going to gnaw at you.  That’s as much a punishment as I could inflict, I think.  That’s on you, not me.

“You said it yourself, a while back.  It’s a mistake to underestimate me.  You want another shot at it, it had better be really damn good.  Because if it isn’t, I’m going to survive, I’m going to get away.  And then I might break your jaw for real.  For starters.”

I stood, removing the baton from her mouth and stepping away, to give her room to stand.  Leaning against the wall, I pressed the button and collapsed the baton into the handle.  I stared at her.

Working her jaw, she stood and glared at me.  She either didn’t have a response for me, or she did and her jaw hurt too much for her to try giving it.  None of the others were jumping into the middle of this.

In the face of the silence, I offered one final comment, “I think I’ve already covered what happens if you want to continue this vendetta.  Now I’m going to offer you a deal.  Number three, I think, and my deals with you are usually pretty fair, if I may say so myself.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“I fucked up, you fucked up, whatever.  Insult for insult, blow for blow, I’d like to think we’re even.  So now I’m going to trust you to have my back.  I’m going to put myself in more situations where you have a prime chance at fucking me over, backstabbing me, catching me at my most vulnerable.  Because we can’t function as a team any other way.

“I’m going to treat you like a damned teammate, Rachel, but I’ll go one step further.  You think you can put this behind you and satisfy yourself with what you tried to pull earlier tonight?  Cool.  Because if you’re willing, I’ll come with you to help take care of your dogs.  I’ll bring fucking lunch, if you want it.  That’s the deal I’m offering you, pissed as I am right now.  I’ll be your damn friend.”

She looked away, down at the ground, scowling.

“Take it or leave it.”

She decided to leave it, apparently.  Bitch stomped away, slamming the door the moment Bentley passed through it, leaving the rest of us standing there in the rubbish-strewn apartment building.

Grue sighed audibly and looked over our group, “We’d better go.  We should decide what we’re going to do with Shadow Stalker, now.”

“We could keep her,” Imp spoke.

Regent shook his head, “Nope.  There are drawbacks to this, and one of them is that I lose control of anyone I’m controlling while I sleep.  Better to get rid of her on my terms than have her trying to shoot me in the throat while I take a nap.”

“And it’s kind of fucked up,” I spoke.

“I thought you were all-in,” Regent said.

“I am.  But that doesn’t mean I’m an idiot,” I retorted.  “This kind of mind control-”

“Body control,” Regent interrupted, his tone bored, “Her mind still belongs to her.”

“Semantics.  This kind of mind control is pretty high up there on the scale of fucked upness.  People are going to respond to that.  It might be the nudge they need to start responding to us with lethal force.  Think of how different tonight would have played out if Dragon and Miss Militia hadn’t held back.”

“Sure,” he shrugged.  “Whatever.  I don’t know why you’re arguing with me.  I agree, we should get rid of her.”

“What did you do, back in the old days?” Tattletale asked.

“Kept three people I used regularly, with my sister’s help.  But this is fine.  Look, watch.”

Shadow Stalker stood, lowering her hands and arms from around her head, and walked over to the door.  She faced Regent.

“I’m letting you go,” he spoke.

And then he did.  She dropped to all fours on the ground, grunting.  A second later, she was loading her bolt, spinning to point her crossbow at him.  She stopped before firing.

“There’s a catch,” he spoke. “My power?  Once I’ve figured someone out?  It’s a lot easier to control them, after.  Any time you come near me, I can do this.  I can use my power and retake control in the blink of an eye.”

He had her raise her crossbow and point it at her temple.  It was a tranquilizer dart, but the meaning seemed pretty damn clear.

“Next time I get control?  I’m keeping you for a full day.  Maybe two, if I feel like pulling an all-nighter.  And here’s the funny part,” there was no humor in his voice, “I’m going to do it even if I’m in civilian clothes, if my power tells me you’re in range.  You won’t even know when it’s coming.  You’re now a liability to the Wards, and you won’t ever know when or where I’m going to get control again…

“Unless you leave.  Skip town.  Join another team.”

She nodded, slowly.  The movement was jerky, which was peculiar.  Was he giving her limited control of her own movements?

“Now let’s walk you off to the other end of the city before I release you.  I don’t think you’re quite stupid enough to try and follow us, but I think my teammates would be more comfortable if they were sure.”

Shadow Stalker turned and walked through the door.

Regent looked at us, shrugged.  “Good enough?”

“She might be mad enough to come after someone else in our group, but yeah.  Good,” Grue said.  “Let’s go deliver the stuff.”

■

We didn’t meet Coil in the underground base, and the people surrounding him weren’t all the same uniformed mercenaries that had made up his entourage in our prior meetings.  The meeting place was at the south end of the Docks, near the border to the downtown area, and it was closer in appearance to the refurbished, ramshackle building where I’d reunited with the Undersiders than anything else.

The building was an old quadruplex, and it had been reinforced with metal panels, sandbags and plastic sheeting to keep the interior crisp and dry, much as the other building had.  Small rooms with bunk beds filled half of the lower level, with a bathroom, kitchen and living room taking up the rest.

