======== SAMPLE 1 ========
 me, and for just a fraction of a second, I thought it had to do with the fact that she was wearing the same outfit I was wearing. She was wearing the green jacket over a black t-shirt, black jeans and some makeup to complete the look.

"Oh fuck me," Regent said.

"What’s her deal?" Grue asked.

"She’s a live person, tops," Regent said.

"That’s fucked up," I said.

"Live people aren’t supposed to do things on the dark side."

"Can we please get out of here?" Grue asked.

"The third floor can wait," Grue retorted.

I looked up at where Regent was crouched. I pointed at the others and told him, "Come."

He nodded and headed through the door.

"What’s going on?" Grue asked.

"Just curious, but Tattletale told me she’s handling most of the patrols," I said. I turned on my heel and stepped out of the room. "Need to play along to make up for what she did."

I could see Regent’s body language as he dropped to his knees to scratch behind the ear of one of the older dogs. The animal shrank back, and Regent straightened up, his claws digging into the ground.

Fuck me, that was unexpected.

"Need a bit of a high ground to stand up on," I said. "And space where there’s life."

Regent nodded, then started forward, his tail feathering where it wound around the ‘V’ of his mask. I stood back as he made contact with the ground, brushed me with his tail. Grue and I backed away as he turned his head, raised his claw to his face, and drew blood.

He went down for a minute, then came back up with a scrunch of elbows and a spray of blood at the dog that still stood. He spat, and his spit was viscous.

The dog screamed as it was sent flying onto the carpeted floor of the room.

Grue stood and took hold of the dog, then set about binding it.

I was a moment’s late to join the fray. My focus had shifted more towards my bugs, who were responding to my real breaths. I grit my teeth, drew in a slow breath between each exhale, and pushed the bugs out to sea.

"She’s faking," I said. I didn’t like how it looked, but I ignored my bugs to focus on the product. My vision was blurry, with spots ooze out onto my closed eyelids and across my entire forehead.

Grue started to close the distance between us, and the dog lunged, intending to leap for him.

I pushed the flying insects back as they reached the barrier just in front of Grue. A pellet appeared, splitting the swarm. Eight insects, eight darts.

Grue fired the pistol, and the darts dispersed, leaving only a trail of flies and flies in their wake. He started to make his way in our general direction, but I moved the insects closer to him anyway. Another pellet appeared, and he stopped.

He turned his attention to the remaining swarm that was closing in on him, and the range of the pistol shortened by one semisized fraction. He could make two hands in that same fraction, and he released a stream of foam at the bugs, starting with eight hands and working their way down to a single antennae. A spray, a cloud of foam four feet in diameter.

He stopped, and Grue shot him.

He stopped, and Grue shot the dog.

I reached for the gun, but I didn’t have my power. I had only the gun, my resolve, and the power of Obsidian, shielding my self. I wasn’t sure what I could have done, but I would have used it if he’d used his power to help.

My thoughts were on the dozens of things I had done that he would be proud of me for, on top of everything else. On top of that, I was concerned about Grue. He might have felt less betrayed by me for the dog I’d sacrificed. What had I been thinking about before I got pissed off? What had I glossed over, put more on autopilot, to avoid bringing him down in the first place?

I would have made Grue proud, if he’d even have deserved it.

My voice was hoarse, just a little more pronounced than it had been at the beginning of the year. Grue’s

======== SAMPLE 2 ========
 me of that whole negotiation, you know, because I’m sure as hell didn’t ask a single rhetorical question."

His voice was tight as he said, "I knew you’d bring that up, but I didn’t think you’d admit it outright."

"Well, I’m off to dinner, I guess. Hope you understand why I’m not thrilled about this."

"Why aren’t you? You weren’t thrilled? I’m guessing your dad picked out a pretty expensive restaurant and a pretty expensive steak."

"I’m thrilled."

"But if you were, you didn’t have to ask. You’re sure to please your dad with this level of attention. You don’t need any encouragement."

"Oh, dad-" I broke off, looking down at my dad.

"You’re not the parent that’s supervillain of the month if you let slip the fact that you were a supervillain yourself."

"I’m not," I looked up at him with a frown.

"Oh, come on," he said. He gave me a pat on the shoulder, "Fine. Whatever. That’s the big one. You weren’t happy in the crook?"

I shook my head, "I was."

"Then why? What did you do? What made you think that you’d please your dad so readily, that you’d go this far?"

"Just… I dunno. I was curious. I figured if he’d tell me, I’d at least know what to do next. I didn’t think he’d kill me on the spot, though."

"This town’s so used to people having rules and sticking to them. Rules are easier to break if people expect you to follow them. Besides, if you’re really set on following the rules, you’ll do anything to stay in line. Your dad even said so. You could just about guarantee that we’d all wind up in jail by now, if you hadn’t gotten your hands on us. That’s a lot of problems that could befall the city if we started falling out of line."

I sighed.

"What can I do?"

"Can’t speak for him, but I’d advise patience. If you’re not going to cooperate, at least try to understand the situation. You can ask him to leave, that’s fine, but if you do follow through with the threat, he might start looking for alternatives. That’s always a possibility, isn’t it?"

"What are you thinking?"

"I think I just told him to fuck off. To fuck off. He doesn’t like that. He thinks I’m undermining his authority, giving me powers and freeing people up to use those powers on him. I’m just asking him to be considerate. Have you considered that maybe you’d rather work for someone who is more his opponent than I am? Someone more suited to dealing with him and trying to figure him out? If it came down to it, would you rather be listening, or’d you rather be with me?"

"I don’t know!" he called out, "This isn’t fair! His rules and mine don’t apply to me! I’m not allowed to use my power!"

I hung up, then hurried to drop him off while keeping an eye on Genesis.

"He got away!" Shatterbird called out, striding across the street. I hurried to her side, then her side, feeling the burn on my face where I’d been burned with Raymancer’s bullet.

"That girl," Tattletale called out, suddenly. "Panacea might have killed him. He was like that with Shatterbird. You know about minds-shockwaves?"

"How the hell do you know this?" Bitch asked.

"I read the files," Regent replied, his tone suspicious.

"Yeah. That’s how you deal with someone who is more invested in power than anyone I’ve ever met. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think her motives were pure. I think she was driven. That said, I don’t think it was a capability she picked up overnight and it turned her into a storming hero. More likely that it was a side effect of her personality."

Regent shook his head. "She was this powerful, just sitting there,

======== SAMPLE 3 ========
 me that, and they were looking for this exact thing. I was able to twist my body until my arms were outcropping the door... no, no. I must have tilted my head, because they moved very slowly as they swelled forward.

What was that word, "prince"?

"I think I… I think I have to ask that question. The prince," I twisted around and looked again, "You need a prince, to look after this."





Extermination 8.2


"It’s Zacharias," Bitch told me.

She had her dog by her side, Max stood beside her, a little too close to me for comfort or security, and three of her seven dogs were sitting on either side of me. The largest set of her dogs were beside me, their muscled bodies supporting my heavy form. I didn’t have the energy to fight or spare the smallest voice to protest, so I just listened and let them take care of business while I reached for and retrieved my cell phone.

I held it to my ear. "Again."

I was thinking of something said by Shadow Stalker in her frustration to Hookwolf. It was vague, jumbled up in my head, and she didn’t even seem to mention the phone.

"Right." She hung up, then slammed the phone down on the desk.

I looked down at the pile of dogs Max had on his desk. "Max? You hurt someone."

"I’m dealing with it," he said, his head slumped, "Can’t focus, can’t sleep."

"Tattletale. What’s going on?"

"Kulshedra. She can’t see me, but she’s heard what you two were saying earlier, and she knows my power is at least partially transmittable. She’s been watching for a while, and realized the body language is different between us. She’s talking."

I coughed, to clear more air in my lungs.

"I’m guessing Tattletale is here to negotiate? Because I was asking around, and I didn’t get a response. She’ll be staying in the dark for now."

I nodded, swallowing hard.

"Wait. Do you want me to activate my power, please?"

I shook my head, coughed. "No."

"Okay. Okay. If it’s good, I’ll activate my power. It’ll be stealthy, I’ll use my bugs. But we keep our distance, and if this doesn’t reach the point where she can use her power to figure us out, we leave."

"She’ll be back," I mumbled, "Just like that?"

"We’ll figure it out," Bitch assured me, "Whatever she’s doing, it’s for our benefit."

I winced.

"I should be wishing you guys luck," Grue spoke. He turned to the others, "You know what the end result might be, if we’d bargained on it? If we’d tried a year ago, with … hmm. You guys are so different now. You’re so aware of what you’re doing. So many decisions."

"Wondering what we’d do a year later," Regent spoke.

"So you guys are different, now. Except when we were waiting for the Simurgh, I was thinking about the same thing," Grue said.

"Tattletale is covering lots of bases, Grue," I spoke. I managed to make it sound vaguely familiar. "Maybe she’s trying to emulate us, capitalizing on our powers and vulnerabilities?"

"She’s exploiting them," Regent retorted.

"Oh, come on," Bitch snarled, "We’ve covered all the bases. Why change?"

She was being deliberately obtuse. I was almost positive this was a lie, in regards to how I knew about certain things.

"She wanted to use her power on us because the other universe was overrun with Endbringers and Scion and we couldn’t have a serious fight without it," I said. "She wanted to use her power on us because she didn’t want us to, and it would have been hard to refuse, if she’d asked us to."

"Okay," Regent said.

"And she wanted to use her power to ensure things went the way she wanted them to. Why don’t you pull the loop

======== SAMPLE 4 ========
 me. What is that she can’t understand?

They took us to the ground floor of Panacea’s lair. I couldn’t get a sense of Panacea’s power, but as far as I could tell, it was similar to Bitch’s sonic shout. It was loud, enough that I imagined it had some amplification to it. It knocked over everything in a two-dimensional sense, so that doors and windows that were previously solid would start to bend or snap in half. It was compounded by her other sonic abilities, such as her ability to reconstitute and reshape the walls of rooms to reshape and reconstitute walls beyond, so they seemed to bounce and roll about in a half-moon, sometimes twice in a row.

The second attack was on target, and it brought about an immediate reduction in the power of the repeated attacks. While the pair were distracted, I used my bugs to open a communications channel.

Coil, Tecton and the woman in white stepped out of an adjoining room. Panacea responded almost immediately, grabbing the beetle that had managed the teleporter and hurrying over to check on the pair.

"I’m going to fix her," Panacea said. She touched the man in white, who was unconscious, but hadn’t yet attacked.

"Go," Coil ordered.

The man in white hurried to obey, then made his way to a smaller room. He shut the door behind him, his breath hot against his neck, his back and body scorched from the continuous flame.

I pressed my back, and my hair moved out of my face. I tried to raise my head, but my fingers were pinned to the base of my skull by my restraints. I writhed, my ribs sort of squishing against my side, with every bit of energy I had remaining.

"Good enough," Grue said, noncommittal.

"Feel better?" Rachel asked, from just behind me. She had a distance behind her, and a weapon in her hand.

"Feels like jelly," I said.

"Jumpsuit," Regent said, without turning to look at me.

I reached for it. A pouch. I kept it in my utility compartment, just beneath my utility compartment, near the crossbow. I could feel it swelling with the emotion that had recently reeled me in. The swelling stopped when we left the power study.

It must have been unwise to take the pouch with the jelly beans, because I was soon strapped down, blind, my bugs pinned to the walls and ceiling by my hair. My range was perhaps a thousand feet, or about a third of a city block.

"You know what you’re doing," Regent said. "You knew from the start."

I opened my mouth to speak, then stopped. I clenched my jaw, as much to hold myself together as to avoid drawing his attention. He must have read my emotions, because he didn’t seem to care all that much.

"Yeah? You wanted to fuck, right?"

I shook my head.

Regent put one hand on the side of my head, grunting. He pulled his hand back, then tugged on it a fraction harder.

"I’m going to fuck you up, dumbass," I hissed the words.

He pulled on my hair, hard enough to drive the point of my hair between his teeth. I jerked, pulled my hand free, and he slapped it against the side of his helmet as he spoke, "You think you can get away?"

Again, I was at the mercy of the three teenagers that stood not three feet from me, their eyes watching me without my permission.

"Do I need to call the cops?" I asked, biting my lip.