Finding the lower level empty, we headed to the second floor and found an open space supported by two metal pillars.  There were a half-dozen mercenaries with Coil, as well as a collection of people who looked like they had come from every walk of life.  Teenagers, professionals, and two guys that might have been capes – one thin, short guy with brown skin and a tattoo around his mouth, depicting a mess of sharp teeth penetrating the skin of his cheeks and lips.  The other was burlier, shirtless, and wore a rusty, old fashioned looking mechanical rigging around his hands, with a bear-trap jaw plate.  The frame seemed set up to hold metal claws around his fingertips while allowing his hands the full range of motion.   He had a spiked collar of much the same style.

Coil sat in a black leather armchair, with a laptop set on the table beside him.  Dinah was there, too.  She sat at the base of the chair, on a cushion just beside Coil’s feet, picking at the threads of her white dress with a dazed single-mindedness that told me she had probably received her ‘candy’ pretty recently.

“Undersiders.  Tattletale informed me you were successful, despite complications.  May I see it?”

Tattletale stepped forward and handed Coil the USB thumbstick.  He plugged it into the laptop, then turned the computer so the middle-aged man to his left could type away.

“Data’s corrupted, sir.  Looks like the download was interrupted at the ninety-seven percent mark.”

“Can you fill in the blanks?” Coil asked him.

“Probably.  Will take some time.  There’s encryption.  Good encryption.  Maybe a few days, with the full team working on it?”

“Most likely it is Dragon’s work,” Coil spoke. “Let’s assume it’ll take a week, minimum.  Perhaps Tattletale will be able to assist.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Priority number one, I want the data on the Slaughterhouse Nine.”

I felt a chill, but didn’t say anything.  Was he intending to hire them?  It would be a huge mistake in my book, if he was.

Regent asked the question for me, “The Slaughterhouse Nine?”

“At least some of their members have been seen in town, preying on the locals, disrupting recovery efforts.  The recent chaos makes the city a playground for them,” Coil spoke.  “One of my teams is bound to run up against them soon.”

“How likely is it?” Tattletale asked.  She tilted her head in Dinah’s direction.  “Can you ask her?”

“I suppose.”  Coil put his hand on Dinah’s head, stroked her hair, then slid his hand down the side of her face until he could place his fingertips under her chin, raise her head to look at him, “Pet?”

It was disturbingly intimate in a way I’d rather not think about.  No, not intimate.  That was the wrong word for the impression I was getting.  Possessive.  I looked away.

“Yes?” Dinah asked.

“Likelihood that one of my groups encounters the Slaughterhouse Nine?”

“Who?”

He moved to take the laptop, and the middle-aged man stepped back to let him.  He typed for a few seconds, then turned it around so Dinah could see.  It was a gallery of images.

“Bonesaw.” he spoke.  The girl on the screen looked barely older than Dinah, maybe the same age as Aisha.  The image showed her wide-eyed, a spray of dried blood painted her face at a diagonal.

“Shatterbird.”  A dark-haired, brown-skinned woman with a helmet covering the upper half of her face, in a beak shape.  I was reminded of Iron Falcon, the boy I’d tried to help, who’d died in the Endbringer attack.  From what I’d read, Shatterbird usually used her power as the Nine arrived in a city, to maximize panic and terror.  I supposed they were flying under the radar for now.  Fuck, I’d have to do something about my costume, just in case.

“Crawler.”  No portrait, this time.  It was a still from a surveillance camera, a misshapen silhouette, not even humanoid, in a shadowy area.  I’d come across stories about him when I’d been researching possible superhero names for myself.  Not pretty.

“Mannequin.”  Another long-distance shot.  The figure was standing by Bonesaw in the photograph, with other hulking figures within the shadows of the background.  He stood almost twice her height, and he looked artificial.  His body was in pieces, each section wrapped in a hard shell of ceramic or plastic or white-painted metal – I couldn’t be sure.  His joints were a mix of loose chains and ball joints.  A Tinker with a body-modification fetish.  I couldn’t say how much of the transformation was his own power and how much was Bonesaw’s work.

“The Siberian.”  A woman, naked from head to toe, her body painted in alternating stripes of jet black and snow white.  She had gone up against the Triumvirate – Legend, Alexandria and Eidolon – on a dozen occasions, and she was still around to talk about it.  Or around, at least.  From what I’d read, she didn’t talk.

“Burnscar.” Younger, maybe an older teenager or a young-looking twenty-something.  She looked almost normal, with her dark hair badly cut, but then I saw the vertical row of cigarette burns marking each of her cheeks, and a faint glow to her eyes.

“Hatchet Face.”  This was one I hadn’t even heard of.  The man didn’t wear a mask, and his head was shaved.  He looked like he had been beaten, burned and just plain abused so often that his face was as much scar tissue than flesh, and he didn’t look like he’d been handsome to begin with.

“Jack Slash.”  Jack looked like someone on the attractive side of average, his dark hair cut short and styled with gel.  His beard and moustache were immaculately trimmed so that each had a serrated edge, and his shirt was wrinkled, only half buttoned so his hairless upper chest showed.  He had kind of a Johnny Depp look to him, though he had more of a widow’s peak, a longer face and lighter eyes.  Good looking, if you looked past the fact that he was a mass murderer.  He held a small kitchen knife in the photo.

There were parahumans who were fucked up before powers entered the picture, like Bitch, and there were parahumans who became monsters after they got their powers, like Bakuda.  Then there were the really dangerous ones, the people who had probably been monsters before powers were even on the table, and then they got worse.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, you had Bonesaw, who was like some kind of artist, as psychopaths went.  The sort of person that drew other lunatics to her, just because they wanted to see what she would do next.  Even that wouldn’t normally work as a dynamic, but as I understood it, Jack somehow managed to play them off one another and keep the group more or less intact.  He was familiar enough with the psychology of his group and just plain charismatic enough to keep them from killing one another.

Which wasn’t to say they didn’t.  There were only eight members in their group at present, and the turnover rate was pretty damn high, because they had a tendency towards recklessness, infighting and showy displays.  They thought nothing of descending on an elementary school, just because they could.  When the heroes came for them, they came with lethal force.

“Mmm,” Dinah said.

“What is it, pet?” Coil murmured.

“It’s him.”

“Who?”

She pointed at the screen, at Jack Slash.  “Him.”

“You’re going to have to explain it to us, pet.  What about him?”

“He’s the one who makes everyone die.”

I shivered.  What?

“Everyone here?”

Dinah shook her head, her hair flying out to either side.  “Everyone.  I don’t understand.  Can’t explain.”

“Try,” he urged her.

“Sometimes it’s in two years.  Sometimes it’s in eight.  Sometimes in between.  But if he’s alive, something happens, and everyone on Earth starts to die.  Not that everyone doesn’t die anyways but they die really fast when that something happens, all one after another, and in a year almost everyone is dead.  So I said everyone, if that makes sense and a few live but they die pretty soon after anyways and-“

“Shh, pet.  I think we understand what you’re saying.  Quiet now, unless you think of something important.  We need to consider this.”

Silence reigned for a few long seconds.  You could have heard a pin drop.

“His power isn’t all that, I don’t think,” Grue spoke, slowly, as if considering the words as he spoke.  “Space warping effect, so any blades he’s holding have an edge that extends a horrendously long distance, all with the optimal force behind the swing.  Swings his knife, cuts through an entire crowd.  Doesn’t make sense that he’d be able to murder everyone on Earth.”

“Unless he somehow cuts the planet in half,” Tattletale mused.

That was disquieting.

“No,” Dinah spoke.  “He doesn’t.”

“I think we need more numbers if we’re to understand this, pet.  What is the likelihood that he succeeds in this?  To one decimal point.”

“Eighty three point four percent.”

“You said if he’s alive.  What if we killed him?  Now?  To one decimal point.  If I use my power.”

“Thirty one point two percent chance someone kills him before he leaves the city, if you use your power.  It doesn’t happen until fifteen years from now, if you do.”

“So it still happens?” Coil asked.

“Yes.  Always happens.”

Tattletale spoke up, “He’s the catalyst for something else, then.”

“Is it always successful, pet?  This something that kills everyone on Earth?”

She shook her head, “Not always, not all the way.  Sometimes more people live.  Sometimes hundreds, sometimes thousands, sometimes billions.  But millions or billions always die when it happens.”

“If I were to send the Travellers?  How likely would they be to kill him?”

“My head hurts.”

“Please, pet, this is important.  To one decimal point.”

“Twenty two point six percent.  Thirty point nine percent chance some of them die.”

“And the Undersiders?”

“Eleven point nine percent chance they succeed.  Fifty five point four percent chance they die if they fight those people.”

Coil sighed, then straightened.  He looked at the middle-aged man, handed him the computer, “I strongly recommend you get what information you can on the group.  Any detail in the PRT records could be invaluable.  Lose sleep if you have to.”

The man took the laptop, swallowed, and then offered a quick bob of his head.  The others in the assembled group around Coil looked just as alarmed by what they’d overheard.

“We should contact the local heroes,” Grue spoke.  “Let them know what’s up.”

Coil nodded, slowly, “I’ll look into it.  That said, I think the numbers illustrate one thing.  You are not equipped to fight that group.  If you encounter them, you-“

“Sixty percent,” Dinah muttered.

“Sixty percent, pet?”

“Sixty percent chance the Undersiders encounter some of those people.”

Coil turned to look at us.  “So you’re likely to encounter them.  When that happens, you run.  Cede any territory, abandon any job.  I would rather you were alive than successful in a job.”

“Got it,” Grue spoke.

“In the meantime, we move on to the next phase of my plan,” Coil spoke.  “You may be wondering about this location, how it is similar to the new headquarters I provided you.  I have outfitted these areas to be your stations, points from which you will operate, work to seize and keep territory.  I have several more.  If you’re amenable, I would have each of you take one of these stations for yourself.  Grue, this would be your station, shared with Imp, which I assume is alright?”

Grue looked around, “Big place and a lot of beds for two people.”

“More on that later.  Rest assured, I can provide staff, help.  I expect you’ll wish to find and recruit people of your own.  Contact me about funds – I will ensure that anyone you hire is paid well.”