"Pshh. Think about it. If the other guy doesn’t pull his punches, the girl in the white truck gets hurt too. We’re in a lot of rough shape to go to jail, and the girl could call her dad to drop her off. Or, you know, her dad might come."

"This isn’t true?" I asked, trying to raise the topic of conversation.

"Maybe, but it’s not exactly false. She’s never had someone hit the snooze button on their alarm clock, and I think the alarms would go off before too long anyways."

"But you did," I retorted, "And you planned this."

He chuckled, "I absolutely and positively do plan stuff."

"We all have our plans, stuff we’re working on. What’s your plan?"

"I’m going to

======== SAMPLE 5 ========
 me have a hard time of it. It feels like I’ve gone cold, that I’ve entered a phase where anything can and will happen."

"You can’t put your finger on why you’re feeling that way."

"I know what you’re thinking. You know I’ve been there, faced that feeling. It gets to you, right? It’s like a block of ice forming around you. You push it, and it builds up, pushes you to that mental peak where you can imagine taking the stupid, mean attack and getting in your grave or making that bitch cry."

He reached up to the side of his head, feeling the cry out escape from her throat. His hand moved, and he found what he’d wanted. His hand was warm, and she didn’t have it at all when he pressed her down against the ground. She had enough weight on her to make it impossible to sit up. He pulled her closer and dragged his fingertips beneath the dress, moving his thumb slowly up and down her face until he could feel the wetness at the corner of her eye. His fingertips touched, and she moaned.

His other hand continued to move, and she moaned again, louder. The adrenaline was flowing now, and it wasn’t stopping. It was all he could do to stay calm. If he’d had a chance to sit and have a thought, he wouldn’t have said anything, and he couldn’t let her move to break him up again. He’d have to distract her, do something else.

He turned her around so the cloth scrounged out her cheeks and eyes and left the sexual abuse to reveal the gaping maw of a weeping viper.

No more food in her mouth. She could taste it as it ran down to the back of her throat, as it ran down to the nape of her neck, as it filtered down to her stomach.

Her cries were getting corresponded to. Her screams came in bursts, barely audible to those who stood by and let her go. They became quieter, and then insistent, like she was panting, that desperate.

Then she stopped.

Her tears dried up in the air, and the air within the bubble burst.

■

May 1991

Theo’s wheelchair slowly rose into the air. He’d been one of the first people to ride it, once.

He’d been one of the last.

The day was still young. People were still trying to get to the shelters, even if they weren’t yet in a state to volunteer. Some were just waiting for the other shoe to drop, wondering if this was it.

He’d been put in the catch 22 situation, but it had never left him. It was only a question of whether he could look after himself and be okay, or whether he could look after his friends and be okay, but still help others.

He’d wanted nothing more than to be a small, insignificant part of the big picture.

"You’re so hopeful," he commented.

She looked up at him.

"I’m sure you’ll be fine," he said. He wasn’t sure what statement that was intended to convey, but it didn’t sound humble. It made her feel better, like an A- A-.

"You’re all so hopeful," she said, sounding even more embarrassed than she felt.

"I’m not bad, I’m good."

He didn’t know what to say. He needed to express gratitude, if nothing else, for changing his life for the better. That hadn’t happened yet, but it was a good, small step.

Stupid. His friends would take it as hostile, cruel, demeaning.

He could only hope they would.

He’d learned a lot since arriving in Arcadia High. By all rights, he should have been on top of everything, handling everything, managing the friendships, the families, the hairdressing, the shopping, the after-school programs and classes. Instead, since arriving, he’d stopped, taken it all in. He’d put her on a pedestal, then made it a mission.

It hadn’t all been smooth sailing, though. As much as he’d been aiming to change, to be better, there were days when he could feel as though he’d failed.

One of those days, he was so disgusted with himself that he could barely recognize his own thoughts. He could only pray, with the knowledge his body offered, that

======== SAMPLE 6 ========
 me over the edge as the others approached, I grabbed his wrist and pulled him around to a standing position, so we were facing each other. It wouldn’t have been worth a shakedown.

"Weaver, stand up," Shadow Stalker said.

"I can’t. My legs are bruised."

"You could, if the doctor can’t," she stood, turning to go, "But no. You were her closest ally."

"You would’ve had me arrested before, just like you have her," I said, looking to Tattletale for clarification. She nodded. "Perhaps you would have had me arrested now, if my sister had been here."

She frowned, but she didn’t argue.

"Shadow Stalker," I said, turning to my employee, "You’ve done a good job. I hope you don’t have too many problems with the others, but you’ve handled them so well I’m afraid I’d have to replace you."

She didn’t reply. She was already walking around the desk to head to the exit, ignoring me as she passed through the revolving door. As I headed for the door to head down the hall, she called out from the opposite side, "Hey, Rachele! Need a hand with my dog, okay? I’ll be right back on the phone."

I stood and reluctantly followed with my swarm, forming a loose crescent shape around our candidate.

I checked on Atlas. He’d been walking at a good pace throughout the trip, but he was slow to move this time.

The crowd that waited to catch a glimpse of me as I made my exit was quieting. Some had been electrocuted by the same effect that had been frying the others, and others were still reeling from the shockwave that had been generated by the attack on the PRT building. They stopped to look at me, and more than one threw up.

Still, even with the stares and the muttered comments, nobody really moved to stop or block my path. I stood in front of the PRT headquarters, and the decision was made for me. I could cross the street and head back to my mom’s place, or I could wait until the troops moved inland and I had another chance. I chose the latter, for a few different reasons.

For one thing, it meant I was out of sight of the base’s perimeter, which was being fortified with brick and concrete. For another, I was able to ignore the stares and shouts. I stood at the doorstep of the base, and I could be sure that the dozens of soldiers and PRT officers weren’t in my way.

The base was nestled in the middle of downtown, and it didn’t have anything resembling a front gate. It was more of a series of stone buildings with a large building at the center that looked like something out of a fantasy movie. It had a hospital, a prison, and a craft dock with a flat launch ramp. On top of that, it had three smaller buildings and a dock with three more buildings planned on top of it. That wouldn’t have been the biggest concern, but for the people who lived near the south end of the base and for the ones who were already there, it was a big change.

I found the parking garage where they were, then headed there, passing two squads of soldiers and one PRT officer. The officer was talking to a guy who was standing guard by the railing. He wasn’t very tall, I noted, but dress shirtless, slim, and unshaven.

My dad was nearby, and we joined the conversation. Not long after, he opened the door to the boat graveyard, where boats had been brought in to be scrapped and their contents turned over for scrap metal.

It was there that we got our first view of Scion. The golden man, it seemed, that the Endbringers had been anticipating. A golden shell, a cylinder with one golden eye, one gauntlet on the other side, bearing a vaguely humanoid form. He lay in the midst of the crowd, his clawed hands gripping two men’s shirts, until the moment the dust from the collapsing building swept up to hemmed him in.

I glanced around the base at where the dust had settled. The area had been sealed off by Leviathan, and a solid sixty or seventy heroes were inside, gathered in a loose circle around the sunken city. The square that had housed the HQ of my alliance was partially surrounded, with tall, narrow curving walls that drifted in a gentle breeze around the raised platform. The park that sat on the opposite side of the platform was a short distance away, and I didn’t see any personnel.

======== SAMPLE 7 ========
 me," he gestured with his hand, "This is not a polite place to go, so if you’re feeling ballsy, you might want to find a bar in the boondocks. But we don’t hit?"

"We stick to the rules," I told him, "Good luck."

"Alright," he smiled, "I’ll think about it." He stood, retreating through the door I’d entered. I hurried to my house, pausing to breathe a sigh of relief.

"Shit, I hope my dog isn’t too hard to find, or she’s hard to hurt," I told my dad, as I made my way to the door to join him.

"Whatever," he chuckled, "We were just joking."

I opened the door and hesitated before entering. I knew I was in the wrong place, and I didn’t know what would be appropriate or possible, with the subject of peer pressure and abuse of powers and all that. My dad was close enough to my home that any mistakes would be painfully obvious. I wasn’t willing to waste a minute or two of his time, and the last thing I wanted was to cast him off balance by getting him into something that he couldn’t resolve.

In a way, I was relieved he was out of reach. I could deal with my dad, maybe, but he was more out of touch than I’d hoped for.

It was a few minutes before the line of waiters, waitresses and waiters at the various tables of the Mexican restaurant I’d gone to started moving to stop at the door leading to the patio. Outside, at the park, the trees had green grass on them, and the occasional squirrel bared its teeth in the wind and stormclouds. The park was in ruins, and the cleanup crews were fighting a losing battle, fighting among themselves instead of working with others. There were bunkers and rocket launchers and military vehicles and fishing boats that were sunken or blocked up with tarps and nets as a consequence of the flooding and collapsing water bodies. At the same time, the cleanup crews had been working without pay, without any gloves or boots, as they cleared the flooded, submerged areas and the roads that were still flooded. The fighting had been taking a very real toll on the environment, destroying forests and destroying what little wildlife they did manage to kill.

I was still in my trench, my knife in hand, as the cleanup crew began pulling a rope tow on the chain leading to the dogs. I directed bugs up the chain to the door leading to the pitiful human visitors.

Three small dogs, it seemed. The other workers were tense, their heads turning to study how many dogs there were in the garbage or trash bags around the restaurant. The woman that was working for Coil was shaking her head. This pitiful human visitor wasn’t fucking up. No, it was going overboard. She was sending the wrong message. Dogs were people, and any person under twenty-five was considered someone to be friendly with, if they weren’t a member of her dogfighting ring.

The worst part of all this, I thought, was that I had a feeling that the message was getting through, even to the people who didn’t have the benefit of my swarm.

I was halfway to my lair when the noise of Leviathan beating down the door interrupted me.

My bugs were still sweeping through the area around me, searching for my teammates and the—what was it now?—vulnerable human being on the rooftop. As I raised my knife, I felt a pit rise in my stomach, a well of blood at the base of my stomach.

I turned my head, and saw a blur plunging down to the street behind me. I saw the squeals of pain and curiosity from the people on the rooftop, the squeals of alarm and the dogs trying to escape from the horrors around them. I wondered if a dog had been born with an internal wrinkle.

I felt another well spring forth, uniting throughout my body, a flow that jumbled and bundled into my lower abdomen and chest. The sensations overwhelmed me, as if it were a pane of glass and the surface of it were writhing with tension. I could breathe, I could even move my arms, despite the pain.

I screamed, my voice guttural, wind-saturated, an infernal snarl of sounds that no normal human being could ever make.

"No," I coughed, drawing in a breath, as my breath came out as a ragged, guttural noise in the end.

I felt another well spring forth, connecting to my lungs, my heart and stomach, and threatening to overwhelm me. I belched, felt it drop from my throat

======== SAMPLE 8 ========
 me," I answered. "He’s not a smart guy, or he is, but he doesn’t play much different than most villains do. Except maybe faster, and those things have to hurt."

"Not the case here," I told her.

"Why aren’t you listening to her, then?" Shadow Stalker asked, one hand pressed to my shoulder. "Come on. Let’s go find Sal and apologize to him before it’s too late."

"Theoretically," I answered her. "But it doesn’t change the fact that this is fucked up. It’s very possible that your power was giving her some kind of thinking assist."

"Impressive," she said, not sure how to respond to that. She glanced at me, but I hadn’t responded. I might have missed it if there was any dialogue here, but there wasn’t. I might have missed it if there was any laughter here, but there wasn’t. I clenched my fists and tried to drown out my unconscious laughter with grunts and grunts as we started moving.

Shadow Stalker had the slightest touch of panic as she backed up, but followed before my head could slam into the pavement. I looked behind us, saw Imp shuffling and twisting in her seat. Grue had picked himself up and was walking around to the driver’s side. Tattletale was on the bench by Parian. I was wondering if she’d noticed we’d been following.

And Imp? I was beginning to get the impression that this was their fight. Shadow Stalker was focused and controlling the flow of the crowd, while Imp was a little clumsy, a little unhinged. It was a little bit of a missed opportunity on their part.

"You okay, guys?" I asked, turning my head to look at Shadow Stalker and Shadow Stagger.

"We’re okay," Regent and Rachel said, under their breath.

"Good," I said.