Grue nodded.

“Regent?  Your territory is near Grue’s, close to the water.”

Regent nodded.

“Bitch is absent?”

“Interpersonal stuff,” Grue replied.  “She’ll be back.”

“A shame.  Your other headquarters, where I moved your collective belongings, that will be her station.  Barker and Biter here showed up for the Endbringer fight, and I got in contact with them.  They, alongside these three young individuals,” he gestured to the two parahumans, and three college-aged kids who looked rather intimidated, “Will work under her.  Barker and Biter profess to be fearless, and should have little difficulty managing the dogs, even when Bitch’s abilities are at work.  The men and the young lady I’ve provided have some degree of training in veterinary medicine or handling dogs.  Let her know this.  She is free to accept them or refuse them as she sees fit.”

Grue looked over the five people who would be Bitch’s henchmen, nodded.

“Tattletale, I’ve set up quarters near Lord Street, in one of the ABB’s old locations.  I assume your teammates will want to be in contact, and this area is both accessible, and it can reach any other area readily.  The area is already furnished with computers, and you’ll find staff there, people who are capable at gathering information, be it from media, computers or the streets.  You’ll also find a small force of mercenaries that I’ve assigned to you, so you can act on that information where you see fit.”

“Cool.”

“Skitter, I have set up quarters near the south end of the Boardwalk.  Reconstruction and repair work is still ongoing there, but if you will be patient, it may well be one of the more lucrative locations when things are up and running again.”

I nodded.  That wouldn’t be far from my old home, close to our old hideout.  Did that mean something?  Did he know who I was, or had Tattletale suggested it?  I felt uneasy about that.

“Regent, Grue, Imp and Skitter, I realize I have not detailed any employees to you to begin with.  I leave it to you to start this task for yourself, to decide what you need and how you intend to operate.  Once you have decided this for yourselves, let me know, and I will endeavor to help you fill in the blanks in your individual operations.

“As you leave, you’ll receive emails on the locations of your individual headquarters.  For the time being, all I require from you, for now, is that you establish order and assume some measure of control over your territories.”

There were nods all around.

“Your payment for tonight’s job will be in your accounts shortly, with a bonus for the obstacles you faced.  Any questions?  Any topics you would like to raise for discussion?”

“A few questions, but I figure I’ll see what’s up with this new role we’re taking,” Grue replied, “Then I’ll ask them.”

“Good.”

“I’ve got something I’d like to talk to you about,” I spoke, augmenting my voice with the swarm’s noises to mask it.  “In private.”

“Yes.  That’s fine, I was hoping to have a private conversation with you anyways.  Anyone?  Anything else before we part ways?”

Nobody had anything further to say.  Grue and the others turned to leave, and the crowd around Coil followed them soon after.  One of Bitch’s henchmen – Barker, was it? – leered at me as he passed, dug his hand into his groin in some sort of scratch or a lewd gesture.

Lovely.  He’d get along great with Bitch.

When the group had left the room, I could hear noises downstairs, as they moved about the house.  Or maybe it was Grue, checking his new place.  I was left alone with Coil and Dinah.

I wasn’t sure I liked that our group was being split up like this.  The timing seemed bad.  I’d sort of been hoping I could repair the divide, and that would be hard if we were each in our own territories, doing our own things.

I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.

“I heard about the incident at the hospital, following the Endbringer attack.”

I nodded.

“Tattletale told me that you know I was fully informed about your true nature.”

“Yeah.”

“Did she explain how?”

I shook my head.  She’d told me about his power in confidence.

“Well, I suppose I may share that detail at some point in the future.  You understand my desire to keep certain things private?”

“Yeah, no.  I get it.  It makes sense, it’s smart.”

“Mmm,” he murmured.  He turned to his pet, stroked her head like one might with a dog or a cat.  She stared down at her dress, picked at a thread that was sticking out, stretching it out long.  The thread snapped, and she let it drift from her hand to the ground.  Then she started picking at another.  Coil interrupted my observations, “So.  You wished to discuss something?”

“Yeah.  I’ve made a decision.”

“Do tell.”

“Before, back in the limousine, you asked me what I wanted out of all this, what I desired from my deal with you.”

“Yes.”

“I asked you to fix the city, you told me you planned on doing that anyways, that I should ask for something else.”

“And you’ve decided.”

“Yeah,” I took a deep breath.  “Dinah.  Your… pet.”

“You want me to release her.  I’m afraid-“

I hurried to cut him off, “No.”

He stopped, tilted his head slightly.

I swallowed, felt an ugly feeling in my gut, “I know she’s invaluable to you.  I know how useful her talent is, and the lengths you went to in getting ahold of them.  I don’t like it, but I get it.”

He didn’t respond.  He just stared at me, his mask lacking eye holes, just black cloth stretched over eye sockets.

“I… All I’m asking is that you let her go when you’ve done it.  When you take this city, when you succeed in your plan, you release her to go home to her family.  If you do that, I’ll work for you.  I’ll try harder than anyone, to get this city under your control, and then I’ll work for you for as long as you’ll have me, afterward.”

“I’m afraid, Skitter, that this deal doesn’t quite balance out.  I intend no offense, but my initial impression is that my pet is far more valuable to me than you are.”

No.  My heart sank.

“But I can accept it,” he spoke.  “Provided you prove to me that your talents are worth losing hers.  I admit, the active assistance you can provide might prove more useful when the city is firmly in my grasp, when I have less to be concerned about in terms of day-to-day operations.”

I nodded, numbly.

“Anything else?”

I shook my head, then turned to leave, wordlessly.

When I went downstairs, Tattletale and Regent were already gone.  Maybe they were checking out their new places.  Grue and Imp were in the ‘living room’, opening crates of stuff to see the supplies they had available.

I wasn’t up to talking to them, or explaining the recent conversation.

Leaving the building without a word, I sloshed through the water.  I realized my fists were clenched, and my glove was sticking to itself, thanks to the residual containment foam.  Annoying.  I wondered if I could scrub it off.

When I peeled my fingers away from the glove, I realized my hand was shaking.

I took a deep breath, to calm my nerves.  I could do this.  Whatever I had to do, I was going to help that girl.

Last Chapter                                                                                                Next Chapter

Extermination 8.8

Last Chapter                                                                                                Next Chapter

How was a city like Brockton Bay supposed to pay its respects to all the heroes, villains and miscellaneous others that died to protect it?  Until about five years ago, the answer had been a funeral.

It really hadn’t worked out.

On the surface, it was a great idea, had made for an amazing scene.  Grand speeches about great moments of true selflessness from even despicable villains, good guys doing the most heroic of sacrifices.

Except problems started to stack up.  Could the people in charge of the event really let someone stand up and give a eulogy for someone like Kaiser?  If they did, you earned the wrath of the dozens or hundreds of people who’d had their lives changed for the worse by Empire Eighty-Eight.

The uneasy solution had been to avoid saying anything about the local villains, beyond the fact that they had participated, but problems had stemmed from that, too.  Subordinates or teammates of the fallen villains had made a scene over these omissions, sometimes during the funerals, and villain participation in Endbringer situations started to decline.

More issues came up, rooted in the reality that people who went out in costume were more theatrical or dramatic as a rule.  Too many vying to take the spotlight, hero and villain alike, even some of the fallen, with measures or requests placed in advance.  It didn’t happen every time, but enough events became sideshows and media circuses that the whole purpose of the events was defeated.  The media was banned from recording the event, but the capes who’d sought to stand out only tried harder.  Fights had erupted.

So the funeral services became less frequent.  Then they stopped altogether.

A memorial was simpler.  All who had joined the fight could be treated equally.  There could be no snubs, really, nor could there be insults, dramatic oaths, taunts or speaking ill of dead rivals and nemeses before cameras or audiences of capes.  It was simply a dedication to the dead, a list of names, sometimes with a statue, if the groups involved could decide on something that didn’t too closely resemble a particular hero or villain.  Ever a difficult, delicate balancing act.

Brockton Bay’s memorial had no statue.  It seemed to be black marble with stainless steel in the core of the monument, so that the etched letters stood out in a metal gleam, even reflecting the sun’s light if the time and viewer’s position was right.  The overall shape formed an obelisk, with the corners and base unpolished and rough, only the four sides smoothed and polished.  It was out of the way, placed atop Captain’s Hill, at the base of the mountains to the west of the city.  I wasn’t sure if it was put there to stay or if they intended to move it after reconstruction and city revival efforts.

Even with the memorial being out of the way, set down in place five days after the attack, it had taken a full week before the worst of the crowds were gone.  Four times, I’d felt compelled to come see it and pay my respects, only to see the press of people and turn back.

Now I was here, along with a little less than a hundred people, only a small fraction of whom were actually viewing the obelisk.  Others sat on the hill or picnicked.  As strange and vaguely inappropriate as it seemed, I couldn’t really blame them.  The memorial had been put here, specifically, because the rest of the city had been devastated.

In any given area of Brockton Bay, there was flooding, shattered streets, collapsed buildings, septic conditions or ongoing reconstruction.  Often three or four of those things at once.  More than half of the city was without power, two thirds had no running water, and even with the rest of the country and the world pitching in, uneven food distribution, health concerns, lack of facilities and rampant looting and crime made for dangerous living.  Buses were leaving every hour with evacuees, but the city was still thick with crowds of people just struggling to get by.  Too many were people who had no relatives or friends to go to, who wouldn’t leave their remaining possessions behind to be taken by unscrupulous thieves.  Captain’s Hill, for now, was a place that was safe, dry and clean.

I walked around the monument, noting the names.

Escutcheon / Tyrone Venson
Erudite / Mavis Shoff
Fenja / Jessica Biermann
Fierceling /
Frenetic /
Furrow /
Gallant / Dean Stansfield
Geomancer / Tim Mars
Good Neighbor / Roberto Peets
Hallow /
Herald / Gordon Eckhart
Humble /

Gallant was dead. Unsettling to think that I’d met him and fought him.   Or, rather, I’d fought against his team in the same skirmish, even if we hadn’t actually paid attention to one another in the fight.  Now he was gone.