"I think I like the look of this better," Imp said.

I shrugged.

"There’s something on my face?" Shadow Stalker asked. "I didn’t know I missed it."

"We’re okay, then," I said. "Go."

They ran.

"What was that?" Bitch asked.

"A bomb," I said. "My face."

She looked surprised, then asked, "I haven’t heard of you?"

"Nothing," I said. "Bunheads."

She frowned, "No, not Bunheads. That’s not the same band."

"Oh, well," Imp said, "It’s cool. Glad we can get behind that."

"No, not cool," I said. "That’s not our place. My face."

She bent over toward me, kissed me on the cheeks. My blood ran cold. Not the cold of rejection, but a horror I couldn’t describe. The kind of horror that might come to someone who had been physically and emotionally abused as a child, by their own parents.

I was in the passenger seat, and Imp drove the rest of the way to the ground floor. I heard Shadow Stalker groan, but didn’t turn my head to see it.

"No, no, no," I said, as she climbed into the driver’s seat. I felt numb. My hand touched over one of Rachel’s burnished silver puppies, and I briefly wondered if she’d had its heart removed.

It was Grue who stepped out of the darkness at the side of the bus. I could see him out of the corner of my eye, as he leaned against a wall, his hands on his head. Not that I could see them, but I could glimpse his expression, where his mask conveyed a sort of warmth I couldn’t interpret as rejection.

"I just lost the ability to stand," he said.

"It’s not that," Tattletale said. "We’ve been doing this for weeks or months."

"Really?" Regent asked.

Tattletale shook her head, "We’ve been doing this for days."

"And we just kicked ass," Regent said.

I could almost sense a level of emotion one of the other Travelers might have experienced. Purity’s, or-

No!

My thoughts were a mess of disconnected, meaningless details, and the volume was so low I could barely hear myself. I was aware of my bugs, aware of bugs in the area, but

======== SAMPLE 9 ========
 me. The woman was getting more and more insistent as she spoke, pressing one hand to her ear. I wondered if she was getting in my head or if it was just my dad hearing her. Whatever the reason, she kept pressing the ear bud aside while she spoke.

"I’ll explain for those of you who missed it last week. Taylor got into armor. Wearing a form-fitting bodysuit with a breastplate."

"Ew. Ew ew ew." This time it was her who said the word. Brian and I both laughed.

"She was into testing it out and getting feedback. After a while, she decided that it was more elegant to wear whatever armor she wore, so long as it was more modest than whatever armor Marquis was wearing right now."

"I’m sorry," Brian said, "I’m so not enjoying this."

"It’s brilliant. So much going for so little. She’s become a cult hero in part because she’s trying to be subversive, and she’s succeeding."

"Part of that success is due to Taylor. And maybe even that, if she’s truly down for it, I can tell you that she’s noticed how the armor fits, and it makes her look good in a very conscious way." He shrugged, "I’ll take that as a good thing."

"And perhaps a bad thing," the woman replied. She sounded a little panicky. She sounded angry, which was unusual, and very out of character for the Doctor.

"Maybe. But I don’t see it that way. Don’t you see that the people who believe in her, who stand behind her, they’ve had a very good reason to do it? Because she’s challenging established ideas. Owning the role, being the one to push the boundaries. Don’t you see that, Taylor?"

She stared down at her dress, picked it up and turned around to put it back on. She met his eyes, nodded.

He left the vault with his wife, leaving Taylor and the Doctor much the same.

"I should be asking you about that," she said.

"She’s gone."

"No?"

"I don’t think so. I had a conversation with her just a couple of days ago, and she said she feels okay. Part of the comfort you’ve been getting from others, is that you know she’s doing it for a good reason."

"Why?"



"I need a therapist. This is a problem I’ve identified and dealt with, and I need a professional to look at things objectively, to work out why it’s happened the way it has, and to offer ideas to resolve it."

"She’s not comfortable with you being the therapist. It’s been six months since the fight, and she’s not comfortable with the current direction things are taking. There’s anger there, too."

"She’s the one who made the first move? You can talk to her about that, instead of making accusations and sketching out a picture."

"It’s a legitimate complaint," he said.

"You have my condolences, but I don’t buy it. She was never going to accept it, and in the ten or so years she’s been gone, nobody has really challenged that fatalism."

"I was talking to someone recently who really seemed to enjoy that division between what’s good and what’s bad, ‘what’s good and what’s bad, good and bad, good and indifferent’. The people who’ve been outed as being in the good/evil category tend to be pretty popular, and he thinks she’s a great thing. But there’s a fatal flaw in that whole gambit."

The Doctor went no further.

He had another conversation with another source. This person wasn’t a source he wanted to identify, even if he believed in the theories behind their being hired. This was a dangerous individual, who, for all intents and purposes, free to do as he wished in his area.

"Fuck you, I- I’m pretty sure I’m good. Maybe a little unlucky, but I’m not bad, right? The ones who’ve been around me at all, I’ve stuck by them. I wouldn’t put it past me if they needed me."

"Then I don’t see how this makes me a bad person, Doctor," she responded.



======== SAMPLE 10 ========
 me, I tried to hide them from her eyes and mouth. The movement had only a limited effect, I was fairly sure. I could feel the muscles in my jaw, my winded neck, my shoulder and fingers clenching and relaxing as she pulled my hand, then hand, toward her. It was clumsy, not so much by my own hand, but because I didn’t want her to see.

She was having a hard time of it, too. Odd, that Blake had been impressed with my hand at first. Later, when she’d gotten more used to me, I’d noticed she hadn’t forgotten how to fold her own hands. Even when it had been obvious she would not, I’d tried to give her the benefit of a doubt.

She let go of my hand and stepped back, and I stepped forward to put my own arm against her one hand to give me some support. We stepped into the trap.

My hand slipped under hers, and the movement was clumsy even without my attention. I landed in the shallow water, and the movement was a follow-up, a kick of an imaginary leg, followed by the involuntary, jarring movement of my shoulder hitting the submerged hand. I scrambled for balance, but I couldn’t give her any room to move. I didn’t want to fucking screw up her ability to navigate the minefield.

She used her hand to grab at my wrist, and I yanked my arm back, causing her to drop her hand. I was already turning to run when she connected with my wrist. My arm shifted under her grip. I didn’t try to pull my hand back under her. I wasn’t sure how she did it, but my arm was caught under her and she had it in her grip even as she parted her fingers, from my throwing hand, to mine.

I’d had my bugs shoved into the wound, and it had somehow gotten to me faster than I’d expected. My bugs made their way down my throat, and nearly half of them were killed as they made their way down my throat. I coughed as violently as I could manage, and my entire body tensed, as if I could drown her or my enemy in a ceaseless, high-pitched whine. I was so preoccupied with stopping her that I didn’t even realize my own power hovered around the corner. I was more focused on making the sword stop wherever it was pointing, than I was on stopping her. I was more focused on stopping her then, because her arm was whirling, and it kept swinging, slamming all of my body into the tile. I couldn’t think straight enough to block it or anything, and as much as I might have tried to do something, my power had snatched it out of my reach.

I felt the blade snap into place. It was nerve wracking, shaking me from my musing. It made me aware of my hair, and pulled at my robe, pulling at it until I could only think of how it might be hot in the moment and push me. It wasn’t so improbable that my thoughts were still straying from the place my head was, floating around inside my head, wondering what was happening.

I made a comment about my hair moving where I thought it was stretching, and she laughed, hugging her arm to her chest, as if she’d tightened her hold on it against some unseen barrier.

My thoughts were soon joined by Grue’s. He was standing, still, his hands on his weapon, and he didn’t move. He stood there, waiting.

He let me know he was ready for her to take aim. I felt him raise his head, then turn his head so his head was facing my way.

I was momentarily disoriented as he lowered his head to face the crowd. I realized he’d been aiming at me. I didn’t have a gun in hand, but my bugs remained poised and ready, at the ready to strike if he decided to go shoot. My bugs flowed into the crowd at the ready.

There were people standing around Bitch, standing in her self-assured fear and anger. Odd as it was, I felt a measure of pride as the realization dawned on me that they were outnumbered, that they were far, far more likely to be targets than to be in Bitch’s crowd.

But that didn’t make me happier or more hopeful. It made me just sad that I was outnumbered, and I felt genuinely uneasy about it. I was feeling desperate, even as the adrenaline flooded through me like a river of cold water, both physically and in regards to my body. I wanted so desperately to let me relax, to let myself drift off and let my mind and

======== SAMPLE 11 ========
 me, but I was still here.

Tattletale was talking, muting the sound of her own teeth chattering. "That you’re able to shift between forms so easily, that you can even tell the human parts from the other ones, is powerful, is something only you and the thinker-seven are able to pull off. I can’t tell you how, how important it is, but I can say this… I think any other pair of humans would struggle to find a place in this crowd."

"Oh?" Triumph blinked a few times. "Explain."

"The other humans are… they’d struggle to find a spot in this crowd, because this group of humans, they’re… they’re… what’s the word? In the same vein as… you know what the term is?"

"I don’t… I don’t know what the term is."

"Here’s an idea. Take the other group. They’re weaker, but they’re human."

Vista shook her head a little, "They’re at least as screwed up as we are. Who knows what the difference is? Even if we separated them, there’d be a random element."

"Oh? Give me an idea."

"Imagine the difference in strength. The group of weak humans swims against the current, but it’s only a part of the whole. The strong humans, the ones you don’t need to be able to reason with, they’ll fight you tooth and nail when the time comes. And the ones you do need to be able to intimidate? They’ll help against those outside the group, and in the process, they’ll weaken the group as a whole."

Imp pulled at the fabric of her fly-boyan. It moved in the only direction it could, to hide the guts of the beetle it had hatched. It would have been faster if it had been able to swim, but the lack of speed made it unable to run. She waited, grasping for an idea.

The others looked like they were getting restless, or at least, they weren’t in a mood to linger.

"Let’s do this in more than one body," Tattletale said.

"In two or three?"

"We’ll be weakened, maybe we get sick. We can’t interact as effectively as we otherwise might."

"Imp?" The girl behind her sounded concerned. "Where should we go?"

"Fuck it," Imp said. She used her power.

The ground rumbled. The ground shuddered. It rumbled, and people had stopped in their tracks, realizing what had just happened.

The ground shuddered again. People stood on end, stunned, as the strange mechanism by the beetle’s shoulder began operating normally again. The rumbling only accelerated as it spread through the area.

"What was that?" Regent asked. He turned to look.

"Tattletale," I spoke through my swarm-clone. "Tell me what you know."

She studied me for a few seconds, then looked away.

"Imp’s there too," I raised my voice. "I can sense her too. But our targets? We could distract them, make a shortcut, go straight for the Platinum, or whatever one they use."

"What if we run straight into another Shatterbird?" Grue asked. "Or Condemned Diamonds?"

"There’s no shortcut. And we run into Shatterbird, Diamond Dogs, Shatterbirds at best."

"There’s a third option," Grue spoke. "It’s… it can be good. We can distract her, stay concealed, buy ourselves time to get to… what’s the word? Swap teams?"

"I don’t think we have many options."

"Then what are we doing? If we run into trouble after we’ve escaped, we’ll have to go on, or we’ll have to help, and I don’t want us to get caught up in a mess that gets us into more trouble."

"Can we swap teams?" I asked. "It’s a team, we can swap people."

"I don’t think that’s a good idea," Regent said. "If we’re being honest, we’re worse at it than they are."

"Then what?" Tattletale asked. She looked offended at the accusation.

"I’m sick and tired of being the only tinker

======== SAMPLE 12 ========
 me, "A lot of damage done."

"A lot," he said. He’d settled a hand on the arm of his chair. "But we’ve been working very, very hard, and our boss is very hurt. They’ll help cover the story once we’ve gotten in the door. You and I, we’ll both be back when this is all over, ready to answer the door. Deal with the media."

The reporter interjected, "You didn’t answer the door when we came in."

"They already know we came in," Kaiser said. It wasn’t just his tone, it was the body language, the way he floated above the others as he leaned against the wall. As if ready to leap to the defense of his liege, he raised one hand, fingers wagging, where they were visible and not out of sight. "So we’re both in the clear."

"You can’t cover an escape route," Miss Militia warned, "Especially when you’re a superhero."