I could guess that the ones without names either hadn’t given permission for their names to be released, hadn’t written any will or had reason to keep their names private, protecting teammates.  I circled the monument, walking around to the right.

Impel / Corey Steffons
Iron Falcon / Brent Woodrow
Jotun /
Kaiser / Max Anders
Manpower / Neil Pelham
Mister Eminent /
Oaf / Wesley Scheaffer
Pelter / Stefanie Lamana
Penitent /
Quark / Caroline Ranson
Resolute / Georgia Woo
Saurian / Darlene Beckman

I noted Iron Falcon on the list.  A few nights ago, trying and failing to fall asleep, managing a half-sleep where my thoughts drifted, I’d made the connection between the boy I’d helped and the ‘Iron Falcon down’ report I’d heard from the armband.  The name had maybe stuck with me because I could remember reading about how it was becoming a trend for heroes to go the easy route and stick -hawk or some other bird of prey on the end of their names.  Laserhawk, Flame Falcon, Steel Eagle, and so on.  It had become unfashionable, but apparently Iron Falcon had stuck with it.

If his name was here, it meant he hadn’t made it.  Hadn’t it been a problem with his leg?  How did that kill someone?  It was hard to figure out how I felt about it.  Disappointed?  Sad for him?

It was hard to figure out how I felt, period.  Not just about the dead.

I shivered, and rubbed my arms to warm up.  It was sunny out, but cool air rolled down from the nearby mountains, and the amount of moisture in the air made for a damp cold.

Should have brought something warmer to wear.  I stepped back and out of the way so a pair of parents with a toddler could pass by me.

Rubbing my sleeves against my arms, I traveled around to the right, to the far side of the memorial, which faced the city.

Sham /
Shielder / Eric Pelham
Smackdown / Jennie Ryan
Snowflake / Charlotte Tom
Strider / Craig McNish
Uglymug /
Velocity / Robin Swoyer
Vitiator /
WCM /
Zigzag / Bennie Debold and Geoff Schearn

It was shorter than the other lists, the last list of names, so there was space at the bottom.  Someone had used the empty space to etch words into the marble.  It was crude work, with scuff marks around each notch where the tool had been off target.  The letters were all in capital letters, all straight lines – the ‘o’s were squares, the ‘B’s two triangles joined at one corner.

KOOROW   BULLIT
MILK                   STUMPY
BROOTUS  JOODUS
AXIL         GINGIR

How long had it taken her?  She would have had to come late at night, well after the crowd had left, sat there with a chisel, hammer and flashlight, painstakingly chipped the letters into the marble.  If she even had a chisel.  She might have done it with a screwdriver or something else she had at hand.

I bent down and ran my fingers over the letters.

“Sickening.” I glanced over my shoulder to see the father holding the toddler.  He shook his head, added, “Vandalizing this?  So soon?”

“They’re names, and this took time,” I said in answer, turning back to the memorial.  “They mean something to someone.”

“I think you’re right,” a girl said.

The father didn’t respond, just continuing to walk around the memorial.  I waited until the father was gone before I stood, checked to see that most of the people who’d been visiting were off getting their lunches, the rest out of earshot.  I turned to face the girl, sticking my hands in my pockets.

Lisa’d had the sense to dress warmer than me.  Her hair was up in two tight buns, just behind her ears, and she wore sunglasses, an oversized sweater and a skirt with tights underneath.  She had a backpack slung over one shoulder.  She smiled lightly, almost sadly.

“You getting by?” She asked me.

I shrugged, “I’ve got a cot in one of the shelters for people who lost their homes, and I have some of the cash I brought with me, so I have the basics of what I need.  Not sure if Coil cancelled my bank account or what, but I might have that too.  I’m surviving.”

“I figured you would be.  What I want to know is if you’re okay.”

I shrugged.  How did I respond to that?  Confess that I wasn’t sleeping?  That I had nowhere to go?  That I was angry enough in general that I’d been asked to leave one shelter, for yelling at someone who hadn’t entirely deserved it?

Could I even bring any of that up?

Instead, I guessed, “So.  You knew?”

“Yeah,” Lisa replied, bobbing her head in a nod.  “I’m so sorry.”

“You’re apologizing?” I asked, caught by surprise, “I’m the one who planned on screwing you guys over.”

“But you didn’t.  You changed your mind.  Me?  I had an idea of what you were up to, I lied to you, misled you.  Manipulated you.  Kept it all a big secret.  And I’m sorry for that.  Really.”

“How long did you know?  When I was lying on my cot in the shelter, wondering whether you did know, thinking back to your expression and the things you’ve said in the past, I thought maybe it was when I decided to leave the group over…”  I paused, looked at the people nearby, who might or might not be in earshot.  “…you know.  But no.  You’ve known from the start.”

“Since before we met.”

That was unexpected.  “What?  How?”

She turned her head, surveying the scene, the handful of people still around the monument, “Over there?”

I nodded.

We walked over toward the railing above the sheer drop to the base of the hill.  The position gave us a view of the entire city.  There was the ocean, the coastline with crews and machinery clearing away the wreckage of buildings and the PHQ.  Blinking lights marked the barriers and trucks around the perimeter of the massive hole Leviathan had made in the upper end of Downtown.  The hole was still largely filled with water.  People were still trying to verify if it would ever empty on its own, or if it would be a permanent part of downtown.

I couldn’t make out the details of the Docks, but I saw flattened and ruined buildings.  I’d scouted it early one morning, pulling on my costume and traveling the streets at an hour that even the roving mobs were asleep.   From a distance, with the help of my bugs, I’d verified it.  The loft was gone.

My dad’s house was intact, at least, if not in the best shape.  Still, even with two nights in a row with barely three hours of sleep between them, I’d held off on returning.  Too much I couldn’t explain.

Lisa leaned on the railing, “I didn’t think we’d win.”

I joined her, leaning beside her.  Maybe she could read something in the fact that I put myself far enough away that she couldn’t reach out and touch me, couldn’t push me over if she had a mind to.  Paranoid.  Looking over the city, thinking of the devastation, the hundreds of thousands of hungry, dirty, homeless people still in the city, I thought aloud, “Did we?”

“We’re alive.  That’s a win in my book.”

I didn’t respond, and a silence stretched between us.

“Okay,” Lisa told me, “No more secrets.”

“Sounds good,” I admitted.

“And I’m trusting you to use that brain of yours to know what parts of what I’m about to say should stay between us.”

“Okay.”

“Imagine this.  You walk down a street in an unfamiliar city, you’ve got an appointment to go to, but barely any directions.  You follow?”

I nodded.

“You come to a branching path.  Do you go left, do you go right?  Whatever decision you make, you’ve got to live with it, walk down that path, and if it’s wrong, you have to figure out how to get over to the other path.  And that keeps happening, until you get where you need to be.  Maybe you got lucky, picked the right paths, got there on time.  Maybe you were unlucky, and you were late.”

I nodded, not sure where this was going.

“That’s everyone’s situation, day-to-day, making choices.  Through resourcefulness, like using a cell phone to call for directions in our hypothetical situation, or talent, like me using my power, we can make it more likely we find the right paths, but we inevitably come to a choice between A or B at some time, right?”

“Right.”

“What if you could choose both?  Choose both A and B, so your A self knows what your B self knows and vice versa.  When you know path B is the right choice, you can make it so.  The world where you chose to go down path A is gone, vanished, so when you comes to the next choice, you can do it again.”

“Sounds pretty useful.”

“Trick being that you can only have two realities running in parallel at a time, and the only differences between those realities hinge on the choices and calls you make.  So you delegate.  You find people who will follow orders.  Sometimes you send them out to do something in only one world, so that if things don’t go the way you want, you can default to the reality where you didn’t send them.  Or, in simpler terms, in one world, you flip a coin.  In the other, you hold on a second, delay, say something.”

“Until every coin you’re flipping gives you a heads.  You’re talking about Coil,” I realized.

Tattletale nodded.

“He’s been doing that from the start?”

“Some.  The bank robbery, he had our back.  But timing was sensitive, and I guess he wanted to maximize the chances that he’d get Dinah, so he didn’t have a concurrent reality where he kept us out of action.  And, according to him, we succeeded in both cases, though Bitch got hurt in a fight with Glory Girl in the other one.  Lucky for us, I suppose, that the world where she didn’t get hurt was the same one where Coil got his captive.”

I winced.  Even an offhand mention of the role I’d played in what happened to Dinah elicited a painful stab of guilt.

“We didn’t have him for the fight with Bakuda, but we did have him for the fundraiser.  He had the other version of us in reserve.”

“And the fight with Empire Eighty-Eight?”

Lisa frowned, “Apparently that was one case where he saved our hides.  Remember that call I got?  Telling me to be careful?  Same thing he did with the bank robbery.  Tells one version of me to push us to be careful, tells the other to go in for direct confrontation.  Knowing how he works, I try to nudge us in one direction or the other.  The group of us that went in for the headlong attack?  We got taken down.”

“That happened?” my eyes widened.  That would have been the fight with Night and Fog, and it hadn’t been pretty as it was.  “Did we die?”

Lisa shrugged, “Not sure.  He didn’t elaborate, often doesn’t, unless it’s key info.  But Coil decided not to go with that option, so it was clearly worse than what did happen.  Or worse in his eyes.”

“Damn,” I muttered.  What had happened?  Not knowing was almost worse than hearing we’d all been slaughtered.

“Anyways, point of this explanation is this:  Knowing we had an imminent fight with Lung coming, knowing Lung planned to pyrokinesis our general area until he rooted us out, got civilians to finger us or brought in enough capes to make life difficult for us, I called Coil.  He said he’d help, told us to wait five minutes, then take the more direct route, straight into the heart of ABB territory.

“We go, we take out a contingent of ABB gangbangers and scare off Oni Lee.  Then I get a call back from Coil.  The other reality?  We left earlier, went a different route.  Got in a fight with Lung before you showed.  You decided to attack both our groups while we were occupied fighting each other, worn out, only Lung was stronger at that time, too strong for you to do too much.  By the time you realized you’d have to work with us to stop him, which wasn’t long, it was too late.  Lung was too tough.”