"We have an escape route," Kaiser said, his tone vaguely mocking, as if he were trying to be sophisticated. "But that’s not where we start. We need to figure out what the fuck happened here, for our sake and for the greater good."

"To make matters worse," Weld said, "We’ve got another member of the Undersiders in here we should really avoid."

"That’s a no, then?" Miss Militia asked him.

"No. Because we can’t protect all of our neighbors if the Travelers sort of party in the background, and we can’t protect everyone if we ignore repeated attempts by the Endbringers to deliver the goods, if one of their members ends up causing trouble in our area. It makes more sense to be blunt, then, and call them by their real names."

"Fair. But we don’t have anything solid to hide, officially. Even if we stopped running, we wouldn’t be able to hide that well," Miss Militia said.

"Except I suppose we could with a PRT squad car?"





Migration 17.6


I flew straight out of Tattletale’s headquarters, just entering the top floor where the cell block leaders were being held. The air was heavy with the smell of smoke and the heat of construction. Bitch’s dogs were outside, not even turning to bark at them, but I could do so if I wanted to.

Bitch opened her car door and stepped inside, her hands behind her head. She offered a small wave of the car to me as we arrived.

"It’s refreshing, you know," I told her. "You’ve got that air of mystery about you. That’s a problem when you’re all over the media."

She pursed her lips, but she didn’t wave me away. I watched her carefully as we entered the building.

The interior of the vehicle that followed us into the building was like any other prison cell. There were twenty or so prisoners crammed into the room, and they hadn’t moved when we arrived. Prisoners who, based on who was in the cell block closest to them, had the worst chance of being on the outside looking in. There were guards and other prison personnel surrounding the vehicle, armed. I could see the level of respect they had for the prisoners as we made our way to the vehicle. There was a level of solemnity to the arrangement that I hadn’t seen before.

Bitch sensed trouble approaching. The guards? If I was reading them right, they were prepared to drive. She barked an order and the guards opened the doors.

There were more in the driver’s seat, and they were the first out the doors, stepping out into the parking lot at the far end of the parking garage. The second, third, and fourth groups made their way out, following the group from the back of the truck. As they reached the edge of the parking garage, they split off, with one to follow the group that had just arrived, speeding down the center of the road. The guards opened the doors and stepped inside.

I was about to give up on finding the source of the sound when it stopped abruptly. Every engine in the surrounding area seemed to freeze in time.

I could hear distant earthquakes. It took several seconds before all of the ones just outside were gone.

When the dust had largely cleared, there were only a few scattered craters that had stuck up out of the surrounding hills. The crater that had struck the temple two days ago was still rising, dust swirling lazily around it. The one

======== SAMPLE 13 ========
 me.

The bugs moved around my face again. This time the movements weren’t mostly steady. They moved from the edges of my vision to the corners of my vision. I suppressed my instinctual response to pain. Pain wasn’t the right word. It was more of a sense of interruption. My brain was reeling. Was my brain damaged?

I was on my knees on a black plastic sheet at the base of a building, a few blocks away from the fight. I reached out and put a hand on the back of his head, felt his head settle under that familiar breast and stomach.

As I moved his head up and down, his chest expanded and contracted. It was the most natural and efficient form of expansion and contract I could manage. It also meant I was pumping him full of copious amounts of air, drawing his entire body forward. The movement of his head in sync with his breathing and his overall musculature meant his chest expanded even more, his abdomen opened wider, and his head fell against the base of the building behind me. I let the sheet fall to the ground and picked it up as I stood over it.

I crouched at the level of the sidewalk as I reached up and put a hand on his head again. This time, his head popped back into place.

I turned around and ran.

Panting, I looked up at the building behind me. Spare.

I pulled off the top of my costume and hung it up by the door. I picked up the dress, folding it under one arm, and headed out the building.

The hallway before the stairwell looked like a main corridor of a prison. There were cells with beds, hallways with windows that looked out onto main roads. An unattended grenade lay in a heap just outside.

I started to cross the entire building, stopped myself. I could see Imp in the hallway behind me, running. I sent a command to the bugs near Grue, and they started heading upstairs.

I turned to face the stairs as I raised the box of my costume to my lips. Turning back to Grue, I asked him, "What?"

He paused for long seconds. Then, with the smallest hint of annoyance, he turned to face the hallway again.

I gave my costume to Grue as a parting gift. I knew he’d appreciate it.





Crusader 6.3


"Hey there Taylor," my dad greeted me with a bit of a kick, "You new girl over there?" He was standing on the stairs, leading me up the stairs.

"Um, I’m Taylor," I responded, awkwardly. I saw him react as his words left his mouth and he started running down the hallway.

"Taylor? Brian?" he called out for his younger brother.

I was pretty sure I had a trigger event in addition to the one I had mentioned in the phone call. I was left wondering for a moment if I was dreaming, or if it was the sober reality of being his brother. I put the question to Tattletale, "Hey guys, how old are you?"

"Fifteen," Brian responded, "Eighteen?"

"Yeah, I think that’s it."

I nodded.

"God damn it," I muttered. I hadn’t slept much last night, but I was starting to feel a little under the weather. I had been too weary with the storm to get my thoughts in order or get my thoughts on the subject of strategy to gel, and my tired mind was probably responsible for my omission there. I wasn’t even sure if my last name included ‘God’ or ‘Man’.

"Hey," Tattletale spoke up, "You okay?" She offered a hand to help me to my feet, and I thanked her by grabbing her hand and supporting it as we made our way upstairs. We found a couch and settled into our cushioned chairs.

"How’re you doing?" Brian asked me. He was sitting to my left.

"I’m fine."

"Good to know. So, what brings you here?"

I shifted uncomfortably and immediately regretted it. I could talk about anything, but a hug? A chair? A blanket?

"I wanted to talk to you guys about something."

I could feel my heart skip a beat.

I turned to Tattletale, "What is it?"

"Not sure if you heard or if it was the PRT that got here first, but your teams just pulled an incident report on Triumph. Cauldron keeping records for some reason. They were saying he was mentally unstable and that his history suggested he was next in line, wherever he went. The records would explain why

======== SAMPLE 14 ========
 me?

One of the guys on the roof shouted, "We-"

I’d lost track of time. I was getting caught up in trying to process everything that was happening, sort of like I was trying to process the fact that my arm was broken and I didn’t have two minutes to wait until the doctor came back to check on me before I was called into a room with two guys and a girl. It was like they were controlling my brain, or I was controlling my body, and they were tying me down so my mind couldn’t free me to think about stuff.

When my arms were in a sling, limp, they went limp again. As if primed for an intercept, I reflexively hugged my arms to my body, as if I could distract myself from feeling guilty, or deflect attention from what was happening in the moment.

My cheeks flushed with embarrassment. I tried to convince myself to leave, to take a different tack, but the thought never quite went away. I’d only ever really be concerned about the PRT and the gangs. This was a huge concern for many, and it had kind of derailed any plans I’d had for going in for medical treatment. I was hoping that my power would distract them.

Fuck.

We had to decide on a way to communicate. With my limited vocabulary, I could only cobble together a rough approximation of what was happening in my head. "Go away. I’ll handle this." Or some variation of that.

I glanced down at the board. There was a black border of text in white letters.

Cauldron.

Those were its powers. None of the others I was aware of.

Why did I keep coming back to that part?

I glanced up at the man who was straddling Genesis. He’d put his hands up to his head, and was staring at me.

"Imp," I said, "Don’t."

Imp stared at me, lowered her voice from a hush to a murmur.

"I don’t know what to tell you, Grue," he said. She didn’t react, but I knew I wouldn’t have stood a chance if she did. Even with Regent in her clutches, I wasn’t sure she was listening. I sighed.

Grue looked at Armsmaster, "I don’t- I won’t tell anyone what happened with your uncle, until we’ve talked it over with the lads over at the PRT, too. But I got in touch with some people from your uncle’s old team, and they said you should probably watch your back when we’re talking about cashing a big check."

"You’re not that stupid," Regent commented. He’d approached us with an air of superiority, ready to remind us all who we were dealing with. I’d doubted, when I’d first heard about the gang tags, that Grue would be this stupid as to think I was too big for his liking.

Armsmaster didn’t reply to that. He put his hand up around his mouth, as if to keep his mouth shut.

"I’m going to call my boss, let him know what’s up," I said.

Armsmaster nodded, but he looked even more irritated at me than he had a moment ago.

Grue’s voice was quiet, "I’m sorry, by the way. I should have called sooner, but I’ve been distracted. Could you pass on a message to Tattletale and Piggot?"

He hung up before Grue could speak again. I tried to ignore him as he walked over to the truck that was parked a short distance away.

"Thank you, Grue," Tattletale gave him a moment’s reprieve from his fury.

Grue’s tone told a thousand things, but he didn’t say a word. He settled his hands on Tattletale’s shoulders, then turned to take us all in our individual directions.

I glanced around at the others. We had our vulnerabilities and strengths, and we were bracing ourselves for a fight. Odd as it sounded, I felt more confident now. We had each other, and we had our powers. More than we realized.

I felt lighter, like I was breaking free of the downward momentum of things. Maybe that was what Coil’s job with the Wards had been about. Maybe everyone had been projecting that image they’d held back when they joined the fight, back when the things that had made the paper they’d signed their name in

======== SAMPLE 15 ========
 me. I felt as though I were drowning, as though it were the most basic form of the water torture I’d applied months ago.

I could have argued, told myself I was in control, that it would be the best way to kill the dragon, or some combination thereof.

I didn’t. I felt dizzy. Staggering down, one hand cupped over my mouth, the other gripping the railing, as if I could steady myself.

"Stop!" I shouted.

The railing split in three. One section swung over my head, swinging in the air to strike me in the side of my head before I could get back to a lying position. The section that struck me slid under my armpit, and I groaned as it touched there.

My vision was popping at the edges, and the pain filling my entire body was making the experience feel slightly less than real.

I reached out for the railing, tried to grab it with one hand, failed. The steel of the railing caught against my collarbone, and I collapsed on top of the thing. My head hit the lip of the railing as I tried to get my head out of the way.

My head throbbed, and the throbbing didn’t stop as I lost my battle of wills with the thing. It didn’t wing it off.

The thing slid under my armpit and out my sleeve.

I pulled my hand back, but the steel of the railing caught me in the back of the neck. It slipped from my shoulders and moved down my arm to block my armpit. It closed around the top of my head, twisted and squeezed until my head was at the very front of the railing.

The thing squeezed another two or three times, until my head was nearly unanchored and the thing was to the left of my neck. It was short enough to swing overhead.

I screamed again, the cry short and piercing enough to cut through the acoustics of the room.

The thing backed off and shifted to a lower position. The noise of its transformation was deafening.

Acoustics. The room was bathed in a faintly audible sound that traced every surface in an almost surreal way. It pierced my head, through my ears, I could almost imagine the distant noises through my ears as they reached my brain. Maybe the entire building in a reverberation of my emotions.

I couldn’t quite make out the details in the chaos of the shifting, distorted images. I heard the sound of something moving on the far end of the room, the sound of something- I couldn’t make out- striking me in the side of my face.

I pushed my head back against the railing, as hard as I could. My arm hung at my side. When I flexed my injured arm, it refused to cooperate. It moved involuntarily, against my will, which meant my best guess was that my leg had been severed.

I was aware of the bugs around me. A few that I’d picked up in my flight pack or with my bare hand were moving to attack the thing. Was it anticipating an attack? It couldn’t hurt me if it was going to come to that conclusion, now, could it?

My arm hurt, too. Acutely aware of my breathing, my heartbeat and the slight stir of tension in my neck, my attention shifted to the bugs in the room. The room smelled like blood and disarray. A patchwork of bodies, a mess of faces, clothes and possessions, mingled with the be-horrible smells of the rotting flesh.

I drew my knife and set it on the edge of the railing. Once I had my eye on the thing, I was quick to assume that it was one of the Nine. The knives that the people closest to me had on their belts, knives with that cutting edge?

I pulled the knife free and swung it as far as I could manage towards the creature’s neck. It ducked beneath the swing, but it barely dangled. The blade of the knife tumbled to the ground.

I turned and ran for the stairs.

I kept the knife aimed at the monster’s neck as I fell. The first few steps weren’t too difficult, but the final step was only a straight down, with me having to brace myself for the impact.

The knife dangled from the monster’s wrist as we descended. I stepped slightly too far forward, and the blade scraped against the side of my head and shoulders. I wasn’t sure, but I thought maybe it had dented or gotten caught on something at one point.

I was halfway down before the girl with the hair in her hair came running up the stairs, shouting something about an

======== SAMPLE 16 ========
 me.

Hate them. Hated that I was even having to think about it.

It made it scarier.



Cockroaches 28.5


I opened up the communication with Tattletale, letting her know that Jack was acting as her representative, and that she should be addressing the problem.

I also let her know that a solution was within reach. The only thing preventing the solution from getting there was me.

I turned my attention away from watching my minions to checking out the situation. I was flanked by a half dozen Protectorate members and a contingent of Wards who had recently been activated. I could see the golden light at the edge of the light colored window behind them, a slight movement of the crowd or the murmuring of people outside the light-blocking glass.

Someone outside the group was trying to drum up some attention with some disparaging comment. His attempt at derailing the conversation was chilled by the presence of two members of the Brockton Bay Wards. One was a man in his fifties, tall and prominent, with greasy hair and a prominent eye; he was dressed like a leader for his local chapter of the Protectorate, the other was a young man, sixteen or seventeen, his clothes ragged, stained. Both wore knee length skirts with ankle length sleeves and knee length caps, or pajama bottoms, falling somewhere between t-shirt and sleepwear.

I turned my attention back to my minions. I did my best to ignore the people who were standing by while I unloaded my horrible little barrage of bugs onto their teammates, using the same tactic I used with the minions, directing them to the front of the room, where the PRT troops were. I waited for the dust and smoke to settle, then picked out some decoys. Using bugs to move them through the crowd, I sent them into the front of the room and around the corners. A group of people pushed a girl who was covered in vomit. She flinched at the touch of my swarm on her, and I stepped in to help her.

I moved my swarm in to the general area.

As more and more people joined the fray, the dust settled. The area was still flooded with water, and there were areas where the water had probably been at the surface for a good while. The water pressure in the nearby underground shaft would have had something to do with it.

I glanced around me, asked what the situation was.

Tattletale was staring.

"Is everyone okay?" I asked.

"Yeah, everyone’s fine," she said.

Imp was a step behind her, still covered in vomit. I moved my swarm through the area to grab the others, as they were getting themselves sorted out. Shadow Stalker was looking at me, curious, while Regent looked away, apparently unconcerned.

"Tattletale," I said, feeling self-conscious.

"What?" she asked.

"He’s not standing. He’s getting sorted out."

"Good. Go," she told me.

I nodded.

"Okay," Tattletale said, almost sheepish.

"You went undercover in the Wards, didn’t you?" I asked, feeling embarrassled.

"I did. And I got in a fight, briefly."

I laughed a little, self-conscious, "It’s cool. Sorry."

"It’s okay. You’re in the thick of it, and it’s totally okay because you made it happen."

I shook my head. "I- I made some calls, not very many, but I got the impression that if I was really pushing for it, maybe I’d need to make a few, in case I missed something crucial. So I was at the library, looking through old news clippings, when the phone rang. It was Skitter."

"Skitter?" my dad asked. I felt like a complete moron.

"What?" Regent asked.

"She’s in my territory."

"She’s not a Ward."

"She is," Tattletale said, "They found a way around the wards, and she was asking for a place to stay. Paranoia and delusions?"

I shook my head. "Not a concern. But I thought you’d forgive me for running into her, for being a little hostile, um, unkind. You’re the one who approached me about backing out, right? I thought it was a mutual thing, and I had no reason to lie."

"I just thought you’d forgive me that."

I paused. Couldn’t tell if

======== SAMPLE 17 ========
 me.

"Yeah. A little," she said. "I’m… not the most socially skilled guy, I don’t think. But I think I can pick it up. And I can probably keep up. It’s just a matter of time before I get what the other shoe is going to fall on."

"You are a trained professional, and you’re social enough that everyone would give you a second opinion? I mean, I can’t tell if you’re lying, but at least you’re aware enough to know you’re doing wrong."

"Innumerable things could go wrong before I get that far. But yeah. I can probably keep this up for a year."

"Three quarters of the population of this Earth are liars," Sveta said. "Half of the population’s credulous jerks. Well, I’d say that’s a pretty big disparity, huh?"

"Yeah. And there’s two classes of people in this world. Class A and class S. Class A people are the predators. The people you ran into at the party were the predators. The people who were giving you that dead-eyed look when you gave me the creepy eye, were the type to run off to have another drink after the big fight. And the people who were lying to you, that are. I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you whether they’d be lying to themselves if they were getting that much, so I didn’t say."

"Says the best liar of all," Imp said.

"Not always," Sveta replied. "But always a liar."

"Sometimes I’m not telling the whole truth. I’m a little biased. I’m a little sheeple, dork."

"I can deal with that."

"Not a problem. Because I’m a little sheeple, dork. The world’s changing. I can deal with that. I can deal with that … a little. But it’s better to be on the wrong side of history, Sveta."

She looked at Grue. He shook his head.

"I just want to walk away."

"And?"

"I just didn’t know what to do," he said. "I just wanted to go somewhere I could figure it out, maybe. But Coil’s keeping me in the dark."

"No idea. We can’t just let you walk away."

"No," Grue replied. Sveta frowned. "I couldn’t make heads or tails of it."

"Okay," Sveta said. She studied his shoulders, and his hair, in that same subtle, studied way he’d been so gracious to look so elsewhere. Sveta’s eyes studied her, studying her swarm-clone. "What should I do?"

"Let me think. I could go with you, or I could stay here and figure it out later, but the latter is slower, because I don’t know what comes out of it."

"Sveta, you’re going with Coil. That’s all I wanted to talk to you about, until I realized you were already in touch with Tattletale, and we were going to be moving forward with our plan tonight. You wanted to talk about your feelings towards me, too."

"I wanted to talk about my feelings, and about Taylor, and all the other stuff, but I couldn’t because you were …

He fidgeted. "Okay. Um. I guess I’m going to keep talking, and you’ll answer eventually, if you’re busy or distracted. I, um. I almost forgot."

"Ah. I see, things are good. Um. A few things, in fact. It’s nice to have something to focus on, in case I’m wrong, if I’m wrong about something or if I’m too … I won’t be offended if you say you feel like I feel, but you don’t think I feel what you feel, will you?"

"I don’t think so. I don’t think so because I haven’t paid enough attention to it in the real world, let alone in this headspace. But maybe you won’t believe me if I say so. I’m open to trying to walk away, if you want. But we stay until the situation totally changes, then we try to catch up, see where we stand, and then we … I assure you,

======== SAMPLE 18 ========
 me with her eyes."

"You’re not really an open book whenever you’re on television," Aisha pointed out.

"You open your mouth to act, and you shut it," Regent commented. "See? You’re not dumb."

"Open my mouth and shut it," Aisha retorted, raising her voice so it could be heard throughout the bank. "It’s my right."

She wasn’t quite so confident when it came to the money. After a moment’s thought, Aisha shook her head a little and then turned her attention to the man. She had tears in her eyes, and she wasn’t smiling.

A man in shiny armor stood next to her, wearing a mask so full it might have weighed a castle. The man’s eyes didn’t move as he looked Aisha over.

He’s got what he needs to make the ultimate sacrifice, right? Aisha thought. She couldn’t convince herself he wasn’t the man she wanted on her team, that he wasn’t the type of badass that got overlooked when the guild looked for guys with post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I bet you’ve never heard the word ‘superpower’?" the man asked.

"Superpower?" She asked, making small talk.

"I don’t think it’s a good word," the other man replied. He chuckled at the same time. "Our forefathers were superpowers, my friend."

"You’re calling me a superpower?"

"Because you’re a human. Describing your powers as something extraordinary and unique only encourages me in thinking you’re different from other people."

"That’s not true."

"It’s true. There’s no supermodel families or supermodels villains. Really. There’s only people like Bornstein and Scapegoat, and that’s outliers."

"You’re a thinker, then," Bornstein said. "I’ve heard people talking about how powers are getting in the way of planning and executing a good plan. Do they have a say in how your power is being used?"

"The Guild does," Regent said. "We’ve decided where you’ll go, what you’ll do. And we’ve weighed the risks and rewards."

"But you can’t do anything without an army behind you," Aisha said. Her voice was hard, as if she was going to say whatever Aisha wanted to hear, and then deny or change her mind.

"Can’t. I have a pretty high standard when it comes to taking on an enemy. I think I’ve said more than most, in the past few months. If the world’s going to end in a few years, or get conquered, I want to be in the thick of it, helping out."

"And you’re not fighting against the Nine, you’re fighting Leviathan," Aisha’s voice broke, breaking with emotion.

"They’re not strong enough to stop him on their own. The Nine are too strong. Even if we ignore the chance of them killing or capturing the heroes, taking a bite out of the operation, it still means a wipe out of any opposition on the battlefield. The heroes might show a different side, or slip away, but they’d be a long way from winning against the Nine. It takes a certain kind of willpower to ignore the obvious. Not just luck, but sheer, primal willpower."

"I… I don’t think I have much of a wild goose clucking for a cow in the first place. Unless you care about people, and the Nine are people more than just collateral damage."

"I care about people. They’re collateral damage, but it’s something to exploit."

"And?"

"And that leads to the bigger question. Why are you still doing this?"

Aisha sighed.

"What’s the point?"

"I’m not strong enough to fight. Not yet."

"Then why did you join? What drives you to fight even when you know it’s wrong?"

"I’m not strong enough to fight."

"And yet you’re fighting the Nine. Why? And why are you still doing it?"

"I just wanted to get out of here." Aisha turned to see a cop was passing by, walking in the opposite direction. She almost wanted to argue the point, to ask why, but she decided

======== SAMPLE 19 ========
 me to follow the movement of the bugs as they moved through the building’s interior.

I could feel him closing the distance. I was used to having bugs keep their distance from me. Even so, the movements of my swarm caught my attention. It wasn’t just the fact that they were avoiding my bugs that was interesting, but the fact that they were moving so fast that my power was completely overwhelmed.

I saw his head emerge into the light of the sun. The human shape, not so different from mine. When I looked, I saw only a little less than a dozen of them. They were moving fast, and that included moving to cut me off.

My bugs dropped in a massive tidal wave as they cleared the way for the wave’s immediate vicinity. It knocked away a dozen cars and nearly carried me out of the way, putting me further out of harm’s way, making it harder for the police to clear the way.

There were shouts and screams of surprise and awe from bystanders and residents of the street below. I couldn’t hear them all, though. It was Tecton’s voice.

"Skitter!" he shouted. "No! No!"

A DC-5 was flying just overhead, heading our way. Its pilot tried to turn sharply to cut her off, but she had the ability to extend her transporters ahead of her, to route calls to other areas on the planet. She changed course, bringing others with her. We each drew in a bit more towards the center of the mass of captured capes. The DC-5 made contact with another capes, cutting them off.

Rachel stood just a few steps away from Weaver, still cloaked in a ball of flame. She shook her head, as if to check it wasn’t burning her head, and then hurled the now-empty canister towards us. It slammed into Lung and Cuff, respectively, both tumbling from the air.

We moved out of the way, quickly, and Rachel finished burning the rest of her canister, hurling it towards the approaching swarm.

I didn’t have many bugs, and they were too few to make much of a difference. Too many were being burnt by the friction against their bodies or burned alive by the heat, or eaten by bugs that had collected on them. Still, I had material to spare. In the same moment that I realized that the swarm was closing in on us, Rachel finished setting fire to the remaining swarm out of sheer frustration. She wanted it to be more effective, wanted it to deal with the smaller bugs first.

They were wary. Of the nearly a million bugs in the air, just a tiny fraction were still in the process of evolving. Had the effects of Eidolon’s altered time and space bindinged them against any bugs that settled on them or stayed within a certain range of them?

I could sense Lung, still perched on a telephone pole. He was looking at a building that was still standing. The building had been destroyed by Scion, and the only thing around the corner was a fissure. Lung was in the middle of the fissure, on his knees, his hands on his head.