I tried to picture that scenario.

“I got away, managed to call Coil, let him know what had happened.  Coil, in turn, informed me in this reality, the one you remember.  Told me to watch out for a junior hero in the area.”

I nodded.

“So I told the group to hold up, fibbed a bit about needing to use my power, get a sense of things, like Lung’s location.  I was hoping that you were a new member of the Wards, that you’d call in help and deal with Lung without our involvement, that you’d leave, or even start the fight on your own.  You attacked him on your own.”

She shrugged, smiled a little, gave me an apologetic look with a tilt of her head, “And my plan worked out.  Of course.”

“Of course,” I replied, dryly.

“It might have ended there, but then Grue mistook you for a villain, and you didn’t correct him.  It was interesting enough that I played along.  The idea of recruiting you came when he was finishing his introductions.”

“So everything I’ve been through, all of this, it’s-”

“My fault, pretty much.  That’s why I’m saying I’m sorry.  I mean it, too.”

I sighed.

“It’s okay,” I told her.  “I think… I think if it happened again, I’d still want to be part of the group, want to have met you guys.  I’d want some stuff to go down differently.  Dinah, my dad, having things come out like they did after the battle with Leviathan.”

“We can’t take back what happened,” Tattletale said.  “But we can try to fix it.  Some of it.  You could go back home.  Face the music.  Tell your dad some or all of what happened.  You could go somewhere else, or I could convince the others to leave you and your dad alone, if you wanted to do that.”

“I’m not ready to go home just yet.”

“No?  I mean, I knew you hadn’t gone home yet, but I thought maybe that was our fault, you protecting your dad, staying away from places we’d know you frequent.”

“I’m still hurt, still mad at him.  Mad at myself, too.  I guess, more than anyone, I expected my dad to understand, to give me the benefit of a doubt.  And going home would be going back to the way things were, which is the last thing I want.”

“So you don’t want to go home, you obviously don’t want to go to the Birdcage, and you turned down an offer to join the Wards.”

I hesitated, “Yeah.”

“So, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Become a hero?  Strike out on your own?”

I shook my head, stressed the words, “I don’t know.”

“No hard feelings if you want to go that way.  Again, I can talk to the others, ensure they don’t go straight for revenge or any of that.  We don’t hate you, now, hurt as some of the others might be.  Except maybe Bitch.  She probably hates you.”

“Really, I don’t know,” I told her, exasperated, “I don’t like or even respect any of the heroes I’ve met, I don’t even see the point of it.  As villains, we faced down other villains.  It wasn’t so different from what I’d be doing as a hero… but what did we really accomplish?  What does anyone accomplish, if all we end up with is this?” I gestured out at the cityscape stretching out below us.

“Maybe you don’t know what you want to do because what you really want to do is come back.”

I didn’t reply for a minute.  The quiet was disturbed by the noise of not-too-distant helicopters moving over the city, some capes flying alongside them as guards.  It would be another drop of much-needed supplies.

I sighed, “They wouldn’t have me, and those guys won’t budge on the thing with Coil and Dinah.  Not really.”

“Probably not.  I mean, even if they took you back, you’d have to eat crow, accept a few concessions, like Coil’s ‘pet’.  There’d be no more playing around.  You’d have to go all-in, from here on out, if you expected to convince them you were legit.”

I shook my head.

“You want to be forgiven for what you did?  It’s not going to be easy.  There’s going to be a sacrifice on some level.  And that starts with giving up that stubbornness, being willing to talk to them.  To talk to me.  You might even change your mind, find yourself able to look past thing with the girl, for the sake of having friends, doing the things you want or need to do in other areas.”

I stood away from the railing, stuck my hands in my pockets to keep them warm.  “Never.”

“Never’s pretty final.  If you’re so certain, what do you have to lose by hearing everyone out?  Hearing me out?  I’ve got coffee and lunch in my bag, we can sit down, talk it all out.  If you’re willing, we can then go meet the others.  I’ll talk to them with you, back you up, keep Bitch from murdering you.”

I shook my head, turned and rested my back against the railing, looking at the memorial, rather than the city.

So many dead.  So pointless.  What was wrong with this world, that it was this fucked up?  That people like Sophia and Armsmaster were heroes?  That there couldn’t even be a proper funeral for the people who had given their lives, because of a small handful of grandstanding idiots?

The wind blew hard from the north, cold, blowing my hair into disarray.  I pushed my hair out of my face, tucked it behind my ear.  When I gave Lisa a sidelong glance, she was putting her hood up.

She spoke without looking at me, “I’d go on, ask about whether you prioritize friends or morals, talk about how you’ve grown as a person in so many ways since joining us, except my power informs me that you just settled on a decision.”

She was right.  As I stared at the monument, a goal was crystallizing in my mind, a focus.  I knew, now, what I wanted to do.

I had to change things.  I had to be better than them.  Than Armsmaster, Sophia, Coil, and all the others.

“Yeah,” I replied.  She turned to glance my way.

“And does this plan feature the Undersiders?”

I gave her my answer.

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