He wasn’t moving, and I couldn’t sense him.

The bugs drifted closer to the perimeter of the bullseye, and I could feel the reaction of the capes surrounding the area. The roaches could feel the vibrations as the capes rotated around it. I could feel the capes around me, in the form of the spinning of a massive snake that was rising from the ground, swallowing the ground and sending every available bug into the ground floor of the bullseye.

At the same time, I could practically hear Rachel’s echoing screams, which were becoming more desperate and panicked.

Tattletale was here, along with what was probably more troops than the ones I had on hand. Grue, Imp, Bitch, Regent and the dogs were gathered in a huddle, their hands jammed into their pockets. Bastard was lashing out with one hand, digging deep, while the rest of the time he was struggling to get to his feet, grunting.

Tattletale spoke, broken into a hurried, low growl, "We’re going to have to leave your prisoners in your territory. I can explain later. Now is the time."





Hive 5.3


I waited until the screaming of the swarm had died down and the prisoners were more or less arranged around the perimeter of my new headquarters, then departed.

More than leaving, I’d opted for leaving more than simply going through the portal to come to Brockton Bay.

It sort of helped that leaving had put me in a better headspace. I wasn

======== SAMPLE 20 ========
 me me.

"I’ve spent more time in the water than in the air, in fact," he said. "It’s a lot easier if you can keep your legs straight and point straight, because the only thing that’s going to tear them up is an incorrect use of the right momentum. With them, I had to be very deliberate in how I moved. Too much momentum and they break, too little and they break awkwardly. It’s easier to use that balance, but it sucks."

"Thanks," I said, taking another gulp of water.

"The only real trick is employing it well. Your body learns from experience, so it adapts. I try to do that, and sometimes it works out. Sometimes I have to let my body get rid of the old muscles, or I have to go against the grain by adjusting some things, or not using the muscles at all. But I’m better at it than most."

I nodded, glad for an excuse to stop.

"The third trick is to use it like you’re thinking about it. Body language? If you have to ask, tell them to back off. They’ll retreat and leave the place. If you don’t say anything, they won’t be able to use that gut instinct against you. You can touch base, find common ground, and all will be forgiven."

He waited patiently for me to regain my senses. I could tell he was waiting because he was breathing just a little harder. I signaled for him to drop his arms to his side.

"There’s another technique, but I’m not sure it’ll help us here. I’m thinking I’ll stay. I guess I’ll just have to see what happens, then decide if I want to run or not."

He gave me a low whistle, seemingly content to let me have the last word. I made my way to the spot where the heroes were standing, pausing to let them decide whether to run or not. My dad was with me, so I took the path that was quickest.

I was halfway there when I felt the bugs above. An army. I stepped up to the edge of the cloud, and felt a force I couldn’t interpret as mine appear, falling to the ground. Others were doing the same.

More. I could tell the others were getting ready to move a few seconds later, when the one with the bugs appeared in the same spot. I waited until the others were out of my range before turning to move the opposite way.

I was surprised to see them. Surprised, but not surprised. They knew I was here.

They knew I was here because the PRT had printed these words on the side of the envelope after I’d arrived in Brockton Bay. The PRT had been forced to evacuate because of the potential attack from within. Panacea had been forced to abandon her plans to assassinate the current head of the PRT, Emma Barnes, because the other Emma was armed.

Because her nemes were as deadly as the PRT itself was, these heroes knew the PRT as an occupying force.

No. There had to be something else at play. The heroes knew I was the capes who could fight the extradimensional-monstrous threats. They could have used other powers to surround the PRT building and claimed the city for the Endbringers. There was a reason heroes were rotated through the cities, to build up the following summer. They had little doubt the Endbringers would come here at the eleventh hour.

But even as I suspected, I couldn’t help but wonder if they had come to bury me here.

I was going to have to change direction, and I was going to have to do it quickly.

The bugs that had trailed me from my first meeting with the Undersiders hit the area of my destination. I felt a building shudder and cascaded down from the sky.

I turned to go, my tail sweeping over my bed to collect the clothing I’d been reluctant to throw away. It hadn’t been completely stuffed, and the bugs were still gathering near the zipper, which I’d tied around the fabric of my prison sweatshirt so it could snuggle against my body.

I would have left it at that, but the fact that they’d used it meant I couldn’t afford to. I ran my hand along the zipper, feeling the flat of it against the fabric, trying to turn my head to make sure it wasn’t going to slip and arrest my movements.

I left it behind, heading for the wardrobe in the main room of the apartment. I found a simple white tank top, a light

======== SAMPLE 21 ========
 me, then got the gun?"

"Fuck," I said. "No. I mean, sure, it would be stupid to do. It would be stupid on a lot of levels, but it’s not a bad way to die, is it?"

He hung his head, staring at the ground.

There was a rumble. The wind shifted, shifted overnight, and it was suddenly violent, unpredictable. Debris clouds rolled in some places, and they rained down on us, down on me. I was at the point of needing a flight pack, and the PRT hadn’t delivered one. My wings had been crushed and broken in the toppling, I was conscious, mostly, of the one or two I’d retained.

The other wings were on fire. I was grateful, as the gusts of wind knocked them from our line of sight, but the flames that spread and obscured the sky were distracting enough that I couldn’t spare a flight pack. I landed atop a pile of debris, with much of the roof over my head.

"Saving you guys, old man," Coil said, his voice a roar. "You dummy, you’re saved. You’re alive."

That was something of a relief, wasn’t it? Saving himself? Saving Dinah?

It was a hard thing to believe. I’d believed them, in the beginning.

"I’m alive," Trickster said, almost delirious on the euphoria of his newfound identity.

"I’m okay, fellas," Jack said. I wasn’t sure how to respond. It wasn’t quite the praise I’d expected, not entirely sure what to say, or how to approach it. I could have called him a friend, but that seemed petty to me. Besides, what was he saying? He was dead?

It was a small comfort that the others were okay. Cherish was wheezing and coughing from the chest infection, regurgitating shit from her stomach. Losing the fight.

"I can’t believe that," Imp said. "Not in my wildest dreams."

"Regress," Tattletale said.

"No," Regent said. "Not at all. No, really."

"She said something about wanting to be left alone," Grace said.

"Ye gods," Imp grumbled.

"Fuck, last few steps. Not that bad. But then I remember that I was supposed to talk to her. To ask her, and she didn’t want to talk to me, so I make myself take care of her, and then fuck up more important things."

"Imp," Grue warned.

"Yeah," Regent echoed Imp. "It’s cool."

Tattletale was glancing over our group, searching for an option or a concern to voice. I could see her pout.

I noticed it as well. Another look showed her unflinching, as if determined. I got her’s attention, "My old house was this nice place. Columns of white tile, warm, Jacuzzi downstairs, pool… I thought it was paradise, until…" She trailed off.

"It’s down," Imp finished for her.

"Dinah, the lizard girl, said that whole house thing. That Jacuzzi thing."

"Oh god," Regent said. "I remember that."

"What happened?" I asked.

Tattletale glanced at me, and then to Imp. That was uncharacteristic of Tattletale.

I swallowed, "The girl who was going to be my best friend, Dinah, died. Circumstances turned around after I escaped from the ABB, and Coil banned me from the gang. Makes my reinstatement into the gang tougher."

"But you didn’t escape," Regent protested.

I shrugged, "I avoided them. Not as much as I’d like, but I tried. I went out in costume, and I spooked them. I’ve been walking around in it as of late, stealing wallets and trying to pick up guys off the street. Some trying to disguise themselves as cops, some as civilians looking for help. I’m kind of glad that it’s making some heads turn."

"I’m not sure I buy that argument, pal," Regent said.

"The guy I kidnapped. The dude I tried to murder. The guy from the Merchants, I think. He was sorta doing what I was doing. Hiding, moving deeper and slipping away."

"And here I was,

======== SAMPLE 22 ========
 me, when it is your turn to speak, to answer my questions. I can expect retribution, or I can trust that your power will tell me what they will, without my participation."

She smiled a little, "That is all. That concludes my demonstration. I hope you learned something."

I looked at the capes who accompanied her. Myrddin, in his golden armor, his yellow and black robe and gauntlets, his spear, which in bronze was larger than it was in my hand. Chevalier stood beside a dying Bambina. A woman who was more deformed than a bodybuilder, her femur ending in a thorn-like growth where the femur was normally too small.

There was a long pause. I waited for the moment that she’d stop talking, or that she’d speak something.

She didn’t. Instead, she stared at me, her eyes an ugly brown in the gloom.

"Go on," she told me.

I hesitated. I looked to Myrddin.

"Are you okay with it?" I asked.

"I don’t really know," he shook his head, "I’ve been working on it. I kind of hoped my power wouldn’t be needed here, or my costume wouldn’t be needed, and we were forced to use it to help. Um. I can deal with bugs, but I’m not okay with it."

"I’ve been working on that too," I said. I looked to Tattletale, "How do you deal with this many parahumans joining the team, without needing your full attention?"

She didn’t respond, instead looking at her other self, in the same way she’d looked at me. I was almost certain she was a cape, and not one of the wimp clones that had followed her.

The one that had been stomping on Grue called out, "Trouble!"

Another catch-all term for cape related trouble. She’d have words for trouble in the henhouse.

"I… I don’t know. Not really," he admitted, "But I go out, I try to protect the city, and sometimes there’s trouble, and I call you, the Travelers, to talk about it."

"Um," Chevalier said, turning to the man who was speaking, "Anyways, the second I heard about that, I called the old man and talked to him. He’d tried to pass on some info about some of the other groups, but he couldn’t figure out a good way to deal with everything on his own. He said he thought maybe we could co-opt his job, find a day and time where we work with him, and maybe he’ll let us borrow some of his stuff for a while. That kind of worked out, because that’s what we kinda needed, in the aftermath of everything going south. We’re in the thick of it, we’re worried for our territory, for our people, and for the city as a whole."

I sighed. "I feel like I should say something more, here, but I’m kind of bummed I can’t. It’s an asshole town, and there are so many stupid people in this world."

"I think you’re doing yourself a disservice. There’s bound to be some who’re good, smart and decent who’ve never learned to like the Undersiders. Maybe you need to focus on those people more, so Undersiders who are on the periphery of the local population don’t get written off as mentally deficient losers. I’m not talking about being condescending or pointing fingers. I’m talking about helping you make an informed decision about what you want to do with yourself. I’m okay with being on the periphery if it means keeping the city intact."

He paused, glancing at Myrddin. "I have more of a sense of things than you do."

I frowned, shifting my weight from foot to foot, trying to work out how I was going to reach him.

"You’re talking with someone I respect. I don’t think you know what you’re getting into. But maybe you can work with me? Even if you don’t agree with everything I stand for, you could learn something from me. I like to think of myself as a compromise, and I think a night like tonight requires everybody to throw themselves into the ring, against the strongest, scariest and most dangerous opponents out there."

I felt something stir, like a switch falling, but

======== SAMPLE 23 ========
 me of the girl’s arm.

I drew closer to the window, willing the wind to pull at me. It worked, nearly pulling the window shut, but the movement pulled at an arm at my side. I had to turn my head so the girl couldn’t see me through the opening. She bent down and took hold of my hand, supporting me as she pulled back.

"You okay?" I asked, as her fingers dug into the frame of my armor.

She nodded, head shaking a little. "I’m- I’m okay, head’s good. But my arm’s bad. I’m going to have to get a new one. I think I’ll need a cast off. I can get you one for ten grand, tops."

I nodded, stalling in my haste to get out of the way. I felt a surge of relief that my arm was okay, because it felt like the rest of my broken arm was finally coming back to me.

I was glad that my mask worked for me, but it wasn’t nice to have.

Tattletale was outside, walking with Regent and the two teenagers from the Merchants, who were walking in different directions. Imp was on Bentley, and sat on the railing, her arms folded. Grue sat a little ways to the right, with Parian and Flechette, and I was only a little ways to the left, with Shatterbird, Bonesaw and Burnscar.

Shatterbird, incidentally, wasn’t present. Her power, if I remembered right, caused water to spill. That was mostly confined to undergrounding, and only occurred at very specific times and places. From my understanding, the water molt had been some kind of storm-induced phenomenon, where the resulting waves and waves of sand reduced by three-quarters of a percent every half hour, until the following day? Or maybe it was a direct effect of Shatterbird’s power. My dad had told me about the phenomenon, but I hadn’t really investigated it enough to be able to identify the cause.

Bentley had reverted to his more basic configuration, only now he sat sideways, his hindquarters facing the door. Bitch, still riding Judas, sat at the base of the door, her legs folded as she waits for him to change. Regent and Grue, meanwhile, were seated at the guard’s posts at the other side of the door.

"Siblings, huh?" Grue asked.

"Yeah," Tattletale replied.

"You and me," I murmured.

"We’re older," Regent said. "We’ve been together for a while."

"How’s that?" Grue asked.

"Long distance, but we’re getting there."

"Why aren’t we?" Regent asked. "Why are we bothering you?"

"Too infrequently away from people we love and stuff," I said, my voice a touch strained. "And my dad needs us."

"Spare me," Regent growled. "I need this."

"You need my help," I responded. "You just saying."

He shook his head, "I have a lot on my plate. This isn’t it. I have a life, I have a family, I have a job. This is it. This is everything I’ve put on my plate, to help people."

"Everything," Tattletale echoed me, for the record.

"Not a lot, but stuff."

"I know," I said. "I’ve been there. It’s why I’m standing here. I barely have anything left after all that, and it’s why I’m sitting here, talking to myself like I’m seventeen. All I want is for things to be over. For people to get over their problems."

"It’s a slippery slope there," Regent said. "You could go straight for the midget status and midget relationship."

"No," I replied.

He sighed. "Alright. There’s a middle ground. It’s okay if you’re not on it. Let’s at least talk through some of the options and hash out a game plan before we move on to the next part of this negotiation. We’ve only got a few days, but we could use a good mental block. Building up our bargaining chip status, maybe."

I nodded.

"Okay," he set the phone to silent and put the pieces together. A few days passed, and we sort of mulled

======== SAMPLE 24 ========
 me, then they turn to violence. A fight breaks out. And he’s gone from the scene."

"You don’t think he went quiet after that?"

"The Protectorate, I think. What happens on the scene, that changes things?"

"I imagine so," she said.

I nodded, once.

"Can you find him, Tattletale?"

"Only if he comes after me. That way, I can change directions and run, and the Protectorate won’t know about his involvement with Kaiser. They’ll take it as a bad omen, and I’ll be less inclined to go to the cops if it means we can keep this quiet for a little while longer."

"Does that apply to you, either?"

"Oh, sure."

"Just saying-" she paused, glancing back at me, "Don’t interrupt me."

"Right," I said, too shocked to speak.

Tattletale shrugged. "Got it. Thanks, though, for looking after me while we were walking. It’s nice to meet you."

"It’s alright," I said. "No, I’m not being sympathetic. You guys were kind of awesome while we’ve got this on the down low."

Tattletale nodded, but didn’t say anything.

Grue had stopped in the doorway, turned to Parian. "She probably needs a little nip in the nose to get her morale going, here."

"You sure?" Parian asked, "It’s not like you have a lot of ground to cover."

"We’ve got the money," Grue said. "We ran."

Parian nodded. "Good. Let’s grab what we need."

"Money," I said. I stepped through the portal to board my flight.

"Skitter?" Grue asked. I stepped out into the corridor and entered the wing that led to the landing craft. It was empty, all arranged against a wall.

"What floor are you on?"

"One, two, three…"

The voice, from very low in my memory, came back.

I couldn’t process it, and I wasn’t sure what to think about it. I was still processing it, which was a painful, thankless task.

"One, two, three…"

The voice again. I couldn’t process it.

"Four, five…"

The swarm sense I’d put together was low, so low I could barely read it. But it was better than nothing. Knowing what was going on above, below and behind me… I was losing it.

I was losing it when the drones moved.

The swarm sense took a slight detour to catch up to me, following me as I moved.

The drones retracted. Except they weren’t doing anything. They were going around the corner, heading back up to the airlock. I was left standing there, panting, my hair and neck standing on end, my head pressed against my chest and head.

"Hey," Aisha said. She stood just behind my chair, opposite of me. I’d never met someone like her – her presence made me feel like I’d hit my ceiling.

"I’m scared," Grue said.

Tattletale stood just behind Grue. She’d stepped away from the rest of the Wards, but never crossed my path, either. She had one hand folded over the lower of her two knees, and her other hand outstretched, as if to say hi.

"Are you alright?" I asked, turning my attention back to them.

They were, as Armsmaster had said, silhouettes I couldn’t make out in the gloom. The drone that took Grue had blurred as it descended, and Aisha was still standing. She gave Grue a little nod, and then made her way back to the cockpit.

"Are you alright?" Tattletale asked me.

"She’s still breathing? Damn, it hurts. I don’t know if you can use that much pressure to cancel out the noise it’ll make, but…"

"We’re okay to go," I said.

As Tattletale and Grue walked over to Bentley’s side, I put one hand on his snout to steady myself in place. The pain in my legs was the closest thing to a comfort I could offer him. I was hoping that he’d be able to suppress the pain and keep from

======== SAMPLE 25 ========
 me. "And there’s the two of us, one of us holding a car door open for my dad, so he can drive back home. We’re both girls, aren’t we?"

"Sort of, but ‘not really’," Jess said. Her dad turned his back to them to give them space, and then he offered a little wave, "And neither of us are twins."

"We can be dumber, I think," Luke said.

"Siblings," Jess said. Neither of them said, or seemed to care, how self-conscious their dad was. "Which makes this confusing, or almost impossible to follow. My dad is kind of important. Like, he’s the one who pays the bills, negotiates the real estate deals, manages the family matters, provides for the lifestyle choices, cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids and being in charge. I’m totally okay with that. I mean, I’d totally be okay with it if I didn’t have my first real job."

"Real estate," Luke said, as if he were replying to a reminder.

"Real estate is where we make our money. That’s where the majority of our income, except we don’t earn any over here. But we do earn a bit of money hosting the homes, renting out the space to people and letting our shows get aired on local stations. It also gives us the accommodations and the money to go out and support our families, pay for college if we’re lucky enough that our kids will go to college, and for the things we won’t be attending college for, like a down payment on a house, a down payment on a down payment on a down payment on a house. So that’s also where we build our following. Our reputation, and that’s where we make most of our money."

"We also happen to own a bunch of the most expensive homes we can afford," Luke said. "Some of the most expensive possessions we can afford. You guys need to start living within your means, Jess, and then maybe you and I can live next door to one another."

"We do what we can," her dad said. He was wearing a t-shirt with the phrase ‘Live Free or Die’ printed across it on the front, and jeans. He stepped out to make the door open, then got a beer in his hands from the fridge. He returned to work, not wearing his jeans. He had a sweater sweater around his shoulders.

"My son?" Jess asked, looking surprised.

"Riley," was the dismissive reply.

"That’s alright," Luke said. He put his t-shirt back on, then turned around to walk back upstairs. "Theo," Riley’s mother, "Just brought us something. Butter. But we don’t want to give our kids butter so soon."

"Give them butter? They need it for baking goods. We’ll give them treats."

"They’re not that young," Luke said, "Easier to have them eat more treats."

"Why? For their sake?"

"Because it’s fun," he shrugged.

"You’re spoiling them."

"I’m not saying I’m not interested. I’m just saying that it’s something they’ll want to do when they’re older. We did that in the first place."

"They’ll still be teenagers when they’re old enough," Luke said.

"They won’t be, going to school, buying alcohol. But you can feel bad about it, right? That you let your kids get into that situation with you, doing what you did?"

"Yeah," he shook his head. "But that’s not why I’m saying it, not-"

"Shut up."

"Okay," he put his hand flat against his hip, then twisted it slowly so his hand wasn’t pressed against his hip, "Sidenote for those of you who don’t know, I did everything I did because I was lazy. I had to get ahead so I could buy the milk and the cookies my mom made, and pay the gardener back for the extra space he’d given me. Without her, there’d be no Weselton, no Leslie Knope. I’d be a f–king idiot."

I could see a shadow pass over his face. He straightened, and the light in the room momentarily blinded him. He quickly turned back to his computer.

"So, I’

======== SAMPLE 26 ========
 me, as if I could feel the words against my tongue, somehow. I tried to catch her attention and she began explaining in perfect English, taking notes on whatever topic interest she was covering.

I was getting increasingly worried that she wasn’t going to get it. I glanced at our pursuer, hoping she wasn’t going somewhere with one of the capes she’d spotted.

She was pointing.

He was in one of the groups that was patiently waiting for the others to converge. He pointed down, the way he knew the needle to be. That way was the alley we were in now, off to the right. He had a different set of directions to go.

Not knowing what he was pointing at, I glanced back at the girl. She smiled wickedly, "Bitch. It’s funny. They say you’re more clever than your peers, and I’m not wrong. I suspect you know the rules better than most."

Oh fuck. I had a suspicion that girl was a stooge, or at least an unreliable one. My bugs told me the dogs were moving. The fact that they were moving in formations, with each dog acting as a double edged sword, that they were moving in ever changing formations, with fixed groups of two or three individuals each time…

Oh shit. I had to act before they found me. I watched one set of eyes in the group, then another, then another, as my whereabouts were called into question. This way, or that way? I couldn’t tell which was which. I couldn’t risk being seen with them. In any of these three possible paths, I got a hell of a lot closer to being one of the bad guys. I got closer to being in the bad guys, in an indirect way, because of the supplies I’d brought, of food and water that were plentiful here.

I was carrying a box of canisters of pepper spray. This would be a good place to leave them, so the next time they came here, I wouldn’t have to worry about missing my turn. I was carrying books too, which I’d picked up in the communal bathroom of the school. They were in the same cardboard tube as the plastic case of textbooks, but they were laminated and bound into booklets instead of bookcases. They were small, still, so not enormous.

"Bitch," my swarm buzzed. It wasn’t only me speaking, but the swarm as a whole. "We need you in touch by six."

I could feel my heartbeat skip a beat.

"I’ll be there in five, honey."

I felt a tremor in my body. What was that?

"Can you carry this bag?" I asked, raising it on a cart.

She didn’t say a word, turning back to my swarm.

"You’re a fucking maniac, your dogs are going crazy for you, and you need me by six to make sure they don’t leave my sight. It’s six p.m., half past eleven. It’ll be over before then."

She nodded, then grabbed a backpack from a cart by the bins. As she began to drag it behind her, I raised my voice. "Help me out, please."

She turned to one side and began climbing into the back seat. I climbed out of the car. My legs were aching, and my eyes were watering. Fuck, my eyes were watering, feeling my entire body change taut with the exertion.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I opened my eyes only to see a blurry, translucent blur that swelled in size as it passed through my head. It swelled more as it swelled in volume, then swelled in something that was both more translucent and more bizarre than anything else. It was a double helix, one mirror image of the other. I was caught by surprise, as the volume of the buzzing in my head brought me to the brink of my mind.

Fuck me, fuck, fuck. Fuck me.

She was approaching so slowly. I was forced to hunker down, sitting on the corner of a step, as the swarm swamped my vision until I couldn’t see straight. I felt another heavyset guy with a body double stop her advance. Hell, it was too late to turn back. If she hadn’t stopped Bitch, I might have gotten her cellphone number. I couldn’t dial Lisa, who was on the other side of the phone.

"Fuck you, Dinah," Tattletale said.

"Can’t say that out loud," I sighed, "She’s not my mom. Just,

======== SAMPLE 27 ========
 me and the one with the chains. A man in a robe and horned mask.

"You’re not the person I expected you to be," the horned mask man said. "There are reasons for the choice you made."

"I’m not the person you’d call a hero."

"You’ve done good. We can do more good if you stop fighting, if you accept my offer and stop twisting our arm, my invitation, to make your mask another obstacle, an excuse to get back at me."

I clenched my fist. "I’ve been trying to be more civil, using my power less wrongfully. You’re right. I’m trying to do too much. Too much interference. Bringing all of this on myself."

"That’s not fair."

I sighed.

The man in the robe turned to the door, and the others followed. It slammed shut with a surprising clunk.

There were shouts from the crowd. I wondered if the man would open the door to get me or my dad. I felt more than a little paranoid about a potential armed confrontation. What would they say? People were looking at me now, which meant I wasn’t in a position to say anything that everyone would know.

I felt my pulse pounding in my chest. What would they say? Would they say ‘We met halfway, here, we fell short’ or something different? I wanted to say thank you, that I’d worked with you to reach a compromise, but I was worried it would change the course of their conversation. Would they back off? Would the crowd look away?

I felt my pulse pounding in my throat, despite myself.

Tecton said, "Let’s walk. I can look after myself. There’s no point in getting into the nitty-gritty particulars of things. We’ll talk to Miss Militia about a ride."

The others nodded.

I looked at the others. Wanton was with Grace, Cuff and Annex. Nix was staying behind to guard the group with the mortar.

Fuck.

I was out of time to dream. Now to get my feet under me and get the hell out of here. I headed for the front door.

The mortar still lay in the wake of the flames that had been drawn in the wake of Noelle’s shriek. Fog was still settling in some of the visible trails left in her wake, and an oblong shaped like a person could be seen hiding inside a parked car. The car had been on fire, and the hindmost car had been flipped over so the occupants couldn’t flee.

"You’re in the car?" Noelle asked.

"I was."

"We’ll give chase."

I found the retreating car and pulled the car over. Annex took hold of the wheel and steered it toward the front.

"Shit," I muttered.

I was distracted: my bugs were alerted to a movement from a pair of wounded capes. Tecton and Foil opened fire.

The bullets weren’t lethal, no. Tecton managed to pull off a pained expression as he looked at the man he was hitting. His own face was a bloody mess, and the damage to his armor was notorious throughout the Protectorate. However, Tecton took aim with his gun and shot…

And it worked. The soldiers retreated, and the pursuing Foil fired a shot that went right through Tecton’s armor.

I had my moments of hesitation as my bugs tried to get a sense of terrain. I was forced to pull away before a bullet grazed Tecton. Then I had time to breathe.

Outside, Ellie and the other wounded were moving slowly as they filed into the main lobby. The Wounded were there, the critically injured and old. The ones who couldn’t go anywhere else but what they had been taken to were there, too. A pile of wounded people who hadn’t been in the fighting and who wouldn’t be able to go home until the fighting was over.

The gunfire stopped. I could hear someone on the outside saying, "The van’s empty."

I had a minute or two before the others could gather. I ran through the interior of my headquarters once again.

My headquarters, as I understood it, was a cave in a swamp. Stairs led down into the center, and the only floor there was swamp. There wasn’t any floor beneath the stairwell, only two floors, one of which was flooded. The stairwell housed a reception area, maybe, or a checkpoint. It was hard

======== SAMPLE 28 ========
 me, and they’d be aware of it, and they wanted more information.

"There’s word about the Nine?"

"In the media."

"So this is a front for the Slaughterhouse Nine."

"It’s a rumor the Undersiders might have picked up on, before Coil caved and agreed to help us," Tattletale said. "Before this deal got buried in some kind of muck, the cops were kind enough to contact us, to let us know they could raid our warehouses at any time. Any time we wanted to ship anything outside of our established channels, they would reimburse us. We got an amount depending on the volume of the sales, from an amount that had maybe doubled or tripled just five or six days earlier. Before the Slaughterhouse Nine were busted, we had gotten as much as we could from a day’s sales. That was before the Nine showed."

"That’s fucked up," Trickster said.

"We’ll get around to that in due course," Tattletale said, as if that was that.

"Why did you guys miss the memo?" I asked.

"I don’t know," Tattletale shrugged, "Maybe it’s that we were out in costume, and people were paying attention to the Nine. Maybe a bad reception."

"Sorry," I said.

"You’re not the type to apologize," Regent said. "But you’re also not the type to draw the obvious conclusions, are you?"

"No," I shook my head a little. I knew she was aware of the error of my ways.

"You’re right," Grue said. "We’re right to want to take this course. If we’re going to be in the Birdcage, we need to know what’s going on."

I glanced at Alexandria. Nobody had reacted to that statement. The others, Bitch, Bitch’s own men, and two thugs that looked like they were ready to pounce and pounce and pounce on any unsuspecting bystanders, had just about everyone in the crowd in a paralyzed attempt to get the better of them. A good way to get the upper hand.

"Don’t fuck with us," Grue said.

"We’re fucked," Regent said. "We’re victims, and we’re victims only. I can walk away from that, but can you? Can a bystander? Someone can help us now, and it’ll get us out of here."

"We can’t leave on foot," Miss Militia said. "We have to drive."

"Truck drivers aren’t on the payroll of the PRT," Regent said. "Not the ones who patrol the highways and handle the paperwork. The ones who run the checkpoints and keep the numbers."

"We have trucks loaded with food!" Miss Militia exclaimed. "We have trucks loaded with medicine!"

"We could get you those things with ease," Grue said. "We’ll have to buy some at a later date. For now, we’ll get Alexandria’s stuff in a timely fashion."

"Why?" I asked. "All of this from the beginning?"

"You told us how to deal with Othala," Tattletale said. "You told us where to go, what to do. We started Tagg’s operation."

Othala? It didn’t make sense, how the Slaughterhouse Nine had managed to get hold of her so young. How had they gotten so close?

"And," grumbled Regent, "they didn’t ask any questions of us."

It’s like a bad dream, I thought. I shook my head a little, just to be safe. "Nevermind."

Tattletale sighed.

"Me either," I said, just to add to the confusion.

"So, about that deal," Grue said, "We’ve got to agree to it or we’re out. We can’t agree to it and then say ‘good enough’ and walk away. There’s consequences."

"I’m not so sure this is set in stone," I said.

"So?"

"I can’t go against my bosses. Or anyone on their team. They can take me anywhere."

"And then where’d you get the money?" Miss Militia asked.

"In a bank," I said. "At my parents’ house."

"You got the money here,

======== SAMPLE 29 ========
 me. "So, I’ve discussed this before, but I’m going to ask you to do another chain reaction. Try to avoid using powers on anything remotely alive. The bug girl, the giant beetle, the giant cockroach, the spider… wherever you are in the big city, get to some point where there’s plenty of people around and make some noise. I don’t care what you do as long as it gets the job done. If you wind up in a restaurant or a store, then you’ve got to fork over the dough. It’s our convention. We use it for ketchup."

"I’m too lazy to do the chain reaction," Bitch said, from behind me, "And I don’t care about the monster girl, but the job gets done."

I rolled my eyes.

"Bitch," I said. Then I remembered that the other dogs were getting nibbles and shit from the butcher’s table, "If I leave the chain reaction dogs on my dogs, will you be able to get them to stop?"

I put my hand up, "Maybe. I’ll leave the rest of the ones I want for my dogs. But yeah. I’ll take the butcher’s job."

Bitch scowled. "I’ve been here a long time."

"You’re spoiled," I said, in a joking tone, "You know that, right?"

She scowled, but she reached up to scratch Butcher at arm length.

"You’re a member of the Nine," I told her, turning to glance at her and her dogs, "You can’t hide behind people and things like dogs can. They’re bred for that, to be around humans. They’re obedient, loyal. Most people don’t realize that animals can be abused, love for what it is. Dogs have been bred to guard, to protect, so humans have another animal, and that’s us."

I noticed there were some dogs fighting among one another. Those that were outside were nursing puppies that they presumably couldn’t be expected to take care of.

I added, "I’m betting you’re not happy with what’s going on. No, I’m not talking about leaving. I’m talking about sticking around, working hard, being patient. Can you stick around in this shitty town where people are assholes and there’s no hope for the people who aren’t so lucky?"

"We’ve had three strikes," the fat old man said. "Murder, kidnapping and conspiracy."

"Third?" I said.

"Last one came on Halloween. Jack said we deserve it."

"Murder?"

"Last one came after Leviathan. No, he didn’t say she’s coming back. There’s a difference."

There was a long pause.

"Fuck," Imp said.

"What? No," I retorted. "Wait, did Cherish just say we’re fucked? What does that tell you?"

"That Jack? He’s not coming back. That Max?"

"I don’t fucking care," Imp said.

"I’ve fought him. I know what he’s capable of."

"Can you stop him? Can you fight someone who can stretch metal to its limits and shoot you?"

"I can’t even," Imp said.

"Then fuck off," I said. The wind knocked at my mask, making me jump.

"No. That’s fucked up. We can’t fuck with their mentally unstable moonchild. We’ve got to deal with him."

"You’re just pushing the boundaries," Rachel said.

"Fucking boundaries," Regent added.

I glanced at Imp, who was standing just beside my new team leader. "We’re dealing with people with emotional vulnerabilities. Jack’s someone who’s attracted to people with vulnerability. Not emotional, per se, but someone is obviously attracted to someone with emotional vulnerability, and that something runs in the family. It’s reinforced over and over, in every area of life, in family, in work, and it’s reinforced in the family between the two words."

"Oh god," Rachel said.

"It’s so fucked up," Foil said, tears in her eyes.

"But you understand that." I said. "You care about people, you understand what’s going on, right now. That

======== SAMPLE 30 ========
 me" I had to bite my lip to keep from making it sound like a whine. If I told her, my throat would be probably split in two if she didn’t offer some excuse, "It is what it is."

She seemed to accept that and turned her attention to the two bullies that had tried to nag, to drag her away. I followed them out of the classroom.

One of them had tears in his eyes. He looked terrified.

The other kid, the one with tears in his eyes, looked like he might vote. He’d been wearing blackface makeup, but he didn’t look like he had much of a choice. Rigid yellow belts, ankle-high boots, a raised palm-length boot with a vertical jet of water spraying out in his wake and a yellow and black striped t-shirt with the words ‘Justice4Tray’ across it. I could see the badge he wore: a green t-shirt with the words ‘Justice4TM' on the front and ‘Justice4SE’ on the back. There was a badge around his neck, bearing the word ‘victim’ in gold.

The badge wasn’t the badge. Had the kid been trying to be that ‘that guy’ who everyone else in the school knew? I could see the badge on the neck of the shirt and on the jeans, and I knew for a fact he’d been following the crowd that had been gathered at Columbine High School. He’d been following us here.

It was easy to imagine him with his mask. Even a teeny bit of violence to go up against those idiots. It was scary to think what might happen if he got a chance to go toe to toe with those guys. The problem was that he wasn’t in a position to fight us. If he was cornered and found himself outnumbered and he had to decide between running and getting shot in the leg, he’d choose the former, likely for the same reasons he picked the gun.

I couldn’t run, and even if I could, even if I attempted to hide, to not run would take a great deal of willpower. I’d be blind, now, and it wouldn’t be something I could look back on with a sense of pride or any sense of self-worth. I would constantly be on edge, constantly watching for attacks from any direction and knowing that anything less than perfect performance was going to leave me feeling pretty low on the totem pole of human feelings.

The other kid, taller, had a knife in hand. He was looking at me, and I could see a glimmer of irritation in his expression. He shook his head.

I looked back at Grue, saw the look, the concern, the frown, the intensity of it.

I couldn’t make out what he said, but I knew the answer as soon as I saw it. "Run?"

"Fuck yeah," he said. He pushed Grue forward, and Grue backed away to allow him to get more distance. He said something I didn’t catch, but his intent was clear. "I can’t fight him, to be honest."

It took me a second to place that.

"He’s stronger than you and I are," Tattletale said. "And he won’t be able to affect us with that knife-"

She pointed at the kid in the school uniform.

I was already moving, taking a seat on the little ledge of narrow, windowless, windowless courtyards, when the kid suddenly stopped, looking around for an exit.

"Grue?" I asked.

He was gone, hovering a few feet in front of a wall, more like a bird or insect than anything else. I had to twist my head around to see his head.

I could see him, glimpsing through the branches of my peripheral vision, his body moving so fast I could barely keep track. He was a half step ahead of me as he opened and closed his hand, and the movement of his hand was so slight I could barely register it.

A gun? A grenade?

I was already turning, hurrying to take the shot. I sent bugs streaming my way before he reached the same point where the grenade was.

To be safe, I dropped out of the air as a blur, then threw myself to one side where I had a clear path to him, dove in the same instant I kicked back against the wall. I landed hard enough that I thought I might have hurt myself. The concussion of the impact made me lose my grip over my coffee and my paper cup. I tried to tell myself that I’d been training my mind to be flexible and